Please ask your basic (newbie) questions in here.

Judith on 1/3/2008 at 07:23

Well, I thought I saw a passage in Blender wiki, saying that you can export blender files into 3ds format. If you don't have 3ds max 5.1, no problem, there are a few people (myself included) who will export your mesh into .tim format and send it back to you.

Flux on 1/3/2008 at 11:29

Quote Posted by MKG

Ah well - I should have looked around this forum before asking the questions. Forget questions 1, 2 and 4. Question 3 is still a good one, though, Surely someone has created import/export plug-ins for Blender (he says with fingers crossed and holding his breath)?

There is no plug-in from blender to t3ed at the moment. T3ed uses tim format, unique to its own. Shadowspan was writing a full converter from 3ds <> tim, but I don't know he's working on it still. I pmed him about this, no reply. You can follow what Judith says to exchange meshes, people can convert it for you.

As for the mesh depository thing, I suggested in another thread, it got ignored. I can supply a web-page dedicated to this only, if people can agree on style & help me on php scripting.

I'd also suggest to "study" the current library of meshes, you can do a lot with them, like re-texturing. I'm still looking at original missions, discovering every day totally different ways & combinations to use original meshes. For a starter, you have *almost* all the meshes you need for a classic thief level.

Beleg Cúthalion on 1/3/2008 at 11:41

I think with Ziemanskye, STiFU, Flux an me there should be enough guys to install this plattform once and for all. The only problem was that those who wanted to have it were those who could not offer a first set of SMeshes themselves. I'll ask the Child of Karras – being able of creating php pages – if he could create a first simple page where one can upload his file plus a picture of the object. Once this is installed, we can think about categories and other stuff.

Concerning the SMeshes; Flux is right. Since all arches, domes, gables etc. are (and have to be) static meshes, they (and their sizes) somehow dictate your way of building a level...as long as you cannot make them on your own. Plus, this library is imho really huge and you have to get used to it first.

Judith on 1/3/2008 at 11:51

Unfortunately, my knowledge of creating web pages is limited to good old HTML only, but I can contribute with my resources (first I have to check which ones have permission to be included in fan-made packages, and which not ;))

MKG on 1/3/2008 at 12:15

Thanks for the rapid replies, all. I found (via the Flesh wiki) TIMtoE and Eto3DS, which is half the battle. And, in my coding naivety, it occurs to me that if the conversion can be done one way, then surely it should be relatively simple to go back the other way??? However, that's for brighter sparks than me.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to see that the depository idea has already been discussed. You're right about the fact that most people who would be interested in such a thing would be users rather than contributors, but isn't that the idea of a depository in the first place? In any case, the depository has to come first - making the meshes is fun but time-consuming, so if there's nowhere to put them, why should anyone make them? Just food for thought.

With good tools and good facilities (i.e. that depository), I can foresee a long and productive future for T3. After all, the Doom 2 community is still alive and kicking after all these years for those very reasons.

Flux on 1/3/2008 at 12:19

Quote:

if he could create a first simple page where one can upload his file plus a picture of the object.

Yes, exactly. There are tons of free upload scripts that can be installed but none comes with a picture-table lay out. A folk with basic php skills is needed if we, and I agree we should, we want to page with some basic table lay out, and pictures as well.

I *think* we can also use this to upload missions, set them to public/private(beta testing purposes) I don't think fms or texture packs or static meshes are downloaded in terabytes, so we'll be ok in bandwith. We're a small community anyway;)

STiFU on 1/3/2008 at 12:30

I think Shadowspan wasn't able to break the tim fileformat down, so he simply couldn't create that converter.

I was originally planning to create the depository "FleshMeshes" with a friend, whom I needed because I don't know any PHP either. But then I went to the university like Ziemanskye said and didn't give any further thought to it, since I mostly quit levelediting as well. I hope you guys will bring it up... :)

Beleg Cúthalion on 1/3/2008 at 22:24

One question that might be important for all that TDS modding that I still have in mind (enforcers, unified missions etc.): Is it possible that the unr files shipped with T3Ed are not identical to the missions in the game? In T3Ed I noticed a lot more surface flashing (you know, when BSP and SMesh are on the same level) and today I had to give the OldQuarter1 enforcers all their scripts and LoadFilter to show up on day six only; properties which were missing (but only with them..at least until now, don't know about all the enforcerts in the other City maps).

@Child of Karras is informed and wants to take a look at the "a little tricky" upload scripts.

Child Of Karras on 8/3/2008 at 18:45

After 5 hours of work I can present to your the "Static Meshes for Thief III Uploader" version 1.0.

At the moment it's hosted on my server, those who want to have it on their servers, please get in contact to me, as there are several things need to be discussed.

(http://jayb.ath.cx/SMeshes/index.php) Static Meshes for Thief III

Beleg Cúthalion on 9/3/2008 at 07:43

Due to the need of textures and matlibs for some static meshes (like the ones from str8g8, in case he wants to participate), we would probably like to turn this into the general T3Ed resource platform. But this is just a start.

One more note: Although we added a "Package" category, I'd like all contributors to add their files one by one to give the categories some purpose. Maybe this thing grows faster than we think and there might come a time when people won't download everything because it would become too much on their PCs.