I am able to load simple models made from triangles along with their normals and colors form a text file. I am not familiar with using binary format though i think i can learn rather quickly if i have to. What is the best way to handle models. Should i learn to import models from 3ds or MS3d? I am only about a month into opengl learning, but i am itching to see a rendering of a complex model, without having to do the tedious coordinate plotting. After my exam I said, "GG Professor".

I think the best way is to import models from 3dsmax or any other program used to create three-dimensional artwork because of the comfortable way to edit and create them.
furthermore your models will look better when created with those progs. i don''t know any way to create some nice objects in your own text-file format that could compete with those made with professional programs. hope that helps a bit.

A good ASCII oft-used format is WaveFront''s old .OBJ format. It''s sorta human readable and many packages can deal with it.

The game tutorials on NeHe''s site has a MD2 and Milkshape model loading tutorial. This should get you started pretty quickly.

Jason

True but i didn''t want to jump ahead in the tutorials. But i guess i will do this for the sake of seeing results. Thanks.