Blender Won't let me change to Edit mode

[Voyhkah]

I am trying (again) to learn art, with the help of rough draft models made in spore (For how to export models from spore, see my new tutorial). However, now that I have extracted my models, I am having some trouble editing them. I import them into blender, save them, and then am unable to switch to edit mode. Please help!

EDIT: I do have the model selected, but I still can't change to edit mode.

 

[The_Coyote]

attach the file (.blend) - without it´s hard to say something (i don´t even have a guess)

the only hint i could give you at the moment is to check the spore fora if someone had this issue already there

 

[Voyhkah]

Here it is.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=282325&d=1297389923

 

[The_Coyote]

sorry i´m not able to reproduce the problem. I can switch to the edit mode without any problem.

And i also saw a second problem, the mesh has to many polys to be usable as civ4 unit. It has around 21000 vertices (30000 faces) in Blender, which is 10 to 20 times more than a "normal" civ4 unit (and also two or three times more than civ4 leaderheads)

So you have to give a longer explaination what went wrong, because at least at my end i can´t reproduce the problem.

 

[Voyhkah]

I know about the too many polys problem.

What happens is that when I open the little menu that changes the mode from object mode to edit mode, the only thing shown is object mode.

 

[The_Coyote]

please post a pic of your blender screen the moment you want to try to change the mode (and mark where you want to try). Additional with "tab" you can change between two modes, if the objects mdoe is active "tab" should bring you in the edit mode. Honestly i have no idea atm what causes your trouble.

Considering the textures (your discussion with The_J in the the other thread), the model you uplaoded was unwrapped, so you could try to apply the texture in Blender you got while converting.

 

[Voyhkah]

Here is the screenshot.

 

[The_Coyote]

Thanks - with the pic i could reproduce the behavior. It seems that while the mesh is / seems to be selected it´s not really the case. You have to select the mesh again (left mouse button on the mesh - to be sure that you "deselect" the mesh you can select something else, eg the camera and afterwards the mesh), after the reselect you will / should see more options in the button window (in the lower part - which is empty in your pic) and you will be able to change the mode.

strange error ...

 

[Voyhkah]

Any idea on how to simplify it enough to use in civ4?

 

[The_Coyote]

you could try a poly reducer script (there is at least one for Blender), but i think you must careful select parts of the mesh and apply the script. More or less the UV should work after you applied the script. (i didn´t used the script very often, so i can´t give you any special advise)

But honestly - because you have to get rid of such an high amount of polys - i fear the best way would be to make a new low poly model after the high poly model in Blender. Because you want very organic model you could try sculping (nitram15 made a tutorial for it - but again i didn´t used it very often so far).

 

[Voyhkah]

Thanks, that really helped. But now something else is giving me grief: the camera panning. I understand how to use the middle mouse button to pan, but the center of view, the thing I'm panning around, isn't the 3-D cursor! I'm panning around a blank spot that never varies, no matter where the 3-D cursor is!

Do you know what's going on?

 

[Voyhkah]

Help!

 

[The_Coyote]

Perhaps you should have a look at this - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro. The first chapters will help you to learn the basics of blender.

 

[Voyhkah]

I looked at that, but I can't figure out how to solve my problem!

 

[Voyhkah]

HELP!! Or I might have to spend the next two years annoying everyone else to make units for me!

 

[The_Coyote]

if you mean the 3D-cursor - it´s only a marker where new objects will be added to the scene. The rotation center is defined by the viewpoint and not by this marker.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/3D_View_Windows

 

[Voyhkah]

Thanks. But I can't figure out how to separate two objects. When I follow the instructions and select the mesh and press p and click selected, it says "Can't seperate with vertex keys. What do I do?