greenxenith / io_scene_b3d

Blender 2.8+ Export for b3d files (forked from joric/io_scene_b3d)

io_scene_b3d

Blender Import-Export script for Blitz 3D .b3d files.
Should work with versions 2.8x, 2.9x, and 3.x.

Installation

Download the ZIP file:

• Master
• Latest release
• All releases

Then follow the add-on installation instructions for your Blender version:

• 2.8x
• 2.9x
• 3.x
• Latest

TODO

Import

• Animation is not yet implemented in version 1.0. Check master branch for updates.
• Nodes use original quaternion rotation that affects user interface. Maybe convert them into euler angles.

History

Blitz3D was a game engine developed by Blitz Research (Mark Sibly) in 2001 utilizing the Blitz BASIC language and bringing with it the B3D format.
Source | Website | Wikipedia

Blender addon:

• 2008 - Developed for Blender 2.45 by Diego "GaNDaLDF" Parisi
• 2010 - Lightmap fixes by Capricorn 76 Pty. Ltd (date estimated)
• 2011 - Changes by Marianne Gagnon and Joerg Henrichs from supertuxkart
• 2013 - Blender 2.62 and 2.63 compatibility work from MTLZ (aka "is06", date estimated)
• 2018 - Blender 2.8 compatibility and importer by Joric
• 2020 - Blender 2.9 compatibility by GreenXenith
• 2023 - Blender 3.0 compatibility by GreenXenith

License

This software is covered by GPL 2.0. Pull requests are welcome.

• The import script based on a heavily rewriten (new reader) script from Glogow Poland Mariusz Szkaradek.
• The export script uses portions of script by Diego 'GaNDaLDF' Parisi (ported to Blender 2.8) under GPL license.
• The b3d format documentation (b3dfile_specs.txt) doesn't have a clear license (Public Domain assumed).

Alternatives

• Original addon by Joric - Works for Blender 2.8 but not later
• B3DExport by RainWarrior - Based on same work from Diego Parisi, for Blender 2.6 or 2.7
• B3DExport for Minetest - Minetest's fork of B3DExport for Blender 2.7
• Assimp - Importer only. Animation is allegedly hit-or-miss
• fragMOTION - Seems to work fine, though it is nagware and does not export animation to any modern formats

io_scene_b3d's Issues

Blitz3D v1.106 support?

Can we get a version that works with Blitz3D v1.106?

This would be immensely helpful as there are still games that use it and the other methods currently used to develop content for them is so archaic (fragMotion)

One example that is still being maintained today is the following game:

https://sonicworldfangame.com/

Specifically imported .b3ds get exported with bigger filesize for some reason and can cause Memory Access Violation errors when trying to load them into the game, this seems to happen with models that are big in filesize. fragMotion doesn't suffer from this issue but it's very dated and doesn't have vertex alpha texture/material flag.

Port the API to support Blender 3.3+

Materials are exported in the wrong order

I'm using Blender 2.83

The exporter iterates through the mesh and outputs materials as they are found used on polygons. So the material assigned to the first created polygon will be first to be listed in the B3D file. The exporter goes from oldest polygon to newest polygon finding materials.

The exporter should instead get the list of materials on the mesh and output those in order.

The order of materials is very important because Irrlicht works on material indices not material names.

The relevant function in the exporter is: write_brus

I found a workaround that worked for me:
It is possible to move a material to last in the list. Go to edit mode. Press A then A on the keyboard to deselect everything. Select the material and press select to select all polygons assigned to the material. Then press Mesh->Separate->Selection to create a new object from the selected polygons. Go to object mode. Drag the new object on top of the old object while pressing shift and drop it. This will parent the new object to the old object. Then select the old object and the new object and press Ctrl+J to join the objects back together.

Does this still work in 2024?

I'm trying to export an animated door, attached is the blender file. Animations won't work. I can export it and load the model in Irrlicht but the animations won't play. I think this is broken again. ninja.b3d works, just not anything exported with this.

doortest.zip

Switch to object mode when exporting

Zero weights are written

See

io_scene_b3d/export_b3d.py

Line 1163 in f189786

w = 0.0

This leads to increased model file sizes

Vertices are duplicated

It appears that the exporter goes through the faces to collect vertices and doesn't deduplicate them afterwards. Vertices will thus be written multiple times, bloating the resulting B3Ds.

'releases' hyperlink in downloads section links to jordic's repo instead of this one.

Bugs with exporting in Blender 3.0.0.

I have found two bugs in the exporting models when using Blender 3.0.0 and they are no when using the older versions. Particularly, there's a broken compatibility between the Blender's coordinate system and Minetest's one because the exporter mismatches the coordinate axes between the first and the second, i.e. if 'X' then 'X', 'Y' then 'Y'. Here is a result of that wrong matching:

A model in Blender 3.0.0:

The same model in Minetest exported by this exporter:

Other bug is it exports only selected objects. Unselected ones look like in the game just transparent.

Animated mesh appears to be scaled based on assigned bones

I have a rigged and animated spider which I've exported using this addon for usage with mobkit within Minetest.

However, once ingame, the mesh is scaled, apparently relative to the assigned bones.

I am not sure if this is a Minetest-specific issue or an addon-specific issue, because when I import the b3d back into Blender (using this addon), it appears normal. When importing the b3d back into Blender, the rig is messed up and the animation is lost.

Consider working on the bones feature in the VirtualBrightPlayz fork.

The fork binds the animations to empty objects.
I have a script which tries to post-process them into bones. It isn't working yet, but it serves as example code for creating a hierarchy of bones: https://github.com/poikilos/EnlivenMinetest/blob/master/utilities/blender/hierarchy_of_empties_to_bones.py

• Creating the bones instead of the empties inside the io_scene_b3d project would be a better solution since it would be more straightforward and less redundant.

Some mesh faces look transparent or disrupted.

Hi, I`ve exported a model into this format, but this look just dire. Some faces are either fully transparent or disrupted. The normals are directed properly (see the screens below).

As in Blender 2.8

As in game

However, I discovered it works properly with obj exporter.

All frames are exported rather than only exporting keyframes

which leads to larger model sizes

Add compatibility with blender 2.92

@GreenXenith
Especially with linux, blender is made to be up to date. So it is very annoying to have no full compatibility with the last version of blender.