3ds imports as all black

[KellyB]

I have created a simple board in Turbocad 14 deluxe and saved it as a 3ds file.

It has a wood material applied to it and it saves just fine in Turbocad. I can load the 3ds file in Turbocad and it appears as I would expect it to.

When I import it as furniture in SweetHome, however, it appears solid black. The same thing occurs if I try to import it into Sketchup 2015.

I don't find any threads or specific references in the faq's dealing with this phenomenon.

Help!

[Puybaret]

First, be sure to use the latest version 4.5 where the support for 3DS file format was improved. Then, if your 3D model uses some texture images, be sure to use relative path to them and store them in the same folder as the 3DS file.
You also check how it renders with FBX Converter.

[KellyB]

Thanks for the tips. I will certainly give the converter a try. I have discovered that something may well be wrong with my Turbocad file itself, however, and I need to figure that out first. When I select only the layer on which the drawing sits, it turns black in Tcad, and that just ain't right, methinks.

"back to the drawing board" so to speak.