Blender BZ2 exporter testers needed

[OvermindDL1]

Well, no real testing is needed right now, I know what needs to be fixed, just don't have time to code during this week thanks to school/work (should have so much more time next week).  If you want to give it a go then look in the source for texture's.  It exports them correctly, but I don't think I read them from B3D correctly (I don't know its api well yet...).  And of course animations, I have it almost complete, but almost complete isn't complete, need to figure out some more things with the api for that as well.  If you figure it up and code a change then send me the diff patch.

[OvermindDL1]

Here, a new update.  Texture and uv coords appears to be fixed and working well, even with the lack of proper tests (*cough*Dianoga*cough* caused me about an hour of wasted time till I figured out your file was not showing anything that I needed ).

I guess now just animations need to be tested.  Anyone wish to supply any proper testcases that work but do not export correctly?

[Dianoga]

You might want to explain exactly what you want then because I just tried uv mapping an object and testing it in game and it didn't work. Sounded like that was the kind of thing you wanted but apparently I was wrong.

Dia

[OvermindDL1]

You started to uvmap it, but didn't finish (you setup the scene for it, but didn't actually put down where the poly's go on the image), and you didn't assign an image to the mesh, it was aptly named: "Untitled" (Blender3D's way of telling you there is nothing there).  When I finished your uvmapping and assigned a texture to the material that the mesh was using, I figured out that it was bailing early when writing the texture part, because I had a False instead of a True (er, vice-versa, whichever it was now), then it worked perfectly.

[Dianoga]

Hmm we must be looking at two different things because what you said pretty much sounds like what I did. Also in the blend file I have, it seems to show the image file as well but anyways, obviously I must've been doing something wrong. Hope you get it working though even with my mis-direction.

Dia

[OvermindDL1]

You linked the image with the uvmap window, but not to the model itself.

[Dianoga]

I tried using the "fixed" blend file and the updated exporter that you posted and it still doesn't show the texture when you try it in the editor.

Dia

[OvermindDL1]

It does show the texture, but I just noticed it only shows the pixel it coords 0.5,0.5, instead of where the texcoords say it should look, and they all look correct to me, trying to figure that out...

EDIT:  Just went over it yet again.  BZ2 reads the texcoords as they are, and does not read the triangles, but rather copies them from the vertices section.  If this section had an xsi header then it would read the texcoords, then read the verts from the texcoords section, which is far less efficient, especially since the texcoords is alreayd sorted in relation to the vertices.  Those are the only differences, and that seems correct, so I do not see why it is not working.  Perhaps GSH could take a look in the meshread::ReadTexCoords(iss, *textfeat, FALSE); function that starts in the area for ReadMesh following the _MESHTEXTURECOORDS path, not the _XSITEXTURECOORDS path, and see how this could possibly be wrong with what it is reading?

[Lizard]

are you still working on this exporter OM ?


I've stickied this thread so that maybe a few more people will notice it and give you some help.

[OvermindDL1]

When I have time yes, but still need people with some better knowledge about this 'model stuff' to help with some rough edges.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I'm glad the topic was finally stickied too, and I've got the latest exporter version installed. One question I have is does the exporter automatically send files to my addon folder? Also to appear in the map editor what ODF should I associate with the file to test it in the map editor; will any do? And does the exporter export the texture applied to the model in B3D or do I need to copy it manually OM? Some feedback would be nice so that testers could have something to look for and report back on to you for closer examination. Still don't know much about B3D, but am willing to spend some time testing the exporter as it's developed as I too would eventually like to do animation for BZII. And tanks OM for taking the time to even work on a B3D BZII exporter...BNG

[Dianoga4]

I also posted this in the other thread but I tried it out again the other day and still I wasn't able to get any texture to show up in the editor.

Dia

[OvermindDL1]

What use would the addon folder be?  It saves it where you choose to save it.
I need to rewrite the texture section a little bit, would not take long, just have not had time (Saturday will be my first day off in months, hopefully then if I do not sleep all day).

The bz2 xsi format just uses the filename for the texture, it matters not where it is as long as it is loadable by bz2 (somewhere in the bz2 virtual filesystem), no other data from the xsi is used for texture data.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Typically, BZII related models and props go into the addon folder for use by the game engine OM. Why would they be placed anywhere else? Testers need feedback just like you. Guess I better dust off B3D, and start actually learning the basics of it to see what results from using it to help unravel the exporter thing-a-ma-gig...BNG

[OvermindDL1]

They should be placed in a PAK file for mod distribution (the resultant .msh that is, not the xsi, don't want desyncs after all).  Although I have a different directory specified in my cfg file so I can keep things neatly separate between new versions of BZ2.  Not to mention that you probably have a real working directory somewhere, along with multiple BZ2 installations, hence it would be impossible to have an addon directory be default as it would not know which one if you have multiples, nor may you want to save it directly there...