1 Blender to dpm, a mini tutorial
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4 Pre-required tools and reading
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7 - Go here - http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Blender#Installation and download the export script.
8 - Rig / Animate as outlined here - http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Animation_in_Blender.
9 - Only works with Blender 248a -- 249b (2.50 is a no go).
14 - Select your mesh and armature, export as smd. select Static Mesh. You only need to re-export this smd if the mesh or the rig change.
15 - Now export as Animation Sequence. Preferably you have one track (and smd file) per animation. name it so you know what it is (modelname_attack1.smd for example).
16 - You could possibly use the “Animation Sequence ( ALL )” or “All…” options, but I haven’t tried so i cant say if it works.
21 - dpmodel needs and a text file telling it how to bake the mesh and animation(s) into a dpm. This text file should look something like:
24 # save the model as model.dpm
26 # move the model this much before saving
28 # rotate the model 90 degrees around vertical
30 # scale the model by this amount, 0.5 would be half size and 2.0 would be double size
32 # load the mesh file, this is stored into the dpm as frame 0
34 # Each following (if any) smd's are animations
35 scene model_action1.smd fps 30
36 scene model_action2.smd fps 30
39 - Place all smd’s and the text file in the same place, execute `dpmodel whatever_you_named_that_text_file`. If all goes well you should now have a working dpm (and .framegroups file if its animated)
44 - Your mesh needs to have a material assigned to it. The name of the material is what dp will look for to use as texture/shader on the model/mesh/es.
45 - Blender exports what you got selected. make sure you have the relevant (and only the relevant) objects selected.
46 - If export script fail with a encoding error, open it in a text editor and remove the whole top comment block (lines starting with \#). There’s an illegal character in there according to pyton. I haven’t bothered to check closer witch one it could be.