Hey, I thought I should update everyone (who is interested) with the progress of the App. I did say I would put up an exec last night, but I have decided to hold off a couple more days. I uncovered a possible problem while working on it (models that contain multiple textures per segment), so I decided to go ahead and rewrite the "parsing in" code.

I might as well explain everything, abstractly at least (check Riley's website for a compilation of the general msh filestructure). A msh is composed of a different parts, with the important ones thusfar being materials and model geometry.

Now, I have material decoding "done", but in my old parsing method, so that should be rewritten aswell to keep everything homogeneous (wont take long). I now have the first third of models "done" with the new system, basically all the model type, index, name, parent, etc. The actual geometry parsing is also already "done", but in the old style. It's not working completely because of the "middle" portion of the msh, the texture UV problems.

Okay! Now that you know what I've been up to, the App itself still doesn't do anything more than parsing. The first version I put up will only do this parsing and spit out a log file, detailing everything it came across (in detail, but not loadable by any modeling program). Because it now can be used as a command-line App, I was able to create a batch file script, to basically decompile all msh files in a directory.

I will be able to do this for all the shipped models, which will probably be all the App will ever be used for, but I will want testing from anyone who can create their own msh files. Overall I will want the wierd, extreme models you all can create, to hopefully find the "odd" cases I will need to handel.

Expect more info shortly, and bravo if you managed to read all of that



Latest version: v0.2

cool, will it extract bones?

Sounds good! I can hardly wait!!!

What will then happen when we've got the .msh files opened with BConstructor..? will we be abel to export to another program? will we change the meshes and/or textures in BC2? (BConstructor2) What about the Bones as Drummerzoid1 said? and what about the nulls and maybe the parents/children?

so much to do

- Qdin

Nimlot,
I'm currently working on some custom models that I would like to test your app with. Some of them will be bases with interiors. And Thanks!!!!!!!!!

wow sounds really good Nim can't wait!

I plan on having it support the msh in it's entirety, meaning all bones, nulls, envelopes, hierachies. It won't have any body at first, all it will do is export the model, exporting straight to dotXSI format. Because it won't have the GUI/body like the current BConstructor, you will not be able to edit msh's in realtime through the App; hopefully that will come later after everything else is done.

cool, its all good, what version of xsi will it support?

Which version would be the most useful? Not sure which versions are supported where, but I was planning on trying to use 3.5 or 3.6.



Edit: Okay, I have a first Alpha version ready for testing. It is a semi-command prompt App, but it will prompt you for file name if you double click it. The App must be in the same directory as the file, and it will automatically create a log named <filename>.log.txt , which will contain all the details of that msh file. If anything goes wrong, and hopefully you will find bugs, the log file will contain an error message at the end (error causes decompile to stop). Please report this error and the model that caused it, and if custom please email it to me ([email protected]).

I don't think you need anything extra to run this version, no .NET (I think).


Edit2: Haha, well, I forgot to test it with player models, and its still not working correctly with all of those. I'm too tired to work on that tonight, but I will try to fix it tomorrow (most likely a "small" fix, just adding in skeleton support for a part of the model I havn't researched yet).

Nimlot,
I'll try to test it out tonight I've got a base model I want to test it on.

Edit:
Nimlot I see you also said custom. Will this version convert ASCII.txt files to .msh format? If so what are the command lines?
Thanks!

Edit:
This is from a custom model that I used bconstructor to add to SWBF2. The model showed up, but not the textures. They were tiled.

-----------------------------------
BConstructor 2 Log file
-----------------------------------
Trying to open file 'DS_MainHanger1c.msh'...
Beginning decompile of file...
HEDR - size: 7028
SINF - size: 68
***Error***: Bad SINF format, expected FRAM!

Ah, awesome, can you send me the msh file please? [email protected]


Edit: Avoiding double post, check out the latest version (link at top). I think this version is pretty bug proof (in terms of Pandemic models). Please, if you find any errors now report them. I think I have also finished converting everything over to the "cleaner" version of decompiling, so hopefully it will all work better.

noob alert. noob alert. (me)
do i need XSI to make/edit models i've decompiled
cos when i follow these steps.
i move the msh file i want to edit (gar_hover_combatspeeder.msh) to were i extracted the XSI mod tools
I opened them and typed in the msh name.
It created a text document describing the msh.

I'm confused

Help me.

darkmole2006

P.S If all i need XSI for is to put the models in BF2, then i can download the trial version and all is cool.
If i need XSI to just CREATE them, all is not cool because i am 12 and can't afford £500.

darkmole, That is all the application currently does. I am still trying to polish the "decompile" process, and have not even started the "write to dotXSI" part. The point of this Alpha is to try and find bugs with this decompile process; I want to make it as scalable and solid as possible.

Can I download this in a .zip file anywhere?

hey all!
i am new here so... here goes my first questions to start this off:
what programs are out there to convert ANSI to ASCII?
which ones would you suggest?
thanks in advance!
and hey, great job, your constructor! it works well.

laters,
keller

well, you could ofcours find someone to manually convert it


[edit] wow, how did my reply end up here?!?

Big Bump there RC