If you’re a long time user of Source filmmaker and you recently migrated to a new application like Blender, Maya or 3DS Max, you might encounter some pretty painful migration pains and wish you could still use SFM even when its too limiting for your workflows.

• 3ds Max To Blender Tutorial
• Blender 3ds Max Import

Autodesk's 3DS Max graphics application uses the MAX file format to save 3D scenes on your computer. The open-source Blender 3D modeling program uses different formats and doesn't provide built-in support for importing MAX files from 3DS Max. Use a third-party script to export a scene from 3DS Max and convert it to a format Blender understands.

3ds Max To Blender Tutorial

But do not worry! You can actually still animate in SFM and then render in the application of your choice, if you’re willing to jump through a lot of hoops that is.

1. File User Preferences Input Under 'Presets' change it to 3ds max. Also change the tab on the right called 'Blender' to 3ds max. Make sure you click 'Save User Settings' when done! Do you read 'currently blender 3ds max are confusing part?'
2. Go to the 3DS Max Scene Interchange page on the Blender website and click the Download Latest.
3. Or write 3ds Max files (.max) since they are not geometry files, no matter what people on the Blender forums may otherwise tell each other. Hence, there is only one logical and correct way to convert these files - you need to load them up into a fully licensed copy of 3ds Max and then convert them into Blender using COLLADA file format.'

This guide ASSUMES that you’re at least somewhat familiar with either Blender or 3DS Max and Source engine/Source Filmmaker.

It is not recommended to use this kind of workflow and you should preferably learn the animation system of your corresponding 3D application. Its recommended to fully go through this document before following anything in it.

You cannot export the entire scene animations and your animation will be in the Y axis up coordinate system. You can only export the animation of an individual model and your skeleton should contain a root bone.

Requirements

Knowing how to get your model into SFM
CrowbarTool: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/CrowbarTool
Blender Source Tools: http://steamreview.org/BlenderSourceTools/
3DS Max Source Tools: https://knockout.chat/thread/806/1

Preparing your model and scene

When starting a new scene, you should always set it to the target frame rate you will render your final scene in. Depending on what you’re animating, you can exclude some bones from the model in order to keep it simple, but the bone structure should stay the same. Please keep in mind that the Source engine has ton of limitations. One such limitation is Bone Weights Per Vertex Limit and you should keep that in mind. Do not use rootTransform as it doesn’t get exported.

Before exporting, remove any constrains and IK rig on your animation set.

Exporting and importing the animation

So you have finished animating and you’re ready to export your animation.
Trim your shot to the amount you want to export, select all of the bones, right click on it and select Export Animation. This will open the animation export menu. You should select Trim To Shot as trim type and make sure you enable the Ascii option for export as the tools can’t handle binary DMX files.

Importing the animation into Blender

For Blender, first load up your model into the scene, import the DMX animation, fix the bone rotation and thats it.

Importing the animation into 3DS Max

Start with a completely blank scene and import the DMX animation with the Source tools plugin installed. After importing the animation, you need to fix the rotation of the root bone as 3DS Max is using the Z up axis system and the animation is exported for the Y axis system. If you used the Biped system for your initial model skeleton and then used the IK system in SFM, you also need to clone and rename the pelvis bone to be the root bone. Something like Bip001 Pelvis => Bip001.

After that’s done, export the scene as FBX with the default settings and import it into your scene with your model that you want to apply the animation to. When you get FBX Import dialog, under File Content option, select Update animation. Yes that’s the proper way to do it. If you’re using Biped, make sure your biped skeleton is not in figure mode. You might need to adjust specific frames if you use IK resolvers, since it can make things spaz out.

Update: Here is an updated article that shows how to use only free resources to convert max files without 3ds Max.

In the past few years, some of the changes imposed by Autodesk to the licensing and pricing model of software 3ds max caused an exodus of 3d artists to other platforms. A lot of those unhappy artists are adopting Blender as their tool to create an architectural visualization.

Among the benefits you can still get renderers like V-Ray to work with Blender and since a significant amount of people uses V-Ray to create architectural images in 3ds max. Having V-Ray working with Blender is a powerful combination for people leaving 3ds max behind.

But, you still have one problem to solve. How to import your old projects in MAX format to Blender?

In case you don't know the MAX format is a proprietary and closed format that 3ds max adopts to save their files. A common way to get 3d models out of 3ds max and import them to Blender is with an intermediate file like OBJ or FBX. You just have to export those files from 3ds max.

The OBJ exporter in 3ds max even has a Blender profile to maximize compatibility.

As a downside from the process, you will most likely lose all settings related to materials. All models will need new materials to render in Cycles.

I came across a tool that might help to solve that problem. A company from Argentina called 3DToAll just released a tool to export 3d models from 3ds max to Blender. With the MAXtoBlender promises to make a smooth transition from MAX to Blender.

The tool is not free and will require you a fee to install.

How does that work? They will provide you with a script to install on both 3ds max and Blender. You still need 3ds max installed to use the exporter.

In 3ds max, you will export the scene and import that later in Blender.

What is the difference between getting an OBJ or FBX file? The main point of the script is the material conversion. They claim to also convert materials, even from V-Ray to Cycles. That alone could save a lot of time for people with old 3d scenes or models in MAX.

In the next weeks, I will get a few tests with the script and post a more detailed review.

Blender 3ds Max Import

Will we ever be able to import MAX files directly to Blender without the need of 3ds max? Probably never. Unless Autodesk is willing to open the MAX format to developers, which I don't think will happen anytime soon.