BLENDER INSTALLATION AND CUSTOMIZATION: "HELLO GROUND!"

For the Blender installation (remember that we are working with Windows) start blender-2.41-windows.exe. Accept the defaults. It's a very easy installation.

After the installation you need to customize Blender to work for BCG (Blender-Croquet-GIMP). Very simple.

When we create a 3D model using Blender we can save it like a .BLEND file. But, for BCG, the models need to be in a main file having the extension .ASE and some others. We will need to export our Blender models to BCG using the script: CROQUET_Export_1.1x.py .

IMPORTANT: This exporter was created by Doc Holiday for conversions of meshes to be used at mods of the game "Unreal". We did some modifications in the code to be used for BCG. It only accepts static meshes, not animations - like we will see in the tutorials. It's not an "universal exporter" from Blender to .ASE. Our modified version can not work for other softwares, only for Croquet. All the merits of the exporter need to be creditized to Doc, not for us. Thanks Doc.

You have this exporter in the BCGkit and only need to move it to the folder: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender\scripts:

In the BCGkit there are a file: ground.blend. Drag to creat a short-cut in the desktop. Rename it to be: BCG Blender:

IMPORTANT TIP: Create a copy (having another name), inside the same BCGkit folder, of this file ground.blend. It's very common the undesirable modification of this file, when you are doing your islands. If this occurs, you can recuperate your "original" file. DO IT NOW!!!!

Clicking in this icon on the desktop, will open a copy of Blender customized to present a Ground that will be used for the creation of BCG worlds.

To test if the Croquet exporter is working, select:

The "Scripts Window" appears below (replacing the "Buttons Window"). And you can see the exporter where all is OK/VALID (I hope)!

Don't do anything more. You can close Blender. It was only a test.

We will present many tutorials about the use of Blender for the creation of BCG islands, but you can find some collections of tutorials about Blender at:

1 - Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

2 - the official Blender site

A great source for informations about Blender is the Elysiun Forum

And don't forget to make a "Google" search using: Blender Tutorials (more than 1,000.000 pages!). 


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