Spotlight: Señor Casaroja's Noesis

[MrAdults]

That only happens if it doesn't think it has a texture for the mesh you're trying to view UV's for. Maybe it's not working with external textures or something.

You would have to carry over the entire Noesis framework to blender, yeah. Which is a fairly impossible or at least hideously time-consuming task. Just implementing the rpg interface would be a start.

[Satoh]

Well the reason I thought of it was due to Noesis loading models into memory as generic data. After being parsed, Noesis contains each model the same way for rendering right? So it would be the ultimate import plugin to capture the variables containing that data and pass them to Blender... which would likely be much harder than I'm giving credit for.

But it's more work than that anyway...

However... if I were to write a custom format containing all the data I needed, it would be simple to export it from Noesis, and simply write a parser for the format I just created to import into Blender... which might be slightly less elegant than integrating noesis itself, but it's probably a hell of a lot easier.

S'pose I need to start studying the API again.
Truly Noesis is a muse for invention.

[MrAdults]

Just transferring the data from Noesis would be a lot easier than implementing Noesis in blender, or just using an intermediary format that supports all of the Noesis data types. I think finale00 brought the same thing up some pages ago. I think making an intermediary format would be the best option, but you could also get fancy and have the exporter communicate right into blender through IPC or something.

In theory something like FBX should be just fine as an intermediary format, but in practice FBX has problems, and every implementation of it tends to have different problems. It's kind of the anti-thesis to everything Noesis tries to be about, particularly in how I've tried to keep exported data very unified and rigid for the sake of simplicity/ease of use.

[Tosyk]

some uv's problems.

show me

[finale00]

But now I realize that wont work because the actual Noesis executable does some of the work, yes? It wouldn't be as simple as making Blender see the DLLs and Python scripts... Some of the important stuff is part of the EXE?

My black box use sequence was something like (the black box parts are wrapped with <>)

1: build a simple blender UI (like an open dialog) that will take a file
2: <pass the file to noesis, like a shell command>
3: noesis parses it as usual
4: <retrieve the data from noesis, maybe writing a blender export plugin that specifically writes out the data you want *somewhere*>
5: Have *something* listen to that *somewhere* and execute the appropriate blender API calls

I don't understand enough of computers to know what that *something* is and where that *somewhere* could be, but ya I think in the end it is just a matter of invoking noesis and providing a standard way of retrieving data from noesis. To me, using the export function would seem like a good option.

Maybe creating a pipe and have blender listen on one end and have noesis use an export script to pass data down and listen for responses from blender?

So like

Code: Select all

Noesis: Send vertex data, wait for response
Blender: Receive vertex data, send response

Noesis: response received, send other data
Blender: ...

But I don't know, maybe someone can come up with different ideas of accomplishing this.

My idea involves a separate call to noesis everytime. I would like noesis to be waiting in the background, so it doesn't have to initialize everytime.

[chrrox]

the work is done already just need noesis to export like this and its all set
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Exten ... nterchange
if someone needs the code for the max plugin just let me know.

[finale00]

From what I've read, that is exporting it to file and then using blender separately to import it. So like, you can export to that noesis model format and then just write a blender import for that format

I want to be able to import models directly using noesis, because the extra step is for the most part unnecessary.
I want someone to be able to design a UI that supports drag and drop, and then you can just load the model into blender by dropping files on it without running it through noesis first.

[chrrox]

so why use noesis if its not needed what you want is to just make a blender plugin?

[Satoh]

Chrrox, you mentioned the max interchange plugin, does it allow a .MAX file to be imported by blender?

I can't use 3DS MAX, it continually fails to load, so importing the program itself is not a possibility.

However, if you have a plugin for Noesis to export to .MAX, and the Blender script imports .MAX, that could be a working solution...

The reason I brought it up is that Blender is the only program that runs reliably, and it only has spotty DAE support, and not much else in the way of rigged model importing.

What I'm looking for is a way to faithfully transfer whatever Noesis can read, into Blender, without losing lots of information (such as exporting to OBJ and losing the entire skeletal structure) or DAE (which has seemingly random results when importing to Blender, such as losing UV's, skeletal data, animation corruption, or simply refusing to parse at all because blender's DAE importer royally sucks.)

As for

so why use noesis if its not needed what you want is to just make a blender plugin?

That's not quite true. My idea was to use the Noesis framework AS a plugin, and have noesis do the same work, importing and reading the file structure, building the model, etc, but instead of loading it into the Noesis draw window, load that data into Blender's running scene data.

I suppose another way to say it would be to have blender hook noesis. The reasoning is the same... I have issues importing and exporting files to and from blender, which is what I work in.

Why not just write a bunch of plugins to do all the same things for Blender that Noesis already does? Because that would mean redoing all of the work...

It's the same reason I don't have a working import script for either blender or noesis for Xenosaga III models, when I do have one that's sort of working in maxscript. (or would be if I could get Max to load again)
If there's a way around completely rewriting (and thus having to understand both languages fully) the scripts and plugins I have... could you share? Maybe I'm just thinking about it the wrong way and there's a simple elegant way to subvert my issue, but I'm just not seeing it.

You're obviously better and more experienced at this than I, so how would you go about getting the end result aforementioned?

[finale00]

so why use noesis if its not needed what you want is to just make a blender plugin?

The manual step to export and import is not needed and wastes artists' time.
It should be done in the background.

One could consider doing something as simple as having noesis export the model, sending a response to blender saying it's done, and blender just uses standard file IO to open the file and parse.

[chrrox]

i don't really understand the need for something like this. yes it would be nice but your still exporting a model at a time how many models are you converting at once to animate with?
I just posted a format that supports almost everything as a format to import is all. the reason i posted this is people were saying they had trouble getting things into blender and i know this script imports everything great from max. the system you want is just like from motion builder to maya but that is 2 programs designed by the same company to work with each other not an easy or quick thing to implement.
and i am sure mr adults can think of a million other useful things to do with his time then try to streamline the blender process that would take a very long time to do and may break with each update of blender.

[Satoh]

I wasn't suggesting he work on it. I was asking if it was possible given the current state of noesis framework.

If it had turned out to be something that was as I imagined it at the time, I would have attempted, and likely failed anyway, but attempted nonetheless, to begin the integration of the Noesis framework into a plugin suitable for Blender.

The problem isn't the difficulty with converting the files in Noesis, the problem is that no matter what format I export to, there's a degree of uncertainty as to whether I will be able to even open the file at all in Blender.

Hooking Noesis to import a model directly into Blender would obviously solve that issue.

But as I said, and as you said, my best option right now is to export to a format I know has all the requirements, and then write an importer for Blender to open that file. (Well, implied it anyway)

However, I still run into the issue of being somewhat inept at understanding the Noesis API, and even moreso the Blender framework... but that's something I'll have to deal with on my own....

Then again... Blender successfully implements backward-compatible file reading of .blend formats even after they've been updated in newer versions, so perhaps I should focus on a script to export directly to .blend from Noesis.

I wonder if that's more or less work than creating a new format for what I need...

[MrAdults]

It's definitely possible to do this in the current Noesis plugin framework, yeah. Using a variety of methods, including direct IPC between Noesis and blender. I personally think a format would be the easier way to go though. Or honestly, just making a COLLADA or FBX importer for blender that doesn't suck a big one would pretty much solve the problem right there, rather than needing to make a new custom format. FBX already supports virtually every data type Noesis does, although it is an asshole about limited material options and properties and doesn't let me preserve blend modes correctly. I could come up with a workaround just for that little bit if it were worth my while. (that is, if I had a reason to do it, presently most FBX importers are already extremely halfassed and don't preserve most of the data correctly to begin with, so some fixup is necessary already in most cases, but I would view the situation in less futility if someone used the FBX SDK to make a blender FBX importer that worked correctly) And like chrrox mentioned, is the extra file export/import step really a big deal? Are you really going to be wanting to transfer models between Noesis and blender at such a rapid rate that the step of importing from an exported model makes a detectable time difference in your content production? I can't easily imagine a scenario where that time would be a factor, particularly when batch-exporting from Noesis is already an option.

[finale00]

Exporting to blend file would be fun. I don't know if blender published specs for it though, but if the did it is just a programming task.

Exporting to a simple format that has all of the data where you want it for very straightforward parsing is also easy since you're not restricted all that much. Blend files might be more interesting though since you can learn to write exporters for a particular spec.

Directly sending data from one program to another probably has the most educational value overall since it probably isn't everyday that you'll be writing something like that.

[Privateer]

Seems to me that if you have a time line problem exporting from Noesis, then importing to Blender?
Your ripping off Copyrighted work for a project of your own for who knows what reason.