Blender Model Export and UV Texturing (Blender 2.6)

Here are the steps required for exporting a textured object from Blender3D to Panda3D.

1. Take a look at the user preferences under File→User Preferences….
2. Under the Input panel, notice that you can make is so that you Select With your left mouse button. By default you select with the right mouse button, which is quite unintuitive, so consider changing this.
3. Also, under this panel, you may want to choose Turntable as your Orbit Style, since that makes the 3D window work like a potter's wheel, keeping your objects steady on the horizontal plane as you rotate them.
4. When you are happy with how you have configured the Blender environment, use File→Save User Settings to make that configuration into the default configuration for Blender.

1. Download the ZIP archive of the latest version of the YABEE Panda Exporter on Google code.
2. Run Blender and from File→User Preferences… choose the Addons panel and click the Install Add-On button. Navigate to and select your downloaded ZIP archive.
3. Once Blender has processed the ZIP file you should see the exporter listed, but grayed out. Check the check-box next to it to activate it.
4. Now you can run the exporter from the Blender File→Export menu.

1. Select the cube (Left mouse button if you have changed the configuration, Right otherwise)
2. Name the selected object “Box” (press “n” for the “name” panel and type in “Box” under Item)
3. Now is a good time to save your Blender file, give it a name like “box.blend” and keep all your files for this model in the same folder
4. Switch to Edit Mode (The mode selector currently shows “Object Mode”)
5. Switch to Edge Select Mode (Three buttons on the bottom bar of the window: vertex, edges and polys)
6. Multi-select (hold SHIFT) the “seam” Edges of the Box (for a fold-out cube)
7. Mesh→Edges→Mark Seam
8. Split main window (Drag the upper right corner of the 3D window to the left, revealing a second copy of the 3D window)
9. Select the UV/Image Editor view for new window from the view selector in the lower left corner of window
10. Select your object again in the 3D view (press “a” twice to select the whole object)
11. 3D Window: Mesh→UV Unwrap→Unwrap (you should now see the fold-out texture from the cube appear in the right UV/Image window)
12. UV Window: UVs→Export UV Layout..

• And now you have a texture which you can edit in your favourite paint program (like GIMP, which is free!). Once you're done painting it, you can import it back into Blender like this:

1. UV Window: Image→Open Image (pick your file here and it is applied to your object)
2. To see it in the 3D Window, choose Draw Type: Textured from the Draw Type pop-up menu next to “Edit Mode”

1. Go into Object Mode and make sure your object is selected
2. Choose File→Export→Panda3D (.egg)
3. In the panel on the left, make sure to select Simple for the Tex. process and also check the UV as Texture. If you are keeping everything in the same folder, also uncheck the Copy texture files check box

• You can now load the model like any other model with loader.loadModel(“Box.egg”)