I have been reading OpenGL Game Programming and was wondering how I would use Maya in my games. I read through the chapter about MD2 files and realize that I would need to save the Models in a similar file. My question is how would I create and use a world in Maya.

There should be plenty of tutorials on building game levels in Maya. The cool advantage Maya has over 3D Studio Max is it''s prelight function. It takes all of the lights in the world and precomputes the vertex colors. In other words, it basically computes the shawdows so your engine doesn''t have to do it. When you load the world the shadows will be there

Heres a quick way to do it in a nut shell:
After you scene is built, right click and select face mode. Then select all the faces in the scene. After thats done go to ''Edit Polygons->Colors->Precompute->Option(The square)'' In the dialog box under ''Sampling Options'' select ''Compute Shadow Maps'', ''Force Shadow Map Usage On Lights'', and ''Ignore Mapped Channels On Surface Shaders''. The ''Ignore Mapped Channels On Surface Shaders'' is important, if it''s not selected it will take the colors of the textures in consideration (Which will not look right). After those 3 options are selected, click the prelight button. Then push ''7'' to turn on hardware lighting and you should see the shadows. You can also save the shadow map by going to ''Edit Polygons->Colors->Paint Vertex Color Tool->Options (The square)'' click the map tab, then scroll down a little and you should see ''Export Atrribute Map'' then set the options and save.

Go to Alias'' web site and theres the full tutorial there. Have fun.

-UltimaX-

"You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!"

battleguard:

The easiest way to use 3ds models in directx is to export your object in .3DS format (file >> export). Directx comes with a utility to convert .3DS files to .x files, and .x files are native to directx and, therefore, very easy to load.

Wow... I am glad that this topic was of interest to all of you and appreciate your feedback. *BattleGaurd* I believe there is a SDK for OpenGL but as far as I know it is not a graphical interface it is just a few header files (gl.h, glu.h, and glaux.h) and library files (opengl32.lib, glu32.lib, and glaux.lib). *UltimaX* thanks alot for that tip I will have to look into that, and also if you wouldn''t mind do you think you could post a http:// for the tutorial you refered to ...Thank you so much and happy coding.

Heres the link to that prelight tutorial, enjoy it!

http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Community/Learn/how_tos/games/pre_light/index.html



-UltimaX-

"You wished for a white christmas... Now go shovel your wishes!"

3D Studio Max 5 has a similar "pre-light" function