Importing Lightwave objects

Has anyone actually been able to import objects from lightwave using the FBX Exporter and have the texture automatically applied to the material?

I’ve tried it a number of different ways without any success. It seems that you always have to manually reapply the textures within Unity.

I’d like to know know if anyone as actually been able to get it to work.

thanks!

I’ve never seen it not work. From which application are you exporting?

Oops. Just saw the subject.

You need to have the texture in your project folder at the same time or before importing the mesh.

It sometimes helps to place the texture next to the mesh or in the “Textures” Folder next to the mesh.

So you are saying you have actually witnessed this working. :slight_smile:

  1. export from lightwave using FBX Exporter

  2. place textures in a textures folder next to the mesh

  3. import object in Unity

  4. the texture is automatically applied to the material

I’ve pretty much done all this without any luck. If it does infact work, then i’ll keep working on it.

Any Lightwave guys out there had any luck with this?

OK, I’ve tried it every way possible that i can think of including how the HOW TO recomends and it just doesn’t work. could it be considered a bug that it does not work?

Could someone varify that it is possible?

The reson i’m trying to figure this out is because I have a scene with over a hundred textures that i need to get into Unity. I’m not looking forward to reattaching all the textures inside Unity.

help!

If you send me the fbx file the lightwave exports i can take a look and see if the lightwave exporter is broken or if unity is getting it wrong.

Did you try all the export settings in the exporter? Like embed textures in fbx file?

Yep… Tried that. How do i send you a file? Also do you just need the exported FBX Object and the texture?

I’ve semplified my testing down to a single polygon and a UV map texture with no luck. I can send these 2 files to you if thats what you need.

thanks!

Yes please send those two files.
Use Report Bug.app and attach the two files.

it is done… thanks for looking into this!

FWIW, this has never worked for me either but I haven’t had scenes with enough texture complexity for it to bug me. Would be really cool if it was fixed though.

Just out of curiosity, if the exporter is set to embed the texture in the FBX file, can Unity be set up to load the texture from the FBX? Or by “embed” does it mean, “embed a reference”?

Russ

It turned out to be a bug in the lightwave fbx exporter.

Since Alias isn’t updating the Lightwave FBX exporter much any more, I added a workaround. This will be in the next Unity release.

It doesn’t surprise me, LWs FBX exporter looks like a hack, but it works. Thanks for the workaround!

I’d just like to say i am really impressed with the responsiveness of bug issues from OTEE!

I’ve been working with the trial version of Unity and have come accross 2 bugs. one with Unity and one with the FBX Exporter. Both issues have been addressed and i still have 5 days left in my trial period. That’s impressive!

Thanks Joachim!

So now i have to ask. Will the next release be available for me to test this import workaround before my trial period (5 days) is up? :lol:

The next release is a bit further down. But i have sent you a patch to test if the fix i did works for you.

I am in awe of your brilliance!

I’ll look for the patch.

Just an update on this issue…

Unfortunately this was not solvable. Apparently the Lightwave FBX exporter has a bug that does not assign textures to materials correctly.

Exported Lightwave FBX objects come into Unity fine and Unity will create Materials fine even if you have multiple textures/UV’s per mesh. You just have to reapply all your textures to the appropriate materials within Unity.

I’m adding this to the forums because there’re some discrepancies in other posts as well as the HOW-TO on importing from Lightwave. Hopefully this will save some of the new Lightwave/Unity users a number of hours trying figure this out.

I’ve been really impressed with Unity. Hopefully a seamless workflow from Lightwave to Unity will be addressed in future updates.

I followed the link from the How To page, and I don’t see the plugin.

Has Alias removed the download? Is there any other way I can use Unity?

TIA!

i have the one that works with lw8.5. anyone know if autod made it illegal to distribute? if not, i’ll post it…

one big question is will the fbx plug still work in lw9? got to admit i’m a bit nervous on that one.

I’d love to get my hands on it if I can stay on the right side of the law :stuck_out_tongue: --was there a readme with it?

no read me. not even a eula in the installer.

otee - it’s your party. any reason you don’t want me to post the plug in?