Blender 2.6 Modeling Tools. What's missing and what do you want?
interpolator
Hey guys,
I wanted to make a thread about the current state of the modelling tools in Blender 2.6+ and what everyone thinks is missing and why X missing feature is really needed.
I cant make any promises to get this stuff coded, but I thought it would be a good idea to be able to point the devs. to a non Blender only forum, for an outside and unbiased opinion (professional and non-professional users alike) of what is needed to compete with other modelling powerhouses such as Max and Modo and turn Blender into a great modelling application.
Another way to think about it, is to say what are the best modelling tools in your current 3d application that make your life that much easier and why?
I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say
*For general Blender related issues and enquiries, please use the Blender Trying Really Hard to Compete thread
*
I wanted to make a thread about the current state of the modelling tools in Blender 2.6+ and what everyone thinks is missing and why X missing feature is really needed.
I cant make any promises to get this stuff coded, but I thought it would be a good idea to be able to point the devs. to a non Blender only forum, for an outside and unbiased opinion (professional and non-professional users alike) of what is needed to compete with other modelling powerhouses such as Max and Modo and turn Blender into a great modelling application.
Another way to think about it, is to say what are the best modelling tools in your current 3d application that make your life that much easier and why?
I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say
*For general Blender related issues and enquiries, please use the Blender Trying Really Hard to Compete thread
*
Replies
Oh, and inset scaling too. The inset extrude plugin doesn't work anymore and the inset that's there now doesn't maintain the shape of the object.
Have you tried setting the pivot center for rotation/scaling to "individual origins" That sounds like what you want.
Also, the inset/extrude add on works ok for me in 2.6. Are you using the 2.6?
This is the latest version of the script.
@leilei, That actually sounds really useful. It's not something that I would have normally thought of. Great suggestion!
Ha, that does work, but only with faces. I was using vertices, so it didn't work. Thanks for the link.
Edit:
How about edge slide on multiple edges? Slide vertex? Loop cut at cursor instead of at the average between two loops? Rotate on normal? Collapse selected edges? A better rip vertices? One that let's you choose the direction of the rip. Oh, overlapping vertex selection. It would be so nice if you could click the connected edge of a vertex and get that vertex rather than the one overlapping it. That's all I can think of at the moment.
Yeah it'd just be marking stuff to skip in the mirror modifier. Can't get any simpler than that.
- independent selection of vert/edges/faces
- select edges marked as seams/hard
and
ADD EDGE TOOL
1. NGON'S
2. quad-bevel (with a selectable cut amount of roundness)
3. inset-scale
4. proper cut/connect tools.
5. Proper symmetry tools, and maybe allow you to toggle it on and off to add Asymmetrical detail (Like Silo)
i will think of more when i got a 3d package infront of me that is just off the top of my head.
think he means something more like a interactive cut tool, that is context sensitive.
like you could make a vert selection and press it to cut edges between them, or a edge selection to cut down the middle of all the selected edges to make a partial loop.
or with no selection let the user arbitrarily place edges. like the interactive spilt tool in maya, or Silo, or modo.
Constrain vertex to edge,move a vertex along an edge like slide edge.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Could you explain please?
You can already independently select them by clicking the vertex/edge/face mode buttons and can select multiple variation of each by shift clicking the icons
The shortcut for switching between vertex/edge/face modes is Ctrl+Tab
Select a hard/seam edge> Select Similar (Shift G)> Sharpness/Seam. (as Ganemi said) It seems that the old"Sharp" option has been replaces by "Sharpness"
This would be great! You can set Blender to automatically enter editmode after an object is created by going to the Preferences> Editing> New Objects> Enter Edit Mode
Have you got any plans for this list Andy?
Once the list has grown a little more, I will compile a list of the features in the first post and then maybe contact the devs with a link to the thread explaining why an overhaul is really needed and what people actually want.
I was also thinking about contacting the Blender Podcast, which is run and hosted by guru devs Campbell Barton and Thomas Dinges, and asking them to do a show on where they want the modelling tools to be within the next 12 months etc.
Also, it's nice to have a big suggestion thread that is outside of the Blender community and is unbiased. It's very valuable to have somewhere that artists who have experience in other tools and applications can give some input, without the usual flame wars that happen if you suggest the implementation of a feature from Max or Modo etc. in the normal Blender only forums. That gets pretty tiring after a while :P
When some people get stuck in the Blender bubble, they can become quite fanatical about open source software and sometimes it can be hard for them to see that X or Y feature would be beneficial, without resulting to the usual "Blender is for Blender users" and the anti Autodesk diatribes that happen when suggestions are made
My main goal is to have a thread that lists best parts of those other applications modelling tools, so the devs can see what stuff people need for Blender to be taken more seriously as a modelling application. I want Blender to be a modelling application that we can all be proud of
Isn't this available in the header next to the widgets selection area? I typically always have it set to normal even though I never use the widgets because it really easily allows me to know my local and normal axis. Instead, when in normal mode I use g+z+z to grab along the normal's axis.
This should work with the above method. Set the widget to normal, then r+z+z.
The Collapse tool collapses multiple selected edges assuming they're a ring.
Technically, the direction of the rip is determined by the location of your mouse in relation to the selected rippable edge/vert, but in practice, this rarely works if there are any sort of poles.
Not sure exactly what you mean here since I think this is already how it works.... Also, if you repeatedly right click on an overlapping selection, Blender cycles through all available under the mouse. This works in object mode as well. Also in Object mode, if you have multiple stacked objects, alt+RMB will bring up a list of all objects under your cursor. This is really helpful when working with the curve modifier or arraying on curves because the curve typically has to be located in the center of the object which makes it hard to select.
In progress :P There's been a bit of yanking around with the BMesh project.
I definitely agree that the 3D Cursor needs to be re-evaluated. It's fantastically useful, but implemented pretty poorly.
Can't you do this setting the snapping to edge or vert (ctrl+shift+tab), then holding ctrl and mousing over the components you want to snap to?
Will create my own list in a bit, just wanted to contribute a bit to the discussion. Props to this thread Andy, this is very much needed.
Awesome
Also, I was looking for an edge collapse that doesn't require the selection of an entire ring, rather I could collapse parallel edges like I would vertices, but the edge flow would remain instead of collapsing to one vertex. Such as when you want to create a low poly knee bend.
Blender Idiosyncracies:
=======================
Modeling:
Operators should use the same settings that had been used previously (at the very least for adding primatives and LSCM vs. ABF selection). This would save a lot of annoying wasted time.
[proportional edit] should be by surface as well as volume (or shell in UV editor) so that you can avoid accidentally selecting undesireable geometry. For example, avoiding selecting the mouthbag on a character when editing the lips or cheeks.
In 3D, transforming around "individual origins" should be able to get origins from selected faces rather than needing them to be split. This has been mentioned a few times in this thead.
Shearing along all axis, rather than just they x an y of the view plane (essentially make it like ALL other tools). Also, it could use a less ridiculous shortcut (ctrl+shift+alt+s) since it's actaully a really useful tool.
What shift+r actually repeats is very inconsistant (no deletes, selections, etc)
Would like a proper border edge select. Currently borders can be interrupted by things like poles.
An extended array modifier that allows for rotation and scale offset without needing a seperate object.
UVs:
[e] should be in the UV editor to match 3D view.
Snapping icon does not appear in the UV window like in the 3D view.
[project from view: bounds] should have axis (x, y) limitation options to maintain the aspect ratio of the projected UVs. As is, it simply stretches the UVs to the limits of both axis.
UV mode [ctrl+tab] does not open component selection modes as in the 3D views.
[,] and [.] do not work as they should in UV mode (at all really).
Need to edit multiple object UVs. This is a fairly big feature, but it's totally necessary to get well atlassed objects. If it's impossible, at least add the ability to simultaneously display other selected objects UVs (while editing the active object).
In UV editor, need an "align auto" that grids verts (like rectify from Textools)
[a] to select all in UV editor seems to be occasionally broken (this may be fixed)
Should be able to scale, rotate, shear, etc. from the individual centers of UV islands as you are in 3D.
In UV, need an "auto weld" that should be able to act like "remove doubles" in that it will align verts within a set merge radius (though not actually necessarily weld them).
Dim image needed in the UV editor to better be able to see the UVs in some cases.
UV auto-stack from selected would be great
In UV editor, there should be a "Snap to Pixels" snapping option (not in the shift+s menu, but actually witht eh ctrl key)
Objects:
Need to be able to change mats on referenced files
Need the ability (as an option) to reference versioned files (i.e. as versions increase, the filepath is altered to reflect changes)
UI:
For UI, need to be able to add additional toolbars, info is too cramped into a long list. This could behave like Max where as you drag out the tool bars, instead of scaling the information, it creates additional toolbars that prevent you from having to scale down the list.
In 3D view, need to fix the mode switching to make more sense (i.e. shift+tab, alt+tab, v, all a pain in the ass to remember, and are really unrelated). My suggestion would be tab simply switches between the last two modes rather than whatever weird system exists right now.
"Save Over" dialogue should occur before exiting active screens. ex: should prompt save before exiting file selection screen rather than after exit.
3D cursor should be placable with shift +LMB. As is, it's too easy to accidentally place it in an un-needed location, or to break it's careful placement.
Blender really really needs a proper reference editor (probably as an addition to the outliner)
Need a different icon for materials when referencing since it is misleading to use the image texture (perhaps the matsphere?)
Dropdown nodal menus are sized according to how zoomed into the nodal pallette you are
When rendering in UV window, it is often difficult to know which window will be chosen for rendering
Other:
Full sample should be on by default
Need a refresh image option on image node
Need FPS in sequencer
Would like to be able to save render output to clipboard (or any image for that matter. This would be like Crazybump's helpful feature)
Need .fbx importer
That's great news.
Last time I checked I could not get the UV tools to work properly half the time. It would be great to get a more fully featured UV editor suite.
You need to set your widget orientation to normal here, and then it should work fine.
It doesn't have to be an entire ring, in fact, they needn't be contiguous at all.
Could you explain the issues you had (perhaps in PM to avoid derailing the thread)? Blender's UV tools have always been very solid (perhaps one of the best parts of the package), so I'm curious to hear the issues you've had. That said, as you can see from my extensive list below, there's many things I'd like to add to it to make it better.
Tab switches between the last mode used and object mode. At startup is switches from object to edit and back.
"When rendering in UV window, it is often difficult to know which window will be chosen for rendering"
Why bother? Just set it to render in a new window in the render options.
Edit:
When I said edge collapse, I meant parallel loops, not perpendicular rings.
Also, I think there's definitely room to improve the tab-mode stuff. Even the fact that it switches to edit mode (rather than any other) is pretty arbitrary and should be user defined.
As for the UV editor, I typically set that up as my rendering window because as I'm compositing I don't want to deal with floating windows all around since I'll be re-rendering really often. Basicallyit's comes back to Blender's non-overlapping design.
bingo!
There is a good chance that I am just not able to find some features, since I haven't put a ton of time into it, but all I have seen really is some weird auto-peltmap thing that breaks half the time and full manual controls. Auto-straighten and more mesh relax options would be nice, if they are not in there. I seem to remember is supporting pinning in some capacity?
http://dim.blenderge.com/Documents/componentGroupProposal_v3.pdf
a proper cut tool, but that may have been implementd somewhere by now?
proper boolean tools that dont create horrible geometry, and work on complex meshes.
fix the accuracy of retopo, and while your at it just completely copy 3d-coat's retopo system.
the snapping system : by and large the snapping system is a joy to behold , the only thing is tha sliding verts,edges,faces along something is not very accurate there should be an option to not have a soft lock but a hard lock that will then let you exactly slide vert,edge,face to a selection.
oh and not completely related but sortof PLEASE make mirrored normal maps display properly! the mirrored side always is reversed lighting wise!
everyone on this board would ask for that one
*edit* not sure if this is ever fixed but in the uv window, i should be able to click on a face of already selected faces and be able to be shown which face that is in the 3d view.. this would be SO helpfull!
Yeah I really miss it, Max has spoiled me. If I make a cylinder in Max, and decide it doesn't have the right amount of sides, I can change the amount of sides before collapsing it into an editable form. With Blender, I have to make a whole new Cylinder if I've deselected the first one! :thumbdown:
This works just fine by switching to the orientation you've created, then using g+z+z (or whatever axis you'd like).
This is availble by clicking on the icon in the 2D View's header called: "Keep UV and Edit Mode Mesh Selection in Sync"
This one a million times! And not having to select faces in edit mode to see the UVs in the UV view.
I also agree with the UV system being overhauled, but mostly because I don't really see what its creators were going for with it. Rather than insisting it's broken I think I just don't "get" UVing in Blender. It works for the most part, but I feel inconvenienced 90% of the time by strange behaviour in selections, etc... I guess it's sensible for film work where you have multiple materials on one model, but that's less common in the majority of game stuff, so it winds up just becoming a hassle.
You can view all the UV's from selected objects by going into the UV/Image editor> View> Draw Other Objects. I don't think it's possible to edit multiple UVs from separate objects though
The "Follow active quads" unwrap option might be close to what you are looking for. Also using Conformal, rather than angle based tends to give a better unwrap for objects like cylinders
It should snap to verts by default, but if you want automatic snapping to pixels then go to UV/Image editor> UVs> Snap to Pixels and everything should snal to the pixels of the image
Yea, This feature used to be great, but it broke some stuff apparently. I'm not sure if they will ever bring it back
What do you mean by this?
Mirrored UV's work perfectly in Blender as of 2.57...PM me with your problem and we will see if we can get it sorted for you
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Shuvro/soc2011
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Psy-Fi
Are multiple uv-layouts supported now in the game engine (before just 2 were supported)??
Are shadows now working properly even when you don't use spot-light? (also regarding the ggame engine...)
I had no idea about that, that's at least really helpful!
Yeah, I typically switch between ABF and LSCM as I'm working, but there really is no tool that does what I want here. Typically I resort to just spending the time to align-auto.
I think they should probably break out this functionality into the header and have a nearly identical snapping menu as the 3D view.
Previously, when you had specified that your render display in the UV editor, it would just arbitrarily choose which UV window that would be, and sometimes it would choose 3D view. It'd be nice if it was based on which window your mouse was over. This could be fixed by now since I really haven't rendered much for a while.
I mean that, if you select some faces it doesn't translate into edges if you switch selection mode. Hope that clear enough
And thanks for the Shift G info
No, that's not it. It's being able to select an element in the UV window and have the corresponding element highlighted on the 3D object. If I click a vertex on my UV, it should highlight the same vertex in 3D view.
Ahh, I see what you mean. Is this how selection works in other 3d packages? It seems reasonable to me that the current implementation is correct, as with each face you select containing 4 edges and 4 verts and when you change to edges or verts, those same edges or verts are still selected.
@Kat, You must have a bunch of suggestions, mate. You have been using Blender for as long as I can remember
Thanks to everyone who has posted some ideas on how to improve the modelling/UV tools