GLSL Shader Dev IDE needed
 

I want to be able to tweek shaders (esp glow and normal maps) wrapped over 3D models for Oolite 1.73+

This seems to be a familiar snag ...

Here is as far as I've got - still soldiering.

I have Wings3D - which is working great for creating models and uv maps. Diffuse textures can be tweaked in all their glory. I can assign bump and normal maps to channels in the engine but the renderer will not handle them.

I have the normalize plugin for the GIMP - so I can make normal maps from height-maps successfully.

I have Blender - which I hear can handle realtime shaders(?) But have been unable to import any of the mesh formats that Wings3D can create. It says the filetype is not recognized - obviously I'm missing something.

I have the Typhoon Labs shader designer IDE - with the same problem: does not support the mesh formats that wings3D can export.

I got a bit excited when I found out that the normalize plugin has a 3D preview box and a choice of meshes ... sadly, no idea how to get a new mesh in there. (They look like the typhoon labs meshes.)

Right now I'm creating glow and normal maps blind.
I want to be able to preview the effects without having to load the models in the game.

what version of blender are you using? As of Blender 2.41 you should be able to import .wings files.

2.45 - and there is no ".wings" option off the import menu.

I have:
3D Studio, AC3D, AutoDesk DXF, COLLADA, DEC Object File Format, DirectX, Lightwave, MD2, Motion Capture, OpenFlight, Paths, Engineer, RAW Faces, Stanford PLO and Wavefront.

Googling I see that 2.32 was supposed to be able to do that. Curious - are you supposed to do anything non-obvious?

[update]I have managed to get obj files imported to blender, with the diffuse map even.

I'm trying to figure out how to add a normal map to the model.
If I get wings to export a format (eg "wings") which stores this stuff - perhaps blender will add it automatically? Advice - or direction to a "how to add normal aps to a model in blender" would be most welcome.

You might should post this on a blender forum. You'll probably get better help.

At least for blender ... however, some folk here may be able to answer the central question - how to get glsl previews in linux off existing mesh + shaders.

That's all I want and blender looks like overkill.

Getting a custom mesh into the GIMP normal-map 3D preview would be ideal.
I've sent that as a feature request, but if I could find where the current meshes are stored, I may be able to just add a new one to the same directory... (longshot I know - with my luck, the meshes are in a binary, found the plugin in the gimp plugins directory... no meshes.)

On the blender forums - start by wading through the simple questions sticky:

OK fine - what does "select your mode land" mean?

Doesn't seem to help add a normal map. I'll have to ask.

There has been no serious progress to date - I've been using a game engine (oolite) to render models.