How do you guys go about adjusting the number of sides on cylinders for intersections while sub-d modeling?
In Max I could just position the cylinders and then adjust the number of sides until I had a good fit. In Blender that doesn't seem to be an option, once you move/scale your cylinder the number of sides is baked into it.
I've been doing a lot of creating/positioning/deleting to try different sided cylinders because of this. Is there a better way to do this?
@melviso great to hear new stories about people migrating to blender
@atticumars in Blender there is no history, you can set the numbers of cuts only when you create the object, even if you move it or if you select it later, you gonna lose the edit options. Its tricky but once you learnt it gonna be fine.
@yadoob the asset manager addon is crazy, super intuitive and fast, I'm already using it a lot
I haven't used hard ops yet, though it looks like it could be a big time saver. To my understanding it basically helps to controll bevel weight on certain edges and adjust the modifier, which is tha same thing I do manually.
It seems to work great with booleans too, which is something I actually not utilize at the moment, but the results look good.
I'm wondering how does hard ops perform on surface which are curved in two directions, so far most of the example I saw used either completly plane or surface bend in one direction like tubes. Does anyone have experience with that?
In my experience it works great joining flat/flat, works pretty well joining curved/flat depending on the underlying topology. But it completely falls apart when you start trying to join curved/curved surfaces. Might be good enough for concept modeling or previz but I would not bake it, at least not without cutting in support loops and doing a lot of cleanup similar to how you might do when using booleans in traditional subd modeling.
Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but based on the types of models I see others producing... looks like everybody is having the same problem.
Hardops is great, and it can be used in conjunction with subd to create really clean shapes.
But at the end of the day, it's still polygonal modelling and Booleans, you do need to plan ahead and create the required support structures in your objects to supports the Boolean operation.
Even in EQ's boolean example in his techtalk thread, he covers the need to create topology that supports the operation.
Watching one of his example video's he even covers the need to make support topology to aid the boolean operation in creating clean topology.
I also bough asset manager, and am loving it, it's an easy to use manager, which reminds me of modo's asset management.
I'm loving blender more and more these days, as it starts to have a lot of functionality and tools that I've always wanted from other tools.
Does anyone work much with Scripted Expression Drivers in Blender?
I've set up a few drivers for some shape keys for a face rig, but I have to navigate to each one and "Update Dependencies" every time I close and reopen the file to get them to work again. I feel like I'm missing something that'd update that automatically but I can't seem to figure out where to find it.
Edit: So after trial and error I realized I needed to ad ".py" to the end of my driver script name so that Blender would realize it was a python script and would run it automatically upon opening. Yay!
@FUIOSG be sure that both curve origin and object origins share the same location. Also yo can enable the option to display modifier in edit mode so you can directly work on the object with modification (it's in the modifier header)
For simple model as tubes and extrusion, the curve option with taper and bevel object works better and are easier to set up !
@Fuiosg ,something to be aware of when using the curve modifier, and a lot of modifiers, is that if you scaled, or rotated the object at all, you should apply scale and rotation so that your modifier works correctly - not applying scale and rotation can result in odd behavior.
You can apply scale and rotation, by pressing ctrl + a (in object mode), and then choosing apply scale and rotation from the dialogue.
A few weeks ago I spent some time on the BlenderArtists forum to get to the bottom of the SimpleDeform/Bend issue. You probably all know what I mean : the fact that SimpleDeform only works around Z makes it pretty much useless when it comes to fast modeling. Having to plan which way a strap is facing before modeling is not user friendly, and probably causes a lot of user to not even attempt to use Simple Deform - and understandably so. Something great came out of the discussion. A user has been kind enough to take my explanations seriously and putting together a very simple yet extremely useful add-on. What it does is that it rotates a model around one of its axis, apply transforms, then "counter-rotates" it back. This basically means that with this tool one can easily rotate the core axis of a model.
This basically solves the limitation of the Simple Deform/Bend modifier. You can now model straps in any main direction you prefer (X, Y or Z), apply Bend, and then adjust the main axis as needed.
Here is a very simple demo of it. It doesn't look like much, but for anyone who ever attempted to use the Simple Deform modifier to bend straps in Blender it will be a breath of fresh air :
For those of you who use blender through steam, any advice to easily keep your addons seperate from your installation? I found when my 2.76 updated to 2.77, instead of creating a new 2.77 folder, it replaced the 2.76 folder and I lost my manually installed addon.
Which meant I lost my addons - thankfully i had the folder archived and backed up.
For some reason can't render with transparent background in 2.77. Does anybody experiencing this issue? Hmm. Created new file, it renders with alpha. Looks like I did something wrong.
Can someone catch me up: I thought Blender Foundation wanted to try a yearly release, is that still in the cards? And how far are we from viewport PBR?
yearly release business model? maybe for the 2.8 refactoring, not as business model. PBR branch is there from a while but I guess it will properly show up woth the 2.8 release.
Hey, from a short tutorial I stumbled upon on YT, I was able to create a "curvature" material in Cycles for my HIGH POLY character:
"Node Wrangler" needs to enabled via add-ons to get the "Viewer" node for the material. By adjusting the color ramp I can change the brightness and contrast of the curvature. But, I'd like to bake this for my low poly, but I don't know how.
Last time I used Pointiness for curvature the values seemed to be in the space of 0.4-0.6 using a linear ramp. What issues do you have with baking it? In your setup you simply have to choose emit color as output for baking.
Last time I used Pointiness for curvature the values seemed to be in the space of 0.4-0.6 using a linear ramp. What issues do you have with baking it? In your setup you simply have to choose emit color as output for baking.
I actually managed to bake it down for my low poly, but I get some strange lines here and there. The overall bake is clean from artifacts because of a good cage, but those lines are annoying. Baking the curvature in xNormal doesn't have this issue. Tried some different sampling settings and so on, but the result was same.
I might post the .blend file at some point if someone wants to take a look. I'll probably include the xNormal bake result for comparison.
EDIT: Just wanted to mention that Cycles' ambient occlusion bakes are fantastic in Blender. No problems whatsoever. I'd say they're even better than xNormal's.
If anyone is having problems importing a rigged FBX in Blender, here's a tip I just discovered: Try converting the file in Visual Studio by saving it as Interchange FBX.
If anyone is having problems importing a rigged FBX in Blender, here's a tip I just discovered: Try converting the file in Visual Studio by saving it as Interchange FBX.
What? Visual Studio now reads FBX?
I am not a FBX fan, but is the source off all exchange errors between Blender and other apps, and not only. And I think this is because of Blender source license, otherwise I don't understand why Blender just don't use Autodesk SDK to manipulate that hideous FBX format.
Actually, if the devs are to be believed, the SDK wouldn't be very helpful, as the issue is not reading or writing values but mapping them to the right bit of blender architecture. Here's an example: https://developer.blender.org/T45176 and https://developer.blender.org/T41374 Blender can read the file fine, but it has to choose between different methods of converting the orientation, depending on the program the file originally came from. So not just is FBX proprietary, but implementations of FBX are inconsistent, despite the SDK.
this just came up: is there any way built into blender to save and recall viewports - position, orientation and camera parameters. like a bookmark, basically? (talking about the persp/ortho view, not the scene camera).
@thomas Why dont you use scene cameras for that? You can have several of them. (You can also set the camera to orthographic view.) The normal ortho view doesn't have a camera position, just a viewing angle. I'm not aware of a method to save the ortho/perspective viewport camera in a bookmark.
@walkonsky i am interested in improving working with the view aligned to a selection (CTRL Numpad 7 by default i believe). right now if i use that and finish my work i end up looking at the world at some odd angle, have to reset the view and go to where i was again. instead i want to be able to toggle back out of aligned view into where i was looking at just before. before i start digging around in the view3d operator i am wondering if there's any builtin functionality that can be reused for something like: when view align called -> save current view to temp camera -> perform actual view align. finally copy camera to current view -> destroy temp camera.
@thomasp ok, i get that. I was wrong in saying that the viewport camera doesnt have a position. It has one by being aligned to a point in the scene that it rotates around. The addon looks cool, although the video on its product page doesnt really show if the alignment for camera view angle rotation is saved for the different views.
@Yadoob i saw that, thanks. wanted to check if there's a builtin method to just store the view since i do not require proper bookmark functionality as such. never use them. besides, unlike maxscript which i avoided like the plague for years, python is actually kinda fun to dig around in.
@walkonsky i think i have something workable now by repurposing the 'align active camera to view'. will see how that goes.
I just noticed Blender has no way to merge two crossing edges by creating a vertex there.
What I want is basically "select two edges that cross each other in the same plane and join them by creating a vertex at the intersection."
Surprising that this simple functionality is not a part of Blender core? I can't be the only user trying to do this? The extended spacebar (IIRC) addon has a cursor snap to edge intersection function which isn't working unfortunately. I think Blender really should be able to do this. Would have saved me a lot of time and a headache.
Replies
@atticumars in Blender there is no history, you can set the numbers of cuts only when you create the object, even if you move it or if you select it later, you gonna lose the edit options. Its tricky but once you learnt it gonna be fine.
@yadoob the asset manager addon is crazy, super intuitive and fast, I'm already using it a lot
Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but based on the types of models I see others producing... looks like everybody is having the same problem.
But at the end of the day, it's still polygonal modelling and Booleans, you do need to plan ahead and create the required support structures in your objects to supports the Boolean operation.
Even in EQ's boolean example in his techtalk thread, he covers the need to create topology that supports the operation.
Watching one of his example video's he even covers the need to make support topology to aid the boolean operation in creating clean topology.
I also bough asset manager, and am loving it, it's an easy to use manager, which reminds me of modo's asset management.
I'm loving blender more and more these days, as it starts to have a lot of functionality and tools that I've always wanted from other tools.
Anyway, 2.77 Testbuild 1 is available from:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.77
https://github.com/fedackb/yavne
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?393179-Addon-Yet-Another-Vertex-Normal-Editor-(Y-A-V-N-E-)
Go to 1:30 to see a split view with wireframes etc., including the original opening (in traditional cel animation) as the top-left view.
I've set up a few drivers for some shape keys for a face rig, but I have to navigate to each one and "Update Dependencies" every time I close and reopen the file to get them to work again. I feel like I'm missing something that'd update that automatically but I can't seem to figure out where to find it.
Edit: So after trial and error I realized I needed to ad ".py" to the end of my driver script name so that Blender would realize it was a python script and would run it automatically upon opening. Yay!
nice tech here.
For simple model as tubes and extrusion, the curve option with taper and bevel object works better and are easier to set up !
You can apply scale and rotation, by pressing ctrl + a (in object mode), and then choosing apply scale and rotation from the dialogue.
Hope that helps
https://www.blender.org/download/
A few weeks ago I spent some time on the BlenderArtists forum to get to the bottom of the SimpleDeform/Bend issue. You probably all know what I mean : the fact that SimpleDeform only works around Z makes it pretty much useless when it comes to fast modeling. Having to plan which way a strap is facing before modeling is not user friendly, and probably causes a lot of user to not even attempt to use Simple Deform - and understandably so.
Something great came out of the discussion. A user has been kind enough to take my explanations seriously and putting together a very simple yet extremely useful add-on. What it does is that it rotates a model around one of its axis, apply transforms, then "counter-rotates" it back. This basically means that with this tool one can easily rotate the core axis of a model.
This basically solves the limitation of the Simple Deform/Bend modifier. You can now model straps in any main direction you prefer (X, Y or Z), apply Bend, and then adjust the main axis as needed.
To get the addon :
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?392881-Looking-for-a-definitive-foolproof-way-of-bending-with-the-Simple-Deform-modifier&p=3019776&viewfull=1#post3019776
Here is a very simple demo of it. It doesn't look like much, but for anyone who ever attempted to use the Simple Deform modifier to bend straps in Blender it will be a breath of fresh air :
I hope it will be useful to some of you !
For those of you who use blender through steam, any advice to easily keep your addons seperate from your installation? I found when my 2.76 updated to 2.77, instead of creating a new 2.77 folder, it replaced the 2.76 folder and I lost my manually installed addon.
Which meant I lost my addons - thankfully i had the folder archived and backed up.
Hmm. Created new file, it renders with alpha. Looks like I did something wrong.
https://gumroad.com/l/GroupPro.
PBR branch is there from a while but I guess it will properly show up woth the 2.8 release.
@joseconseco thanks for the addon, looks great!
On the grease pencil side, pepeland did some great vidos to show the animation workflow :
And some UI experiments (not official) : http://pitiwazou.com/screenshots/2016-03-28_23-01-18.mp4
"Node Wrangler" needs to enabled via add-ons to get the "Viewer" node for the material. By adjusting the color ramp I can change the brightness and contrast of the curvature. But, I'd like to bake this for my low poly, but I don't know how.
What issues do you have with baking it? In your setup you simply have to choose emit color as output for baking.
I might post the .blend file at some point if someone wants to take a look. I'll probably include the xNormal bake result for comparison.
EDIT: Just wanted to mention that Cycles' ambient occlusion bakes are fantastic in Blender. No problems whatsoever. I'd say they're even better than xNormal's.
Also has anyone got 2.77 working with the unity auto import yet?
Try converting the file in Visual Studio by saving it as Interchange FBX.
I am not a FBX fan, but is the source off all exchange errors between Blender and other apps, and not only. And I think this is because of Blender source license, otherwise I don't understand why Blender just don't use Autodesk SDK to manipulate that hideous FBX format.
I updated my anim scrubber script, this is stripped out and has the hotkey setup automatically.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1693140/myscipts/r/animscrubberkey.py
install normally and activate then alt + left mouse button + move mouse to scrub the timeline. It loops from start to end frames.
Gif of it working, https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1693140/scrubwithmouse.gif
A cool video for UE4 users : how to set-up Cycles material to act like UE4 ones in order to preview your asset :
(talking about the persp/ortho view, not the scene camera).
i am interested in improving working with the view aligned to a selection (CTRL Numpad 7 by default i believe). right now if i use that and finish my work i end up looking at the world at some odd angle, have to reset the view and go to where i was again.
instead i want to be able to toggle back out of aligned view into where i was looking at just before. before i start digging around in the view3d operator i am wondering if there's any builtin functionality that can be reused for something like: when view align called -> save current view to temp camera -> perform actual view align. finally copy camera to current view -> destroy temp camera.
Otherwise Campbell has included his add-on about freehand curves into Blender core :
The addon looks cool, although the video on its product page doesnt really show if the alignment for camera view angle rotation is saved for the different views.
i saw that, thanks. wanted to check if there's a builtin method to just store the view since i do not require proper bookmark functionality as such. never use them. besides, unlike maxscript which i avoided like the plague for years, python is actually kinda fun to dig around in.
@walkonsky
i think i have something workable now by repurposing the 'align active camera to view'. will see how that goes.
What I want is basically "select two edges that cross each other in the same plane and join them by creating a vertex at the intersection."
Surprising that this simple functionality is not a part of Blender core? I can't be the only user trying to do this? The extended spacebar (IIRC) addon has a cursor snap to edge intersection function which isn't working unfortunately. I think Blender really should be able to do this. Would have saved me a lot of time and a headache.