Object Conversion from TGO -> Other Software

Started by Stormlord, February 19, 2024, 08:45:29 AM

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Stormlord

I have a question regarding tgo converting.

I have some plants as .tgo files and want to export them to use, manipulate and editing them in other software packages.
All plants have several materials in their parts shader.

When I export the plant as a wavefront obj then I got an obj, which I can import into 3DsMax for instance, but with just one single generic material, no .mtl file is written during the export.
The exported obj will merge all different materials from inside the parts shader, into one general standard material. Arrrgghhhh...
When I import the exported obj, all faces have the same material ID too, so breaking the mesh apart into it's different materials is impossible.

When I export the plant as a lightwave file, it splits the tgo in all its layers but then the uvw coordinates are gone, they just say good bye my friend! Arrrgghhhh...

How can I export my tgo into other software formats without loosing uvw-coodinates and keep their different materials from the parts shader?
How do you export tgo into other software packages?

STORMLORD


Dune

Terragen has no such options to choose/check. It could be that if you open the saved obj in an app like ZBrush, you might be able to re-establish the parts.

What I would be interested in is how you can 'render the textures onto a 2D image that can be used by other software packages'. I often use generic textures that are called in, but a single combined texture would sometimes be handy to have. Can you expand on that perhaps? What app could do that?

Matt

@Dune there was a spam post which has now been deleted.
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Matt

At the moment, the TGO format is best suited as an end point, not an interchange format, because our object exporters don't currently have the features to export material groups or texture references. I have always recommended keeping objects in their original source format (OBJ) if you don't want to be locked into the TGO. But TGO is very useful for packaging objects for other people to use, or for reducing the file sizes to load scenes faster because they are smaller then OBJ files.

It would be great if we could convert them back out to OBJ or other formats. We should be able to improve the OBJ exporter to include the materials/parts that are stored in the TGO, as well as texture references that can be found in the node setup (with Default Shaders being the simplest thing to export back to an OBJ MTL, and other shader networks being more difficult).

This was quite low on our priority list, because Terragen is not known to be a multi-material object creator, it's only really an importer of such objects. But maybe we should make this higher priority. Would anyone else like to see this?
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Dune

Quote from: Matt on May 02, 2024, 05:36:57 PM@Dune there was a spam post which has now been deleted.
I had the vague notion it could be one, but they're getting better (with AI no doubt).
Quote from: Matt on May 02, 2024, 06:07:37 PMWould anyone else like to see this?
Not for me. Other things (like a better color [choice] for the crop handles) are more important. For 'color-inhibited' users the red is hardly discernible in the greens & browns of nature.