How to create a procedural/parametric n-sided star with cycles nodes? Using cycles nodes, how do I create a parametric n-sided star?

I've seen Procedural Star Texture in Blender Cycles, but somehow I feel duplicating node groups and manually typing in the rotation is not the way to go. I'm fairly certain there's a more elegant way to do this but the math involved simply eludes me.

Early attempts:
Ideally, this would be it, except the arrows are pointing in the wrong direction! :)

UPDATE:
Following formulas from Wolfram, I've managed to come up with this:
I have no idea if I did it correctly but I've made a pentagram, so at least something in there was correct. However, similar to the tutorial linked above this solution is not very elegant either, requiring me to duplicate the node group and typing in a rotation value per segment/spoke.

I'm hoping one of you blender math heads out there could help me. Thank you!

I've started with the idea that we can have 5 parameters to do it.

The amount of stars to display: a scale effect along the surface.
The orientation of the star: turning it around its center.
The amount of branches.
The branch length.
The base width: how thin the branch is.

Globally, I think the main thing to consider to draw on a rendered surface (for Eevee or Cycles) is that the engine drives each raycast and so we can only "rearrange" the coordinates we receive so that it fits to our need. And "fit to our need" means driving this coordinate to a wanted color, texture or shader.

For instance, if we want to scale the figure, the idea is to multiply the given coordinates by a value (this is node by VectorMultiply node group in the blend file below, which simply multiplies X, Y and Z by a given value).

From that and more directly about the star subject, the idea is to test if a given point corresponds to a given triangle which is the half of a branch:

And if we know that our coordinates are positives, a point P(x,y) is inside the triangle if x + y < 1, or more precisely if the triangle we want is of dimensions A, B, then P is inside if (x/A) + (y/B) < 1.

From that, all the trick is to make any point the render engine gives to us come back in this quadrant appropriately.

First step, we have scaled the coordinates. That mean we no more have something between 0 and 1 (as the UV map coordinates are), but something between 0 and the scale. To have back something between 0 and 1, we can take the modulo 1 of the point coordinates. For example if the scale is twenty, will obtain a sequence of twenty intervals [0, 1[ when the render engine casts along the surface.

This is done by VectorModulo node group in the blend file (which simply takes the modulo of each coordinate of the vector).

Next to have a final quadrant (the rectangle image above) between 0 and 1, we recenter our current coordinates to a center at 0.5 and scale it by 2. This is done by the VectorRecenter node group. This last calculation gives something between -1 and 1, but will finally take only the positive quadrant below.

At this step, our point is somewhere around the center we defined above with a value between -1 and 1 and we want to know the angle it has from the X axis.

This is done by Vector2ToPolar node group which only take into accound X and Y and calculates the angle with arctan2( y, x ) because this arctangent give the good sign of the angle (and the other arctangent vector math node does not).

From this angle its easy to add a rotation so that we can turn the stars (just add a value to the previous angle).

Now we want an amount N of star branches. Each branch corresponds to an angle of a = 2pi / n.

And we want to know that our point is somewhere around 1 x a or 2 x a or (n - 1) x a. So we divide the current angle by a, round the obtained value and multiply it by a again. Relatively to that, our point angle become the point angle minus this previous rounded result. This is done inside the 'RoundAngleDelta' node group.

We now have two information (this last angle and the vector length) we go back to vector coordinates using the 'PolarToVector2' node group.

The point we now have fits to the half branch rectangle above, except that y could be negative. So we take the absolute value of it.

Finally we consider the last two parameters BranchLength and BaseLength so that we can apply the formula (x/BranchLength) + (y/BaseLength) < 1 (indicated (x/A) + (y/B) < 1 above).

Here are the variations for these last parameters:

Edit: mapping enhancement

The previous setup works well with UV maps. But it does not for "generated" or "object" coordinates inputs.

So, I've added some nodes to pre-process normal orientation so that the stars can be drawn on any orientations.

This solution is taken from this answer written by Rich Sedman

The setting in few words (as it described in the link above): given a normal input, we want to choose which pair of coordinates (X, Y or Z) will take the role of (X, Y) we need to draw the stars, so that they are drawn on every faces whatever their orientation is.

Here is the updated blend file:


How to spread out keyframes parabolically I would like to create an animation in which something blows up, starting at a normal speed, slows down to a stop, and then reforms. I know I can manually spread out the keyframes in the dope sheet editor (by spreading the keyframes farther and farther apart and then pasting a copy in reverse), but is there a way to do this automatically?

Example of distances between keyframes: 1,1,1,1,2,4,8,16,32 || 32,16,8,4,2,1,1,1,1
Where || is where the new keyframes end and I paste a copy in reverse order.

Doing it manually works when the speed change happens over a few frames, but if I want the process to extend over 60-120 frames, the process becomes both harder to correctly guess the distance, and it takes substantially more time. Is there something such as a way to edit keyframe distance in the NLA editor?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Please comment if anything is unclear.

I made both a slow-down addon and a reverse addon. A combination of those two may be helpful?

How can I slow down or animate time?

How to reverse an animation?

EDIT

This is designed to help you with the result you are looking for, which is not necessarily parabolic.


Blender character to unity scale problem This has probably been asked many times before, but I can't find a solution to my problem. I have created a character in Blender, and when I import it into Unity by dragging in the .blend file, the character is huge compared to for example a default cube object:

Here is an image of my character and a cube in blender, along with the character's dimensions in meters:

Why is this happening, and how do I fix it? Hopefully someone can spot the issue, otherwise let me know if you need more info.

I solved it. Scene -> Units -> Set it to centimeters.


Applying a polygonal (hexagonal) grid to a surface I'm playing around with an idea about applying a hexagonal grid to an (as yet undefined) irregular geometry. I want to be able to easily adjust the density of the polygonal grid, within a range.
The grid is an array of circles, but I'm representing them here as hexagons. My poor little laptop can't cope otherwise!
Presently I'm using Sverchok, but happy to explore other node-based solutions.

The key parameters are as follows:

The circles are uniform and can range in Radius from 1 unit to 4.5
The space between circles must be no less than 1 unit (currently I've defined a minimum size ('Centers') of 5 but really the minimum size should be 1 unit larger than the Radius - couldn't figure out how to do this either!)
While the circles cannot change radius (other than by manual input), and the spaces between them cannot be less than 1 unit, they can be further apart, in order to make as even arrangement as possible on the irregular surface.
The finished part should be printable.

So, question one is how might I apply this polygonal grid to a surface, and scale it within the rules specified?
(and is this a sensible way to construct a polygonal grid?)
By way of analogy, if I was doing this along a line, I might look at using Sverchok's Duplicate Objects Along Edge node, but I can't think how to make this work across a surface (regular or otherwise).

example

try to keep your nodes in order

investigate:


Blender Presenter View? In Powerpoint, there is such a thing as a Presenter View where you have Powerpoint opened up on one monitor, say your laptop monitor and then you have the slides being viewed on another one. You use this view when you are presenting to an audience and it gives you a lot of control.

I am wondering if Blender has anything like that. So for example, in monitor 1, I can play with a cube (or a 3D molecule), moving it around and such and then in Monitor 2, I have the same cube moving around only here the audience can only see the cube. They cannot see any of the Blender interface or anything else.

Thanks!

Blender is not a presenter kind of software.

You can detach any view as an additional window by pressing shift and dragging.

The new window you can move over to a second monitor or projector.

That window can be set to whatever part of the interface you want, and can be maximized to full screen by pressing Ctrl+Shift+SpaceBar


Proportional Editing moves whole object I'm trying to follow a video tutorial to learn how to modelling a character in blender. I've reach the point where he explains how to use the Proportional Editing. I'm tryng to do what he says, but this feature is not working in the same way as it works in the tutorial and I don't know why. These are the steps I do :

I activate the Proportional Editing by pressing O
I select a vertex
I press G

What I see is not the movements of a lot of vertex together, but of the whole object. Please check the picture attached where you will see that I've tried to move a vertex with the G and you see what's happened.

That happens a lot, especially if you've set units for your scene. Simply scroll down with your scroll wheel, and the ring will get smaller and smaller, until you see it in your viewport.

Check to see if the "proportional size" number is decreasing.


How can I create a chaotic structure from a triangled mesh I have a cube, which I subdivided into smaller parts, which I then changed into triangles. I would like to reproduce something like this : https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/392657661240154630/

Now my cube is subdivided, though its faces are flat. How can I do to create those "bumbs" and "cavities" ?

If i understood the question

Press Shift+A Add cube.

In edit mode press W subdivide

Press F6 and play with the settings with Fractal and Along Normal

To make the faces from Quad to triangulate In Edit mode Press Ctrl+T or In edit mode -> Mesh -> Faces -> Triangulate faces.


Beveling with tight geometry I've recently purchased a copy of HOps/BoxCutter and I have been loving them so far - however, I've run into an issue where when I have tight geometry made by boxcutter, I am basically incapable of using a bevel modifier across the model. I was looking for some advice on how best I can approach this problem in order to fully bevel the model as desired.
Here's an example photo of my model.
and additionally, a view of the geometry of the model.

If you prefer the model, you can get the .blend here:

Beveling such thing is not an easy, because of small cuts (like objects under Boolean.003, .007, .008). Beveled edges starts to overlap. So you can use only some small range, but even with the value 0.003 it is overlapping. You can notice that since bevelling doesn't appear until you disable Clamp Overlap under Geometry or disable mentioned modifiers.

If you need bevel bigger radius in some areas than others (like bigger radius on base shape and smaller on smaller cuts) move Bevel Modifier up in modifier's stack and use another one.
You would have to use probably some limitations, like Vertex Group for those vertices. But Vertex Group can be set only when modifiers are applied, means destructive way.

Some decent bevelling can be achieved with material Bevel node.


Alembic eye mesh not following the character body I'm trying to export Malcolm(Animschool rig) from maya to blender as an alembic file. But after exporting his eye mesh break the connection with the body and they come on grid in blender. Any valuable suggestions would be helpful.

Nevermind. I found the answer after spending my entire day to get that eye mesh. Solution was: My rig eyeball has the same naming convention and alembic dont read same name file so i had to separately export the eye mesh from maya to blender. And now its working:)


How to remove Triangulation faces in Rendermode, problem with Edge split I'm making Low Poly Knight Chess figure.
I want it to look like this(No trinagles in rendered mode).

But I get this:
I tried removing triangles with Edge split modifier, put the Split angle to 0, removed doubles, flipped normals to the right way but it stays same.

Thank you for help!

In any 3D software every face is actually made of triangles. If a face is too twisted, in Render mode you begin to see the triangles within. To avoid this artefact you can use the Auto-Smooth option, if your object is not smooth shaded (like in your case) it will kill the artefact within every face. In the case of a smooth shaded object it will also smooth the angles between faces, depending on the angle chosen.


CollectionProperty with inherited types Is it possible to store different types (with a shared base class) in a CollectionProperty?

I want each object to have a set of "Components". Each of these components will have its own PropertyGroup that contains various different settings.

e.g. something like the following:

class Property_Component(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    type = bpy.props.EnumProperty(items=component_types_array)

class Property_ComponentList(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    components = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=Property_Component)

class Property_Component_Water(Property_Component):
    wave_height = bpy.props.StringProperty(...)
    color = bpy.props.FloatProperty(...)

class Property_Component_Terrain(Property_Component):
    max_height = bpy.props.FloatProperty(...)

# other component types...

However, I'm having trouble actually creating the different types. I know what type to add to the collection, but calling component_list.components.add() just creates an object of type Property_Component, instead of the derived type, and I don't seem to be able to assign an object of the correct type afterwards.

Is there a way to do this? or some way to work around this?

Something magical with PointerProperty's? Or maybe just give each object an instance of every component (ick), with a boolean to show if it's actually used or not?

This is not possible in Blender. Blender's API is build on defining exactly what type is in a collection. It is not possible to add other types (even if they are subtypes) to that collection.

The reason for this that blender does not store the type of the item with the item. It always uses the class that has been given by the type parameter of the CollectionProperty as the class. If your addon will rename your class Blender will still be able to fill the list as it is defined by the CollectionProperty.

Best way to solve this is to do the reverse and add use a 'type' enum to your PropertyComponent. I assume that your type was already created for this.

class Property_Component_Water(object):
    wave_height = bpy.props.StringProperty(...)
    color = bpy.props.FloatProperty(...)

class Property_Component_Terrain(object):
    max_height = bpy.props.FloatProperty(...)

class Property_Component(bpy.types.PropertyGroup, Property_Component_Water, Property_Component_Terrain):
    type = bpy.props.EnumProperty(items=component_types_array)

class Property_ComponentList(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    components = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=Property_Component)

Note: You need to be aware of not redefining attributes with the same name multiple times.


How to make a ball capped screw? I am new to blender and I want to make an object that is a bulbous looking screw merged with a sphere at the top.  I can't seem to get it to work the way I want, because I am having trouble getting the screw to have an edge by which to extrude in such a way that I can then merge a semi-sphere on top of.
As you can see I do not have an ending of my screw that is perpendicular in the z-axis, not only they but it is only half a circle too (by design to get a smooth looking screw) but I believe I will need a complete circle to easily and smoothly merge into my semi-sphere (moved up in this picture, and I know it's a sphere now I left it as such for easier viewing)

Any help you can provide in achieving my goal would be really appreciated. Please let me know if you need any more information.

You can try to start with lower resolution. Like here is use Circle with 12 vertices. Screw mmodifier with 12 Steps, Screw 1.73.
Duplicate Circle and use as top sphere, just change Screw to zero.

I'm not sure how transition should looks like, but you can just use Boolean modifier > Union ...
Before boolean, Apply Screw modifier, Merge by Distance 0.04 small inaccuracy. From top view box-select all center vertices and delete. So you get clean topology. Apply Boolean modifier. Loop select inner screw and mark as Sharp ⇧ Shift+E 1. Then add Subsurface modifier, Smooth shading. Under Data properties > Normals > enable Auto Smooth.

... or probably more natural it will result with upper part of sphere and manually delete unwanted faces and reconnect.


Animating Curves for Arms and Legs Here's a design by a man named James Curran. Now James uses After Effects (you can watch how he does animations here and here, which is the long way in After Effects by animating and manipulating paths).

However, I do know that this animation of his (as well as many others) can be replicated in Blender. However, I've found the process to be more annoying and time-consuming than I initially expected (semi new to Blender animation).

Every course I've ever got always talks about animating Blender characters via armatures never curves (while I do mostly cartoony 2d animations).

The problem I've had with animating an armature for curves is it distorts the curve very badly (it even gets worse when I add more cuts) which weight painting doesn't ever seem to help with fixing that curve distortion.

character-arm-test.blend (1.1 MB)

character-arm-test-w-cuts.blend|attachment (4.1 MB)

For these type of character animations, I've found an armature isn't the best method (or maybe I just have more stuff to learn which if you know of anything I'm all ears I'm always wanting to improve.

That being said when I go to animating the character's arms and legs via just a curve. That's when I start to have another annoyance.

curving-arm shoulder.blend|attachment (577.8 KB)

I want my curves to always have rounded ends/caps.

They don't by default and the only way I've found aside from using a mesh+armature I've found us when adjusting the curve I have to move a cut UV sphere to what would be the end of the curves position which is fine as long as that end side doesn't move. If I was making a walk animation then moving that every time and animating frame my frame would be very time consuming for a looping animation.

I've tried even using a taper for the rounded end/cap as mentioned in this post but I still cannot seem to get a tangible rounded end. I get more of a growing vine result.

curve-armnshoulder-w-taper.blend|attachment (584.6 KB)

Lastly, another problem I noticed is how curves look in Blender.

weird-curve-shape.blend|attachment (505.7 KB)

Notice the difference between the two photos (top is designed in Blender while bottom is with Gravit Designer). Blender, when curves are adjusted and manipulated it, shrinks the curve when the curve is curving while Gravit doesn't which is how I want it to look in Blender with a stroke.

Necessary explanation completed now, I have a 2 part question.

1) What's the most effective way to add a rounded end/cap to a curve? (that doesn't move the cap when the curve is moved)
2) Also is there anyway, in Blender where I can move the curve without it shrinking the curved portion as seen in this photo (from above)?

When I do 2D stuff, I use armatures, which work well when the mesh has evenly distribuited quads. In my example I created the line with 4 vertices, then I added some loop cuts until they were evenly distribuited, then I added 2 loop cuts near every joint, then I made the bones to be bendy bones with 2 segments each, playing with curve Y in and out settings.

The rounded cap is obtained by simply adding a subsurf modifier (level 3), which has to be set after the armature modifier. Enable the Armature "preserve volume" option for better results.

Watch Nathan Vegdahl's free YouTube humane rigging course, in some of the first lessons he explains some useful rigging tricks fro 2D animation.


copy the size and scale a texture is mapped by, from one object to another I have two objects, of different size. For simplicity, we'll call them object A and object B. Both have their own unique UV maps, but the same material(with a texture assigned to it)

I would like to make the texture mapping of object B the same as object A(so they look the same). Ive tried "Transfer UV maps" but that doesn't work as their geometries are different: each object has a different number of faces.

I don't want to transfer the UV maps. I just want transfer the size and scale at which the texture is mapped by; rather than do it manually, which would be painstakingly slow (I have 20 models to process)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If what I'm proposing is unachievable, an alternative would be be welcome. Ive tried using the extension Copy and Paste UV, but off course that is no different to what i've been doing. Ideally I don't want to be uploading textures into the UV editor; I need to take them from the textures assigned to the materials.

Thanks in advance

Very big difference of UV maps

UV map of the "Object A" looks like this:

Note: it's scaled up very much; texture space isn't seen here, but it's located where the cursor is placed.

UV map of the "Object B" is this:

It's not scaled as much as the first one, and it's unwrapped not in the same manner. For the first object Project from View probably used (and no seams on the mesh), while some other method used for "Object B".
Thus the objects definitely won't look the same.

Make one object look like another

What you should try is to unwrap and scale UV maps of both objects roughly in the same way; then you'll be ready to assign the same material for the objects (or creating new one).

Possible solution

Enter orthographic mode (Numpad 1). Select "Object B", enter Edit mode, select all.
Use U > Project From View.
Open UV/Image Editor to scale and position UV map in adjacent way (it depends on texture, but most likely you won't need to rotate it). Make the scale of UV map so it to fit the texture space (it may be eaiser to setup mapping settings then).
Set the Size in the Mapping scroll of the texture settings to something like 50 (for X and Y axes). This is intended to substitute scaling UV map; while it does roughly the same, it's simply easier to control the UV map which has size of texture space in UV/Image Editor. To adjust scale just tweak that Size parameter.


Only the world is being rendered I get essentially a black screen when rendering or the colour of the world, I ran a fluid simulation and it looks fine in the rendered view but doing the final render gives no result.

First of all, Cube and Cube.001 are hidden during rendering.
Second, the material of both Cube and Cube.001 is undefined which leads to black during rendering. Delete the Material and assign a new one, for example a diffuse shader for testing.

Changing the settings like described, I get the following result:

(OK, I also changed the position of the lamp a little bit, but nothing else)

If you want to see a "real" preview you have to activate this button:


Text alignment changed in 2.70 I am a fairly confident blender user, who has been using the software for about 1.5 years. I have recently updated from version 2.63 to version 2.70, but I have noticed that in version 2.70 the text alignment has changed.

Is there any way to change it back?

I have looked all over the internet and cannot find any way to change it in the User Preferences.

This is a new feature in v2.70. It looks like someone missed to add it to the release notes despite this being a pretty noticeable change.

Proposal / discussion:
https://developer.blender.org/T37761

Commit:
https://developer.blender.org/rBdde5e5ce2581ffd544b442c58d6eefbc1ff61772

AFAIK there is no option to change it other than compiling without this pragma def: USE_NUMBUTS_LR_ALIGN (see above commit).


Blender exported mesh extremely deformed After exporting my mesh to FBX form to test out my sails in physx clothing, I noticed my mesh was terribly deformed. There were a lot of random spikes and abnormalities that appeared in the main hull part of the ship.

exported version

blender version:

In order to cut my holes in the main outside part of the ship I would Boolean it with a cylinder. Since the exterior was solidified, it has like 4 walls for some reason, so I just moved one interior side to overlap another to cover up the hole created around.

Sorry if i'm not making sense, this is my first blender project, and I really don't know what's going on. Will I have to redo the exterior?!?!?

To solve this try to add a Triangulate Modifier and apply it. If this doesn't work well I don't know what will.


How do I merge two quads that overlap each other into one? I am relatively new to Blender and since I couldn't find any answer elsewhere online I decided to ask here for some support.

How do I merge two faces into one? What I am trying to do is merge the left and right quads along the center together because they overlap and create two pieces that extrude instead of one (which is what I am trying to do)...

I tried Bridge-Edge Loop but it doesn't create the desired effect, as you can see here:

Thank you in advance!
Aldin

If you have overlapping faces like this:

You can select the edges to be merged:

Then scale them to 0 on the X axis SX0

and then press the space bar and type "remove doubles"


Geometry Nodes sample texture attribute and materials Using Blender 2.93 Geometry Nodes; I have a sample texture attribute used for scaling multiple point instances. Is there a way to use this "scale" to control the material color(s) on these multiple points? I am unable to find a similar example in tutorials and any help is much appreciated..

You didn't specify if you wanted to work with Eevee or Cycles but right now it seems it only works with Cycles.
You'll need an object with sufficient geometry since the material attribute will be linked to the geometry.
I used a subdivided cube.

After that, create a Geometry Nodes Modifier that initializes a custom attribute and an Attribute Sample Texture.

Tweak the settings of the texture as you wish.

I used a very simple Material setup to plug the custom attribute in. Use an Attribute node set to Geometry and type in your custom attribute name.

Result :

Note : Cycles Only
Adressing the second point of the question : Instancing.
Add a Point Instance node before initializing the attribute.

Result :


adding effects like smoke Hi I'm looking for a way to add a poof of smoke to my video. I'm still new so I'm not sure how to do it on blender. I guess I would need to know how to overlay a video onto another to add the effect. If I had the video could I do that?

Not to take anything from @Kristof Meirlaen's answer, I take a more simplistic approach -

An easy way overall is to texture a 2D plane in the 3D window with the video of the pot, or preferably, make it the background image/video.  If it is made the background don't forget to increase it's opacity to 100% in that background image panel.

Back in the 3D window, texture another 2D plane with an "Alpha Layered" (See below) video for the poof-of-smoke.  You have to set the smoke plane to start at the desired Blender frame number so it doesn't start up until required.  This is done in the texture properties under the "Image tab" -->"Start".(bottom left of the tab)  Enter the required "BLENDER TIMELINE" frame number where the smoke video is to start.

You'll also need to tick the "Auto Refresh" box to make it play the video.

On the premise that you are using the background image option, view it from the camera so you'll see the pot.  Align the camera so the smoke is positioned exactly as desired.

Render it all with the Open GL renderer for speed, or Blender's internal renderer if you like watching the grass grow!  (Top left of 3D window under the "Render" drop down menu.

The anim here took me 45 mins, and admittedly a quick and dirty example.  It was started from scratch, pot, particles, smoke and bubbling liquid all created in Blender.  The smoke puff was as described above however, a "Cumulous cloud" made with Blender's cloud generator and saved as an alpha layered pic to be textured onto a 2D plane.  The plane was animated. (scaling, rotated etc)

Hope this gives you something to start from...

PS:  You mention that you're new so some info -
To align the camera whilst viewing through it, select the camera (right click on it), press N, ---> open the "View" tab and tick "Lock to camera view".

You can then use the mouse and buttons to move/rotate/zoom the camera to wherever you like as you would a first person view in a game.

Don't forget to untick that box again, or you could lose the smoke's alignment with the background image.

Further hint - if your machine does as mine does occasionally, starts rendering in solid mode, hit escape, and start the render again.  The 2nd attempt usually works properly.

If you don't have a "Smoke-poof" video, an "Alpha Layered" image might do.  Just animate the 2D plane that it's texturing, by increasing it's size (scaling) from nothing to maximum over a few frames and move the entire plane upwards. Once it's at a decent size,  make it rotate a little, or even shrink back to nothing if that suits. The smoke's shape can also be distorted and bent in various stages by doing that to the 2D plane.

Making a puff of smoke is a simple matter in Blender.  Start with the cube, scale it up a little and press T to bring up the Tools panel at left.  Open the "Create" tab and at the bottom, press "Cloud Generator".   This will open up a small menu.  Tick 'Particles', then select Cumulous from the list, press "Generate cloud" button.

A cube inside your original cube will appear with what looks like a clog of black cotton inside that.  Press F12 to render it as a good looking cloud!

The pic is taken from the 3D window's camera so it should be lined up fairly well.  If not adjust the view as mentioned above.

To give the cloud's outer edges "fluffiness" and make it's surrounding background invisible, we have to add transparency. We do this by rendering it with an alpha layer.

Goto the right hand properties panel (SH-SPACE), select the camera icon near the top. (2nd from left) and after setting it's output dimensions and folder etc,  goto the "Shading" tab and change the Alpha setting to "Transparent".

In the "Output" tab, select the format at left to PNG, compression to about 15$ and at the right, click on it's RGBA box. (The A is for alpha)

In the timeline set the frames to start at 1 and end at 1 also.  This will produce a .png alpha layered pic file in your nominated output folder.

From the 3D window press "N" to bring up the viewport's parameters.

Open the "Display" tab, tick "Only Render" and "World Background".
Press N again to close the panel

Go back up to the top left of the 3D window's Render Drop-down and click on "Render animation".  We have to use Blender's internal render in order to get a proper cloud pic.

At this point you can make a cup of tea/coffee while it renders the cloud.  It does a good job though.

This can be your smoke "poof" image which can be coloured, shaded, distorted, shaped and animated any way you like.

The pic shows how Cu clouds can look in their original form.  This pair was made to sail lazily across an alien sky.


What is the relation between the scale nodes that includes the pixlate node? I know that the Pixelate node is used by putting it between 2 scale nodes, but I Don't know which values I should put in the scale node.

I know that when I put the 1st scale = 0.1 the 2nd one become 10,But what about other values,What is the relation between them?

You need one scale before the Pixelate node, and one after it.

In my nodes, I scale the image down to one tenth of its size (the first scale node), pixelate it (the Pixelate node), then scale it back up to its original size, with the second Scale node.

The relation of the scale values is the mathematical inverse. Say you scaled it down by .5, that is just multiplying it by .5, or dividing by 2. So to scale it back up to the same size you need to multiply it by 2.

Here is an example table of the values. The first scale value and then the second scale value.

.1      10
.2      5
.3      3.333`
.4      2.5
.5      2
.6      1.6667`
.7      1.42857
.8      1.25
.9      1.111`

Note that the strongest pixelated effect is at the top of the table, and the weakest is at the bottom.


End result does not have a mask I Was watching "How to make a Lightsaber in Blender | The easy way" where it taught me how to make a lightsaber using a mask. Towards the end of the video,I clicked render animation and when i checked my output file, the pictures had no mask around them.
I used a image sequence.

My render result is this

Possible solutions:

Make sure you have your mask selected from the drop-down in the Mask node
Make sure your output is not only connected to the Viewer node but also to the Composite node output. Ensure that "Use Nodes" at the bottom of the Node editor is checked.
Make sure the mask layer you are using is enabled to render

Please update with more information if this does not solve your problem.


saved blender file doesn't play any audio or video As the title says. I have rendered this file before and saved it. But now when I open the blender file, the strips are all in the same locations but when I try to render or play video in VSE it shows with nothing. What is weird is, if I import a new audio or video it will play.

SOLVED all I had to do is move my blender file back to where I saved it. I recently moved the file to another folder and just by moving it back to the original folder it worked.


Is it possible to have a property sensor detect a value higher or lower than a specific number? Right now I have a simple logic setup (image below) to make the armor points of my tank go down and disappear when it gets hit by 25 objects with the bullet property. When it gets hit by 7 objects with the missile property, the armor property drops to 4, another makes it drop to 1, then it drops to -2. it never equals 0 and it never disappears.
Is there a way to send a positive pulse to the And controller if the property equals or is lower than 0?
click image for full size

You mean like "Less than"?

A value less than 1 is either equal to or less than zero.

EDIT: the options for evaluating properties "Less Than" and "Greater Than" was added in blender 2.71. Previous versions don't have these options.

The easy solution would be to upgrade to 2.71, another option would be to use a python controller to do the test of the property value.


Composite mist pass after-the-fact to finished rendered video using the original blend Say you have 500 stills comprising a video, and you also have the original blend file that created the stills. Is there a way to do a render that skips the time-consuming Image pass but still provides various other passes (like Mist, Shadow, etc.)? And such that those passes are stored in a way that can be input to the compositor to apply the result to the stills? I have done very skimpy passes (low bounces, etc.) that sort of achieve this, and stored them as multilayer EXRs, but haven't found a way to apply the output to more than one frame at a time.

I think the way to do this is as you said: low bounces, no caustics, etc.

You can bring the already rendered image sequences into the compositor with the image node:

Add an image node (ShiftA> Input > Image)
Open the first frame of your image sequence in the image node
Change the source type to Image Sequence:

Set the Frames, Offset and Start frame values.

Frames is the number of frames to use.
Start frame is the scene frame on which to display the first frame
Offset is the amount to offset the current frame. (e.g. with Offset = 5, the image for frame 6 will be read instead of the image for frame 1)

You can load your sequence of Multilayer images alongside your original render into the compositor in this fashion. If you rendered the Multilayer images with the render passes enabled you should be able to use the passes from the Image node.

You can also use this alongside the Renderlayer node to composite with the render directly, e.g. with a 150 frame image sequence:


Randomizing instanced objects Here's the question, I am using face instancing to create foliage for leaves, but the result is quite uniform in terms of rotation.

Is there a way to randomize rotation of the instanced objects?

The "Object Properties -> Instancing" facility is pretty limited in terms of varying how the children are displayed.  If you want control over random variation, you probably want to create a particle system.  There are two particle system types, Emitter and Hair.  Generally speaking, emitter is used for animated particles (e.g., bubbles, smoke, etc.) while hair is used for static parts growing off of the structure (e.g., hair, leaves, stones, etc.).

It might be worth searching YouTube for "blender leaf particle system", which should give you lots of tutorials/examples.

Briefly, if you:

Create a thin, cylindrical "Branch" with applied scale, subdivided vertically to give it plenty of small faces.
Create a simple planar "Leaf" that's on a roughly one-unit (1m) scale
Add a new Hair particle system to the branch.
Set up the system:

Check "Advanced" to make "Rotation" panel available
Emission: Number=200
Rotation: Checked, Orentation Axis=Normal, Randomize=0.25
Render: Render As=Object, Scale Randomness=0.5, Instance Object="Leaf"

then that'll give you a start:

You can use vertex groups and weight painting to control the density on a mesh to make the distribution a little more realistic (or, in this case "low-poly-realistic"):

Here's a blend file:


Cell fracture messes up texture UV, doesn't apply material to interior, doesn't take fracture count limit into account Cell fracture messes up texture UV, doesn't apply material to interior, doesn't take fracture count limit into account. (makes 12-20 cells no matter what value I set)

I really need fracturing for my game and I've been struggling with this for the past two days.

Is there a version of blender where cell fracturing works properly? I have tried 5 of them.

I had the same 'UV-mess-up' issue with the cell fracture addon (2.79). I tried other versions of Blender (2.64 and 2.74), but it gave the same problem. Then I learned that when you enable Debug Boolean in the cell fracture options, the UV's are totally fine!

Now the Debug Boolean option gives each separate chunk a boolean modifier. To apply the modifiers, simply select all the chunks, then Alt + C to convert to mesh.

The only problem is that some chunks don't show up, after applying the cell fracture. But to fix that, before you convert the chunks to a mesh, select the chunks that aren't showing, go to the boolean modifier, and where it says BMesh, click and select Carve, and they show up again.

With the other problems I have not much experience, all I can say is to try different Point Source methods (I find particles to be a useful way).


Get Geometry Position in shader before armature is applied? I'd like to use the Position output of the Geometry shader node as if an armature has not yet been applied.  In the image below I'm trying to extract the z position to input into the wave texture node to make a ribbed tube, but I want the ribs to follow the armature curve instead of staying z aligned.

Figured this out a minute after posting, the Generated output from the Texture Coordinate node works fine for this:


How do I remove a cloth pinning at some point of the animation? I'm quite new in the blender world.
I'm animating a balloon that has three fix points when it inflates/deflates and I want it to fly away at a certain point of the animation following the physics I already added, like the wind. I've seen that i can move the points and insert keyframes in edit mode but I want it to be realistic and just fly away.
Is there a way to remove or deselect a vertex group at some point?

So it looks impossible to directly animate the Cloth Pinning. The question has been asked here and here, but I'm not sure to understand everyhting.
I've found an other solution, a rather simple one, with the Vertex Weight Mix modifier, but there must be others:

Create your object, give it 2 vertex groups, one for the pinning, the second one must be empty. Give it the Cloth physics.

Create a Force Field > Force next to your object. Animate it: give it Strength of 0 until frame 49 for example, keyframe it at frame 49, at frame 50 give it a Strength of 30.

Give your object a Vertex Weight Mix modifier, put it above the Cloth in the modifiers stack. Choose Vertex Group A > the pinning group, Vertex Group B > the empty group, Mix Set > VGroup A or B. Keyframe the Default Weight A and Default Weight B values: A will be 0 from frame 1 to 49, then 1 at frame 50, B will be 1 from frame 1 to 49, then 0 at frame 50.

It seems to work as planned, from frame 1 to 49, the object collapse with the pinning hanging it, at frame 50 it is blown away by the force field.


Is there a better way than dupliverts to make these scripted monkeys always face "out"? In another question I ask How to make these scripted duplivert monkeys always face “out” using duplicates? Here I would like to ask if there is a better (or at least alternate) way to do this besides using duplicates or "dupliverts".

Here's an example using dupliverts - the same as in the other question and so far I haven't figured out there how to get the monkeys placed on the icosphere's vertices or it's faces to face "out".

Is there a different way to do this?

note: I will not always use monkeys on icospheres - this is an abstraction. I'm working towards correctly animating this constellation of 4,425 Earth-facing satellites where I'll have roughly eighty rotating circles with sixty "monkeys" each. However I will also be using 2D meshes in a second project (rather than circles), so I really want to understand the underlying logic/math of the orientations, both on 1D (circles) and 2D meshes.

edit: Here is one of the images from the linked satellite question to help illustrate why I want to create "monkeys" (satellites) in groups, and not create and keyframe four thousand individuals:

Potentially adjustable things:

# monkey.rotation_euler = 0, 0, pi   # ??

bpy.ops.object.parent_set(type='OBJECT', keep_transform=True) # keep_transform ??

bpy.context.object.use_dupli_vertices_rotation = True  # ??

Ok here is a basic script:

import bpy, math

pi = math.pi
loco_f, loco_v = (-5, 0, 5), (+5, 0, 5)

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_ico_sphere_add(location=loco_f, size=4, subdivisions=2)
shape_mesh_f = bpy.context.active_object

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_ico_sphere_add(location=loco_v, size=4, subdivisions=2)
shape_mesh_v = bpy.context.active_object

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_monkey_add(radius=1, location=loco_f)
monkey_f = bpy.context.active_object
# monkey.rotation_euler = 0, 0, pi

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_monkey_add(radius=1, location=loco_v)
monkey_v = bpy.context.active_object
# monkey.rotation_euler = 0, 0, pi

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

monkey_f.select = True
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = shape_mesh_f

bpy.ops.object.parent_set(type='OBJECT', keep_transform=True)
bpy.context.object.dupli_type = 'FACES'
bpy.context.object.use_dupli_vertices_rotation = True

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

monkey_v.select = True
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = shape_mesh_v

bpy.ops.object.parent_set(type='OBJECT', keep_transform=True)
bpy.context.object.dupli_type = 'VERTS'
bpy.context.object.use_dupli_vertices_rotation = True

Instead of dupliverts, we can create it all in one mesh using bmesh.ops.create_monkey().

import bpy
import bmesh
import mathutils

loco_f, loco_v = (-5, 0, 5), (+5, 0, 5)

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_ico_sphere_add(location=loco_v, size=4, subdivisions=2)
shape_mesh_v = bpy.context.active_object

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.mesh.delete(type='EDGE_FACE')
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(shape_mesh_v.data)

src = [v for v in bm.verts]

for v in src:
    loc = mathutils.Matrix.Translation(v.co)
    rot = v.normal.to_track_quat('-Y','Z')
    mat = mathutils.Matrix.Identity(3)
    mat.rotate(rot)
    mat = loc * mat.to_4x4()
    bmesh.ops.create_monkey(bm, matrix=mat)

bm.to_mesh(shape_mesh_v.data)
bm.free()

So the key point you are looking for is v.normal.to_track_quat('-Y','Z') to get a quaternion rotation matrix from the vertex normal.

For another way to approach this, you could try animation nodes.

Here we make a list of the location and normal of each vert in an icosphere, we use that list to replicate the suzanne mesh.

EDIT:
After some experimenting with the aim of creating your final goal, I found creating one orbital plane at a time as a unique object seems to be the fastest way, seems to find a balance between object and vertex count. Once they are all created they can all be merged into one mesh for simplicity. While creating each plane, an armature bone can be added and aligned with each orbit allowing easy animation. This is the script I came up with, a simple proof of concept that needs better positioning and timing to be complete.


Exporting OBJ mesh in blender I am trying to export a simple shape: torus, sphere. the exported mesh is in OBJ format. Blender displays an error "location is unknown or something related to volume. If I increase the scale to 100 ( setting of OBJ export) still the error displayed. Do you have any idea why I cannot get the OBJ mesh?

Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/Volumes/Blender/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.80/scripts/addons/io_scene_obj/__init__.py", line 311, in execute
        return export_obj.save(context, **keywords)
    File "/Volumes/Blender/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.80/scripts/addons/io_scene_obj/export_obj.py", line 791, in save
        EXPORT_PATH_MODE=path_mode,
    File "/Volumes/Blender/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.80/scripts/addons/io_scene_obj/export_obj.py", line 733, in _write
        progress,
    File "/Volumes/Blender/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.80/scripts/addons/io_scene_obj/export_obj.py", line 389, in write_file
        bpy.data.meshes.remove(me)
    RuntimeError: Error: Mesh 'sphere' is outside of main database and can not be removed from it

The link to the files:

The STL mesh: https://gofile.io/?c=iycaiS

Blender file:https://gofile.io/?c=yLi0Pp

This issue appears when you're trying to export an object that contains no geometry, because of a single erroneous line in export_obj.py. This bug has already been reported and fixed in D5479 by Philipp Oeser. The fixed version of the exporter will be available in Blender 2.81.

In your case the object 'sphere' contains no geometry, which triggers this error. As a workaround until 2.81 is released you can either just select objects that contain geometry and enable Selection Only in the exporter or you could simply delete the problematic object. Alternatively you could also change the one line of code in the obj exporter yourself.


How detect change in a panel Is it possible to detect a change in a panel (as a compartment which we mark or a slider which we move) to launch a update function but only if the change is in a panel as T, N, Property panel ect... ?

You can only bind callbacks to properties, but you can't determine the origin of a change event.

It will be called the same way regardless of whether the user dragged a slider in a panel here, or ticked a checkbox in a panel there, or if he/she or another script changed the property programmatically.


My mesh no longer follows my armature I'm new to blender. I'm working on a simple swimming animation for a fish model. I had everything working fine until I was getting ready to export. After applying the modifiers to my model, I later noticed that my mesh was no longer following my armature. I'm not exactly sure what it was that broke it, but I think it had something to do with applying the modifiers.

Here is the .blend.

A mesh can be modified by an armature only if it has an armature modifier pointing to the skeleton.

To bring back your animation add an armature modifier to the mesh and select your armature in its "Object" field.

As a good workflow advice, I suggest you not to animate the whole armature as object, instead you should use only bones and only in pose mode (you will have to set some bones as child of  a main bone, maybe the bigger one).


Array Modifier Start/End Cap is Off I am experiencing the following problem and can't seem to figure out the reason or solution to it.

I want to add an object as a start and end cap to the array modifier. However the results are not what I wished for - I do not want a space between the start/end caps and the middle object.

I made sure to apply scale properties to the mesh (strg + a -> Scale).

What am I not considering or aware of?

Edit:

The origin of the obj. to use for the caps is at the obj.'s geometry (origins to geometry), see:

Appreciate the help in advance guys!

Aldin

Array modifier sets the distance in between instances according to the given input that you assign, this applies to start/end caps, so unless the start and end caps have the same thickness on the array axis (in your case the Y axis) there will be a gap or they will overlay with the Array object, I found 2 solutions to this:
 First solution:
1- Make a copy of the start/end object so that you have two copies using Shift + D so you can use one of them for the start cap and the other for the end cap
2- Enter the start cap object's Edit mode using Tab, select all using A then move the mesh on the axis used for Array, in your case it's the Y axis, press G + Y and move your cursor, in your case the origin should be outside the mesh, think of it this way, the distance in between the origin of the start object and the surface touching the Array object, should be the same width of the Array object on Y axis.
3- Do the same for the End object, except that the direction of the movement should be reversed.

Notice the origin in the image above.
Keep in mind that if you assign the Start or End cap before moving the origin of their objects, you will need to re-assign after editing, the Array modifier will not update automatically.
Second solution:
You can use two Array modifiers, one of them to repeat the Array object on the Y axis, without using the Start/End cap object.
Then use the second modifier only for the cap object, so the repeat in the second modifier should be Count:1, then select the cap and end object and use the input in Relative or Constant or both, to set the distance input.
This way you are assigning separate input for the array itself (using the first array) and for the the Start/End cap (using the second array).
You will still need to move the origin of the Start/End cap object, but you don't have to make separate copies for the Start cap and the End cap.

Hope this was helpful, happy blending!


Cannot replace a packed image in the uv image editor I was trying to replace an image in my UV image editor, but the image defaults to a different image. how do I fix this?

Your image is packed, replacing it is not possible (in newer blender this option is now grayed out in this case). You have to unpack it first, if you want to replace it.


Build color ramp out of math nodes? I want to use color ramps or RGB curve effects in my node groups. This runs into the problem that the only sockets these nodes have is their input image and factor. This means if I have them in a group, I cannot control the actual ramp/curve stops with inputs from outside the group.

Is it possible to build a custom math node group that would do the same thing as a color ramp or RGB curve, but would allow me access to an equivalent of stops?

Unfortunately there is no way to create a group node exactly like the Color Ramp, where you can add and remove color swatches at will.  To get around this I have created a node with two movable swatches, you can then combine multiple of these nodes together to have the functionality of multiple swatches.

The theory:

The two input colors are plugged directly into a Mix RGB node.  The two Pos inputs need to be sent through a function and plugged into the mix factor.  The position of the first swatch needs to be mapped to $0$ to get just the first color out of the mix node.  The position of the second swatch needs to be mapped to $1$ to get just the second color out of the mix node.

The math:

Here's a graph to visualize what we are trying to do, on the x-axis is the input factor of the color ramp, on the y-axis is the desired output, $a$ and $b$ are the positions of the two swatches.

With some simple algebra we can find the equation of the line to be:

$$
y = \frac{1}{b-a}x + \frac{a}{a-b}
$$

The math nodes below are simply replicating this equation.  The final Add node also has Clamp checked to clamp the output to the interval $[0,1]$, which is what the mix node accepts.


How to make the shapekey influence separate object's position? I have a model which consists of the separate body, eyes and jaw meshes. I added a shapekey, which increases the neck's lenght. When I change the shapekey's value to 1 the eyes and jaw stay in the original positions. I want them to move together with a body mesh, while changing the shapekey's value. Is it possible? Is this kind of parenting exist?

You could use vertex parenting to have the objects follow parts of your mesh. This has similarities to the hook modifier.

Select the teeth, shift select the head, go into edit mode, select the target vertex (only one or three vertices can be selected, three vertices allows rotation when following) press CtrlP to parent the other selected object to the selected vertex.

Be careful as I expect you will deform the face for animation and the parenting will keep working. You could add an extra unattached vertex that moves with the neck shapekey but isn't used in facial animation, or maybe you could choose three vertices located one in each ear and one at the top of the head that won't get deformed in animation. You may also need the armature to follow so that any animation will happen relative to the new location, or parent a facial armature which will take the teeth and eyes with it.


Is it possible to retrieve the rotation component of a single video tracking marker? I am tracking a set of objects through a video and this time I need to extract the rotation component of a marker, in addition to its location.

However, bpy.data seems to only be holding the normalised locations of the marker in co.

Is there some other way to obtain the rotation component of a single marker? I can probably create a proxy of rotation by tracking the relative positions of two markers but retrieving the rotation of a single marker would be really convenient now.

If you use the documentation of a more recent version of Blender, you can find a lot more options are available nowadays. There is no rotation, but you do get the coordinates of the search box.


How to connect armature to mesh? I created a simple armature, parented all the bones properly, named them and made sure they import to Unity perfectly. The armature seems to be working great. I also have a collection of Meshes, under one object, a humanoid. It's basically just a 3D model with hair, teeth, a dress, etc.

Here's an image:

I am trying to parent them together, with automatic weights (And I tried all the other options as well). They do parent in the hierarchy but other than that, they're not connected in any way. Moving the bones doesn't move any parts of the model. What am I doing wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9hNLLWHRcw

Looking at this tutorial I'm doing exactly what the person does at 6:07, but in my case the character doesn't move.

As you are performing the parenting, look at the top of your window, towards the middle. I am willing to bet that you will see an error message of some kind when you do so. The proper solution to your problem almost definitely depends upon what that message says. If it happens to be the trusty Bone Weight error, good luck... I have been trying to solve that particular issue through DAYS of research, but perhaps you will have better luck.


Blender 2.8: UV-Editor Sticky Selection Mode Option gone? I need to move some points on my UV-map, but they are locked in Shared Location Mode, so I cannot move them independently. Where is the Sticky Selection Mode dropdown?

It shows up when the UV-Layout is selected. I have noticed this behavior when opening files that were written with older blender versions. In each of those cases, using one of the default layouts restored visibility of the missing UI input fields.


modeling a world made of cubes I'm creating a world made of cubes, similar to cube world game.
Is there any quick way to create a map made of cubes that looks like this?

As PeterT said.

Start by enabling the ANT Landscape addon. Open the user preferences Ctrl Alt U, got to the Addons tab, search for "Landscape". Click on the check mark on the right, if it is not already enabled.

Add a Landscape Shift A > Mesh > Landscape like the picture below.

Add a Remesh modifier to the object. Set the Mode: to Blocks. Increase the Octree Depth to get the resolution of the blocks you want.

Same Landscape mesh with only the Remesh modifier.

You can add the Remesh modifier to any mesh you do not have to start with the Landscape addon.


How do I use python to get the dimensions of a text object immediately after it is created? I'm creating a text object using Python and I'd like to do a non-standard align (something other than left/right/center).  To accomplish this I need the dimensions, but the dimensions.x is 0 at the time the python is running.  It becomes non-zero later

import bpy

name = "text1"

t1 = bpy.data.curves.new(name, 'FONT')
o1 = bpy.data.objects.new(name, t1)
o1.location = (0,0,2)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(o1)

t1.body = "Hail Bob!"

c1 = o1.constraints.new('TRACK_TO')
c1.target = bpy.data.objects["Camera"]
c1.track_axis = 'TRACK_Z'
c1.up_axis = 'UP_Y'

if False:
    t1.align = 'RIGHT'
else:
    print (o1.dimensions.x)
    t1.text_boxes[0].x = o1.dimensions.x * -0.3

Is there a blender API that will trigger a calculation of the dimensions property of the object so that I can use it before returning control to the UI?

Since there's no .update() method for Curve objects, you need to trigger a scene update:

t1.body = "Hail Bob!"
bpy.context.scene.update()
print(o1.dimensions)

Result:

<Vector (3.6080, 0.7000, 0.0000)>


Turn off Automatic finger Curling in Rigify This can easily be tested with the Rigify addon:
Drop a Human metarig (that has fingers)
Generate the Rig

Select the base finger control on any finger (1st control)

When you rotate in X axis, the entire finger curls because the subsequent 2 controls are set to Inherit Rotation. (Under Bone Tab > Relations ...)
When you rotate in Y or Z axis however, even with the Inherit rotation on, the subsequent 2 fingers do not bend like the do in X.

Now try turning off Inherit Rotation on all finger controls.
Select the Base Finger control again.
Rotate along X axis, this one behaves as expected, the base rotates but the subsequent 2 controls are just acting like Children Of. Which is best.
When you rotate along Y axis however, now the subsequent 2 controls counter rotate to preserve their initial world space orientation.

Am I missing anything or is this intended behavior ?

This happens regardless of whether rotation is set to Quat or Euler.

I realised somehow the fingers were set to tentacle. I just now learned the workflow of setting the rig type in the metarig at the base of each chain.
Setting the rigify type to basic.copy_Chain get me the plain FK finger setup I was looking for.
The problem illustrated above is a feature of the tentacle chain which is what it was set to. The tentacle chain uses rotation constraints to automatically rotate every bone according to its parents rotation. you can simply disable the constraint for every bone if you want to use a tentacle chain without the automatic curling.


Smoke simulation not compliant with Emitter scale I was trying to have some smoke emitting from a pipe in an alleyway, and i did this by placing a small UV sphere inside the pipe, and using that as an emission mesh for my smoke (and i applied the scale). However rather than a trail of smoke coming from the pipe it appeared as a large column several times the circumference of the emitter. I tried again in a simpler test and got the same results. Is there anyway to make the smoke be emitted directly from the mesh and not from the area around the object? thanks in advance.

(Using blender 2.81 and blender 2.82 mantaflow on windows 10)

I had this same problem, I don't know if this will still help you...but if you click on the UV-sphere or your emitter there will be a setting in the physics tab called Flow Source. Click on the drop down arrow and it will open up these settings. You are going to want to play around with Surface Emission (BTW I am using blender 2.91). The smaller the value the closer the smoke will be, the larger the number the farther away the smoke will be. Hope this helps you or anyone else checking this forum.


Game Asset texturing; high poly to low poly What is the "proper" way to texture detailed game assets? I have baked a normal map and now I want to add color, logos, warning signs/stripes, and all kinds of details to the low poly asset. The details need to be in the correct positions (on insets, recesses), so doing them on the low poly UV map doesn't work since the low poly doesn't have these. How would I go about this?

Do I use the normal map as a UV layout background layer in GIMP and paint on it accordingly?

Do I create a UV map for the high poly as well? (I'm not seeing how this could work, and also the normal map baking worked fine without it too)

Do I add stuff on the high poly mesh and bake them on the low poly mesh like I did with the normal map? How is this done? (I tried something like this, but got an error that I couldn't figure out)

Search results of "game asset workflow", "texturing", "texture map baking", "high poly to low poly" etc usually yield:

Tutorials of adding a simple repeating texture pattern (brick walls, wooden barrels) onto the object.
Making just the normal map.
Texturing an object but very little to none about transferring the stuff onto another object.
Using GIMP/Photoshop to paint stuff on the UV map of the low poly (Which in my case is missing all the edges of the high poly)
Something along the lines of Rest-of-the-owl i.e. "And then you just texture it. Thanks for watching."
Something completely unrelated.

Have I done this completely wrong? Should I have added textures/materials while I was making the high poly? Am I missing something?

Things to note:

The high poly is one mesh, there are no separate parts.
I'm an absolute beginner with this stuff
If there is a way that is better and/or I haven't considered, please do point it out.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Not seeing the image description so:

From left to right: High poly, low poly with normal map, plain low poly

In case someone else is struggling with the same issue (Cycles Render):
Presets:

Make a UV of the low poly
Make a UV of the high poly (Smart UV Project did a wonderful job)
Make a new material for both objects.
Make a new image in the UV/Image editor for both objects
Add an Image Texture in the Node editor for both objects, with their own images (those made in the previous step) assigned to them. If you can't add nodes, tick the Use Nodes box
High poly object was painted in the Texture Paint mode, Display mode/Viewport shading set to Texture. Face selection masking was enabled, in order to paint specific faces. Brush set to Fill
Hit Image > Save Image once in a while in the UV/Image editor so not to lose hours of work. (It did this to me a few times.)

The baking:

Go to Render > Bake, like you would when doing normal maps.

Set Bake Type to Diffuse and then uncheck Direct and Indirect, leaving only Color toggled on. (Because if there are no lamps in the scene, the result will be dark)

Remember to tick the Selected to Active box.

Select both objects, the high poly first, the low poly last. Making the former the Selected and the latter the Active

Make sure both objects are occupying the same coordinates / are in the exact same place.

Hit Bake and wait.

Like I said in the original post: I'm very new to this, but these steps got me the results I wanted, or at least I can use it.
Here's a pic just for good measure, don't mind the ugly colors, those were just for the proof of concept.

And here it is in Unity almost finished


Adding color to models I created a small model of a building, then tried to add some color. But when I apply the color the "entire" model is affected instead of just the highlighted area of the model. I want to use multiple colors on that model. Different color depending on the model section/area. I can't get this done.

Not sure if this will help. Last attempt.
Clicked "Edit Mode". (next option) Textures. then scrolled to the circle icon right of the triangle. Tried using color from the "Diffuse" and "Specular" sections.

Go into edit mode
Select the faces you want for one color , And click the + button in  the materials section

This will apply the color to all faces , Next click on another face , click the + button , and click "Assign" this will give the selected face the new material


How do I extrude out a base on this model? I have this .obj file in which the model is made from pictures taken from the front (in a semicircle). This results is the model not being an enclosed item, but rather more like a folded sheet of paper:

I wish to print this model out in 3D but to do that I of course need it to stand on its own, which is why I want to "build" a base for it. I looked it up and the way to go seems to be extrusion, but whenever I tried to extrude every single detail proportionally which results in a big mess of half-enclosed spheres, stretched out and attached to a jagged paper.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong and point me in the right direction? If you need my .obj .mtl or texture .png file to look more closely, say so!
And, if there's someone with too much time to spare, would maybe that certain someone be interested in doing this for me? Any help is welcome!

If you want the base to go straight down then extrude on the z axis, then press 0 to make the base level E,Z,0, then grab on z (G,Z) to bring the base down to the height you want it.


Blender scripting GPU acceleration Is there any possible way to accelerate the python's script execution inside of blender using GPU ?

You should be able to using existing python libraries, such as pycuda, which can be installed into blender's built in python (for installing libs you could setup pip or whatever: How to install Pip for Blender's bundled Python?). You can also link an C/C++ program from your script and do it there.

You will always, however, be limited by the speed in which you can use python to transfer data too and from blender's internal format, so this may or may not provide much speedup depending on your use case.

Gpus can provide a speedup to some kinds of operations. In general, code for that operation needs to be specifically written for use on a gpu to take advantage of it. If you wanted to accelerate existing blender functionality you would have to rewrite it to run on the gpu, you can't just magically tell cpu code to run on the gpu instead.

In general, only tasks with many repetitive, independent, but similar math operations work well on GPUs. Because of these restrictions, GPU code and algorithms are generally more difficult to create than just for the CPU.


What Would be My Best Option for Connecting the Parts of this Mesh? I recently bought a mesh from the unity asset store of some really high quality FPS game arms. The mesh is awesome but doesn't come rigged. I was able to rig it up easily enough however due to the following:

Animating it doesn't really work all too well since the fingers, hand, and forearm disconnect from the rest of the mesh if rotated too much. I've tried using the merge faces but selecting the ring around the inside of the glove and inside of the fingertip doesn't connect them it only closes both holes. I tried heavily weight painting the parts of the mesh which works for the fingertips but not for the wrist or forearm. How can I better connect these parts of the mesh?

Merge is probably merging everything at the center of the selected edge's bounding box.

You could do it manually, just enable edge snap and move the edges from the glove into the fingers and hands.
After you are done, select these edges (maybe grow the selection with ctrl + first, just to be sure), and then remove doubles.

Another way would be to select both edge loops, bridge them, then edge slide on the rings into the other and then remove doubles.


Only render what's visible from camera's view when creating multi-layer EXR? I've rendered a character in Blender and created a multi-layer EXR, which I want to edit and color in Photoshop. I separately rendered different body parts like arms, shoulder armor, the head etc.

Sadly, Blender rendered all of these things COMPLETELY, so now the whole thing is jumbled in Photoshop since they're just 2D images now.

Question:

Is it possible to tell Blender to ONLY render the part of the objects that are visible from the camera's point of view and leave out the ones that are hidden behind other objects?

This would be a great help. :) Someone got an idea? As of now, it looks like this. Pretty messy since nothing fits together anymore.

Separate the object you want to render by layer.

Place the render object on layer 2. (e.g. Torus)
Place the masking objects (all other objects) on layer 1. (e.g. Cube)
Make both layers visible in the Scene's layers.
Set the Layer to layer 2 in the render layers tab.
Set the Mask Layer to layer 1 (or more) in the render layers tab.

The objects on layer 1 will now act as a mask.

Compositing in Photoshop

Sadly, stacking these image on top of each other messes up the premultiplication / alpha / hard to explain.

Here's how to composite these two layers in Photoshop.

Basically, we add all akphas together, add all colors together, then use the alphas as a mask.

Create layers containing only the alphas.
Set the lowest alpha layer to Normal blending mode, the others to Add.
Merge the alpha layers creating an alpha for all layers together (you could also render this from Blender).

Create a group (folder) for each layer. In each group add a black solid layer below the imported image.
Set the lowest group's blending mode to Normal and all other group's blending modes to Add.

You should have the original image infront of black now.

Group all existing groups into a new folder. Set the alpha mask for this folder.

Although this setup is tedious, you can now edit the individual parts, while previewing the final result.


BGE: Writing text letter by letter I've seen the new text functions for the BGE and they are wonderful, I wanted so to try to make some zelda like text, writing, letter by letter (and with different speeds, but that's another step).

I just got stuck with the delay in the for cycle for "printing" the letters into the variable.

the classic time.sleep(0.5) freezes the game, so I went back and tried with the pulse of an always sensor. Now I don`t know how to use it.

here is my poor code:

import bge

cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
own = cont.owner

time = cont.sensors["Timer"]

def delay_print(s):
    w = ""
    for c in s:
        if time == True:
            w += str(c)
        own.text = w

delay_print("hello world1223456789af2f2rvetbdfb")

own.size = 0.2

Instead of using an always sensor, try a delay sensor to trigger the script. Slow it down by increasing the delay value and check 'repeat'. The text object needs an integer Game Property named 'counter' to work with the script.

import bge
cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
own = cont.owner

message = "Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better!"
mlen = len(message) # length of the string

if own['counter'] < mlen :
    own['counter'] += 1
    own.text = message[0 : own['counter']] # slice indices


How do I remove the 'mesh' in the starter blend file? So in the starter blend file, there is a cube, and there is this mesh thing underneath it. I deleted the cube, and made my own creation, but I can't figure out how delete that mesh. I need to delete because I made a greenscreened plane, and the mesh is interfering. Thanks!

go to the tab on the right, scroll down to "display" and uncheck "grid floor", "y" , and "x", to remove the entire grid.


How to select part of a mesh by using a helper plane? I would like to select part of a mesh using a plane as a "boundary indicator".
In the screenshot below that would be the mesh part above the plane:

I can get the desired selection by using Bisect tool (Bisect, hide, select a vertex, select linked, unhide):

however, this is visually not as convenient as using a plane (this is only one step in a longer workflow which has to be simplified). Beside that, Bisect cuts trough the whole object, what is inconvenient (notice the bisect-line cutting another part of the mesh in lower right).
I know I can use Boolean modifier to get only the part above the plane, but I do not want to cut it off - I just want to select it for editing.
The "transition line" does not have to be straight (i.e. adding vertices and edges), it can use existing edges (resulting in a jagged "transition line").
Edit:
What I meant is to use the plane in a similar way it would be used in Boolean modifer, just not to "cut off" but to select that part of the mesh.
The goal is to automate the process, e.g. operator positions the plane and clicks on a button (to run a script that does the rest; I can write the script once I know the steps).

1. Lasso Select:

You can use Lasso Select with Ctrl + LMB.

Here a related Post for types of selection.

Limit selection to visible should be disabled to select all vertices in the Lasso area.

Image by iKlsR♦ answer

2. Object as Camera:

This solution involves a 2nd Object which is perpendecular to the Plane and use it as a Camera. That makes it easier for a Border Selection and the 3D Cursor is used for the orientation.

Position the Plane at the desired Location.
Dublicate the Plane with Shift + D in Object Mode
Rotate the duplicated Plane by 90° around the local X-axis. R + 2xX + 90
Translate the rotated Plane along the local Z-axis with G + 2xZ.

Select the first Plane and press Shift + S > Cursor to Selected.
Select the second Plane and press Ctrl + Numpad 0 to make the Plane the active Camera.
Select your Object, toggle to Edit Mode and Border Select B the desired Vertices. The 3D Cursor helps where to stop with the selection.

Vertices selection successfully


is there a way how to find out to which objets a material is assigned I have a bunch of materials in one file (made by appending objects from multiple files) and I don't know, to which objects they are assigned, but I know, that they are all same. How can I find out, to which objects the material is assigned?

This creates a list of all materials and objects. Paste it into the text editor and press the run button. The results will be displayed in the console windows. You might want to open it from the menu: Window/Toggle System Console

import bpy

for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    print()
    print(mat.name)
    print("-"*20)
    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
        for slot in obj.material_slots:
            if slot.material == mat:
                print(obj.name)

Script is derived from: How to know which object is using a material

Sample output:

Material
--------------------
Cube

Material.001
--------------------
Cube
Sphere


Rig attaching to wrong legs I am following along with a tutorial to rig a cartoon humanoid.

I got to the point where he attaches the rig using "parent with automatic weights", and in the tutorial there are very few major problems. When I attempted it, however, the leg bones (labeled Thigh_R, Thigh_L, Calf_R, and Calf_L) get attached to the wrong leg.

I tried to fix it by manually weight painting it, but that heavily deformed the mesh. I was wondering if there was a (preferably simple) way to fix this problem.
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/42247

For some reason your model is "inverted".

Try this :

In object mode : Ctrl+A then choose "rotation and scale"
In edit mode : select all your vertices with A then replace your normals with Ctrl+N
Now simply reparent your mesh with the armature


GPU Rendering Only in Viewport (Cycles) I've enabled GPU rendering (CUDA) for my GTX 1060 and it's awesome. 3D viewport views render much faster than before. Monitoring my GPU shows it at 60-100% usage while Cycles samples.

However, when rendering still images or animations to file, my GPU usage is flat or at zero as CPU usage spikes.

I'm running blender 2.79b on a win 10 system with one GPU.

Yes, I have the latest driver from Nvdia. (399.07)

Yes, I have gone to the Nvdia control panel and set the OpenGL rendering GPU to my card.

*Update. I seem to have located a bottleneck in GPU usage. Looking at MS Process Explorer, it seems that blender is only using, or only has use for part of the GPU..? I'm uncertain if the types of scenes I create is a factor in creating this bottleneck, or if the problem is a solvable blender config issue.

MS Process Explorer does not accurately report GPU usage.


Viewport Material colour Custom panel problem [GIF and script Included] I was trying to make a custom panel for the settings(which includes the viewport Material colour settings) in the materials tab in the properties windows and I faced this problem. The problem is that I am only able to use the panel for the specific material name that I define. For example in the code I added a specific name "MyMat", and it only work for that specific material. How do I make it work for the current material that is currently assigned to the object regardless of the name. Here's the code and the gif.

Import Bpy
Class MaterialPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_idname = "mat.p_operator"
    bl_label = "Material panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "TOOLS"
    bl_category = "Mats"

def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    row = layout.row()
    mat = bpy.data.materials["MyMat"]
    row.prop(mat, "diffuse_color", text="Diffuse")
    row = layout.row()
    row.prop(mat, "specular_color", text="Specular")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(MaterialPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(MaterialPanel)

if__name__ == "__main__":
   register()

GIF here, somehow it's not appearing in the post

You can get the active material of the active object like this:

mat = bpy.context.active_object.active_material


timebase denominator exceeds H.264 maximum I am trying to do some video editing in Blender. I can render using AVI format, the problem appears when I am using ffmpeg.

The steps I am following:

[Video Sequence Editor] Add->movie [...I select a video to import]
[Properties] Output -> FFmpeg video, Encoding -> presets -> h264 in MP4
[Info] Render-> Render Animation

The rendering immediately stops and shows an error:

Effective timebase denominator 3276700000 exceeds H.264 maximum

What am I doing so wrong? The process does just fine if I use AVI but I need to output mp4 for a school project.

What I did to solve this problem was changing the frame rate to the device I was recording at. once I did this it started rendering the animation. (Before it was at 30 fps and I changed it to 29.97.) I hope this helped


Hard 'sketch and toon style' shadows in Eevee? I'm quite new to Blender, but I created this little illustration based off Brian Michael Gossett's work to practice my skills. Quite happy with the progress, but the problem is that the shadows are actually fake. They're just black meshes positioned right below every single object to make it look real. I was wondering if it's possible to actually create real hard shadows in Eevee as such, so that I can also animate this illustration. Does anyone know? If so, how?

In EEVEE, you can toonify as much as you like by using the Shader to RGB node, and passing the resulting color through a threshold:

Here, the floor-plane receiving the shadow has the material shown... original shadows, in this case, soft, and hardened in the color ramp.

The background curve is just the natural fade of a Sun lamp by reflected angle, caught at a certain level of grey by the threshold.


How to perform this action of creating new edges from verts (video included) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LnYG5V4ULA&list=PLkzE48dEJCB1T9WC7slXaQ6yyfhzuU4lN&index=13&t=0s
At 0.13 seconds in (please watch at 0.25 speed) He selects verts along a vertical edgeloop, then selects a vert on an intersecting horizontal edgeloop and somehow creates a new set of verts parallel to the selected vertical vertices, from the last selected vert (on the horizontal edgeloop)
What is the tool/term/shortcut for this, please?

He has enabled the Snapping option (Vertex mode) and the Auto Merge option (top right of the 3D view > Options), then he selects the edge:

He extrudes and point out the vertex he wants to snap to:

And it snaps:


Modeling a twisty tree: How do I twist a beveled curve? Hello Blender community!

First time posting.
I’m a fairly recent 3D NOOB playing around with Element 3D and C4D renderer in After Effects, and I have a project that’s allowing me to dig deeper into Blender. I’m at excited at how 2.8 feels…

So-

I’m trying to model the following tree and I want to make it ‘grow’.

I’ve created a curve with a few points, beveled with a circle, and using a NURBS path to affect the taper.

I hooked up the vertices of the NURBS path to empties and animated the location of the NURBS vertices to affect the girth of the girth of the tree as it’s ‘animating’ the Bevel end value. The ‘growth’ of the tree is looking how I want it to:

Now I want my tree to look like the drawing, and this real tree, for example, with the whole tree twisting as it grows.

How do I do this?

I’ve seen people taking an object, add loop cuts, add a simple deformer and twist. But I would need to convert this beveled curve into a mesh - which then I lose the animation from the keyframed Bevel End point for the growth.

I’ve tried playing with the tilt value of the vertices within the path of the curve. The curve has a total of 8 vertices, so just for example, I added a 360 degree rotation between each vertex, so the last vertex has a ‘twisted’ value of 2520 degrees for the tilt.

So in theory, the physics of this makes sense, but at a high spline resolution, it doesn’t look like it’s twisting much. If I lower the resolution to 2, i can see the physics of what’s happening, but it’s not quite the look I want.

What approach do I need to take here?

Thanks in advance!

[EDIT] THANK YOU ALL for your suggestions. I'm still having a little trouble getting the hang of proportional selecting, but the combination of that and changing the shape of the sweep got the look I was going for. Thank you again!!

You're actually super close to getting what you want. The default circle shape of bevels just makes it really hard to see. The reason for this is because you're trying to twist a smooth, cylindrical object. Twisting a smooth cylinder results in another smooth cylinder, up until the point where you twist more than the geometry allows, which is what you see in the last gif.

I tried a similar setup but with an irregular shape and it works really well.

Here's my setup:

As you can see I used less handles, but that doesn't really matter.

I also animated the twist of each handle as I found it gave a nicer result. To find how much you need to twist each handle, think about how many twists you want overall, then divide that by the number of handles. 360 degrees per handle for 8 handles will give you a really twisted tree. The one in your image has more like 3 twists in the full length. In my case I did just over 2 full twists, so each handle was twisted 540 degrees more than the previous one. For your tree, try 90-120 degrees per handle and go from there.

When/if you animate these values, just be aware that because of the magnitude of the values, they will be off screen at first.

Mine looked like this:

The final animation looks like this. The animations could be better, but the idea is there.


Crazy Distortion when Subdividing with Multires I want to sculpt with a texture brush so I'm using Multires to add detail to my mesh, but after three subdivides this happens:

Does anyone know why this is happening and/or how to fix it?

Edit Mode > Mesh > Normals > Recalculate Outside/Inside.

And check for overlapping vertex


Weird Render transparency artifact As you can see in the picture below, I have just rendered a frame of an animation and a triangular piece is missing. You can download the .blend and try it for yourself - it happens on some frames(like 24 in the example) and on others it doesn't, from what I've seen about every 4th frame.

Interesting to note is the fact that the fog, which I have strengthened to see the effect, still renders correctly, so it's only the plane with the image

EDIT: It went away after moving the image about 25 more units away from the camera - no idea why, and I would still highly appreciate suggestions.

This is in fact a very old known issue with Blender Internal renderer (caused by numerical imprecision), see e.g. this nine years old report.

Workaround of triangulating the buggy mesh (using e.g. the relevant modifier) seems to be working quite nicely, when that issue shows up.


How can we remove overlapping edges? I am cleaning up a friend's model and often run into this problem: Often, there are multiple edges of various lengths overlapping along the same line. Below is a visual example:

...that overlap to cause:

...as opposed to the desired:

I was wondering if there was an easy way to clean up edges like this without manually deleting the offending edges and reconnecting the relevant vertices?

Check this video, it may help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Df3C3_IYE


Problem with UV unwrap, collapsing vertices I am somewhat new to modeling but I have done uv's a few times before, but for some reason, I can't get it to work right this time. I have marked seams and set up a blank texture but when I unwrap (using the basic "unwrap") it comes out really strange, with most of the islands being a diamond shape.(Edit) I have deleted all seams and started from scratch and the same problem persists so it cant be from modifying the mesh after the uv is made. ]2

The problem was that I had pinned vertices(They are red when pinned), the fix was as simple as selecting all vertices in the uv editor and pressing Alt-p. Thank you so much, Mr Zak for bringing this to my attention.


How to make a shader that applies this effect to each face of a cube? I'm very new at shaders, so in order to learn what they're capable of I wanted to try and create an effect that is a fair distance away from anything you can do with a single principled BSDF node. I don't quite now how to express this in 3D, so I coded a 2D animation:

basically the idea is to draw a series of squares along a line and have them grow each frame until the part of the "screen" behind them is filled with their color. in effect it is a fancy color wipe.
my question is, is there a way to apply this kind of effect to faces using a shader? if so, how would I go about that?

I feel like the easiest way to think of this is to have a grid of square gradients and when you use a greater than, you can change the size of the square. Think of it as changing the height that you cut through a pyramid, at the top the cross section would be small but at the bottom, it'll be large.
To make your grid of squares we can do a little bit of vector maths. I'll be using the UV coordinates as this will let you unwrap your cube so each face gets the whole effect.
I am scaling the UV coordinates 20x so that we get 20 squares and then breaking it into a grid with Fraction. I then centre each space by subtracting 0.5 and use absolute to make each space symmetrical. This is the easiest way to get a square grid. I then separateXYZ and use a maximum node in order to get our little pyramids for each square.

If we add a math node set to Less Than at the end, you'll see the threshold will change the size of all the squares. To make this wipe down like your animation, we need the threshold value to be a gradient.
Branch off from the Scale node and add a separateXYZ followed by a math node set to snap. Take the Y socket into the math node and set the increment to 1 (this is to match the fraction node which also repeats at 1).

We now have a gradient and that we can manipulate to control the animation. To change the position of the gradient, add a math node set to subtract, and then follow that with another math node, set to multiply. The multiply will act as the falloff control. Use a small number like 0.1 for now. If we plug this into the threshold of the Less Than node, you'll see the square gradient how you want. You can change the subtract value to move the transition up and down.

Finally, to animate the sequence, we need to bring the frame number into the shader. Add a value node and type #frame into the value field. This will create a driver that takes the frame number. We want to have a loop so we're going to add a math node set to modulo. We need to use the loop length twice so add another value node that we can use and plug this into the bottom of the modulo. Set the loop length value to something like 80. Follow the modulo with a map range and plug the modulo into the first value and the loop length value node into the From Max socket. Set the from Min socket to 1. Our To Min and To Max socket slightly depends on a few things such as what scale value we've used and what the falloff is set to and the loop length so the settings for a scale of 20 and falloff of 0.1 are:
To Min: 20
To Max: -5
Plug this map range into the bottom of the subtract node to control the position of the wipe.


Alpha channel is white, not transparent, in Texture mode I imported images-as-planes into Blender Cycle.  I clicked "use alpha" (premultiplied) and "emissions and transparent".  The images are fine in Render mode, but the transparent areas appear as opaque white in the viewport in texture mode.  I need the transparent areas to be transparent while I'm editing.

How can I fix this problem?

Thank you!

In cycles the transparency will not show on texture view. In Material view it will:

In blender render it is possible to display the transparency in texture mode or material mode:


Archimesh vs Archipack So now, with 2.79, there are two architecture addons.

Do they serve different purposes?
Do archipack replace archimesh?

Archimesh basically is a collection of existing cad addons packaged and extended by Antonioya. (window maker, door maker, a wall generator, blinds..)

Archipack is a framework intended to provide parametric objects developpers a fast and easy way to program, focusing on mesh generation, and providing on-screen real-time manipulation, native preset and material handling, and strongest support for linked objects.
Inspired by archimesh, current implemented objects are ment to boost users productivity with a fast and reliable way to get "ready to render" models.
See Archipack wiki


MeasureIt won't show actual size of my model, only when the Subdivision Surface modifier is applied Like the title says, when I am going to use MeasureIt, it says, thanks to the Subdivision Modifier, the correct size. Although, when I turn View Subdivisions to zero, it changes the size to one meter. Is there a way to somehow "apply" the subdivided size, without actually apply the entire modifier?

The accepted solution, provided by batFINGER. You add an empty to the scene, by either hovering over Add in the 3D View menu, selecting Empty -> Plain Axes, or, you can alternatively, hold Shift+A, and select Empty -> Plain Axes.

Then, a tip is to use the snap function (you find it in the 3D View menu as well, or, by simply pressing Shift+Tab. Then select what you want to snap to. In my case, it was vertices. But you can snap to either vertices, edges, faces or even entire volumes. Or just incremental snapping.

You can choose what to snap to by pressing Shift+Ctrl+Tab to toggle between the different snap modes.


Query if modifier exists on listed objects I'm new to Blender and the way it works with Python, so I still don't understand quite well the way the different commands work.

But I wanna create a small tool where i can assign a modifier to a list of selected objects and play with the properties.
So far I achieved adding the modifier to the selected objects, but if I happen to create new elements and select all objects in the scene I need to find a way to query which objects already have the modifier and which do not. So if I run the script again, only the ones without the modifier get it, otherwise it gets duplicated.

So far I haven't been able to find a way to do this using  bpy.context.selected_objects , I don't know if there is another way or if i'm using it wrong.

Here's the script i have to apply the modifier:

import bpy

objSel = bpy.context.selected_objects

for i in objSel:
   if i.type == "MESH":
      subD = i.modifiers.new(name = "Subdivisions",type = 'SUBSURF')
      subD.show_only_control_edges = True

Any help is appreciate it!

You can access each objects modifiers as a dictionary by Object.modifiers. Then simply check if the name or type of your modifier is part of modifier collection (Modifier.name/Modifier.type) otherwise add a new modifier using ObjectModifiers.new() method:

import bpy

mod_name = "Subdivision"

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:  # Prefer using explicit variable names. Generally, i is used for counters, not objects
   if obj.type == "MESH" and mod_name not in obj.modifiers:
      sub_div = obj.modifiers.new(name=mod_name, type='SUBSURF')
      sub_div.show_only_control_edges = True

Related: Check if active object has a modifier


Is it possible to edit an animation built with Mixamo ? So I was doing a simple WalkCycle using Rigify but then I decided to do it using Mixamo which seems way easier . I wonder if it's possible to edit graphs and dope sheets for Mixamo animation? For example I didn't like how the models hip moves so I want to change it a little bit, would it be achievable?

You should export in Collada format from mixamo. When you import into blender, the animation should be editable.


How to animate Light's Power/Strength in 2.80? I know this was asked before, 4 years ago. But it's not working in 2.80.

You can do it the same way you animate most other quantities in blender. Go to a frame, set it to the brightness you want, then right click on the Energy slider and click Insert Keyframe from the menu. Go to another frame, change the value, and insert a keyframe again. Then it will automatically animate the brightness between those two points.

Below is an image of inserting a keyframe.

This is actually the exact same process as in the other question you posted, and it works for me in 2.8. If this doesn't work, maybe say more specifically how that method didn't work for you.


Blender on Mac: how to do right click using left click (lmb)? in Mac , i can do 'right click' by using 'Ctrl' + LMB. It works on finder or browser but this Ctrl LMB doesn't work inside blender or brush. I need to do it by using left button (lmb) because the digitizer pen only has 1 button.
For now, I have to use mouse or touchpad /trackpad to do 'right click'. Thanks

You should be able to press the trackpad with two fingers to emulate a right click. If it doesn't work, go to System Preferences/Trackpad/Point and Click and make sure Secondary Click is set to Two Fingers.


how can i apply the material? im new to blender so it might be really stupid what im asking, but ive finished my first little project and onlythe material for one piece is missing, i try to add a metllic material and the preview of the material looks right, but on my project it isnt working. Maybe sb could help me ß

If you look at your materials tab in the properties panel, you'll notice that there are several different material slots. The one you want to use (Material.004) is not the first one, so it is not the default one that Blender will choose.

To fix this, go into edit mode, select the faces you wish this material to affect, and click on the "assign" button in the Materials tab.


Duplicating non primitive mesh with Python I've created a mesh I want to duplicate using python with specifications for the new duplicate's coordinates. How do I do that?

You can create a copy of the Mesh datablock, create a new Object, position it where ever you want and attach it to the current collection/scene like this:
Blender 2.8x
import bpy

C = bpy.context
me = C.object.data # use current object's data
me_copy = me.copy()

ob = bpy.data.objects.new("Mesh Copy", me_copy)
ob.location = (1,2,3)

# Link object to the collection in context
C.collection.objects.link(ob)

# Update the view layer
C.view_layer.update()

Blender 2.7x
import bpy

me = bpy.context.object.data # use current object's data
me_copy = me.copy()

ob = bpy.data.objects.new("Mesh Copy", me_copy)
ob.location = (1,2,3)

scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.objects.link(ob)
scene.update()

You may also duplicate the original object. If you set the new object's data attribute to the original mesh datablock (no mesh copy created), it will be a linked duplicate.