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So this may be answered elsewhere (I see plenty of questions of 3d printing with Textures exported) but I think this is slightly different as I'm talking about a fancier printer that can do colors. Let me explain:

My printer can do this: enter image description here

This was originally a .vrml that came from photogrammetry, but it can do it with .obj too.

Now lets say I'm in Blender and I start with the basic cube and add a material to it: enter image description here

In this case the material was from BlenderKit, but I don't suppose that should matter where it came from.

Now if I were to export that cube as an obj (or a vrml).... how do I get the material to be exported with it? I see the checkmark where it says "Write materials" and that does technically create a .mtl file to go along with it, but its 0 bytes and blank. I've seen rumor I might need to "bake" something? Is that true? If so, I did these tutorials: I felt like I was almost there with this tutorial or this one, but when I finally "baked" and exported... the mtl file was larger, but it still showed up blank in my printer, it then said it was looking for an additional texture photo. Does the baking not export the texture photo? When I've loaded obj's or vrmls into my printer software before it only needed one additional file (the mtl usually).

Joe Crozier
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  • Additional info, the .obj file that created that kids head above did not need any additional .mtl or texture photos with it. The printer program opened the .obj by itself and it contained color. How can Blender export an .obj with the information contained within. – Joe Crozier Oct 09 '19 at 18:48
  • "Does the baking not export the texture photo?" It does, exporting image file is the primary reason of baking. "The printer program opened the .obj by itself and it contained color" This sounds like .VRML file you tried to print had vertex colors (which is especially the case for models created with photogrammetry). In that case you need to find a way to bake your material to vertex colors. In anyway, comparing file which yielded good result with not working one could help – Mr Zak Oct 09 '19 at 19:25
  • @MrZak I double checked that and it was definitely an .obj. How would you bake your materials to vertex colors and export an obj? Well or honestly I'll export a vrml too I don't care, but how do you bake the vertex colors? – Joe Crozier Oct 09 '19 at 19:26
  • If that was OBJ then it's not necessary you want to export vertex colors.. Not all applications can export them into OBJ, many of them can't (ZBrush as exception, MeshLab seems to be able, see https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/21304) so if you really want OBJ then your first file probably used something else instead of vertex colors. As to baking - old way was Blender Internal, for new one see https://blenderartists.org/t/2-8-bake-to-vertex-colors/1144425 – Mr Zak Oct 09 '19 at 19:53

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