MAC Systems?
by Phil Nestoryak · in Torque Game Engine · 01/21/2004 (6:15 pm) · 13 replies
What can you use on the MAC (10.3.2) inplace of MilkShape?
Im thinking of getting this, just need to make sure all of the pieces to the puzzle are there.....tnX
Im thinking of getting this, just need to make sure all of the pieces to the puzzle are there.....tnX
About the author
#2
Blender is another option. with it you can do DTS and Terrain files. (although terrain files can be edited using the in engine editor)
As far as buildings go, Closest thing would be this Lightwave to Map exporter, but I don't know if the map2Diff converter was ever ported to the Mac so you might be SOL.
That I know of, nothing on the Mac side is in the MilkShape price range. You might want to seriously consider the Virtual PC option. :)
01/21/2004 (9:50 pm)
Well, short of running Virtual PC and using the standard pc software. Lightwave is one option for DTS files (3d objects & characters). Blender is another option. with it you can do DTS and Terrain files. (although terrain files can be edited using the in engine editor)
As far as buildings go, Closest thing would be this Lightwave to Map exporter, but I don't know if the map2Diff converter was ever ported to the Mac so you might be SOL.
That I know of, nothing on the Mac side is in the MilkShape price range. You might want to seriously consider the Virtual PC option. :)
#3
Thanks for the help...
01/22/2004 (2:06 am)
Well thats a bummer...I have VPC but I wanted something nativeThanks for the help...
#4
01/22/2004 (5:48 am)
Someone else might post some additional insight on this, my comments are based on what I've seen so far.
#5
An open source port of Quark is started, but has no eta. When finished, it will be the first full-featured .map editing tool ever to be released for mac, it would seem. (Aside from ID's half-assed port of Radiant to X11)
01/22/2004 (4:10 pm)
Work is being done on an official Maya exporter. It will support export of dts for mac. Blender is a free option, if Maya is too expensive.An open source port of Quark is started, but has no eta. When finished, it will be the first full-featured .map editing tool ever to be released for mac, it would seem. (Aside from ID's half-assed port of Radiant to X11)
#7
01/23/2004 (12:51 pm)
A commercial license of Maya is $2000. A bit more than the average indie wants to pay. Most serious game artists will have to own either maya or 3dsmax, though.. and for those who are budget conscious, Blender is free, even if it does have an odd interface.
#8
I was fortunate enough to get a copy of Maya on eBay so now my problems are related only to trying to get an actual model to export without crashing the darn thing... erm.. sorry, back to the point...
I have used Quark in past on my other pre-torque projects and found it great. I have not yet tested in under PVC and some say it works fine and others say it doesn't work at all... I would suggest trying it and seeing if it works. It would be great if the owner of Quark would give his consent to allow someone to port his Delphi code to Objective-C but until then, VPC is okey.
Now, (back to the actual point i am trying to make) as any VPC running person knows, VPC does not allow acess to graphcs hardware and thus doesn't allow one to play games. However, I have a rather decent system with quite a bit of ram so I tried installing my old StudioMax3 under VPC and used the SOFTWARE Z BUFFER and (believe it or not) Max3 running an emulated z buffer running under windows in an emulated windows file system on osx runs faster than the Mac's native version Maya!!! Pehaps because it is only version 3?
Anyway, if you have VPC and you don't have the cash to buy Maya, why not go for the free version of GMAX and seeing if that works? I am not sure if you can export DTS with it, but it is an option... Otherwise look for a cheap copy of Max on eBay... I at least know THAT option works :P
02/15/2005 (4:18 am)
My two cents worth:I was fortunate enough to get a copy of Maya on eBay so now my problems are related only to trying to get an actual model to export without crashing the darn thing... erm.. sorry, back to the point...
I have used Quark in past on my other pre-torque projects and found it great. I have not yet tested in under PVC and some say it works fine and others say it doesn't work at all... I would suggest trying it and seeing if it works. It would be great if the owner of Quark would give his consent to allow someone to port his Delphi code to Objective-C but until then, VPC is okey.
Now, (back to the actual point i am trying to make) as any VPC running person knows, VPC does not allow acess to graphcs hardware and thus doesn't allow one to play games. However, I have a rather decent system with quite a bit of ram so I tried installing my old StudioMax3 under VPC and used the SOFTWARE Z BUFFER and (believe it or not) Max3 running an emulated z buffer running under windows in an emulated windows file system on osx runs faster than the Mac's native version Maya!!! Pehaps because it is only version 3?
Anyway, if you have VPC and you don't have the cash to buy Maya, why not go for the free version of GMAX and seeing if that works? I am not sure if you can export DTS with it, but it is an option... Otherwise look for a cheap copy of Max on eBay... I at least know THAT option works :P
#9
GMax isn't an option for serious development in Torque, either.
Blender is the best choice for a low-cost dev tool on the Mac. Benoit Touchette is working on a Map exporter for it.
I use Lightwave because it fits my workflow best. The current version of Maya works great on the Mac.
EDIT: Clarification and URL's and stuff.
02/15/2005 (7:21 am)
I hope you went through Alias to transfer the license, otherwise you're out of the upgrade possibility loop. But I just noticed that you purchased 3, so you're most likely out of that look anyway.GMax isn't an option for serious development in Torque, either.
Blender is the best choice for a low-cost dev tool on the Mac. Benoit Touchette is working on a Map exporter for it.
I use Lightwave because it fits my workflow best. The current version of Maya works great on the Mac.
EDIT: Clarification and URL's and stuff.
#10
For modeling you can use the Mac port of Radient but beware the license issue. Benoit and I, althought I haven't had time to get too involved, are working on a map exporter for blender. There is also JQT which is a java based map editor. I haven't tried it myself but you can look it up and give it a go.
The problem with Radiant is that it doesn't support all the different entities that Torque supports. I had to write a filter that parses the generated map into a new map format that I then feed into map2dif. It's not useful for human consumption outside of my environment but for me it works.
There are options and after I get back from my trip this weekend I'm hoping to have the time necessary to make the map exporter for blender work well. I think if done right it could be quit powerful.
02/15/2005 (7:38 am)
I use Blender for DTS and I enjoy using it. I'm not a professional modeler so take that from where it comes from. In my opinion it gets the job done for the right price.For modeling you can use the Mac port of Radient but beware the license issue. Benoit and I, althought I haven't had time to get too involved, are working on a map exporter for blender. There is also JQT which is a java based map editor. I haven't tried it myself but you can look it up and give it a go.
The problem with Radiant is that it doesn't support all the different entities that Torque supports. I had to write a filter that parses the generated map into a new map format that I then feed into map2dif. It's not useful for human consumption outside of my environment but for me it works.
There are options and after I get back from my trip this weekend I'm hoping to have the time necessary to make the map exporter for blender work well. I think if done right it could be quit powerful.
#11
02/15/2005 (7:42 am)
Note to self: need to try JQT with the new map2dif alpha.
#12
Yesterday was my first postings to the forums and I have to say I am very impressed with the amount of people who have been willing to help me out. Thank you guys a lot!
I have one more question for now and I do hope you will be able to help me. My problem is with the Maya2Dts exporter on the Mac. It crashes Maya every time I try to export something. I downloaded the filepack of the website to try and compile the blue guy (which only states that there is an ilegal node which I can't find and doesn't even start exporting) or the simple shapes (which tell me there is an assigned material not found) but couldn't export either of them from the included .mb files.
I tried to recreate the example cube program and tried to export simply a cube wrapped in 1 single texture file. That has GOT to be the most basic of shapes to export and yet it fails at the same place my own models fail at... According to the website, if the exporter keep crashing at the same place, then the problem lies not with the exporter but with my system setup.
I am including the last few lines of the dump file for you guys to look at. I do not use an export file since there is only 1 node/shape/mesh/material and no anims. Please see if you can figure out from this what I am doing wrong.
Optimizing meshes...
Optimizing mesh "pCube" detail level 1.
24 verts before joining verts
24 verts after joining verts
12 faces before stripping
Using Quick, dirty, & ugly stripping method.
6 strips with average length 4.00 (range 4 to 4) and 0 reversals
Shape Hierarchy:
Details:
detail1, Subtree 0, objectDetail 0, size 1
Subtrees:
Subtree 0
pCube1 --> Object pCube with
I am a programmer and know incredibly little about modelling (in fact I only started doing modelling after getting interrested in torque) so this may be a simple thing or it might not be... I just don't know. Just for interrest sake, that last line:
"Object pCube with"
...that really is the last line and the whole of it. It would seem to me that the exporter is running fine up to then and then...bye bye...
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks again :)
02/16/2005 (1:50 am)
Hi againYesterday was my first postings to the forums and I have to say I am very impressed with the amount of people who have been willing to help me out. Thank you guys a lot!
I have one more question for now and I do hope you will be able to help me. My problem is with the Maya2Dts exporter on the Mac. It crashes Maya every time I try to export something. I downloaded the filepack of the website to try and compile the blue guy (which only states that there is an ilegal node which I can't find and doesn't even start exporting) or the simple shapes (which tell me there is an assigned material not found) but couldn't export either of them from the included .mb files.
I tried to recreate the example cube program and tried to export simply a cube wrapped in 1 single texture file. That has GOT to be the most basic of shapes to export and yet it fails at the same place my own models fail at... According to the website, if the exporter keep crashing at the same place, then the problem lies not with the exporter but with my system setup.
I am including the last few lines of the dump file for you guys to look at. I do not use an export file since there is only 1 node/shape/mesh/material and no anims. Please see if you can figure out from this what I am doing wrong.
Optimizing meshes...
Optimizing mesh "pCube" detail level 1.
24 verts before joining verts
24 verts after joining verts
12 faces before stripping
Using Quick, dirty, & ugly stripping method.
6 strips with average length 4.00 (range 4 to 4) and 0 reversals
Shape Hierarchy:
Details:
detail1, Subtree 0, objectDetail 0, size 1
Subtrees:
Subtree 0
pCube1 --> Object pCube with
I am a programmer and know incredibly little about modelling (in fact I only started doing modelling after getting interrested in torque) so this may be a simple thing or it might not be... I just don't know. Just for interrest sake, that last line:
"Object pCube with"
...that really is the last line and the whole of it. It would seem to me that the exporter is running fine up to then and then...bye bye...
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks again :)
#13
I just got it working and I cannot believe it took me this long to figure it out!!! So I am posting my stupidity here for some other poor sod who has this same problem but is to shy to ask:
Click on Export Settings and where it asks for a name for the exported shape, give it one... then hit continue and click export shape... Ta daa...
I thougt it automatically saved it with the same name as the source scene UNLESS you specify a name there... So wrong was I...
...now to figure out why it doesn't show up in-game... hmmm.... All I get is 2 or 3 visible points where the enemy used to be...
02/16/2005 (2:08 am)
YOU GUYS! I FEEL LIKE A COMPLETE ASS!!!!I just got it working and I cannot believe it took me this long to figure it out!!! So I am posting my stupidity here for some other poor sod who has this same problem but is to shy to ask:
Click on Export Settings and where it asks for a name for the exported shape, give it one... then hit continue and click export shape... Ta daa...
I thougt it automatically saved it with the same name as the source scene UNLESS you specify a name there... So wrong was I...
...now to figure out why it doesn't show up in-game... hmmm.... All I get is 2 or 3 visible points where the enemy used to be...
Torque Owner Phil Nestoryak
3d objects
buildings
animation of char's
etc
What is available for the MAC that can function the same as these?