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

Written by David Wyand

 

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Creating and Using Nodes
This version of the exporter allows you to export nodes with your DTS object. Nodes may be used for things like mount points for weapons and vehicles, and joints for animation. In LightWave, nodes may be objects (meshes created by modeler or nulls) or bones.

Any time that you'd like to see what nodes will be exported in your DTS files, click on the View Nodes button at the bottom of the plug-in's interface. The example shown here is from the BFG.LWS example scene:

In this example node list, five nodes will be exported, including a Root Node and one derived from a mesh (BFG43T-node). The remaining three nodes are based off of nulls in the LW scene.

Nodes Generated from Nulls
This is likely the most common method of creating specialized nodes. All you need to do is create a null object in the LW scene, give it an appropriate name, and set it to export as a Mesh or Node, or Node Only. Where ever you place the null is the position that it will be exported in the DTS file. You can use these for creating muzzle flash locations on weapons, and third-person camera positions for players.

Nodes Generated from Bones
If a bone's parent mesh is set to export, then all bones that belong to that mesh will be saved as nodes. Even bones that do not have a weigh map associated with them (and thus do not control any vertices) will be saved as nodes. This is useful if you wish to have a mount point for a weapon move as a hand moves, or a mount point for a hat move with the head. To do so, just have a mount point bone be the child of a hand or head bone.

Nodes Generated from Meshes
So long as the Export meshes as nodes option is checked in the Advanced tab (the default), meshes will also be saved as nodes. These nodes provide a parent for the vertices, as well as the parent for any bones. The names for these nodes come from the DTS Name for the object if one has been defined by the user, otherwise the LW object name is used. An extension is also added to the node name to differentiate it from the mesh name in the DTS file. This node extension is defined in the Advanced tab.

Root Node
The Root Node is a special case as it is only created when needed. It has a position at the LW scene's origin, and has no rotation. In this version of the exporter, there are only two reasons for a Root Node to be generated. The first is if you have chosen to create the DTS file with either a bounding box or bounding cylinder collision mesh. This collision mesh needs to be attached to some node in the DTS file, so the Root Node is created.

The second reason for the Root Node to be generated is if the user has chosen to not export meshes as nodes (see the Advanced tab above). In this case, meshes are not creating their own nodes, so a Root Node must be created for the meshes to attach themselves to.

Rules for Exporting Nodes
There are a number of rules for the exporting of nodes:

 

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