As far as I know animations and armatures aren't supported yet. That aside I noticed a time saving of 50%, at least for high poly meshes. Plus files sizes are significantly smaller of course.
Anyone here know if there's some sort of plugin to get a better translation gizmo? I love the way Max has this pyramid thing that lets me choose whether I wanna move along 1,2 or 3 axes:
Anyone here know if there's some sort of plugin to get a better translation gizmo? I love the way Max has this pyramid thing that lets me choose whether I wanna move along 1,2 or 3 axes:
There was talk last year of changing the widget much like what you are showing, I think one of the devs even had a working prototype but I have no idea what became of that. However, the reason it probably wasnt pushed that hard is due to how blender gets around that by using the grab key + either the x, y or z hotkeys to constrain movement to that axis, as well as use in side, front, top views. The other way is just using the circle in the center of the widget, hitting shift + x + y, and then it will only move in the x and y axis as well.
This comes back to what a lot of us are complaining about, which is way too many hotkeys. There is a part of their user base that absolutely loves hotkeys, so much so that its become convoluted to the point of being ridiculous. I know they are re-assessing this issue, but thats about it so far.
On that note, to any and all
"Jonathan Williamson is still looking for a maintainer for default Maya and Max keymaps, contact him to volunteer!"
If anyone would like to begin the process of making blender easier to use via maya/max keymaps, they are looking for an artist(s)/developer to help maintain that side of things. http://developer.blender.org/
Yeah I'm aware of the hotkeys to lock an axis but even if you manage to recall them, it's still an extra action taking up more time and a button clogging up the keyboard. When I'm modeling in max I pretty much always have my hand on 1234qwert, and my pinky on the modifier keys. And using orthogonals is a subpar because screen real estate is valuable.
I totally agree that the focus on hotkeys in blender is ridiculous, also because they're not really explained anywhere convenient. I started working on modifying the interface slightly, simply to add some icons (visual recognition of tools) and shortkey text (on-the-fly learning) to buttons. It's janky though, because there's only a limited amount of icons available.
I'll have a looksie if I can find out some more about that prototype.
One issue is that those developing blender might not actually use wacom products that often. The reason I assume this is due to the interface not necessarily being tablet friendly. Take for example, when working on a cintiq, I wont want to have to use both hands on the keyboard just to get it to move along the x and y axis, or try to do some weird 3 key combo with one hand. Hoping pie menus can alleviate some of this stress but I hope all future changes and development will be mindful of tablet/cintiq usage.
Oh I'm not using a tablet. By modifier keys I meant [shift], [ctrl], [alt]. But like you, I don't want to have my hand off the mouse, because it should be moving the cursor dammit!
Maybe I just have really long piano fingers, but I never found it troublesome to have my left hand hitting any of G, R, S, X, Y, Z, Shift, Ctrl, and Alt. I do kind of wish that the most commonly-used hotkeys were more "under the hand" though.
I use Silo for my base modeling and today i though ah what the heck, I'll give blender another try.
3-6 minutes later struggling with basic navigation that was so counter intuitive I gave it a rest.
I tried it few years ago and from where I'm sitting nothing has changed.
First impression are usually the most important ones and this one ain't pretty.
I'll give it a go again when I have some time but I'm not happy even thinking bout it.
I use Silo for my base modeling and today i though ah what the heck, I'll give blender another try.
3-6 minutes later struggling with basic navigation that was so counter intuitive I gave it a rest.
I tried it few years ago and from where I'm sitting nothing has changed.
First impression are usually the most important ones and this one ain't pretty.
I'll give it a go again when I have some time but I'm not happy even thinking bout it.
You might want to give the "Blender Basics" course a go on CGCookie.com, their videos are usually excellent
Anyone know what kind of progress they have going on the sculpting? I heard something about adaptive tessellation, and something about voxel sculpting. Just wondering if anyone knows about that.
There was talk last year of changing the widget much like what you are showing, I think one of the devs even had a working prototype but I have no idea what became of that. However, the reason it probably wasnt pushed that hard is due to how blender gets around that by using the grab key + either the x, y or z hotkeys to constrain movement to that axis, as well as use in side, front, top views. The other way is just using the circle in the center of the widget, hitting shift + x + y, and then it will only move in the x and y axis as well.
I don't know about this discussion to change the widget, but the philosophy to achieve a 2 axis action is simple in Blender, you just hit G/R/S... then Shift (maintained)+x/y/z for the axis you want to eliminate.
I don't know about this discussion to change the widget, but the philosophy to achieve a 2 axis action is simple in Blender, you just hit G/R/S... then Shift (maintained)+x/y/z for the axis you want to eliminate.
Aye this was already mentioned, but the problem with this is that its not ideal especially for those who use tablets/cintiqs. Eventually convention will have to win out.
Anyone know what kind of progress they have going on the sculpting? I heard something about adaptive tessellation, and something about voxel sculpting. Just wondering if anyone knows about that.
Idk about voxel sculpting, but adaptive tessellation has been there for a while. Just turn it on, it's under topology.
Blender is getting psd import support in 2.70, among with a batch of other awesome features (on of my favorites being SSS GPU rendering). Check it out.
For those interested in contributing or wish to follow along, please head on over to developer.blender.org. That said, here are a few updates worth sharing.
On the UI front, they have implemented the first version of a working tab system. How it looks, the naming and whats contained within are going to change.
Additionally, heading on over to builder.blender.org will net you the version (jan 6+) with tabs and the wire frame modifier present if you wish to play around with it.
I haven't been keeping up with Blenders development lately, but how is the custimizeable tool shelf coming along? Is that part of the new tab system?
The tab system is only customizable to the extent that with python you can make your own tabs, and without it you can pin some tabs to always be present, at least right now. The customized toolshelf that was designed to be on top was being reviewed after the GSOC, but I believe its been on hold until they figure out whats going on with the rest of the UI. I could be wrong though. There have been some tool bars/tabbed layout based concepts presented by one of the lead developers (brecht), either context sensitive or customized.
Some have said because tabs are easier to implement now with the side panels, that will be developed first, they call it the "low hanging fruit" where as having customizable tool shelves on top or on the side would require a bit more work.
Pretty much whats being worked on right now is being discussed via Developer.Blender.Org, Phabricator makes it quite easy to get involved, leave a comment or subscribe to certain tasks so you are updated via email as to their development. I would encourage (not just to you) more Polycounter's get involved with the developer.blender.org site. This is the best time to start getting involved, since a lot is on the table as far as improvements and change are concerned.
Below is a list of things actively being worked on for 2.70 and things that are hoped to be completed in time for 2.71 and 2.72. This is not necessarily a complete list, but it details many of the larger goals that have been discussed and mostly agreed upon. 2.70 UI Targets General
Implement vertical tabs to allow better organization and use of space. This reduces and/or removes the need for scrolling - https://developer.blender.org/T37601
Update and reorganize toolbar for all applicable editors to better present available tools
Made many operators correctly link to their WIKI documentation entry. Previously they were generically linked to a category (such as modeling for extrude). Many more operators are still missing their direct links.
This AnimAll add on is nuts - in a good way. You can animate a single shape key to do multiple deforms, animate bevel strengths, lattice deforms, crease levels plus a lot more.
"There is still more work ahead of this project. Cycles Baking is actually a small part of a big planned baking refactor in Blender, which includes Baking Maps and Cage support. We only decided for Cycles baking to be a start point because the idea was to use Cycles to validate the proposed refactor of the internal baking API."
Brilliant, and I wasn't even checking for updates. You forgot to mention there is a dev version of cycles baking on the github... If it works, its change today.
What I want to know and no-one is ever clear on with blender is hardware. I.e. will I want a better graphics card or cpu when I find baking is painfully slow. I was there 6 months ago but was waiting for the update.
I think as the gpu can handle two meshes usually before running out of data, if it is gpu ready, its add another card rather than new board and cpu, potentially cheaper.
Trial and error I guess as its fairly clear when you've run out of gpu memory. Next thing to do for me is to read the article properly and install properly. And its probably not even gpu ready...
From the link I read it as there not being a dev build out but the tools to make your own build are there. I imagine someone will throw one up on graphicall sometime in the near future.
EDIT: Current I see one build of it but its for Mac.
http://graphicall.org/1105 - has cycles baking support. I'd use the script it comes with to get a better gui. Haven't been able to test myself but maybe someone on here can. More excited for cage though.
Works fine for me.
It's at a very early stage right now obviously, there's no model to model baking at all,
but already there's a couple of interesting thing you can do with it eg. slap a tilable texture onto a model and bake it using blended box mapping so that you have no seems on the model.
OSL also opens a lot of possibilities for texturing, but I haven't found a lot of premade examples.
The first cage support already has some working functionality I think. On a blender artist thread but it's not custom cage support, it just extrudes the cage based on an input distance, similar to some of the options in XNormal.
Custom Cages are on the list on things they want to do but they aren't sure when the function will get done.
From my understanding that cage extrusion options is only creating an inflated version of the low poly mesh which is then used for the bake, I might be wrong though.
Dalai Felinto also added the possibility to bake tangent space normal maps which be would nice to test in this regard.
I thought I would chime in as I am working with Dalai in order to get cage support up and running & to the point where the pipeline as efficient & flexible as possible.
The cages are progressing very well. As other people have said, currently it's just a copy of the LP mesh that is inflated and then used for ray casting.
Current limitations are:
You can't edit the cage (move verts around etc.)
You can't see the cage yet, though you can change how much it is inflated via a spinner.
The latest build is still http://www.graphicall.org/1105
It's a few days old but I can't find a newer one for windows yet.
You can read the roadmap and Dalai's progress reports HERE
Does anyone know if there's a chance of getting a proper uv relax tool inside blender?
The minimize stretch tools does something along those lines but pins the borders.
@Stromberg90
You're sort of missing on the whole workflow LSCM enables:)
Just pin some vertices so that the island stays in place, then unwrap again.
If you have some vertices pinned you can also turn on live unwrap and
move them to deform the uv where you want to.
You may want to switch between the unwrap methods in the left toolbar of 3d view.
Well I have done this before in max/maya/modo, only thing I am missing in blender is to be able to select my uv island and relax uniformly across it without pinned borders
That workflow I think works better for organic objects, than hardsurface.
Sorry if I sound a bit arrogant, it's not on purpose.
You don't have to pin your borders, you can adjust some vertices pin them and unwrap it so that the rest align.
The point of LSCM it to produce as little stretch as possible, there's nothing specifically organic oriented about it.
I've unwrapped a lot of hardsurface object in Blender and never had much trouble with stretching, the only thing is that sometimes one of those two methods (conformal/angle-based) works better.
Yeah, I do change between conformal and angle based.
Just wondering have you used 3ds max? because I might have a hard time explaining what I am looking for if not.
Most of the time I don't have problems with blenders uv tools, but there are those times where I need it.
You see the borders of the island does not get relaxed in blender only what's inside.
Ok, I see what you mean, I've just run the same mesh through minimize stretch and 3ds Max's relax. I agree minimize stretch is pretty useless and the result even excluding borders is very different.
EDIT: One loop off.
The problem here though, is more about unequal texture space rather than
texture stretching with the default unwrap.
Coming back to your original question I don't think there's any way to properly relax your uv post unwrapping.
The only solution I'd give you is as I said, using live unwrap.
There isn't a way to straighten your UVs like in 3ds Max either BTW.
Yeah, I have been using blender for quite some time now
Blender does have the align tools in the uv but it requires more manual input than the 3ds max one.
And talking about stuff like that, I miss the align to edge 3ds max had, where you could select a uv edge and it would rotate it so the uv island was straight.
My reason for asking here, is I hope someone might make a addon for it once(can it be done with python?)
Replies
There was talk last year of changing the widget much like what you are showing, I think one of the devs even had a working prototype but I have no idea what became of that. However, the reason it probably wasnt pushed that hard is due to how blender gets around that by using the grab key + either the x, y or z hotkeys to constrain movement to that axis, as well as use in side, front, top views. The other way is just using the circle in the center of the widget, hitting shift + x + y, and then it will only move in the x and y axis as well.
This comes back to what a lot of us are complaining about, which is way too many hotkeys. There is a part of their user base that absolutely loves hotkeys, so much so that its become convoluted to the point of being ridiculous. I know they are re-assessing this issue, but thats about it so far.
On that note, to any and all
"Jonathan Williamson is still looking for a maintainer for default Maya and Max keymaps, contact him to volunteer!"
If anyone would like to begin the process of making blender easier to use via maya/max keymaps, they are looking for an artist(s)/developer to help maintain that side of things. http://developer.blender.org/
I totally agree that the focus on hotkeys in blender is ridiculous, also because they're not really explained anywhere convenient. I started working on modifying the interface slightly, simply to add some icons (visual recognition of tools) and shortkey text (on-the-fly learning) to buttons. It's janky though, because there's only a limited amount of icons available.
I'll have a looksie if I can find out some more about that prototype.
3-6 minutes later struggling with basic navigation that was so counter intuitive I gave it a rest.
I tried it few years ago and from where I'm sitting nothing has changed.
First impression are usually the most important ones and this one ain't pretty.
I'll give it a go again when I have some time but I'm not happy even thinking bout it.
You might want to give the "Blender Basics" course a go on CGCookie.com, their videos are usually excellent
Love the upcoming Cycles volumes and new fbx exporter
I don't know about this discussion to change the widget, but the philosophy to achieve a 2 axis action is simple in Blender, you just hit G/R/S... then Shift (maintained)+x/y/z for the axis you want to eliminate.
Aye this was already mentioned, but the problem with this is that its not ideal especially for those who use tablets/cintiqs. Eventually convention will have to win out.
Idk about voxel sculpting, but adaptive tessellation has been there for a while. Just turn it on, it's under topology.
Two new modifiers, Wireframe and Bisect.
Here is a video of the new Bisect modifier in action:
[ame="
and the Wireframe modifier:
[ame="
On the UI front, they have implemented the first version of a working tab system. How it looks, the naming and whats contained within are going to change.
Additionally, heading on over to builder.blender.org will net you the version (jan 6+) with tabs and the wire frame modifier present if you wish to play around with it.
The tab system is only customizable to the extent that with python you can make your own tabs, and without it you can pin some tabs to always be present, at least right now. The customized toolshelf that was designed to be on top was being reviewed after the GSOC, but I believe its been on hold until they figure out whats going on with the rest of the UI. I could be wrong though. There have been some tool bars/tabbed layout based concepts presented by one of the lead developers (brecht), either context sensitive or customized.
One of them released a sneak peak video whats currently present:
[ame="
Some have said because tabs are easier to implement now with the side panels, that will be developed first, they call it the "low hanging fruit" where as having customizable tool shelves on top or on the side would require a bit more work.
Pretty much whats being worked on right now is being discussed via Developer.Blender.Org, Phabricator makes it quite easy to get involved, leave a comment or subscribe to certain tasks so you are updated via email as to their development. I would encourage (not just to you) more Polycounter's get involved with the developer.blender.org site. This is the best time to start getting involved, since a lot is on the table as far as improvements and change are concerned.
Jonathan Williamson also laid out their current UI goals for 2.7-2.72, which of course is subject to change and will probably be fleshed out over time. But here's the current road map:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/Projects/UI/ui-targets
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaPk9RODius[/ame]
[ame="
BlenderNation: http://www.blendernation.com/2014/01/06/animall-add-on-overview/
"There is still more work ahead of this project. Cycles Baking is actually a small part of a big planned baking refactor in Blender, which includes Baking Maps and Cage support. We only decided for Cycles baking to be a start point because the idea was to use Cycles to validate the proposed refactor of the internal baking API."
Brilliant, and I wasn't even checking for updates. You forgot to mention there is a dev version of cycles baking on the github... If it works, its change today.
What I want to know and no-one is ever clear on with blender is hardware. I.e. will I want a better graphics card or cpu when I find baking is painfully slow. I was there 6 months ago but was waiting for the update.
I think as the gpu can handle two meshes usually before running out of data, if it is gpu ready, its add another card rather than new board and cpu, potentially cheaper.
Trial and error I guess as its fairly clear when you've run out of gpu memory. Next thing to do for me is to read the article properly and install properly. And its probably not even gpu ready...
EDIT: Current I see one build of it but its for Mac.
It's at a very early stage right now obviously, there's no model to model baking at all,
but already there's a couple of interesting thing you can do with it eg. slap a tilable texture onto a model and bake it using blended box mapping so that you have no seems on the model.
OSL also opens a lot of possibilities for texturing, but I haven't found a lot of premade examples.
He also mentions a cage on the Blender game mailing list...haven't seen evidence of it yet.
Custom Cages are on the list on things they want to do but they aren't sure when the function will get done.
Dalai Felinto also added the possibility to bake tangent space normal maps which be would nice to test in this regard.
I thought I would chime in as I am working with Dalai in order to get cage support up and running & to the point where the pipeline as efficient & flexible as possible.
The cages are progressing very well. As other people have said, currently it's just a copy of the LP mesh that is inflated and then used for ray casting.
Current limitations are:
You can't edit the cage (move verts around etc.)
You can't see the cage yet, though you can change how much it is inflated via a spinner.
The latest build is still http://www.graphicall.org/1105
It's a few days old but I can't find a newer one for windows yet.
You can read the roadmap and Dalai's progress reports HERE
[ame="
New features include native TS baking, a cage file option and a swizzle.
The minimize stretch tools does something along those lines but pins the borders.
Have I been missing something?
You're sort of missing on the whole workflow LSCM enables:)
Just pin some vertices so that the island stays in place, then unwrap again.
If you have some vertices pinned you can also turn on live unwrap and
move them to deform the uv where you want to.
You may want to switch between the unwrap methods in the left toolbar of 3d view.
Also, theres uv sculpt and there's a relax brush.
That workflow I think works better for organic objects, than hardsurface.
Sorry if I sound a bit arrogant, it's not on purpose.
The point of LSCM it to produce as little stretch as possible, there's nothing specifically organic oriented about it.
I've unwrapped a lot of hardsurface object in Blender and never had much trouble with stretching, the only thing is that sometimes one of those two methods (conformal/angle-based) works better.
Just wondering have you used 3ds max? because I might have a hard time explaining what I am looking for if not.
Most of the time I don't have problems with blenders uv tools, but there are those times where I need it.
You see the borders of the island does not get relaxed in blender only what's inside.
EDIT: One loop off.
The problem here though, is more about unequal texture space rather than
texture stretching with the default unwrap.
Coming back to your original question I don't think there's any way to properly relax your uv post unwrapping.
The only solution I'd give you is as I said, using live unwrap.
There isn't a way to straighten your UVs like in 3ds Max either BTW.
Blender does have the align tools in the uv but it requires more manual input than the 3ds max one.
And talking about stuff like that, I miss the align to edge 3ds max had, where you could select a uv edge and it would rotate it so the uv island was straight.
My reason for asking here, is I hope someone might make a addon for it once(can it be done with python?)