AlteredEgg.com - Colouring Blender Models For Collada & Papervision3D

Colouring Blender Models For Collada & Papervision3D

I've written two previous articles detailing how to prepare and export a Blender model with a UV map and how to set up a Blender model with different materials for different objects. This tutorial explains how to assign different materials to different faces on the same object. Would have told you sooner but I didn't know how. :) So here ya go.

1. I've already modeled a cube with beveled edges. Select the object by right-clicking on it.

Starting cube model

2. Switch to your Shading panel (F5) and go to the Links and Pipeline palette.

Links and Pipeline palette

3. In the Link to Object menu click the up/down arrow icon beside the material title and select ADD NEW.

Adding a material in Blender

4. There should be a palette adjacent to the current panel called Material, and it has a little button labeled "Col" (for colour). Click the colour box beside it and select a base colour for this model. This will be the default colour used for every area that we don't colour explicitly. I'm using black.

Material palette

5. Now repeat steps 3 and 4 for as many colours you want to use on this model. If you kept your model selected, you likely noticed it changing colour whenever you added a new one. Make sure you've selected your object and then selected your default starting colour before proceeding to the next step.

6. Switch to the Editing panel (F9) where we will use the Link and Materials palette. Switch to editing mode by hitting Tab, and your palette should look like this:

Link and Materials

You should be able to see the wireframe edges of the model like so:

Edit mode

7. Select the face you wish to colour by holding the shift key and right-clicking every vertex point surrounding the face. Once the complete face has been selected it should be highlighted. Now click the popup menu and select a material from the list. You should now see the selected face change to the colour you selected.

Assigning a material

Note: FYI, you have now added a material "Index" to the "Material Indices", which is a list of the materials applied to THIS OBJECT ONLY. You can flip through the list of material indices using the left/right arrows on the little index browser. If you ever want to select the faces with a certain material later, flip to the desired material and then click the Select button.

Another note: When you have a certain face selected, now is a good time to make a Vertex Group, which will enable you to select that same face down the road. On the left side of that palette (under "Vertex Groups") click the New button then click the name of it and change it to something meaningful like "front face". Now click the Assign button, and the faces you have selected will be added to your new Vertex Group. This is especially useful if you've assigned the same colour to multiple faces but you want to change one of them to another colour. Just select the Vertex Group from the list and click the Select button to reselect those vertices.

8. Repeat step 7 until you have coloured all the faces that need doing.

9. Before exporting to Collada format, make sure your model is selected and then click Mesh>UV Unwrap, choosing "Unwrap (smart projections)" from the dialog. The default settings on the dialog after that are fine.

10. Export to Collada format, making sure that the Triangles and Use Relative Paths options are selected. For a more detailed description of the Collada export process, see my previous article.

That's it! You should now be able to import the Collada DAE file into Papervision3D version 2 and the colours will appear as you specified.