I usually have spacing off in Maya by default. Three hotkeys then action is not as fast as just the action alone. I can live with it, but I was hoping that there was just a setting I'd missed somewhere.
@CheeseOnToast : indeed and as Wazou stated there are definitely some deep-rooted differences in behavior there.
However ! Maybe there is some optimization you could do about the initial flattening step. For instance, some users might do it by doing Scale hotkey > axis hotkey > typing 0. But it is also possible to get the same result faster by doing Scale hotkey > grabbing the desired manipulator handle + ctrl > flattening to a specific vert.
Basically what I am getting at is that even though the overall manipulation takes longer than the Maya one, there might still be some room for optimization in the way you are currently performing it.
@pior Happy to hear that. I use LoopTools a lot, especially Space. In case the result is not smooth enough I try to Relax first, but as you said, just spacing gives a smooth result in most cases already.
On a side note, I really wish addon-on developpers could stop adding anything to the Specials menu. It's really inelegant since that means that if a user decides to not use this menu in the first place (or even flat out unbind Specials altogether, since by default it only holds redundant shortcuts to features accessible through other default menus), then there is no way to intuitively find any custom tool placed there. I personally never ever use Specials since I have my own optimized ways to access to everything I need, and because of that I never ran into Space - even though I *do* have Looptools turned on for another, unrelated need.
This stuff really grind my gears, especially since the Looptools help states that it is accessible through "W" ... but it really isn't (W is just the default shortcut for Specials, and LoopTools just so happens to be arbitrarily placed there for no good reason whatsoever).
@Pior : Good tip, thank you. Having tried it though, the 3 hotkey combo is easier for me
@Wazou: Sure, there's always going to be differences between tools. I'm just trying to make sure I'm not doing things "the hard way".
On another note, your tools look great. Speedflow looks like a certain purchase for me once I'm a bit more familiar with the program. I followed along with some of your solidify / bevel / boolean examples and it really opened my eyes to modifier-based workflow. Coming from Maya / Silo, it's not been an option for me. Now we just need a Maya-style mitred bevel, which I think is being worked on as we speak.
I usually have spacing off in Maya by default. Three hotkeys then action is not as fast as just the action alone. I can live with it, but I was hoping that there was just a setting I'd missed somewhere.
There is a tool inside the "3D Viewport Pie Menus" addon called "Edit Align Pie" that can make those snaps a breeze, unfortunately, the tool is really slow with high poly meshes, I did recreate the tool functionality by macroing scale to 0 to active element inside "Pie Menu Editor" and works much better.
I keep getting the "no active image found" error when I try to bake a diffuse map in Blender Cycles, despite implementing the typically-given fix of adding a texture node referencing the file I want to bake to in each material, and having no empty material slots. Are there any other typical causes of this problem?
I'm still having troubles with this- I fixed it with one project, but it's unclear how. I'm still bumping into it with new things.
All the materials that I'm using have the texture referenced in an Image Texture node, and there aren't any empty material slots involved. I'm using TexTools but I don't think that's the source of the issue.
Link to the project is here. Anyone feel like poking around and seeing what they can find? I'd really appreciate it- it's slowing me down tremendously.
I keep getting the "no active image found" error when I try to bake a diffuse map in Blender Cycles, despite implementing the typically-given fix of adding a texture node referencing the file I want to bake to in each material, and having no empty material slots. Are there any other typical causes of this problem?
I'm still having troubles with this- I fixed it with one project, but it's unclear how. I'm still bumping into it with new things.
All the materials that I'm using have the texture referenced in an Image Texture node, and there aren't any empty material slots involved. I'm using TexTools but I don't think that's the source of the issue.
Link to the project is here. Anyone feel like poking around and seeing what they can find? I'd really appreciate it- it's slowing me down tremendously.
Make sure you leave the node that you want to bake to (image node) "selected" while you hit the Bake Button. It's a minor thing no one actually notices and poorly sinalized over documentation. You can have as many material slots each with thousands of texture nodes included on them, it will only bake into the image node you leave selected at that moment.
I keep getting the "no active image found" error when I try to bake a diffuse map in Blender Cycles, despite implementing the typically-given fix of adding a texture node referencing the file I want to bake to in each material, and having no empty material slots. Are there any other typical causes of this problem?
I'm still having troubles with this- I fixed it with one project, but it's unclear how. I'm still bumping into it with new things.
All the materials that I'm using have the texture referenced in an Image Texture node, and there aren't any empty material slots involved. I'm using TexTools but I don't think that's the source of the issue.
Link to the project is here. Anyone feel like poking around and seeing what they can find? I'd really appreciate it- it's slowing me down tremendously.
Make sure you leave the node that you want to bake to (image node) "selected" while you hit the Bake Button. It's a minor thing no one actually notices and poorly sinalized over documentation. You can have as many material slots each with thousands of texture nodes included on them, it will only bake into the image node you leave selected at that moment.
Thank you so much! That's the worst thing I've ever heard!
I keep getting the "no active image found" error when I try to bake a diffuse map in Blender Cycles, despite implementing the typically-given fix of adding a texture node referencing the file I want to bake to in each material, and having no empty material slots. Are there any other typical causes of this problem?
I'm still having troubles with this- I fixed it with one project, but it's unclear how. I'm still bumping into it with new things.
All the materials that I'm using have the texture referenced in an Image Texture node, and there aren't any empty material slots involved. I'm using TexTools but I don't think that's the source of the issue.
Link to the project is here. Anyone feel like poking around and seeing what they can find? I'd really appreciate it- it's slowing me down tremendously.
Make sure you leave the node that you want to bake to (image node) "selected" while you hit the Bake Button. It's a minor thing no one actually notices and poorly sinalized over documentation. You can have as many material slots each with thousands of texture nodes included on them, it will only bake into the image node you leave selected at that moment.
Unfortunately I seem to already be selecting the image node in all the materials.
Unfortunately I seem to already be selecting the image node in all the materials.
You forgot turning Selected to Active Checkbox and setting the ray distance to at least 1. And the material was assigned to the High poly mesh, not the plane. It should be the other way around.
The samples were set to only 1 as well. (I dont know if thats on purpose) Good Job on the tiling though. Here, I did one for you.
Some time ago I asked if it was possible to move an object's vertices along its custom normal, as opposed to the fatten operation which uses derived normals.
People didn't seem to know of any existing method, and one person actually went out of their way to create a rudimentary Python script that did it, which was very nice.
In case anyone is curious, I've recently discovered that the Displace modifier is capable of it: simply select "Custom Normal" in the Direction field. I hope this info is useful to people when it comes to creating cages!
Added some more features to blender garment maker thing. It's mostly finished except, blender 2.8 still do not have BGL drawing, so there is no ability to preview, edit stitches in blender 2.8 .
Added some more features to blender garment maker thing. It's mostly finished except, blender 2.8 still do not have BGL drawing, so there is no ability to preview, edit stitches in blender 2.8 .
Looks great!
Yeah, we'll have to wait for some clarity on bgl. I've started a thread about it the other day to collect what we know.
I was forced to split the node group because we can't plug a ColorRamp that hasn't the grayscale as an Input of it.
There is a first node group to generate your base grayscale with the Pointiness and AO, it is connected to a Color Ramp, then there is another node group with Top Lighting, Vertical Gradient, Relief (Inverted AO to highlight parts), SSS, fake ground GI and finally a Saturation setting that is only applied on bright values.
You won't need ID Masks because you just have to apply multiple materials with different ColorRamps. You will just have to bake one single texture to get your Diffuse map, no compositing is needed.
To bake the texture use the Emissive mode. It will be used in AssetGen for Blender 2.8.
Model source, it has been textured only by moving the sliders of the Stylized shader, it has no UVs:
This addon exports object selections into file bundles. File names and their objects are previewed in realtime. New export modifiers : Rename, Offset, Copy Modifiers, Merge Meshes, Collider, LOD, Vertex AO speed up the export process for game assets.
@Zablorg omg of course, and then you use vertex groups to modify the thickness of the cage! Why did I ever make cages any other way?
Question: is there a way to automatically mark edges you cut with the knife tool as seams? I feel like I saw this once but I can't find anything on it.
I'm trying to learn about the Skin modifier- you can press a button to get a vertex to act as a root, but is there a button to reverse this? Is a given vertex just going to be a root forever?
I'm trying to learn about the Skin modifier- you can press a button to get a vertex to act as a root, but is there a button to reverse this? Is a given vertex just going to be a root forever?
So I've found that there's only ever one root and marking a vertex as a root removes the previous root.
However, I now have a new problem, in that marking/clearing a vertex as loose doesn't seem to do anything at all. Anyone have any idea why that might be?
Nope, it's not the same. No need of Speedflow, it's blender primitives, the addon allows to edit and create them easily. Wondermesh is great but is you scale your primitive, you cannot change the settings, the primitive will be reset. It's more limited.
I have made a node setup to improve the curvature map generation.
What you get by default:
The improved curvature uses the bevel node, as opposed to the Pointiness which is per vertex position, the bevel is per edge angle so it is more accurate but it doesn't detect if the shape is concave or convex. To fix that it uses the pointiness as difference to check the variation of values. Then I have overlayed the image itself to contrast it but the best method is to normalize the values in the compositor.
The complete node setup to generate a grayscale with AO, Top Lighting, Vertical Gradient and Reliefs:
Heya @Linko - I think there is again a clarity issue with this post. The end result/screenshot certainly looks great and useful, but nowhere in your post do you explain :
- The input(s) required : is this working from a high poly model ? Or from a low with just a normalmap ? Or, a low with a whole set of maps (position, curvature, and so on) like in Substance Painter/Designer ?
- The outputs generated : Is this generating vertex colors baked to the high ? Or a single texture pass baked to lowpoly UVs ?
And so on.
Your work on these nodes setups has always been interesting, but it is always presented in the most cryptic way thus creating a needlessly high barrier to entry. Take the time to present things clearly (ELI5) and you will get a lot more feedback in return. Now of course you could say "well, people have to just download the file to check", but that's not how things work.
@wazou I'm confused, we've been over this on Wondermesh's issue tracker! Speedflow applies the scale when it performs certain actions, and that definitely seems to be the issue. I just tried it here, I can rotate, scale, add a bevel (as long as I don't use Speedflow)...
Forgot about this sorry ^^ Yes, need to keep the scale to one and play with other settings to edit the primitives. So, my bad, bad memory and I should use mode your addon but since not everybody has it, I don't show it on my videos. I'll show it next time!
I added the dynamic lines tool to Speedflow companion.
Ah nice, I've been waiting for that ever since the video!
And no worries, I really like using the screw modifier for a kind of editable primitives (It's what I used to do before I found Wondermesh!), I just wanted to make sure nobody missed out on it because they thought it was broken or something...
And you are right, my bad ^^ Don't know if you use my setup to edit or if you use the properties, but a popup with keymaps could be nice to edit on the fly.
I've got a little popup in my RMB context-menu that allows me to edit Wmeshes, and I was working on a modal in Pie Menu Editor, but that's on hold for now. The modals are more complex than I thought, haha.
I made a tutorial for a 100% Non-Destructive Workflow on Blender that allows you to create different versions of an asset and use them for games (Low/High), Subdivisions or even, use it with bevel shader or Remesh it with Blender or Openvdb addon.
pior: the input is an high poly and it bakes a single diffuse texture to the low poly UVs. So we don't need to bake a curvature, AO map, etc. then compose the images. The advantage is that we can see the result directly on the high poly and check the readability of the details from far away. You don't need ID maps too, you assign different materials to the vertices, you adjust the sliders and color ramps. To make the vertical gradient work correctly, the high polys must be joined. The rotation must be applied.
This has no effect on the normal map, you will still have to bake it separately.
I have added an Highlight Front setting, it is a combination of an object space normal to generate front lighting (with a default GradientRamp to clamp the values, I did the same for the top lighting) and an horizontal gradient multiplied to make it less visible on the back of the model. I have also multiplied the vertical gradient with the top lighting setting:
Well, it's the same issue again - there is a file to download, but zero instructions (either in the zip as txt, or in the scene itself as a text object) as to how to use it. And no lowpoly either - just a needlessly complex highpoly model with some material applied.
Just to be clear this is not some sort of "bashing" on my end - I just genuinely don't understand the goal here, as I would assume that you would want to make it very easy for your target audience to give you feedback. Otherwise what's the point ?
Replies
Some tools will not be as good as maya but other will be better.
However ! Maybe there is some optimization you could do about the initial flattening step. For instance, some users might do it by doing Scale hotkey > axis hotkey > typing 0. But it is also possible to get the same result faster by doing Scale hotkey > grabbing the desired manipulator handle + ctrl > flattening to a specific vert.
Basically what I am getting at is that even though the overall manipulation takes longer than the Maya one, there might still be some room for optimization in the way you are currently performing it.
I hope this helps !
On a side note, I really wish addon-on developpers could stop adding anything to the Specials menu. It's really inelegant since that means that if a user decides to not use this menu in the first place (or even flat out unbind Specials altogether, since by default it only holds redundant shortcuts to features accessible through other default menus), then there is no way to intuitively find any custom tool placed there. I personally never ever use Specials since I have my own optimized ways to access to everything I need, and because of that I never ran into Space - even though I *do* have Looptools turned on for another, unrelated need.
This stuff really grind my gears, especially since the Looptools help states that it is accessible through "W" ... but it really isn't (W is just the default shortcut for Specials, and LoopTools just so happens to be arbitrarily placed there for no good reason whatsoever).
Anyways, /rant over
There is a tool inside the "3D Viewport Pie Menus" addon called "Edit Align Pie" that can make those snaps a breeze, unfortunately, the tool is really slow with high poly meshes, I did recreate the tool functionality by macroing scale to 0 to active element inside "Pie Menu Editor" and works much better.
All the materials that I'm using have the texture referenced in an Image Texture node, and there aren't any empty material slots involved. I'm using TexTools but I don't think that's the source of the issue.
Link to the project is here. Anyone feel like poking around and seeing what they can find? I'd really appreciate it- it's slowing me down tremendously.
What I mean is that I want to snap selection to vertex/edge using specific axis without destroying UV. Double G and move doesn't allow to snap.
Make sure you leave the node that you want to bake to (image node) "selected" while you hit the Bake Button. It's a minor thing no one actually notices and poorly sinalized over documentation. You can have as many material slots each with thousands of texture nodes included on them, it will only bake into the image node you leave selected at that moment.
You forgot turning Selected to Active Checkbox and setting the ray distance to at least 1. And the material was assigned to the High poly mesh, not the plane. It should be the other way around.
The samples were set to only 1 as well. (I dont know if thats on purpose)
Good Job on the tiling though. Here, I did one for you.
People didn't seem to know of any existing method, and one person actually went out of their way to create a rudimentary Python script that did it, which was very nice.
In case anyone is curious, I've recently discovered that the Displace modifier is capable of it: simply select "Custom Normal" in the Direction field. I hope this info is useful to people when it comes to creating cages!
https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/B/browse/blender2.8/doc/python_api/examples/gpu.types.GPUOffScreen.py
FBX Bundle 1.5.0 is released
This addon exports object selections into file bundles. File names and their objects are previewed in realtime.New export modifiers : Rename, Offset, Copy Modifiers, Merge Meshes, Collider, LOD, Vertex AO speed up the export process for game assets.
Website & Download
http://renderhjs.net/fbxbundle/
Thread:
https://polycount.com/discussion/200292/blender-fbx-bundle-export-addon
Question: is there a way to automatically mark edges you cut with the knife tool as seams? I feel like I saw this once but I can't find anything on it.
However, I now have a new problem, in that marking/clearing a vertex as loose doesn't seem to do anything at all. Anyone have any idea why that might be?
Excellent workaround Cédric! Screw modifier is powerful.
No need of Speedflow, it's blender primitives, the addon allows to edit and create them easily.
Wondermesh is great but is you scale your primitive, you cannot change the settings, the primitive will be reset.
It's more limited.
It's nice to have both possibilities.
- The input(s) required : is this working from a high poly model ? Or from a low with just a normalmap ? Or, a low with a whole set of maps (position, curvature, and so on) like in Substance Painter/Designer ?
- The outputs generated : Is this generating vertex colors baked to the high ? Or a single texture pass baked to lowpoly UVs ?
And so on.
Your work on these nodes setups has always been interesting, but it is always presented in the most cryptic way thus creating a needlessly high barrier to entry. Take the time to present things clearly (ELI5) and you will get a lot more feedback in return. Now of course you could say "well, people have to just download the file to check", but that's not how things work.
I just tried it here, I can rotate, scale, add a bevel (as long as I don't use Speedflow)...
Yes, need to keep the scale to one and play with other settings to edit the primitives.
So, my bad, bad memory and I should use mode your addon but since not everybody has it, I don't show it on my videos.
I'll show it next time!
Don't know if you use my setup to edit or if you use the properties, but a popup with keymaps could be nice to edit on the fly.
Hi Guys,
I made a tutorial for a 100% Non-Destructive Workflow on Blender that allows you to create different versions of an asset and use them for games (Low/High), Subdivisions or even, use it with bevel shader or Remesh it with Blender or Openvdb addon.
I hope you will like it
https://gumroad.com/l/Non-Destructive_Workflow_Tutorial_1
Well, it's the same issue again - there is a file to download, but zero instructions (either in the zip as txt, or in the scene itself as a text object) as to how to use it. And no lowpoly either - just a needlessly complex highpoly model with some material applied.
Just to be clear this is not some sort of "bashing" on my end - I just genuinely don't understand the goal here, as I would assume that you would want to make it very easy for your target audience to give you feedback. Otherwise what's the point ?