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Author Topic: gile[s] global illumination  (Read 8678 times)

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Orange Brat

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gile[s] global illumination
« on: December 29, 2004, 12:34:19 AM »

gile - I successfully imported the 3D demo 3DS scene into the demo. All collision blocks, waypoints, lights and cameras were accounted for. The program also allows you to move block and lights around so you can tweak it. Even though the cameras were on the list of what got loaded, both of them were loaded at 0,0,0. There also doesn't seem to be a way to look through a camera's POV. I see that others have requested this, though.

http://www.frecle.net/giles/

EDIT: I can't seem to load the Blender exported 3DS scenes into it, though. I guess this means the demo scene was not exported from it? If so, that's too bad, I thought I had found an app we could use as some kind of go between.

« Last Edit: December 29, 2004, 02:42:17 AM by Orange Brat »
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Jerrot

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Re: gile[s] global illumination
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2004, 03:24:12 AM »

gile - I successfully imported the 3D demo 3DS scene into the demo. All collision blocks, waypoints, lights and cameras were accounted for. The program also allows you to move block and lights around so you can tweak it. Even though the cameras were on the list of what got loaded, both of them were loaded at 0,0,0. There also doesn't seem to be a way to look through a camera's POV.

After doing that exporter stuff, the 3ds format seems to have some of those issues. Don't forget it's quite old though and although 3ds max sounds like "the" 3ds program, it only supports this format to export as well. If you import those Blender exports into 3ds max, you will see something similiar - most lights will be placed at 0,0,0 for whatever reason and other strange things. One of the reasons might be, that the 3ds format is not really public, so most developers can only use some old version (3.0), where most of the chunks are known, and so did I.

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EDIT: I can't seem to load the Blender exported 3DS scenes into it, though. I guess this means the demo scene was not exported from it? If so, that's too bad, I thought I had found an app we could use as some kind of go between.

That's right, The demo scene was done and exported in 3ds max - you can find the original files in the wme_3d_demo subfolder "original files" (heh!) - and it saves a lot more of information than the Blender exporter (which only saves the information used by WME). Obviously "giles" knows something more than me then refusing them. ;) Anyway - the more important step is to be able to save 3DS files from your favorite modeler, I guess reimporting them into another program won't be needed too often in general, but for a quick tewaking of such a file, it might become helpful indeed (after fixing that cam@0,0,0 issue...).

Ok, now I almost hi-jacked the thread again... so I finalize it by saying: thanks for sharing the link. :)
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Orange Brat

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Re: gile[s] global illumination
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2004, 04:32:46 AM »

I seem to be sharing a lot of links on this forum. ;) That's what happens after working with a 3D engine for 5 years and the switching. Gotta spread the word about some of this stuff. ;)

I thought I had reedited my first post..this program is only really good for realtime scenes. It's a lightmapper and you can't render a scene to a file. I was mainly interested in trying to get a file into it and then export the 3DS(with lights, cameras, etc) out and into WME; thus the go between comment. Although 3DS is common, it's harder than hell to find versions that export what WME needs. I guess I'm going to have to learn good ol' Blender after all. ;)

Another way would be for WME to have it's own proprietary format but then Mnemonic or whoever would have to supply some exporters to work with different modeling apps(or in a perfect world that would happen ;) ). The main ones would be for Blender, MAX, Lightwave, Gamespace/Truespace, Cinema4D, Maya, even Wings. Surrreeee it'll happen. ;)
« Last Edit: December 29, 2004, 04:37:03 AM by Orange Brat »
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Jerrot

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Re: gile[s] global illumination
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2004, 03:53:51 PM »

I seem to be sharing a lot of links on this forum. ;)

Yeah, everybody finds his job here. ;)

Quote
I was mainly interested in trying to get a file into it and then export the 3DS(with lights, cameras, etc) out and into WME; thus the go between comment. Although 3DS is common, it's harder than hell to find versions that export what WME needs. I guess I'm going to have to learn good ol' Blender after all. ;)

I got it that way. Anyway I'm surprised it causes so much trouble - it really shouldn't and I still suspect the exporters to be a little weird. For the Blender exporter, we used some public available 3ds format description, which is mainly the version 3.0. As far as I know, WME doesn't use more than those basic chunks actually. But it also has no problems using the 3ds max exported files, as you can see in the demo. But unfortunately most exporter writes seem to have focused the converting of meshes only, not cams and lights... :(

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Another way would be for WME to have it's own proprietary format but then Mnemonic or whoever would have to supply some exporters to work with different modeling apps(or in a perfect world that would happen ;) ).

That was my first thought, too, which I posted already. But as you already recognized yourself - the problem is exactly the same, you have to write converters. With 3DS you have at least a quite general format already. If you happen to have a 3ds file from some other software than 3ds max or Blender and it doesn't work in WME, feel free to publish it here and I'll check the implemented chunks and what causes it to refuse working properly. If you already mentioned it, I don't remember currently... what modeler are you using, which cannot export a working 3ds geometry file ?
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Orange Brat

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Re: gile[s] global illumination
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2004, 05:02:25 PM »

Quote
If you happen to have a 3ds file from some other software than 3ds max or Blender and it doesn't work in WME, feel free to publish it here and I'll check the implemented chunks and what causes it to refuse working properly. If you already mentioned it, I don't remember currently... what modeler are you using, which cannot export a working 3ds geometry file ?

Well, to reduce headaches I'm going to go ahead and use Blender, however the modelers I've tried that failed are Gamespace(gS), Wings, and even the MAX 7 demo.

gS's 3DS export only allows you to save 1 object to 3DS and nothing else.  gS is a game development specific version of Truespace and it functions kind of like an expensive version of Milkshape. It imports/exports most of the major game formats and more common ones including Milkshape(ms3d), 3DS Max(.asc, .3ds), Viewpoint(.mtx), and Autocad (.dxf). Not necessarily as scenes, though unless the format option is specifically under the export/import -> Scenes menu. ;)

http://www.caligari.com/gamespace/

Wings is well Wings(unpredicable), and it'll save out more than 1 block but not lights/cameras. The only format that Wings will save out that has all components is the .wings format. Blender will open these files but only geometry. The developer of the plugin said he had no plans to implement lights or cameras or textures/UVs for that matter(which wouldn't concern us anyway). You can have multiple cameras in Wings by using "save views". Using that saved value would be how a proper Blender importer would place Blender cameras in a file. The same for lights.

Now, with Max 7 I could see geometry show up in the SceneEdit window but the camera was not where I placed it in the Max program. I had placed it directly above a "walk_" block looking down and when I brought that 3DS file into SceneEdit, the camera was to the side of the block and quite a long ways away from it. It wasn't a swapped axes issue, this was an issue of the camera being moved someplace else.
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Jerrot

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Re: gile[s] global illumination
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2004, 05:48:49 PM »

...hmmm... weird, downloading Max 7 demo...
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Re: gile[s] global illumination
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2004, 06:18:00 PM »

...hmmm... weird, downloading Max 7 demo...

Ok, I did a quick test with Max 7 and it works just fine for my little test scene I just created. Did you try to override the FOV or is the cam really misplaced completely ?
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Re: gile[s] global illumination
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2004, 06:59:04 PM »

I just reinstalled to try it again and now it loads correctly.  ::beer  I think the reason is because WME doesn't like "free" cameras. It won't load camera01 if the created cam is free but it works as expected if you create your cam as a "target" cam.  My original test was free and I didn't bother with target, so that explains it.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2004, 07:10:43 PM by Orange Brat »
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