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3 Dimensional Chat / Blender - How to Export to DBPRO uncovered...

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greenlig
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Posted: 16th Aug 2006 16:45 Edited at: 18th Apr 2009 05:36
NEW Tutorial

Okay, there has been a few people asking recently for a way to export animated files from Blender into Dbpro. This thread has got a bit old, and there isn't a collated tutorial on how to export successfully. I will make a tutorial with images here that should cover it all. It's not too difficult to get a model out of Blender that works, it just needs a few things to be in place.

This thread will be updated over today, I won't be doing it in one big hit, mainly because I need to drain the lawnmower's fuel tank cause there is some rust in there

Cheers,
Greenlig



OLD STUFF
Hey guys, After much trial and error I discovered how to export models, animation, and textures from Blender 2.42 to Dbpro.

In actual fact its amazingly simple. With 2.42 comes an exporter in the file>export> menu labled(yep you guessed it!!) Direct x(.x).

To export the animated file, all you need to do is split the screen by hilighting one of the margins and choosing "split view", then, with two 3d views, select the direct x exporter. Select "anim" and "swap y-z" i think it is, and left handed should already be selected. Also select "recalc. Normals" in the section beneath. After doing that, click "export all" and the rest is simple.

Thats how I do it and i'm amazed that it works!!

If everyone already knew this...well...arg. I feel stupid then. But if its been helpful, please comment

Regards,
Greenlig


Blender3D - CS3 - VISTA - DBPro
poke a fish
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Posted: 16th Aug 2006 17:42
Nice discovery Greenlig, if it works like you say than i'm going to be one happy person. I already knew that it had a Direct x exporter, but i could never get it to work completely with animations and textures, so now i should be able to get some real progress on my game. Again, thanks for figuring that out, i'll let you know when i try it, and how well it works for me.

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indi
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Posted: 17th Aug 2006 02:09
i will glue this for now since a lot seem to use this package.

Bahamut
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Posted: 19th Aug 2006 22:35
Wow, I hope you're right. I'll try it myself when I have something to export. Thanks a lot!

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Oddmind
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 01:45
holy effin crap weve waited so long for this, and I had to be the one that skipped blender animation after thinking it would never happen.

crap

formerly KrazyJimmy

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jackiexxx
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Posted: 24th Aug 2006 17:40
Nice one thanks im looking forward to trying that when ive got the time.
I have to admit I was wondering how you went about it.
Best Regards Jackie
P.S. Please excuse the capitals as im old school and cant break the habit,ive tried so gave up lol.
Daemon
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Posted: 4th Sep 2006 19:33 Edited at: 4th Sep 2006 19:34
I was just about to post asking how to export from Blender.

I can't figure it out yet, but that's probably because I am very new to Blender. I have an unanimated object (will be animated). The render of it is attached.

Anyway, I can split the screen. Then I get confused with your directions. When you say "select the direct x exporter" do you mean to go File>>Export>>DirectX (.x)...? After that I can't find anything you talk about.

Sorry, it may be simple to everyone else, but I have almost no knowledge of what I am doing. I am still doing tutorials to learn it.

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Bahamut
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Posted: 4th Sep 2006 20:50
What version of blender do you have? Version 2.41 at least and onwards (2.42 latest) have 2 .x exporters. Select the bottom one, then selected obj. All the options are there.

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Daemon
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Posted: 4th Sep 2006 21:20 Edited at: 4th Sep 2006 21:25
Oh, the second one. Yes, that works a lot better. I still can't get it to work normally.

I have attached an image which is really two pictures next to each other. On the left is the .x model loaded into Dark Basic Pro. As you can see most of it is very dark.

To the right is an image of all the options the way they were selected when I exported. This is what was said should work at the top of this thread. I did try selecting a few of the other options to see if it would help. It didn't.

I just upgraded to Blender 2.42 today. This means I made the model in 2.41 originally. I don't think this should matter, as it looks fine in blender.

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Bahamut
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Posted: 4th Sep 2006 21:30
I admit that I havn't tries those export settings like greenlig described, but I have used this exporter before and it's worked fine in both DBC and DBP. Are you using materials or UV map? I can never get materials to export, and I don't think they're really supposed to (I may be wrong about this).

IceBound Melodic rock/metal band with loads of lead guitar, clean female vocals, and more guitars! What more could you want?
Daemon
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Posted: 4th Sep 2006 21:38 Edited at: 4th Sep 2006 21:38
I am using materials.
I don't know how to uv map with Blender yet.

"Set object normals" helps a bit, but will put the normals the wrong way round for negatively scaled parts of the object

greenlig
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Posted: 5th Sep 2006 06:32 Edited at: 5th Sep 2006 06:42
Nah it shouldnt matter the 2.42 upgrade.

I'll just have another look. Sorry if the first post was a bit vague, i am so used to blender

greenlig

edit - I re-read my post, and its fairly specific about what to do. My screen looks like this when exporting an animate object...Its not an actual animated object, but thats the idea.

Also, materials in blender cannot be exported to Dbpro, only UVmaps can be used ingame.

Excuse the image shape, i've got a 24 inch widescreen lol.

Blender3D - GIMP - WINXP - DBPro

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Daemon
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Posted: 5th Sep 2006 16:15
The problem wasn't with your directions, it was with me seeing two direct x options and only trying the first one.

The problem with what I am exporting would have to be that I am using materials. One color materials seem to work fine, it is the more complicated one which isn't.

I will have to learn how to uv map my blender models. Once that is done I am sure your method of exporting will work perfectly for me.

Thank you for your help, as it would have taken a very long time for me to figure this out on my own.

greenlig
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Posted: 6th Sep 2006 01:24
The thing is, for me there is only one .x exporter option I have no idea why, but there is only th one for me....straaaange...

Yeah, colours can be exported, but not procedurals. The base model colour is exported, but it isnt possible with procedurals, unless you bake them to the UV of the model. Which means fiddly work...

Learn UVmapping in blender and your away!!! My skype is zac.duff if your interested...or zac_duff....i cant remember

I probably wont talk much during work hours, but I can post here.

regards,
greenlig

Blender3D - GIMP - WINXP - DBPro
yaarj
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Posted: 8th Sep 2006 15:16
It's good to see lots of people using Blender for DBPro.
I use Blender to export 3D stuff to .x then use DBPro to convert them to DBO. DBO is smaller than .x and is faster to load in DBPro.
So far I've encountered no problems...

Blender Rocks!

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DrEnzyme
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Posted: 9th Sep 2006 07:24
You say that you can export the Textures but not materials. How do you export the texture without the material???

Is it by using Texture paint? If so how do you use texture paint? This has been annoying me for quite some time now and I want to be really specific so everything runs smoothly.

Oh and one last thing. When exporting the animation do you just make the animation using Interpolation keys and then export as is? Do you have to set the number of frames equal to that of the animation?

"What comes up, must come down. Except cheques, they bounce."
yaarj
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Posted: 12th Sep 2006 19:17 Edited at: 12th Sep 2006 19:21
To export textures you must UV map the textures to your mesh (through the UV/image window). No need to add materials to it. Then place the texture file in the same directory as the .x file after exporting.

As for animations with the use of armatures, just leave the object to be exported and it's armature (parented, of course) and delete everything else; then select export all in the exporter.

Have fun in whatever you do, no matter how sad it is.
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 18th Sep 2006 08:44
Alright i'll find some tutorials on UV mapping. Just to be sure, I only need to use Interpolation keys for my animations don't I? And after I place those keys with the object they will all be exported as an animation DBpro can recognise?

"What comes up, must come down. Except cheques, they bounce."
Artaures
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Posted: 5th Oct 2006 07:01 Edited at: 5th Oct 2006 07:03
wow thanks greenlig, this is awesome.

I was wondering, all of the products that the gamecreators are making and advertising, such as darklights, darkphysics, darkshader, what seems like all of the third-party aplications under the 3d modeling section, can be done in Blender right?

Well, can all these features from blender be moved over to dbpro, or are you forced to buy these products? (dunno if im clear, like blender got the revamped animation system few months back, which seems like a perfectly free alternative to character shop. Can you animate your character in blender and export it to dbpro in-tact?, sorry i am new to coding, and dbpro in general).


I was also wondering if you have tinkered with the blender game engine, does it have any beef on dbpro?
greenlig
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Posted: 6th Oct 2006 03:01
The blender game engine is written in OpenGL, as is Blender itself, so thats where the beef is right there.

@Dr. Enzy - Yer, just animate using the keys, and export that animation!! you haveto be using armatures etc AFAIK. I havet tried just movement animation....should do.

Blender isnt a Game content creation package. Yes, you can do physic animations in blender, and export the animation to DBPRO, but you cant have realtime physics from Blender in Dbpro. Also, the shading stuff and whatnot isnt what Blender is developed for.

Use all these things in concert, however, and you can make quite a bit!

Regards,
Greenlig

Blender3D - GIMP - WINXP - DBPro
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 6th Oct 2006 06:57
Kewl. Now i have just one more question, I found some tutorials on UV mapping and they taught me what to do, except they stopped before they told me how to save the UV textures with the object. When I exported the model to DB, it didn't have a texture!

Where did I go wrong?...

"What comes up, must come down. Except cheques, they bounce."
RalphY
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Posted: 6th Oct 2006 14:36
You have to place the texture in the same directory as the .x model.
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 7th Oct 2006 09:57
It's that simple? Well, no one said that UV mapping wasn't finiky. Danke.

"What comes up, must come down. Except cheques, they bounce."
Kaurotu
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Posted: 22nd Oct 2006 06:22
Oh, thank God! I've used Blender at my friend's house and am downloading it now. Awsome program! I'm so happy to know I can use Blender with DB Pro. I'm also baffeled that it's free. Open source!

Thanks again for the "tutorial".
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2006 10:36
Thanks guys. I can now export things succesfully using UV mapping. I found a guy called Greybeard who told me all about it.

Just one more problem.

I tried to animate this little butterfly here which has one armature (two bones) and flaps its wings once over 20 frames using IPO keys. I exported everything properly so why am I presented with an error when I try to load it in DBpro? I'm using the latest version of blender

"What comes up, must come down. Except cheques, they bounce."

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greenlig
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2006 23:35
Hm these seems to be a few problems surfacing now. I guess I'll haveto go back and retry the whole thing till I can fix that.

I'll look into it again guys and refine the process. I may have been using an earlier build of belnder. I'll get onto it next week and WILL have a succesfull export for you all.

Regards,
greenlig

Blender3D - GIMP - WINXP - DBPro
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 24th Oct 2006 12:26
OK I want to make this as painless for you as possible so here's some more information that might help you.
1) I thought the problem might have been that I was using location keys. I deleted the location keys and tried it just using the rotation keys of the armature. That didn't work.
2)I tried exporting the mesh without the armature. That worked, so the problem can't be with the mesh, it HAS to be with the armature.
3)The mesh is parented to the armature, and the vertex groups are split into two different sections, the WEST WING, and the EAST WING.
4)There are no extra objects in the scene, and no materials. Just the Mesh and armature

Hope that helps somewhat. I really need to cross this bridge so I can get a move on with my game. I fear my development team might get restless if I don't figure this out soon.

Cheers

"What comes up, must come down. Except cheques, they bounce."
greenlig
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Posted: 25th Oct 2006 03:27
Arg tell them to get stuffed

Jokes. I'll get onto that as soon as I can. I think I could have a look at it on tuesday, cause till then I'm totally swamped with work. TOTALLY!!

But come tuesday I will have a look at it.

Thanks for being so detailed with your methods and settings, that really does help.

Regards,
Greenlig

Blender3D - GIMP - WINXP - DBPro
Evil Booger
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Posted: 11th Nov 2006 20:32
I have the same exact problem as Dr. Enzyme. I am able to export correctly without the armature and there are no other objects in the scene.

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DrEnzyme
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Posted: 11th Nov 2006 23:38
It's heart breaking isn't it

I've been hanging on for weeks and weeks waiting for someone to provide an answer to my problem. Greenlig please don't forget about us, your our only hope.

I only have 1 year to create a good freeware game, and my design team's getting fat. There's something about a lack of results that just makes them lazy...

"Rocket launcher: Not suitable for children under 3 years of age. Contains small parts. Harmful if swallowed."
greenlig
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Posted: 12th Nov 2006 00:32
Lol sorry guys, between all my projects and work, I have forgotten about this. I'm modelling an animating a dude at the moment, so I'll test it on him.

Apologies for my lack of....memory! I'll haveto download the darkbasic pro demo.

Regards,
Greenlig

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Don Malone
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Posted: 12th Nov 2006 15:00
Greenlig.

Thanks for your efforts. I hope you can find a way so that Blender can become a reasonable tool for new comers on a tight budget, and me of course.

Making nothing for the third straight year.

yaarj
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Posted: 13th Nov 2006 08:45
@DrEnzyme. I encountered that kind of problem, too. Make sure that every bone in the armature has a vertex group on the object even if there are no assigned vertices in that group. Upload your .blend file so that we may be able to look at it.

Have fun in whatever you do, no matter how sad it is.
greenlig
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Posted: 13th Nov 2006 22:10
Hmmm.

Doesnt look like I will be doing this for a while guys, I just lost everything in a borked format.

4 years of blender work. Gone.

Sorry that I cant help at the moment, but I have no animated models anymore.

I'm friking broken man! Broken!!

Blender3D - GIMP - WINXP - DBPro
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 14th Nov 2006 08:05
A pox on EXPOTATION! I tried what you said yaarj and it didn't work. Here's the blend file to take a look at, this animation thing's driving me insane beyond reason.

Oh and greenlig, sorry to here about that. You can have some of my models if you want, (unanimated though they are).

"Rocket launcher: Not suitable for children under 3 years of age. Contains small parts. Harmful if swallowed."

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yaarj
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Posted: 14th Nov 2006 13:52
I found the problem DrEnzyme! Remove the "Unused" vertex group on the object... or add a bone named "Unused" to the armature.

Have fun in whatever you do, no matter how sad it is.
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 16th Nov 2006 00:31
But I only created that vertex group after your last post! I removed it again and it still doesn't work. I did find one other problem though, I had one vertice assigned to 2 groups. After removing that vertice from one of the groups... It didn't work...



I'm going insane...

"Rocket launcher: Not suitable for children under 3 years of age. Contains small parts. Harmful if swallowed."
greenlig
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Posted: 16th Nov 2006 02:49
ahhh i feel your pain DrEnzy. I have been there SO MANY TIMES!! Luckily, I know a few tricks and dont stop till its out, so when(if ever) i get back a desire to touch bloody 3d modelling again, I will strive to get this working for you.

Regards,
greenlig

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DrEnzyme
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Posted: 16th Nov 2006 03:14
Thanks Greelig. The thing that irritates me is that it sounds like such a simple thing. I animate complex models in blender all the time, but when I try something as simple as making a butterfly and moving it to DB, all hell brakes loose.

"Rocket launcher: Not suitable for children under 3 years of age. Contains small parts. Harmful if swallowed."
greenlig
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Posted: 16th Nov 2006 04:00
Yeah its a bit like that. Since its all open source, and afaik the exporter for .x is fairly old, there isnt a lot you can do past trial and error.

Thats the nature of the 3d format beast though. Until there is a standard, were always gonna have these kind of problems. I say dbpro should support COLLADA since that is a developing standard.

Anyway, back to work I go!

Blender3D - GIMP - WINXP - DBPro
yaarj
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Posted: 16th Nov 2006 04:27
Oh my, this seems to be a major headache! I tried removing the spaces in the bone names and vertex groups and exported it... It works! The exporter seems to hate spaces...

So, I think that should solve your problem DrEnzyme... I hope~

Have fun in whatever you do, no matter how sad it is.
greenlig
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Posted: 16th Nov 2006 04:32
oh yer, lol, should have mentioned, dont use spaces in names its always a good idea to use underscores or periods to seperate words.

Lol, it could be that simple.

Thanks for the heads up yaaaaarj!!

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yaarj
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Posted: 16th Nov 2006 04:33 Edited at: 16th Nov 2006 04:36
hehehehe... Blender gives us a lot of headaches...

Have fun in whatever you do, no matter how sad it is.
greenlig
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Posted: 16th Nov 2006 04:58
good headaches

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DrEnzyme
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Posted: 17th Nov 2006 10:41
So yaarj, can you help me?

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yaarj
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Posted: 18th Nov 2006 17:43
Well, I tried exporting the blend file you uploaded and it will export well if you removed the "Unused" vertex groups and remove all the spaces in the names of the bones and in the vertex groups.

Have fun in whatever you do, no matter how sad it is.
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 18th Nov 2006 22:46
Sorry guys didn't see the 2nd page

I feel like a complete idiot.

Anyway I tried that too. I don't know why but it didn't work. This is my screen at exportation. I carefully went through and removed everything with spaces and the unused vertex group. Am I even exporting properly?

"Rocket launcher: Not suitable for children under 3 years of age. Contains small parts. Harmful if swallowed."

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DrEnzyme
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Posted: 18th Nov 2006 22:47
Here is the new butterfly file too

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yaarj
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Posted: 19th Nov 2006 05:16
Dont select the "Speed" button when exporting... That should fix it!

Have fun in whatever you do, no matter how sad it is.
DrEnzyme
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Posted: 19th Nov 2006 06:19
YYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!









Thankyou sooooooooooooooo much yaarj and greenlig. I cannot express in words how much your help has been appreciated. As you can probably tell, it worked (I can't believe it was really that simple). Thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou. I owe you both a huge favour and if you ever need anything, just drop me a line.

P.S., thankyou.

"Rocket launcher: Not suitable for children under 3 years of age. Contains small parts. Harmful if swallowed."

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