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Standalone ASE Exporter [beta 3]


Serpentine

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I'll try and get around to trying it, though I don't need it. Opening an lwo and exporting as 3ds or obj would be awesome though. Would help me make more LOD models.

The 3Ds exporter is disabled in source, I'm not too sure what's wrong with it, however I'll see if I can fix it up. Obj is fine however.

Please tell me this supports multiple materials!  Our modelers are getting frustrated that the recent ASE scripts for Blender 2.61 only allow submaterials which Doom 3 apparently doesn't like.  Our artists hate having to use 2.49 to export things.

It does support multiple materials, with correct referencing. It does not support submaterials in any way (since they are a bad idea for games anyway). I'm not sure if it will use the material path or name from .blends, I think it is material name. So if they set it to the game's material name it should export and work instantly, however if not, they might need to just edit the *BITMAP for the relevant material.
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On topic:

 

Finished up generating non-verbose ASE's, lists have been converted to sets and indices are maintained. This means that there's a lot less spamming of unique verts/normals since the engine will do those checks and generate them anyway - and more accurately.

Vertex colour also seems to be correct now.

 

Anyhoo, got a few tests to do, then I should release the new build tomoz evening.

 

That Assimp library sounds interesting. Perhaps in the future it could be integrated into the GPL engine itself, so that maps could contains models in any format that Assimp supports.

Nah, that is a road that only leads to trouble later on. However using it as a loader/converter/health check in tools would most likely be a good idea. The ASE importing can be spotty (for example the broken ASE's that DR's export script generates, which are technically invalid, however d3 seems to load them). You need to have constraints in an engine, constraints allow you to minimize the surface area for mistakes/problems and maximize assumptions to help performance, compatibility, portability etc. Some people don't quite understand that last point tho :)

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On topic:

 

Finished up generating non-verbose ASE's, lists have been converted to sets and indices are maintained. This means that there's a lot less spamming of unique verts/normals since the engine will do those checks and generate them anyway - and more accurately.

Vertex colour also seems to be correct now.

 

Anyhoo, got a few tests to do, then I should release the new build tomoz evening.

 

 

Nah, that is a road that only leads to trouble later on. However using it as a loader/converter/health check in tools would most likely be a good idea. The ASE importing can be spotty (for example the broken ASE's that DR's export script generates, which are technically invalid, however d3 seems to load them). You need to have constraints in an engine, constraints allow you to minimize the surface area for mistakes/problems and maximize assumptions to help performance, compatibility, portability etc. Some people don't quite understand that last point tho :)

 

Well, you could fix the ASE exporter for DR, if you know what you have to do.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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OK, that worked.

 

Very cool, nice to be able to grab an lwo now and take it into Max. Same with .ase since I am no longer on Max 5.1 lol.

This'll be good for LOD models for sure. (nobody should expect a huge influx of these any time soon).

 

Seems pretty cool, things I would request.

 

1: filter for meshes, most of ours have shadow, collision and the mesh... though it's not biggie, the main use of this for me is to access files I never could before. (DR can do)

2: applying material to model, again, not a biggie (can help to visualize model better)

3: edged faces - solid faces AND wireframe at once. (same as above, just more options to view, see what it going on in a model)

 

So far things I like better than model viewer in DR - in case these ever get combined/fixed...

 

1: grey background. A lot of models are hard to see on black background in DR

2: wireframe mode

 

---------

I exported an obj, but need to reinstall max today, then will screw with it more.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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The viewer tool is part of the Assimp project, so it's not really TDM specific at all, I just added the ASE export module and fixed up a few other things. The Assimp guys are interested in pushing most of this upstream tho, so it's going to good use. The viewer itself is just a debugging tool really, assimp is aimed at getting models into games, not for really exporting (which was just a nice feature recently added, before people were wrapping it with python and such).

Anyway - pretty much its a 'not my baby' thing, I didnt write it and havent poked around much inside. However seeing as I know a bit about it lemme answer some of your questions:

 

1: filter for meshes, most of ours have shadow, collision and the mesh... though it's not biggie, the main use of this for me is to access files I never could before. (DR can do)

2: applying material to model, again, not a biggie (can help to visualize model better)

3: edged faces - solid faces AND wireframe at once. (same as above, just more options to view, see what it going on in a model)

1 - This is semi-possible already, meshes are split into nodes per material (or per imported node if optimization is disabled in the file menu). If you show the side panel (on the right in my screenshot above), there are 'N' nodes under 'dummy root' or similar, those will be the sub-meshes. While you cant filter out, you can view specific ones quite easily.

2 - You can add texture maps to the model, select a material -> add diffuse etc. This can be a bit quirky, but it's handy from time to time. It can also preview normalmaps and such - but any changes to these settings will not be exported.

3 - I will have a look at this, I know what you mean.

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  • 2 months later...

Thanks a lot for this, was able to use the converter to successfuly import a model into the mod (http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/10003-so-what-are-you-working-on-right-now/page__view__findpost__p__288456), kind of a highpoly model, no preparations whatsoever, didnt give me any problems at all, very nice conversion, and also allowed me to skip the whole blender thing compeltely (looking for a script, testing the version, installing an older version, etc). Thumbs up!

Edited by RPGista
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  • 2 weeks later...

Good to hear :)

 

I'm going to just sync my local branch and make sure a few minor fixes are in for the ASE export, then I will release a new version.

 

Updated the post with a new version - Beta 3.

  • Lists are now compressed to unique elements only.
  • Vertex colour exporting now works correctly!
  • It has a few loader fixes - in specific it should be better at handling existing ASE files.
  • Fixed support for some broken versions of blender's ASE exporter.

A screenshot for fun :

aseexport2.png

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Yup, it was my test for a working model with vertex colouring — funny story that. Turns out the blender exporter that was used for the model had a few typos. I could not understand why the TDM ASE's would not work, but fresh samples I made did.

 

I then remembered my diff viewer had some noise-reduction options, including ignoring one character typos or ~something~. The engine doesn't use the typo'd value, but everything else does. I fixed a few other bugs while finding that tho, whee ;/

 

Now to work out why vertex normals from 99% of models are ignored/broken/incorrect and how to do them 'correctly' for the engine, urgh. Oh, and I finally tested the models work with something other than that path :) 'scuse that terrible UVing by yours truly.

 

vertctest.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Whoa, came here to report a "bug", seems I missed the new version and that last post, nice work!

 

Trying another test model today, imported it as a collada file into assimp viewer tdm (the previous version) - it wouldnt load my texture, jpg or tga. Through the menu on the right, I reloaded the texture (tga, wouldnt accept the jgg for some reason) and it loaded correctly and was showing on the model preview window, but exporting it as ase will crash it to the desktop. Maybe I forgot to do something with the model?

 

post-8474-0-36454300-1340295420_thumb.jpg

 

The model if needed:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/od59ru

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Replacing the previous model with a obj version instead of collada works.

 

Is there a reason why a model would be converted ok but then fail to load in DR? I made a test model that shows normally in assimp and exports, created the material and texture files, but even though the file is listed in DR, it shows up as a generic small cube (as if the model itself was missing).

 

Here's the file if needed:

 

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ngc2uu

 

EDIT: Will try with the latest version, forgot to download it.

Edited by RPGista
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Hmmm... It complains I dont have the msvcp110.dll ?

 

Reinstalling the library and putting the file right into the program folder wont help, still says it cant find the dll.

Edited by RPGista
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