How to import Blender 3D animation to iPhone OpenGL ES?

Question

I am trying to do animations on iPhone using OpenGL ES. I am able to do the animation in Blender 3D software. I can export as a .obj file from Blender to OpenGL and it works on

Answer 1

Well first off, I wouldn't recommend .obj for this purpose since the obj file format doesn't support animation, only static 3D models. So you'll need to export the animation data as a separate file that you load at the same time as the obj.

Which file format I would recommend depends on what exactly your animations are. I don't remember off the top of my head what file formats Blender supports, but as I recall it does not export Collada files with animation, which would be the most general recommendation. Other options would be md2 for character animations, or 3ds for simple "rigid objects moving around" animations. I think Blender's FBX exporter will work, although that file format may be too complicated for your needs.

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That said, and assuming you only need simple rigid object movements, you could use .obj for the 3D model shapes and then write a simple Python script to export a file from Blender that has at the keyframes listed, with the frame, position, and rotation for each keyframe. Then load that data in your code and play back those keyframes on the 3D model.