"It seems to me that the Bevel modifier not having a limit to hard edges function is a deliberate design choice. I mean when you think about it, in a shaded smooth mesh, hard edges and bevel are oftentimes the opposite result in terms of smoothing."
Not at all. Using hard edges as a first pass to visually establish edges later to be beveled/double edged is an extremely common practice in Max and a good thing to do in general regardless of the app. It's probably one of the most time saving approaches for quick hard surface work, especially when time is tight and production is not allowing for many iterations. The Blender bevel modifier not having the option to operate on that (and of course setting everything to smooth on top) is definitely a missing feature.
I mean hey more user options is always good. And thinking about it (without intimately knowing the blender codebase) I imagine I'd would not even be that hard to implement.
Edit: BUT, we already have a dedicated edge property for the bevel modifier. And if you add sharp as a limit, you would also have to add the other three edge properties as well, which could quickly let this get out of hand. And thinking more about it, in contrast to the current limit methods, it would logically be possible to combine a limit of let's say sharp and UV seams to limit the bevel. That would open a whole other can of worms. I mean I don't really see the problem with either starting directly with edge bevel weight instead of mark sharp or just selecting similar for sharp and then applying edge bevel there.
The advantage is not so much technical, and moreso that of visual feedback.
When time is tight being able to show a somewhat accurate preview of the end result early on (hard edges) and then being able to convert that easily to smooth subd is a huge plus.
As said it's not a big issue at the moment anyways since converting from one to the other isn't hard, it's just a bit tedious if not using a macro or script. But the benefits of possibly having it natively as an option in the Bevel and/or Subdiv modifiers alongside Weight and Marked cannot be understated. It might not sound like a big deal "in theory" but in actual practice it very much is.
That sounds pretty awesome! I'll give it a try, thanks for sharing.
Hey, anyone know metal materials that I could grab from an existing library that look like the one in this picture, and use it on meshes without UVs? Take note of the grunge and edge wear details.
This addon has some custom colouring stuff, maybe it works for you? And if it doesn't contain coloured normals, you could request it, the guy's really receptive to feedback!
Thanks, I will look into that! Although my screenshot was probably very misleading: I'm not working much with beziers - it's all NURBS here. Perhaps these do share the same inner workings in this case though.
I'm now dealing with the finer points of my configuration and here's another theming related one -
In this screenshot I have turned on face orientation display - and also selected a single face on my mesh. As you can see it's a bit confusing to look at this way. The former Max user in me however refuses to accept anything but red as the selection highlight - any chance the face orientation colors can be changed somewhere? Can't seem to find them in themes.
Face Orientation theming was just added a few days ago. In a recent build, go to the theme options and then under 3d view look for Face Orientation back/front.
That's neat. Is it possible with this new update to leave front faces untouched (as if it was seen without the mode on), and turn all backfaces pitch black?
That's neat. Is it possible with this new update to leave front faces untouched (as if it was seen without the mode on), and turn all backfaces pitch black?
Yeah, drop the alpha to zero for the front face, and make the backface black. Crappy example:
I just started to use Blender, previously came from MAX.
I'd like to ask the experienced Blender users here what is their workflow when it comes to making changes to "previously applied" mesh edits & modifiers. e.g. - you are modelling a rectangle (3x3x15m) - a bevel is made to 1 of the long edges (3 segments, 5cm radius) - multiple edge loops are inserted (to allow for the shape to be bent) - 'simple deform' modifier is used to bend the shape by 35 degrees, modifier applied - continue modelling details (extrusions made to certain faces, etc)
*- client returns with feedback that the base bevel needs to be larger + the overall bend needs to be increased further around 20%
How would the shape above be reworked in Blender?
*don't take this as a MAX user trying to bait a Blender user. I'm trying to switch over to Blender, and would like a possible solution to the above scenario.
I just started to use Blender, previously came from MAX.
I'd like to ask the experienced Blender users here what is their workflow when it comes to making changes to "previously applied" mesh edits & modifiers. e.g. - you are modelling a rectangle (3x3x15m) - a bevel is made to 1 of the long edges (3 segments, 5cm radius) - multiple edge loops are inserted (to allow for the shape to be bent) - 'simple deform' modifier is used to bend the shape by 35 degrees, modifier applied - continue modelling details (extrusions made to certain faces, etc)
*- client returns with feedback that the base bevel needs to be larger + the overall bend needs to be increased further around 20%
How would the shape above be reworked in Blender?
*don't take this as a MAX user trying to bait a Blender user. I'm trying to switch over to Blender, and would like a possible solution to the above scenario.
Unfortunately applying modifiers is destructive, you would have to edit the mesh manually. Creating primitives it is already kind of destructive as well, because you cannot go back an change certain parameters which are only available on creation. There are some add-ins that support non-destructive workflow, though I cannot tell which one would help in your case.
@bakamund They main thing you should do differently here is to not apply the modifiers. And additionally evaluate if you can add the bevel with a modifier instead of an operator as well. But these tips pretty much apply to any software. If there might be possible changes in the future, be non-destructive as long as possible.
@bakamund They main thing you should do differently here is to not apply the modifiers. And additionally evaluate if you can add the bevel with a modifier instead of an operator as well. But these tips pretty much apply to any software. If there might be possible changes in the future, be non-destructive as long as possible.
I'm aware to not apply the modifiers as much as possible. However, if you're working on an asset for production eventually at some point - you will need to edit the resulting mesh after the modifiers have done its job. This is where you will need to apply the modifier, else you couldn't continue to add details n refinements to the model.
So atm it's not possible with the base Blender as Prime8 informs.
Well we will not be able to give you any more tips on how to do it a different way, because your description of more details is very vague.
Quickly recorded a random/simple model showing the above steps I mentioned as an example. The same workflow can be done for more complex objects, planning would need to be done first before knowing the full modifier "stack" arrangement to do. But doing so would allow much more flexibility (+ time saving) when it comes to Iterations/Tweaks on proportions, some edge segments, etc.
The only thing I don't see being possible right now is to add those extrusions after doing the bevel and not applying the modifier. The rest you should able to do non destructively.
Just wanted to ask you guys if Blender has a similar modifier to 3DS Max's Chamfer modifier? I tend to use that in conjunction with smoothing groups in order to produce my high poly variants of my low poly meshes. I know Blender doesn't use smoothing groups but does it have something similar to the chamfer modifier which would make adding chamfers more for more customization and less destructive?
Well we will not be able to give you any more tips on how to do it a different way, because your description of more details is very vague.
Quickly recorded a random/simple model showing the above steps I mentioned as an example. The same workflow can be done for more complex objects, planning would need to be done first before knowing the full modifier "stack" arrangement to do. But doing so would allow much more flexibility (+ time saving) when it comes to Iterations/Tweaks on proportions, some edge segments, etc.
This is all very slow. As a concept artist, I prefer the direct modeling approach, as in Maya, Blender and Xsi. If I'm not sure about something, I just copy the shape.
This is all very slow. As a concept artist, I prefer the direct modeling approach, as in Maya, Blender and Xsi. If I'm not sure about something, I just copy the shape.
That's fine for concept, need things quick and fast even dirty is fine. You're going to paint over/ bash over the render anyways. Reason I'm asking is more for production assets in games.
I'm creating game assets for both personal and professional work, and I don't need THAT much non-destructivity in my workflow, even with some iterating. Looks a bit excessive to have those kind of features from a workflow point of vew to me. I just work smart, keeping earlier versions of the model saved hidden in a different collection, if I ever need to go back and change something so drastically. I haven't got tasks which need dramatic iterations so far. Just small and easy changes here and there.
I still use modifiers for certain non-destructive parts of the game asset creation, and so far they've served me more than enough for possible backtracking if needed.
BUT... if you really wish to pursue very non-destrutible workflow, check out Cédric Lepiller's "Speedflow" addon. He has also posted some videos of explaining the workflow in this thread as well.
His YouTube channel, and lots of videos regarding to his Speedflow addon in action, especially in this playlist where he creates many different types of hard surface models:
Little things like increase bevel width, you'd have to go back and redo the bevel since there's no bevel modifier. I've had little details like this as iteration feedback. And if you've modeled something on top of the bevel...you gotta redo that as well. Maybe its MAX users, edit poly is just too convenient.
Thanks for pointing out the addon, will check it out.
There is also addon MESHmachine for editing applied bevels. Still I agree that it would be nice to have edit poly analogue in blender, I miss it from 3ds max
@bakamund : these are all very legitimate needs imho, and there is no need to justify yourself for asking for them. There's always going to be people telling you that you don't need this or that feature, but yeah as said, no need to justify it
As for Speedflow : if I am not mistaken the addon is not adding any feature that you haven't tested already as it is a collection of shortcuts , pie menus and UI widgets helping with interaction. Handy stuff of course but not something that will enable any new workflow or feature.
That said there are some concepts you may be able to leverage from this or that addon. For instance Blender is pretty solid when it comes to adding details with booleans, so maybe that could help you and there is a whole bunch of addons dedicated to that (although admittedly these boolean-oriented addons aren't really that needed either since these too are just shortcuts to existing stock features)
Also, even if not editable after the fact you might be able to leverage the Plug paradigm of Meshmachine. This addon *does* add the non-standard feature consisting of inserting/merging in mesh bits into a selection of faces acting as receiver. It is not non-destructive per say but fast enough to be re-doable easily. Decalmachine is also great too as it may allow you to move the detailing pass from geo-based to decal-based, and that can help with iteration greatly.
Another thing you'll likely find useful is marking specific edges with a bevel value, which can then be picked up by the Bevel modifier (Weight option). Also if I am not mistaken, profile-based Solidify is coming soon as per mentioned in this thread so maybe that'll help you too.
Lastly you might simply want to dig into the concept of vertex groups - basically the universal Blender approach to storing component selections, that many modifiers can operate on. Very much Max-like.
- - - - -
All that said, it would be very cool for Blender to one day have an extra modifier allowing to store/retrieve component selection anywhere in the modifier stack. I would assume that this concept have been brought up to the devs before, but maybe now that 2.8+ is out it may be a good time to extensively document Max-style workflows to push for it further.
Can the latest Blender contrain to face? I know it can constrain to edge, but in Max and I think Maya, you have the option to contrain to face/surface.
2) Is set-flow built into Blender? Or is it an optional plug in?
I'm looking for the shortcut to call the pie-menu to reset the 3d cursor to various locations (e.g. reset transform/ rotation, reset position to origin ect).
And I would need the shortcut for that pie menu for the 'industry compatible' key layout. I'm aware of the 'SHIFT-S' hotkey, that information is useless for me though because that shortcut gets changed to the 'Insert keyframe menu' when setting the keymap to 'industry compatible'.
There does not seem to be an option to align the rotation of the cursor to a selected face in that menu. Do you happen to know a shortcut to align the cursor so it is rotated perpendicular to a selected face?
Would Blender be better at speed modelling than Modo? I have seen some videos of Modo where the modelling/boolean process is extremely quick. Not to turn this into a Modo VS Blender thread but is the difference negligible?
All that said, it would be very cool for Blender to one day have an extra modifier allowing to store/retrieve component selection anywhere in the modifier stack. I would assume that this concept have been brought up to the devs before, but maybe now that 2.8+ is out it may be a good time to extensively document Max-style workflows to push for it further.
Indeed.
Similarly or to extrapolate further I think it's also about time Blender's modifier stack receives a well overdue revamp. Over recent months I've invested some time and effort researching native non-destructive techniques, for example the NITROX3D workflow for designers by Chipp Walters was an absolute eye opener that in my honest opinion highlight's the sheer virtuosity utilising auto operands, either modify or deform too output increasingly complex shapes. Now with that said taking a leaf out of ADKS hand book of tricks, is instanced modifiers a damn near godsend when working on multiple objects and as an aside the upcoming "Everything Nodes UX" project which will be twofold, both to add new low level power and flexibility plus to also add high level simplicity and ease of use thereby making Blender fully procedural. Anyway I'd probably keep an eye on progress since modifiers alongside procedural modelling may potentially be a node system...so yeah exciting stuff on the horizon.
Whenever "Everything Nodes" is in Blender, it'd be still nice to have current modifiers, but nodes happening under the hood when added for the modifier stack. Then the user could investigate the node system elsewhere, or wherever this system is going to be present, and tweak from there.
As for the everything nodes UX, have a look at the Gizmos section. This basically defines user input on the model at the current node in the node tree, which would allow for manipulating generated geometry at that step.
Also upvoted How many upvotes do they need in general to take notice?
There are requests that have already been implemented with 7 upvotes and requests that still not in developement with 400. I got the impression that it's mostly not about number of upvotes, but whether developers consider a feature important enough to add and (especially) easy enough to implement (for example no one is eager to fix slow undo, slow viewport and edit mode, despite the huge number of complaints, because it's hard)
Would Blender be better at speed modelling than Modo? I have seen some videos of Modo where the modelling/boolean process is extremely quick. Not to turn this into a Modo VS Blender thread but is the difference negligible?
You can have fast modal modifiers with paid addons (HardOps or Speedflow or PieMenuEditor). Take a look on HardOps videos. Booleans are one click with BoolTools addon that comes with blender. If your question is whether the functionality of former paid addons will be added to the blender itself, than I doubt it.
So I have been sitting on a small generator for IKEA furniture for a few months now. (It only has a Kallax shelf for now.) I want to open source it, but I have no idea how that would interact with IKEA's licenses. (This would not be the first open source project of mine, but the first that might have something to do with someone else's copyright.) And I have honestly no idea how to go about this and how to research the problem.
I have an object with a bunch of modifiers on it and I want to merge
another object with the first one through some kind of modifier in order
for the added geometry to be affected by the modifiers that come after
in the stack. To be clear the second object geometry would be instanced
and still editable.
Is that something Blender can do? Kind of like a boolean modifier union except I don't want any merging occurring.
By the way I tried doing it with the boolean modifier in union mode
with a very high overlap threshold but it doesn't work reliably. Also it
mess up the UV mapping from the first object which is something I don't
want.
Just to be clear I don't want to add the modifiers to the second object, I want it to be easy, simple, and non-destructive.
Replies
Not at all. Using hard edges as a first pass to visually establish edges later to be beveled/double edged is an extremely common practice in Max and a good thing to do in general regardless of the app. It's probably one of the most time saving approaches for quick hard surface work, especially when time is tight and production is not allowing for many iterations. The Blender bevel modifier not having the option to operate on that (and of course setting everything to smooth on top) is definitely a missing feature.
When time is tight being able to show a somewhat accurate preview of the end result early on (hard edges) and then being able to convert that easily to smooth subd is a huge plus.
As said it's not a big issue at the moment anyways since converting from one to the other isn't hard, it's just a bit tedious if not using a macro or script. But the benefits of possibly having it natively as an option in the Bevel and/or Subdiv modifiers alongside Weight and Marked cannot be understated. It might not sound like a big deal "in theory" but in actual practice it very much is.
Hey, anyone know metal materials that I could grab from an existing library that look like the one in this picture, and use it on meshes without UVs? Take note of the grunge and edge wear details.
I'd like to ask the experienced Blender users here what is their workflow when it comes to making changes to "previously applied" mesh edits & modifiers.
e.g.
- you are modelling a rectangle (3x3x15m)
- a bevel is made to 1 of the long edges (3 segments, 5cm radius)
- multiple edge loops are inserted (to allow for the shape to be bent)
- 'simple deform' modifier is used to bend the shape by 35 degrees, modifier applied
- continue modelling details (extrusions made to certain faces, etc)
*- client returns with feedback that the base bevel needs to be larger + the overall bend needs to be increased further around 20%
How would the shape above be reworked in Blender?
*don't take this as a MAX user trying to bait a Blender user. I'm trying to switch over to Blender, and would like a possible solution to the above scenario.
Creating primitives it is already kind of destructive as well, because you cannot go back an change certain parameters which are only available on creation.
There are some add-ins that support non-destructive workflow, though I cannot tell which one would help in your case.
This is where you will need to apply the modifier, else you couldn't continue to add details n refinements to the model.
So atm it's not possible with the base Blender as Prime8 informs.
The same workflow can be done for more complex objects, planning would need to be done first before knowing the full modifier "stack" arrangement to do. But doing so would allow much more flexibility (+ time saving) when it comes to Iterations/Tweaks on proportions, some edge segments, etc.
This is all very slow. As a concept artist, I prefer the direct modeling approach, as in Maya, Blender and Xsi. If I'm not sure about something, I just copy the shape.
That's fine for concept, need things quick and fast even dirty is fine. You're going to paint over/ bash over the render anyways.
Reason I'm asking is more for production assets in games.
Little things like increase bevel width, you'd have to go back and redo the bevel since there's no bevel modifier. I've had little details like this as iteration feedback. And if you've modeled something on top of the bevel...you gotta redo that as well.
Maybe its MAX users, edit poly is just too convenient.
Thanks for pointing out the addon, will check it out.
As for Speedflow : if I am not mistaken the addon is not adding any feature that you haven't tested already as it is a collection of shortcuts , pie menus and UI widgets helping with interaction. Handy stuff of course but not something that will enable any new workflow or feature.
That said there are some concepts you may be able to leverage from this or that addon. For instance Blender is pretty solid when it comes to adding details with booleans, so maybe that could help you and there is a whole bunch of addons dedicated to that (although admittedly these boolean-oriented addons aren't really that needed either since these too are just shortcuts to existing stock features)
Also, even if not editable after the fact you might be able to leverage the Plug paradigm of Meshmachine. This addon *does* add the non-standard feature consisting of inserting/merging in mesh bits into a selection of faces acting as receiver. It is not non-destructive per say but fast enough to be re-doable easily. Decalmachine is also great too as it may allow you to move the detailing pass from geo-based to decal-based, and that can help with iteration greatly.
Another thing you'll likely find useful is marking specific edges with a bevel value, which can then be picked up by the Bevel modifier (Weight option). Also if I am not mistaken, profile-based Solidify is coming soon as per mentioned in this thread so maybe that'll help you too.
Lastly you might simply want to dig into the concept of vertex groups - basically the universal Blender approach to storing component selections, that many modifiers can operate on. Very much Max-like.
- - - - -
All that said, it would be very cool for Blender to one day have an extra modifier allowing to store/retrieve component selection anywhere in the modifier stack. I would assume that this concept have been brought up to the devs before, but maybe now that 2.8+ is out it may be a good time to extensively document Max-style workflows to push for it further.
2) Is set-flow built into Blender? Or is it an optional plug in?
I have read that there is a feature request application for the Blender team. Any idea on where I can find this?
And I would need the shortcut for that pie menu for the 'industry compatible' key layout. I'm aware of the 'SHIFT-S' hotkey, that information is useless for me though because that shortcut gets changed to the 'Insert keyframe menu' when setting the keymap to 'industry compatible'.
There does not seem to be an option to align the rotation of the cursor to a selected face in that menu. Do you happen to know a shortcut to align the cursor so it is rotated perpendicular to a selected face?
pior said:
All that said, it would be very cool for Blender to one day have an extra modifier allowing to store/retrieve component selection anywhere in the modifier stack. I would assume that this concept have been brought up to the devs before, but maybe now that 2.8+ is out it may be a good time to extensively document Max-style workflows to push for it further.
Indeed.
Similarly or to extrapolate further I think it's also about time Blender's modifier stack receives a well overdue revamp. Over recent months I've invested some time and effort researching native non-destructive techniques, for example the NITROX3D workflow for designers by Chipp Walters was an absolute eye opener that in my honest opinion highlight's the sheer virtuosity utilising auto operands, either modify or deform too output increasingly complex shapes. Now with that said taking a leaf out of ADKS hand book of tricks, is instanced modifiers a damn near godsend when working on multiple objects and as an aside the upcoming "Everything Nodes UX" project which will be twofold, both to add new low level power and flexibility plus to also add high level simplicity and ease of use thereby making Blender fully procedural. Anyway I'd probably keep an eye on progress since modifiers alongside procedural modelling may potentially be a node system...so yeah exciting stuff on the horizon.
I got the impression that it's mostly not about number of upvotes, but whether developers consider a feature important enough to add and (especially) easy enough to implement (for example no one is eager to fix slow undo, slow viewport and edit mode, despite the huge number of complaints, because it's hard)
You can have fast modal modifiers with paid addons (HardOps or Speedflow or PieMenuEditor). Take a look on HardOps videos. Booleans are one click with BoolTools addon that comes with blender. If your question is whether the functionality of former paid addons will be added to the blender itself, than I doubt it.
I have an object with a bunch of modifiers on it and I want to merge another object with the first one through some kind of modifier in order for the added geometry to be affected by the modifiers that come after in the stack. To be clear the second object geometry would be instanced and still editable.
Is that something Blender can do? Kind of like a boolean modifier union except I don't want any merging occurring.
By the way I tried doing it with the boolean modifier in union mode with a very high overlap threshold but it doesn't work reliably. Also it mess up the UV mapping from the first object which is something I don't want.
Just to be clear I don't want to add the modifiers to the second object, I want it to be easy, simple, and non-destructive.
Does anyone have an idea on how to achieve this?