How can I randomly instance and distribute objects from a collection on a mesh using Animation Nodes? I would like to know couple possible ways of taking objects (couple or all) from a collection randomly and instance on a given mesh. I tried feeding the collection into a loop and repositioning them to the given vert list, which works but that just manipulates my collection items and I cant seem to find a way to create many instances and position them inside a loop.
Thanks
thanks

Using Mesh Point Scatter and Object Instancer node we can scatter objects on the surface of given mesh. Since Object Instancer node cannot be used inside Loop we can't randomize objects. One solution for this problem is by replacing instanced object with other object data(random objects data from collection). For that we can use Copy Object Data node.


Blender Video Sequence editor taking all memory and crashing My computer has 8 GB RAM but is not able to render a 720p 2D video in Blender but my older computer was able to render much heavier videos, having only 4GB Ram; I was running Windows and Sony Vegas then but my new system is running on Linux.

I wonder if I must be doing someting wrong on my render settings, or if not, if there is another way of editing not heavy videos using Blender running on a pc with about 8gb RAM.

Please watch my video, at least some of it in which I explain my problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKqcFmzKE5M if you need any additional information.

Blender include a setting in the User Preferences/System tab to limit the amount of memory that the Video Sequence Editor can use. This setting should be never set to more than your available system memory plus the available swap - otherwise Blender can attempt to grab more memory than is available and cause the system to crash or become unresponsive.

At the bottom of the System tab in User Preferences is a 'Sequencer/Clip Editor' setting that dictates the memory limit for blender when caching and rendering videos in the VSE. This setting normally defaults to 1024Mb - ie, 1Gb - and so should not cause a problem (unless your system has less than 1Gb of available memory). If this is set to a value that is larger than your system memory - or less than your 'free' memory when Blender is not running - then you may get Blender trying to allocate more memory than is available.

Reduce the value to limit the amount of memory available to Blender.


How to weld two objects along a common seam? Using the knife project tool I have been able to scale my entire mesh to TWO resolutions,  cut out (and delete) the ear from the low-resolution model, cut out the ear from the HIGH-resolution model (using the same vertex path), and graft it onto the low-resolution model:

The result is good; it is an almost perfect join.  Only in a few places can I see a tiny gap.

However, it is still 2 objects, and simply joining them doesn't connect the meshes.  I would like to connect the meshes so that I can smooth around the join line, and use the 'simplify' brush to transition gradually from big triangles to small triangles.

Is there any such tool?

The Bridge tool is probably your best bet. The connection is going to have issues if there are a different number of vertices on each edge. Either, the number has to be the same, or there will be lots of triangles. These issues might not actually be problems, for what you want to do, but it's something to be aware of.


"Joining" points in one mesh Given: a mesh which forms one-n'th of a torus. I Alt-D-duplicate it, rotate the copy by 360°/n, and get the ends to meet up. Repeat n-1 times.

I have now a nicely symmetric object which I can edit further. This is not the problem.

The problem is that when I move a vertex at the border between copies, that nice alignment is destroyed. Obviously I cannot join the corresponding vertices; it's the same underlying mesh, after all..

Thus, how can I keep them in sync while editing? Repeating the edit steps on the "other" side is tedious, and snap-to-vertex doesn't help much either.

To clarify: I want to create a closed object with n-fold symmetry which stays closed and symmetric, no matter which vertex/edge/face I move. A normal torus will not stay symmetric. A 1/nth-torus with n-1 360°/n-rotated copies will not stay closed when I move a vertex/edge/face at the border.

You could merge the vertices by invoking the Remove Doubles operator

In your case you could create the torus without duplicated vertices, starting with an e.g. an 1/8th

By rotating using the
Spin Tool  Alt-R in Edit Mode


Strange Rigify Behavior I've rigged a mesh. I now want to generate the rigify buttons.

Before I try to generate the rigify buttons, everything is in place, however, when generated, everything looks out of order.

No idea what to do.

Besides my comment about applying - which you should do - it seems you added a bit of animation to the metarig = which is a no-no. Go into pose mode and AltR, AltG, AltS - to remove all transforms. Back in object mode - generate your Rig and it all works fine.


Click and Drag is Jerky I have a sphere I can rotate with click and drag, but when activated, the cursor jumps to a random point on the sphere, which in turn jerks it to a completely different view. I want it to work smoothly in play, just like the regular blender click and drag does.

I added a video to YouTube. The first half is in object mode, where the cursor works the way it is supposed to. The second half is in "Play" and you can see the cursor jumps to the center of the board and the board jumps to a different position. I want it to be nice and smooth, like when in Object or Edit mode.

https://youtu.be/3tP7hjFDgmU

This is because the mouse actuator 'snaps' the mouse cursor to the centre of the screen when you use it. So when you initially click on an object, the 'snap to the centre of the screen' causes the view to jump.

The solution is to use a custom script to do this sort of mouse panning:

import bge
import mathutils

SENSITIVITY = 3.0
Y_INVERT = True
HIDE_MOUSE = False

def look(cont):
    if cont.sensors[0].positive:
        if HIDE_MOUSE:
            bge.render.showMouse(False)

        # Grab the location the mouse was clicked in:
        start_pos = cont.owner.get('PREV_POS', bge.logic.mouse.position)
        if HIDE_MOUSE:
            cont.owner['PREV_POS'] = start_pos

        # Calculate rotation difference to current position
        current_pos = bge.logic.mouse.position
        diff = mathutils.Vector(start_pos) - mathutils.Vector(current_pos)
        diff *= SENSITIVITY
        if Y_INVERT:
            diff.y *= -1
        # Rotate the objects
        cont.owner.applyRotation([0, diff[0], 0], True)
        cont.owner.children[0].applyRotation([0, diff[1], 0], True)
        current_rot = cont.owner.children[0].localOrientation.to_euler()
        current_rot.y = min(1.5, max(-1.5, current_rot.y))
        cont.owner.children[0].localOrientation = current_rot

        # Set the mouse position back to where it was
        if HIDE_MOUSE:
            bge.logic.mouse.position = start_pos
        else:
            cont.owner['PREV_POS'] = current_pos
    else:
        del cont.owner['PREV_POS']
        bge.render.showMouse(True)

However, this script requires a some setup of objects. It should be run from an empty parented to an empty parented to a camera.

It is much less time consuming for me to provide a blend file, so here you go:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B27awtGNGuMPZENxMWwtQkdSTEk/view?usp=sharing

Have a look at the set up, and try replicate it in your own system. Let me know if you have issues, and I can add more detail to this response.


Is it possible to change the brush on the vertex paint option? I want to paint snow on top of a material and I found that vertex paint combined with an attribute node and a mix shader will allow me to mix two materials with what I paint in the vertex paint mode. Is there any way to change the brush type, something other than a circle?

Or, is there a way to mix materials, or even just paint white over another material, with the texture paint tool? I tried a mixing the material with a transparent texture and painting on top from there, but no luck.

Any help would be great,
Alan

Yes, you can use textures to serve as a brush. Here's what you do.

Make or find a brush texture. I quickly drew one in GIMP. As far as I know, the color of the brush doesn't matter, just the alpha channel. That means you can play with brushes that fade towards the edges, etc.

In the texture panel, add a texture as an image and assign your brush image to it. Make sure Use Alpha is checked! See image below:

Now you have a texture available that will serve as a 'brush'. Back in the uv editor you can start painting. Expand the Texture panel below the brush settings and click on the big checkerbox button. Select your texture and you'll be able to paint using the texture as a brush. Note the Brush Mapping drop down. In the image below, I used Tiled, View Plane, and Random. I assume you'll probably want View Plane to start.

Two cool things:

I like the Rake feature. It will rotate the brush depending on the direction you're painting. Awesome!

I haven't tried this yet, but you could probably paint a texture in Blender and then use it as a brush. Now that's Meta!

P.S. I made this fur texture thing using that brush (for demonstration purposes)

P.P.S I am not a texture artist.


Clean up video in VSE Can't find an relatively easy way to make some very basic post-production clean some unwanted things from my final render video. I can re-render the video from the compositor with mask' and then re-re-render from VSE with sound' but that's not the way I'm looking for (finally I can take the rendered png's and edit them one by one in gimp...)
I'm trying to find a reasonable process for fixing some little errors in video. Example on the screenshot - from the left side there is some part of text that should not be there' for a couple of seconds.

In the VSE add a color strip
[

The sample the source frame to change color of effect strip

Press F12 key to render a frame inot UV Image editor window then change to mask mode and add a mask.

Select the color strip and add mask modifier

change the effect strip's blend type to over drop


How do I uniformly apply the same texture to many uneven faces on a mesh, such as a road? I'm very new to blender and was following a tutorial to build roads. This worked out pretty well, and now I want to add a road texture to my road.
Here is an image of the mesh, it is basically just many semi-square faces on the same mesh.

I want to apply a road texture to at least the non-intersection road segments, as I understand these would require a different approach.

So far what I've tried is I've smart unwrapped the road and scaled the resulting UV map so that a single square fills the area, then used a road texture as input. This worked, but only for one direction. The white stripe in the middle of the road was not evenly aligned. I can also just manually work on the UV map or paint it, but with this many segments it's too much work to be feasible.
Below is kind of what I want (I've tried emulating it with paint), but I can't find out the Google terms that will help me solve this myself.

Is there any way to apply a road texture to each of these faces, so that the middle white stripe of the road is always centered and respected?
I've uploaded my Blender project here: https://easyupload.io/s3s0d5

You can use the Follow Active Quads command.
It's fast and gives good results since none of your roads is perfectly straight.

Select the segment you want to unwrap
Go UV > Follow Active Quads
Scale and move the UV islands in the UV editor (they will all end up on top of each other)

Note: Sometimes the command doesn't work properly, so just reset the selected faces (UV > Reset) and try again


Scaling (set of stairs) between two edges Hello Blender community :)

I have a slight problem I can't really figure out;
How can I scale my stairs equally in the y-direction (green arrow), so that the beginning of the first stair will be snapped to the left edge of the face (since it is in wireframe mode, I'm talking about the dark green lines), and the last stair's end will be snapped to the right edge of the face. On top of that, the stairs should be equally scaled (first one should have same dimensions as all the other ones)

Note: a single stair's dimensions are currently (x=2, y=0.4, z=0.15)

Thanks in advance!

If I got what you asked, try this:

get the desired length selecting the mesh delimiting the available space (in the image it seems a sort of cubic shape), and copy the Y dimension in the properties panel.

Then select your stair made of array-copied steps, and in the same panel it should have a different value:

now paste the copied value in the Y dimension.

it should fit perfectly


Resources for Blender Since asking for tutorials, videos, resources, links to other content or downloads is considered off topic here, this is a specifically created Community Wiki which gathers resources for Blender and it has been approved by the Community.

Just write in the appropriate answer/section. If you have concerns, questions, post a meta question, so we don't clutter the comments, but you can link your meta question from the comments.

Questions regarding such resources are not allowed anymore, except for very specific and on topic requests (ask on Meta if you're unsure about your question). Follow the instructions made in the question about how to post, what can be posted, etc.

Learning

Official Documentation
Blender Communities and forums
Blogs
Online courses
Books

Assets

Materials (also see: Any good free materials libraries online?)
Textures, HDR environment maps, and photos
Models
Reference Images/Blueprints (also see: Where are some places to get reference images for modeling?)
Sounds

Tools

Addons (also see: Resource for Blender addons?)
External Tools
Render engines
Rendering services

Other

Special Interest (Blender resources for architects?)
Themes
Mathematics

Also see the beginner's reference.

Every section listed alphabetically

Textures

CC0Textures CC0/Public domain license
CG Textures License covers commercial use, but not open source software. *Registration required, free at low resolutions*
Good Textures Similar to CG textures, but with a more lenient license. *Registration required*
Lovetextures
Mayang's Textures
nordicfx non-commercial
OpenGameArt CC-BY
Pixar 128 Library 128 textures with normal and height maps originally made by Pixar Studio in 1993 and updated in 2015, CC BY 4.0
PixPlant's Seed Images Various licenses
Plain Textures *Registration required*
Poliigon Paid registration required for high resolution versions; several high resolution free textures available
Share Textures Collection of CC0 textures
Subtle Patterns
Textures.TheFree3DModels Attribution required Noncommercial
Texturebits
TextureHaven CC0
Texture lib free for commercial and none commercial use, license is very lenient
Texture Mate
Texture Ninja A collection of CC0 textures
texture pilot *Registration required*
Texture X Free high resolution textures.
Yethiel's Collection of Textures Various textures collected by an individual with CC0 license
3dmd.net  Small library and no high resolution
3DTextures

HDR/JPEG Skydome Images

HDRI Haven CC0
Adaptive Samples CC-BY-SA.
Chocofur HDRs High quality paid HDRs; one free available here
GiantCowFilms.com CC0/Public Domain
HDRI Hub Free Samples
Maxwell render resources
MrBluesummers HDR lights.
NoEmotion HDRs High resolution HDRs; CC-BY-ND
nordicfx non-commercial
Open Footage CC-BY
Philo's Sky Collection
sIBL hdrlabs CC-BY-SA
 0ptikz's skies

Stock Photos

BucketListly CC-BY-NC
Foter Various CC Licenses
FreeImages
Image After
Immediate Entourage many masked images
Library of Congress Public Domain
MorgueFile
openclipart
OpenImages
Pexels CC0
Pixabay free, but with some restrictions
Pond5 *Registration required*
PhotoPin Various CC Licenses
PublicDomainPictures reduced resolution free, Public Domain
Stockvault non-commercial
Rawpixel free for commercial
Unsplash CC0
USDA Public Domain
US Navy Public Domain
Visible earth NASA Public Domain
3dtotal some textures too
Pxhere Free stock photos


Is it possible to bake fluid simulation into blend file? Is it possible to bake a fluid simulation into a blend file, instead of a separate cache folder?

The main reason is, I'm using a renderfarm to upload animation files. The renderfarm only accepts packed blend files and no external folders. I understand it's possible to bake a cloth simulation into a blend file, but not sure how to do the same for a fluid simulation.

Any help will be appreciated.

No, this is not possible currently.
I'm not sure how practical this would be, given the massive size of fluid caches.

As mentioned by stacker, ResPower supports fluid simulations to some extent.


When i use a image texture with transparent background it makes the image dissapear and the transparent part stays So when i go in cycles render and set up the nodes for making the transparent part dissapear, but when i connect the alpha to the mix shader (Factor) with the transparent shader it makes the actual image transparent and the transparent part stays black.
The image i use: http://www.textures.com/download/leaves0118/27464?q=Leaves
i used image 2.

Any suggestions???
Can figure it out, seen tutorials on how to and make is exact the same and still no luck

Blender 2.78

The connections on the mix shader are wrong...
Transparent must be on the first shader and the actual image on the second then the alpha on the factor


IK local rotation locking I have an IK chain, and there are some axes that I don't want some bones to rotate around. So I go to the bone tab, scroll down to Inverse Kinematics, and lock the axes I don't want the bone to rotate on. All well and good.

Now I have created three of these IK chains and arranged them in a triangle (separated by 120 degrees). One works great because it was aligned with the axes, but the other two are not, and therefore, rotate incorrectly due to the locking appearing to be in the world space.

Just to double check, I have tried adding bone constraints to lock specific axes, but due to the IK, these have no effect.

How can I lock the IK rotation of a bone on specific axes in the bone's local space?

In fact, the rotation locks are applied to the local axes. As long as the bone is oriented correctly, you will get the correct results. When creating multiple copies and rotating, you must make sure to adjust the roll of the bone (in Edit Mode) in the Bone properties tab to the correct direction.

To confirm the orientation of the bones, you can go to the Armature properties tab, and under Display, check Axes. Now when you look at your bones, the tip of it will display the directions. Keep in mind that the axes will display at the tip, so don't get confused by another bone connected to the base as it only applies to that bone.

From there, you can choose your IK locking settings for the bone according to what the bone's display shows.


How can I get a .MTL file to show on an .OBJ model I imported in Cycles? I've downloaded & imported several .OBJ models into Blender but they don't always import with the textures automatically in place, even though the model came with them. Here's an example:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_yQeQQ8ImENWWYyb0oxYWZMVjQ/edit?usp=sharing

I assume this is due to the presence of an .MTL file, but I don't know for sure.

If you are using the Blender Internal render engine your model will import with the texture already applied.

If you are using Cycles you will not get any textures applied to the mesh whatsoever. In this case you will need to manually assign the textures to your shader.


How to proper model Toilet as in example I'm quite new to Blender, but already got some experience modelling.
I'm trying to model a Toilet as the one shown in the photo attached, but i'm having issues to achieve the same shapes below the main vase, I've circled the area on the image to let you better understand what i'm talking about.
Are you able to describe the step by step model instructions that will help me to achieve the final results?
Thank you so much for any help you'll provide.
Cristiano

Here’s my best crack at it. I used Curves to create edge loops which I then bridged, subdivided, creased as needed, and mirrored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjdiLHzDEVY&feature=youtu.be

I would highly recommend watching a car modeling tutorial (or better yet, invest in a true hard-surface modeling course) to understand approaching difficult shapes like these which you’ll encounter many times in the future.

Good luck,

John


How to interface with blender using IPython from terminal? Is there any way to interface with blender using IPython in blender 2.68? I have tried many many options over the past couple of days and none of them have worked for me...

The best option for me would be if I could use IPython in the terminal I initiated blender with.

I have tried using IPython.embed with no success, and I also have tried this, but I can't get it to work with blender 2.68a.

Perhaps there is a way to start an instance of blender from within an IPython session?

For anyone coming upon this question in 2020, I had a similar want and wanted to use Blender from a Jupyter Notebook.

I made a Jupyter Kernel to do this for Blender 2.8 here. It uses asyncio so the Blender UI is not locked when using the kernel.


Change property of a set of multiple objects with python script I am assigning a landscape's LoD models, of which there are about 100, and I need a way to change the value labeled "Distance" for all of these objects.  The naming convention for the objects I want to modify with this script is X##, where X is a letter and ## is a two-digit number.

Pretty much this (in pseudocode because I can't do Python for the life of me):

if name_of_object has 3 characters
   set bpy.data.objects["name_of_object"]LodLevel.distance = (some number I enter in)

This was supposed to be the non-Python solution:

Do a rightclick on the first of your objects.
Go to the menu Select >> Select Pattern...

Type in "X??". That'll select all objects starting with X being 3 characters long.

Road one:

Enter the desired number into the Distance field of your active object.
Right-click the button and choose 'Copy To Selected'

Road two:

Alt-leftclick the button and enter the number. All objects will have the same value.

That was the plan until I actually tried it. Doesn't work. Blender thinks that stuff isn't copyable, so, Python it is.

import bpy

prefix = 'X'
dist = 7.0 # distance you wish to copy
llevel = 1 # change for higher levels

c = 0 # just a counter to create a sense of accomplishment
for a in bpy.data.objects: # goes through all objects in your blendfile
    n = a.name # get the object's name
    if len(n) == 3 and n[0] == prefix: # If the names length is 3 and starts with x
        if len(a.lod_levels) > 0: # and if there actually are lod levels
            a.lod_levels[llevel].distance = dist # then assign the distance to them
            c += 1

print("I have successfully changed {} Objects".format(c)) # victory message

It's actually not too far away from your pseudocode, so I hope your survivability regarding python powers will increase.


Is there a way to manually control vertex/face normals to get a more consistent toon shader? I watched this video about the art style of popular fighting game Guilty Gear Xrd, and something which really interested me was the method that the artists used to get rid of ugly automatic-normal artifacts. They would manually mess with the normals so as to make parts of the model that are round shaded as if they were flat.

The example shown in the video is of a character whose face's normals are grouped on each side, on the chin, and under the eyes so as to make the toon shader look more like a traditional 2D anime.

With modified normals:

Without modified normals:

Notice that this sort of ugly artifacting happens when a toon shader is applied to Suzanne; look at her right eye and nose.

This would be very easily fixable if there were a way to group the normals on the left and right sides of the face.

Based on the other answer I created a Blender add-on for this exact purpose called TiNA which allows you to more easily transfer normals between objects. TiNA basically turns the somewhat overwhelming Data Transfer Modifier into a set of more comprehensible operations.
There's a special branch for those using Blender 2.80 beta.

 Hotkey           | Operation
------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------
 Alt+N            | Transfer Normals from selection to active object
 Shift+Alt+N      | Transfer Normals from active object to all other selected objects
 Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N | Clear Custom Normals data for entire selection
 Alt+W            | Wrap Normals

In your case you could transfer the normals from a normals source mesh (based on the actual face mesh) by selecting it, then selecting the target object and hitting Alt+N.


Problem using Voronoi texture as Cycles displacement (2.8) Hello, I wanted to wrap the whole Sphere in Blobs but as you see on the left side it is deflated and I don't seem to get why it is happening.
Maybe someone could explain why I would be so grateful.

Displacement is usually done along faces normals. This is the role of the 'displacement vector' to help to do that.

If you use any vector like a color as displacement in the output node, the displacement will operate directly in the directions given by this vector and this will not consider faces orientations. This is the case in the image in your question.

So simply insert a 'displacement vector' (which can be found in the 'vector' category) between your displacement calculation and the output.

Here is a view with on left an exaggerated offset when 'displacement' is not used. And on the right, the same with a displacement vector.

(Note that the 'screen' node is not useful here I think).

Blender file for 2.8, Cycles experimental using adaptive subdivision:


How to make small objects emit a ton of light? So, I'm trying to create a chemical plant model, and you know how when you drive past an oil refinery at night it's all lit up with dozens of lights and it looks really cool?

That's what I'm going for, but the problem is, my model is HUGE! And when I make the sphere that asks as the light bulbs and I only add a basic emission shader it doesn't give off enough light and if I increase the strength it only makes the light more intense.

You can see here, the light isn't giving off anywhere near enough light:

Mesh lights can be useful but they are quite an inefficient way to light your scene - especially with a large number of small lights as in your case. A better solution is to use Point Lamps to light the scene - although those are not visible to the camera which is not the effect you are looking for.

The solution is to use a Point Lamp embedded in the center of what would normally be your mesh lamp. This way the scene is lit by the Point Lamp (and can take advantage of all the optimisations in the renderer for handling point lamps) while the mesh lamp is still visible to the camera - but is set up to not block light from the lamp.

You can achieve this using the following material :

The Is Camera Ray light path input is used to switch between a Transparent shader and an Emission shader depending on whether visible to the camera. This means that for illuminating the scene the mesh will be invisible (so the lamp is visible) but in the actual render the mesh will emit light as if it were lighting the scene (so any effects in compositing (such as a Fog Glow) will still take account of the brightness).

As a comparison, here is a scene using a mesh lamp with 20 samples. The lamp on the right is a Point Lamp (and so is not visible) while the one on the left is a mesh lamp and so if visible to the camera. Note how the mesh lamp is very poor quality. Many more samples would be required to get acceptable results.

Using the above material produces the following result. Note how the mesh lamp is still visible but that the Point Lamp (positioned inside the mesh and set with a similar size as the mesh) is providing the actual illumination. Again, this is with only 20 render samples but the result is much more pleasing than the mesh lamp.


FS Distance from Camera settings to maintain constant line thickness I am using Freestyle with the Distance from Camera thickness modifier. I am trying to figure out the proper distance settings/curve to keep the thickness of a line constant in relation to the geometry it is on. For example, if the line is a marked edge representing a seam on a piece of clothing, I want it to always be 5mm thick in relation to that garment regardless of camera distance.

I want these settings to work out to long ranges where the line would eventually vanish, and I'm trying to avoid just eyeballing it.

Short Answer: Not really possible right now.

Long Answer: There may be a workround.

First, Let's see what Range Min, Range Max, Value Min and Value Max mean:

As you can see, Range Min and Range Max actually indicate the distance between camera object and the nearest/fartherest point on the mesh bound. The Fill Range by Selection button can calculate those two values based on selected object. Value Min and Value Max are both thickness values in pixel.

However, these four parameters won't dynamically change with the relative distance between camera and extreme points on object. You have to drive them with that distance value:

Before (no driver):  After (with drivers):

NOTE: The method above can be very limited because the distances to nearest and fartherest point can be different, which makes the expression less accurate. Anyway, assuming this is what you are going to make.


No sculpting shown in sculpt mode I have a Makehuman export in Blender (2.79) with skin mesh and cloth mesh bound to an armature. I edit the cloth mesh with Sculpt mode just fine. When I try to do the same for the skin, I enter the Sculpt mode successfully and pick tools to sculpt, but no changes are shown on the model and the model is not affected at all. However, when use ctrl + alt + z to see the history, I can see all the sculpting I've done. Why is that?

Update: when I move to Edit mode, I can see all the changes done; I can only see the changes I make in Sculpt mode, after going through edit mode. Otherwise, neither Sculpt mode or Edit mode updates the changes.

What?

You seem to be editing a shape key (also known by some as a morph target) that has zero weight. You can find shape keys in Properties > Object Data > Shapekeys. A shape key - grossly simplifying - is a snapshot of the arrangement of vertices in a mesh. With shape keys it's possible to interpolate between different states of the mesh.

How to fix?

The active shape key is the one that is being modified by the sculpting, but it may have weight zero and thus not be reflected onto the mesh. To pick which key is being edited, simply select it from the list. While sculpting you may wish to activate the pin icon: it will mute all but the active key. Just remember to deactivate it when you start rigging if you want to avoid surprises.

Why is this a thing?

Deforming a character with bones alone often leads to unsightly wrinkles. To combat this, many character rigs (including those made by Makehuman) are designed with shape keys that make the folding of elbows and  knees more natural and that are triggered automatically by bone motion. Another related use is driving creasing in clothing or bulging muscles. Shape keys (here the name morph target is somewhat more fitting) can also be used to drive radical but gradual transformations from one character to another.


IK rig handle stretch So I followed a Youtube guide and I learned how to apply IK constraints and pole targets. After correctly setting it up, I tried posing it. Overall it works fine but whenever I move the bone out it's reach, the bone disconnects from the forearm and the mesh stretches like so:

How do I make the IK rig handle bone separate from the model and not stretch the mesh, like auto IK?

The easiest way to fix it would be to copy IK target, that you already have (It's R.Hand I presume), call it R.Hand_IK or something of that meaning. From what I see on the image it has no parent already - good.Disable Deform option for this bone (showed on the image below). Parent old R.Hand bone to arm bone (don't know how you called it, but it's the yellow one on the image). Remove IK constraint from the arm bone and add it to R.Hand bone. Then make R.Hand_IK target of this constraint.


Is there any way to activate Rigify Buttons from a Python Script? Some background as to why I want to be able to do this:
I've written a script that finds and replaces specific widgets with my own custom made ones (I read the names of existing objects inside the widget collection, and then replace all with a specific prefix by a custom mesh). Every time I want to regenerate my rig, and run the script to replace all the widgets, I also need to delete the original widgets, and purge the orphan data. This is because when you press the rigify "Generate rig" button, it will generate objects with the correct names, but the meshes themselves will be named .002 instead of .001, because all the orphan mesh data means they can't be named the original.
So, instead of manually deleting the widgets, purging the orphan data, selecting the mesh and generating the rig each time... Instead, if I could simply use select_set(True) on my metarig, and activate the "Generate Rig" from a script, then I could let my script handle everything from the the widget deletion, orphan purging, rig generation, and widget replacement, to eye parenting, driver assignment and bone constraints all in one, which would save me heaps of time!
Thanks in advance!

Well, I guess I'll be answering my own question!
After reading up the barely commented documentation, I figured out how to do this. It's very likely that what I have done is very inefficient, but it works. Here's the code I concluded with!
RigGen = True #Just in case I don't want to replace the rig every time

#Define a deselect command for all selected items - it'll be useful later.

def DeselAll():
    for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
        obj.select_set(False)
DeselAll()

##Then, we delete the original widgets found in the "Widgets" collection
if RigGen == True:
    widg_del = bpy.data.collections["Widgets"].objects
    for obj in widg_del:
        bpy.data.objects.remove(obj)

    #Then, we removes all orphans stored in the meshes data block
    for block in bpy.data.meshes:
        if block.users == 0:
            bpy.data.meshes.remove(block)

#At this point, the context has been changed, so we need to change it back to object mode
#Else, our rig generation will not work unless you hover your mouse over the 3d viewport.
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
    cnt = bpy.context
    scn = bpy.context.scene
    mrig       = bpy.data.objects["Metarig"] #"Metarig" is your metarig object name
    mrig.select_set(True)
    rigify.generate.generate_rig(cnt,mrig)

DeselAll()

It's slow, but it's faster than doing it all manually!


Complex text (curve) to mesh creates gaps I have a logo based on a complex font that I want to 3D-ize. When I convert the 2D text object (created in Blender or imported as SVG - same result) I get a mesh that has a log of gaps in it, which is really visible when you extrude it. Some of the gaps seem to come from the curve intersecting (itself), but not all... What can I do to get it as a solid/continuous object?

Using extrude in the font properties in Blender proved to be the right way.

In my question I had created a text, then converted to mesh and finally extruded with 'e' - that created the broken mesh. A lot of unnecessary steps that also rendered a bad result.


Set normal orientation of origin I want to change the orientation of my object to a specified direction.

Say I have an axle of a train whose normal orientation is set off by 90° from the global orientation:

The green arrow (Y-axis) points to the back of the train (along the global X-axis). But I want it to point to the sides of the train, so all I want is to rotate the orientation by 90° without rotating the object itself.

In other words, I want the normal and global orientation of the axle to be the identical:

Is this possible and if so, how?

Background:
The game engine to use this model will move the bogies and the axles according to their orientations. After importing this train into the game the axles rotated 90° off.

Select the object in Object mode, then CtrlA > R (Apply rotation). This resets the rotation to 0° around all three axes (and thus aligns the local axes with the global axes) without rotating the object.


Subtracting in Weight Painting Adds Material Whenever I subtract in weight painting, it ends up adding more material to the mesh, I don't know what the cause of this is, I want it to edit the weight painting but not do anything to the mesh. Any help would be appreciated.

I would recommend that you never substract any bone weights (unless you know exactly what you are doing, or have all correctly painted weights locked). Blender assigns the lost weight to other bones in proximity, but the program can never know which bone you would want the substracted weight to be on. Instead, add the weight to the bone, that should gain influence in the specific part of the mesh, the weight you add will be substracted from the other bone. It seems, your weight gets transferred to a bone that has transformations, therefore the mesh will displace. Select all bones in posemode and reset them (alt g for position, alt r for rotation and  alt s for scale). If you paint your weights in rest position, nothing should move.


How to I move a face so that the rest of the objects faces move proportionally I'm very much a noob at blender so please forgive me if this is a simple question.
I want to create a loop de loop object and I think I'm almost there. How would I move the face at each end to the the rest of the object moves proportionally. I tried moving them using the proportional editing tool but only moves the first few segments.
Any help with this will be very much appreciated.

I know this doesn't answer the title of the question but rather its body.
If you are going to use modifiers, you can consider using the screw modifier :
Create a single vertex a 1,0,0.

Add a screw modifier and tweak the screw offset property

add a skin modifier


Changing an objects origin just changes its location Whenever I try to set the origin of this patch of grass to the 3D cursor all that seams to happen is it moves the object location to the 3D cursor. Whats happening here?

Changing the origin point wont move the object, it changes where the object is "attached to".

Lets say you wanted to pick up a cup, you can pick it up by the handle, you can pick it up by the tip, you can pick it up by lots of ways. Wherever your skin touches the cup, thats the "origin point".

What are you trying to do with the grass? You can upload the .blend here
http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/


image texture is not visible on object I have problems with texturing the grey part of the calculator I have been working on recently. If I try to texture the same part of the model with an other picture it works perfectly well.

blender file:

the .blend file will be nice to check the things out but when looking on the pictures I decided to try to answer You because I could NOT comment (newbie here).

At least You are using two different textures and probably also the materials for Your model so keep in mind that if U using more than one for one UV mesh U have to ASSIGN the desired material with the desired faces!

On the image below there could be seen top face assigned to the BLUE material and the rest to the RED material. So if U have some faces assigned to the material which works and not the crucial ones to the material with that "texas instruments" texture it could be a problem.

...if this is not that case then please try to provide us Your .blend file here so we all could check it and write You a solution buddy.

Sincerely, Jan


How to cut and paste part of a mesh to another mesh? Hi im new to Blender and i want to know when im in edit mode if i can copy or cut a selections of polygons faces and paste to another mesh.

Thanks in advance for any help

You can't do it using the normal copy and paste functions, but you can do it using a few separate shortcuts/tools:

To 'cut' part of a mesh to a new object:

1. In edit mode, select the parts of the mesh you want to cut.

If you want to copy part of the mesh and not cut it you will need to do step '2', otherwise skip to step '3':

2.  Press Shift+D to duplicate the selected faces/edges/verts.

3. Press P and choose Selection from the Separate menu. The selected part of the mesh will now be a separate object but you will still be in edit mode of the original object.

4. Leave edit mode and select the new separate object (which will be on  top of the old object).

If you wish to join this into an existing mesh you can continue:

5. Shift select a different existing mesh and press Ctrl+J to join them together.


How to make a curve behave like a squeezed tooth paste (to born from a moving object but to stay on ground) I'm trying to make a curve to behave like in the image, without success :(
I tried to search for an answer but couldn't find. Particles are a bit of out of the question here since I need super-clean and smooth line.
What could be the answer?
Here's the .blend of that image:

Wow, found a wonderful method.
You see, you can add a curve modifier to a curve, who knew!? :)

I made a CURVE profile to the ground that should be followed
Then I added the CURVE_toothpaste that is the shape of toothpaste coming out of tube and put a curve modifier to it, so that it follows the PROFILE
Then I animated the location of the CURVE_toothpaste
And also animated the location of the toothpaste_squeezer that followed the profile curve (note that the animation happens on the curve, not on the squeezer)

See the .blend for clarification

.Blend here:


Blender how to create 2D shape with smooth and sharp edges Dears, I am new to Blender 3D and I am struggling at creating 2D flat objects that have sharp vertices/edges and smooth vertices/edges I create my object, I select some vertices as "sharp" or "crease" but after applying the subdivision surface modifier the entire object is smoothed out, including the vertices marked as sharp. I was not able to find a tutorial.. Thank you for your help.

To sharpen you need to create some additional edges close to the existing one you want to sharp, I don't think Crease could help with 2D shapes.


NOOB - confused by plane coordinates I am using Blender in conjunction with a Sweet Home project that was well on the way. I am learning how to create models in Blender but have only just begun. However, my other project requires ceiling light models with light source coordinates where bulbs would be. I have a free source model for my light fitting and imported into Blender. I clicked on the faces within each light bulb holder (3 in total at 120 degrees to each other) and, although these are in different spatial positions, I was confused by the XYZ coordinates for each of these being in the same position. I had made sure it was these 3 separate faces clicked each time. Why would XYZ coordinates (in metres to to 5 decimal places) show as the same XYZ values?
I realise this will just be my misunderstanding but any help gratefully accepted.

The XYZ coordinates, depending on where you're looking, are dependent on the origin of the object, not the individual faces. Better viewed in Object mode than Edit mode. It may be that you have 3 different lights, but only one object, or the origin of all of the lights is at the same location. Sometimes when objects are created in another program an array or copy is used in creating the multiple objects, and the origin remains the same.
Here are two objects with the same origin location (denoted by the orange dot between them), and thus the same XYZ coordinates, even though the objects are in different locations:


Rendering low and res/high res images Is it possible to render in Blender with reduced low res files and then ask Blender to render the final render with 4k high res files? Low and high res files would be numbered identically but would be located in different folders.

Many thanks

You can use compositing to output a Hi-res file and a scaled low-res file


How to make one object fit into volume of another? I need one object to mimic shape of another, so that it would fit it's volume and shape. Circle (2d) needs to be shaped like those crooked cube. As if you put something soft into some hard box, I need changed circle, cube is just for shaping  (preferably for Blender 2.8, but not necessarily).

How about:

Make a box
Make a circle which fits the box
Make a Lattice object which fits the box
Assign a Lattice modifier to the circle and the box

Now, whatever you do to the lattice, will happen to the circle and the box.

Or, if you have to fit to an existing box, make the Lattice to fit the circle, and then snap its vertices to the box.


How to properly rotate bevel object on a fractured beziercurve I am trying to place long benches on a lot of edges in a park. I decided to use Curves with a bevel object for that. I placed edges on the places where the benches need to come and converted the mesh to a curve. There I added a bench profile. I placed the origin point of the bench profile to the bottom so I thought that works without problems. Now does the problem occur that the profile is randomly rotated over the curve like you can see on the image below. These images are taken on different positions in my park.

Of course, I did try to search for a similar problem and what I found here is that you need to rotate the profile in edit mode but that does not solve the problem because it keeps the different rotations but then just from another angle. Also is this inaccurate because you never know when it is horizontal.

So what I want is that the broader part of the profile (to sit area) is placed on the top on every part of the curve.

Here my curve (all parts are in one curve), my curve settings and the bench profile:

Can somebody help me with placing the bench profile correctly placed across the entire curve

Thanks in advance

Solved

What I did is create the curve directly from a curve instead of converting a mesh to a curve. I still want to thank everybody who gave suggestions that should work in normal situations.

Apply Rotation

Object Transformations are the latest thing that affect your mesh appereance, even after modifiers.

All the curve related options (including the Twisting type) consider the un-rotated mesh, that in your case look like this:

only after that the rigid rotation of the object occours, so the benches will not result having the Twisting type you expected.

Applying the rotation (Crtl+A) will let use the curve's options directly upon the final mesh orientation.


How can I add a bumpy glowing surface to my model? How can I achieve this surface and light on sphere's? Picture below:

I appreciate help, thank you.

This is very basic but should get you going in the correct direction. I also added a subdivision surface of 2, the "multiply" node is just a "math" node set to mulitply. The actual glowing part would be done in post. Or you can switch out the glossy node with an emission shader and see if that looks ok when you add more of the bumpy balls.


How do I add an appended object as part of a shapekey? So the shield is part of a shapekey. It does not exist in the "basis" shapekey.

The skull I made in a separate blend file and appended it to this file. I now want to join the skull and shield together. So they are both part of the shield's shapekey. Is this possible? Or will I need to recreate the skull in edit mode whilst in the new shapekey?

Hope this is making sense :S

Select the shield and afterwards the skull, and press ctrl + j. This joins the meshes together and creates a new object and should fix your issue, unless I understood it wrongly.


icosphere passes through all planes even with collision on in physics tab See animation below:

Red ball passes through everything.

Blue ball passes through both stairs and green plane but finally collides with blue plane.

I have been trying to fix this problem for 4 hours now.

Blender file:

Animation:

Physics:

Blue plane, green plane and stairs all have the same physics with just the collision on (no settings changed):
Blue ball and red ball have the same physics, collision and soft body turned on:

I think you need to simplify the physics models.  Here is what I have for the blue ball and then the stairs:

I didn't change any of the soft body parameters, using the defaults instead. I did set the stairs to Passive and made sure the blue ball was active.

Since I didn't tune the rigid body parameters, the balls tend to pass part way through the stairs, but they do bounce and roll down the stairs.


Is it possible to modify the 'system bookmarks' category in the file browser? I was just playing around with the latest build of Blender 2.8 and downloaded some files from the internet to check out Eevee with. I wanted to open the file from my downloads folder and noticed it is not a default bookmark, although there is a 'System Bookmarks' folder in the file browser, and most OSes have a system download folder.

It doesn't seem to be possible to add bookmarks to 'System Bookmarks', so I added my download folder to the 'Bookmarks' folder instead. I know there is a bookmarks.txt file in the Blender config folder, but it doesn't contain the System Bookmarks category and trying to add one to it doesn't work. Is it possible to modify system bookmarks somehow?

Although I couldn't find a way to directly modify System Bookmarks, the most recent versions of Blender (2.81 and above) include an option in the Preferences that allow you to hide both the System and Recent bookmarks, which are both auto-generated bookmark types.

The options can be found in Preferences under Save & Load. Check 'Hide System Bookmarks' to hide the from the file browser. You can also use 'Hide Recent Locations' if you don't like to see recent file browser history.

This does not answer the question originally asked, but it does solve the issue I was having with the bookmark sidebar having space wasted by bookmarks I didn't use.


Pycharm remote debugger System:

Ubuntu 18.04
Pycharm 2019.2 professional edition
Python 3.6.8

I have followed this link to create a pycharm remote debugger but I have encountered an error related to remote_debugger.py

Blender add-on configuration:

Pycharm state:

Blender error:

It's nearly impossible to write a complex program in Blender without debugging options.
Can you please help me solve this problem?
I also think this should be an important feature request for the next release - an easy way to debug the code with 3rd party program.

Thank you all in advance.

Below you find the updated remote_debugger.py which runs in Blender 2.80.

Install the add-on
Set the paths to the pydevd.py and pydevd-pycharm.egg (don't forget to save the preferences)
Configure and start the remote debug server in PyCharm
Search for the Connect to remote PyCharm debugger in the operator search using F3 or Edit > Operator Search

This works only with PyCharm Professional, the Community Edition is missing the remote debug feature.

"""
Remote debugging support.
This addon allows you to use a remote Python debugger with PyCharm, PyDev and
possibly other IDEs. As it is, without modification, it only supports PyCharm,
but it may work by pointing it at a similar egg file shipped with PyDev.
Before using, point the addon to your pydevd-pycharm.egg file in the
addon preferences screen.
For more information on how to use this addon, please read my article at
http://code.blender.org/2015/10/debugging-python-code-with-pycharm/
"""

bl_info = {
    'name': 'Remote debugger',
    'author': 'Sybren A. Stüvel and Robert Gützkow',
    'version': (0, 4),
    'blender': (2, 80, 0),
    'location': 'Press F3, search for "debugger"',
    'category': 'Development',
}

import bpy
import os.path
from bpy.types import AddonPreferences
from bpy.props import StringProperty

class DebuggerAddonPreferences(AddonPreferences):
    # this must match the addon name, use '__package__'
    # when defining this in a submodule of a python package.
    bl_idname = __name__

    eggpath: StringProperty(
        name='Path of the PyCharm egg file',
        description='Make sure you select the py3k egg',
        subtype='FILE_PATH',
        default='pydevd-pycharm.egg'
    )

    pydevpath: StringProperty(
        name='Path of the PyDev pydevd.py file',
        subtype='FILE_PATH',
        default='pydevd.py'
    )

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.prop(self, 'pydevpath')
        layout.prop(self, 'eggpath')
        layout.label(text='Make sure you select the egg for Python 3.x: pycharm-debug-py3k.egg ')

class DEBUG_OT_connect_debugger_pycharm(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = 'debug.connect_debugger_pycharm'
    bl_label = 'Connect to remote PyCharm debugger'
    bl_description = 'Connects to a PyCharm debugger on localhost:1090'

    def execute(self, context):
        import sys

        user_preferences = context.preferences
        addon_prefs = user_preferences.addons[__name__].preferences

        eggpath = os.path.abspath(addon_prefs.eggpath)

        if not os.path.exists(eggpath):
            self.report({'ERROR'}, 'Unable to find debug egg at %r. Configure the addon properties '
                                   'in the User Preferences menu.' % eggpath)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        if not any('pycharm-debug' in p for p in sys.path):
            sys.path.append(eggpath)

        import pydevd_pycharm
        pydevd_pycharm.settrace('localhost', port=1090, stdoutToServer=True, stderrToServer=True,
                        suspend=False)

        return {'FINISHED'}

class DEBUG_OT_connect_debugger_pydev(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = 'debug.connect_debugger_pydev'
    bl_label = 'Connect to remote PyDev debugger'
    bl_description = 'Connects to a PyDev debugger on localhost:5678'

    def execute(self, context):
        import sys

        user_preferences = context.preferences
        addon_prefs = user_preferences.addons[__name__].preferences

        pydevpath = os.path.abspath(addon_prefs.pydevpath)

        if not os.path.exists(pydevpath):
            self.report({'ERROR'}, 'Unable to find pydevd.py at %r. Configure the addon properties '
                                   'in the User Preferences menu.' % pydevpath)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        dirname = os.path.dirname(pydevpath)
        basename = os.path.basename(dirname)
        if not any(basename in p for p in sys.path):
            sys.path.append(dirname)

        import pydevd
        pydevd.settrace('localhost', port=5678, stdoutToServer=True, stderrToServer=True,
                        suspend=False)

        return {'FINISHED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(DEBUG_OT_connect_debugger_pycharm)
    bpy.utils.register_class(DEBUG_OT_connect_debugger_pydev)
    bpy.utils.register_class(DebuggerAddonPreferences)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(DEBUG_OT_connect_debugger_pycharm)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(DEBUG_OT_connect_debugger_pydev)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(DebuggerAddonPreferences)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    register()


Fixing a messy boolean operation I'm splitting an object with a plane using a boolean modifier as described in Split a mesh with a plane. Roughly:

Duplicate the object.
Add a plane.
Apply an intersection Boolean modifier to the original object.
Apply a difference Boolean modifier to the duplicated object.

I did this twice to pull a thin slice out of my object, and the resulting mesh is much more complicated than it could be. I'm slicing with unmodified planes so the big main faces are actually flat, big end up broken up into many crazy smaller faces.

I'm imagining the cleanest slice would be a topological cylinder. Is there some way to get a cleaner slice than this (python manipulation is fine) - either a method to make a nice slice directly, or a way to clean up the slice I've already got?

Here is what I imagine as an ideal mesh:

I don't believe you can get a better result from a boolean modifier, they are nearly always messy, however, there are several ways to clean up a messy mesh.

Method 1:
Rather than fixing it by hand it might be easier to just add a 'Remesh' modifier which will try to convert the mesh to a quad based mesh.

Setting the remesh modifier to 'smooth' mode and upping the Octree Depth (think of it as resolution of mesh) will result in a cleaner mesh.

However, to get the the mesh as smooth as you want it may mean the resolution of the remesh would have to be quite high, but even at a lower resolution it can be a good starting point.

You could use a lower level remesh modifier and then a subsurf modifier after that to smooth it out again.

Method 2:
Another method is to select all the faces that make up the bottom of the mesh press F to make an ngon and then choose Ctrl + F > Poke Faces to subdivide them again. You would then also have to repeat this for the top of the mesh.

This should result in the 'topological cylinder' you mention in your question.


Deformation When I Apply Bevel Modifier When I apply bevel modifier I get this deformation. Why is this?

The topology is bad, it creates bevels where you are not expecting bevels, therefore overlapping faces. You need to create a good topology, with quads and not ngons:


Image texture rendered badly in Blender cycles The texture looks correct in the preview but renders badly with vertical artefacts and looks very low resolution. What's going on here?

This render, focussed on just the label (128 samples) shows the damage:

The shrinkwrap modifier must be applied first, before the subsurface modifier.


Driver python expression doesn't work as intended (doesn't calculate if else properly) I can't understand why it doesn't work. Driver value should be 0 according to my expression. Can't figure out what is wrong with it.

I wouldn't trust the value in a quaternion to exactly equal a whole number.
There are decimal numbers that a base two floating point number can't represent, for the same reason that you can't represent 1/3 exactly in base ten. While -1 isn't one of those numbers, it's conceivable and probably to be expected that some minute inaccuracy would have been introduced in producing the number that's used for that driver channel.
Try this:
0 if abs(-1-var) < 0.001 else 1
or
0 if var < -0.999 else


Object falls though other objects even when given the same physics So, I made a bunch of spheres (they don't bounce yet) that are supposed to fall and hit the plane beneath them, and stop. All of them, big and small, do exactly that... except one. This one keeps falling right through the plane. First I changed all the physics in the physics tab to make it work, and when nothing changed, I deleted that one, copied directly off of another ball, and placed it where it was supposed to go.
And it fell through.
Its an exact copy of the other one. Does Shift-D only copy the physical properties of something, and I was just unaware of this?

I've been having the same problem with objects falling through a cube surface even with a box collider. This post - Why is this passive rigid body allowing objects to pass through it? - has a really helpful comment from @satishgoda. If you go into the Scene tab in the Properties window, and increase the Steps per Second (I needed 300 steps) that should help prevent some of your smaller objects from falling through.


Find and Install Current Blender Release I don't know the correct place for this question so I'm asking here:  I have a previous version of Blender that I downloaded but was never able to use (extended illness).  I would now like to download the current version and would like to know what the latest version is and I'd like to know if I have to delete the version I already have.  Thank you.

You Can keep the current version but it's quite useless.

There are three current builds:

the main: 2.78c that you can download from the official website under download.

  https://www.blender.org/download/ù

The last two are for advanced users they are unstable, so do not save any important file with this versions:

2.79 testbuilds (2.78.5), downloadable from here:

  http://graphicall.org/110

2.8 Testbuilds (2.8), downloadable from here:

  https://builder.blender.org/download/ under the red rectangle (2.8 project)


How to get a better HDRI render? I'm trying to render using HDRI, I'm using a setup I learned in a  cgmastersnet course. You take the EXR, load it into the world with nodes, set the strength, choose transparency (so the background doesn't show) and render.

It seems with this setup, I'm not really getting any shadowing. I've played around with the settings, put AO on or off, not much seems to change. The render seems washed out and dirty. I've watched a few videos on it but only have come away more confused. Below are settings and the render. Any tips are appreciated.

Have you tried experimenting with different HDRIs? It could just be that the lighting you're getting from that specific HDRI isn't what you're looking for. If you want crisp shadows then maybe try looking for an HDRI that has a strong, single light source.

This is more anecdotal, but I've personally never had to put an HDRI at anything above a 2 in strength. This seems to lend more evidence to the HDRI itself being washed out/being the problem child


How can I use vector mapping to control the Anisotropic shader? Is it possible to use the Anisotropic shader with texture vector mapping, as with the other nodes? I don't see the "vector" input in that node...

So there seems to be no way to plug the UV (or anything else) from the texture coordinates node to the anisotropic node. And by default, of course it uses the generated input.

So for example, there is no simple method to create the following image  (I cheated to make it look this way)? By "simple method" I mean manipulating texture coordinates as we usually do.

As you can see, in this (cheated) image, the texture looks like it's been moved away from the center of the mesh. It may look weird, but how can I do this?

I'm using the latest version of Blender with Cycles.

Tangent (Radial) vector is different from Texture coordinates (cartesian)

The Anistropic shader is not using the Generated Texture coordinates input as default because, as you correctly noticed, there isn't a Vector socket.

The two vector-type input present in the shader are:

Normal (it's used for providing a normal map to the surface)
Tangent (this one controls the anisotropy direction of the material)

If the last mentioned socket is left empty, the default Tangent vector is being used, that corrisponds to the Tangent node in Radial mode and Z axis.

But what exactly how the Tangent socket affect the shader result?

As we know anisotropy means that the material has different properties in different directions; the Anisotropy shader is like a Glossy shader but with reflections that are "stretched" upon a certain direction. The Tangent input drives the direction on which the light is stretched:

Using the UVmap mode can help you in controlling the direction of the tangent ( the V direction in the UV space).

The reason you can't easily tweak the tangent with the vector mapping is because the values don't have nothing in common with the position of the shaded point. Here's what the Tangent (Radial Z) component X looks like:

The operations that the Mapping node is capable of (multiply, add, rotate..) would not result in a shift of the Tangent vector in the 3D space. While the Texture coordinates are in a cartesian coordinate system, so if you add 0.1 to X, the texture shift along the X axis, adding 0.1 to the radial-mapped values of tangent node instead, will result in a change of the circular sector, but the center will always remain still (it even has an undefined value).

A possible workaround for this situation could be to emulate the vector result of the tangent node with a Texture coordinates node that you'll able to tweak with the Mapping node, or maybe using an empty as origin. The trick consist in moving the center and, only after that, reconstruct the "radiality".

Starting from the Object's coordinate, just get rid of the Z component and Normalize the vector.

Now you can move the empty, or add the mapping node just after the Texture coordinate node as usual, in order to set the convergence point of the anisotropy property.


Bevel edge rounds more on 1 side than another side I am trying to bevel a rectangle edge to make rounded edges but when I bevel, I am rounding more of one side compared to the shorter side of the rectangle. How can I bevel the same amount on both sides for a rectangle.

You should "apply scale".

In object mode CtrlA then 'scale'.


Projection texture painting, is it possible to swap images after applying brush? I'm trying to use the same uv mapping and brush texture painting with a few near identical human face photos.

Is that possible? I know with F clone you can just swap out a different image and use the same uv map as the source clone uv map, but that resets all of the brush work(sorry, meant you have to draw all over again with the brush, doesn't replace the original brush work with the new source clone image).

So IMG is the original source clone image that was used to create the "front" uv mapping, i'm asking if it's possible to have the same brush work applied with a different source clone image, but same uv mapping, without having to redraw on top(so it would essentially replace the original source clone image texture exactly as it was drawn).

I would suggest using 3 uv maps, on for front projection, one for side projection, and one for regular unwrap with seams to avoid stretch. Here each texture is set to a different slot, and a black image is set as stencil and intensity between them, and that one is painted with white to reveal the image below. In this case, you can then replace the texture use for the front view or the side view and the stencil will affect it the same way.


Weird triangles on flat surface - extruded svg I extruded an svg file (vector curves) and am getting all this weirdness (triangles visible on flat surfaces) when I render it.

I'm sure this is a simple answer, but what is going on?

I realized I had a "Solidify" modifier applied. Took that off and it fixed it.


BGE GLSL materials in embedded player I am on the very beginning of creating a game. As a GE BGE was chosen. At the moment a problem popped out: I want to use real-time shadows and when I set Shading to GLSL in the Render options I get just absolutely white objects. No changes to materials take effect, no shadows are visible. What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: I found out that it works properly in the standalone player. Can I make it work in embedded player as well?

Make sure the viewport is set to textured shading in 3D view > Header before starting the game engine:

The viewport shading will affect the shading used in the game engine to some degree.

Wireframe:

Solid:

Texture:


Deleted compositing layout -- How to bring it back? I mistakenly deleted my compositing layout. I've tried to open the file without the Load UI and I've also restored the settings to default but still can't find the layout. Although if I open a new file entirely, the layout is back but not on the saved project. How can I bring the compositing layout back?

The custom screen layouts are saved in a blend file but they don't show up when we append data from another file. This leaves two choices, recreate the layout that is missing, or open the file without the screen layouts and replace all of the screens in the file.

To create a new screen layout click the + next to the screen list and give it a useful name. Now adjust the layout so that the editors are where you want them and save your blend file.

If you start with a file (maybe your default startup) that has the layouts you want to use, turn off load UI when you open your blend file so you keep the existing layouts, then resave the blend file with these layouts. Not that this removes any cutsom screen layouts you may have had in your file.


Multiple sets of seams for multiple UVs? When UV mapping and lightmapping an asset for game use, I find that I need to erase my seams after UV mapping in order to place new seams for the lightmapping. Is there anyway to preserve them, or use two different sets?

You can mark your seams, unwrap to one UV map:

Then create a new UV map, clear your seams, designate new seams, and unwrap to the new UV map:

Then select the first UV map, and use UV/"Seams from Islands" which will re-designate seams based on the first UV map, restoring the seams that you had before.


Transferring changes from UV to a mesh For the sake of example let's say I have a subdivided plane mesh and then I start to edit its UV map by changing vertices positions etc in the UV editor. Is there a way to apply those changes to the mesh geometry itself?
 As in I have a texture and I have changed the vertices positions accordingly so that it all fits perfectly - but I did so in the UV editor and now I want the actual mesh geometry to reproduce those changes and those vertices positions as well (since the mesh is just a plane), is there a way to do so?

You can do it manually, but it is tedious:

change the plane's 3D origin to the bottom right of the plane, so that all of the planes local coordinates are equal or above 0, like your UV coordinates

now click on each vertex of the plane and in the top part of the Proprieties panel press "Local", change Y to 0 then change X and Z to your UV coordinates

to know which vertex in UV space belongs to which vertex in 3D space , click
"Keep UV and edit mode mesh selection in sync"


Light direction in Normal Map Bake I'm new in blender and trying to bake normal from a high resolution mesh to a low poly.

But the result of the normal map is casting shadow from sky corresponding to some global illumination that I can't change.

As you can see in image some global light is casting shadow into normal result. I'm trying to put some lights in scene but whatever shadow direction I try the same result accurs.

How can I bake Normal without shadow direction? Like we do when we bake AO with light coming from all directions.

I hope you understand this ridiculous explanation. ;/

Thanks!

Normal maps do not control the lighting of a surface, they only define surface facing direction. It is impossible to store light or shadow information in a normal map. You should not attempt to judge the information in a normal map based on what you see. It is not a shadow, these simply are numerical values that happen to be lower. You should look for the issue in your lighting or geometry if there are shadows where they should not be.


Object texture 1 pixel lines on some sides of model I want to add textures to a model (which is mostly cube-shaped) without the use of UV maps.

I use object mapping which looks good on the bottom of the cube but on the sides, it seems like a 1px border of the texture is used and stretched upwards along the sides. Moving a node makes the texture projection even stranger.

It is as if the texture's colors were 3d-printed and the 3d model is being cut out of the texture "block".

How can I make the textures be "printed" on the surfaces, so it doesn't matter which way they are facing, without using UV maps.

As mentioned by Mr Zak Cube mapping is the correct way, have in mind however that Blender's OpenGL rendering engine does not support displaying of automatic cube mapped generated texture coordinates directly in the viewport or game engine, it always displays as a 2D mapped texture stretched on the sides.

When you render your images however, it will display correctly.

If you plan on using the OpenGL render or the game engine you will have to unwrap as generated or automatic cube texture coordinates are not currently supported.

For cycles render engine you can use object or generated texture coordinates, but again there is no support for previewing on the viewport, except for basic UV Mapped textures


Where is the shader panel in Blender? Here is the part of the tutorial that I'm following that I'm stuck on:

  With your landscape selected, go to the Shading Panel (F5) and add a new material.
  Under the Shaders tab, drop the Specular value to 0.

It can't be the "shading" panel in the properties window, because I don't see a "specular value". None of the function keys work for me. I'm using Blender 2.77.

Yes, there are

Possibilies:
- Make sure you are in Blender internal
- Shading panel may be collapsed, or dragged below.


No lighting is working at all I have tried switching the layers and setting the sun brightness to 10000000000000000 but nothing seems to work, and everything stays dark.
There are two layers. The glass human is in a different layer.

The render with a bright sun:

blend file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bFSneuIuCyh5BTJo0AOcp59ICcAd8jmz/view?usp=sharing

You set the "Clamp Direct and Clamp Indirect" to a very small number.

Here is a screenshot with,

Clamp Direct = 1, Clamp Indirect = 10, Sun lamp strength = 2.

The documentation for these settings is here https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/settings/scene/render/integrator.html

Clamp direct will make all light values larger than the set value be ignored (or clamped), so if you set clamp at 0.03 for example, all light values will be considered up to 0.03, even if your light is brighter than brightest star in the universe.


How to have vertical stripes across whole object? I want to have vertical stripes across my sofa model like in the reference photo. I have used UV editing on object seams (the model is all one object) but the stripes on the arm of the sofa appear as horizontal. Any ideas on how to fix/make them vertical?
Thanks!

While in front orthographic view, you could select all in edit mode with A > press U > and click Project From View. Your UV will then appear the same as the object does in front view, so the Wave Texture will be vertical while using the UV Coordinates. You can use the Mapping node to change the scale of the stripes.

Alternatively, you can use the Object Coordinates. If you haven't applied your object's rotation, you can use the Mapping node to rotate the stripes accordingly.


scaling mesh and armature Okay, so I've downloaded a mesh from a website for practice and the mesh itself has an armature. Now I want to know if I were to scale a certain part of the mesh's body to make it be taller, like the arms or legs, will it affect the armature bones in any way? Will the bones have to be adjusted to fit the mesh's body? or will the bones scale along with what ever part of the mesh is being scaled?

I will appreciate any advice thanks.

The bone wouldn't follow your modifications in edit-mode (unless maybe with specific constraints, which you would have to set manually).

So the bone would have to be manually adjusted (in edit-mode, not pose-mode) to follow.

Another approach would be to modify (scale for example) your bone in pose-mode. The associated parts of the mesh would follow the bone (if your vertex groups/bones associations are set up properly).

It's not easy to give you an "advice" because we don't really know what you want to do. You're only asking "If I do A, does it imply B ?". So answers are limited to yes/no.

For an advice, you should probably directly ask something like "In the context C, what are my options for doing D ?". Here we have part of C, but no real idea about D.


What are these weird clippings on edit mode when my object has subdivision surface on? The object looks fine to me in object mode but on edit mode i see this clippings through the object's box selection. It is supposed to look like that or is there an issue that i'm not noticing?

Nothing seems wrong here, it's just some z-fighting between your edit mesh and the subsurf mesh.
Z-fighting is when two faces (in this case, the edit mesh face and the subsurf faces) occupy the same space, so they "fight" over which one gets rendered first.


Changing vertex colors through python I'm trying to get and set the vertex colors of a mesh through a python script. However, the script seems unable to find the vertex color data, claiming the data set has length 0 despite that clearly not being the case.

import logging
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG,format='(%(threadName)-10s) %(message)s',)

obj = bpy.context.edit_object

mesh = obj.data

if not mesh.vertex_colors:
    mesh.vertex_colors.new()
    logging.debug("Mesh had no vertex colors, adding them")

color_layer = mesh.vertex_colors.active

logging.debug(mesh)
logging.debug(mesh.vertex_colors)
logging.debug(len(color_layer.data))

if len(color_layer.data) > 0:
    i = 0
    for poly in mesh.polygons:
        for idx in poly.loop_indices:
            color_layer.data[i].color = (1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
            i += 1

This is the console output:

  (MainThread) bpy_struct, Mesh("Cube")
  (MainThread) bpy_collection1, LoopColors
  (MainThread) 0

Here is my mesh, which very clearly has a non-zero list of vertex colors:

Anyone knows what's happening?

It seems that the way to go about it is, unintuitively, to exit edit mode into object mode in order to perform any vertex-level stuff, and then re-enter edit mode at the end of your script.

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

ob = bpy.context.active_object

for vcol in ob.data.vertex_colors:
#sample or do stuff to the vertex colors

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


Animate Curve along mesh surface i am trying to find a way to aproach, animating a curve along a mesh surface, like having a wire creating a mesh.
I thought about having a curve snapped along the mesh and then animate the wires.
 Do you have any reference tutorial or any idea how to aproach it? Here is a reference image:

and here is a second:

Thank alot

This tutorial deals with the animation of stuff along curves. Your model might be complicated to set up this up for, though.

https://medium.com/@behreajj/scripting-curves-in-blender-with-python-c487097efd13


Can we smooth selected faces to make curved surface more precise? Is there a way to smooth selected faces to make curved surface more precise?

This kind of mathematical accuracy is of course easier achieved by using nurbs oriented workflow, but it could be handy to have in mesh modeling workflow too.

There are commands like flatten and smooth vertices, but those commands try to make the surface more flat or planar and don¨t take into account the basic shape or geometry. So this wanted feature could set points to approximated curve and use that as reference to move the faces.

Subdivision-surface workflow could be a one option, but is not usable in this modeling scenario.

Thanks!

Original mesh. The selected faces shows the curved surface, of which I am talking about

Same mesh from above. Red curve indicates the wanted curvature of faces.

Using the built-in smooth tool on two axes
Applicable to few cases

Temporarily rotate your model so that one axis is close to parallel to the edge loop.
Temporarily remove edges adjacent to the edge loops, so the edgeloop which needs smoothing are selected and not connected to anything else.
Execute the smooth operation W < Smooth and set the Smoothing parameter to 0.5. Increase the iterations as desired.
Reconnected the edges with the bridge edgeloop tool.
Realign your model.

To script the functionality, start with a bmesh and the get the edge loop. Then implement your custom smoothing function.
I have hacked a short script together. This also works on curved surfaces.

Select the starting edge of an edge loop.
Select the ending edge of the edge loop. (They don't have to cover all of the edge loop.)
Edit the smoothing and iterations variables and execute the script.

This also works with multiple edge loop simultaneously.

Another application example.

import bpy
import bmesh

def bm_from_me(me):
    if me.is_editmode:
        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
    else:
        bm = bmesh.new()
        bm.from_mesh(me)
    return bm
def bm_to_me(bm, me):
    if bm.is_wrapped:
        bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me, False, False)
    else:
        bm.to_mesh(me)
        me.update()

def get_loop_untill_selection(loop):
    verts = []
    while len(loop.vert.link_edges) == 4:
        loop = loop.link_loop_prev.link_loop_radial_prev.link_loop_prev
        verts.append(loop.vert)
        if loop.edge.select == True:
            loop.edge.select = False
            print(loop.edge.select)
            return verts, loop.edge
    return [], None

def smooth_coordinates(coords, smoothing, iterations):
    for i in range(1, len(coords) - 1):
        med = (coords[i - 1] + coords[i + 1]) / 2

        coords[i] *= 1 - smoothing
        coords[i] += med * smoothing

    if iterations > 1:
        smooth_coordinates(coords, smoothing, iterations - 1)

def smooth_loop(e, smoothing = 0.5, iterations = 1):
    edges = []
    for edge in bm.edges:
        if edge.select:
            e = edge

            for start_loop in e.link_loops:
                verts, end_edge = get_loop_untill_selection(start_loop)
                if end_edge is not None:
                    verts.insert(0, start_loop.vert)
                    if (start_loop.vert == e.verts[0]):
                        verts.insert(0, e.verts[1])
                    else:
                        verts.insert(0, e.verts[0])
                    for medge in [edge, end_edge]:
                        edges.append(medge)
                        medge.select = False

                    if len(verts) > 2:
                        co = [v.co for v in verts]
                        smooth_coordinates(co, smoothing, iterations)
    for e in edges:
        e.select = True

me = bpy.context.object.data
bm = bm_from_me(me)
smoothing = 0.5
iterations = 2
smooth_loop(bm, smoothing, iterations)
bm_to_me(bm, me)


Why Grease Pencil will only let me draw a circle around a red dot? - 2.8 Out of the blue this red dot appeared on my canvas. And when I try to draw, the only strokes I can do are those around the red dot, making a circle around it. I can draw near or far from the dot making a big or large circle. Nothing else!
If I use a different tool, like the Fill, or the Eraser, the red dot goes away.

What could I have inadvertently activated?

Apparently I switched on guides by accident...


How to animate different parts of the same mesh object This object is all one mesh. I want to animate this so that it's rotating horizontally whilst having several of the eyelids blink - the top and bottom eyelids will just be scaled up and down. I can't work out how to create multiple animations for the same mesh. thanks.

Hee very nice idea!

There are a few options here.

First of all, you could rig the mesh with an armature. This might be a bit time consuming.

Also you could try and hook every eyelid with a hook modifier. But this will get messy very quickly. You'd have to parent all the hook empties back to a master that controls the rotation of the whole mesh.

Lastly, this is what I would do in your case. You say it's just a matter of scaling the eye lids, make shape keys for every seperate animation and build up a shape key library if you will. Every think you want to be able to control should be a unique shape key. The shape keys should 'add up' to each other.

Hope this is helpfull, if you have any questions you can contact me.

Ciao,

Mv.artz


constraining an empty to the intersection of two coplanar segments For some reason I have two coplanar segments (each represented by a 2 points path), moving relative to each other in a way that guarantees they are always intersecting.

What I would like is to constraint an empty to follow the intersection of these segments.

The movement of the intersection point is far too complicated to be plotted manually or analytically, especially since the idea is to try various configurations that will change the position and rotation of these segments.

I tried using constraints, a combination of "damped track" and "clamp to" (i.e. orienting one axis of the empty parallel to the segment first, and clamping according to this axis next), but to no avail.
I get the empty to follow the first path in the constraint stack, but though it moves somewhat close to the second path, it remains quite far from the intersection.

Maybe the whole idea of using constraints is wrong? I'm interested in any trick that would make this work, including python scripting if there is no other way  (I suppose a scripted driver could easily compute the intersection coordinates, but I would hate to hard-code object references and such).

EDIT:
this cross-question discussion is kinda awkward, but here is a modified version of the proposed answer :

I just moved the end of the rod to reflect the fact that it is not aligned to any global axis. This is a major constraint that had me conclude an analytic solution was too complex to code as a driver formula.
Another constraint is that the slot inside the crank must be a straight line. This piece is supposed to be cut out by hand from a few mm of plywood, and trying to carve out a complex elliptic curve is out of the question (you would never manage to get the precision without laser cutting).

I have no doubt the trigonometry of your model is correct, and the precision is more than enough. Still, it makes the hypothesis that the rod axis of rotation is aligned with global X, and the contact point describes some complex trigonometric curve (I suspect it would be more like some Lissajou curve than a mere part of ellipsis if the axis was not aligned with global X, but not a straight line anyway).

As soon as its axis deviates from X, you can see the end of the rod going round in cicles as the crank moves. In what I try to simulate, the axis should remain stable and the "top" empty should slide along the crank radius to allow the rod to rotate without shifting position or deforming.

Maybe some formula adjustment can fix this, but I can't see how. At the very least the formula should take the rod rotation axis into account, which would probably require an arcsine of the two axis cross product.

I'm going to post what it is that I believe you are looking for.

If it is wrong, I can always come back and delete the answer.

What I did was add two empties:

The 'Base' located to the center of rotation of the rod which also has the driver on the y rotation.

AND

The 'Top' which is parented to the z-rotation arm.

THEN

solved the triangle with a simple trig function using the view plane of X/Z.

You just need to know the absolute difference between the 'basex' & 'topx' locations for the 'X-axis' for the horizontal leg of the triangle, then get the absolute distance for the 'basez' & 'topz' locations for the 'Z-axis' for the vertical leg, and use the 'atan' function to get the angle of this relationship.

So I ended up with these four variables in the driver:

basex, topx, basez, topz

and I used this as the expression:

atan( (abs(basex - topx)*1.0000000000)  /  (abs(basez - topz)*1.0000000000) )

The reason for using the '1.0000000000' value was to force the calculation to be multiplied at this many decimal places for rotational accuracy.

Here's the Blend File:

NOTE:

Select the rotational arm and rotate about 'Z' to see the effect.
Select the rod to see the driver in the graph editor
For some reason, the driver value can get stuck and not update the solution before the frame updates so maybe reducing the Multiply by 1.0000000000 to 1.0000 is good enough in this case as it should really decrease the effort of calculation. After doing this, and making the hole of the crank more fitting for the bent rod to twist and elongate elliptically, I was able to get a much better solve with the same logic.


How to get Accurate Scaling When Making New Objects? I seem to be running into an issue with creating new objects? Could someone please help me?
The Set Up
I am building a packaging mock up, that requires multiple boxes that slide together. the new object slides into / out of the old object. So Eventually these will be animated (Very New to Allot of This)
The Question
As per my images below, Both outer object and inner object have been set to the same size yet they visually appear two different sizes? The "Old Object" is created from the original default cube as per my memory. The second object is per a new added cube (1mm). How can I get an accurate scale?
Any help on this would be much appreciated. I am learning allot of new skills with this project and very open to new avenues in thinking about 3D development.
Thank you.

Scale is a multiplier that is applied to the local size of the mesh to calculate the global size and the dimensions of the object. This is not what you want.
You're probably looking for the dimensions of the object or better the edge lengths of the mesh.
In Object Mode, you can see and edit the dimensions of the object in the sidebar ("N-panel", press N in the view to open it). With Ctrl+A, then Apply Scale you can apply the scale, what resets it to 1. See here: Dimension vs scale
In Edit Mode, you can display the lengths of the edges. You need to activate it in the Overlays drop-down menu. There you can switch between Global and Local and you will see the impact of the scale. Have a look here for screenshots: Why do measurements change when switching from Global to Local in edit mode?


Python - Exporting Each Selected as FBX Lets say I have 5 objects selected.  The script will correctly export 5 fbx files, place them at 0-0-0 world space, export an fbx with the object name, and return them to their original position.

The problem is that each export includes all selected objects instead of 1 at a time.  Shouldn't my for loop only grab each selected object 1 at a time?  How do I select 5 objects, export them so a single object is inside each fbx with the corresponding name?

    def execute(self, context):
        # Get the selected objects.
        selected = bpy.context.selected_objects
        for obj in selected:

            # Store current object's name.
            obj_name = obj.name

        # Get the object's original position.
        obj_loc_x = str(obj.location.x)
        obj_loc_y = str(obj.location.y)
        obj_loc_z = str(obj.location.z)

        # Creates the path for the exported fbx.
        obj_path = os.path.join(context.scene.worth_group_tools.dir_path,
                                obj_name + "." + "fbx")

        # Sends object to zero vectors.
        obj.location.x = 0.0
        obj.location.y = 0.0
        obj.location.z = 0.0

        # Export object as fbx. Works, except all selected objects are
        # exported into single fbx instead of one at a time from the list.
        bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath=obj_path, use_selection=True)

        # Prints each object in list.  Works.
        print(obj_name)

        # Returns the object to its original position.
        obj.location.x = float(obj_loc_x)
        obj.location.y = float(obj_loc_y)
        obj.location.z = float(obj_loc_z)

    return {'FINISHED'}

Why your code below obj_name = obj.name is outside the for-loop? It should be in the same loop, isn't it?

Use select_set() for selection:

obj.select_set(True) : select the current object, useful for exporting selection.
You need to manually deselect it after exporting, or call bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT') to deselect all.

Minor things

Get the object's original position:

You can copy the location to a reference instead of casting it to string and convert it back.

org_obj_loc = obj.location.copy()

Sends object to zero vectors

You can assign a Vector() to it: obj.location = (0,0,0)

Whole code

def execute(self, context):
    for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
        bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
        obj.select_set(True)
        org_loc = obj.location.copy()

        # Sends object to zero vectors.
        obj.location = (0,0,0)

        # Creates the path for the exported fbx.
        obj_path = os.path.join(context.scene.worth_group_tools.dir_path,
                                obj.name + "." + "fbx")
        # Export object as fbx. Works, except all selected objects are
        # exported into single fbx instead of one at a time from the list.
        bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath=obj_path, use_selection=True)

        # Prints each object in list.  Works.
        print(obj.name)

        # Returns the object to its original position.
        obj.location = org_loc

return {'FINISHED'}


Can't see rig bones on character I am new to blender .
I sculpted a character then pressed shift A, then edit mode but there was not a single rig bone showing.. Went on to even select Infront under viewoint display...
Still nothing.

But the Armature and pose options are showing on the right hand side..

I'm using the newest version of Blender.
Help!

I have done everything...
Please what's your email?.

I pressed the ALT H & everything vanished from screen including my character..

I have opened the Armature and under the pose mode set up few bones but single bone not on character.. changed the viewpoint to Infront but still.(check the picture)not good picture I know.

Or is it because my Character has a bigger head, I'm unsure


Cut mesh along a set of 20 planes I am trying to cut a mesh along a set of 20 planes.

Goal is to make this 3d printable without support and in a larger format than my printer volume. See screenshot for the 3d model and the intended cuts along the planes.

I tried the boolean modifier intersecting my model with each individual plane. While this works, it is cumbersome to do this for 20 different planes. Automating this procedure for all the planes would be a solution.
I tried bisect tool, but it cuts along an infinite plane in parts of my model that I don't want cut. Also this procedure needs to be repeated along all the other planes and the volume needs to be closed manually each time.
I probably need to repeat the above procedure a number of times (accurately!) in my prototype development.

Ideally, a tool that takes a mesh as input with a set of intended cut planes would resolve this. I could keep this set of planes then, adjust my model, and repeat the cutting step according to these planes.

Any suggestions within blender (or other software?) would be welcome.

Thanks!!
T

Having done this for 3D printing before, I can admit it's an annoying problem. Admittedly, I did so through booleans, and that was a complicated process. Here is a workflow adapted to the bisect tool:
Bisect Tool Method

Join the objects as one. This will be necessary in any method.
Bisect while in edit mode. Check the fill box to fill in the mesh where you are cutting it.
Separate the cut mesh.
(Optional) The other side of the mesh needs to have its faces filled too. Unfortunately, the bisect tool doesn't provide for that. Depending on the geometry, this may be easy to do by just selecting the edge to fill and pressing F (or using the menu). Another solution would be to duplicate the mesh after the bisect operation, and delete opposing sides of the mesh on each duplicate (so each duplicate will keep its fill where it was bisected).

Boolean Method
This involves slicing with a boolean cube that has been flattened.

The objects will need to be joined as before. Add in a cube, flatten it, and replicate it with the array modifier, spacing it out as large as your bed is.
Apply the boolean modifier.
After this, it will of course be possible to separate the mesh into different objects for the different layers as before. Use L to select linked parts of the mesh and P to separate those mesh areas into a new mesh object.

In this situation, the boolean operator does require geometry with volume, so the accuracy of this method depends on how thin your cube is.


Why does my Ellipse mask and FastGaussian nodes have no effect on my image? I was following a video tutorial and I want to achieve the same effect in the Fast_Gaussian, I want that like sort of dark colors that form like a circle ( Vignette ), Also when I change the color or the tone the whole image just changes the color , or turns darker/lighter

my scene :

Desired result :

You need to add a RGB input to the mask.

Also, to control the darkness of the vignette, use a Bright/Contrast node to the mix.


Why is 'Center cursor and View All' not centering the view to my object? When I press Shift+C (following a tutorial by the way) my view center is not at the 0, 0, 0 it's way off.

Image should describe (after pressing 7 I'd want the top down view to be on the cube).

It's because Shift+C doesn't center the view, it shows all objects in the scene, kind of like Home does.

So, because you have a cube at the center, but a camera off to one side, Blender is going to show you both and the view won't be centered on the origin.

Shift+C does move the 3D cursor to the origin, though.


Number of verts doubles after using symmetrize tool in Sculpt Mode this is the first time I sculpt anything and that's why it is really confusing.
In the beginning I had 700.000 verts, file size 50mb

Then it got to 8.000.000 verts, 250mb, I didn't notice that

Now, when I edit the last model just a little bit, number of verts goes to 17.000.000, 400mb, after using the symmetrize tool

Stackexchange doesn't let me post the 3d image and deletes my "hello"

I haven't used any modifiers, exept mirror on eyes, added only a lamp.
Although, at some point I colored some vertices.
Is this normal? If not, what could be the problem?

Never mind, just used "remove doubles" and its back to 250.000, and it no longer doubles verts