@RN thanks man but I don't think I can use the point location data to create a spherical mask around each metaball. This is the behavior that I want, which works in object mode but not for particles.
You'd think that I'd just replace the texture coord node with a particle info and pass the location or the geometry position to drive the sphere mask but that doesn't seem to want to work
@melviso the outliner should always sync with the 3D view as of 2.80 I think. As for finding an object in the outliner, just select it in the 3D view and press the numpad period key while the mouse is over the outliner.
EDIT: How do u clean the shader editor when u have a good number of unconnected nodes u want to get rid off instead of finding and selecting each one and deleting them?
If you're using Node Wrangler(which you really should be) Alt+X will clear out unconnected nodes.
I don't think I can use the point location data to create a spherical mask around each metaball. This is the behavior that I want, which works in object mode but not for particles.
The Particle Info node is used to tell the material about the individual particle that is instancing the object using that material. You can't use this node to know about particles not instancing the object with that material, or even a sibling particle in the same emitter (to get the distance to it and make that spherical mask).
So you'd have to use some other engine to make this simulation, like a game engine or Houdini.
What would be the get to go solution if I want to work on semi-symmetric stuff in blender? Like I would in max: - build the base (half) - add symmetry modifier - build on top of it with another edit poly
obviously there are some restrictions but anyways, how would this look like in blender?
@rollin Probably just make the half, save the file as a backup and just modify it as you work :P No edit poly modifier in Blender so...
MeshMachine also features stashes which you could use. I haven't used them much to be honest, since for my purposes I find it just simpler to just open up a previous file, copy the mesh and bring it over to my current scene.
@rn thanks for the help dude, coincidentally I'm working in houdini right now! So I might give that a shot, I noticed houdini has metaballs as well....
I was wondering abut how do you backup your blender before let's say full reinstall or moving to another PC. Downloading and installing all addons + setting up all shortcuts all over again is a nightmare. Maya for example holds all of this kind of stuff(scripts,custom shelves, etc.) inside 'maya' folder in 'my documents'. Is there such location for blender where it's holding all of this kind of stuff?
The only thing you need is a copy of : C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.xx
On a fresh Blender unzip or install, let Blender create its own preferences folder in the above location then overwrite it with your backup. Aaaand that's it.
If I am not mistaken every manually installed addon gets copied over there too, so everything (addons, preferences, startup file even) will carry over to your fresh machine.
I'm using it as a portable install where all configs are part of the blender program folder (e.g. blender-2.82-windows64\2.82\config). So in my case I just run it from an usb stick. When upgrading to a new version I copy the content of the 'config' folder from there to a new install. Installed addons (which don't come bundled with blender) need to be moved manually too though
Guys, how do u export a mesh from blender with the names of the materials showing up in ue4. Whenever I import to ue4, the materials show as World gridmaterial rather than the names of the materials in blender. I know I have to set them up again in ue4. Its just the names.
Guys, how do u export a mesh from blender with the names of the materials showing up in ue4. Whenever I import to ue4, the materials show as World gridmaterial rather than the names of the materials in blender. I know I have to set them up again in ue4. Its just the names.
You export with a FBX file ? You need only to create a material, in the import look your Material panel ; you can create a new material or search an existing asset.
Any list to view polygons per edge/vertex count in Blender? Meaning, a list where all 3-sided polygons, all 4-sided polygons, and all 5+-sided polygons of a certain object are listed separately and (best) can be selected from?
@wilson66 If your goal is just to find certain N-sided polygons, you could just select one of those you are trying to find and then use "Select Similar" or "Select Similar Regions".
I am trying to get into Blender and I have stumbled on a few issues I hope some of you can help with;
Issue A: I want to move the selected object so vertex A is aligned with vertex B. Am I right in thinking snapping in Blender doesnt currently support this?
Issue B; How do I EdgeSlide and use vertex snap. I have googled a lot on this issue and it seems I am not the only person wondering about this. However many threads are years old so maybe some of you have figured this one out?
Apart from these issues I am slowly getting used to Blender. Been using max for the past 15 years so little things like these are kind of discouraging to me.
Issue A: Vertex snapping is context sensitive to the relative positions of each of the models and tries to snap the nearest vertex of each. If you move the tilted cube with vertex A above and to the left of B on the other cube first, then it should try to snap the way you are expecting.
Issue B: I usually just slide it close as I can by eye with edge slide and then use the regular move tool with snapping on and also constraining the movement to whichever axis makes the most sense. While it's not perfect, it's usually good enough to not distort the model.
Issue A: Hmm ok I was afraid that was the case. Dont know if you are familiar with max but there you can do it in a single action which I was hoping I could continue doing in Blender too
Issue B: Hmm again I was hoping I could keep doing it how I do in max. In max I would just turn on edge constraint, max sure Z was the active axis and drag from vertex A to vertex C.
Thank you so much for your help though, it is much appreciated
Isn't there a way to link a collection with another blend file and have it update in realtime while working with the 2 files? I am sure i saw something like that somewhere but i can't find.
@Udjani You can link in a collection from another Blend file, yes. It will be reloaded each time you open the file that contains the link. If that is what you mean by "realtime", there you go. Though if you mean it would update on it's own directly in the master file when you change something in the linked file, then I don't think so. At best you can trigger a manual refresh in the master file.
In any case, go to "File" -> "Link...", then navigate to the blend file you want to link from, double click, double click "Collections" and then double click the collection you want to import.
This all works just the same for linking in materials for example.
Sorry to repeat the question but I cant help but to think I must be missing out on some tribal knowledge here :P
It's not very convenient to do this in Blender, try one of these 3 methods. 1. You can use "Auto Merge" with "Split Edges & Faces" activated, a bit annoying to switch it on and off, edges/faces need to intersect in 3D 2. Use "Knife Project", cumbersome because needs separate objects, but works with 2D intersection (projection) 3. TinyCAD addon, has a couple of functions for this, comes with Blender and uses projection, I prefer this method
@copenhagenjazz you are not missing any dark magic, at least to my knowledge. Edge constraint is something that is missing from Blender and I ran into it multiple times myself.
All workarounds I have found so far consisted of setting up a custom transform, either with the settings in the top of the 3D viewport or just the 3D cursor.
Essentially Blender is just missing a way to restrict a transform to two arbitrary axis at the same time. That is the reason why so many people suggest edge slide, because it *kinda* does that, but not really. It also does not really allow snapping to something that is not on the edge.
So yeah the best you can do right now is eyeballing it. I mean depending on the units you use, 5 or 6 decimal places really should be precise enough. I understand this does not really satisfy any sense of order or OCD (it doesn't for me either), but this is the best you can do right now.
@f1r3w4rr10r What i want is basically the behavior of a collection instance, that updates both the base object and the instance at the same time. But work with them in 2 different monitors. Linked is fine in some cases, but not for what i want.
Issue B: Another way to do this is to add a temporary boolean (this is faster with the booltool addon), snap the edge loop to a boolean vert, remove the boolean
@Udjani I understood that. But I can definitely tell you that your wanted behaviour only works, if the collection comes from the same file.
If it comes from another file it will always involve some manually triggered reload. As mentioned earlier, if a blend file you open has linked libraries, those will be reloaded each time the containing file is opened at minimum. Here are some more ways to reload linked libraries in an already opened file: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6302/how-do-i-reload-a-linked-blender-file
This is just normal behaviour. You wouldn't want your application to constantly check if a file changed on disk. And even if Blender did that, it would only realize that the file changed when the other instance actually saved the file to disk.
So the only other way would be for Blender to be able to open and edit multiple files in one instance, which it can't do.
@Cirno sadly that approach only works when the two objects intersect. If they don't it is not that easy. I tried fiddling around with the TinyCAD addon's E2F function, but that does not work across 2 simultaneously edited meshes. Ergo you would have to join them, do your thing and then separate them again, which looses the transform of the second object. That's not really ideal.
...Blender really needs edge/face constraints. I rarely need them, but when I do it's a pain working around the fact that they are not there.
@copenhagenjazz Looks like you are doing hard surface and want to move your Max habits to Blender? You'll lose like 70% of the modifiers, the reference object type and of course - as noted - the poly modeling surface constraints. Slide and such functions also don't work with proportional edit aka soft selection (at least not to my knowledge).
Disclaimer: I have not done hard surface in half a decade and that does not look like it would change anytime soon so I'm good with Blender. Not the software I'd pick to do that though.
@copenhagenjazz the trick is to do it in 2 steps(the vert snapping) you have to set the snapping to closest, move the vert you want to snap close to the target vert, then move it again holding Ctrl.
I'm also a 15 year Max user. getting acquainted with 2.80. I created this 'Blender 2.80 for grumpy old 3dsMax users' tutorial series last year that you may find useful.
@copenhagenjazz Looks like you are doing hard surface and want to move your Max habits to Blender? You'll lose like 70% of the modifiers, the reference object type and of course - as noted - the poly modeling surface constraints. Slide and such functions also don't work with proportional edit aka soft selection (at least not to my knowledge).
Disclaimer: I have not done hard surface in half a decade and that does not look like it would change anytime soon so I'm good with Blender. Not the software I'd pick to do that though.
I've just recently completed my first production project in Blender. Hard-surface AAA weapon https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Z54ONX I tried when I was just starting out learning 2.80, but went back to my Max comfort zone. This time I stayed in Blender 100%(including unwrapping/bevel shader baking/final renders) and it worked out great. Blender is a fantastic hard-surface modeler. You definitely need some addons, but that's another great concept of Blender, it's completely modular and the addon system is extremely user-friendly(compared to Max's ancient, clunky, bloated plugin/script/macroscript architecture. There are no tools that I really miss from Max for game asset authoring. I've found solutions/addons for every Max feature that I initially thought I would lose. Blender is more than capable. Very fluid and modern modeling workflow compared to Max.
Guys, how do u export a mesh from blender with the names of the materials showing up in ue4. Whenever I import to ue4, the materials show as World gridmaterial rather than the names of the materials in blender. I know I have to set them up again in ue4. Its just the names.
You export with a FBX file ? You need only to create a material, in the import look your Material panel ; you can create a new material or search an existing asset.
It seems Blender has serious issues with UE4 atm. The current versions of late. I am not sure if the devs are paying attention to this aspect. Over the past 4 days, this has been causing serious issues. Haven't slept in three days trying to figure this out among other issues which is becoming frustrating. Seems it imports the names but u can only see them when u double click on the assets in the content folder. It also ommits some materials as well. UE4 also seems to be screwing up the UVs as well as messing up faces assigned to different materials in a mesh. I am not sure if the fbx plugin for Blender is compatible with ue4. Faces that have normals facing the correct way get screwed up on import to UE4. What is going on?
I am not sure if the fbx plugin for Blender is compatible with ue4. Faces that have normals facing the correct way get screwed up on import to UE4. What is going on?
It definitely is compatible. Epic have built a Blender>UE4 live link addon that is based on .fbx. Are you using nightlies? You should file a bug report.
@musashidan I am aware of the plugin by Epic. Is there a download link? I thought that the plugin is still WIP and yet to be released from the info on Epic's ue4 official youtube chanel.
@melviso t hasn't been released yet, but my point was that the addon is built on .fbx, so the epic team must have full confidence in its compatibility. Maybe the nightlies have a bug in the exporter?
I don't know but these are the issues i am having.I am using the official release v. 2.82a. Maybe I will use an older version. Can I ask what version u are using? Btw excellent work with the gun model :- )
I want to move over to blender since I have no real reason to stick with maya anymore. Your experiment here is really convincing me to give it a go. My only concern is that I need to do animations sometimes too.
@melviso thanks mate. I'm on the nightlies. I haven't got UE4 installed on this machine at the moment so can't test. You should download the latest from buildbot and test there.
Great work Danny! But also GODDAMMIT I also had a M249 model in the works in Blender hahahahaha
Now I have a good model of reference to compare myself against though
Haha! Beat you to it. Was fun to model. I didn't use any high poly baking at all. This was wysiwyg in-game final topology and bevel shader baking in Blender. Substance for additional normal detailing.
@Alex Javor Cheers mate. Yeah, modeling in Blender is really slick. As for animation, I haven't done a lot of experimenting, but I bought the ARP addon and humanoid rigging/skinning>UE4(or Unity) with the export hierarchy presets works great. I was actually pretty amazed at how accurate the auto-rig setup was. Same idea as Mixamo, but even the fingers are built perfectly and it has a powerful auto-facial rig setup aswell. Plus, I tested the mocap retarget feature and thtat worked first time with little hassle. The only issue with animating in Blender, atm, is the poor performance, but not an issue if your're just re-targeting in UE4/Unity.
@Eric Chadwick Thanks mate, you've kept my perfect record on here: 8 projects posted - 8 front pages. I did actually post this project here last week of Feb. Was hoping to do a breakdown of my 'first project in Blender' and what the experience was like, what I learned. https://polycount.com/discussion/217834/m249-light-machine-gun#latest
Replies
You'd think that I'd just replace the texture coord node with a particle info and pass the location or the geometry position to drive the sphere mask but that doesn't seem to want to work
@musashidan Thank you musahidan :- )
So you'd have to use some other engine to make this simulation, like a game engine or Houdini.
Like I would in max:
- build the base (half)
- add symmetry modifier
- build on top of it with another edit poly
obviously there are some restrictions but anyways, how would this look like in blender?
Probably just make the half, save the file as a backup and just modify it as you work :P No edit poly modifier in Blender so...
MeshMachine also features stashes which you could use. I haven't used them much to be honest, since for my purposes I find it just simpler to just open up a previous file, copy the mesh and bring it over to my current scene.
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.xx
On a fresh Blender unzip or install, let Blender create its own preferences folder in the above location then overwrite it with your backup. Aaaand that's it.
If I am not mistaken every manually installed addon gets copied over there too, so everything (addons, preferences, startup file even) will carry over to your fresh machine.
Installed addons (which don't come bundled with blender) need to be moved manually too though
You export with a FBX file ? You need only to create a material, in the import look your Material panel ; you can create a new material or search an existing asset.
What tool people is using when doing retopology ? I'am using 2.82's polybuild tools, is useful but time consuming.
I am trying to get into Blender and I have stumbled on a few issues I hope some of you can help with;
Issue A: I want to move the selected object so vertex A is aligned with vertex B. Am I right in thinking snapping in Blender doesnt currently support this?
Issue B; How do I EdgeSlide and use vertex snap. I have googled a lot on this issue and it seems I am not the only person wondering about this. However many threads are years old so maybe some of you have figured this one out?
Apart from these issues I am slowly getting used to Blender. Been using max for the past 15 years so little things like these are kind of discouraging to me.
Thanks in advance
Issue A: Vertex snapping is context sensitive to the relative positions of each of the models and tries to snap the nearest vertex of each. If you move the tilted cube with vertex A above and to the left of B on the other cube first, then it should try to snap the way you are expecting.
Issue B: I usually just slide it close as I can by eye with edge slide and then use the regular move tool with snapping on and also constraining the movement to whichever axis makes the most sense. While it's not perfect, it's usually good enough to not distort the model.
Issue A: Hmm ok I was afraid that was the case. Dont know if you are familiar with max but there you can do it in a single action which I was hoping I could continue doing in Blender too
Issue B: Hmm again I was hoping I could keep doing it how I do in max. In max I would just turn on edge constraint, max sure Z was the active axis and drag from vertex A to vertex C.
Thank you so much for your help though, it is much appreciated
Maybe the "NP point move" addon can help you https://blenderartists.org/t/np-station/686462/234
Sorry to repeat the question but I cant help but to think I must be missing out on some tribal knowledge here :P
1. You can use "Auto Merge" with "Split Edges & Faces" activated, a bit annoying to switch it on and off, edges/faces need to intersect in 3D
2. Use "Knife Project", cumbersome because needs separate objects, but works with 2D intersection (projection)
3. TinyCAD addon, has a couple of functions for this, comes with Blender and uses projection, I prefer this method
I'm also a 15 year Max user. getting acquainted with 2.80. I created this 'Blender 2.80 for grumpy old 3dsMax users' tutorial series last year that you may find useful.
delete
There are no tools that I really miss from Max for game asset authoring. I've found solutions/addons for every Max feature that I initially thought I would lose. Blender is more than capable. Very fluid and modern modeling workflow compared to Max.
Btw excellent work with the gun model :- )
Now I have a good model of reference to compare myself against though
@Alex Javor Cheers mate. Yeah, modeling in Blender is really slick. As for animation, I haven't done a lot of experimenting, but I bought the ARP addon and humanoid rigging/skinning>UE4(or Unity) with the export hierarchy presets works great. I was actually pretty amazed at how accurate the auto-rig setup was. Same idea as Mixamo, but even the fingers are built perfectly and it has a powerful auto-facial rig setup aswell. Plus, I tested the mocap retarget feature and thtat worked first time with little hassle. The only issue with animating in Blender, atm, is the poor performance, but not an issue if your're just re-targeting in UE4/Unity.
@Eric Chadwick Thanks mate, you've kept my perfect record on here: 8 projects posted - 8 front pages.
I did actually post this project here last week of Feb. Was hoping to do a breakdown of my 'first project in Blender' and what the experience was like, what I learned. https://polycount.com/discussion/217834/m249-light-machine-gun#latest