I've been asked several times on how to work with textures and PS models, so I have a PM saved away that I have forward to a few folks on working with viewmesh.
There are a ton of benefits to using it, especially when you are doing texture work. For one, it loads in a second instead of the several minutes PlaneShift can take, you can zoom in and out -very- far or close, you can rotate the camera to all imaginable angles, and you can play all the animations the model has, in place. [ You can also layer the animations one onto another, so you get a weird little morph between them - useless, but fun sometimes :} ]
First, get the
Crystal Space Binary Artist Package and install it. This is a precompiled package of Crystal Space that is mainly geared towards artists that want to work on Crystal Space data (levels, models, etc.). It contains walktest (main test application), viewmesh (model viewer), cslight (to light maps), and a few others. Several of the demos are also included. Once you have run the install file, it's probably a good idea to make a shortcut to viewmesh.exe on your desktop - I use it way too often to browse for it time and time again. Then it's a matter of setting up your model files to work with the application!
Let's say that you need to view the male Ynnwn mesh. Go to the art folder within your PlaneShift directory and find characters.zip (you will find NPC models in npcs.zip). Open the archive and extract the entire folder of the model you want to work with, in this case ynnwnm, and put it into the directory where viewmesh is installed. For example I have it in C:\Program Files\CrystalSpace099, so the individual ynnwn files are in C:\Program Files\CrystalSpace099\ynnwnm.
The next step is editing the .cal3d file a little. Open ynnwnm.cal3d in any text editor, notepad works well, and first remove this bit of text,
if the file has it. Some models don't:
<shaders>
<shader><file>/planeshift/art/shaders/colorize.xml</file></shader>
</shaders>Then you have to change the location of the texture files, since we've moved the folder:
<textures>
<texture name="ynnwnm_hair_text"> <file>/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/ynnwnm_hair.png</file></texture>
<texture name="ynnwnm_head_texture"> <file>/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/ynnwnm_head.png</file></texture>
<texture name="ynnwnm_torso_texture"><file>/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/ynnwnm_torso.png</file></texture>
<texture name="ynnwnm_arm_texture"> <file>/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/ynnwnm_arm.png</file></texture>
<texture name="ynnwnm_hand_texture"> <file>/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/ynnwnm_hand.png</file></texture>
<texture name="ynnwnm_legs_texture"> <file>/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/ynnwnm_legs.png</file></texture>
<texture name="ynnwnm_foot_texture"> <file>/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/ynnwnm_foot.png</file></texture>
</textures>Delete "/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/" from each of those lines, so you only have the texture files themselves in the file path. Remember that if you have to change the names of the texture files, edit the .cal3d file as well to point to them.
Last step is to comment out a line:
<!-- path specifies the OS-dependent directory path to where all the other files are located. optional.-->
<path dir="/planeshift/models/ynnwnm/" />You can either delete this entirely, or comment it out by moving that "-->" to the very end of the the path dir code. Save the file, and you're ready to import the thing into viewmesh.
Run the application, click "Load", scroll down under "Directory" and click on "this", then your ynnwnm folder, and choose ynnwnm.cal3d under Files, on the right. Hit OK. There's your basic loaded model:
Experiment with the three Camera Modes - I find that Normal Movement works best, but the others can be useful as well. Now click the "Ani" tab, choose an animation and click on the "Add" button to play it. "Stand" is the best one :} "Default" doesn't represent the model as it appears in-game. To remove the animation, highlight it and click on "Clear". "Faster" and "Slower" bring the model closer or farther, and stop makes it stop moving in that direction.
Those are the basics, and really the only things you will need when using the app. You can maximize the window too, so it takes up your whole screen and you get better detail. To view the model again after you have made some changes to the textures however, you will have to reload the whole application - there is no way to reload the model again separately.
You can change the background viewmesh uses as well. I have just found this out recently and it's been a real blessing. Within your install directory, open the Data folder and then standard.zip. Within that package you will find a file called stone4.gif - edit it into anything you want, pack it back in, and you're done!
I don't know if I'm loading this all in the most correct way possible, but it does what I want it to do and I'm satisfied ;)
