Topic: Using 2.5x blender files in 2.49

[pazur]

Hi,

I wonder if it's possible to open 2.5x blender files in 2.49 ... I started something on my Windows PC that has the latest 2.5 Blender on it and want to continue it on my Linux-powered-Tablet during holidays (yes, something like this exists: http://wetab.mobi/en) that has a portable Blender 2.49 (http://portablelinuxapps.org/). I haven't tried it out yet ... if it doesn't work what would you recommend as a good meta-format for exporting in 2.5 and importing in 2.49? Something that won't break vertices (like make multiple vertices of one vertice - what I experienced with VRML).

Paz

[kat]

If your models are just mesh and/or texture data then you should be able to re-open the 2.5 file into 2.49 without any (too many) issues. It'll display a 'format' error though, which you can dismiss, but that won't prevent the contents being opened.

It gets tricky where animation and other more complex material is involved so you might find you'll need to export to MD5 or some-such and then import that into 2.49 (you may need to import into an even older version to then bring the results into 2.49).

WRT the tablet & Blender: you're breaking new ground on this one so it will be interesting to see what you manage to do with it/the outcome is

[pazur]

Thanks kat. I play around with opening the 2.5x file then.

Blender is not touch optimized but the WeTab has 2 USB ports so plug in a mouse and keyboard. This is what I'm planning to do on holidays on rainy days  Will post some results of course  It's a model for my never-ending-ETQW map project...

[kat]

I'm definately interested in seeing if this works as it's something I've been wondering for some time. Most of the newer tablets, on paper, look to be as powerful as netbooks and lower spec'd computers, certainly CPU wise. So it's an interesting market space that may very well overtake netbooks and low end laptop/PC's in the next 12 to 18 months (especially with what nVidia are doing with Tegra).

[pazur]

Opening the 2.5x file worked in the end and I found some time for modelling during my holidays. I had a funny foldable rubber keyboard and a small mouse with me. Photo of the setup: https://skydrive.live.com/#!/?cid=d3011d77266e15a4&sc=documents&uc=1&id=D3011D77266E15A4%21132!cid=D3011D77266E15A4&id=D3011D77266E15A4%21243&sc=documents

I started modelling a kind of battle-Strogg-UFO for my ETQW map. I has guns nearly on every end. Inspiration is the upcoming Iron Sky movie (http://www.ironsky.net/) where you have tank-like Nazi UFOs. BTW it's a highly interesting project with a community driven game featuring the same topic that gets produced in parallel: http://www.wreckamovie.com/ironskyoperationhighjump

Screenshots of Blender running on the tablet computer and the model:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=d3011d77266e15a4&sc=documents&uc=2&id=D3011D77266E15A4%21132#cid=D3011D77266E15A4&id=D3011D77266E15A4%21242&sc=documents

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=d3011d77266e15a4&sc=documents&uc=2&id=D3011D77266E15A4%21132#cid=D3011D77266E15A4&id=D3011D77266E15A4%21241&sc=documents

There is meanwhile a 2.59 version of Blender on http://portablelinuxapps.org/ but only the 2.49 works on the WeTab. The portable Linux apps are the easiest way of running standard Linux apps on the WeTab tablet computer that runs Meego Linux. For modelling the 2.49 portable app worked pretty well but I noticed that the the renderer is crashing on complex objects with many faces (pretty unstable and not predictable - difficult to say when it's going to crash so basically I wasn't able to use this feature) and the GLSL materials didn't work either so texturing was only possible in "shaded" mode as "textured" didn't show the bitmap texture on the model.

I'll check with the WeTab community if it's possible to install the desktop version of Blender 2.5

[kat]

I have to say that is pretty impressive considering it's running on a tablet. I'm guessing the crashes will be related to OpenGL implimentation because the way you described it sounds awefully similar to the problems Blender had in the earlier days where it would crash for similar reasons/under similar circumstances.

That UFO is huge by the way!