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Author Topic: Blender and WME  (Read 22525 times)

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Jerrot

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Blender and WME
« on: June 05, 2005, 12:12:41 AM »

Hiya,

ok, I'm getting closer and closer to it. Today I played a lot with animations in Blender (the great new timeline, IPO and Action Curves, Armatures/Bones), and I even got an MD2 exporter working and could load my character into Milkshape. But - again - without Armature/Bones. My texture was lost somehow, too. :P

I wouldn't like the idea of writing my own converter in Python (the Blender geometry file export script was a heavy mess already. ;) ) and I can't be the only one who needs to export a mesh+texture+bones into some other format.

Therefore the question is - did ANYBODY manage to model a character (with textures and bones) in Blender and export it to whatever format without the loss of textures/bones and - in the most perfect case - could import it in Milkshape without a loss?

(Yes, I could do the bones in Milkshape, too, but it would double the work, because I need the bones in Blender for video sequences anyway!)

Thanks, Jerrot.

EDIT: ok, I found out MD2 doesn't save skeletons anyway. *sigh*
« Last Edit: June 05, 2005, 12:16:15 AM by Jerrot »
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Jerrot

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2005, 12:15:37 AM »

Therefore the question is - did ANYBODY manage to model a character (with textures and bones) in Blender and export it to whatever format without the loss of textures/bones and - in the most perfect case - could import it in Milkshape without a loss?

*Sigh* Ok, after reading a lot about all those 3d formats and watching the silence of this thread, I doubt there is an existing solution for it already.

It should be quite possible though to write an exporter script for Blender to Milkshape, at least the Milkshape format is quite easy to understand. Is somebody but me interested in it?

(Ok, and is somebody interested in supporting me? I'm not really a Python hero... the 3DS exporter was hard enough...  ::))
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jeff

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2005, 07:37:37 AM »

Hi Jerrot,
I've got some problem with MD2 exporter. can you hint me some tip or give me the script? I'm not able to export to MD2 with the code downloaded from blender site. I use blender 2.36 and python script 0.14.
thanks in advance.
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Jerrot

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2005, 09:39:45 AM »

I've got some problem with MD2 exporter. can you hint me some tip or give me the script? I'm not able to export to MD2 with the code downloaded from blender site. I use blender 2.36 and python script 0.14.
thanks in advance.

What problem appeared, did you get any errors in the console window? There are some issues about it, e.g. you have to convert all quad faces of your mesh to triangles before exporting it. And there was a second issue about it, but I don't remember anymore... just check the console window and tell me the output, please.
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Jeff

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #4 on: June 16, 2005, 07:09:38 AM »

Hi Jerrot,
compiler doesn't give errors, but I still cannot use the exported file in Irrlicht. I created a simple cube that rotates in different directions instead of crouch, walk, run, jump ect. ect. according to MD2 format, but when I import it in Irrlicht it stays, regardless of the frame loop that I set.
Now I upgraded to Blender 2.37.
hits are welcome.
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Jerrot

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #5 on: June 16, 2005, 09:54:40 AM »

compiler doesn't give errors, but I still cannot use the exported file in Irrlicht. I created a simple cube that rotates in different directions instead of crouch, walk, run, jump ect. ect. according to MD2 format, but when I import it in Irrlicht it stays, regardless of the frame loop that I set.

Ow, so the export itself worked, but only one frame? Hmm, I didn't test that at all, but the script seems to support frames actually. Can't help there though unfortunately, did you already have a search/request at the www.elysiun.com forums?
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Jeff

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #6 on: June 16, 2005, 03:07:18 PM »

not yet.
actually I'm very busy. maybe in the weekend I'll find out some hours searching for. thanks a lot for your time.
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Jeff

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2005, 09:28:35 AM »

Hi Jerrot, i'm back again.
I installed python 2.3.5 as required by blender 2.37 but compiler now rises this error:

Traceback <most recent call last>:
 File "<string>", line 724, in bevent
 File "<string>", line 377, in save_md2
TypeError: unpack non-sequence


can you halp me?
at home i've got no time to search in forums.... i've got a 3 years old baby ;D
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Jerrot

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2005, 11:22:52 AM »

can you halp me?
at home i've got no time to search in forums.... i've got a 3 years old baby ;D

Heh, well, I'm no Python expert, you know... :) Anyway I guess you have the same version of the exporter script, where line 377 says something like:
Code: [Select]
tex_list=[tex_key]=tex_count
...which seems to be a real bug in the script which only appears when your model has no UV mapping. Try to delete the first "=", the line should IMHO look like this:

Code: [Select]
tex_list[tex_key]=tex_count
Let's see what happens now. ;)
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guest

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #9 on: September 03, 2005, 05:25:57 PM »

md5 and Jox or Ben's exporters will work for exporting bones with textures and all.

I have used succesfully md2, md3 exporters with animation. x also, and x does keep bones.

There's -like all mentioned-  another user made python script for milkshape with bones and animations. It also works.


I am a professional artist (I mean only that I make a living of it) and I ensure you it all works.

Dunno if I'll remember to come back here.



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guest

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #10 on: September 03, 2005, 05:36:21 PM »

I am same guest than above.(oh, in case of..i don't check that email more than once every 2 months...  )

http://development.mindfloaters.de/DirectX_Exporter_Mod.8.0.html

for my favourite directx *.x Blender exporter. Is a modified version by another guy from an original one from Ben's. If I come back here , I surely would reply with infos, but I am afraid this thread is pretty old. Just seems you were kindof really interested on the issue, and was something really with lots of solutions.

I base many of my personal works in x format. been betatester for some tools using it. Have purchased Ultimate Unwrap, and use the free mview tool from MS SDK (I don't code, just have the tool) , and some others to help me with the format.

The reason why i am interested in Wintermute engine is A) is about graphic adventures, c) looks like is needed little to no coding (like an ags in 3d? ) b) Seems to allow making real time 3d games....But I am interested in an engine to make comercial games, and seems the it must be consulted with the Wintermute Authors and studied per case... That sounds as a lot of money I can't afford for a personal (but comercial) project.

So, I may come back here to see if anyone can drop a light about it, and anyway, I'd gladly would help anyone with blender, formats and stuff explanations...I'm very experienced at that.   

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Nihil

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #11 on: September 03, 2005, 06:18:18 PM »

No, you got that wrong, WME isn't for realtime 3d, it's for 2 and 2.5D (3d chars over prerendered backgrounds), and it affords scripting.

The .x-exporter is nice, but unfortunately I don't know of any porgram yet that can import .x and export to .ms3d - which is what we need for WME. But can you point me to the woking Milkshape exporter you mentioned? The ones I found so far didn't work at all.

gfxmachine

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #12 on: September 03, 2005, 08:29:46 PM »

"(3d chars over prerendered backgrounds), and it affords scripting."

Well, that could be indeed enough for now...yet it'd be very good to be able to load geometry for the level...

In the meantime, somekind of vr thing...That is, is a bitmap, and as you rotate the "camera" the continuos long bitmap woul drotate accordingly.I think the engine actually only does a horizontal scroll, is more a work of the gfx artist to make that seamless, or actually grab some vr from reality with a camera.

Yet though, is it planned for the future 3d scenery loading?
BTW, I am mostly interested on ease of developing...meaning it being as less code as possible, as I am not a programmer...That and the comercial prices.

"The .x-exporter is nice, but unfortunately I don't know of any porgram yet that can import .x and export to .ms3d"

Max can do. There's somewhere a fully featured user made milshape exporter for max, bones included, and etc stuff. My purchased Ultimate Uwnrap maybe can, but never tested. I do all x<-->other format conversions with it, plus with some other converter I have.

I was suggesting actually a direct Wintermute loader of *.x format, as I see it as the more implemented format by third party plugins in 3d tools, in what is formats with bones and weights.


" - which is what we need for WME. But can you point me to the woking Milkshape exporter you mentioned? The ones I found so far didn't work at all"


maybe after all it does not work...My first language is not english; maybe I understood badly, but thought the one posted as text in the last post here was actually a working anim version... :

http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30004&start=15


And while I'm here, and speaking bout Blender.... :

- md2 format (old format, often bad shading. Limited to 4096 verts, I think. Often wobbling of vertices, that is , trembling "meat" a bit weird. For not using floats for coords or something)

http://scourage.servebeer.com/programming/blender

i tested it to work perfectly both import and export. Remember: no bones (and no weights, but bending smoothness is preserved, reason why often is preferable even to ms3d format! ) .No spline interpolation: the animation is not as smooth as u see in ur 3d packages. The interpolation between frames is linear, that's why. Solution: keyframe most frames, but that's very memory and performance heavy, as md2 as like snapshots of whole mesh vertices at each keyframe. Reason why is god idea for distant lots of low pol chars like in rts games, bad idea for Graphic adventures or today's hi pol fps models. Specially I would not use it for graphic adventures.For other purposes, is yet handy.

- md3 format. This one works, try it, I did, and worked.

http://www.freewebs.com/estrato/misc.htm

Notes bout md3:

Also is based on vertex animation. No bones. Advantages over md2: it allows more graphic formats, resolutions of bitmaps, etc. More vertex count, so more allowed on package on exporters (ie: md3 exporter for gmax only allows the limit of md3: 8092 ) What i see as a disadvantage is the typical chunked mode way of md3 models. I hate to part model in pieces and trust the engine to caculate a melting of 50% between parts...i prefer to treat it as an md2, full piece, so I control how weights act.again, is not real weights, but md2 and md3 vertex animation are really a bake of your weights and bones animations; in thi sway is more accurate than an ms3d or HL1 model animation. (i can animate with accomodation tricks: I just have that possibility PLUS smooth weights when the feature is available, and is soooo much better ;)   )


- md5. A great format, very optimized for games, and  very powerful. yet though, usually loaded with the basic bones and weights only, as typical shareware games user or indy gamer doesn't have such 3d cards...

This is simply the best format. But is such a disadvantage that certain packages do not have support for it that for now I yet position it bellow *.x

Blender md5 exporter :
http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1711

Blender md5 importer :
http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=6901


- x format. The more stablished.(already spoke enough about it)

Ben's (original exporter author) export plugin :
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/glabro1/python.html

Ben's recently started Blender Importer :
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/glabro1/import.html

Just notice that specially with x format in Blender, is needed to read the sort explanations Ben has in his site.

The Jox modification of Ben's exporter. It is the one I actually allways use :
http://development.mindfloaters.de/DirectX_Exporter_Mod.8.0.html
I have the latest version allways, tell me if it doesn't go, I can upload somewhere...I am not the developer.


So, imho, full piece (md2-like) md3 files (specially good for low pcs, so yet a nice options: bones and weights are a bit more performance hungry when is not used the card but only software mode, yet so many engines do this way)  , or *.x (best) , or md5 would all be all good (and sorry, imho better option) ways to go than ms3d files, for what is  animated human or animals characters. For level geometry or static objects, is all the opposite, there a ms3d file rocks.

Just my 2 cents.


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Tol

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #13 on: September 05, 2005, 09:07:23 PM »

Hi folks:)

First- I did not read whole thread (no sleep last night-> too lazy today, I do apologize :P), only first post, so please don´t get mad if I write something that is already said:)

I export to x. format with textures and bones- setting of bones rotation is little tricky sometimes, but it works fine.

But main reason why I am posting this is that I would like to call your attention on future version of Blender, where will be bones part of Blender heavily upgraded (envelopes, some new constrainst  ect., but I guess, that there will be changes in code less visible for end user, but more important for exporting scipts), so some issues due to exporting to WME (and other engines) maybe will be sligtly differend in future:)
For more info see here
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Dependency_Graph.633.0.html
and
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/How_Armatures_work.634.0.html
and here
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Armature_Envelopes.647.0.html

There is also testing build with some new functionality of these available somewhere in this phorum:)
http://www.blender3d.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=18&sid=55bfed818fc8859349cd4f0d977ff81d
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gfxmachine

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #14 on: September 05, 2005, 10:22:10 PM »


Well, that's another reason while in every engine I help, I vote for *.x files... An x file is allways an x file: blender script author have to  adhere to standard format, and so, no matter if Blender updates...same with 3ds. Imho much better than using the Max n.nn.nnn version or same with blender. Format will undobtedly change with versions... While x format can be loaded in dx9 or dx8, or whatever teh engine...Seen it loaded in totally open gl based engines.

And how sweet it is to export so directly from max, Blender and xsi, hehe.

i mean, those fantastic changes -am pretty aware of them, used some of latest builds-  wont mean any change for x files, neithe rshouldn't for 3ds files. besides you can allways use an older Blender. With 2.37 of today, you can use both plugins, btw.



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gfxmachine

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #15 on: September 05, 2005, 10:24:41 PM »

But anyway, think of one-piece unchunked and interplotated md3 as a great solution for old machines, is good too.

Anyway, I suspect is been quite a task to make the ms3d loader, to ask for new formats...
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gfxmachine

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #16 on: September 10, 2005, 08:23:32 PM »

Well, been searching but can't guess if there's support of partial weights in ms3d format...

Neither I know if the ms3d exporter does actually support weights or not ... As provided Milkshape software actually only allows 1.0 or 0.0 weights, the script author for Blender may have not cared about it, though would be useful for some games already using the format but not the tool... (scorched3d uses a plugin also for Blender and this format)

I have tested a little the export script (last post there) http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30004&start=15

...and...gives me an error about ipo quaternion rotations or something.

One thing is, though I can animate for games usually in Blender, I have very short knowledge of teh package, only learnt what i really needed. And IPO, Action or NLA windows weren't among my needs... I guess perhaps doing something with that ipo and action thing it may export well. Or maybe is a bug in the plugin.

Anyone knows?

Anyway, I dunno how I'd check if weight are ported, as...Milkshape -I have it-  will never display smooth weights, and then, only way would be...if file was ascii, but it isnt. What I don't understand is how is all put into an ms3d. Ms3d file was usually for mesh, and the ascii txt , the file to export animation info...

I guess my only way would be to check an exported file in Wintermute engine, and see there if weights are kept partial. But if i can't export, I cant do that....


Any ideas or experiences?

Has someone been there ?

And...Any Python expert? jerrot?

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gfxmachine

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #17 on: September 10, 2005, 08:26:19 PM »

forgot:

the ms3d file I could get in one of the tries (if you dont write in the script keyframes to export, for example, it works)  the file got ok in Milkshape 3d, with skeleton and all, just skeleton unlinked, no asignment , no weights, not even 1.0 weights.

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gfxmachine

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #18 on: September 10, 2005, 08:37:28 PM »

http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/forum/showthread.php3?s=77d7054214e31c54bb1564641dcd9235&threadid=11938

judging that, is as one coder told me once, format should be able to support weights, is just that the Milkshape tool does not, so it just takes the maximum 1.0, or 0.0 when import and export, if you read  Mete's post at the end (he' ms3d author)

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gfxmachine

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #19 on: September 11, 2005, 08:45:02 AM »


new idea. Perhaps the author of CFX told me once -don't quote me on this, I may be remembering badly- that ms3d format allowed partial weights but Milkshape did just trashed the partial weights at import (that would match with Mete's post I pasted above...)   I remembered then that actually I have another possible ms3d (+ascii) export among my purchased software....Character Fx. i'll try now and see if we can read in some way the info there and check weights(the cilinder bending example will rock here)....It'd be helpful if somebody tried to import the milkshape file/s that I may upload , and would save it for me as wintermute project (I have zero knowledge of Wintermute, yet) so I can load and check at least visually in the Wintermute editor like I did with triity (hey, really nice to see that one rotating in 3d rela time in the editor!) I think I'd inmediately check if then weights are preserved there.

Oh, and by the way, Character fx costs only 15$. yet so, I consider quite superior Blender(character fx only animates, but true that is somewhat easier than Blender). Indeed, no way to let a foot glued to the ground, while you can do in Blender. So, I'm hoping someone updates that Blender ms3d export script... ;)


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gfxmachine

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Re: Blender and WME
« Reply #20 on: September 11, 2005, 10:21:05 AM »

ok, tested with a huge (coincidence, was for an AG, but targeted to rendered sprite of 100 pixels, that's why the poly count so crazy) count of 10k tris.

The fact is...I have another concept issue...hey, thought ms3d, the binary format, was only for mesh, while ascii .txt was the actual animation...I think I realize now...the ascii seem to be the full thing to, and surely ms3d too...they seem to be just to different ways, ascii and binary, but both port whole info.

Sadly, I can't read a binary file, but what Character Fx exports is ascii...well, i read here the huge coords list...

Stuff is...i am suspecting I can see here something that could well be the weight PER JOINT...but unsure...

Would need to be a coder and know the format well to guess it...

Anyway, unless I may find an ascii to ms3d converter, this tol would be of no use, as Wintermute only loads the ms3d format.That's another think I like of x, it's ascii.(wel, can be also saved as binary...)

If ms3d contains partial weights as all is pointing to, then, it'd *only* be a matter of whoever willing(ehm...jerrot? ;)  ) for it, or even same Venom (author of ms3d exporter for blender) update and fix the python script...And ensure it exports well the weights for several engines that use the ms3d format (heh, is not only Wintermute: there are a bunch of engines loading ms3d format for some reason...if it has internally weights, I'll have to start saying I like the format better than the tool... ;)  Which rocks, anyway, too ;) )


edit: yup, rereading that ms3d forum thread, found certain sentences : "MilkShape is able to Import as many Vertex Weights as any game supports it. MilkShape loads the data but then ignores to use it"

So, finally, a matter for any blender python programmer. ;)


« Last Edit: September 11, 2005, 12:10:32 PM by gfxmachine »
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