A 'couple' of questions about Ogre

I also posted this on the Main Forum, perhaps you people can help me. This what i need to know before i can start with my project in VB.NET:

Hello all,

I'm Lennard Fonteijn, Head Leader and only member of the developing team of a World War II FPS.

I've got some questions related to my game before i start programming.

I use 3d Studio Max to create Objects, Player Models, Animations, here come the questions:

To what kind of file do i export these? (object, models, animations)
Do these 3 all go combined in one special file Ogre uses?

What kind of program do i use to create model/object textures?
Are these called meshes?
And can they just be saved as a .tga (for example) standalone from the model file?

My game is a FPS, so i need Levels. If i create them in .bsp format, can i use Mip-mapping then?
Ofcourse .bsp files are a bit outdated and can be ugly. So Ogre has a DotScene format, how do i create these?
Can i create a landscape with houses, trees, objects etc, just like i do with a .BSP?
If so, how? What programs do i need to use for that?
And how do i use Mip-Mapping in .scene format?

Final question:
Everyone knows the structure of Quake 3, it consist out of .pk3 files. All of mhy textures need to become in .pk3 files.
Will all the textures i make be combined with it's file (like scene's hold all textures in one file including the map)?
Or will it be like quake, all kinds of subdirs, called images/weapons etc.?

Thank you for your time of reading and prehaps answerring my questions.

Best Regards,
Lennard Fonteijn

Ps. I've read the Wiki and the Forum rules, but it's all like Japanese to me (all those program's and so on)... So don't complain i need to check the Wiki and other posts. I really have no clue of what to use, cause OGRE is different from others with supporting own file types, it's harder for me to understand it all (probably also because my first language isnt English). By the way, i need to say of what i've seen, Ogre Engine could become quite something (only with looking to the gallery).

Hello, i did some little research and translated hella lot (which was quite hard, cause i didn't understand some terms)

Could you people please correct me if im wrong about something?

.Scene
A .Scene is like the same as a BSP it only has more functions then a .BSP and is in XML structure.
You can put Meshes, SKyboxes etc. In it. You can create them with 3d Studio Max.


I still have one question, those meshes in .Scene files, are the textures directly putted over them,
or do they use a .material for it?

.Material
Are files that contain information about how a texture is rendered in the engine.
You can use it to mipmap, and how textures are strechted etc. You can see a .Material as a Shader.

.Mesh
This is just the 3d Model of an object or player model.

Same question as above, will there be used a .Material file to render the texture over it,
or can i just put a image file over it, without using a .Material.


In short:
.Scene = a Level/Map
.Material = tells a texture what to do with a .Mesh
.Mesh = 3d object/model

Am i correct about this all.

With these 3 files, i should be able to have Levels, Player Models and Object, which also contain Textures over them.

Am i missing some extensions now? Please tell me if there are more, that can be used in Ogre.

Best Regards,
Lennard Fonteijn

EDIT:
One last question, if i create a map in #D Max Studio, i need to export it to .Scene format, if i include objects in it which are in .3ds format with a txture pulled over it. Will those also beconverted to there own extension? Or do i first need to convert all those models to .mesh, and the textures to .material before i put them in my .scene?

Quite confused right now

There's a 3ds to mesh converter that you can build... it comes with the ogre sdk i think. I built it without any problems and used it on a .max file i got off the internet.

had to export to 3ds format then run the executable on it. Was good stuff.


I'm sure theres other exporters converters in the sdk for those other files, but i'm at work so i can't check.