Character creation in Blender

So I've made a couple of characters in Blender (skinned even). And, to my knowledge, as of now there is no way to export armatures or animations from Blender into Unity.

Is there any way to animate them that doesn't involve paying $2,000 for Maya? After I got passed Blender's weird controls and quirky UI, I actually understand how to use it and have grown to like it a lot.
I don't want to spend a lot of money on a program just to animate a character...
I would just export to Maya Personal Learning Edition (don't even know if this works, haven't bothered to try), but you cannot import anything from Maya PLE, right?
The last time I tried to import files into Unity from Maya PLE it didn't work.

I guess I need a solution that doesn't involve a lot of money, and doesn't involve me staring at Collada's Plug-in website waiting for an update (that might do what all of us Blender users are hoping) until my eyes fall out.


What is everyone here doing? Actually getting (keeping?) a job and buying some good software? Who are you people? :wink:


Any ideas for me?

Thanks.

 

>>you cannot import anything from Maya PLE
right.

and right, there isn't a good (free) way to get animation out of blender and into unity as far as i know. so it's wait for collada or something else.

now if you have a pc... you might find a solution through milkshape ($20) or higher end, xsi foundation ($500?). i haven't looked at it but doesn't blender do .x files with animation (yeah yeah i know the truth is out there)?

also check out the dim inspire threads below. me, i gave up and bought lightwave ($800).

 

i'm in the same boat mindless.

other things.

i've been learning some of the myriad of other tasks i need to get a game going. i'm SLOWLY saving some money here there, but it will be a while so hopefully someone will come through for blender before then. like you i have gotten very comfortable with the "blender way" and really enjoy using it. one possible cheap option in the near future is cheetah3D - martin has mentioned he is working on animation support (though at this point i'd rather use blender to model animate then export to cheetah to get it into unity).

its still frustrating though. maya users have all the fun ; )

 

What about Dim3 Inspire? I haven't tried this but there's some info in the Wiki and there was a thread here in the forum on how to use it. Not the solution you want, but might work for now.

Another avenue I haven't tested yet is to export from Blender via a DirectX .X file and then somehow convert that to either .FBX or Collada. On a PC, "Ultimate Unwrap 3D" might work for this conversion (it supports both .X and .FBX files) but I haven't tested this yet. There might be other solutions as well.

 

There are plenty of game types that don't need character animation anyway. Even if someone got Blender animations to work in Unity today, I wouldn't be touching that feature for a long time.

--Eric

 

Hmm... Since I don't have access to a PC, and right now I am more or less broke, I guess I will look into the .X Format. I'm not sure what sense I will be able to make out of the file once I export it, but it's worth a try.

I didn't know that Dim3 had any decent tools. I will also look into Dim3 Inspire.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Hrrm...I've been chewing on this problem, too. While it's true that you can make a cool game without characters, you can't tell stories without characters, which is what most interests and motivates me. Seems there's a new thread on this subject almost every day - where's the indie-friendly character animation tool for game development? I love Blender, but have been forced to conclude that it's not workable solution for this (outside of the Blender game engine or Crystal/Ogre integration). If you've got way more time (and patience) than money, then it's possible to use the Dim3 Inspire thing, but it hurts. And even if/when the collada support comes together, it will probably be many moons before it's as effective as the current commercial tools.

So I guess, as others have said here, that XSI Foundation is the most cost-effective thing that will do it today, at $495. Which is, for me, worth it, whereas I can't justify 2k for Maya right now. Much less 3450 for 3ds. But don't worry - with my luck, as soon as I pull the trigger on XSI, both Blender and Cheetah will come out with a solid character animation path into Unity the next day...So for the benefit of everyone here, I'm gonna do it!

 

Ha! Can't tell you how many times this has happened to me!

I did some more searching and I wasn't able to find a free Mac tool to turn .X files to .FBX or Collada. Not to say that one doesn't exist, I just haven't found it.

 

So what exactly would .X file support solve?

 

Not much, as the .X file format is intended for Windows only and is very loosely defined (ie. lots of problems with it). For a Mac app to support .X file import/export probably isn't worth investing the manpower to create. IMHO the best solution is the Blender Collada exporter that is currently underway, but that doesn't help folks right now. This particular exporter project has received funding (rare in the open source world) and the developer seems to be making progress. But it is moving slowly. I only suggested .X files because that is one of the few formats Blender can export with animation. But this is more of a "bandaid" than a solution. I did a bit of searching and haven't found any solutions other than what has already been discussed.

 

That's what I meant as well, but I guess that's just dumb because (oh God, hopefully) Collada will be a working solution before Unity 1.6 rolls out.

So right now (for me anyway) it's suffer with Dim4 Inspire, try to find something that can convert .X files into .fbx, or just wait for Collada (or of course the awful "Get a decent job" route)

Until then... .NET Pong anyone? That doesn't require animation :wink:

 

Well, if you don't mind saving lots of files, and animating md2 style, you could use the mesh morpher included with Unity...

And I recommend that you avoid Dim3 Inspire.

 

Here's a thread about dim3 Inspire.

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=2342&highlight=

The main problem with dim3 is its lack of documentation, so I experimented with the program and jotted down a few discoveries that should make it a little easier to use. At the end of the thread is the Wiki link. If you use few poly's and few textures (.png's only, it seems), you'll be okay. As with anything, dim3 gets easier with practice. It sure was frustrating at first, compared to the wonderful Blender skeletal animation, but it definitely works. One word of advice: Experiment first with a cube or other primitive shape before tackling a full-fledged character. Good luck!