The Solution (Re: Can this be done?)

I found the solution to importing .ai files in the Wings 3d program over at the Wings 3d forum. A regular there named "Puzzled Paul" (which he isn’t BTW) gave me this answer:

"Try this in Photoshop, create a new canvas and paint (fill) it black. Paint a white shape on it – ensure this shape is completely filled with white. Make a (running ant) selection of this white shape (open channels dialogue and drag any one of RGB channels to ‘make selection’ icon (left one in 5.5)) Open paths dialogue and click on options (small arrow, top right corner, pointing right) and choose ‘make work path’. In the tolerance box that appears – enter 3.0 (say, for now), go to options (as before) and save this path File -> Export -> Paths to Illustrator (and choose the appropriate path)
Now open wings (if not already open) File -> Import -> Adobe Illustrator -> ……and choose the file just exported from Photoshop.You’ll then have your shape in Wings as a 0.2 unit thick extrusion – and just treat it as if it’d been made in Wings. Don’t waste your time messing with pspro (for this) 🙂 Once you’ve become used to the method, try more complex shapes – altering the tolerance (lower) will increase the number of points (vertices) around the edge of the profile – and get it a ‘better’ fit to the drawn profile. This is not something you necessarily need (as Wings smooths) – keep to the simplest, most basic shape that accurately defines what you want (as a profile) – then mess with it in Wings. Remember that you can re-connect the edges on the profile (once in Wings) any way you want – you don’t have to keep the organisation that the .ai importer has chosen. Since you can scan in a pic to Photoshop (assuming you have a scanner) – or picture off the net – you can now make a profile (using layers) over your reference picture -> select it -> make a path -> get it into Wings. Brief addition – if you’re using a reference picture in Photoshop (to ‘trace around’- you can ignore the above (but similar route) Have a reference picture on one layer then use the path tools and just draw/trace (manually) around the outline / shape of the pic – then use the final path in the same way as described above. The path MUST be closed for this to work, btw :)….so, no loose ends, in all senses 🙂 When tracing around a reference picture, I sometimes fill another layer with white (above the reference picture) and alter the transparency of this white layer – it makes it easier to see the path stuff – imo – a bit like a sheet of tracing paper – adjust transparency to suit."

Thanks to John, Thomas and Edjh for the advice and help. It’s really appreciated.