Blender Vertex Mesh export Plugin [V1.2.5].

[Skywolf]

Importer is finally done.
Link to version 1.3.0.

Change log:

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1.3.0 - 25/9/2017
   -Added an importer.
   -Fixed crashing when mesh has no UV layer when exporting.

I did some tests with adding small bezels around parts of vertex mesehs and it seems to work as expected. So atleast that is a possiblity if you want to add more detail to vertex meshes.

[luke11685]

I'm just wondering if thanks to this plugin I can display character models animations why there's no skeletal mesh because if character model is rigged this should be rigged is it hidden in Blender?

[han]

I'm just wondering if thanks to this plugin I can display character models animations why there's no skeletal mesh because if character model is rigged this should be rigged is it hidden in Blender?

You may want to look up whats the difference between vertex and skeletal based animations.

[Krull0r]

Hey there.


I have a lot of trouble to setup a animated mesh in Blender.

Maybe I'm thinking way to complicated but actually it is for me the only method to get skeletal animated vertex meshes exported when I turn each frame of the animation to a shape key frame.

And that a lot of extra work.


Heres my workflow:

Creating mesh
Creating Bendy Skelett

Combining those so I can control the mesh with the bones.

After this I make a lot of copies of the armature ( for each keyframe )
Then I hide the other armatures because the mesh is screwed up with to many armatures.

Now I'm looking for the right position for the first armature. then I hit "Apply as Shape Key".
The armature is gone. now I unhide the next armature. so the mesh gets back to the last armature keyframe.
Moving the bones to the next position, hit "Apply as Shape Key" and so on....

After doing this 20 times for each keyframe I have to animate and trigger the Shape Keys in the timeline for each frame.


I also have to unbind all bones from the model to get it exported.



Is there a way to say.

Blender could you please export the the vertex positions from Frame X of the skeletal animation with out creating for each frame a sperate Shape Key?

[Skywolf]

Sorry for the late responds. No real excuse. Just didn't notice your reply.

As for your problem: My exported assumes you simply make an animation like you would usually do in blender. Giving two ways of exporting (by actions or by scene timeline, check first post for explanation). After which it reads the vertex coordinates for the first frame, then moves to the next frame , reads the vertex coordinates again .etc I'm not sure why Blender would fail to export your model.

Does it throw an error of some kind? Check Window -> Toggle System Console as it outputs errors in there. Also make sure you have the right objects selected in the right order (for action mode the armature first, then the mesh and for scene timeline mode just the mesh.).

If you can't figure it out you can also just sent me your .blend file and I can see what's up.

[Krull0r]

Alright! It works now!! I accidentally selected the armature when I tryed to export the model! So I thought I have to remove it completly from the mesh before exporting!

Simply selecting the Mesh before exporting solved the issue



THANK YOUR VERY MUCH!!!! Your exporter addon for Blender is awesome and creates new possibilties for Unreal Redux!!

[Bogie12]

Hey, so I imported a Deus Ex mesh, but I encountered an issue where any frame that isn't the first frame is busted.

[Skywolf]

Not tested but this should have it fixed.

And no. I totally didn't forget to make the exporter use the format variable and still had it still set to Unreal from when I was debugging it. Don't be radiculous.

[Bogie12]

Awesome, thank you!

[Bogie12]

Oh erm... nope sorry, it's still broken. The issue isn't with exporting, but with importing (trying either _a or _d doesn't work).

[Skywolf]

Link

This one works for me. Although, since I don't have access to Deus Ex files, did I not test it with a model from the game. But since even my own exported files didn't work before do I assume it's fixed now.

If not, try to manually overwrite the .py files in

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C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\\scripts\addons\io_u_vertex_m

with the ones from the zip file and/or restart Blender before importing.

If it still fails please upload the .3d files you're trying to import.

[Bogie12]

Holy crap, that did it! Thank you so much! 

I did notice though that I can't actually modify the animations, probably my bad Blender knowledge though.

EDIT: Yeah still can't find a way to edit animations. If you want meshes to test with, here are a few.



Really thankful for this plugin.

[Skywolf]

Animation frames are stored as Shape Keys under the mesh tab. Reason for this is that Unreal's format only stores vertex coordinates and linearly blends between these. Blender has no real support for this so having each frame be a seperate Shape Key is afaik the best way to handle this while still allowing some editing to be done to the animation.

If you want to add/change animations you really only have two options:

-Do it frame by frame and vertex by vertex. Only really worth it for simple changes like fixing small errors.
-Rig the mesh and redo /add the animations you want to change (You can have the T-Pose for rigging be a seperate Shape Key and have the armature be in its rest pose for the unchanged frames).

If you don't know how to do any of these do I recommend to look up tutorials for rigging and animating. Blender is a powerfull tool. Which, by nature, comes with a massive learning curve.

Also: adding any vertices to the mesh will likely break animations. So be really carefull with that.

[han]

Also: adding any vertices to the mesh will likely break animations.

Actually converting mesh parts to mostly quads and using the splitting tool, seems to work quite well to a certain degree.

[Skywolf]

To a certain degree, yes. But moving any vertices of the mesh simply adds that translation as an offset to all animation frames.

So lets say I want to add some spikes to the back of a Skaarj. I add the geometry and drag the vertice among the -Y axis. Now when it does the spin attack the vertice I moved will always be offset among the -Y axis no matter its rotation. Causing the spike to become a hole when it's turned around 180 degrees.

One way things might work is if you use displacement to deform the mesh. As this can be applied to always offset towards the vertex normals.

[Bogie12]

Bug: trying to import any viewmodel mesh from Deus Ex gives this error:


Here's the files:


EDIT: My bad, some other ones work, but there are several models with this issue. I have no clue why this is happening.

Double edit: Also got the error trying to import this file, have no idea what's causing it.

[Skywolf]

Hmm. This is a difficult one. For some reason are there polygons that share the same vertices (Possibly to have a two-sided polygon that has different textures on each side). Blender doesn't allow for something like this hence the error.

Currently I just made it catch this error and skip the Polygon. This doesn't break the animation as those only store vertex coordinates but might have some parts of the mesh look wrong. Don't know if there is proper way to handle this situation but atleast you can import the model now.

link

This should be the affected Polygon. Judging from the location and how the rest of the muzzle flash doesn't have this issue (it's the only polygon that throws an error) do I suspect it is an error rather than an intended part of the model.


Edit: Just checked the other model. On there it's a random polygon on the head that's the offender and only on the right side of the model. To me this looks like an error as well.

[luke11685]

what about plugin .3d import not only export?

[Krull0r]

what about plugin .3d import not only export?

you can import .3d files into blender with this tool

[luke11685]

Can you just tell me how to do it, please?

[Krull0r]

If you have installed the plugin you can choose under import "Unreal Engine Vertex Mesh (_a.3d , _d.3d )"

Then select your _a. or _d.3d which you have exported from Unreal Engine to import it into blender.

[Bogie12]

I've come across an issue where the WEAPON triangle on an exported mesh gets rotated in some random direction; is there any fix to this? I tried manually rotating it in the base shapekey to no avail. Trying to replace the _d mesh with the original (assuming that it would somehow fix it) just turned it into a jumbled mess, and the WEAPON triangle remained broken.

[luke11685]

I tried it today and here's what happened.Any ideas how to fix it?Will this plugin/blender add-on work in Blender 2.8?

[Krull0r]

Make sure you select the vertex groups when you export the mesh.

And select in the export options timeline instead of actions.

[Skywolf]

That error occurs because two polygons share the same three vertices. Are you using the newest version of the plugin? Because V1.3.2 should have it fixed.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r273s1cim3504 ... 2.zip?dl=0