I just heard that Discreet, the division of Autodesk that handles 3D Studio Max is going to be releasing a free, open source version(we know what it means, but do they?)of 3D Studio Max called gMax. It is going to be geared toward game developers. It sounds promising.

There is a press release(in Acrobat format) here.



On 7/30/00 10:42 am Guy T. wrote:

Does anyone know where I can get a simple free self explanatory 3d modeler

Hmm, good question. I spent some time looking for one and didn't have much luck. You could try looking around softseek.com--maybe there's one I missed, or a new one has been added.

If you have $99 to plunk down, Amorphium is a great tool that's fun to use. It's easy as pie for the type of thing you'd usually want to make an icon out of (barrels, apples, etc).

This is the quote from the beginning of the press release:

"Discreet, a division of Autodesk Inc., today announced
that it plans to release a powerful subset of its industry-leading 3d studio max® authoring tool to game players for no charge on the web."

The way I understand it, it will be free to download and use gMax to create 3D stuff and to do whatever you want to with it from the creation side, but they are licensing it to game developers that want to use it in their games as a level editor etc.. There was more information that I read that claimed it was going to be open source, but the very mention of a license contradicts the open source notion unless they think that merely releasing the source code qualifies. So at least it seems like it will be free for making 3D stuff, but the "open source" notion is questionable.

On 7/31/00 3:14 am Guy T. wrote:

I just heard that Discreet, the division of Autodesk that handles 3D Studio Max is going to be releasing a free, open source version(we know what it means, but do they?)of 3D Studio Max called gMax.

Discreet plans to license the right to develop and distribute Game Packs for a flat, per-title
fee to qualified developers, and to optionally license the right to distribute 3d studio gMAX with their title.

D'oh! Well, it's not free or open-source, but aside from that, it's an interesting article. :)

If they make a scaled down version of 3D Studio Max and release it for free to use for anything, then good for them. That could be a good tool for making 3D models for games etc. If they go even further and release it as open source(more of a rumor now than anything) then I will really be impressed.

The wording indicates that it will be free for authoring but not free for developers that want to incorporate it into a level editor.

On 7/31/00 10:39 am Deadron wrote:

On 7/31/00 9:56 am Taipan wrote:

This is the quote from the beginning of the press release:

"Discreet, a division of Autodesk Inc., today announced
that it plans to release a powerful subset of its industry-leading 3d studio max® authoring tool to game players for no charge on the web."

The way I understand it, it will be free to download and use gMax to create 3D stuff and to do whatever you want to with it from the creation side, but they are licensing it to game developers that want to use it in their games as a level editor etc..

The big question for most of us is whether we can use this tool for free games without having to license it.

The release itself appears to be saying "We're providing cool 3D stuff that game players can use with their favorite games IF the game developer pays us money to incorporate the technology into their game."

In other words, the "free release" of the tools is a way to get players to pressure developers into using this technology instead of some other.

Very clever -- but developers of free games don't appear to have been considered. Hopefully they will throw us a bone, in order to have their technology used as widely as possible.