Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options

Content Pipeline Options

After a marathon of development this week, we have some new editor features coming soon. The biggest addition is the ability to change content pipeline options for assets in your content repository. Through the repository, you can change an asset's content importer, processor and processor properties without having to directly deal with the content pipeline. This will open the door for custom importers and processor, such as those for skinning or different file formats.

We've also optimized editor loading to increase startup speed and expanded the editor's type system to allow custom types to easily accept any asset from the content repository.

More Video Tutorials

Since my last blog we've added three new video tutorials covering HDR, terrain and collisions. Be sure to check out the Learn SunBurn section and our YouTube channel for the latest tutorials.

SunBurn Game Engine Tutorial #8 - Collisions


Posted 04-29-2011 10:21 PM by Ross "FiveSidedBarrel"

Comments

Tom wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 04-30-2011 4:24 AM

Sweet :) Will this open the doors for per-material-slot compression options at some point? I'd like my diffuse to be compressed, but the processor should leave normal maps alone, as he simply can't handle them...at all. Or perhaps something based on texture names with suffixes.

Filip wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 04-30-2011 5:34 AM

Hmm, where do you get the list of processors and importers? Will I have to reference dll's to the project to be able to pick let's say sgMoting one or is there some kine of configuration file? :)

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 04-30-2011 10:44 AM

Hi Ross, looks great!  It was an awesome week, so many new features implemented. :)

@all, I think the processor options in that screen shot might hint at an awesome new unannounced feature. ;)

@Tom, not currently - but you can modify the processor / importer options for each asset (models and ... "other" assets.. ;) in the repository separately.

Prior to this all models used to the same setting (from the repository processor).

@Filip, the importers / processors are pulled from the content project the repository is located in.  This ensures the repository has access to those shown in the drop-downs and any one selected can be used by the pipeline.

Let me know if this helps!

Philippe Da Silva wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 04-30-2011 3:02 PM

@ John: I know, I know! It's the built-in LightMap UV generation! Did I win something?! :p

Philippe

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 04-30-2011 9:17 PM

@Philippe, haha - good guess!  Yes, you win the ability to automatically generate your light map uvs (when SunBurn 2.0.15 is available). ;P

Tom wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 05-01-2011 4:16 AM

Nice :) Saw you mention it on Twitter at some point - great stuff :)

Darkside wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 05-03-2011 10:05 AM

Saw them hit the YouTube channel next week, great stuff as usual.  keep it up! :-D

Darkside wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 05-03-2011 10:07 AM

Just noticed, only XSI support :-(.  Where's the Blender love?.

Still great though, I know some people who will be happy

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 05-03-2011 1:59 PM

Hi Darkside,

*All* modeling apps are supported by SunBurn.

The XSI Support option is only there to allow using XSI shaders via their XNA connector plugin.

Wagmance wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 05-03-2011 8:41 PM

Looks great! :D

Im just wondering, will we still need to create a second UV Channel in our Models before they are exported?

And if a Model already has its Lightmap Coords  set, can we choose to override them?

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 05-04-2011 10:48 AM

Hi Wagmance,

The new "Generate Light Map Coordinates" option will automatically create a second uv channel for you if one does not already exist.

If one does exist the processor preserves it, so you can override the automatically generated channel with your own. :)

Even better the channels are calculated per-mesh - which means you can export a huge scene from your modeling app, manually unwrap one or two meshes, and SunBurn will leave those channels intact, but still unwrap all of the other meshes.

Let me know if this helps!

Dean Wadsworth wrote re: Editor Development: Content Pipeline Options
on 05-06-2011 11:21 AM

OMG!!! Thats awesome!! w00t can't wait



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