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Custom model exporter required - how?

Bek
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Bek interpolator
Hey,

The indie game Legend of Grimrock has its dungeon editor in public beta for those with the steam version of the game. Along with this, the developers have posted basic guides on how to use the tools.

The problem is that Grimrock uses a custom model file format, .model , and they themselves can't release custom exporters (even for Modo which they used, because they have a full pipeline that converted everything, not an individual exporter)

The specifications for the .model format can be found here

My question: How much work is it to make an exporter? I highly doubt I could do so myself (I only know very very basic python). I expect 3ds max / Maya users will get an exporter fairly soon, but Modo users like myself might be left out a little longer. So, can anyone shed any light on the process required for a custom exporter - ie would it be reasonable to ask for someone to have a go at it, or is it a complicated task? Is there any recommended reading on the subject, or any other general comments?

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  • cw
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    cw polycounter lvl 17
    Well, they have given you the list of ingredients there, which is helpful because you don't need to reverse engineer from existing binary files.

    Is modo python enabled? If so and there is a decent api to get the mesh data etc. out of modo then it could be relatively simple - you are just going to be iterating over your objects and writing out the data required by the recipe you've got in the docs there.
  • Bek
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    Bek interpolator
    Modo can run python scripts yes. Perl and Lua too. There is a Modo SDK, not something I've looked into before, probably not necessary for this task though (I assume). I'm fairly sure something like this would be beyond my abilities without a lot of help, but I'll read up on modo scripting and I/O stuff when I get a chance.
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