Yeah, Blender's smooth setting for adding loops is pretty good in most cases, but it's not calculating the curvature from neighbour angles of polygons, so it requires used input for that.
For example if you have one edge loop missing from an UV Sphere, and you'd like to add it back, correctly calculated with the roundness of the rest of the sphere, the regular adding of a loop with a manual smooth value isn't precise enough.
I actually tested it on an UV Sphere, duplicated it, deleted a loop and added it back. I had the original UV Sphere visible in the background when adding the loop back on the copy to see the difference. The smoothness value 1.0 was too much and the value of 0.6654 with trial and error before was close enough, but not perfect when zoomed very close. Not so practical, lol.
But, @MACHIN3, your addon sounds really promising. Thanks for taking your time doing this.
Just wanted to say I love what you're doing @MACHIN3 , looking forward to seeing more!
I've been using this to undo bevels in Blender, but it's kind of glitchy and limited. Also fyi, even Max has no built in way to unbevel a group of edges like what you're showing (though something similar can be done via RappaTools3 MaxUnchamfer).
Am I the only one, that thinks the smooth subdivide really only works on a cube, to turn it into a sphere and is otherwise useless?
@MACHIN3 My post was directed at FourtyNights, they were talking about that edge-flow tool in 3ds. The smoothness setting in the Subdivide or Loop Cut tools is the closest thing to it that is built-in.
That GIF you posted shows that the result of your tool looks more polished and visually pleasing than the built-in. So it's definitely useful.
I would simply like to move the vertices in the direction of these custom normals. Unless I'm misunderstanding something about how these work, I'm not trying to make any edges sharp.
Install it from your Addons dialog with the the "Install From File" button. Then find it on Edit mode by pressing the space bar with "Offset Along Custom Normals" or on the Mesh > Vertices menu. Note that it's a bit clunky, you should only use it once or the next time you use it the mesh might get distorted: the custom normals change as you move the vertices (the pink rays, notice how they change while you're doing that). I'm not entirely sure why this happens.
Im having trouble with something that i think its a bug, when i import any fbx file, the mesh will load only on layer 10, and the texel density tools from the textools addon will work only on layer 10 too. Anyone know what is causing it or how to fix? I could export everything to a new blender file i think, but is quite time consuming.
When used in combination with TexTools and Multi Object UV Editing, unwrapping dozens of hard-surface objects becomes a whole lot easier. Pretty awesome stuff.
When multi res sculpting, subdivisions eats the volume of the mesh. In zbrush, with morph targets people can avoid that shrinkage. They save a morph target and divide the mesh, then they go back to the morph target, with this way they preserve their first vertex positions of non-divided mesh. So that way vertex positions are fixed but mesh also smoothed and no shrinkage happens. So i want to ask if something exists in blender to achieve that workaround of zbrush?
do we know of a way to get the 3ds max/maya-style wireframe overlay on the selected object in blender? that's something that has been bugging me for a while since the outline isn't as useful to identifying what's selected and for when going into edit mode. also draws in an annoying fashion on single sided objects when backface culling is on.
i do of course know how to display a wireframe on top of an object by activating it manually and have a global switch for all the objects in the scene as well but what i'm looking for is to have an object display a wireframe/all edges automatically upon selection and return to the object's previous display state upon deselection.
3ds max term was 'highlight selected' if i recall right.
@thomasp as a longtime 3ds max user I also missed this feature quite a bit, so your post motivated me to write a small addon for just that. Found something online which did the wire toggle for all objects, changed it a bit to make it work only on selected objects. I did only limited testing - expect silly bugs. Its very simple though, so shoulnd be hard to resolve if necessary.
@wazou that looks interesting on it's own, thanks - will give it a try!
@kio just the outcome i was hoping for! now - would it be possible to have this toggle automatically upon selection without having to use a hotkey? or rather - only toggle if the object doesn't already have wire overlay visible? then it would resemble the max feature as i remember it.
@thomasp I think maybe @kio was referring to this add-on I requested a year ago, it mimics 3dsmax behavior toggle on/off wire + all edges for all objects in the scene, I made it bind to F4 by default.
yeah exactly - i only extended it that it shows the wireframe only on selected objects.
thanks for the link to the board - also pretty excited about the whole 2.8 thing
@joebount no there is nothing special about it, you can always look up how an addon registers itself in the bl_info fields "name" & "category" - in this case its simply "Wireframe on shaded" in "3D View"
@kio - my bad, it's an addon conflict with something over here. what i noticed though is that if the mesh already has wireframe display activated before selection then that wireframe gets cleared after deselection. is that the same behaviour on your end by any chance?
A question- while sculpting with multires modifier, if the smooth brush stroke method is space, smooth brush delays, if method is dots works fine. My question is how can i change stroke method of smooth brush when using shift key? I believe shift key uses the stroke method of current brush( for example clay strips).
A question- while sculpting with multires modifier, if the smooth brush stroke method is space, smooth brush delays, if method is dots works fine. My question is how can i change stroke method of smooth brush when using shift key? I believe shift key uses the stroke method of current brush( for example clay strips).
@RawData holding shift, it clearly shows on the properties panel the dots method while using the space method. That's a bug. If you want to report that, I've filled in a bug-report form for you. You just need an account in developer.blender.org. Then log in to it, follow this link and hit the "Create New Task" button: bug report form
Thanks Michael, yes I didn't get around posting it yet here on Polycount as there were some initial bugs I wanted to iron out first. I just posted The FBX Bundle addon thread here:
Some of the new features include a new Ground pivot tool to align all Z-coordinates of the pivots to the groun place of the bundle's bounds
For the Unity workflow I updated the documentation a bit more to better explain what it actually can do. The Unity Editor script can automatically assign existing materials if the material names between Blender and the Unity project match.
The Unity editor script is included in the Addon zip file or also accessable from the Addon preferences
This is an addon that I always wanted for 3dsMax or Blender, a painless stupid simple way to export and update existing FBX files in a project. I have been using variants of this script in the past at work on commercial projects and it saves so much time, all you do is select your objects and press 'Export'.
regarding wire overlay on selected objects 3dsmax style again: i discovered that the bforartists project includes this functionality as well. works in my (apparently?) busted config.
@RN i am sorry but this is not clear for me, i believe “toolbar” shows the stroke method, i am not aware also properties Window shows it. While holding shift toolbar doesnt show smooth brush, it just shows the last selected brush and doesnt care smooth brush. While holding shift key it just uses the settings of that selected brush instead of smooth brushes own settings. Is this the same thing you mentioned?
this is my very first post to this forum. Someone recommended to post my script here so i just give it a try ... please tell me if it is unappropriate or if something's not right ...
i created this addon (called PBR Texture Bakery) for Blender to improve my personal PBR texture-creation and
UV-optimization workflow in Blender. It allows you to bake complex
Cycles-materials to PBR textures and - if needed - onto a specific, new
UV-layout (nice if you want to transfer from one UV-layout onto another
one). It can bake these textures:
Albedo
Normal-Map (Tangent space)
Roughness
Metallic
Alpha-mask
Refraction-mask
Subsurface-scattering-mask
The resulting textures can directly be put into a PBR render-engine like
UE, Unity or simply the Principled BSDF of Blender etc. It also enables
you to join multiple objects into one objects and bake all textures
onto one bigger texture-atlas. This is really usefull when it comes to
realtime-rendering optimization...
I've been working on a new addon for the past month, here's some clips, there's more on twitter
Looks mighty useful, can't wait to try it out
Let me know what you think, I'm still very much looking for feedback. Check the docs, if you haven't already for an overview/description of all tools: https://machin3.io/MESHmachine/docs/
I've always wanted to draw straight lines on curved geo at any angle,
but the GPencil line tool couldn't and the Gpencil draw tool only does
horizontal and vertical straight lines. I've built my own GTape tool
now.
I have some ideas about taking this further and truly mirror
the experience of tape drawing using Miratools/CV style curve/stroke
manipulation.
I've spend some more time on the tape tool. Also shown is the symmetrize Grease Pencil tool in MACHIN3tools. It's part of the latest MEShmachine preview release (0.5.9) now.
Machin3 - nice, can you make this gpencil stuff, into one menu in one addon. And maybe add grease pencil circle draw and project?
Hey man, I was thinking of adding simple shapes as well! Are you suggesting I should release this as a stand alone, with Tape and Symmetrize GPencil bundled into one? I guess, that would make sense
I’m currently using a maya kind of Navigation (void hotkeys) and everything is going smoothly.
The only problem occurs when I’m trying to rotate the view in grease
pencil mode, alt left click being assigned to the line tool. Is there
any way to configure it to alt + left instead?
I’m aware you can rotate the view with the mousewheel but I am burrently working with a pen.
I’m currently using a maya kind of Navigation (void hotkeys) and everything is going smoothly.
The only problem occurs when I’m trying to rotate the view in grease
pencil mode, alt left click being assigned to the line tool. Is there
any way to configure it to alt + left instead?
I’m aware you can rotate the view with the mousewheel but I am burrently working with a pen.
Thank you!
You'll have the same issue in the knife tool. This is was made me
swtich the blender navigation/MMB rotation. There's no way around it AFAIK, but I could be wrong, never looked too much into it. Also, MMB rotation is great, give it a try. edit: missed you pen comment, sorry.
---
Upcoming normal flatten tool for MESHmachine to take care of those pesky
smoothing issues on faces that should appear flat. Trying to integrate
it into the Fuse tool now.
Hi. I finished this add-on. It lets you offset the weights of the selected vertices by dragging the mouse up and own. Sometimes while weight painting you want a more specific way of setting weights than just the brush.
Not yet, it's currently referencing a hard coded blend path + materlal names + world name. I'll need to somehow make that customizeable if I want to release it.
I have been working for a while now on an upcomming tool called Pin & Relax for TexTools which is started to mature recently to something rather usable.
It unfolds and Pins selected edge loops into straight lines and relaxes the rest of the UV island. Similar to Headus UV layout with its edge constraints. It does not re-scale the edge distance but instead maintains it.
There is also support for selected multiple edge loop sets where it straightens and relaxes them largest to smallest but this mode is not yet fully fool proof.
@renderhjs - does it take into account uneven spacing between points - or is it always making spacing in uv space equal? Nice tool, may be usefull for straightening uvs on character cloth seams
Replies
For example if you have one edge loop missing from an UV Sphere, and you'd like to add it back, correctly calculated with the roundness of the rest of the sphere, the regular adding of a loop with a manual smooth value isn't precise enough.
I actually tested it on an UV Sphere, duplicated it, deleted a loop and added it back. I had the original UV Sphere visible in the background when adding the loop back on the copy to see the difference. The smoothness value 1.0 was too much and the value of 0.6654 with trial and error before was close enough, but not perfect when zoomed very close. Not so practical, lol.
But, @MACHIN3, your addon sounds really promising. Thanks for taking your time doing this.
I've been using this to undo bevels in Blender, but it's kind of glitchy and limited.
Also fyi, even Max has no built in way to unbevel a group of edges like what you're showing (though something similar can be done via RappaTools3 MaxUnchamfer).
That GIF you posted shows that the result of your tool looks more polished and visually pleasing than the built-in. So it's definitely useful.
@Zablorg try this:
offset_along_custom_normals.py
Install it from your Addons dialog with the the "Install From File" button.
Then find it on Edit mode by pressing the space bar with "Offset Along Custom Normals" or on the Mesh > Vertices menu.
Note that it's a bit clunky, you should only use it once or the next time you use it the mesh might get distorted: the custom normals change as you move the vertices (the pink rays, notice how they change while you're doing that). I'm not entirely sure why this happens.
https://gumroad.com/l/UVShotPacker
When used in combination with TexTools and Multi Object UV Editing, unwrapping dozens of hard-surface objects becomes a whole lot easier. Pretty awesome stuff.
i do of course know how to display a wireframe on top of an object by activating it manually and have a global switch for all the objects in the scene as well but what i'm looking for is to have an object display a wireframe/all edges automatically upon selection and return to the object's previous display state upon deselection.
3ds max term was 'highlight selected' if i recall right.
https://github.com/pitiwazou/Scripts-Blender/blob/Older-Scripts/Preselection_faces
Found something online which did the wire toggle for all objects, changed it a bit to make it work only on selected objects.
I did only limited testing - expect silly bugs. Its very simple though, so shoulnd be hard to resolve if necessary.
Note its a bad boy script which hardcodes F4 key
https://github.com/BenjaminSauder/Wireframe-on-shaded
@kio just the outcome i was hoping for!
Already tried, really weird...
It tells me that the modules are installed
what;s the name in the add-on library?
https://developer.blender.org/project/board/80/
@thomasp I think maybe @kio was referring to this add-on I requested a year ago, it mimics 3dsmax behavior toggle on/off wire + all edges for all objects in the scene, I made it bind to F4 by default.
thanks for the link to the board - also pretty excited about the whole 2.8 thing
@joebount no there is nothing special about it, you can always look up how an addon registers itself in the bl_info fields "name" & "category" - in this case its simply "Wireframe on shaded" in "3D View"
think ill add that feature, and also get back the ability to show/hide on all objects, and adding the options to control it somewhere.
https://bitbucket.org/renderhjs/blender-addon-fbx-bundle
Features
with this guy help I probably move from max to blender
For those who aren't aware, with YAVNE add-on and some shortcuts you can get some really quick mid-poly workflow.
If you want to report that, I've filled in a bug-report form for you. You just need an account in developer.blender.org.
Then log in to it, follow this link and hit the "Create New Task" button: bug report form
I just posted The FBX Bundle addon thread here:
- http://polycount.com/discussion/200292/blender-fbx-bundle-export-addon
Some of the new features include a new Ground pivot tool to align all Z-coordinates of the pivots to the groun place of the bundle's boundsFor the Unity workflow I updated the documentation a bit more to better explain what it actually can do. The Unity Editor script can automatically assign existing materials if the material names between Blender and the Unity project match.
The Unity editor script is included in the Addon zip file or also accessable from the Addon preferences
This is an addon that I always wanted for 3dsMax or Blender, a painless stupid simple way to export and update existing FBX files in a project. I have been using variants of this script in the past at work on commercial projects and it saves so much time, all you do is select your objects and press 'Export'.
if you'd like to try it, grab the wire tools addon from https://github.com/Bforartists/Bforartists/blob/17af5b9d40d7c7eadcc98e510748543d8c9bd087/release/scripts/addons/wire_tools_v2-2.py and install from file. it can be found as a clickable toggle under category 'Shading' in the righthand viewport panel.
same thing as with kio's script though - object deselection clears any prior wireframe overlay.
this is my very first post to this forum. Someone recommended to post my script here so i just give it a try
i created this addon (called PBR Texture Bakery) for Blender to improve my personal PBR texture-creation and UV-optimization workflow in Blender. It allows you to bake complex Cycles-materials to PBR textures and - if needed - onto a specific, new UV-layout (nice if you want to transfer from one UV-layout onto another one). It can bake these textures:
The resulting textures can directly be put into a PBR render-engine like UE, Unity or simply the Principled BSDF of Blender etc. It also enables you to join multiple objects into one objects and bake all textures onto one bigger texture-atlas. This is really usefull when it comes to realtime-rendering optimization...
You might want to take a closer look into the documentation to find out further details:
https://www.blendermarket.com/produc...ery-for-cycles
Sketchfab:
https://sketchfab.com/models/dff0f55...944fb1ef114116
Sketchfab:
https://sketchfab.com/models/880c75c...abfd2b61ecbfb5
Sketchfab:
https://sketchfab.com/models/cd14799...c73fa70fd7e53c
Baking result of object with multiple complex Cycles materials to one UV-map, respectively, one set of PBR textures:
Please leave me some oppinions about it. If people like it, i will add further features to improve this addon.
Thank you guys
I've always wanted to draw straight lines on curved geo at any angle, but the GPencil line tool couldn't and the Gpencil draw tool only does horizontal and vertical straight lines. I've built my own GTape tool now.
I have some ideas about taking this further and truly mirror the experience of tape drawing using Miratools/CV style curve/stroke manipulation.
I've spend some more time on the tape tool. Also shown is the symmetrize Grease Pencil tool in MACHIN3tools.
It's part of the latest MEShmachine preview release (0.5.9) now.
Are you suggesting I should release this as a stand alone, with Tape and Symmetrize GPencil bundled into one? I guess, that would make sense
Hi guys,
I’m currently using a maya kind of Navigation (void hotkeys) and everything is going smoothly.
The only problem occurs when I’m trying to rotate the view in grease pencil mode, alt left click being assigned to the line tool. Is there any way to configure it to alt + left instead?
I’m aware you can rotate the view with the mousewheel but I am burrently working with a pen.
Thank you!
Hi. I finished this add-on.
It lets you offset the weights of the selected vertices by dragging the mouse up and own.
Sometimes while weight painting you want a more specific way of setting weights than just the brush.
You can get it on my Gumroad (1+):
https://gum.co/adjust_vertex_weights
Features:
like in 3ds max