Thank you for this input. Yes, that’s much of what I’m trying to figure out. Is the 3D realm just an incurable mess I should stop wasting time on, or is there something I can learn which could resolve the problem of transferring files from A to B?
I keep hoping my inexperience is the problem and I can solve it with more learning. Your report suggests this may be wishful thinking.
Did the STL to FBX file come into Hitfilm at the scale intended? STL is an “unitless” format whereas the others, I understand, are not. There might be an unit scaling discrepancy lurking inside some of the steps used. Check the conversion settings.
Anssi, thanks much for investing your time in this.
I’m guessing I’m asking more of Sketchup Free than it was ever intended to provide. You know, I’m kinda trying to hack the system and so probably shouldn’t be surprised it’s not working. The best solution to this file transfer madness may be to stop trying to transfer files, from anywhere to anywhere.
FYI, I’m learning how to create 3D characters in MakeHuman, animate them in Mixamo, wash the files in Blender, and then import in to Hitfilm, where I can create and navigate 3D spaces. That’s a success story of sorts, though the models tend to go to ■■■■ once I put a light on them.
Given that I can’t seem to import 3D models from pretty much anywhere, I thought I might be able to make my own 3D models here and add them to my scenes in Hitfilm.
I honestly don’t have a lot of confidence that even if I got the Pro version of Sketchup that file transfer would work. I’d love to be proven wrong though. Any Hitfilm users here?
Or, is anybody having success importing their Sketchup models in to any video editing software?
…reports that SketchUp Make has a bunch of import/export options. Just downloaded the installer. If I recall, you guys suggested this already above, but I kinda missed it.
YES! Good solution! Best I can tell from a quick test, Sketchup Make will get the job done. First FBX export looks great in Hitfilm. Excellent, excellent, excellent, really looking forward to working in SketchUp.
Thanks for hanging with me while I bumbled my way towards a solution, and thanks for SketchUp Make, looks like just what I need.
A final question I guess. Can anyone confirm my understanding that SketchUp Make will work for free forever, but I shouldn’t expect support or updates?
Now that the export issue is solved, if I have any other questions I guess I’ll start new threads for them. See ya there!
Make will work for as long as your OS supports it, it is free for non commercial use.
It starts as a Pro trial for 30 days then reverts to Make, one of the things you will lose when it reverts is the ability to export certain file types. FBX being one that you will lose.
A table about a third of the way down that page states that Make has 15 export formats, which are listed if you click on the link in the table.
For export it lists only: SKP, DAE and STL
So it sounds like your memory is working. I’ll try to convert DAE to something I can use. If that doesn’t work then I guess the happy day is over. Rats…
Must admit, I’d have to be way more involved in 3D modeling to pay the price they want for Pro.
Thinking about it a bit more, Collada/dae is supported natively in Make, .stl is via an extension from the E Warehouse, and there are a couple of .obj exporters available if you find they work for you.
Good news! Maybe! Could be! Or maybe not! Who knows??? Could change at any moment! Anything could happen!
I experimented converting the DAE exported from Make in to FBX and OBJ by a variety of online converters. Results varied. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes the model but not the materials. Sometimes the model and materials, but only a single 2D plane.
What worked was the FBX Converter from Autodesk, so thanks to the member above in the thread who demonstrated how easy that tool really is once, um, one gets one’s head out of one’s butt.
If the DAE export which comes out of Make after the trial period is over is the same as the one it delivers during the trial period, we could be done. Or maybe not. Other than waiting 30 days not sure how to know.
Best I can tell at the moment DAE exports from Warehouse will not convert to FBX.
For the benefit of anyone else with similar issues, here’s a few helpful links. I mention them here because Blender may be helpful in converting DAE to other formats.
I tried to take a file from 3D Warehouse to Blender to Hitfilm. The resulting file was kind of a mess in Hitfilm, but I could have probably fixed the issue in Blender if I knew anything about Blender other than import/export.
I did a test of this, and the FBX converter did seem to not convert the file correctly. Not sure if it’s all Collada files from the warehouse, or it was because I picked a demanding example.
I imported that Collada file and exported it as Collada. The exported one was 11 times bigger, but did seem to convert ok. I’m now trying to bring that into Unity, to see if the model looks correct. Being 449 MB now, it’s taking some time to import.
Hey Colin, thanks for joining in. Keeping in mind I’m a total novice…
So far my experience has been that exporting in DAE from SketchUp Make (trial period), converting to FBX using Autodesk FBX converter, and then importing in to Hitfilm works perfectly. Yea!
However, using the same process on files from 3D Warehouse does not work, at least so far. Processing through Blender also not working.
Given that you are staff, could you perhaps confirm that the DAE files being exported from SketchUp Make during trial period will be the same as DAE files exported from that software once the trial period has expired?
I’m eager to start learning SketchUp, but before diving in to that I really need to nail down once and for all that I will be able to export files that will import in to Hitfilm.
Right now that’s working great. Will it keep working once trial period has expired?
There is no difference in the DAE exporter for Make versus Pro. I did a test of exporting DAE from Make 2014, then taking that through the FBX converter, and into Unity. Worked ok.
The quality of things found in the 3D Warehouse has enormous variety. For instance, reversed faces (with their backsides visible) might wreak havoc when imported into other applications. SketchUp displays and applies materials to them without problems, but other applications often either don’t display them at all or show them in a default material, often black.
