Topic: Maratis Exporter Issues

Every time I get a good model going it seems I run into a Maratis exporter issue. I just can't figure them out. This time I ran into issues on lines:

909
148
163
460
114

of the exporter script.

I am using version 2.68 and recently downloaded the updated script for this version and it worked (thanks anael), but I can't figure out all the things that could be causing these errors. Perhaps someone knows of some common causes?

I know sometimes if I have an object like a light or camera accidentally selected when I export, I will get an error. But I deselected them.

Could the origin location have something to do with it? I moved it to be centered.

This usually happens when I am selecting multiple meshes to be exported at the same time (or if the mesh is chopped up). Usually when I am exporting a mesh with clothes that are separate objects. But if I combine them as one, the materials will be lost.

Anyone have any ideas on common causes for future users? I am so close to being able to start actually making a game, but I run into too many snags.

Fbx import (with animations) would be GREAT.

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

yeah an fbx import  with animation will work quite well .

Last edited by Crucio777 (2013-11-03 20:50:15)

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

hi,

can you post an issue in the issue manager there ?
https://code.google.com/p/maratis/issues/list

with a blend file that crash the script in attachment.
thanks.

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

Crucio777 wrote:

yeah an fbx import  with animation will work quite well .

Actually it wouldn't, the "blackberry gameplay game engine" uses fbx as the input format for there exporter, its been a pure nightmare for anyone other than Autodesk users. The FBX format is nice and has lots of features but, its poorly documented and supported.

There is no official fbx binary support in blender do to license incompatibility's, which leads to the question why hasn't anyone just used the offical autodesk python fbx sdk? <--- No documentation or support. And its massively complicated to use, as discovered by those in the Autodesk community who have tried to use it to write plugins for Maya, ...

Lots of 3d applications support fbx but only a very very small fraction fully support fbx.

The problems you are having everyone has in game development, if fbx was an open industrial standard then things would be different but I doubt thats ever going to happen.

Last edited by zester (2013-11-03 22:24:18)

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

Hmm, do you think collada would work? Assimp supports collada, but I take it it doesn't support animated collada files.

The maratis exporter is fine, but it really turns away bunches of people who would otherwise use Maratis, because a .mesh file can't be exported out of major 3d software. It all rides on one plugin for Blender.

Anael, I was just testing something with this particular file, but when another error happens, I will post it on the link you gave me (I figured that was where I should have posted this, but it looked confusing. hehe)

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

Well i it works good with blender -> unity 3d .  I run into bugs into exporting to maratis all the time Sometimes i just give up and go do something else . i want to do some serious game development soon . We need  to get a proper smooth 3d Pipeline for all software's before anything else . Just my 2 cents , unfortunately i am not good enough to make a smooth  3d pipeline (i tried to code a obj importer from scratch i did finished it but it was a nightmare , i dislike the process of creating importers/ exporters ) .

Anyway i don't have much info about fbx , it worked fine with unity that is why i recomended it anything that provides a smooth pipeline will work just fine .

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

collada exports bones, animations, materials etc
all are supported by the Assimp loader.

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

So we can import an animated collada file into Marstis and the animation will play when the timeline is scrubed? Hmm

Only draw back would be that if you have multiple animations, they might have to run together (no way to separate them by range as with a maratis mesh)

I honestly like the maratis format, because it's easy to edit, I just need to figure out the rules for exporting in Blender, although it seems some of the exports I have tried should have worked.

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

Blender 2.69 introduces a new FBX importer in its trunk, currently with severe limitations: only static meshes + binary format + version 2013. Hopefully a first step to full support...

Collada is intended to be a standard, but unfortunately you might often have issues, as more advanced features are not interpreted in the same way by different parsers, so weird results are possible.

Blender Maratis exporter is robust and allows to work seamlessly with Maratis. Related Wiki is self-explanatory. Maybe we could add a few tips and a checklist for easy "debugging", some things like "mesh has a material assigned?", "a mesh is selected?"...

For those who can't use Blender or have issues converting meshes, there is Noesis, a great freeware both versatile, robust and in constant development. Its only flaw is that it triangulates the meshes, but you can later switch back to quads in your favorite app.

For issues, maybe the tracker is not the best place as they are more likely due to user, not bug in themselves.
So we could do something like :
- submit an export issue in this thread with full console report, steps to reproduce the issue and if possible a blend file
- the community gives answer and update the wiki
- if a bug is actually discovered, we push it in the tracker, with a corrective patch if possible
In this way we won't overload Anaël and the community will get involved.

Last edited by com3D (2013-11-07 08:21:36)

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

That's a good idea com3d. That Is why I decided to post it here, because I was thinking it was user error and not the exporter. It does seem it should work, but it may be something that I am doing that is causing the error.

For instance, I created a particle system using a cube. I converted the particles into a real object (becomes a real mesh) selected all the meshes and joined them (maratis has issue exporting several meshes at once). Still got an error. So I did an edge split on it. Also added a material (objects have to have materials or else they will not export.

I figured out the material thing and multiple selection thing by trial and error. Perhaps there are other reasons i get errors. I do switch back and forth between GSL and multitexture mode for different projects (don't know the difference other than that GSL works more often than multitexture.

I will work on something today. I will post the blend file here first, and get forum feed back, and if it indeed is a bug, I'll post it on the report.

Re: Maratis Exporter Issues

One thing to also keep in mind is that the mesh modifiers are automatically applied.