what is the difference between the Datablock and Object boxes. I take it I should not title them the same? what do they do exactly?
BTW, if anyone could direct me to a place that covers some of these ultra-basics, it might save everybody a headache. unless you really just like helping out us noobs. which, i’ve said it before, but everyone who helps us out in here rocks. I hope to be one of the knowlagable people in here soon enough.
You are looking at the way blender organizes things in memory. Every Object has data attached to it. For example, a mesh object is an Object with Mesh data attached to it.
It is OK to name different types of things the same. I do all the time. If I have a “car” object then the mesh that belongs to it I also name “car”. In blender, that’s “OB:car” and “ME:car”.
Hope this helps.
you can also switch the mesh data for an object
just click the arrow next to the ME:
it is possible to have more than one object with the same mesh data - that way when you edit one, all of them change.
(this is the same as link duplicating an object with alt+D )
ok, that is a bit clearer now. so, is it different if i create a new object when i’m in edit mode as opposed to object mode, or is there a certain mode one must be in to make a new object is a better question. it seems like whenever i try to make a new object is when everything goes to hell.
You must be in Object mode to add (i.e. create) new objects. If you are in Edit mode you are only adding more stuff to the current object.
Sorry but this is confusing, just discovered this datablock thing and it seem that changing the ME of 1 objetc seems to affect all other on scene…
I found about it playing around with some game engine tutorials but I just don’t get it.
Is there somewhere where this topic is explained foolproof?
Thanks for the trouble!
Open up a window to outliner view, and watch what happens as you add objects, materials, and so forth. Outliner OOPS view is a graphical schematic of the datablocks blender is working with in the scene.
Thanks!
Well, I checked up the outliner and something funny happened while playing around… I’ll better tell what did I did:
-I made a Cube a Cylinder and a Sphere in different places so they could be easily seen, to all of them I gave a custom ME name so it didn’t look like “ME:cube–OB:cube”, let’s say “cubeME”, “sphereME” an “cylinderME”.
-In the outliner, there were all the elements of the scene, the objects appeared with their “OB” name, and the editable version of them had the “ME” name.
-Then, selecting one of them, let’s pick the cube, I changed his ME name and selected the one of the sphere, doing so made the cube thansform into the sphere!!
-Witchever of “those 2” spheres I modify in the edit mode, both change.
-Looking at the outliner I see that both “OB” name rest the same as they where originally, but the name at the edit icon of both turned out to be the same (in this case “sphereME”).
-Then I renderised and the results where the same as the 3D view.
My conclusion:
Not really sure for what this may be used… The example of the game engine used it to change the shape of the active object instantly, with IS usefull indeed, but in what else?to reference the same object with the same animation over the place?
:eyebrowlift: :o