#EXPENSIVE 3D
Hi John,
Good questions… We developed the 3DS ascii format for graphics hackers
who wanted to procedurally create objects externally (via BASIC, a text
editor, or whatever). As you saw, it's a very straightforward way of
getting data into the system without having to deal with an complex binary
format. Although we didn't include the actual material "chunk", we _did_
include the material name, and if that material is in the current 3DS.MLI
materials library, the ascii data will pick it up correctly. (We didn't
include the material chunk itself because it was too complex to logically
break it down into ascii within the timeframe.) Regarding documentation
for this file type… it's basically self-documenting. Since it doesn't
include animation data, it's extremely simple (I'm sure it took you about 5
minutes to figure it out.)
Regarding "what customers wanted an ascii format"… 3DSr1 wrote out ascii
files, but didn't read them, and this tweaked a lot of folks interest in
the format. We got many letters that people wanted a simple ascii way of
getting raw data in and out of the system.
Finally, for you "serious" file format dudes, we're almost done with the
official .3ds file format specification, including a set of C libraries to
enable file writing with _every_ piece of data, including animation. I
should try to get you that kit asap.
– G