[ODE] New to ODE (a few more basic questions).

[Jeremy Roberts]

Hello,
     Thanks to all who responded to my previous post.
To all - 
     I am new to ODE and have a few more basic questions.  I am trying to figure out an effective pipeline for generation of ODE data and would love to hear input if there is a more effective pipeline than the one I outline below.

     The steps I am thinking of using to create physics data for my 3D app are as follows.

     1) Use a modeler (in my case Milkshape) to create meshes that correspond to the geom/space hierarchy associated with the object.
     2) Create a .x file and hard code that information generated from the modeler radii / extents / rotations / positions etc. in the file.  Also hard code the mass/inertia matrices etc.
     3) When an object is loaded, parse the associated .x file and read the associated physics traits.
     4) Insert them into a globally initialized quad space.

Other questions:
     1) Is there a way to create the geoms directly from the meshes generated in the modeler?  As far as I know DirectX only can create AABBs and Spheres.  I do not know of a way to create non-AABBs or cylinders directly from DirectX meshes hence the need to hard code that data in the file.  The mass/inertia matrices would need to be hard coded regardless.

     2) For an outdoors 3D app is there a need to create a space hierarchy (other than the one for each object) besides the Quad Tree?

Thank you for your help.
Jeremy

A.S. Real Time Interactive Simulation 
[Video Game Computer Science]
DigiPen Institute of Technology

- Make the world what it could be, not what it is.
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