trueSpace Geometry Import Converter
This is a highly accurate geometry import converter that reads in Caligari trueSpace æ.cobÆ and æ.scnÆ binary scene files. This is a "load and render" converter that imports and translates all aspects of the scene file so that little or no modifications must be done in the target rendering program to produce equivalent results to that created by the trueSpace renderer.
The following are some of the features of this converter:
- All geometry is read in including the local axes and all material assignments.
- Holes within polygons are also properly converted into NuGraf compatible meshed polygons with holes.
- All (u,v) texture coordinates are read in and stored along with the meshed polygon data.
- All three polygon faceting modes are properly handled: faceted, autofacet and smooth. This allows proper smoothing of the data as per the Caligari trueSpace smoothing conventions.
- The original scene hierarchy is completely recreated, including all groupings and their related transformations.
- The directional, point and spot light sources are properly imported as well as the light color and shadow mapping parameters.
In addition, this converter reads in *every* material attribute and accurately translates the shading parameters to equivalent NuGraf shading parameters. The NuGraf renderer will be able to render any trueSpace file with little or no modification with results that are almost exactly the same as within trueSpace. The following describes some of the shading parameter translations:
- Flat, smooth and metal shading modes are translated properly.
- The æmetalÆ shading mode properly takes into account the edge transparency dropoff.
- The æshininessÆ parameter is properly decoded into three NuGraf shading parameters of diffuse, specular and ray-traced shininess. This decoding is quite important to properly recreate trueSpace scenes.
- Cubic and spherical environment map are translated into equivalent NuGraf environment map types.
- Texture maps are properly translated, as well as the image filename, the u/v scaling factors and the u/v offset values.
- Likewise, the bump map textures and all of its related parameters are properly translated.