brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

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UTPe
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brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by UTPe »

hi,
I've some questions for old and experienced ut99 mappers, let's call it a kind of retro-discussion. maybe this was already discussed in the past but I really can't remember now.

well, we all know a map geometry (or if you prefer, a whole map) can be exported/imported in UEd 2.0 in .t3d format.
similarly, a brush can be exported/imported in the same format. anyway, the brush menu shows me that brushes can also be imported in 2 other formats, .dxf and .asc. (I really don't know if these formats are supported in Unreal as well).
if I don't make mistakes, .dxf should stand for Drawing Exchange Format used by AutoCAD while .asc for ASCII Export, a text file format containing geometric shapes. so the first question: both the formats were used by AutoCAD or there were other programs able to export data in .dxf/.asc ?
it seems mappers have been using mostly the UEd 2.0 over the years to build brushes and maps. I rarely heard about people buiding entire ut99 maps by using other 3D tools but if Epic Games deliberately included .dxf and .asc formats in UEd 2.0 when the game was published (we were in the far 1999), this means that, already at that time, there was/were available on the market a program or more programs which could be used to generate brushes for ut99.
as far as I know, several 3D tools (3D Studio Max, SketchUp, Blender) have been used to build content for ut and different plugins were developed to export data to UEd 2.0 but I'm not an expert mapper or a 3D builder either so I really don't remember which softwares were used about 20 years ago for ut or, eventually, other Unreal Engine 1.x games.
do you know or remember if AutoCAD was considered in 1999 by Epic Games the reference 3D tool or if they had in mind other softwares for building game content ? if AutoCAD was the tool, which version was used at that time ?
Wikipedia tells me, for example, that AutoCAD 2000 was released in spring 1999 (before ut was published, autumn 1999) and 3D Studio Max R3 was published in same year but I don't anyone who ever used them.

any comments will be appreciated, thanks.

greets,
Pietro
Personal map database: http://www.ut99maps.net

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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by Dr.Flay »

I think Blender is the main tool that was used most of the time.

Unreal 227 UEd2.1 has a bunch of extra import/export options including Lightwave Object format.
You can create the brushes/maps in Unreal for UT as a UNR file or export as T3D

There are plenty of standalone converters which can either help or hinder, depending on how accurate the exchange is, or if it needs fixing or optimising before import to UEd.
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=5862
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by Red_Fist »

From what I did DXF (I might be thinking of OBJ) is just wire frame, and I believe ASE can have textures. What I had to do was use two converters, like one to get out of "BSP" over to ASE then into t3d.

I can't exactly remember but I think Startrek elite force had ASE but needed to convert to BSP, then another program to convert to t3d. I have no Maya or 3dmax, I did use the demo 3dmax to make the dome in my DM-3pole map into UT2004.

I have coverters if you want to mess around, small files and I believe they are command line type of programs. I did all my Quake1 maps with it, then later in other games they had ASE or other formats.

I think DXF is the rawest of all, like SketchUp can export DXF, WAIT I think it's that and OBJ I dunno I would need to resort it out again, but I did get my Quake1 maps as one brush, that need to be sized up as you extract it in the command line.
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by papercoffee »

Dr.Flay wrote:I think Blender is the main tool that was used most of the time.
You really think they used Blender at that time? It's published first 1995, but still... I doubt this.
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by tzaero »

It would likely be either 3DS or lightwave.
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by UTPe »

thanks for your comments.
Dr.Flay wrote:I think Blender is the main tool that was used most of the time.
Blender surely has been used a lot in these last years but, as Paper pointed out, I really don't think it was used so extensively at the end of the '90 too. I'm not an expert but I think this scenario is very likely.

Dr.Flay wrote:Unreal 227 UEd2.1 has a bunch of extra import/export options including Lightwave Object format.
sounds interesting. where can I find Unreal 227 (with UEd 2.1) ?

Dr.Flay wrote:There are plenty of standalone converters which can either help or hinder, depending on how accurate the exchange is, or if it needs fixing or optimising before import to UEd.
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=5862
yes, I know that post but my question was about the software(s) used 20 years ago, when ut99 was published and it already included those brush import options.

tzaero wrote:It would likely be either 3DS or lightwave.
3D Studio Max R3 (3.0), published in 1999 and officially supported on WinNT/2000, cannot be installed on Win7 64bit but can be easily installed anyway on WinXP (if you don't have a machine with WinXP, you can use WinXP Mode on Win7, Virtualbox or VMware). it exports data in .dxf format but not in .asc format so yes, maybe it could have been used at that time to build 3D content for ut99.

Lightwave 5.6 has been published in 1998 and officially can be installed on Win9x/ME but it runs also on my Win7 64bit so I tried it. I didn't understand which formats can be exported (the file menu is pretty basic) so I can't say much.

finally, AutoCAD 2000 R15, published in spring 1999 (before ut), can be installed only on Win9x/WinNT 4.0/Win2000. AutoCAD can save data in different proprietary .dxf formats (from AutoCAD R12 to R15) but it doesn't export to .dxf/.asc formats.

So, 3D Studio Max could be a putative (and reasonable ?) source for .dxf files but .asc format is still a total mistery: where did it come from ?
In 1999 or a bit before, there was at least a 3D tool with that exporting option that was considered by Epic Games as a possible 3rd party tool to build geometric shapes for ut99.
It could be interesting to get a comment from Epic team: if modern mappers maybe don't know it, who coded the game should know the mapping options included in the editor.
I'll try to get infos on Unreal Tournament forums.

greets,
Pietro
Personal map database: http://www.ut99maps.net

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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by papercoffee »

Dr.Flay wrote:Epic documentation from 1998
http://unreal.epicgames.com/Models.htm
This texture will be assigned as the model’s Skin property in Unreal.
Skin textures can be replaced easily at runtime (to show increasing damage, for example)
We could have this? But why we didn't got it???
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by JackGriffin »

papercoffee wrote: We could have this? But why we didn't got it???
Nobody ever uses it that I've seen aside from the odd weapon. Haven't you ever noticed the bastard sword in Chaos weapons gets bloody as you use it? Same principle.I think the reason it didn't catch on with player models is that there's just such a large variety of them set up in different ways.

Oh yeah, Food fight does this too when you burn things with the saucier. Just not players, that was way involved and people get PISSED if you mess with their skin, name, or model even if you put it back. I'm hesitant to even do fatboy stuff to players because there is always someone to complain or ask if it can be removed.

As for the original question...P you should post this over at UnrealSP. The resident historians that are left still posting read that board mostly. I haven't seen Leo around in a bit but he would know this right off. Even so there are two or three people around that have detailed all the minutia of the engine like your question.
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by UTPe »

thanks, I think I had this link somewhere but probably I lost time ago (I'm registered on oldunreal.com but I don't visit it often).

Dr.Flay wrote: Epic documentation from 1998
http://unreal.epicgames.com/Models.htm
interesting but this is for animated models, I search infos about whole geometry.
yesterday I found this direct link: https://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/coyote ... realEd.doc
so, as far as I can understand 3D Studio Max is one the sources for generating geometric shapes, instead I've no clue about .asc files.

JackGriffin wrote:As for the original question...P you should post this over at UnrealSP. The resident historians that are left still posting read that board mostly. I haven't seen Leo around in a bit but he would know this right off. Even so there are two or three people around that have detailed all the minutia of the engine like your question.
it's a good idea, I'll ask for infos also there. thanks.
(I wrote some days ago in the ut99 forum on Epic Games website but no one replied yet).
Personal map database: http://www.ut99maps.net

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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by PrinceOfFunky »

Dr.Flay wrote:I think Blender is the main tool that was used most of the time.
I knew of a 3d modeling software that had as a demo model DM-Barricade with the name "barricade", but I don't remember the name rn, I think the interface had 4 viewports as default.
As mentioned in this post, Daniel Patton was working on CAD models at the time, so maybe AutoCAD was the main software they used. Blender was thought to be something like a "toy-software", since it wasn't yet that much "professional".
Red_Fist wrote:What I had to do was use two converters, like one to get out of "BSP" over to ASE then into t3d.
Same can be done with t3d files using ASEtoT3D and UnrealToObj converters.
Red_Fist wrote:I have coverters if you want to mess around, small files and I believe they are command line type of programs.
Vito Milano published the source code of ASEtoT3D converter in this post.
Red_Fist wrote:SketchUp can export DXF, WAIT I think it's that and OBJ
Sketchup can export in multiple formats including OBJ, and when it was popular and still owned by Google (2009), the community made some plugins including an UT99 T3D importer/exporter called "HardPCM's Exporter For Muvizu", which worked fine, except for the collisions like with ASEtoT3D.
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by Gustavo6046 »

On the side topic that Kelly and papercoffee brought, one could merely attach an Actor to a player, with the same model, a different skin, and slightly larger Fatness (also STYL_Translucent), and have it visually feedback damage.
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by PrinceOfFunky »

Gustavo6046 wrote:On the side topic that Kelly and papercoffee brought, one could merely attach an Actor to a player, with the same model, a different skin, and slightly larger Fatness (also STYL_Translucent), and have it visually feedback damage.
You still would need to keep updating the animation to the attached model every time the main model changes it.

I noticed you've made a t3d exporter for Blender and it works fine, I must have missed when you talked about it D: .
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Re: brush importing formats in UEd 2.0

Post by Gustavo6046 »

PrinceOfFunky wrote:I noticed you've made a t3d exporter for Blender and it works fine, I must have missed when you talked about it D: .
Thank you! But I think the source code for that is very messy. I have to rewrite it anyday :P
PrinceOfFunky wrote:
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p.s. You can't define something as that something itself ("A game is a game ...")
Huh? What do you mean?
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