Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary format
that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.  Anyway, I've
been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As you can see the
geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting the textures converted
automatically.

This model has ~10k triangles.

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Preview of image 'CMXcar.jpg'

"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote:
> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary format
> that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.  Anyway, I've
> been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As you can see the
> geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting the textures converted
> automatically.
>
> This model has ~10k triangles.

That looks great and what a cool way to get hold of some decent models. (Not
sure about the copyright law though ;-)

Can't wait to see a POV render of this with full textures etc..

Sean

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s.day wrote:
> "scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote:
>> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
>> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary
>> format that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.
>> Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As
>> you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting
>> the textures converted automatically.
>>
>> This model has ~10k triangles.
>
> That looks great and what a cool way to get hold of some decent
> models. (Not sure about the copyright law though ;-)
>
> Can't wait to see a POV render of this with full textures etc..

A reflective car over a checkered plane :-)

Need to work on a good setting for it though, what you see is five minutes 
work!  A WIP definitely.

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Attachments:
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"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message news:4355098a$1@news.povray.org...
> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary format
> that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.  Anyway, I've
> been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As you can see the
> geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting the textures converted
> automatically.
>
> This model has ~10k triangles.
>
>
>

Thats incredible!  Are you at all thinking about releasing that program??

Cheers Dre

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scott spake:

> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary format
> that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.  Anyway, I've
> been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As you can see the
> geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting the textures converted
> automatically.
> 
> This model has ~10k triangles.

VERY nice!

Beware the lawyers, though...:)

-- 
Stefan Viljoen
Software Support Technician / Programmer
Polar Design Solutions

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Dre wrote:
> "scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message
> news:4355098a$1@news.povray.org...
>> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
>> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary
>> format that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.
>> Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As
>> you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting
>> the textures converted automatically.
>>
>> This model has ~10k triangles.
>>
>>
>>
>
> Thats incredible!  Are you at all thinking about releasing that
> program??

You can get it from my website:

www.scottboham.co.uk/sw

Any problems give me a shout as I haven't really tested it properly, I just
got it working last night.

Post a reply to this message

> scott spake:
>
>> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
>> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary
>> format that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.
>> Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As
>> you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting
>> the textures converted automatically.
>>
>> This model has ~10k triangles.
>
> VERY nice!
>
> Beware the lawyers, though...:)

Well the website for the game has "programmers information" for the file
formats, so I guess they won't mind :-)

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scott wrote:
>>scott spake:
>>
>>
>>>Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
>>>favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary
>>>format that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.
>>>Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As
>>>you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting
>>>the textures converted automatically.
>>>
>>>This model has ~10k triangles.
>>
>>VERY nice!
>>
>>Beware the lawyers, though...:)
> 
> 
> Well the website for the game has "programmers information" for the file
> formats, so I guess they won't mind :-)
> 
There's a legal difference between the data description and the actual 
data which makes up the artwork. The former one may be free or open but 
the latter one I would handle with care.
E.g. ID-Software published the whole sourcecode for their quake
series games but the for artwork (models, maps, textures) one
still has to pay for.

Sebastian

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Sebastian H. wrote:
> scott wrote:
>>> scott spake:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my
>>>> current favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in
>>>> some binary format that is quite complex, and the textures are in
>>>> .dds format. Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out
>>>> a POV file.  As you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still
>>>> working on getting the textures converted automatically.
>>>>
>>>> This model has ~10k triangles.
>>>
>>> VERY nice!
>>>
>>> Beware the lawyers, though...:)
>>
>>
>> Well the website for the game has "programmers information" for the
>> file formats, so I guess they won't mind :-)
>>
> There's a legal difference between the data description and the actual
> data which makes up the artwork. The former one may be free or open
> but the latter one I would handle with care.

No, in this case the mesh and artwork is free.  The mesh data is actually
included in a separate download from their site, and the artwork you can get
from the free demo of the game in jpeg format.  Or you could just make your
own artwork, they give you blank templates of the textures.

> E.g. ID-Software published the whole sourcecode for their quake
> series games but the for artwork (models, maps, textures) one
> still has to pay for.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> Sebastian H. wrote:
> 
>>scott wrote:
>>
>>>>scott spake:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my
>>>>>current favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in
>>>>>some binary format that is quite complex, and the textures are in
>>>>>.dds format. Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out
>>>>>a POV file.  As you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still
>>>>>working on getting the textures converted automatically.
>>>>>
>>>>>This model has ~10k triangles.
>>>>
>>>>VERY nice!
>>>>
>>>>Beware the lawyers, though...:)
>>>
>>>
>>>Well the website for the game has "programmers information" for the
>>>file formats, so I guess they won't mind :-)
>>>
>>
>>There's a legal difference between the data description and the actual
>>data which makes up the artwork. The former one may be free or open
>>but the latter one I would handle with care.
> 
> 
> No, in this case the mesh and artwork is free.  The mesh data is actually
> included in a separate download from their site, and the artwork you can get
> from the free demo of the game in jpeg format.  Or you could just make your
> own artwork, they give you blank templates of the textures.

Do you mean you can extract the artwork from the demo?
The fact that the demo is free does not necessarily mean
that the artwork is free for use.
Is there somewhere explicitely said that you're allowed
to use these models for your own work which you publish
and eventually get money for?

Sebastian

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>> No, in this case the mesh and artwork is free.  The mesh data is
>> actually included in a separate download from their site, and the
>> artwork you can get from the free demo of the game in jpeg format.
>> Or you could just make your own artwork, they give you blank
>> templates of the textures.
>
> Do you mean you can extract the artwork from the demo?

I guess, you just go into the skins folder and they are there in jpeg
format.  They even encourage you to use them as a base for your own skins.

> The fact that the demo is free does not necessarily mean
> that the artwork is free for use.
> Is there somewhere explicitely said that you're allowed
> to use these models for your own work which you publish
> and eventually get money for?

I doubt it, they wouldn't be very happy with people making money out of what
they are giving away for free.

Followup set to p.o-t

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I hope this one drops into the right forum..

Scott, is the screenshots on the webpage for the game
actual ingame graphics? Looks stunning to say the least :)

Stefan

"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> skrev i meddelandet 
news:4355098a$1@news.povray.org...
> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary format
> that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.  Anyway, I've
> been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As you can see the
> geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting the textures converted
> automatically.
>
> This model has ~10k triangles.
>
>
>

Post a reply to this message

"Stefan Persson" <azy### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:4356cc0b$1@news.povray.org
> I hope this one drops into the right forum..

I set the follow-up for the "legal" part to p.o-t because it seemed to be 
getting a bit off topic.

> Scott, is the screenshots on the webpage for the game
> actual ingame graphics? Looks stunning to say the least :)

Yes, they are screenshots from the actual game.

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"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message news:43560dd1@news.povray.org...
> Dre wrote:
> > "scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message
> > news:4355098a$1@news.povray.org...
> >> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
> >> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary
> >> format that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.
> >> Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As
> >> you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting
> >> the textures converted automatically.
> >>
> >> This model has ~10k triangles.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Thats incredible!  Are you at all thinking about releasing that
> > program??
>
> You can get it from my website:
>
> www.scottboham.co.uk/sw
>
> Any problems give me a shout as I haven't really tested it properly, I
just
> got it working last night.
>
>
Nice!  Thanks very much!

I also went and checked out the LFS page, is this game a free game or am I
missing something???

Cheers Dre

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"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message news:43560dd1@news.povray.org...
> Dre wrote:
> > "scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message
> > news:4355098a$1@news.povray.org...
> >> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
> >> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary
> >> format that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.
> >> Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As
> >> you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting
> >> the textures converted automatically.
> >>
> >> This model has ~10k triangles.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Thats incredible!  Are you at all thinking about releasing that
> > program??
>
> You can get it from my website:
>
> www.scottboham.co.uk/sw
>
> Any problems give me a shout as I haven't really tested it properly, I
just
> got it working last night.
>
>
Well thank you very much, I unzipped and ran your program and within 2
minutes had an awesome car on my screen!  (textureless atm)

No problems so far, I'm really really impressed!

Cheers Dre

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"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message news:43560dd1@news.povray.org...
> Dre wrote:
> > "scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message
> > news:4355098a$1@news.povray.org...
> >> Recently I've been working on converting the 3D models in my current
> >> favourite game to POV format.  The files are stored in some binary
> >> format that is quite complex, and the textures are in .dds format.
> >> Anyway, I've been writing some C++ code to write out a POV file.  As
> >> you can see the geometry is done, but I'm still working on getting
> >> the textures converted automatically.
> >>
> >> This model has ~10k triangles.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Thats incredible!  Are you at all thinking about releasing that
> > program??
>
> You can get it from my website:
>
> www.scottboham.co.uk/sw
>
> Any problems give me a shout as I haven't really tested it properly, I
just
> got it working last night.
>
>
I think I may have spoken too soon, I have managed to get a textureless
render, but for some reason when I try a textured render, only a small
amount of the textures show.  I have all the image maps in the same folder
as the pov file but they just dont work.

Any ideas?

Cheers Dre

Post a reply to this message

>> You can get it from my website:
>>
>> www.scottboham.co.uk/sw
>>
>> Any problems give me a shout as I haven't really tested it properly,
>> I just got it working last night.
>>
>>
> I think I may have spoken too soon, I have managed to get a
> textureless render, but for some reason when I try a textured render,
> only a small amount of the textures show.  I have all the image maps
> in the same folder as the pov file but they just dont work.
>
> Any ideas?

That's because the main car body skins are in the data/skins folder inside
LFS.  Choose one of these to use, make sure it is for the right car (the
first three letters tell you).  Then, you have to manually change the
texture declaration inside POV to tell it to use this texture.

Look for this line in the pov code:
// this is the texture for skinning the body

And then change the following texture #declare to something like:

texture{
 pigment{ uv_mapping iamge_map{ jpeg "FXR????.jpg" interpolate 2 } }
}

That should do the trick.

Perhaps I should make it grab one of the skins by default to generate the
POV code?

Post a reply to this message

> I also went and checked out the LFS page, is this game a free game or
> am I missing something???

It's free to download and play, but you will only have access to 3 cars and
1 track.  YOu need to pay for it online before you get access to all the
other cars and tracks (well worth it!).

Post a reply to this message

"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote:

> > Thats incredible!  Are you at all thinking about releasing that
> > program??
>
> You can get it from my website:
>
> www.scottboham.co.uk/sw
>
> Any problems give me a shout as I haven't really tested it properly, I just
> got it working last night.

you say on your site that one must download the meshes.
which download? CMX Viewer S2N?
with dialup I'm not in a position to guess. ;)

thanks
-ts-

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"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message news:43589ebc$1@news.povray.org...
> >> You can get it from my website:
> >>
> >> www.scottboham.co.uk/sw
> >>
> >> Any problems give me a shout as I haven't really tested it properly,
> >> I just got it working last night.
> >>
> >>
> > I think I may have spoken too soon, I have managed to get a
> > textureless render, but for some reason when I try a textured render,
> > only a small amount of the textures show.  I have all the image maps
> > in the same folder as the pov file but they just dont work.
> >
> > Any ideas?
>
> That's because the main car body skins are in the data/skins folder inside
> LFS.  Choose one of these to use, make sure it is for the right car (the
> first three letters tell you).  Then, you have to manually change the
> texture declaration inside POV to tell it to use this texture.
>
> Look for this line in the pov code:
> // this is the texture for skinning the body
>
> And then change the following texture #declare to something like:
>
> texture{
>  pigment{ uv_mapping iamge_map{ jpeg "FXR????.jpg" interpolate 2 } }
> }
>
> That should do the trick.
>
> Perhaps I should make it grab one of the skins by default to generate the
> POV code?
>
Thanks for the info, I actually got to that point over the w/e :)

The thing I'm having trouble with now are things like skining the
wheels/tires etc, I cant seem to make my cars as nice as the one you put up
here!

Cheers Dre

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> The thing I'm having trouble with now are things like skining the
> wheels/tires etc, I cant seem to make my cars as nice as the one you
> put up here!

You just have to play about with all the texture #declares.  For example,
with the tyres you probably want to make the diffuse amount lower, like 0.1
or 0.2 to make them appear black rather than light grey.  You also should
add a "finish" statement to the main body texture, so that you can add some
specular and reflection amounts.

I just used trial and error to work out which other textures affected
different parts of the car, and modified them accordingly.  In the POV
source there should be comments before each texture saying what the texture
skin file name is, so that should be a bit of the clue.

You can also make some quite funky skins by just using built-in POV SDL code
for the textures rather than bitmaps, like colour gradients, stripes,
patterns etc.

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ts wrote:
> "scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote:
>
>>> Thats incredible!  Are you at all thinking about releasing that
>>> program??
>>
>> You can get it from my website:
>>
>> www.scottboham.co.uk/sw
>>
>> Any problems give me a shout as I haven't really tested it properly,
>> I just got it working last night.
>
> you say on your site that one must download the meshes.
> which download? CMX Viewer S2N?
> with dialup I'm not in a position to guess. ;)

Yes, the CMX Viewer S2N zip file.  This includes the meshes for all the
cars, but no textures.  It will work fine with my program, you'll just get a
plain grey car to skin yourself in POV!

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"scott" <sco### [at] spamcom> wrote in message news:435c9641$1@news.povray.org...
> > The thing I'm having trouble with now are things like skining the
> > wheels/tires etc, I cant seem to make my cars as nice as the one you
> > put up here!
>
> You just have to play about with all the texture #declares.  For example,
> with the tyres you probably want to make the diffuse amount lower, like
0.1
> or 0.2 to make them appear black rather than light grey.  You also should
> add a "finish" statement to the main body texture, so that you can add
some
> specular and reflection amounts.
>
> I just used trial and error to work out which other textures affected
> different parts of the car, and modified them accordingly.  In the POV
> source there should be comments before each texture saying what the
texture
> skin file name is, so that should be a bit of the clue.
>
> You can also make some quite funky skins by just using built-in POV SDL
code
> for the textures rather than bitmaps, like colour gradients, stripes,
> patterns etc.
>
>

Ok, great stuff, thanks very much for the info!

Cheers Dre

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