Hey, I am rewriting my opengl/octree 3d engine, and I need a better format for level importing than the old one I was using (it doesnt support textures and is real hard to make maps in) I have looked into writing a plugin for 3dsm, but I dont have a copy and am pretty broke. If anyone could recomend a good fileformat (whether it be in the form of a 3dsm plugin, stand alone program or whatever) I would really appreciate it. It must be able to handle triangles, multiple textures, texture coords and should be pretty easy to load. Sorry for how poorly this is written, its been a while since I had any sleep :> Thanks Sol

I don''t know anything about the file format, but Blender is a free, pretty powerful 3d modelling program.. You can find it on www.blender.nl. You might try looking around the site or the rest of the net for info on the file format, but I don''t know where to find any (I checked www.wotsit.org, and there''s nothing there for Blender.) Also, you might want to check www.wotsit.org for 3d file formats...

3dExplorer
I dont remember the website but search on yahoo or lycos for it
It isnt a modeler but you can load and view 3d models with it
It loads about 15 different 3d formats and saves to about 10 different 3d formats.......so if you have a model and want it in a different format, then this is the way to go
it loads and saves x-files as well


"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time"
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
themGames Productions

Just adding a little info, the web site for 3d exploration is
www.xdsoft.com/explorer/

+AA_970+

There''s a spiffy simple (slow) open-standard called VRML (virutal reality modeling langage) which is plain text file format for saving all such information. (there are plug-ins for most browsers that let them view VRML...)

Wouldn''t be too bad for loading & saving... not exactly secure or tamper resistance though

A few editors are free, one called cosmoworlds from SGI...

That 3Dexploer sounds good though... I''m gonna go check it out

check the .ase exporter that comes with 3dsmax. i wrote a proggy that can playback animations saved as 3dsmax. http://marko.quixoft.net

thanks for all the great responces guys, I finally decided on a format. I decided to design my own format (some tell me that it looks like .OBJ, but I dont know since I have never loaded a .OBJ file) anyway, im using a 3dsm export plugin called Flexporter which allows you to write custom file exporters without the max sdk. So with the help of a copy of max that I was able to get for cheap, I managed to get the exporter and loader written in an afternoon. I have included below a sample of this format, it includes support for multiple textures and objects and is easy to load. If anyone wants, I can send them the plugin or the source to it (and some code to load them.) Thanks again. Just drop me a line if you want the source to the plugin or have any questions about my octree demo or anything else.

-Kyle

1 MESHES
1 MATERIALS

MESH -------------------------
8 VERTICES
36 TEXTURE COORDINATES
12 FACES

VERTICES
-10.000000 0.000000 -10.000000
10.000000 0.000000 -10.000000
-10.000000 0.000000 10.000000
10.000000 0.000000 10.000000
-10.000000 50.000000 -10.000000
10.000000 50.000000 -10.000000
-10.000000 50.000000 10.000000
10.000000 50.000000 10.000000

TEXTURE COORDINATES
0.999500 0.000500
0.000499 0.000500
0.000499 0.000500
0.000499 0.000500
0.999500 0.999500
0.000499 0.999500
0.000499 0.999500
0.000499 0.999500
0.999501 0.000500
0.999500 0.999501
0.000499 0.999500
0.000499 0.999500
0.000500 0.000499
0.999501 0.000500
0.000499 0.000500
0.999500 0.000499
0.999501 0.999500
0.999501 0.999500
0.000500 0.999501
0.000499 0.000500
0.000499 0.000500
0.999500 0.000500
0.999500 0.999500
0.999500 0.999500
0.000499 0.999500
0.000499 0.000500
0.000499 0.000500
0.999500 0.000500
0.999500 0.999500
0.999500 0.999500
0.000499 0.000500
0.999500 0.000500
0.999500 0.999500
0.999500 0.999500
0.000499 0.000500
0.999500 0.999500

FACES
0 0 2 3 8 9 10
0 3 1 0 11 12 13
0 4 5 7 14 15 16
0 7 6 4 17 18 19
0 0 1 5 20 21 22
0 5 4 0 23 24 25
0 1 3 7 26 27 28
0 7 5 1 29 5 1
0 3 2 6 30 31 32
0 6 7 3 33 7 3
0 2 0 4 34 0 35
0 4 6 2 4 6 2
MESH -------------------------

Hi

I would be interested in ur exporter... could you send me it plz?

NONO
(nono_18_02@hotmail.com)