Some recommendations / features Request to speed up workflow

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

I was a Maya User. I am into 3d Design Visualization for architectural modelling and rendering for the last 10 years. Now I run my own 3d Design Visualization studio. We started to use blender. A real thanks for the guys who have been working so hard to create such a great software. I really feel bad that I didn’t use blender before. Now for the last 12 months all our work is done only in blender.

However there are some features I would like to add in blender to speedup the workflow:

-Multiple Objects editing. (This Feature is Most Important to us)
Many times we need to change the heights of architectural features such as windows and doors. And to do that 1 by 1 is real time consuming process and its NOT always good to join multiple objects such as walls, mullions, Glass, frame etc.

-Adding new object should have the values added to its modifier as well so that we can change things later.
eg: adding a UV sphere should have the segments values added to the modifier also so that we can change those anytime.

-Better UV cube mapping. Proper Size. the scale value should be the same as blender units

-Also the cube, cylinder, sphere mapping should be added to modifier with dummy projection objects for reference.

-Better Node editor for material where we can better organize shaders and create material Libraries.

-Should have a window where all the materials are listed and Ability to connect nodes between different materials.

-Better support for curves. Also the tools like spin and loft should be added to the curves.

-Should be able to draw curves interactively as in inkscape instead of extruding method.

-Polar array modifier.

-Ability to Save selected objects into new file.

-Extrude along normals

-Better support for smoothing normals without the use of edgesplit modifier.

-Update dxf import.

-Ability to select objects in modifiers by clicking in 3d view
eg: When using Boolean modifier, instead of selecting the objects from name list, we should also be able to select directly in viewport. Maybe a small button next to selection list for picking objects in viewport.

2

Since you’re running a company, you should consider hiring a developer, preferably in-house and from your area to work on the Blender codebase directly. A lot of the features you mention are obvious improvements, but the reason they don’t exist is that nobody has so far wished to implement them. Feature requests in general cannot really be honored, because there is basically an infinite amount of them, but only very few developer.

-Multiple Objects editing. (This Feature is Most Important to us)
Many times we need to change the heights of architectural features such as windows and doors. And to do that 1 by 1 is real time consuming process and its NOT always good to join multiple objects such as walls, mullions, Glass, frame etc.

This would require a substantial infrastructural change to be done right and has been deemed “not worth it”. On the other hand, one could imagine a hack were the object joining is performed in the background. Such a hack probably wouldn’t fit Blender’s official codebase, but you could have it in your in-house version.

-Adding new object should have the values added to its modifier as well so that we can change things later.
eg: adding a UV sphere should have the segments values added to the modifier also so that we can change those anytime.

We’ll probably end up having such parametric features at some point, if projects like “Geometry Nodes” come to fruiton.

-Better UV cube mapping. Proper Size. the scale value should be the same as blender units

I wouldn’t call this “proper” behaviour. Mesh UVs are by definition not directly related to any world or object-space units. Maybe you’re better off using world-space/object-space coordinates in the shader directly? For Cycles there is (blended) Box projection in the Texture node for such a use-case.

-Should have a window where all the materials are listed and Ability to connect nodes between different materials.

I don’t think this is technically feasible. You can re-use node setups by putting them into groups.

-Better support for curves. Also the tools like spin and loft should be added to the curves.

“Spin” is available in form of the “Screw” modifier.

-Extrude along normals

Isn’t this the default behaviour when pressing “E”?

When using Boolean modifier, instead of selecting the objects from name list, we should also be able to select directly in viewport. Maybe a small button next to selection list for picking objects in viewport.

Campbell did a patch the other day that can do this. I’m not sure where it is or whether it is going into Blender, though.

3

Are you using instancing or at least linked duplicates (ALT-D)? Using this workflow would at least save you from modifying the assets one by one.

This is actually kind of useful in certain cases like when pixel ratio is important or when you are unwrapping multiple objects to a single shared texture map and relative size is important.