Crazy METABALL Workflow in Blender (Tutorial)

[@gabrielegagliardi3956]

I'm an Italian viewer and your pronunciation wasn't bad at all, love your work, I've purchased a lot of courses and also your decal/trim sheet pack. Keep up the great work man.

[@JoshGambrell]

Thanks a lot for the support Gabriele!

[@NightVisionOfficial]

Vero xD

[@gabrielegagliardi3956]

@@NightVisionOfficial Ahah, Blender Bros vanno forte tra gli italiani. Ho visto che hai fatto un paio di video su Zen UV, mi sono iscritto, appena ho un attimo frugo un po' nel tuo canale :D

[@NightVisionOfficial]

@@gabrielegagliardi3956 Purtroppo non ho molti video xD

[@stuffy.design]

Fratm ☕🗿

[@guidosaltoart]

Emiliano Is Awesome, i worked with him (i was teaching concept art and he was teaching 3d in the same school) he is one of the most advanced blender user there is out here

[@GaryParris]

Been using metaballs here and there for a while, this being another great use case, but can be used for atmosherics, initial sculpting, concepting & blocking out, but thats the versatility of blender, you can work with not just geometry in traditional sense, you have metaballs, curves, nurbs, volumes, textures, geonodes, vectors, grease pencil, moodifiers, textures, simulations, mathematics, python, sverchok, tissue tools, all of these can be used to influence each other back and forth in endless ways to model or create whatever you want, not just stick to hard surface or any one thing unless you really love to do so and want to do so. Thats what i love about Blender it's just so creatively versatile.

[@ATLJB86]

I always used the balls to make quick 3d model starting points. Just shape the balls over a reference image then mirror objects like legs to the other side in sculpt mode then sculpt out the details. Never thought to make a base then combine other addons. Thanks for the idea!

[@hippapasworkshop146]

Emiliano's creations are amazing and I would love to see your spin on metaball hard surface.

[@Tiki_Media]

I highly recommend you implement an add-on to display keyboard shortcuts and current actions in the interface. This would greatly enhance a watchers learning and better understand your efficient workflow. Thanks for considering.

[@crashlaga]

Curious to see how you’re going to expand more on this technique as you dive deeper into it. Exciting stuff

[@abu-bøqr]

All your videos are awesome. You're truly a blessing in this community. Also that new channel pfp is awsome. I know u got rizz

[@JoshGambrell]

😎😎

[@maxungar516]

i haven't liked my experience with quad remesher. i assume it's better for character meshes than something like hard surface modeling. it usually does a terrible job recognizing hard edges, doesn't have a smart face flow, so once i retopo i basically can't edit the form of my mesh in lucid ways, except through booleans or whatever. it also sometimes makes the mesh lumpy or deformed. it's nice to have the option to try it every now and then, and it has occasionally provided good results. but in general, and especially if you're a more casual blenderer, i would recommend not buying it, given how expensive it is. it could be that maybe i just don't understand topology enough, or that i'm misunderstanding the settings of the addon, but if that's the case then you probably would have to be an advanced user anyway for it to be useful to you.

[@Tertion]

Weird..... I've actually found that Quad Remesher gives wayyyy better results with hard surface objects than with characters ....

[@JoshGambrell]

It's all in the settings and the algorithm. Hard surface objects will naturally be remeshed with poorer results... but you can avoid it. Look into the material separation settings, detect hard edges setting, and adaptivity. The more complex the hard surface mesh, the weaker the results. As the algorithm gets improved and technology gets better it'll probably be close to flawless, but that could take some time.

[@matslarsson5988]

Is Quad remesher even being supported by the company behind it? I can't ever remember there being an update to the plugin.

[@fastlearner292]

@@matslarsson5988 Ofcourse it is, new one came up with 3.4 support

[@matslarsson5988]

@@fastlearner292 I have version 1.2.1 of Quad Remesher. Isnt that the latest one? I cant remember downloading a newer one in ages or hearing a single word from the company? Anyway, I hope you are right.

[@joe_fabricator]

Nice job Josh... thank you for sharing this technique.

[@AdventureMase]

The value to change resolution isn't based on pixels, but the distance between vertices in meters.

[@JoshGambrell]

Ty for clarification

[@RariJay]

Dope🔥🔥

[@maxshepard4181]

Nice base for further approaches, thank you!

[@anandmalkari1158]

Thanks for that tip, "use of negative" in edit mode of metaballs.

[@the_devil_1230]

It will be nice to see how quick a complex can be made using this workflow.

[@Dina_tankar_mina_ord]

wait what! holy moly. a new world just opened. thanks :)

[@PowersVideo3D]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing!

[@marcoreinhold4775]

More, much more from this stuff! I love organic shapes.

[@DaCapitalist1]

Thank you Josh! Really interesting video. As a zbrush user for sculpting, these meatballs remind me of dynamesh in a way with quadremesher. Really cool stuff!

[@sanfera5644]

Imagine a bent metal effect on a steel door or something, you could use these for a quick animation. Different shapes of impact, different shapes of metaball boolean operations. They could be used for deformation/shape changing animations for cartoon effect. You know how a cannon shoots in a cartoon. I needed something like this, and it appeared just in time.

[@man_art_man]

Very interesting. Thank you! I also like a final reasult of this video! Looks very nice!

[@TheKevphil]

Josh, there a "metaball wrangling" addon called *Chakana* that can help with this workflow.

[@SpacekidZ]

I think I should try this

[@fluidexpressions6856]

thank you!

[@oraz.]

I had an assignment to make a merging metaball animation for someone. I used a marching cubes library and webgl but I know blender would be better If I knew enough. It's a big piece of software though.

[@-Belshazzar-]

Nice!

[@webarchitect]

I imagine metaballs can be useful in making android/humanoid/cyborgs design, where outer forms remind human, but with technical stuff. Like in «Ghost in the Shell». For example, a human head with artificial eyes(Saito character). P.S.: Thanks for remesher addon! It's what I need!

[@Visleaf]

You can use geometry nodes with remesh and smoothing for a similar workflow

[@kritzstudio]

Since there are so many things I learned from you, I would very much like to send you my addon, as a gift, it is made with the mataballs workflow, where can I send it to you? Best regards and all the best for 2023!

[@JoshGambrell]

What does it do?

[@kritzstudio]

@@JoshGambrell It is a hard surface modeling system from Metaballs, you can easily create with a step-by-step system that allows you to create a base design to model or sculpt in a few minutes without having to worry about topology, the plugin generates the remesh for you. I can send you a link to BlenderMarket so you can see it better, but I don't know where to send it to, because out of respect I didn't want to leave you a link here. Greetings and thanks again for all the information you always share on your channel! Matias

[@alsigerpro]

you should also check out simply concept add on it will help your metaball workflow

[@Blendercage]

Yeah I’ve been staring at quad remesher. Don’t want to fork out the money for it but it looks to do a much better job than anything I’ve been trying.

[@JoshGambrell]

Definitely haven't found anything as close... hence the price

[@t.mohitrajan4257]

You should try surfaces also

[@WallyMahar]

Insane

[@teferi]

Cool !

[@tommythunder6578]

Thank you for your interesting video! It seems to be a cool workflow, however I was wondering how to control the bevels between the meta balls in case I wanted them to be sharper. Best regards and keep up the good work 👍🏻

[@JoshGambrell]

I believe there are some tension settings in edit mode if I’m not mistaken

[@KAZAIK3D]

That's why I always keep telling my friends that Blender is the most powerful software around the community

[@trachinusdraco]

I just recently started to experiment with this and I made a skull

[@AbdulAziz-cj4hg]

where can i get the quad remesher for free?

[@sk.mahdeemahbubsamy2857]

I generally use Metaballs for sculpting organic stuff in blender

[@eldkfwkd321]

Now, Metaball is look like a meatball

[@cekuhnen]

Metaballs is quite fun but I find compared to other tools it is limited Magica scg is extremely powerful !

[@CritelliArt]

I use meatballs a lot for organic and creature work but never for hard surface. Interesting technique. I wish that offset cut feature was in hardops. Seems silly to buy a whole other add-on for that one thing.

[@JoshGambrell]

meatballs lmao... that's my new name for them

[@CritelliArt]

@@JoshGambrell I wish I did that on purpose. Another win for auto-correct.

[@zalitov]

I really like the "Unf*ck" tool from MESHmachine at 5:25 hahaha!

[@VladyVeselinov]

In a weird way, this kinda feels like sculpting. You essentially took several balls of clay and molded them into what you want.

[@Alex-tn7pv]

Now I know how to make my character's balls.

[@EROSNERdesign]

Cool.

[@philipschroeder5427]

Just a wild guess, 0.5 m could be meters. It is probably not pixels. In the default view 2 squares side length are 1 m.

[@fluidexpressions6856]

3:33 how to turn metaballs into mesh

[@ItsWesSmithYo]

Ballin Hard 🏀 back to making 🍩 for me boss 😎

[@davidcapuzzo]

Why does your blender UI look so different?

[@niveketihw1897]

I remember using Metaballs in 1996.

[@CarpeUniversum]

I saw his bike video and spent the whole time wondering how t f. Thanks for this.

[@nudtanunwarnnissorn]

[@theshadow6273]

interesting "gun shape" heh XD

[@DribblePlayz635]

How to separate metaballs from being in 1 group

[@DarkSwordsman]

i thought the title said "meatball" workflow, lol

[@33rdframe]

ah the penis gun technique.. I've always wondered about that hahah. J/k ❤

[@TertiaryChrome]

Yeah, Colantani has this crazy gun timelapse modelling session : kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZSwo2iEedZ9qdE I noticed some weeks ago. I had been amazed by what he can do.

[@graphguy]

i'm thinking 3d printing and metaballs...

[@stillremain.artwork]

HOLY SHIT I ALWAYS READ IT LIKE MEATBALL LMAOO

[@radicant7283]

"Idk what this number is. I think it's pixels or something?" My dude, it says meters right next to it.

[@poopiecon1489]

waiting for more , its awesome ., can you share your other (ragular ) workflow ?

[@YoungChud]

made a whole tutorial about metaballs and didnt even show the shortcut for extruding them out lmao

[@googleyoutubechannel8554]

The 'active element' prop box, the ONLY place where you can set 'negative', seems to disappear (in edit mode) randomly, not allowing selection. completely useless.

[@NomeCreativo]

I thought it said meatball ☠️

[@giidragiidra]

womp:

[@erosion01]

Meatballs

[@MegaByteKaos]

I read that as meatballs and was subsequently very disappointed.

[@tmoneygamestudio]

I have seen @blenderguru and @blendersecrets use meta-balls [@blendersecrets in his e-book of same name] to make a robot. But with you and your blenderbros partner @PonteRyuurui could really use meta-balls in hard-surface modeling. Especially give some hard-surface models a more organic look and feel to them. Like one spaceship he made, smooth, modern, and organic looking. Just a thought from a student of learning all things 3D right now.