Move vertices same distance as a shape keyed vertex / add vertices to shape key I need to add vertices / objects to an object with shape keys. I need to move the new vertices along with the shape-keyed pre-existing vertices. One idea I had is to somehow measure the distance or somehow take note of the start position and end position of a single vertex, then apply that measurement to the new vertices.

This image represents one of many examples where I need to have the new eye lashes move with the eye lids opening and closing.

Do you have any suggestions or techniques that you can give me to accomplish this?

Edit: Ok I found one way, but let me know if there's a better one because this is quite convoluted.

Go to edit mode for the meshes in question
Preferences -> Addons -> search "extra" and enable "Add Mesh: Extra ObjectS"
Click on the desired vertex to measure position change.
F3 to search action -> Snap cursor to selected
Add -> Single Vert -> Add Single Vert (adds a single vertex at 3d cursor)
Activate shape key so that the vertex you need to measure has moved.
Repeat the steps to add a single vertex at the new location
Activate snapping / vertex / active / move / (project onto self?)
Move the two new vertexes using snapping to one of the new mesh's vertices so now the two vertices represent the distance that the new mesh needs to move.
Move the new mesh using snapping to the new location (the 2nd of the two new vertices) while the desired shape key is fully active.

Edit: The above only works if your mesh just moves around rather than moves and morphs. So this won't work for me. Next idea is to texture-paint reference points and just eye it; get the mesh to be positioned in the same place before and after shape key movements with the image texture as a guide.

I can make 3 examples of 3 different ways of doing this (and there can be many more).

1 - Vertex parent: select 3 vertices of the eyelid, then in object mode select the eyelash; shift select the eyelid and press Ctrl P (choose vertex triangle), so that eyelashes will follow any movement of the 3 choosen vertices.

2 - Drivers: set a shape key for the eyelash also and set a driver so that it will act together with the eyelid shapekey.

3 - Join the two objects: select the eyelash FISRT, then shift select the eyelid, press ctrl J, then select the shapekey and in edit mode put the eyelash in the correct position.


Make low poly model a bit smoother? Hi I am a beginner at Blender and I tried to make this pig model.
I think it looks ok, but I would like to make it a bit smoother (the head mainly).

Is this possible?

I tried subdividing but that deforms the model a bit too much.

Thanks for the help in advance :)

You were on the right track with subdivision :).

One way would be to use the Subdivision Modifier
Then just add some loopcuts, to get the shape you want.

Add the Subdivision Modifier.

Add some loopcuts, to get the shape you want.

And you're done.
That is one weird piglet


Objects move together I'm trying to move one of the objects, but instead of just one moving, they all move.

You've enabled the Proportional Editing option (blue sphere icon on the horizontal bottom menu bar)


How much is the upper limit of video capacity when we use Video Editing? I tried to edit about a 4.2GB-mp4-video, but Blender said "File A could not be loaded." The video length was almost 3 hours.
On the other hand, when I tried to load the only first 1 minute of the beginning,
Blender succeeded to load it and to display the sequences.

I think Blender may have the upper limit of movie capacity.
Can anyone tell me how much capacity Blender accepts?

Blender has the frame number limit.

Working Limits : Time

  "The maximum number of frames for each scene is currently 1,048,574,
  and allows for continuous shots for durations of:

  24 fps:   12 hours, 8 seconds.

  25 fps:   11 hours, 39 seconds.

  30 fps:   9 hours, 42 seconds.

  60 fps:   4 hours, 51 seconds."

But in your case this could be insufficient RAM as well.


Scientific visualization - How to replicate instances around a sphere? I want to replicate a protein structure around an icosahedron. Basically a vesicle of protein structure is what we want:

When I am instancing the protein structure using each vertex of the icosahedron it looks like:

However, the tails are supposed to be directed towards the center. How can I make that work?

Globally dupli works on the convention that normals (vertex normals) correspond to the Y axis of the dupli.

To orient the protein:

First apply rotation and scale CtrlA so that we start with something we can work with
Then rotate it to the Y axis
And apply rotation again

Edit:

If you want to do that (I had a look at some images on google):

Enter edit mode in the protein object
Select all vertices
Rotate and grab them so that the wanted inner part meets the origin of the object (still oriented along Y) as the dupli start at each vertex of its parent from this origin

The expected setting for the sphere, concerning instancing is the following:

Corrected blend file:

Complement:

To do it from a particle system, you can use this setting for the particle system created for the sphere:

The orientation to Y is the same but can be perturbed if you activate physics, so it is disabled here.

Key parameters:

Set to 'emitter'
Start and end frames set to one (if not particles will appear during animation)
Emit from vertices
Physics 'none'
Render as object
Scale: tune as you need
Use the protein as instance object
Don't use the orientation as you want to emit along normals


using bisect but still failing I managed to use the bisect operator from a python script like this:

bpy.ops.mesh.bisect(plane_co=(curx, cury, curz+dz),
                    plane_no=(0, 0, 1),
                    use_fill=False,
                    clear_inner=False,
                    clear_outer=False,
                    threshold=0.0001,
                    xstart=0,
                    xend=0,
                    ystart=0,
                    yend=0,
                    cursor=1002)

It works but nothing works after such in the script.
To make it work I need to be in edit mode and have the mesh already selected.
(if someone can also explain how to just change to edit mode and do a select all, or even how to select the part I want even better)
it's almost as if this command is clearing the selection so it does not work anymore.
Do i need to wait for some process or update something before using the same command (with other parameters of course)?

Using bmesh

rather than drive yourself nuts with trying to use what is basically a UI operator (IMO), can use the bmesh equivalent bmesh.ops.bisect_plane.

Here is a test script, to run while object is in edit mode. It bisects all faces / edges of edit object with a plane at (0, 0, 0) normal z axis, in the meshes local space.

import bpy
import bmesh
context = bpy.context

# run this in edit mode
ob = context.edit_object
mesh = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(mesh)

# select all faces
for f in bm.faces:
    f.select = True

edges = [e for e in bm.edges]
faces = [f for f in bm.faces]
geom = []
geom.extend(edges)
geom.extend(faces)

result = bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm,
                              dist=0.01,
                              geom=geom,
                              plane_co=(0, 0, 0),
                              plane_no=(0, 0, 1))
print(result)
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(mesh)

Or alternatively in object mode

import bpy
import bmesh
context = bpy.context
# run this in edit mode
ob = context.object
mesh = ob.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(mesh)

# select all faces
for f in bm.faces:
    f.select = True

edges = [e for e in bm.edges]
faces = [f for f in bm.faces]
geom = []
geom.extend(edges)
geom.extend(faces)

result = bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm,
                              dist=0.01,
                              geom=geom,
                              plane_co=(0, 0, 0),
                              plane_no=(0, 0, 1))
print(result)
bm.to_mesh(mesh)
mesh.update()

The plane coord and normal passed to the operator are in local space of the mesh. To use global coordinates

local_coord = ob.matrix_world.inverted() * global_coord

Can change the geom input into the operator

from math import radians
edges = [e for e in bm.edges if e.select] # use selected edges
# faces with a normal orthogonal to z axis
faces = [f for f in bm.faces
               if abs(f.normal.angle((0, 0, 1)) - radians(90)) < 0.001]


Difference between Add Shader and Mix Shader? What's the difference between Add Shader and Mix Shader nodes with the Cycles rendering engine?

I know that Mix Shader gives you more control over the material ratio, of course, but are there any important differences between using an Add Shader and a Mix Shader with ratio set to 0.5?

Add Shaders aren't necessarily physically correct. Simply put the values of the two input shaders are added up for every pixel

value_out = value_1 + value_2

It is possible to reflect more light than received.

If you mix two shaders with the Mix Shader Node you get more physically correct values because it calculates a weighted (by the Fac param) average

value_out = value_1 * Fac + value_2 * (1 - Fac)

This way you reflect at most as much light as you receive provided both inputs are physically correct.

When in doubt use the Mix Shader.


To connect vertices? I chose Vertex and tried to add a line by pressing F button. But if i connecting to another location,i creating a line that's out of the edge, just like in the picture. I thought my methods were wrong, but no one could fix them.

add I've added pictures, and I want to correct the fact that the lines in the middle don't apply at all.

I'm not quite sure what you are doing here, but it looks like you are trying to divide that n-gon up.

The knife tool is k, with it active click the first vertex, then the next.  This should result in the polygon being split along the resulting edge in the way you expect.


how to get 3D vertex bounding box around the object in python I have a vehicle model, the 3D bounding box of the vehicle model contains the 3D coordinates of each vertex.  My question is would it possible to get the 3D bounding box coordinates, which is a 8 vertex vector [8,2] directly from python. With this bounding box coordinates, I want to do two things, firstly calculate the pose of the object, secondly find a way to calculate the image pixel coordinate corresponding to each 3D vertex.

I have found some related work,
this Save the 2D bounding box of an object in rendered image to a text file shows how to get 2D bounding box coordinates around the image, however it is 2D bounding box.
 Furthermore, Display bounding box around objects
can show us how to display the 3D bounding box around the object, it doesn't tell me how to get vertex in python.

For the 8 bounding box corners in local coordinates:

ob.bound_box

Transformation matrix from local to global:

ob.matrix_world

Both together:

bbverts = [Vector(bbvert)*ob.matrix_world for bbvert in ob.bound_box]


Is Re-Topology necessary for Texture Painting? I was simply wondering if the process of painting a sculpture requires re-topology in order to create a UV map which, can be painted on.

I'm still new to 3d modelling but i believe the general rule is that for sculptures you always need to retopologize the mesh. If not, the 3d model will lag or crash the computer system when animating or moving it because the mesh is so heavy in topology.
UV-unwrapping the sculpture also becomes impossible to do by hand as there's thousands of different faces and vertices to choose in the UV-Unwrap process. In other words, the sculpture does need to be Retopologized before applying textures.


Blender 2.75 lmage texture painting. Painted image will not bake I'm fairly new to blender. When I load up my texture image in the texture properties panel the image cover my entire
model. I can paint over it the way I want but when I try to
bake my painted image it only will bake the image I painted
over. What a

You need to save the painted texture first and then load it into the material to be able to bake it onto the new texture.


How to make objects draw transparent/wireframe in the viewport? I have several objects in my scene. I want all the objects to be visible so that I can see how they relate to one another, but I want to focus on just one. To do this, I'd like to make the other objects translucent and non-selectable. I know I can disable selection from the Blender outliner, but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to make just that object transparent. The reason I am trying to do this is simply so that I can see objects in my scene but focus on just the object I am editing.

I'm using glsl with mapcap for rendering and am mainly working in sculpt mode at the moment, and would like to stick with glsl if possible.

You can make an object be displayed as a wireframe by setting the Maximum draw type to wire in Properties editor > Object > Display:

You make an object display as transparent by adjusting the alpha of it's material, and enabling Transparent in the display settings:


How to list strips in Blender VSE? Suppose the duration of the listed strips changed during the project.
You will need to refresh and rearrange the strips.

In Blender, this seems to be a manual task.

But After Effects has the ability to automatically align strips.
(I've attached an example of AE to help you understand what I want.)

I want to know if Blender VSE has the same functionality as After Effects's keyframe assistant-sequnce layers.

Select all of your strips you want to put in order and run this script:

import bpy

strips = bpy.context.selected_editable_sequences
strips = sorted(strips, key=lambda strip: strip.frame_final_start)

cleanup = []
for i in range(1, len(strips)):
    st0 = strips[i-1]
    st1 = strips[i]
    cleanup.append( [ st1, st1.channel ])
    st1.frame_start = st0.frame_start + st0.frame_final_duration
for x in cleanup:
    x[0].channel = 1
strips[0].channel = 1

It's a version of this script: VSE script for to add constant gaps between strips?


System console encoding format problem? I'm using blender 2.82 on windows.The default blender system console is cmd.exe and it doesn't support Unicode so the non-ascii characters be garbled. Here's my question:

1.can i replace the default console with other terminal like cmder?
2.or can i set the system encoding format to utf-8?

Since cmder based on conemu, you can set it as default terminal through Settings > Integration > Default term

Before launching Blender you need to change code page to utf-8 by command chcp 65001


Color ramp with displacement node problem I'm trying to make a procedural landscape using the displacement node. It works fine until I try to put it through a color ramp to cap the top and bottom. Instead of making the height cap shorter, it stretches the mesh to the top and bottom.

Color ramp not used:

Color ramp in use:

The pictures are from the same perspective. I'm in cycles and have material settings displacement set to displacement and bump. Any clues what I'm doing wrong? Also I was following this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyvbRJJTzY4&t=660s

When you are shifting the color ramp tabs like you do in the 2nd picture, what you are doing is telling blender to make most of the texture either black or white with only a little bit of greys in the middle. Only the colors that are mid-grey will remain grey, every other color will become either black or white.

The problem with this in this case is that, for displacement, blender interprets black as the very low and white as the very top. Lots of black means lots of low aid lots of white means lots of peaks with very little in between. If what you want is to make the peaks less high, what you want to do instead is make the whites less white. Change the white tab on your color ramp to a grey and the peaks will be lower. The darker the grey, the lower the peaks.

light grey peaks:

mid grey peaks:

dark grey peaks:


Bevel Object Question Hello whenever i tried to bevel my object using the fast carve add-on option Bevel object in blender 2.8 my geometry got mess i have attached the pic of my object with bevel modifier but its not looking good any tips how to fix this as i not getting the desired bevel shape below is the image for more clarification

here the image of my bevel modifier setting

here the image of my bevel modifier setting
 https://i.stack.imgur.com/GioiJ.png

Your mesh has very tight corners for limited Beveling.

Some suggestions that could help

Change the Outer Mitter type to arc/patch. Creates ugly n-gons, but sometimes helps.
Apply bevel to all edges. You're currently beveling only some, which results in tight geometry.
Use Subdivision modifier with low unlimited bevel. Clean geometry but higher polycount.

Just to illustrate


Armature permanently in wireframe view I'm fairly new to Blender, and I was experimenting with armatures when suddenly it went into what I think is wireframe mode but I can't seem to change it. I think I might've accidentally pressed a shortcut, but I have no idea how to fix this.

Turn off the X-Ray feature on the top of the 3D viewport display setting/menu:


How do uninstall every single trace of Blender? When I start Blender, the console pops up and the Blender windows goes into full screen, but the UI is not loading and the whole screen is gray.

I recently switched my AMD card for an NVIDIA card. I deleted all AMD drivers with Display Driver Uninstall. I installed the latest driver from NVIDIA and Blender could start. But it always crashed when I clicked on the UserPreferences->SystemTab. I deleted the config files in User/AppData/Roaming/BlenderFoundation and I could access the tabs I mentioned above with the internal render. When I switched to cycles, it was working, but clicking on UserPreferences->SystemTab OR the Render tab crashed Blender again. Then I tried to remove every trace of Blender, I deleted Blender with windows remove tool, deleted everything in AppData and also deleted everything in ProgramFiles/Blender. I also tried to delete some Blender keys in the registry and even used CCleaner Registry Cleaner. However, when I try to install Blender again and try to open the program with or without admin rights, I always end up with a gray screen. What else do I need to remove to go back to the settings before I installed Blender the first time, where it was working?

I don't know the exact answer you are looking for but I ave an idea.Have you tried loading a different version of blender i.e. if you were using 2.79b try going back to plain old 2.79. It might help as the version you are 'reinstalling' maybe be running into artefacts within the kernel.


Smoothing selected parts of mesh I want to keep a few edges of my mesh straight and flat while making other parts of the mesh smooth and curved. How do I do that? I tried using catmull-clark but I can't choose what to subdivide and what not

Add a Subdivision Surface modifier and you can select(paint) things you wish with C and then press Shift+E to make it smooth or edgy.


How do I extract texture from an obj file? I am working on a project which requires me to extract a texture from a given obj file? I am new to blender. It would be helpful if anyone could explain me the steps to do so.

Obj files don't contain textures. You have probably forgotten to download an additional file with your download, or the model doesn't include textures.


Change color of selected edge/line I have an object with complex mesh. Can i go to edit mode and change color of some edges/lines, so they will show that selected color in viewport ?

Blender does not allow vertices or edges to be colored. However, you can color individual faces.
While in edit mode, the material tab of the properties editor has an option to add the currently selected material to the currently selected faces.


I use B to select 2 vertices but on 2 different sides, and i right click to drag and it only moves one help would be great I can't think of a reason why this is happening. I have a square with a subdivision surface modifier and i use B to select two vertices on 2 different sides of the shape and my right click only drags one. any heLP?

You can use C in edit mode to select vertices in a circular way or use B to select in a box way. Once you select the vertices you want then you can hit G to grab/translate the vertices you want as shown below:


Why won't the array fit my curve? Hey im kind of new to blender and modeling and im trying to fit this barbed wire to my curve but the only result i get is either a wierd shape or a of set line of barbed wires... and it wont even fit my curve.. anyone has had the same problem as me that knows how to fix it?

kind regards Anton

Couple of things to make it work.

Origins of the objects should be in the the Center of the Mass and in the same place in space for both of them.

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C > Origin to Center of Mass (Volume)
Shift+S > Cursor to Center
Shift+S > Selection to Cursor

  Repeat for both objects.

This way we will have both objects in the center of the scene with Origin
Points in the sam place, like so:

Add Array then Curve modifier and set it like this:


bisect plane normal (mesh and bmesh) how calc the 3th vector to mathutils.geometry? UPDATE 1:  how calc the 3th vector to mathutils.geometry.normal(vectors)??

After @Chebhou answer I tried my "bisector tool" again... with mesh and bmesh.. now the problem is the 3th vector to calc the plane_normal in mathutils.geometry.normal(vectors)

I think that 3th vector should be align to view..... then I tried with camera and or cursor location with this results:

inicial state is:  download .blend please

the first try with"pure" bisect tool give this data... this is correct then I need reproduce this same data with my addon:

bpy.ops.mesh.bisect(plane_co=(1.57825, 1.50332, -0.165924), plane_no=(0.695399, -0.691791, 0.194541), xstart=167, xend=628, ystart=443, yend=422)

and this result:

second try is with bpy.ops.mesh.bisect that give me this data:

in this case vectors are vertice 1 and vertice 2 selected and the camera location

as you see the cut is good but the location (I think the plane_co) is wrong!

bpy.ops.mesh.bisect(plane_co=(1.36157, 1.69042, 0.804025), plane_no=(-0.660225, 0.660225, -0.358059), use_fill=False, clear_inner=False, clear_outer=False, threshold=0.0001, xstart=404, xend=770, ystart=468, yend=450, cursor=1002)

last try give me this data:

as you see , plane_co is correct but the plane_no is incorrect!

how calc the 3th vector to mathutils.geometry.normal(vectors)??

ORIGINAL POST

Actually I have a problem with the bisect tool...

this is from mesh:

bpy.ops.mesh.bisect(
   plane_co=plane_co,
   plane_no=plane_no,
   use_fill=False, clear_inner=False,
   clear_outer=False, threshold=0.0001,
   xstart=0,
   xend=0,
   ystart=0,
   yend=0,
   cursor=1002)

and this from bmesh:

bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(
            bm,
            geom=visible_geom,
            dist=dist,
            plane_co=plane_co,
            plane_no=plane_no,
            use_snap_center=False,
            clear_outer=False,
            clear_inner=False)

after a lot of effort I thought that  I found the plane_normal equation..... for example for  bmesh:

         v1,v2 = [v.co for v in bm.verts if (v.select == True and v.hide == False)]

        # plane_no math:

        normal = ((v1.y*v2.z)-(v1.z*v2.y)), ((v1.z*v2.x)-(v1.x*v2.z)),((v1.x*v2.y)-(v1.y*v2.x))
        print("thenormal " + str(normal))

        plane_no = normal
        plane_co = v2

but NO!!!

Actually I know that xstart=0, xend=0, ystart=0, yend=0, are the initial and final location of Operative System Cursor (not 3d blender cursor).. and this data help to  blender in order to calc the plane_co

anyway... I can calc the plane_co because it is any point in the cut plane... but actually I don't know how to calc the plane_normal....

thanks for any help

The plane normal is the Cross Product of two vectors laying on that plane

  N = normalize( Vect(P1,P2) X Vect(P1, P3) )

where Pn is point on the plane
all these calculation are done using the mathutils.geometry.normal(vectors) which takes 3 points and return the normal vector

Note: Normal direction depends on the Points order

Update

to get the third Point we use the function region_2d_to_vector_3d() which take a 2d coordinates and returns the a normalized vector of the view at this point ,then we add this vector to the point which we used its 2d coordinates to get a new one on the same line of sight (same plane ) , at last we pass the three points to the normal()

v3 =  view3d_utils.region_2d_to_vector_3d(viewport, area.spaces[0].region_3d, co_2d)
v3 = v3+ vert[1].co

normal =  mathutils.geometry.normal(vert[0].co,vert[1].co,v3)

Note you have to pass the the co_2d not co_2d_w to the bisect()

the file


How to turn off the light from particle settings? I have a Particle setting to simulate moths following a light bulb. However, i notice that the Cube that i have the Particle settings on emits light, and that the moths themselves emit light as well. How do I change the light settings? I would prefer to turn off the light that comes from the moths so i can have only one light source, which is the lamp.
Here is my file: https://www.mediafire.com/file/h8dzaff312olmrb/Moths.blend/file

You just need to remove the light in the Moths collection. The particle emitter is duplicating the insects but also the light inside the "moths collections".


Is there a way of letting hair particles "grow"? I have a hair particle system making a forest and I need those trees to grow, like in timelapse. I don't need them to grow from seedlings, it's more like appearing one after another in about 50 frames. I tried to animate the count, which is not possible and to animate the size, which is sort of possible, but for some reason only one keyframe can be added.

Unfortunately, the scale of particles cannot be animated, but there is a simple work around: animate the scale of the objects that are being distributed by the particle system.


Extrude Edges equivalent in Blender? Is there any tools (perhaps addon) that resembles similar to what Extrude Edges do (from 3DS Max) in Blender with just single click?

Below is a screenshot from one of Viscorbel tutorial

EDIT : here's the video tutorial link, please check it at 01:45
Classic Chair Viscorbel

thanks in advance

If I understood right from the video here's what you're looking for.

Just select the edges by pressing B key to box select (in wireframe mode).

With Ctrl+B bevel the edges and with the mouse wheel scrolling make 1 loop at center.

Press Ctrl+- from the keyboard to deselect the edges so that only the center edge is selected.

With the edges selected press S to scale and press shift+Z (to unscale in the Z axis).


Python, measuring distance using ray_cast I have one problem I need help with.

I'm trying to measure a distance between the origin point and hit point using ray_cast.
Is it possible or do I have to use another tool?

ray_cast loc[2] always return 1.0 or -1.0

cb = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
src = bpy.data.objects['src']
dst = bpy.data.objects['dst']

mw = cb.matrix_world
mwi = mw.inverted()

origin = mwi * src.matrix_world.translation
dest = mwi * dst.matrix_world.translation
direction = (dest - origin).normalized()

hit, loc, norm, face = cb.ray_cast(origin, direction)

Thank you for your answer.

The location of hit loc is the local coordinate on the cube face that the ray hits.

Its local distance from origin

(origin - loc).length

its global distance from origin

(mw * loc - src.matrix_world.translation).length

With no rotation or scale applied all local coordinates  on default cube are either 1 or -1.  The top and bottom faces are the planes z = 1 and z = -1 respectively.


Is it necessary to convert a python script from bpy.context / bpy.ops to bpy.data to run it withou gui via command-line? I would like to run the following script via command-line and no gui:

import bpy
import os

# switch on nodes
scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.node_tree.nodes.active = scene.node_tree.nodes['Composite']
scene.render.use_compositing = True
tree = bpy.context.scene.node_tree

# assign a color
bg_col = [1.0,0.0,0.0,1.0]

# change value
bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].node_tree.nodes["color-background"].outputs[0].default_value = bg_col
print("new background color set to "+ str(bg_col))

# ----- LOAD IMAGE -----
filepath = bpy.data.filepath
directory = os.path.dirname(filepath)
#print(directory)

# Load a new image
mat = bpy.data.materials['LogoMaterial']
nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes
material_output = nodes.get("Material Output")

logo_texture = nodes["logo-texture"]
#load new logo texture
logo_texture.image = bpy.data.images.load(directory+"/tex//logo-2k.png", check_existing=True)
print("new logo texture added")

#create a sequence editor
if not scene.sequence_editor:
    scene.sequence_editor_create()

#clear the VSE, then add an audio file
scene.sequence_editor_clear()
my_context = bpy.context.area.type
#print(str(my_context))
my_context = 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR'
#print(str(my_context))
bpy.ops.sequencer.sound_strip_add(filepath="//audio/0A1.wav", files=[{"name":"0A1.wav", "name":"0A1.wav"}], relative_path=True, frame_start=1, channel=1)
print("loaded new sound")
my_context = 'TEXT_EDITOR'

If it is necessary, how would I go about converting it to only using bpy.data instead of bpy.context and bpy.ops?

Below is a part where I try to replace an audio file in the Video Sequence Editor just using bpy.data, however it only removes the audio datablock, loads a new audio, but does not associate the audio to the audiostrip in the VSE timeline.

if "0A1.wav" in bpy.data.sounds:
    sound = bpy.data.sounds["0A1.wav"]
    print("removing sound ", sound)
    bpy.data.sounds.remove(sound)
    print("loading new sound ", sound)
    bpy.data.sounds.load("/audio//0B.wav")

bpy.context works perfectly fine from the command line. Here is a set of scripts for doing useful things with Blender from the command line, and a couple of them (render-batch and apply-compositor) make references to bpy.context.

Note also the technique of wrapping the Python code in a shell script, so the user can conveniently invoke the scripts as though they were commands in their own right.


Move scene objects according to camera path So i have been trying a bit to hard to figure this one out.

I want to be able to move all objects of a scene in a way that imitates a camera path.

Here is a simple scene i created for testing.

In this setup i have the camera animated along the path.

What i would like is to have the camera stay at the world origin and move the world objects around to simulate the same effect as the camera path.

I tried a bunch of null object parenting but i cannot get anything to look right.

Hope its kinda clear :S

Thanks Alot

UPDATE

Thanks to vklidu i can now move my world to imitate the camera movement !
I would now need to do the same with the rotation.

UPDATE 2 (SOLUTION)

I was able to get it work by baking the copy location of the null of all objects to keyframe and then adding a null at the world origin that is acting as a parent of the objects null and then used a copy location on this origin null to the one on the path and i got the desired effect.

Object Constraint Follow Path for Camera
Object Constraint Copy Z Rotation for Camera.001
Object Constraint Copy Location for Mesh objects in negative

Bright orange Camera is active for rendering.
Camera on path can be any object. Mesh Objects are parented to Empty.


Intimidated Beginner Daunting To Animate which tutorials can get me to animate my very first 3D animation.  The way I learn is if I could find a video to follow along that will allow me to be successful at getting a ball to bounce or getting any basic object to become animated...by the end of the video.  A true bona fide quick start.

I have watched several youtube tutorials that claim to be for absolute beginners but I just need to have one very simple success under my belt and then my mind can rest at easing knowing that it's possible for me to animate an object.  Right now it seems impossible that I will ever be able to animate an object.

Doubtless this sort of intro question has been answered elsewhere, but briefly -

Press CTL-SHIFT-Down arrow to reset the timeline to frame 1.  This should be the default anyway.

With the cursor resting on the cube, select it with right mouse button.

Drag the cube to the left and near the edge of the grid.

Press 'i' and select "Location".  This will register (keyframe) it's location at frame 1.
It means that no matter where the cube is later, returning the timeline cursor to frame 1 will pull the cube back to this same spot.

With your cursor in the timeline at bottom, left click on frame 40. That will take the timeline cursor to this frame.  You can use the left/right arrow keys to manually step frame by frame.

Select the cube again and drag it to the right this time, to the other side of the grid.

Press i once more, choose 'Location'.

This registers (keyframes) the cube's new location for frame 40.  As with the first keyframe, it guarantees the cube will be pulled to this same location whenever the timeline reaches frame 40.

press CTL-SH-Down arrow to reset the timeline to frame 1. (or drag it there in the timeline)

Press the play/stop icons below to see the result, or use the shortcut keys - ALT-A to play the animation.  Press this combo again to make it stop.

You'll see the cube slide from one side of the grid to the other.

There are a stack of Youtube videos that take you through basics such as this.  Just search for "Blender Animation"  or perhaps - "Blender Basic Animation"

Ball bouncing as mentioned in your query is easiest using the physics engine but get used to animating manually first.

You can rotate and scale the cube the same way as you did to make it slide.  Just choose the desired effect when pressing 'i'.

If you get stuck, just leave a comment at the bottom of this answer.

Happy Blending -


Procedurally weight a mesh based on the face angles of an animated mesh I would like to procedurally emit particles (fluid mode) from the 'steepest' parts of animated 'waves' created by a Ocean modifier to attempt to emulate foam and splashes. I assume frame by frame normals values could be used, but cant figure out how.

So how would I go about procedurally weighting a mesh based on the face angles of an animated mesh? (ocean modifier in displace mode).

While this isn't impossible to do with blender at the moment, but its not something you can do easily, and doing this via a script would be very slow.

It would involve 2x modifier stack calculations per frame change.

Add a frame-change-post handler.
this handler must update the scene - scene.update() so the data it deals with is valid before you start to operate on it.
get the final calculated mesh and inspect its normals.
modify the original meshes vertex groups how you like.
throw away the copy of the mesh, only generated to inspect normals.
tag the mesh to be updated mesh.update_tag()
and run scene.update() again.

So officially this kind of thing isnt supported, and what I have suggested is very much a hack. Ideally modifier plugins would much more easily allow this functionality.


Cube Glowing in Blender 2.82.7 My objects I add in blender are glowing? Does anyone know why?

Are you having trouble when moving your object too? Because I had the same problems before. To solve, deselect everything in edit mode and then go to object mode. You can click to an empty place for deselecting everything or doubleclick on A fastly.


Waves not showing at final render I want to distort this video shown in image (Image as plane) to create circular waves when the finger touches the mirror (picture 1). just like the one in picture 2.

So I used the wave modifier and also Dinamic paint.
In theory the waves are there in the viewport but when rendered the image looks totally flat.
How can I achieve the wavy look at the final render?

Dynamic Paint is the answer, but it seems to be a little tricky here. But this works...
For your "mirror', it should be a canvas of type waves.

The object should be fairly subdivided, so I used a Subdivision Surface above the Dynamic Paint in the stack.
Here is the modifier stack for our mirror:

Next, I used an icosphere for the Brush in this example.
The settings are at the default.

Finally, the brush (icosphere) is animated from one point to another to contact the canvas, scale is also animated to increase on contact. Here, we have a cube parented to the icosphere, something like this may be an option in your scene. Constraints such as Copy Transform, and Limit Scale may be useful for that purpose. This is the result:


Glare node, why is the glare in front of other objects? I am setting up a node tree in the Compositor for some post-production effects. I have the earth on one render layer and a UV sphere with stars and a Sun Object (emitting light) on another render layer. Now I have this effect when muting this Glare Node. The ID mask is for this Sun object.

This looks allright to me. But when the Glare Node is activated then this horizontal glare beam looks like before instead behind the earth.

I am quite sure the sun object is behind the earth (seen from the camera position). What is going wrong here ?

Nothing is wrong, that's how glare works.

In real life, lens glare (or flare) is an effect produced by a camera or your eyes when looking at a very bright spot.  It is caused by internal reflections and defects within the lens.

Image by cmwphotography.

Those streaks are not physical things in 3-dimensional space emitting light, they are introduced by the camera, so they can't appear behind anything, they are introduced onto the image within the lens.


How to disable Symmetrize in Sculpt Mode? I enabled Dyntopo, but Symmetrize seems to have been active already. As soon as I start stroking the mesh, it does it double.
I just don't see how to disable it.

Ensure the Mirror axes are all deselected:

In 2.8 these settings are in the Brush dropdown:


How to Create an Sci Fi "Plasma/Energetic/Force Field" Material in Cycles? Hello mates im in Search of the answer to how to create a Material that looks like sci fi energetic/plasma/force field  in Cycles.

Here some Pictures of what i mean in general

You could try a setup like this:

If you animate some of the mapping nodes, you can get an effect like this:

The essentially part of the rather largish setup above is in the screenshot below.
The only difference between the nodes below and the largish shader is that the latter has a texture controlling the intensity/color of the emission shader.

These nodes mix an emission shader with a transparent shader based on the angle of the surface to the camera (details here). It also makes backfaces (faces facing away from the camera) transparent.

The large setup has a mixture of procedural textures controlling multiple emission shaders which are added together in place of the single emission shader in the setup above.
Of course, you can use any texture setup you want, even image textures.

Making a hexagonal procedural texture will probably be tricky with the current selection of procedural textures available in cycles, so you are probably best off either making the object's topology in the shape of hexagons, or using an image texture.

Note that if you have a more complex object in place of a sphere, skipping backfaces might not be enough to avoid rendering faces not directly visible to the camera.

By using the setup from my answer here, this can be made to work on more complex objects:

  To get rid of the geometry behind the rest of the model, you can use
  the Transparent depth output of the lightpath node (note that this
  output is only available in the latest development versions of
  blender, but it will be
  in 2.71)

  This value goes up based on the number of "transparent bounces" (a
  transparent bounce refers to the sampling ray passing through a
  transparent layer/surface of the mesh). Since we only want to see the
  top layer, we can use a Less than math node and a mix shader node
  to make every bounce past the first bounce (bounce 0) will use only
  the completely transparent shader (Transparent Depth is never
  negative, so this is basically testing if it's equal to 0).

For comparison here is a gif demonstrating the difference between only hiding backfaces and hiding all faces invisible to the camera:


Can a material be keyframed on a per-object basis? I saw some similar questions to this, but nothing that quite fit.  For example, suppose I have a material that is used by a number of objects, e.g., two shaders feeding a mixer.  I want to animate the mix factor, but with different (non-random) keyframes for each object.  I'm using Cycles.

If I keyframe the factor directly, it will use the same keyframes for all for all objects.  I can duplicate the material for each object, but that's hard to maintain.

Node groups come close.  I can encapsulate the material in a group and bring the factor out as an input, so I only have to maintain one material.  But it appears that I still need a separate "wrapper" material for each object in order to set the keyframes.  This is kind of cumbersome.

I thought a driver might help, with a keyframed custom property on each object; I had hoped that there was a way to tell it to use the custom property on the "current" object, but it requires a specific object.

I was also hoping the attribute node would give access to custom properties, but apparently not.

Any other ways?

Thanks.

You can get a random value that is unique to each object using the Object Info node.

You can also use a math node if you want to add the random value to a keyframed value change. The random value will be between 0.0 and 1.0 so you may also find multiplying helpful if you want a larger range.


Black spots on UV mapped objects First off I am very new to 3D modeling. So please forgive any glaring mistakes.

I am trying to create a scene that simulates satellite imagery using Blender render. When I render any thing but the simplest mesh object like a cube I get black chunks all over the object. However if I move the camera close to the object those spots disappear. The only difference between the cameras is location and focal length. What am I doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my .blend file if it will help. Example

(150km) Camera Render of a UV Sphere

(50m) Camera Render of a UV Sphere

Adding the answer for completeness!

From the above comments, I compared the "Sat" camera object with a "good camera". The focal length of sat was set at 13 meters vs 3.8mm in the default camera. I think the largest focal length lens in real life is way smaller, so maybe that's why it got all screwy. Anyway, if you change the focal lens size to 3.8mm or some other realistic size, you should be good! You will also need to move the camera closer to the object.


How to make Blender use Python2.x? When Blender is installed, it creates its own copy of Python 3.x. However, I prefer to code in Python 2.x. This makes it difficult for me to work with newer versions of Blender. I would like to know what to do so that Blender will instead use an external installation of Python 2.x, which I already have installed on my computer.

How do I make Blender recognize the other version of Python?

In summary - you can't.

Since Blender 2.5 we've moved on to Python 3.x This means it is not possible to use Python 2.x for scripting in Blender.

Now it's impossible to build against Python 2.x, and even if you did manage by editing the source-code, you'd probably run into problems running Blender, since Blender's own scripts are coded in Python 3.

Setting PYTHONPATH to a non Python 3.3 installation like Python 2.7 will cause Blender to crash and die horribly. (So always make sure you don't have PYTHONPATH set to a non-compatible Python version. But you can use it to point to an external Python 3.3 installation that has extra modules installed that don't come bundled with Blender).

Note: with current Blender pointing to Python 3.1 or Python 3.2 will also fail. So make always sure you point your PYTHONPATH to same version as used in Blender, should you need the external one.

In the long run you'll be better off getting used to Python 3. Also here is the proposal for the switch.


How to retrieve the thumbnail from a .blend file? I would like to retrieve .blend file thumbnails without using Blender at all, just plain old python3.

Also if it would be possible to explain how the .blend file works and how the process of retrieving the thumbnail works?

Yes, this is possible and infact has been done already,the script to do this comes bundled with Blender: see blender-thumbnailer.py.

This Python script runs without Blender, eg extracting a PNG image from my.blend:

blender-thumbnailer.py /input/my.blend /output/thumb.png

Details

To extract the thumbnail from a .blend file you have to use a basic .blend file parser, however - this is written in such a way that its quite simple to extract the data without having to understand the entire blend file format, instead - you only need to read one of the serialized BHead blocks. (See link above).

Using blender-thumbnailer.py as a reference: writing this in another programming language, or saving as a different image format should not be a very big task.


Scaling a object is not working I am trying to make something bigger in blender With the S key but it is not working.

So maybe you guys can help me fix this problem, That would be appreciated!
Feel free to ask me question if that helps.

For basic scaling, you do not need the "Unit" settings. To scale a whole object, make sure you are in object mode (press tab key to toggle).


How to carve a square using Ctrl+I? I've been following this tutorial trying to create this lamp post:

And I'm having trouble doing the carved in square part in the center. In the video, he just does ctrl+i and scales it in. I have tried that but I can only scale in the top part:

What am I doing wrong?

select a loop of faces
press I
press again I
scale by moving the mouse towards the center of your object
Click  LMB  (left mouse button)
press  E  do not move the mouse, I immediately
press  S  and now scale to the desired size
Click  LMB  (left mouse button) to end the action

NOTE

 I  (inset) x 1, with only one face selected, it will
create a single frame on that face
 I  (inset) x 1, with a loop of Selected faces will create a single frame on that face within the range of selected faces
 I  (inset) x 2, with a single face selected will create a single frame within each face of the selected range


Inconsitant Animations when uploading to UE4 with the Send to unreal Tool I'm trying to create an animation using SplineIK's with tracking bones into UE4 using their Send to unreal Tool.
within blender everything appears to be correct with the animation, however once uploaded to UE4 the head of my little snake friend makes a 180 during a couple points in the animation.
When saving the keyframes for the action/animation I have tried using the Insert Key frame menu>LocRotScale and VisualLocRotScale options. Both of them return the same results.
both pictures below are of the same keyframes.
The circles are the targets
The way i have the spline IK setup is I have target bones within the same armature as the weight painted bones. the Targets are Hooked to each point in the BezierCurve. and the Armature weighted bones have the spline IK Modifier applied in pose mode. everything appears to deform correctly and without issue inside of blender.
I have tried Keyframing only the armature weighted bones, only the target bones, and both together.

This may have nothing to do with your problem, but I know Unreal can be very particular about your bone settings, particularly if you have IK bones. If you haven't already, you should go to the Skeleton tab up in the upper right corner and scroll through your Skeleton Tree tab. All the IK bones should be set to 'Animation.' That's the only thing I can think of.


Creation of Node Setup with python, missing some commands I would like to creat a material with python but I'm missing some commands.

The target material should look like this:

The script I'm writing should be able to access the two values in front of the math node, and the RGB values in the RGB node.

The command(s) I'm missing are the following:

the command to add a node in the material / node editor

the command to remove a node in the material / node editor

the command to link link an imput and an output

the datapath to the values I listed before

Thanks in advance

AliSot2000

Edit

I've just found another problem:
I understand now how to add, remove and link nodes but I don't now how to 'call' them.

In this setup I have two 'Value-Nodes'. How can I refere to those? I'mean ShaderNodeValue won't do because I have two of them.

My current script looks like this:

#Test script for material

bpy.context.scene.render.engine = 'CYCLES'

import bpy
import math

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()

bpy.data.materials.new(name='Testmaterial')
bpy.context.active_object.data.materials.append(bpy.data.materials['Testmaterial'])
#So I can access it via .active_material

bpy.context.object.active_material.use_nodes = True

Now I would like  to remove the Diffuse BSDF, add the MixShader and then link the shader output with the shader imput from Material Output.

the process of adding should be:

bpy.context.object.active_material.node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeMixShader')

I think if I get how to do this the other commands should just be 'copy and paste'

Cycles material nodes are accessible through the node_tree attribute of the material.

Example: get the node tree of the active material on the active object:

node_tree = bpy.context.object.active_material.node_tree

Add a node in the material / node editor

You have to know the bl_idname (a string) of the node you want to add. Then you can do:

node = node_tree.nodes.new(bl_idname)
# Example, add a "Diffuse BSDF" node:
node = node_tree.nodes.new("ShaderNodeBsdfDiffuse")

I think you can find all bl_idnames of Cycles nodes here: https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bpy.types.ShaderNode.html#bpy.types.ShaderNode

Remove a node in the material / node editor

# node is of type bpy.types.Node
node_tree.nodes.remove(node)

Link an input and an output

Assuming you have two nodes left_node and right_node.
output and input can be indices or strings.
For example, on a Diffuse BSDF node you can access the output by node.outputs["BSDF"] or by node.outputs[0].

node_tree.links.new(left_node.outputs[output], right_node.inputs[input])

Since you edited your question:
You should read the Blender API docs I linked above.
Cycles shader nodes inherit from bpy.types.Node.
You can get a specific node if you know its name: https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bpy.types.Node.html#bpy.types.Node.name

If you add the nodes via script, you already have a reference to the new node returned by the add() method (see above point "add a node").


How to rotate all objects along their local Z I have 3 objects. I select all, and would like to rotate each around the Z axis of each object (locally) not global.

I need to rotate each object about its local axis.

First set the Pivot Point to "Individual Origins".
Now change the Transformation Orientation to "Local".
Both settings are found in the 3D view header.

Now when you rotate, either by dragging the blue handle of the rotation manipulator, or by pressing R ZZ it will work like you want.


TypeError: 'Scene' object is not iterable I'm trying to search for all items in bpy.context.scene that have same name, but different suffix number (bpy.context.scene["list_1"], .["list_2"] etc.
It works if I search for objects under bpy.context.scene.objects:

for ob in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    if "list" in ob.name:
        print("woohoo!")

But as for items that are stored under scene, I get this error: "TypeError: 'Scene' object is not iterable"

How can I search through these items and remove them from scene with a script? Some have used len() and range() with good result, but I haven't managed to make it work?

Any ideas? :)

You are searching for ID properties of the scene objects ie scene[idprop]

The list of all custom properties names of the scene will be in  scene.keys()

The keys() method of a blender object returns a list of all custom property names.

for key in scene.keys():
    if key.startswith("list"):
        print("scene['%s'] = " % key, scene[key].to_list())

Similarly the items() method returns a list of key value pairs

for key, val in scene.items():
    if key.startswith("list"):
        print("scene['%s'] = " % key, val.to_list())

also lets say we want "list_2" but don't know if it exists, if it doesn't scne["list_2"] will throw a key error, in this case recommend using get

list2 = scene.get("list_2")
if list2 is not None:
    print(list2.to_list())
else:
    print("no list named list_2 in scene")

or list2_exists =  "list_2" in scene.keys() could be used.


sapling tree gen problems 2.8 The problem occured unexpectedly and appears only in one particular .blend file. After shift-a then curve>sapling tree gen no new object is created. Info shows up, pointing three lines in py's and that one object "Cube.013_Cube.000" is not visible (?) or simply missing.

I tried making a copy of that file, then deleting all objects and seeing if it helps, gives the same info.
I tried downloading different blender version and still in that one particular file add on seems to have problem, in any other .blend it works perfectly.

I have found many interesting things
objects supposedly not being invisible in RenderLayer were not visible in any view, moreover, in the outliner. I tried searching for them by trying to append anything, from another .blend blank file. I suprisingly found that a lot of mesh data was in the scene, but it wasn't connected to any object, thus confusing the add on py's. After cleaning not used, hidden mesh data, add on started working properly.


Compositor: Export movie files I have a composition with multiple file out nodes, and I would like to output movies from some of them instead of an image sequence. Is this possible ?

If I use the video sequence editor, I can't find an easy way to different clips with unique names at once. If that's something do-able, then it would serve my needs as well

thank you!

File output node only saves separate image files per frame. To make a a movie file you would need to add the frame seq to a VSE timeline and recompress. There is no built in way for Blender to achieve multiple movie exports from one scene. You could set up many VSE scenes with a image seq strip in each then perform a command line render of them.


How do the H.264 encoding settings work in blender? When encoding videos with H.264, I'm used to the constant rate factor compression setting. However I don't see anything like it in blender's options:

Is there a way to set the constant rate factor from the GUI? If not, what do these settings do? I can only assume they are for the two-pass method, but I'm not sure which ones correspond to the descriptions in the wiki.

Further down the page you refer to you, under additional information you will find ABR (Average Bit Rate) where you will find the -bitrate, -minrate, -maxrate and -bufsize that correspond to blender's settings.

The bitrate is the target rate (average over the length of video) that you want to achieve. The minimum and maximum define how far from the average it is allowed to deviate.

Video compression works by only updating areas of video that change and compressing those areas. Like jpeg the amount of compression can vary depending on the quality you want in the final image. If high quality compression pushes the bitrate higher than the maximum limit then it needs to lower the quality to stay in the range.


Extra faces appear when I exit edit mode I'm having this problem where the mesh appears to change whenever I leave edit mode. Some extra faces seem to be there but when I go back to edit mode they just disappear.

Ok it appears that they were just hidden, all I needed to do is press alt + H


Use of motion constraints for robot's movement simulation I am new to Blender with very basic knowledge. I am working on some robotic simulation for which I already have models, for environment and the robotic unit. The robotic unit has to be mounted on metallic frame, over which the robotic unit has to slide. As shown in this video.

Can someone bluntly guide me through the steps for achieving such a simulation. Especially on the use motion constraints. I am aware of the various constraints Blender provides but not sure which one could give me the similar kind of movement of the robot on the frame, as in the video. Please help me out. Thanks !!

In a simple case like the example you can use Limit_location constraint on one axis , but for more general case you can use the follow path constraint

to get the previous configuration :

add follow path constraint with the following settings then click animate path

to take coontrol of the robot position you have to check Fixed position  and use the Offset slider to animate it.
for precise movement, the curve used for constraint is the same one used for creating the frame
the frame is created with Array modifier and curve modifier as follows :


Why is what I am seeing in my particle effect animation playback, not what I get when I render it? I understand that there is viewport sync lag, but this question takes that into account. I have animated particles that should move around on the surface of my text object with a Brownian force. For some reason though, what I see when I playback the animation in the viewport or when I render the OpenGL Animation is different than the render output.

In the render I get particles flying all over the rendered animation. I get this consistently as I have set up similar scenes. How do I stop this from happening and why is it not WYSIWYG?

OpenGL Render
Realtime Screen Capture of Animation Playback
Render
Blend file

Steps to reproduce:

Create a Text object (rotate in the X axis -90 degrees)
Text Object > Data Panel > Geometry Settings:
Extrude: 0.20
Bevel > Depth: 0.01
Bevel > Resolution: 4
Convert Text to Mesh (Alt+C)
Remove Doubles (Text > Edit Mode > Select All > Specials (W) > Remove Doubles)
Switch to Cycles Render
Apply material to Text Object
Create Ico Sphere and move to Layer 2
Duplicate Ico Spheres until there are 5
Apply different color material to each
Group Ico Spheres
Text Object>Particle Panel > New

Particle Panel Settings:

Emission>Number: 5000
Emission > Start: 1
Emission > End: 1
Emission > Lifetime:165
Emission > Emit From: Faces (Random and Even Distribution checked)
Random selected (tried on and off)
Velocity > Normal:0
Physics > Newtonian > Forces > Brownian: 0.01
Physics > Newtonian > Forces > Damp: 0.1
Render > Group > Dupli Group: Group containing 5 icospheres
Render > Group > Dupli Group > Size: 0.01
Field Weights > Gravity: 0.00
Vertex Groups > Density: Vertex Group called Particles containing front of text (not in test scene...still get weirdness)

Additional:

Add Camera
Create Mesh Light
Set End of Animation to 165 (30 FPS)

From the information provided I believe the difficulty you are experiencing is related to your workspace environment, not your modeling and scene creation.

I suspect that if you look at the cache panel in your particle settings, the "# of frames in memory" displayed will be less than the total number of frames in your animation (this information is also represented graphically in the lower timeline).
If that is the case, then the reason you are seeing different results in the viewport and render is that they are using different data.
To fix your issue you should:
Set Playback sync to No Sync in the 3d viewport.
Invalidate the simulation cache data by changing physics values or moving the object.
Play the full simulation in viewport.
Verify all frames are cached in the simulation cache.
Render your animation.

Edit to add further information after comment: (Maybe should be a separate answer?)

I downloaded the blend file provided in the question, and made the following changes:

1) In the Properties Editor-> Render tab-> Render Panel
I changed the Render Device to CPU (I do not have a supported GPU)
and in the Properties Editor-> Render tab-> Performance panel set the tile sizes to 32 x 32 (for cpu use). I also set Properties Editor-> Render tab-> Sampling panel render samples to 80, to speed up testing.
(you may wish to duplicate this step to rule out any GPU compatibility errors)

2) I saved the file as a new blender file.
In the Properties Editor-> Render tab-> Output Panel
I changed the output file format from H.264 movie to PNG images, and set a new output directory.
(Rendering directly to movie formats can cause encoding errors, it is considered good practice to render image frames, and encode to movie format in an encoding pass)

3) I switched to the Video Editing screen layout
and changed the UV/Image editor to the Video Sequence Editor.
I then selected and deleted the Image Strip that is present.
(If there is any content in the Video Sequence Editor, blender will render that content instead of the current 3d scene, this can be disabled in the Properties Editor-> Render tab-> Post Processing Panel)

4) I switched back to the Animation screen layout
and in the Timeline, changed Playback Sync from AV-sync to No Sync.
In the Properties Editor-> Particle tab-> Emission Panel I changed the number of particles to 5001 (to invalidate the cache), I also made the Cache panel visible.
Then I played the simulation in the viewport to allow all frames to be calculated. After stopping the simulation, I checked that the particle cache had all frames in memory.
(this is the step outlined above this edit)

5) I saved the blender file.
I rendered the animation, seeing no errors in any frames.
I previewed the resulting sequence using the Info Bar-> Render-> Play Rendered Animation (Ctrl F11)

6) After being satisfied by the preview;
I again saved a new file with the name ParticleMovementTest_encoding.blend
I changed Properties Editor-> Render tab-> Output Panel output file format to H.264.
I switched to the Video Editing screen layout, and added an image strip, selecting the rendered frames produced in step 5, and rendered the animation again to encode the project into a movie file.
(If, in step 3 you disabled Sequencer in the Properties Editor-> Render tab-> Post Processing Panel, it will need to be re-enabled)

7) I verified the resulting file with VLC Player.

The above steps produced this render result (4mb).
Somewhere in the above steps lies the answer to your problem.


FSX Verify errors, is there a log file? When using the FSX Verify tool I am getting errors which point to;

\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\scripts\addons\FSX_Toolset4FSX-P3D.py

Is there an output from 'FSX_Toolset4FSX-P3D.py' in the form of an error file I can read?

I am MZNZCDR working on fsx addon, so I also encountered this problem. Here's how to avoid this error:

intialize the fsx tool.
put friend name anyone then click to GUID button to assign it with ASCII code.
check all model you made that it has a material assigned.
for animation all the animation must be verified after the assigning animation.

After completion of all checks you will find there's no error in export to mdl with animation.x file.

Try these guide lines then call me if it further tease you.


Does Blender need Volume for SSS? I am trying out the SSS shader in Blender and it seems that it cant be used on Planes is that right? I just can't get to let my plane have a sss effect.

Is there a workaround without using the solidify modifier?

To work properly, yes, it does require volume. The Subsurface Scattering emulates scattering within the surface and this includes light that has travelled into the surface and has been scattered within the volume and back out of the surface, as well as light that has passed into the volume from a different surface and scattered back to the surface. If the mesh is a flat surface without volume then there is no volume to emulate and so no light can scatter through from the 'back' surface. However, the light from the top surface can still scatter so the shader will operate, just will be darker - without any effect from light striking the "back" surface (or sides).

To demonstrate I created a scene with a Subsurface Scatter shader on a plane illuminated by spotlights (one tinged red, the other blue) above and below.

With a Solidify modifer :

Without solidify :


Change mask starting frame I'm adding a mask to a video but the mask starts at frame 626 (that's where the video was so I could see the changes live) so the mask works as long as I put it in absolute mode. If I change it to relative mode, it doesn't work.

So, how can I move all the inserted keys of the mask to the first frame?

As in the image below, instead of starting at 626, it should start at 1 (or 0)

Thanks!

I had to change the Start Frame to 626 (which was the frame I wanted the mask to start) under Mask Settings on the UV/Image Editor.


Geometry-based material without UV or vertex paint I'm trying to create a (Cycles) material that's based on geometry without doing any UV unwrapping or vertex painting:

I'd like to created a map based on depth into the brain folds to control the glowiness. Are there any nodes or workflows that could let me achieve this?
EDIT:

You are asking for an approach which avoids manually unwrapping/vertex painting, maybe the end result is more important than how you get there. For this spherical shape trigonometry offers a solution.

Nodes Approach

This approach uses the spherical property of the object. There's a relationship between the point's normal and it's normalized position: when the point normal faces outward it's closer to the normalized position of that point.

Replacing the Diffuse shader Node with a Translucent shader in this .blend also gives interesting results.


I can only see vertex colors in Vertex Paint mode - otherwise gray I'm using Blender 2.81 beta. I imported a large glTF model which has only vertex colors. (I can see them in other glTF apps like the web viewers.) After the import completes (it takes a while, 7M verts, 14.7M faces, 182 objects) it's all gray. No vertex colors visible -- neither in the viewport, nor EEVEE, nor Cycles.

However, if I select one sub-object and go into Vertex Paint mode, the vertex colors show up on the active object! (If I select more than one, only the active one gets its colors.) So I know they're in there -- they just don't show up. And I can vertex-paint them out. But they just never show up in the render.

Do I need to do something to get vertex colors to show up?

Figured out a workaround. These objects don't have any material in the glTF, just the vertex colors. So I created a material on one object, basic Principled BSDF, and as the color input I added Vertex Color node with the color set to COLOR_0. Then I linked that material to all the other objects, and it seems to work.

A bit painful, not sure why the importer can't just do that, but it does work for me.


Terrain and sculpting I'm making a terrain by Blender Guru tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VgtSL5ZpYc

I wanna sculpt my terrain(not using displament map), but it distort textures in circle...

I solved it!

I have the problem in shaders, used noise textures without connecting uv map:

Connecting like that:

Now its working perfectly!


How to adjust pen sensitivity for brush size and not shade pressure? I need to change the pen pressure in texture painting from opacity of the brush to the size of it.

Is it accomplishable in blender?

Simply turn on the pressure sensitivity for the Radius and disable it for the Strength. Those options are found in the brush settings in the tool shelf. It is the little button on the right of the Radius and Strength fields. I highlighted them in red in the image below.


How to close windows in 2.8? How do you close windows/tabs in 2.8? I've tried a lot of stuff, but always end up opening up more.

The way I do it is right click on the dividing line between windows and a popup menu gives you the option to 'join' then cursor select which direction the window overwrites the one you want closed.


Modeling curved/round bulge on a flat surface? I'm trying to model a curved bump on a flat surface like the image below:

Is there a recommended way to model this kind of shape? Should I add subdivisions to mark the outline of the bump and then have the subdivision modifier somehow create the round shape? I tried doing that but the curve I get is not defined well enough, and ends up looking like the plane has a "swollen" part instead of a well-defined bump like the one in the image...

Thanks in advance

How about using curves?

create a profile shape using Bezier or path

create your case contour shape and use the profile curve as taper object:


Shortcut for Back View (Ctrl 1) doesn't work This is really strange.

When I press Ctrl1 the view should switch to Back View, according to my preferences.

It's even listed correctly in the menu:

It doesn't do anything.

Ctrl3 for Left View is working, and Ctrl7 for Bottom View is also working.

I use Emulate Numpad as a standard always, even on machines where a numpad keyboard is available.

My OS is macOS Sierra. Blender version is 2.79.

The most bizarre thing is that it still doesn't work even after I Load Factory Settings (and re-enable Emulate Numpad). This makes me think it might not be my settings at all. (Possible bug?)

My Ctrl key and my 1 key are working just fine for all other uses, in Blender and in other apps.

It's really a hindrance when modeling. Any ideas?

Thanks.

The macOS Japanese text input implementation was interfering. By disabling it and using the Google IME instead I was able to regain normal functionality of my Ctrl key.

Anyone wanting to know more can read the question I posted on Ask Different that led to solving the mystery.


How do you scroll left and right on a mac? in window left and right use Ctrl Wheel, but on mac it just zoom in/out the screen.

Please help

on MAcbook pro with touchpad: hold shift and pan with 2 fingers.

With mouse: hold shift while holding and moving the MMB. Here are the mouse settings I have:


Body physics and jiggling for iclone characters I want to bring my animated iclone characters into blender so I can add clothes and props and then render 3d VR.
I want jiggling in the chest and butt for added realism but iclone characters have no butt bones.
Is it possible to add them in Blender?
What's the best way to do this for a newbie?
Would I have to rig them again in blender and if I did would that mean my animation and facial mocap becomes unusable?

This a highly simplified version of what can be done with a proper model.
The Blend file is below... (Vers 2.77)

Cage deforming is used here.  That uses the 'Mesh Deform' Modifier with a simple cube named as the cage.

The cage (cube) is deformed at it's rear vertices only and that deform's the model's rearmost vertices more than those further forward.  i.e. the more distant the model's vertices, the less the effect, hence the soft-body (wobbling) reaction.
-==========-
Warning - Cage rigging can act on vertices outside the cage so it would be advisable to create a vertice group, nominate ONLY those vertices to be affected.  That guarantees no gate crashers.
-==========-
The hook's motion was keyframed and those f-curves were further shaped in the Graph editor to emulate physics behavior.
If you're not inclined to keyframe manually, you may be able to bounce a ball and parent the hook to that, bake the hook's movements and loop the first cycle.


Why Do My Objects Render Without Materials? [Ceramic] So, I'm trying to make some ceramic (copied some nodes from online) objects for a practice project, but I can't get it to show up when Rendering. I tried to simplify, just apply it to a sphere, but I still can't get it to work.
I'm still pretty new so any help would be appreciated.

As Ashutosh said, you need to put some light sources in your scene so that you can see the glossiness of your object. If I create a floor and put two planes with an Emission shader material, it seems like your nodes organization works.


Cyclic dependency errors - Rigging problems with stretching This is my first post here.

I'm a bit a newbie regarding rigging, and I have been modeling a number of mechanical devices for animating. I have been receiving different kind of errors due to cyclic dependencies and so on.

Although the rigs seem to work, they don't update properly when I try to render the animation; a sort of "manual refresh" is needed before rendering each frame, or objects won't get correctly placed. I guess this can be due to those cyclic errors, but it's difficult to trace them!

The System Console is the only tool for this? I can't copy-paste easily, search, not read the full text or getting old messages. Can't I inspect dependency errors directly within the app?

Many thanks in advance.

For those interested, I'm adding some images of the model:

The upper bone (red rectangle) controls the full scissor mechanism, with cylinders and security system moving around.

When rendering an animation, I get that result: cylinder orientation is not correctly updated, you can see both parts of the cylinder don't match. The same happens in the security system on the left.

The problem does not appear if I move and render still frames. Weird!

I have uploaded the model, for those interested. The upper red rectangle-bone controls all (or it should...)

Mechanical Rigging Issues Download

I have switched those options and this is the result, which looks even worse:

The approach I'm following for rigging all my mechanical models is building a bone armature which behaves as the real model and then parenting all the mechanical parts to different bones. Most armatures are quite simple, with some basic maths and simple constraints, but I'm getting these kind of problems all the time.

Manually switching frames seems to work, with a tiny delay/jump barely noticeable, although existent (which is weird...). No problem wen rendering frames. However, when rendering animations or different poses along different keyframes, update is not correctly done.

I first managed to do these riggings without bones, just with math, dummies, and constraints. All worked fine in that scenario, so I guess it's some sort of problem with bones configurations.

I have done a simple test with OpenGL rendering along four frames. First row shows the result I get when rendering the animation, while second row show the result rendering individual frames after switching them. The result is quite different, but you can see that bones seem to behave properly in both cases, with "bad parenting" of the components, much more noticeable when rendering the animation (you can see the cylinder is not correctly positioned in any case).

I have discovered something interesting after further investigation:

The problem origin seems to be in allowing bone stretching. In my rig, the top horizontal bones have stretching allowed (you can notice it in the image), which allows an easy rig of the main diagonal arms. If I switch that stretching OFF, the whole model seems to work fine, as in all the other models I have rigged and which don't need stretching. So I guess this is an internal limitation on bone stretching.

Thanks for your interest, I will continue investigating...

So after inspecting the file the problem is driver on Y axis of mel1200_center_IK bone (the one in the middle of the mechanism).

The "cyclic dependency" is between this driver and both IK constraints (bone_brazo, bone_pivot) and the base (bone_control bone) of both IK bone chains.

I've put the "cyclic dependency" into quotation marks, because logically on bone level there is no cycle - the error is on Blender side and on how it evaluates dependencies and drivers. You hit a limitation that solves the new dependency graph.

Enable it and the rig will update correctly.

Your other option is to build the rig differently either with constaints or drivers, but not mixing them. You can substitute the driver with this to solve the issue:

I suggest to get rid of your other drivers as well (me1200_bone_pestillo) and solve them with constraints only.


Duplicating ALL of a Hierarchy - selectable or not Heres what I need help with.

Say I have an Object in the Outliner, it has children. Some of the children in the outliner have the pointer (object is selectable/non) turned off. I need some of the objects selectable and some not for animation purposes

Right click>Select Hierarchy only selects the children objects that have "selectability" turned on.  Same for Shift-G

When Duplicating the parent object, I want a way to have ALL of the children involved in the duplication, without having to go in and manually turn on "selectability" for the children objects who have it turned off. (and then have to manually revert all the ones who need to be reverted.)

I often forget that there are children objects and sometimes end up with duplicated objects that are missing some pieces...

Does this make sense?

thanks!
jd

Here's my solution. The script starts with the selected item and iterates over each child object (recursively to include children of children). If the child object is set to non-selectable, it changes the object to selectable, adds a flag to the object for later, and also adds the object to the current selection.

After duplication of the group, the script iterates through both groups and checks for the flag set earlier. If it finds the flag, it make the object non-selectable again.

import bpy

def CheckSelectStatus(p):
    for c in p.children:
        print(c.name)
        c['hideSelectWasTrue'] = False
        if bpy.data.objects[c.name].hide_select == True:
            bpy.data.objects[c.name].hide_select = False
            c['hideSelectWasTrue'] = True
        c.select = True
        CheckSelectStatus(c)

def RestoreSelectStatus(p):
    for c in p.children:
        if c['hideSelectWasTrue'] == True:
            bpy.data.objects[c.name].hide_select = True
        RestoreSelectStatus(c)

#---------------------------------------------------

#get our selected parent object
p1 = bpy.context.active_object

#iterate through children and make selectable and select them
CheckSelectStatus(p1)

bpy.ops.object.duplicate()

p2Name = ""

#iterate through selected objects to find duplicated parent object
for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    if obj.parent is None:
        p2Name = obj.name

#iterate through original group and disable selection
RestoreSelectStatus(p1)

#iterate through duplicated group and disable selection
p2 = bpy.data.objects[p2Name]
RestoreSelectStatus(p2)


Bone Weights for Mesh are not behaving as I expected I assigned mesh to one of my armature bones with weights between 0 and 1. However, when I am actually moving the bone in pose mode, it looks like it would be dragging all parts of mesh like there would be weights for all vertices assigned as 1.

So I was curious how I could fix this?

Choose the Parent Armature Deform best suited to you.

Check your modifier panel settings.  Know that your bones in your example and mine are perpendicular to the rather linear mesh portion example. For limb animation and rotation for organic models the bone is often inside the mesh for major limbs.  Consider making the bones parallel to the mesh.  Consider blurring the weights for gradual transitions.

Try these settings above when you parent the mesh to the armature.

You will achieve a more flowing gradient.

[With Automatic Weights]
Try the other settings.

You will achieve a more abrupt gradient.

[With Envelope Weights]

Below Closeup Abrupt Influence with a little curve.

Below Closeup Flowing Influence with a big curve.

Another way to get abrupt influence in my example is to choose Bone Envelopes only in the modifier panel.


How can I change the particles density and its direction in volume? I'd like to have the number of particles greater in the bottom , and they get lower towards the upper parts of the cube, it's because I don't want them to spread homogenously. How can I make it I have no idea? can you please help me? thanks

Use weight painting to create a vertex group which will control density of the particles or create new texture in the particle system settings.

Weight painting

Prepare mesh topology

Weight paint affects on vertices, so in order painting to be smoother you'll need a lot of vertices. The more of them, the smoother will be painting, and so distribution of particles.

Use loopcuts or Subdivision Surface modifier to make topology of the mesh more dense.

Use Weight painting to determine how to spread particles

Create new vertex group (or it will be added automatically), switch Object mode to Weight Paint and use brushes to paint areas where you'd like particles to be located more dense. Weight of 0 will make no particles in that area, weight of 1 will make to add maximum amount of particles (if the vertex group effect isn't inverted).
You can also use Weight tools, located in Tools panel (opened with T) to mirror, invert, normalize weights etc.

Set created vertex group to control density of particles

In Vertex Groups scroll locate Density field and choose created vertex group.

Note that you could also invert vertex group influence, to make particles being distributed in the top of the mesh instead of bottom (button just near the dropdown menu where you choose vertex group to affect).

Use texture to control particles' density

In the settings of the Particle system create new texture:

For simple setup Blend texture may be used. Moving control points of the ColorRamp will make density of the particles change.

The last thing is that by default this texture affects only time, not density. So in the Influence scroll check Density (you can leave Time if you need it).


Heightmap-based displacement with 90-degree corners I'd like to generate simple rectangular geometry based on a heightmap such that all corners of the resulting mesh have an angle of 90 degrees and the overall mesh topology is "clean".
For example, given this 16x16 heightmap (enlarged for clarity):

I'd like to generate a mesh that looks like this:

Here's what I've tried:

Create a grid with 100 subdivisions along both the X and Y axes and a side length of 16 units
Add a Displace modifier to it

Set Coordinates to UV
Set Strength to 16.0
Set Midlevel to 0.0

Set the texture of the Displace modifier to the 16x16 heightmap image

In the texture settings, under Sampling, uncheck Interpolation

Apply the Displace modifier
Enter edit mode
Perform a Limited Dissolve using a small angle (e.g., 1 degree; must be greater than 0 or no edges are dissolved)

That process yields this result:

This is close to what I want, but the topology is poor; in particular, the long, thin, triangular faces at corners and intersections are undesirable. I've tried merging vertices by distance and performing some of the clean-up operations, but doing so only degraded the topology further.
Is there a better approach that would obtain the desired result? Any suggestions would be appreciated, including plugins.
Here's the actual 16x16 heightmap for reference:

Here’s one way to do it mostly non-destructively:

Start with a plane.

In edit mode, use CtrlE ▸ Subdivide to subdivide the plane into a 16×16 grid.

Add a Bevel modifier with Limit Method ▸ None, Amount ▸ 0.0001 m, and Segments ▸ 1. This creates some additional geometry so displacements are sharp.

Add a Displace modifier using your height map texture. Under the texture options, make sure to disable the Sampling ▸ Interpolation option, so the boundaries of the height map will be sharp. This produces a nice, sharp result:

To clean up the geometry, add a Weld modifier followed by a Decimate modifier set to the Planar mode. This will delete most of the redundant edges, leaving a clean, low-poly mesh:


cloth simulation, cloth(plane) collide at center of of the cube instead of at the surface so I have been playing around with cloth simulation, and was doing a low-poly bend and made a blanket on top. and then used cloth simulation on the plane and collision on the cube. first, I had a subdivision surface modifier on the cube and when I played the simulation, the cloth would go inside the cube and rest in the middle of the cube, then I used a cube of similar proportion but did not subdivide it, and the result was the same. then I made a new plane way bigger than the cube, applied the cloth physics property but the result was the same.

note: when I try this in a new file all the result is normal but only on this file, there is a problem.

This can be because if many problems you should try these:-
Make sure that all modifiers on cube are applied and that on plane the cloth simulator is the last modifier or is only equipped with cloth modifier.
Also increase permeability of collision modifier on the cube as 1 and check that it is setted to volume rather than being on object origin.
Also try deleting and again adding the cube in the file it is not working.
If it still don't work then you may even delete the plane and add it again in your scene.


How to paste images onto particular faces of a UV map? I'm modeling a simple tile for an isometric game. I've UV unwrapped to this:

I have textures for the top, bottom, and sides of this tile. I just need to paste them onto the UV map, but I can't find any way of doing that.

To clarify: I want to select a particular image I made in GIMP, then copy/paste directly onto a specific face of the UV map. I know how to paste an image so it's the background of the entire UV map, but I do not want that.

I've tried exporting the UV map as an image, drawing on that in GIMP, then importing it back, but the map exports with nasty antialiased lines, so that is a very ugly system.

Consider Texture Paint mode editing for the 3D Mesh.

In response to your statement/question [apply an image to just specific faces of a UV map?]

Blender texture paint mode can paint directly on the image to be used for texture mapping.
When a source image has transparent areas you can directly paint on target image leaving the previous background.

A sphere was uv unwrapped.  Then a material was created with a texture and image source.  First a pig image was used as the source in paint brush mapping stencil mode.  Next a yellow arrow was a source image in stencil mode.

Save your painted image many times during the process.  The image must be written to disk or you will lose your work. Silently.

In this example we painted directly on the 3d Mesh surface, in superior fashion.  You may also paint on the image editor surface in inferior fashion.

There is a learning curve for the many features of texture paint mode, and Blender is always full of surprises.  I would suggest a video tutorial by searching

[Blender Texture Paint]

mode at some well known video site.

Lastly seams can be added before UV Mapping. UV faces pulled off the image.  Texture Image Mapping Extension [Clip] to stop application of texture to a face. This is supplemental information.


How to animate different parts of a robot arm I am trying to make a robot arm.

I am able to add animation to one of the objects easily, but then whenever I try to add animation to other objects there is distortion in the first animation.

What I tried:

I have used parent relation but somehow changes in the child are effecting the animation of the parent.
I tried using bones and armature but exporting that as a .glb file is giving another time, all the animations and figures are getting distorted.

Is there a better way to do it?
Any help would be appreciated.

Well, this is not the right way of using blender, turns out you need to animate all the objecst in a single frame and then you can make subclips based on what clips you want, this can be done using three.js Utilities


Project individual elements on the surface of other objects When I try to project the blue item onto the shoe from top view by pressing G then Ctrl and Mouse-click, the blue item gets distorted. Any idea why and how to fix it? I have tried turning snap on and off but didn't work.

ShrinkWrap modifier seems to be working quite well on my end.

You geometry is quite uneven though, some triangles, very long and narrow faces with and slightly twisted topology may be screwing up your shape. Improving that may yield better results.


What's the meaning of tangent in the velocity panel in the particle settings? I wish to know the meaning of the "tangent" option available in particles panel; for a surface in 3D, tangent means a surface. But velocity is a linear, directional entity.

I am currently working on a project which involves emission of particles along the slope of a cone.

Strictly, 'tangent' means a vector that touches the surface at precisely one point. Not the surface itself. So in the particle setting context:

tangent controls the starting force that is applied to the particle parallel to the emitter surface.

Normal controls the force that is applied to the particle perpendicular to the emitter surface.

To put it another way,

tangent = 1, normal = 0 will make the particle emit 'sideways'.

tangent = 0, normal = 1 will make the particle emit 'out'.

tangent = 1, normal = 1 will make the particle emit at 45degrees to the surface.


Shrinkwrap doing crazy things on surface topology When I shrinkwrap the edge vertices of the inner element onto the inside surface of the frame(surrounding surface), the whole object (whose specific vertex group is being shrinkwrapped) just goes crazy...
what could be causing this?
Normals are ok, all transformations are set back to 0, no duplicated vertices... I think everything is ok, and I still don't know what is happening... ANY IDEAS??? I neep help!

You can try to:

Raise the polygon count in both objects with subd modifier;
Recheck there is no vertex incorrectly assigned to the vertex group;
Lower the vertex weight;
Small nudges to the objects to find a "sweet spot".


Does Blender generate audio? I've never entered any audio/sound into blender. I'm curious to know, does Blender generate sound for you? or is it all whatever I import?

I don't think Blender has any preset sounds, it's just what you import.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/vse/sequencer/strips/sound.html


Why do some bones in my armature disappear when I go into Edit mode? I made a rig for a model of a dragon and for some reason,
when I go into Edit Mode, some of the bones disappear:

I don't know if this is relevant or not, but I created the rig using the standard release of 2.69, but now I'm using the standard version of 2.70.

Here is my blend file.

Unhide Bones

Your bones were hidden. To unhide them, once in Edit mode press ALTH and your bones will be back!

Hidden Bones are only Hidden in Specific Modes

It is worth noting that bones hidden in one mode may be visible in another mode, and vice-versa. Here is an explanation from the Blender Manual:

  Note that hidden bones are specific to a mode – i.e. you can hide some
  bones in Edit mode, they will still be visible in Pose mode, and
  vice-versa. Hidden bone in Pose mode are also invisible in Object
  mode. And in Edit mode, the bone to hide must be fully selected, not
  just his root or tip…


How to change unit scale for all future meshes I am new to Blender. After import any mesh to Unreal the size is bigger twice. So I changed Unit Scale to 0,5

But whe I add a new mesh it is bigger twice.

Both has scale 1x1x1.

Am I missing something? Is there any option to change unit scale for all present and future meshes at project? Or for all projects?

Thaks for your help.

I found it.

When I added new mesh default size was 2m (but scale 1x1x1). It is in the menu (e.g. Add Cube)

Change it to 1m and size is same as scale


BGE everything white in playmode When I press P to play everything shows up white in the BGE. Shading is set to GLSL, and the objects are UV mapped and textured. It seems that vertex paint is overriding the material for the object even though it is unchecked in the material options.

Shading is set to GLSL

Objects have a texture applied

Your problem is Very simple to fix. Currently, your shading is set to solid. Change it to textured view, and your textures will display.


Dynamic Paint with object material in cycles How do I use dynamic paint (cycles) to paint with an object with texture. The dynamic paint / brush in BI seems to have a “use object material” setting to allow the brush to use the paint from a material, but cycles does not have this option. Is it possible to use an image texture to dynamic paint in cycles?

You should be able to use an attribute node with the value of dp_paintmap(if you are using the default) and connect that to the factor input of a mix node.

  Your painted material will be on the bottom while the other material will be on the top.  Be sure that you hit the plus next to Paintmap under Dynamic Paint Output in the Physics tab.


Smooth vertices along on a curved mesh I've deliberately, misplaced the top vertices of the mesh, added a subsurface modifier which smooths the curve, but as seen in the example it does have a jagged curve. Is there a which makes a smooth curve when I select the vertices, which then gives me the option to manipulate the curve/bend.
Thank you.

You have the LoopTools > Curve that allows you to curve a series of vertices: select the 2 extremities + a vertex somewhere between the 2, and right click > LoopTools > Curve. But you can't control the curve shape afterwards, the central vertex position gives the curve shape (of course another way would be to align the vertices then move up one of them with the Proportional Editing on).


What is the best way to color a model? I have made a model I'm happy with and want to color it. I have used UV mapping for this but now I have learned maybe that wasn't the best thing to do...

Only one object in the model shows up in color at a time, but when I see other peoples models they are fully colored.

I'm just really confused, I don't know what I did wrong. Are all the objects like hair, eyes, clothing and skin meant to be all attached on one layer? I assumed not because I'm going to be rigging it later.

If anyone could give me some advice or point out what I'm doing wrong it would be extremely helpful as I'm just struggling a lot and don't know anything about 3d modelling.

I heard that there is this thing called texturing but I don't know if that's different to UV mapping.

I just want colors on my character. What is the best way to do this?

One thing you can do is texture painting. That allows you to add different colors to your model and apply all of that color to the material of the object. Here's a good tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcCQKuWPhXk


Deselect items from select all How would I deselect an item from the A keyboard shortcut to select all? Like if I wanted to deselect the plane (pic below)

Not entirely sure if this answers your question. To make an Object unselectable, you just have to toggle it in your Scene Collection. If you're asking how to deselect an object in general it's Shift + M1


How to leave identical ammount of space between each CTRL+R Cut? AND why can I only do 1 cut? When you've cut something with ctrl + r, but not every cut leaves the same ammount of room inbetween each of the cuts, how do you fix that? (see picture with half assed arrow drawings)

And

Why am I only offered one cut on the top instead of a full line (see picture and marked blue spots and red circle)

Scrolling doesn't fix it, as it only adds more cuts on the vertical face, instead of continuing a horizontal cut:

When you use Alt R to make a loop cut you get that purple loop of edges - then you click once and there will be an actual cut where the purple guides were. If you move the mouse you'll slide that loop and it will stay where it is once you click again.

If you want several evenly spaced loops you need to hold the mouse still between the two clicks, then change the number where it says Number of Cuts in the tool panel near the bottom.

Edit 2:
Remove edge loops by being in Edit mode, Edges, and right click, while holding down Alt, on an edge that runs in the direction of your edge loop - that will select the loop. Then press Delete and choose Dissolve Edges.

Vertices are points in space with XYZ coordinates - for example, in the middle of the world the vertex would be 0,0,0. There is a vertex at both ends of an Edge-  they define where the edge starts and ends.  There are many things you can accidentally do that will duplicate Edges and Vertices - there are lots of shortcuts that you can accidentally press which do all sorts of things.

To find these double edges or vertices, press A until nothing is selected, then you can use Border select - press B and drag a square around the suspected edge or vertex. Right up the top of the screen it shows details about the geometry including how many edges or vertices are selected - if you only see one, but it says at the top that 2 are selected, you know you have a double one (or triple one).  Reading the manual from the beginning helps get an understanding of all this.

About the last question, if you make one Alt R cut it will make it exactly in the middle between the other loops UNLESS you move the mouse between two clicks, in which case it will slide. If you finish that action and make a new loop it will again be half way between two loops. If you want to evenly divide a face with many cuts, delete the ones that are there and start again - click twice so you don't slide, then immediately enter a number in the Number of Cuts field.


I have a 3d solid drawing I need to import from autoCAD I am trying to use Blender as a way of improving the look of our 3D drawings.
I have tried to research this and have managed to save original as a DXF then import to blender, however it is only showing as wireframes not as solid 3D objects!

Thank you

Yes sure,
I scale the drawing down in AutoCAD first and then save as DXF
and this is the result when imported into blender

Whats interesting is when I import the DXF back into CAD I get the same wire frame result!

I've attached what the origonal AutoCAD file looks like and shows what I'm trying to achieve.

When importing from autocad to blender, usualy it is  pieces of furniture for me, i'm using stl format and downscale it to fit units and view. Never using dxf because having problems with it.