Howdy! I'm looking for a little bit of advice in two major areas in regard to a project I'm working on: texture file format, and model file format.
Firstly, I was wondering about the merits of and opportunities for using the DDS (DirectDraw Surface) format. Now, I'm using OpenGL and it seems fairly self-explanatory that DDS has Microsoft blood running through its veins, but could it still be relevant for me? Is DDS really a Microsoft thing that's use is mostly restricted to DirectX or is DDS just a name they gave to an existing format used in other places when they started using it? I ask this because I've seen some references to DDS being used with OpenGL, and I have to admit that the idea of conveniently packed pre-rendered mip-maps appeals. Otherwise, I suppose I could just use some more 'normal' file format and generate mip-maps for my textures on the fly; is this the more common way of doing things?
Next up is model format. I really have no idea what would be a good format to use, so I'll state my needs, and maybe somebody can recommend something. I don't need anything fancy; just co-ordinates of triangle (or more complex polygons; I can take care of the geometry before converting to this format) vertices, and texture coordinates for a single texture - which I guess is the common denominator for all 3D model formats (but hey, I'm certainly not averse to being proven wrong!).
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks all!
Jeff