Messiah For Games

[Suricate]

messiah has a built in DirectX exporter that exports meshes, materials, bones, skinning information (bone weights) and animation. Unfortunately it doesn't yet export texture information.
Also you can export bone animation via LWS/MOT files, but to extract the skinning data you then have to write your own exporter (via the messiah SDK) .

[DarkSybesis]

ok then if i can do an interpreter for actual animation file and a exporter for weights. it could work. By the way, i have a lot of time to think about this question.

thx for the info.

well, is it easy to do exporter or importer for messiah?

[DanSilverman]

messiah has a built in DirectX exporter that exports meshes, materials, bones, skinning information (bone weights) and animation. Unfortunately it doesn't yet export texture information.

Does the DirectX exporter in Messiah preserver the UV coordinates of the model? I can personally live with exporting to DirectX as long as I don't lose my UV coordinates. ;)

[maks]

I might point you as well to a standalone tool that we developed at a company where I worked some time ago, to convert messiah scenes to BVH files. We used it to transfer messiah animation to Character Studio - I included an example file and docs:
http://www.zoogono.com/plugindetail.cfm?pid=21
It's not as flexible as directx export, but can still serve... Otherwise, if you have a developer at your game company (wich every game company should have ;)), he could easily write your own custom tool or plugin to convert messiah data to your game engine :)

M.

[DarkSybesis]

Unfortunately...I'm the only active developper:shrug:

But I have a lot of thing to do. arg thats so much work for only one person....:sad:
And i'm not a master in programmation.

By the way we use opengl for our engine so directx exporter will not work but if there is all i need in a doc of the sdk i'll be able to do something with it...

We are using cipher engine.

[DanSilverman]

By the way we use opengl for our engine so directx exporter will not work ...

But DirectX is a popular format and it carries with it about all that you need. So, if you can get the object out of Messiah as an X object, then you can most likely use another program to convert it to something you can use. For example, there is Deep Exploration ($149.00 - http://www.righthemisphere.com) and 3D Object Converter (Free for limited file formats or about $50 - http://web.axelero.hu/karpo/).

[Suricate]

After a bit of experimenting I found a way to export animation with textures from messiah:studio to DirectX:

1. Load your model with textures into LightWave Modeler.
2. Unweld all points (This is necessary as messiah seems to unweld all polygons on export to DirectX).
3. Use DStorms DirectX exporter to export the model. I have chosen the option 'Use Original File' in the texture tab. Make sure that you use the ASCII (text) format rather than the binary format.
4. Start messiah, load your model, do the rigging and animation.
5. Run the DirectX exporter in messiah, also with the ASCII option.
6. Launch a text processor to display both .x files.
7. The .x file generated by LW contains a data block named 'MeshTextureCoords'. Copy and paste this data block to the mesiah .x file so that is placed behind a data block called 'MeshNormals'.
8. There are data blocks 'Material'. In the LW .x file these data blocks contain a path to the texture image, while in the messiah .x files this is missing. So replace the material blocks in the messiah .x file with those of the LW .x file. Make sure that you don't accidentally forget any brackets, otherwise the file won't load.
9. Now you can display the .x file with the 'MeshView' utility that comes with the DirectX SDK.

I uploaded an example here (http://www.animationsnippets.com/downloads/Devilms.zip). It contains the model file, a texture, the .x files generated from LW and messiah and the final modified .x file.

Needless to say, it would be easier if messiah exports the textures directly, I already suggested that feature to Fred.

[DarkSybesis]

Cool when i'll have much money i'd really think to spend it on messiah by the way i could do exporter for my own type of file if there is an sdk for the .x exporter i'll be able to modify it for a ascii format that will be easily read by our engine.

thx guys.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.