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FWIW there’s some demand in the developer community to overhaul and improve the NLA because it’s really powerful but opaque.
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Jun 12, 2022 11:37
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Elukka posted:I'm also glad to hear someone else has actually tried to use it and also found it bizarre. There are many parts of Blender that seemingly almost nobody uses.  I've done some really hacky things with the Maya python api but drat. I'm surprised to hear that blender has such incomplete API access but also not surprised. I feel like Blender doesn't get used that much when it comes to character animation / cinematic and game pipelines so there hasn't been much feedback such as: "this is unacceptably behind the times". It's a shame too, because Autodesk have basically left Maya and Motion builder to rot away and there are many of us who would gladly accept some competition in this area.
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Jun 13, 2022 02:40
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I just bought a year of Maya LT about a month ago. I'm hoping to transition to Blender by the end of it. It's hard to transition software when you're in the middle of a busy project though.
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Jun 13, 2022 11:28
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Some things, seeing as I've been using the action editor and the NLA editor a bit lately: If you do animations for games and export as FBX you don't have to touch the NLA Editor. You can just use actions and don't need to push them down. Just use the shield icon to give Blender a fake user so it will not delete the clip you've just created. Make sure you uncheck the NLA parts in the FBX exporter and you should be good to go. Some export formats like GLTF only do clips that are on the NLA editor it seems. You will need to push these down. When you want to change them, make sure you use the "tweak clip option" in the NLA editor to get your keyframes back into the action editor. When using the action editor make sure you are in pose mode when switching animations, sometimes stuff breaks when in object mode and the viewport does not update. For the unused animations that you want to delete: you need to close and reopen the file. Blender still keeps the datablocks around when it is running. You can use "file view" in the outliner to actually see how your Blender file is stored on disk and you can remove animations/actions from there as well.
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Jun 14, 2022 06:51
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The whole reason I came here in the first place was because (some of) my animations weren't exporting in FBX files. I didn't know anything about the NLA editor, and figuring out the very basics of using it was what resolved the issue for me. So the claim "you don't have to touch the NLA editor" is false in this case at least. I can understand you believing it though, because some of my animations were exporting properly in FBX, and it was not at all clear to me what the difference was between those and the ones that weren't exporting.
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Jun 14, 2022 14:40
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The whole reason I came here in the first place was because (some of) my animations weren't exporting in FBX files. I didn't know anything about the NLA editor, and figuring out the very basics of using it was what resolved the issue for me. So the claim "you don't have to touch the NLA editor" is false in this case at least. I can understand you believing it though, because some of my animations were exporting properly in FBX, and it was not at all clear to me what the difference was between those and the ones that weren't exporting. I know, I came across it because I started using GLTF while never having to use it before because FBX has a specific "action" setting in the exporter. Probably something finicky going on. Good you got it working though. Seems like it is something of a black art. Mr Shiny Pants fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Jun 14, 2022 |
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Jun 14, 2022 17:17
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For the first time in a while, I’m excited about CG! Been developing a custom tiling ubershader in Houdini/Redshift, with the goal of allowing my artists to quickly get a really high fidelity, due to TV-timelines being stupidly short. Had some big moments teaching it today, and it went way better than expected. End results are “ArtStation quality” in an hour or so, for lack of a better term. In the end it’s pretty much the normal “tiling base textures, masks for grunge/decals/etc” that you see in games and high-end VFX, just in an easy to use HDA that takes nearly all of the setup and grunt work out. And I also got an offer for promotion from surfacing lead to asset supervisor! Still mulling it over as it’s a bit of a role change, but the fact that I’ve been here less than a year and they’re this happy with my work is reassuring. I suffer from constant imposter syndrome, so wins like this that break through are a hell of a breath of fresh air.
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Jun 17, 2022 22:30
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Slothful Bong posted:For the first time in a while, I’m excited about CG! Congratulations! I'm interested to hear more about your HDA, since my focus is usually on realtime and I'm still not very efficient/knowledgeable at anything to do with high quality renders. Is your tool reading from an existing library of tiling textures? Is it essentially a PBR shader, or something else?
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Jun 19, 2022 12:06
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500 posted:Congratulations! I'm interested to hear more about your HDA, since my focus is usually on realtime and I'm still not very efficient/knowledgeable at anything to do with high quality renders. Is your tool reading from an existing library of tiling textures? Is it essentially a PBR shader, or something else? Thanks! It’s built off the base redshift PBR shader, using layered shaders for triplanar and decal/hand painted overrides - but I’ve taken a bit of time to determine what features artists would need, so I’ve been able to expose only the most important of the parameters so they don’t ever have to dive into the (somewhat insane) node graph. That was a challenge lol. I’m one of those people that wants every control easily accessible, so paring down to a handful of tabs which control tons of nodes was hard as balls. I eventually figured I could hide the “expert” level controls under hidden tabs, now the interface is clean until an artist needs more. It also live-updates from a tiling library path on the server, so adding new materials is the easiest thing in the world. Just make a folder with properly named textures, and the drop-down menu immediately has it! It’s been fun to develop, and really reaffirms how powerful HDAs (and by proxy exposed parameters and relative references) can be. If any of you dabble in Houdini, spend some time messing with them. Even just using them for node graphs you find yourself recreating a lot is a huge timesaver, and you can customize the interfaces to only have what you actively need.
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Jun 19, 2022 13:03
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Thanks for the detailed response!Slothful Bong posted:It also live-updates from a tiling library path on the server, so adding new materials is the easiest thing in the world. Just make a folder with properly named textures, and the drop-down menu immediately has it! This part really appeals to me. It's funny, despite having made a lot of tools over the years, there are certain tasks that I never considered building tools for until I hear about someone else doing it.
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Jun 19, 2022 13:34
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This is kind of a dumb pointless question, but I'm curious anyway. I used 3DS Max about 20 years ago and they had a teapot as their "unique" primitive. Blender uses Suzanne the Monkey Head. Do other 3D programs also have their own unique little mascot primitives?
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Jun 20, 2022 18:33
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Renderman had a teapot primitive, houdini got a pighead.
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Jun 20, 2022 18:45
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A bunch of them are replicas of early 3d models from Stanford's 3d scanning initiative, that they slipped in for fun. Blender is unique in having it be a more recent one created for it, I think? I don't know if many other programs have mascot primitives like that, but there are a couple other 3d 'artifacts' like that, like the stanford bunny, and dragon, the happy buddha, 'Lucy', the Utah Teapot, etc. (Just check the list, I'll bet you've seen a bunch of them before in a bunch of places.) http://graphics.stanford.edu/data/3Dscanrep/
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Jun 20, 2022 18:48
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHbw7iaJ5E4
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Jun 20, 2022 19:52
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I've added a new tablet and done some rearranging with my desk, and now my old mechanical wired keyboard is not convenient to use, so I was wondering if any of y'all had a keyboard that they would recommend. I'm looking for a wireless keyboard, with a smaller form factor, that is easier to swap on and off the desk. I liked the aesthetics of the Logitech Pop keyboards but they're a bit too gimmicky (I don't care about emoji keys). Wireless and small, being able to remap function keys would be nice. Would be using with Zbrush/Houdini/Affinity apps for the most part. Anybody have something they really like?
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Jun 20, 2022 23:22
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Do you have a preference for mechanical or are chiclets okay? If mechanical, look at the stuff from Keychron. They have a good array of options so something should suit you. If a chiclet is okay, the MS designer keyboard is nice. The Apple ones are nice too. And if none of those grab you, have fun in the rabbit hole.
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Jun 20, 2022 23:31
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xzzy posted:Do you have a preference for mechanical or are chiclets okay? What are chiclets exactly- is that like the Surface keyboard's keys? Not a huge fan of those.
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Jun 20, 2022 23:41
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Almost done with this thing.  
sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Jun 21, 2022 |
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Jun 21, 2022 00:17
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sigma 6 posted:Almost done with this thing. Looks great! Nice one
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Jun 21, 2022 00:33
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How are you getting such circular-looking tire silhouettes? The mesh view doesn't show nearly enough polys to get a curve; is there some subsurf going on there? It looks great, to be clear.
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Jun 21, 2022 02:08
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Subdivision modeling aka "smooth mesh preview" or what have you. Edit: Plus displacement maps or the like for the tread.
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Jun 21, 2022 03:49
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:How are you getting such circular-looking tire silhouettes? The mesh view doesn't show nearly enough polys to get a curve; is there some subsurf going on there? Thanks! Probably Maya's 3 / smooth mode is what you refer to. Blender artists are often asking me about this and it's just a feature built into Maya. The 3 button smooths a mesh without actually changing the topology. It used to be called "smooth poly preview" but it's basically a way to show the first poly smooth without actually doing it. Very useful feature and saves on polygons. Considering recreating all the materials using substance. It's still far too clean. Some of the textures here are actually from the scan data I started with. Notably the tire and door textures. Scan data I started with looked like this. The engine still needs a lot of work and so does the surface dev overall but it's a lot closer. 
sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Jun 21, 2022 |
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Jun 21, 2022 05:43
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What software are you using for your scan data?
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Jun 21, 2022 09:19
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Alterian posted:What software are you using for your scan data? Agisoft Photoscan. Would have covered the car in baby powder / matte spray to cut reflections but it was a random scan of some guy's car. I was sitting across from it at a coffee shop and thought hmmm... that paint job is matte enough to scan. I did ask him if I could take pics of his car though. Heheh. sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jun 21, 2022 |
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Jun 21, 2022 18:54
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sigma 6 posted:Thanks! In Blender it's called the subdivision surface modifier. I have mine set up so I can turn it on/off by pressing tab, but apparently that's not standard. Maya got it right by providing shortcuts by default (nice car model by the way!)
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Jun 22, 2022 02:42
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500 posted:In Blender it's called the subdivision surface modifier. I have mine set up so I can turn it on/off by pressing tab, but apparently that's not standard. Maya got it right by providing shortcuts by default (nice car model by the way!) What he means is that Maya has a way to view an object as smoothed without applying any sort of modifier - even a subd one. It's not the same as applying subd modifiers in other programs. It's literally a "hey if you were to happen to smooth this mesh... it'd look like this." But if you hit render you'd see your low poly mesh. It's pretty nifty. And of course it has actual subd and smoothing operations for actual modeling. But that's not the same as smooth poly preview, and as far as I know no other program has it. https://knowledge.autodesk.com/supp...03838E-htm.html BonoMan fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jun 22, 2022 |
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Jun 22, 2022 02:50
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That's correct. It saves on polygons when rendering in Maya but not so great when you export models and forget that you had 3 / smooth mode on and you wonder why your exported models don't look smooth anymore after export... whoops. It's a feature I use habitually now though because the 1, 2, 3 shortcuts in Maya are so useful. 1 = base mesh 2 = base mesh + smooth poly preview and 3 = smooth poly preview. Fantastic feature for modeling and rendering and exactly the same thing as previewing the first poly smooth (or turbo smooth if you are using Max.) My only gripe is that I wish there was a way to turn on 3 mode for all models at once. Although, honestly I never looked into it, so maybe there is. In the end it's great because you effectively have to model 4 times less polygons for everything ... until you have to export ... of course. sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Jun 22, 2022 |
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Jun 22, 2022 03:16
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It sounds like blender's subdivision modifier also does that, though? You can turn off the render option in the modifier and it sounds like it would work exactly the same way, except you press Ctrl+1,2,3, etc. instead. It even has the "Optimal Display" option for showing the smoothed wireframe the same way.
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Jun 22, 2022 04:08
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Sailor Dave posted:It sounds like blender's subdivision modifier also does that, though? You can turn off the render option in the modifier and it sounds like it would work exactly the same way, except you press Ctrl+1,2,3, etc. instead. It even has the "Optimal Display" option for showing the smoothed wireframe the same way. Modifiers are very much how 3D Studio Max works as well. Point is, no modifiers are needed. It just works that way by default. Also renders that way. I always found it interesting how Blender seemed to take a cue from Max with the modifier stack. Like 3d artists need to see how meshes are modified by a linear layering stack a la Photoshop. Node based software like Houdini and Touchdesigner don't have such a linear / vertical style workflow. Nor do most shading networks these days in Maya or Max or Blender. Or compositing software like Nuke, or Black Magic Fusion or uh... Shake... which was the first software I can remember that used node based workflow. Although I know Houdini was doing it even before Shake was. sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Jun 22, 2022 |
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Jun 22, 2022 08:24
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sigma 6 posted:Modifiers are very much how 3D Studio Max works as well. Point is, no modifiers are needed. It just works that way by default. Also renders that way. The stack is really only used for modifier modeling. Blender uses node-based networks for a ton of other things including the shading networks, compositing, geometry nodes, etc. That said, the stack is amazing and putting it in Blender made it very easy for me to move over from Max. Gearman fucked around with this message at 12:05 on Jun 22, 2022 |
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Jun 22, 2022 12:03
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Sailor Dave posted:It sounds like blender's subdivision modifier also does that, though? You can turn off the render option in the modifier and it sounds like it would work exactly the same way, except you press Ctrl+1,2,3, etc. instead. It even has the "Optimal Display" option for showing the smoothed wireframe the same way. I mean yes a lot of dcc that use modifiers that have toggle-able options. I use C4D which has a similar stack system and lots of things to toggle. It's just that the Maya thing we're talking about exists at a system level. You don't add anything to the model. No modifiers or whatever.. Every poly object has the function from the moment you make it. It's not going to save you days or time or anything, but it's just convenient.
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Jun 22, 2022 13:12
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Especially when you're trying to get a model ready to take over to zbrush!
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Jun 22, 2022 13:24
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BonoMan posted:What he means is that Maya has a way to view an object as smoothed without applying any sort of modifier - even a subd one. Yep, I first learned subd modelling in Maya. I'm always looking for ways to emulate that workflow in other programs. I guess what I was trying to say is that the way I currently have Blender set up feels roughly the same as using Maya. I press 'tab', and if there's no subdivision modifier it adds one and enables it. If there's already a subdivision modifier present, it toggles it on or off. As long as there are no other modifiers present, I don't even have to look at the modifier stack, so I can kind of pretend it doesn't exist. This is not a default shortcut, but it's nice that it's possible to set up custom behavior like this in Blender. Does Cinema4D still require you to drag objects inside of a subdivision object? How do you make that less annoying? 500 fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jun 22, 2022 |
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Jun 22, 2022 16:04
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500 posted:Yep, I first learned subd modelling in Maya. I'm always looking for ways to emulate that workflow in other programs. When you have your object selected, you hold alt when selecting subd and it automatically makes the object a child of the modifier. If you hold shift when selecting it it'll do the reverse and make the modifier the child of the object. It's pretty nice - and the ability to add modifiers that don't alter anything by default is cool too. I really like C4D's stack system - especially with the release of the new capsule system.
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Jun 22, 2022 18:08
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Fixed the lighting and added some post FX to the render but I think it might be a bit too heavy handed. The old photo look might be a crease too far here.
sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Jun 23, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2022 07:18
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The chromatic abberation effect you're using doesn't match the style you might see in old photos. It looks more like the type you'd see in older recordings if things are moving really fast.
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Jun 23, 2022 14:52
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Yeah, no CA. Less on the crease (it's super distracting. Maybe one more towards the corners, etc but don't cut right across your work!). Soften it up (too sharp) and desat a little bit (colors popping too much for an older photo.)
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Jun 23, 2022 15:45
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Thanks guys! I suspected the crease and CA might be overkill. More DOF and grain / scratches might be good though. I don't want to desaturate it entirely but I agree the saturation is too much. Not sure if using Substance Painter here might just be overkill. The only thing really bothering me is so much of it looks too new. I can feed more noise into the color and spec to hopefully cut down on that. Ideally add some dirt and grime too. Just don't want to have to load too many parts into Substance Painter. I had just gotten used to the Substance Sampler workflow of outputting .sbsar files and now I find that Substance Painter doesn't actually export .sbsar files (!?!)... Why can't they just make that format something all Substance products support? That seems stupid to me vs. dealing with all those maps. The Substance Archive file format solves that problem well but now I am back to painting separate maps again. VVV Agreed! VVV sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jun 23, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2022 19:46
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I think the relative newness of the car is fine, in isolation. But when it's parked in a dirt field, then it looks out of place. So either dirty up the car, or put it in a cleaner environment.
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Jun 23, 2022 19:54
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Here's a bit of a beginner question, I think. I have a model in ZBrush that has been produced from some scan data. I have to make it look a bit like a wood carving, so I can be rough with how I handle the surfaces, which is nice because it's pretty quick work. That said, there are a few sections of the model that have holes in them from the scan data.   That little sash on the back of the jacket is a good example. I would usually just drag this into another program I'm comfortable with, like 3ds Max, and build some basic forms to fill those holes, then bring it back into ZBrush and boolean it together. That said, I'm sure ZBrush must have good tools for rebuilding this without taking it into another program, I am just not familiar with them. How would you best go about rebuilding those shapes?
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Jun 25, 2022 16:15
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