How to output the number of vertices, edges and faces given a polygon with Python? So far I have written the following code. I am super new to python

class polygon(object):
    def__init__(self, edge, face, vertex='')
        self.edge = edge
        self.face = face
        self.vertex = vertex
        self.tetrahedron = tetrahedron

a = polygon('6', '4', '4', tetrahedron)
print a.edge, a.face, a.vertex, a.tetrahedron
print a

Also How can find the mesh module in Python? I am using spyder and I cant find it in the library.  Please help if anyone can.

You can get the active object for instance:

ob = bpy.context.object

And get its data (if it's a mesh object, the mesh datablock):

me = ob.data

Mesh element counts:

len(me.vertices)
len(me.edges)
len(me.polygons) # faces

Vertex count of a single face:

len(me.polygons[0].vertices)


Workflow for making an animated short My goal is to make an animated short lasting somewhere between 2-4 minutes.

I've made and rigged all the characters, made common actions and poses for them. I also have environments and have a detailed storyboard. I'm not sure about the timing and duration of the storyline though.

I'm trying to understand how to use the NLA editor to plan and edit my movie and switch camera angles and motions.

Most tutorials on the NLA editor are very basic about making actions and blending them, but I haven't found any on making a complete movie.

My idea is to make everything rough and ugly, to get the timing and approximate camera angles right, and then fine tune the animations.

What is a good workflow of actually putting it all together?

I'd love some tips on how to stay organized and effective.

I haven't come across any NLA tutorials that teach more than mixing actions together. When it comes to making the final movie, using the VSE is more common. In the Sintel videos you will find a couple that should interest you, the first is about animatic editing, the other laying out a shot - both are available free from the blender cloud.

As you have done a storyboard, start by adding those images to the VSE, play it back and adjust the length of each shot until the timing feels right. Then as you progress through completing each shot you replace the storyboard images with the updated animations. This is the process you will see in the animatic editing video.

I think that once you get past a simple animation made from one camera, you will find that models get saved into their own files and then linked into shot files that render each part of the final video, then all these pieces get mixed together for the final video.


Cycles gpu rendering switch I have a machine with 2 GPU's. One is not great, but has 3GB of ram, the other is much better, but only has 2GB. I currently have a scene that is using around 2.5GB at the beginning, but the scene losses complexity as time goes by. Is it possible to tell blender to use my 3GB GPU at the beginning, then, once the complexity goes below 2GB, have the other card kick in as well? Or am I completely misunderstanding how blender uses vram?

Alternative solution to switching GPUs

Use render layers! Just put foreground objects in a layer and background objects in another, render (making sure you enable transparency), then combine the layers using the built-in compositor. This way you can also render a layer with more samples then the other, instead of rendering everything with high samples.


When I press "." it writes "/" Somehow I do something that I don't want then when I press . it writes /. Because of this problem I cant scale my objects at the way I want.

Guys I figured out the problem. In blender tab my keybords language turns to English. But only in the blender. But not at the start. I think when I do my models I press some keys then it turns to English. Thanks to @Pullup I solved my problem.


Adding edge wear to (relatively) low-poly mesh I'm working on modeling some objects, and I would like to add edge wear procedurally in cycles without being forced to use the pointiness node and messing around with subsurf issues (not using subsurf would help me worry more about the art, instead of just topology).  Is there any alternative to the pointiness node or manually painting in the edge mask in this situation?

There is a new option I saw a tweet about today, and I can include the picture that was uploaded - it involves the experimental bevel shader. Maybe you can try that out.


Does anyone know how to make straws for a hawaiian style hut or stall? I want to make a stall in 3d like this one:

...and I don't know how to make straws or strings to make it look like that. I tried with hair but I don't understand it too well. Any help would be appreciated.

I'd try hair particles, brush them a bit randomly and then use a 'particle instance' modifier to put another mesh on the hair particles, here's a rough attempt-

And here's the .blend to pull apart-
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5pljlpiel33jllt/StrawHairParticles.blend?dl=0

Use more emitters and more meshes to instance onto the hair, and go nuts 'combing' (particle edit mode) the hair, and you should be able to get way closer than my 5 minute attempt!


Weird lines on mesh after exiting sculpt mode Hey there, does anyone know why i get these weird lines all over my mesh after exiting sculpt mode? Shading is set to smooth and normals are facing outwards. I also tried to put a subsurf modifier on top of it. Nothing helped. :/

Simply the multires modifier wasn't set high enough. Another level and an overall smooth fixed it. Still strange tho since i set preview and sculpt to the same level.


I have a particle system set to render as collection, only rendering one object I have a few different sprinkle particle systems for the donut tutorial because I was trying different things. The one in question contains different sized long sprinkles and the big round candies. No other system contains those objects. I have it set to render the collection and have weights for different sprinkles. The big round candies are the last object in the collection and have the smallest weight by far. In editor in render view it looks exactly how I want it to in terms of particle distribution, but when I render it for real it looks like it's making all 1000 particles be the large blue candy as if it was set to render as object. What could be going wrong?
Here is what I see in editor in render view:

Here is what I see when I actually render it using cyles:

Here are some particle system settings:

The 60 there refers to the longest bendy sprinkles. TO be sure if I turn off the other particle systems (which handled the tiny spherical rainbow sprinkles and the flat circle candles) this still occurs.

I hid some of the base/reference objects from render so they wouldn't show up in the scene and it seems that was causing issue. I thought it didn't apply to the instances in the particle system. I also had a few other things that were set up slightly oddly I had to redo but I think I'm good now!


Render just part of a final image from Cycles? I'm using an older Nvidia chip that hates running viewport renders, and I need to check if changes to the materials on a few objects not far from the center of my scene are (I'm rendering a floorplan with an orthographic camera from above, so I'm looking down on objects and want to check if the displacement materials are working correctly).

Is there any way to select a bit of the image and have it render first or without having to render the rest of the image? I'm aware that you can tell the image to render from an edge, but my stuff's about equidistant from either side of the scene.

Ctrl + B in the 3D Viewport or the Camera View will allow you to drag while holding  LMB select the area of the image you want to render. If you want to clear the border, press Ctrl + Alt + B.

Shift + B also still works in Camera View but is only there for compatibility and will be replaced entirely by Ctrl + B in future versions.

For "Render->Render Image" (F12 ) to render only part of the image you also need to have Render->Dimensions->Border enabled.


How can I get all materials which are using an ambient occlusion node? I'd like to get all materials using an ambient occlusion (AO) node and return their names in the console:
import bpy

mat = bpy.data.materials
for mat in mat:
    mat_name = (mat.name)
    ntree = mat.node_tree
    node = ntree.nodes.get("Ambient Occlusion", None)

    if node is not None:
        print("Material With Ambient Occlusion:", mat_name)

It works fine for the start up file, but when I run it in another scene I get this error:

AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'nodes'

What is wrong? And why does the code only work for the start up file?

Not all materials have an associated node_tree. This is only present where the 'use_nodes' checkbox has been used as this creates the node tree.
Your problem is that one or more material does not have a node_tree. The solution is to include a test before the ntree.nodes.get() to first check that there is actually an attribute 'nodes' - and to simply skip that material if none is found:
import bpy

# Run through all materials of the current blend file
for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    # If the material has a node tree
    if mat.node_tree:
        # Run through all nodes
        for node in mat.node_tree.nodes:
            # If the node type is Ambient Occlusion
            if node.type == 'AMBIENT_OCCLUSION':
                # Print the name of the material
                print("Ambient Occlusion Node found in:", mat.name)


Should objects added in edit mode be merged together or can they exist as separate objects? Are unlinked mesh islands of the same object considered bad modeling? And, when should I merge meshes and when should I keep them separate?

I'd say it depends.  If you want to add meshes in edit mode, they'll be added to your current object.  Sometimes this is what you want, sometimes not.  A mesh added in edit mode will also share any materials and object data of the original object.
Also note that your Add options are different depending if you are in Object vs Edit mode.


How to select faces of a mesh and apply extrude using a python script I am writing a python script to make a chair. I need to use the loopcut_slide() after that the extrude operators.  here is my code

    import bpy
import time
import mathutils
from mathutils import Vector
import numpy as np
start_time=time.time
from mathutils import *
from math import *
import random
D = bpy.data
C = bpy.context
#Clean the scene
bpy.ops.object.select_by_type(type='MESH')
#bpy.ops.object.delete()
bpy.ops.object.select_by_type(type='CAMERA')
bpy.ops.object.delete()
bpy.ops.object.select_by_type(type='LAMP')
bpy.ops.object.delete()
def view3d_find( return_area = False ):
    # returns first 3d view, normally we get from context
    for area in bpy.context.window.screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            v3d = area.spaces[0]
            rv3d = v3d.region_3d
            for region in area.regions:
                if region.type == 'WINDOW':
                    if return_area: return region, rv3d, v3d, area
                    return region, rv3d, v3d
    return None, None

#make a chair
D.objects["Cube"].scale[0] = .2
D.objects["Cube"].scale[1] = .2
D.objects["Cube"].scale[2] = 0.005

D.objects["Cube"].location[0] = 0
D.objects["Cube"].location[1] = 0
D.objects["Cube"].location[2] = 0

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

region, rv3d, v3d, area = view3d_find(True)
override = {
    'scene'  : bpy.context.scene,
    'region' : region,
    'area'   : area,
    'space'  : v3d
}

bpy.ops.mesh.loopcut_slide(override,MESH_OT_loopcut={"number_cuts":1, "smoothness":0, "falloff":'INVERSE_SQUARE', "edge_index":11, "mesh_select_mode_init":(True, False, False)}, TRANSFORM_OT_edge_slide={"value":-0.9, "single_side":False, "mirror":False, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "correct_uv":False, "release_confirm":False})
bpy.ops.mesh.loopcut_slide(override,MESH_OT_loopcut={"number_cuts":1, "smoothness":0, "falloff":'INVERSE_SQUARE', "edge_index":11, "mesh_select_mode_init":(True, False, False)}, TRANSFORM_OT_edge_slide={"value":-0.9, "single_side":False, "mirror":False, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "correct_uv":False, "release_confirm":False})
bpy.ops.mesh.loopcut_slide(override,MESH_OT_loopcut={"number_cuts":1, "smoothness":0, "falloff":'INVERSE_SQUARE', "edge_index":18, "mesh_select_mode_init":(True, False, False)}, TRANSFORM_OT_edge_slide={"value":-0.9, "single_side":False, "mirror":False, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "correct_uv":False, "release_confirm":False})
bpy.ops.mesh.loopcut_slide(override,MESH_OT_loopcut={"number_cuts":1, "smoothness":0, "falloff":'INVERSE_SQUARE', "edge_index":18, "mesh_select_mode_init":(True, False, False)}, TRANSFORM_OT_edge_slide={"value":0.9, "single_side":False, "mirror":False, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "correct_uv":False, "release_confirm":False})

bpy.ops.mesh.extrude_region_move(MESH_OT_extrude_region={"mirror":False}, TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value":(0, 0, -0.191221), "constraint_axis":(False, False, True), "constraint_orientation":'NORMAL', "mirror":False, "proportional":'DISABLED', "proportional_edit_falloff":'SMOOTH', "proportional_size":1, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "gpencil_strokes":False, "texture_space":False, "remove_on_cancel":False, "release_confirm":False})

Now, I need to select faces and apply the extrude operator.

1) How to set the face select mode.
2) and how to select the 4 faces as shown in the figure below

This is not really a complete answer as it does not result in a complete chair but it covers the trickery you seem to need.

There are a few snafoos as I've copy/pasted from my own code base which treats a few features not present in your problem, it's useful code however so have at it I say.

The code is cut up so that I can describe what I'm doing but really it is a single script. So stitch it together and run it in blender then the chair button will appear at the base of the add mesh menu. Usefully I've split it up so that it may be made into a package aswell. So if you made each part into it's own file and resolved the imports as necessary you would have the start of a package. The double hash comments indicate what I'd call each file.

Imports

Imports gotta have imports. I use the bpy_extras methods as it provides you with a proper Scaling/Rotating/Translating matrix. It also does object/mesh (a.k.a data) registration within the scene. In prior question(s) of my own the more experienced guys indicated that they don't use this helper, I figure this gives the blender team some control over object creation in packages and therefore I use it. The rest of the imports are pretty standard stuff.

import bpy
import bpy_extras
import bmesh
from math      import *
from mathutils import *

Data

I do not fully utilize it here but these two methods allow for re-entrancy. That is you can edit the mesh after you've done something that breaks the history's breadcrumb trail. Usually I add an Edit Panel to facilitate this.

## utilities.py
def prop2data(prop, data) :
    """
    prop2data

    Given a PropertyGroup and ID-Data populate the latter from the former
    """
    for key in prop.rna_type.properties.keys() :
        if key in ["rna_type"] :
           continue
        if isinstance(getattr(prop, key), bpy.types.PropertyGroup) :
            if key not in data :
                data[key] = {}
            prop2data(getattr(prop, key), data[key])
        else:
            data[key] = getattr(prop, key)
            #print("{} : {} -> {}".format(key,getattr(prop, key),data[key]))

def data2prop(prop, data) :
    """
    data2prop

    Given a PropertyGroup and ID-Data populate the former from the latter
    """
    # The order of arguments matches prop2data this is deliberate and
    # indicates that the structure is traversed according to Property-
    # Group rather then ID-Data (Which should be preferred).
    for key in prop.rna_type.properties.keys() :
        if key in ["rna_type"] :
           continue
        if isinstance(getattr(prop, key), bpy.types.PropertyGroup) :
            if key in data and isinstance(data[key], dict):
                data2prop(getattr(prop, key), data[key])
        else:
            #print("{} : {} <- {}".format(key, data[key], getattr(prop, key)))
            setattr(prop, key, data[key])

Properties

I wrap all the properties for a given geometry into a pointer class for various purposes. It's helpful to pass these parameters into the data2prop and prop2data methods and to toss them into the geometry method for example.

## Properties
class chairProperties(bpy.types.PropertyGroup) :
    """Chair properties"""
    height     = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
                 name        = "Height",
                 description = "The total height",
                 default     =      1.0,
                 min         =      0.0,
                 #update      = _height_,
                 unit        = 'LENGTH')
    length     = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
                 name        = "Length",
                 description = "The total length",
                 default     =       3.5,
                 min         =       0.0,
                 unit        =  'LENGTH')
    width      = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
                 name        = "Width",
                 description = "The total width",
                 default     =       2.5,
                 min         =       0.0,
                 unit        =  'LENGTH')
    inset      = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
                 name        = "Inset depth",
                 description = "The depth of the inset",
                 default     =       0.5,
                 min         =       0.0,
                 unit        =  'LENGTH')

Geometry

This next section has quite a bit going on. Firstly we provide stock unit vectors lying along the principle axes. This is largely done so that you're not dropping plus and minus signs everywhere.

The selectPlane method does most of the magic, I wrap it into a function so I can cherry pick verts, edges or faces. One can then make sub-selections of that selection to decide what is or isn't extruded.

clearGeometry simply strips out any mesh data while preserving the object and object.data (mesh) data blocks.

chairGeometry populates the object.data with the geometry you require. Here you should note that when selectPlane is called you must use a location and normal vector that are rotated with the object's co-ordinates, the way you do this is different. For the location you're flinging a point about in 3 space. For the normal you're taking one of those principle vectors and flinging it about in 3 space, you then need to re-center it about a zero by subtracting a zero that you also flung about in 3 space. Finally the last trick is in the selections by using sets, fx and fy you can make sub-selections using set theory. fx&fy in this case selects the corner faces, 'fx|fy' would select the skirt, fx|fy-fx&fy the edges and 'go-fx|fy' would get the center. This provides quite a lot of flexibility. For the rest there is a little algebraic trickery to make the center of the object coincide with the base of the chair once everything is extruded. This is also used to select the appropriate faces.

## geometry.py
AXES = {'+X':Vector(( 1,0,0)), '+Y':Vector((0, 1,0)), '+Z':Vector((0,0, 1)),
        '-X':Vector((-1,0,0)), '-Y':Vector((0,-1,0)), '-Z':Vector((0,0,-1))}

def selectPlane(bm, normal = 'z', location = Vector((0,0,0)), feature = 'verts', tolerance = 0.1) : # bpy.context.active_object.location
    '''
    Select all the geometry within a plane described by a position and a normal
    '''
    normal = normal if isinstance(normal, Vector) else AXES[normal.upper()]
    if isinstance(feature, list) :
       return {key : planeSelect(bm, normal, feature, location, tolerance) for key in feature}
    else :
       return {'verts' : [vert for vert in bm.verts if abs(vert.co.__sub__(location).dot(normal)) < tolerance],
               'edges' : [],
               'faces' : [face for face in bm.faces if all([abs(vert.co.__sub__(location).dot(normal)) < tolerance for vert in face.verts])]}[feature]

def clearGeometry(sc, ob, me, ps):
    '''
    I understand to be the best method of clearing the mesh data
    '''
    bm = bmesh.new()
    bm.to_mesh(me)
    me.update()
    sc.update()

def chairGeometry(sc, ob, me, ps, matrix = Matrix.Identity(4)) :
    '''
    Create a Chair Shape
    '''
    bm = bmesh.new()
    # Provide Geomerty
    bmesh.ops.create_cube(bm, size=1.0, matrix=Matrix([[ps.length,       0,                   0,0],
                                                       [        0,ps.width,                   0,0],
                                                       [        0,       0,ps.height - ps.inset,0],
                                                       [        0,       0,                   0,1]]))
    # Lower Geometry
    cx = [-ps.length/2+ps.inset,ps.length/2-ps.inset]
    for x in cx :
        go = selectPlane(bm,
                         normal   = matrix*AXES['-Z'] - matrix*Vector((0,0,0)),
                         location = matrix*Vector((0, 0, -(ps.height - ps.inset)/2)),
                         feature  = 'faces')
        go = list({item for face in go for item in [face] + face.verts[:] + face.edges[:]})
        go = bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm, geom=go, plane_co=(x,0,0), plane_no=(1,0,0))
    cy = [-ps.width/2+ps.inset,ps.width/2-ps.inset]
    for y in cy :
        go = selectPlane(bm,
                         normal   = matrix*AXES['-Z'] - matrix*Vector((0,0,0)),
                         location = matrix*Vector((0, 0, -(ps.height - ps.inset)/2)),
                         feature  = 'faces')
        go = list({item for face in go for item in [face] + face.verts[:] + face.edges[:]})
        go = bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm, geom=go, plane_co=(0,y,0), plane_no=(0,1,0))
    go = selectPlane(bm,
                     normal   = matrix*AXES['+Z'] - matrix*Vector((0,0,0)),
                     location = matrix*Vector((0, 0, -(ps.height - ps.inset)/2)),
                     feature  = 'faces')
    fx = {face for face in go if any([v.co.x < min(cx) or v.co.x > max(cx) for v in face.verts])}
    fy = {face for face in go if any([v.co.y < min(cy) or v.co.y > max(cy) for v in face.verts])}
    # the next line is useful if the bmesh operator needs faces, edges and verts
    #go = [i for s in {[face] + face.edges[:] + face.verts[:] for face in fx|fy} for i in s]
    go = bmesh.ops.extrude_face_region(bm, geom=list(fx&fy))['geom']
    for v in list({item for item in go if isinstance(item,bmesh.types.BMVert)}) : v.co.z-= ps.inset
    # Update the Object
    bmesh.ops.transform(bm, matrix=Matrix.Translation((0,0,ps.height/2 + ps.inset/2))*matrix, verts=bm.verts)
    bm.to_mesh(me)
    bm.free()
    me.update()

Operator

Next we provide the operator blender will call. This really just wraps the Create/Review/Update/Delete Geometry methods in blender specific boilerplate.

## operators.py
class MESH_OT_primitive_chair_add(bpy.types.Operator, bpy_extras.object_utils.AddObjectHelper):
    """Creates and Modifies a simple Chair"""
    bl_idname      = "mesh.primitive_chair_add"
    bl_label       = "Add Chair"
    bl_description = "This operator creates a Chair"
    bl_options     = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}
    part           = "Furniture:Chair"

    instantiate = bpy.props.BoolProperty(   name        = "New Object",
                                            description = "Used internally to control Object Creation versus Modification. See Object Creation in the Project Readme",
                                            default     = True,
                                            options     = {'HIDDEN'})
    dimensions  = bpy.props.PointerProperty(name        = "Dimensions",
                                            type        = chairProperties)

    def execute(self, context):
        if not self.instantiate and context.active_object and 'part' in context.active_object.data.keys() :
            sc = context.scene
            ob = context.active_object
            me = ob.data
            ps = self.dimensions
            data2prop(ps, me['size'])
            clearGeometry(sc, ob, me, me['size'])
        else :
            sc = context.scene
            me = bpy.data.meshes.new(name="Chair")
            od = bpy_extras.object_utils.object_data_add(context, me, operator=self)
            ob = od.object
            ps = self.dimensions # Using either od.object.GEOMETRY (Object Registered Properties) or self.GEOMETRY (Operator Registered Properties) os sc.GEOMETRY (Scene Registered Properties)
            me['ID']   = 'Not Used'
            me['part'] = self.part,
            me['size'] = {} # Localized Data Store
        # Dimensions
        # Your would adjust the properties here to ensure the various contraints are met
        # Geometry
        prop2data(ps, me['size'])
        chairGeometry(sc, ob, me, ps)
        return {"FINISHED"}

Interface

The interface consists of a button at the end of the Add Mesh menu. This is not really the proper place for this but it'll do.

## interface.py
def addChairMenu(self, context) :
     self.layout.operator(MESH_OT_primitive_chair_add.bl_idname, text="Add Chair")

Registration

The last bit simply un/registers everything and provides the name of some one to shout at when it all goes pear shaped.

## __init__.py
bl_info = {
    "name"         : "Furniture",
    "author"       : "Carel",
    "version"      : (0, 1),
    "category"     : "User",
    "location"     : "View3D > Add > Furniture",
    "description"  : "This allows one to create various funriture, specifically a chair",
    "warning"      : "Alpha Release, may wobble",
 }

def register():
    # Properties
    bpy.utils.register_class(chairProperties)
    # Operator(s)
    bpy.utils.register_class(MESH_OT_primitive_chair_add)
    # Menu(s)
    bpy.types.INFO_MT_add.append(addChairMenu)

def unregister():
    # Menu(s)
    bpy.types.INFO_MT_add.remove(addChairMenu)
    # Operator(s)
    bpy.utils.register_class(MESH_OT_primitive_chair_add)
    # Properties
    bpy.utils.register_class(chairProperties)

if __name__ == "__main__" :
    register()

Notes

This code sort of stems from this question if you want to understand it better. There is also now a related question.


How to achieve advanced lighting in my scene I have this scene

I have sun lamps but I don't know how to achieve advanced lighting in my scene, my lamps just contain yellow light.

And this is what it looks like when scene has hdr and also volumetric light.
Is there any further tehnics to make it better.

In addition to using an HDRI, try adding a mist and/or Z pass, and then compositing in some color to the value in the compositor. Remember that you can use the color ramp with multiple points assigning multiple colors, so you can get some pretty neat effects. These colors can add or lessen brightness.

I am not sure this is a complete answer, but I could not post this screen shot as a comment. The sand below is not mine, but the acrocanthosaur is!

Regarding the lighting of the rocks -- mentioned in a later comment: You can use an object index pass to accomplish a lot of things, including light changes, focal issues and the like. Here is a good example and a node tree view:

Separate reflection based on object index cycles


Boolean Modifier Disabled in Blender 2.8? Every time I try to apply a Boolean Modifier, I get a "Report: Error" that reads "Modifier is disabled, skipping apply." Also, the Boolean button appears in red (is this normal?). I am just using two basic shapes, a cube and a cylinder, so the geometry can't be the problem (I guess).

Anyone know how to fix this? Have I disabled Boolean accidentally or am I just missing some step here?

Please be patient, I'm a total noob and would appreciate any input.

Thank you]1

If a modifier header turns red, this basically means it is doing nothing at the moment because some input is either missing or not as expected. There is an action required by the user to make it work. Here are three examples of modifiers that show this behavior:

In each case I have circled the parameter that is causing the behavior in red. Most of the time, Blender requires a reference to another object to run the modifier.

In case of a boolean, there must be another object you want to cut or join your main object with
In case of the lattice modifier, a lattice object is required that tells Blender what the rules of the deformation are
In case of the SubSurf the modifier is entirely skipped in the Viewport because there are simply zero subdivisions requested by the user.

These are not the only modifiers with such behavior, they are just listed here as examples. So red header means currently not doing anything at all, and as a result, clicking Apply will throw an error, because nothing can be done to the base object as a result.


Cuda error, Out of memory while I have 4GB of GPU Many of the people have asked almost the same question.
I'm trying to render a big mesh + fur/grass file with a few characters on the screen.

when I hit render, after a number of processing, copying data to gpu etc... i get following error.

Mem: 2960.07M, Peak:2960.07M | CUDA error: Out of memory in cuMemAlloc(&device_pointer, size).

I'm using Geforce GTX 690 which contains 4GB memory.

Can somebody tell me how can i get GPU rendering, while 2960M is far less then 4196M of memory.

I know somebody would suggest me to use CPU.. but i'm curios why not GPU?

I've already compressed texture, etc

Edited

I don't think any other application is using any of my 1GB remaining memory. everything is closed but blender is there, also the GPU utilities are showing 2000/2000 MB are free on one card and 1900/2000MB is free on 2nd card.

i'm using GTX 690. with two GPUs of 2GB each. If somebody thinks that one GPU should have memory matching to the cuda memory/or Peak memory then I'm doubtful. Because in preferences Blender does know that I have 2GPUs where I can select either first GPU or second GPU or even both.

When I render some of smaller objects/scenes both of my GPU renders simultaneously with two blocks.

I'm running following specs

Xeon E5-1660 0
24GB - 1600mhz
GTX690

You don't have 4GB available to render by using 2 GPUS with 2GB each: you have only 2GB.

If you look at the specs for the card on the Nvidia Webstite It states clearly that

The memory configuration is: 4096 MB....(2048 MB per GPU) GDDR5

The memory used multiple GPUs is not added or shared, but each one uses its own pool of vRAM.

The same is true when using multiple cards on the same machine, and on top of that, the memory available to render in cycles is limited by the amount on the smallest of the cards. (For example if you have a 4 GB card and a 2GB one, you would only be able to use 2GB).

Keep in mind also that if any of the cards is plugged to a monitor, or multiple ones, there will be even less vRAM available. All other apps and windows that are open will use some of the resources of your machine.


How to give Tepig its tail? (Sculpting a curly tail) I'm sculpting Tepig in Blender but its tail is giving me headaches. Extending it with the grab tool doesn't seem to work very well as the tail is getting thinner at the end and it's getting more and more hard to deform it:

Is there an elegant way to extend the tail more even?
Reference: https://www.pokewiki.de/Datei:Sugimori_498.png

This methods seems to work fine!
1.create base tail using curve modifier !

2.Convert the curve to a mesh!

3.Add a iso-sphere and join it to curve mesh using boolean modifier.

4.now join the tail to the sculpt mesh using boolean modifier!

Now you have a tail and can add more detail to it with sculpting.


Fur is growing out too thick on retopologized emitter Can anyone tell me why my hair particles are growing out so thick? I am using a mesh that I retopologized for the purposes of easy animation and brought the number to 22,000 polys. This particular mesh is a duplicated emitter to be hidden for the fully rigged mesh. On the previous mesh the hair grew perfectly fine, which was a decimated 100,000 poly mesh. I tried subdividing the mesh that I retopologized, but that had no effect on the matter. The hair cannot be thinned out so much to adjust to its over thick default settings. It causes the fur to be all patchy looking when the tip is scaled in the particle shape tab.

If anyone has any ideas to the matter I would greatly appreciate it.

I just had to take it into Zbrush after applying a subdivision surface modifier. Now it works.


Cannot pass arguments to Python script when executed by blender.exe On Windows, I'm trying to have blender.exe execute a Python script that internally uses the argparse module for the arguments handling. What I'm struggling with is how to properly pass the arguments that the script expects on the command line.

I'm well aware of this similar question that was already posted here but the solution that is proposed there does not seem to work properly.

First, the script that I want to execute looks as follows:

import argparse
import os
import sys

def parse_arguments():
  parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
  parser.add_argument('--input-folder', help='Folder containing the files to be imported', default='WhateverFolder')
  parser.add_argument('--output-file' , help='The path of the file to be created'        , default='WhateverFile')
  return parser.parse_known_args(sys.argv)

arguments, unknown = parse_arguments()

print('\n--input-folder: %s' % arguments.input_folder)
print('--output-file : %s'   % arguments.output_file)

print('\nAll arguments:')
print(sys.argv)

print('\nRecognized Arguments:')
print(arguments)

print('\nUnknown Arguments:')
print(unknown)

According to the already mentioned similar question the arguments that shall be supplied to this script need to follow the sequence -- because apparently that is how blender.exe recognizes arguments that it shall not process and instead forward.

However, when invoking the script as follows the script output shows that the parameters are not properly processed by argparse.

"%ProgramFiles%\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" --background --python test.py -- --input-folder OtherFolder --output-file OtherFile

The output that the script generates looks as follows:

Read prefs: C:\Users\<MyAccount>\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\config\userpref.blend
found bundled python: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\python

--input-folder: WhateverFolder
--output-file : WhateverFile

All arguments:
['C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\blender.exe', '--background', '--python', 'test.py', '--', '--input-folder', 'OtherFolder', '--output-file', 'OtherFile']

Recognized Arguments:
Namespace(input_folder='WhateverFolder', output_file='WhateverFile')

Unknown Arguments:
['C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\blender.exe', '--background', '--python', 'test.py', '--', '--input-folder', 'OtherFolder', '--output-file', 'OtherFile']

Blender quit

As can be seen, the default value of arguments.input_folder does not get overridden with OtherFolder, nor is arguments.output_file set to OtherFile.

If I discard -- before the script arguments the script the outcome is as expected, i.e. arguments.input_folder is OtherFolder and arguments.output_file is OtherFile.

But the problem is that now blender.exe seems to interpret these arguments as something it needs to process which results in the following error message:

Error: Cannot read file 'C:Temp\--input-folder': No such file or directory

I'm using Blender for Windows, version 2.79b 64-bit.

What am I missing here? What is the proper way of passing command line arguments to a Python script invoked by blender.exe on Windows?

You can't use

return parser.parse_known_args(sys.argv)

Because what you have in sys.argv is '-- --input-folder...'
Instead, cut off the '--' from the string.

return parser.parse_known_args(sys.argv[sys.argv.index("--")+1:])


GPU Compute crashes while rendering but rendered mode works fine I am a 16 year old. I am new to this community as well as blender. When I was rendering today, I encountered a strange problem. When I try to render the below given scene using GPU COMPUTE it crashes, but GPU COMPUTE works absolutely fine in rendered mode. When I render using CPU, its all right. When I check my gpu stats in MSI AFTERBURNER,everything is fine. No temp throttling, No memory Bottleneck(only 2gb of vram was used out of 4gb).
My Computer Specifications are :-

CPU :- AMD RYZEN 1600
RAM :- Corsair 16gb ddr4 3000mhz
GPU :- RX 480 4gb(Crimson 17.7.2)
HDD :- Two 7200rpm drives
MOBO :- Gigabyte GA-AB350 Gaming 3(BIOS :- F7a)

MY Problem is clearly shown in this video

And also, I Found that the GPU COMPUTE works fine in very simple renders (like the startup file render)

Any help from this community will be deeply appreciated.

The viewport render is designed to give you an approximation of the scene taking some shortcuts, usually renders using lower samples and using less subdivisions (depending on how the modifiers are set) and ignoring some other features that are only available on the final render. The idea behind this is to give you a more responsive interface.

More on this topic on this link

When you render using F12 you are using a lot more resources. If your scene's complexity exceeds the capabilities of your GPU, the render will fail is that simple.

Memory usage in afterburner might not reflect the real vRAM usage for the scene.

Your options are to simplify your scene (or break in smaller, renderable pieces to be composited together later) or to render using CPU.


Game logic with Dynamics I'm new to the Blender Game Engine.

I have several floating static cube meshes. How do I make a cube fall once it collides with my character?

Set the object physics to dinamic.

In logic editor add:

always sensor > AND > Edit object suspend Dinamics

collision sensor > AND > Edit object Restore Dinamics

Note: i used delay sensor to test but you need an collision sensor as in the next img.

With Python script:

add an always and collision sensor to a python controller.

Text.py

from bge import logic

def main(controller):
    colsen = controller.sensors['Collision']
    if not 'init' in controller.owner.getPropertyNames():
        controller.owner.suspendDynamics()
        controller.owner['init'] = True
    if colsen.positive:
        controller.owner.restoreDynamics()

main(logic.getCurrentController())

Related Documentation


Vignette is distorted and not symmetrical Situation: I am setting up a Vignette effect for my scene. Like what I do normally, I have a lens distortion node, math node (set to 'greater than'), blur node, and a mix node (set to multiply).

Problem: However, for this scene, the vignette effect seem to have a weird shape and it's not symmetrical either. Below is the result. How do I fix this? Thanks.
Here is my blend file

That weird shape looks a hell of a lot like a distorted mountain to me. You shouldn't plug your source image into the Lens Distorsion. You could instead take a Distort-->Scale node, in Render Size mode, so that you have a totally white image.


Why did references, vertex dots, vertex lines, and ground lines disappear in blender I probably mistapped a button to have this mode entered. How do I fix it back?

press this button (show overlays) again

you can find it in the upper right corner of your 3d view.


Weirdly shaded faces after triangulating I triangulated the faces from this particular part of my mesh using Ctrl+T and everything turned out ok, except these faces which ended up with weird shading.

This also might be caused by duplicate vertices on each other. Try to go to edit mode, select everything (clicking A), on the tools tab, click 'Remove Doubles', that might fix it. Although it is indeed hard to tell without seeing your mesh.


Automatic "Edit Window" popup - Blender 2.8 Hoping someone can help, this is starting to get a bit frustrating.
The window that pops up when you Move, Rotate, Resize, Extrude etc.. To set specific options, how to you make that popup automatically before making a change.
Like if I'm about to use proportional editing and I'm in move mode, and I need to change proportional size. I don't want to have to move the vertex first to make the window popup, then change the proportional size. I'd rather have all the options in front of me before doing anything.

Thanks in advance :)

You can make the box reappear after it has dissappeared by pressing F9 key to change the settings. I hope this helps.


bge character stops moving when it jumps My issue is this: I am making a simple game where a cube moves around in a big field.  The problem is, when the cube jumps, it stops moving forward.  Now I would like it to keep the forward velocity.  If there is no other way, I could make it so that force is applied to the cube while running in the air, but that would be unrealistic.
Here is the .blend

If you enable "Add" on all your motion actuators, you will get behavior closer to what you'd expect. With the logic how you have it now, when you push W, A, S, D or Space, the corresponding motion actuator sets the new location of the cube, based on the old location. The differences in location is what you have in the motion actuators. Because of this, only one can run at once - they are all trying to run at the same time, and they are all trying to set the cube's new location based on what they have filled in, which is different for each object.

However, if  you set them to add, each one will add or subtract from the cube's location, instead of trying to set it. When you press Space, while holding forward, instead of the BGE taking the cubes location, adding to it along the Z, and setting the new location, it will simply add to the cube's Z location, creating the expected behavior.

In addition to having your cube able to move and jump at the same time, if you enable the "Add" setting on your other motion actuators, your cube will be able to move diagonally.


Why is object deviating from path random? I have an object that is following a path ... and at some point (checkout the blend file) it is offseting from path, why?

How can I fix this.

http://flester.ro/path-deviation-2.blend

First you have 2 curves overlaying, curba1 and curba2, so it's a little bit confusing. About the useful one, curba2: it's very long, so you need to increase its resolution if you want the movement of the sphere to be smooth (in the Properties panel > Data > Shape > Resolution > Preview and Render). Also, you've given an animation to your sphere (which makes it move away from the curve) but I guess it's on purpose.


Edited UV of low poly object but now high poly object wont show in UV tab (2.8 Beta) Using Blender 2.8 Beta.

I initially smart unwrapped my Cube_LO (low poly) object, but I did not like the normal bake from the UV, so I hid the Cube_HI (high poly) object, then manually marked seams of Cube_LO and unwrapped.

Next I baked the Normal map.

Finally I tried to compare again with the Cube_HI object by enabling visible, but now it won't show in the UV Editing tab.

Cube_HI was showing before I manually redid my UV unwraps.

See in the picture below that I only have Cube_HI visible, but it won't show anymore.

Cube_HI still shows in all the other tabs.

Also, I already tried restarting the application.

You are in Local mode. Press / on numpad.

Local mode temporary isolates selected objects for working with them.


How to remove this "edit mode" shadow thing? So I'm trying to render a character using cycles blender, I go to edit mode and subdivide a part and this glossy texture shows up when you render it, I'm trying to get a smooth texture.

Idk how to remove it, can anyone tell me how to smooth this thing up?

Adding a subsurface modifier to the mesh worked for me.

Before:

After:


Vector Imported curves not moving on Z axis I wanted to make some 3D infographics, so I imported some vector images into blender via Inkscape. Normally, I can edit and move the points on a curve through all three dimensions, but for some reason these will only move on the x and y axes.
I want to make the arrows point up and around as well, but this kinda impedes it.

Using a 2D curve implies that the Local Z coordinate of each control point is 0.

From the Blender manual's page about the topic:

  By default, new curves are set to be 3D, which means that Control Points can be placed anywhere in 3D space. Curves can also be set to 2D which constrain the Control Points to the Curve’s local XY axis.

In a 2D curve you can't even set it's origin's Z coordinate with the 3D cursor. It is forced to lay on the plane where the the control points are.

You should switch the curve nature to 3D to be able to move them up and down.


How do I make 'X-Axis Mirror' available in Pose Mode? More often that not, while posing an armature, I want to mirror the pose across the X-axis, so that when I move "brow.L", "brow.R" also moves in the same way.

You can copy and paste a mirrored pose, or select both bones prior to performing a transform, but both of these options aren't particularly good workflow wise.

In edit mode, in the tools panel, under options you can enable "X-Axis Mirror" to copy all transforms across the X-axis in real time, but this option is not available in pose mode.

I'm not very experienced with python, but edit source reveals:

col.prop(ob.data, "use_mirror_x")

My understanding is that "use_mirror_x" refers to a boolean property, but I have no idea how to find where that boolean property is defined or if it would be possible to modify it to get the same result in pose mode.

Any advice on this is appreciated. Maybe there's a better way to achieve this?

Thanks.

If you want to mirror your animation form the left side to the other side during pose mode you just need to select the whole left side then copy the pose with Ctrl+C.

After that press Ctrl+i to go to your right side and finally press Shift+Ctrl+V to paste the the X flipped pose, that way you'll have a perfect mirror of both side


Baked normal map is partly distorted/flipped I'm trying to bake a normal map from high res model onto a low res one. Normals are all okay, no modifiers, no double vertices. Result is the same when baking the map in xNormal. Result is the same when I scaled them in edit mode about 2x bigger. Changing the ray distance doesn't change anything than that the distorted part becomes green.

I tried your file. The "Ray distance" is too high. With 0.01m it worked fine for me.


Is there a way I can get object's position relative to the origin point(0.0.0)? If I reset a object's origin (in order to mirror it), is there a way I can somehow get the object's current position relative to origin point(0.0.0) before I reset the object's origin?

EDIT: Basically i want to move car rear panel(the one where car rear lights go) to 0.0.0 to create better tail lights for it) and when the tail lights are created, i want to put that car part(the rear panel) to where it were before i moved it to 0.0.0 whit "set origin" command!

The objects origin is the (0, 0, 0) point of it's data. No matter what object location, rotation or scale is.  An object, the default cube for instance, has one origin, it's location is arbitrary.  We could put the cursor anywhere and change the origin to that point, using transform > origin to cursor, and for all extents and purposes the cube's mesh doesn't move.  What does change tho is the local data (the vertex coordinates) and the object location to match.

The default cube has a vertex with coordinate (-1, -1, -1). If we make the origin point at that vertex' location, the vertex will now have the coordinate, yep you guessed it, (0, 0, 0).  The cube will now have a location of (-1, -1, -1) instead of zero... looks like it hasn't moved, only the little orange dot specifying its origin moved.  Local coordinates is a fundamental of 3D.

Now how does this apply to your car model.  You want to have an origin where x=0 is in the middle of your car from the front.  This will enable you to use mirror effectively.

One way to do this:

Select the tail lights (or the windscreen or something that's centre is the centre of vehicle), go into edit mode, select all verts.  Snap shift-s cursor to selection.  Look in the 3D cursor panel.  It's the x offset that has put your model out of whack.

Get out of edit mode.  With just the lights selected, set origin to cursor at this point will put it right in the middle shown in image above, but onlyh for the tail lights.

Or at this point to change origin of all car parts to a centre:

Keep the 3D cursor's X location value and change the Z and Y values to suit, 0 is good.  Now select every object that makes up your car. Object > Transform > origin to 3D cursor.

Another tip at this point would be to add an empty at cursor location.  Make it the parent of all the car parts. This way moving the empty will move the car as one.


How do I make my tank track tread spin? [ (the file model working ^^^^^)this is my model bellow (1)

(my attempt at translating your work ^^^^)I want it too spin like in this Youtube video tutorial(2)

you can achieve something like that with drivers.
-add a driver on the Y value of your track object.
-open the graph editor and add a Transform Channel driver type like in pic below.
-select the object in "Ob/bone" field that you want to copy the scale value from, I used the default cube's Z Scale channel.
now scaling the cube will spin your Track.
(I don't know how to prevent the scaling of the cube.)

Here is a blend file, I hope this helps.


Why isn't the frame animation not changing its animation? I've just rendered an animation about a intro, and it seems likes it's on the same thing and it Isn't changing. I'm on frame 21 it just shows the same animation over and over again. Here's is a screenshot of what is repeatably animated.

https://i.imgur.com/svHvygy.png

Not sure if it answers "same animation over and over again", but your end frame is set to "5" in the image, so it would stop there.


how to make a adjustment knob for a gun scope model I searched everywhere on the internet but couldn't find an answer. I am modeling a  scope in blender but I can't figure out how to make the adjustment knob.

My progress so far

What i want the knob to look like

I would suggest taking a look at creating gears.

Go to File>User Preferences>Add-Ons, search for the "Add Mesh: Extra Objects" Addon and enabled it by clicking the small checkbox next to it's name and saving your preferences.
If you now create a new mesh in your 3D scene in object mode, you will have more options available. To create a gear, create a new object by pressing 'Shift+A' and then select Mesh>Mechanical>Gears>Gear.

Before moving or editing the gear manually you have the option to configure it's settings in the "Add Gear" window that should have opened somewhere on the left by default. I suggest playing around with these values yourself until you get something that you think looks good and use it as a base to work on.


How to join different objects (different modifiers) What I would like to do is a merge of two objects without applying their own and distinct modifiers.

In other words: the first object has Sub.Surface modifier active but not applied, the second one does not have any modifier. Can I somehow join them without losing the sub.surface of the first object and avoiding the second object getting that modifier as well? (I wouldn't like to apply sub.surface before joining them)

Thanks

You can set the joined mesh CREASE where you wish to limit the subsurf effect:

with CREASE 1.0 subsurf has no effect at all...


How can I render animations in PS1 / 3D pixel style? I really like the oldschool PS1 / 3d pixel style on these animations: https://www.artstation.com/andmish

I've been trying to figure out for a few days now how to do this rendering style, but no luck yet. Any tips on how to do this? Thanks in advance!

It's several things, color sets, modelisation styles, ... But on the technical side, it's basically about low resolution rendering.

Assuming you're using Blender Cycles :
First, you have to make sure that you use only low res textures on your model, with their pixel filtering set to "closest" (otherwise the default behavior is to "hide" the pixels by blur) :

Then, you shall render with low resolution, and make sure your render pixel filtering (which serves as a kind of anti-aliasing in raytracer renderers like cycles) is set to the lowest value in the render options :


newly made topology not visible from behind so I decided to make a cape for a character and after making it, the mesh for a cape is not visible from one side
This is the same object from different angels

In Viewport Settings, make sure Backface culling isn't checked :


How to snap to geometry for the measure tool Is there some way that I could make the measure tool to snap to points on an object to get more accurate measurement. Like if I'm trying to measure the distance between two object, is there some kind of way that the measure tool snaps to edges of the two objects. I've been using Fusion360 for a while and in there there are snap settings to snap onto different kind of geometry.

Is there something like that in Blender?

Ctrl enables snapping.  Drag out a measurement line, then hover over one end so you can pick it up.  Holding Ctrl, drag it over to your object.  Repeat for the other end of the measurement.

Hint, you can measure angles in a similar fashion by grabbing the middle of the measurement line.

"X" deletes the measurement.


How to make my animation smooth like a curtain falling down I have created a flexible pipe and i want it to drop from the top like a curtain falling down smooth way.

I want the mesh hit the bottom ( red x axis) . The animation is getting finish at the middle. The middle part of the pipe wrinkle not seen after it fall down. The bounce of the mesh also to much. I want to make it look realistic as if the pipe falling like a cloth down with a little bounce and going up later. Any way to achieve in a good way other than my method. Thanks

Im not sure for the result ... not clear what it should represent in reality - material, dimension, if it use some metal (or other hard) rings etc.)
Example is just

model scaled in Z axis (to more fit final shape)
Cloth - Preset Denim with Quality 4, Mass 0,8 kg
Collision Quality 8 and enabled Self Collision
first 50 frames used to squeeze cloth up by another Plane collider


Base Mesh changes back to its original form after switching to object mode I downloaded the free RoyalSkies Male Rig from his website just to play around. I made the character less buffed up with proportional editing but it reverts back to its original form after switching back to object mode. How do I fix this issue?

Because your object has shapekeys, you have a shapekey selected and therefore you're changing this shapekey, you're not changing the original shape, which is on the top of your list and which is called Basis. If you want to make any change to the original shape, select this shapekey called Basis. If you want to save the shape you've created and make it the basis mesh, go into the dropdown menu on the right (down arrow) and select Move to Top. To make any shapekey appear in Object mode you need to tweak the Value, under the shapekey list.


Staircase Shadows / Shadows look like faces right now I am rendering a scene with an environment map and some point lights in Blender 2.79.
I just noticed that a part of my bowl has some weird "staircase shadow".

The mesh should be high poly enough and it is also set to smooth.

The artefacts are rendered due to low subdivision. I reproduced them on a poorly subdevided sphere. Just add another level of subdivision and you should be good to go.


Archipack not showing in object mode my first question here actually. I want to add a window using the archipack addon. I already enabled the addon, chose a location for the material library, and rendered presets thumbs. For some reason, when I press shift+A the archipack isn't showing up. When I press shift+A in edit mode, I can select archipack, but of course I can't add a new object in edit mode so it doesn't work. Can someone help me please?

I found a way to solve it myself. I pressed "n" to open the sidebar, then I went to the create tab and there it was.


Two textures in the same object (not using assign) I have an ball as an object and i would like to use a plastic like texture (the red one in the picture) and also to add a logo as a image texture. But when i combine the two of them, it's render just one or another. I try to use two different UV maps, or with a mix node, but nothing is working. Here is the image with the image texture applied.

If your logo texture is a png image, you might use the transparancy channel, to drive a  color mix node in cycles. The yellow input connections of the mix node have to be connected to the two textures. The alpha output of the logo texture has to be connected to the gray factor input of the mix node.
The transparency will be the trigger to mix the one or the other texture.


Keep IK Controller Leveled I am working with a robotic arm animation which uses an armature with an IK Solver. I need the tip of the robot (at the moment it is a polishing wheel) to always remain leveled. The default behavior when posing the controller bone is that the tip of the bone always follows the axis of movement, causing the polishing head to twist and turn. Is there any way to keep that polishing head always leveled?
Thank you.

This is a duplicate question, but it’s a duplicate of something I asked. Yes, thankfully you can easily limit how bones behave with IK. Go to the bone properties tab, and look for “IK settings.”


Basic fluid - inflow too small to generate fluid or generated fluid too thick I'm setting up a fluid simulation, and it seems like inflow is too small to generate any fluid, or generated fluid too thick(too much).

This is the setting of the simulation:

Inflow
Volume Initialization: Shell
Export Animated Mesh: Checked
Inflow Velocity: Y -200

Domain
Final Resolution: 200
Preview: 100
Time Start: 0
End: 32
Speed: 1

Outflow (2 outflows)
Export Animated Mesh: Unchecked

Scene gravity: Y -2, Z -9.8

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3i7j83qifddrfnt/water_simul_new.blend?dl=0

I'm making a simulation of about 32 seconds, and I'd like to make fluid to wave slowly through y-axis.

I found out inflow object is too small to generate anything(no fluid at all or fluid stuck in outflow object) or generates too much fluid after I scale up the object (scale applied well).

Settings are always mostly similar. I'm only controlling inflow object's scale or Final Resolution.

Is there any way I can make small fluid coming forward from far away? Right now the blend file shows too many fluids.

Thank you!

Setting your y-axis inflow to -200 is a substantially large number for fluid physics. Try something like 2 or 3, because large numbers cannot be calculated, and don't show up. This is probably why your simulation is failing.


Compositing Shadow pass problem Here is my problem, I need to create 2D aspect animation from 3D model in blender.
From the start my rended image is ok

But when I transform it, I need to use the Shadow Pass and
it looks realy blocky !
Need some help please :)

The reason for jagged shadows lies in the technique used for rendering the shadows.
I assume you used the blender internal render engine and the standard shadow of the lamp; for spots lamps the default is the buffered shadow.

Here is a rough explanation how buffer shadows are calculated

With buffer shadows something like a render is made from the view of the light source lamp. Every surface point not visible on this lamp-rendered image isn't reachable by this light source. Thus, these pixels of the lamp-rendered image projected to the unreachable surfaces will be a good approximation of the shadow in the final render. According to this the blockyness depends on the resolution of this lamp-rendered image. It can be adjusted at the lamp settings:

Here is more info on how the buffering works.

So increasing the size is the solution?

No. A better way is to change the shadow rendering technique. The other one available in blender internal is Ray Shadow which probably is the best solution.

I hope your shadow pass is blockless with this method now :)


Scale objects together but not from a common center I am trying to select multiple faces and modify them together. I ideally want it to look like this (just more symmetrical).

However, when I select all the faces and scale them, they all scale from the center of all of the objects, like this:

Is there a way that I can select all these faces and scale them relative to where they are so I can make it look more like the first photo?
Thanks!

Enable Transform Pivot Point > Individual Origins:


Cannot cut area out with AddModifier Boolean Hi I have a cube where I have removed the faces on the one side, so it is empty. I have imported svg objects into the scene. I want to cut a hole in the cube with the addModifier function (Boolean). The svg objects are curve converted to mesh objects.

When you delete a face you are making the cube physically impossible. It can't exist in real life. The reason for this is that it's sides are infinitely thin. With another word, it is not manifold anymore.

If you want to make it manifold, but open, add the solidify modifier before attacking it with boolean. Now the sides have a thickness again.

Now it is time for boolean. If you want, you can apply the solidify modifier first.


Node to calculate angle to camera I'm looking for a node that allocates a value based on the normal's angle to the camera (I've seen some people use it to fake fresnel), but I can't seem to remember what it was called, so was wondering if anyone could clue me in? Cheers.

The Vector Math 'Dot Product' node takes two vectors and returns a Value based on the magnitudes of those vectors and the angle between them. If you pass this node the Normal and Incoming vectors then the result will be larger if the ray is along the normal and approach zero as it becomes more of a glancing blow. Specifically,

Dot Product = MagnitudeA x MagnitudeB x cos(angle)

So if the two vectors are Normalized (which can be ensured by passing them through a Vector Math 'Normalize' node) then the Value output by the Dot Product will simply be the Cosine of the angle between them.

This can be used to mimic the Layer Weight 'Facing' node as follows :

Or you can emulate a Fresnel effect by including a Power Math node :

Varying the inputs or manipulating the Vectors can achieve effects not normally possible with the standard 'Fresnel' and 'Layer Weight' input nodes.


Emissions material that is glittery? Is it possible to create a glittery material that is emissions-only, that has "shadowy" areas and depth?

Thank you!

Edit:

Here are some images:

The material might be a mix of these, or just one of these.  I would be happy to just have a starting point, for a glittery emissions material!

Based on the same technique as in your glossy question, here is what i think would work:

Additionally you would maybe need a tilable image texture to make this work better than vornoi.
The glow like in the reference picture is post processed in with nodes.


How can the Blender API be used to access Blender from another application? Take Openshot for example. It has some form of Blender integration and is written in Python.

I'm not sure if it directly accesses Blender's API or if it simply generates a .blend file and then launches Blender (as it seems to do with Inkscape for SVG titles).

What I would like to know is:

Can an application make use of the Blender API from outside of a running instance of Blender?
If yes, how?

Following the link in CharlesL's answer, I was able to find a Wiki entry that dashes my hopes. Apparently this is not possible in the way I had hoped.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User%3aIdeasman42/BlenderAsPyModule


Create Additional Curves Morphing Between 2 Input Curves I'm wondering if there is a way to create multiple curve objects that morph between two input curve objects.

In the illustration below, the input would be curve 1 and 4. I'd like to automatically create curves 2 and 3. I'd like to be able to create around 30 curves in between the 2 input curves. I'm guessing this would need to be done by python scripting.

This will work only if both initial and final morphing shape have the same number of vertex.

If they don't you can always add a few more to the one with the least vertex, if moving them in place is not too much of a hassle.

Then create one single curve, shape it as desired.

Add two new Shapekeys to it, one Basis and one with the desired final morphing shape.

Now make a few copies of the curve (non-linked clones), and on each one gradually increase the Value for the shapekey.

For an even constant morphing divide the percentage by the number of "snapshots" you plan to have.


Instant Way To Set Objects' Distance In Circular Pattern Is there any automatic way to convert this pattern

To this one?

I have trying to use Scale with Manipulate center points enabled, but it does nothing.

Assuming all the vanes are separate objects, and you're in Object Mode..

The scaling of the center points isn't working because they are all already at 0.

Select all of the objects, and hit ShiftCtrlAltC > 'Origin to Geometry'.

The scaling of the center points should now have an effect.
If you need the slight spiraling effect in the second picture, then. still manipulating center points only, rotate the objects in their common plane, about their common center.


Offsetting animation of group instances For example, I made a rotating cube. I made 100 instances of this cube and place them all over the scene.

I don't want all of them to rotate completely on sync with each other. Maybe a randomized start time so it looked natural like separate entity. (But still the mesh and animation is linked, so I can edit the original one to update all of them) Is this possible in Blender?

One way is to use the animation nodes addon. In this example I take an fcurve from cube.001 and use a random number as a frame offset, then feed that into the rotation of each cube.

The nodes start with an object list that I filled with the selected objects and then hid the inputs in the advanced node settings. The loop input is used to apply the same node tree to each of the objects in the list


How open file browser to save a new blender file I'm trying to open a file browser (similar the browser in the image bellow) where the user can chose a folder and file name to save a new .blend file with the selected objects.

I want make a addon to easely save a new blender file e.g to select a collection and save a new blender file with the collection name and all objects inside there or select only two object and save a new file with that.

To do that I'm using the code bellow but all I get is some errors. Someone know a simple way to open that browser. I read some parts of the blender api documentation but I'm really confusing with some functions that I found in there.

The code I'm using:

class FileExporter(Operator):
    bl_idname = "export.file_exporter"
    bl_label = "Save"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    def export(self, context):
        self.file_path = bpy.path.relpath

        bpy.ops.wm.path_open(filepath=self.file_path)

    def execute(self, context):
        self.export(context)

        return {'FINISHED'}

There is no need to use code to save stuff. It's quite simple, actually. Blender's file browser isn't like the one built-into your computer. You have to go through your drive's file system from the root to locate the destination folder that you would like to save your project to. First, select your main drive. While there, you will see a "users" folder. Double click on it, and then select the folder with the account name that you are using. Then you will find a long list of many folders. You'll also see folders such as documents, music, videos, and any other library. Click on the library that you wish to store your project in, and then select your folder, and name your file, then click "Save As" (or press enter) to save.

Hope that helps!


Bevelling Issue with Subdivision Surfaces I have a modeling issue, could help me to solve this problem?

I want the marked edges to be bevelled (sharp) so that they keep
their form and get not distorted by the subdivision surface.

It's almost perfect, except the weird artifacts. i already tried to use
weighted normals which helps a bit but do not save the day.

Thanks in advance!

Just to illustrate Fowl's point.

You also need to bevel adjacent edges.
That way the bevel has enough geometry to work with.


Weight-painting hair particles I'm sure there's something simple I'm missing here. I'm new to Blender and I am following a short tutorial on Youtube regarding vertex groups and hair particles. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqRgaHMgf9g)

I follow the tutorial exactly, starting with a simple UV Sphere, giving it a color (Cycles Render is selected), creating vertex group that includes all of the vertices on the sphere, and assigning a weight of zero.

My problem arises here: he goes into the particle system settings and adds the vertex group to the Density control in the particle system's Vertex Group(2:03), and no hair particles show on the object. When I complete the same steps, the particles never go away. My vertex group has a weight of zero, and this is confirmed in weight paint mode, as the entire object is blue, but the particle system seems unaffected by the added vertex group. What am I doing wrong?

Your problem may lie in the fact that you used Cycles render while he tutorial is in, Blender render. This changes the UI and settings. Here is a video link by: Blender Guru, That hopefully may help you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_niVFliJ0E
You can change render engines after you have done the hair and it will keep what you have done.


How to make separate Lips control the mouth (Cavity) animation? I've create the lips using bezier curve and assigned bezier circle in the bevel object. There's a simple body with a cavity, I want the cavity boundary to follow the animation of lips, because Lips are made of bezier curve they are easier to animate, makes sense?

Any other suggestions?

As described in this answer: How can I make two objects share the same vertex?, you can use Hooks to drive the deformation.

In Edit mode select a vertex on the mesh.

Press the Space Bar, type "hook" and select "Hook to new object"
This will create an empty that controls that specific vertex.

Exit edit mode.

Select the Newly created Empty, and while pressing Shift select the curve to make it the active object.

Enter edit mode and select a control point in the curve that matches the vertex you want to control.

Press the Space Bar and type "vertex", select "Make Vertex Parent" (or Pres Ctrl+ P)
Now the control point in the curve moves the empty, and that in turn controls the vertex on the mesh.

Repeat the process for the rest of the vertices in the mesh so that you can control them with the curve.


Having a collision object. How to kill particles from a defined source? I have two independent objects (P1, P2) with particle system on each of them. I have another object (C1) with collision and option kill particles enabled. Is there a way to configure C1 so that it only kills particles originating from P1, while sparing particles originating from P2?

You can let particles Die on Hit by enabling this feature for one of your P object.
Collision object with Kill Particles option can do the same, but there is not a possibility to restrict it for a specific particle system - it works globally.
Particle System Properties > Physics > Deflection > Die on Hit

Or you can let collide particles with specific group of objects via Collision Collection.


Have mouse wheel move the viewport camera instead of zooming Is there a way to have the mouse wheel move the viewport camera, rather than just zoom it (currently it just changes the FOV)? Unreal Editor does this and I find it a lot easier to use than Blender.

One super fast way to dolly a currently selected camera, whether it is currently being viewed though or not, is to press 'g', 'z', 'z', and then drag the mouse in the viewport. The last 'z' switches the constrained axis to the Local Z, instead of the Global Z. It likewise would suffice to switch to Normal space before doing this, in which case only one press of 'z' is needed. Same goes for Local space. In fact, it doesn't matter whether you have your transform space currently set up as Local or Normal, at least not in this case, since either with work with just 'g', 'z'. If you instead remain in Global transform space, and don't want to switch into one of the others, that's the only time when 'g', 'z', 'z' will be necessary.

Note: There is a more specialized way to move the camera along its depth axis. With the camera selected AND currently looked through, you can press Shift-~ and this will put you in "free look mode" in Blender 2.8. This is the same as the older feature from Blender 2.79 that was accessed with Shift-F. Once in this mode, you can use the WASD keys to move around the scene. However, it's very slow at putting the camera anywhere new, so I prefer the 'g', 'z', 'z' method.


How to fill a loop with faces? I have this mesh that I cut the top half off. Now I want to like fill it all around with faces and wonder what tool I could use for that?

If you want more control, select 2 facing nodes and press F till you have filled all the couples with faces.

Check this video: I just pressed F many times:


Is my AMD Radeon R5 m335 able to render in Blender? Is this a GPU? Im using Blender 2.78c and where I have seen in many tutorials people can select their graphics card in the User Preferences>System by clicking CUDA. I only have the option to click OpenCL and when I do it says only Hanain under it.

CUDA is used on Nvidia Cards. AMD Radeon cards use a different kind of hardware.

You can only use Open CL (and live with its limitations).

The Option "Hainan" is the correct and only option you have.

AMD cards appear in blender with the code name used for the GPUs architecture.

As an alternative you might want to try using other render engines other than Cycles, as explained in this post:
Alternative Render engines can I use instead of Cycles for AMD Radeon GPUs?


How would you select the outer edge of a hideously fragmented terrain? So I have a giant model of Kansas City, MO with buildings and terrain and I need to 3D print it. (I'll be doing it in chunks) The terrain is flat, however, so my goal is to extrude the outer edge down so I can give it a bit of thickness for the print. This is where the problem begins.

When I use "ALT+(right click)" to select the outer edge of the model to extrude, it skips around selecting apparently random lines, some of which aren't even connected. Not sure how that works, but okay.

After closer inspection, I realized that the model is full of vertices which are adjacent to lines, but don't technically connect. So when the above selection is moved down slightly, this happens:

Not ideal.
So my question is this: Is there a way to select the outer edge of my model without manually doing it edge by edge? Failing that, how would I go about cleaning up this monstrosity so that my original strategy would work as it should?

Because it is rectangular, you can just go into an overhead ortho view, and use box select (B) with vertex selection mode enabled.

Once you've selected it once, go ahead and make a vertex group out of it. Click the add button, then assign the selected vertices to it. Now, you can select those vertices simply by hitting "select" in the vertex group panel.


Not possible to move vertices on Z axis I created a mesh by using the mirror modifier. I cannot move the vertices of that object on the Z axis after applying the modifier.

What am I doing wrong?

You have scaled your object incredibly small and to zero on the Z-Axis. If you ALTS in Object Mode (to remove scale) and then either zoom out, or hit the Home you will see your model again and can edit if further in Edit Mode.


How can I clone part of the texture? I'm working on an axe. I've modelled the axe and am working on texturing it. I unwrapped the texture and inserted a picture into the UV image editor and made the mesh fit the picture. The only problem is there is a white gap in the texture, and I want to clone part of the texture to the white gap. I've seen this done on youtube with a texture painting tool or something like that, but when I try it, it doesn't seem to work.

Here is a screenshot of it

http://imgur.com/A7UfQKl -

Thanks to anyone that replies :D

To use the clone brush :

Select the clone brush in the paint tools
Ctrl+LMB to set the origin of what to clone from (the 3D cursor is set at this origin)
Then simply paint on the target position

Painting with a strength set to 1 is often better, but it depends on what you want.

If you want to clone from a picture that is not in the current model, you may need to set this picture on another mesh then join the two meshes, as this tool does not handle to clone parts that are outside of the painted mesh.


How do you hide the ends of a plane? I am trying to make an environment (using a plane for the ground) and I need to hide the ends of the plane. I have tried adjusting the size but i need to make it ridiculously wide to hide the ends.
Currently:

What I'd like to achieve (without changing the scale of the plane):

The above image is if i scale the plane a lot by the y axis. What could I do?

When making landscapes  things to consider 1ST - Very Important - Your Camera angle and your camera view. How much of the Landscape is going to be visible thru your camera only make and entertain the Landscape till there. 2nd - Each and every 3d landscape you see are overlaid / Overlapped onto one another so that there boundaries just disappear somewhere while overlapping and then further covered with additional rock/plant/grass/debris etc details.
Consider this your landscape and think about what I mentioned above.


How to affect particle size over time? I'd like to spawn particles that change size over time. It would be nice if I could have complete control over how big they are at each percentage of their lifetime, but that is not a necessary feature. (I'm rendering the particles as objects.)

Here is the method to increase the particles size through time, as explained by BlenderShortTests in one of his tutorials:

Select your emitter and go to Properties > Particles, click New.
In Properties > Particles > Render, click Object and choose the object that will be emitted as particles and its size.
Go to your 3D view and press alt A to launch a preview of your emission animation, then stop it somewhere in its course.
In Properties > Particles > Textures, add New and give it a name.
In Properties > Textures > Type, choose Blend.
In Properties > Textures > Colors, click Ramp.
In Properties > Textures > Mapping > Coordinate > choose Strand/Particles.
In Properties > Textures > Influences, unclick Time and enable Size.
In Properties > Textures > Colors, play with the Ramp controller to increase or decrease the size of your emitted object through time.

The video also explains how to make a fade out effect on the particles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67024UyCZ6A


How to Mirror After Starting Sculpt with MultiRes Modifier I recently ran into the need to retopologize the body mesh of the character below so I could connect the body to the head (I needed to make the edge loops have the same number of vertices). This is where I realized a major problem.

I had been using a multires modifier and I had already begun my sculpt. I figured all I needed to do was delete one half of my mesh and use a mirror modifier across the x-axis so my new topology would be symmetrical.

Upon following this obvious method all was looking great. Besides some splitting between the meshes, it looked like I could apply the mirror modifier.

BUT THEN, I discovered that the mirror modifier does not play well with the multires modifier. And that you can't move the mirror modifier above the multires modifier in the stack. It seemed this mesh without my sculpting detail was unavoidable if I was using a mirror modifier.

Then I tried to mirror the mesh manually in edit mode by duplicating (SHIFT+D) and scaling by -1 on the x-axis. To my dismay, this resulted in all of the normal mapping from my sculpts being inverted. I tried to resolve this for hours.

It finally occurred to me to try to mirror from object mode under the "tools>transform" panel. So I duplicated my original body mesh and tried just that.

PRESTO! I got what I needed, and I won't have to worry about losing sculpting detail because of pesky mirror modifiers! All that is left after this step is to join the "body" and "body.1" meshes and merge any duplicate vertices.

I primarily wanted to post this as a help to others, but also to ask whether there are any easier work-arounds to this issue. If anybody knows an easier way to deal with this problem, your explanation would be greatly appreciated.

This may be out of date, but quick tip - if you mirror a mesh by scaling -1, you can then reverse the normals via 'recalculate outside' or 'flip normals'
see:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/mesh/normals.html#recalculate
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/mesh/normals.html#flip
You may also be able to work around this by changing the order of the modifiers in the stack.


How to fix blank space on the bottom of lighting HDRs I downloaded this an hour ago and cannot figure out for the life of my how to get rid of this gap. I would REALLY appreciate some help. The only way to hide it is to put the camera right on the ground and point it upward, but it looks terrible because the grass covers the entire camera. Am I missing something?

What you are seeing is blank space not stored in the HDR. Since the lighting received from the ground in real life is actually quite minimal, this information is not included in order to save memory. Usually you will have an environment providing those reflections in your scene instead.

To get around this issue, you can do a few things:

Change the camera angle
Rotate everything away from the horizon
Add some horizon elements
Use a different HDR

Camera Angle:

Move the camera so that the black is no longer visible

Rotate Objects:

Just rotate the whole scene so it is angling towards the camera

Horizon Elements:

These could be mountains, trees, hills, etc.

Now you mention that you do not like the camera angle when moved very low, and I understand that. Really your only option is to (if you have the purchased version) add a different HDR, or add some horizon elements like trees, mountains, etc. A scene that consists of just a house on a hill can be somewhat amateurish, as beginners do not like to add nature to their architecture renders.

Do a little more research, and you will find that almost all the powerful Arch Viz images are closer, and have convincing surrounding elements. I think that maybe this issue will help push you to explore more creative angles and environment choices. Such will only result in a more powerful result.

If you still want to use your original idea, I would recommend making whatever would be on the other side of the valley, or over the hill. Having some atmospheric fading distance wise will really help sell the effect, making it more believable that it is on a hilltop.


UV mapping lost when joining mesh I have several meshes all using the same material, UV mapped and ready.
When I join some of them, one of them loses its UV map entirely.

I checked that all meshes joined doesn't have any modifiers and that scale and rotation has been reset.

Any ideas of how to fix this?

Blender 2.76b

When joining already uwrapped objects, you have 2 options:

UV maps before joining objects were called equally

The default name for UV map after it's created is "UVMap". If it wasn't changed or if both objects have this map renamed so objects still has UV map called the same, after joining it will become one UV map:

All the islands of both objects will be added on this UV map as they were in original maps. So most likely they will overlap and it may be desired to pack and / or organize them in some way.

UV maps before joining objects were called differently

Resulting object will have as many UV maps as there were ones with different names (in example below 2).

All the islands are on their original maps and there isn't any overlapping. This may be desirable in some cases (e.g. baking). Note though that one object may have no more than 8 UV maps.


How to rotate the 3D manipulator to match object's rotation? I'm having a problem with the 3D manipulator in Blender when I look at an object from the top view (Numpad 7).

The 3D manipulator is not following the rotation of the object, instead the red and green arrows are going diagonally.

Please see attached picture. Can I change it so that arrows match the object's rotation?

Make sure your Transform Orientation is set to Global


Adding specific uv map to UVMap node in python script I am trying to create a script that at one part of it select a specific UV from the active object
(e.g. Cube object ⇒ 'UVMap_final')
I have managed to create the new node using:
uv_map_node = bpy.context.object.active_material.node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeUVMap')
But I cannot understand how to select and assign a UV to this node.
Appreciate the help!

If you have enabled Developer Extras in the preferences, you can see the attribute name linked to the field while hovering over it : uv_map

The field is a StringProperty, meaning you have to set it to a str value. It doesn't matter if it doesn't exist yet on the object data. If it doesn't it will be filled with red.
See :
import bpy

uv_map_node = bpy.context.object.active_material.node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeUVMap')
uv_map_node.uv_map = "test"

uv_map_node2 = bpy.context.object.active_material.node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeUVMap')
uv_map_node2.uv_map = "UVMap"


Why is there no light passing through the window? I have attached a screen shot of no light passing through the window. The light strength is high, and the glass material I think is good. Why is there not a pinch of light passing or traveling inside the room. In the image the window glass is all black. What is missing in my nodes, so that light can travel inside the room?

You have to add a bit to the glass shader to make light pass through it, like it would through a window.
Try using this node setup, works really well for architectural glass:


How can edge rings be selected in a predictable way? When trying to select multiple edge-rings Shift-Alt-RMB sometimes loops get selected in the one (green) way or the other (red) way.
I couldn't derive a general rule.

How can two or more face-rings following one direction be selected ?

(Easy to reproduce with a default torus mesh.)

The direction is determined from the edge your mouse is over when you click.

ShiftAltRMB clicking an edge will select the face loop perpendicular to the edge clicked:


Do some Bone Constraints only work with Root Bones? While the Floor and Limit Distance constraints work well with the root bones of an armature. I don't get them to work with other non root bones. Is there any reason for that or do I miss a detail?

In this setup the armature shown on the right has a Limit Distance constraint when moving the slider Distance the whole armature moves. What I would like to achieve is that the tip is moving but a constraint at the right tip targeting the left tip seems to have  no effect.

The Limit Distance constraint influences the location of the bone. All the bones (except the root bone) are children of another bone in the armature. Because of this you cannot move them (the location is also greyed out in the properties panel). If you want to allow the tip to move, you should un-parent the tip, create an IK constraint on the bone beneath it, and target the tip bone. That should make it work.


Perform assembly/alignment of two objects Firstly, I am new to blender and have never used it until now, I search for something similar but couldn't be able to find. For my thesis, I am working with .STL files and I have a question about whether it is possible to make an assembly process between two objects using the mesh vertex's. What I want to do is place the selected vertices (image 1) coincident and perform the assembly as I make here (image 2).

image 1:

image 2:

I wrote a script in python to perform that "assembly" but im checking if there is a software capable of do that because it is more user-friendly and there is a thing that blender does that I need: when I move the object to any place in space, when I export that file, he puts new coordinates . So what I need is to guarantee that I can perform the correct alignment of the two objects in blender and that's ok!

Thank's for the attention

One easy way is to use vertex snapping and the origin point.

Make sure your sphere is oriented correctly.
Enable Vertex snapping > Median
Check Only origins and snap your origin point to the top vertex. Then uncheck.
Select your sphere and snap it to the other object's top vertex

Snap the origin point to the top vertex

Snap the sphere to the other object's top vertex


Keyboard Sensor - how to put NULL (NO KEYS PRESSED) Keyboard Sensor - how to put NULL (NO KEYS PRESSED), i am unsure of how to change it to NULL or something so i can add idle animation

You need to setup your Logic Bricks like this:


Modelling fighter plane cockpit I'm trying to model a ww2 fighter plane but stuck at the cockpit. As we know it's made of metal bars with pieces of glass in between. Just wondering what's the common method for such models.

Shall I model the metal bars as solid first and add glass planes or is there a way to model them as a whole and then add some sort of transparent textures to it?

Thanks in advance!

There are many ways to do this, obviously.

I recommend, for the best result, to first model the whole cockpit, completely ignoring any seams and materials, just getting the shape perfectly right using subsurf and as many or few loops as you want to use.

Then, you can use the retopo tools in Blender to model a relatively fine mesh over this base-shape, fully concentrating on the right topology following the aluminium or glass surfaces. Because, through the retopology-tools (surface snapping), you don't have to worry about the three-dimensional shape at all, you will get one perfectly fitting mesh with the edge loops in the right places.

All you have to do then is to separate (Y > Split) the sections that are made out of different materials and give them some thickness through a solidify modifier or by hand. This way both the glass and the metal will look good from all angles because they have real thickness.

I actually wrote a blogpost about this a few years ago and made a screen capture of the process. The Blender Version is 2.49, but all techniques used there are still applicable today: Blogpost (Sorry, it's not a good tutorial, but maybe it helps in some way).


my object isn't being rendered the door to my fridge isn't being rendered

this is it in modeling area

and this is it rendered

how do i get it to render the door

Have a look at the camera icon of your door object in Outliner. If it fades in like this then it won't be rendered.

You can turn it on with a click on this stuff.


Is scaling to absolute zero a bad way to hide an element? Usually if I'm going to scale a polygon (for duplifacing) or a whole Object in order to reveal it smoothly during animation, I set 0 value as a float 0.0001.

It is still invisible for the eyes but annoying to setup in keyframes/drivers.

Should I continue to limit it every time or I can put a real 0 without a doubt and won't get any problems with rendering or exporting?

In my opinion, you are fine to use zero for a scaling factor for objects - those scaled meshes will simply be reduced down to a point, but with no actual loss of geometry; increasing the scale factor again will restore your mesh and while scaled down to a point will not be visible in your render.

However, for scaling faces, you will lose geometry by scaling down to zero in Edit mode - since all vertices will exist at the exact same point so there is nothing to 'scale back up'. Note though, that in this situation, even scaling down to a very small scale (but not zero) may introduce rounding issues with the vertices in your mesh when you scale back up again. The exception to this is if you are scaling the faces using a modifier (such as an Armature or Deform modifier) since the underlying geometry is not actually affected and so can be restored without distortion.


Child of constraint and moving rig in Object mode I have a character wearing a belt that's giving some problems. Here is the setup:

Several Empties are the children of vertices on the character
Each Empty then has a bone attached to it via the Child Of bone constraint
The Child Of constraints needs Set Inverse pressed or it offsets away
The belt mesh is controlled by these bones

So as the character moves, the belt moves with it. This all works just fine in pose mode. However, if put the character's rig (which the belt bones are a part of) into Object mode and move it, then the belt mesh moves in the opposite direction. This is fixed if I hit Set Inverse on the Child Of constraints again.

Normally this isn't a problem because if I am moving the whole character, I am going to do it in pose mode via the root bone, or if I'm moving all the characters objects, I move an Empty that all of its objects, including the rig, are child of. This all works fine.

The problem arises when I Link the character into a new scene and proxy the rig. Normally what I do is make the Linked character group a Child Of the proxied rig Object so that I an conveniently move them around (if you make the proxied rig a child of the group object, it behaves strangely.) But when I do this, my belt starts flying away again.

I know this problem is something to do with the parent/child hierarchy and the rig's object origin moving away in relation to the Set Inverse, so I experimented with different ways to set these objects up. What I've found is that if I proxy the Character's empty that I mentioned above, and make it a child of the rig proxy, then I can move the rig and everything works. But the linked group object has to NOT be a child of either, otherwise the problem comes back.

I've also tried making the belt objects the child of the rig object in the character's file, and making them a child of an empty that is a child of the rig object, and making them the child of the body object, but none of that works.

If anyone can explain to me exactly what is going on, or let me know a better way to fix or do this, or another way to rig this belt that doens't need child of, that would be great.

I've always found that parenting gear such as clothes, etc. to an armature bone would be sufficient enough to handle animating the character, armour, belts, etc. and also moving the character around in Object Mode all the same.

After testing the "Child Of" constraint on a simple mesh with a single armature and a "belt" (reshaped Sphere) I noticed the problem you described - the object always moves against the direction of the bone/armature.

All in all, I think it may be worth considering the option of directly parenting (Ctrl + P shortcut) the belt and other objects to the bone that controls them (i.e. via "Set Parent To" -> "Bone" option) and then other necessary parents (e.g. bone(s) to empty parent through "Set Parent To" option) and see if this method doesn't work better for you.


Blender 2.8 and Caustics in YafaRay and POV Hello dear Blenderheads,

It's a very technical problem here:

I'm working on a project and I need Caustics

Looks like it's very hard to obtain good Caustics in Cycles due to the nature of the rendering engine, so I'm looking for other renderers to fake a "Caustics Pass" and then composite all together with the rest of my scene

There are tutorials around the web that show how to render Caustics in YafaRay, and I like the idea but before I install YafaRay, Python and Addons on my Windows workstation, I'd like to be sure YafaRay and its Plugin are compatible with Blender 2.8x, 'cause can't find information about this

In case of YafaRay and 2.8x don't go very well together, is it a viable solution to use Persist Of Vision? The plugin is available in the Addons

Can i render animations with Yafaray of POV?

Any help is much appreciated...

LuxCoreRender is able to use bidirectional path tracing with CPU rendering that is more suitable to render caustics. It is also free and open source and its integration to Blender is alright. It is worth having a look.

It takes a long time, but it works. You need to select Bidir engine and Metropolis sampling seems to work best:


Why does a MixRGB node rotate my ColorRamp/mapping coordinates? Why does a MixRGB node rotate my ColorRamp/mapping coordinates?

The Fac is set to 0 so it should have no effect on anything at all. Also notice that the voronoi pattern is not rotated but the ColorRamp.

In both your cases, (with and without your Mix RGB node) you are casting a 3-component vector to a 1-component scalar Fac input to the Color Ramp node. But Blender nodes do this differently for RGB Colors, and XYZ Vectors.
The cast from Color to scalar is done with an implicit RGB to BW node; i.e. it uses the luminance of the color as its scalar result. The cast from Vector to scalar is done by taking the simple mean of the XYZ elements.
Since the Position output of your Voronoi node has a range of R and G values across the piece, varying exactly with X and Y in whatever texture-space you are using,  that explains the non-uniform interpretation of the colors as scalars across X and Y.
You could use a home-made 'Mix Vector' group, which would output a Vector, not a Color:

..but it would probably be better to find a way of achieving your desired effect without using the cast at all.