Why Can I Never Export (or Otherwise Import) 3ds Animations?

[AGP]

Is there something different I should do when importing an animated 3ds model than when I import an MD2 (MD2 works for me but is bigger and uses more RAM)?

[EgonOlsen]

What exactly is an animated 3ds model? Is the animation part of the file? If so, you can't use it. You can load single keyframes from separate 3ds files only. I think there's a thread about this and the wiki contains some information.
About file size and ram usage: Maybe the files are larger, i don't know...but when loaded, it doesn't matter which format you have used. The same animation will always require the same amount of ram no matter which file format you've used to load it.

[AGP]

I know what it should do, (same animation from the same model should always use the same amount of RAM in spite of the format used to store it), but I don't always know what it does. So thanks for the explanation. As for the 3ds animation, I thought you had told me a while back that it reads 3ds animations (and programs like Deep Exploration have a checkbox for "export animation" for 3ds files). Must mean there's animation in 3ds files, right?

[EgonOlsen]

jPCT reads mesh data from 3ds, no animations. I can't remember reading anything in the file format's specs about animations. If they exist, they will most likely be animations based on rotations and translations, not on keyframes let alone skeletal animations.