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I have a constant project going on in BFA 0.9.2 – and maybe we will update the project to 0.9.4 soon, as soon as I test the addons and rigs. It runs with two rigged characters so far, both with fur, animation nodes on shapes, very dynamic facial expressions, lots of instances everywhere (grass, leafy trees, wheat fields, flowers and rocks everywhere). I wish I could show more but I have an NDA with my client. It has so far been a nearly 3 month project, and has generated a few gigs in data inside Blender already. It will probably be rendered in Cycles over Sheepit online, or locally in Canada though I work here in Colombia.
I am currently scheming up more projects in BFA to showcase openly, though my next open client and private project is more a Softimage and trueSpace project respectively.
I have been actively been talking a lot about BFA to the Softimage community. They have started taking the Blender sourcecode to try make it “Softimage” like, but I’m sure they will hit the same walls as BFA. But it would be nice to have their development here also. Softimage has some great 3D philosophies like trueSpace – and they are production and artistically sound. I just hope the Blender system will not fork so much as Linux has, and will stick to only a couple of good contenders, with BFA as a main one. They are mostly only working on theme and shortcuts – but probably are missing out the planning around on the large caveats of Blender that have been fixed with BFA. I think I’ll try give more cases to help develop this fork – even if it is maybe kindly asking this community to include the new SI theme and shortcuts with the BFA release, as long as they keep developing cool stuff for BFA. I have also talked a bit about BFA to my facebook community – not large but growing. I invest facebook dollars in there. I do plan to make some BFA breakdown videos and publish there and on my youtube, though it’s a small channel. They will probably be workflow/breakdown videos.
I have modified the BFA shortcuts somewhat, the most principal one has been the F key to focus, and remapping all the F functions to mostly R for radius. F is very typical of most software I’ve used and I use it way too often to keep stretching to the number pad every few seconds during my workflow. The only R conflict is scaleing GP strokes, which I remapped to Alt+R to do the same and R to scale the GP sculpt brush.
I have also modified the modeling shortcuts, and added back some Blender shortcuts. Some of them are the O for proportional editing, quick toggle. I hate having to use the drop down menu to activate/disactivate it. The other shortcuts, as much as I like the simple 1 key press to activate most of them, I have remapped them to be in a multi key numberow system. Why? Because I hate moving my had over the keyboard and prefer to keep them all at the same reach. So I have Alt+1 for extrude, Alt+2 for bevel, Shift+1 for loop, Shift+2 for knife, and so forth. I also have modified the selection, putting them together (at the moment they are all spread out) putting XCV as the respective vertice, edge and face selection modes.
I like ergonomics in my shortcuts, and I prefer NOT moving my left arm around over a keyboard nor EVER taking off my hand from the mouse or pen specially for common things I use more than once in a minute.
I haven’t thought about picthing these shortcuts – but I think I would just be happy with the idea of the XCV consistency for selection type and F for focus and R for brush radius fixes (which is easy to remeber, cause R is also scale in other modes).
So, later I’ll work on BFA and post my logging here.
Thanks for this fork, you’ve got support from me. You’ve actually helped me have some light after suffering two demises of my favorites, trueSpace and Softimage.
:dance:
Good luck with the project
Take care of the incompatibility between Blender 2.78 and 2.79. This affects Bforartists 0.9.2 and 0.9.4 too. Either start and finish it in 0.9.2, or in 0.9.4. You can break things when you start to jump between the two versions.
Just curious, do the lightwavers have a sourcecode version of their fork up and running already?
Started practicing and studying sculpting with my little brother in Bforartists. He has tried Blender before, but never really got into it. He has with BFA now, which is nice. He’s an excellent 2D artists and animator.
But for working in the sculpting.. it feels very clunky still, even with the Blender shortcuts and organized menus – and I haven’t really sued a lot of the Brush Panel addon. But I did think up something new…..
I must say that system needs some cleaning up in the panels, that’s for sure. It just feels bloated.
:dance:
Yes i know, it is bloated, and far away from optimal. After the 2.79a release we will dive into the workflow, to catch exactly such issues. Let’s have a look what can be done here
Means when i can get git back working. They have changed something at github, and now i cannot commit my changes anymore
I can’t push to git anymore at the moment. Means i cannot send my changes to the repository
Searched for a solution the whole afternoon, without luck. Worst case scenario would be to reinstall Windows. Just to end most probably in the same problem again. I have a real nightmare scenario here.
We have started up a new project with a new client. I have decided to opt to go with Bforartists here – with my concept artist/illustrator working in it. He doesn’t know much, so he’s learning as we go. I have the audio recorded, and we are now working in
I found the GP sculpt in my full BFA map needs to be remapped – as the sculpt hold shortcut is conflicting with the GP sculpt pie menu.
So now he’s testing the GP workflow. One thing I am noticing is the GP panels are in.. two panels, the Properties Bar and Toolbar all together. You’d think they all be in the Toolbar somehow?
Anyway, all is well so far.
:dance:
I once tried to union the panels. It was mission impossible. The one in the Properties sidebar is partially hardcoded in C. And there was simply no way to transfer the functionality to the Tool Shelf and to remove it from the Properties sidebar then
Little update on one of the videos I’ve been working on – had around 10 of these built since december, with 3 of them done in Bforartists/Blender. My artist who helped me here is more a Blender guy and is used to the UI of Blender, but when we try troubleshoot and find solutions I immediately go to BFA, it.. just is quicker to find problems/solutions. I think he is starting to test it out, though he’s more a Blender shortcuts kind of guy.
We are exporting to Unreal Engine with renders – so created some nice FBX defaults – which might be nice to have as a default. The export dialogues and toolbar is super handy – big time saver (almost no need to script now).
:dance:
Finally, last fixes for the last 10 videos for a new client. What a journey! Ups, downs, new tech, workflow transitions, repetitions and… more than double the hours estimated to deliver. Lots learned.
Interesting Facts:
-It took a sum of nearly 380 hours to produce nearly 9 minutes of animation.
-Software started in Softimage/Mach Studio Pro2 workflow and transitioned to a Bforartists/Unreal Engine workflow
-Project took a duration total of 5 months
-4 people worked on the project, with 2 doing more than 75%
-More than 160 gigs of data were produced.
-A new multi-project management system was created by need halfway through to facilitate future work.
:dance:
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