IO-Guru makes importing and exporting objects as easy as a single click. This add-on also makes batch import and export possible with single clicks or shortcuts. Just set how you want your objects to be exported and never worry about it again, no more going through menus, paths. This add-on will make you save real production time.
Another sexy feature is being able to paste objects right into Blender from your file browsers. Do you need to import an object or many objects into Blender? Just paste it. Or use a batch import file via the add-on panel. The import process is format agnostic and fairly transparent, you can import many objects with different formats at once either via pasting or batch import.
All your export settings are permanent in your scene, so once you set it up you do not need to worry about it again.
See the FORMATS.txt for all the custom options you can use for the exporters.
Install
Either uncompress the provided zip yo your ad-dons folder or use “Install add-n from File” in the “Add-ons” tab in your preferences window.
The add-on provides two main panels, one for objects and one for scene wide operations which are the batch operations (including pasting). If you want to export selected objects, the panel will be listed under the object properties. Please find the batch operations under scene properties tab, if you need scene wide batch export or pastes/imports
You need a way to copy full file paths to clipboard. This can be easily done on Windows 10 with “Ctrl-Shift-Right click” in the file explorer on files, see the demonstration GIF below. Choose “copy as path”. Please refer to your OS help for similar functionality, or find an application that would let you do that. On linux applications like Double Commander can be a help with that (Ctrl-Shift-C).
Hello Kkar. Do your add on allow to reimport an fbx file?
I’m searching for a way to link/reference an fbx file. In archviz field, it’s common to make changes to the files, sometimes in the rendrering process.
I mean :
for example build a house in Revit export it as fbx file
import the fbx file into Blender for rendering
make a few change like moving objects, new shader etc in Blender
make a few changes in Revit and reexport - replace the first fbx file
Reload the fbx file into blender without destroying the changes made like shaders etc.
If no, do you plan to include such a featue?
Some softwares like Lumion, Twinmotion even 3dsmax can doo it very well.
You can import FBX using the add-on couple ways, either you can just paste it or prepare a simple batch text file for the add-on which can be used to import easily and repeatedly. You can assign shortcuts to these functions also. See the demos in the first post.
At the moment, it is not designed to be bidirectional exchange like you described. I believe that is possible and it can be integrated into the add-on. I need to see some project files, screenshots etc to see the extend of the needs.
I have some plans for more extended features. One of them was to have a similar panel for imports per object as well, what you want is similar in that fashion. I just need to keep more data tracking points per object.
It is using the defaults at the moment. I will provide custom export options in the next release soon. Basically you will be feeding some text export flags per object. And the batch exporter will respect those. I just do not wan to replicate all the export options for all the exporters etc in a single panel.
Until then, all those options can be overwritten in the library py in a text editor. However that is a global solution naturally.
As far as the Unity coordinates goes, I can look into adding an option to export the object in some flipped mode, however I need to have more information about what that flipping is in Unity.
I am hoping to release the next version sometime in the coming week.
Custom export to Unity / Unreal with flags would be great, although I think that it would be the most usable if we could add flags to many objects at once, of course. Or maybe even better solution would be something like FBX Bundle does: a global export presets (because we usually work with one export-import software pair at one time).
There are some export add-ons already, but each of them has its own flaws. It would be great to have “an ultimate” solution
(for example B2U exports static meshes, lights and cameras to Unity, but if you want to import skeletal meshes, they import at different scale and do not work with the rest of the scene imported by B2U). Blender for Unreal add-on needs you to select objects to export one by one, which is cumbersome, etc. Ideal export add-on would be as automatic as possible, without gathering too much user attention and providing info what is being exported and in which location, either is a single model or many different assets at once or the entire scene, if it is possible. It would also give options for exporting assets in a single file or separate files, maybe renaming opstions (like separate prefixes needed by Unreal). Those are just loose thoughts, I haven’t use your add-on yet, but looking forward to do it.
I am confident that I can include a Unity preset, after reading your post. I originally designed this to be more of a movie/film production pipeline tool where Blender is used for asset creation however I see that there are Unity users who are looking for better integration.
I do not use Unity. However it would be great if any Unity user can suggest me the optimized settings for a decent Unity Fbx pipeline. I will include a special mark for selecting it as a Unity export which will override the exporter defaults with the better Unity export profile.
The add-on provides 3 options for locations per object and those are set only once. You get global, local (location of .blend) or custom(for a custom location). By default it will export to global, one does not need to set a path. However te user needs to enable the export flag, because that is a clean way of making sure only intended assets make to the export.
Nowadays many people use Unreal / Unity for arch-viz production, but also for short movie production (I plan to make some music video with UE4 and / or Unity in the future), my usual workflow includes creating assets in Blender, unwrapping them and texturing in Substance Painter then exporting to Unity or Unreal. Sometimes I need to export one asset, sometimes twenty or more. Usually i name them in Blender and want to have in some specific folder. Almost always there are flaws in model or uv map and I need them to re-export again (and again and again). So I need:
fast export of single selected asset or many selected assets in particular format (fbx / obj / abc) to specified folder with one click / shortcut
fast re-exporting (can be with same shortcut / button)
It’s not much, but for this moment FBX Bundle was the only add-on that provided me a peace of mind, when I was doing that, hopefully IO Guru is the next one
I am not very fluent, when it comes to fixing rotation of models in Unity or scale issues, I prefer to base on presets. There is enough of work already to deal with these details So perfect add-on should deal with it behind the scenes, not involving user intervention, regardless of selected export preset or type of asset (camera / static mesh / skeletal mesh). If it can do it, it’s absolutely perfect and enough good for me
If there will be the whole scene export (like in B2U), materials support, lights support (probably impossible with Unreal, because there is no add-on that can do it yet but possible in Unity), it would be a great bonus
I will test your add-on after I am back from my weekend journey, keep the good work, I appreciate your feedback here
IO Guru tries to target those issues and workflows you outlined above, that was the initial intention. Make import and export as easy as possible.
The sheer possibility of possible pipeline options makes coming up with a single click solution not so easy. That is why there is always room for improvements in this area. In that regard it is great to hear how people are structuring their pipelines.
I am inclined to include full scene export (only for Fbx for now), Unity profile and custom export flags for the next release. I still need to see the actual working Unity friendly FBX flags.
Hi, I tried IO Guru on blender 2.8, latest build for importing multiple OBJs in Win10
Ctrl+Shift+Right click>Copy as Path in Explorer. Then if im pressing “Pastes Objects into Blender” - nothing happens. Do i make something wrong?
Thank you for your quick reply! I tried the tool again and i got it to work!
I just placed the same objs to another path. So its was not an obj problem( i tested the tool with standard primitives and another objs). It has something to do with the path.
Here is my old path ( not working):
F:\Dropbox_3D_Characters\123_sketches\Fat_Bot\New folder
Here is the new path (just root of the drive):
F:\
Here are the terminal screenshots( i hope you mean this window):
this one shows the import from old path(not working)
I am glad that it is resolved for now. The issue is most likely the spaces in the path as in “New Folder”, it can be seen in the terminal. Please avoid paths with spaces for now. I will make a release that handles that soon
It is great to hear that you find this add-on very useful and I agree with you. I just imported 90 mixed object files into Blender in 4 secs Imagine how much work that would have been if I had to do that through import menu.
with (yes just add that “\n”) clip_paths=bpy.context.window_manager.clipboard.split("\n")
The fix is simple but I still need to make a proper release, so it will take a bit. This fix only handles Windows though in theory might work for other platforms too.
well, already exist a addon that import .skp format, https://github.com/martijnberger/pyslapi/releases, but not is multimport. I thought you could incorporate .skp format multiimport, even so, I think I could use .dae format multiimport.
So perfect add-on should deal with it behind the scenes, not involving user intervention, regardless of selected export preset or type of asset (camera / static mesh / skeletal mesh). If it can do it, it’s absolutely perfect and enough good for me 
