Quick Start Guide
Welcome to the quick guide for Beantextures! Here, we'll guide you to make a simple Beantextures setup.
Tip: the table of content is at the wiki sidebar.
Refer to the installation guide.
Delete the default cube. Add an object (preferably a plane) by hitting shift+a, then click on it to make it the active object.
Navigate to the Shading tab and open the side menu of the node editor by hitting n on your keyboard.
Scroll down the menu items and you should find the Beantextures tab. Click on it. You should now see something like this:
Hit the plus button besides the configuration list to add a new configuration.
You should now see a new configuration on the list. You can double-click the item to rename it:
There are a few fields that you need to fill in which we will discuss in more depth below.
You need a way to index images in order to access them, or simply put, some property to drive which image will be outputted. The different linking types are just ways to index those images. For now, keep it on Int (Simple) as it is what we will use.
Explanation of all the linking types:
- Int (Simple): bind one integer number per image.
- Int (Ranged): bind an integer range per image.
- Float: bind a float range per image.
- Enum: use a drop-down menu to choose the image.
You will only commonly use the simple integer linking and the enum linking; the rest are usually only for advanced setups.
The target node group is an existing node group which Beantextures will generate the node tree to.
Warning
Beantextures will erase all nodes from the node group specified and replace them with the new tree. Make sure to ONLY use empty node groups.
Right now, we don't have any usable node group, so we'd have to make one.
Go to the Node Group panel and hit Add. You can optionally set a custom name for the new node group.
After adding the node group, you can then select the proper node group on the Target Node Group property.
Image to be shown when your set index is out of the range (between the Min and Max property below) or does not correspond to any image. It is not required, but you can add one if you want. By default, the node group will have black as the fallback image.
Also output the alpha channel, for images with alpha channel. If your images have transparency (like PNGs with cutout faces), tick this on.
The index soft limit for the generated node group. For now, keep it as-is.
We're done with the main configuration for now. Let's add some links, i.e how your images will be linked to some indices (or dropdown items for the enum linking type).
First off, prepare the images you'd like to use. If you don't have them, you can get the example images.
Navigate to the Links panel located under the Configurations panel. You will see an empty list. You can add the links manually, but you can also hit the folder icon to automatically import all the images.
If you use the automatic importing feature, continue by selecting all the images needed on the file picker. In the sidebar, you can also tweak the image settings (interpolation, projection, extension) and add a prefix/suffix to the link names.
After you're done, you should have many new link items. The automatic importer will sort the links by the name of the images and name the links with your image names (without the trailing extension) by default. You can rename the links to whatever you want.
Bind to is the option used by our current linking type, the simple integer linking. It tells the node group which index corresponds to which image. The importer would have automatically assigned indices to each of your images so you often don't have to fiddle with them manually.
Interpolation, projection, and extension are options you can also find in your usual image texture node. Refer to Blender's official documentation for what they do.
If you use the example images provided above, set the Min and Max properties to 1 and 6, respectively.
If you don't use the example images, modify those settings as your need.
The Generate Node Tree operator can be found under the Configurations panel. Click on it to generate the node group tree.
Before generating the node tree, Beantextures will check your configuration for errors and warn you. If there are no errors found, you can safely continue and hit "OK". Otherwise, please address the issues mentioned.
After that, you should see an box on the info saying that the node tree has been generated successfully.
The generate node group can be added like any other Blender node groups. Hit shift+a inside the shader editor, then click on Group → (your generated node group name).
The instanced node group can then be used like a normal image, for example:
Try to change the Value input from the node and you should see the image changing.
Rename the node (using the Inspector panel from Beantextures or the Node panel) so we could reference it later on when we attach the controls to a bone.
This step lets you control which image shows up—using bones. It’s basically adding sliders with menus to switch the textures right inside pose mode.
Add a single bone and enter pose mode. Select that bone and go to the Bone properties at the properties panel. Scroll down and find the Beantextures Connector panel.
Add a connector item by hitting the + button. You can then rename the connector item and change the display icon if you'd like to.
Click on the gear icon. You should see a material selection pop-up. Select the material where the Beantextures node resides:
And lastly, select the correct node that you want to use:
Now, you should be able to see all your defined node controls under the view3D sidebar (hit n to display).
For quicker access, you can press ctrl+g (in pose mode) while selecting the bone to open up the node controls:
simplescreenrecorder-2024-08-03_11.59.59.mp4
You can also switch the Display Mode to pie which does exactly what it says:
Note
Properties listed under the pop-ups may have limited manipulation abilities, therefore you can't do things like adding/deleting/editing its driver, clearing its keyframes, etc. You can use the sidebar for that.