OH MY GOD! DUDE! YOU ARE MY FREAKING HERO! YESSSSS SOMEONE FINALLY AGREED TO DO THIS!

@ joergf

A gift from the Gods... And you're no God? So humans would be better than Gods?
I know nothing about this kind of elaborated stuff but I'll definitely give it a good look.
Vielen dank, Ihren unglaublish Hero! ( Not sure that's german... but it's true! )

[Edit] You should upload it here, or maybe you're waiting to finish it? Loads of people ( maybe 2 or 3, no kidding! ) could already start using it right away. 'looks okay to me but, again, I know nothing about this kind of thing. A " Read me " perhaps?

[This message has been edited by jml (edited 09-11-2006 @ 05:54 AM).]

Hey can you start with the DDT to BMP and vice versa first? I'm a texturer for a few teams and I would love it if you could do that one first.

Welcome! I to am on a mac i still have to try it out but ihope it works!
EDIT:OH KING OF THE GODS MAKE US MAC USERRS ONE THET CAN DO THE PROTO

[This message has been edited by Grim Tuesday (edited 09-11-2006 @ 09:39 PM).]

If you could, can I maybe request features?

-DDT to BMP, BMP to DDT
-XMB to XML, XML to XMB
-3DS to BRG, BRG to 3DS (yes 3DS, not 3DX. I hate 3DX...:/ if that's possible)
-Bar Reader
-If you could include a language editor...that'd make this godly

I can help skin this if you want. I mean this in the most non-homosexual way possible: I love you.

i wish ykkosh(however you spell it) would make a thing that covnerts .gmax to .brg cus i cant get my export thing to work.

Quote:

3DS can't do mesh animation - that's why AOMEd requires a special import script to merge lots of individual meshes into one animated one. And Gmax can't export to 3DS anyway (or any other sensible format, at least without game-specific plugins), which is why AOMEd uses a special export script and outputs a text-based format.

Quote:

As far as I'm aware, .gmax (like .max) is an aggressively non-open file format - the only way to read and write it is with Gmax / 3ds Max. Gmax has always tried hard to stop people exporting data from it, and it's dead anyway.

If I was doing something like AOMEd today, I'd encourage the use of Blender and transfer data in the COLLADA format (which can be imported/exported via 3ds Max, Maya, Blender, and most other programs, and has support in Unreal Engine 3 and PS3 and elsewhere - I wish there had been a common standardised file format when I was working on AOMEd, which wasn't as ancient and rubbish as 3DS...)

Hey Joe,

Could you maybe do an export script from 3DS to 3DX for Macs as well? That'd be a cool feature.

@ Ykkrosh

Couldn't you add a feature that converts from 3DS to 3DX, then from 3DX to BRG all in one process? That'd be great. And as for Gangsta's issue, if this is possible, convert GMax to 3DS to 3DX to BRG?

Quote:

GMax is designed so that you cannot get stuff out of it. In particular, the gmax file format is proprietary, a technique used by monopolistic companies to hinder the user in as many ways as possible. In particular, this means one cannot reasonably write any convertor that takes some file out of gmax format without using gmax itself.

This is why we have the 3dx format. It's sole purpose is to attempt to get data out of gmax in a rather hackish way (Note how one must use copy-and-paste, or a tool which automates it, to finally get the data out of the listener.). It's just an intermediate transfer format for AoMEd.

3DS to 3DX would be possible, although pointless. The 3dx file format's sole purpose for existence is to get data out of 3DS/Gmax in an understandable format.
Other than that, it has no reason to exist. Ideally, one would just export to some format (say... .max) in your modelling program and AoMEd would just read that file and convert it. However, the closed-ness of the formats prevents that, hence the usage of 3dx.

But there's Collada now, and programs can export and import it.

If I correctly understand what Joe is attempting to do, (make a Mac AoMEd), I highly recommend you consider what Ykkrosh is hinting at, namely use Collada for intermediate transfer. This way, your AoMEd would be free of some of the problems the Windows one faced due to the lack of open formats at the time.

You can read about the format (it's specifications, etc.) in the website Ykkrosh linked to.

There are also libraries so that you don't have to directly deal with the xml, etc.
http://www.feelingsoftware.com/content/view/62/76/lang,en/

The advantage of this is that any program that has a good enough collada plugin will automatically be able to create brgs at no cost at all. No program-specific importers or anything will need to be created.

I just tried it out. Great tool! It's very fast and saves files quicker than anything I know. Problem is: it's in German. I didn't know what the buttons did and I ended up saving everything in textures.bar to my desktop. Not smart. :P

I'd be happy to translate/skin it for you! Anyway, nice job so far!!

[This message has been edited by PrplPplEater (edited 09-18-2006 @ 04:24 AM).]

@PrplPplEater:
sorry for that bug, but i did not know that the dialogs are not displayed in the current language automaticly.

I hope it is fixed now.

@all
for the next release i will do bmp->ddt. are there any other
image formats beside bmp and png that are useful to support?

than i will do xmb<->xml and then speed and gui improvements.
maybe language.dll conversion next.

I do not know much about this 3d stuff and moddeling so i have not yet decided what format i will support etc.

please send your comments and testing results.
thanks!

I'm really looking forward to this. You will be a god when this is all finished. A god.

DDT » BMP/PNG works flawlessly. Although I'm not sure what all the buttons do. I think what this needs in a more understandable layout. This is amazing though. It's better than AoMEd IMO. No offense Ykkrosh.

AOMEd has lots of problems, partly caused by the initial focus being on understanding the file formats instead of converting them nicely (because nobody knew how to convert them (and it took ages to just discover that the compressed textures were using DXTC)) - it was designed to work for me (wanting lots of debugging help and flexibility) rather than for modders (wanting it to be easy-to-use and fast). And it's partly caused by my UI design just being useless

(I hope AoE3Ed avoids most of those problems - I already knew how its files worked when I started, so it was designed primarily for users, and I also had a few more years of experience, and I didn't use Perl.)

@Ykkrosh

yes you have done great work by figuring out the formats!

Maybe we can contact and work together for a Mac Version
of AoE3Ed as AoE3 will soon be available for the Mac.
Actually i could also make a Windows Version of my Mac Tool.

Since AoE3Ed is written as part of the editing system for 0 A.D., and that game's editor should be made cross-platform (but isn't yet), I do want to port it to Linux and OS X eventually - the UI is using wxWidgets (in C++) and should be able to be made to work there, and then it probably just needs lots of fixes for GCC compatibility and for endianness (if it should work on non-Intel Macs). I can work on the Linux version myself (which should fix most of the Windows-specific bits that would break on OS X too) - I've been too busy to attempt anything like that so far, but I need to do it at some point, and it'd be nice to work on an OS X version with somebody to help test it and sort out the inevitable problems

I can't wait for AoEIII to be released for Macs. I just can't wait. I know people say it sucks and all, but anything is better than the first AoEs.

Can mac users use installers? Cause I uploaded the B1 Battle Droid and it has an Auto installer so I dont want mac user to not be able to have it.

@tasev

no, Mac-Users can not use installers.
They are in most cases Windows-Programs and do not run under MacOSX.
even if its an Intel-Mac.

so how should I give you the files so you can install?

@tasev
simply make a zip archive with the files in folders and wich a readme with info about where to put them.
it also helps to have screenshots of the mod ;-)
and for the proto/techtree, here is currently no mac-program to extract these files, so you will have to submit them.
or you tell to download i.e. another mod that includes the full proto/xml.
the language.dll on the mac is simply a xml-file if you open it with a text-editor. so for mac-users, they need the text plain to insert it into their language.dll per hand (copy&paste).
Also there is no Titan expansion on mac, but if all needed files for a unit (brg, dcl, ddt etc) are included, it should work.

Nope. That's why I stress including manual files so badly. It should be against the law to have auto-installers without manual files.

...Why isn't it?

@ Joergf

Including the manual files will work in vanilla as long as the proto is free of any Titans-only definitions (such as trying to build a titan or an atlantean soldier).

[This message has been edited by PrplPplEater (edited 09-24-2006 @ 01:30 AM).]

Any chance you'll finish this?