Blender Model import/export scripts

[[E]theli]

Ah, ok

yeah, scout looks that bad cause of my crappy integrated video on my work pc and jpg comression artifacts :P

but, also, all hon models are pretty low-poly as you see them at a much distance and there is absolutely no need for such details as in savage 2 models

[Zerath]

Thanks theli! This is really hot stuff, and should be stickied. I really hope you'll get the animations in the exporter soon. Blender is lovely, and as a student you really can't beat the price of free.

I got the python script error though at the first time, said that there is no variable named "glob" at all. I just commented the whole "import glob" line and now it works(?).
Keep up the good work! I'm working on a model that I plan to put in HoN, then make own skills and all. Maybe I should name the hero Theli :P

[[E]theli]

Your exporter looks pretty good overall. You're missing the "sign" block though, which controls the direction mirrored normal maps are pointing.

It's a byte array indicting the whether or not the sign of the area of a triangle face in texture space is positive or negative. This is per vertex, vertices that border faces of opposite signs need to be duplicated to avoid normal mapping seams.

See Kraken's stomach for an obvious example.

while i still haven't figured out how to produce/use those direction signs in blender .. i just checked - and kraken in both http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroes.php and ingame (gl renderer) have a lighting bug/seam on his stomach

also .. i have no idea for what those ~20 submeshes with mode=2 in kraken's high model are used ... so i have no idea what to do with them and why those are needed

another thing is i have yet to look at lnk3 chunk ( the same kraken's high.model )

i think the next release will be when/if I or someone else figures this out or shares information

[[S2]S2Ikkyo]

while i still haven't figured out how to produce/use those direction signs in blender .. i just checked - and kraken in both http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/heroes.php and ingame (gl renderer) have a lighting bug/seam on his stomach

also .. i have no idea for what those ~20 submeshes with mode=2 in kraken's high model are used ... so i have no idea what to do with them and why those are needed

another thing is i have yet to look at lnk3 chunk ( the same kraken's high.model )

i think the next release will be when/if I or someone else figures this out or shares information

The extra meshes are mistakes of artists when exporting, those will all be removed sooner or later.

lnk3 is an optimized version of lnk2 for faster loading. The max exporter doesn't use this yet, only my own tools. The main differences between lnk2 and lnk3 are it's limited to 4 weights per bone, those weights have to be sorted strongest to weakest, and the weights must be normalized (sum to 1).

The OpenGL renderer doesn't support rendering mirrored normal maps properly yet either, which is why you'd still see a seam on Kraken when using the OpenGL renderer. Support for that will come sometime in the near future as well. The screenshots on the website were taken before mirrored normal map support was finished.

[[E]theli]

The extra meshes are mistakes of artists when exporting, those will all be removed sooner or later.

lnk3 is an optimized version of lnk2 for faster loading. The max exporter doesn't use this yet, only my own tools. The main differences between lnk2 and lnk3 are it's limited to 4 weights per bone, those weights have to be sorted strongest to weakest, and the weights must be normalized (sum to 1).

thank you
i'll just ignore submeshes with mode=2 then

[Dopefish`]

I'll have to port this over to a lua script for use with modo.

[MaxGhost]

I'll have to port this over to a lua script for use with modo.

What about a 3ds max script or maya, etc?

[cGcJAG]

OMG great news Theli !! GJ w00t

can u winRAR all the models .obj so people can use it on different apps ? i am a maya user

[MaxGhost]

OMG great news Theli !! GJ w00t

can u winRAR all the models .obj so people can use it on different apps ? i am a maya user

You can do that yourself. Blender is free.

[Yuichi]

OMG great news Theli !! GJ w00t

can u winRAR all the models .obj so people can use it on different apps ? i am a maya user

Its really simple...
Just open up blender.
Import the model and after that export to .obj or whatever you want to.
It only takes few seconds...

[[E]theli]

a little progress report

ok, i implemented 'sign' block calculation
( using http://www.terathon.com/code/tangent...andedness' )
not sure if i am doing that right though ... while i get no seam on kraken's stomach .. anyway here are the screenshot of how it looks in direct3d renderer:
Blender export
With 'sign'

Without 'sign'


Original model file
With 'sign'

Without 'sign'


also, played a little with subsurfing model to have higher poly count
(not that i think its needed with hon's camera distance .. just messing around)

(yeah, i broke his weapon .. was lazy to reexport )

another problem i found out with kraken .. somehow i think i'm doing something wrong with importing clips.. as seen on this render of kraken's idle animation in blender (weapon is off) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7-cffy_0-c
another one broken animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLCMX25IV8

anyway, i'm working now on animations and ui for scripts
after that is done i'll release a new version with exporting of animations

[[E]theli]

well... just checked with opengl renderer on linux - and i don't get seams there with blender exported model :-/

original model file:


blender export:


while blender export does not have a seam it looks a little different :-/
i dunno if it renders right or not

[[TSW]gahd_damn]

0.0 Keep at it man, I'm still waiting, and I'm sure there's quite a few lurkers.

Amazing progress so far too.

[[TSW]gahd_damn]

Looking back at your last post there theli, I can't help but think that the bump mapping on the "original" file is backwards.

Look at the left side of kraken's body (right side of the picture) on the chest especially; it looks like the barnacle is indented instead of extruded.

Maby you unintentionally fixed a problem that hadn't been reported yet?

[[E]theli]

Looking back at your last post there theli, I can't help but think that the bump mapping on the "original" file is backwards.

well, that is the thing that makes me wonder - cause , as Ikkyo explained, its because of mirrored normal map .. and to fix that the 'sign' chunk is used ... but its not used in OpenGL renderer yet (mac+linux) ...
but with blender's exported tangents it looks ok even without using 'sign' chunk

[[E]theli]

sigh
well,with Ikkyo's help i sorted normal-mapping out .. but am now stuck with animations
i just can't seem to get them working properly

[[E]theli]

YAY!
animations are now imported properly!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2oOEUTIZfs
so, i'm starting work on exporting them

[Aleste]

Excellent.

You need a donation button.

[[Sav2]stony]

Indeed - even *I* as NoNHoN-Player would donate

[Yuichi]

I just realised that I can finally have my Maliken throwing light sabers!
Its just that his ultimate form doesnt like me... The lightsaber just floats there.
I could be doing something wrong too.
Hope you finish this soon.