Hi,
After years of reading how to copy content between SL and OpenSim, as well as
doing all kinds of content backup in all possible formats, and reading volumes
of information on how to import sculpties and/or meshes developed on
application X (name whatever application you wish), I couldn't find anything
about exporting prim content from OpenSim (or Second Life, for that matter) to
a popular 3D format that could be used by any 3D modelling tool.
There is a reason for this. One of our projects (two OpenSim regions) was seen
as good background for a TV production. Now the producers need those buildings
in a standard 3D format to upload to their CGI software to do special effects.
Since all those objects (except for one or two sculpties) only exist as OpenSim
prims, how can I export them to, say, .OBJ, Collada, .DXF, or any similar 3D
format?
OAR/IAR are really just meaningful in the SL/OpenSim world. They're completely
meaningless for any other 3D software, because they're so closely tied to the
way SL/OpenSim store prim/mesh data.
I found a reference back in 2010, where some people had some limited success
using GLInterceptor with the OGLE plugin (the website for OGLE has been down
since mid-2010, but there are still ways to get copies of it). The idea is the
following: when the SL Viewer generates the mesh data for a scene, it sends
OpenGL commands, which get intercepted by GLInterceptor, and are written on a
file. OGLE apparently "recombines" those commands so that they are mapped to
object meshes, which can be saved to any popular format. This allegedly works
for simple objects, but I really have no idea — because of the possibility of
content theft, all information regarding "success" with GLInterceptor/OGLE is
really not much available.
Obviously the best solution would be an OAR/IAR-to-OBJ conversion tool, but if
such a tool exists, Google cannot find it :) I suppose it's something worth
developing one day, but it would take far, far too much time. As said, the way
objects are described in OAR/IAR make little sense outside the SL/OpenSim
context. Turning them into real mesh data, in whatever popular format, is a
highly complex operation — in effect, it amounts to developing a 3D renderer
from scratch that works on SL/OpenSim data! As you all well know, almost every
SL viewer out there uses the LL rendering engine. Radegast is one exception.
Does it save objects to .OBJ?
So... I know that most of you are only worried about the reverse problem (how
to get your fantastic 3D models uploaded via mesh import into OpenSim), but I
wonder if anyone actually had the need to do the reverse operation — build in
OpenSim, export to .OBJ — and, if so, what tools were used to accomplish that
feat?
It would be a pity to be forced to recreate everything from scratch :-( Not to
mention the time it takes...
Thanks in advance for any input!
Cheers,
- Gwyn
--
"I'm not building a game. I'm building a new country."
-- Philip "Linden" Rosedale, interview to Wired, 2004-05-08
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