nangtani/blender-import-lwo

Addon not recognized by Blender 2.82a

joewilliamsen opened this issue · 16 comments

joewilliamsen commented

Hello!

I tried installing this addon in the usual way, and the components show up in my addons folder, but there is no apparent way of activating the addon in Blender - even after a restart of both Blender and my system.

The attached image shows that the addons list is missing the LWO i/o option, but the files appear to have been installed and are in the addons folder. I looked at the read me, but didn't see anything specific about installation "gotchas" - am I missing something?

Thanks for making this available - I'm an old time Lightwave user and would love to be able to bring my models into Blender :)

Thanks,

Joe
addon

douglaskastle commented

I see what you are doing wrong.

You are downloading the the whole git project, not the subpart, the addon.

I can see it where is says blender-import-lwo-master, what you need is either the subdirectory, io_scene_lwo or just download the release:

https://github.com/nangtani/blender-import-lwo/releases

And this is the zip file you can install through blender:

https://github.com/nangtani/blender-import-lwo/releases/download/v1.4.3/io_scene_lwo.zip

douglaskastle commented

README updated:

d373e76

joewilliamsen commented

Thanks very much for the quick response, Douglas. That fixed the issue of getting the addon installed. Sorry I missed that.

I have an interesting use case, however. I have an old LWO file that has materials/images, and I can't seem to figure out what directory structure the addon is looking for. It will report that it can't find the images, but when I navigate to the directory with images, it still claims it can't find them - the only option to get out of the loop is to Cancel, and the model doesn't import.

I've imported the LWO into Softimage and DeepExploration without a hitch (with textures), but for some reason it's not working in the addon. I've tried putting the image folder in the directory with the model, pulling the images out and locating them in the directory with the model, and a few other iterations - but I still get a rather long error string and end up having to cancel out. Is there a particular directory structure that the addon is looking for?. The file can be downloaded here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k4p4897315ycx9a/Violator.rar?dl=0

Thanks again for making this available. I hope I'm helping field test this - and not just being a pain in the butt ;)

Joe

Donald-Drennan commented
douglaskastle commented

@joewilliamsen Interesting let me look at it and get back to you, the error reported is weird.

These are exactly the type of use cases I have been missing to really enhance this plugin, so thanks for the field testing

douglaskastle commented

That lwo will import the image fine, you just have to do it twice, because images are spread over 2 directories

    "../../Images/Violator_Maps", 
    "../../Images/Reflection Maps",

It is half telling you that, but obviously not telling you very well, I'll see if I can improve that.

That's todays answer. However, i think the addon can be improved so that if one gives it the head of a tree it will recurse into it and search that way. So in this case you would only have to give it one it one path, ../../Images

However, this mesh has a skeleton in it. The currently released mesh doesn't support it well. I think I have it fixed in the next release already, let me confirm.

joewilliamsen commented

Joe, Try opening the LWO file in a text editor and reading the directory path listed there for the images, as it may be different from the current location. The path could either be relative or absolute. I don't know if this will help or not.
…
-Don

Hey Don,

Thanks for the suggestion - unfortunately most LWO files (that I know of) are binaries and are basically un-readable in text form. Otherwise a good thing to check (like in an .ma file :)

Thanks again,

Joe

Donald-Drennan commented
douglaskastle commented

@joewilliamsen

Try this release

https://github.com/nangtani/blender-import-lwo/releases/tag/v1.4.4

I have fixed the skeleton issue and also added recursion image search as a default, so in the case above you would only have to use this directory to satisfy the mesh.

"../../Images",
joewilliamsen commented

Sorry for the late reply - yesterday was crazy.

I tried that release, but it made me locate both directories just as before - strange. If I deleted the model and re-imported it, it would find the images no problem, though (I suppose they were loaded into the project now that I think about it).

One thing I think would help a lot is if the error message that was presented was more clear. Right now, the user is presented with this error:

Error

Which is hard to decipher. As a contrast, here is what Lightwave will present you with:

lw error

I don't know how easy that is to make happen, but telling the user what image is being searched for would be very helpful.

I also don't know how far you want to take the importer. It does bring in the model and bones and images - and maybe that's as far as you want to take it. Right now, however, it doesn't hook up any of the images to the shaders, and tends to load the same image multiple times (yet unhooked) in the materials.

material

It IS possible to import with at least basic maps connected. Deep Exploration has no problems bringing in a LWO with materials set up - but then, that's what it is for (conversions).

RH render

Anyway, thanks again for continuing to work on this. I think a lot of people will find it useful :)

Joe

Donald-Drennan commented
Donald-Drennan commented
douglaskastle commented

@joewilliamsen @Donald-Drennan

Hi guys

Great to see that you are interested in using the plugin

I hope to add all the things you are looking for. However I don't have a lot of free time, we have a new born baby in the house.

However this issue is being closed as the bug it is tracking is fixed.

I have opened other issues to track the problems you have flagged and you can find them all here:

#9
#13
#14

As to discussions, yes I would love to keep the discussion going. However a github issue is not the place to do it, especially one that is about to be closed. We should move this over to blenderartists.org. I know there is an existing post @Donald-Drennan and I are communicating on, but I think it deserves a new post tacking this addon separately. If we are lucky we will drag in other interested parties.

I will create that post tonight. Post it here and then close this issue.

douglaskastle commented

Actually created an issue for the post altogether: #15

Donald-Drennan commented
joewilliamsen commented

@Donald-Drennan - I'd be willing to help any way I can - you can contact me at joe@joewilliamsen.com

TBH, I haven't been using LW regularly for several years, but I do understand the frustration of going from a master to a noob when you step out of one package and into another ;) It takes a bit to get your head around how Blender works (and 2.8 has made this SO MUCH easier) - but I think you'll find it worthwhile.