Exporting as Obj

[ZURI]

I have made several attempts to export a mesh as an obj file from Blender - with the intentions of importing it in both Blender and Max - and have been having some issues. What settings "in Blender" should I use when exporting?

[The.Modificator]

What kind of problems do you experience?

Anyway, the .obj file format is *very* old and originates from a time where the type of 3D renderings that we can see in real time in Uru nowaydays had to be performed on quite large-scale computers that had to run for days in some cases. Lots of things are therefore not implemented in the .obj file format and will limit your models to some very basic characteristics when exported to this format. I don't recommend using it for this reason.


Cheers,

The.Modificator

[I.Brattin]

Problem is that if your importing to Max 7 (to use Cyan's plugin), .obj format is the only thing that works.

[ZURI]

Actually, I'd like to export all of the meshes in my age - so that they can be imported into both Blender and Max. I tried exporting a mesh as an obj with the standard settings. Bu,t when I imported into another age - it had a physical location - but was "gone." No matter how many times I scaled it up - it simply wasn't there.

[rivenwanderer]

Just to get a mesh from one blend file to another, you don't need to export as obj. Look into the "append" command (if you import as an "object" rather than "mesh", iir,it should copy all relevant data that obj might not even be able to store). Unless you've already tried that and found an issue with it?

Doesn't help with 3ds, though...

[ZURI]

Ok, I've managed to get them to import back into blender. What was happening; was the "object center" (I'm not sure if this is the correct nomenclature) was severely off-center. When I would import a mesh, it would initially be very, very, very small. When I would scale it up, it would literally "fly off the map" - while the "object center" would still be at the import location. I found that after scaling it up just enough to be visible, I would have to go into edit mode and re-center the mesh. Then, I could scale it back up to it's original size. Does anyone know how to make the object maintain it's size? It's probably something simple, but with all the OBJ export options, I'm a bit leary about making/testing dozens of exports. However, if noone else has an answer to this, I'll put aside a few hours this Saturday and go through them all one by one.

The idea of the exercise is two-fold. One, I would like to be able to share my meshes with other writers. While a lot of you veterans out there might care less, I thought that some of the newer writers may be helped by having a library of meshes to pull from.

Secondly, if it ends up taking forever (literally) for us to get the plugin source - I want to maintain the option of importing my meshes into Max. This way the age could be reassembled and exported using Cyan's plugin.

[tachzusamm]

If you want to share your object or objects with other writers, I would recommend to follow this scheme:

1. Save your Blender project to another name and location, e.g. C:\BlenderExports\MyBlenderObject_Export.blend (just as an example)
2. Remove all stuff/objects/meshes you don't want to share
3. Save your export project again; the blend file should now contain everything you want to share, nothing else.
4. Share your .blend file.

Can't help with 3DS though, but I had a closer look into the import/exports scripts for the .obj file type; they are not very complicated.
I already wrote import/export scripts that were able to access much more Blender variables (e.g. properties, vertex colors, etc.); I did this for another mesh format. No, neither .prp not .obj, but I guess it all works the same way. So maybe it could be possible to expand the functionality of the .obj import/export scripts - assumed it IS possible to transfer the related parameters to and from 3DS. No idea about this.

[electroglyph]

Max has two sets of proprietary coordinates. When you build something and drag it around to where you want it the second set gets applied.
Every other software only reads the first set of coordinates. Before you export from max you need to run a command called Reset XForm. That puts every object at it's normal orthagonal position and removes all the max move, scale, mirror, rotate commands you applied when building.

[electroglyph]

If you want to keep an object scale when importing into blender try this.
Build a cube around your object 1000ft square.
Under seperate objects by OBJ...click object or the entire import will come in as a single object.
There is a command in the options of the obj import box called clamp scale. The maximum this can be set at is 1000, so set it.
Import the object and position it. Deselect everything then select the box and delete it. Your 6ft objects will now be 6 blender units and export as 6 game units.

[ZURI]

Sorry for the delay in responding. Unfortunately, electroglyph, I cannot do that. I'm using "free" textures that I cannot distribute. I'd had to remove every mesh with one of those textures, and frankly - they are among the ones I would like to share.

I'll keep searching online for an easier working method. This past weekend, I had planned on setting aside some time to fiddle with it - but was busy working on the age itself.

Thank you for your responses though!