Feedback Needed: GHOUL3 format

[Xycaleth]

Ghoul 2 already uses skeletal animations o.O

[Lord Grievous]

Really? I always though it uses vertex deformation

 

Well ahem, good work then

[Archangel35757]

Really? I always though it uses vertex deformation

 

Well ahem, good work then

...that would be MD3 format.

[Dusty]

As for the animations, if you did this @@eezstreet, you would have my undying love and devotion. Is that why animations have always been hardcoded? It is related to limitations of ghoul2?

 

If you ever wanted help with this, how does one learn about creating new file formats? I've always been fascinated by that kind of thing.

[eezstreet]

Animations being hardcoded really has nothing to do with the Ghoul2 format, and more to do with how the animation system is coded. You see, the skeleton format is just a series of frames with no rhyme or reason behind them, and the animation.cfg is what binds the frames to specific animations.

 

What makes animations so hardcoded is very simple; the game just wasn't built for adding more animations. It's just a table of animations with strings mapping to integer values which is easier to work with.

 

As far as file formats are concerned, you have to consider the following:

 

- Is this something which I want people to edit quickly, but not necessarily load quickly and space isn't an issue? Go with a plaintext format, like JSON or the formats that JKA has for .sab, .npc, etc.

 

- Is this something which I want to load quickly, or contains so much data that space becomes an issue? Go with binary data, like JPG or something.

 

Loading binary data is way easier unless you use a library. In which case, loading plaintext data can be a cinch: https://github.com/JKGDevs/JediKnightGalaxies/blob/develop/codemp/game/bg_jetpacks.cpp

 

Model data is normally binary but COLLADA (.dae) files are notably plaintext. I think FBX may be, too.

 

Note though, because I feel like this needs repeated. This is just an ideas thread; I don't really have any motivation to work on a new format.

[DT.]

I'd rather see someone enable the use of other file formats for player models and animations. Wouldn't mind giving IQM a whirl for player models.