SWF Export for Blender

volcaino · Post by **volcaino** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:32 am

I know that the wish list for blender is a mile long a growing every day, but i thought that I'd throw an idea out there and see what happens.

What would be the feasability of adding a SWF (Flash) exporter to blender?

Maybe something like Swift 3D does for (dare i blaspheme in this forum by speaking it's name) 3ds max?

What are peoples thoughts?

kattkieru · Post by **kattkieru** » Thu Jan 09, 2003 9:00 pm

It's more than possible -- really, it's just a matter of taking the public file format spec and writing out animations, frame by frame. One bright spark already added Quicktime support, and flash support will be only marginally more difficult for its first incarnation.

Basically, all you'd need to do to flashterize a frame is take the screen coordinates of the vertices on the images and make flash polygons by seaming together blender triangles. This can produce simple, flat-shaded animations. The next step is adding lighting (either through flash gradients or by subdividing polys at light-lines. The final step would be optimizing, getting as few points per poly while keeping the same great look.

Of course, this is all theorhetical...

kattkieru · Post by **kattkieru** » Thu Jan 09, 2003 9:00 pm

It's more than possible -- really, it's just a matter of taking the public file format spec and writing out animations, frame by frame. One bright spark already added Quicktime support, and flash support will be only marginally more difficult for its first incarnation.

Basically, all you'd need to do to flashterize a frame is take the screen coordinates of the vertices on the images and make flash polygons by seaming together blender triangles. This can produce simple, flat-shaded animations. The next step is adding lighting (either through flash gradients or by subdividing polys at light-lines. The final step would be optimizing, getting as few points per poly while keeping the same great look.

Of course, this is all theorhetical...

wavk · Post by **wavk** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 3:42 pm

Take a look at this:

http://www.angelfire.com/nt/teklord/swfexport.htm

It's not very usable, but it shows it's possible.

Have fun,

Wybren van Keulen
Funny Farm

volcaino · Post by **volcaino** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 10:27 am

Well i've taken the script provided above and started working on making it a bit more usable.

I've gotten it to work under Blender 2.26, which is a start. Hopefully I (and anyone else who wants to help developing it) can make it into something really cool

If anyone is interested on how the development is going currently and/or wants to help, just post a reply on this thread.

Volcaino

http://www.detourtheband.com

Riskbreaker · Post by **Riskbreaker** » Mon Mar 10, 2003 6:34 am

How goes it with the export script, Volcaino?

Have you taken it past the wireframe limit yet?

volcaino · Post by **volcaino** » Mon Mar 10, 2003 8:55 am

Hey Riskbreaker

I was beginning to think that no-one cared about it and was about to give it up.

I haven't past the wireframe yet, but I will. Here's a list of things that i have done to it though. I've definitely made progress, that's for sure

Change Log:

* GUI Started
* Mesh is optimised ie. duplicated lines are removed
* Camera settings from scene are used (but still needs some work)
* Meshes don't have to be hard coded into the script
* Edit window is updated to reflect current frame being exported
* Once export is complete, scene returns to current frame
* Supports Multiple objects
* Runs under Blender 2.26

Still To Do:

* Make script faster (it's slower than the original at the moment cause of the optimisation)
* Export something a little more useful than the complete wireframe mesh
* Use camera location & rotation (partially completed)
* Complete GUI

A lot of the code i've completely re-written, and a lot more still to write. Keep up the encouragement people, there's more motivation for me to complete this thing if i know that people actually want it

For the moment, the script still requires Bukoo to be installed like the original script, but i'm trying to think up an easier installation solution. We'll just have to wait and see how that goes.

Volcaino

http://www.detourtheband.com

heli · Post by **heli** » Wed Mar 12, 2003 12:48 pm

volcaino wrote: For the moment, the script still requires Bukoo to be installed like the original script, but i'm trying to think up an easier installation solution. We'll just have to wait and see how that goes.

hello volcaino,

maybe you can use ming (http://ming.sourceforge.net/) instead of Bukoo. Would be great since then also linux users can export to swf

this would be a cool feature for all blender users

bye
heli

volcaino · Post by **volcaino** » Wed Mar 12, 2003 8:27 pm

Hey there Heli,

I looked at Ming originally, but couldn't get it to compile with the Python extensions on Windows. However, I will be looking at this again later on down the track when I get the code in the Python script sorted out.

As far as a Linux version of the export script goes - that is already planned once I get a descent way through the windows version. The linux version will probably be using Ming.

Rock on!!!

Volcaino

www.detourtheband.com

wavk · Post by **wavk** » Fri Mar 14, 2003 12:16 pm

Please don't stop! SWF export would ROCK!

Shifter · Post by **Shifter** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 9:04 pm

Sounds very good. I´d really like to see it work.

Macromedia just released information on the Flash-6 Standard.

Go here to get it.
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flas ... ileformat/

Shifter.

Riskbreaker · Post by **Riskbreaker** » Sun Mar 23, 2003 11:55 am

ooohhh its getting interesting!!!

Give us an update when you can

odyssey · Post by **odyssey** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 8:14 pm

Volcaino, et al ..

This is excellent work. A Blender based SWF would be fantastic !

; next it should be an a render output available from right inside the Blender app.

Dunno what I (we) could do to help; but just ask.

Cheers

thorax · Post by **thorax** » Tue Apr 01, 2003 12:00 pm

volcaino wrote:Hey there Heli,

I looked at Ming originally, but couldn't get it to compile with the Python extensions on Windows. However, I will be looking at this again later on down the track when I get the code in the Python script sorted out.

I've been looking closely at using Ming in PHP to generate
flash content, but it seems in windows it doesn't completely work, for
one the "fdb" files will send Apache into a memory eating infinite loop..

xype · Post by **xype** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 11:06 am

I think they might help you with the code - they would probably be very interested in an OpenSource 3D package that exports SWF files..

Blender.org

SWF Export for Blender

SWF Export for Blender

Maybe contact Macromedia