Mirror Modifier Texturing Painting Problem I was Modeling a Low Poly Car using mirror Modifier. Sides of the car shares the same UV's. After texturing, a line appears to be in the middle of the model.

Question:
How to remove that line ?

Double geometry may cause this.

Select your object that has these strange lines in the outliner.
Go to edit mode.
Press 'a', to select the entire object.
Press 'w', to bring up the pop-up menu.
Choose 'remove doubles' from the menu.

If it's duplicate geometry, this will solve your problem.


Is it possible to access just part of a data path with Python? I am trying to access just the last few nodes of a data path, however blender tries to execute it when I try to use split or similar functions. What is the proper way to do this?

The data: bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].sequence_editor.sequences_all["Image0001.png"]

What I want: sequences_all["Image0001.png"]

Some things I've tried so far:

The split function:

n = bpy.context.selected_sequences
x = n[0]
x = str(x)
print(x.split(str='.'))

The problem is blender tries to interpret split as an attribute of the image sequence.

I need a dynamic result, as values could change in the first few parts. A way to just capture the "data path" of the selected VSE strip could potentially work as well.

The script below gets the data path, converts it to a string. Then does the manipulation on it to get the desired part.

I split the string on "sequence_editor." because everything after that (except for the closing bracket) is what you want, a period would also work.

After splitting the string (string[-1]) that line gets the last item in the list.
Using your data path the list would look like this:

["[bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].", 'sequences_all["Image0001.png"]]']

The last item in the list sequences_all["Image0001.png"]] only needs to have the trailing bracket removed (last line of the script.)

import bpy

path = bpy.context.selected_sequences
string = str(path) #convert data path to string
string = string.split("sequence_editor.") #split string in to a list
string = string[-1] # get last piece
string = string[:-1] # remove last character
print(string)

Your problem was you were trying to get the first part of the path x = n[0] before turning it in to a string and then splitting it into a list.


Is it possible to disable self casting shadows on a mesh but still receive and cast shadows in eevee 2.9? I want to do NPR animations, which require me to control the shadows on the mesh, however this is where I come into the problem at hand. I already found a way to control the "shadow" on the mesh, but this technique doesn't allow other meshes to cast shadows onto it. So is it possible, hopefully through nodes, to disable self casting shadows but keep received shadows and cast shadows? If not then I'll have to find some way to reduce the intensity of the shadows cast onto the mesh by the sun but keep received shadows intensity.
I'm using blender 2.92 and eevee render engine
This is how I see it, unless I'm wrong. Its weird I know, but this is kinda how I understand it based on what I've messed with.
Casting shadow is when the mesh blocks the sun.
Receive shadow is when on mesh casts a shadow onto another mesh.
Self shadow is when shadows are cast by the sun unto the mesh using the meshes own geometry.

for eevee use this node setup:

important: this works only with:
Blend mode: alpha blend
Shadow mode: alpha hashed (none works too)


Is there a way to split a flat multi-poly face into squares and triangles easily? I'm relatively new to blender (previous game was 2d) but I know the basic rules like making your mesh out of rectangle/squares and triangles. Due to a city block being mostly flat I've disregarded that rule for the top face which has worked until this particular shape. I've tried removing doubles and recalculating normals, and all vertices on the face have the same z-co-ordinate. This means it's due to the shape and I don't want to spend time joining these vertices into squares/triangles in order to fix it, is there any way to do it easy/automatically?

These functions can be useful for you. Hit ctrl+e or ctrl+f in edit mode.


IK contraints problem? Take a look at the 3 middle fingers of the left hand. As you can see, one of them behaves differently from the other two in the setup.

Why is this happening?

All your pole targets are setup incorrectly (the pole angle). Causing the chains to move in Pose Position.

Also there is pole target on the thumb which you probably don't want.

I suggest this reading for pole targets: How to Set/Calculate pole angle of IK constraint so the chain does not move?

You don't want the fingers to have any IK. You should control them only by FK. IK fingers are very advanced and rarely needed. You can still have 1 control bone to drive the finger bone chain (scale to curl/close the finger (try it, you can't rotate the finger parts individually), rotation to point it)

Further I suggest look into some already made armatures(cgcookie flexrig, sintel, search blendswap, rigify, etc.) how it should be setup. You will have problems animating this and the animations won't look nice. There are problems with shoulders, legs and spine.


Union of 2 planes with extra faces When I make union of 2 planes with bool tool, they make 3rd face which overlaps. If I use Ctrl+J they stay the same but still there is shading issue on the overlapping part.
Is there a way I can remove this overlapping part automatically after applying bool tool?

Booleans are meant for volumes, not for flat objects. They generally do not work well with any overlapping geometry and as you see produce unexpected results. You should not use booleans in this situation, but join the planes some other way.

One way would be to use Knife Project to cut geometry from first to second and then from second to first, join them and merge vertices by distance to remove double geometry(vetrices and the extra face):


Gltf export with animation not working I'm trying to export a .gltf with animation, but it doesn't work. I turned on "animation" in the export window, but it doesn't export animation. if I then import the .gltf back into blender, the object is exactly the same only without animation ...

(I work with the blender version: 2.81.16)

I have same problem at 2.81 and automatically resolved at 2.83.
For migration to 2.83 attention to project import routine. It make some change at object and some minor options.


What is the best way to add more than one bvh file actions in a makehuman model? I learnt how to use MakeHuman model and importing it in blender, and use the "Load and retarget" button of the makehumans addon.

It works very well, but I want to use more actions to the makehuman model so that for example, from frame 0 to 100, the personnage is walking, and from frame 101 to 150, the perso is running, and from frame 151 till the end of frame the perso is fighting;

What is the best and efficient way to accomplish this? All my BVH files comes from cgspeed

Since you know how to load and retarget a bvh animation, i will try to explain how to use the nla editor to play some actions in a sequence

First you might want to open a dopesheet editor and set its mode to Action Editor. Every time you load a BVH animation the current action gets replaced by a new action. However every action uses the fake user (the background of the  F-Button is darkened) and thus remains in the blend file even when its saved and reloaded.

By clicking  in the second highlighted box you can choose the current action for your animation. When you are done and loaded all animations you want to enqueue, press the  button to the right to unlink the action from the armature. It should look like this.

Now open the NLA editor. You can also choose and unlink the action in the Properties Panel (Press N to toggle it)

Choose Add -> Add Tracks from the Menu below. Move the cursor(green line) to frame 0 (click and drag) and choose Add -> Add Action Strip where you choose your action you want to play first from the dropdown menu. Move the cursor beyond the yellow bar representing the action strip and add your next strip.

It should look like this afterwards

You can add additional tracks and stack them. The options for blending the strips can be found in the Properties Panel

You might want to create your own actions and only keyframe specific parts like the root bone and put it on top of the stack to override and control the motion.

For further informations see NLA Editor. Here is a link to a video showing the steps described above.


Why Loop cut not cutting completed Image 1

Image2

When I do Loop Cut as in image 1, its not coming like image 2.. what can be problem , I have removed doubles , manifold geomertry, etc. nothing works fine for me..

I have uploaded the blend file here - https://filebin.net/n3mrxwjbsvcs02ck/GoodDinasoure.blend?t=wuah6hdx

Please help i am following some tutorial and struck here.. otherwise i will not able to complete.. thanks

You have a ngon but you don't see it because you have 2 of its vertices overlapping, so remove one of those, or select all and remove doubles with enough Merge Distance (0.02).


How do I animate time? I have created a storyboard where I frequently switch between slow-motion and normal motion. The scene involves a particle system, several animated objects and an animated camera.

How do I animate time for all objects globally? If possible I would love to do so using a curve so I can transition smoothly from real-time to slow-motion and back again. As far as I remember there was such thing as a "Time IPO" curve in Blender 2.4.x but I have yet to find the equivalent, nor do I know if that is actually what I am looking for.

See related question: Which animation features don't support sub-frames?

Time Remapper addon

Following Ideasman42's suggestion, I wrote an addon that allows you to animate time in the whole scene.

Demo video
Video tutorial
Source code

Limitations

Only for Cycles
Doesn't work for fluid simulations or motion blur
Works with Blender 2.70+
Freezes interface until frames are done rendering

Installing

Right click and save to your computer this link: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hxxr/time-remapper/master/render_timeremapper.py

Open Blender, File > User Preferences > Addons > Install from File, then select the file you just saved.

Type "time" into the search bar and you should see the addon "Render: Time Remapper".  Enable it.

In the Properties, you should see some new buttons,

Usage

It's best to launch Blender from a terminal so that you can see the output of the addon.  If you're on Windows, then you'd launch Blender normally and go to Window > Toggle System Console.

Create your scene.  Change any rigid body objects or animated objects to Quaternion rotation mode (N-menu > set XYZ Euler to Quaternion)   Make sure to bake any physics simulations.  For Rigid Body Physics, it seems work better if you do Bake to Keyframes (T-menu > Physics > Bake to Keyframes).

There's two modes you can use it in: Speed Factor and Time-Time Curve.  Leave it on Speed Factor unless you need to go in reverse-time.

The speed factor can be animated.  Setting it to 0.5 will give 2x slow-motion, setting it to 3 will give 3x fast-motion, etc.

After keyframing it, hit TR Animation.  This will freeze Blender.  You can see the progress of the addon or any error messages by looking in the terminal.

To watch what you've saved out, press TR Playback.

(OPTIONAL) You can choose up to 3 "immune objects" that will be immune to the time remapping effects.  For example, if you want your camera to rotate around the scene without slowing down (as in the demo video above), select it as an immune object.

Using reverse motion

If you want you animation to go back in time, then change Speed Factor to Time Time Curve.

Open the Graph Editor.  You'll see a 45 degree line that shows how time (in frames) maps to the animation's intrinsic time.


Fluid amount in simulation I am trying to work through some Blender Tutorials and then try my own scene using that feature. I have a problem with a scene containing camera, lamp, cube set as fluid domain and a uv sphere set as fluid inflow.

My problem is that it just drips.

I am simply trying water from a tap, or a soda machine.

I have not allocated a inflow velocity in any direction assuming gravity would do that. When I tried a force in Z axis I just got a drip hitting the domain box harder.

I did try scaling the inflow sphere but that did not help.
I also tried subdivision 2 in fluid boundary and Generate 1 in Fluid Particles.
I have set inflow velocity 1 in the sphere settings.

nothing seems to change.

What setting do I look at for more fluid. ?

(edit for spelling and some attempted changes)

You need to set the Inflow Velocity. On its own (with no velocity) the Inflow only adds fluid to the domain within the Inflow volume if there is actually space to place it - ie, if the fluid has moved away to make space for some more fluid. Gravity does not act on the fluid in the Inflow and since you have no Inflow Velocity the liquid stays where it is and only those drops that break away from the surface tension will fall. Simply give it a velocity (eg, Z = -1) to allow it to flow away from the Inflow.


My render is a solid Blue color I have a very complex scene and every time I try to render in either Eevee or Cycles all I get is this solid blue color. Changing my lights and environment colors/settings don't change the look/color of the blue render. I've deleted almost everything from my file except these few elements and purged all the garbage but it's still happening. Can someone help me figure out how to fix this and how I can avoid it in the future? Thank you in advance for your help.
-I have removed my original file link and placed it here instead.

You've enabled the Sequencer option in the Output panel > Post Processing, it renders the VSE, disable it:


Import fbx model from unity Is it possible to import an fbx model, so that I can edit models from unity in blender?

I tried and nothing worked, when I open the file I see the default cube when opening blender.

There is an fbx Import-Export add-on, have you tried it?

This could be helpfull to :

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?274687-Another-FBX-Importer-Exporter-addon


move parent (empty) without children i want to move my parent object (=empty) but without moving the children.  Is that possible ?
I saw the answer from 20/02/18 11.56u IPv6.  But it doesn't work.  I'm on Blender 2.8
Mayby i do something wrong.

You can enable "parents" in side bar Tool>Options to affect parents only.

This feature has been added in 2.81 release.


fluid simulation controls - fluid overwhelms collision objects - I've tried to make a tiered fountain in Blender 2.91 similar to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlkbeIv6kBM
However my fluid always overwhelms the structure.  I've found by trial and error that modifying the surface emission of the inflow object will reduce the amount of fluid which reduces overflow of the collision objects but I'm down to .065 and any lower, NO fluid shows up.  What are the controls that I need to use to get my fluid to arrive at a nice pace, not overflow the fountain receptacles and generally look like water?  Moby made it all look very simple but clearly it's not for me!
Is there any algorithm or heuristic for figuring this out?  I'm burning a lot of time in trial/error mode/ rebaking and I'm starting to think I will not be successful in achieving a pleasant water fountain.  Clearly Inflow surface emission is one control, inflow object size appears to be another.  Are there others?

Try raising the walls? Also, the resolution of the fluid looks very low. That could be causing problems with this. Go to the Domain, and increase the resolution divisions.


How to make a wave that follows empty? So I'm trying to make it so that when the empty goes across the object it creates a wave. I'm following up this question. Here's the .blend

As you can see if you drag the empty slowly across the object it creates a single wave but if you play the animation it just makes multiple waves. I'm trying to re-create the effect you get from dragging the empty across the object. How would you do this?

Thanks!

To make just one wave uncheck the Cyclic option on the wave modifier.

Then just find the proper offset so that when the empty moves across the object the wave occurs.

EDIT

Another option I can think of (not knowing what you are after ultimately) is not using a wave modifier but a displace modifier, and using the empty to control the texture. Animating the strenght as the empty goes across the sphere can give a nice result:


Why doesn't the focal length of Viewport change upon zooming? As far as I know, to "zoom" means to change the focal length of a camera. But no matter how much I zoom the Viewport (not a camera in the scene) with Ctrl+MMB, the Focal Length property shown in sidebar remains "50 mm". Does Ctrl+MMB actually dolly rather than zoom? Or am I missing something?

Yes with Ctrl+MMB you don't zoom, but you dolly (by default):


Will another GPU speed up rendering? I have spare 1060 as I recently upgraded to 3070 and was wondering if using both of them will improve rendering times

Yes it will. Rendering with wwo GPUs is faster than with one. They don't have to be the same kind (as long as you are not mixing AMD and Nvidia).


The cloth isn't on the character when enabling cloth stimulation By the picture of character you can notice that I'm not an expert in blender, so the issential question i have is
when enabling cloth stimulation for the shirt, it happens to appear somewhere else, but not on my character. I have enabled collision physics for the character itself. He is riggified.

Remove the cloth simulation. Select your cloth mesh. Position it where you want it on your character CTRL+A > Apply all transforms. Your cloth's origin will be in the world's origin. Now apply your cloth modifier. Your body should have a collision modifier. Press play on the timeline, your cloth should adjust to the body as you intend.


How to get part of a mesh with Python API, which requires breaking down some faces? Suppose I have an object, for simplicity, created as a grid and two circles. How can I extract a mesh, which satisfies a condition: x>=0 and y>=0. This implies that the faces associated with the circles have to be bisected.
I am wondering if there is a relatively easy solution to this. May be,  bmesh.ops.bisect_plane can be of any help in this situation, but I do not know how to apply it.

import bpy

import bmesh

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')

bpy.ops.object.delete()

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_circle_add(vertices=32, radius=2,
                                  location=(0.5, 0.5, 0.0), fill_type='NGON')

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action="DESELECT")

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_circle_add(vertices=32, radius=3,
                                  location=(0.5, 0.5, 0.0), fill_type='NGON')

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action="DESELECT")

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_grid_add(x_subdivisions=3, y_subdivisions=3,
                                radius=4.0, location=(0.0,0.0,0.0))

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action="DESELECT")

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

obj = bpy.context.selected_objects[0]

All with bmesh in object mode.

With appropriate bmesh operators

add the primitive circles
translate them to desired location
add the grid
bisect with YZ plane at origin and clear the inner.  Note the plane coordinate is at (0, 0, 0) by default.
repeat with XZ plane.

Test script, run in object mode.  Adds a plane and replaces its mesh.

import bpy
import bmesh
context = bpy.context

bm = bmesh.new()

bmesh.ops.create_circle(bm,
        cap_ends=True,
        radius=2,
        segments=32)

bmesh.ops.create_circle(bm,
        cap_ends=True,
        radius=3,
        segments=32)
bmesh.ops.translate(bm, verts=bm.verts, vec=(0.5, 0.5, 0))
bmesh.ops.create_grid(bm,
        x_segments=3,
        y_segments=3,
        size=4)

# run two bisect planes
def geom(bm):
    return bm.faces[:] + bm.edges[:] + bm.verts[:]

bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm,
        plane_no=(1, 0, 0), # x > 0
        geom=geom(bm),
        clear_inner=True)
bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm,
        plane_no=(0, 1, 0), # y > 0
        geom=geom(bm),
        clear_inner=True)

# quick hack to add object
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add()
ob = context.object
bm.to_mesh(ob.data)
ob.data.update()

To pick up from where your script above left off, with a minor change in that the object added in object mode will be the context object (don't rely on it being first in selected objects list), and no need to switch into edit mode from edit mode, can remove a couple of redundant operators.

# create the meshes as in question
ob = context.object
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(obj.data)

# and then pick up script above
    # run two bisect planes
def geom(bm):
    return bm.faces[:] + bm.edges[:] + bm.verts[:]

bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm,
        plane_no=(1, 0, 0), # x > 0
        geom=geom(bm),
        clear_inner=True)
bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm,
        plane_no=(0, 1, 0), # y > 0
        geom=geom(bm),
        clear_inner=True)

bm.to_mesh(ob.data)
ob.data.update()


Can I Adjust Thickness of bone "Stick" I'm going to animating and I thought "Stick" was perfect, so I chose this one.
But it's just a little thick, so it's too confusing with the mesh.
Can I adjust the thickness of this?

Maybe consider B-Bone instead of Stick, then you can adjust the size. Go to Edit Mode and with the bone(s) selected, hit Ctrl+Alt+S to scale the thickness. Instead of dragging the mouse you can also enter a small value like 0.01 to scale it down, hit Enter to set the scale.


How to control Global transform orientation with F-curves? As I can see whenever I edit F-curves of the bone it moves along its local axis. Is it possible to switch to global or are there any ways to edit curves in global? I found its difficult to edit my character movements when all of its bones are somewhat rotated and I need to precisely edit its global position change.

No it's not possible to adjust bones directly in global space with f-curves, because they are always parented to the armature or to themselves into bone chains. Such behavior you want only works on objects which transformation does not depend on other objects.

However by changing the rig design you can control the bones in global space with constraints:

Here the root bone follows global transforms of an empty. To control a bone further down the chain you would need to setup an IK for that bone in chain.

But what you probably want is to have the bone animate locally, then at some point swith to global control and transform it precisely and then back switch to local am I right.. You can do this by animating the constraint's influence - the procedure:

The constraint's influence is 0 and the bone is controlled locally. The Empty is at some random location.
Align the Empty Transforms to the bone with copying the bone's matrix to the Empty's matrix in Python Console:

a.) Select bone: mat = bpy.context.active_pose_bone.matrix

b.) Select Empty: bpy.context.active_object.matrix_world = mat

Now when they are aligned keyframe the influence to 1. The bone is controlled globally with that Empty now.
When you are done with global select the bone and hit Ctrl+A > Apply Visual Transform to Pose. Then keyframe the bone and influence back to 0.


how to make star-shaped circle into a regular circle plane So i have this model

As you can see there is a rust texture on top of it, but it is messed up because the circle (after subsurf) that is on top of it is being inverted by some sort of star shape, after removing the face and adding a circular plane, i discovered that there are a bunch of triangles inside the outline of the shape. I would like the texture to be properly shown on top of the barrel and for there to not be a bunch of triangles around the circle

I'd try to use something like rectangles instead of single N-gon. Like this:

Just delete face only, select the outer edge, press E to extrude, right click to cancel moving, S to scale almost to the center. then use Ctrl+R to add few edge loops, and fill the center. It will subdivide more consistently. And fix duplicating faces (flickering ones) to avoid problems on rendering.


How to draw a Panel only in the Shader editor node editor (object type based)? Like the question in the title, I would like to understand how to place a UI Panel only in the Editing of the Material nodes
So it would be "Shader Editor" in Object mode.
At this moment the panel is drawn in each node_tree.
This is causing me a problem.
THe code:
class ADDON_PT_Panel(bpy.types.Panel):

    bl_label = "Test"
    bl_idname = "ADDON_PT_Panel"
    bl_space_type = 'NODE_EDITOR'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = "Test"
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self,context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.label("Hello World")

Poll the ui_type
With the advent of more than one UI in a particular area type, when this is the case look at the Area.ui_type
Unaware of, but there may be a bl_context (or similar) class property to do this.  As with 99% of blender the UI code is there to peruse.
Look up the docs for options, put a print in draw method, or find quickly via blender's python console
>>> C.area.ui_type = 'XXXX'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: bpy_struct: item.attr = val: enum "XXXX"
not found in (, 'VIEW_3D', 'VIEW', 'UV',
'CompositorNodeTree',
'TextureNodeTree',
'ShaderNodeTree', 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR', 'CLIP_EDITOR', 'DOPESHEET', 'TIMELINE', 'FCURVES', 'DRIVERS', 'NLA_EDITOR', 'TEXT_EDITOR', 'CONSOLE', 'INFO', 'OUTLINER', 'PROPERTIES', 'FILE_BROWSER', 'PREFERENCES')

Notice there are three obvious candidates for nodetrees.
Test script.  Polls if the context area  ui_type is 'ShaderNodeTree'
import bpy

class ADDON_PT_Panel(bpy.types.Panel):

    bl_label = "Test"
    bl_idname = "ADDON_PT_Panel"
    bl_space_type = 'NODE_EDITOR'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = "Test"
    #bl_context = "scene"

    @classmethod
    def poll(self, context):
        return context.area.ui_type == "ShaderNodeTree"

    def draw(self,context):
        layout = self.layout
        #print(context.space_data.ui_type)
        layout.label(text="Hello World")

bpy.utils.register_class(ADDON_PT_Panel)


Put picture from imported pic as vertex paint and engrave / extrude the shape from other object What we have:
We imported image as a plane from PNG. Originally white presented on this import supposed to be transparent but after import it appears white.

What we need:

How to embed the image from this texture onto the cube as vertex paint and remove white background which on original png is transparent?
How to extrude in the shape of this logo into the cube (with/without color - so it appears like this "itoma" logo is written couple of millimeters inside the face of the cube)?
How to extrude out the shape of this logo outside of the cube with or without color - so it appears like this "itoma" logo is written couple of millimeters outside one face of the cube - sticking out?

Usually this is how I do it....

Convert the Jpg or Png into SVG format. You can find a
free online converter on google search. Keyword to search
is "Converter Jpeg to SVG" or "Converter Png to SVG".

You can then import the SVG format as a spline. With the
spline, you could then convert it to mesh. Fill those faces
and extrude those faces.

To cut the words into a cube, you would use the boolean or
booltool ( An easier and a better way to work) in Blender
to accomplish the task.

NOTE:

You may have to watch a few topics on youtube on the subject
I have pointed you to. Else there will be too much instruction
to write up.


creating a video of gif of showing different viewpoints of an .obj file I have opened an .obj file in blender and want to see its different view and create a video of it minus the black screen behind it. How can I do so in OSX?

Maybe another frame in video is:

There's no built-in way to export as a gif, but you can get most of the way there.  Simply animate or setup your camera angle, and save the render as a JPG (or some other lossy image format).  I'm guessing you want an OpenGL-esque simple render, so switch the render engine to Workbench (that'll remove the overlays automatically).  Once you have your images, you can use ezgif.com or some other application to convert your image sequence into an animated gif.


"expected a string enum" error when attempting to add text strip I use the following code to add a text strip:

tStripAdd = "frame_start=" + fStart + ", frame_end=" + fEnd + ", channel=" + tChan + ", type='TEXT'"
print('tStripAdd = ' + tStripAdd)
#tStripAdd = frame_start=1, frame_end=164, channel=4, type='TEXT'- result of print command
bpy.ops.sequencer.effect_strip_add(tStripAdd)

I get the following error:

TypeError: Calling operator "bpy.ops.sequencer.effect_strip_add" error, expected a string enum in ('INVOKE_DEFAULT', 'INVOKE_REGION_WIN', 'INVOKE_REGION_CHANNELS', 'INVOKE_REGION_PREVIEW', 'INVOKE_AREA', 'INVOKE_SCREEN', 'EXEC_DEFAULT', 'EXEC_REGION_WIN', 'EXEC_REGION_CHANNELS', 'EXEC_REGION_PREVIEW', 'EXEC_AREA', 'EXEC_SCREEN')

Any suggestion as to what the problem is? How to solve it?

You are passing a string into the function instead of the actual arguments. Since effect_strip_add doesn't have any function signature that takes a string as first arguments you're getting the TypeError exception. The concept of keyword arguments is explained in this section of the Python docs.

The proper way of calling the function is passing each of the arguments.

bpy.ops.sequencer.effect_strip_add(frame_start=fStart, frame_end=fEnd, channel=tChan, type='TEXT')

bpy.ops.sequencer.effect_strip_add is documented in Blender 2.8 Python API with the following function signature:

  bpy.ops.sequencer.effect_strip_add(frame_start=0, frame_end=0,
  channel=1, replace_sel=True, overlap=False, type='ALPHA_OVER',
  color=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0))

  Add an effect to the sequencer, most are applied on top of existing
  strips

  Parameters:

  frame_start (int in [-inf, inf], (optional)) – Start Frame, Start frame of the sequence strip
  frame_end (int in [-inf, inf], (optional)) – End Frame, End frame for the color strip
  channel (int in [1, 32], (optional)) – Channel, Channel to place this strip into
  replace_sel (boolean, (optional)) – Replace Selection, Replace the current selection
  overlap (boolean, (optional)) – Allow Overlap, Don’t correct overlap on new sequence strips
  type (enum in ['CROSS', 'ADD', 'SUBTRACT', 'ALPHA_OVER', 'ALPHA_UNDER', 'GAMMA_CROSS', 'MULTIPLY', 'OVER_DROP', 'WIPE', 'GLOW',
  'TRANSFORM', 'COLOR', 'SPEED', 'MULTICAM', 'ADJUSTMENT',
  'GAUSSIAN_BLUR', 'TEXT', 'COLORMIX'], (optional)) – Type, Sequencer
  effect type

  CROSS Crossfade, Crossfade effect strip type.
  ADD Add, Add effect strip type.
  SUBTRACT Subtract, Subtract effect strip type.
  ALPHA_OVER Alpha Over, Alpha Over effect strip type.
  ALPHA_UNDER Alpha Under, Alpha Under effect strip type.
  GAMMA_CROSS Gamma Cross, Gamma Cross effect strip type.
  MULTIPLY Multiply, Multiply effect strip type.
  OVER_DROP Alpha Over Drop, Alpha Over Drop effect strip type.
  WIPE Wipe, Wipe effect strip type.
  GLOW Glow, Glow effect strip type.
  TRANSFORM Transform, Transform effect strip type.
  COLOR Color, Color effect strip type.
  SPEED Speed, Color effect strip type.
  MULTICAM Multicam Selector.
  ADJUSTMENT Adjustment Layer.
  GAUSSIAN_BLUR Gaussian Blur.
  TEXT Text.
  COLORMIX Color Mix.

  color (float array of 3 items in [0, 1], (optional)) – Color, Initialize the strip with this color (only used when type=’COLOR’)


Black lines while painting I've seen similar questions being answered, but none of the solutions helped me.
Basically, there are black lines along the edges on my texture.

What I already tried:

Increase bleed on brush - I increased it to a max of 8px, but it removed only a part of these lines
Recalculate normals - didn't help
Remove doubles - there was no doubles, so it didn't help
Manual unwrapping - didn't help either

Btw I use Cycles render if it's important.

What else can I do? The only way I can get rid of these lines in to paint right on the uv map but it's really uncomfortable.

Help, please...

Also, with bleed maxed out, uv map looks odd:

If painting directly on the map, outside of the borders of your UV, fixes it, then it is a filtering/mipmapping issue that can be solved by increasing the bleed.

Don't worry about what your texture looks like out of the borders-- don't worry that it looks weird.  It's supposed to look like that.  That's not an odd image, an odd image is an image without any painted margins.

How much bleed should you use?  About half of the smallest distance between UV islands.  Ideally, your UV map is so well arranged that all verts of all islands are equally spaced and your entire image gets painted with bleed.

Increasing the bleed alone is not enough; it only paints bleed when you actually paint.  So in addition to increasing bleed, you need to actually paint over those edges again.  From the looks of your image, you painted, then increased bleed, then painted some more, but did not necessarily overpaint areas you already painted.  Which could easily explain your edges appearing only in some places....


Can't duplicate alpha material setting even though I have all settings in front of me So, does feeling like a noob in Blender continue for YEARS or something? Because I'm about exhausted by this. Here's a material that is working, from someone's tut example:

Note that the alpha-effect is working so that you can see what's behind the 'water'.
Now, here's mine:

The only difference that I can see is that I'm driving everything from UV Map instead of generated (since I modified the meshes).
I have also confirmed that these Settings (for the Mat) are in effect for both materials: Blend Mode: Alpha Blend / Shadow Mode: Opaque
I'm guessing there must be an errant checkbox that I am missing. I also went in the EEVEE settings to ensure that nothing was weird there. Source has nothing special in that regard. Thoughts?

You beat me to it with answering your own answer (and I'm glad it works for you), but just to clarify i will share what i found:
I believe your tutorial example uses transparency while you use it to a considerable lesser extent (or not at all).
the Transparency color (blue) you used is on the edge of the color circle (while the blue in the example is probably closer to the white center). In this node setup, the more white the color is, the more transparency it causes. Because your blue is relatively dark, the waterfall became less transparent and, in combination with the brown background, visually black.
If you had changed the blue Transparent BSDF color to a color with more white it would be to more like the tutorial example; more transparent.
And I think if you had kept the color the same but changed the Transparent BSDF node to for instance a Diffuse BSDF node you would get a non-transparent waterfall of that color.
But adjusting the ColorRamp also seems to work : )


How can Image files be properly organized? I am using Blender on Windows, version 2.92.0. I have "Relative Paths" selected in the "Save & Load" panel of the Preferences.
I have a lot of directories, each with a set of .png images with the same names.
When using the shader editor, and creating an Image Texture node, the Blender File View has "Relative Paths" also selected. When I navigate through the directories and select the image, the Image is given the name of the image, with none of the previous sub-directories considered. For example, if I have a .blend file C:\Example\example.blend, and an asset directory with the following contents:
C:\Example\Icons\foo\1.png
C:\Example\Icons\foo\2.png
C:\Example\Icons\foo\3.png

C:\Example\Icons\bar\1.png
C:\Example\Icons\bar\2.png
C:\Example\Icons\bar\3.png

...

If I import all of these, they will show up in the Blender File Outliner, under images, but as 1.png, 1.png.001, 1.png.002, and so on, instead of what I would expect, which is in a series of directories or groups based on the relative path, such as //Icons/bar/1.png. At one point I was able to find the properties of the image itself, which did in fact use that path as the filename of the image. I can't find that dialog box anymore.
I would expect the Blender File Outliner to allow me to create some kind of subcategory or group in the "Images" node in order to organize them, but that doesn't seem possible either. It's not clear to me how one is expected to organize a large amount of Image assets in a .blend file. and manually naming individual images "some/long/directory/foo.png" seems like the only option. Am I wrong?

No, you are right. When blender encounters files with the same name (regardless of where they are from), it assigns a .### to the end of the newly loaded file’s data block name (same is true of any data block being introduced into the blend file, actually). As you said, though, the filepath property of the images are still different, and the images are not equal. You can look at this property with:
>>> bpy.data.images[“datablockname.png”].filepath


Simplify mesh by merging and filling holes I have a rather complex planar mesh that I want to simplify (reduce number of faces) and fill the holes.

I have very little experience with Blender, but I have tried to use
- Mesh > Faces > Fill
- Modifier > Add Modifier > Decimate
- Mesh > Vertices > Merge
- Tools > Mesh Tools > Smooth Vertex
- Mesh > Clean up > Limited Dissolve

None of these helped, could someone point me in the right direction?

File can be downloaded here: http://www.horgvegen.no/barge_plane_org_0.1.blend

I have taken a look at your Blend file, and I first noticed that your mesh is quite messy. In these cases, using operations as you have mentioned (Merge, Fill, Decimate, Dissolve) will only worsen the problem.

Due to the messiness of the object in question, if possible, I would recommend rebuilding the mesh using clean, quad-based geometry.

First, in top view (Numkey 7), add a new plane over top your existing object (Shift + A > Mesh > Plane)

Next, move the plane along the X axis to the left edge of your mesh (G then X)

In edit mode (Tab), begin to move the vertices to the shape of the mesh. To select vertices, verify that you are in Vertex Select Mode (Ctrl + Tab > Vertex).

When you have shaped a section of the mesh, you can then extrude the edge of the plane to the right to add more detail. Use Ctrl + Tab > Edge to select whole edges then use E to extrude and repeat the previous vertex shuffling procedure.

Use Ctrl + R to add new loops to existing sections of  your mesh. With these methods you can add as much or as little detail to your new mesh as you like.

Here is a low-detail example I was able to match in under a minute:


Make an object always the same shape as another but thicker? I'm trying to make an eyelid. I've been messing around with rotations and lattices but with the weird shape the eye has to be with this character I can't find a way to rotate the lid while keeping it close to the eye.

So what I'm wondering, is there any modifier I can use that will make the eyelid object always the exact same shape as the eye but just a little bigger? So that when I rotate it, the faces automatically shrink down to touch the eye.

You can try the Displace Modifier for static meshes, with no texture assigned it will simply offset a mesh for the specified distance.

It looks like you need something different though, so try the Shrinkwrap Modifier, with an Offset value.


Low-level location, rotation and scale for sphere, cylinders I am interested in constructing figures of atoms using Blender from an external XYZ file containing atomic positions and species.

I have succesfully read the XYZ and found all atoms and their connections using MatLAB and exported everything as a JSON file, which the Blender Python easily reads. However, as soon as the structures become larger the processing time increases (since I presently use bpy.ops that redraws the scene for each added atom).

I want to change my approach to use a more low-level form of python.

JSON file (here, Benzene)

{
    "camera": {
        "position": [0.0000, 0.0000, 32.4760],
        "rotation": [0.0000, 0.0000, 0.0000]
    },
    "atoms": [
        { "element": "C", "location": [ -0.7150, -1.2384, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "C", "location": [ 0.7150, -1.2384, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "C", "location": [ -1.4300, 0.0000, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "C", "location": [ -0.7150, 1.2384, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "C", "location": [ 0.7150, 1.2384, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "C", "location": [ 1.4300, 0.0000, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "H", "location": [ -1.2150, -2.1044, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "H", "location": [ 1.2150, -2.1044, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "H", "location": [ -2.4300, 0.0000, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "H", "location": [ -1.2150, 2.1044, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "H", "location": [ 1.2150, 2.1044, 0.0000 ] },
        { "element": "H", "location": [ 2.4300, 0.0000, 0.0000 ] }
    ],
    "bonds": [
        { "atoms": [ 0, 1 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 0, 2 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 0, 6 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 1, 5 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 1, 7 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 2, 3 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 2, 8 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 3, 4 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 3, 9 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 4, 5 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 4, 10 ], "order": 1 },
        { "atoms": [ 5, 11 ], "order": 1 }
    ]
}

I read in the JSON and contain all elements in molecule["atoms"]. I then loop over every atom and create a copy of a sphere

    # Draw atoms
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add()
bpy.ops.object.shade_smooth()
sphere = bpy.context.object
for atom in molecule["atoms"]:
    ob = sphere.copy()
    ob.select = False
    ob.location = atom["location"]
    ob.data = sphere.data.copy()
    bpy.context.scene.objects.link(ob)
bpy.ops.object.delete()
bpy.context.scene.update()

But the sphere size (and rotation for when I get to the bonds) confuse me. After having searched for days and days, I still haven't found a simple command to scale, translate and rotate without using bpy.ops.

Am I missing something?

If the Atomic blender addons (which include an XYZ importer) don't help, I would suggest using dupliverts instead of creating multiple objects when creating a large number of objects. My earlier tests have shown that using dupliverts can be quicker than creating individual objects.

This example that works with your sample data creates a new mesh that only has vertices that are placed at the location of each atom, this is then set as the parent of a sphere and dupliverts is enabled, this places a copy of the sphere at each vertex location. Based on a previous answer I then created a curve and added a new spline for each bond. That makes only three objects to display the data.

Using your sample data, multiplied by 1000 (with a small z offset for each) it takes 3.3 secs on my corei7 machine.

import bpy, bmesh, bpy_extras

mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Atoms")
bm = bmesh.new()

for atom in molecule['atoms']:
    bm.verts.new(atom['location'])

bm.to_mesh(mesh)
mesh.update()
bpy_extras.object_utils.object_data_add(bpy.context, mesh)
points = bpy.context.object

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add()
bpy.ops.object.shade_smooth()
sphere = bpy.context.object
sphere.scale = (0.2,0.2,0.2)

sphere.parent = points
points.dupli_type = "VERTS"

bpy.ops.curve.primitive_bezier_curve_add()
curve = bpy.context.object
curve.data.dimensions = '3D'
curve.data.fill_mode = 'FULL'
curve.data.bevel_depth = 0.05
curve.data.bevel_resolution = 4

c_splines = curve.data.splines
c_splines.remove(c_splines[0])

for bond in molecule['bonds']:
    spline = c_splines.new('BEZIER')
    spline.bezier_points[0].co = molecule['atoms'][bond['atoms'][0]]['location']
    spline.bezier_points[0].handle_left_type = 'VECTOR'
    spline.bezier_points[0].handle_right_type = 'VECTOR'

    spline.bezier_points.add(1)
    spline.bezier_points[1].co = molecule['atoms'][bond['atoms'][1]]['location']
    spline.bezier_points[1].handle_left_type = 'VECTOR'
    spline.bezier_points[1].handle_right_type = 'VECTOR'


Make the selected object to be highlighted in outliner I have a complex object structure where there is multiple nested object. If the outliner structure is collapsed, How to show the selected object , so the outliner will expand itself recursively to find/highlight that object ?
The fastest way is to find the object's name and type in search box. But is there any hotkey so i can do it directly from 3d viewer ?

The hotkey Numpad . might be what you're looking for, the Outliner follows the same Show Active behavior that the 3d Viewport does, while the cursor is in either pane.
This also works for bones in armatures, you'd press Numpad . once to target the armature, then again to open the tree and highlight the selected bone.


Problem adding details to the top part of a model using boolean I am trying to make this lantern here but I can't figure out how to make the details in the top part (Circled in red).

And this is the 3D view:

I have also tried using the boolean modifier but this strange artifacts on the edges of the boolean area appears:

So, is there any other way to make this without using boolean or am I doing the boolean operation wrongly?

I think you can do it this way but I used a higher topology:


Select edges by length? Is it possible to select all edges with a specific length?

I have a very exotic problem. In a computer game model, there is audience projected on several billboards, and depending on a billboards width, I know the number of characters seen in that billboard.

I want to find out the approximate complete count of characters in the audience.

The problem is, that there are 4146 billboards, which I can't count by hand, but classify by their length at least, and then calculate it up:

Any way to select, for example, all the widest audience billboard edges seen on the terrace?

Yes.

Select an edge and press ⇧ ShiftG> Length. By default this will select all other edges with equal length to the active edge.
By adjusting the options in the redo panel (F6) or at the bottom of tool shelf (T), you can also select edges with greater or lesser lengths and compare lengths with a threshold to select edges that are not exactly the same length, but similar.

Once you have a partial selection on the billboards you want to select, you can select all geometry connected to the selection with ⎈ CtrlL. Or in the case of a plane, by switching to face select mode (⎈ Ctrl↹ Tab) while holding ⎈ Ctrl.


Combining mesh from skin modifier to manifold object I tried to make Hair for a Character, by using the new skin modifier.

Applied to the Mesh, this produces an object with intersected Faces. I also use subdivision surface modifier with level 2.

I separated all different segments into independent objects. What I wanted to do is to apply boolean Modifiers and union all of those into a non-self-intersecting Object, which I need for 3D printing.
This works for almost all hair segments. But some boolean Unions behave like a boolean Difference. And vice versa. And in a few cases no Operation provides the needed Result. In this case, the segment just "vanishes".

I could really need help, to finish this project. Thanks in Advance :)

Instead of decimate, try the re-mesh modifier.  The re-mesh modifier should be able to handle all of the hair strands and their intersections.  It should act as a global "boolean union" like you want.

If this doesn't work, you could remove the boolean modifiers, export it to a STL file, and then run it through https://modelrepair.azurewebsites.net/ I've had a LOT of luck with this tool.


How does Grease Pencil handle object depth in the viewport? In this pic from the side, the objects can be seen as they are correctly ordered from front to back

This is the camera view.  Note the front object from the previous pic is now hidden behind another object.

Figured it out.
In Grease Pencil Object Properties, there is a Stroke Depth Order dropdown.


Blender mesh having random holes and bulges at specific areas I've been trying to make a Gameboy Model for a while now but I've been having some problem at certain areas of the mesh. In the image, I cant seem to get rid of the bulging area of the mesh and make it completely flat and seamless. How do I fix this? There are also various random holes in mesh with no edges nearby so I dont really know how to fix them.

This seems to be due to the subdivision modifier you're using. Subdiv modifiers don't handle complex corner geometries too well, such as this one.
If you can manage to distribute this more evenly, with fewer edges connected that one vertex it should work.
On top of this, you might want to think of remodelling the topology across that front area to some degree, subdiv modifiers give weird outputs when there are varying levels of detail (i.e. big faces in some places, and lots of tiny ones in others).


How not to cast a shadow on an object? I don't want to see the shadow cast on the wall like the circled one with red pen the picture. How can I cancel such light effect?

I found an answer that said to go the "word" and "surface" to remove it. I am not sure that it's the same thing (link: How do I turn off environment/world lighting in Blender Cycles?)

but I did not see the "surface" option in my "world" column.

Thank you for helping me, I really appreciate it

Its not a shadow.Its scene or camera's clipping value that you need to adjust. To change scene's clip value,increase the value circled in the below pic:

And to change camera's clip value,increase the value circled in the below pic:


How to model a spoon with using edge loop only with no mirror modifier Is it possible to use only edge loop for making the round side of a spoon? What I have done at first is making a plane shape and scaled it. After that I extruded the upper edge of the spoon. Then, I used edge loops to make the extruded part to become round which the problem is it the top of the extruded part cannot be round. Is there really no way to make a spoon just by using a plane shape? This is the image of what I have done before posting the question

Is there anyway to make the upper side of this image to be a circle or almost circle?

A possibility is to use solidify and subdivision surface modifiers, starting from a plane.

Create a plane
Adjust its size
Subdivide it twice
Adjust the center part depth
Adjust the extremities

Now add the modifiers
Refine the geometry as you want
Set the shading to smooth


Is it possible to set all texture nodes in a node tree to a specific vector? Is there a way to automatically set selected nodes to use a specific vector input?

E.g. If you have a larger node setup with a lot of texture nodes, it can be a pain to go back through and connect each texture node's vector input to a texture coordinate node individually.

Is there a way to automate this process?

Add a Reroute node with the desired value and select it. Then, you can use this script.

# First, define some stuff
# mat: the material; tree: the node tree; nodes: the node list
mat = bpy.data.materials['Material Name'] # or index
tree = mat.node_tree
nodes = tree.nodes

# We'll find the source node and store it in src
src_socket = None
if nodes.active:
  if len(nodes.active.outputs) == 1:
    src_socket = nodes.active.outputs[0]

if src_socket is not None:                       # only work if node found
  for node in nodes:                             # check each node
    if node.type.startswith('TEX'):              # only operate on textures
      for input in node.inputs:                  # check each input
        if input.type == 'VECTOR':               # only operate on vectors
          tree.links.new(src_socket, input)      # set up the link
          break                                  # only do the first vector
else:                                            # fail if no valid select
  print('No single-output node selected')

Tested on Blender v2.69 r60995.


Tapering screw threads: are there any alternatives besides writing a python script (screenshots included)? Hello all,

In this stage of my project, I need to "taper" the "endings" of the screw threads, one of which is shown in my screenshot. I intend on doing so by taking that group of vertices 'A' and, across many iterations, bring it progressively close and closer to the vertex 'C.' As you might be able to tell, getting 'A' closer to 'C' should be ideally done across the axis formed between 'A' and 'C.' Beyond that, the only other morphological feature of the threads that would be changing is the angle 'B,' which is going to become progressively smaller as the screw threads get more tapered.

Is there any other way of going about doing this without python scripting?

Thank you.

You can go a long way with modifiers..

Create a thread/shaft profile (here, the shaft will be down the X axis, left to right).
Assign the sharp vertex to a vertex group. I've called mine 'Pitch'

Assign a Screw modifier to the object, along the X axis. Adjust so the profile turns merge. At this point, It will be an un-tapered shaft with threads of even depth.

Now assign a Simple Deform > Taper modifier, aimed at the 'Pitch' vertex group, to taper the threads without tapering the shaft. (The first, illustrated)
.. and assign a second Taper modifier with no vertex group to further taper the shaft and threads together.

IMO, the behaviors of the Simple Deform modifiers are pretty painful. I'd recommend practicing with Simple Deform > Taper on a subdivided plane, to get the feel of it.

I would expect the modifier's limits to be defined solely by the modified object's bounding box in the dimension of interest; that there would be no effect negative of the lower limit set in the modifier. But this is not the case. The way to get it to behave is to put the modifier's origin at the set lower limit, as well. Above, the unmodified Y dimesion of the plane was 3, the taper is set to start at .2 of the X dimension, and the modifier's origin has been placed there too.

You can further assign Bevel by angle, Sub-d modifiers further down the stack.

Obviously the object will need further patching up after applying the modifiers, to make it manifold, and ready for printing.

After applying the modifiers, if the Screw vertices have merged properly, the egdes/faces running along the helix are on single loops, so screws are easier to edit than you might think.


How to Enable Frame Blending in Blender 2.74? I can't find the option that supposedly existed in Blender 2.49: "Enable Frame Blending". Does anyone know where it is, or where is its analog?

I shot a sunset - 30 minute video I want to turn to 10 second sped-up video. I easily do that with Add->Effect Strip->Speed Control, and setting  to 200.

This drops 199 frames out of 200, which isn't quite what I'm after.

There are people walking in front of the camera. I want to blur every 200 frames into 1, so that there are blurred trails of people rather than snippets of people.

Google says that all I need to do is check the "Enable Frame Blending" option. However, I cannot find this option in Blender 2.74 UI or source code, so it probably got renamed. Does anyone know how to fix this? I cannot use Blender 2.49 (I tried.. The new blender UI is tough for me to get around, googling basic things 20 minutes at a time; the old blender is however just an impenetrable wall of foreign UI concepts)

This option was lost in the transition to 2.5. Not sure exactly why, maybe the design of it didn't fit with the newer design (under the hood, not UI) It might be a Todo item.
You might want to use the program 'slomovideo' http://slowmovideo.granjow.net/
that does pixel-flo type blurs and blends to do this effect. (It is also free and open source)


How would I go about making this fuselage? this is my first post on here.
I am working on making a 3D model of the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod.
I have used some de Havilland Comet blueprints for the main part (because the Nimrod is a modified version of the comet) but the problem is, the Nimrod fuselage is made up of two cylinders and I am having trouble making it look good.
Here is what I currently have:

And here is what I am trying to do:

As you can see, the parts appear to be jagged where they intersect.
I am also having difficulty with making the two parts appear to be smoother and connecting at the front.
My priority, however, is removing all of the parts of the bottom object that intersect with the top one, without any shading issues.
I have tried using the Boolean Modifier to subtract the bottom half from the top, however this caused shading problems.
Sorry if I was not clear enough.
Also, I need to be able to solidify the top half (I am making this for Roblox)

Here is a topology proposition, I hope this helps:


How to make radius of one edge bigger than of a rest I have a round cube 100x150x100mm with radius 2mm (standard mesh shape). I want to make one edge more rounded than the rest - with radius 10mm. How can I do this?

Select edge you want to bevel 10 mm and Assign to Vertex Group
Add Bevel modifier > Amounth 0.010 > Limit > Vertex Group
Add Bevel modifier > Amounth 0.002 > Limit > Angle


Two faces inside of each other sharing same 4 vertices, why and how to fix? Good afternoon everyone!
I've been learning hard surface modelling and after a while noticed that some polys of my mesh are darker than others. On closer inspection, it appears that each of these is somehow not a single face but 2 polys taking same exact space and sharing same exact vertices.
Initially, I thought that this happens due to duplicated verts and did merge by distance but apparently that's not the case. If I box select one of those polys in wireframe mode blender prints Verts: 4, Edges: 4, Faces: 2.
I strongly suspect that doing fill holes (Alt + F) did this to me, but I don't understand why.
Any ideas on how to fix this? I surely can pick them manually but would like to know a proper solution which can remove them automagically. Googling yielded nothing but I might've been googling wrong terms.
Blender 2.80.
Thanks in advance!

Blender file:

Ok. I got it to work by doing this:

Select all > Mesh > Split > Faces by Edges
Merge by distance
Recalculate outside (just to be safe)

Though I'm still not sure exactly what was going on, there were obviously a great number of duplicate SOMETHING because the merge by distance operation after the edge-split removed 8743 vertices.
I suspect that the fill-holes operation ( on whatever you had selected when you performed it) created faces that were SOMEWHERE? (I give pause here because up until now, I believed it impossible for blender to define 2 faces with the same verts and edges in the same place - if anyone can clarify further, It would be very informative, and I would be very curious to know how this works).
The only way I can conceive of this happening is that there could be 2 faces on top of one another with their normals facing opposite ways, however this theory is negated by the normal's directions themselves as seen in the images below:

Regardless, the "faces-on-faces" theory still has some merit, because that's the only way I can explain an edge split followed by a merge by distance working the way it did. The only other POSSIBLE thing I can think of is that somehow, some faces got "folded back on themselves", creating the ultimate 180 degree non-manifold plane (sounds weirder the more that I think about it).
Either way, my guess is this is likely the result of a fill-holes operation on to many conjoined faces at once. That's the best I can do. Anyone who knows more about how this type of situation can come about is welcome to explain it further.
Here is an updated .blend with the result of the operations (however they worked)


Boolean modifier on groups - can't select 2nd object - is this possible? I'm making a unit cell of a face-centered-cubic crystal, and I want to cut a group of icospheres with a cube. I have grouped the spheres. Then I selected them by selecting one, and with the select menu, choose group -> siblings.

Once I do that, two things happen. 1st, other objects are selected at the same time (have to de-select them with shift-click) and now the cube no longer appears in the choice of objects as the second object for the modifier, only the icospheres in the selected group.  See screenshot bottom right (below). (Ignore the un-applied wrench-icons in that screenshot)

UPDATE: Please let me know if what I'm trying to do is not possible!

Maybe I'm doing something silly, but I can't spot it. If there is a step-by-step out there that applies to groups, I haven't found it yet. Using 2.74.

Of course, later I'll do it with script, but I really should know how to do it by hand if I'm going to respect myself in the morning.

This is what I'm after:

import bpy
import numpy as np

icorners  = [(0,0,0), (0,0,1), (0,1,0), (0,1,1), (1,0,0), (1,0,1), (1,1,0), (1,1,1)]
corners = np.array(icorners, dtype='float')

isides = [ (0.5, 0.5, 0.0), (0.5, 0.5, 1.0),  (0.5, 0.0, 0.5), (0.5, 1.0, 0.5),  (0.0, 0.5, 0.5), (1.0, 0.5, 0.5) ]
sides = np.array(isides, dtype='float')

scale, size = 3.0, 0.5
offset = np.array([-0.5*scale, -0.5*scale, +1.0*size])

for corner in corners:
    location = scale*corner + offset
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_ico_sphere_add(size=size, location=tuple(location))

for side in sides:
    location = scale*side + offset
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_ico_sphere_add(size=size, location=tuple(location))

radius = 0.5 * scale
location = offset + radius * np.ones(3)
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(radius=radius, location=tuple(location) )

When I run your Script in a fresh Blender pasted in a Text Editor, I get a couple of Icospheres and a cube. Now I select all the Icospheres and Join all of them (CtrlJ). This joined object now works pretty well (after being hidden) with your Cube and a Boolean Modifier set to Intersect with this object:

You don't need any groups. So did I understand your question properly?

If you want to retain only that pieces separately you could Apply the Modifier and then in Edit Mode Separate (P) by loose parts.


Force particles outwards and upward I'm looking for a way to let particles enter into a tube from the top and when they reach the bottom they should slow down, be pushed radially outwards and then upwards. See a very crude cross section below.

With a regular force I can get them pushed outwards but is there a way to have sort of a tube shaped force that is stronger the farther you get from the center radially?

Turn off gravity  for both methods.
Using a curve force
Use multiple emitters on multiple layers. Add a curve force to each layer shaping the path of the particles as desired.
Using physical forces
Force this setup I used Wind forces (for the up and down movement), a point force (to disperse the particles at the bottom and a vortex force on the bottom to stop them from drifting away on the horizontal plane.

The wind forces
Use a smaller wind force to push the particles downward (strength -20) with a narrow falloff (0.8, 1.2).
Use a larger wind force to push the particles upward (strength 10). It will also act in the center (where the particles are supposed to go down), which is why the smaller down force has a larger strength to counteract the upward force.
Outward movement at the bottom
A simple point force at the bottom with a radius of 1 - 2 can push the particles away from the center. Since the continue to drift away from the center, a vortex force can pull them back towards it. Here you need to fine tune the value to stop the particles from not following the desired path.
You can use drag forces to remove the XZ velocities. A drag force in combination with a strong wind force will give you good control and can remove some problematic velocity which has built up.


RTX 2080 graphics card is not recognized as Optix compatible on Debian 10 I have the same issue as Timothy Tinsman on Debian 10 up to date: Blender 2.83 / 2.83.5 and 2.90 don't recognize my RTX 2080 graphics card as compatible with Optix.

CUDA, on the other hand, is functional.
The NVidia driver installed is the one offered by Debian in the non-free repository: 418.152.00 stable.
As suggested by Timothy Tinsman and in this post on blenderartists.org, I checked the packages libnvoptix1, libnvidia-rtcore and libnvidia-cbl. They're all installed.
Another leads?
Thanks!

I switched the NVidia drivers to 440.100 (from the backports repository) and Optix now seems to work.


Rotate Default Model Orientation Is it possible to rotate a model's default orientation?

For example my object is at rotation 0, 0, 0
however the model is pointing at what looks to be 90, 90, 90

could it be the way the model was created?
if so is it possible to edit the model so it faces a certain way by default?

The situation you describe is a result of a failure to apply the rotation to the object. It may be possible to edit the model, but I find it is quicker to apply (keyboard shortcut combination:  CTRL  -  A  as soon as I've made the desired rotation.


How To Select Vertices So I am a huge Blender newbie and had a very basic question. I'm importing models from a posing studio to edit in Blender, but when I switch to Edit mode and attempt to delete vertices I'm stuck on selecting bones instead of vertices, edges, and faces. I was able to successfully switch to editing vertices once, but I don't know how I did it. I'm wondering if there's a hotkey or easy way to switch to selecting and editing vertices rather than bones?
I included a picture of the bone select mode that I seem to be stuck in.

I apologize for the newbie question. Thanks in advance for any and all help!

You have selected the armature are already in edit mode for the armature hence you are only able to edit the armature and not the mesh.

Go back to object mode.
Press A twice to deselect everything.
Select the mesh only and not the armature. If you are having trouble selecting the object then go to the outliner and select the object by clicking on Kanout.mesh.
Now enter edit mode.


What is the index in the select_linked_pick command? What is the index argument in the command:

bpy.ops.mesh.select_linked_pick(deselect=False, delimit={'SEAM'}, index=1729)

Is it possible to find it with python ?

For the operator bpy.ops.mesh.select_linked_pick(deselect=False, delimit={'SEAM'}, index=1729)  the index is taken from the closest element to the mouse cursor and it is calculated as follows :

For Vertices : index = vertex.index.
For Edges    : index = len(vertices)+ edge.index.
for Faces    :  index = len(vertices)+ len(edges) + face.index


How can I blend two images? Description :

I have the pant hose mesh and texture (let's call it texture1) ,and also the body texture(texture 2) ,
I want to blend the body texture with the pant hose texture (make semi transparent pant hose but also have the skin color)
 but only use the pant hose mesh
(layer of skin texture is behind the semi -transparent pant hose)

For easier to imagine, i can get the same result by doing this (but this method duplicates the pant hose mesh, while i want to only use the pant hose mesh as i wrote above)

Rearrange the pant hose UV (let's call it UV1) to fit the apporiate area of body texture . Now i have new UV for pant hose ,let's call it UV2
The arranged UV2 pant hose mesh has the same position as the old one, but has different texture
Make the old pant-hose mesh become semi transparent and leave the new one in same position

Now i have semi transparent pant hose with skin effect

Question :

I want to use only one pant-hose mesh,so i 'm going to edit the body texture (texture2) to fit the UV1
(this is what i mean split the texture follow the UV)
for more clearly about split the texture follow the UV :

****  More detail

For example we have face (A) with  3 vertices ,these vertex indices = 1,2,3
The old UV is UV1,The new one is UV2
I want to do this :
In UV2 editing window, i open the body texture and retrieve texture content inside the face (A) ,and paste that texture part into the corresponding position of UV1
(the position define by face A, which is created by vertices 1,2,3)

-Repeat the steps above with all faces
After doing this (if possible) , i 'll use gimp to place the semi transparent pant-hose texture layer over the new body texture -(the texture created by steps above)- and have the same effect as above

Old post

  I have an object which has two UVs.

  UV1 is for texture 1. UV2 is for texture 2.

  I 'm going to blend texture 1 with texture2 with image editor, the
  semitransparent layer of texture1 is on top of texture 2

  Is it possible to split the image of texture2 follow the UV2, and
  paste to the right position of UV1 ? Thanks

Using cycles you can use a mixRGB node to combine two images into one, each image can use a different uvmap. The Fac of the mixRGB defines how much of each image is visible.

You can then use a third greyscale image to define the amount that the two images mix together, white showing one texture and black the other and 50% grey being an even mix of both, texture painting can be useful to position the transition where you want it.


Uv Unwrap only shows one side Hello guys i am unwrapping my face mesh but in UV image editor only shows one side of the mesh! how can i fix? can someone help me?

Probably because you have a Mirror Modifier active. Your figure only has that one side until you Apply the Mirror to it. Click the eye symbol on your Mirror Modifier and you will se what I mean. Hope that helps.


Video Editing (NLE): Time results of rendering in non-native resolution I understand (I believe) that when I select a resolution smaller than my native, pixels are dropped from each frame. I'm wondering how much of a burden this is on my CPU.

I have a 1440p monitor, options to downscale resolution in Dxtory (recording gameplay), and options to downscale resolution in Blender when rendering. Would it be best for me to downscale when writing to file from Dxtory? Or perhaps, to downscale when rendering in Blender? Or (doubtful), would it simply be less hassle to write to file and render in 1440p?

Essentially, if I'm only going to do one (which I assume is the best method), when should I do it?

Thank you.

Blender's VSE always scales the image, unless the source is the same size as project.

The project's render properties determine the speed of the scale process.
In the properties panel look for Anti-Aliasing.

For best speed of scale turn this off. However the image will have jagged edges.

To improve quality of the VSE scaling or other transform effects, you must turn on the Anti-aliasing. There are many levels and algorithms to choose from. The render-speed change may not seem to great, but you must multiply the difference out over the total number of frames rendered. And this example was based on a very simple image.


Does Blender work on IntelHD 4000 I just wanted to know if I need a high graphics card by that I mean like GTX 1000 etc. Because if I want to make a high graphics animation then I would need a high graphics card right?

No you don't, Blender can render on CPU. But a compatible GPU is highly recommended in most cases. You can argue that some CPUs are better than some GPUs, but a high end GPU is probably the most reasonable way to go for most people.

Since you are asking this question though, I would recommend to go with what you have for now and play around and learn the software. The GPU questions is about how much time your computer needs to render. After all you probably don't want to wait several days or month to render your animation and on the other hand, you probably don't need more than you have until you know the software quite well.


Movie is not playing properly blender 2.8 My Movie for my TV is not playing in render mode of my view port but it is playing in the UV Editor i have no idea whats going wrong. I basically added an image texture and opened an mp4 Movie Format and set the texture for movie then set the frames from 1 to 250 i have checked the cyclic and auto refresh boxes and still no change. I have two materials already one for the TV and one For the Movie Clip i UV unwrapped movie clip and assigned MAT to the right area. Even after doing all of this still no change can someone please tell me what the problem could be?

(I'm using Blender 2.79)
Did you set the number of frames, in the texture panel of the Properties Editor, to however many frames you want to have playing? By default it's set to 1 and will just show as a still picture.


Video Editing: I'm unable to trim speed control strip's duration I'm using the Video Editing mode, and trying to apply a speed control effect between two markers; For that purpose, I've managed to change the strip's 'trim duration (soft)' properties through setting the start value as the first marker time value, and the end value as the second one -- Yet, unfortunately, these values doesn't change, whenever I try, and gets always reset to 0.

Why I'm getting such behavior?

Split the clip at the points that you want to stretch, then select this strip. Press shift A key and add an Effect>Speed Effect. Then stretch the strip to your desired length.


Any bubbles simulation + Eevee Tutorials? I am actually trying to make steam from a hot drink cup. But in a cartoon style. This is the reason I am not using the Smoke simulator. So maybe the Particle System settings for soap bubbles would do, I would just replace the bubbles with my own meshes.
Needless to say I have searched and searched only to find old tutorials for Cycles and even Blender Internal.
Could anyone care to share a tutorial on making floating thingies (not necessarily bubbles)? I am only interested in the Particle System/Physics workflow and settings.
Thanks a bunch in advance guys :slight_smile:

Cheers!

I was able to figure out the basics and take it from there… (hopefully it will help someone).

Basic Settings, as in Barebone settings

Requirements:

Domain - This is the container where the simulation will happen.
Use a cube, adapt it to the dimensions of the simulation. E.g. if it is for something that will float or elevate (like smoke) then a vertical rectangle would do.
While the cube is selected, go to the Physics Properties tab from the Properties right panel.
Enable Physics for: Fluid, type: Domain, Settings: Domain Type: Gas, everything else stays untouched for now.

Force Field - Inside the cube, at the bottom add a plane. While the cube is selected, go to the Physics Properties tab add a Force Field to it. Type: Wind, Settings: Shape: Plane, Strength: 0.700, Flow: 0.500, everything else stays untouched for now.

Particles Emitter - Inside the cube, above the Force Field plane, add a 2nd plane. While the cube is selected, go to the Physics Properties tab. Fluid, Type: Flow, Settings: Flow Type: Liquid, Flow Behavior: Geometry, everything else stays untouched for now.
Also add a Particle System to the same plane - From the tab above, the Particle Properties, click the “+” sign in the upper-right corner to add it. It will be called “ParticleSettings”. Keep it as an Emitter. Change the Number of particles to whatever suits your simulation. Emission/Number: Default is 1000. I had enough with 100. Check when you want them to end, default is at the frame 200. Check for how many frames they will live, default is: 50 frames. Cache (Optional, if your RAM can afford it): Cache Step: 6, this will smooth the simulation. Rotation (Optional): checked, Randomize: 0.5.
Physics: Newtonian, Mass: 0.5.
Multiply Mass with Size: checked.
Default shape of particles is Halo (little spheres). To change it to an object of your choice: Render section of the same tab, Render As: Object, Scale: 1.000, Object, Instance Object: “your obj here”.


How can i get rid of many vertices? How can i get rid of so many points? I applied bevel modifier to round the edges of a plane.

You can select all your vertices, go in the header menu > Select > Checker Deselect:

Then you can change the options in the Operator box, and delete with X > Dissolve Vertices:


How to delete all the keyframes from multiple objects? I have about 30 objects which are keyframed. Is there a fast way way to delete all the animation data from all of them?

The fastest way I can think of:

Select all the objects
Press ⎈ Ctrl← Left arrow twice to get the the Animation screen.
Hover over the dope sheet and select everything (A), then press ⌦ Delete.


How can I create a rope like object, that can attach object on the bottom and they will both respond to force field So for my scene, I've created a lantern and I want to hang it on a rope so it will swang with a wind force field. So my idea is to create a long strip of plane and use cloth physics and pinpoint one end, and it seems alright, but I got no idea how to do the other end.

I've tried using physics constrain but I realize it will not move with the end of the rope so the lantern is just fixed in the space.:(

If I understand correctly you want to stick an object to the bottom of your rope? If so you can do it this way:

Select your rope, go in Edit mode and select 2 or 3 of its bottom vertices.

Back to Object mode, select the rope, then select the lantern object, then click ctrlP > Vertex (Triangle) to parent the lantern to the vertices.

If you play the animation the lantern should follow the swing of the rope.


Weight Paint x mirror is painting left and right weight to the left side of the mesh Im trying to paint weight on the left side of the mesh and have it mirror over while painting to the opposing bones on the opposite side (def-thigh.L over to def-thigh.R). however, when I paint, it paints weight for the left and right bones to the same side verts (def-thigh.L). instead of mirroring the weight over to the verts for bone def-thigh.R.

Under options, uncheck "topology mirror"


how to render without displaying the rendering process Im starting with Blender and I would like to know if its possible to render an animation without Blender showing each frame while rendering as I think this could slow down the process a bit. Am I right?

Thanks in advance

If your concern is performance, render using the Command line. This is for sure the most efficient way to render, since blender will not use any resources on the user interface.
The basic command is:
blender -b file.blend -x 1 -o //render -a

-b
Render in the background with no user interface
file.blend
The path to the blend file you want to render
-x [0\1]
Set option to add the file extension (e.g. "avi" "jpg", "png" etc) to the end of the file, 0 means no and 1 means yes
-o
Path for the output file and file name (// if using relative paths)
-a
Render the whole animation from start to end using all the settings saved in the blend file.
There are a lot more options accessible when rendering using the command line. More info Here and Here.

If you want to use blender normally, you can close all UV/Image editor windows and in the the Properties window set Scene->Render->Display to

Keep UI
The image is rendered to the Image Editor, but the UI remains the same. You will need to open the Image Editor manually to see the render result.


Why does my cloth simulation mesh glitch after editing its geometry? Okay this is really frustrating because it doesn't make any sense. I'm animating a cloak for my character. I run a simulation and it animates fairly well. I dissolve one line of geometry running right down the middle of it and replay it. It looks a little better.
I make a few more changes and decide to go back and add that geometry again. I just loop cut right down the middle. I play it again and it starts stretching all over the view port and glitching  and clipping and tanks my fps really bad. This isn't the first time this has happened either, is this common for blender?
Another similar thing happened where I moved a couple of vertices on the collision mesh of the character wearing it. I only tweaked the position of 4 or 5 vertices from very tiny areas and the cloth modifier just forgot how to work. Again. What causes this?

So, I figured out what it was... I removed geometry from a vertex group that I had pinned, and added it again without reassigning the new vertices which caused everything to wig out.
Turns out the solution was as simple as adding selecting the new vertices I was adding and assigning them to the vertex group and that solved it.


How can i get my characters feet to lie flat? I used Cntrl A along the x axis to widen the feet and attempt to make them look flat.  Yet Cnrtl A (x) widened them along a diagonal.  Can anyone tell me what I did wrong in creating flat feet?  Thank you for any help you can offer.

Select the group of vertices that represent the shoe sole and press Shift+S-->Cursor to Selected.

Scale it along the Z axis (S,Z) and press 0.

Add a loopcut to sharpen the edge. Press Ctrl+R, confirm the cut with Left Mouse Click and place the loopcut at the bottom of the sole.

Here's the result.


How should operator id_remap be used? I'm trying to use id_remap on some materials, but Blender crashes when I try to use the operator. I've tried many different ways to invoke it. Right now I have:

area = bpy.context.area

old_type = area.type

area.type = 'OUTLINER'

bpy.ops.outliner.id_remap(id_type='MATERIAL', old_id='material_2', new_id='material_SM_2')

area.type = old_type

What's the correct way to use this operator?

Thank you!

The following should work with Blender 2.7x.

import bpy

def AssembleOverride(atype, rtype):
    for oWindow in bpy.context.window_manager.windows:
        oScreen = oWindow.screen
        for oArea in oScreen.areas:
            if oArea.type == atype:
                for oRegion in oArea.regions:
                    if oRegion.type == rtype:
                        oContextOverride = {
                                'window': oWindow,
                                'screen': oScreen,
                                'area': oArea,
                                'region': oRegion,
                                'scene': bpy.context.scene,
                                'edit_object': bpy.context.edit_object,
                                'active_object': bpy.context.active_object,
                                'selected_objects': bpy.context.selected_objects
                                }
                        print("-AssembleOverride() created override context: ", oContextOverride)
                        return oContextOverride
    raise Exception("ERROR: AssembleOverride()")
# ['EMPTY', 'VIEW_3D', 'TIMELINE', 'GRAPH_EDITOR', 'DOPESHEET_EDITOR',
# 'NLA_EDITOR', 'IMAGE_EDITOR', 'CLIP_EDITOR', 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR',
# 'NODE_EDITOR', 'TEXT_EDITOR', 'LOGIC_EDITOR', 'PROPERTIES', 'OUTLINER',
# 'USER_PREFERENCES', 'INFO', 'FILE_BROWSER', 'CONSOLE']
atype = 'OUTLINER'
# ['WINDOW', 'HEADER', 'CHANNELS', 'TEMPORARY', 'UI', 'TOOLS',
# 'TOOL_PROPS', 'PREVIEW']
rtype = 'WINDOW'

override = AssembleOverride(atype, rtype)
# old_id and  new_id must be pre-existing or operator will fail
bpy.ops.outliner.id_remap(
        override,
        id_type='MATERIAL',
        old_id='Material.002',
        new_id='Material.001'
        )


GNOME Shell Integration (menus) Is there an Add-On that enables GNOME's (also Unity's) native menus?
I mean the menu's in the Info panel like File, Render, Window, Help.

Current Look

Desired Look

Basically No

No, it's not possible and never will be (in all likelihood).

Blender is basically just one OpenGL Canvas, that uses OpenGL to draw all of its UI using it's own library called GHOST, see Is the Blender GUI package available for other programs?.

Maybe it will be more clear by comparing Blender to a video game using OpenGL (which is essentially the same thing, a pure OpenGL application):
You are asking to put GNOME's menus into Counter Strike/WoW/you name it.

It just won't work because OpenGL is not operating with the normal windowing system of your OS.
Other 3D software like Maya / 3ds max use the native windowing system and only use DirectX/OpenGL to render the 3D Views. Blender as a whole is just one (or more) big OpenGL window(s).

Alternatives

Create additional GNOME windows via python

You could use python to create additional windows using GNOME's native menus, which could then interact with Blender. But that would just be a bad idea, because you'd get into a lot of cross-platform trouble, plus it's inconsistent with the rest of Blender and I don't even know a single project that does something like that.

Use Blender as a python module

If you just want use some functionality of Blender (maybe to modify a lot of blend files in a specific way) and want a GNOME UI then you could use Blender as a python module. That's a bit more involved though. For more info have a look at the Blender Wiki page on using Blender as a python module


How to apply fcurve modifiers on top of each other, like object modifiers? I have a looping animation made up of a few keyframes and a Cycles fcurve modifier.

I'd like to introduce some random variations so it doesn't look like an exact loop, however the cycles modifier always appears to be applied last; random patterns produce by the noise modifier are repeated as well:

Is there a way to do this without adding a ton of empties and constraints?

Have you considered the NLA?

Add Noise to your original fcurve.

Cycle with strip repeat
Add Noise to the NLA strip

Add Noise to the animated influence

Add noise to the animated strip time.

Produces some random patterns over the cycles, with a fair touch of overkill.  Just the repeat and noise modifier in the NLA would suffice.


How to bridge two faces (loop edges) which have diffrent number of vertex I want to make a cone with round bottom and rectangle top, how can i bridge them to get symmertic?

I suggest different approach.

add plane, shape it , subdivide than extrude with z presed
than with just top loop selected (extruded edge)
go->mesh->transfor>to sphere

remember! extrude edge not whole plane!


I can't install blender on my hp desktop pc I am running  a 64 bit system with win 10 installed and up to date:

Blender 2.78 installs up to an almost finished point.. then an applet informs me .. that the blender file is too long for the start menu.

I am no dummy on a pc as I also code software and I've tried every trick I know  to get the program installed.

Any help in resolving this would be appreciated.

Just tried it use the 32 bit that will work


utf-8 codec can't decode strings randomly I am coding a binary format, and I am reading null-terminated strings with the following code:
def read_string(f):
    chars = []
    i = 0
    while True:
        c = f.read(1)
        i += 1
        if (c == b'\x00'):
            return (''.join(chars)) #.encode('utf-8')
        chars.append(c.decode('utf-8'))

And I have this problem that, when I want to access said strings, I get the following error:
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xc0 in position 0: invalid start byte
Usually in lines like these:
bone = armature.pose.bones[obj.name]

or:
if (objects[i].name == parentname):

I'm not sure what am I doing wrong, and I can't seem to figure out how to fix these random errors, that sometimes show up and sometimes don't, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to debug this, is there any way I could tell why this is happening?
I'm not sure if it's the way I'm reading python, or it's something else.
Thanks for reading!

I think your code is breaking because (as stated by @wilks) UTF has a variable length of bytes, not always just 1. Assuming your file format has UTF-8 null-terminated strings inside a larger block of binary data we can do something like the following little test program you can run in iPython or your favorite ide. It has a list of valid, null-terminated utf-8 bytes with cruft at the end.

bob=b'\xe2\x9c\x93 means check\x00\xc0'

chars = bytearray()

for c in bob:
    if c == 0: # c is int so does not match b'\x00'
        break
    chars.append(c)

print(chars.decode('utf-8'))

And here is the (untested) changes I would make to your read_string function:
def read_string(f):
    chars = bytearray() # avoid lists
    i = 0
    while True:
        c = f.read(1)
        i += 1
        if (c == b'\x00' ): # c is bytes()
            return (chars.decode('utf-8') )
        chars.append( c[0] ) # stick another bare byte onto chars


Making a Memphis pattern How could I make this a Memphis material from the picture?

To do this, you first must make sure that the object you want to put the texture on is unwrapped.

Then, make sure you are in cycles render and add a new image texture shown below

If you ever want to change how big the texture looks on your object, just scale your UV mesh up or down.


Clean intersecting geometry I have a mesh imported from a game that consists of multiple objects. The fact that there are multiple body sections is confusing auto weights when rigging, and is causing solve errors. Is there any way to remove the intersections so that it is one object? I was thinking of using some kind of boolean tool but rigging it manually would be much easier than de-sembiling the mesh and using booleans to reassemble it. Any ideas on how I could do it?

I want to remove all intersecting geometry so that the object is homogenous, not having extra mesh inside it but an empty shell so that weight paints wont get confused
Just so you know, I know how to rig, and am just looking for an easier way to weight paint
In conclusion, all I want to do is clean up excess geometry inside the mesh and overlapping geometry

This is a common problem. You're probably getting a "heat weighting failed" error, as described here:
heat weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones.
This happens when you're trying to bind an armature to a mesh that consists of one or more pieces of non-manifold geometry. It doesn't matter whether these pieces have been joined together or not. If there is non-manifold geometry, you can encounter this issue. The only solution is to rebuild the mesh to get rid of anything non-manifold, so that you end up with one single, continuous mesh with no mesh collisions or holes. That will likely be a labor-intensive effort, but you might be able to reduce some of the workload by using the Mesh Cleanup tools.


Motion Lights in Wind Hope I'm able to explain my problem:

I'm hoping to animate little Piezo electric sticks with LED lights at their end. They are screwed onto a facade. Like electric lighters the elements should turn kinetic energy (coming from the wind) into electricity.
I want to animate the LED's as part of the particle system to be only glowing when moving in the wind and being dark when standing still.

Animation motion elements:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEh6g7RgA8g&feature=youtu.be

I assume you are using Hair Dynamics for your Particle System to simulate the movement. Thats really the only way I could think of making this effect. The problem is that you need get the velocity of the particles from that simulation. As far as I know thats impossible, because the particles are not moving at all, they are just "bending". The velocity of hair particles is their direction. The position of the particles (their roots in particular) is also always the same, so they don't move either.
My First working Attempt:
I first found a way to make the effect you wished for, but it is restricted to a plane and the absence of light. Maybe with more Blender knowledge (maybe with Lighting Groups or compositing) its possible to expand this concept.
I used tubes as my particles and only one sunlight directly from above. As the tubes stand still (have no potential (bend) energy) the sunlight will shine right through them and won't light them up, but as they rotate/bend sideways they will catch sunlight and light up. I used a mix from diffuse and translucent shaders to make the tube light up on all sides.
This will only work if in Cycles diffuse indirect light is turned off and will give little control over the brightness.
My Solution
In my second attempt I got it perfect, it work an all curved surfaces and with every setup. It allows for complex lighting, complex materials and complex particles. Its based on the Normal Edit Modifier and Cycles Material Nodes. Here is a demonstration of the effect:

I again used the Hair Dynamics with gravity turned off for them. The particles can be anything you like, you just have to have some part of it with only an emission material on it.
The concept is following:
As the particles bend their normals rotate. If you compare the normals with the particles velocity (direction for hair particles) you can compute the bend angle. From there you can do anything you want with it. But its not that simple. This way it would work with tubes (because they have no normals facing in one direction) but not with cubes or more complex shapes. The key to the solution is the Normal Edit Modifier in combination with particle rotation. If configured correctly it will give the desired effect. The problem why we need particle rotation is really visible if we try to use tubes. They will light up on two sides and stay dark on the other to sides, because the normals to the side stay perpendicular to the initial particle orientation. To reliably use the normals we need them to face always the direction of the bend or the opposite. The setup for that is shown below.

The particle has a material that emits light on rotation and a vertex group thats marks the part that has the material. The Normal Edit Modifier is set to Directional and parallel and the target is the Empty directly at the same position as the particle object. That way only the offset controls the normals. It is set to make the Normals face in the Z direction, while the particle itself is facing the Y direction (remember this can be very complicated if you rotate the particle object. The Edit is constraint to the vertex group only to not interfere with other materials. Now the object can be used as hair particle with hair dynamics to show the movement. Remember to check the Advanced checkbox in the Particle System Settings and activate Rotation. Also turn of gravity, as gravity will change the resting position of the particles after the simulation starts.
The material itself is not too complicated. It first takes the dot product of the normal and the initial particle orientation. If the Particle didn't move the angle is 90 degrees, so the dot product will be 0. As the particle moves it will go up or down. The first math node will make the value always positive (I don't it is actually needed in this particular setup). The following two math nodes will map the values to a brightness scala. I used Power here to increase the contrast, somewhat similar to gamma correction. The output goes into the emission shader.
Extension:
If you want to have your particles rotating in phase you could make the normals face the same way, the particles face (Y direction in my case) and change the math in the shader to make the emission brighter if the dot product is lower instead of higher in this case. The node setup for that looks like this:

Note that there is a new node to normalize the velocity vector. That is actually fairly important here, while it can be omited in my original solution. The reason for that is the Arccosine Node which needs the values to be in a specific range (-1 to 1). The following Absolute Node seemed neccessery after I failed to configure the Normal Edit Modifier to make all Normals face one way. For some reason there were always some Normals in the exactly opposite direction. The Arccosine Node then transforms everything into angles. Note that it was not neccessary for my original solution to include this conversion because it operated in the valuerange where the angle and the dot product are roughly proportional. The output of that is the bend angle and can be mapped like before with some math nodes to a brightness scala. You could also use that angle in combination with a colorramp to make some colorful effects.


Use Pro Shaders in Blender? I own Element 3d and Pro shaders. More than anything, I'm curious to know if it would be possible to use pro shaders in blender to render in cycles. Does anyone know if this is possible?

At this time it's not possible to import the shaders directly into Cycles.

Currently Element3D can only export OBJ files, which doesn't help even if you applied a Pro Shader to a model in E3D because OBJ materials don't really map to Cycles material nodetrees. They doe import the UV coords as well as image textures if there is a .MTL material file included with the OBJ file.

If E3D could export to FBX format, you would be able to import a shader tree that was more Cycles compatible.

At this point, I think your only option would be to import the image texture(s) used in the Pro Shader you want (if you can find them in ProShader folder in your file system), and then try to recreate the shader in Cycles.