Topic: Importing to D3Edit from Blender

[(LL)Atan]

hmm, not really what you did in blender..
It's just a first try..

[Scyphi]

Ooh, but this looks promising nonetheless.

[Babylon]

Actually, that looks exactly like what I did in Blender (besides the axis alignment).

I'm amazed!  You really work wonders, Atan.

[(LL)Atan]

This should be better placed inside development I believe

The Axis problem is solved, and better.. I had some more progress today.
While importing the mesh I reduced as may triangle-faces to quad-faces as I could. (where possible)
This way I reduced the max face count so I could import your ship now.  You would still have to eliminate the faults out of your orf file now. I hope you can see the text inside the verify list box.
Double verts, concave face, t-joints and so on.

[Babylon]

Awsome.   It already looks like a perfect converter.

[Scyphi]

Looking very nice, this appears to be working out a lot better than I was expecting.

[(LL)Atan]

@Babylon & Scyphi

Do you any texturing with Rooms/Objects created for Descent3 inside Blender?

And, you should scale your planned oof's >= 20 units !!
and not to the real size it should own inside Descent3 later.
This is very importing because D3Edit can't handle such small things well.

You can/ you should resize the Object with OOFEditor later to the wanted small size. Please keep this in mind.

[Scyphi]

@ Atan: I have not actually made anything in Blender to use in D3 as of yet, due to the conversion issue (that you have now resolved, thank you ), but I imagine I would only build the models in Blender then texture them in D3Edit.

[Kaiaatzl]

I'll have to start learning Blender now (it is freeware, right?  That's the impression I got from my google search.)

It's about time I learned it...

[Babylon]

I hate Blender's method of texturing; I always texture in D3 Edit instead.  Blender is just my modeling tool when I want to make something complex.

@Alter-Fox: Yes, Blender is entirely free.

[Scyphi]

That's what's so cool about it.

[(LL)Atan]

That's what's so cool about it

that's D3Edit too, zero costs
and almost all the things you need for Descent-D3-Editing can be done with it. You would need no other tools if you would take the time and learn the usage.
Be aware which version of Blender you will use, if your idea is to import things for D3 later.
The D3Edit Blender converter supports up to latest stable 249 Blender version (only).
There are changes in the new versions > 249 which will make importing by D3Edit impossible for now. Maybe I can fix that, if there will be a stable final 2.5, later.

@Scyphi  &  Babylon
As I can see there would be no need for importing Materials and UV's, this makes it easier.
I have still to implement a switch so you can choose between Quad- or triangle faces while importing
and sure some mores 'fuses' so D3Edit will not crash by incoming values which not fit into the Descent3 system.
Maybe I will do a little tutorial how to use this new function and some related things around.
I'll give you a note if I will throw a Import-Blender beta. You may have seen that D3Edit own an update feature, that's the moment to try it out then

I used a few clicks with D3Edit texturing features to produce this little example. Not release-able, just to show some texture alignments with  the converted ship.

[Babylon]

D3 Edit is an amazing tool for modding Descent 3.  I still use it for most of my level geometry.  Where it fell short for me was in creating detailed geometry, or level concepts.  That's when now I turn to Blender: whether I need to model a complex electricity explosion or a smooth cave interior with stalagmites, it's just easier to use Blender.  Importing right now is a little complicated and time consuming.  That's the main reason I'm so excited about this converter.

...and it looks awsome and ready to go.  ^^;

[Scyphi]

For me, it's just a simple fact that I figured out how to use Blender sooner than I figured out D3Edit, so it'd be easier for me to just use Blender for the building.

[(LL)Atan]

One more example to see.
Here I converted 3ds file to blender (249) and imported to D3Edit.
With D3Edit I cleaned, textured and aligned the orf then.
Done that, I copied all faces, mirrored the orf, and inserted the marked faces again.

The importer looks for too much vertices and faces, let you choose triangle or quad faces to construct.
I will do some more test before I release the beta.