The future of 3ds and cms file support

[375gnu]

Do we really need these old formats?

We have three cms files in our default distribution: asteroid.cms, borrelly.cms, roughsphere.cms. Then can be replaced with a cmod versions. Regarding 3ds we have quite a lot of them but mostly as sources for cmod versions. A few files without a cmod version should be converted to cmod.

Probably before removing cms support we should update our model converter to support this format, so users can update their old addons.

What do you think?

[Askaniy]

I think we shouldn't cancel support for the 3ds. Otherwise, I agree.

[Anthony-B-Russo10]

cms models are depreciated at this point, so removing them won't affect much. 3ds would be better to leave since removing that support would break a lot of old addon that rely on 3ds models.

[SevenSpheres]

Actually I'd say that 3ds, cms, and obj support should all be kept, with cms support added to cmodview (as mentioned above), and obj support added to Celestia itself. Supporting more formats should make addon development and testing easier, even if the final addon uses only cmod.

According to Wikibooks, cms is deprecated and was planned to be removed, but it's still used in addons (e.g. Project Echoes, CelWP).