By Jason_cross (Jason_cross) on Friday, September 28, 2001 - 03:04 am:
Now that GMax has been released, has anyone else messed with it yet?
I was very surprised to see how feature-rich it is. I was expecting something MUCH more pared-down, but it's damn near just 3DS Max. It's like Adobe just GIVING AWAY a version of Photoshop that can only save PSDs.
I mean, not that I've used 3DS Max, certainly not the most recent version, but this is a DAMN lot of stuff. It's downright intimidating, but fortunately the tutorials are excellent - very easy to follow and starts at the "I have no idea what any of this crap is or means" level.
By Roger Wong on Friday, September 28, 2001 - 09:58 am:
Until just now, I thought 3D Studio still belonged to Autodesk. Dang, am I out of touch...
By Lee Johnson (Lee_johnson) on Friday, September 28, 2001 - 10:26 am:
It's like Adobe just GIVING AWAY a version of Photoshop that can only save PSDs.
gmax without any game packs is more like a version of Photoshop that won't print. It's not a complete package, unless all you want to do with your scenes is look at them in gmax. It has no import or export functionality, except for whatever file formats the game packs add. It's not like you can drop your models into Bryce and make pretty pictures with them. gmax is only useful with the game packs--which was the stated intent from the beginning. I'm sure that Discreet is making a pretty penny from the developers for gmax dev licenses.
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Having said all that, I think this is a really exciting development for mod makers, and I hope it does well.
I suspect that one of the underlying motivations for gmax is to whip up a larger market for 3DS Max. Cut your teeth making mods, then move up to the big time!
By Jason_cross (Jason_cross) on Saturday, September 29, 2001 - 03:55 pm:
Right, that's my understanding of it as well. I wonder how long before people make .gmax import tools for other software, though? If not officially, then hacked?
Right now there's one "game pack" available, though in in unsupported beta form: GMax Tempest, which lets you edit Quake3 levels.