On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 12:25:53AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote: > John Tsiombikas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > writes: > > If your only source of 3ds files is what you find on the internet, I > > would highly recommend to not use 3ds. > > How come? That seems like the main reason _to_ use lib3ds: there are > absolutely tons of 3ds files on the net, and while many of them are > crap, many of them are pretty good too.
I can't see how one could use whatever scenes and objects he finds on the internet for anything useful. First of all, they won't be what you want. Ok you may find a generic dragon, or a dolphin. But in general you need to show specific things, not just anything you can get your hands on :) Even if you manage to find exactly what you need as a stock object, the size of the models will be random, the polygon counts probably will not be what you need, they may or may not have texture coordinates. They could contain material types that you don't support. I mean at the very least you would need to import them to 3dstudio, fix them up and re-export them. And if you're going to do that, why export to 3ds? The only real use of stock objects that I can think of is for "testing" algorithms, in case you're bored to tears with the bloody teapot. In which case 3ds is definitely the wrong format to use. Stanford provides great meshes in ply format, aquired with 3d scanners, you can use those. http://graphics.stanford.edu/data/3Dscanrep/ > It sort of sucks, but however ill-documented the 3ds format is, in > practice it seems to easier to develop for than any other of the scene > formats in widespread use (if you're not using commercial software). You don't have to use any "format in widespread use". Just make up your own, and write an exporter for the 3d modelling program of your choice, or for the 3d modelling program your artists want to use. > Typically if you find a scene on the net, it will be in a few formats, > e.g. lwo, max, and 3ds, and all the non-3ds formats are apparently > proprietary and/or have no free libraries available. You don't need libraries, just documentation. P.S. check out Collada, it looks promishing as a "standard 3d content format". ( http://www.collada.org ) -- John Tsiombikas (Nuclear / Mindlapse) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://nuclear.demoscene.gr/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ lib3ds-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lib3ds-devel
