LightWave to DTS Exporter Documentation
For Version 17-05-02

Written by David Wyand

 

Table of Contents
Introduction
Included Files
Acknowledgments
Limitations
Using the Plug-in's Interface
Creating and Using Nodes
Using Surfaces
Appendix A: List of Plug-ins

 

Introduction
The LightWave to DTS Exporter plug-in will save all objects within a LightWave scene to the Torque Game Engine DTS format. The exporter is actually a series of plug-ins, the main one being a Master Handler, which allows its setting to be saved with the LightWave scene file.

This documentation has been written for version 17-05-02 of the exporter, which is the first release version. With this version, all of the features that are present in the official MilkShape DTS exporter are present in this LightWave one. This includes: exporting of meshes (polygons), exporting of nodes (nulls and bones), and the exporting of animation sequences (both forward and inverse kinematics based). There are still a number of features of the DTS format that are not yet implemented, and there are some limitations to be aware of. Please read the following sections for these details.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at TheHeadGnome@gnometech.com. The PC and Mac versions of the plug-in are hosted at www.gnometech.com.

Acknowledgments
I'd like to thank C J "ceej" Silverio for compiling the OS9 and OSX versions of the exporter. I'd also like to thank Kevin Ostrowski for being the only "official" beta tester for the exporter. Without their help, the product would not be what it is today.

Included Files
The ZIP archive that included this documentation should have also included a couple of other directories:

Limitations
For those that want to get started with the plug-in right away, here are some of the limitations with this version of the plug-in. Most of these will disappear with future versions, and others are just a part of the design (LightWave and/or the DTS format).