Lightwave SCM&SCA Export Kit. Now v1.2



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Kit updated.

Version 1.2.

Changes :
- Model is automatically mirrored to appear correct ingame.
Fixes:
- Model exporter now correctly filters out blank weight map values.
- WriteFloat function accuracy increased.
- Errors in initial bone placements and rotations fixed.

Upcoming:
- Writing two VMaps.
- Writing Initial bone data and Initial Position data separately.

Exporter completed.

Exporter completed.

wow! Nice work Sean!! This will be good to get some more modellrs working on thiss game. I am glad I am not taking anything in the field of programming, cause I have no idea what you did to get itdone, it all sounded like it would take nothig short of genius of einstein's level to do something like you did

Exporter completed.

Exporter completed.

Exporter completed.

Recently I took a look at the blender exporting code, and I was overwhelmend by the complexity. I mean, it is not much code, and not many processing steps but they are all different!

The difference is the following:

the root bone had to be rotated wrt the real world (I think).

the other bones had to be rotated inversely with their parent bones

meshes were ordered in vertex groups, and it looked like each had its own reference frame.

I think this is so complex.
I experimented a bit with the code without knowing what I was doing, I was changing the reference frames, and that resulted in bad results

- a completely twisted model when I somehow was overwriting a matrix (when calling the invert function or something like that)

- a model that was completely invisible, because ... I dunno, never found out.

- a model where the textures were turned inside out.

Looks like you solved all that but if something like that happens to you again, just check with each rotation you make, if it's using the correct reference frame for that object. And also, this sounds silly, if you're not overwriting information.

Ok, RELEASE!

First release. As such, it's a test release. Let's see if other people can get this exporter to do what they want.

Note: I use Lightwave 9.3. The scripts may not work on prior LW versions. You should try though, and tell me.

What It Can Do:
Export the SCM model with one (for now) VMap, and any number of bones. Skinning is supported, as much as the engine allows. Exports animations in what seems to be a correct way. Can export reference bones mid-branch, though exact effects on model are unknown.

What It Can't Do:
Export the SCA animation while bones are dependant on IK or goals. Everything has to be keyframed at appropriate locations, then IK must be turned off and goals have to be unlinked. Only then SCA will export correctly.

What It Contains:
Apart from the three scripts to export the bone structure, the model, and the animations, a script is provided to export VMapped OBJ files for use with the Melody normalmap generator. Also, a set of tools called Nifty Plugins that deal with various UV tasks has been included.

Link in first page, and here:here is the file.

Linked it in the Useful Information Sticky, so when new versions are released PM me and I'll update it over there.

Good work, keep it up.

Mike

Small improvement.

Now the animation exporter correctly watches for the start and end of the preview animation, instead of assuming it starts at 0.

Here's the update.

The tool should now check if the point value on the weightmap is non-zero, rather than if it exists at all, when maping vertices to bones. I've also fixed the mirroring of the model, and (hopefully) got rid of the stupid transformation matrix problem. I'll do a series of experiments with various rotations, think about adding another function to the kit, and then release an update.

Kit updated to v1.2.

See changelog and link in first post.

Damn. Forgot I need to update it here as well.

I've made the exporter respect the different euler angle order in SupCom and Lightwave. That fixed most, if not all, problems with animation and bone export. The kit's now at 90% planned functionality, it only lacks second VMap export and handling of various user errors. I'll update it once it can do those as well. Nobody seems to use it anyways...

Hey there! Any updates?