Contributing in 3D?

[cathuria]

Good one!  Looks like the size still needs to be shrunk a bit, though  ;D

Certainly post what you've got -- running it through pieslicer may be necessary in the long run anyway.

[Deathguise]

Here you go attached the .pie file.

[Buginator]

Got it working in game :

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z147 ... 8/ECM2.jpg

The problem was the team color settings, specifcally the amount of frames, width and height settings for a hand full of poly's.

What i did to fix the team color stuff was open the .pie file in a very early version of pieslicer (im guessing it does not have the same error checking as the version of pieslicer others have used) and remove all the team color stuff and that was it.

When ive got a bit more spare time ill try importing the fixed model into blender and then re exporting to check it's still valid.

Cathuria: It's quite an impressive model and if it's ok with you ill attach the fixed .pie file.

Nice job!
Which version of pie slicer are you using?

[kage]

i ran the fixed version through the import -> export process and it came out correct (ignoring whitespace, the output was identical).  i will reiterate that it is entirely possible to create a working, valid, pie on export from the blender scripts. i just really need to write a good tutorial for this, but such a thing would likely happen after a (partial) rewrite of the scripts (see below).

btw, i noticed a bug with the texpage selection on import, seemingly where no matter what you choose, it'll leave it at NOTEXTURE (it's entirely possible that it has to do with my using a new version of blender this time through).

it's amazing how bad you can think your design decisions from 3 months ago happened to have been. i'm certainly amazed. if i were to redo the blender scripts (which i might), i may just return to the original preference of having a complete lack of an import/export ui with the exception of load from and save to dialogues that are part of the blender ui system. instead of the ui, i would rely on blender's "registry" config mechanism, or possibly normal config files.  texpage selection is as simple as doing the same with any poly in blender, and export script logic could easily be tweaked to make sane assumptions about this. everything else could be handled with utility scripts that the user could optionally run after import.  this may also have the (hopeful) benefit of allowing command-line only work: the primary (and obvious) use for this would be conversion scripts -- for those who don't use blender as their preferred editor, they wouldn't even have to see the blender splash screen, and could just convert files via shortcuts or bash-scripts.  in short, any work i do with the blender stuff in the future will probably involve scrapping the current stuff, rewriting half of it, and treating the import and export scripts as simple minimal-interaction scripts, only to be later supported by minimal ui utility scripts (the exception to this would be the team color animation stuff, for which i hope that something like pie toaster would be more than adequate, since blender wasn't designed for anything like this, as far as i can tell).

i may well also explore the possibility of blender utilizing python's transparent zip package handling -- if blender supports it, and i work it out correctly, this would allow for all the scripts to be bundled in a zip, which, when dropped in the right place, would simply work, even without extraction (it's getting painful to explain which scripts are needed and which aren't).

[Deathguise]

Nice job!
Which version of pie slicer are you using?

It's version 1.06.0070 modified on Monday, June 24, 200, at 10:06:30 PM and has been on my current HD since Sunday, August 24, 2003, 9:06:05 AM,  so its an most definatly an ancient version - on a sidenote i have most of the warzone related stuff that's been released over the years archived on a bunch of CD's if anyone's trying to track down a specific file.

btw, i noticed a bug with the texpage selection on import, seemingly where no matter what you choose, it'll leave it at NOTEXTURE (it's entirely possible that it has to do with my using a new version of blender this time through).

Im using Blender version 2.45, i don't appear to have this problem - with just an unmodified extraction of warzone.wz i can import  a .pie file and blender fetches the correct texpage for me.

[Warhead]

So is there a list of models that need to be redone. I might be interested in taking a stab at making some of the models.

[Per]

So is there a list of models that need to be redone. I might be interested in taking a stab at making some of the models.

I do not have a list, but I can list a few things: The large droid bodies except Dragon and Wyvern need a proper placement for a second turret. Or you can make new bodies specially for multi-weapon droids. Help get the ECM model into proper size. Come up with an innovative excuse to put multiple weapons on a defensive structure. And I am sure I forgot quite a few

[cathuria]

I'm just waiting to hear what needs doing with the ECM model; I'm willing to hack at it some more -- although perhaps you need the final sizing and team color work done in Pieslicer.

[Per]

I'm just waiting to hear what needs doing with the ECM model; I'm willing to hack at it some more -- although perhaps you need the final sizing and team color work done in Pieslicer.

It just needs to be rescaled. I have a bit of a handicap here, because I cannot run Pieslicer (and I would not have any idea how to use it in any case). Anything else you need from me to get things moving?

I really should get working on a new file format for those models again...  :-\

[Buginator]

I'm just waiting to hear what needs doing with the ECM model; I'm willing to hack at it some more -- although perhaps you need the final sizing and team color work done in Pieslicer.

From what I was told on the IRC,  "just tell the modellers one tile is 128x128 in 'model space'"  That may give you an idea of the scale?

Thanks to Watermelon for the info.

[cathuria]

Well, if the model doesn't need poly-reduction or splitting up, I can shrink it -- from the looks of pic's, it needs to be reduced to about 50-60%... and turned around the other way... which is odd, since I turned it in Blender to match the direction the imported pie models were facing... oh, well.
But if I did that, it would have the same team-meta problem that Deathguise would have to clean up.  If that is all that is needed, would it be better if Deathguise just did those transforms in his copy of Pieslicer and issued a new 'beta' model?

[Per]

I think it needs some team colours, too. I have no idea how to do that from Gimp. Maybe Kage does?

[kage]

Well, if the model doesn't need poly-reduction or splitting up, I can shrink it -- from the looks of pic's, it needs to be reduced to about 50-60%... and turned around the other way... which is odd, since I turned it in Blender to match the direction the imported pie models were facing... oh, well.
But if I did that, it would have the same team-meta problem that Deathguise would have to clean up.  If that is all that is needed, would it be better if Deathguise just did those transforms in his copy of Pieslicer and issued a new 'beta' model?

that turned-around thing could be a bug with the blender tools.  when i started with it, there was already a bug in the exporter that created pies mirrored along the x axis. i realize that i've almost exclusively tested my updates to the exporter with structure pies, so it's reasonable to believe that i overlooked a z-axis mirroring bug, or introduced one myself.

since i'll be more or less available for the next month, and i'm the bloke that wrote most of the code that exists in the blender-pie stuff right now, feel free to pm me or email me (), and i'll do any fixing of pies that you need (this will also help me find bugs).  i think i shall also write a tutorial soon (even before rewriting all the blender stuff for warzone).

I think it needs some team colours, too. I have no idea how to do that from Gimp. Maybe Kage does?

let me know what you want to do, and i'll be happy to go over it. gimp works, as well as any other raster editor (such as photoshop) that can be used to output png, or any kind of standardized lossless-with-alpha format (which can later be converted into png).

[Per]

The way I understand team colours, you need to repeat the texture in the PNG eight times, where each is modified to show the team's colour. The ECM texture does not use team colours, and therefore looks somewhat out of place on most droids, since it is one huge model in a single colour, whereas most of the other colours on a droid change depending on its owner.

[Per]

I have added some information about how to implement team colours here: http://wiki.wz2100.net/PIE_models

Cathuria: Could you look into extending the model's texture with team colour information as described in the link above?

Please let me know if my description is understandable.