MegaGlest Forum
MegaGlest => MegaGlest => Topic started by: softcoder on 29 July 2012, 06:59:28
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While looking into getting MD5 working with MG I've decided to drop MD5 altogether in favour of IQM (http://lee.fov120.com/iqm/). IQM is public domain and designed by highly advanced open source developers who wanted a format that loads fast and offers good portability (like being able to use Blender). I searched for a long time to find an MD5 exporter in the latest release of Blender and found none that work. The IQM library allows converting to IQE (a text version) and offers many great and practical features. IQM takes ideas from MD5 and Valves SMD and solves a lot of problems around those formats.
Just thought I'd let people know about this because I've wasted enough time working in MD5 and wanted to let you know we are looking at using IQM now.
Thanks
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It's sad that the problems of the MD5 format have only shown after you already spent lots of hours on implementing it. :-/
I am, however, happy, that you found what seems to be a better replacement. That's (solely, because I couldn't comment on anything else) based on the projects using it, its self description, and its GPL-compatible license (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#PublicDomain) (it may be good to ask for it to be licensed under CC-0, though, so that a fall-back license is included where "ownership in the public domain" does not apply).
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Was .iqm ever implemented?
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I started into it, but eventually decided it was much lower priority (if needed at all) as no-one is really asking for it, and currently most modders already know and use g3d.
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I started into it, but eventually decided it was much lower priority (if needed at all) as no-one is really asking for it, and currently most modders already know and use g3d.
To be fair, I don't think a new model format alone is *that* exciting. But some of the potential features that could arise from such a format could be very interesting. A bone-based model would make ragdolls a possibility (highly advanced, but could make for some very interesting animations). Rotating turrets have been a feature request since time eternal. They don't *need* a new format, but I think the separation of meshes and animations would be helpful here.
One indirect advantage would be the improved converter support. We wouldn't have to maintain any tools ourselves (I think?).
A side note that the old link in the first post has broken. Here's a current link: http://sauerbraten.org/iqm/
But anyway, I agree with Softcoder, the priority isn't that high compared to a number of other features.
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I was mainly asking, as it would be a way to get these: https://forum.megaglest.org/index.php?topic=9324.0 into the game quickly.