Some engines use proprietary formats like Torque's DTS, or DIF, and others use common, but dreadfully inefficient formats like Microsoft's .x format. Leadwerks uses its .gmf or Game Model Format. And there in was my first obstacle.
My first time around with Leadwerks, I was using Milkshape and Ultimate Unwrap Pro to create GMF files. At the time, I found this pathway to be pretty unreliable. It wasnt' until I started using 3D MAX 2009 with the alternative Leadwerks Exporter that I was able to consistently and reliable export and import into the engine. My success here was really helped by following the YouTube video and using the exporter found here: Arbuz' 2.2 Exporter
and following the youtube tutorial found here: Visual Knights tutorial
I think getting a model into an engine may always require some tweeking, but these resources made it much less cumbersome.
If you are using physics, then the next troublesome area will be creating the .phy file. For complex shapes, the exporter doesn't do too well on its own. In these cases, you need to export the file to an .obj file and then use to the obj2phy utility to create the physics body. Remember that the .phy file needs to be the same name as the gmf file. So for me, I had the following:
tief_tief.gmf (My TIE Fighter gmf file)
tief_tief.phy (the physics file I created by saving my model to .obj and then using the obj2phy utility.
When I use the exporter, I also end up with a set of mat files. Again, following that video tutorial will show you how to do this reliably.
After a few iterations, it becomes second nature to go back into MAX, make some adjustments such as scaling to my model ,and then re-export to GMF.
Good luck.
Good luck.
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