#165439 - iainprice - Sat Dec 20, 2008 7:00 pm
I know there is a good MD2 loader/viewer but are there better formats such as MD3 or maya etc that would be better for memory and 3D processing? If so, is anyone working on any?
#165443 - silent_code - Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:48 pm
You really have to define "better", like what application you have in mind and what features are needed. You can also always roll you own. :^)
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July 5th 08: "Volumetric Shadow Demo" 1.6.0 (final) source released
June 5th 08: "Zombie NDS" WIP released!
It's all on my page, just click WWW below.
#165446 - nanou - Sun Dec 21, 2008 5:30 am
| iainprice wrote: |
| I know there is a good MD2 loader/viewer but are there better formats such as MD3 or maya etc that would be better for memory and 3D processing? If so, is anyone working on any? |
I'm taking a look at making a Wavefront->.bin converter after my current project is more or less done. (I'm not sure about whether it's "better" exactly.) I wrote a quick loader of some kind for it a while ago, but it's terrible.
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- nanou
#165449 - silent_code - Sun Dec 21, 2008 12:49 pm
Wavefront object does not support animation, iIrc (and I think, I do) - if that is what you have in mind when talking about "Wavefront". ;^)
_________________
July 5th 08: "Volumetric Shadow Demo" 1.6.0 (final) source released
June 5th 08: "Zombie NDS" WIP released!
It's all on my page, just click WWW below.
#165451 - nanou - Sun Dec 21, 2008 2:34 pm
| silent_code wrote: |
| Wavefront object does not support animation, iIrc (and I think, I do) - if that is what you have in mind when talking about "Wavefront". ;^) |
Not sure, I haven't gotten all the way through the spec yet, but IMO it's not a big deal to export each keyframe as a separate object (actually, they can all go in the same file even)... unless you're concerned with something more robust than keyframe animation.
What I like about the format is that it a) is now well supported by Blender (and to a lesser extent, Wings3D) b) is really easy to work with (and generate test files for by hand) and c) supports all the material features that the DS hardware supports. If only it had toon tables (or maybe it does and I haven't gotten to that part... doubtful though.)
I don't claim to know a lot about 3D formats, so I'm not about to make comparisons. The defining reason I care about this particular format is case 'a' above. If Blender or Wings had a decent MD2 export I probably wouldn't be bothered it.
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- nanou
#165453 - silent_code - Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:20 pm
I see. Well, as a matter of fact, I also happen to use it a lot as an intermediate format. The only way (I can think of) to get animation working with it, is what you've already described.
I went through the whole specs (quite a bit!) some time ago and I do not remember anything close to a toon table. but you can generate one in another file or as a taged comment (I am speculating here, not having directly worked with .obj for some time now) and parse that with your loader.
The separate file approach seems better, though. Could easily be a .pal color palette file editable in many programs (like PhotoShop or Usenti by Cearn etc.)
_________________
July 5th 08: "Volumetric Shadow Demo" 1.6.0 (final) source released
June 5th 08: "Zombie NDS" WIP released!
It's all on my page, just click WWW below.
#165454 - nanou - Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:36 pm
I'm not surprised about the animation. And yeah, not surprised about the toon table either (I realized just how large the spec is when I went to print it off and looked at the page count... then thought better of it.)
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- nanou