WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.300 Hey 2 00:00:02.300 --> 00:00:06.300 welcome back! So we're going to talk about Exporting Models with Materials now! 3 00:00:06.300 --> 00:00:10.300 We think we've nearly got our pin finished, and in this used case, 4 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:14.300 it's going into a game engine. So let's carry on the process, let's get it finished! 5 00:00:14.300 --> 00:00:18.300 Let's talk about how a .blend file may appear elsewhere, in this case, 6 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:22.300 in Unity, how to export as an .fbx file 7 00:00:22.300 --> 00:00:26.300 with materials attached, why using a .blend file is 8 00:00:26.300 --> 00:00:30.300 leaner if your target program will support it, briefly talk about smooth shading 9 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:34.300 and normals, you may have noticed that the pin is a little bit kind of blocky, 10 00:00:34.300 --> 00:00:38.300 and then, I'll explain why we may want multiple levels of detail. 11 00:00:38.300 --> 00:00:42.300 So let's just have a look! What's this about work 12 00:00:42.300 --> 00:00:46.300 flow and leanness? Well the leanest thing we can possibly hope 13 00:00:46.300 --> 00:00:50.300 for is that our target package live reads .blend 14 00:00:50.300 --> 00:00:54.300 files. So Unity, for example, if you put the .blend file in the Unity assets, 15 00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:58.300 it will read it live, and you change the Blender file and it changes immediately in Unity. 16 00:00:58.300 --> 00:01:02.300 You may have a 3D printing software that does the same, you may have a different game engine, 17 00:01:02.300 --> 00:01:06.300 whatever, so that's the ideal. The next best thing, if you can't do that, 18 00:01:06.300 --> 00:01:10.300 is to save as a .blend file but just import into your target package. 19 00:01:10.300 --> 00:01:14.300 So at least you've only got one thing to do every time you make a change to your model, 20 00:01:14.300 --> 00:01:18.300 and then, you go to your target package and you do another import. And the trickiest thing, 21 00:01:18.300 --> 00:01:22.300 that you may need to do, is to export from Blender every time you make a change, 22 00:01:22.300 --> 00:01:26.300 as a .fbx, .stl, or whatever and then, import into your program. So 23 00:01:26.300 --> 00:01:30.300 you've got lean, medium, and hard, it's a bit like burgers. OK, so let's take 24 00:01:30.300 --> 00:01:34.300 a look at all this in practice! Here's our nice stripey, pinie, thingy, widget! 25 00:01:34.300 --> 00:01:38.300 So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to crack open Unity for 26 00:01:38.300 --> 00:01:42.300 you, which is a very popular game engine. Now it's free! If you want to go and download 27 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:46.300 it, from Unity's website, you're very welcome to, and you can 28 00:01:46.300 --> 00:01:50.300 play with it. But this is a Blender course, so the purpose of me putting 29 00:01:50.300 --> 00:01:54.300 Unity up here is, I want to show you the livest 30 00:01:54.300 --> 00:01:58.300 and leanest possible way of dealing with a .blend file in another program. 31 00:01:58.300 --> 00:02:02.300 So if we don't export, rather, but save a copy 32 00:02:02.300 --> 00:02:06.300 of the bowling pin, right into the 33 00:02:06.300 --> 00:02:10.300 Unity or your target program's appropriate 34 00:02:10.300 --> 00:02:14.300 folder... Now, in the case of Unity, that is 35 00:02:14.300 --> 00:02:18.300 the Assets folder. So I've put it in my target program's folder. 36 00:02:18.300 --> 00:02:22.300 Now, Unity's very well behaved with this! What it does is, it notices something appeared 37 00:02:22.300 --> 00:02:26.300 in this Asset folder, and I can just put it straight into Unity. Here it is, 38 00:02:26.300 --> 00:02:30.300 there is your bowling pin in a game engine! Isn't that pretty cool! I'm going to move this 39 00:02:30.300 --> 00:02:34.300 light out of the way, because it's very distracting. And there we go, congratulations we have 40 00:02:34.300 --> 00:02:38.300 something in a different program! Now, the cool thing about working with a 41 00:02:38.300 --> 00:02:42.300 program that works in my leanest paradigm, remember the top one here 42 00:02:42.300 --> 00:02:46.300 the target package live reads the .blend file, is this. Look if I 43 00:02:46.300 --> 00:02:50.300 go into Blender and I say go into Edit Mode and I go 44 00:02:50.300 --> 00:02:54.300 grab maybe one of these faces and kind of yank it out like that, if I save 45 00:02:54.300 --> 00:02:58.300 the .blend file, watch Unity! See it's immediately 46 00:02:58.300 --> 00:03:02.300 changed in Unity! There it is, you see the pin has the thing in it, which I 47 00:03:02.300 --> 00:03:06.300 think is very cool! Now I can undo that and resave, and Unity will 48 00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:10.300 immediately noticed the difference. So that's the best possible workflow! 49 00:03:10.300 --> 00:03:14.300 The next best workflow is that you need to kind of import into your target package but 50 00:03:14.300 --> 00:03:18.300 it's still a .blend file. And the trickiest workflow is where you 51 00:03:18.300 --> 00:03:22.300 need to go Export, as say an FBX. 52 00:03:22.300 --> 00:03:26.300 Let's try that from Blender, go ahead and try exporting your pin as a .fbx, by the way. 53 00:03:26.300 --> 00:03:30.300 And you could, say, stick it in your Downloads and call it BowlingPin. You can leave all the 54 00:03:30.300 --> 00:03:34.300 settings default and then you have a .fbx file. Then, you have to go 55 00:03:34.300 --> 00:03:38.300 over to your target package and let's delete everything that's here, 56 00:03:38.300 --> 00:03:42.300 for now, and then, you go in your target package and you Import a New 57 00:03:42.300 --> 00:03:46.300 Asset and you go find it [Laughs] and then you Import it, and eventually, 58 00:03:46.300 --> 00:03:50.300 you end up in a very similar place. Now notice, when you import a .fbx it also 59 00:03:50.300 --> 00:03:54.300 has a Materials folder, the Pin and the Stripe are preserved, and if I open 60 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:58.300 up this thing, it has the Camera, the Lamp, the Pin, the Pin mesh, 61 00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:02.300 etc. And I can still pop this pin in my scene and it still behaves! 62 00:04:02.300 --> 00:04:06.300 So either way is good, but of course, now if I make a change in Blender... Ooh, I want that 63 00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:10.300 pin to look more like this! Saving it's no good! I have to Export it 64 00:04:10.300 --> 00:04:14.300 as a .fbx again and then reimport it. You see how much more of a hassle 65 00:04:14.300 --> 00:04:18.300 that is, than just actually saving the .blend file? Yep, much 66 00:04:18.300 --> 00:04:22.300 more of a hassle! So I am going to work with the .blend file, because 67 00:04:22.300 --> 00:04:26.300 it's a lot easier for me, over here in Unity. So 68 00:04:26.300 --> 00:04:30.300 I save my .blend file, look at Unity, and it updates immediately. 69 00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:34.300 Lovely! OK fantastic! So let's go back to the slides and talk about the other things! 70 00:04:34.300 --> 00:04:38.300 So you've seen how a .blend file may appear elsewhere, you've seen 71 00:04:38.300 --> 00:04:42.300 how to export as a .fbx, with materials it all just kind of happens, and you've seen that 72 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:46.300 using a .blend file is a much leaner way of doing things. Now, I want to talk about 73 00:04:46.300 --> 00:04:50.300 smoothing and normals and then multiple levels of detail. 74 00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:54.300 So here is our bowling pin in Blender! And 75 00:04:54.300 --> 00:04:58.300 if we're in Edit Mode, remember that you can go down here in the Properties 76 00:04:58.300 --> 00:05:02.300 Panel, and you can go somewhere and you can say, show me the normals. And 77 00:05:02.300 --> 00:05:06.300 their Vertex Normals in Unity, so I'll show the Vertex Normals. There they are, they're little 78 00:05:06.300 --> 00:05:10.300 hairs, and they are one per face. Another way to show it is sticking out 79 00:05:10.300 --> 00:05:14.300 of the faces instead of the vertices, the same number of normals roughly. 80 00:05:14.300 --> 00:05:18.300 So the problem with this pin is, both in Blender and over in Unity, it's 81 00:05:18.300 --> 00:05:22.300 pretty rough, you see you can see every single cell. Now you may say, ooh I should turn the poly count 82 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:26.300 up, but hang on hold your horses, it's already got a lot of pollies. It's already got 83 00:05:26.300 --> 00:05:30.300 what 1,680 triangles, which is plenty! 84 00:05:30.300 --> 00:05:34.300 What we need is something called Smooth Shading, and back 85 00:05:34.300 --> 00:05:38.300 in Object Mode, in Blender here, 86 00:05:38.300 --> 00:05:42.300 you can go down under Tools and you can click on Shading, Smooth. 87 00:05:42.300 --> 00:05:46.300 Look at that! It's really looking pretty smooth now! 88 00:05:46.300 --> 00:05:50.300 And if you do that and you re-save it, re-save 89 00:05:50.300 --> 00:05:54.300 the BowlingPin, the great thing is that those extra normals, which you'll 90 00:05:54.300 --> 00:05:58.300 learn later help determine how the thing draws, they come into Unity 91 00:05:58.300 --> 00:06:02.300 as well. The same number of polygons! It's amazing! If you don't believe me, 92 00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:06.300 then look here in Unity. It tells you 1,680, or 93 00:06:06.300 --> 00:06:10.300 look back in Blender, 1,680. But it's a trick of lighting 94 00:06:10.300 --> 00:06:14.300 that's making this look smooth. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that Unity 95 00:06:14.300 --> 00:06:18.300 is doing a better job of shading that than Blender. Maybe when we go to 96 00:06:18.300 --> 00:06:22.300 the Rendered Mode in Blender... There you go, Blender's doing a pretty good job in Rendered Mode. 97 00:06:22.300 --> 00:06:26.300 But Blender's preview, it's solid preview, is not quite as 98 00:06:26.300 --> 00:06:30.300 good as Unity's rendering. But anyway, there you go! So 99 00:06:30.300 --> 00:06:34.300 we don't need to up the poly count crazily. What 100 00:06:34.300 --> 00:06:38.300 a lower poly model like this will not do for us is hide the fact that the 101 00:06:38.300 --> 00:06:42.300 edges are still a bit like Max Headroom. [Laughs] You can still see the geometry 102 00:06:42.300 --> 00:06:46.300 on the edges there, and that, of course, is exactly the same 103 00:06:46.300 --> 00:06:50.300 deal in Blender. It doesn't matter how much smoothing you put on, you're going to see the 104 00:06:50.300 --> 00:06:54.300 geometry at the top of the pin, 105 00:06:54.300 --> 00:06:58.300 whether it's Flat or Shaded. You see the edge, the outline, the 106 00:06:58.300 --> 00:07:02.300 occlusion of the background is going to be the same, but going from Smooth to Flat 107 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:06.300 really makes a difference to the visual appearance, especially with a good shader like the one 108 00:07:06.300 --> 00:07:10.300 here in Unity, or when you actually render later in Blender. Cool! 109 00:07:10.300 --> 00:07:14.300 So the final thing I want to talk about now is, how about I'm 110 00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:18.300 in a game engine, I may want this pin to do something, right? We presumably would have a bowling 111 00:07:18.300 --> 00:07:22.300 pin, because we want to make maybe a bowling game and we want to do 112 00:07:22.300 --> 00:07:26.300 something with it. So I'm just going to make a floor, really quickly here 113 00:07:26.300 --> 00:07:27.733 and just put it below the pin. 114 00:07:27.733 --> 00:07:30.566 So I'm just giving the pin some physics now, 115 00:07:30.566 --> 00:07:34.566 and if we play the game, the pin falls straight through the floor. That's no good! 116 00:07:34.566 --> 00:07:38.566 So what I want to do is add something called a collider! Now, the purpose of 117 00:07:38.566 --> 00:07:42.566 this is that you, as a designer, are going to have to help with this, because watch what happens! 118 00:07:42.566 --> 00:07:46.566 If I now try and add something called a Mesh Collider to this and I 119 00:07:46.566 --> 00:07:50.566 say, well what's the mesh, and I go and say well it's the pin, look what happens in 120 00:07:50.566 --> 00:07:54.566 Unity when I try and run this! It's going to complain! 121 00:07:54.566 --> 00:07:58.566 None-convex mesh colliders are not allowed! Now Mikey's going to talk to you 122 00:07:58.566 --> 00:08:02.566 about what a convex-mesh is, but it basically means that none of it sticks inwards. The neck 123 00:08:02.566 --> 00:08:06.566 of this pin is concave, and this game engine will not allow 124 00:08:06.566 --> 00:08:10.566 concave, so Mikey's going to be showing you how to make convex meshes. So say I 125 00:08:10.566 --> 00:08:14.566 say to Unity, OK make it convex, it will go I can't, because it's got more than 126 00:08:14.566 --> 00:08:18.566 256 vertices, my brain hurts! It's got far too many vertices! 127 00:08:18.566 --> 00:08:22.566 Look in Blender, the vertices are 870! So it just doesn't 128 00:08:22.566 --> 00:08:26.566 work, it can't work, I can't make this work, I cannot make my pin collide with the floor, and I'm 129 00:08:26.566 --> 00:08:30.566 now an irritated game designer. So I'm going to go back to Mikey and say, 130 00:08:30.566 --> 00:08:34.566 Mikey, I want a lower poly, a less than 255 131 00:08:34.566 --> 00:08:38.566 vertex collider, and the end 132 00:08:38.566 --> 00:08:42.566 effect of that is going to be something like this. He's going to provide me with a different mesh. 133 00:08:42.566 --> 00:08:46.566 I'm then going to bring that mesh in here and it is going to be 134 00:08:46.566 --> 00:08:50.566 a green outline like this and it'll be kind of something like 135 00:08:50.566 --> 00:08:54.566 that but it'll be more pin shaped, and when we've finished, what'll happen 136 00:08:54.566 --> 00:08:58.566 is my pin will actually, if it starts with some Rotation, 137 00:08:58.566 --> 00:09:02.566 it will actually land 138 00:09:02.566 --> 00:09:06.566 and fall over but properly. You see that's just dodgy, 139 00:09:06.566 --> 00:09:10.566 because whatever I do with just a cylinder, i.e. this part of the pin here 140 00:09:10.566 --> 00:09:14.566 hits the ground properly or the neck does but not both. You see if I thin it down, it'll 141 00:09:14.566 --> 00:09:18.566 go through the floor, etc. So our mission now, with Mikey, 142 00:09:18.566 --> 00:09:22.566 is to make a mesh that is 255 vertices or 143 00:09:22.566 --> 00:09:26.566 less, representing the same shape and scale as the pin, 144 00:09:26.566 --> 00:09:30.566 but is also convex. It must 145 00:09:30.566 --> 00:09:34.566 be a convex mesh, so from this tip of the pin to here it's going to have to be a 146 00:09:34.566 --> 00:09:38.566 straight line, nothing going in. So that's what comes next, and I hope that was helpful, 147 00:09:38.566 --> 00:09:42.566 as you can see the fate of your models when they arrive in things like Unity! 148 00:09:42.566 --> 00:09:44.866 See you soon!