DeleD Community Edition

[gearedmah]

Ok...this may seem really stupid, but I'm pretty sure the CSM importer is Cartography Shop, right...is there any chance of revamping that to be a 3D World Studio Importer...I believe they are made by the same people and from what I saw of CS, it's basically just a stripped down version of 3DWS. Only reason I ask is I'm trying to <as painlessly as possible> redo my pipeline for OGRE.
Thanks

[Paul-Jan]

The important questions is: how similar is the file format. I am guessing it is completely different. Different is not a problem (writing another importer is no rocket science), but guessing is... as far as I know there is no public documentation on the 3dws file format available anymore, is there?

[gearedmah]

not 100% sure...but I will check on that...I do know that the interfaces are almost IDENTICAL...as are the features and options and all that good stuff ...and 3dWS will import cartography shop (unfortunately, you can not export to CS)...so...but I'll investigate a little deeper and let you know.

[Paul-Jan]

Any information about the file format you can dig up would be most welcome! It seems that at some point in time some info used to be online at www.leadwerks.com/files/format.htm, but even archive.org doesn't seem to be able to dig that up...

[tatts]

3dws is the reson I came to deled in the first place. Deled is much better in my opinion. it is much more compatible to darkbasic then 3dws is. Well that is what im using it for anyway.
But yes really 3dws is cartography shop 5 it was made by Josh K at leadwerks but from what I know he rewrote it from scratch.

In my opinion I that is a load of (censored) cause it is the exact same as cartshop 4 but with added features that are useless lol well not entirely but are some what misleading.

for example the extrude feature. From what i know extrude means to take a polygon/s and pull/push those polygons so that they either inset in to object creating walls for each edge of the selected polygon/s or pull away from the object in the same manner while still being completely attached to the model.

With 3dws the extrude does something completely different. when you extrude from a face instead extruding, it just creates a simple block of the same width and height the only thing the user has to do is determine the depth they want. so with that being said
#1 you cannot inset or rather indent the object with their extrude feature.

#2 it's not extrude at all rather it is create object of equal width and height as selected polygon/s as i said the user has the input the depth after that you have an entirely new object.

#3 the lighting is slow and is not at all perfect. did I mention the fact that on large maps with 3dws you lose quality and some contents during export. yeah I unfortunately remember reading that somewhere.

by the way next time he come's up with another feature to add you can bet that you'll be paying again if you want that feature. That's why cshop never made it past 4.1 the second he had a new feature to add the dollar signs flashed before his eyes lol.

Stick with deled you'll be better off in the end. lol
and sorry if I sound a little bitter about them but after paying twice for two disappointing purchases lol.wellll

by the way the exports are not a 100% either which is the real reason i gave up that program but anyway everyone has their opinions later...

[warcrest]

The .3dw file format stores structures which contain both stored and referenced data. Brushes, entities, lightmaps, and terrain, are stored entirely in the format. Materials and mesh data are stored by referencing media files found on the hard drive. Before loading a file, the program media folders should be scanned for mesh and texture files, so that these can be loaded if they occur in the file.



The file format is split into two main areas. The name table stores a list of strings found within the file. Rather than write strings uniquely, the format stores a 32-bit index to the name table. The object table is a list of every object in the file. Each object has a predetermined structure, as shown below. If an object is unknown or unneeded, it can be skipped.



Data Types
The following data types are used:

Byte 8-bit unsigned integer

Word 16-bit unsigned integer

Long 32-bit signed integer

Float 32-bit float value

String null-terminated string, found only in the name table

Name 32-bit index to the name table

Color3 24-bit color value

Vec2 2-dimensional float vector

Vec3 3-dimensional float vector

Vec4 4-dimensional float vector



Header
Word mapversion (should be 14)

Byte mapflags

Long name count

Long name offset

Long object count

Long object offset



Name Table
String name



Object Table
Name objectclass

Long datasize



Objects


group
Byte flags

Long group index



visgroup
Byte flags

Name visgroup name

Color3 visgroup color



material
Byte flags

Name group name

Name object name

If (2 & flags)

Name extension name



meshreference
Byte flags

Name group name

Name object name

Byte limb count





lightmap
Byte flags

Byte resolution

Long format

For 1 to 2^resolution

For 1 to 2^resolution

Color3 pixel



brush

Byte flags (4 - hidden)

Long keys

For 1 to keys

Name keyname

Name keyvalue

Long group index

Long visgroup index

Color3 brush color

Byte vertex count

For 1 to vertex count

Vec3 vertex position

Byte face count

For 1 to face count

Byte flags

Vec4 face plane equation

Vec2 texture position

Vec2 texture scale

Vec2 texture rotation

Vec4 U texture mapping plane

Vec4 V texture mapping plane

Float luxel size

Long smooth group index

Long material index

If (16 & flags)

Long lightmap index

Byte indice count

For 1 to indice count

Byte vertex

Vec2 texcoords

If (16 & flags)

Vec2 lightmap texcoords



mesh

Byte flags

Long keys

For 1 to keys

Name keyname

Name keyvalue

Long group

Long visgroup

Color3 mesh color

Long meshreference index

Vec3 position

Vec3 rotation

If Not (1 & flags)

Vec3 scale

For 1 to limb count (from meshreference structure)

Long material index

If (16 & flags)

Short vertex count

For 1 to vertex count

Color3 vertex color





entity
Byte flags

Vec3 position

Long keys

For 1 to keys

Name keyname

Name keyvalue

Long group

Long visgroup



terrain
Byte flags

Vec3 position

Float width

Float height

Name terrain name

Long resolution

Long sectors

Long detail levels

Float lightmap resolution

Long layer count

For 1 to resolution^2

Color3 luxel color

For 1 to (resolution+1)^2

Float terrain height

For 1 to layer count

Name layer name

Long material index

If >1

For 1 to (resolution+1)^2

Byte alpha


Personally, I'd like to see both import and export plugins for 3DWS, as I use Leadwerks Engine. I use 3DWS for the base maps and DeleD for the details that can't currently be done in 3DWS.

Above is the 3DWS file format, also contained within the .chm help file that comes with the demo.

[Paul-Jan]

Ah, that's very good to know! Downloading the demo as we speak...

[yanchiko]

warcrest


Thanks for the detailed explanation...I use LWEngine too and "Delgin3d" for details....it will be nice to see a working "import/export" plugs.