What is Cramo Tools?

Built to eliminate tedious tasks like scene management/organization, mass importing-exporting, and employing sensible naming conventions for single or even large object hierarchies, Cramo Tools enhances your workflow by expanding upon Blender's existing capabilities while adding completely new ones with efficiency and ease—made to minimize grunt work.

Ok, but why?

Toggling various object locks to prevent accidental changes, creating and managing collections, naming objects and entire hierarchies (with appropriate family, parent, and child IDs), mass importing/exporting, and much more. These tasks are as fun as watching paint dry, but Cramo Tools has got you covered and then some.

Lock Tools

Scene/Geometry/Cameras/Lights:

Scene Lock, Geometry Lock, Camera Lock, and Light Lock provide precise control over scene modifications by allowing you to lock specific object types, selected objects, or the entire scene with a single action. This helps prevent unintended changes to carefully positioned elements while you focus on other aspects of your project.

Example: You can lock all or only selected geometry and camera objects while keeping lights unlocked to fine-tune the final look. Once satisfied, you can lock the entire scene with a single click to prevent accidental modifications during rendering.

Operation:

• With selection: Locks/unlocks only the selected objects of that type.
• Without selection: Locks/unlocks all objects of that type.
• Repeat the same action to unlock.

Wireframe

The Wireframe tool synchronizes and toggles wireframe visibility settings across Blender. A common issue arises due to inconsistencies between the Wireframe display setting in Object Properties and the 3D Viewport Overlay settings. This mismatch can cause some objects to display their wireframe while others do not.

Operation:

• Activating the tool synchronizes wireframe settings and toggles visibility.
• Repeat the action to toggle the wireframe on or off.

Collector

The Collector tool automatically sorts objects into collections based on their type, including complex hierarchies containing multiple object types. Existing manual collections will NOT be affected.

Operation:

• Simply click Collector.

Default sorting

• Cameras → "Cameras" collection.
• Lights → "Lights" collection.
• Curves → "Curves" collection.
• Etc

Preferences

• Custom collection names for each object type.

Camera and Light Group

Camera Group and Light Group create camera or light objects as children of an empty object. Each camera or light is configured with a "Track To" constraint, with the empty object serving as both the parent and the Track To target. This setup serves as basic camera and light rigs.

Note:

• Duplicating a camera will result in Blender’s default ".001, .002, ..." naming convention.
• To maintain proper sequential naming, use with Name Sync:

Default Duplicate Naming

• Light-G1 (Parent)
  • Light-G1-01
  • Light-G1-01.001
  • Light-G1-01.002

Default Duplicate Naming w/ Name Sync

• Light-G1 (Parent)
  • Light-G1-01
  • Light-G1-02
  • Light-G1-03

Combo Breaker

Combo Breaker enhances Blender’s "Separate by Loose Parts" tool by adding extra functionality to better organize your scene and outliner.

Combo Breaker enhances Blender’s "Separate by Loose Parts" tool by adding extra functionality to better organize your scene and outliner.

Preferences

• Parent the loose parts to an Empty.
• Add the loose parts to a collection.

Default Naming (Seprarate by loose parts)

• Cube
• Cube.001
• Cube.002

Combo Breaker Naming

• Cube-Part-01
• Cube-Part-02
• Cube-Part-03

Dual Screenshot

Note: The OpenGL render will not work in Cycles.

This feature captures two screenshots and saves them in a "Screenshots" folder within the .blend file’s location. If no .blend file is found, the "Screenshots" folder is created on the desktop alongside an "Untitled" .blend file. The first is a standard screenshot of the entire Blender application window, the second is an OpenGL viewport render.

Compatibility:

• The OpenGL render is only compatible with Eevee/Material Preview and Benchmark Renderer.
• It is intended for look development only.

Preferences

• Choose image format.
• Set max height for OpenGL render.
• Set OpenGL aspect ratio.
• Set OpenGL shading mode.

Primary Screenshot

Secondary Screenshot (OpenGL)

Quick Export

Quickly exports the selected geometry in FBX, OBJ, GLB, and STL formats (using mostly default settings) in just two clicks.

Files will be exported to an "Exports" folder at the current .blend file’s location. If no .blend file exists, an “Untitled” .blend file will be saved to the desktop. The "Exports" folder will be saved to the desktop as well, with a "Textures" folder inside that contains any textures that were applied to the models. Future versions of Cramo Tools will allow default export settings to be set.

Operation:

Select all the models you wish to export and choose quick export from the Cramo Tools menu (F1 by default). Next to each item selected or format buttons that can be clicked. Models will be exported to the location seen below.

Quick Import

Searches the current location of the .blend file, "Downloads" and "Desktop" folders for supported file types. Found files appear in a checklist, allowing you to select which ones to import. Multiple files can be imported simultaneously with a single click. Duplicate imports will initiate a sequential naming sequence.

Example:

If a "Door" mesh already exists in the scene, the new/re-imported mesh will be renamed "Door_02".

Face Orientation

Simply toggles the face orientation overlay on and off.

Flip Normals

Flips the normals of the selected faces while in edit mode or all faces when in object mode.

Unify Normals

Simply reorients the normals to the “outside” of the selected mesh. Object mode only.

Name Sync

Sets consistent and predictable naming conventions across objects and their associated mesh data while clearly identifying parent-child relationships and family structures in existing object hierarchies

Key Features:

• Synchronizes object names with their mesh data names.
• Automatically applies "Parent" or "Family" to a parent/root object depending on complexity.
• Applies sequential naming to hierarchical structures for readability and organization.
• Cleans up any orphan data without a fake user if it conflicts with naming.
• Children's names/data can be synced independently, but can be overwritten by a synced parent.
• Adapts to existing name separators (- or _) in children, or defaults to underscore.

Without Name Sync

• Cube
• Cube.001
• Cube.003

With Name Sync

• Cube_01
• Cube_
• Cube_03

Without Name Sync

• Empty Object
  • Cube
  • Cube.001
  • Cube.003

With Name Sync

• Cube (Parent)
  • Cube_01
  • Cube_02
  • Cube_03

Backup

Creates organized backups of selected objects and stores them in a hidden (by default) "Backup" collection. It maintains object hierarchies and runs other tools like Name Sync simultaneously in the background to improve organization and readability.

Key Features:

• Preserves parent-child relationships to maintain hierarchy integrity.
• Automatically synchronizes object and mesh data names for consistency.
• Cleans up orphaned mesh data if it's not marked as a fake user.

Cleanup

A cleanup utility that removes unused data-blocks and empty collections from your scene, helping maintain a clean and efficient .blend file.

Key Features:

• Removes empty collections: Recursively deletes collections (and their empty children).
• Deletes empty material slots.
• Purges unused data blocks—including materials, textures, images, actions, meshes, lights, cameras, and node groups.