Blender to MAP exporter

[toneddu2000]

z80, have you seen my mail?

[z80]

toneddu2000 Yes, I've got it on Friday. I'm very sorry haven't answered you yet (I checked mail at work just before going to weekend). I promise I'll mail you back tomorrow when I'll be at work!

bobcaticus The problems with .blend file are the following. Nowdays the exporter can't eat any .blend file. There are several limitations. And I've found two items why it can't be exported correctly as is.

1) If you use any material the exporter expects it to have a texture of image kind. Material with index 1 doesn't have any texture.

2) If you use any texture file it should be in Nexuiz data/textures folder or any subfolder. Otherwise NetRadiant can't find it. Materials with indexes 2, 3 and 4 have their textures in "Documents and Settings" subfolder, It's wrong.

Anyway the exporter shouldn't fail even if blend file isn't prepared. So it's a bug. I'll try to fix it in next (probably 0.17) version. Thank you for using the exporter!

[z80]

Version 0.17 of the exporter: http://www.box.net/shared/a2xzq8asj1.

Changes list:

* Files list, lisence file and manual by toneddu2000 added.
* Export precission is set to 4 digits.

[toneddu2000]

Thanks z80! In addition I inform the community that the open SVN address of exporter (exporter, guide, additional blend files) package is located here: svn://213.79.111.46:1000/blend2nex. A huge thanks to z80 for this!

[z80]

Version 0.18 of the exporter: http://www.box.net/shared/t91aeqaqdj

Changed texture reference frame definition according to q3map2 source. (Great thanks to divVerent!!!!!)

[toneddu2000]

Wow z80 thanks! At least I have some free time, I'll test it! What does it mean "according to q3map2 source" for texture frame definition?

[z80]

toneddu2000 It means that divVerent has told me where to look for the texture reference frame definition in NetRadiant source code. To be precise in it's part that is built into q3map2 tool.

I couldn't find it myself because of I didn't know where to look in it (NetRadiant source). And I would spend quite a lot of time looking for that. Initially I have written the exporter using my own guess on how it works. It usually worked but not always. My mistake was I supposed that reference frame origin moves to brush plane and axes are initial axes projection on it made perpendicular. I was wrong as usual

Actually it appeared to be very simple: If initially we have Oxyz (O - point (0, 0, 0), and x, y, z axes of World unmodified reference frame (RF)), then target texture reference frame is x and y axes of initial RF with two rotations applied:

1) around z axis,
2) around new y axis.

These transformations are such as new RF z axis coincides with brush plane normal.

So my task to map a texture is reduced to:

1) Make transformation matrix that transforms texture u,v to x and y of brush face RF,
2) Make transformation matrix that transforms x, y, z to x and y of brush RF,
2) According to that matrix find X, Y, scaleX, scaleY and angle using u, v and x, y, z of each vertex of initial Blender mesh when converting it to NetRadiant brush.

Of course not any affine transformation might be split into such 5 sequential transforms. But if we assume that it does it could be gained form the matrix. I don't want explaining it here, because it is a bit complex. It's better to look at that in the exporter's source. To be brief, it's done by applying transformation to convenient unit vectors.

Also I've found out it works well when u and v are between 0 and 1 (inside texture square in Blender). I've not found out why yet .

I'm not sure I've explained it in understandable way, sorry for that!

[z80]

Version 0.19 of the exporter: http://www.box.net/shared/4jyns68zei

Changes:

* Rederived all matrices and rewritten all concerning texture mapping (appropriate function became shorter and cleaner to a person looking at it first time).

[z80]

Version 0.20: http://www.box.net/shared/mid1k1k4lu

Changes:

* Automatic ASE export parts of the scene for misc_model creation.
* info_player_deathmatch and others info_... export.

[toneddu2000]

NO WAY!!You're telling us that I can now set info_player_start (for istance) directly from Blender? Awesome!
Thx a lot z80.Next week I'll try to start guide update with some tutorials!
P.S: I didn't understand first new feature, can you explain it in detail?