Ogre Forums

EDITED: Sorry.

twilight17 wrote:I think Ogre should support more file formats. Like .3ds, .blend (maybe), um, others. Because, really, the .mesh format sucks, and is a pain to convert to... I don't know if this has been discussed here before... but it really is one of Ogre's weak spots.

It's actually one of the better design decisions IMO. Chasing around N different changing formats is a bad idea. You export to .mesh, end of story. I vote strong no on this.

Have a proprietary mesh format allows Ogre to tweak it based on the needs of the engine, this makes it more efficient and faster to load and use. I think the real thing that is lacking is a nice set of tools!

What xavier and CaseyB said.
Plus: Ogre's mesh format doesn't suck at all, actually it is better suited for real-time applications than all other open and semi-open mesh formats I know of. It loads fast, it stores precomputed informations tailormade for Ogre's features, supports three distinct animation types and it is easy to write exporters for, due to serialization API and XML representation.

I dare to say, you don't have a clue about mesh file formats at all and then saying .mesh format sucks is pretty insolent.

Gotta vote no on this one...ogre is doing the right/smart thing already

Besides the pointless poll... New features should be debated and discussed with its pros and cons, not approved through randomly thrown votes

Because, really, the .mesh format sucks, and is a pain to convert to...

The only problems I found sometimes in to.mesh conversion came from the exporters, not the format.

Kencho wrote:Besides the pointless poll... New features should be debated and discussed with its pros and cons, not approved through randomly thrown votes

Yes after all this more engineering, than democracy and in engineering the right answer and the one people like/vote for the most are not always the same thing.

I like ogre's .mesh format. If you want to load other meshes directly no one is stopping you from making a mesh loader yourself.

Well, you don't see many games that use the original tool format (at least, I haven't seen any .max file in a game folder yet). In the end the moral is that you will end converting the file to an engine format, either for not distributing a format ready to be used and hacked in an existing tool, or for performance aspects (or most probably, both).

This issue has been discussed many times before, and the conclusion has always been the same. Indeed, this means the topic is duplicated, and thus not only the poll, but the whole thread is meaningless

twilight17 wrote:I think Ogre should support more file formats. Like .3ds, .blend (maybe), um, others. Because, really, the .mesh format sucks, and is a pain to convert to... I don't know if this has been discussed here before... but it really is one of Ogre's weak spots.

u must be kidding!
no valid reason on why the format suck and why is hard to convert to!?
Take a look at the intermediary xml export to better understand what the format contains...couldnt be simpler!

hah.. already 18-1 in favor of no. No surprises there, the mesh format is great - The hardest part is dealing with the variation in vertex declarations, but once you understand that the rest is simple and effective

I knew the "Ogre community" was going to react like this! you guys are stuck in a rut, all of you! WHATEVER close this thread.

Sorry to bring it up

CaseyB wrote:Have a proprietary mesh format allows Ogre to tweak it based on the needs of the engine, this makes it more efficient and faster to load and use. I think the real thing that is lacking is a nice set of tools!

Yes, i agree with CaseyB, ogre should Have its own set of tools, such as a stand-alone converter that will automatically recognize the file format, and convert it to XML, then it will ask you to convert to .mesh

Coming from B3D to Ogre I disliked the .mesh format at first. But there are too many advantages to using .mesh over other formats.

Especially .3ds that format must be about 20 years old by now. I know I used it before 3dsmax existed. It has almost no modern features.

I wouldn't mind seeing .mesh have support for a few extras that would be handy in games, like basic heirarchy. So you don't have to use .OSM or .Scene to build gameplay objects with helper nodes etc.

But even so the benefit of having .mesh which is updated in parallel to the engine and supports all new features directly is HUGE. All it takes it a simple tool to upgrade your old meshes to the newest version.

.3ds is stuck in the early 90's and is only really useful for static meshes, no vertex weighting for deforming meshes, no multi UV coordinates.

There really isn't a lot to choose from, sure there are better formats than .3dslike .obj and B3D which I liked a lot. But they were never intended for realtime rendering. Appart from the couple of features I would like in .mesh there really isn't a better format.

What is exactly your problem with this format?

Read. read what I've edited/posted. I don't have a problem with it anymore, I can understand why Ogre only supports 1 format. I agree with it now. case closed