Mar. 18, 2004 @ 12:47
HLMV Update

I’ve made a few updates to my version of the Half-Life Model Viewer. It’s nothing major, just a few tweaks and some addition features that people asked me to add. Oh and it actually has a proper installer this time.

Responses to “HLMV Update”


I like the new features, esp the Eye Position, Wireframe Overlay, and the Sequence drop-down in the Origin View. I noticed something about the installer though. When it associates JHLMV with .mdl files, it seems to erase all other things you may have customised that file type with (i.e. additional context menu commands, I have a Decompile option added to .mdl files). Would you mind looking into this? I’d appreciate either a modified install script or an alternative .zip verion along with the installer.

I’ve got to say, the flexibilty that you added to Mete’s design allows many of us at the Half-Life Improvement Team to do a much better job. Something that I’d like to see added, would be a display of the axes at the origin, and perhaps (though not that important) a camera that, when moved away from the origin, will rotate around it’s own axis, rather then the origin. This is one thing that many people have complained to Mete about in Milkshape, but it would be nice to see it in HLMV as well.

Posted by Ambient.Impact
Mon, March 29th, 2004 @ 20:51

egarding your HL model viewer, can you add the following feature??

A Simple Animation capability:

1. Export animation sequence (shown in yr current view. Everything from background color, background image and texture mode affects as well..should be “W Y S I W Y G”) to individual .bmps in a folder location or an .avi file.

2. Also include support for playing sound .wavs! (<- yes, serious, an option to read the events from the Events tab and play the apprioate sound!) at the apprioate frame. If you export to .avi file (or some other video formats..or even Flash), sound will be included. If exported to individual .bmps, a .txt file is generated outlining which frames should contain those sounds so that the designer can manually refer to the .txt file and manually place sounds in his video-editing program. Slightly more capability: 1. Option to read the HL frame event (there's a frame event that switches the current animation to a different animation sequence). Use that event to let the animation continue on to the next sequence. 2. Add option to increase/adjust viewable distance! 3. adjustable volumetric openGL fog ------------------------------------------------- A More Comprehensive Animation Suite: Various approaches: -users can script their own controller sequences with a controller_scripts.txt file (you know the controller sliders in HL Model viewer? Yes, provide a script format for users to maniuplate those controller sliders to handle mouth movement and torso movement during the recording movie process, etc.). Users create another controller_sequence.txt file which would call the controller sequences at designated frames. -Dummy event numbers (used for HL model viewer only and not found in HL), to do things like call controller script .txt files for example when the event is "touched". Or even going to the next sequence or looping the same sequence for a set no. of times. Or abruptly stoppnig the sequence regardless. -Or do some authoring/scripting-a-txt-file system to handle what should happen at given times in the movie sequence. Even take into consideration camera-work. Let camera movement be recorded in real-time first prior to actual exporting to avi or .bmps. THis would affect the final .bmp/.avi output. -direct export to video codec formats and all other video formats. A Full Animation Suite: -lighting and other effects -new model format support quad patches besides tri. Contains support for HL style bone animations and events. -new model foramt may be more advanced in future like adding Physique and such. -a proper authoring system to handle events -path travel -real space Well, the main purpose is to create simple movies. ANd since you can have background image, you can always set a background scene and the model should act accordingly and play simple nice movies. Would b happy therefore with a simple animation capability.

Posted by Glidias
Wed, April 14th, 2004 @ 04:13