Loading .uv files in LightWave

[lol username]

For those who don't know, in the days of Rock Raiders' development, LightWave didn't have built-in functionality for UV mapping. This wasn't exactly great.

 

So another company, CineGraphics, made UView, a program that could interface with LightWave and do UV mapping! It cost like 700 bucks.

 

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.graphics.apps.lightwave/Z4eU-fBcF5g/7QCmsagFK2YJ

 

http://web.archive.org/web/19981205124926/https://www.cinegraphics.net/Products/uview.html

 

It seems CineGraphics is still around, but their own link to UView leads to the web archives:

 

https://www.cinegraphics.net/

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20010803011902/http://cinegraphics.net/product.php?location=UView

 

Karl thought that UView was probably used for LRR, but wasn't sure:

 

 

Later, LightWave overhauled their format and also added built-in support for UV mapping, rendering UView obsolete.

 

But, there's a plugin that loads ye olde UView (.uv) files into newer versions of LightWave, turning their data into modernized UV data stored right in the LWO file:

 

http://www.dstorm.co.jp/dsproducts/FreePlugins/Image_IO/UView_Import.html

 

And lo and behold, it works with LRR's .uv files! Guess that confirms DDI did use UView. For like, the two creatures in the game (triman and lava monster) that use .uv files, anyway.

 

Just be sure to read the readme; in short, you have to manually select the texture image and assign it to the surfaces due to a limitation in the plugins system. But it works!

 

So is this useful for modding? Not really. In order to make .uv files that LRR can read, we'd either need UView itself (seems to be lost to time?), or a custom tool. I'm currently working on the latter. But hey, we know what originally produced them, at least. And if for some reason you want to directly upgrade LRR models to newer versions of LightWave, you can I guess, lol.

 

 

 

 

 

[lol username]

Update - UView was found (I'll probably stay away from linking it directly here, but it shouldn't be too hard to find), also, CineGraphics' website now seems to be down (did the company die?).

On 1/28/2020 at 12:21 AM, lol username said:

So is this useful for modding? Not really. In order to make .uv files that LRR can read, we'd either need UView itself (seems to be lost to time?), or a custom tool. I'm currently working on the latter.

Also, I finished that custom tool, so we should now have two means of making/editing UV maps for LRR: