Material By Element - 0.9

Hello guys,
today I finally found the time to clean out the code and to organize interface:

downlad link:
material_by_element.py

A few words about this script
The goal would be, having an object with some element (like rooftile or bricks):

1. generate 'N' materials based on the first and varying diffuse color of 'K
2. splitt the former mesh into more objects
3. apply randomly the materials to each object

Beside this 'core functionality' I needed some more functions:

• find a precise 'mbe' list, in order to have more in one scene without contrast
• select all objects involved in a selected list
• find out objects without material (in a big scene could be tricky)
• remove all unused material from scene (I know: just restart blender. But the keyword is: FAST and EASY)
• completely remove active material from scene and objects with one click
• completely remove materials of an 'mbe' list from scene and objects, and get back base material
• any suggestion? :-)

For more explanation I suggest you to read previous posts about "Material By Element".


MORE INFO:
the scripts is able to find materials throug a marker string ('.mbe-') and the basename (all you have before marker) so... DON'T change material's name after, because you could have problems.


Installation: copy python script into your addons folder and check it on into "User Preferences\Addons\Material"
more info at http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Extensions/Python/Add-Ons

As soon as possible I'll make videotutorial, wikipage and all that "bureocraty" stuff :)


The script is released under GPL 2.0, feel free to reuse/modify/cook/freeze/blend... but please let me know :-) I'm curious.


Pietro

Ubuntu 12.04 beta - ls a colori [ITA]

Ubuntu 12.04 beta - ls a colori

Ciao,

stamattina ho avuto un problema con Ubuntu 12.04 che mi ha fatto perdere un po' troppo tempo. Ho deciso di condividere la soluzione:

1 - su Ubuntu 12.04 per qualche strano motivo l'output di ls non è più colorato

2 - non riesco a lavorare con l'output normale

3 - il comando per avere il colore è ls --color=auto

4 - per averlo in automatico bisogna sovrascrivere il comando ls tramite alias ls='ls --color=auto'

5 - inserendo il codice in $HOME/.bashrc l'alias rimane valido anche dopo il riavvio della console o del sistema

6 - se modificate /root/.bashrc create automaticamente l'alias per tutti gli utenti

Questo metodo è valido per la maggior parte degli altri comandi e relative opzioni.

saluti,

pietro

Ubuntu 12.04 beta - ls with colors

Hi,

I've experienced an issue that  has annoyed me more than a little bit... so I want to share the solution:

1 - on ubuntu 12.04 beta the terminal emulator won't have ls's output coloured.

2 - I simply NEED it

3 - the code to have colors il ls output is ls --color=auto

4 - the way to override ls is to create an alias with alias ls='ls --color=auto'

5 - the trick to have it "built-in" is to add that code to your $HOME/.bashrc

6 - do you want it for everyone and everywhere in your system? Put it in /root/.bashrc

You can even customize ls and other commands this way.

cheers,

pietro

New Postcards

Hi,
I've printed some postcards for "Salone del mobile" in Milano (http://www.cosmit.it/it/) and some others events before summer.
Graphic by Megrpx http://www.behance.net/megrpx
The back image has been done entirely in Blender.

The front images were done in Blender/Max/VRay as usual :)

Ciao,
Pietro

Layout changed

I've changed Blog layout because now I've got a website (www.pietrograndi.eu) and I would get back a very simple layout. This is a blog, not my website :-)


pietro

CAD on Linux: a case study

Warning: this review is currently "work in progress". I'm updating it.


Hi folks, I'm currently working on a little task (some plants 2.5D, you can see some of them on my flickr portfolio http://www.flickr.com/photos/pietrograndi/sets/72157622248043397/).
Actually I rarely accept this kind of work, but I thought this could be an hard test for CAD on my linux laptop for a rainy Sunday :-)
So, let's test it.


Input files format: Autocad 2012 DWG
Converted to DXF 2007 with Autocad WS on Chrome - Linux Ubuntu 11.10 x64




FreeCad http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page

• no DWG support
• ok DXF support
• crash on a 1.6Mb DXF
• unable to use it, I think it's the worst cad I've used on Linux

LibreCad http://librecad.org/cms/home.html

• no DWG support
• ok DXF support
• crash on a 1.6Mb DXF
• unable to use it, too slow

QCad http://www.ribbonsoft.com/en/

2.0.5-free version

• no DWG support
• ok DXF support
• it works, but I'm a registered user: why couldn't I use the commercial version???

QCad http://www.ribbonsoft.com/en/

3rc2 - commercial version

• unable to run (tgz and bin packages)
• error: ./qcad-bin: error while loading shared libraries: libGLU.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
• I've buyed it in 2011 and use it on windows 
• in the official forum this issues are "Discussion moved to bugtracker: "  and of course, nothing changes.

• UPDATE:
• I have to apologize with Ribbonsoft: on their website I've found this solution: "Ubuntu 11.04 64bit requires package "ia32-libs" to be installed."
• installing "ia32-libs" through Ubuntu Software Center solved the issue
• Ok DWG support - Autocad 2012 - VERY GOOD!

At the moment I'm working on QCad 3rc5, commercial version.

As soon as I'll terminate my works I'll post an update. I usually use it on Windows.


here's a screenshot:

UPDATE:
Finally I've found QCad really useful and reliable: for about 30€ you got a good software. Obviously, you won't think to substitute Autocad, but for a 3D artist who use CAD only for cleaning and export purposes is the best choice in my opinion. It's just a bit slow in viewport but not so bad.


note on other products:
LibreCad and FreeCad were unusable for my work.
I've tryed Draftsight on Windows and I think it's one of the best but I was unable to find it for Linux 64 (can someone suggest me were I can find it?) and it's not free for commercial use.
AutocadWS is really cool and free but it's good only for opening and converting DWG files.
I wish to test BricsCad but anyway it's too expensive.
BRL-CAD: I'd like to have the time to compile and test it. Maybe in the future...

Pietro