Blender 2.69/Full Color Sandstone: how to prep/export correctly?

hey!

i've read as much tutorials as i could regarding the export from blender to a format that can be printed in full color sandstone

in general, what i understand is, that VRML2 > X3D, is that correct?

and either way, i have to zip a file together with the VRML2 file and the UV image...
but there are 2 things that happen every time i try to upload it:

1) the size if way off: i want to have it around 10cm tall...but i don't seem to get it right to set the scale into correct measures to import properly
what do i have to select in blender? blender units or metric?
and when uploading, mm or meters?

2) no color/texture is displayed in shapeways preview window - so i guess something went wrong
what are the typical errors that can go wrong?
i've already tried to edit the 3rd and vrml2 files with wordpad to make sure that only the image is linked but i don't seem to get it

the model is a 3d character which i want to have as a real life bobble head
i took the 3d file and applied the image to it, which gets displayed correctly in blender (in cycles render)

i thank you very much and appologize for asking a probable totally basic question

When you upload an .x3d file, the units are specified within it. This is why Shapeways does not ask the units for an .x3d file. When the file has been zipped, however, I do not know what effect if any specifying the units on upload has.

In Blender, if you have set up the units they should be correctly reflected in the .x3d file. If you are using Blender Units (B.U.) then I believe 1 B.U. = 1 meter

Other people here (your cue, mkroeker) can help you with the colour aspects and the setups of .x3d files, but I have read on the forums before that you need to use Blender Render not Blender Cycles when exporting your image - if this is true or not, or how it works I don't know but maybe you could experiment.

If all else fails you could post your files and maybe someone will look at it.

thanks!

i've set the measures to blender units, the model is currently 1.5 units on the Z axis...when importing it (an leaving the upload-mask "checkmark" at mm) the model is 2.xxxxxxx tall

i don't get it how to get the size right :/

Well, if I am correct and the zipping does not affect the use of units you have requested that your model is 1.5 m high - which is too big.

Either set up the units or scale the model down by a factor of 10.

If that does not work, please post the x, y and x values from Blender and the 3 measurements for the model from SW (the first ones not the Oriented ones).

1. X3D is the (XML-ified) successor to VRML2, both formats should work equally well in theory (but in practice it cannot hurt to try both in case of problems, as the respective export modules of your software will probably have been written at different times and by different people)
2. VRML/X3D uses metric units by convention
3. You have two choices for color - "vertex painting", that is assigning a color to each point of the mesh (or to each object, as the format supports basic primitives such as sphere,cylinder, etc.) or "UV mapping" of a suitably oriented image file. In the former cases, all information is in the single .wrl or .x3d
file, in the latter you will have one geometry file (.wrl or .x3d) and one texture (png,jpg or whatever - but read the box on the upload page for supported
formats), which you need to zip together for uploading. It is important that the zip archive contains just these two files, no folder structure and no other files.
Also you will typically have to link the texture to the geometry in your modeling software, a step usually called "baking" of the texture. Without this, the texture file will usually be completely ignored. If all goes well, the x3d or wrl file - which is readable text (for some definition of "readable") - will contain
an "ImageTexture" declaration that gives the name of the texture file. Again it is important that this is just the file name without any folder names or windows drive letters prepended. Best check this with a text editor, and also get a vrml/x3d viewer such as the freeware view3dscene to verify that the texture is positioned correctly - what you see in your modeling software is not necessarily also what it will actually export.

thank you

so basically, i should get the proportions right, if i set blender to metric 0,001 and set height to e.g. 15cm, right?

i tried to export it as wrl and x3d and zipped it both times together with the png...but it never worked
probably i really need to bake the texture to the model - i tried to do so by following some tutorials, but it never worked, by telling me that there is no object or image that can be baked to

is there a simple stept by step guide or is it always case dependent?

and does it matter if it is in cycles render or blender render?

thanks again!
cheers!

I do not know blender, but I noticed that numarul7 recommended this youtube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3M21GqAgHM in another thread recently. (Though it appears to be for an older version of blender - from the online help on the blender wiki website, one difference between the cycles and blender render seems to be in the steps necessary for applying textures)

If you are using 2,69 you need to bake texture in old render engine. (not in cycles)

Simple steps to baking (if it is not working, watch any tutorial online. )

1. Create one UV map for whole model
2. still in edit mode, with your new uv map visible, create new texture in uv/image editor (this will apply this new texture to your uv map)
Or in edit mode open your image file where you want to bake it. (dont forget to save it )
3. bake all textures to you new single texture...

It is simplified version but most mistakes with baking are in second step.