Blender - SWTOR-Slicers/WikiPedia GitHub Wiki
Blender is a free, gratis, open source, multiplatform (Windows, Mac, Linux), fully featured, complete 3D production environment. It does not only 3D (including modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, 3D-painting, sculpting, etc.) but video editing and compositing, too.
You can check its extensive features in the official site at blender.org.
Which Blender version.
For the time being, DOWNLOAD THE 3.6.7 VERSION as your primary one (scroll down the linked page to find the 3.6.7 downloads). DON'T USE 3.6.8 or 3.6.9!!! They seem to have introduced a bug or an API change that broke something and we are still trying to know why.
As for older versions, don't get any older than 3.1 if you can avoid it. Still, some of the tools, like the basic SWTOR Model importer and texturer, should work with the 2.8.x series, too.
(Blender's last radical, extremely compatibility-breaking version change happened in 2019, from 7.9 to 8.0. We still keep a 7.9-compatible SWTOR Model importer around, but no texturer)
You can ALSO download the current 4.x series version, BUT: that one comes with some backwards compatibility-breaking changes that has broken some of our tools even worse. Please be patient while we solve that.
You can have several versions of Blender at once without problems: Blender keeps completely separate preferences and add-ons folders for each so that they don't interfere with each other. For example, if you want to take advantage of 4.0's features right now, you could try importing and preparing your SWTOR elements in a 3.6 project and then open it on 4.0)
Our Blender tools work on Mac and Linux, too: I've personally used Blender and my stash of extracted SWTOR assets on my Mac for years. All our SWTOR-related Blender add-ons work on those Operating Systems.
How much do you need to know to work with Blender.
If you don't know Blender, it's easy to be overwhelmed by its user interface, but you can get some basic results, as in importing your SWTOR player character or game location, with very little knowledge. You just need to know how to install our Blender add-ons (the equivalent to "extensions" or "plugins" in other apps) and some basic camera movement (rotation, pan, zoom) to enjoy looking at them from any angle and in real time, textured and lighted, no need to wait for lengthy renders.
To learn those basics, we encourage you to check the Blender Foundation's own Blender Fundamentals YouTube playlist, the first three or five clips at the very least: we are talking fifteen to thirty minutes of very concise and to the point information.
(You might be tempted to try the infamous Donut Tutorial by Andrew "Blender Guru" Price, which is perfectly fine if not for being a deep, hours-long, kinda meandering dive that might tax your patience if all you want is to import and watch SWTOR models. We suggest getting those initial Blender Fundamentals clips under your belt first, and then try Price or any other YouTuber's material. There's excellent stuff out there a search away. Just make sure that it isn't very old: that it goes from Blender 8.x upwards).
How to install an Add-on.
Add-ons are typically distributed as .zip files containing human-readable Python code that extends Blender's functionality.
This is an example of how one of ours is installed. The ample majority of Blender add-ons' installs follows this method. It's quite simple, really:
-
Download the Add-on. If it is in the form of a .zip file, don't unZip it: Blender will deal with that.
-
In Blender, go to
Edit menu > Preferences option > Add-ons tab > Install… button. -
Then select the Add-on in the resulting file browser window and click on the
Install Add-on button. -
After a few seconds, the Add-on will appear in the Add-ons list with its checkbox un-ticked. Tick it to enable the Add-on.
-
Just in case, twirl the arrow preceding the check-box to reveal any additional information and, most importantly, any Add-on's Preference settings. Filling those is crucial for some of our tools to work correctly.
