Book Image

Python Scripting in Blender

By : Paolo Acampora
5 (1)
Book Image

Python Scripting in Blender

5 (1)
By: Paolo Acampora

Overview of this book

Blender, a powerful open source 3D software, can be extended and powered up using the Python programming language. This book teaches you how to automate laborious operations using scripts, and expand the set of available commands, graphic interfaces, tools, and event responses, which will enable you to add custom features to meet your needs and bring your creative ideas to life. The book begins by covering essential Python concepts and showing you how to create a basic add-on. You’ll then gain a solid understanding of the entities that affect the look of Blender’s objects such as modifiers, constraints, and materials. As you advance, you’ll get to grips with the animation system in Blender and learn how to set up its behavior using Python. The examples, tools, patterns, and best practices present throughout the book will familiarize you with the Python API and build your knowledge base, along with enabling you to produce valuable code that empowers the users and is ready for publishing or production. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to successfully design add-ons that integrate seamlessly with the software and its ecosystem.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Part 1: Introduction to Python
7
Part 2: Interactive Tools and Animation
13
Part 3: Delivering Output

Using F-Curve Modifiers

Modifiers for animation curves, called F-Curve Modifiers or F-Modifiers, add non-destructive changes to animations while preserving their original data. We examined similar functionality in Object Constraints in Chapter 4, where we learned how to affect an object’s position without changing the values stored in its channels.

Like object constraints, F-Modifiers are exposed to Python scripts through a collection property.

Before we delve into how F-Modifiers are scripted, we will have a look at how to create them in the Graph Editor.

Adding F-Curve Modifiers in the Graph Editor

We will now look at how to add variation to an animated object using F-Curve Modifiers.

For this example, we will use the ani_loop.blend scene, from the accompanying PythonScriptingBlender/ch8/_scenes_ folder, but you can use any scene.

The animation along the 8-shaped path in ani_loop.blend wasn’t created by hand: it was generated using the Vert Runner...