Blender 2.57 ASE export

[MCampagnini]

ASE Export Script
MCampagnini (http://code.google.com/p/ase-export-vmc/)
Version 2.5


Videos

• Youtube (new) - Blender 2.63a and ASE v2.01
• Youtube (old) - Blender 2.59

Installation

• Download and extract the ASE Export Script.
• In Blender, File / User Preferences.
• Go to the Add-On Tab.
• Install Add-On, select the extracted python script.
• Click Save as Default to enable the script every time Blender loads (optional).

You will find a new export option in File / Export called Ascii Scene Export (.ase). If you do not see the script in the export menu after following the installation instructions, open the Add-On tab and find the script under Import-Export: ASCII Scene Exporter. Be sure that it is enabled by checking the box next to the add-on name. Contact me on my website if you still have problems exporting.

Mesh Requirements

• All non-collision geometries must be UV unwrapped.
• All non-collision geometries must have a material applied.

Optional

• Mesh may have more than one material.
• Mesh may have more than one UV texture and/or a lightmap uv.
• Mesh may be assigned as a collision object.
• Mesh may have more than one collision object to determine collision borders.
• Mesh may be assigned smoothing groups.
• Smart people will watch the demonstration video on my website.

Collision Objects
Assign a mesh as a collision object by prefixing each object name with UCX_NAME, where NAME can be anything you would like (case-insensitive).

Smoothing Groups
Assign smoothing groups by edge selecting the border of the faces you want assigned to a smoothing group, press ctrl+e and mark sharp. Any face group separated with sharp edges will be assigned a smoothing group.

Vertex Painting
Apply vertex painting in Blender as normal, be sure that you have at least two uv texture slots. This is not a technical limitation, but due to time constraints I left the vertex painting code inside of a conditional that requires two uv textures. In order to view your vertex painting in UDK you will have to import and set up your materials correctly within UDK.

Change Log

Version 2.01a to 2.5

• Performance adjustments and code refactoring
• Use Submaterials toggle to give control on how to export materials
• Allow multiple materials to toggle whether a geometry node can have more than one material assigned
• The additions of these new features allow the ASE file to be read by the Id Tech 4 engine and other technologies

Version 2.01 to 2.01a

• Fixed my vertex painting fix

Version 2.00 to 2.01

• Fixed scale bug that prevented proper scaling when exporting.
• Fixed vertex painting 'MeshLoopColor' object has no attribute 'color1'.
• Made default scale 1:1 (1 foot in Blender is 1 foot in UDK, depending on Blender grid setup).
• Cleanup.

Version 1.41 to 2.00

• Upgraded for Blender 2.63a.
• Fixed smoothing groups (broken in 2.62).
• Extra options in the export window.
• Removed origin recentering.

Version 1.4 to 1.41

• Added an export option to recalculate normals.

Version 1.35 to 1.4

• Added vertex painting support. Requires two uv textures.

Version 1.3 to 1.35

• Fixed a bug causing ugly output when over 32 smoothing groups were assigned
• Recoded a small portion of the script to remove complications when assigning more than 150 smoothing groups.
• Fixed a crash by adding in a bpy.ops.mesh.reveal before calculating mesh data. Any hidden parts of your mesh will be made visible before performing the export.

Download at http://code.google.com/p/ase-export-vmc/

[Odedge]

While I currently making levels with the UT 3 editor, I would like to say "thank you very much" for taking the time to update this script!

I was happy when 2.57 was released, but sort of bummed because there was no .ASE exporter that worked with it. Now that's changed and I can charge forward knowing my time won't be wasted making models that couldn't be exported.

I am constructing a Blender to Unreal tutorial page and I updated my current Exporting To Unreal page with your script.

In my testing (and limited experience), it seems like you have to enter the file extension ".ase" in order for it to properly work?

It will be great when you can implement multiple UVs for light mapping.

Since I am a beta tester at heart, I wonder if the following is possible, some time in the future?

• Not requiring a material/image/UV to be assigned. I only say this for collision models (though it's reasonably easy to add these since they don't have to be precise).
• To not triangulate the mesh (assuming the editor will triangulate it for you)? I ask this so the model can still retain it's original quads.

I also tested to see if Vertex Painting works and it does, so that's nice. The only thing I am not familiar with is "smoothing" groups, but I will test that some more tonight.

Thanks again for your time and effort. Sorry for the long-winded post, but I am excited that I can now get to "work" with Blender and the Unreal editor.

[MCampagnini]

I just updated the script about 20 minutes ago so that any material not assigned to a face will not be added - in addition it requires a unique texture image for each material. The reason for this was to make sure people only export out ASE's without extra & unused materials/textures. Updates will keep rolling out, we have to get Blender deeper into the game development pipeline!

In a future update i'll make it detect the UCX_Collision mesh name and void the material / texture requirements.

As far as mesh triangulation goes, ill see about setting a toggle when exporting.

Smoothing groups might be a time sink, i've talked with some people about it...maybe there is a workaround. Besides, exporting multiple uv maps correctly is more important!

--edit: and yes it needs a *.ase name, if you save your .blend it should have [project_name].ase already filled out.

Glad I helped out someone,

MC

[Odedge]

I just updated the script about 20 minutes ago so that any material not assigned to a face will not be added - in addition it requires a unique texture image for each material. The reason for this was to make sure people only export out ASE's without extra & unused materials/textures. Updates will keep rolling out, we have to get Blender deeper into the game development pipeline!

In a future update i'll make it detect the UCX_Collision mesh name and void the material / texture requirements.

Makes sense and sounds great.

Smoothing groups might be a time sink, i've talked with some people about it...maybe there is a workaround. Besides, exporting multiple uv maps correctly is more important!

Aren't smoothing groups suppose to help determine if the shading will be either smooth or hard for the edges? Agreed that multiple UVs are very important.

--edit: and yes it needs a *.ase name, if you save your .blend it should have [project_name].ase already filled out.

This works as you just mentioned. I thought by the wording on your site that if you didn't have the ".ase" part, it would automatically add it. Not a big issue either way.

Glad I helped out someone,

Indeed

Keep in mind that more people will appreciate your work than what is commented. The same is true with with my tutorial sections.

[Achernar]

Very big thank you MCampagnini!

This has long been sort after in the new 2.5x series.

[pixoloco]

hey, great work !

Yeah the lack of udk friendly smoothing groups is really a pain in the ass with blender. For now I use fbx exporter tweaked to get smoothing groups from material channels of another object prefixed "SG_". It's not awesome but better than nothing.

[MCampagnini]

I do have a plan to fix the smoothing group issues...whether it works or not has yet to be determined. Applying the edge split modifier serves as a work-around, read more about it being used in the original Rich_is_bored script here. From what Kat has told me, Blender applies smoothing groups per vertex and 3DSM applies it per face.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, still plenty to do.

MC

[DemoMan2]

I had the same problem with the 2.56b .ase script in that it forgets the extension on the export file type. That will be a welcomed fix.

I do hope you can get the smoothing groups issue fixed. I seem to recall that the problem is also in the .fbx export as well. Too bad they don't have more UDK tools do do this in the Add-on section of the program. I would think a stable way to transfer stuff from blender to UDK would be a great addition to blender!

[pixoloco]

Hmm, I just tried again the edge split method, I can't make it work, udk seems to merge vertex in the same smoothing group.

Here is what I have on a cylinder.
The left is real smoothing groups like in 3ds max, the right is the edge split method with edge split modifier aplied. I verified that the vertex was really separated.


Maybe i'm doing something wrong... If anybody manage to have the left cylinder with an edge split, please let me know.

[MCampagnini]

ideally (again this is 2nd hand) the edge split should apply smoothing groups to the seam areas.

getting the multiple uv maps out is a much quicker fix than this problem, so I will be handling that first, and then, i'll dive into blender smoothing groups...

[rogacz]

Why would i use ase exporter over fbx one (when working from blender)? Asking more out of curiosity as I ll probably be creating only placeholders as im more interested in programming.

[ilguano]

This is awsome man! I was waiting patiently for a propper script for this. I really wanted to stop using old 2.49
Thank you so much. You should enable a "Donate!" section in your site.

[ilguano]

Why would i use ase exporter over fbx one (when working from blender)? Asking more out of curiosity as I ll probably be creating only placeholders as im more interested in programming.

Well simply because FBX don't work that good yet :S

[MCampagnini]

You should enable a "Donate!" section in your site.

it's there...snug at the bottom of the post

At the moment Blender has issues exporting from most UDK file formats. The goal is to get Blender in the position where it can be used just as well as any other $$$$ modeling package...starting with the ASE Exporter.

Latest updates:
Will not export the material if:

• The material is not found on any mesh face
• The texture image slot is not a unique image file

The reasons for this are to avoid adding materials that are duplicates and/or unused.

Other updates

• Added a checkbox option to triangulate the mesh or not
• Will not export any materials applied to the collision model (must have UCX_ prefix, ill add the other prefixes later)

Time to work on the multiple uv maps!

[Odedge]

Why would i use ase exporter over fbx one (when working from blender)? Asking more out of curiosity as I ll probably be creating only placeholders as im more interested in programming.

For what it's worth, having MCampagnini updating the script also helps out the UT 3 (and possibly other communities) that can only use .ase as a proper import option.

i
Other updates

• Added a checkbox option to triangulate the mesh or not
• Will not export any materials applied to the collision model (must have UCX_ prefix, ill add the other prefixes later)

Nice progress.