Hi,

GG only works with DirectX format that is abandonned and not supported in modern software.
It needs to support FBX or Collada universal formats to become more usable and to allow people using modern software like Blender,Maya, 3DSMAX etc ... to work with GG.

GG does import 3ds and Lee has been working on FBX import but there are so many variations its been put on hold until he can incorporate a perfect solution ...

FBX "native" support wont happen ..... There are just to many models for GG that are .X.
I myself have around 50 gig in my folder and many have a lot more ....

I asked HarryWever who creates many characters, Dinosaurs etc for GG what's so difficult about .X for GG ..
This was his response.

I use 3dsmax and have no issues exporting static or animated direct x files.

@synchromesh
There is no modern software supporting .X import ,so no one will be able to edit source models to modify them and edit them.
Or you have to provide the original FBX files for any 3D models used in GG.
Universal formats advantage is to be accessible and allow sharing between people using 3D modelers, GG seems to stay backwards 10 years ago once again.

Fragmotion
Ultimate Unwrap 3D Pro
Wings 3D
Milkshape

they all import .x, and they're all readily available. It's a simple step to import the models into one of them and then export it to a format you can edit in your software of choice.

Now you mention it ....There are modellers here who may welcome that ..
That way its harder for their creations to be manipulated, shared or sold on without permission ..

Wings 3D I don't use,but the other three are all great and easy to use .UU Pro is great to uv mapping and converting.

Dave

I can see that, it's nice to sell your product in such a way that it's difficult for them to be modified for use for purposes other than the one you are selling them for.

Wings 3D and Milkshape doesn't import Directx models. There is no free program to import .X models with animations and it's a work around to stay with X format.
I doubt new users using other 3D engines will want to buy a software like Unwrap Pro only because GG can't use universal formats.


What do you mean ?

Fragmotion does import .x. That's what I used to fix your models animations in the script board.

Again not sure why you are arguing. It won't make dae or full fbx arrive any faster. So what are you trying to achieve? Would it be great if full fbx supported? Yes. Is this known? Yes. Is x ok for now? Yes.

+1

Also blender support .x. I use it! It is not the best, but it works for me. And if you dont believe me, go under prefernces -> Add-ons and activate Import-Export Direct X Format and save your preferences.

Well same as I meant ... Many models are manipulated. modified then stuck on Turbosquid or similar and sold by the user as their own work ... We have banned many that have tried it here ... Although still not impossible with .X its like you say .... just that little more awkward to do unless you have the original FBX files ... So for some its not so bad

You did not use Blender a lot.
It only exports DirectX, no import. And Export is broken as vertices weight are not supported on bones only parented.


All models i purchased was with source FBX model and materials, because you always need to modify some things to customize it as you need or to make variations. This is what you find in stores like Unity one that is more trusted than Turbosquid.
Piracy problem and stupid people doing this is another subject.

At least GG should provide some player and weapons FBX guides for each weapons ( like blocky player and weapons with animations )
http://smart-halyava.com/uploads/posts/2013-12/1386234971_pixel-gun-3d-pro-minecraft-android-01.png

"You did not use (any program here) a lot."

You say this to a lot of people as a first response and I am beginning to wonder if you get how derogatory and demeaning you sound. If English isn't your first language I may get it, but you do it a lot which by all accounts means you know what your saying by now. You are beginning to come across as trolling since you seem Hellbent on arguing if anyone disagrees with you. You need to acknowledge the good and the bad points made to you rather than simply looking for points to argue with.....discussion it is called.

Right now, at least, GameGuru is .x. That's really all there is to it and there aren't a lot of reasons to think about it too much. It's another case of making the choice that either GameGuru is good enough to use right now or it isn't and every individual has to decide for themselves. I'm fine using .x in GG. Other/more formats would be nice, but the lack of support for them isn't hurting me in any way. Like everything else in life, I will wait it out and find alternative methods in the meantime when I really need to work with a different format in GG. With all of that said...

I THINK some older versions of Blender did import with that add-on, but I can't remember 100%. The current Blender definitely does not. I certainly don't want to roll back just for that purpose but I also don't really need to.

I also think that a lot of people who buy models, especially in the GG community, are buying them because they don't know how to make or edit them otherwise. As long as the ones they buy work, they're happy, especially with ultra low prices. It's a bouncy topic and this can go back and forth all day.

Blender 2.69 exports to .X perfectly out of the box ... It was modified slightly in 2.70 and above where you had to tick a couple of extra boxes for a perfect export ( I forget what they were ) but there hasn't been an import function for some time ...
As you can see although many would like full FBX import but aren't really to bothered about using .X as the native format ..


Yep .. There's a good few I have banned who purchased from the Unity store and tried to sell here ... From this side of the fence you get a whole different outlook on whats going on ....Their trust may need looking into ..

well i will keep it short.


thats your quote.. well with all three you can export to .x

and personally i really don't see the problem....
if you make a model or download a model that is in fbx..open it in one of the above programs, then export it as x...
nothing more or less....

Harry

I think the point is he can't import .x which (even though many modeling apps do have plug ins for it) should really be a discussed feature on the Autodesk forums or whatever where you can wrangle it out with members who have the same level of experience and the same issues with a lack import options

I do agree it would be nice to have better .fbx support but I have got along years with .x and it's not a priority for me so I can wait for that one. Personal opinion.

Last week i also posted a link to another export plugin for 3ds max in the 3rd party models forum which can be used with newer versions of 3ds max.
I've tried it and it worked.

I do have a question concerning formats, is there a prefered format for performance gains or otherwise or is there not really any difference between say .x and fbx and so on?

If you could find out which boxes they are, it would be most appreciated! I currently have 2.77 on both main machines (laptop and desktop) along with 2.69. I use 2.77 for 3d printing and 2.69 for GG. I have tried exporting Directx models from most of the 2.7+ versions with no success. I haven't tried it in probably a couple years, though. I remember it seemed that (some) normals appeared to be reversed, but reversing them did nothing. I also tried some other things (checking pretty much every box, one at a time, and then multiple boxes, etc) with no good result. I would also like to know which version was last in accepting Directx import? Blender archives all the older versions, so this leads me to wonder: If importing .x in an older version, saving as .blend, and opening in a newer version, would the file be broken? I will try the latter this weekend (figuring out which version imports .x successfully)

I don't really need the functionality I was curious about in my previous post; I have Ultimate Unwrap 3D, (the unprofessional version, simply because there is nothing professional about me outside of work! It also is half the price of the other It is great for file conversion) I also have most of the others. Conversion really isn't an issue for me. It's more of an attempt at perhaps streamlining some things.

[double post] -- because the forums takes what you have posted before and saves that same text on to a new post after you have sent the original. Please fix this.

I use 3D Studio Max and Blender with Game Guru and experience ZERO problems.

I mainly use the Panda Exporter plugin for 3dsmax to export X. Once you have installed it. You just click export within 3DSMAX as you would normally for any format.... "X" format shows up as a new option. I don't see how people are having problems with this in 3dsmax?

I use Fragmotion if I need to fix any "X" file as you can import them into Fragmotion for things like that. I only do this if I don't have my original 3dsmax or blender file, which is rarely the case.

Is this more a question about importing FBX models downloaded from the internet? Rather than about creation? Because you know you can open FBX in all the programs you have mentioned and export them in X format. It takes miliseconds...

Yes , I echo Teabone, no problems with max and using Panda or bond1 s kwporter to export out to X format and I use fragmotion and Uu3d for importing X format. If you want free X importer/exporter I recommend fragmotion , milkshape , true space which is free still I believe , wings 3D and Google is your friend too

I'm not sure why you're having issues exporting direct X in 2.7+, there were only issues in the initial release of 2.70a which were fixed by 2.72, i have no issues at all exporting direct X from later versions.

The only export difference i noticed between 2.69 and 2.7+ is that you have to untick the materials checkbox in the exporter otherwise it saves the UV layouts in a slightly different way (i think it breaks down the UV's into separate UV's per material or something like that) which GG can't override via the fpe, so you get black models, and when exporting anything using weights, you need to check the use weights tick box, both weren't needed in 2.69 if i remember right.

There are a few minor differences in the later versions modelling wise, some additions, some things removed, some settings different, for example in 2.69 you could use a trick to make a copy of an object, flip its normals and scale it up a fraction to get the cartoon out line for models, in 2.7+ you can still do that but by default it shows texture on both sides, so you need to disable that, silly things like that.

But overall i haven't had any issues in 2.7+ modelling for GG that i didn't already have with 2.69

One of the issues I seem to remember in 2.70 was the models exported inside out and you had to tick a couple of extra boxes that users were not aware of to get it to export correctly .... Is this still an issue or even do you have any idea what I'm referring to

I think his problem is, he wants to import stock, or store models into a modelling program, so he can edit them, for example he'd like to import a weapon HUD into a modelling program so he can change it for his own project, but most of the big modelling programs don't import .x, so he wants Lee to make GG use a format that can be edited easily.

I can see his point of view, and i can see i'm going to have similar issues when i get round to adding weapons to my project, i will want all the arms to have the same sleeve etc, so i will need to edit the models.

However he doesn't seem to realize that this won't be the problem he is thinking it is, as there are plenty of programs that can import .x and export .fbx, on of which (fragmotion) is free (there is a paid version but all it does is get rid of that daily prayer you have to type in and that smiley face that pops u to remind you to purchase now and again).

Nope, it seems to export normals correctly for me (at least it exports them in the direction you have modeled them), it does have minor issues when you import some formats from other modelers where the normals aren't always the right way around, but you can select the normal and flip it by pressing W and selecting flip normals, or select all faces and hit Ctrl+N to switch them to inside or outside facing. It also has a handy little tool now to display the normal direction, in edit mode press N and scroll through the toolbar, there will be a section with three little icons (like the edit modes vertex, edge, and face buttons), and a slider, if you turn on the face button and ramp up the slider you get a little blue line in the center of each face which extends in the direction of the normal.

yes Truespace is still free and being updated, well as much as a community can do without source code
X export and animation seems to work fine, scale and frames per second is a bit wacky but easy enough to figure out

I'll give it a try, thanks!

TrueSpace 7.6 doesn't import .X, it creates and object but no geometry is visible.

@mouaa: I think you not true space use much - ha got me own back - hurts don't it

I just downloaded it and choose "import"to import "HUD.X" , it creates some empty file. You drop it in the scene and nothing is visible.
It just doesn't work.
Fragmotion imports it correctly, but FBX export is version 6 that is not compatible with Blender 2.78 FBX import that is version 7.
I am not the only one having a hard time trying to get models in GG, until you purchase something like UU3D or Milkshape.


If GG stays as it is i don't have any problem with that, i am just saying it's outdated to have it not compatible with universal formats (OBJ for static models, FBX or Collada for animations), and have to use other small tools on top of your main modeler.
I don't know what GG plans are, but if it turns into a full 3D engine it will need other formats support.
Even CryEngine after so much years, finally listened to community and braught FBX models and animations import.

It can be as easy like this...



assimp

3com

It will work for static models only.
I just doanloaded and tried for animations, after import HUD.X the weapon animations have offset, they are not positionned in the hands after some frames.
I tried the Collada export, importing in Blender , there is no animations and there is some cubes added in the model.

I am not making a custom game to sell with GG so that doesn't matter if there is no simple workflow.

On the plus side it is on the Feature requests from what I recall. Noticed a number of people requesting direct support for FBX with GG. But i don't think that's on the priority. But Lee is aware of the requests.

Truespace.. the model is there but for some reason doesn't show unless you render or save the model, however it loses the bones/animation

Maybe it was Gamespace that imported with everything sadly I lost my version after a harddrive failed :/

I still have Gamespace (licensed) and truespace (licensed and free). Used to do quite a bit of modelling in GAmespace and was fairly easy (ish) to use. Will have to reinstall both and get back into modelling as well as using FM/Blender for GUN HUDS etc, I did the Elf tutorial long time ago, which was pretty fun. DirectX import settings can be changed during the opening file dialog.

I'n just tried the FPSC mini gun HUD and that imports into Truespace with animation, I think you would need to convert the texture to TGA as that was what TS was looking for
I used TS until about 2010 then I switched to Sketchup.. my crowning moment was winning the last ever monthly modeling contest over on the TS forum lol

Yeah I had exactly the same. In fact, I still do as I have both 2.69 and 2.70 still installed on my machine (never bothered upgrading, mainly due to this issue). In 2.69, .x exports fine, in 2.70 it messes up the normals. It doesn't matter what you do to them in Blender 2.70, the export is messed up. Use 2.69 and there is never an issue. I was told that the exporter for 2.69 will work on 2.70 if copied over, but never tried it, preferring to stick with what I knew worked instead. I have 2.78 as well actually, I had the same export issues with that version also.

The main issue with GG here for me is the inability to load an animated model from GG into a 3D package to tweak it. Perhaps I want to add an animation to a default model, because I have no native Blender version I am pretty stuck. 3DS Max users however, got a version to download and play with which would load straight into Max (I'm talking ages back, near the start of dev). So immediately, if you don't use Max and really, most people won't be using it, as it's both expensive and aimed at professionals - you are at an immediate disadvantage. I seem to remember someone posting a blender version (although I can't find it these days), but that was down to the community not TGC. I understand Max is industry standard and should be supported, but with GG being an easy game maker, I would have thought support for Blender would have been a good idea.

I often see good models marred with clunky animation. It would be nice to be able to edit the anims rather than re-rig from scratch, as that is beyond most people. Or just another skill to learn that is maybe too much for many to take the time to do. I tell you, making games back in the 8bit era had its drawbacks, but graphics were at least fairly easy These days you need all sorts of programs and skills to use them.

I'll add that this is the very reason we have 2 sets of AI types. Default and custom. This is because making characters match the default soldiers is very, very difficult in comparison to simply starting one from scratch. So now we have several AI scripts which only work for specific objects. This for me is a bit of a mess. Forced into being by the fact that the original GG characters were difficult to work with (not to mention changed from the original FPSC for no good reason I know of, apart from rendering the old ones useless).

Characters are an area I stay away from, I can't really model them very well, or rig and animate them. All attempts have been less than successful even with fully animated blender models. After spending a long time getting them working in Blender to find them stone statues in GG is somewhat frustrating. I can understand why this is asked for so often, npc's are a big part of any game, so having an easier way to import already working ones would be very welcome. Fuse for one supports fbx, hence why people want to use them. There's no way I'm going to better a model out of fuse in any area, so it would be nice to get some use from it. Unreal supports them out the box apparently, it would be nice if GG could get to that point as well.

Edit - Although even with Fuse models you will still probably need custom anims at some point

That's really odd because i have (except for when 2.70 first came out) never had issues with exporting and normals, i've had issues with importing and normals, but never exporting. I use 2.76 to 2.78 for all of my models since i started modelling for GameGuru, and they've all turned out pretty much fine.



I totally agree, getting characters into GamaGuru is a pain, but there is an easy way (at least for fuse/mizamo), Raf wrote a piece of software called FBX2GG with which you can import a fuse/mixamo .fbx character and with a few clicks export it again with the GG animation set, it works really well, it can also import and add .fbx animations quite easily. It's well worth the price.

O, btw Mouaa, look in your docs folder in the gameguru folder, there's a zip in the with the 3D Max source files for the modern weapons.

Very odd. I tried the Steam release of Blender thinking it would be fixed, only to find the same weird normal issues with it. If I want to use any extra features of the newer builds I have to load and export them from 2.69 to ensure they work okay in GG. I may have missed something of course, I don't use Blender that often. I'll have to give the latest version a try again.

I've not actually come across any normals issues with blender, can you describe what's happening?

Is it where you are getting black models in GameGuru even though you have the correct textured info in the FPE? If so that's not actually a normals issue, it's a materials issue, you need to untick the materials box in the exporter.

The only time i've had normals issues with Blender is when I've accidentally exported with an Ngon in an important place, which can export it warped and look like a normals issue.

The normals are completely reversed so you can see inside the model rather than outside. It's pretty obvious if you get the issue

Even reversing the normals in Blender does not fix it. Load the model into 2.69 and export though and no issues.

That's really weird, as you know i have over 100 models in the store and dozens in the free threads, all done in 2.76 to the latest, and never an issue. The only time i get normal issues is when importing an .obj then exporting to .x but that can usually be fixed by flipping the normals.