DeleD Community Edition

Jeroen · Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 6:27 am Post subject: Exporters for animation...

Got a question for you: which fileformat should we focus on for exporting animations made with DeleD?

I'm looking for a general fileformat. For example, if we export to DirectX, perhaps the exported .x file be converted to other fileformats using existing software?
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chronozphere · Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 6:46 am Post subject:

Gamedev hobbyists still use formats like md2. It's really nice and simple. The only downside is that it doesn't store any skeleton/joint information. Instead it just stores a bunch of frames. I don't think this is the ideal sollution, but it would be nice to have an md2 exporter.

Writing an SMD exporter would be a better sollution. This is a simple skeleton based ASCII format. Take a look.

Hope this helps. Smile

granada · Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 7:05 am Post subject:

I would love to have a b3d exporter Very Happy

Dave
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elementrix · Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:58 am Post subject:

b3d or fbx
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fik · Member Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 303

I would think.x or .fbx would be best .fbx seems to be getting suppoted by a lot and .x is but its stength is also its main problem. In that as it is extensable there seem lots of differences by lots of programs to what they see as standard

trucker2000 · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 12:27 am Post subject:

Collada. It is supported by most apps that can export to other formats.
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ash · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 2:54 am Post subject:

.x is kinda becoming a standard...
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Grandmaster B · DeleD PRO user Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 218

This is kind of a tough question, there is no good answer to it.

Collada: Very bloated format. Should not be used for games, software support however is good. But you may still loose information when converting and the im- and exporters are of varying quality.

FBX: Not a open standard, nearly no public information at all. There a software library which you must use.

X: Good but also kind of bloated. Seems to be the best bet and is supported by many game engines directly.

MD3: Game oriented format, average support but easy to write ex- importers. Good option!

MD2: Still in use, very easy to write importers for custum engines. But limited features (no bones).

B3D: Nice, but not widely supported.

SMD: Dont know.

Jeroen · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 9:04 am Post subject:

Grandmaster_B: excellent response, I like summarized info like that, thank you! Smile

All others, thank you for the reponses too! Keep 'm coming!

I was thinking X and MD3 also. Most important: we're looking for a format that is supported by many game engines and other modeling applications so that DeleD can be fitted into as many animation pipelines as possible. To me, it seems that X is the best bet.

If anyone has more information/ideas/thoughts about these formats, or any other format, please do tell!
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trucker2000 · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 12:00 pm Post subject:

MD3 and X are both importable into milkshape. (what I use as a converter.)
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Starnick · DeleD PRO user Joined: 28 Jul 2007 Posts: 611

Well collada isn't intended to be what you use with game engines anyways, its an intermediary format. E.g. Multiverse uses a modified OGRE mesh/material system for actual assets, but heavily relies on collada during its art pipeline. jMonkey also has something similar, their own binary format which saves the state of the scenegraph, despite having loaders for "game friendly" formats like md3 and ogre mesh.

I personally lean more to collada...but it doesn't really make much of a difference for me as I plan to update my jmonkey/ardor3d importer to handle animations anyways Razz

MeinenM · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 9:09 pm Post subject:

Well i was really hoping for a .x or a .b3d exporter! Those would help me out the most, dont know about the rest of you though Smile

Grandmaster B · DeleD PRO user Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 218

EDIT: MD3 is also vertex based. MD4 is bone based.

I want to extend my exporter plugin to support animations. I hope to get the updated plugin infos. Wink

elementrix · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 10:09 pm Post subject:

just get something that works very well with milkshape, that's what I use to get my files in practicly any extension I can imagine.

Ofcourse it's always better to have less steps to get it in the engine. just choose the best one (probably didn't help you alot with that xD)
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paul_nicholls · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 10:23 pm Post subject:

What about milkshape 3d files (.ms3d)?

I believe those support skeletal animation, see

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/dataformats/ms3d/

EDIT: I had tried to post this one a few repies back, but for some reason it never arived Sad

cheers,
Paul
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