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Postby DeathTwister » Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:51 pm

Hay all,

OBJ is really useful, if I had to bet, I'd say .obj has far greater support than .max or .3ds.I would not feel that I am stuck with .obj.


I totally agree with that. /cheers

DT
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Postby Shealladh » Sun Apr 22, 2007 7:34 am

My only reason for wanting a direct import was tbecause I am sick of all the conversion you need with software these days.

Convert from this to this, so that you can load this :p

I can work with OBJ though, so thankx guys.
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Postby DeathTwister » Sun Apr 22, 2007 1:39 pm

Hahahahahaha you and me both Shealladh, I hear and feel your pain.

Smiles.... DT :twisted:
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Postby Q-dad » Mon Apr 23, 2007 8:50 pm

I'd actually prefer .obj to .3ds... :)
TXP (Terrain Xpansion Pack) for DF2: txp.df2.org

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Postby Shealladh » Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:29 am

Just while I think of it, I came across an article on conversion techniques from to various platforms for meshes, mostly character models, but I think it'll come in handy. As it shows how to optimise 3d models ready for export to PC, XBox, PSP and might give someone an idea or insight into making their plugins/models uniform so we can all benefit.

It's called Skinned Mesh Export: Optimization By Ferns Paanakker

So for one I'll find the article again, two upload/copy it here, and three link the file example (all code and I'm lost to say the least).

So I hope to find the appropriate area to place this article and I endeavour to spend more time looking here again, now that I have a whole new schedule and can work around it all.

I'll come back in an couple of hours, I'll place the direct link here to the original and if it's overkill or wasting space, then Aaron can delete the topic I post 8)
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Postby Aaron » Tue May 01, 2007 6:43 am

Hi All,

I'm a bit hesitant to suggest this, but I suppose one option would be to use the mesh optimiser in the 3D renderer to generate a mesh with only 32k triangles, which would then fit in a 3ds file. Sapphire now has a view-independent optimisation mode, so you can generate a mesh that is the most accurate representation of the heightfield for a given triangle count.

To make this work, I will have to add a file exporter directly to the viewer so that it can access the ROAM node tree. That's a little messy, but I can see some benefits in having an optimised mesh output, so I'll put that on my to-do list.

Cheers,
Aaron.
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Postby Shealladh » Tue May 01, 2007 11:37 am

aaron wrote:Hi All,

I'm a bit hesitant to suggest this, but I suppose one option would be to use the mesh optimiser in the 3D renderer to generate a mesh with only 32k triangles, which would then fit in a 3ds file. Sapphire now has a view-independent optimisation mode, so you can generate a mesh that is the most accurate representation of the heightfield for a given triangle count.

To make this work, I will have to add a file exporter directly to the viewer so that it can access the ROAM node tree. That's a little messy, but I can see some benefits in having an optimised mesh output, so I'll put that on my to-do list.

Cheers,
Aaron.


I'm not up with all the restrictions of the format, but is it possible to use the Mosaic per Mesh as an option (in this case ~ 32k per mosaic for example)?

Also I haven't had a chance to post the promised article, but I shall as soon as possible.
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Postby Aaron » Tue May 08, 2007 3:56 am

Hi Shealladh,

Yes, using 3ds as a mosaic export would get us around the vertex limitation. However, I think it might prove rather onerous for users, as the tile size could be no larger than 128x128 pixels, which means that a typical 1024x1024 pixel heightfield would be split across thirty two separate files. In my opinion, it's better if we use OBJ (which effectively has no limit), and/or use 3ds in combination with the mesh optimiser in Sapphire.

Cheers,
Aaron.
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Postby Shealladh » Tue May 08, 2007 2:04 pm

aaron wrote:Hi Shealladh,

Yes, using 3ds as a mosaic export would get us around the vertex limitation. However, I think it might prove rather onerous for users, as the tile size could be no larger than 128x128 pixels, which means that a typical 1024x1024 pixel heightfield would be split across thirty two separate files. In my opinion, it's better if we use OBJ (which effectively has no limit), and/or use 3ds in combination with the mesh optimiser in Sapphire.

Cheers,
Aaron.


Np m8. It was just a thought.

Thanks for the advice 8)
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Postby Hinklemister » Wed May 23, 2007 9:57 pm

I know I haven't been here in a while but I just happened to notice this thread today. Instead of creating a plug-in to export from L3DT to .something and import it to 3ds Max, why not make a plug-in or script in 3ds Max that can import L3DT .proj files? That way the transfer would be a potentially one step process; .proj into Max as opposed to L3DT to .something to 3ds Max. I'll look take a look at the L3DT api code and see if I can get anywhere.

-Hinklemister
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Postby Shealladh » Thu May 24, 2007 9:51 am

Hinklemister wrote:I know I haven't been here in a while but I just happened to notice this thread today. Instead of creating a plug-in to export from L3DT to .something and import it to 3ds Max, why not make a plug-in or script in 3ds Max that can import L3DT .proj files? That way the transfer would be a potentially one step process; .proj into Max as opposed to L3DT to .something to 3ds Max. I'll look take a look at the L3DT api code and see if I can get anywhere.

-Hinklemister


I am seriously considering this as another option. I wonder how many other Max users could use this too?
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Postby Hinklemister » Tue Jun 12, 2007 8:37 pm

I can't figure out a good way to directly get from L3DT to 3ds max but I have found a pretty good solution.

1. Create your terrain in L3DT.
2. Export the heightmap (I prefer png over jpeg for quality but it doesn't matter)
3. In 3ds max create a square plane of whatever size you want and create a large amount of subdivisions (I tend to use a plane size of 1000 x 1000 units with 100 x 100 divisions. The more divisions the greater the quality.)
4. Apply a displace modifier to your plane and using your exported heightmap for the bitmap. I usually set the strength somewhere between 50 and 150, so experiment to find the result for you. Just keep in mind when adjusting the strength that if your going to create multiple planes with mosaics to use the same strength so that they'll line up.

5. Apply the texture: You can go about this different ways depending on how much quality you want.
a) Simply export the texture created in L3DT and apply it to the plane through the material manager.
b) Export alpha maps of the textures. Then, using Max's material editor, create a texture that is a "Multi/Sub-Object" as opposed to "Standard". Then for each alpha map/texture that you have create a blended material with the first layer being the texture you want, the second layer being none, and the mask being the alpha map. This way takes more time but will give you much higher quality.

It wouldn't be too hard to create a plugin that would follow those steps for you, but I was too lazy to write one :wink: . I hope that helps.

-Hinklemister
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Postby DeathTwister » Wed Jun 13, 2007 11:43 pm

Wow, now why didn't I think of that, well thought out dude. Humm, now I will have to try that one /winks. Do you have any screens you could show to share what it looks like done? actually that sounds way to simple and to easy to not have thought of that one before, Derrr. Well done. Now all I need is the time to try that out, hahahahahahahahahahahahaa....

I like that plugin idea the best, but this looks like fun just to do for chits and giggles......and great if you are making animations inside worlds, yaya.

That would be super to see what you up to with a screen shot or 2?

DT 8)
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Postby Shealladh » Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:05 pm

Thanx for the tips, excellent Hinklemister
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Postby Hinklemister » Thu Jun 14, 2007 3:07 pm

Your welcome for the tips. You can see a screenshot here
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