Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: TopAce on May 16, 2004, 03:50:13 pm
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Before I take any effort in Blender, I would like to ask your opinion about this program. Is this good at making the model MESH itself? Or is this only an animation maker?
Is it simple, useful, etc. etc.
Responses(if useful :)) are appreciated.
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It doesn't convert to Truespace very well from my experience. Half the normals inverted themselves so I gave up.
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Someone here used Blender allot. But i can't remember who it was.
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I think Vasudan Admiral
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HotSnoJ too. And it's not hard to flip normals in TS...
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if you use blender Kazan will eat your soal
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but from what vasudan admiral said it has a couple of tool monstrousely useful when joining objects and cleaning double verts
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http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/forums/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=42316&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending
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i've never encountered any such conversion/ingame problems with blender, and i've used it for ages. the normals flipping thing only seems to occur if a fairly complex object is not quite solid, or if it has certain geometry errors all of which should be fixed anyway. :)
it's very good for fine control of meshes, and it has nearly all the tools of one of the more powerful tools, but practically no texturing capabilities. but for texturing, it's best to use TS or Lith, since you won't run into as many problems with textures not appearing or going crazy etc.
it's main drawback is the lack of an undo button and the learning curve, but if you follow Max Sterlings fighter creation tutorial on FS Watch, then you definitly get the basics of it.
overall it all comes down to personal taste i guess, but it's performed very, very well for me for about as long as i've used it. it's great as a basic mesh editor, and from there you can import the mesh as a dfx into your texturer of choice (though i find it works best with TS, and then TS with Lith for fighters & bombers)
i've had FAR more trouble with TS when texturing a single model than i've had in total with blender. :sigh:
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Originally posted by Vasudan Admiral
...it has nearly all the tools of one of the more powerful tools, but practically no texturing capabilities...
explain please, coz from what info I could find on the net there seems to be a fair support for uv mapping? even found some tutorials for it...
hmmmm....it does make nice animations...
(http://freespace.kicks-ass.net/_images/fs/explosion.gif)
(note: blatantly ripped from http://www.geocities.com/robbie_e_stuart/RobbiesPage.html and avi converted to gif [143kb] )
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I will give it a try.
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Originally posted by JarC
explain please, coz from what info I could find on the net there seems to be a fair support for uv mapping? even found some tutorials for it...
hmmmm....it does make nice animations...
(http://freespace.kicks-ass.net/_images/fs/explosion.gif)
(note: blatantly ripped from http://www.geocities.com/robbie_e_stuart/RobbiesPage.html and avi converted to gif [143kb] )
hmm, perhaps there are some uv mapping tools - i'm not sure. (many of the more useful tools are hidden away in obscure keyboard commands, so i might have easily missed some.) it wouldn't do me a lot of good with the modeling program sequence i use anyway (Blender>TS/Lith if needed>FS), so i havn't really looked. :)
another point is that blender only exports in .dfx and .vrml, and i havn't yet found a way to preserve textures when going from blender to TS. :( (it can go the other way easily, but TS doesn't like blenders .vrml's, and screws them up most of the time :blah: )
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3dexp?
can't remember if it preserve the textures on dxf
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it doesn't. :(
i'm not sure about vrml tho, because nothing i could find would convert any of them to a usable mesh. it's probably easier to just use TS or lith for texturing anyway, as i don't imagine blenders would be all that user-friendly.
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Simple: Apply the textures in TrueSpace.
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@VA: Which version Blender are you using? I just found the undo button :D up to 64 mesh edits can be undone...
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i'm not on my own comp atm, so i can't be sure, but i think it was 2.32 or something similar. it was the last version that was made 'officially' before the company went broke and blender got it's own SCP.
havn't really followed it's progress since then, but if this is one of their new features, then maybe i should. :) however if the undo button has been there since the start, then it's extreemly well hidden, - i've looked for ages without finding a trace of one. :confused:
where'd you find it and in which version?
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I've got 2.33a
In the User Preferences window there's an Edit Methods button giving access to the number of undo actions to track. In edit mode the Undo can be found either simply by pressing 'U' for a single undo or 'Ctrl-U' to roll back the entire buffer, thru the 3D view header in the 'Mesh' menu, bottom three actions. Or thru the spacebar floatmenu, here choosing the Edit option produces the menu with the Undo action...and even the undo can be undone again by choosing 'shift-U' to redo your actions.
I had no idea Blender had come this far, last time I looked at it I got lost in the interface, it is very much improved since then, :D I am actually having the time of my life with it. Next step to get to know is the UV mapping, if this is as different to 2.32 as the sudden presence of an Undo feature, then I think you'r in for a surprise...:)
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ah, i was wrong, it's 2.23, so a fair way back, and i don't think there even is a user preferences window in this one. pressing u just allows you to revert to saved data, and ctrl + u pops up something that "saves user defaults".
anyways, open source version sounds good :)
*goes to look for latest version*
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Snoj is your man for Blending things. He's even managed to Blend existing FS models, God knows how. I got started on Blender, and it's cetainly an pretty accessible piece of kit. The problem comes with converting the results to TS - to say the least, they're screwed up. I wouldn't reccomend Blender as a front-line modeller...
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Blending existing models is no problem (just save as .vrml in TS and open in blender), but converting them back to TS or any other modeler with their textures intact is extreemly difficult and as you say, results in much screwyness. :(
Converting a simple mesh with no textures is quick and easy tho, so that's what i always do. :)
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The problem is the actual DXF format, rather than anything Blender does with it. It was never really intended to handle complex UV mapping. As far as converting goes, most other modellers and converting software will allow for importing of DXF, so as far as using Blender goes...well.... it sounds like a good Front Line modeller. Just don't waste time mapping your model in Blender if the textures won't survive the process. I can recommend Lithunwrap for that... it writes out COB format and will read in the DXF file
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it sounds like a good Front Line modeller. Just don't waste time mapping your model in Blender if the textures won't survive the process.
that just about sums it up :D
tho texturing can be done in lith OR TS, heirarchy should still be done only in TS - lith can mess things up very badly. :(
and lol@the sig :D
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Can I undo somehow?
I am getting experiencing the controls(which still appear a bit incomfortable). I managed to scale the starting cube and I also succeeded in adding new meshes! :)
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in editmode U will undo mesh editing, in object mode I have no clear idea yet what it does...
If I might suggest something? Go here http://download.blender.org/documentation/html/book1.html
and just follow along with the instructions, you'll pretty soon get the hang of it...it has not nearly such a steap curve as the others I've tried sofar...
BTB, I have succesfull gotten a model from 3DS via OBJ into blender with UV survived and still present in blender...only thing I needed to do was convert and load the texturemap to see the model textured. So I would hesitate to state that (with the latest version in mind) UV mapping in blender is a waste of time...it might just survive (I found a OBJ import/export script that at least seems to maintain the UV...)
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Will be interesting to see if you can find a way to get the mesh out of Blender and into Truespace for the final hierarchy setup. OBJ file format can be read into Truepsace 3.2 ( the free version ) if you can get a plugin or script for Blender that can write it.
The problem so far has been the lack of a suitable export format from Blender that preserves the UV.
Personally, I found the old versions of Blender frankly baffling in terms of the interface.... but looking at the current version, they have clearly done a lot to improve things!
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Well, it exports .X files if that helps.
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It appears as UV mapping will not be probem for me so far. I am even glad that I am able to move faces, or eventually extrude them. :)
I don't know the reason, but Blender's interface appears to be a bit ... uncomfortable. It may be because of my lack of experience in handling modelling programs, though.