Best animated file format

[trollger]

I am trying to create a game character and I was just wondering should I use:

.MD2
.MD3
.MD5
Ogre's .Mesh
.X

The character needs to have morph animation for cloth and I need some way to attach his large array of weapons to his hands (skeleton)

If any one has had any good experience modeling a game character for Irrlicht please share your knowledge on the subject with me

[Virion]

.X and .B3D are both good. and imo B3D is better than.X

[B@z]

tho, b3d doesnt handle morph animation. i think .x doesnt either

[trollger]

Does b3d have both skeletal and morph animation?

+I am using blender so I need a reliable exporter what do you use for exporting?

[edit] I see the answer is no but does any one know any method of using both

would the ogre .mesh work?

[Virion]

for morph animation, you use .md2 or .md3.
for skeletal animation, use .x or .b3d (or some others)

i don't think there is any format in irrlicht that works on both.

Animated objects:

* B3D files (.b3d, r, skeleton)
* Microsoft DirectX (.x, r) (binary & text, skeleton)
* Milkshape (.ms3d, r, skeleton)
* Quake 3 models (.md3, r, morph)
* Quake 2 models (.md2, r, morph)

[trollger]

Can I select vertex groups in a Md2 or 3 model

This is so I can (for example) attach a weapon to the characters hand

[eye776]

Please don't get mad at me, but this is my opinion:

MD2 support is great, if you can adjust to the constraints.

MD3 support is kind of shoddy.

X support is good, but there is only a single free applications exporting it.

MS3D support is often TERRIBLE (usually encountered if you have position keyframes). Too bad this is a format well understood, documented and exported by many free applications, unlike X and ...

B3D support is good, and the format itself is not bad but there is only a single free application exporting it (see X as well), which is Blender, which sucks ass.

My recommendation, export W/E the f**k you can that has bones (X, B3D, MS3D) and can be imported. Then start building your own XML format from that. (Hint: this way you can have REAL reusable animations).

[Lonesome Ducky]

I sincerely doubt Blender is the only free program to export to those formats. I think even Misfit Model 3d has a .x exporter floating around somewhere. And now for the ontopic: I'd agree wholeheartedly for .md2 for vertex based and .b3d for skeletal animation. Really detailed .md2 models with a lot of frames can get big rather quickly though.

[eye776]

If you want both morph and vertex you'll have to make do with your own format though. Irrlicht doesn't have an AnimatedMesh class that supports both at the same time.

@Lonesome Ducky:
There's an UNOFFICIAL .X exporter for anim8or, but it does kind of a half-assed job.
There's also a b3d converter for anim8or.

MM3D doesn't have anything that exports .X or .B3D. Only MS3D, and irrlicht doesn't like the keyframes it exports.

Personally, I had a shot at making an .X exporter for MM3D once (never uploaded) but only managed to export geometry, no materials, no textures, no animation.

[trollger]

B3D support is good, and the format itself is not bad but there is only a single free application exporting it (see X as well), which is Blender, which sucks ass.

First off I have used blender for a while and I know it does not suck

Second the main reason I want morph animation is for animating cloth on a character so I suppose I could bake the cloth simulation as a md2 format and the character as a .X format [/quote]

Thanks for the help guys. I hope the Irrlicht team gets around to creating their own animated .irr format soon so we can use both morph and skeletal animation

[B@z]

also, there is a free application, called characterfx. can export to b3d
also, ms3d can export b3d too

[trollger]

Seen it, looks alright. I think the project is dead thought.
If the B3d exporter works well I might look into that. Blender is where most of my work is done so if I could move a model to charaterFX and then export it to Irrlicht then I would be more interested otherwise not realy.

[lazerblade]

I've never done anything other than MD2, but MD5 looks pretty good.
Not sure if it supports morphing animation, but I know it can do skeletal animation.

You will probably have to do some googling in order to figure out how to use MD5 in irrlicht, but I've seen some pretty impressive demos.



Just my 2 cents...