Anybody doing tool stuff with Blender?

LoTekK

If so, how the fuck do you keep from tearing your hair out?

About a year or so ago, I started work on a BAppLink of sorts, making sure the manual steps worked, figuring out what dialog boxes, variables, etc were needed, and started diving into the Blender Python API... only to find out it was a complete frankensteinian mess. Nevermind the inconsistent casing; half the functions I needed weren't in any way exposed to the API (in a completely inconsistent manner, at that). Shelved!

(Of course, this isn't even addressing the complaint about Blender's idiotic workflow with regards to texture usage/allocation)

I check back every so often to see if any progress has been made on the API, but nothing, til 2.5 alpha 0. Now just about everything I need is exposed to the API, but fuck me if the bloody texture bake doesn't work worth shit. Yay!

DarthNater

I attempted to write something for blender once. Here was my progress:

Downloaded source, looked through two code files, got under my desk in the fetal position, cried, deleted source code.....

Yeah blender source is a mess and so is their documentation (both users and developers are outdated)

DarthNater

Damn phone always tries to post doubles! Ignore this post

jrs100000

Might be better to wait a little while before working on tools for 2.5. There are still major bugs with UVs and baking, changes are being made in the way files are handled (drag and drop is about ready and will be merged soon), and as I understand it, the entire material system is about to be ripped out and replaced.

renderhjs

would be nice to have some kind of tutorials or experience review of someone who used it in that way.
I think the modeler and many of the tools are not competing at all with the pricey big 3 (max, maya, xsi) but just like sketchup its super sexy for using in a studio as a pipeline element with custom scripts because:

1. runs on win & mac
2. free to download and install/start
3. has a usable base build

I tried once to get my hands dirty with blender pty scripting as well but I must say that 3dsmax or modo are way easier to get into in terms of scripting.

Lamoot

I check back every so often to see if any progress has been made on the API, but nothing, til 2.5 alpha 0. Now just about everything I need is exposed to the API, but fuck me if the bloody texture bake doesn't work worth shit. Yay!

It doesn't work because baking isn't in alpha 0 at all. It was only added later and should be in any of the recent development builds found at: http://www.graphicall.org/builds/

would be nice to have some kind of tutorials or experience review of someone who used it in that way...
...I tried once to get my hands dirty with blender pty scripting as well but I must say that 3dsmax or modo are way easier to get into in terms of scripting.

It's best if you talk directly to the developers, they should have an idea where to start. Best time for this is to attend the weekly sunday IRC meeting http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:SundayMeetingAgenda

Recently, they also started with IRC meetings for new developers http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:SundayMeetingAgenda/NewDev_meetings

Regards

LoTekK

It doesn't work because baking isn't in alpha 0 at all. It was only added later and should be in any of the recent development builds

Yup, I'd already gotten my hands on the recent nightly builds, and while baking is in, the texture baking doesn't work properly (AO and whatnot works fine, though).

Richard Kain

The big problem with scripting in Blender is that is uses Python. In itself, this isn't an issue. Python is a solid language now with plenty of features, and using it with Blender allows you to do almost anything. The problem is that a lot of people familiar with scripting langauges are not familiar with Python. And Python is NOT par for the course on syntax. Python syntax takes some studying and practice to use effectively. In this respect, it's actually quite similar to the rest of Blender.

I'm working with Actionscript 3.0 and Unity at the moment. I won't revisit Blender scripting until a stable and official release of version 2.5 comes out. I'm very excited about using the new scripting features to create game "templates" to use with the Blender Game Engine. I've played around with this sort of thing before, and found it quite appealing. Version 2.5 tool coding should make it possible to create entire gamplay systems that you can apply to basic content. This will make it possible to pre-define the rules of a game, and then just work on the content.

LoTekK

As someone who's had limited experience with a fair number of wildly-varying languages, Python isn't so much the problem as the earlier pyBlend api's maddeningly frankensteinian casing (obviously this wouldn't be a problem if Python weren't case sensitive, but there).

The 2.5 API is looking rather nice, though, and the fact that function-calls are listed in the tooltips of the various buttons/sliders in the ui is a godsend (plus a listener, finally).

Definitely looking forward to a stable build at some point.