Applying texture to a 3D object

Question

I am trying to draw a 3D cube on the screen, using MonoGame. The cube was created in Blender and exported as an fbx file. The following is what the cube looks like in VS when opened in the editor:

And this is what it looks like when displayed on screen:

From the research that I've done so far, I believe that I need to apply a texture. I couldn't see any way to do this in Blender, or in the Content Pipeline Tool, and so I tried the following when drawing the effect:

effect.Texture = _texture;
effect.TextureEnabled = true;

When I run this, I get a runtime error:

An error occurred while preparing to draw. This is probably because the current vertex declaration does not include all the elements required by the current vertex shader. The current vertex declaration includes these elements: SV_Position0, NORMAL0, COLOR0.

Clearly I'm missing a key part of this puzzle; please can somebody point me in the right direction.

Answer 1

1. Creating textured model in Blender
First, add a new texture by going to texture panel on the right. Select type "Image or Movie", click "Open" and locate your texture file.

Then, move your mouse to the 3d view, press Tab to select the default cube, then press "U" and select Unwrap.
Go to UV Image Editor:
and select the texture:
At this point, the cube should be textured and you can verify that by changing viewport shading to texture:
Now export the model as FBX file (all settings should be on default). When you open the model now in Visual Studio, the texture should also be visible. 2. Converting the model
Download Autodesk FBX 2013.3 Converter (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=22694909)
In the converter, add your fbx file, change the destination folder to the same one where your current file is (otherwise it creates a subfolder) and rename destination file so that it isn't same. Then press Convert.
Now open the Monogame pipeline tool and import both the converted model and the texture: 3. Rendering the cube
I believe that your rendering code would now work, but to be sure, there is a simple code needed to render it properly:

public class Game1 : Game
{
    GraphicsDeviceManager graphics;     
    private Model model;

    public Game1()
    {
        graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this);
        Content.RootDirectory = "Content";
    }

    protected override void LoadContent()
    {           
        model = Content.Load<Model>("Model1");
    }

    protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)
    {
        GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);

        foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Meshes)
        {              
            foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects)
            {

                effect.World = Matrix.CreateTranslation(new Vector3(0, 0, 0));
                effect.View = Matrix.CreateLookAt(new Vector3(5,5, 5), Vector3.Zero, Vector3.Up);
                effect.Projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), 1.6f, 0.1f, 10000.0f);
                effect.EnableDefaultLighting();
            }

            mesh.Draw();
        }

        base.Draw(gameTime);
    }
}