DTS Exporter blender 2.6

#1 The original developer stopped updating the plugin during the time TorquePower was in it's crysis. The developer thought it would be useless to continue developing a plugin for a product he thought at the time was going to be discontinued. Since then he hasn't touched and will the numerous emails being sent to his website, I wouldn't be suprised if he's doe with it all together. Sorry!

In the light of things, if you are willing to update the plugin, by all means. You're not the first person to ask about it.

KEEP IN MIND:
Even though TGE is still supported, it is mainly supported by it's current users. Garagegames' attention or should I say priority is on T3D, T2D, & iT2D. TGE, TGEA, and TXD I believe is community ran.

Also, Collada is becoming the preferred imports for the newer engines. DTS is still acceptable so by updating the plugin, I'm sure community members will be willing to test it out on both engines (TGE & T3D).

#2

Quote:
I don't have any experience in blender plugins or even python, so it's pretty troublesome for me to do this.

Good luck with that then ...

You could always find an old version of Blender, the old plugin and the appropriate old version of Python, and then use that instead.

#3 Personally I keep an old version of Blender just for DTS, and use newer versions for Collada objects. I still prefer dts over dae.

I recall someone posting improvements/fixes for Blender for use with Torque, but that's buried somewhere in the Forums...

Blender plugins may as well be some kind of lost kabalistic scrawlings to me, but I think there are large differences between Blender 2.49 and 2.6 that would make this project difficult.

If you were to update it for T3D, it wouldn't make sense not to update to the newer DTS format, however I don't think TGE would be able to use it.

#4 Well, i found a script someone made who made me start on it. It was a script that was able to roughly convert blender 2.4 scripts to 2.5 scripts. When i load the plugin in 2.6 it doesn't report any errors, the part i am afraid will be most troublesome is the animations as they were changed alot from 2.4 to 2.6..
However the thing holding me back from addressing those problems is getting any UI in 2.6 blender plugins are so confusing >.>

#5 Was this ever finished? Or do I need to go back to 2.49?

#6 Chet: just use collada, t3d can convert dae to DTS

#7 Lukas,
I'm, in the same situation. I prefer TGE over T3D even though I have licenses to both engines. I'm primariy a C++ programmer. I'll have to buy a book to learn Python. But I too want a DTS version for the 2.6 version of Blender. I do believe I do have the 2.49 version of Blender to run the DTS exports.

#8 Found fresh links on this topic, as of the date of this post.

Blender 2.49b in all platform flavors still at:

http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.49b/

And the last Blender DTS Exporter 0.97 Beta 3 by Joseph S. Greenawalt:

http://mirror.dataorb.net/BlenderDTSExporter_097beta3.zip

Thanks to the Blockland forums for these. If the links go dead, try me via Prairie Games and we'll host the material ourselves.

Randel Reiss
Director Product Development
Prairie Games, Inc.
RandelR@PrairieGames.com
http://www.PrairieGames.com

#9 First I would like to thanks for this thread as it seems like I have saved at least 3K US $ as I now can edit and customize my models in any way I want. And to the Milkshape 3D Torque dts plus exporter I can only say why you... doooh! :o)

So far I have found that blender 2.44 and 2.49b are exporting blender files to .dts formats just fine(beside some nasty issue with the rotation of the x y z axis... kind of dizzy at this moment).

However I have one question here that I would hope some of you would answer.

How to make the .dts models less triangular?

I mean the .dts files I have from other companies are smooth and beautiful to behold close up, while a high res blender model exported to .dts with this exporter more or less end up being kind of ugly to behold up close distance(hand to hand combat etc.).

#10 Smoothing groups?

#11 @Steve,

thanks for being everywhere, anytime here in this great forum when needed(including all you great resources and tutorials as well).

I guess you mean the function in blender? I did think about it after taking a look at my "Character Development in blender 2.5" book... Kind of hoped that it would be a click operation in the fine dts exporter plugin though.

But then again I am in no position to complain here as I have a working Torque dts exporter plugin for blender and blender for making them look good all for free(Max 3D Studio is way too expensive to even think of as an option when Blender and an dts exporter are around).

Now I just need to smooth the look and make the customize model face front and play the animations front wise(should this be done in blender OR shape editor because none of them seems to work at this moment... thinking thinking thinking...) :o)


Dwarf King

#12 Select the verts you want smoothed and hit the "set smooth" button, the mesh will update. Also remember to ALWAYS have the "double sided" button off.

As for animations - you have the ability to export them seperate of the model, which means that you can make multiple individual animations, export as dsq files, have the character's tsShapeConstructor file point to them, and then reuse those same files for all characters with the same bone/armature structure. Using DAE you have to export a single base animation with each model.

There's an old website set up by the creator of the last Blender DTS Exporter - not that I can remember the link. Think his name was Joseph something ... have a search for the name and "blender dts exporter" in "your favoured search engine â„¢ ".

#13 www.narcissisticstudios.com/tutorials/pmodel.htm

And here's an ancient TGE dts exporter tutorial by someone else. Probably predates 2.49 version.

#14 @Steve

Awesome link!!! Thanks!! I shall it read at once! :o)

I did indeed search for Joseph Greenawalt but all I got was dead links and a great abandon Blender project. He had a great project on the Blender website back then. I then tried to go to his own website where he hosted the exporter for some time and got a dead link with neat Japanese characters and everything O_o ¤_¤ o_O 404 related I guess.

Here is the link:
http://projects.blender.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=415 from blender's website.

I then followed this one(without success):

http://www.jsgreenawalt.com/Blender-DTS-Exporter/download.html


I guess that my preferred search engine is smoking right now with all the searching and tracking down collada and .dts options I have done the last few days(okay perhaps a week or more).

No matter what then I am grateful for Joseph Greenawalt's torque exporter for blender. It works well with both the 2.44 and 2.49b version(Only one really issue here and that is, it seems that I need to use the program NifSkope to rotate the model the 90 degrees so it turns forward).

Link: http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Avoiding_Blender_animation_pitfalls

I very much prefer to work with .dts as the .dae file is a real pain in the but when one starts to talk about bake actions etc. etc. Never really manged to import any collada to Torque 3D from Blender with a working animation...

Once again thanks for your help and the link :o)

Cheers,

Dwarf King

#15 Well I did say that working with Blender was a pain in the .... However, I will have to take these words back and apologize to Blender Nation, Blender.org and all the other Blender users out there.

I managed to take a blender file, modify it, assign texture, export the blender file to collada with animations and it works flawless in Torque 3D MIT 2.0. After exporting the collada file I simply just turn the nodes in Torque Shape editor and voila!! now my models turn in the right direction. They even animate in the right directions too!!!

AND!!!

I simply just click on sequences -

ambient -

add new sequences -

type in the new name of the sequence and the "in" and "out" number and there you go you have pick out you very first animation!!!!

Oh do not forget to name your idle to root afterwards in the your_model's_name.cs file or during the new sequence process.

Damn I love Torque 3D shape Editor!!!

Damn I love Blender 2.67a for its collada export(but I hate the collada importer as it sucks big time... due to the way it crashes and mesh up the bone structures and armatures).

No more 90 degrees issues with animations, no more searching for a program that works for modifying/customizing models. This is a great day. And after all the .dae file comes with a cached .dts file too :o)

Now all I need to do is smoothing groups(and that Blender is really good at) and then I am good to go.

Also a lot of thanks goes to this guys videos on YouTube:

Collada to Torque 3D

Best,

Dwarf King

#16 Huzzar! Glad you got it working.