XNA - Importing 3D Studio Max models
Although game developing is not my area of interest and my knowledge about this field of work is reduced, I have been hearing and seeing some stuff about XNA. I’ve seen a few demos and one thing that I was curious about was how to make those 3D models which are used. In XNA tutorials, webcasts and demos generally the focus is on the developing process once we have the models.
Yesterday I spent some time searching for information and trying out some stuff. I’ll share with you those steps that allow you to create and import 3D models into XNA games.
1. Installing 3D Studio Max. Dowload the 30 days trial and install it.
2. Create your 3D Model. Excuse me for the awful model, but this was the first time I tried 3D Studio Max. It’s just 3 deformed spheres.
3. Export your model ( File > Export). Choose FBX file type. A settings window will open. I haven’t explored this window. The default settings worked fine for me.
4. Create a new project in XNA Game Studio 2.0 and right click the Contents item in solution explorer. Choose Add Existing Item and choose your model FBX file.
5. From this step on you can follow this tutorial: Displaying a 3d model on the Screen from Step 3: Load the Model by Using the Content Pipeline available in MSDN.
You can download the code I made that leaded to this post.
If you don’t want to install demo versions of 3D Max, you can try Blender (www.blender.org), a free 3D modeler.
Have you tried it? What do you think about it?