SneaksieDave on 13/3/2005 at 03:36
:thumb:
Dark Arrow on 13/3/2005 at 06:30
Indeed, this is very good thing to know. Keep on going. :thumb:
OrbWeaver on 13/3/2005 at 11:46
If you (or somebody else using your discoveries) could write an export plugin for Blender, that would be fantastic. I would be more than happy to attempt this myself if you can get the format figured out.
Blender can export to .3ds (although I don't know how effective it is), so a .3ds to .tim converter ought to suffice, though.
Shadowspawn on 14/3/2005 at 02:10
More progress, at least I can reconstruct the objects now. This imagine is a 3DS file, rendered in Deep Exploration;
Inline Image:
http://users.adelphia.net/~rsybel/images/LightHouse.jpg That's the lighthouse under buildings. There seem to be three materials I can't find in the textures directories; Material #7404, Material #7415, and Material #7821. They might be in the matlib, I don't know yet.
I cannot seem to find any "complex" items (things with moving parts, like axles or rotation axis). Don't they exist? Or is everything made up of individual pieces (which would make my life easier).
Haven't figured out transparency or illumination, yet. Getting there. I'll keep you posted. Time to look at some window objects (are there transparent ones?)
Krypt on 14/3/2005 at 02:27
Quote Posted by Shadowspawn
Haven't figured out transparency or illumination, yet. Getting there. I'll keep you posted. Time to look at some window objects (are there transparent ones?)
There is no transparency I'm pretty sure, and emissive is handled in the texture. As long there is a texture with emissive on the surface it should show up as emissive.
Quote Posted by Shadowspawn
I cannot seem to find any "complex" items (things with moving parts, like axles or rotation axis). Don't they exist? Or is everything made up of individual pieces (which would make my life easier).
You mean objects with animation? There aren't any, at least in .TIM format. They are all static. Hardpoints should be the only thing besides the geometry and collision hull you should have to worry about.
Shadowspawn on 14/3/2005 at 02:43
Krypt, thanks for the info! :D
It's so much easier if the materials have their properties and the objects don't directly affect that. I'm very much in the mind-set of Thief 2, where the object directly controlled the illumination and transparency of the materials. It's a relief not to have to worry about that.
Hmmm, why no transparency? I'm sure the engine (by running through Direct X) could manage it fine. I'll have to dig around and experiment some. Of course, it makes rendering that much harder. But it would be cool to have a dirty, obscured window which just lets the player get a glimpse of what's going on behind it.
Hardpoints?! Can you give me the name of a sample object which has 1 or more hardpoints? I've probably missed any of them. Suggestions as to where to look?
Gestalt on 14/3/2005 at 02:53
Wasn't there glass cases in the museum and a door with transparent windows in the seaside mansion? I could've sworn I saw those...
Gestalt on 14/3/2005 at 03:23
I just checked on the mansion. The highest entrance (bedroom balcony) has a door with glass in it. So the engine handles transparent objects fine (maybe not varying levels of transparency though?), and textures with transparent bits (alpha channels or whatever) are used for the grass and tree leaves. Am I missing something?
Krypt on 14/3/2005 at 05:00
Quote Posted by Shadowspawn
Hardpoints?! Can you give me the name of a sample object which has 1 or more hardpoints? I've probably missed any of them. Suggestions as to where to look?
Any light or door mesh should have a hardpoint. You can see hardpoints in the mesh browser in the editor, they show up as a little red green and blue axis thing. The hardpoints can have names also, don't know if that makes any difference to you. I believe the hardpoint handles are attached to on door meshes is named hp_handle.
Quote Posted by Gestalt
I just checked on the mansion. The highest entrance (bedroom balcony) has a door with glass in it. So the engine handles transparent objects fine (maybe not varying levels of transparency though?), and textures with transparent bits (alpha channels or whatever) are used for the grass and tree leaves. Am I missing something?
Oh yeah, forgot about those windows. I think Seaside is the only map that had windows so it was nothing I ever had to think about, hehe. Still, translucency and alpha channels are also handled by the material so Shadowspawn still won't have to worry about them for his TIM exporter.
Shadowspawn on 14/3/2005 at 14:57
Great, if the materials handle the transparency (and illumination, er.. emmisiveness?) I don't need to worry about it until I work on matlib tools.
OK, hardpoints! They're listed under the PHMS tags. For a regular door I found; Collision (which most every object seems to have), hp_handle, hp_lockA, and hp_lockB.
They look just like a translation matrix with a name. I guess they inform the engine how to position other objects that would link to make a working assembly of some sort, like a door with a lock.
Krypt, or another dev? How were those specified in the original 3DS Max files? Were the other objects placed in the correct spot, and marked or named specially, and then filtered out when making the object? Or was some kind of template used.
The reason for that question is so that we can specify this when making new objects. I imagine that if someone were to make a new door in 3DS Max, just producing a rectangular door object, that the engine wouldn't know where to attach the handle and locks with the hardpoint specified. And since it's a translation matrix, it would be alot easier to get it out of the raw 3DS (or whatever) than to have the designer specify it via parameters.
I didn't see any of this in any tutorials yet, on object making, so forgive me if this is covered somewhere and I haven't seen the tut yet.
