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Geek Culture / About time to - Universal 3D graphics file format

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APEXnow
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 01:29
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Read more at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/21/intel_u3d/


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CattleRustler
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 02:14
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sweet. Finally something good.


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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 02:37
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my money is on DirectX Object Format 8.0 becomming the new standard.
Currently MDL (Quake-Based), XOF & NVB seem to be the majorly used formats.


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Ian T
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 02:49 Edited at: 23rd Apr 2004 02:49
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Quote: "the intention is to create a way of encoding 3D data as freely available as MP3 for audio and JPEG for still images."


The problem's obvious. MP3 and JPEG each store data for a single, static piece of hardware output, for sound and video respectively. 3d is constantly changing, with new features always on the horizon. Texture mapping, colored lighting, hardware acceleration, mesh deformation, bump mapping, shader technology... the list goes on. A universal format would have to be constantly updated to be able to keep all this data, and in this constant updating would get bloated with a large amount of features the average game or application would never use.

Thus private file formats remain the king.

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Fallout
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 05:47
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Long live the king!

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Dave J
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 10:12
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Sounds interesting but I doubt there will ever be a universal file format, for reasons basically the same as what Mouse said.


Btw APEXnow, as long as you're here (saves me having to write an email or two), are TGC still purchasing tutorials? People have told me they're not but I'd like to hear it from someone involved. I.e. You or Rich. Cheers, and sorry for going off-topic.


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IanM
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 10:17
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Quote: "my money is on DirectX Object Format 8.0 becomming the new standard"


Nah, it never quite works that way. Standards committees always take an existing system and then add in everyone elses contribution. Still, DX seems like the likely format for them to build upon.

Besides, one of the stated reasons for the new format is to drive up the demand for faster processors and graphics cards. You can only really do that by making the format more intensive to process. One way of doing so is to make it try to cover everything ...

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las6
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 11:08
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Funny thing about the U3D, just take a look what companies are behind it. Can you see Discreet or any other major 3d modellin program creators?

There's your Intel, they make cpu's and chipsets as we all know so very well.
Adobe, they do the Layout, Image & Video Editing tool. Everythin 2D, you could say.
Boeing, Now here's where it gets interesting. What does an aeroplane company has to do with some universal 3d file format?

then there are others, like ATI, which finally makes sense and then there's some more aeroplane manufacturers like Dassault Systemes.

I really don't think this format is for gaming, more like autocad format replacement.


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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 11:17
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They could Ian, but XOF really does cover almost everything as is.
Aside from Shader Materials (MDL v2) and Normal Mapping (NVB), XOF has it. You combine this with it has 3 possible animation structures, it really does have it all.

The most impressive part of XOF v8 is the Future Proofing.
In other word Microsoft just have to set a new standard for the header code (which is currently 64bits, only 16 are currently used) and then explain the structure of it and et voila support with back compatibility for hardware that doesn't support the feature

I've always been impressed with Microsoft's 'think of every scenario' way of developing. Makes for cumbersome and complex things, but often straight forward.


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las6
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 11:22
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I think I might go with the Microsoft option too. trouble is, the U3D is microsoft supported too.

as for the mp3 reference, you know how currently the mp3 format is quite flexible. Variable bitrates and such are possible now and those weren't in the original format. So all you need to do is make the format flexible enough, so that it can take new stuff but if an older program reads it, it will read only the parts that it knows. So the actual format doesn't have to change a bit, only the programs / code that reads it has to be updated to take advantage of the new features.

btw, does anyone have the specs for the U3D. They are available, if you can manage to register into the 3DIF. But the registration has to be authorized by an admin there, and they even require you to tell your phone number!


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BatVink
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 15:34
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Any Tagged format would be adaptable to future requirements. Jpegs are tagged, for example, hence the ability for Camera manufacturers to store date, time and camera settings with the picture. If you load it in any other software, it simply ignores the unknown tags.

And take a look at HTML/XML, same thing applies.

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IanM
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 21:12
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Ah, reminds me of the days when IFF was introduced ...

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Ian T
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Posted: 23rd Apr 2004 21:22
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Quote: "Aside from Shader Materials (MDL v2) and Normal Mapping (NVB), XOF has it. You combine this with it has 3 possible animation structures, it really does have it all."


I wasn't aware it stored camera, light, and scene data, correct me if I'm wrong, Robert.

Quote: "Any Tagged format would be adaptable to future requirements. Jpegs are tagged, for example, hence the ability for Camera manufacturers to store date, time and camera settings with the picture. If you load it in any other software, it simply ignores the unknown tags.

And take a look at HTML/XML, same thing applies."


That's a good point, but too many tags and the format still gets bloated, right? Even a wholly modular design system at minimal settings is larger in scale than one designed to be wholly minimal.

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IanM
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 12:24
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As the X format is currently a model format, I'm not surprised that it doesn't contain scene data ... but it could with the addition of a few tags.

True about the bloat, but it's the price you have to pay for an open-ended system.

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Ian T
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Posted: 24th Apr 2004 23:43
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Agreed, and a universal format could be a very good thing. My point was simply that for people making large scale, specific projects, formats designed for the task are still going to be best. 'If you want something done right...'!

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APEXnow
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Posted: 25th Apr 2004 03:23
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Exeat, sorry for not replying sooner. I've spoken to Rich lately about why the tutorial work that was done by myself, is not published. Basically it comes down to time and management I think. Rich has received the tutorial work tidied up and ready for release on the site, and as far as I know, any good looking tutorials will still be paid for. If I write tutorials and they're agreed to be published, I'd expect to get paid for them, so the agteement stands for other authors as well.

Basically, if you write a tutorial, you can either send it to Richard, or send it to me. If I receive tutorials, I'll check and tidy them up, requesting any prechanges to Richard to ensure that he agrees with them before I do any work. So far, this has been very slow which is understandable since TGC's focus seems to be on FPSC and the media packs which were mentioned in the last newsletter. Either way, write your tutorial but also give your feedback to Richard soa that he knows what's going on.

Back to the topic at hand. I truly believe that a universal 3D file standard is essential, but also difficult to implement. I don't agree that this should be solely left to the 3D firms and Microsoft if they're going to hold anyform of intellectual rights or patents on anything that is unique to thr format. Ok, it's a standard that will be freely available as stated by the press release above, but what concerns me is that they've tried to apply this principle to the Java language, HTML specific tags etc. Remember the problem with certain web sites being incompatable with Netscape because of issues with IE and the HTML format certain pages used? When SUN released the Java specification, Microsoft tried to alter the standard when they released J++, requiring purchase of the compiler! Well, last time I looked anyway, but correct me if I'm wrong.

The file format should be easy to implement, accounting for animation, complex mesh formats, issues with textures and texture formats which is a potential can of worms alone. But will it syntactically be identical to the .X format? Who knoes. I can't wait to see where this twister will hit next!

Your good friend, Paul.


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las6
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Posted: 26th Apr 2004 12:40
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I think we're still gonna need universal 3D file format for Gaming and real-time use. That (U3D) format seems to be quite largely based on what the huuge airplane companies need. that's CAD style format that isn't linked to autocad.

Now what we will soon need is a universal texture format that can hold the normal maps and such in different layers and so on.. Otherwise it can soon get pretty complicated when you need multiple textures just to texture one model.


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Dave J
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Posted: 26th Apr 2004 13:13
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Quote: "Basically, if you write a tutorial, you can either send it to Richard, or send it to me. If I receive tutorials, I'll check and tidy them up, requesting any prechanges to Richard to ensure that he agrees with them before I do any work. So far, this has been very slow which is understandable since TGC's focus seems to be on FPSC and the media packs which were mentioned in the last newsletter. Either way, write your tutorial but also give your feedback to Richard soa that he knows what's going on.
"


Ahhh, thanks for that. Just decided to ask because I'd been holding off writing another tutorial for the past few months because I hadn't heard anything from Rich and what was happening with the tutorials we'd already done. I'll probably get to it soon though.


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