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Blender3D exporter? Improvements to the Maya one?

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Guraan

Guraan

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Sep 17, 2012
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Got some questions:
* Is there a Clausewitz Blender3d exporter plugin that you guys have done out here somewhere on the internet?
* What can you tell is the main differences between maya and blender when it comes to workflow and actual tech of the editor (differences, similarities, equivalences etc in both terminology and functionality) ?
* What do you want to be improved in the current maya exporter?

//Guraan
 
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I'm currently starting to work on a blender export plugin though it's far from finished.
The first part i'm going to try and work on is to export blender models to .mesh files.
Eventually i might create an importer but i'm not sure about that yet.
The important part would be getting the .mesh file format specs.

//EMP_Apple
 
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I'd happily write a Blender Exporter for Clausewitz, but Paradox have not released any information (that I am aware of) regarding the .mesh format ... so it's a complete non starter, as reverse engineering a complex file format is a huge time investment!

BjornB said:
Is there something similar for other software besides Maya, such as Blender?
Unfortunately not at this time. It's an addon for Maya. But we will be releasing our .mesh format so that anyone willing and with the skills can write an exporter for other software, like blender.
Click to expand...
Any chance of an update on this @BjornB ? :)

One of the largest disadvantages to the current Clausewitz Maya exporter, at least from a community standpoint, is that it's implemented via a plugin rather than written natively. This has one upside (it's much faster to export with a compiled plugin) but some pretty major downsides;
- the free(!) Maya LT version can't be used as it cannot load 3rd party plugins
- there's no plugin available for non-Windows platforms (Mac/Linux)
- the plugin is locked to < Maya 2016 as Autodesk upgraded their VSC tools version for 2017


As for the differences between Maya and Blender... that's a huge question. Describe a workflow in Maya for me and I can tell you how to replicate it in Blender.
 
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Not sure about the file format, i asked around and i cannot get any real answer about it. (Sorry)
 
@Guraan About the file format it just looks like it contains binary serialized objects.
I wrote a first version of a Parser which i will extend so that it can read and write data in the correct format
I am currently trying to work on just exporting the mesh data from blender.

Would be best if someone from paradox could give a statement concerning the file format specs because that would make for a much cleaner
export result probably cause right now i am just testing step by step trying to reconstruct the file.
 
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EMPApple said:
@Guraan About the file format it just looks like it contains binary serialized objects.
I wrote a first version of a Parser which i will extend so that it can read and write data in the correct format
I am currently trying to work on just exporting the mesh data from blender.

Would be best if someone from paradox could give a statement concerning the file format specs because that would make for a much cleaner
export result probably cause right now i am just testing step by step trying to reconstruct the file.
Click to expand...
Tbh i cannot be much help there, got very slim knowledge about the format myself.
Think @BjornB might be the best person to ask when it comes to the fileformat spec.
Besides that, how is it going? I am very curious about the progress when it comes to a non maya version of the exporter
 
Guraan said:
Tbh i cannot be much help there, got very slim knowledge about the format myself.
Think @BjornB might be the best person to ask when it comes to the fileformat spec.
Besides that, how is it going? I am very curious about the progress when it comes to a non maya version of the exporter
Click to expand...

Ah I completely missed that you were a Paradox employee when I replied to this thread before. :D What team/department are you in?

I've written most of a Maya importer tool this weekend in an attempt to understand the mesh file format. I definitely have most of the basics down now but still a few question marks over some data interpretation, so any official clarification would be very appreciated. (for both the .mesh and .anim file formats)
 
@Guraan i did write an importer which can import a .mesh into blender first to understand the file format
The importer is almost finished (just missing locators and some shading information)
As to the exporting part i did not yet start that though it will not be that complicated once i have finished the import part.

As was said before an official spec or some information would be really appreciated.
 
ross-g said:
Ah I completely missed that you were a Paradox employee when I replied to this thread before. :D What team/department are you in?
Click to expand...
I am a Linux programmer at PDS, not in any particular (named) team ATM, but previously HOI4.
And I very much lack experience in 3D modelling, just so you guys know O;)

ross-g said:
I've written most of a Maya importer tool this weekend in an attempt to understand the mesh file format. I definitely have most of the basics down now but still a few question marks over some data interpretation, so any official clarification would be very appreciated. (for both the .mesh and .anim file formats)
Click to expand...

EMPApple said:
@Guraan i did write an importer which can import a .mesh into blender first to understand the file format
The importer is almost finished (just missing locators and some shading information)
As to the exporting part i did not yet start that though it will not be that complicated once i have finished the import part.

As was said before an official spec or some information would be really appreciated.
Click to expand...
Will try to push some more in this issue, personally i do not own maya (not even access to it at work) and i do not want it either so this is my personal pet peeve as it is for you guys as well O;)

Edit: And by "any particular (named) team" I mean that I work with RnD & programming support not tied to a single project and not belonging to the engine team O;)
 
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Had a dad said:
PDS is coming up with their own Distro :eek: wow...


/runs
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Will be called Universalnix and a minimum requirement for our future games O;P
 
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I can handle that.
 
Well thats some progress at least i would say.
I did make some progress on exporting a blender mesh.
The meshes can be loaded now in stellaris and look ok though a few things (like normals for shading etc.) are missing.
So i did also make some progress :)

I'm hoping for the specs really soon ;) as that would probably allow me to finish the last missing features.
 
EMPApple said:
Well thats some progress at least i would say.
I did make some progress on exporting a blender mesh.
The meshes can be loaded now in stellaris and look ok though a few things (like normals for shading etc.) are missing.
So i did also make some progress :)

I'm hoping for the specs really soon ;) as that would probably allow me to finish the last missing features.
Click to expand...

Hi! Do you have any news? I really need a plugin:);)
 
@ross-g The problem i currently have is that the normal values computed in blender don't match the values in the .mesh file i previously imported
so the shading is quite off cause the tangent and normal maps are incorrect.

@Oracle If you want you can pm me, i might send you an alpha version
I need to test the plugin with a few different workflows anyway

@Guraan Do you have any news concerning the file format specs?
 
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