What is this Blender sorcery?

[Krieg]

Hey guys, newbie here. Wanted to start with a little question. Is it still possibly viable to model with 3DS Max and Gmax instead of Blender? Cause to be honest, Blender is like learning to fly a A380 and I'd do neither.

I want to stick to something I'd already know how to use, and most of you use Blender cause you already know it, or some other reason and that's perfectly fine. It's all I hear when it's related to MD3 files is "Blender, Blender, Blender", aside from going without food and water to find a importer/exporter for MD3's that works for Autodesk products, can I still use 3DS Max for all that stuff?

[fromhell]

It's all in the usage rights.

[Krieg]

I know that much, but does Blender have advantages over 3DS Max, so is that why you use it? Can things for OA still be modelled without this un-noted advantage or so other? Wasn't referring to to legal rights and responsibilities, sorry if it sounded like I did. But that's my question, if you read it, do you use Blender because it's what most are used to or can I still stick to good ol' industry standard modelling software?

Thanks.

[Neon_Knight]

You can use other programs, as long as their license doesn't clash with GPLv2. (As in, imposing restrictions over derivatives or distribution)

http://openarena.wikia.com/wiki/DeveloperFAQ

[dbX]

To answer your question, you can use 3DS max if you want to. But you will also have to provide all source files you use (.3ds, .max files, textures and so on) and license your work as GPLv2 if you intend to include it with OpenArena. The only problem is that not many people will be able to modify your models or recreate the MD3 model seeing how 3DS Max is a (rather expensive) proprietary program. It's not up to me, but if your intent is to have your model included in OA then using 3DS is a problem because few people have 3DS. The point of OA is that anyone can get the code, and the 'code' (3ds max files) is not really useful if people need software worth ~3500$ to use it.

As far as advantages go, I am not sure blender has any over 3ds max that are worth learning blender (aside from the huge difference in price and size). The problem with 3ds might be the exporters to md3, because I am not aware of any (then again I don't deal with 3ds max).

[Cacatoes]

Oh, dbX cared to explain

[WingedPanther]

One other thing I'd add, is that 3DS Max is not distributed on Linux, which some of us prefer to use.