I tried making an animation with 3DS Max; i gotta say that Blender is so much better... I had trouble even trying to add a mesh to the canvas. Anyway, what's the reason why 3DS Max is needed for exporting animations? Can't I export something as an FBX file in Blender too?
The only difference is that blender exports FBX but it does it slightly differently to the way 3ds max does it from what I understand. So the papatran converter has trouble converting any fbx files from blender as it was built around 3ds max's variation of FBX. (I may be wrong though about this).
Blender is / was free for a reason(s), though they've really gotten their act together in recent years. Max benefits from cutting-edge development and huge budgets and is generally only hampered by horrific UI design (I think Maya is better at this, but Maya has a more specific purpose r.e. modelling). Most professional studios don't cater to Blender. It doesn't handle surface normals in the same way Max does (I don't think) and there are issues with generic OBJ export and similar when compared to the Max series. It simply introduces complications that - especially on a development budget - most studios just won't be bothered with. Conversely, for the average modder, Blender is the highest-quality tool easily available. So it's a dilemma that won't be resolved easily, sadly. tl;dr: if you have access to Max, spend some time getting used to it - it does work well! If you don't, bug Uber continuously and see what they say
