Universal Forum Archive

thi is the hardest link find
instead of just putting it in with all the the other
WORLD Owner files its tucked away in some thread

thank GOD i copied when i saw it

http://islanddownloads.com/ModelConverter17.zip

Heres the problem i see with lack of models available

1) finding export/convert utility requires reading every thread on forum till you stumble across it
2)atm is not an importable format so you have absolutely no idea
what scale is for base models
could be mm inches feet yards miles who the hell knows
3)models exist with lists of known issues IE:poor UVW mapping
yet there is no way to reverse engineer a .x file from an atm
no way to CLEAN UP someones mess

just wondering with all the known useable format types with import/export
plugins available why choose .atm format for the rendering?

the atm convertor can export the models to .3ds format aswell to allow people to do whatever.

as for the scale, Tools menu -> Scale. the height is displayed in a scale of feet. and if you scale new/current models useing feet then most things will be prtty accurately scaled.

as for models available
http://www.tuwr.net/pmwiki.php?n=Downloads.Downloads

1. No it doesn't. It's on the downloads page... ahh. only if you're a member of the Art group, maybe... we should add it back to the World Creation link. Of course you can just ask, I don't see why it's such a problem. I'll add you to the art group.

/edit: you're already a member of the art group. Go look at the downloads page before moaning :)

/further edit. It's also on the Art Group pages, also linked from the homepage.

2. atm is a custom format designed to minimise load times for dynamic 3d content, one of the cool things about the game. Compare an x file to its atm file, and you'll see a size difference of as much as 90%. Additionally, having our own file format means we can add game-specific features to 3d models - at the moment, that includes submodels and effects, for instance.

Scale is an issue with any format. It's more about the modelling prog you use than anything else. What comes out of Blender isn't going to be the same size as Gmax or Wings or anything else.

In addition... scale depends on the world you're on. The standard world scale is 115 game units. I can help with Max units but again it depends on the prog you're using. :

At the default 115 world landscape scale:

1 tile = 128.348 Max units = 33.76ft
1ft=about Max 3.8 units

The standard "druid" avatar is 6ft tall.

At 200 landscape scale:
tile=223.214 max units = 58.72ft

etc. For the most part it's not that important - you can use the model converter to scale to tile size, or just to scale to any height (and relative length/depth etc). I had to work out the Max equivalents (by scaling a plane to tile size in the model converter, and exporting to 3ds, then into Max) just because I was trying to build some walls and stuff that fitted together.

3. Yes there is. You can export from the model converter.

4. Ideally, yeh, we'd just support .mdl or something and have done with it... the game originally just supported .x and .3ds, but the filesizes, especially for animated models, became prohibitive. You have to remember that 3d content is either hosted on someone's PC (ie, very slow upload speeds, especially for multiple connections) or on a website, which can be better, but still... the longer it takes to download something, sitting staring at a white screen, the worse it is. Hence mit developed .atm. It's a nice format really because we own it: if a modeller wants to do something new, mit can add to the format to support it.

Having said that... yeh, again, if we could use some other format we would. And in fact work has started to support .bsps for world maps... moving to mdl or whatever would be the next step. But that'd mean rewriting the 3d engine. So don't hold your breath and play with .atm. It works for me :)

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ok heres answer ro main point

1) i am in artist group
and
2) the file is listed at download is ver 1.6
and link is broken

so i repeat the ver 1.7 file needs a forum sticky until link is repaired

zaroba wrote:the atm convertor can export the models to .3ds format aswell to allow people to do whatever.

as for the scale, Tools menu -> Scale. the height is displayed in a scale of feet. and if you scale new/current models useing feet then most things will be prtty accurately scaled.

as for models available
http://www.tuwr.net/pmwiki.php?n=Downloads.Downloads

i use 3ds studio max vers 6 and 8 i already have the 3ds format
are you saying the convertor can re export an atm back to a 3ds?

im curious because 3ds format imbeds jpg or png or whatever into format
the .atm appears not to

you have to use external texture files with the game. it doesen't support embedded textures yet (if i recall correctly)

but yes, the moder convertor can open an atm file and export it as a 3ds file.
i've done it with a few models to alter them.

The MC link works fine; I've also added it to the world creation page. Additionally there is now a new version available, 1.9, which you can find on the downloads page, the artists page and the world creation page. Should be enough for you.

As zar says, we don't support embedded textures. AFAIK the 3ds format doesn't either, but either way... we don't. Separate texture file is required, and only one per model at the moment.

This post has been moved because it's not a content request.
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