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Ok this is just a basic structure for the tutorial, I invite everybody to fill this in and/or add stuff when needed.

[edit] Get the tools

(if you want the latest beta:)

[edit] Install Indigo Renderer

Indigo renderer comes in a zip, you don't need an installer to be able to run it. Just unpack it to a comfortable location (like C:\Programs\Indigo or C:\Program Files\Indigo), where you know you can find it again.

[edit] Install the python script

To run the script straight from Blender's export menu, you need to put it into the script folder (If you used all the defaults when installing blender it would be "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts", otherwise you'll probably know where to find it). When the script is in that folder, it will be under File > Export > Indigo (if you had Blender running when you copied, you need to restart it first)


Everything below is Work in Progress!!! Feel free to help though :o)

[edit] Prepare your scene

[edit] Modifiers etc.

The exporter exports everything that's in the viewport, but doesn't use any render-settings (this is a lot harder), so make sure all your viewport modifier settings (subsurf for example!!!) are set to what you want to render.

[edit] Blender material conversion

Because Indigo has a material system that is quite different from Blender´s, we incorporated some rule based conversions into the exporter. This may be not quite easy, but at least it's something to start off with. If you know how this conversion is done, it's not that hard. To get a better understanding of what all the settings in the xml material file means, I recommed you read the official documentation.

[edit] Diffuse

Diffuse is a lambertian diffuse material. This is soft & non-glossy. The following rules have been set to get a Diffuse material:

  • Ray Mirror and Ray Transp need to be turned off
  • The Spec value needs to be 0

[edit] Specular

Specular is a material that can be both a perfect specular reflector and a perfect specular transmitter. To get a specular reflector (mirror-like):

  • Ray Mirror needs to be turned on
  • additionally, you can make this material transparent by turning on Ray Transp. Don't forget to set the IOR value (about 1.5 for glass)!
  • The dispersion factor (gauchy) is mapped to the Filt value.
  • Colored glass is defined in Indigo by absorbtion values. Because blender has no internal representation of this (and there isn't any straighforward correlation to the RGB values), only an approximation can be made. This can only take the RGB values into account (alpha doesn't influence this). This is a matter of trial & error and usually the xml needs to be edited to get the desired result.

[edit] Phong

Phong is a physically based glossy reflection model using a Phong lobe. Also can have a lambertian diffuse substrate. This material can be used in combination with textures too (these need to be UV-mapped in Blender!).

  • Ray Mirror and Ray Transp need to be turned off
  • The Spec value needs to be bigger 0 (actually controls the specular value)
  • The Hard value controls the exponent (glossiness) value, the higher the more perfect the reflection (100 is still very soft/smooth, 10000 is very sharp/perfect).

[edit] Lights

[edit] Sun

[edit] Meshlights

[edit] Export

...tell a little more about the settings?...

[edit] Render

...Where the fun starts!...

Retrieved from "http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Tutorials/Render/Export/Indigo"