22 réponses à ce sujet

[Adonnay]

Hello everyone,

the last few days I tried to convert some weapons and have been more or less successful.

Steps taken:
I used Wings3D to export the models as OBJ (FBX seemed to make some trouble, perhaps Wings doesn't support it correctly) and converted them using Tazpn's marvellous command line tools.

Issues:
1. It all works fine except the mesh smoothing somehow doesn't make it from Wings to the game. I'm not sure if Wings is exporting the smoothing groups incorrectly or if the command line tool doesn't convert them.

2. The second issue I have is that the enchantments from the runes (ice damage, lightning damage and so on) won't show up. I remember back from the NWN2 modding that the meshes had to contain some "nodes" so the game knows where to start and where to stop with the display of the movement fx. Is the mechanic in DA somewhat similar?

Thanks for your time.

[Eshme]

I dont know too much about all the extras. I think most of it is still figured out.

Shadows, and Materials and VFX and all that which are properties of the model. Collision too. Mostly what we do is modifying the msh and mmh xml files by hand.

Although the basics are pretty well working now. Perhaps what you want is real easy, but i dont know

[Adonnay]

Okay, I didn't know that the item customization is still in some kind of infancy, though - as you said - the basics really work pretty well already.

I can live with the missing FX, they're a bit flashy for my taste anyway, but the missing mesh smoothing is kinda annoying... and I'm a perfectionist

Modifié par Adonnay, 06 février 2010 - 03:09 .

[ChewyGumball]

If the smoothing isn't being exported, its a wings problem, not tzpan's tool. I don't know anything abouts wings 3d so i couldn't tell you what is it though.

[Adonnay]

So I suppose you - or someone else - successfully brought the smoothing groups over to the game using .obj ex- and importing?

[Eshme]

Chewy makes an exporter for 3dsmax. It is exporting xmls, not objs. In the end it doesnt matter but the smoothing work there.

[Adonnay]

Yeah, I know



Even if it is a special Wings issue and not related to the command line tools it doesn't hurt to ask. I can't believe I'm the only one using Wings. It's much easier than Blender i.e., though not as powerful, I admit.

[ChewyGumball]

It will be an issue with normals. That is all smoothing groups are. Are there any options in the obj export that you can fiddle with?

[Adonnay]

Yes, there are indeed. I'll attach a screenie... also does anyone with the proper knowledge want to take a look at a sample .obj [here] to check whether the file is actually exporting the normals?

Modifié par Adonnay, 07 février 2010 - 10:18 .

[DarthParametric]

I don't think OBJs hold any smoothing info, as the implementation of that is something that is unique to each app, not universal.

[ChewyGumball]

Generally smoothing is done by averaging normals across a bunch of faces so the lighting gets smoothed out. It is very difficult to tell from raw data whether this has happened or not.

[Adonnay]

Well from my limited knowledge about the .obj raw data I can understand that the prefix "vn" is describing a normal. And if normals are everything needed for a proper smoothing it *should* work fine, no?

Edit: Okay, I searched a bit further and the "s 1" and "s 2" and so on that can be found in the raw data do indeed refer to the smoothing groups used.

Modifié par Adonnay, 08 février 2010 - 02:53 .

[Eshme]

Yep vn is the normals. The OBJ you posted looks alright in 3ds. So i have tried what you do. And from the looks in the Toolset it is a little blocky. At least your OBJ looks the same ,as if i redo it with normals myself. Cant zoom that close lol. So neither do i have success. Dont know what to do.

[Eshme]

btw that model is way too big. I just started the game ,and had this still in override. The handle is almost as big as my toon lol

Oh nevermind, may be due import export mishaps, if it works for you then.. =)

Modifié par Eshme, 08 février 2010 - 04:03 .

[Adonnay]

Thanks for your efforts Eshme, I was just wondering if 3dsMax handles the .objs differently.



As for the zooming I usually place my toon in front of a wall, that way you can get the camera closer

[Eshme]

I would say te problem is not wings

[ChewyGumball]

yea, I was thinking about it a bit and i realized that if obj separates normals from smoothing groups then it must be with the compiling tool.

[Dark_Ansem]

are collisions supported in this game? because the imported "reference" models seem not to have them.

[Adinos]

The collision data is in the .phy file, as box/sphere/etc primitives. However - the OBJ file format does not support this.

Regarding the issue of smoothing groups - That concept is not supported by obj files, as people have said - the modelling tool uses the "smoothing groups" to determine how to calculate the normals for any given vertex.   It is responsible for calculating the right vertex normals and write them to the obj file.

The OBJ -> MSH converter should not change the normals - so if you have wrong normals in your in-game model, it is completely the fault of the program that created the OBJ file.

Modifié par Adinos, 10 février 2010 - 11:36 .

[Adonnay]

Okay, now you kinda lost me. The specifications of the .obj "standard" state that there is some kind of smoothing group mechanism. It is now beyond me if that resembles the smoothing groups we're currently talking about (grouping of normals, as far as I understood) or something else.

Wings does seem to export the normals just fine... I have no *wrong* normals on my model, it's just missing the information about which normals to combine.

Another aspect to consider is that if Wings would be the problem then an exported .obj from 3dsMax should work fine, shouldn't it? Eshme already tried that with the same result.

So the possibilities would be - correct me if I'm wrong or if I missed anything:
- Wings and 3dsMax are both exporting the smoothing groups and/or normals incorrectly
- the .obj smoothing groups are not sufficient to describe the smoothing correctly
- the converter is interpreting the smoothing groups incorrectly or not at all
- I'm too stupid and didn't set up the smoothing correctly

People seem to get overly defensive when I'm hinting at the possibility that the converter might be flawed or incomplete. Believe me I'm fully aware of the respect we owe to the creators of any of those tools (tazpn in this case) without which we wouldn't even be talking about smoothing groups

I started looking at the source code of the converter but my C++ times are quite a few days back *cough* so it will take a while (if ever) to fully comprehend what it's doing actually.

Modifié par Adonnay, 10 février 2010 - 03:17 .

[Adinos]

I haven't written an OBJ converter for DA (but I did write one for NWN2), but I suspect that any such converter will just ignore any "s" instructions in the OBJ file, and just assume the normals have been calculated already, instead of calculating a (weighted) average of the normals of any adjacent triangles in the same smoothing group.



I just don't see that as the task of a file format converter - but rather the modeling tool.

[Adonnay]

Well you're the one with the expertise here but leaving out the smoothing groups of the .obj file would certainly explain the result I get.

I don't see the reason to ignore the smoothing groups. Why should a program export the normals averaged and smoothed if there is a special section and mechanic for that -> the smoothing groups.

Anyway... thanks for your help in tracking down the issue everyone. I guess I have to live with it then.

Modifié par Adonnay, 11 février 2010 - 08:48 .

[ChewyGumball]

It is easy to recreate face normals, not as easy to recreate smoothed normals. I would say the smoothing groups in the obj file are for import purposes more than anything.