I have a Windows 8 application idea that is to use 3D models drawn in Autodesk’s 3ds Max. What I would like to achieve is to export these models (without animation) to some files with an appropriate format and then reading this file from a Windows Store App using C++ and DirectX 11 and render it on the screen.
It looks that this is not easy what it seems.
According to below link, Microsoft does not have a solution for production environments.
In above link, it is advised that Autodesk’s FBX format may be used for export and the tool in below link may help in converting the file into .SDKMESH format which could be read in a Windows Store application (which I can prove is correct).
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chuckw/archive/2012/04/25/samples-content-exporter-update.aspx
The problem is that the tool requires Visual Studio 2010 and probably DirectX SDK and maybe some other things to build the executable doing the conversion.
Have anybody implemented such thing? Or do you have any better idea to do what I want?
Thanks.
Answering my own question after the fact.
MSFT made it to the next level as far as it seems. Visual Studio 2012 has a built in editor that may import “.FBX” and “.OBJ” and probably some other formats. The tool visualizes the model and compiles the imported files into a “.CMO” format. This file is read by your program to construct the meshes and other things. There are several samples in msdn that shows how to read “.CMO” files including the one given below.
Here is the sample explaining the things better:
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Visual-Studio-3D-Starter-455a15f1
Channel 9 video:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Visual-Studio-3D-StarterKit
ps: do not forget to see the Towers of Hanoi3D example in the video.