Galaxies Mesh Suite for Blender

Sunrunner_Charina

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Sep 1, 2010
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It's no secret we all want to improve Star Wars Galaxies. While some forums are only interested in getting our old favorite back, here at Mod The Galaxy, we want to make it better than ever!

But how are we going to do that without TOOLS? Tools, I say, are of the ut-most importance for any extensive modding project, and here at Charina's Modding Emporium, it's tools we're making!

I'm getting pretty close to an alpha release of the Galaxies Mesh Suite for blender. What is the Galaxies Mesh Suite, you ask? It's tools for importing, exporting, and modifying all the mesh types in Galaxies, in Blender 2.5.

The aim here is not just to make another conversion system to change the format to something more workable, but rather, to create a suite of tools that aims to be the DEFINITIVE support for the .MGN, .MSH, and .SKT files of Star Wars Galaxies. I intend to allow support for all aspects of these complicated files, directly editable in Blender.

UV Unwrapping
Female mesh in 3D view

The first release may only include an Importer for .MGN files. While that doesn't sound very useful, it will allow us to analyze the files a little better, and make way more advanced tools (like the .MGN exporter). It also will allow us to leverage Blender's relatively decent UV unwrapping abilities to bake all kinds of texture information into Galaxies meshes. I'll leave you with an example of this, in the form of some modified skin textures in-game;

Early test texture, back tatoo.
Recent test texture, back tatoo & very high-res texture.

I'll need a place to start placing tutorials on how to use the suite once it's available. Suggestions are welcome!
 

Sunrunner_Charina

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wefi said:
can we add onto the model itself? IE making Holsters.
Once I get the exporter written (and I haven't even started that yet, to be honest, but my framework should make the first exporter go quick), yes, we'll be able to add new stuff to the model. As for holsters, yeah, I could make a holster model easy. Adding it into the game, as a wearable item, and one that updates with the gun you're using? That's... not so easy.
 

Kayliaah

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Sunrunner_Charina said:
wefi said:
can we add onto the model itself? IE making Holsters.
Once I get the exporter written (and I haven't even started that yet, to be honest, but my framework should make the first exporter go quick), yes, we'll be able to add new stuff to the model. As for holsters, yeah, I could make a holster model easy. Adding it into the game, as a wearable item, and one that updates with the gun you're using? That's... not so easy.

Well there was mod for live which used old animations SOE never used, it would allow you to draw your weapons from a holster, reloading etc (Wefi knows about it).

It could be used with a custom holster having a generic weapon model attached to it's not empty, I don't know if it would be possible to force your weapon to show when you're not equiped with it, but who knows.



EDIT: There is the video.


[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EU-GsjqcUg[/video]
 

wefi

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Jul 27, 2011
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like this?


if we can add stuff to the model, it wont be a problem of making a holster

Can we see the bones? or is it just the models it self?
 

Sunrunner_Charina

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YAY! Site's back up. Anyway; I took advantage of the downtime to re-write several lower modules that my importer is built on. I'm in the process of writing the blender-level stuff now.

1.0 won't be able to import the bones themselves, yet, but the bone weights WILL be imported, and you WILL be able to modify and see them.

Should be ready to upload WHEN I'M READY TO UPLOAD :p

Or soon. Whichever comes last.
 

wefi

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thats good. cant wait to play with this lol.

another questions, are the Fleximesh(the mesh will flex for the different sliders on player models) working after the imports?
 

Sunrunner_Charina

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You mean the morph targets? Stuff like body fat, eye shape, etc? I'm an Image Designer in-game, of COURSE my importer imports them!

Yes, the morphs will be imported as relative vertex keys, into blender. Any RVK's the mesh has in Blender will be exported back out, too. Naming is important; the RVK names in Blender become the names listed in the 'BLT ' forms, and vice-versa.

I'll write (and maintain) a tutorial once I get a version out to ya'll, but a quick rundown of current features:
Import/Export Geometry (verts/normals/faces)
Import/Export Bone Weights
Import/Export UV data
Import Morph Targets (body morphs)
Import/Export Shader names

features that the format supports, but currently I do not (but will, in future):
'zones' (splits the mesh into regions for clothing replacement)
export morph targets: I just started writing the exporter yesterday evening and haven't implemented these yet.
tangent data (dot3)

Other stuff:
Only material names are imported/exported, and no actual data from the .sht files is brought in
Skeletons are also not imported yet.
 

DavinFelth

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This. Sounds. Awesome! Looking forward to checking out the morph targets, sounds like fully customisable new species are going to be easy with this! :D
 

Sunrunner_Charina

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Bear in mind, I can probably stuff as many morph targets as I want in the file (the 'info' counter which lists the number of possible morph targets is a UInt32), but until we figure out how to tell the client to use them, and make the server use them too, it won't be worth much.
 

wefi

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once this gets out i will most likely fix belts/bandos for good this time :D

I got a lot of stuff to redo, and you going to be a great help :D

assuming we can add morphs, that Holster pic i posted would be able to work correctly, and i can UV map it where i dont use punch out(Hell you just eliminated punchout completely if you pulled it off)


Now would .msh files be able to be imported with UV mapping?
 

Sunrunner_Charina

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I AM MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!
BEHOLD MY AWESOME POWER!!!!



The glasses mesh was made in blender, using the galaxies face model as a reference. It was exported via my script, and placed in the SWGEmu folder.

I over-wrote the hum_f_face_l0.mgn with this glasses mesh, hence why I have no face, but I believe you get the idea from the picture.

This file was ready-to-go, right from blender :)

I've got a funny issue with face orientation, probably related to clockwise/cclockwise face directions, but otherwise, as you can see, the mesh export works. The game runs, no crashes, this shows, life rocks!
 

wefi

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thats just awesome, now i cant wait to play with this. Im not a modeler, but i know some people are and im sure they will have blast with this.
 

DavinFelth

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This is so awesome, this might actually make me try my hand at modelling! (Though I don't get my hopes up that my attempts will be anything usable :p)
 

Sallah

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Sep 8, 2011
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I would love this for no other reason then being able to get polycounts for existing items so new items would be in the same ball park.
 

Tonberry

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DavinFelth said:
This is so awesome, this might actually make me try my hand at modelling! (Though I don't get my hopes up that my attempts will be anything usable :p)
Modelling within SWG's general poly count shouldn't be to hard even for beginners. ;) Its quality texturing which is the hard part.
 

Kayliaah

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Sunrunner_Charina said:
I AM MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!
BEHOLD MY AWESOME POWER!!!!



The glasses mesh was made in blender, using the galaxies face model as a reference. It was exported via my script, and placed in the SWGEmu folder.

I over-wrote the hum_f_face_l0.mgn with this glasses mesh, hence why I have no face, but I believe you get the idea from the picture.

This file was ready-to-go, right from blender :)

I've got a funny issue with face orientation, probably related to clockwise/cclockwise face directions, but otherwise, as you can see, the mesh export works. The game runs, no crashes, this shows, life rocks!

The invisible man in SWG?



You should use a random helmet instead, like composite and replace it with your glasses mesh for more awesomeness.
I'll let you tweak the position lol.
 
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