Anyone using Blender for dif creation?

#41 Ok I am not sure what is cause it, i am looking into it. The problem is when you have more then one object in the scene it will export find. when you converter threw Mapdif it will say a plane is not flat. I hoping it just a matter of figure what name convention, like it was for gamespace 1.6. Once i figure out the names it was very easy to build maps in gamespace 1.6. If you only have one object in Blender scene it work fine. I think it is names convention because look at Scott Coursey Posted: Oct 21, 2005 12:18 GMT There is more then one object there. For export look at Alex Palmquist Posted: Jul 13, 2006 13:44 GMT .

#42 Alberto:
I am not upset more than that i can not use the software in more ways than 2 at this moment. The 2 ways are as follow:

1. i can make terrain.
2. i can import my own .dts's, wich is good.

But building as complex structures i am supposed to be doing, as of yet, impossible.

I read that GG doesn't release "good enough" software, they release "done" software. To be in this kind of perdicament, i rather use "good enough" software, then use none at all.


Sorry to sound so winey, but this is kinda annoying.

#43 @Michael: Here's what I'm doing:
1) in Blender I create a empty scene with just the lamp, the camera and one cube
2) I add to the cube a material, with a texture of type "image" (I've looked at the python script and apparently the absence of the image is the reason for the python exception described in previous posts)
3) I add UV mappings for the cube (don't know if it's necessary, but shouldn't hurt)
4) I export the scene with the exporter and get a cube.map file
Now, if I run the file with map2dif it says it's ok, but when I put the resulting dif in TGE, the engine crashes.
If I use map2dif_plus then it says "Error: Brush 0 - This brush only has 0 planes which is insufficent to create
a convex volume. Possibly a badly formatted .map?"
It it doesn't work with such a simple scene, then there must be something big that I'm missing. Could you share exactly what did you, please?

#44 Sure I just wrote it down. Now this with a simple cube. I load it in Torque and it did not crash. I wish i could host a picture to show it. Here what I am doing, anyone is welcome to use this but i am put it in a set of tutorials for my beginner Tutorials. So please dont come back in the future and say this my Tutorial. If you help me get working complete then i will add your name to the Tutorial. I have not change the script as of today. I want play with it first to see what can do.

Texture Assignment

1. Go down hortizonal line then right click.
2. Select Split Area.
3. Drag and click where you want the window to split.
4. Click Drop Down Arrow for Mode (Object Mode) for Left Window.
5. Select UV Face Select.
6. Click Displays Current Window Type Icon (Right Window) then select UV/Image Editor.
7. Click Image button then Click open.
8. Click P Icon (bring up one folder).
9. Click Simple_Texture Folder.
10. Click mdp.png then Click Open Image button.
10. Click File\Save (may need to repeat steps 8 and 9 to get to the right folder).
11. Enter mdp.blend then Click Save As.
12. Change left window to Object Mode.
13. Click Viewport Shading Icon then select Textured.
14. Click Shading Icon (F5).
15. Click MA:Material (Links and Pipeline Window) then change to MA:mdp (must be the same
as the texture file).
16. Press Enter key.
17. Click Texture buttons Icon (F6, leopard skin icon).
18. Click None button then select Image.
19. Click Load Image button.
20. Click mdp.png then Click Select Image button.
21. Click Material button Icon (Pink Sphere).
22. Click Preview Type: Flat X Y (square icon next to material window).


Dif Export with export-torque-map-0.1.6

1. You can be in Edit Mode or Object Mode.
2. Click File then Click Torque Map V0.1.6.
3. Click About button (bar) then Click Files.
4. Click File: torque-default.map then rename to castle.map.
5. Press Enter Key.
6. Click Export button then Click Finished Saving Map.
7. Click Quit Button.

#45 Let me know how it work for you. The texture are line up correctly from Blender.

#46 Alex,

I understand your dilemma looking for Mac based apps. But even without the CShop (or some such) editor, you can follow along the MAP making process I've outlined in the PDF link below..

www.cybereye-visioneering.com/MAPmkr.pdf

..It's based on a theory I have that all Map geometry fails unless its components fall into one of the base primitives that BSP editors understand. Y'know, cubes (boxes) wedges, splines etc.

I can get Blender to generate items to the TORQUE MAP format no problem, but each of the build items I use to construct anything has to be made of (or understood as) primitives. I start with cubes and progress from there. One curious thing though is when I import the BlenderMap it also comes with a big green cube called valve220 WorldSpawn.

It's a result of the exporter, and as such a minor detail, .. I just delete it from the scene.


Hope the PDF helps.

~Ciao Dude

#47 Michael, I really appreciate your efforts, but that wasn't the information I was hoping to get. I am no beginner with Blender and I perfectly know how to set up a material and how to invoke the exporter. In fact, I clearly said in my post that I already did that. Unfortunately the file that was created by the process doesn't work. There must be something else that you did to make it work. If could just send me your .blend file, maybe I could make a comparison and find out. Thanks in advance.

#48 Richard nice pdf, the exporter as is does assume that objects are made of quads (quad sided polygons) and will try to export all objects in a scene. The texture issue was fixed in a local copy i have (somewhere) where it assigns a NULL texture when no texture is defined. Also you need to make sure that polys are not double side and that its normal is pointing (ie. facing) the right way :)

#49 Hi Benoit !

Ahhh ! I totally forgot about the Double-Sided issue ! Drat ! So, when in Blender, which facing side is normal for a normal facing direction? Which axis, that is.
Will each face then have to be addressed?

BTW, what ever happened to your website? That was a valuable resource

#50 Thanks. Got into a fight with the company hosting it after it got hacked and decided at that point to take a break from coding outside of my day job. I've been slowly getting back into it but its harder in the summer, so many things to do far from my pc :)

I still have most of what was on the site sitting somewhere on my home system but don't currently have anywhere to host it all.

As for the normal it depends, thats one thing i hated having to tweak by hand for every face with older versions of blender. Have to try the new 2.42 to see how it behaves.

#51 The only over thing I did was use a basic cube and scale it out and texture it. Export out of blender as above.
I use MAP2DIF GUI with map2dif plus to convert it. I did not do anything esle in Blender. In fact I just launch Blender use the default cube and scale it out. I am using Blender 2.4.2. I understand you know Blender, all I did was put all the steps I did. Sorry If I defend you, I was not try to imply you did not know blender.

#52 Ok, since I've just had some time in for the very first time in a very long time, I decided to start making my own blender -> Q3 map format exporter.

I know there are/were some other examples out there on the net but I also wanted to learn blender python scripting at the same time so I started from scratch.

I've only got very basic (one brush) success so far, but as you can see below it is a good start:

#53 Great start, Nigel, keep it growing. And thanks :)

#54 Awesome work nigel, u just might become the hero amoung blender users for dif creation !

but yeah, nicely done

#55 Keep it comin' and keep it up =)

#56 Is there a Dif export plugin done for blender yet?

#57 Blend2dif scrpits: www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=11288