GameTools - Use with Blender

The gameTools suite includes a PLB exporter for blender - but there are some limitations and some tricks to be aware of to get the best out of it:

Limitations

• Currently Armature deformation lacks implementation, but is on the to do list.
• Bezier/Nurbs
• Many high level material features
• Particles (only a limitation from Blender's standpoint)
• MetaBalls and other meta objects
• Cameras and Lamps (better to leave out of the scene to make appending easier)
• PLIB does not know how to cope with multiple textures.
• Blender Textures are not viable materials, so when selecting a texture, you must select "Image".

Tricks & Lessons Learned

• When adding a mesh, or anything (after hitting the space bar) make sure to do it in the "window pane" that is pointing in the direction you want;
• When rotating or moving ANYTHING, do it in edit mode;
• If it is still off axis upon exporting, especially if attached to an armature, parent the entire model to an ""Empty"" object, which is named for the JavaScript to attach to;
• All polygons with texture(s) must be UV mapped;
• ALL polygons and meshes must have materials. UV mapped textured materials MUST have the UV projection mode on in the Map Input;
• Texture map names refer to material.xml file entries:
• UV mapping should be snapped to pixels;
• Textures with transparency should be left alone in terms of indicating the "Use Alpha" option, and none of the "Map To" options should be used;

Modelling standards

• Vehicles, animals, people and anything else where direction matters are modelled facing down the positive Y axis with Z being 'up'.
• Texture maps must be an exact power-of-two in size along each axis (eg 64x64, 512x256 or 128x32 - but not 423x142).

Anything else?

Wikiid Pages relating to gameTools ()

gameTools - Main page

gameTools - Support Tools : plb_to_ac3d, mklevel, mktile, mktree, tiled, autogen_java, mk3dgallery

gameTools - File Formats : title_screen.rgb, ultimate.xml, material.xml, decoration.xml, physics.xml tiled.xml, tiled_autotiles.xml, Level files, Tile naming scheme, PLB files

gameTools - Source Code : Game functions: gameCamera, gameClock, gameChecksum/gameHashTable, gameHTTP, gameIsect, gameJoystick, gameParticleManager, gameScreen/gameMouse, gameSky, gameStarter, gameStrokeFont, gameUtils Material database: MatList/MatEntry Tile map handling: TileObject/MapFlag/MapEntry/Map Java Interfacing: JavaLink Image file loading: liImage/liImageFactory 3D Model file loading: loadPLB, PLB exporter Physics: Sabot, Bullet, gameTools - Use with Blender, PLB exporter Object management: Object