On 25 Dec 2004, at 14:43, Chris Metzler wrote:
This is absolutely the wrong approach; the .blend file (like the .3ds format) is a very, rich, complex format that evolves with Blender releases. Just like 3DS, it is a dreadful format to import / export, and no-one should try.
A plib loader for .blend would, IMHO, be an incredible boon for FG. As
noted, ac3d file format can't include specular/diffuse shading info.
Blender/.blend files also give you the ability to texture an object's
faces in a fashion other than UV mapping -- by assigning (named) materials
to faces, and then assigning different textures to the different
materials. ac3d files can't do this. There's a lot of other .blend
functionality that ac3d can't do (e.g. procedural textures), but these
two are the ones that have bitten me so far.
The correct approach is to pick a format that makes sense for FlightGear (whatever that may be), and write / find / improve a Blender exporter script (which are written in Python) for that format. The exporter API evolves slowly across Blender releases and is stable for precisely this reason.
BTW, this is why 3DS do not document their file format, but do provide a very good exporter API. All commerical games invariably use an efficent, renderer specific format for their meshes; early in the development cycle they write a 3DS exporter (or Maya, etc) and give it to the artists, and that it the tool-chain. For plib, that format would probably be some kind of serialised representation of the scene-graph, but I'm not a PLIB expert.
BTW, I have been through this cycle with WorldForge clients; currently one client loads 3DS files, but we are hurriedly switching to 'export' formats (as opposed to editable ones) becuase the 3DS loaders are enormous and complex. Trying to load 3DS / .blend / .lwo (and, I would contend, .ac3d) is analagous to saying FG should load it's textures as XCFs / .psps / PaintShopPro files - it's possible, but why on earth would you go to so much effort?
H&H James
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