I know some peaple wanted nice and easy way of resampling curves. I added operation for that called 'curve resample', and I describe it in here.
looking good! the request for curve resample in the style of a certain max modifier looks familiar. great to have this functionality in blender. and i see you do allow fibermesh to be used with your toolset, that's awesome.
you should link your blog for the tool in your signature and over on youtube. at least it took me a while to find that.
Trying to bake lightmaps in Blender, but Cycles gives me these weird hard edges in seemingly random locations:
There are no hard edges there, and there are no uv seams in those places either. Any idea what could be causing this?
Pretty sure that's the 'terminator problem' caused by low poly geo + smooth shading.. Cycles seems to to be particularly susceptible to it and there's not much you can do about it, if you believe the man himself.
Trying to bake lightmaps in Blender, but Cycles gives me these weird hard edges in seemingly random locations:
There are no hard edges there, and there are no uv seams in those places either. Any idea what could be causing this?
Pretty sure that's the 'terminator problem' caused by low poly geo + smooth shading.. Cycles seems to to be particularly susceptible to it and there's not much you can do about it, if you believe the man himself.
Thanks! I guess I'll have to find a workaround, or just clean up the lightmap by hand
looks to me like the typical output. has nothing to do with the normals. just the actual geometry casting shadows not what gouraud shading makes you believe you see.
@wazou: Thanks. A friend of mine already did this for me in Maya LT with MEL Script but I recently canceled my Maya LT subscription and uninstalled it because ... hmm lets say ...it's quite "useless" ... so I haven't the code snippet anymore. But I can ask him if he can redo it and I can send it to you if you still need it.
While working in Blender I am changing my workspaces a lot e.g. between UV edit and Modeling or painting, so I created this little nice Area with the great add-on from "roaoao" called "Pie Menu Editor". Its like the Tab Area in Modo, a one click solution no drop-down and search anymore. You can do much, much more than this with the plugin.
Give it a shot if you like to customize your layout and create little tools to expand your workflow.
No, I don't know the developer and I don't get any money to promote his work ; ) But I think that great tools and its development work behind it must get some recognition.
Sehr gerne... ( to satisfy your love for the German language ; )) Give me time until next week. ... I know, I have seen your redshift render video. I Like your approach and I hope soemday Blender will change its license and we can have the luxury of directly integrated 3rd party renderers.
@peris That's really neat, I made something similar a while ago using pie menu editor. though it works by aligning selected verts by scaling on a dimension so you get the average centre instead
@Jakro nice! It just finds the closest alignment axis depending on edge angle? I can see that being really useful!
Here's another gif that shows the use case of my script better I think. I find it particularly useful when working with tiling textures and trims, to align stuff:
@Jakro nice! It just finds the closest alignment axis depending on edge angle? I can see that being really useful!
Here's another gif that shows the use case of my script better I think. I find it particularly useful when working with tiling textures and trims, to align stuff:
Looking at the latest image screams for making it batchable(with edge selection) to align those for 4 edges/vert pairs at once
@Peris Oh! That is really awesome! I think that our two ways look very similar but would be used a lot differently. Yours looks really good for creating really nice consistently aligned UV's, where you need things to line up perfectly. While mine would be good for creating straight edges with minimal distortion. This is because when you scale to zero on an axis the verts will move to the average centre. So you get a straight edge with minimal stretching. My tools was more just for wanting straight edges for clean normal map baking
Hop it works. Never exported a jason from the add on. If not drop me a line and I can give you a better break down. I have combined the two macros into a pie menu.
It was a quick shot, so its still not perfect. From the UX perspective it needs a possibility to decide between single edge or whole loop/ring. Maybe i will do it as a two level pie menu.
oh yeahh, many thanks it can be really usefull too
You are welcome!
As I said, it's not really done. Still needs some tweaks like straighten single edges, because right now it selects automatically the whole loop ( what I needed ). I will keep you updated.
To everyone who is using the "pie menu editor" add on: I am considering to start a Polycount thread dedicated to things made with the "pie menu editor" plugin. For sharing stuff made with it. Also because it is quite confusing for beginners ( me included ) If you have something to share you are more than welcome.
For the Blender side I am using a plugin for the modo echanger but you have said that u have already done this part. Hope it helps. And the scaling is off so you have to change it in your Blender importer
Hey guys, I've been trying to get into Blender after some fights with Max and I'm getting used to it pretty quickly but I still have some problems, most of them related to the UV Editor, so maybe you could help me. The first one would be not having a pivot in the editor, since in Max you can use a pivot that lets you scale, move and rotate, but in Blender you have to press a lot of buttons just for scaling in one axis, and that can get really annoying for packing UV's. Is there some kind of 2D pivot, even an addon? I've only found this: https://developer.blender.org/T47032, but it doesn't seem available to use. Second would be locally scaling rotated UV's, which I don't know if it's possible so I end up streching the shells:
And last would be how to stop Blender from selecting the closest UV shell from your click even if you click in an empty space. This can also get annoying when I try to select multiple shells at the same time:
Thanks and sorry for diverting the thread, but I can't seem to find answers to this.
select the 2d cursor and all your scaling and rotating operations will evolve around it and scaling on one axis isnt really that hard press s for scale and x or y for the axis
for your second problem.. yeah... just dont klick there deselect with a (actually a is for select all, but it deselects also if you have something selected)
btw, if you want to move the 2d cursor exatly on a vertex for example you can select the vertex, press shift + s -> cursor to selected
Thanks for the help, but sadly I find the 2D cursor a really bad alternative for a pivot. There's nothing a want to do with it for UV editing that I couldn't do with a pivot much faster, and you cant even move it to selection with "Keep Uv and edit mode selection in sync" on since it makes you select both vertices of a seam. And I don't think it's posible to scale rotated UV's even aligning it. Blender's UV Editor it's the only thing holding me back from switching, so I really want to learn to deal with it, but I think it's full of weird design decisions Do you people really use it for UV'ing or do you go for alternatives like UV Layout, or am I getting it wrong?
I mean it's not like I hate it, but it feels so weird coming from Max having to desync the viewport and UV Editor to move individual vertices, not having a visual guide of where the border of every shell is to help identify overlapping, having to configure every shortcut avoiding conflits and finding your tools. I've made some macros and downloaded some addons and it starts to look a lot better now tho, but it's pretty confusing coming from Max where everything is more visual.
Should Blender lag near 1 million tris with 16 ram and a GTX 970? I'm using the Subdivide surface modifier with bevels and it lags really easily when I try to select something.
The UV editor in Blender definitely needs work. I wish it would just display all uvs of your selected object by default. It's very annoying having to always select everything on your model first. And I find toggling "Keep UV and edit mode mesh selection in sync" pretty useless. I'll keep doing my part making little uv tools
I'm with you 100% on that one, Peris. I'm pretty happy with UVs in Blender (with some key addons e.g. Quad Unwrap) but would love if the 3D-UV sync was exactly like in Maya (in particular being able to select islands with sync on, both in the UV and 3D view).
@Gabmeister: Its my own custom one. Just recently started doing my own, so it's quite unconsistent right now. I can upload it if u want too.
If u want to have a more "mat" default mesh shade like maya in the viewport, then go under preferences/ system and change your Solid OpenGL Lights to this:
Using the curve + array modifier is a PITA, I don't suppose there's any addon that streamlines the process? If you want like stitching or a tube you have to add your mesh, add a curve, make sure they have the same origin, make sure array modifier comes before curve in the stack, adjust the relative offset, adjust the deformation axis. Maybe it's just me but the process has always felt too trial and error.
Using the curve + array modifier is a PITA, I don't suppose there's any addon that streamlines the process? If you want like stitching or a tube you have to add your mesh, add a curve, make sure they have the same origin, make sure array modifier comes before curve in the stack, adjust the relative offset, adjust the deformation axis. Maybe it's just me but the process has always felt too trial and error.
I have stumbled across a great trick, that I need to share with you guys. How to make procedural rocks with global aligned displacement maps in Blender.. in just a couple of seconds. Yeah, who doesn't love to make a bunch of rocks ; )
- create a cube - add sub div. Modifier / 5 times or higher. Depends on how smooth you want to have your highpoly - add displacement modifier / under texture coordinates set it to "global" - add "Voronoi" as displacement texture / tweak the texture until you have your desired look
Copy it then move, rotate or scale to get different versions in no time.
The Colorbanding is from the capture tool not Blender
I made a small tool for working with vertex color data that some people might find useful. The key features are the ability to move data around between channels (copy or swap) or vertex weights, and the isolate channel feature that lets you paint into only one channel at a time. It also has some other features like channel invert, value remap and posterize.
Cool list of incoming features in the talk like shading in the UV view and other optimisation, still a long way to go but the results are already impressive !
i was just looking at 2.8 the other day. is there anything to be done in the preferences to make eevee run well? some of the demo scenes make a powerpoint slideshow seem fast here (forest and archviz in particular). on 1070 GTX and 4ghz machine with the visual studio build. generally, even in clay view mode i perceive a slight lag.
and: layers be gone --- hello collections! i want you so bad already! it's like having the outliner plugin from 3ds max in blender. i love it.
Replies
looking good! the request for curve resample in the style of a certain max modifier looks familiar. great to have this functionality in blender. and i see you do allow fibermesh to be used with your toolset, that's awesome.
you should link your blog for the tool in your signature and over on youtube. at least it took me a while to find that.
I'm interrested by you uniform spacing operator, is it complicated to make ?
I'm working on an operator to edit curves/mesh, subdivide/simplify/make space even, and I need something like that since the space from looptool don't work.
Can you give me some guidance to make it please ?
While working in Blender I am changing my workspaces a lot e.g. between UV edit and Modeling or painting, so I created this little nice Area with the great add-on from "roaoao" called "Pie Menu Editor". Its like the Tab Area in Modo, a one click solution no drop-down and search anymore. You can do much, much more than this with the plugin.
Give it a shot if you like to customize your layout and create little tools to expand your workflow.
https://gumroad.com/l/pie_menu_editor
No, I don't know the developer and I don't get any money to promote his work ; ) But I think that great tools and its development work behind it must get some recognition.
github link:
https://github.com/leukbaars/BRM-UVAlignMinMax
hope someone else finds this useful!
Here's another gif that shows the use case of my script better I think. I find it particularly useful when working with tiling textures and trims, to align stuff:
Looking at the latest image screams for making it batchable(with edge selection) to align those for 4 edges/vert pairs at once
Would be even more cool to select multiples loops and run the script only once.
Here 3dsmax
@ shogunato: It also works similiar to that what you have shown from max.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7d2DEwvk7l7amgxeVh0MHotWGM/view?usp=sharing
Hop it works. Never exported a jason from the add on. If not drop me a line and I can give you a better break down.
I have combined the two macros into a pie menu.
It was a quick shot, so its still not perfect. From the UX perspective it needs a possibility to decide between single edge or whole loop/ring. Maybe i will do it as a two level pie menu.
As I said, it's not really done. Still needs some tweaks like straighten single edges, because right now it selects automatically the whole loop ( what I needed ). I will keep you updated.
To everyone who is using the "pie menu editor" add on: I am considering to start a Polycount thread dedicated to things made with the "pie menu editor" plugin. For sharing stuff made with it. Also because it is quite confusing for beginners ( me included ) If you have something to share you are more than welcome.
@ wazou
Here is the MEL script for one click import and export for Maya
Export:
file -force -options "" -typ "FBX export" -es "C:/....";
Replace the C:/.... with your folder
Import:
file -import -type "FBX" -ignoreVersion -ra true -mergeNamespacesOnClash false -namespace "e" -options "fbx" -importFrameRate true -importTimeRange "override" "C:/...";
Replace the C:/.... with your folder
For the Blender side I am using a plugin for the modo echanger but you have said that u have already done this part.
Hope it helps. And the scaling is off so you have to change it in your Blender importer
The first one would be not having a pivot in the editor, since in Max you can use a pivot that lets you scale, move and rotate, but in Blender you have to press a lot of buttons just for scaling in one axis, and that can get really annoying for packing UV's. Is there some kind of 2D pivot, even an addon? I've only found this: https://developer.blender.org/T47032, but it doesn't seem available to use.
Second would be locally scaling rotated UV's, which I don't know if it's possible so I end up streching the shells:
And last would be how to stop Blender from selecting the closest UV shell from your click even if you click in an empty space. This can also get annoying when I try to select multiple shells at the same time:
Thanks and sorry for diverting the thread, but I can't seem to find answers to this.
select the 2d cursor and all your scaling and rotating operations will evolve around it
and scaling on one axis isnt really that hard
press s for scale and x or y for the axis
for your second problem.. yeah... just dont klick there
deselect with a (actually a is for select all, but it deselects also if you have something selected)
btw, if you want to move the 2d cursor exatly on a vertex for example you can select the vertex, press shift + s -> cursor to selected
Blender's UV Editor it's the only thing holding me back from switching, so I really want to learn to deal with it, but I think it's full of weird design decisions
Blender uv tool are pretty robust and versatile, probably you doing it wrong?
Should Blender lag near 1 million tris with 16 ram and a GTX 970? I'm using the Subdivide surface modifier with bevels and it lags really easily when I try to select something.
select 2 faces and it will extend the UV to the active face. Lots of possibilities to expand on this that I want to explore now
Nice tool, seems great for working more in the 3d viewport!
I can upload it if u want too.
If u want to have a more "mat" default mesh shade like maya in the viewport, then go under preferences/ system and change your
Solid OpenGL Lights to this:
Hex for 1st: #B8B8B8
Hex for 2nd: #B8B8B8
Hex for 3rd: #777777
You can even turn off the thrid light then you will have more of a maya look.
- create a cube
- add sub div. Modifier / 5 times or higher. Depends on how smooth you want to have your highpoly
- add displacement modifier / under texture coordinates set it to "global"
- add "Voronoi" as displacement texture / tweak the texture until you have your desired look
Copy it then move, rotate or scale to get different versions in no time.
The Colorbanding is from the capture tool not Blender
Glad you like rmb pie menu
Info and download here:
https://github.com/andyp123/blender_vertex_color_master
A bit of catch up about eh Eevee real time engine of Blender :
Cool list of incoming features in the talk like shading in the UV view and other optimisation, still a long way to go but the results are already impressive !
is there anything to be done in the preferences to make eevee run well? some of the demo scenes make a powerpoint slideshow seem fast here (forest and archviz in particular). on 1070 GTX and 4ghz machine with the visual studio build.
generally, even in clay view mode i perceive a slight lag.
and: layers be gone --- hello collections! i want you so bad already!