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Has Unity rescinded support for native Blender files post 3.0.0?

Discussion in 'Asset Importing & Exporting' started by k_dunlop, Jan 16, 2022.

  1. k_dunlop

    k_dunlop

    Joined:
    May 10, 2019
    Posts:
    16
    Ever since updating to Blender 3 it seems as .blend files are failing to work.

    I get the error msg:
    "Blender could not convert the .blend file to FBX file.
    You need to use Blender 2.45-2.49 or 2.58 and later versions for direct Blender import to work."

    FBX file imports seem fine, but unfortunately I had a level that used a prefab variant of the file with customized components on the models held within the .blend, and as the variant seemed corrupt now simply importing the fbx isn't going to do the trick. This will cause me to lose a tremendous amount of work if I can't find a fix.

    Also, I cannot simply resave the file in 2.9 as there seems to be some type of caching issue preventing .blend files working afterwards.

    Is there a workaround, or should I simply go back to blender 2.9 and reinstall my entire Unity project from github?
     
    k_dunlop, Jan 16, 2022
    #1

  2. OscarLeif

    OscarLeif

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2016
    Posts:
    68
    Unity never had support for Blend files.
    What it really does is:
    Open Blender in console then uses the export fbx addon from Blender.
    So it could be better to save the Blend files outside Asset folder and export manually the fbx files.
     
    OscarLeif, Apr 21, 2022
    #2

  3. George-Ing

    George-Ing

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2020
    Posts:
    68
    Bingo ^.

    When you have a ".blend" file in your project, we secretly invoke a Blender process in the background to re-export the blend as an FBX. This allows you to have ".blend" files within your project, whilst allowing us to focus all of our resources on providing a great user experience with one model importer/one 3D import pipeline.

    If Blender is able to open & export the ".blend" as ".fbx", then Unity should be able to consume that ".blend". If it does not, then please file a bug and we'll be happy to investigate it asap!
     
    George-Ing, Apr 27, 2022
    #3

  4. SimonEnvisionVR

    SimonEnvisionVR

    Joined:
    Dec 13, 2020
    Posts:
    9
    Does Unity have any plans to support Blender files natively?

    It's fully open source, the blend file is self-describing, and you're already running blender on import.

    https://formats.kaitai.io/blender_blend/csharp.html

    https://github.com/snoozbuster/blender-file-reader
     
    SimonEnvisionVR, Jun 14, 2022
    #4