Paintbrush and Deluxe Paint are bitmap-oriented programs, you need to
convert them to structured, outline-based graphics. If you have
Corel, you could autotrace the bitmaps and convert them to drawings.
Then within Corel, export them as Adobe Illustrator format and you
can import those into the Lofter of 3D Studio. If you've got Harvard
Graphics for Windows, I believe it comes with an Adobe export DLL.
Or, just get the SPC illustration package called Harvard Draw, it can
export Adobe Illustrator files, too. (I know, because I wrote that
part of Harvard Draw!)
Also you can port the bitmaps from these packages as maps to 3DS in supported
file format. I've done this with deluxe paint and 3DS although I had to create
the shape to map to in the shaper. I create thin "bitmap" objects that can be
animated in the keyframer that looked as they did in the original deluxe paint.
Now if I could only move the colorcycling as easily!
Don Landis