Port the plug-in? Yikes! There's a python interpreter in every Blender! So basically, the question is whether there's a Blender version for the Mac, not whether I port such a plugin or not.
zip wrote:
What will you be converting exactly?
Well, the idea is the following:
The plugin reads the heightmap and generates a surface that's flexed like the surface in the game should be.
The plugin lets you drag and drop symbols which represent entities in Lugaru. Each entity has its corresponding properties, they can be adjusted in the well-known GUI of Blender just like you'd think such dialogues should look like. Each entity is a point (with a nice symbol, as I said) with the rotation axes.
The result is a Blender scene with points. The surface may be discarded.
The Blender scene would have to be parsed by a converter script and the corresponding binary content gets generated.
When the converter has done his work, the file gets merged and the map is done.
Now what exactly has to be converted?
Entities(opponents and objects), their properties (names of textures, coords, rotation data, weaponry, color parameters), path splines for the opponents and eventually dialogue content.
Writing the plugin for easy drag-and-drop-editing is not the problem.
The problem is that the corresponding binary data for all map content must be known.
I'm on that at the moment. My idea for an efficient analysis of the corresponding binary data is the following:
1. Generate an empty map (done)
2. Alter positional data of the protagonist, save a new map and analyze the difference (I'm on it)
3. Do the same for all other stuff, meaning object placement, object properties etcpp (Todo)
4. Understand the rules which generate binary map content (Todo)
5. Implement the rules (Todo)
6. When the converter is done, write the script for Blender to alter the GUI and automate the initialisation and saving process of a map generation (Todo)
7. Bughunt (That's going to be the toughest part)
Actually, I don't have a clue whether that will really work yet. I'll post if things look good.
Unfortunately, I've got a life. That means that the whole stuff is done in my free time.
If anyone wants to analyze map generation rules, do it. It's trial-and-error stuff.
What do you need?
a. Lugaru, full version (quite obvious).
b. A diff tool. Something like
this will do the job for Windows users. Linux nerds have "diff".
c. A hex editor. Something like
that should be good enough for any Windows user. You'd have to alter Hex stuff to verify your rules.
d. Too much time on your hands.
Don't expect too much in the next 2 months. This is not the only thing I do
Keep up the good job.
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