BRender Tutorial Guide:8 BRender Tools :3DS2BR
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3DS2BR


3DS2BR is a DOS command line tool for converting Autodesk 3D Studio (3DS) models to one or more BRender format files.

3DS2BR interprets the information in the .3ds file and converts it to its nearest BRender equivalent. Depending on which command line options are specified, it will generate one or more of the following files:

Command line format: 3DS2BR 3ds_file.3ds {options} where:
3ds_file.3ds is the 3D Studio Binary file you wish to convert.

3DS2BR command line options are listed below:

The -mod option extracts mesh information describing 3DS model geometry, and stores it in the specified binary file. The -mat option extracts material description information, and stores it as a binary file. The -act option extracts the 3DS actor hierarchy. The -log option stores conversion information in a text file. The -scr option extracts material description information and stores it in a BRender material script file (a text file).

You can specify any, or a combination, of the above options. For example, if you are only interested in importing the mesh data describing model geometry, use the -mod option:

	3DS2BR 3ds_file.3ds -mod model_file.dat
This command line saves the converted mesh data in model_file.dat. Models stored as .dat files can be loaded into BRender programs using
BrModeLoad/Many.

Command line options can also be read from a file. The following command line performs a full conversion, generating and saving all five BRender format files, while displaying warning and information messages:

	3DS2BR 3ds_file.3ds @options -v
where the options file contains the following lines:

	-mod	 		model_file.dat
	-mat	 		material_file.mat
	-act	 		actor_file.act
	-log 			log_file.log
	-scr			mat_script_file.mat
Note that the above extensions are adopted by convention, and are not obligatory.

If you want to convert a hierarchical 3DS model and use it directly in BRender, use the -act and -mod options. For example, suppose a hierarchical model of a human body was contained in the file person.3ds:

	3DS2BR person.3ds -act person.act -mod person.dat
would create a file person.dat containing the models defined in person.3ds, and a file person.act defining the hierarchical relationships between these models. The 3DS hierarchy could be reproduced in BRender by loading and registering the converted models,

	no_of_models = BrModelLoadMany("person.dat", * model_array, max_no);
	               BrModelAddMany(* model_array,no_of_models);
	root_actor = BrActorLoad("person.act");
If you don't wish to retain an actor hierarchy, you can collapse the contents of a .dat file containing multiple models into a single model (using GEOCONV's -m option). In this case you should specify the -nomatrix option when converting model data using 3DS2BR. This model can then be loaded using BrModelLoad.

Options in this file can be separated by any whitespace characters. Lines in this file are limited to 255 characters.

Examples illustrating the use of 3DS2BR are given later in this chapter.


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