blender questions

rooster

playing around in 2.49, got a few questions..

1. this 3d cursor: is there a better way to place it than just clicking? it seems to just go somewhere random in z depth when you click..

can I attatch it to the camera's target?

or, can I make grease pencil use something other than the 3d cursor for it's stroke positions (like a camera target- can you make a targetted camera)?

2. how on earth do you load a texture. I managed to 'create' a bunch of texture thingies (nodes I guess), but I can't see any way of actually connecting up a .png

3. changing the specular glossiness only seems to affect the material preview- can it be shown in the viewport too?

4. how do you average vertex normals (appear smooth)
I tried 'clear sharp' but it still looked pretty sharp..

got plenty more but thats a good start, cheers!

edit:
5. how do you change the size (distance) of the proportional edit falloff? (not the type of falloff)

6. it just closes when you hit close. no 'how about you save that unsaved work there hun?' dialogue. wtf! is that an option?

okno

1. shift+s let's you place the cursor at the selection/grid/active. I don't use grease pencil much sorry. Lol, you want to do those doodle things of yours, don't you:)
2. press F6, press the "add new" button if there isn't already a texture, in "texture type" choose image then press the load button that appears (you can also press "nodes" button under that texture type button and add and image in the nodes window with an image input node)
3. From the Game menu at the top choose "Blender GLSL materials" then change draw type to textured (alt + Z, or choose it from the toolbar)
4. select the object in object mode and press F9 then press "set smooth" button in links and materials box. You can then choose which edges are sharp with the edge split modifier, then with ctrl+e choose "mark sharp" to get your sharp edges.
5. Whilst doing a transform, you can use the scroll wheel on a mouse, I use the circle thing on my wacom. There might be another way but I don't know.
6. I think that's just how it is.

the manual wiki

rooster

thanks
yeah I would indeed like to try blender's 3d sketching ability, its *almost just what I'd like. there's bits that are better than doing it in maya, but other bits that arent

my first order of buisness is trying to force blender into some acceptible hotkeys/navigation. I remember the main blender dude saying something like ' its not a simple tool, its like a piano- you need to be a pianist to use it'. I didn't realise he was talking about blender not the piano

but, after beginning to look at it seriously there's definately a lot of potential.. I'm investigating switching all/most of my regular tools over to cheap/open source products

Zwebbie

rooster wrote:

my first order of buisness is trying to force blender into some acceptible hotkeys/navigation. I remember the main blender dude saying something like ' its not a simple tool, its like a piano- you need to be a pianist to use it'. I didn't realise he was talking about blender not the piano

The unsaved work thing is an example of this mentality, I think. It assumes that you're not an idiot and that if you wanted something saved, you would have done so. It's a bit silly because clicking yes or no barely costs you any time, but still, I like the idea behind it.


Mind that 2.5 will allow you to set your own hotkeys - it's supposed to be released in about two weeks from now. I've read that people are actually working on getting it to possibly work exactly like Max/Maya. Still, some of Blender's conventions might not be as bad as they sound. People hate RMB select, but a dedicated selection button does have its advantages and I think deselecting by hotkey is quicker than by clicking an empty space.

rooster

edit: disclaimer: im starting to sound kinda crabby but on the whole I'm warming to it
ctrl click extrusion is awesome for strip modelling

how do you 'delete history' on a mesh? flatten the stack so to speak

I added a multires, but now I just want it to act like normal geom again. its saying I can't edit because of the multires

zweb: i have a beta version of 2.5, lots of it isn't working properly as fas as I can tell, so I don't plan to switch right away unless they do an almighty crunch in the next 2 weeks

about the quit thing though.. cmon, the X button is right next to maximize window. its not stupidity, its clicking 5 pixels right of where you aimed for. They have a confirm dialogue for deleting objects!

also, I have heard a lot about the blender developers really thinking carefully about their shortcuts, and its great when you get used to it.. well I'm sure as hell not going to be pressing ctrl-tab-1 every time I want to edit verts

Zwebbie

There's no single 'delete history' button. Scale and rotation are applied by pressing Ctrl+A and selecting the first option, Modifiers all have their own Apply button and Multires has a big Apply Multires button in its panel . It should become possible to actually edit a Multires mesh at some point, but I don't know when that'll be added.


The shortcuts often do suck, yes. Consider yourself lucky, the old way of merging vertices was selecting them, Shift+S, 4, Alt+M, 2 .

okno

I agree about the quit thing. There are other things like that as well, like in the multires box, the arrows to change level up/down are right underneath the delete buttons, I've sometimes deleted several levels and only realised when I want to change level a while later when it's far too late.:(

rooster

aah, cheers Zwebbie! I didn't quite understand how the multires functioned. I thought I already was applying it when I made it, didn't notice the button text changed from add to apply

Sandro

What to you guys use multires for? Why not subsurf modifier? It's non-destructive and lets you model + preview subdivision levels. If you need destructive way, you can just apply it. Works pretty much like turbosmooth in 3dsmax.

okno

Sculpting

Sandro

Ahh, I see. Last time I checked blender couldn't handle polycount necessary for sculpting though, is there some kind of special build?

rooster

I'm just fooling around, I've not touched subsurf yet

okno

Sandro, I can get up to 400,000 polys before serious lag, but I have ancient hardware, so it would normally be higher for others.

rooster, I've just remembered a way to get the 3D cursor to stick to an object's surface. Go in Texture Paint mode, then ctrl+click. There might be a better way to manipulate the cursor/greasepencil with a script but I'm not experienced with Blender API.

jrs100000

For the one click close thing, its not as big a deal as it first appears because Blender autosaves when it quits. If you want to recover a file you closed without saving, open Blender and hit file --> recover last session.

rooster

oh cool, nice on jrs

new question: I can't find how to split UVs

I want to select some edges, and split UVs along the edge borders

jrs100000

Cutting and welding UVs can not be done directly at this time. You have to go back and edit your seams and re-unwrap (remember to pin first).

There has been some interest in this, so with any luck it will be added during/after Durian.

Zwebbie

If you mean select the seams for the unwrap, that's Ctrl+E -> Mark Seam.

If you mean split islands in the UV Editor, that's indeed a bit nasty. It's possible to select the parts you want to split off in the 3D Window (so that only those are visible in the UV Window) and move them. Be sure to mark the seams, though, or Blender will notice that dirty trick you did and it'll try to weld everything back together the next time you Unwrap something, regardless of pinning.

rooster

LSCM isn't in 2.49 tho so this build seems to kinda suck for UVing

zwebbie: I noticed you could select individual faces and move them away, however this isn't much use when you just want to split part of an island, not detatch a whole new island

another one :

what about backface culling in the viewport? I noticed it turns on if I go into textured mode, but then the model goes white. I always model with culling on

also: convert selection tools, what is there along those lines? convert vert selection to faces, or faces to edges etc

Hitez

to get the 3D cursor to behave correctly you actually need to click twice. I press 1 to get a front view, click where i want it, then 7 to get a top view and click again. it will be in the right spot. also a CTRL+S to snap it to the grid or any selected things.
and tab is the only key you need to use to get into vert edit mode. no combinations...
also, take a look at the W key menu, your often used commands are in there..such as merge, set smooth, bevel, etc.

personally, after working in blender i love the crap out of it. when you get to know the keystrokes you'll find them very comfortable and they speed up the modeling process by so much.

Lamoot

First 2.5 Beta will be out at the end of November and not at the end of October as initially planned.

LSCM isn't in 2.49 tho so this build seems to kinda suck for UVing

For the smart unwrapping automatic thingy, Blender uses LSCM and ABF, ABF being the default option. Both are started by pressing U -> unwrap in 3d window, or by E ->unwrap in UV/image editor (what an interesting lack of shortcut consistency). To change which method is used for the unwrap operation, either LSCM or ABF do this:

Be in edit mode, in buttons window go to Editing (F9), then find the UV Calculation panel. There you have a drop-down list with 2 entries: Angle based and Conformal.

Angle based = ABF
Conformal = LSCM

what about backface culling in the viewport? I noticed it turns on if I go into textured mode, but then the model goes white. I always model with culling on

When in Solid draw mode, press shift+t to go to some in-between texture mode. You will still be in Solid draw mode, but display applied textures as well (or plain shading if no texture is used). The added bonus is you have backface culling.

also: convert selection tools, what is there along those lines? convert vert selection to faces, or faces to edges etc

You'll have to elaborate a bit more on this one I'm not exactly sure what functionality you're looking for.

okno

rooster wrote: »

also: convert selection tools, what is there along those lines? convert vert selection to faces, or faces to edges etc

Selection is automatically converted when you change select mode. Also holding shift when pressing select mode buttons lets you use vert/edge/face select simultaneously.

Sandro

I stay in vertex mode 90% of times and kind of like it. If you select 2 vertices you've got edge selected, and if you add two more it's face selection and you can perform both vertex & face operations on selection Using wacom tablet and it's lot easier to make 2-3 additional taps then pressing ctrl+tab every 5 seconds and breaking flow. Only thing I miss is proper edgesplit.

rooster

okno wrote: »

Selection is automatically converted when you change select mode. Also holding shift when pressing select mode buttons lets you use vert/edge/face select simultaneously.

ah, i kind of saw that but it doesn't quite behave how I'm used to. I would expect if you have an edge ring selected, convert to faces would select all those faces the edges belong to (loop of faces basically). blender just deselects completely

sandro, I'll give that a try; but with the script in the other thread ( http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=66622 ) i just press A to get the component select menu which is reasonably quick. i still prefer my old maya setup of A vert, S edge, D face. I just discovered if you shift click all the manipulators too (scale position rotation) you get all them as well, so that plus all the component modes is interesting..

looks like a damn mess, but it's kinda cool!

rooster

Lamoot wrote: »

U -> unwrap in 3d window, or by E ->unwrap .

my uv menu has:
unwrap
cube projection
cylinder from view
sphere from view
project from view
project from view bounds
reset
click project from face
follow active
lightmap uv pack
unwrap (smart projections)

if I press E in the uv window it says ok? 'unwrap'
and clicking it does nothing

edit: OOOOH im an idiot, I was looking for the option 'unwrap in 3d window'

Lamoot wrote: »

When in Solid draw mode, press shift+t to go to some in-between texture mode. You will still be in Solid draw mode, but display applied textures as well (or plain shading if no texture is used). The added bonus is you have backface culling.

thanks do you know where this option is in the menus? my shortcuts are all messed up so I have to disable my script to do this

Zwebbie

Yeah, it only converts to faces when you've got the entire face selected in Edge or Vertex mode. You can cheat by selecting two edge loops, converting to Vertex select (which, thanks to its limits, also selects the edge ring then) and then converting to Face select. To compensate, though, Alt+RMB (or Alt+LMB in your case) is used to select loops, which is pretty handy and fast.

Edit: For UVs, that first option, unwrap is the one you want. E in the UV menu should do the same if you have faces selected.

rooster

I actually buggered up that functionality because alt and any mouse has been taken for navigation.. although I could probably remap that to a keypress.. hmmm thanks!

Lamoot

if I press E in the uv window it says ok? 'unwrap'
and clicking it does nothing

edit: OOOOH im an idiot, I was looking for the option 'unwrap in 3d window'

This is because a mesh doesn't initially have a UV layer, and the first time you unwrap it from the 3d window, Blender assigns the mesh its first UV layer. Once there is UV to work on, E will re-unwrap in the UV/Image editor. UV layers can be found in Editing (F9), Mesh panel -> UV Texture. This is another one of those things that will be clearer and have a much better place in the UI in 2.5.

thanks do you know where this option is in the menus? my shortcuts are all messed up so I have to disable my script to do this

3d window, in the header View -> View Properties... panel -> Solid Tex button

Regarding the previous multires discussion and issues (that appear to be solved now?): in 2.5 multires is a modifier, it behaves like one so applying it won't be a problem

rooster

is there a quick way to split edges? on regular geometry. The only way I found was to select the edges, mark as sharp then apply the split edge modifier

edit: when I say split, I mean apart, so you can pull them away from each other. not insert edgeloop

Zwebbie

V should do that. It's found as Rip under Mesh -> Vertices.

Haledire

If you mean to edit, you can split an edge by selecting it and hitting V on the keyboard. This will split the edge and you will hold an edge on a grab selection that was on the side closer to your mouse at the time of the keypress.

rooster

thanks for all the great help so far
I'm currently working using AutoHotkey to make a little GUI for various often used tools. I just don't believe some of the contortionist hotkeys are faster than clicking a button . too used to the shelf..

new Q!

if I have the scale gizmo active, how do I scale in all axes? is this a stupid obvious q?
edit: also in maya, for the rotate tool if you click in the 'sphere' of the gizmo, but not on the axis circles you can free rotate in any axis. is there an equivalant?

okno

Press s to scale on all axis. (if you then press x/y/z you can constrain to those axis, or shift+x/y/z to block scaling on that axis)
For free rotation, just press r twice

Edit: you can also use mouse gestures for transforming. Draw a v shape for scale, a circle for rotation and a line for moving. You can also use middle click to constrain to an axis

Rhys

Drag from inside the white circle in the gizmo.

Personally I never ever use the gizmo in blender. Rather the buttons s,g,r and constrain to axis keys as okno says. Gizmos to me feel innacurate, slow (have to aim your mouse onto the handles) and take up space on screen.

Pressing r then z+z again will rotate the selected along their face normal z axis etc.



What are the hotkeys you call 'contortionist'? I find most of the hotkeys I use regularely are right under my left hand which is sitting on wasd.
For some hotkeys there are multiple different 'routes' to acheive the same thing.

Which blender hotkey presses are problematic to you?

Sandro

I tried to use gizmo tool in blender when I first started learning it, but it started getting on my nerves soon, as I had to avoid clicking it when selecting vertices etc.

So I switched to g-r-s hotkeys too. It got quite precise and fast after a while.

eld

for grabbing I actually always used the pattern recognition where you select the mesh hold down left button drag a bit and release, and it see it as a G.

but for scaling and rotating I always use R and S.

Lamoot

if I have the scale gizmo active, how do I scale in all axes? is this a stupid obvious q?
edit: also in maya, for the rotate tool if you click in the 'sphere' of the gizmo, but not on the axis circles you can free rotate in any axis. is there an equivalant?

If you have only the scale gizmo active, then click on the white circle. If you have the move gizmo active as well, the white circle will move the object. If you have rotate gizmo active as well, you will only have this big white circle for rotating in screenspace.

Trackball might be what you're looking for for the second question. Press R and then R again to access it. Any additional time you press R, Blender will toggle between rotate and trackball.

rooster

Rhys: lots to pick from, but how about unparent. Left alt, p

edit: lamoot, the white circle lets me rotate in screenspace, but I mean all over like pressing r twice
is that only available through shortcut?

edit: I just read your answer again.. I can't see any other white circle, and I have just the rotate gizmo active

rooster

ok this is really confusing me..

I can have one image mapped to a material, which is applied to my object.. but the viewport will show whatever texture I have 'opened' in the UV window?? what's really applied to the object?

Zwebbie

You can change that display by going to Game in the top menu bar and selecting Blender GLSL Materials. The default, Texture Face Materials, only shows what's in the UV Editor. Alternatively, you can use Shift+P for the render preview, which shows what your render would look like, but in viewport. It's handy if you want to quickly switch between the two.

What's really applied to the object is what's in the Material. Now Blender's a bit odd in the sense that it doesn't have a Diffuse or Specular slot, you assign Diffuse as a function to textures. (I'm not a big fan of it, but it does allow you to use multiple diffuse maps, for example, should you want them and it's easy to use one map for multiple things).
In Shading (F5) -> Material Buttons, you can add a Material, after which you can create a texture in Shading (F5) -> Texture Buttons(F6). Back in the Material tab, Texture will list your textures. Map Input next to it, specifies the UVs, which usually means you want to flip on UV. Map To has a pretty self-evident name, here you define what kind of map you want it to be. Col is Diffuse, Nor is normal/bump and Csp is specular. (Note that the default strength for normal maps is 0.50 for some reason, so you'll always want to change that one).

Oh, one last thing, be sure to flip on Shadeless in the Material Panel if you want 100% self-illumination.

rooster

thanks for the explanation man, its going to take a bit of getting used to. the glsl material behaves kinda weird for me in edit mode, I can move the faces and the texture stays put

is there a way to say to blender 'ok whatever material is applied to what faces, use that for the UV window' ?

Lamoot

I can move the faces and the texture stays put

Elaborate a bit more on this one please

is there a way to say to blender 'ok whatever material is applied to what faces, use that for the UV window' ?

99% sure it's not possible.

rooster

herm, ok instead of the uv window, what about the 3d viewport?

I just can't believe the viewport doesnt show you what textured materials are applied to what faces

about the texture swimming: I'll need to double check and write down the steps

Sandro

Rooster is your texture mapping set to "UV" instead of "orco" or other fancy stuff? It has been the cause of all texture weirdness I've experienced with blender.

rooster

back into blender

I'm missing the attribute editor from maya..
say I make a cube, or whatever it is I make. How do I say 'make this 5 tall and 6 wide with x number of subdivisions'
does it just not work like that? is scaling the cube the only way?

lets say I want 50 subdivisions. I know I can go 'loop subdivide' and scroll my mouse, but I can't count out either 50 mouse scrolls, or count the edges onscreen.. surely?


ooh, one other: don't suppose theres any 'redo last command' function like maya? it's pretty handy

okno

Just type 50 after loop cut. Also in object mode select the object, press n and try changing the Dim x/y/z. Not sure about the redo last command. Btw, I'm trying to make a script that will position the cursor at an Empty just in front of the view-port to make greasepencil sketching easier. I've basically done the script but I'm still working out how to make it realtime...

planaria

i am guessing that your low poly model is set to solid shading.. set it to smooth ?

chiniara wrote: »

Hi guys, i am new here and i have a problem.
Someone knows how do i fix this :



Its very strange, i followed a tutorial and in the tutorial the normal map is perfect but for me it isn't

Lamoot

lets say I want 50 subdivisions. I know I can go 'loop subdivide' and scroll my mouse, but I can't count out either 50 mouse scrolls, or count the edges onscreen.. surely?

When you initiate the loopcut tool, simply press 5 and then 0 for 50 cuts and additionally adjust the number with the mouse wheel. Also, see the 3d window's header when in loopcut tool (or any other tool for that matter) it displays all sorts of useful info.

say I make a cube, or whatever it is I make. How do I say 'make this 5 tall and 6 wide with x number of subdivisions'
does it just not work like that? is scaling the cube the only way?

Scaling the cube is the only way.

ooh, one other: don't suppose theres any 'redo last command' function like maya? it's pretty handy

If you're using 2.49 version then there isn't such a command.

I can't advocate future features as something that's already a Blender feature, but if you don't mind me mentioning 2.5, there will be such a command available. In the current testing builds the shortcut is shift+r. A rather similar feature will be the ability to edit the last performed command/operation (either in the 3d window's toolbar or by evoking a panel by pressing F6). Indeed pretty handy

rooster

great stuff man, thanks for the info

metalliandy

rooster wrote: »

is there a quick way to split edges? on regular geometry. The only way I found was to select the edges, mark as sharp then apply the split edge modifier

edit: when I say split, I mean apart, so you can pull them away from each other. not insert edgeloop

You can also hit Y if you want to split faces away from the mesh without creating a new object as V only works if you have 2 or less verts selected.
I tend to use this for smoothing groups

HAL

Yep, thats the way I do it, too. Works fine and also removes the need to split the uvs while mapping them since the faces are split.

rooster

another q: can I display wireframe over shaded? solid mesh with wireframe overlaid
edit; oh how do I get the wireframe mode to show the 'real' wireframe too? i just subdivided up a mesh and none of those are showing in wireframe