Just wondering how goes the exporter and if you have an ETA as yet thanks.

Hi Nidhogg, the basic exporter is really done, although we are having to resize the terrain.hmp a bit manually for some reason after export. We still haven't got approval from boss man to release it yet, but I will bring it up at tommorrow's meeting.

Later,
Loco

Thanks Locoweed.

Yay

Hey guys, sorry about this severe delay. Political issues within the company
As loco said, exporter is mostly done however, there have been tweaks going on with it to suit our game. I pack the textures so that I can have 4 terrain textures, blendmap and shadowmap. You will need to use my shader if you use the output as it currently stands (or write your own). I think it's limited on the output too, so if you have a 2kx2k map it will output 2kx2k vertices in the hmp. Again, no biggie but it does mean you have to load the hmp into med and mess with it to reduce faces.

What I'd like to do is put a version up that outputs 257x257 vertices in the hmp regardless of original map size, this should keep everyone happy in the company and also allow you guys to use it to some extent and provide some feedback.

So, are you all ok with me releasing a working/possibly bugy version for now?


Limey

Oh, and yes all the things that need doing arent hard just a little time needed and I'm swamped right now

Do you have to ask?....of course. My mouth is watering.

No problemo.

Hello

Finally here is a version of the HMP exporter for Earth Sculptor.

http://www.britaccents.com/hmp_utils/HmpExport.dll$
http://www.britaccents.com/hmp_utils/terrain.fx$
You will need to remove the $ from each file extension.

Synopsis:
This tool enables exporting of Earth Sculptors blendmap, 4 terrain textures and terrain mesh to 3d Gamestudio HMP format (Textures are bmp and optionally dds). It doesn't do ANYTHING that you couldn't do by hand in a paint package and MED, it just a lot faster.


Requirements:
Earth Sculptor (duh)
d3d9/d3dx9 runtime (You most probably have them installed).


Installation:
I decided to go with the time tested method of copy and paste
Close Earth Sculptor
Copy the dll to c:\EarthSculptor\Plugins or wherever your E.S. plugin directory is.
Run E.S.
Create a new map, don't make an RGB shadowmap 8bit only even though it doesn't use it right now.
Make your terrain, use same size textures, I recommend 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 use 4 detail textures on the terrain. I haven't tested it with anything other than 4 in use.
Click on Menu/Export/Hmp Export vX.XX
Check the appropriate boxes Generate HMP, Export Textures, Generate DDS. I think most of them are unchecked by default but you probably want to check them all for now.
Set Mesh scale, this might not be working perfect btw
Click Run
Select the folder and base filename, ie: c:\terrains\ter_new.hmp
Click Ok
Everything will hang for a few seconds whilst the HMP is generated along with the textures.
Explore to folder where you just saved to and check the files, assuming one used the previous path and filename one would see the following:
c:\terrains\ter_new.hmp
c:\terrains\ter_new_sk_0.bmp
c:\terrains\ter_new_sk_1.bmp
c:\terrains\ter_new_sk_2.bmp
c:\terrains\ter_new_sk_0.dds
c:\terrains\ter_new_sk_1.dds
c:\terrains\ter_new_sk_2.dds

xxx_sk_0.bmp/dds - 24bit texture. Blend map
xxx_sk_1.bmp/dds - 32bit texture. Alpha contains 4th terrain texture red channel
xxx_sk_2.bmp/dds - 32bit texture. Alpha contains 4th terrain texture green channel
xxx_sk_3.bmp/dds - 32bit texture. Alpha contains 4th terrain texture blue channel

I always keep textures as external files so artists can edit them without having to carry a model around, therefore, all 4 skins associated with the exported HMP file will be external.

If you download terrain.fx file and assign it in script then you will be able to see a rough version of your terrain (fixed uv coordinates). The fx file really is just a very very simple base to build upon or implement into your existing effect framework.

bool bBabbleMode = true;

printf("\n
I almost forgot to mention...\n
\n
Even though this little tool is small it still took a bit of time to get it working and making sure it didn't crash every 2 seconds. I really do believe in the what goes around comes around philosophy and hence why I decided to release it for everyone to use (hopefully!).\n
\n
Anyway, as I'm newish here (more of a lurker than poster), I offer this in the hopes that someone will enjoy using it. That alone makes it worth while.\n
\n
It would be a nice bonus if any of you happen to have a little time on your hands and think you could help out with our game. If so then please do get in touch. Artists (preferably the non quirky sort) a plus.\n");

bBabbleMode = false;

return 0;