ZGL

load file, decode vertex data and then draw it via the drawing commands in OpenGL

Ok, i'm a begginer at this, so you'll have to give some more information on how to do that. Do you mean for a ZGL or a 3DS file. Thanks

wotsit.org have a lot of information on different file formats. It doesn't seem to have anything on ZGL, but it certainly does have information on the format of a .3DS file (which I believe is rather complex - you may want to export to a simpler format).

What format would you suggest?

it depends on whatever program you're using to model - it will only export to given formats. Your best plan is to have a brief skim through the formats you could export to and see which is best.

As a rough guidline, 3DS is complicated because it holds all information you could possibly want. If you could export to md2 or md3, they are optimised for games (at least in the sense that they don't contain irrelevant information).

I'd go with MD2/3 as well, they are pretty simple to work with from what i've seen and you should be able to find tutorials on how to load them around the net

Thanks for all the info, I'll see what I can do.