Help needed converting from 3ds Max to Acrobat

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to convert a textured and animated model to a .3ds that will then be made into a .pdf. I know Acrobat also accepts .obj files, but I can't use those as they will not retain animations. Whenever I bring the .3ds into Acrobat, it will retain the animation, but it loses all the texture information. It doesn't seem to matter if I use a standard shader without any maps applied either. The entire model is completely gray whenever I bring it into Acrobat. Also, it looks like my smoothing groups are thrown out in the conversion.

In an attempt to troubleshoot, I tried importing the .3ds back into Max, but I'm given the error message "Improper file format".

Does anyone know of a way around this? Or for that matter, why I can't seem to import a .3ds that I created in Max?

[Anonymous]

Because the 3DS format was designed many moons ago, it requires DOS (8.3) filenames for any external assets such as bitmap textures, and given the same rule applies to relative folder names in the assets list it's generally necessary to put all your bitmaps in the same folder as the 3DS file before trying to import it, and to ensure the filenames are DOS-legal before exporting from MAX.

The Acrobat Family displays 3D content in what is in effect a DirectX game engine and the model data as stored in the PDF must be either U3D or PRC. That means it wants bitmap textures for 3D models to be square, it doesn't like multiple-UV channels, and of course it won't respect any procedural textures (tiles, noise, etc.). As you're talking about importing an OBJ file into Acrobat you must be using Acrobat 9 Pro Extended or earlier, as we no longer support model formats except U3D and PRC as defined in the ISO PDF standard.

If you have specific issues with Adobe products, you can post your question to the official support forums; which in your case is http://forums.adobe.com/community/acrobat/acrobat_3d_features/

[Anonymous]

I know Deep Exploration supports 3D to PDF with animations etc...I've never tried it, but might be worth a look.

[Anonymous]

There are a few options available (though not as many as we'd like).

As of the Acrobat X Family (released back in 2010) Adobe no longer supports transcoding, so you have to get your 3D model into U3D (Universal3D, not Unity3D) or PRC (Product Representation Compact) before it can be embedded. Both are open standards so it was hoped that the likes of Autodesk would implement native exporters, but they won't. This means you have to use additional software, and there's usually a cost involved.

Right Hemisphere used to sell Deep Exploration, but SAP bought them a while ago so it's now called SAP Visual Enterprise Author - development has been stalled so there's no plugin for MAX 2013. It's purely a poly engine so can only save U3D meshes, but has good support for animation and material editing, and can read pretty much any CAD format - if you have MAX installed on the same machine it can import MAX files directly. Very expensive though!

3D PDF Converter from Tetra4D is a plugin for Acrobat X Pro and later that converts files into poly and/or brep (U3D and PRC) depending on what the starting model is, and will read a fair amount of CAD formats. The software is quite expensive and there's a mandatory subscription, but it's vastly cheaper than SAP.

Tetra4D also have a cut-down version that operates purely as a MAX plugin (32-bit and 64-bit 2012 and 2013) - limited functionality at a reduced price but at least you get a simple Export > 3D PDF from MAX. It won't work with Acrobat 9, but there are free full-function trials of both Acrobat XI Pro and the Tetra4D products so if you only need one model converting... hint hint.

If you bounce through two steps there are some other options - for example Meshlab can read OBJ and save U3D and Photoshop Extended can read DAE, OBJ and 3DS files then save U3D. The problem is that animations, textures etc tend to get lost along the way, and it takes time.

[Anonymous]

Thank you both for the input. I am using a copy of Acrobat 3D Version 8, which I guess I should have mentioned earlier. I will look into programs and plug-ins mentioned.

I did a little more fooling around in Max and found out that ASE files (which I had previously overlooked) work quite well with the version of Acrobat that I have.

[Anonymous]

ASCII Scene Export is indeed a useful intermediate format; though the ASE files are naturally *huge* they re-compress again when pushed through to U3D.

[Anonymous]

After Reading a post http://whatrevitwants.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/create-3d-pdf-files-from-autodesk-revit.html I thunk a bit and found that....

If you export to .3ds you can open in Bentley view and print to 3D.pdf.

Not sure if textures make the journey of not, though tested the functionality with some simple geometry which worked fine...

[Anonymous]

FYI..Deep Exploration is now an SAP product called Visual Enterprise. SAP bought the program and just rebranded it.

[Anonymous]

Not to mention double the price and stall development....

[Anonymous]

See this:
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/3d-studio-max-animation-export-to-u3d-format/m-p/812930...