Hello all,
I felt that it would be really cool to have more complex looking 3D scenes running in Codea, and working with blender is pretty easy so well…
edit: I’ve rewritten the exporter a while ago, but updates to this post have been lacking. This is now a fully functional version
You can find the latest exporter on my website here
It will take a mesh and export it to an image, like this one:
This really makes it much more usable to use and share than having huge text files in your codea project.
Unfortunately, I can only use RGB to encode the data, using the alpha channel makes it unusable in Codea due to the way textures are loaded onto a surface). this means the output file is slightly larger
Vertices, vertices colors, normals and UVs (texture coordinates) are exported.
Simple textured monkey example:
Anyway, it’s simple enough to use, create your pretty scene, hit export and you get an image ready to import into blender.
Usage is pretty simple (this is normally part of a class used in my upcoming project, but I cleaned it up to be functions).
Here are the images used in the following example: http://ezakirth.free.fr/files/
and 
--# Main
function setup()
mdl = Model("Dropbox:model", "Dropbox:texture")
useShader = false
if useShader then
mdl.shader.light = vec3(0,0,100):normalize()
end
ang = 0
end
function draw()
background(0)
perspective(60)
local x = math.sin(ang)*5
local y = math.cos(ang)*5
local z = math.cos(ang)*5
camera(x, y, z, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1)
mdl:draw()
ang = ang + (math.pi/180)
end
--# Model
function Model(mdl, texture)
local img = readImage(mdl)
local width, height = spriteSize(mdl)
local verts = {}
local normals = {}
local colors = {}
local coords = {}
local a1, b1, c1, d1, a2, b2, c2, d2, a3, b3, c3, d3, x, y, z, X, Y, n, size
local strToChar = string.char
local ins = table.insert
cnt = 0
X = 1
Y = height
n = 1
a1, b1, c1 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
d1 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
size = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a1, b1, c1, d1))
cnt = 0
-- vertices
while n<=size do
a1, b1, c1 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
d1, a2, b2 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
c2, d2, a3 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
b3, c3, d3 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
x = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a1, b1, c1, d1))
y = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a2, b2, c2, d2))
z = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a3, b3, c3, d3))
ins(verts, vec3(x, y, z))
n = n + 1
end
print(cnt.." for "..size.." vertices")
cnt = 0
-- normals
n = 1
while n<=size do
a1, b1, c1 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
d1, a2, b2 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
c2, d2, a3 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
b3, c3, d3 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
x = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a1, b1, c1, d1))
y = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a2, b2, c2, d2))
z = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a3, b3, c3, d3))
ins(normals, vec3(x, y, z))
n = n + 1
end
print(cnt.." for "..size.." normals")
cnt = 0
-- colors
n = 1
while n<=size do
a1, b1, c1 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
d1, a2, b2 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
c2, d2, a3 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
b3, c3, d3 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
x = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a1, b1, c1, d1))*255
y = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a2, b2, c2, d2))*255
z = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a3, b3, c3, d3))*255
ins(colors, color(x, y, z, 255))
n = n + 1
end
print(cnt.." for "..size.." colors")
cnt = 0
-- texture coordinates
if texture then
n = 1
while n<=size do
a1, b1, c1 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
d1, a2, b2 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
c2, d2, a3 = img:get(X,Y)
X, Y = nextPixel(X, Y, width)
x = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a1, b1, c1, d1))
y = bytesToFloat(strToChar(a2, b2, c2, d2))
ins(coords, vec2(x,y))
n = n + 1
end
end
local total = 3*(size*4)+(size*3)+2
print(cnt.." for "..size.." texture coords")
print("total:"..total.." pixels, for a model of "..(size/3).." polygons")
local min = math.ceil(math.sqrt(total))
print("min img size:"..min.."x"..min)
cnt = 0
local data = mesh()
data.vertices = verts
data.colors = colors
data.normals = normals
if texture then
data.texture = texture
data.texCoords = coords
if useShader then
data.shader = shader("Documents:cellShadingTextured")
end
else
if useShader then
data.shader = shader("Documents:cellShading")
end
end
verts = nil
coords = nil
colors = nil
normals = nil
img = nil
return data
end
-- Converts a string of 4 bytes to a float
function bytesToFloat(x)
local byte = string.byte
local ldexp = math.ldexp
local sign = 1
local mantissa = byte(x, 3) % 128
for i = 2, 1, -1 do
mantissa = mantissa * 256 + byte(x, i)
end
if byte(x, 4) > 127 then
sign = -1
end
local exponent = (byte(x, 4) % 128) * 2 + math.floor(byte(x, 3) / 128)
if exponent == 0 then
return 0
end
mantissa = (ldexp(mantissa, -23) + 1) * sign
return ldexp(mantissa, exponent - 127)
end
-- Goes to next available pixel
function nextPixel(x, y, max)
cnt = cnt + 1
x = x + 1
if x>max then
x = 1
y = y - 1
end
return x, y
end
Cheers,
Xavier
, never expected to see a crossover of any kind when I started using codea.