opening lwo files in milkshape

[mash1971]

i was advised by major a payne on textures and a particular file i could download,in the lwo format, having got the file and upon trying to open it in ms i get an error message saying model has too many vertices.
i have ms 1.8.2 it has two lwo entries in the import menu the first does nothing the one lower down gives this error message
what the bleeding ell is going on?
what else opens an lwo file?

[Amateur]

Unfortunately, the problem is not the importer - but Milkshape itself. Let me explain...

Milkshape was designed to model relatively low poly models for games. Now this means that if you have too many polies on a model - then the program will crash. I've noticed that I can get about 10,000 in - but nothing more. You'll probably find this with a lot of other formats as well. .lwo is Lightwaves native file format.

Newtek's Lightwave is, in my opinion, the counterpart to 3ds max. Both are designed to be generic high poly software packages. Now I've heard reports of Lightwave holding up to three million polies in a scene and still being just about usable. Obviously it depends on your PC spec's, but Milkshape just can't handle the amount of data its trying to import.

As for programs that will import .lwo - Lightwave for a start. I think that Blender has a plugin; and I seem to remember reading about a plugin for Max that was available to buy. What exactly do you want the model for? A straight conversion would be impossible -if the poly count causes Milkshape to crash then A2's engine would splutter to a CTD if you had more than three on screen.

If you're after poly reducing or texture grabbing - then try importing the model with Blender and breaking the model apart. If all else fails, I think that you can get a free trial of Lightwave on the Newtek site...

Hope that helped

Whoa...long post...

[pepperman]

MilkShape 3D 1.7.1 and higher have a limitation of 65534 vertices and 65534 triangles.

[Amateur]

Originally Posted by pepperman

MilkShape 3D 1.7.1 and higher have a limitation of 65534 vertices and 65534 triangles.

Probably my computer's not powerful enough then...

Anyway, that's a more precise statement (although I wonder if one more poly would have hurt...). If the mesh is below that; then it might be that the hardware isn't powerful enough.If it's higher - then there's your problem.

[mash1971]

cheers guys

[CanadianBorg]

You might want to try Ultimate Unwrap. I know it has a .lwo importer and exporter available, and it can accept models that are fairly large in terms of poly count. Go to Ultimate Unwrap 3D - UV mapping software to learn more. It also has importers/exporters for dozens of other model formats, including some fairly exotic ones, as well as the standard types (.3ds, etc.)