What is the Final Word on the Blender "Plugin" for LE3?

[Davaris]

I'm not being harsh or opinionated when I say Blender's interface is bad. It's objectively horrible.

 

From what I understand Blender was designed not to be easy to learn, it was designed to be highly efficient to use. Or that's what Blender artists offer as an excuse. I'm not an artist, so I can't tell the difference.

 

As for whats in it for you, there is a huge Blender community out there, so if word got out that Blender users could use it in LWs, then they might take an interest in LWs. If only "might" paid the bills...

 

I wouldn't worry about it though, if Blender users want Blender to output LWs files, there is no reason they can't write Python scripts to do the job. Python is a beautiful language and you don't have to decipher anyone elses code. All you have to do is learn the API and write what you want it to do. I'm sure I'll be learning it one day to automate things I want to do.

 

As for Blender staff, I don't think there are any. I'm sure they have people overseeing the direction it is going, but everything is done on a voluntary basis.

[kennar]

These links may help.

 

Installers (64bit also): http://www.blender.org/download/get-25-alpha/

 

Latest builds (plus addons?): http://www.graphicall.org/builds/

 

Tutorials: http://www.blendercookie.com/

 

Getting Started: http://www.blendercookie.com/getting-started-with-blender/

[cassius]

Yeah that Blender File system IS really weird. The one in SoftImage is also bad.Surely it would have actualy been easier to do a straight windows type file system.

BUT there IS something that facinates me about Blender and thats consists of just trying to figure it out. Josh has a knack of making easy to use software and the two of them would never mix. No way.Like chalk and cheese.

[Davaris]

This is what an ordinary user was able to do with Blender scripting:

 

http://www.swineworld.org/blender/gears/

 

I've seen a few other nice ones, like stair makers of all kinds, a bolt maker, a ladder maker and a city maker.

Of course there are many more of varying quality and its all open source, so I assume you can use them to make new things as long as what you make is also open source.

 

EDIT:

 

City Maker

 

Currently its for 2.49b and is okay, but the version for 2.5 will have better features, like allowing you to use your own meshes for buildings. Actually I just noticed there is a better project based on it call Blended Cities.

 

Blended Cities

 

and

 

[Davaris]

It looks like you are allowed to make closed source projects with Blender and sell them. At least that's what this CAD software maker is planning on doing:

 

http://www.cad4arch.com/cadtools/

[afecelis]

I model all of my stuff, game and non-game related in blender. From there it's just a matter of exporting to fbx (which blender does fine) and using LE's converter to gmf. Works like a charm!

 

Or if you prefer the longer way and own unwrap3d pro, export to .obj (also works great from blender), open the obj file in unwrap 3d, re-save as gmf. Works even better!

 

Not everything has to be straight from your 3d software to your engine of choice. Using a workflow/pipeline is always necessary as it offers diversity to the content-creation tools and possibilities to the designers.