Unreal Tournament Map conversions?

[Dokujisan]

There have been some recent requests to have people convert UT maps to Nexuiz. From what I understand, UT maps are in an incompatible format that requires someone to recreate the map rather than import and adjust it (like when converting Q3 maps).

Are there any utilities to help start the process like a UT > Quake conversion script to at least form the basic walls of the map or something?

[morfar]

UT maps are completely different. In fact they are opposites in the way they are made
UT maps are craved out from solid "rock" so-to-speak.
While Quake maps are made in void or empty space (which is why maps can "leak").

So conversion would be made from scratch.
But maybe there is some other way I don't know.

[Dokujisan]

Hmm, in the meantime, I found this page which clears up some of it...


http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:BSP


but it does say...

you can get the raw vertex and polygon information from UnrealEd, then you will need to write (or have someone else write) a program to convert it to a Quake-friendly format

Even if it could create some crude brushes as guides that could be cleaned up and optimized. That could save some time. Then again, the mapper might end up just having to delete a ton of messy brushes created from the script, and that might waste time.

[zuriastrad]

there is a method that might work, i've done it with quake3 maps. you decompile the bsp to an ase file using q3map2. then you can load that ase into gtkradiant and use it as a guide to build a fresh map. couple of points to consider though. firstly this is a very slow process and only worth considering if all else fails. secondly, unreal bsps might need to be decompiled in a different way.

having the whole map as an ase file is pretty unwieldy so i prefer to tidy it up in blender first, like so...
- import the decompiled ase file into blender
- merge all the component parts together into a single model
- remove doubles in edit mode
- scale map (if necessary)
- delete any unnecessary detail
- take individual rooms and break them off into separate models
- export each model to an ase file
- load all the ase files into gtkradiant

since the models all share the same object centre (from having been a single model at one point) they should line up perfectly in gtkradiant. you can then build a fresh map using the room models as guides, hiding/deleting each room model once you've finished building the room.

like i said, this is a very slow method, but it gives you a lot of control. the ability to scale the map up might be important since unreal and nexuiz might use different scales.