Which 3D model format is used on Mac?

[Mars_999]

Hello, I am looking to start coding a function to load 3D models into my game. I am using OpenGL, SDL. I want to use a model file format that is portable to WINDOZE machines, beings that is what I am using right now. Any good example or tutorials would be nice also. I would like the code to be in C++ or C. No Obj C. And please recommend a good 3D model format that is portable and is as good as 3DS. Thanks

[Carlos Camacho]

I'm sure you are going to get a better answer than mine, but here goes. I have heard of people using OBJ format and people converting the model into C. If I'm not mistaken, some people used QD3D format as well (even though they used OpenGL.) Check out Meshwork for supported formats and go from there.

If the above is outright wrong, feel free to edit/modify my post.

[OneSadCookie]

Any model format is portable to any platform. About the only thing that would make a port difficult would be embedded machine code, and I don't know any 3D model formats that do that...

MD2 is easy to load and quite nice to use.

3DMF is easy to load if you restrict yourself to a small subset of its capabilities. There are tools out there to convert any 3DMF file to a single triangle mesh, so no problems there.

Meshwork's .mesh format is easy to load, but lacks some of the things that might make it desirable for games.

Brian Barnes' format for Dim3 is XML and should therefore be easy enough to load. He was also trying to push it as a standard, so I'm sure he'd be interested in your interest :)

[Mars_999]

Ok, if I can use .md2 or .3ds models on the Mac I might shoot for .3ds files unless I can use .md2 to model tanks, planes, buildings? I don't know if that is possible, since all I see is Quake style modeling going on with the .md2 format and its ID's technology? Or maybe .obj files but what progam on the Mac reads and saves .obj files? Also if I use .obj files or .3ds files the textures for the model are they saved in the model as one file e.g. jet.3ds or are the models and textures saved as two different files? Thanks all!

[codemattic]

Is it legal to use MD2 in a game? Im sure it would be below ids radar and nobody would really care - but is it permissable to use MD2 formatted objects in a commercial/shareware game?

anyway - any ascii format will load the same on any platform. So .mesh files from Meshworks will work. If you have access to a windows machine download Milkshape - its $20 and loads/saves lots of 3d formats and has a very clear ascii format of its own.

Any binary format will load much faster than reading in ascii of course - and it will work on any platform also - you just have to write some extra code to take care of endian issues.

cheers,
Codemattic

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by codemattic
Is it legal to use MD2 in a game? Im sure it would be below ids radar and nobody would really care - but is it permissable to use MD2 formatted objects in a commercial/shareware game?

Here's a snippet from http://www.flipcode.com/tutorials/tut_q2levels.shtml that should answer your question:

Using id Software file formats in a publicly distributed application always seemed a little questionable to me in terms of legality. In preparation of this document I contacted id Software to resolve the issue; John Carmack was kind enough to send along this response:

"We do not legally protect the file formats, but you can't use any of the released tools, or tools derived from them (except the GPL'd Quake 1 tools) to generate content for a commercial venture. If you are writing everything yourself, no problem."

[swcrissman]

I think he quake2 source code is now public/release, so any GPL'd tools that came with that are probably open game too, no?

Spencer

[Nimrod]

Originally posted by swcrissman
I think he quake2 source code is now public/release, so any GPL'd tools that came with that are probably open game too, no?

Spencer

Aye. Remember that for MD2 you probably won't use id tools anyway, if there even is one for character models and animations (I don't know). MD3s would be fine as long as you don't use id tools to make them (which is surely possible?).