Actually I forgot about the thing where you have to start with a base mesh of exactly 1k-4k polygons that are evenly spaced to get good perf with multires on my machine. I also didn't know about the trick where you can apply base on the multires of a mesh, duplicate it, subdivide it one last time to get that mesh resolution, apply the multires modifier on that, sculpt it until it looks good, go over to the other mesh, delete all subdivisions above zero, subdivide it until it has the same number of points, and reshape the multiresolution modifier. It's still easier to get the performance out of Zbrush but this seems like it could work for my purposes, and being able to use Blender's procedural noises as brush alphas is really nice.
Also just as a FYI : another way to support Blender financially (as well as Polycount, Marmoset, Xnormal and Handplane too !) is through Steam Workshop revenue sharing. In short : a fraction of what Valve earns on item sales can be redirected to approved third parties, if the item creator so choses.
Regarding viewport performance : I will try to test it furhter, but I am a little puzzled that this video shows an example under Blender Render viewport, which is noticeably slower than Cycles Viewport (why it is the case I have no idea, but there is a definite difference). Can't wait to dig into this a little further.
Is it slower even by using "OpenGL" under "Shading" on the "N" panel?
Anyway, really excited about the new skin modifier!!! That's great news!
It is a bit hard to tell because there are many different options affecting performance : GLSL or Multitexture, "Textured Solid" enabled or not, Solid/Texture/Material in the viewport options, and so on ... In general I personally always end up using the Cycles Viewport because I feel like it is the fastest under most circumstances, but I would love to know if there is now a better setting (which goes back to my question about where to find an exemple file clearly showing the recent viewport performance boost )
Regarding the viewport performance I can tell after only a quick test that it improved a lot in my case.
Previously rotating a 1.5mio verts scene was stuttering like hell (guess 2-5fps), now ~30mio feels smooth.
Did have a chance yet to test different settings like cycles, BI, anti-aliasing.
In any case, huge improvement for me, very happy with that!
Also just as a FYI : another way to support Blender financially (as well as Polycount, Marmoset, Xnormal and Handplane too !) is through Steam Workshop revenue sharing. In short : a fraction of what Valve earns on item sales can be redirected to approved third parties, if the item creator so choses.
Make sure you do that during the submission.
Even though the options are still there afterwards you cannot setup the sharing anymore.
I made that mistake :poly127:
Ha, unfortunately I am not seeing anything of that kind here on my setup I just tried it with a 6 million triangles mesh coming straight from Zbrush as OBJ (something I would never normally do, as I tend to decimate anything that I want to manipulate outside of Zbrush since anything under 60 fps feels unworkable for me) and I am getting the following (the original Zbrush model contains 11 subtools) :
2.74 : roughly 1 fps
2.76rc : 4 fps
Definitely a performance gain, but nothing that would let me manipulate a 30 million triangles scene smoothly. And on top of that importing the OBJ alone took more than 2 minutes in each case, making this workflow pretty much unuseable.
Now of course every computer is different, and terms like "smoothly" are highly relative and subjective - so if you don't mind I'd love to try your example scene to see there is noticeable difference with it on my end !
(also, just to be clear : a potential 4x performance increase *is* indeed a very cool thing, no doubt about that. I just wish I could clearly see it )
With VBOs checked in User Preferences, subsurf models in Object mode are definitely faster (basically as fast as multires modifier with VBOs on). Other than that, the speed improvements aren't super dramatic here either.
This page right at the top lists exactly what was changed as well as links to the specific commits if you guys didn't see it.
My test was really basic, I just subdivide Suzanne 7 times and copied her 2 time.
Just did that again, 24mio verts, 48mio tris, according to fraps 24fps while rotation with AA on, 32fps without AA.
As a quick tip, you can only go up to six subdivisions using the arrow button on the Subsurf Modifier, but if you actually click to enter a number from your keyboard, you can enter higher numbers. That way you could have seven (or more) subdivisions on a single modifier.
Alright, I am finally seeing the difference. I am getting 60 fps on a monkey divided 4 times in 2.76rc, as opposed to 30 fps in 2.74. So roughly a 2x increase in performance for this simple scene, and this seems to be consistent with what I am seeing in more normal "work" scenes too. I wouldn't quite call that a massive viewport performance boost, but 2x is already excellent
Alright, I am finally seeing the difference. I am getting 60 fps on a monkey divided 4 times in 2.76rc, as opposed to 30 fps in 2.74. So roughly a 2x increase in performance for this simple scene, and this seems to be consistent with what I am seeing in more normal "work" scenes too. I wouldn't quite call that a massive viewport performance boost, but 2x is already excellent
so, do you only see that speedup when rotating a model in the viewport or is selecting and manipulating elements of the asset faster as well?
Oh sorry people! haha, it's because since I was learning it, I would post progress of my learning as I would go along. I've come a long way now. Forgive me for the latest posts, I'll create a new thread on another forum..:D
- On my setup, in both cases (2.74 and 2.76rc), manipulating one or more verts within a lvl4 monkey head results in 22fps in polygonal cage mode, and 16fps in smoothed cage mode. OpenGL Select/Occlusion doesn't seem to cause any performance loss or gain in my case, hence I leave it to automatic.
- The time required to actively select an object (that is to say, the delay between clicking on a model and the outline actually appearing and the outliner updating itself) seems unchanged between 2.74 and 2.76rc - in both cases, it takes too long, maybe a few milliseconds. That's definitely noticeable for anyone coming from a program where this operation is instantaneous. This delay seems to increase with scene complexity.
- I just noticed that in 2.74, I can get up to 60fps when rotating the lvl4 monkey head ... but only if it is not selected, or if the outline display is turned off altogether. Selecting or displaying the outline causes the framerate to go back down to 30fps. Therefore there was definite work being done on that for 2.76rc. Furthermore, if I set the shading of the monkey head to smooth, framerate in 2.74 (with the model selected) goes back up to 60fps again, whereas in 2.76rc I am getting 60fps in both cases (smooth and flat).
- When duplicating a lvl4 monkey head 8 times (with smooth shading), interacting with the viewport with nothing selected gives me :
2.76rc : 30fps
2.74 : 15fps
When selecting all 8 monkey heads, it drops to :
2.76rc : 20fps
2.74 : 10fps
Oh sorry people! haha, it's because since I was learning it, I would post progress of my learning as I would go along. I've come a long way now. Forgive me for the latest posts, I'll create a new thread on another forum..:D
Can you tell me what theme and font that is, really liking the minimalist style. Otherwise well hyped for the hard surface tools, can't get enough of them these days.
CGCookie open their tutorials : More than 300 quality tutorials for free !
Anything game-specific in the lot? I followed some of their stuff a long time ago but it seemed to me that the founder wasn't really doing things from an angle that mattered for game art.
There are a couple game-specific in there, but they're probably pretty out of date.
I wonder how their site is doing since their change of direction -- seems to be a lot less buzz around it than there used to be, but maybe it's just me.
For some reason Blender (2.75) freezes my computer completely when creating a bezier curve and edting it, after a little while. No other choise but reboot.
Everything else, like normal modeling tools, UV unwrapping/editing and even something heavy stuff on the viewport, etc. don't affect at all. I can work normally.
Recently I downloaded this add-on for making stylized hair, but the add-on itself works fine without problems, even though it's about curves.
Not after I tried Blender 2.76-rc2 which is working fine. And my guess is that this addon probably bugged original curves on 2.75 somehow. Version 0.1 tells a lot of the stability of that addon...
Has anyone on Polycount made a Blender addon list? It'd be interesting to see what everyone uses.
I know this sounds sort of idiotic, but until I activated the 'Testing' category under the addons panel I was never aware of just HOW MUCH was already added into the program.
As for a list, well It depends I suppose. I like hard surface modeling so my addon repository is aimed towards that solely.
I understand the difference between the multires modifier and the dyntopo approach to sculpting. Based on about 2 different posts I've seen it seems that there is more favor for dyntopo over multires sculpting. I am currently using the multires approach based solely on the need to create a normal map for my low poly base mesh and I can create a low poly base mesh by duplicating the high poly mesh and reverting the subdivision back to 1.
The problem that I have with this is that the base mesh can be very low poly and disfigured and I'm not sure what impact this can have on the completed asset in comparison to having created a slightly more structured base mesh and dyntopo sculpting on that mesh.
So which approach have YOU found to work the most convenient?
I am currently using the multires approach based solely on the need to create a normal map for my low poly base mesh and I can create a low poly base mesh by duplicating the high poly mesh and reverting the subdivision back to 1
There is absolutely no need for your lowpoly mesh to be the level0 of your highpoly. Just use whatever highpoly modeling technique that is the best suited to the specific needs of the given asset you are working on, and bake that to an appropriately built lowpoly model created especially for that purpose.
There is absolutely no need for your lowpoly mesh to be the level0 of your highpoly. Just use the best suited highpoly modeling technique for the specific needs of the given asset you are working on, and bake that to an appropriately built lowpoly model created especially for that purpose.
Sounds great!
I'm trying to picture how I can create a base mesh that's similar enough to the high poly mesh. I think retopo might be the best way.
Thanks for the prompt response :thumbup:
Edit: Okay so I'm watching CGCookie's Intro to Dynamic Topology and it discusses the pros and cons of using Multiresolution Modifier, where it benefits doing a detailed pass on a mesh and it falls short when attempting to massively restructure the mesh as a result of the multires modifier not subdividing the mesh areas that are touched by the brush, leaving you with the only option to continuously subdivide the entire mesh solely for the areas that are excessively deformed. Just a bit more supporting evidence for those that are wondering the same thing.
I basically want to beable to press and hold alt x while in pose mode then scroll with the mouse wheel and it move the keyframe of the currently selected objects then release alt x to confirm.
Pastebin link is as far as I could think it though but I don't really know what I'm doing.
I basically want to beable to press and hold alt x while in pose mode then scroll with the mouse wheel and it move the keyframe of the currently selected objects then release alt x to confirm.
Pastebin link is as far as I could think it though but I don't really know what I'm doing.
I know nothing about coding, but I'd suggest you to go to #blender and #blendercode IRC and also on Blender's Artist "Beginning Blender Code" session.
I don't know whether this is the place to ask really but maybe someone has had this happen to them as well.
So about an hour ago the fracking power went out and I was in the middle of saving a Blender file and now Blender won't recognize the file. A new file has been created that has an @ appended to Blend (Blend@ File). I tried opening the blend1 and Blend file as well as the newly generated Blend@ file and Blender states that the file format isn't supported. Is this the end of my files or might there be a way to fix it? These are two files to be exact. Any insight would be appreciated.
In my opinion this might be the end of my two files because I was working on these files while my computer was asleep day after day, meaning I didn't power down my computer while working on these files. After power came back up I powered up my box and there was a problem with the output and so I shut it down manually and rebooted it. I think I may have fracked up the temporary resume state upon doing that. This can't be happening :poly127:
You can retrieve your file by two ways : in File/Recover auto-save which shows last version automatically saved of your file Otherwise, you can manually remove the "1" of .blend1 and then open it in Blender.
Hallelujah! So I went the manual way and looked in my temporary directory which is where my blend files are saved. I don't know if it's a case of using a zip Blender package or what not.
I believe the built in Blender recovery function uses the temporary file directory in its recovery.
Is anyone else experiencing input lag in texture paint mode in the newer versions of Blender? Every time I make a stroke I have to wait for a second or so for it to "catch up" and then things are good, until I let go of the stroke.
I noticed it when painting in 2.75 this morning, so I thought it was probably fixed in the newer version 2.76, but no dice. I ended up going back to 2.74 which was able to remove the lag.
The geometry is quite simple (<1000 tris) and my texture resolution isn't anything extreme (2k) so I'm not sure why the new version is being such a bear.
Hm... It seems like it is related to painting on images with an alpha channel, as trying on a default cube didn't give me any issues until I tried adding in the previous texture (a saved out PNG file that has an irrelevant alpha channel at the moment).
Replies
Edit: noticed Yadoob already mentioned it.
Anyway, really excited about the new skin modifier!!! That's great news!
It is a bit hard to tell because there are many different options affecting performance : GLSL or Multitexture, "Textured Solid" enabled or not, Solid/Texture/Material in the viewport options, and so on ... In general I personally always end up using the Cycles Viewport because I feel like it is the fastest under most circumstances, but I would love to know if there is now a better setting (which goes back to my question about where to find an exemple file clearly showing the recent viewport performance boost
Previously rotating a 1.5mio verts scene was stuttering like hell (guess 2-5fps), now ~30mio feels smooth.
Did have a chance yet to test different settings like cycles, BI, anti-aliasing.
In any case, huge improvement for me, very happy with that!
Make sure you do that during the submission.
Even though the options are still there afterwards you cannot setup the sharing anymore.
I made that mistake :poly127:
2.74 : roughly 1 fps
2.76rc : 4 fps
Definitely a performance gain, but nothing that would let me manipulate a 30 million triangles scene smoothly. And on top of that importing the OBJ alone took more than 2 minutes in each case, making this workflow pretty much unuseable.
Now of course every computer is different, and terms like "smoothly" are highly relative and subjective - so if you don't mind I'd love to try your example scene to see there is noticeable difference with it on my end !
(also, just to be clear : a potential 4x performance increase *is* indeed a very cool thing, no doubt about that. I just wish I could clearly see it
This page right at the top lists exactly what was changed as well as links to the specific commits if you guys didn't see it.
Just did that again, 24mio verts, 48mio tris, according to fraps 24fps while rotation with AA on, 32fps without AA.
I'm working a lil animation test in my free time to see if she really holds up..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udnuWYrWqG4&feature=youtu.be
It's still in a blocking phase and since it's my firt time animating inside the soft, it's taking a lil time to get used to all the stuff.
The facials work for basic motion but can break easily. My biggest complaint is that I cant get the exact mouth shape I want and it's frustrating..
I'm thinking of adding some bones since as of now, it's all shapes except the jaw...
Here it is on GumRoad:
https://gumroad.com/l/hardops/#
I've actually been wondering this same thing too for a while...
so, do you only see that speedup when rotating a model in the viewport or is selecting and manipulating elements of the asset faster as well?
I guess in that case (speedup for selecting of assets) the OpenGL Occlusion Queries selection method helps a lot.
- On my setup, in both cases (2.74 and 2.76rc), manipulating one or more verts within a lvl4 monkey head results in 22fps in polygonal cage mode, and 16fps in smoothed cage mode. OpenGL Select/Occlusion doesn't seem to cause any performance loss or gain in my case, hence I leave it to automatic.
- The time required to actively select an object (that is to say, the delay between clicking on a model and the outline actually appearing and the outliner updating itself) seems unchanged between 2.74 and 2.76rc - in both cases, it takes too long, maybe a few milliseconds. That's definitely noticeable for anyone coming from a program where this operation is instantaneous. This delay seems to increase with scene complexity.
- I just noticed that in 2.74, I can get up to 60fps when rotating the lvl4 monkey head ... but only if it is not selected, or if the outline display is turned off altogether. Selecting or displaying the outline causes the framerate to go back down to 30fps. Therefore there was definite work being done on that for 2.76rc. Furthermore, if I set the shading of the monkey head to smooth, framerate in 2.74 (with the model selected) goes back up to 60fps again, whereas in 2.76rc I am getting 60fps in both cases (smooth and flat).
- When duplicating a lvl4 monkey head 8 times (with smooth shading), interacting with the viewport with nothing selected gives me :
2.76rc : 30fps
2.74 : 15fps
When selecting all 8 monkey heads, it drops to :
2.76rc : 20fps
2.74 : 10fps
Here too, a 2x performance boost.
I hope this answers your question !
Can you tell me what theme and font that is, really liking the minimalist style. Otherwise well hyped for the hard surface tools, can't get enough of them these days.
It does look like a very clean UI
Theme and image are from Manu J
The font was difficult to read, so fixed that.
Added red face selecting and re-colored the knife tool. Much easier to see.
...and a few little other things.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7741113/moyo_max.xml
Edit:
Next update for the theme, trying to push the flat aesthetics...
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7741113/flatty_moyo.xml
[ame]
(you need a CGcookie account)
Anything game-specific in the lot? I followed some of their stuff a long time ago but it seemed to me that the founder wasn't really doing things from an angle that mattered for game art.
I wonder how their site is doing since their change of direction -- seems to be a lot less buzz around it than there used to be, but maybe it's just me.
Everything else, like normal modeling tools, UV unwrapping/editing and even something heavy stuff on the viewport, etc. don't affect at all. I can work normally.
Recently I downloaded this add-on for making stylized hair, but the add-on itself works fine without problems, even though it's about curves.
[ame]
Oh nice one. I missed that and probably 100 other good addons.
Has anyone on Polycount made a Blender addon list? It'd be interesting to see what everyone uses.
I know this sounds sort of idiotic, but until I activated the 'Testing' category under the addons panel I was never aware of just HOW MUCH was already added into the program.
As for a list, well It depends I suppose. I like hard surface modeling so my addon repository is aimed towards that solely.
Here's a good website which shows you addons and short previews for them:
http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.co.uk/
Couldn't have come at a better time. Thanks for informing!
The problem that I have with this is that the base mesh can be very low poly and disfigured and I'm not sure what impact this can have on the completed asset in comparison to having created a slightly more structured base mesh and dyntopo sculpting on that mesh.
So which approach have YOU found to work the most convenient?
There is absolutely no need for your lowpoly mesh to be the level0 of your highpoly. Just use whatever highpoly modeling technique that is the best suited to the specific needs of the given asset you are working on, and bake that to an appropriately built lowpoly model created especially for that purpose.
Sounds great!
I'm trying to picture how I can create a base mesh that's similar enough to the high poly mesh. I think retopo might be the best way.
Thanks for the prompt response :thumbup:
Edit: Okay so I'm watching CGCookie's Intro to Dynamic Topology and it discusses the pros and cons of using Multiresolution Modifier, where it benefits doing a detailed pass on a mesh and it falls short when attempting to massively restructure the mesh as a result of the multires modifier not subdividing the mesh areas that are touched by the brush, leaving you with the only option to continuously subdivide the entire mesh solely for the areas that are excessively deformed. Just a bit more supporting evidence for those that are wondering the same thing.
http://pastebin.com/xjj4R648
I basically want to beable to press and hold alt x while in pose mode then scroll with the mouse wheel and it move the keyframe of the currently selected objects then release alt x to confirm.
Pastebin link is as far as I could think it though but I don't really know what I'm doing.
Good luck on this
So about an hour ago the fracking power went out and I was in the middle of saving a Blender file and now Blender won't recognize the file. A new file has been created that has an @ appended to Blend (Blend@ File). I tried opening the blend1 and Blend file as well as the newly generated Blend@ file and Blender states that the file format isn't supported. Is this the end of my files or might there be a way to fix it? These are two files to be exact. Any insight would be appreciated.
In my opinion this might be the end of my two files because I was working on these files while my computer was asleep day after day, meaning I didn't power down my computer while working on these files. After power came back up I powered up my box and there was a problem with the output and so I shut it down manually and rebooted it. I think I may have fracked up the temporary resume state upon doing that. This can't be happening :poly127:
Thank you.
I believe the built in Blender recovery function uses the temporary file directory in its recovery.
Nonetheless thanks for the prompt response.
I noticed it when painting in 2.75 this morning, so I thought it was probably fixed in the newer version 2.76, but no dice. I ended up going back to 2.74 which was able to remove the lag.
The geometry is quite simple (<1000 tris) and my texture resolution isn't anything extreme (2k) so I'm not sure why the new version is being such a bear.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?383004-WIP-generate-mesh-from-hair%28with-UVs%29
Still a WIP, but I'm really looking forward to this to make low poly hair
Here the features list.
http://www.blender.org/features/2-76/