Summary
OGRE (Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine) is a
scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine written in C++ designed to make it
easier and more intuitive for developers to produce games and demos
utilising 3D hardware. The class library abstracts all the details of
using the underlying system libraries like Direct3D and OpenGL and
provides an interface based on world objects and other intuitive
classes.
This distribution contains the bare files required to export OGRE
.mesh files from SoftImage|XSI 4.2.
How to Install
If you are using the installer, you don't need to do anything except
to run it and point it at your XSI folder. If you're installing from
source, you need to do the following:
- copy devil.dll, ilu.dll, ilut.dll and zlib1.dll into
$(XSI_ROOT)\Application\bin, or make sure they are somewhere on your
path
- copy OgreMain.dll (and OgreMain_d.dll if you wish to use the
debug version anytime) into $(XSI_ROOT)\Application\bin
- copy OgreXSIExporter.dll into $(XSI_ROOT)\Application\plugins
How to Use
It's a simple case of selecting the objects you wish to export, and
clicking File > Export > OGRE Mesh / Skeleton... to bring up the
OGRE export dialog.
The following features are supported:
- Exporting selected PolygonMesh objects direct to the OGRE binary
.mesh format
- Exports vertex position, normals, multiple UV sets and vertex
colours
- Polygon clusters used to change materials in a single PolygonMes
are exported as separate SubMeshes
- By default, separate PolygonMesh objects which use the same
material are merged for efficiency
- Mesh vertices are index-organised for efficiency
- Exporting of up to 4 weighted bone assignments per vertex
- Generation of edge lists, tangent vectors, and LOD levels during
export (optional)
- Exporting of deformers (bone chains, nulls used as deformers)
direct to binary .skeleton format
- Exporting of one or more ActionSources as animations
Important modelling / animating considerations:
- The exporter only exports PolygonMesh objects, so if you work
with higher-order surfaces like NURBS you must create a PolygonMesh
object from these surfaces before exporting
- The exporter writes a single .mesh at a time and combines all the
objects selected (and their children, if you select that option)
- All global modelling coordinates are preserved, so the origin of
your resulting .mesh will be where the world origin is in XSI
- Animations must be stored in ActionSource instances (Animate >
Actions > Store) to be exported. Any work-in-progress animation will
not be picked up
- OGRE supports forward kinematics (FK) animation only; thus, if
you use inverse kinematics (IK) to define your animations you must
define separate FK ActionSources for each one:
- Make sure your IK animations are stored in ActionSources
- Drag an IK Action from the explorer (8) to the animation mixer
(ALT-0) at frame 1
- Select all your bones and define a marking set (probably just
the rotation elements)
- Move the timeline along from frame 1 to the end of your
animation, keyframing the marking set at a frequency which reflects the
needs of the animation; you will probably need more keyframes for FK
than IK.
- If you like, you can keyframe different sets of bones at
different frequencies, if you need to tweak things
- Store these new keyframes in a new ActionSource, e.g.
FK<animation>
- When you export, choose to export just the FK version of the
animation, not your original IK animation
Reporting Issues
Please report any issues with the exporter in the OGRE Forums.