Upspring 1.54

[jcnossen]

I do still want to make a 3do -> s3o converter, but the stuff MadRat is suggesting is a little too much (2).

[MadRat]

I was just asking. Kind of figured the s3o format didn't depend on exact shapes or sizes of texture map areas, so figured it was possible to use simple squares. Heck, even if the texturemap was broken up into a "tile" format of uniform dimensions, say 16x16 pixels, it wouldn't be tough to convert alot of old TA textures over. By using uniform sizes it would help in tile rotation within the texture, too.

[rattle]

You mean "lighting", not "lightning", yes? And is this true if you back away with the camera (i.e., zoom out) or only when you remain at default zoom? This is probably a very simple issue about how far away the lightsource that is tied to the camera is- it's probably too close to the camera right now.

Lighting, ja!
I suspected the light source to be tied to the camera but this wasn't the case so zooming out did nothing but zoom out.

[Nemo]

Something that might be worth looking into as the basis for a 3do-->s3o converter is the 3do milkshape plugin, or the old 3ds max 3do plugin (I don't know where that is though). Here's the author's description of the milkshape one:

3do to MS3d importer

Can't render easily those beautiful build pic for your units because the SY plugin for 3do files is only for 3d studio max and not YOUR favorite modeling package? Well this little plugin here is the solution to all your problems and more! It allows you to import a .3do unit to Milkshape 3d with full texture and full bone structure, ready for animation or rendering. It will also make you more popular with girls. (Note : results may vary)

"But Dark Rain" you ask, "how is this different from the 3ds max gig?". It's simple, Milkshape 3d is very cheap, only 20.00$, it's also a very small download (3mb) and you can export or import to or from pretty much any format out there, which allows you to use your favorite rendering package.

The plugin for Milkshape (milkshape can be downloaded on a trial version if you want to test it)
http://visualta.tauniverse.com/Download ... porter.zip

Source code:
http://visualta.tauniverse.com/Download ... Source.zip

[rattle]

It works but the obj export from milkshape was useless to work with.

[jcnossen]

I have some basic 3do->s3o stuff running, but how do i detect if a polygon or texture should have teamcolor?

[jcnossen]

Upspring 1.53

- Added 3DO to S3O converter. Colored faces do not work yet, and DevIL reduces image quality, but it might still be useful if you want to retexture an old 3DO model.


http://user.supradigital.org/jcnossen/U ... r-1.53.exe

Open a 3DO, go to the Mapping tab, and in the 3DO section is a button to convert. Be sure to put the s3o rendering mode on "Texture1 color" afterwards, because there is no teamcolor and texture 2 support.

[MadRat]

*dances for jc*

Hot diggity dog. This is going to drastically speed up my mod. I've got high ambitions that really depended on my old 3do's because of time constraints. I made about 300 models for TA but never really have been able to figure out the 3do/texture options under upswing.

[MadRat]

Is there any way to rotate a single 3do texture by quarter turns? Otherwise this is kickass!!

I have to say the s3o texture map is coming out to be quite not a problem on these conversions. I wouldn't doubt most OTA units convert to s3o in 256x256 texture map exports.

Edit: Okay, it does rotate the texture by 90 degrees per click, but the change doesn't display until its re-converted 3do-->s3o. I can live with that.

[smoth]

does this break smoothing groups?

[jcnossen]

3DO has no smoothing groups, you will have to re export and add smoothing groups. Which unfortunately still makes it a long conversion process.

[MadRat]

I have been able to repeat a crash in the program with this ati9800 card. After around thirty refreshes of 512x512 texture maps in the 3do-->s3o conversion, the videocard crashes mercilessly. I have to reboot every time to fix it. Is it possible because its consuming the entire texture memory?

Its not a big deal except when working with a lot of edits on a retexture. But if it was possible to prevent that would be great.

[rattle]

This must be an ATI issue as I haven't experienced this on a geforce2.

[Argh]

Just a quick example of putting the 3DO importer to some use... super-fast revamped Wreckage with 256 texture...

[MadRat]

I need a little more verbosity to comprehend that last post, Argh.

[Argh]

Sorry, explaining the process would take longer than doing the conversions... it's really not a modeling-nub sort've thing, just showing that some new tricks are possible.

[smoth]

argh, forgive me IF I am missing something but why not just use a 3do for that?

[MadRat]

jc, when converting 3do textures there is a funny thing that goes on with the DevIL part. Using a small uv map size delivers very little dumbing down of the texture whereas a large uv map kills all granularity of the texture. That is as the uv map is defined larger the amount of wasted space actually grows due to DevIL rendering the individual 3do texture boxes smaller, not relative but actually smaller. Kind of counterintuitive.

[FLOZi]

argh, forgive me IF I am missing something but why not just use a 3do for that?

quicker to repaint sections of a single image than to redo each image and possibly rename and then reapply them?

[Argh]

Which is more efficient- 100 faces, each with a truely unique, 64X64 texture, or 100 faces, all using bits of a single 256 at different stretch rez?