Adding thickness to 3d printed topographic map I am trying to 3d print a topographic map. I have followed a tutorial I found here: https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1453&context=alum_books

The blender section is on page 25. I have imported my image as a plane. I have subdivided the surface and added the deform/displacement to add the texture. I am now trying to use the boolean method to intersect this 2d surface with a cube, however when I apply this modifier I do not get the anticipated result. Only the surface remains which is "intersecting" the cube remains, which makes sense.

Did I do the displace wrong, I would think that in order for intersect to work properly the displacement would need to add thickness as well so that when the two objects intersect they are is something to intersect with besides just the surface. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I believe based on the comments, that you should be able to do the following.

It may get slower, but let's try:

Make a copy of the surface you have
Add a solidify modifier to the copy and set the modifier up like this:

The thickness can be small, as we only need one extra (the lower) loop going around to produce the thickness.
If you apply the modifiers now, it will leave you with only a thin rim.
Go in edit mode (vertex) and select the bottom loop with Alt+LMB
Now you can press G twice and move all the points up to end up on the upper vertices, confirm with LMB (makes sure the border will be straight).
Right after that press G, followed by Z to move the vertices down a good bit.
They are still not flat, so to fix that, press S, then Z and finally 0 to flatten them on the Z axis.
Now move them down as much as you need your thickness to be.
All you need to do now, that the lower loop is placed, is to press F and fill the bottom with a face.
Now you should have 2 objects, the surface build with the displacement, and the new bottom part build from the rim of the solidify modifier.
It should fit perfectly with each other, but make sure to check the normals, easy to check if you enable "Face Orientation", the border and bottom should be blue.

In case the objects need to be joined for the 3D printing, you have 2 options.

Apply all modifiers and join the meshes with a final Alt+M Merge by Distance, to clean up double vertices.
(keeping the modifier version) Select the upper part, then the lower part by holding Shift, the upper part should be the active one, the lower selected but darker. Then press Ctrl+J to join both. The result will be that the lower part now also get's deformed by the displacement modifier of the top part, for that go in edit mode and select only the lower part by selecting a vertex and then pressing L. Now generate a Vertex Group and click on Assign. Back in the displacement modifier, select the new vertex group in the corresponding field and then click on the double arrow button beside it to invert the group. Once you go out of edit mode the lower part should be back to how it was before the joining. Finishing the object only needs one more modifier. Add the weld modifier and the object should be clean without doubles.

I hope it's not too confusing, but i tried to add an as non-destructive version as possible.


Can I specify which version of Blender to run when rendering from a command line prompt (Linux)? I want to begin creating projects in version 2.8; however, I still have a couple created in 2.79b that still need to be wrapped up + rendered. I currently have version 2.79b on a server from which I use PuTTY to launch compute nodes on a Linux platform using a command prompt similar to the one outlined below:

Command Prompt Example

blender -b -y name_of_shot.blend -x OUT -o ../rendered_images/name_of_shot/name_of_images -a

You can view a list of Blender command line arguments here.

I realized that downloading 2.8 would override the blender prompts to automatically open the shot in version 2.8. I was wondering if there was a way to specify which version of Blender was launched when opening the file and rendering?

Blender doesn't need to be installed, so even if you have one version installed on your system, you can have other versions that sit in your filesystem and can be run without further operations. Apart from convenient launcher icons and multi-user availability, there is no advantage in "installing" Blender.

To get Blender 2.81a: on the compute machine:

# go to your home directory (or a convenient other place)
cd ~

# make a directory to store blender distributions, and enter it
mkdir blender-versions
cd blender-versions

# get the latest version of blender and extract the archive
wget https://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.81/blender-2.81a-linux-glibc217-x86_64.tar.bz2
tar -xvjf blender-2.81a-linux-glibc217-x86_64.tar.bz2

Now, from any directory, instead of just blender you can run:

~/blender-versions/blender-2.81a-linux-glibc217-x86_64/blender -b <YOURFILE> <OPTIONS>

If that seems too long, you can create an alias. Assuming your Linux machine uses bash, edit the file ~/.bashrc and add the line:

alias blender281='~/blender-versions/blender-2.81a-linux-glibc217-x86_64/blender'

After you restart your terminal, you'll be able to just use

blender281 -b <YOURFILE> <OPTIONS>

to run Blender 2.81a.

You can repeat the same operations with other distributions. Find a list of download links here: https://download.blender.org/release/


Solid OpenGL lights in Blend4Web? I want to achieve object shading in Blend4Web equal to the default 'SOLID' shading in blenders viewport. Is it possible to use the solid OpenGL lights in Blend4Web? Or if not, how can I simulate it using the light objects?

The default viewport shading I want is on the left and how Blend4Web looks without shading is on the right:

You can obtain this effect by parenting several point lights to the camera and don't foget do disable shadows.

You can set up a camera in one view and point it to the standart cube, also add one by one three lights. Then swithing between default solid shading and GLSL shading move the lights in that way so the shading of the cube model in GLSL model started to look like the default OpenGL light in solid mode. Only your eyes and feelings can help you to obtain waht you need. The right colors of the light you can copy from blender preferences in System tab.


Best way to unwrap half a sphere or a helmet? Any chance anyone knows how to unwrap half a sphere? Or what the best way to unwrap half a sphere? I've been looking through forums and I couldn't find a way to unwrap my helmet.

Final:

Overview:

In this particular case I would go with Follow Active Quad unwrapping. You can 'cut off' the top of the helmet (there is another mesh there) so it's the easiest way I can think of.

Steps:

First of all Mark Seams around the top of the helmet and one through the back of the mesh.

Select all faces and Unwrap them.
Select one face, preferably near the Seam, it will keep texture more seamless.
Align this face in UV Image Editor by selecting edges and W > Align Auto.
Select all faces on your mesh (keep aligned face as active face).
Unwrap it by Follow Active Quads.
Hit Ctrl+P to Pack UV Islands.
Manually correct the top of helmet UV map.


Blender 2.8 Cycles Denoiser produces banding This is the image with denoiser:

This is the image without the denoiser

Turning on Dither made the image with more noise, like I didn't use the denoiser at all.

There is banding in both your pictures. I increased the contrast so you can see clearly on any display:

You remove banding by introducing noise, the process is called dithering:

Rendered image shows visible "line strokes" artefacts

So the denoiser removed the noise making the banding more visible. If you'd save that in 16bit and view on 12bit display using quadro graphics there would be no visible banding.

If you'd render the image without denoiser for a lot more samples to clear the noise, you'd see the same banding problem.

If you want to have smooth looking gradients on 8bit displays you need to use dithering (introduce noise). This can be noise from Cycles itself (to be perfect Maxwell produces more natural noise for example), or if you get rid of the noise with denoiser a noise introduced in postproduction through dithering.


Why is there a crease in my mesh when I enable subdivision surface? I have a dinosaur mesh (more or less thanks to this).  Around the 11:55 mark or so, he shift+d's the toe from one side of the foot to the other.  However, I observe that whenever I turn on subdivision surface, there is a strange crease in the mesh.

What did I do wrong to cause this crease?  What can I do to get rid of it?

Thanks alot!  Blend is here.

You have inner faces, delete them and it will work:


Why are the colors from color ramps dimmer than what you pick? If I input a color in a color ramp, and set the ramp to constant, the colors do not come out exactly like the input. They are grayer/darker.
Example:
On my color ramp, the yellow input is "#FFF763", but the output is "#cecb6d"

By default blender tweaks the final renders colors.
Go to the Render Properties tab (camera), and under Color Management, change View Transform from Filmic to Standard. Now the colors will come out nearly identical.


Can't install pip due to PermissionError on Windows 8.1 New to Blender. Experienced with Python 2.7.

I am trying to install pip in my Blender Python implementation. I am attempting to do this by following the instructions in How to use PIP with Blender's bundled Python? - Answer, which links to Install pip.

I followed those instructions, and it seemed to be going well, but I got a PermissionError. I switched from doing it cmd.exe to PowerShell, but encountered the same problem.

Question

What do I need to do to get past the PermissionError?

Here is the full output from the command execution, including the exception message:

PS C:\Users\Paul Schrum> cd "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\python\lib"
PS C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\python\lib> ..\bin\python D:\SourceModules\get-pip.py
Collecting pip
  Using cached pip-9.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Collecting setuptools
  Using cached setuptools-38.4.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Collecting wheel
  Using cached wheel-0.30.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: pip, setuptools, wheel
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File     "C:\Users\name\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp185kt8q9\pip.zip\pip\basecommand.py", line 215, in main
status = self.run(options, args)
  File "C:\Users\PAULSC~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp185kt8q9\pip.zip\pip\commands\install.py", line 342, in run
prefix=options.prefix_path,
  File "C:\Users\PAULSC~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp185kt8q9\pip.zip\pip\req\req_set.py", line 784, in install
**kwargs
  File "C:\Users\PAULSC~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp185kt8q9\pip.zip\pip\req\req_install.py", line 851, in install
self.move_wheel_files(self.source_dir, root=root, prefix=prefix)
  File "C:\Users\PAULSC~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp185kt8q9\pip.zip\pip\req\req_install.py", line 1064, in move_wheel_files

isolated=self.isolated,
  File "C:\Users\PAULSC~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp185kt8q9\pip.zip\pip\wheel.py", line 345, in move_wheel_files
clobber(source, lib_dir, True)
  File "C:\Users\PAULSC~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp185kt8q9\pip.zip\pip\wheel.py", line 316, in clobber
ensure_dir(destdir)
  File "C:\Users\PAULSC~1\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp185kt8q9\pip.zip\pip\utils\__init__.py", line 83, in ensure_dir
os.makedirs(path)
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\python\lib\os.py", line 241, in makedirs
mkdir(name, mode)
PermissionError: [WinError 5] Access is denied: 'C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\2.79\\python\\Lib\\site

-packages\pip'

On Windows 7, I go to the start menu, type cmd, when cmd.exe pops up, I right-click that and choose 'Run as administrator'. This solves the permission errors. Here's a guide for how to do it on Windows 8.1, see method 1.


Cannot copy mirror some bones between keyframes I'm working on an 8 frame walk cycle, and I'd like to copy and mirror the poses of the first 4 frames to the last 4 frames. However, for some reason my arms won't copy mirror properly.

Can someone spot what I'm doing wrong?

Here's a link to my blender file:
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=50223

It looks like your arm bones are not well oriented:

In Edit mode, select the right upper and lower arm.
ctrl R 180 to make a 180° rotation

now it works


Best way to UV unwrap a hole in the shape of a triangle? I need to unwrap this shape and I have problems with triangle holes in it.

How can I unwrap this overlapping edges without stretching my whole UV map?

FBX file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vQRwTIaF08QnA5NXhzai1jQkU/view?usp=sharing

I would cut out the whole "X section" and cut off two of the legs.


Why is the glass transparency not consistent? I followed Blenderguru's tutorial and made some gum drops. Then I made glass container and use rigid body to fill it with dozens of gums, but why does it look so strange from outside? It looks like there are only three or four, or as if the glass is 10 inches thick...
The gums are not intersecting with the glass either. How can I make it look more realistic?

The file:

ok, i deleted some planes you created (i have no idea what they did) and i changed your cylinder material to this:

result was (after i added a ground plane with some color)

and here is my changed blend file to check out:


Strip changing color with age I'm trying to make the following effect: a heat ray is welding, for example some metal together, and a hot strip is being created which cools off with time.

How could this general sort of effect be achieved? I have a feeling that it would involve a particle system and metaballs, but I really have no idea.

There are many different ways to achieve this effect. Here is how I would go about it.

You could use metaballs, but just make the shape of the "welded part" I just used a box.

Create your "cooled off" material and mix it with your heated material. Then you will add a gradient texture and mapping node. Animate the location of the mapping node to "wipe off the hot material with the cool material".

I didnt do it here but I would also add on to the shader by animating in a transparent node so it looks like the material is being added and not already there. This is no different to what we did above except in we are just switching out a cooling down material to being transparent.

That covers the cooling off of the material, Then I would just add a separate object to shoot out the particles like below, and animate it to follow the change in material.


Is it possible to isolate parts of an armature so the mesh will never deform? I'm attempting to create a turtle character. I'm new to rigging & animation, so apologies if this doesn't make sense.

Everything has been pretty straightforward thus far, but I'm having problems with the weights. I did the rigging, and then set the meshes to have it as a parent with automatic weights.

I thought that I could paint the weights by bone, but it looks like it's only possible to do so by the whole armature (at least from what I can tell). My goal is to have the shell be completely rigid, and not deform with the rest of the limb movements. However, I still want the shell to be animatable so it can jostle around and such, just not deform like a traditional body.

Is it possible to isolate the shell? Maybe multiple armatures or some feature I'm missing? My goal is to export this as an FBX to Unity, if that has any bearing.

Any input is appreciated.

You could select the shell in Edit mode, go in the Properties panel > Data > Vertex Groups, on the right of the vertex groups list, click on the down arrow button and choose Remove From All Groups. You could now assign these vertices to your big body bone vertex group, or create a new bone, child of this big bone, give it a name, create a vertex group with the same name and assign your shell to it, so that you have a bone completely dedicated to the shell, if you ever need it to move slightly differently sometimes.

You say "I thought that I could paint the weights by bone, but it looks like it's only possible to do so by the whole armature (at least from what I can tell)", I'm not sure what you're saying, maybe you're missing that if you switch your armature to Pose mode, then select your mesh and switch to Weight Paint mode, you can select one bone and see what influence (i.e. vertices groups) it has on the mesh.


Sections of 'Glass' object show black when in front of PNG You can see by the attached image that my sections of 'Glass' shelf object show black when in front of PNG, and fine when not in frot of the graphic. Any ideas? Suggestions?

This is because your bottle material is black to everything except the camera:

Long story short, when you see the material through the glass you see it as the glass "sees" it; i.e. 0 strength emission (black).

See the manual for more information about ray types.

If what you want to do is prevent the material from illuminating the diffuse floor, then instead you could make the material black only to diffuse rays:

Unrelated, but you also seem to have a couple extra bottle objects occupying the same space. Not sure if that was intentional or not.


First Person Camera In Blender Game Engine I am making a game in Blender with a first person camera. I used a mouselook script I found online, however when character motion is used for the camera's movement, I have the problem that when the character is looking at the ground and presses the S key, they move up. I am writing a script that will detect when the mouse moves up and down, and another that detects moving left to right.
Where would I start? I was looking at the documentation, and I found bge.types.SCA_PythonMouse.position, but that does not tell you when the mouse is moved. Is
there a function that does this?

no need for a script to get mouse movements use the logic bricks :


Everything looks great on camera, except when you turn on smooth shading Everything looks great when modeled and looked at in flat shading, but when I get to exporting with a plugin it just look weird. What did i do wrong?
Flat shading (material preview)

Smooth shading (solid view)

Your face is made of a huge ngon, if the ngon is not completely flat it tends to creates artifacts like the ones we see when you smooth, because of the stretched triangles that compose it. So you need to correct the topology and work with quads as much as possible, sometimes tris... ngons are ok if they don't cause any problem.
For iphones see answers here and here for example.


Why does 'diffuse_color' expect four values and not three with Python in 2.8? I am attempting to create a plane and set the color; the following code throws an error at this line:

bpy.data.materials['RSgreen'].diffuse_color=(0,0,0)

the error is:  ValueError: bpy_struct: item.attr = val: sequences of dimension 0 should contain 4 items, not 3

which makes no sense to me; diffuse_color calls for 3 parameters in the documentation.

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add(size=4,enter_editmode=False,location=(-2,-2,0.01))
bpy.context.active_object.name='Plane2'
bpy.ops.material.new()
bpy.data.materials[1].name='RSgreen'
bpy.data.materials['RSgreen'].diffuse_color=(0,0,0)
bpy.context.object.data.materials.append(bpy.data.materials['RSgreen'])

You saw the wrong version of document, 2.80 change a lot. Ones should always use new document page for 2.80 version:
Material(ID) - Blender 2.80 API (latest)

diffuse_color
Diffuse color of the material
Type:
float array of 4 items in [0, inf], default (0.8, 0.8, 0.8, 0.8)
last update: 2020-08-04 Blender 2.91 Alpha

The four values are represented as: [Red, Green, Blue, Alpha] by default rendering pipeline. These values may stay from 0.0 to 1.0 if the color is interpreted as diffuse. Other wise, it doesn't need to less than 1. eg. a light color node might contain a value more than 1 unit.


how can I make my animated robot pick up an object (a pole) during an animation how can I make my animated robot pick up an object (a pole) without making two separate animated key signatures one for the robot and one for the object?

The object can be parented to the empty, and the empty can be constrained to the robot's arm. You will need to use keyframes to control the constraint on the empty. That's how I usually do it. Then you can animate the object independently if you want to. It's hard to answer this question without more information about the problem and your current ability with Blender. Are you a beginner? How are you currently animating this and what is giving you trouble?

Anyways, if you're totally averse to using keyframes on anything but your robot rig, add a bone to the rig where the object will be when it is held (Object-Socket). Duplicate the bone (Object-Parent). Now, remove any parents from object-parent by pressing alt-p, and make sure object-socket is parented to the hand bone (or whatever the robot is picking it up with). Create a Copy Transforms constraint by selecting the object-socket bone and then the object-parent bone (order matters) and press shift-ctrl-c --- choose Copy Transforms from the menu. Now, parent the object to the object-parent bone. When the Copy Transforms constraint on  object-parent is enabled, the object will stay in the hand. When it is disabled, the object-parent bone will return to its place, which can be animated as normal (and may look like a jump when you disable the constraint. To fix this, turn the constraint back on, press the I key and set a keyframe for Visual location/rotation/scale, then turn the constraint back off. the object should now be in the position it was in with the constraint, but it no longer follows the hand. This is useful when the object needs to be put back down, thrown, etc.). I wouldn't really reccomend doing it this way unless you have a reason not to use the first method, which I think is cleaner. And of course the visual location/etc. keyframe trick works on any constrained object.
I'll add more detailed explanation if you need me to, but if you're unsure about rigs/armatures, constraints, parenting, etc. the first thing you should do is study those features of Blender, since they're essential to animation. There's no need to be a superstar rigger, but an animator should understand the basics.

I hope this is helpful.


Pan and zoom don’t work anymore Suddenly the pan and zoom have just stopped working. It’s only in a specific file, in all my other files it works fine. I think I might have pressed a key, since I use a yoga book, and the ghost keyboard is really hard to work with. Any idea of what I could have pressed? Or how to fix it?

I was having the same problem in version 2.82, when pan suddenly stopped working, both manually and with Shift + Middle Mouse Button. In some forums they point out that #1 you may have accidentally activated walk or fly modes; or #2 you accidentally locked your view to a particular object (N  menu, View > View Lock.

If you tried to undo walk mode, fly mode, and view lock, and none of them were activated, then it may just be an old, obscure bug, predating since version 2.78. You can "solve" it by opening the N-menu, View, and changing the *Clip Start * and Clip End parameters by few orders of magnitude (i.e., x100 to x10000), until you start losing visibility nearby your rotation center.

It may let you pan and rotate just slightly between some weird unphysical boundaries. Keep changing the visibility until it suddenly starts working normally again. Then put back the old clip parameters.


Create HDR map from render? Is there a way to create an HDR map from a rendered scene in blender?  I'm asking because I'm working to optimize an indoor scene that will be used multiple times for rendering scenes in a comic, and it has open windows which look out to a cityscape.  I would like to cut the cityscape out and replace it with an HDR version of it, so that it doesn't have to calculate as many bounces and (by extension) renders faster.

The Short Answer

I'll post a new answer here because it seems that there is a good deal of confusion, and editing the existing accepted answer isn't the most optimal way to deal with this.

The answer is that Blender is already scene-referred enabled by default. In fact, the entire Blender architecture leans this way, it is just that many learning artists are unaware of the division between a scene referred and display referred working model.

TL; DR If you select Cycles as the default renderer, and save as an EXR, your saved file will already be high dynamic range.

The Longer Answer

So what is High Dynamic Range imaging?

If we explode what we think we know about imaging, we can probably get a good handle on what HDR is, it becomes clear why Cycles renders its data in accordance with scene referred models.

In the physical world, light is a strictly linear phenomenon. If you use a spot meter and measure a point in your frame at 100 units, something in the frame that is twice as illuminated will read 200 units. There is no white. There is no black. Just ratios of light from zero to infinity.

That's right... our values go from 0 all the way up to whatever our highest and brightest value is. This is a scene referred model.

Blender and Cycles and Scene Referred Models

The same holds true in Blender. If you take a default cube and render it in Cycles with 30 point lights in close, the rendered output window might look odd and show the cube as blown out white. But in the internal model, nothing is further from the truth.

If we use the swatch to measure the values on the cube, we can see that the values in the information bar that show up extend well off into the crazy zone. The values to the left of the CM information show the internal model, and the values to the right show the values after the CM transformation. On the left then, are the internal scene referred values, and on the right we see the display referred transformation. So when we flip the various output transforms listed in the color management panel, we are changing the display output transform, and not, in fact, changing the underlying scene referred data at all. Raw, sRGB, or otherwise.

By default, Blender uses a blind and ignorant clip cut that shaves off all of the excess values above the display referred value of 1.0. This means that if you save to an inappropriate file type such as JPEG, PNG, etc., the values on the right side of the CM information bar will be plopped into the file.

If however you save into a data-preserving file format such as EXR, the scene referred data values will be preserved in the file format.

In Closing

So the short answer to how to get HDR values out of Blender is... don't do anything, it already is! No need for Luminance. No need for software magic. Just render via Cycles.

The slightly longer answer involves understanding the differences between a scene referred linear model and a low dynamic range display referred non-linear model, and why the two are vastly different. It also involves understanding why each model is different, and what important things each bring to the table regarding needs.

Phew... a longer explanation than likely wanted, but one that only barely does justice to the complexities of these two models and the science of pixels and light. If anyone reading this finds it at all interesting and want to further their craft, I would strongly suggest you go read the Visual Effects Society Handbook available at CinematicColor.com.


Scale about true center with Mirror modifier When I scale vertices of an object that has a Mirror modifier, the points scale about the median of the non-mirrored points only. How can I configure Blender to include the mirrored points in the calculation of the origin?

Snap Cursor to Selected.
In the Properties shelf, for the mirrored axis, subtract the Median location from the 3D cursor location.
Set 3D Cursor as Pivot.
Scale.


Trouble picking up a sword I have an empty attached to the hand bone called "Empty: Hand.R" and I set its pivot point to line up with the pivot point on the sword so I can snap the sword into place. I have a basic set up to walk up to the sword in first person view and press F to pick up the sword and equip it in hand. I have tried making the sword's location match the empty's location many, many, different ways and they are all wrong. I can set an object constraint on the sword to copy the empty location in edit mode but it wont let me apply it in the game mode. How can I put this damn sword in my hand?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/58pbegp7ul49o1c/AnimationLibrary_1.blend?dl=0

I usually have two swords. One on the ground an one in the hand.

Why two?

Because they have complete different purposes. The one in the hand should damage whatever it touches. It should provide feedback and so on. The one on the ground should be pickable.

In general you split your operation of picking into several parts:

Move your character into a defined position and
orientation relative to the sword to be picked up. (several frames)
Animate your character until it grabs the sword. (several frames)
Remove the sword on the ground, show/add the grab in the hand
(incl. parenting). (one frame)
Animate your character to lift up the sword.(several frames)

In your version I guess you parent the sword when performing 3. This will work pretty good, when the timing and setup is very precise. It will result in incorrect parenting when there is inaccuracy of any kind.

The above solution gives you a fallback. As you explicitly add the sword to the hand, you can ensure it is always right. The inaccuracy will result in animation jumps (the sword suddenly jumps into the hand) but the followup situation remains correct.

My way to create precise animations:

Create the animation with the sword in the hand. Let the character bow down to grab. At the contact keyframe the sword should lay flat at the ground. This is the important pose. You can copy the sword to create the sword on ground (or you place it in a matching pose). The relative position and orientation between sword and character needs to be preserved.

From there you can animate the lift up animation till the desired standing animation (with the sword).

Have a look at this video to see this method in action. The character walks to a predefined spot and turns towards a predefined direction (1). Then it plays bowing down (2). Followed by an item exchange (3). Finally the character stands up with the item (4).


How to export your Ocean Modifier Mesh and Animation to Unity? | Blender v2.80.72 /*Edited: For Blender 2.7 Users I found a detailed articel with pictures. */

I want to build an VR-Scene in Unity with a little Island and and ocean around.

For the ocean I am quite happy with the ocean modifier and made already an looping animation with the water.

animation Gif

But I simply cannot find a solution to export the mesh + animations to Unity. I keyframed the time and scale and found the problem, that these can't update when I apply the modifier. To my understanding blender needs to apply the modifier when exporting, so I can even get the shape of Ocean.

[

I tried and failed with this explanation.

Could somebody please give me an more beginner friendly explanation?

Here is my blendfile:
google drive link

I used the official Blender 2.8 release and it works fine.

What to do:

Select your 'Ocean Object' and press ctrl + a to apply the scale.
With your object selected click file -> export -> Lightwave Point Cache (.mdd)
Save the mdd file.
Apply your ocean modifier
With the object selected click import and import your mdd file again.

The whole process takes only seconds now.


How can I quickly select all faces surrounded by 4 vertices or 4 edges? Besides Rectangle Select or Brush select is there anything faster/easier?

I want to relax the vertices on the roof of a van without having to select all edgeloops and then unselect the parts I do not need or add "shortest distance" selections for each edge loop until I have the selection I need.

Is there something quicker/easier? Like just select the 4 outer vertices or edges and say "select inside"?

I should have just read the according Blender docs site:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/meshes/selecting/advanced.html

Mode: Edit Mode –> Edge select mode
Menu: Select ‣ Select Loop Inner-Region

Does exactly what I want.


How to make a fake 3d environment / animation with blender I'm trying to follow a tutorial that covers all the main steps that I must learn to create an animation with blender. I'm becoming aware of the complexity and that it takes a lot of time. So,I thought that making 3D animations is simply prohibitive for one only person like me. I have also read that I can create 3D animations with a fake 3d perspective, that could be obtained by placing the camera in certain ways and by placing objects on particular inclinations of the X and Y axis. I would like to know more. I found only few informations on the net. But I've found an italian article that explain the logic behind the fake 3d. I have translated it to english language to explain better what I would like to do with blender. Here you can find the italian article :

http://www.francescomilanese.com/jav...o-3d-witu.html

and here you can read the english translation : /tell me what you think and if you know more informations about this matter,thanks/

  To familiarize with the 2D representation of a '3D virtual universe' I show you a small application, a little map that has three axes arranged in a way that represents the reference system of Java3d : Y upward , X positive to the right and Z positive coming out from the screen.

  The application, called ' witu ' ( Where In The Universe ) is essentially a small java2d panel, resizable and customizable which takes as input the values of X, Y and Z of an object (or of the point of view ) in a Java3D universe and shows a small ball inside a little map. The bead is precisely the object or the point of view, so the application behaves like some kind of panel that says ' you are here ' (it comes from here , in fact , the name witu ).

  In the panel , a white dot identifies the origin ( coordinates ( 0.0 , 0.0 , 0.0 ) ) , while on the upper left will be shown the 'real' 3D coordinates (those that comes from the Canvas3D ) and a notice of 'out of bounds '.

  The length , in pixels , of the X and Y axes are respectively equal to ( width / 10 ) * 8 and ( height / 10 ) * 8 , the Z axis length is calculated using the Pythagorean theorem.

  Because of the limited size of the panel , it can shows the location of an object only if it moves within a space inside a limited area , called ' bounding box ' ; in our case , therefore , we need to define a ' bounding size' ( that will be equivalent to the length of the axis X , then the real 3D position will be translated , with a simple proportion and a pair of trigonometric formulas , in a 3D position). It needs a bit of trigonometry to calculate the ' fake ' Z coordinates (called tmpZx and tmpZy) .

  In the ' WITU.java ' source files are present , commented , all the instructions that allow you to simulate a 3D space projecting it , using simple formulas , on a two-dimensional panel. The class witu simply contains the panel , that should be associated with an application that sends data of the 3D coordinates.

  Inside the ' WITUapp.java ' files , defined on the same page ( next article in this guide) you can find WITU.java , that precisely defines a small mock object that creates a witu panel and performs some operations : basically , it sends the X values , Y and Z and modifies them in real time . The output of these operations is shown in real time on the Witu panel.

The reason for fake-3d in the article is probably not the same as your reason. Instead I imagine its a way to make things look 3-d while they are not.
While Blender is a suite of applications and capable of many things you may be better off with another application, if you dont want real 3d?


Mesh shrinking and expanding between shape keys I'm trying to do a deformation with a mix of bones and shape keys. I created a bone first, attached it to the mesh with an Armature modifier and animated it (only 2 keys). I copied the modifier so that I have as many modifiers as keys. I applied the first key as shape key, the second modifier was not active.  I did the same with the second one then I keyed the shape keys as well.
I'd need your help in the following matter: When I apply the shape keys, the deformation doesn't follow the bone anymore, starting and end position are ok but the mesh shrinks in between the two keys (see 3rd picture).  It really destroys the whole animation...
I tried "preserve volume" when applying the armature modifier as it sounded good but it didn't do anything noticable. Do you have any idea how to keep the mesh the same size throughout the animation?
Your help would be much appreciated!

The mesh changing its size is caused by the way the shape key transforms the vertices. You can use different operations (in your case, bone deformation) on a base mesh to create the shape you want, but the shape key only stores information about positions of vertices. To illustrate it here's a simple example:
If you rotate a cube mesh to get the new shape, the shape key doesn't store the path the vertices are moved, so the transition from base mesh to shape key is linear which can result in changing the appearance of the mesh between start and end position.
The top image shows the way how the shape was created by rotating the cube mesh around the 3D cursor.
At the bottom it shows how the transition from the base mesh to the shape key will be performed. As you see, the vertices move in a straight line from start to end position and change the cube's size.
To get the same deformation the bones would create it would be best to keep the armature deforming the mesh. If you can't keep the bones for some reason, inserting more shape keys to get closer to the original deformation causes a problem, since shape keys store the delta transformation: if you set key1 after moving vertices from Z = 0 to Z = 2, and for key2 you move those vertices to Z = 3, then key1 is moving up 2 - 0 = 2 units, and key2 is moving up 3 - 0 = 3 units. If you set both shape keys then the vertices are going up 2 + 3 = 5 units. If you ignore key1 to move them only 3 units you'll have the same problem like before with only one shape key.


How to duplicate a certain collection using Python? Is it possible to duplicate a collection from a Python script? When I do it manually, the Console shows bpy.ops.outliner.collection_duplicate(), however if I call it from script, there is a problem with context:
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.outliner.collection_duplicate.poll() failed, context is incorrect
Does that mean that collection_duplicate() can be called only from the Outliner editor? If so, how to 'fake' it from a script?

API method
If you know the collection you wish to dupe, and the collection you wish to parent to, consider something like below.  Because a collection can have many parents, I'm not totally sure without using the outliner how to determine which instance of the collection is being duped, and hence where in the hierarchy to paste.
As a test, I've copied the context collection to to the scene collection, with and without linked data.  Using a method that recursively creates a new collection and populates it with object copies from the source.
EDIT. Have added a look up table with original -> dupe to change a dupes parent to a dupe (if duped).  Other things to consider here are driver variable targets, constraint objects, modifier objects.
import bpy
from collections import  defaultdict

def copy_objects(from_col, to_col, linked, dupe_lut):
    for o in from_col.objects:
        dupe = o.copy()
        if not linked and o.data:
            dupe.data = dupe.data.copy()
        to_col.objects.link(dupe)
        dupe_lut[o] = dupe

def copy(parent, collection, linked=False):
    dupe_lut = defaultdict(lambda : None)
    def _copy(parent, collection, linked=False):
        cc = bpy.data.collections.new(collection.name)
        copy_objects(collection, cc, linked, dupe_lut)

        for c in collection.children:
            _copy(cc, c, linked)

        parent.children.link(cc)

    _copy(parent, collection, linked)
    print(dupe_lut)
    for o, dupe in tuple(dupe_lut.items()):
        parent = dupe_lut[o.parent]
        if parent:
            dupe.parent = parent

# test call
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
col = context.collection
print(col, scene.collection)
assert(col is not scene.collection)
parent_col = context.scene.collection

copy(scene.collection, col)
# and linked copy
copy(scene.collection, col, linked=True)

Note
For a totally linked copy, ie the objects and collections within are linked copies then
cc = collection.copy()

will do the trick.
Related
Change active collection


How are RGB values changed on an existing object? I have an object with some color from an existing .blend file.  Where can the color be changed for this object?

I just found out how with the present configuration (it looks like there was also a texture that had been applied):

Select the object.
Press Object button in properties.  ("Type of active data to display and edit:  Object")
In that same pane, scroll down to and maximize Display.  Current RGB is under Object Color:.

This can be done in either Object Mode or Edit Mode.


What happened to Ctrl-Click in Blender 2.8? In previous versions of Blender, I was able to go into edit mode, and CTRL-Click as an extrusion shortcut. Now, in Blender 2.8, when I do this, I accidentally select other objects, even though I'm in edit mode. What changed, and how do I de-select things that have been CTRL-selected?

The extrude shortcut hasn't changed, the default select button has.

The extrude shortcut is ⎈ Ctrl+ non-select mouse button, where 2.7x defaults to  RMB select, you use ⎈ Ctrl LMB to extrude, Now that 2.80 has  LMB select you use ⎈ Ctrl RMB to extrude, unless you change your selection setting.

In 2.80, ⎈ Ctrl LMB can select a different object while in edit mode. This appears to be a planned feature, it can be useful for example when adding hook modifiers that use different objects for different vertices, where the selected object is assigned to a modifier property.


What is the Python command to check if current view is in orthographic or perspective mode? What is the python command to check if current view is in orthographic or perspective mode?

Region3D.view_perspective.

Get the space data of the 3D view area. A screen is split up into areas. The space associated with area is the active space.  The spaces 3d region has the view settings.

>>> for i, a in enumerate(C.screen.areas):
...     i, a.type
...
(0, 'PROPERTIES')
(1, 'CONSOLE')
(2, 'VIEW_3D')
(3, 'TEXT_EDITOR')

>>> space = C.screen.areas[2].spaces.active

If we are sure we are in a 3d view (a panel there, an operator that polls there) then instead use

space = context.space_data

the property to change is view_perspective, in example below I am in perspective view

>>> space.region_3d.view_perspective
'PERSP'

Tip A quick way to find the options available is crunch in something wrong.

>>> space.region_3d.view_perspective = 'FOO'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: bpy_struct: item.attr = val: enum "FOO" not found in ('PERSP', 'ORTHO', 'CAMERA')

Check if in ortho view.  Could also check if in camera view, is camera ortho

>>> ortho_view = space.region_3d.view_perspective == 'ORTHO'

or perhaps (needs testing)

>>> ortho_view = not space.region_3d.is_perspective

Set to ortho

>>> space.region_3d.view_perspective = 'ORTHO'


Why has Blender started not responding with every brush stroke I make I have just recently started using Blender for 3d sculpting.

In the first week all proceeded well and I was learning quite a lot.

However this week as my sculpt started growing in size Blender began to be less and less responsive to the point that it is now not responding for quite some time with every brush stroke I make. This is making my work progress impossible.

First thought was that my file was too large in size: 700MB.
I managed to resample all the meshes of the object in my sculpt and file size was reduced to 80MB.
After resizing to 80MB Blender is still not responding.

Here is a breakdown of my PC system.

Intel Core i7 4790 CPU 3.60GHz
32GB Ram
64 bit operating system
Windows 10
4GB EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX1650 XC GDDR5 896 Core 1485MHz (1665MHz) Graphic Card

If I cannot solve this problem I will have to stop using Blender and I do not want to do so. If there's anybody that can help me solve this problem or at least address me to someone who can help me solve it, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance for all the help.

Delete the Subdivision Modifier on your main body. Your vertex count is high enough for smooth sculpting.


How to make keyframes in Blender 2.78a using Python? I'm new to Blender and new to Python, on my Layer 1 I have a ball named "BallB". Now I want to make a simple bubbling-animation using Python in Blender but I'm unable to make a keyframe. This should happen on Layer 2. I tried many and got many Errors.... all the Snippets I found didn't work and my script allways crashed with Python-Errors like "RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.anim.change ... expected an timeline/animation area to be activated" and many more.

Has anybody some hints for me? I'd like to learn scripted animations in Blender so I'm very thankfull for every hint which advances me ;-)

My Code:

import bpy, math, random

d           = 4
anz         = 100
frameAnz    = 10

scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.frame_start = 1
scene.frame_end = 100

for anz in range (0,anz):

    ball = bpy.data.objects["ballB"]

    tball = ball.copy()
    xpos = -1 * (d/2) + random.randint(0,(d-1))
    xpos += random.random()
    ypos = -1 * (d/2) + random.randint(0,(d-1))
    ypos += random.random()
    zpos =  random.randint(0,(d-1))
    zpos += random.random()

    bn = str(anz).zfill(5)
    bn = "zz_Ball-" + bn

    tball.name = bn
    tball.location = (xpos, ypos, zpos)
    sz = random.uniform(0.015,0.09)

    tball.scale = (sz,sz,sz)

    #tball.nodes["Emission"].inputs[1].default_value = 200
    tball.select = False
    scene.objects.link(tball)
    #print ("done!")

obj = bpy.context

for actFrame in range(1,frameAnz):
   # scene = bpy.context.scene
#    scene.keyframe_insert(data_path="gravity", frame = actFrame)

    for ob in scene.objects:

        ploc = ob.location
        #print (ploc)
        xpos = ploc[0]
        ypos = ploc[1]
        zpos = ploc[2]

        zpos = zpos + random.random()
        ob.location = (xpos, ypos, zpos)
        #ypos = ball.location[1]
        #zpos = ball.location]2]

        #zpos = zpos - random.random()

        #ball.location = (xpoy, ypos, zpos)
        #obj.keyframe_insert_menu('Location')
        #bpy.context.scene.frame_set(0)
    #scene = bpy.context.scene
    #scene.keyframe_insert(data_path="Location", frame=actFrame)

Actually it looks so:

Finally I found a solution which works great for me.
I added some commits so others with the same starter problems can use it.

Remember: there must be an named object defined in originName, otherwise the script will crash!

import bpy, math, random

d           = 4           # size of area where the balls spawn (STRG+Q to see what I mean)
anz         = 100           # number of balls
frameAnz    = 100           # number of generated frames
spawnScale = [0.015 , 0.09] # range for random scale during spawnprocess of a new ball
originName = "motherBall"   # name of the origin-object

#prepare scene, keyframes and keyframe-pointer:
scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.frame_start = 0
scene.frame_end   = frameAnz
bpy.ops.screen.frame_jump(end=False)

# first remove all objects from previous script-runs:
# (better than "a", then "x" and then ENTER before restarting this script!)
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.object.delete()

# "pick" the original ball from layer 1:
oBall = bpy.data.objects[originName]

# loop for creating (anz)x balls:
for anz in range (0,anz):

    # duplicate the original ball and
    # name the new ball like "zz_Ball-00001"
    # zz_ is for standing below in the outliner
    newBall = oBall.copy()
    newBallName = str(anz).zfill(5)
    newBallName = "zz_Ball-" + newBallName
    newBall.name = newBallName

    # now generate a random position for the new ball:
    xpos = -1 * (d/2) + random.randint(0,(d-1))
    xpos += random.random()
    ypos = -1 * (d/2) + random.randint(0,(d-1))
    ypos += random.random()
    zpos =  random.randint(0,(d-1))
    zpos += random.random()
    # and place the new ball at this:
    newBall.location = (xpos, ypos, zpos)

    # scaling the new ball to get different sizes of balls:
    sz = random.uniform(spawnScale[0] , spawnScale[1])
    newBall.scale = (sz,sz,sz)

    #finally deselect the ball and link it into the scene:
    newBall.select = False
    scene.objects.link(newBall)

# now lets create frame by frame:
for actFrame in range(1,frameAnz + 1):

    bpy.context.scene.frame_set(actFrame)
    for ob in scene.objects:

        if (ob.name != originName):
            ploc = ob.location
            xpos = ploc[0]
            ypos = ploc[1]
            zpos = ploc[2]

            zpos = zpos + ( random.random() / 8)
            ob.location = (xpos, ypos, zpos)
            ob.keyframe_insert(data_path="location", index=-1)

# job done: now reset the framekeypointer to 0
bpy.ops.screen.frame_jump(end=False)


How to get a rocky texture throughout the mesh? How to get the rocky texture all throughout the mesh, I obtained this obj from an external source and want to get the get the rocky texture all throughout the mesh

Try something like this. All I did was use a Noise Texture to slightly warp the vectors of a Voronai Texture to make the "cells" and to give them slightly uneven edges (less straight). Then I just filled in the surface detail by multiplying it again with another Noise Texture. I ran the result through the Height input of a Bump node, and gave it a bit of a gray color and a slight metallic value (to match your image).


Color a surface according to its slope I want to color a terrain according to how steep the slope is at each point. I've read How do I colour a 3D terrain based on its height?. If I could generate a new surface that is the gradient of my terrain (such that height of the new surface corresponds to slope in the original), then I could create that height-based material and apply it to the the original terrain. Is this feasible? Is there a better way to create a slope-based material?

Yeah,, you can actually do it follow this video: https://youtu.be/qSafYNQrodk?t=1330

But here you have a simplified node setup to do it:

The color ramp is used to choose the steepnes you want to select, the white parts are what is selected, so maybe you'll need to inverse the color ramp colours.
The "Average Node" of the video is actually the "Vector Math" node with the average option choosed, I don't know why he used it, the simplified node setup that I shared works equally.

How this works? I really don't know, I only know that you use the perpendicular normal axis (in this case the Z) to get the stepness in said axis and the ramp to set the threshold.

With three points (black, white, black) in the color ramp and the ease mode you can customize more the selection.


How to model a wireframe globe? What would be the way to model a globe with a wireframe that is formed from face loops and at the same time to have the continents that are not a wireframe shape, however the continents to have outlines of the countries. Just like on the image below  -

Note - Whatever the approach,the end result to be a continuous geometry. By that I mean - I don't want the spherical shape with the wireframe face loops to be a full sphere underneath the continents, but I want them to be in a continuous geometry with the continents. How can I achieve that result?

When unwrapping a sphere on to a black and white earth map, is there a way to turn the white on the mapped polygons into a geometry?
Or if I use the displace modifier, is there a way to remove the non displaced area (the oceans)?
Or maybe when using an alpha map, can the oceans be removed?

First I did a quick Google image search using the key words "map of Earth" then copied one that was in square format.

Second, I added a UV Sphere then unwrapped it with the following settings.

I then drag and dropped the image from the hard drive folder into the UV image Editor and scaled the UV Islands up along the Y-axis to get the image to fit better.

I have Blender Rendering set to Blender Internal and there are some settings on the right that will help you to see the image under the Shading Tab

Now I went back to Object Mode, then clicked over the sphere model to position the cursor onto the surface and added a plane.  In edit mode, I merged the vertices into 1 by using the keyboard shortcut Alt+M and selecting At Center.

In the image that follows, you can see one little orange point hovering near the surface of the textured sphere.

Now look at the bottom of the 3D View and activate the magnet Tool

You can use Ctrl + mouse click to quickly extrude out new vertices all along the continents on the reference model.  (I wrote 'mouse-Click' instead of left-mouse or right-mouse because people use different defaults for the right and left click)

After you have the outlines done you can start manually choosing sections and adding in faces using f Make Face.
You'll have to be careful about this part because the model is curved and making one big face will cause problems because it will be a flat surface trying to fit a curved profile.  Try and make the faces in smaller chunks.

After the continents are filled in, you can use e Extrude to give thickness to the model.  Or you can use the Solidify Modifier.

Now you can delete the reference model with the map on it and replace it with the model that has the Wireframe Modifier on it that is shown in one of the other answers.

If there are any steps that you have problems with then come back to this site and start a new Question for that specific area.

//============================================================================
Update based on comments.
//-----------------------

To make a height map, I used the downloaded picture of Earth mentioned above and loaded it into GIMP and used the Color/Area Select tool that most programs have and selected the ocean color which selected all the ocean area using default settings.  I then flood filled this area with black.  Then I used color contrast to get the following image.

Now I added a second set of UV Coordinates using the following panel,

I did this because the coordinates for the Spheres poles did not fit into the image area properly and I wanted to paint the poles black to hide the errors that were showing up there form bad mapping.

Then I added the height map made in GIMP as a material texture and baked it to the new coordinates.

Then I added this in as the material texture and used texture Paint mode to paint out some of the other problems.

Now I added this texture in as a height map for a Displace Modifier which came after a Sub-D Modifier and at the end I added a Decimate Modifier with the settings in the following image.(You can right-click the image and choose 'View Image' if you can't see the settings from the preview)

Now I applied the modifiers and and used Circle Select to select all the ocean faces.  Once they were all deleted I was left with the following.

Next I added another Decimate Modifier to clean up the mess and reduce the poly count down to something easily manageable.  I was mostly concerned with cleaning the jagged edges at this point, this produced the following.

Next came the Shrink Wrap Modifier with the following settings.

And with a simple lighting setup, the final render.

You could use Texture Paint to paint in dividing lines then bake a normal map from this to get a bit more detail.  That would be far more straight forward than actually creating geometry to divide various countries, states, provinces, etc...


rigid body simulation not rendered correctly I would like to replace objects at the end of a rigid body simulation by a another object. But the final scene contains the old ones, even when I call obj.hide=True on the original object. The new objects ARE in the scene, but on the pose where the simulation started not at the final frame.

What the replace function does:
Traversing a list of objects to be replaced. Copy a "template" object and put it to the location of the original object.

def duplicate_and_replace(lst_obj,obj_name):

    scn = bpy.context.scene
    obj_name_rgb = obj_name.replace("tex", "rgb")
    obj_rgb = bpy.data.objects[obj_name_rgb]

    for obj in lst_obj:
        new_obj = obj_rgb.copy()
        new_obj.data = obj_rgb.data.copy()
        new_obj.animation_data_clear()
        scn.objects.link(new_obj)
        new_obj.location = obj.location
        new_obj.rotation_euler = obj.rotation_euler
        obj.hide=True

The following code works for me now:

new_obj.location = obj.matrix_world.translation
new_obj.rotation_euler = obj.matrix_world.to_euler()


How are particle emitters affected by objects behind? I am attempting to build a light beam and so far it works as long as there is no objects behind. Once it steps over an object that is behind, the intensity seems to diminish its power depending on the qualities of the material behind.

I would like this not to happen, as I need a homogeneous streak. How could elements be influencing this scene and how could I change it?

Blender file: http://we.tl/H7hwWtIqLL

A visual example:

The problem is caused by the transparent material of the blue 'Cylinder'.
You can fix this by going to its material and then under the Transparency tab and setting your transparency method from 'Z Transparency' to 'Raytrace'.
This should fix your problem!


Bulk renaming armature bones after already creating them? I'm trying to create an animation rig with quite a few armature bones. I'm modeling a bug, which has a total of 14 legs, and each one of those legs has 5 armature bones. The legs are identical, except they are in different positions with different rotations, so to set up the armatures I simply created an armature for one leg and duplicated it to the other legs, rotating and repositioning it as needed. However, I named the front legs FrontLeg.L and FrontLeg.R. The other legs, since they're just duplicated, are, for example, FrontLeg.R.007, etc etc. I can easily rename the parent bone for each leg, but this becomes tedious very quickly to do this for all of the children as well.

Is there any easy way for me to rename the parent bone to, for example, 2ndFrontLeg.L and have all of the children automatically be assigned names 2ndFrontLeg.L.001, 2ndFrontLeg.L.002, etc, after they've already been created? I'm completely ok with using addons as well

Open a text editor in Blender and paste the code below there.
Replace the text in "original" and "replacement" as needed.
Go to pose mode and select the parent of the new chain.
Press "Run Script" in the text editor.

Here's the code:

import bpy
original    = "FrontLeg"    # Original name that was duplicated to generate all legs
replacement = "2ndFrontLeg" # The new name you want for this particular leg's bone chain

parent = bpy.context.active_pose_bone
for b in [ parent ] + parent.children_recursive:
    b.name = replacement


Can't divide the surface into 2 parts I use a combination Ctrl + R, to divide the surface into 2 parts. It appears pink line, but I somehow for some polygons can pave it only from the top down or from left to right only, and I need the opposite. What am i doing wrong?

In the screenshot the red outlined, I can not lay a pink line

Interruptions in Loop-cut means you need to inspect the geometry closer, often it points to faces not being joined by the edges that you think they're joined with. Some discontinuities are easy to overlook, but also easy to spot

Play close attention in Face selection mode to the locations of the dots that represent the median point of faces. If you see a dot on an edge that's a sign that you have accidentally created degenerate geometry, or if not degenerate then possibly unintended.

A side ways zoomed in view of your screenshot.

Selecting all in Edit Mode and Remove doubles can be used in most cases, except when you intentionally have vertices closer than the threshold that Remove Doubles operates on.


MouseLook script Cap problem I working on a MouseLook script, but the Cap system doesnt work great (When i move too rapidly to the Cap, the camera does ugly jumps).

I explain, my cap upper is set at 160 degree, my camera start at 90 degree, when i move rapidly my mouse up, the camera goes over 160 degrees (more speed, more excessive angle)and rapidly after, the script set the angle at 160 degree, its verry ugly, i dont want the angle goes over my cap value.

i will give you my script for better details.

Maybe the rotation system i used is not correct...

Does someone know how exactly work the cap/rotation system of the MouseMove script by Riyuzakisan?

Here is my faulty script:

import bge, math
from bge import render
from mathutils import Vector

def main():

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

    # Inclure l'objet "Camera" dans le script.
    camera = own.children['Camera']

    # Props
    cap = True
    capBas = 20
    capHaut = 160

    # Prendre le sensor "Mouse".
    mouse = cont.sensors ["Mouse"]

    # sensib = Propriété "Sensibilite".
    sensib = own['Sensibilite']

    # Recuperer la taille de l'ecran.
    x = render.getWindowWidth()//2
    y = render.getWindowHeight()//2

    # Definir le centre de l'ecran.
    centre_ecran = (x,y)

    # centre = Centre de l'ecran.
    centre = Vector(centre_ecran)

    # Definir la position de la souris.
    position_souris = Vector(mouse.position)

    # Définir la rotation a effectuer.
    offset = (position_souris-centre)*-sensib*0.0002

    if mouse.positive:
        # Récupérer la rotation de la camera.
        Camrot = camera.localOrientation.to_euler()
        Camrotx = int(math.degrees(Camrot[0]))
        print(Camrotx)

        # Appliquer rotation verticale camera.
        camera.applyRotation(( offset.y, 0, 0), True)

        if Camrotx > capHaut and cap == True:
            Camrot[0] = math.radians(capHaut+0.99)
            camera.localOrientation = Camrot.to_matrix()

        if Camrotx < capBas and cap == True:
            Camrot[0] = math.radians(capBas+0.01)
            camera.localOrientation = Camrot.to_matrix()

    # Appliquer rotation horizontale joueur.
    own.applyRotation((0, 0, offset.x), True)

    # Garder le curseur au centre de l'ecran.
    render.setMousePosition(x,y)

main()

I dont want to use the Mouse Actuator for MouseLook.

Thanks.

I have edited your script just a bit and now it seems to work fine. The main problem with your script was that you applied the rotation first, then checked for the cap and, if the rotation was too big, applied another rotation. I think that this led to the shaking.

The better aproach is to first calculate if the rotation would get too big when adding the offset, and if so just apply as much rotation as needed

import bge, math
from bge import render
from mathutils import Vector

def main():

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

# Get the child object named "Camera"
camera = own.children['Camera']

# Props
cap = True
capLow = 20
capHigh = 120

# Get the sensor "Mouse"
mouse = cont.sensors ["Mouse"]

# sensib = Property on this object named "Sensibilite"
sensib = own['Sensibilite']

# Get the center of the screen
x = render.getWindowWidth()//2
y = render.getWindowHeight()//2

screen_mid = (x,y)

# center = Center of the screen
center = Vector(screen_mid)

# Get the position of the mouse
mouse_position = Vector(mouse.position)

# Define the rotation that should be made
offset = (mouse_position-center)*-sensib*0.0002

if mouse.positive: #This part has changed!
    # Get the rotation of the camera
    Camrot = camera.localOrientation.to_euler()
    Camrotx = math.degrees(Camrot[0])
    print(Camrotx)

    # Check if new rotation value would be too high
    if Camrotx + offset.y > capHigh and cap == True:
        # Choose offset.y so that: Camrotx + offset.y = capHigh
        offset.y = math.radians(capHigh - Camrotx)

    # Check if new rotation value would be too low
    elif Camrotx + offset.y < capLow and cap == True:
        offset.y = math.radians(capLow - Camrotx)

    # Apply the rotation the the camera
    camera.applyRotation(( offset.y, 0, 0), True)

# Apply the horizontal rotation to the player/parent object
own.applyRotation((0, 0, offset.x), True)

# Reset the mouse position
render.setMousePosition(x,y)

main()


How would you go about creating a facade like this? How do I make each element unique and texture them so it looks hyper-realistic in the end? I want to create a wooden facade like this, with many elements, too many for each one to be created manually. I am wondering how to automate the "distortion" of the mesh when I array them, and also how to make this distortion look like wood. Also, do you have any texturing tips that would make it hyper-realistic?

The distortion for the wooden planks/Bamboo poles you can create with a Displacement modifier with very low strength (0.005267). Add it after the Array modifier. Use a Musgrave texture with low size=0.03, type fBM. This gives you something like this:

You need a better wood shader than in this example so that the poles/planks don't look like "toothpicks".


Layout is weird and there is multiple ones that is the same/wrong spot What did I do here...I accidentally added new things (IDK what it is called but the picture shows).
How do you get rid of this and bring it back to the default layout? With no extra stuff...I have no idea how...

Does anyone know how to fix this?

I would advice to get the basic stuff like using the UI on your own before continuing. It might not be practical to ask for every small detail like this. But, sure, the answer is not difficult at all.

Just grab a corner of some editor and drag it towards another to merge the UI areas:

Please note that it makes a difference what side you click on. If you drag towards another area from where you clicked it merges them, if you drag towards the area you clicked in it splits it into 2.

You can also right-click the line between them to get a menu with options:

And there are also layout presets on the top that you can chose:

And if you click the + button at the end you can create new layouts from default presets:

Don't worry, if yours are not identical to mine in the GIFs, they can be customized. There is nothing wrong with defaults, mine are just what I use most.


Corner spot where three faces meet I tried modeling this with modifiers:

Ideally I want to create only the part on one side and have the other two added by modifiers.

How would you do this? I mirrored it 90 degrees once and then copied the original to the top. Can I apply two separate mirror modifiers on one object, so they don't apply on top of each other? That way I could mirror the original 90 degrees in Z and 90 degrees in Y direction without ending up with four objects.

I would make this with linked duplications that I would join later on, but you could do it with 2 Mirror modifiers:

Create your shape. Put an empty on the axis.
Give your shape a Mirror modifier, choose the empty as Mirror Object.
Rotate the empty 45° on the Z axis.
Create a second empty (perhaps another shape) at the exact same place as the first one.
Give your shape a second Mirror modifier, choose the second empty as Mirror Object.
Rotate the second empty 45° on the Y axis.
You should be right.


Why do glossy materials on my object look different to the material preview? So I have Imported multiple materials from different websites and tried on all of them. It never worked. If I add the Material it looks normal in the preview window:

But if I render the object I have with the material added to it it looks weird and wrong.

I've tried multiple different materials. Chrome, Gold and Glass. All of them have the same weird look after rendering. I have the feeling it is just a little option I have to de-enable or something. Can someone help me? What are your thoughts on it?

Your mesh has flat faces and the preview is a sphere. The reflections look like a gradient on the sphere because of its curved surface. I am sure if you changed the shape in the preview to a cube it would look similar to how your mesh looks. Maybe you should add a bevel to your mesh to give it a more complex reflection.


solidify modifier is distorting parts of the model I am completely new to Blender, outside of watching a few tutorials online and messing around for a couple hours trying to solve my problem.

I have this model, made by Yokiie on Sketchfab (https://sketchfab.com/models/9814e8f117c0426bbe3f04de7ad6a363), I am now trying to convert the file from .blend to .obj so I can send it to a 3D printer to make something for a cosplay. However, after exporting this model in Blender to an .obj file, the website I am using to send my project to a 3D printing service is telling me the walls of the model are too thin, as shown here in red.

Upon knowing this, I then tried the Solidify tool on Blender, and it minimally solved some of the thin wall issues (5% or so). However, upon making the walls thicker, it is also distorting other parts of the model (specifically the hand guard/round orb area), despite making a Verticies group with just the blade portion and using solidify on that.

I am just at a point where I don't know if there is something with the original model that is causing these problems or if there is another option. My end goal is to get the object into an .obj file so I can send it to a 3D printer through 3D Hubs.

I also apologize if this is answered somewhere and the answer becomes repetitive, I gave a quick look through google search and didn't find a result that I found to work. Soldify was the main method I saw people use and it didn't seem to work for me. Any help/tips/things to try would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Zarvix

The fastest way to fix this is probably just to split the blade and the hilt, and apply solidify to only the blade.

To split the blade from the hilt, go into edit mode with the sword selected, then click anywhere on the blade and press ctrl+l, which will select all linked.  If this selects the hilt too, you will need to select the faces manually.  Once you have the blade isolated, press p while still in edit mode, then choose "selected".  This will break the sword object into a hilt object and blade object.

From there, you can just apply solidify to the blade as you did before.

From a 3D printer perspective, you may want to not print the blade at all, and make it yourself with plastic sheets from Hobby-Lobby or something.  3D printers have some trouble with long and thin.  Not to mention you will save money from avoiding printing costs.


How to project an image of high dynamic range? Versions: Blender 2.7.6.2, Gimp 2.9.3 (development version)

I am trying to make a texturing workflow based on using projecting images from camera to a model. In the menu in Texture mode there is an External tab which contains Apply and Apply Camera Image. Both of these buttons depend on bpy.ops.paint.project_image(image=image_name) function.

When I project a high dynamic range image, for example 16bit PNG or 16-32-floating exr onto 32 bit texture image all seems to work well. However when I save the resulting texture in Gimp and look at its histogram this is what I see:

It seems that in reality projected image only has 8-bit information. Is there a way to manipulate context for the project_image to make it output
16-32 bit dynamic range? Or may be there is another way to achieve high dynamic range projections?

Waveforms from a blender file example:

I used a the the same crop where all files had visual information.

Baked into 32-bit texture (EXR)

Camera render (EXR)

Projection of the Camera render (also EXR)

The ability to project high dynamic precision images had been added to Blender's master branch by Campbell Barton. Thanks Campbell!

See the corresponding issue


How to convert vertex group to sculpting mask? How to convert vertex group to mask in Sculpt mode ?

I take any solution.

It's possible to achieve that with Dyntopo enabled and Mask Tools addon installed (see Installing an addon) and activated.

With addon, in Sculpt mode press Vertex Group To Mask button on the Toolshelf > Sculpt rollout.

Dyntopo allows that because the geometry needed for vertex group will be dynamically created while using Sculpt brush.
The Multires modifier isn't available for that unfortunately.


Mirror modfier gap not to merging because of multieresolution modifier So I was creating this rhino and when I wanted to use the mirror modifier on it, however you could see a large gap between the two parts.

In edit mode the vertices are merged together but in object mode there is a gap.

The Multires Modifier has to be the first one in the stack, you cannot move it anywhere else. That's why Blender always first evaluates MultiRes, then the Mirror. The trap you're falling into here is that with the Multires you very likely deformed vertices in the center line, which moves them away from the symmetry plane, and thus the Mirror doesn't merge them any more.

A usual way to avoid this is to apply the Mirror before you even add the Multires to the mesh, and sculpt the mesh using X-Mirror, so all sculpting happens on both sides of the model.

However there might be a quick fix: Try increasing the Merge Limit until the center line merges again, and then check the rest of the model if vertices accidentally merge there as well. If you're lucky, the deformation has not been too destructive yet.


Is it possible to render a panorama in perspectives other than full 360°x180°? Update
This is now possibly natively as of 2.74. See my answer below.

Is it possible to render a panorama in cycles that is not a full 360x180 view?
E.g. 360° x 30°?
How can I achieve this?

This is not a very efficient way of doing this because it requires rendering the entire $360^\circ \times 180^\circ$ image and then cropping off a good chunk of it, but it seems to be the only option.

Here is a diagram:

$H$ is the height of the $360^\circ \times 180^\circ$ image, $h$ is the height of the cropped ($360°\times n^\circ$) image, and $n$ is the desired angle.  When $n$ is $180^\circ$ we can see that $D$ would be $\frac{1}{2}$ the height of the image so $D=\frac{H}{2}$.  From here it is just a little simple trigonometry and we can get:

$$
h = \sin(\frac{n}{2})\frac{H}{2}2 = \sin(\frac{n}{2})H
$$

Using your example of $30^\circ$ we get $h = \sin(15) H ≈ 0.26 H$  A slight rearrangement gives $H ≈ \frac{h}{0.26}$ which you can use to plug in the desired height and get the height you must use to render.


Mirroring object across global axis using mirror modifier? I'm having trouble mirroring an object across the global X axis. As it stands the mirror modifier uses the local object center.
Is there any way to use global axis as the pivot?

Use the mirror object, set to an empty with no rotation.


Model is not generating weights with auto-generate, what am I doing wrong? I am attempting to import a model using the MMD plugin and then use it for animation. When I import the model, give it bones, and then attempt to animate it, the bones are not affecting the model.

What am I doing wrong? I can provide more details as needed.

First of all for the automatic weighting to work (which is never guaranteed by the way) each bones should be inside the mesh. Your hands here are problematic, you want to place the hands bones inside the hands mesh. This could fix it.


Subdivision Surface Causes Spaces So I am having a problem with subdivision surface, it causes some space on my model, I am new to blender any advices?

Go into edit mode with tab, and then press W, and select remove doubles. The reason this is happening is that the differnet faces of the mesh are not actually connected, so by removing the vertecies in the same position you connect them.

If it doesn't instantly work, try increasing the distance in the right hand toolbar.

Also, it looks like you need to press ctrl+n to recalculate normals.


Animated mesh doesn't move with armature I am trying to make a rotating fan and everything goes well until my fan rotator and frame are unable to move along with the motor (armature).

The fan blades were parent to the rotator and it works well with the armature though. Can anyone help me with this issue? Thanks and have a good day.

Link to my project:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hwkuazv7i394wfx/FAN.blend?dl=0

Your object is a bit messy (for example why is your armature scaled on the Z axis?), but to quickly fix your problem, what you need to do is assigning the meshes of rim and rotator.001 to the right vertex group which is Bone.001, because it's the bone that is supposed to control them.


Cannot assign material to object, shows up wrong So I am trying to make a Roblox GFX, and I made the structure of the person in Roblox Studio, then exported as obj into blender.

I changed to Cycles render before doing anything, then added in my obj. I clicked on the snowball thing (material applier) and clicked material, but it is not right.

It is supposed to look like my character, it is instead neon pink. Here is a picture. I am on Blender 2.79

Try to UV unwrap it and than appling the texture.
If you just want to add a material go to the material tab and click add material.


Object Duplicated when exported into FBX I've this character with some face mesh. The Character is animated & the face mesh has the same animation of the character so it stays on the character. When I export this file (with Animations) the face mesh gets duplicated (with lost animation). What am I potentially doing wrong there should be no reason that get it duplicated. I've made sure that this is not the same mesh with lost animation but the original is there pristine with all its animation
Any help will greatly be appreciated, Thanks.

The mistake wasn't in the export setting but the meshes. It had hidden meshes that was I believed that it got duplicated. It can be solved by two approaches.
1:  Deleting the hidden objects
2:  Export by checking selected objects

Thank you guys who tried to help.


Is there a way to add a specific modifier to more than one object? I know you can copy the modifiers after adding it to one object, but is it possible to add one specific modifier to many objects at once?

For instance, I have many objects with different modifiers and I want to make them all collision objects. If I use CtrlL it copies all the modifiers on the active object to the selected objects. I only want to add a collision modifier to the existing modifiers.

Is this possible?

As I experiened, the Copy Attributes Menu addon can well support this. You can find Copy Seleced Modifers down the menu, which will only copy sepcific modifier(s) without replacing the original stack. Hope it helps.


Lock Front/Top/Left views from entering User view when dragging mouse Is there a way to lock the top/bottom, left/right, front/back views (ortho or perspective) rotation so that these views don’t accidentally move out into the user view when dragging with the mouse ?
note: this is particularly useful (to me) when using these views to do (blackboard/whiteboard) annotations and I don’t want to accidentally have these  top/left/front views be rotated out of their orientation when I drag the mouse.

Well. it turns out there is an add-on for this already that lets you lock/unlock any 3D view (top/bottom, left/right, front/back views.. and also the user view.. in orthographic or perspective modes). The add-on is available on Blender Market:
https://blendermarket.com/products/wlock-pro---an-addon-which-allows-to-lock-3d-view-rotation


Finding the 8 outer corner vertices of an object What might be the best or easiest way to find the 8 corner vertices of an object (usually cube in shape with more vertices than 8) and then selecting them.
Example Image:

I am starting off this code with just selecting the top 4 but receiving an error when I add:
from bmesh import from_edit_mesh
import bpy

def select4vertTop():
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
    bmT = from_edit_mesh(bpy.context.object.data)
    i=0
    a=b=c=d=e=f=g=h=vPrev=vSelCoord[0] #hold first vert coords to compare with next
    print()
    print( 'vPrev %f %f %f\n' % (vPrev.x, vPrev.y, vPrev.z) )
    for vert in bmT.verts:
        print( 'v%i %f %f %f\n' % (i, vert.co.x, vert.co.y, vert.co.z) )
        if  vert.co.x >= a.x and \
            vert.co.y >= a.y and \
            vert.co.z >= a.z:
                a=vert
        if  vert.co.x >= b.x and \
            vert.co.y >= b.y and \
            vert.co.z <= b.z:
                b=vert
        if  vert.co.x >= c.x and \
            vert.co.y <= c.y and \
            vert.co.z >= c.z:
                c=vert
        if  vert.co.x >= d.x and \
            vert.co.y <= d.y and \
            vert.co.z <= d.z:
                d=vert
        if  vert.co.x <= e.x and \
            vert.co.y <= e.y and \
            vert.co.z <= e.z:
                e=vert
        if  vert.co.x <= f.x and \
            vert.co.y >= f.y and \
            vert.co.z >= f.z:
                f=vert
        if  vert.co.x <= g.x and \
            vert.co.y >= g.y and \
            vert.co.z <= g.z:
                g=vert
        if  vert.co.x <= h.x and \
            vert.co.y <= h.y and \
            vert.co.z >= h.z:
                h=vert
        i+=1
        #a,c,f,h are the top vertices

    print("a%i,c%i,f%i,h%i" % (ai,ci,fi,hi))
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'OBJECT')
    obj = bpy.context.active_object
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_mode(type="VERT")
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action = 'DESELECT')
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'OBJECT')

    obj.data.vertices[ai].select = True
    obj.data.vertices[ci].select = True
    obj.data.vertices[fi].select = True
    obj.data.vertices[hi].select = True
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    select4vertTop()

I apologize I rarely use python.

KDTree and the objects bounding box.
Each object has an axis aligned bounding box giving the 8 coordinates of the cuboid the object fits into. If a cuboid is perfectly axis aligned the bounding box corner coordinates exactly match those of the corner verts.
A KDTree can be used to quickly find the closest element to a coordinate
Putting it together in a script, run with object of interest in edit mode (vertex select mode)
Note, this method assumes the mesh is axis aligned

Result of running on default UV sphere
import bmesh
from mathutils.kdtree import KDTree
from bpy import context

ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

kd = KDTree(len(bm.verts))

for v in bm.verts:
    kd.insert(v.co, v.index)

kd.balance()

# get closest to 8 bbox corners

closest = [kd.find(tuple(c))[1] for c in ob.bound_box]
print(closest)
#select

for v in bm.verts:
    v.select = v.index in closest

bm.select_flush_mode()
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

Ordering the result
The bounding box is "wound" in a consistent order. Looking at the default cube
>>> bbox = [tuple(b) for b in C.object.bound_box]
>>> for i, v in enumerate(bbox):
...     i, v
...
(0, (-1.0, -1.0, -1.0))
(1, (-1.0, -1.0, 1.0))
(2, (-1.0, 1.0, 1.0))
(3, (-1.0, 1.0, -1.0))
(4, (1.0, -1.0, -1.0))
(5, (1.0, -1.0, 1.0))
(6, (1.0, 1.0, 1.0))
(7, (1.0, 1.0, -1.0))

Hence the front y=-1, top (z=1) , left (x=1) vert is index 5. The 4 verts that make up the top corners are at indices 1, 2, 5, 6
The closest list has the same order.
If a definite 8 corner cuboid
In a cuboid mesh the 8 corner verts are only linked to 3 edges, whereas all others are linked to 4.  Can use this.
import bmesh
from bpy import context

ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

for v in bm.verts:
    v.select = (
            len(v.link_edges) == 3
            )

bm.select_flush_mode()
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

If this is also axis aligned then the "order" could be determined by looking at the components of the vertex normals.  For example, the normals of the corner verts of default cube would be equivalent to their normalized coordinates


Help: cannot find vertex_normal as attribute in 2.93 beta I am following this tutorial on geometry nodes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQVYieRfQBY&t=12s which is using 2.93 Apha. I couldn't find the alpha so I downloaded the beta. My issue is that at 3:38 they select vertex_normal and I cannot find this attribute in 2.93 beta. Please help.

This is what I am getting

An alternative setup is suggested in the first (pinned) comment of the video.
TLDR : You can use normal instead of point_normal although it may be inaccurate. If you want an accurate result you can read through the rest of the answer.
Quotes from user Erindale :

A note on vertex_normal attribute: This has been removed as it as a
bit of a misnomer (although very useful). The method you'll need to
use now is to take normal attribute (this is the face normals) with an
Attribute Convert node (set to point (writes to point domain) and
vector (normal is a vector)) and then use an Attribute Vector Math
node set to Normalise to ensure those vectors all have length 1. I
recommend people make a reusable node group that handles this as it is
a pretty common thing to want. Here is an example of what that could
look like

From the twitter post :
https://twitter.com/erindale_xyz/status/1374764284811612161/

As a follow up, you can just use normal as an attribute instead of
vertex_normal and it will automatically convert to point domain if
it's used with another point domain attribute (eg position). There
will however been some inaccuracies without normalising. For effects
like this you may well get away with it unnoticed but with more uneven
geometry you may find that normalising is required. I just have a
group so that's what I recommend


How to create a bent spring? I found and followed a tutorial from youtube to create a spring but I found that it can't bend.

I want to create a jack in the box so I want the crown to be able to hang down to scare someone. The model doesn't have pose mode and I can't use bones to rig or weight paint it. What am I doing wrong here?

You're going to have to abandon the method used in that tutorial if you want a bent spring that looks natural. Using a lattice will not preserve its volume. Just the same, using a curve deformer on the final spring will also not preserve the volume — even if you try to get smart and use nothing but curves. I tried it! It doesn't work.

Here's the 5-minute walk-through of my method:

Make an 8-sided circle.

Select one vertex. Press V to rip it from the rest of the circle. Right click or press Esc to cancel the transform. You should now have a "belt loop" that looks like a circle, but is disconnected at one point.

Select one of the ends, turn on proportional editing in the "connected" mode, and set the falloff curve to "linear".  Press G to grab, press Z to lock it in the upward direction and viola! You are now stretching your spring! (Note: you need to scroll up until the proportion is greater than the circumference of the octagon. You want the bottom point to leave the floor. This is good because it means you linearly affected all the points.)

Add an Array modifier with "Merge" turned on, and "1" unit in the Z of the Relative Offset section.

Add a Subsurf modifier with the setting at 1. This turns the octagon shape into a circle shape.

Add your bezier curve and the curve modifier to the spring. For smoothest results, I set my modifier to affect "Z". Of course make sure that the spring object and curve object share the same location and that the first point in the bezier curve is at its center point.

Fatten the line of points up with the new Skin modifier! While we could have used a Bevel on a 3D curve, this method ensures that the spring has no volume until after the deformation takes place resulting in perfectly uniform wire. Set the shading on the modifier to "smooth"

Lastly, smooth the whole thing out with one last Subsurf. I like mine at a setting of 2 or higher.


Installed addon doesnt show up i downloaded and installed an addon but when i check it in the preferences it doesn't show up in the panels. Can you help me with that please?

You either need to be in Pose Mode or have an armature object selected, otherwise the panel won't be displayed. This happens because the panel implements a poll() function that checks for these two conditions.


How do I twist this shape in a way that is 3D printable? I am trying to design this succulent pot that I will be 3D printing.  I want to give it this twisted look.  I started with a cube and made some loop cuts.  From there in order to rotate without twisting everything, I separated each row and rotated.
The problem I have is the gaps.  I definitely don't want them when I print this.  It should be solid all around.  I feel like I'm missing something about the process.  I thought about having each layer as its own mesh but then not sure how to extrude down through each layer.

Making this structure into a manifold mesh could be tricky. Thankfully, 3-D printers do not care if meshes are technically separate if the faces are in the same mathematical position. If you can create one ring, you can duplicate it, and then move it up so the bottom of the new ring is exactly on the top of the lower one, or even intersecting it, and the 3-D printer will print one solid instead of something that breaks apart.


How to re-map the shortcut to remove a node connection (cutting tool)? I use a graphics tablet because using a mouse starts to hurt my wrist. I need to either find the NAME of the "slashing" disconnect function between nodes that works identically like in Houdini FX (the name for the keybind Ctrl RMB, the wrangler doesn't list it, at least to my eyes across 2 days in the list), or I need to make a custom keybind of ShiftLMB because it's a dup for box select.

In the documentation in the blender addon, it says CtrlRMB is lazy connect, but it's showing me a cut tool icon, so that doesn't seem right at all... The documentation for it on the online Blender site is WRONG. CtrlRMB is the cutter tool, not Lazy Connect. Lazy Connect in the Addon keybind list is AltRMB.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I don't want to wear out my right mouse button on my graphics pen!

That's a built-in key and has nothing to do with Node Wrangler.

Go to Keymap > Node Editor Global > Cut Links and change it to whatever you like:

To get a Houdini like key binding, set its 'map type' to 'keyboard' and its type to Y.


How can I change theme for background color? I can't find background color option in the Preferences>Themes>3D View menu.
Where is it?

Thanks!

Preferences -> Themes -> 3D View ->Theme Space -> Gradient colors -> Gradient high/off


Is it possible to have more fireflies at the same time I use more samples? I am referring to the white dots that appear in glossy objects.

I moved a little the metal carpentry for the second image, and I got less noise in the horizontal ones which are on the top, but for some reason, dots appear in the vertical one, and also in the one that is from the terrace, which is outside, and I didn´t change anything to it.
The first image has 1200 samples and the second one 1800.

First I would recommend checking to see if you are using any small light sources. A sun should be fine but small spotlights and things of that nature can cause fireflies.
Blender Guru has a solution to fireflies. As to why the amount of samples cause more fireflies is strange,  but you are working with a complicated scene.
Blender Guru Fireflies


Normal baking corner problem Good evening!

I've looked at other similar topics but none resolved my issue.

The problem is corners after baking normals and applying them to a mesh.

Both cubes have same amount of bevel.
I have subdivided only 5 large square faces and sculpted them for the High res. cube.

Unwraped with smart UV

What could be the problem?

The problem are the ngons with 124 vertices/edges on the high res cube.

Adding a triangulate modifier to the cube solves that issue.

Also, the front and bottom faces of the low res cube are overlapped in the UV, so you should unwrap it again.


How can I copy or print errors from the console? I am testing an importer addon that still has bugs. Sometimes when I import a file, I get a large error all over my screen (and in the console.) I want to save this error log out to a text file so that I can send it to the addon maker to troubleshoot. How do I do this?

As of version 2.77 there is a new built-in 'Reports to Text Block' operator, which basically copies all entries of the Report Console into a newly created text block per execution:

However, saving errors to a text file automatically is might be too complex for a tester to setup (IMO). I'd suggest ask the developer for implementing a debug system. Otherwise you can copy errors and warnings from the terminal output with ease by running Blender via command line.

Linux

1. Run Blender via Command Line

Open a Terminal (Ctl+Alt+T), navigate to the directory where Blender is installed, and run Blender.

cd <blender installation directory>
./blender

This will run Blender with the Terminal window:

Depending on your Window Manager (Gnome, Unity, KDE etc.) you can edit your Launcher or Starter to open up Blender with the command line automatically by setting the 'Terminal flag' to true:

blender.desktop (Ubuntu, Unity)

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Blender
Exec=/opt/blender-2.77a/blender %F
Icon=/opt/blender-2.77a/icons/scalable/apps/blender.svg
MimeType=application/x-blender
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=true
Type=Application
...

2. Copy the Output, Errors or Warnings

Switch to the Terminal, select the text, then RMB and select 'Copy':

Alternatively you can also redirect the output to a text file when using the command line:

./<blender installation directory>/blender &> ~/mylogfile.txt

Windows

1. Run Blender via Command Prompt

Open the Command Prompt (click Start or hit Win on the keyboard and then type cmd), navigate to the directory where Blender is installed, and then run Blender:

cd c:\<blender installation directory>
blender.exe

This will run Blender with the Terminal window:

You can create a batch file, this opens up Blender via Command Prompt automatically:

  A batch file is a kind of script file in DOS, OS/2 and Windows. It consists of a series of commands to be executed by the command line interpreter, stored in a plain text file

blender.bat

"c:\<blender installation directory>\blender.exe"

2. Copy the Output, Errors or Warnings

Switch to the Command Prompt. RMB > Mark to enable text selection, hit Enter to copy:

Alternatively you can  you can also redirect the output to a text file when using the command line:

c:\<blender installation directory>\blender.exe > %homepath%\mylogfile.txt

Further reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command-line_interface
https://www.codecademy.com/articles/command-line-commands


Why is the wood grain texture I applied to my model not showing? I am trying to apply a wood grain type of effect to a model, I set up all the nodes and everything yet it won't show properly. How would I apply the texture?

To get your procedural texture to show up in the material, go into the textures context tab, and in the mapping panel, change "co-ordinates" to generated, then, in the influence panel, under "diffuse", put a check beside color. Areas to be changed in orange boxes shown:

.


Holes in my final render that don't show in my preview First Image is Shift-z. second is when I click render. This holes only show up in the final. It's like it's not registering part of the off set.

I can bet, you use different subdiv levels for your preview, and render. If you make it equal, you will see the trouble in the viewport too.


Why doesn't the fur follow the rigged mesh? So I got this model, on which I painted some fur on with the hair particle system and the particle edit tools, I then rigged it, but when I pose the model, the fur stays in place and doesn't follow the geometry of the model! I couldn't find anything on google regarding this issue! How can I get the fur to follow the mesh while posing?

Place the Armature modifier above the Particle System modifier.


Proportionally increasing the width of a curved line Good day!
I'm trying to increase the width of the line as it goes, so i want the width to increase propotionally like this:

I tried to rotate it, use proportional editing, but it didn't work well. Also, however, I could do this manually with edge slide and alt, but I'm afraid it would be not so smooth.
Is there's another way to proportionally move the outer line of verticies?
Thanks!

There are many ways to do this, but one that springs to mind is to construct your curve with a Curve modifier deformation, either of a long, thin plane subdivided along its length, or an array of smaller face-planes, merged in the Array modifier.

Then the curve's 'Radius' becomes available for adjustment. With Proprtional Editing, set to 'Connected Only', you can select one end or the other of the curve, with an appropriate falloff profile and size,  AltS scale the radius of the curve progressively from one end to the other.