Outnumbered!

#1

I’ve discovered that the best way to learn Blender is to put it to work. I’m catching on and I’m glad. So, here is what’s happening at the moment:

I have more than a thousand planes on my scene with tree texture maps and alpha masks. I couldn’t think of a better way to build a background forest (I said I’m new to Blender, remember?). Playback frame rate goes down as the Camera navigates the overwhelming scene. I’m thinking of switching visibility off for all 1000+ tree planes while leaving their render properties enabled … and it hit me: “Am I gonna sit here and tick all that?”. Surely this is a task for a script

Question:
Is there anything of that sort in existence or is this something I have to do – i mean a scripted tool/plug-in for automating object/property management?

#2

Just move them to invisible layer.

#3

Are you using instanced objects with particles? You can control the percentage that is displayed in the 3d view with a single control in particle’s Display panel.

I’m able to get “LOTS of Trees” setup this way.
http://blendernewbies.blogspot.com/2010/07/news-25-dvd-content-update-lots-of.html

#4

:surprised Okay. Once again, my folly is glaring. I mean, … how could I have missed that? Thanks Dac77.

I saw your blog at the early period of my search (for answers). Is the DVD out? Are you describing something similar to “Scatter” in MAX? I’ve never done it in Blender. In fact, I don’t know how to go about it in blender. Any insight is appreciated. :wink:

#5

No, the DVD isn’t out yet. I just looked at a youtube video on the “scatter” feature and, yes, it’s similar to that tool.

In Blender, you use particles. Set the particles to display Billboards, Objects, or Groups (of objects). You can also use weight painting to help control the distribution and other aspects. It’s a bit much to cover here.

I did a tutorial that’s hosted at BlenderCookie on something similar, but using Blender 2.49. A lot of the settings are similar but the approach is more geared for “painting” the instanced objects into place. It’s a long tutorial, some think it’s boring but I don’t know how else you can cover something with any kind of depth (edutainment isn’t really my thing). A lot of the workflow principles transfer to Blender 2.5, but some things are in different locations.
http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/02/18/painting-instanced-objects/

#6

I also attempted a download but blendercookie requires registration via paypal … and paypal has a policy that is not in my favour.

This is a workaround. Once the layer is activated for rendering, we’re back to the same problem. It does help to normalize animation playback on the 3D-viewport. I still think it would be nice to have a tool that can disable the visibility property of selected objects.
Pseudo Code:

1. Get the Selection (usually an array) 
2. Loop through the array and set the property for each object in the array
3. done

I may have to look into this. Just hope I’m not rediscovering an atom … and I am new to python. A similar issue is with Linked/Appended Objects management. I don’t see a straightforward way of managing Linked/Appended objects; especially where there’s a lot of objects to deal with. Removing many external references from the outliner is not fun. There has to be another way.

#7

Well, there are many ways to solve something likes this. You just might have to get more creative.

Some ideas:

  • look into Groups and controlling visibility
  • use multiple particle systems and control the visibility of an entire system via the modifier panel (toggle the little “eye” icon)
  • since these are background aspects, try rendering just the background. Then, turn off all the relevant particle systems for the trees. Use the “images as planes” script found in the Add-Ons section of the Preferences (the script will load in the File, Import menu). Position the rendered image of the dense forest as a sort of proxy that only requires four vertices.
  • check out the Outliner’s many view options and search tool, they may help with managing
  • Shift-G offers some options for selecting things based on relationships

Maybe your test case is a bit too ambitious for this stage of learning? IMHO, I would say scale it back and focus on a more friendlier learning curve.

#8

We say in Poland that temporal solution keep working the longest. If the workaround was not perfect then just select one of those objects and in its properties change draw type to bounds. Then select all objects, unselect the previously mentioned object, select it again, hit Ctrl-C, choose Draw Options from menu, and all objects will be drawn as bounding box which is faster than textured or shaded view.
Or…
if you would prefer to hide them completely then just select them all and hit H.

#9

i did a similar macro-ish thing for jeepster yesterday

for ob in bpy.context.selected_objects :
  	  ob.<whatever the visability tag is now> = 0

do it in the interactive console and use your tooltips to see what the python for visability is

keep in mind this is for 2.53

#10

Did you check further down the page? There’s a Vimeo video of the tutorial available and the download is an optional benefit for paying users.

#11

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