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Mesh Editor

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Mesh Editor

At last

http://roch.denis.googlepages.com/
from Sins Forums
Well, after much work and procrastination on my part, I finally finished the first functional version. I'll write a user guide somewhat soon (I won't commit hehe). You can get it here.

There's two things to know about textures for your models.

1.Whatever texture name your mesh used, the sins .mesh file will use the same name but with the .dds extension.
2.Because of the library I'm using, all the textures names inside the .mesh files have been converted to lowercase. So even if your textures are already .dds files, you have to make sure they have lowercase file names.

I'm working on fixing this indirectly by having the tool output your textures ready to use with your mesh file. So if they were say .tga they'll have been converted to .dds.


I'm sure there'll be many issues and questions so don't be afraid to ask or mention bugs. If you don't mention bugs they won't get fixed. I know that's obvious but people often think that *surely* I knew about that one.
modding
33,845 views 51 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
Oh sorry, I thought that was settled by Major Stress answer. If you don't see any material to select, chances your model does not contain texture information. You need to texture it beforehand, my tool does not provide support for skinning models.

If you're convinced your model has material info inside it, you can always send it to me to take a look.
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
ok well i loaded up a model from .3ds i know its unwrapped, and i have a texture in dds ready to go with it,
when i load it up the model is just grey, i cant add any texture files to it,
when i try and save to ANY location i end up with a 0 byte file and the program just crashes and dies

i tryed with .obj and the same result

im running XP pro and using max 8 to export the models

what do you mean by the model having material info? can you be more specific, do you mean applying a specific shader to the model before exporting or just having it unwrapped?

Kenetor
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Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
It seems as though it only works if you import a model in ".x" format.
Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
Ummm I guess I'll have to take a look at 3ds importing but I had a test model for that and it worked fine. I don't suppose you could send me the model that cause problems? If you're worried about your IP, you can maybe make a cube that present the same problems and I could check it out?
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
OK, version 1.2 is out. It saves all your textures to DDS format along with your model and it gives it the correct case. It will also keep all the info you've painted in the alpha channel if you're using png or tga files and translate them to dds.

-Next I want to add something to allow you to not have to redo the emitter each time you're importing a new version of your model. I recon that can get old pretty fast.

I'll admit I'm not a heavy user of this software with the "normal" use path so if you guys have suggestions of features more urgent than others, please do mention it. I'm aware that a lot of stuff is missing/should be fixed but it's a question of priorities.

PS: I did try out .3ds files and something seems to be wrong. Maybe you should stick to .x for now if that's what works.

PPS: Might not be able to work on this next week. I have to visit Vancouver for work plus I have to write a paper on pitch recognition and how I did it. Busy, busy :p

Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
cool!!
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
i dont know whats up with it, whether its my model or something ive done or the editor, but everytime i try and save the file, it crashes. im using a .x model that loads with a converted .bmp color texture file. any suggestions on if i did something wrong or if its the editor?
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
Well, if it's crashing I'd say it's my fault :p

Can you send me the model if you want me to take a look at it: roch.denis at gmail.com
Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top
Well alright I found the problem, it's just a bug in the beta version of Irrlicht I was using. They just released the final version, guess I'll just upgrade instead of fixing it and risking other issues.
Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top
Finally making progress with my bloom nightmares, what I discovered is that the Mesh Editor cannot import DDS textures despite giving you the option to do so. What I noticed is that with DDS textures the file names do not get added to the mesh (as viewed with a TXT editor) where as other formats e.g. TGA do.

Once the file names have been added to the mesh (using the editor) I'm guessing I can replace/overwrite the 'Mesh Editor created DDS files' with any DDS file I choose.

Not wanting to appear ungrateful I would still like to pass on thanks to Code Herder for getting us this far, without your editor I'd be doing naff all model importing. Well done dude...  :) 
Reply #38 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, I just made a tga, converted the tga to dds, and pointed the mesh editor to the TGA (before it made its own dds) and it worked. I dunno how it knew to reference the dds, but as long as it works..
Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top
Well, I've mentionned it several time in other threads but the DDS the editor output are corrupted or when it works super low res. I made a small setting mistake before release that screwed all the dds output up.

I just need to make a new release, I was took busy with real life doing it but I should be able to make a new version with the fix tonight.
Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top
il repost here: is it just me or is your right side emmiters not working when i put them in and set damage to the right side it gives me an error when i start upp the game saying that there is weapon damage set there but no emmiters it seems that weapons given right side emmiters actuly get front emmiters cos the guns shoot but they only shoot in the forwrd axis
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top
Yes, I saw you mention it. I'll look into it.
Reply #42 from Sins Forums Top
just making sure so if you forgot and was checking this thread for problems  ;) 
good work so far its working great for me  :CONGRAT: 
Reply #43 from Sins Forums Top
Quick update: loading .mesh is sort of working with a few bugs so it's getting there. Mostly a problem of lack of free time than a technical thing.

The only real technical problem is that I discovered the library I'm using to render the whole thing does not support dds texture. I was a bit shocked as I assumed that obviously they did support it. It's meaningful because .mesh textures are all dds files.

So I have to write code to support it now as there's no way I'm going to re write the whole editor on another platform. Luckily I have a plan to make it somewhat painless if it pans out. Still..
Reply #45 from Sins Forums Top
Well done dude.

As a matter of interest to you all in my effort to push the SoaSE game engine with meshes I tried to import a model with near on 30,000 vertices yesterday. The mesh file size was nearly 9MB but unfortunately the game crashed 90% into the level loading screen.

My guess is that the mesh was simply too complex, though it is possible the model was too large in volume I'll try once more using the mesh editor feature to scale down.
Reply #46 from Sins Forums Top
damn after attempting to put all the emmiters on the desolator battleship i recon what we need is a way to click to put em in =) its good we can get at .mesh files means i can load up models I've already imported and edit thigs your doing a great job code herder camt wait for the next version

ps WTB ETA (mind the mmo abreviations iv been playing EVE to much)
Reply #47 from Sins Forums Top
Regarding the 9mb mesh, I'll confess it probably shouldn't be that big. I cheated and had to use padding to fix a crash bug regarding unknown data. So I had padding in relation to the size of the mesh. It sucks but it works and it should compress really well since it's all zeros so it's not such a big deal for sending on the net.
Reply #48 from Sins Forums Top
I knocked the original mesh down to around 15-16K polygons and it went in fine this time, clearly there is a limit with either the Mesh Editor and/or game engine for models somewhere around the 20K mark.

That is a pretty high poly limit in my book, the Kol Destroyer for example isn't anything like that high.
Reply #49 from Sins Forums Top
any updates not be anoying or anything but its been quiet for a week or so and just wondering if you have made any progress in squishing bugs and making features im eagerly awaiting an update of any kind

ps these forums have been quiet of late wonder whats going on...?
Reply #50 from Sins Forums Top
Can someone please explain how the emitters work and what their purpose is?

btw as a long shot I tried a 115,000 poly model today which produced a 29MB .mesh, SoaSE minidumped on the level load not that I was expecting it to work. I'll knock it back to 20,000 polygons which seems to be the sweet spot so far and try again.

I'm having to learn UVW mapping/texturing from scratch so progress is sloooow atm worth the effort though as u can't do squat without it. Its funny been playing games for like 25yrs and only now do I even begin to appreciate the effort and techniques used to make the graphical game effects we take for granted.