A blender import/export system for Defold

Last update: Dec 30, 2022

Overview

defold-blender-export

A Blender export system for the Defold game engine.

Setup Notes

There are no exhaustive documents for this tool yet. Its just not complete, so everything is very much 'in flux'.

Note: The Sync Tool is now a Blender Only addon. This makes building Defold resource collections much simpler.

To use the tool follow the guide below.

Copy the blender/addons/sync_tool folder to the blender addons folder. See blender docs for this.
Or.. you can copy the blender/addons/sync_tool/* files into the folder where your blender source file is, and the scripts should work from there.
Open the blender file you want to work in (or open the test.blend to see an example already setup)
Open the text editor in blender and loadin in the script "defoldSynUI.py"
Run this file. You should see "bpy.ops.text.run_script()" in the Info Window in blender.
Open the 3D layout window in blender and ensure you are in "Object Mode".
Examine the Tools menu on the right side of the Layout 3D View (see below)
Enter the appropriate properties for Scene Name and Directory (project directory to save into).
Select "Sync Build" for the scene mode and press the "Sync Scene" button when ready.

A folder will be created in the target project directory with all the resources needed to load the scene into Defold.

At a minimum you should see a collection file and some gameobjects (in the gameobjects folder). You can open this project and open the collection. While the "Sync" tickbox is enabled, data will be written to the collection file - do not save new objects into it while Sync is on - they will be overwritten. Sync can be unticked at any time and the data will stop pushing to the collection.

Once this is setup you can add/edit the blender scene as you need and any Sync's you do, will update the meshes, textures and object positions in Defold.

Issues

There are a number of odd issues using this system. It is early days, so they will be ironed out. Some limitations on what Blender can stream:

Only single texture for each object is used (this is a Defold thing).
Object materials only use model materials at the moment. This might change to PBR materials.
Lights and Camera are added in Defold, but they are not yet setup to operate correctly (TBD)
Many features are only partially functional. Tread carefully :)

Comments

The addon just don't work

I properly set up everything, gave admin permission to both blender and the interpreter, but still, when I click to sync it doesnt do anything. Thats my scene:

opened by Caue-Aron 3
Support multiple UV coords

Based on discussion here with Ivan_Lytkin: https://forum.defold.com/t/building-a-sync-tool-for-blender-to-defold/69920

Potentially add a new stream for texcoord1 in the buffer files. This could allow multiple coord access in the material.

To be tested.

opened by dlannan 2
Alpha channel in Blender BSDF mapped to Albedo texture

Now that tools are available to merge texture channels together to minimise the number of samplers in the Simple PBR shader, it is planned to add the Alpha channel in blender bsdf material into the output Albedo alpha channel. This will produce more consistent alpha sync results without the need for render script changes.
enhancement

opened by dlannan 1
Add error reporting and logging

Due to requirements for correct scene and material construction to have a successful export, I need to add some logging and reporting so users can determine what issues there might be.

This has been added. Included this issue so that I can track specific enhancements.
enhancement

opened by dlannan 0
Remove root rotation for Defold world space transform.

The current sync tool adds a root node with a rotational transform to get the Blender world space into the Defold world space.

The problem with applying a complete transform is animations and some object hierarchies. I need to spend some time make a suitable solution (preferably in the lua side of things) to do this vertex + object + anim transform correctly.

The current system is not ideal because images may come out flipped on a surface (due to the rotation).
enhancement

opened by dlannan 0
Simple PBR lighting

The lighting in Simple PBR is essentially the same as the Defold default model lighting - very rudimentary. It is intended that up to 4 dynamic lights are supported. With possibly Point, Spot and Directional types supported.

This issue is to research some of this and maintain documentation on the process. The solving of this feature will be needed before shadows and some GI solutions are attempted.
enhancement

opened by dlannan 1
Split animations into per action dae's with no meshes.
The current animation export is messy and can be difficult to get right with multiple animations within a scene. The goal is:

Output meshes individually. And identify animated meshes. These will be tagged as "Defold models" but still use a mesh buffer.

Detect all animation actions and save them out as animation only dae files containing only the skeletons and the skins. No meshes.

Export script info (into the meta data table) that allows easy access to available animations, and how to play them (maybe with correct timing and configs too).

Once complete, it should allow multiple animations in a scene to be easily exported to Defold and easily run in Defold.
enhancement
opened by dlannan 1

Releases(v1.3.1)

v1.3.1(Nov 2, 2022)

Improved support for LightMapper and lightmaps in general. The exporter should now export with minimal or no modifications to the scene or materials.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
defender.zip(1.58 MB)
v1.3.0(Oct 29, 2022)
A sizable upgrade. Including new LightMapping capabilities.

Features:

LightMapper support (with modifications)

General Blender LightMap support.

New PBR Lightmap material for Defold.

Lightmap and Simple material support in the same scene

Details on the forum about the new features.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
defender.zip(1.58 MB)
v1.2.0(Sep 20, 2022)
Thanks to Aronimo and Makaber for all the testing and digging a Windows issue has finally been resolved (hence 1.2)

Windows utf8 to wide char support in file paths.

Some cleanup in the code.

OSX and Linux have not been heavily tested with this release. Debian 11 seems ok so far (need to add some auto tests).
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
defender.zip(1.53 MB)
v1.1.1(Sep 3, 2022)
Added new logging system which begins to provide feedback to the user about scene related issues. Currently supports:

Material type checking

Collection checking (for existence)

Luajit permissions levels (reports where file cannot be executed from).

Outputs log report that can be sent to me.

The main aim of the logging is to catch more and more anomalies that are unsupported in Blender when converting to Defold.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
defender.zip(1.49 MB)
v1.1.0(Aug 28, 2022)
Release supporting incoming changes to Defold for support with gltf and glb mesh and animation data.

Added selection for gltf and glb

Added updates to export gltf and glb

Minor bug fixes for mesh construction

Change to new name Defender

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
defender.zip(1.49 MB)
v1.0.8(Apr 13, 2022)
New fixes for OSX platforms.

Image conversion and export wasnt working properly.

Executing luajit errors with libpng. Fixed libpng library lookup.

OSX seems stable, need more testing.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
defender.zip(1.49 MB)
v1.0.6(Mar 16, 2022)
New fixes for Windows platforms.

Pathing was broken on both the blender python side and lua export side.

Fixed a number of issues with catching script errors.

Working on OSX and animation action naming (multiple daes per model - 1 for each action).
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sync_tool.zip(1.36 MB)
v1.0.5(Feb 28, 2022)
Added a new automatic creation of an alpha channel from the Blender Alpha channel in Principled BSDF materials. Important notes of this new feature:

If the base color has an alpha channel, and you want to use that, set the Alpha channel to 1.0 value.

If you use an Alpha of anything other than 1.0 without a texture then the whole alpha for the material will use that value.

To set an alpha mask, simply add it as a texture to the material Alpha channel.

Alpha textures must be greyscale or all the rgba channels are the same. When merged with the base color, the alpha is merged into a single 8 bit channel for Defold.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sync_tool.zip(1.34 MB)
v1.0.4(Feb 26, 2022)
Release notes:

New ao + metallic + roughness map (as per Khronos GLTF PBR)

Fixes to pbr simple material params

Bug fixes

New png texture merging tools. This will allow alpha merge from alpha channel into the Albedo + Alpha texture (TBD)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sync_tool.zip(1.34 MB)
v1.0.3(Feb 23, 2022)

Added fixes for broken UV maps when exporting.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sync_tool.zip(1.16 MB)
v1.0.2(Feb 22, 2022)

Fixed problem with vertex shader.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sync_tool.zip(1.16 MB)
v1.0.1(Feb 22, 2022)
Release-1.0.1

Fix for WIndows paths.

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sync_tool.zip(1.16 MB)
v1.0.0(Feb 22, 2022)
Release 1.0 Initial module release for Blender 2.8 and above. Follow install guide on github. Main features:

Sync static meshes with hierarchy

Sync directly to a Defold project folder

Support Animation

Lights and Camera - early support

Meta Data supported

Builtin model material

Custom Simple PBR material

Note: Uses luajit to execute scripts. See install guide.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
sync_tool.zip(1.16 MB)