Learning 3d dev in Defold (SOLVED)

Hey guys.
I started learning 3D in Defold today, and I must admit that it was a fun experience.
However, I as I always do, I have some questions about using 3d in Defold :wink:

  • Having multiple meshes in one scene - @sven helped me solve it here
  • But, those merged multiple meshes donā€™t have textures - again, @sven said to

ā€œEnsure UV Maps are named the same prior to merge (unless you want the UV Maps to remain separate) then combineā€

How do I do this? (honestly, I opened blender for the first time today :crazy_face:)

ALERT!! - More questions are on their way :smile:

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Excellent questions! Iā€™d love to get some input here and use as basis for a new manual page.

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More of a Blender question than anything Defold-related really.

I messed around with the collada version a bit and couldnā€™t figure out why it wasnā€™t working. Then I tried importing the OBJ version into blender --> selected them all --> join --> export collada --> boom, it just works. (It even exported to have the right rotation in Defold on the first try!)


Oh, I spoke too soon. Importing the collada works fine, you just have to rename the UV maps. Somehow I couldnā€™t figure out how to double-click before. :blush: You can find the UV maps in the ā€œobject dataā€ tab (the little triangle mesh icon thingy) in the properties pane. Then you just double-click to start renaming them. If you name them all the same before joining then it works.

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If youā€™re new to Blender, one tip: you can press space and start typing to search for commands, so you donā€™t have to remember the hotkeys for everything.

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Yayy!!! :partying_face: Got it working exactly as I wanted :muscle:.

But I am not over yet, thereā€™s still a couple of things I want to know :
Q2 : - After setting up the cars, I moved on to add some environment. Fortunately, the kind Kenney has already made one, so I didnā€™t have to go far. For reference, here it is. But unfortunately, it pings up another problem, multiple materials arenā€™t supported in Defold. Any possible workarounds?

Q3 : How do we go about 3d physics in Defold. Is it similar to 2d, or different?

As a side note : I am really enjoying Defoldā€™s 3D :grin:

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But unfortunately, it pings up another problem, multiple materials arenā€™t supported in Defold

Multi texturing is an upcoming feature.

How do we go about 3d physics in Defold. Is it similar to 2d, or different?

Iā€™d say similar. What we currently donā€™t support is to select a model file (e.g. collada) to choose the physics shape(s) from.

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As I will be working with box shapes, it wonā€™t be a problem :slight_smile:

Any workarounds for now?

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Q2: I guess now you know the cost of ā€œfreeā€ assets. :stuck_out_tongue: Iā€™m not an expert on modern 3D workflow, but to me it doesnā€™t make any sense for these assets to have multiple materials, unless youā€™re doing something fancy with shaders that you canā€™t get with a traditional texture + normal map + specular map shader. I think the best option is to texture & UV map them yourself. In Blender, if you have the materials tab open while in edit mode, you can select all the vertices that are assigned to a certain material, so if you just want flat colors this shouldnā€™t be too difficult once you figure out the general workflow.

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Thatā€™s why I hate using free assets :smiling_imp: . But having zero creativity, and almost no Game Dev funds :moneybag: means that I am bound to them.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that my first experience with Defold 3D was quite fun, and in the end, I was able to do what I wanted. Thanks a lot @sven @ross.grams and @Mathias_Westerdahl for helping me. :slight_smile:

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Iā€™d suggest version up to 2.80. The workflow is so much nicer :slight_smile:

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Pff, you donā€™t need creativity to make boxy little cars and roads, just go for it. Though using free assets probably still saves time getting -something- up and running. You could also check out MagicaVoxelā€“itā€™s pretty fun and simple to play around with, and when I tried it it was easy to get the models+textures into Defold.


@gianmichele Haha, yup, just downloaded it a few hours ago! So far nothing is very different, they just moved a bunch of the tools around, though a few things work a bit nicer. Itā€™s definitely a good change though, much more beginner-friendly. [Edit] (ā€¦okay, anyone-friendly.)

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Hmm. Maybe I should leave my comfort zone sometimes and start learning some useful things :wink: