As I am currently an university student, any amount will be greatly appreciated (and will most likely be used for beer fueled coding binges, which translates into more features for the exporter)
A project for updating the Giants Engine I3D exporter addon for blender 2.8
There is an existing exporter for blender supplied by Giants, but this isn't officially supported for newer blender versions and the code is outdated. The support from Giants themselves has also been lackluster and this project aims to supply a new addon with support and features driven by community feedback.
Current Priorities listed in order
- Create a new addon, upholding standards put forth by both blender and python pep-8, that has a minimum of the same features as the currently available addon
- Keep addon up to date with new version of Farming Simulator and Blender.
- Add community requested features.
- Python 3.7
- PEP8-80 compliant (to the extent that it is possible)
- Blender 2.83
- Almost ready for the first release. Ironing out stability issues.
The Releases page contains all releases starting from v0.10.0, which is the first properly tagged release. If a release starts targetting a higher blender version, then the prior version will be 'frozen' as the version for the previous version of blender. Features will not be backported, upgrade your blender instead. All of these releases are packaged as blender expects them and should be installed just like any other addon for blender.
If you wish to fork the repository and play around with the code, then you need to put the git repository somewhere and symlink the "addon/i3dio" folder into your version of blenders addon folder.
It is probably also worth mentioning that this addon is NOT linux/mac compatible. It could become it, but I have not given that any thought since the Giants Engine is not running on anything but windows anyway.
As the exporter addon is currently in a pre-release stage, many of the features aren't really that well-documented apart from some internal documentation shared between testers. The wiki is currently the best 'public' place to get information. It doesn't have everything yet, but the plan is that in time it is gonna be the only place you need to visit to get started with using this addon to create your fs-mods in blender.
This has mostly been a solo project so far, but any help is appreciated. In case of wanting to join, the following knowledge is required:
- Git version control
- Knowledge of Python 3
- Knowledge of Blender 2.8
- Angular Commit Guidelines
The repository is running CI using Github Actions. The current release process is that anything pushed into the master will generate a new release using semantic-release, which determines the next build version from the commit history (presuming that people follow angular style of commits) It will then change the build version in the __init__.py and upload a tagged release of this build.
If you need help with the addon in any way, the following channels are available:
- Issue Tracker: If you come across any bugs or have a suggestion for a new feature, please post them here.
- Wiki: The wiki will eventually contain information on all the features of the exporter
- VertexDezign Discord: There is an official support channel available for the exporter. For general questions etc.
- Redphoenix Youtube Showcase: Redphoenix has been to kind to create a youtube video showing all of the most important features
- Redphoenix Youtube Full Tutorial: Redphoenix has also created a complete walkthrough of exporting a model through the addon
I can also be reached in several other places, I am not hard to find through my nickname. But please keep exporter related support to the official channels listed here. So it might come in handy for anyone else with the same problem.
Required reading for contributors.
Tips and trick from Blender.org
Blender.org Changes from 2.79 to 2.8
More Source information available at Blender.org
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
Copyright 2004 (C) GIANTS Software GmbH, Confidential, All Rights Reserved.