3

Sony PlayStation

In This Section:

• Converting to PlayStation Files 34
• Using the PlayStation Translator 36
• Testing the Output 47

This section describes how to use the interface of the Sony PlayStation-specific Direct Translator.

For information on how to run the translator, see Using the MakeGame Plug-in on page 7 and Using Translators from the Command Line on page 14.

Converting to PlayStation Files

Availability

Download the PlayStation translator and documentation from the Sony web site or the Sony developer CD.

Sony distributes the PlayStation translator as a non-encrypted tar file containing the translator, TIM image module, source code and Makefile.

GetPlayStation Translator

GetPlayStation converts Alias wire models to PlayStation file formats.

Special Features

• Hierarchical animation is converted.

• Per-polygon shaders and textures.

• Separate output of animation and modelling data.

• Optimized output of TOD data (removes "identity" TRS components).

• MetaCycle preview on PlayStation.

• VDF/NDF output for MIME animation.

• Output of sequences of TMD files.

• Control of STP bit in TIM files.

• HMD geometry output

Limitations

• Solid textures are not converted.

• TOD format has a maximum scaling factor of 8.0. You must model in Alias so that you will not have to scale by more than 8.

• The RSD files generated by the PlayStation translator will not create the same TMD file when used with the RSDLink.exe program.

Installing

The translator archive is a non-encrypted, compressed tar file.

To install the PlayStation translator:

1

Note the path to the tar archive, whether you downloaded it to a directory if it is on the CD-ROM. You will need to tell InstallGame where it is.

See Installing Platform Specific Libraries on page 5.

2

Run the InstallGame script to install the PlayStation-specific libraries:

InstallGame -e -f <path to tar file>

Using the PlayStation Translator

When you run the translator from MakeGame, the Sony PlayStation Export window appears. Use this window to set the options described below, then click OK to start converting.

File Format Section

RSD Group

Outputs the RSD group (PLY, MAT, GRP, and RSD files) for all geometry in the scene.

TMD file

Outputs the TMD file for all geometry in the scene. Choose the type of TMD file format from the adjacent pop-up menu:

• Standard - outputs a TMD file for the specified frames of animation.

• Difference - outputs a VDF and NDF file for the specified animation frames for MIME animation.

• Sequence - outputs a sequence of TMD files for the specified frames.

TOD file

Outputs a TOD file for animation (only available if the scene contains animation). Choose the type of TOD file format from the adjacent pop-up menu:

• Rot Std - transfers Alias rotation matrices directly (the most accurate).

• Rot Opt - is the same as Rot Std, but optimized (does not output data for objects that have "identity" matrices or TRS components).

• TRS Std - decomposes Alias rotation matrices into TRS values.

• TRS Opt - is the same as TRS Std, but is optimized so that it does not output data for objects that have "identity" matrices or TRS components.

HMD file

Enables HMD output.

This option outputs geometry only, in an ASCII-format LAB file. To produce a binary file, run this LAB file through the psx_endscript preprocessor script file

This option does not output animation, colors, or textures. To output texture files, enable the TMD option (described above).

MetaCycle

• ON - outputs a NET file containing MetaCycle information.

• OFF - outputs the specified range of animation frames.

Material Properties Section

Texture output

• Off - does not output textures.

• Tiled - tiles the texture if the UV coordinates for the texture are outside the range from 0.0 - 1.0. Texture size is maintained. (If HMD output is enabled, this setting will allow HMD tiled output if possible.)

• Not Tiled - does not tile the texture if the UV coordinates are outside the 0.0 - 1.0 range. The UV coordinates are clipped.

Material type

• By material - outputs the texture according to the materials assigned in Alias.

• Flat - converts all materials to flat shading.

• Gouraud - converts all materials to Gouraud shading.

Vmapper

See Video RAM Mapper on page 39.

Click to open the Video RAM Mapper window. This window lets you load textures into the video RAM of the PlayStation.

Vmapper filename

The Vmapper file name to use for video texture mapping.

Options Section

Scale Factor

The translator will scale the whole model by this factor before conversion.

Light source calculation

Replaces lights with a material that simulates the light source.

Triangulate all polygons

Triangulates all polygons in the scene.

Backface polygons

Turns on backfacing in the MAT file.

Verbose mode

Writes all messages to STDERR (the shell or the console window) during the conversion.

Output filename

Lets you specify a filename for HMD, TMD and TOD files.

Merge Groups

This option is not implemented in this version. The option is included for use with a custom-written translator.

Animation Section

Start Frame/ End Frame

Start and end frames of animation to convert.

Video RAM Mapper

The Video RAM Mapper, also called the VMapper, allows you to place the textures used in the scene into the video RAM of the PlayStation development system. PlayStation video RAM is made up of 32 pages (numbered 0 to 31), represented in the VMapper by two rows of vertical bars.

To load a texture into video RAM:

1

Click a name in the Select current texture list. The Select current texture list shows all the textures in the scene.

The texture appears in the texture swatch area.

2

Click a page in the texture page area.

A rectangle appears. This rectangle represents the memory size used by the texture.

3

Drag the texture rectangle to fit it. (Large rectangles will have to overlap pages.)

4

Use the controls at the bottom of the window to set up the texture (see below).

5

When you have set up all the textures in video RAM, click OK. To start over, click Clear. To cancel any changes and go back to the main window, click Cancel.

Screen Size Section

X Res

The horizontal resolution of the PlayStation video screen.

Y Res

The vertical resolution of the PlayStation video screen.

Changing these options changes the size of the active video area (the part of memory reserved for the visible display). You cannot place textures in this area.

Map Files Section

Load

Click to load a saved video RAM configuration.

Textures that were saved in a previous session but are not available now will appear as unmovable black rectangles.

If the Reload option (in the MakeGame window) was turned off, the texture swatch may not update. However, the textures will output correctly.

Save

Click to save a video RAM configuration to disk.

Textures section

The Textures section displays the PlayStation video RAM information for the selected texture.

Page#

The page of video RAM in which the texture resides.

Freeze

Locks the position of the texture in video RAM.

Offset X,Y

The horizontal and vertical offset of the texture in the page.

Color Depth

The color depth of the converted texture.

Changing the color depth affects the size of the texture in memory.

Four-bit (16-color) textures have a yellow outline. Eight-bit (256-color) textures have a green outline. Sixteen-bit (65536-color) textures have a blue outline.

CLUT X,Y

The horizontal and vertical location of the color look-up table, in Video RAM.

Translucent

Turns on the transparency (STP) bit for color (non-black) pixels.

Transparent

Turns on the transparency (STP) bit for black pixels.

Dither

Dithers when generating a palette-mapped image.

Use Original TIM File

Tries to use the original TIM file from the Alias shader as the texture. The original TIM file is copied to the output directory and the VRAM display is updated.

SemiTransparency

A pop-up menu that lets you control semi-transparency. (See your PlayStation documentation for more information.)

GetPlayStation Command Line Options

See Output on page 46 for a description of the GUI interface.

Most of the command line options duplicate controls in the GUI window.

If you turn the GUI checkbox off in the MakeGame window, enter these options in the Option field to control the conversion:

GetPlayStation options	Descriptions
-v	(verbose) Output progress updates during conversion.
-rsd	Output RSD group.
-tmd option	Output TMD file. For option, use: standard = output a TMD file for the specified frames of animation. difference = output a VDF and NDF file for the specified animation frames for MIME animation. sequence = output a sequence of TMD files for the specified frames.
-tod option	Output TOD file. For option, use: r = transfer Alias rotation matrices directly (the most accurate). R = same as above, but do not output data for objects that have "identity" matrices or TRS components. t = decompose Alias rotation matrices into TRS values. T = same as above, but do not output data for objects that have "identity" matrices or TRS components.
-net	Output MetaCycle file.
-flat	Convert all material to flat shading (cannot be used with -gouraud).
-gouraud	Convert all material to gouraud shading (cannot be used with -flat).
-s factor	Scale model by factor before converting.
-lightSource	Turn pre-light sourcing ON.
-b	Turn backface polygons ON.
-t	Triangulate all polygons.
-x scriptname	Run shell script scriptname after conversion.
-tile	Set texture tiled mode.
-hmd	Output an HMD file.
-help	Output a list of options
-VRM filename	Load in the specified texture Vmapper file.

Alias Environment Variables

DT_EXPORT_DIR

The directory where exported files are created. This is the same as the Export directory field of the MakeGame window.

• Parameters - a valid path to a directory

• Default - '.' (the current working directory)

DT_PCNAMES

Enables the translator to output files with DOS-compatible filenames of the form DTF#dddd (where dddd is a 4-digit number) whenever filenames exceed the 8- and 3- character DOS name and type limits. There is no easy way to match these numbers to the original filenames.

• Parameters - none

• Default - OFF

DT_PSX_BEGSCRIPT

Lets you specify a shell script to run before conversion.

• Parameters - a valid path to a directory (for example, /usr/aw/alias/ODS/Games/bin psx_begscript).

• Default - none

DT_PSX_ENDSCRIPT

A shell script to run after conversion.

• Parameters - a valid path to a directory (for example, /usr/aw/alias/ODS/Games/bin/psx_endscript).

• Default - none

DT_PSX_H1500_LOADER

The pathname of the DTL-H1500 loader program. If this variable is set, the psx_endscript script will use this DTL-H1500 program to view the converted model.

• Parameters - a valid path to a directory

• Default - none

DT_TIM_DIR

The default directory for the Replace Texture button.

• Parameters - a valid path to a directory

• Default - none

DT_VRM_DIR

The directory for loading and saving vrm files.

• Parameters - a valid path to a directory

• Default - none

PLAY_DEGEN_FACTOR

Sets the limit of tolerance for determining if a polygon is degenerate. (If set < 0.0, then polygons will never be found to be degenerate, even if they actually are.)

• Parameters - a floating point value (units = degrees)

• Default - 0.1

PLAY_DIFF_MATRIX

Sets a flag to enable output of difference matrix/TRS components rather than absolute matrices. This output is not fully implemented in the current translator.

• Parameters - none

• Default - outputs absolute matrix/TRS values

PSX_BLINDDATA_TAG

Lets you specify a blind data ID tag.

PSX_NOHMDTILED

Will not use the HMD tiling options, as specified in the Sony PlayStation Export window.

If you didn't specify resample by tiling (in the Texture output section of the Sony Playstation Export window), there may be a UV range outside of 0 to 1.0. In this case, the HMD output tool will attempt to use the HMD tiling options (as set by PSX_V_ORIENTATION), which may or may not work depending on the location of the textures in the VRAM setting.

PSX_RSD_SCALE

Adds the texture page offset to the texture UV values (included for backwards compatibility with an older version of the translator).

• Parameters - none

• Default - OFF

PSX_V_ORIENTATION

HMD option for tiling the UV range.

Output

Filename	Contents
<scene>.hmd	HMD geometry. In binary data file format.
<scene>.lab	HMD geometry. In ASCII LAB format.
<scene>.tmd	Geometry.
<scene>.objects	List of PlayStation objects (TMD) IDs and the corresponding Alias object/
<scene>.tod	Animation information.
<scene>.net	MetaCycle information.
<texture name>.tim	PlayStation texture map files.

Testing the Output

Types of Demo Viewers

Alias|Wavefront supplies demo viewers for three different types of PlayStation developer configuration:

• DTL-2000 (PC PlayStation card)

• DTL-1500 (stand-alone ethernet PlayStation)

• DTL-3050 (serial cable connection to development PlayStation)

The viewers are based on the provided PlayStation demo viewer source code.

Setting Up the Demo Viewer

On a PC with the DTL-2000 PlayStation Card

To test your PlayStation output, you must download the output to a PC on the network running the development environment and the Alias|Wavefront Demo Viewer. This process can be automated with the supplied shell scripts, but first you must install the Demo Viewer on the development PC.

To install the demo viewer on a development PC:

1

Create a directory structure on your PC:

cd <hard drive letter>:\
mkdir awgames
cd awgames
mkdir bin
mkdir psx

2

Copy the viewer source files from the Alias installation to the PC:

cd psx

xcopy \\<sgimachinename>\usr\aw\alias\ODS\Games\source\PlayStation\tools\PC\*

setenv DT_PSX_H1500_LOADER /usr/aw/alias/ODS/Games/bin/PSXloader

sbload and srun are available from the PSX development web site.

To use the DTL-H3050 serial cable, you must load the files onto the development machine with the sbload program, then run the code with the srun program. The PSXloader program checks for the following environment variables:

They will download .EXE files only (not CPE format) The Alias supplied files are currently in CPE format and cannot be downloaded directly. You must convert them to .EXE format with tools supplied by Sony.

DT_PSX_3050_LOADER

The path of the SGI executable to use to download a file through the 3050 serial cable (usually sbload).

DT_PSX_3050_RUN

The path of the SGI executable to use to send the run command to the development system through the 3050 serial cable (usually srun).

Downloading to a Development Machine

To download and test from UNIX, use the shell scripts psx_begscript and psx_endscript:

1

The scripts provided are examples. Use a text editor to modify the scripts to fit your configuration.

2

Set the environment variables $DT_PSX_BEGSCRIPT and $DT_PSX_ENDSCRIPT to the full pathnames of the modified scripts. For example:

setenv DT_PSX_BEGSCRIPT /usr/aw/alias/ODS/Games/bin/psx_begscript

setenv DT_PSX_ENDSCRIPT /usr/aw/alias/ODS/Games/bin/psx_endscript