I have been spending a lot of time messing with Python scripting this last week. It has been interesting how most of the stuff I have learned on Codecademy and other books for the last few months has actually stuck with me.
My recent purchases have really made all the difference in the world on how and when I can practice. I will relate those in the next blog post. The main purchase was a new computer, which one will remain a secret until next week but it is, next to my main computer the best purchase I have made in quite some time.
Also, the addon I have decided to write has been defined. It is not exactly what I originally had in mind but will workout perfectly with this new computer.
I have been doing some experimenting with exporting models from Blender to Unity3d using the FBX export and have found more success than failures. I found this strange as it seems when I read about others in the Unity Community exporting the same way there seem to be a plethora of problems.
I created this simple pad in blender
Using these settings I exported the file as an FBX, placed the file with my assets in the Unity project. The secret for proper orientation from Blender to Unity? Make sure Forward is “-Y Forward” and Up is “Z Up”. As you can see, this is how the model is prepared within Blender NOT how you wish to see it in Unity. When I first did an export I had this backwards.
After adjusting the scale factor to one and removing any inspector clean up (apply any changes) I drop the new asset into the scene. With this result and as you can see the item is place properly with orientations correct for a Unity asset.
Once I figured out the proper way to import the asset from Blender I created a preset within the FBX export panel. This way I have these settings ready for any other assets created within Blender.
I took a little break from modeling because I got the urge to play with Unity a bit. I purchased the Playmaker Functional State Machine (FSM) and I thought I better learn how to use it at least a little since I paid 95.00 for it. I found it is remarkably easy to use and quickly created a small scene in Unity using the dresser asset I created. Creating animations for the opening and closing of the drawers and then using Playmaker to open/close them using buttons was a piece of cake. I literally watched the video last night before bed, opened Unity this morning and created this in about an hour or two. I had to start over a couple times on the animations because my mac book air kept freezing up on me. Other than those little hiccups it was quit easy.
Here is a screen shot while I was working leading me to an observation. Why do people complain about Blenders User Interface (UI) when the UI of Unity is FAR from perfect and FAR from any sort of standardization. I’m thinking that because Blender is free and open source the users think they have a right to complain to the Blender Foundation when they don’t get things their way. This may be an offshoot of a statement made similar to this, “You have your own 3d application…” which you do, meaning you can modify the program as you wish to meet your needs. Not necessarily that the developers will modify the program as you wish.
Unity costs a pretty penny and you don’t hear near the number of complaints about the UI. Probably the Unity users realize the don’t OWN anything. They have to pay for the right use use the program every year!
Off my soapbox. Here are my results.
Video placed in YouTube showing the results of Playmaker and Unity (Not much but then again it doesn’t take much to impress me these days.
You do learn new things everyday. Reading through the Virtual Airplane Modeling books I found how to render motion blur using Blender internal. First image below is without motion blur and the second is with.
Cool huh?
New site covering miscellaneous activities including my favorite activity: Blender
