BlockBlender, how to use it
🧊 How to use BlockBlender 1.41: • BlockBlender 1.41 - Ho...
Convert any image or 3d model to Minecraft blocks!
BlockBlender is a tool made specifically for Blender that turns anything into Minecraft blocks in real time using geometry nodes.
It is great for Minecraft building inspiration, and generating
It's easy enough for beginners, as long as you know the basics of how to navigate Blender.
It CANNOT import directly into Minecraft yet, you need the .schem exporter in the link below.
The full version includes 360 blocks from Minecraft version 1.19.
The free version includes 32 blocks which is enough accurately match most model colors.
Get BlockBlender on Gumroad: joeycarlino.gumroad.com/l/blo...
Get it on Blendermarket: blendermarket.com/products/bl...
Schematic exporter by Bryan Valdez: bryanvalc.gumroad.com/l/Block...
All BlockBlender Videos: • BlockBlender videos
BlockBlender FAQ and common problems: joeycarlino.notion.site/Block...
Blender Beginner Playlist: • Blender Fundamentals 2.8
Baking Multiple Textures: • Bake Multiple Material...
Patreon, Gumroad Shop, Discord, and other stuff:
linktr.ee/Joeycarlino
Models used:
sketchfab.com/3d-models/saili...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/japan...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/vasta...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/day-1...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/retro...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/beach...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/will-...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/face-...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/roast...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/kokur...
sketchfab.com/3d-models/helix...
00:00 - BlockBlender
00:27 - Asset library
01:34 - Appending
02:00 - Converting a model
04:30 - Walk mode
05:14 - Block selection
06:53 - Block material
07:49 - Images
08:57 - Exterior Thickness
09:33 - Subdivide
10:24 - Delete Alpha
12:02 - Show layers
12:28 - Convert to mesh
12:57 - Exporting
16:31 - Text
18:40 - Color palette
20:07 - Noise
22:44 - Model while coloring
25:12 - Proportional editing
26:14 - Paint with color attributes
28:23 - Boolean
29:33 - Block count
🔗Links
2nd KZhead Channel: / @joeyc-quel
Patreon: / joeycarlino
Discord Server: / discord
Gumroad Shop: gumroad.com/joeycarlino?a=844...
Blender Market Shop: blendermarket.com/creators/jo...
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Busniness Email: JoeyCarlino@makrwatch.com
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🧠Things I Recommend (not affiliated)
Blender Launcher: github.com/Victor-IX/Blender-...
Blender Beginner Playlist: • Blender Fundamentals 2.8
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wck.org/
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The Schematic exporter is here!!! bryanvalc.gumroad.com/l/BlockBlenderToSchem Bryan Valdez made a .schem exporter that works for BlockBlender, so now you can bring your creations right into Minecraft. It is a third-party addon made by Bryan Valdez. I do not control the price. I have tested it with Litematica and it worked great for me, but I know it is a work in progress, so please be patient and kind.
Amazing thanks mate.
having issues getting a model i have to work with this, spent hours on it and cant make it more than a single color no matter what i try
Is it possible to get this to work with Structura for bedrock?
where do u even find "Mix Vertex Colour" as base colour in 3:32 ? I can't find it
can you make one for the free version too?
Once you have the feature to import directly into minecraft, this will be an instant buy for me.
Same
Same
If it is under 25$ then I will buy it for sure once it has that feature!
Same
Same, especially if it was integrated with mc of sorts, like with blueprint mod or something
My mind can't comprehend how incredible this is.
Wow that looks cool and it's like pixel 3D art themes! You are very talented!
This is awesome!! Easily one of the best blender addons of all time. good job.
man, thats mindblowing, great work
pretty cool, hope to see it with a more user friendly style in the future so I could use it!
Just brilliant! A great tutorial and technique. Thank you. Dg
pulled the trigger on buying this way to quick never used blender before this is going to take hours lmao. Hopefully it'll be worth
I mentioned this on twitter as well, but I'd love if you could include some functionality for non-minecraft use. The ability to voxellize a model and have the color inherit the colors of the underlying texture is a gamechanger - and with the functions like noise etc it'll be perfect for 3D pixel art. If you could include the ability to mess around with material properties like emission or metallicity would be incredible. Not sure what use case the minecraft version has for me atm, but if it would work for normal blender workflows I'd instant buy.
I show how to do that in my Lego video
@@JoeyCarlino Oh cool, I'll give it a look
Yay thank you
Impressive.
I dont know if its relevant but theres this mod called litematica that can be used to store minecraft structures, depending on the way it stores them it might be easier to link that to blockblender than a straight export into minecraft
This is so cool....
I don't get why it's not working for me. I managed to map the model I'm using to a single texture, but when I use the Blockblender modifier, it all comes out as one color/block.
Getting the same issue
I tried using Blender 3.0 and wasn't getting any results. Followed step by step with the text so I decided I probably needed to update it, and sure enough it worked.
this tool is looking sick ! i do build for servers and if we can have the possibility of exporting ours creations in MC, we can win a LOT of times and reviewing more easier where to look imperfections !
i have great news for you! there’s now a way to import them directly into minecraft :] look thru his channel for more info i think!
@@restlessparadox1953 YES Finally !!!
Hi, love this, but having some issues with larger models, the program crashes when i apply it, does the amount of blocks depend on the polycount or the scale of the model?
Scale
Hi there, im relatively new to blender and am currently using the free version to get used to it before committing to purchase the full version, can i ask how i could match colour of objects when they are not based off an image but rather colours made in blender itself, i can't figure out making the colours match the model i import as they have several colours and when i group the model it makes it use just one of the colour layers. Love the concept of this hope to get a grip on it to have a bit of fun with the editor :)
For that you can look into baking images. I put a link to a video about it in the description. I would like to make it work with easier methods, but there are a lot of limitations that prevent that right now.
This is absolutely sick! Do you think there will be a way to detect and get rid of all the extra geometry in between blocks? I'm a novice with geonodes and I don't know if it has the ability to detect overlapping faces or anything that would work like that in an efficient manner
It's set up to only be 1 block thick by default, idk if that's what you meant
@@JoeyCarlino what I mean is, when any block is adjacent to another block, both will have one face each which is not visible to the camera, because that's where the blocks meet. On two blocks this isn't too bad, but lets say you have an image plane 1 block thick. Take a block surrounded on all sides by 4 other blocks for example (this will be the case for the majority of the blocks in the model), 66% of the geometry of that block is unnecessary. Minecraft itself does this, culling faces on voxels which are touching another voxel, which saves massively on computing power. If you were able to detect these overlapping faces and get rid of them with geometry nodes, it might massively improve viewport performance.
It's possible but all the instances would have to be realized. I don't know that there is a dynamic way to do it at the moment without converting to a mesh.
@@JoeyCarlino hmm, I’m curious since this setup has a realize instances option, is there a difference between the realize instances geo node and converting to mesh? Sorry for all the questions haha I’d just like to understand geonodes better and they’re evolving so rapidly most tutorials don’t even apply anymore
@@SweeperCreations converting to a mesh lets you change it in edit mode. I think you could get rid of all the inside faces by realizing instances and using a boolean mesh node set to union AFTER the realize instance node
Olá, estou tendo dificuldade de importar o block blender, comprei q versão completa, porém só consigo acessar a gratuita, ele bem em formato zip, eu deixei um em zip e o outro extraido para teste, porem nenhim dos dois apareceram. O que faço?
I would love an addon that can convert the model to a "blueprint" for the schematic cannon in the create mod. The cannons job is literally to take saved creation files and create it.
I'm trying to figure how to do something like this now
@@JoeyCarlino The reason why I picked the schematic cannon specifically is because you can use this in survival and not just in creative. Lately I been using a method of getting 3D models from google earth and import them into blender, from there, I take the bad geometry and use that as a kinda of "base map" or "shell" to reproduce a custom model of similar shape but of better quality/topology/geometry. I am combining this process with block blender to figure out how to make my IRL house inside minecraft and make it of similar scale. I plan on eventually doing a tutorial on this and call it something like "the overcomplicated way of importing your house from google earth to minecraft". I came back to this video only now cause I am about to use block bench to convert it and was reviewing how to do this. . . but as stated in my other comment, it uses multiple repeating images, not just a singular image. I worry this might make it impossible to get the correct color data. It's a singular model, but different faces of the model uses different materials.
@@JoeyCarlino Btw, say you accomplish this, will it be part of the free version, or will that be locked behind the paywall as well? :(
There is someone else working on it, so it will be a 3rd party solution and they will control the pricing and all that
@@JoeyCarlino Does that imply there "will" be a price tag?
After adding the geometry nodes modifier, the entire model disappears. I used the same exact model you did and followed the same steps for the free version, but I can't get it to work. I'm using Blender 3.4.1
same shit bro, I dont know how to do that
@mother-genius We figured this out on Discord. It was a corrupted file from being opened in an old blender version. Downloading the file again fixed it
Can you use this for pixel art?
Cannot get textures to work any help would be appreciated
Is there a way to import polygons into Minecraft block?? because polygons don't have image as I see it. I'm begenier with blender so idk how to use it.
what do i do if i have multiple materials in the model pls help
Amazing work~!! I want to import my skp. obj. files then convert to Minecraft and see how it looks. does free block blender do the job? I tried and I did not know how to transfer. can you answer to converting either skp. or obj. files?
If it does, I might buy the full version.
Yeah, the free version should work. You can import obj by going to file > import > obj Idk about the other file type
@@JoeyCarlino yes I solved it out. Thank you for your hard work. I will master it and soon appreciate your full version.
@@JoeyCarlino I really want to purchase the full version, but my computer cannot handle the workloads. I will eventually. Thank you,
Is it possible to have the blocks take on the average color of the textured model at that voxel location? So they're not minecraft blocks, but plain color blocks from the original models material base color channel? Thanks
Yeah, I did that in my Lego video
whats the problem about model dissappears when activating the nodes like in 3:20
It's probably too small. Scale it up and apply the scale with Ctrl A. It needs to be bigger than 1 meter
I do not have the mesh_Model_v1 option to select, what am I doing wrong?
Does this not work on objects without an image texture? So anything that uses a Material won't work?
Yeah, you either have to bake it or make your own colors with the palette or vertex colors
Great！I have buy this tool.Will you update it in blendermarket？
Yes, updates will be free
is it only me that cant find the file when i try to ad it as a file path
will BlockBlender be updated to 1.20.1 or newer version when they will come out?
Yeah, I'm working on it now
Is there a way to buy full version from Russia? I dont have Paypal account, and my card is not accepted on gumroad. (I dont want to use Blendermarket, because there isnt purchasing power parity discount)
Send me an email and we'll work something out
Figured it out forget to take my instance off
Blender closes when i pick blockblender at geometry nodes modifier. :(
This makes no sense to me. I'm just tryna import an obj file and confused why it isnt colored or posed or anything from the other editor im using
You can come to discord and show a screenshot if you want some help
Tried this on a game map, doesn't get everything, lots of missing areas and becomes incredibly laggy, more than 4.15 like 1 frame every few minutes lol, but I understand that this likely wont work with huge game maps at the moment :D I have been using drububu voxelizer, which does work but the schematics are bugged :( Hopefully some performance improvements come for this! Also doesn't seem to read my image, just uses the same block for everything :(
Hello, I'm getting exactly the same issue
How would you preprocess a 3D model scan on PolyCam? I tried making a model and the blocks only render if I make super fine blocks and there's spaces between like a connect the dots model... Anyhow, is it because the number of vertices in the model are too many?
You either need to close the holes so it's a solid mesh, or add exterior thickness
@@JoeyCarlino Ok. I will try that. Like extrude? Does the file type of the model from PolyCam make a difference? I used .glb.
Exterior thickness is one of the BlockBlender options in the panel. I show it in this video
wgat version of blender do you use in the video??
3.4
I can’t get it to work
The uv editing part got me lost. There isnt anything for me to move to change the blocks. I did the mesh part so i dunno what u r doing different
You have to be in edit mode and with the mesh selected
@@JoeyCarlino I also have this same issue. I'm unable to apply textures to the blocks in blender, even when it's a mesh.
I followed the instructions, but it didn't work. what can I do?
Could you please give/make a tutorial beginning from the download to setting the BlockBlender up? I downloaded your file, its a .blend file, and I put it in my asset folder.... but I can't see any "BlockBlender Importer" asset in my asset browser.... like the beginning of the whole process is very unclear! thanks
I showed more than one way to get started, and if you're determined to use the asset browser, there are other great videos on KZhead you can search for
@@JoeyCarlino Sorry my mistake, I just retried everything you told and it worked. i am using a .rdc file as a model though (its a 3d google maps capture)(made with renderdoc 1.13 maybe you should look into it). Made everything a single mesh. But when I enter the right image as source, i get this very weird grey/glass blockblend. When looking for the right image source in the modifier section I did see my file had A LOT of different pngs holding it together (but how does that work, I combined the file into a single mesh?) so I had a feeling it was missing information. anyways what do you suggest trying?
@@JoeyCarlino BlockBender + RenderDoc (and mapsonmodelsimporter) could make any Google Maps 3D capture into minecraft! While scaling it in blender! Could be great
my layers are showing from left to right instead of top to bottom how to fix?
Ctrl A, apply rotation
If I have some other block models how do I add them?
That's kind of hard to do right now. I don't have a good way of doing it yet.
Whenever I open blockblender nothing pops up its empty Is it because of my version???
You need to use blender 3.4
I'm trying the free version out before I purchase the full version but for both models I have tried nothing shows up after following your steps.
Never mind. I figured it out! I was using an older Blender version. I updated to 3.4 and it works great! I will be purchasing the full version soon. Do you also plan on releasing the LEGO version?
Glad you figured it out. I don't have plans for a Lego version right now, mostly because making it more than single blocks is pretty hard. I show how to make something like that in my recent Lego video though.
What was the intro song?
Burnt toaster by streambeats
I would love to use this tool but i have run into some problems. I am using the free version btw. My blender doesnt seem to have the asset library tab. I then tried to use appending but whenever i open the importer my blender just closes. Can anyone help
Are you using blender 3.4?
My layers are starting from the top down, anyone know how to change it to start from the bottom up?
Ctl A, apply rotation
it doesn't work for me, after I add the modifier and choose the image, my model disappears completely, and there aren't any blocks
Make sure you're using 3.4 If you need more help, send screenshots to my discord channel
@@JoeyCarlino thanks, after updating the blocks are appearing, but they're extremely thin on one axis. Any idea what causes this?
I only saw this issue once and it was solved by going to edit > preferences And in the bottom left, loading factory settings
@@JoeyCarlino i found what was causing it, it was not factory settings, i had to apply transforms
the pictures im doing arent showing up on viewport, is it because i got the free version?
No, it should work in the free version too.
@@JoeyCarlino dw i fixed it, i was on 3.3.0 so i updated it to 3.4.1
How do I install it once its downloaded?
There is nothing to install, you open it or append it
@@JoeyCarlino cheers! Just figured it out, going to use it to make a huge colossus. Nice work
What happens when you have a custom model that uses multiple materials???
You would have to bake it to a single texture. I know there are a few KZhead videos about it
@@JoeyCarlino Yeah, i just got done finishing that bake. All good there, didn't test it with block bench yet, gonna be doing that tomorrow. The bake uses a different UV map and a different uv map layout than the one the shaders use. Will that matter?
If you name it UVMap it should work fine
@@JoeyCarlino It's not working, base model is totally invisible. No blocks spawn. I am using the append method in cycles for the free version. You have 3 options for modifiers there, but for me, only 1 shows up: _FREE BlockBlender
It might be easier if you send screenshots on discord
i've been using it for days and it's not working for me. I've followed everything step by step and every time I add the blockblender the 3d model just disappears. I'm actually kinda sad it's not working
Are you using blender 3.4
@@JoeyCarlino all this time I thought I was, thank you. I was so sure but I finally got it working!
I'm using the free version it only uses the stone for the models instead of other blocks
There are 32 blocks in the free one
@@JoeyCarlino yeah but only the stone is the one it uses
It's not supposed to, and this isn't happening to anyone else. If you want more help, email me or come to discord with screenshots
mine only uses wool and i'm also using the free version
Again, if you need help, this is not the best place to get it
Hey, when I use the correct image in geometry nodes to get the texture and colours, nothing happens and my model is all made of wood. Other than that, I'm glad everything else worked well on my end and I'm going to buy the full version once I know how to solve this issue
I'll check the free version to see if there are any issues. I just updated it and might have missed something
how to find the models
Description
@@JoeyCarlino i mean in the download when im lookin around i dont see in blockbuilder where was selecting t hem
I said in the video that I was using the sketchfab addon
when i try to append the importer it closes my blender with no crash report
Did you try opening it directly or using the asset browser?
@@JoeyCarlino if i open the file directly it crashes too, havent tried asset browser yet
@@JoeyCarlino my file paths tab only has data render and applications
Are you using blender 3.4?
@@JoeyCarlino i expect that is my issue; i will update it and try again
My models crashes maybe my laptop is a junky can xd
i’ve actually got a model i made with your character tutorial and for some reason when i set the geometry node, the whole model disappears. i’ve got the modifiers from the skin modifier tutorial all applied so it’s a normal model and i’m using 3.4 but it still just vanishes
same here:(( did u find a solution?
@@pierpaoloovarini2413 not yet but i think it may have something to do with texture baking
You probably need to make the blocks smaller by turning the resolution down
@@JoeyCarlino i’ve turned the resolution down as far as it goes and there was no change
@@olantrin same 😓
WONT WORK FOR ME....?
Email me or come to discord, I need more info than that to solve it
Coolbeans
I wanna build something Me: puts smt cool and use BlockBlender BlockBlender: imma do a little trolling *500 netherite blocks*
Beware that the $20 payment is recurring even though its not mentioned anywhere.
No it's not. You buy it once and then get all the updates for free
@@JoeyCarlino My bank statement says its recurring
You must have done something wrong. Email me if you need a refund
@@JoeyCarlino I will look into it, thanks for getting back
I went back to point of sale and there are no options to do a single payment or a subscription
yeah well only gives you 32blocks for the free version . 20$ purchase and you can use 360blocks 32 blocks yeah okay. prolly not alot yo ucan do
You can do quite a bit with it still. I also showed how I made all the blocks.
Step 1: Spend $20 LMAOO
worth i t