External file update scans for SDK

Troubleshooting SDK
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Hey,

as this feature is quite a step forward in asset management I thought I’d share the current progress.

As you know, importing models to the j3o format makes sense because of many things. First of all you can only store jME-specific information in j3o files. Things like particle emitters, physics, sounds or effects tracks only work with j3o. This means the j3o format offers a lot more functionality when working in a project, it can even save your own classes in the form of Controls. Further advantages are increased load speed and general compatibility with jME3 project tools.

So… The obvious issue that pops up is this: When I have my model files created with the 3d editor and convert them to j3o, do I have to convert them to j3o again when the model is changed in the 3d editor? The answer (until now) was “Yes, you have to.”.

This answer turned off many people to the extent that they decided to work with a direct external model format - to - application workflow to circumvent that. Specialized solutions are being applied to post-process the model data, in the worst case in code that runs within the users game, in the best case in deployment tools that basically copy what the SDK does. In almost all cases all the advantages of jME-specific data in the files are being left out because the workflow doesn’t allow using it properly.

But as I said, “until now” :slight_smile:

I proudly present: Automatic j3o updates from external changes!

This feature represents the pinnacle of the asset system in the SDK and makes extensive use of existing asset management features which prove to work splendidly. In fact only the mesh of the cube geometry is updated, the original geometry is found based on a set of UserData properties that is created when the model is first converted. This means that this doesn’t just convert the j3o automatically, it actually preserves all your changes to the j3o file and only applies new data. I am working on adding automatic adding of new objects and other things (animation) but the base system works great already.

Oh, and btw, it doesn’t just work with blender files but with all supported file types, no matter how they are supported :wink: So yes, it even works with 3ds through the new 3ds-via-blender importer.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-Yd0L1I8So[/video]

Cheers,
Normen

4 Likes
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sweet!! so many times, I’ve had to crawl through my list of assets to find my file and recreate the .j3o, very nice!!

What do you think about automatic .j3o creation when a new .blend file is added to the Models folder? :slight_smile: with an option to turn it off, if people desire

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@wezrule said:What do you think about automatic .j3o creation when a new .blend file is added to the Models folder? :) with an option to turn it off, if people desire
Not much, until now you get that by just double-clicking it, why automate it when its so easy. Now blender opens when you double-clik that file but selecting it and pressing the button in the button bar or right-clicking it and selecting "convert to j3o" isn't really too much is it? You can to that with multiple files too, I think its more flexible that way.
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@normen said: why automate it when its so easy

Isn’t that what your change is doing though? :slight_smile: i think it’s essentially the same thing, but yours is with editing (yours has more time saving in the long run). I agree its not the hardest thing to do, but it is something i do every time i create a model, and would be 1 less step to worry about (having to crawl through my assets folder as well). But yeh, not too fussed either way. Good job again :slight_smile:

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@wezrule said: Isn't that what your change is doing though? :) i think it's essentially the same thing, but yours is with editing (yours has more time saving in the long run). I agree its not the hardest thing to do, but it is something i do every time i create a model, and would be 1 less step to worry about (having to crawl through my assets folder as well). But yeh, not too fussed either way. Good job again :)
No its not, read the post again ^^ Also conversion should be a user-guided process, you can set key settings for example, also for right-click conversion.
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ah right, i didn’t read the part under the video, very nice!!

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I updated this a bit and now newly added objects in blender will also be updated in the scene, not just the meshes of objects that exist already. Next on is animation :wink:

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