Simple question, what’s the future of FX in Blender? Will physics be treated as a first-class citizen or as secondary good to have features. Pretty much all aspects of Blender are comparable to other software and the modeling in Blender imo best among all DCC except physics. In reality, it is possible to get a very decent result with mantaflow and soft-body (maybe except the rigid body stuffs because it’s very basic and to get an organic feature, people have to use an old branch, it’s not ideal imo) but one has to have the patience of a monk or something to deal with the crashes and lag to get the best result and that’s most probably because of Blender’s viewport performance and the only hope is the “high poly” mode that was in the blog post made by Pablo, will that high poly mode bring any changes with how people deal with simulations in the viewport and maybe other aspects of Blender as well.
And the quick effects are cool but it’s really basic and there isn’t much of it. Something like quick sea or quick explosion or quick shock-wave or quick destruction would be much better. Currently doing any realistic fluid simulation is massive pain because after baking the sim, it’s impossible to do anything and then the user has to instance spheres for foam and bubble and spray and Blender starts to choke, it’s a very bad experience. I think the node-based system could solve that with a much easier and procedural way to adding those and also like a proxy system of particles for the viewport to correctly represent the simulation of a high number of particles.
4
e
evilferber1
Hi Pablo! How are you?
---IMPORTANT PART: QUESTION FOR PABLO---
I'm wondering: is there a way in blender to have animated object per scenes using one *.blend file (no linking from other files).
I mean literaly the same object, for example:
Can object "Cube" have set animation "Scene1_CubeAction" on Scene01 and at the same time can it have set animation "Scene2_CubeAction" on Scene02?
I'm tired of "hiring stunt doubles" like "Cube.001" for Scene02 and "Cube.002" for Scene03, only for rotating with different speed or in different direction :-)
(very simpilified example, I don't animate simple cubes often :D).
---MAYBE NOT SO IMPORTANT: CLARIFICATION OF THE QUESTION---
If someone is wondering why I'm asking about it:
I often work with clients sitting next to me, we create stuff on the go, we change stuff on the go (regarding of what camera sees in current scene). There is always the need of quick making few animation variants. But the proces is slow and frustrating only because of changing the assignment of new created meshes (by copying scene) to meshes of original objects from first scene. You will never know when the client would like to change shape or material of the "Cube" so the very same mesh across all the scenes is necessary :) . And of course outliner is a mess with my current workflow, as i always have stunt doubles, as many as animation variants...
Why not linking?
Doing it all in seperate *.blend files isn't an option in my case, because I work with people who often don't have anything in common with CG at all - I present in 3D inventions made by DIY enthusiasts, they often don't have time or imaginary for story boards, proper naming of their own parts, and so on... It is an express and not so organised process, but I love working with those people ! :) <3
3
v
viliam.rockai
Do you (or anybody) understand the explanation from Pablo? I don't and I would like to :(
youtu.be/t3Da2GGnghU
1
P
Phigon
Pablo misunderstood and I believe stopped reading at the "Scene1...Action" naming and Scene01 part, and went with his first assumption of what was being asked.
2
P
Phigon
No, you can not do this. The actions you're using are assigned to the "object", not the "scene>object".
The way blender things work is:
.blend file
Actions
[list of F-Curves]
data_path (example 'location' or 'pose.bones["Bone"].rotation_euler')
array_index (like location.x or location.y but the numeric value such as location[0] or location[1])
keyframe_points (the points in the FCurve shown in the Dopesheet/Graph Editor)
Objects
Animation_Data
Action [pointer to .blend/Actions]
Drivers [list of animation data similar to Actions but not pointing to data elsewhere]
NLA_Tracks
NLA_Strips
Action [pointer to .blend/Actions]
Note:
animation here is for the object's transforms and pose bones (which are pseudo-linked to the object)
Data [pointer to .blend/*Object_Data*] (if nothing is pointed to, it is an empty object)
Object_Data (mesh/armature/camera/etc; each have a different line, just put here for shorthand)
Data (relevant to the particular data type, such as vertices for mesh, and bones/edit_bones for armature)
Note:
animation here is for the few animatable things linked to the scene, such as Gravity
The idea of linking, is to create Fake Objects (Proxy/Override), to point to the Original Object's data, and repeat for other scenes.
You "could" use an addon/script to auto swap an object's active action when the active scene changes, or you could do something extra like set all your scenes' start/end ranges to not conflict, then set things up in every scene, via constraints that are only visible/used per scene's frame range, or have a separate NLA strip for each.
With the NLA, you just have to click the strip and Tab into Strip-Editing, to "edit" the action (or create new strips/actions, with layered animation if you prefer).
2
M
Mille_Porte
** Extrude, Instancing And Transforming**
Hi Pablo!
Would be very useful if the extrude operator had this widget to rotate and scale following a path (even a curve in this case):
The second topic is about instancing in GN:
would also be useful if I could attach a custom geometry inside the current node tree.
The actual behaviour is not efficient because it force to switch to other object not related with the current one with several consequences that harm the procedural workflow.
The last question is about transforming: every time I do a transformation (rotate, scale and move) on an object I have to worry about apply or not that transformation so would be better insert an option to auto-apply the transformations?
I've been playing with it and it's an interesting way in 'faking' the array modifier parametrically in geometry nodes.
m
mpintorizvi
Hi pablo hope your doing well
I was on I viewing the blender could website and I noticed that settlers was in the film section even though settlers isn't a film. Perhaps change it to projects instead so you can add yo frankie
Also I was sad to here about tangent animation closing down, I hope they and all the artists are doing well in there current situation
Also how did I not notice that cosmos laundromat was on netflix. How did it get there. Did the studio talk to netflix or is it just there cause cosmos is public domain.
1
B
BarfGarbage
Hey, psst, Pablo! You got any juicy blender secerets to share with us that we don't know about yet?
Also I just realized I can like my own comment on here. Should that be possible?
1
G
Glen-in-Japan
Hi Pablo. If it's okay, can someone please update the line snap mesh tool? Shapes don't close properly. Beside this the line tool is fantastic.
1
c
chris12
I want this as well.
1
G
Glen-in-Japan
Do you find that some shapes don't close?
c
chris12
Some. Mainly triangular prisms if you draw them long side down.
G
Glen-in-Japan
What version of Blender and the plugin do you have? I saw the plugin is pretty old.
c
chris12
I have Blender 2.93.0, Blender 3.0.0-alpha and Mesh: Snap_Utilities_Line version 6.9.20
G
Glen-in-Japan
I'm on Blender-3.0.0-alpha+master.4c26bb02327f in Windows 10 and I've got the same 6.9.20.
Is there was an idea to to replace all modifiers with nodes? I mean fully replace modifiers panel with geometry nodes
Can we wait mode advanced audio tools? (EQ, Compressor, etc,)
Thank you!
1
w
wassapp66
Hey Pablo, thanks for the great show and thanks to all people developing blender and providing such a great tool for free.
Would like to see all edit mode selection methods and even new ones as nodes if possible! Even the modelling operations would come very useful as nodes.
Would also like to see more attributes in spreadsheet like object ID if a mesh consists of multiple separated objects or if the source is a collection.
Also, when moving things with grab one should be able to move around, is there a way to unlock the view while doing that?
one last things, till this day there is no node based software that can edit vector drawings, how about you guys push for that, that will be huge news in itself! and great help for architects too.
I am an architect and can help with planning the accurate modelling workflow, mode and tools .... who should i cnotact to help?
s
shane
Hey, Pablo! Long-time listener, first time caller! 😁
Regarding HDRIs, there is a challenge when you want something on or just above the ground, and want realistic shadows and backscatter. Solutions involve shadow catchers, node-based floors like the one in Lily Surface Scraper, and mesh domes, but none of these are perfect and all have problems with certain HDRIs or scenes.
Is there possibly a way to code this properly in Blender natively, using the right mathematics for the lighting and everything else? It seems a lot of people are wanting just such a solution.
Thanks for being so wonderful, and keep up the good work!
m
malarz_2030
Hi Pablo . Question: Why asset manager cant append mesh with aramature connected? I can append my mesh with armature from file menu but not from asset manager:( is this will be implemented? Thanks.
3
3di
Hi everyone.
I was wondering, why was suzanne selected as the name of the monkey, and does the usd exporter maintain shader names on export, or does it remove the dots like alembic does? Just wonderng because it breaks material assignments on re-import with alembic.
H
HUgoANtunes
Hi Pablo ;) I have a question. Will Path guiding (on cycles X list
developer.blender.org/T87839
) allow great caustics with cycles? im really curious about that
b
bradleyfichter
Still a bug when in Cycles -> turn on viewport denoise Optix -> switch to Render view -> try to uncheck viewport denoise - app hangs. (there may be other combinations with viewport denoise that cause the app to hang, too)
H
HUgoANtunes
Even in 2.93.2?
b
bradleyfichter
Just downloaded and it was the first thing I tested.
g
gustavo.ericson
Hola Pablo and community. Hope you are all doing great today.
I have a suggestion, and it's about the Blender Today show itself. Its frequency and timing has been consistent for a while now (good job!). However, I frequently miss the start by at least a few minutes, and end up having to refresh the youtube channel to catch it, which I often can't afford to because IRL stuff gets in the way. So, please consider increasing the notification time to something like 30 minutes or 1h before the stream starts, whichever is reasonable. People like me need as much help as we can get.
All in all, thanks for the show. Those weekly roundups are a great way to show how dedicated everybody behind Blender's success is, and helpful for us who have little time or technical knowledge with a fun way to keep up to date with the good stuff coming soon.
c
crshanker66
(not actually a good solution but)You could increase the playback speed to 1.5x till you catch up with the stream
1
g
gustavo.ericson
Usually I just watch it live and review what I missed after the stream, but this is not a bad idea.
29 Comments
Hey Pablo, hope you are having a good day.
Simple question, what’s the future of FX in Blender? Will physics be treated as a first-class citizen or as secondary good to have features. Pretty much all aspects of Blender are comparable to other software and the modeling in Blender imo best among all DCC except physics. In reality, it is possible to get a very decent result with mantaflow and soft-body (maybe except the rigid body stuffs because it’s very basic and to get an organic feature, people have to use an old branch, it’s not ideal imo) but one has to have the patience of a monk or something to deal with the crashes and lag to get the best result and that’s most probably because of Blender’s viewport performance and the only hope is the “high poly” mode that was in the blog post made by Pablo, will that high poly mode bring any changes with how people deal with simulations in the viewport and maybe other aspects of Blender as well.
And the quick effects are cool but it’s really basic and there isn’t much of it. Something like quick sea or quick explosion or quick shock-wave or quick destruction would be much better. Currently doing any realistic fluid simulation is massive pain because after baking the sim, it’s impossible to do anything and then the user has to instance spheres for foam and bubble and spray and Blender starts to choke, it’s a very bad experience. I think the node-based system could solve that with a much easier and procedural way to adding those and also like a proxy system of particles for the viewport to correctly represent the simulation of a high number of particles.
Hi Pablo! How are you?
---IMPORTANT PART: QUESTION FOR PABLO---
I'm wondering: is there a way in blender to have animated object per scenes using one *.blend file (no linking from other files).
I mean literaly the same object, for example:
Can object "Cube" have set animation "Scene1_CubeAction" on Scene01 and at the same time can it have set animation "Scene2_CubeAction" on Scene02?
I'm tired of "hiring stunt doubles" like "Cube.001" for Scene02 and "Cube.002" for Scene03, only for rotating with different speed or in different direction :-)
(very simpilified example, I don't animate simple cubes often :D).
I showed the problem in this video (duration: 01m 48s): youtube.com/watch
---MAYBE NOT SO IMPORTANT: CLARIFICATION OF THE QUESTION---
If someone is wondering why I'm asking about it:
I often work with clients sitting next to me, we create stuff on the go, we change stuff on the go (regarding of what camera sees in current scene). There is always the need of quick making few animation variants. But the proces is slow and frustrating only because of changing the assignment of new created meshes (by copying scene) to meshes of original objects from first scene. You will never know when the client would like to change shape or material of the "Cube" so the very same mesh across all the scenes is necessary :) . And of course outliner is a mess with my current workflow, as i always have stunt doubles, as many as animation variants...
Why not linking?
Doing it all in seperate *.blend files isn't an option in my case, because I work with people who often don't have anything in common with CG at all - I present in 3D inventions made by DIY enthusiasts, they often don't have time or imaginary for story boards, proper naming of their own parts, and so on... It is an express and not so organised process, but I love working with those people ! :) <3
Do you (or anybody) understand the explanation from Pablo? I don't and I would like to :( youtu.be/t3Da2GGnghU
Pablo misunderstood and I believe stopped reading at the "Scene1...Action" naming and Scene01 part, and went with his first assumption of what was being asked.
No, you can not do this. The actions you're using are assigned to the "object", not the "scene>object". The way blender things work is:
.blend file
The idea of linking, is to create Fake Objects (Proxy/Override), to point to the Original Object's data, and repeat for other scenes.
You "could" use an addon/script to auto swap an object's active action when the active scene changes, or you could do something extra like set all your scenes' start/end ranges to not conflict, then set things up in every scene, via constraints that are only visible/used per scene's frame range, or have a separate NLA strip for each.
With the NLA, you just have to click the strip and Tab into Strip-Editing, to "edit" the action (or create new strips/actions, with layered animation if you prefer).
** Extrude, Instancing And Transforming**
Hi Pablo!
Would be very useful if the extrude operator had this widget to rotate and scale following a path (even a curve in this case):
The second topic is about instancing in GN:
would also be useful if I could attach a custom geometry inside the current node tree.
The actual behaviour is not efficient because it force to switch to other object not related with the current one with several consequences that harm the procedural workflow.
The last question is about transforming: every time I do a transformation (rotate, scale and move) on an object I have to worry about apply or not that transformation so would be better insert an option to auto-apply the transformations?
Thank you!
Patch for instanced geometry here: developer.blender.org/D11841
I've been playing with it and it's an interesting way in 'faking' the array modifier parametrically in geometry nodes.
Hi pablo hope your doing well I was on I viewing the blender could website and I noticed that settlers was in the film section even though settlers isn't a film. Perhaps change it to projects instead so you can add yo frankie Also I was sad to here about tangent animation closing down, I hope they and all the artists are doing well in there current situation Also how did I not notice that cosmos laundromat was on netflix. How did it get there. Did the studio talk to netflix or is it just there cause cosmos is public domain.
Hey, psst, Pablo! You got any juicy blender secerets to share with us that we don't know about yet?
Also I just realized I can like my own comment on here. Should that be possible?
Hi Pablo. If it's okay, can someone please update the line snap mesh tool? Shapes don't close properly. Beside this the line tool is fantastic.
I want this as well.
Do you find that some shapes don't close?
Some. Mainly triangular prisms if you draw them long side down.
What version of Blender and the plugin do you have? I saw the plugin is pretty old.
I have Blender 2.93.0, Blender 3.0.0-alpha and Mesh: Snap_Utilities_Line version 6.9.20
I'm on Blender-3.0.0-alpha+master.4c26bb02327f in Windows 10 and I've got the same 6.9.20.
Tried to update the tool from here? blenderartists.org/t/cad-snap-utilities/635301/467
Hi Pablo.
Thank you!
Hey Pablo, thanks for the great show and thanks to all people developing blender and providing such a great tool for free. Would like to see all edit mode selection methods and even new ones as nodes if possible! Even the modelling operations would come very useful as nodes. Would also like to see more attributes in spreadsheet like object ID if a mesh consists of multiple separated objects or if the source is a collection. Also, when moving things with grab one should be able to move around, is there a way to unlock the view while doing that? one last things, till this day there is no node based software that can edit vector drawings, how about you guys push for that, that will be huge news in itself! and great help for architects too. I am an architect and can help with planning the accurate modelling workflow, mode and tools .... who should i cnotact to help?
Hey, Pablo! Long-time listener, first time caller! 😁
Regarding HDRIs, there is a challenge when you want something on or just above the ground, and want realistic shadows and backscatter. Solutions involve shadow catchers, node-based floors like the one in Lily Surface Scraper, and mesh domes, but none of these are perfect and all have problems with certain HDRIs or scenes.
Is there possibly a way to code this properly in Blender natively, using the right mathematics for the lighting and everything else? It seems a lot of people are wanting just such a solution.
Thanks for being so wonderful, and keep up the good work!
Hi Pablo . Question: Why asset manager cant append mesh with aramature connected? I can append my mesh with armature from file menu but not from asset manager:( is this will be implemented? Thanks.
Hi everyone.
I was wondering, why was suzanne selected as the name of the monkey, and does the usd exporter maintain shader names on export, or does it remove the dots like alembic does? Just wonderng because it breaks material assignments on re-import with alembic.
Hi Pablo ;) I have a question. Will Path guiding (on cycles X list developer.blender.org/T87839 ) allow great caustics with cycles? im really curious about that
Still a bug when in Cycles -> turn on viewport denoise Optix -> switch to Render view -> try to uncheck viewport denoise - app hangs. (there may be other combinations with viewport denoise that cause the app to hang, too)
Even in 2.93.2?
Just downloaded and it was the first thing I tested.
Hola Pablo and community. Hope you are all doing great today.
I have a suggestion, and it's about the Blender Today show itself. Its frequency and timing has been consistent for a while now (good job!). However, I frequently miss the start by at least a few minutes, and end up having to refresh the youtube channel to catch it, which I often can't afford to because IRL stuff gets in the way. So, please consider increasing the notification time to something like 30 minutes or 1h before the stream starts, whichever is reasonable. People like me need as much help as we can get.
All in all, thanks for the show. Those weekly roundups are a great way to show how dedicated everybody behind Blender's success is, and helpful for us who have little time or technical knowledge with a fun way to keep up to date with the good stuff coming soon.
(not actually a good solution but)You could increase the playback speed to 1.5x till you catch up with the stream
Usually I just watch it live and review what I missed after the stream, but this is not a bad idea.