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  • Rayek
    A new LWO exporter is available that also exports vertex normals (an add-on for custom vertex normals is compatible with this exporter).

    Tthe exporter is idTech compatible - might be interesting to some people here.

    http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?336749-The-LWO-import-export-project
  • ivanzu
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    ivanzu polycounter lvl 10
    Does anyone have proper 3DSmax-Maya configs,I'm finding integrated ones pretty confusing and not close to 3dsmax ones.
  • Michael Knubben
    Ivanzu: I'd set it up yourself, honestly. You can't just shoehorn another program's setup into a new program, so I just got used to the defaults to understand the workflow and then started adjusting it (lmb select, ofcourse, and Maya-style viewport controls).
  • liquidape
  • ivanzu
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    ivanzu polycounter lvl 10
    I just keep getting black AO map.
  • James Ordner
    ivanzu wrote: »
    I just keep getting black AO map.

    Make sure your cage is on a different, inactive layer. It's considered in the bake for some reason.
  • cookedpeanut
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    cookedpeanut polycounter lvl 12
    Anyone know how to replicate this in Blender?
    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2015562&postcount=552

    I managed to set the whole system up, however the cloth just drapes down and stretches/tangles in on itself rather than giving the smooth, puffy result in Jurassic's post.
  • ivanzu
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    ivanzu polycounter lvl 10
    Make sure your cage is on a different, inactive layer. It's considered in the bake for some reason.

    Thanks its working now!
  • liquidape
    Anyone know how to replicate this in Blender?

    Here is my attempt - It is sure not smooth - you would have to somehow pin the other edge of the cloth I think so it stays tight. This could work for a final result though after baking it down and then sculpting final result.

    http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29798
  • cookedpeanut
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    cookedpeanut polycounter lvl 12
    liquidape wrote: »
    Here is my attempt - It is sure not smooth - you would have to somehow pin the other edge of the cloth I think so it stays tight. This could work for a final result though after baking it down and then sculpting final result.

    http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29798

    Thanks, that's the problem I had - I found that you'd need some sort of tension to create the nice layering effect. As I stated in another thread, the tutorial that Jurassic posted shows the cloth wrapping at the point it touches the handle, everywhere else it's free-floating in the air. In blender the cloth simply drapes down because of the gravity. I'm wondering how he kept it straight while still allowing it to wrap...
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Make sure your cage is on a different, inactive layer. It's considered in the bake for some reason.

    You absolutely shouldn't have to do this. The cage should only account for the ray projection and nothing else. Sounds like a bug to me. I will have a word with Dalai.
  • mAlkAv!An
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    mAlkAv!An polycounter lvl 5
    You'll only need to toggle the cages' renderability in the outliner, just like with all objects which should not contribute to ao baking.
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    mAlkAv!An wrote: »
    You'll only need to toggle the cages' renderability in the outliner, just like with all objects which should not contribute to ao baking.

    Right, but it shouldn't be something the user has to do. The cage only should affect ray casting.
  • mAlkAv!An
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    mAlkAv!An polycounter lvl 5
    Right I'm with you, pretty sure Dalai will get it fixed.
    By then, this was meant as an alternative solution to using multiple layers.
  • Jonathan
    Does the new version of light baking via Cycles support baking the lighting data to vertex colors?

    If not, perhaps I'll just write a Python script for it (i.e.-to convert a light map to vertex colors). However, just doing it completely while rendering, without using a light map would be more efficient.
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    mAlkAv!An wrote: »
    Right I'm with you, pretty sure Dalai will get it fixed.
    By then, this was meant as an alternative solution to using multiple layers.
    Dalai just fixed the AO cage bug in master and it will be in the next RC for 2.71.

    I don't ever use layers really as I prefer using the outliner and empties as groups for organisation. :)
  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    I know about the irc channels, but is there a Skype group for Blender users too?

    Also, any word on the drag-drop custom toolshelf feature? Last I asked (about half a year ago) it wasn't quite done yet.
  • Yadoob
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    Yadoob polycounter lvl 7
    Blender 2.71 just released !! http://www.blender.org/features/2-71/
    Lots of features for game artists as split normals, FBX 7.4 exporter, Cycles baking, new HSL color wheel for texture painting...

    Download it here : http://www.blender.org/download/ and if you find a bug, please report it here : https://developer.blender.org/

    Blender 2.72 is on his way now with better FBX exporter for animations (shape keys), the full Paint set integretated and other stuff coming !
  • RobeOmega
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    RobeOmega polycounter lvl 10
    Yadoob wrote: »
    Blender 2.71 just released !! http://www.blender.org/features/2-71/
    Lots of features for game artists as split normals, FBX 7.4 exporter, Cycles baking, new HSL color wheel for texture painting...

    Download it here : http://www.blender.org/download/ and if you find a bug, please report it here : https://developer.blender.org/

    Blender 2.72 is on his way now with better FBX exporter for animations (shape keys), the full Paint set integretated and other stuff coming !

    Nvm then not switching over to Max over the summer then :D
  • jana
    cool. cant wait for Blender 7.2

    it gets better and better.
  • kneedeepinthedoomed
  • weee
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    weee polycounter lvl 3
    hoping they are bringing the opensubdiv to 2.72, its great to see blender constantly evolving and being driven by a healthy and faithful community over the years, can't see why it can't play major roles in the industries if its becoming even more indie oriented in the next 5-10 years.
  • liquidape
    Retopo workflow is coming along VERY nicely in contours addon from CGCookie crew Check it out! 1.1 brings some pretty awesome new features to the table. http://cgcookie.com/downloads/contours-retopology-tool/
  • carter2422
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    carter2422 polycounter lvl 6
    liquidape wrote: »
    Retopo workflow is coming along VERY nicely in contours addon from CGCookie crew Check it out! 1.1 brings some pretty awesome new features to the table. http://cgcookie.com/downloads/contours-retopology-tool/

    Thanks for the plug man! The best part about 1.1 being released is we now get to really start in on the Poly Strips development.
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Hope you all enjoy the cage stuff in 2.71, guys :)
    There is some more work to be done for sure, but it was awesome to be able to finally get it implemented after all these years of wanting and many months of work with Dalai (since Oct. 2013).
    If you find any bugs or have any questions let me know.

    I made .blend for testing the cages which is available to download. It's designed to stress test all the baking functionality along with the synchronisation of the tangent basis and renderer. It's all in the read me. :)
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2057427/Blender/Normal_Map_Stress_Test.zip

    Hopefully it will be moved to a more permanent location soon.
  • Frankie
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    Frankie polycounter lvl 19
    Doesn't work with unity auto import, any ideas whats up with that?
  • Nina I.
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    Nina I. polycounter lvl 5
    That Blender Contours Retopology Tool looks great! Thanks for bringing it up!
  • Dashiva
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    Dashiva triangle
    Any word on being able to edit vertex normals?
  • mAlkAv!An
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    mAlkAv!An polycounter lvl 5
    I think it's on mont29' larger todo list.
    However there are some user-addons which allow export of custom vertex normals (FBX6.1):
    https://forums.epicgames.com/threads/986388-Blender-UDK-FBX-Tools-Addon
  • Pancakes
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    Pancakes polycounter lvl 10
  • Dashiva
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    Dashiva triangle
    http://graphicall.org/1125

    Ask and ye shall receive on the vertex normals apparently.

    Also I just realized I can use clara.io for normals editing, so that makes things simple. Model in blender and tweak normals that I need to in clara.
  • kneedeepinthedoomed
    The vertex normals modifier is awesome. One of the only gamedev-related things still missing from Blender.
  • liquidape
    New Tweet from Ton: EpicGames donates 10k euro (13.5k usd) to Blender Development Fund. Is support for more FBX work + epic-game-style nagivation controls. #b3d
  • Pancakes
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    Pancakes polycounter lvl 10
    liquidape wrote: »
    New Tweet from Ton: EpicGames donates 10k euro (13.5k usd) to Blender Development Fund. Is support for more FBX work + epic-game-style nagivation controls. #b3d

    Oh


    EM


    JEe



    Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. Epic is no ordinary company to do that. Dayum son.

    that's +13.5k cool points in my book!
  • Dataday
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    Dataday polycounter lvl 8
    To be perfectly honest, I dont trust Ton to make proper use of those funds as he has left little to trust in the past. He has been far more interested in putting his film making career first and using funds for those purposes in the name of "blender development". Lets hope it gets to the point where he will not be able to ignore the vast majority of its user base and potential user base, which is asking for more love with the game specific pipeline.
  • Ruka
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    Ruka polycounter lvl 5
    liquidape wrote: »
    New Tweet from Ton: EpicGames donates 10k euro (13.5k usd) to Blender Development Fund. Is support for more FBX work + epic-game-style nagivation controls. #b3d

    Wow that is great!

    We already see a lot love for game artists lately. And now Epic donates a really generous amount on top of that.
    That shows that Blender actually is taken serious in this particular market.
  • Pancakes
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    Pancakes polycounter lvl 10
    Dataday wrote: »
    To be perfectly honest, I dont trust Ton to make proper use of those funds as he has left little to trust in the past. He has been far more interested in putting his film making career first and using funds for those purposes in the name of "blender development". Lets hope it gets to the point where he will not be able to ignore the vast majority of its user base and potential user base, which is asking for more love with the game specific pipeline.

    Now, now. I'm pretty sure you understand that Ton has been the glue keeping blender project together all this time. There have been many small meltdowns here and there, and it's people's trust in Ton that has resolved many of them.

    You may not agree with his vision but I believe everything he's done with blender funds has been "on the level". There is no way that "blender minded" people would tolerate anything less than that.
  • stry
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    stry polycounter lvl 11
    To be perfectly honest, I dont trust Ton to make proper use of those funds as he has left little to trust in the past. He has been far more interested in putting his film making career first and using funds for those purposes in the name of "blender development".

    Blender has been aiming towards VFX type stuff for a long time. It's slightly frustrating seeing how much effort is being put into that, coming from the game dev side.

    That being said, pretty much everything seems kosher on their side, as far as allocation of funds and the general development process goes. Big part of making good software is making sure you eat your own dog food, which makes projects like Sintel extremely important and a good way to see what works and what doesn't, and what features need to be implemented.
  • passerby
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    passerby polycounter lvl 12
    Really it has come a long way, I think they need to get vertex normal editing into the main builds. FBX has improved a lot over the last 2 years.

    I want to see a really good Maya and Max presets made, since it seems a lot of people are getting fed up with autodesk. So would help to ease the transition.

    Even just the basic key commands for manipulator selection, component selection, and navigation would be nice.

    Also UV editor iirc there is no easy way to snap to a user defined grid. Which is pretty needed for lightmap uvs, and for working with trim sheets.
  • James Ordner
    passerby wrote: »
    Also UV editor iirc there is no easy way to snap to a user defined grid. Which is pretty needed for lightmap uvs, and for working with trim sheets.

    I always just work from a 32x32 (or whatever you need) image and turn on "Snap to Pixels". Works like a charm.
  • passerby
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    passerby polycounter lvl 12
    I always just work from a 32x32 (or whatever you need) image and turn on "Snap to Pixels". Works like a charm.

    Still a stupid hack for what should be there.
  • James Ordner
  • passerby
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    passerby polycounter lvl 12
    Ya UV tools just seem limiting last time I tried it, lack of grid like I mentioned, stich and sew seems kinda sketchy.
    The tools seem OK for organic unwraps, but if I'm doing hard surface and just want to planar map selections and move and sew it starts to fall apart.

    Things like alignment tools would be nice too, but those can easily be added via scripting.
  • James Ordner
    Alignment tools are something I really miss that I used in Max. In the editor, select an edge, loop select, ring select, then hit align and the entire island is straight. In blender I have to go loop by loop.
  • liquidape
    If you guys need tools for gamedev that don't exist - be sure to put them in the gamedev request list here: http://goo.gl/URvTSu

    It's the main list that the hired Blender gamedev coders are using to tackle problems with gamedev workflow in Blender.

    @Dataday - I think you are confusing "Donation" and "Work for Hire". These companies have every right to hire a Blender Dev and dictate what work they do. A donation implies that they trust the foundation to make the best choices for the software. They can obviously state where they prefer that work to go, but if it's not in best interest of overall software goals, the foundation does not have to take that route. I'm also assuming you are referring to the previous Valve donation - which was used to Hire 2 Devs to work solely on gamedev related topics. I really don't see that as a misappropriation of funds. The only reason you claim that is was misappropriated was because the foundation claimed the 10k as a donation for the gooseberry project. In the end - it's just 10k to help Blender in one way or another. If they tackle VFX issues and get them done - that will leave time to work on other tasks in the future.
  • Dataday
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    Dataday polycounter lvl 8
    liquidape wrote: »
    @Dataday - I think you are confusing "Donation" and "Work for Hire". These companies have every right to hire a Blender Dev and dictate what work they do. A donation implies that they trust the foundation to make the best choices for the software. They can obviously state where they prefer that work to go, but if it's not in best interest of overall software goals, the foundation does not have to take that route. I'm also assuming you are referring to the previous Valve donation - which was used to Hire 2 Devs to work solely on gamedev related topics. I really don't see that as a misappropriation of funds. The only reason you claim that is was misappropriated was because the foundation claimed the 10k as a donation for the gooseberry project. In the end - it's just 10k to help Blender in one way or another. If they tackle VFX issues and get them done - that will leave time to work on other tasks in the future.


    I am not confused...and I agree they have a "right" to hire their own developers. But as history has shown, their developments are not always welcome by the Blender Foundation. Dont forget that there's far more information at play here that puts my concern in a proper context. For example, the blog post by Ton saying funds from the valve steamworkshop will go towards development specifically for the game asset creation field. This naturally spawned a massive google document list with needed features and tools, which if I am not mistaken you are responsible for. It wasnt a bad idea at all. Talking with Ton once on IRC, he outright stated that more funds from that particular market place would increase industry specific development priorities...

    Additionally, dont forget that the steam workshop funds were not a VALVE donation. Those funds are from artist who chose to give a % of their earnings to the Blender Foundation so that it can further that area of development. In otherwords, its from users.

    Over time Ton has shown himself to be extremely inconsistent, with funds going towards film projects which he produces rather than specific and targeted development. He claims he has no power, but actually exercises constantly.

    So its not so much about confusion, but far more to do with consistency and honesty. Its no secret his passion has been in producing these film projects either, and priorities seem to always go towards what he wants/likes and very little else.
  • Ruka
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    Ruka polycounter lvl 5
    Dataday wrote: »
    I am confusing nothing. Dont forget that there's far more information at play here that puts my concern in a proper context. For example, the blog post by Ton saying funds from the valve steamworkshop will go towards development specifically for the game asset creation field. This naturally spawned a massive google document list with needed features and tools, which I know you are aware of. Talking with Ton once on IRC, he outright stated that more funds from that particular market place would increase industry specific development priorities...

    Additionally, dont forget that the steam workshop funds were not a VALVE donation. Those funds are from artist who chose to give a % of their earnings to the Blender Foundation so that it can further that area of development. In otherwords, its from users.

    Over time Ton has shown himself to be extremely inconsistent, with funds going towards film projects which he produces rather than specific and targeted development. He claims he has no power, but actually exercises constantly.

    So its hardly an issue of being confused. It has everything to do with not expecting consistency from someone who has shown they cant be entirely trusted to mean what they say. Its no secret his passion has been in producing these film projects either, and priorities seem to always go towards what he wants/likes and very little else.

    I really don't get what you complain about?
    Didn't Ton grant funds to Bastien, Mitchell or Dalai for game related work over the last half year?

    Saying that he is probably going to use that money from Epic for his own stuff is pure speculation/guessing on your side. It's near defamation what you do here.

    Really if you're a Blender user be happy about that donation, instead of spreading conspiracy theories.
  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Jeez..

    We have made more head way with game dev related features in the past 9 months than in the past 3 or 4 years. The money is being spent well so we have little to complain about in that regard.
    This stuff takes a crazy amount of time to code and test. Dalai and I have been working on cages since October and they have only just been released in an official build. The features will come but they take time to get right.
    When game dev features stop getting added then complain about it.
  • Ruka
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    Ruka polycounter lvl 5
    Jeez..

    We have made more head way with game dev related features in the past 9 months than in the past 3 or 4 years. The money is being spent well so we have little to complain about in that regard.
    This stuff takes a crazy amount of time to code and test. Dalai and I have been working on cages since October and they have only just been released in an official build. The features will come but they take time to get right.
    When game dev features stop getting added then complain about it.

    Couldn't agree more.
    That negativity from certain people is unbearable. Why not be thankful about the huge leaps in the game art department, Blender did in this short amount of time.

    Love the baking btw.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Additionally, dont forget that the steam workshop funds were not a VALVE donation. Those funds are from artist who chose to give a % of their earnings to the Blender Foundation so that it can further that area of development. In otherwords, its from users.

    Actually, I am pretty sure that's not the case. The Steam Workshop third party revenue allocation (going to third parties like Polycount, the Blender foundation, Xnormal, and so on) is taken from the 75% "Valve split". At least that was the case last time I checked the terms of the revenue allocation page.

    Now of course there is no way to know how much of their own revenue Valve decides to give to these third parties (it could be anything from 1% of their 75%, to 99% of their 75% - who knows !), but the money is not directly donated by the artists submitting workshop items. Unless Valve is flat out lying on the revenue allocation page, but I doubt it ...

    I hope this clarifies things a little !

    [edit] more information :
    http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/about/?appid=440
13435373940139
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