Hi and because a video is worth a thousand words

I’ve finally got a “working” solution to convert ODP into Blender GameEngine. As shown in the video, this set of scripts will:

1. extract text and images from your presentation and convert text as images with Pango/Cairo (provided by pyGTK)
2. inject those images in a Blender Template fueled and powered by game engine objects and settings

The last command will finally end up with a final .blend file. Then you can start it with the blenderplayer (at least with Blender 2.4x series).
The next roadmap for this tool will be mainly:

• migrate to Blender 2.5
• handling more ODP stuff (transitions…)
• … and maybe a simple graphical interface

If you want to use/test it, grab the 0.2-alpha-1 version at http://github.com/kiniou/blender-smooth-slides/downloads

Here are some explanations:

• NumPy was used to cast floats into point-fixed floats and I manage to write this with only the struct module.
• PIL was used to convert texture images from your mesh materials into PCX images. Now you have to use a format that is readable by Blender (Use PNG for your UV editing and mapping and remember The Gimp is your friend). I’ve send a patch that enable Blender to read PCX to the Blender Community, but this will likely not be commited. Vote for it : [#20427] allow IMBuf to load PCX

Changelog for v0.3 alpha:

• Rewrote all the binary conversion parts with the struct module.
• Enabled Animation export.
• Enabled commandline batch exporting.
• Removed ability to export textures to PCX format.

Quick Tutorial:
(More consitent infos on the GitHub Wiki)

1. Download
   Check and download files linked at the bottom of this post.
   
2. Install
   Install the file nds_3d_export.py inside the scripts directory of your Blender installation.
   It may be found with the python function bpy.utils.script_paths() (only in Blender 2.5) or check the Files section in your User Preferences in the Blender.
3. Export
   To export your model from Blender, first you have go to the menu File -> Export -> NintendoDS CallList then select the directory where you want to save the exported model.
   Unlike the former version of the script, there is no graphical interface to control options, therefore the script will export in binary with Animations, UVs, Normals (if these 3 last elements are present with the model). Colors export doesn’t work.
   If you want to export with other settings, read the doc/INSTALL file to export with the script batch_export_nds.py.
4. Compile your DevkitArm project
   You must now have a mesh_name.bin and mesh_name.h.
   Put these files in the data directory of your DevkitARM project and add the glCallList stuff corresponding to your binary file.
   Check the demo sources of my libgoengine (in App_Test.cpp and data.h files).

Special Thanks to:
Tom Tallian for his great low poly models of Team Fortress 2

Just a little photo that show my script can be accessed in the latest Blender 2.5 .
I’ve created a new branch on github called blender25 to adapt it to this new blender version .

As the Blender Python API has been heavily refactored, the script must be adapted as well and there are many errors .
Therefore the script is actually useless with this branch … but the master branch of the script still works and supports “animation” export .

It’s time to tidy up again my projects !

For starters, I am moving all my projects to GitHub. I’m giving up with my devcenter based on Redmine as it’s a little bit messed up and will give me much work to maintain it. So now, the Nintendo DS Exporter for Blender is now at http://github.com/kiniou/blender-nds-exporter .

Then, those who had the chance to attend to the HackerSpaceFestival 2009 this summer know about the following project but I didn’t make any announcements nor updates since this event about my second Blender project called Blender Smooth Slides . It’s only a proof of concept for now and you can check this out at http://github.com/kiniou/blender-smooth-slides .

See ya.

Greetings!

Demoparties are those meetings I always wanted to participate but made me step back caused by timidity or lack of time. And now I have plenty of time so let’s go to the Main#4 Demoparty!!!

In these event, I will represent the tmplab and make an entry into the wild compo with the Milkymist platform . We have ported some dedicated code to Milkymist for the demoparty like a Modplayer.

I’ll try to make a day-by-day reports on this blog to keep a trace

Hello World!!!

I was thinking about building my own developpement center for a while now and after some experimentations with Redmine, it is finally done.

You can retrieve all my work on Blender (only scripts for now and models soon), Glideout repository … each projects stored with a Git repository and documented in a redmine wiki.

You can enjoy accessing it at the following adress : http://dev.knokorpo.fr

You can normally subscribe to it if you want to drop a bug, to submit patches.

This game is aimed to be presented as a demo to a school contest and this “not-common” concept was launched by Leust, Circus and Phoenix. I am working on the 3D animations. My interest in it is that it’s a good stress test in the “real world” for my Blender script and I will surely enhance it with character animation export .

Actually, I ended modeling and exporting the museum scene and I made a small demo.
See ya later for update

Since the 3d export system I developped to make binary calllist from OBJ models was too restrictive and not user-friendly (command-line is for pure geek ) … I restart coding my old export script for Blender. First I totally rewrote it with understandable classes and the script still export models in C-Style files only, but it’s a matter of time to make it export in binary files.

I am currently writing a little documentation which will cover how to install and use this script in Blender but actually there is only a quick how-to available.

Cheers

Hi fellas!

Since yesterday, I almost ended the “spring cleaning” of Glideout source code by reorganizing it in object classes. There is still a lot of work to do and now that my ideas are streamlined, the project will advance more easily.

Because of lack of time, I didn’t make any demo and I don’t know when I will release one for this “Skeleton” version of Glideout.

Maybe this week end …