For those working on 3D projects, glTF should be a familiar term — especially in fields like WebGIS, digital twins, and 3D visualization. It is common to import models created in 3ds Max into rendering engines, and the most frustrating part has always been model format conversion. Recently, the Khronos Group, which oversees the glTF standard, released a glTF 2.0 import/export plugin for Autodesk 3ds Max. It is open-source and free to use. Here is an overview.

What the Plugin Offers

Previously, 3ds Max users who wanted to work with glTF often had to rely on third-party plugins, commercial tools, or write their own conversion scripts. They frequently encountered issues such as lost materials, animations, lights, and hierarchy structure during conversion. This new plugin from Khronos supports importing glTF models into 3ds Max for further editing, and then exporting them back to glTF while preserving scene content and visual consistency as much as possible. The plugin was originally developed by independent developers Hayashi Satoshi and Josef Wienerroither. Khronos built upon their work to open-source the project and added testing, documentation, and ongoing maintenance.

The toolset includes two plugins:

  • KHRglTFImporter, for importing glTF and GLB files into 3ds Max
  • KHRglTFExporter, for exporting 3ds Max scenes as glTF and GLB files

Download:

https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-3ds-Max-Plugin

Key Features

  1. Supports meshes, splines, shapes, cameras, and lights, as well as common 3D scene content such as animation, skinning, and instancing.
  2. Supports PBR materials, including effects like anisotropy, clearcoat, transmission, and volume.
  3. Supports a variety of glTF extensions, such as texture compression, UV transforms, and Draco geometry compression.

Note: Supporting glTF does not mean all extensions are fully supported. For example, KHR_interactivity and some physics-related extensions are currently only partially supported. Khronos plans to continue advancing support for KHR_interactivity and the adaptation for glTF 2.1.

How to Install

The GitHub Releases page currently provides plugin files for 3ds Max 2020 through 2027.

Installation steps:

  1. Close any running instance of 3ds Max.
  2. Go to the project's Releases page and download the KHRglTF ZIP package for your version.
  3. Inside the ZIP file, locate the folder that matches your 3ds Max version.
  4. Extract the Plugins and any other subfolders and copy them to your 3ds Max installation directory, typically C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 20xx\.
  5. Restart 3ds Max, and look for glTF in the file types under Import or Export.

Some versions may also include a ColorManagement folder. Follow the project documentation during installation and avoid mixing plugins from different years.

Conclusion

In the past, when working on 3D GIS projects, 3ds Max models often had to be exported to formats like FBX or OBJ first, and then converted to glTF using other software or scripts. This often led to all sorts of strange issues: missing materials, misaligned textures, abnormal animations, and messed-up coordinate axes. This plugin finally frees 3D GIS professionals from the tedious 3ds Max model conversion process, significantly shortening the import and export workflow and making model production and publishing more stable.

Of course, the new plugin still needs to be tested in real-world projects. If you have already used this plugin, feel free to share your results and any lessons learned.

References