Scaling models in Ogre

A place for users of OGRE to discuss ideas and experiences of utilitising OGRE in their games / demos / applications.
Honcho
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Scaling models in Ogre

Post by Honcho »

Hi everyone- I'm new to the forum and was hoping someone could help me out. Our open-source combat sim is using Ogre as its 3D engine and I have a question about scaling our models. Our modelers use 3D Max and Blender to create models for the game. I know that Max allows the user to scale the models in meters. Blender however only has "blender units." My main concern is to make sure that all models, regardless of which program was used to create them, are scaled to the same proportions so that they look correct when rendered in Ogre. I guess maybe this is a question for the exporter people, but is there a good method to ensure that Blender and Max models will be the same size in Ogre? Thanks!
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TheGilb
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Post by TheGilb »

You should instruct your artists to set up reference scenes from which to work from. This ensures that all models are made to the same scale.

If Blender only has units then that's fine. I'm taking it that it's a 1:1 ratio of blender units to ogre units. You need to instruct your 3dsmax guru's to work in units too so the exported data is in the same scale as the Blender models.

It's really that easy ;-)
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RyanN
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Post by RyanN »

its best to try and get what you see in your modelling program the same as what it show in ogre (scale output). However you can use <scale x="1" y="1" z="1" /> in the scene file to scale the objects within the nodes.
Whitebear
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x 1

Post by Whitebear »

IMHO, you can export your blender mesh to *.obj file and then import it to MAX to ensure that it has the same scale as MAX-made meshes.
\_ :roll:_/
Honcho
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Post by Honcho »

Thanks for the replies guys. If we export to obj for use in Max, won't it lose the animation settings?
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qsilver
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Post by qsilver »

Yes. But the idea is just to check the size, not to continue the modeling work in Max. If you import the .OBJ and it's 20% too small, you know to scale up your model in Blender.
Honcho
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Post by Honcho »

Gotcha. Also, I noticed that the Blender to Ogre exporter has a scale option. I wonder if we could find a way to set the scale on export? If everyone uses Blender units and Max guys use meters, we could figure out what percentage up or down in scale Blender needs to go (compared to Max) and then just set that percent in the exporter every time. Then as long as everyone modeled in the same respective scales, it would avoid the constant back and forth comparison of each model.
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