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  • Published 23 Aug 2019

Batch operation on modifiers (and in general in Blender)

Hey guys,

I've posted this on the devtalk forum, but probably this forum is a better place for this topic:

I have recently worked on a project where I wanted to export an animation as fbx to Unity. Part of the animation were animated Arrays and as I tried to export them I faced two problems:

1.- Animated arrays can’t be exported as an animation in fbx format (only as alembic, but alembic doesn’t support textures).

2.- As I applyed the array modifier and animated the array elements separately, I wanted to use the Decimate modifier on all the selected objects. But sadly this is'nt possible at the moment, so I had to apply the modifier one by one on all the objects.

My point is: it would be very nice if modifiers could be applyed on multiple selected objects at once, and turned into mesh even when animated.

IMHO batch operation in general is still a weak point in Blender. Applying modifiers to multiple objects is just one small segment.

Any developer works already on this area?

75%

Development Status: Open

Upvote 3 Downvote 1
imremeszaros
23 Aug 2019

10 Comments

1COD

well this is possible. you take 1 object add you modifier.
then you add to the selection all other objects (the one with modifier must be active). then you press Ctrl L (if you use 2.7 keys) or if not, by default, (the stupid breaker of useful shortcuts 2.8) go in the menu object>make links and you chose modifiers. you can add make links to quick shortcuts Q and save. you will have a menu too like with the shortcut and you can do other interesting things there in this menu^^ {attachment Blender_16jpg}

2
imremeszaros Author

Thank you for your answers:) So apllying multiple modifiers on multiple objects is possible.

But how do I add the same modifier to multiple objects? For example I have 100 objects and I want to add to 50 of my objects a subdivision modifier. Or a wireframe modifier. Is that also possible?

1
Draise

* @imremeszaros * With the copy addon, you can copy modifiers from active to selected. It's included by default.

1
Josephbburg

* @imremeszaros * I usally add a modifier to one and then ctrl-L link modifiers but you can also: 

for ob in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    m = ob.modifiers.new("Modifier Name", 'MODIFIER_TYPE')
    m.some_setting = 'SOME_VALUE'

as always, the whitespace is all messed up, but you see what I mean by the above, hopefully.

1
Draise

The NLA desperately needs this. Usually for batch operations, you hold down ALT.. but it doesn't work everywhere.

1
imremeszaros Author

* @Andres Stephens - Trinumedia * Thanks but in this situation Alt is not working.

Draise

* @imremeszaros * In this case the Copy addon will give you power to copy a lot of attributes from Active to selected.. it's a workaround hack, but very efficient (CTRL+C active to selected)

akshayxw69

{attachment Desktop_Screenshot_20190823_-_23220822png}

There's a "Modifier tools" addon that comes preloaded with blender, you'll have to enable it in the addon preferences.

I just tested it and you can apply the entire modifier stack in one go for any number of selected objects that you've got in order. If it solves your problem then remember to mark post as "Done".

1
1COD

* @akshayxw69 * I do it with alt+C curve to mesh...it applies all modifiers on all selected objects. this is a trick...

1
Josephbburg

Python is the best way to do what you want, but Everything Nodes should help with some of it.