just wondering if your tool has any options to adjust the number of control points on the guide curves after they've been created?
That depends what you mean. If you want to simplify curves you can use blender buildin -simplify curves addon. I could also write custom function for that, in HairTool I guess. But for now I have to find way to align spline point to surface normal. About build in surface sketching - I was trying it, but it was usually lot of work to manually tweak all the handpainted curves after they were made. It was cool for making hair for cartoony character though.
I made a script (more of a big macro really) that will clean up bad geo that's often created by the remesh modifier. I'm finding it very useful for preparing geo for sculpting, and setting it up for clean and easy decimation.
It's still pretty WIP, still testing lots of edge cases. If anyone knows of any other nice mesh cleanup techniques or scripts, I'd love to know!
Sweet jimney cricket I wish I had this before I did the geo on my current photogrammetry project. Looks excellent
Hi, I suppose you know there's this wonderful, free tool to do some operations on heavy/scanned mesh: http://www.meshlab.net/ Nothing to say against the great script of Peris, just to let you know. Cheers
That depends what you mean. If you want to simplify curves you can use blender buildin -simplify curves addon. I could also write custom function for that, in HairTool I guess. But for now I have to find way to align spline point to surface normal.
About build in surface sketching - I was trying it, but it was usually lot of work to manually tweak all the handpainted curves after they were made. It was cool for making hair for cartoony character though.
yeah i know simplify curves but from my experience this here is the king of the hill: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/normalize-spline the important bit: "normalizes a spline by number of segments instead of the segments length."
as for sketching curves and then tweaking them i was thinking if you let the user draw as many curves in the shape they like and then offer quick variation of these via sliders they'd be off to a much better start. i find these generators make it all look so generic for a start and then you're pulling sliders for root and tip splay to offset your clumping settings... not very artsy.
I made a script (more of a big macro really) that will clean up bad geo that's often created by the remesh modifier. I'm finding it very useful for preparing geo for sculpting, and setting it up for clean and easy decimation.
It's still pretty WIP, still testing lots of edge cases. If anyone knows of any other nice mesh cleanup techniques or scripts, I'd love to know!
Sweet jimney cricket I wish I had this before I did the geo on my current photogrammetry project. Looks excellent
Hi, I suppose you know there's this wonderful, free tool to do some operations on heavy/scanned mesh: http://www.meshlab.net/ Nothing to say against the great script of Peris, just to let you know. Cheers
Yeah meshlab is awesome, I wouldn't recommend my script for any big repair work . I made the script because I wanted something quick and easy to work with inside Blender, similar to using zremesher passes in zbrush.
Lots of fantastic stuff happening ! Can't wait to try it all out.
- - - - -
[Edit] @Linko : Just tried your new tool, it is extremely interesting and also very straightforward, that's great. If that is of any help there is one thing that I think would be very useful. At the moment the tools does :
Input : dense model + diffuse color texture applied as Cycles Diffuse BSDF Color. Output : a decimated model with auto UVs and advanced materials and textures, applied and displayed in the realtime Blender/Game viewport with a special Blender Game material with Albedo, Normal, and so on.
Something useful would be to have another option (maybe a second button ?) doing : Input : dense model + diffuse color texture applied as Cycles Diffuse BSDF Color. Output : decimated model with auto UVs, but just a diffuse color texture (maybe with all the special edge detection and AO effects, but that's not necessarily needed), also applied as Cycles Diffuse BSDF Color.
This would allowing for an uninterrupted workflow : Sculpt, paint, tweak (mesh editing, booleans) > Remesh > Repeat. All without leaving the Cycles Render viewport mode, which is the only mode suited for heavy modeling work (sculpting, high poly modeling).
Also, when attempting such a workflow I am getting this after trying to process an asset for the second time :
I can process this asset just fine if I copy/paste it into another Blender session - but if I do that, the texture input gets ignored/lost.
To sum it up : I think it would be great if the addon had an option that "just worked" to simply process a painted model as many times as necessary. - - - - - TLDR : the tool seems very powerful, but would benefit from having a "simple reduce" option, doing mesh decimation and automatic UVs, but no complex material creation. I hope this helps !
Hi, thank you for the feedback. We plan to create Cycles/EEVEE material using the Principled BSDF, we will do that this week.
About the iterative modeling this could be useful because of dyntopo that destroys the UVs but the shape will be modified to much to allow the cage and the generated textures to bake a good texture. But it can now read the material color applied as an ID map to speed the texturing process:
Game Asset Materials is now available Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1wP1Y8dmh8admY1bmpuRkxRVHc/view?usp=sharing
Srđan Ignjatović worked hard on this new feature. During the game asset
generation a new map is baked called game_asset_mask it will allow to
pick the color of your image as a mask and apply a material on it. For
example here i have added Suzanne in my scene with two diffuse colors:
Then i click on Generate asset. The asset will then be compatible with
the Game Asset Materials tool. To use it choose a material on clicking
on the suzanne material, you can choose from almost 50 materials right
now.
For example to replace the orange part by lava, i select lava then i
click on Add. Then i click on the mask button (it can be turned off to
be applied on the entire asset). To display the mask i must Ctrl + left
click, then i pick a color.
For the eyes i do the same process, i pick a material rock cobblestone,
i click on add, i enable the masking or i will overwritte the lava. I
select put the blue color of the eye to use as mask. You can edit a
material added by selecting it, then pick a new to replace it and click
update.
Once you are done click on Generate textures, your materials will be automatically displayed and the new albedo will be saved:
Some changes:
- the curvature isn't imported anymore since the albedo uses it to generate the material (so we don't need to use two)
- the textures are now all generate in 32 bit Float, the normal map
and curvature will look much better (no compression effect like on .jpg)
- 256 and 512 texture resolution available
@Linko Hi I am trying your addon, Is there a way I can specify using the tab to bake specific maps? Lets say I want to bake only a normal and diffuse map from vertex color.. It would be nice to have a tab, where you could just tick the maps you want to bake and specify the directory and file format. This was possible with the former addon version you had like some time ago.
With the help of @Frankie and @derphouse I've made some tools to speed up the process of renaming objects, specifically for 'Match by name' baking in Substance Painter.
This next script is for deleting suffixes. It will check if the suffix is '_high' if it is it will delete the last 5 characters of the name. If _high isn't the suffix then it will just delete the last 4 characters which will delete '_low' or '.001'.
@melviso Yes we plan to add what you said this week. Right now we are trying to improve the textures (32 bit Float raw then converting them in TGA with dithering, normal to cavity overlayed on top of the curvature, roughness pattern procedurally generated) and are working on Cycles/EEVEE Principled BSDF shader generated automatically.
picked up blender again, and got annoyed by the transform tools. so I started creating a workplane addon. it can set transform orientations and auto plane constraints from view. The move/rotate/scale commands just wrap the default ones and set the constraints on it. If not in workplane mode the commands fall back to the default behaviour, so In theory they can just be switched out.
Still needs some more work as it misses a few things - for ex. the workplane grid is still pretty static, one can just move away from it. And have not testet in 2.79..
will upload it to github or so, once im happy with it.
which triggers a question - is there a more comprehensive breakdown of features and fixes? ideally i'd like to know more details about what's included in those "100s of bug fixes and other improvements!" and the "Various small new tools and options.".
@melviso Yes we plan to add what you said this week. Right now we are trying to improve the textures (32 bit Float raw then converting them in TGA with dithering, normal to cavity overlayed on top of the curvature, roughness pattern procedurally generated) and are working on Cycles/EEVEE Principled BSDF shader generated automatically.
Ok. Thanks. That's good news. Looking forward to when it gets added.
Lets hope it has not too many issues...and still not tested with 2.79
Basically it just finds out which two of the axis you see the most and uses them as constraints in the translate/rotate/scale operations. Here is a super minimalistic example:
@kio : FYI, the zip as downloaded from Github errors out when checking the tickbox after installing from file.
@Linko : I tried the recent version of your reducing/baking solution and ran into various UX issues. The main ones were :
- The tool bringing up a file browser right when pressing the "Generate Asset" button should be avoided, because there is no information given to the user as to the purpose of this prompt. At the very least it should be explained in plain text ; but the best would be to have a separate button for that purpose, simply labelled "pick output location".
- There is a warning sign by default saying "the material isn't compatible", without any explanation as to why that is, or how to fix it. This goes against core UX design fundamentals for two reasons. 1, there should be no error when the tool starts, because the user *literally* did nothing wrong. And 2, if you display a warning/error, then you need to also give explanations on how to fix it.
- The tool should not delete the source high poly object.
Overall this addon has great potential but I personally don't find it useable in its current state, because it tries to do too many things at once and therefore runs into too many exceptions/unexpected scenarios ; and the fact that it deletes the highpoly source altogether makes it unfit for safe production use. Having a light version that simply duplicates the high and then performs polygon reduction and auto UVs would be great (since 99.99% of users would not need the bakes anyways). The addon also needs solid documentation.
- - - - -
Really happy to see a built-in round edge shader solution taking shape ! I've been using the CPU-based one someone put together a little while ago, but of course nowhere near as useful as what a fully supported one could be like. Very cool stuff
@pior ups, never tried to install from zip myself - solution is pretty easy, just rename the zip to workplane, or go to <user>appdata/roaming/blender foundation/blender/version/scripts/addons and rename the folder "Workplane-master" to workplane.
Heya @kio - indeed, that's similar to what I had to do with another addon recently.
That said in the case of this workplane addon the error remains even after renaming the zip and/or the installation folder and/or the folder name inside the zip. I would suggest you to provide a direct link to a foolproof zip somewhere in your description page (since merely downloading the Github zip and renaming it does not rename the internal folder). After all one of the fantastic things about Blender addons is how smooth and straightforward they are to install in the first place
(And in case that is relevant, I am attempting to use it with 2.78)
I'm getting concerned that 2.8 will never actually get released.
It's been in development for about two years now, and I watched a recent conference in which they said it was about a sixth of the way done. Which means we could expect it in about 10 more years.
Assuming they actually even stick to it that long, everything they're doing would be obsolete by that point.
@pior oh my.. Im just dumb, renaming the zip like this doens't help, as the folder inside the zip is wrongly named...I now just added a release zip file to the github repo - also changed the readme link.
Overall this addon has great potential but I personally don't find it useable in its current state, because it tries to do too many things at once and therefore runs into too many exceptions/unexpected scenarios ; and the fact that it deletes the highpoly source altogether makes it unfit for safe production use. Having a light version that simply duplicates the high and then performs polygon reduction and auto UVs would be great (since 99.99% of users would not need the bakes anyways). The addon also needs solid documentation.
I agree 100%, I really like the idea of the addon and it gives pretty good results.
But it makes to many assumptions about what the user knows, like that it only works on 2.79 right now, like how would someone know that without documentation or a error that tells you that.
Also is the google drive link how you distribute the addon?, it should be somewhere where the documentation or a readme is in the same place, and allows you to always get the latest version without hunting around for links.
Edge rounding shader looks great, I hope this gets in, excited for blender 2.8 it's shaping up great.
@kio : Install works flawlessly now, and the tool itself is great so far
Only feedback I'd have would be :
• Maybe adding an option (in the form of a check box either in the side panel itself or in the addon install panel) to select between two display modes : the current/default one (where the visual representation of plane/grid orients itself accordingly to the viewport), and a much more simple mode, in which the grid just stays put as it was originally set (that is to say, the grid always being shown along XY). I personally always tend to dislike when things "move on their own", as that gets me out of the zone when working. But of course personal preferences may vary - hence the suggestion of having it as an option.
• Most importantly : there needs to be a button to kill the workplane altogether. At the moment there seems to be no way to revert to a good old default grid centered at 0 0 0. Only way I managed to do so was by disabling Workplane in the addon management panel
• Lastly, it would be nice for workplane/grid to appear at the exact location of the component it was originally defined through. This of course would have no impact on actual usage, but it would make it just a little bit more visually pleasing. The issue is especially obvious when defining the workplane through a facet of a sphere, like here :
These are mostly mere "quality of life" suggestions though - the tool itself is excellent and incredibly useful already, this is something I've been needing for a while. Thanks !
@pior thanks for the ideas ill see what i can do about it
on how to disable it - it should turn itself off once you change the transform orientation to Global (or anything else then "Workplane") on the bottom of the 3D View
For the simple view mode, the problem I see is that it might not be clear which plane is currently active,. But maybe that's not important at all and a static 'reminder' 10x10 grid is totally fine..
------------
few hours later, updated the workplane addon a bit with the suggestions from @pior - not reeaaally testet it though, as its late.
I'm getting concerned that 2.8 will never actually get released.
It's been in development for about two years now, and I watched a recent conference in which they said it was about a sixth of the way done. Which means we could expect it in about 10 more years.
Assuming they actually even stick to it that long, everything they're doing would be obsolete by that point.
I think there's no reason to be concerned, there's already quite convincing test build out there. Meanwhile 2.79 should be out very soon and will suffice for most until 2.8 is ready for prime time. We'll probably get a proper status update at Blender Conference at the end of October.
That's fantastic news, I was just looking into this. Hopefully it will work for baked normal maps as well @kio looks really useful, will give it a try!
I'm getting concerned that 2.8 will never actually get released.
It's been in development for about two years now, and I watched a recent conference in which they said it was about a sixth of the way done. Which means we could expect it in about 10 more years.
Assuming they actually even stick to it that long, everything they're doing would be obsolete by that point.
Whoa, hold your horses! 10 years, lol. I'm pretty confident that Blender 2.8 comes out within 2-3 years (or less), because it's being developed quite actively. And as @Zarsky said, "there's already quite convincing test build out there". At least I'm not worried.
Blender 2.79 is already fulfilling our needs mostly because of the Principled BSDF, Denoiser and new tools for custom normals "Set custom normals from selected faces in the Normals section of Shading tools, Set Normals from Faces operator.", as it's written in the release notes.
I have to chime in he workplane addon looks really awsome. Used to use viewport alignment and or "active element" for this, but this looks much more convenient.
Is there a way to control the bevel shader by edge weight or something similar?
Is there a way to control the bevel shader by edge weight or something similar?
For what I've seen, you can control it per material as it is a node that connects to the shader. It also has a radius input, so If somehow we can get a node outputting the edge crease value of the mesh, we could control the bevel effect per edge.
Is there a way to control the bevel shader by edge weight or something similar?
For what I've seen, you can control it per material as it is a node that connects to the shader. It also has a radius input, so If somehow we can get a node outputting the edge crease value of the mesh, we could control the bevel effect per edge.
I gave it a try too, though I couldn't find anything useful to feed into the radius input. Using different materials has it's limitations for sure.
@derphouse Some early critique for your addon (haven't tried it yet). The unreal / unity preset is it for green channel only? Could it instead be "invert green channel" checkbox it'd make it easier to understand. Let's say I work with Blender - Marmoset - UE4, I bake with default blender's or marmoset's settings so I have to invert green channel in UE4, that's fine with me but with your addon I would have to use Unity preset to maintain the same normal map format which is weird because I don't work with unity. Also I would change the 1024.00 into 1024 pixels. And maybe you could make ques of bake jobs? Like you set up a few maps to bake and bake them all with one click. Nice addon otherwise good job!
@derphouse Some early critique for your addon (haven't tried it yet). The unreal / unity preset is it for green channel only? Could it instead be "invert green channel" checkbox it'd make it easier to understand. Let's say I work with Blender - Marmoset - UE4, I bake with default blender's or marmoset's settings so I have to invert green channel in UE4, that's fine with me but with your addon I would have to use Unity preset to maintain the same normal map format which is weird because I don't work with unity. Also I would change the 1024.00 into 1024 pixels. And maybe you could make ques of bake jobs? Like you set up a few maps to bake and bake them all with one click. Nice addon otherwise good job!
Good feedback. Yes the queue part I should definitely add to a feature update. With regards to Unity/Unreal, I could change the description to be more technically accurate, and then put engines in parantheses to illustrate that this kind of bake would work for x engine. This is mainly for an audience that prefer layman's terms.
@derphouse Very useful addon, looking forward to checking it out. A small suggestion. In your video, is the cage created using the Shrink/Flatten tool? it would be nice to have an Even Thickness checkbox in the UI, like the one seen in the Solidify modifier.
@jpthrash No actually it's using the Solidify modifier. The distance controls the thickness. I added a constant clamp to make sure crevices(Like in the bottom and top of the pillar) are preserved. I tried with a couple of meshes where I used Even Thickness, but really couldn't see it helping, other than 'exploding' a few vertices, lol. If you have a case where it made a big difference, I'd be happy to hear and consider it
added 'Randomize Spacing' option when generating curve hairs from surface
Update 1.4:
added ability to attach curves as particle hair system 'Particle Hair from Curves' (this can be used to import zbrush fibermesh curves and use them as blender Particle Hair system)
'Generate ribbon weights' - make vertex group with gradient from ribbon root to tip
Replies
I could also write custom function for that, in HairTool I guess. But for now I have to find way to align spline point to surface normal.
About build in surface sketching - I was trying it, but it was usually lot of work to manually tweak all the handpainted curves after they were made. It was cool for making hair for cartoony character though.
I suppose you know there's this wonderful, free tool to do some operations on heavy/scanned mesh: http://www.meshlab.net/
Nothing to say against the great script of Peris, just to let you know.
Cheers
yeah i know simplify curves but from my experience this here is the king of the hill: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/normalize-spline
the important bit: "normalizes a spline by number of segments instead of the segments length."
as for sketching curves and then tweaking them i was thinking if you let the user draw as many curves in the shape they like and then offer quick variation of these via sliders they'd be off to a much better start. i find these generators make it all look so generic for a start and then you're pulling sliders for root and tip splay to offset your clumping settings... not very artsy.
personally i draw mine in a vectorgraphics program and import them into blender. i find it doesn't have to look all that cartoony though. just depends what you do with it in the shader: https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/006/697/124/large/thomas-pecht-2017-07-20.jpg?1500555209
anyway, good luck with the toolset, the (cg)world needs more of these for certain!
I made the script because I wanted something quick and easy to work with inside Blender, similar to using zremesher passes in zbrush.
- - - - -
[Edit] @Linko : Just tried your new tool, it is extremely interesting and also very straightforward, that's great. If that is of any help there is one thing that I think would be very useful. At the moment the tools does :
Input : dense model + diffuse color texture applied as Cycles Diffuse BSDF Color.
Output : a decimated model with auto UVs and advanced materials and textures, applied and displayed in the realtime Blender/Game viewport with a special Blender Game material with Albedo, Normal, and so on.
Something useful would be to have another option (maybe a second button ?) doing :
Input : dense model + diffuse color texture applied as Cycles Diffuse BSDF Color.
Output : decimated model with auto UVs, but just a diffuse color texture (maybe with all the special edge detection and AO effects, but that's not necessarily needed), also applied as Cycles Diffuse BSDF Color.
This would allowing for an uninterrupted workflow : Sculpt, paint, tweak (mesh editing, booleans) > Remesh > Repeat. All without leaving the Cycles Render viewport mode, which is the only mode suited for heavy modeling work (sculpting, high poly modeling).
Also, when attempting such a workflow I am getting this after trying to process an asset for the second time :
I can process this asset just fine if I copy/paste it into another Blender session - but if I do that, the texture input gets ignored/lost.
To sum it up : I think it would be great if the addon had an option that "just worked" to simply process a painted model as many times as necessary.
- - - - -
TLDR : the tool seems very powerful, but would benefit from having a "simple reduce" option, doing mesh decimation and automatic UVs, but no complex material creation.
I hope this helps !
About the iterative modeling this could be useful because of dyntopo that destroys the UVs but the shape will be modified to much to allow the cage and the generated textures to bake a good texture. But it can now read the material color applied as an ID map to speed the texturing process:
Game Asset Materials is now available
Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1wP1Y8dmh8admY1bmpuRkxRVHc/view?usp=sharing
Srđan Ignjatović worked hard on this new feature. During the game asset generation a new map is baked called game_asset_mask it will allow to pick the color of your image as a mask and apply a material on it. For example here i have added Suzanne in my scene with two diffuse colors:
Then i click on Generate asset. The asset will then be compatible with the Game Asset Materials tool. To use it choose a material on clicking on the suzanne material, you can choose from almost 50 materials right now.
For example to replace the orange part by lava, i select lava then i click on Add. Then i click on the mask button (it can be turned off to be applied on the entire asset). To display the mask i must Ctrl + left click, then i pick a color.
For the eyes i do the same process, i pick a material rock cobblestone, i click on add, i enable the masking or i will overwritte the lava. I select put the blue color of the eye to use as mask. You can edit a material added by selecting it, then pick a new to replace it and click update.
Once you are done click on Generate textures, your materials will be automatically displayed and the new albedo will be saved:
Some changes:
- the curvature isn't imported anymore since the albedo uses it to generate the material (so we don't need to use two)
- the textures are now all generate in 32 bit Float, the normal map and curvature will look much better (no compression effect like on .jpg)
- 256 and 512 texture resolution available
Hi I am trying your addon, Is there a way I can specify using the tab to bake specific maps? Lets say I want to bake only a normal and diffuse map from vertex color.. It would be nice to have a tab, where you could just tick the maps you want to bake and specify the directory and file format. This was possible with the former addon version you had like some time ago.
This next script is for deleting suffixes. It will check if the suffix is '_high' if it is it will delete the last 5 characters of the name. If _high isn't the suffix then it will just delete the last 4 characters which will delete '_low' or '.001'.
Yes we plan to add what you said this week.
Right now we are trying to improve the textures (32 bit Float raw then converting them in TGA with dithering, normal to cavity overlayed on top of the curvature, roughness pattern procedurally generated) and are working on Cycles/EEVEE Principled BSDF shader generated automatically.
it can set transform orientations and auto plane constraints from view. The move/rotate/scale commands just wrap the default ones and set the constraints on it. If not in workplane mode the commands fall back to the default behaviour, so In theory they can just be switched out.
Still needs some more work as it misses a few things - for ex. the workplane grid is still pretty static, one can just move away from it. And have not testet in 2.79..
will upload it to github or so, once im happy with it.
created a small gif:
which triggers a question - is there a more comprehensive breakdown of features and fixes? ideally i'd like to know more details about what's included in those "100s of bug fixes and other improvements!" and the "Various small new tools and options.".
e.g. bugs : https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.79/Bug_Fixes
pior: you can now switch between Blender Render and Cycles version.
You will need Blender 2.79 to use the addon (it uses the principled BSDF).
Some textures are now saved in Linear color space.
Many thanks, mate
https://github.com/BenjaminSauder/Workplane
Lets hope it has not too many issues...and still not tested with 2.79
Basically it just finds out which two of the axis you see the most and uses them as constraints in the translate/rotate/scale operations.
Here is a super minimalistic example:
Thanks a lot! this is something I really missed from Modo.
In other news, it seems we might be getting Edge Bevel Shader for 2.79?
https://developer.blender.org/D2803
@Linko : I tried the recent version of your reducing/baking solution and ran into various UX issues. The main ones were :
- The tool bringing up a file browser right when pressing the "Generate Asset" button should be avoided, because there is no information given to the user as to the purpose of this prompt. At the very least it should be explained in plain text ; but the best would be to have a separate button for that purpose, simply labelled "pick output location".
- There is a warning sign by default saying "the material isn't compatible", without any explanation as to why that is, or how to fix it. This goes against core UX design fundamentals for two reasons. 1, there should be no error when the tool starts, because the user *literally* did nothing wrong. And 2, if you display a warning/error, then you need to also give explanations on how to fix it.
- The tool should not delete the source high poly object.
Overall this addon has great potential but I personally don't find it useable in its current state, because it tries to do too many things at once and therefore runs into too many exceptions/unexpected scenarios ; and the fact that it deletes the highpoly source altogether makes it unfit for safe production use. Having a light version that simply duplicates the high and then performs polygon reduction and auto UVs would be great (since 99.99% of users would not need the bakes anyways). The addon also needs solid documentation.
- - - - -
Really happy to see a built-in round edge shader solution taking shape ! I've been using the CPU-based one someone put together a little while ago, but of course nowhere near as useful as what a fully supported one could be like. Very cool stuff
That said in the case of this workplane addon the error remains even after renaming the zip and/or the installation folder and/or the folder name inside the zip. I would suggest you to provide a direct link to a foolproof zip somewhere in your description page (since merely downloading the Github zip and renaming it does not rename the internal folder). After all one of the fantastic things about Blender addons is how smooth and straightforward they are to install in the first place
(And in case that is relevant, I am attempting to use it with 2.78)
But it makes to many assumptions about what the user knows, like that it only works on 2.79 right now, like how would someone know that without documentation or a error that tells you that.
Also is the google drive link how you distribute the addon?, it should be somewhere where the documentation or a readme is in the same place, and allows you to always get the latest version without hunting around for links.
Edge rounding shader looks great, I hope this gets in, excited for blender 2.8 it's shaping up great.
@kio Workplane addon looks awesome
Only feedback I'd have would be :
• Maybe adding an option (in the form of a check box either in the side panel itself or in the addon install panel) to select between two display modes : the current/default one (where the visual representation of plane/grid orients itself accordingly to the viewport), and a much more simple mode, in which the grid just stays put as it was originally set (that is to say, the grid always being shown along XY). I personally always tend to dislike when things "move on their own", as that gets me out of the zone when working. But of course personal preferences may vary - hence the suggestion of having it as an option.
• Most importantly : there needs to be a button to kill the workplane altogether. At the moment there seems to be no way to revert to a good old default grid centered at 0 0 0. Only way I managed to do so was by disabling Workplane in the addon management panel
• Lastly, it would be nice for workplane/grid to appear at the exact location of the component it was originally defined through. This of course would have no impact on actual usage, but it would make it just a little bit more visually pleasing. The issue is especially obvious when defining the workplane through a facet of a sphere, like here :
These are mostly mere "quality of life" suggestions though - the tool itself is excellent and incredibly useful already, this is something I've been needing for a while. Thanks !
on how to disable it - it should turn itself off once you change the transform orientation to Global (or anything else then "Workplane") on the bottom of the 3D View
For the simple view mode, the problem I see is that it might not be clear which plane is currently active,. But maybe that's not important at all and a static 'reminder' 10x10 grid is totally fine..
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few hours later, updated the workplane addon a bit with the suggestions from @pior - not reeaaally testet it though, as its late.
@kio looks really useful, will give it a try!
Blender 2.79 is already fulfilling our needs mostly because of the Principled BSDF, Denoiser and new tools for custom normals "Set custom normals from selected faces in the Normals section of Shading tools, Set Normals from Faces operator.", as it's written in the release notes.
Used to use viewport alignment and or "active element" for this, but this looks much more convenient.
Is there a way to control the bevel shader by edge weight or something similar?
EDIT: never mind, found the blenderartists thread about it!
message #95
Nice and soft. Is that noise in your mesh bevels low samples in the node, or some fancy matcap?
Using different materials has it's limitations for sure.
Not a fantastic video production, but hopefully it gives some insight
And maybe you could make ques of bake jobs? Like you set up a few maps to bake and bake them all with one click.
Nice addon otherwise good job!
Appreciate the feedback!
I made a custom 2.79 build last night with the bevel node if anyone else wants to try: http://www.brameulaers.net/blender/custombuild/Blender_2.79b_CUDA_Softedge.rar
Bit noisy with 16 samples, i use 128 or 256 for baking and have very good results.
And thank you!
Anyway some updates on my Hair Tool addon:
Update 1.3:
Update 1.4:
- added ability to attach curves as particle hair system 'Particle Hair from Curves' (this can be used to import zbrush fibermesh curves and use them as blender Particle Hair system)
- 'Generate ribbon weights' - make vertex group with gradient from ribbon root to tip
- 'Generate ribbon vertex color' - make vertex color with gradient from ribbon root (black) to tip (white)
So you can finally attach zbrush fiber mesh curves as blender particle Hairs, and render those as hair primitive.I made some videos too.