Blender export scripts - interest?

[kevintampa5]

With blender 2.67 release, I started looking into my scripts and found some that I didnt notice were not working. After a little mucking around I brought one up to date, sort of. Thats what started this post.

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8298

Here are some scripts to import and export FSX MDL models to and from Blender. Basic documentation is included.

The following FSX features are curently not supported:

• Animations
• Attach Points
• Platforms
• Some material settings

but I hope to get most of these working in the future.

Please let me know if you have any questions, problems or if you're missing a feature
(or if you can help me understand how animations are encoded in an MDL file )

Since there appears to be no activity, and that it is GNU licensed, I am looking at creating a similar script for blender, using 2.67 libraries.

I was wondering if there are many blender users that would like to see it done? Im content with how I do it now but was looking at the scripting and it seems pretty easy to recreate with newer libraries, albeit the coding time would play into it but still be fairly easy. Python I am ok with, but no expert so if this gets enough interest it wont be out in a week.

Also if you have ideas what could be expanded on, please post them.

*edit*
It looks easier than I thought, but will still take a crack if the interest is there.

 

[arno]

Hi,

I don't think Blender is used that widely at the moment by FS developers, but I am sure those developers that use Blender will be happy if you can update the script.

 

[kevintampa5]

Hi,

I don't think Blender is used that widely at the moment by FS developers, but I am sure those developers that use Blender will be happy if you can update the script.

I am looking into it. Like I said, I am ok with python. Not capable of writing a full out program, but there is enough in the old plugin to update the libraries used, and update the code to reflect current standards. There will probably be more to it than that but I can get help if I need.

Personally, I wouldnt be doing it for me, as I am content with Sketchup, Gimp/Paint.Net, Blender, amd MCX to do my stuff. But I also dont want to do it if there is no interest.

Some of the things I would like to expand upon is part naming, animations, and other physics properties of the aircraft portion; attach points and animations on scenery components, that way it would be easier to use Blender for FS/P3D creation. I have used GMAX but it has limitations that Blender did not (and I think thats because I already knew some blender and maya).
If you have 3DS Max then you already have some tools to work with.
Sketchup is useful for someone who doesnt want to learn all the shortcuts and hotkeys that say Blender or Gmax/3DS would require, as they have a large learning curve when compared to SU.

Again, I think it would help, but it would take a lot of time to realign and rewrite all that code and I dont really want to do it unless the interest is there. I know there are a few people who use blender, but would they appreciate and use such a plugin?
The Blender to FS market is very small from what I can see. I have visited hundreds of forums and blogs and only a few of them even mention blender. The forums/blogs that do mention blender, its always the same 3 or 4 users that talk about it.

I just want to gauge the interest level before I spend all that time trying to update the scripts and generate a few new ones.

 

[lionheart]

I think it would be a huge benefit. There are a lot of people making planes for X-Plane and they would be able to move their stuff into FSX/P3D.

They could take a scene and export it into FSX format.

Also, Blendor has render where Gmax doesn't, and they are both freeware. Blendor has made leaps and bounds in their GUI (control interface) so I think their time has come or is about to arrive.

I think its good.

 

[kevintampa5]

I think it would be a huge benefit. There are a lot of people making planes for X-Plane and they would be able to move their stuff into FSX/P3D.

They could take a scene and export it into FSX format.

Also, Blendor has render where Gmax doesn't, and they are both freeware. Blendor has made leaps and bounds in their GUI (control interface) so I think their time has come or is about to arrive.

I think its good.

I agree. Blender has come a long way. The Cycles engine I have been experimenting with and getting better with it. Unfortunately a full render can take some time. I have come up with some ways to heavily reduce the visible vertex count in highpoly models in blender. Usually once you reach 500,000 using a laptop (1,000,000 using a standard quad core desktop) blender gets laggy. Hiding faces and object does not reduce the count. Using the decimate modifier, without applying it and using subsurf modifiers to get the high poly image then reducing to 0 on the view can effectively reduce the vertex count by 80 to 90% while creating. Also using layers for different components will help reduce the count.
I continue to experiment with different tools and properties to make blender run faster. There are tutorials and guides to set the renders up to be as least time consuming as possible, but not the scene prior to the render during setup and build.

As for the Xplane conversion. There are tools that already do this. Converting X to FS is not what I would look at doing. I am nowhere near experienced enough to do something like that.