some blender questions

[mcbeth]

Well I’ve been using blender since the transform recode and found that my modelling workflow and results are much better than in max and would like to move most if not all of my work to it but I have some issues/questions

1. will blender ever have parametric geometry (if that is the right word)
   e.g defining a cylinders height, diameter, no. of sides, and segmentation.
   yes I know you can define demension after and use blenders knife to define segments and such, but its just alot more work.

2. objects as bones: the characters in my game will be doing facial animation driven by bones in max I can select splines from the lips, cheeks, brow copy and convert them to bones that way I dont have the headache of placing them can similar be done in blender

3)I have always used cs biped for my skeletal rigs as I find bones pretty intimidating although I use them for facial anis those are kinda trivial compared to a skeletal rig
but recently found a maxscript rigging_arm_knife that make rig building a three mintues affair, I had asked about it here http://www.blender3d.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7134&sid=d4ba442f038a6a8b4e29ee70b04b6db1 so I’ll ask here again are there presently any similar scripts for blender

4)are there any(game) animation formats that blender can import I have searched for ages but the impression I get is no

5. viewport rendering and a basic edit mesh modifier will blender have it in the future don’t much like modelling in max anymore but tweaking and experimentation is more easily done and tesed there and if am not satified or want to try another approuch now or two weeks down the road
   I can simply delete the those modifiers

thanks in advance

[phlip]

@mcbeth

1. will blender ever have parametric geometry (if that is the right word)
   e.g defining a cylinders height, diameter, no. of sides, and segmentation.
   yes I know you can define demension after and use blenders knife to define segments and such, but its just alot more work.

When you create a cylinder etc you get asked how many edges you want. everything else you mention can be done with the S key. Except segmentation if you mean what I think you mean, but Extrude and Extrude Repeat are your friends here.

@mcbeth

2. objects as bones: the characters in my game will be doing facial animation driven by bones in max I can select splines from the lips, cheeks, brow copy and convert them to bones that way I dont have the headache of placing them can similar be done in blender

Depending on what you mean by this (I haven’t used max, and I haven’t done much facial stuff in blender) you either want:- Hooks - an empty that you move and it moves the nearby verts- Track To constraint - put it on a bone and the bone will always point towards an object, usually an empty- Copy Rotation constraint - put it on a bone and it will have the same rotation as an object, again often an emptyJust say the word and I’ll give a more detailed description of each. Most blender character animation I’ve heard about has used RVKs for face stuff though - and I’m definately not the person to ask about that.

@mcbeth

3)I have always used cs biped for my skeletal rigs as I find bones pretty intimidating although I use them for facial anis those are kinda trivial compared to a skeletal rig
but recently found a maxscript rigging_arm_knife that make rig building a three mintues affair, I had asked about it here http://www.blender3d.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7134&sid=d4ba442f038a6a8b4e29ee70b04b6db1 so I’ll ask here again are there presently any similar scripts for blender

I don’t know. Ask in the Python and Plugins forum - either someone will point you to where to get one or you might be able to rally enough support to encourage someone to write one.

@mcbeth

4)are there any(game) animation formats that blender can import I have searched for ages but the impression I get is no

There are many formats blender can import, with various success… most of the good scripts are in the File->Import list, but there are others that aren’t included - again, search the Python and Plugins forum.

@mcbeth

5. viewport rendering and a basic edit mesh modifier will blender have it in the future don’t much like modelling in max anymore but tweaking and experimentation is more easily done and tesed there and if am not satified or want to try another approuch now or two weeks down the road
   I can simply delete the those modifiers

Blender is, as we speak (type… whatever) getting a modifier stack makeover that will (should) be included in the upcoming 2.40 release. Not as comprehensive as the list in some professional packages, but provides a framework for more to be added later. My CVS build has: Subsurf, Lattice, Curve, Build, Mirror, Decimate, Wave, Armature, Boolean in the list. Some of these will stack, some will not (notably booleans don’t stack as yet, which is a pity, means you can’t do some really fancy things, not that it matters much since blenders booleans are pretty awful anyways).

As for viewport rendering, if you mean what I think you mean - hit Shift+Num0, which moves the current camera to your current view position. You can then use the Shift+B border select function to set the subset of the view to render (turning on “Crop” in the renderbuttons (F10) can be useful here). Turn off “Border” in F10 to disable it.

[mcbeth]

@phlip

When you create a cylinder etc you get asked how many edges you want. everything else you mention can be done with the S key. Except segmentation if you mean what I think you mean, but Extrude and Extrude Repeat are your friends here.

thanks for the hotkey, but extrude and extrude repeat would still be longer than a a looped multicut which gives you equal segments " thank god for the developer/s that saw the wisdom in that"

@phlip

Depending on what you mean by this (I haven’t used max, and I haven’t done much facial stuff in blender) you either want:- Hooks - an empty that you move and it moves the nearby verts- Track To constraint - put it on a bone and the bone will always point towards an object, usually an empty- Copy Rotation constraint - put it on a bone and it will have the same rotation as an object, again often an emptyJust say the word and I’ll give a more detailed description of each. Most blender character animation I’ve heard about has used RVKs for face stuff though - and I’m definately not the person to ask about that.

for e.g selecting loop of edges that form part of lets say the lips or eyesocket of of a character in max I detach it as a shape perhaps I should say edgeloop…is it? as a clone object so that it right there in the same shape and position of the eyesocket/lips and such and simple tell max to treat these loops as bones and just tweak the weights and Ik …simple, cheap, stressless

I export to md5 that only support bones for animation all animation must be skeletal

@phlip

I don’t know. Ask in the Python and Plugins forum - either someone will point you to where to get one or you might be able to rally enough support to encourage someone to write one.

I can do that but I’ll let it sit a little here don’t want to be accused of double posting

@phlip

There are many formats blender can import, with various success… most of the good scripts are in the File->Import list, but there are others that aren’t included - again, search the Python and Plugins forum.

ahhh wasn’t specific. there are many scripts for many format but the game format are only export and if I do find an import script it doesn’t import animations

@phlip

Blender is, as we speak (type… whatever) getting a modifier stack makeover that will (should) be included in the upcoming 2.40 release. Not as comprehensive as the list in some professional packages, but provides a framework for more to be added later. My CVS build has: Subsurf, Lattice, Curve, Build, Mirror, Decimate, Wave, Armature, Boolean in the list. Some of these will stack, some will not (notably booleans don’t stack as yet, which is a pity, means you can’t do some really fancy things, not that it matters much since blenders booleans are pretty awful anyways).

I like it sort of the mirror modifier is a little well…
but what I wouldn’t do for basic editmesh modifier in max it adds to flexibilty and allows me to reverse my many inept modelling decisions 8)

@phlip

As for viewport rendering, if you mean what I think you mean - hit Shift+Num0, which moves the current camera to your current view position. You can then use the Shift+B border select function to set the subset of the view to render (turning on “Crop” in the renderbuttons (F10) can be useful here). Turn off “Border” in F10 to disable it.

I’ll try it but it sounds cumbersome