Exportscript

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The Blender xml-Exportscript

The exportscript is needed to export the model to an g3d-xml-reprensentation. This export can be converted to .g3d using the converter.

newest version: download at www.titusgames.de

older official version (doesn't work for blender 2.43): download at glest.eurion.net

Attention!!:

the current version is  Ver: 0.1.4 (May 29 2007)
the download at glest.org is the old one!! Dont't use this old version  from  www.glest.org !! 

From the export file header:

INSTALLATION :

      Copy this Script into your .blender\scripts directory
      In Blender, open a Script Window and in the menu choose "Update Menus"
      Export with File->Export->G3D XML Exporter

PREPARE THE MODEL :

      Each of your meshes' faces must be a triangle (3 vertex)
      In Edit mode, you can press Space, edit>faces>Convert to Triangles
      Create and place all your meshes before texturing or animating.
      The X axe is the floor and the Y axe is the elevation.  The center
      of the Blender's 3D space will be the center of you object, at the
      ground level.  Before exporting your model, apply the transformations
      to each of your mesh (In the 3D space window's menu :
                          Object->Clear/Apply->Apply ... )
      This will place the center of your mesh (the yellow or pink dot)
      at the center of the Blender 3D space.

      !!!!!!!!!!!!!!      
      !!!new in 0.1.4: !!!
      If you have a non animating model, you have to set the start frame 
      and the end frame to '1' in blenders 'timeline'-window. Otherwise a non 
      animating animation will be exported, containing a lot of frames and your
      model gets really big.
      !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      Before doing any texturing or animation, try to export your model and
      check your python console (the terminal which opens Blender) to see
      if there is a warning about the number of used faces in the summary.
      If there is, try to delete "false" faces (which use only 2 vertices)
      and transform all your faces in triangle.
      

EXPORTING :

      You MUST select the meshes you want to export.
      Only meshes are exported among the selected objects.

      The diffuse color of the mesh will be it's (first) material's color.
      The opacity of the mesh will be it's material's alpha.
      Double sided property of the mesh is exported (see F9).
      If you want to use custom color in the texture, your mesh must be
      double sided. If you don't want custom color to be activated for the
      mesh, add a new boolean property to it (F4) named customColor and with
      the false value.  Custom Color set if the alpha of the texture is
      replaced for the color of the player.
      

TEXTURING :

      To use a texture for the mesh, you must add a texture at the FIRST
      position to the mesh's material. The texture type must be 'image'
      and you should insert the real image.  In fact, only the filename
      of the image is used.  After having mapped the image on the
      mesh with UV Face selection, you don't need anymore to "stick"
      the coordinates to the vertices.
      Your texture's format must be TGA, without compression and with the origin
      at the bottom left position.  The side of the image must be a multiple
      of 2.  In practice, you must use only one image for all your meshes.

ANIMATING :

      You can export all animations made with blenders armature system.
      You have to set the start frame and the end frame in the 'timeline'-window
      to define the animation which will be exported. 
      If you animate without using the armatures it will not work!!

      LINKS :
      Animating with armatures
              http://www.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/x1829.html
      Map an image on your mesh with UV Face selection :
              http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics
              http://download.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/ch11s05.html

CONVERT TO .G3D

      Use the xml2g program of the glexemel tool at
      http://www.glest.org/files/contrib/tools/
      Syntax : ./xml2g ExportedFile.xml DesiredFile.g3d
      
      WARNING : The current version of this program don't seems to work...
                You'll have to add the lines (if they aren't there) :
                      #pragma pack(push, 1)
                  near of the beginning of the file "g3dv4.h" of glexemel and
                      #pragma pack(pop)
                  before the #endif

ChangeLog :

      0.1.4 : by weedkiller and Titus Tscharntke ( www.titusgames.de )
          New implementation of the animation export ( including some usage changes!!! )
          Exporting animations is now possible with newer Blender versions ( tested with 2.43 )

      0.1.3 : by Titus Tscharntke ( www.titusgames.de )
          Fixed a bug with getProperty() in blender 2.43

      0.1.2 :
          Correcting an execution bug
          Adding the "frameCount" property for each object
          Using only the triangle faces for the index count
              (problems of linking between index and vertex may occur)
          Adding the summary display in the python console
          Adding a better documentation
      0.1.1b :
          Adding a vertex duplication method to correct the vertex UV problem.
          Correcting NMVert.uvco misuse