DirectXTK now supports loading and drawing 3D models

Originally posted to Shawn Hargreaves Blog on MSDN, Friday, January 25, 2013

Chuck, awesome fellow that he is, has been slaving away on a 3D model loading solution for the DirectX Tool Kit.  Documentation here.  I won't bother to repeat all the details in this post, but as a quick summary:

This is an implementation of a mesh renderer similar to the XNA Game Studio Model, ModelMesh, ModelMeshPart design.  It can load data from two different model formats:

• The .cmo format used by the Visual Studio 3D Starter Kit.  This is a basic format with an extremely simplistic material system, but can be handy because the ability to convert from .fbx to .cmo is built into Visual Studio 2012.

• The .sdkmesh format used by the legacy DirectX SDK.  This is a more advanced format than .cmo, with a richer feature set.  You can get a .fbx to .sdkmesh converter here.

Note: Model currently only supports rigid models. Support for animation, skinning, and frame hierarchy is on our radar for the future, but not yet implemented.

Check it out, let us know what you think, and a big thank you to Chuck for filling what until today was the biggest hole in our little toolkit!