Model Loading support.

[TrXtR]

Hi, I'm moving from DirectX to OpenGL.
I would like to know, is there Any model loading library's for openGL ?
Not portaLib, cause I dont want something that modifies my whole application structure.

Or do I have to sit and waste allot of time writing my own ?

[TrXtR]

Ey ppl.

I found the answer.
I downlaoded this whole group, and then search the html for .3ds. And what did I find ??

Thanks to Lev who posted the following message a long time ago (posted 05-20-2001 02:50 PM)

Lev >

Hello!
Well thats not exactly OpenGL issue, but anyway.. I was feeling that
many people have 1 problem with 3D graphics: the data to work with. I
mean 3D graphics is about APIs and so on, but you also need some 3D
stuff to play with. And writing you own 3D modeller is a vast task.

Most people who work in a professional environment have access to
packages like 3D Studio MAX, Maya, Softimage, ... which allow you to
export the data to you own format by writing a plugin, which is a matter
of <=2 days.

But many students and people who cannot afford this expensive software
have to use existing public domain data which is available on the
internet. The problem here is that there are many file formats and many
are not that easy to read. OBJ seems to be quite popular among beginners
but only a small part is available in this format.

The most common format is 3ds, but its not officially documented and not
as easy to read as obj files. So what I did was to write a 3ds loader
which abstracts the 3ds file structure and gives the developer direct
access to 3D data, allowing to save in any format. This was a nice
exersise for a weekend. When it was ready I realized that maybe other
people will find it useful and wrote a short docs for it. Its c++ based
and really very easy to use (in contrast with most other 3ds readers
i've seen (lib3ds, ...)). The source code is under modified BSD lisence
so that anyone may use it for anything. And my another aim was to make
it ready-to-use: no dynamic libs, bo static libs, just 2 files, include
them in your project and it works!

Anyway sorry for too many words, just take a look here if you wish: http://www.stud.uni-goettingen.de/~npovala/

Greetings,
-Lev