Howdy
(if you don’t like random rambling you should skip the first part … 
)
ok … after i tried to implement a gpu enabled terrain engine with little sucess i’m now trying to write a little ‘indoor’ engine using ABT’s ( Adaptive Binary Trees ). i made a little test ‘map’ in blender (actually just a small box inside a big one) and decided to export it as an 3ds file and hoped i could load via Loader3Ds (or TDSLoader) but both loaders refused to load the model
this is the point where i began to think if it’s reasonable to use proprietary formats like 3ds, obj or similiar
when i found an old post about x3d (which is a xml based format for webdistributed 3d content) and had a look into this topic i was convinced that this would be the ideal format for almost any kind of 3d content. in one simple ( ok that one is relative ) xml file whole worlds where defined … geometry, apperance, interaction and runtime behavior all in one file
i believe the benefits from using x3d as a map (or level or world choose as you wish) format would:
-
an open, 3d editor independent format which is based on the xml file format
as a result there are output plugins or scripts for almost every 3d editor -
support for animation buildin
for ‘small’ animations like rotors, engines or windmills that don’t really affect gameplay -
scripting is build in too
ok … x3d just says that there can be scripts and plugins -
interaction buildin
x3d defines some interaction objects like timesensors, touchsensors, interpolators and similiar which could be used for scripting -
a scenegraph architecture similiar to xith
come to think of it … it is really very similiar … and the name two … 0o -
extendable by components
the x3d standard defines several profiles, every profile loads several components, a x3d file declares which components it uses, a loader or browser that doesn’t support component xyz would fail to start or give a warning, implemented properly everybody could register own components to extend his x3d files, i’m thinking of (Jo)ode support or similiar - i suppose there are more things to list here … but i cannot think of more
now my plan:
altough i would try to write a full featured x3d loader (complete with animation and more) by myself i reckon that this is a job to big that i could handle this alone. i ask everybody who’s interested to join me. i don’t even claim to be in charge of this project. and i haven’t written anything yet, only plans in my head. maybe i should write something first and than ask again … hmm
comments and criticism please
So long … Florian