fun with .pso

(moveing thread here since it's more on topic).

Ok, i can extract the vertices and normals and triangle info from the PSO2 format files:



"PSO " i still have problems with [V]

The texture stuff is going to be a problem. I used to play around with povray a lot so i'm fairly happy with the mesh stuff.

What i know so far:

The files are IFF format, with an OHDR chunk at the top, this has a version number (?always one), count of the textures referenced in the OHDR chunk, and the number of surfaces.

Each surface has 3 chunks:

SHDR (presumable Surface HeaDeR), which starts with things like "RT_ComSecCP#CL(PZ+)" then a lot of stuff i don't understand, then a (rareish) null terminated string, which appear to be the environment map to use, then 2 ints, the last of which is the surface type:

0 plain texture less(?) triangle mesh, just the standard vert data

1 textured surface (?) std. vert + 8 bytes

2 no idea, std vert + 16 bytes

3 even less idea, std. vert + 24 bytes

VERT:

The vertex data, each vertex starts with <x,y,z> <nx,ny,nz>, and depending on the surface type may be followed by other stuff

INDX:

The triangles, starts with the number of triangles, and then lists the 3 vertices to make the triangles from, "PSO " format dosn't list the number of triangles as the 1st entry, i don't know what the value is.


Oh, fixed the problem with "PSO " while posting this.

Wow... that is incredible. You really know what you're doing.

I own Lightwave 5.6. What can I do to assist you?

EDIT: Just pulling the vertices info from the file is a huge success. If need be we could always reapply the textures manually. You've already accomplished a capital feat.

Some of the surface name info will be specilized naming properties for Flux. They allow the engine to identify special effects properties.

The .pso's already contain the texture co-ords for each vertex, so it was easy to pull them out.

there appears to be 3 possible textures for each surface - the normal colour one, a glow map (used with the channel stuff), and one that either an intensity map or a gloss/shinyness map.

I'm pretty certain i know where the surface transparancy value is stored (for glass etc), there is still some other stuff i don't understand, but working on it.

If you want to help doing the 3 cube thing i mentioned in the "FTEX generator" thread would be very helpful, not for the vertex info, but for the differing texture types.

just doing 2 cubes, one with the plain texture, and one with a texture + gloss/shiny map thing would help.

One of the oddities is that the texture co-ords on one things are < 0 or > 1, which is odd...

My limiting factor at the moment is the rate i can learn OpenGL to display this stuff, books on order

Grrrr.... !

I've run into a problem. I haven't used LW 5.6 for a while and now it appears my dongle has failed. (The dongle is the antipiracy hardware protection which NewTek utilizes... no jokes about my broken dongle please. )

I've an email sent to customer service, but expect at least a couple of days before I'm back up and running on LW 5.6. Sorry for the delay.

Will send the requested files along ASAP.

In the meantime, I have the LW 5.6 SDK which provides a wealth of information on the file types and structure. Would that be of any assistance? If so, send me an email at shanemaness (at) charter.net and I'd be happy to forward it along.

Your convertor looks like a stunning success so far. I am truly amazed... everyone thought this was not possible. It certainly ranks as one of the top five achievments of EoC modding. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

Hi Shane and Jasper,

Just wondering how progress was going? I am currently looking at redoing the textures for up to 40 ships, and being able to access the PSO files would be a godsend. In fact, I doubt I will be able to add any new ship textures to Torn Stars:Traffic without getting access to PSO files. The reason being that the download size, and memory requirments for 100-150megs of new textures is just too much.
Being able to tweak the PSO files, and specifically the textures they are calling would solve all the problems though. It would mean that I could have the various 'substyles' of ships (i.e. Sultanate, Leung Empire, Emerald Alliance, CMC and Corliss) all occupying the same folder, and sharing any unchanged textures between them.
Without being able to change the textures referenced by the PSO file I have to make a seperate folder for each new ship, including a complete set of textures.

I wonder Jasper, with what you have accomplished already, would it be possible to read and change/edit the names of textures in the PSO file?

Originally posted by cambragol

Hi Shane and Jasper,

Just wondering how progress was going? I am currently looking at redoing the textures for up to 40 ships, and being able to access the PSO files would be a godsend. In fact, I doubt I will be able to add any new ship textures to Torn Stars:Traffic without getting access to PSO files. The reason being that the download size, and memory requirments for 100-150megs of new textures is just too much.
Being able to tweak the PSO files, and specifically the textures they are calling would solve all the problems though. It would mean that I could have the various 'substyles' of ships (i.e. Sultanate, Leung Empire, Emerald Alliance, CMC and Corliss) all occupying the same folder, and sharing any unchanged textures between them.
Without being able to change the textures referenced by the PSO file I have to make a seperate folder for each new ship, including a complete set of textures.

I wonder Jasper, with what you have accomplished already, would it be possible to read and change/edit the names of textures in the PSO file?

yes, easy.

watch this space.