3DS Max Newbie, any advice?

I consider myself an expert on the nuances of exportation via Lightwave, but I'm test driving 3DS Max 2011 due to annoying limitations with lightwave. As such, i'd like some input on what to expect with Max in regard to it's limitations related to proper exportation. So heres a few questions.

1) I'm a bit confused on if i should export as FBX or if Unity directly imports the Max files.

2) What are things to avoid doing with Max that will not carry over once into unity, such as skinning methods or animation systems/technique. I'm test driving biped and CAT. CAT is awesome!

3) Any recommended 3rd party Plugins i should know about?

4) Anyone a convert from Lightwave 3D?

 

I prefer .FBX to .MAX in my unity projects. When you use .max files you need max installed on your system, then unity loads up Max invisibly in the background, exports to .fbx anyway. If you use the FBX exporter you have full control of various .fbx settings and it's not a pain when collaborating with other people that don't have .max installed.

Unity only imports a few things from max, most of the features .fbx supports. So basic diffuse materials (you have to redo the materials in Unity if your doing anything more complex) Unity supports 2UV's which export correctly.

Heriarchy works fine.

Animation, both biped and CAT work. Skin works great ( I haven't tried physique since its pretty much obsolete these days and a pain to use compared to skin)

No vertex animation support in unity. No instance support in unity. I'm still on unity 2.6 3.x might be different but no lights, cameras either.

 

That's good news. Exporting with lightwave was a series of hoop jumping. I'm learning alot with Max and my confidence is growing. CAT is even more awesome than i first thought.

 

I love CAT, makes game animation so much simpler. Though it can develop stability problems. Especially if you have a lot of rigs from an older version.

 

I am having a small issue. I'm used to working with my objects in a subpatched/subdivided mode. Turbosmooth or Meshsmooth properly deforms the meshes, but there's no way to smooth the objects without adding additional polygons.. With Lightwave and Maya you could apply a subpatch/subdivide level 1 and it would reshape the object but not multiply the polygons. This doesn't seem possible with Max.

 

I'm not sure what you mean, you can't smooth an object without multiplying the polys. Unless you mean multiply the polys with turbosmooth but edit the basic underlying polys while seeing the turbosmooth effect in real time?

To do that in edit poly mode you just check the show cage checkbox near the top the edit poly modifier



Which looks something like this when activated



More info on the page I nabbed the images from Here

 

Thanks for the Info, someone at the area.autodesk forums has solved this for me, the relax modifier reshapes the object without adding polygons!

 

ah ok, you already need quite a high poly mesh to smooth polys but yeah that will work.