Wikis / Unreal Wiki / Legacy:Lwo2psk

UnrealEd has build-in support for static meshes from Lightwave files, but not for meshes with bones and animation. So here is a tool to do exactly that:

Download: [1]

new version ! (6/3/2005)

-just a small fix to a small glitch with the resting position of the first bone, which could result in misalignment of model & bones in unrealed (thanx to PoLuX for pointing it out)-

The package contains two small tools:

• lwo_2_psk – converts a .lwo and a .lws file to a .psk file
• lws_2_psa – appends .lws animations to a .psa file

lwo_2_psk

This tool converts a .lwo and a .lws file to a .psk file and an empty .psa file. The .lws file is required as it contains the reference-positon of the bones!

Usage 

lwo_2_psk LWOFILE LWSFILE

Example 

lwo_2_psk myModel.lwo refpos.lws
This will create a file named myModel.psk and an empty file myModel.psa. The .psa file can be filled with animations using the lws_2_psa tool (explained below).

Restrictions 

The following restrictions apply when using this tool:

* Only triangles are allowed, no nurbs surfaces, etc.

* Vertex maps on the model must have the same name as the bone that uses them.

* Only one (!) layer will be recognized. This will normally be the last layer... but don't count on it.

* The maximum length of bone/vertice/surface names is 32 characters.

* 1 meter equals 1 UU (but you'll be able to scale in UnrealEd after importing).

* When importing to UnrealEd, use the Assume Maya Coordinates switch (or rotate manually).

* every Point needs uv-coordinates

lws_2_psa

This tool appends .lws animations to a .psa file. (It always appends and never creates that file. You can create an empty .psa file with lwo_2_psk as explained above).

Usage 

lws_2_psa LWSFILE PSAFILE

Example 

lws_2_psa WalkF.lws myModel.psa
This will append the WalkF animation to the myModel.psa file.
Caution: The name will be exactly as given in the command line with the .lws extension stripped from it, so the command line lws_2_psa Scenes/WalkF.lws myModel.psa will create an animation named Scenes/WalkF!

Restrictions 

The following restrictions apply when using this tool:

* Every bone of the scene is read out – do not have any additional bones in your scene!

* The position and rotation of a bone should be present in every "key" frame. If not, it will be taken from previous "key" frame (no tweening!).

* The frames-per-second "speed" of the animation may not be consistent with UnrealEd, so tweak your animation in UnrealEd.

* Interpolation between frames is linear in Unreal.

These tools were created and successfully tested against .lwo and .lws files created by Lightwave 7.

if you got problems see Lwo2psk/Error Messages, and mail me if you can't solve it on your own

Author: Christopher "Ntmy" Steglich (dantmy@gmx.net)