Create an official .cmod plugin for Blender and other applications

[Endeavor35]

Recently, I posted a link to an ISS model from NASA, which had a very nice SpaceX Cargo Dragon model docked to one of the ports. Having managed to extract it from the original model in Blender 2.9. I have now had to deal with essentially back porting it from the newest version of Blender, down to 2.79. Which was the last version to support the .3ds import/export plugin. So far, this has yielded zero success.

Knowing that .3ds isn't getting any younger, and that Blender is unlikely to bring this option back anytime soon, I would really like to see something like an official .cmod import/export plugin for the newest version of Blender. If that wasn't possible however, then perhaps future versions of Celestia beyond 2.7, could consider supporting a wider array of 3d model filetypes. I have no doubt that an undertaking like this would be quite difficult, at least in the eyes of a non programming person like myself. However, I feel that from a long term perspective, especially when I think about the post 2.7 era, the idea of enabling Celestia to support more filetypes or have an official .cmod plugin for applications such as Blender; could be significantly more helpful when it comes to bringing in new add-on content as well as enabling Celestia to stay both relevant & flexible in the future from my perspective.

One more idea I thought of was perhaps Celestia reaches out to Blender and offers to maintain the .3ds plugin, though I have no clue what that would entail, or if it is even a good idea period.

[Anthony_B_Russo10]

Unless the Celestia project gets more devs, this is very unlikely.

[john71]

You can use MeshLab to convert to 3ds format. Obj format can be imported into cmodview, but it is not perfect:

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Celestia should use the COLLADA dae format.

[Markerz]

personally I think it is easier to enable Celestia to support popular formats (basically writing parsers) than creating a plugin for Blender (I never used Blender, let alone how to write Blender plugins).

But I can be wrong.

[john71]

The 3ds format is basically dead. In my opinion the obj format is useable, but we need either a direct Collada support in Celestia or a perfect obj/dae to cmod converter utility. Currently the obj->cmod conversion is not very good, the end result textures are very different from the original ones. You have to correct them manually, but even this is not possible in many cases.

[fyr02]

There exists a plugin to convert from any model to cmod through the program anim8or. I don't know where it is but I've been using it for a while, in which you can convert like this:

model --> Blender --> obj --> Anim8or --> cmod

[Anthony_B_Russo10]

personally I think it is easier to enable Celestia to support popular formats (basically writing parsers) than creating a plugin for Blender (I never used Blender, let alone how to write Blender plugins).

But I can be wrong.

Plus if one wanted to deal with 3DS models the can just keep an install of Blender 2.79 on their computer as well.

[john71]

There exists a plugin to convert from any model to cmod

https://www.classe.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/modelling.html.~1~#4.1