Answer -> All models created in Blender are black

As we know, all models created in Blender, exported to .FBX and finally converted to .MWM are black, even if we have defined texture file. I bring you help, my fellow Modders !


This issue is result of incorrect information about material name in exported .FBX file. Blender is merging material and texture name to single string value like this: MaterialName__Texture and MwmBuilder "think", that material name is MaterialName__Texture and it is inconsistent with the value in the .XML file, which contains value "MaterialName".

Everything what we must do, is change material name value in .XML file to consistent with that in Blender's .FBX. It's simple! Just open .FBX file with text editor and search (CTRL+F) phrase Material:: - you will find at the end of file something like that:

[FONT= &#39]}Material: "Material::MaterialName__Texture", ""{[/FONT]

Just copy string value marked with green and put it in .XML file:

[FONT= &#39]<Material Name="MaterialName__Texture">[/FONT]

Remember, always check exported .FBX file in text editor, even if You don't assigned any textures in Blender project.

Bye :wave:

 

Yes, that was the way i fix it... only to directly forget it. :rolleyes:
Read about that problem often and i can't remember how i fix it, that was it.

 

Brilliant! Worked a charm. Easy enough to do and I will take it in to account for future projects.

Thanks alot Maniek.

 

Edit: Nope, i was just being a retard again.

 

.....when i load stuff / import into blender i can't even see it

same with mesh labs

 

I'm new to modding and i'm trying to make a simple sign using the testblock.. (the model crashes SE but that aside) my main issue is to texture the block, so i imported a cutom dds i made in photoshop into Blender, and set it as texture to the default material (which was black or so.. i used the blender gray then) .. in the renderer of blender my texture shows right when i put light near it.. ingame it does not, now you said to open the fbx file in text editor and search for "Material::".. well that thing does not exist, let aside the fbx isnt a text file but contains other data. Any idea what i am doing wrong?


Edit: of course i can find the texture, but thats named "SignDead6Large_de.dds" inside the fbx. and thats the same name i have in the "/Materials" folder.


Edit2: not related to topic, but maybe someone can solve that crash issue right away: https://pastebin.com/XaSBAf3T


Edit3: I played arround, and also found out about the mwmbuilder "E" switch, so ye i tried that to see if the texture name's even right. Using the example model it showed the right texture dds file, using my model, there was not even an entry for that, so i apparently have no texture & material set? but i did that in blender.. and it worked fine, render preview has proven it.

 

Two days later and you've had to figure it out on your own.. Come on guys...
I don't know the answer, I've switched entirely to 3DS as Blender has issues even opening FBX let alone will not even touch raw 3DS files.
But!!!! I'll take a look. In the meanwhile check out some basic Space Engineers Blender video tutorials - you might be missing something so simple it's stupid, which is really easy to do.
Here's one that might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU-jd8fF6ss

 

1. Export your .FBX as anscII not binary. This way you can actually READ the contents to do your /search for material::.

2. material:: < this is the MATERIAL NAME, not the .dds name. They can be different, or the same. Example: 'Material 01' uses image mystuff.dds. Example2: 'ReactorFrame' uses ReactorFrame.dds

3. The material name inside your .FBX is only important for the definition in your .xml. Image name is not.

4. The actual image file is assigned to that material in your .xml. You can change the image name all you want in your .xml as long as the path is correct to that image.

5. The game reads file paths starting at your directory. aka: /mods/ShadowFlux. So place your images accordingly. /mods/ShadowFlux/Textures/ "image files" Then inside your .xml use this path.

6. Usually its a typo or something in the cubeblocks.sbc that makes things dissappear.

7. Usually its an incorrect file path in the .xml that makes objects black.

8. Fairly sure all of this is covered on the Keen modding acadamy site.

 

If it's black, it's not a material issue. Material issues will show white in game. Black typically means 1 of two things. If it is COMPLETELY black, no details at all, cannot see an edge, a dip, no light, no nothing, then it's a texture path problem. Check the XML you used to build it. Make a very simple path, "Textures\Models\yourtexturename_de.dds" If it is NOT completely and utterly black like a black hole, and you can see small details, such as light, or a small detail from your texture, then it is a normals problem. Typically, this means that you do not have a _ns file to accompany your _de file. If this is not the case, then it is possible that you have flipped normals (polygons) somewhere.

 

Is there a way to export the havok custom collision meshes from blender ?
so I can make custom furniture like parts .

I am way old Max user , but i have been looking for a good reason to fully convert to blender this year .

 

Yes there is, though it is somewhat annoying to set up.

What you will need is:

Blender (pretty sure latest version will work fine)
Softimage Mod Tool 7.5
Havok Content Tools 2012 2.0.1

Softimage may be somewhat hard to locate a download for, as Autodesk has stopped supporting and distributing it, but I think that ModDB has a link.

[Note]: install both havok and softimage as either 32 or 64 bit, if you mix the installs it probably won't work properly.

First install Softimage Mod Tool. Once you have installed it, locate the addons folder and copy the directory path. After that is done, Install Havoc Content Tools. when it gets to the 'choose components' section, scroll down to the Xsi section and select it. Continue until it gets to the screen where its asking you for the Xsi installation directory. Paste the directory path you copied earlier here. If you selected every version of Xsi, you will have to paste this several times.

Once that is all done you can hop over to blender, and make a collision mesh. Export it as .fbx 6.1 ascii etc. In my experience you do not need to set the scale of collision meshes to 100 when exporting from Blender.

After you have exported it, open up Softimage Mod Tools. Go to File->Crosswalk->Import fbx and import the mesh you made. Once it is in, highlight it and go to the Havok toolbar and click the 'create rigid body' button. Once that is completed, click the export and process scene button. It will bring up a window that is very similar to the one on the collision model tutorial. Enter in the filters as the tutorial says, and then hit 'run configuration'

After that is done, you just make your mwm file as usual, and plunk it along side the .hkt in the models folder.

Assuming you did everything right and no gremlins are angry with you, you should have a functioning collision mesh. I have used this method to generate stuff for my mods so it works. But I have also had very strange situations where adding new blocks forces ones which had previously worked in a mod to break. It could be just bugs in SE, or who knows.

 

Softimage Mod Tool 7.5 << i already tried to get that a while back .

as soon as l click in the perspective view the stupid app crashes .

i have Max 2009 , and havok 2010 , i could update my havok i think 2011 is still working with max 2009.

"Assuming you did everything right and no gremlins are angry with you," << all the time things clash . I have all my own dev tools on this rig for my own games making.

my tool chain often messes things up . LOL

i will try xsi again , as i see it was 32 bit and it tried to install to the 64 bit folder.

na it did not work " failed to save scene before system failure" or some crap . LOL

>> i just want to free from Max . LOL too much $$ to keep it up when blender can do almost all i need . LOL <<

 

Well, you didn't really do everything right if you are using havok 2010. My only suggestion if you are unwilling to install the proper versions for fear of messing other things up is to set up a VM and do it in there.

That is if you are dead set on using blender, there are other options, which people more versed in them will probably be happy to explain.

 

I had a lil problem with a custom model... You guessed which one.
The texture appears here and there. Some edges show their true colors.
At first it looked like something that was mentioned here:

But I checked all the normals and they look fine. I tried using a _ns file, the fake_ns, and it didnt change anything.

I replaced

Code:

<Parameter Name="NormalTexture">Textures\Models\fake_ns.dds</Parameter>

with

Code:

<Parameter Name="NormalTexture" />

and copied Textures\Models\fake_ns.dds as Textures\Models\Cubes\large_rotor_ns.dds
And it produced some interesting result: it worked!

EDIT4: cleaning

 

Greetings,i have the same problem,what is the name of your _de or _me texture?
It seems like i have something wrong with .xml,so all my models are black with signs of light.

 

Ok, here is the full version of the blackish-with-some-light problem:
I'm not sure why but somehow the game failed to load the normal texture properly if it had not the same base file name as the diffuse texture, or not the same folder, or something. I don't even know what is the actual trigger :/
I had this problem when working on my first mod. Since then, I applied my workaround for each and every thing I made, therefore I had no opportunity to test it further nor to check if the problem was still here and the fix still relevant. Reading your post, I guess it still is.

Whatever, here are the cases I encountered at the time:

Example of bad: (no normal texture)

Code:

<ParameterName="Texture">Textures\Models\Cubes\large_rotor_de.dds</Parameter>

Another example of bad: (filenames don't match ; note: ingame resulting glitch will probably differ from the previous example)

Code:

<ParameterName="Texture">Textures\Models\Cubes\large_rotor_de.dds</Parameter>
<ParameterName="NormalTexture">Textures\Models\fake_ns.dds</Parameter>

Example of good:

Code:

<ParameterName="Texture">Textures\Models\Cubes\large_rotor_de.dds</Parameter>
<ParameterName="NormalTexture">Textures\Models\Cubes\large_rotor_ns.dds</Parameter>

or, equivalently:

Code:

<ParameterName="Texture">Textures\Models\Cubes\large_rotor_de.dds</Parameter>
<ParameterName="NormalTexture" />

If you do not have a custom normal texture suited for your diffuse texture, just make a copy of Textures\Models\fake_ns.dds

 

As i said in another thread, i'm using many things like this:

Code:

<Parameter Name="Texture">Textures\WSC_support_statue_sign_de.dds</Parameter>
<Parameter Name="NormalTexture">Textures\WSC_blank_ns.dds</Parameter>

in my mods, so not having a _ns and _de/_me texture with the same name is not a problems. I can't say for sure, but this bug is more probably coming from placing the files in different folders.

 

I tried everything said here but it`s still black with shading.
What is the path below (or above,don`t know how to say) the textures folder?
Steam\SteamApps\Common\SpaceEngineers?
Or can it be caused by cyrrillic letters in path?

 

I'm getting the same problem as WandererTom. Except instead of white shading, I'm getting an off-red type shading. The solution provided by Nilat isn't working for me, either.

However, unlike WandererTom, my install uses only English letters in the path (no idea if that could be related).

UPDATE

Ok, I've made progress on the whole "black with colors of texture" thing as in my above picture (as well as other people's posts).

The problem is degenerate faces. If you have any in your model, it will throw shade your model black for some reason.

Solution (sort of):

1. Use a batch script to launch the MWMBuilder, rather than just running it normally. Pheonix84 has a pretty good setup on that. My only edit is to add "pause" (no quotes) on an extra line after "popd". This will cause MWMBuilder to run, but keeps the window open (there's probably better ways to do this). If any degenerate faces are listed in the window (yellow text), you'll know that's the problem.

2. Fixing them is simple; finding them is annoying. If you use CryEngine, you've already got tools for this. If you don't, you might want to consider searching up CryBlend or installing the CryEngine ; both of these offer a one-button system for selecting degenerate faces (both are free; just use the CryTools from the freeSDK rather than the paid EaaS). There may be other solutions, but I am not aware of them.

3. Once done, save/re-export/run MWMBuilder. The object should be fine now.