jas format

[yves]

Hi There,

I'm writing an importer for the .jas format and I would like to know if there is an available documentation describing it. I saw that it is pretty easy to read, but I'm not sure how is structured the XML binary data sections which is used to store vertices, uv, etc. Are they simple floating point arrays ?

Thank you for your help.

PS: Congratulation for this great software.

[Martin]

Hi,
writing a complete .jas loader will be lots of work. Especially since many things are saved parametrically. So to fully load a .jas file you also have to implement subdivision surfaces, all parametric polygon and spline objects and so on.

For what purpose do you need the .jas file import. Maybe the FBX file format is easier to use. Especially since there exist a free FBX file loading SDK. And since the objects are already flattened in the FBX file. So you just have to read in the polygon data.

Bye,
Martin

[yves]

Hello Martin,

Thank you for your answer.

Well, I'm only interested by polygonal objects (basically faces, vertices, uv, normals, etc.), not the whole format. However I really need to be able to grab the hierarchies.

Now I'll check the FBX sdk, maybe it is the easier way to go.

Thanks,
Yves.

[gperks]

I know in the future I will be interested in using Cheetah to define objects for an OpenGL program (say spaceships or monsters for a game or whatever). I haven't starting looking into this yet. Is FBX the place I should start?

[Martin]

Originally Posted by yves

Well, I'm only interested by polygonal objects (basically faces, vertices, uv, normals, etc.), not the whole format. However I really need to be able to grab the hierarchies.

FBX has the hierarchies too. FBX files can contain the most important 3D model data like the mesh, the materials, animation data, skeletal data etc.

That's why FBX became so popular as a 3D exchange file format.

Bye,
Martin

[Martin]

Originally Posted by gperks

I know in the future I will be interested in using Cheetah to define objects for an OpenGL program (say spaceships or monsters for a game or whatever). I haven't starting looking into this yet. Is FBX the place I should start?

Yes, FBX would be an excellent place to start. It is a modern and robust file format which can contain almost everything you will need for a game.

If you are interested in game development you might also check out http://otee.dk. They also use FBX for their game development environment.

Bye,
Martin

[yves]

Originally Posted by Martin

FBX has the hierarchies too. FBX files can contain the most important 3D model data like the mesh, the materials, animation data, skeletal data etc.

That's why FBX became so popular as a 3D exchange file format.

Bye,
Martin

Just downloaded the API, looks good (it will definitively save me some work ). Thanks for the information.


Regards,
Yves.