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3DS / OBJ texture support
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Craig Rutherford
New Member
Posts: New Member

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2016-10-05 21:21

    Is there any information to be had about importing .OBJ / .3DS files with texture? I've tried just about everything, and I cannot get textures to work. These are models I've created in Blender. I've tried:

    • Using textures in the same folder as the .OBJ / .3DS files
    • Using textures from a subfolder within the .OBJ / .3DS files
    • Creating a simple cube model with a texture and seeing if it was my file that was messed up - the cube didn't work either
    • Making sure the file names follow the 8.3 convention
    • Creating the entire 3D project from scratch in the root folder of my hard drive
    • Banging my head repeatedly against my desk

    Even when I don't get the "texture not found" error with the .OBJ files, they appear as plain white geometry. .3DS files appear as plain white geometry in the Live view of Capture, but are invisible in every "wireframe" view. The only file format that even comes close to working is SketchUp, which I would prefer not to use because it's so limited compared to Blender or 3DS Max.

    Lars Wernlund
    Staff Member
    Posts:2019 Staff Member

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    2016-10-06 07:47

    Hi,

    If you export OBJ with materials & textures, you will get both a .obj and a .mtl file. What I would recommend that you do is open the .mtl file in a text editor (TextEdit on Mac or Notepad on Windows) and take a look at the texture file references (both .obj and .mtl are plain text files). In there you can see exactly how the texture file is referenced and what the texture image file name should be.

    Technical Director
    Capture Visualisation AB

    Craig Rutherford
    New Member
    Posts: New Member

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    2016-10-08 05:27

    I've discovered that the trick is to export using the built-in Blender Renderer instead of Cycles. (As an aside, why on earth the completely internal choice of renderer would make in terms of saving a file to an external standard is beyond me. What the hell, Blender?)

    What I've discovered since then is that meshes import okay as 3DS, but textures refuse to work no matter what. Textures now import okay-ish as .OBJ, but it imports the meshes incorrectly, adding extra planes that end up z-fighting. After editing the mesh so that the part that was z-fighting was separate, I'm at least able to "assemble" the meshes in Capture and get them to work. I wish there was some way to improve the handling, but as long as there are workarounds.

    Of course Capture is not a CAD program or a 3D modeler, but this makes the ability to accurately import custom meshes and geometry even more important for custom set pieces and the like.

    Lars, you gonna be at LDI?

    Lars Wernlund
    Staff Member
    Posts:2019 Staff Member

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    2016-11-07 08:11

    Hi,

    The z-fighting you mention, is that present on every object? Could it be that blender exports one plane for each side of the surface?

    Technical Director
    Capture Visualisation AB
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