Using GMAX for commercial purposes.

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Wow, this thing about indies trying to commercialize their game is a thug thing. I was starting to develop the basic stuff of my game when I found out that whatever you do on the student version of 3D max, it can’t be commercialized, and well I wasn’t surprised that was quite obvious but when I found out that if you purchase a commercial license you have to re-do all of your 3D assets again and I was like “Wow, F#$%#%& this guys so hard!” And their prices are so ridiculous for indie devs.

So yeah, I knew about Blender years ago but never got into it until now. I’ve been using blender for 5 days and OMG… sorry blender fans/users but this program is so terrible. Not gonna lie, it actually has a lot of pretty good stuff but the workflow I used to have with max is now gone, I think that is a natural reaction from switching from app to app, and well 3D is like a religion, once you started with 1 program, you will stay there forever (most likely) I have some experience using Maya and C4D but all of them are expensive, Maya LT is actually pretty afordable but well Im purchasing monthly UE4 and I will purchase Substance Designer and SpeedTree probably too and thats a lot of money, “a lot”.

So, I found GMAX, which is a free but low version of 3Ds Max and is pretty old (10 years aprox) but GMAX is exactly the same as 3Ds max and you can use it the same way as 3Ds Max, Turbosquid actually “sopport it” not autodesk anymore, and well GMAX was designed for modding games but after reading info and the EULA, I didn’t see something about non or commercial use of the software, actually the word commercial don’t comes in the EULA. And there’s an old post of an Autodesk guy who posted on a forum about the license of GMAX and he said something like “Whatever you do with GMAX is your business not ours!” So does that means I can sell the assets I do in it?

What I want to do now is to build the mesh on GMAX, and then do some UV Wrap/Lightmaps work on blender, because actually I learned how to manipulate mats and tetxures on blender, but my modeling workflow is very slow.

So again, if someone has more info about GMAX license… ¿Can I use GMAX to build assets, then send them to UE4 and sell my game after it?

Thanks

P.S. Sorry about my english

2

You can, but at this point Gmax is terrible—just way too out of date, it’s missing too many tools. Plus you can’t export to FBX, not sure if you can export to OBJ but the lack of FBX means you wouldn’t be able to do any characters.

If money is an issue, learn Blender. If you’re a student though and you’re just starting out, I’d probably spend the time learning a main 3D program like Maya or 3ds Max and not worry about selling making a game to sell. Eventually then you can save the money for the program you want to use or get a job that already uses it.

3

Thanks, at least I read what I wanted to read, lel. I know GMAX it’s… bad. No render, no materials, etc. But what I only want to do is just basic meshes (Walls, stairs etc) I can model a good wall with a baseboard and some other decorations in less than 2 minutes, while in Blender it takes me like 5 minutes or more to make the mesh.

Yes, you can export in OBJ in GMAX, then to blender and then to FBX.

And well, I know how to use 3Ds Max, Im very very good at it, and yeah Im a student btw but the educational license doesn’t even allows you to release your game.

4

UE4 can import OBJ directly, but OBJ doesn’t support animation so there’s no way to do characters using that format.

5

You should check out Modo for your modeling needs if you’re concerned about speed. Many artists prefer it over Max and Maya now. Personally I would wait for a Modo sale, as the discount is usually 40% off.

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Modo indie, can be used for commercial game - it’s target at small indy developer.

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You should check Blender also, is free.