Hi.

I'm looking to venture into the world of 3D animation. Currently I am using OpenGL/GLSL and VBOs to render my meshes, and simply loading vertex data from OBJ files.

After searching the web for information on what some popular formats are, the one that pops up the most is MDX (MD5 seems to be the most recent one). I am however sceptical about the export process tied in with this format. My assets come from a modeller that really only uses Maya (2011/2012), so I'm interested in finding a format that can be (conveniently?) exported using this program.

In addition to that, I do not want to rely on any sort of SDK, and -preferably- no external libraries to do this.

With all that being said, I would like to ask you guys at gamedev.net for suggestions on file formats for skeletal animation that compliment my current situation. Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the responses, guys.

I've had experience with COLLADA in the past, and while it was a successful experience, it was not a pleasant one. To be honest, I was hoping to discover formats more convenient than COLLADA, but it seems like it could be a worthy choice. On that note, I have a couple of more questions.

1. When I used COLLADA last (1.4 I think), I worked with the DOM directly. Are there SDKs/tools that people use these days to make the interaction with COLLADA more convenient?

2. I did a bit of research on exporters, and I came across something called ColladaMaya NextGen. Should I experiment with this, or is there something even more recent that I should be looking into?