Perfect plugin! Just perfect to keep the assebly clean and well organized! Just bought it. The question. When I group the objects with the hidden cutters it will make the cutters show up (in wireframe mode). I don't want to see the cutters, they clutter up the scene. I edit the group, turn them off, but once close the group they show up again. How to hide them for keeps?? As a workaround I can toggle wireframe opacity to 0 in overlays, but I'd like to be able to hide it in groups. Update. Figured it out. Turning the visibility of the cutter or swithching the cutter group off won't help, but if you go to the cutter's object properties / visibility and turnn the vieport visibility off, it will do the trick. So at the moment I find this plugin an absolute MUST HAVE. I used to make parent groups of subobjects, then subasseblies, assemblies and so on, but if you by make a mistake and instead of parenting a pivot object (parent group) take its object, you will ruin the sub object group. And selection in huge assemblies is so inconivnient - you cannot select all at once - you need to select a assembly parent then chuft+G - select child+extend selection. It is totally messy. But now it treats the group as the single object, say as in Rhino. Super convinient! PS. For those who askes for Blender 4.x. I installed it for Blender 4.2, works with no issues.
I did not know about - viewport visibility trick. In past this option was not there, and it was impossible to hide cutters (they are drawn with blenders collection instance drawing - I have no influence over it). I guess the 'show in viewport' switch should be implemented by boolean cutter addon itself, to make it work with GP... And thanks about kind works. IMO GPro is my best addon and my first one. I can't imagine how people work without it. Managing complex scenes from outliner is pain.
@@bartoszstyperek6306 Yes, hide in Viewport does a perfect trick! The gizmo boundary box scalles itself as if the booleans were not there, so matches perfectly! But, I'm not sure if it is related to the Boolean Cutter plugin. Just after applying Box cutter (without GroupPro) it organizes the cutters to a collection and hides it, so no questions. But your plugin sets the cutters collection "vieport render icon" to off, but the "viewport visbility icon" remains on. Once I switch it manually in editing group and close the group, it resets the viewport visibility to on again. So I believe it is on your side. Can live with it, but probobly in some future updates you could fix it. Another thing. Sometimes I need to make unique many duplicated groups at once (so say I can adjust arrays within it independently). And now the "make unique" works only for the active group. I would love to have it working for all the selected groups. PS. People live without it in missery, as I did before somehow found on a Blender forum someone referencing to this plugin )) Parenting objects. Parenting parents. Shift+G selecting child. Setting double left mouse click to select all the child + parents. Works ok, but whenn there are thousands of assemblies, finding the "parent empty" that represents the desiered group is a pain in the ass.
@@bartoszstyperek6306 That's wierd. I replied yesterday but there is no my comment. I think Boolean Cutter / Box Cutter has nothing to do with turning hidden parts on. I believe it is on your side. You plugin has the same behaviour with ANY objects of the group, not only booleans. So here is an example I have an assembly, create a group of it with your addon. Then I decide to turn off some part (I don't want to delete it, just turn it off for this time). I edit the group, turn the part off, close the group, and boom - the part is again on! That's not good at all. It doesnt affect the "disable in Render", "Disable selection" it affects only the "Hide in Viewport". But, I recall also one similar thing in Blender. Sometimes when you turn off the collection, then turn it back on again after some manipulations, very offten the hidden object will appear again, that's quite annoying. The render and lock icons remain but the viewport resets. Maybe it is the same with your addon. Please look into it. Meanwhile the quite easy workaround as I wrote is - object properties layout/Visibility/Show in Viewport off. It is called Globaly disable in Vieport VS the icon in outliner which is Hide in Viewport. Another thing. When you make the "Unique" it affects only the active selection. But sometimes you need to make unique 10 objects. It would be great if the "make unique" affect all the selection, not only the active one. PS. Everyone works out own approach in keeping stuff organized. I make the parent groups with Empties. For subobject I use plain axis empties, for main assemblies - circle empty. I use HardOps "To Shape" command, that creates and parents all, automatically create an Empty in user selected pivot point. Also it can creat bounding objects, hull objects and many more. Them create another "main assembly empty" and parent the subassembly empty to it. That's cumbersome but works.
@@vavalexus About hiding object in 3d view - and being visible in group - this is how blender collection instances work - I cant change it. What would 'fix' it if - boolean addons would use 'show in viewports' - false, rather than - setting cutters to 'wire' draw mode. Again, python API does not allow me to change how blender draws grouped objects (all I do is drawing extra bounding boxes around them, so yes - I can draw extra things around, but I cant how blender instance collections drawing works). About 'make unique' seems to work ok if multiple objects belong to different groups, but I assume you want to make it work - if multiple selected objs, belong to same group. Will see about adding that. About empties- I wanted to avoid empties, since Sketchup had groups of objects (components), without any helpers. I would be easier to do groups using empties, but it did not 'feel as nice' as using collection instance. Custom bounding boxes looks like cool idea though. GPro has option to use custom helper bounding-box object: addon preferences > Drawing > Disable BBox vertices > set False, - this way instead of drawing Bbox with gpu, it will use helper mesh (it allows u to snap to cornders if GPro groups). PS. sometimes YT removes long comments - thinking its spam, happened to me to in past (its best to copy your comment before hitting post)
@@bartoszstyperek6306 Ok, can then be this algorithm used. When you group: For i = all the object in selection if "hide in viewport" (i) is on then * object hidden in outliner set "visible in viewport (i) off * disable object in viewport next i When you edit group you can eneble all the viewport objects again. Or you can add an option to chose (a combobutton/selection tick) weather to show everyhing again. Or you can make another separate button to show all the hidden objects. Does it make sence?
can you live update group membership, as in add a new object to a collection and it will automatically update instances of that collection with the newly added object?
Love the addon, thanks a lot for making it. I was wondering if you were planning on updating it for 2.8? I've been using it for a while now and can't imagine working without it.
And as today I added support to blender 2.8. You need group pro 2.0 for it to work. It is still beta, but most stuff should work ok. Probably it shouldn't be used for serious work.
yes, alt+D will create group instance (same as collection instance in blender 2.8). There is no new geometry created so you save memory. With shift+D you will create copy of group/collection - and you have option in preferences: should new group copy create instances or copies or objects that were inside original (source) group.
Not directly but there is way around for array: blenderartists.org/t/grouppro-group-instances-made-easy/651926/70?u=joseconseco. For lattice on multiple objects: www.blendernation.com/2018/10/19/new-add-on-quickly-deform-objects-with-fit-lattice/. GroupPro is replacing objects with empty - and you cant apply modifiers to empties, that is why it won't work directly with this addon.
Excellent, this makes grouping much easier in Blender.
Perfect plugin! Just perfect to keep the assebly clean and well organized! Just bought it. The question. When I group the objects with the hidden cutters it will make the cutters show up (in wireframe mode). I don't want to see the cutters, they clutter up the scene. I edit the group, turn them off, but once close the group they show up again. How to hide them for keeps?? As a workaround I can toggle wireframe opacity to 0 in overlays, but I'd like to be able to hide it in groups.
Update. Figured it out. Turning the visibility of the cutter or swithching the cutter group off won't help, but if you go to the cutter's object properties / visibility and turnn the vieport visibility off, it will do the trick.
So at the moment I find this plugin an absolute MUST HAVE. I used to make parent groups of subobjects, then subasseblies, assemblies and so on, but if you by make a mistake and instead of parenting a pivot object (parent group) take its object, you will ruin the sub object group. And selection in huge assemblies is so inconivnient - you cannot select all at once - you need to select a assembly parent then chuft+G - select child+extend selection. It is totally messy. But now it treats the group as the single object, say as in Rhino. Super convinient!
PS. For those who askes for Blender 4.x. I installed it for Blender 4.2, works with no issues.
I did not know about - viewport visibility trick. In past this option was not there, and it was impossible to hide cutters (they are drawn with blenders collection instance drawing - I have no influence over it). I guess the 'show in viewport' switch should be implemented by boolean cutter addon itself, to make it work with GP...
And thanks about kind works. IMO GPro is my best addon and my first one. I can't imagine how people work without it. Managing complex scenes from outliner is pain.
@@bartoszstyperek6306 Yes, hide in Viewport does a perfect trick! The gizmo boundary box scalles itself as if the booleans were not there, so matches perfectly! But, I'm not sure if it is related to the Boolean Cutter plugin. Just after applying Box cutter (without GroupPro) it organizes the cutters to a collection and hides it, so no questions. But your plugin sets the cutters collection "vieport render icon" to off, but the "viewport visbility icon" remains on. Once I switch it manually in editing group and close the group, it resets the viewport visibility to on again. So I believe it is on your side. Can live with it, but probobly in some future updates you could fix it.
Another thing. Sometimes I need to make unique many duplicated groups at once (so say I can adjust arrays within it independently). And now the "make unique" works only for the active group. I would love to have it working for all the selected groups.
PS. People live without it in missery, as I did before somehow found on a Blender forum someone referencing to this plugin )) Parenting objects. Parenting parents. Shift+G selecting child. Setting double left mouse click to select all the child + parents. Works ok, but whenn there are thousands of assemblies, finding the "parent empty" that represents the desiered group is a pain in the ass.
@@bartoszstyperek6306 That's wierd. I replied yesterday but there is no my comment. I think Boolean Cutter / Box Cutter has nothing to do with turning hidden parts on. I believe it is on your side. You plugin has the same behaviour with ANY objects of the group, not only booleans. So here is an example I have an assembly, create a group of it with your addon. Then I decide to turn off some part (I don't want to delete it, just turn it off for this time). I edit the group, turn the part off, close the group, and boom - the part is again on! That's not good at all. It doesnt affect the "disable in Render", "Disable selection" it affects only the "Hide in Viewport". But, I recall also one similar thing in Blender. Sometimes when you turn off the collection, then turn it back on again after some manipulations, very offten the hidden object will appear again, that's quite annoying. The render and lock icons remain but the viewport resets. Maybe it is the same with your addon. Please look into it. Meanwhile the quite easy workaround as I wrote is - object properties layout/Visibility/Show in Viewport off. It is called Globaly disable in Vieport VS the icon in outliner which is Hide in Viewport.
Another thing. When you make the "Unique" it affects only the active selection. But sometimes you need to make unique 10 objects. It would be great if the "make unique" affect all the selection, not only the active one.
PS. Everyone works out own approach in keeping stuff organized. I make the parent groups with Empties. For subobject I use plain axis empties, for main assemblies - circle empty. I use HardOps "To Shape" command, that creates and parents all, automatically create an Empty in user selected pivot point. Also it can creat bounding objects, hull objects and many more. Them create another "main assembly empty" and parent the subassembly empty to it. That's cumbersome but works.
@@vavalexus About hiding object in 3d view - and being visible in group - this is how blender collection instances work - I cant change it. What would 'fix' it if - boolean addons would use 'show in viewports' - false, rather than - setting cutters to 'wire' draw mode. Again, python API does not allow me to change how blender draws grouped objects (all I do is drawing extra bounding boxes around them, so yes - I can draw extra things around, but I cant how blender instance collections drawing works).
About 'make unique' seems to work ok if multiple objects belong to different groups, but I assume you want to make it work - if multiple selected objs, belong to same group. Will see about adding that.
About empties- I wanted to avoid empties, since Sketchup had groups of objects (components), without any helpers. I would be easier to do groups using empties, but it did not 'feel as nice' as using collection instance. Custom bounding boxes looks like cool idea though. GPro has option to use custom helper bounding-box object: addon preferences > Drawing > Disable BBox vertices > set False, - this way instead of drawing Bbox with gpu, it will use helper mesh (it allows u to snap to cornders if GPro groups).
PS. sometimes YT removes long comments - thinking its spam, happened to me to in past (its best to copy your comment before hitting post)
@@bartoszstyperek6306 Ok, can then be this algorithm used. When you group:
For i = all the object in selection
if "hide in viewport" (i) is on then * object hidden in outliner
set "visible in viewport (i) off * disable object in viewport
next i
When you edit group you can eneble all the viewport objects again. Or you can add an option to chose (a combobutton/selection tick) weather to show everyhing again. Or you can make another separate button to show all the hidden objects. Does it make sence?
Thank you! Very useful!
can you live update group membership, as in add a new object to a collection and it will automatically update instances of that collection with the newly added object?
yes see this part of video: ua-cam.com/video/xa9OslcsHDI/v-deo.html
@@bartoszstyperek6306 awesome!
Love the addon, thanks a lot for making it. I was wondering if you were planning on updating it for 2.8? I've been using it for a while now and can't imagine working without it.
I'm working on it right now. But the api for collections seems to not be defined yet.
And as today I added support to blender 2.8. You need group pro 2.0 for it to work. It is still beta, but most stuff should work ok. Probably it shouldn't be used for serious work.
@@bartoszstyperek6306 Awesome! Wasn't expecting anything so soon I'll def check that out. Would you like me to report issues and if so where?
@@BilzozANinja You can send bugs to discord channel: discord.gg/cxZDbqH
@@BilzozANinja You can send bugs to discord: discord.gg/cxZDbqH
hi bartosz, how exactly can I use this to mimic group instances and save memory? is it by alt+d a group or some other way?
yes, alt+D will create group instance (same as collection instance in blender 2.8). There is no new geometry created so you save memory. With shift+D you will create copy of group/collection - and you have option in preferences: should new group copy create instances or copies or objects that were inside original (source) group.
can I apply a modifier such as array or lattice to a group using group pro?
Not directly but there is way around for array: blenderartists.org/t/grouppro-group-instances-made-easy/651926/70?u=joseconseco. For lattice on multiple objects: www.blendernation.com/2018/10/19/new-add-on-quickly-deform-objects-with-fit-lattice/. GroupPro is replacing objects with empty - and you cant apply modifiers to empties, that is why it won't work directly with this addon.
hi there, any release date for blender 4 support?
On Bartosz's gumroad page for the addon, for blender 3.6 & 4.x he says to use GroupPro 2.3 (or newer)
Works on 4.2
yes it works ok in b4.2 . Soon I will remake it to extension though.