I’m using Blender’s Group Tool and have a few issues. When transferring objects between groups using the Outliner, I encounter a problem. Instead of properly linking or adding objects to the target group, Blender often places them beneath it, resulting in the objects not truly belonging to the group. I use the SHIFT key for moving objects, and while it works sometimes, it fails most of the time. When it does work and I successfully added an object to the selected group, attempting to select that group’s empty doesn’t include the recently added object.
Another problem arises after moving objects to a specific group – they appear greyed out and still linger in their original group. How can I prevent this?
Lastly, when I have hidden objects, each in its own group, and try to select a visible object with box selection, it also selects all the empties from the hidden groups. How can I adjust this behavior?
Here are also some screenshots for better visualization. Thanks!
You are mixing and confusing a number of things here. It seems like you are talking about the MACHIN3tools grouping feature, but post here in the MESHmachine topic.
If you insist on changing group ownvership/parenting in the outliner, instead of using the MACHIN3tools Add/Remove to/from Group tools, that are specifically made for this purpose, then you should ensure to disable Auto and Recursive group selections, while changing parenting relationships in the outliner, to ensure you only change the parenting of the group empties, and not its children’s parents (the empty) too.
MACHIN3tools won’t automatically know that you have changed the parenting relationships within a group yourself, so you should run the select group tool on a top level object, and it will find out about it and fix everything up accordingly.
Objects in the outliner are greyed out when they appear in multiple places. For instance, an object can appear in a Collection (not group), but also as the child of another object).
Hi @MACHIN3
Can you please consider to add function Auto Groupify for all empties?
It would eliminate few clicks when append old models or add them from BlenderKit etc.
Thanks for the confirmation, the great tools and apologies for posting to the wrong thread.
I do own MESHMachine as well, but have had no issues with it (other than getting it mixed up with Machin3Tools).
when toggling (auto) smooth using S key, insert the mod towards the end of the stack, but always before Mirror and Array mods
init operator’s auto smooth state and angle, from active object
when finishing with LMB unselect the active
hide cutters from rendering via cycles visibility settings too now
when canceling restore everything accordingly to its initial state
flesh out statusbar
Symmetrize tool
expose redundant center edge removal threshold angle
increase it slightly from 0 to 0.05 to be more tolerant
Select tool/wrapper
add Always Loop Select toggle
by default connected Sharps are selected, if entire edge selection consists of sharp edges, otherwise an angle based loop selection is done
with Always Loop Select enabled now, this behavior is overidden, so you don’t constantly have to toggle back to loop selecting, when working on sharp edges
Stashes
improve how stashes HUD is drawn at the top of the 3D view
properly offset HUD downs depending on region_overlap pref, theme header alpha, and header and tool header positioning
furthermore offset stashes HUD down, if MACHIN3tools focus tool active, and has its own HUD drawn
ViewStashes tool
improve edit stash object HUD in the same way
handle area and space data reference loss due to area maximizing or workspace space changes more gracefully
still not recommended to do, while in edit stash mode though
CreatePlug, AddPlugToLibrary tools
ensure plug objects are properly render-able for the thumbnail
Unchamfer tool
fix typo, causing exception in debug mode
handlers
rework when and how handler logic is executed
add asset drop cleanup handler (previously in MACHIN3tools) to automatically unlink stash objects after dropping and asset using stashes from the asset browser
GetSupport tool
improve the readme.html file, generated by the tool, providing more details on how to get to the system console
in Bender 4.1 (and 3.5) open the readme.html in the Browser automatically
addon preferences
place Get Support button at top of addon prefs
add custom updater
NOTE: since it’s only introduced now in 0.15, it will only be of use for upcoming releases, so can’t be used to install this very 0.15 update yet
allows for very easy addon update installation from .zip file, and from inside of Blender, instead of manually from the file browser
finds matching .zip file(s) in home and Downloads folder
allows selecting one of them them or manually selecting a file in any other location
extracts the file to a temporary location, and installs update when quitting Blender
like a manual update installation from the filebrowser, this maintains previous addon settings and custom keys
see installation instructions for details
supports - and defaults to - keeping the current assets to prevent accidental loss
fix issue with thankyou note after manual installation without removing previous installation
fix plug library unloading messages sell being shown despite registration_debug pref being disabled
Pricing
I’ve decided to bump the price a little, to counter a general downtrend in revenue, in face of rising living and so development costs, that I have observed for over a year now.
The reasons for this are not clear, but it’s likely a mix of multiple: post-covid era, reaching market saturation (?), increased competition, lack of new products and social media activity, while my main focus remains on getting HyperCursor out, gen AI, inflation, layoffs, etc.
For now, I still want to avoid charging for updates, but it may be inevitible. I’ll see how it goes.
If you are still reading, note that I have a Patreon account, and HyperCursor is in pre-release.
Thanks for your support!
fix issue in always_loop_select mode where you can’t select additional edges
Boolean tool
in Blender 4.1
when adding Auto Smooth mod, while existing Auto Smooth node trees are in the file, use the APIwhich is faster!, rather than the Blender op to add the mod
NormalTransfer tool
prevent exception when having a selection of only sharp edges (no faces)
this is rather pointless, as you really want to select faces next to sharp edges, but now it longer errors out
OffsetCut tool
fix rare exception when custom data layers are still present from a previous run
remove Blender-auto-added Auto Smooth mods, when bringing Plugs into the scene
Fuse, Refuse, Unfuse, Unchamfer, Unbevel tools
support creating HyperCursorunreleased geometry gizmos
Fuse, Refuse tools
support maintaining vertex groups on sweep verts
addon preferences
update integrated updater to expose the Re-Scan button even if no update is found yet
Hi, long time user of your addons here. I use mesh machine for creating game assets, meaning I work with geometry attributes a lot. It would be amazing if fuse related tools could support attributes, ideally using some sort of interpolation (to get proper UV after fusing), but I would even take just average attribute fill (average of selected faces when executing operator), so I won’t need to manually restore material_index, vertex color and custom attributes after each fuse operation. Would appreciate your thoughts about the subject and whether you want/plan to do this.
Hi Machin3
Bought and downloaded MeshMachine .16. Installed in Blender 4.2. Hardops and Boxcutter also installed. Machin3 ‘Y’ menu works. The Mode change while using Machin3 by pressing Tab does not work, nor does pressing the ‘3’ key for cleanup. Seems you used to be able to determine what pie menus opened from within the preferences, but that list is absorbent. Any ideas?
MESHmachine focuses on mesh modelling, whereas MACHIN3tools is a more general workflow addon with various tools and pie menus all over, including the modes pie you mentioned, and the ability to chose and pick what you want out of it.
The hardops and boxcutter devs appreciate your support.
Oops, didn’t look further than the length of my nose. Clean mesh was not activated. All works fine now.
So just bought and installed the most recent Deus Ex version of Machin3tools into Blender 4.2 and the Modes switcher is working great. The blinkin’ cleanup tool isn’t appearing when I press ‘3’ in edit mode, its just switching the editable elements. Pressing 3 on the numpad just switches views as normal. Machin3tools is not overriding the standard hotkeys. Whats up?
