This is amazing. I prefer the style of modeling in Sketchup, but porting the work from Sketchup to Blender is such a headache. This is exactly what I needed.
Oh hell yes! I din't learn to model on Sketchup ( I learned a LONG time ago on a program that doesn't exist anymore called Ray Dream) but I really fell in love with its speed and ease of use. An architectural modeler is mostly what I need and this will do nicely!
Stumbled on this video by accident, and I think I could literally watch you model stuff for hours. I’m moderately skilled at SketchUp but considering switching to Blender, so watching you model while mumbling what you’re doing (actions, hotkeys, etc.) is amazingly helpful to me. Thanks and subbed!
I watched this vid last night and had to give your link a go and buy it. I used to use Sketchup a bit at another job and loved the ability to easily sketch stuff out. Now that my memory kicks in, I used it to lay out our flooring when doung our bathrooms earlier this year. That said, I'm not a fan of Trimble's cash grab on software that has not changed much since Google developed it, locked down the 3D warehouse that was developed by the community, and any good development has been done by 3rd party. So I am elated to see this style of input in Blender. I wish I had seen this during the Black Friday sale, but even so, it's still only $11 US. Thanks for the suggestion! Can't wait to try it out!
Totally agree. I've been massively impressed with it and the creator is a really nice guy which always helps. He's been super responsive whenever I've messaged him.
One limitation with the free add-on _quick snap_ is that it won't allow me to choose a first point that's not part of the object being moved. For that I've been using the add-on _CAD Transform_ . I've had CT act up on occasion but it has been useful. One issue with it has been that it doesn't like to snap from verts/edges/faces of an object that were previously selected in Edit mode. If I select that object, go into Edit mode and deselect all, then go back to Object mode and try the move operation again, then I can select those entities as start points. It's weird. What sold me on purchasing _Construction Lines_ is that it can move stuff using start points that are not part of the object/s being moved or copied. The other functions such as drawing directly onto existing geo and being able to type in exact values is also powerful and much needed in much of my work. Pushing faces thru without causing all kinds of mesh errors is something I've wanted for a very long time.
Agreed on all counts. Quick Snap is really handy and free, which is great, and I still use it when I need to snap to something in a very complex object as its ability to limit what I snap to is great but but certainly isn't as powerful as Conatruction Lines
Unfortunately, I had to come back to edit this. Believe me, I didn't want to. I get that the tool is still under Beta but I expected it to at least do the things I saw it do here in the video. I just bought _Construction Lines_ specifically to try out the _Extrude_ function and it doesn't work as advertised at all. I'm running v3.6 LTS. It'll extrude outward... often with reversed normals and thin walls all over the place. It'll extrude inward, sometimes but not always, and that demo at 5:20 where it is shown cutting through the entire mesh, well, forget it because it often doesn't even try and often won't even go through the first level let alone all. If it does extrude inward, the normals are reversed. Tried it on a new cube and it worked a couple times even through multiple walls like in the video but then soon got into trouble again and refused to do any more such operations. Sometimes the tool allows me to select a face to extrude and then it boots itself out of CT mode entirely. I've tried extruding a face across a gap to snap to another face and it does it but it doesn't connect to the target face and ends up with intersect faces which are again, non-manifold. It's super frustrating. With respect to units scale, I'm using mm with a scale of 0.001. If I use vanilla Blender tools to grab and move, I can type _2 _ to move 2mm but with CT I have to type _2000 _ to move 2mm. In prefs, I saw that there's a _Override Unit Length Scale_ checkbox so I turned it on and that appears to have fixed it. I had to restart the tool for it to work, no big deal there. Pressing 'W' key makes the toolbar go back to the Blender Select tool but it still doesn't escape CT although clicking on the Blender Select tool does escape CT. Dunno if that's by design but I found it confusing. While CT is enabled, hitting Tab does something strange, dunno if it's due to other add-ons (I have Hard-ops, MeshMachine, Machin3Tools, etc), where stuff seems to vanish and come back. Maybe it's just me not knowing what I'm looking at in this case but I'm left wondering. There's a minor type-o in Preferences for the add-on, under _Preferences:_ it says _Defaul Tool:_ Another problem that kept happening was that I'd select an object, switch to edit mode, Alt-~ to get into CT, type R, draw a rectangle on a face, and discover that it would draw the new face on the selected face but it wasn't connected to the face on which it was drawn. Somehow it was a separate face, like a new face on top of the original face, not a new face cut into the original, and it was obvious by the shading and the lack of connection edges. Sometimes the first rectangle would be connected to the mesh correctly as expected but then I'd immediately draw another one onto the same first face in another area and it wouldn't be connected. At this point, there are so many problems that the tool is unusable for drawing on faces or extruding, which is what I wanted it for the most. The move/copy functions seem to work well enough. I admit, I'm new to this add-on (not new to Blender) and I only struggled with it for a few hours so I don't know all the functions. I don't even know how to create guides yet. All I tried to do was draw rectangles and circles on faces and extrude them in and out and practically every attempt failed outright or had problems such as reversed normals, intersect faces, thin-wall faces, non-connected faces, you name it. Original post... I previously bought an add-on called Punch-It in the hopes that it would extrude thru meshes, in the way SketchUp does, but it causes all kinds of mesh errors that have to be cleaned up after every use of Punch-It. I was not impressed. After seeing this _Construction Lines_ add-on doing it flawlessly, and also seeing the SketchUp-like way it can move/copy meshes in both linked and unlinked modes, I'm now convinced to try it. I'm clicking the affiliate link now. Thanks for showing us this new tool.
Damn that's frustrating as I haven't seen any of these issues. Is this using 3.6? I haven't upgraded yet and wonder if it's just needing to wait for an update, but still frustrating. I'd suggest messaging the creator as he has been fantastic in terms of communication in my experience. Hopefully it's resolved quickly.
@@ArtisansofVaul thanks for the response. I figured out one or two of the issues. I think it's just lack of knowledge on the add on tbh. The videos are awesome btw (no need to respond just throwing that in).
I have meant to but it's not something I really use (I prefer this) so it's quite down my list of videos. I generally only go through add ons I use and have used for a while so I know their strengths and weaknesses and can give a fair/impartial review
Like many plugins of Blender it feels super unpolished and clunky. I guess it's just the nature of Blender behavior/hotkeys, ofc I'm still newbie in Blender modeling, used to Maya/Max. Literally like every plugin that has something to do with lines/splines, etc is just so easy to break like one misclick and you start from scratch, no to mention how painful it is to work with them.
I can't say I've ever felt this way with this addon with the exception of when it was in its beta phase and that's understandable. But I do get what you mean about some add ons. But then others offer such brilliant tools... I think it's great that the community is able to add things to Blender to add more to its already great toolset.
Good question. I'd need to have a play with that but if you bring the object in then it should. You'd just have to make sure that you have selected all of the cutters as well (though I don't think the booleans would also work). But there may be something coming that would help with that 😁
I don't think it would be as fast and easy as this (but you definetly can for sure). As I say this is just an update, a more full description for what it can do is here: th-cam.com/video/4Djrhj64kS8/w-d-xo.html But it may not be for you, I personally find it saves me huge amounts of time but that's just my usage of Blender and my workflow.
I believe next week (starting the 3rd July) as the developer wants to wait for Blender 3.6 to be released, I imagine to check everything works with the newest version.
You should be able to go to where you downloaded it (Blender Market?) and go to your order section where they will have the latest version to re-download
I couldn't say I had tried it to be sure sop I just checked and yes it can in that you can draw it over a face and it will divide it along the drawn arc.
This is amazing. I prefer the style of modeling in Sketchup, but porting the work from Sketchup to Blender is such a headache. This is exactly what I needed.
Exactly why I was so excited to find this 😁
Oh hell yes! I din't learn to model on Sketchup ( I learned a LONG time ago on a program that doesn't exist anymore called Ray Dream) but I really fell in love with its speed and ease of use. An architectural modeler is mostly what I need and this will do nicely!
Awesome to be able to help find something that's going to work for you 😁
Stumbled on this video by accident, and I think I could literally watch you model stuff for hours. I’m moderately skilled at SketchUp but considering switching to Blender, so watching you model while mumbling what you’re doing (actions, hotkeys, etc.) is amazingly helpful to me. Thanks and subbed!
Thanks so much 😁 I always wonder how much detail to give verbally on what hotkeys I use so it's great to hear some feedback on that 👍🏻
The precise object snapping sold me!
Yeah, it's so good
Great video Neil. Thanks for showcasing some of the updates from the new release. It should be out this week in time for the Blender 3.6 release.
So excited man! 😁👍🏻
Well Done
Cheers 😁
Blender with Fusion 360 like sketching is a dream come true!
Totally agree!
SketchUp in Blender. Thanks for the news about the update of CL!
No problem. Coming from Sketchup I've been so hyped about this!
No problem. Coming from Sketchup I've been so hyped about this!
I watched this vid last night and had to give your link a go and buy it. I used to use Sketchup a bit at another job and loved the ability to easily sketch stuff out. Now that my memory kicks in, I used it to lay out our flooring when doung our bathrooms earlier this year. That said, I'm not a fan of Trimble's cash grab on software that has not changed much since Google developed it, locked down the 3D warehouse that was developed by the community, and any good development has been done by 3rd party.
So I am elated to see this style of input in Blender. I wish I had seen this during the Black Friday sale, but even so, it's still only $11 US.
Thanks for the suggestion! Can't wait to try it out!
I hope you enjoy it. I find it really handy and way more powerful when it's in Blender instead of with the limitations of Sketchup.
Great add on … adding it now. cheers
👍🏻 I love it.
Awesome, great to see some new options, bought on your recommendation 😊
Thanks. And yeah that's pretty exciting.
Construction Lines is now my first paid blender add-on I've bought. :-) CAD Transforms is great, but this is perfect for quicker less-complex builds.
Totally agree. I've been massively impressed with it and the creator is a really nice guy which always helps. He's been super responsive whenever I've messaged him.
awesome update!
Agreed
Ok. "Like" this time for pronunciation of Alt+Tilda. )
😅
Well guess I’ll be buying this add on then!
😅
One limitation with the free add-on _quick snap_ is that it won't allow me to choose a first point that's not part of the object being moved. For that I've been using the add-on _CAD Transform_ . I've had CT act up on occasion but it has been useful. One issue with it has been that it doesn't like to snap from verts/edges/faces of an object that were previously selected in Edit mode. If I select that object, go into Edit mode and deselect all, then go back to Object mode and try the move operation again, then I can select those entities as start points. It's weird. What sold me on purchasing _Construction Lines_ is that it can move stuff using start points that are not part of the object/s being moved or copied. The other functions such as drawing directly onto existing geo and being able to type in exact values is also powerful and much needed in much of my work. Pushing faces thru without causing all kinds of mesh errors is something I've wanted for a very long time.
Agreed on all counts. Quick Snap is really handy and free, which is great, and I still use it when I need to snap to something in a very complex object as its ability to limit what I snap to is great but but certainly isn't as powerful as Conatruction Lines
Unfortunately, I had to come back to edit this. Believe me, I didn't want to. I get that the tool is still under Beta but I expected it to at least do the things I saw it do here in the video. I just bought _Construction Lines_ specifically to try out the _Extrude_ function and it doesn't work as advertised at all. I'm running v3.6 LTS. It'll extrude outward... often with reversed normals and thin walls all over the place. It'll extrude inward, sometimes but not always, and that demo at 5:20 where it is shown cutting through the entire mesh, well, forget it because it often doesn't even try and often won't even go through the first level let alone all. If it does extrude inward, the normals are reversed. Tried it on a new cube and it worked a couple times even through multiple walls like in the video but then soon got into trouble again and refused to do any more such operations. Sometimes the tool allows me to select a face to extrude and then it boots itself out of CT mode entirely. I've tried extruding a face across a gap to snap to another face and it does it but it doesn't connect to the target face and ends up with intersect faces which are again, non-manifold. It's super frustrating. With respect to units scale, I'm using mm with a scale of 0.001. If I use vanilla Blender tools to grab and move, I can type _2 _ to move 2mm but with CT I have to type _2000 _ to move 2mm. In prefs, I saw that there's a _Override Unit Length Scale_ checkbox so I turned it on and that appears to have fixed it. I had to restart the tool for it to work, no big deal there. Pressing 'W' key makes the toolbar go back to the Blender Select tool but it still doesn't escape CT although clicking on the Blender Select tool does escape CT. Dunno if that's by design but I found it confusing. While CT is enabled, hitting Tab does something strange, dunno if it's due to other add-ons (I have Hard-ops, MeshMachine, Machin3Tools, etc), where stuff seems to vanish and come back. Maybe it's just me not knowing what I'm looking at in this case but I'm left wondering. There's a minor type-o in Preferences for the add-on, under _Preferences:_ it says _Defaul Tool:_ Another problem that kept happening was that I'd select an object, switch to edit mode, Alt-~ to get into CT, type R, draw a rectangle on a face, and discover that it would draw the new face on the selected face but it wasn't connected to the face on which it was drawn. Somehow it was a separate face, like a new face on top of the original face, not a new face cut into the original, and it was obvious by the shading and the lack of connection edges. Sometimes the first rectangle would be connected to the mesh correctly as expected but then I'd immediately draw another one onto the same first face in another area and it wouldn't be connected. At this point, there are so many problems that the tool is unusable for drawing on faces or extruding, which is what I wanted it for the most. The move/copy functions seem to work well enough. I admit, I'm new to this add-on (not new to Blender) and I only struggled with it for a few hours so I don't know all the functions. I don't even know how to create guides yet. All I tried to do was draw rectangles and circles on faces and extrude them in and out and practically every attempt failed outright or had problems such as reversed normals, intersect faces, thin-wall faces, non-connected faces, you name it.
Original post...
I previously bought an add-on called Punch-It in the hopes that it would extrude thru meshes, in the way SketchUp does, but it causes all kinds of mesh errors that have to be cleaned up after every use of Punch-It. I was not impressed. After seeing this _Construction Lines_ add-on doing it flawlessly, and also seeing the SketchUp-like way it can move/copy meshes in both linked and unlinked modes, I'm now convinced to try it. I'm clicking the affiliate link now. Thanks for showing us this new tool.
Damn that's frustrating as I haven't seen any of these issues. Is this using 3.6? I haven't upgraded yet and wonder if it's just needing to wait for an update, but still frustrating. I'd suggest messaging the creator as he has been fantastic in terms of communication in my experience. Hopefully it's resolved quickly.
Had high hopes for this then Plasticity happened ❤
Haha. I mean Plasticity is great. Not so nice for 3D printing from the meshes I've seen it creating but for other things it looks really nice.
Is there any way for the arc tool to snap when it is a semi-circle like in Sketchup? Great video and informative!
You can snap the end points and the centre point is that's what you mean?
alrighty, I bought this and love it, but some things aren't functioning as expected. Do you know if its been updated for blender 4?
It should have been. But I haven't used it hugely since the update. Definetly contact the creator if there is an issue, he's really responsive
@@ArtisansofVaul thanks for the response. I figured out one or two of the issues. I think it's just lack of knowledge on the add on tbh. The videos are awesome btw (no need to respond just throwing that in).
Will you review blender cad sketcher in the future?
I have meant to but it's not something I really use (I prefer this) so it's quite down my list of videos. I generally only go through add ons I use and have used for a while so I know their strengths and weaknesses and can give a fair/impartial review
Like many plugins of Blender it feels super unpolished and clunky. I guess it's just the nature of Blender behavior/hotkeys, ofc I'm still newbie in Blender modeling, used to Maya/Max.
Literally like every plugin that has something to do with lines/splines, etc is just so easy to break like one misclick and you start from scratch, no to mention how painful it is to work with them.
I can't say I've ever felt this way with this addon with the exception of when it was in its beta phase and that's understandable. But I do get what you mean about some add ons. But then others offer such brilliant tools... I think it's great that the community is able to add things to Blender to add more to its already great toolset.
Does the linked object editing also apply to kitops cutters, decals or meshmachine plugs?
Good question. I'd need to have a play with that but if you bring the object in then it should. You'd just have to make sure that you have selected all of the cutters as well (though I don't think the booleans would also work). But there may be something coming that would help with that 😁
I don't understand what this addon helps with. That shape is very easy to do with default blender. With exact measurements.
I don't think it would be as fast and easy as this (but you definetly can for sure). As I say this is just an update, a more full description for what it can do is here: th-cam.com/video/4Djrhj64kS8/w-d-xo.html
But it may not be for you, I personally find it saves me huge amounts of time but that's just my usage of Blender and my workflow.
@@ArtisansofVaul gotcha
Any idea when this update will be live? I want it noooooowwwww
I believe next week (starting the 3rd July) as the developer wants to wait for Blender 3.6 to be released, I imagine to check everything works with the newest version.
HI, thanks. How can I update this addon i bought ver 0.9.6.5
You should be able to go to where you downloaded it (Blender Market?) and go to your order section where they will have the latest version to re-download
Is the arc tool usable to cut an existing face?
I couldn't say I had tried it to be sure sop I just checked and yes it can in that you can draw it over a face and it will divide it along the drawn arc.
What was the tool at 11:08?
Thats Loop Tools. Its native to Blender, you just need to activate it in the Add On menu. 😉