Conversions?

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Thorbert
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Conversions?

Post by Thorbert »

Hey guys; Thorbert again with another doofy question :S

I'd really like to use this model in XNA, however it's of a different file type. I asked the original poster what program it would work with and they said blender; I was able to load it into blender but when exporting to xna as a .obj.mesh it wouldn't recognize it. What am I doing wrong? Or... what do I need to do right; to get this model to work in XNA? I'm sure the answer is there and plain as day and once someone says it I'll be like, "OOOHHHH I'M DUMB" but in any case I'll appreciate it O_O

http://infamousfans.deviantart.com/art/ ... -664000892
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Ems
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Re: Conversions?

Post by Ems »

The model is already in obj format, and XPS reads common obj. It doesn't have a corresponding mat file which tells the program which textures to use, but to do that you can use XPS's material editor and save textured model in preferred format.

Small warning, it's huge, you just need to scale it down.

Edit: now I can see that it has additional meshes though, so you still need to clean up stuff in Blender if you want, and export as .mesh properly. What steps did you do again that didn't worked?
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Thorbert
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Re: Conversions?

Post by Thorbert »

Thanks for checking it out! :D

For myself, now be forewarned... Like Rock Band had the "you literally can't fail you're not even a novice" mode on it. I'm there; for blender/xna :P

I uploaded the model into Blender and definitely noticed how enormous it was. I zoomed out and went to file; export; xna/xps and exported like that after importing it as a OBJ Wave model. It did stick a .mesh file into the folder; but than when I tried uploading it it said it couldn't decide which file to use.

So; after uploading the file on XNA, I could go to material editor and just manually insert the materials into their corresponding places?
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Ems
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Re: Conversions?

Post by Ems »

One thing though before I try to sort out the rest: you are aware that this model has no skeleton or bone data, it's as good as a statue unless you plan to rig it.

So you're using newer Blender I assume. Good. Not sure how newer export plugins would create redundant files, but that's unimportant. For starters, try to export only in .mesh format.
What's more, when opening freshly exported, untextured file in XPS it's gonna spew lotta warnings on you and creating "dummy" missing textures (or none, because mesh names aren't properly formatted, which happens more than often), because there's no way to properly texture a raw model like this in Blender. Texturing has to be done from XPS or from text editor (if exporting in uncompressed .mesh.ascii format).
If you're opening .mesh model in XPS via drag&drop folder or via File>Add model, the file must be named generic_item.mesh (where .mesh is an extension), but when you drag&drop single mesh file, name has no meaning.
So; after uploading the file on XNA, I could go to material editor and just manually insert the materials into their corresponding places?
Basically. You should get used to it fast, but you need to either look for other models for examples or look up for render group table. Since you're starting from basics, it would be good to get to know that, see what textures are used to get specific result, how to set specular intensity value, how to get transparency, etc etc.
But I see that this model has many optional parts (two different jackets for example) and some meshes uncomfortably split into many small parts AND named in very inconvenient (every mesh part can have a name) way, you might wanna try to sort that out in Blender. Of course you can rename parts in XPS with material editor to join them in Blender later, but I'm sure jumping between programs few times (which is sometimes necessary for porting or testing purposes) will confuse you too much, so either XPS of Blender, focus on what and where you want to do.

Ok, now forget what I just said. If I start listing you all the basics and options, I'd spend days on writing this post. You will find much info here on the forums, or just ask things and we will point you to answers if they're here. Eventually someone with simpler train of thought might bite the topic from some other, simpler side, because I'm kinda chaotic like that. :oops:

I would advise focusing on XPS for starters. Since that obj can be opened up, start texturing and naming there. That material editor has tooltips showing if you hover mouse cursor over certain elements. You might encounter some errors and popups. Tip: apply render group first, let the program create dummy textures, then replace them with correct ones - otherwise you will get errors and you will get confused about all this. XPS is by no means foolproof, it can bork when you click wrong stuff.
To change scale, insert numerical value into control window "Scale" line. 0.04 will be ok for this one, close to XPS's optimal size. The things with jackets, you can set items as optional, so they will be switched on/off however you want. When you finish, go to Modify>Save as Generic_item, and export as, preferably, .mesh, uncheck other squares.
Also don't rush, there's no other way to save your progress other than exporting model to (preferably) .mesh or .mesh.ascii and loading that later, in case of some critical situation.
Thorbert
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Re: Conversions?

Post by Thorbert »

Honestly I just appreciate the feedback. And usually I would I thought it was a .mat file so I was looking for how to get that to .obj but was unsuccessful. Thank you so much though I'll start there; but umm... LAST QUESTION! I should add the bones in blender before I export it to xna and start the material process right?
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Re: Conversions?

Post by Ems »

Rigging is a whole another thing, and it's not an easy thing to do. Blender has some premade skeletons and automatic weighting, but I'm pretty sure it's not perfect and some weights will need manual painting.

It's not my forte, so I can't help you with it. Online tutorials are more likely to get you started, but it's not something you get to learn in a week or three.

EDIT: you're in big luck, one of the members (Dazzy) just rigged Del and Fetch from scratch, knock yourself out :)
http://www.xnalara.org/viewtopic.php?f= ... 166#p80164
Thorbert
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Re: Conversions?

Post by Thorbert »

I was going to go for the full rigging and retexturing for this guy as my first release to this forum but @Dazzy ended up beating me to it. Que' Sera :)

Thank you so much for your help either way though! I've been on XNA for a while (obviously not long enough XD) but I've been trying to teach myself blender as well. I'm just trying to learn it from the ground up so when I get to meshmodding and working with preexisting models I'll already know how to say build extra stuff on top of it or what have you. For now though; I know how to subdivide and extrude cubes so I can make them into cubes with extrusions :P
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