I Come in Pieces

I've just put up a new version of mesh2rdm (v2.6) here. This version has a few bug fixes, and a bunch of new stuff pertaining to skeletal processing and modification.

I'll also take this opportunity to officially state that I am no longer supporting or fielding questions for mesh2rdm, mainly because it's too much effort. However, I will continue to release updates and maintain it (as I have been for the past several years), for myself and the 2 to 3 other people that actually use it for its originally intended purpose.

Here's a complete list of what's new in this version (you won't care unless you're actually interested in general mesh processing with the rdm format).

• Added "idxsort" option. This sorts triangles and offsets vertex data for interleaved meshes, in order to allow more frequent run-time batching.
• Fixed a new bug (introduced in v2.4) which was causing the bone-based mesh batching to create overlapping mesh segments in some odd situations.
• Added The Bonerizer (see "bonerize" option). This is a visual interface, which allows the user to tweak a mesh skeleton with the assistance of an animation set, in order to manually offset for broken pointweighting and other bone pose situations that normal modeling suites do not handle.
• Added "bonepatch" option. This applies .rbp files, in order to patch the skeleton of the mesh being processed.
• Added "bsplmul" option, to multiply the lightmap values in Quake/Half-Life BSP files. Negative values multiply by the positive value while preserving the color balance (instead of saturating to white).
• Added "align" option. This forces the data in each chunk to be aligned to X bytes, by inserting alignment chunks into the model where necessary.

That's it for this release. This stuff has all been done in the natural progression of development for my iPhone title. I think I'm just about finished with the mesh processing aspect of things, so there probably won't be any more mesh2rdm updates for a while. Unless I find myself mistaken. Which does tend to happen once every few years or so.

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#12

Rich Whitehouse

October 21, 2009 at 3:21 am (CST)
The SDK actually does document the whole process pretty decently. It's easier for you to look at the existing .bat files that are set up to invoke q3map2 and mesh2rdm to compile from a Quake3 .map file. The process is basically:

1) Set up gtkradiant (or another Q3 map editor) to make maps for Quake 3.
2) Make your map, using AVALANCHE textures. Some AVALANCHE textures in Quake 3 format (with Quake 3 shaders) are provided in the SDK for a starting point.
3) Follow the existing .bat examples to compile your .map to .bsp with q3map2, and then turn the .bsp into .rdm with mesh2rdm.
4) Set up an object in an .rco file for the new rdm, make an .rcm with the in-engine developer mode editor and place the new RCO entry. Example assets with this already done are in samples/Sample Mod/mod_sdksample, so you can just use that instead of trying to figure out how to use the in-game editor if you want.

From there, if you want to do anything interesting with your map, you'll have to actually get into the in-engine editor (this is also fully documented in the SDK documentation) and get into using R-Script (which, also, is fully documented in the SDK).


#11

iron_war_lord

October 21, 2009 at 2:56 am (CST)
Ah, ok, I think I found my problem, it requires a command line to run it. I assumed it was a GUI Map Editor, but it's a converter? So, I make .map files with an external editor, and the converter converts it into .bsp? Isn't the native format for AVALANCHE .rcm (R-Cube Map?). Sorry, so many questions. Wish the SDK came with some sort of n00b documentation lolz.

I'm so silly, I read the SDK docs again and found how to run the editor. What does q3map2.exe do then?

Thanks


#10

Rich Whitehouse

October 20, 2009 at 4:46 pm (CST)
I'd have to know your q3map2 command line and all the other details (like how you produced the .map file). Without that information, the only thing I can guess is that it's working just fine and you simply aren't allowing it enough time to finish. q3map2 takes a long time to run, especially on more complex maps.


#9

iron_war_lord

October 20, 2009 at 8:05 am (CST)
Hey Rich

Great game btw. I have finished it and it's quite amazingly well done, but short. I then downloaded the SDK thinking that maybe I could create my own levels, but the q3map2.exe doesn't do anything, when I launch it, it shows a console window (C++ console) and then does nothing after that. Am I missing something else, it comes with no errors too. It just won't start.

Thanks


#8

Rich Whitehouse

October 17, 2009 at 12:38 am (CST)
Sure, no problem. Let me know if you end up making anything, I'd be interested in taking a look.


#7

gregoRayne

October 16, 2009 at 11:50 pm (CST)
oh wow what was i thinkin lol i was going about that all wrong! thanks rich!


#6

Rich Whitehouse

October 16, 2009 at 6:46 pm (CST)
You don't need a tutorial if your goal is to actually mod AVALANCHE. The AVALANCHE SDK already includes the tool and batches to build RDM files from popular formats (including Quake 3 BSP's and Valve SMD files). It also includes numerous models weighted to the AVALANCHE base rig in .max and .smd formats.

Import the SMD of choice from the SDK into your favorite model editor, make your model, weight it to the rig from the SMD, re-export to SMD, modify the batch file in the AVALANCHE SDK (or just save over the .SMD in the SDK if you're afraid of text editors), and viola. You have your new player model.


#5

gregoRayne

October 16, 2009 at 5:54 pm (CST)
ok i know rich is trying to stay away from mesh2rdm... so could anyone plz make a tutorial on step by step when using different file formats? i do alot of things with blender and ive used alot of different game making engines so i basically understand but the mesh2rdm is a different story... and i know lots of ppl are not good at using dos... hence younger ppl havent used dos and im just saying maybe this could help out alot with this game.... it could be a huge hit if ppl could figure out how to mod there own characters when co-oping.... idk just a suggestion


#4

Lo Pan

October 14, 2009 at 8:50 am (CST)
Excellent- I'll be sure to check that out. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly!


#3

Rich Whitehouse

October 11, 2009 at 1:46 pm (CST)
That's an interesting request. If I recall correctly, the NesterDS ROM has a big zero'd out chunk of data that the rom_inserter.exe just locates and stomps on. Unfortunately, I have no idea where the rom_inserter.exe source is, but the code that ensures there's a marker in ROM is probably in NesterDS's source code (which is already public), so you could figure it out from that if you really wanted to.

The simple solution is to just use it under wine/darwine or something. rom_inserter.exe will definitely run fine under any of those, as it's a very simplistic MFC app.


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