PyPRP Age Importer

Revision as of 17:23, 23 March 2014 by Gpnmilano (Talk | contribs) (→‎Linux)

Introduction

On occasion, it may be useful to import ages (made by Cyan or others) into Blender from PRP or AGE files. Importing an age allows a new Writer to become familiar with how an age is constructed before it is exported into Uru. It may also be useful to retired Writers who have deleted (a) BLEND file(s) for their age and wish to continue development of that age. PyPRP's import feature prevents such a writer from having to rebuild that age from scratch.

Age import has not supported since before the release of GoW-PyPRP 1.5.0.

Required Software

Windows

Mac/Linux

Installation

Before we get PyPRP Importer and install it, you will need to locate your Blender scripts folder, which is where PyPRP Importer needs to be placed.

All Platforms (Advanced)

Note: This method is for users who are already comfortable with using Blender

Click on the Help > System > System Information. This will create a text file called system-info.txt inside Blender. Open this text file and look for a line that says Default dir for scripts. Your scripts folder is written out in the line below.

Windows

Blender allows you to choose where your scripts folder is installed. By default, Blender obscures the script folder in your Application Data folder, which makes finding it somewhat troublesome. Unfortunately, the Application Data folder is in different places depending on which version of Windows you are using. Please refer to the following sample locations to see if your scripts folder is in the Application Data folder.

  • Windows 2000/XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<Your User Name>\Application Data\Blender Foundation
  • Windows Vista/7: C:\Users\<Your User Name>\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation

If the Blender Foundation folder is present, then your scripts folder can be found by going to the Blender > .blender > scripts folder. Otherwise, the scripts folder can be found within your Blender installation itself. This is usually C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts. If you are running a 64-bit operating system, substitute Program Files for Program Files (x86).

Mac OS X

You have two options: Either use the built-in scripts folder of the Blender application. This is simple and makes PyPRP Importer available to all users of the computer, but you will have to move over PyPRP Importer if you install a newer version of Blender. Or make your personal scripts folder to keep PyPRP Importer and other third-party scripts neatly separated from Blender's built-in scripts.

To use the built-in scripts folder: Right-click or ctrl-click on the blender application and choose Show Package Contents. Go to Contents/MacOS. The .blender folder is in there, but it is invisible because its name starts with a period. To open it, press cmd-shift-G (or choose Go to Folder… from the Go menu) and enter .blender into the box. The scripts folder is in the .blender folder and already contains a number of scripts.

To make your own scripts folder: Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal, enter 

mkdir -p ~/.blender/scripts

and press return. You can quit Terminal after that. (You can't make the .blender folder in the Finder because it doesn't allow you to rename it to a name starting with a period.) Now open your home folder (/Users/<your user name>) and press cmd-shift-G (or choose Go to Folder… from the Go menu). Enter .blender into the box to open the invisible folder you just created and find the scripts folder in there.

At this stage, Blender will exclusively use the newly created scripts folder and thus lose its built-in scripts. To bring them back: Open Blender and drag the menu bar down to reveal the Preferences window. Select File Paths in the bottom button row. Click the folder button in the Python Scripts box, navigate to where you installed the Blender application (blender.app) in the file dialog, drill down to blender.app/Contents/MacOS/.blender/scripts, and click SELECT SCRIPT PATH. After closing the Preferences window again, choose File > Save Default Settings to make the new setting permanent.

Linux

/home/<Your User Name>/.blender/scripts

The Future of the Importer

Developers are hard at work on the release of PyPRP 2.x, that will make this version obsolete, until then this importer can serve the community as a decent importer of ages.

Download Link

Latest Stable Version

Additionally stuff (for Python 2.5):

Optional additional stuff: