I haven't been able to find this UV equivalent in Blender, wondering how people would do this. I have an island that when unfolded has some curvature. I want to have the bottom edge of the island straight, and to be able to unwrap the rest of the island without "disrupting" the bottom edge, in effect getting the other UVs to "straighten out" relative to the bottom edge. The way I do this in Maya is to align the bottom UVs (I know how to do that in Blender), then use Legacy Unfold set to vertical to unfold the rest of the UVs. Any suggestions on the second part in Blender (or even a whole other approach to get the same end result)?
Check out Textools for a few tools that automate the pinning workflow. There's a straighten tool I think you'd find useful!
@Michael Knubben just 'unofficially' ported to 2.80 this ladt few days. Made my week. Rectify is the tool.
@musashidan Oh, that was you? I think you've made a lot of people happy with that. Although @renderhjs mentioned he'd port it once the API was stable (which it now is), so I imagine we'll see a release before 2.8 comes out.
@Michael Knubben No mate, it wasn't me. Sorry if it came across like that. It was a BA user called SavMartin. Yes, I'm sure RHJS will definitely port it himself now that 2.80 is locked in.
@LuisCherubini Hey man, it's such a shame that the UV Highlight addon you reviewed above won't be ported to 2.80. I find the UV editor workflow to be a nightmare in Blender, the way UV space/3D space selections are disjointed. The sync option is alright, but it breaks addons and seems unreliable. UV Highlight was the perfect solution to this and is much like I'm used to in Max. Do you know of any other way(or addon) similar to UV Highlight to fix this workflow issue?
Yeah, doesn't seem to work for that one, does it. I don't think it's a bug, it's more of a missing feature I guess. What you could do is get rid of a face loop where you want to transition from lower density to higher density, then add a level of subdivision to those faces and then bridge them together. Or just add extra sides to those rings and then use LoopTools -> Circle. LoopTools is an addon shipped with Blender but you need to enable it first.
Thanks i know there are a lot of ways around this. But still: Not being able to quickly and consistently subdividing parts of your mesh can be a real pain. It might be more of a problem for all quad vfx style modelling, but i will open a ticket just to raise awareness.
It's been right click selecting in Blender for me since the beginning, so it's impossible for me to switch to left click selecting. Same with all other default keyboard shortcuts. But I can use other softwares with the standard left clicking though...
Last year i switch from 3ds max after many years and i was really annoy by all the blender missing tools i got used to with 3ds max for so many years.
Then i stumble upon the bmax addon that include a lot of similar tools and the transition was much smoother and this was under 2.79 now a new guy pick it up where the former developer left it and he is currently intensively adding more amazing features like, quad menu, primitive with editable parameters, align tool, clone tool etc
He change the name to BSMAX to differentiate from former addon and he port it to blender 2.8 so if you are switching or planning to switch you will feel right at home with his addon and i am not affiliated with the developer at all and the addon is completely free.
I believe Autodesk has patents for UI elements like the viewcube, quad menu, and marking menu. Idk if they have any for modeling tools and parametric primitives that can be edited after creation. If they do, some of Blender's slow, roundabout methods for achieving the same thing in Max makes sense since they don't wanna get sued by big companies. I think the lack of faster, better modeling methods in Blender is mainly due to how small their team is compared to Autodesk's. They only recently hit their $30k funding milestone for hiring more devs full-time. They promised better snapping and precision modeling half a year ago, so hopefully we'll see more work being done here soon. They have a lot on their plate, though, so better modeling tools might be low priority. In the meantime, addon devs do their best to make up for Blender's deficiencies.
If you'd like to see more functionality from Max and other DCCs make it into default Blender, the best method would be to upvote existing suggestions at Right Click-Select in order to increase visibility/priority to devs. Devtalk is a great place to interact directly with them, but suggestions are usually made within ongoing project threads such as the bevel modifier. I think experienced polycounters can offer plenty of great suggestions there, but it's important to keep them within the confines of ongoing projects since that forum isn't meant for new feature requests. Some Blender Foundation devs as well as the majority of addon devs frequent blenderartists too.
The Active Tools should allow for some more powerful modeling tools going forward too. The developer behind that said he has quite a few ideas for new tools that wouldn't have been practical under the old hotkey approach.
Now, does that means we'll be able to achieve a realtime bevel shader for Eevee? The blur capabilities of the voronoi texture in the first thread is exactly what blender was lacking. But it's still quite limited, unfortunately.
I think the lack of faster, better modeling methods in Blender is mainly due to how small their team is compared to Autodesk's.
How do you know how big Autodesk's development teams are? I have heard they are quite small for entertainment packages, at least as far as engineering goes(not support or marketing).
Google Summer of Code seems to be doing quite well this year. These three projects in particular have me excited.
I wish they would improve the UV editing experience for 2.81+. It is lacking in ways which extensions can only patch up with band-aids. A few years ago there was a GSOC for improved UV island packing, but I don't think it ever made it.
Yeah, the UV Editor is one of the weakest areas of Blender. I'm not sure why it gets neglected so much either. It's not like UV editing is an uncommon task.
With a lot of the UI/UX issues finally addressed, UV Editing seems to be the new biggest issue with Blender. So hopefully with community pressure, more attention will be put in that area in the near future.
Now, does that means we'll be able to achieve a realtime bevel shader for Eevee? The blur capabilities of the voronoi texture in the first thread is exactly what blender was lacking. But it's still quite limited, unfortunately.
I don't think so. You can already blur with noise (it's okay from a distance), but it won't take into account seams or anything, so I'm not sure that'd work for edge blurring. And this Voronoi blurring is just applicable to itself, not other textures, as far as I'm aware!
Yeah, the UV Editor is one of the weakest areas of Blender. I'm not sure why it gets neglected so much either. It's not like UV editing is an uncommon task.
With a lot of the UI/UX issues finally addressed, UV Editing seems to be the new biggest issue with Blender. So hopefully with community pressure, more attention will be put in that area in the near future.
the only problem i have with the blender uv editor is
a) re-unwraping only parts of your mesh
b) unwraping anything with bevels,divets or overhangs tends to get really messy
for everything else blender uv editor + textools will do
I don't think so. You can already blur with noise (it's okay from a distance), but it won't take into account seams or anything, so I'm not sure that'd work for edge blurring. And this Voronoi blurring is just applicable to itself, not other textures, as far as I'm aware!
Yeah, exactly!
@maxivz interactive tools for blender. Sorry I did a tremendous cringe on the upload and decided to re-do everything again. I found it to be really good and looking for future updates! At the end of this video I mentioned some of the bugs I encountered, maybe that can help.
@LuisCherubini FFD - Free Form Deformation from 3ds Max. Maxi Vasquez created these tools in Max and this is the Blender port, that's why some of the tools have Max terminology.
If you didn't know, Blender's equivalent for Max's "FFD" is the Lattice modifier, and that's been there internally for quite a long time. Maya seems also using the term "Lattice" for the same thing.
@FourtyNights Oh, I do know Blender's crazy Lattice set up alright. Incidentally, I've just done the next video in my Max>2.80 series on modifiers and it's in there.
Thought I'd throw this up here for posterity, and in case it's useful to any other Maxxers with an itch to try Blender 2.80 Vids are up to 7 now. Going to add some more in the coming weeks as I learn more.....
Blender right now is looking extremely impressive. I'm currently a Max user but am willing to give Blender 2.8 a shot simply because of the amount of updates it receives and features it already contains. However I do find it lacking in several areas, although maybe it's because I am unfamiliar with the software and simply can't find them:
1) Can Blender(2.8, 2.79) contrain to face? I know it can constrain to edge, but in Max and I think Maya, you have the option to contrain to face/surface.
2) Is set-flow built into Blender? Or is it an optional plug in?
3) Anyway to get Blender to output tool options right next to the contact point of the mesh? Right now all the option appear on the sides of the viewport. Anyway to make it like this:
4) Any way to adjust the pinch of two edge loops whilst constraining BOTH of them to the existing faces/edges. Especially if they are not aligned to X, Y or Z axis like in this picture:
These are the glaring omissions that I have noticed but I didn't mess around with Blender extensively so I am hoping these features are in there somewhere?
1 No. There are hacks to do it, I think, but I haven't looked into it. 2 Not built in, but there is a free addon 3 I don't think it's possible 4 No, but you can loop cut and bevel for the same..
3) Anyway to get Blender to output tool options right next to the contact point of the mesh? Right now all the option appear on the sides of the viewport.
On this topic I would highly recommend to unlearn some old Max/Maya habits and getting used to how in Blender, most mesh editing operations donot require to have one's cursor near where the action happens, so to speak. For instance transformations are relative to the position of the mouse cursor at the time the action is launched ; edge rings are added with mousewheel ; and so on.
This is probably one of the things about Blender that is the least well explained (and admittedly this can seem a bit alien at first) but it is an extremely powerful paradigm.
On top of that, the raycast from mouse cursor to models/components to select is extremely reliable and predictable, meaning that one almost never needs to click edges/verts with anal accuracy in order to get the desired selection. These two aspects mesh together very well and make for a blissful interaction experience imho.
3) Anyway to get Blender to output tool options right next to the contact point of the mesh? Right now all the option appear on the sides of the viewport.
On this topic I would highly recommend to unlearn some old Max/Maya habits and getting used to how in Blender, most mesh editing operations donot require to have one's cursor near where the action happens, so to speak. For instance transformations are relative to the position of the mouse cursor at the time the action is launched ; edge rings are added with mousewheel ; and so on.
This is probably one of the things about Blender that is the least well explained (and admittedly this can seem a bit alien at first) but it is an extremely powerful paradigm.
On top of that, the raycast from mouse cursor to models/components to select is extremely reliable and predictable, meaning that one almost never needs to click edges/verts with anal accuracy in order to get the desired selection. These two aspects mesh together very well and make for a blissful interaction experience imho.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I mean, I could live without the pop-up window for sure. But am I wrong in saying that once you activate the mechanism in the GIF you shared, you cannot rotate the camera view around until you either confirm or un-do the action?
Also in the latest 2.8, I think the chamfer/bevel tool doesn't activate until you actually click and drag the mouse after you selected edge you want? Where before you would simply click the edge you want, activate the tool and drag(no mouse click needed to start it)?
1 No. There are hacks to do it, I think, but I haven't looked into it. 2 Not built in, but there is a free addon 3 I don't think it's possible 4 No, but you can loop cut and bevel for the same..
Thanks bro, appreciate the reply. Hmmm points 2 and 4 are pretty much work-arounds so that sounds good. I could probably live without point 3 but point 1(face contraint) is really helpful to me...
"am I wrong in saying that once you activate the mechanism in the GIF you shared, you cannot rotate the camera view around until you either confirm or un-do the action?"
Well ... I'd say that this is hardly relevant, because such operations all have a post-confirmation popup (f6) that lets you edit the parameters after the fact. So basically you get exactly the same functionality as the "in your face" Max popup - except you only bring it up after the fact if needed. And in practice this is very rarely needed for such simple things as bevels and chamfers. This core popup-less workflow relying on relative mouse dragging, scrollwheel in put and numerical entry on keyboard means that one very rarely has to "hit" tiny sliders or text fields for basic stuff. Less interuptions = faster workflow for sure.
This too goes along the line of unlearning Max/Maya habits - the UX design in Blender is extremely clever and very well through out, it's kindof mindblowing really and not aknowledged enough imho. I think it's safe to say that the Blender way to do these things is indeed faster and less stress-inducing overall, and that's after having spent about 10 years with Max. Whoever designed the interaction paradigm for these operations is a very, very smart cookie... This in my opinion is way more important than the UI sugar they've been adding to 2.8 but hey, that's another story
As for different behavior in 2.8 : that's quite possible, as some interaction methods are actually slower/less efficient in 2.8. For instance and if I am not mistaken, adding to a face selection in default 2.8 requires to click and release in order for the selection to be confirmed, as opposed to confirmation happening right at the moment of clicking - the added delay makes the operation feel somewhat sluggish/irresponsive and prone to missed clicks. But thankfully enough all that can be easily modified in the keymap.
I had fun lately in Fusion 360 and I must say, there are few features that I really like. Sometimes it's easier for me to solve some design issues inside Fusion than in Blender. I wish we could get something similar inside Blender and seriously, we need an improvement in boolean overall, because it's soooooooooooo bad.
Veezen Those are actually pretty cool tools, even if similar results can be achieved by booleans it would be cool to implement something like that at some point, it looks pretty usefull. Some of those remind me a bit of the destructive extrude
@SnowInChina Yes I know that and I use booleans really often similar as you showed. I just thought that it would be cool idea to have that features in Blender. Sometimes it really speed-up the process when you looking for right shape.
@maxivz Booleans can do that, sure, but they doesn't work great in Blender. For example when you have non-manifold shape (or open shape), and when polygons are overlapping each other. I always find booleans in Blender really frustrating.
@Veezen I agree about tools in Fusion, it feels like it's the right way to work. I was really surprised by the sketching tools and how robust the constraints are. You can create patterns with design rules, usually, it's constrained automatically but you can also add or remove constraints manually and then you can change anything. Forms are going to follow the rules so experimenting is super easy and fun
@Mad_Llama Yes! Those constraints works awesome, and at the begining I thought that it will be some kind of limitation but I was wrong. You can move some parts of the mesh and still keep constraints even if the mesh have added some complex details (but even so you need to be careful, bcs it's easy to freeze Fusion for minutes). Offseting sketch is also amazing, which is also an example how inset could work in Blender.
This is why it's so hard to leave Max behind. Max's 2D spline tools are one of its best features and is unique among the DCCs in that. All those F360 sketching features and constraints are available in Max(PolylinePro tools give us CAD constraints)
Like many CAD programs F360 is working with solids, that is fundamentally different from Blenders mesh based system. Objects cannot be shared smoothly between both system, therefore you would have to implement the solid modelling in parallel to the current system and not able to use the current tools.
Parametric solid based modelling is great for certain things, but has it's own limitations as well. I doubt that we will see that in the near future in Blender.
Replies
https://imgur.com/a/vd51m9o
https://polycount.com/discussion/212081/maxivzs-interactive-tools-for-blender
Now, does that means we'll be able to achieve a realtime bevel shader for Eevee?
The blur capabilities of the voronoi texture in the first thread is exactly what blender was lacking. But it's still quite limited, unfortunately.
I wish they would improve the UV editing experience for 2.81+. It is lacking in ways which extensions can only patch up with band-aids. A few years ago there was a GSOC for improved UV island packing, but I don't think it ever made it.
Yeah, exactly!
@maxivz interactive tools for blender. Sorry I did a tremendous cringe on the upload and decided to re-do everything again. I found it to be really good and looking for future updates!
At the end of this video I mentioned some of the bugs I encountered, maybe that can help.
1) Can Blender(2.8, 2.79) contrain to face? I know it can constrain to edge, but in Max and I think Maya, you have the option to contrain to face/surface.
2) Is set-flow built into Blender? Or is it an optional plug in?
3) Anyway to get Blender to output tool options right next to the contact point of the mesh? Right now all the option appear on the sides of the viewport. Anyway to make it like this:
4) Any way to adjust the pinch of two edge loops whilst constraining BOTH of them to the existing faces/edges. Especially if they are not aligned to X, Y or Z axis like in this picture:
These are the glaring omissions that I have noticed but I didn't mess around with Blender extensively so I am hoping these features are in there somewhere?
1 No. There are hacks to do it, I think, but I haven't looked into it.
2 Not built in, but there is a free addon
3 I don't think it's possible
4 No, but you can loop cut and bevel for the same..
3) Anyway to get Blender to output tool options right next to the contact point of the mesh? Right now all the option appear on the sides of the viewport.
On this topic I would highly recommend to unlearn some old Max/Maya habits and getting used to how in Blender, most mesh editing operations do not require to have one's cursor near where the action happens, so to speak. For instance transformations are relative to the position of the mouse cursor at the time the action is launched ; edge rings are added with mousewheel ; and so on.
This is probably one of the things about Blender that is the least well explained (and admittedly this can seem a bit alien at first) but it is an extremely powerful paradigm.
On top of that, the raycast from mouse cursor to models/components to select is extremely reliable and predictable, meaning that one almost never needs to click edges/verts with anal accuracy in order to get the desired selection. These two aspects mesh together very well and make for a blissful interaction experience imho.
Also in the latest 2.8, I think the chamfer/bevel tool doesn't activate until you actually click and drag the mouse after you selected edge you want? Where before you would simply click the edge you want, activate the tool and drag(no mouse click needed to start it)?
Well ... I'd say that this is hardly relevant, because such operations all have a post-confirmation popup (f6) that lets you edit the parameters after the fact. So basically you get exactly the same functionality as the "in your face" Max popup - except you only bring it up after the fact if needed. And in practice this is very rarely needed for such simple things as bevels and chamfers. This core popup-less workflow relying on relative mouse dragging, scrollwheel in put and numerical entry on keyboard means that one very rarely has to "hit" tiny sliders or text fields for basic stuff. Less interuptions = faster workflow for sure.
This too goes along the line of unlearning Max/Maya habits - the UX design in Blender is extremely clever and very well through out, it's kindof mindblowing really and not aknowledged enough imho. I think it's safe to say that the Blender way to do these things is indeed faster and less stress-inducing overall, and that's after having spent about 10 years with Max. Whoever designed the interaction paradigm for these operations is a very, very smart cookie... This in my opinion is way more important than the UI sugar they've been adding to 2.8 but hey, that's another story
As for different behavior in 2.8 : that's quite possible, as some interaction methods are actually slower/less efficient in 2.8. For instance and if I am not mistaken, adding to a face selection in default 2.8 requires to click and release in order for the selection to be confirmed, as opposed to confirmation happening right at the moment of clicking - the added delay makes the operation feel somewhat sluggish/irresponsive and prone to missed clicks. But thankfully enough all that can be easily modified in the keymap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUV6zCosP60
and seriously, we need an improvement in boolean overall, because it's soooooooooooo bad.
Some of those remind me a bit of the destructive extrude
Yes I know that and I use booleans really often similar as you showed. I just thought that it would be cool idea to have that features in Blender. Sometimes it really speed-up the process when you looking for right shape.
@maxivz
Booleans can do that, sure, but they doesn't work great in Blender. For example when you have non-manifold shape (or open shape), and when polygons are overlapping each other. I always find booleans in Blender really frustrating.
I agree about tools in Fusion, it feels like it's the right way to work. I was really surprised by the sketching tools and how robust the constraints are. You can create patterns with design rules, usually, it's constrained automatically but you can also add or remove constraints manually and then you can change anything. Forms are going to follow the rules so experimenting is super easy and fun
Blender is sorely lacking in this area.
Objects cannot be shared smoothly between both system, therefore you would have to implement the solid modelling in parallel to the current system and not able to use the current tools.
Parametric solid based modelling is great for certain things, but has it's own limitations as well.
I doubt that we will see that in the near future in Blender.