Why aren't move parameters staying with my object? I'm really new to Blender, and just having difficulty understanding the 3D cursor.

I don't know what I did but for some reason my movement controls will not stay with the object I am editing. I don't get why this is happening, and I can't seem to get them to stay with the object.  I've tried resetting the 3D cursor, setting a new origin point, using Shift + S and selecting the object, but when I go to move, rotate, scale my object the control parameters just won't follow the object as they were before.

In the image you'll see what I'm talking about.  How can I get my controls to follow the object again?

Thanks,
 A Blender Noob

The option menu two boxes to the right of where it says Object Mode, is the Pivot Point, you have it set to 3D Cursor. Change it to Median. I think that is what you are asking, but you may need to be more clear. :)


Support is planned OpenCL 1.0 in Cycles? I have an AMD graphics card (HD 5830), but the rendering runs on the CPU, because Blender not see my graphics card. I think that it will render faster on the GPU than the CPU.

UPD:

I waited the final release version of Blender 2.75 and is now sees at once my GPU, but Cycles Render will not start. The message "Loading render kernels (may take a few minutes the first time)" and then appears "OpenCL build failed: errors in console", in a console Error E013: Insufficient Private Resources OpenCl

On my computer, little RAM, 3GB. Device Manager shows that at the time compilation uses all available memory. Maybe 3GB not enough to successfully compile?

Someone you know, there are cases of successful run in cycles of rendering graphics that do not support AMD GCN?

P.S. Maybe in my case worth trying to start already compiled kernel OpenCL?

Not all ATI cards are supported.

The list of supported cards per Blender Development can be found here. While this is not the entire list of cards that have shown to work, I believe they are the GPUs that have been tested "working" by development. From what I've observed from other ATI users, any card that does not have OpenCL 1.2 or 2.0 support, does not work with Blender 2.75 (and 2.74 w/ ATI Patch), and will not show in the list of Computing Devices.

With that said, Blender only works with the latest drivers from AMD, and if that driver does not have the OpenCL support for older cards, Blender will not support it. On a good note, the Blender viewport will support more versions of OpenGL in the future. Some users have had luck using beta drivers with older cards, and using an ATI patched Blender (2.74.5 - 2.75rc2).


Camera will not rotate around anything (User preferences->Rotate around selection on)

My camera in the view-port will not rotate or move, I can not rotate around my objects, and sometimes the grid will move too. I didn't save my blender file in this way before I closed my project, but it so happens to be in the state on opening. When I right click the grid moves in object mode, even in quad view I cant drag the objects view. Zoom in and out works. Middle mouse button does not work. I have tried:

It's like this for a new blend file too
view lock to object, lock camera view [x] & [ ]
shiftnum& altnum
shiftaltctrlc
shiftc
Space->clear lock view (doesn't appear)

User preferences rotate around selection needs to be ticked.


Is there any method to make almost an automatic 'hive'? I'm trying to do something like in the picture,

Which is a grid made of hexagons, like a 'hive'.

I  could generate a texture in another software like PS to add it, but what i want is to extrude upwards the yellow part, so the black parts are in depth.

How can i do this, using the options of Blender, without having to model it completely? i was thinking on making one hexagon and then duplicate it infinitely, but i think there should be another way for this.

Thanks in regards.

I'd start with 6-sided cylinders, and array modifiers:

1st modifier to create a duplicate at a diagonal offset (x:0.5, y:0.766 )
2nd modifier for 1 row in say the x-direction (x:.667, and not 1, as the boundig box covers both the cylinders)
3rd modifier to fill the plane in the y direction (y:0.857)

Then I'd either apply the modifiers and remove unwanted geometry, or use boolean modifiers to create holes where I want them (or to limit the structure to a given volume).

The black grooves can be a simple plane, or you can slighty modify the initial cylinder (and/or adapt the array offsets if needed) by extruding the lower set of edges outward. Close the other end of the basic cylinder for the yellow plates.


extrapolation in graph editor in blender 2.8 I wanted to create a spiral rotating at constant speed. I created my spiral, made two keyframes with linear interpolation and then wanted to add linear extrapolation, but for some reason, when I right click on the channel in graph editor, all the options under extrapolation are greyed out. I am not sure, whether this is just blender 2.8 thing, or I just made some stupid mistake or overlooked something... What could be the cause of this? Or is there some workaround or something? Thanks in advance.

May the graphs are made readonly by accident.
Go into the graph-editor, position your mouse on the left and expand the graphs label. Then hit TAB and watch, whether the tiny lock symbol shows an opened lock.


Particle Instancing not working So, Have been working in blender for about 3 months now, and want to get into some particle effects to spice up a new scene I'm working on.

I want some nice looking particles, so I was forwarded to particle instancing to get particles to emit from other particles.

The problem I am having is quite odd, as it seems to work flawlessly for many other people I see online. I create a plane, apply scale (Even though I didn't even scale it, Just to be sure) then I add a particle system, change the gravity to zero, and add some brownian force, and change the amount of particles to about 250 to start off with. I then create my object I want to instance, in this case its a cube. I apply the scale of the cube (Didn't scale it like before, but JUST TO BE SURE) then add a particle instance modifier and set the object to the object in which my original particle system is taking place (The plane). After doing all of this, I see no results, the particles are still the blank view in the viewport, and nothing shows in render view either.

Not too sure what I'm doing wrong, I was told that applying scale to the objects fixes this but I still obtain no results. If anyone can help me, it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm currently using blender 2.79.

Check the Amount, it should be on $1$ and the Offset on $0$. I cannot seem to get this modifier to work on 2.9

I am not sure if this was what you're after, but my Amount in the modifier tab is at $1$ and the Offset is at $0$


why my plate turn to normal map in object mode? so as i was following a tutorial on blender guru (youtube channel) when i added the normal map to my wood texture , this happen !!!
when i render every thing is okay and it's beautiful but it's annoying me so much when editing and modeling i see the normal map , why is that's happening !?
i tried to replace the images again or tweak the options , but none work , can you help me please !?

It's happening like that because you have selected the normal map image node in the Node Editor. If you click the object texture node in the node editor, that active node will be displayed in the viewport.

EDIT:


how can you add keyframes to the child mesh parented to the parent mesh ill try to explain the problem as best as I can basically I parent a mesh to another to help me in keyframing objects but sometimes I just want to move the parent mesh not the child one but when I clear  the parent the child mesh loses all the keyframes position it had, I get it is doing it because when the parent mesh moves the child meshes location stays the same, any setting or a way to to let the child mesh have keyframes even if the parent is cleared.

Around the top of your object viewport please click the options button in object mode. There should be a dropdown menu that allows you to change the transformations allowing you to only affect the parent and not the child.


mathutils.bvhtree.BVHTree.overlap returns a list of unique tuples, where each tuple represents the overlap between two elements of the two trees. The first entry of each tuple is the index from one tree and the second entry is from the other tree.

  overlap(other_tree)

  Find overlapping indices between 2 trees.

  Parameters: other_tree(BVHTree) – Other tree to perform overlap test on.
  Returns: Returns a list of unique index pairs, the first index referencing this tree, the second referencing the other_tree.
  Return type: list


Error in sculpting, maybe corrupt file Recently I was attempting to sculpt from a tutorial on youtube and I encountered and error where the brush stopped working consistently and I got a line following the cursor instead.  I'm curious if there is anything I can do rather than starting a new file.  The problem does not seem to be attached to the object and it only occurs with the SculptDraw brush.

Na, it's fine... you just accidentally got your smooth stroke enabled. Disable it and you will be fine.


Armature modifier deforming mesh slightly Whenever I add a Armature modifier to my models, the mesh for the arm and legs shift, but just a little bit.

When I uncheck the Bind to vertex groups box, it restores to it's normal position but as soon as I check it again it shifts.

Not binded:

Binded:

I know there's barely a difference but I've worked too hard on this model to and I can't let there be a mistake like this. The mesh for sure shifts every time I check vertex groups on.

In blender 2.8+ there is a new Save as Shape Key which keeps the modifier in the stack and allows you to config the shape key to have the power of -1.


Cause of Alpha or Black Artefacts in Render This is my Minecraft Animation. It is made in Blender Internal and is intended to be rendered in Blender Internal. The animation consists of me running infront of Minecraft trees. These trees are mapped with UV textures of Minecraft Leaves with alpha turned on so that the leaves are transparent in places. The Animation starts at frame 8 and ends at 40. This is not a case Z fighting.

However when I render the animation I get square alpha (sometimes black pixel) artefacts in the render. Every frame has diffrent result but still has the artefacts. This is what it looks like. The white is the alpha. Open in a new tab for closer inspection.

As I said some frames have this problem and some don't

This one has AA disabled. This makes the alpha only one pixel each. (Open in new tab to see individual pixels)

This problem does not occur in the rendered mode viewport.

Leaves' Material Settings

Leaves' Texture Settings

Edit: I decided to restrict the leaves from render and this is the result I have. Pretty ugly. Also added, glare and vector nodes just fyi.

I then decided to remove the wood as well and now this happened.

And now there's black and alpha.

Here is a link to a video showing the problem.

What is going on here! Is this blend file corrupted? Please if you know the answer or what causes this please mention this down below.

And because you asked here a stripped down version of the file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4q5qfsmjv7umtbh/Stripped%20Down.blend?dl=0

The artifacts are not from z-fighting, but from transparent auto shadows bias.

Just turn the option off:

Shadow auto bias on:

Shadow auto bias off:

Elaboration:

There was once bug which was (supposedly) fixed for 2.68:

  Found the cause of the problem, it's due to the ray bias options that tries to avoid bad ray traced shadows.

It's supposed to eliminate shadow artifacts on smooth shaded surfaces where the shadow terminator is - like this one (I think..):

My guess is that blender sometimes fails to get it automatically right, setting it to fix value then works better.

Or making the surface flat shaded should work also.


Weird spike by subsurf modifier I don't understand the reason for this strange spike. I tried to delete faces and edges and reconnect again several times and it's appear no matter what. What is the reason and how to get rid of it?

Here is a link to .blender file

The problem is these two vertices/edges that are connected to the faces that you're trying to smooth.  I can only assume they were part of the carryover from your screw modifier.

Delete them and this is what you get:


Vertex group from texture If I have a model, for instance UV unwrapped, how can I from a texture assign a vertex group. White = assign vertex, black = don't assign vertex, values in between = halfway assigned vertex based on color intensity. A grayscale image would probably be used.

You can try the Vertex Weight Edit modifier. For example, I can input the following texture as a Texture Mask to the modifier:

... that will then use its value, to control how the modifier assigns weight to each vertex. Tweak at least the Default Weight, threshold settings and fallof type to get the result you need:

Though not instantly updated if we edit the image, the result shows up immediately, and is usable by modifiers further down the stack:

Default Weight and Add Threshold should be of that weight which you'd like to have as the end result, Add Threshold should be slightly less.


Damped Track constraint issues. Bone twists at a certain point Having issues with the damped track constraint here. I want to be able to move it all the way around and have the arm follow it. However, at a certain point, this weird rotation thing happens.

I don't even know where to start

Hopefully someone can help

Thanks

Use IK constraint with chain lenght of 1, instead of damped track constraint. When selecting the Ikeyed bone, in its IK properties panel lock the axes in which you don't want any rotation.


Getting constant Unreal crashes when porting a blender model to it I keep getting the error:
LoginId:1978d23c4c338d46283e3c999ce73661
EpicAccountId:4036e797f1d047eba2e8cc9c84c55e1e
Assertion failed: (Index >= 0) & (Index < ArrayNum) [File:D:\Build++UE4\Sync\Engine\Source\Runtime\Core\Public\Containers/Array.h] [Line: 614] Array index out of bounds: 0 from an array of size 0
UE4Editor_Core
UE4Editor_Core
UE4Editor_MeshBuilder
UE4Editor_MeshBuilder
UE4Editor_MeshBuilder
UE4Editor_MeshBuilder
UE4Editor_UnrealEd
UE4Editor_UnrealEd
UE4Editor_UnrealEd
UE4Editor_AssetTools
UE4Editor_AssetTools
UE4Editor_UnrealEd
UE4Editor_UnrealEd
UE4Editor_Engine
UE4Editor_Engine
UE4Editor_UnrealEd
UE4Editor_UnrealEd
UE4Editor
UE4Editor
UE4Editor
UE4Editor
UE4Editor
kernel32
ntdll
every time i try to port my skeletal mesh to it. I've messed with the smoothing groups, the UVs, and some of the import options in Unreal to no avail. Any ideas?
Blender Export Settings:

Unreal Import Settings:

it appears that unreal engine crashes when the blender animation FBX is without a material.
This means if you add a texture or material to your object it will work.


Rigging multiple meshes My problem is that I have created a bipedal model that has multiple meshes (gloves, shirt, socks, etc) and I have heard that I should select all the meshes and join them together with CRTL+J. I have done that and then I rigged with automatic weights, but not everything is affected by the bones. Some parts don't move with the rig. What should I do to fix this issue?

Information

If you create clothing for a rigged character it is not necessary to join the objects into one mesh. Proper parenting and data transfer is the key to get your clothes moving with the rig.

If you do not intend to change the clothes, you might be better off with a single mesh but then joining objects (and therefore meshes) produces unnecessary polygons.

I'm going to show the procedure for parenting and data transfer on the left boot, only.

Splitting the Clothes from the Body

Splitting the clothes from the Body is easy as long as there are no joined vertices.

Select your MainBody mesh and Tab into Edit Mode. Select one vertex of your boot (clicking somewhere near the surface helps) , then press Ctrl+Numpad + and keep pressing until all vertices of the mesh are selected. Then hit P and choose "Selection" then Tab into Object Mode.

Renaming and Clear Parenting

In the next step you want to rename the clothing piece into something appropriate (in this case boot_left), then hit Alt+P and choose "Clear and keep Transformation".

Clearing Vertex Groups

Next, we need to clean out all non-working vertex groups. In the Properties Area, select the Data Panel, go to "Vertex Groups" and hit the Minus Button until everything is gone.

Regenerating Vertex Data

Now we need to regenerate the vertex data in order to get the clothing mesh moving with the armature. Go to Properties Area, select the Modifiers Panel, click "Add Modifier" and select "Data Transfer".

In the modifier's settings, choose your MainBody as "Source Object", select "Vertex Data", "Vertex Groups", then hit "Generate Data Layers" and you also should apply the modifier. Go back to the Data Panel and check if your Vertex Data is now reassigned correctly.

Parenting Clothing Piece to Armature

The last step is a little fiddly, because it has to be taken in Object Mode. Click on your clothing mesh, then Shift-select the armature.

  Sometimes, when you click on the armature, Blender automatically
  switches to Pose Mode for some reason. If this is the case, just
  switch back to Object Mode and Shift-select the armature
  again until Blender stays in Object Mode.

If your clothing piece is selected (orange outline) and your armature is active (yellow outline), press Ctrl+P and select "Armature Deform - With empty groups".

That's it.

Here's the revised blend file:

Enjoy.


How do I have create two Front Ortho Viewports with different reference images on each? I know how to create front and back ortho views and get a different image in each, but I want them both to face the same way rather than them be mirrors of each other. How is that done in 2.8? I know this is possible in previous versions of Blender because I've seen it a tutorial. I made this video with details here - https://youtu.be/MBJtgHXZMPE

You can use "Local Collections" filters in each viewport to filter out your different backrounds.
Place each of your images in a different collection.
Place your work objects in a third collection.

Create 2 viewports by click-dragging the edge of the 3D viewport.
Expand the "N" panel, then go to the "View" panel, go down to "Collections" and check "Local collections" in both viewports.
Now click the eye icon of the background collections in each viewport.
Result :


Options Missing in the View Layer Properties Panel I am pretty new to Blender, although I could not find a similar enough question for the problem I am experiencing. When I select an object in my scene, the materials section on the properties panel is completely blank, and likewise if I add a new object. In addition, I am noticing that some of the other properties are missing options as well.
Using Blender 2.83.50
See screenshots:

Object with Material already assigned

New Cube I just added

I am using cycles for the render engine, and the options do display when I move to the shading panel (for the material properties). This last picture is the Layers tab, which also looks empty:

Make sure Cycles is enabled in the user preferences.
Edit > Preferences > Add-ons

Also, make sure this is unchecked in your current workspace :

If you have to have it checked, make sure the cycles add-on is checked.


Bones rotate instead of moving I have a human rig with an IK on the leg. When I try to move the knee separately in pose mode the leg doesn't move. The knee has the cursor as if it was going to rotate and the text at the bottom says "Rot:" and then a number, but it rotates only slightly, as in I can barely see the pixels changing on my low-res screen. I have tried toggling Auto IK but it does nothing. It's just the bones, I haven't parented them to any mesh.

Also my edit mode and object mode models of the bones are different, as the foot ans the IK bone are rotated in object but not in edit, and in pose mode the alt+g, alt+r and alt+s only make tiny adjustments as opposed to resetting the bone model as they are supposed to.

Any help would be much appreciated as I'm just a noob! Thanks. (° ͜ʖ ͡ -)

Link: Google Drive

To make you leg work properly you need to:

Deactivate the Manipulate Center Points option in Pose or Object mode (made to shift objects from each others) otherwise you won't be able to rotate anything.
In Edit mode, give a correct parentage to your bones: Deparent the IK controller from any bone except the root bone that you will create at the end. Parent the foot bone to this controller.


What version of Blender to use with 10.14.6 Mojave Version 2.79b of Blender won't open in on my Mac. Which one should I be useing for 10.14.6 Mojave?

As of today (July 11, 2019), 10.14.6 is a beta OS version. Blender 2.79b runs fine on my iMac with 10.14.5. If you are a beta tester for 10.14.6, I would recommend submitting a bug report both to Apple and to the Blender team.


How would industry-professionals approach this? I am trying to figure out how professionals in the animation industry would approach this sort of building. If you take a look at the green details of the windows, those are a separate object from the main building, as well as the little lip underneath the windows.

Would this be how they would do it professionally? Or, would they probably make these pieces all out the main building? And if they would use separate objects like I did, is it okay if they overlap, because I've heard mixed opinions on that. I'm just trying to learn the best habits now, so that one day, if I do get a job in the industry, I know what to do.

I hope this makes sense! Thank you so much!

It depends.

If the final result was to be animated, then they would most likely make any moving part a different object. But on non-moving parts, such as the Door Overhang, it would probably be left to the individual artist's discretion what to do on that individual piece. For your purposes, I would do whatever you are most comfortable with, and whatever you think will be most efficient for that individual scene.


Rotation along one axis does not work Sorry if this question already exists, but I didn't find the answer to my problem.

(BLENDER v2.78)

I recently had the idea to animate a toon-style Rubik's Cube. I used Blender Render. I added 26 Cubes to the scene and added assigned simple materials for each color.
For scrambling it I selected manually the 9 cubes I wanted to move, rotated them and set the keyframe. Everything worked perfectly and I got this result:

h*ttps://i.stack.imgur.com/JyJcb.png (I can only post 2 links)

Then I wanted to animate a whole solving process with the same file.
I deleted all the keyframes and scrambled the cube with selecting all the 9 cubes of one side and pressing e.g. R + X.

After scrambeling I've set the keyframes just the same way like I did during scrambeling and got this result just in the middle of the scrambled postion and the "1st move keyframe" (Only one 90 degrees rotation along the global x-axis after scrambeling it):

I regarded the Location of the strange tiles and saw that also the y and z coordinated have been modified.

Can someone please help me.
I don't know what happened and how I can fix it.

The File:

Rubiks Cube.blend

As binweg found in another post, the problem has been the Euler Rotation.
I changed the rotation of every cube to Quaternion and everything worked as it was meant to be.


API: how to iterate over a planes vertices row-by-row, column-by-column assume a simple plane 10x10 vertices. I'd like to access the planes vertices in an ordered manner according to its structure (and not the vertice' positions in space which may be random). I start with a vertice in a corner and one by one I access the vertices in that row (or column). When reaching the end of that row (or column) I start again from the 1st vertice in the 2nd row (or column) and so an.

Do you have any hints?

many thanks!

EDIT: Screenshot

Not elegant, and it has no verification that the object is a regular plane (only 4 outer edges) but the below has been tested a bit and provides a single sequence of vertices as described in your question. Maybe someone else can follow up with a cleaner solution.

import bpy
import bmesh

my_data = []
my_corners = []
my_seq_cols = []
my_seq_verts = []
edg_cnt = 0
my_mode = 'OBJECT'
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
obj = bpy.context.edit_object
me = obj.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
bm.verts.ensure_lookup_table()
bm.edges.ensure_lookup_table()

def set_mode(my_mode):
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode=my_mode)

def set_data(my_data, edg_cnt):
    for vert in bm.verts:
        my_data.append([vert.co[0], vert.co[1], vert.index, edg_cnt])
    return my_data

def find_corners(my_data, my_corners):
    for edg in range(len(bm.edges)):
        for vert in range(len(bm.edges[edg].verts)):
            for i in my_data:
                if i[2] == bm.edges[edg].verts[vert].index:
                    i[3] += 1
    for i in my_data:
        if i[3] == 2:
            my_corners.append(i)
    return my_corners

def find_edg_from_verts(v1, v2):
    for edg in bm.edges:
        if (edg.verts[0] == v1 and edg.verts[1] == v2) or (edg.verts[1] == v1 and edg.verts[0] == v2):
            my_edg = edg
    return (my_edg)

def find_start_col(corners):
    for edg in bm.edges:
        if (edg.verts[1].index == corners[0][2]):
            col_ind = edg
    return (col_ind)

def find_start_row(corners):
    for edg in bm.edges:
        if (edg.verts[0].index == corners[0][2]):
            row_ind = edg
    return (row_ind)

def get_row_verts(my_row_start):
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    my_row_start.select = True
    bpy.ops.mesh.loop_multi_select(ring=False)

def seq_sel_verts(start_vert):
    found = False
    fwd = True
    sel_verts = [v for v in bm.verts if v.select]
    for l in start_vert.link_loops:  # try to find next vert of loop
        if l.link_loop_next.vert in sel_verts:
            next_vert = l.link_loop_next.vert
            found = True
    if not found:
        for l in start_vert.link_loops:  # last row requires direction change
            if l.link_loop_prev.vert in sel_verts:
                next_vert = l.link_loop_prev.vert
                fwd = False
    cnt = len(sel_verts)
    if fwd:
        while cnt > 0:
            for l in start_vert.link_loops:
                if (l.link_loop_next.vert in sel_verts) and (l.link_loop_next.vert not in my_seq_verts):
                    next_vert = l.link_loop_next.vert
            for v in sel_verts:
                if v == start_vert:
                    my_seq_verts.append(v)
                    v.select = False
            start_vert = next_vert
            cnt -= 1
    else:
        while cnt > 0:
            for l in start_vert.link_loops:
                if (l.link_loop_prev.vert in sel_verts) and (l.link_loop_prev.vert not in my_seq_verts):
                    next_vert = l.link_loop_prev.vert
            for v in sel_verts:
                if v == start_vert:
                    my_seq_verts.append(v)
                    v.select = False
            start_vert = next_vert
            cnt -= 1

def seq_sel_cols(start_vert):
    next_vert = start_vert.link_loops[0].link_loop_prev.vert
    sel_verts = [v for v in bm.verts if v.select]
    cnt = len(sel_verts)
    while cnt > 0:
        for l in start_vert.link_loops:
            if l.link_loop_prev.vert in sel_verts:
                next_vert = l.link_loop_prev.vert
        for v in sel_verts:
            if v == start_vert:
                my_seq_cols.append(v)
                v.select = False
        start_vert = next_vert
        cnt -= 1

def output(row_len):
    col_len = len(my_seq_cols)
    print("Vertex sequence")
    cnt = 0
    for i in range(col_len):
        print("<row:", i, end="> ")
        for j in range(row_len):
            print(my_seq_verts[cnt].index, end=", ")
            cnt += 1
        print()
    print("Total vertices:", len(my_seq_verts))

def main():
    set_mode('EDIT')
    set_data(my_data, edg_cnt)
    find_corners(my_data, my_corners)

    my_corners.sort()  # organize list so lowest (x,y) is 1st
    start_col = find_start_col(my_corners)

    # sequence leftmost(-x) column bottom to top(-y...+y)
    get_row_verts(start_col)
    my_start_vert = start_col.verts[1]
    seq_sel_cols(my_start_vert)

    # sequence rows from left to right (-x...+x)
    for v in my_seq_cols:
        found = False
        my_start_vert = v
        for l in my_start_vert.link_loops:
            if l.link_loop_next.vert not in my_seq_cols:
                found = True
                next_v = l.link_loop_next.vert
                start_row = find_edg_from_verts(my_start_vert, next_v)
                get_row_verts(start_row)
                seq_sel_verts(my_start_vert)
        if not found:
            for l in my_start_vert.link_loops:
                if l.link_loop_prev.vert not in my_seq_cols:
                    found = True
                    next_v = l.link_loop_prev.vert
                    start_row = find_edg_from_verts(my_start_vert, next_v)
                    get_row_verts(start_row)
                    row_len = len([v for v in bm.verts if v.select])  # added for formatting output
                    seq_sel_verts(my_start_vert)
    output(row_len)
    bm.free()
    set_mode('OBJECT')

main()


Invisible meshes after update Before the 2.8 I hid some meshes and now i cannot unhide them... Here is an image.

In the Outliner, click on the key icon to make some other options visible, like Globally Disable In Viewport, which may be deactivate for your objects.


Displacement Modifier and Texture Coordinates I am using a Displacement Modifier with an Image Texture.

Now in the Displacement Modifier panel you can chose the Texture Coordinates. On this page http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Modifiers/Deform/Displace I read that "Global – take the texture coordinates from the global coordinate system" and
"Local – take the texture coordinates from the object’s local coordinate system". First, I don't understand what is meant with a local and global coordinate system but I guess since I am using a Texture Coordinate (generated) that I should chose LOCAL ??

Local is when you are using the object's own XYZ coordinates, regardless of it's placement in the global coordinates. For example, When you rotate an object in object mode the object will no longer be aligned with the world

Global has to do with the XYZ grid that starts in the origin 0,0,0. The transformations occur using the world's coordinates.

Here's a small example of how If your object is not aligned with the global coordinates you'll get different results using the displace modifier:


Select or find everything that a driver is driving? How can I find out all properties that a driver is driving without manually checking every object in the graph editor?

A single driver only calculates the value for one property. I think what you want are properties a driver depends on, that is properties a driver uses in its calculation.

You can use the outliner to find objects that have drivers by searching for "driver" -

I don't think blender includes a way to show driver dependancies but we can make a script to list them. Drivers and the variables we define to use in them are all stored in the animation data.

import bpy

obj = bpy.context.object

if obj.animation_data and len(obj.animation_data.drivers):
    for d in obj.animation_data.drivers:
        if len(d.driver.variables):
            for v in d.driver.variables:
                if v.type == 'SINGLE_PROP' or v.type == 'TRANSFORMS':
                    print('{}.{}[{}] uses {} from {}'.format(
                            obj.name, d.data_path, d.array_index,
                            v.targets[0].data_path, v.targets[0].id.name))
                elif v.type == 'LOC_DIFF':
                    print('{}.{}[{}] uses distance between {} and {}'.format(
                            obj.name, d.data_path, d.array_index,
                            v.targets[0].id.name, v.targets[1].id.name))
                elif v.type == 'ROTATION_DIFF':
                    print('{}.{}[{}] uses rotational difference between {} and {}'.format(
                            obj.name, d.data_path, d.array_index,
                            v.targets[0].id.name, v.targets[1].id.name))

That will give you something like -

Suzanne.location[0] uses location.x from Cube
# or
Armature.pose.bones["Bone"].location[0] uses distance between Cube and Lamp

Note that this does not cover all driver data, just what is in the main animation data, which includes the main object properties as well as modifiers and armature bones. Drivers for shapekeys can be found in obj.data.shape_keys.animation_data.drivers, materials, textures and nodetrees can also have their own animation_data.


Inserting rotation keyframes First: Thanks to R-800 for his/her quick answer. Though, it wasn't really what I looked for.

I try to be more specific about my former question:
I have an animation of 1200 frames. My objects perform some motion until frame 200. From frame 200 to 360 my objects rotate about the z-axis completing 2 full cycles and then move further.
I created the rotating motion by inserting key frames every 10th frame rotating the objects 45 degrees further. Thus at frame 360 my objects have a rotation angle about the z-axis of 720 degrees.

I now want them to rotate not only 2 cycles but 4 from f200 to f520. I.e. I want to insert another 160 rotation frames after frame 360.

I tried to shift all the original key frames after f360 to start at f520 and then fill the gap again with 45 degree rotations. This worked well until frame 520 then the motion got screwed up because the rotation angle at f520 was 4*360=1440 degrees but key frame 530 (the shifted one originally at f370) had an angle of 720 degrees and the objects rotate all the way back from 1440 deg to 720 deg within the 10 frames from f521 to f530.

That's where I'm stuck now. Of course I could set all the following keyframes after f520 to the correct rotation angle. But I thought there must be an easier way.

You can create cycles instantly using Curve modifiers, which are accessed through the Graph Editor window's Properties Shelf (press 'n' while mouse hovering over the Graph Editor Window to bring up the Shelf). Once the Properties Shelf is up, you will see tabs to the far right of it, one of which is Modifiers. Click on it.

In my example, I created two keyframes on the Global Z axis to make the cylinder rotate 360 degrees in 32 frames. Instead of making extra keyframes to add additional revolutions, I was able to create a cycle modifier, which automatically extends the rotations indefinitely. Setting the Repeat Motion: After field to 3 allows me to add three repeated revolutions to the original one, giving me four revolutions, total.

You may find, as I did, that something odd happens to the final keyframe in the original F-Curve after adding the Repeat Motion restriction, causing the cycled loops to have timing which does not connect seamlessly. I had to manually adjust the handles on the final keyframe for the original F-Curve after setting this up, for reasons unknown. Might be a bug. Just giving you a heads up.


I'm using cycles render and I can't figure out how to render the image texture I modeled a Desert Eagle, or "Deagle," In the internal render system (Blender Render), and then created a new .blend file, brought the model(s) over and then textured them and added a spare mag and 2 spare bullets to show to a friend.

So it looks normal. But when i render it, i get this

Anyone know a solution to this? I looked around for around an hour and couldn't find a fix for this issue. i'm pretty new to cycles still so I don't know as much as I know about blender render.

EDIT for Carlo: For the lights it's just a simple 3-Point lighting system using rotated planes with the emission node attached. I would send an image, but sadly my reputation is not above 10 currently so I can't have more than 2 images.

And for the nodetree, I don't think i'm going to be able to send one image for that as there are multiple objects in the image and they each have different node trees. There's nothing too complicated to them, as they all just have the "Image Texture" Node connected to the output node. If you need anything else just let me know what you need.

In properties, goto material. And click use nodes if you haven't already.

 Then click the circle next to color, and select 'image texture'.

 Then use the drop down menu to select your texture, then render, and done.


Why is a piece of this mesh stuck in pose mode? When I grab the right foot, I have a glitch. The point where these 3 bones are connected is not moving.

Is it a bug? Or can I fix it, somehow?

The problem is that the particular vertex is not assigned to the bone that you are moving. Fix it by going into weight paint mode and painting that vertex red!

Unfortunately, weight painting disagrees with my computer so I can't post an image. :( I will try to have someone put one in for me


Is there a way to assign shift key to a mouse button? I have a Spacemouse and in Blender for Mac, the Spacemouse settings do not work, so if I need to assign specific buttons, I need to do it via Blender. I would like to use one of the keys as a shift key.

I think blender maps operators to keys and not keys to operators, so you probably have to remap every operator that uses the Shift key.

In user preferences->input ,  you can set the input event to a NDOF device.


Why is my animation not correctly keeping location and rotation? I am sure that I set the keyframes location and rotation correctly, but it doesn't behave in that way. I can't find any solutions in Google nor Youtube.
https://pasteall.org/blend/caceeba41d4940ea8652bccd5ed23271

This is a perfect example of why we should use Quaternion rotations instead of Euler, when more than 2 axes of rotation are involved in a movement.
To simply solve, you can go to the first frame, switch to quaternions, insert a rot keyframe, turn back to euler, go to the second keyframe, switch to quaternion, insert a rot keyframe. Solved.
For this kind of objects it's better to build an armature or use some empties, make them parents of the objects, and use them to animate, so that those simple movements happen on a single rotation axis, and they get easily edited and automatically avoid theese problems.
Also, you should get the good habit of apply your rot and scale before animating (Ctrl A), and use real world dimensions (now it's 90 meters wide).


Animate a texture / material over a mesh Animate a texture / material over a mesh

The material will animate over a plane correctly but when I try and do something similar with a different mesh it doesn't work as expected (it just flashes blue) how can I fix this.

Note: The reason I'm doing it this way is Verge3d can't animate curves over the web so this would be one way to show the growth / path an object would take over time.

File attached.
I'm using blender 2.81 ubuntu 64bit

Hard to give an exact answer without knowing exactly which effect you want to achieve, but...

Your object needs a UV map. Here, I've just put a seam down the edge-loop in the crease, and hit 'U' ...

.. I'm sure you could be more sophisticated about that. Maybe make use of 'Follow Active Quads' if you want the repeat in the texture to reflect the topology of the object more closely.

Optionally..

You could simplify your shader tree, a Mapping node could replace the separate nodes to animate the UV space, and you could replace the 'Add Shader' node with a 'Mix Shader' node if you want a bit more control over transparency.

Obviously, you may want different motion, scale, etc.


Bump map causes strange shading What is causing this strange shading when adding bump/normal maps?
This happens in the viewport and the final render.

See image below were the sun transitions into shadow.
It should be more smooth.

Blender v2.79
Cycles
HDRI lighting

Bump map close-up:

Also, it seems that adding subdivions increases quality but at a great cost of performance.

Given the image, and the fact that subdivisions help, I'm inclined to say that it's a terminator problem.
Sadly, it's a common problem on most ray/pathtracers, so your solutions are:

Increase subdivisions.
Increase light sizes. This will make shadows softer, and will mask the problem a bit.
Use a non-tracer renderer (like Blender Internal or, maybe Eevee), that doesn't have this problem.


How can I make an object a light source in blender 2.8 Cycles? I set the plane to emmision and set the strength to 300, but it doesn't emit light. I just want to use this plane as light source.

Please tell me how to do this.

It is exactly the same process as it was in previous versions. You have to create a new material for your plane, enable Use Nodes for it in the Properties Editor, Material tab and connect an Emission shader to Material Output node in the node tree of the material in the Shader Editor. You might also want to disable light on the back side by mixing the Emission shader with nothing by the Geometry node's Backfacing output as factor:

If it is a simple plane that emits light that you are after it is more logical to use an Area Light. Area lights render faster than geometry lights.


How do you create a curved sequence of vertices? I am trying to get the vertex that is highlighted and the two on it's left side and right side to be curved as seen with many of the ones done on the left. I have been manually doing it but I feel as though there should be an easier way to make more perfect curves.

I have tried using a bezel but when doing so it doesn't ever do anything.

I was also tried creating a path and then joining the two objects but that gave me the error "no mesh data to join"

How would I go about accomplishing this?

Since you are using a mesh object, select the single vertex and use Ctrl + B to start the bevel, and in the Operator Panel (F6 for popup) tick the option 'Vertex Only' and then increase the number of Segments to get a nice curve.
Here I have completed this process on a simple plane with the face deleted so as to imitate your scenario.

After, you can turn on Proportional Edit with 'O' and use the MMB to increase/decrease influence and move the vertices around to shape them.


How to rotate multiple objects towards one point? Hello fellow blenderers,

I would like to ask if there is a way to rotate multiple objects towards one point. In my case of sunflower, it is the central point of the flower head. (See the picture below).

If you observe the image below, the central seeds are rotated more towards the centre which I would like to achieve by some multiple object rotation towards one point, however I can't figure how or if it is possible at all.

I was struggling to model the distribution of sunflower seeds, finally made som progress, but this attitude might be wrong in general (I ran the script from Brecht here - Organic yet accurate modeling with the golden spiral , added particles, with hair settings, with smaller particles in central part, then convert the particles to objects and deformed them to semispherical shape with latice deformer) If you can share your idea, I wouldn't mind :)

Thx a lot

Perhaps DupliVerts are too inflexible for what you need, but their ability to orient objects according to the parent object's vertex normals certainly makes it easy to have duplicates point toward the center, as illustrated here:

To make the above, simply parent the master cone (in center) to the spiral, then go to the spiral's Properties->Object tab, where you will find a Duplication category (in red box above). Select Verts, then check Rotation (in green box above). Then simply rotate the master cone to re-orient all the other cones however you want. Be aware that whether-or-not the master cone has its rotation applied (Ctrl-a) makes a difference; try both ways to see which suits in this instance.

Also know that for finer detail and ability to scale seeds differently, you could do a Make Duplicates Real for all the DupliVerts, then give each a Track To constraint oriented toward an empty at the center.

By the way, the curve was created via Add Curve->Extra Objects, then converted to mesh for this use. You might need to turn Extra Objects on in User Prefs.


Duplicating Objects with Rigid Body Settings I am using Animation Nodes' Object Instancer to duplicate an object with Rigid body settings. A far as I can tell, the physics settings are being duplicated on the cloned objects, but the physics engine is not recognizing the clones i.e. their outline is not green and the clones do not interact. Thanks.

Kudos to Jacques Lucke for actually providing the solution in the comments above.
There are two conditions for an object to be considered in rigid body simulations:
A) Settings
The object has to include the actual settings for physics, accessible in the Physics tab of the Property area.
If you use Animation Nodes' Object Instancer to duplicate an object which already is set up for rigid body physics, then these settings will only be duplicated if Copy Full Object is selected.

B) Group
Blender does only simulate objects which are in a special group called Rigid Body World. Enabling rigid body physics on an object in Blender's native interface does automatically create such a group, assign it to the scene (visible in the Scene tab of the Properties area) and add the object to that group.
Duplicating an object with Animation Nodes however does not copy that group information. Instanced objects have to be manually added, e.g. with the Object Group Operation node.
To add all instances of an object:

Press Shift+A in the Node Editor and select Subprograms > Loop to add a Loop Input node
Click on New Iterator and type Object List Enter
Press Shift+A again to add the Object > Group Operations node.
In this node, click on the empty field of the first input node and choose the Rigid Body World group, named RigidBodyWorld by default.
(If this group doesn't exist yet then you have to assign physics to some object first.)
Connect the Object output of the Loop Input node with the matching input socket of the Object Group Operations node.
(The Linked checkbox has to be enabled to add the objects to the group, but it should be by default.)

Press Shift+A again, select Subprograms > Invoke Subprogram > My Loop (or however you might have called it) to actually use the loop.
Connect the Objects output socket of your existing Object Instancer node with the Object List input socket of the Invoke Subprogram node.


How to solve joint bending with a mesh structure How to solve joint bending with mesh structure
Hello, I want to make a stickman.
I have no knowledge of rigging and don't want perfection, so this time I used an add-on called Auto Rig Pro for rigging.
However, as shown in the attached image, my arms worked, but my legs did not bend well.
(I used the same object for my arms and legs)
It's difficult to touch the rig with Auto Rig Pro, so I'd like to change the mesh structure to solve this problem.
I would appreciate it if you could tell me how to change the mesh structure so that my legs bend well.
Blender 2.92
Windows 10

You just need more geometry. Just insert more loopcuts and the deformation will be smoother.
e.g. left a cube without loopcuts and an armature.
right a cube with loopcuts and an armature.
result:


Bone Heat Weighting Error So I have tried multiple solutions around this page and nothing so far has worked. I am at the end of a blocked off tunnel with nowhere to go. I beseech help.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8kg70lk9asmg39n/The%20Fallen.zip?dl=0

I am using Riggify and Automatic Weighting.
I have tried to remove double vertices and get rid of overlapping faces with no luck. The bones for the armature are positioned correctly to the best of my knowledge and I made sure to reset their axes so the movement would be correct.

The only thing that I havn't tried is doing it manually, mainly due to how complex it seems.

I simply want to get it rigged for animation. I just need simple movement of the body and limbs.

You should definitely go toward manual weighting, which is not as complicated as it seems: automatic weighting is a fast shortcut for simple models that don't require fine tuned movements: it's not wortking on your model because it needs a manifold, joined, closed unique mesh, while your model is broken into multiple pieces and is far too complex to be manageable by automatic weighting. When you parent the mesh to the armature choose the option "With empty groups": this will create an empty vertex group associated with every bone marked as "deforming" in the armature, then select the relevant vertices and assign weight. Here are some useful weighting tricks: Rigify : skin overlapping clothes


Add objects with Industry Compatible Keymap Whats the hotkey for Adding mesh using Industry Compatible keymap?

I know Blender keymap is Shift + A  but not sure about the Industry Compatible keymap

Or if anyone could link me how to add hotkey to the Add Mesh operator would be good too.

In Blender 2.83 go to Edit -> Preferences -> Keymap
On top, instead of Industry Compatible, temporarily change it to Blender.
Go to 3D View -> Object Mode -> Object Mode (Global) -> Add
Copy  wm.call_menu  and  VIEW3D_MT_add
On top change back to Industry Compatible
again go to 3D View -> Object Mode -> Object Mode (Global) but now push Add New at the bottom.
After, click on none change none for wm.call_menu.
Active the key Shift and in the Name field enter VIEW3D_MT_add
Next time you will know how to do it for any key


How do I change the name of an Armature using Python? Please tell me how to change the name of an Armature using Python. For example, instead of changing Armature.001, change it to Armature, which would be without a point and without numbers. Thanks!

bpy.data.armatures["Armature.001"].name = "Armature" should do the trick, but keep in mind that the ".001" was added because of an existing data-block that already had the name "Armature".
If the command is executed and the original data-block with the name "Armature" still exists, then that one will get the suffix so that the names are still unique.


How to use bpy.context.scene.use_denoising in Blender 2.8? This give an error: AttributeError: 'Scene' object has no attribute 'use_denoising'

I know that in the previous version like Blender 2.79 the command to access use_denoising was:

bpy.context.scene.render.layers[0].cycles.use_denoising

How to access this in Blender 2.8x?

This question is very specific to use_denoising, so it has no precise answer except in this post (at the moment), I think it can be useful to many.

The answers are given by @ydvisual and @batFINGER has specified an important question.

Try this:

bpy.context.scene.view_layers[0].cycles.use_denoising = True


Offset points in space with python I have a path-curve that uses a profile with two circles (reference and profile on the image below). I'd like to create a second curve at the same distance as the distance between the profile circles (red arrow between the profile circles) — a black curve in the expected result. If I simply offset each point of a curve by that distance, my curve is 'parallel' to the original (my result), how do I calculate those vectors that are used for offset?

Not perfect (but imperfections are like the one we have bevelling or insetting, etc. too far), and that can also be the case with a curve and bevel object.

The principle:

Start with the first two vertices of the curve, a segment S0 = (V0, V1)
Get the location of the starting position of the // curve P0
Calculate the displacement D0 = (V0, P0)
Calculate the normal N0 = D0 cross (V0, V1)

Now iterate for 1 to n:

Get the new normal by D(i-1) cross S(i)
Get the new D(i) = S(i) cross N(i)
The location is Pi = Vi + Di

Result with imperfection (the active curve with 4 empties as starting points):

Main part of the code is the following (complete code is in the blend file below, so this snippet won't work alone).

To use it from the blend file: the curve is the active object, starting points are selected object.

def create_parallel(curve_object, from_object):
    #Get the poly spline
    poly = curve_object.data.splines[0]

    #Create the target poly spline
    target_object = create_curve(curve_object, bpy.context.scene.collection)
    target_poly = target_object.data.splines[0]

    #Get the starting location in curve coordinates
    starting_location = curve_object.matrix_world.inverted() @ from_object.location

    #Delta from the first point
    delta = starting_location - poly.points[0].co.xyz
    #Its length
    distance = delta.length
    #Keep it normalized
    delta.normalize()
    #Orthogonal direction
    ortho = delta.cross( poly.points[1].co.xyz - poly.points[0].co.xyz ).normalized()

    #First vertex
    target_poly.points[0].co = (*starting_location, poly.points[0].co.w)

    for i in range(len(poly.points)-1):
        prev = poly.points[i].co
        co = poly.points[i+1].co

        axis = (co.xyz - prev.xyz)

        #Orthogonal direction is recalculated to be orthogonal to this delta and the next curve segment
        ortho = delta.cross(axis).normalized()

        #New delta is calculated as being orthogonal to the curve orientation and the current orthogonal direction
        delta = (axis).cross( ortho ).normalized()

        #Calculate the location of the current vertex
        location = co.xyz + delta * distance
        #Assign it to the curve
        target_poly.points[i+1].co = (*location, co.w)

Improving it, should need to relax (or remove) vertices comparing the curvatures of the curves... another story...


Blender 2.8 Image on object How can i remove it, since i'm trying transparent eyes and there is an image that's in the way. Im not sure if its an image map though.

i think that's maybe also why my blender is so slow even with so little i work with.

i just followed a tutorial and there you could choose an environment for lightning, but im not sure if that's it and if so, i did delete the environment lighting but its still on the object.

Is there a way to fix it fast?

You're in LookDev view, which applies some preset environment maps by default. To view your material as it will appear in your scene, switch to Render view, e.g. via the buttons in the 3D view header:


Game Engine Script Not Running My script won't execute when the game initiates.

It's just a simple "print('Hello')". It works when I click "run script" but not automatically when the game initiates. I have tried 3 different versions of Blender and still no luck.

When I used to use Blender, about 2 years ago, I remember it working fine, but for some reason it has stopped working. Is there anything I can do? Thank you.

Your script ins't executed anywhere. If you want it to be executed at the start of your game you'll need to have an always sensor connected to a python controller having the script in it. This can be in any object.


Making a Laser in Cycles - Straight Beam of Light? I am modeling a laser pointer in Blender, but I am not sure how to make the laser's light beam.

The Spot light comes the closest to what I am looking for, but its starting diameter is 0, and you cannot set the spread amount to less than 1 degree.
I would like to be able to do this in the Cycles rendering engine if possible.

Edit: I am not trying to see the actual beam of light, like when you shine a laser beam through fog. Rather, I simply want to have the light beam go straight from the laser. So that if you were to shine it at an object up close, the dot would be the same size as if you were to shine it at a object farther away.

Not this:                              But this:

*Laser images from images.google.com

First Solution:

I have a line-laser and a plane-laser node setup.

For the line-laser:

For the plane-laser:

Second Solution:

Now that you have asked and I tried to remember,
I got a solution that is easier to understend.

You can get the plane-laser when using
dot-product instead cross-product.
Then higher strength is required.

Important Edit

Since I answered this, Blender was updated several times, and I had to update my solution also. An important note is that this solution only works with area lights, since the normal is only provided for those. Other light sources are not capable of providing their direction to the node system. I will contact the devs about this, since the normal has no meaning for other lights now, it could contain the direction of the object.

Some artifacts appear near the edge of the area light when using constant strength, therefor a slight adjusment is required. This can also be used with a point light, when the bottom most node is used instead of the geometry normal. For a point light you can actually skip the subtract.

Here is everything nicely organized and nodes grouped:


Curve deform - Follow along a path Whilst searching for a solution I stumbled upon Animate object along path and deform accordingly

I am creating a logo for a new software project I am working on, the finished logo will have two dolphins either side of a infinity loop, I want these dolphins to be correctly deformed along the curve.
I will also create an animated 'loading indicator' with the dolphin moving arrond the loop.

I have downloaded a Dolphin from TurboSquid and getting it to follow the path is no problem, but I am having trouble with the curve deform.
It's difficault tweaking the Origin to be just right, I want the dolphin to be exactly along the path, but it is going all over the place.

The curve is not quite 2D:

On the Curve Modifer, deformation axis is set the X.

Am I doing something wrong?
Is there a better technique? Any pointers to tutorals?

Thanks. :-)

Update

Thanks guys for all your help.
I have had a little play arround with armatures and control objects, I have made a lot of progress but as you can see I have two issues:

The first bone (Bone02 in .blend file) seems to be stuck in position (it does have tracking constraint).
The mid-section (Bone05) is rotated causing the body twist.

(I have also updated the repo)

If you want to use an armature, follow the Batfinger's tuto here.

If you want to use a simple Curve modifier, you need to make sure that the position of your object on the curve. What you should do is:

Choose a vertex in your curve, where your animation is supposed to begin.
Make it the curve's origin.
Make it the curve’s first point. To do so, enable the Bsurfaces addon, select the vertex, in the Tools panel > Tools > Bsurfaces > click Set First Points.
Now put your dolphin object at the exact same point.
Move it on the right axis so that it follows the curve.


Can metallic car paint be exported in GLTF? I'm trying to export a car model with red metallic paint as a GLTF model. A diffused red metallic with a high gloss clear. It appears that with GLTF it's either one or the other?

I can get somewhat of a metallic paint look by sharpening up the roughness of the metallic, but then it looks more like anodized metal than car paint.

Is this a limitation of the GLTF format or does anyone know of a workaround? Thanks.

(Answer updated 2020-05-13)

You're looking for a feature called clear coat.  There are three relevant inputs on the Principled BSDF shader node, called "Clearcoat," "Clearcoat Roughness," and "Clearcoat Normal."

These three settings will export to glTF files beginning with Blender version 2.83 (still in Beta as I write this).  It will import from glTF files beginning in Blender 2.90 (currently in Alpha).

Clear coat is not part of the glTF 2.0 core specification, but it was added in a glTF extension called KHR_materials_clearcoat.  Not all glTF viewers can display clear coat yet, but some of the major ones have released stable versions that can, including ThreeJS, BabylonJS, and Filament.  The gltf-test project has a test of clear coat with a summary of some frameworks that support it.


Inserting keyframes from node editor is not working I followed the following post to try keyframing assigned material to an object
blender.stackexchange.com/questions/64986/keyframe-objects-active-material-from-material-slots
I followed the steps mentioned there exactly and got the same results, however when i insert keyframes for any value in any node i get no keyframes in timeline or fcurves, only there are keyframes in dope sheet, and no animation could be run in the viewport. I'm currently in blender render, and i wanna run it only in the viewport, i don't need to render it using blender render.

As you only want to change the basic colour, you can key the diffuse colour value instead of using nodes, this is a more reliable way to have the 3Dview updated.

Like other values you can hover the mouse over the colour and press I or right click RMB on it and choose Insert Keyframe. A border is added to the colour swatch to show the keyed status.


Blender Animation Nodes Particle Information Blender Animation Nodes (BAN)

How does the Blender user obtain the Particle Rotation Data in a later version of BAN, visible in a previous version of BAN?

Short and sufficient answer please.

A comment below has led me to include the screen capture below

What might the term "pattern-matching" mean in the image above?

All responses within 48 hours have the same priority.  No need to rush.  I may not be able to see responses for that amount of time.

BAN Earlier Version

On the left side of a previous image is a
Particle Info Node with Rotation output enabled

BAN Later Version

On the right side of the previous image is a
Particle Data Node with Velocities output enabled.

The user does not see the Rotation output available.

Rotation data is stored as unit quaternions in Particle data as stated in the API. And since it is a bpy_prop_collection, it allows fast access through the foreach_get function. So, we initialize a quaternion list with length equal to the number of particles using this expression:

QuaternionList(length = len(system.particles))

Then foreach_get is used to copy the quaternion data from the particles to the initialized list using this expression:

(system.particles.foreach_get("rotation", quaternions.asMemoryView()), quaternions)[1]

The creation of the tuple and sampling of the second element is just to make sure quaternions are actually returned from the expression node. So the node tree is as follows:

You can now convert this to Eulers using the Convert Rotation Type Node and use it as you wish. The output list, however, is not masked based on the alive status of the particles, meaning all particles are output even if they are dead or aren't born yet. To mask it, we can first get the alive_state of each particle, to do this we can use a list comprehension (since foreach_get doesn't support string data, and alive_state is either "DEAD", "UNBORN", "ALIVE" or "DYING"):

[particle.alive_state for particle in system.particles]

But we actually want a boolean that tells us whether or not this particle should be kept, and we can do this by some if and logic statements. For instance, to get the particles that are alive or unborn, we can write:

[particle.alive_state == "ALIVE" or particle.alive_state == "UNBORN" for particle in system.particles]

We can then use the Mask List Node to mask the quaternion list based on this boolean list:


pre render script behaviour I use simple python snippets to replicate the light pass manager (LPM) script's behaviour for 3dsmax link.

LPM in 3dsmax basically just runs a pre_render script that applies overrides and then renders.

Blender can do the same thing with
bpy.app.handlers.render_pre

It works alright, but there is one essential thing that doesnt work as I expected it:

-in 3dsmax, the pre_render_script is only run on the data that is sent to the renderer. The scene in front of the user is unchanged.

-in Blender, the pre_render_script is run on the scene before it is sent to the renderer. Therefore, after rendering, the scene in the viewport has all changes applied and the original state of the scene is lost.

I dont want to write scripts that record the whole state of the scene so it can be rebuilt post render. It is error-prone, needs to be maintained, I am a python noob and besides that, Blender has all the data already stored in the file.

My workaround right now
start the render as a subprocess and run the python script that sets the overrides:

render_cmd = '''\
gnome-terminal --
/usr/bin/blender -b
%s
--python %s
-S Scene -s 1 -e 1 -a
''' % (fname, render_prep_script_name)
subprocess.call(render_cmd.split())

This is not bad, I can work with that. But I have to wait for the renderer to save the output image before I can see it.
So I am wondering, should the behaviour of the render_pre handler not be different?

The 3ds Max script must be using a copy of the data, if the data sent to the renderer is editable, but still independant of the scene.

There are a couple of other workaround I can think of.

Make a copy of the scene. Then use your python script on the copy and render it. You can delete the copy on render_post or just overwrite the scene everytime you start rendering. This will need a little bit more RAM, but no graphical memory if executed in background mode.
The above solution can be improved by making a linked copy (LINK_OBJECTS). It will not take up much more memory, since the data blocks the same. Then (on the copy) make the datablocks you want to change single users and change them.
Build an operator with UNDO activated and register it. Then, in your python script, call the operator (which does the changes), render the scene, then undo it. Depending on your scene, this may not be faster than a full copy, but will consume less RAM (I think).
Execute your python script from another empty Blender file. Append the scene (which you want to render). Make the changes, and render it, then delete it. Repeat. This is similiar to your setup, but could use the same background blender instance.
The above solution can be improved, by only removing and then appending objects which are changed by the python script.


Animation Nodes: Wait x seconds, output 0, then output random number (for input to object instancer) I've been trying to figure this out for a while, but I'm kind of stuck. I have an Object Instancer that duplicates an object a random number of times (between 5 and 30)

I want to have this number to stay constant for x amount of time before resetting (0) and then chooses a new random number.

I've gotten as far as to have the number of instances change every x frames (see attached Tree Node), but I can't figure out how to make it go to 0 before picking a new number.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You can multiply the output of the Random Number Node with a value that is one for all frames except those that are multiple of $x$. We can detect if a value is a multiple of $x$ using modulo as follows:

Th result of the previous node tree is as follows:

The number of objects briefly goes to zero and change into a random number every 10 frames.


How do I create a background material in Blender 2.8? Ultimately I want to export a glTF model that uses KHR_materials_unlit. This page says I should do that by using a background material.

Google tells me a lot about how to set the background image, but nothing I can find about how to create a "background material".  How do I do that?  I'm using Blender 2.8 because that's where the glTF exporter was introduced.

I discovered the answer on my own. Turns out that the "material" properties panel on the right side of the screen in shader view has a "Surface" property. Setting that to "Background" (and then rebinding the texture in the shader graph) will cause the GLTF exporter to use the KHR_materials_unlit extension.


remove parts of a mesh using uv map I just read a nice article about the “Design of a Patient Specific, 3D printed Arm Cast”. (https://knepublishing.com/index.php/KnE-Engineering/article/view/607/1895)

To create the cast model itself is pretty simple as well the uv-mapping part but I found no easy way to remove the honeycombs.

The article just says:

"Using the solid body model that was extruded from the surface of the arm, the pattern can be applied to the cast model. This is done by creating a UV map of the models surface and creating a surface mask of the pattern, this is applied to the model. Using the design mask the areas that not required can be removed from the cast model."

It is not mentioned which software they used but I thought it might be possible in Blender. Any other software suggestions are also very welcome.

Not sure to get it, but something like this for sure is possible:


Children animation is wrong I have two objects one Parent and one Children. I have translate animation on parent, but when I add keyframe to children, children jump to another position in playback. What I am doing wrong? In Blender I can not animate children??

If I disabled Visual Keying under Editing in User Preferences, problem was solved.


Interactive Web Application Is it possible to use Blender for creating an interactive Web App, so that you can change some values in HTML form and by clicking a button, apply them to the script /model?
I downloaded Blend4Web Addon and exporting a scene as HTML works but its static and cant interact with my form

Yes it possible, but in your case you should do this.

Instead exporting scene, you should open blend4web projects manager

Here you can create a new project

In projects, blend files are assets, they will be used by script files.

In projects manager you will find blend files, exported scenes as json files and JavaScript files to work with:

You can edit Script files using any text editor or from project manager:

here you can find more information about it:
https://www.blend4web.com/en/community/article/341/


Why does my grease pencil's filled outline turn black in render preview? I used two different colors for the fill outline and the fill color. You can see the difference in color with solid mode on, but when I turn on the render preview, the outlines turn black. I have the color management on standard, and I tried adjusting the alpha but it seems like the lines literally turned black. Does anyone know what's going on?
The picture below is what my materials look like.

okay so I figured out that I needed to change the vertex color to the color of the outline. I just needed to open the materials tab and drag and drop the outline color to the vertex color, then things actually started to look right. Also, another way to do this,(and easier) is to turn on paint mode to material. This will use your material base color to paint instead.
oh, and one more note to add here, the drawing doesn't change, you have to draw with it to see the difference. It was a little confusing and frustrating because I have to redraw my frames now with this new setting, but I'm glad there's a way to fix this.


How to control the appearence of texture on certain number of faces, in Blender? I am new to blender but know it's bases.
I am trying to make this ->

scene in Blender in 3D.
i don't know how to make cliff, here i am just using a plan with sculpting and texture to make the cliff. the problem is that, when the texture is applied, it's appearing at all single faces of the plan i am experimenting with some vectors but it didn't change anything. PLEASE HELP!

Image Texture ->

Also, if you have any tips on how can i improve the cliff or other scene, please tell me that too.
For Blend File - > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXiBC1klRo_UImtVFZXEPdWi7t1q0Vrk/view?usp=sharing

All your object is actually made of seperate meshes as we can see if you do a simple unwrap:

So in Edit mode select all and AltM > Merge By Distance, then unwrap again. Also it is very high poly, are you sure you need so many faces? In that case press AltJ to untriangulate, then CtrlE > Un-Subdivide, choose the ratio in the Operator box, then unwrap again.


Color used for group is not transferred to particles I am doing my first steps with Blender and ran into a problem I couldn't solve so far. I have a group consisting of 6 objects and I assigned the same material to all of the group members. Now I used this group as particle in a plane and I would love them to have the same color as the original objects. On the left in the picture are my objects and on the right they are as particles in the plane.
I am using the cycles render if this makes a difference. This is how I made the color for the material:

Thanks in advance for the help!

Your shader uses the Geometry > Position output to set the gradient. This output is just the World-Space (absolute) location of the point being shaded, so as your particles move up and down they will move "through" the gradient, or in your particular case, just sit above it.

Instead, use the Object output on the texture coordinate node. This will factor in the transformation of the object being shaded, so the gradient remains the same no matter where the object appears, or how it is scaled or rotated.

Note: The texture coordinate nodes' Object output has a field to specify a reference object. Leave this blank so the node will instead use the object currently being shaded.


How to resolve ugly artifacts bending joints after posing? Just learning here... I created a model in Makehuman and imported it into Blender. When I pose the model I get really ugly creases where the mesh appears to overlap:

How do I clean this up or avoid it? I'm not worried about animating or anything I just want it to look smooth.

Typically its best to first attempt to resolve the issue by weight painting.

That is to adjust the weights around the joint to improve the deformation.

Adjust weight values by manually painting.
Use the smooth tool to automatically re-distribute weights (new in 2.76), eg:
Try the 'dual quaternion' option in the armature modifier(helps avoid volume loss),
When weight painting can't quite resolve all artifacts,try the  corrective smooth modifier (new in 2.75)
Corrective shape keysUsing a shape key to manually correct the distortion. While its involved to setup, it can be driven by bone and gives most control, This is typically used for more advanced rigging.


How to outset faces evenly I'm trying to get familiar with Blender's inset tool and having trouble to produce an even outset on a U shaped mesh. What I would like to achieve (using 3ds Max):

What happens when I use Outset in Blender:

For some reason the faces are stretched horizontally at the top of the U shape. Is there a way to avoid this?

Everything is working just fine.

Try to Remove Doubles, and double check your mesh for any errors. Also Apply Scale to it.

Here is whole process.

Select All - A.
Press I for Inset.
Move mouse to get wanted offset.
Move created geometry along Z axis - G>Z.

Edit for incremental height:

First of all you will want to use different topology for this case to prevent faces becoming non-planar after couple of insets.

Than you should follow simple procedure: Inset I > Extrude E and repeat as much as you want/will be able to.

Edit 2:

No, there is no easy or efficient way to do this by outseting whole shape or extruding outwards.

You can make the biggest step, than inset to the smallest and after that start outseting from the smallest (bigger loops first), like so:

As you can see this method is quite strange and after this you will need to select each loop and extrude it individually.


Emitting sparks or dust at rigid body collisions I'd like to have automatic particle emission when rigid body objects collide with others (I have many objects). Not that I can find it but I've read of an option under children that can spawn others when a particle collides, however I haven't seen anything regarding rigid body collision events.

Can this be done out of the box? With a plugin? Or, last resort, with a small amount of scripting?

This is not yet possible. However, this is one of the many great things Particle Nodes will allow - these are still in development but can be tested here.


Find users of a material / texture / image which is not displayed in the outliner How can one search by name for a material / texture / image datablock that is not displayed in the outliner, for example because it's buried somewhere deep inside a node tree?

Let me please describe some typical use cases to make more clear what I'm talking about:

When a material / texture / image datablock is 'buried' in the node
tree, not displayed in the outliner, and you have a lot of materials
with complex node trees, you often have a hard time finding one by
name.
For me, the most common use case is to find if seemingly-orphaned
datablocks (mostly named xxx.001 etc.) are still in use somewhere:
There are often some datablocks which stay orphaned in the blendfile
because the user count has not been set to zero correctly, and the
more complex the shaders, the more likely this is. You can
shift-delete them, but you have to make 100% sure that they are not
in use anywhere.
Besides this, it is often necessary for complex materials, especially when you
have been linking/appending and copy-pasting parts of the node tree
from other files. If the appended part uses, for instance, a texture with a name that is also used in your destination blend file, you may have to check if the textures are identical, and therefore find the other one.

Once saw an addon which did similar stuff, but not exactly this. Don't remember which, unfortunately.

Any ideas how we can make our lives easier keeping our blend files clean?

Best greetings, Michael

You can set your outliner to Blender File mode. This will show even datablocks with no users. Under materials you will find a list of all materials in alphabetical order. You can even search for datablocks by name in the small search field at the top:

To find users of a datablock, perform the same search in All Scenes mode instead of Blender File mode.


How to undo clipping vertices by applied mirror modifier So I applied it way back ago, now I saw it and I can't rip it using v

Unless you're talking about cancelling the clipping in the modifier while having it active (There 's a button for it in the Modifiers Tab --> Mirror Modifier --> Clipping), one option could be selecting the mesh that you want to be separated and then pressing: P --> Separate By --> Material (for example). Hopefully this useful in some manner :)


How can I get my texture to show in render? When I switch to render view, the texture doesn't show on the model. It only appears as black. It's happened with other models like this before. What should I do? An image and the file are below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6bl65ygek9dfy1k/Grievous.blend?dl=0

Your lights are disabled for preview... (eye icon)

Turn them on.


Rendering unconnected edges I have a 2D base image on which I'd like to overlay a set of edges (several thousand), where each edge has a value determining its color.

For example:

My plan is to add each edge as a separate object with a custom property; then a single material across all edges can use the custom property to determine color.

The bit I'm having trouble with is actually getting edges to render. I was hoping that a wireframe modifier would give the edges enough geometry to be visible to the camera, however edges without associated faces don't seem to survive the modifier.

Is there a good way to get these edges to render?

Cycles

I don't know of any way to render edges like this natively in cycles, however the screw modifier can add geometry to edges:

It's a bit of hack, but I don't know of any faster way to add faces to edges using modifiers (it's not actually that bad, in most other cases using the screw modifier you would probably use only edges anyway).

Blender Internal

You can render edges using a Wire material:

Opengl

Of course, the viewport can render edges, however you are pretty limited in terms of controlling the color..

This patch may help though.


Clear Custom Split Normals Data - Many Objects I'm struggling with clearing custom split normals data from imported objects. I've found the following script to do it on many objects:

import bpy

selection = bpy.context.selected_objects

for o in selection:
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = o
    bpy.ops.mesh.customdata_custom_splitnormals_clear()

It works but only if the selection does not contain any objects with already cleared custom normals data. Can anyone help me with it? Does the code need some sort of "if" function in it?
That custom normals data often crashes some details in my renders and I would like to repair them all at once.
I have Hard Ops, Fluent and Speedflow addons but I've only found options to clean the mesh or to add autosmooth to selected objects. Am I missing something maybe?
I use Blender 2.8.
Thank you all in advance.

I came across this question when I was googling about the same problem. This worked for me.
import bpy

selection = bpy.context.selected_objects

for o in selection:
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = o
    try:
        bpy.ops.mesh.customdata_custom_splitnormals_clear()
    except:
        pass


Trying to understand rotation of parented objects (relative rotation?) I'm trying to understand how Blender applies parent-child relationship w.r.t rotation. My end goal is to get the child rotation relative to the world. While there might be a function for that, I'd still want to understand how things work.
To make things simple, I'll use the X/Z ortho view, and only rotate on Y. Here's my basic setup:

The object at the center (called 'Bottom' has a Y rotation of 135°). The other object ('Top') has a Y rotation of 45°:

Now I make 'Bottom' the parent of 'Top', and 'Top' still has a 45° rotation:

Finally, I rotate 'Bottom' by 45° and get the following result:

Now, Bottom's rotation is 180° (not shown in the screenshot), which seems reasonable, and Top's rotation is still 45°.
While it's obvious Top's rotation shouldn't change if I rotate Bottom, it's not obvious what's Top's rotation is relative to. Clearly, its parent is vertical and it is horizontal, so where did that 45° come from?
When Top became a child of Bottom, its rotation became (in practice) relative to Bottom's, why didn't the numbers change? How is the global/world rotation is calculated based on the parent and child rotations?

A simple way is to just use Clear and Keep Transformation (Alt P) on the child to visualize the final rotation (global/world). As soon as you check the value, just press Ctrl Z to UNDO the Clear Parent.
The numbers of Top (child object) do not change because they exhibit rotation without the influence of the parent. To update the values, make sure the child inherits the rotation from the parent with Alt P.


Blender 2.8 API - grid_scale? in v2.79 the following works:

bpy.context.space_data.grid_scale = 0.25
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_selected_to_grid()

but v2.8 doesn't know bpy.context.space_data.grid_scale

What is the equivalent command in v2.8?

many thanks,
 Smooth

In v2.81 I am changing it like this:

import bpy

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        area.spaces.active.overlay.grid_scale = 0.25


Increase quality of water render Here is my attempt at dropping things into water. Unfortunately it did not turn to out well especially at the bottom right and this is at 900 cycles. Are there any ways apart from increasing the cycles to make it look better? I mostly want to fix the colored spots from the above the lemon.

I'm not entirely sure what part of your render you are asking about, but here are some possibilities:

This appears to be caused by internal reflection of a light source (judging from the lighting, I would say the light source is behind the camera and a little to the left). Try adjusting the lighting in your scene and see if it improves.
The fluid simulation appears to be rendered at a low resolution. Try baking at a higher resolution (e.g. start with 100). If you did bake at high resolution, ensure that the Render display option is set to Final.
It's hard to say what's causing this without looking at your file, but a couple of possibilities are:

The geometry of the orange mesh. Ensure that the normals in that area are facing the right way, check for overlapping faces, ensure that there are no holes in the mesh, etc.
Bounces. Try increasing the number of Bounces in Render settings > Light paths (A fast way to increase all bounce related settings is with the presets, try the Full Global Illumination preset). This will increase the overall accuracy of the render as well, so you probably want to increase them anyway. Note that more bounces will slow down your render.

To help decrease fireflies, see this question. Some techniques mentioned there are:

The Clamp option (may or may not be very helpful in this scene, however I thought I would mention it). From the wiki:

  This option will clamp all samples to a maximum intensity they can
  contribute to the pixel, again to reduce noise at the cost of
  accuracy. With value 0.0 this option is disabled; lower values clamp
  more light away.

  If the image has fireflies, there will be samples that contribute very
  high values to pixels, and this option provides a way to limit that.
  However note that as you clamp out such values, bright colors in other
  places where there is no noise will be lost as well. So this is a
  balance between reducing the noise and keeping the image from losing
  its intended bright colors.

Render stacking. See the following posts:

Stacking cycles renders in the compositor?
Creating renders from Image Stacking using different sampling levels
How can I pause a render in progress and then resume it at a later time?

Fake refractive caustics
Filter Glossy
No Caustics (definitely not useful in this scene, as you need the caustics for light to reach the fruit, but again I thought I would mention it anyway)

See the manual page on reducing noise.


I don't understand how to UV map my model while keep all parts separated I'm trying to texture a character. I've been using smart UV project, but it always ends up having artifacts and looking messed up.
I followed tutorials to mark seams and unwrap, but instead of getting the various pieces I "separated" via seams, I'm getting two or three separates and a whole big ugly mess with the rest of the body.
I need to keep all parts separated so I can paint on the face and not have any other random body part get painted as well.

The seams you have created aren't enough. You need to add additional seams to make it unwrap properly, especially on the hand, the lower body (some edges aren't set to seams). Also, there's some unmerged verts in-between the breasts.


corner radius or bevel on a complicated triangulated mesh I have a mesh that is created based on a cylinder that I cut using a Boolean modifier 'difference', against an stl file representing a natural object. The stl file of this natural object consists of triangles. I cannot get a version of this file with quads instead of triangles. The result of this is that the mesh I want to modify, also consists of triangles.

See photo, I want to bevel, or round the edges on the bottom of the mesh, however, I want to know if there is a way to do this that is easier than manually selecting the edge loop on the bottom. Since the mesh consists of triangles, 'select edge loop' doesn't work.

I have similar problems and I really miss nondestructive booleans, but your's is kinda easy to fix.
Let's say you have this ugly topology here:

If you still have the original scanned mesh in place, you don't need to do this: Select all the tris, duplicate them and separate them into their own object. Then extrude and scale both rims to have more surface area.

Go back to your original mesh. Make a cut with the knife tool and get rid of the bad topology.

Select both edgelines and bridge the edgeloops. Now is a good time to assign the top verts to a vertex group. Depending on your mesh, the 'Limit' value of the modifier might suffice and a vertex group will not be necessary.

Give your mesh a shrinkwrap modifier set to project, let it only affect your vertex group and play with the settings until you get this trainwreck.

Turns out the Shrinkwrap doesn't like to project on edgelines that fit perfectly. Move it a tiny bit, any amount will do.

And this is the result. A clean topology, ready to be bevelled.

Sometimes a Shrinkwrap is much better than a Boolean Modifier since it doesn't destroy the topology.
These settings worked for me:

Wait, did I mention that there's another way of doing this? No?
Well, there's another way of doing this.
Ugly mesh again. New one since I forgot to copy the first one.

Select all the top verts and hit X 'only Edges and Faces'. That kills all connecting edges up there. It isolates all of the rogue topology from the edges that rise from the bottom of the mesh.

Hover over the base, hit L to select the important part of the mesh and hide it with H

Select the rest of the verts and utterly delete them. Reveal your mesh with ALTH.

Select the base and hide it again. Switch to top view.

Select all the inner verts, turn them into an ngon with F and delete the ngon with F 'only faces'.

Do the same for the outer verts, select both rings and bridge them with SPACE 'Bridge Edge Loops'.

Select the whole mesh, hit F to fill all the holes and CTRL-N to recalculate normals.

That one helped: Fastest way to turn a ring of unconnected vertices into an edgeloop?


an easy way to subdivide along one axis only? I'm making a rope for a game so it needs to be low poly. If I create a cylinder and subdivide, I get too many vertices around the circumference which I don't want. I only want to add vertices to the length axis, like slicing a cucumber for a salad.

I know I can use the knife tool (k key) together with the z key to cut though once, but, to do that say 100 times is a pain and it is also not as precise as I want the cuts to be.

Is there any way to automate that or is there a better version of the system subdivide command?

I think the command you are looking for is CTRL + R and scroll mouse button to add/subtract loops, and then LMB to accept loop count and then RMB to confirm location of loops.

https://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/editing/subdividing/loop_subdivide.html#options


How to color an object when touched by animated character? I have a fbx with a character performing a dance animation which lasts for about 20 seconds. So basically I want to create a grid like floor which defaults to being black but when the character steps on a tile it lights up for a split second and moves onto the touching tiles kind of like the rgb keyboard ripple effects that you can get. How would I approach this and how would they create the ripple effect of colour.

This sounds right down the alley of dynamic paint.
To get a tile to light up, I recommend using an image canvas with single pixels for each tile, and when it goes into the material, set the interpolation to nearest neighbor (no interpolation). As for the wave effect, that should be fairly easy as well with a second canvas set to wave. In the floor shader, you can use the light from the first canvas to control the appearance of the waves from the second so they don’t go outside the lit tile.
I have not tested this.
For more information, check out dynamic paint in the physics section of the manual at docs.blender.org


How to fade / scatter sand on the floor around? I am trying to scatter sand so it fades out better onto the floor around it.
This is what I have know:

And this is what I want it to kind look like:

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

You could use the image you show as a stencil to create a black and white image texture:

Then use this image texture as a mask in a material that mixes your background with a noisy material:


Imported model scales when I translate I made a little program for animating coordinates. It worked fine with a cube.

Then I imported a .dae model that I had exported from SketchUp. It imported fine, but when I tried to use the program on it, it became huge, and I do not know how to resize it (I tried changing the scale variables, but they just revert back).

(before)

(after)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Update:

Here is the file: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=49915
The robot was the size of the cube before linking it to my program.

I tried changing the scale variables, but they just revert back.

I am assuming by that you mean you are changing the scale of the parent object SketchUp through Blender---And not Animation Nodes. It simply reverts because Animation Nodes is overwriting the the scale of the object as defined by the Object Matrix Output Node. So, instead of changing the scale manually, define it in your node tree through the Compose Matrix Node.

Another method---Which I do not recommend due to its unpredictable consequences---is to set the scale of matrix to the scale of the object. By doing so, any manual change in the scale of the object is met with change in the scale of the matrix and is translated into a normal scaling behavior.


Any way to customize the color of the text input cursor? That one, can't find it anywhere.

I do not think that is possible. I checked the general 'User Interface' theme section, the 'Text Editor' cursor colour and I even went so far as to check any items which are blue in the other theme settings just in case they might affect it. Unfortunately none of them did. I also checked other areas of the user preferences as there are a few theme-like settings in other sections but to no avail. While the majority of Blender's interface is customisable, there are a few things which aren't and I think this is one of them.


Traceback - Attribute Error: 'SpaceView3D' object has no attribute 'context' I'm kind of new to blender, so I don't know all there is to know about this software. Anyway I have a issue, I've been watching the tutorials for Blender 2.8 and I'm following the guide. But for some reason an error occurs when I select the selection tool after editing in edit mode.
I've tried to uninstall and reinstall the software but the same problem occurs.
Please help.

I had the same problem. I solved it By doing following steps:

Just go to Edit -> Prefrences. In the bottom left corner click on load factory  preferences. It will solve your problem.


I can't add a texture to my models I'm trying to add a texture to my model. I'm following some tutorials om YT to know how to do it, But my blender doesn't do what it should do.

I can't add the correct things in the node editor:

This is what my node editor displays by default:

This is what it should display by default:

Also I can't add a image texture box in my node editor.

I hope someone can help me out on this. :)

That's probably because you are in Blender Internal,
try switching to Cycles.


objects disappear when rendered I am having a issue when rendering using cycles, objects disappear and black blocks seem to overlay parts of my textures. this seems to happen at various different angles when the camera is moved around the scene.

Screenshots of material and rendered attached.

Any help would be massively appreciated.

I'm not quite sure why this causes a problem, but this happens because your 'floor' object is scaled to 0 on the 'Z' axis. Selecting the 'floor' and doing Ctrl+A> Scale will 'apply' the scale, which resets the current scale back to 1 but doesn't change the object appearance.

You can see a detailed explanation of the difference between scaling in edit mode vs object mode here.


Add-on UV Paste Copy/ Align Distribute and Screencast in Blender 2.72 I just installed the latest version (Blender2.72) - Add-on Screencast disappeared. I think it's a shame because it was very useful ...
At a Blender 2.72 RC version I tested the add-on UV Copy/paste. And Align/Distribute UV. Blender on the site, they refer to these two add-on. But when I go to activate the Official, community testing and Blender 2.72 game. I can not find them. They have been removed as well? I thought it was official Add-On?

I don't know about UV Copy/Paste addon, but Screencast have been removed indeed.
Still, there's nothing against using it, just install it manually - download source file and install from file:

Screencast wiki page

UV Copy/Paste


Export custom normals I am writing an importer and exporter for a custom binary format.
In this format I have triangulated mesh. Each vertex has position, normal, and UV.

The importer code sets them like this and it is displayed properly:

mesh = MyMesh(file_name)
bl_mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(object_name)
bl_mesh.from_pydata(mesh.positions, [], mesh.indices)
bl_mesh.create_normals_split()
for l in bl_mesh.loops:
    l.normal[:] = mesh.normals[l.vertex_index]

bl_mesh.normals_split_custom_set_from_vertices(mesh.normals)
bl_mesh.use_auto_smooth = True

But the exporter code does not give me the same results.

mesh = MyMesh()
bl_mesh.calc_normals_split()
for l in bl_mesh.loops:
    mesh.indices.append(l.vertex_index)
    mesh.normals.insert(l.vertex_index, (*l.normal[:]))

I have tried accessing the obj.data.vertices[].normal but the normals there are wrong as well.

How do I get custom normals from the mesh?

UPD.
The full source code of the extension is in this repo. The model used is nvx/model.nvx from the repo. All interactions with blender objects happen in the io_nebula/bl_nvx.py

After hours of debugging I found out that list.insert function does not do what I expected (I was not alone in this assumption https://stackoverflow.com/q/25840177/3344612). And the order of vertices was messed because I inserted at a wrong index.

Answering my question. To get custom normals first call calc_normals_split() on the mesh and then access through loops[].normal with corresponding vertex indices in loops[].vertex_index.

To fix the mentioned code first resize the list and then modify with [] operator.

mesh.normals = [None] * len(bl_mesh.vertices)
for l in bl_mesh.loops:
    mesh.indices.append(l.vertex_index)
    mesh.normals[l.vertex_index] = l.normal[:]