My question is which format is better to use as a transfer medium for importing into Blender, .dae or .3ds?
I’ve done a little experimenting and, since I am a TurboCAD user, I’d like to do my modeling in TC and import the basic model into Blender for basic animation. I’m having a hard time unlearning TC and picking up Blender (my bad - nothing wrong with Blender). I’m not going to do any figures, just solid modeling mechanical objects with gears, ropes, pulleys, etc.
Thanx,
Ed
dae is a better option. dae (collada) can store the geometry, image textures and their mapping, basic rigging, basic animation, “skinning”(the process by which a rig makes soft body parts fleixble rather than just having solid objects), and a few other things. 3ds can only store geometry and texturing information, and sometimes t doesn’t store the texture mapping properly. In your case of solid mechanical objects rather than flexible characters the difference is less important but dae is still probably a better option, it can alos store material data better than 3ds can, with less tweaks to specularity,glow,transparency and diffuse neding to be done once the model is imported. obj is alos a good option, it can’t do rigging or anything so is only suitable for solid mechanical stuff, but it’s really reliable, and very universal, almost every software package can import and export it. obj will only carry geometry, basic material data, image textures and their mapping.
Thank you for the info.
Ed