2 replies to this topic

[3Ddreamer]

I read about someone insisting on 3DS file format for game development during the middle stage work on 3D objects. The end file format is X, which confuses me all the more. Is there any possible advantage to this? Could the naming conventions help a little toward performance being limited to 8 characters?

Where to put this thread I had no clue.



3Ddreamer

Edited by 3Ddreamer, 13 August 2012 - 05:29 PM.

[frob]

Assuming 3D Studio Max, the engine developer may have several reasons.

The first that jumps to mind would be that the tools are not fully functional; if the final format is buggy but the generic unoptimized libraries work fine, then keep your data working properly. Alternative reasons include there are debugging tools available, or there are profiling tools available, or there is metadata available, or there is some other compelling reason for that developer to stick with the source data at that point in time.

As for the file name, no, there is no penalty for using longer file names on modern operating systems. The extra nanoseconds spent on the processing are less than the time it takes to read the file name to memory, and both are dwarfed by the time it takes for the disk to actually read anything.

[MrDaaark]

Assuming 3D Studio Max

3DS Max hasn't used the 3DS format in over 2 decades. Like OBJ, it's an out of date legacy format.

Post reminds me of me in my early days when I had no net access and file loading was still beyond me. I used GIF for everything because I had working GIF code someone had given me on FIDONet.

So it sounds like someone is clinging to old code, or old tools. With 8.3, maybe it's an old DOS tool! Could be that the code assumes 8.3 for the files, and has a hard coded char array check for the extension.

Edited by Daaark, 13 August 2012 - 10:17 PM.