Cant export model as anything

[SMBF Maysey]

so because Im a big dummy, I didnt realise your old issue page was defunct and this is the new place so I will just copy paste what I wrote there.

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. open model
2. set up export path
3. do any kind of export (either selected or whole scene

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
exporting the model. Instead, it exports a single 0 KB file. On both a smd or dmx export

What version of Blender and the SMD Tools are you using? On what operating
system?

Windows 7 64 bit. Blender is v2.73 and SMD tools is 2.3.1

Please provide any additional information below.

the model is made of 94 parts ( at least thats what the scene export says) I thought this meant it was overcomplex but the system console reports that it successfully exports each part fine, however this is not the case due to the single 0 KB file.

someone did answer on the old site though, and said to upload my blend file how would I do this from here?

[Artfunkel]

Hello again. Use this site: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/

[SMBF Maysey]

urgj, just waited for it to fully upload to realise iits 10 Mb over the 30 Mb limit. Thing is, its not my model either (I was just given it so I could get it into and mdl. BOY THATS GONNA BE FUN when this is done with) so Im not sure what to do now...

[Artfunkel]

Do a Save As in Blender, then check the "Compress" box.

[SMBF Maysey]

ok, http://www.pasteall.org/blend/34382 progress is being made

[Artfunkel]

This scene doesn't have an export path set so won't export any files at all. Were you not seeing an error about that whenever you tried to export?

Regardless, I grouped all the objects together (in order to output everything to a single file) and it exports successfully. The file weighs in at 38MB.

[SMBF Maysey]

I did have an export path it just dropped a 0KB file at that patha nd didnt seem to show me any errors atleast not that I could see, give me a second I will try grouping everything on my end

[SMBF Maysey]

Update: I've tried grouping, parenting and exporting to a different location. I srill end up with only a 0 KB file

[Artfunkel]

Hit Window > Toggle System Console, export, and paste the results here.

[SMBF Maysey]

http://puu.sh/fSvL5/df9b909416.png this is for dmx

http://puu.sh/fSw6J/e93c7bb14e.png and this is for smd

I covered this in the OP, it llooks like its all working from the console but alas: http://puu.sh/fSwfZ/95bb7bed35.png

[ZeqMacaw]

Make sure you are looking at the correct folder (check the logs you just linked) in Windows Explorer.

Once at the correct folder, Refresh the folder.

[SMBF Maysey]

I assure I did that a thousand times (and just now), even deleted the file before exporting again, same results

[ZeqMacaw]

I just noticed the colon (:) after "Audi" in your logs. The colon is not allowed to be part of the name.

[SMBF Maysey]

can I mass rename mutliple parts... theres a metric ton of colons.

moreover is that was the issue why did it work for Artfunkei?

[Artfunkel]

Good spot Zeq. This actually appears to be a bug in Python! It ought to throw an exception when given a path containing a colon.

Exporting worked for me because I grouped the objects together and didn't put a colon in the group name. I should have tried exporting an object individually, then I would have immediately reproduced the problem.

To rename things en masse you can use the Python Console. Do this:

for ob in D.objects: ob.name = ob.name.replace(":","_")

[Artfunkel]

Turns out that Python passes colons straight through to the NTFS filesystem driver, where they are interpreted as alternate stream[blogs.technet.com] syntax. Your model data is in the file, just not in the "normal" data block:

get-item .\Audi -Stream *


   FileName: C:\Users\Tom\Downloads\Audi

Stream                   Length
------                   ------
:$DATA                        0
pasted__pSphere3.dmx      29610

The Python developers consider this proper behaviour, so I'm going to have to sanitise the filename myself.