The best Fileformat ?

Hi all,

Im a fellow 3d modeller whos currently modding for UFO Afterlight.
A programmer asked me to figure out the best file format for
import/exporting the gamefiles. MD5Mesh is the only format i know
of that has weighted bones and can be exported from GMax.
Is there any other file format that is commonly used and cabable
to store bonedata etc?

there are lots of file formats but the question is what can open the files and utilise the information and is there a plugin for gmax or a simular program that can do the same ...

also is gmax the best availble?
dose the Afterlight support other types of animation files? where there are no bones needed ?

Respects

Drew

Well the UFo file format does support animation, wouldnt make much sense to store bonedata without animating them eh ?

Im not familiar withthe technical details, noone is exept the official team i guess, the game isnt even out yet.

But lets break the question down to a simple one: Which fileformat can store weighted bonedata + animationdata and is the most common format no matter if its from gmax, maya or whomever ?

lol you still not quite expalin ....

as most 3d games in the industry can hold all this data in it's own native file format and can deliver the goods at the end of the day, it is just the amount of hoops that the home user has to jump through becouse they don't have a c# dev team to build an exporter to these engines ....

one of the up and comming file formats is DTS for the garage games torque engine as it is growing in popularity in student users wanting to delve into the game industry. but UT and Quake are the top of the game these native file formats can take all the bones and wieghts and actually animate in the engine saving import issues ...

But as for the Silent Storm engine i have little knowledge of this rusian company Nival Interactive other than that they are commiting a lot of resources into facial animation plugin for the engine and their involvement in the Might and Magic series, They do have full editable levels and props but not shure what file import type is it's native and what export fomat support there is for 3d apps, but would be willing to do some tests to see how versatile these formats are, but would need to do the research on the bone count, morphs, poly max, bitmap sizes, colour depth, file size, animation length ect

Soz not of much help
Respects

Drew