Hi. I'm new and in love with Unity. But I got stuck yesterday and I can't seem to get unstuck.
The Situation: I'm working my way through the online manual. I am also new to Blender (using version 2.56 beta) and I'm working through its manual too (I kind of go back and forth as needed).
As I read Unity's manual, I'm getting that I should be able to set up a really cool work flow thus: I save my Blender mesh directly to my assets folder; the mesh automatically appears in my Project View; if I then wish to edit the mesh, I double-click it in the Project View and it opens the mesh in Blender for editing.
If this is possible then I am epic failing.
The Problem: First I tried exporting my Blender file as .fbx because I thought I had read something about that earlier. My mesh shows up properly in the Project View; and everything works... Until I double-click it in the Project View to make Blender open it - nothing happens. So I try manually opening it with Blender and I get an error message that says, "I made that file, but I can't open it now because it's .fbx. I hate you."
So next, instead of exporting the mesh as .fbx, I try saving it to the asset folder as a .blend file. This makes it appear in the Project View; and when I double-click it, it opens for editing in Blender (hurray!), but Unity displays it with a piece-of-paper icon; and when I try to drag it into the Hierarchy View, I get the Ghostbusters circle with a cross through it.
I search Google and Youtube for "Unity" and "Blender" together, and all of them talk about exporting as .fbx, which works, but leaves me unable to edit stuff after exporting (I hope this isn't the solution, because it makes me feel as if I have to buy 3d Studio Max or Maya to get an efficient workflow).
The Manual:
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-importObject.html - "Unity can read .FBX, .dae, .3DS, .dxf and .obj files, so if your program can export to this format you're home free."
"Okay," I think, "Maybe I should try another file format." But then I read this:
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-ImportObjectBlender.html - "To get started, save your .blend file in your project's Assets folder. When you switch back into Unity, the file is imported automatically and will show up in the Project View. To see your model in Unity, drag it from the Project View into the Scene View. If you modify your .blend file, Unity will automatically update whenever you save."
This seems to contradict the first, by saying I can work directly with .blend files. So I think, "Maybe I should try tweaking the Asset's Component Properties to get Unity to recognize it."
My Options
I've tried to solve this on my own, but I've spent so much time on it; and I'm now facing a crossroads; so I thought I'd ask which path to take (or maybe I'm overlooking a path):
1) Keep trying to make .blend files open in Unity.
2) Keep trying to make Blender open .fbx files (I don't think it's possible, even if it created them).
3) Try out other file formats; and see if I can find one that Unity recognizes as valid, and that Blender can re-open. (I'm leaning toward this one)
Thanks so much in advance.