I really don’t know what category this belongs in, so here it is:
I imported a figure from Character Creator 3 in .obj format. The eyelashes and the scalp for the hair both render as black.
I figure this has something to do with alphas gone wrong, but I don’t know how to fix it, and my searches turn up only a short thread from which the attachments are missing…
I have seen the same problem with models from many sources going into Blender- I figure there must be a simple fix for it by now- but what is it?
Aha! You’re a genius! I am building shrine in your honor!
Now explain to me why this is not default behavior in importer?
If you happen to know what the difference is between alpha blend, alpha hash and alpha something else, please tell me. They don’t look very different.
While on the subject of imports, can you tell me if there is a way to import models at a different scale? Most other programs seem to size everything 100 times Blender scale, it would be nice to specify a scale at import time.
If that’s not possible, is there a more efficient way to rescale than clicking on the scale icon, jiggling the scale ring so the ‘resize’ window pops up, and typing “.01” in the three axis boxes?
I don’t know the difference between each type of transparency, but it seems like a case where we don’t have a single solution that works in every situation. They expect you to change it to the blend type that works best for each object. Alpha blend seems to work in a lot of cases though.
I’m probably not the best guy to ask about fbx because I don’t use it, but I think you need to set the scene scale when you export the file.
Have you been changing the scale after the fact using the option panel in the bottom left? If you want everything to be 1/100th their current size then select those objects, press S then type .01 and hit enter. The keyboard commands are their own older/more robust tool system. There are some cases where it’s faster to use them than the new active tool system (toolbar tools). Same case can be made for some of the active tools though, it depends on what you are doing.
Edit: Oh, and also you’ll want to apply the scale on the meshes you scaled after you do this (ctrl + A > Scale). Changing scale in object mode is a type of non-destructive editing because multiple objects can be linked to the same mesh data but have different scale. However, the downside is that a lot the tools like the simulation tools work on the actual mesh data and not the virtual scale you gave the object, so you need to apply the scale changes to the actual mesh data to keep weird things from happening.
Excellent information, thank you! Would have taken me forever to track down all of that. And probably much frustration with the ‘apply scale’ issue while I even figured out what the problem was.
I do see the value of the hotkey system, it seems to have a lot of good time-saving advantages over the tool bars. It’s just hard to remember all of them when you need them. Especially because they’re different from some other programs I use…
I think, ultimately, getting the hotkeys down is the way to go, but my Alzheimer’s makes it challenging.
I should also mention that you can also manually enter scale values in the sidebar:
The hotkey system isn’t too hard to learn. They mainly stick to single keys that are the first letter the command starts with in most cases. The main ones you should learn are G to grab, S to scale, R to rotate, E to extrude, and ctrl + R to loopcut (think rings to make it easier to remember).
Typing an axis after typing the command constrains the action on that axis (ex: typing x after using the G command makes it only move on the x axis). You can press the axis consecutively to constrain locally or disable the constraint (ex: pressing x twice after the G command is used constrains along the objects local x axis, and pressing it a third time disables the constraint). Then finally, a lot of the commands take number inputs when they are used, so you can precisely rotate by 90 degrees, or move the object 5 blend units to the side or whatever.
Oh, and I’m sorry to hear about your alzheimers. I hear that eating foods that are rich in anti-oxidants and getting more exercise will helps slow the progression of the disease.
Well, I don’t really have Alzheimer’s- at least I don’t remember being diagnosed- but it feels like it when I’m learning Blender. I do remember, and actually remember to use, the basic G,R, E and R shortcuts, but for some reason I never think about S. Maybe because I was just eyeballing things when making models, not trying for precision.
Back in January I was trying to be very methodical about learning Blender, start at the beginning, plow through to the end kind of thing, but then A) I realized there was so much to Blender that I was unlikely to ever use, and B) my computer fried itself and took quite awhile to be replaced, so when I started over, I watched a huge number of random videos to get a feel for what I really wanted to do with blender, and then started learning those things, at least enough to figure out if they were really what I wanted to learn thoroughly. This has been a bit chaotic, leaving a lot of gaps in my understanding, but I now have an idea of how I might be able to create the things I want to create efficiently. I just have to get it all organized and learn those parts well- still a big undertaking.
I think this week is going to be devoted mostly to going back to basics about the UI, hotkeys, basic navigation and so on, so I’m not constantly hunting for things I know are there. Then I can focus on more specific areas in ways that I can keep using them in the next area I need to focus on, so I don’t forget…
One area I definitely need to understand better is the file system.
