Why You Should Convert Unions Into Meshes
There are two big reasons, to prevent corruption, and to lower lag. CSG V2 has a major problem with unions corrupting, which can lead to hours of work lost. Meshes cannot corrupt, and therefor are much more reliable. Meshes also tend to be better on performance for players.
Before You Should Begin
Make sure you have:
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ROBLOX Studio
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Blender
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A good place to store files temporarily
The Tutorial
First off, create the union you want to convert. For this tutorial, I simply will just union two parts together, but the union can be as complicated as you want (However, you may need to do it in pieces if it has a high triangle count later). Note that you cannot union meshes, so only convert finished products.
Now, go over the explorer tab (Open it if you need to in the View tab), and right click the union. At the bottom, there should be a button called “Export Selection”.
Click the button, and save it as whatever you want, in an easily accessible place. You will need this in a second. Once you have saved it, install/open Blender. Blender can be installed on the web, or in Steam.
Once you open up Blender, you will be greeted by this page. Click General, and look to the right of your screen. On the right, select “Cube”, right click it and delete. Now, navigate over to the top left and click File > Import > Wavefront (.obj).
Find the union you saved earlier and select *both the .obj and the .mtl of the union (They should both be named the same thing).
Click import. You may not see them and that is okay, we do not need to see them. After you have done this, head back to the right and check to see if you successfully imported it.
Now, head over to File > Export > FBX (.fbx), and export it to an accessible location on your computer. Once you have done this, open back up Studio and insert a MeshPart by pressing CTRL+I (CMD+I for Mac Users). Use the menu that popped up to insert a MeshPart. Now click on the mesh part, and in properties, click on MeshId and import the mesh using the small yellow folder button.
If you imported it correctly, it should appear somewhere in your game. Find it, and check that it looks good. Important note: If ROBLOX gave you an error that said it exceeded the triangle limit, you will need to split up the union into multiple pieces and then follow this tutorial.
Finally, copy the location of the original union, and delete it. Paste the location into the mesh, and fix the color and material, and anchor it if you need to.
Common Questions/Problems
Q: ROBLOX gave me an error that said there were too many triangles
A: Split the union into multiple pieces and try the process again
Q: What do I do with the leftover files on my computer?
A: You can delete them if you want, you do not need them
Thank you for reading, and feel free to ask me questions in the replies below.
