ORTS new shape format???
#1
Posted 12 October 2015 - 12:33 PM
What are some of the available open source 3d shape file formats and associated texture file formats?
Robert
#2
Posted 12 October 2015 - 01:21 PM
#3
Posted 12 October 2015 - 01:52 PM
SP 0-6-0, on 12 October 2015 - 12:33 PM, said:
AFAIK there isn't one. A major issue is centered on the question of what does a change mean for users of the commonly used CAD programs? For example, if there was a decision to pick the foo format and foo can only be produced by 3dMax, how many current content designers are going to shell out $3,500 for a license... so they can begin to learn and use a completely new tool?
Substitute Blender, or Rhino and you have the same problem only less expensive.
IMO the ideal solution would have been to acquire the rights to modify TSM and extend the functionality of the .s file; Maybe it would have needed a new extension but that's not a big deal. Followup by adding the same new features to the Sketchup exporter and work w/ Amabilis to do the same for 3dcrafter. The OR team actually started to talk to the owner of TSM about it but then dropped the ball when that person left the team.
In the meanwhile someone else got control of TSM and given who it is my opinion is there is much less than a zero percentage chance that change will be useful to the OR team.
#4
Posted 12 October 2015 - 02:35 PM
There is Collada, but somebody said it's too heavy for an ingame format and it would be overkill to use it directly in game, however a lot of games directly use it so maybe it's not so heavy.
GPZ implemented gltf support, but he is inactive since months.
But collada also can be used as an intermediate format, and a new format can be created for OR, with a collada -> or format converter.
Here is a c# collada library so the importer/reader don't need to be written
Or here is the Open Game Engine Exchange format. It's a "light" textual format, plugins for 3D max, maya, and blender.
#5
Posted 12 October 2015 - 02:50 PM
I still tinker both in TSM and Gmax and would like to be able to at least still use Gmax for ORTS. Yes, Gmax is old and way out of date. But, Gmax is free and everybit as powerful as the $3500 dollar programs that have too many features we really don't need in a modeling program for train simulation.
ORTS will probably need conversion programs like MSTS came with that can take say .3ds and convert it to the native ORTS format what ever it ends up being. The same being said for the osd texture format. This way there should be less issues with modeling software people want to use for ORTS.
I will take a look at other 3d train simulators from the open source communities and take note of the 3d shape file formats being used.
More to come later.
Robert
#6
Posted 12 October 2015 - 04:03 PM
Quote
More to come later.
Don't rush. Unless there is someone to do the actual work of implementing something in the OR code the question remains quite hypothetical... and given the nature of contributed labor whoever does choose to work on this matter is very likely to prefer to follow their own opinion of what format is best.
#7
Posted 12 October 2015 - 09:58 PM
ORTS has the unique opertunity to not only break away from the .S file format. But also to work with the open source community to take a little known format and help grow it into a mature format that could potentially be the work horse file format for ORTS to use for many years to come.
My list thus far,
X3d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X3D
.Obj https://en.wikipedia...front_.obj_file
B3D http://www.blitzbasi...3ddocs/docs.php
Robert
#8
Posted 13 October 2015 - 01:40 AM
However, I don't see any changes in that direct (new model format) coming in the immediate, or mid-term, future of OR.
It would be somewhat ironic that some modelers might revert back to producing only for OR.
Just my opinion.
Cheers Bazza.
#9
Posted 13 October 2015 - 01:44 AM
CB.
#10
Posted 13 October 2015 - 01:51 AM
captain_bazza, on 13 October 2015 - 01:40 AM, said:
Modeling not depends on format. All formats are polygonal/triangular. Nothing will change, just there would be possibilities to use new material, and maybe new naming conventions for the parts, and avoid the pain of using .s format.
I can add my TS20xx models to OR after renaming the parts and replace the TS20xx materials to MSTS ones, but i don't want to wrestle with the .s format, also the MSTS materials are not enough.
.s format is currently repelling the new content developers/coming from TS20xx or trainz, as it's an ancient format with bugged, old, limited, and payware tools. That is one reason why the most of the MSTS models doesn't look so good.
captain_bazza, on 13 October 2015 - 01:44 AM, said:
Which formats are these?