From blender/3DS max to .papa a (hopefully) foolproof guide

Edit: If you want to use blender, use this instead. 3DS Max fbx -> papa doesn't fully work. I am missing some settings some where that causes bones to point left. This guide is still valid for materials.



To start with you will want your model and your 3 textures

• <model_name>.blend (or .max)
  
• <model_name>_diffuse.png
• <model_name>_mask.png
• <model_name>_material.png

First thing is to make sure you have a bone at {0,0,0} called bone_root. You also want to make sure the mesh is called mesh and not mesh.1 or any other variation.

Next step is to save the file as .fbx

At this point its a good idea create a folder and stick everything in there. You will also want to add these to your folder.

• default.settings from Planetary Annihilation\stable\media\pa
• papatran.exe from Planetary Annihilation\stable\bin_x86\tools

You should now have a folder with

• <model_name>_diffuse.png
• <model_name>_mask.png
• <model_name>_material.png
• <model_name>.fbx
• default.setting
• papatran.exe

Next step, open up windows powershell.

Type (location of your folder)\papatran.exe --texture-mode strip -o (location of your folder)\<model_name>.papa (location of your .fbx file) and then press enter.

If it worked properly you should now have a .papa file in your folder.

Now we do a similar thing for the textures (make sure you have the default.settings file in the same folder as the textures, this is the only bit that's mandatory).

Type (location of your folder)\papatran.exe --texture-mode include -o (location of your folder)\<model_name>_diffuse.papa (location of your <model_name>_diffuse.png file) and then press enter.

Do the same for the <model_name>_mask.png and <model_name>_material.png.

You should now have 4 .papa files that are ready to be put in the game. Good luck.

Anything for 3DS max? Blender is... blender.

3DS Max can natively export as FBX also, so the same instructions should apply (some people have reported issues though). With Blender, the issue has been that historically the FBX exporter was broken, making this process impossible.

Squishy and I tried it a couple of days ago, didn't work.

@YourLocalMadSci was able to get one into PA successfully, but I don't know the details of how. It's in the Realm balance mod thread.

last I heard that was still kinda "awkward", I think it still had a huge selection area...thingy...I forget what it was called.

Mike

Does the file need to be saved as .fbx or as .FBX?

They are both the same.

Thinking about it, this guide should work for 3DS max. Replace the word blender with 3DS max and you shouldn't have a problem.

Liquius, if I sent you a .FBX would you mind getting it through papatran? Stuart and I are still having problems and we have no idea why. We want to see if it's because of the .FBX, or because of us failing at putting it through papatran.

Sure, might be good to send you .blend file as well.

Alrighty then, here you go.

Edit: Whoops, it didn't seem to send at first.

I had a look at it in blender and it wasn't set up properly. The mesh shouldn't have a parent. After fixing that it worked without problems and I got it into the game.

One thing I am not sure about is if the animations will work. The is an option with papatran related to animations, but I haven't played around with that yet.

If you have any more question feel free to poke me on the realm ts.

Don't worry, tanks don't have animations, all their aiming is controlled by the engine(?), basically if an enemy comes near the units bones aim at it.

Oh and thank you so, so much!

We have enough unused bot models, it is a benefit just getting vehicle/air/ship models.

Hey Liquius it doesn't seem to work, as importing the .papa you created back into blender give the model, but with only three bones, and these bone aren't even connected to anything. They're given the names: "Mesh", "solid", and "diffuse color." Any idea what could be causing this problem? (Oh and it's broken in game as well, the model does not show up, an invisible unit, and when it tries to fire it crashes the entire server, because there's no bones for the shots to come out of I'd imagine.)

Those three bones are meant to be there, and don't need to be connected to each other. A fourth bone, bone_root, should be created and all other bones (turret, barrels etc.) should be hierarchical under this.
Reference: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/reference-models-textures.48081/

Well yes, I know, but the trick is.. there are no other bones.

When I import any of the other game's .papa files I get those bones, as well as all they lead to, with this, I only get those three bones.

So I have had a play around with this. It seems that when exporting from blender to .fbx and then .papa, it gets rid of all the bones (other then the 3 that don't matter). However when you do the same thing from 3DS max, the bones stay.

I plan to play around with this a little further, however I don't think my results will change.

After further experimentation it seems that blender -> .fbx doesn't work with bones. The only way I could bones to work is with 3DS max.