Hi

im just starting out and i need some help. What are the general file formats that are used?

What file format is used for images? What file format is used for 3D meshes?

DDS is a Microsoftian format so it won't get you far on the Mac. PNG is pretty much standard, I think, although JPEG is good if you don't need transparency - I use a mixture of the two.
For 3D meshes, Wavefront OBJ format is fairly simple to load. If you need to include skeletons or some other sort of animation information you could look into ID Software's formats, since many of their engines are open source. Alternatively, you can create your own format. That lets you fine tune it to your requirements, but you'll have to write your own conversion code or even an editor. I'd look at writing a plugin for an existing modeller in that instance.

Hmm in a few days were gonna look up the animation part. Any recommendations?

(Aug 4, 2010 05:28 AM)qwsed Wrote:  Hmm in a few days were gonna look up the animation part. Any recommendations?

What kind of animation? Skin-and-bone animation of 3D models, like human figures? That's what backlash mentioned last in the previous post.

For images I would use DDS the tools on http://code.google.com/p/nvidia-texture-tools/ will help you compress images to them. DDS is also directly supported in most opengl implementations with GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT5_EXT

(Oct 30, 2010 04:23 PM)narpas Wrote:  For images I would use DDS the tools on http://code.google.com/p/nvidia-texture-tools/ will help you compress images to them. DDS is also directly supported in most opengl implementations with GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT5_EXT

I don't think I have any program that supports DDS. It feels like an obscure format that nobody knows about on the Mac. So OpenGL can decompress it on the GPU? Can it on all OpenGL implementations (EXT isn't necessary reliable), and are there any other formats that would have that advantage?

My favorite formats are TGA and PNG. TGAs are perfect for lab/demo usage, very simple loader, transparency and simple compression. PNGs are clearly better for a final product (better compression), but need a more complex loader. JPEG are interesting for high compression ratios, but then the loader gets much worse (you need libjpeg or similar).

DDS files are just images compressed with DXT compression I think (Though I've never actually used them). I'm sure nVidia has some command line tools for making them. DXT texture compression is pretty much universally supported on desktop GPUs from most of the last decade.

DDS is a really nice format. Yes, S3TC is supported everywhere. It is very widely used, admittedly probably mostly by folks who also have Windows ports.

If DDS is supported everywhere without extensions and because it is a command line tool you could just create a build script that compresses all your pngs in your project so you would never have to mess with them.

Is there anyone suggest me that what is most commonly used the format for 3D animation?

You mean like for skeletal animation? There really isn't one. On Mac I'd suggest you'd probably be best to go with Collada, although FBX would probably work too. Otherwise, just for simple textured static geometry, .obj is easily the most popular.