Can Blender be used to model, animate, and export weapons into Half Life 2?

Support Basics & Interface
#1

I’ve searched all over the internet, and all I can find is unclear information, outdated conversations, half finished scripts… and lots of confusion.

I want to create a weapon complete with animations for Half Life 2, but I can’t afford any of the apps such as 3ds Max (which has plenty of info and tutorials for use with HL2 on the web…). I know XSI, which I think comes free with Half Life 2, is an option, but I’d rather not get into that. I’m already familiar with Blender, I can do all the modelling, texturing, and animating I would need, but I just have no idea how to get it into the Source engine.

So does anyone here have definitive information on whether or not this can currently be done with Blender, with or without scripts, external importers/exporters, etc…?

#2

Hello
while waiting for someone that really knows, I can tell you that the 3DS or OBJ exporters
work quite well (textures and animations)
Then, probably, the game engine will import those formats directly in to the game, or
you must use some “tool/script” ( free most of the times) to convert them to the
“good” file format…
And this is the best option, try to know exactly the file format that Half-life use for “models/meshs”, then check in the Blender’s exporter list or search for a “python” script/plugin
Bye
Bye

#3

Jason,

About a month ago, I spent a full week trying to figure out how to directly export .blender to half-life 2 + updated orange box engine. I did find a way that would’ve worked with the less-upgraded source engine, but with the updated tweaks to the engine in the orange box edition, no script I’ve found works.

At this moment, I’m going to personally try to export .blender to .xsi and then just use the xsi mod tool as an exporter, nothing more.

#4

Yes there is, I cannot remember who made it, but there is an SMD exporter for blender. Maybe it was the same people that made all those CannonFodder (sp?) tools for Source.

We (Faramix) used Source before we switched to UE3 and I used Blender for some modeling. Let me see if I can find my old toolset. I can tell you though, I had a hell of a time finding what I needed, it seems like the Source Engine isn’t being used by the mod community as heavily as it used to, all the tools I do have are old and outdated (but work).

EDIT: does this help at all?
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Is_Blender_3D_Good_for_Source/How_to_Start

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Modeling_props_with_Blender

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=103724

#5

This link will explain the bits you need to get your model into the engine although animation, jiggle bones and multiple textures are a whole lot harder…

So far I’ve got a camera and desert eagle into Garrys mod but only as static props with a physics mesh…

Sadly I love blender to bits but Im moving to 3DS and Im just going to buy a license :confused: theres just not enough scripts and its too much hassle…

I love modelling and Its a great hobby and something I take pride in and blender is the best software in the world but I cant code for monkeys! :frowning:

http://www.dvondrake.com/tutorials/modeling-for-source-in-blender