Blender 2.54 + Modo 401 = animation workflow (fbx+mdd)

Support Other Software
1

Hello,

in last week i discover how to bake cloth animation and import it to Modo 401. In the beginning i should say that if you export fbx + mdd directly to modo nothing will happen (empty result).

My solve of this problem is:

  1. i have done object (flag in this case) in Modo 401 then exported it to blender
  2. on imported flag in blender i applied cloth animation
  3. when animation was done i exported that mesh motion to *.mdd file in blender
  4. delete all effects (cloth & wind) in blender to have pure objects in blender with no motion
  5. apply *.mdd file to non animated object in BLENDER (not in Modo becouse you will have empty view)
  6. apply of *.mdd will reorganize your scene a bit in blender (thats good)
  7. now export objects form Blender 2.54 to Modo 401 by *.fbx file
  8. import fbx object to modo and apply mdd file on this object

This was final effect:

  1. http://www.youtube.com/multimediaadesign#p/u/0/6II21lpT_uE
  2. http://www.youtube.com/multimediaadesign#p/u/1/fEfIUqAs_Pk

Everything works fine and in near future i will try this “faking bake” way to bake fluids and export that animation to Modo 401. I heard about object sequence but i have no success with that.

I have one idea which not let me sleep well :wink: and maybe someone will help me.

I would like to export in the same way animation of particles and i`ve done in that way with no success:

  1. i`ve done 3 objects. 1- sphere, 2-cube, 3-plane. 1- sphere will be object which i replicate by particle emitter; 2- cube will be particle emitter; 3- plane will be collider to bounce my particle balls

  2. i set animation to be generated only in first frame becouse you may use mdd file only on objects which are on scene

  3. i baked all physics

  4. i seleced separately every object on scene and export mdd animation file. When i analyse size of files i found that mdd generated from sphere is 1MB size and the others has got only few KB. So i suppose that is my file which has got information about bouncing my balls ;). So now i have to find object which after apply of mdd file will generate baked animation of bouncing balls.

  5. i tried every configuration to apply of that with no result and i don`t know maybe i have to connect that particle balls in one object (in propeller way) to mdd works fine on it

Anybody knows exactly how works mdd file becouse i don`t know how to join that particles object to emulate bake of particles. I am sure if i join them in way of mesh how to see it mdd file than modify mesh by mdd mill work properly.

Anybody wants to help me to do something what is undone and be a person which bake particles in blender 2.54 :slight_smile: maybe you will be on encyclopedia or soemthing

best regards to all 3d maniacs :wink:

2

Wow, I was just thinking of doing this, because I want to take advantage of Modo’s lightning fast indirect lighting :slight_smile:

I’m curious though - I’m using a Mac build of blender 2.54 (on a MacBook Pro) and the export mdd option is greyed out. Is this a glitch of 2.54, or just the builds for Macs?

Overall, I really like the workflow, and maybe I’ll try it with 2.49, because I had the exact same problem with empty objects inside Modo when I applied the mdd. Also, the scaling became really screwed up, so maybe this fixes the problem.

3

Never mind. Just downloaded a newer version of blender and the mdd export works :wink: