Blender to UE Exporter

Why I did this project.

I'm somewhat new when it comes to python coding and the course I had on the subject was a couple of months ago so the point of this project was to make sure I don't forget what I have learned at TGA. I also wanted to do something I had never done before, so I tried making an exporter. During my tooling course I worked with python in Maya and I would like to deep dive into the blenders bpy some more.

What I learned.

This project really forced me to get down in the basics like object oriented programming and the pillars of OOP, this was my biggest challenge since my previous scripts have always been more like steps of instructions. Also extending my knowledge of bpy. Learning to use new modules.

The first thing I set up in this script is the properties I need to set in the export settings.

Under that I have my methods for filtering, creating temporary objects and cleaning up the temporary objects. This one shows how the filtering is done by hiding unwanted objects like curves and later after export they will be visible again.

Here the script is calculating the center of the temporary geometry by shifting the vertices for when the user wants to center the pivot in the geometry.

Here I check if the objects I'm about to send out is a mesh/armature or not sending them to their own lists so I can export one and hide the other one. Also create warning messages when there is non-meshes/armatures in the selection or if the selection is empty.

Here I add the export settings that will be used when exporting the mesh/armature.

After the export the script needs to clean up the temporary objects and restore the scene to what it was before I exported.

Here is where I draw the user interface in the export window.

Here I append my menu function to blenders drop-down menu.

And last I need to register my classes and unregister them and then add the __name__=="__main__" so the script  doesn't run on import.

If I had more time.

I think I would remove the tool from the drop down menu and make it a widget where the user can add the path or maybe make it more of a live exporter.