[ODE] Introduction / Suggestions etc

[Russ Smith]

cool!

i'm in full support of ODE/blender integration - i think this is quite
an exciting prospect. in fact i took some very preliminary steps in this
direction as soon as the blender sources were released - but as norman
is far in advance of my own pitiful attempt i will abandon what i am doing
and help out the existing effort.

i have a question: the commercial dynamics providers (ME, havok etc) have
their own plugins for 3DSMax, maya, and other expensive tools. i am
wondering what functionality, if any, would be lost by an artist switching
from e.g. 3DSMax/Havok to Blender/ODE ? (i'm a 3DSMax novice and a
blender dummy.)

about the suggestion to use IRC - it would be perhaps more useful to
discuss this on the mailing list - so that at least we have an archived,
google-searchable record.

this discussion ties in with the file format discussion. i am guessing
that the initial blender integration will be to run ODE simulations
within blender to produce animation data, and that the saved dynamics
information will be tied in with blenders own file format(s). it would
also be nice if it blender could export a file format describing just the
dynamical attributes that have been given to the geometry objects, so
that in my game/simulation/whatever i could load this data, construct the
ODE objects, then attach the objects to my scene data.

it's important to have a file format that can separates dynamics
attributes from the geometry data. this is because, e.g., i might design
my dynamical system in blender but then use some non-blender-created
graphics in my application. we dont want to tie the data to the
application after all.

nate and others - is there any useful level of concensus on what the "one
true file format" should be? (disclaimer: i've not looked at the juice
file format or any others). if there is no convergence yet, i have a pile
of my own ideas i would like to contribute here.

russ.

--
Russ Smith
http://www.q12.org/