Panicle - Minecraft Schematics to Qubicle files (and more!)

so it is spelled, so shall it be built…

thanks for plugging away at this! I hope to have a go at it this weekend… :+1:

I see…we were just a harmless fling…and don’t tell me that whole thing with that Timber & Stone is still going on too? :cry:

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#Update (1.2.1.0)

Multiblock feature now available

I’ve chosen that, for my experiments, a 6x6x6 block should do. It kind of does. Keep in mind that there are memory limitations though. You’ll have to find them yourself.

So, what it effectively does: If you rename a .schematic to .pansmatic, Panicle will try advanced magic. It will search for “block_ID.qb” and “block_ID_data.qb” files (for example, “block_4.qb”, “block_17_8.qb”. Those files must be cubes (width == length == height) and all must have the same size. It will still read the blocks.json and just fill in those colors if no specific block qb has been provided - so you can have only certain blocks replaced.

This is now using the advanced optimisation that I spoke about earlier. Right now, it will run on half as many threads as processors are available - the whole process scales quite nicely, so the bigger your creation gets, the more CPUs you want…

So anyway. To use this feature:

  1. Rename your .schematic to .pansmatic
  2. Make sure you have all blocks either defined in the blocks.json or available as “block_id_data.qb”.
  3. Drag-and-drop the .pansmatic. Remember that Panicle will look for the blocks in the same directory as the pansmatic, not the directory Panicle is located in.

To make the creation of those blocks easier, I present

Block creator

You’ve seen the blocks already above. These were the textures used to generate them (scaled by factor ten).

If you drag-and-drop such .pngs onto Panicle, it will create a cube that somewhat looks like the texture you’ve defined. Remember that unlike in Minecraft, the edges have to share their colors. I’m not sure how to solve that issue, right now, it’s first come first served - so one face will always overwrite the others. Perhaps that should be blended somehow…

But anyway, a simple way to create blocks. The size of the texture defines the size of the block; a 6x6 texture will create a 6x6x6 qb. The texture must be square.

Axis view & multi matrix support

Track:



Cart (unscaled):

Both implemented. Files with multiple matrices will be dumped as “qbfilename_matrixname_axis.png”, just like before. With those three axes, you get a real idea of what your model looks like. It’s really fancy.

Sooo, err, yes. This update effectively rules out the possible features “Optimize qb files”, “Multiblock scaling” and “Multimatrix/Multiaxes”…

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Wow… this… this is brilliant. I could probably make much better models with this… starts thinking of new ideas

There’s three features that I am currently debating whether or not to include them. One of them is the reverse of the axis split - i.e. you define an image (like the one currently exported), tell it how many slices it is and Panicle merges them together to a qb file. This would allow for very easy and quick re-skins, especially for small objects.

The second would be a qb merger. Basically, it merges matrices from A.qb with the matrices from B.qb - to allow stuff like human models being built with Panicle.

The third would be an obj exporter.

All of these things would, however, heavily get into Qubicle’s own domain… which is something I want to avoid.

your caution is appreciated… perhaps a conversation with @Tim is in order?

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Probably. I think some of the things Panicle already does (or will be doing) are actually features in Q2. Soo, yes. !summon @Tim?

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Hey guys, here I am.
First of all: posting such a tool first, and asking whether it’s okay later, is obviously the wrong way. As soon as you post it somewhere as crowed as this forum the damage is done. I just say this because a lot of modders out there think that it’s okay to hack everything related with voxels because games like minecraft allow this. But that’s simply not the case. You can even break the law. So, think first, then ask the developer of the tool for permission and then finally, if he allows it, post it. I appreciate your enthusiasm but please play fair, and stay out of trouble. You have scripted this in a couple of days but the developer of the software might have invested years. Once again: as soon as you post it, it can’t be undone.

Sorry for the long introduction but I needed to say this.

In this case you haven’t done anything illegal because the qb file format is open. Still, I would have appreciated it if you have contacted me before posting it. And it would be nice to wait with the qb to obj exporter until I release Q2, because that indeed does go heavily into QC1’s domain.

And yes Q2 will have a minecraft importer, that’s true for all Qubicle 2 editions. Higher editions will also have a poxel mode, so the blocks are rendered with a texture and you will be able to use minecraft textures or whatever you like. And finally the Qubicle 2 Play editions will feature a very basic 1-click OBJ exporter.

Cheers!

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I know that it’s impossible to undelete things from the internet (and more often than not, trying to do such a thing results in the exact opposite). It was never my intention to hurt you, Minddesk or Qubicle, the same way I never intended this to be some sort of “free” replacement for any of the tools you provide.

I did a little bit of research about the possible consequences of releasing such a tool, I didn’t just upload it. While I’ve missed that Q2 will have such a feature (which upon retrospect would be a good argument against a release), I thought that since qb was an open format and I was not replicating any (currently available) function, it would be fine. I suppose I should have talked to you in advance about it, but I was a little bit too excited about getting it to work.

As per your request, I’m not going to release the qb-to-obj exporter nor the other features I’ve coded in the meantime - so effectively, I’m stopping the project. It has all the features that I’ve wanted it to have in the beginning - so that’s enough for me. I’ll keep it closed source too, just to be safe.

Even though it might be too late - if you want me to pull the plug completely on this, I’ll gladly do it.

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Hey, you don’t need to pull the plug.
I know you didn’t want to do any harm and you didn’t. I just wanted to give an impression on how it feels like from my point of view. Like I said you used qb and that’s fine. Somebody else hacked qmo and that is so unbelievable frustrating. You can’t believe that somebody is actually capable of doing such a thing, I mean I am not Adobe or some other big company. Maybe that’s why I needed to say this.
I can totally understand your excitement, that’s the reason why I am working on this project for such a long time now. Please don’t feel discouraged by my comment. If you just skip the obj part that’s fine with me.

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Hey tim, will stonehearth ever include qb or will it always be seperate?

sorry, was this a question about the Stonehearth edition of QC?

I can completely understand that.

… I would lie if I said I didn’t think about trying it at least (it would be a challenge - I like those). I wouldn’t have released that part however as that would definitely be wrong. Just as some sort of hobby…

Nah, as I’ve said, it’s pretty much complete. I’ve got schematics to qb (if I had have any other choice for a model format I would have picked a more common one as I really felt a bit bad for writing qbs), I’ve got the slice thingy (which was just meant to debug the classes/the algorithms but has a few uses I guess) and that’s about what I wanted to. The obj support would merely be for animations and if there was any other choice I would do that instead. The idea wasn’t necessarily to have qb-to-obj, the idea was to give modders a chance to create animated objects. However, I can’t think of a way that would give them that opportunity without converting the qbs themselves to some format that could then be exploited to .obj or similar.

Well, except writing an own animation tool which would just natively load qbs and dump Stonehearth jsons, but now we’re way beyond my capabilities (or rather, stuff I’m willing to do) :wink: Whatever animation tool I would produce (likely in Unity3D I guess) would not just be inferior to every render program there is, it would also conflict with the Unite asset you’re selling. That’s way beyond the border of what I am (morally) willing to do.

no, no, I am asking if a simple qb editor would be included with stonehearth later in development. A very simple one.

Tom mentioned once (quite a bit ago) that this might be a future feature. However, that might be a very distant future like post-release.

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Squee! I am super excited! I can’t wait to build . . .

Oh wait, I don’t have Minecraft. :crying_cat_face:

i knew there was a comment on it, but couldnt recall the reference… this was what i dug up:

Will there be a sculptor who can make sculptures which you can create out of voxels in the game?

We thought about that … adding an in-game voxel editor is a big chunk of work, it would be awesome, but its like not worth it yet … eventually maybe, but for now we’re not gonna do that, but it’s a good idea. We even thought about how to level up the carver so that when he levels up you can do more intricate carvings, but if it makes it in, it’s something that will be there later rather than sooner.

As soon as they support a format other than qb, I’m sure somebody can build an in-game in-game model creator. Or something.

so did i miss something or does this not Convert schematics to any qubical files?

im trying to convert my minecraft builds so i can edit them in Qubicle but apparently im doing something wrong!

It does convert schematics to .qbs. Make sure you have a blocks.json that contains all necessary blocks, otherwise it will complain.