KIT OPS 2 Now Shipping

Coding Released Scripts and Themes
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41

just to clarify the main differences between, HOps inserts, MESHMachine plugs and KIT OPS INSERTS, both HOps and MESHMachine are primarily built with other tasks in mind, inserts being a feature, not a primary focus or purpose and both HOps and MESHMachine are based on very similar systems that Jacques Lucke pioneered in regards to snapping and aligning inserts.

With heavy discussion and a specific design path from chippwalters and masterxeon1001, We created KIT OPS from the ground up to be the simplest user interaction so far, as close to possible as a drag and drop interaction within blender in regards to quickly dropping booleans, and having those cuts displayed immediately

Neither HOps nor MESHMachine currently immediately perform the cut, both rely on blenders internal snapping mechanisms, and always require and extra level of input by the user, such as pressing G, holding CTRL and after choosing the location then clicking an apply button.

KIT OPS uses a ray tracing solution, never interfering with your current 3d view options and always being nothing more then a couple of clicks; one to choose the INSERT, another to add it to the target object

In addition the toggle options in KIT OPS are incredibly intuitive, allowing for dynamic behavior and visual clarity on what it is precisely that you can see in the viewport and how to work.

KIT OPS also includes automatic selection of INSERTS, which can be any number of objects or object types, intelligently discerning between INSERTS added.

With the PRO version an INSERT file can allow for full drag and drops of the scene you created in the file itself, granted you take the time to set up the cutters (if needed) and put what you want on layer 1, allowing for exclusions, this includes fully rigged props/characters, with immediate animation feedback if desired.

KIT OPS will also automatically perform many tasks as you work in smart mode with mirror and snapping tools available and duplicating (SHIFT + D) immediately creating a new modifier for the new INSERTā€™S cutter(s), which can be 60 if you desire to have so many in an particular INSERT.

KIT OPS is really designed to be the best at what it does, and with much potential to be had in the future.

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42

Yeah sorry I wasnā€™t clear I meant same developer as DECALmachine which he referenced in his post.

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43

DECALMachine is also MACHIN3ā€™s

45

lol WHAT?

46

i for one love both DM and MM.

They fill in holes in my workflow that I didnt know existed.

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47

Do you have any specific details? Iā€™m not aware of his work in that regard. The non-boolean based concept of plugs is loosely based on Modoā€™s polystein kit. However, my approach is not subd based and provides much more flexibility IMO. Itā€™s vastly different.

48

Right, the previous poster was asking about DECALmachine, which is by Machin3, and I suggested he might have confused DECALmachine with MESHmachine, which isā€¦also by Machin3, and is slightly more similar to KIT OPS than DECALmachine is. I even pointed out what I saw as a significant workflow difference between MESHmachine and this addon.

49

I should be specific, I was essentially referring to using the 3D view snapping/alignment tools, Jacques I think first used in HOps, I could be wrong about who first introduced that approach in an addon.

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Oh yeah, Iā€™ve just mimiced HardOps in that regard :slight_smile: Canā€™t wait to check out KITOps.

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Its not a bad approach, but it does have the downsides of changing options in the 3d view, which can be cleverly reverted, but still has issues with ctrl-z and such if reverted.

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52

Ahh I see, sorry about that

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Hey everyone,
Weā€™re getting REAL close to release. Proxe has been working overtime and weā€™re finishing up docs and videos. Hereā€™s a preview of KIT OPS!

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54

Curious to learn about something: does it work on spherical, curved surfaces too? Or, in general, on more dense meshes?

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55

The INSERT will orient itself to the normal of the attached face, no matter how small. This means it can work on any shape. Depending on the geometry of the INSERT and the TARGET OBJECT, you may have to deal with some smoothing artifacts.

Generally speaking, more faces on a TARGET OBJECT are better (up to a point). The examples shown in the video represent some worse cases as the cubes are literally default cubes with only a bit of smoothing added to them (Auto Smooth angle 18). HTH!

56

Thanks Chipp! Waiting to see it! :smiley:

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57

I like it and if this cost reasonable price I will probably buy it, looks like useful tool, but at the same time it makes me laugh because almost every similar tool for Blender is tested on cube, rather on more complicated surfaces - test in on something like this then I can pay you hundreds of $$$
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0rAcUdDdn0

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For good shading, you need a normal solution in place for this, which is currently not really possible in blender unless you flatten the mods and do it on the mesh level.

shamless ā€œplugā€:


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59

Canā€™t wait for this :smiley:

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60

I think MeshMachine, HardOps / Boxcutter, and Kitops will all fit an interesting niche in the workflow. Hard surface just gets more and more powerful.

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61

Absolutely, Blender users will benefit with using these altogether.

1 Like