How difficult do you think it is to get a 3d Model from a very common simple modeling program into a simple well documented game platform?  Hard, very hard.

Google’s Sketchup is a new friendly approach to creating models and I quite enjoy it.  However my options for exporting are limited until I pay 500 for a Pro edition.  Hoping there was a way around this on the internet (I can’t be the only one) I have found some dae to fbx converters and other walkthroughs on how to do the process.

Problem #1 I can’t export to FBX in Sketchup

First Plan:  Use Autodesks’ dae to fbx converter.

This seemed easy enough! However my created file was 15 times smaller, and not in the ‘compressed’ good kind of smaller.  It was smaller as in I didn’t see any vertex data.  I think it is pretty hard to have a shape if there are no points to draw a shape from. I fiddle with these parameters, export options, but just gave up

New Plan:  Use blender’s dae import.

I thought this would be a good way to verify the dae was working but I ran into some hurdles

Hurdle #2 No Python installed.  Easy enough.

Hurdle #3 Python “not found”.  Luckily I know how to hack environment variables, but this is not easy for most people.

Hurdle #4 Import script failed. “ImportError: DLL load failed: %1 is not a valid Win32 application”

New Plan: Try different python version.

Nope, this didn’t work, it turns out I got it right on the 5th try with 2.7 64bit 2.6 64bit 2.5 64bit 2.5 32bit 2.6 32bit … why so i have to do all this?

Also, I have to uninstall blender and use an older version (2.49).  Seriously? 2.49b broke compatibility? If this was a commercial product the company would have hate mail constantly.

I get all the right files, turns out that my installation of Blender with data files in user directory breaks things.  I have to reinstall that now.  Great.

Oh, and reset my pythonpath to 2.5 now.

Then comes normal things like scaling it down to 0.01 and exporting entire scene instead of selection. But those are dialog box options, something that is easy and intuitive unlike everything else before this. Sigh.

I got it all working though. ThreeSquad v0.35 Progress

Solution
1) Python 2.5.4 link 32bit?
2) Blender 2.49 (not 2.49a or 2.49b) link <-Install with userdata in programfiles
3) PyFFI 2.1.4 link
4) ColladaCGF link

5?) Python 2.6.5 link <- not sure if I need this

I think this took me 90minutes and I consider myself a power user.  Why does it have to be such a mess?  I guess if I want a nice tool I should fork out $500 for sketchup or softimage XSI or something.

Thanks to http://www.gamevixenzone.com/gvz/viewtopic.php?p=33915#p33915