Zen Sets is an add-on for creating and managing Selection Sets of mesh Elements. Save the selection of Verts / Edges / Faces to bring it back whenever you want, modify it, and display it by color in a couple of clicks. Meet true Selection Sets for Blender!
Main Features
Sets and Parts. Two Modes can be applied for all the Elements (Verts / Edges / Faces). Sets Mode (each Element can belong to different Groups) and Parts Mode (each Element belongs to only one Group).
Display System that helps find and select each Group by displaying it by color in the viewport.
Zen Sets Workspace Tool for fast switching between Elements Modes. It also provides a simulation of Zbrush Polygroup behavior for Selecting and Hiding Groups in Parts Mode.
Import / Export Zen Sets Groups to native Vertex Groups, Face Maps, Vertex Colors, and vice versa**.**
Auto Groups Operator to create Groups automatically from linked faces.
Create Objects from Groups Operator. Divide mesh into Objects using Zen Sets Groups.
Assign Materials to Groups Operator.
Possibility to use Zen Sets Groups by external operators. Implement Zen Sets for your own pipelines.
Quick Support on the Discord channel.
How to install and use Zen Sets (v1.0)
What are the advantages of Zen Sets in comparison with native Vertex Groups / Face Maps?
Zen Sets has Parts and Sets Modes to provide a wider choice of Element Groups. Vertex Sets, Vertex Parts, Edge Sets, Edge Parts, Face Sets and Face Parts Groups.
Zen Sets can display each Group by color in Viewport.
Zen Sets has statistics about how many Elements contain each Group.
While I do think this could/should be part of Vanilla Blender (yes, I am entitled and demanding ) ,
you did Blender users a great service by creating this as addon. Well done!
Nice branding too. The concept of Zen and Wu Wei should go hand in hand with ones toolset.
I have one question / suggestion.
How much effort/work would it be for you to put this functionality into the property editors in the object data panel?
Having the ability to customize the place where it is (N-panel or property editor or both) would be really nice in order to keep the N-panel less filled and confusing (mine is filled to the brim)
Just a minor recommendation in case you’re willing to put some more work into it (version 1.1?)
with pie menu editor you can add the npanel anywhere in blender , in the mesh properties or the topbar of the viewport like 3ds max or as popup in contex menu , doesnt matter
Last year, I contacted several add-on developers to suggest them to “add an option to customize the location of the tab in which they placed their add-on” :
Unfortunately, the “N panel clutter” is still a reality. Blender Developers haven’t fixed this UI problem yet, despite many posts (and suggestions) about it: link 1 – link 2 – link 3.
@MACHIN3 : Do you allow me to suggest you the same feature request (to add an option in your add-ons preferences to customize the location of your “add-on tab”)? Maybe you could have a look at the source code of this add-on which already supports this option in its preferences? https://gitlab.com/ChameleonScales/Backface_Hiding
Out of curiosity, can these selection sets be used for modifiers like Bevel? Having edge selection sets that I can plug into the bevel modifier has been on the top of my wishlist forever.
Thanks for the update, when i have the help menu open in the side bar it lags the viewport a lot, not a big deal because you can just colaps it but just a heads up i think there also might be some other slight performance degradation in the viewport from some other panels but it’s very slight not like the help menu.
The only thing that may reduce performance in the Help panel is addon version number retrievment if you have a huge amount of installed addons. If it is available could you check on vanilla (clean) Blender?
Clean blender seems to lag a little but not as much as the video up top, What’s confusing me is that it’s lagging still past retrieving the version so im not sure what it’s hung on.
NOTE: Sorry the video came out laggy so you can’t see what is happening.
Yeah im not sure this computer currently just hates recording video i need to find out why, though it’s getting replaced soon so that’s if i figure it out by then.
Could you connect with me via Discord Support? https://discordapp.com/invite/wGpFeME
I have one idea what may cause it. Would like to send a patch in private message
Thank you so much for developing Zen Sets! I’ve been using a ZBrush-to-Blender workflow in my daily work for almost 8 years now, and the absence of any true “Poly Group” features (in Edit Mode) in Blender has been something truly lacking. Each year, I spend a greater percentage of my total pipeline in Blender, and Zen Sets has immediately rocketed the efficiency of navigating and editing my models in Blender - especially because you’ve emulated the ZBrush workflow, and allow importing of Poly/Face groups on ZBrush models imported via the GoB plugin. I hope you’ll support this plugin forever - it brings huge advantage and is an immediate “Can’t Live Without It” plugin!
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