Importing/Converting Files to a egg?

General Discussion
1

I just downloaded the program and havent messed with alota the coding yet, just reading on and on. If I am correct, the native format of like graphics (models/maps/ect) are egg files. Since the program dosent have a GUI Based editor for making maps for example, I was wodnering how can I convert maps?
We have been using TerraGen (planetside.co.uk/) on all of maps since we started making games it seems like, its native format is a .ter file. While it does have Exports to like a Intel 16bit raw format, it dosent seem to be what we like to do for the reason once you save it you cant re open it that way again lol

Its a kinda odd ball setup but the maps it makes are awsome once you get used to its program. We also have used a program call Terrain Creator from PnP (pnp-terraincreator.com/)
This isnt no where near as high quality maps as the other one, but we do use it on out more anime/kid style programs. IE not games for kids but games that look like cartoons instead of all realistic.

If these cant put a file into a panda format, then any suggestions as to what terrain maker/editor/generator we can use?

Another thing we are trying to figure out and I would assume it does, but figure since on here I would double check :stuck_out_tongue:

Since it allows all kinds of scripting to be done in python, im not a python coder myself, I do C/C++ and some C##
In all of those, the game client/user cannot view/edit the way things work since its compiled to computer code. Is Python going to stay text format, or does it get compiled as well?
We are presently using a MMORPG Engine called Realm Crafter, its more or less time we just start looking for something that is alittle more upto date without forcing mega update. Thier new software more or less forcing users to have a state of the art gamming system is not for us, so we are trying to keep our coustomers with older or newer and non expensive systems. We have been working on a MMORPG all the way for awhile now, but we have all been using GUIs for everything upfront, then get into code and fine tune it all. So Im sorry if these are dumb questions, but going from a GUI world to a TEXT world is a big diffrence lol

THank you for your time

2

if you have a terragen terrain you can either convert it into some image (like a .png image) and load it using the geomipterrain (which will create a special terrain-node based on your heighfield. or you export the terragen files to blender and use the chicken exporter to save it as egg.
both ways have pros and cons.

as you pointed out panda has no buildin scene-editor for now, thought it’s under development but not to be released anytime soon. for now you can use any editor you want, like blender, max , maya etc to do the job. or you write your own small editor in panda to place objects.

if you are a c/c++ coder learning python should be a matter of hours. in worst case a few days. but even if you totaly refuse to, you can still use panda with c++ only, thought it’s not recommended since the entire engine is designed to be used with python, same goes for the documentaion and examples.

about panda’s system requirements. well in short. if it has a cpu, it will run panda. panda itself is not demanding, it can run even without a gpu or even monitor. though it’s highly recommended to have at least some 3d-accelerating hardware and a screen attached to it. if you make full use of panda’s capabilities and all it’s methods for optimizing performance you can have a superb looking game on high-end machine, and, at the same time, the same game runs on 10 year old machines at lower detailed level. (i use panda myself on a 10year old machine with 16mb texuture memory. it works well for not-so-complex-grafics ) a 800mhz system with 256mb ram and a geforce2 gpu is already enough to draw some pretty scenes onto the screen.

3

well, I managed to after alota trial and error convert my terrain maps to a DirectX text mode and import it, I tried over and over with LWO and after 20 diffrent conversions from diffrent runs, I can always preview the LWO in Blender or my conveter program, but the included program for converting LWO to egg cant read it, and the pview program also wont load it. So now I have a HUGE (almost 50MB map file) and I dont have the textures :frowning: it took me forever to get the raw texture files from the terragen program to come out on the other programs so now I need to relearn how to do it on this one lol

As for the power, I will admit even loading that dorectx file surprised me. Im on a laptop, and thier is no upgrade option on this model for a good video card so has the built on sharded memory intel media accelerator 4500mhd, I have 4GB ram but on WindowsXP now so only more like 2.5GB, Dual Core, but its laptop so its slower then it should be, and even loading that almost 50MB File took very little time compared to what I was expecting it to do.
Im trying to learn how this one program I have downloaded works since its a Python Script for blender, and not a blender script file, but its supposed to export the terrain from a TGA file I make from a screenshot of the rendered terrain in the generator. Hopefully when I get that figured out I can get at least a map running lol.

While Im sure Python wont be hard to learn, I think most of the stuff I will just do in C++ where possible, might do python first for testing things, then code it into c++ since thats what im used to doing. Also since all the old programs we made have so many things running in c++ already in the long term i think easier to just import them as is and modify then to rewrite in python scripts lol

for example we took about 3 months to write a new leveling program so when a player levels up its not like a normal game where you get “stats”
Instead we use a Skill based leveling system, so you can level your selg based on what you do so you get more proficient at what you do most, but cant ever “master” everything

One of the reasons I did love realm creator was the built in faction system, but I guess I will just have to make one for panda3d instead.

So far this is just a trial run, playing with it seeing if its a good or bad option for what we are attempting

The lack of a GUI, while used to always using it, dosent bother me as much, since thier are TONS of them out thier already. Such as them terrain generator programs. Just learning what formats work best for what conversions and making everything work together is a little hard, but once its done you know how to do it on all your other runs.

On most of our games in the past our players made most of the stuff anyways. Like the maps we almost always put a link to these map maker/generators in the forums and say make away, we get alota players that love to make thier own areas so they fell more like part of the team anyways.

We are working on attempting to make our first mega mmorpg. We have made about 5 so far but all small scale and just for trying things. The realm craftor made making the thing easy, but then its server is so buggy you can make a few maps quests all the settings in like a week or two, but then spend a few months tracking bugs in the server.
I learned about this and was interested because its one free, im tired of buying stuff over and over again, and it has a engine that has been used on mmorpgs before on a commercial level such as toontown. That to me was enough reason to give this alota thought on learning.
How hard it will be to accualy make a mmorpg without the predone scripts I dont know lol never made one but its nice to know its been done :slight_smile:

Welp im back to trying to convert raw to usable textures lol
have fun and thanks for your reply :slight_smile:

4

you’ve made 5 mmorpg’s so far? any links? downloads? how many players did you handle at max? cause per definition it’s a bit crazy to make a mega mmorpg. which would propably be named mmmorpg. most people coming to this forum talking about mmorpg’s actually intend to create morpg’s. so i’m a bit curious what you managed to do so far.

well for exporting. i think there is some blender script to directly read .ter files (not 100% sure), that might be the one you already have.
and btw. i think blender scripts are all written in python.
. once in blender use chicken to export it into egg. if the files are very large you might want to convert it into a .bam file. (which is like the egg but binary instead of human-readable). bam files are a lot more efficient and load many times faster than egg’s. but they are not compatible across panda versions, so you should always keep an egg file as backup somewhere.
another way to get your terrain into panda is to simply screenshot your heighfield in the preview window of terragen, use an image editor to cut out the image region, save it, and use geomipterrain (it’s only 8bit,thought).
if you prefer to work with raw images: in case you know the raw-file specifications you can implement a raw reader in panda,too. shouldnt be that hard. once you have your hands on the raw data simply write it into a pnmimage. which you can then feed to geomipterrain.