@FelixSchl really blender is just as unstable as maya for me, and im olny using the stable version not the nightly builds.
besides they should be competing, and should be trying to get a good pipeline down so people can easily move stuff in and out of blender from other packages.
They decided to remove psd support in 2.58 due to issues with Quicktime being included in Blender and concerns over it's compatibility with the GPL license. Nathan was looking into a way to get gif and psd support back in so maybe he found a way?.
I'm hoping so, it doesn't help blender in any way to have yet another program artists cant use together with it, especially something as widespread as photoshop.
Having to save as tga every time I want to view a change in blender is not the most comfy thing out there :P
@FelixSchl really blender is just as unstable as maya for me, and im olny using the stable version not the nightly builds.
Guess I got lucky then or Blender likes me or something. I mainly use Blender for modelling, unwrapping, baking and from time to time rigging and animation for previsualization. So I cannot speak much about the many, many other uses of the tool and whether they are stable or not.
Is there some way of stopping BMesh from creating non manifold geometry? I've found its too each to include a stray edge in an extrude.
also why is it even allowed? no one else allows this sort of crap for a reason.
It's probable a bug, mate. It's still under heavy development and bug fixing...there won't be an official build for another 2 months or so.
If you think it's doing something it shouldn't, then please report it
Also, which build is this problem in? It might already be fixed. Can you post a .blend here or tell me how to reproduce please?
@ r_fletch_r: I think this is just fundamentally the way Blender works for modeling. It's both a blessing and a curse (sometimes it's extremely helpful, sometimes is't a bit obnoxious), but Blender has a more generalized organization of components than other programs. Blender doesn't really make a distinction between component types like Max/Maya/others(?). I.e. an edge is two connected verts, a face is 3 or more connected verts, in practice, not just in theory. This generalized method makes it very easy to understand and work with geometry in Blender, but if you aren't careful, you can end up with some unwanted byproducts (as you've pointed out). Basically, it doesn't hold your hand at all which can be pretty freeing and simpler to understand, but you also need to be careful.
Reading this over, I'm not sure it makes any sense....
That particular case? Not much, but basically, since the system is generalized, there aren't really exceptions to cases like that. Were you asking why the generalization is a good thing in.....general?
Really strong feature especially if you're exporting game meshes and wonder why the hell it's messing up. A loose edge kills everything.
Yes it does but so do a lot of other things when it comes to game export. Making sure the mesh is clean is inevitable no matter the software..
The reason I say it is a strong feature is because it implies one less restriction and is more transparent.
Here is a trivial example: A while back I was using Sculptris and I exported my mesh to obj. However, there was a bug that it only exported point clouds (I mean lose verts without edges and faces). First I tried to load it into Maya and boom it crashed. Then I tried Blender and voila I saw what was happening. Not that the file was useful after all, but at least I could see why Maya crashed.
Also I like the feature of ctrl+LMB clicking when in vert mode. It allows me to place vertices wereever I click and connects them if I have a previous one selected. Really fast for modelling from orthographics.
@r_fletch_r: probably the most important time I use it is being able to "sketch" with edges (ctrl+LMB). This is really nice when combined with Shrinkwrap to make very quick retopo that can have the polies filled in later. Moreover, it's just very nice to have a unified system for modeling. In Blender, if I select any two adjacent verts, I have an edge, and can perform edge operations, without switching modes etc. There also needn't be different operators to perform actions on different components because they're all the same. So in max, you can fill holes in a variety of ways based on what you have selected (cap poly, bridge, fill hole (perhaps that's Maya?), but in Blender, there really is only one context, so whatever you perform works as expected in that context. The selection modes are essentially convenience rather than any meaningful separation of contexts.
Having tried BMesh only briefly, I'm curious to see how this plays out going forwards.
Let me know if this isn't making much sense and I can try to make it a bit more concrete. It is sort of an abstract idea though.
Any tips on workflow with it? I've got it, but I rarely use it because other methods I'm more used to using seem faster, or at least much more comfortable.
You have to get really comfortable with the grease pencil for it to really do it's magic.
Once you have that down then it should be easier.
Other than that it's just practice...it takes a while to get the hang of it, but it's really fast once you do
True indeed Anyone else tried the BSurfaces add-on?
That's that plug-in that wasn't free at the beggining right? Its in the trunk now? Awesome! :thumbup: I had seen it in the add-on list but thought it was some early test version of BMesh.
That's that plug-in that wasn't free at the beggining right? Its in the trunk now? Awesome! :thumbup: I had seen it in the add-on list but thought it was some early test version of BMesh.
There are 2 versions. The 0.9 GPL edition and the 1.5 paid for version.
The 0.9 is included in trunk and there are plans to have the 1.5 edition included after a while (between 5-9 months from July 2011)
The 1.5 edition has faster algorithms and more editing options etc. http://www.bsurfaces.info/
BMesh is the new Blender mesh system with full support for N-sided polygons instead of only triangles and quads.
In particular there is a new Dissolve tool to remove vertices, edges and faces without making holes in the mesh, a new Inset tool to inset faces, and a much improved Knife tool which takes advantage of N-gons to generate clear cuts. Tools such as subdivide and loop cut will also generate clean topology because faces no longer have to be triangulated.
Cycles
Among the features added in this release are support for rendering environment maps, render layer mask layers, a shadow render pass, ambient occlusion and float precision textures.
Motion Tracker
Motion tracking got some improvements which are mostly relates on 2D stabilization and few smaller tools.
More Features
Other new features in this release include face hiding for sculpting, a compositing node to output multiple files at once or multilayer EXR files, new tools for linking and detaching nodes and more particle rotation options.
Ok !! I find the solution: Select non manifold edges/vertices
Do you think that they'd (the blender foundation) would be amenable to allowing the user to toggle whether non manifold geo was createable. Its really easy to create by accident and its totally undesirable in every other app out there.
(who would i ask)
Doesn't for me. RMB is cancel the knife...are you using an old keymap?
Yeah sorry i made a typo, i see they added cancel knife with RMB that's a big no no for me I can't press enter everytime i want to confirm the knife which is quite often.But someone posted a modification for knife shortcuts so it's aight .
Thanks for that link Dim, havent tried bmesh yet but I cant wait to finally have knife and bevel in Blender haha. I really like how much faster Blender is to use. With the context sensitive menu I've got all the tools i need right at the tip of my mouse without having to dig through menus all the time super time saver. But blender was really hurting for these bMesh tools
Hot damn! That's great news. Was just showing this off the other day to folks, explaining that it was a paid plugin which seemed to turn people off of it.
Just saw the new DVD release on my th feed. Looks great man, will be interested to see what you guys cover knowv you've covered zbrush so in depth Whats your involvement with Eat 3d btw? You own it?
So is this going into a main release straight away or am I going to have to wade through graphicall? :P
Doesn't seem to be any word about it, but my guess is that he'd just host it as a plugin on his site for now, but with such a great feature set, I'd wager it'd end up in trunk pretty quickly.
Just saw the new DVD release on my th feed. Looks great man, will be interested to see what you guys cover knowv you've covered zbrush so in depth Whats your involvement with Eat 3d btw? You own it?
Thanks, man! Lots of cool stuff to come
Nah, I don't own Eat3d, I work for them as Admin/Artist/Instructor and help run everything.
Doesn't seem to be any word about it, but my guess is that he'd just host it as a plugin on his site for now, but with such a great feature set, I'd wager it'd end up in trunk pretty quickly.
Yea, I can imagine that it will be in truck pretty soon once it's GPL'd...I would imagine it would make its way into the 2.64 release.
Is it just me or is bevel not driven by mouse movement, but the sliders in the toolbar? That's going to really slow down the workflow, glad as I am bevel is back. Or maybe its my mouse?
Just playing around with it now, loving bmesh and the new tools! Really liking the knife tool, works just how I'd want it to. Bevel and inset are nice too, will need to set some hotkeys. Though I'd like if you could control amounts by mouse movement instead of having to drag the slider bar (would also be nice to set the default values for the tools).
Summary: Awesomes!
EDIT: Just got a weird issue with knife tool where the cursor was offset from what was actually happening.
Why on earth would they leave control of the bevel to a slider instead of a mouse gesture. And how can I increase the amount of subdivisions as seen in the GIF? Or is the tool simply being repeated?
Why on earth would they leave control of the bevel to a slider instead of a mouse gesture. And how can I increase the amount of subdivisions as seen in the GIF? Or is the tool simply being repeated?
Can a mod rename the thread to just 'Blender'?
They removed the Recursion option at the last minute because it was buggy
It's in the RC though, so you could dl that version instead
Is there a chance they'll take the controls off the sliders and put them on a mouse drag/MMB scroll for recursion? Not at all familiar with programming so I wouldn't know how easy that would be to do.
2.63 is out. Major change is that BMesh is now in, which adds support for ngons, and a whole bunch of new modeling tools that have been delayed for a long time.
nice that the tools are finally getting there, now they just need to take care of the inconsistencies in how the tools are used, have some tools like extrude, and edge creasing, work using a mouse motion or typed in number, while others make you use that thing in the toolbar.
been messing about with the new 2.63 with bmesh, and the modeling tools still need polish.
the bevel/chamfer wont work on vertices, and there are some weird things like there being a vertex connect tool but not a edge connect tool.
also in previous 2.6 versions wanst there something called loop tools, that had some really nice stuff for working with edge loops, like making a perfect circle from a selection, and things like lofting.
Replies
besides they should be competing, and should be trying to get a good pipeline down so people can easily move stuff in and out of blender from other packages.
I'm hoping so, it doesn't help blender in any way to have yet another program artists cant use together with it, especially something as widespread as photoshop.
Having to save as tga every time I want to view a change in blender is not the most comfy thing out there :P
Guess I got lucky then or Blender likes me or something. I mainly use Blender for modelling, unwrapping, baking and from time to time rigging and animation for previsualization. So I cannot speak much about the many, many other uses of the tool and whether they are stable or not.
also why is it even allowed? no one else allows this sort of crap for a reason.
It's probable a bug, mate. It's still under heavy development and bug fixing...there won't be an official build for another 2 months or so.
If you think it's doing something it shouldn't, then please report it
Also, which build is this problem in? It might already be fixed. Can you post a .blend here or tell me how to reproduce please?
i got the build here.
http://www.graphicall.org/444
select a closed edge and extrude it. very easy to do by mistake and it plays havoc with SDS.
Reading this over, I'm not sure it makes any sense....
I don't think this is a bug, though it's not ideal. You can actually do this in the current version of Blender (no BMesh).
*edit* yea. dim is correct. It's a good habit to remove doubles on a regular basis
What would an experienced blender user do with this that cant be done simply by detaching a face?
- To find non-manifold faces, go select->Non Manifold or hit Shift+Ctrl+Alt+M (yeah i know...)
- To find lose verts that are not part of an edge / face, go select->Loose verts
- To make sure you have no doubled up verts in same spot select the whole mesh and click w and then r (or Mesh->Vertices->Remove doubles)
Im not trying to be snarky, I've just never seen a useful case for this that could not be achieved easily with a more conventional structure.
felix: thanks for the keys
Really strong feature especially if you're exporting game meshes and wonder why the hell it's messing up. A loose edge kills everything.
Yes it does but so do a lot of other things when it comes to game export. Making sure the mesh is clean is inevitable no matter the software..
The reason I say it is a strong feature is because it implies one less restriction and is more transparent.
Here is a trivial example: A while back I was using Sculptris and I exported my mesh to obj. However, there was a bug that it only exported point clouds (I mean lose verts without edges and faces). First I tried to load it into Maya and boom it crashed. Then I tried Blender and voila I saw what was happening. Not that the file was useful after all, but at least I could see why Maya crashed.
Also I like the feature of ctrl+LMB clicking when in vert mode. It allows me to place vertices wereever I click and connects them if I have a previous one selected. Really fast for modelling from orthographics.
Having tried BMesh only briefly, I'm curious to see how this plays out going forwards.
Let me know if this isn't making much sense and I can try to make it a bit more concrete. It is sort of an abstract idea though.
no need for shrinkwrap
Once you have that down then it should be easier.
Other than that it's just practice...it takes a while to get the hang of it, but it's really fast once you do
Also, you might want to check out this video
[vv]27781195[/vv]
It's the same model that they used for marketing but at regular speed
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/GoogleSummerOfCode/2012/Wishlist
That's that plug-in that wasn't free at the beggining right? Its in the trunk now? Awesome! :thumbup: I had seen it in the add-on list but thought it was some early test version of BMesh.
There are 2 versions. The 0.9 GPL edition and the 1.5 paid for version.
The 0.9 is included in trunk and there are plans to have the 1.5 edition included after a while (between 5-9 months from July 2011)
The 1.5 edition has faster algorithms and more editing options etc.
http://www.bsurfaces.info/
BMesh
- BMesh is the new Blender mesh system with full support for N-sided polygons instead of only triangles and quads.
- In particular there is a new Dissolve tool to remove vertices, edges and faces without making holes in the mesh, a new Inset tool to inset faces, and a much improved Knife tool which takes advantage of N-gons to generate clear cuts. Tools such as subdivide and loop cut will also generate clean topology because faces no longer have to be triangulated.
Cycles- Among the features added in this release are support for rendering environment maps, render layer mask layers, a shadow render pass, ambient occlusion and float precision textures.
Motion Tracker- Motion tracking got some improvements which are mostly relates on 2D stabilization and few smaller tools.
More Features- Other new features in this release include face hiding for sculpting, a compositing node to output multiple files at once or multilayer EXR files, new tools for linking and detaching nodes and more particle rotation options.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.63http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.63/
For finding aliens? :thumbup: I hope it has that authentic beeping sound.
Blender gives and gives and gives. Just when you think it's finished, then it gives a little more. Awesome.
Ok !! I find the solution: Select non manifold edges/vertices
Do you think that they'd (the blender foundation) would be amenable to allowing the user to toggle whether non manifold geo was createable. Its really easy to create by accident and its totally undesirable in every other app out there.
(who would i ask)
http://gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/04/20/Blender-BMesh-in-action%E2%80%A6-what%E2%80%99s-so-special-about-ngons-anyways.aspx
http://www.bsurfaces.info/
Just saw the new DVD release on my th feed. Looks great man, will be interested to see what you guys cover knowv you've covered zbrush so in depth
So is this going into a main release straight away or am I going to have to wade through graphicall? :P
Thanks, man! Lots of cool stuff to come
Nah, I don't own Eat3d, I work for them as Admin/Artist/Instructor and help run everything.
Yea, I can imagine that it will be in truck pretty soon once it's GPL'd...I would imagine it would make its way into the 2.64 release.
Oh and I meant fb feed. Damn phone :P
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.63/BMesh
Is it just me or is bevel not driven by mouse movement, but the sliders in the toolbar? That's going to really slow down the workflow, glad as I am bevel is back. Or maybe its my mouse?
Summary: Awesomes!
EDIT: Just got a weird issue with knife tool where the cursor was offset from what was actually happening.
Can a mod rename the thread to just 'Blender'?
It's in the RC though, so you could dl that version instead
2.63 is out. Major change is that BMesh is now in, which adds support for ngons, and a whole bunch of new modeling tools that have been delayed for a long time.
Release log
Download
Video Overview of Changes
http://gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/04/28/Setting-BMesh-tool-to-cut-on-right-click.aspx
the bevel/chamfer wont work on vertices, and there are some weird things like there being a vertex connect tool but not a edge connect tool.
also in previous 2.6 versions wanst there something called loop tools, that had some really nice stuff for working with edge loops, like making a perfect circle from a selection, and things like lofting.