Dark Industries' Exporter Status?

#1 I doubt will see any updates to the Dark Industries tS/gS exporter. In-fact we are still waiting for the XSI exporter but we all just have to wait and see?

Haven't seen any updated news from Matt Summers in a very long time. Last I heard he was sending his XSI exporter to beta testers...

I don't think the source was released... I think the daunting task is with trueSpace and gameSpace more than the exporter itself, due to the way bones are done. My team member Rex has done a lot of work getting characters exported correctly but the exporter does fall short in places. Seems most have given up on trueSpace/gameSpace for more complex animation exporting.

Just my take on the situation

#2 Last I heard the XSI exporter is in beta. It would be great if we could atleast get an update. I've been waiting on the XSI SINCE I started school which was about 2 years ago. Its now almost 2007 and still no luck, but I'm patiently waiting. hopefully soooooooon.

#3 Yeah, well its clear that Matt has worked hard on the exporter in spite of competing priorities. If we each put 1/10 of the effort required to make an exporter in our preferred workarounds while he finishes it, we'd all be ahead of the game.

#4

Quote:A few quick questions:
1) Are we going to see any further updates?
2) Related to #1, has support been discontinued? There seems to be very little response here or on the Dark Industries site...
3) Is the source code available? If #1 == false, and #2 == true, then it would be valuable to the community to make the source available...

Because of the changes to the trueSpace SDK for version 7, the new skeleton system coming in TS 7.5 and our work on the other exporters the prority of the gameSpace/trueSpace exporter has been low, especially given that it is a free tool. The source for the exporter is currently not available to the general public, all though at some point it most likely will be.

As far as support goes, there never really has been any direct support as is true with most free software. If you find a major flaw or bug we can address that and fix it but we simply do not have the time or resources to anything more than that. That is why the exporter is free in the first place.

#5 Thanks for the info, Matt.

When I mentioned support, I was mainly referring to the activity here and on the Dark Industries forums -- initially, y'all were pretty forthcoming with helping answer questions and resolve issues, but lately it has been few and far between. But I understand y'all are busy, so I have no expectations. I was just curious what the status is.

I would like to get my hands on the source though -- especially if it's going to continue to be unsupported and/or discontinued in favor of the tS 7.x stuff.

Kevin

#6 I have been unsuccessful in getting a the plug-in to work in TrueSpace.
Any tricks or steps I might be missing?

The blue plug at the bottom is where I believe the DTS exporter should be added to TS. It take the first 3 enhancement tools but not the exporter.

Any help would be great.

Thanks in advance,
Tim Reed

#7 Yes the blue plug is where you load the exporter. Not sure what other tools you have but there is only one (icon) thats loaded for Dark Ind/gS Exporter to work properly. The exporter has included doc's, everythings there to get you started.

#8 If found the file on the GameSpace tutorial links. It says it works for both, but as TrueSpace 3 is free and GameSpace is the Demo Lite version the plug-ins don't work with GS.

I will have to look at the files, one was for random terain, another for particles, and I don't remember the third one.

#9 It sounds like whatever you've got isn't the 2.0 Dark Industries exporter. There is only one TSX file and it's default install folder is:
C:\gameSpace15\Tsx\DarkIndustries\ts2dtsExporter_v2.tsx

Make sure you've gotten the exporter from the following GG resource link:
www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=5523

Here's a link to a resource I wrote that shows how to use the exporter with gameSpace for everything but characters. You may have to follow the link twice (if you get redirected to http://stats.battlemagic... then try the link again):
www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=8991

There's also a link to a TDN article about creating a complex character - it's not animated, but it's a start:
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/DTS/gameSpace/Creating_a_Complex_Character

-ner

#10 Are there any know issues with the exporter and newer versions of TrueSpace?

#11 Any updates on this? I happened to notice that the latest trueSpace is a free download now, and my artist *really* wants to use it. Does anyone know if the 2.0 exporter works OK with tS 7.6? (I'd try it myself, since both tS and the exporter are free, but I'm using a Mac.)

#12 TS 7 completely rewrote their exporter API, so I don't think it will work. But I decided to test it just in case and received an error about an incorrect version, which makes sense.

#13 That's disappointing news, but pretty much what I'd expected. Thanks for verifying that for me.

#14 I exported an object from TS7.6, using the 2.0 exporter, without any problems. It works in the Truespace Model view.

#15 Thanks - I'll pass that tip to my artist.

#16 I was probably using an older exporter then. Good news.