On Sat, Jun 02, 2007 at 11:41:52AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote: > Well, everybody has their own needs. Personally, I probably fall into > the "testing" category more than anything else. I write software, but > I'm not very good or experienced at modelling, so it's really nice to > be > able to download a spaceship or three from the net, plonk them in a > scene and render away.
Me neither, but I learned just enough of 3dsmax to be able to make test scenes or whatever. Nowadays I'm trying to learn maya, so I won't have to reboot to windows when I need a test scene :) Blender would be ideal, but somehow I can't seem to manage to grasp its user interface. > I find that the issues you mention are not really much of a problem, > as > it's easy enough to deal with them after loading. E.g., I typically > replace all the materials used (which is easy given that 3ds files > used > named materials), and normalize the mesh size before placing it > myself. > The main issue for me is that it's hard to make geometry, and that's > what all those free .3ds files provide. Indeed, although I tend to make my own formats and convert from 3ds or whatever in such cases as needed. For instance I've written a converter based on lib3ds for a raytracer I was working on, to an XML format which contained all those details that .3ds wasn't ever meant to have like refraction indices, shader programs, photon shooting parameters, non-phong reflectance model parameters, etc. In general I believe it's much preferable to keep the "loading" simple and "native" to your program's capabilities and just make external tools (converters/exporters). > > I mean at the very least you would need to import them to 3dstudio, > > fix them up and re-export them. > > If I had proprietary apps like 3dstudio, I probably wouldn't be using > lib3ds... :-) You could use blender :) Believe me the SDK of 3dsmax is grotesque and the documentation sucks. That's why I was using .3ds for some years, I didn't want to make the effort to write an exporter. Fortunately, at work another guy did that nasty job, and I didn't have to do it. But I can tell you it's so great to be able to pull whatever information you need. > Actually those .ply files illustrate another nice thing about 3ds > files: > they _do_ have more than just geometry, and that information is usable > in practice (even if you replace the materials, as I usually do, just > having the _references_ to them is extremely useful). I know, my old engine used to get all sorts of weird things from 3ds files (through lib3ds of course). I even had it make and use reflection cubemaps wherever you had a "reflect/refract" material at 3dsmax. Worked like a charm, you could even specify how often to update the cubemaps (if ever), and their sizes. > Another point for using lib3ds is simply that it is in fact, really > easy > to use: it's a straight-forward and lightweight library, with few > dependencies, which just does the loading and provides the info in a > highly usable form -- and otherwise stays out of your way. There are > other free graphics systems which support this or that format, but in > general they seem to be a _lot_ more heavyweight than lib3ds. Indeed, I love the minimalistic design of lib3ds, that's why once I found lib3ds, I threw away my own 3ds loading code. Plus mine used to have more bugs, and less features than lib3ds :) But it was fun writing it... hex editing 3ds files to fill in the gaps in the ad-hoc docs I had collected back then from all over the internet :) -- 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
