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How To: Create Your Own Art Using Pgi's Mechs

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#2101 Silver Wind Jones

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Posted 16 November 2017 - 05:47 PM

Great video! I can understand it now! Everything works EXCEPT every time I type in the cgf-converter.exe it gives me an error... I put the script in the path like you said as well as the mech importer and the asset thingy and it’s not working. I followed the video to the T! Everything you did I paused and did it for my self and it worked great except that part... now I downloaded the cgf converter before a while back when I first attempted and now it says cgf-converter (1) .exe... could this be the problem?

#2102 TheSkiDog

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Posted 16 November 2017 - 06:09 PM

View PostHeffay, on 14 November 2017 - 09:56 AM, said:

Alright, finished the first tutorial. It's for generic Cryengine assets. Will post a link when the youtube upload is done. Also working on a bulk converting tutorial, as well as a mech importer one.

Sorry for the delays on this. They take a lot of time to produce.

Edit: First video. Just basic conversion stuff. The mech conversion video still needs to be completed.

https://youtu.be/6WoA2ubTZ0k


Watched it, like it, looking forward to the next one.

#2103 Heffay

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Posted 24 November 2017 - 08:06 PM

New tutorial video created! Original post has been updated with all the latest info.




Will try to finish the final one (importing mechs!) this weekend.

Edited by Heffay, 24 November 2017 - 08:07 PM.


#2104 TheSkiDog

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Posted 24 November 2017 - 10:33 PM

View PostHeffay, on 24 November 2017 - 08:06 PM, said:

New tutorial video created!


Much more comprehensive than your initial tutorials.
Second one was great.

#2105 Heffay

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Posted 25 November 2017 - 05:17 AM

View PostTheSkiDog, on 24 November 2017 - 10:33 PM, said:


Much more comprehensive than your initial tutorials.
Second one was great.


Thanks!

These are much easier to make than the older ones. I've updated the programs and scripts to handle a lot more things that you had to do before. I really like how asset importer turned out.

#2106 Silver Wind Jones

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Posted 01 December 2017 - 05:24 PM

I give up I cannot DO THIS! Everything is where it should be, I’ve done everything right nothing works.... I keep getting these annoying errors...

#2107 TheSkiDog

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Posted 02 December 2017 - 03:21 PM

Don't give up.
All it takes is a little power shell knowledge, and making sure you have things setup in your path correctly.
Once you get it, it's really pretty easy.

Well, knowing blender or some other modeling program helps too.

Edited by TheSkiDog, 02 December 2017 - 05:59 PM.


#2108 Silver Wind Jones

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Posted 03 December 2017 - 01:05 PM

View PostTheSkiDog, on 02 December 2017 - 03:21 PM, said:

Don't give up.
All it takes is a little power shell knowledge, and making sure you have things setup in your path correctly.
Once you get it, it's really pretty easy.

Well, knowing blender or some other modeling program helps too.


Everything is where it should be. I’ve created a scripts directory, a depot directory, and an mwo directory and I’ve extracted all the pak files into where the tutorial said to extract them and as he was doing all this in PowerShell I paused and did it for myself and when if can to the cgf-converter.exe it didn’t work. The converter eve is in the scripts directory like he said and I even went back to make sure I didn’t misspell anything and I didn’t. So I redownloaded all the programs to see if that worked and still didn’t. I don’t know what to do..

#2109 TheSkiDog

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Posted 07 December 2017 - 10:51 AM

View PostSilver Wind Jones, on 03 December 2017 - 01:05 PM, said:


Everything is where it should be. I’ve created a scripts directory


Did you add the scripts directory to your path?
Nothing will work if you don't add that directory to your path.

#2110 TheSkiDog

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Posted 11 December 2017 - 06:30 AM

Does anyone still have the old Catapult files still on their hard drive?
I'm talking the non stripped down files when srms we're a bolt on style addition to the mech.

I thought I still had them on my backup disk, but alas.... not to be found.

Does anyone remember what I am talking about?

#2111 Iacov

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Posted 23 December 2017 - 12:06 PM

hey heffay!

thanks for the new plugin and converter - they work fantastic, thank you for your time and effort put in this project!

i'm currently stuck at a probably odd point
Posted Image
how do i select and display specific weapons?
and how do i "lock" a specific pose for e.g. 3d printing?

#2112 Heffay

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Posted 27 December 2017 - 05:26 AM

All the weapons and custom geometry shapes are on the second layer. You can select the weapons you want to show on the mech, and use... ctrl-m I think to also have it show on the first layer.

I'm not sure about locking poses for printing though. It may be possible to pose it the way you want, and then create a new rest post for it like that, but... I'm not sure. The model to 3D printing process is a mystery to me. I'm not sure what the printing software is really looking for. :(

#2113 Iacov

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Posted 28 December 2017 - 01:29 PM

View PostHeffay, on 27 December 2017 - 05:26 AM, said:

All the weapons and custom geometry shapes are on the second layer. You can select the weapons you want to show on the mech, and use... ctrl-m I think to also have it show on the first layer.

I'm not sure about locking poses for printing though. It may be possible to pose it the way you want, and then create a new rest post for it like that, but... I'm not sure. The model to 3D printing process is a mystery to me. I'm not sure what the printing software is really looking for. Posted Image


oh my god, how embarassing, the weapons were right in front of my eyes xD sorry :/

i will experiment then - interested in findings? (may take a while, though, until i get into 3d printing again)

i can't thank you enough for your work! the plugin is extremely neat:D

#2114 TheSkiDog

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Posted 29 December 2017 - 11:53 AM

View PostTheSkiDog, on 11 December 2017 - 06:30 AM, said:

Does anyone still have the old Catapult files still on their hard drive?
I'm talking the non stripped down files when srms we're a bolt on style addition to the mech.

I thought I still had them on my backup disk, but alas.... not to be found.

Does anyone remember what I am talking about?


Anyone????

#2115 Heffay

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Posted 30 December 2017 - 08:20 AM

View PostIacov, on 28 December 2017 - 01:29 PM, said:

i will experiment then - interested in findings? (may take a while, though, until i get into 3d printing again)


Heck yes! There are a ton of people interested in 3D printing their own mechs, and a lack of solid info on how to do it. I think it's time intensive work, but being able to capture that info so others can do it would be a huge boon to the community. Document and video it! Heck, that would be a great Twitch streaming opportunity as well. :)

#2116 Jacob Soloman

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Posted 30 December 2017 - 04:21 PM

Happy holidays all,

I thought I'd spend some time over the holidays getting back into 3d printing these MWO models but I've hit a problem. I'm trying to use the new cgf-converter.exe program but I've no idea what I'm doing really.

I've watched the vids, which makes everything look easy, but I think my problem is that I don't know how to set/add a scripts directory. I've even copied Heffay's directory example in the video - except I use E:\ instead of D:\.

I've google'd adding a scripts directory but I can't tell which is the appropriate method to use and they all seem different. I've also trying to run the converter directly from the mech directory, but I must be getting the command line wrong for this to work.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

#2117 Heffay

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Posted 30 December 2017 - 06:10 PM

View PostJacob Soloman, on 30 December 2017 - 04:21 PM, said:

Happy holidays all,

I thought I'd spend some time over the holidays getting back into 3d printing these MWO models but I've hit a problem. I'm trying to use the new cgf-converter.exe program but I've no idea what I'm doing really.

I've watched the vids, which makes everything look easy, but I think my problem is that I don't know how to set/add a scripts directory. I've even copied Heffay's directory example in the video - except I use E:\ instead of D:\.

I've google'd adding a scripts directory but I can't tell which is the appropriate method to use and they all seem different. I've also trying to run the converter directly from the mech directory, but I must be getting the command line wrong for this to work.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!


There are actually 2 things that are happening there.

First, the creation of the scripts directory. That's simply adding a new folder called Scripts at the root of the drive. It doesn't have to be called that; you can call it whatever you want. I just put my scripts in there, so... it's called scripts. :)

The second is adding that directory to the Path, which really depends on your operating system. Windows 7 and 10 are a bit different, but a quick google search for your appropriate directory should show you how to add a directory to your system path.

If you want to skip that second part, you can just source the full path to the converter program. So wherever you see "cgf-converter.exe", just use (assuming it's in e:\scripts) "e:\scripts\cgf-converter.exe".

#2118 Heffay

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Posted 30 December 2017 - 06:34 PM

OK, I finally finished up the 2nd tutorial video on how to import mechs and assets. I completely changed how the process works, so watch the tutorial video! Converting assets is pretty much the same (first video, cgf-converter.exe), but importing mechs and assets has been converted from a Powershell script to a Blender add-on. It'll create fully rigged mechs, and you can add Andreas80's fantastic MWO_CAMO_v3 blend file to apply camo patterns with custom colors! It's all described in great detail in the tutorial video.


I'll continue work on these tools so they are more feature complete, but.... yeah! Blender add-on! Prefab importer! Mech-Importer, fully rigged! I'm really happy with how these have turned out, so give them a try and let me know if you have any questions.

#2119 Jacob Soloman

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Posted 31 December 2017 - 07:14 AM

Thanks Heffay,

It's surprising what a few key words will do for your search! Everything seems to be working so far, indeed I have just finished tweaking an Osiris ready for printing - just 12 more to go...

I can see you've put in a lot of work for all this and it's really appreciated.

Thanks again and happy new year!

#2120 Heffay

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Posted 31 December 2017 - 09:49 AM

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