Blender questions!

[GizmoPower]

I am currently having some problems with Blender.
When I press the arrow for selecting images alerady used before I only get "DataBrowse" and then "select DataBlock".
When I choose a image "Image>open" the image wount load if used before. It sets a new name like: Road.tga.001" or it shows another image like: "Grass.tga" used on same material. The right image is there in Blender but when exported it´s blue and red.

Any suggestions?
Tanx
GP

 

[Ari]

Whenever I have problems in accessing the attached images in Blender, it always is related to the fact that I have renamed or relocated them.
Blender then shows the image icon and the name of it, but I need to redirect Blender to the correct file and then everything works as it should.
So, in my case the problem is not Blender, but I'm the problem for Blender.

 

[GizmoPower]

Yea I have done that before but now I cant get it working! Any suggestions how to redirect properly?

 

[boomer541]

When working on a track or car I make a folder with the track/car name, ie. adrianville. then that is where all images are stored for that car/trak, then when I want an image that I have used before that is the location I go to to find it using image-> new.

 

[Ari]

I'm afraid I'm a bit clueless not being able to access your computer and seeing the problem myself.
I don't much use Image browser. I normally redirect missing images from Buttons Window.

 

[Ari]

Boomer's method is the only sane way of developing things, in my opinion.
That way everything is neatly arranged and file/folder structure don't get messy and incomprehensible.

 

[GizmoPower]

When working on a track or car I make a folder with the track/car name, ie. adrianville. then that is where all images are stored for that car/trak, then when I want an image that I have used before that is the location I go to to find it using image-> new.

That is the way I am doing it and always done it!
I guess I´ll just have try and see if it solves. Wierd!

 

[Tiberius]

You know, I love Blender but the way it handles textures really confuses me.

You're loading textures through the UV/image editor window, right? If you can't get your texture to load (if it switches straight back to the other one), there's a button on the left of the drop down box where the texture name is, the button is shaped like a drawing board pin. Click that button and it 'pins' the texture which you load and forces Blender to use that one.

I do understand your problem and it used to drive me nuts, even if I try to be really organised with textures from the start with a project, inevitably I end up changing a couple and they still stay in the list even though there's nothing in my .blend file which uses them and even though those textures may not even exist still (like .blend files from my old computer), I still haven't found a way to delete them. It's the same when I have more than one variant of a car in the same .blend file and each one has a similarly named set of textures but in a different car folder, Blender loads the second set as body.001.tga etc.

One of my few gripes with Blender :-/

 

[GizmoPower]

You know, I love Blender but the way it handles textures really confuses me.

You're loading textures through the UV/image editor window, right? If you can't get your texture to load (if it switches straight back to the other one), there's a button on the left of the drop down box where the texture name is, the button is shaped like a drawing board pin. Click that button and it 'pins' the texture which you load and forces Blender to use that one.

I do understand your problem and it used to drive me nuts, even if I try to be really organised with textures from the start with a project, inevitably I end up changing a couple and they still stay in the list even though there's nothing in my .blend file which uses them and even though those textures may not even exist still (like .blend files from my old computer), I still haven't found a way to delete them. It's the same when I have more than one variant of a car in the same .blend file and each one has a similarly named set of textures but in a different car folder, Blender loads the second set as body.001.tga etc.

One of my few gripes with Blender :-/

Eh..! I tought I answered this post...? Must have been interupted by my kids or something..! (Or maybe too much beer )

Anyway Tiberius, I see you been there! I ´m trying to figure it out, but it´s driving me nuts couse I cant keep going with Adrianville!
Everytime I edit something to a material I loose textures when it´s exported as DOF´s!
Well I guess maybe something one day will happen and I´ll laugh at it! (Normal does anyway)
Tanx for replying all, and cheers!

 

[Tiberius]

Gizmo, I'm wondering about this too..like I said in my post, it's the one thing about Blender which really makes no sense to me. I moved up from Zmodeler, one thing Zmodeler does well is materials and textures - you assign a material and then you can add a texture, none of this stuff about being able to assign as many textures as you want to wherever you want them to go..

BUT, if you're using shaders, you honestly don't need to worry about having the texture links intact - in the ideal world you want the texture links in the DOF files linking to the correct textures but your shaders will override those links and instead map your objects to whatever you want them mapped to.

The track you posted is great but I think some of the shaders are missing, the best way to make a track shader is to load the whole lot into TrackEd and click the 'make track template.shd' button, this will write a .shd file with ALL of the materials in there which you can then map to whatever textures you please - just rename that file (track_template.shd as I remember) to track.shd, overwriting the one you have. You can then edit that shader as usual to point to the textures you want to use, also add the CG stuff if you want.

 

[Stereo]

The track you posted is great but I think some of the shaders are missing, the best way to make a track shader is to load the whole lot into TrackEd and click the 'make track template.shd' button, this will write a .shd file with ALL of the materials in there which you can then map to whatever textures you please - just rename that file (track_template.shd as I remember) to track.shd, overwriting the one you have. You can then edit that shader as usual to point to the textures you want to use, also add the CG stuff if you want.

I just wish Modeler.exe had a similar function (if it does I couldn't understand it), especially with ZModeler converting to Blender I tend to end up with a lot of materials. They don't all need their own shaders but getting the names manually is no fun.

Linking materials is a massive help though, I ended up with a lot that looks like

shader_wheel3~shader_wheel
{
}
shader_wheel4~shader_wheel
{
  layer0
  {
  	map=wheel_color.tga
  }
}

Reflection + shader settings are inherited from shader_wheel, and works fine.

 

[boomer541]

I had a lot of trouble trying to delete textures that weren't being used and discovered a way to do it.

When you delete a texture image from an object and no longer want to use it make sure you have deleted it from every object that uses it. Then save the .blend file, open it and check the images list and you should see a "o" in front of the desired texture, then save the file and open it once more and viola the texture is no longer in the list.

Keep going with the adrianville track, it is a lot of fun! I worked on the Qlog error with the missing image and found the pavement.dof file had too many materials (textures) using modelers information button. Just the pavement image is all that should be on it.

Tib, do you use the GUI that was made by Mr. Camouflage for exporting DOF's from Blender? I have it all packaged up with instructions and the changes to have either vertex colors or no vertex colors exported, two choices when exporting. Uses fewer clicks than the original exporter by Brent Burton.

 

[Tiberius]

I just wish Modeler.exe had a similar function (if it does I couldn't understand it), especially with ZModeler converting to Blender I tend to end up with a lot of materials. They don't all need their own shaders but getting the names manually is no fun..

Stereo: You could always set up a basic track (copy special.ini and track.ini from Carlswood to a new folder) and then have an empty geometry.ini and just import your car models to that folder and enter them into the empty geometry.ini and get TrackEd to make a shader for them, it's a bit of a pain to set up in the first place but it does work and you can then just copy the models and shader back to your car folder and all the materials will be there. I keep an empty track just for that, would be great if Ruud put a feature to write a shader into Modeler though.

Exporting from Zmod > Blender is no fun at all, when I switched to Blender it took ages to export all my models that way. I guess you're using .3ds format? That gave me loads of unused materials too, also it doesn't help that Zmodeler also has problems reading the DOF files that Blender writes :-/. I did try some other formats but didn't have much luck


Boomer: I heard about that exporter but never got around to trying it. A GUI sounds good, also being able to make the script apply modifiers (I use edge split and mirror on virtually everything) would be great if possible, at the moment it's a major problem, having to save a copy of the Blend file to use for export, then merge objects, apply modifiers to everything, apply vert colors etc.

Could you post that exporter for us?

Cheers, Bruce.

 

[boomer541]

DOF exporters with GUI posted in the download thread with instructions for using it. I think you all will like it. There are a couple of tips for vertex painting in the readme file but a better tutorial for vertex painting is listed below.

http://www.blender3dclub.com/
for a tutorial on vertex painting plus a number of others including a UV mapping tutoial at
http://www.blender3dclub.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=77
The uv tutorial is quite good.