@guitarguy00 In 2.8 the constraint drop down is top center,mine says face.Click the drop down then click the little plus sign to the right to set a constraint to whatever sub-object you have selected.
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.
Thanks for the detailed reply. In regards to "1", I am referring to moving a vertex along the face of the mesh it belongs to, not a mesh onto another mesh. Much like how constrain to edge works, but on the actual surface.
As a former Max user I know exactly what you're looking for - and sadly that functionality to the best of my knowledge is not in blender and you'll have to manage with workarounds. Mystifying how so many things have been ported from Max and Maya's modeling toolkit over the years but that fundamental functionality has been omitted.
I'm counting myself lucky that most of what I require can be half-assed with edge slide but for hard surface work I'd be crying myself to sleep every night.
Is there no open ticket for this feature in their dev-website? I'd like to vote for this edge/face constraint faster than light.
EDIT: Speaking of hardsurface tools...Is there any equivalent to Max' angle selection toggle? Preferrably something that can be toggled on/off with the press of a customizable keyboard button, and the angle may be changed in some settings panel...
Part 8 is up. Get up to speed on Blender's Sharp/Unsharp edges and how it pertains to our Smoothing Groups Max-brains.... (playlist link)
I just had a watch and played around with this in Blender. So, the way I understand Blender works is, if you want to manually tweak your mesh' smooth(soft)/sharp(hard) edges, the AutoSmooth checkbox NEEDS to be turned on. There is no way to turn things smooth/sharp if not.
And if we're making game assets, I think it's safe to assume we'll almost always want the ability to tweak ourselves how some edges look. So...leave that checkbox always on?
@JoseConseco - I am a bit late on this but just wanted to say thanks for the Xray mesh edit addon ! Been trying it in both 2.78 and 2.8 and it works great, this is delightful.
One thing I've noticed about the 2.8 version : the component highlighting (orange glow) seems to be lagging behind the selection so to speak. As in : it only seems to refresh once a component gets manipulated.
I hope this helps. Besides it would be great to have such a visual effect available on a per-object basis too - that could help making a retopo scene quite readable. Although I suppose it may bring its own set of problems (which object to draw on which, and so on). Just food for thoughts.
EDIT: Speaking of hardsurface tools...Is there any equivalent to Max' angle selection toggle? Preferrably something that can be toggled on/off with the press of a customizable keyboard button, and the angle may be changed in some settings panel...
Try "Select Linked Flat Faces", somehow doesn't have a hotkey assigned in my 2.8 beta, was [Ctrl + Shift + Alt + F] before. Works with multiple selections as well.
EDIT: Speaking of hardsurface tools...Is there any equivalent to Max' angle selection toggle? Preferrably something that can be toggled on/off with the press of a customizable keyboard button, and the angle may be changed in some settings panel...
Try "Select Linked Flat Faces", somehow doesn't have a hotkey assigned in my 2.8 beta, was [Ctrl + Shift + Alt + F] before. Works with multiple selections as well.
Thanks for the answer. It works as expected. Some points I'd like to point out to see if they are in Blender in any shape or form: -The way it works is that it needs to be executed each time a new selection is made. There is no toggle option for this to always have it on? -Doesn't support edge or vertex selections? The quickest workaround would be to convert the selection from faces to other subobject modes?
Thanks for the answer. It works as expected. Some points I'd like to point out to see if they are in Blender in any shape or form: -The way it works is that it needs to be executed each time a new selection is made. There is no toggle option for this to always have it on? -Doesn't support edge or vertex selections? The quickest workaround would be to convert the selection from faces to other subobject modes?
I dare say there is no toggle to always switch it on.
How should it support edge or vertex selection? Which faces should be selected, there are usually more than one connected to an edge or vertex. In edge mode you have the option to select similar edges by face angle, but that is for the whole mesh.
I've used Blender 2.8's Eevee viewport to look dev hair cards while placing them. Also, this is my third time doing hair cards with a lot better workflow, but I'm still new to real-time hair in general. Those differently colored haircards are layers from the thickest to the thinnest. Sometimes the corners of turning point in curves get overlapped, so it wasn't so easy to maintain a good shape while adjusting those curves. Still okay, I guess. (I wasn't using HST software for this hair texture though, yet). I followed this paid tutorial
By HST do you mean Blender Hair Tool? I'm not sure if you know about it, but it seems to help a lot with hair cards creation. https://gumroad.com/l/hairtool
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.
Thanks for the detailed reply. In regards to "1", I am referring to moving a vertex along the face of the mesh it belongs to, not a mesh onto another mesh. Much like how constrain to edge works, but on the actual surface.
As a former Max user I know exactly what you're looking for - and sadly that functionality to the best of my knowledge is not in blender and you'll have to manage with workarounds. Mystifying how so many things have been ported from Max and Maya's modeling toolkit over the years but that fundamental functionality has been omitted.
I'm counting myself lucky that most of what I require can be half-assed with edge slide but for hard surface work I'd be crying myself to sleep every night.
I do alot of hard surface work and face-contraint is used alot for me
Is there no open ticket for this feature in their dev-website? I'd like to vote for this edge/face constraint faster than light.
EDIT: Speaking of hardsurface tools...Is there any equivalent to Max' angle selection toggle? Preferrably something that can be toggled on/off with the press of a customizable keyboard button, and the angle may be changed in some settings panel...
This would also be great! Forgot about this. Is there a way we can contact the Blender team or make suggestions?
I also know about that Blender's "Hair Tool" addon, but it's just a tad expensive compared to HSD. Hair Tool also has baking setup for hairstrands from what I've seen in Jose's YT videos, but it's nowhere near faster than Robert's tool.
I guess my biggest concern are the hair material and transparency method. I wonder has anyone used Blender's EEVEE with a proper real-time hair material for hair cards?
I dare say there is no toggle to always switch it on.
How should it support edge or vertex selection? Which faces should be selected, there are usually more than one connected to an edge or vertex. In edge mode you have the option to select similar edges by face angle, but that is for the whole mesh.
You're right about the edge and vertex point - it doesn't even work in Max anyway.
guitarguy00 Select Linked Flat Faces is our best bet for the moment, though a Toggle would be neat.
@guitarguy00 In 2.8 the constraint drop down is top center,mine says face.Click the drop down then click the little plus sign to the right to set a constraint to whatever sub-object you have selected.
I tried this quickly but for me, it didn't work like Max at all. I think it just sets the actual gizmo orientation to follow the face, rather than locking the actual vertex to the face?
You're right about the edge and vertex point - it doesn't even work in Max anyway.
guitarguy00 Select Linked Flat Faces is our best bet for the moment, though a Toggle would be neat.
Of course I don't know your workflow and why the toggle would so useful for you. If you are not using it yet, you might find [L] Select Linked useful in some cases with the right delimiter.
Of course I don't know your workflow and why the toggle would so useful for you. If you are not using it yet, you might find [L] Select Linked useful in some cases with the right delimiter.
Well, if you're working with very dense hardsurface stuff, during the later stages it is useful to have such a feature. A toggle can be nice to save some clicks, but it is a very arguable point - one might say it is more useful to have it as a function, and that doing such selections occur in such specific cases that having a toggle would not be beneficial since you'd have to turn it off constantly...
Now I'm thinking of another thing - have a script function which, upon activation, performs the SLFF regular function, and upon further presses of the button increases the angle&selection, hmm....might need to open up some python docs to do this...
EDIT: can any Blender users confirm/deny the following about the use of sharp edges?
So, the way I understand Blender works is, if you want to manually tweak your mesh' smooth(soft)/sharp(hard) edges, the AutoSmooth checkbox NEEDS to be turned on. There is no way to manually turn specific edges smooth/sharp if not. And if we're making game assets, I think it's safe to assume we'll almost always want the ability to tweak ourselves how some edges look. So...leave that checkbox always on?
@justo just like I showed in the video, for full control set AS to 180 and manually mark sharps.
Also, I use select by angle all the time in Max. I also got so used to this from modeling in Zbrush with Zmodeler and select flat island. Select linked flat faces is the closest in comparison.
Instead of a toggle just assign a hotkey and then it's just a matter of select a face>hit the key. I don't use this as much in Blender, though, because the sub-object selection tools are a lot better than Max's and I wouldn't need it as often.
Another handy one is Selext shortest path/fill region. Ctrl+Shift click between 2 faces(same as Graphite Fill in Max)
EDIT: Speaking of hardsurface tools...Is there any equivalent to Max' angle selection toggle? Preferrably something that can be toggled on/off with the press of a customizable keyboard button, and the angle may be changed in some settings panel...
Try "Select Linked Flat Faces", somehow doesn't have a hotkey assigned in my 2.8 beta, was [Ctrl + Shift + Alt + F] before. Works with multiple selections as well.
Also just Shift+G in general is a nice place to look around, it's the shortcut for "Select similar"
@Justo as for sharp edges, I would say having Auto Smooth on is perfectly fine. Plus if you're using a bevel modifier and want to make use of the face weigthed normals option in there, then you will need to have Auto Smooth on. An alternative to this is the Edge Split modifier, it pretty much does the same thing as Auto Smooth except that it if your modifiers are applied on export then this modifier will literally split your edges along your marked edges or chosen angle.
Just out of curiosity, I've been receiving a lot of feedback from @maxivz recent Interactive tools, and a few Blender users, so I showcased the "not so visible" checker deselect option. That operator has been around since 79s but it got more stable now in 2.8.
Thanks for the tips on sharp edges. I am now trying to write a script to get the perimeter edges of a face selection and then turn those into sharp edges. Executing the lines individually through the script editor seems to work alright, but for some reason when I put them into a custom operator, they dont give the same results.
class SmartSmooth(bpy.types.Operator):
bl_idname = "mesh.smart_smooth"
bl_label = "Smart Smooth"
bl_description = "Smooths selection by context"
bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}
def sharpOps(self,context):
if context.mode == 'EDIT_MESH':
bm = get_bmesh()
selectionMode = tuple(bpy.context.scene.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode)
if selectionMode[2]:
bpy.ops.mesh.region_to_loop()
bpy.ops.mesh.mark_sharp()
def execute(self, context):
self.sharpOps(context)
return{'FINISHED'}
If I grab a sphere (AutoSmooth is ON, 180deg, sphere has been ShadeSmooth'd), make a group of face selections, and execute the region_to_loop and then the mark_sharp functions through the script editor, the resulting edges turn out sharp. But if run through this script, it appears to be selecting ALL the edges within that perimeter, and does NOT turn them into sharp edges...
Machin3Tools has a face selection to edge border operation.
I don't have those yet, but it's hard to believe there's nothing like that natively...And like I said, the region_to_loop seems to be doing this correctly, but only when executed from the Script editor, for reasons I do not understand.
Machin3Tools has a face selection to edge border operation.
I don't have those yet, but it's hard to believe there's nothing like that natively...And like I said, the region_to_loop seems to be doing this correctly, but only when executed from the Script editor, for reasons I do not understand.
MACHiN3tools just uses Blender's region_to_loop op. It's part of the SmartEdge tool, which does different things depending on context, see
@MACHIN3 holy cyberjesus dude you've turned everything in Blender into your own! I knew about the mesh and decal addons, not this one. And its friggin free you madman. I am definitely donating today, even if its only a little. Also going to buy your other tools once I am more familiar with Blender.
Back to my point, i guess region_to_loop was the right choice then. It just weirds me out its not doing the same as in the script editor. If I # the mark_sharp() line, so that region_to_loop is literally the only thing that's happening once we enter the if statement, it doesnt select the perimeter, but instead selects every edge within. Maybe things are getting F*ed up by trying to get the selection mode with that tuple...?
Back to my point, i guess region_to_loop was the right choice then. It just weirds me out its not doing the same as in the script editor. If I # the mark_sharp() line, so that region_to_loop is literally the only thing that's happening once we enter the if statement, it doesnt select the perimeter, but instead selects every edge within. Maybe things are getting F*ed up by trying to get the selection mode with that tuple...?
@guitarguy00 In 2.8 the constraint drop down is top center,mine says face.Click the drop down then click the little plus sign to the right to set a constraint to whatever sub-object you have selected.
I tried this quickly but for me, it didn't work like Max at all. I think it just sets the actual gizmo orientation to follow the face, rather than locking the actual vertex to the face?
Sorry it's been a long time since I've used Max but rereading your initial post I think you want to constrain a vertex to any of it's adjacent faces?For volume constraint in Blender you can try the Shrinkwrap modifier.Duplicate your mesh and name it,template for example,you can set it to wireframe in the mesh tab viewport display,select your first mesh and in the modifier tab add a shrinkwrap modifier and set template as target.Enable the adjust edit cage button on the modifier and it should constrain in edit mode,apply the modifier when your done.
Also if you or another Max user has a practical example of using face constraint it might help Blender users come up with a better solution.
@MACHIN3 holy cyberjesus dude you've turned everything in Blender into your own! I knew about the mesh and decal addons, not this one.
I've been using Machin3Tools pretty much since the first day I tried 2.80. There are some really useful tools: Mesh Clean Up(indispensible, considering the illegal - in Max terms - geo that Blender tends to create), a great align tool like Quick align in Max, a nested isolate selected tool, a very useful camera pie, a Smart Face tool that is better than the famous F2 tool, and many others.
Decal/Mesh Machine are next on my list. Some insane updates and features coming.
@justo Hops and BC have had some fantastic workflow features added too and they are built with Machin3's plugins in mind. Exciting times to be getting involved with Blender.
Regarding Blender files organization: what directories should I backup (in case I want to go back to a previous version) when installing scripts that modify interface color themes, matcaps, shortcuts & scene defaults? Like with machinetools. Does Blender allow me to replace the root AppData folder with another older one, so as to instantly replace all the above when I reboot the app?
"- Germano Cavalcante de Sousa (mano-wii) for work on snapping tools and precision modeling. (3 months)
- Nathan Letwory (jesterKing) for half time development coordination. (Welcome back!)"
Nathan worked before in Blender and is a Rhino dev (integrated Cycles as far as I know), and mano-wii is the developer of the great addon Snap Utilities.
Pablo Dobarro has made a new tool called Blueprint it allows to create 2D shapes snapped on existing geometries and to extrude them directly. Very useful for architectural modeling and level design:
Pablo is a machine! These tools are amazing. The institute should hire him. Couple more patreons and he'd be pretty much a full time blender developer anyway!
EDIT: That modifier based live remesher is really something else
Pablo is a machine! These tools are amazing. The institute should hire him. Couple more patreons and he'd be pretty much a full time blender developer anyway!
EDIT: That modifier based live remesher is really something else
The other Pablo (Vasquez) said they plan on hiring him through the dev fund, so let's donate! He'd have to get to 5k a month to earn as much as a Blender developer. I hope the Patreon keeps growing though, it may give him more liberty to try things that aren't as aligned with what the BF wants the sculpt mode to be, even though I don't think they'll restrict his ideas.
Part 9.1 of the Blender 2.80 for Max users is up. Basic modeling concepts in Blender and a look at Extrude and Inset. Should be another 2 or 3 parts to the modeling sub-series
Part 9.1 of the Blender 2.80 for Max users is up. Basic modeling concepts in Blender and a look at Extrude and Inset. Should be another 2 or 3 parts to the modeling sub-series
Addressing extrude and inset at the perfect time after the debate in the other thread
Regarding the Pablo Dobarro build - is there a straightforward breakdown of the added features somewhere ? Not just lists like on these twitter posts, but at least some succinct explanation of where things actually are.
Hey, thanks ! Interesting to see how deeply integrated that stuff already is. I am not familiar with the changes done to sculpting in vanilla 2.8 in the first place, so yeah there was not a chance that I could notice these things without a guide. Cool, thanks again
Pablo is a machine! These tools are amazing. The institute should hire him. Couple more patreons and he'd be pretty much a full time blender developer anyway!
EDIT: That modifier based live remesher is really something else
The other Pablo (Vasquez) said they plan on hiring him through the dev fund, so let's donate! He'd have to get to 5k a month to earn as much as a Blender developer. I hope the Patreon keeps growing though, it may give him more liberty to try things that aren't as aligned with what the BF wants the sculpt mode to be, even though I don't think they'll restrict his ideas.
Too many pablos! I think I'm going to start donating monthly to the bf can't spare a lot but I'll throw a couple of bucks their way.
Ton & team have given us an amazing gift with blender!
Part 9.1 of the Blender 2.80 for Max users is up. Basic modeling concepts in Blender and a look at Extrude and Inset. Should be another 2 or 3 parts to the modeling sub-series
Great videos bro. Really cool that it delves into the differences between Max and Blender considering how vastly different they are. I couldn't even work out how to rotate the camera in Blender on my own the first time around
@guitarguy00 Cheers mate. I know the feeling. Yes, I felt it was important to keep referring to Max in the vids because the tools may be similar bit the concepts are very different. Hope that these vids help reduce the amount of cursing and swearing that I experienced getting to grips with Blender after what seems a lifetime in Max.....
@guitarguy00 Cheers mate. I know the feeling. Yes, I felt it was important to keep referring to Max in the vids because the tools may be similar bit the concepts are very different. Hope that these vids help reduce the amount of cursing and swearing that I experienced getting to grips with Blender after what seems a lifetime in Max.....
I went from Maya to Max and even that was a struggle. I just wish the Blender team would incorporate a few features Max has like Loop tools, built in set-flow, face constraint and pinch functionality with loops!
@guitarguy00 Yes, there are some basic modeling tools from Max that I'd love to see, but the Loop Tools and Set Flow addons are decent enough as quasi-alternatives. I miss SwiftLoop the most. The others can all be worked around.
Replies
EDIT: Speaking of hardsurface tools...Is there any equivalent to Max' angle selection toggle? Preferrably something that can be toggled on/off with the press of a customizable keyboard button, and the angle may be changed in some settings panel...
And if we're making game assets, I think it's safe to assume we'll almost always want the ability to tweak ourselves how some edges look. So...leave that checkbox always on?
One thing I've noticed about the 2.8 version : the component highlighting (orange glow) seems to be lagging behind the selection so to speak. As in : it only seems to refresh once a component gets manipulated.
https://imgur.com/btLdS5a
I hope this helps. Besides it would be great to have such a visual effect available on a per-object basis too - that could help making a retopo scene quite readable. Although I suppose it may bring its own set of problems (which object to draw on which, and so on). Just food for thoughts.
Anyways, fantastic stuff.
Works with multiple selections as well.
-The way it works is that it needs to be executed each time a new selection is made. There is no toggle option for this to always have it on?
-Doesn't support edge or vertex selections? The quickest workaround would be to convert the selection from faces to other subobject modes?
How should it support edge or vertex selection? Which faces should be selected, there are usually more than one connected to an edge or vertex.
In edge mode you have the option to select similar edges by face angle, but that is for the whole mesh.
https://gumroad.com/l/hairtool
You're right about the edge and vertex point - it doesn't even work in Max anyway.
guitarguy00 Select Linked Flat Faces is our best bet for the moment, though a Toggle would be neat.
If you are not using it yet, you might find [L] Select Linked useful in some cases with the right delimiter.
Now I'm thinking of another thing - have a script function which, upon activation, performs the SLFF regular function, and upon further presses of the button increases the angle&selection, hmm....might need to open up some python docs to do this...
EDIT: can any Blender users confirm/deny the following about the use of sharp edges?
And if we're making game assets, I think it's safe to assume we'll almost always want the ability to tweak ourselves how some edges look. So...leave that checkbox always on?
Select similar > Select co-planar is useful to select geometry like that too. I think that the default hotkey is Shift G.
I don't use this as much in Blender, though, because the sub-object selection tools are a lot better than Max's and I wouldn't need it as often.
class SmartSmooth(bpy.types.Operator): bl_idname = "mesh.smart_smooth" bl_label = "Smart Smooth" bl_description = "Smooths selection by context" bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'} def sharpOps(self,context): if context.mode == 'EDIT_MESH': bm = get_bmesh() selectionMode = tuple(bpy.context.scene.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode) if selectionMode[2]: bpy.ops.mesh.region_to_loop() bpy.ops.mesh.mark_sharp() def execute(self, context): self.sharpOps(context) return{'FINISHED'}If I grab a sphere (AutoSmooth is ON, 180deg, sphere has been ShadeSmooth'd), make a group of face selections, and execute the region_to_loop and then the mark_sharp functions through the script editor, the resulting edges turn out sharp. But if run through this script, it appears to be selecting ALL the edges within that perimeter, and does NOT turn them into sharp edges...
Back to my point, i guess region_to_loop was the right choice then. It just weirds me out its not doing the same as in the script editor. If I # the mark_sharp() line, so that region_to_loop is literally the only thing that's happening once we enter the if statement, it doesnt select the perimeter, but instead selects every edge within. Maybe things are getting F*ed up by trying to get the selection mode with that tuple...?
Speedflow Basics - 03 - Make a Wooden Barrel
In this new Speedfow Basics video, we will make a Wooden Barrel 100% fully Editable!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJxdHXY92W8
https://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2019-July/050013.html
Nathan worked before in Blender and is a Rhino dev (integrated Cycles as far as I know), and mano-wii is the developer of the great addon Snap Utilities.
EDIT:
That modifier based live remesher is really something else
Ton & team have given us an amazing gift with blender!
Yes, I felt it was important to keep referring to Max in the vids because the tools may be similar bit the concepts are very different. Hope that these vids help reduce the amount of cursing and swearing that I experienced getting to grips with Blender after what seems a lifetime in Max.....