well technically its one of blenders older export scripts that I have edited a little. as you probably already know static meshes are fine but for skeletal meshes there are a few problems with blenders standard fbx exporter the main 2 being 1: adds an extra bone witch is not needed (or wanted) in UE, 2: it rotates all bones in place (witch used to brake the animations, it doesn’t anymore but I still don’t like having rotated bones). at the moment if I export a using my custom fbx exporter it doesn’t add the extra bone and disables global rotation(basically locking the bones in place) but the Y axis of the bones gets inverted however as UE4’s Y axis is opposite blenders it makes no difference (kinda fixes it:p), I still get the “out of date fbx” message but as that does nothing to the model it doesn’t really matter (I was thinking of changing the export script to trick UE4 so it doesn’t give the message).
I was trying to make my fbx exporter as an add-on witch sort of worked as you can see in this image.
the problem is that when you have both fbx exporters in blender add-ons folder my exporter works fine but if you try to use the autodesk exporter it ends up using my exporter settings, so to answer you question if I work out how to fix that last thing I was planning to release it, although as its an edited version of a previous exporter I might need to get permission.
I know I took the long way to explain that but thought it would be better leaving you hanging;)
Blender is powerful, but it still has some limitations. For example you can’t alter vertex normals which is important for foliage. Another one is the lack of good baking tools (they are working on that tho). The viewport is also quite dated and slow if you have high poly models.
As for the fbx exporter. You can download the latest fbx exporter at Github here
Just install it to your add-ons folder. I recommend to keep also a copy of your regular one. Just in case.
This fbx exporter let’s you export your model on a predefined scale, which is really handy for UE4. So you can make a export preset with a scale of hundred for example to match the size of UE4’s metrics, without having the hassle to do so manually. It also let you export the tangent informations as well.
But keep in mind this is still in development.
Another option would be Maya LT. It has also a quite reasonable subscription like Unreal, that can be canceled anytime. And it has a very streamlined workflow towards game asset creation.
After seeing all the support for Blender, I gave it another serious try over the weekend. The last time, I may have given up on it too easily. I thought that a 3D program that doesn’t even have real support for traditional WASD ego-shooter style navigation was just not worth the hassle. Now, I finally feel like I’m “getting” it. It’s definitely a steeper learning curve than some of the other options, but once I was over the initial hurdles I’m starting to like it. The keyboard focused controls are probably both a blessing and a curse.
Tab for Edit mode, Z for wireframe, 7 for top view, C for circle selection, Ctrl-Tab and V for vertex selection, click to select, R to rotate, Z for z-axis, * for maths, 360 / 16, Ctrl and - for other direction, Enter confirms. Holy ****, what?. But also, wow, that’s nice.
Wings3d. can’t rig a character inside of Wings but you can do that in blender. It’s so easy and well documented. I’ve created some cool things in it that would take days in Blender within in hour or two.
Actually, 2.74 has support for editing vertex normals. Also, you can do cage baking with cycles in Blender from 2.73, so you don’t need to use XNormal any more. Cage baking is not something that Maya LT can do with the built in Turtle baking.
In general Blender has gotten miles better for game art in the last year. I find the modeling workflow to be faster than or Maya (not an animator, so I can’t comment on that). However, there are still some problems. The viewport is indeed slow. Also there’s a lack of PBR shading support in the viewport as well. However, these are both things that are being worked on and should be resolved within the next 6 months.
One thing that people haven’t mentioned here is Modo, which is a great alternative to Blender or /Maya, though it still costs money.
The general advice I give people asking about modeling is that if you want a studio job, learn Maya, but if you want to make your own games, learn Blender. Maya is $200 or $30 a month depending on the license, and you must have a professional license from start to finish if you want to make money off of your assets. Blender is easily as capable as /Maya now, and I find it to have a much faster modeling workflow than the Autodesk tools.
I second this. I also feel that has the best UI but that may be because I leaned it first. However, if you learn to use Maya you will already be well on your way to feeling comfortable with Epics Animation and Rigging Toolkit (ART) which many use to help with their animations.
I use Maya LT 2016 and Mudbox. These tools are working for me. However, you should use what you are comfortable with.
I’d love to go the Blender route, but Blenders UI is disorganized and horrible, in my opinion.
Overall, if you have the time to learn all the ins and outs of your software, by all means do so. I the end, they are tools and they all accomplishes the same result.
I strongly suspect this is just an artifact of what you learn first. I learned Blender and Maya at the same time, I didn’t find one to be easier than the other. If you have no idea what you’re doing they’re both as equally intimidating and strange in the UI department. Poly modeling isn’t exactly easy in the beginning.
When I’ve tried I’ve had the same reaction as a lot of people have when they try Blender…who came up with this UI and what were they drinking?
3ds for non-organic models, Mudbox and Maya for organics. Organics being humanoid / monsters, etc…
For rapid prototyping of characters, I use Poser Game dev.
I feel like alot more people would be using “pro” tools if they came out with a rent-to-own subscription plan. Something like $20/month, and you could deposit more money into the account, much like how loans go about it.
As far as Autodesk products go, I feel that they are trying to move 3dsMax to more of an ArcViz type of program and Maya as more of the Game Dev software. I also suspect that they will drop MudBox, and put those capabilities in the Maya full version. Once Stingray is released, they will incorporate Autodesk Gameware into it.
If you’re not going to be too serious into sculpting Mudbox is much easier to use than Zbrush, but if you’re a character artist it’s worth spending the time to learn Zbrush.
Every person has his own opinion,I personaly love Blender,I started modeling with Blender,it can be hard to learn it but Blender is very good and it has all of the tools that Maya and have and most important it is free. This is just my opinion.
Great stuff!
