Module Bpy_data :: Class libBlockSeq

Class libBlockSeq

Generic Data Access

This provides a unified way to access and manipulate data types in Blender (scene, object, mesh, curve, metaball, material, texture, image, lattice, lamp, camera, ipo, world, font, text, sound, groups, armatures, actions).

Get Item

To get a datablock by name you can use dictionary-like syntax.

>>> ob = bpy.data.objects['myobject']

Note that this can only be used for getting.

>>> bpy.data.objects['myobject'] = data # will raise an error

Library distinctions

Blender doesn't allow naming collisions within its own data, but it's possible to run into naming collisions when you have data linked from an external blend file.

You can specify where the data is from by using a (name, library) pair as the key.

>>> group = bpy.data.groups['mygroup', '//mylib.blend'] # only return data linked from mylib

If you want to get a group from the local data only you can use None

>>> group = bpy.data.groups['mygroup', None] # always returns local data

Sequence

These generic datablocks are sequence datatypes. They are not lists. They support the dictionary and iterator protocols. This implies the following

A for statement allows you to loop through data using the iterator protocol without wasting resources on creating a large list.

>>> for me in bpy.data.meshes:
...     print me.name

You can also use len() to see how many datablocks exist.

>>> print len(bpy.data.scenes)

Because the sequences are not lists and the [] operator is used to get items by name, you cannot use indexing to retrieve an item.

>>> ob = bpy.data.objects[-1] # will raise an error

If you want to access the entire sequence as a list simply use the list() constructor.

>>> ipo_list = list(bpy.data.ipos)

Method Summary
datablock	`new(name)` fixme: need description for parameters.
None	`unlink(datablock)` This function removes a datablock.

Instance Variable Summary
Datablock or None	`active`: The active member of the datatype
Bool	`tag`: A fast way to set the tag value of every member of the sequence to True or False

Method Details

new(name)

fixme: need description for parameters. This function returns a new datablock containing no data or loaded from a file.

Most datatypes accept a name for their argument except for sounds, fonts, ipos and curves that need an additional argument.

The name argument is optional if not given a default name will be assigned.

The name given may be modified by blender to make it unique.

Loading From File

For images, texts, sounds, fonts types you can use the filename keyword to make a new datablock from a file.

New sounds, fonts can only be made with the a filename given.

The filename can a keyword or the second argument, use the keyword only for the datablocks new name to be set by the filename.

>>> sound = bpy.data.sounds.new('newsound', '~/mysound.wav') # uses the first string given for the name.

>>> sound = bpy.data.sounds.new(filename = '~/mysound.wav') # will use the filename to make the name.

Images

Images optionally accept extra 2 arguments for width and height, values between 4 and 5000 if no args are given they will be 256.

>>> img = bpy.data.images.new(name, 512, 512)

Curves

Curves need 2 arguments: bpy.data.curves.new(name, type) type must be one of the following...

'Curve'
'Text3d'

>>> text3d = bpy.data.curves.new('MyCurve', 'Text3d')

Ipos

Ipos need 2 arguments: bpy.data.ipos.new(name, type) type must be one of the following...

'Camera'
'World'
'Material'
'Texture'
'Lamp'
'Action'
'Constraint'
'Sequence'
'Curve'
'Key'

Objects cannot be created from bpy.data.objects; objects must be created from the scene. Here are some examples.

>>> ob = bpy.data.scenes.active.objects.new('Empty')

>>> scn = bpy.data.scenes.active
... ob = sce.objects.new(bpy.data.meshes.new('mymesh'))

Returns:: datablock

unlink(datablock)

This function removes a datablock. applies to:

Other types will raise an error.

Returns:: None

Instance Variable Details

active

The active member of the datatype

Applies to:

This can also be used to set the active data.

>>> bpy.data.images.active = bpy.data.images.new(filename = '/home/me/someimage.jpg')

Type:: Datablock or None

tag

A fast way to set the tag value of every member of the sequence to True or False

For example

>>> bpy.data.meshes.tag = True

Is the same as...

>>> for me in bpy.data.meshes: me.tag = True

Type:: Bool

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