Exporting to OBJ with materials included
kenmo
Posts: 986
I am having a lot of difficulty exporting BLEND files to OBJ with textures and materials included.
When exporting I do select to include materials and COPY as the path mode.
It appears to be hit or miss.
I do realize that Blender can not export Blender's shaders without going through the very convuloted and tedious baking routine.
o it is not shaders I am asking about.
I can't remember having this issue with earlier versions of Blender 3.X having this problem.
I am using Blender version 3.6 LTE and have tried various releases of Blender 4 with the same problems.
Is there a good addon that exports OBJs with textures and materials?
And PLEASE do not recommend FBX format. I have nothing but issues with FBX in Vue.
Any mentioining of I should used FBX I will take as trolling. So please do not.
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Comments
As I know it, obj will only export the basic textures if you use the principled shader for materials, any other shader setup can't be exported.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/3.6/addons/import_export/node_shaders_info.html
obj is not a blender to daz bridge and never referenced all maps correctly btw. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/9190856
As you are asking for addons, there is a blender to daz bridge addon on blender market or hivemarket or whatever its called now
it will only work on the blender principled bsdf shader, so as you say you need to bake any complex shaders down to textures
I realize this. However I when I exxport to an OBJ I and check off all the susggested fields (see my attached screen capture above) i get the .MAT file but no image textures.
I was not posting about the Blender to Daz Bridge. I was asking about exporting from Blender as an OBJ and when I select the recommended fields and settings to include image textures, I only get the .MAT file.
Just tried a simple cube with the diffuse texture and works fine here. You may check the mtl file to see if textures are included, the path can be either relative or absolute I tried both.
p.s. Unless you expect the obj exporter to embed textures or collect them for you that of course is not gonna happen. Eventually you can pack then unpack if this is what you want.
file > external data > pack/unpack
My .MAT files do not reference any textures or any path to textures liked they did when I used earlier versions of Blender that gave two options for exporting OBJS. One was legacy export to OBJ which I always used and worked flawlessly. This option is no longer available in newer versions of Blender.
And FBX is a no go. Does not work properly importing into DAZ, Vue or Modo and a hit or miss with 3D Coat.
The material file is not "mat" but "mtl", then 3.6 includes both the legacy and new obj exporter, if you don't get it then reinstall blender. I tried the obj exporters in 3.6 and 4.4 and they all work fine for me so I have no idea what you may miss. Below my options.
p.s. It may be that you move the obj file after it has been exported, then if you save as relative path be sure to move the textures along, or use absolute path.
Mistake on my part. I meant MTL file. Not feeling the best today, having some health issues. When I open up the .MTL file in notepad, there is no reference to the diffuse, normal, bump, etc maps. yet the original file has image textures applied. Even models I have created in Blender and UVMapped in 3DCoat (using the Blender/3DC addon) I can exchange the model from Blender to 3DC and back to Blender with any texturing I've done in 3DC. If I export as an OBJ from Blender there are no textures most of the time. If I import from 3DC as OBJ it does include the textures which I can not import the model with textures into Vue or Daz. When I export from Blender and import into Vue or Daz there are no textures. It is a Blender issue.
If there's no textures in the mtl file it is likely that you didn't use the principled shader, or didn't plug the texture directly, as already referenced above. I see no other reason why this should happen. Again works fine here on my side I can export textures from blender to daz studio, so it has to be something you're missing but no idea what apart as already explained above.
As I said above, I mostly use 3DCoat to texture my models, even the ones I modeled in Blender. When I export from 3DC and import into Blender the textures appeal.
Yet when I export the same model from Blender they do not.
Well if you can share a simple blender scene which doesn't export I can check if it works on my side and let you know what I find. Please as simple as possible.
You mentioned you use the "Copy" method for materials when exporting from Blender. With that method, I believe the textures assigned to your materials need to be in the same directory as the model upon export. However, if your mtl file that is generated does not at least contain the names of the textures, then something went wrong there. Copy will not copy the textures to where you export the files like it will for FBX export. They have to be there already. Try using AUTO or either ABSOLUTE or RELATIVE for the materials. Either that or copy the materials you know are attached to that model into the same folder as the .blend file before exporting the object. You'll need to change the paths of the materials in Blender after you do that to point to the new location, assuming they weren't in that same folder to begin with.
Thanks, I'll try that.