Tell someone please tell me if and how you can keep animation data in the 3DS file format. I''ve read that you lose all animation data but I''ve seen an animation that was a .3DS file. Can someone explain to me how the animation data is stored? I am trying to put some 3DSMax character animations into my game, either by converting the 3DS file to an appropriate format or by writing a Max plug-in that''ll convert the data directly. I am using biped and max bones - does this mean that each frame in the game will be generated on the fly or is all the vertices position data replicated for each frame?

I''ve been researching about the quake3 model file format today in the hope that once I fully understand it I can modify it to better suit my needs. I read that the best explanation of the .md3 format is hosted on q3arena.net but its been taken down now and the author of the site says he''s lost the files that I need. So what other sites are good for explaning the .md3 file format? How does it all relate back to 3ds Max?

I haven''t used it myself, but you can use lib3ds to load the models. Get it from lib3ds.sourceforge.net. I think there is an example of loading and displaying a animated model.
Hope that helps