What is the most universally used model format?

I used to think it was .3ds, but recently I've mainly been seeing .obj files. From my investigations neither of these really seem to support animation though.

Is Collada well supported in the main 3d applications already, or is there still some way to go for that?

what format you use kind of depends what you're wanting to do/what programs you use. Obj is pretty much universal but like you say has limits with what it stores. .dae(collada) and also .fbx will store much more of your scene's information. most big apps I would have thought would support one of the latter (max and maya should handle them)
edit: it looks like xsi supports them too via plugins

OBJ is a better format than 3DS, and as far as I know all apps can import/export OBJ fairly cleanly. OBJ doesn't support vertex colouring though, if I remember right.

I thought .3ds could support animation but it's pretty crappy, I mean old. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] FBX seems to be pretty good, but when bringing in files from one program to another some things work and others don't. I think you should just try it an see what works for you. XSI can import straight out of the box after version 4.2 3ds, obj, fbx and collada. .xsi is pretty good and works in other programs if you have a good plugin.

Alex

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OBJ is a better format than 3DS, and as far as I know all apps can import/export OBJ fairly cleanly. OBJ doesn't support vertex colouring though, if I remember right.

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Whats the difference between vertex colouring and vertex paint? I know that its possible to use vertex paint for separate texturing blending on a model to export (.obj) into unreal3. Hourences explained how to do this on dm-kordan.

Vertex paint is simply a way to edit vertex color, which can be used to blend different bitmaps, or to do vertex lighting, or to assign other kinds of per-vertex data (like different physics properties, or different sounds, or different player pain values, etc.).

Hmm, then maybe OBJ does support vertex colouring!

yeah I think I did a test one time and found it did. I vaguely remember maxs obj export fudging the colours together in one instance but don't quote me on that [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]