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Old 06-09-21, 15:46   #11
not again!
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Creating a custom workspace - optional. Only useful for TRNG.



Workspaces are predefined window layouts, that are customized for specific workflows. Blender has different workspaces for modeling, for sculpting, scripting, texture painting, video editing, etc.

Conveniently users can also create their own personalized workspaces to suit their needs. We are going to create two workspaces for TRLE: one that's optimized for preventing wandering vertices, and one for working in 1:512 scale where Blender's grid lines match the level editor grid. And no worries, the adjustments to the grid settings will only affect our custom workspaces.

Workspaces are a really neat feature, because you can highly customize them and will still be able to go back to Blender's default settings by simply switching workspace tabs.

Important: We are going to save the following changes to the Blender Startup File and any changes you make, like changing view-angle and zoom level, toggling panels open or close, will be saved to the startup, too. For this reason I suggest that for the duration of setting up the workspaces you don't make any changes other than the mentioned ones (unless you know what you are doing, of course).

I suggest you keep the starting cube - it can serve as convenient starting point and scale reference, especially if you are working in 1:512 scale. The start cube has the exact size of a level editor block in that scale.

Before we begin I recommend you disable Auto Perspective.
With Auto Perspective enabled, Blender will automatically toggle between orthographic and perspective view, depending on your view angle. The reason for this is expained in more detail a bit further below.







----------------------------------------------
Workspace for matching grid lines
----------------------------------------------



Let's start with a workspace for working in 1:512 scale. In this workspace the Blender grid matches the level editor grid.

Make sure you are in the Layout workspace and click the little + icon at the end of the workspace tabs array and select Duplicate Current.



Blender will switch automatically to the new workspace, which is now named Layout.001. Double-click the tab to rename it. I've named mine TRLE_512.

Select the starting cube and press TAB to switch into Edit Mode.
If the sidebar on the right is not already open, hit N on your keyboard to toggle it open. Select the Item tab and switch the coordinate value display from Local to Global.



After that hit TAB again to switch back into Object mode.

You can delete the camera and light - they are only needed if you want to make a render. Hold the SHIFT key for additive selecting, then click on the camera and the light, press X to delete.
Be aware that if you delete something it will be gone from all workspaces.

Alternatively you can exclude lights and camera from view, if you want to get them out of the way, but still keep the default setup:



I always keep them, but that's entirely up to preference. If you opt to delete them, you can add a camera and lights back into your scene anytime while in Object Mode.


Under Viewport Overlays we enable Statistics to keep track of the number of vertices and faces.

Optional: you can also enable All Origins, which will display the origin of models that are not actively selected. This is very useful if you are working on character models which usually are comprised of several different parts, but more on that later, when we get to modeling.




Under Viewport Shading we enable Backface Culling, which prevents the backside of faces from being rendered.
This helps to avoid confusion: you'll notice instantly if the normals of a face are pointing the wrong way, because it will be invisible from the backside.

Tip: if you want a face to be double sided in game, you have to duplicate that face manually and flip the normals of the duplicate.

Switch default Color mode to Textures to view your model with textures.

Optional: you can disable the default glossiness of models in the viewport by unticking Specular Lighting. It's not indicative of whether your model will have shine in game, it's just for how the model is displayed in the Blender viewport, so if you prefer a matte look while working, then you can change the setting here.





You wont be really needing the timleline at the bottom while modeling, so you can close it, if you want to get it out of the way. Navigate the mouse cursor exactly onto the dividing line between 3d viewport and the timeline window until you see the shape of the cursor change into a double pointed arrow. Right click and select Join Area. Then hover with the mouse cursor over the timeline window and confirm the merge with left click.
Youtube: how to join areas. I've included a timestamp to the bit about joining windows, but the whole video is worth a watch! It's only a bit over 3 minutes long.


This is a good time to save the changes we have made so far to the startup: under File > Defaults you can find both the option to save your changes to the startup file and the option to reset Blender to factory settings, if you have accidentally made any changes that you don't want to keep.




The above changes are useful for all potential workspaces for TRLE, so before we make the final change to the 512 workspace, which is adjusting the grid, we duplicate this workspace as starting point for the next workspace. The next workspace will be one that is optimized to prevent wandering vertices.
As before we click the little plus icon, choose Duplicate Current and rename the new workspace. I've named mine simply TRLE.

Switch back to the 512 workspace for the final adjustment!
Hit 1 on your numpad to go into front view and make sure you are in orthographic view mode. You can toggle view modes with 5 on your numpad. You will know you are in orthographic front view when you can see grid lines in the background.


Under Viewport Overlays we set the scale for the grid to 0.5

Your workspace should now look like this:



The major grid lines now neatly have the height of level editor clicks. If you enable snap to grid (the little horseshoe magnet icon at the top) you can construct architecture models that line up with room geometry very quickly.

Snapping to the major grid lines and the subdivision line that is exactly in the middle between them, will give you clean coordinates after the model got scaled up from 1:512 to original size.


For editing room geometry, which comes in 1:1024 scale, you can either temporarily switch the grid scale from 0.5 to 0.25, or make another duplicate of this 512 workspace and set its grid scale to 0.25.
Whichever is more convenient to you.

In any case this is a good time to save the changes to the startup again, before we proceed to setting up the next workspace.





-------------------------------------------------------------
Workspace for avoiding wandering vertices
-------------------------------------------------------------




Switch to the duplicate of the 512 workspace that we created a few moments ago. If you missed this step then you can still just duplicate the 512 workspace now and change the grid scale of the duplicate back to 1.

This workspace can be optimized either for working in original scale or 1:10 scale. Let's start with the latter.


1:10 Scale


To optimize the workspace for this scale set the grid scale to 0.1.



The export scripts for OBJ, COLLADA (.dae) and FBX all allow you to define presets, so you can customize a preset for TRLE that will export your models at the right size. (We will go into detail on this in the modeling chapter)



Original Scale:



Original scale has the advantage over 1:10 when it comes to convenience when importing & exporting models, and normally I'd say that settles the question, but original scale comes with one hook attached, which I imagine could bother some people, so let's go over the issue in detail: as mentioned previously, original scale is gargantuan in Blender, which means you have to increase the clipping distance, but the bigger the clipping distance the more prone to graphical glitches (z-fighting). You can tweak the clipping distance to avoid those graphical glitches, but there are no settings that will work perfectly for both orthographic and perspective view, it's either or. Hence why we disabled the automatic toggling between perspective and orthographic view at the beginning.

Here's a comparison shot of Lara in both perspective view and orthographic view to help you decide:



Perspective view, as the name suggests, renders models with foreshortening - the further away from the camera something is, the smaller it will be.
See this YouTube video on the difference between orthographic and perspective view. I've added a timestamp to the relevant part, but the video in its entirety is under 4 minutes long and it's definitely worth watching all of it.)

You can adjust the Viewport Clipping Distance in the sidebar under the View tab:




If you prefer perspective view you can use following settings:

Clip Start: 1 m
End: 5000 m


If you prefer orthographic view (I can't be the only weirdo who doesn't like the foreshortening when working on character models, right?) you can use these settings:

Focal Length: 1 mm
Clip Start: 0.01 m
End: 6000 m

Note that setting the focal length to 1 mm will make perspective view pretty much unusable, so you're stuck with orthographic view forever until you switch to a different workspace, or change the values back to their default.



^^ that's Lara in perspective view at focal length 3 mm, in case you are wondering

Last edited by not again!; 09-05-23 at 18:01.
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