Unfortunately the wiki page is pretty old so you'll probably need to do some testing around to get things working, but it should be possible to do this, and it should also be possible to cache and bake the simulation to keyframes for export to UE4.
Unfortunately the wiki page is pretty old so you'll probably need to do some testing around to get things working, but it should be possible to do this, and it should also be possible to cache and bake the simulation to keyframes for export to UE4.
I've been making trees in Blender using the sapling add-on today and was wondering about doing something similar - whether I can bake out the built-in sway animation from Sapling so it works in UE4.
Could someone tell me if this is possible in Blender? https://youtu.be/BGhIQJYe_ew?t=25
He applies more geometry to the shape which interpolates the curves but doesn't affect the edges. I tried doing something similar in Blender but no joy, I applied an edge-split modifier and then a subd modifier underneath, however it just curves the edges. Using the subdivide smooth almost works in essence, but not as is shown in the video.
Well, that is the wireframe version of hidden lines, so it doesn't show all the wires.
I wanted to see my wireframes without that X-ray effect on the faces. If I turn off Faces on the Overlays option and switch back to Solid, the faces are only shown as highlighted wires and I don't want that.
This back and forth between options is slowing me down, the quad view is bugged too and doesn't even have separate shading for the various views, so what to do?
Well, that is the wireframe version of hidden lines, so it doesn't show all the wires.
I wanted to see my wireframes without that X-ray effect on the faces. If I turn off Faces on the Overlays option and switch back to Solid, the faces are only shown as highlighted wires and I don't want that.
This back and forth between options is slowing me down, the quad view is bugged too and doesn't even have separate shading for the various views, so what to do?
instead of using quad view, you can maually create new viewports and save that as a preset
in this new viewports you can have different shading
Is this what you're looking for? This mode will draw the wireframe over whatever view the model is currently in, including when not in edit mode. If you select the object and then go to Object > Display you just need to make sure the Wire checkbox is selected. The Draw All Edges box makes sure it shows every edge, but can be bad for really dense models.
You could also consider adding the new wireframe modifier which will draw wires on top of the model based on a material, although it can be kind of buggy. (It's nice for wireframe renders however.)
It also seems like you might have missed the viewport shading modes? (It's the box with the circle next to "object mode" in my screenshot.) Z toggles wireframe and solid. Alt+Z toggles wireframe and textured. There's also a menu on the bottom bar with a few more options.
I think he's looking for a global (viewport?) toggle you can get to with a shortcut rather than an object one you have to click in a menu somewhere, I would really like that too actually.
Edit: actually read it properly this time, think you were right darkmage07.
Go to File->User Preferences, Themes tab on top, 3D View on the left. Find Face and Face Selected colors 13 rows down from the top. Click the colors and drag alpha to zero. Save user settings and you should be good to go.
It's happening! Fresh tutorials for high-quality Cycles renders. If you find these hard to follow or extremely boring at any point let me know where you got stuck (by PM if you're more comfortable with that, but in the thread if you have a question that you think people would benefit from knowing the answer to) and I will try to improve my tutorials and answer your questions.
Hey guys, made a second testbuild of asset-experiements branch) (the one containing filebrowser changes needed for asset engine project), more details here!
Frankie: yes you can. First, take this Python script and save it in Blender/(version number)/scripts/addons folder as object_toggle_wireframe_on_shaded_on_all.py.
import bpy
bl_info = { "name": "Quick Wireframe on Shaded", "category": "Object" }
def main(context):
do_i_show_wire = not context.active_object.show_wire
for ob in context.scene.objects:
ob.show_wire = do_i_show_wire
class ToggleWireframeOnShadedOnAll(bpy.types.Operator):
"""Toggle Wireframe on Shaded on All"""
bl_idname = "object.toggle_wireframe_on_shaded_on_all"
bl_label = "Toggle Wireframe on Shaded"
@classmethod
def poll(cls, context):
return context.active_object is not None
def execute(self, context):
main(context)
return {'FINISHED'}
def register():
bpy.utils.register_class(ToggleWireframeOnShadedOnAll)
def unregister():
bpy.utils.unregister_class(ToggleWireframeOnShadedOnAll)
if __name__ == "__main__":
register()
Then, start Blender up, go to the addons list, and add the Toggle Wireframe on Shaded on All addon. Go to the hotkey list, go to 3D View->3D View (Global), scroll down to the end of the section, click Add New button, click the arrow next to the new hotkey, type in the top left box object.toggle_wireframe_on_shaded_on_all, and define your hotkey of choice for the operator in the box to the right of that.
Make sure you read the script and understand what it does before you do this. Otherwise, you might be installing malicious code on your machine! Also, it will help you learn how to make your own scripts so you can become the Seneca of Blender.
Bastien, thanks for the testbuild. You've been consistently making the patches that Blender needs the most, and I really appreciate it.
I'm having a problem where I can't adjust the dialog box dividers anymore. I think it's related to the screen.region_scale operator since I'm getting the message "can only scale region size from an action zone" when I try to move a divider. I was editing shortcuts in the Screen>Screen Editing rollout.
I think I've spent more time in Blender just changing the UI interaction then actually using the program, and I'm still not done... It's cool that Blender can be changed to my liking but if the shortcuts for simple stuff started out more like max or maya or modo or photoshop or word or something that made sense it would be less of a gigantic pain in the damn ass.
Also, there is a lot of the program that is buried away in a shortcut somewhere and god forbid you delete it. I deleted the specials menu from the key editor and realized there was no menu assignment for it! So I had to go blender.org/api to find the operator name and re-assign a shortcut to it...
I'm having a problem where I can't adjust the dialog box dividers anymore. I think it's related to the screen.region_scale operator since I'm getting the message "can only scale region size from an action zone" when I try to move a divider. I was editing shortcuts in the Screen>Screen Editing rollout.
I think I've spent more time in Blender just changing the UI interaction then actually using the program, and I'm still not done... It's cool that Blender can be changed to my liking but if the shortcuts for simple stuff started out more like max or maya or modo or photoshop or word or something that made sense it would be less of a gigantic pain in the damn ass.
Also, there is a lot of the program that is buried away in a shortcut somewhere and god forbid you delete it. I deleted the specials menu from the key editor and realized there was no menu assignment for it! So I had to go blender.org/api to find the operator name and re-assign a shortcut to it...
Ok, the problem is even if you edit the screen.region_scale and then reset it back to default, it won't work after that. I had to open up the saved shortcut file .py in Notepad and then delete the entire #Screen Editing section.
This guy's add-on is total trash and gave me false hope on my progress.
I am currently unwrapping my dozens of hair strands and wanted to copy-paste the uvs instead of unwrapping them all.
ANy way to do this?
Or use the data transfer modifier: put the faces that you want to transfer UVs for in a vertex group, add a data transfer modifier on the target mesh, put the source mesh in the Source Object field, check Face Corner Data, pick the algorithm you want (I like projected face interpolated myself, but you may be in a different situation), pick UVs, pick the vertex group for the faces you want the attribute transfer to affect, apply the modifier and you should be golden.
AFAIK Ctrl+L only works when the vertex order is the same.
This guy's add-on is total trash and gave me false hope on my progress.
I am currently unwrapping my dozens of hair strands and wanted to copy-paste the uvs instead of unwrapping them all.
ANy way to do this?
Is there a reason why you chose to do it this way instead of just making one strand, UVing it, and then copy/pasting the whole strand mesh then adjusting the vertices while placing it?
Is there a reason why you chose to do it this way instead of just making one strand, UVing it, and then copy/pasting the whole strand mesh then adjusting the vertices while placing it?
Well, trust me this is ALWAYS how I used to do it within Maya.
Model the object and quickly wor on the UV's so I don't have to re-work on the duplicated ones.
However, I'm not sure why, I kinda tohught of using a tool without even testing (so it's all my fault) and thought I could just copy paste the uvs onto another shell :-( ...
Anyone know if it's possible to custom order vertex indexing to help with sorting transparent object (I've got some trees made up of slices, like plates stacked on top of each other with a segment of the tree textured on each)
Anyone know if it's possible to custom order vertex indexing to help with sorting transparent object (I've got some trees made up of slices, like plates stacked on top of each other with a segment of the tree textured on each)
I'm not sure I follow for sure what you're trying to do, but this article covers transparency in Blender pretty thoroughly, so it might have what you're looking for.
To be fair, redoing all the hair with instanced strands will take the same amount of time as unwrapping what you have right now. If you buckle up and get to it you could straighten/overlap all these UVs in about an hour or so.
Regardless, you will still end up being frustrated since in both cases, you would need to have a proper(ish) hair strand texture ready in order to precisely preview how it will look once applied to the model. So, my advice would be to work on that first and foremost.
You could also do a bake for this. Make an image with the size you want, set bake mode to Textures, uncheck Selected to Active, uncheck Bake to Vertex Color, go into edit mode, select all verts, go into the UV/Image editor and go to the image that you want to bake to to set it as the active image for the bake, and press Bake.
It's no Ctrl+E but once you've figured out how to do it it's decently fast. Plus you can use it to bleed seams after you're done painting.
1-When I create a new texture that I want to paint, does Blender save the file somewhere, is it packed in the .blend file or I have to save it? How?
2-Also, if I get things right, Blender only uses ONE material ? And from there you have to create all of your other materials by changing the parameters?
In Maya, you had a list with different shaders (lambert,phong,blinn,etc.)
1. Blender doesn't save the texture file anywhere by default. Images are saved independently from .blend files to facilitate faster saving, though you can pack them later to send them to a render farm. If you want to keep your painting, you have to save the images from the UV/Image editor once so Blender knows where to save it (the default hotkey for this is F3, and you can also get to it from the Image menu on the bottom), and after that's done you can quickly re-save all the changed images that your material uses from the T panel in the 3D view, under the Slots tab.
2. I'm not totally sure what your meaning is here, but Blender Internal and Cycles materials work in very different ways. I can't recommend using node-based materials for Internal but for Cycles it's practically mandatory. Using Cycles nodes is kind of like the Hypershade and using Blender Internal materials is kind of like using the attribute editor. Of course you can have more than one material datablock in a file. However, you assign different BRDFs in Blender Internal from the material editor itself. For example you can pick Oren-Nayar diffuse and Phong specularity and apply a color ramp to the specularity to give it a Fresnel effect.
One odd thing about Blender Internal is that the CookTorr specular BRDF is actually Blinn-Phong (non-normalized) and the Blinn specular BRDF is actually Cook-Torrance. Don't worry about it too much, just leave the spec on CookTorr and you're good to go.
Blender Internal materials have additional things you can switch on to get emissive, shadeless, ray mirror, subsurface, transluency, etc. In Cycles you have to implement them yourself by combining shaders like the diffuse, glossy and translucent BSDFs and emission, but it's pretty easy to do once you get used to it. However I personally prefer Blender Internal for texture painting since it's easier to see what your gloss and spec maps do (especially if you're still painting for a non PBR engine like Dota 2.)
Another pair of odd legacy things about Blender Internal are the dread pirates Dvar and RGB to Intensity. You can find these guys in the texture properties under Influence, and you need to understand how they work to paint spec intensity and spec power maps. Basically you need to check RGB to Intensity under Influence if your texture influences any scalar parameter. This includes diffuse intensity, specular intensity, specular hardness (power), alpha and translucency, and ray mirror amount. I recommend having a texture only affect scalar parameters or color parameters, not both. Anyway if it's a scalar parameter, remember to check RGB to Intensity for image textures.
The Dvar affects whether your scalar texture pushes the scalar value up or down. If the Dvar is 0 the texture will push the scalar down, and if it's 1 the texture will push the scalar up. So, for example, if I'm painting a gloss map for the Dota 2 hero shader, that shader works by starting with a specular power that's defined in the material description file. (Let's say it's 30.) Then the gloss texture decreases specular power. To replicate this in the Blender viewport I would first set the specular hardness to 30 in the material properties and the specular intensity to 1. Then, I go to my texture properties and add a new image texture. Under Influence, I uncheck Diffuse Color and check Specular Hardness. Then I check RGB to Intensity and set the Dvar to zero. This will make my specular power texture decrease the hardness when it's black, giving me broad highlights, and leave the hardness alone when it's white, giving me plain old specular highlights.
To preview the Dota 2 shader in the game I can set up a compositing node tree that nondestructively packs my masks into an output file, improving iteration times a bit.
I hope this is helpful to you. I'm a bit drunk writing this so maybe I haven't communicated some things as clearly as I might have liked.
Replies
I'm currently working on a project in which I will be integrating an FBX animated character into Unreal 4.
However, my character has a cape and features long hair.
In Maya, there's this amazing tool which allows you to add dynamic properties to your armatures in a few clicks!
[ame]
This can be used to avoid animating clothes, hair,flags and such.
Once, the simulation is done you can simply bake your dynamic animation for game exportation.
I wondered, is there a similar tool in Blender?
https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?5242-Blender-gt-Apex-Clothing-Tool-gt-UE4
Or this page on the wiki about using softbody simulation to affect armatures.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Physics/Soft_Body/Combination_With_Armatures
Unfortunately the wiki page is pretty old so you'll probably need to do some testing around to get things working, but it should be possible to do this, and it should also be possible to cache and bake the simulation to keyframes for export to UE4.
I've been making trees in Blender using the sapling add-on today and was wondering about doing something similar - whether I can bake out the built-in sway animation from Sapling so it works in UE4.
Might have to have a play with it.
If somebody has a simpler solution, please let us know.
https://youtu.be/BGhIQJYe_ew?t=25
He applies more geometry to the shape which interpolates the curves but doesn't affect the edges. I tried doing something similar in Blender but no joy, I applied an edge-split modifier and then a subd modifier underneath, however it just curves the edges. Using the subdivide smooth almost works in essence, but not as is shown in the video.
I need this so badly!
Creases achieve what you described.
[ame="
Perfect, thankyou.
Default
With Faces turned off (N-->Mesh Display-->Overlays)
what you are looking for ? (only works in edit mode)
I wanted to see my wireframes without that X-ray effect on the faces. If I turn off Faces on the Overlays option and switch back to Solid, the faces are only shown as highlighted wires and I don't want that.
This back and forth between options is slowing me down, the quad view is bugged too and doesn't even have separate shading for the various views, so what to do?
instead of using quad view, you can maually create new viewports and save that as a preset
in this new viewports you can have different shading
Is this what you're looking for? This mode will draw the wireframe over whatever view the model is currently in, including when not in edit mode. If you select the object and then go to Object > Display you just need to make sure the Wire checkbox is selected. The Draw All Edges box makes sure it shows every edge, but can be bad for really dense models.
You could also consider adding the new wireframe modifier which will draw wires on top of the model based on a material, although it can be kind of buggy. (It's nice for wireframe renders however.)
It also seems like you might have missed the viewport shading modes? (It's the box with the circle next to "object mode" in my screenshot.) Z toggles wireframe and solid. Alt+Z toggles wireframe and textured. There's also a menu on the bottom bar with a few more options.
Edit: actually read it properly this time, think you were right darkmage07.
Anyway, to make it simple, I want a way to toggle between Solid and Wireframe mode, without that semi-transparent face overlapping that Blender have.
Just like here, or in any other software.
Is this what you're looking for?
toggle with Z
edit : jed beat me to it while i was performing photoshop magic =(
I love you guys
Now a one key toggle would be better, but I do not know how to do that.
As JedTheKrampus said, you can do that, I was trying it, and when I updated the page he had already replied.
I did that in another way:
If you're using the PieMenu, there's no a direct Z toggle btw.
Prooud to present my first ever model in Blender.
I am planning of texturing her in a few hours, using Kritta and Blender.
Wish me good luck.
It's happening! Fresh tutorials for high-quality Cycles renders. If you find these hard to follow or extremely boring at any point let me know where you got stuck (by PM if you're more comfortable with that, but in the thread if you have a question that you think people would benefit from knowing the answer to) and I will try to improve my tutorials and answer your questions.
[ame]
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1693140/game/canyoudothis.gif
import bpy bl_info = { "name": "Quick Wireframe on Shaded", "category": "Object" } def main(context): do_i_show_wire = not context.active_object.show_wire for ob in context.scene.objects: ob.show_wire = do_i_show_wire class ToggleWireframeOnShadedOnAll(bpy.types.Operator): """Toggle Wireframe on Shaded on All""" bl_idname = "object.toggle_wireframe_on_shaded_on_all" bl_label = "Toggle Wireframe on Shaded" @classmethod def poll(cls, context): return context.active_object is not None def execute(self, context): main(context) return {'FINISHED'} def register(): bpy.utils.register_class(ToggleWireframeOnShadedOnAll) def unregister(): bpy.utils.unregister_class(ToggleWireframeOnShadedOnAll) if __name__ == "__main__": register()Then, start Blender up, go to the addons list, and add the Toggle Wireframe on Shaded on All addon. Go to the hotkey list, go to 3D View->3D View (Global), scroll down to the end of the section, click Add New button, click the arrow next to the new hotkey, type in the top left box object.toggle_wireframe_on_shaded_on_all, and define your hotkey of choice for the operator in the box to the right of that.
Make sure you read the script and understand what it does before you do this. Otherwise, you might be installing malicious code on your machine! Also, it will help you learn how to make your own scripts so you can become the Seneca of Blender.
Bastien, thanks for the testbuild. You've been consistently making the patches that Blender needs the most, and I really appreciate it.
I think I've spent more time in Blender just changing the UI interaction then actually using the program, and I'm still not done... It's cool that Blender can be changed to my liking but if the shortcuts for simple stuff started out more like max or maya or modo or photoshop or word or something that made sense it would be less of a gigantic pain in the damn ass.
Also, there is a lot of the program that is buried away in a shortcut somewhere and god forbid you delete it. I deleted the specials menu from the key editor and realized there was no menu assignment for it! So I had to go blender.org/api to find the operator name and re-assign a shortcut to it...
This guy's add-on is total trash and gave me false hope on my progress.
I am currently unwrapping my dozens of hair strands and wanted to copy-paste the uvs instead of unwrapping them all.
ANy way to do this?
Object > Make Links > Transfer UV Maps
Ok, the problem is even if you edit the screen.region_scale and then reset it back to default, it won't work after that. I had to open up the saved shortcut file .py in Notepad and then delete the entire #Screen Editing section.
Or use the data transfer modifier: put the faces that you want to transfer UVs for in a vertex group, add a data transfer modifier on the target mesh, put the source mesh in the Source Object field, check Face Corner Data, pick the algorithm you want (I like projected face interpolated myself, but you may be in a different situation), pick UVs, pick the vertex group for the faces you want the attribute transfer to affect, apply the modifier and you should be golden.
AFAIK Ctrl+L only works when the vertex order is the same.
Well, trust me this is ALWAYS how I used to do it within Maya.
Model the object and quickly wor on the UV's so I don't have to re-work on the duplicated ones.
However, I'm not sure why, I kinda tohught of using a tool without even testing (so it's all my fault) and thought I could just copy paste the uvs onto another shell :-( ...
That''ll teach me...
Your help is much more than appreciated. Thank you all.:D
I'm not sure I follow for sure what you're trying to do, but this article covers transparency in Blender pretty thoroughly, so it might have what you're looking for.
How can we merge (flatten) multiples layers of texture into one?
Also what's the difference between material texture and world texture?
Well, loks like I'll have to red- the hair all over again thanks to my horrendous planning and workflow.
I'll make one instance and duplicate it then..
Regardless, you will still end up being frustrated since in both cases, you would need to have a proper(ish) hair strand texture ready in order to precisely preview how it will look once applied to the model. So, my advice would be to work on that first and foremost.
You could always use the built-in compositor for that
MMh, I meant merging for example two diffuse texture into one, just like you would do in any painting program.
It's no Ctrl+E but once you've figured out how to do it it's decently fast. Plus you can use it to bleed seams after you're done painting.
So, Pior, I couldve listened to you but i choosed to redo the whole thing at the cost of adding 6000 tris ...
Well it looks better at least (new versions are images above)
Can finally start texturing!!!
1-When I create a new texture that I want to paint, does Blender save the file somewhere, is it packed in the .blend file or I have to save it? How?
2-Also, if I get things right, Blender only uses ONE material ? And from there you have to create all of your other materials by changing the parameters?
In Maya, you had a list with different shaders (lambert,phong,blinn,etc.)
2. I'm not totally sure what your meaning is here, but Blender Internal and Cycles materials work in very different ways. I can't recommend using node-based materials for Internal but for Cycles it's practically mandatory. Using Cycles nodes is kind of like the Hypershade and using Blender Internal materials is kind of like using the attribute editor. Of course you can have more than one material datablock in a file. However, you assign different BRDFs in Blender Internal from the material editor itself. For example you can pick Oren-Nayar diffuse and Phong specularity and apply a color ramp to the specularity to give it a Fresnel effect.
One odd thing about Blender Internal is that the CookTorr specular BRDF is actually Blinn-Phong (non-normalized) and the Blinn specular BRDF is actually Cook-Torrance. Don't worry about it too much, just leave the spec on CookTorr and you're good to go.
Blender Internal materials have additional things you can switch on to get emissive, shadeless, ray mirror, subsurface, transluency, etc. In Cycles you have to implement them yourself by combining shaders like the diffuse, glossy and translucent BSDFs and emission, but it's pretty easy to do once you get used to it. However I personally prefer Blender Internal for texture painting since it's easier to see what your gloss and spec maps do (especially if you're still painting for a non PBR engine like Dota 2.)
Another pair of odd legacy things about Blender Internal are the dread pirates Dvar and RGB to Intensity. You can find these guys in the texture properties under Influence, and you need to understand how they work to paint spec intensity and spec power maps. Basically you need to check RGB to Intensity under Influence if your texture influences any scalar parameter. This includes diffuse intensity, specular intensity, specular hardness (power), alpha and translucency, and ray mirror amount. I recommend having a texture only affect scalar parameters or color parameters, not both. Anyway if it's a scalar parameter, remember to check RGB to Intensity for image textures.
The Dvar affects whether your scalar texture pushes the scalar value up or down. If the Dvar is 0 the texture will push the scalar down, and if it's 1 the texture will push the scalar up. So, for example, if I'm painting a gloss map for the Dota 2 hero shader, that shader works by starting with a specular power that's defined in the material description file. (Let's say it's 30.) Then the gloss texture decreases specular power. To replicate this in the Blender viewport I would first set the specular hardness to 30 in the material properties and the specular intensity to 1. Then, I go to my texture properties and add a new image texture. Under Influence, I uncheck Diffuse Color and check Specular Hardness. Then I check RGB to Intensity and set the Dvar to zero. This will make my specular power texture decrease the hardness when it's black, giving me broad highlights, and leave the hardness alone when it's white, giving me plain old specular highlights.
To preview the Dota 2 shader in the game I can set up a compositing node tree that nondestructively packs my masks into an output file, improving iteration times a bit.
I hope this is helpful to you. I'm a bit drunk writing this so maybe I haven't communicated some things as clearly as I might have liked.