3d Scene Blender

[Jen Ronnfeldt]

In3ds Max for example, it is possible to split the actions into a Base and Per Scene (add or override), as shown in this cap from the 3ds Graph Editor (note that there are repeating Scene names that is some bug.

Showing captures from commercial software is highly discouraged here (as legal caution). You should instead describe how this would work in Blender, without resorting to explaining how things work in other software.

This does work but it is not very flexible. If you add some new object to the original collection you have to link the object to every duplicated collection as well.

This gets confusing really fast if you have several scenes with duplicated collections

Ok. How would it be to have a single file with all the content of the scene in a collection? Then you could have a 2nd file that links that collection (multiple times even, across multiple scenes); that setup would allow you to have library overrides, and indeed have different overrides in different instances of the scene.

Yes, I do that sometimes and it works fine. I think overriding actions has been added in 3.0, right?

Sometimes it is more convenient to not use linked files, though, and here, scene overrides would be very welcome.

This option creates a new scene with the same settings and contents as the active scene.However, instead of copying the objects,the new scene contains links to the collections in the old scene.Therefore, changes to objects in the new scene will result in the samechanges to the original scene, because the objects used are literally the same.The reverse is also true.

To choose between these options,it is useful to understand the difference between Object and Object Data.The choices for adding a scene, therefore, determine just how much of this information will becopied from the active scene to the new one, and how much will be shared (linked).

First of all, I am really new to all of this. This is my first time so its really confusing me if it's better to create a scene and then import it into Unity or is it better to just create objects like chracters, chairs in blender and scenes in Unity? I just want to recreate a scene of my school and include it in my final project as a Unity game where it will have no function other than walking around and some jumping and fighting? Because my project is not based on the game, it will just help it.

There's nothing wrong to creating your scene in blender and then importing it to Unity, in fact you can directly import the blender file and get the lighting just as you did in blender, but the way unity and blender renders the scene is different, so none of the post processing effects will get transferred to unity, and you'll have to tweak a lot of stuff in unity to get the look you want, I suggest you to make your assets in Blender if you feel it's faster to work with, and then export it to unity and setup the rest as per your preferences. It can be a bit of confusing at first but it all comes down to your personal preferences.

Example:You are working on a simple scene that has a room with a table, chair and character. So in Blender create and save a file with a complete room model (without the furnishings). Next, make and save a table file with a table model with all the details (perhaps a couple knives, forks, and plates). Make and save a chair .blend and then a separate character .blend...this continues until you are done with objects needed for your scene. Of course, all of these would be saved in a "room scene" folder (outside of your Unity project). Export all the models as .fbx files. Finally, import these into Unity with their (named) materials and import your textures...put the objects together in our scene and setup lighting, cameras, particle FX...

Example 2:You are working on a game that programmatically generates levels (ie. dungeons, mazes). The best thing to do for this type of game is to create modular components that get generated by scripting. These components would be something like a hallway piece, a room piece, a turning hall etc.. To make these, model a base for the wall and floor maybe structural details (windows, doors...), then save that as a file and of course export to an .fbx for Unity. Make some detail objects like mentioned in example 2 then import the models into Unity. Create prefabs for hallway, room...by parenting the details to the base, then instantiate the prefabs from a script.

However, I immediately had to think about a YouTube video:In the Boundary Break episode about Telltale Games's The Walking Dead Season 1 one of the original developers speaks a bit about their experiences of creating whole scenes for the game on a 3D editor rather than their game engine:

If this is a project that other people will eventually work on, there's a good reason to create individual assets in Blender but assemble the scene in Unity: this is likely to make the project more accessible for other developers who have Unity experience but not Blender experience. The Unity Editor is targeted at game designers, level designers, and developers. Blender is targeted at 3D artists. Many Unity developers who are comfortable assembling scenes, setting up materials, etc in the Unity Editor may not have any idea how to use Blender and may struggle with learning its more complex user interface and material settings. Team members who are learning Blender for the first time may get frustrated with online tutorials, as the Blender team has completely redesigned the entire UI several times and it's extremely difficult to follow older tutorials in the newest interface.

I am working in Blender and trying to follow some You Tube video tutorials. My following certain videos comes to a halt when I am unable to find one particular node that is supposed to be in Geometry Nodes, "Scene Time". I have gotten pretty good at slowing down and pausing the tutorial so I can see what is being clicked and typed, but I am unsuccessful when attempting to locate the elusive "Scene Time" node that is suppose to be in Geometry nodes. If anyone can give me fix as to why I am unable to locate this node and/or guide me towards finding this node, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

It's under Input -> Scene Time. It was changed in Blender 3.1: _Notes/3.1/Nodes_Physics "It's no longer necessary to add a #frame driver to get the scene's current animation time, the Scene Time node does that instead". You have probably old version of Blender.

I understand that I can delete scene objects by right clicking them and pressing delete. I also understand the concept of don't fix what ain't broke but it sounds to me like a lot of extra meaningless steps.

Just have a look for the Delete key bindings in the preferences and turn off what you don't need. 'object.delete' and 'outliner.delete' are what you'll want to map and activate (checkmark). Turn off the optional delete confirmation for the former and activate hierarchy delete for the latter and it will all behave in a sensible way.

That's what I thought to and that's normally the case. But Blender 2.8 re-did everything. All the menus, HUDs, all the API's, all of it new. This tells me that they have no problem changing things and getting people to relearn the tools as long as the change makes sense. That is a mindset I deeply respect. But the point is, we should be able to use that to conclude that everything that is there must be there for a reason. Right?

Nothing wrong with using an older version if that does what you need it to. I use 2.93 as my main, currently moving to 3.3 but I also use 2.83 for a specific purpose because some behavior changed in newer versions, ruining some aspects of existing scenes I have to access regularly.

Because you can definitely change that in 2.83. At any rate - whatever version you decide to update to it wouldn't hurt to go into Preferences - Keymap and look for outliner.delete as 'Name' and activate the hierarchy option. That deletes entire hierarchies if you select the parent.

That's because just delete deletes the collection and not the content of the collection.. objects can be in multiple collections.. therefor there is the delete hierarchy.. (some times other vocabulary really means something different.. and sometime not ?)

And yes: the good thing in blender is: you can change it very much.. and also you can have mutliple versions installed because they work directly after unzipping (even only shareing the same config in major numbers but you can even start it with individual configs).

The instant visual feedback of a real-time renderer is just so valuable when it comes to crafting a shot and scene. As a cinematographer myself, it drives me crazy trying to compose a shot with all of the render intensive elements turned off.

When it comes to scene layout, like the overall blocking and placement of objects in the scene (even including lighting and camera placement), I definitely prefer to do all of this in Unreal as opposed to Blender. This is as a result of one major limitation.

When you import your geometry via .fbx (or any other file type for that matter), your object will come in with an origin point set at the world origin point from Blender. Not from Unreal. This means that you theoretically could set up your whole scene in Blender, and import one giant .fbx file.

However, this would mean that every single object no matter the placement would share the same origin point. So moving any one specific object could be a giant headache, as it might be a large distance away from the world origin point.

I think it makes way more sense to make one object at a time in Blender, and just sent it over to Unreal when the time is right. This way you can set each object up in Blender with an appropriate origin point.

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