3Ds MAX tools
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Hi again, im-not-dead-yet forum.
A few more things (actually lot more underneath, a lot of code rewritten and far less bugs and errors). Proper interface to interact with.
Attachable models like destroyed parts, guns, etc.
I’m kinda happy with importing routines and features so far, moving to getting exporting to work as nicely. Considering custom material shaders to replicate some of the special materials FL has.
Hopefully some beta soon.
Back to 3ds max stuff after a bit of fun in js.
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Preliminary DFM import support
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Looks very promising! Is there any chance you get this to run in blender? Not many people have 3dsmax and blender is free.
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Unfortunately, no. Different modeling software have different scripting languages and APIs used to create such tools. MAX has MaxScript, Maya has MEL, Blender uses Python and so on. I’ve picked 3Ds MAX over others simply because of personal experience.
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I know. I was hoping you could create e.g. some sort of executable you call either from Max or Blender using their scripting languages.
Anyway, one of our modders is working on a tool which lets you convert FL Models to other formats and back via python (his favourite language). He had spare time and I suggested to try it using assimp. It is nearly finished now and working quite well already. So this would be another alternative.
Edit: Thinking of modeling, if you have a good workflow for exporting we probably should talk about materials at some point. I spent a lot of time reversing this week and found some key pieces which were still missing (current LOD level and corresponding engine object plus when it gets deleted) for my wrapper and might be able to release it this year. It would be nice if we get the same look in Max and in FL. I think I found a way how to achieve this in Blender.
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Necessary things for .sur.
Made simple but decent API for AABBs analysis and processing to tweak algorithm further and arrange BSP pairs intelligently, which is important for object parts with a lot of convex hulls.
Animated BSP traversal 1
Animated BSP traversal 2
p.s. Generation/processing is instantaneous, I’ve simply added delays and viewport refresh on every step for animation purposes.
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Similar to other tools I’ve made visuals for hardpoint objects and displaying arcs for revolute hardpoints.
Each individual hardpoint can have its own display sizes, one for base and another for arrow + arc.
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A quick update. It is still in development.
Character animations. I was really curious about that given complete lack of .dfm tools. Ichiru helped to get initial mesh, after that I began digging into bone structures and finally animations which proved to be not so simple. Currently I only have importing functionality, but once most things there are put together exporting deformable models will be relatively simple to do.
Most work regarding rigid models is complete. CMP and 3DB are supported. Hitboxes (.sur) can be imported and exported as well, as closely as I can to match vanilla behavior (like parent parts duplicating hulls from fixed descendants in parent coordsys).
Materials use custom DirectX shaders, can be imported and exported (either separately or embedded into model files). At the moment only a few common types are implemented: various Dc* types, nebula, btdetailmaterial and nomadmaterial. Textures are automatically decompressed into Targa images and specific filename patterns can be used to indicate what format texture will be exported to when put into .mat file or embedded into model (requires Nvidia Texture Tools installed).
HUD wireframes can be created either by line objects with knots snapped to mesh vertices or by extracting visible edges (in 3Ds max Editable meshes have manual edge visibility).
A few additional tools were made to have starscape modeling much easier.
Getting pretty close.
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This is really impressive. Gotta say, I’m pretty excited for deformable models!
