How to show wavefront obj file with textures (in Blender, later in QGIS)

Question

The question

Seems like a basic question: How can I show a 3D model together with textures? How can I embed textures? I worked with Wavefront .obj file but probably the principle is more general. I have a 3d object that shows fine, but without textures. In the end, I want to show the 3D model + texture in QGIS, but as the problem is linked more to 3D than to GIS, I hope to find a Blender-related answer here that then in the next step will help me resolve the QGIS problem as well.

The final intention (not the question here)

I am new to Blender and 3D modelling. My experience is with GIS and I tried to import a Wavefront .obj file to QGIS (OpenSource GIS) to visualize it in 3D. This works fine, at least when I visualize it with Shading set to Realistic (Phong) or CAD (Gooch). However, I want to visualize it using the textures that came with the file I downloaded. There is an option in QGIS to set Shading to Embedded textures. When I do this, the model disappers. I asked this question on GIS SE, but got no answer.

The problem here and what I tried

So I tried to open (import) the model to Blender (ver. 2.93.4, Win 10) to see if it works. The 3D model shows, but without textures. So obviously, my problem is to understand 3D principles and how to visualize (embed?) textures so that they are visualized together with the 3D model.

As for as I understand, the .mtl file defines the path to the textures. However, I'm lost where to start and how to make the model to always be rendered together with the textures. To be more specific, I downloaded the file from here: https://www.turbosquid.com/de/3d-models/3d-farm-house-1594584 - it comes with a folder containing 3 files (FBX, mtl and obj) and a subfolder textures, containing 3 jpg files, see:

Loaded to Blender with Menu File / import / Wavefront (.obj), it looks like this:

the mtl file looks like this:

# 3ds Max Wavefront OBJ Exporter v0.97b - (c)2007 guruware
# File Created: 21.07.2020 20:10:25
newmtl Farm_house_D
    Ns 9.8492
    Ni 1.5000
    d 1.0000
    Tr 0.0000
    Tf 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 
    illum 2
    Ka 0.6980 0.6980 0.6980
    Kd 0.6980 0.6980 0.6980
    Ks 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
    Ke 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
    map_Ka [path]\Farm_house_D.jpg
    map_Kd [path]\Farm_house_D.jpg
newmtl House_Side_D
    Ns 9.8492
    Ni 1.5000
    d 1.0000
    Tr 0.0000
    Tf 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 
    illum 2
    Ka 0.6980 0.6980 0.6980
    Kd 0.6980 0.6980 0.6980
    Ks 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
    Ke 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
    map_Ka [path]\House_Side_D.jpg
    map_Kd [path]\House_Side_D.jpg
newmtl Roof_D
    Ns 9.8492
    Ni 1.5000
    d 1.0000
    Tr 0.0000
    Tf 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 
    illum 2
    Ka 0.6980 0.6980 0.6980
    Kd 0.6980 0.6980 0.6980
    Ks 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
    Ke 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
    map_Ka [path]\Roof_D.jpg
    map_Kd [path]\Roof_D.jpg

Hello :). You're in Solid View where textures don't show. Switch to Material Preview to see the textures (they load just fine) :). — jachym michal, Oct 17 '21 at 12:00
And to add - the model gets imported in 10x the scale (just scale it by 0,1) :) — jachym michal, Oct 17 '21 at 12:03
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures — Duarte Farrajota Ramos, Oct 17 '21 at 13:34
This same question was asked a couple days ago, but I can’t find it. Will answer. — TheLabCat, Oct 17 '21 at 14:35

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 17 '21 at 14:42

As a commenter said, you need to switch out of solid preview mode to see textures. Check out this menu in the top right corner of the 3D View editor:

That rightmost option (excluding the pull down) will make the 3D viewport show the full render result of the scene at a (by default) lower sample count. To get a usable image from the perspective of the camera and without overlays (ie, black lines describing special non-mesh objects), press F5 to Render Image, and a full rendering will begin. Go to the “Rendering” screen to see an image editor already showing the “Render Result” image data block.

Blender Docs: Viewport shading

Blender Docs: Rendering

How to show wavefront obj file with textures (in Blender, later in QGIS)

1 Answers1