How to use new ship format?

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:22 am

So there's this new ship format in CVS, and it is cool because it loads so fast. But I don't really know much about it.

What do people need to do to utilize this new format when making ships? Is there backwards compatibility with the old way of doing things? Is there a tool available that will convert from xmesh to the new format?

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:44 am

there is a few words here, http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... nv/mesher/ , and there seems there is a converter too

Space Cowboy · Post by **Space Cowboy** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:53 am

so vegastrike can't load .xmesh files anymore?

whats the big deal here?

Post by **jackS** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:59 am

peteyg wrote:So there's this new ship format in CVS, and it is cool because it loads so fast. But I don't really know much about it.

file spec: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... iew=markup

What do people need to do to utilize this new format when making ships? Is there backwards compatibility with the old way of doing things? Is there a tool available that will convert from xmesh to the new format?

There is backwards compatibility. If you specify xmesh files, they will still load correctly.

There is a stand alone conversion utility that you can build out of the files in vegastrike/objconv/mesher. It currently only does xmesh->bfxm and bfxm->xmesh, but will eventually be extended to do obj->bfxm.

One will note the appearance of files named "BFXMMAKE" in every directory containing BFXM files. The format is quite simple - EX:

"thrud.bfxm":"thrudhi.xmesh","thrudsails.xmesh"
"thrud_shield.bfxm":"shield1.xmesh"

Left of the colon is the target, and the right is a comma separated list of sources. One target is specified per line. Don't specify LOD files or animation frames. Those are automatically gathered from notations in the top level file.

assuming you have built the mesher utility, and it resides in your path, this script will process every BFXMMAKE file in the directory tree from rooted where it is invoked: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... Mupdate.pl

Since we can generate a set of xmeshes from a BFXM file (so as to more conveniently adjust scale factors, LOD distances, materials properties, etc.), which format an artist chooses to submit their work in isn't vital.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:33 am

?? so xmesh are generated on the fly, from the bfxm file?

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 4:28 pm

I think he means you can "reverse engineer" a bfxm back to its source xmeshes so you can edit them in Wings or Notepad or what have you.

-pincushionman

Post by **hurleybird** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 6:24 pm

what exactly is bxfm, and what new features does it bring?

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 6:49 pm

It loads faster. CVS loads a lot quicker now than with xmesh.

Space Cowboy · Post by **Space Cowboy** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:06 pm

ok since i'm not the developer of any kind, is there a way to compile them into .exe files so I can try out??

Average Earthman · Post by **Average Earthman** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:23 pm

I personally think it's about time the front page was updated anyway - no changes in six months doesn't give the impression of progress. Any chance of a new .exe on the front page?

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 7:59 pm

Actually, some kind of front page update would be pretty nice. Perhaps just a list of new features that are in CVS, the promise of a release on the way (date unspecified), and perhaps neat screenshot.

Don't want people to think that Vega Strike is dying or anything.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:14 pm

lo that's not the case

a changelog should go fine

Post by **jackS** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:27 pm

pincushionman wrote: I think he means you can "reverse engineer" a bfxm back to its source xmeshes so you can edit them in Wings or Notepad or what have you.

Correct.

hurleybird wrote:what exactly is bxfm, and what new features does it bring?

Binary Formatted XMesh
A header based extensible file format that encodes geometry, animation, and material properties in a 32-bit resolution binary representation.

Logical file consolidation (1 file per logical object)
Faster load time (File is both smaller and much easier to parse)
Somewhat more sane and remarkably more extensible support for mesh animations*(Files can have both animated meshes and LODs at the same time, specification of the animation meshes is decoupled from the specification of a given animation sequence using those meshes, parameters are in place such that support for different methods of animation can cleanly be added later)

*Last I checked, the file format has gotten a bit ahead of the in-game support - but this is intentional - having it the other way around would be quite silly

I haven't figured out how to make BFXM bring about world peace...maybe some other year.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:23 pm

I haven't figured out how to make BFXM bring about world peace...maybe some other year.

maybe adding some flower texture generator, instead of those awfull iron things we have?

Post by **mkruer** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 6:07 am

Hopefully in the not too distant future VS will support OBJ directly, or at least there will now be a utility to convert Xmesh and BFXM back to OBJ. HellcatV can tell you more on his current progress.

Post by **hellcatv** » Tue Apr 27, 2004 7:30 am

working on the converter

Post by **mkruer** » Wed Apr 28, 2004 7:58 am

hellcatv wrote:working on the converter

See I told you (everyone)

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Thu Apr 29, 2004 8:49 pm

convertor from what to what?

i'd really like a 3ds convertor

or the ability to read 3ds files. but whatever.

just get me a 3ds -> VS convertor and i'll be happy

-scheherazade

Post by **hellcatv** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 12:12 am

well 3ds is rather closed of a format
how does .obj sound?

CainFA · Post by **CainFA** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 11:41 am

3ds is the most used format.
But .obj will be good as long as we can do ship in other prog than wings without the need for the ship to go through wings.
One question:
-Does the new format support multiples textures,bump maps(my guess is no),glow map?

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 12:21 pm

as far as I understood, the new format is just a new encapsulation of datas

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Tue May 04, 2004 6:33 pm

hellcat << 3ds wouldbe better than obj, because 3ds files contain theit own material information, where-as with an OBJ you need to have a matching *.mat for any model, so you convert 2 files instead of 1. without the *.mat your texture map is gone. *.3ds files have their own UV coords inside.

-scheherazade

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Tue May 04, 2004 6:37 pm

oh yah, and a google search will turn up code all over the place

"3ds header format"

first thing is "http://www.spacesimulator.net/tut4_3dsloader.html" with code for an importer.

another link had "http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/mxr/gfx/3d/3DS.spec", info about the file from autodesk ltd.

-scheherazade

()Alf · Post by **()Alf** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:08 am

working on the converter

Through my learning "3D-doing-things with blender" plus my egoistic thought "things should be simple" i wondered what happend to that converter?
For my learning progress i thought i'd load some established models into blender to see how they've done, but which i had to convert first to a known format??
Or did i miss an easy way to do such converting things?

Post by **loki1950** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:15 pm

It's called mesher only command line and if you did make all you have it

it also ships with the windows version and lives in the bin folder
just run it with "mesher --help" to get all the options.

Enjoy the Choice

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How to use new ship format?

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