LW directx -> B3d and fullbright

Got a prob that someone may be able to help with..

I'm using Lightwave 6.5 to build levels, which include basic animation (e.g. looping rotations, etc..)

I've been exporting a directx file and loading as an animated mesh in Blitz, and this works well

One problem however, is that I can export a 100% luminosity surfaced object in LW (and on export the directx viewer shows a fullbright surface), but blitz resets all surfaces to normal shading.

Ultimate Unwrap (demo) seems to correctly read this info (and retains the animation), but it's another step to deal with when developing a level, and I need to rapidly prototype 'in game'.

Any suggestions?

If you are able to export object names you could separate your luminant stuff into independent objects and rename them with a preceeding "_" or somesuch

.. then blitz side you could search for entities with name beginning with "_" and hit them with a luminosity brush.

How is B3DTweak for the environment setting support?

Use TeraBits Convertor and convert your .LWOs -> .B3D - very much preferred way to do LW/Blitz things! Convertor lets you define fullbright and other values, as well as lightmaps, directly in the LW. Or you can use EntityFX to set the values for your loaded .X

http://www.blitzbasic.co.nz/b3ddocs/command.php?name=EntityFX&ref=3d_cat

Mustang

Thanks for the reply

Had forgotten about Terabit's Convertor - from memory I had tested it out and found some issues with keyframes/animation from 6.5, which is why I'd gone to x format. Will look it up again and see if the operator (me) was at fault.

One thing you HAVE to do is make much more keyframes than you would normally do in LW; LW is very good/intelligent about guessing what you want to do, but Blitz is not. So if you rotate object for example you need to set only first and last keyframe in LW, but if you need .B3D you need AT LEAST add middle keyframe too so that Blitz rotates the thing right... and nulls are needed too for complex animations, so it might need more work and planning than "normal" LW work. But Convertor works, at least I have got good results (I'm using 7.x though).