.fbx Support? Listen up, Blender people!

Alright. I know that supposedly Blender should not work other than for meshes, but I found a .fbx converter. I don't know much about .fbx or file formats and why they work or don't work for Unity, but I've heard that blender isn't supported because it doesn't spit out .fbx files. Anyways, I was wondering, if I have a blender exported .3ds file converted to a .fbx file, but the .fbx file was made in a non-editor program (the converter), why would it not work?

I got the converter free from the Alias website as a member of their "developer community" (I wish - no purchase necessary) - link is here:

http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/community/downloads.jsp?hs=FBX&dt=ALL&hp=ALL&index=None&sort=TITLE(

Just sign up as a "developer" and sign in and then find the download for the parameters:

Alias FBX, Program, Mac OS X

 

3Ds files dont contain skinned animations AFAIK. Just Geometry. I asked about a similar thing a while ago.

-Jeremy

 

With Unity 1.5, Blender files import through Collada (which new Blenders can export).

But Blender's Collada exporter still doesn't include animation data: that should be changing at some time in the perhaps not too distant future, at which time it'll just work.

In the meantime we can remember the old adage about open-source: when it breaks, you get to keep both halves.



d.

 

AFAIK the only files you can export out of Blender that support animation are: .blend, .X ( http://www.ben.3rdimension.co.uk/index.html ), MD2 (link was broken), .VRML ( http://www.bitmanagement.de/download/playerdownload.en.html ) and .XML (for Ogre http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Tools:_Blender#Mesh_and_Armature_Exporter ).

Have you tried Equinox 3D ( http://www.equinox3d.com/ )? It's actually pretty cool. I haven't dug into it very much, but it's available for OSX, it's free and it exports Collada files.

 

I tried the Collada .dae import, but for some reason I got an error telling me that Unity couldn't import it.
Right now I'm looking at Equinox 3d as an alternative to Blender. I just tried to download it, but for some reason on startup it flashes in the dock and then disappears. If you know why, cool, but if not, I'll try to figure it out. As long as I can make characters or objects with full animation support in it, I'm certainly willing to give it a try.

 

Sorry, I have not experience with Equinox 3D and OSX. I have it running under Linux (Ubuntu and Debian) and the installation was pretty straightforward.

If you continue to have problems, email the developer (Gabor Naggy), he's a pretty cool guy and has been very responsive when I've needed his help.

I don't know if you'll find all the features in EQX3D that is in Blender (in fact I -know- you won't), and it's workflow is different from anything else I've used, but it's a pretty interesting app all the same. Let us know how it works out.

 

When things don't launch properly, error messages are generally printed to stdout, which when double clicked to launch can be visible using the Console application in /Application/Utilities.

Does Equinox 3d have animation and bones? That would be the main thing to look for - as currently the only free 3D animator that supports Unity seems to be Dim3 Inspire, which doesn't have great animator tools...

 

Yes, but I'm not 100% sure whether the Collada exporter supports this yet. I haven't tested this since I don't have anything here that reads Collada files. Like I said, I've had just limited experience with it up 'til now. Since it's free, doesn't hurt to give it a try

 

I'm getting errors when I try to add either a .blend file or a .dae (Collada) file exported from Blender. The error messages are:

Code (csharp):

1. Blender couldn't convert the .blend file to an collada file.
2. Try exporting the blender file to an collada file manually.

and

Code (csharp):

1. Couldn't import file /Users/Shared/Unity/Eleconics/Assets/Models/rock.dae.
2. File is corrupted
3. File version is not supported yet
4. File version is not supported anymore
5. File not opened
6. File not created
7. Out of disk space
8. Uninitialized filename, use method Initialize(char* pFilename) first
9. Unidentified error
10. Index out of range
11. Password error
12. Stream options not set
13. ERROR: Unable to parse xml/dae file

Does anyone know why this would happen? I'm using Blender 241 and Unity 1.5.

 

Wow! Unity seems to really dislike that collada file.

I think Joe would really like to get hold on that collada file. I'd suggest that you zip up the blender file and the generated collada file and attach it to a bug report using Report Bug.app.

 

Are you using the latest form of Blender? I didn't get nearly that many errors when I tried importing (and none trying to export from Blender - could be something with what you made I guess). If you guys are still looking for something to get animations into Unity from Blender, this new topic is pretty interesting. Haven't tried it though, so don't run to me for help.

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

 

Thanks for the tip, I'll submit a bug report with the files.

I downloaded blender just the other day, so I'm pretty sure that it's the proper version, but I'm using the version for python 2.3 rather than python 2.4.

This is my first attempt at bringing blender files into Unity, so I wouldn't be surprised if I've somehow saved things improperly.

I was able to export the model as a 3DS file and that worked painlessly.

I've posted the files here in case someone wants to look at it.