.XMESH import script for Blender3D: render/animate ships

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CubOfJudahsLion
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.XMESH import script for Blender3D: render/animate ships

Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

This is mainly related to artworking so I guessed I'd post it here.

Well, the .XMESH->Wings3d->Blender3D route wasn't working for me and I needed something to put vegastrike ships in Blender for illustrations. The result is a Blender import script that applies the appropriate UV-mappings and imports the required images itself (as long as they're in the same directory, but this is just for now.)

Image
(Edit: Just moved image to ImageShack. Stupid bandwidth-pinching geocities.)

Now we're able to use ships for animations and illustrations in Blender.

C&C are appreciated, specially from any Blenderheads that may be around. And since this is GPL'd, contributions are welcome too.

Edit: link fixed
Last edited by CubOfJudahsLion on Wed Apr 20, 2005 4:55 pm, edited 8 times in total.
Mr Wonka
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Corr Blimey Guvnor.

Post by Mr Wonka »

That is fantastic. Are you working on the reverse process? Being able to model ships and export directly to XMESH ready to use would be fantastic. I've got some skill with blender, i was just hinking of making some base artwork myself

PS We need to get VS to render that well. Volunteers? :lol:
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Post by hurleybird »

wow, looks really nice!
cold_electric

Post by cold_electric »

thats nice as well..

which reminds me.. I wonder if anyone is still working on the wings3d version of the xmesh plugin... especially when exporting to cockpit would be nice as well..

eventhough blender is free, i don't really have the time to learn the basics on how to build the model and UV map is from scratch.. since wings3d may be my main program for modeling.

but an export/import xmesh plugin for blender would be nice as well.
CubOfJudahsLion
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Updated -> 0.1.1. Now it loads and applies the texture correctly. Get from same location.

You still need a fully working Python installation (for the xml parser.)

There are no immediate plans to write an export filter, but it may come somewhere along the line. My priorities right now are to allow for image loading from the /textures directory as well, and to look into BFXM.
Last edited by CubOfJudahsLion on Wed Apr 20, 2005 4:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Halleck
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Post by Halleck »

Awesome!

By the way, I think that if you just export your model as an obj, you can then convert it to bfxm with mesher.exe. Of course, an export plugin would streamline this process nicely.
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Post by hellcatv »

you can also load obj's directly from game...
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Unimatrix

Post by Unimatrix »

I've been using Blender since about '99 (version 1.8) mainly for single cell renderings and some animation work. (I'm mainly in video post production) Anyway, when my iBook gets back from the shop (no they havn't fixed the logic board defect) I'd be able to do some animation or still rendering. Unfortunately my old 1.2Ghz Althon system with FBSD 5 I used for Blendering kicked the bucket last month(motherboard) and everything else I have at home is either slow as dirt (like this old 400mhz PII) or runs on an ALPHA processor until my iBook gets back next week.

So if you want intro movies, animations, or just really cool stills for artwork, let me know. I'll probably be getting a Mini Mac and a few older PC's before the end of the summer. Credit card has to be paid off first, but planning on setting up a small rendering farm at home to donate out CPU time when I can't find people to rent it.

I've been watching this project in the shadows for a couple years and its come long way step by step. Say that as I still have the Privateer box with 3.5" disks AND the seperate speech disk....and a 100Mhz 486/DX Box with DOS that can still play it on.
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Post by hellcatv »

cool :-) glad you've been watching us

have you also taken a similar interest to the privateer remake


good luck with the logic board fix... I had to go to my local apple store 2 times before they would repair it (it was within the 3 year extended warranty for the logic board fix)
the first time they claimed I broke it and would have to pay between 300 and 900 dollars

*sigh*

at least it works now (and hence forth ye will get Vega Strike Mac Releases)
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Post by unimatrix »

Well this is logic board #3 in the last year. I'd do some modelling and texturing, but not exactly my cup of tea. However, once I have the meshes...then play time in Blender and I used to use 3D Studio Max. In fact I still have version 3D Studio 2.5 for PC around here somewhere. Blender 2.3.x has surpased it though...

Seems like I have a copy of Lightwave 5 for Alpha...yeah that's next to useless now...but renders really fast on the Quad Alpha 500 system with 2GB of Ram runnning NT 4 in the basement. (company ditched these servers about a year ago and offered them to employees for $500 a pop. Should have bought 2, but all the extra cash I had at the time...

So in theory I could render in any of the three Applications. Although I haven't opened lightwave in at least a year and 3Ds probably longer....
Guest

Blender Ship Modeling for Vega Strike?

Post by Guest »

Three questions:

1) Does Vega Strike only use the Xmesh format?

2) Is there an easy way to get ships made in blender ready for entry into the vega strike engine?

3) What's the budget on a Vega Strike ship, in general. How many polys, how big a texture?
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Re: Blender Ship Modeling for Vega Strike?

Post by jackS »

Guest wrote:Three questions:

1) Does Vega Strike only use the Xmesh format?

2) Is there an easy way to get ships made in blender ready for entry into the vega strike engine?

3) What's the budget on a Vega Strike ship, in general. How many polys, how big a texture?
1 - we don't actually use the Xmesh format directly anymore, but it remains in use as a hand-editable interchange format. The VS engine prefers to work with our BFXM format.

2 - Export to OBJ. We have a standalone utility that will turn one or more OBJs or Xmeshes into a BFXM. OBJs can be loaded directly, but VS OBJ feature support is poor vs BFXM.

3 - Assuming you generate appropriate LOD meshes, feel free to pretty much go to town.

If you want to do some modeling of ships for the VS universe, please examine this list of ships, select one that doesn't already have an assigned modeler or a completed model (either saying so in the description page for the ship as with the Admonisher, or denoted by "all systems green" as for the Ariston) and then let me know which one you want to work on so that I can prioritize filling in the role description and can try to provide some concept art/textual descriptions of visuals.

If you just want to use the VS engine for your own purposes, then we're still glad to offer whatever assistance we can lend you :)
Guest

Thank You.

Post by Guest »

Thank you for the information. I might like to do a ship for VS in the future, though right now, I should probably get to know the game a little better (I have only seen about 1/4 of the ships, so far and have only piloted the original transport craft.)

I do have a question about a particular ship though. You know the craft you see in the upgrade/ship purchase area of a human fighterbase (it appears as a wireframe in the upgrade section, and down in the pit, in the shipyard) and onboard a human warship (It appears on the cover of the catalog, in the ugrades room). What is that three winged ship called? I would like to see if someone is working on that.

I hope the Goddard and Tesla are not changed too much, they are the two best ships, from a visual aesthetics point of view, in my opinion.
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Post by rewpparo »

CubOfJudahsLion, how's your next version going ?
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CubOfJudahsLion
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Fantastically, thanks :)
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Post by MamiyaOtaru »

Great work getting this going!
The texture looks a little distorted. Compare with in-game shot, specifically the front wing, and the lines right behind the cockpit:
Image
Was that fixed in your 1.1? Or will be in upcoming?
Major
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Post by Major »

Can someone help me? I have Blender 2.37a running on Win2k. Just downloaded and installed Python 2.4.
Blender still tells me there is no python installed. The only thing i was capable to do is starting python.exe

Any advice?
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Post by rewpparo »

Sorry major, I never used python under windows ^^

CubOfJudahsLion, if you have a prototype of the script that works with 2.37, could you upload it for me ? i really need it. Thanks in advance :)
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Post by TyKeiL »

well i had a similar problem in linux,
i had to set my environment variable to the base install dir of python, inmy case it was

$PYTHONHOME='/usr/local'
im sure you could fond something similar in windows to change
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Post by Halleck »

This post has what seems to be a good tutorial on setting up python for blender:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=189123

I still haven't got it working, though. :?
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Post by Duality »

I'm trying to use the script for blender 2.37a and I get this message:

Code: Select all

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 44, in ?
ImportError: No module named xml.sax
Any clue.
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Post by Halleck »

SAX is a type of XML parser. I'm guessing the script relies on it to parse the XMESH file, and you are missing it.
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Thank you all for your comments. Ok, new version, guess I'll just leave the dupe vertex removal (if ever) for other versions. Here it is: http://www.geocities.com/cubofjudahslion/VS/xmesh.zip

@Duality: The script does need a full Python install (I'm not gonna write an xml parser if there's one available.) Halleck (thanks) has provided appropriate links to set it up properly. For extra info on setting the dreaded PYTHONPATH, look here.

@MamiyaOtaru: that's because I used subsurfaces for the (admittedly experimental) shot, it's not the script's fault. In Blender, UV-mapped textures get distorted over subsurfaced meshes, but we can always smooth-sub-divide and tweak mapping instead (blender interpolates mapping for new geometry, but we may not always agree with everything it does.)

Regarding export scripts, Dandan already wrote one, but we'll have to ask him.

Almost forgot. A happy 4th of July to our American teammates ;) (not that I expect any to read this 'til tomorrow, but still.)
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