been messing about with the new 2.63 with bmesh, and the modeling tools still need polish.
the bevel/chamfer wont work on vertices, and there are some weird things like there being a vertex connect tool but not a edge connect tool.
also in previous 2.6 versions wanst there something called loop tools, that had some really nice stuff for working with edge loops, like making a perfect circle from a selection, and things like lofting.
been messing about with the new 2.63 with bmesh, and the modeling tools still need polish.
the bevel/chamfer wont work on vertices, and there are some weird things like there being a vertex connect tool but not a edge connect tool.
also in previous 2.6 versions wanst there something called loop tools, that had some really nice stuff for working with edge loops, like making a perfect circle from a selection, and things like lofting.
Loop tools has been moved to contrib while Crouch works on a 100% compatible version for BMesh. You can still get a working version for BMesh though, but its missing the bridge and loft features until Crouch adds them again (which he is working on right now) mesh_looptools.py
Also, Jonathan Williamson sent me a cool bevel addon yesterday. If you set it to sharp, it makes quads mesh_bevel_round.py
I'm going to give Blender a go. Need a free alternative to Maya.
I know there's probably a ton of tut's and stuff out there, which I'll look for myself. But can anyone recommend any good tutorials for an experienced Maya user switching to blender. I'm not really interested in Modding Blender to be more like Maya btw. I prefer to keep things default. But if there are Mods/scripts maya people think i'll not be able to live without please let me know.
I'm going to give Blender a go. Need a free alternative to Maya.
I know there's probably a ton of tut's and stuff out there, which I'll look for myself. But can anyone recommend any good tutorials for an experienced Maya user switching to blender. I'm not really interested in Modding Blender to be more like Maya btw. I prefer to keep things default. But if there are Mods/scripts maya people think i'll not be able to live without please let me know.
I tried out Blender for it's 3dpainting features a little while back, what's up with how it handles textures? I spent about 5 hours trying to figure out how to apply a material to an already unwrapped model but eventually gave up.
I tried out Blender for it's 3dpainting features a little while back, what's up with how it handles textures? I spent about 5 hours trying to figure out how to apply a material to an already unwrapped model but eventually gave up.
Yea, it's not a great workflow
Here are the steps though
Add a mesh
Select the material icon on the right
Add a new material
Click the texture tab
Add a new texture
Go to the Type Dropdown and select Image or Movie
Go to Image> Open
Select your image
Go to Mapping> Consternates> UV
If the image is a normal map go to Image Sampling> Check Normal Map
Go to Influence and select Diffuse/Spec etc. and boos the strength etc.
Set the viewport to Texture and the Shading to GLSL(in the N panel> Display) if you want to see the normal maps
I dunno, you'd have to watch a tut to know what to do, but it's not too strange a workflow right? Basically you ended yo make sure you've actually created a document the painting is going to be saved out too right? Still blown away by that Bastion fanart that someone posted in WAYWO a while back, that was completely textured in Blender.
I dunno, you'd have to watch a tut to know what to do, but it's not too strange a workflow right? Basically you ended yo make sure you've actually created a document the painting is going to be saved out too right? Still blown away by that Bastion fanart that someone posted in WAYWO a while back, that was completely textured in Blender.
I searched for tutorials, it seems like there is a large amount of bad video tutorials out there for Blender. I didn't even get to the painting part, I just wanted to apply a material. I ended up purchasing 3Dcoat after giving the demo a try.
I searched for tutorials, it seems like there is a large amount of bad video tutorials out there for Blender. I didn't even get to the painting part, I just wanted to apply a material. I ended up purchasing 3Dcoat after giving the demo a try.
Yeah, most of the tutorials are written by folks who dont know what they're doing at all.
Sometimes it feels like blender looks at what everyone else is doing and deliberately trys to be different.
Yeah Blender suffers from the 'millions of crappy modelling tutorials, feck all other useful technique tutorials' problem that so much software suffers from. 3D coats painting does indeed look very sexy, a wise investment for the painting alone.
(this is why we need Andy to make a 15hour Eat 3D DVD covering everything )
Yeah, Blender tutorials always assume you're going to be making a free goofy cartoon film, with lots of emphasis on subsurf, rendering, and strange modeling techniques.
I stopped posting on Blender forums because they kept telling me to crank up the subsurf AND antialiasing...
The best one on Texture Painting that I know of is this one. He has another one on quick projection too. The thing that is confusing/unintuitive is in order to "select" the texture to paint on you select the model you want to paint on go into edit mode and then load the texture into the image editor basically ignoring the materials altogether. In other words, Blender can only paint on what is loaded in the image editor, not what is assigned to the material if that makes any sort of sense. :poly142: Blender's paint tools are very basic compared to something like 3DCoat though.
In other words, Blender can only paint on what is loaded in the image editor, not what is assigned to the material if that makes any sort of sense. :poly142:
I kind of find that handy for like, baking a render from the material onto a diffuse texture intended for a game for example, doing that over and over without recursiveness.
You mark the seam edges and lscm unrwap takes care of things .You don't need to add a modifier you can mark the edges in 3d view when you want.Max 2012 has the same exact unwrap type added (lscm).
Is the unwrapping much different in blender? I'v really gotten used to it in max.
Unwrapping in Blender is easy enough
You just mark the seams by selecting an edge in edit mode, hitting CTRL+E> Mark Seam and then hitting U> Unwrap, which will unwrap with Angle Based or Conformal methods (The option shows in the Operator panel at the bottom left of the 3d view). You can see the UVs in the UV/Image Editor, which you can access by splitting the 3d View and selecting it in the Editor Type button which is at the bottom left of each window. You can also select the UV Editing layout by picking UV Editing in the dropdown next to where it says Default in the top bar.
Options for normalizing the UV size, packing the UVs and all that jazz can be found in the UVs menu in the UV/Image Editor.
Just a quick heads up to those folks who are are using xNormal bakes in Blender.
It looks like due to Bmesh, you now have to pre-triangulate you meshes before you bake in xN (which is good practice anyway), as there will be errors when you apply the normal map in Blender if you don't (even though they are both using the same tangent space). On the test model, I didn't use ngons or anything, so I will have to dig a little deeper as to why it is causing such bad smoothing issues, where it didn't before.
Just a quick heads up to those folks who are are using xNormal bakes in Blender.
It looks like due to Bmesh, you now have to pre-triangulate you meshes before you bake in xN (which is good practice anyway), as there will be errors when you apply the normal map in Blender if you don't (even though they are both using the same tangent space). On the test model, I didn't use ngons or anything, so I will have to dig a little deeper as to why it is causing such bad smoothing issues, where it didn't before.
xnormal seems to not mind ngons in highpoly meshes, it just wasnts all tris and quads for the lowpoly which should be done anyways.
xnormal seems to not mind ngons in highpoly meshes, it just wasnts all tris and quads for the lowpoly which should be done anyways.
Yea,
I thinks its down to xNormal and Blender having different methods of triangulation now. xNormal automatically triangulates the meshes before baking and I think that since BMesh was added, the way in which the triangulation happens in Blender has changed a little, so that it is no longer such a close match.
I will try and find out some more info
Is button and tool text OK? If they are then it's possibly a GFX issue because of the way Blender overlays GUI stuff on screen. Try loading an older version (2.49 or below) to cross reference if the same issue occurs, I believe although the GUI has been redesigned, it still operates the same way under the hood.
Pablo Vazquez is currently working on some new defaults for Blender, so if any of you guys want to make some suggestions it would be great.
You can make suggestions by tweeting with the hashtag#b3defaults and see the current proposals HERE
It would be really nice to get some game dev opinions in there because I'm getting a little drowned out all by myself :P
Currently they are talking about changing the default rotation to Trackball rather than the current Turntable (which sounds crazy to me), so feel free to speak up if you don't like anything suggested.
Feel free to RT or add a +1 if you agree with my suggestions and I will do the same for you guys. Lets get some game dev/Polycount influence into Blender!
No, still no text. On both the install versions and folder versions.
That's probably going to be a GFX driver issue then if you're getting the same problem with a 2.49+/- release. Not sure you can fix that because NetBooks aren't really designed for this sort of stuff.
ya i think the 3d cursor should not be on either mouse 1 or 2, using up useful mouse keys, and in almost all cases i set my 3d cursor to the selection, or center, use the shift+s menu.
so they could just add a new entry to that to put you in a mode for manually placing the 3d cursor.
ya i think the 3d cursor should not be on either mouse 1 or 2, using up useful mouse keys, and in almost all cases i set my 3d cursor to the selection, or center, use the shift+s menu.
so they could just add a new entry to that to put you in a mode for manually placing the 3d cursor.
Yea, I agree.
Something like Box Selection would be better LMB imho
If you have a twitter account, make sure you tweet your suggestion with the #b3defaults hash tag, so people can see it
Hmm what do you think metalliandy: Alt+LMB viewport navigation, MMB cursor (i use it for snapping and such ), LMB box select,RMB dynamic spacebar addon , and SPACE object mode .
LMB is OK for rough cursor placement but that could be moved to a shortcut initiation, hold Alt then Left click or some such, that way you can do what you guys are thinking (freeing up the LMB for box selections) without changing the established way Blender does things too much.
Hmm what do you think metalliandy: Alt+LMB viewport navigation, MMB cursor (i use it for snapping and such ), LMB box select,RMB dynamic spacebar addon , and SPACE object mode .
What would yo select verts and faces with?
I dont think there is much chance of changing a bunch of stuff like that. The proposals are more to fix simple issues in the defaults that people wont mind changing. Changing the way in which Blender does all its main functions would cause quite a bit of hostility and backlash I think.
I suggested the 3d cursor because people seem to like the idea of changing it (in conversations I have had in the past etc) and freeing up the current left click for something more prominent.
But feel free to make your suggestions by tweeting them with the #b3defaults hashtag . After all, if we dont make these suggestions on Twitter, then there is little chance of getting anything fixed.
LMB is OK for rough cursor placement but that could be moved to a shortcut initiation, hold Alt then Left click or some such, that way you can do what you guys are thinking (freeing up the LMB for box selections) without changing the established way Blender does things too much.
other suggestion, in silo and voidworld, you can use lmb for doing basic selections and dragging a box selection with mmb is like doing a selection with "Limit Selection to Visible" shut off.
they are also smart about what kinda selection to use.
if i click and drag the mouse while not over a component it does a box selection, but if i click and drag while over a component it will do a paint selection.
Unwrapping in Blender is easy enough
You just mark the seams by selecting an edge in edit mode, hitting CTRL+E> Mark Seam and then hitting U> Unwrap, which will unwrap with Angle Based or Conformal methods (The option shows in the Operator panel at the bottom left of the 3d view). You can see the UVs in the UV/Image Editor, which you can access by splitting the 3d View and selecting it in the Editor Type button which is at the bottom left of each window. You can also select the UV Editing layout by picking UV Editing in the dropdown next to where it says Default in the top bar.
Options for normalizing the UV size, packing the UVs and all that jazz can be found in the UVs menu in the UV/Image Editor.
Hope that helps!
Cheers metalliandy, perfectly explained, it did help :thumbup:
Just another bump about CryBlend. This tool is shaping up nicely and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in CryEngine3 development. Angjminer, the developer is a cool guy for making this and putting it out for free. Definitely give it a spin if you use Blender and want an alternative way to make cool stuff for CryEngine.
This major rewrite updates the add-on to using the BMesh structure. I would like to use this place for thanking Paul Kotelevets for his donations, which enabled me to spend time on this update.
Download
You can download the add-on at the main LoopTools website.
At that website you'll also find a lot of documentation, explaining every single setting in the script, as well as what input each tool expects. Please note that this add-on needs a very recent build of Blender, revision 46803 or later. Blender 2.63(a) will not work.
Changes Below are the main changes. In practise this should mean all functionality which was present at the end of the Blender 2.5x series is now available for Blender 2.6x BMesh.
- Works with BMesh
- Fixed and re-enabled Bridge and Loft
- Removed workaround for Bridge selection states (your bevel-weights are safe now)
Future
Since the rewrite was so big, there might still be some bugs in this version. Please report them (copy-paste the error code from the console, or send me the .blend-file) and I'll try to fix them.
The next steps are adding a new tool (Grease Align) and expanding the functionality of the Space tool. A potential next step could be to improve the speed of all tools, though this will require some research.
What's the best place/way to make suggestions for Blender overall? I see they have IRC channels, several large forums, and Twitter. Is there maybe something like the Max uservoice where people can vote ideas to be implemented?
Unfortunately, as far as adding new features to Blender related to game art, the best way to get stuff made in is to either do it yourself or get a coder you know to make the feature for you. If only for your own sanity...
Many great ideas get drowned out by the call of shiny VFX features that the large vocal majority of Bender users seem to want and very few devs/scripters seem to want to make stuff like modelling tools etc.
I have been asking for projection cages in Blender for years without success.
Be prepared to be told to make the tool yourself by a ton of people if you post on BA (because the source is free etc.) and be flamed because you cant code or dont have time to learn etc. When it comes to stuff like that, they are not a friendly bunch.
Also GSoC won't be accepting submissions for another year, so there isnt much point in adding more stuff to those threads as proposals have already been accepted for this years event.
*edit* I thought I should also say that if you do start your own script, they can be very helpful in fixing bugs or telling you a better way to do something...it's only if you post with a cup held out that they dont like it.
Well I know several languages (MEL, Maxscript, Javascript, and bits and pieces of a few others), so that doesn't bother me too much. But many of the the things I'd like to see changed are either large features or ones that modify Blenders overall behavior.
Replies
the bevel/chamfer wont work on vertices, and there are some weird things like there being a vertex connect tool but not a edge connect tool.
also in previous 2.6 versions wanst there something called loop tools, that had some really nice stuff for working with edge loops, like making a perfect circle from a selection, and things like lofting.
mesh_looptools.py
Also, Jonathan Williamson sent me a cool bevel addon yesterday. If you set it to sharp, it makes quads
mesh_bevel_round.py
I know there's probably a ton of tut's and stuff out there, which I'll look for myself. But can anyone recommend any good tutorials for an experienced Maya user switching to blender. I'm not really interested in Modding Blender to be more like Maya btw. I prefer to keep things default. But if there are Mods/scripts maya people think i'll not be able to live without please let me know.
Ta.
http://vimeo.com/41114412
Looptools. I cant live without it now
Yea, it's not a great workflow
Here are the steps though
I searched for tutorials, it seems like there is a large amount of bad video tutorials out there for Blender. I didn't even get to the painting part, I just wanted to apply a material. I ended up purchasing 3Dcoat after giving the demo a try.
Yeah, most of the tutorials are written by folks who dont know what they're doing at all.
Sometimes it feels like blender looks at what everyone else is doing and deliberately trys to be different.
(this is why we need Andy to make a 15hour Eat 3D DVD covering everything
I stopped posting on Blender forums because they kept telling me to crank up the subsurf AND antialiasing...
Best Blender tutorial sites are usually:
CGCookie
BlenderGuru
3DBuzz
BlenderNerd
I kind of find that handy for like, baking a render from the material onto a diffuse texture intended for a game for example, doing that over and over without recursiveness.
One way to get around the convoluted way Blender handles 3d painting. Too bad most new users won't look into how to install add-ons either.
http://www.bsurfaces.info/
You just mark the seams by selecting an edge in edit mode, hitting CTRL+E> Mark Seam and then hitting U> Unwrap, which will unwrap with Angle Based or Conformal methods (The option shows in the Operator panel at the bottom left of the 3d view). You can see the UVs in the UV/Image Editor, which you can access by splitting the 3d View and selecting it in the Editor Type button which is at the bottom left of each window. You can also select the UV Editing layout by picking UV Editing in the dropdown next to where it says Default in the top bar.
Options for normalizing the UV size, packing the UVs and all that jazz can be found in the UVs menu in the UV/Image Editor.
Hope that helps!
Its pretty good, I used it over max for a while until i got uvlayout.
It looks like due to Bmesh, you now have to pre-triangulate you meshes before you bake in xN (which is good practice anyway), as there will be errors when you apply the normal map in Blender if you don't (even though they are both using the same tangent space). On the test model, I didn't use ngons or anything, so I will have to dig a little deeper as to why it is causing such bad smoothing issues, where it didn't before.
xnormal seems to not mind ngons in highpoly meshes, it just wasnts all tris and quads for the lowpoly which should be done anyways.
I thinks its down to xNormal and Blender having different methods of triangulation now. xNormal automatically triangulates the meshes before baking and I think that since BMesh was added, the way in which the triangulation happens in Blender has changed a little, so that it is no longer such a close match.
I will try and find out some more info
You can make suggestions by tweeting with the hashtag #b3defaults and see the current proposals HERE
It would be really nice to get some game dev opinions in there because I'm getting a little drowned out all by myself :P
Currently they are talking about changing the default rotation to Trackball rather than the current Turntable (which sounds crazy to me), so feel free to speak up if you don't like anything suggested.
Suggestions I have made so far are:-
- Turn "Doubled Sided" off in the Object Data> Normal panel. Would be helpful to anyone with a Fermi or above Nvidia card
- Change the default of the 3d Cursor. Personally I never assign it with LMB as it's too imprecise. Would be nice to free up LMB
- Change Bake Margin to something like 16px. 2px isn't doing anyone any good and you can never have too much padding in a bake.
Feel free to RT or add a +1 if you agree with my suggestions and I will do the same for you guys. Lets get some game dev/Polycount influence into Blender!so they could just add a new entry to that to put you in a mode for manually placing the 3d cursor.
Something like Box Selection would be better LMB imho
If you have a twitter account, make sure you tweet your suggestion with the #b3defaults hash tag, so people can see it
I dont think there is much chance of changing a bunch of stuff like that. The proposals are more to fix simple issues in the defaults that people wont mind changing. Changing the way in which Blender does all its main functions would cause quite a bit of hostility and backlash I think.
I suggested the 3d cursor because people seem to like the idea of changing it (in conversations I have had in the past etc) and freeing up the current left click for something more prominent.
But feel free to make your suggestions by tweeting them with the #b3defaults hashtag
Yea, I think that could work
they are also smart about what kinda selection to use.
if i click and drag the mouse while not over a component it does a box selection, but if i click and drag while over a component it will do a paint selection.
Cheers metalliandy, perfectly explained, it did help :thumbup:
[ame="
Really? F*n awesome. Looking forward to the next release then.
You will need a new build from Graphicall for it to work...2.63a isnt new enough
Many great ideas get drowned out by the call of shiny VFX features that the large vocal majority of Bender users seem to want and very few devs/scripters seem to want to make stuff like modelling tools etc.
I have been asking for projection cages in Blender for years without success.
Be prepared to be told to make the tool yourself by a ton of people if you post on BA (because the source is free etc.) and be flamed because you cant code or dont have time to learn etc. When it comes to stuff like that, they are not a friendly bunch.
Also GSoC won't be accepting submissions for another year, so there isnt much point in adding more stuff to those threads as proposals have already been accepted for this years event.
*edit* I thought I should also say that if you do start your own script, they can be very helpful in fixing bugs or telling you a better way to do something...it's only if you post with a cup held out that they dont like it.
This thread shows a ton of promise for making it a more friendly app to work with:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?255753-GSoC-User-Interface-Tasklist/page1
Edit: And posted there. With any luck maybe something will come of it.