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Whats the status on Granny Viewer 3D?


SX255

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Scared 1 and 2 use Granny 3D meshes for their 3D models (made by RAD Game Tools). One of the best ways to explore all the meshes and their animations in this format is to use Granny Viewer, a small simple demonstration program. Granny Viewer has gone through many builds, but overall staid conveniently small and the same.

 

However, when I tried tracking it down through the wiki and forums, all I keep finding is the old link on the official RAD website, which no longer works, because it redirects to the sites homepage.

 

Tracking Granny Viewer down through Google leads to secondhand untrustworthy websites. Not saying you can't find it in those piles of garbageware.

 

So what is the situation on Granny Viewer? Are we allowed to upload it directly to the wiki and forum? It is only about 2MB big.

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It's difficult to understand what has happened over at RAD but I'm guessing that they're redirecting their download page to the granny viewer main page to inspire developers to buy their newer version of granny. From what I can remember granny viewer was officially free to use but since it's availability has diminished so much, the question has become just as much about availability as it is about legality... That said, I am aware of a tool that has granny packaged within it from a reliable source which was released earlier this year. It focuses on Blender 3D renders but it would be nice if someone could test it with Sacred 2 and post some feedback as to how useful it is. If it does prove useful we could contact the creator to ask if we could host it here at DarkMatters.

 

Nexus Buddy

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Thank you.

Sadly Nexus Buddy crashes on me after I set the "assets" folder to a blank one. Checked/Repaired my framework 4, but it still crashes. Tried older version of program - crashes. Changed registry entry to other folder - crashes. Now I'm looking for my Civilization V to see if it has that "assets" thing. Also will try to run it on my other PC latter. It looks promising. :)

 

At least it has a working Granny Viewer in it.

Edited by SX255
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It was a nightmare to find this Granny Viewer for me because all links are pointed to this *$#@ page. I also tried another programs but no one can view those GR2 files. Fortunately I found a download link of 4 shared that still working, I don’t know if Dark Matters allow that kind of links but knowing the site’s name everyone will be able to find it well.

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Thank you.

Sadly Nexus Buddy crashes on me after I set the "assets" folder to a blank one. Checked/Repaired my framework 4, but it still crashes. Tried older version of program - crashes. Changed registry entry to other folder - crashes. Now I'm looking for my Civilization V to see if it has that "assets" thing. Also will try to run it on my other PC latter. It looks promising. :)

 

At least it has a working Granny Viewer in it.

Np. I tried the same thing with .NET heh. After reading up on the Nexus topic it seems that the tool is dependent on Civilization being installed. At first I assumed it was a standalone tool but not so sure of that now. GV works for me too.

It was a nightmare to find this Granny Viewer for me because all links are pointed to this *$#@ page. I also tried another programs but no one can view those GR2 files. Fortunately I found a download link of 4 shared that still working, I don’t know if Dark Matters allow that kind of links but knowing the site’s name everyone will be able to find it well.

I feel your pain, haha. That reminds me that I'll need to remove the link from SacredWiki to the RAD site since they're not providing it anymore. As for hosting it I'm thinking that it isn't going to happen given the direction RAD has taken. I may send them a line asking if they have something they can offer for free. "To inspire future minds..." :D
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  • 2 weeks later...

That Nexus Buddy tool is really interesting.

At first I thought it seemed 'just' a graphical front-end for two command-line tools, but those two are only used for extraction from GR2 files.

(they're actually using one of mine).

 

So I guess the Nexus Buddy programmers found a way to use those Firaxis tools to create GR2 files.

 

Something similar was going on with the Expotron plugin for 3DSmax, which was used with the game NWN2.

ie. GR2 export functionality being distributed freely. This is probably unwanted, and RAD will definately be unhappy about it.

 

The Firaxis tools probably can't be used without Civ5 on the PC.

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It's interesting that gr2 conversion always seems to be game specific as opposed to a do-it-all tool. The Eve editor and SH editor, as well as others, give me the impression that the only way to go with gr2 editing is on a game by game basis. Something I haven't seen yet though is an editor with blender 3D in mind. Since blender 3D is open source it would be nice to have a tool that works with blender. One can dream! I keep getting an itch to delve into this...

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Yes, it's always game specific. I think RAD encourages modeling studios to do so, maybe even actively helping out, like it comes with the package.

 

There's also been an effort with Sims2 I think.

 

.. it would be nice to have a tool that works with blender..

Many modders over at the Xentax forums ( http://forum.xentax.com/ ) produce tools for Blender.

For my meshing purposes I like to stay flexible with conversion software like the NiF tools ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/niftools/files/ ).

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That makes sense for RAD to do that. To protect their interests.

 

Oh wow, Xentax, haha. I'm a little surprised it's still around. Sorry about that missed PM by the way Pesmontis. I actually only just got it now. Yeesh! It was very nice of you to offer me help over there. :) I don't think anyone else responded to my request. I'm curious. Can blender be used for at least some of the assets in Sacred 2? I realize animations and I guess rigging doesn't translate over to blender but I wonder if items could be edited in blender and converted back. I'd love to be able to make some stuff for Sacred 2 using blender. I converted a shield from Sacred 2, using your gnreader I think it was, and then brought it into blender just fine a few days ago. Haven't done anything with it yet. Just wanted to try importing. So if I'm converting an item to .obj and then editing it in blender, can I convert it back to gr2 and have it render properly in Sacred 2. The type of editing I'm thinking of for now would be mesh and material/texture editing.

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Blender is a fully fledged 3D modeling tool, just as complex as 3DSmax or Maya, so for sure you can rig models for Sacred 2 with it.

 

For importing animations and rigged models it's just a question of using the right import format.

I think SMD, FBX, or NiF should all qualify, although I don't have experience with Blender.

 

The OBJ format does not qualify, because it can only hold a model's mesh.

In a 'rigged' model, there's a 'skeleton' with 'bones'. One bone is usually configured to have a weighed effect on nearby vertices from the mesh.

The combination of the vertex weights of all bones is called a 'skin'.

A 'rigged' model is also known as a 'skinned' model (as opposed to a 'textured' model **).

Texturing is usually refered to as 'mapping', while modders often (I think wrongly) use the word 'skinning' for this.

 

Anyway, all these things can be done in Blender, as long as you import a model's bones (and it's skin).

Then you would have to find out how to do skinning in Blender (I've never done this in Blender),

firstly (mainly) in order to check whether the import was successful.

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I've described a set-up for Blender import/export here: Tutorial - Importing and Exporting GR2 Models - post #28

 

This is mainly in response to this remark by Schot: ".. and then editing it in blender, can I convert it back to gr2 and have it render properly in Sacred 2.."

 

I mentioned the FBX file format as a probable means for exchange between Blender and a tool capable of GR2 export.

 

For clarity, I have to add that the FBX file format can ONLY be used for exchange in limited circumstances:

it depends on the tool capable of GR2 export.

 

This is because Blender probably exports FBX version 2011.

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Cheers Pesmontis. I'm beginning to understand why you have your preferences for Nif and FBX. I'm a little(lot!) behind but I'm staring to understand thanx to you. :)

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  • 1 month later...

If you guys are still looking for for a granny viewer, I found one in my mods folders for Sacred 2 on my external storage drive. This is version 2.8.49.0 and I`ve had this tool since 2011 and I used it today and still works like it did before. If you guys are still interested I can put it up the download section for tools and utilities.

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  • 3 years later...

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