DustyStyx' .planfile

Discuss model development here.
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DustyStyx
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DustyStyx' .planfile

Post by DustyStyx »

Seeing how Transfusion's development has come to a halt, I figure I'd start a planfile outlining what I'm currently working on, perhaps the other developers will follow suit.

This will be a locked thread, if you have a comment or suggestion related to the current topic please PM me.

GOAL: Learn a 3D Modeling Program. I've been meaning do this for years now and Blender seems more than capable for our needs, so I think I'll start up with that.

ETA: 1 Month to begin modeling static 3D world models.
Last edited by DustyStyx on Tue Jul 06, 2010 03:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by DustyStyx »

I was poking around and found Blender.org hosts a copy of The Official BLENDER 2.3 GUIDE

I have a hard copy of this book (bought it years ago) but it's good to have the additional resource online so I don't have to lug the book around. Blender has changed a little bit between 2.3 and the current 2.4x, but I've been able to follow it so far.

More Blender manuals online: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual
Last edited by DustyStyx on Fri Apr 23, 2010 04:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DustyStyx
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Post by DustyStyx »

Blender is coming along well enough. I've been hacking away at it and have started making simple models.

Things I still need to work out:
• Model optimization
• UVMap
• Rotation animation
• md3 export

Image
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DustyStyx
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Post by DustyStyx »

I've been neglecting Blender for far to long. Some of it has been reluctance on my part to learn one version when a new version is due out soon, but this guy makes it look easy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb0ZRnly2RI
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Sketchup to Blender

Post by DustyStyx »

I was poking around the forums at Guild of Writers when I came across a how-to for converting files from Google's Sketchup to Blender.

http://alexvaqp.googlepages.com/sketchupblender

Apparently you can export your Sketchup models to a Collada file (.dae) and then import that .dae file into Blender using a plug-in made by illusoft.com

Sketchup: http://sketchup.google.com/download/
Collada plugin: http://colladablender.sourceforge.net

Not sure how well it all works, but it could be worth looking into.

I suspect you could find something similar for other 3D applications as well. I only bring it up because Sketchup is very easy to model in, although it does get clunky once your model gets fairly detailed.
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Kot-in-Action Tutorial: Blender to Darkplaces

Post by DustyStyx »

While looking around for information about the DarkPlaces model format I stumbled on a lengthy tutorial today from Kot-in-Action detailing how to convert Blender files into .DPMs
Kot-in-Action tutorial
*Alt Location

Also, leileilol had sent me a few links last year, about getting blender models converted to md3 last year... which I have yet to try.

The scripts can be found on source forge.
https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/tre ... k/blender/
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Blender 2.5 updates

Post by DustyStyx »

Looks like Blender 2.5 is coming along well. I've been putting off doing much with Blender in general because of the UI changes and worries about stability, but I figure that by the time I actually get used to using the 2.5 alpha, they will have released the final version. So...

For anyone else that's interested in "Blending"
GraphicAll.org, has the latest Blender SVN builds for download.
BlenderCookie, has some very nice intro to Blender videos that focus on the 2.5 UI
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Rearrange the Forums

Post by DustyStyx »

I've been rearranging the forums some. Trying to get things a little more organized, and geared towards production.
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Blender Beta

Post by DustyStyx »

Sweet! It looks like they've released the Blender 2.5 Beta!

http://www.blender.org/development/rele ... ender-250/
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Post by DustyStyx »

Hurray, I found the Blender 2.5 manual. It looks like it is still under development, but not to bad for a start.
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Post by DustyStyx »

I've yet to export even a simple cube into a format that DarkPlaces supports from Blender. But I'm not giving up!
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Post by DustyStyx »

A bit of progress with Blender. I got caught up trying to do a polar array in Blender the way I was used to doing it back in the day with AutoCAD.... didn't work so well.

I did a mock-up of the spiked log in Blender 2.5 that I'm happy with. Now to get it in scale with the original image, and animate it.

Update: Just figured out that polar array is represented in Blender by "Spin". I tell ya, some of the things you find out AFTER the fact...
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Post by DustyStyx »

Ha-Zah! After poking around a bit more, looking for stuff on the IQM format, I found a quick and dirty example page on the Xonotic wiki:

http://dev.xonotic.org/projects/xonotic ... der_to_IQM

I was able to export the example model using Blender 2.49b, but I've not had much luck with it using it in 2.5 beta.

You can't just export a static cube however, so it looks like I'll have to figure out what prep work you have to apply to a model before exporting things.
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Basic Modeling

Post by DustyStyx »

BlenderCookie has a really nice tut about modeling an apple. Good basic stuff for a n00b like me.

Creating a Jonathan Apple

So far, so good.
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Post by DustyStyx »

Hurray! I finished it.
Image
Johnathan Apple.blend (right-click to save)
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