hi everybody, I have a small question that needs a direct answer, here goes: can i load models made with Character Studio 2.2 into my opengl project written in VC++, if yes then how ? i really need to have a lot of animation for the model i''ll be using in my game and if i just could make the animations with Character Studio and then loading them somehow into my opengl game then that would be perfect ... another question, in direct x you can export your 3ds model into an .x format which saves the animation, can you do the same thing with opengl, i mean can we somehow export the animation ? thanks in advance, and if the answer is no for both my questions then i really would appricate someone telling me that, because then i''ll try to look for another solutions "If you don''t like something, change it. If you can''t change it, change the way you think about it!" "He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever." "Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world."(Einstein) "The normal teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."(William Arthur Ward)

You''ll need to load them, meaning you have to write an importer ... But, how do I know how to load it, will you ask .
Look up the MAX CD you bought, the seek for the MAX SDK, it have file loaders exporters in it, I guess you will find what you need. Other wise, write a plugin with the same SDK that will output with your needs.

Okay, once you got all that, you need to set up the animation ... I guess you should use keyframing ... I have no clue with animation yet

No, there is no OpenGL model format, OGL is low level API. It does not even know what a model is.



As you describe your problem, an other solution would be the use or MD2 (quake2 models). They contain animation (In fact, they contain every position of a move).

As a general rule of thumb you should not ask if you are able to import animations made in some other program such as Character Studio. I mean, of course you can, if you couldn''t, how would the program itself know what the animation is supposed to look like after you save, exit, restart, and load the animation again? All the information is stored in some format or anotehr, the trick is to know how to read that format. And there''s ALWAYS a way to find out.

S.

Slayer made a very good comment, and infact, this would just be an "addon" to what he said.

The best thing to do when first starting with exporting and inporting is learnign the ase format from 3ds. It''s model is stored in ASCII format, and very easy to figure out. With a little study, and about an hour of coding, you can write a program that loads the data into a precreated mesh structure.

Animation:
the ASE format also allows for exporting multiple frames. (if i recall) So, just another loop on your code, and you''ve got animation frames stored. If your looking for a technique, I suggest using vertex morphing.

Most of the time, It''s hard to find a code snippet that "Loads this kind of file, and understands it" Most of the time, file formats are really difficult to get together, and once a programmer does that it''s hard for him to give it up.


~Main
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Colt "MainRoach" McAnlis
BadHeat Inc.