Blender3D Open Source

Anyone know of export support from Blender3D, or is anyone interested in creating one ;)

http://www.blender3d.org

Brian,

I think Blender uses Python Scripting, so I guess that is where you'd find a b3d exporter (if anyone has made one yet) - otherwise use .x and load that into B3d instead.

IPete2.

I think blender needs to go the route of gimp and consult
a user interface guru. gimp is currently doing that to
make it more user friendly. I like blender but there is
such a learning curve to using it.

I found this one for directx 8 http://development.mindfloaters.de/DirectX_Exporter_Mod.8.0.html

I tested only in irrlicht. And I found that it doesn't work properly with blender 2.37v but as blender have fair good backwords compartibility you can just use the 2.35v to export.

It took me an hour to get used to Blender's UI. It's not disorganized, it's just different.

It took me a week...

Also, I have done a search on a b3d converter, but the person creating it complained that there was absolutely not interest at the time- so he stopped. Not sure where I read this, but I guess 'lack of interest' would be a good reason for the lack of such a plugin.

Shagwana created an exporter over two years ago.
Unfortunately, it wasnt a direct exporter (didn't create .b3d files) and it had several limitations, including no bone support.

He mentioned in the thread that the new (at the time) version of Blender now supported exporting bone data to python and so he could now start on implementing it.

However, it doesn't seem to be updated or mentioned recently.

My word that was two years ago!, time does fly. As for the exporter in question, I never did get back to it - and probley never will for the forseeable future. Searching the archives might provide the original source for you to play with.

Just looking at the next release of blender, looks like a whole lot of improvement has been made to the animation system (v2.40+)

yup, indeed.

2.40 is quite better
several of my hopes have came to blender in the latest cvs versions.

http://development.mindfloaters.de/DirectX_Exporter_Mod.8.0.html

this plugin tends tro work great. I think even with blender 2.36..you sure it wont work with new versions?

Blender is good, yet has its lacks, like smooth groups, and a better turntable. Well, and multiple uv, but that mainly for levels.

Just wondered, have any of you blender users tried this out?

http://www.blender.org/cms/Verse-Blender.verse_blender.0.html

Looks interesting.

I just started using Blender yesterday. I like it a lot. Before Blender, I used Wings3D for everything. Blender seems like a more complete solution than Wings3D, and I'm already pretty comfortable with the UI after the few hours I've used it. So far I've made some interesting meshes, like a space fighter, that look better than I would have been able to do in Wings3D. They're low poly, too. I like the way you can extrude edges and connect your own polygons from vertices from there. Also, all Blender's features are nice, like being able to "smooth" vertices without increasing poly-count, automatic "weighted" vertices (moving a vertex or edge effects other vertexes also), etc., etc.

The automatic weighting is magnet in LW, Metasequoia, Wings, etc. The smoothing(average) is also in a similar way in Wings and Metasequoia.(and max, and..well..)


BTW, Wings3d and Blender are not excluding each other. I use em both comfortably in workflows.

Bout making space ships, this was all modeled with Wings, smoothing hard edges with wings too, uv mapped with Ultimate Unwrap, textured with Deep Paint3d, and happily, smoothing info perfectly respected by the obj exorter in Wings, as allways, and respected also by Milkshape. As the final format asked was Milkshape, not OBJ. (dunno why) :

http://xs.to/xs.php?f=ship27.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=ship25.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=ship20.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372


And if it had been a human character, animated, workflow would have been the same, just the end tool would have been Blender, or Ultimate Unwrap, for conversion and fixing of the blender x anim.

BTW, is true, Blender is rather mor ecomplete. But I prefer to have specialized tools for certain matters where I think they excell...and build my workflow (I have many workflows indeed) Ie: u3d for mapping, wings modelling, giles lightmaps, blender character animation, etc.

I can't even count all what I have done in wings...full games... loads, loads of stuff...man.

BTW, my main interest of allways in blender is the only tool with a decent bone and weights system for free...just check 2.40 alpha 2...the automatic IK is getting blender there, imho...or maybe not, gotta waste some hours with it yet...

Bob3d:

I agree, Wings3D is quite capable of producing very nice models. I have been using it and have recommended it to everyone for years. I knew about Blender3D for some time, too, but I stupidly confused it with Maya, thinking I would have to pay a lot to register or something, and therefore avoided getting attached to a modeler which was far out of my budget. Wings3D was nice, and I've produced some (poor quality) models for my games with it.

But now that I've found that Blender is in fact free, I'm really beginning to like it (not that I wouldn't have liked it if it cost). With Blender, everything seems so easy and intuitive (to me). In just two (or is it three) days, I've now created a realistic F-86 Fighter Jet model, a nice spaceship, and a fictional Gatling Pistol, all which look very nice IMHO. The thing that amazes me is that I've never been able to do artwork this good in Wings3D, Milkshape, or anything else ever before.

The spaceship model you posted looks nice, very well done, although it looks kinda mangled, cartooney, and uneven (comparing right side to left). The texturing is very good, though. But I guess I'm biased towards aerodynamically-feasible craft.

I guess everyone has their own favorite modeler, and Blender just seems to fit me very well. Overall, I strongly reccomend everyone to at least try Blender for a few days, and see if they like it. Once you get over the interface's unconventional style, I'm sure many will find, like I have, Blender to be an extremely powerful modeling and animating solution. Again, every artist has their own preferences of the tools they use; if you don't feel comfortable with Blender, it's probably just not for you. In my case, it fits me perfectly. :)

Anyway, I'll probably try to get some screenshots of my models up, in case you're interested.

P.S. - I've found that the Blender3D's built-in DirectX exporter's files don't load in Blitz3D if you have any whitespaces in your mesh names. Avoid spaces to avoid the hassel this initially caused me! Fortunately, this was the only inconsistancy I've found in Blender so far (although in fact it may be an inconsistancy in Blitz3D that causes this).

the fact is...Wings3d has an outstanding modeling power in its main "use philosophy", is not got till you got into it very seriously as your only modeler during many months...I did in my job, and the sack was pretty near as risked all for to use it...Happily I demonstrated more speed than the other artist in themodelling area. Reason more than enough to stop hearing a single complaint for bosses.. ;) You know, money is money...
But a lot of its speed of lights ways are only discovered when pressure is big...i worked so with other modelers, but they simply did not have so much depth and flexibility...

Also I admit it. While have used quite a lot, never liked the Blender viewport, and I know it since 1.x...Now that I think maybe from before...during years was the c-key license (if that was the name, to many years to remeber) , and was somewhat free so I could use, just without manuals was pretty harder to use then, specially as I hadnt worked then professionally in 3d, yet.

2.28c was such a very much friendly animal.



I'll tell you a secret: anything moving vertices in 3d, may do wonders in good hands, with mor eor less effort. I have used since Quake Modeler, Organica, softy3d, hamapatch , metasequoia, Max , Zbrush, Amorphium, etc,etc ...loads of extremely different 3d tools, even in concept (metaball, splines, subdiv, point to point...)

All can ouput a wonder.



cartoony? yup. As is all painted. Onlya font used with gimp for overlay in the wing. hehe. And was for an arcade game... ;)

Mangled and uneven are words I don't get, as I am not an english speaker. BTW, they could do in my job, with some touches, said by some bosses, even more as I'm mainly an organic modeler ;)




Oh. Well. Now I get you. No, I am no kindda expert in ships, machines or weapons. I don't have a single key to distinguish an airplane from a motorcycle other than one of both have wings...

And I didn't documented myself fo rthe model as I use to (and forced to in job) ...basically as was a for "freaking fun" quick model to bang for an arcade game that never so the light, indy stuff.

So, yup, model design, that is, concept, is mere crap. I'd fully agree there, as didn't pay a second of thought to it, hehe. Just wanted to model an space ships as never involved in a project like that, was curious. Was by then tired of modelling realistic static objects. And again, am not an statics modeler, I mean, now maybe I am as was main duty in certain company (pc game prop moedeler...euh , wel concept artist , animator..well, all, but that was the main. )

Euh, you'r in ur 3rd day...I can be perhaps in my 3rd year :) not exactly, but you get it. I know it since such a long bunch of years. True it has not been my modeler, but I have modeled quite with it. That besides so many 3d uis that I more or less feel ok with any modeler. One diference of feeling ok(= able to model anything accuracy) and feeling in heaven is what makes me use Wings for every model. To each his glove ;)

Once I see smooth groups seriously appear maybe will do some other modeling project with it.. But i doubt Wings'll stop being my modeler.




yup, why not.

the space ship was something between 1000 and 2000 tris, 2* 1024 textures, all hand painted.Each asigned to each side, mirrored uv mapping, did so to get non symetrical feel in texture, but of course there are two materials asigned to same mirrored and welded uvmapping.

Some others of mine (all wings):

permanent WIP (till I end other projects )
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=orcc4.jpg&h=xs50&d=05416
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=orcc3.jpg&h=xs50&d=05416
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=orcc2.jpg&h=xs50&d=05416


low pol barbarian, for paid work years ago. It never saw the light as was for a pack that didn't worth for me the price. 1,800 tris.
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=1800tris_barbarian9b.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372


A western colt .45, based on real gun ref.

http://xs.to/xs.php?f=cltscr3.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=cltscr1.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=cltscr6.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372

I just never felt comfortable with the turntable, and don't like other details that are present in Blender since the very early years. And seems I have spent m uch more hours with it than you do ;) My case is not "I cant do a thing with it", I can do with it and with any ui for 3d , but I simply prefer others.

Yet though let's see after this great 2.40 upgrade of character animation tools. I 'd like em to keep improving character anim, as is my only interest in Blender (though I prefer XSI for that , lol) , so...but for the modeling or level editing work with it (other than importing OBJs modeled somewhere else) I'll wait till these features are fully and properly added :

- A true turntable rotation (some of the older people told me the other day that turntable was like I say should behave in a very old version, but was wrecked at some point...) where z axis don't end rolling badly (I know ALL the workarounds, don't even mention them , as I use them :) (plus the numeric pad, etc, of course.But trust me, that's worse and could be better. ))

- Smooth groups at edit time. Simple as the perfect way Wings have to set hard edges there where u want em and directly see the effect just hitting tab (in wings is not for edit the mesh, but to toggle smoothing) in case u're not working in smoothed mode. Or even a worse way to do it like Max smooth groups (not sure but I think wings was inspired in this for maya set hard edge in polygon tools, I think...I used that in Maya, too, but very little, as used Maya very little.)

- Multiple UVs , for lightmaps (yup, I know the manual uber slow and comple method with vertex colors, and the several scripts, the macouno works cool for baking to channel 1, the only one available in Blender. tested it the other day and worked, and no need even to read the Macouno's doc, as usual for me in Blender.(and most tools, heh ;) ) )

Once this is achieved, n-gons (HE mesh project, or whatever comes) would be cool. But what for. have this all since eons in Wings...

yet though I do also recommend Blender for most of the tasks it does, even modeling...If one can stand the turntable behaving, hehe. ;)

For animation, well, 2.40 is really sweet thing. yet quite several points to reach basic XSI animation(for the non basic it yet needs..ehm...no,. sorry, better not to mention), but above several other comercial tools. (not above the main expensive ones, imho. )


Blender is not what some people remember it was. It's extremely better than that, and has no rival in free AND cheap world, but as a complete solution. I think it cannot rival yet with specialized tools in specialized areas : Sorry but Silo (and imho, Wings ;) , surely Modo, havent tested ) are better modelers, messiah is better animator, Zrbush is better than the very good efforts of displacement painting(even in basic thing: speed), Gile[s] simply can do the lightmaps and 2 uv channeled exports, leave alone it's great quality, Brazil and Final Render of Max, or Mental ray, are much better for rendering, deep paint 3d is really superior to the few features of it that Blender has...etc, etc. Is this saying Blender is bad? no! As any complete package suffer from this. Perhaps tools like Mirai , XSI or Maya do a really great job in many of those areas, but I know too many pros with maya that prefer Wings , Silo and Zbrush for many tasks (while all main work is done in their beast) Is difficult to make a package that excell in all production. Is not so in a film production company(though Maya and XSI for example do a lot) either, so...

I am against using single package. Almost an activist of it. As I think results and power is smaller.For starting people, maybe conversions, exports, etc, can be an issue, but...

But this is an opinion. As...all here . ;)

That's strange. Because after I set blender to the turntable mode, the view controls feels just like Wings3D now. Sometimes the view gets off-centered, but all you need to do is press Shift+C then C to center the cursor and set the camera to revolve around the cursor's current position (after you move the cursor the view keeps revolving around that point. But maybe I'm familiar with blender's views because I happened to favor Wings3D's "blender" style rotation the best, although I didn't know what blender was at the time.


In my opinion, Blender is much more powerful than Wings3D, as far as modeling is concerned. In Wings3D, I have to right click, click move, click x, then move the mouse to move an item along the X axis. The same thing has to be repeated if I want to "tweak" the verts, which makes this a slow and difficult process. Strangely, in the >3 years I have been using Wings3D, I have never found any "magnet" option that you say is similar to blender's vertex "falloff" adjustment. I guess I don't know as much about Wings3D as I thought I did.


Exactly. To you, you fell ok using Blender but feel in heaven using Wings3D. I feel in heaven when I use Blender (for whatever reasons that may be), but feel just OK in Wings3D.

That's why everyone should not just try a few modelers when beginning 3D modeling. They should try as many modelers as possible to see what best fits their style.

Anyway, here's some pics of some of my new models I made in blender in the past 3 days:


F-86 Fighter Jet
http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=52731


Fictional Spacecraft
http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=52733


XG100 Gatling Pistol (Fictional)
http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=52734

It's slower. I also use wings blender camera. You don't need that distracting trickin Wings or Max.The turntable mode at the end is so different that I prefer keep in trackball.





I don't, I have all my most comon operations with hotkeys. I can customize then, change em , and have several config files of em even. Just ins key in the comand, press the key and that'd be your key till u change it, for that menu thing.




Nope, either. Since quite some versions you can use smarthighlighting so u mdoel similar to Mirai's way..you mouse over the vert, and hit the key for the operation (ie , the key u asigned for move free...or rotate, bridge, or whatever, you can do operations even while u track, thumb, pan...back and force, even)

>3 years? :o And u didn't know this?




do u update the tool?

lol, been there since eons...
hotkey or go to the menu, tweak mode...and key 1 will toggle that falloff...+ and - key to increase or decrease falloff if needed...

It's clear. It depend on how you use it thos years. Has brought the plate of food in companies fo rme during these years, in a very competitive environment, with hostility of Maxers and bosses...



I began modeling back in ...'93, I think...3ds when was at msdos, only...since then have used in real depth like...dunno, dozens and dozens of 3d modeler, of any type out there...

nice models

Thanks. :)


Yeah - fairly often. I guess I just didn't explore the interface very well, but enough to make some OK looking textured models.

Which modeler is actually "superior" is probably a matter of opinion. Every artist has their own favorite modeler, I suppose.

Anyway, I hope you did not misunderstand me. I think Wings3D is a very powerful modeler in the hand of one who is comfortable with it. Your models are very good IMO, definitely 1000 times better than I could possibly do at the moment. I'm not really all that good at organic (living creatures, specifically) modeling.

As you say, specially in modeling, at the end of all is a very personal choice of each :)

And however, I follow Blender updates with real passion. Even when I know I should be exploring more my XSI for animation ;) But it's too many years seing it evolve.Now I want it to continue growing, kind of strange feel.

Thank you for the cumpliments :)
Anyway, I am not happy with my profession, this would be better only as a hobby :)