Arkadius, in the user preferences, under add-ons, mesh category, there's a relax modifier. The problem I noticed is that there is no button to use it, so for now you have to access it by pressing spacebar and typing in "relax", which will find the Blender function for you.
Edit: Actually the add-on says itself where to find the function. In mesh edit mode, press W to bring up the specials menu and look at the bottom to find relax.
In blender, you press g/s/r(move/scale/rotate), then x/y/z(axis)or shift + x/y/z to lock the corresponding axis' movement. That explanation sounds complicated, but you're pressing one or two keys in conjunction with moving the mouse, rather than pressing one key to switch to the tool, then selecting a component of that tool with the mouse to perform the action, again, with the mouse. Coming from a blender background, manipulating things feels like a task in and of itself, even if you have sweet custom menus and shortcuts (which I do, booyah!!)
Just for fun; In modo:
If you want to lock transformation(move/scale/rotate/tweak/etc) to a single axis, simply hold down ctrl and gesture the mouse in that direction, this works in perspective as well as ortho and works quite well. Or, if you want to restrict to two axis's, there is a simple little circle you grab and transform with on the "gizmo" thing, no "settings" or "buttons" you have to change or press. In modo you just... Do it! This along with a lot of simple little workflow things that just seem to make sense to me, is why I stick with modo, I dont spend much time thinking about what settings I need to activate or what buttons I need to press to get into the right "mode" to do something, I just do it.
If you want to lock transformation(move/scale/rotate/tweak/etc) to a single axis, simply hold down ctrl and gesture the mouse in that direction, this works in perspective as well as ortho and works quite well. Or, if you want to restrict to two axis's, there is a simple little circle you grab and transform with on the "gizmo" thing, no "settings" or "buttons" you have to change or press. In modo you just... Do it! This along with a lot of simple little workflow things that just seem to make sense to me, is why I stick with modo, I dont spend much time thinking about what settings I need to activate or what buttons I need to press to get into the right "mode" to do something, I just do it.
That's exactly how it is in blender, as I mentioned before; a tap of the middle mouse button to lock down in the gestured direction you just moved something.
And I don't even have to press G or pull a gizmo to drag a vertex or object, I just have to do a quick line gesture and it's grabbing it.
Dim, not sure if it's the same relax. I used the script that comes with 2.55. I saw Raul has been working on similar functionality, but have no idea whether that's already implemented into Blender.
Lamoot: I don't think it is yet. Currently it's in his branch which he hasn't released. He actually got hired by the 3D Coat team a couple of days ago, so we'll see if his springs work and adaptive subdivision sculpting work actually make it into trunk. I'd be bummed if it doesn't because (especially the adaptive subdivision) looks like it's so close to being there.
That's exactly how it is in blender, as I mentioned before; a tap of the middle mouse button to lock down in the gestured direction you just moved something.
And I don't even have to press G or pull a gizmo to drag a vertex or object, I just have to do a quick line gesture and it's grabbing it.
Actually, Blender will do that too. Just click RMB and drag, and the element will follow.
I've been planning to buy one of either dvds to learn blender myself. I cant believe that even after many years have passed and blender is still new to me.
I haven't looked at the video yet, just commenting on your comment. How is that price steep? It's $60 for *15 hours* of training. Provided the training is good, thats an insanely good price. Try getting 15hours from Gnomon :P
I bought this DVD and I don't regret it. There's lots of material there and it's cool to see a project from start to end. The only problem is I didn't learn that many new things and not because the DVD lacks info, but because I'm already aware of most of the stuff it explains. But so far CG Masters are the only combination of good tutorials + Blender + stuff for games so I don't mind the price when it helps them make more training DVDs. (especially when there's a high chance one of the future DVDs will be about animation and character animation for games). I guess it can appear expensive for blenderheads used to DVDs from the Blender Foundation which are around 30 .
I've done a lot of IK stuff for characters in blender, and it was super easy. Only thing that could have really limited me was my skill.
One cool thing I learned about Blender and IK, is that you can turn it off and on as you need it! I can't remember where I saw it demonstrated, but it was cool.
This is a funny list: What should be really mentioned is that most of these are very broken in functionality. The only 'stable' skeletal format importer on this list is the Milkshape3D importer. Exporting is worse - the only exporter i've used that didn't screw up everything were MD3, OBJ and IQM (which is not on this list and is a relatively new format anyway).
The MD2 exporter can't even export proper MD2s for crying out loud, and it ships with it!
Leilei: sorry if this is inaccurate. It is an official post, so maybe address the developers? Its hard for them to address usage issues if they don't know about them. Also, at this point, they won't care much about i/o of 2.49b since their effort is on finishing the 2.5x beta.
I've been trying to use blender for the past few nights, for potential freelance work. I'm getting the hang of the basics, but as soon as I move up to anything more advanced I have to look around for the appropriate tool. Does anybody know any good guides for a Max or Maya user headed into blender?
Indeed it is Kat. Just saw your posts on there. I'll run through the export process again following your documentation closely to make sure I'm not just an idiot.
Sintel has been released in HD here. They've finished the 4k renderings from what I can tell, but I don't know if/when they'll put that version online because it is about 650 GB. So yeah, big.
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Leilei: sorry if this is inaccurate. It is an official post, so maybe address the developers?
I would, but I'd probably get the response "submit a patch", "who cares you got it for free you can't possibly complain ever", "wait for 2.6x" or something along those lines.
Just to start with 2.49b....
DAE - Will underscore your bone name spaces. Doesn't import animation. Skeleton messes up on export. Annoying full Python library dependency. MD2 - The vertex information is screwed, it appears the script was written to satisfy those NeHe MD2 view tutorials rather than id Tech 2. Also, it forces strict scale, angles and origin to 1.0/'0 0 0' before it exports, so good luck adjusting your model's size. MD5 (external) - Import doesn't parse the skeleton cleanly with bones all facing the wrong direction, so good luck weighting your models X(. Doesn't work with spaces in bone names. MD5 is a bad format for model exchange in general for the lack of normals so it's not Blender's fault for that. PSK (external) - doesn't export split edges, even after that modifier is applied it'll pull a 'remove doubles' on all verts (which I find absolutely necessary because split edges are fkn cool) SMD (external) - Those occasional "NotABone" bones will mess up skeletal hierarchy with animations. Scale and rotation inconsistencies.
I currently get around these buggy skeletal i/o scripts by exchanging with MS3D for importing and IQM for exporting, then using Noesis(win only) to take that IQM into PSK/MD5/MD3/MD2/MDL/SMD
Been seeing a few problems in this topic mostly just a lot of people bad mouthing it with no real experience with the tool and a other bunch of people going way to far out of there way to defend it. It's a tool people will just use what works for them and it works good for some people like my self, eld and a few other in the topic and it doesnt suit how other people work so dont force it on them.
And some comments about the UI being different well really why should it try to mimic a autodesk product. Also there is a the whole familiar VS better argument and a other open-source app comes to mind, (g)vim which has a very steep learning curve for a text editor but like blender i found it to be quite worth it since after learning it well and customizing vim it allowed me to code about 4 times faster than i could just using a normal text editor or IDE.
I find the same thing happened with blender since after learning it doing basic things in max seem way too cumbersome compared to how they are handled in blender.
One of the better points i found in this topic was brought up by metalliandy about communities built around a certain 3d package will be biased against anything different and to reinforce this there is the example of his comment about the colour picker having a mode like all other ones with 0 to 255 values instead of 0 to 1 and it getting shot down for being max like is stupid as fuck but it seems to be the norm to have tons of such Close Minded People in a Open-Source Community.
and the point about how most people who are serious with 3d will move away from those communities in-favour of something like polycount which i found right on the spot with how i go about things since i use blender as a big part of my workflow but when i need to learn a new technique i dont look for things that are blender specific i just look for anything on the topic which i believe everyone should do you will understand faster if you need to adapt the tutorial at the same time you go threw it verses following a tut step by step that is for you 3d package. And because of this i actually use multiple 3d packages i try to stay up to date with max using my roomates license and i own silo and zbrush and use them in my work flow with blender and i think it is important for any 3d artist to be able to move there skills between multiple 3d packages while being able to keep there quality up it helps with understanding of concepts used. But like metalliandy i believe most people dont have a do everything app and use a large amount of things for different purposes in there work-flows. As part of my everyday work flow i use Blender, Silo, Headus UV Layout, XNormal, NDO, crazybump and sometimes even max and of course my target game engines tools ex. Source sdk or udk.
But im sure my rant is meaningless to most since professionally I'm a sound guy and work in music production and post-prod for film not a 3d modeller.
Oh i do apologize for the wall o text i came to the topic late and had thought about lots of sections of the topic.
Leilei: Yeah, they won't be continuing development on 2.49b, so it's sort of a moot point there, but I'd send your info along based on 2.56 scripts to the developers. In my experience, they are far more receptive to stuff than users. Also, with all of those external scripts, you will likely have to contact their authors, since they aren't officially supported.
On your list, only .dae is listed as in the package for 2.49b (.psk is export from 2.5x only). As far as I know, they're doing a lot of work on getting proper Collada support in 2.6 (with help from the Khronos Group), so I'd keep my eye on it.
Don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of frustration with the i/o of Blender, but keep in mind, it's still a beta.
Yeah those are pretty unrealistic promises for software like this. The PR is really getting ahead of itself...
Not sure what you mean by "software like this" or what PR you're really talking about...
Yeah, the multi-export for animation was looked into but apparently you can't directly access the datablocks as easily as previously due to the way the information now appears to be organised inside Blender itself. I'm not entirely sure though as I'm not a/the code-monkey.
With regards your suggestions, can you clarify point 3? Are you asking if the script can have the ability to automatically know which animations it should be exporting?
On a general note. The main issue with 3rd party scripts is that historically they've only tended to support features that are required by the originating authors, once those have been written up, interest is lost in furthering the functionality. It's been a common problem with the md3, md5 and ase formats. They really need someone dedicated to take them all on.
Sorry for the resurrection, but some new looptools goodness here. A lot of folks already use this, so it shouldn't be news, but for those of you that haven't, here 'tis: https://sites.google.com/site/bartiuscrouch/looptools
nice a working bridge and the circle one is nice when you want to extruded a cylinder out of a other cylinder, now hopefully the chamfer comes soon and i might come back to blender for modeling.
though the thing that worries me about blender development is something i seen on th bmesh blog when he started working on bevel/chamfer is that a large amount of the blender devs got no experience with other 3d packages and don't keep track of what is advancing in each one of them.
Replies
Edit: Actually the add-on says itself where to find the function. In mesh edit mode, press W to bring up the specials menu and look at the bottom to find relax.
http://vimeo.com/17892608
Just for fun; In modo:
If you want to lock transformation(move/scale/rotate/tweak/etc) to a single axis, simply hold down ctrl and gesture the mouse in that direction, this works in perspective as well as ortho and works quite well. Or, if you want to restrict to two axis's, there is a simple little circle you grab and transform with on the "gizmo" thing, no "settings" or "buttons" you have to change or press. In modo you just... Do it! This along with a lot of simple little workflow things that just seem to make sense to me, is why I stick with modo, I dont spend much time thinking about what settings I need to activate or what buttons I need to press to get into the right "mode" to do something, I just do it.
That's exactly how it is in blender, as I mentioned before; a tap of the middle mouse button to lock down in the gestured direction you just moved something.
And I don't even have to press G or pull a gizmo to drag a vertex or object, I just have to do a quick line gesture and it's grabbing it.
Actually, Blender will do that too. Just click RMB and drag, and the element will follow.
Greevar's defending Blender even against fellow Blenderheads!
keyword: have to
But still, blender is not up to speed with blender, some day I might be using blender, but for now I'll stick with blender.
Garh! I r cornfused! XD
http://www.cgmasters.net/blender-3d-game-creation-tutorial-volume-1.html
With extreme remarks of potential.
I've been planning to buy one of either dvds to learn blender myself. I cant believe that even after many years have passed and blender is still new to me.
I haven't looked at the video yet, just commenting on your comment. How is that price steep? It's $60 for *15 hours* of training. Provided the training is good, thats an insanely good price. Try getting 15hours from Gnomon :P
I bought this DVD and I don't regret it. There's lots of material there and it's cool to see a project from start to end. The only problem is I didn't learn that many new things and not because the DVD lacks info, but because I'm already aware of most of the stuff it explains. But so far CG Masters are the only combination of good tutorials + Blender + stuff for games so I don't mind the price when it helps them make more training DVDs. (especially when there's a high chance one of the future DVDs will be about animation and character animation for games). I guess it can appear expensive for blenderheads used to DVDs from the Blender Foundation which are around 30 .
CG Cookie Training Series: Hardcore Vehicle Modeling - Conceptual Process
http://cgcookie.com/vehicle-series/
You're going to get me in trouble with my wife if you keep showing me this stuff! I wants the precious!
Edit: And CG cookie is awesome!
One cool thing I learned about Blender and IK, is that you can turn it off and on as you need it! I can't remember where I saw it demonstrated, but it was cool.
http://www.blenderguru.com/27-inspiring-blender-animations-that-will-make-your-jaw-drop/
This is a funny list: What should be really mentioned is that most of these are very broken in functionality. The only 'stable' skeletal format importer on this list is the Milkshape3D importer. Exporting is worse - the only exporter i've used that didn't screw up everything were MD3, OBJ and IQM (which is not on this list and is a relatively new format anyway).
The MD2 exporter can't even export proper MD2s for crying out loud, and it ships with it!
Honestly, I haven't verified any of the file types because really, all I use is .obj, .ase (which isn't even on there), and .fbx
2.49b, yes.
This release is in Beta
Most recent stable release. If I'm not mistaken, all of the 2.5 releases are still considered beta.
http://www.sintel.org/production/sintel-the-hd-version-scaled-from-4k/
From IllusionMage's site:
ORLY
I would, but I'd probably get the response "submit a patch", "who cares you got it for free you can't possibly complain ever", "wait for 2.6x" or something along those lines.
Just to start with 2.49b....
DAE - Will underscore your bone name spaces. Doesn't import animation. Skeleton messes up on export. Annoying full Python library dependency.
MD2 - The vertex information is screwed, it appears the script was written to satisfy those NeHe MD2 view tutorials rather than id Tech 2. Also, it forces strict scale, angles and origin to 1.0/'0 0 0' before it exports, so good luck adjusting your model's size.
MD5 (external) - Import doesn't parse the skeleton cleanly with bones all facing the wrong direction, so good luck weighting your models X(. Doesn't work with spaces in bone names. MD5 is a bad format for model exchange in general for the lack of normals so it's not Blender's fault for that.
PSK (external) - doesn't export split edges, even after that modifier is applied it'll pull a 'remove doubles' on all verts (which I find absolutely necessary because split edges are fkn cool)
SMD (external) - Those occasional "NotABone" bones will mess up skeletal hierarchy with animations. Scale and rotation inconsistencies.
I currently get around these buggy skeletal i/o scripts by exchanging with MS3D for importing and IQM for exporting, then using Noesis(win only) to take that IQM into PSK/MD5/MD3/MD2/MDL/SMD
And some comments about the UI being different well really why should it try to mimic a autodesk product. Also there is a the whole familiar VS better argument and a other open-source app comes to mind, (g)vim which has a very steep learning curve for a text editor but like blender i found it to be quite worth it since after learning it well and customizing vim it allowed me to code about 4 times faster than i could just using a normal text editor or IDE.
I find the same thing happened with blender since after learning it doing basic things in max seem way too cumbersome compared to how they are handled in blender.
One of the better points i found in this topic was brought up by metalliandy about communities built around a certain 3d package will be biased against anything different and to reinforce this there is the example of his comment about the colour picker having a mode like all other ones with 0 to 255 values instead of 0 to 1 and it getting shot down for being max like is stupid as fuck but it seems to be the norm to have tons of such Close Minded People in a Open-Source Community.
and the point about how most people who are serious with 3d will move away from those communities in-favour of something like polycount which i found right on the spot with how i go about things since i use blender as a big part of my workflow but when i need to learn a new technique i dont look for things that are blender specific i just look for anything on the topic which i believe everyone should do you will understand faster if you need to adapt the tutorial at the same time you go threw it verses following a tut step by step that is for you 3d package. And because of this i actually use multiple 3d packages i try to stay up to date with max using my roomates license and i own silo and zbrush and use them in my work flow with blender and i think it is important for any 3d artist to be able to move there skills between multiple 3d packages while being able to keep there quality up it helps with understanding of concepts used. But like metalliandy i believe most people dont have a do everything app and use a large amount of things for different purposes in there work-flows. As part of my everyday work flow i use Blender, Silo, Headus UV Layout, XNormal, NDO, crazybump and sometimes even max and of course my target game engines tools ex. Source sdk or udk.
But im sure my rant is meaningless to most since professionally I'm a sound guy and work in music production and post-prod for film not a 3d modeller.
Oh i do apologize for the wall o text i came to the topic late and had thought about lots of sections of the topic.
Leilei: Yeah, they won't be continuing development on 2.49b, so it's sort of a moot point there, but I'd send your info along based on 2.56 scripts to the developers. In my experience, they are far more receptive to stuff than users. Also, with all of those external scripts, you will likely have to contact their authors, since they aren't officially supported.
On your list, only .dae is listed as in the package for 2.49b (.psk is export from 2.5x only). As far as I know, they're doing a lot of work on getting proper Collada support in 2.6 (with help from the Khronos Group), so I'd keep my eye on it.
Don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of frustration with the i/o of Blender, but keep in mind, it's still a beta.
Not sure what you mean by "software like this" or what PR you're really talking about...
With regards your suggestions, can you clarify point 3? Are you asking if the script can have the ability to automatically know which animations it should be exporting?
On a general note. The main issue with 3rd party scripts is that historically they've only tended to support features that are required by the originating authors, once those have been written up, interest is lost in furthering the functionality. It's been a common problem with the md3, md5 and ase formats. They really need someone dedicated to take them all on.
http://vimeo.com/21459725
though the thing that worries me about blender development is something i seen on th bmesh blog when he started working on bevel/chamfer is that a large amount of the blender devs got no experience with other 3d packages and don't keep track of what is advancing in each one of them.
working bevel & bevelweight for the bevel modifier
also some additional useful tools
http://tube.freefac.org/post/edge-tools-expanded
I didn't think you did. Nevertheless, it's a great find!