TPDC Readme

TRESPASSER DINOSAUR CREATOR

Version 0.2.7
Licence: MIT (modified)
Created by Martijn Buijs, 2005

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Version History
3. Quick-Guide
4. F.A.Q.
5. Bug Reporting / Contact
6. Copyright Notice

Trespasser Dinosaur Creator (TPDC) is a tool you can use to create custom dinosaurs for the game 'Trespasser' by DreamWorks Interactive. It does not allow you to model or modify geometry in any way, it only takes care of the elements that make the creatures work, skin vertex weighting in particular.

TPDC uses the TPM (Trespasser Models) format, which is supported by Andres' TresEd and GeomAdd. The latter is required to import the .tpm files created with TPDC into Trespasser's levels.

You can download GeomAdd at: http://www.geocities.com/andres_james/TresView/

A MaxScript to export models from 3DSMAX or GMAX to the TPM format is available on my personal website (www.bytehazard.com) as well as a few tutorials for TPDC.

For further information on TPDC, GeomAdd and other tools visit www.trescom.org. More in-depth details and hints can be found on the TresCom Wiki.

2. Version History

Versions without the "BETA" tag are considdered "stable", but by no means bug-free.

0.2.7

now released under modified MIT licence
no other changes since 0.2.6 BETA

0.2.6 BETA

fixed saved weights file corruption
added "unassign all" prompt when "unassign" button is clicked and no bone is selected
fixed weight mirroring bug
added weight mirroring re-assign/un-assign options
decreased default weight mirroring thresholds
fixed "Bone Alias Names" menu option toggle bug
bone alias names are now working when file is loaded via command line argument
bone alias names are now working after using the "New Dinosaur" wizard
textures with absolute file paths are now loaded properly
added file drag-and-drop loading
added mouse wheel zooming
added middle mouse button panning

0.2.5 BETA

greatly improved performance, no longer uses 100% CPU when TPDC has focus
fixed viewport redraw when windows overlapped
fixed arbitrary crash when selecting vertex
fixed minor bone rendering glitch when no skin was selected
clicking cancel on revert confirmation dialog now works properly
it is now possible to run multiple instances of TPDC
info log window will now automaticly hide when TPDC is minimized
added file menu keyboard shortcut (New, Open, Save, Revert, Exit)
changed view option "unlit" to "lighting" (functionality is now reversed)
minor view menu reorganization
removed frame counter, no longer applies
removed 16-bit display warning, no longer applies

0.2.4

fixed crash when vertex normals were toggled while no skin/shadow mesh was selected
added alias files for all dinos of retail game version (thanks to Machf)
now automaticly selects the only mesh in the file as skin
re-enabled normal generation enhancement

0.2.3 BETA

fixed vertex normal rendering bug and crash
fixed crash when loading file through command line if file path contained spaces
added viewport camera label
added vertex normal rendering
added display of assigned number of vertices of selected bone in status bar
added file revert, reloads opened files
pressing W now toggles wireframe view mode (solid view mode keyboard shortcut removed)
improved vertex normal generation (weighted average by face surface area and angle)
increased near and far clipping planes
vertex culling is fully functional again, including keyboard shortcut

0.2.2 BETA

added "Swap" button, swaps the weights of two bones
added "Mirror" button, mirrors weights from one side to the other
added "Mirror Vertex Threshold" option, controls weight mirroring accuracy
added "Auto-Assign Weights" tool, automaticly assigns unassigned vertices to the closest bone
added bone alias names
added bone rendering (requires custom or standard .alias file)
added workaround for corrupted 8-bit BMPs saved with Microsoft Paint (see FAQ for details)
added non-power of two texture dimension warning
fixed bug allowing vertex selection while in view mode
fixed buggy selection behaviour (now works with 16-bit display color depth)
fixed minor GUI style problems
fixed minor selection bug when right-clicking after dragging with pan tool
fixed anti-aliased iso lines problem caused by inconsistent driver implementations
renamed "Error Log" to "Info Log"
removed double vertex options, no longer necessary with new selection mechanism
shadow bones are now hidden in skin mode, skin bones hidden in shadow mode
keyboard shortcuts are more responsive (viewport doesn't have to be 'selected' anymore)
vertices obscured by other vertices within the selection rectangle are now selected when vertex culling is disabled
improved performance on fillrate limited graphics cards (such as GeForce3 class and older)
vertex culling is not functional in this release and is disabled

0.2.1

fixed selection rectangle flicker
fixed crash when clicking the "Re-assign" button when no bones were loaded
added "Anti-Aliased Points/Lines" option (turn this off on older cards for better performance)
added "Filter/Mipmap Texture" option
added color depth warning shown if the display depth is lower than 16-bit (which breaks viewport selection)
added support for Weights Information Files (.wif) saved in previous versions of TPDC
removed opengl32.dll from package (some systems fall back on software mode, instead of using the installed drivers, when the DLL is detected)

0.2.0

fixed a bug that could cause a mesh and vertices to become invisible
fixed double vertices selection (allowing 'hard edges' in meshes)
fixed a bug which caused wizard to skip mesh to skin conversion
fixed resource usage (no longer slows down other running software)
fixed a texture loading bug
added vertex culling, see updated quick quide
added multiple viewport camera views
added keyboard shortcuts, see quick guide
added loading/saving weight data (allows external model editing after rigging)
added show/hide textures
added isoline rendering
added point size option (affects vertices, bones and selection)
added 24-bit BMP loading
added "Unassign" button, erases vertex weights of selected bone
added "Re-assign" button, reassign vertices of current bone to other bone
added "Rename Mesh" tool
added "Normal Re-generation" tool
added "Double Vertex Threshold" option
unassigned vertices are now show in green
it is now possible to unassign vertices by selecting "NONE"
changed preset filename extension to avoid confusion
increased z-buffer accuracy
optimized mesh rendering
grids now adjust to match dinosaur scale

0.1.2 BETA

fixed save file bug, TPDC attempted to write mesh objects as skin objects while they weren't

0.1.1

fixed bug which occured when attempting to select a skin/shadow model before loading a file or creating a new file using the wizard
fixed the cancel button bug on the mesh list window
can now cancel the mesh/shadow model selection action by choosing "Cancel" (clicking "No" still assigns the model, but does not optimize it)
TPDC can now open files through the command line parameters, thus allowing you to associate .tpm files with the app
changed button caption "Visible Mesh" to "Skin Mesh" for consistency throughout the application and documentation

0.1.0

first beta test release
no known bugs

3. Quick-Guide

Important Notes

Do not attempt to save a file containing several dinosaurs or other objects, TPDC only saves the minimal objects required to make a single dino work.
Try to use the original dinosaurs as templates, replace the skin mesh (and optionally shadow mesh) with your own and go from there.
If TPDC for some reason crashes while saving a file it automatically leaves a backup or the original file with the extension ".old". Change that part of the filename to ".tpm" to recover it.
Always keep a backup of your files somewhere before you edit anything!
Experiment!

File Menu

new	creates a new dinosaur with the wizard
save	saves the currently open file
save as	saves the currently open file with a different filename
close	closes the currently open file
revert	reloads the currently open file
exit	exits TPDC

View Menu

camera	change the viewport camera view
wireframe	renders the model in wireframe mode
solid	renders the model in normal mode
textures	toggles texture rendering
unlit	toggles lighting, textures show their true color when disabled
backfaces	toggles backfaces, when enabled triangles facing away, works best in combination with wireframe mode
isolines	toggles face edge rendering
normals	toggles vertex normal vector rendering
cull vertices	hides vertices that are on the backsize of the model making selection and viewing a lot easier
grid	toggles grids

Tools Menu

rename dino	renames all elements of the creature to fit a new name
rename mesh	renames the selected mesh and it's associated instance
re-generate normals	regenerates the vertex normals of the selected mesh (use this to fix skin lighting problems)
auto-assign weights	automaticly assigns unassigned vertices to the closest bone
reload textures	refreshes all edited textures in the viewport
statistics	lists various statistics on the loaded data to the info log

Options Menu

disable bone alias names	uses the bone names as used internally in the game
mirror vertex threshold	controls accuracy of the mirror weights tool, increase value if it misses opposite vertices
mirror bone threshold	controls the accuracy of the mirror weights tool (only used when bone alias names are disabled or unavailable
point size	allows you to change the point size of vertices and bones
anti-aliased points/lines	enables/disables point and line smoothing in the viewport (disable for better performance on older hardware)
filter/mipmap textures	enables/disables texture mip-mapping filtering in the viewport

Window Menu

info log

opens the info log, when any errors occur they will be listed there as debug aid

Help Menu

readme	opens this very file in your webbrowser
opengl info	shows all known information about your graphics card
about	shows program version, it's creators name and contact information

Viewport

Interaction:
You can manipulate data by dragging or clicking in the viewport. When the select tool is active and you right-click anywhere in the viewport, the camera quickmenu shows up. When any other tool is selected and you right-click it'll switch to the selection tool.

Colors:

yellow dots	joints in the bones system
orange dots	selected joints
white dots	vertex assigned to bones that are not selected
red dots	vertex assigned to the selected bone
green dots	vertex not assigned to any bone
pink polygons	faces that do not have any materials assigned
yellow polygons	materials without textures or textures that did not load

Grids:
The grids is there for reference purposes only, and is placed at the world space origin. One grid equals 1 Trespasser Unit (which in turn equals about 1 meter).

Toolbar (bottom right)

select	you can select vertices in edit mode using this tool by clicking or dragging in the viewport
arc-rotate	rotate the view in the viewport position by dragging
pan	pan the view in the viewport
zoom	zoom in or out in the viewport

Viewing Tab (top right)

animation

this feature is currently disabled, will be enabled in the future to preview animations

Editing Tab (top right)

skin mesh	shows the visible dinosaur mesh
shadow mesh	shows the shadow mesh, usually a simplified version of the visible mesh which is used generate shadows in the game
active bone	list of bones (or actually, joints), assign vertices to selected bone by using the select tool
select skin mesh	select the mesh that will be visible in the game
select shadow mesh	select the mesh that will be used for shadows in the game
unassign	unassignes the vertices of the currently selected bone
re-assign	re-assign the vertices of the currently selected bone to another bone
load	load vertex weights from file
save	save vertex weights to file
normal	renders the model in normal mode
shaded	renders the model as selection highlights
both	renders the model with selection highlights on top

Keyboard Shortcuts

C	cycles camera views
P	switches to perspective view
F	switches to front view
B	switches to back view, press again to switch between back and bottom view
L	switches to left view
R	switches to right view
T	switches to top view
W	toggles to wireframe view mode
V	toggles vertex culling
1	switches to select tool
2	switches to arcrotate tool
3	switches to pan tool
4	switches to zoom tool

4. F.A.Q.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: I've imported my dinosaur into my level and now it crashes! What do I do?
A: This is likely to be a problem with the level itself. Use the "Verify Level" functionality in GeomAdd to locate the problem. If that doesn't help you solving the problem then visit our message board (http://forum.trescom.org).

Q: When I load my .tpm file the dinosaur is all yellow, why?
A: First of all, the textures must be in the same path as where the .tpm file is located. Second, the textures have to be of the right file format. Textures must be .bmp files, either 24-bit or 8-bit (256 colors). Opacity maps must be grayscale. Grayscale means that opacity maps are have a color palette with 256 colors ranging from black to white. Most applications have a functionality to save files like this (tested: Corel Photo Paint, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Photo Editor). Also, the .bmp files may not be compressed (i.e. RLE compression).

Q: TPDC says my textures are corrupted, but are displayed correctly. Why?
A: You saved 8-bit (256 color) bitmaps with Microsoft Paint, didn't you? This is due to a bug in Paint, but only seems to occur with 8-bit files. TPDC may catch this problem in some cases, but does not repair the files. Its highly recommended to resave the file in other software to avoid any other problems, for example when importing your creature into a level.

Q: What's the purpose of shadow meshes?
A: Shadow meshes are used to render the shadows in the game. Shadow meshes are usually simplified versions of the skin mesh, and because they are much simpler it requires less time to update the shadows resulting in higher framerates.
Not all original dinosaurs have shadow meshes, I haven't tried yet to add or remove or insert shadow meshes to these, you might want to experiment with them.
There's currently no function implemented in TPDC that allows you to add shadow meshes to dinosaurs without these (although it is possible to copy and paste data into the .tpm file).

Q: The application seems to be running extremely slow, why?
A: If the "Renderer" field on the "Help" > "OpenGL Info" window says something like "GDI Generic" then TPDC is running in software mode and isn't using your machine's graphics hardware. This can have several causes:

Your graphics card simply isn't fast enough (you might want to upgrade your hardware to at least GeForce 2 class or newer).
Windows or the display driver forces TPDC to fall back to software mode. Move the file "opengl32.dll", located in the TPDC executable folder, to the "c:\windows\" folder if you are running Windows 9x, or to "c:\windows\system32\" on Windows XP. Of course the drive letter ("c:" in this case) may vary.
The graphics card display drivers are not installed properly. Download a recent version from the manufacturers website (try http://www.nvidia.com, http://www.ati.com or search the web with Google in case you have a more exotic type of card).
Hardware acceleration is disabled in Windows. Refer to the Windows Help function on how to enable this.
Your graphics card does not support OpenGL. In this case there is nothing you can do other than replacing your graphics card with one that does.

Q: The textures on the dinosaur I created look different in the game. Why?
A: TPDC simulates the quality of the game in hardware mode. You might be running Trespasser in software mode. You can switch to hardware mode via the "Options" > "Video" > "Select new video driver" in the game.

Q: Vista won't let me run the application, can I make it work?
A: Vista is not tested or officially supported. You can try to run the program however with administrator rights. If you get any runtime library errors at startup, you will need to install the TPDC runtimes (you can get these at www.bytehazard.com). You must place these files in the Vista system directory. If you don't know exactly how to do all of this, please visit the TresCom Forums.

5. Bug Reporting / Contact

If you think you have found a bug in TPDC or have other issues with the software, contact me by e-mail (remdul AT trescom DOT org) or visit our forum:

http://forum.trescom.org

I cannot guarantee I will be able to reply to messages, but I will certainly read them.

6. Copyright Notice

TPDC was created by Martijn Buijs a.k.a. Remdul for TresCom, the Trespasser Gaming Community. TPDC is freeware, you may freely redistribute it. For new versions, check out http://www.trescom.org.

"Trespasser Dinosaur Creator" � 2005 TresCom

"Trespasser" Copyright � 1998 DreamWorks Interactive, LLC All rights reserved.