Blog for Joseph Greenawalt at GarageGames.com

Blender DTS Exporter 0.96 Released

Joseph Greenawalt — 2008-04-10T01:52:43+00:00

A new 0.96 version of the Blender DTS Exporter for Torque has now been released.
The new version requires Blender 2.44 or higher, and should be compatible with the upcoming Blender 2.46 release as well.

You can download the new exporter release on the exporter project site.

(edit - the project site release system is now miraculously fixed :-)

Be sure to check the Readme.html file included with the exporter if you are a new user, or if you run into problems.

What's New for version 0.96

* New: Added support for IFL (Image File List) animations.
* New: Improved support for mesh visibility animations. Visibility animations are no longer tied to materials, and can now be set up through the exporter GUI on a per mesh basis. Multiple meshes can be included in a single visibility animation, each having their own separate visibility track. IPO curves from objects or materials can be selected through the exporter GUI to drive each visibility track in the animation.
* New: Users can now set a start and end frame for actions (optional). This means that actions can now be set up using non-overlapping frame ranges, which allows for the use of objects as constraint targets for multiple animations. This feature is entirely optional, and must be enabled by turning off the "Auto Start/End Frames" button on the actions panel (can be set per-sequence).
* New: Sequence frames per second OR duration can now be set through the exporter GUI on a per sequence basis. If the FPS for a sequence is changed, the duration is automatically adjusted and vice-versa. Either of these settings can be "locked" such that when frames are added or removed from the animation, the locked setting (either duration or FPS) remains constant.
* New: Complete rework of the Sequences tab of the exporter. It now contains 4 sub-tabs:
....* Common/All - Contains settings that are common to all types of animations. Also contains a bar graph showing the length of each animation contained within a sequence (Actions, IFL, Visibility, etc.). The bar graph is designed to show, at a glance, whether the lengths of the animations contained in a sequence are the same.
....* Action - The Action panel contains settings that are specific to action animations
....* IFL - This panel is used to create Image File List animations.
....* Visibility - This panel is used to create Visibility animations.
* New: The exporter will now prompt the user if no shape marker is found. If the user chooses, a shape hierarchy will be automatically created and set up with a default detail level (size 1). The exporter guesses which meshes are collision meshes and los meshes by examining the first three letters of the mesh names (looking for "col" and "los"); everything else is placed under Detail1. This should make things a little easier for people who are using blender as a stepping stone to export purchased content or content imported from another modeling app. It might also save experienced users a few seconds creating and parenting empties.
* The effects of mesh modifiers are now applied to meshes in the exported dts file. The Blender modifiers themselves are not applied to your Blender objects. Unfortunately, due to a limitation in Blender's Python API, modifiers will be ignored for skinned meshes (you can still apply them by hand, however).
* Rearranged and relabeled controls on the "Materials" panel. The two most problematic settings (Reflectance Map and Bump Map) are now hidden behind a "Show Advanced Settings" button. Added a new "IFL Material" button used to mark a material for use in an IFL animation.
* Changed all occurrences of "TSE" to "TGEA" (I guess this name is the one that's going to stick :)
* Fixed triggers not firing when no ground frames were being exported for a given sequence.
* Scaling and rotating the marker empties is now supported.
* Numerous bug fixes, etc.

Many thanks go out to everybody who helped with this release; and special thanks to James Urquhart for writing the exporter in the first place. Contributors and Testers are listed below:

Adam Wilson
Philippe C
Dave Young
Bernard Hugueville
Owyn Murtason
Ziba Scott

And thanks to anyone else who I missed.

Blender Orange Guy Now available

Joseph Greenawalt — 2007-09-11T03:17:15+00:00

OrangeGuy1.zip

The Blender Orange guy is compatible with the default orc and blueguy skeletons, and should also work with any dsq files that are compatible with the default skeleton. However, I can make no guarantee that products such as Torque Motion are compatible with the Blender Orange Guy since I have not personally tested them (In other words, don't blame me if they don't work :).

This model requires the latest point release of the Blender exporter (currently 0.951), which is available here: www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=63491

The Orange Guy is based on Joe Maruschak's original Blue Guy Model, and is distributed with his permission.

The Orange Guy in his native habitat:

In TSTPro, running the Orc forward animation:

Due to a limitation in Blender's armature system (y-axis of bones always points down their length), the Orange Guy file contains two armatures. One armature serves as the control rig:

The other armature (in layer 2) is used for the actual export:

(ugly, ain't it?)

The control rig drives the export armature via a series of constraints, allowing you to create new animations in blender that should be compatible with the Orc skeleton. The control rig also contains some hidden bones in bone layer 16 that are used as constraint targets for the export rig.

Enjoy!

Blender DTS Exporter 0.95 Released

Joseph Greenawalt — 2007-08-10T21:21:14+00:00

A new 0.95 version of the Blender DTS Exporter for Torque has now been released.
The new version requires Blender 2.44 or higher.

You can download the new release at the exporter project page: projects.blender.org/frs/?group_id=95
(edit - link is currently down, see the first comment for a mirror link)

Be sure to check the Readme.html file included with the exporter if you are a new user, or if you run into problems.

Many thanks go out to everybody who helped out with this release. Contributions are listed below.

What's New for version 0.95

Blender 2.44 and Python 2.5 compatibility.
New GUI tab controls, rewrote GUI event handling code
New "Materials" panel, material system rewrite. Features include:

....................... Additive and subtractive texture options
....................... Self Illuminating texture options
....................... Control of texture wrapping
....................... Support for scaling of detail maps
....................... Improved support of Environment mapping and reflectivity
....................... Reflectance Maps (partially supported in TGE)
....................... TGE "Bump" Maps (not supported in TGE)
....................... Improved control of mipmaping
....................... Users can now UV map multiple textures onto a single mesh without assigning material indices

Fixed refresh of output path when selecting a new destination
Removed unused DTS version spinner from general panel
Added a log error message when no shape marker is found
Added a refresh button to the Armatures panel
Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause the DTS file stream not to close properly
Fixed a crash bug when exporting collision meshes with zero vertices
Fixed exporter crash when exceeding max per-mesh dts triangle count. Meshes that exceed the limit are now truncated and a message is written to the log. Maximum triangle count is around 10,900.
Reverted buggy optimizations to animation export code introduced in version 0.94 that were resulting in mangled export of bones in some cases, thanks go out to Scott Coursey for finding the problem.
Fixed a problem with autobillboard detail levels that prevented them from displaying when a collision or loscollision mesh is present, thanks go out to Pho for finding and helping to diagnose the problem
Fixed a bug in the ground transform export, thanks go out to Duncan Gray for his help in finding and diagnosing the problem
Added an option to the General tab to write the export log file to the .dts output folder instead of the folder containing the .blend file (on by default).
Added the ability to have multiple materials that use the same base texture. This is accomplished by adding ".IGNORE" to the end of the blender image name (ex: "myTex.IGNORE01", "myTex.png.IGNORE.001", etc.). Just prior to export, the exporter will strip off the "IGNORE" portion of the material name and anything after it. This allows for the export of multiple materials with the same (base texture) name, but different properties. When generating a TSE (TGEA) material script for a material containing "IGNORE", only the period delmited section starting with "IGNORE" is stripped from the script material name. For example, "myTex.IGNORE.001" would generate a TGEA material called "myTex.001" with a base texture of "myTex".
Numerous bugfixes. Thanks go out to Duncan Gray, Adam Wilson, and Pho. Additional thanks go out to James Urquhart for writing the exporter in the first place and for suggestions in the user interface thread. Thanks also go out to Todd "zaz" Koeckeritz and Scott Coursey for suggestions and discussion in the user interface thread. And to anyone else that I missed.

Blender DTS Exporter 0.94 Released

Joseph Greenawalt — 2007-02-04T23:11:16+00:00

A new 0.94 version of the Blender DTS Exporter for Torque has now been released.
The new version requires Blender 2.42 or higher.

You can download the new release at the exporter project page: projects.blender.org/frs/?group_id=95
Be sure to check the Readme.html file included with the exporter if you are a new user, or if you run into problems.

Many thanks go out to everybody who helped out with this release. Contributions are listed below.

What's New for version 0.94

Animation export code updated to work with the upcoming Blender 2.43 (is still compatible with Blender 2.42 as well).
Changed the bone grid control in the Armatures panel of the exporter GUI into a scrollable list, and added wildcard matching to turn bones on and off. Thanks go out to Todd Koeckeritz for providing ideas and feedback for this.
Added a new "Geometry Type" section to the general tab to replace the old "triangle strip" section. New buttons allow the user to choose between exporting single triangles, triangle lists, and triangle strips. Defaults to single triangles.
Better scrollbars in the exporter GUI, adjustments to the size of the sequences list, changed coloring of sequence list items, and general visual improvements all courtesy of Todd Koeckeritz.
Fixed a problem with skinned meshes that caused a crash when using a blender-exported dts in TGE as a static shape. Thanks go out to Jari for finding and helping to diagnose the problem.
Fixed erroneous collision mesh name console warning (must start with "col") due to incorrect null mesh padding on visible detail level objects. Thanks go out to Jari for finding the problem.
Other small fixes

Blender DTS Exporter 0.93 Released

Joseph Greenawalt — 2006-12-26T00:03:46+00:00

A new 0.93 version of the Blender DTS Exporter for Torque has now been released.
The new version requires Blender 2.42.

You can download the new release at the exporter project page: projects.blender.org/frs/?group_id=95
Be sure to check the Readme.html file included with the exporter if you are a new user, or if you run into problems.

Many thanks go out to everybody who helped out with this release. Contributions are listed below.

What's New for version 0.93

Added a Built-in triangle stripper "QADTriStripper" (Quick and Dirty Triangle Stripper)
VTK Triangle stripping is also tested and working now.
Changed mesh export code to allow multiple triangles all belonging to the same material group to be stored inside a single "Triangles" (triangle list) primitive. Previously the exporter was storing each tri in a separate primitive, resulting in tons of unneeded gl calls.
Added Vincent BILLET's storeCheck fix that allows larger shapes to be exported.
Changed the way collision meshes are exported. They are now packed into the first subshape along with everything else.
Added the ability to animate collision meshes. This is accomplished by setting a "Copy Location" constraint on the mesh, with an armature bone as a target. Make sure you are exporting the constraint target bone or it won't work. Don't be surprised if this doesn't work the way you want it to in Torque. The player can collide with an animated mesh, but an animated mesh will not collide with or push the player around. Play around with it in-game before getting too fancy with it; you'll see what I mean. Also, projectile collision with a mesh while it is animating is unreliable. It seems to work OK once the mesh has stopped moving though. Your millage may vary.
Changed the way mesh normals are calculated, as per Alberto Ganesh Barbati's suggestion.
Fixed an exporter crash when exporting a mesh object with no vertices.
Fixed a bug that would under some conditions cause duplicate objects to be exported.
Fixed a bug in appendVertex that was causing incorrect geometry to be exported.
Fixed a bug that caused animated rigid meshes to have incorrect offsets from their parent bones.
Fixed a small bug when writing exception tracebacks to the log that manifests when a full version of python is not available.
Other small fixes

Blender DTS Exporter version 0.92 released

Joseph Greenawalt — 2006-11-25T01:30:35+00:00

Exporter Release:

A new 0.92 version of the Blender DTS Exporter for Torque has now been released.
The new version requires Blender 2.42 or higher.

You can download the new release at the exporter project page: projects.blender.org/frs/?group_id=95
Be sure to check the Readme.html file included with the exporter if you are a new user, or if you run into problems.

Many thanks go out to everybody who helped out with this release:

Todd Koeckeritz for fixing the broken animation export in Blender 2.42
Alberto Ganesh Barbati who submitted several fixes (see below)
And anybody else who I missed.

What's New for version 0.92

* Fixed broken animation export in Blender 2.42

* Added an updated version of Alberto Ganesh Barbati's set smooth/set solid fix based
on discussion in this thread: www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=52384

* Bug fixes for ground frames

* The bounds mesh can now be animated by parenting it directly to a bone. This allows
much easier export of shapes with multiple animations that must use ground frames.

* Added code to allow rigid mesh attachment to a node by parenting a mesh directly to
a Blender bone. This performs better in TGE if you don't need
mesh deformations (for things like machines, doors, vehicles, etc.)

* Fixed a bug that caused the exporter to crash under blender 2.42 when exporting an
animation with a constraint influence channel.

* Added code that causes the exporter to dump the traceback to the export log if an
exception is thrown (courtesy of Alberto Ganesh Barbati)

* Optimized hotspots in the exporter code for speed, export should be somewhat faster
now for a wide range of models.

* Fixed a crash bug when exporting a mesh with an empty material slot.

* Other small fixes and enhancements

You can report any bugs that you find in the Blender DTS Exporter forums: www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.forum.php?qf=134

Tutorial:

Also, I've written a tutorial for setting up multiple textures for export from Blender. It's a bit rough around the edges at present, but it should give the general idea for those that have been struggling with this:
jsgreenawalt.googlepages.com/HowToSetupTexturesAndMaterialsInBlenderForExportToT...

Blender Exporter User interface Overview, more to come.

Joseph Greenawalt — 2006-02-15T15:38:39+00:00

Blender DTS exporter animation code rewrite
I've spend the past few weeks working on a rewrite of animation code in the Blender DTS Exporter with the goal of allowing painless export of constraint based animations (read:IK support) using the new pose module that shipped with Blender 2.41. Most of that time can be best described as me beating my head up against various bugs in Blender. It's mostly working at this point, but still I've still got some hurdles to jump before it'll be ready for release. More on this later.

Blender DTS exporter User Interface Overview Documentation
Well, I needed a break from that for a bit, so I decided to write some documentation. I just completed the user interface overview, which can currently be found on TDN:
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/DTS/Blender/Exporter_User_Interface_Overview

I'm also working on a complimentary series of mini-howtos covering the following topics:

How do I set up my model for export?
How do I set up an animated model for export?
How do I turn off double sided polygons?
How do I add a material to my Shape?
How do I export a material with a transparent or partially transparent texture?
How do I export a material with a reflectance map?
How do I export a material with a bump map?
How do I export a material with a detail map?
How do I create a parent/child relationship between objects in Blender?
How do I animate the visibility of my materials?
+ whatever else I can think of between now and then...

These documents (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) will eventually be rolled into a downloadable file and made available through the exporter project site.

Saturday May 21 6:19

Joseph Greenawalt — 2005-05-21T06:19:57+00:00

My Homebrew 3D Laser Scanner

This is only tenuously related to game development but here goes :) Every couple of years it seems I'm overwhelmed with the desire to work on some kind of crazy mad scientist-esque project. Between the fall and spring semesters I gave in to the urge and created this contraption: home.cablelynx.com/~sgreennawalt/

(Note that the above page was originally created for viewing by a friend of mine, is very unpolished, filled with in-jokes, and skimpy on details)

How it works:

I used a radio shack laser line level to project a vertical red line onto the target object (positioned in the center of the turntable). The turntable is turned by a stepper motor still wired up to the old dot matrix printer that it came out of. When I want to turn the table, I just send out a paper feed escape sequence through the parallel port (feed paper 1/180 of an inch) using a bash shell script. To automate the firing of the camera, I mounted a leaf switch at the edge of the print head's range such that the switch is triggered when the print head is sent to the home position. The leaf switch is connected by two wires to the camera's shutter switch (through a hole drilled in the camera). The shell script feeds the paper (rotates table by small amount), homes the print head (takes picture) and then waits 5 seconds for the picture to be written to the camera's flash memory. The process then repeats until I manually stop it when the turntable has gone 360 degrees (or close enough to). Once the capture process is complete, I use the number of images captured to determine the angle between each "slice". I batch convert all of the images to PPM format (very easy to read) applying some filters to minimize noise. Then I process them with a small c++ program that I wrote which opens each image in order and finds the brightest point on each row of each image. The idea is that since the camera is to the left of the model and facing it at an angle, each point will be displaced more to the right side of the image if it is reflecting off part of the model that is further "foreword" (towards the front of the turn table). I made no attempt to triangulate the points, just stretched the horizontal distance between the points using a series of fudge factors until it looked about right. This process results in a series of 2D slices representing the model which are written to a big text file. I then read the vertices of each slice from the file into blender using a python script, rotating each slice around a vertical axis by an amount corespondent to the actual rotation angle of the turntable. And viola, a 3d-point cloud of a real world object in Blender!

I might put up a more detailed page describing how it works with source code although it is a real mess and I took some terrible shortcuts in the 3d math. Anyway, now that I've gotten that out of my system and am off from school I can get back to Torque :)