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

Scripting a lattice armature

Armatures are the recommended way for animating in Blender as they support linking across different .blend files and other advanced animation features.

Binding a lattice to an armature allows you to animate deformations without switching to Edit Mode to edit grid vertices.

Adding an armature condition

We want armatures to be an optional feature, so we can add another property for that. We set its default value to True, so an armature is created unless it’s set otherwise:

    add_armature: bpy.props.BoolProperty(default=True)

Inside the execute method, we check for this value and proceed accordingly.

Adding an armature to the scene

Armatures are created in the same way as lattices and other objects:

  1. Create new data.
  2. Create a new object using the data created.

Even if it is not strictly required, we set the new armature as the parent of the lattice to ensure consistency between their transforms...