Trouble Exporting to 3D Studio file type

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1

Hello,

I’m doing a freelance job that involved making a robot arm that the client wants to 3D print, but it turns out they needed it in 3D studio file format and every time I try to export it, it says “Object can’t be written into a 3DS file”
Any idea what’s wrong with the model?:frowning:

2

Not without even the slightest information about that model - sorry…

.3ds is a horribly outdated and limited file format. One of its many shortcomings is that the number of vertices and polygons per mesh is limited to 65536 - could that be the issue here?

Do you know why he/she insists on using a .3ds file? Whatever software/engine the client uses, it is likely that it would also import .obj files, no?

3

I reduced the number of vertices to less than 65000, but it still won’t export.
They want a .3ds file because they are using SolidWorks 2014 for their part, and it can import that file type. I just checked a list of file types SolidWorks can import and .obj isn’t one of them……

4
  • How much is the polygon count? Remember: .3ds is tris only, so it must be less than 65536 tris.
  • Is there anything else than raw polygon geometry in that file = no curves or other non-polygonal data?
  • Try to apply all modifiers before export.
  • Any n-gons in that mesh? .3ds is tris only, so maybe Blender has issues triangulating complex n-gons.
  • Material names must have less than 16 characters, object names less than 10 characters in a .3ds file.
  • File names for textures must be compatible to MS-DOS 8.3 standards (= 8 characters max + file type ending)
5

I reduced the tris, and it let me save it!!! Thank you!!
I’ve sent them the file to see if they can open it or not.
I’ll post what the result is when they try it.