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Blender (.py) Scripts...

Automating Blender ..

Blender Scripting

I've always had a soft spot for Blender - you can't help but love it! It does so much and free, it's open source and it's always on the cutting edge of features and updates. Of course, I have to admit, on occasion, the interface has been through a few wobbly phases which made it painful to use - but in recent years they've done a lot of work to make it more 'friendly'.

While you might not be an artist - Blender is packed full of useful little tools and resources - even if you just want to convert a model between formats - or do a bit of tinkering with vertices - or animate some skeleton data! Blender has it all! It's packed full of juicy features.

One little feature that has grown over the years - is the 'scripting' resource - and since they embraced 'Python' as the scripting language - it's made it really easy to do all sorts of amazing things (with just scripts) - you can even do things without opening Blender (run the Blender script directly from a console).

These few tutorials and examples will give you a feel for just how powerful and simple the Blender scripting resource is.

• You can use it as a 'helper' - add a button which runs a script to do something (some boring task that takes a few steps - you can automate into a single button)
• You can use it to to setup your scene (configure Blender) - some default layout you like to start with (objects/cameras/materials etc)
• You can use to to extract, convert, load data in or out of Blender automatically (with a script)
• Or just use it for fun (experiement, create things and just have a good time playing around with it)..
• ..

I'm curently using version '4.3' of Blender - but you have to be very careful - Blender is not one of those tools that sits still and goes out of date - it's a fastly evolving tool that is always trying to stay on the bleeding edge of innovations and updates.

Blender scripts might not work with all versions of Blender - so be sure to document and note the Blender version - as it might... — Blender scripts might not work with all versions of Blender - so be sure to document and note the Blender version - as it might work in version 4.3 but no longer works in 4.4 or 3.9! The picture is from the classic 'Lost in Space' series - the lovable robot who would should 'Danger Will Robinson' when any danger approached.

Tutorials/Articles

A range of articles/tutorials range from creating your first script to generating procedural textures, rigid bodies, animations and more.

Hello Blender Scripting (Box Car)

Are you ready? Ready to taste the sweet juicy power of Blender scripting? - Testing out Blender scripting for the first time might seem scary - I mean anything new is scary (but also exciting). After you've tried out your first few scripts - you'll [...]

Noisy Sphere Material Pattern

This is a simple idea - but the script involves lots of little qwerks to make it work.

Solar System (with Animation)

As it's easy to create spheres - let's write a simple script to construct our solar system - but to make it more interesting, we'll also animate the solar system - have the planets orbit the sun.

Create Texture Procedurally

We'll create a texture on-the-fly in the Python script - and map it onto the surface of the shape.

Starfield

Generating a starfield isn't as hard as you might think - you can mix in a bit of randomness and map it onto the background world color to create a nice looking starfield.

Falling Random Rigid Body Cubes

Throw a few random cubes into the scene - and make them rigid bodies - so they can use forces (gravity and collisions). So they don't just fall and disapear - we'll also add in a ground plane.

Rigid Body Wall (Fire Brick)

Let's build a wall of rigid body bricks and fire a cube at it - so it smashes and breaks appart when they collide.

Blender Script without Opening Blender

A great little example of using Blender scripts without actually opening the Blender - is to have to load a .blend file - render the output to a jpg and then close. We'll do all this in a single Python script.

Generating a Cloth (Simulation)

Cloth simulations are one of those things that add a bit of magic to a scene - anything from a flag flapping in the distance, to the cape that flaps behind Batman or Superman. With Blender scripting - you can create cloth simulations very easily.

Generate 3D Text Covered in Grass

You can convert some 2d text into 3d by extruding it (3d text) - then you'll convert it to a mesh surface - from which we can then use a particle system to add 'hair' to the surface. We'll make the hair a green color so it looks like grass.

Jelly Wobbly Water-Like Shapes

Let's swap the word 'GRASS' for 'WATER' - and create a liquid-type shape (jelly) - with caustics and transparency - and those water ripples you see on ocean surfaces (or water). We'll mix in some noise (clouds and displacement) to modify the solid s [...]

Blocks and Voxels Text

We can split the scene up into voxels (or cells) - do a quick ray intersection check - to convert the text (or object mesh) into blocks (Mincraft-like look).

Fractured (Cell) Effect (Smashed)

We can use the 'fracture' effect to chop up the mesh into smaller pieces - we'll add in a bit of randomness as well so the cells arne't all equal and square.

Wireframe Render

We convert the text to a mesh (same as before) - but we take advantage of the wireframe modifier - to convert the mesh into wire tubes - so when we render the scene - our mesh is now a wireframe look (scaffolding).

Particles

Decompose the mesh into particle points (either random size and location or fixed grid like configuration).

Fluffy Clouds

We can create fluffy clouds in Blender by mixing some noise and the mesh to volume modifier - this can all be done in a script. To make it more fun and interesting - we'll apply the cloud effect to some text. We'll create a volume mesh from the words [...]

Poster Visualization (Overview)

Blender Scripting Cheatsheet for Blender 4.x.

Fun with Fluids

A simple example of what you can do with Blender in a few minutes - I create a simple glass object by excruding the letter 'X' - then had it fill up with a pink liquid (particle with a surface). The screenshot of the effect doesn't do it justice - if you watch the mkv video below - you can't help but think it's such a cool effect.

However, be warned - towards the end of the video - the fluid simulation becomes unstable and pops - filling the fluid region with a solid pink.

• .blend file (LINK)
• .avi video (LINK)

Resources & Links

• Blender Homepage (blender.org)

• Writing Export Script to Export JSON files from Blender

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