Feature Request: LWOReader Improvements

[MooseDog]

hi planetside

i know this reader is scheduled for repair, but am ntl taking the liberty to add the following request.

to be honest, i don't know if this is available across various packages, but the feature is available in lightwave, so here goes.

in short, i can assign several different uv-maps (vertex maps) to the same vertices.  the image below demonstrates.  lets say a tree i've modeled has 15,000 leaves, single polys, double-sided.  i can assign and arrange two separate uv-maps.

map#1 is all 15,000 polys stacked on top of each other in the uv editor.  this map is used for both the single-leaf transparency (or clipmap) image, as well as the corresponding color leaf image.

map#2 is all 15,000 polys arranged in a grid so that i may apply a color image, providing a variation in color that one would desire in a population (or even a hero-tree for that matter).

thx for taking a look, and looking forward to the obj/lwo/uv patch that's coming.

[neon22]

Many formats support multiple UV channels - but I am pretty sure obj is not one of them :-(
the old 3ds ascii is probably the simplest one.
LWO - of course.

here's hoping :-)

[MooseDog]

i think you're absolutely right.

i just took a close look at the .obj in question here, and following the file format specification of:

.
.
.
newmtl
f
vt
.
.
.
where vt is two 0-1 co-ordinates corresponding to a u and a v co-ordinate, there is only one uv-map being exported out of lightwave.

multiple materials was handled just fine.

here's to hoping is right

[Oshyan]

That does indeed sound like a useful feature. I'm not sure what 3D formats allow it but it's definitely something we'd like to support. It won't be available in the upcoming patch, but hopefully before the final release.

- Oshyan

[MooseDog]

thx oshyan!

different direction:  are you able to confirm that the upcoming patch will address .lwo's in some manner (not necessarily this one, but one where they will be readable), or will it strictly be .obj's?

[Oshyan]

LWO's already are readible as far as I know, although they don't seem to support reading of embedded texture information. I'm not entirely sure how the LWO format handles that though. To the best of my knowledge the patch is focusing on OBJ as it's a more common format and most applications that support LWO also support OBJ. LWO reader improvements will probably have to wait a little while.

- Oshyan