Best way to get info from bxfm file?

A forum for the discussion and development of programs to assist working on or playing with the Vegastrike engine and data sets.
Post Reply
AzureSky
Merchant
Merchant
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Sep 22, 2006 6:41 pm
Contact:

Best way to get info from bxfm file?

Post by AzureSky »

I'm looking to find out the technical details from a VS mesh.

Here's the sort of thing trying to find out:
Does the model use LODs?
Does the model use smooth shading or flat shading?
How many polys/vertices does the model have?
What is the size of the model (bounding box)
What textures (diffuse, specular, glow, etc) does the model use?

Basically, I'm trying to see what needs work technically. Am I right in thinking the only way to get this info is to convert the files with mesher, and then try to figure it out from the xmesh files? Or is there a better way?

What about for more complicated issues, like whether the mesh has a lot of overdraw problems?
loki1950
The Shepherd
Posts: 5841
Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 8:37 pm
Location: Ottawa
Contact:

Post by loki1950 »

As far as i know mesher is the only way although i think i will add a feature request for pyramid's growing mesher GUI :wink: it will be needed before any work on adding the current texture pac to them.And thx for the poke about this :lol:

Edit: Have you browsed thru the masters svn repo might find the original mesh files .blend,3ds or even obj mtl save a bit of skull scratching :wink: till we have something better

Enjoy the Choice :)
my box::HP Envy i5-6400 @2Q70GHzx4 8 Gb ram/1 Tb(Win10 64)/3 Tb Mint 19.2/GTX745 4Gb acer S243HL K222HQL
Q8200/Asus P5QDLX/8 Gb ram/WD 2Tb 2-500 G HD/GF GT640 2Gb Mint 17.3 64 bit Win 10 32 bit acer and Lenovo ideapad 320-15ARB Win 10/Mint 19.2
pyramid
Expert Mercenary
Expert Mercenary
Posts: 988
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:02 am
Location: Somewhere in the vastness of space
Contact:

Post by pyramid »

In the current version of the UnitConverter you can already read the model dimensions from obj file though you cannot analyze any other information. I will put this on my task list to implement a backward converter from bfxm to obj, too.

If you add an obj model to the workspace in UnitConverter and then switch to the unit screen you can read there the dimensions (length, width, height) of the bounding box.
Image

The poly count can be seen when converting the mesh with mesher.
If a mesh has LODs can be seen by the xmesh file naming. See the wiki HowTo:Add_LODs
For textures you'll need to examine either the mtl file of the xmesh file: HowTo:Add_Ships
Dunno about the shading.
AzureSky
Merchant
Merchant
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Sep 22, 2006 6:41 pm
Contact:

Post by AzureSky »

@Loki

I haven't looked through the masters, because I was looking into the meshes for PGG.

I'm able to go from bfxm to obj to blend files pretty easily, but my problem is knowing which of the 20 or show ships and bases could use the most work. I can eyeball the meshes and see where there might be overdraw issues, but not well enough to know if makes changes would improve performance in game. Plus, I think that if there are smooth groups in the bfxm, they're being lost by the time I've gotten it into blender.
Post Reply