i was just wondering if it was possible to have hardpoints and bones and all that in google sketchup 7.

npo, you can only create models with sketchup nothin else because the obj format you have to convert sketchup models to only supports models no nulls or bones

aww. so I can only create inanimate objects.....
has anyone found a way to convert files to msh without using xsi???

lucasfart wrote:aww. so I can only create inanimate objects.....
has anyone found a way to convert files to msh without using xsi???

In theory it's possible to convert to msh from any filetype (using C++ programming), but SWBF2's msh mimics a .xsi file structure, so it would be wasteful to code for more formats. With the free msh exporter I wrote for the free version of XSI, there just is no need for anything else.

how long did it take to make the xsi to msh converter???
because i was wondering how long and hard it would be to make one for sketchup....

lucasfart wrote:how long did it take to make the xsi to msh converter???
because i was wondering how long and hard it would be to make one for sketchup....

That would be cool to export models from sketchup to msh, but you still need to go into xsi and fix inverted polies before you can use it in SWBF2 anyway. Oh, and if you don't have any C++ programming knowlage, it could take take a very long time indeed.

You can get a .msh out of blender (or anything else that exports a .wrl) with tipams msh viewer with his .wrl to .msh converter built in, it converts faster than mshex (pretty much instant) and you can have multiple textures, the only downside is you cant have hardpoints witch means weapons dont work very easy...

just as a side comment... there is a guy who makes an .obj exporter for sketchup free edition and there is an active forum on his website about the exporter. When i had a problem with the version i had he rewrote some of the script and sent me a new one (which worked perfectly for my needs), so It might be possible to work something out to include bones and hardpoints...

The link:

http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... orter.html

ok guys. thanks for all your tips and help.
@Ecko: thanks for that site, ecko, its looking pretty good from what i can see. if i could convert to obj would i still need to convert to xsi??

Okay here's what I do... I'm not sure if this answers your question...

I make a wonderful model in sketchup.. use the .obj exporter found on the site to make an .obj, import into blender, and make the UV map. I export it as a VRML 2.0 model into the MSH Viewer, which makes it a wonderful .msh file. For bones and hardpoints (which in all honesty I'm not sure what exactly they are) I'm not sure if you need it to be in the XSI format or not. Hopefully someone here can answer that question...

ecko_66 wrote:just as a side comment... there is a guy who makes an .obj exporter for sketchup free edition and there is an active forum on his website about the exporter. When i had a problem with the version i had he rewrote some of the script and sent me a new one (which worked perfectly for my needs), so It might be possible to work something out to include bones and hardpoints...

The link:

http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... orter.html

Well.....

I have experimented around with hardpoints, and there was a way to do it (I saw it on a forum site) but I haven't figured it out. In any event, it would be almost impossible for XSI to recognize the hardpoint anyway, since it was just a workaround. The model would half to be converted to msh directly out of sketchup in order for the "hardpoints" to work properly.

In otherwords, don't be lazy, add them in XSI. Even I, the XSI n00b, knows how to do that.

In theory, (Correct me if I'm wrong Rep, middle school C++ doesnt exactly cover this stuff. ) All it would require would be a re-code of Rep's XSI exporter.

Its possible that i have no clue what I'm talking about here lol, like I said, middle school programming class lol.

*cough* and ecko, you need to invert polys, otherwise you'll be missing some faces.

@ecko: thank you sooooo much for that help ecko, i will try it out as soon as i can
@rogueknight: its not that i don't like xsi but my internet speed is atm 1.4kbps. slow i know, but it can't be helped. so i need the small filesize downloads.
EDIT: ooookkkkk. so i get the file converted to .obj allright but whenever i try to import it into blender it doesn't work. heres what i did:
1. using the plugin i converted the .kmz or whatever to a .obj. this worked fine.
2. i opened blender and went to file/import/wavefront (.obj)
3. from the list i selected my .obj
4. i clicked Import a Wavefront OBJ in the top right corner
5. In the boxes i had selected: Smooth Groups under import..... Object, Group and Material under Seperate Objects by OBJ...... and the clamp scale was set to 10.0. these were all the default settings.
i clicked import and it came up with this error: so i checked the console and this is what it said at the very end, all the rest looked perfectly fine:

KeyError: 'index out of range'

and thats it.... it doesn't work... (crying not laughing)
EDIT: also, ecko, how did you get vrml 2.0?? i can only see 1.0 in my version.
EDIT2:nevermind i found out how. also i found out that blender creates animations: would you be able to create hardpoints with the kinematics ryukajl??
that seems to be where everyone creates them in xsi..
here is the blender features site:
http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/features/

Well, if you use the MSH viewer with Blender 2.48 or later you can both import and export swbf models (see my additions to my latest post on the blender FAQ thread for more on that)...but I am now wondering, how does battlefront work with the character models to animate them? if you simply apply existing animations to a custom made or altered mesh, will it work? Or do they animate using skeletons/envelopes/hardpoints/etc/whatever, which assumably get lost in translation?

Well, it appears this has been bumped up, so I might as well add useful information.

I had a conversation with Rep on Xfire, and I worked out how to add hardpoints in sketchup.

Hardpoints don't have to be nulls, they can just be a regular mesh.

Bear with me, as I may miss a few things, and this is going to apply to a gun.

1)Take your gun model, and put a 3D cube where you want the hp_fire to be.
2)Select the cube, go to Edit>18 Entities>Make Group
3)Right-click on your new group, and click Entity Info
4)Change the name to hp_fire, and check the hidden box.
5)Click the X to close the window
6)Repeat for the hp_active
7)Export to a .kmz, the extract the kmz and open the collada file in a collada-compatible program such as milkshape/XSI/Autodesk/Blender ect......
8 )Check to make sure your meshes still register with their names, then follow the tutorial to make it battlefront compatible.


EDIT: I just got the Sketchup SDK, and I'm going to try to write a plugin that automatically changes inverted polies to normals when exporting to .kmz. I may also try to work out a grid so that models can be scaled down properly.

EDIT2: What I'm trying to do may not be possible, so I may just try to find a way to only work in normals. On a second note, there is some pretty key sketchup info here, so in the event that this is locked, shall I make a new topic with all the data from this thread?

Hard points and envelope deformers don't have to be nulls and 2d/3d chains, they can be geometry. Hell, I'm pretty sure you can just script in the .odf file to use the actual model as a hard point and just change it's offset so that every effect doesn't come from the center of the model. All of the hierarchy nodes can be geometry as well, pandemic had all the hardpoints and the dummyroots of their models as geometry. And since I've animated hardpoints that were geometry to move to follow bones like on the B-Wing, it should be possible to just use geometry for bones. These are all things to consider so that XSI wont be needed as much and you could move things straight from sketchup.


But there could be a problem, if sketchup is unable to create envelopes, arrange a hierarchy or animate then the program is useless since you could just use mod tool and convert it through a few programs. Some of these may only really be possible if the program is actually still being developed to have more features but since it's free it's unlikely, everyone has to make a livin'.

minilogoguy18 wrote:Hard points and envelope deformers don't have to be nulls and 2d/3d chains, they can be geometry. Hell, I'm pretty sure you can just script in the .odf file to use the actual model as a hard point and just change it's offset so that every effect doesn't come from the center of the model.

Yep, I've done this before -- I can't remember the whole offset side of things (been a few months since I've dusted off SWBF2), but I've done it.