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Blender

Blender is a completely free full-featured 3D modelling and animation application. Learning Blender's unique interface can be tricky at first, but once you work through some of the tutorials and get familiar with manipulating its split-screen windows and 3D geometry, it can be a very efficient and powerful modelling tool.

Here is a script which exports (some of) your Blender scene to a COD file (not all features are supported in VOS yet; see "Notes" below).

  • blenderExportCOD.py for Blender versions 2.28-2.31a
  • blenderExportCOD-232.py for alpha release Blender 2.32. Put it in ~/.blender/scripts.

You can download and learn about Blender at http://www.blender3d.com (Try the "castle" tutorials in the "Education" section). Other useful resources are http://www.blender.org, http://www.elysiun.com and the Blender knowlege base, full of FAQ answers and tutorials: http://www.elysiun.com/support

To export your Blender scene to a COD file which can be loaded by vosworld, use the blenderExportCOD.py script included in the VOS 3D package, or downloaded from http://interreality.org/software/vr/blender/. The script has been verified to work in Blender versions 2.28 and 2.31a.

To run this script in versions prior to 2.32, first load it into the Blender text editor. (Switch any window to the text editor using the window mode button on the left side of the header). To load the script file, use the menu select OPEN NEW..., and load the blenderExportCOD.py file. Then, press ALT+P to export the scene as a COD. If there is no error message, then the scene was exported successfully. You can change some options by editing the variables at the top of the script.

Notes

Note that most of of Blender's features do not yet have any equivalent in A3DL or Ter'Angreal. Most notably, reflective material properties are not supported yet, and only point lights are supported at this time.

When texturing objects, you need to use "UV" texture coordinates:

  1. Select your object, create and link an image material for it, and select "UV" in the material buttons window.

  2. In another window, open the "UV/Image Editor" window and load your image using the menu.

  3. Back in your 3D window, enter face selection mode using the "f" key or the face button ( ) in the header, and select one or more faces.

  4. Press the "u" key and select a UV mode from the menu. "Standard 1/1" is a good one to start with.

  5. You can then modify the texture coordinate mapping in the "UV/Image" window. Select the image filename from the menu. The polygon drawn over your image represents the shape of your selected face(s).

A portion of Blender's "World" settings ( ) will produce properties in the A3DL world as well: Mist density and color, and ambient light color (if a setting has a value of 0.0, no property will be created).

Contact: tetron @ interreality . org
Website problems: reed @ interreality . org