[AntiSocialKindaGuy]

Just to check a rumour I heard knocking around:

Am I correct in thinking that BFME2 requires some sort of w3d2 exporter, and is anybody aware if this is going to be released with the promised SDK? A quick google found an exporter for Blender, but this is all.

I ask this because adding our artwork into the free beta simply doesn't work; they don't appear to read the w3ds and they do the old invisible trick. Which is a shame, as I was trying to get some peeks at our units in the nicer engine for the switch.

Cheers in advance.

[Ambershee]

W3d2 (like the blender thingy you've got) is a shockwave format. It has nothing to do with the BfME format of the same name. Exporters are expected to be made available in the SDK, and I believe it was for 3dsMax and Maya.

[AntiSocialKindaGuy]

You'll have to excuse my ignorance; I've never paid much attention to the 3D side of things in the past ( regardless of the engine, I receive things in the correct format and I put them in. End of story. )

So presumably, as in BFME2 w3ds are still used, it simply requires a different ( ie. more up-to-date ) w3d exporter than that used for C&C ZH?

Ah well. Looks like I'll have to wait for EA to send me the game before I can see our ZH artwork in-game

[Ambershee]

Well, there's also more to it than that. Do a bit of research, and you'll also find that models are cross-referenced in a file called asset.dat...

[AntiSocialKindaGuy]

If I recall, people were complaining that asset.dat was a nightmare, but the unfriendliness showed when I inquired about it without trawling through tens of pages of forum searches meant I did not keep on top of the issue as it wasn't one that concerned me. But it now does...

At any rate, a quick dig suggests AssetCacheBuilder is the way forward. Is it neccesary to use AssetCacheBuilder, or can .dat files be hacked open using an editor? ( as it sounds like the builder is one of those horrible "automatic magic" things )

Secondly, if it's necessary, can I acquire this without getting the BFME 1.02 patch?

[Rene]

AssetCacheBuilder is part of the BFME 1.02 patch so I guess you have to get it. The asset.dat file can be 'hacked' open with an hex editor but it will be a pain to update it manually (see elsewhere in this forum for more info on its structure).

BFME 1 models contains three additions that the Renegade Tools can not produce:

- An unknown vertex array
- An unknown vertex normal array
- two new shader detail color options, including housecolor.

It appears to be harmless if the unknown vertex array and unknown vertex normals array are not present in the model. This does not indicate they have no purpose, just that we don't know what they do. The shader detail color can be edited in quite easily using an hex editor (I already did this for the models that will ship with 1.03 patch).

BFME 2 introduces a whole bunch of new stuff though. So far I found 7 chunks of new data. 5 of them are related to some new material model as, if present, they partly replace the 'old' material data.

Whenever the other 2 chunks show up the mesh has a vertex material flag of 99 (or 0x63) which is an unknown value. Both chunks represent vertex normals but their purpose is yet unknown.

All in all I think the Renegade Tools will soon no longer be sufficient for the Sage engine

[AntiSocialKindaGuy]

So the general consensus, then, would simply to await the release of the BFME2 SDK, which should have the required plugins and tools.

Thanks for the info, at any rate.

[Grunt]

Hey guys ok there might be additions to the fileformat ... but it does still work with the old w3d's ... only things you have to think of is the asset.dat, the betafilelist.txt, the right folder structure for the arts and the fitting texture and w3d file names .... for example textures in the subfolder "du" (dwarvenunit) should also begin with a du

and after all dont forget the " -preferLocalFiles " in your shortcut ... and to show you that it works

[Ambershee]

The file format is essentially the same, but with a few optimisations and a lot of additions - the old W3Ds work to an extent, but they don't look too hot

[Grunt]

yep

I just wanted to help AntiSocialKindaGuy because he had the same problems that I had ^^