PDO File converter

[chris_hart01]

Ok it has taken me most of the day to achieve, but i have unlocked all the PDO files on my storage discs, and converted them all to PDF files, though the next hard part will be to do the instructions to each, as the programs i used didnt re-encode them as they are in active 3d which i am un familiar with.
Now that i have done that if some one could tell me how to upload them to here with the opened PDO which still contains the instructions, into the free zone so others can also have a go at building them, they were all free when i got them, so they can go up for free again

[maurice]

Whoah boy - steady the Duffs - (no that's not a typo)
You have of course already obtained the permission of the original designer of each model to publish your notion of what form their model should have taken ???
What's that - you haven't ? Oh dear.


As for the rest of the thread I find some of it most amusing.
Look folks none of us - that is none - knows all about the possible design processes and software abilities and performances involved.
We each come to the topic by a different route with our own limited knowledge and experience. So let's keep the discussion to as clear an explanation as we can each give as to where we are each coming from. No statements of absolute certainty.

[rickstef]

Maurice is correct, unless you have gotten permission from each and every designer you have converted a model, the models will not be allowed to be uploaded to our download section.

Rick

[codex34]

JPG has issues with compression?

Meant that jpg uses image compression instead of data compression, you ALWAYS get a reduced quality in the resulting image, which is why you should use tif as your master file. tif don't mess with me pixels.

I will give credit to a 3D modeler who actually spends hours designing a digital 3D object from scratch
and then uses an "unfolder" to save some time at the end...but thats all.

Hours? Try days, weeks, or months. It isn't easy by a long way, which is why game models are ripped alot.

I personally don't mind the game model ripping, I write alot of scripts that allow it to be done, I only mind when someone loads a game model and 'unfolds' it without reworking it into a buildable paper model or makes it so big you have to print 99 pages just to build the damn thing.
Turning a model that is designed for games into a buildable model is an artform in itself.

unless you have acrobat the output to multi page is basic

What I mean is that free converters mostly tend to 'print' the output to a basic jpg image wrapped up as a pdf, which sometimes makes it difficult or time comsuming to make decent multi page pdf files.
Acrobat you just stick them into the designer and get exactly what you want.
That's been my experience anyway, if they have improved them recently I wouldn't know, I gave up printing pdf's just to find they were jpg and just released the jpg versions.
Acrobat viewer is too large just to be a print manager.

[maurice]

What I mean is that free converters mostly tend to 'print' the output to a basic jpg image wrapped up as a pdf, which sometimes makes it difficult or time comsuming to make decent multi page pdf files.

Don't think you should be blaming the converters.
Feed vector to Cute and the pdf will be vector.
This has been the case with most of the several free and commercial converters I've tried out. Most use the Ghostscript engine anyway (some even readily admit they're using it).
If there is no vector in the pdf when Cute prints output from Pepa then there was no vector in that output.
Seems to be the case that Pepa 3 only prints bitmap info whereas the original version of Pepa, even in the free version, printed vector output, including fills when they were vector.

[airdave]

Originally Posted by codex34

Hours? Try days, weeks, or months. It isn't easy by a long way, which is why game models are ripped alot.

lol
any Tradesman, artist or artisan knows that jobs are measured in "hours".
Thats why I used the word.
You don't quote a job by days or weeks...you state "the number of hours"
(or sometimes "man hours") to finish a job.

It isn't easy?...and thats why they are ripped alot?
This sentence doesn't make sense to me.


I'm sorry...but ripping game models is theft of artwork from a game.
Designers have spent "hours" designing the 3D model and artwork that
goes into a game model. All the work is done and is in fact copyrighted.
Pulling the data, no matter how long it takes or how difficult it is,
and popping it into pepakura for "unfolding" is not "kosher".
I don't agree with it.
But...I apologize...this is not what this thread is about
and I am diverting the topic. I will say no more.

...
I would like to give CutePDF a try one day and see what the output and print options are.
I know that the options within Acrobat are endless for adjusting the final output
...mainly in the name of file size.
Different ways to reduce the overall file size.
There are ways to retain bitmaps and vectors and text qualities,
as well as all the hidden information in a PDF.

Someone said earlier that Pep will output to different formats.
But this must have been referring to the Pep Designer?
Which of course, is the paid program.

[ProjectKITT]

Originally Posted by airdave

It isn't easy?...and thats why they are ripped alot?
This sentence doesn't make sense to me.

I believe he was referring to building models from scratch as not being easy, and therefore game models are often ripped instead (please correct me if I misunderstood).

Originally Posted by airdave

Someone said earlier that Pep will output to different formats.
But this must have been referring to the Pep Designer?
Which of course, is the paid program.

I should have specified, I was referring to Pepakura Designer. If the OP is looking for a free way to convert PDOs to another file format, then a virtual printer is the only way I know of, but there are probably others.

[airdave]

Originally Posted by ProjectKITT

I believe he was referring to building models from scratch as not being easy, and therefore game models are often ripped instead (please correct me if I misunderstood).

ah...thanks!

Originally Posted by ProjectKITT

I should have specified, I was referring to Pepakura Designer. If the OP is looking for a free way to convert PDOs to another file format, then a virtual printer is the only way I know of, but there are probably others.

right



PS...I've sent a PM to codex....I've apologized for seeming to jump on his comments. My opinions were not aimed directly at him.

[codex34]

Ah 'man hours', yes I get that now, lost in translation

Last year when looking for jobs I came across one job advert from a start up games company, they wanted one person with the skills to design game assets, model them, optimize the models, make the textures, map the textures onto the model, optimize the UV maps, renderbake the lighting, skin the models and animate them. 30k a year.
Now I can actually do all that and more, but for the work of 10 people I want the wages of 10 people.....

Thing about game models is that the copyright of the models belongs to the company that paid the designers to make them.
So it's like any copyright, can you make 'fan art' from it?
Can you make 'fan art' from US military designs?
Star trek?
Same copyright argument each time.
Although game models in .pdo format are sailing a bit close to the wind in that your redistributing actual 3D game content, doesn't matter if the file is locked or not.

PM received and replied to - no apology needed

[cfuruti]

Warning: just a semitechnical comment on file compression - nothing about the suitability of PDO v. PDF.

Originally Posted by codex34

Meant that jpg uses image compression instead of data compression, you ALWAYS get a reduced quality in the resulting image, which is why you should use tif as your master file. tif don't mess with me pixels.
...

More precisely, there's "lossy" and "lossless" compression; the latter is always able to exactly reconstruct the original data, while the former attempts to discard information where it's likely to pass unnoticed (obviously the "where" depends on the data's purpose and is very different for line drawings, photographs, audio, or video).
JPEG formats are in practice always lossy (I'm not sure about the "100% quality" settings, but I'll ignore it because compression is nearly zero), thus just opening a .jpg file then saving it again without changing anything will degrade quality - same for MP3.
TIFF is not the only format to support lossless compression; in the distant past I had some trouble with it because it's very flexible but quite a complex format, with several variations and variable software support. Today I prefer the less professional but easier PNG.
I'm not sure about your "image compression" v. "data compression" comparison. If you mean IC is a kind of DC which takes into account the fact that data is a picture, then

1. JPG is not alone in this regard
2. it is not implicitly lossy

For instance, in contrast with a generic .zip software, a PNG compressor "knows" that non-neighbour bytes may represent pixels in neighbouring rows, thus are likely to have similar colors. In my simple experiment, an optimized lossless PNG got smaller than:

• zipping an uncompressed TIFF screenshot
• a TIFF with LZW or "deflate" compression (which I suspect are not much different, in compression processing, than the first alternative)

BTW GIMP (at least) has the ability to save a TIFF file with "JPEG compression"; I had no idea even TIFF had surrendered to lossies

Originally Posted by codex34

...
What I mean is that free converters mostly tend to 'print' the output to a basic jpg image wrapped up as a pdf, which sometimes makes it difficult or time comsuming to make decent multi page pdf files.

I agree, it's quite frustrating opening a PDF to discover it has badly degraded JPEG embedded (immediate symptoms: colored pixels hovering like mosquitoes near edges or text). The only advantage of the PDF, AFAIK, is that it prints at a consistent scale independent of printer resolution.