Forgotten Feature: GreasePencil Freestyle - Screen Space
The GreasePencil LineArt modifier is far superior to the Freestyle option, but as of Blender 4.3 has lost the option to chance "World Space" to "Screen Space" to determine the stroke thickness.
This forgotten tool is incredibly useful. I am an engineer and do graphic design work for my place of work, and have taught dozens of people to use Blender.
This is a MUST HAVE feature for all of the professional work we do.
Edits: Thanks to @slowk1d for sharing the Blender Developer migration article. The migration article steps are a regression of content available for a number of reasons:
- The camera resolution / focal length / etc. either have to be manually written or driven which is obviously annoying
- The system cannot be used with an Orthographic Camera (which is the majority of the time for my work)
- It's not preinstalled or beginner friendly
As it stands, I cannot use a Blender version past 4.3 because of this issue.
My recommendation is to have the "Line Thickness" slider be accompanied by a "Units" drop down to either select World or Screen Space, as before.
4 Comments
Since 4.3 grease pencil rewrite, screen space option has been removed, but it's possible to achieve exactly the same with a geometry nodes modifier, see the migration process here: developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/4.3/grease_pencil_migration/
So it's not lost, it's just arguably a longer process to achieve now.. what you can do is save that geo-nodes modifier as an asset in asset library so you can easily drop it on any grease pencil any time you need it
Thank you very much for your response! I wasn't aware of this possibility, so thank you.
Sadly, this workaround doesn't have the appropriate features to be fully comprehensive.
Besides the fact you have to manually input the camera resolution, focal length and sensor size, but mainly it can't be used with an Orthographic Camera (which I use 99% of the time for my work)
I definitely think this feature really needs to be added back as a base Blender option, at least as a pre-installed add-on.
If you have another workaround that can do these things for now, I'd greatly appreciate it! :D
PS. The link mentions the optional arguments can be driven. I have no experience of using drivers (except #frame) and feel the average Blender user who wants Stroke LineArt hasn't either, but if you can help, I'd appreciate that as well <3
Unfortunately I don't use drivers, and tbh neither line art that much, I just remembered that there was a migration process for this feature.
Now, since it looks that not only the gn method is more convoluted, but it doesn't actually cover all the options that 4.2 had, my suggestion is that you update your request with all the info that you told me, with images that show the before and after the rewrite, specifying what the current method doesn't cover. Even if it doesn't look like much like it, devs actually come here to read :). You could even file a bug report specifying that is a regression, and that the new method isn't complete.
Thank you again for your reply. I have modifier this article appropriately, and will send a bug report now.