Blender Hifi AddOn

Plugin ("Project Hermes") is a plugin for Blender to allow for easier content creation and importing for the High Fidelity Metaverse Platform.

Existing installations should be removed prior to installing this new version of the Blender PLugin

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Installation Guide

Simple

Open the Github page, Go to releases and download the hifi_tools.zip zip file.

In Blender. Goto User Preferences, and Add-ons. From there Install Add-on from File and select the Zip file that we downloaded.

Enable the plugin under Import-Export: Hifi Blender Add-On

If you downloaded the download repository:

Copy hifi_tools folder to your Blender Addons Directory.

On Windows this is under %APPDATA%/Blender Foundation/Blender/<BlenderVersion>/addons

Utility Functions:

• A new Panel on the 3D View's left tool set is added, labled High Fidelity
• Armature Tools
  • Add Hifi Armature - Adds an Armature which is compatible with High Fidelity, has all the naming conventions in place
  • Test Avatar Rest Pose - Tests the T-Pose used in high fidelity in Blender, useful for debugging issues
  • Set Bone Physical - (Armature Edit mode only) Adds a prefix to selected bones for Scripts in High fidelity for physical simulation
  • Remove Bone Physical - (Armature Edit mode only) Removes prefix from selected bones for Scripts in High fidelity for physical simulation
• Avatar Converters
  • MMD Avatar - Translates and fixes MMD models and their materials for them to work in High Fidelity. Full MMD Avatar import guide here
  • Mixamo Avatar - Translates and fixes mixamo models and their materials for them to work in High Fidelity
• Material Tools
  • Make All Fullbright - Sets ALL materials fullbright
  • Make All Shadeless - Sets ALL materials shadeless - Will not work for avatars, however.
  • Textures To PNG - Converts ALL images used in the blend file to png. You must save first
  • Textures To Mask - Converts ALL Opaque images into Masks, avoiding z sort issues with avatars

Export Tools:

• File > Export > Hifi Avatar FST: Exports Avatar, applies necessary steps for avatar to work in High Fifelity.
  • Supports Embedded textures: Exports Textures embedded to file
  • Supports Selected Only: Exports Selected only
  • Experimental Oven Feature: Experimental feature to Compress Avatar and its Textures: Only settable if you have set the path under User Settings > Addon > HiFi Blender Add-on
• File > Export > HiFi Metaverse Scene JSON/FBX: Exports Scene as a json and Fbx
  • Marketplace / Base URL : This is the folder path for your marketplace or external server address. Simply paste the directory where you will upload the files here, and the json file will have the urls automatically appended to them. This is not optional and must be set prior to exporting: You will otherwise have an error message
  • Clone Scene prior to export

Importing from Hifi:

The add-on allows you to import 0primitive entities from High Fidelity. In High Fidelity, select the entities you want to export and press export.

In Blender, You can then import these entities with File > Import > HiFi Metaverse Scene JSON

You can then set materials to the objects via the material panel, modify the mesh, do uv mapping corrections.

Import Settings

• Use UV Sphere: Instead of a Quad sphere, use a UV sphere for the base primitive
• Join Mesh Children: If Boolean is set to None, join Children with their Parents into a Single Mesh
• Merge Distance: Set this higher if you want to remove doubles
• Delete interior faces: If the mesh is enclosed and not consisting of multiple convex intercepting shapes, delete interior walls
• Boolean: Experimental feature to enable
  • None: Use no boolean solver to solve for faces
  • BMesh: Experimental: Use BMesh solver to solve for mesh
  • Carve: Experimental Use Carge solver to solve for mesh

If Entity is not Child of another entity, no Join is done. Only Children are merged with their Parents

Note that Boolean operations work differently, and some may not keep the UV Unwrapping correctly in some situations. Use at your own risk