Automatically generate 100 animations, each with a different texture input (BLENDER) Problem to solve:
Automatically generating 100 animations using the same animation base, just using a different texture every "pass"
I come from the Adobe world, where things like Automate -> batch or Import -> Variable data sets were there to help me with my repetitive flow. Im a bit of a new user when it comes to Blender, but I do love it so far. I'm stuck in a Blender where I just can't wrap my head around and would appreciate your brain power.
I am trying to create multiple animated showcases for our shirts. We have a shirt body object and would like to change the shirt texture for about 100 shirts and export short animations as movies. The animations are about 200 frames in duration, so we are looking at a total of about 20.000 frames rendered, ideally that would result in 100 separate animation movie files.
Visual flow of the process that I have in mind

I am looking for help on a solution where I could retain my default scene, with all the camera moves, lights and just run either a script, or generate repetitive keyframes with a script, so that each animation can feed of from there. I know that I can replicate this 100 times and define different textures, but its just not developer friendly going forward when we will change the scene and the ambience of it.
So far I've *tried feeding the texture as an image sequence How to automate rendering of the same object with different textures? (but that changed my texture on every frame and still didn't get me closer to a solution. I do see how this would be helpful to have a variable data set approach for still images like in photoshop, but I just can't solve it for an animation?
(Maybe a solution here is to somehow change the texture to switch on every 100th frame instead on every frame and somehow and loop the keyframed animation 100 times?)
I've researched a bit on replacing textures with python, however that would entail running the solution on a local computer since the script has to be feed into the command line and blender renderer called multiple times.
Since 20.000 frames is also quite a bit for my setup, ideally the solution would be baked into the blender file so it can be sent off to a render provider for faster results.
Thank you very much for you attention and your help.

The way I approached this problem in the past, without using Python in Blender, was to create a template .blend file, which uses some texture files it loads, then make a .BAT file which tells blender to render an animation:
"E:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" -b template.blend -a

Then you can replace the image files using Batch (the language .BAT format uses) with the next setup and render again.
Of course you can also use Python inside Blender:
Change material texture by loading an external .png file with Python
https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.ops.render.html#bpy.ops.render.render


weight painting copying to other side of mesh I completed one half of my rig and then copied it to the othr side of my mesh. when I finished only the left half of the rig(The part of the rig I finished first) moved the mesh, furthermore It moved the mesh on both halves of my human model.
for example: when I moved the left leg rig both the right and the left legg were moved

I tried to fix it in weight painting, but when I began to paint the right leg it was duplicated on the left leg,

ps. yes I did use mirror modifier for my model

You probably have weight paint X mirror on, someone else already had a problem similar to your own. Answer If you go down to the first answer it shows you how to turn x mirror mode off.

Also it might save you some time if you do a general search for the tool causing your problem, I just searched "weight painting symmetry tool" and the first result was the problem your having now.

Hope this helps!


How to add extra loop cuts without affecting subsurf I'm trying to model an iPhone. I have made the base shape for the phone by using a cube with subsurf modifier. Im now trying to make a button on the side but I cant do this without adding loop cuts and this affects the shape of the phone due to subsurface. How can I make a button as seen in the picture to my model while keeping the rounded shape the same of the current model?

You need to add some geometry to your mesh. Then add some edge loops around with some bevels and ctrlR, delete faces, extrude, move a bit the edge loops you've created to make the hole round, and extrude inwards. To make the button just duplicate the hole profile and extrude.


BGE 2.79: How do I change an action in-game with the push of a button/object Here is the thing, I'm currently working on a project for my internship. It is about an interactive boatride which there are multiple atributes that te boat stops at. After you completed a level the boat starts to float on further into the game.

Right now I am working on the Proof of concept. The technical part. The levels work. The buttons work, but there is just one thing I can't seem to figure out.

The monkey in this scene is the working button. Once clicked, the blue square on the rail disappears and the boat is able to go along the tracks onto the next level.

The orange cylinder with the blue square has an "always sensor to a action actuator" that , when playing the game, keeps spinning in one direction. To show that the action changes I made another animation where the cylinder is turning into the other direction.

So here is the problem. When you click on the monkey, it sends multiple messages to different objects. All of them work just fine but the action on the cylinder does not change.

This is the current logic i provided to the cylinder. Because of the past failures, I have erased the message sensor.

So:

I have got 2 actions for the cylinder (one activated by an "always sensor")
There is a button which sends out a message once clicked

Is there a way to make this work properly?

If there is any information missing reguarding this problem please let me know. I will gladly expand my explanation of my current problem.

Thanks

The always sensor (with the controller) activates/deactivates the action actuator. It does not change the configuration of the actuator.

As it is now it reads like this:

Always (due to True Level Triggering) -> activate the actuator

This means at each single frame you tell the actuator to play the action.

You wrote you want to play another action. To do so you need another action actuator that does exactly that.

Now you need a way to determine when to play what action. There are mutliple ways to achieve that. Here is one.

You define two modes: playing A and playing B
You start with mod playing A.

Add a property call it "mode" make it String and Initialize it with "playing A".

Now change your always sensor to a property sensor listening on property "mode" to be equal to "playing A".

Right now it should work as before. You start the game and the object plays A.

(Hint: switch the action actuator to loop stop mode and you can disable the true level triggering at the property sensor)

Now add another Property sensor that checks "mode" to be equal to "playing B". Connect to a controller, connect to another action actuator defining the other action.

So this is what you wanted to get. A way to play another action.

Now you need to control what action to play. I assume you send a message "play B" at the moment you want to see the second action.

Add a message sensor that listens to "play B", connect to a controller, connect to a property actuator that changes "mode" to "playing B".

With that you can change the animation in-game. Just send "play B" and the object will stop playing A (dependent on the actuator mode) and starts playing B.

To switch back you need to add a similar logic listening to another message subject (or the same if you want to toggle).


How do I use the NLA editor with Linked characters? Can you use the NLA on linked objects?

I have a blend file with a dancing mech. I'm trying to get him to wave during the dance (yes, I'm making a parody of the Band of the Bold video), and it works great when I work within the file where I created the animations.

https://gyazo.com/25eee6276d325a0a093bd6d1f99ea5a6

This also works fine if I Append the group to a file, and then Link the animations into the file.

However, when I Link the mech with the armature, animations, etc into a new file, it doesn't seem to be able to swap/add the animations.

https://gyazo.com/958d112d81e4aec6a0bbcacc171def62

For the one that is working, the Actions in the NLA get applied to the Armature. For the linked version, it gets applied to the proxy (and of course you don't see all the components in the Outliner, because it's linked).

I can Append the group to a new file, and then Link the actions and use them that way. But I really want to Link everything, so if I need to make a change to the model, I don't have to re-import it into the scene.

Is it even possible to link an armature/object/group, and apply actions to that linked object in the NLA?

Many, many years later ... having just stumbled-upon this never-answered thread .. I think that I can offer a practical solution (based on current software):

Define the "dancing mech," in the library blend-file.
In that same file, place everything – including any armatures, actions, etc. – into a "group," so that external files can reach everything by linking only to that group.
In the external file, link to the "group."  (You will be rewarded with an object that you can, for example, bind to a path with an appropriate constraint, but that you cannot animate or otherwise edit.)
Now, select the group and "Make Proxy."  This will create a new object named "GroupName_proxy."
In the NLA Editor, you should now be able to select the proxy-object, Edit..Insert that object, and insert your NLA actions into that strip.

In Blender parlance, anything that is "linked" (from an external file) cannot be "edited," unless within the current file there is a "proxy" which can capture and therefore contain the changes within this file. Alas, years later, Blender's user interface still falls short in making any of this easy and obvious.


Is there a faster way to close these holes I'm working on this statue, I started it as two separate objects, the lion and the orix, I merged them to one object using Ctrl + J, I need to connect the mesh properly so it can be 3D printed, and later I will use Sculpt to make the details, I've been moving, edge looping and connecting all these vertices manually, but it's an extremely tedious job, is there a better way to merge or connect all these vertices and remove the excess resulting edges? The problem isn't only with the long time it takes, but with each edge loop added, I'm increasing the faces count, and I'm trying to keep it as low as possible.

[3

]5

You should add a boolean modifier to merge the two objects. You might have a few new vertices in your mesh but it will be far easier to clean up once you have deleted the inner faces created in the operation.


Can anyone tell the difference in material setup for a chocolate solid and a chocolate liquid I make chocolate using mix shader connected in a diffuse and glossy and a fresnel in the factor input.But that looks like a molten chocolate How can we make it look like solid chocolate

The Roughness of the material is the only difference. Here I use the same material but only slightly change the roughness:


Programmatically selecting every nth edge loop in a mesh? I need a programatic way to select every nth edge loop in a mesh, in a certain plane. (In the examples below I've shown a mesh with only 12 x/y subdivisions, but in practice my meshes have hundreds of divisions – far too many to select by hand.)

Is there a common solution for this? Or a script I could look at and learn from? I've tried using python – https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_67_1/bpy.ops.mesh.html –  for this, but I'm not familiar enough with things to get any practical results. Would love to learn, though.

FWIW I've tried selecting all edge loops in a certain plane, and then using "checker deselect" to achieve the same result, but that doesn't do what I want.

Thanks very much,

Dunstan

By assuming your grid will be parallel to the x-y axis and not rotated, I came up with this idea. It works fine for me and hope this helps.

import bpy, bmesh

# These are the parts that you can change, inputs
step_size =            5
first_selected_loop =   0
x_or_y_parallel =      "x"

# Switching to EDIT mode to read mesh data
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')

# Program will get the zeroth index or first index of vertices
# (that is x or y coordintes) according to your choice
if x_or_y_parallel   == "x":
    x_y_index = 0
elif x_or_y_parallel == "y":
    x_y_index = 1

# Getting the mesh data
obj = bpy.context.scene.objects.active
bm  = bmesh.new()
bm  = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)

# Getting all line coordinates that is parallel to selected axis

# I am assuming we don't know how many lines we got in x or y axis
line_x_or_y_cords = []
for vert in bm.verts:
    if vert.co[1-x_y_index] not in line_x_or_y_cords:
        line_x_or_y_cords += [vert.co[1-x_y_index]]

# I am sorting the line coordinates and
# eliminating unwanted coordinates (we need only the lines that are on
# step size by starting first_selected_loop)
line_x_or_y_cords.sort()
line_x_or_y_cords = line_x_or_y_cords[first_selected_loop::step_size]

# if the edge is not selected yet , if 2 vertex of that edge is
#parallel to our expected axis and if one of its vertex is in our list
# (that is arranged above) select that edge and do select loop
#operation
for edge in bm.edges:
    if edge.select == False and (edge.verts[0].co[1-x_y_index] - edge.verts[1].co[1-x_y_index] == 0) and  edge.verts[0].co[1-x_y_index] in line_x_or_y_cords:
        edge.select = True
        bpy.ops.mesh.loop_multi_select(ring=False)
bm.free()


blender making empty parent as a child in cube parent Okay so I've been trying to make it so that an empty object will become a child in my cube parent object but I don't know how to make it become a child.

I've tried pressing shift to make the empty object into my cube parent but it doesn't make the empty parent become a child.

This has to be done in Object Mode.

First select the object you want as a children (in your case, the empty). Hold SHIFT while you select the object you want to become the parent of the object you selected first (Note that the outline around your empty object should turn from a bright orange to a dark orange color).

Then press CTRL+P and select "Select parent to "Object"".

GIF illustrating the process:

Hope this helps.


Is there a way to do a J-Cut or L-Cut in the video editor? I'm in the process of trimming down a video in Blender and I was wondering if there was a way make an L-Cut or a J-Cut. Is it possible?

Yes, it's just a matter of cutting (K) between the video and audio strips at separate frames. For example, here's an L cut:


What can the Alpha sliders in cycles be used for? From my previous question,  I was wondering what the alpha sliders are useful for in cycles. (As they don't seem to effect the shader)

I think it's safe to say that it does nothing at all. It's only present there because all shaders use the standard RGBA selector even though an RGB selector would be sufficient.

In some other areas where only RGB-values make sense, however, RGB-selectors are in use, so it's not great user communication to not use them there I guess.


Blender FBX Export Error: location :-1 When I try to export an object using .fbx, I get unknown location error every single time. I do select the folder, but even after that, I get this error.

I use Blender v.2.83.4

I have tried to redownload Blender and I still receive the same error.

I had this error on and off for a while.
I think it has to do with leaving objects in edit mode. Especially if you have more than one object still in edit mode. If you make all the objects in the scene visible and make sure none of them are in edit mode, it seems to fix it.
You may have to save out to a different file name as well.


Cloth Animation to Unity Problem I am trying to make a simple flag animation with Blender then export it to Unity3D. I already made the flag in blender with a wind force and the flag works well in Blender.  However I am not sure how to create an animation out of the flag with the wind force and export that animation to Unity3D.

You can't. Unity has its own cloth simulation tools, but you can't import any simulation from Blender. This is true for smoke, cloth, soft body, rigid body, fluid, etc. In general, if it isn't a mesh or directly related to a mesh (e.g., UV maps), Unity will have nothing to do with it.


Creation of a seamless texture from a model I would like to create a seamless normal map from a model I constructed.

First I made a model

Then I baked a texture in Cycles as a Normal map to a squared plane, with a non-seamless result

As a next step I unwrapped a square plane, arranged its duplicates that shared the same mesh (made with Alt-D) to see a seamless pattern, and by manipulating uv map, made sure that the texture on the plane is seamless

What is a good way to transfer the seamless part of the square back to a new texture? I managed to do that with baking Emit like below, but I guess there is a better way?

"Baking Emit" method is clunky because after it is done I have to crop transparent part from the image and resize it back to 1024x1024 size

Use another UV map for target image

The parts you must crop are created by the usage of the same UV map for both the source image and the target.

If you create another UVmap for your object that is filling completely your target image space and set up proper relations for the images coordinates like in the image below, you should be able to achieve a cropping of the image.


Baking physics on several machines / Combining cache I have a smoke animation in blender.

I wonder if it is possible to split the baking process of Physics / Smoke Simulation on several machines.

Can I run part of the simulation like Frame 1 to 100 on one machine and Frame 100 to 200 on another machine while combining both caches to one simulation from 1 to 200 later on? If yes how can I do that?

If no, do you know another option to speedup baking a simulation with the help of multiple machines?

Thanks,

Danny

As far as I know this is fundamentally impossible.

Physics simulations are sequential data, that means each frame depends heavily on the previous one.

To calculate what happens at any given moment you need to know what happened before, so you must have position and status information about every intervening element in the simulation to know where they were and calculate where they will be next.

Without that you can't have just pull out of thin air how a simulation looks at a random point in time without knowing exactly how it was an instant before.

This makes it impossible for a computer to calculate "frame 100" from scratch without having frame 099, or 099 without 098, and so on till the beginning of the simulation from a known "rest position".


Scale edges inward evenly I don't know which title suit my question the best. But essentially what I'm trying to do is to create an indentation inward for each piece of wood that encircle my barrel. The only solution I find so far is to manually edit every single edge, but there must be another way to do this for all the edges at the same time.
So the first image is what I need the edges to look like:

Here you can see how the edges look like without my manual scaling:

So as you can see from the first image, I need to scale the edges inwards themselves(?) Is essential for me to create this kind of indentation but each edge has a different angle so when I scale them I get a crazy result.
Also, I should apply this for each edge that encircles the barrel.
The barrel is like this:

And this is the shape of the edges:

I hope I was able to explain the problem I have.
I really hope that you can help me find the solution, I don't use Blender often, I'm a beginner and sometimes I feel overwhelmed.
Thank you in advance for your help.
EDIT: I'm doing this operation while using the mirror modifier on the Z-axis

The shrink/fatten tool is exactly what you need! Select the middle loop of each of the barrel's sides (the one you want to make slightly smaller) and press Alt S. This will shrink the edge loop equally in all directions, giving you the shape you're after.


Why can't I scale or rotate objects in the viewport? While it was working a while ago, scale and rotate is not working in the 3d View anymore, grab is working though. I'm allowed to scale the objects manually using the N-key but the shortcuts are not working, no matter how much I press S and R:

Did I press a key or something?

As said in comments, uncheck "Affect only locations" option:


Parts of my mesh are hidden when armature modifier is turned on I've been following an online robot modelling tutorial and I'm having an issue where part of my mesh is invisible when the armature modifier is turned on. When the modifier is turned off I can see them again.

I had already started animating my model before I realised two of the cylinders on his legs were missing!

I'm new to blender and i'm totally lost as to what the problem might be, any help would be welcome!

You get a twist problem on your "Track To" constraint on KneeCylinder.L / KneeCylinder.R.

(Try set influence of this constraint, and you will see your cylinder).

Quick fix by Rolling your bone by 180° (edit mode, and set roll to current roll + 180°)


Background colour in cycles render turning pink I'm trying to set the background to blue yet whatever I do it still comes out as pink. Any ideas how to fix this?

You might have changed the directory of the background image or the image file. While rendering do not move files around.


Snapping edges to surface not working in blender 2.8 I'm trying to snap the bottom extruded edges to the helper mesh but it doesn't work. How can you do that in blender 2.8?

Some variation on this?

Set  the origin of your object is at its base..
In Edit mode, assign the extruded vertices to a Vertex Group
In Object Mode, Switch on Snap, to Face, Align Rotation
Give the object a Shrinkwrap modifier, aimed at the Vertex Group, targeted on the surface.

Then, you can slide an object around on a surface, keeping contact.

In this case, the disc is up in Z, so I set the Shrinkwrap to negative Z projection. This may seem long-winded, but this can be a useful modelling routine.
You can take this further, making a flange, matching normals, etc., to make a Decal, but that's more than you want.


Instead of Inserting Key Frames the Inset tool gets activated I am using the 2.79 version of Blender. When I want to insert a key frame with i, i believe it is that shortcut, but when I press it does the inset tool. What can I do to insert a key frame?

Also I am really new to animation. How can you make a fan to rotate?

You´re in edit mode at this time; pressing I while in edit mode indeed brings up the Inset tool.

You need to be in Object Mode and have your fan as a single object (no other mesh parts), then press N to bring up your side menue and move it all the way up to the "Transform" menue. Now you can see three values for Location and Rotation (x, y, z). Now hover over one of those values and press I to insert a keyframe.

To make the fan rotate, insert a keyframe for Rotation, go to a different frame (a few seconds at least), find the axis your fan rotates around, set its rotation to a high value and press I again. Now your fan rotates!

If you want to rotate your fan infinite, open up a new window inside of Blender by dragging one of the corner points of your current workspace and set it to "Graph Editor". Select your fan object, then select the axis you rotated in the Graph Editor, press Shift + E and select "Make Cyclic". You´re done!

Hope this helps, and happy blending!


2.81 - Any way to have the grid show through objects? Is there any way to set the grid to render over / through objects? I do a lot of work in quad view and large objects will easily obscure the grid. I'd like for it to always be visible.

There is no configuration option for this, but it's possible to patch the shader source code within the Blender binary, if you're brave enough.  The following works for 2.80, 2.81, and 2.82.  It doesn't work for 2.79, though.  Also I found that after applying this patch, there was a delay of several seconds the first time I ran the new binary, presumably as Blender recompiled all the shaders.  After that first delay, it should launch quickly again, but if you keep both binaries around and switch between them, there'll be a delay whenever you switch.

The shader source code lines you're looking for in the Blender binary are:

fade *= (scene_depth == 1.0) ? 1.0 : 0.0;

and:

fade *= 1.0 - clamp((grid_depth - scene_depth) * test_hardness, 0.0, 1.0);

The first makes the grid invisible behind objects in orthographic view.  The second does it in perspective view.  Both should be commented out.

If you have a hex/binary editor, you can do it manually.  The usual caveats for binary patching apply -- make a backup copy of your executable first, and change the lines to:

//de *= (scene_depth == 1.0) ? 1.0 : 0.0;
...
//de *= 1.0 - clamp((grid_depth - scene_depth) * test_hardness, 0.0, 1.0);

being exceedingly careful to keep the patch the same length as the original.

Alternatively, you can run the following Python script.  Note:  If you run this script from within Blender itself, it works fine, but it does nothing to the grid in the running copy of Blender.  It only patches and writes a new binary to implement the change.

Anyway, update the file paths to point to the input binary and an appropriate output file location.  If the patch is successful, you may be able to run the new binary directly, or you may find you need to move it into the same directory as the old binary (or even move the old binary out of the way and give the new binary exactly the same name as the old one), depending on how Blender is installed.

import os
import stat

# File names of input and output Blender executables
INFILE = "/scratch/buhr/blender/official_versions/blender-2.80-linux-glibc217-x86_64/blender"
OUTFILE = "/var/tmp/blender_gridinfront"

# Comment out these two shader lines
LINE1 = b"fade *= (scene_depth"
LINE2 = b"fade *= 1.0 - clamp((grid_depth"

def patch(data, line):
    i = data.index(line)
    data[i:(i+2)] = b"//"
    return data

with open(INFILE, "rb") as r, \
     open(OUTFILE, "wb") as w:
    data = bytearray(r.read())
    try:
        newdata = patch(data, LINE1)
        newdata = patch(newdata, LINE2)
        w.write(newdata)
        os.chmod(OUTFILE, stat.S_IREAD | stat.S_IWRITE | stat.S_IEXEC)
    except:
        print("Patch failed")
        raise


Ice material for web 3d Hey there we’re doing a web VR lab project and the programmer is using “a-frame”, so that means using a limited PBR process.

So any ideas on how I could make a realistic looking ice material, at the moment mine looks like a 90’s game.

Get the ICE shader (procedural) from here:

https://gumroad.com/trapanidigitaldesign

Bake textures to use them as PBR.
Done.


How to make rope wrapping around spheres? I am looking to make tiki lamps like this:

but I don't know how to make rope that wraps around a sphere. Can anyone tell me if there is a tutorial on how I can make rope wrap like this?

Here's one way you could do it (or at least get a good starting base mesh).
Start by adding a UV sphere, but make sure to reduce the number of segments and rings by half before you do anything else.

From here, add a Decimate modifier, set to "un-subdivide", with 1 iterations. This will make the base of the "webbing".

From here, add 2 more modifiers. First, add a wireframe modifier - this will give it some thickness. I increased the thickness from 0.02 to 0.04 because I thought it looks more like rope - adjust to your taste. Next, add a bevel modifier. The reason for the bevel is that I plan to add a Subdivision Surface Modifier in the next step, and the bevel modifier makes it keep it's shape properly.

Next, add the Subdivision Surface Modifier to the (already existing) stack of modifiers. This is also a time to add a new UV sphere (in object mode) in the same spot as you added the first sphere. This will act as your "light ball". Make sure to subdivide and smooth shade the UV sphere appropriately so it looks like a proper sphere.

I gave the light some color (just to see it better), and then applied all the modifiers to the "rope" object from top to bottom on the list. From here, select the rope object, enter edit mode and select a vertex at the very top. Press O to turn on Proportional Editing, and select "sharp" from the edit list.

Now, grab the vertex (G) and move it up along the z-axis. Use the mouse wheel to control the size of the edit circle until the shape looks right. Use your light "ball" as a size reference.

Last, all there is to do is give your rope a texture - I used a simple procedural one made out of noise, but you can use whatever you want.

Then just give a better shader to your light and adjust your world lighting (also to taste). Final result looks something like this:

Obviously you can play with the values at any point to further customize it to your liking. I hope this just gives a good base starting idea you can use.


Centre every object in relation to each other For something so simple there are surprisingly little Google results, likely because I'm a noob and everyone already knows how to do this.

I have imported a Collada DAE 1.4 file, that I made in another 3D modeling tool, into Blender. In Blender, the model is shown very large, and it isn't centered at the origin. I want to start by moving the model to the centre of Blender's grid.

However, the model file contains multiple objects, and I'd like to keep it that way. I knew to centre an object, you can go Object>Geometry to Origin. The problem is that every selected object gets moved to the centre of the grid with total disregard for every other object around it.

I am aware there is some z-fighting going on, but I will fix that after my model is centered and scaled. Here's the model as it should appear. The 3D cursor is way off in the background behind the skydome, in its original position at the centre of Blender's grid, and I want the centre of this model to be there.

Here is how it looks when I select every object and do Object>Geometry To Origin.

Yes, everything is centered, but no longer is the model laid out the same way as before. Instead, every single object is now at the centre, instead of there being a sort of "bounding box" put around everything and centering the bounding box instead of each individual object. The wings, which were in its own object, are at the centre, and the tail, which was its own object as well, is now also in the centre - rather than remaining attached and being treated as if one object.

I could just combine every object using Ctrl+J. But I'd like to centre everything while keeping the objects separate.

Either select all objects, center the cursor with Shift + C and then use Shift + S > Selection to Cursor (offset); or if that doesn't work:

Select all objects with A
Clear their relations by removing parenting with Alt + P
Center objects origins with Shift + Ctrl + Alt + C > Origin to geometry
Now select all objects again with A and then Shift Select one last large object (like the ground or the scene background or whichever you want to be at the exact center of the world) by clicking on it to make it the active object
Press Ctrl + P to parent all other objects to that one
Now you can move that active "main" object to the scene's origin with whichever method you like more without breaking objects relative positions.

Either With Alt + G or with Shif + S > Object to origin or by manually entering or clearing coordinates.

You can then release the parenting if you no longer need it afterwards.

Edit: Have in mind that this may break any meaningful relationships you might previously have between your objects

P.S. Offtopic: Kudos for having Vivaldi browser installed ;)


How do i get two editing windows? I am new to blender and I've seen people have two windows open at a time so they edge model depth and width at the same time. I'd like the same results as what's in the picture.

You can divide any window by right-clicking along its borders. Your cursor will change to the resize symbol so you know it's in the right place.
Then, you can choose to create a vertical or horizontal split in that panel. You can actually split any of the available windows by dragging the dotted split line, and clicking when satisfied.

Joining panels back together is also done by right-clicking, but it should be noted that you can only join two windows which share sides. For example, you could join the 3D view window above with the new 3D view just created, but you couldn't join the 3D view window with the Outliner and Properties Shelf windows on the right. Those two windows would first need to be joined themselves.
Alternatively, you can also hit CTRL+ALT+Q to toggle quad view, which will automatically split your 3D view into four panels - one for each of the three orthogonal cardinal directions, plus the view you already had open.


Small texture cannot be clipped in Material Viewport Shading, always repeats I want to set a texture on one side of a cube, but it shall only be very small. So I selected this one face in edit mode, “unwraped” it (i. e. created a UV map with just one face), and scaled it up in the UV/Image Editor.

When I now create a material and an associated texture, load my image, set Image Mapping → Extension to Clip and disable Mapping → From Dupli, there should only be one image, but it is always tiled over this face instead.

Of course, furthermore, the whole cube should be green, as there is only one material. However, it works in Viewport Shading “Rendered”:

But this is not good enough for me, I need it in Viewport Shading “Material”, too. Is there a trick that helps me? Or is this viewport shading not able to clip (so missing feature or bug)?

I use Blender 2.79, Blender Render and Windows 10 64 bit.

As far as I know OpenGL viewport preview doesn't support texture clipping options, so they will always display tiling infinitely.

Also viewport material preview is quite limited, it is meant as a reference only.

They should render properly when pressing the F12 key regardless of render engine, though, except of course OpenGL renders.

Also see How do I Make a Transparency to Decal my Object? (Blender Render Only)


Center and orient mesh of a head I have a very accurate mesh of my head, captured by photogrammetry (http://ir-ltd.net/)

I would like to rotate and translate it so that it is as symmetrical as possible on the x axis.

How could I go about doing this?

Here is a close up of an ear:

Now maybe I could position a sphere...

And then position one of the opposite side in the same place, and then take the average of their centres, translate that back to the origin, and then perform appropriate rotation.

I can write a Python script that gets as far as the translation, but I'm not sure how to do the final rotation.

Also can anyone think of any other techniques?

PS it is essential to mesh scale must be preserved!

EDIT:
Another technique might involve selecting one ear and calculating the average of all vertex positions. Then doing the same for the other ear.  And then taking the line between these two centroids to be the new X axis.

But then the problem becomes how to select the ear?  Specifically, how to make sure the second ear is selected in a similar way.

A easy way would be:

Select three vertices (right, left and middle) on the head;
Create a empty based on that virtual plane using Precise Align.
Select the empty, the AltR. You may want to rotate manually along Z axis if it's not expected after that.
Select your object, AltP > Clear and Keep Transformation. Then delete the empty.

Similar usage like this.

One thing that is worthy mentioning is: it's a scanned head in your case. Since real human body can be just roughly symmetrical, but not exactly as it appears, so the result may not be perfectlly symmetrical as expected. Of course, you can still give it a try.


Blender video to .mp4 I'm very new to blender and are using it to edit videos. I slapped 2 osu clips and a end card together but for some reason it only wants to save as a .blend file.

You need to set the appropriate setting in the "Output Properties":

Set File Format to FFmpeg Video
Container to MPEG-4
And Video Codec to H.264 (others also work, but use this one if you don't know the difference.

Another tip is to turn of "File Extensions", and manually type in ".mp4" at the end of your file. This way Blender wont auto name it as "MyeVideo0001.mp4
After the settings are correct and you want to save it as a video, you need to render out the video. And video should be rendered out to the location specified in you output settings.

You can read more about the settings over here:

Output Panel
Encoding Panel


can't comb hair down I have this human model and I want to put hairs on it.

I want the hair to be laying/hanging on to his forhead but for some reason the hairs are unable to do that. it looks like there is some invisible wall or something where the hair can't go through.

maybe something to do with collision or something but I cant figure it out.

rotating the individual hairs also doesnt work.

Please check out my .blend file and try to rotate or comb the hairs down because I can't (blender 2.8)

Turns out its just a simple option you have to tick off.


Mesh with shape key animation - ok in Blender, wrong in Unity I have a mesh with shape key animation. I use actions in order to get separate animations after exporting this model to Unity.

Everything looks fine in Blender.
But after export to Unity, when I call an animation, the model becomes very small and turns at the wrong angle.

Maybe I shouldn't apply location, rotation, and scale after I finished creating and animation shape keys... But still - everything looks right in Blender, so is there a way to fix this problem with exporting to Unity?

Thank you very much in advance!

To fix the scaling issue, be sure you select your mesh in Object mode and check the scale transform. If it's not set to 1.0, apply your scale by pressing CtrlA and selecting Scale from the drop down menu that appears. If you're using an armature, make sure your mesh and armature have their scales applied before binding them together.

To fix the rotation issue, check that any rotation changes have also been applied, similarly to how you apply scaling changes. If you're exporting with FBX, change your Up and Forward directions in the FBX export screen to the correct directions for your mesh.


What algorithm is used for "beauty" triangulation When applying triangulation modifier, what kind of algorithm does Blender use when choosing the "Beauty" option for quads or polygons? Is it Delaunay triangulation on individual polygons?

After a quick look at the source code, I believe it tries to find a triangulation that leads to the best angles for each triangle (ie biggest minimum angle and smallest maximum angle).
For a quad, there are only two possible splits so it tries both.
For a polygon with more sides, it does some sort of greedy iterative search of an initial triangulation and edge rotations.
Possibilities where triangles that are flipped relative to the initial polygon are discarded.
Relevant code:

bmo_triangulate_exec in https://github.com/blender/blender/blob/master/source/blender/bmesh/operators/bmo_triangulate.c
BM_mesh_triangulate in
https://github.com/blender/blender/blob/master/source/blender/bmesh/tools/bmesh_triangulate.c
BM_face_triangulate in
https://github.com/blender/blender/blob/master/source/blender/bmesh/intern/bmesh_polygon.c
BM_verts_calc_rotate_beauty in
https://github.com/blender/blender/blob/master/source/blender/bmesh/tools/bmesh_beautify.c
BLI_polyfill_beautify in
https://github.com/blender/blender/blob/master/source/blender/blenlib/intern/polyfill_2d_beautify.c


How to Cut or Extrude a Cube/Rectangle from a Cylinder/Curved Surface I am trying to have a rectangle extrude from a cylinder. I can get that working fine, but as soon as I add a subdivision surface I get smoothing that creatives overlapping vertices. I don't know a strategy to solve this and I'm hoping someone will help. Please see the images. I have tried increasing density but I still get the problem at the corners. I have added edge loops to the bevel, which kind of works, but you can see that the horizontal loops are still bending around the cube extrusion and it causes some lighting issues. Does anyone have any tips on what I could do to prevent this? Thanks for any help.

Image 1: The object I'm trying to smooth.

Image 2: The result of adding a subdivision surface. Note the shading problems at the corner.

Image 3: The result of applying the subdivision surface. You can see that it's rounding the cylinder and in doing so folds / overlaps vertices from the corner.

Image 4: Increasing loops for bevel. Still warping the cylinder causing shading issues.

It seems to work fine with this topology (I first inset then extruded then added new edge loops):


the cache in physics isnt accessible for simulation I am trying to learn smoke simulation however after selecting the object and doing quick smoke, the cache panel isn't being responsive in the physics tab for baking

You have to save the file once first, the cache-files will be written in a folder at the same locatation as the saved blend file.


Smoke does not show in Post-render (neither Cycles nor Evee) (Blender 2.81) Please be informed that:
I have  reset the settings to factory default.
It does render in real time on both EVEE and Cycles but not in Post render.
Please Help out if you can think of anything it doesnt matter if you arent sure, just tell me caUSE I have been stuck for 2 days, and tried a lot of things, I need someone who can think out of the box, maybe the solution is very simple, and yes I did try reinstalling the app.
Thanks in advance

The issue is that you haven't baked the simulation.

Save the .blend file.
Open the Physics Properties and click Bake in Smoke > Cache.


How can I return to the 3D view after rendering? In blender, after I press F12 to render, the view changes. Is there a button or key that I can press to go back to the 3d view?

A completed render doesn't hog the memory on your computer anymore. To get back to the 3D View from the Image Editor window, either press Esc, F11, or just change the view.

I'm surprised nobody else answered it using the most simple way of changing viewport windows. :P


How to make a 3 position switch return to the center position when keypress is released? I have a 3 position switch with one keypress moving the switch up, and another keypress moving the switch down. The switch needs to return to the center position when the keypress is released. How can this be accomplished with logic bricks in Blender 2.79?

Play the "switching" animations with the action actuator in Flipper Mode.

The animation will be played forward when the actuator is activated (e.g. when pressing and holding the keyboard button). When reaching the end frame the last pose will remain.

When the actuator gets deactivated (e.g. via releasing the keyboard button) the animation will be player revers till the start frame.

Be aware this does not deal with the situation when you press the second button while the first one is still pressed.


Sculpt tools not working I have just opened a new file from scratch, made a sphere and gone into sculpt mode, but none of the tools work except for the yellow ones like grab.
activating dynatopo doesn't change the issue
I dont think that there is any reason to post screenshots? as it is a brand new file with no changes made

I think it's a glitch in the new 2.9 edition.  It's frustrating the hell out of me too.  It was working fine last night.  I read someone suggesting to simply revert backwards to 2.8.  But come on, Blender!  You're 3D modeling software.  Surely you should be able to pull off the FIRST THING ABOUT SCULPTING!  It's not like you haven't had to time to figure it out by version 2.9!  I'm so sick of the broken ass program.  You sure do get what you pay for.  Free as dirt!


Boolean modifier not working and also material not applied I have 2 Question mention below

I have attached a file.

Q1. I want to cut the part and im using the boolean modifier. I have rename the layer. In that layer 3 parts can cut (its name is cut) And the one layer without cut its not cutting with the boolean modifier. Plz tell me how it can be cut and reason where im going wrong.

Q2. I cannot apply material to my model. Whats the problem behind the model.

You can expect that behaviour of boolean modifier, if you try to cut in ngons (face with more then 4 vertices). Blender is smart enough to cut it smoothly in other parts of the mesh, but in this particular part, something went wrong. Fortunately boolean works, but not in perfect way. Here you'll see how to fix that and that you can apply material to your mesh without problem.What I didn't show in this short .gif is that you should always have normals pointing outside so you need on all your meshes in edit mode, with all faces selected press CTRL+N to calculate them.


Dealing with Inverse Kinematics - End of "Leg" Moves the Entire Model *3rd 'paragraph' is where I have stated my issue. Before is context/what I've done so far
I've been scouring forums for the past hour or so and haven't been able to come across a solution that seems to help my problem. Essentially what I'm trying to do is make the foot of an "ant" move only the leg. See images below. (I can only do two links so I figured the two attached were the more important ones)

The issue I'm having is that when I try to make the end of the leg an IK bone (SHIFT + I), it bounds to the tail-end of the ant. May help to note this is the bone I started my armature on. See second image for those bones.

So... context provided... Whenever I try to move this IK bone, the entire model moves, pivoting around the tail-end bone (circled above). I've tried reparenting the bone, disconnecting the armature, and a few other things that are workarounds of those. All I want it to move is the leg, circled in this image. Also note this was moved, pivoting around the tail-end bone as stated, from moving only the IK bone.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated, apologies if this has a simple solution I've overlooked. Perhaps I've simply messed up the armature.
Thanks in advance,
Mark

Go to the IK bone constraint and check the chain length. The default is 0, meaning that the whole chain is included. Set it instead to the number of bones in the leg. Here is the documentation.


Background movie clip does not show up in render I did some tracking in Adobe AE and then ran a script to import it into Blender. I set a background image in the N menu, but I can only see it in the viewport, I can't see it when I render. Any help would be appreciated. Blender 2.79b, cycles render.

In Blender render its under solve>Scene Setup (in the movie clip editor


How do I apply the correct physics to a chain? So I made these chains and a chain holder on the back of a truck but when I try to apply physics, every single ring glitches out going in random directions (sometimes blender just crashes). I just want to attach the chains to their top rings (the 7 top rings + the holder theyre attached too is 1 object). I already searched for a solution but they keep glitching, would be nice if someone could help me!

I just found the answer, the margin is automatically set to .01m. This is too big for the little chains I made and made them explode all over the place. I put it to .001m and now it works like it should.


I've separated my front bumper and now put it in the same collection but both objects are giving different shading between them Objects are showing different shading even when I moved them to the same collection.

Collections aren’t for managing materials.
Go to the Materials tab of the Properties editor instead:
Then, check that the same shader is set for both the hood and the other thing (select each in turn and observe what is displayed in their material slots).
For more information, please see the Materials information in the Blender Manual, particularly Material Assignment.


How to import FBX file with texture map? I download FBX file from Internet. There are fbx file and 1 folder contain texture map. When I import to Blender 2.8 they are not import with texture map. There are only model. How can I load texture map?

Ok. So the answer is - included with your model are texture maps for 2 separate materials: one for the lid, and one for the back wall. I had to add a new material slot to one of them (maybe both, I can't remember) and hook up the texture maps through those, but the UV's are fine. There is both a reflection map and a glossy included as part of the texture pack, however, they are both the same image so I used one for a roughness map, and I'm not sure if the other one is supposed to be metallic, because I don't know what the final product is supposed to look like, so I omitted it.
Anyway, I connected the textures by the number in the name of their respected object (the only ones that apply to your materials end in 02 and 04), through the node setup in the image below. Note that the color space for the roughness and the normal maps is set to non-color - this is important. Have a look:

I have a copy of the .blend file with everything connected. Let me know if you'd like to have it, and i'll send you the link.


Unable to group duplicated objects? In this article:

the last line says :

  To turn all duplicates into real objects, simply
  select the icosphere and Object ‣ Apply ‣ Make Duplicates Real,
  Ctrl+Shift+A. To make the icosphere and the tentacle a single object,
  make sure they are all selected and go to Object ‣ Join, Ctrl+J.

After doing this, I now have a large amount of objects. Great! but unfortunately, when I select all of them and Ctrl+J to combine the objects, nothing happens. Is there something preventing me from doing this or am I overlooking something?

Add a Monkey (Shift+A)

Add a Circle (Shift+A) set the vertices say 10 or 12 (left hand panel or press f6)

Select the monkey and then the circle (order is important here)
Press ctrl+P -- object

Go to the object panel right hand in duplication section select verts

press ctrl+Shift+A then

press ctrl+J


How to use Keyframes and the Python API programmatically? Currently I have a default cube and 400 frames.

Here's what I have working without keyframing

import bpy

current_scene = bpy.context.scene

default_cube = current_scene.objects['default_cube']

def update_scene():
    current_frame_value = current_scene.frame_current

    if current_frame_value < 100:
        default_cube.scale.x = .05
    elif current_frame_value < 200:
         default_cube.scale.x = .08
    elif current_frame_value > 300:
        default_cube.scale.x = .3
     else:
        default_cube.scale = 1

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(update_scene)

print('I work!')

The problem I'm having with the non-keyframe method is there isn't any interpolation between the scaling and I intend do this for thousands of frames. What is a good method to use keyframes programmatically to achieve interpolation?

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/python_console.html Blender 2.8 doesn't reference anywhere.

Figured it out!
Here's how to use the Python API to set it:
# X, Y, and Z location to set
default_cube.location = (0.0, 0.0, 0.0)
# Set the keyframe with that location, and which frame.
default_cube.keyframe_insert(data_path="location", frame=1)

# do it again!
default_cube.location = (3.0, 2.0, 1.0)
# setting it for frame 10
default_cube.keyframe_insert(data_path="location", frame=10)

Details on .keyframe_insert() can be found in Blender's manual.


How do I make particles collide with object surfaces? Please Refer to Video
The blue cubes are using active rigid body properties. The red cubes are emitted using a particle system. The blue cubes are being affected by the surface of the yellow object, but the red particle cubes fall through. So my question is, how do I make particles collide with object surfaces?

You need to enable 'Collisions' on the object you want the particles to collide with on the 'Physics' tab:


How do I "Re-Randomize" Particle Emmission? So I have two planes that are emitting particles with the default settings.
However, the "randomized" particle emission is exactly the same for both planes.

Is there a way that I can "re-randomize" the distribution so that this is not the case?

Thanks for any help.

You can change the "seed" value next to the emitter type selection:


How do I properly fit this tail with IK? I have this tail rig that I'm using IK to animate with. I'm fairly new to rigging and IK, however, I've come this far:

The problem is I want to have more control over the curve that the IK Target creates, for example, this rig only bends downwards, I'd like to be able to change the bend without having to rotate any parts as it causes bones to move out of place.

Any tips/help would be appreciated, thank you.

This is the perfect time to use a pole target! Essentially its another bone that the IKed bones will bend toward. Also if you make its parent the IK target, its especially easy to use.


No Rasterizer module I am trying to go trough a simple Blender tutorial in which I need to use module Rasterizer. Unfortunately my Blender has no such module. As far as I know Blender has its own Python so there should be no collision with other

EDIT: Yes, question concerns BGE. As fas as I saw I have none of the modules that should be in Blender: no bge for example. I dont think there is need to get the link to the tutorial, as Blender Python console simply states that script failed, and the script is:

import Rasterizer

or

import bge

both fail.

EDIT2: I have downloaded a new version of Blender 2.68a. When it starts writes: found bundled python. I have for example bpy module but no bge module. It seems I have absolutely no Game Engine module. What a pity! :(

You can't import these module from the Python Console, they're only available when the bge is running. Add your script to a python controller logic brick.


Material wont appear in blender render but it does in blender cycles I can make my material apear in Blender Render, but it does appear in Blender Cycles.
And im trying to make to make it appear in blender render so i can Bake it whit Full Render , just to have all the details in a PNG file or JPEG.

Materials are not interchangeable between render engines.

Cycles uses a completely different system to BI even down to how the light is treated. BI uses a diffuse - specular workflow and is not PBR. Cycles uses metallic -roughness and is PBR.

The best you can do is bake the cycles textures to maps then load them in to BI and adjust them that way.


Render memory usage optimization When rendering, blender is only using 20-40m of my memory but i have 4gb of ram, is there a way to allow it to use more memory for rendering?

Using more RAM for render doesn't give any speed up for render. Blender uses as much memory as it needs.


blender 2.81 can't even add single vertex in blender 2.8 you can go mesh > single vertext, but in 2.81 there is no single vertext in the mesh menu. why they have to remove it? how to add single vertext in 2.81? do i have to install 2.8 and uninstall 2.81?

I found the following as similar question but ctrl + mouse click does nothing in edit mode.

In Edit mode I can insert Vertices with Ctrl-Click. The new Vertex will be linked to the previously selected one by an Edge. Great.

But how do I insert the FIRST one ? I cannot enter Edit mode with an empty scene, and Ctrl-Click doesn't work in Object mode. What's the trick to have my first Vertex on scene in Edit mode ?

I don't think the option was ever there without an add-on. If you go to the Preferences(F4->p), Add-ons section and search for an add-on called Extra Objects and enable it, you will have your Single Vertex menu.

As you can see it in the picture, I prefer to have it straight in the Mesh menu instead of another submenu like it comes with the add-on. If you wanted to have it like that, save this to a text file(use Blender's text editor) with a .py extension and install this as an add-on:

bl_info = {
    "name": "Add Vertex",
    "author": "",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "View3D > Add > Mesh > Add Vertex",
    "description": "Add Vertex",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "Add Vertex",
}

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator
from bpy_extras.object_utils import AddObjectHelper, object_data_add
from mathutils import Vector

def add_vertex(self, context):
    verts = [
        Vector((0,0,0)),
    ]
    edges = []
    faces = []
    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(name="Vertex")
    mesh.from_pydata(verts, edges, faces)
    object_data_add(context, mesh, operator=self)

class MESH_OT_add_vertex(Operator, AddObjectHelper):
    """Add Vertex"""
    bl_idname = "mesh.add_vertex"
    bl_label = "Add Vertex"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        add_vertex(self, context)
        return {'FINISHED'}

def add_object_button(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(
        MESH_OT_add_vertex.bl_idname,
        text="Vertex",
        icon='DECORATE')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(MESH_OT_add_vertex)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_mesh_add.prepend(add_object_button)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(MESH_OT_add_vertex)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_mesh_add.remove(add_object_button)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Why is mesh reacting weirdly when adding a Solidify modifier or smooth shading? I've been struggling a while to get some sort of a tube/flow conduction for a rotor right, but I get some weird glitches (or I am doing something stupid).

How I made the mesh (maybe it helps to know, so you know where I went wrong):

First I made a cylinder, deleted the bottom and top face. Then I drew a path and made it to a certain shape. After that I use a array modifier on the cylinder and a curve modifier. So after that I was left with a curved tube.

Then I just started to delete some faces to open it up and added some sort of a roof to it, so it would let the water flow in a certain way.

Problem I am having:

Then I wanted to give it a little bit of thickness, so I used the solidify modifier, but after applying it to the mesh it did not want to do what I want:

Also, when I tried to use smooth shading it showed some weird stuff:

Link to the photos : https://imgur.com/a/VX4RekM

How do I fix these bumps when I give it a little bit of thickness? And how to fix the weird smooth shading thing?

yes you must have made some bad manipulations but it's hard to tell how it happened. Anyway, you can select all in Edit mode and W > Remove Doubles, with a Merge Distance of 0.02 on the bottom of the left (Tools) panel. Also, recalculate the normals with a ctrlN. Then some isolate vertices will remain and you can delete them: select the main shape with L and invert the selection with ctrli, then X to delete. At last, you have some tris that you could easily replace with quads.


How do I display the Stereo Interlace effect in the viewport when enabling stereocopy，  it displays red and blue images， but I want it to display interlace real time.   how do I  get it to display the effect I want? I need to have the thing playing real time，then I can wear my 3D glasses to watch it.

I figured it out，I need to click the top left "window" menu "set stereo system 3D" instead of the stereoscopy in the "output", it's working now


Extreme noise with portals indoors my renders always turn out to have a lot of noise when indoors, what should i change?

i know the samples are low, but no matter how high i set them, there is a lot of noise. Should i use the clamping settings? light bounces? i don't know how to mess with them yet.

1.0 Materials with emission shaders can be configured to use Multiple Importance Sampling (Material Settings). This means that they will get rays sent directly towards them, rather than ending up there based on rays randomly bouncing around. For very bright mesh light sources, this can reduce noise significantly. Materials settings ==>:

1.1. Multiple Importance Sample- enabling this will sample the background texture such that lighter parts are favored, creating an importance map. It will produce less noise in the render in trade of artifacts (fireflies). It is almost always a good idea to enable this when using an image texture to light the scene, otherwise noise can take a very long time to converge ==> World Settings:

Also important is to use shader colors that do not have components of value 1.0 or values near that; try to keep the maximum value to 0.8 or less and make your lights brighter.
Caustics are a well-known source of noise, causing fireflies,  There is a "No Caustics" option to disable glossy behind a diffuse reflection entirely(Properties -> Render -> Light Paths -> Caustics)


how do I get the search bar by pressing F3 on my mac Hi I am a beginner to blender and was watching a tutorial where the person presses the F3 command on his computer to get a search bar to access easy short cuts and other various actions. However when I press F3 on my mac it just makes my screens split.

The shortcut for macOS is Fn+F3. This Apple support article explains when and why the Fn is required.

  Use standard function keys

  Standard function keys work differently depending on the app and the keyboard shortcuts that you've set up. Some apps have their own keyboard shortcut preferences that you can customize.

  To use the standard function keys, hold the Fn (Function) key when pressing a function key. For example, pressing both Fn and F12 (speaker icon) performs the action assigned to the F12 key instead of raising the volume of your speakers.

  If your keyboard doesn’t have an Fn key, try pressing and holding the Control key when pressing a function key.


Modeling/sculpting foot This is a cry for help lol
I'm a beginner in blender and right now I'm stuck in this foot modeling. I've brrn trying to reshape it but I just can't get a nice result...
Can someone shed a light on what I could do to keep this going?
Much thanks!!!

You could do it this way:

Select the edges and bevel:

Enable the Transform Pivot Point > Individual Origins option, select the front faces and press AltE > Extrude Faces Along Normals, in the Operator box enable the Offset Even option:

Enable the Proportional Editing option/Connected Only and give some corrections in Edit mode:


Material that shows up as alpha channel on render, but shows up in reflections Another way to put it is that I want to create a material that will do the cropping for me.

If I apply this shader to a cube in the middle of the shot, then my render will have a cube-shaped block of transparency in the middle of the shot, even if there are objects behind the cube.

Can anyone provide me a pointer on this? I'm new to nodes.

Thank you thank you!

EDIT: I'm using Cycles.

EDIT EDIT: Thank you for your answer, Denis. I realized today that there's one thing missing from the solution you provided. I also need the object to cast shadows and show up in reflections. I can't quite get my head around to make that happen. Any help out there?

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Figured it out!

Cycles Render

All you have to do is to add a Holdout node to the material output on the masking object.

Blender Render

Enable Transparency on the material of the masking object, set transparency method to Mask and change Alpha to 0


Shift camera focus on the same path I want to make a scene of planets where in my camera would move on set path in random circles around the planets. Now I have set a path to make circular motions and also a linked camera on the path. The issue now is that, with the constraints which I put on the camera, I can only put one planet in the target and during the whole motion camera will always be focusing at it. I want to make the camera focus move to second planet and then the third and then onwards. I tried to use camera rotation focusing on another planet and then made a keyframe on that rotation but that doesn't seem to do anything at all.

Is there a way to use one path and move focus on different frames to other planets/objects?

Actually there is very easy way. Give the camera, one "Track to" constraint for each planet, that You want the camera focus on, and then Animate Influence of the constraints.
Although if You want different planets to be in camera focus in Depth of field settings, You need to create an empty, make it focus target and "Track to" target and give it "Copy Location" constraint for every planet. Then Animate influence of "Copy Location" constraints of this empty.


How to activate an action with a button using python? I'm making an Iron Man helmet.  I have rigged it and animated it.
I want to make a custom UI panel to control the animated action.  I'm completely new to scripting and I have no idea how to do it. Basically I want the action to be activated when the button in the panel is pressed.

Can anyone help?

With this code you can trigger an action (adding a plane into Scene) with a Button in 'UI Panel' using Python.

import bpy
from random import randint

class UIPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "This is UI panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"

    def draw(self, context):
        self.layout.operator("object.plane", text='click to add', icon="BLENDER")

class OBJECT_OT_AddButton(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "object.plane"
    bl_label = "Add a plane to the scene"

    def execute(self, context):
        print ("This is a test print statement")
        x = randint(0,10)
        y = randint(0,10)
        bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add(location=(x,y,0))
        return {'FINISHED'}

bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)


Left clicking adds a mirror modifier I feel as if someone had messed with auto-correct on my phone, and now I can't do anything. Basically, I don't know how this happened, but the left click button only adds mirror modifiers to objects. It does not move the 3d cursor. Every time I click to the left it says "Add Modifier" and it has the mirror as the selected one. Can anyone help me with this?

There seems to be a keymap added to your system (most likely accidentally), which calls the add modifier operator, and its default is the mirror one. Go to your User Preferences -> Input section, and search for 'modifier' in the 'Name" field:

If you find a keymap like the one in 'nicely drawn' brackets in the screenshot, remove it by clicking the X button (marked with the arrow).

More interesting is actually how you got there. I did it like this: I clicked the 'add modifier' command in the Spacebar menu. The Properties Panel one works of course as well. When the menu pops up, I RMB clicked on the Mirror Item, which brings up another menu. I chose 'Add Shortcut', and simply LMB clicked in there. And the damage was done  :)

However, it's not exactly what you have, as my version automatically adds a Mirror, it does not open the menu any more. I had to manually clear the 'Type' field in the Keybinding (see screenshot, bottom right) to have exactly your behavior. Maybe now you can remember how you achieved it? Just played with keymaps maybe?


return the original materials with python I have an object with three materials (mat 1 mat2, mat3). with python I want to apply another material (mat4) to my object and return to the initial state (mat1, mat2, mat3). is it possible ? I have to save the list of starting materials to apply them or there are more simple?

You can keep the original material index in a mesh.polygon_layers_int layer. Or save the material name in a polygon_layers_string As shown in sample code below.

import bpy
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene

obj = context.object
mesh = obj.data

save_mat_layer = mesh.polygon_layers_int.get('material_index')
if save_mat_layer is None:
    save_mat_layer = mesh.polygon_layers_int.new(name='material_index')

save_matname_layer = mesh.polygon_layers_string.get('material_name')
if save_matname_layer is not None:
    save_matname_layer = mesh.polygon_layers_string.new(name='material_name')

for f in mesh.polygons:
    save_mat_layer.data[f.index].value = f.material_index
    save_matname_layer.data[f.index].value = mesh.materials[f.material_index].name.encode()

PS: not sure if obtaining desired result for the string layer.


Mesh Cleanup - Self Intersection and Dual Face Removal I am super new to Blender and been working on a simple mesh (for 3D-printing if that matters). Long story short I screwed up big time and now have a mesh which has a lot of co-planar intersecting faces (see image). My question is how do I make Blender join up the co-planer faces and create vertices where edges intersect planes so I can remove interior faces? And if this isn't possible how do I do it myself in the best (read proper) way? Obviously I should try to avoid creating this problem in the first place so any general guidelines for that would be great as well. Maybe it just requires practise and a little bit of thought ahead of time, what do I know.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Here is the Blender file:

Your mesh is pretty simple, I would recommend to repair it manually.

Here’s how I’d do it.
The repaired Blendfile is attached at the end.

1) Set units to milimetres and snapping to Increments.
Enable absolute grid snap. This will make it waaay easier to achieve accurate results.
It’s very useful for precise modeling (like for 3D printing)

2) Remove half of your mesh. Because it’s symmetrical, we’ll work only on one half, and generate the other one automatically.
- Also remove all the overlapping end faces
- The middle part was kinda messed up, so I repaired it manually. It was easy, try it for yourself.

I’ve put the repaired mesh into the blender file for you. Use it to follow the next steps.
You’re welcome :).

3) Add two loopcuts. Don’t worry about an exact position, you can adjust it later.

4) Select faces you don’t need and delete them. Press Delete->Faces

5) Select the four vertices on top and Press F to fill.
Do the same thing for the bottom four vetices.

6) Select the front loop by clicking Alt+LMB on a vertex and Press F to fill.
Do the same for the back loop.

7) You’re almost done.
Now you have a perfect half of your handle.

Now select the mesh and Click RMB->Set Origin to 3Dcursor. This is gonna be important in the next step.

7.1) Correct normals
Click Overlay->Face orientation to show the normals.
Red faces should be inside, blue on the outside.

Select all faces with Select->All and go to Mesh->Normals->Recalculate Outside. Blender will then recalculate them correctly.

You can see some inverted normals in your original mesh.

8) Add a mirror modifier.
Set the correct axis (Y in this example).

9) You can select the loop (use X-ray mode), and move it up or down as you like.
The other half of your mesh will adjust itself.

10) Done.
You’ve got a clean mesh without any non-planar or overlapping faces.

Repaired Blender file
- Includes the end result
- Includes the Step 01 mesh.

Aaaaaah.
God damn, that took longer than I expected.

Additional tips:
- Apply all modifiers before exporting file for 3D printer
- Check BlenderGuru for basic Blender tutorials
- You’re doing great, happy Blendering


After stabilizing a video and rendering it, I have more shake, why? I am a Blender newbie, and know that I will have to supply additional info...Please be patient with me :-)

I followed this video by Oliver Villar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8zqn091rM. I am using a 54 second video shot with a phone. The rendered AVI video the image jumps between zooms every second or so.

EDIT:
I used a single tracker, placed on the cross on the green parament, to do the 2D stabilization.
The original video is here: https://vimeo.com/229907878
The stabilized video is here: https://vimeo.com/229907728
Here is a screenshot of how my compositor is set up:

Let me know of anything else I can provide. And, thanks so much for the help!

To stabilize such a simple shot you just need a few trackers in the scene.

This is one of those situations where having more trackers is not necessarily better. 4 trackers spread far apart in the picture will do.

Once you track those points you should have enough information to stabilize, you need to select which ones you want to use to determine location and which ones to use for rotation and scale.

A couple of trackers should be enough for location, but I would use all four for rotation and scale.

Then set autoscale and adjust the Max value so that the image is not too cropped.

You can evaluate the shot by enabling Display Stabilization.

You will notice that she stabilization is far from perfect, but the remaining motion is due to the rolling shutter in the camera, giving you what is called the "Jello Effect" there is nothing to be done about that in blender...

You are ready to render the shot using your current node setup.


Making objects linked I used to do many copies of an object using Shift+D (didn't know about Alt+D then). Can I make these objects linked now and keep their positions?

To link objects after you created them, simply select all the objects, with the original object as the active one. and press Ctrl + L, then choose what properties you want to link.


Blender Cloud Generator Edges I am trying to figure out how to solve a rendering issue with using the Cloud Generator plugin.

The image below is the result of applying the cloud generator (addon that comes with Blender) to a square.

The like the result but I can't figure out why when I render it with Cycles that it has these weird edging artifacts, as I circled in my attached image.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

That's due to the step size being too large. Volume rendering works by a process called ray marching. In short, the volume is sampled at various distances and summed to get the total light coming from that bit of volume. The step size controls the distance between these samples.

In general, the bigger the step size, the fewer places the volume needs to be sampled, so the faster the render time. However, in return, you get these slicing artifacts.

To fix it, try lowering the step size in Properties > Render > Geometry > volume sampling (2.7x), or Properties > Render > Volumes (2.8).


Move center of radial anisotropic to center of object Is possible align the center of radial anisotropic shader with the center of the hole?
I tried:

Move origin (I always think origin determines the center of anisotropic- not true)
Separate tangent values and change each individual by multiply different numbers - something changes, but I was not able to move the anisotropic's center.

Any other ideas?

You could remap center of anisotropic shading to an object (this could be an Empty); use Texture Coordinates node for that:

With that, once you move the empty, center of the anisotropic shading will move as well. Note that this can even change the axis of the shading; however controling may be not as convenient as if using Tangent node to change the axis.


What is the best way of making an MP4 from an image sequence (PNG) I have rendered 80 individual frames from blender in 1080p. what is the best method for creating a high-quality MP4 file with disregard to size limitations for maximum quality. I read that blender re-encodes files which apparently is bad, so is there an alternate program that I must use and what are the optimal settings. Even if I should just use blender, what are the optimal settings as the default settings created a blurry pixelated MP4 from my high quality pngs.
Apologies if this has already been answered somewhere else
Thank you in advance for any support you can provide

Maybe the given answer is not specific enough for you. If you want an MP4 with best quality I would suggest (since you don't care about file size) to choose the following settings:

File Format: FFmpeg video
Container: MPEG-4
Video Codec: H.264
Output Quality: Perceptually lossless (with 'Lossless' I once had playback issues, might be because MP4 cannot be completely lossless, I'm satisfied with using 'High quality')
Encoding Speed: Slowest (should give best quality, but I see no advantage over 'Good')

Normally this should produce quite good results, although MP4 is not a lossless format it usually provides high quality along with a good compression i.e. small filesize.


Render objects to separate files using python I have a scene with multiple objects. Is there a way to automate rendering each object indiviual to separate files? I'm assuming that this would be achieved via scripting, which is fine.

Wrote my first lines of Python to answer this.

It is pretty straight forward.  The assumptions for this script to work is that
1) all you objects are on the first (0th) layer
2) you have selected the objects you want rendered.

import bpy

selected = bpy.context.selected_objects

for obj in selected:
    obj.layers[19]=True
    obj.layers[0]=False
index = 0
for obj2 in selected:
    obj2.layers[0]=True
    obj2.layers[19]=False
    print(index);
    bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.filepath = '/ur/path/here/render_%d.jpg' % index
    bpy.ops.render.render( write_still=True )
    obj2.layers[19]=True
    obj2.layers[0]=False
    index+=1
for obj in selected:
    obj.layers[0]=True
    obj.layers[19]=False

This code simply first moves all the selected objects from the first to the last layer. Then, one by one, moves each object back to first layer, renders it into a unique file, then moves back to last layer.  Lastly, moves all objects back to the original layer.

Note: on OS X to render into your Documents folder the path would look something like '/Users/username/Documents/render_%d.jpg'.


How to smooth out different interpolation types I am trying to complete a blender animation where a ball rolls down a slope under the influence of gravity.
To simulate gravity I have calculated the time and distance the ball needs to travel to accomplish an acceleration of 10 m/s^2.
However, I want the transition from the flat part of the slope to be seamless, but the ball seems to suddenly slow down, as you can see from the graph editor.
How do I make the ball act the way that I want? I have used the interpolation type quadratic.

An easier way to roll a ball downhill is to use rigid bodies. This way, the active objects are subject to the scene gravity.

For this, you will want two rigid bodies, one active and one passive. The active one will be the ball, the passive will be slope.
Add rigid body physics to each object in the physics tab:

These are the settings for the ball:

These are the settings for our slope:

A note on the difference between active and passive rigid bodies from the manual

Active
The object is dynamic and is directly controlled by simulation results.
Passive
The object remains static and is directly controlled by animation system, thus does not have Dynamics properties.


Middle Mouse Button not working in blender I have a Three button mouse. But still I cannot use the middle mouse button to rotate and pan the view in the navigation port. I also cannot set the start and end points of the output in the timeline using middle mouse button.

Things to try:

Check that the mouse works and that no other software steals the input
Backup your settings (optional but a good idea)
Reset Blenders factory settings


How to lock the background image to the camera view in 2.8? In previous versions of blender you could have the background image be always lined up with the camera, so it was possible to align the 3D view to match with the perspective of a reference image. Example from this link

in 2.8

Is there a setting I don't know to do this? I really would love to avoid using constraints on the empty.

With the camera selected, find the camera settings in the Properties window.

Enable Camera background.

Select the image.

The image will now show when using camera view.


Select objects in a specified region with python He there,

is there a way to select all objects in a predefined region via python?
Let's say i've got a complex scene and I want to select all objects that are located somwhere within the bounding of 0,0,-5 to 10,15,15
Just like the border select tool does but then within the given coordinates.
thanks already

Look into this answer, as it is similiar.

My example will handle an XYZ bounding box with perpendicular edges only. Otherwise look into batFINGER's suggestion.

object_matrix_world
to_translation

Paste the code into Blender's Text Editor and press "Run Script".

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

# checks if a supplied coordinate if in the bounding box created by vector1 and vector2
# vector_check           the vector which is compared against the bounding box
# vector1                     the vector defining the start of the bounding box
# vector2                     the vector defining the end of the bounding box
def IsInBoundingVectors(vector_check, vector1, vector2):
    # if vector_check is either bigger or smaller than both other, it does not lie between them
    # in that case it won't be inside the bounding box; hence return false
    for i in range(0, 3):
        if (vector_check[i] < vector1[i] and vector_check[i] < vector2[i]
            or vector_check[i] > vector1[i] and vector_check[i] > vector2[i]):
            return False
    return True

def SelectObjectsInBound(vector1, vector2):
    # deselect all
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

    # cycle through all objects in the scene
    for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
        # check if the object is in the bounding vectors
        # if yes, select it
        # if no, deselect it
        if(IsInBoundingVectors(obj.matrix_world.to_translation(), vector1, vector2)):
            obj.select = True
        else:
            obj.select = False

SelectObjectsInBound(Vector((0, 0, -5)), Vector((10, 15, 15)))


Noob question: How to make objects brighter during design Just started Blender and working through tutorials. Most things I've been able to find an answer to, but this I missed somewhere.

When I'm working with created objects they appear dark. That presents a problem when working with detail, such as the beveled edges of a cabinet door below. Andrew's working objects are much brighter, which highlights the detail.

What I've tried so far is changing lights, textures, etc. However that seems to only apply when rendered in those specific view modes. Any help in the right direction is appreciated

Here is what I currently see:

This is what I'd like to see:

In Blender 2.79 both Blender Internal (soon to be retired in favor of EEVEE in Blender 2.8) and Cycles renderers give you the opportunity to assign materials which have a color in the viewport in 'Solid' mode.

Select the object and go to the Materials tab in a Properties editor (you have one open underneath you Outliner, on the right of the 3D view)

In Blender Internal, simply assign a material to the object. Its color will show in the viewport.

In Cycles, assign a material, and, in the Viewport panel of the materials tab, give the material the color you would like to be displayed in the viewport in 'Solid' mode ... Switching to 'Material' mode will show you the color of the Cycles material, and can give you more control over the brightness of the viewport representation of the object.


What exactly *is* a "closure"? As I understand it, a "closure" is the thing passed out of those green dots on the ends of those magic black boxes known as "shaders":

I've vaguely imagined that they somehow described a sort of "probability density" of the possible directions an incoming ray could bounce towards, and maybe an albedo for each color channel
(R, G ,B).

What really makes up a "closure"?
And how can you make your own via OSL?

Inspired by this question: What can a custom cycles shader do?

A closure is a computer science term for a package consisting of a function call and any other information (concrete values of arguments, etc.) needed to execute it later, AS IF in the current context.

In OSL, this is the data type of the thing that the shader network hands to the renderer to describe the properties of a surface or volume at a particular point.

You can think of it as a BSDF (although it can include other information that the shader can pass to the renderer). But the BSDF is not evaluated at the time that the shader is run -- instead, the renderer runs it later, and in fact internally there is not a single method associated with it, but rather it knows how to do a number of things, like choose sample directions, evaluate the amount of light scattering from one direction to another (with supplied with those directions), and so on.

An OSL shader can assemble a closure out of built-in "closure primitives" -- a closure may specifically be a weighted sum of the primitives -- but the actual primitives may not (currently) be authored in OSL itself. They are a part of the renderer, largely because their correct and efficient implementation seems to need to reach deeply into the guts of the renderer internals, which is precisely what OSL shaders are NOT supposed to be concerned with. Each renderer will document a number of BSDF closure primitives that it supports, which may vary from renderer to renderer. At present, there is not a strictly dictated list of which BSDF primitives you can count on in OSL, partly because BSDFs are still a hot research topic, with new and better ones getting published all the time. It doesn't seem stable enough to enshrine in the OSL language quite yet.


Any add-ons there for change blender interface into regional language? I like to teach blender for people region languages if is there any add-on for change blender in regional language. other vice witch API helps to change the interface language.If its there its very helpful to learn tech skills in regional language.

The language option is in Preferences.
Edit > Preferences > Interface > Translation


When I export a animated blender model as GLTF into three.js it stretches out when I animate a blender model with bones

It runs fine in blender, I export it like so

and then, this happens

Any help appreciated.

Link to the GLB https://www.mediafire.com/file/wrubnxlgf6f6pu1/woman.glb/file Link to the .blend (2.8) http://www.mediafire.com/file/azlx6audmcyska9/woman.blend/file

There has been recent development done with blenders gltf exporter, so try exporting with a current development build of blender, you can get a daily build or go to GraphicAll if you don't want to compile yourself.

Using a recent build (week old) I can export your blend file to gltf and do not see the issue when importing back into blender, which I do see when importing your sample glb file. Using sandbox.babylon.js also shows the new export to work.

Another thing to try is to apply the transformations to the armature and mesh, the two in your blend file do not have the same location. When the two are moved separately you can see a similar distortion, try it by moving the mesh object in blender separate to the armature.


Modeling smooth flat edges along the curve I'm new to modeling/CG world, I'm studying by myself so I decided to try model a car, but i got some problems that I don't know how to fix properly. So here is the problem :

As stated above, some verts are way out and causes some shading problems, Subsurf modifier fixed a lot of them, but still seems like the car was involved in a car crash or something. I've tried some things like :

Sculpt mode with smooth brush. It helps, but is easy to mess another vertex trying to fix a couple.
Relax tool in "edge loops" addon. It was cool but also didn't fix all the problems.
Manually fix vert by vert. It went good in lowering the polygons but not usefull fixing many problems herer

So having this in mind I was wondering if there's a tool that can help me fixing this problem, I searched something about drawing a grease line above the object expecting some miracle to align the curve properly (xD dreams).

Or there's a technique I should search for? I'm up to learn something. I know I'll face this problem making curves in future again, so I want to learn how to handle it properly.

Thank you guys.

The idea about subsurf modifier is that you use fewer well positioned vertices in your lowpoly mesh and let the modifier smooth inbetween. You have unneeded polygons at some spots that hinder the smoothing, and at other spots you don't have enough detail in your mesh.

Generally if you want a clean model you need to take more attention to topology. If you want to clean it (also for academic reasons) then search for "retopology", which is mostly used in creating a good lowpoly mesh for sculpted human faces.

You can also use sharp edges for more control about the subsurf modifier, very useful if you want some edges to stay unsmoothed without adding a lot of detail in the lowpoly mesh.


Cycles lamps have no effect and light disappears if ambient occlusion is turned off I have set up 3 spot lamps and a sun lamp to illuminate an interior. I have never used Cycles lighting before and I'm new to Cycles in general. I have played with the strength, size, and rotation of all the lamps but the lighting is always the same. It is highly diffuse, no shadows. The only thing that changes the lighting is the Ambient Occlusion fields in the World section of the Properties editor. If I uncheck that, everything goes black.

I am looking to give the setting natural indoor lighting, but the sky is black because it is the Moon, so World > Surface > Color is set to black. The sun filters down between very tall beams and through glass. It should cast the shadows of the beams, it is lined up to do so, but no shadows. The three spot lamps are intended to show the light filtering in from light tubes, but there is no sign of the lamps.

I imagine there is some basic thing I have done wrong. How do I correct this?

Edit: Objects with Emission shaders do work as lamps (I just tried it). So I could simply switch the lamps over to that, although that isn't going to help for the sun. I had understood that now most lamps work in Cycles, except for the Hemi lamp.

To get some light through glass you need to modify the default glass shader as it will not let direct light go through (see this answer)

Change the glass material to something like this:

Then the sunlight will go through the glass:

Then you have at least one light that is outside of the object. Move it so that the light is not obstructed by the object.


Game modelling how to get height details? I am trying to create a model for unity 3D.

To my knowledge blender - Normal map  is only going to smoothen the edges

Now how the height details are passed? What kind of texture is required?

I have a high poly model and low poly model, is there a way to do it?

I am not too sure about Unity, but in blender the usual way to go from highpoly models to lowpoly models is to create a normal map from the highpoly and apply it to the lowpoly. To do this see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOYRCI-dtjU

Hope it helps :)


Is it safe to use approximate gather method to bake AO maps? I am creating game assets and I want to bake some AO maps. I tried the normal way but it takes a lot of time.

My question is: will the AO map resulted from the approximate method be similar or useful like the raytracing one?

Having used Blender to bake AO myself, I can say that yes, it generally okay. Note that there will be a reduction in quality compared to a very high sample bake.
Approximate gather generally looks 'smoother' than low sample AO bakes but is less accurate. My advice would be to try both and compare inside your game.

So it mostly depends on your use case, but it should be ok.


edge.use_seam isn't working Just isn't working, I'm not sure what else to say. There's no errors and it returns True when you call the value.

I'm trying create a script that creates an object and unwraps it. It's as simple as it gets: it creates a plane, selects all the edges, marks seams on all those selected eges and unwraps it into a square texture.

import bpy
import bmesh

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_grid_add(x_subdivisions = 0, y_subdivisions = 0, radius = 8)

ob = bpy.context.object
me = ob.data

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

bpy.ops.object.select_all

for edge in me.edges:
    edge.use_seam = True # isn't working

bpy.ops.uv.smart_project(me)

No seams are being added.

Apologies if this ends up being something obvious, I'm new to scripting in Blender.

It's only obvious if you know how blender works. What is happening is the mesh data is copied into a bmesh structure when you go into edit mode, this bmesh data is copied back when leaving edit mode. The changes you make to the underlying mesh data while the mesh is in edit mode are overwritten by this process and won't affect the mesh that you see in edit mode.

If you move your set use_seam loop to above the set edit mode you will get the result that you expect.


While moving head bone,mouth isnt moving along. I dont know what to do next im modelling a 3d rat.I have attached the blender file here. the mouth has a little gap. While im moving the head bone,mouth isnt moving along but it opens widely.

This is because the upper lip of the rat has more weight painting than the lower lip.  Thus, the bone has more influence on the upper lip than the lower.  If you want the whole mouth to move the same amount with the head, I would suggest you weight paint the entire mouth a value  of one.  You will have to do some smoothing from below the mouth down, however, so you still get a smooth deform.

The other problem you are having is that bones .004 and .015 have influence on the mouth.  If you remove their influence, that should make the entire mouth move with the head bone.


Extruding Multiple Curves At Once I have an SVG file that I imported into Blender that uses curves. The image is split into multiple sections and I cannot figure out how to extrude multiple curves at once.

I tried selecting all of the curves by type and then tried to extrude but it only extrudes one curve. Does anyone know why?

You can have one curve object with multiple segments or you can have multiple curve objects each with one segment. Sounds like you have multiple curve objects, in which case you need to extrude each object separately. You could joint multiple curve objects into one by selecting them all and pressing CtrlJ so that they all use the same extrude setting.

With multiple objects you can see that each one has it's own item in the outliner.

After joining them all together there is only one item.


Using 3D in traditional illustration Hi guys!
I have a illustration project in my school where I explore the possibilities of using 3D-object in traditional drawing. In the image below I have some objects which I have stumbled into the photoshop-file, but the objects loose their textures and I can't control the lighting as I please. The objects are changed in photoshops 3D-space, but textures would be nice, and a more direct approach to the lighting. As it is now, I have to work in a 2Dspace and 3D space in photoshop.
My question is: Is it possible to place my image file into Blender and place my .obj in 3D space and light/texutre them without affecting the underlying image?

Hope you guys can help and that I have expressed sufficiently what I would like to do (I´m from Norway).

Sincerely
Andreas

You can use the 2d image as a background looking through a camera set to the pixels you want the final render to be, and then manipulate the 3d objects in relation to the 2d image without affecting the 2d image shading. Once you have the 3d objects set up and textured as you want them to be, and have worked out your lighting, you can render the 3d using transparent film setting (cycles) or transparent instead of Sky render(Blender Internal).

If you want a hand painted look for your 3d, you might try texture painting the 3d objects in blender after unwrapping them and setting up an image texture at a high enough resolution to look consistent with your final photoshop render.The material you use can either be set Shadeless(blender internal) or use an Emission shader(Cycles) to avoid unwanted shadow, as you can paint in your own stylized shading on the objects. You can also paint on a ground plane that has a transparent alpha image texture, and just paint the shadow there if you want.

The possibilities are endless with how you can manipulate 3d and 2d together, so I leave that up to your own opinion and taste to guide you.


Procedurally generating wear on an object? What are some techniques for procedurally generating wear (chips, cracks, dents, etc.) on a mesh object?

For example, what are some ways I could do something like this:

but with more dents and detail? (and without having to manually duplicate objects everywhere)

The image above was created by duplicating some smooth shaded spheres with displace modifiers and intersecting with a boolean modifier.

A completely different way of simulating wear on an object, with the benefit of using only Modifiers, is Decimate in conjunction with Subsurf. The attached screenshot shows the default cube simply run through Remesh, Decimate->Collapse, Decimate->Un-Subdivide, then Subsurf. There is a lot of flexibility in this approach; changing almost any of the parameters in any of the modifiers subtly alters the distortions on the cube.


Grease pencil problem, Can't see the keyframes So it's bugging me a lot right now, I can't seemed to see the keyframe added in grease pencil but it's animating, now I can't move and copy certain keyframes, any fixed for this? is this a bug?

You won't see the keyframes in the timeline. Instead you have to use Dope Sheet > Grease Pencil.