Code: Select all
Python Error: check script console
Where can I find a free animation program?
Where can I find a free animation program?
Pls don't tell me BLENDER. I did full python install + blender 2.41 and it won't import or export *.3ds or *.obj or*.lwo or just about anything, throwing this instead:
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TheGameMaker
- Posts: 275
- Joined: Fri May 12, 2006 6:37 pm
- Location: Germany
blender´s 2.41 3ds python import script needs to get a line fixed to work properly:
It may seem a bit tricky to learn at the beginning, but once you understand its workflow and customization possibilities you´ll even want to drop your everyday 3d app. It happened to me!
but if you want a free animation program, nothing will beat blender. As a matter of fact, it is now competing with commercial 3d apps in terms of quality, features, design, updates, power, etc etc etc.You must change a word in the file "3ds_import.py"
Open it and go to the row 203
Write "except ValueError:" instead of "except AttributeError:"
It may seem a bit tricky to learn at the beginning, but once you understand its workflow and customization possibilities you´ll even want to drop your everyday 3d app. It happened to me!
you shouldn't be, Rustynail . If you mean character animation, blender´s rigging system is very powerful and intuitive making this task a pleasure, and for camera-objects animation blender´s keyframer works just like any other one you find in commercial applicatios. You can also use paths for your cameras to follow. One may think that a 7 mb app won´t be able to do even a decent render, but it does! and it also creates some amazing animations. You also get the same options as in other packages to export your animation to separate bitmap files (jpeg, tga, etc) or as an avi or quicktime with or without compression using your codec of choice. Just download several of the short movies around made with blender and you´ll see what I mean (or just check "elephants dream", the first open source movie in the world).
The only thing blender lacks off now is a lightmapper or texture-baking options (render to texture) to use it to create levels for game engines but I,m sure, knowing its community, they´ll come up with it sometime in the near future.
Quite frankly, if blender would've been as good as it is nowadays when I bought 3dsmax I wouldn't have spent all those bucks in it and gotten a powerful machine for development instead. In fact, there are already several architecture firms around the globe, and designers' as well, that use blender as their main production tool. Lately, I've found myself getting faster results modeling with blender than with max.
Anyway, it's always good to have several modeling weapons in your arsenal, so I'm not saying 3dsmax is bad; 3dsmax is awesome, but its price is too steep and its upgrading policies are as well and my pocket can´t afford it anymore. So there comes blender in, which does most of the jobs for free! And it's becoming more "pro" with each new release.
Oh yes, and I always keep a copy of wings3d and anim8or around.
@Cristian:
Getting back on topic, the only other free 3d application I know is OpenFX:
http://www.openfx.org/
and you don't need a full python install to get blender to work. The python libraries are included in the package and used on runtime. But just in case, if you want your python instalation to work properly you must create a new environment variable called:
PYTHONPATH
and add the proper path in its value:
C:\Python24;C:\Python24\DLLs;C:\Python24\Lib;C:\Python24\Lib\lib-tk
modify it according to your python install. But it really is not required to get blender running.
. If you mean character animation, blender´s rigging system is very powerful and intuitive making this task a pleasure, and for camera-objects animation blender´s keyframer works just like any other one you find in commercial applicatios. You can also use paths for your cameras to follow. One may think that a 7 mb app won´t be able to do even a decent render, but it does! and it also creates some amazing animations. You also get the same options as in other packages to export your animation to separate bitmap files (jpeg, tga, etc) or as an avi or quicktime with or without compression using your codec of choice. Just download several of the short movies around made with blender and you´ll see what I mean (or just check "elephants dream", the first open source movie in the world).The only thing blender lacks off now is a lightmapper or texture-baking options (render to texture) to use it to create levels for game engines but I,m sure, knowing its community, they´ll come up with it sometime in the near future.
Quite frankly, if blender would've been as good as it is nowadays when I bought 3dsmax I wouldn't have spent all those bucks in it and gotten a powerful machine for development instead. In fact, there are already several architecture firms around the globe, and designers' as well, that use blender as their main production tool. Lately, I've found myself getting faster results modeling with blender than with max.
Anyway, it's always good to have several modeling weapons in your arsenal, so I'm not saying 3dsmax is bad; 3dsmax is awesome, but its price is too steep and its upgrading policies are as well and my pocket can´t afford it anymore. So there comes blender in, which does most of the jobs for free! And it's becoming more "pro" with each new release.
Oh yes, and I always keep a copy of wings3d and anim8or around.
@Cristian:
Getting back on topic, the only other free 3d application I know is OpenFX:
http://www.openfx.org/
and you don't need a full python install to get blender to work. The python libraries are included in the package and used on runtime. But just in case, if you want your python instalation to work properly you must create a new environment variable called:
PYTHONPATH
and add the proper path in its value:
C:\Python24;C:\Python24\DLLs;C:\Python24\Lib;C:\Python24\Lib\lib-tk
modify it according to your python install. But it really is not required to get blender running.
Misfit Model 3d : http://www.misfitcode.com/misfitmodel3d/
A LOT like Milkshape for animations (don't rely on it for modelling), and kind of unstable on large models so SAVE often(>4000 polys). Can do frame and skeletal animation (no IK or restraining).
I've found my pack (this + Wings3D) until I can manage Blender.
@Afacelis: thanks for the advice. the script works but it looses ALL UV. (Yeah, I know it's normal but it's just not right).
A LOT like Milkshape for animations (don't rely on it for modelling), and kind of unstable on large models so SAVE often(>4000 polys). Can do frame and skeletal animation (no IK or restraining).
I've found my pack (this + Wings3D) until I can manage Blender.
@Afacelis: thanks for the advice. the script works but it looses ALL UV. (Yeah, I know it's normal but it's just not right).
Hi Christian,
Try this tutorial out. It concludes with exporting to a different game engine but most of the content is generally applicable to game texturing for any engine.
http://www.lowpolycoop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=180
The one question it does not answer is how to set up your material to render properly. Look for a button that says "texface" and try clicking that (it could be something else, but that's a good start). I usually don't use the rendering capabilities in Blender because I find that just viewing the textured model in the viewport is closer to what it will look like in a real-time engine than rendering would do.
There are a bunch of other tuts in that forum as well -- look around a bit.
Scott
Try this tutorial out. It concludes with exporting to a different game engine but most of the content is generally applicable to game texturing for any engine.
http://www.lowpolycoop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=180
The one question it does not answer is how to set up your material to render properly. Look for a button that says "texface" and try clicking that (it could be something else, but that's a good start). I usually don't use the rendering capabilities in Blender because I find that just viewing the textured model in the viewport is closer to what it will look like in a real-time engine than rendering would do.
There are a bunch of other tuts in that forum as well -- look around a bit.
Scott
The Low Poly Cooperative -- Open your mind to open content.
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Mikenoworth
- Posts: 78
- Joined: Sat May 27, 2006 9:24 pm
- Location: Logan, UT
NOTHING will help you out more with UVMapping than this:
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/ ... UV_Mapping
A good tip to avoid export errors: In the uv/image editor, make sure the file name shown for your texture is the same as the one you have loaded to be the texture, if it's not, change it manually.
Another good tip to avoid export errors: No texture can have spaces, underscores and other non-alphanumeric characters in it other than the . before the extension of the file.
To make it visual..
BAD EXAMPLE:
Texture_1.jpg
GOOD EXAMPLE:
Texture1.jpg
It's funny how much knowledge on Blender is posted in Irrlicht's forums.
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/ ... UV_Mapping
A good tip to avoid export errors: In the uv/image editor, make sure the file name shown for your texture is the same as the one you have loaded to be the texture, if it's not, change it manually.
Another good tip to avoid export errors: No texture can have spaces, underscores and other non-alphanumeric characters in it other than the . before the extension of the file.
To make it visual..
BAD EXAMPLE:
Texture_1.jpg
GOOD EXAMPLE:
Texture1.jpg
It's funny how much knowledge on Blender is posted in Irrlicht's forums.
Stout Beer
No underscores? I didn't know that. Underscores have got to be one of the most used characters in names written by programmers. . .
You do a lot of programming? Really? I try to get some in, but the debugging keeps me pretty busy.
Crucible of Stars
Crucible of Stars
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Mikenoworth
- Posts: 78
- Joined: Sat May 27, 2006 9:24 pm
- Location: Logan, UT
I know what you mean. But I myself only export .X, and x files seem to have issues with underscores, maybe other formats don't, but as it is a problem with one format, I would stick to not using underscores in texture filenames, for safety.
Which is weird, cuz microsucks and underscores is like yin and yang, peas in a pod, hotdogs in a bun, black and white... I'll stop now.
Which is weird, cuz microsucks and underscores is like yin and yang, peas in a pod, hotdogs in a bun, black and white... I'll stop now.
Stout Beer
Thank you people for the advice but let me state my issue a bit more clearly.
In Wings3D it all looks fine.
In MisfitModel3d too, even in 3dsmax it looks ok (3dsmax trial).
When I import it into blender, it loses its UV map, and furthermore it gets a rainbow tint around vertices in shaded mode, and in texture mode it gets very bright. When rendered the textures are MESSED up (i mean really messed up!!!
).This happened to ALL my models, and remapping in blender is NOT easy!
In Wings3D it all looks fine.
In MisfitModel3d too, even in 3dsmax it looks ok (3dsmax trial).
When I import it into blender, it loses its UV map, and furthermore it gets a rainbow tint around vertices in shaded mode, and in texture mode it gets very bright. When rendered the textures are MESSED up (i mean really messed up!!!
).This happened to ALL my models, and remapping in blender is NOT easy!-
Mikenoworth
- Posts: 78
- Joined: Sat May 27, 2006 9:24 pm
- Location: Logan, UT
What file format are these models in? I can honestly say I don't know how to help you with that, other than create models in blender. (Which doesn't help, I'm sorry.)
Well.. Maybe you could try exporting into different formats, until you find one that Blender has a good relationship with.
Tell me what happens.
(Which doesn't help, I'm sorry.)Well.. Maybe you could try exporting into different formats, until you find one that Blender has a good relationship with.
Tell me what happens.
Stout Beer