The other day I tried to create a simple necklace in Blender 2.8, only to find out that the way I’ve once learnt from Blender 2.79 and below using DupliFaces no longer works. This feature has been removed from Blender 2.8. Thankfully there’s an easier way to do this, using the Array and Curve Modifiers.

For this example I’ll create a circle for our path, and an object I want to duplicate on it. Perhaps a UV Sphere. Make sure to apply all transformations after any scaling operations with CTRL + A.

I’m so used to pressing A to select or de-select everything in Blender. It’s been so ingrained in my brain that I cannot easily get used to the new default behaviour in Blender 2.8. Thankfully there’s a simple tick box in the Preferences that will bring this option back, so there’s no need for my brain to get confused any more.

Here’s how to do it:

Head over to Edit – Preferences and choose Keymap. Towards the top you’ll find a tick box called Select All Toggles. It’s slightly misleading to read out loud, as it doesn’t mean “select all toggles”; it rather means that the “Select All” function will now “toggle”, as it did in Blender 2.79 and below.

Now the A key will behave in Blender 2.8 as it always has.

I through I could some of my computers to good use by helping them render animations. Everyone is stronger together as a team, no matter if we’re built on carbon or silicone. Sadly though, Blender doesn’t start its GUI via RDP, which means it’s not so easy to speak to the application – unless you employ clunky workarounds.

That’s where the command line interface comes in handy. We can issue a text command to Blender, telling it which file we’d like to render, where to render to, and which frames of an animation to render.

Before I forget how it works, I thought I’d best write it down somewhere.