Beware, Beta!

Mini Lightlib is a little addon that gives you some standard lighting settings for the Cycles renderer. It contains for example the classical threepoint setup. But also some basic volumetrics examples. And the needed backdrop for a studio setup.

It does unfortunately not work with the newest Blender version 2.78, a real pity. There is a Blender bug that will crash Blender to desktop when you try to append a light library. And it’s nothing that i can change since it is a Blender bug. I have nevertheless finished the addon. It works fine with Blender 2.77 and below. If everything else fails then you can still use the single scenes in 2.78.  And maybe the Blender developers are so kind to release a 2.78b version with the needed fix at one point …

The addon can be found here: www.reinerstilesets.de/anderes/blender-addons/mini-lightlib/

Normally i keep my fingers away from things like politics. But enough is enough. Microsoft has made me highly angry now.

In case you haven’t noticed it, the end of Windows 7 support is NOW. And not as promised in 2020. The reason is the “simplifying” of the patches. Which allows Microsoft to install all the crap that you have hidden before for compatibility or privacy reasons. It’s one big patch now, that installs everything that Microsoft needs.

And this includes for example the by me formerly hidden telemetry patches. This also includes things like incompatible graphics drivers or corrupted patches that would make your system useless. And how this ends can be seen at Windows 10 at the moment. See reboot loop.

And this means in consequence that you better turn your automatic update off. For me the support for Windows 7 ended now.

I don’t want Microsoft to spy my system. I don’t want Microsoft to patch my system useless. I don’t want Microsoft to ruin hours or days of work because the system decides  that it is time for an reboot now to apply the patches. And fuck you when you have a job running that needs a few days. That was already the reason why i haven’t upgraded to Window 10. And now they try to turn Windows 7 into Windows 10 too. Into a spy software that patches your system out of order and kills your work.

Not with me my friends. Microsoft has killed all the trust that i ever had in it. I have turned off the automatic update now. And i will not turn it on again. I will not install anything from Microsoft anymore. They tried to trick me one time too often with their try to install the spyware patches again and again. And the bandid methods that they use shows in which direction the journey goes. Microsoft turned out to be the bigger danger compared to any possible vulnerability.

Beware, Beta!

The Mode Tab Buttons addon installs a buttonbar to switch between the different object modes in Blender. A little substitute for the mode dropdown box.

You can find it here: www.reinerstilesets.de/anderes/blender-addons/mode-tab-buttons/

EDIT, quick update to 1.0.1. There was a button missing when you had for example lights selected.

Version 0.5.0 is a milestone release. It marks the end of this development cycle. There are no more open issues in the tracker at the moment.

The download can be found in the download section: www.bforartists.de/content/download

This release brings tabs, or better said buttons, to switch between the animation editors. To switch between Outliner and Properties Editor. And adds buttons to switch between the most important standard layouts. New is the Wire Tools Addon from Lapineige. New is the Smart Delete addon. The Animation layout is revamped. And a few other minor changes. We have also a new splash screen. It comes from a user of the german CG Community page 3D Ring called TiLation. Many thanks for this fine splash screen image.

More info can be found in the Release Note: www.bforartists.de/wiki/bforartistsreleasenotev050

Next is a workflow development cycle. To go through the UI again, with a real project at the hand. And to fill the tracker with all the disturbing things that stumbles in my way while creating the project.

A new version of Bforartists is ready. This release is mainly around tooltip issues.

The download can be found in the download section: www.bforartists.de/content/download

I have added the tool name to the tooltips where possible. This one did really hurt my fingers, i had around 1500 entries to change, but it was important for the icon buttons. I have where possible separated tooltips for tools that has different functionality but the same tooltip. And where not possible, changed the tooltips to explain the both (or even more) involved tools.

I have removed the Spacebar addon. The menu part of it did not longer fit. T the Bforartists menu diverges too much already from the Blender menu. New is also a stroke select addon, which can replace the Circle select tool in most cases. I have again removed a few double menu entries. And a few smalll issues and bugs gots fixed. All in all there are around 110 commits since Bforartists 0.4.0.

Further roadmap: first follows to update the manual. It has to be on the same level with the software. And then i will have a look for more workflow improvements. The parenting menu will for example surely find its ways into the tool shelf. And there are still some issues in the tracker left where i haven’t found a solution yet. Some of them are bigger ones where i am not sure if i can even manage them. But i will continue to investigate.

More info can be found in the Release Note: www.bforartists.de/wiki/bforartistsreleasenotev041

Stroke Select is a Blender addon to replace the Circle Select. You simply select elements by mouse stroke. And you can , different from the Circle select, still normally navigate meanwhile. The Circle select mode has the problem that it disables navigation. Which is a real workflow killer.

Beware Beta!

The script and further instructions can be found here: www.reinerstilesets.de/anderes/blender-addons/2016-stroke-select-addon/

This is a really sad news. But  i simply have to point at this dark chapter of the Bforartists history. Trolling. Open source projects knows this problem too well. And in the very most cases you simply ignore the trolls. It’s wasted time to discuss with the poisoned folks.

But there is a point where you cannot ignore it anymore. When it becomes character assassination. And that’s exactly what happened with the fork and me at the official Blender community page Blender Artists.

Continue reading →

There’s news at my Blender Fork Bforartists. Version 0.4.0 is the final stroke below two very big issues that did not work for me. The try to implement the UI solution Qt. And the try to implement new Editor types. This two biggies have eaten lots of time, without a visible result. And that’s why the version 0.4.0 is rather small. The 0.4 series will be reserved for some smaller adjustments instead.

Highlights of this new version: GPU rendering is now possible. I had totally overlooked that Cuda did not work in Bforartists. The new icons became a refinement. They look now (hopefully) much better. The Add menu is now finally completely in the Tool Shelf. And we have a new menu called navi. It contains the navigation tools. The Navigation menu was formerly burried in the Views menu. To have it top level makes it possible to remove the Transform panel from the Tool Shelf.

More info can be found in the Release Note: www.bforartists.de/wiki/bforartistsreleasenotev040

The download can be found in the download section: www.bforartists.de/content/download

I need to convert the Blender manual for the Blender fork Bforartists. This has lead to this side product. The whole Blender 2.76 manual in PDF format.

Can be found in Other / Blender related / Blender 2.76 Manual as PDF

Or download it directly here:

Blender 2.76 PDF Manual, 76.3 Mb

www.reinerstilesets.de/blender/blender_276_manual_pdf.zip

Additionally it comes with the whole manual in ODT format too. Which makes the manual now editable for everybody. ODT is the format for the popular free office suites LibreOffice and OpenOffice.

Blender 2.76 Manual in ODT format , 198 Mb

www.reinerstilesets.de/blender/blender_276_manual_odt.zip