The idea is that you always have a dedicated mouse button for selecting and another for manipulation.
shit, I think that may have been my biggest barrier to entry, I never thought the program bucked 40 years of UI design. I'll have to give it another try.
no, its not snapping to anything
even if i create two cubes out of sight of everything. snap simply doesnt work
the only snapping option that works is snap to grid, the others do nothing
I think Blender has a tendency to break with a lot of geometry, just recently had two tris that got separated from a sculpt (1.5M object, really dense) and wouldn't display verts, just edges. Couldn't select them except in edge mode. You could test by deleting loads of geo and see if it snaps or not then. Also check the log if it throws errors.
____incoming rant:____
I'm sort of puzzled at the title. There are plenty of folks over at the Sketchbooks section, myself included, trying very very hard. Because they want to get better, and kick ass in the future. Blender gets mocked for the very same thing. Sort of double-standards.
Now, don't get me wrong - Blender is everything but production ready. There are ciritcal flaws you run into that won't let you do a lot of stuff, or won't let you do them in a simple intuitive manner, and I don't mean the GUI. I mean stuff like Multires modifier, or hair collision simulation (that doesn't work). I'm having a lot of fun tweaking stuff in Blender, and I'm very happy about a lot of features and stuff you can do (grease pencil based Bsurfaces FYESSS), but whenever you need reliable workflow and pipeline, Blender may fail with a bigger probability than 3ds or Maya. And a lot of people are not willing to take the risk.
IMHO Blender at the moment is a fun tool for learning (seriously, if you like Blender, you better like Youtube/Vimeo just as much), great tool for software development (awesome API and a lot of accessibility to variable addresses from within GUI), but not a reliable production tool.
I would go for Blender if I was to make an indie project, but if I was tied legally to taking responsibility for my mess/deadlines, I would go for commercial software. I'll give you an (colorful) example: Was working on packaging visualization, on short deadline, got newest (at that time) build because it had n-gons, and they would save me a lot of time. Turned out the n-gons broke topology on save half the time. Wasted several hours trying to figure out what's happened, at a time when I couldn't afford to go for a piss (timewise I mean).
I think that with current development and community tendencies Blender will 'get there' sooner or later, but that time isn't just yet. I know I'll throw money at them, though. I like to see the code bought for my monies, and have people be able to access and modify it. Makes progress easier. And a lot of devs working on Blender have a lot of cutting-edge ideas, and I love following threads with featuredevs, waiting to be able to get my hands on them in a build. It'a s bit like watching people fornicate.
Now, having ranted, I'll go practice more of that hard Blender love :poly142: 'Crash me baby one more time' as that song went, kinda.
I think Blender has a tendency to break with a lot of geometry, just recently had two tris that got separated from a sculpt (1.5M object, really dense) and wouldn't display verts, just edges. Couldn't select them except in edge mode. You could test by deleting loads of geo and see if it snaps or not then. Also check the log if it throws errors.
Just out of curiosity, what were the model's dimensions?
You might double check that the scale is applied with CTRL+A.
Yes, scale is applied, there are some remnants of corrective modifications in loc/rot.
loc x 1.02, loc z 0.13
rot x -2.06
Object that broke mesh is smaller than the whole, 1/5th height/width, was at 1.2M verts when I got the mesh error.
I assume this is a know bug? Possibly related to vertex addressing?
Hey guys, I’d just like to get confirmation that tangent space normals currently have not much sense for polygons? I mean, mikktspace only handles tris/quads, so I guess only tesselated geometry is used with such data, right?
the request doc and mailing list is full of stuff about low-mesh normal editing for baking TS normals, so I suspect most of that stuff is not really working
Hey guys, Id just like to get confirmation that tangent space normals currently have not much sense for polygons? I mean, mikktspace only handles tris/quads, so I guess only tesselated geometry is used with such data, right?
Everything is converted to tris on engine import. Though it's useful to sometimes model with ngons, I always convert ngons to quads or tris before baking because you don't know if the engine or baker will triangulate differently. So in my opinion, ngon support isn't necessary.
Yes, scale is applied, there are some remnants of corrective modifications in loc/rot.
loc x 1.02, loc z 0.13
rot x -2.06
Object that broke mesh is smaller than the whole, 1/5th height/width, was at 1.2M verts when I got the mesh error.
I assume this is a know bug? Possibly related to vertex addressing?
I have no idea actually. I've never run into NGons breaking topology on save. Could it be that you're saving with "Legacy Format" enabled? Such that the NGons are being excluded. In what nature did they "break"?
Everything is converted to tris on engine import. Though it's useful to sometimes model with ngons, I always convert ngons to quads or tris before baking because you don't know if the engine or baker will triangulate differently. So in my opinion, ngon support isn't necessary.
Same here. Always doing manual triangulation before baking to avoid incorrect shading.
Loved this, itd be nice if this had its own thread. I REALLY want to just use blender, I really like it. But its frustrating to do anything more than model in it. And if I stop modeling for about a month its very hard to pick back up
Could you make a Windows build?
I wanted to test normals export in one of your linux builds, but it seemed to have different dependencies from the official Blender
and I abandoned the idea?
Also, could you explain what "Loop CD Layer" stands for?
For those interested in this subject matter, Blender is having a Conference (annual event) and this year its being both streamed live as well as uploaded onto youtube.
It includes everything from keynotes, workshops, panels on UI design and just general CG stuff.
Awesome talk about Normal Maps by active polycounter metalliandy. There is a lot of info that is not Blender-centric as well - I would venture to say it's one of the best talks on normal mapping that I've seen. Check it out - you'll probably learn something.
Awesome talk about Normal Maps by active polycounter metalliandy. There is a lot of info that is not Blender-centric as well - I would venture to say it's one of the best talks on normal mapping that I've seen. Check it out - you'll probably learn something.
(Perhaps this link should be shared outside the Blender thread too?)
That video is like the main stickied threads in Technical Talk combined into one. It would be really great if the slides were available, everything in one place then. Thanks for the share
Well, I guess I kinda forgot to announce this here
So, 2.69 will have split normals export for both FBX and OBJ formats. I just fixed a (stupid, as always) bug in core code last week, think everything works OK now. You can still test latest Blender builds, obviously!
Also, as Im now hired for six months on mid-time base by the Blender Foundation, especially to work over game-dev tools, I have chosen loop normals (i.e. split normals, i.e. normals per vertex per face) as main project, so expect more new features on this topic in upcoming releases. Ill also try to keep this blog updated about it, this time!
Can someone tell me how do i select the sample area in UV editor when using clone brush to hide the seams,Im using 3dsmax pref.what key should i press to set the sample position?
so in 2.69 you just export your model with normals (default), and you get sharp edges!
If I am doing this correctly, this means you just mark the edges you want to be sharp, then ticking the box include normals on export will make it appear properly in engine. I quickly tested it on a cube going to Unity, and it seems to have worked. If there is a better/easier way than this, please let me know.
Also, is there any way to view that smoothing in Blender? Because when I set the model to smooth, the whole thing appears smooth even though I have marked my sharp edges. I can view the result if I use an Edge Split modifier with Edge Angle off and Sharp Edges on (my previous export method) but it should really just update without me having to put a modifier on it I feel.
Thanks and congrats on getting this through to the release
For now you need to use the Edge Split modifier to preview hard edges. But mont29 mentioned at the very beginning that he is planning to integrate a new option to visualize hard edges in the 3D viewport which doesn't require a modifier.
Your export settings are fine. For .obj models you could also use bitflag smoothing groups. These will only work for hard edges surrounding a closed region of faces but might come in handy for apps which don't support import of per-vertex normals, plus the filesize is smaller.
Yes, having loop normals (split normals) preview is scheduled, currently wip in branch, codemanx just made a windows build of it: http://www.graphicall.org/925
I'm not a modo user so I really don't know advantages of workplane over the 3d cursor - Is it just a little different? Don't they accomplish pretty much the same thing? Is it just a preference or are there major advantages? Would the two methods work together in Tandem well?
Hi, just wanted tho share my experience with Blender so far.
Im a 3d-artist at Redlynx Ubisoft-studios and I have used Blender for all my 3d-work so far for the past year, along with zBrush and other programs. I moved from 3dsMax to Blender a few years ago and Im really glad I got past the issues of somewhat different usability in the beginning and learned how to use Blender effectively. I have actually also been able to convert some of my colleagues at work to Blender from 3dsMax. Not that I really dislike Max or anything, but especially in modelling, texturing and unwrapping my workflow has sped up significantly compared to Max, and I knew Max quite well before Blender. The shortcuts especially in Bender are really effective in modelling and texturing (after learning them..)
I do agree that in many areas Blender could improve in usability, but to be honest, I dont see for example Max being any more artist/user-friendly than any other 3d-software out there. You just have to learn them. Dont know about Maya that much tho. Im really glad that Blender is being considered more and more of a serious alternative 3d-software in the industry to the ones that cost thousands of dollars/euros and basically do the same things, sometimes ever worse. For example the unwrapping tools in Blender are probably the best I have used so far. 3dsMax actually copied the uv -algorithms from Blender back in the days 2011 if Im not mistaken, and that says something. Being open-source is really cool that way.
But yeah, hope to see more professional Blender-users in the future
I'm not a modo user so I really don't know advantages of workplane over the 3d cursor - Is it just a little different?
It's different.
Workplane allows to quickly define local orientation to work with. You simply select a face or a couple of edges and hit Home key and it aligns cooordinate grids along selection.
It's more like an old maya local tools script but just better.
The second very important workplane feature is that it "adjusts itself to match the two major axes most closely aligned to the users current screen axis". The awesomeness is that you can move objects along axes while having your mouse anywhere on screen. No more need to click on transform arrows. You simply rotate viewport instead. This really speeds things up.
The second very important workplane feature is that it "adjusts itself to match the two major axes most closely aligned to the users current screen axis". The awesomeness is that you can move objects along axes while having your mouse anywhere on screen. No more need to click on transform arrows. You simply rotate viewport instead. This really speeds things up.
You can do the same with Blender. Change the transform setting from global to view, then you're good to go. You can double tap X Y or Z keys to transform along the screen axis without having to use the gizmo.
Change the transform setting from global to view, then you're good to go.
No, it's totally different. With View transform you move in three world axes at once. This is ok for tweaking organic shapes, but you can't be precise with it.
Workplane automatically chooses one of XY, XZ and YZ planes, the one closest to screen space.
Yes this can be achieved in blender with hotkeys or with shift-clicking transform gizmo. It's just a matter of comfort and productivity.
Oh alright, seems like a nice feature. It's just about personal preference, because you're right, it's essentially the same efficiency in Blender (shift + axis key to not use).
Does anyone know if there are any plans for vertex normals altering, Fbx and Obj export with tangent informations and some decent baking options for cycles with cage in the near future?
Currently I'm on a edge, whether I should buy Maya LT, or not in the next couple of months. I love Blender's modeling tools and it's coming along nicely lately. But there are still some things I badly miss for game asset creation.
Does anyone know if there are any plans for vertex normals altering, Fbx and Obj export with tangent informations and some decent baking options for cycles with cage in the near future?
Proper cage baking has been brought up many times so I know the core devs are aware of it. Beyond that I dont know.
Currently I'm on a edge, whether I should buy Maya LT, or not in the next couple of months. I love Blender's modeling tools and it's coming along nicely lately. But there are still some things I badly miss for game asset creation.
I would hold off at least until Maya lt 2015 since all those updates (obj export, increased poly export size, mel scripting) are only for subscribers.
Proper cage baking has been brought up many times so I know the core devs are aware of it. Beyond that I dont know.
I would hold off at least until Maya lt 2015 since all those updates (obj export, increased poly export size, mel scripting) are only for subscribers.
Wow that's some good news. I guess I going to skip Maya LT then. And until Blender get's better baking, I still can use Xnormal since obj's can now exported with hard edge informations.
The thing is, I really do like Blender's workflow. And I'm not a fan of Maya's cumbersome modeling tools.
There is just some stuff Blender really needs for game asset creation, like a better fbx export. I would like to see Blender exports shape key animations as well.
Anyway, better to donate to the Blender foundation rather than paying 800 bucks to AD.
Blender just got its first working version of the new fbx exporter which does supports binary FBX v7.3 https://github.com/mont29/blender-io-fbx
This also means you can finally import fbx models back into blender.
Replies
shit, I think that may have been my biggest barrier to entry, I never thought the program bucked 40 years of UI design. I'll have to give it another try.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xYiiD-p2q80
Dennis: "I couldn't help notice if you moved this to here you could increase y...." *crash bang explosions* (chaos in the armorers)
I think Blender has a tendency to break with a lot of geometry, just recently had two tris that got separated from a sculpt (1.5M object, really dense) and wouldn't display verts, just edges. Couldn't select them except in edge mode. You could test by deleting loads of geo and see if it snaps or not then. Also check the log if it throws errors.
____incoming rant:____
I'm sort of puzzled at the title. There are plenty of folks over at the Sketchbooks section, myself included, trying very very hard. Because they want to get better, and kick ass in the future. Blender gets mocked for the very same thing. Sort of double-standards.
Now, don't get me wrong - Blender is everything but production ready. There are ciritcal flaws you run into that won't let you do a lot of stuff, or won't let you do them in a simple intuitive manner, and I don't mean the GUI. I mean stuff like Multires modifier, or hair collision simulation (that doesn't work). I'm having a lot of fun tweaking stuff in Blender, and I'm very happy about a lot of features and stuff you can do (grease pencil based Bsurfaces FYESSS), but whenever you need reliable workflow and pipeline, Blender may fail with a bigger probability than 3ds or Maya. And a lot of people are not willing to take the risk.
IMHO Blender at the moment is a fun tool for learning (seriously, if you like Blender, you better like Youtube/Vimeo just as much), great tool for software development (awesome API and a lot of accessibility to variable addresses from within GUI), but not a reliable production tool.
I would go for Blender if I was to make an indie project, but if I was tied legally to taking responsibility for my mess/deadlines, I would go for commercial software.
I'll give you an (colorful) example: Was working on packaging visualization, on short deadline, got newest (at that time) build because it had n-gons, and they would save me a lot of time. Turned out the n-gons broke topology on save half the time. Wasted several hours trying to figure out what's happened, at a time when I couldn't afford to go for a piss (timewise I mean).
I think that with current development and community tendencies Blender will 'get there' sooner or later, but that time isn't just yet. I know I'll throw money at them, though. I like to see the code bought for my monies, and have people be able to access and modify it. Makes progress easier. And a lot of devs working on Blender have a lot of cutting-edge ideas, and I love following threads with featuredevs, waiting to be able to get my hands on them in a build. It'a s bit like watching people fornicate.
Now, having ranted, I'll go practice more of that hard Blender love :poly142: 'Crash me baby one more time' as that song went, kinda.
Just out of curiosity, what were the model's dimensions?
in blender units, approximates:
x:37
y:24
z:61
model stats (several objects, approx.): 3.9M verts, 7.8M Faces
You might double check that the scale is applied with CTRL+A.
Yes, scale is applied, there are some remnants of corrective modifications in loc/rot.
loc x 1.02, loc z 0.13
rot x -2.06
Object that broke mesh is smaller than the whole, 1/5th height/width, was at 1.2M verts when I got the mesh error.
I assume this is a know bug? Possibly related to vertex addressing?
Everything is converted to tris on engine import. Though it's useful to sometimes model with ngons, I always convert ngons to quads or tris before baking because you don't know if the engine or baker will triangulate differently. So in my opinion, ngon support isn't necessary.
I have no idea actually. I've never run into NGons breaking topology on save. Could it be that you're saving with "Legacy Format" enabled? Such that the NGons are being excluded. In what nature did they "break"?
https://projects.blender.org/scm/viewvc.php?view=rev&root=bf-blender&revision=60621
Loved this, itd be nice if this had its own thread. I REALLY want to just use blender, I really like it. But its frustrating to do anything more than model in it. And if I stop modeling for about a month its very hard to pick back up
Note: you must be able to build Blender to test this (the branch is very close to trunk, so if you can build the trunk, you can build the branch!).
Could you make a Windows build?
I wanted to test normals export in one of your linux builds, but it seemed to have different dependencies from the official Blender
and I abandoned the idea?
Also, could you explain what "Loop CD Layer" stands for?
cheers
It includes everything from keynotes, workshops, panels on UI design and just general CG stuff.
The schedule is here: http://www.blender.org/conference/presentations
The videos and stream are here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSMOQeBJ2RAnuFungnQOxLg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OONQzKcWeMY#t=1201
(Perhaps this link should be shared outside the Blender thread too?)
That video is like the main stickied threads in Technical Talk combined into one. It would be really great if the slides were available, everything in one place then. Thanks for the share
http://mont29.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/about-export-split-normals-status/
EDIT: By the way, 2.69 is officially released: http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-269/
Also, is there any way to view that smoothing in Blender? Because when I set the model to smooth, the whole thing appears smooth even though I have marked my sharp edges. I can view the result if I use an Edge Split modifier with Edge Angle off and Sharp Edges on (my previous export method) but it should really just update without me having to put a modifier on it I feel.
Thanks and congrats on getting this through to the release
Your export settings are fine. For .obj models you could also use bitflag smoothing groups. These will only work for hard edges surrounding a closed region of faces but might come in handy for apps which don't support import of per-vertex normals, plus the filesize is smaller.
Many thanks to him!
With a few more features I would be seriously considering not going back to Max. :P
Here is video that shows power of 3D cursor: [ame="
Where the 3d cursor is a point, the workplane is a point and a plane (with grid).
Im a 3d-artist at Redlynx Ubisoft-studios and I have used Blender for all my 3d-work so far for the past year, along with zBrush and other programs. I moved from 3dsMax to Blender a few years ago and Im really glad I got past the issues of somewhat different usability in the beginning and learned how to use Blender effectively. I have actually also been able to convert some of my colleagues at work to Blender from 3dsMax. Not that I really dislike Max or anything, but especially in modelling, texturing and unwrapping my workflow has sped up significantly compared to Max, and I knew Max quite well before Blender. The shortcuts especially in Bender are really effective in modelling and texturing (after learning them..)
I do agree that in many areas Blender could improve in usability, but to be honest, I dont see for example Max being any more artist/user-friendly than any other 3d-software out there. You just have to learn them. Dont know about Maya that much tho. Im really glad that Blender is being considered more and more of a serious alternative 3d-software in the industry to the ones that cost thousands of dollars/euros and basically do the same things, sometimes ever worse. For example the unwrapping tools in Blender are probably the best I have used so far. 3dsMax actually copied the uv -algorithms from Blender back in the days 2011 if Im not mistaken, and that says something. Being open-source is really cool that way.
But yeah, hope to see more professional Blender-users in the future
It's different.
Workplane allows to quickly define local orientation to work with. You simply select a face or a couple of edges and hit Home key and it aligns cooordinate grids along selection.
It's more like an old maya local tools script but just better.
The second very important workplane feature is that it "adjusts itself to match the two major axes most closely aligned to the users current screen axis". The awesomeness is that you can move objects along axes while having your mouse anywhere on screen. No more need to click on transform arrows. You simply rotate viewport instead. This really speeds things up.
You can do the same with Blender. Change the transform setting from global to view, then you're good to go. You can double tap X Y or Z keys to transform along the screen axis without having to use the gizmo.
No, it's totally different. With View transform you move in three world axes at once. This is ok for tweaking organic shapes, but you can't be precise with it.
Workplane automatically chooses one of XY, XZ and YZ planes, the one closest to screen space.
Yes this can be achieved in blender with hotkeys or with shift-clicking transform gizmo. It's just a matter of comfort and productivity.
nevermind , [ame="
[ame="
https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/408889980363108352/photo/1
Currently I'm on a edge, whether I should buy Maya LT, or not in the next couple of months. I love Blender's modeling tools and it's coming along nicely lately. But there are still some things I badly miss for game asset creation.
Indeed, one of the 2 developers the Blender Foundation hired due to Valve's steam donation system is working on it. See: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Mont29/Foundation/Split_Vertex_Normals
Here is his blog for additional info: http://mont29.wordpress.com/tag/vertex-normal/
Proper cage baking has been brought up many times so I know the core devs are aware of it. Beyond that I dont know.
I would hold off at least until Maya lt 2015 since all those updates (obj export, increased poly export size, mel scripting) are only for subscribers.
Wow that's some good news. I guess I going to skip Maya LT then. And until Blender get's better baking, I still can use Xnormal since obj's can now exported with hard edge informations.
The thing is, I really do like Blender's workflow. And I'm not a fan of Maya's cumbersome modeling tools.
There is just some stuff Blender really needs for game asset creation, like a better fbx export. I would like to see Blender exports shape key animations as well.
Anyway, better to donate to the Blender foundation rather than paying 800 bucks to AD.
And the subscription thing is hilarious
This also means you can finally import fbx models back into blender.