Milkshape Loader/Viewer with full animation support

[nala-naj]

I had been looking for a lwjgl milkshape loader/viewer with full animation support for a good while.  I found a bunch of loaders, basically versions of the NEHE model loader tutorial, but most of them only worked with one texture and did not support animations.  So I ended up writing one myself, and would like to contribute it back to the community if there is a desire.

Current Features:
- Full milkshape animation support
- Full texture mapping support
- Uses the ascii model for loading (so you would have to export any ms3d model as ascii for this to work - I'm not too worried about loading speed right now )

I have a demo, which contains a sample model if you do not have one, that you can try out.  Sorry it's not WebStart because my webspace will not add the jnlp mimetype  

http://mypage.iu.edu/~natjohns/najgl/

I have a few things to fix before I would release the code, but you can see the functionality at least.  One of the things that needs fixed is my timer, so if the animations are too fast or too slow, use the up and down arrow keys to correct the problem.

I have not tested on anything but Windows with jdk 1.4.2 so I would be interested in hearing how it works for people.  Also, I am not too familiar with how to release demos, so I packed the lwjgl dll files in my downloadable zip -- please let me know if I am doing anything wrong.  The demo is an executable jar and their are instuctions on the website for running it.

Let me know what you think.

BTW: I hope to have the source available by the end of the week.


Thanks to everyone for answering my questions over the past few weeks!  You have been very helpful and a big part of keeping me moving forward on my little project.

[Matzon]

nice, runs perfectly!
Now I only need to make a game to accompany the loader

[nala-naj]

The source is there... it's not as pretty as I would like, but if I waited until I was happy with it, I'd never release it

http://mypage.iu.edu/~natjohns/najgl/

I will be out of town for a week, but will reply if people have questions when I get back.

Enjoy.

[whome]

I've always wondered what is a milkshape. (true true, I know nothing about 3d basics yet).

[PlanetMongo]

Milkshape is a relatively inexpensive 3D modelling tool.  Growing in popularity, quite a few export formats, did I mention inexpensive?
here, have a look:
http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/ms3d/
For $25, it's considered quite a steal.
Personally, my "3D" kits consists of Wings3D and Blender3D (both free), but one day I'd like to add Milkshape in there.  

[Morgrog]

how does Wings3D fare against Blender3D (different learning curves? which is easier to integrate with openGL? Animation, which is easier? Custom shading? :twisted:)


(edit: I had the wrong devil dude, it was frowning when it should have been maliciously smiling)

[PlanetMongo]

Mo:
To be perfectly honest, I've not gone much farther than just installing the damn things and making sure they at least load up.    However, I've perused many many forums (forii?) and here's the impression that I get:
They're not really competitors in the strictest of sense.  A LOT of blender guys use Wings for modelling, as Wings makes modelling easy! </strongbad> They then export to VRML, then import into blender and then do their scenes and what not, then export for a Yafray render, unless they like the built-in renderer (rumor has it that Yafray will be "integrated" into blender one day).  Wings also has direct Yafray support, so you can render right there and see what you're looking for.  
AFAIK, there is no animation support in Wings3D (although there is in Milkshape).  I could be wrong, though, so don't be surprised if you find it.
Wings3D is supposedly wicked-easy to learn, blender has the learning curve of nuclear physics.  Once you get used to blender, though, it makes sense.  It's just getting used to it that's the primary problem.  
Custom shading?  Dunno.  Blender is trying to go the route of Maya, I think, and make everything extensible through Python (where Maya uses MELScript).  Don't expect that to be true until 3.0, though.    

My "workflow" as planned:
Modelling in Wings
Texturing in Gimp (or Photoshop, depends on the platform I'm on at the time)
Rendering in Yafray unless I have scenes to setup (then use Blender)
Consider that I'm doing sprite-based work (textured quads) and not full screen images (other than backgrounds, which blender and bryce should cover fairly well..)

[Morgrog]

cool, I'm gonna start with sprite stuff myself (burgertime remake anyone?)

So I'll eventually check it out (once I'm tired of drawing pixelised fat cooks stepping over walking sausages)