From Blender2crystal

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This is a reference of blender2crystal interface usage.

Contents 1 Loading the interface 2 Overlay Interface Overview 3 Object Section 3.1 Object Info 3.2 Object Properties 3.3 Material Properties 3.3.1 shader 3.3.2 ambient 3.3.3 layers 3.3.4 shvars 3.3.5 texture 4 Entity Section 5 Sector/Scene Section 5.1 sector fog 5.2 sector physics 5.3 sector cel physics 6 World Section 7 Export Section 7.1 Buttons 7.2 Toggable options

[edit] Loading the interface

The interface can be loaded by opening a .blend file that has it already activated (like the ones in the Files section), or by following the following procedure:

• 1 - Open exporter interface through export->CrystalSpace.
• 2 - Close it.
• 3 - In any 3d window: view->space handler scripts->blender2crystal.
• 4 - Click on the 3d window so the handler knows it's active.
• 5 - You can open the overlay interface in as many windows as you want.
• 6 - The handler will be saved in active state with your map so you only have to do this once.

If you still don't see the interface:

• Check that you have script links enabled at the scripts tab in blender buttons window.
• Check on console if the exporter is not failing due to wrong install or some unknown bug.

[edit] Overlay Interface Overview

The main buttons to control the overlay interface visibility and the section you're in. They are the ones situated at the top of the overlay window.

The big icon is the blender2crystal visibility controller, by clicking on it repeatedly you can make it transparent, opaque or hide.

The smaller icons are the icons for the different sections, we have:

• Object: Assign crystalspace related properties and materials to objects. Has several sub windows for: info, properties and material.
• Entity: Assign all cel related properties. Has several sub windows for info, propclasses, entity template, quest, timer & trigger and behaviour.
• Scene: Define sector wide settings.
• World: Define world wide settings.
• Export: Export, run and set different export options.

[edit] Object Section

This has all crystalspace related options for the object, and is where you will spend most of your time (unless making a game or map for cel).

It has three subsections:

• Info: General briefing about the object. Also shows info about several objects, and allows mass selection if none are set.
• Properties: Set most object related properties (type specific properties, render, general, physics, sequence).
• Material: Material settings.

[edit] Object Info

The info overlay gives some general info about the selected object or objects.

If only one object is selected it offers a brief overview of its most important properties, also these can be edited by right clicking on values (like object name, factory name, behaviour...).

If many objects are selected it will present a table with all objects, their types and some other properties.

If no objects are selected the info tab serves to make selections. Currently it allows to do selection based on type or on some property.

[edit] Object Properties

The object properties overlay offers a list settable properties on the object, separated by sections. Different sections will be shown depending on object type or on other factors (for example physics properties will only be shown if there exists a dynamic system on the sector).

The following actions are possible with each property:

• Right click on property name to get help about that property.
• Right click on property value for a popup to edit or select the property value.
• Left click on the red cross at the left of the property name to unset it.

All actions will take place over all selected objects, so this serves to mass tag objects.

[edit] Material Properties

The material overlay offers info about an object materials.

For each material the following can be changed:

[edit] shader

the shader the material will use for user pass, can select shader from:

• a fast list of materials (standard, bumpmap, parallax, water, specular, detail)
• From CS: a list will be offered with shaders present in your crystalspace distribution
• custom: will let you set full path to some shader xml file.

this will be exported for the standard pass if using standard renderloop, or diffuse pass for all others.

[edit] ambient

Whether to use an ambient pass with this material. Sometimes this is not necessary and can speed things up.

Also you will want this with translucid objects on non standard renderloops (like particles on terrain renderloop).

[edit] layers

The shader texture layers, by clicking on the (add) button you can add layers required (or optional) for your selected shader.

The diffuse layer is a bit special, as it can only be selected from between the images assigned to the object through UV. using this you can make each material "linked" to each of your uv textures

Note that only genmesh and thing currently support several materials by object in crystalspace, and terrain will get a special treatment.

[edit] shvars

here you can add shadervars found in your selected shader by clicking on the (add) button. you can then change values by right clicking on the value, or delete them by left clicking on the red cross left of the shvar name.

[edit] texture

several properties you can assign to the texture or textures in this material.

[edit] Entity Section

Info related to the entity section of the interface can be found at Cel Overlay Interface

[edit] Sector/Scene Section

Here you can set properties for current scene. Each scene will be exported as a different sector in crystalspace, so here you have all properties that work on a per-sector basis.

All of them can be set, deleted and offer help as usual (right click for help or set a property, left click on the red cross to delete).

The one you should know best is renderloop using this you can set the renderloop for the sector, useful if you want to use per-light lighting pass, stencil shadows, terrains... (ie, you want to make advanced usage of materials)

You can find about the rest by using the interface.

On a new sector there are buttons to create:

[edit] sector fog

You must set some value for fog densisty and then you'll get some properties related to fog in the sector.

To delete the fog you delete the fog density property.

[edit] sector physics

this sets the name for the dynamic system in the sector (dynsys property), and will thus export physics in the sector.

All objects will be initially physics enabled, unless you unset dynamics on them.

You should also take care to set static or staticpos on objects you dont want to be affected by gravity or move.

You can delete the dynamic system in the sector by deleting the dynsys property.

[edit] sector cel physics

This sets the name for the mechanics system in the sector (mechsys property).

This does not make all objects "physics enabled", you should use the dynsys property for this.

Used when you want a mechanics system only for cel mechanics entities, but no non-entity physics enabled objects, or otherwise to set the name of mechanics system on a sector where you will use cel entities.

[edit] World Section

The world tab in the interface offers a list of properties that can offer help and can be set or deleted as usual. All world properties are saved in a metadata file inside blender text window (metadata.b2cs).

The properties are ordered in the following sections:

• world: generic crystalspace properties for the world
• screen: properties somehow related to screen or view properties.
• material: some default shaders
• paths: paths and file names to use when exporting.

You should usually not play too much with options here, but some can be handy for setting world wide defaults. Some properties to note specially:

• renderloop: as in scene interface, but will be set to all scenes.
• exec_parameters: special parameters to use when running the world.
• keepfactorynames: this will make the exporter use the same names as in blender for the factories blindly. useful if you're making a library, but usually better still to set it on a per object bases.

[edit] Export Section

[edit] Buttons

Buttons to go to specific places in the full window overlay or execute actions:

• export: export the world to the paths defined in world interface.
• run: export the world and then run it (uses walktest, or if celexport is selected uses bootstrap and requires a player set).
• view: view the selected mesh in viewmesh
• old gui: open the old gui
• tools: go to the tools section in old gui
• library browser: go the library browser/importing interface

[edit] Toggable options

• library: export as library.
• relight: relight the world. if relight is off and you previously lit the world file, the lights will be preserved.
• software: run with software renderer.
• selected: export only selected objects.
• buplug: run with bugplug plugin. offers more info about perfomance.
• inlinefactories: inline factories inside world file instead of putting them in a different subdirectory as libraries (note this will be slower as inlining is done in a final pass, also note it will use more memory and might not be practical for bigger worlds).
• celexport: export/run for cel.
• incremental: (only for cel) allows selection of sectors to export and regions/zone usage.

If incremental is selected a list of sectors will be offered where you can activate/deactivate the ones you want to export. Note that after a first full export with all sectors selected you can safely unselect them from export and you will still see them when running the world.

Also incremental mode allows using region and zones properties in the sector settings to define regions and zones.