Deus Ex to WebXR

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clintonman
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Deus Ex to WebXR

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The end goal is to recreate a Deus Ex map inside web based VR. I want to see what it looks and feels like to walk around in one of my old and favorite games from the past. The first 2 images are a screenshot from the game and below that the corresponding view inside trueSpace. These are just the boolean meshes used to create the map. The extra meshes, characters and lights will be imported later. After all the UVs are fixed.
FromGame.jpg
Image.jpg
FromGame2.jpg
Image2.jpg
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

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This video shows a time lapse of the import process. The importer reads in the meshes 1 by 1 and booleans the result together. There is no script access to the inner workings of booleans so the import script calls a third party program called AutoIt which is used to control the mouse and run the boolean tool for each imported mesh.


In this video I go in and fix some of the geometry. The import process isn't perfect and the single map mesh from the file is broken up into a few meshes inside trueSpace during the import process. Because of this the booleans get out of sync and need to be reapplied manually. The mesh had to be broken up on import because of performance issues. tS booleans get slow when the mesh has a lot of materials applied to it. So when it gets to a certain point it breaks off and starts a fresh mesh.


Here after fixing the geometry I take a test walk through the map using the trueSpace fps navigation to look for errors.

Originally, I was going to get the basic importer working in trueSpace then transfer it over Blender which is faster and can handle large numbers of materials better than trueSpace. The problem I ran into was that the Blender boolean modifier did not work as well as the trueSpace boolean tools. It can be done in Blender but it would require a lot more cleanup after the import.

Next step is to get the map as is into the Godot game engine and from there into WebXR for viewing on Google Cardboard or on a full on VR headest. The navigation and controls will use the limited cardboard VR.
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

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ColladaExportFailed.jpg
Exported the scene to collada and imported to godot - FAILED :(

Problem is with the modified tS Collada exporter. It's only exporting the first material of each mesh properly. Gotta fix the bug before moving on. I swear it was working a month ago. Hope it's an easy fix.
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

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ColladaExportFixed.jpg
Fixed! :D
And got a good looking import to the Godot game engine.

While fixing the exporter I did notice that the mesh names from the T3D import were not good for the modified collada exporter. It uses the default tS naming like "GSL, 2" and "BarSign_Bb, 5". The ", #" is difficult to match names while fixing the collada file. So a change will be needed for the T3D import to force it to create compatible names. It should be an easy fix. For now I just renamed them manually, changing ", #" to "_#" format.

Next up is adding the VR code to the Godot scene and exporting to an html5 web page for testing.
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

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Amazing! :bananacool2:
I wish I could Point Edit that FAST :shock:
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

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trueBlue wrote: 11 Nov 2021, 15:50 Amazing! :bananacool2:
I wish I could Point Edit that FAST :shock:
Thanks, :lol:
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

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PoolTable_Improved.jpg
Revisiting the old project. I got 2 major improvements going. The first is that the booleans have been improved and the second is that it reads the actual texture uv values instead of just assuming everything is box shaped. Image above shows the before and after for the pool table. With these changes there is a lot less mesh editing and uv fixing are required.
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

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I got all the changes implemented. The t3d importer was crash y, which made it difficult to load the deus ex t3d map file. I was able to solve the crash by having tS pause every 15 minutes and rest before continuing. I can load the map from above in about an hour with almost no cleanup needed. :D The map is small so it's a reasonable time. Another larger map took about 15 hours to load, but it did come in clean, with only a very small number of mesh errors. I could load the large map faster using the previous technique of loading in pieces. That large map would take hours to fix and combine the pieces, so I'll be happy to wait the 15 hours and let the computer do the work.
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

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I had a breakthrough in import speed. By using simple stand in color materials during import and assigning the textured material at the end of the process I was able to load a map that took 15 hours in less than 1 hour using the new technique! :D The bar scene shown here took about 10 minutes to import from the 1 hour from before.

The super long import times always bothered me and I'm super happy to be over it now. It's not fast but it's not horribly painfully slow anymore.
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Re: Deus Ex to WebXR

Post by Finis »

Why does it take so long?
Mice die in traps because they don't know why the cheese is free. -- seen on a bumper sticker
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