Okay, I wasn't going to give this away, but what the hell...
The BEST file format I've found (and I've done a LOT of looking) is ASE - ASCII Scene Export. It deals with pretty much EVERYTHING, including lights and cameras. There are also a number of freeware variations (.RTX is one) that deal with bones and skin.
Now, the reasons this format is ideal are
A) they are easy to read, hence
B) they are reasonably easy to parse
C) 3DMax has an ASCII exporter built in as does
D) Milkshape AFAIK, and
E) Writing an exporter that writes data to text is relatively simple.
I started doing an ASE to B3D converter in Blitz3D last week, and although given enough time I might be able to finish it myself, it's probably better that I turn it over to the community. My main worry is that I've never done anything involving bones, and I can't get my head around how B3Ds store animation data (even hierarchy).
I wont post the code now, but if anybody is interested in taking this further (and has the skill - its NOT easy) then post here and I'll put up the code I've done as a base.
Beware, I don't do a lot of commenting!
I've got it to read in the materials, sub materials, geometry data for individual objects, faces, and normals, (all in types) and the framework allows other data to be read by adding a couple of lines. The main issue is with writing the data back to a .B3D.
The BEST file format I've found (and I've done a LOT of looking) is ASE - ASCII Scene Export. It deals with pretty much EVERYTHING, including lights and cameras. There are also a number of freeware variations (.RTX is one) that deal with bones and skin.
Now, the reasons this format is ideal are
A) they are easy to read, hence
B) they are reasonably easy to parse
C) 3DMax has an ASCII exporter built in as does
D) Milkshape AFAIK, and
E) Writing an exporter that writes data to text is relatively simple.
I started doing an ASE to B3D converter in Blitz3D last week, and although given enough time I might be able to finish it myself, it's probably better that I turn it over to the community. My main worry is that I've never done anything involving bones, and I can't get my head around how B3Ds store animation data (even hierarchy).
I wont post the code now, but if anybody is interested in taking this further (and has the skill - its NOT easy) then post here and I'll put up the code I've done as a base.
Beware, I don't do a lot of commenting!
I've got it to read in the materials, sub materials, geometry data for individual objects, faces, and normals, (all in types) and the framework allows other data to be read by adding a couple of lines. The main issue is with writing the data back to a .B3D.