OpenNova is a faithful reimplementation of NovaLogic's game engine, aiming for feature and visual parity with the originals. The engine is data driven: it runs off the same asset data the games shipped, which is what made the NovaLogic engine so moddable. The portable core is C++; Godot is the chosen host for rendering, tooling, and the editor. Joint Operations (JO) is the first game we are bringing up.

This repo is the full toolchain: extract and edit assets with the importer, the Blender and 3ds Max plugins, and the OpenNova Editor (ONED), then load them in the engine, hosted in Godot. See GOALS.md for the full vision.

Asset importer	Terrain workspace
Object workspace	Mission workspace
Fonts workspace	Credits workspace
Strings workspace	Menus workspace
Music workspace	Sound workspace
Environment workspace

Three layers:

• Authoring (godot/modtools/). The OpenNova Editor (ONED): workspaces for terrain, objects, missions, fonts, credits, strings, menus, music, sound, and environment that write the game's canonical data formats (.trn, .cpt, .til, .3di, .bms, .fnt, .kda, .mnu, .sbf, .lwf, .env, …) directly.
• Core engine (libs/). Format parsers plus the runtime systems: terrain LOD, foliage scatter, environment sampling, the world substrate with its WAC script VM, BMS event runtime, and AI, skeletal animation, audio selection, and the virtual file system. Also consumed by Python (opennova_blender/, apps/importer/) and Blender (blender/).
• Godot (godot/engine/ + godot/game/). GDExtension wrappers in engine/ bind the core into Godot; game/ is the runtime scene.

All of this is pre-1.0 and under active development. Nothing here is production-ready. The asset pipeline (importer, Blender addon, and ONED) is the most exercised surface today; the Godot runtime loads exported scenes, runs the terrain and foliage systems, and simulates authored missions (WAC scripts, BMS events, AI). Player interaction and multiplayer are still being built.

Pre-JO NovaLogic titles may sort of work by chance, but are not officially supported.

Pre-built binaries are available on the Releases page:

Extract models from game files. Reads directly from PFF archives with automatic decryption and decompression. Launch opennova-asset-importer-windows-v<version>.exe, point it at your game directory, and select what to export.

Each import can write one or more selected output files:

• .blend - Blender project with the full scene hierarchy
• .ase - 3DS Max ASCII Scene Export
• .max - 3ds Max scene, when the external Max backend is available
• .3dp - Object project metadata for round-trip editing

Imported scenes include meshes, materials, textures, LODs, skeletal armatures, collision volumes, occlusion geometry, lights, and user points.

Requires Python 3.11, uv, bpy 5.0.0, and PySide6. Build the shared library (see Building) and copy build/Release/opennova.dll into blender/lib/windows-x64/, then uv sync && uv run onimport.

Blender and 3ds Max both expose the same author-facing export target:

File > Export > Novalogic ASE (.ase)

Install the Blender 5.x addon via the zip from Releases or point Blender at the blender/ directory for development. Install the 3ds Max plugin by running the MZP from Releases; it copies an Autodesk ApplicationPlugins bundle under your user profile.

Exports the current scene to NovaLogic's ASCII Scene Export format. Supports multi-LOD scenes, bone weights for skinned models, vertex normals, texture coordinates, and diffuse texture export as TGA. Configurable float precision and scale.

The authoring layer for JO assets, organized into workspaces grouped by purpose:

• World: Terrain (sculpt, paint, foliage, tiles, layout), Object (.3di model projects), and Mission (.bms missions: entities, waypoints, zones, BMS event scripting, with play-in-editor on the engine's mission runtime).
• Interface: Fonts (.fnt bitmap fonts), Credits (.kda rolling credits), Strings (RTXT string tables), and Menus (.mnu / .mns menu screens with a WYSIWYG canvas and interactive preview).
• Audio: Music (interactive music: .sbf banks plus .bin music scripts).
• Atmosphere: Sound (.lwf sound profiles) and Environment (.env weather, lighting, and time of day), a popup that overlays the active 3D view.

Each workspace reads and writes the game's canonical formats directly. The packaged build opens to the Terrain workspace by default. See godot/modtools/README.md for per-workspace docs and the editor's code-first framework.

Conventions. Format libraries use opennova_<domain> CMake target names and the opennova C++ namespace; C ABI exports stay flat and domain-prefixed for FFI stability. The shared library target is opennova_shared, which bundles the core statics into opennova.dll / libopennova.so. Blender custom properties owned by this project use opennova_* keys.

Modular libraries for the NovaLogic formats and runtime systems. The format parsers expose a flat, domain-prefixed C ABI for FFI; the runtime subsystems are portable C++ shared by the engine and editor.

• CMake 3.16+
• C++ compiler with C++17 support
• Python 3.11 and uv for importer tooling and Python tests
• Godot 4.6.1 (only for Godot work). Set GODOT_BIN or drop the binary in .godot-bin/. scripts/package_godot_windows.ps1 will fetch it automatically when packaging Windows builds.

scripts/build.sh

Or manually:

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DOPENNOVA_ENABLE_PYTHON_TESTS=ON
cmake --build build --config Release
ctest --test-dir build --build-config Release

Headless driver for NovaLogic's ModSuperOED, used for batch .3di export without GUI interaction. The hook DLL and injector build by default when CMake is configured with a 32-bit Windows toolchain; other toolchains skip them with a status message. The fixture pack (ModSuperOed.exe and the CharModel reference files) lives under third_party/modsuperoed as a Git LFS submodule, so a fresh clone needs the submodule initialised and its LFS objects pulled.

git submodule update --init --recursive third_party/modsuperoed
git -C third_party/modsuperoed lfs install --local
git -C third_party/modsuperoed lfs pull
cmake -S . -B build-modsuperoed -A Win32
cmake --build build-modsuperoed --config Release --target modsuperoed_injector modsuperoed_hook
$env:OPENNOVA_MODSUPEROED_DIR = "$PWD\third_party\modsuperoed"
uv run --frozen pytest tests/test_modsuperoed_automation.py::test_external_modsuperoed_smoke -q

Builds native libraries for Linux and Windows (via MinGW cross-compile), then packages the addon as a zip.

scripts/package_addon.sh

Builds dist/onimport-v<version>.exe for Windows using PyInstaller. Requires Python 3.11.

scripts/package_importer_windows.ps1

cmake -S godot/engine -B build-godot -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build-godot --config Release --target opennova

Outputs godot/bin/libopennova.<platform>.template_debug.x86_64.{dll,so}. Open godot/project.godot in Godot to load the editor with the extension available.

scripts/test_godot.sh

Runs the GDScript suite under godot/tests/ headless via GUT. Requires GODOT_BIN set, or a Godot 4.6.1 binary in .godot-bin/. scripts/bootstrap_godot.sh installs the bundled GUT plugin into godot/addons/gut/.

Builds dist/opennova-runtime-windows-v<version>.zip and dist/opennova-modtools-windows-v<version>.zip via headless Godot export. Windows-only; requires MSVC and CMake.

scripts/package_godot_windows.ps1

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.