Ok, Cep21 is making great strides in the jme format area. Therefore, I think we should consider the removal of the loaders and only use the jme loader with the format exporters. Cep21, do you feel comfortable with this, is the jme format ready to be the sole format? Others, are you relying on the other loaders right now? Are you ok, switching to the exporters/jme format? While there is still no release date for 0.7, I am starting to look into what this release will entail. Input appreciated.
Could you perhaps postpone this release a tiny bit, i know there is not dead line yet, but my holiday start this friday and I want to get stuck into making things for jme.
One of which is finishing of cloth/jelly/string, the other is adding more Transient effects. If thats ok with everybody?
I dont think LWJGL 1.0 will be out when we release 0.7, so motion blur and glow would have to be in 0.8 if thats ok?
As for the model thing, i fully support removing the other loaders and optimising for .jme
DP
Well, it’s hard to postpone if there’s not a date set. However, it will probably be a month or so, rather than weeks. My main goal is to get much of the user’s guide written.
phewf, i thought you were saying in terms of weeks/days.
No problem then.
DP
I’m in favour of removing the other loaders. I think the jme format is sufficiently developed to completely replace the current architechture. My only request is that the current loaders are archived somewhere.
As for the 0.7 release, I’ve completed an implementation of fragment programs on my local version. Once my new laptop arrives I’ll be able to test thouroughly and commit - definitely done before 0.7. Also, I’ll commit a final version of the PropertiesDialog that is fully cross-platform capable and renderer-agnostic. In addition, I’d like to write a few demos to show off the current graphical capabilties of jME. I’m hoping this will have the side-effect of producing a functional BumpMapping state.
The current .jme format is solid as far as I can tell. The only “bugs” i’ve had with loaders are in how the format is used, never in the format itself, but I do agree with archiving the current loaders.
A month should be sufficient for me to fully debug this .3ds loader and write up the .jME documentation, as well as profile fully the current loading system.
We’ll also need to port some of the demo models and such for tests. And we need to make sure porting a model continues to be as easy as possible or we’ll get a load of questions on here.
Is it ok to clean up the CVS a bit and delete the old model loading system. It’s all supported in the new one. I have the code backed up already, you could back it up too?
I’m going to wait on Renanse on this. I know for his game he is using a NWN model loader that they wrote, and I’m not sure what his plans were from it. As soon as he says deleting the loaders won’t affect him, I’ll do it.
Is his NWN loader contributable to jME? If not I may write one. Text format is a lot easier to parse.
x format is ascii… (though can be saved as binary or compressed binary)
nwn…I think was a good thing. Max and blender have exporters for it.
Only thing is I don’t yet know if it supports weights and bones.If so, would also rock 
I wouldnt use time now in code something not having weights and bone, is the only important format feature needed now in jME…
(it’d be MDS, MD5, X…and probably NWN…One of these…)
I am a bit afraid of this last format…seems is derived from mdl…and that would mean… noweights…only rigid vertex asignment, like Milkshape does…
Maybe Bioware has improved it…the problem is the only model format I have ensured that works well with weights and teh available free tools, is the x format…
But I’m doing right now a quick research about nwn…
from a faq… :
“I hope these haven’t been answered. Tia. EDIT- By the way, how does the soft body deformation works… say, for the hair and clothing. Are they separate meshes or can you specify which vertices to deform?
Yes, you paint vertex weights on to the mesh to be effected. This requires a little data entry as well in a 2DA file.”
paint weights…that may mean perhaps is support after…all but read other place that is texture based, which would be no good…it’d be like a shader…
seems here a format specs of the NWN mdl format…
http://www.wnwn.net/mdl/
a guy making a nwn java 3d viewer, seems he found a way to load weights in the models; is not clear to me if that is in format , or he added it as an extra :
Revinor NeverwinterNights Utilities
Jump to “15th July, 2002” news in that page.
a very interesting manual on the NWN plugin for Blender :
http://www.beastwithin.org/users/wwwwolf/games/nwn/gametools/neverblender/manual.html
WOAH :
“Animations are not yet supported at all, but they will be done through Actions with object-linked Armatures. More details will come as code will be written.”
No bones support!!!
No way for Blender.
“When happy with the look, I usually combine some of the nodes, add danglymesh modifiers to make the bouncy parts bounce, and add skin effects to the robe section (which involves setting up bones and adding skin weights for the bend and stretch effects and then more testing) Sometimes, changes have to be made to the model here too.”
Seems then some users, with max, can do weights…
http://ccg.dladventures.com/index.php/NWMax
from the NWMAX script for max…
" Skin Dumper allows the saving annd loading of skin weights to/from file"
I hope are real weights and not 1.0 like milkshape ones…
There seem to be a gmax exporter. Comercial use of gmax is always doubtful… and is not open source, very limited for making scripts fo rit.
yup, confirmed, no animation export from blender. Real pages of the plugin :
http://www.beastwithin.org/users/wwwwolf/games/nwn/gametools/neverblender/
http://projects.blender.org/projects/neverblender/
Not to contradict you, but I’d rather go with x or md5…
but it also must be as you find more fun
Hey guys,
I’d have to talk to Graum about us donating the NWN stuff (likely ok), but is there a point if we are throwing out loaders?
As for throwing out loaders, I don’t think that will hurt our game. We use com.jme.scene.model.Face and Model, otherwise we don’t use anything else in that package.
And model’s just a node really. If you gave me the NWN loader code, I’ld be able to port it to jME’s binary/XML system.
Cep, what can you handle in your binary stuff? I’m not sure if the NWN format would work well because the format has the animations, model geometry, textures, particle effects, sound timing and weights all rolled into one. Textures also have special loading requirements because of the way colors are added in.
PS: snaga, I’m not saying NWN format is what anyone should go with, just was what we decided to go with for our first game using jME.
the animations, model geometry, textures, particle effects, sound timing and weights all rolled into one
Well it's not supported yet, but I'ld add XML support for it if I had it. The format's very extendable. It took me all of 5 minutes to add 3ds support. Is your code documented by any chance? :)
PS: Is this an ok to clean up the loading? I'd like to throw away the Model class as well so not to create confusion on how to load models. It's a pretty tiny class, think you could just copy it into your game if you're using it?
ok, renanse…yep, I don’t think is the better format, but after all is a format with weights…(from what you say)
For the poor people 
: I think there’s a working GMAX script for NWN. I hope it is complete.
just gmax legal issues…but I think is more or less safe use it if no money gain happens.
I’m not too familiar with other formats, but in NWN, weights can be applied per vertex… I’m still working on supporting that though.
Cep: I’ve migrated our code away from Model, but we still use Face. If you want to nix that one too, please let me know.