   [SlimDX] Importing models and lightning questions
  Hi everyone, I, like just about everyone else here, am writing a game. Some backgroundIt's an RPG focusing on problem solving with some combat elements in it as well. It's view is top-down, with orthographic projection. For the last two years or so, I've been using my own MDX-based 2D graphics engine, which I'm looking to upgrade. The reason for the upgrade is that my game looks like shit, much because of the lack of objects and ligthning. I want to switch from MDX to SlimDX since I don't really like working with a discontinued API that has known flaws* (minor or not) and because I like SlimDX and want to support it by using it. XNA might be an option if people can convince me it's much better for my needs. I'm planning on using DX9 in SlimDX, which means I can probably port much of my current renderer without much problems. It's not advanced enough for that to be a big deal though.I want the game to feature animated characters where the equipment is visible in the game. That is if my character equips a helmet, it should be visible on him as he runs around in the levels. Same goes for all equipment. My current map structure is a world consisting of sectors consisting of rooms consisting of portals (openings) to other rooms and walls consisting of endpoints and pieces. Each room can also contain map objects (both interactive and decorative). LoaderLock anyone? 64-bits?My questionsWhat model format should I use that is easy to import and use? I wish to create my models using blender since I'm somewhat familiar with it and it's free.What lightning methods should I be looking at? I have pretty (very) simple geometry. I might have transparent things, but it's not a huge deal if that doesn't work great. Shadowing is more important than correctly lit objects.I'd like to offload as much as possible to the graphics card, when it comes to CPU it's speed over quality at the moment. I want as much CPU as possible left for game logic and AI.All help is appreciated!
  Hi, i'm like you using SlimDX and i can give you some hints,1) In DX9 the easiest to use 3D format is the X format, but remember that the X support is gone in DX10-11 so if you want to upgrade in a later future (or like me you want to make a multiDirectX system) you will have to make another format or use some hackish method to make it work. (I created my own format)If you need instead a 2D format use the Sprite class or roll out your own quad drawing system.2) Try looking for a HLSL lightning tutorial, there are many on the net that will explain you the basics.3) Well, then create your engine as multithreaded and offload all the logic/physics to another thread/core and leave all graphics things to a single core/thread. (Remember that this switch is NOT trivial and require quite a bit of thread synchronization knowledge to avoid strange problems)   