Gile[s] Lightmapper Ogre export plugin

Post by **sinbad** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 6:16 pm

Emissive / ambient only lighting is cheap in the extreme, I doubt setting a base material colour is measurably faster.

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 4:11 am

alright, I'll make my own simple model viewer to test the models...

I really should implement a preview right into the exporter, but that would probably require a lot of recoding

currently I'm generating the material scripts by hand (writing to a text file)... would it be smarter to build the materials in code, and use the serializer to save them out to a file?

Post by **:wumpus:** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 1:55 pm

sinbad wrote:Emissive / ambient only lighting is cheap in the extreme, I doubt setting a base material colour is measurably faster.

Probably true... given that you can assume some intelligence from the underlying rendering API and drivers to ignore the lighting calculations with diffuse, specular and ambient equal to 0.

Post by **sinbad** » Fri Dec 24, 2004 4:27 pm

walaber wrote:currently I'm generating the material scripts by hand (writing to a text file)... would it be smarter to build the materials in code, and use the serializer to save them out to a file?

If you're already linking to OgreMain you might as well use MaterialSerializer, yes.

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 4:46 am

hmm... I implemented the MaterialSerializer... but it doesn't seem to be working right... here's my Ogre Log file:

Code: Select all

12:24:14: MeshSerializer writing mesh data to C:\Documents and Settings\Timmy\My Documents\Visual Studio Projects\GilesExport\TEST SCENES\boxes.mesh ...
12:24:14: File header written.
12:24:14: Writing mesh data...
...[mesh expor log removed]
12:24:14: Mesh data exported.
12:24:14: MeshSerializer export successful.
12:24:14: MaterialSerializer : writing material Gile[s]_RED  to queue.
12:24:14: MaterialSerializer : done.
12:24:14: MaterialSerializer : writing material Gile[s]_BLUE  to queue.
12:24:14: MaterialSerializer : done.
12:24:14: MaterialSerializer : writing material Gile[s]_LIMEFLY  to queue.
12:24:14: MaterialSerializer : done.
12:24:14: MaterialSerializer : writing material(s) to material script : Giles.material
12:24:14: MaterialSerializer : done.

but here is the Giles.material file it creates:

Code: Select all


material Gile[s]_RED

...that's the entire file

I think I'm creating the materials properly... and the log shows that it's adding 3 materials to the queue...

I'll keep fiddling with it!

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 6:38 am

still can't get the MaterialSerializer to work right... so I'm back to my by-hand method...

the exporter is making excellent progress... there are still a few issues with replicating Gile[s] exactly, but I think the exporter is very usable now.

with a little hand-editing the material scripts, you can usually get anything looking great...

yet another WIP screenshot:

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 10:38 am

yet another question

say I have an image and I would like to set a "mask" to it.
basically, I want all pixels of a certain color to be completely transparent, and all other pixels to be completely opaque.

I assume I'd use "colour_op_ex blend_manual" in the material script, but I can't seem to figure out how to set it up...

any advice/help would be greatly appreciated!

Post by **DWORD** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 12:26 pm

walaber wrote:say I have an image and I would like to set a "mask" to it.
basically, I want all pixels of a certain color to be completely transparent, and all other pixels to be completely opaque.

You have to create an alpha channel and use alpha rejection. See this thread.

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 1:37 pm

fair enough... Gile[s] supports these kinds of masks, so some existing Gile[s] projects cannot be directly exported to Ogre without modifying the textures slightly (adding an alpha channel).

that's fine with me, I'll just have to mention it somewhere in the (eventual) docs

Lioric · Post by **Lioric** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:55 pm

when you turn the lighting off, there is no effect of the material color settings on the mesh, as the ambient/diffuse ..... colors are counted when the light is calculated per vertex, so no light calculation, no use of the material colors

when the entity is not using realtime light, it uses precalculated light, and that is the vertex colors, so if you want the entity to be colored, export the diffuse component of the vertex with the colors needed, light/shadow color can be precalculated, thus saving some render times, but its resolution is dependant on the mesh tesselation

when using the vertex colors to render, you can use the alpha component to make the entities transparent with the per vertex apha value

Lioric

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:42 am

okay, I'm pretty sure it worked, so this project should now be a part of ogreaddons in CVS, in the path "gilesexporter"

there is also a binary-only download available on my website, in the "tools" section.

Post by **sinbad** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 3:25 pm

Excellent, thanks walaber

I've made an announcement in the news.

Devine · Post by **Devine** » Thu Apr 07, 2005 5:46 pm

I think that the export is broke now that there is a new version of Giles.

Is Anyone else having a problem, or is it just me?

Thanks

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:14 am

I've downloaded the newest version of Gile[s] but to be honest haven't even run it yet... I'll take a look into it this weekend!

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 4:22 am

UPDATE

sorry for the delay everyone, was too busy with Stunt Playground

I've updated the Gile[s] exporter! it's now been compiled in release mode, and updated to Ogre 1.0. I also made a slight change to the material script producer.

anyway, it has been tested with the newest version of Gile[s] (1.35a) on 2 machines, and seems to work fine. please follow the install instructions carefully because some files are no longer needed, and others have had name changes.

also I have no internet at home now, so unfortunately I can't update the CVS version properly... so this is a binary release only. sinbad, if you can update it for me, I'd be glad to send you the updated source code!

BINARY DOWNLOAD - .rar archive, approx 1MB

louisc · Post by **louisc** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:36 pm

HI Walaber

I can't find any install instructions in the download or on your site ?

cheers

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:53 pm

whoops! forgot to inlude the .txt file in the download! it's in there now, please re-download

Post by **sinbad** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 1:45 pm

@walaber: can you update CVS with this new version please?

louisc · Post by **louisc** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 2:36 pm

Sorry Walber .. but now the link to the download appears broken ..

Post by **Kencho** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:04 pm

Nope, I've just downloaded it. Try again

Post by **jacmoe** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 5:34 pm

sinbad wrote:@walaber: can you update CVS with this new version please?

I don't think he is able to:

walaber wrote:also I have no internet at home now, so unfortunately I can't update the CVS version properly... so this is a binary release only. sinbad, if you can update it for me, I'd be glad to send you the updated source code!

hebdemnobad · Post by **hebdemnobad** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 3:48 am

walaber i have been getting errors when trying to view a gile[s] exported scene using the directx renderer, but not the opengl renderer. opengl works fine (but has other limitations)...is this a limitation of the exporter? if not, i'll try to isolate the problem.thanks!

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:36 am

there should be no reason the meshes cause problems with a specific renderer, there no different than any other .mesh files...

Post by **sinbad** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 5:01 pm

jacmoe wrote:
sinbad wrote:@walaber: can you update CVS with this new version please?
I don't think he is able to:
walaber wrote:also I have no internet at home now, so unfortunately I can't update the CVS version properly... so this is a binary release only. sinbad, if you can update it for me, I'd be glad to send you the updated source code!

Doh, that's skim reading for you - I'm in a rush too much these days.

@walaber: yes please do send me the code updates and I'll commit them for you.

walaber · Post by **walaber** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 1:47 am

sinbad - will do. however I'm in the middle of adding a few features that will truly make the exporter useful... so give me a few days, and I'll provide you the source for the new release!

the new version will have the option to copy over all textures for the model with the export, and also have an option to automatically "fix" textures with the "MASK" mode in Gile[s]. by adding an alpha channel to the texture, making it transparent wherever there is a fully black pixel. this should make most models export directly from Gile[s] into usable OGRE meshes

in the process I'm also learning how to use the devIL library directly