.3DS or .X format confused

[leadlinelover]

So maybe it is because I am based out of the States or some other reason. But it seems making .3DS or .X models is extremely hard to do. It seems both of these model types are not standard in normal software.

For example it seems that Blender stoped supporting both awhile ago, almost 2 years ago.

So I have to ask. Does anyone have any software I can use for model building??

Or

Will other file types work? Say .stl or .obj which seem to be the more common file type.

[Guido]

Sketchup is my big friend to build models.

[forum_admin]

Hi, quite a few formats should work, as supported by the Irrlicht engine: Maya (.obj), 3DStudio (.3ds), COLLADA (.dae), Blitz3D (.b3d), Milkshape (.ms3d), Quake2 models (.md2), Microsoft DirectX (.X), as well as others.

[bona]

I converted models created in blender successfully to 3ds. There is a free software available that includes other converters. The software is called WINGS3D. So I was able to export e.g. wavefront *.obj files from blender, open them in WINGS3D and then export them to *.3ds. They work fine in BridgeCommand. WINGS3D also contains an export tool to *.x, which I never tried. WINGS3D is available for WIN, Linux and MAC.