Object Conversion Utility

Introduction

The Forester Object Converter is a utility for converting objects from other formats into a POV-Ray format suitable for use with Forester.

Currently it only reads the DirectX *.X file format. However there are a number of utilities available for converting into this format (See the Links page for examples).

Notes

• The Forester Object Converter requires DirectX v8 to be installed (Freely available from Microsoft)
• Please note that it is still very much in 'beta' stage and so is not completely finished. I have purposely uploaded this version 'AS IS' since I am anticipating that I will not have much time to work on it over the next month or two (other work commitments, holiday, etc!) Therefore please understand that it is not intended to be a finished/polished program, and may very well drive you mad if it doesn't seem to work correctly!
• Image texture support is limited - although it does convert and export the DirectX texture coordinates, it does not currently export POV-Ray texture mapping definitions (ie image_map{} statements) - you will need to add these manually.
• The DirectX texture definitions are not automatically linked to each object component (I think there may be a bug in DirectX8 or an incompatibility with VB5 - I have not been able to get it to work, even after a lot of testing). You will need to manually link each texture to each component.
• If you happen to have downloaded the free DirectX SDK from Microsoft (either v7 or v8), place a copy of the conv3DS.exe file into the Forester folder alongside the Object Converter. This will then appear as a further option on the File menu for automating the process of converting 3D Studio Max *.3ds files into DirectX *.X format (please note that for some reason some 3DS files do not convert very well using this utility). Note: I would upload the conv3DS.exe file to this site for downloading but I am unsure about Microsoft's licensing conditions so am not risking it!
• I do not own or have access to any of the major 3D graphics packages (eg: 3D Studio Max, Maya, LightWave, SoftImage, Cinema4D etc), so it has not been easy developing the Object Converter as I have only had files converted from the various freeware/shareware utilities and those obtained from the internet with which to test the program. The output from each utility seems to vary somewhat - therefore if you have trouble importing an X-file file converted with one utility, try if possible to use a different utility as this may quite possibly fix the problem.

Download

Download the beta version here (30kB). Extract the ObjectConverter.exe file into the main Forester installation folder. Double-click the file to start it (a future version of Forester will include a link to the Object Converter in the Tools menu).

User Guide

To follow... (eventually!)