Tag: 2.79

How to protect your add-on from downloading through aggregators

With the Blender popularity growing, the number of add-ons created for it by third-party developers is growing too. A lot of high-quality professional add-ons are written for Blender now. Over time, the number of add-ons is becoming more and more. And on this wave aggregators appeared – programs and services independently searching for add-ons and allowing Blender users to install add-ons quickly, many at once, and bypassing add-on distribution channels selected by their authors. What caused a negative reaction of add-on developers.

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Blender autocomplete modules

Nutti, the author of the “fake-bpy-modules” project, has made the installation of the Blender Python API autocomplete modules through the pip platform. Pip installation is faster and easier, but sometimes we just need to copy the autocomplete modules to our project but now they are not included in the Nutti’s GitHub.

Copies of the autocomplete modules for Blender versions 2.79 and 2.80 can be downloaded directly from here: https://github.com/Korchy/blender_autocomplete

 

How to resize panels in Blender UI

In order to resize the T- or N-panel of the Blender UI, you just need to hold the edge of the panel with the mouse and drag it left or right. However, in this case, you can only change the size of the panel itself, but not the interface elements on it.

To change elements size and the font size of the panel, you need:

  • hover cursor on the panel
  • hold together the “ctrl” keyboard button and the middle mouse button (scroll wheel)
  • move the mouse up or down

This works not only for the side panels but also for all the “Properties” window.

Top and bottom toolbar position in Blender windows

In Blender 2.8 the toolbars are located on the top of the working windows. But you can easily return them to the habitual bottom position.

Right-click on the panel and select “Flip to Bottom” to move the panel down. To return the panel back to the top, right-click on it and select “Flip to Top”.

This feature is not Blender 2.8 exclusive, the same can be done in Blender 2.7.

Porting add-on from Blender 2.7 to Blender 2.8

In the latest version 2.8 of Blender developers have made many changes in API, so all the scripts and add-ons written for earlier Blender versions (2.7 and below) have stopped working. To run your add-ons in the new Blender 2.8, you need to port them – correct their code to work properly with the new Blender API.

To enable your add-on in Blender 2.80 you have to make the following changes in code:

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How to add input of integer type to the node group

To make an integer input/output in the node group:

  1. Install the BIS add-on 1.5.2. version or later,
  2. Select the desired node group in the Node Editor,
  3. In T-panel in the “BIS” tab, “Tools” section: click “+ Input” to create an input or “+ Output” to create an output in the selected node group.

BIS: Pro- account

The BIS library is free and fully accessible for all users. Any content (materials or meshes) from the open part of the library can be downloaded by any user without any restrictions. So why do you need a pro- account?

At first, this is a way to support the project. Like any other free project, BIS needs for users support. However, the BIS pro- account is not only a status attachment. The pro- status does not provide any additional content, but it allows you to make your pipeline with BIS more convenient.

Pro- account users have the following advantages:

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Using Microsoft Visual Studio Code as external IDE for writing Blender scripts/add-ons

Blender has its own built-in text editor for writing scripts and add-ons, but it’s much convenient to develop them in external IDEs that provide the user with more features such as autocomplete, syntax highlighting, integration with version control systems and other tools that make development faster and easier.

One of these IDEs is Visual Studio Code from Microsoft. This is a free universal environment that supports development with various programming languages, including the Blender API language – Python.

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BIS: Saving meshes (objects) to the storage

The “Meshes” section of the BIS library is for storing meshes (objects).

Saving objects to the BIS personal storage:

The BIS interface for saving/downloading objects is placed in the “BIS” tab of the T-panel in “3D View” window.

  1. Authorize it the Blender add-on.

  1. Mark one or more objects selected.

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How to check if Blender object property/attribute is read-only

To check is an attribute/property of any Blender object (mesh, node, modifier, etc.) read-only:

  1. With the is_property_readonly function, execute the following command:

<object> .is_property_readonly (‘<property name>’)

  1. Through the rna structure, execute the following command:

<object> .bl_rna.properties [‘<property name>’]. is_readonly

For example, for the “is_editmode” mesh property (is the mesh in edit mode or not):