Loads of objects, all sorted and with icons for your library

[debussybunny563]

Yeah, that explosion is pretty cool. It's too bad no one posted it before.

Got to say, though, whoever converted that for use in Alice is pretty cool, eh?

You know, it'd be even cooler if that guy's avatar was a penguin.

[DensetsuNoKaboom]

I know for a fact, though, that none of you actually made the exposion.

Originally Posted by debussybunny563

You know, it'd be even cooler if that guy's avatar was a penguin.

With a gun!

[x2495iiii]

The original explosion gif? No, I didn't make that. The splitting of the gif into individual frames, the converting of each individual frame, the importing of each individual frame, and the writing of a method which allows all of those frames to be played in order? That was me.

Originally Posted by arty-fishL

I exported as a google earth (.kmz) file, extracted the contents, converted the dae model inside it in blender, went through the laborious proccess of removing all of the periods from inside the ase file, then imported it.
That always produces subparts (on one level only) and correct textures, usually it lowers the polys too.

Also I got the explosion from SB, so kudos to you anyway.

Okay, every stinking time I try to make a grid myself in sketchup OR in Blender, it either imports as one big object, or it imports with textures displayed improperly (either it just darkens the square a bit, or it repeats the texture several hundred times in one square). How did you get it to import with subparts and proper texture support?

[arty-fishL]

Emmm... just as I described.
In depth description:
You need to have definite subparts as components or groups in sketchup. Also make sure all front faces are facing outwards, I just do this with a custom style I made. Then export as google earth file (.kmz). Then open it as a zip and extract the contents. There should be an untitled.dae file in there and a textures folder.
Then open blender, you need the collada 1.4 (dae) importer to import it and the ase exporter to export it. Import the dae file. Then export as ase. When exporting it select all the options (exept centre objects if you want to keep your axises).
Then open the ase file in notepad and remove all the periods in the names. They should be like "ID##." , with ## being a number, just replace the periods with underscores. This usually takes a while, so I am working on a python (actually a python, not Alice jython) script that should do it automatically. Ive made one that should work properly, problem is the ase files are too big so Im getting an out of memory error when running the script.
Next step is to import into Alice. If all goes well then the file should be there with subparts you created and other subparts (maybe blender creates them, dont know). All the textures should be perfect and the model should look as it did in sketchup. The subparts will be on one level with the ID12 etc names, just rename the subparts if you want to.
Then save it as an a2c file to your gallery and add an icon from a screenshot to it if you want.

This is quite a long proccess, but it gives good results, the space deck, homespace and tiles models are all mine and they all worked quite well.

[arty-fishL]

Also does anybody know the shortcuts in sketchup for iterating copies of objects. Im posting this as it might help a lot if you want to make a grid, or a line of trees etc.
Copy an object. Once youve placed it press:

/ key then type a number then press return (enter)
This will make extra copies equally spaced in a line inside the gap between the original object and the copied one, so that there are now as many copies as the number you typed (including the original copy you made).

x key then type a number then press return (enter)
This will make extra copies in a line after the copy you made spaced at the same distance as the distance between the original object and the copy you made, so that there are now as many copies as the number you typed (including the original copy you made).

This is how I made the grid, it took me 2 minutes to make.

i keep trying to import it into my alice 2.2 folder but it always says i don't have
space in that folder so i deleted some old projects i dident need anymore
but it still wolnt work!!!!!! HELP!!!!!!:

Originally Posted by arty-fishl

i have took loads of objects (117 objects) from the community and sorted them into subfolders (8 categories) in a community folder, then took a suitable screenshot of every single object and added an icon into it for a preview (like how you can preview objects in the object gallery when you go to add one in alice).

To add all these objects to your gallery so its easy to get them into your worlds just download it > community objects.zip then locate your gallery folder ( wherever you installed alice\alice 2.2\required\gallery) and unzip this into it. Then it should be there.

If you don't know where that folder is then post so below and i will add a little world that will run a python script and print out the location of the folder.

community objects.zip

it dosent work help it just says you dont have space in that folder how to i make more or what do i do

i cant find the folder pleas help me

[arty-fishL]

Sounds like your folder is full, if it is then I cant help you on that, but to make sure you are using the right folder then run the world Ive attached and try extracting into the folder it prints out.

[x2495iiii]

Thanks for the description arty, but I decided to make the map as a big texture in GIMP. It occurred to me that I can make lots of different maps fairly quickly with this, and I wouldn't need to add sprays in Alice either, I can just paint them onto the map texture.

So far it's going well, though I found out the hard way that importing a 5000x5000 pixel billboard crashes Alice. Ho ho.