how do you import .vxl maps?

jdrew · **Joined:** Sun Nov 17, 2013 3:44 am **Posts:** 6

hey its me Jdrew from BnS, I was wondering if you can put .vxl maps in cubiquity. Also I will be putting cubiquity in this weeks news letter which will be released 11/17/13.

Dynasty · **Joined:** Tue Feb 05, 2013 5:44 pm **Posts:** 33

Currently Cubiquity can't import VXL maps directly. There is a limit of 256x256x256 in size with the free version of Cubiqutiy. Obviously the 512x512x64 maps won't fit. Technically speaking, it shouldn't be too difficult to write a VXL importer in Unity if the 256x256x256 limit didn't exist.

I've tested Cubiquity by extracting the image layer by layer from VXL maps, cropping them with ImageMagick, and then importing them using the import image feature in Cubiquity.

David Williams · **Joined:** Sun May 04, 2008 6:35 pm **Posts:** 1827

Dynasty wrote:

There is a limit of 256x256x256 in size with the free version of Cubiqutiy.

Actually this is no longer true - since we switched to offering a non-commercial license it is now possible to load larger volumes.

But there is still the problem that we haven't exposed the .vxl importer from BnS maps. We do have working code for this inside the Cubiquity .dll but it isn't exposed to the user. For the tank demo I just did some hacks to get at the code I needed.

I think the best approach would be to write a command-line tool converts .vxl maps to Cubiquity's format. Actually the same approach should probably be used for converting image slice to a volume. Such a tool could then be called by Cubiquity for Unity3D, but I could also release the source as an example of how to use Cubiquity's work-in-progress C API.

Do either of you know if Jagex's AoS uses the same file format as BnS? I notice that Jagex have apparently released a map editor, so in principle is it possible use community maps in BnS? This would require the map author permission of course, but probably not Jagex's permission?

jdrew · **Joined:** Sun Nov 17, 2013 3:44 am **Posts:** 6

Alright I guess I will just have to wait then. Do you think you could PM me explaining how you got the tank demo working with influxes map. The steam version of Ace of Spades made by Jagex does use .vxl maps but they are different. Those maps have sky boxes in them which makes them not work with older versions of the game. You also can't open the steam maps in voxed.

David Williams · **Joined:** Sun May 04, 2008 6:35 pm **Posts:** 1827

jdrew wrote:

Do you think you could PM me explaining how you got the tank demo working with influxes map.

Unfortunately it won't be possible for you to follow the procedure I used, as I was only able to do it by making some temporary changes in the C++ part of Cubiquity's source code. You'll just have to wait for me to implement a proper converter I'm afraid. I do want to do it as it's a great source of test data sets, I just need to get around to it.

David Williams · **Joined:** Sun May 04, 2008 6:35 pm **Posts:** 1827

Just a quick update here, copying part of a message I posted on the Unity forums:

Quote:

...I just added the .vxl importer to the Git repository. To use it you will need to download the very latest version of Cubiquity, which you can get as a zip file by clicking here: https://bitbucket.org/volumesoffun/c...get/master.zip

You need to add the stuff in the 'Assets' folder into the 'Assets' folder of your own project (maybe make a new test project!), and you will then find the converter at \Assets\StreamingAssets\Cubiquity\ConvertToVDB.exe

Place your AoS/BnD map in the same folder as the converter, launch a command prompt, and run something like:

Code:

ConvertToVDB.exe -i yourmap.vxl -o output.vdb

You can then go into Unity, create a new scene, and add a Colored Cubes Volume. If you select it and go to the inspector then you should see a button called 'Load Voxel Database'. Click and find the .vdb file which you just created and hopefully it will open

You can see that we need to improve the workflow, but let me know how it goes for you.

how do you import .vxl maps?

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