Importing 3D objects with texture maps?

[tbrummel]

I've been doing a bit with Chief and custom 3D objects (created in Blender).  This has been a lot of fun - here's a simple custom roof example I made for over a garage door:

 

However, I've noticed that dealing with materials and objects/symbols in Chief  is a bit "manual" and I'm wondering if I'm making life harder than it needs to be.

One big thing is importing custom 3D objects with materials -- I can get the base material color (usually called the Diffuse) to load but I can't get Chief to recognize and load the other material maps (sometimes called textures) such as the Normal Map, Roughness Map, etc.  I've tried different file formats to see if it matters but neither Collada (.dae) or Wavefront (.obj) seem to work.

 

I exported an OBJ from Blender complete with material maps (Diffuse, Normal, and Roughness).  You can see in the material file (sidecar file to the .obj file) that these are correctly specified (and they are in the same directory as the .obj).  Chief, however, only loads the Diffuse (base color) file -- the other slots in the material definition dbx in Chief are empty.  I have to go in and manually add each additional file I have for the material.  The material isn't accurate/complete without the other textures(maps) being loaded.

 

   

 

Am I missing something?  Is there a way to get Chief to load the objects along with ALL material files it uses?

 

[Renerabbitt]

1 hour ago, tbrummel said:

 

Am I missing something?  Is there a way to get Chief to load the objects along with ALL material files it uses?

Not missing anything, software isnt capable of importing automatically. This is common to many 3d and rendering softwares(I could name 10 off the top of my head). You have to go about it manually. Keep in mind also that chief does not handle complex symbols or large texture files that well. Happy to answer any questions if you tag me, I am one of the resident rendering artists. Also why blender for such a roof. Chief can do this type of roof easily?

[tbrummel]

22 hours ago, Renerabbitt said:

Also why blender for such a roof. Chief can do this type of roof easily?

 

Really?  The ways I'm aware of are: 1) create a room with invisible walls so you can have Chief create a roof over it.  or 2) Just draw a custom roof plane in mid air.

Those are fine -- but then I didn't see anything simple about getting the framing/structure for the roof that attaches it to the wall.  

 

I'm probably just more comfortable with Blender but I know Chief has some 3D primitives and you can model some stuff right in the program -- which I still need to play with before I can do a fair comparison and decide when I need to drop out of CA.  I'm modeling a garage lift (MohawkLifts.com) externally and I think I'll try to build that in CA directly as well so I can compare.

 

WRT textures/materials: I'm finding that modeling objects in Blender and importing them with textures is not really the best way to go for CA, in general.  Sure, it's great if you're modeling a custom piece of furniture or something where you really need fine control over texturing.  However, then the textures (materials in CA) are not usable for anything else (as they are baked UV specific).  Better to just import a model with material "slots" (so they can each receive different materials in CA) and then apply materials (making new materials, if needed -- as many stock are not PBR).  I did that for my roof now so it doesn't "own" any textures.  Much more generic/reusable (and less memory intensive as materials are reused).

 

 

 

[Kbird1]

17 hours ago, tbrummel said:

I didn't see anything simple about getting the framing/structure for the roof that attaches it to the wall.  

 

There are all sorts of Wall Brackets ( Knee Braces) in the Library eg. search Ranch , which I use for generic symbols but making you own is not hard either, then you can just set a General Framing member , sized as a Beam as need on top of them, and then draw a Roofplane instead of the short rafters seen below.

 

Chief has a 4 post lift ( and others) in the Garage Accessories Bonus Library..... maybe good enough?

 

Can't help ya with Blender, sorry   Rene is the goto guy here for Blender as a long time user of it...

 

 

 

@Renerabbitt

 

 

[Renerabbitt]

On 10/22/2021 at 4:48 PM, tbrummel said:

Those are fine -- but then I didn't see anything simple about getting the framing/structure for the roof that attaches it to the wall.

As Kbird shows, can be made using framing members quite easily. Multiple copy and the roof can be done in under a couple of minutes. Benefit is that all of these elements will be dynamic in chief, change the slop, change the framing sizes, change the fascia etc.