Category: Blender

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The New Pose Library Workflow in Blender

Here’s how to work with the Blender 3.4 pose library and assets browser:

Create the pose you need in pose mode. Select the bones that are required for the pose.

Save poses (still in pose mode) from the right side toolbar’s “animation” tab by clicking “Create Pose Asset”:

You can name the pose from the F9 operator dialogue.

You only need one pose for each side, since the poses can be flipped with “Flip Pose”.

Simply click on a pose thumbnail to apply it.

You can also right click on a thumbnail to select all the pose bones.

You can click and drag on a pose thumbnail to mix between to poses.

The thumbnail from the pose is rendered from the active camera. You can later change it from the Asset Browser window if needed from the “generate preview” button:

If you want to create a global “user library”, save the .blend file in the Assets directory. By default it’s in Windows: C:\Users\myusername\Documents\Blender\Assets\

It should now show up under “user library” in the assets browser, also for any new .blend files that you create.

You can save as many files as you need to the Assets folder, and each one of them will show up in the Assets panel under “user assets”

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Anyone can try NeRF now with a free app!

The 3D industry has been buzzing about Nvidia’s Instant NeRF (which stands for neural radiance fields) ever since they published their first demo video.

This technology has since been in rapid development and we now have a free iPhone app called Luma AI that anyone can use to capture NeRFs.

I tested the app with a toy robot, here’s a automatically generated video of the result:

The amazing thing about NeRF renders is that they can handle light reflections and bounces in a very realistic manner. This makes it a good fit for VFX work. We can also export a textured 3D-model from the Luma AI app, but it’s not as impressive as rendering with NeRFs. It’s still quite good compared to a basic photogrammetry process, especially considering that the surface of our object was quite reflective. Here’s a screenshot from Blender:

Here is how the mesh looks like (very dense):

Here’s another cool shot from a Robotime Ball Parkour toy:

@oneminutevideotutorial

Wow! NeRFs are going to be great for displaying products like this!

♬ original sound – user635578337916 –
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Blender keyboard shortcuts for working with nodes

Being able to work efficiently with different kinds of nodes in Blender is becoming increasingly important. These basic node related keyboard shortcuts should work in all of the Node editors in Blender including material nodes, the compositor and geometry nodes.

Add new node: shift+A

Just like you can add new objects with shift+a, the same shortcut also works for adding new nodes. If you want to immediately enter the search mode, read about the next shortcut below.

Add new node and search immediately: shift+A, then S

If you want to search for the name of the node instead of browsing through the categories, hit s immediately after hitting shift+a and it will take you to the search bar.

Disable a node: M

Sometimes you just want to see the results of a node tree without a certain node. In that case you can easily mute a node by selecting it and hitting M on your keyboard.

Delete a node: X

Just like you would expect, hitting X on the keyboard will delete the selected node(s).

Delete with reconnect: ctrl+X

If you want to delete a node in the middle of a node tree and automatically connect the node that came before the deleted node to the node where the deleted node was connected to, simply hit ctrl+X to delete the node from between.

Backdrop Zoom: V and alt+V

If you need to zoom out of the backdrop image to see it completely, just hit V on the keyboard. Zoom in by pressing alt+V.

Duplicate a node: shift+D

To make a duplicate of the selected node(s), just hit shift+D on the keyboard.

Connect a node to the viewer: ctrl+shift+leftclick

If you want to quickly connect a node’s output to the viewer node to see the result of the node, just hold down shift and control and left-click on the node you want to connect.

Cut a node connection: ctrl+rightclick-drag

If you want to cut a node connection, hold down control and the right mouse button and drag over the connection line.

Collapse node: H

Sometimes you want to collapse a node so that it takes less space. To do that, simply select the node and hit H on your keyboard and the node inputs will no longer be visible. If you want to reopen a collapsed node, simply hit H again.

Create node group: ctrl+G

Grouping nodes together allows you to simplify your node trees. By grouping several nodes together it is like combining them so that they appear to be just a single node. Simply select the nodes that you want to group together and hit ctrl+G. Note that all node types cannot be grouped together. For example you can’t put the “render layers” node in a node group.

Enter or exit node group: tab

After grouping nodes, Blender will automatically take you inside the group. To exit the node group, press tab on the keyboard. Similarly, to enter a node group, select the group and press tab.

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Basics of Using Cryptomatte in Blender 2.93

In the buttons area (on the right side of the interface), select the “View layer properties” tab.

Under “cryptomatte” turn on “object”, “material” or “asset”. I like “asset” since it let’s me select entire rigs that consist of several parts.

Go to the “compositing” workspace.

Turn on “use nodes”.

Add a viewer node with shift+a –> output –> viewer.

Add the cryptomatte node from Matte –> Cryptomatte.

Connect the image output from the render layers node to the image input of the Cryptomatte node. Connect the “pick” output from the Cryptomatte node to the image input of the viewer node. Render the scene (keyboard shortcut F12).

You should now see different matte colors that identify different assets in your render layer. Use the + button to access the eyedropper tool and select as many assets as you need for the matte you are building.

To see the actual matte, you can plug the “matte” output from the Cryptomatte node to the viewer.

Now you have a matte that you can use in various way when you are compositing. As a simple example, you could color correct the matted area by combining two copies of the input image with the “AlphaOver” node while using the matte as the factor. Then simply drop a color correction node like RGB curves between the bottom image connection.

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Blender Video Editor Tips

Blender, being the Swiss-army-knife -tool that it is, can also do video editing. Setting up a video editing layout is easier than ever with the new “Workspace” -system of Blender. Simply click on the + button at the end of the workspace tabs and choose Video Editing –> Video Editing. Here’s a picture:

When using Blender as a video editor, a couple of questions immediately come to mind:

  1. How do I perform a cut? Answer: Simply press K.
  2. How do I perform a ripple delete (an edit in which the gap of the deleted content is automatically closed)? Answer: There is no ripple edit feature at the moment, but it can still be done very quickly by hitting “Del” to delete, then “Page up” to jump the playhead to the previous cut and finally “Backspace” to “Close gap”.
  3. How can I “render the timeline” for better playback performance? Answer: The best way might be to create Proxies. In the Proxy workflow, Blender will create new, better performing versions of your video files and use them for better work speed. These are the steps you need to take to enable Proxies in Blender Video Editor:

First find the Proxy Panel. It lives usually on the right side of the Sequencer (timeline looking panel). Select the clips you want to create a proxy for in the sequence. Click on “Set selected strip proxies” to set these clips up for proxy creation. It will ask for a desired proxy resolution. Then click “Rebuild Proxy and Timecode Indices”. Blender should now start creating the proxy files, next to your original files (although this location can be changed in the settings). It might take a while, but after it’s done, your playback should be much better.