File Conversion
Working on open-source 3D file converter. Plan to convert VRML, 3DMF, W3D, and Unreal's T3D, for starters.
3DMFtoUnreal
Here is a starter. It's a Windows executable, written in Visual Basic. Converts 3DMF (ASCII)
to T3d (Ascii Unreal Brush). You can use Design Workshop Lite to convert 3DMF (Binary) to 3DMF Ascii. And use Crossroads to convert many other formats. Note that this is NOT a full-featured converter! It only converts the geometry, and only 'polyhedron', 'mesh', and 'trimesh' objects, which are the most important ones I think. See the Stonehenge map on this site for an example of how it works. Currently imports entire file as one brush, or one or more objects in a map (your choice), but would not be too hard to adapt to outputting seperate files for each object. I think what I'll do long-term is just go to and from 'raw' format, and you can use Crossroads to mill it out from there. In the mean time, if you have problems with this program, send me the model file and I'll see what I can do.
UnrealToOBJ
Now export your Unreal brushes to other programs! This is a very simplistic Unreal to OBJ converter. Create
your brush, make sure it's all intersected nice and neat (subtractive brushes are NOT exported!) Use Transform/Transform
Permanently (because this program ignores transforms). Export your brush or map to t3d format. Load into this program,
save as .obj format. Does TEXTURES! Export all the textures your brush uses as .BMP files. Use ucc.exe in the system
folder, for example: UCC.EXE BATCHEXPORT Ancient.utx TEXTURE BMP C:\Unreal-Office\Textures\Ancient Then use Crossroads or Deep Exploration to convert to many other formats. VRML and W3D work nicely. If you have problems
with Crossroads output, try VRML, then
import to program of your choice.
UnrealToVRML
Now export your Unreal brushes, lights, cameras, movers, and more to other programs! This is a very simplistic
Unreal to VRML converter. Create your brush or map, make sure it's all intersected nice and neat. Export your brush
or map to t3d format. Load into this program, save as VRML format. Does TEXTURES! Export all the textures your
brush uses as .BMP files. Use ucc.exe in the system folder, for example: UCC.EXE BATCHEXPORT Ancient.utx TEXTURE
BMP C:\Unreal-Office\Textures\Ancient Then use Crossroads
or Deep Exploration to convert
to many other formats. Currently exports Omni and Spot lights, player starts as cameras. Coming soon: movers!
If it doesn't run (some DLL or OCX needed), get the UnrealToOBJ full installer (above), install
that, then put this EXE in the same folder.
UnrealToW3D
This takes a T3D file and creates a W3D file (Director 8.5 aka Shockwave). Got it doing geometry.
Will do textures, lights, particle systems, sounds, and eventually, key-frame animation.
If you are interested in working on any of this with me, drop
me a line
Universal Translator
This will NOT be a viewer, because I don't want to deal with OpenGL, DirectX, etc and multiple
platforms' displays. This WILL be freely distributable source code.
This will contain some virtual base classes which describe hierarchical geometries and attributes,
which most file formats already support. It will be a union of all the stuff I can find. Each conversion module
must know how to parse and build that format into and out of this object hierarchy. Not really complicated at all.
I am sick to death of the notion that this file can only display on a Mac, or I must buy some expensive software
to do this, or that this great model is in some format nobody ever heard of. Well, this will attempt to remedy
this.
Check back here for updates.
UPDATES!
So there's some good stuff out there. Right Hemisphere's 3d Explorer will support Unreal II models, and is an all-around cool application. I may be
writing an Unreal module for it soon.