WIP: EAW Model Viewer (Posible Converter)

[Dante_pff]

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

 

http://www.renevo.com/downloads/eaw/alo_reader.jpg

 

Should start the d3d work very shortly, and with proper file specs, could probably have a converter written soon as well.  Importer, not yet, still have some things i need to figure out with the format, but for showing it in a small d3d window, im good to go.

 

Will keep posting updates.

[dw333]

good work.

[swgbex]

maybe as an experiment. i should try importing an ALO with the W3d importer.. by renaming it :/

just as an experiment

[Dante_pff]

won't work (as a sub-author of one of them), the file struct is different.

[swgbex]

i guess it was worth a try..

 

 

nice work BTW

[Cain]

It will show the model in a window or something ? Nice work btw. Thank you.

[Dante_pff]

sure will, did some of the preliminary directx work tonight, getting there, still got some tweaks here and there though...

 

 

http://www.renevo.com/downloads/eaw/alo_viewer01.jpg

[Cain]

cool

 

btw just stumbled upon sone Petro chat in the xmls

 

[swgbex]

Well since ur workin on that .. can u tell us an average poly count for lets say a fighter.. or a cap ship or a ground unit

[Dante_pff]

looks like anywhere from 300 (for ground units) to 7000 (star destoryer).

[Dante_pff]

although, this is just preliminary...

 

characters are in this format

pieces

collision

shadowmesh

 

for example:

rancor

right 1/2 of body

hands

feet

lower jaw (?)

collision

and shadowmesh for each part

 

womprat

body

hair

shadowmesh

collision

[Dante_pff]

ship:

Lambdaa

collision

shuttle lod1

shadow lod1

shuttle lod0

left wing lod0

collsion left wing lod0

shadow left wing lod0

shield left wing lod0

right wing lod0

collsion right wing lod0

shadow right wing lod0

shield right wing lod0

collision body lod0

shadow lod0

shield lod0

muzzleflash lod0

front flap lod0

back flap lod0

landing foot left lod0

back flap1 lod0

front flap1 lod0

landing foot right lod0

door lod0

 

 

with a total poly count around 5000

[akulapanam]

This is "akula" from before, my lost password site won't let me retrieve it.

Anyways, is it possible to save these as a progressive .X file??  Is it possible to import a .X files vertices into a default structure that will allow you to create something along the lines of the corvette? AKA no hardpoints, no complex explosion but just the model?

[Juggernaut1985]

You got to be kidding me, the Lambda isn't 5K polys.

[akulapanam]

I think he might have ment vertices, remember dividing the number of vertices by 3 DOES NOT give you the number polygons.

[swgbex]

well considering.. thats not just 1 model.. thats like 2 or 3 LOD's

 

meaning.. 1 low poly.. 1 medium poly.. or 1 high poly.. i might be wrong since on the shuttle i only see lod 1 2 or 3 times :/

 

Also.. thats the ground shuttle right?

 

anyways.. the poly..or verticies count will help a lot with people making their mods. and shooting for the right poly count :/

[Dante_pff]

thats a close total to the amount of indices in the model (3 sets of numbers that tell the rendering engine how to make a triangle with vertices), so it is kinda the triangle count.

 

what you have to remember is that lod's don't always display all objects in a mesh, for instance, in this one it appears that only the hull is viewable from a distance, where up close all the parts are visible.

 

another thing to remember is there are quite a bit of collision meshes and shadow meshes in there, which help with the total.

 

the actual hull of the ship is around 1700 polys, where as the hull of a start destoryer is around 5k polys.

[Dante_pff]

More work on it tonight, got some more items programmed, and some of the d3d optimized.  Added a screenshot button for debug, might keep it, might not.

 

So far its looking pretty good, some of my next tasks are applying the effects, but i have some variables i need to set first, so that they are rendered properly.

 

I also need to create a default light, in order for some of the normals etc... that need to be applied to work.

 

Anyway, here is another pic, notice the rancor has his hands and feet, this is 2 different meshes in the same model, took me a bit to get that working lol.

 

http://www.renevo.com/downloads/eaw/alo_viewer02.jpg

[Cain]

Cool man ! Thx.

 

How is the import / export option going? And do you think you will be able to do an EawEd ? I mean a full general editor where you can edit the galaxy, the planets, the units, characters powers, change just a texture with as imple import export, etc.

[Zer_Teron]

Name it ImpEd, since the other one was RebEd  ;D

[Dante_pff]

Cool man ! Thx.

 

How is the import / export option going? And do you think you will be able to do an EawEd ? I mean a full general editor where you can edit the galaxy, the planets, the units, characters powers, change just a texture with as imple import export, etc.

 

still quite a bit of work to do on the model before i can even get to the import/export code.

 

As far as the full on editor goes, probably will end up doing that eventually, already planning on an xml editor, this just distracted me for the time being.

[MajorPayne]

Fine work Dante. Truely fine work. It'll be ideal if you can get an exporter created.......

[Teradyn_pff]

If Delphi or anyone else reads this from Petroglyph, please let LA know that the fans will be making our own editors, importers, exporter, etc, therefore it would be better for the integrity of the game and the mods if LA allows Petroglyph to release the tools that they want.

 

I think that if anything, this argument's possible success due to the work you have done, Dante, is a better contribution than the actual converter(s) you build.  Thank you very much.

[Stellar_Magic]

Is it just me or are the mod teams going to have to scratch all their capital ship models... None of them are designed with EAW's damage system in mind where hardpoints are seperate but attached models.

[Teradyn_pff]

There might be some modifications necessary, but when you think of something like the SSD done by LOW, making holes in the model structure to insert hardpoints will not equate rebuilding the entire thing, especially the complex city structure.  The hardpoints themselves as models don't need to be different for each iteration, just for each type... and that itself may be just copying for things like the ion, turbolaser and laser cannons.

 

The design of future models may want to take this into account and make a basic structure and have the rest of the ship built as extensions of the hardpoints though.  Imagine irregular explosions and pieces breaking off instead of the uniform way they break off of an ISD for example.