Future of the blender exporter
by James Urquhart · in Artist Corner · 11/13/2004 (12:32 am) · 63 replies
There are many issues that i wish to address with a future release of the blender exporter :
The documentation
Although i sent off documentation to GG for inclusion in the docs on-site, they have failed to be intergrated (after a few months no doubt). I am considering including this documentation in another format along with the exporter
Armature bugs
I have occasionally noticed that quite a few people still seem to be encountering bugs in exporting armature's to torque. I am unsure if this is a bug in blender, or perhaps the exporter itself. Further investigation will likely find the route of the problem.
TSE Bugs
A minor bug with the normal export was resolved with the last update of the exporter. However, it seems that further problems may persist. As my windows machine is now up and running, i am now in a better position to investigate these bugs. Stay tuned.
dtsSDKPlus
As the maya exporter, aswell as potential upcomming exporters seem to be using this sdk, i feel it would be best if the blender exporter followed suit.
This would replace the current python sdk that the exporter uses with a .so / .dll wrapper module to load with python, although the problem is that the module would need to be compiled for each platform the exporter was going to be run on (win, mac, linux).
Other issues / ideas
If anyone has any issues, bugs, or ideas to bring up about a future exporter release, please post them in this thread.
The documentation
Although i sent off documentation to GG for inclusion in the docs on-site, they have failed to be intergrated (after a few months no doubt). I am considering including this documentation in another format along with the exporter
Armature bugs
I have occasionally noticed that quite a few people still seem to be encountering bugs in exporting armature's to torque. I am unsure if this is a bug in blender, or perhaps the exporter itself. Further investigation will likely find the route of the problem.
TSE Bugs
A minor bug with the normal export was resolved with the last update of the exporter. However, it seems that further problems may persist. As my windows machine is now up and running, i am now in a better position to investigate these bugs. Stay tuned.
dtsSDKPlus
As the maya exporter, aswell as potential upcomming exporters seem to be using this sdk, i feel it would be best if the blender exporter followed suit.
This would replace the current python sdk that the exporter uses with a .so / .dll wrapper module to load with python, although the problem is that the module would need to be compiled for each platform the exporter was going to be run on (win, mac, linux).
Other issues / ideas
If anyone has any issues, bugs, or ideas to bring up about a future exporter release, please post them in this thread.
About the author
#62
I imagine a command line based tool to handle this. It would be possible to have the 3d apps exporter run the xml2dts after the xml has been created. The final place i see the xml2dts is in the actual engine, or along side it, called on start up to build the .dts files on the fly.
I have begun some preliminary work defining an XML standard to handle the features of .dts and digging into the dtsSDKPlus and milkshape, maya and your blender exporter to see what this would entail. Doesnt seem to be too bad at all after looking into it...the .dts format is very complicated compared to the data needed to build one. Once I get a bit further with this I will post my work on it in a new forum thread.
01/25/2005 (5:54 am)
I see what youre saying about being a bit of a burden on the artist, it would be a bit of a pain. I do have some solutions to that problem:I imagine a command line based tool to handle this. It would be possible to have the 3d apps exporter run the xml2dts after the xml has been created. The final place i see the xml2dts is in the actual engine, or along side it, called on start up to build the .dts files on the fly.
I have begun some preliminary work defining an XML standard to handle the features of .dts and digging into the dtsSDKPlus and milkshape, maya and your blender exporter to see what this would entail. Doesnt seem to be too bad at all after looking into it...the .dts format is very complicated compared to the data needed to build one. Once I get a bit further with this I will post my work on it in a new forum thread.
#63
03/09/2005 (10:01 pm)
Uhhh is it just me or is the /util folder in that zip EMPTY? 
Associate James Urquhart
Just to let you know, i have not had much time recently to work on the blender exporter.
However, i am still interested in starting afresh with the backend of the exporter.
I did ponder with the idea of using xml to convert to dts; However, i decided it was a bit too much for someone to have to use multiple tools in order to export a simple shape (since it would have sprung up alot more support issues).