3d content program for shipset making |
Ok, so here's the thing. I have all kinds of ideas for shipsets I'd like to make, to go with races I want, and I've started work on a few. I have several years experience with 3d content creation - the only problem is that I am cheap and use Blender (www.blender.org).
Anyways, it only saves in .blend files, and not the required .x
Does anyone know of a free 3d content creation suite that one can use to save these (or maybe even just convert it, even)?
Also, I just realized this now...anyone know if you can texture .x files with GIMP?
I mean, I admit I'm no angel in the area, but tempting though it might be, I'd rather not have pirating Maya Unlimited or something on my chest. I draw the line somewhere before several thousand dollar software.
Re: 3d content program for shipset making
Blender has an .X exporter but it's kind of flaky at times (or maybe that's the .X importer?)
Wings has an .X exporter as well (no importer though) but you need to download the "dev" version of Wings to use it; it's not in the "stable" version which has not been updated in quite some time 
You can texture ship models with GIMP. To do so, you need to export an "unwrapped" (think like skinning an animal) version of the model as a bitmap, then edit that bitmap in GIMP. It's kind of tricky but if you at least put the basic ship colors on in Wings (or whatever program you use) you can recognize which part of the ship you're trying to texture when you edit it in GIMP!
In Wings, the way to get an unwrapped model is to select the whole model in "body" mode, right-click, then got to UV Mapping on the bottom of the context menu. There are several ways to do the mapping, but the easiest is to right click and do "segment by... feature detection" then right click again and do "continue... unfolding". Then right-click the texture map you have and do "create texture". You can choose a texture size and what to draw (edges, colors of faces, even a couple simple shaders). Then close the autouv window and find the created bitmap in the outliner. Right-click it and hit "make external"; you'll be prompted for a filename. Give a filename, and now whenever you edit this file and refresh the bitmap in Wings by right-clicking it and selecting "refresh", your model will update its texture in Wings! 
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Re: 3d content program for shipset making
there are a couple of major converting programs out there, like AccuTrans 3D and 3D Exploration that can really convert some file types.
You sure Blender won't export to at least Object file type? I remember playing around with Blender and Wings 3d and both worked with Object files.
For a really inexpensive 3D model program check out Milkshape, it has a few plugins for import and export also.