Blender 2.8 Wireframes Discussion

[redsolar]

I really hope this is the right place for this. Anyways, a suggestion for wireframes for 2.8 after watching Blender Developer Youtube video) and trying out the build.

What I’m experiencing?
When mouse wheel zooming out, both the wireframe and the vertices become more dense making it more difficult to see the object definition clearly.

Suggestion
Perhaps adjust the wireframe and vertex thickness based on zoom level or distance from camera so that object clarity is retained from a wide range of distances.

Zoomed In - Factory vertex size vs. Factory vertex size decreased by 1 (using theme adjustment). Don’t know of any way to decrease wireframe thickness to help make the vertices more visible. Not a huge difference but it does help it feel lighter.

Zoomed Out - Same as above but clarity becomes more difficult to see as all the wireframe and vertices are packed closer. Decreasing vertex size by 1 from Factory size helps a great deal. Being able to reduce wireframe thickness would help as well.

[anon18120698]

also, a edge thickness option would be nice.

[dimitar]

Nice to see wireframes are back. However, for architecture and archviz community, we sometimes need plain wireframes with separate colors to be able to distinguish various sets of objects in a massive urban scene, for example. Really hope that this feature finally makes it into Blender

[Charlie]

Workbench initially had an object color mode using the Object->Color property which has been removed. This could have provided colored wireframes per object. This should be restored.

[CarlosMazon]

This has been a controversial point for some time, but I will very much welcome this feature like Dimitar above points.

For complex scenes it would be a big improvement to the actual “grey” mess of wires.

[AdamEarle]

Well done guys. Looks freakn great.
Looks like and really useful like ZBrush now accept uber easy to setup
All we need is Zremesher and then I don’t need to use zbrush anymore

How zbrush does wires when using Zremesher

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xM9fHP5-t0

How Blender does it: Maybe you guys should be talking to the dev? he has other videos as well

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03tsZ-tuvPE

[azjarosz]

Hi,
I hope this is a good place to report such things. When you switch to wireframe mode in 2.8 (build from 2018-06-01 - 8433ed7) not all wires from the back are visible.

Blender 2.8 / Windows 10 / 1060 6GB - driver 391.35

[L0Lock]

Hi!
A cool thing about previous Blender versions and wireframes is that it was really easy to do a wireframe render via OpenGL, i.e. for a modeling portfolio showcase. And it has several options which make it flexible, i.e. render a model with subsurf but with only the “original” mesh’s wireframe. It was fast, flexible and efficient.

But for now, it seems that the OpenGL render is broken and gives only a white flat shaded silhouette.
And Eevee doesn’t show any wireframe either (even with a wireframe node).

[redsolar]

Good point, dimitar. There’s a recent build that allows you to “x-ray” (setting this slider to 0) the shading out while keeping wireframe so you essentially get close to pure wireframes.

What I can’t figure out how to do though is the separate colors you mention.

[Alberto]

As I understand it, the wireframe mode will no longer exist and I think it should continue to exist. From the user’s point of view, it has been very difficult to see the classic wireframe mode again. In any modeling tutorial you can see how the wireframe view is used constantly and switch between solid view and wireframe view every few seconds.

• In the old days it was simply
  press Z

• New Blender2.8
  press Z
  go to shading popover
  click
  click Xray (configured to 0)
  go to overlay popover
  click
  click to wireframe

And all the same process in reverse to get out of wireframe mode.

Now the key is only “select occluded” and although it may seem useful to some users I don’t think it is what is expected of such a function which is to leave the viewer simply in wireframe mode.

If in this scene

press Z, we obtain this

but maybe the user want this (probably this)

or this

I think the wireframe mode should come back, being a mode where each user can have their own preset where they can take full advantage of the power of the new viewer options and switch betwen normal mode and wireframe mode with the old hotkey. Among which I would like to emphasize as necessary

• Real transparent Xray, currently zero is not completely transparent
• Opacity of the covered wireframe
• General wireframe opacity
• Wireframe thickness

[izo]

I think that’s implemented already. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcOk-SYxllg

Is that what you are looking for?

[JayrajKharvadi]

Hey Developers,
The ability to hide the wires which are behind (not facing the camera ) can be extremely useful.
Especially when doing VFX for films.
Check below example for how clean and decluttered it can make your scene look.

I suggest that just as we have sliders for the shadow’s opacty, we should also have sliders for the wireframe opacity and backFace Culling.

when the backFace culling is set to a value of 1 , the backGround wireFrames disappear and when the value is zero, the backFace wireframes are full opacity.

Thanks,
Jayraj

[zebus3d]

I totally agree with you, what used to be as easy and fast as pressing a key now requires pressing a key and making 4 clicks and drag mouse, in different panels. It’s a considerable waste of time in the workflow.

[Alberto]

To give you an idea, it could even be two presets that the user swaps. So not only would you have to press Z and switch to wireframe, but also press Z and go to the HDRI version, or press Z and activate the flat and wireframe mode,…

[redsolar]

Was playing around with a script in 2.8 for this wireframe thing as if it were a toggled script.

Here’s a Gify of the script in action while in Object Mode.

And here’s a Gify of the same script in action while in Edit Mode.

I’m not experienced with Blender scripting, but just wanted to mess around with the idea of a easy toggler. Here’s the script.

import bpy

if not bpy.context.screen.areas[3].spaces[0].overlay.show_wireframes:
    bpy.context.screen.areas[3].spaces[0].overlay.show_wireframes = True
    bpy.context.screen.areas[3].spaces[0].shading.show_xray = True
    bpy.context.screen.areas[3].spaces[0].shading.xray_alpha = 0
else:
    bpy.context.screen.areas[3].spaces[0].overlay.show_wireframes = False
    bpy.context.screen.areas[3].spaces[0].shading.show_xray = False
    bpy.context.screen.areas[3].spaces[0].shading.xray_alpha = 0.5

[zebus3d]

Don’t you realize of what they’re doing to us to Blender user that we use for years? Is the opinion of newbies who may use blender or 2 or 3 times in their lives and never use it again more important than the opinion of the community and users that we have defended and bet on and supported blender for years?

[zebus3d]

But has the person responsible for these decisions ever modeled in his life?..

[Alberto]

My opinion is that the design is being done by someone who doesn’t know how to use blender as a user, doesn’t model, and above all, doesn’t know how to design an existing program. Because it is not normal the decisions that are being seen, breaking workflow, tutorials, basic features…

Let’s see, if in the end many users are just waiting for it to break in the interface, because today there are zero improvements, zero real improvements. All things that users asked all that years has been ignored.

[anon18120698]

@Alberto is right.

The new interface designer is a volunteer, I wonder if he knows what he is doing. To be honest I was putting hope in 2.8 but seeing how things are going made me realize that I only will have a future If i dont put all my efforts in blender anymore.

[Dantus]

@Alberto

I just read William at developer.blender.org saying that blender2.8 was designed without the wireframe mode in mind, that wireframe mode is no longer necessary. . Between this and other changes… I’m going to try to say it politely, because what I would like to say is another thing, but I hope that the blender website will remove the mentions to the community. Except obviously, when you have to pay some codequest.

Could you please share the actual link, because the one you provided just points to the general page.