Advertisement

You're blocking ads, which pay for BlenderNation. Read about other ways to support us.

Import GIMP XCF Scene into Blender 2.5 - Linux

27

This videotutorial by metalx1000 explains how to import a layered Gimp XCF Image into Blender.

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

27 Comments

  1. Great looking tool. Unfortunately xcftools (which is required) appears to only be availbale for linux so windows users lose out for this one, I use both linux and windows so its not a big issue for me.

  2. Great looking tool. Unfortunately xcftools (which is required) appears to only be availbale for linux so windows users lose out for this one, I use both linux and windows so its not a big issue for me.

  3. Just to to let all know. Just find the way to convert PSD file to xcf (Sorry this is in linux):

    1) Install imagemagick.
    2) Run: convert -depth 8 -colorspace RGB .psd .tif
    3) Import in Gimp .tif
    4) Save as .xcf
    5) Follow the tutorial above

    Hope this could be useful as was for me. =)

  4. Just to to let all know. Just find the way to convert PSD file to xcf (Sorry this is in linux):

    1) Install imagemagick.
    2) Run: convert -depth 8 -colorspace RGB .psd .tif
    3) Import in Gimp .tif
    4) Save as .xcf
    5) Follow the tutorial above

    Hope this could be useful as was for me. =)

  5. Opps for some reason it was not posted as spected.

    Here is the right one:

    1) Install imagemagick.
    2) Run: convert -depth 8 -colorspace RGB file.psd file.tif
    3) Import in Gimp file.tif
    4) Save as file.xcf
    5) Follow the tutorial above

  6. Opps for some reason it was not posted as spected.

    Here is the right one:

    1) Install imagemagick.
    2) Run: convert -depth 8 -colorspace RGB file.psd file.tif
    3) Import in Gimp file.tif
    4) Save as file.xcf
    5) Follow the tutorial above

  7. Very good tutorial, I will test it for sure on cutting some floor of my illustration to try fake 2D camera travelling. It can be really good for an immersive demo reel as a 2D artist.

    For those without xcftools , use Gimp ( can open your PSD layered RGB files too ) and a script for Gimp ; 'Save all layers' . You will be able to save all your layers to PNG and import them one by one in Blender using the same plugin described in this tutorial. For more infos on Save all layers : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz4UdyeMpzA

    PS : Congratz for the way the tutorial is itself ; short / concise / good voice over / intro - outro / Creative Commons / hi quality available ... Cool !

  8. Very good tutorial, I will test it for sure on cutting some floor of my illustration to try fake 2D camera travelling. It can be really good for an immersive demo reel as a 2D artist.

    For those without xcftools , use Gimp ( can open your PSD layered RGB files too ) and a script for Gimp ; 'Save all layers' . You will be able to save all your layers to PNG and import them one by one in Blender using the same plugin described in this tutorial. For more infos on Save all layers : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz4UdyeMpzA

    PS : Congratz for the way the tutorial is itself ; short / concise / good voice over / intro - outro / Creative Commons / hi quality available ... Cool !

  9. +1 with Tobias for *.ora.

    Btw, for dev ; Open Raster looks not complex if PNG support is already here ; *.ora are zip with inside a folder with separate layers as PNG and a XML to organise the layer position and option.

  10. +1 with Tobias for *.ora.

    Btw, for dev ; Open Raster looks not complex if PNG support is already here ; *.ora are zip with inside a folder with separate layers as PNG and a XML to organise the layer position and option.

  11. GIMP should import Photoshop files (.psd) - you may have to save in P/Shop as an earlier version. Been a while since I did this, so YMMV.
    So PSD -> GIMP -> Blender.

  12. GIMP should import Photoshop files (.psd) - you may have to save in P/Shop as an earlier version. Been a while since I did this, so YMMV.
    So PSD -> GIMP -> Blender.

  13. Enabling 'Setup Node Compositing' when importing the .Xcf image sets up a node network which places each layer in it's own render layer, complete with the required nodes to alpha over and form a complete composite.

    This is an awesome feature when compositing, for example you could have an .Xcf file that contains a matte painting split into multiple layers, then using the 3D view and the node network turn the 2D matte painting into a hybrid 2D/ 3D set-up for use with other 3D elements, or to render out projected sequences.

    Think of something like the floating mountains in Avatar, the background elements wwere all 2D planes arranged in 3D space to look like they were in fact 3D when the camera was moving around.

    This set-up is already possible of course, but this makes it much, much easier to set-up a similar set-up.

  14. @Pawel you are right, perhaps I forgot to mention that the issue that I had was that the PSD file was saved with color mode: CMYK and it is not supported by GIMP.

  15. @Pawel you are right, perhaps I forgot to mention that the issue that I had was that the PSD file was saved with color mode: CMYK and it is not supported by GIMP.

  16. How about XCF support for UV (so we could just load and reload the XCF as texture inside Blender)?
    I heard Blender did that with PSD before, but not anymore...

  17. Blender shouldn't import "PSD" anything.. Photoshop is a noob bloated crapware. Use GIMP, it has all the tools you need..

  18. OpenRaster is the ideal solution here, it is designed for exactly this type of interoperability. There are a couple of pure-python implementations out there already, so an external dependency like xcftools would not necessary. It could even be included by default in Blender. If anyone is interested in working on this, do get in contact with us OpenRaster people.

Leave A Reply

To add a profile picture to your message, register your email address with Gravatar.com. To protect your email address, create an account on BlenderNation and log in when posting a message.

Advertisement

×