[Spuddy2000]

I know this has no real use now everybody knows how to model in TS & 3DS MAX and convert to POF files but I am trying to collect all tools for FS1 & 2 so they are not lost forever. Anyway enough of my rambling.....
Downloaded attached files from http://descent3.com/4_downloads.html a few days ago.
Dont bother now the site seems dead!!.
[There is a version for MAX3 but will bust the 512k limit of this post will send if anybody interested]
Inside the archive is I believe the ORIGINAL .3pd models exporter for 3DS MAX and a version of POFGen to BSP the models.
Running the POFgen program in a shell give me this info....
BSPGEN v23.00 - Compiled on Jan 31 1999 at 13:29:32
Copyright Parallax Software Corporation, 1994-1997.  All rights reserved.

Now we can create and BSP the models just the way Volition did or so I thought!!
Then I tried to BSP a .3pd file from the original Freespace VP (volition included the .3pd files in the VP by mistake)
however the BSP started well enough.....

Using verbose level 1
Input file is 'capital04.p3d'
Output file is 'capital04.pof'
Scale factor is 0.02540000
Verbose is 1
Do object number -1
Reading objects from capital04.p3d...Defining material capital04-01a
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 3 has texture 'capital04-01a.tga' which is texture 0.
Defining material capital04-02a
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 4 has texture 'capital04-02a.tga' which is texture 1.
Defining material capital04-03a
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 5 has texture 'capital04-03a.tga' which is texture 2.
Defining material capital04-04a
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 6 has texture 'capital04-04a.tga' which is texture 3.
Defining material Matl
Material has color (255,234,0)
Material 7 has texture 'invisible.tga' which is texture 4.
Defining material Matl  1
Material has color (178,178,178)
Defining material Subsystems
Material has color (252,255,0)
Defining material Subsystems  1
Material has color (252,255,0)
Defining material capital04-01b
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 11 has texture 'capital04-01b.tga' which is texture 5.
Defining material capital04-02b
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 12 has texture 'capital04-02b.tga' which is texture 6.
Defining material capital04-03b
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 13 has texture 'capital04-03b.tga' which is texture 7.
Defining material capital04-04b
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 14 has texture 'capital04-04b.tga' which is texture 8.
Defining material capital04-05b
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 15 has texture 'capital04-05b.tga' which is texture 9.
Defining material Matl  2
Material has color (178,178,178)
Defining material capital04-Low
Material has color (178,178,178)
Material 17 has texture 'capital04-01c.tga' which is texture 10.
Starting object 0, capital04a
Starting 393 vertices
Vertex 0 = {2908.02, -25804.64, 5891.86 }
Vertex 1 = {2908.02, -24771.08, 7394.92 }

.....and so on through the geometry.
However POFgen stalled whilst trying this....

Object 8 '$sensors''s geometric center is at -2614.23, -544.06, 42686.41
Starting 12 faces
Face = {0, 2, 3, 6}
Face = {3, 1, 0, 6}
Face = {4, 5, 7, 6}
Face = {7, 6, 4, 6}
Face = {0, 1, 5, 6}
Face = {5, 4, 0, 6}
Face = {1, 3, 7, 6}
Face = {7, 5, 1, 6}
Face = {3, 2, 6, 6}
Face = {6, 7, 3, 6}
Face = {2, 0, 4, 6}
Face = {4, 6, 2, 6}
Done with faces
Couldn't get mem for spline paths!

BAH!!

It seems this BSPgen file if for creating Outrage .OOF format and not volition's .POF format.
I believe the file to create .POF files is v19 or v21

Anyway an interesting bit of history!!!

Have fun exporting useless .p3d files!!! Unless you want to make .oof files for descent3!!



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[Nuke]

those are the tools i was trying to get work for some descent 3 thing i was working on. i never quite got them to work. though its most likely a fork off of the code paralax wrote to convert models for descent. so this tool is most likely based off the same source ad the descent 2 pm converter. that means it was developed in paralell to the pofgen util that v used. iirc daveb or some other volitionite used to talk of how crappy the pofgen code was and that debugging it was a typical punishment for when a dev pissed of their boss

[Bobboau]

I still wish we could get the source to BSPGEN, it was the only tool we didn't get, and it had the MOI calculations in it.

[Spuddy2000]

I still wish we could get the source to BSPGEN, it was the only tool we didn't get, and it had the MOI calculations in it.

I remember on the old Volition boards someone called John 'Silverthorn' Hanton asking Volition about the tools they said no then.

Has anybody tried to ask Volition now for the BSPtool & source?
As the tool is over 8 years old I dont think there is any reason not to give it away!!

I'll try if noone wants to......

[Flipside]

I wrote about 3-4 years ago, but no response, but FS2 wasn't out of the 'possible sequel?' stage by then.

[Spuddy2000]

I wrote about 3-4 years ago, but no response, but FS2 wasn't out of the 'possible sequel?' stage by then.

Who did you write to in Volition?

[Flipside]

I simply used the standard contact address from the site, it was still up and running then

[Nuke]

i remember asking for the tools a couple times on the old vbb, then again so did everyone else who was intrested in modding at the time.

[Bobboau]

I don't get why they didn't include it with the FS2 source.

[Spuddy2000]

Have just e-mailed Dave Baranec @ about BSPGen on HLP's behalf to try and obtain BSPGen & source.
He was with Parralax Software Inc. and is still at

Probability of answer <1% but you never know.

If you dont ask you dont get!!!!

Used HLP's name because I believe the Forum carries more weight than me!!

[Bobboau]

I don't like pestering those guys with every little thing, they have lives, and deadlines.

[chief1983]

True, but at least one of them had the time to help remaster the audio tracks, and I bet they understand how big a pain MOI can be.

[Bobboau]

it's quite possible they used some extremely simple approximation, or did something that would make the math faster.

[StratComm]

Such as, say, MOI on the bounding box?

[Spuddy2000]

I don't like pestering those guys with every little thing, they have lives, and deadlines.

I understand your concerns Bobboau and I'm not the kind of person to just hassle game programmers without a good reason.
I explained why I was contacting Dave directly and will not bother them again about such requests.
But we are ultimately customers, (yes I actually brought Freespace 1 & 2 and Red Faction 1 & 2) & without us they would not be able to create more great games for the future!!

Anyway apologies if I have tread on anybodys toes!!

Back to more interesting things!!

Such as, say, MOI on the bounding box?

Interesting theory!! I did some work on MOI for engine crankshaft damper out-of-balance tests about 12 years ago.
I'll go and hunt down my old calcs and see what I can dig up (if I havent thrown them away!!). 

[Spuddy2000]

Such as, say, MOI on the bounding box?

Interesting theory!! I did some work on MOI for engine crankshaft damper out-of-balance tests about 12 years ago.
I'll go and hunt down my old calcs and see what I can dig up (if I havent thrown them away!!). 

Rewind and ignore..... Having seen the amount of previous posts on MOI calcs I'm NOT going there!!
I promise I will read all the 928,863 other posts before replying in the future. Goes on holiday.........