blender is proof that software can be good

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > blender is proof that software can be good

«‹›90 »

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

Elukka posted:

I've finally taken the step of writing my own code to avoid interacting with a part of Blender's UI.

what is it?

# ? Aug 3, 2021 21:43

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 25, 2024 07:11

Elukka: Feb 18, 2011; For All Mankind

I want to make a spaceship fire some thrusters and I enjoyed the experience of using the NLA editor so much I want to never touch it again and I just want to have a button that lets me say "fire a thruster here". I'm halfway there!

Also it turns out to be essentially impossible to make a completely independent, clean copy of an object in Blender - some data blocks remain shared and tangled up even if you explicitly tell it to make everything unique. I didn't wanna go through the trouble of finding all of the cases where that happens and essentially writing my own copy function that works properly and instead use an incredible kludge: Every time a thruster fires I append the effect from a separate .blend file. Because that's the only way to get a clean copy.

Edit: I have discovered another way to get a deep copy! You must go through the clipboard. Either by doing that directly or going through the outliner, which for some reason goes through the clipboard when it copies something. So basically if you copy a material normally through the UI it will do a different thing than if you make it go through the clipboard.

I'm going to come out of this covered in so much Blender gore.

Elukka fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Aug 4, 2021

# ? Aug 3, 2021 22:05

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

ahahah. thanks for the detailed answer.

really seems like the kind of thing that would make sense to do from a game engine, although blender should be easier for that than it is

# ? Aug 4, 2021 02:28

Bluemillion: Aug 18, 2008; I got your dispensers
right here

Neon Noodle posted:

I am increasingly convinced this is true.

I made a film:
https://vimeo.com/579458197

"It's certainly the best way to get your money out of the raisin." Ha!

Your outlines in this are delicious.

# ? Aug 4, 2021 02:32

Songbearer: Jul 12, 2007; Fuck you say?

The NLA is like looking into an abyssal pit where once you learn the eldritch horror of how it works you are a changed person, cursed with this knowledge and all the less for it

It's incredibly useful when you have an animation library but man is it intimidating and there's a lot of weirdness that goes even beyond Blender's trademark obtuseness

# ? Aug 4, 2021 03:49

Elukka: Feb 18, 2011; For All Mankind

Songbearer posted:

The NLA is like looking into an abyssal pit where once you learn the eldritch horror of how it works you are a changed person, cursed with this knowledge and all the less for it

It's incredibly useful when you have an animation library but man is it intimidating and there's a lot of weirdness that goes even beyond Blender's trademark obtuseness

The tracks have collision! Why on Earth. You gotta play track Tetris.

I got this cute little thruster effect which is actually just conical meshes with some vector math around the edges. I can spawn them with the script now but I still have to figure out how to move the actions to the current frame and maybe adjust their length. Which means I have to touch the NLA, but through code.

https://i.imgur.com/3lVJRtZ.mp4

echinopsis posted:

ahahah. thanks for the detailed answer.

really seems like the kind of thing that would make sense to do from a game engine, although blender should be easier for that than it is

Yeah a game engine would do well for this but I enjoy the flexibility of Cycles and Eevee and the way any arbitrary node jungle is likely to work across both. It turns out actually making a simulation/game loop is pretty straightforward:

code:

import bpy

def tick():
    print("tock")
    return 0.1
    
bpy.app.timers.register(tick, first_interval=0.1)

Elukka fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Aug 4, 2021

# ? Aug 4, 2021 12:04

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj6EYPekLaHdapmTOUPOZlA/featured

love poo poo like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYH-rx5iXBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9PduUdGm5A

# ? Aug 6, 2021 10:22

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

https://twitter.com/rodtronics/status/1424354216403894286?s=20

100% blender if anyone is curious at all

# ? Aug 8, 2021 14:00

pseudopresence: Mar 3, 2005; I want to get online...
I need a computer!

sick

I *am* curious but since I�m still figuring out the basics of modelling my question would be �how did you do every single part of this�

# ? Aug 8, 2021 14:53

Jenny Agutter: Mar 18, 2009

echinopsis posted:

https://twitter.com/rodtronics/status/1424354216403894286?s=20

100% blender if anyone is curious at all

im curious, is that a toon shader on the big donut, or was it a fresnel adjustment, or something else?

# ? Aug 8, 2021 16:30

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

neither, its just got two layers that are very close

outside is glass
and inside is also glass but IOR inverted and has emission volume

much like a fluro tube would have

# ? Aug 8, 2021 20:34

Songbearer: Jul 12, 2007; Fuck you say?

I've learned about the arcane arts of weight painting and now I think I can smell toast and my left arm is tingling help???

# ? Aug 9, 2021 05:14

Bluemillion: Aug 18, 2008; I got your dispensers
right here

echinopsis posted:

https://twitter.com/rodtronics/status/1424354216403894286?s=20

100% blender if anyone is curious at all

Looks great, but those beads are probably too big for that gaping donut. The surface texture on the glass really sells it.

# ? Aug 9, 2021 05:44

Bluemillion: Aug 18, 2008; I got your dispensers
right here

I was screwing around with math nodes in shaders tonight. Anyone need their bathroom redone?

# ? Aug 10, 2021 07:37

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

add some ambient occlusion dirt and grime imo

# ? Aug 10, 2021 07:44

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

anotehr hunk o junk my friends.
https://twitter.com/rodtronics/status/1425174293957259267?s=20

# ? Aug 10, 2021 20:17

Bluemillion: Aug 18, 2008; I got your dispensers
right here

fart simpson posted:

add some ambient occlusion dirt and grime imo

Can you use AO in a shader like that? There's no geometry here for AO to work with. That's a flat plane with the pictured shader on it.

# ? Aug 10, 2021 22:07

Corla Plankun: May 8, 2007; improve the lives of everyone

echinopsis posted:

anotehr hunk o junk my friends.
https://twitter.com/rodtronics/status/1425174293957259267?s=20

looks fuckin siiick and rules.

i really want that box to start spinning insanely fast and circle behind and then just get chucked straight at the camera like in the baseball memes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL8vqRxHPuQ

# ? Aug 10, 2021 22:17

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Bluemillion posted:

Can you use AO in a shader like that? There's no geometry here for AO to work with. That's a flat plane with the pictured shader on it.

idk maybe there�s something

# ? Aug 11, 2021 01:45

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

is there a mathematic function that replicates what I am doing with one of those rgb curves?

I end up using that simple rgb curve on a lot of things to add contrast to the texture, and wondered if this was a mathematic function that replicates it.

and keeps it in the range of 0..1 without requiring a second math function to bring it down

# ? Aug 12, 2021 12:50

pseudopresence: Mar 3, 2005; I want to get online...
I need a computer!

echinopsis posted:

is there a mathematic function that replicates what I am doing with one of those rgb curves?

I end up using that simple rgb curve on a lot of things to add contrast to the texture, and wondered if this was a mathematic function that replicates it.

and keeps it in the range of 0..1 without requiring a second math function to bring it down

That looks similar to a gamma correction to me. Try using a �Gamma� node with gamma 2 or higher maybe?

Edit: as a mathematical function it�s just out = in^gamma

# ? Aug 12, 2021 13:42

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

it also looks pretty similar to just y=x^4 to me

# ? Aug 12, 2021 13:47

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

i dont know what a gamma node is maybe thats the same thing?

# ? Aug 12, 2021 13:48

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

comedy option: use properties and the blender spreadsheet thing to build up a list of values and make a lookup table in shader nodes for every value

# ? Aug 12, 2021 13:55

Elukka: Feb 18, 2011; For All Mankind

I made my horror-kludge script work and fire these thrusters so I don't have to do it all by hand.

https://i.imgur.com/DWA9mRm.mp4

# ? Aug 12, 2021 15:40

Jenny Agutter: Mar 18, 2009

looks good! your ship design looks like it was inspired by ekranoplans

# ? Aug 12, 2021 16:57

Bluemillion: Aug 18, 2008; I got your dispensers
right here

Elukka posted:

I made my horror-kludge script work and fire these thrusters so I don't have to do it all by hand.

https://i.imgur.com/DWA9mRm.mp4

Verrrrry nice.

# ? Aug 13, 2021 01:32

Songbearer: Jul 12, 2007; Fuck you say?

Elukka posted:

I made my horror-kludge script work and fire these thrusters so I don't have to do it all by hand.

https://i.imgur.com/DWA9mRm.mp4

You can thrust me automatically all you like

# ? Aug 14, 2021 03:38

Songbearer: Jul 12, 2007; Fuck you say?

Wanted to spend my two week holiday knuckling down and really making a big step forward in my animation progress, but Life happened and I wasn't able to devote as much time as I wanted to Blender. However I did manage to model, texture and rig my second scene character and I'm pretty happy how it turned out. There's some things to fix and details to add but now I know how to rig models myself instead of working around Rigify (though I'll still probably use that for humanoids) and I've spent a fair amount of time learning about weight painting too. Another cryptic skill now makes some (small) amount of sense to me now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VWYBZl9-Xk

I wanted a monster that could fold up and contort in unusual ways in order for it to appear in unexpected places and I wound up with this chicken/insect thing that I think works really well. One arm has a retractable scythe blade and the other a three-fingered hand, both which have multiple joints that allow it to curl up so it can conceal itself but at its true height is otherworldly and intimidating. That said it still came out kind of cute but it fits with the rest of the scene and that's what's important.

I'll do a fancy render in clear lighting later for the textures

# ? Aug 15, 2021 19:50

Bluemillion: Aug 18, 2008; I got your dispensers
right here

Songbearer posted:

Wanted to spend my two week holiday knuckling down and really making a big step forward in my animation progress, but Life happened and I wasn't able to devote as much time as I wanted to Blender. However I did manage to model, texture and rig my second scene character and I'm pretty happy how it turned out. There's some things to fix and details to add but now I know how to rig models myself instead of working around Rigify (though I'll still probably use that for humanoids) and I've spent a fair amount of time learning about weight painting too. Another cryptic skill now makes some (small) amount of sense to me now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VWYBZl9-Xk

I wanted a monster that could fold up and contort in unusual ways in order for it to appear in unexpected places and I wound up with this chicken/insect thing that I think works really well. One arm has a retractable scythe blade and the other a three-fingered hand, both which have multiple joints that allow it to curl up so it can conceal itself but at its true height is otherworldly and intimidating. That said it still came out kind of cute but it fits with the rest of the scene and that's what's important.

I'll do a fancy render in clear lighting later for the textures

Is that blade folding away like a pocket knife? That's pretty cool.

Here's a Blenderfart�

Can't dig in my yard without kicking up some drat orokin trash. If word gets out I'm gonna have warframes running around mining my landscaping boulders, with their kubrows making GBS threads in my yard.

# ? Aug 17, 2021 00:08

Songbearer: Jul 12, 2007; Fuck you say?

Bluemillion posted:

Is that blade folding away like a pocket knife? That's pretty cool.

Aye aye! I love things that fold out or deploy so I couldn't resist.

# ? Aug 17, 2021 01:03

Elukka: Feb 18, 2011; For All Mankind

I made another test render and it's got space noises now. (it's ok they're radio noises they can propagate in space)

https://i.imgur.com/neRBzJR.mp4

I'm having some kind of problem where Blender crashes with no error log or message while rendering every few hours. It's pretty annoying if I'm trying to run something overnight.

I also wanna make a more realistic effect that would stretch to more lighting conditions and still look good but I'm pretty sure it would take Houdini because I can think of no practical way to do it in Blender. Free version of Houdini lets you export volumes and volume animations to Blender with no restrictions incidentally.

Elukka fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Aug 17, 2021

# ? Aug 17, 2021 06:49

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

I�ve had blender crash when pushing huge amounts of mesh subdiv and it�s inconsistent. turning down the dicing ratio (or up as the case might be) fixed it

idk if you�re doing that but it�s one thing if you are

incidentally it�s using a feature that the experimental render options allow for, perhaps that�s why it�s experimental

# ? Aug 17, 2021 07:04

Elukka: Feb 18, 2011; For All Mankind

echinopsis posted:

I�ve had blender crash when pushing huge amounts of mesh subdiv and it�s inconsistent. turning down the dicing ratio (or up as the case might be) fixed it

idk if you�re doing that but it�s one thing if you are

incidentally it�s using a feature that the experimental render options allow for, perhaps that�s why it�s experimental

Nah, this is a very simple and low poly deal with nothing fancy going on. It's literally this and the spaceship's entire material setup is a single principled node:

The other effect I want to do is basically what this funky thing is doing:

https://i.imgur.com/ffDsKZr.mp4

Emitting these expanding cone segments, for as long as a thruster is firing. Here it's doing a lot of very short pulses, but if it fired continuously it'd emit a cone. The only way I can think to do that is with particles but it's really not a good fit since I want it to look smooth and not particley and also Blender particles have an arbitrary max speed of 1 km/s. In Houdini I think I'd do particles and then convert those to a volume. I'd prefer to keep it within Blender though.

# ? Aug 17, 2021 07:20

Jenny Agutter: Mar 18, 2009

https://i.imgur.com/dAoW4TY.mp4

# ? Aug 17, 2021 13:34

Songbearer: Jul 12, 2007; Fuck you say?

Elukka posted:

I'm having some kind of problem where Blender crashes with no error log or message while rendering every few hours. It's pretty annoying if I'm trying to run something overnight.

Are you using volumetrics? I had to change my Compression Volumes (Under Cache/Advanced in the fluid domain) to Zip in order to make my renderer not crash.

# ? Aug 17, 2021 15:52

Jenny Agutter: Mar 18, 2009

you can make a batch file to render frames individually in order to ameliorate blender crashes. check out this thread https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/120266/when-blender-crashes-during-rendering

# ? Aug 17, 2021 17:21

Elukka: Feb 18, 2011; For All Mankind

Jenny Agutter posted:

https://i.imgur.com/dAoW4TY.mp4

How did you do this? That's really neat.

Songbearer posted:

Are you using volumetrics? I had to change my Compression Volumes (Under Cache/Advanced in the fluid domain) to Zip in order to make my renderer not crash.

Nope, those plumes are just meshes.

Jenny Agutter posted:

you can make a batch file to render frames individually in order to ameliorate blender crashes. check out this thread https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/120266/when-blender-crashes-during-rendering

I didn't even in think of that! It seems like it might be inefficient in some cases where there's a bunch of work it has to do before rendering the first frame (not sure what that is, just something I've ran into) but that'd be a pretty surefire way to get around any crashes. I'll probably do that next time.

# ? Aug 17, 2021 22:12

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

Jenny Agutter posted:

https://i.imgur.com/dAoW4TY.mp4

sweeeet

# ? Aug 17, 2021 23:13

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 25, 2024 07:11

Jenny Agutter: Mar 18, 2009

Elukka posted:

How did you do this? That's really neat.

shader nodes and math

# ? Aug 18, 2021 04:41

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > blender is proof that software can be good

«‹›90 »