PYSIDE6-BALSAM(1)

💖 pyside6-balsam 💖

okay so bestie, pull up a chair, grab a boba, because we are talking about pyside6-balsam — a lil tool from the PySide6 crew (manual section 1, iykyk) that is, and I quote, just balsam. no cap. that's the whole name. iconic.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

balsam [options] sourceFilename

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

It converts graphical assets to a runtime format for use with Qt Quick 3D. that's it, that's the vibe. your pretty little 3D files go in, a runtime-ready format comes out, and Qt Quick 3D eats it up. slay. 💅

---

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

bestie there are a LOT of these. like, a comedic amount. I'm not skipping a single one though, we're doing this together. hydrate. get comfortable. 💜

• -h, --help — shows you the help for the commandline options. the classic cry for help, but make it helpful.
• --help-all — shows help including the generic Qt options. the deluxe version. the help with extra sprinkles. 🍓
• --outputPath, -o <outputPath> — sets where the generated file(s) get placed. default is the current directory. so if you don't say anything, it just dumps stuff right here where you're standing. rude but fine. 💀
• --no-plugins — disables assetimporter plugin loading, so it only considers built-ins. no outside opinions allowed.
• -f, --options-file <file> — loads options from <file>. yes, options inside an options file, we love a nested situation.
• --disable-preTransformVertices — turns off the preTransformVertices thing. see below for what that is, it's a whole moment.
• --disable-removeComponentTangentsAndBitangents — disables the removal of Tangents and Bitangents components. they stay. periodt.
• --disable-removeComponentTextures — disables removing embedded texture components, so your textures stay right where they are.
• --disable-generateMipMaps — turns off the force-mip-maps situation.
• --transformUVCoordinates — this step applies per-texture UV transformations and bakes them into stand-alone vtexture coordinate channels. baking, but for geometry. chef's kiss. ✨
• --recalculateLodNormalsMergeAngle <recalculateLodNormalsMergeAngle> — maximum angle in degrees to consider for normal smoothing/merging.
• --globalScale — this step will perform a global scale of the model. everything. all of it. scaled. 🫶
• --disable-globalScale — no global scale today bestie, we're not doing that.
• --disable-findDegenerates — disables the search-and-rescue for degenerate primitives.
• --useFloatJointIndices — stores joint indices as floating point numbers for GLES 2.0. specifically GLES 2.0. it's giving legacy support, and honestly? respect.
• --calculateTangentSpace — calculates the tangents and bitangents for the imported meshes. the math girlies are eating today. 🔥
• --disable-calculateTangentSpace — turns that tangent space math off.
• --fbxPreservePivots — sets whether the fbx importer will preserve pivot points (as extra nodes).
• --disable-generateNormals — no new normals for all faces of all meshes. not today.
• --disable-splitLargeMeshes — keeps your large meshes large. no splitting, no sub-meshes.
• --disable-designStudioWorkarounds — disables the Design Studio compatibility workarounds. no extra accommodating energy.
• --recalculateLodNormals — calculates new normals when necessary for Generated Mesh Levels of detail.
• --disable-improveCacheLocality — leaves your triangles in their original order, cache locality be damned.
• --improveCacheLocality — reorders triangles for better vertex cache locality. the triangles get a glow-up reorder. obsessed. 💅
• --generateNormals — generates normals for all faces of all meshes.
• --findInvalidData — this step searches all meshes for invalid data, such as zeroed normal vectors or invalid UV coords, and removes/fixes them. it's intended to get rid of some common exporter errors. basically the cleanup crew 🧹
• --removeRedundantMaterials — searches for redundant/unreferenced materials and removes them. recycling era ♻️
• --recalculateLodNormalsSplitAngle <recalculateLodNormalsSplitAngle> — maximum angle in degrees to consider for normal splitting, which creates new vertex data.
• --disable-findInstances — no searching for duplicate meshes today, thank you.
• --disable-expandValueComponents — keeps value components small and unexpanded.
• --disable-useFloatJointIndices — stops joint indices being stored as floating point numbers. (rip GLES 2.0 coding)
• --splitLargeMeshes — splits large meshes into smaller sub-meshes. big mesh? no. many small meshes? yes.
• --useBinaryKeyframes — records keyframe data as binary files.
• --disable-transformUVCoordinates — turns off the UV coordinate transformation + baking step.
• --dropNormals — drops normals for all faces of all meshes. literally just letting them go 😭
• --disable-removeRedundantMaterials — keeps the redundant/unreferenced materials. they live here now.
• --removeComponentBoneWeights — removes any bone weights from meshes.
• --removeComponentNormals — removes the Normal component from meshes.
• --disable-generateMeshLevelsOfDetail — no auto-generated mesh Levels of Detail.
• --disable-fixInfacingNormals — leaves those inward-facing normals exactly as they are. we're not flipping anything.
• --removeComponentUVs — removes any UV components from meshes.
• --expandValueComponents — when enabled, value types like vector3d and quaternion will be expanded.
• --disable-useBinaryKeyframes — keyframes will not be recorded as binary files.
• --disable-manualAnimations — turns off manual animation control mode.
• --optimizeMeshes — a postprocessing step to reduce the number of meshes. decluttering your entire 3D life. ✨
• --disable-optimizeMeshes — keeps every mesh, no postprocessing reduction.
• --disable-recalculateLodNormals — disables the LOD normal recalculation.
• --generateMeshLevelsOfDetail — when possible, create mesh Levels of Detail by automatically simplifying the source mesh. auto-simplify, so chic. 🌸
• --disable-removeComponentAnimations — leaves those animation components alone.
• --findInstances — this step searches for duplicate meshes and replaces them with references to the first mesh. found family but make it geometry. 🫶
• --findDegenerates — this step searches all meshes for degenerate primitives and converts them to proper lines or points.
• --generateMipMaps — force all imported texture components to generate mip maps for mip map texture filtering.
• --disable-removeComponentNormals — keeps the Normal components on meshes.
• --manualAnimations — no TimelineAnimations are generated for Timelines so that they can be manually controlled. you're the main character of the timeline now 👑
• --removeComponentColors — removes any Color components from meshes.
• --joinIdenticalVertices — identifies and joins identical vertex data sets within all imported meshes. they were the same all along 💖
• --removeComponentAnimations — removes any animation components from meshes.
• --globalScaleValue <globalScaleValue> — the global scale factor.
• --fixInfacingNormals — tries to determine which meshes have normal vectors that are facing inwards and inverts them. reaching in, flipping them around. 💅
• --optimizeGraph — a postprocessing step to optimize the scene hierarchy.
• --designStudioWorkarounds — enable options that are needed to create Design Studio compatible components.
• --disable-joinIdenticalVertices — don't join identical vertex data sets, they can stay separate, it's fine, no pressure.
• --disable-removeComponentUVs — keeps your UV components on the meshes.
• --disable-optimizeGraph — no scene hierarchy optimization. the hierarchy is perfect as it is.
• --disable-removeComponentColors — keeps the Color components. colorful era 🌈
• --disable-generateSmoothNormals — no smooth normals for all vertices.
• --removeComponentTangentsAndBitangents — removes Tangents and Bitangents components from meshes.
• --disable-removeComponentBoneWeights — keeps the bone weights on the meshes.
• --removeComponentTextures — removes any embedded texture components from meshes.
• --disable-fbxPreservePivots — the fbx importer will not preserve pivot points.
• --disable-findInvalidData — skips the invalid data search-and-fix step entirely.
• --generateSmoothNormals — generates smooth normals for all vertices in the mesh.
• --disable-dropNormals — keeps your normals, we are NOT dropping them.
• --preTransformVertices — removes the node graph and pre-transforms all vertices with the local transformation matrices of their nodes.

real talk bestie: basically every positive option here has a matching --disable- twin, so if you're ever like "wait, did I turn that ON or OFF", double check before you ship it. 🫶

🌟 Arguments: 🌟

• sourceFilename — the asset file to be imported. this is your star of the show, the file you're feeding in. give it a name and let it cook. 🔥

---

and that's the whole page, you made it, I'm so proud of you 💜

this was pyside6-balsam version 6.11, dated September 2026 — catch you in the next man page, bestie. mwah. 💖🎀🦋✨