turn a .obj into blueprint?

[navy3000]

is there a way to turn a .obj file into a blueprint? (you would have to add in a block into the obj called "core" so it would have a ship core then :P)

 

[Master_Artificer]

its actually quite easy, I used to do it.
I think it requires a program called binvox and SMEdit

 

[Viridis00]

I think it requires a program called binvox and SMEdit

Yeah, as long as you know the correct switches (Gaeasson had a good article on his blog about converting with binvox), that's the easy part. Actually shaping up a hull imported from an .obj or whatever format is quite the pain in the ass in my opinion. Especially if you're going to be working with organic shapes.

For the core, when you import the file binvox outputs into SMEdit it automatically adds it in for you. You'll probably want to move it around also because if I remember right it just shoves it in dead center, even when there's no mass around it.

 

[Master_Artificer]

Yeah, as long as you know the correct switches (Gaeasson had a good article on his blog about converting with binvox), that's the easy part. Actually shaping up a hull imported from an .obj or whatever format is quite the pain in the ass in my opinion. Especially if you're going to be working with organic shapes.

For the core, when you import the file binvox outputs into SMEdit it automatically adds it in for you. You'll probably want to move it around also because if I remember right it just shoves it in dead center, even when there's no mass around it.

I just do it because I wanted correct proportions.

However, it always seemed to want to do even symmetry, and if you want to work in slabs and wedging... it is basically more trouble than it is worth :P

 

[Viridis00]

I just do it because I wanted correct proportions.

However, it always seemed to want to do even symmetry, and if you want to work in slabs and wedging... it is basically more trouble than it is worth :p

The biggest problem is that if the model is in any way uneven, that gets translated to the binvox output which means you have to correct for symmetry as well as some micro-faults in geometry. With the current copy-paste system the game has now, it's not only incredibly annoying to do, but for larger ships increasingly frustrating. Gaeasson's method is easier than a pure copy paste in terms of practicality, but still more time consuming than if we could get a fill function that perfectly mirrored blocks over a set symmetry axis.

 

[badmojo]

Using SMedit you can fix the symmetry. Basically you have to select half the ship, copy it, delete the other half, then paste and 'reflect' it.

 

[Viridis00]

Using SMedit you can fix the symmetry. Basically you have to select half the ship, copy it, delete the other half, then paste and 'reflect' it.

I don't know if it's just because my GPU is outdated, but for large ships, I lag so much that all I can do is convert and export. Any actual manipulation is lag city for me.

 

[badmojo]

I don't know if it's just because my GPU is outdated, but for large ships, I lag so much that all I can do is convert and export. Any actual manipulation is lag city for me.

It was the same for me too. I could only use keyboard controls to move and resize the selection box. If the ship became turned at all I had to close out SMedit and open it again to get the correct orientation back. Just moving the box over to paste in the half of the ship took me a good 10minutes of pressing the key and waiting for it to actually move.

It was a painfully long process of doing that and then saving it and opening it in-game to check the results. Took me all night to get the results I wanted, but it did work.

This is the video I found about the process when I was starting to get annoyed about the non-symmetrical imports I was having....