Feature Request: Build for Linux

[ManApart]

Since Starfield is playable through proton and people are using the steam deck etc to play it, it would be great to be able to use this blender plugin on linux.

When I attempt to enable this addon in Blender, I get an OSError: ./MeschConverter.dll: invalid ELF header.

If it would be possible to build targeting linux as well as windows, it would enable people like myself (who are probably a great minority) to use the addon in our native linux machines.

I understand that the juice may not be worth the squeeze for you, but wanted to request it just in case.

[SesamePaste233]

Thanks for your kind request. There will be a Linux build but it's not my current focus. Thanks for your attention and I'll let you know as soon as I have a Linux build ready.

[ManApart]

That's great to hear SesamePaste!

I'm sure you've got a ton your'e focusing on, and I understand linux is a minority of users, so I'm glad to hear it's on your radar at all.

Thank you!

[fo76utils]

I created a fork with very preliminary Linux support here. With this build, I was able to import a NIF in Blender, and export the basic cube that Blender creates by default, although exporting more complex models currently fails with a JSON parsing error. There are some other issues and limitations as well, and I had to disable some of the Python code that does not work with Blender 4.1.

What I changed so far includes:

• A basic makefile that builds the Python module (SFMeshConverter.so).
• Fixed the compile errors and the majority of warnings that occurred when building with GCC instead of Visual Studio.
• Removed Windows specific dependencies, including DirectXMesh. Meshlets are now generated with meshoptimizer, and the mesh optimization function is currently disabled (it could be re-implemented using meshoptimizer instead of DirectXMesh).
• Some additional fixes and cleanup, the dependencies have been added to the source code or as submodules.

However, it would still require a fair amount of work to get this port of the plugin to a really usable state, while also keeping up with the changes made to the upstream version. So, I am unsure if it would be better to focus on implementing better glTF support in NifSkope (which is already multi-platform) instead.

[ManApart]

That's great to hear! Thanks for the update!