So, if you can export SG, custom normals, and put it in a Max or Maya format, you're good to go with Blender?
Yeah, but the thread is about using blender exclusively because you can't afford commercial software. This is where the answer is still no. Even providing an FBX with split verts isn't sufficient.
Anyone where at polycount knows the process of transferring models between programs, but outsourcing managers may not. They just know they use software X so Y format will not work.
Yeah, but the thread is about using blender exclusively because you can't afford commercial software. This is where the answer is still no. Even providing an FBX with split verts isn't sufficient.
Anyone where at polycount knows the process of transferring models between programs, but outsourcing managers may not. They just know they use software X so Y format will not work.
Read my comment again and you'll realize I was talking about real smoothing groups, not edge split. If a modified exporter could translate the "mark sharp" seams as hard edges without splitting the vertices, things would be cozy.
Guys, you forget that as freelance... 3D is not only "game art". Low poly normal mapped models are just a % of all the 3D work we do.
I use modo 302, and modo does not work with smoothing groups. I need to use Max, and select the uv chunks i previously mapped in modo if needed.
what a way of throwing shit to a free 3d app ¬¬
In my 10+ years as freelance i haven't had a SINGLE issue exporting and sending the work in .obj or .fbx format. For too many jobs i'm only asked for a grey model/sculpt, and i have seen too many polycounters doing the same (later, someone in the studio is responsible for the low poly, texturing and engine integration). Cg Hub is full of "grey models".
I wish the last few gigs I had required I only supply grey models, because, yep, Modo or Blender would have been totally viable (and preferable, from a work standpoint). As it was, I had to make sure animations, materials (multi-sub mats, to boot) were all present and accounted for in 3dsMax. In the end, while I did use multiple programs to do my job, the final product was a big set of Max files. About half-way through the project, I gave up trying to migrate stuff back and forth between two or more applications and just did everything in Max, mainly for the sake of speed and to eliminate all the file wrangling, re-skinning and weighting, re-assigning materials and smoothing groups.
I'm late to this but in Blender you can assign faces as flat or smooth without splitting geometry, the default box for example doesn't have splits; you can export as an obj and import and it still won't have splits.
For a game asset the engine will split hard edges in the end, if it's for film you probably don't want to do hard edges in general (you'd use geometry to bevel to get the sharpening you want or use sharpening settings in whatever you're working with). Also, floating geometry is not to be undervalued. In many cases it's the best choice for something that is so distinctly cut from the rest of piece (to the extent that it'd have hard edges) because it can save you on a lot of geometry while also giving you flexibility to make changes in the future.
I'm late to this but in Blender you can assign faces as flat or smooth without splitting geometry, the default box for example doesn't have splits; you can export as an obj and import and it still won't have splits.
For a game asset the engine will split hard edges in the end
Sorry, but you're not correct here. Please read the whole thread, blender has a problem exporting OBJS in that it will physically break the edges, whereas every other 3d app that supports things like hard edges will store this information as vertex normals.
It makes it really difficult to do things like baking normal maps in external apps.
Whether edges are broken by the time an asset gets into a game engine or not isn't really relevant to production.
I'm late to this but in Blender you can assign faces as flat or smooth without splitting geometry, the default box for example doesn't have splits; you can export as an obj and import and it still won't have splits.
EarthQuake covered the biggest point, but another issue Blender has is the inability to manually edit vertex normals. A face is either smooth or flat, no in between. However, this is being worked on (by the community, not the Blender Foundation), and I feel that once Blender gets the ability to save custom vertex normals and export those normals without splitting vertices, it will be a very solid, complete modeling program!
All the import/export functions in Blender are actually just Python scripts. Anyone familiar with that sort of thing might be able to knock out a few of these issues.
What it's doing currently is just applying all modifiers on export. So what you're getting is the same thing as if you just clicked the apply button on the edge split modifier. There is an option to not have it apply, but then it just discards the modifiers. It's beyond me, but maybe someone good at coding could make it convert sharp edges into smoothing groups on export instead.
I'm not sure why it doesn't have ngon support for objs. My guess would be just nobody got around to it, since Blender only relatively recently had ngon support at all.
xrg: that's exactly it. Nobody got around to it, but given the Blender Foundation's film focus and 'all-in-one-app' mentality, nobody's likely to. Someone in the community will have to pick it up, but I'm not sure there's much demand for it outside of people like us.
Most blender users are just now getting used to ngons (oh god, I remember the FUD and generally hilarious reactions everytime ngons came up on blenderartists.org), and I'd wager a fair amount of them never export.
Blender's our main app at work right now (Damn you Eld), but it's precisely for these reasons that if we move on to a more technically demanding project we might have to move on to a more industry standard package. It's a shame, as I do enjoy Blender's interface and flexibility.
Most blender users are just now getting used to ngons (oh god, I remember the FUD and generally hilarious reactions everytime ngons came up on blenderartists.org), and I'd wager a fair amount of them never export.
There is still the occasional "can I shut off bmesh?" thread over a BA. :shifty:
I was going to file a bug report over the no ngon support with obj, but it seems to be keeping ngons for me. Maybe it's been fixed already?
Sorry, but you're not correct here. Please read the whole thread, blender has a problem exporting OBJS in that it will physically break the edges, whereas every other 3d app that supports things like hard edges will store this information as vertex normals.
It makes it really difficult to do things like baking normal maps in external apps.
Whether edges are broken by the time an asset gets into a game engine or not isn't really relevant to production.
Actually no I'm not, read my actual comment.
I get that one of the main ways to make (exportable) hard edges in Blender is to use the edge split modifier, you assign the edges you want as sharp, apply the modifier and it makes the cuts so you get split verts and thus the hard edges.
This is not what I was talking about. What I clearly said is that Blender allows you to set specific faces as flat or smooth and it will not cut them if you do this. This does not give you the flexibilty to make only one edge sharp, and that is not what I'm saying, but what it could implicate is that Blender already has a way of dealing with multiple normal interpretations per vertex. This is why the default cube doesn't have any split edges or modifiers, it only has 8 verts (even after export and reimport of the obj).
This is all besides the point that there are many many ways to handle hard edges and defining them with smoothing groups is generally the worst (a bevel would be the same performance with more realism).
There was a discussion regarding this over on the BA forums and one of the developers popped in and committed to fixing this.
So for 2.68, preserving vertex normals will be addressed as well as adding a "generic hard-edge --> smooth-group function and share between exporters".
In short, its about time.
Also noteworthy is the pie menu addition for 2.68.
There was a discussion regarding this over on the BA forums and one of the developers popped in and committed to fixing this.
So for 2.68, preserving vertex normals will be addressed as well as adding a "generic hard-edge --> smooth-group function and share between exporters".
In short, its about time.
Also noteworthy is the pie menu addition for 2.68.
sweet
dont know what i should think about the pie menus though, i did see a video explaining them, but iam not sold on it (yet)
You can get the pie menu add-on if you want to try it; basically 2.68 will just have what is there, except natively.
I personally don't like it that much as it slows me down fairly substantially. If it makes it easier for people to move to/learn Blender it's worth the compromise though. I'm sure I'll get quicker with it over time too.
yes, iam pretty much using hotkeys for everything too, so..
iam just wondering why they did this, they already have dynamic spacebar, where you can find almost everything
Pie menus are better when implemented right.
You see with menus, you pull down and search for some chunk of text. With pie menus, its not only more visual, but its pattern based. Brain can remember patterns of movement and enact them faster than looking for something down on a text menu. With patterns of movement, you dont even need to see what you are looking at.
Example, pull up pie menu, move mouse upper left, get results. No need to look at all. You cant really do that with a drop down menu.
The other problem with the dynamic spacebar is that it barely covers everything you need. You still need to dig around menus by using hotkeys rather than finding them within the interface. Its also not smart to have to type in the function you want in the search bar within the menu just to find it.
The best menu system so far I have seen is Maya's hotbox and then custom radial menus. They look ancient but they are effective.
A lot of us that use hotkeys don't read the list and instead just do it via number. Ctrl+E+6 will mark a seam, U+1 unwraps, W+4 will remove doubles, Shift+S+3 moves cursor to selection.
With the pie menu it takes me awhile to literally find where something is on the screen. It's not some crippling change to my workflow or anything, but it really does kill a lot of my normal efficiency.
I do understand the benefits of it though, and I'm sure I'll gain some of my speed back over time. It's just not a feature that is going to benefit me so I'm not really looking forward to it as much as others. :P
A lot of us that use hotkeys don't read the list and instead just do it via number. Ctrl+E+6 will mark a seam, U+1 unwraps, W+4 will remove doubles, Shift+S+3 moves cursor to selection.
I agree, the keyboard is always faster than the mouse. Besides, if you're using a particular item repeatedly, Blender always snaps the mouse to the last function used. So, if you're marking seams, the mouse will snap to that item until you select something else.
Exporting to obj should convert sharp edges to smoothing groups. It probably could use some testing just to make sure it's playing nice with everyone though. FBX export is planned to have similar functionality before 2.68 but I don't believe it is in yet.
Any revision after 57455 or so should have the new option. You can check for builds here (these are "portable" and run out of the directory without need to install btw):
- Buildbot
- Graphicall
When exporting, make sure the smooth group option is checked. Also if you have an Edge Split modifier either disable apply modifier or remove it before exporting or it'll probably split geometry.
Also it should import back into Blender with the edges marked sharp, though you'll need to manually add an Edge Split modifier back on it.
Huge news xrg! Now Blender can finally work nicely with other programs! I've tested handplane (which ignored sharp edges previously), and it picks up on the smoothing groups now. As soon as they add smoothing groups to the FBX exporter, we can finally use Blender exclusively for game modeling, without relying on another program like 3ds Max to export smoothing groups. Now the only thing missing is manually editing vertex normals, though I rarely have to do that for anything other than foliage. Guess I can't completely get rid of Max quite yet
Vertex normal editing still isn't in. It was listed on the 2.68 targets originally (third to last bullet point under 2.68 targets), but I'm not sure if it's been bumped till next cycle or not.
I don't see it on the current target list, though this smoothing group thing wasn't on there either.
Ton also just announced that, in the future, he plans on making importing and exporting to external engines much easier. Quote:
Instead of calling it the GE we would just put Blender in Interaction mode. Topics to think of:
Integrate the concept of Logic in the animation system itself. Rule or behavior based animation is a great step forward for animation as well (like massive anims, or for extras).
Support of all Blender physics.
Optimizing speed for interactive playback will then also benefit regular 3d editing (and vice versa)
Singular Python API for logic scripting
Ensure good I/O integration with external game engines, similar to render engines.
What should then be dropped is the idea to make Blender have an embedded true game engine. We should acknowledge that we never managed to make something with the portability and quality of Unreal or Crysis or even Unity3D. And Blenders GPL license is not helping here much either.
Replies
So, if you can export SG, custom normals, and put it in a Max or Maya format, you're good to go with Blender?
Yeah, but the thread is about using blender exclusively because you can't afford commercial software. This is where the answer is still no. Even providing an FBX with split verts isn't sufficient.
Anyone where at polycount knows the process of transferring models between programs, but outsourcing managers may not. They just know they use software X so Y format will not work.
Read my comment again and you'll realize I was talking about real smoothing groups, not edge split. If a modified exporter could translate the "mark sharp" seams as hard edges without splitting the vertices, things would be cozy.
I use modo 302, and modo does not work with smoothing groups. I need to use Max, and select the uv chunks i previously mapped in modo if needed.
what a way of throwing shit to a free 3d app ¬¬
In my 10+ years as freelance i haven't had a SINGLE issue exporting and sending the work in .obj or .fbx format. For too many jobs i'm only asked for a grey model/sculpt, and i have seen too many polycounters doing the same (later, someone in the studio is responsible for the low poly, texturing and engine integration). Cg Hub is full of "grey models".
Oh well. Right tool for the job and all that.
For a game asset the engine will split hard edges in the end, if it's for film you probably don't want to do hard edges in general (you'd use geometry to bevel to get the sharpening you want or use sharpening settings in whatever you're working with). Also, floating geometry is not to be undervalued. In many cases it's the best choice for something that is so distinctly cut from the rest of piece (to the extent that it'd have hard edges) because it can save you on a lot of geometry while also giving you flexibility to make changes in the future.
Sorry, but you're not correct here. Please read the whole thread, blender has a problem exporting OBJS in that it will physically break the edges, whereas every other 3d app that supports things like hard edges will store this information as vertex normals.
It makes it really difficult to do things like baking normal maps in external apps.
Whether edges are broken by the time an asset gets into a game engine or not isn't really relevant to production.
EarthQuake covered the biggest point, but another issue Blender has is the inability to manually edit vertex normals. A face is either smooth or flat, no in between. However, this is being worked on (by the community, not the Blender Foundation), and I feel that once Blender gets the ability to save custom vertex normals and export those normals without splitting vertices, it will be a very solid, complete modeling program!
What it's doing currently is just applying all modifiers on export. So what you're getting is the same thing as if you just clicked the apply button on the edge split modifier. There is an option to not have it apply, but then it just discards the modifiers. It's beyond me, but maybe someone good at coding could make it convert sharp edges into smoothing groups on export instead.
I'm not sure why it doesn't have ngon support for objs. My guess would be just nobody got around to it, since Blender only relatively recently had ngon support at all.
Most blender users are just now getting used to ngons (oh god, I remember the FUD and generally hilarious reactions everytime ngons came up on blenderartists.org), and I'd wager a fair amount of them never export.
Blender's our main app at work right now (Damn you Eld), but it's precisely for these reasons that if we move on to a more technically demanding project we might have to move on to a more industry standard package. It's a shame, as I do enjoy Blender's interface and flexibility.
I'm still all for banding together, writing down our grievances, and crowdfunding a coder to fix them. I found http://pledgie.com/, might be interesting?
For those who haven't seen it, I've got a (pretty big) document here where I wrote down some thoughts:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aFxDruEX0zZnWHH5YjEFwJe4g1XqR4YByt_8_HRonTI/edit
not everything's up to date, I haven't had time to work on it lately.
There is still the occasional "can I shut off bmesh?" thread over a BA. :shifty:
I was going to file a bug report over the no ngon support with obj, but it seems to be keeping ngons for me. Maybe it's been fixed already?
Same here. Have you tried the latest version MightyPea?
Actually no I'm not, read my actual comment.
I get that one of the main ways to make (exportable) hard edges in Blender is to use the edge split modifier, you assign the edges you want as sharp, apply the modifier and it makes the cuts so you get split verts and thus the hard edges.
This is not what I was talking about. What I clearly said is that Blender allows you to set specific faces as flat or smooth and it will not cut them if you do this. This does not give you the flexibilty to make only one edge sharp, and that is not what I'm saying, but what it could implicate is that Blender already has a way of dealing with multiple normal interpretations per vertex. This is why the default cube doesn't have any split edges or modifiers, it only has 8 verts (even after export and reimport of the obj).
This is all besides the point that there are many many ways to handle hard edges and defining them with smoothing groups is generally the worst (a bevel would be the same performance with more realism).
So for 2.68, preserving vertex normals will be addressed as well as adding a "generic hard-edge --> smooth-group function and share between exporters".
In short, its about time.
Also noteworthy is the pie menu addition for 2.68.
sweet
dont know what i should think about the pie menus though, i did see a video explaining them, but iam not sold on it (yet)
I personally don't like it that much as it slows me down fairly substantially. If it makes it easier for people to move to/learn Blender it's worth the compromise though. I'm sure I'll get quicker with it over time too.
iam just wondering why they did this, they already have dynamic spacebar, where you can find almost everything
Pie menus are better when implemented right.
You see with menus, you pull down and search for some chunk of text. With pie menus, its not only more visual, but its pattern based. Brain can remember patterns of movement and enact them faster than looking for something down on a text menu. With patterns of movement, you dont even need to see what you are looking at.
Example, pull up pie menu, move mouse upper left, get results. No need to look at all. You cant really do that with a drop down menu.
The other problem with the dynamic spacebar is that it barely covers everything you need. You still need to dig around menus by using hotkeys rather than finding them within the interface. Its also not smart to have to type in the function you want in the search bar within the menu just to find it.
The best menu system so far I have seen is Maya's hotbox and then custom radial menus. They look ancient but they are effective.
With the pie menu it takes me awhile to literally find where something is on the screen. It's not some crippling change to my workflow or anything, but it really does kill a lot of my normal efficiency.
I do understand the benefits of it though, and I'm sure I'll gain some of my speed back over time. It's just not a feature that is going to benefit me so I'm not really looking forward to it as much as others. :P
I agree, the keyboard is always faster than the mouse. Besides, if you're using a particular item repeatedly, Blender always snaps the mouse to the last function used. So, if you're marking seams, the mouse will snap to that item until you select something else.
Any revision after 57455 or so should have the new option. You can check for builds here (these are "portable" and run out of the directory without need to install btw):
- Buildbot
- Graphicall
When exporting, make sure the smooth group option is checked. Also if you have an Edge Split modifier either disable apply modifier or remove it before exporting or it'll probably split geometry.
Also it should import back into Blender with the edges marked sharp, though you'll need to manually add an Edge Split modifier back on it.
Any progress with importing a mesh into Blender? Vertex normals still seem jacked using the latest version from buildbot.
I don't see it on the current target list, though this smoothing group thing wasn't on there either.
Full article here.
Edit: Just realized this was already posted in the other Blender thread. I'm not copying guys I promise!