Eto3DS usage. Shadowspawn - 4/29/2005
Version - 1.30

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Enhancements:
Eto3DS now handles axles for translating and rotating sub-objects.

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Eto3DS is a command line (DOS) program which converts the Looking Glass Studios
intermediate .E files into standard .3DS files. There are some .E files
located in the mesh.crf file. However, the real reason for the existance of
this program is to convert .E files created by BintoE into .3ds format.
However, any .E file created by 3ds2e (or n3ds2e) or RTG2e should be
convertable into .3ds format.

OK, how to use Eto3ds. Running it without any arguments gives you the
following;

Eto3DS Version 1.03 by Shadowspawn
Usage: Eto3DS /e<ext> /t Infile [Outfile]

Ok, first thing is the /e option. The 3DS file needs to specify it's texture
map file. Yes, we have the .gif files, but not all 3D modeling programs read
them. This option allows you to specify what extension the 3DS file will look
for as a texture map type. By default (if you don't specify the option),
Eto3DS will use .gif format. To specify a .bmp file, use the /e option as

/ebmp

Please note: Eto3DS will NOT create your texturemap file. It's in the
mesh.crf file or the obj.crf file. You need to extract it and convert it to
whatever your 3D program will allow as input. Just make sure it's extension
matches what you told Eto3DS.

NEW FOR VERSION 1.30

The /t option (for truncate) seems to solve the old problem of my 3ds output
files not being compatible with 3DSMax. This limits all names related to texture
groups and texture files to 8 characters, and all object names to 10 characters.
If you're not using 3DSMax, you probably don't need this options


The Infile field is required, it's the name of the .E file. An optional
output filename can be specified. The default is to strip the extension
from the input file name and append .3DS to form the output name.

For an example, say you extracted the spidey7.E file from the mesh.crf file.
So lets say we want to convert it to 3DS, using .jpg format bitmaps.
The command line would be;

eto3ds /ejpg spidey7.e

which will create spidey7.3ds, which will be looking for the texture map file
spiderg.jpg when you load it into your 3d modeler. (spiderg.gif was the
original filename in the .E file).


The output files are accurate 3DS files, but not every viewer or modeler may
be able to read them. I've tested with Anim8tor and Truespace, both can read
the files.


