Question to CShop Owners
Community Forums/Developer Stations/Question to CShop Owners
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| Hi, can Cartography Shop import .b3d? what is CShop capable of importing? Regards, Dirk |
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| I'm not a CShop owner, but what I know is that there is a separate prefab tool (free download from the CShop site) which is used to convert b3d models to csm (or whatever the CShop file format is) to import. |
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| CShop currently does not import b3d. In fact it can only open/merge prefab objects made elsewhere converted into the .csm format (prefab maker) IPete2 |
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| And it's worth mentioning that I've seen quite a few people with .3ds prefabs that the prefab convertor won't convert. Apparently it's the fault of Blitz's 3ds loader ( though I've never found anything wrong with Blitz 3d's 3ds loader. ) |
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| It also does b3d and x. Yeah, there's always someone who manages to screw anything up, although many times it's the machine. I've converted hundreds of prefabs from max 4 without a hitch. |
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| i've had simple .x and most .3ds convert ok --Mike |
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| @Dirk Krause can Cartography Shop import .b3d? what is CShop capable of importing? CShop4.1 can't import no model formats at all at the moment! And the PrefabMaker4 utility converter program doesn't work correctly either!! You have to take either a .B3D, or an .X or .3ds and place them in the same directory with the utility program without the associated texture files with it! It has to be the model file only!! If you do it this way... The model will more than likely be converted to a CShop prefab without any problems... except!! When you go to apply the associated texture to the converted model in CShop, The texture UV's are lost! the associated texture file for the model... Or I should say CShop prefab now! Does get applied to the prefab, except the texture UV's aren't like they should be like the model was before the conversion! I would try to ask halo if he would be so kind to make a plug-in .dll for CShop4.1 to allow you and his other customers the ability to import .B3D files & also .X files too! This way everybody would be able to import either .B3D or .X model files and save them correctly in CShop4.1 Maybe he will read this post reply and start working on one for us huh? We can always hope for this! It eventually will happen sometime! The question is when? |
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| X file import is no small task, much harder than export. I'll do some tests with UV coords. It's probably just a matter of flipping one value. |
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| Good thing that one can try the prefab maker before buying. Most of the stuff I tested worked fine - but without texture information. Is this by design? Isnt it important to have texture filenames and uv coordinates to migrate from 3 to 4? Halo, when I buy 4.1, can I get the 3.x version, too? I try to do things for Torque, too. Regads, Dirk |
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| Sorry DocWho, I replied and found that you already replied in the meantime. Indeed I found that b3d import works but without textures. Halo, if your test works fine, does that mean that you found a way to import uv coordinates as well and texture names? Regards, Dirk |
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| @halo X file import is no small task, much harder than export. Yeah maybe so! But look at it this way halo.. You need only do this once for CShop! Then the import for .X & .B3D will be there then. And thus also you will have happier CShop customers with fewer complaints about this, And alot more awesome CShop Levels to add to your gallery collection to help promote more CShop sales for you as well! You and you alone are the master at your own creation here! Who better to write these plug-ins for the imports of .X & .B3D than you! Please do this for all of us here, And make alot of us here alot more happier than we already are with CShop! You're the man dude! I'll do some tests with UV coords. It's probably just a matter of flipping one value. Well... that would be great if that was all it was! But hey anyways... This is a starting point though! |
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| As I mentioned earlier I don't have CShop, so I'm not trying to slag on it specifically, but the situation here is interesting to me because issues importing models is one of the main reasons I switched to Blitz from 3D Gamestudio. The fact that you had to use their special purpose level editing tool to create levels AND there was no way to import geometry from elesewhere for use in level editing was a big hassle. I don't know this but, because it is based on Worldcraft, another such special purpose level editing tool, I suspect CShop might be in this same category. |
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| I am very close to buy CShop despite it's possible limitations. It's user interface is very intuitive and I like the way to create folder with 'submodels' that you can place and move in a simple way. Also the ability to give the parts free parameters that you can handle in your program is nice. Since I am a Torque owner too I can imagine that one is able to build models for Blitz and TGE (since it can export .map and a special converter) On the other hand I love the CSG approach of Maplet. So being able to import .b3d models (the maplet ones, for example :-) could give you some flexibility. Regards, Dirk |
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| To answer my own question: no, it is not easy to import textured models in CShop, since the prefab maker is used to convert geometry only. Trying to enable the prefab maker to handle textures is not only a matter of keeping uv coordinates but also to handle the path location of the textures since they are not next to (or part of) the .csm model. The same problem is (not) handled with maplet, where the b3d model keeps the texture location path in the file (which is by the way a security issue). Since the .b3d loader seems to look at this path first and then defaults to the path the model is in, it doesn't pop up as a problem - everybody seems to be used to put the textures beside the model. What I do not see is how CShop3 owners got their models from 3 to 4 without losses by using the prefab maker; or is there another way? Regards, Dirk |
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| @halo: I don't know your email address - could you please send me a mail concerning some issues? Thanks in advance. Dirk |
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| "which is by the way a security issue" Security issue? Other than people copying the image files (and if that's what you're worried about you're pretty paranoid) what can people do with that information? |
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| paranoid I am not. Knowing the structure of someone's harddisk is an interesting information for average next door spy. And wouldn't it be nice to read 'D:\warez\3dsmax\mesh\something'? |
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| Well, if you're storing full paths that's true. But distributing with full pathnames is quite inadvisable, and not just because of the personal information conveyed. Since you have no way of knowing where the end user is installing your game to, you should always use relative paths. That is, if the textures are stored in a separate directory from the model, something like "\textures\skin.jpg" |
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| What I'm getting at is, that i.e. maplet saves the under certain circumstances the full path within the file. Regards, Dirk PS: btw. I like your train demo. |
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