Export .OBJs back to .WTB?

[Col.Kell]

Skyfaller, thanks again for MechVM, this has made things a heck of a lot easier to edit.
I have edited a Hellbringer head on "3D Milkshape",

HellbringerHead.gif (20.69 KiB) Viewed 11595 times

HellraiserHead.gif (46.23 KiB) Viewed 11595 times

Yeah, it may look dumb, but it could mean a breakthrough if we can export OBJs back to WTB. Do you by any chance, Skyfaller, have or know if this can be done?
Thanks.

[Skyfaller]

I haven't figured out how to do this yet. The problem is I don't know yet how texturing works in MW2. Please take a look at the documentation on the WTB file format, the WTB section in mw2-files.txt. I can image two possibilities:

• The WTB files have the list of vertices at the start of the file. There are 3 signed DWords giving the xyz coordinates. This is followed by what appears to be two Words. Perhaps you can find out their function by hex-editing the WTB file. It is possible that they reference files in the CEL directory by number.
• The BWD files define how the numbers in the WTB are mapped to the CEL files.
• Others? I don't know.

[Col.Kell]

Thanks for the info Skyfaller, I have noticed in a hex editor that some characters define lines, some define vercities, and others info on the XYZ grid (if there are ANY unconnected lines or vercities, the game will crash. I'm going to look at hex editings of WTBs on mechvm to see any changes done.)

Even if exporting to WTB cannot be done, I've still got new mods (to soon be posted in Screenshots) that you may find very interesting.

[Freeza-CII]

Very cool
I wonder how close i came to the models with the ones that i made.

[Skyfaller]

Kell, if you want to use Milkshape to model mechs, please go right ahead: these may turn out to be more useful than the MW2 mods *if* MechVM reaches the point where it can run a sim. I'd much rather work towards that goal than modding MW2. If you need any help with modeling, I can see if I can help.

Good starting projects for modeling would be mechs as the Dragonfly or Vulcan, which are not so complex. The real challenge after putting the polygons together is texturing.

[Col.Kell]

He,he.. I was just playing with that because I was bored, I never did plan to make any new mech chassis
But I agree with you when you say that this will be more important then modding (save maps:P), I would love to have new mech WTBs!

[Skyfaller]

Sorry Kell, but if I would make a converter that turns .OBJ's into .WTB's, I'll never get ahead with my sim project. I was talking about mechs for MechVM.

[Col.Kell]

[Skyfaller]

Creating new WTB's would be real difficult. We would require to:

• Fully understand WTB's,
• Create fitting BWD files,
• Adding files would have to work,
• Texturing A: we need a UV editor to assign texture coordinates,
• Texturing B: that editor would have to be used for every vertex in the mesh, and for every polygon it occurs in (!),
• Texturing C: new textures would have to be converted into the MW2 format, including pallette selection & conversion,
• Solve the problems that have not even occurred to us yet.

Kell, do you understand that is actually easier and will produce better results to start with a new engine?

[Skyfaller]

Sorry again, Kell, but if it were simple I would have done it yesterday. The list of things above might take a year or longer to do, and it does not even include rigging (animating) the mech. All that effort for creating a few new .WTB's while we can have new mechs in better quality using available tools? I really don't think it's worth it.