vrml preview of a map

(ailmanki) #1

I am making a map archive, where one can download pk3’s, currently only for et; maybe for all kind of pk3’s in future. The tool I made once etpk3stats was a offline tool, so now I wanted to make something similar but online…
So I thought about what all can be add to a map as info; and I had the idea to add a vrml preview.

I have converted a et map to quake3, and then used a quake3 to vrml converter.
It works pretty good, beside of models being displaced and some textures which are missing.

What I wonder is, how high would You value this preview?
First off I can think mappers dont like that preview, because it may look quite different from ingame.
So their work isnt shown correctly.
The vrml with textures and all, is about the same size as the map itself.
I have not found any vrml player, which made is easy to preview the map… Depending on the map your starting viewpoint maybe inside or outside and even having the fov into void - instead of looking to the map.

So I think for maps, only a untextured preview (which results in a ~400kb vrml).
And for other stuff, like prefabs a full preview(if I ever archive them).

ps: I checked the Post a Poll, I hope there will be some options somewhere after submitting this…

(carnage) #2

an online preview would be a great idea for ET as there are lots of custom maps but also a lot of crap ones out there. it would be helpful to be able to have a lot aroud first. I am a little cocerned obout how long it would take to download the preview of the map

(Magic) #3

Have used your etpk3stats for a long time - i have 700 maps stored.
Its a great tool for server admins - looking forward to have a look at your new tool.
How is the progress?

(ailmanki) #4

I am stuck deciding how the webpage should be…

If I shall use a framework like symfony, or if I shall make something more static.
Because a user shall be able to comment, upload screenshots, upload files…, reference a movie, etc…;
or if I shall drop that Idea and just make a simple archive…

I don’t have much time currently, and I haven’t decided this, and well this is the key to the rest.
Allthough probably I will use symfony framework…

The analysing of pk3 files is almost finished… Need to integrate Silickon Slicks pk3_analyzer.sh … then I am happy… well and I am awaiting the result of this poll… the textured version needs some additional work (for automatic generation)… :stuck_out_tongue:
But I guess I will make both versions, I feared that most people would dislike it totally…

(ailmanki) #5

here the 6 standard et maps as preview…
http://bunker5.aaxxss.com/vrml

  • the textures are brighten up by 125% and are gamma corrected with 1.66
    (imagemagick ( -modulate 125 -gamma 1.66 )) and converted to png, lazy approach but makes sure transparent stuff is still transparent, unlike jpg…

  • Some textures are missing, afaik all md3 models are at the wrong place; this is due to the converting to vrml

  • I tested different vrml tools, the best for viewing these was Blaxxun…
    http://community.blaxxun.com/BlaxxunContact51.exe

this is not the newest version but it has no adds… else go here:
http://www.bitmanagement.com/products/bs_contact_vrml.en.html

the only real new thing is a orthographic view … could be interesting for some people…

if u use the add free version, be sure to enable expert options, for this load a vrml, then right click in the browser window… well and look in the configuration/options to switch to expert mode.

and if you use any other OS, your screwed… seriously there aint any good tool - neither for mac nor for linux…
but there are, like cortona has a beta for mac; and for linux there is freewrl(also for mac) and other strange tools…

Well I wonder if textures are bright enough? I tested it on a old CRT, so I expect em to be too bright.
And also i wonder if people can install this vrml plugin…
Because it takes like ~8 minutes per map, so before I go and make for 1000 maps the vrml, I thought I ask if those 6 work fine… :slight_smile: (ehm no not manually …fully automatic).

ps: allthough the map is not displayed correctly (compared to et), it fullfills its destiny of previewing …me loves it.

(Berzerkr) #6

Tested it, this is really awesome!
Textures are alright and it renders really fast on my machine, ca. 10 seconds per map.

(sajica) #7

Working with openSUSE 10.3, got freeWRL V1.20.7 to run as well as the plugin for firefox 2.0.0.16. I can view .wrl files in firefox however none of the maps will show. no error message.

I saved the maps to disk and opened it stand-alone which works fine, of course without any textures. I then downloaded some textures and put them in the right place manually and they showed up properly. Depending on file size and effort it takes it would be great to have either one .tar file with the complete models and textures or maybe for each map a seperate .tar file with the necessary textures available for download. The online aspect will be gone that way nevertheless linux users could also take advantage of the vrml map preview. Blaxxun with wine unfortunately didn’t work.

I like the idea having a map preview independent from ET and I hope to see your webpage soon.

(ailmanki) #8

I can’t say when it will be done, real life is catching up…

for the tar, until I eithere have solved it (I think if I would embed the vrml into html it could work) or made the tar, use wget…

wget -A.png --no-parent -r http://bunker5.aaxxss.com/vrml/

and I am still working on the conversion, I found the reason why half of the textures are missing -> troubles with shader cmds…
and I have not yet started on the page… I probably will do a lazy page where you can search for maps and download em… and at a later point do the hole stuff for interaction with users…