Tag: Blender

How to pass command line arguments to a Blender python script or add-on

When starting Blender from the console it processes all parameters passed through the command line. However, some scripts and add-ons for proper work may require specifying their unique command line arguments. If you specify such additional parameters in the command line, Blender will also try to process them, which is likely to result in an error. Blender provides a special way to exclude such arguments from own processing.

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How to make Blender fully portable

Even if Blender was downloaded as a zip-file and started from the unpacked archive instead of the installation, the files with its settings are stored separately in the user’s directory. The history, the start scene, and user-installed add-ons are also stored there. So if you transfer Blender to another computer, all these preferences will be lost.

However, at startup, Blender first looks for a config directory in its own folder and only if it does not find it there, it accesses the folder in the user’s directory.

In order to make Blender completely portable, it is enough to copy config folders “config” and “scripts” from the user’s directory into Blender’s own directory into the folder with the version number. This will transfer the settings and installed add-ons to the Blender directory, and now all the changes will be made already here, not in the user directory. Blender becomes portable and can be copied to another computer or removable device.

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How to render an object with reflections on a white background

The single object visualization most often is performed on a clear white background. It is difficult to achieve this through the common configuring the scene – increasing the illumination of the scene “lights up” the object, decreasing – the background becomes gray instead of white. If the object itself can be simply rendered on a transparent background and then imposed on white, but what about its reflections?

Let’s consider the way how we can render the object and its reflection on a white background.

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Creating radio buttons in the Blender add-ons interface

State switches so-called “radio buttons” are used in the case to limit the choice by one value from several available ones. There are a lot of such buttons in the Blender interface, for example, switching between RGB and BW rendering modes or setting the texture mapping mode. Such buttons can be created in the Blender add-ons interface too.

Let’s create our own radio button switcher.

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How to hide the title of the Blender window

Every 3D-artist knows that the workplace is always less. The larger monitor, the larger available workspace on it – the work is more convenient and faster. Blender allows winning some extra space on the screen, hiding the window title, which is still not useful.

The key combination:

alt + F11

allows to hide the Blender window title and expand the work area to the entire monitor. Pressing this key combination again returns Blender to its original state.

How to render in Blender without slowing down the other programs

During the image rendering in Blender, it is impossible to do anything else, the computer is strong “brakes”. Blender takes all available computing power without leaving almost nothing to other applications.

In order to run render in Blender with a low priority, so that it does not fill the entire computer and is guaranteed not to slow down the other programs work, you need:

  • Switch the render mode to the CPU
  • Run the render in Blender from the command line:

Windows:

parameters used :

  • /LOW – means that Blender will be launched with the lowest priority, computing power will be allocated to it after the all other programs.
  • /MIN – the window will be minimized in the taskbar.
  • /B – no separate window for launching Blender.
  • /D _path_to_blender_directory_ – here you need to specify the path to the directory where Blender is installed. Since usually all programs are installed in the “Program Files” or “Program Files (x86)” directories (there are spaces in the directory name), you need to enclose it in quotation marks.
  • _full_path_to_blender_ – specify here the full path to the blender.exe file. Enclose it in quotation marks by the same rules.
  • -b – Blender background launch (no graphical interface is created).
  • _path_to_blend_file_ – the full path to the project you need to render. If there are spaces in the path, it must also be enclosed in quotation marks.
  • -f X – instead of X, you need to specify the number of the frame you need to render.
  • -t X1 – instead of X1 you need to specify the number of processor cores that would be allocated for rendering. It is worth to allocate the half of the available cores.

Example:

 

Linux:

used parameters:

  • -n 20 – means that Blender will be launched with the lowest priority, computing power will be allocated to it after the all other programs.
  • -b – Blender background launch (no graphical interface is created).
  • _path_to_blend_file_ – the full path to the project you need to render.
  • -f X – instead of X, you need to specify the number of the frame you need to render.
  • -t X1 – instead of X1 you need to specify the number of processor cores that would be allocated for rendering. It is worth to allocate the half of the available cores.

Example:

 

BIS add-on v.1.1.0

BIS (Blender Interplanety Storage) add-on update to v.1.1.0.

  • Previews autogeneration for procedural materials added. After a while, if the user has not uploaded his own material preview, it will be generated automatically.

The generated preview looks like this:

The update only applies to the server side of the add-on. You do not need to reinstall or update the installed add-on in Blender.

For the correct preview autogeneration, the saved node group must be fully procedural (without using textures, textures are not stored on the server) and have an output named “Shader” or “BSDF” for shader node groups or “Color” or “Factor” for color node groups. The “Displacement” output, if it is in the node group, is also used. To have proper texture coordinates on the preview, the node group must have a “Vector” input.