Question one for today: Is there anything special I should do when preparing a mesh for export? Almost everything I make in Blender will be exported to .obj and used in Poser. I finished a shirt to use on a Poser figure last night. After finishing the mesh, I reset the center of the mesh and got all the normals facing correctly. I tried several different UV options on it but couldn't find one that looked like a UV map I'm used to seeing. (This will be a focus of inquiry in question two to come.) Then I exported it. The shirt worked pretty well in Poser, but fell apart in a dynamic simulation (an animation with collision detection and gravity forces). There are a number of reasons it might have fallen apart, including poor mesh design on my part, or the fact that Poser's dynamic simulation component is always a bit moody. But I want to make sure also that I exported the object correctly. I have read tutorials for other modeling programs in which specific elements are checked for export, so things like cameras are not exported. I'm not aware of a similar function in Blender. I'm hoping that I exported the mesh and nothing more. But if not, maybe there are some things I don't know about that got in the .obj file which causes it to behave badly in Poser.

Blender export only the selected objects. The best export formats are IMO: .lwo (lightwave) and .obj.

It's a good idea to let Poser weld vertices when importing an object that's intended to be a dynamic cloth item.

Thanks for the tips. It's good to know that it only exports the selected objects- that's how I assumed it would work, but I didn't know for sure.

I do remember to weld vertices when importing in Poser. I don't check anything else though in the import box (except for setting the % of standard figure size, even though it's just a guess and I'll have to scale anyway). I'm re-doing the mesh on the shirt to see if that helps. I have a few different ideas on what to do with the polygons at places where I can't do polygons as perfect boxes and circles, and I've been looking at others' meshes for ideas. I'm hoping that a more sane mesh set-up will take care of the problems.

Message edited on: 07/08/2005 10:59