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GG Staff - Atlas prog question

by Dave · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 05/18/2006 (8:01 am) · 3 replies

Hi folks,

Is there a standard algorithm for converting RAW to CHU and JPG to TQT?

I ask because it's a bit of a pain when creating a lot of terrain tiles to have to keep starting TSE to convert files, then stop it to copy the files into the terrain directory, then start it again to see the results. So I was thinking of writing a stand-alone C++ prog to do the job, which would save a startup and shutdown of TSE each time. It might also be useful as a base for plugins for various terrain generators.

Would there be any problems licence-wise with this? Any moral or ethical problems? Could you chuck me the base algorithms if not? I'll see if I can do anything with them.

Thanks a lot,

Dave.
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Associate Tom Spilman
Sickhead Games
#1
05/18/2006 (10:22 am)
While you could create a highly customize TSE build for a Raw2Chu and a Jpg2Tqt apps, a custom main.cs could go a long way.

For example here is the torsion_precompile.cs i use to launch peoples TSE, TGE, and TGB executable to precompile scripts:

//
//  Copyright (c) 2006 Sickhead Games, LLC
//  All Rights Reserved.
//

// Start the console logger in a "open, write, close" mode.
setLogMode( 1 );

// PRECOMPILE_START
// PRECOMPILE_END

function onExit()
{
   // This is just here to keep the thing
   // from bitching... curious that it does
   // not appear in the function dump.
}

quit();

By not loading any of the other scripts and starting the GUI you save a ton of startup time.

The first parameter to a Torque exe is used instead of main.cs if it's a valid script file. So you can execute a script via a shortcut like so:

TSE.exe raw2chu.cs

Now if you make this raw2chu.cs script which reads all it's parameters off the command line, executes the conversion process, then exits.... i think you'll get a quick conversion util without the need to hack together a custom TSE exe.

Torque Owner Dave
#2
05/19/2006 (4:30 am)
Tom, thanks very much for that gem! I'll have a whack at it next week when I get back from the UK.

I'd like to have a custom exe as well, as a potential plugin for something like L3DT. It would be nice to have the exporter do the conversion directly instead of having to take two steps.By the time I'd made ten terrains, been through the RAW exporter and JPG wizards ten times, started and shutdown TSE twenty times (not including remaking terrains I didn't like), I was sick of the whole process. There must be an easier way...

Thanks again for the above though. If GG can't allow stand-alone exes then it will be a big help.

Cheers,

Dave.

Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
#3
05/19/2006 (5:13 am)
Making a seperate program or slimming down TSE to a smaller build is not very hard, but I think the question you should ask is, is it worth it? I got TGE down to 400 kb's (only Gui and networking left, basically) and in the end, I'm not sure it was worth all that time.