Copyright: Copyright (c) 1995 Okino Computer Graphics, Inc.


Lightwave Geometry Import Converter
Alias Triangle Geometry Import Converter

This geometry import converter reads in Alias Research triangle binary files which can be output from Alias Power Animator/Studio/AutoStudio/Designer. These files basically just contain raw geometry data in triangular format with normals/colors/texture-uv coordinates per vertex. In addition the file contains the texture filename associated with each polygon and the structure of the file describes the hierarchy of the original scene.

To output a triangle file from Alias click on File/Triangles/Options from the Alias menu and select Separators = on then click on Go.

NOTES:

1.	You must manually add the .tri extension to the end of these Alias files since Alias does not append this extension automatically.

2.	When Alias outputs the NURB surfaces to the triangle file it subdivides the NURB patches into polygons. The level of subdivision is set by the environment variables TRI_OUTPUT. This should be set on the UNIX command line before entering Alias. For example: setenv TRI_OUTPUT 32 produces a highly tessellated triangle mesh. Higher numbers produce more polygons.

3.	These triangle output format is a poor mans method of exporting geometry from Alias. The preferred technique is via SDL or the wire format. However, wire format is not publicly documented and the SDL format is complex to parse (due to the animation curves and NURB trimming curves).

4.	Triangle format files contain vertex location, normal, color and texture u/v data for each vertex. In addition the file format describes the texture filename associated with each triangle.

CONVERTER OPTIONS:

The following information explains the various options on the dialog box:

Output Verbose Parsing About the Files Contents

If this checkbox is enabled then the input filter will print out verbose information about the Alias geometry file as it is being parsed.

Describe Object Names. Do Not Load Any Data.

If this checkbox is enabled then the input filter will print out the names of the objects within the Alias file. No data will be loaded in.