I tried to export a model as a 3d heirarchy into blitz3d yesterday and I couldn't find anly of the children objects. The Children objects were plainly visible in 3dc but blitz3d countchild() reported 1 and 3dc reported 4.

Did I screw something up? Could someone show me the proper way to save out a directx heirarchy that will be readable in blitz3d?

Thanks,

Ben

Total guess time....

is the blitz command to find this information or is it used to find if any meshes have been loaded as a child of the mesh in question - did that make sense ?

in blitz you can  " LoadMesh ( file$[,parent] ) " to make the new mesh a child of an already loaded parent - so countchildren(parent) should tell you if this has been done ?

I am not sure if countchildren() (in blitz) is to do with x heirarachy.

hope this makes sense and it is a guess - i have not tested any of this !

Well, that's a good guess..

Here's the documentation on the command.

  CountChildren ( entity )
  Parameters:

  entity - entity handle

  Description:

  Returns the number of children of an entity.

  Example:

  None.

To me, this means that countchildren should return the number of children in a directx heirarchy. If I load the directx object in with LoadAnimMesh() then the heirarchy should be retained.

So I guess the question to ask now is whether or not the children - parent relationships in a directx object is refering soely to the heirarcy of the directx object? Or is it refering to something else?

Not too clear to me that documentation  

If you have a look at loadmesh() it says about parents - so I thought that the countchildren() was for this ? If I get chance I will have a look tonight....

Thanks.

Ok the good news is that you can export to blitz using directx hierarchy and then manipulate the children inside blitz

If you let me have your email I have a small demo for you..... use the private messages if you don't want your email posted here

The countchildren() still returns 1 though

Ok, that was sent last night - hope it helped ?

If anyone else wants it let me know - or maybe I could stick it on a web page.....

Thanks, I'll try it out today.

Another thing which may be of note here.

the blitz 'LOADMESH' command loads a heirachy and compresses it into a single mesh with multiple surfaces.

If you use 'LOADANIMMESH' even if it isn't animated, everything is preserved.

(I havn't tested this myself, this was passed to me by Mark who wrote blitz).

Thanks for that gakennedy. ("this was passed to me by Mark who wrote blitz" - name dropper !   )

I wonder if there is any speed or other benefit to using loadmesh() over loadanimmesh() - I guess there must be otherwise one would always use loadanimesh()  ? (as I was saying to Bill Gates the other day   )

hehe.. Bill Gates uses Blitz3d? Now thats cool! hehehe...

quote:

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If you let me have your email I have a small demo for you.....

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Alan, could you send me also this demo  ?
At hubert.bayre@wanadoo.fr

Many Thanks !

Not sure if I still have it - I will check and pass it on if I have......

No it is gone - but I did another - sent today (sorry for the delay)

it is a very simple demo.....

Thanks Alan. I've received your mail !