BLUi - Blender Unreal interface
A downloadable tool
-Unreal Compatible Keymap-
! - This template is in semi-active development ;P please report bugs - !
Current Version: 0.8.7
- Keymap reformat! Streamlining Layout!
- video coming soon
- Tested on 2.93.4 & 3.0a
Features:
- works at 1:1 scale with Unreal Engine for import and export both ways
- reformatted keymap allows easy reading/editing in a text editor, features one operator per line, commented categories and a table of contents!
3D View:
- Unit Scale set to 0.01m, Viewport Clip End set to 1000000
- UE4 style Right Mouse Navigation, hold RMB and use WASD to move around your scene, mousewheel speed up/down
- F key will focus camera on selected object
- Shift+A will open the Add Mesh menu (like Blender's default keymap!)
UI:
- Custom splash screen now displays on startup
- Uses the same font as Unreal Engine: Roboto
- redesigned and renamed Workspaces reflect both Unreal and Blender naming conventions to ease transition
- File Manager Tab helps clean up your .blend, find all the unused textures, materials etc
- Scripting Tab redesigned to help read long single lines in Info panel, and leave lots of space for coding
Node Editor:
- Right Click opens Node Search & Add, more like the BP workflow
- Right Click and Drag lets you pan the view, as in Blueprints
- Comment Box operator lets you select nodes, press C, then immediately type a label and select a color (based on the Node Wrangler NWFrameSelected operator)
- Double Left Click to add Reroute Nodes
- Middle Mouse cuts connections
- S + Left Click adds a Value, M + Left Click adds a Math, U + Left Click adds a Texture Coordinate, T + Left Click adds an Image Texture, and B + Left Click adds a Bump Node
Community Add-ons:
BLUI will now check to see if you have all the right addons at startup, and, if not, it will download and install them before opening the default file.
NOTE:
If you haven't already installed addons like Mr Mannequins Tools, or TexTools, the first time setup process can take minutes! Blender will appear to be frozen, but it's working away in the background, just wait until the BLUI splashscreen appears!
- Jim Kroovy's Mr Mannequin Tools brings a host of tools for animating with the Mannequin, retargeting animations, dealing with IKs etc, if the simple skeleton isn't enough, something here should do the trick for you!
- BleuRaven's Blender for Unreal addon packs in a ton of helpful functionality for importing/exporting and more!
- Symstract's Modifier List helps you deal with objects that have so many modifiers that you would otherwise get lost in the stack
- SavMartin's TexTools are a great time-saver for dealing with UVs and texturing!
- My RightMouseNavigation addon gives you Unreal Engine style viewport navigation!
-My CommentBox addon gives you a faster workflow for setting up Frame node colors and comments!
Keyboard Shortcuts:
Modes
1 | Vertex Mode |
---|---|
2 | Edge Mode |
3 | Face Mode |
4 | Object Mode |
5 | Sculpt Mode |
6 | Vertex Paint Mode |
7 | Weight Paint Mode |
8 | Texture Paint Mode |
Workspaces
Tab | Search Menu |
---|---|
Ctrl+Tab | Cycle Workspace Tab Right |
Shift+Ctrl+Tab | Cycle Workspace Tab Left |
` | Toggle System Console |
Tools - Object
Q | Cycle Select Tools |
---|---|
W | Move Tool |
E | Rotate Tool |
R | Cycle Scale Tools |
T | Transform Tool |
D | Cycle Annotation Tools |
M | Measure Tool |
C | 3D Cursor |
Tools - Edit Mesh
Ctrl+E | Cycle Extrude Tools |
---|---|
I | Inset Faces Tool |
Ctrl+B | Bevel Tool |
Alt+C | Cycle Loop Cut Tools |
K | Cycle Knife/Bisect Tools |
3D Viewport
Right Mouse | Viewport Navigation & Context Menus |
---|---|
F | Focus on Selected Object |
F11orCtrl+Space | Maximize Viewport |
Alt+Left Mouse | Rotate View |
Alt+Middle Mouse | Pan View |
Alt+Right Mouse | Zoom View |
Numpad 5 | Toggle Perspective/Orthographic |
Numpad 0 | View Camera |
Numpad 1 | View Front |
Ctrl+Numpad 1 | View Back |
Numpad 3 | View Right |
Ctrl+Numpad 3 | View Left |
Numpad 7 | View Top |
Ctrl+Numpad 7 | View Bottom |
Numpad 4 | View Orbit Left |
Numpad 6 | View Orbit Right |
Numpad 8 | View Orbit Up |
Numpad 2 | View Orbit Down |
V | Views Pie Menu |
, | Transform Orientation Pie Menu |
. | Transform Pivot Point Pie Menu |
Z | Marquee Select Zoom |
X | Toggle Snapping |
Shift+A | Add Mesh Menu |
N | Show/Hide Properties Panel |
Node Editor
Right Mouse | Pan View & Search/Add Nodes |
---|---|
Middle Mouse | Cut Connections |
C | Comment Box |
Left Mouse Double Click | Add Reroute Node |
S+Left Mouse Click | Add Value Node |
M+Left Mouse Click | Add Math Node |
U+Left Mouse Click | Add Texture Coordinate Node |
T+Left Mouse Click | Add Image Texture Node |
B+Left Mouse Click | Add Bump Node |
My Other Addons:
- Custom Objects repo can be found here:
https://github.com/SpectralVectors/CustomObjects
- Right Mouse Navigation repo can be found here:
https://github.com/SpectralVectors/RightMouseNavigation
- TransMat repo can be found here:
https://github.com/SpectralVectors/TransMat
- Anything else that you might want in this kind of Template?
Let me know here or at: https://twitter.com/SpectralVectors
Acknowledgements & Thanks:
To everyone who has downloaded, tested and used the template.
Double thanks to everyone who donated!
And the following people and organizations contributed directly to the development of the template by providing code, tools, feedback and more:
Blender Org, Epic Games, Jim Kroovy, Jayanam, falola, RealityRig, deathclonic, Yughues, lateasusual, AnubisMaster, Michael McCann, Wayward Art Company, knekke, cgvirus, Bone Studio, Hellgate94, bandages, Blender Guru, sonnenbrillenbrauchenlicht, Dawid Huczynski, Campbell Barton, Daniel Engler, Wolfen420, NXGEN, WolfinWool, Gamemakin LLC, CG Matter, Royal Skies LLC, Sybren Stuvel, Pablo Vasquez, Darkfall, angjminer, SirSpence, batFinger and all the other contributors at Blender Stack Exchange, where I've spent countless hours, thank you!
Roboto-Regular.ttf by Christian Robertson was provided by Google Fonts, under the Apache license.
Status | In development |
Category | Tool |
Rating | Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars (2 total ratings) |
Author | Spectral Vectors |
Tags | b3d, Blender, ue4, ue5, Unreal Engine |
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Complete Keymap ReformatOct 10, 2021
- Keymap DocumentatioOct 07, 2021
- v0.8.4 - Keymap bug fixesOct 06, 2021
- v0.8.3 - auto-installer autoruns!Oct 06, 2021
- BLUI v0.8 - Auto-Installer and Crash Fix!Oct 04, 2021
- BLUI Alpha releaseFeb 11, 2021
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Doesn't seem to work for blender 3.3, just crashes on startup?
Hi. I absolutely love this template and have been using it for a while. One thing that totally breaks the workflow however is that RMB walk mode competes with the RMB context menu. In edit mode you have to right click a millions times before the menu appears because it assumes you want to "look around" instead. Would greatly appreciate if this was fixed :)
Hi, so sad to see this great idea just crashed Blender 2.92 and that this has been a problem for a while. Can i assume this project is no longer being supported or fixed?
Hi Muttjob, I have fixed the crash on launch issue, you can test the latest version to see if it resolves the issue for you.
After installing the template opening the startup file crashes blender. No errors.
This is on version 2.9.1 and 2.9.3
Is the install process different than Blunder?
The install process is the same. I just wiped out my templates, redownloaded and reinstalled on 2.91.0, and I'm not having issues, I'm downloading 2.93 now to test that, too.
I'm on a Windows 10 PC, I haven't yet tested on Mac and Linux for compatibility. I'll let you know if I can replicate the crash on my end.
Funny enough, Blunder has an init (startup script) that could potentially give issues on startup, but I haven't added one to BLUI yet, so maybe there's something there.
Heyo, just wondering if this was ever resolved.
I'm on Blender v2.92.0 and I'm also getting the crash on file > New > BLUI 0 7 5.
I'm also on Windows 10. I tried installing each of the community application templates one by one, testing each time, each time getting a crash. Any ideas?
Same here.
Hi AgentOttsel, you can try the v0.8 release, it should resolve the crashing on launch bug.
Hi Tessercat, try again with the v0.8 release, it's now working for me in 2.93.4 and the 3.0 alpha.
OK, test results are as follows (from a Windows 10 PC):
2.82.0 - Working, some visual bugs
2.83.0 - Working, some visual bugs
2.90.1 - Working
2.91.0 - Working
2.91.2 - Working
2.92.0 Beta - Crash on Startup
2.93.0 Alpha - Crash on Startup
My current working theory is that App Templates may be dependent on the folder structure that comes from installing Blender to your system, rather than just downloading and running the app.
The versions that download as an .msi, and install, update components etc. all seem to work, but the experimental releases (beta and alpha) that come as a folder, and allow you to run Blender without installation, are the ones that are giving issues.
Strange, I installed an instance of 2.91.2 using the msi and as soon as I open your startup file it crashes.
Before I open the startup file it appears to have loaded some of the settings but some things like the right mouse navigation do not work.
I am running Windows 10.
Hmmm, well that complicates things. And when you say 'open your startup file', are you doing that by going to File > New > BLUI 0_7_5?
The Right Mouse Navigation got moved out of the App Template, and into its own separate addon: https://github.com/SpectralVectors/RightMouseNavigation, it was called UnrealRightClick until a couple of days ago, so some of the old links may need to be updated, but the one I just pasted here is current. I did it this way so that you can use it with or without the rest of the template.
I hadn't been actively developing any of my projects for months before this last week, when I got a few messages about bugs with Blunder. I'm trying to polish a few things up now, fix some bugs, and hopefully cobble together some kind of user guide so that there's a little more for people to go on.
Yes. Starting up BLUI 0_7_5 ()
On Blender 2.91.2 ()
Instantly closes Blender.
Good to know that it has been moved to a separate plugin.
It is funny actually, I've been checking every week for an update to 2.9 over the last couple months and two days ago I decided to update even without your plugin and lo and behold, there was an update.
I can say with confidence that after having tried to learn Blender a good 5 times over the last 10 years, your plugin helped me get much further than ever before.
It really sucks trying to learn a new software that goes against the conventions of everything you are used to... Now I'm having that same struggle with the Blender Python API, their documentation is... Not great.
Well, this is one of the few times that Blender NOT crashing is letting me down. I can't reproduce the 2.91.2 crash on my system, it just loads the startup scene and waits, like it should.
My new theory is that there's maybe an initial setting that I had set when I installed 2.91.0 that got copied over to my 2.91.2 install, and maybe you don't have that preference? It's a bit of a weak theory, but it's all I've got right now.
When I installed Blender, and opened it for the first time, it showed that one-time pop-up that asks you if you want to use Left or Right Click to select, and if you want to load the Blender default or Industry Standard Keymap. I believe that I chose Left Click and Industry Standard. You could try changing these settings first, then going to File > New > BLUI.
Really, I'm not feeling confident that this will make a difference, but it's something to try.
I'll try to modify the Blunder init script to see if that makes a difference.
Thanks for the interest, and patience, there's been a few people lately after me to update and maintain my addons/templates, and I think that was just the kick in the butt I needed to get cracking again. Hopefully I'll have some updates to share with you soon.
And, as far as the Blender Python API is concerned, I agree, the docs seem to be missing that last critical step, maybe just an example of the syntax needed to use each of the operators. I'd also been meaning to do a video on how I make all my stuff, including resources that helped me get from where you are with it, to where I am (which is not all that far, but I remember thinking the thing you wrote). So I'll leave some of those resources here for you to check out, and there'll be a video about it on my Youtube eventually:
Blender Python Getting Started:
Darkfall - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOUWVGNhcHEICE8AjR8up3g
B3D Interplanetary - https://b3d.interplanety.org/en/
Curtis Holt - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzghqpGuEmk4YdVewxA79GA
Jayanam - https://www.youtube.com/user/jayanamgames
Scripting for Artists (on Blender's official YT channel) - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa1F2ddGya_8acrgoQr1fTeIuQtkSd6BW
Royal Skies LLC -
CG Matter -Blender Livestreams - they did a stream with the guy (Dr Sybren Stuvel) who did the Scripting for Artists series, and I asked a few questions about REALLY basic stuff, then I started to feel bad that I should have maybe Googled it instead of wasting his time, but when I went back to the comments, he had gone back after the stream ended and written a detailed explanation that really helped things click for me.
Royal Skies and CG Matter helped remove that intimidation barrier I felt whenever I looked at the API - Hey, just do the things you want to do, copy and paste them from the Info screen, and BOOM, you're a coder.
Darkfall and Nikita are really good at going through code line by line, or section by section, and making sure you understand how it all works, they were the ones who helped "connect the dots" and allowed me to figure out how to actually write out the things I wanted to do.
All the others helped me get that one tiny little piece that someone else thought went without saying.
Once you're up and running, your new home will be https://blender.stackexchange.com/
That's the best resource I've found for Blender and Python.
You can also try reading through my scripts on Github, I ignored a couple of "Python style" recommendations, like abbreviated variable names, and 80 character lines, so all of my variables are super long, literal names (eg a variable containing an Object's coordinates would be ObjectCoordinates, rather than objco) and I've put in lots of comments, to try and give the plain English of what each code block does right above the code itself.
Damn, I wrote a novel, and I still didn't fix the crash! I'll keep you posted!
Hi SirSpence, you can try the 0.8 release to see if it fixes the launch crash.