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

Creating Your Add-Ons

Add-ons are extensions that expand the capabilities of Blender and can be enabled in the preferences. Some of them, such as Math Vis, encountered in Chapter 2, are official features distributed as optional functionalities. Others are third-party expansions that can be installed by a user.

At their core, add-ons are Python modules that contain information used by Blender to install, enable, and remove them like in a plugin system.

In this chapter, you will learn how to write and install an add-on in Blender, and how to enable add-ons while they are still in the making. We will also implement a new command that groups objects into collections and make it part of the object context menu.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

  • Scripting Blender extensions
  • Running and updating our add-on
  • Fixing errors and improving our code