Maya exporter upcoming
Community Forums/Developer Stations/Maya exporter upcoming
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| Alright, I'm getting mighty tired of my own procrastinating. I've been meaning for the longest time to write a b3d exporter for Maya but I keep putting it on the backburner. So I am officially announcing it will be done by the end of March. During that time, and especially if I'm not done by the deadline, bug the hell out of me to work on this. |
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| > bug the hell out of me to work on this. I dont got Maya, but I sure'll bug the hell outta ya if you dont meet your deadline. :) Isnt it ususally a pain in the ahahah...to make an exporter? (considerin' some formats support features others dont, and how they store the data.....) |
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| It can be a pain in the ass, although the differences in how data is stored is generally of little consequence. As for different features being supported, in this case the matter is pretty simple: b3d file format supports a subset of the features supported by Maya, so the exporter simply exports those features b3d supports and nothing else. |
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| Get to work. |
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| Whaoh very good news ! |
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| and with bone weights coming up it will be all the more usefull and time saving. awesome can't wait. |
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| altough i think theres already a path to export Maya to B3D file. its as follows: get the unreal PSK exporter (the activeX that comes with the game), export your model with bones and assigneents to PSK file. get Ultimate Unwrap3D, and import it, and then export it to B3D, this will export weighted bones also :) |
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| Or this path: export to DirectX file format using the free plugin, convert to b3d via Ultimate Unwrap. I already use Maya quite a bit with Blitz3D; I know the tricks. These paths are incomplete however because they don't support a number of b3d features like pivot points, smoothing, texture layers and flags, etc. The point of a direct exporter is to support all features seamlessly. |
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| MrHocking: stop posting on this forum and get to work! I really want this. Hell I'd even pay for it. Or sell my soul. Whatever you prefer. |
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| Great news! I've been waiting for a maya exporter to be released. I debated trying to write one myself with the help of books at one point, but decided that it would be too much wasted time and effort. I don't really need the exporter right now, but I will definately be needing it on my future project(s). I'm glad that someone has decided to work on this..I'm sure it will make a lot of people happy. To me, Maya is the best modeling program out there and I think it is much more artist friendly than 3D Studio. Will you be charging for this or will it be freeware? Good luck! |
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| Free. Like I would have the gall to charge for a little MEL scripting. |
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| So Joe, Let's see who's first (kidding) :) Got materials&textures almost ready.. |
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| Are you done yet? |
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| are you done yet? ooohhh cant wait ;-) |
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| keep bugging me, it's working |
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| Get on with it! |
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| Edit: my post was mabie a bit to harsh there... just cheering you on man! 8) |
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| FOR GOD'S SAKE MAN STOP READING THE FORUMS AND GET BACK TO THAT MAYA EXPORTER. I mean you're nearly there, right? ;) |
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| *Crack's whip! Even though I don't need it get the damn thing done already ! =P |
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| Did we mention the gold oscar we will model for you when your finished? |
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| *chop chop* *lazy git* *snail breath* *hurry* *faster* *work* |
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| I'm expecting a beta tomorrow. |
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| what? there's going to be a beta tomorrow? |
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| Hows it going J? |
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| *chop chop* |
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| Yeah, step on it! I have no use for it, but hurry up anyway! |
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| So, is it going well then? I really could use it now... I've got my first boned mesh ready for export! |
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| ~~~~*MEXICAN WAVE* ~~~~~~ |
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| Eh? You're reading this instead of coding? Shame on you! |
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| how's it coming along J? |
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| Yea whats the story? |
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| he's done a "rob". |
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| "So I am officially announcing it will be done by the end of March." That means you officially have 4 days to finish, test and release it! :-) |
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| Ok. The plugin is ready and avaiable to download at: www.mayaplugs.net Ooops, it was a "first of april" joke :P |
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| Pack up lads...the dreams over :< |
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| Wow.. people come here to brag about a plugin and then don' t do it.. lol.. what a joke..!! |
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| Nuts. I was looking forward to this.... |
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| These exporter programs always turn out to much more difficult then they originally seemed. So this may still happen, but the 'end of March' promise always sounded too optimistic. |
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| End of March wasn't too optimistic if I wasn't such a lazy git. Oh, and I just got back from vacation (or rather "vacation" considering most of it was spent moving furniture) so that's why I hadn't been responding. When I have a minute I'll upload what I have so far for people to test. It is FAR from done but I do have a MEL script for people to test. ADDITION: Alrighty, I uploaded the exporter for people to test. It's at www.moondoggieent.com/downloads/xml2b3d.zip Remember, this is VERY far from done. At the moment it only exports static mesh data, without textures or normals (that last one can be jarring since polygons aren't all facing the right direction; look at the model with backface culling off for now.) And you have to triangulate the model, and have it selected when you run the exporter (both restrictions I am going to eliminate.) At any rate, here's how you use it: Create a text file called "whatever.xml" somewhere (with "whatever" replaced by the name you want.) For now the easiest cross-platform file selector using MEL cannot create new files, it can only select existing files. Move xml2b3d.exe to the same directory as the xml file. I intend to address this eventually, but for now xml2b3d will only work if it's in the same directory as the file to convert. Now select and triangulate your model in Maya. Open the Script Editor and load XMLb3dexport.mel Run the script from the Script Editor. A file dialog will pop up; select the xml file you created. The Editor window should say "finished" when the export is done. Now close Maya (don't save the scene because you triangulated it!) and run xml2b3d. Click the first button (the second button, batch processing, is buggy right now) and select the xml file. A b3d file will be created. Tedious and confusing? Well, yes. Oy, I've got a lot of work left to do. |
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| Tedious and confusing? NO, promising i think. can't wait for more, Keep going. |
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| As with most things, starting was the hardest part. Now that I've got a functioning beginning I expect the rest will fall into place fairly quickly. Although I have run into a stumbling block at the moment. Whatever, I'm already past the deadline. I forgot to mention, I'm using the XML version of the b3d file format Peter Schuetz (sp?) wrote. In particular, xml2b3d.exe is basically just a GUI I slapped onto the conversion code he posted in the Code Archives. |
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| so J give us a new deadline with which to torment you. Still stumbled? |
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| No no, no new deadline. I'm way past my deadline. Bug the hell out of me! |
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| I'll try some tests this weekend I think, I've been out of the coding stuff for a while (bought an arcade cabinet, bad timewaster!) |
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| Hi J where are you up to? i have been playing with converting .x to b3d.one prob i've noticed is bone positions,for some reason maya puts the position of the first bone in the wrong axis??(instead of being 20 units up on the y it says 20 in x???)anyway KEEP GOING cause i'm sure quite a few people will really appreciate this. |
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| Hey Joe... I havn't been on the forum much lately what with starting college, but I remembered this topic and dug it up again. Wouldn't happen to be still trying to get this done would you? *stares intently* |
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| Sort of. This is still on my todo list, but it is way low in priority right now. Fall semester has started and I'm loaded down with studio classes, plus I'm starting to write my thesis, plus I'm writing a teaching statement to apply for jobs, plus I'm doing some freelance 3D work. Between all that stuff, I haven't so much as peeked at the WIP exporter in several months. I do intend to resume working on this and finish it, but I doubt I'll have any time to do so until the semester is over and I'm on winter vacation. Sigh. If I hadn't procrastinated and finished the exporter back when I had time to work on it I would be using it right now. |
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| So, what's the status now? I'm sure it's basically in the same state it was 11 months ago :) Does anyone know of a solution to export direct x from Maya? Any tips at all? Please for the love of God :> Thanks in advance! |
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