OGRE format questions

The place for artists, modellers, level designers et al to discuss their approaches for creating content for OGRE.
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yannischris
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OGRE format questions

Post by yannischris »

Hello all,

I thought that the OGRE format is only a native format for the Ogre engine but I just found out that it is also used extensively in jMonkey engine. So are we talking about the same format?

What is the difference between the .mesh file and the mesh.xml file?

Does the Ogre format support saving animations for a 3d character?

Basically I looked for info regarding the Ogre format, and I find it hard because I keep on finding pages that refer to the Ogre engine, rather than the content format. So can anyone post a link that has info on the Ogre format (e.g. features, tools/engines that support it etc)?

Last thing, do you happen to know of web resources where I can find free content in OGRE format, e.g. a basic male/female character (and possibly rigged)?

Thanks!
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Kojack
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by Kojack »

There is no real documentation on the ogre mesh format besides the source code itself, or ogre specific docs which don't apply to other engines. Although several engines use ogre meshes (visual3d, irrlicht, jmonkey), the format wasn't designed for that. It's made to match ogre's features.
Does the Ogre format support saving animations for a 3d character?
Ogre meshes support:
- multiple named bone based skeleton animations (when a .skeleton file is used)
- multiple named morph vertex animations
- multiple named pose animations
What is the difference between the .mesh file and the mesh.xml file?
.mesh.xml is a text based xml file. It's used purely as an intermediate format between 3d software exporters and ogre. The ogrexmlconverter program can convert a .mesh.xml into .mesh. Ogre itself doesn't understand .mesh.xml.
.mesh is ogre's mesh format. It's a binary file which is much smaller and faster to load than an xml file. Some exporters (like ogremax) can write directly to .mesh files, but most write to the .mesh.xml format first then use ogrexmlconverter.

You can also go the other way, the ogrexmlconverter can convert a .mesh back into a .mesh.xml, in case you want to look at the data in a text editor.
yannischris
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by yannischris »

Hello again and thanks for the info!
Great to hear that Ogre format supports these animation types.
Last thing: Supposing I have a 3d animated character model in some other format, e.g. collada, obj, or 3ds. Are there any "safe" ways to convert that into the Ogre format (mesh + animations) and actually work?

Thanks,
tothmarcell97
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by tothmarcell97 »

yannischris wrote:Hello again and thanks for the info!
Great to hear that Ogre format supports these animation types.
Last thing: Supposing I have a 3d animated character model in some other format, e.g. collada, obj, or 3ds. Are there any "safe" ways to convert that into the Ogre format (mesh + animations) and actually work?

Thanks,
I don't know if there is a direct way to convert. But for example there is a fully working Blender exporter, so anything that you can import into Blender can be exported to Ogre. (I only use Blender, but I think there are good exporters for other applications too)
yannischris
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by yannischris »

OK thanks!
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by yannischris »

I saw here that there is an exporter for Maya.

- But does this work with the latest version of Maya (Maya 2012) or I need to isntall an older version?

- Is the Maya Exporter fully functional? For example, can I create and rig a model, and then create some animations for it, and export them all to the OGRE format?

Thanks,
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by Kojack »

I saw here that there is an exporter for Maya.
But does this work with the latest version of Maya (Maya 2012) or I need to isntall an older version?
Well, the first section of that page is titled "Maya 2011 - 2012 exporter for Windows".
So I'm guessing it supports 2012. :)
Is the Maya Exporter fully functional?
No idea on that, I haven't used it since 2004 and that mesh didn't need animation.

OgreMax supports Maya 2012 (and XSI 2012), but the free version has the same limits as the free Max version (1 texture layer, 1 uv coord set, 5 animations per mesh).
yannischris
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by yannischris »

Well, the first section of that page is titled "Maya 2011 - 2012 exporter for Windows".
So I'm guessing it supports 2012. :)
Ooooooupss! I didn't see that ;-)

Thanks for the OgreMax suggestion! But the restriction of 5 animations may be a problem.
So, does anybody know if the Maya Exporter has any limit on number-of-animations export (does it support animation to start with)?

Thanks,
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by metaldev »

yannischris wrote:
Well, the first section of that page is titled "Maya 2011 - 2012 exporter for Windows".
So I'm guessing it supports 2012. :)
Ooooooupss! I didn't see that ;-)

Thanks for the OgreMax suggestion! But the restriction of 5 animations may be a problem.
So, does anybody know if the Maya Exporter has any limit on number-of-animations export (does it support animation to start with)?

Thanks,
If you use the native exporter together with my tool set, you can save any number of animations to any number of skeletons or objects in a Maya scene.
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by yannischris »

By "native exporter" you refer to the Maya exporter I was asking about?
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by metaldev »

yannischris wrote:By "native exporter" you refer to the Maya exporter I was asking about?
yes
yannischris
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Re: OGRE format questions

Post by yannischris »

ok thanks! I will surely use that! :-)
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