Importers and Exporters Overview
The Code.Blender.org blog features an overview of the available file import and export filters for Blender 2.4x and 2.5x.
Blender is being used a lot as part of a pipeline, thus having a great need for import and export of various formats. In this article I list what formats used to be supported in Blender 2.4x series and how well these did their jobs, and then compare them to the current status.
Link
I am use Blender for serious game projects in my job, and all the exporters are horrible, lack of features, so totally unusable for serious work (for example putting blender in a pipeline). This is a very sad thing…
Ok, I know everybody hates me.
@endike: which exporters do you use, and for which Blender version? What are the specific problems you encounter? Then you’d at least give the developers a shot at improving them.
Just shouting ‘blah, it sucks!’ doesn’t really help anybody (although, admittedly, it often does relieve some stress ;-)
Bart, yes, but we have no time to wait for bugfixes.
I have sent many bugs in bugtracker in my free time (2.4 and older series). But when I am working at a company we have no time for this, we must write our inhouse exporters.
Previous week I started at a new company and we try to use Collada… and we have problems again… :(
But I think these export-import problems are exist on other softwares, I have some bad experience with XSI and 3dsMAX…
IMHO that is not totally true. I helped Ben in testing directx *.x exporter, and knowing a pair of basic scene setup measure, x export worked quite well. In 2.4x , and I think is supported now as addon, md5 exporter (by der_ton) worked greatly for me. Gandaldf made a GREAT Blitz 3D (a game engine) exporter that used to work great both as an export of character animation and for lightmapped scenes inside Blender! There’s yet with GNU GPL code (I can provide if link is down in the future) in here: http://downloads.lineof7s.com/Blender_B3D_Exporter_2.04.zip
It can be possible that these do not work in 2.5x series. I don’t know as I have not tried yet for time issues, even while I am very interested, as a game artist. But definitely, thee was a point in time when that *.md5, the b3d exporter, and x exporter, all 3 were working for 2.41 or later.
In my opinion, this all is great, there are quite a number of engines importing md5, b3d and x, but if you have a careful glance over the engines that are going to invade the net soon thanks to the arrival of Webgl (seems google supports it) and Molehill (flash plugin update to support 3D by accessing GPU ) , engines that are already ended and fully functional in many important cases, those are all only taking Collada (mostly) and some FBX.
For the other important area, which is exchange formats with Studios and teams, etc, or many indy game engines, it seems to keep very important Directx (*.x), blitz 3d(*.b3d), MD5 (*.md5 ).
So, IMHO, if I’d have to think on which are more important, “globally”, I would see this order quite fine:
– Collada (by very far, I have my greatest hope here :) )
– FBX
– Directx ( *.x )
– Blitz3D (*.b3d)
– MD5 (*.md5)
The advantage of all these for game engines and as exchange formats between packages, (and so, to integrate Blender in Maya, Max workflows, etc) is that all of them support characters with bones and weight animation, but can be also used to port scenery, to less or more extent. In that aspect, Collada is the most complete, by far, and surely for this reason is giving so much problems to Blender to get it fully ended. (surely there are more problems). A lot of Max users use FBX to import stuff, and have heard about XSI, Max, and Maya users use quite Collada.
Anyway, formats have always issues. Is probably not as terrible if issues are well documented directly in the page where you donwload it, or at least in some doc attached inside the zip. Sadly, often some problems make an exporter not usable for real workflows, but as I mentioned, I could use in real cases very often those x, md5, b3d ones, in the past. Here’s hoping that all get adressed, but would be deeply dishonest to complain, if want my opinion…
I am indeed really happy that export formats are getting attention, to me they are even more important than importers.
Actually, if COLLADA gets finished and solved the issues, I myself (and quite some more, for what I read in the comments of that link) would be more than happy. If FBX gets also addressed, then great. Expecting more would be too optimistic, as is an overload of work, I am afraid. But I am quite more optimistic about the whole matter, and gotta hugely congratulate all developers. We are getting used to have a lot of functionality in Blender, and if you look into old stablished comercial packahes, they don’t come even close to support export formats, exception made of collada and fbx.
This will always be an issues when upgrade or new system environment.Even opening other blend file user give me problem.
@Extrudeface > more important, “globally”
That’s a nice list, but while it may reflect priorities from the point of view of game development, the list would look different for architecture and probably different yet for some other sectors. For me, the following are most important:
-dxf (mostly import)
-Collada (import and export)
-obj (export)
-fbx (export)
The good thing is that Collada is in the top of both our lists, it would be great to have a file format that is supported throughout the 3d world.
STL export is broken as of 2.56a. :(
Endlike: so you have developed your own exporter? Why not to share it to the community?
It would be nice to see an importer that can import points as they are exported from Syntheyes.
Right now the pipeline is export from Syntheyes, open in 2.49, save .blend, open in 2.6.
Not a big deal, but would be nice.
Matt or someone else who could do that, let me know a price and if reasonable I would contribute that
to the Blender community.
QuestionMark, these exporters arent free stuffs.
The two importer/exporters I am looking forward:
1) Blender -> Unity export worflow using the .BLEND FILE
I would welcome to see back in Blender the workflow between Blender -> Unity by which I was able to save the .blend file with models and animations, drop it in the Assets directory in Unity, and Unity would get everything.
Today’s solution require to export each animation individually as in “model@action1”. This is cumbersome, and error prone.
2) SVG import so that we can use Inkscape.
Thanks.
endike is right in that all the other pro packages are missing some pretty key exporters also. Worked in a pipeline with Maya and was using Blender to translate. I think we’re so used to Blender working so well, that when its missing like just one plugin- it feels like the world is falling. Yeah- its that good.
Is there no plans to support .eps or .ai files? I am more of a graphic designer that likes to use Blender for modeling cool graphics. Anytime i need to create a logo in 3D, i have to open it up in 2.49 and convert everything. Only then i can open it up in 2.55 as blend file. Why no support for the formats that The old Blender could do?
Jorsala:
If you’re doing your animations as named Actions, you can export to FBX. The Resulting file will be imported into Unity with the Actions as separate animation clips within the prefab.
LoTekK,
The problem I have with the approach is that I create the individual named Actions in the file (idle, walk, run, shoot, lean, fly, etc), but then when I import it to Unity the length of the animation is the same for all actions (All actions hae different frames lenght – 30, 40, 50 frames but the file takes always the lenght of the last saved animation). Because of it, I have to export each individual animation as [email protected] (model@idle, model@walk, etc). As you imagine that is a lot of work.
Unless I am doing something wrong on the export.
Thanks