Hi everyone,
I was looking into a decent modelling / animation tool to do the CGI part’s of a project. Blender is out because it seems (could be wrong) you can’t import .FBX files, Shade 3D came up and I’ve not really seen much on it. To be honest it looks awesome for what it is anyone using it?
Just saw a demo, it looks pretty impressive:
Never used shade 3D so I can’t comment on that.
There is however a branch of Blender that has an fbx importer/exporter
http://graphicall.org/blender/?keywords=bratwurst
( not sure how legal it is considering fbx is a closed format owned by Autodesk.) From what I remember reading a while back there should be an fbx converter on the autodesk website, but you’d lose all non modeling/uv info since it converts it to an obj.
The Blender bratwurst branch relies at Assimp, a library for format exchange. It is not illegal. Even when i remember that there were some license issues. But it is incomplete and abandoned.Good news: The Blender Devs finally works at an official FBX importer. Campbell has started to develop it. It is already in one of the branches. Let`s hope that this official FBX importer will be final soon.
Good to know Tiles. I wasn’t too sure about what I said, since I don’t use Blender at all 
I’ve moved on from Blender.
Blender’s Z-up issue is workable when models are static but I’ve couldn’t figure out how to transfer from Zup into GP3D’s Yup… when moving objects… I did get a projectile shooting in the right direction… but forgot how to lay it out on blender… so in the end it’s not worth the hassle! (not using unity3d).
Maybe when blender add Yup support then I’ll go back to it.
So I’ve moved on… I’ve started modeling in ‘Shade3D for Unity’, it’s a free, includes modeling, texturing, 3D Printing, rigging and animation. From the same people that make poser.
And has a good FBX importer/exporter, but I need to convert it dae via the Autodesk converter, i’m guessing it’s using 2014 SDK.
Unfortunately, this means i’m booting between windows and linux 
Still, I’d rather that then go through the head F*#&K of Zup!
It’s doesn’t use the keyboard much and not as flexible/configurable… the Translation/Rotation/Scale are all on the 3d cursor/widget.
It’s clunky at first but has good help files and has scripting support
If anyone is having problems with blender’s Zup… i suggest looking at this and put blender behind you
Oh it has a weird purchase/license process to get it.
http://www.mirye.net/shade-3d-for-unity-overview
Or under you, as the case may be.
Honestly, the coordinate system is such an arbitrary thing, I can’t imagine anyone dismissing a tool for having a different convention for what direction is “up.” You just get used to (1) rotating things by hand before export, or (2) rotating things automatically in the export/import settings. If your mind is confused about general cartesian space, switching tools isn’t going to change that.
Thanks for all your help everyone, I’m trialing shade for now. Looking forward to see how it turns out…
With Z up, you tell an object in my C++ engine to go up (Y+) and it goes backwards etc.
I’ve tried all the options on FBX, DAE options… I spent nearly two full days on this…
It’s nice that unity 3d does the conversion but the engine i’m using it doesn’t.
Shade just works, the fbx files are well created
Only issue I’m finding with Shade is the lack of tutorials, apart from that it’s far easier to get around than blender…