chippwalters posts
Posts: 304
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Ultra-Mat: A New Material Workflow Inside EEVEE + Cycles
Hey everyone — happy New Year! 🎉I’ve been pretty busy over the holidays working on a few different things, but one project I’m especially excited about is a new material system I’ve been building called Ultra-Mat.If you’ve been following my work for a while, you might remember “One Material to Rule Them All” from about six years ago. Ultra-Mat is loosely a follow-up to that idea, but it’s also very different. This time around, ...
Free MD-DOCS finally launches.
Okay, granted it's probably just a beta. But it certainly has a lot of pretty cool features. And I've done builds for both Linux, Macintosh, and Windows. As I'm not a Mac or Linux user, I will definitely need some feedback. And if you run across any bugs on those platforms or on Windows, please let me know. More info about it at: https://cw1.me/mddocs-lp (press the Get it Now! button to go to the downloads page).
Progress update
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!I thought I’d share an update on what’s been going on with my various projects.Many of you already know about Design Magician, my Blender add-on that uses AI to enhance designs at every level. It’s been on a bit of a pause for the past few months but has been very successful overall. I’m currently working out a launch plan with SuperHive—more on that next month. In the meantime, here’s a tentative la...
Portable Markdown Editor Application for Mac and Windows
Hey everyone! I just put together a new Windows and Mac portable desktop app called MD Docs — it’s a Markdown editor that shows your Markdown side-by-side with multiple synchronized HTML previews. You can open several documents at once, use quick-access buttons to edit, and export your work as clean HTML whenever you need.One feature I’m really excited about: it can automatically convert embedded base64 images back into regular image files....
Update to Simple Capture and other stuff...
The video is me using Simple Capture and playing around just playing around with Design Magician, my new AI tool. Still beta-testing it. Let me know if you're interested. I updated Simple Capture to fix some bugs and make it more robust. It still only works on PCs, but I'm interested in finding people to help test on Mac. Also, I have a new folder where I'm making it available to only Patreon users, and I'm putting all the updated...
Looking for a few beta testers...
I have been working on this add-on for quite some time. It's pretty amazing, and here are some examples. Go from this:to this:A member published this image in the "Critics Corner" channel on our Discord channel. And DM generated this AO image:which led to these images:You can start with a solid shaded (no materials added) scene or your existing fully rendered end lit scene. This add-on is an AI renderer that allows you to envision you...
My introduction to vibe coding
Hey folks, I've been wanting to learn about vibe coding for a while now. For those of you who don't know what that is, vibe coding is were you interact with an AI and it generates code for you. There are many such platforms and some of them focus on different things like web applications or Python scripting etc.The idea is you type or talk to the AI and describe what it is you want and AI generates the code for you and many times it actua...
Blender Image Displacement Modifier
I have been experimenting with geometry nodes to develop a triplanar displacement modifier for black-and-white images. This setup is most effective with tileable black and white PNG images, though it can also be applied to non-tileable images like logos. The primary advantage is the ability to easily add various types of three-dimensional displacement textures to models, making it highly suitable for 3D printed objects.For additional information,...
New SLICE Modifier. Free for Patreons.
Many of you may have seen Mark Kingsnorth Bend modifier for sale at Superhive. But, in order for it to work correctly, you need to have the correct topology. This modifier is used just above the Bend modifier to add the necessary geometry so that things will bend correctly. If you already own SLICE IT BEND IT then you can get the modifier from Superhive as part of SLICE IT BEND IT. Learn more in the video. You can also Download it here.https://fi...
Fun video-- created using AI
Finally released SIMPLE N-PANELS -- and then tried to figure out a way to get some attention. It's such a simple addon. And certainly a necessary one. So, I decided to create an AI animation. I had one AI create the script (Gemini-Pro) and another break it out into scenes (Perplexity) then another to create the characters (midjourney) and another couple for the voices (Resemble AI and ElevenLabs-- also used them for sound effects). And then I...
FINALLY! A super easy fix for the N-Panel UI
Hey guys, I've been meaning to find a solution to this for quite awhile now—and I think this is a good one.The problem is simple: the N-Panel gets incredibly crowded with addon tabs. It's tough to find the right one when you have to scroll forever and tilt your head to read all the vertical text.This addon fixes that. It gives you a simple pop-up menu with all your N-Panel tabs listed horizontally. Just hit Shift + ` (the key next to &#...
Workflow winner: SUPER Q (beta)
Hey folks, I have a beta of a new addon I want your help on. It's called SUPER Q and it's an addon based on something I've been frustrated with for some time. Namely, Blender's Q Favorites menu. Most of you probably use it. I know I do, but there are several issues, outlined below. Coding something seemingly this simple is in fact quite complex, and I've used 3 different AI's to help me solve many of the various problems. ...
Now SIMPLE ALIGN can do offsets
Check out the video. Offsets are pretty great when distributing items.http://cw1.me/simplealigndownloadhttp://cw1.me/simple-align
Screen Recorder & Time Lapse for Blender
UPDATED: Fixed issue where sequence rendering always starts over at 1. Now it starts over at the highest numbered image in the capture folder. This way you can now use the Stop Sequence button to effective pause the sequence capture, then you can start again from where you left off.UPDATED: Now automatically installs Pillow (with your permission). You still need to manually install ffmpeg-- that cannot be automated. Still working on getting a Mac...
Always wanted to quickly do this..
Hey folks,I've lately been using DESIGN MAGIC and KIT OPS in Blender to do some 3D print modeling and I find that I often need to swap back and forth between smooth shading and flat shading-- and what a pain it is. You have to add modifiers and settings, and if you use a Spin or Skin modifier, there are also smooth/flat settings in there too. So, I decided to sit down and write a simple addon that resides in the Tool menu and simply toggles a...
New Camera Foam Material
Hey folks, Received a request from Dagobert over on Discord for an updated foam material-- and so here it is. He also wants some others, so stay tuned.Also, he's an EEVEE+Cycles Material System owner and I mentioned to him one of the nice things about all the files up on GDrive is that he can automatically sync using the Google Drive Desktop app. He didn't know you can sync specific local files and folders. It's a great way to stay up...
SIMPLE-ALIGN v1.0.2 updated with new feature.
Added the ability to optionally use object origins along with bounding boxes for align and distribution. Get it below. See previous post for more info on using it.
New free addon: SIMPLE-ALIGN (align and distribute)
UPDATED TO V1.0.2 Adds alignment by origin as well as the existing bounding boxI've been thinking about this one for awhile. Aligning objects in Blender has always been a hassle-- mostly because of 3D coordinates. Most often the viewport doesn't match your internal understanding of what's going to happen, so you just keep pressing buttons until you get it right.I thought I'd try a different interface-- one that aligns the view wit...
Another displacement tute.. but with a twist
Turns out it's even easier if you use SculptOK's export STL feature. Another user wanted help modeling a texture, and balked when I posted the other video saying, "Works for small design but a complex design like this, naah!" So, when I posted this picture he asked for a video demo.The video documents how to export a high resolution STL directly from SculptOK.
Little known Boolean modifier feature helps make manifold objects
Once again, a help video for some folks at Reddit. The issue can be explained here:https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1k1oyyz/help_with_simplifying_model/One of the most interesting things demonstrated in this video is a way to use the boolean modifier using only the original object to make boolean all separate meshes inside the object so that it becomes a solid-- and thus can be easily printed. Not to mention it also does a lot of clean u...
Helping out..
There is this Reddit thread:https://www.reddit.com/r/blenderhelp/comments/1k1ghck/please_can_you_help_me_understand_the_problem/And it's clear this person is somewhat new to Blender, but also seems pretty accomplished to create these models. Anyway, the Reddit community does it's best to provide as much information as possible, with all sorts of convoluted solutions-- like remodel with all quads, and transfer normals, etc.. Not much help...
Anisotropic Brushed Metal Button Material for Blender
Here's a material that can generate all metal types (brass, chorme, titantium, gold, steel, copper, annodized metal, aluminum..) and is perfect for knobs and other metallic objects requiring cylinderical anistropic reflections. Remember: anisotropic only works with Cycles renderer. Here are the files. Just drop them in a KPACK folder, or if you have EEVEE+Cycles you can add them to the cw-Metal KPACK.
Creating wood carving in Blender using AI and displacment
So, I saw this reddit post about how to model this image of a carving.Step one was to straighten it out and crop it in photoshop.Step two was to create a displacement map in https://www.sculptok.com/imageGeneratorAnd then use it as a displacement map in Blender to generate a mesh. The final has less than 100K tris. The video goes into details.
Color Folder icons for Windows
A quick tutorial on how to make and quickly install your own colored folder icons. And, I've included a zip folder of the ones I use below. This works as well for any icon on your Windows computer.I hatedownloading utility apps for Windows as you never know exactly what you're installing in your system. This is an easy way to do all this without worrying about corrupting your system. I hope you enjoy.
Update on Switch Material addon (free)
An update on this easy to use tool. It would be good for checking out all your materials in scenes full of objects just to make sure they all work in EEVEE and Cycles. Added the ability to work with instances as well as maintain persistent changes across file open/close.https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/sstm5nzrax9tdy95aw9e7/cw-material-switch-v1.0.24.zip?rlkey=3nek01uukyb1sa2zghnae5yt9&dl=0
New Hobby Mat Material for you
Hey folks,Been working on some new Node Groups and wanted to share with you a new material called Hobby Mat and it does just that-- creates a customizable procedural hobby mat. If you have EEVEE+Cycles it will sync up there in a day or so, but you can also just grab it here. Just place in any KPACK folder, refresh and you're ready to use it. I hope you enjoy it. :-)
Free Geometry Nodes Scatter INSERT
I've been wanting to create this for some time and finally got around to it. It's a geometry node group called "cw_scatter" that provides a lot of different ways to populate a mesh with instances from a collection. You can populate based on slope angle, altitude, weight painting, vertex groups and do a lot more. It would be really good for populating trees, shrubs, grass on a terrain because you can have the snow at the top, grass...
New universal metal material for 4.3+
Hey folks, I have a new material I've been working on and wanted to share with you. Check out the video, download it below, and drag/drop it into one of your KPACKS. It should also be up on EEVEE+Cycles Material System on GDrive in a day or so (takes some time for auto-sync to kick in).
Combining Normal Maps in Blender
Hey folks,For some time now I've been mulling over the best way to combine normal maps in Blender. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just mixing them as doing so doesn't work correctly. I've done some research and spent some time trying several different approaches, and I believe I've arrived on what I think is the winner. It's the one I'll be using for EEVEE+Cycles Materials System. Speaking of that product, I'm ...
Just launched SIMPLE SKETCH PRO
Hey folks, been a long time coming, but I'm happy to say we finally got SSP out of beta and launched on Blender Market and Gumroad. It's on sale for the next couple of weeks. https://blendermarket.com/products/simple-sketch-prohttps://chippwalters.gumroad.com/l/simple_sketch_proThanks a ton to all those here who helped test the beta. Much appreciated! It was a very interesting project-- and certainly the most complex I've had to deal ...
