Python - draw custom panel in UI region only for 1 object I hope this one wasn't ask before (can't find anything here though).
With a script, I'd like to draw a panel ("My panel" for example) in the UI region but I just want the panel to appear for a designated object : for example the active object when I generate the panel/run the script. Is this possible ?

You would do this with the poll() method. It's a function within the operator class which returns true or false whether the operator can run within the given context. I can't remember for certain if the UI becomes visible/hidden or just active/inactive as a result... Could be either or.

The 'operator_mesh_uv.py' template has a pretty straightforward example for how it's used. It tests if the user is in edit mode, but it could just as well check if the active object is the correct one.

class UvOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """UV Operator description"""
        bl_idname = "uv.simple_operator"
        bl_label = "Simple UV Operator"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return (context.mode == 'EDIT_MESH')

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

You could store the active object in a variable when the operator is registered and poll against that. Or you could manually add a custom property to the designated object. That way the information is stored within the blend file across sessions.

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return ("mycustomproperty" in context.object)


Follow path breaks up parent-child positions I have a starship that I would like to go along a nurbs path. The starship is constituted by several objects (hull, lights, etc.) where the hull is set as the parent for the remaining parts so that I can move the ship easily.

When I select the ship, the nurbs path, click Ctrl+P and select Follow Path, the lights jump to the other corner of the scene, and so do other parts of the ship. What could be causing this?

I'm not sure I can assist without seeing the actual file, but sometimes it helps to parent the main mesh, in your case the hull of the ship, to an empty, and set that empty to follow the path.


Applying a texture to a cube shows up in the editor under the texture viewport and doesn't in render I have applied a texture to a cube in Blender 2.69 (unable to upgrade at this time) following this guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il7ajiCepus. It shows up in texture view, as well as solid, but it will not show up in render. Any ideas?

So i had a look , but no textures were in the file so i took a guess , What i THINK is wrong is that you have assigned the material with no texture , To fix this , in the image below there are 2 materials , click the negative button ( make sure you have selected the material with no texture ) . Then go into edit mode , and press a until everything is selected , Click the logo material and click assign


exporting to .3ds changes the scale I have a .3ds file someone gave me that will load in fine. I will edit it a little bit, just translating so i can change the point of origin, I export as .3ds again. If I reload it, it will be far smaller.

Is there a setting somewhere that decides what scale to maintain when it exports an object?

I haven't tested this, but the 3ds import has an option for size constraint that controls the model scale while importing, setting it to zero should stop the scaling from happening.


File optimization: Duplicate or linked duplicate? I'm currently in the process of optimizing my blend file.
I am still relatively new at blender and would like some documentation on file size and render time reduction using linked or unlinked duplicates.

For Example: I have a architecture scene wich is currently 2GB in file size with a LOT of trees and bushes. Should I best use duplicates or linked duplicates? and what are the advantages/disatvantages? could I cut down on render time and/or file size?

As a former 3ds Max user I was quite familiar with proxys but I don't have the  knowledge to apply this technique in blender (yet).

Therefore I'm reaching out to this awesome blender community for a little help.

Especially in the case of things like trees you could use linked duplicates.
You can create those with Alt+D.

But if you have already created the normal duplicates in your scene you can still link them by selecting all objects that you want to convert to a linked duplicate, then select-click the object that you want to link them to and press Ctrl+L in object mode and choose "Data".
That will turn all these objects into instances. That means they share the same mesh. However, you can still transform the objects, by moving, rotating, scaling so that they look a bit different.

A common problem when using Linked Duplicates is that this will usually also mean that they have the same material. However, you can also have different materials on linked duplicates by changing the material link in the material tab in the properties editor from "Data" (which means the material is linked to the mesh) to "Object". By doing so you can have objects that share the same mesh and still use different materials on them.

That way can decrease the file size A LOT.

Another way to add many objects (like e.g. trees) to your scene is to use Group Instances. Usually this is done by having a separate blendfile for the object that you want to use as an instance, or, so to say, as a library object.

Example

Create a file with the tree. Select everything that belongs to the tree (but not lamp or camera) and create a group by pressing Ctrl+G. The outlines and wireframe will turn green to indicate that these objects belong to a group. Give the group a proper name ("tree" e.g.). Save the file in your project folder. In your main scene file, open the file menu (F1) and choose "Link" (or use Ctrl+Alt+O right away). In the now open file browser you navigate to the tree file and click it. That will bring you inside the blendfile directory, where you can go to a folder named "Groups". There you can choose your group ("tree") and link it to the scene. The tree is now attached to an Empty object. You can duplicate, move, rotate and scale this group instance, but you cannot edit the mesh or material, because all the data is linked in from the original file.

This is probably the cleanest way to add library objects to your scene.


Duplication follows an UV sphere but rotates duplicates I have an idea of illustration that would explore the duplication around a sphere function. It should look something like this :

But I meet some problems. First of all, the boxes that are in the upper position tend to rotate on themselves. I have tried with ICO sphere but this doesn't help.

Please note that this happens with the setting: Duplication of faces (with or without the scale option). Please see the jagged pink line :

If I use the "Verts duplication", I don't meet this problem of oddly rotated boxes. But "verts duplication" doesn't serve my project as good as the "Faces duplication" because it leaves a lot of space between the boxes:

As I didn't find a good solution, I thought to "Make duplicates real" and then rotate and scale them by rows with the "Manipulate center points: individual origins" option. That's almost better.

Is there a better way?

And is there an option to deform my initial mesh box (the drawers) to fit the exact geometry of every face of the sphere that duplicates the box ? (so that it would become more trapezoid in the top of the sphere)

Thank you.

Don't ask me why but flipping the sphere's normals seems to solve the problem.
"Normal" normals :

Flipped normals :


Adding Ambient Occlusion to Material So I've baked an ambient occlusion map for my model, and want to apply it now.

Currently, I have a material, which I've added two textures to:

A color map
The ambient occlusion map

(in this order)

Following one of the tutorials on Blender Cloud, I set the Ambient Occlusion texture's blend property to Multiply.

Problem is, this gives me a very dark result on the model, something like this:

Not to surprising when the AO map looks like this:

Those greys are dirtying my colors to around half their brightness when multiplied on top!

Is there a way to have the AO included, without darkening the entirety of my model? The other Blend options don't seem to cause the AO map to affect the base colors at all, except for Value, but I have no idea what "Value" even does, and it still darkens the colors on the model anyways.

Is there a better way to bake the ambient occlusion that you use?

Multiplying AO over diffuse/albedo/base color is never "right", hence why it often gives that overly shadowed and dirty look. This is a pretty famous blog post by Zap Andersson on the subject that sums it up really well:

http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2008/11/joy-of-little-ambience.html

The tl:dr if you don't feel like reading all that is that AO is not color information at all, it is a sort of fake indirect shadow pass.

The "correct" way to attach baked AO in Blender Internal - assuming you are actually using it for pre-cached ambient occlusion - is to set the mode to multiply and change the influence to just the ambient channel, like so:

This way it will only shadow the ambient light (ex, the environment light in the world panel) and not the direct illumination from your real lights, which is already shadowed.

Of course, all this assumes you are actually using it as baked AO data. If you have AO enabled in the world settings, you don't need baked AO at all, because you are calculating global AO at render time. Also, ambient occlusion bakes are useful for a lot of texturing tricks besides actual AO, since they tend to highlight contact points and crevices where dirt is likely to collect. If you're using AO for dirt, you generally will end up blending it over the diffuse color (and possibly the spec/gloss/roughness/whatever-it-is-in-your-shader). This is because in that case, the AO is not shading data at all but is instead being used as color information. On a side note, if you are using AO maps for dirt, it helps to take the map into an image editor and use a brush to break up the even shading. Dirt doesn't collect in nice gradients the way AO shading does. You may even want to pre-layer it over your color map at this point to save having to load an extra texture.

While we're discussing AO, I should probably point out a pretty common misconception when using Cycles. Cycles does not NEED actual AO for anything, ever. Cycles does not have a true ambient light. The world light acts like one, but it's actually a physical light at infinity in all directions rather than a classic CG ambient light. Cycles calculates indirect light "for real" and those diffuse rays are already occluded, even on secondary bounces.

Cycles has AO functions because they're useful for all sorts of artistic things, but in most cases you should not use an actual AO map. If you want it for artistic texturing purposes it is almost always better to integrate it with your color map ahead of time rather than within the shader. But it's not a shading thing you have to do, your GI is already properly shaded without AO.


Add material and apply Diffuse color via Python This may be another simple question but I can't seem to find a straight answer.

I am procedurally generating figures and as part of the last step I want to color the figure red.

If I manually add a new material to the figure I can change the color with bpy.context.object.active_material.diffuse_color = (1, 0, 0)

But I need to automate this step such that the program automatically add a new material and then changes the color. I've tried the following but it doesn't seem to work:

bpy.ops.material.new()
bpy.context.object.active_material.diffuse_color = (1, 0, 0)

It seems the problematic step is adding a new material. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Actually, I figured it out shortly after posting the question.

Instead of using:

bpy.ops.material.new()

I needed to use:

bpy.data.materials.new(name="MaterialName")

So the final solution was:

activeObject = bpy.context.active_object #Set active object to variable
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="MaterialName") #set new material to variable
activeObject.data.materials.append(mat) #add the material to the object
bpy.context.object.active_material.diffuse_color = (1, 0, 0) #change color


Solidify Modifier behaving strangely When I apply the "Solidify" modifier to my object, this one window I have acts differently then all of the others. They all look okay, but this one gets messed up by the modifier.
Here are 2 angles of the messed up part of the mesh with the solidify modifier:

Here is the mesh without the solidify modifier:

And here are my Solidify Modifier settings:

I got the window pains by extruding the edges out. I have already tried removing overlapping vertices and the scale is applied. Can anyone help me?

You are trying to solidify a fairly complex shape that requires you to change the Mode from Simple to Complex in the modifier's panel.
Cheers!


How can I move an object using NDOF? I have a 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator. It works very well for moving the viewport. Is there a way for it to place an object in the scene?

Is this something that can be accomplished via an addon? I am new to Blender, I'm delighted that the NDOF works out of the box, but I expect to be able to place objects using it. Would be much more intuitive than using a mouse.

So far I have setup a ViewOperator template and I can see that moving the 3D mouse yields a NDOF_MOTION event

def modal(self, context, event):
        v3d = context.space_data
        rv3d = v3d.region_3d

        if event.type == 'NDOF_MOTION':
            print(event)

blender console when moving the 3d mouse: <bpy_struct, Event at 0x000001B72D13B5F8>

I can see how I might write a script to move an object given the motion event. The problem is I can not find any way to get data from the event. I am expecting some translation/rotation vectors but those properties don't seem to exist on the Event object.

I believe the c implementation to move the viewport is here: ndof_orbit_zoom_invoke() in https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/B/browse/master/source/blender/editors/space_view3d/view3d_edit.c

const wmNDOFMotionData *ndof = event->customdata;

There is no customdata on the event when it gets to my python script.

Which makes sense because there is no mention of any relevant data in rna_def_event() here: https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/B/browse/master/source/blender/makesrna/intern/rna_wm.c

Indeed, presently, there is no ndof_motion field in the python Event struct.

I checked in with Blender's Python API module owner @ideasman42 on the #blendercoders IRC channel, and he gave the thumbs up to expose this data with an added field. So I will try my hand at adding that. Assuming that all works out, it should then be possible to make your proposed addon.


Blender problems with getting the center of an object. (Origin to center is not the center) As you will see in this image, the center of the object is not exactly the center of the chair, since the pivot point is slightly up.

To verify this, I place the cursor in the center of the world and use a cube to check if it is offset up or down.

How can I really center an object? Since apparently blender does not calculate the position well or there is something I do not understand

The origin of an object can be anywhere you like with respect to the object's mesh.
There are two possible definitions of 'center' provided by Blender's Header menu > Set Origin > Origin to Geometry operation, in Object Mode.

'Median Center', which is the mean location of the object's vertices

'Bounds Center', which is the center of the object's bounding
box.

It looks as if you want 'Bounds Center'.
(In Edit mode, the behaviour of ShiftS Cursor to Selected also varies, depending to whether 'Median' or 'Bounding Box' is selected as Transform Pivot Point.)


What ways are there to cut object in multiple separate meshes? I'm a beginner with blender, but I managed to complete my model. Problem is, that I'm making the model so I can print it with a 3d-printer, and the item is so large that I have to cut it in 5 separate pieces, print and then glue them together. I know exactly where I want to cut it, but dont know how

First make a backup of your model / .blend.
Also, experiment on throwaway objects first, to get a sense of what's going on.

If you know exactly where you want to cut you can slice (bisect) by plane using the boolean Modifier. You can position the plane manually, or dial in its location/rotation values in the properties panel.

With these settings:

The direction that the plane faces (its Normal) determines what part of the object will be cut away.

Using multiple planes you can make wedges, note: here the planes are both facing towards eachother.

The last step is you apply the modifiers from top-to-bottom and you'll get a manifold (closed) mesh of that wedge:


How can I downgrade the number of elements in a mesh so Blender won't freeze so much? + How to erase flying bits in the stl? I have the following stl. I need to fill the hollow ribs and holes in them, join the cartilage to the bone and erase all those little fragments of other stuff that don't belong to the thorax, and downgrade the number of elements. Is there a way I can make all this? Blender keeps freezing...

I've tried the clean up and smoothing, but it doesnt seem to work...I have no idea why blender won't let me erase all those bits without connection...
This is the .stl.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/15qzEGg57-wGEAqz72-DykcWi0BJSQ4ao/view?usp=sharing

you could press h to hide certain elements and then add them back in the final render


How do I output to HDR10 Movie format in Blender? Ok, so I have just purchased an HDR10 compatible 3840*2160 Display (4K), and I want to render some videos in Blender to look at in full HDR10 glory on it.

However it's Roku TV based OS has limitations regarding what file formats it can take, the supported file formats and codecs are listed in the image below:

However, in my searches, no one has been able to answer how to output to an HDR video format (TIFF can output to 16-bit RGBA, but TIFF does not work on the TV), everyone has how to input and manipulate HDR content inside of Blender and render that as the background.

Can anyone please figure out how to output to an HDR10 video in of Blender, I know that resolution doesn't really matter, but I specifically want the colors to be of HDR10. (the TV plays 720p HDR10 footage from YouTube just fine, so you do not have to worry about resolution issues)

(And for anyone wondering, the TV model is the TCL 55s401, and its spec sheet can be found here, also if you want to see some actual HDR content that works on this TV, almost all the videos in this zip do run on this TV as well).

While Blender supports rendering in wide-dynamic range (32bit float) scene-referred files, as of v2.90 Blender lacks the ability to save these in a format most HDR displays and video players will accept as input. You can save OpenEXR sequences from Blender to create a finished HDR video in other software such as DaVinci Resolve.
It is possible to export 16bit TIFFs from Blender that are already formatted for HLG or HDR10 PQ with the help of ACES by using one of the appropriate HDR ODTs such as "Rec. 2020 ST2084 1000 nits". For more information on ACES in Blender, see this question Using Blender with wider gamut than 709 primaries (like ACES) You will still need additional software to convert to a 10bit HEVC/VP9/AV1 video file and apply the relevant metadata so that players and TVs will recognize it properly. This can be done with FFMPEG however instead of needing something like Resolve, or by using one of the many frontends for FFMPEG. Note that many more common FFMPEG frontends (such as Handbrake) do not support 10bit encoding or adding the HDR10/HLG metadata. Staxrip and Hybrid are examples of frontends that can do the job.
Encoding Dolby Vision is significantly more complicated and building the final playback file requires some special tools and licenses that most people do not have access to.


Blender 2.8 Subsurf Modifier really weird when I try to use the subsurface modifier in 2.8 the object gets totally deformed. Is this a bug because I know this works in 2.79.

thanks

Most 3D Lego parts use one of two methods to get sharp corners and distinct lines. Mecabricks and LDraw .dat parts usually have an edge split (generally at 30 degrees). In addition to this, if a surface is too flat for the edge split to affect it (or if it is the general way the parts are constructed), a lot of times, Lego parts will be made up of individual components (whether they are individual objects or just disconnected meshes in one object seems to depend on where the part is from):

This was a from an LDraw .dat file (which generally have each of the components as a separet object):

If it's an edge split doing it, all you have to do is go into your modifiers and turn it off. If you are dealing with a bunch of disconnected meshes/objects, you may want to merge objects and remove your doubles (since the part you're showing is really simplistic, I think any quality loss from the doubles' removal is negligible.) After doing this, try using loop cuts, bevelling, or insets so your edges don't get curved.

As a side note, I feel I should mention, pretty much all the 3D Lego parts I've seen use tris which don't subsurf well as shown below, so you may want to either use smooth shading and no subsurf at all or do some retopology before applying the subsurf.


How to get rid of fireflies caused by glass material? I'm using cycles render for glass shader. I'm using GPU compute for faster rendering in the viewport. I have bumped the samples to 100000, and still getting fireflies on the glass. I have tried various set ups from YouTube tutorials, but the fireflies insist showing on the glass sphere.

Q: How to get rid of the fireflies in this case?

Increase your clamping values.
Within Blender's render settings tab, there are two values: Clamp direct and Clamp indirect. In essence, a higher value for these will reduce fireflies at the cost of realism by lowering the values of very high intensity pixels. With your samples already at such a high value, a slight amount of increasing the clamping could definitely reduce your fireflies.
(side note: some of your fireflies appear to be a result of noise, you can try using the new denoise node in the compositor.)


Object reverts back to non-modified state after joining I am attempting to make a tree but when I try to join the different components together ctrl J my decimated icospheres revert back to its original shape.  Any idea on how I can solve this?  I also forgot to mention that I am trying to create a low poly tree and that I am still in the learning stages.

The first image is the tree before joining and the second is the tree after joining

The object(s) that you select before the last object with the modifier will discard their modifier stack and inherit that (the last) object's modifier stack.

Easiest way to avoid any loss of modifiers is to apply them before doing any joins.


How to remove unwanted textures to save memory I have two textures in Blender that are for a desk I am modeling. Each texture is 4K quality and takes up a ton of memory. I only have 4GB of memory on my computer, so I can't render an image of my scene. I decided that I would use an HD quality texture instead of a 4K, but I can not replace or remove textures from my texture list in Blender. Is there a way I can do this? Any help is appreciated.

Do not worry about all the images in your blend file. If they are not used in the render they will not effect the memory. Simply change the images out for the smaller ones and try to render again (make sure your nodes are not using the large image anywhere).

To remove the images from the blend file Shift LMB on the X in the image datablock. (Image from the UV Editor header)

How do I completely remove an image from my .blend file?

If you still are out of memory, then you are going to have to look at you geometry. Do you have any hidden geometry? Subdivision surface jacking up the poly count? Many of the same objects not sharing a datablock.


High poly lag limitation of blender? I have a lag problem with my high poly model 12000000 poly, I made a quick video to illustrate my problem
https://youtu.be/luvN2IeYqNg
When the mouse is out of the 3d view it lags a lot. I have to unselect the model, select an other or refresh the page to have no more lags
I have a quatro m5000
A gtx 1080
2x xeon e5 v4 2,4 ghz
256go ram
Ssd drive
All drivers are ok
I should be smooth !
The problem is coming from my computer ? Blender ?
I need to work on high poly models for my work in archaeology

I remeshed, with meshlab and reduced the model to 3millions poly ant no more lags I definitely thinks it's a blender issue :(


Blender 2.8 BSurface with bezier curves I was watching a tutorial about making an airplane. Here's the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHiGH-4L5h4

He made some bezier curves that outlined the craft's fuselage and used bsurface add-on to fill the rest of the surface. The tutorial was in a blender version less than 2.8.

He first selected the bezier curves, then selected a plane(I don't know what it is for. He just created it just before doing these things), toggled 'keep strokes' and clicked 'add surface'.

Then the ribs of bezier curves was covered with planes.

But when I tried the same thing, I couldn't find the same menu like the one in the tutorial, which is on the left side. I found something similar when I clicked 'n' and went to 'edit' tab, but the 'add surface' button didn't work with an error below.

I also found that I could select objects with the spuit-like icon just above the red thing, but clicking 'add surface' with an object selected by that tool also showed an error.

I guess it is saying there's no vertices to work with, but it doesn't make sense. The tutorial guy had no problem.

I looked for some other tutorials that delt with BSurface add-on in blender 2.8+, but they all used the annotation pen instead of the bezier curve. I think I don't know how to use the tool correctly, but couldn't find the way anywhere. Please tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it.

Firts you must select in "Mesch of Bsurface" the plane,after in Bsurface go to curve (guide stoke) and select your curve....Select like in the tuto,edit mode and add surface. Check the menu of add surface for the cross and follow setting.
Work in Blender 2.81a.


Make a bezier curve into a subdivided mesh? I have created a shape using a bezier curve.  I want to give it depth and then apply an image as a displacement modifier.

I have added a face to the shape and extruded the shape into 3 dimensions. However I cannot get the face to subdivide so I cannot apply the displacement modifier.

How can I get a detailed enough mesh across that face?

The face I want to add detail to is selected.

For subdivide you need quads. Upper face is unsightly ngon and can't be subdivided. Remesh modifier should be helpful in this case.

If Remesh doesn't  do its job well, you can delete ngon and fill area manually with smaller parts by selecting two opposite verts and pres F to fill and press J to connect.

You can combine this procedure with Grid Fill - Ctrl + F > G

I don't know a better solution, I hope someone knows one because this is really good question.


object cannot be written into a 3ds file I am a rookie user of Blender, my blender project cannot be exported to 3ds file.

How to solve that?

Error message
Object %r can't be written into a 3DS file

This is the link of my project Blender Project 2018

There is a maximum number of faces limit with .3ds files. You might be exceeding this. If possible, consider using the .OBJ format, which doesn't have this limitation. Try removing all but a small part of the model and exporting that to confirm if this is your problem.

If it is not this which is causing the problem, try baking all the modifiers before exporting.


How create car emblem from STL file? I have a interesting (for me) task - make a car emblem for some auto club.
Client asked me create emblem (flat, vectorized) and make some changes.

I'm done and now he would get STL file for print.
I created svg, then convert to STL and... stuck (

My problem is — in creating borders and depth. I'm graphic designer, working in Illustrator and Photoshop, but i don't know how can i realise this task. Please help me - give some advise, please.

Thank you.

Here SVG file: link

I have to run to class, but I'll upload a tutorial to YouTube in an hour for this. If you need it now, here is a test file where I extruded the S.

Basically, I imported the .svg into blender and converted it (Alt + c) to a mesh. Then I extruded the meshes. I used a boolean modifier to delete/hollow out the middle of the S.

Here is a screencast of the process. I will upload a more comprehensive video later if needed.


How to make a gold ore texture? I am trying to make a gold ore material on my object but I cannot seem to make it look right with different nodes. Can anybody help me?!! I am just learning about nodes so I am fairly new to how they work and it needs to be explained in detail what to do.
This is what I have that is slightly close to what I am looking for...

You need more roughness, your model is too smooth. Try with the Principled shader which is a new node in Blender 2.79 +


Problem with UV mesh I seem to be having trouble with one of my UV meshes. For some reason, a number of vertices/faces have decided to detach themselves and, not only are there too many, but I can't re-attach them. The simplest thing to do is to unwrap the mesh again, but now I can't get it to align properly. The save I've attached is with the broken vertices... Any ideas what I could do? Thanks.

I don't think you can avoid re unwrapping.
The reason why you have the separate UV island in the head unwrap is because that is the way the UV seams are marked   at the top of the head.

To make the head a single UV island clear the unwanted seams and mark a new one along the top of the head as in the screenshot below. Then UV unwrap again.
You will have to experiment a little to have the exact seams to get the correct unwrap island shape and then scale to match (align to) what you had before.

Just a note : usually the ears of a head will need UV seams so that they will be separate islands when unwrapped.


Vertical Line Artifacts in Blender Cycles 2.83 just got Blender 2.83 today and noticed these weird artifact lines in my cycles renders. It happens in the render viewport, and in final renders. It only happens when I use GPU acceleration, CPU is fine. I have a Sapphire RX 580. They seem to fade if I ramp up the render passes, suggesting that they're a type of noise. I made a test scene with three point lights in a volume, 256 passes and no denoising. You can really see it just to the right of the red light and the top edge. Is this a known issue?

Figured it out, kinda stupid. Just had to update my graphics drivers.


Deforming text maintaining vertical alignment I would like to deform my text to fit along a curve, but maintain a vertical alignment like in the picture.

Any help would be a big help! Thanks!

You can use a Lattice and Proportional Editing

Add a lattice object and scale it so that it covers your object.
Make the number on the U axis an odd number so that you have a division in the middle.

Select the Text Object and add a Lattice Modifier. Assign the newly created lattice as the deform object.

Select the lattice, enter edit mode, select the vertices in the middle.

Enable Proportional editing and set the falloff type to "sphere"

Press G (to move the selected vertices) and use the scroll wheel on the mouse to adjust the influence of the proportional edit, so that the circle covers the whole text.

Move the vertices up.


Flat shaded normals, have weird shading artifacts I've been working in blender for the past 3 years and never encountered something like this. When I set the normal shading for this object to flat, it shows up like this.

I made sure the the faces all had the same normals. I tried shading them smoothly and adding sharp edges, that results in the strange smooth normal shading shown below.

Any help would be appreciated.

TL:DR press Set From Faces in the Shading tab of the Tool Shelf.

What's happened is your normals have got bent out of shape in a weird way that the usual Ctrl + N make normals consistent doesn't see as a problem.

They're all facing the right way vis-a-vis inside/outside, but they're all over the place in terms of direction. So you just tell Blender it needs to force all normals to be perpendicular to their corresponding face.

I still have no idea how this problem occurs in the first place, though. It foxed me for a good few days.


How to use "Reference" information from Blender manual? There is "Reference" information in many Blender manual pages, for example

How one can use it? It looks like some path, like in menu, but nothing correspondent can be found in the GUI.

It is a path in the GUI. Look in the Properties Editor (on the right by default), in the Scene tab, under Gravity.


Reading Custom Property from Blender Game Engine I'm using the BGE to read a custom property that I set in Blender on the default Cube object. For some reason, the property doesn't show up in the BGE? Am I missing something obvious? All the documentation I can find says I can just access it with obj['propertyName'], but it doesn't work.

cube = bge.logic.getCurrentScene().objects["Cube"]
print(cube['min'])  # KeyError: 'value = gameOb[key]: KX_GameObject, key "min" does not exist'
print(cube.get('min'))  # Returns None
print(cube.getPropertyNames())  # Empty list
print(cube.attrDict)  # Empty dictionary

Version is Blender 2.78; to run the engine, I just do blenderplayer myfile.blend.

Custom properties belong to Blender. They are not converted and do not exist in the BGE.

You need to set up game properties (game logic editor).


Create an edge between a "real" and an array modifier vertex? I want to hit "F" and add an edge between the last vertex of the real object, and the first vertex of it's array-modifier-duplicated clone.

The problem is, selecting the first vertex of the clone actually selects the first vertex of the original instead, so the edge goes in the wrong place.

This is wrong: the new edge should connect the gear teeth together, not close off the tooth.

There doesn't seem to be a way to set the cursor to the cloned vertex either.

What's the fastest way to add an edge (and required vertex) as if the cloned vertex were actually there?

Scenario 1

Make one copy of Array real to be able snap extruded vertex and add Array modifier again. Like:

Duplicate Array modifier (and disable one of them)
Set Count 2 and Apply
Enable Snap > Vertex type
Create connection by Extruding E Vertex
Delete unwanted parts (second teeth)
Enable Array modifier back

Scenario 2

Do it out of edit mode by another object and than join them. Like ...

in Edit mode Shift+D first vertex
Separate > Selected P
in Object mode select separeted vertex, go to edit mode
enable Snap tool and to Vertex
select vertex, Extrude E, Snap to first Array copy
go to Object mode and Join these two Objects Ctrl+J

BTW Do you know there is a addon GearGenMaster?


How can you make a scratched metal procedurally? I want to use a type of scratched metal thing to use for a robot I'm working on, but I want to know how to do it in a procedural way, just using nodes and math, is there any way I can do that? This is a picture of what I want it to look like, but, just less scratches, so if anyone has a way, please tell me.

If we take a Voronoi Texture set to Distance to Edge, and do a Math -> Less Than operation we get this map:

We can use another Voronoi Texture set to F1 to generate a map that lets us subtract out most of the corners.

Note that we are using the same scale for both Voronoi Textures, and we are clamping the Math -> Subtract operation to prevent our values from falling below 0.

The Less Than threshold controls the thickness of scratches, the Greater Than threshold controls how much of the initial map we remove.
You can stack up as many layers of this as you want:

And then plug it into a Bump node with distance set to -1 to sink it into the mesh instead of pushing out.

Here's a setup attempting to resemble your reference image.


Can't unhide objects For some reason I can't unhide my objects anymore in this file. Is it a bug?
blend file

You've activated the local view of your selected object. Press Numpad / button to return to the scene view, with the all objects visible.
This option is very useful, when you've got many objects in scene and want to edit the concrete one. You can easily check out if you are in local view. The view type is displayed in the upper left corner of a 3D window.


Whenever I move an object a circle appears that also affects other objects I am not entirely sure how to even describe the issue I am having. I am making a pretty simple animation with two people and a cop car. Whenever I move one object a large white circle appears around it and anything inside the circle is affected by where and what I do with the object I am trying to move. I have looked all over but I cant seem to find a solution if anyone knows what I am talking about the help would be greatly appreciated.

You are probably in "proportional editing object mode" in order to toggle this circle and get back to the standard handler press "O" on keyboard.


How you denoise renderered images in Blender? I am wanting to use Blender as a denoiser as well as a renderer, but I can't find how to bring an image in and denoise it in the compositor. I have tried using the despeckle node but I still can't seem to find the right way to do it.

The Denoising Feature is only available for rendered images as it takes information from the unrendered scene as well as the pixel data of the rendered image to "guess" the right values of each pixel.

So unfortunately the denoiser isn't available for external images. There are a few compositing solutions available though. Here are some node groups you can use.


How do I script simple math functions in OSL? I can't figure out how to script a simple inverse square root function node like the math node. The OSL language spec is mostly over my head since I don't have any programming experience.

Never mind, looked at it again the next day and it was rather obvious.. just needed a break apparently

shader invrsquareroot(
    float x = 10.0,

    output float result = 0)
{
    result = inversesqrt(x);
}


Has anyone got the Oscurart tools Add on to work in Blender 2.8? I've enabled the Oscurart tools add on through Preferences and can see/right click to access the list of its functions/options. Its "Remove modifiers" function works, but I can't seem to get the "distribute objects" functionality to make any changes whatsoever to a selection of multiple objects to get them to align along a selected axis as defined in its "distribute Objects" option.

To repro:
Turn Oscurart on in Add on via Preferences.
Create 3 simple cubes -- each as separate objects.
Select them all while in Object mode.
Then choose the Distribute objects option in Oscurart.
I expect the 3 cubes to align to the selected axis in the Distribute Objects dialog box, but nothing seems to be happening.

Nothing I change in the axis options does anything to align/distribute the selected objects along the chosen axis's
(reminder this is in Blender v2.8)

Is there a problem with the add on? Thanks!

Make sure the origin point of each of the objects is different. Oscurart Tools won't work if all of the objects have the same origin in space. So before distributing, set each object's origin to the geometry and then try it out.


Select faces within two cuts/edges I got a subdivided mesh/face where a road should run along. So we have an outer and an inner edge. What I want to do now is delete all these faces that lie within the outer and inner cut/edge. Of course you can do that with circle select but I wonder if there is a faster and more efficient way?

If you have a cut in there, you should have separate Mesh Islands.

Hovering your mouse over the island of choice and pressing L will select the Linked Faces. You can look in the Operator Panel for additional options that will limit the selection, like Seams, for instance.

Alternatively, select just one element and hit Ctrl + L to select the linked faces, regardless of where your mouse is at that moment.


Maths — how to create moving waves with Animation Nodes I am this week learning wave equations, my very first time. I am learning those below.

Please give examples of how you'd use wave equations with Animation Nodes. Your way, please.

No ideas? How about waves on a long strip of plane below?

With wave movement on a same plane.

Theory

The wave equation is a second order partial differential equation, which means solving it can done by numerical integration, perhaps using the simpler Euler's Method. The one dimensional wave equation is as follows:

$$
\frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial t^2} = c^2 \frac{\partial^2 u}{\partial x^2}
$$

Where $u$ is the displacement, $t$ is the time, and $x$ is the position. The partial derivative on the right hand side is the one dimensional Laplacian. So, to compute it, we use the Discrete Laplace Operator. In particular, we can use a one dimensional convolution kernel, the kernel have the structure:

$$
\begin{bmatrix}
1 \\ -2 \\ 1
\end{bmatrix}
$$

Finally, to be able to solve this, we need to define the initial conditions of the system as well as its boundary conditions. That is, we have to define the initial displacement and the initial velocity. Lets assume that at $t=0$ the velocity was zero ($\left.\frac{\partial u}{\partial t}\right\rvert_{t=0} = 0$) and the displacement was zero everywhere except at a subset of the domain where it was a bell shaped curve. As for the boundary conditions, we shall use a Periodic Boundary Condition.

Implementation

First, give the displacement, we compute the discrete laplacian using the kernel outlined above, this is easily done by vectorization as follows:

Next, given the initial velocity, lets compute the velocity after $\delta$ time using Euler's method as follows:

Next, lets compute the displacement given an initial displacement and the velocity using Euler's method:

Next, we make a solver loop that takes the initial velocity and displacement and reassign them at each iteration:

Finally, we define the initial conditions as discussed before and display the simulation as a circular domain, we also enable per frame caching to get real time results:

By running the animation, we get:

Which seems about right. It should be noted that this is not the most physically or mathematically accurate simulation and it is not computationally efficient either, this is just a simplified heuristic implementation to demonstrate the wave equation.


Creating a Specular using two color channels? I've been attempting to recreate a game's cel shading and am currently stuck on making speculars function.
The main issue is that the speculars are done manually using both the red and blue channels of a specific texture, and that the Red channels determines "Intensity of Specular Highlight" and the Blue Channel determines "Ease of entering highlights".
Here's how it looks in the game in question with a model reference and the texture used for lighting:
https://imgur.com/a/vItyeBX
https://imgur.com/a/R933kYX
https://imgur.com/a/b9UPEJ8

Not really sure how to go about this now, considering the lighting is not natural and actually tracks the camera in-game, though I thought I should plug the camera in last after the actual calculations are done first.
How should I go about this? Can I somehow "factor" the Blue with the Red somehow like a Mix RGB node?

Ok so I spent a lot of time on this last night, and I don't want to all go to waste, so I'm just gonna post it, in the hopes that you might find ANY part of it helpful. If this doesn't help you at all, let me know and i'll delete this answer - it is simply far too much to put in a comment.
I think I understand what you're trying to do, but without access to an image texture with shader values embedded in the color channels, I'm shooting blind somewhat. Hopefully this setup, or some close rearrangement, is able to give you what you are looking for. I'm not really familiar with defining specular highlights this way, so I'm doing my best to translate it to what I know.
Generally, when making cell shading, I simply drive a Diffuse BSDF through a Shader to RGB and into a ColorRamp set to constant, with three or four harsh cutoffs.

If I am trying to cell shade an existing texture, I use a MixRGB shader set on multiply and mix the texture with the result of this ColorRamp, to apply the "harsh shadows" from the cell shading to the texture. As you can see from this image, I multiplied the texture by the ColorRamp values twice so I could have an extra strong contrast for this example image. You may or may not need this.

Now, on to your specific case (to the best of my abilities)
You said the blue channel defines the "easing" of the highlights - I think this represents the shadow level cutoffs like I specified in the ColorRamp.  Here's where I'm divided though. The wording (easing) suggests the presence (or lack therof) of a gradient between the different light levels - cell shading is generally defined by the lack of a gradient, therefore I think this would be represented by the "constant" cutoff I used on the ColorRamp, as opposed to "linear".  However, I do not know how much this also includes where the light cutoff points are.
This brings me to my next issue - the red channel - the "intensity" of the specular highlight. Does this mean the brightness at certain cutoff levels? if so, does this mean that the blue channel determines where the "light level containers" are, and the red channel determines what actual "light level" they each get filled with? I have to assume that it must be something like this, because the only other use of "specualr intensity" I can think of refers to how much the specular reflection takes on the hue of the diffuse color, which generally only applies to shiny metallic items, which I don't generally associate with cell shading. Maybe that's the case here - maybe they're trying to use metallic values to drive the hue of the "shaded" area - I don't know and if that's the case, I have no idea how to do it.
So, given all that I know, and all that I don't know, here's where I am:
I was thinking some setup SOMETHING like this might get what you want, but I don't have the image with the separate channels, so you'll have to try it yourself. Maybe if you just switch up the node connections randomly you'll miraculously stumble upon the answer. I've done all I can - the more I look at it at this point, the more I feel like my eyes are bleeding.

The brief explanation is this (though keep in mind I'm totally lost at this point). I used the reflection ray to drive the mix of the shadow cutoffs based on reflection angle with the "easings" in the blue channel. I have no idea if this is even necessary. Anyway, I then used this "shadow combo" with as a mix factor between the original image (if there is one) and white "highlights" . I have no idea what to do here if there is no "original image" texture to work with.
Anyway, I then combined this "shadow+image highlight" combo with the brightness and color values of the red channel, using the shadow values as a factor (because it gets info from the reflection ray - again I don't know if this is the right way).
So that's it. Hopefully by playing with some arrangement of this setup you can come up with something at least workable.
Let me know if it works out.
Cheers


Boolean Difference deforming flat plane I'm trying to cut a circle into a cube (as pictured) and the boolean modifier with the sphere is deforming the face of the cube. This is the second boolean modifier (the first being for the speaker cone below). Any idea why this is happening and how I can fix it?

I give a small suggestion when you add the cube add a little thickness (solidify modifier). Then use the boolean modifier it work perfect you can see below.


Exporting multiple materials to a single diffuse/specular map I created a low poly scooter and applied different materials to different parts of the mesh for obvious reasons (check the photo below).

There are two things I need to do :

1) I want to put all the color from my multiple materials onto a single material or onto the UV map (whichever is easier) so I can export a single diffuse texture.

2) I want to create a specular map based on my materials so that the metal parts look shiny and the other parts don't.

What is the best or easiest way to do it?

Shaders can be made to use several different types of masks but the types of passes available for baking are currently limited but this can be overcome with a bit of extra setup.

Cycles works well for doing this but the masks are not necessarily all going to translate over to other rendering engines perfectly calibrated.  Some fine-tuning is likely to be necessary whether you use Cycles or Blender Internal for creating masks for other renderers since everyone uses slightly different(or very different) math for their shaders.

The following is an example of how you can bake an Exponent mask(Roughness) using Cycles.

This first image shows 1 object that has 2 materials.  Each material is a Glossy node and they both have different values for Roughness.

Now you can bake these values to a texture by using Emission Nodes with the strength value set to the same Roughness used for the Glossy shaders.  This will bake a black and white mask that has the values for Roughness baked in.

The sphere on the left is using only one material now instead of 2 and uses the baked texture to control the roughness for both surfaces.  The sphere on the right is still using 2 different shaders to control both surfaces.

Here is a diagram that attempts to show the part of the shader formula which is making use of the Exponent mask that was just baked.

You can also bake what people are calling a 'metalness' mask using the same technique shown above using Emission shaders for the exponent mask values.

Here's a turntable animation the shows several different masks in use to control only one GLSL shader for the armor.  Notice how the specular bright-spot's radius changes as the light plays across the bronze color to the plastic parts and then across the Blender Logo.  It's a specular exponent mask that controls the highlight's radius.  The shader also uses a masks to control the different paths the GLSL shader code will take since it's programmed for more than one type of effect.(sort of like a mini uber-shader)

https://vimeo.com/109779858

Extra reading: If you have a look at the following diagram for Valves DOTA2 modding documentation, you will see that there are several types of masks used to control various aspects of their shaders and since many of them are greyscale, 4 different masks can be stacked into just 1 texture.

Here's the Title and link for the Valve PDF
DOTA 2 - Character Shader Masks Guide

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2ShaderMaskGuide.pdf


How to model a vase with a hole through it? I'm trying to model this vase on the left in this picture,

However, I'm still a beginner in Blender, and the furthest I could go is as depicted in the screenshot below:

As you can see, the beginning was promising, but applying the subdivider made it horrible.
I started from a cube building up, and used Boolean difference to subtract the hole inside.
I'm not looking for a full solution, I just need guidelines like how should I start? a plane? a cube?
shall I start from low model and then apply a subdivider? or I should start as smooth as possible?
EDIT:
I took @Simon approach, I started with a cylinder, squashed it at the bottom, and unsquashed at the top, after the boolean with another perpendicular cylinder, things got ugly and I had to cut faces to make them Quads instead of NGON.
This is the best I could do:

EDIT2:
More progress, this time, to do the boolean, I extracted the edge from the original body, and extrude it to create the boolean operand, this is the result before Subdivider modifier. Do I have to clean the body manually? like moving vertices, merging them, cut some faces? or there is a faster way (considering I have to repeat the process on four sides (unless I have to use Mirror))?

EDIT 3
I fixed the model after the boolean, and the results are better, but still can't get it perfect:

Especially these areas:

Edit 4:
I started over again, to follow @Simon instructions, the results? Amazing.
Check it out:

Ignore the hole to begin with. The main shape appears to be a squashed cylinder, so create the main outline by scaling down one axis, then loop cutting/extruding and scaling to create the overall shape. For the neck the shape is circular so un-squash this section. For the large hole, boolean a cylinder then clean up the geometry afterwards.

Start with a 16 sided cylinder. I used a 100mm rad and 350mm height. Scale it down on one axis. Add loop cuts.

From bottom ring to top I scaled by about .7, .9, 1, .9, .6, .1, .1. Rounded the neck rings. Added supporting loops for the neck and base. Inset and extruded the neck downward. Delete end N-Gons then used Grid Fill to finish.

Add a 10 sided cylinder and shape accordingly. I am trying to end up with an easy way to create quads after the boolean so am looking to position the new cylinder vertices close to the vase vertices.

Snap and merge the resulting vertices together, creating quads. Tidy up the mesh. At this step I deleted half the model and mirrored the mesh to save time. Remember to flip normals on the mirror. Add supporting loops to the inner ring.

Subdivision result. This worked out better than my first attempt as there are now no triangles in the bottom corners of the hole.


blend file opens with default cube instead of file's objects I am working on a modeling project in Blender 2.8. yesterday, I saved my progress and closed. now, when I try to open that file, it shows the default blender scene with cube,camera and light. I tried pressing Alt + H, nothing is hidden. An usual new blender scene is around 500 kb. But my file is 6.5mb. But can't see my objects. please help me.

First of all you should look at File menu > Recovery > Auto Save

By default it located in path like \AppData\Local\Temp\

Seems like you have overridden you project with default scene..


I want to scale an Object along its local Axis and the return it to its initial scale using the global Axis import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector

bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1, 2, 1), orient_type='LOCAL')
obj = bpy.context.active_object
mat = obj.matrix_world
print(mat)
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1, .5, 1), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=mat)

I have the following code. I have an group of parented bones. I am trying to length each individually along their own local axis. But because of the parent child relationship the children always deform along the local axis of the parent. My plan is to lengthen each bone along its local axis and then shrink each of its children along it's parents local axis. Repeating this process down the line. However I am a little confused on how to reverse the Local applied scale to the children's Global scale.
The code I have here is attempting to resize one object using local resize and then return it to its original size using a global resize. I just need help with understanding how the matrices work.

import bpy

bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1, 2, 1), orient_type='LOCAL')
obj = bpy.context.selected_pose_bones[0]
mat = obj.matrix.to_3x3()
print(mat)
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1, .5, 1), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=mat)

This works and I am going to try and explain this. I am sort of newb here so bear with me, and by all means correct me in the comments if I am wrong.
Each translated, scaled or rotated object has a matrix that describes its relation to its original or "initial" coordinates in 3d space.
The way matrices work is they take each vertex's 'initial" coordinates and multiply them by a matrix, giving the vertices new coordinates. Before the any movement of the object happens the object simply has its original or "initial" coordinates located around the origin, Like how when you add a new object it always appears straight up and down and is usually in the center. If you transform rotate or scale the object, then that objects vertices will now be calculated using matrices, until of course, you apply (ctrl A) the scale rotation or position, which will change the "initial" coordinates of the object. Before that the matrices which are being used to describe the objects scale, location and rotation are stored in the object and are available to through the python API.
So what is happening here, is I am getting the bones rotational matrix and applying it to the scale command. So I am scaling in the direction specified by the rotation matrix, which describes the objects rotation from its "initial" coordinates.
But because of the way the matrices are stored, meaning that they include not only the rotational information but also the translation information, I have to use the .to_3x3() to isolate the the rotational part of the transformation.


HTML + Blender game engine? The diagram is of a river bank with a formula that can be adjusted with sliders to calculate the river's area, steepness, vegetation population, etc.

The question is, is it possible to do this in blender somehow, either with the game engine or drivers, so that sliders could change not only numerals but also the look of the river diagram?

I have pretty much zero experience with the game engine (but years with anything else to do with Blender) and before trying anything out I wanted to know if it was possible to do something like this.

I have also seen this recent link to the game engine working on browsers and was wondering if this could work for this too?

http://www.blendernation.com/2014/07/11/blend4web-an-interactive-3d-viewer/

According to the documentation Blend4web uses WebGL and supports:
Full Support

Yandex Browser
Chrome
Firefox
Opera

Experimental Support

Internet Explorer 11
Safari 8

Mobile Platforms

Android (on the majority of modern devices)
BlackBerry
Firefox OS
iOS 8
Tizen
Ubuntu Touch
WebOS

It looks promising, I would check whether it covers all requirements and give it a try.


How do I add a 3D border on all edges of a mesh? I would like to add a 3D border to all edges of a mesh, such that the border is a "cylinder" that wraps around the mesh. The effect would look something like this:

My object is very similar to the white-textured part of the above image, it is a fully 2D mesh. However, differently to this mesh, the object is entirely one face, so I just need this effect applied to all edges of the mesh, and there's no edges in the middle that could get in the way.

One simple way is to duplicate the object (press Shift D, then Esc), enter edit mode, select all and press X to delete Only faces, then add a skin modifier, set the size of the quad border with the "Mean radius" X and Y values of every vertex, then add a subsurf modifier to get the resolution and roundness you need.

Afetr applying all modifiers (always starting from the upper) you can rejoin the two meshes into one single object (Ctrl J).


How do I add an HDRI texture environment node? How do I add a texture environment node in cycles?

In the world section of the properties panel choose Surface > Use Nodes.

Select Surface: Background.

As color choose  Environment texture.

And choose the HDR image you want to use.

Or you can use the Node editor. Enable Use Nodes and in the shader editor and set it to world to add an environment texture node and connect it to a background node and then to the surface of the world output.


Bool Tool Add-on missing option Im following a tutorial using the ad-on Bool tool, and there's an option I dont have in my settings. I downloaded the current Blender version, but still dont get this option in my Bool tool option. Solver: Fast- Exact.

The Exact solver option will be introduced with the release of Blender 2.91 as documented by the release notes. The design task for the boolean redesign was T67744 and the commit that introduced this to the master branch rB9e09b5c418c0a436e3c84ccf38c065527988b0a0.
The release of Blender 2.91 is planned for the end of November 2020. You can download the daily builds of the beta version from builder.blender.org.


Adding a skirt / border to object with sharp corners leaves gaps I have an SVG that i made into an outline of an object (shape of Texas), but when i go to add a skirt / border to it the shrink/fatten leaves gaps in the border. Is there a way to expand a face evenly to where I get a smooth border.

Here are the steps I have taken

Import SVG and create mesh object
extruded the object so it has height
selected the top faces so i can extrude again to have a smaller face
for the border
selected the smaller face from the step above and selected Shirnk/Fatten

Expected results:
I would like a smooth lip on the outside of the very top portion of an outline of an object
As you can see on sharp outside corners there are gaps and on sharp inside corners it expands into the interior of the shape.

Import the svg curve.

Scale it to some size that is workable.

SVGs are imported as curve objects. You don't need to convert them to mesh in order to extrude, you can do that in the geometry section>extrude.

(I changed the color for visibility to the blue state that Texas should be)

Then create a new curve object, I will name it "Lip Curve" that has the profile shape you are looking for. Make it small, much smaller than the other object. To make sharp angles select two control points, press V to access the handle type menu, and select "vector"

Use the "Lip Curve" as taper object for the Texas Outline.

You can clean up the object a bit by lowering the resolution for the curve (in this case I lowered the preview resolution for the curve from 16 to 1)

Note that I'm getting a double lip on the object because this particular curve was created thicker in the vector drawing program (inkscape, illustrator, etc) So when it is imported into blender that thickness will be made out of two parallel curves to give it thickness.

To further refine the shape and do cleanup of overlapping segments convert to mesh and manually fix imperfections.


How to position light source so it reflects off gold Celtic knot on the sword guard, into the camera? How do I find the perfect position for the light so that it will reflect off the Celtic knot? There are 3 light sources I can't find the sweet spot. I've tried moving them around of course. I've tried spot, point, sun at an angle about = to the camera angle to sword face. I either bleach out the scene or it just has no effect if I play with size and brightness. I need that sweet spot angle, and I just can't find it. Here is blender 2.79 file, https://www.dropbox.com/s/evlsqvdtpet39ml/anvil2blend.blend?dl=0
Thank you:)

I realized after exploring that if I placed a point light close to the object I wanted to light up, (gold Celtic Knot) that it would light up nicely. What I couldn't wrap my head around is that the light source itself never shows up in a render so it can be placed in the visual field of the camera. Duh! This way it can be relatively small and of low intensity, which for some reason I think is better that having some light source a mile away at 100,000 intensity and sized at 1000. I found that I could place the light source right on the object for instance and it worked well.


Build a smooth low poly foot stool with lower than 15K Tris / Faces I need to build an Ottoman Footstool for a CG Trader test to qualify to build models for them.  One main requirement is to build the stool with no more than 15K faces / Tris.  The moment I use subsurface modifier my faces become too much.  The same problem is when I create wrinkles with the sculpt tool.  It generates way too much faces!!  Is there a propper effective function in Blender?
Here is the sample of chair - need to be exact.

As suggested by Rob, use Normals. Also, your material will count to fake the texture (put a bit of noise and glossy in it) but it's not the topic here.

Create a low-poly object, give it a Subdivision Surface modifier and Smooth Shade it.

You could duplicate your object to sculpt a high-poly version, but an even simpler technic is to keep one object and to fake the high-poly version with the Multires modifier. So give your object a Multires modifier and click Subdivide several times (5 times here).

In Sculpt mode, begin to sculpt all your wrinkles and details.

In the UV/Image Editor, create a new black image. Unwrap your object with the Smart UV Project mode. Create a material with an Image Texture, load the previously created image, but for the moment don't plug the Image Texture into the Diffuse. Go in the Properties panel > Render > Bake, Bake Type > Normal, click on the Bake button, the normal map will appear on the UV/Image Editor.

Now duplicate your object with its modifier and keep a copy somewhere. Delete the Multires modifier on the original. Plug the Image Texture (Non-Color Data mode) into a Normal Map, plug it into the Normal socket of the Diffuse. Boom the wrinkles appear on your object as if they were in 3D.


Can't make circle of objects using array modifier Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.  As you can see in the .blend file, my cylinders are super wonky and distorted.  Trying to get them all the same size and in a tight circle with 5 cylinders.

http://www.pasteall.org/blend/39103

Thanks

Rather than using the empty as an offset on the array modifier, add a bezier circle the size of the circle you want and a curve modifier to the cylinder.  Select fit to curve and tweak the x offset until they fit.


Error with Warning! Legacy WGL is unable to select between different OpenGL versions Yesterday i was able to open the blender and use it normally; i updated to win10 3 days ago and was deleting and changing some stuffs in order to have a less slow pc and fix other problems with the double screen and other things. The thing is that now after finishing the "cleansing" i found that i can't open blender because of this:

But... before this message, i was having another issue while opening blender that was the one of the reason behind of this "cleansing". I had that annoying "LoadLibrary failed with error 87: The parameter is incorrect". After some research, i found that a way to solve it was by renaming the OpenGL driver "atig6pxx.dll" to "atig6pxx.dll.bak", and so i did that change and it worked, no more loadlibrary error, but... when i opened the Blender i got the message of not working/updated drivers, so, i went to the Driver Booster and updated 2 drivers, indeed, there were 2 drivers not updated after all this "cleansing"; i restarted the pc and after that... i opened the Blender and... BAM! another wild driver error message appears! I used Driver Booster to update the drivers, but it wasn't effective! (the drivers were already updated), so i decided to watch closely what was written in the cmd black screen, and found this damn message "Warning!  Legacy WGL is unable to select between different OpenGL versions" and i remembered the renaming process i did to solve the "loadlibrary failed error", and i asked myself "maybe that could be the problem", so, i went to the same folder, find that file and rename it back to it's original name, but guess what? it had its original name again! and i was like "okay, no problem... maybe that's the problem" so i decided to do the same like before, renaming it adding ".bak" and the end, but now this time i couldn't complete the task because i needed permission of "SYSTEM", and i was like, "oh god, why". So... that's it, That's the story.
Before this cleansing, i was able to open the Blender normally, but after that, i had all these issues i aforementioned in the story.

The Blender version i have is 2.79 (just in case).

Any suggestion on how i could fix this? ¡¡¡I HAVEN'T USED BLENDER IN 3 DAYS AT THIS POINT!1!1!

This is not a Blender question but I'll try to help you anyway.

Uninstall any display drivers you installed previously using DDU. Then just run a Windows update, that should load the most stable driver for you automatically. If that still doesn't work, go to amd.com, nvidia.com, or intel.com and find your driver from the Download/Support/Driver page.

A warning for the future, randomly renaming dlls is not a solution, it's a hack at best and is dangerous unless you understand what it's doing. In this case, you basically removed the OpenGL driver.


My Armature Bends in a weird way Link to blend file
Whenever I try to  move my armature it bends weirdly. I set all the vertexes I wanted onto the bone and I can't find a way to fix it. I feel like its something stupid simple that I'm missing. Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong?

Apply the scale and rotation of both the character and armature, parent again and it will work fine


How to join this arc I have a u shape and i want that 2 vertex join and make a arc. In the image i have shown the u shape black color and red color arc. Can we join the 2 green color pointed vertex and make a arc. Any method to join them and make a arc quick and simple

Use Spin tool and create the arc-shaped top based on the existing geometry.

Select top vertices which should serve as a base for the arc. Snap cursor to them with Shift+S menu. Note that spinning will happen based on 3D cursor position and the current orientation of the view in the viewport.
Deselect one of the vertices leaving only one selected (to make spin happen from one origin).
Press Alt+R to execute the tool (or find it on the Toolshelf). Adjust Angle in operator's options to 180 degrees and set amount of steps according to your mesh.
Make sure to remove double vertices with W menu.


'Bone' object has no attribute 'constraints' I'm trying to code a script that will copy the rotations of the bones from one rig to another on all the bones
ob = bpy.context.object
altob = bpy.data.objects["Armature.001"]

if (ob.type == 'ARMATURE') & (altob.type == 'ARMATURE'):
    armature = ob.data
    altarmature = altob.data
    for bone in armature.bones:
        for altbone in altarmature.bones:
            if bone.name == altbone.name:
                #crc = bone.constraints.new('COPY_ROTATION')
                #crc.target = altob
                #crc.subtarget = altbone.name
                print(bone.name + " = " + altbone.name)

so if I just have the print names of the bones then I get all the bones matching like this:

but with the other code where I try to make a new constraint and set the other rig as the target and the correct bone as the subtarget then I get the message at the top of the screen shot where it tells me the bone has no attribute 'constraints'.
Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I'm using 2.80 (I need this specific version to make this project work)

Okay I found a solution. I read that to get reference to pose bones (where the constraint can be set) you need to do it from the object and not the armature, so I adjusted my script to look like this:

import bpy
ob = bpy.context.object
altob = bpy.data.objects["Armature.001"]

if (ob.type == 'ARMATURE') & (altob.type == 'ARMATURE'):
    armature = ob.data
    altarmature = altob.data
    for bone in ob.pose.bones:
        for altbone in altob.pose.bones:
            if bone.name == altbone.name:
                crc = bone.constraints.new('COPY_ROTATION')
                crc.target = altob
                crc.subtarget = altbone.name
                print(bone.name + " = " + altbone.name)

so instead of setting 'bone' and 'altbone' to the 'armature.bones', I set it to the object 'ob.pose.bones' and 'altob.pose.bones' and it worked like a dream. Just need a piece in here to clear all the constraints before setting new ones, but that's something for another day.


How to increase render preview bounces? (Cycles in viewport) Even increasing the amount of bounces in Render > Light Paths > Max Bounces, the preview of the viewport does not increase light. When I render the image the scene is much more brighter.

My scene is clean, no hidden lights in the viewport. I also did not change the exposure in Film.

Why is there such a difference? How to have a more accurate preview?

Thank you.

I found a cause of the problem. Simplify is active and limiting the number of Ambient Occlusion bouces in the viewport. I just match the values to get a similar render.


How to make part of rigged mesh stationary? How can I make a few specific vertices stay in place and not be affected by the rigging? I've messed around with weight painting and no matter how blue I make it for all the bones it still moves. It actually moves even more when I make it bluer which doesn't make sense to me. Thanks for your time.
I've uploaded my file so you can see what I'm working with. I need the base of the tentacle to stay put. Just the first layer of vertices that are moving a little bit.

I'm using Blender 2.8

As you can read in edit mode, your base vertices do have some weight relatively to many bones, so of course they are moving.

If you want them to stay still, select all of them and remove weight from all vertex groups.

Another more usual way is to create a "tentacle base" bone and weight them to it.

Remember that even a very little weight, if it's not "counterbalanced" by a bigger weight, will have a great influence to the vertex, so you can't trust the blue color in weight paint mode only.


Can I confirm knife action with mouse, or other key than Enter? Can I confirm knife actions with the mouse, or some other key than Enter? Going all the way to Enter breaks the flow in a way that's inconsistent with blender's philosophy.

This is mapped by default to Enter, NumpadEnter and Space but you can change it if you want to.

To change it, you go to User Preferences > Input.

In the search field, type Knife and it will bring up the relevant panels
Toggle Knife Topology Tool
Toggle, Knife Tool Modal Map
Change any of the Confirm options to whatever input you want by clicking in the input field to the right and then pressing the key you want to use OR
* You can add another one with Add new at the bottom.


Is it possible to display and image inside the add-on about? Text works but a gif sometimes can be more inspiring and explain things visually better.

Any idea if it is possible to display a gif /image inside the shortcuts area?

You can show custom icons, see: How to implement custom icons for my script/addon?

However you can't show large images in this space.


My custom timer is cancelled when loading a *.blend file I have implemented a ModalTimerOperator, based on the sample in Blender's Python templates. At the moment it can be started, stopped and restarted by buttons (located in a menu added to the Info header for testing purposes). Later it should be started automatically when activating the addon I am working on. Important: The timer is intended to run until Blender is closed.

But now I observed that the timer's cancel() function is called as soon as a *.blend file is loaded, and it stops working therefore (I fear there may be other events doing the same). Putting a return statement into the cancel() function before calling wm.event_timer_remove() does not help.

So my questions are:

How can I prevent my timer from being cancelled?
Is it possible to restart the timer automatically if cancelled? (My try to restart it from a kind of Python watchdog thread causes Blender to crash as the API documentation's "Gotchas" chapter predicts.)

First such practice as modal operator running in background without user actually starting it from UI or having the ability to end it is bad. For example it will block F8- reload plugins.

Try to use the scene_update callback list in app.handlers instead of modal operator for what you wanna do.

Now also from such callback list you can monitor if some modal operator is or is not running and eventually call it. But again, this is very dirty.


Software to work with 3D scan and prototyping I have a beginner Rhino background and now I have to work with 3D scanned objects: I need to modify them and send for prototyping. The main issue I have to start with is that edges are not smooth at all...
Which software do you suggest me to work with? Is Blender a good option? Do you have a learning path I can follow?

Thanks

As this is a blender specific website, may I recommend blender?
Blender has some basic tools for preparing models for printing, see this, and there are plenty of tutorials out there, but here's a few things to note that most of them don't cover:

Blender unit system is not like CAD software. See here for info on working with it. I would recommend using metric, as imperial can get quite messy.  If you need models in inches, change the scale factor (multiply by 25.4, as that's the number of mm per inch) when exporting.
Blender is very flexible with normals (the direction a face points).  3d printing software is not.  Before exporting go into edit mode and hit ctrl+N to recalculate the normals.
Use the decimate modifier to simplify geometry before exporting. Enabling planar mode on this modifier is one way to make edges smoother.
The laplacian smooth modifier may also be helpful if the data is noisy.
The shrinkWrap modifier may be good, if the data isn't too complex.
A good approach to learning to do this with blender would be
Import the file to blender as a mesh object.
Apply a decimate or smooth modifier to the model, maybe play around with some of the others too, until you find what gets good results.
Apply the modifiers, after making a backup of the scene or file.
Do any manual editing of the mesh needed
Export as an stl file with an appropriate scale factor.


How can I make a realistic lightsaber? I want to make a lightsaber where the edjes/sides are more red and in the middle it is white, so I tried using the layer weight node with a color ramp and I got a nice result when looking from the front, but when I look sideways its all red without any white in the middle (first picture). (My material  nodes are shown in the second picture). Any solutions? I have another idea but I don't think it will look that good. I was thinking to add bloom in the final render and use only an emission shader with red color and strength a big number like 200 so it would look white, and the bloom would add that red color around it.first picture

I am using cycles

If you set the emission to a large number, it will shine very bright in the scene on other object, which you may want, however, I used a fresnel input to find the outer edges and used a color ramp to convert them to red and white.


Cut Off Edge Particles? I've added a particle system to my odject. The particles follow the normal orientation. I was wonder if there is a way to limit them from hanging off the edge? My approach right now is to convert to geo, then cut them off. I tried using a collision with kill particles, on a box bigger than the object. It didn't seem to work. I'm really hoping there is a better approach. Thank you! :D

I have attached a test project. Link to greeb_test.blend

Edit: In the interest of full disclosure... This my current method to trim up the edges.

1) add particle system to object.

2) convert particles to object (apply visual transform)

3) select the new objects and join them together using ctrl + J

4) add decimate modifier to cut down on lag.

5) use boolean or knife tool to edit object and cut off unwanted pieces.

I was not able to find a way to cut the edges off, but I was able to find a decent substitute: Weight Painting. This is the result I produced:

With your mouse in the 3D viewport, key Tab to enter edit mode. Key W and select Subdivide 3-5 times (the more the better, until it lags to much).

Next, key Tab followed by Ctrl + Tab to enter weight painting mode. Go to the Tools bar. Make sure Weight: is set to 1. Paint a streak down the middle of the lateral faces and a dot on each end by dragging the mouse while holding the left button down. Your result should look something like this (mirrored on the hidden sides):

Note that I moved the emmission time to 5 frames so that I could paint in peace.

Lastly, go to your particle system settings, the Vertex Groups drop down and the Density: option. Select Group (it should be the only group there). Here is the modified .blend file. I might fiddle with the painting and size of the emitted particles to get a nicer looking result.


Is it required to have a cycle in an animation? Let's say I have an action where a character sits down. First I have to keyframe all the bones in their original position and use those keyframes as origin for the sitting position. Is it a technical requirement to then duplicate the "origin" keyframes and put them at the end of the animation so that my character can go back to its original position?

I have tried both and I'm having the problem that after the animation is over and I open another action, certain bones stay in the position where the last keyframe was inserted. The animation looks terrible.

According to my knowledge, this shouldn't happen because keyframes in different actions are independent. If I change the location of a bone in action A and then switch to action B, the location should be reset or at least not influenced at all.

In other words, do all animations have to be in cycles? Can't I just leave one open and expect the others not to adopt the bone properties?

When you open an action and Blender displays a frame, Blender looks for the bones associated with the keyed channels on that frame. Only channels with fcurves of the action are updated, unkeyed channels remain with the same values.

If a character is posed sitting down and a nod action is opened (which only has keys for the head), only these (head) keys are going to update the bones (the head). It doesn't matter in which position the characters other bones were, when the nod action was created, only the bones are remembered which are keyed. For the other bones, there is nothing to evaluate.

A single key  is enough to create a horizontally extrapolated fcurve. The solution to your request is to simply key all bones on at least on frame of the animation. If this clutters up your action editor with too many channels, you can always regroup them and/or change their order by selecting them and pressing ⇞ Page up/⇟ Page down. Most actions will look like the image below. If you want bones to preserve a certain position, key them all!


How to bend into a circle a series of columns rotated at 45 degrees I am trying to create a frame of poles for a circular body and cannot figure out how to use Simple Deform to bend them into a 360 body. My guess is that my problem lies with where/how I have my vertices but I don't know how better to have them so that, when I put the modifier on, it bends how I want.

I created one column, rotated to 45, Arrayed it out 10+ times, applied, tried the Simple Deform. I tried joining the pieces so it's deforming a "single" object. Anyway, I'm stumped after trying a variety of things. This image represents the other side as well. In a last ditch attempt, I tried Joining both thinking that that would create oppositional forces on the bend.
The end product should be a straight wall of lattice pipes in a circle as if it, itself, is a column.

If I understand correctly, your difficulty is in finding the correct axis and origin point for the bend deformation.
If that's the case, I would create an empty and use it as the origin of the simple deform modifier:

Then you can just move and rotate the empty until you find the correct position for the deformation you want.


Removing specific models I downloaded a Vader model and it comes with the whole body and two guns. I don't wont the guns I want to delete them, but when I try to they delete the head with it. How do I delete the guns without deleting the head?

There is the picture of the model if it helps.

The gun and head mesh are in one object.

Press the Tab key to enter edit mode, select one of the vertices of the gun, then use Ctrl + L to select all of the gun's meshes and erase them.

Ctrl + L is the function to select all connected to the currently selected element (vertex, edge, face).

Finally, you will only get the head.

If you want to separate the guns into different objects without erasing them, select the mesh and press the P key.


Editing tooltip for more info I would like to customize the mouse-over tooltip to provide me with more detailed info about nodes and other things. Is there a relatively easy way to do this? I'm not a coder.

You'll have to compile blender from source if you want to write your own.

Once you have the source code, most tooltip text is defined somewhere in /source/blender/makesrna/intern/.

If you don't want to compile blender yourself, you can write your suggestions here.


Create plane by dragging in viewport Is there a way to create a plane by click dragging in the view port? I'm trying to defining the plane using 2 corners interactively.

So, are you wanting to draw a diagonal line and it generate a rectangle? You'll have to write a script for that by using the Pythagorean theorem. But you can't determine a rectangle knowing it's diagonal length only. You must also know the width to length ratio because one diagonal length can have infinite variations of a rectangle. So, unless you want a hard coded width to length ratio, every time you draw your line you'll have to employ the extra step of determining the ratio by determining the slope of the line on an XY coordinate.

Example:

(X,Y)+(X౽,Y౽)= diagonal line

(X౽,Y౽-Y) = Other X vertex

(X౽-X,Y౽)= Other Y vertex

(X,Y)+(X౽,Y౽)+(X౽,Y౽-Y)+(X౽-X,Y౽)= rectangle


Msgbus - How to subscribe to bpy.context.scene? I'd like to receive a msgbus notification when the active scene is switched, or somehow otherwise capture this event and respond to it in my code.
I thought this would be a fairly simple msgbus subscription to bpy.context.scene, but my listener is not receiving anything from msgbus, not even errors. In fact I don't seem to be able to get msgbus to fire for anything in bpy.context. What I was hoping for was something like an active property for bpy.types.BlendDataScenes that I can hook msgbus into, but I've come up blank and the lack of any kind of output from msgbus has left me fumbling in the dark with mittens on.
Has anyone been here before?

Subscribe to some event that signals scene change.
As with How to get an event when an object is selected?  find the code to change what you wish to notify.
In this case
Changing the scene
>>> C.window
<bpy_struct, Window at 0x7f842eee2f88>

>>> C.window.scene
bpy.data.scenes['Scene']

>>> C.window.scene = D.scenes['Scene.001']
>>>

so in this case will try subscribing to the "scene" property of the Window class.
_I am not aware of anywhere that changing foo.scenes.active sets the context scene.  For example there is no bpy.data.scenes.active.
Search for other msgbus examples for other subscription to try.  AFAIK it is still the case that you cannot get notification of the instance object, so it is garnered from context.
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix

handle = object()

# Triggers when widow's scene is changed
subscribe_to = bpy.types.Window, "scene" #

def notify_test(context):
    print(context.scene.name)

bpy.msgbus.subscribe_rna(
    key=subscribe_to,
    owner=handle,
    args=(bpy.context,),
    notify=notify_test,
)

bpy.msgbus.publish_rna(key=subscribe_to)


Select using intersection or union? Could somebody provide a link to the Blender documentation or another source, where (non trivial) select operations are explained? I mean performing intersection or union using all available select tools like Border or Similar.

Note: The question is not about using Border to add or remove rectangles. This is about Intersection or Union.

For example: I have selected the faces based on their material, but now I would like to keep only what is inside the green rectangle. I don't know how to do it, and I cannot find that in the documentation (currently learning Blender).

Usually graphic applications have select helpers like Intersection or Union to combine successive basic select operations. In my case I assume it's possible in Blender to intersect my current selection with a rectangle using Border.

Please don't provide shortcuts only. Using Blender 2.7.
Thanks.

Unfortunately, selection tools don't support this directly. However, there are ways to accomplish the same result. For example:

Deselect everything (A)
Select the vertices you want to "intersect" with the previous selection. In your case, the vertices in the green rectangle.
Hide the other geometry (⇧ ShiftH)
Do whatever it is you did to get the initial selection that you want to intersect (e.g. select by material)
Create and assign a vertex group to store the selection
Unhide everything (⎇ AltH) and deselect (A)
Select the vertex group by clicking Select in the vertex groups  panel.

However in most cases like yours the desired selection can easily be obtained with one or two box deselections. To deselect with box select (B), use  MMB or hold ⇧ Shift when defining the box.


How can I get rendered animation to video instead of a bunch of pictures I made a blender animation, and when I rendered it, it just became alot of pictures and no video. How can I make it a video instead of having a bunch of pictures?

Use the Video Sequence Editor to load your rendered image sequence and compile into a video format. This is the conventional means of creating a video with 3d modeling/animation software because compositing is often required for the final product. It takes very little time to compile a video from an image sequence within Blender and you will still have your higher quality image stills if you need to do editing later.

If you still insist on making video directly from your render (not recommended, as you may find you aren't happy with the settings, or artifacts may appear in the video that you can't weed out), you can do that by changing your render file format (Output panel -> Output section -> File Format drop-down) to one of the 3 options under "Movie". Obviously, this will force you to render everything from scratch.

Video Sequencer Example:

I rendered a couple of image sequences from the NLA Editor overnight and am outputting to video right now. Here is how I did that.

Go to the animation tab and/or select the Video Sequencer panel. Then from the menu (those horizontal white bars), you want to choose Add -> Image/Image Sequence:

A file selection view will open. To make sure you have what you need (you will be surprised how it doesn't work sometimes), Choose the start and end frame in the options to the left, and the channel (that is, the layer) you want those images to be placed in, AND box-select (tap B-key, click-and-drag) the image files you want to be used in sequence.  If you only want a single file, follow these same instructions but make the start and end frame the same.

Once you do that, a strip will appear in the channel you chose in the Video Sequence editor. You can select it, press the G key and move it forward or back in time, or even into other channel positions. If you press the N key, you will see options that allow you to extend or crop the image sequence.

I am duplicating the first strip twice using ctrl-C, ctrl-v, and moving them into position. You do not have to have each strip on a separate channel. The third instance of this strip is needs a copy of the first frame so I added that the same way I imported the first strip, but with start and end frames being frame 0.  The latter sequences were saved to a different directory but I still add that one the same as the first. I copied the last frame for one of those and stretched it out over 8 frames using the context menu (N key).

As you scrub the play head (or press "play" on the Timeline), the video sequencer will tick through the animation and play it at full speed once it is loaded (it may still be crunchy if you are low on memory). Here is a gif of that happening:

I copied all those film strips in all those channels 3 times to make an animation that is about 14 seconds (my framerate is set in the Output panel to be 30 fps). Then I was ready to export to video format.

Exporting to video is done in the rendering panel on the right. I selected the mpeg option under file output with high quality settings, Matroska container, and H.264 video codec (those settings are in the video drop down that opens in the rendering panel once you select a video file format).

I do not show this but you want to check Sequencer under the Post Processing drop-down and make sure you have "Frame Start" and "End" set to the beginning and end frames of your animation sequence. Step size should be 1.

Finally, choose Render -> Animation from the top drop-down menu, and wait. This will compile significantly faster than your images took to render.

You can see the result here:

https://youtu.be/LY7LGA8AMr0


How do I reset UI panel zoom level? I zoomed in / out of one of my UI panels and I can't figure out how to zoom back out/ in to get it normal size.

How can I reset the zoom level of UI panels?

Panels and other user interface dialogs can be customized to your personal preference. One example for customization is the horizontal or vertical alignment. Another is zoom factor.

https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Interface/Panels

The panel focused by the mouse pointer can be zoom in and out by holding Ctrl MMB  and moving the mouse right and left.

To reset the zoom factor to default, focus the panel with the mouse pointer and press Home.
On a MacBook (Pro), use fn+←

This will reset zoom to the default which is dependent on the DPI settings configured in system preferences:

https://www.blender.org/manual/preferences/system.html


How to animate splines using animation node How to animate linear spline (Outline) on a text like its been drawn from start to end of the word using animation nodes,

ok, let's see how familiar you are: here is my guide for you:
Create a text, convert to curve.
Create animation node tree, get curve from object node -> loop over splines -> animate it with trim spline node and use curve object output to show them.
UPDATE:
The "trick" is to use a spline list:


Arrange selected vertices in a Circle How do I arrange selected vertices into a circular formation quickly?

The other answers does not have the same title as my question. My question is direct and simple for younger beginner to search for results.

If they are planar:

Mesh > Transform > To Sphere (with weight 1). Shift Alt S (+1 Enter)


How do i save new UV Map and textures? I am importing a 3ds model with many textures applied on it to blender to bake the textures into a single .png file. I know the workflow for that, I create a new UV map, Unwrap the model and bake the texture. I get the results I want on the baked texture so I then save the Image of the new texture.
Everthing works perfect but now is where my problem starts:
When i export the model back to 3ds I will still need the original texture files instead of the single one I just baked.
Same when I just save the .blend file. Next time i open the file it is using all the original textures files instead of the baked single one.
Can anyone help me please? thanks in advance!

After you baked your multiple textures into one texture, you need to tell the material of your object to actualy use this new Texture. Eyther create a new material or alter the old Material to use this new Texture.


How to run the blender benchmark on windows? I have downloaded the blender benchmark zip file but how do I install / run the benchmark in Windows ? In Mac OS this is all very simple but I really don't know what program I have to start on Windows.

By the way ....after 2,5 years not using Blender I am back again :)

In order to run the benchmark 1.0 beta 2 on Windows you will have to:

Download the .zip archive from https://opendata.blender.org/
Extract the .zip
Run the blender-benchmark.exe

The benchmark website will be updated in January 2020 according to Ton Roosendaal. This will likely include an updated version of the benchmark software as well.

  Note: the benchmark test was with Blender 2.79. The benchmark site
  gets a complete refresh first half January.

If you're interested in the progress of the new Blender Benchmark, you can check the linked repositories Blender Benchmark Bundle, Blender My Data and Blender Open Data and tickets related to the Blender Open Data project.