Convoar – OpenSim OAR to glTF Converter
Robert Adams (Misterblue) has created the “Convoar” tool to convert OpenSim OAR files into glTF (GL Transmission Format). The following blog post goes into more detail.
http://blog.misterblue.com/2018/2018-07-01-Convoar-and-Converting-OARS
Robert explained to me that Convoar grew out of his personal project on virtual world scene simplification that he felt is needed for viewing OpenSimulator content in web browsers. Convoar is a stopping point on the way. He chose GLTF format because it is being used by Cesium and other web viewer projects. Today, the 3dWebWorldz project is using these OAR conversions to import into their web browser virtual worlds since there is a loader bundled with ThreeJS. There are also importers for most of the 3D editing tools.
Example converted regions (including our own OpenVCE OAR) are listed and available at
http://blog.misterblue.com/2018/2018-07-17-Convoared-region
http://misterblue.com/oars/
That OARs page includes links to view the 3D content via the “Simple Basil” viewer intended to act as a web viewer for virtual world content including from OpenSimulator.
glTF Information from Khronous Group
glTF (GL Transmission Format) and GLB (GL Transmission Format Binary)
There are 3D modeller importers, exporters and converters for various 3D Model formats such as Autodesk FBX and Collada (.DAE) available.
The Khronos Group has provided a Blender add-on which enables glTF import and export via https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Blender-Exporter.
The Khronos Group have also created a Unity import and export tool available via https://github.com/KhronosGroup/UnityGLTF along with an included ready to open Unity project called “UnityGLTF” (not working on a test in Unity 2018.3.0b2).
IO-glTF is an open-source FBX importer/exporter plug-in that converts FBX file (and any file format that FBX can read such as obj, collada, …) to glTF. This plug-in can be used by any FBX based application to import/export glTF files. It needs to be installed in the Blender scripts/add-ons/ directory and then enabled under the Files -> User Preferences -> Addons tab.
There are also a range of online converters, such as:
- Collada or OBJ to glTF (cesiumjs.org/convertmodel.html)
- Cesium may also have a glTF to .glb converter
A “glTF Binary” file is a .GLB file such as used in Oculus Home 3D model content. Facebook/Oculus provide a precompiled FSX to glTF converter at https://github.com/facebookincubator/FBX2glTF/releases and there is a glTF to Binary glTF packer via https://glb-packer.glitch.me/
See instructions at https://support.oculus.com/1702745539746285/#Importing and more detail at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/3d-posts/glb-tutorials