.s3d to .txt map files ?

[Angahran]

I know this has been talked about before, and I'm sure someone will post here saying 'use search n00b' or something similar, but a) I have already read all the old posts, and b) I have already used search.

What I would like to know is has anyone come up with a way of generating a .txt map file from the .s3d(?) game files ?

All I have been able to find is this:

Here's how I do it:
* use Mitselplik's zone converter to get a povray file for the zone
* convert each mesh in the povray file to its own showeq map
* generate gif images of those maps
* pick which maps to use and merge them together
* spend a day running a map optimizer on it

Looks fairly simple.

1: Use VBZoneConverter and POV-Ray

2: "convert each mesh in the povray file to its own showeq map"
This is the difficult bit, HOW ????

3: "generate .gif images of those maps"
huh ? isn't the idea to get a .txt file ?

4: "pick which maps to use and merge them together"
merging .gif files together ? *getting really confused*

5: "spend a day running a map optimizer on it"
the only map optimizer I have seen is Mappie, which optimizes .txt files

If anyone could shed any light into this dark confusing mess it would be appreciated. Apparently it seems at the moment that unless you know a whole load of graphics stuff there is no way to get decent amps out of the would files

Thanks for any replies

Angahran.

[LordCrush]

I have played around with this a bit, but i have not enough time to go further atm.

Originally posted by Angahran

1: Use VBZoneConverter and POV-Ray

If you do this you get some Mesh Textfiles.

Originally posted by Angahran

2: "convert each mesh in the povray file to its own showeq map"
This is the difficult bit, HOW ????

I have written a *very* basic converter in VBS

'Extract Mesh to Map 
'V 0.4 By LordCrush



  Const OpenAsASCII   = 0 
  Const OpenAsUnicode = -1

' FileSystemObject.CreateTextFile
  Const OverwriteIfExist = -1
  Const FailIfExist      = 0

' FileSystemObject.OpenTextFile
  Const OpenAsDefault    = -2
  Const CreateIfNotExist = -1
  Const FailIfNotExist   = 0
  Const ForReading = 1
  Const ForWriting = 2
  Const ForAppending = 8

  Dim oFileSystemObj, sOUT, fOUTFILE, sIN, fINFILE
  sMapName="Arena"
  sPOVFile=".\" & sMapName & ".pov"
  sLineName=sMapName & "Line"
  sColor="grey"
  bDebug=0
  iXMax=0
  iYMax=0
  iZMax=0

  Set oFileSystemObj = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
  Set fPOVFile = oFileSystemObj.OpenTextFile(sPOVFile, ForReading)

'  WScript.Echo "POVFile " & sPOVFile
  iMapNr=1
  bVectors=false
  Do While fPOVFile.AtEndofStream =False
    sBuffer=fPOVFile.ReadLine 
 '   WScript.Echo "Line " & sBuffer
    if InStr(sBuffer,"vertex_vectors") > 0 then
       sOUT=".\" & sMapName & iMapNr & ".txt"
 '      WScript.Echo "Line valid, File = " & sOUT
       Set fOUTFILE = oFileSystemObj.CreateTextFile(sOUT, ForWriting, OpenAsASCII)
       bVectors=true
       sBuffer=fPOVFile.ReadLine 
    End If
    
    if bVectors then
'       WScript.Echo "Precheck Line " & sBuffer
       if left(sBuffer,1) = "<" then
 '         WScript.Echo "Line " & sBuffer
          fOUTFILE.WriteLine sBuffer
       else 
          fOUTFILE.close
          Set fOUTFILE = nothing
 '         WScript.Echo "File = " & sOUT & " done ..."
          iMapNr=iMapNr + 1
          bVectors=false
       End If
    End If
    
  Loop
  
  fPOVFile.close
  set fPOVFile=nothing
  
'Conv mesh start  
  iMapNr=1
  sIN=".\" & sMapName & iMapNr & ".txt"
  sOUT=".\" & sMapName & iMapNr & ".map"
'  WScript.Echo "Map = " & sIN & ", " & sOUT
  
  Do while oFileSystemObj.FileExists(sIN)
   Set fOUTFILE = oFileSystemObj.CreateTextFile(sOUT, ForWriting, OpenAsASCII)
   Set fINFILE = oFileSystemObj.OpenTextFile(sIN, ForReading)
   fOUTFILE.WriteLine sMapName & "," & sMapName & iMapNr & ",10,10,10"

   Do While fINFILE.AtEndofStream =False
    sBuffer=fINFILE.ReadLine 
    iLenSBuffer=Len(sBuffer)

'    WScript.Echo "Line " & sBuffer
    if left(sBuffer,1) = "<" then
'       WScript.Echo "Line valid"
      sP=""
      iPCount=0
      do
' Get Point 1
       iPEnd=InStr(sBuffer,">")
       iPStart=InStr(sBuffer,"<")
       sP1=Mid(sBuffer,iPStart+1,iPEnd-IPStart-1)
'Reduce Buffer
       iLenSBuffer=iLenSBuffer-iPEnd
       sBuffer=right(sBuffer,(iLenSBuffer))
       
       sPTmp=sP1
       ToInt sPTmp
'       WScript.Echo "sPTmp= " & SPTmp
       GetCoord sPTmp,iCoord
       if abs(iCoord) > iXMax then iXMax = abs(iCoord)
       iX1=iCoord * (-1) 'Turn 180 Deg
'       WScript.echo "X1= " & iX1 & ", iXMax " & iXMax & " sPTmp " & sPTmp
       GetCoord sPTmp,iCoord
       if abs(iCoord) > iYMax then iYMax=abs(iCoord)
       iY1=iCoord
'       WScript.echo "Y1= " & iY1 & ", iYMax " & iYMax & " sPTmp " & sPTmp
       GetCoord sPTmp,iCoord
       if abs(iCoord) > iZMax then iZMax=abs(iCoord)
       iZ1=iCoord
'       WScript.echo "Z1= " & iZ1 & ", iZMax " & iZMax & " sPTmp " & sPTmp
' Switch y<->z
       sP = sP & iX1 & "," & iZ1 & "," & iY1 & ","
       iPCount=iPCount+1
'       WScript.Echo "P= " & sP
'       WScript.Echo "Line " & sBuffer

      loop until iLenSBuffer < 14         
'      WScript.Echo "Line: M,"& sLineName & "," & sColor & "," & iPCount & "," & sP
      fOUTFILE.WriteLine "M,"& sLineName & "," & sColor & "," & iPCount & "," & sP
'      WScript.Quit(0)
    End If

   loop

 
   fOUTFILE.Close
   Set fOUTFILE = nothing

   fINFILE.Close
   Set fINFILE = nothing

   iMapNr = iMapNr + 1 
   sIN=".\" & sMapName & iMapNr & ".txt"
   sOUT=".\" & sMapName & iMapNr & ".map"
  
'   WScript.Echo "Map = " & sIN & ", " & sOUT
  Loop
  WScript.Echo (iMapNr-1) & " Maps written"


  Function ToInt(sPTmp)

'X
    iCoordEnd=InStr(sPTmp,",")
    sCoord=Left(sPTmp,iCoordEnd-1) & ","
    sPTmp=Right(sPTmp,Len(sPTmp)-iCoordEnd)
    iCoordEnd=InStr(sPTmp,",")
    sPTmp=Right(sPTmp,Len(sPTmp)-iCoordEnd)
 'Y
    iCoordEnd=InStr(sPTmp,",")
    sCoord=sCoord & Left(sPTmp,iCoordEnd-1) & ","
    sPTmp=Right(sPTmp,Len(sPTmp)-iCoordEnd)
    iCoordEnd=InStr(sPTmp,",")
    sPTmp=Right(sPTmp,Len(sPTmp)-iCoordEnd)
 'Z
    iCoordEnd=InStr(sPTmp,",")
    sCoord=sCoord & Left(sPTmp,iCoordEnd-1)
    sPTmp=Right(sPTmp,Len(sPTmp)-iCoordEnd)
   
    sPTmp=sCoord
  End Function



  Function GetCoord (sPTmp,iCoord)
       iCoordEnd=InStr(sPTmp,",")
       if iCoordEnd <> 0 then
          iCoord=Left(sPTmp,iCoordEnd-1)
          sPTmp=Right(sPTmp,Len(sPTmp)-iCoordEnd)
       else
          iCoord=sPTmp
          sPTmp=""
       End If
       if iCoord="" then iCoodr=0
  End Function

This extracts the Meshinfo into map-files

Originally posted by Angahran

3: "generate .gif images of those maps"
huh ? isn't the idea to get a .txt file ?

You need the pictures to get an overview of what you have in the map-files. But you can use this tool to look on the maps without converting them to gif

EQMapviewer Binary & Src from slartibartfast:
Thread: http://seq.sourceforge.net/forums/sh...&threadid=2163
Downloads:
http://seq.sourceforge.net/forums/at...=&postid=13778
http://seq.sourceforge.net/forums/at...=&postid=13777

Originally posted by Angahran

4: "pick which maps to use and merge them together"
merging .gif files together ? *getting really confused*

You need to merge the map-files that you choose at point 3

Originally posted by Angahran

5: "spend a day running a map optimizer on it"
the only map optimizer I have seen is Mappie, which optimizes .txt files

Yep... i am stuck there too


Here is the result of a try with the Arena-Map

Map from Mesh (GIF)

If you want the other files just send me a PM .. I have no webspace atm, which is not related to my RL name

Greetings

--Lord Crush

[LordCrush]

Orginal SEQ-Map:

[Angahran]

Thanks,
things starting to get a little clearer :P

Any chance you could post the .exe for your VB code ?
I don't have access to VB at the moment

[LordCrush]

This is a vb-script, just cut and paste into a texteditor and name it with extension .vbs ... should work on W2k or XP ... i have only tested it on XP


The the XP-script-engine has version 5.6 ( just execute cscript from a command-window)

I have attached it to this post. The Second Script is to convert the ZoneConverter output to US-Style of Numberdisplay ( use "." insted of "," otherwise PovRay gets confused 8) )

-- LC

[Angahran]

Tried doing this on the arena, got it into pov-ray35 ok, looked good.
exported it, but couldn't you your .vbs files on it for some reason

double checked using your .vbs files against the arena file in your zip and it worked, so not sure what I've messed up

Thanks for the help.

Ang.

[ksmith]

1: Use VBZoneConverter and POV-Ray

2: "convert each mesh in the povray file to its own showeq map"
This is the difficult bit, HOW ????

3: "generate .gif images of those maps"
huh ? isn't the idea to get a .txt file ?

4: "pick which maps to use and merge them together"
merging .gif files together ? *getting really confused*

5: "spend a day running a map optimizer on it"
the only map optimizer I have seen is Mappie, which optimizes .txt files

I didn't post the perl scripts I used for steps 2 and 5 because they're really not in a state that I wanted to support. Also, the optimizer I wrote probably only works well for hateplaneb; it's very aggressive.

[ksmith]

You can find all the files for steps 3 and 4 from when I was working on the hateplaneb map here

This is the perl script I used to convert the .pov file to a .map.

This is my aggressive map optimizer.

I will not help anyone get either of the perl scripts to work. They are being released to save time for someone who already knows what they are doing.

Comments on algorithims are welcome.

[Fatal]

ksmith.. the new algo for mappie is pretty aggressive.
let me see if I can get the code to ya.

[UnGod]

I tried doing this myself (as part of SEQ actually) came up with pretty much the same results as you crushy, this was back when uhhm LDON first came out I think, and there were no decent maps yet.

My generated arena map looked exactally like yours :P

UnGod/Belith