1.8

Pricing and MACHIN3tools Prime

With this recent batch of addon updates for Blender 4.1, I've decided to bump the price across most of them a little, and MACHIN3tools is no exception.
The Standard variation - previously free on gumroad and github, and sold for $1 on Blender Market, is now history.

Prime is now the new base version of MACHIN3tools, and contains ~95% of the feature set compared to DeusEx.
On gumroad - where payment was voluntary - unfortunately less than 1% chose to donate or buy DeusEx, and after 6 years, that has simply proven unsustainable.
Most people don't realize this, but MACHIN3tools is actually my biggest addon in terms of code base, just after DECALmachine, but before MESHmachine. And so it needs to start carrying its own weight now.

I think the new MACHIN3tools pricing - $5 for Prime, $15 for DeusEx - is more than fair and reasonable in the current market environment and with the value that is offered.

Gumroad Donators

If you have gotten MACHIN3tools Standard on gumroad and have donated $5 or more, you have been bumped to DeusEx already.
If you have donated $3.50 or more, then you have been bumped to Prime.

These pricing changes aim to counter a general downtrend in revenue, in face of rising living and so development costs, that I have observed for over a year now.
The reasons for this are not clear, but it's likely a mix of multiple:

  • post-COVID era
  • reaching market saturation?
  • increased competition
  • lack of new products and social media activity - while my main focus remains on getting HyperCursor out
  • gen AI and waning interest in Blender?
  • inflation
  • layoffs
  • the one we don't talk about

For now, I still want to avoid charging for updates, but it may be inevitable. I'll see how it goes.

If you found MACHIN3tools Standard useful in the past, I would appreciate it if you would consider upgrading to Prime or even DeusEx now.

Thanks for your support, now on to the 1.8 update...

Auto Smooth

This release brings Blender 4.1 support, which introduced changes to (Auto)Smooth behavior.
I think this change is very welcome, as it gets rid of some odd legacy Blender behavior.

The Shading Pie and its Smooth, Flat and AutoSmooth tools are most affected by this, but I'm happy to say that its look and UX are unchanged compared to previous versions.

AutoSmooth Autosmooth in 4.1 looks behaves identical to how it looks in previous Blender versions

Under the hood, instead of toggling the mesh.use_auto_snmooth property, MACHIN3tools will add or remove the new geo node Smooth by Angle modifier to enable or disable Auto Smooth.
MACHIN3tools will automatically add/remove the mod on unselected-but-instanced objects too.

Note

Note that the Auto Smooth mod should be kept at or towards the the end of the stack.
When MACHIN3tools adds the mod, it will be added at the end, but before any Mirror or Array mods, that may be at the end already.
So far this seems like a good general solution. Inevitably we'll probably see use cases, where we may have to manually adjust its position though.

Personally I like, that you no longer even need to use Auto Smooth for sharp edges to be considered, and neither when using custom normals. Both just work, as you would expeect on any smooth shaded mesh object.
Beyond that I like, that we can auto-smooth CURVE objects now, and that it plays well with boolean mods on objects with custom normals, which previously would have their shading messed up.

Keep in mind

Addons like HardOps, BoxCutter or HyperCursorin pre-release on Patreon, tend do do their own modifier sorting, which can be very useful and avoids having to micro-manage modifier stack order.

Asset Browser Bookmarks

If you appreciate the Asset Browser, you will love Asset Browser Bookmarks.

AssstBrowserBookmarks Bookmarks bar in Asset Browser header, and Library - Catalog shown next to it

You can jump to any saved bookmark by clicking on it or by using the ALT + 1 to ÀLT + 0 keymaps.
You can save any Library + Catalog combination by SHIFT clicking on a number/bookmark. Thumbnail size is saved too by the way.
You can clear a bookmark by CTRL clicking on it.

This is so convenient to use, and gets even better in combination with the Toggle Region tool, which can pop up an asset browser area at the top and bottom of your 3d view at any time.

The bookmarks bar is of course of less use in a vertical setup: AssstBrowserBookmarksVectical

However, the shortcuts to recall a bookmark still work without issue. So if you prefer to work like that, you will just have to temporarily widen the asset browser area, and save your bookmarks while you can see it, then shrink it down again.

Integrated Updater

Keep in mind

Since this feature is only introduced now in 1.8, it will only be of use for upcoming releases, so can't be used to install this very 1.8 update yet.

I've added a custom updater to the addon preferences.
It should be very straight forward to use:

  1. Unfold it from the top of the MACHIN3tools preferences.
  2. Select the MACHIN3tools zip file to install, if it's in your home dir or Downloads folder, it will be found automatically.
  3. Verify it's the version you want, and Quit Blender to install the update, otherwise remove it.

updateInstallation 3 steps to update: unfold, pick update .zip, quit Blender

Note

Installing in this way, has the same benefit as doing a manual update installation in the filebrowser, but without having to do anything in the filebrowser, and without knowing where Blender installs addons.
Updating this way ensures you will not loose any settings, you've have made in a previous verson, or any custom keymaps you have set.

more

Please see the changelog for a complete list of all changes in MACHIN3tools 1.8.

And if you are actually still reading, note that I have a Patreon account, and HyperCursor is in pre-release with a lot more info and details about that coming soon.

1.7

DeusEx ❤

The highlight of this release in terms of new features are definitly the advancements of the empty based grouping feature, and in particular group poses for MACHIN3tools DeusEx.

The TransformGroup tool has been overhauled, it's HUD has been fleshed out, and the UX has been optimized, and also supports previewing and recalling the poses of the active group empty.

TransformGroup fully fleshed out HUD, with the second pose being previewed

Poses are simply stored group empty transformations. The focus here, and for now, is only the rotation componentTranslation may come in future.

Scrolling the mouse wheel while the TransformGroup tool is active, allows for easy pose selection and preview, while recalling a selected pose is done simply by releasing the left mouse button.
if you want to skip recalling a pose, while having one previewed - perhaps to compare to the current rotation to it - you can finish the tool with the Space key.

There is also a new tool dedicated to setting up group gizmos directly from the 3D view, instead of doing it from the sidebar.
It conveniently supports view-based axis toggling using the TAB key, so you don't even have to know which rotational axis (in terms of local X,Y or Z) you want to have a gizmo for.
Just align your view and press TAB to toggle the most aligned of the 3 axes.


All a group empty's poses, are also shown in the sidebar panel. Here they can be renamed, sorted, recalled, and removed.

SidebarPoses the updated sidebar panel with pose information, even while gizmos are hidden

New in 1.7 is also the idea of BatchPoses. They are simply individual poses across different group empties in the same group hierarchy, that are related to eachother. They share a unique name in are indicated using the 🔗 icon.
You can create them using the SetBatchPose tool, which will create a pose of the current group empty rotations for the currently active empty, and all empties below it in the hierarchy.

Single- and BatchPoses can be renamed by double clicking on them in the pose list.
Recalling a BatchPose will recall each individual pose of the batch. By default only going down the hiearchy from the active group empty, but optionally also going up.
Individual poses can also be temporarily unlinked from the rest of the batch.


I think this is all very exciting stuff, and I'm looking forward to hear your feedback!

Addon Conflicts + Blender Crashes

Over the past months a few users and developers reported conflicts with other addons.
These would present themselves as slow performance, such as when rotating a group, or even Blender crashes. In particular ZenUV and ZenSets, as well as GridModeller, Archipack and NodeTreeStore were affected.

These issues should now be resolved, by delaying execution of handler logic to a later, safer state. Thanks to AlexZenUV and StephenArchipack for your help and suggestions, and thanks to kushiroGridModeller for his patience with this too :)

Select Hierarchy

Select Hierarchy now supports selecting a parent-child hiearchy up as well.
I've added a fading HUD, which is used to indicate if the top or bottom of a hierarchy is reached, and optionally if there are hidden parents or children left.

SelectHierarchy1 Selecting up and down the hierarchy until the top and bottom of the hierarchy is reached

This tool aims to fully replace Blender's native Select Parent/Child tools, and comes with additional features, such as the ability to unhide children and parents, including recursively.

SelectHierarchy1 Seleciing down, then up, then reaching top with hidden parent, selecting further up with unhide feature, and finally recursively selecting down and unhiding

Toggle Region

Toggle Region now works in all node editors and in the Image/UV editor, to toggle either the tool bar or the side bar with a single T key.

ToggleRegionNodeEditor Toggle tool bar or sidebar in node editor via single T keymap

Shading Pie

The BevelShader toggle has been improved and will in Blender 4 also connect to the Cout Normal inputs.
Furthermore it now works for DECALmachien panel decals as well.
Conveniently, adjusting the bevel with on the panel decal's parent object, will automatically set it for the panel decal as well.

ShadingPieBevelShader Bevel Shader on DECALmachine's panel decals, with different per-object width modulations

Finally, the Cycles box now allows toggling of an object's shadow caster and holdout props.

ShadingPieShadowCaster Shadow Catcher toggle for Active Object in Cycles box of the Shading Pie

more

And as always, for a comprehensive list of all changes, please see the changelog.

1.6

This is the Blender 4.0 compatibility release.

Toggle Region

Besides a number of tweaks and fixes, MACHIN3tools 1.6 adds the new Toggle Region tool.
It - via a single T keymap - allows you to toggle the Toolbar, Sidebar and 2 Asset Browsers (or one Asset Shelf and one Asset Browser) per-3D view.

Note

The new asset shelf in Blender 4.0, is not very useful yet, and so toggling that is disabled by default.
It can can be used in combination with the Pose Library addon apparently though, but not so much for bringin in external assets.

More interesting than the shelf however, is the ability to toggle a new asset browser area at the top or bottom of the 3D view.
Almost all the tweaks to the layout of the asset browser you can make, are then remembered when closing the asset browser, and restored when opening it again.


See the changelog for a full list of changes.

1.5

Blender 3.6 - a new LTS release is releasing, and it finally allows for the complete removal of the legacy bgl module.

Beyond the bgl removal, there are a few smaller tweaks, such the ability to have the Material Picker show up based on the view's shading.type, not just based workspace name.
Modal HUDs have been improved and now respect the system UI scaling, and timer based modals are now extremly reliable and not longer suffer from occasional speed ups.

See the changelog for a list of all changes

1.4.1

A tiny bugfix release to fix Cursor and Origin to edge alignment. Sorry.

1.4

Like the previous 1.3 this release is full of various additions and improvements to simplify your life.

Please see the changelog for the full list of changes.

1.3

This release brings a nunmber of quality of life improvements, some fixes, and continued HyperCursor integation. HyperCursor is in pre-release on Patreon since Christmas Eve.

See the changelog for details.

Happy New Year!

1.2

Version 1.2 mostly fixes some issues, but it also add the SelectHierarchy tool, expands on the previously revamped object axes drawing with the Shading Pie, and extends the object import/export options of the Save Pie.

Select Hierarchy

Select Hierarchy is a simple tool to effectivly select the children of any object in the selection.


Save Pie - import/export

You can now import/export .usd files from the Save Pie, in addition to .obj and .fbx.
All three object types can now also be toggle from the addon preferences.

Furthermore, .obj import/export now also supports the new experimental importer/exporter, once you disable the Wavefront OBJ format addon.

SavePieUSDImport .usd files can now be imported/exported and all 3 formats can be toggled in the addon prefs

Shading Pie - draw object axes

The object axes for the active or any object with the Axes toggle set, can now be drawn in screen space, thereby enforcing a fixed size independent on an object's location in 3d space.

ShadingPieObjectAxes axes drawn in screen space will always appear at the same size

With Cycles as the renderer and the viewport in Render mode, you can now also enabled Denoising from the Shading Pie.

more

Checkout the changelog for a list of all the additions, changes and fixes in 1.2.

1.1

This update brings a number of improvements across the board.

The biggest change is easily the introducion of a modal frontend for the Mirror tool, which enables flick mirroring akin to flick symmetrize in MESHmachine.


Another useful change is the ability to easily create assets, without them being located in the world origin. The empty for the collection instance, is now automatically positioned at the averaged location of the selected objects, and offset to the floor.
Alternatively you can position it just averaged, or at the world origin (previous behavior).

CreateAssemblyAssetPannel

DeusEx users should know, that the Group Transform tool now supports auto-keying, which can be initiated using the K key.

Furthermore, there's support for the new Hair/Curve sculpting from the Modes Pie, and the object axes display from the Shading Pie has been completely reworked, making it much more usable.

Oh, the Workspace Pie can now be completely customized from the addon prefs.

WorkSpacePieCustomization

For details on all changes, please see the changelog.

1.0.2

The tiniest of bugfix releases.
It just avoids light visibiltiy/renderabiltiy synching, if the render tools aren't actually enabled.
And it fixes a few typos brought to my attention by an awesome Chinese translator.

1.0.1

A small, quick bugfix release.
It turned out the AlignRelative tool in the standard version was out of sync (and not recent) with the DeusEx version. That is fixed now.

Also, the CreateAssemblyAsset tool had some issues on Windows, where the generated thumbnail could potentially not be saved.
The thubmnail is now (temporarily) stored in the addon folder, and assigned to the asset automatically.

1.0

6 years in the making

Work on MACHIN3tools has been going on fairly continuously for almost 6 years now. And what a time it has been.

I've switched to Blender 2.77 (from Modo) in spring 2016, when I saw amazing things happening in its addon ecosytem. I was blown away by HardOps, RetopoFlow and Wazou's pie menus in particular.
And I have never looked back since.
I had started learning Python at the very beginning of 2016. Around summer, I started exploring Blender's API, which lead to a loose collection of various separate scripts.
Towards the end of the year I've put them on github. under the name MACHIN3tools following the tradition of Looptools, Edgetools and MiraTools.

Towards the end of 2018, When Blender 2.80 became increasingly usable, ~6 months before its release, I had a good reason and opportunity to bring them all together in a single, modular, customizable package which was the 0.3 release.

28 releases later and we are here now - 1.0

My thanks go out to everyone who has come along for the ride, everyone who has offered feedback, encouragement and support. Thank you so much! And my deepest gratitude goes to those, who have inspired me, artistically and technically.

Blender is in great shape with the recent 3.1 release, and I feel so is MACHIN3tools 1.0. I'm happy what it has become, and I hope you will find it as useful as I do.

Documentation

Version 1.0 is now fully documented - well kind of. It's not on the level of the DECALmachine and MESHmachine docs, due to MACHIN3tools being mostly free, but the Deus Ex version and recently PatreonThanks Guys and Girls! has allowed me to finally spend a few weeks on documenting.

Every tool and every pie menu, that you can activate in the addon preferences, has its own entry in the navbar to the left, and I'd invite you to explore this.
If you have specific questions about anything in the docs, that you feel is unclear or lacking, feel free to ask for more information and I'll try to expand on it.

Groups

Groups were added in the beginning of 2021 and have quickly become one of my favourite features of MACHIN3tools. I use them for everything now.
So it's about time they are documented too.


Align Relative

1.0 brings a new Align tool, that can be extremely useful in some situations.


Asset Browser

Blender's new Asset Browser is fantastic. Let's make it more useful. A big thank you to Rachel Frick for the BoxBot inspiration.


Render

In preparation for this release, and as a content source, I have allowed myself to do some personal design work again, which resulted in a few Render tools. These tools are a direct, albeit delayed response to friction in my rendering workflow, that I encountered with the Humanoid Mecha.


Punch It

Punch It is finally here in Deus Ex. Although a simple version is also available in the Standard version.

Note

This video is taken from the PUNCHit documenation
The tool in MACHIN3tools behaves exactly the same, however it's only accessible from the Extrude Menu, and there is no shortcut set for it.


More

Check out the changelog for more additions and changes.

0.10

This is an unplanned release, adding only the Assemble Collection tool, which is accessed from the Modes Pie, while a Collection Instance is selected.

This is especially useful for Collection Instance Assets, which is currently the only way to use the Asset Browser with Object Assemblies.

box bot design inspired by Rachel Frick

This supports linked and appended collection instance assets. It supports empty hierarchies and so MACHIN3tools' groups.
And it also supports DECALmachine's Decal backups and MESHmachine's Stashes.

Oh, I also have a Patreon account now, where I will do pre-releases of upcoming addons, and where I share blend files, if I manage to find time for art. So if you are interested in further supporting my work, that would be a good way to do it. It is very much appreciated! Thank you for considering!

0.9

This release touches on a number of areas, so there should be something for everybody here.

ScreenCast

The biggest addition is clearly the ScreenCast tool - accessed from the Save Pie.
It is - like most things I do - primarily driven by my own needs, but I think others will also appreciate it.

The focus of this tool is not on screen casting the keys a user presses, but the tools that are actually run - whether they are called via shortcut or from a menu.
This includes a history of the last 12 (adjustable) operators.

I find this is much more important - and I imagine it's much more useful to new users - when watching somebody else working.
Custom shortcuts are huge in 3D apps, and people shouldn't obsess about what key was pressed at a specific time.

ScreenCast ScreenCast tool at the bottom left, Screencast Keys addon (custom fork) at the bottom right

That said, if you have the Screencast Keys addon enabled, the MACHIN3tools ScreenCast tool will enable it, so both can run in parallel.
Note, that they won't always be in sync. Not every tool will be called via a shortcut, and not every key press will call a tool.

Keep in mind

While the Screencast Keys addon can catch key presses in modal operators, if that is enabled in its preferences, it won't catch key presses in menus.
For instance, toggling the Grid in MACHIN3tools' Shading Pie via PageUp + G will only show up as PageUp.

Save Pie

In addition to the SceenCast tool, there's another addition to the Save Pie: The ReloadLinkedLibraries tool.

ReloadLinkedLibraries * Thanks to TitusLVR for this contribution!*

Snapping Pie

The Snapping Pie now comes in 2 layouts, with the new one having the option for Absolute Grid Snapping.
You can switch between the two directly from the pie itself, or from the addon preferences.

SnappingPieLayouts the two layouts - one with grid snapping - can be toggled using the button at the top right

Collection Pie

You can now add and move objects to collections, while in local/focus mode. Yep.

Smart Vert

Smart Vert now supports CENTER merging (SHIF + 1) edge and face selections. Edges will be merged per sequence (connected edges), and faces per island (connected faces).

Similarily Smart Vert now also supports LAST merging (1) edge(sequences) and face(islands) selections. Note however that edge and face selections won't have a LAST(active) vertice. Instead the mouse is used to roughly point at the vert you want to merge to.

In SlideExtend mode (SHIFT + ALT + 1) you can now enable the Flatten option using the F key. This means you can skip using MESHmachine's Flatten tool right after, if you want to create a planar face at the end.


SlideExtend snapping has been updated to use a more generalized approach, initially developped for HyperCursor(unreleased). The UX remains unchanged.

Smart Edge

With this version SmartEdge not only supports selection conversion (2) to Bounds/Region as it used to do, but also selecting Adjacent Edges or Faces. As with Bounds/Region, the initial selection type determines the result. An Edge Selection will be turned into a Face Selection, and a Face Selection will be turned into an Edge Selection.The latter is also possible natively by CTRL switching to Face mode!


In previous versions you could use SmartEdge via SHIFt + 2 to toggle edge selections Sharp.
Now you can alternatively also create bevel-mod-based Chamfers and Korean Bevels, using the same shortcut.


Filebrowser tools

There's a new filebrowser tool mapped to 3 to cycle through thumbnail sizes.
Toggle Hidden Files has been remaped to 4 accordingly.

FilebrowserTools Toggle Sorting 1, Toggle Dislay 2 and Cycle Thumbnails 3

HUD prefs

In the addon preferences, you can now adjust the size of text drawn by various tools with HeadUpDisplays, such as Clean Up, Clipping Toggle, Transform Edge Constrained, Focus, Group, Material Picker, Surface Slide and the Tools Pie.

For tools with fading HUDs you can adjust the fade time accordingly.

HUDpreferences

And if you want lines drawn by SmartVert: SlideExtend to be anti-aliased, you need to enable Use Legacy Line Smoothing in the View3D section.

more

There's more, and you can check it out in the changelog.

0.8

Deus Ex

MACHIN3tools has always been about simple tools to supplement, tweak, improve or fix Blender behavior and usability. Simple in terms of usability, but also implementation.

Despite considerable development time spent on the entire tool and menu set over the years, it has always been free1, and that won't change.

However, version 0.8 introduces the Edge Constrained Transform. And while this tool is simple to use, it's implementation is far more complex than any other tool in MACHIN3tools. It's more complex than almost all MESHmachine and DECALmachine tools.

It's a tool, that in terms of development effort could have gone into MESHmachine, but it doesn't really fit into that tool set, and it's too basic in terms of usability.
It could be it's own addon, but that seems inconvenient for me and you.

That's why I feel like it's warranted to introduce a low-priced-but-paid-nonetheless MACHIN3tools version called Deus Ex. For now, the only difference to the Standard version is the additional Edge Constrained Transform tool.
In future this may change. Since this tool required the implementation of a rotation and scale transformation tool from the ground up, it opens up a number of transform related opportunties in regards to where this could be taken.

Note

Users who have donated the suggested price of 3.50+ in the past, will receive a full discount for MACHIN3tools Deus Ex. If you haven't received yours yet, get in touch via email.

Standard

A new addition in 0.8 is the ToggleSmooth tool, which on a key press2 turns a flat shaded object into a smooth shaded object.
It supports two workflows - Korean Bevel and SubD (if a subd mod is present), works in edit mode and supports multi-object selections in object mode.

KoreanBevelSmoothing * Korean Bevel Smoothing, by default Overlays are toggled as well*

SubDSmoothing * SubD Smoothing of a single mesh, and entire groups, by default Overlays are not changed*

The Cleanup tool, now features a fading HUD, informing you what, if any, geometry has been removed.

CleanupHUD

Finally, SmartVert's SlideExtend feature has been enhanced twofold, which you can see demoed in this tweet.

  1. You can now slide/extend from edge mode, in which case the mouse position is used to determine, which vert - so which side of an edge - is extend.
  2. Edge snapping has been supported since version 0.5. Now you can snap to faces as well. Note, that snapping here works for all edit mesh objects.

Check out the changelog for details on all changes.

Thanks to everyone who has supported MACHIN3tools in the past, may it be through comments, suggestions, recommendations, ratings or donations. I appreciate it, and hope you can consider supporting the Deus Ex version too.


  1. Blender Market has a minimum price requirement, but let's agree, that 1 USD is still essentially free. If you disagree, get in touch via email. 

  2. Windows users beware, it's ALT + TAB by default, so you may want to change that