I am trying to quickly learn OpenGL ES (I know, I know, but this pressure has been imposed on me), and I was read on a fair bit, which was a great success at presenting the basic models, some basic lighting and some texturing success.
But this is CONSTANT, when all OpenGL ES tutorials end, they never say more about what they might need in real life. Therefore, I have a few questions in which I hope that arent too complicated.
How do people get 3d models from their favorite 3D modeling tool in the iPhone / iPad app? I saw a couple of blog posts where people write some python scripts for tools like Blender that create .h files that you can use - is that what people seem to do every time? Or do "large" tool kits (3DS, Maya, etc.) have export functions?
Let's say I have my model in a good .h file, all vertices, texture points, etc. lined up, how can I make my model (say, the main person)? Or, to be more general, how do you animate the “part” of a model (legs only, head rotation, etc.)? Do they need to be a massive mess of many different tiny models, or can you pre-bake the animation these days (in some way).
Truly gorgeous 3D games for the iPhone are (no doubt) incredibly complex, but how do people (game developers) seem to manage this designer / developer workflow? Of course, not all animations, textures, etc. Performed by software.
I hope these are not silly questions, and actually my application, which Im trying to explore how to do, is really quite simple, just a basic three-dimensional model that I want to be able to pan / tilt around with a touch. Has anyone ever done / seen something like this that I could read?
Thanks for any help you can give, I appreciate all kinds of answers, big or small :)
Cheers, Mark
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