Exporting scenes?

[commador]

Hey all, I have a question about the xna pipeline. Usually you would use a level editor to compile lighting information, set triggers and events, AI pathfinding, etc. However, since xna is a framework, and does not use an out of the box editor, can xsi be substituted? Can you create point lights and other things then export it as a .x or .fbx which the xna pipeline can use or will it not have any idea about the lights and other things? If an editor is required, other than creating one, are there any options available?

[ajclaude]

Yes you can most definitely use XSI as an editor for XNA. I would recommend that you use a custom exporter that would write a custom XML format that describes your level data. This way, you will not have to fiddle around with custom XNA importers and processors. Traversing the scene and writing out the appropritate data should be quite easy in scripting in XSI. XNA has some nice support for runtime XML reading. If you are using XSI you should definitely try out referenced models. If you are using Modtool, you will have to "inline" all your assets in your level, although it wouldn't be too hard to build a rudimentary referenced model system using custom events.

[jentzenmooney]

commador,
Any progress with this?? Please keep us all posted.
/J