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Blender woes as usual

Discussion in 'Asset Importing & Exporting' started by markhula, Jan 29, 2012.

  1. markhula

    markhula

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2011
    Posts:
    630
    Hi all,

    For me Blender has never really worked with importing.
    Just got the latest 2.61 and still when I try and import a .blend file into unity 3.5 it complains I need a version of Blender higher than 2.45!!!
    I can import fbx's but for the love of god can never get the axis rotation to match up. Do I *really* have to rotate the mesh in blender and import that way? (the y/z axis issue).
    You would of thought at this stage of the game the axis issue would of been resolved - I've read lots of threads on this and it just seems rather 'lucky' if it works or not.
    If anyone has a simple method that works reliably I'd love to know :))

    Cheers
     
  2. henry96

    henry96

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2011
    Posts:
    582
    That's strange! I faced that problem only in 3.4 . When I update it to 3.5, it's no longer the issue!
     
  3. markhula

    markhula

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2011
    Posts:
    630
    LOL!
    Well in 3.4 (ignoring the axis issue) I could import fbx's no problem.
    Good ain't it!!! :)))))))

    Cheers
     
  4. polytropoi

    polytropoi

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2006
    Posts:
    681
    Yeah, Blender 2.61 and the Unity 3.5 Developer Preview importing works fine for me, just like it used to before the 2.5x change (hooray!). Try saving a copy of your blend file with 2.61 with a new name, and/or in a clean project.
     
  5. markhula

    markhula

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2011
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    630
    :)
    See knew it was me!
    Also every imported animation is called 'default take' how I can rename the anim?? (either in blender or unity!)

    Cheers all
     
  6. jake-gr

    jake-gr

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2011
    Posts:
    93
    @markhula
    what i have done, after i update the import script for unity (from the 2.5 thread here), i modify the fbx exporter (that ships with blender) and set "default take" to false so it only exports animations that ive created. there is a section called "unity_defaults" in the blender fbx exporter (the guys over at blender were trying to be nice to us hehe)
     
  7. markhula

    markhula

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    Sep 3, 2011
    Posts:
    630
    @Jake-GR

    Ok, I've found that default_take flag in the exporter and set it to false.
    But where do I set the animation name in blender now?, so my anim gets exported with that name?

    Cheers
     
  8. jake-gr

    jake-gr

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2011
    Posts:
    93
    @markhula
    im not entirely positive on this, but for all animations i use the Action Editor (and click the F button to save the datablock), i havent been able to export when using the NLA Editor (the default animation selection in blender)
     
  9. markhula

    markhula

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    Sep 3, 2011
    Posts:
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    Umm, I hate blender :)
    I just do simple anim's using the timeline - where do I set the anim's name??? :)

    Cheers
     
  10. ArcainOne

    ArcainOne

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2011
    Posts:
    21
    Use the Action Editor to change the name of your animations and create multiple animations. To prevent creating 100s of animations make sure you turn off that record button at the very bottom of your timeline. If you create multiple animation files (walk, run, etc) BE SURE TO HIT THE F BUTTON next to the name of the action, other wise you will lose your work upon shutting down Blender. Hit Shift + the X button to permanently delete an animation, however this will not remove the animation immediately you must (and yes this is irritating) shut down blender and relaunch it for it to vanish, same goes for materials, brushes, and textures.

    To get to the Action Editor Change your window type (or do as I do and duplicate window) and set one of your panels to the Dopesheet. Then Select Action Editor from the drop down menu in the middle of the menu bar. (As a note it may be NLA Editor instead of DopeSheet... either way drop down menu in middle select Action Editor.)
     
  11. markhula

    markhula

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    Sorry, but where exactly do I set the animations name???
    Actually, where the heck is the 'action editor'!!!! - sorry, you will need to be pedantic!

    Cheers
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2012
  12. jake-gr

    jake-gr

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2011
    Posts:
    93
    @markula
    dont really want to be rude, but ArcainOne did give you all the information to change the name and find the action editor.
    might be a good idea to search for some basic blender tutorials, there are some good ones out there. or if you can wait 1-2 months, i might be making some blender-unity basic tutorials :)
     
  13. markhula

    markhula

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    Right!, ok got somewhere but a bit stuck now.
    In blender to produce my animation I loop and cut cubes; and then key framed them each to where I want them.
    This looks fine in blender - but of course now I have multiple meshes; which I don't want.
    I assumed 'join' would solve this which it does ; but now my anim is all wrong because they animate as though 'joined'
    So my question is how do I make 1 mesh with animation for Unity and yet have all the components animate as in blender correctly before the join?
    Man, Blender is hard work!!!

    Cheers
     
  14. niosop2

    niosop2

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2009
    Posts:
    1,059
    Unity only supports bone based animation, so if you're just animating positions with keyframes they're not going to transfer into Unity anyways. You'll need to add some bones and weight the different objects to the bones if you want to bring it into Unity. The other option would possibly be to buy Megafiers which supports some other types of animations like shape keys and point animation, although I don't know if there is a .pc2 exporter for Blender to work with the point animation system in Megafiers.
     
  15. markhula

    markhula

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    Oh man!, and I thought I was doing so well with a simple crude animation :-(((
    Do you know why Unity doesn't support this type of animation?, I would assume it's simpler hence faster than bone stuff.....

    Appreciate the reply!

    Cheers
     
  16. atmuc

    atmuc

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    Feb 28, 2011
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    1,151
    i have no bones.i have just a sphere and scale animation on it.unity imports just default take. i have many animations with fake user but i can not import them to unity except default take.i tried both blender file and exported fbx file. i use action editor on blender.
     
  17. Dantus

    Dantus

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2009
    Posts:
    5,667
    You can import action animations that contain no bones, true. But as you noticed, only the default one is going to be imported.
    As a workaround to that, you can create an Armature and one bone for each object you want to move/rotate/scale. Add a Constraint to each of those objects (Transform Constraint). Make sure you select your armature as target and the correct bone. If you create an action animation, you simply need to move/rotate/scale the bone.