Updated Ogre import/export scripts for TL2?

[Brixtan]

Will we need to have new import/export scripts for modding meshes/items in Blender for TL2 or will the ones that worked for TL1 be OK?

[Rusty]

Excellent question. I will include modders stamp of approval.

[RMUK]

Hey Brixtan,

I'm going to go ahead and assume that we'll be able to modify meshes, import models etc. in exactly the same way in TL2 as we did in TL. I'm basing this assumption on TL2 using the Ogre engine again, not to mention, even TorchED won't be dramatically different for TL2 than it was for TL. So that said, while I can't say with 100% certainty that our modding tools & scripts won't need some tweaking / updating, I do hope that's the case! Hoping for dev clarification on this

Edit: Just realised that everything I wrote is just a 'fancy' way of saying "I don't know". lol -.-

Some scraps of info here: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=14186

[Brixtan]

RMUK! Where have you been?!

Yeah, basically I'm still waiting on some more formal clarification from the devs on this. It's not earth shattering important, but I've been wondering for months now and would like to know how the meshes work with the new character models in TL2/TorchED 2.0. I think the most I got last fall was some sort of rumor about the meshes stretching perfectly over all 8 character models so you wouldn't have to individually set and assign each new armor mesh more than once. As for how that "stretch for one size fits all" thing works, I'd love to know. Shoulder armor is a PITA as is for one character...I'm dreading having to do it for 8 (M/F for all 4 classes).

Oh btw...this is me me staring at you for help once TL2 hits...

[RMUK]

Lol, hey Brix, yeah I took off abroad for a bit! There wasn't much in the way of internet where I was (fairly remote parts of the Philippines) - plenty of horrendously massive cockroaches though! - Anyways, just got back a couple weeks ago and I've been getting caught up on some things Now I'm just biding my time 'til TL2 (and GW2) get here!

But, yeah - I always found the mesh 'juggling' a bit of a (major) pain in the azz - Often felt like an unnecessarily large amount of work for the relatively basic model work and end result. If it works in the way that you've mentioned, then that would be a huge bonus, and lead to a massive boost in productivity. Part of the reason I lost interest in the modelling side of things was due to the often cumbersome and tedious (imo) nature of it

I think it'd be good to get this clarified so that some folks (myself included) can begin model work in advance, without worrying about compatibility issues. Here's hoping it's simplified somewhat!

Also, *returns the stare, equally confuzzled by the inevitable wonders of TL2!*

[Arkham]

I think the most I got last fall was some sort of rumor about the meshes stretching perfectly over all 8 character models so you wouldn't have to individually set and assign each new armor mesh more than once. As for how that "stretch for one size fits all" thing works, I'd love to know.

From what I understand, there aren't 8 models, there are only 2 (male and female) that all classes are based on. Variance in class physique comes from certain joins on certain classes being scaled up or down slightly to make some classes skinnier and others beefier (e.g. shoulders/biceps might be larger on the Berserker than on the Outlander).
And I doubt the promise was that there would be "perfect" stretching since there's basically no such thing, there's just better and worse ways of mitigating texture stretching.

As far as the scripts go, I don't know for sure but I'm going to predict that import scripts will need to be updated, export scripts probably won't.

[SixshotOverdrive]

It's still running off OGRE so the export scripts should still work (at least as well as they currently do), and unless they've completely changed the way skeletons are handled (which would be kind of arbitrary so I don't really see them doing), the import scripts should also be fine. However if they've added support for new features (vertex animation, IK, etc.) those won't show up.

The way I understand it, there's 2 character meshes (male & female) which have parts individually scaled by the class settings/.dat file. i.e. from those pics on the main site, it looks like the berserker has slightly broader shoulders/bigger arms than the embermage. So you will only need to add new armour meshes twice, and they will scale along with that. It should be pretty seamless for the existing classes, but I'm sure you could break it quite easily.

[Rusty]

Yeah, I believe you are right. Especially based on what they asked for in the Armor design contest. If you remember, they only asked for a male and a female version, and did not make the creators specify which class. This bodes well for designing armor. I do wonder how they will be tagging the armor to make it class specific, or if that is even possible. I did like TL1 in the fact that you the sets that were different for each class.

[Dusho]

Hi guys
as was already said by Arkham and SixshotOverdrive, I believe there will be only 2 skeletons for characters (male and female). I remember Travis saying that this time it should be easier for modders to come up with new classes and stuff (gear, ...).
Also it looks like scale modifier for weapons is gone -> so weapons won't scale differently for different classes and thus no need to place attached particles in generic way close to hand.
TL1 is Ogre 1.6, TL2 is Ogre 1.7.2 - there isn't a change in geometry, so no need for major changes in import/export. Only change you may have seen is that Ogre 1.7.2 has updated OgreXMLConverter that uses Mesh serializer 1.41 that doesn't work for TL1 (Ogre 1.6). So you need to use older OgreXMLConverter for TL1.

Also last week I was flaming Blender forums again (because of name lengths restrictions to 21 characters that messed up materials when importing wardrobes for characters) only to find out that 1 day before version 2.62 was released where restriction is 63 characters now, so looks like no more problems with wardrobe stuff I hope.

Also, to finish my wall of text. I've started working on import-export script for Blender 2.5x (as the UI was overhauled and it actually looks better and bit simpler) and if you feel like helping with testing, go check http://code.google.com/p/torchlight-to-blender/ for new script and installation description. Script is for now limited of non-animated meshes and doesn't store .material file, but with having import and export in my hands I can adjust the scripts to work fluently with TL without any need of hacks to make skeletons compatible with existing animations (old Ogre exporter).
If you find any bugs or have some ideas, feel free to post or PM me or start 'Issue' on that google.code site.

Also welcome back all 'lost' modders...

[RMUK]

Dusho!

You're a legend, man! I was still using Blender 2.49b for Torchlight related modelling, and was thinking it would be awesome if I could import/export TL stuff using the much nicer Blender 2.62... And you've made it - huge thanks!

I've tested your scripts, the import works great! The TL meshes are auto textured on import, unlike in 2.49b where the imported meshes were untextured.

Not too sure about export though. ie. How to adjust the settings such as "scale up to Y axis", "copy materials" etc. same as the options when exporting in 2.49b. I can't find any sort of interface. I've referenced my Ogre converter .exe in the script, and when I export my model, the .mesh and .xml are created, but there's no material file - thus, the mesh in game is untextured - as well as being off scale... 99% I'm doing something wrong, not sure what though

[Dusho]

ye.. material file is not written yet (TODO)
those options should not be needed on export, as this export is specific to TL and thus everything is done for you automatically
not sure about scale you mentioned, had no problem with models being off
so far I tested workflow : import existing TL model, edit it (stretch, move triangles, ...) , export (and use existing material) and it gave you .mesh (when OgreXMLConverter is specified)

[RMUK]

Dusho,

Ah got it now! I think I forgot to "set rotation to Ob data" or whatever it is, when scaling my own model against a TL model, lol. Thanks again for making / updating this for Blender 2.62, love the automatic export without having to set buttons every time ("use ogre xml converter", "fix up to Y" etc.) very handy! (I'm also relying on you to come up with solutions to any potential TL2 import/export issues btw, Dusho lol).

I'll be making some models over the next few days, so that'll give me a chance to test your scripts further

[Rusty]

Spoiler: show

Hi guys
as was already said by Arkham and SixshotOverdrive, I believe there will be only 2 skeletons for characters (male and female). I remember Travis saying that this time it should be easier for modders to come up with new classes and stuff (gear, ...).
Also it looks like scale modifier for weapons is gone -> so weapons won't scale differently for different classes and thus no need to place attached particles in general way.
TL1 is Ogre 1.6, TL2 is Ogre 1.7.2 - there isn't a change in geometry, so no need for major changes in import/export. Only change you may have seen is that Ogre 1.7.2 has updated OgreXMLConverter that uses Mesh serializer 1.41 that doesn't work for TL1 (Ogre 1.6). So you need to use older OgreXMLConverter for TL1.

Also last week I was flaming Blender forums again (because of name lengths restrictions to 21 characters that messed up materials when importing wardrobes for characters) only to find out that 1 day before that version 2.62 was released where restriction is 63 characters now, so looks like more problems with wardrobe stuff I hope.

Also, to finish my wall of text. I've started working on import-export script for Blender 2.5x (as the UI was overhauled and it actually looks better and bit simpler) and if you feel like helping with testing, go check http://code.google.com/p/torchlight-to-blender/ for new script and installation description. Script is for now limited of non-animated meshes and doesn't store .material file, but with having import and export in my hands I can adjust the scripts to work fluently with TL without any need of hacks to make skeletons compatible with existing animations (old Ogre exporter).
If you find any bugs or have some ideas, feel free to post or PM me or start 'Issue' on that google.code site.

Also welcome back all 'lost' modders...

This should be stickied.

[Brixtan]

Hi guys
as was already said by Arkham and SixshotOverdrive, I believe there will be only 2 skeletons for characters (male and female). I remember Travis saying that this time it should be easier for modders to come up with new classes and stuff (gear, ...).
Also it looks like scale modifier for weapons is gone -> so weapons won't scale differently for different classes and thus no need to place attached particles in generic way close to hand.
TL1 is Ogre 1.6, TL2 is Ogre 1.7.2 - there isn't a change in geometry, so no need for major changes in import/export. Only change you may have seen is that Ogre 1.7.2 has updated OgreXMLConverter that uses Mesh serializer 1.41 that doesn't work for TL1 (Ogre 1.6). So you need to use older OgreXMLConverter for TL1.

Also last week I was flaming Blender forums again (because of name lengths restrictions to 21 characters that messed up materials when importing wardrobes for characters) only to find out that 1 day before version 2.62 was released where restriction is 63 characters now, so looks like no more problems with wardrobe stuff I hope.

Also, to finish my wall of text. I've started working on import-export script for Blender 2.5x (as the UI was overhauled and it actually looks better and bit simpler) and if you feel like helping with testing, go check http://code.google.com/p/torchlight-to-blender/ for new script and installation description. Script is for now limited of non-animated meshes and doesn't store .material file, but with having import and export in my hands I can adjust the scripts to work fluently with TL without any need of hacks to make skeletons compatible with existing animations (old Ogre exporter).
If you find any bugs or have some ideas, feel free to post or PM me or start 'Issue' on that google.code site.

Also welcome back all 'lost' modders...

Thanks Dusho, that's sorta what my brain recalls as well. I just don't remember where this was originally said which is why it would be nice to get an official yellow response to clarify things on this matter. As for your work on the new scripts, I will definitely play around with them and see what I can come up with (errors and whatnot). Thanks again for all your scripting work in the past!