Dancien Graves

Look into a program called "Rhino"

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Miriel Enfield

I've managed to import an object from Blender. No idea if the physics are working right, I haven't tried textures yet, and the materials system makes me want to run screaming. I'm still stuck on figuring out how to do LODs. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the exporter, with Blender, or with me. I've got a couple more ideas to try, none of which I expect to work, and then I'll have to consider the problem some more. (Note to self: "considering the problem" does not include searching for a cheap copy of Max.)

Thanks, but when my problem is that all of the instructions are for Max and Maya, I don't think this is going to help.

Jesse Barnett

Greetings everyone! I seem to have awoken in an alternate universe/forum this morning.

For those desperately waiting for the SDK link like I was. As Rock pointed out, the Blue Mars team is swamped right now. I received a message from Jim on the 21st stating that they had rcvd my NDA and would send the SDK link in the morning. 3 days later and still nothing but a quick reminder to the email on their website jogged their memory and I got mine on Friday. As also pointed out a couple of times; EVERYONE is welcome, believe me, if I can get in, anyone can get it!

For everyone hoping that there will be editing and creation in the SDK; nope! The SDK is really just a Blue Mars accurate viewer. So there is no need to wait on the SDK before starting. Hypatia did a wonderful job posting resources. There is a lot of help available online. The Crysis modding forum is probably the best place to start ONCE you have something made in whichever program you are going to be using. And if you are using Blender for example; just Google "blender", "cryengine 2" or "blender", "crysis".

Best of luck to everyone, I will be back as soon as I know more!

Rock

This may not be the SDK! Please read my last post on the Blue Mars downloads thread.

Rock

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Chapter & Metaverse Blog: Chapter & Metaverse
Blue Mars forum: Life On Mars - Home

Miriel Enfield

Okay, I'm out of ideas. To the best of my knowledge, I'm following the right steps, and using the proper tools to export, but when I export... nothin'. My meshes are all getting exported, but they're not doing the LOD thing. They all show up at once. (My materials also seem all messed up, too, but that's a secondary concern. One problem at a time.)

I don't know what else to do. I've already done some experimenting, to no avail.

I haz a sad. I've little hope of getting things like avatar components working if I can't even handle LODs -- and in any case, I'm not going to upload anything without a properly set up LOD. I was very much looking forward to not being hobbled by SL's shitty content creation tools (sculpted prims, I hate you with the burning intensity of a thousand supernovae!) and graphics, but I can't get Blue Mars to play nice with Blender or its exporter.

LoganBauer

Well for what it's worth, you're already ahead of most of us . I haven't asked a lot of the questions I have yet because I'm guessing the NDA might get in the way of people answering them. So far I've only been able to find one Maya Crysis .CFG exporter, that supposedly only works for Maya 2008. I am just guessing that I'd have to find a way to export objects as .CFG files and materials as .MTL(if this is actually what Blue Mars will use). I've twice now almost bought Crysis just to get the sandbox editor and to get started, but I don't know how different the final "Blue Mars" SDK will be from the Crysis sandbox editor, or if Maya 8.5 even has a converter out there that I can use.

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Miriel Enfield

Maya seems to be reasonably well supported. I also wouldn't worry about getting a head start. The editor's learning curve doesn't seem to be that bad.

Roxie Marten

Does this mean there is no room for small time or part time creators?
In Second Life anyone withe urge to create can make as much or little as they want.

This looks like the only people who will be able to make content will have to have "developer accounts"

Are we looking at a world geared towards the Aimee Weber class of creator?

This would be a deal breaker for me. I like making my own stuff and working at my leisure. Selling when it suits me.

__________________
"I don't have low self-esteem. I have low esteem for everyone else"


Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down...

Rock

Absolutely not. Small or part-time creators are strongly encouraged. Blue Mars will not be too different from SL. In SL, to sell content on a small scale you might rent a small space, have a seller add your stuff to one of his/her vendors and you give them 10%, etc.

In Blue Mars there will be City Owners (equivalent to the Estate or Region owners in SL). The city can then be parcelled and rented out in much the same way as people rent parcels in SL.

The main difference is that content is exclusively created outside of Blue Mars, then uploaded. However, apart from creating prims, a great deal of creation is done outside of SL too, eg textures, sounds, video, animations, then uploaded for a fee,

In Blue Mars however (and this is the real difference, and this is only from what I gather, so don't take it as gospel), only city owners or their tenants can upload content. So you would have to either rent, or get a vendor owner to upload it for you into his vendor. But this does really need to be confirmed in the beta tests.

I will add your question to a growing list I have now for a follow-up interview with JS.

Rock

LoganBauer

I'm also wondering what sort of permissions system they have for assets. Would you just be able to "buy" a sofa in-world with the standard client? So would you even be able to "rez" or place that sofa without using the SDK?

Also you mention parceling and renting land - I'm guessing they don't have "prim limits", but there has to be some sort of constraints to make sure that tenants don't put too much "stuff"(geometry, textures,ect) there that lags everyone who sees it...

Miriel Enfield

Tried importing existing Blue Mars assets into Blender, so I could try to see how they did the LODs. Didn't work. The importer gives me error messages, and nothing imports. Once again, I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if it's an incompatibility -- or bug -- in the tools I'm using.

Logan, I'm not sure about either of those things. I probably couldn't tell you even if I was, mind (even the pricing structure is under NDA, so I'm keeping my mouth shut), but I honestly don't know.

EDIT: Errors all around now. The tool I'm using to import things to Blue Mars is not working, and I can't figure out why. Oh, if only I weren't so cheap and Max so ludicrously expensive.

Chip Midnight

Mirel, just as an FYI, while Max doesn't have a PLE version like Maya does, it does at least have a 30 day fully functional trial. That's not much time to get to grips with such a dense app but it's there is you want to take it for a spin.

Jesse Barnett

It still isn't that easy thou. The Blue Mars SDK(Or viewer or whatever) does nut have the 3ds Max exporter plugin, so it needs to come from elsewhere. Crysis does not support 3ds Max 2009 which is version 11. Because of work and a liberal interpretation of the license I have it up and running on my computer. I also have the Crysis SDK but unfortunately I really need Crysis Warhead which does support version 11. I've been trying for about 6 hours so far with no luck. The closest I have come is installing the collada plugin and exporting that way and then converting from dae to cfg. Blue Mars will open that fie but what was a square prim is now a sphere.

Isn't trail blazing so much fun. Eventually one of us will crack this nut and then it will be much easier for everyone else. I am going to bed with what feels like a bruised and battered brain. But at least I am an optimist which means it is bound to get better.

Gigs

The guy behind Blue Mars is Henk Rogers. His claim to fame is threatening small developers with vague legal threats.

abednarz.net » The Tetris Company - Copyright


http://desiree47.wordpress.com/

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Hypatia Callisto

I really don't know, but as all assets are made outside the program, I suspect modifiable assets will have to be downloaded outside the service, as it is for anyone modding a cryengine2 game.

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"To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?"

"I suppose so," said Alice.

"Well, then," the Cat went on, "you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."

"I call it purring, not growling," said Alice.

"Call it what you like," said the Cat.

Miriel Enfield

Isn't that what you're supposed to do -- go from COLLADA to the various CryEngine formats?

I'm getting the sphere thing, too (is yours pale blue?), but only when I try to convert a parent-child set (for the LOD stuff).



Thanks, but the problem is that Max is just too expensive, end of story. I mean, I could scrounge up the $3500 if I really needed it... but I'd be dropping a huge chunk of money so that I can better use a platform that may not even prove profitable. That's not economical or wise. And I'm cheap, too: I'm someone who considers $200 to be about the upper bounds of what I'd pay for software. For 3.5 grand, a program had better clean my house and crap gold nuggets.

Rock

The Sandbox Viewer can open three types of files:

*.dae (Collada)

*.cgf (objects)

*.chr (characters)

The *.dae wiki page tells me that this is a digital asset exchange format, to allow digital assets (eg, a castle) to be moved between different 3D software suites. I then did a search for sample dae files, as the SandBox Viewer has no sample dae files at all. I found one forum that guided me to the Google 3D Warehouse, where I found this nice looking French Chateau. The download link provides a Collada zip file, and after downloading this and looking inside this zip file I found an Images folder (containing all the textures used in the chateau, in jpg format), a Models folder, containing just one file, model.dae, and two discreet files, doc.kml and textures.txt.

Not knowing what to do with this zip file, I just extracted the model.dae to the desktop. I then opened the Sandbox Viewer, went to File, Open, and pointed at the model.dae file on the desktop. I was then presented with a COLLADA Converter tool containing a big Convert button. Clicking this gave me an info message that said: The conversion process will create a Blue Mars asset from the specified COLLADA object...Do you want to Continue? I clicked on 'Yes'. A cmd-like window briefly flashed up and was gone, and I could see no change whatsoever in my Sandbox.

Did I do anything wrong? How does the converter know where to find the textures? How should you unzip one of these files anyway (by 'how', I mean where to).

Rock

Miriel Enfield

Rock, I've been converting first using the standalone app for that, then opening the .cgf in the sandbox.

Your problem may be that the Chateau was really tiny when it was imported into the sandbox. If you hold down space, you can see the object centers, for easier selection. Then you can zoom in (carefully) and use the scale tool to make it bigger.

Chip Midnight

Yep, totally understand. It's not something I would recommend for anyone just doing game modding. Is there any support for Gmax? It's no longer being developed but is still being used by some. It's still the tool used for creating There content.

Miriel Enfield

I'm not sure. I don't see any tutorials or screenshots specific to it, and I don't know how much its interface differs from regular Max, or if the exporter plays nicely with it.

Jesse Barnett

I have been cheating and sneaking some peeks while at work today. If you go to the link that was in the email, there is an Asset Creation Manual. This spells out specific criteria for the object itself, the physics, textures etc and also the folder where everything should go.

Kind of similar to creating sculpts. You can not just import any sculpt into SL. I should have a chance to play with this some more tonight.

Miriel Enfield

I've been using that.

LODs require specific steps, which I've been taking, and still nothing. I'm not sure what's causing the problem. Is Blender handling things different than Max, so that doing such and such step in Blender is not equivalent to doing it in Max? Is the Blender exporter not recording things correctly? Am I doing something wrong in my ignorance?

Rock

I couldn't wait!

I now have the full CryTek Sandbox 2 Editor and the SDK. As far as JS explained it the Blue Mars SDK is basically the same, but with extensions for the avatar generation. We'll see.

If you want to do the same, do this:

1. Download the Crysis Single Player Demo (this also contains the full Sandbox 2 Editor, 1.4Gb download!)

2. Download the Crysis Mod SDK ver 1.0

3. Check out the Sandbox 2 Manual, and the Asset Creation Guide.

Not bad, all that for free.

Once you are up and running with that there is a whole host of forum resources to help along the way.

Rock

Miriel Enfield

I've not been able to actually generate an avatar, for what it's worth. Maybe I need to look harder.

Rock

Chapter & Metaverse

Rock