[Blender] MESHmachine: Hard Surface focused Mesh Modeling

MACHIN3

MESHmachine is a blender mesh modeling addon with a focus on hard surface work without subdivision surfaces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hvusH1QrRc

Out for Blender 2.80 now!

MESHmachine's chamfer and fillet toolset allows for more flexibility, when dealing with fillet-like surfaces, traditionally created with the Bevel and Bridge tools.
MESHmachine's approach to fillets is the Fuse tool, which builds transitional surfaces from chamfers, fusing the surfaces on both sides.
Doing this, you get the benefits of both - chamfers and fillets - while avoiding their disadvantages.

Features

• turn chamfers into fillets/bevels and back
• change the width of a chamfer or bevel
• create variable fillets and washouts
• unbevel and unchamfer to go back to a hard edge
• practically edit existing existing bevels
• resolve tricky geometry overlaps in cases where two bevels meet
• flatten polygons based on another polygon or flatten a polygon based on 3 vertices
• flatten along a normal or flatten along edges
• redirect chamfer flow by turning the corners
• convert triangular bevel corners into quad corners
• plug details into your mesh
• build your own plugs and create/buy/sell plug libraries
• cleanup booleans and create clean perimeter loops around their intersections
• stash backups and objects referenced by other tools, without cluttering the scene
• create and manipulate custom normals
• mirror and symmetrize custom normals

You can watch this documentation playlist on youtube or watch those same videos through the documentation.

Fuse, Unfuse, Refuse

Plugs

Available on Gumroad.

Comments and questions are appreciated!

IxenonI

this looks great, I`m going to have to look into blender soon...

MACHIN3

Thanks, love your work!

BlackFenix_URS

Really amazing tools! Recently I bought KIP OPS but now I'm really exited about MESHmachine Plugs:) I will try both and see the results, hope this two insert functions/plugins can work together complementing each other or I hurried with the first

jovcem

what sorcery is this

JoseConseco

Awesome update. 
I wonder, are plugs working like -> boolean -> delete hole -> bridge + surface deformer on plug?
Maybe with 2.8 weighted normals addition, there will be no need for transferring normals thing.
btw. Machin3, you doing the addon stuff full time now?

MACHIN3

Thanks mate!

By default I'm not doing a boolean, instead I'm am finding faces in the target object by proximity to verts in the (deformed) handle mesh.  I am using a surface deform mod for fillet plugs. For edge plugs I'm moving the verts manually to the closest point on the target surface. I tried to do as much as I could in bmesh directly. I'm using a mesh deform mod, when "deformer use" is enabled. This is superior, but slower, than surface deform.

if you use the "contain" feature, I'm doing a boolean knife cut before replacing the interior faces of that knife cut, followed by removing the boolean knife edges.

It sucks we still don't have access to booleans on the bmesh level. And I think this hasn't changed for 2.8 either.

As for weighted normals, I don't think they will help much. This really only works for flat surfaced geo, I think. For more complex surfaces you will need a reference surface to transfer from.

I'm doing DM and MM fulltime yes. It has paid my bills for the past year. I hope with the 2.80 ports done, I can finally focus on art again, which after all, was the whole point of creating these tools.

How's your 2.80 work going? Have you started porting? Would love to see Group Pro for 2.80!

JoseConseco

Thanks for answer. 
I tested weighted normals and you are right they didn't help much. I use them sometimes to even out surface shading, but it doesn't  help here much. Now I see there is 'Normal Transfer' checkbox after executing plugs so that is cool. No need to create stash.
I wonder myself about going full time as addon dev (thanks to Hair tool) but will see how Garment thing will sell.
I  guess I will start moving GP to blender2.8 right away. But new  class registering one by one is pain (blender devs removed register_module() function) :<

kanga

jovcem said:

what sorcery is this

A jaw dropper!

GlowingPotato

There is a tool called UNF*CK

EVERY PIECE OF SOFTWARE SHOULD HAVE THIS TOOL.

MACHIN3

Honestly, many of these tools should IMHO have been in all major 3d aps for the past 10, 15 years. I'm just an artist and could built these.

Menno

Hi Machin3,

I cannot find the popup window with the 'contain' checkbox.

What is the shortcut for that?

(There is nothing about it in the docs yet)

best

M

MACHIN3

Menno said:

Hi Machin3,

I cannot find the popup window with the 'contain' checkbox.

What is the shortcut for that?

(There is nothing about it in the docs yet)

It's a default blender feature, hence why there's no separate page or video aabout it , but it is mentioned int the preferences video.

Menno

Thanks Machin3, I had to play the video a few times, but got it working ;-)
looking forward to a 2.8 release so I can finally switch from my Max/C4D workflow to Blender

Fansub

Just saw the news about piracy on your twitter feed and bought your plugin right away.

You're doing god's work and are a huge inspiration to many of us tooldevs out there. Thanks a lot for all your hard work !

Adnan

MACHIN3

@Fansub Sorry for the delay Adnan, and thank you so much for your support and kind words!

The reactions from some elements in the blender community were quite ... interesting.

A lot of lecturing, patronizing, elitist smugness and completely uncalled for teasing.  It seems like  I've committed a huge sin by talking about this.

I've also received a lot of support, which was nice.

Thanks again!

Aabel

Wow, just read that. It's really sad what's happening to you and the attitude you are getting. You are a really talented CG artist and the Blender community is lucky to have you. I see you are playing with Houdini, you should consider making some Houdini assets for your gumroad. I and many others would happily pay to have those decal tools in Houdini.

MACHIN3

Thanks @Aabel!

I will continue to look into Houdini over the next year and see what I can do in regards to decals. I'm hooked.

Looking at orbolt or at Alexey Vanzhula's work(which is amazing, but get the impression it's not been very rewarding economicaly), I'm not sure, if there actually is much of a market.  Maybe there will be, if more users interested in modeling in Houdiini can be onboarded. I'm excited for Houdini's future in that regard.

But that never was my main drive anyway. I create the tools I want to use and it will be the same with Houdini, no doubt.

Burpee

MACHIN3 said:

Honestly, many of these tools should IMHO have been in all major 3d aps for the past 10, 15 years. I'm just an artist and could built these.

Autodesk & co should be ashamed to read this.

Your plug in looks amazing! Looks like another reason to switch to blender :'D 

beefaroni

All of your tools are fantastic. The bevel tools, fillet, overlap, autoweld, plugs, etc is the first time I've been excited by a new poly modelling workflow since Quad Chamfer.

I'm slowly transitioning over to Blender 2.8 from a weird Maya + 3DS Max workflow. Really looking forward to the full 2.8 release and buying all your tools when they're ported over

musashidan

Just looked at the latest trailer and you continue to amaze. I'm also in the early stages of a serious love affair with 2.80(another long-time Max user) To be honest, it's the amazingly modern and slick tools that you and others are creating that's made me take another serious look at Blender.

Would I be right in saying that you've actually added a 'hard edges from face selection border' tool, just like Max's smoothing group workflow? This would blow my mind and be reason enough for me to purchase the tool for this feature alone. Blender's smoothing took me a while to get my head around coming from Max, but smoothing from face borders would be so nice to have in Blender.

BI0H0G

Amazing tool, I just have one question can i bake the mesh to be use in a game engine?

MACHIN3

Sure.

BI0H0G

Cool, you got yourself a purchase as soon as i get some spare cash

MACHIN3

If you use this link, you can get a 25% discount: https://gumroad.com/l/MESHmachine/polycount 

MACHIN3

v0.6.8 for Blender 2.80 is out now  Gumroad 

If you are an existing MM customer on gumroad, check your email for a 100% discount. MESHmachine 0.6.8 is a separate product now. If you have not received an email, please reach out to me directily at mesh@machin3.io

About 0.6.8

The 0.6.8 release is the first MESHmachine for Blender 2.80.
It is for the most part a straight port of MESHmachine 0.6. There are only a few additions, but numerous tweaks and improvements.
Users of the previous 0.6 version should feel right at home, maybe more so than ever - now in Blender 2.80.

A few things - mostly legacy modal options - have been removed to streamline the codebase going forwards.

Check out the changelog in the docs 1, or below, for a detailed list of all changes.

Attention

There are two open Blender bugs affecting the Plug tool : T64300 and T64307.
Until they are fixed, there will be issues with plugging and Redo Last .

This means, you currently can’t change the plug rotation via the redo panel , and Plug deformation will stop working, as soon as any property is changed in the redo panel . You should be able to work around that by manualy undoing as demonstrated here 3.

Furthermore, the contain and normal transfer options are now temporarily enabled by default to avoid unecessary undos. This comes at a ~50% performance cost.

Changelog

• Plugs
  • create collections when bringing Plugs into the scene
  • default to raycast based plug insertion (at the location of the mouse cursor)
  • support local view
  • remove show wire option and always use the fading wire instead
• Fuse, Unfuse, Refuse, Unchamfer, Unbevel
  • auto-set smooth tool option based on initial selection
  • auto-sets tool options when working on DECALmachine panel decals
• ChangeWidth
  • add taper option
• Symmetrize, RealMirror
  • use different colors when mirroring custom normals
  • improve drawing performance
• RealMirror
  • create collections for originals and mirrored objects
• VSelect
  • draw all vgroups in addition to the highlighted and selected ones
• stashes HUD
  • only draw when overlays are enabled
• CreateStash
  • improve performance significantly
• ViewStashes
  • support retrieving stashes in local view
• TransferStashes
  • draw transferred stashes, this is especially useful in context of the re-stash option
• NormalTransfer
  • optionally switch the matcap automatically when the tool is run and switch back when finished
  • disabled NEAREAST NORMAL and NEAREST POLY NORMAL modes
• Remove Tape tool
  • Grease Pencil now has a Line shape, that’s similar
• Preferences
  • add options for context menus for object and edit modes
  • automatically register LoopTools, if the wrappers are enabled and LoopTools is not registered
  • fix issues in Plug Library Rename and Remove
  • add update check
  • add GetSupport tool
  • update about page
  • remove keyboard layout selection
  • remove options to use tools in either SIMPLE or MODAL mode
• add tool tips for all tools
• improve all modal tools
  • prevent jumping values when cursor wrapping, when rotating the view and when toggling SHIFT and CTRL
  • mesh scale and zoom independent modal geometry adjustments
• fix issues when unregistering and Loading Factory Settings
• start refactoring, simplifying and optimizing internals of the chamfer and fillet toolset in preparation for 0.7

Re-Watch the trailer for 0.6, all of this is in 2.80 now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hvusH1QrRc

J0Y

I have a few questions about how to clean up boolean for a sphere with solidify modifier applied. Right now, the boolean clean up tool only cleans up one side of the sphere (the inner edge) and I don't know how to make it clean up the outside edge. 

MACHIN3

https://machin3.io/MESHmachine/docs/faq/#get-support

Justo

This plugin makes the hardsurface nerd in me drool like no other. I wonder though: the way I understand it, it is currently NOT possible to assign custom shortcuts to specific tools, like Fuse or Flatten, is it? The ONLY way to access these is through the MeshMachine Menu, which we can set to whatever key we prefer, yes? 

I haven't bought this yet, though I most likely will at some point, but this one point was the one rotten apple to my "Blender customizables fetishes". Is it possible to assign shortcuts to specific functions (or the possibility of adding them to custom pie menus) so that we dont have to open the full menu every time, or are there any plans to do so in future updates? 

MACHIN3

This plugin makes the hardsurface nerd in me drool like no other. I wonder though: the way I understand it, it is currently NOT possible to assign custom shortcuts to specific tools, like Fuse or Flatten, is it? The ONLY way to access these is through the MeshMachine Menu, which we can set to whatever key we prefer, yes? 

I haven't bought this yet, though I most likely will at some point, but this one point was the one rotten apple to my "Blender customizables fetishes". Is it possible to assign shortcuts to specific functions (or the possibility of adding them to custom pie menus) so that we dont have to open the full menu every time, or are there any plans to do so in future updates? 

All of this is possible already. Just use Blender's keymap editor to create the custom keymaps for the tools you want. 

MESHmachine tools are just blender operators. You can add them to custom pie menus as well.

Also, in case you don't know. For the most common tools, you don't have to open the menu, then find the tool you want, and click it. You can just use a double keystroke, like `yf` for Fuse, or `yw` for Change Width, etc. I mention this in the feature videos and the docs, for instance: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3-FfLvb32c

This way, only a minimum of precious keyboard space is taken up, while still being basically as fast as if each tool had its own short cut.

Justo

Damn, that's impressive...Monumental work you've done with this, machin3.

MACHIN3

To celebrate one week of of Blender 2.80, I’m doing a flash sale on gumroad right now. 

You can grab MESHmachine for 30% off for a limted time enjoy! Supercharge what Blender can do for you

hotpursuite

im a dick!

please send me gumroad email link.

Nosslak

hotpursuite said:

i have to pay again!

i thought better of you....man i understand you put in a lot of work and you deserve to make money from new users but not from loyal customers who supported you in mesh machine "2.79"

very sad.

If you've bought it already you should be able to email Machin3 with proof of purchase from the same email adress you bought it from to get a 100% discount on the new version. I had to do that a while back as well.

MACHIN3

i mean, it's even mentioned in the release post above, as well as on the old product page, wich you can access from your gumroad library.

Why reach out to me in private to get this sorted out, when you can wildly accuse and insult me in public, right? Over a discounted USD 15 purchase over a year ago.

Also, imagine I would actually charge for the update and not give it out for free. Outrageous! Who does that?

Cathodeus

@hopursuite Maybe you could learn coding and do it yourself. That way you will understand.

pior

Is the current most up to date version 0.6 or something higher ? I seem to be having trouble installing the one retrieved from my past purchase.

Getting this with 2.8RC :



Thanks !

Also, what is the best place to report small issues and or QOL notes on either MeshMachine or DecalMachine ?

hotpursuite

Sorry for my Snap!

im a dick Sorry!! 

Neil

MACHIN3

I have send out emails to all customers, with full discount for the 2.80 version of MESHmachine, which is a separate product on gumroad. Some of those emails may have landed in SPAM or may have never arrived at all. They are send via gumroads system, so there is nothing I can do about it. 

If you have not received your discount, you need to get in touch with me, in private. Not here, not on twitter, not on youtube - unless you want me to post your unique discount in public.

The first MESHmachine for 2.80 is 0.6.8, the latest is 0.6.10.

For MESHmachine support requests, go here.

Justo

Just made the purchase. Keep up the good work! Thanks for your quality content.

kanga

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrWGJ1hs3oo&amp;t=105s

Great plugin! Where is 'contain'? I see information about stashes but wondering where that menu at 1:42 is. Also cant find the feature in the sidebar. version 0.7.2

Ah bottom left of the viewport.

bernhard

I can't figure out the issue I am having when using Mesh Machine and the Offset Cut.
I was able to create an offset cut.


After I applied teh offset cut, I am running into a normal issue.
I can't figure out how I can transfer the normals, and when do I have to stash what specifc geometry in order to transfer the normals?


Do I need to stash the cylinder first, that has no boolean?
Do I have to stash the cylinder with the boolean of the door?

I would need to know the procedure, and the steps that need to be done in the right way.

Thank you so much for any little help,
appreciate it!

ps: is there anywhere a discord channel for meshmachine?