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View Full Version : (1-3) universal formats for import

switchstance
10-15-2005, 09:47 AM
hi there,

i'm currently writing a 3D Viewer for my school (C++ using Win32 and OpenGL),
which will also read waypoint data and generate
the shortest path between locations in realtime.
(and will provide cool navigation features)

i'm planning to read in the Geometry-, Texture- and Waypointdata and use the _objectnames_
to determine wheter the object being imported is simple geometry or a waypoint.
i'm also thinking of putting all the geometry into some sort of basic Octree (because i'm not yet getting BSP trees fully, and they also require clever algorithms, which i can't think of ;) )

now my problem is that the school will be rebuilt soon, and there needs to be the possibilty to
reimport new geometry easily, and that from as many applications as possible...

so what i'm searching are 1 to a maximum of 3 import formats (the lesser the better) that allow:
-easy importing of object name,geometry and associated texture
-ability to be created or converted from as many 3d apps as possible
(but the main focus lies on max,maya,xsi - if i can import from those 3 in any (easy) way, i'm happy!)


if you know of any prebuild librarys or stuff for geometry import and storage and readout in some BSP/Oc/Quadtree style that would be cool too!

thanks in advance for your help :)

(oh and if you just want to give me a general suggestion on the topic, i'd be happy too)
mrloco
10-15-2005, 01:11 PM
I have no clue how you would do it, but the .OBJ format is pretty common
ace4016
10-16-2005, 02:34 AM
hehe, I'm working on a 3d model viewer (as part of a hobby project), and the OBJ file format is pretty good for geometry, but texture info would be stored in a MTL file. I load in the texture files seperately from the model sicne i don't know how to read the MTL file yet (too lazy:p ). Here's a link to the OBJ spec: http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/mxr/gfx/3d/OBJ.spec . I only looked up to f (faces), so maybe the MTL format is somewhere in there. Can't recommend any way to read it into a BSP/Oc/Quadtree style, I just made a class to hold the model info (along with other information, like object type[i.e. whether its GEOM or a TRIGGER, in your case the trigger would be a way point]). I should probably store it in a better way though:P. But there you go, the OBJ format is pretty good at exporting model and material info (mainly model), between apps, and its an ANSI file (oh yea, notepad modeller:D ). Oh, and since your using c++, why not make a base class that holds model/texture info, and a enum type that tells the program the tpye of object (geometry, trigger/point, light, etc.); then derive from that class and set the enum type of the model to something like GEOM and for the waypoint, POINT:shrug: .
iC4
10-16-2005, 08:53 AM
use the fbx format
switchstance
10-17-2005, 06:37 AM
can XSI generate OBJ and/or FBX ?

oh and i couldn't find the FBX specification, anyone have a link?

thanks for the help! :)
ace4016
10-17-2005, 08:29 PM
XSI can import/export both. Go to the alias site for the FBX sdk (you'll have to supply some info like your name and adress and such though).
switchstance
10-17-2005, 08:32 PM
k, the decision fell on .OBJ ... didn't expect that it would be possible with one format, very cool! :thumbsup:

thanks for all the help again! :)
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