MDLOps 1.0.0

July 1 2004: First public release of mdlops.pl version 0.1

July 17 2004: Added support for vertex normals (thanks JRC24)

August 4 2004: Fixed division by zero bug in vertex normals (thanks Svosh)

October 18, 2004: Version 0.3
-Now ignores overlapping vertices
-fixed a bug that caused some controllers
to be ignored (thanks T7nowhere and Svosh)
-updated docs on how texture maps work in
kotor (thanks T7nowhere and Svosh)
-new tutorial written by bneezy
-Svosh updated the quick model tutorial
November 18, 2004: Version 0.4
added replacer function (idea originally suggested to me by tk102)
gui does not get built when using command line (thanks Fred Tetra)
added ability to rename textures in binary models (thanks darkkender)
cool new icon created by Svosh. Thanks Svosh!

March 8, 2005: Version 0.5
figured out that some meshes have 2 textures (thanks Fred Tetra)
added fix for meshes that have 0 verticies (thanks Fred Tetra)
added support for Kotor 2. The model is bigger by only 8 bytes per mesh!
the program will auto-detect if a binary model is from kotor 1 or kotor 2

March 9, 2006: Version 0.6alpha4
Added aabb support (thanks Fred Tetra)
Vastly improved ascii import speed (optimized the adjacent face routine)
Added partial support for aurora lights
ANIMATIONS! MUCH MUCH thanks to JdNoa for her cracking of the compressed quaternion format
and for writing the animation delta code!

May 21, 2007: version 0.6.1alpha1 (changes by JdNoa)
Added support for compiling animations. Code mostly ported from Torlack's NWN compiler.
Added controllers for lights and emitters, but not tested yet.

January 13, 2016: Version 0.7alpha
Reworked calculations of face normals
Reworked calculations of vertex normals

Summer, 2017: Version 1.0.0
Reworked calculations of face, vertex normals, plane distances, adjacent faces
Added tangent space calculations
Added emitter and finished light node support
Added walkmesh support (DWK/PWK/WOK)
Added lightsaber mesh support and conversion
Added bezier controller support and fixed existing controller list
Added normalization of vertex data into MDX form
Added detection of real smoothgroups
Added reference node support
Added super model node number construction
Fixed replacer for many cases
Many more small fixes and features

command line usage of the compiled perl script:
View all command line options:
mdlops.exe --help
mdlops.exe [-a] [-s] [-k1|-k2] c:\directory\model.mdl
OR
mdlops.exe [-a] [-s] [-k1|-k2] c:\directory\*.mdl

command line usage of perl scripts:
NOTE: you must first copy the MDLOpsM.pm file into your \perl\lib or
\perl\site\lib directory
View all command line options by running:
perl mdlops.pl --help

perl mdlops.pl [-a] [-s] [-k1|-k2] c:\directory\model.mdl
OR
perl mdlops.pl [-a] [-s] [-k1|-k2] c:\directory\*.mdl

For the command line the following switches can be used:
-a will skip extracting animations
-s will convert skin to trimesh
-k1 will output a binary model in kotor 1 format
-k2 will output a binary model in kotor 2 format

Notes:
1: The script automatically detects the version
of the input binary model.

2: mdlops by default DOES extract animations and DOES NOT
convert skin to trimesh.

3: The script automatically detects the type
of model.

4: For binary models you must have the .MDL and .MDX
in the same directory

5: For importing models that have supermodels, the super model or
the original model must be in the same directory as
model being imported.

6: Running uncompiled version requires perl 5.12+ and, on Windows, will
use the following CPAN packages when available:
Win32API::File, Win32::Autoglob

Import/export usage:
1) In a command prompt: perl mdlops.pl OR double click mdlops.exe
2) click 'select file'
3) browse to directory that has your .MDL file.
Select the .MDL and click 'open'
4) To quickly convert the model click 'Read and write model'
NOTE: The script will automatically detect the model type.
5) If you started with a binary file (ex. model.mdl) then the
resulting ascii model will be model-ascii.mdl
6) If you started with an ascii file (ex. model.mdl) then the
resulting binary model will be model-bin.mdl
7) The 'view data' button will let you view the raw data for
a model loaded from binary source. This does not work
with models loaded from ascii source.

NOTE: reading in ascii files that have models with lots of
polygons will be slow! You can watch the progress
in the command prompt window.

NOTE: Running uncompiled version requires perl 5.12+ and, on Windows, the
following CPAN packages (and all required for Command Line):
JSON, Win32::FileOp, Tk, Tk::Tree, Tk::Frame
To get Unicode path support on Windows, you need a customized version
of Win32::FileOp.

Renamer usage:
1) start mdlops
2) click 'select file'
3) browse to directory that has your .MDL file.
Select the .MDL and click 'open'
4) click on 'read model'
5) click on 'renamer'
6) type in a new texture name in the "New name" box
7) click on the mesh that needs its texture renamed
8) click "change name"
9) when you are done changing names, click "write model"
The model will be written to the same directory as
the original with the name model-rbin.mdl and
model-rbin.mdx

Replacer usage:
see the included 'replacer_tutorial.txt'

For those of you familiar with texturing the bad news is the
way the polygon vertices and texture vertices are stored
it is not possible for a single polygon vertex to have
multiple texture vertices.

For example, if you had a simple cube where all the polygon
vertices were welded you would have 8 polygon vertices.
So when you texture your cube you would only have 8 texture
map vertices to work with.

If you wanted your UV map to look like 6 separate squares
you would have to split the polygon vertices, but weld the
polygon vertices for each side. This would give you 24
polygon vertices and 24 texture vertices.

If you wanted to have separate polygons you would have
36 polygon vertices and 36 texture vertices.

If you use the 'validate vertex data' option, mdlops will do all
the work to make your model come out correctly.

To get models out of kotor files:
Kotor Tool
http://deadlystream.com/forum/files/file/280-kotor-tool/
OR
Xoreos Tools
https://github.com/xoreos/xoreos-tools

To edit the models
GMax (it is free, windows-only)
http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
OR
Blender (it is free, cross-platform)
https://www.blender.org

To get models in and out of Gmax, Max, or Blender
KOTORMax (to get models in and out of Gmax or Max)
Kotorblender (to get models in and out of Blender)