LightWave Importer for Unity

Thank you for such an amazing tool! This works really well. I also found out why my assets didn't like porting... I had a envolope on a texture, so it would not read the mesh correctly.

I do have a question, is there a way to just import new items added to a LWS or does it need to always re-import "all of it" if LWS is updated?

Thanks!
 
Thanks for it from me as well! I've managed to import to Unity successfully, that's awesome and will save me some serious work...
 
Please give him a review on the unity asset store as well. I hope you are getting enough support from the LW folks who use Unity. You will always have my support!
 
GraphXs said:
Thank you for such an amazing tool! This works really well. I also found out why my assets didn't like porting... I had a envolope on a texture, so it would not read the mesh correctly.

I do have a question, is there a way to just import new items added to a LWS or does it need to always re-import "all of it" if LWS is updated?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

You are welcome! If you are able to email me that asset with the envelope on I will debug the importer and fix it - it shouldn't be doing that, but I've obviously not accounted for something. The support email address is in the user guide.
Your LWS question is a good one. It's possible but it would require quite a bit of work. However I'll add it to my to-do list of improvements and hopefully one day I'll get chance to do it.
Thanks for your support.
 
You guys. I have to say that the overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic support I've received from the LW community has been lovely and a great motivator for me to continue development of these tools (in lieu of massive financial success, of course :D).

On that note, I have a proposal / favour to ask...
I’m hoping to do a refresh of the Unity Asset Store promotional art for the LightWave Importer suite soon, and I thought it would be amazing to include some images of your various works/projects that you've used LightWave Importer on. If any of you are happy to provide me with a cool image - it could be a screenshot from the Unity Player, or your Editor scene or whatever you like - full accreditation will be applied of course, plus an optional link to your website/portal/product.

Also, if you like, you can provide a quote to go with the image(s). Something like ‘LightWave Importer is the best thing I have ever used!!!!” or words to that effect ;) Or, if you’ve already reviewed it on the store you could just let me know the username you go by, or copy the review text and I’ll pick a choice quote from it. It’s up to you.

So just post back on this thread with your work! Alternatively, you can send it me privately (info at virtualescapes dot no).

I'm excited to see how you've been using LightWave Importer!
 
escape_artist,
1- make a discord channel :) It would be good to hang around with you and other fellow Unity LW community .. we are a dying bread anyways ..:)
2- Does LWS import support MorphMixer data yet ? please consider this ... This alone can make us connect TAFA to Unity through your importer.
3- Your other assets look really cool .. I will buy more of them ..
4- There were some weird disappearance with high poly game objects - while using LWOimporter - you killed that bug ? ( i wrote here because somebody may see this and we can help him in future)

thank you so much for your hard work... You are an awesome developer .. It is a blessing to have developers like yourself for Lightwave community ...
 
The latest update to LightWave Importer (1.36) has just gone live on the Unity Asset Store
The previous version had a serious issue where Bone Weights were getting lost when importing scenes and meshes with bones and weight maps, causing the skinned mesh not to display at all! Anyway, it should all be fixed now.
I've also adapted the Inspector GUIs to work well when the Unity Editor Theme is set to Professional (Dark) mode and generally polished the GUIs a bit.

Hope you like it. As always, let me know if you find any issues!

-Chris
 
Thank you!

Is it possible to have an Import MDD to complete?

Wouldn't it be easier for you to offer an upgrade for those like me who bought LWO Import and later LWS Import? That would make only one package to update.
 
Areyos Alektor said:
Is it possible to have an Import MDD to complete?
Click to expand...
Hi, it might be but I think it would need to be a separate asset product on the store, as mdd is not lightwave-specific but rather is exportable from many of the major 3D software packages. After a quick look I can't find anything that *just* allows the import of MDDs. However, if you want to splash out, I found 'Mega-Fiers' ($150) which has support for it, along with a bunch of other stuff that you might not need.
If there's enough of a market for just an MDD importer asset, I may be persuaded to build it :)

Areyos Alektor said:
Wouldn't it be easier for you to offer an upgrade for those like me who bought LWO Import and later LWS Import? That would make only one package to update.
Click to expand...
Yes it would be a bit easier, but I think there are some users who might not need to be able to import LWS files - just the meshes and so splitting it up like this felt like the way to go at the time. It's difficult to change now though - I can't remove the separate LWO/LWS Importer assets as I don't have the ability to auto-upgrade existing customers. Unity doesn't give developers enough control for that, unfortunately.
Anyway, I have a pretty slick build process for LWS+LWO+LightWave Importer now so it's not such a big deal from the development side of things.
 
Yes I should have been more precise in indicating a paid solution for the MDD ;)

This is import but not editing. Historically LightWave is (and ChronoSculpt) a very good solution for this.

Indeed is of interest to users of other software. There have already been topics on this in Unity. I think there was a solution at one time.
 
Areyos Alektor said:
Yes I should have been more precise in indicating a paid solution for the MDD ;)

This is import but not editing. Historically LightWave is (and ChronoSculpt) a very good solution for this.

Indeed is of interest to users of other software. There have already been topics on this in Unity. I think there was a solution at one time.
Click to expand...

I've been thinking more about this and have done a bit of research. A couple of things are blocking me from making progress and perhaps you (or anyone!) can help. I need 2 things:
1. The specifications for the .mdd file. I've been unable to locate any on the internet as all the links to the original vendor are DEAD: http://www.ef9.com/ef9/PO1.5/LW/PointOven_lw.html
2. A simple test model + .mdd file to deform it with. I could make one myself, of course, but it would take some time and if someone already has one ready to go that would be a great time saver.
 
MDD file format

The MDD file format is very simple and here is a brief description for TD's and developers who are interested in adding tools to a pipeline built around MDD.

The first thing to note is that the MDD file format is Motorola Big Endian byte order as opposed to the Intel Little Endian standard. So however you implement the structure below, you must come up with an algorithm to flip the bytes during file IO.




The data structure is like so:

typedef Struct{

int totalframes;

int totalPoints;

float *Times; //time for each frame

float **points[3];

}mddstruct;




and the data is written like so:




totalframes

totalPoints

Times

while(!totalframes)

{

while(!totalPoints)

{

write point[frame][point][axis];

point++;

}

frame++;

}
 
I just made a simple example: a quadrangle-based sphere with SubPatch that undergoes deformation through an Effector.

Afterwards I can give you more complex examples if necessary.
 

Attachments

  • Sphere.zip
    3.6 MB · Views: 270
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top