FBX to GLM converter

[Archangel35757]

 

That's not very descriptive.... utility tool what? Cant find anything in his file submissions anything like this.

http://jkhub.org/files/file/1648-ase-to-md3-or-glm-file-converter/

[DT.]

It's broken as far as I can tell, tried everything.

[Szico VII]

Oh that, yeah, it doesnt work.

[Xycaleth]

Yay, first GLM file generated. Complete vertex data and texture coordinates. Only problem is it crashes ModView so there's obviously something wrong with it

[DT.]

See if noesis can open it.

[Xycaleth]

One step closer! ModView can load the file now - I made a few mistakes with a few of the numbers in the format. Now it looks like the vertex data is screwed up so I'll be fixing that next. No screenshots yet as ModView shows a blank screen currently.

[Xycaleth]

Say hello to a badly rotated and badly textured Luke:

 

Still no proper bones, but at least there's something to see now

[DT.]

Rofl. I love seeing your WIP's Xycaleth, always interesting.

 

Btw, are those the bones or tags all bunched up at the root?

[Xycaleth]

Probably tags. Bones don't get drawn by default in ModView and it currently only has one bone anyway (in the same way that sabers have one bone).

[DT.]

After this converter project, can you please see (if you have time) if you can put 1 moveable light source in modview? Just so we can see shadowing on a compiled model without having to view it ingame.

[Xycaleth]

@@DT85 are you sure you exported the model as Z-axis being up? Luke is rotated sideways, as you see in the screenshot with the Z axis pointing up. Maybe the model was already modeled with the Z-axis being up in 3ds so it got rotated again?

[Archangel35757]

I believe the FBX exporter gives you those kind of axis options.

 

Keep up the great work! FYI, looks like you have some UVW texture stretching on Luke's face...

[DT.]

@@Xycaleth

 

Exported as Z up. Seeing as GLMs for JKA were built with XSI I'll send you a Y up & Z up version.

[DT.]

Real interesting. Noesis can only load ASCII FBX, and when I load that up all the tags are bunched at the bottom of the root like in your pic Xycaleth. I'll see what's going on.

 

 

EDIT:

 

Fixed tags issue so they should all be in their proper place. Sending you a new .zip.

[Xycaleth]

Thanks @@DT85 Looks like I need to do a bit more work to get tags and model rotated/translated properly, but aside from that I can start working on an initial release. It will allow modelers to export player models or non-animated models. No custom animations just yet.

[DT.]

I also imported the model back in Max and tested the hierarchy and it looks intact (tags, caps, etc), so there *shouldn't* be anything more you need from me for now lol.

[Xycaleth]

Almost there Just texture coordinates to go now.

 

[Archangel35757]

Great work!!!  However, I notice that some (if not all...) of your tags need rotating 90 degrees about the z-axis.  For example, the hands and feet appear to be needing a rotation of 90 degrees about the z-axis (when you compare to an original model in old ModView).  But I'm sure you'll have it all sorted out soon...

 

I do hope you intend to make a .GLM/.GLA to .FBX converter... or better yet, just add a "Save As" feature in your new ModView program to save it back out to .FBX  

[DT.]

Great work Xycaleth, keep it up!  Is it reading off the base JKA humanoid.gla with weighting intact?

 

If you need anything else, let me know.

[Xycaleth]

Great work!!!  However, I notice that some (if not all...) of your tags need rotating 90 degrees about the z-axis.  For example, the hands and feet appear to be needing a rotation of 90 degrees about the z-axis (when you compare to an original model in old ModView).  But I'm sure you'll have it all sorted out soon...

 

I do hope you intend to make a .GLM/.GLA to .FBX converter... or better yet, just add a "Save As" feature in your new ModView program to save it back out to .FBX  

Good call on the tags Not sure why that's happened. I've applied the same transformations to the tags as I have to the meshes so they should be correct (or maybe the tags were in incorrect and carcass does some weird magic to fix them up again). I do plan to make a converter back to FBX. This seems easy enough, now that I've seen how the FBX format works

 

Probably won't add this to ModView, at least not for now. The good thing about having a standalone utility for things like this is you can create a batch script or something similar to convert an entire directory of files to GLM.

 

Great work Xycaleth, keep it up!  Is it reading off the base JKA humanoid.gla with weighting intact?

 

If you need anything else, let me know.

Haven't got to working on weighting just yet But another quick question! I'm having problems with texture coordinates as 3ds seems to export FBX with more texture coordinates than positions and normals. Are you perhaps preserving smooth groups when you export (if such an option exists)? Can you send me the model with and without smooth groups preserved if possible? Thanks

[DT.]

Yeah I am preserving smooth groups, I'll send you a version without.

[Xycaleth]

That didn't seem to fix any problems Looks like I'll have to do things the hard way.

[DT.]

@@Xycaleth

 

Ok, here's my options as of the last file I sent you:

 

 

Also, I'm pretty sure GLM (or could be XSI) splits surfaces (within the same object) by UVW seams if that bit of info helps any.

[Xycaleth]

A few more hours of work later, and we can say hello to Luke properly

 

I just need to fix up bolts, and make the converter usable. And I made a mistake in an earlier post - this first version will only be able to export non-animated models. I haven't looked at fetching the weighting information from the FBX file yet.

 

For jokes, here's some WIP screenshots while I was trying to get this to work

[DT.]

Brilliant as always.

 

Btw, could you possibly look into adding FBX>>>>>MD3 conversion?