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OpenSimImport

Overview​

This workflow imports regions created and archived with Open Simulator into a Space project. It is intended for advanced Unity, Space, and Open Simulator users.

Before you begin​

Level: Advanced Unity/Space, advanced Open Simulator operations.

Goals: Import regions created and archived with Open Simulator into a Space project.

Requirements: The utility this workflow is based on is a Windows-only program at this time, so a reasonably resourceful Windows desktop is required. You will also need a region archive created with an Open Simulator instance to import into your Space region.

warning

The import utility software described here was not produced by the Sine Space team, and is not officially supported. Your mileage with this software may vary — use at your own risk. This workflow description is provided for guidance only. Obtain any support required for the utility from its authors.

There are two primary steps to this workflow.

Opening the archive​

First visit the site for OARConv, download the software, and prepare it for use on your Windows desktop.

Run the executable and browse to your archive file. Be aware that simply browsing to the OAR file starts the conversion by unpacking the Open Simulator archive. You will be guided through the appropriate modal interfaces to select or create folders for this operation; the defaults are reasonable. Wait for this operation to complete. You now have the dataset from the Open Simulator archive in a format ready for conversion to DAE.

You do not have to import the entire region — there is an archive browser and object previewer in the OARConv interface. Lastly for this step, select all the content you wish to convert and begin the conversion. This produces DAE files suitable for import to Space, in the target folder prepared earlier.

Once that process is complete, you are ready to proceed to the next step: importing the DAE to Unity/Space.

Importing the archive​

OARConv produces two folders of assets as its output. One contains all the objects that were collideable in the original simulator; the other contains all the objects that were phantom. It is recommended that these be imported separately, as follows:

  • Create two empty game objects in your hierarchy; name one phantom and one nonphantom.
  • Drop the folder contents from each of the OARConv folders into these empty game objects accordingly.
  • Select the contents of the non-phantom folder in your project hierarchy, and in the Inspector click Generate Colliders.

This will leave the two sets of objects distinct in your hierarchy (though not in the scene).

Unity will grind a while — depending on the size of the import and the capabilities of your hardware, it might be a while. In the meantime, here are a few things you should know about the completed import operation.

Unity/Space is not Open Simulator and vice versa, so it is to be expected that there is not a 1:1 correspondence between the objects in the respective regions. There will be some cleanup work that needs to be done, and some things to watch out for. Some of these will be fairly painless while others will require attention to individual objects by hand.

A lot of the cleanup will be graphic, and some of it will be structural. Most of the graphic settings will involve the adjustment of textures. There is also the issue of naming: the OARConv tool does not use the names of the Open Simulator assets in many cases, and will use UUIDs instead.

One thing to look out for is large or duplicated files. Even similarly presented objects will not share materials, so the roughly converted region produced by the OARConv process will tend towards bloat. Additionally, terrains are imported oddly, and the meshes and materials produced for them can balloon considerably.

Explore the interface of the OARConv tool and become familiar with it. While it is not a perfect tool, it can be useful and effective at getting content moved from one platform to another.