MDB to FBX, FBX to MDB converter

[FreshLook]

Hi.

 

Do you think a MDB to FBX and FBX to MDB converter would be useful to the NWN2 community? The idea is this:

 

1) Convert MDB to FBX.

2) Import the FBX into your preferred computer graphics program (Blender, Maya, 3dsmax, ...).

3) Edit the model or create a new one.

4) Export to FBX.

5) Convert FBX to MDB.

 

I started to develop a MDB to FBX converter and I got this:

 

1) Converted PLC_MC_BARREL01.MDB to PLC_MC_BARREL01.fbx

2) Imported the FBX into Blender

 

http://i.imgur.com/KXNDi1n.jpg

[FreshLook]

Oh well, nobody seems to be interested. I will continue for fun and post progress here in case someone is interested in the future.

 

Added importing of COL2 and COL3 meshes. Now I will add importing of skins. I think the skeletons and animations are in GR2 files.

[Semp3r]

i am very interested in this! would also be amazing if there's a functional animation im- and exporter for blender. dunno if it's possible, but it would greatly enhance the rather tiny custom content community around nwn2. especially creature rigs and/or animations are almost impossible to create, because the whole pipeline is based on 3dsmax 6-8.

Edited February 3, 2017 by Semp3r

[4760]

I think the skeletons and animations are in GR2 files.

That's right. But the gr2 animations are protected. Like Semp3r, I'd be delighted if you find out how to import the animations.

And it's not that nobody's interested, it's rather there aren't so many still modding NWN2!

Edited February 3, 2017 by 4760

[FreshLook]

Added importing skins:

 

http://i.imgur.com/XZ7z9tF.jpg

 

 

I think the skeletons and animations are in GR2 files.

That's right. But the gr2 animations are protected. Like Semp3r, I'd be delighted if you find out how to import the animations.

And it's not that nobody's interested, it's rather there aren't so many still modding NWN2!

 

 

I've started to investigate the gr2 files. I think they are compressed using Oodle. Guess that's why you say they're protected? As far as I now, nobody has reverse engineered this algorithm and the only way to decompress them is using the granny2.dll library.

[4760]

Guess that's why you say they're protected?

 

Exactly.

[FreshLook]

I've looked at the source code of the 3ds Max MDB Importer/Exporter by Tazpn. What it does is call GrannyConvertFileToRaw from granny2.dll and then parses the raw data. There is source code to parse animation data, but I don't know if it's complete or used. Does anyone know if Tazpn's plugin imports animations? Or does it only imports skeletons?

Edited February 5, 2017 by FreshLook

[4760]

As far as I know, it only imports skeletons. I checked if anybody found a way to get the animations too (this forum looked promising), but it appears the Oodle compression prevented it.

[FreshLook]

I've managed to get all the information of a skeleton from a gr2 file.

 

http://i.imgur.com/hGwLtbV.png

 

This is not yet a skeleton in Blender, but it was the easiest way to verify that I understood the data. A gr2 skeleton doesn't map easily to a Blender skeleton because a gr2 skeleton is joint-based while a Blender skeleton is bone-based, but I'm getting there.

 

There's also a lot of data in a gr2 skeleton that I see no use in importing it: mass, elasticity, friction, ... I don't kown if NWN2 uses this data. It'll be important to know when exporting a skeleton to gr2.

[Semp3r]

looks promising. imo i don't think that nwn2 uses all the data stored. that should be a left over from the rad game tool which can be used in combination with physics middleware.