Is There ANY way I Can Open 3DS Files In Maya?(PC)

[jinx-20191]

If anyone knows it would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks.

[lostlyre]

Since everyone seems to be inept at replying, I'll step up.

You'll need a folder of free plugins released by A|W called BonusTools. You can get it at A|W's Community website at http://www.aliaswavefront.com/eng/community. I think you need to register in order to download plugins. The particular file you need is available for individual download and is called 3dsimport.zip. Feel free to contact me if you have trouble getting the file.

[myfanwy]

since alias have updated their website this page is no longer available. I have downloaded the 3dsImport.mll into my plugins directory but it doesn't work. It tells me the error message "Error: No plug-ins loaded - "The specified procedure could not be found."
any ideas as to what I am doing wrong?

[keilun]

You need to tell Maya to load in the plugin. Goto Windows->Settings and Preferences->Plugin Manager

You should see the 3dsImport.mll plugin listed if you placed it in a directory that is listed in your MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH environment variable. Load it, and you should have the option available under the File->Import menu.

Be sure you downloaded the appropriate version of the 3dsImport.mll plugin for your version of Maya. Plug-ins are version specific, eg. a plugin compiled under Maya v4.5 is likely incompatible for v5.0 and others (since API changes are almost guaranteed across versions).

[myfanwy]

Thank you Keilun
All of this is indeed what I have done and I seem to get the same results. The error message appears when I am loading the plugin. However I have copied the 3dsImport.mll from a different source and it is now working fine. Could it be that the 4.5 version is not correct on the alias website?