FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

flux wrote:Oh, that is not a voxel format. Standard 3D formats are not a priority atm unfortunately - unless you can provide a really good reason why they are needed. Is this format needed for minetest?

.x files are commonly used for mobs or other 3D entities. Two examples of usages of .x files are: (https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=3063) and (https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=6154).

Mhmm, isn't there a converter from .dae to .x ? That would be easiest.

flux wrote:

hoodedice wrote:Can you add compatibility to export in .x please?

Could you please direct me towards resources that discuss the .x format? I'm having trouble finding any reference to it whatsoever.

Inocudom wrote:This is caused by a flaw that nodebox models have. All cubes that make up nodebox models have all of their faces drawn.

That's what I figured and hence I'm trying to reduce the voxel to as few boxes as possible. Should be an optimal solution within the constraint of using boxes. The problem I'm having is another.

[spoiler]http://www.woelknet.de/pages2/minetest/sproxel/ingame_screenshot.png[/spoiler]
Looking at the image and from my understanding it is not possible to color the bottom of the cave in a different color than the grass above. If I'm wrong please let me know!

@Inocudom Could you please provide better reference to your post?

My best reference is using noclip to fly inside nodebox models.

[spoiler=Previous Messages]

flux wrote:

hoodedice wrote:Can you add compatibility to export in .x please?

Could you please direct me towards resources that discuss the .x format? I'm having trouble finding any reference to it whatsoever.

Inocudom wrote:This is caused by a flaw that nodebox models have. All cubes that make up nodebox models have all of their faces drawn.

That's what I figured and hence I'm trying to reduce the voxel to as few boxes as possible. Should be an optimal solution within the constraint of using boxes. The problem I'm having is another.

[spoiler]http://www.woelknet.de/pages2/minetest/sproxel/ingame_screenshot.png[/spoiler]
Looking at the image and from my understanding it is not possible to color the bottom of the cave in a different color than the grass above. If I'm wrong please let me know!

@Inocudom Could you please provide better reference to your post?

[/spoiler]

If you look at the model in the picture, The grass in the cave comes from the grass on the top of the model while the water look on the right of the cave comes from the water on the left of the node box. So it takes the colors/testure from the image on the same side of the node that you are looking at so it would be water at the same height at every interruption of the node box. I hope that I am explaining it so that you can understand.

@LionsDen Yeah, I understand that. From what twoelk posted I understood that it might be possible to change that though. Or what was he talking about?

hmm, as an idea, you could have an ad at the bottom. people may not dish money for something, but it is easy enough to click an add to support someone. just an idea. and you might want to put a note suggesting that.

flux wrote:@LionsDen Yeah, I understand that. From what twoelk posted I understood that it might be possible to change that though. Or what was he talking about?

talking rubbish as I sometimes do ;-)

nope the homedecor:table_lamp is useless for this issue. Got that mixed up somewhere ... might have been some other mod? Maybe the Nightclub one? Or maybe another game alltogether?

well as I never solved that in my Logodisplay node I guess I never found an answer - though I do remember I was doing wierd things to the doors code that never resulted in anything usefull though some surprising and mysterious things happened. So to solve that issue I guess the mesh might be the only way :-(.

Ah, that clears that up =) Thanks for the reply!

Now I'll start working on it!

It seems to be a common agreement to keep entitys, mobs and npcs in Minetest within a blocky look so being able to design such things with voxels that can be exported to a mesh is a pretty good way to keep the models within the same design. The *.x format seems to be the most used. Usually exported from Blender that is also used for animation. Another format used is *.obj. So if you ever add skeletal rigging for animation and manage to keep the learning curve lower than Blender your program may become very usefull for Minetest indeed. As Minetest is based on Irrlicht it should be able to use all file formats listed here.

Another thought I had was maybe you could also export at another scale to Minetest. Along the lines ofthis project of mine you might try to export one voxel to one Minetest node. Maybe a colorcode like the one used in thecolor.txt for the Mapper tool could be used to choose the right nodes out of a reduced set.

twoelk wrote:It seems to be a common agreement to keep entitys, mobs and npcs in Minetest within a blocky look so being able to design such things with voxels that can be exported to a mesh is a pretty good way to keep the models within the same design. The *.x format seems to be the most used. Usually exported from Blender that is also used for animation. Another format used is *.obj. So if you ever add skeletal rigging for animation and manage to keep the learning curve lower than Blender your program may become very usefull for Minetest indeed. As Minetest is based on Irrlicht it should be able to use all file formats listed here.

Another thought I had was maybe you could also export at another scale to Minetest. Along the lines ofthis project of mine you might try to export one voxel to one Minetest node. Maybe a colorcode like the one used in thecolor.txt for the Mapper tool could be used to choose the right nodes out of a reduced set.

NOPE. If one voxel was equal to one node, then projects like Cars and Rollercoaster will become HUGE. Keep block size configurable, like in Sproxel.

You might have missed the word "also".

I was suggesting a second format to export to Minetest with. Just imagine what a nice huge tree the example file on the Voxelshop homepage would make. It is the same tree as in the avatar/icon that flux uses. By the way that example file would also pose a challenge as a single node built of node boxes. It would offer similar dificulties with the coloring of the roots and the bottom leaves as my version of the Minetest Logo does.

Besides exporting to *.we format and the newer Minetest schematic file format might prove easier with the geometry and may allow re-importing so that the tweaking of schematic files used by WorldEdit might be easier.

So listing the programs I could imagine exchanging data with might be interesting besides obviously the game itself would include

• Minetest WorldEdit - WE
• Node Box Editor
• WieldItemModeleditor - WIM
• Sproxel
• and Blender

Here is the file format specification for the node box editor: FileFormat.txt

WIM is a bit obsolete: the node box editor does everything it can do, iirc.

Just to give you guys some update on this:

I'm currently working on generalizing the rectangle algorithm described in this paper into 3D to minimize the amount of boxes that will generated by the exporter.

I am currently working on allowing the NBE to interact with minetest(.exe). Ie: you click a run button, and it runs the mod in a world.

Will you be exporting a whole lua mod, the code for a single node, or the node box only?

I think I will start with the code for a single node (at first most of it static then maybe an option menu where you can specify output parameters) with textures.

What would be the advantages of exporting a lua mod? That's basically just "more text", right?

yes just more text ;-)

functional text though!

If you output a working lua mod with folder structure and all needed content the user can just toss that into his mod folder and it works at once.
If you output the code for a node the user will have to inigrate that into a mod organize a folder for textures and maybe other stuff to see any results in the game.
If you just output a nodebox ... well the user will have to do even more work to test the result ingame.

For example I only noticed my texture aligning difficulties (mirroring, flipping and more) after I had wrapped an actuall mod around my node and loaded that into the game.

Well, if it's just more text I don't see a reason why I shouldn't be adding it =)

Quick Update: Added an extensive help system to the VoxelShop. Should make it much easier to learn about what the program can do.

I don't hear much talk about this program these days. Does anybody use it? How is development?


I made the above image using this program. It is an antique radio.

Looks good Inocudom! Really nicely done.

Sproxel exporter textures are created by projecting the color of the last voxel into six sides

something like :



so you cant have a inside texture for the third row, because the last voxel is the one that gets projected into the texture.

This is a flaw of how the nodebox works.

I once asked for a .3mp (a common voxel formar iirc) to be added to minetest precisely because of that problem.

Edit: regarding the texture alignment problem that twoelk experienced, i believe i fixed that problem in my last revision of the script.

flux wrote:Uhm, don't know. I think it might have problems with the spring framework that I'm using.

Why do you need to know?

because being compiled in GCJ makes it almost standalone instead of relying on JRE.

Inocudom wrote:I don't hear much talk about this program these days. Does anybody use it? How is development?


I made the above image using this program. It is an antique radio.

I'm still here and working on it! Things just gotten a bit slower since I've taken a new job. But there have been tons of update already (check my twitter for update news!) and more will come!

I'm currently working with a professional voxel artist (y2bcrazy) to make sure I'm focusing on the right features.

PS Love your creation!

aldobr wrote:

flux wrote:Uhm, don't know. I think it might have problems with the spring framework that I'm using.

Why do you need to know?

because being compiled in GCJ makes it almost standalone instead of relying on JRE.

That's what I call a late reply =) Yeah, I don't think gcj will work unfortunately.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
VoxelShop is now open source! Always looking for contributors and feedback! If you have any issues or suggestions please post them here: https://github.com/simlu/voxelshop/issues

I'm not monitoring this thread regularly. Github is your best bet if you want a timely response!

YYYAAYYY! finally a great editor (open source one) for easy voxel and animations!

i can't start it (the windows version like the all platform)

Azekill, can you please provide more information on Github as requested in the git issue?

i've tested the app: it's awesome, easy to use, and very nice! when do comes the skeletal animation? maybe with a blend or b3d export :D

This is cool! I downloaded it on linux and havent had a chance to play around with it yet, but I noticed there is no logo (the launcher is standard gear). I know this is a small thing, but just wondering if there is or will be a logo :P