The MOST MODELING TOOLS in a Blender Add-On? RanTools for Blender!

[@AmandeepBlender]

Thank you so much for sharing ❤. Really great overview. For anyone interested V3.1 with ability to create PBR materials automatically when using bake tools and insane optimization for baking in complex scenes is coming out very soon.

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

Awesome! I can't wait to try it!

[@Olomf]

Got the addon during the spring sale. Only experimented with the material and bake tools. The ambient cg bridge has been spotty, often giving no results. The addon did however do an amazing job automating setting up materials from the freepbr library. The bake to pbr sounds very interesting!

[@AmandeepBlender]

@@Olomf Hi Olomf, Apologies for the issue you are facing with the AmbientCG library. Kindly reach out to me via email or discord and I will help you solve it.

[@AmandeepBlender]

@@Olomf did you solve the issue? If not please feel free to reach out to me and i will help you with it.

[@Olomf]

@@AmandeepBlender It’s been working as expected for the last week. If it’s because of an update, incorrectly set paths in settings or because of unusual traffic, I couldn’t tell (the json requests were always working, but the material window wasn’t populated). I’ve joined the discord in case the issue reappears :)

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

It is nice to see you giving recognition to a tool that does so much and for a while seemed to not garner the attention it deserved! Great job!

[@TheCGEssentials]

Lol - I really had no idea how much was in there

[@Frooqi786]

That looks like a cool bit of kit

[@andyklyen6885]

Just exploring this addon - looks pretty amazing - one really useful thing would be to be able to keep the materials on screen until finished. Right now they disappear if you accidentally click away from the object and you have to do the whole Shift Q / library thing again

[@AmandeepBlender]

Hi Andy, Thank you so much for the feedback. But unfortunately blender does not have sticky panels. The closest we have is the confirmation panel like I use for HDRI library (where moving the mouse away from it does not close it) . If you want I can make the material panel also be like the HDRI one. Or the other option is to have the material library inside the N-Panel that way it will stay there no matter where you click. Do share your thoughts on which one you think will be better. Thanks again for the suggestion. Looking forward to hearing from you.

[@andyklyen6885]

@@AmandeepBlender Thanks for replying! I think possibly having the app in the side panel would be best. I am also getting an error with the Alt N function after having loaded one Background and trying to load a different one. File "C:\Users\taupo\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.1\scripts\addons\RanTools\PolyHeaven.py", line 248, in draw row.prop(group.inputs[0], 'default_value', text="Strength") IndexError: bpy_prop_collection[index]: index 0 out of range, size 0

[@AmandeepBlender]

@@andyklyen6885 I think my last comment did not get approved because it had my email mentioned. Sorry for the issue you are facing. Kindly reach out to me via email or discord(given on the product page) with some screenshots and screen recordings. That way I will be able to assist you better.

[@andyklyen6885]

@@AmandeepBlender Thanks Aman(?) I'll be in touch - I think my message didn't reach you because I pasted a console crash line of code - I've had a few crashes with Rantools so I thought you might like to see the console info

[@AmandeepBlender]

@@andyklyen6885 extremely sorry for trouble. I will fix them as soon as you share more information with me.

[@imeshh]

Keep up the good work! :))) I can guarantee i'll learn something everytime I see one of your videos

[@TheKevphil]

Thanks, Justin! Another great explore!

[@TheCGEssentials]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@NN-wc7dl]

Great addon! I got it and I love it.

[@TheCGEssentials]

Awesome!

[@cgcores525]

Hey keep up the great content! I love these videos they give me a great insight on the addons!

[@richardconway6425]

That's interesting. A very comprehensive add on, as you say. I really like the integration with online asset libraries such as Ambient and Polyhaven. I have used both of those sites for textures and HDRIs, and they've got some really nice stuff, good quality. And, it's all free too. I also like the UI, it looks very clean and clear. I appreciate the amount of work that has been, and is going in to this. And the price is very reasonable too. Would you say that it resembles Fluent in terms of its feature set? The only 'small' thing is a little unfortunate, particularly for the developer, and that's that it covers a very competitive space in terms of functionality. Most hard surface modellers will already have invested in the well known set of tools that are by now very familiar to almost every one: HardOps/Boxcutter, Machine Tools, Mesh Machine, Cablerator. If one already has these add ons, and invested significant time and effort to learn them, then it's hard to see why anyone would look elsewhere, especially since these add ons are considered to be the best of their type. However good RanTools is, and I'm sure it is good, it's a hard sell in the current ultra competitive blender market for add ons. Choice is always good though. We are lucky to have so much choice. Thanks for your video, a good overview.

[@Milan23_]

Your tutorial are best! Thanks for this so much

[@horrorview]

I grabbed it because I'm a sucker for value!!! Only thing I hate is the use of Shift-Q as..well..that's already taken by Hard Ops! LOL. I'm new to Blender so I'm afraid of remapping and discovering I disabled something else (with, say, Shift-R for Ran Tools...). Any suggestions?

[@AmandeepBlender]

Hi James, Thank you so much for purchasing the addon. You can change the keymap from the addon preferences and it will most probably work without any issues. If you do face any issues you can always reach out to me and I will help you solve it.

[@horrorview]

@@AmandeepBlender Thanks so much Amandeep! I changed it to Shift R (for RanTool) and it works a treat!

[@jamalalwlaqie8940]

The biggest love for you..I understood from you

[@innocentboy6963]

How to make alpha texture in photo shop for displacement modifier

[@sebastienmorere6925]

@Amandeep , he's a cool guy, we talked before version 3.0 I've had his addon for 2 months and since 3.0, it's great, efficient and intuitive for me, I use it every day, it's part of my workflow

[@TheCGEssentials]

He's got a LOT of super cool stuff in this one - I had no idea until I looked at it this week :)

[@TheCGEssentials]

Hi everyone! Let me know what you think about RanTools and P-Cutter in the comments below! :)

[@afrosymphony8207]

what the actual fuck, this tool is insane! i thought it was just another hardsurface tool so i didnt really give it a look cause i have hardops nd boxcutter but wow i didnt know it had all this cool extra stuff. i'm def considering getting it just cause of that hdri nd light setup easy click, its soooo good

[@TheCGEssentials]

Lol - there's SO much stuff in it - it's crazy

[@REDLINEROADS]

I just noticed the other add-ons in the description, some great stuff, maybe link some cool free ones as well for people like me who don't have PayPal and such? I'd definitely pay if I could

[@collectiveunconscious3d]

Great tutorial, but please someone explain me how the heck you can just dock a plugin tool panel in blender. Like whyyyy, who the heck gonna remember all these shortcuts and also whenever I install a plugin, many times they got the same shortcut which is real confusing. But I also just really dislike blender cause I come from c4d lol

[@Coccoluto]

Uao