Exporting objects from a TRLE Wad with texturing to Blender for conversion to OBJ - Tomb-Raider-Level-Editor/Tutorials GitHub Wiki

Written by not again!

This short tutorial outlines the workflow how to import a model from a TRLE (Tomb Raider Level Editor) Wad with textures to Blender for the purpose of converting it to OBJ file format so it can be loaded into Tomb Editor as imported geometry.

Updated tutorial:

Tools needed:

Make a new Wad with only the model you want to convert to OBJ. (Wad needs to be classic .wad format) Start Blender, delete the starting cube and select in the menu bar on top File > Import > Tomb Raider 4 WAD file (.wad) In the file browser window you should see a menu at the right side of the screen where you can choose some import options (see this YouTube video for a visual guide):

In the dropdown you can select whether to import Lara with all her animations, Moveables, Statics or Everything. By default this is set to Everything, you can leave it at that.

You can also adjust the scale; by default it is set to 512. There are some situations where it may be best to use the original scale, but if you don't want to remodel anything and just want to convert Wad objects to OBJ then leave it at 512.

Next we have some additional options. A short description of what each one does is behind spoiler tags to keep the tutorial focused on what is needed for imported geometry:

  • Import Animations (imports the models with animations if they have any)

  • Generate NLA tracks (helpful if you want to modify the imported animations)

  • Discard Placeholders (if you want to exclude the placeholder models for Flame Emitter, Dart Emitter, etc. from being imported)

  • Rotate Objects upright (corrects the rotation of the models)

  • Export Objects and Animations (FBX) (exports all models to separate .fbx files, one for each. Models with animations get exported two times: once as rigged model without animations, and once as rigged model with all animations stored in the file.)

  • Export Objects (OBJ) (exports the models to separate .obj files. The OBJ file format does not store animations, so this will remove the rig of all models that have one)

  • Export additional Data (JSON) (file containing information regarding State Changes and Anim Commands)

In our case we just need the following:

  • Rotate Objects upright
  • Export Objects (OBJ) (Optional! Depends on whether the model needs transparency)

Without Transparency

If your model does not need to have any transparency, then you can tick Export Objects (OBJ) and the model will be exported as OBJ automatically while the Wad loads into Blender. If you have chosen that option then you don't need to do anything else after the Wad has finished loading, since the model has already been exported. You can simply close Blender again. Huzzah!

Import the model into Tomb Editor with following settings:

image

You can tweak the settings to your liking of course and change rotation, scale, etc. The above settings will import the model facing the same direction and having the same size it would have in its original state as Wad object.

Also be aware that those are the correct settings at the current time and it's possible that they might change in the future. In that case just go with trial and error until you get the desired result.

With Transparency

If you would like to assign transparency to the model, then you can do that in Blender:

After importing the Wad the scene will at first appear empty. The models are set to "hidden" by default (otherwise it would be a cluttered mess if you were to load an entire Wad and all models are visible at once). You can "unhide" the model by clicking the eye icon in the window in the top right corner (the Outliner):

image

Select the model and switch into Edit Mode by hitting Tab. Watch this short YouTube tutorial by Bergus to see how to apply transparency (or shine for models with moveable lighting) using the WAD Blender tab: https://youtu.be/hQ1DtBUQkSg?t=50

Now you can export the model as OBJ and import it into TE with following settings:

image

Note that those settings are different than the ones used further up (if you chose to automatically export the OBJ)!

And that's it. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Old version of the tutorial:

Note that this no longer works properly with the current version of Tomb Editor! The models will now appear semi-transparent in game and you'd have to either modify the MQO plugin to change the default import settings, or edit the .mtl file of the exported OBJ to get rid of the transparency.

Tools needed:

or

Steps:

  • make a new wad with only the model you want to convert to OBJ
  • open the wad in editwad and export the model to MQO (see the documentation that comes with the programm for a step-by-step guide)
  • open the wad in TextureAdd, select in the menu bar Edit > Texture Pieces > Export All (you need all the textures as individual images, not as texture - - page) and save them to the same folder where you saved the MQO file
  • start Blender and select in the menu bar on top File > Import > Metasequoia (.mqo) and import your model
  • Now you don't need to do anything else besides exporting as OBJ, which you do by selecting File > Export > Wavefront (.obj).

Now you can import your model into Tomb Editor with following settings: change scale from 1.0000 to 100.0000 and untick invert z -axis:

image