Why LWO?

#1 One of the developers, David Wyand, used to be known as "Lightwave Dave" for a reason ... ;-)

#2 I believe that the LWO support was an add-in from Dave (who created the LW DTS exporter and is working on Constructor). Since it works very well, it was kept in the workflow. I know that it has been invaluable for me to move back and forth between Constructor and LW (much in the same way that map23ds was great for me to detail interiors). While it would be nice, it might be something of an import/export side-project for the community down the road.

#3 Can you detail how you detail interiors from

MAP format

to

Poly soup

and back.


Thanks!
:)
Sumner

#4 Map to polysoup isn't much of a problem since they are convex points. Back, however, is the problem (which many people who have attempted to make polysoup map converters have run into and documented at great length). If you google map to OBJ or 3DS (I can't remember which), you should be able to find basic source to write out the data correctly.

But it basically comes down to 1) knowing the formats and then 2) reading/writing the formats. Unlike DIF's, the map format is not compiled. It is a text-based format, which makes parsing and exporting to other text formats much easier.

#5 I was more wondering HOW you use this functionality...

Are you modeling in LW or Max after beginning in Constructor...

Are you Texturing in which..

etc

:)
Sumner

#6 Oh, I see.

I have been creating the base levels in Constructor. Then I export to LW and create detail meshes in Lightwave. I texture in the application that I am using (ie. in Constructor, I texture the levels; in LW, I texture the detailed DTS's). I can use the levels as a reference for the detail structures. It is much like having the reference model in Constructor, though relevant to more than scale.

EDIT:
I used to do the same thing with map23ds. I would map in Quark and then 3DS it and load it into LW to scale and work with detail meshes. Of course, I would have to reconstruct them all in-engine after I did the work in the software.

#7 Greetings!

For a history of exporting LightWave objects from Constructor you may read here.

In summary I wrote it while I was on vacation as a test. It worked so I left the code in place for others to use.

I'm really surprised that after all this time Max and Maya have failed to implement a LWO importer or that there is nothing available from those communities. The format has been around for a very long time. What did people do to load in those Babylon 5 inspired models built with LightWave back in the day? :o)

An OBJ file exporter won't take much to add once we have a generic exporter infrastructure in place -- the LightWave exporter is hard coded right now. I can't say right now if this will happen for v1.0 or not as there are other core items that need to be taken care of.

- LightWave Dave

#8 Back when Trajectory Zone was still being worked on, I had envisioned a floating platform w/buildings and in the background have more of those just to give the world some depth. Being able to export to LWO would have been perfect.

#9 Sorry for bringing this up again but I really have the need to convert my maps from Constructor to Max or Maya while preserving texturing. I'm trying to find the path to do this. If I export to LWO, does the texturing get preserved? Then, is OBJ the best way to export from LightWave to Max/Maya and does the texturing get preserved? Thanks!

Nick