3DS, wavefront obj and milkshape ascii loader for delphi

[noeska]

glModel (former name gl3ds) started out as a unit for loading .3ds files and rendering it using opengl.
It has been under development since 2002. From an 3ds loader it evolved to a multi format 3d object loader and saver.
Still new features are being added.

glModel loads

3D Studio files (.3ds) supporting meshes and materials
milkshape ascii files (.txt) supporting meshes, materials, bones and animations.
wavefront files (.obj) supporting meshes and materials
direct x ascii files (.x) supporting meshes and materials (broken)

glModel saves

milkshape ascii files (.txt) supporting meshes and materials
wavefront files (.obj) supporting meshes and materials

glModel has 2 render paths:
-OpenGL 1.0
-OpenGL 1.5 with vbo's

glModel is released under the mozilla public license.

The latest version of glModel can be found on http://www.noeska.com/dogl/glmodel.aspx and / or my latest post in this thread.

[WILL]

Excellent! I have made fair use of 3ds myself, I hope this project continues to get developed.

[noeska]

the gl3ds loader has been updated to support bumpmapping.

[noeska]

Just to let you know i am still working on gl3ds.

Currently i am rewriting it to be be more 'modular' E.g. There now is a tmodel class works like timage. So in the futere more 3d object formats could be easily added in.
Render is now handled in inherited classes so (in theory) it is now easier to render models in other ways so it is drawn more efficiently.
Also maintenance will be easier as all code parts are seperated instead of having all in one large file.

The thing i am trying to improve is that some models still refuse to load properly like a car model that refuses to load properly. (Luckily) other commercial applications also have lots of problems with that model. But i have a feeling that most models are rendered correctly with the latest complete example for 3ds i released (way back). That is the main reason i did not release newer versions of yet.

Also i am stil working on getting a 3ds mesh to play its animations. But the results are to experimental to be published.

For getting animation into gl3ds i could use some help from people wo can read french! On the following thread there is a lively discussion on getting animation from 3ds models: http://forum.games-creators.org/showthread.php?t=3421 . I do not read french, but it seems to me that even skeleton animation would be possible from an 3ds file (WOW). But as i cannot read french :-( .

gl3ds already knows bone animation for milkshape animations so if i know what to read from the 3ds file it should be doable.

For milkhsape ascii a bone and animation save is in the pipeline, but for that i first need to finish the rewrite of gl3ds.
So when the new version is ready it should allow to make a 3D file converter from it or even something like milkhsape can be made with it.

But i feel it should be renamed from gl3ds to ?, let me know. And those wo read French do give me translations!

[tpascal]

Yes, old 3ds file format support bones + animations, however the info about that topic is hard to find.

I sugest a old library released by autodesk called "3ds file toolkit" which allow to not just read but also write 3ds files in a esier way (forget about those chunk parser) so you get everything supported by 3ds files including bones and animations,

http://www.dxtre3d.com/temp/3dsftk.zip

It include the documentation in ms WORD (*.doc) format and some examples.

Unfortunatelly the library is for C language; few months ago i had the plan to build a wrapper DLL in C for been then used by delphi to return just the meshes, bones and animations in a structure similar to ms3d file format; i tried the demos included in the package and I even build a DLL that pass dumy data to delphi so i know it is perfectly posible however i abandoned the plan becouse...1.- i confirmed that i really hate the C language, 2.- then i was thinking if it is really worth the effort, the 3ds is an old format that dosent support weigthed vertex which is almost a must in these days, so for me maybe it would be a better idea to use now popular half life SMD format for get skined models in my engine.

The package include the full source code in C if you or someoene else want to do the herculean effort of a Pascal convertion; or if you want to develomp a wrapper DLL.

good luck.

[noeska]

Finally a new release of gl3ds. It is now at v3.0alpha.

New features are:
- Multiple fileformat support (works like TImage)
- Multiple rendertarget support.

But do no go ahead and use it your next project yet.
As it is a total rewrite of gl3ds some old bugs may be back and some now may be there also.

Do test it. And report the bugs found.

Basic usage:

[code=pascal]var
scene1: TBaseRender;

//Init
scene1 := TGlRender.Create(nil);
scene1.AddModel();
scene1.Models[0].LoadFromFile('hog2.txt');
scene1.UpdateTextures;
scene1.Init;

//Render
Scene1.AdvanceAnimation;
Scene1.Render;

//Close
scene1.Free;[/code]

Traveler: post edited to check new pascal syntax highlighter

[noeska]

Finally a new release of gl3ds. It is now at v3.1alpha.

New features are:
- Support for reading the wavefront .obj fileformat
- Some small bugfixes

In the pipeline is support for reading the dirext .x fileformat

[savage]

cool! and good to see it still being updated.

[noeska]

The project recieved a new name: glModel

Besides the new name the project now has a svn repository and wavefront files (.obj) can now be saved.

Site:
http://www.noeska.com/dogl/glmodel.aspx

[NecroDOME]

Nice, I'll check it when I get home!