Age Importer Broken?

[Jman]

Hey Guys,

I've been trying to get the Age Importer modded PyPRP to work. I get errors whenever i try to use it with the proper Blender version it wants (2.45 I think), but it seems to run properly when I use Blender 2.49 and the most current Python. The problem though is that only the Book, AlcScript and init files are imported. I don't get any meshes or anything that i can look at.

Any suggestions? Is there maybe a modded version of Blender that I can download that already has this stuff setup?

Thanks.

[Aloys]

I don't think the importer is supposed to work with Blender 2.5. Blender 2.5 is the newest version of Blender, and it's still an alpha version.
It should work fine with 2.49 though. Do you get any error message in the console after the import is done? Also if the import process took only a couple seconds something is wrong.
Finally, make sure you do not have a new 'scene', (by default in Blender there's a droplist button in the middle of the top bar/menu that reads: 'SCE:Scene')

[Jman]

I am using Blender 2.49a with Python 2.6. I don't seem to be able to remove all of the Scenes from my Blender interface though, the last one left just wont delete. I just tried to import Descent into an empty Blender project. It took 140seconds to do the import and after the import I now had a new scene called dsntTreasureBookShaft with a single object on it called WatsonJournalCover; my default Scene now appears to have objects on Layers 2 and 3, but when I go there I can't see any objects; and finally there are now Book, init and AlcScript text files in the project. I don't get any errors in the console and I still see no meshes or anything on any of the Scenes or Layers.

I really want to get this to work so I can take a look at how Cyan made their worlds. I keep running into the 'Material has too many vertices' error when I'm trying to export my Age. I want to take a look at how Cyan and others made their's work.

Thanks.

[kaelisebonrai]

for the importer, you need to use blender 2.45. =)

It does not work in later versions of blender. =)

EDIT: you /also/ need python 2.5 and versions of all the other stuff that use python 2.5 =) (python 2.6 and 2.5 are not compatible../)

EDIT2: Also, which importer are you using? http://www.thedeepcity.bplaced.net/PRPImporter.zip <-- if you're not using the one listed as "earlier stable version" use this one.

[I.Brattin]

It does work in later versions of Blender. I have used it with Blender 2.49

[dendwaler]

It took 140seconds to do the import and after the import I now had a new scene called dsntTreasureBookShaft with a single object on it called WatsonJournalCover;

Please look again after importing the descent, and after importing it choose the scene called dsntreasurebookshaft on the pulldown menu upside of your screen.
now zoom out very, very far with the "minus "key of your numeric keypad.
The descent is placed far from center of the "world" so you won't see it at first!
suddenly it appears but very small, zoom it in again while keeping it in view.
In the outliner window you can see the watsonbook in the scenery called "scene" which is the wrong one.
Click in the outliner window on the scene called dsntreaurebookshaft and a whole list opens with all the objects.
Click on one of those objects to activate it.
Place your mouse cursur in any 3d window.
click on the forward slash of your numeric keypad.
this takes the object locally and zoomed in!.
It is a toggle type of switch , when you toggle again your are back into your scenery and you can choose any other object or group of objects.

I am afraid you did just not look far enough, i expect this will help.

[Aloys]

Alternatively when you have an object selected (through the outliner in this vase) hit the 'Del' key on the numpad, it will zoom on the object. Whenever I import an Age I select everything ('A') and then hit 'Del' it allows me to see all of the Age.

[Jman]

Ok, I tried the suggestions above and the results I've gotten have led me to believe that something is not importing properly. I checked the Outliner window and found 5 objects on the dsntTreasureBookShaft scene. But once I selected these objects and zoomed in on them I found that they were just these relatively small planes which made up a small section of a larger cylinder.

I am going to try importing an Age which I created, but I doubt I will get any different results. It looks like I may have to try to dig up all the old Python Plugins that the old version of PyPRP needs to try it in Blender 2.45.

Jman

[dendwaler]

thats definitily needed.!
Install 2.45, python (python-2.5.4.msi)
PIL-1.1.6.win32-py2.5
and
PyYAML-3.09.win32-py2.5
Install the 2.45 local., with the .blender dir and import scripts inside the main dir.
you can have more installations in the same time in that way.
I use all three beside each other, 2.45, 2.49b and 2.5 alpha2
import with 2.45 and save again as blend file.
you can now open the blend file in 2.49 or 2.5.
i build in 2.5 but export the saved blend file in 2.49b.
for me 2.5 has some advantages with texturing.
for instance uv map copiing to equal objects.

[Jman]

GAH! I think I'm an idiot, I just tried to import Descent again in Blender 2.45 and noticed in the Outliner Window that it has no scroll bar (which I was looking for in order to see more elements). I used Page Up/Down to scroll around in there and found the rest of the shapes that make up the Age. I haven't tried again in Blender 2.49, but I'm expecting that its going to have the same result.

Thanks for all your help guys, I really appreciate it.