Grid Modeler (blender addon)

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Grid Modeler is a convenient tool to create 3D model easily.

Grid Modeler let you Boolean Cut by drawn shape or Create mesh on top of each other. It is a new modeling workflow in blender. It is proven and very efficient.

Features

- Boolean Cut

- Create new faces

- Boolean Slicing

- Powerful Shape functions

- Advanced Grid System

- Construction Lines

- Create Pipes

Grids are very precise and easy to use. You can orient your grid plane by any directions. It is designed to be an very advanced grid system.

Table of content

- Features

- About Grid Modeler

- Updates

- Known Issues and Limitation

- Usage guide

- Useful Tips

- Hardware support

- Contacts and Support

About Grid Modeler

Grid Modeler is designed for speed modeling.

If you want to create :

- Quick static objects for game, background things, buildings

- Sword, shield, armor, when consistent scales and angles are needed

- Sci-fi, spaceship, robots, weapons, hard surface solid things

Then, Grid Modeler will become your helpful tool in blender.

Also, if you used Google Sketchup, Fusion360 or other CAD software before, you may feel that Grid Modeler is familiar. They have some similar concept and advantages.

For background story and design concept of Grid Modeler,

please visit my website : https://www.kushirocg.com

Updates

Version 1.37.1

Fixed a compatibility problem with Machin3tool (again).

Version 1.37.0

Fixed a bug for caused by recent update (Pipe tool create duplicated mesh)

Version 1.36.0

Added support for Touch Pad for MacBook Air.
Now we can just pan and zoom in 3D viewport with touch pad

Version 1.35.0

Fixed a strange bug that cause compatibility problem with Machin3tools (the bug is not caused by Grid Modeler, but to avoid the bug, I updated the code to avoid it)

Version 1.34.0

Updated for supporting Blender 4.0.0 (fixed another API change of blender)

Version 1.33.0

Updated for supporting Blender 4.0.0

Version 1.32.1

Updated for Blender 3.5.0. Since blender will remove support for OpenGL, this update fixed the debug warnings from blender.

Version 1.32.0

Fixed a serious bug in last update. Please update to this version if you downloaded 1.31.0

Version 1.31.0

Fixed the Line Anti-Aliasing problem for Blender 3.5.0

Version 1.30.0

Since Blender 3.5.0, the use of OpenGL is deprecated and show warning about it. This update switch to blender's new GPU function. (however the function has problem for line smoothing)

Version 1.29.0

Added support for Blender 3.4.0 and above (there is some hidden API changes in 3.4 GPU api)

Version 1.28.0

Added support for Blender 3.2.0. (there is some changes in the key-input event handling in blender 3.2)

Known Issues and Limitation

1.This addon is a direct modeling tool, without modifiers. Boolean operation is destructive and apply directly. The resulting mesh is filled by blender's n-gon.

2. Overlapping shapes will cause strange geometry. However, you can overlap the shapes if you use "new face" mode, it will still create all shapes without problem.

3. This addon uses Blender's dissolve API, it is a bit unstable and it does not fill the faces correctly sometimes. (for n-gon and triangle fill modes)

Usage guide

This is a simple usage guideline of Grid Modeler.

Grid Modeler has many in-depth functions and advanced usage, please refer to documentation ( https://www.kushirocg.com/gridmodeler )

Simple guideline :

1. Select a face, or multiple faces (co-planar), run the tool by right click menu. (you may add it to Q menu for quick access).

2. You will see the grid lines. Your mouse cursor will auto snap to grid lines.

3. Ctrl + mouse wheel to adjust the grid size.

- You may choose between two size modes (A key), relative mode and absolute mode :

Relative mode :

Measure your mesh edge length to set the size.

Absolute mode :

Use Blender's system measurement. If you want to keep your objects same size, you may use absolute mode.

- You can use Alt + mouse wheel scroll to enlarge the grid plane. The grid plane can be larger than the face. When you want to add new mesh on top of selected face, you always want to Alt-scroll to enlarge the plane before drawing.

4. You can change the grid alignment. Ctrl + Left click an edge, it will align whole grid plane to the edge.

By default, the tool measure the face and orient the plane using longest edge of your face. You can override this by above method.

5. Now you can draw on the grids. During drawing, you can change the grid scale anytime (Ctrl + Scroll wheel), and you can change the alignment too.

6. On the left bottom of the screen, there are some hints for your convenience.

7. If you want to Copy / Paste / Delete your shape, you may enter "Selection mode". You can switch to selection mode by Right Click mouse button once. (right click again to back to normal mode)

In Selection mode, you can drag and draw a yellow rectangle to select shapes. You can select multiple shapes.

You can delete them by pressing Delete key.

You can duplicate the shape by select it, then press D key.

Also you can press Ctrl + C to copy, and then Ctrl V to paste, Ctrl X to cut. You can paste it many times.

When you have selected shapes, you can press G key to move it, R key to rotate it, and press M or N key to flip it.

You can press B key to bevel the shape. Select shapes and press B, then move your mouse cursor to adjust. Scrolling the mouse wheel to increase bevel cut.

8. After all, you can Right Click again to leave selection mode, and go back to normal mode. You can continue and draw again.

9. When you finish, you can commit operation by pressing 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 key on the top of keyboard.

They represent different operations :

1 : Cut the face and fill by n-gon

2 : Cut the face and fill by triangles

3 : Create a new face from shape

4 : Boolean subtract cut

0 : Boolean slice

You can still change the operation after commit. (by the blender's menu, left bottom of the screen)

10. When you draw, you can use Circle tool to draw Circle / Triangle / Square / Pentagon / Hexagon, or any edge-shape.

Press C key to activate, press C again to deactivate.

Shift + Mouse Wheel to change the number of circle edges. (turn to 3 edges will become a triangle)

Useful Tips

1. Absolute size mode is very useful and recommended. It keep the same grid size, across any face, any objects. It can make whole scene very cool and clean.

2. Boolean Cut mode, work well on the borders, and it is fun and great. If it does not cut correctly, you may try to align the grid to that border edge (Ctrl + Click)

If the Boolean fail (it does not cut anything), you should adjust the "offset" parameter, to make the faces of the geometry not overlapping. (blender's boolean limitation)

Also, if the face's normal is flipped (incorrect normal), you may need to fix the mesh normals first.

3. You may select multiple faces (with same normal, co-planar) and use this tool. You can draw across multiple n-gons, it works great.

Hardware Support

- Only standard mouse and keyboard are supported.

I only tested with standard mouse and keyboard. This addon does not officially support other device (eg: wacom tablet, 3d-mouse, vr glove, etc) yet.

Therefore, it may not work with your special hardware. I didn't test them.
Please reconsider before buying it, thank you.

Download and Install

After purchase, you can download the zip file.

I uploaded two versions of Grid Modeler (one is latest, one is older), please install the latest file. The older file is for emergency only (if the latest one has critical bug).

Open Blender's Edit > Preference > Add-ons, then click install on the top of dialog.

Select the zip file to install. (Do not unzip it, the zip file has to be installed as a whole)

Update :

When I release new update, I will announce it on Twitter.

Please come back here and download it. Before update please uninstall the old one in blender and remove it completely. Then install the new zip file again. If there is any problem, you may contact me by email or Twitter.