Creating a simple model and exporting with textures

gregwhitfield

Hi,
I am 99% sure I am missing something very obvious, but I can't see what I'm doing wrong. What I want is to create a plane with a texture on it, and export that model as either 3DS or OBJ. I am using Sketchup Pro v8. When I do the export, no image is being exported, and the .mtl file when doing OBJ export is not trying to reference one either.

Here's what I did in a new drawing:

Draw out a square
Material paint, create a new material
Set the image of the material to a 300x300 JPG I have on my disk.
Paint the square. This appears correctly in SU.
File Export 3D, chose 3DS, ensure 'Export texture maps' is checked.
I then get a message box saying 1 face, 1 camera & 1 material have been processed, resulting in 2 triangles 1 camera & 1 material in 3DS. Note - no image.

If I look in the folder where the exported 3DS file was put, there is no image there. If I import the 3DS file into another package, no image is found on the material. If I import it back into SU, the square I drew only has the default material on it - my original one was not preserved.

Outputting to OBJ produces similar results.

If instead of my on texture, I use, say, one of the materials from Carpet & Textiles, then I get similar results. I.e. no image being written out.

If, however, I download a SKP file from the 3D warehouse that has textured surfaces in it, and export that (e.g. the Ando church model), I do get the expected texture files created that are linked to the 3DS/OBJ file correctly.

If I save my model out to SKP, and reload it, it also comes in correctly - my image appears on the plane.

So I must be missing something obvious that is preventing the material from being exported. Any clues?

Gaieus

Hi Greg,

When you draw a simple rectangle on the ground plane, its back face is "up". If you texture that, 3ds will not recognise that texture (I am not sure about obj). So reverse the face first and apply the texture on the front face.

Also, 3ds will not allow for "long" texture names so also make sure that your texture name hasn't got more than 8 characters in the name (also the image file?) and no spaces and other, special characters in it (like in good, old DOS times).

gregwhitfield

Thankyou so much Gaieus - that little tip on face direction has solved my problem. All working now.

Gaieus

Ah good. I was not really sure if that was the problem.