What is the best way to get an animated character from 3ds max into .x file format so I can turn it into a skinned mesh in my game engine? The rigging tutorials provided with 3ds max all seem to use bones with the "skin" modifier and when I export the models with animations to .x, the animation data that connects the skin to the bones is lost, only the eyes that aren't attached to the skin move around but the rest of the model stays the same. Is there something I'm not doing right in exporting the files? Is there another way I should be rigging my characters, like using Character Studio instead? If anyone has successfully taken an animated model from 3ds max to a skinned mesh in .x format, I would greatly appreciate a brief summary of how it was accomplished.

I used character studio and the exporter that comes with directx. it was pretty straight forward. w/o character studio I have know no idea. sounds like what you want is what hplus says.