Have you ever selected a group of vertices, edges, or faces in Blender, only to lose that selection with a single misclick? It might seem like a small issue, but it can be frustrating and even slow down your workflow.
Today we introduce you to Zen Sets, one of the many Zen add-ons created by Sergey Tyapkin. Zen Sets allows users to save, manage, and display selections in a more organized way, similar to ZBrush's PolyGroups.
Today we introduce you to Zen Sets, one of the many Zen add-ons created by Sergey Tyapkin. Zen Sets allows users to save, manage, and display selections in a more organized way, similar to ZBrush's PolyGroups.
Zen Sets first came out in 2021, and has received several updates since then. Nowadays, it supports the Blender versions from 2.92 to 4.5.
Main Features
Let’s take a look at some of the features this add-on has to offer:
- Create and manage native Vertex Groups, Face Maps and custom Zen Sets Groups based on Objects, Collections and Mesh Elements selection.
- A Display System that helps display each Group and Collection by color in Viewport and UV Editor.
- Import and Export between Vertex Groups, Face Maps and Vertex and Color Zen Sets Groups.
- Multi Object support for all the Groups.
- Sets and Parts Modes for Mesh Elements (Verts / Edges / Faces). Sets Mode (each Element can belong to different Groups) and Parts Mode (each Element belongs to only one Group).
- Auto Groups operator to create Groups automatically from Type, Object Data, Library, linked Faces, Materials, Seams, Sharps, UVs and Custom conditions.
These are just some of the features, if you want to see all of them, documentation, and past updates, you can do it here.
Other Alternatives
If you are looking for alternatives to Zen Sets, there are a few add-ons that may cover part of its functionality.
Vertex Group Plus is a complete rewrite of the old Vertex Group Utils. You can tag and filter groups, hide or isolate them in the viewport, assign materials with one click, and even merge objects into groups and separate them later. It makes managing vertex groups much faster and more flexible.
Select Vertex Group Islands is a lightweight, free tool focused on a single task: selecting connected vertices within a group. Perfect for finding and cleaning stray islands left behind during by example, weight painting.
And finally, if you are looking for something more sculpting or modeling oriented, Face Set Operators can be a great fit. It’s a free extension for Blender that expands the use of Blender’s sculpt face sets, allowing you to turn them into vertex groups, UV maps, or material slots.
✨ You can get the Zen Sets add-on on the SuperHive website.
📘 Want to build your own Blender tools? Check out Blender Tool Development Fundamentals, a complete guide to creating custom operators, UI extensions, gizmos, and Qt widgets for advanced add-on development.
Check out our book!
We invite you to explore "Blender Tool Development Fundamentals", a comphensive book on the concepts and fundamentals seen in this post.
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