BLender 248a for Ubuntu

I recently came to the world of Ubuntu,
that a really nice system, that you learn to love easily.

One thing that bug me, is that the blender version available from the add/remove software, is outdated.

I have try to download the file directly at the blender official web site, and use it like I was doing on windows with blender beta, but I was looking for a more easier way to get it.

I make a search on Google to found a blender 248a deb package for Ubuntu
http://www.getdeb.net/release/3467

Now you can add a personal icon for the .blend file, locate your icon folder your using,
Mine is  /usr/share/icons/hydroxygen/128×128/mimetypes
Create a new icon and call it gnome-mime-application-x-blender.png

Make blender launch with the terminal open, to be able to see the error message
Create a new launcher, in the properties change type for Application in terminal.

WIP Blender themes, interface & icons

Tired off your blender grey look?
Want news icons for enhance your blender interface?

All that can be make easily, you can build your proper themes or use a existant one.
Here a list for themes:

• graphicall.org
• yorik.orgfree.com

Here a list for Icon:

• blenderartists.org

Remember you will have to save your user preference to keep the theme & icon for next blender scene.

I will soon post a archive with my personal blender interface, that will contain a interface with multiple windows layout, what I think more optimised for a X-Plane user, I working on a custom icon set to help user to indentify the tools that is needed to work with X-Plane

Here a little preview I’ve posted a long time ago : interface test

WIP Blender X-Plane scripts

Blender don’t came with X-Plane scripts by default

One big mistake people making at begin, is to associate the wavefront .obj format to the X-Plane .obj, by default blender came with a wavefront script for import/export, where we can see the .obj format, X-Plane can not use this file, but beginner will see .obj so they will use it.

You need to manually install the Marginal’s python script to be able to have new entry in the blender export/import dialog box
Here a picture showing the new entry in the dialog box with the script correctly installed

This scripts can be found on Marginal’s web site, make sure you meet the blender version asked, later version will work with the script, older will not.
You will need (if you haven’t get it) the python 2.5, that you can found here, caution the last python version can not work for some stuff, be sure to grab the 2.5, you can have multiple python version installed in the same time, on my computer I got python 2.5 + 2.6 + 3.0 in my c: folder

How to install the scripts?
Simple expand the archive that you have downloaded at Marginal’s web site, you will have some file here that is important to install.
Find the files with .py extension, that’s the scripts, but be sure to take the DataRefs.txt & XPlane2Blender.html also, the script need the dataref.txt, and you will need the help read me from Marginal

You’ve got three ways to install the scripts for blender can use them:

1. Use Marginal’s install.command, personaly I never use it, so I don’t know nothing about this way,but it must be the more easier
2. Locate manually the blender’s .script folder, and put all the file inside this folder with all the other .py scripts
   For that, you need to found the .blender folder on your hard drive, depend off the os, you will found it easily, in Windows, at the blender installation, you have been asked to choose where this folder will be created, probably in the blender foundation folder in the program file, in Ubuntu in your home folder, but is hidden, tape ALT+H to show hidden files
3. Use a custom path showing blender where to look for additional scripts, that the one I use, and I recommend.
   Here a picture showing you where to find this blender preference panel
   
   You just have to drag the top windows header down, to access the blender preference pane, click on the “File path” tab, and look for the “Python scripts:” field
   Show it with the windows explorer where you have put your personal blender script folder, mine I call it “Blender_scripts” and it’s located inside My Documents folder (Windows XP show in the picture)
   But one thing really important, is that you have to save the blender preference now, otherwise the next time you open blender, it will lost the path for the script folder, so simply save your user preference, use the shortcut CTRL+U or use the normal command show in the picture
   
   But remember that when you save the user preference, all what is on the 3d layers (objects, mesh, lights, camera, materials) will be saved.
   So before saving your user preference, open a new blender empty scene by using CTRL+X, and now go in the preference to set the python scripts file path, and save your user preference.
   Next time you will open a new blender scene or a older .blend file, this preference will be available.

WIP Blender normals

The major trouble people get when making a 3d objects for x-plane in blender, is most off time a trouble with invisible face or black edge on face cross section
This trouble can easily be fixed, and blender have the tools to help you avoid this trouble for future work
Now you have to find them

» At first the main trouble came from the blender 3d view window, by default the blender 3d views show the objects in double sided mode.
Look at this image to see where to found the button,

this mode have nothing related with x-plane, it is just for the blender 3d windows only, so click on that button will not make the face double sided in the obj exported for the flight sim, that will be only a help in the blender 3d window

This image show you the difference between the two mode,
notice that the left object show the black part, and that easy to know where the face normal pointing out,
on the right one the object is more visible, but it is impossible to know if we got a normal inverted here.

So it is a good thing to think about put this button off, for working 3d objects with x-plane, you can put the object back to double sided to help you model thing, but put it off when you have finish to look at the normals results

» But sometime you will need to put the double sided ON, to be able to model easily, for that in EDIT mode, we have a tool to show where the normals point out

As soon you click on the Draws normals button, we can see in the 3d view window, in edit mode, the little blue line that starting at the face location and pointing outside.
That a easy way to know where the normals pointing, and like that you can let the double sided button Off all the time

» Now we know how to locate the bad normals on a objects and we need to make the correction to get our face normals like we want
For that we got some tool or function to flip them, blender get two way to do that.

1. The function: Recalculate normals outside & Recalculate normals inside
   This is the one most people will use, because it can be userd on all the mesh object in one time, but that function get a limitation, it will not work on a simple face, or any face that is not merged on others ones.
   How to use it, is simple, select all the faces off the objects, and tape in the 3d view window, CTRL + N to get the Recalculate normals outside, and CTRL + SHIFT + N to get the Recalculate normals inside
2. The function: Flip
   This one will be really useful when working on objects that get sometime trouble to fix normals with the previous function, you can select one or more faces and ask blender to flip the normals.
   How to access this function, in edit mode inside 3d view windows tape W>Flip normals

Now all that function can be found in the 3d view header button, you don’t have to use the shortcut keyboard to use them (you will not be able to remember all them when starting learning blender)
Look in the 3d view windows header, and in the edit mode, the menu Mesh>Normals

Conclusion:
If you get trouble with normals, keep the blender 3d views function to show the mesh double sided will not help you at all, first thing to do in blender before trying to recalculate normals, will be to put it OFF
Lot of trouble will be solved, simply by being visible in the 3d views