Yes, MACHIN3tools has taken a bit of a back seat, while I'm trying to get DECALmachine to the next level. Even MESHmachine has. I will get DECALmachine 2.0 out, then MESHmachine 0.7, then get to start working on art again and expand onf MACHIN3tools.
No worries Machine, take it easy. You're the top one-man-army content creator in the Blender community afaik, I wouldn't want you to overwork yourself.
By the way, is there a setting somewhere in Blender, or in your plugin code scripts, in which I can set the pie menus (or some of them) not to disappear after the first click? For example in the Shading Pie, it's a bit annoying how if I want to open the Ambient Occlusion tab, the menu will disappear and I'll need to re-open it again to access the newly revealed settings.
Nothing too troublesome, of course. Just curious if I'm missing anything obvious.
On EEVEE vs Cycles, someone tried to port a scene from the Spring short film so it could be rendered on both engines, for comparing (there's an animated comparison in the link below as well)
Joined a gamejam last weekend and proposed myself to only use Blender for my main 3D needs. Glad to say I was able to accomplish this!
One thing I wish I had during the competition, was a one-click way to set the origin of an object to its bottom Z location (preferably wherever the origin may be before executing this).
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector
import bmesh
context = bpy.context
def origin_to_bottom(obj):
mw = obj.matrix_world
local_verts = [Vector(v[:]) for v in obj.bound_box]
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(obj.data)
x, y, z = 0, 0, 0
l = len(local_verts)
'''
# will give a modified center
# eg if array modifier will be centre of array
y = sum([v.y for v in local_verts]) / l
x = sum([v.x for v in local_verts]) / l
'''
z = min([v.z for v in local_verts])
local_origin = Vector((x, y, z))
global_origin = mw * local_origin
for v in bm.verts:
v.co = v.co - local_origin
bm.to_mesh(obj.data)
#move the mesh back
mw.translation = global_origin
#test
mesh_objs = [mo for mo in context.selected_objects if mo.type == 'MESH']
bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_GEOMETRY')
for o in mesh_objs:
origin_to_bottom(o)
I foundsome answershere. This one works for 2.76 apparently, but I cannot make it run in 2.8 (nor can I post in that site because of reputation levels or even send a message to OP...). This script should be setting the origin to the lowest center Z coordinate. Something about an incorrect multiplication between a Matrix and a Vector, at "global_origin = mw * local_origin"...Does anyone know how to fix this?
Also, is there no way to search for posts in this specific thread? Tried using the forums' search function to look in the thread titled "Blender Mega Thread", yet nothing came up.
I cant move vertices/ edges in the "Transform Orientations" > local, but can move them In Global. any suggestions on this?
.
I have subscribed to Blender cloud and gone through the series "From maya, max to Blender". This has been really helpful in clearing a lot of my beginner doubts.
@sinheadIf you are looking to have it move along the direction of the edge, try using the normal transform orientation rather than local.
If you rotated the plane in edit mode so it doesn't align with the initial object axes then your local transform will no longer align the way you are probably expecting.
Also, I've no idea why I can escape this quote box, could anyone enlighten me?
@Auldbenkenobi Click the "Toggle HTML View" button (looks like </> ) on the post toolbar, write anything at the end of all that text, then press that button again. That text will be outside all quotes and you can change it to what you actually want.
Also, is there no way to search for posts in this specific thread? Tried
using the forums' search function to look in the thread titled "Blender
Mega Thread", yet nothing came up.
Also, is there no way to search for posts in this specific thread? Tried
using the forums' search function to look in the thread titled "Blender
Mega Thread", yet nothing came up.
It looks like the BF is ignoring this request just out of spite. There's no way they're not pushing this into trunk just because they're waiting for everything nodes. Common, there's already a patch, and it doesn't seem something that would be problematic to maintain (I'm basing this on 0 experience as a programmer though)!
I can give my vote. By 'Merge', we are talking about any repeating mesh portions that are overlapping with each other by cause of the modifiers' effect, to be welded into one mesh, yes?
1. I want to use 1 hdri for lighting and 1 backplate (jpeg) to act as a background.
In the final out I want Hdri to be invisible, Backplate to be visible. This can be achieved in the viewport render - Camera> Backgrond Image> Alpha =1.
But is not possible in the Render window. On Pressing F12, the rendered image will show the HDRI, and not the backplate. So for this I go to Film> Trasparent = on. Now hdri will be invisible in the render window and I have to "composite" the rendered output on the backplate.
Is this the only way? is there any other way to do this?
2. I want the floor to be reflected on the car's body. This floor also has to catch shadows. In other softwares this is achieved by projecting the backplate on the floor.
In blender I have to :- 1) Shadow catcher = on. 2) Uv> Project from view. is that it? or should I match the floor dimesions with the backplate and apply the backplate as a texture on the the floor? Or some other way?
Also, I've no idea why I can escape this quote box, could anyone enlighten me?
@Auldbenkenobi Click the "Toggle HTML View" button (looks like </> ) on the post toolbar, write anything and the end of all that text, then press that button again. That text will be outside all quotes and you can change it to what you actually want.
@Eric Chadwick oh lol that's useful too, thanks for adding, but I was thinking about what ShadowStep mentioned, it's the "Search Topic" button (the magnifying glass button next to the page numbers when viewing a thread):
This is only useful for big threads with tons of pages, but anyway it lets you search something only inside that thread.
It was easy for me to miss it because the icon is dark.
Now I've started to notice that Blender's UV checker/color grid should be just a simple overlay setting. Kinda too much to set it up with a material, because it's saved as a data in the .blend file and needs to be done in every project.
Diving deeper into rigging and animation atm. and, coming from max, blender is really an eye opener. All these crazy remapping tools max offers and in blender it just-works. Moving animations around, editing rigs, skinning (ok with the help of some custom tools). I remember how difficult it was to fix problems in my max rig and applying it to all animations. Now (using Rigify) I can change the rig anytime, and still just map my animations per object name to my rig helper. I mean you can just remove the whole rig from the scene, re-link or re-import it and not only are the models still skinned propery (vertex groups yeay) but also the animations can be assigned and arranged instantly (NLA yeay) back to the rig This is sooo 2019
Also, I've no idea why I can escape this quote box, could anyone enlighten me?
@Auldbenkenobi Click the "Toggle HTML View" button (looks like </> ) on the post toolbar, write anything and the end of all that text, then press that button again. That text will be outside all quotes and you can change it to what you actually want.
Also, is there no way to search for posts in this specific thread? Tried
using the forums' search function to look in the thread titled "Blender
Mega Thread", yet nothing came up.
@RN thanks a lot !!! +1 for using next() on a generator expression for getting the first edge (actually this is the part I was looking for how to do - the select_similar part was straightforward:)
If your goal is to select only seam edges, and you're going to use this in an add-on or something more formal than typing things in the console, you should use these alternatives. 1) With the BMesh interface in Edit mode:
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')<br>mesh = bpy.context.object.data<br>mesh.edges.foreach_set('select', [edge.use_seam for edge in mesh.edges])<br>bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
Correct me if I'm wrong, but using the normal rotate/pan/zoom is not enough to match perspective to objects that are inclined, like pic related's gun. What other tools would you use to match perspective? Is there anything like 3dsMax' perspective lines? EDIT: fspy seems pretty awesome!
You can change the viewport rotation to a zbrush/modo style one I think it's called free orbit or something but I'm not at my PC at the moment. Otherwise fspy comes to mind for me too
Yeah, and really easy to do it too. Easily my preferred workflow now to match photo perspectives. Looking now on how to parent objects to another one's rotation, like you would group a bunch of objects in Maya and be able to rotate the parent object without altering the children rotations. Collections don't do that afaik...
When I need to align to a perspective background image, I keep doing these two things until it matches as best as I can:
- I use my add-on dolly zoom to adjust the FOV and shifts (lens shift can be important if you're trying to match to something at the corner of the perspective image).
- I place the 3D cursor at some point of relevance like the nose of a character, set the pivot mode to 3D cursor and rotate the camera with trackball mode (R, R), so that it orbits around that point. I also set the orientation to View so that G, X, X and G, Y, Y make the camera move horizontally and vertically (maybe Local orientation would do the same).
@f1r3w4rr10r Yeah. Alright, so the workflow for this is seems to be Select objects>Object Menu>Parent>Object. Edit: Oh, but doing it like this doesnt allow me to parent things to an empty object. Huh...
@RN Your addon looks hella nice Rafa. I feel like it'd be specially useful for cinematic effects though.
You're right - thanks, I don't know how I missed it before. Parenting works with Empties indeed.
I do think this feature could be improved, unless I'm missing something. Once I rotate my parent object, if I decide to add new objects in, it'd be convenient if it'd automatically apply to the new children any rotation info previously done to the parent. Because as it is, if I do wish to add anything, I first need to reset rotations to 0 in my parent, add the children, and only then can everything move together...
@Justo that's what the other parenting methods are for. I rarely use them, so I would have to look in the documentation as well. But I believe some of them do exactly that.
@Justo Try Object > Constraints > Add Constraints (with Targets) > Relationship > Child Of. Note that when parenting the active object becomes the parent but with constraints it's the opposite.
You're right - thanks, I don't know how I missed it before. Parenting works with Empties indeed.
I do think this feature could be improved, unless I'm missing something. Once I rotate my parent object, if I decide to add new objects in, it'd be convenient if it'd automatically apply to the new children any rotation info previously done to the parent. Because as it is, if I do wish to add anything, I first need to reset rotations to 0 in my parent, add the children, and only then can everything move together...
Indeed, it can be confusing if you're used to another workflow.
To get what you describe, you have to add the object using the selector from object properties > relations > parent
but not convenient for many objects, so here's the second way to do it: (note: the key recorder doesn't show when I press "alt" while clicking object in parent type, see screen just after). You can use Alt key to apply to multiple objects in many case
you may also already know the addon "copy attributes", where you can copy rotation or else with parent or not - and especially useful when you want to add a bunch of modifiers from an existing object to many others (select objects first, then last is the object you want to copy properties from, then Ctrl C to chose)
I'm missing a Modo feature in Blender 2.8, and that is to have the tweak/ sculpt tools to only have an influence on selected faces/ vertices. In Modo, I can select a couple of faces, activate the tweak tool, and all unselected polygons will automatically be ignored by the tool.
Is something similar possible somehow in Blender? If I select faces there, then click with the tweak tool, it simply deselects the faces...
Another question: right now when I activate one of the sculpt tools, the polygons display as triangles in the viewport, which is distracting. Can I have it display as quads automatically when wireframe display is active?
Third question: can I isolate the display of a polygon object easily in Blender? In Modo, I can select an object, click a button, and it hides all unselected polygon objects. Click the button again, it displays all objects again.
Can Blender display objects in different modes per object? Meaning, display one selected object in shaded mode, all other objects in wireframe mode in the same viewport?
@wilson66 As far as I understand with the tweak tool you mean click and drag, right? I usually use G most of the time. If it is click and drag, shouldn't it just work when you just keep the left mouse button pressed once you selected the last item?
Second question: If your mesh already consists of triangles, then not easily. You could try the "All edges" setting in the object properties. This omits drawing some edges depending on their angle. Otherwise you would have to join the faces. Use Mesh > Faces > Tris to Quads.
Third question: The isolate hotkey is the slash on the numpad. I have no idea right now what the command is called though.
Fourth question: Again in the object properties, use the "Display as" setting.
Thanks for your quick answer. Not exactly sure about your paragraph, you might have misunderstood or I haven't described detailed enough. Click and drag using the tweak tool works ok for me in Blender as it is.
In Modo, the tweak tool only affects the selected polygons, if polygons are selected. It acts as if the unselected polygons are frozen. Even if you have a very large falloff, the unselected polygons are not affected. This really helpful, e.g. when you are creating blendshapes for the mouth of a character. You simply select the polygons of the bottom lip, and the unselected top lip isn't affected at all. Invert the selection, and you can work on the top lip exclusively, just by selecting polygons. Its impossible to move polygons you don't want affected.
When I click-and-drag using the Tweak tool in Blender, it simply deselects the polygons, meaning it doesn't matter at all if polygons are selected or not, there is no connection between polygon selections and the tweak tool. The Tweak tool always affects all the polygons in an object, only limited by the Proportional Editing falloff.
With sculpting I find that hiding vertices is quicker than using the masking brush.
So you tab into Edit mode, select vertices, hide them, then tab back into Sculpt mode: only the visible vertices will be affected. Some relevant default keys for Edit mode:
H = hide selected
Shift + H = hide UNselected
Alt + H = unhide all
EDIT: oh, and if you're sculpting with symmetry, make sure to hide the exact same geometry on both sides, or else this will mess up the symmetrical sculpting. In case this happens you'll have to delete that half and Mirror-modifier that mesh again.
Thanks guys! That was really helpful. Hiding the polygons is a good alternative, already tried it, I really like it.
Selections are not synched symmetrically though, right, or is there some setting for this? I mean, I can't just select polygons on one symmetrical side of an object, and the symmetrical polygons on the other side are selected simultaneously as well?
if your mesh allows for it you can mirror the selection with Select>Mirror Selection - or ctrl-shift-M in default blender. Just make sure to set the operator to extend selection.
If your mesh is symmetrical then you can delete half of it, add a Mirror modifier, then use that hide -> sculpt workflow on the original half.
This is sort of an out-of-scope method though, because sculpting is supposed to be used on whole solid meshes. The Smooth brush doesn't work well on the middle loop of this Mirror-modified mesh for example, but other brushes work fine as far as I noticed, and you only need to hide elements on the one side.
The mirror modifier also has the advantage for mesh editing, that you can show it in edit mode and select on either side. This would actually mirror your selection in some sense.
Friendship with Blender grows. I am fairly comfortable by now, most of my doubts are cleared. Thank you guys for helping out! I started with experimenting with rendering to get comfortable with the UI etc. Today onwards I'll shift focus to Modelling.
some trials after following tutorials - experimenting with lights, Light Planes with gradients, custom hdris, basic compositing etc.
I'm having an issue, and I think it might have been a bad hotkey press or something (it persists if I exit and reopen the file). In this particular layout, my objects will render in Edit mode but won't actually show me any vertices, edges, or faces to select or otherwise interact with.
Selecting other layouts (UV Editing, Scripting, etc) behave as normal
Anyone have any idea what's causing this?
EDIT: I was able to fix it by removing the viewport window and making a new one.
Replies
By the way, is there a setting somewhere in Blender, or in your plugin code scripts, in which I can set the pie menus (or some of them) not to disappear after the first click? For example in the Shading Pie, it's a bit annoying how if I want to open the Ambient Occlusion tab, the menu will disappear and I'll need to re-open it again to access the newly revealed settings.
Nothing too troublesome, of course. Just curious if I'm missing anything obvious.
https://www.blendernation.com/2019/07/20/spring-comparing-eevee-to-cycles/
One thing I wish I had during the competition, was a one-click way to set the origin of an object to its bottom Z location (preferably wherever the origin may be before executing this).
import bpy from mathutils import Vector import bmesh context = bpy.context def origin_to_bottom(obj): mw = obj.matrix_world local_verts = [Vector(v[:]) for v in obj.bound_box] bm = bmesh.new() bm.from_mesh(obj.data) x, y, z = 0, 0, 0 l = len(local_verts) ''' # will give a modified center # eg if array modifier will be centre of array y = sum([v.y for v in local_verts]) / l x = sum([v.x for v in local_verts]) / l ''' z = min([v.z for v in local_verts]) local_origin = Vector((x, y, z)) global_origin = mw * local_origin for v in bm.verts: v.co = v.co - local_origin bm.to_mesh(obj.data) #move the mesh back mw.translation = global_origin #test mesh_objs = [mo for mo in context.selected_objects if mo.type == 'MESH'] bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_GEOMETRY') for o in mesh_objs: origin_to_bottom(o)I found some answers here. This one works for 2.76 apparently, but I cannot make it run in 2.8 (nor can I post in that site because of reputation levels or even send a message to OP...). This script should be setting the origin to the lowest center Z coordinate. Something about an incorrect multiplication between a Matrix and a Vector, at "global_origin = mw * local_origin"...Does anyone know how to fix this?
Also, is there no way to search for posts in this specific thread? Tried using the forums' search function to look in the thread titled "Blender Mega Thread", yet nothing came up.
.
I have subscribed to Blender cloud and gone through the series "From maya, max to Blender". This has been really helpful in clearing a lot of my beginner doubts.
If you rotated the plane in edit mode so it doesn't align with the initial object axes then your local transform will no longer align the way you are probably expecting.
I would try a "site:" google search, but it's hit and miss:
https://www.google.com/search?q="escape+this+quote+box"+site:https://polycount.com/discussion/72805/blender-mega-thread
Hey guys, please, sign this petition to add the Merge modifier to Blender.
https://www.petitions.net/add_merge_modifier_to_blender 7
Don’t forget to validate it by mail.
I know there are several posts on RCS, but even with that, nothing append.
So, I’m trying something else.
Thx for your support
It looks like the BF is ignoring this request just out of spite. There's no way they're not pushing this into trunk just because they're waiting for everything nodes. Common, there's already a patch, and it doesn't seem something that would be problematic to maintain (I'm basing this on 0 experience as a programmer though)!
1. I want to use 1 hdri for lighting and 1 backplate (jpeg) to act as a background.
In the final out I want Hdri to be invisible, Backplate to be visible. This can be achieved in the viewport render - Camera> Backgrond Image> Alpha =1.
But is not possible in the Render window. On Pressing F12, the rendered image will show the HDRI, and not the backplate. So for this I go to Film> Trasparent = on. Now hdri will be invisible in the render window and I have to "composite" the rendered output on the backplate.
Is this the only way? is there any other way to do this?
2. I want the floor to be reflected on the car's body. This floor also has to catch shadows. In other softwares this is achieved by projecting the backplate on the floor.
In blender I have to :-
1) Shadow catcher = on.
2) Uv> Project from view.
is that it? or should I match the floor dimesions with the backplate and apply the backplate as a texture on the the floor? Or some other way?
All these crazy remapping tools max offers and in blender it just-works. Moving animations around, editing rigs, skinning (ok with the help of some custom tools).
I remember how difficult it was to fix problems in my max rig and applying it to all animations.
Now (using Rigify) I can change the rig anytime, and still just map my animations per object name to my rig helper. I mean you can just remove the whole rig from the scene, re-link or re-import it and not only are the models still skinned propery (vertex groups yeay) but also the animations can be assigned and arranged instantly (NLA yeay) back to the rig
This is sooo 2019
Chopping off half of a face with morphtargets and re-attaching to another character ? No problemo, Blenderino can do.
To do the same in a (ugly) Python one-liner, assuming the mesh is in Edit mode:
1) With the BMesh interface in Edit mode:
2) With the Mesh interface in Object mode:
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')<br>mesh = bpy.context.object.data<br>mesh.edges.foreach_set('select', [edge.use_seam for edge in mesh.edges])<br>bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')EDIT: fspy seems pretty awesome!
@RN Your addon looks hella nice Rafa. I feel like it'd be specially useful for cinematic effects though.
I do think this feature could be improved, unless I'm missing something. Once I rotate my parent object, if I decide to add new objects in, it'd be convenient if it'd automatically apply to the new children any rotation info previously done to the parent. Because as it is, if I do wish to add anything, I first need to reset rotations to 0 in my parent, add the children, and only then can everything move together...
To get what you describe, you have to add the object using the selector from object properties > relations > parent
but not convenient for many objects, so here's the second way to do it: (note: the key recorder doesn't show when I press "alt" while clicking object in parent type, see screen just after).
You can use Alt key to apply to multiple objects in many case
you may also already know the addon "copy attributes", where you can copy rotation or else with parent or not - and especially useful when you want to add a bunch of modifiers from an existing object to many others (select objects first, then last is the object you want to copy properties from, then Ctrl C to chose)
Is something similar possible somehow in Blender? If I select faces there, then click with the tweak tool, it simply deselects the faces...
Another question: right now when I activate one of the sculpt tools, the polygons display as triangles in the viewport, which is distracting. Can I have it display as quads automatically when wireframe display is active?
Third question: can I isolate the display of a polygon object easily in Blender? In Modo, I can select an object, click a button, and it hides all unselected polygon objects. Click the button again, it displays all objects again.
Can Blender display objects in different modes per object? Meaning, display one selected object in shaded mode, all other objects in wireframe mode in the same viewport?
In Modo, the tweak tool only affects the selected polygons, if polygons are selected. It acts as if the unselected polygons are frozen. Even if you have a very large falloff, the unselected polygons are not affected. This really helpful, e.g. when you are creating blendshapes for the mouth of a character. You simply select the polygons of the bottom lip, and the unselected top lip isn't affected at all. Invert the selection, and you can work on the top lip exclusively, just by selecting polygons. Its impossible to move polygons you don't want affected.
When I click-and-drag using the Tweak tool in Blender, it simply deselects the polygons, meaning it doesn't matter at all if polygons are selected or not, there is no connection between polygon selections and the tweak tool. The Tweak tool always affects all the polygons in an object, only limited by the Proportional Editing falloff.
Some relevant default keys for Edit mode:
Selections are not synched symmetrically though, right, or is there some setting for this? I mean, I can't just select polygons on one symmetrical side of an object, and the symmetrical polygons on the other side are selected simultaneously as well?
I started with experimenting with rendering to get comfortable with the UI etc. Today onwards I'll shift focus to Modelling.
some trials after following tutorials - experimenting with lights, Light Planes with gradients, custom hdris, basic compositing etc.
Selecting other layouts (UV Editing, Scripting, etc) behave as normal
Anyone have any idea what's causing this?
EDIT: I was able to fix it by removing the viewport window and making a new one.