Synide 0 Posted January 17, 2008 (edited) Hi, Due to errors discovered by Fox '09 I have done a quick recode of these 2 converters. p3dm2lwo.exe v1.0.1.0 and lwo2p3dm.exe v1.0.0.8. Note: I added handling of 'sharp edges' to both of these converters. To define the sharp edges in the .lwo you must make an 'edge selection set' called '#sharpedges#'. Also note that if you are using modo to open the .lwo I discovered a small 'bug' in Lux's .lwo importation whereby the 'last' edge defined in the file is left out of the selection set. They've been informed. Hopefully these redone converters are operating better now but please let me know if they are not. Link temporarily removed due to crap release. Cheers, Sy. Edited November 29, 2010 by Synide Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rstratton 0 Posted January 17, 2008 does it keep material id's and mapping? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Synide 0 Posted January 17, 2008 does it keep material id's and mapping? yes Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
surpher 1 Posted January 18, 2008 Thanks for the new tool Synide I've converted the us_soldier_sniper_p3dm.p3d file but I don't see the .mdd point cache file. Am I doing something wrong or doesn't the anim exist in that file? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RN Malboeuf 12 Posted January 18, 2008 Synide that's a pity you got just one pair of hands and only 24 h in a day to do all this stuff )) great work, though i never used Modo - installing it now to try this out Can you give some short explanation what new possibilities we have now with modo ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Panda-PL- 0 Posted January 18, 2008 Am I doing something wrong or doesn't the anim exist in that file? I think the default soldier anims are in .rpt files outside of models, since that are common for all soldiers and have to be config-defined. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Synide 0 Posted January 18, 2008 Thanks for the new tool Synide I've converted the us_soldier_sniper_p3dm.p3d file but I don't see the .mdd point cache file. Am I doing something wrong or doesn't the anim exist in that file? hi, nah... take any BIS character model... 1. go through each LOD and Ctrl-A, 'merge near 0.001', F5, Ctrl-D them all. (Make a macro to do it...) (Select All, Merge Near, Recalc Normals, Deselect) 2. apply a rtm animation to it from the anims.pbo... 3. scroll through the Animation Phases - you don't need to preview in Buldozer - to make sure the anim looks correct. Btw, you should be using one of the P3DM's from either 'bodies_v1.rar' from rksl (or armaassualt.info) because the selection names have been altered to the correct case to match the rtm files. 3. save the character p3dm... you'll notice it's a lot bigger now that it's got an rtm stuffed in it... 4. run the p3dm2lxo... you should get an .lwo & a .mdd (but only 'cause it found '#Animation#' chunks in the p3dm) cool? PS. there are 'other' modelling tools that also read LWO format and mdd point cache files... namely Blender. I don't know anything about Blender - I downloaded and installed yesterday - god they really need an interface designer on board... urrggh. @bdfy... Well, once i get the reverse process working 'lwo2p3dm'... you'll have pretty much all the power and versatility of modo to create your models... only thing modo doesn't really do well atm is animation... but that will come. To me, modo is a beautiful piece of software compared to Max & Maya. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dmarkwick 261 Posted January 18, 2008 Ooh nice, I'm a LW user so this might come in handy Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
surpher 1 Posted January 18, 2008 hi,nah... take any BIS character model... 1. go through each LOD and Ctrl-A, 'merge near 0.0001', F5, Ctrl-D them all. (Make a macro to do it...) (Select All, Merge Near, Recalc Normals, Deselect) 2. apply a rtm animation to it from the anims.pbo... 3. scroll through the Animation Phases - you don't need to preview in Buldozer - to make sure the anim looks correct. Btw, you should be using one of the P3DM's from either 'bodies_v1.rar' from rksl (or armaassualt.info) because the selection names have been altered to the correct case to match the rtm files. 3. save the character p3dm... you'll notice it's a lot bigger now that it's got an rtm stuffed in it... 4. run the p3dm2lxo... you should get an .lwo & a .mdd (but only 'cause it found '#Animation#' chunks in the p3dm) cool? Cool Thanks I did try loading the file into LW and it gave me this error. Saving the file in modo then opening in LW cured the problem. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Synide 0 Posted January 18, 2008 hi,nah... take any BIS character model... 1. go through each LOD and Ctrl-A, 'merge near 0.0001', F5, Ctrl-D them all. (Make a macro to do it...) (Select All, Merge Near, Recalc Normals, Deselect) 2. apply a rtm animation to it from the anims.pbo... 3. scroll through the Animation Phases - you don't need to preview in Buldozer - to make sure the anim looks correct. Btw, you should be using one of the P3DM's from either 'bodies_v1.rar' from rksl (or armaassualt.info) because the selection names have been altered to the correct case to match the rtm files. 3. save the character p3dm... you'll notice it's a lot bigger now that it's got an rtm stuffed in it... 4. run the p3dm2lxo... you should get an .lwo & a .mdd (but only 'cause it found '#Animation#' chunks in the p3dm) cool? Cool Thanks I did try loading the file into LW and it gave me this error. Saving the file in modo then opening in LW cured the problem. oh dear, i don't have LW so couldn't check that, oh well, nevermind... probably it's having trouble with the VMAD normals chunk.... as long as it works with modo, that's all i'm interested in... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stavanger 0 Posted January 18, 2008 News + Mirror by Combat-Prison.net P3dm2lxo v0.2 by Synide best Regards, Stavanger Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mr burns 132 Posted January 19, 2008 Thx for the tools! Although i will never understand the black magic behind them Mirror by Armed-Assault.de Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rstratton 0 Posted January 19, 2008 u would be a hero in my book if you were to make plugins to import/export p3d's for 3ds max Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted January 19, 2008 Frontpaged at the Armaholic.com homepage. The Armaholic.com download page can be found here: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=2677 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Synide 0 Posted January 19, 2008 u would be a hero in my book if you were to make plugins to import/export p3d's  for 3ds max It is entirely within my capability to do that... but the 'work' involved is really more than i want to invest. I've had an initial foray into maxscript only, as at the time i was just investigating whether it would be 'easy' or 'hard'. the upshot was that i decided that i didn't really want to learn yet another products scripting language and application vagaries. I may change my mind on this at some stage, dunno. I settled at lwo2 format because... 1. the file format is well documented and open (as opposed to fbx) 2. the file format is capable of supporting discontinuous UV maps. 3. the file format is capable of supporting per vertex weight mapping. 4. the file format is supported by my favourite modelling tool - modo. Unfortunately modo is not very strong on the animation side atm, and as it's one area i personally want to spend a lot more time in with character modelling i may be forced to go back to looking at getting things working over in Max/Maya. I'm still investigating ways to go from Modo->Endorphin and Endorphin->Modo and bypass Max/Maya all together. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
blackjack-VS- 0 Posted January 20, 2008 Synide, 1st of all, thanks a lot for the effort you have put on this tool. i had some minutes today to test you tool, with XSI and it works impressively well, with the exception to the uv's. so i hope you can give me a light on the reason why the uv's weren't exported. i'll try to explain everything i did... 1- i opened the standard p3d bis soldier in o2. 2- applyed one rtm animation to him, and saved the new p3d. 3- runned p3dm2lxo and had 2 new files 4- went to xsi and opened the new bis_soldier.lwo 5-still in xsi i opened the mdd file. 6- everything is perfect, and when i play the animation slider, EVERYTHING moves perfect. No idea how hard was for you to do this, but congratulations again for the great job. Other relevant details... -The soldier mesh+ proxys were all together in the same mesh... -there's a weight ?map? attached to the mesh, but couldnt see anything so far of what it was suposed to bring in. -the uv channel has ALL the uv coordinates of the mesh, in the 0;0 position. -there's 1 material assigned to the all mesh, without texture path or reference. Ok now i'm wondering if this is happening with the uv's, because i missed the step you described here: Quote[/b] ]1. go through each LOD and Ctrl-A, 'merge near 0.001', F5, Ctrl-D them all. (Make a macro to do it...) (Select All, Merge Near, Recalc Normals, Deselect) I'll post a screenshot/video if you guys want, with the bis soldier animating in xsi. i was really happy with it. And fyi, softimage has a FREE version of xsi, called xsi mod tool, that opens both lwo and mdd files. This can be significantly important for those searching a good tool for animation/modeling/uv's and texturing. Its free and there's a lot of info in the web about it. When i get home, i'll repeat the process until i figure i way to see my uv's correct. Thanks again, and that lwo2p3d will be the cherry in the top of the cake, for most of us!! Count with me for any help or feedback! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Synide 0 Posted January 20, 2008 @blackjack[VS]... Gidday, hmmm... learn something new everyday... didn't know there was a 'free' version of XSI... i'll have a squizzy. Yeah, the lwo file being produced is perhaps not 100% lwo flawless format... i thought i got it into lwo2 (which is the 2.0 extended version) pretty well but obviously not 100%. It works fine with modo, but as I mentioned I wasn't prepared to go through some rigorous testing regime with all sorts of apps. Since that XSI version is 'free' I'll have a look. I'd say that the problem you're having with the textures and the uv's are definitely because the file isn't flawless lwo format and XSI is having problems processing it. modo has no problems with it. As far as the mesh being all one 'object' - this is by design. I dunno about other products but in modo a polygon can only belong to 1 'part' or 'object' - either no part or a named part. But, a poly can belong to more than one 'selection'. In O2 poly's and verts can belong to more than one 'component selection'. If I tried to 'replicate' this senario using 'parts' in modo then I'd end up with multiple duplicate verts and poly's. Instead I have made the entire geometry just one mesh object and 'split up' the faces & verts by selections - this is the way it has to be. The result of doing it this way is that the face/vert count in the O2 model should match the face/vert counts over in modo exactly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
blackjack-VS- 0 Posted January 21, 2008 You can find Mod tool here. I've been fighting with this uv's for a while, and i almost did the uv recovery with success. So since the lwo wasn't passing any uv's information to xsi or even deepexplorer, i've exported from o2 the very same soldier torso (i'm exporting pieces of mesh from shared texture selection) in 3ds format. This 3ds when imported in xsi is fine relating to the uv's. That seems good news! My idea was to now copy the uv's from the 3ds imported mesh to the uv's of the lwo mesh. I've tryed over and over, but it just couldn't past...then i remembered to check the poly count of both meshes and they surprise! they aren't exactly the same(it happened to me before experience at work). Both meshes have the same number of triangles, but the lwo has 4 less polygons then the 3ds files. I'll triangulate them both, and see what happens. Gona retry this later, and report if i have any luck. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Synide 0 Posted January 21, 2008 ahhh... i see... well it's like this... there are two types of UV maps in the world 1. Â a plain ordinary UV map 2. a discontinous UV map Usually one has both a plain UV Map in a model file and it is supplemented by a smaller discontinuous UV Map. In my efforts to make it easier for myself I am only writing out one UV Map, the discontinuous one... this is fine for Modo, but obviously LW & XSI don't like it. I think i can fix that... Also, I've downloaded that XSI Mod Tool... looks interesting... i couldn't really work out how to use it very well... I might have to though 'cause it does have animation tools in it.... I also noticed that the LWO import/export & MDD features are Point Oven... as this lwo file is not being constructed by a Point Oven plugin from within another application I am most probably not formating the lwo file correctly as the LWO PO Import feature in XSI is expecting. And, this is supported by the fact that once i get the lwo open in XSI Mod tool in the Scene Info it's saying it didn't bring in a few hundred poly's 'cause they had more the five (5) verts. Which I know is crap... there are only 3 & 4 vert poly's in these lwo's. Modo, loads them fine. I dunno mate... I'll have a think about how much time I want to spend trying to get a flawless import/export working for this XSI Mod Tool - it's just I'm getting to the point where it's yet another application - yet another whole area of quirks & research and tweaking and so, on and so on... application & sensory overload... edit: Also... Quote[/b] ]4- went to xsi and opened the new bis_soldier.lwo 5-still in xsi i opened the mdd file. 6- everything is perfect, and when i play the animation slider, EVERYTHING moves perfect. No idea how hard was for you to do this, but congratulations again for the great job. I couldn't work out how you got that to work in the Mod Tool, when i tried it it just deform the mesh horribly... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dmarkwick 261 Posted January 21, 2008 I'm keeping a very close eye on Modo, to be sure it's eventually going to be among the biggest & best of 3D applications. I like the way it's gradually expanding to encompass more & more 3D disciplines, modeling, texturing, rendering, next up animating. I suppose that you already know that Modo is made by guys who left the Lightwave studios right? They figured Lightwave wasn't going in the direction they particularly wanted it to so they set up a new studio. Doing well too by the looks of it. One day Modo will replace my Lightwave install I'm sure, but not just yet I mostly do renderings & animation so LW still does the job for me, and I spent too much on plugins to just throw all that out Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Synide 0 Posted January 25, 2008 Updated to v0.5 - See first post. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted January 26, 2008 Frontpaged at the Armaholic.com homepage. The Armaholic.com download page has been updated and can be found here: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=2677 Thanks for the headsup Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Synide 0 Posted November 25, 2010 Hi, After being contacted by Fox '09 I trawled back through these old converters and discovered a few flaws. I have done a quick recode of them so hopefully they a better now. See first post for link/details. Cheers, Sy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted November 25, 2010 (edited) Updated versions frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage. Synide lwo2p3dm & p3dm2lwo (disabled until a fixed version is released) Edited November 29, 2010 by Guest Download disabled as requested Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fox '09 14 Posted November 29, 2010 that somewhat worked, it allowed me to import things with .tga's attached and viewable in modo without any trouble. exporting , unfortunately, didn't work too well, weighting did not carry over after I deleted a proxy , unrelated to my soldier model. So i tried again, w/o changing anything, it had weighting and all, just not the uv's :( an improvement however :) i will try some more variations of exporting , maybe I did something wrong (ie used an older LOD) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
