Thank you so much both for the helpful tips and hints! I'm not a blender expert, in fact I'm a novice. I'm just trying to ramp up to see if blender is a good fit for my visualization toolchain, and if it is reliably scriptable then I believe it will become a powerful tool indeed. Thanks -- Rich
From: Bassam Kurdali <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: November 7, 2013 10:46:09 AM PST To: Blender Foundation Python list <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Blender Foundation Python list <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Some helpful hints that I found useful when learning the api, first few are from context menu on buttons: 1- right click on a button -> copy data path; gives you the path of the property based from the datablock it is on, in the copy/paste buffer. 2- right click on a button -> edit source! crib code from blender's UI itself. (opens in a text editor, you have to browse it to find the file) 3- autocompletion in the py console in blender FTW; lets you explore almost anything. 4- help - > py api reference; while everything is not perfectly documented, it is mostly the case, and searchable. 5- outliner-> Datablocks: allows you to brows the data structure in blender almost exactly as it is in the api. 6- knowing blender helps as you are already familiar with the concepts, the py api mostly exposes the same stuff you are used to dealing with. Finally context is a bit of a tricky thing, it passes the same types of data you get from bpy.data, but this is telling you 'what is my current state' rather than everything in the file; it is used by operators, panels, and maybe your own functions. Most easily understood in terms of tools i.e. : User makes a selection in a viewport(changes context), Operator runs(for instance, deletes the selection) using that context,User gets desired result(those vertices are deleted) From Python they are cumbersome, I tend to avoid them if I can, or use them sparingly. Hope that helped! On Thu, 2013-11-07 at 19:31 +0100, Brecht Van Lommel wrote: For the specific question you are asking, this is probably the page to read: http://www.blender.org/documentation/blender_python_api_2_69_1/info_quickstart.html bpy.context.scene is the active scene, while bpy.data.scenes['Scene'] is the scene named 'Scene'. They can be the same, it depends which scene the user has selected. On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 6:53 PM, Cook, Rich <[email protected]> wrote: Thanks, that's helpful. I have been having an issue with the documentation. It's very hard to explore. There doesn't appear to be an API reference that actually enumerates and describes all the various functions. -- ✐Richard Cook ✇ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Bldg-453 Rm-4024, Mail Stop L-557 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, CA, 94550, USA ☎ (office) (925) 423-9605 ☎ (fax) (925) 423-6961 --- Information Management & Graphics Grp., Services & Development Div., Integrated Computing & Communications Dept. (opinions expressed herein are mine and not those of LLNL)
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