Access Denied trying to change io_scene_fbx/__init__.py is there any specific developer environment for scripts in blender?

I wanna change __init__.py inside

Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\scripts\addons\io_scene_fbx\

and I get access denied from windows

I wanna change

"version": (3, 6, 5),

to "version": (3, 7, 5),

but I would apply more changes

any idea?

There are several places blender looks for python scripts/addons:

MS-Windows
LOCAL
.\2.76\.

USER
C:\Documents and Settings\$USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\

SYSTEM
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\

Generally the system path isn't writable for a standard user, but naturally this depends on the platform and your specific configuration. Try copying the script to the user path (you may get warnings about duplicate addons).
The local path applies to versions of blender installed though an archive extracted anywhere on your system, as opposed to an installer or package. (e.g. for a local install on windows, the .zip download can be used)


How to change object color in viewport in 2.8? Is it possible in Blender 2.80 to change the color of objects in the viewport? Like this in the previous versions.


Can't find IOR and Density value nodes I can't find these two nodes (IOR and Density):

They are default Value nodes (Add> Input> Value), just renamed by user to make node-tree more "understandable".

Original node:

To rename any node open N-Panel in Node Editor window (press N) and type anything in Label field.

Renamed:


console warning: "Too many lights in the scene !!!" Every time I switch back to my Layout workspace I get a flood of messages saying:

Too many lights in the scene !!!

Everything seems to be rendering fine.   I do have some simulated "LED light arrays" in my scene.  Is this a serious problem or should I ignore this?   How many lights are too many?

For questions like this please indicate what render engine you are using. Eevee has a limit of 128 lights in a scene.
Read:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/eevee/limitations.html
Also, for simulated LED arrays you might want to consider a single texture as part of an emission shader.
How to give an image or video a TV screen effect?
and
How to control many tiny lights


Why are my loop cuts not consistent? I am trying to create a loop cut on the walls of a section of a house, however, it doesn't go all the way around. Ngons can't be the problem since I'm sure all faces are quads. However, it might be the orientation of the faces? Could it be the way I have a single-faced wall?

Blend file

Yes, it's the single-faced walls. You have some places where there are 3 planes sharing one edge. The loop tool can't create a loop past these places.  You need to model those walls - the ones where you just have a single plane - like you've modelled most of them, as a U shape.


Using extremely large objects and small objects in the same scene? I want to make a sci-fi animation, but whenever I make something like a planet to scale relative to a spaceship, I seem to be getting weird floating point inaccuracy errors. How do I handle a situation like this? Can I use false perspective? What about compositing two different scenes together? What is the "correct" way to handle a scene like this?
Here's a screenshot of what's happening(a 6.3 km radius sphere and a 20 m side cube).

There's weird vertex shifting in Cycles too:

As mentioned, another option is to use Forced Perspective. This is where an object's distance appears to be different to its actual distance due to how it appears and/or moves.
By placing an object in the middle-distance and parenting it to the Camera's location, it can move as if it were actually placed "at infinity" - so that it moves in relation to the background.
This can be achieved using the 'Child of' constraint with the settings set to enable Location but to disable rotation (since we want its position to be based on the viewpoint but not to be affected by the rotation of the camera).

Here's the result using the default cube and a default size icosphere placed at a slight distance. Note that I've added some static stars to the background to make it more apparent that the sphere is appearing static in relation to the background and making it appear more ‘planet sized’ since it doesn’t change as the camera moves around the foreground objects :

Blend file included for reference


How to apply custom lens distortion parameters to a rendered image? I want to render the depth map of a mesh I created from a 3D scanner. I already managed to render my image and it is nearly fine.

However, I also want to apply a lens distortion to my output (the image should appear as if it was created by a camera with certain parameters). All the camera parameters (K1, K2, P1, P2, K3) are known, but I can't find the option to enter them. I already spent quite some time studying the documentation, searching this site, and reading/watching tutorials. However, my settings/properties look quite different than in all explanations.

It should look somewhat like this:

(see How to determine lens undistortion values for motion tracking? or Tutorial on YouTube)

Instead, my settings look like this:

The distortion nodes "Lens Distortion" / "Movie Distortion" didn't really do the job as I have a more complex distortion model (radial and tangential up to order three).

Related similar question:
Customize blender camera distortion

You can enter the distortion data per loaded 'clip' in the 'Track' panel of Movie Clip Editor (N) and use a Movie Distortion node in the Compositor to distort your image based on the values:

I'd suggest go to the 'Compositing' workspace, enable 'Use Nodes', switch the editor type of the 'Timeline' to 'Movie Clip Editor', load any arbitrary image with the same aspect ratio, set your values for K1, K2 etc. and add a Movie Distortion node to your node stream in the compositor.


Shading issues on inside surfaces when using Boolean I am playing around with boolean operations, and having a shading issue on the inside of my mesh when using the difference operation to cut a section out.

I was able to fix most of my issues by using Auto Smooth as spelled out here, but this doesn't appear to affect the inside surfaces. Any suggestions for cleaning up the shading on the inside curved surface?

You could try shift  N to fix normals or removing doubles and if that does not work try adding an edge split modifier


Is there a way to utilize simple math operations for color correction? For me the currently available (2.79) color modifiers have limited capabilities.

To modify a HDR image which has RGB values beyond 0-1 (0-45 for eg.) I really miss an offset function which is basically adds or substracts values.

To write a pyhton script for color correction can't be very complicated I guess. I saw that there is a script node but according to the documentation it is only for plug OSL shading nodes and it is only for Cycle Renderer.

So is there a way to utilize simple math operations like +, -, /, * for color correction? Is it possible to create a color correction node without coding in C or C++?

Yes, you can use the Converter > Separate RGB and Converter > Combine RGB nodes to get access to each channel.

You get 3 streams of float values, on which you can do Converter > Math operations.

When you have build you node network, you can pack it into a Group node (CtrlG) and reuse this node in other projects (append or link from a library .blend or save the node to start-up .blend)


I don't understand how to import texture files in Blender So I downloaded a 3D model from https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/midas-fortnite-100-tier-s12-bp-skin-23ca8a5c57674b7d984e802e2ed4a436
I downloaded it because I recently downloaded Blender, And I figured out how to Import the .fbx but not the textures...
Can someone help me please?

When you try to import the FBX file into Blender (2.90) you get an error. The mesh is not bound to the armature and the materials are missing.
But the textures are included in a separate folder. They are Fortnite specific and some of them are multi-channel textures. I found some info about the Fortnite Texture Format on reddit. The letter at the end of the filename means:

_D = Diffuse (Base Color/ Albedo alternatively)
_M = Misc or Mask (Red Channel = AO, Green Channel = Rim, Blue Channel = Subsurface Coloring)
_S = Spec (Red = Spec, Green = Metal, Blue = Roughness) - Set to None Color Data.
_N = Normal (None Color, Invert Green Channel for OpenGL Normals in programs like Blender)
_E = Emission Texture (May need to seperate channels for different texture)
_FX = Effects Texture/Mask (Used to apply emission in particular areas, and effects while ingame).

With this info, you can solve the puzzle:

the yellow pistol has only a Normal texture.
the body has a Diffuse & Normal texture.
the head has a Diffuse, Effect (for the glowing left eye), and Spec multi-channel texture.
the hair has a Diffuse, Normal, and Spec multi-channel texture.

Now you just need to create 1 material for the gun and 3 materials for the model (body, head, and hair).
To assign the 3 different materials, select the model, switch to Edit mode, and hover the mouse over the head, and press L to select the loose parts. This will select the entire head. Then assign the selected mesh to the material. Repeat the step for the hair.
Finally, you just have to feed the Principled BSDF with the textures for the different materials. With the Separate RGB node you can split the multi-channel values.
Don't forget to select Color Space: Non-Color for the normal and multi-channel textures.


How do I have the vertices selected below extend to the edge at the far right side? Is there an automatic procedure that would connect the selected vertices to the white dots without using the knife tool to Individually connect them?

Thank you.

If your problem of creating several faces is as simple as shown in this picture, my suggestion would be to do this:

select all the vertices you want to form several quadratic faces.
hit F and create an n-gon
hit CTRL T to triangulate the faces, this results in your n-gon being converted to triangular faces.
hit ALT J to convert tris to quads. This tool is then trying to convert the triangles you've previously created into the quadratic faces you've probably wanted.

(If you end up with something messy from the convert tris to quads function, try to tweak the settings in the toolbar. )


How to add a modifier to a collection? My goal is to reduce the faces of an object using the decimate modifier.
The object I'm editing has lots of vertex groups.
Blender 2.8 only lets me add the decimate modifier to a single group at once which would take quite some time. I have already put all groups in a single collection.

How can I add the decimate modifier to the entire collection?

Do I have to add the modifier group by group?

You have to join the objects together and then apply the modifier and then you can separate by loose parts.
Or

Add the modifier to one object.
Select all the other objects and then the one with modifier last.
Then Ctrl+L to copy modifiers to all selected objects.


How do I select a set of Blender elements with a common characteristic? I'd like to be able to select in one operation a set of blender elements (vertices, edges, and faces) with a common characteristic, for example a certain value (or range of values) on a particular axis, or a set of elements which lie a specified distance from the designated pivot point. I know some particular instances can be accomplished by existing tools, for example, going to front or side view, one could use box select to obtain a set of vertices with a certain value of Z-axis co-ordinate, but I'm asking more generally. For example, to be able to select all edges of a certain length, or faces with a certain area.

For a mesh in edit mode with

vertex selection see the menu Select Similar.
face selection see the menu Select Similar Area
edge selection menu Select Similar Length
Many other options

Circle Select with the Letter C Selects a circular distance in 2D in many, not all, cases.
To select a ring, first select objects by radius A, then second scroll mouse wheel to smaller radius B, then press Middle Mouse to button to remove the middle.  A minus B (A - B)

Still in mesh edit mode, if you are making a selection repeatedly, consider creating a vertex group for that selection.

Suggestion.  For Objects only.  If you are making the same selection many times. Consider Grouping those objects and thus select group.  Or more drastically create a common parent and select children.


Importing Textures from other .blend files I recently downloaded a Model from blendswap, and I really like the Environmental Texture(HDRI) that they've used in their scene, but I don't seem to find it anywhere on my computer. Where can I find their HDRI, How can I use this HDRI in one of my own Blend files?

You can append all sort of things from one blend file to another. File>append>go to the file with what you want> enter it and you get a list (action, brush, camera..., texture), enter texture and you might find there. Other way, is to open the blend file with the HDRI, go to UV image editor, select the HDRI to view it, press F3 to export it, by doing that, you might edit it in external software, like Gimp, or similar.


Black reflections with Cycle's Glossy Material This is a common problem I've found in a few jobs related with ocean. When the camera is close to the surface, looking at the horizon, those black areas appear. Either with a normal texture or not.

It looks there's a problem with ocean's self reflection, but I can't avoid this by adjusting the bounces. Any ideas?

Here is the .blend file. As you can see, the environment is visible only through camera and glossy, and the problem keeps with a blank environment too. The scene is lit with a sun lamp and plain color environment.

I'm not completely sure what's causing this, I suspect it is just how Cycles works and is not strictly a bug - similar to the terminator issue.

In order to work around it, we can modify the surface normals slightly in the material:

From the manual:

  Incoming

  Vector pointing towards the point the shading point is being viewed from.

Thus adding a tiny bit of the Incoming vector will skew the surface normal just enough to hide the artifacts.

Note that changing the surface normal means our reflections will be incorrect - so we need to change it as little as possible, otherwise the reflections of objects and clouds will be noticeably weird.


How can I have objects in second scene be affected by lighting? I have an FPS, the weapon is a part of the HUD, and I want it to be affected by lighting in scene 1. I can have it be affected by sun and main things, but it wont work when your character moves and there's a spotlight or a point light. How could I make objects in other scenes be affected by lighting in the main level scene?

-I have gotten a great answer but no .blend; therefore, I will ask kindly for another answer.

Place steps, and a gif(Recommended: http://recordit.co/), and post a .blend. Try to avoid python as much as possible. Sorry this might be asking for too much, but the answer is sitting there, just do it. I want it to be the best type, that is, have it be affected even by walls in the first scene. In other words, I want the weapon to be JUST as it would be in the regular scene but another. Thanks!

One thing comes to mind:

Create the same light source in your second scene (weapons scene) at the same origin, with all properties being the same as the light source in the first scene.

Then save the transformation matrix of your camera from the first scene -> inverse the matrix -> and apply it onto the light source in the second scene.

This way the light source in scene2  will move according to the player movement (camera), and will affect the weapons in the correct way.

Now, to have even more realism, we would want to stop seeing the light affecting the weapon, when the player is outside the direct reach of the light source. The simplest solution would be, casting a ray from the 8 corners of the bounding box (bbox) of the player, towards the desired light source, if any of them gets to the light source without hitting any obstacle on the way (we assume no transparent objects), than some part of the player is still in the light, so we set a flag, like so: bool inLight = true.
This flag is used in the second scene, and we compute the light affecting the weapon, only if the flag is true...
Now if you like to be even more specific than that you can create a bbox in scene1, in the place where the weapon would be, and do the same procedure. However, I wouldn't bother going into so much detail in a game (keep it lighter), especially in a FPS game.
What I would do to achieve a similar effect for an FPS game is just cast a single ray from some offset from the front of the character (presumably where the weapon would be) and proceed with the check.

As for the ray-tracing check, in the case that you do not have a space partitioning algorithm (octree, kd-tree, etc), you would have to check the ray, brute force, against all objects (not very nice, especially in a game), so I suggest at least having a Bounding Volume Hierarchy to store the objects in your scene, as that would optimise things, and I strongly recommend using a spacial partitioning algorithm too. However prove that it works first, with the easiest way! Slow and correct is better than quick and wrong! Not always true for games though. ;)


How can I use the workbench engine on a headless server? I'd like to use the workbench engine on a remote headless server (linux). However, blender crashes giving me the following error:

Unable to open a display

Is this even possible?

PS: Please excuse the rather meaningless tag. However, neither headless, workbench or server exist as tags.

As of today, it is apparently not possible to render on a headless server, when using the Workbench or the EEVEE engine:

see dicussion here


Blender audio-visual don't sync First: Please don't flag this as a duplicate, because all the questions in the Stack Exchange don't even near answer my question.

So, I have a bunch of movie strips I want to combine in the VSE, as well as some audio, but when I render, the audio and visual are about a couple seconds out of sync. I have tried everything. Each video strip's sibling audio strip is the exact same length and the exact same frame rate, but it just won't work. I tried many different things, but it just won't work. It's important to note, that the individual source .avi clips appear to have this problem too. As well, all the different clips have the same audio and visual codecs etc. as each other. Here's a screenshot of the Video Sequence Editor:

http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=86933

Please note it still plays correctly within the preview. How weird.

One thing I have tried is to delete all the clips and re-import them, and that appeared to work until I figured out that they were all out of order. Re-arranging them sent me back to the drawing board. This sort of hints that they're interacting with each other, which really doesn't make sense if each individual video file has this problem itself.

I am using Blender v2.73.
The video codec for all clips and final output is H.264 and the audio codec for them is MP3. Boy, this is confusing.

Let me know if there's any crucial information I had forgot to add, let me know. Thanks to anyone who can help me with this ridiculous problem!

Highly compressed files can exhibit decompression errors, that is frame arrangement errors. And this can lead to Blender having a confused time stamp. In other words the h264 files can confuse Blender entirely.

Timecode:

Try creating a proxy/timecode for each video clip. You can just select timecode free run, and dont worry about a proxy.
This should help Blender allocate the correct frame to the clip's image sequence.

Re-compress:

Try changing or transcoding the source media to a frame sequence, this pretty much guarantees a correct time stamp for Blender.


How do I make a specular surface without reflections? I have tried to make it with a Glossy shader node. But I either get glossy with reflections or matte surface with small reflective details.

Gloss is essentially the same thing as specularity.  Glossy means that rays reflect off the surface at the angle of incidence (specular angle), producing a reflection.

From the Wikipedia page:

  Gloss is an optical property of a surface to reflect light in a specular (mirror-like) direction.

By definition, gloss (or specularity) will give you reflections, and thus “gloss without reflections” is a self contradicting statement.  So, short of some compositing tricks as sambler has explained in his answer, it isn't really possible to have gloss without reflections.

The roughness slider simulates miniscule roughness in the surface by scattering rays slightly away from the angle of incidence, giving the matte-like shading.


How to add another option to set object origin hotkey I have a script that sets the objects origin to the center and the lowest point in z of the object.

Everything works and I have it in my own custom tab under tools.

But how can I add it to the shortcut ctrl+shift+alt+c?

I have been able to add it other places (like the add mesh menu, although obviously not where I need it) but I cannot find any info on adding something to the set object origin menu.

Any help?

To adjust an existing menu, you need to start by finding the python class name of the existing menu you want to alter. You then create a function that uses the same argument list as a classes draw method and append it to the menu in bpy.types. You can see an example of this in the add object template script.

In the case of the set origin operator, the menu is created by the operator, it is based on an enum that appears to only exist in the C source code and isn't exposed to python, meaning it doesn't appear to be adjustable,

If you can't find the name of the menu, then you can create a replacement menu yourself. You would then create a shortcut that calls your menu and disable the original shortcut.

An example addon can be found here.


Rig Changing Poses By Itself I'm animating an action in blender using a rigify metarig, but it's acting weird. There are screenshots for each step so you can follow along and see clearly where things go wrong.

This is the first frame:

Ok, so far so good. Then, I move some bones and add another frame on frame 5:

Still good so far. Then it starts breaking. Without changing anything, if I go back to the first frame, the left arm bones are in a new pose I never made, but the loc/rot values are still the same as before:

If I move the left arm bones to a random position but don't overwrite the old keyframe:

Then it arutomatically goes back to the pose it's supposed to be in:

But then if I go back to frame 5, that one becomes broken instead!

I've made tons of animations on other model's before using rigify metarigs and this is the first time I've ever seen this. It's super frustrating and I need this for a class assignment. Does anyone know what the hell is going on here?

Nevermind, I fixed it. So, even though I was applying each keyframe with "whole character" I only ever had one bone selected while doing so. I tried doing the same thing with the entire rig selected and it didn't mess up. I'm not really sure what the correlation is between my issue and applying keyframes like that, or why I didn't need to do it that way for all my other animations, but what's fixed is fixed.


Why can't I snap curves vertices to vertices? Widgets with help of which you deforming curve became orange instead of red. And magnet is on and mode is set to vertices. But vertices can't be snapped to each other.

This is one of the cases where some Blender feature doesn't work properly until you Apply Scale.

Select the curves
Press CtrlA
Select Scale

The snapping should work fine then.


How can I combine multiple displace modifiers? I would like to create a scene where someone destroys an object (stone) with a pickaxe. With each hit the cracks are getting bigger until that stone will fall apart.

This is my plan for the cracks: I'd create 3 different images which show a procedure of these cracks. Then i'd use them in a displace modifier and try to adjust the timing when the pickaxe hits the stone.

But how can i combine two displace modifiers (i've used one for the stone itself, too) and make the cracks getting bigger and deeper?

Or is my way a bit too inconvenient. I think i could also try to use nodes, but i don't know which.

Though I think your project is better suited for shape keys here's a solution with displacement:

You can use multiple a displace modifiers on the same object, each one with a different image/texture as displacement and animate them separately.

Let's say you have 3 dsplacement maps:

By animating the strength on each one you can create transitions from one deformation to the next.


How to have the same coordinates for an object in Edit and Object Mode? I created an animated torus and afterwards I wanted to rotate it (and the animation) around the Z-axis of the world, so I used an Empty object , I made it parent of the torus and I rotated the empty.

I would like to have the new values of the keyframes after transformations and , it the same, the new values of coordinates of the tore's center in Object Mode like in Edit Mode.

In Object Mode it shows the old values!

I would also like to know:

Is it possible , after the transformation , to keep the new position (and animation) of the tore AND to delete Empty object?
Is it possible to do all this without to use Empty object? (easier of course!)

Thanks !

--the animation is a translation with many pauses, torus goes from (x,y,0) to (0,0,0) .

This is the torus before the rotation ( the coordinates are the same in Object Mode and Edit Mode )

After the rotation of the Empty object the coordinates are different between Object and Edit Mode

If I understand what you want, You can Apply Transformations, the object will stay in the same place but the origin will became the Center and location will be the (0,0,0).


Lost header in video editing I'm in the video editor.
I have closed the header by mistake, in the window where you put the videos.
I can't recover it. I need it because it contains "add strip" etc...
What to do to show it again?
Thanks.

Just click on the tiny drop down arrow to reveal the header again.


Why are trees appearing on objects with glossy materials? I’m not sure What it is? I’m trying to get a glossy shade to building in my scene as soon as I put roughness to zero I see these trees in glass. I have no trees in my scene anywhere, background is black. Even when I render I see these trees. How can I get rid of them and still keep my glossy building material.

Zero roughness will give you a mirror basically and the trees you are seeing are probably from HDRI image that's being used in the material preview view or if you have one loaded in your world settings. May I ask why you took a picture of your monitor instead of just screen capping and posting that I find this so odd?


Setting material node properties across a large number of objects? I'm using a Python script to generate a star-field using data from ~9k of the brightest stars (data is taken from here) Spheres are generated equidistant from the camera (eventually these will be filled circle billboards), and I'm hoping to adjust their magnitudes using an emission shader.

Is there a way to adjust the emission strength of each individual sphere without creating 9000+ separate textures?

My first run at the code was able to change the emission strength of the material, but it's changing it for all of the spheres each time. The code is below:

...
# Load star data from file
starData = np.loadtxt('/stars/catalog_text')
distanceMultiplier = 1000 * 5

# Create base stare
star1 = Star(starData[0])
starMesh = star1.getMesh()

# Duplicate mesh for every star in the data
i = 0
for star in starData:
    i += 1

    # Set Location variables from data
    magnitude = star[2]
    x = star[3] * distanceMultiplier
    y = star[4] * distanceMultiplier
    z = star[5] * distanceMultiplier

    # Set star magnitude from data
    # (convertMagnitude maps the magnitude value to an emission strength value in Blender)
    emission = bpy.context.active_object.active_material.node_tree.nodes.get("Emission")
emission.inputs[1].default_value = convertMagnitude(magnitude)

    # Create a copy of our base star
    newOb = starMesh.copy()

    # Assign unique name and location to mesh
    newOb.name = "star_" + str(i)
    newOb.location = (x, y, z)

    # Link mesh to the scene
    bpy.context.scene.objects.link(newOb)
bpy.context.scene.update()

There currently appears to be no way to have one material with different settings for each object using it. While an object knows what materials it uses, a material has no link back to the object using it, as a single material may be used by many objects there is also the trouble of choosing which object is currently active.

I see two ways to tackle your problem, one material for each object or a range of materials to be shared across objects. I think a range of materials with varying emission strengths could be generated and one chosen as each object is created. I'm not sure of the range of values in your data, but expect that emission values could be averaged out a bit so that magnitudes within a range could use the same material.

if magnitude >= 100 and magnitude < 200
    obj.material_slots[0] = bpy.data.materials['mag150']


Different Behavior on Different Faces With Procedural Texturing I applied a procedural texture on a cube where I want red to be higher than white. At the picture shown, the top face is correct but the front face is wrong. This is just at simple cube, all normals are facing outward.

Insert a displacement node between the height value and the output.

This displacement node will calculate the direction appropriately considering the given height. Here you need to scale it negatively in order to have white higher than red.


How to make Inflow object not impact the fluid simulation? I'm trying to render an animation of water dancing. I'm using an animation and a character from Mixamo and designated it as the inflow object. The simulation works and follows the character just fine but I want to omit the character in the render so that it's just the water alone. So far I've tried making the character transparent but we can still see it in the render.

Any help is very much appreciated :)

After you've baked the simulation you just disable the inflow object entirely from the render. Click the camera icon in the upper right "Outliner" panel.


How do I add a camera so that it moves along a path while focusing on an object with Python? How do I add a camera and script it so that it moves along a path while focusing on one object?
I would also like to know how to have it rotating around the origin where one of the main objects of interest sits.

Basic example using a circle based on Cegaton's setup from here.

Add the primitives and a camera. Assign each object reference to a new variable and add a Follow Path and Track To constraint using Object.constraints.new() method. Finally set all the constraint properties, eg. assign the variables to the FollowPath.target or set TrackTo.up_axis to 'UP_Y':

import bpy

# Add Suzanne
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_monkey_add(size=2)
suzanne = bpy.context.object

# Add Circle
bpy.ops.curve.primitive_bezier_circle_add(radius=10)
circle = bpy.context.object

# Add Camera
bpy.ops.object.camera_add(location=(0, 0, 0))
camera = bpy.context.object

# Follow Path Constraint
fp_constraint = camera.constraints.new('FOLLOW_PATH')
fp_constraint.target = circle

# Animate Button
bpy.ops.constraint.followpath_path_animate({
    'constraint':camera.constraints["Follow Path"]
    }, constraint='Follow Path')

# Track-To Constraint
tt_constraint = camera.constraints.new('TRACK_TO')
tt_constraint.target = suzanne
tt_constraint.up_axis = 'UP_Y'
tt_constraint.track_axis = 'TRACK_NEGATIVE_Z'


How to offset the texture coordinates of an object with an array modifier for mapping an image texture? I'm trying to model some house siding. I'm using a single board with an array modifier. The problem is that when I go to texture them I can only texture the first one, and they all have the same texture. How can I offset the texture so that each new board on the array modifier has a different texture?

Here's a picture:

All the boards are an array from a single board, and I'd like to be able to offset the texture for each new board, but have no idea how. Here's the texture I'm using (Image 2). http://tinyurl.com/poyjn4u (CGTextures)

I'd also (preferably) not have to apply the array modifier before offsetting the textures, but if that's not possible, that's fine.

Edit: The duplicated question does in no way answer my question, and is quite different. The only detailed answer is referring to generated textures, I'm using an image texture. Please explain how my question is answered in the other question marked as duplicate.
The previous person who asked a similar question to mine commented on the first answer that he could work with generated textures, I cannot use generated textures in this situation.

It needs a little tuning and tweaking with the y-location and y-scaling in the mapping node, but I think this would work:

Unwrap one board and make that board cover the complete image texture in the UV-image editor
Make an array with offset along the y-axis
Add a material to the mesh, with diffuse, image texture, mapping and texture coordinates (generated) as the image and tune and tweak the y-location and y-scaling in the mapping node.


How can i get a proper reflection on a material without a background or another objects? i'm trying to make a shining/reflection material but i don't need to add any other object to the scene/layer, is there any way in order to do this? or should i add objects and then just hide them from the render?

Reference (as you can see, there are lights/reflections but not other objects)

Or, more realistic 'metal' like this?

In Cycle render engine you have an option to disable direct visibility of the objects to the camera.

Open Object Data tab and in Ray Visiility section disable this option on all the objects that you want to be invisible in render.

You can do the same with the background in World tab.


Applying an image with an alpha mask to a plane I want to place a png file floating over my 3D model's face to create eyes. I've placed the image on a plane that I've UV unwrapped.

The problem I have is that when I render the image, you can see straight through his head.

How can I achieve the desired result?

I'm new to blender so go easy :)

This looks like bad alpha sorting in the viewport. It should be fine in the rendered view.

Essentially, Blender's old GLSL viewport has pretty mixed results with drawing transparency. this should be fixed in the new 2.8 Eevee based viewport.


Can I snap an objects so their edges line up? I want to make the cube snap precisely to the corner of the plane, so it looks like this image:

(This was done manually and is not a precise snap, just an idea of what I want to accomplish)

I'm using the plane as a sort of "foundation," then building on top of it with cubes. I want to be able to snap a cube to each corner.

Blender's snapping mechanism has given me trouble in the past, and I want to know what the best way to do this is.

I not sure what problems you have had in the past with blenders snapping in the past but I'd personal use the snapping options here as I believe it'd be the fastest and most simple way to get it done. I apologize in advance if you were tying to avoid the snap tool completely for some reason.

My solution:

Set the snap element to vertex, by using the button next to the snap button on the 3D views header bar OR press ctrl+shift+tab to bring the snapping options menu up by it's shortcut.

Select the cube. Press G to enter grab/move mode. Hold ctrl down and point the plains lower right vertex and click to confirm the move.

If it all went right the cube should be perfectly aligned to the corner. If you duplicate it then hold ctrl and point to another corner it should make a new copy and snap it to whatever corner you point to.

Note on How snapping works in blender:

When snapping two elements together blender will try and snap the closets points together, from where The moved object starts.

So if your cube is above and to the left of the vertex you are trying to snap to, The cubes bottom right vertex will be the closest point and that will be the part that snaps into position.

I hope I've explained this all clearly and that it helps you out! good luck!


What is the right polygon count? Firstly, I was surprised I did not find a thread like that here(I hope I did not miss it.)

So what is the right number of polygon count or better triangle count, since this is what BGE renders from what I've read.

Is there a max tris count number that I should not exceed?
Is there a default tris count number for
small(ornaments)/medium(furnitures)/big(houses/terrains) that I
should be aware of? Experienced BGE users should propably have an
idea. Or do I keep checking till the fps drops and try to dissolve
meshes afterwards?
Objects in different layers or stand-by scenes that might appear
briefly or not appear at all in the game affect the fps? For example,
meshes in different layers that replace other meshes through
actuators or meshes in overlay scenes that get added briefly and are
removed/suspended afterwards.
And at last. Objects with dynamic physics or objects with animations
or characters with armatures or in general objects that interact with
one way or another, do they need lower poly count than a similar one
that would not act like the above and let's say would remain static
and act as a decorative level asset?

I really think there is a connection in the 4 above question-points. If you doubt it I can split them to more questions. My search so far has shown that there might not be a definite answer but more experienced users can judge better.

Is there a max tris count number that I should not exceed?

Nothing you need to worry about it. I'm sure nobody managed to get that many vertices that hit that limit and can still use Blender. Remember you have limited memory ;).

  Is there a default tris count number for small(ornaments)/medium(furnitures)/big(houses/terrains) that I should be aware of?
  No

  ... do I keep checking till the fps drops and try to dissolve meshes afterwards?

It is the purpose of profiling to identify bottlenecks. It depends how much effort you want to investigate in it.

  Objects in different layers or stand-by scenes that might appear briefly or not appear at all in the game affect the fps?

Not loaded scenes just cost disk space.

Inactive objects (residing in hidden layers) just cost memory and load time, but no processing time while the game is running.

Added Objects need additional processing time to get added (which just a little). After that they are treated as normal objects.

  Objects with dynamic physics or objects with animations or characters with armatures or in general objects that interact with one way or another, do they need lower poly count than a similar one that would not act like the above and let's say would remain static and act as a decorative level asset?

Every detail causes costs in one way or the other. If you do not need a detail it is more efficient to skip that detail.

Example: A tree can have a lot of polygonal details for rendering but much less regarding physics. Other details are better presented in a texture rather then lots of polygons.

In general it is better to care such things when you have performance problems. Otherwise you spend time on aspects that might not be relevant to your situation.

Surely this is different when working on large projects, with several team members, strict budget and deadlines. Even than you will hit performance issues.


How to remove this blue edge selection? I have used bevel, boolean and many modifiers I have forgotten. The problem is the edge and is blue in color. What edge selection is that? I have cleared seams and checked mean crease is 0. So may I know what is this edge select mark in blue and how to remove it?

To fix this follow these steps:

Go into 'Edit Mode' and select all Edges by pressing 'A'
Press 'CTRL + E'
Click 'Clear Sharp'


Translate blend file to python How can I get equivalent python code for a created blend file from blender. I want to generate java code for corresponding python code of a blender. I am unable to get python code of blender file either inside or outside the blender.

Blender has no facility to write a .blend file as a series of Python instructions.

For limited uses you could write your own script (Its been done before for rigify armatures for eg), but for the entire blend file this becomes a large task.


How to use a negative driver value when scaling? I am working on 2d project and need to scale a plane using driver with a scale variable ,but when the value of driving transform channel is -1 the driver value is still positive and equal 1 . It seems like there is no way in blender to make negative driver value when variable is Scale transform.  Is it a bug? How can I get the negative driver value when scaling?

Instead of using a Transform Channel, consider using a Single Property when you need to get the exact value of some property:


Sound won't play from Python script I get the error AUD_FileFactory: File couldn't be read. Other files from same path will work. Logic Brick works on the same file.

Using Blender 2.79 on Windows 7. Any ideas ?

Without further information on the audio file it is hard to help. Since the error seems to originate from the file maybe just opening it in any audio manipulation software like audacity and exporting it in a known file type like wav appears to be the best option. Also, you will know whether your file is damaged if other software can't handle it either.


Blender Background Image Issue Background Images are not showing up in the other views other than the camera view. It will show in the camera view but not in the other orthographic views. I have tried switching the set view that the image is visible in and increasing opacity to 1.0. I am in orthographic view when I am attempting this.

Here are the specs for my computer that I am aware of:

Blender Version: 2.78
Image format: jpeg
Graphics Driver: NVIDIA
OS: Windows 8.1

Edit: Here is an image of the setup. Nothing is changed except for the preset view (using left in this case).

Works fine for me in all views using 2.78 build 2016-8-11. On Windows no special driver and I have a sucky standard display chipset that gives me OpenGL grief. You're sure that its in Ortho mode?


Why does the parent go haywire, when the child's rigid body physics is set to "animated"? Backstory:
Hey, I simulated a rollover-crash using rigid body physics. To top it all off, I wanted to smash one of the windows after the crash, using the fracture modifier.

All objects of the car including the window, are children of the main-parent.
I've set the street, and the ramp to passive. And the main-parent of the car to active.

The crash consists out of two parts: The animated part, and the simulated part. The crash goes from animated to simulated by animating the checkbox "animated" in the rigid-body-settings to unchecked.

My problem:
When I executed the fracture on the window, It would start falling apart right at frame one. Since I wanted it to happen after the crash, I decided it shall go from animated to simulated much later than the main-parent. But once the main-parent goes into the simulated part, while the window is still in the animated, the car goes crazy. Like a glitch, or an extreme epileptic seizure.

I have no idea why it does that. When the window goes into the animated-part at the same time, or even before the main-parent, it's completly fine. I'm out of ideas, of why that happens.

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fracture modifer, but there aren't many settings I changed. I've set the shard count to 100, executed the fracture, and animated the checkbbox. That's it.

I still don't know why it does that, but I have found a way to perfectly avoid this bug.

Suprisingly, is has nothing to do with the fracture modifier, or the child, but instead with the rigid body simulation.

In order to avoid this bug, 2 small steps are required:
1) After simulating the rigid-body-physics, the simulation must be baked.
The settings for that are not in the "Physics" tab, but in the "Scene" tab.

2) After baking, the simulation must be "baked to keyframes"
The settings for that aren't in the "physics" tab nor in the "scene" tab, but in a place entirely else. Both tabs are in the Editor-type "Properties".
But all the way on the other side in the so called "3D View Tools pane", in the "Physics tab" are the settings needed.

After these 2 steps are done, the rigid body settings in the "physics" tab can be closed, because the simulation is now an animation. The fracture modifier and the rigid-body phsyics on all children now work the way they schould.


How to mirror a mesh on x-axis on pivot point with python? I've an object with pivot point in the centre (0,0,0). I want to mirror it by python on the x-axis and do it for all objects in my current scene.

I tried this, but the second line seems not to be applied:

def mirror_object_along_x(obj):
  bpy.context.scene.objects.active = obj
  bpy.ops.transform.mirror(constraint_axis=(True, False, False), constraint_orientation='GLOBAL', proportional='DISABLED', proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1)

Or I tried also this but then the indices of the generated triangles are in the wrong order:

def mirror_object_along_x(obj):
  obj.matrix_world[0][0] *= -1

I found this answer here:

How to use a pivot point to mirror mesh with script

But it also doesn't work. I'm using Blender 2.79a.

UPDATE

To be more specific. I want to:

Loop all objects in my current scene and mirror them on the x-axis. The original object shall not be there anymore but only the mirrored one.

I try to use the approach form @batFINGER and it looks like that right now:

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Matrix

def mirror_object_along_x(obj, axis):
  '''Mirrors the x-coordinates of the object.'''
  '''obj:  the object to be mirrored'''
  '''axis: the axis to mirror the object on => x, y, z = 0, 1, 2'''

  transformationMatrix = Matrix.Scale(-1, 4, Matrix.Identity(3)[axis])
  pivotPointGlocalCoordinates = bpy.context.scene.cursor_location

  objectData = obj.data
  newBmesh = bmesh.new()
  newBmesh.from_mesh(objectData)

  bmesh.ops.transform(newBmesh, matrix=transformationMatrix, space=Matrix.Translation(-pivotPointGlocalCoordinates), verts=newBmesh.verts)

  # recalculate the normals
  bmesh.ops.recalc_face_normals(newBmesh, faces=newBmesh.faces)
  # write to mesh
  newBmesh.to_mesh(objectData)
  objectData.update()
  newBmesh.clear() # clear for the next one
  newBmesh.free() # free the memory used by bmesh

def main():
  for obj in bpy.data.objects:
    if obj.type == 'MESH':
      mirror_object_along_x(obj, 0)

main()

Simple mirror in place about origin

To mirror about the X axis (the ZY plane) at the origin is a simple matter of negating the x vert coordinate (v.co.x = -v.co.x or v.co.x *= -1)  Sample script run in edit mode, mirrors all verts.

import bpy
import bmesh

context = bpy.context
ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
for v in bm.verts:
    v.co.x *= -1

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

Matrices

Check out the layout of a transform matrix an example of which it the 4x4 matrix ob.matrix_world .   Just setting the matrix value to -1 as shown in question will not work as expected in all cases.

A transform matrix T to mirror on x axis would be identity with T[0][0] = -1  Or a scale matrix T = Matrix.Scale(-1, 3, (1, 0, 0))

T = Matrix.Identity(3)
T[0][0] = -1
bmesh.ops.transform(bm,
        verts=bm.verts,
        matrix=T,
        space=Matrix.Translation(-pp))

Where pp is the point on x axis about which to mirror, Can exclude (as it's default) when mirroring about the origin pp = Vector((0, 0, 0)) or since it's default pp = Vector().

Another example from py console run in object mode, will mirror mesh about axis by transforming vertices of the mesh.vertices collection

>>> T = Matrix.Scale(-1, 4, (1, 0, 0))
>>> C.object.data.transform(T)
>>> C.object.data.update()

On an object level

>>> C.object.matrix_world *= T.to_4x4()

Finally to mirror about some arbitrary pivot point, will need to translate such that the pivot point is the origin, mirror,  then translate back.  This is the equivalent object level result of changing space in a bmesh operator with the translation matrix.

>>> pp = Vector((3, 0, 0))
>>> A = Matrix.Translation(-pp) * T * Matrix.Translation(pp)
>>> C.object.matrix_world *= A

this may quite likely invert some normals that will need to be fixed later.

Putting it together to mirror each mesh about a designated axis using the scene scene cursor location as pivot point, and correcting the normals. Run this script in object mode.

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix
import bmesh

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
pp = scene.cursor_location # in global coords
mesh_obs = (o for o in scene.objects if o.type == 'MESH')
bm = bmesh.new()
axis = 0 # x, y, z = 0, 1, 2
T = Matrix.Scale(-1, 4, Matrix.Identity(3)[axis])
for ob in mesh_obs:
    me = ob.data
    bm.from_mesh(me)
    lpp = ob.matrix_world.inverted() * pp # pivot point local coords
    bmesh.ops.transform(bm, matrix=T, space=Matrix.Translation(-lpp), verts=bm.verts)
    # recalculate the normals
    bmesh.ops.recalc_face_normals(bm, faces=bm.faces)
    bm.to_mesh(me) # write to mesh
    me.update()
    bm.clear() # clear for the next one.
bm.free() # free the mem used by bmesh

Bmesh Mirror operator

bmesh.ops.mirror(...)

Test script run in edit mode. Will mirror the whole mesh on x to the scene cursor location's local x location.  Creates new geometry as the mirror.  Remove the original to only leave the mirrored result.

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix
from math import radians, degrees
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

pp = ob.matrix_world.inverted() * scene.cursor_location
bmesh.ops.mirror(bm,
        geom=bm.faces[:] + bm.verts[:] + bm.edges[:],
        axis=0,  # x, y, z <==> 0, 1, 2
        matrix=Matrix.Translation(-pp),
        merge_dist=-1 # disable so center verts dont merge.
        )
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

Note the operator returns the new geometry.. ret = bmesh.ops.mirror(...) in a dictionary. new_geom = ret["geom"].


warning message when the images has not been saved I'm doing texture painting and using a new texture. Sometime after painting i forget to save that image and when i quit there's no warning at all. Is there any setting in Blender to prevent this ?

There is not a warning per se, but the image name in the Image Editor will have an asterisk next to it indicating it has changes to it - also, on my system, I do get a warning when closing a file that there are changes not saved. There is an option to pack all images into the file, and that works for some people - but also best practice is to save the image to disk first, and then make use of the save all dirty images operator.


Filling in faces quickly I was watching a video from hokiroya and noticed he filled faces extremely quickly without actually selecting the vertices. It almost appeared like he was scrolling up with filling faces. I was wondering how to do this myself.
Video in question 55-57 at .25 speed.

To do this you can select the edges or vertexes you want and then press 'F' while in edit mode.
Which actually fills up the selected entities with a single face.
Be careful with ending up with N-gons though with this technique.


Roll Camera Following a Path Apologies, I'm sure this question has been answered before, but so far I have not found a solution that works in my situation.

I have a path that my camera follows and a second path that my camera focus object follows. Neither path uses the Animate Path button nor have I parented either to their path with 'CTRL-P'. Instead I keyframed the offset of the camera and the focus object to gradually accelerate/decelerate and rapidly accelerate/decelerate at different locations along their respective paths.

When I tried to combine keyframing the offsets together with Animate Path/parenting, the camera's location would leave the path, etc.

According to the Blender Manual, the Clamp To constraint does not allow for object rotation, so using that to keep my camera on it's path is not an option.

Now I want to roll the camera 90 degrees along a specific section of it's path, while still tracking my camera focus object. When I select the camera and press 'R' or 'RR' and then 'Y' or 'YY' (or X or Z) the camera's location rotates off the path in a huge circle. When I select the camera focus object and try the same hotkeys, the camera does not rotate at all. If I use Numpad-0 to see the camera's perspective while rotating, it makes no difference.

Camera Follow Path constraints:
Fixed Position: Checked
Follow Curve: Unchecked
Curve Radius: Unchecked
Forward: -Z
Up: Y

Camera Track To constraints:
To: Z
Up: Y
Target Z: Checked
Space: World Space <-> World Space

Weather Target Z is checked or unchecked and Space is World Space or Local space makes absolutely no difference. The results are the same.

I would greatly appreciate any help. Thank you.

Instead of having the camera track anything, let an empty do the job. Parent the tracker empty to the path and let it track the focus empty, then parent the camera to the tracker empty. That way you can rotate the camera freely. All the path motion is done by lesser beings.

In the picture I have moved the camera a little away from the empty to show the relationship line. That's just for clarity purposes. Usually you'd keep it smack on the tracker empty.

Another benefit: since the camera is in local space due to parenting it, you can lock its X and Z rotation.

The empties do all the pointing and moving, so rolling the camera around its local Y axis is all that's left to do.

Inbetween objects simplify a lot of complex hierarchies.


Rendered image is way too pixelated When I render, I get an image that is pixelated far beyond recognition.

The Resolution $X$ and $Y$ settings for the Render Dimensions determine the render size in pixels.
But when you use percentage control, the number of pixels will be reduced if you use a smaller number than 100%.
In this example, a 1920 x 1080 image is rendered at 1%, yielding an image measuring of only 19 x 10 pixels.
Hardly enough pixels to make the sense of the original scene.


Why are there dark shadows on model in edit view? I am trying to follow a tutorial to make a spaceship, but my model has dark shadows on it that the tutorial I am following does not have. These shadows are annoyingly dark and mask the black vertices and edges that I'm trying to work with.

Is there a setting to turn this off?

Your normals appear to be flipped. That dark shading is the back side of the face, also known as the Backfacing.

To check if this is the problem, open the N panel in edit mode, go to the Mesh Display Tab, and check the box for Display Face Normals. This will make a line from the center of the face that points in the direction the normal is facing.

If this does turn out to be the problem, you can recalculate or flip the normals of a selected face by using the Recalculate or Flip Directions command under the Shading/UVs tab in the T panel.


2.92.0 bug? EEVEE AOVs are not fully opaque Been using aovs in the experimental 2.92 version in eevee to export EXRs for compositing in Nuke and even though all my materials are have alphas of one, the AOV layers have a max alpha of 0.984. Example attached below.

In Nuke the max value is always 0.984 when it should be 1.00

Was able to reproduce, bug report has been filed.  ColorRamp wasn't the issue.


Mapping/texturing inside of a box I'm trying to replace the content of a box in a video, I have used the tracking system to match the movement of the video box with the interior of the one rendered in Blender, but I am running trough what seems a simple thing but I can't manage to get done.

I want the outside faces of the box to be invisible while hiding the inside of the box where the front wall of the box hides it, and the inside of the box to be rendered where visible. To do that I thought it would be as simple as making the face normals point to the inside of the box and giving a color only to the faces where normals are pointing to. But I can't manage to get that, am I going the wrong road? How can I achieve my goal?

CYCLES RENDER

To give a texture only to the inside of the box you may use a Backfacing output of the Geometry node.

Unwrap your mesh and set the nodes as pictured below. Use a Backfacing output as a factor for two materials/textures.

BLENDER RENDER

In Blender Internal you may also use the material nodes to achieve this effect.

Unwrap your mesh and give it a new material. Check the Use Shader Nodes box.

Now add two other materials- one for the inside and one for the outside of the box.

In the Node Editor window set up the nodes as pictured below.

You may also add just one material and create two others within it using nodes. Unwrap your mesh and add a new material. Check the Use Shader Nodes box.

Set up the material nodes as pictured below.


Achieve a high pass filter in blender compositor? how can I Achieve a high pass filter like that one in photoshop with the blender compositor

By using these instructions from wikipedia:

If you want, then you can create a reusable node group by selecting the nodes and pressing ⎈ CtrlG:


How to split node connections? In a tutorial a guy split a line like this:

I have try left click and right click but nothing works.

That is called a reroute node.

Hold RMB (LMB in 2.7x) and Shift while dragging your cursor over the noodle(s) to create one.

Note that its only use is making node setups less tangled and easier to work with, it  doesn't affect the result of the node setup at all.


Show time of day in render I am using the lighting sun position add-on in Blender 2.82 to render an animation. I want the viewer of this animation to see on which time it is. I only want the hours to show.

So it should be a kind of "timer" which starts at 09.00 in the morning and ends on 20.00 in the evening. And just reads the time values in the lighting sun position add-on.

I have no idea how to start with this. I have been searching for compositing settings, but i read there are no options for text in the compositing nodes.

I have also been searching for other methods and often see python codes. I have no idea how to use them, and they don't seem to do what i want.

It seems such a simple thing that i am thinking that i miss something very obvious.

You can use the metadata to do that:

Go to the output properties and to the metadata section.

Then choose the date and activate 'burn into image':

You can obtain something like that:

That can also be customized using Python as described in this answer.


How to uv unwrap a curved pipe? I've been searching for an answer for how to unwrap curved objects (pipes specifically) in blender.  Youtube throws out tones on how to do it in maya but nothing about it in blender.  If I unwrap this ring with a cap on either side and a seam straight dow, the uv island is really pinched on one side.  Any help?

The other question How to uv-unwrap a complex bent object? didnt exactly help massively.

Final:

Overview:

Seems:

This is how I have placed them, not ideal. Seem should be marked along middle edge for a better result. Just count them and select right one.

Unwrapping:

Use my answer from here and don't skip any step. This is crucial.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/78362/29370

Correcting UV:

Now you should have nice straight UV map.

Select middle edge (or edges).

Turn on Proportional Editing and change Falloff type to Linear.

Move selected edges on X axis to minimise stretching. Don't forget to use Falloff scale - MouseWheel.


How to create customizable Cycles Cel/Toon shader, that generates shadows? I have successfully created a highly customizable Cel/Toon shader for Blender Eevee. The shader has lots of features, including but not limited to: Multiple light sources support, tone shape manipulation, various specular options, rimlightning or hatching.

One of the most important features (which I did not realize up until now) is that the shader reacts on shadows. One monkey head casts shadow on the other.

I would like to recreate this shader in Cycles with all of it's features. However I hit a brick wall right at the start. Using the Toon BSDF within Cycles is a simple enough solution, but I could not figure out how to include features like hatching in the shadows or tone shape change.

I believe creating a custom cel shader is the only option to get the similar effects. So I made the basic dot product between an incoming light vector and surface normal. Unfortunately, this shader no longer respects the shadows generated by other objects (no shadows on the lower monkey head). Also, the shader does not really respects the incoming light, but rather only the position of the light object. The light source could be replaced by an empty object which produces the same result.

I have scouted lots of websites and tested lots of alternatives to this node setup, but I could not get the shadows to show up. The only solution that worked for me is this old thread, with a link to OSL shader. While the shader does generate shadows, I don't know OSL, therefore I can't really customize the code.
Is there really a way to make a true toon shader material in Cycles?
So I guess my questions for today are:

How to make a Cycles Cel/Toon shader, that generates shadows on other objects, without using Toon BSDF?
How to make the Cycles Cel/Toon shader respect the incoming light? (it's direction, color and strenght)
Are there any other difficulties in making the customizable Cel/Toon shader that I might run into?

bence bu görselleri elde etmek için eevee veya cycles yerine compositing kullanılabilir. bu şekilde render modun eevee veya cycles farketmek sızın istediğin gibi ve gölgeli bir şekilde oluşturabilirsin.

I think eevee or loop instead of compositing can be used to achieve this instead. This way you can create the way you want and in a shaded way, regardless of whether your render mode is eevee or the cycles.
translate by: translate.google.com


What is the best way to change edge weights on a mesh? [NB: I think this question may have been asked and answered before, but in doing a search of the archived questions and answers, using what I though would have been words contained, I did not come up with any matches.]

Consider this set of images,

,

and assume that I have made a mesh of any one of them in Blender. Is there a simple way to create the other two from the mesh I made, so that I could change the width of the border around the figure? I want to change the width of the part of the mesh shown in black, while leaving the part of mesh shown in white relatively unaffected. Using the scale function seems to change the width of the border at the outer most points of the mesh by a different amount than the border of the elements that cross nearest to the center.

You could use a skin modifier to create the outline. You can adjust the thickness of the skinning with ⎈ CtrlA in edit mode. The properties region N can also be used to adjust the radius.

Make a duplicate of your mesh to use for the outline, in the duplicate delete all the faces and the edges that cross over the pathways so you only have edges where you want the outline to be. Add the skin modifier to this mesh. For each disconnected piece of mesh you will need to mark a vertex as root (use the button in the modifier), otherwise that section of mesh will not be skinned.

Instead of the skin modifier, another option is to convert the outline mesh to a curve object and use the curves bevel depth to adjust the outline thickness.


Bone rotation behaviour based on hierarchy of individual bone axis like Maya There's a feature in Maya which I don't know if Blender can do regarding bones.

In Maya you can select a Parent Joint (or bone in Blender), and afterwards if you select every child joint (bone) in order (from parent to child) and execute a simple rotation using the rotation gyzmo, the whole joint (bone) hierarchy rotates according to the axis of each individual joint which is a feature very useful when creating fingers, because you can understand how rotation is behaving.

Can Blender do something similar to understand how bones would be rotating depending on hierarchy (besides turning on "Axis" in bone parameters and assume what the rotation would behave like when exporting to other softwares like Unity)?

EDIT:
I'll provide more information since I believe I'm a bit unclear:

In Maya, if I select all bones individually (I used "select Hierarchy" for fast selection) and rotate them, they behave as expected given their individual bone axis.
But if I mess up one bone axis, the rotation misbehaves badly (which is to be expected)

In Blender, if I select all bones individually with individual selection, the rotation behaves similar to Maya, BUT, if I alter a bone axis with the roll and replicate the rotation, it behaves as if I hadn't altered any axis.

In Maya is pretty obvious to understand how a bone will roll, but I don't know if there's any way to visually understand this in Blender like in Maya (aside from watching the axis and assuming how the whole system will behave).

Thank you

Set the gizmo to manipulate all the selected items individually:

If you want the gizmo to act on each bone's local axis, rather than global, set it here:

It will take bones roll in mind.

This is however not a very convenient way to rig fingers. The easiest is to use Rigify and create finger rigs with it:

I need to add finger rig to a model that is already rigged

The idea is to have extra controls for rough pose and also access to individual bones for fine tuning.

It can be driven through constraints or with drivers, it can behave like this:


No more Ctrl + Tab to those who emulate numpads? I saw a post earlier and I can't post an answer because my reputation is not high enough so I made this.

I saw some questions about having the 2.8 blender changed the Ctrl + tab shortcuts that gave a problem to those who use emulate Numpad just like me. All I did to solve this problem is to make a new shortcut, because why not?. I can't comment my answer to this question because my reputation is not high enough to do so. I hope this helps and to those who post the question earlier, I hope they found this.


Mesh Not Moving Properly With Armature I've struggled so much to figure out why my dragon mesh moves with the armature, except the wings, which just get stuck in place and don't move with the rest of the mesh (it's all as one object and parented). Although, I'm not sure that the object and armature have been parented corrected with weights. Below is the link to my blender file. I really need help with this and anything would be appreciated :)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xQ7INOLt76DE6nL1QCeCdSvZ2hn__k66

You should unclick the Bone Envelopes option of the Armature modifier of the mesh, then select the armature, shift select the mesh, ctrl tab to switch to Weight Paint mode, then select each bone and paint the mesh accordingly to the influence you want this bone to have on the mesh.

Or even delete the Armature modifier and reparent the mesh to the armature With Automatic Weight and then bring some corrections in Weight Paint mode...


I can go back to modify my Character after I put the Armature So I put an armature on my complex character that I did in as part of a course. but I want to export it and I need to smooth the Normals. You can't do that with Armature Mode on, so how do I turn it off so that I can modify my model?

Per my comment on your question, you appear to be in Pose Mode (which you referred to as 'armature mode'). If you hit Tab, you should be able to choose to switch instead into another mode. You'll want Edit Mode or Object Mode to get back into the basic modeling pipeline, or perhaps Sculpt Mode.

You can also control these options from the mouse-clickable menu in the bottom-left section of your 3D View window, which currently says Pose Mode in the image you posted. You can find this menu at the location indicated below:


How to detect disconnected parts within a selection? Consider the following edge selection:

What would be the fastest way to return the indices of the different parts of this selection? I am aiming for an output similar to this: edge_indices = [[24, 46, 29, 47], [32, 52, 37, 53]]. The goal is to detect separate (disconnected) parts within a selection.
One possibility would be to loop over every edge and check for selected connected edges and save the different edge loops, but I feel there should be a faster way to do this.
Thanks!

Recursively walk the selection.
Similarly to the method employed here How to find the number of loose parts with Blender's Python API?

Take one edge of the selection, tag it as "visited" then recursively
do same with its connected edges until no more.  This will be an
"island".
Remove the island from the selection, and return to 1.

The tag property of a bmesh element remains persistent, even without updating the bmesh, and AFAIK will need to be reset each time.
Test script, run in edit mode with edges selected.
import bpy
import bmesh
from collections import defaultdict
import sys
from functools import lru_cache

def recursion_limit(method):
    def rec(edges, **kwargs):
        sys.setrecursionlimit(max(len(edges) >> 1, 1000))
        result = method(edges, **kwargs)
        sys.setrecursionlimit(1000)
        return result
    return rec

@recursion_limit
def edge_islands(edges, as_indices=True):
    tags = defaultdict(bool)
    tags.update({e : True for e in edges})
    @lru_cache(128)
    def walk(tree):
        for edge in tree:
            if tags[edge]:
                yield edge.index if as_indices else edge
                del tags[edge]

        leaves = tuple(
            set(
                e for edge in tree
                for v in edge.verts
                for e in v.link_edges
                if tags[e]
                )
            )
        if leaves:
            yield from walk(leaves)

    return list(
        list(walk((e,)))
        for e in list(tags.keys())
        if tags[e]
        )

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # test call on mesh in edit mode
    context = bpy.context
    ob = context.object
    me = ob.data

    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
    selected_edges = [e for e in bm.edges if e.select]
    print("Input", len(selected_edges))
    islands = edge_islands(selected_edges)
    print(len(islands), "Islands", islands)

Time It

However, lemon's code seems to be quite a lot faster, so I will mark
lemon's answer as most helpful

On answering lemon commented he may not answer. Had a feeling (s)he would, with an iterative approach, it would be faster and would be accepted.
Did some optimizing for speed (it was  pretty much a copy paste job from an older answer)

As noted and striked-though removed the use of the tag property
. Took out set conversion and arithmetic.
Cached the recursion using functools.lru_cache
Recursed on all connected each time, rather than a single edge. This greatly reduces the recursion depth.

Have included the script used to test the two scripts for speed, with the caveat the script is run in edit mode, and the result desired needs to be converted to a list of lists. (Timing method that returns a generator will not consume the data and give a result of 0.01 or less milliseconds)
@lemon's script is designed to run in object mode. To make sure the selection is updated  the mesh is updated.  The input edges are calculated for both.  Anything outside the method eg imports, prints, creating the bmesh is not included.
Once again: reports the time taken to generate a list of lists using the two methods.  Make sure to edit the text block name the scripts are in. In example below this is in "batFINGER", lemon's in "lemon".
import bpy
import bmesh
from random import randint

bat = bpy.data.texts["batFINGER"].as_module()
lem = bpy.data.texts["lemon"].as_module()

def timeit(method):
    import time
    def timed(*args, **kw):
        ts = time.time()
        result = method(*args, **kw)
        te = time.time()
        print(f"{method.__name__ : <23} {(te - ts) * 1000 :6.2f} ms")
        return result
    return timed

@timeit
def batfinger(edges):
    return bat.edge_islands(edges)

@timeit
def lemon(edges):
    return [[e.index for e in island] for island in lem.islands(edges)]

context = bpy.context
ob = context.object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
selected_edges = [e for e in bm.edges if e.select]

batfinger(selected_edges)

#lemon test,
ob.update_from_editmode()
selected_edges = [e for e in me.edges if e.select]

lemon(selected_edges)

Results
Ran over a test mesh with both loose parts and large contiguous areas.  As a rule of thumb the iterative approach is quicker for large connected areas.
After the optimizations results are comparable.
----------------------------------------
79010 Edges
batfinger               741.60 ms
lemon                   707.91 ms
Islands: 3625 Largest: 4124

----------------------------------------
79010 Edges
batfinger               759.15 ms
lemon                   830.18 ms
Islands: 3625 Largest: 4124

----------------------------------------
79010 Edges
batfinger               759.82 ms
lemon                   710.61 ms
Islands: 3625 Largest: 4124

----------------------------------------
79010 Edges
batfinger               750.31 ms
lemon                   836.75 ms
Islands: 3625 Largest: 4124

Related
Is there a way to assign vertex groups to all loose elements via python
How to use loopcut_slide operation without any UI?
What is the bmesh equivalent to bpy.ops.mesh.shortest_path_select()?


Is there a way to move multiple rigged characters simultaneously? Is it possible to select multiple root bones, in multiple armatures, and then translate them simultaneously?

Not without some custom script (custom modal operator etc.).

The workaround is to child_of the root bones with constraints to Empty and move the empty. Then Pose > Apply > Visual Transform to Pose and delete the constraints.

There is an addon that lets you setup child_ofs easily or to keyframe them even: Dynamic parent


Clean flat mesh surface Every time I try to bend the face of the fender to the car body, I get these weird bumps?

The surface is uneven, because the vertices are arranged in such a way, that the faces are bent.
You can fix this by manually adjusting all the vertices to create the cleanest shape possible.

With the Subsurf Modifier enabled, you can barely spot the problem even with wireframes.
The uneven vertices are hard to spot.

Without Subsurf, the mistakes are visible. (Note that my example is very exaggerated, but the random offset of the five vertices is still not much.)

You can try and clean up your mesh, by going through all the vertices, and adjusting them manually from each angle. This can take more than one pass.

It will be easier if you use cleaner topology. When modeling with quads, it is advisable to make the faces as even and as square as possible.

In your mesh the faces resemble rectangles. Hence a just a slight variation of the vertices of the edge loop will make the surface seem distorted.

Try to have all edges similiar lengths, when modeling a single bent surface. (Of course once you want sharp angles, ridges, etc. this won't apply.)

You can achieve more even quads, by deleting some existing edge loops, which aren't necessary for the shape and add edge loops perpendicular to the previous.

With Subdivided Surfaces, you only need four vertices for a cirle. Keep topology rich in information, low in detail.


Change Operator Adjust Menu I made a small operator which lets you change the ui_type.

The question is how can I change this menu, not only the layout but also the spawn position? I want it to behave the same way when you click the adjust last operation operator.

import bpy

class SM_change_area_type(bpy.types.Operator):

    bl_idname = 'sop.sm_change_area_type'
    bl_label = "S.Menu Change Area Type"
    bl_description = 'best description ever'
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    areas = [
        ("VIEW_3D","View 3D",""),
        ("VIEW","Image Editor",""),
        ("UV","UV Editor",""),

    ]
    #ShaderNodeTree, CompositorNodeTree, TextureNodeTree
    type_enum: bpy.props.EnumProperty(name="Areas", items=areas)
    chose_from_list: bpy.props.BoolProperty(name="Chose area Type:", default=True)
    a_type: bpy.props.StringProperty(name="Change area to:", default='UV')
    test: bpy.props.StringProperty(name="test:")

    def execute(self, context):
        context = bpy.context
        area = context.area

        # check if True: get area type from enum else: get area type from string (string has to be set)
        if self.chose_from_list is True:
            self.a_type = self.type_enum
            self.test = area.ui_type
            if self.a_type == "":
                self.report({'ERROR'}, "'a_type' Not Set Operator Cancelled")
                return {'CANCELLED'}
            else:
                area.ui_type = self.a_type
        else:
            if self.a_type == "":
                self.report({'ERROR'}, "'a_type' Not Set Operator Cancelled")
                return {'CANCELLED'}
            else:
                area.ui_type = self.a_type

        return {'FINISHED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(SM_change_area_type)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SM_change_area_type)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

I guess what you want is a property confirm dialog. You basically just have to add a new 'invoke' and a 'draw' method. Note that I removed == (python strings can be "falsy") as well as bad references like bpy.context in your 'execute' method.

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator

class WM_OT_my_popup(Operator):
    bl_idname = "custom.my_popup"
    bl_label = "Area Operator"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    areas = [
        ("VIEW_3D","View 3D",""),
        ("VIEW","Image Editor",""),
        ("UV","UV Editor","")]

    my_enum: bpy.props.EnumProperty(name="Areas", items=areas)
    my_bool: bpy.props.BoolProperty(name="Chose area Type", default=True)
    my_type: bpy.props.StringProperty(name="Change area to", default='UV')

    def execute(self, context):
        area = context.area
        if self.my_bool:
            self.my_type = self.my_enum

            if not self.my_type:
                self.report({'ERROR'}, "")
                return {'CANCELLED'}
            else:
                area.ui_type = self.my_type
        else:
            if not self.my_type:
                self.report({'ERROR'}, "")
                return {'CANCELLED'}
            else:
                area.ui_type = self.my_type

        return {'FINISHED'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        return context.window_manager.invoke_props_dialog(self, width=400)

    def check(self, context):
        return True

    def draw(self, context):
        scn = context.scene
        layout = self.layout
        row = layout.row().prop(self, "my_enum")
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(self, "my_bool")
        row.prop(self, "my_type")

classes = (
    WM_OT_my_popup,
)

def register():
    from bpy.utils import register_class
    for cls in classes:
        register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    from bpy.utils import unregister_class
    for cls in reversed(classes):
        unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.custom.my_popup('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

Tip: Blender enforces naming conventions as of 2.8x:

  The class name convention is: UPPER_CASE_{SEPARATOR}_mixed_case, in the case of a menu the regular expression is:
   [A-Z][A-Z0-9_]*MT[A-Za-z0-9_]+

Related:

How to call a confirmation dialog box?
What do operator methods do? (poll, invoke, execute, draw & modal)


Mask smaller in Video Sequence Editor than in Movie Clip Editor The mask I created in the Movie Clip Editor is smaller in the Video Sequence Editor Preview. I know that the mask scaling might be wrong (see answer from here), but I don't use nodes for creating masks. I apply my mask in the Video Sequence Editor, but there is no scaling factor.

I found the reason for the mismatch of the mask: the input video in the movie clip editor is in 4K with 4096x2160 px and the output video in the video preview window is downscaled to fullHD with 1920x1080 px. Therefore the aspect ratio of the input (1.89 : 1) is different to the output video (1.77 : 1) hence a mismatch of the mask in the output video


Transparent background in PNG, but MP4 background is black I've managed to render PNGs which have my machine on a transparent background, but I want to have a video of it.  I've tried lots of settings to no avail....the film/transparent setting doesn't seem to do anything.

Every vid I've rendered, whether it be straight from Blender Render or Cycles Render or via creating a film strip from the PNGs via Video Editor and creating a vid from there, turns up with a black background from my scene.

Whats the trick?

Thanks!

Mp4 does not support alpha channel. You need to encode using a codec that does.


How to circularly fade an image to alpha in compositing? I'm trying to circularly fade an image into transparency in the blender compositor.
My approach was to use an Ellipse Mask in combination with the Set Alpha node, so that the picture becomes more and more transparent towards the edges.

Output of the Set Alpha Node:

Unfortunately, this doesn't work as the center turns black where it should be transparent. (The original image has a transparent background.)
What am I doing wrong?
This behavior occured in Blender 2.91.2 and 2.83.5 (on Linux).

In the example used, I try to get rid of the shadow that protrudes over the edge.
The effect I like to achieve would look something like this:

EDIT:
Unfortunately, if the Ellipse Mask is inverted the outer area turns black (should be transparent).

Output of the Set Alpha Node:

The problem is that your node setup is ignoring the existing Alpha channel. Instead of overwriting it, you need to multiply it with your mask.
I used the Separate RGBA node to extract the current Alpha value, and a Math node to multiply the two values:


Blender 2.8. Hotkey for selecting transform manipulators How to bind hotkeys to transform manipulator in Blender 2.80?

I want to customize them like in Maya, but i can't find them in input tab

This feature is not implemented in Blender 2.80 Alpha 2


Inserting a ❤ symbol into text I'm trying to put a piece of text into Blender 2.76, most of it works and is OK, putting the ❤ symbol into the text editor pane works. When I try and put it into a text object, all I get is a square symbol (i.e. can't display it).  I've tried copy and pasting the char in (even the Insert Text pane entry field), tried changing the font and run out of ideas.

Is there a specific font I should use?  Or is there something else I'm missing?

Update:
Finally managed to get something I was after, here's a render of it so far...

If you're on Windows try selecting the font "MS Mincho" (it should be  C:\Windows\Fonts\MSMINCHO.TTF). Or MS Gothic (msgothic.ttc), this is how Libreoffice Writer gets it.

At least that font is used on my Microsoft Word (on Windows 7) when I paste your char into a blank document. I tried setting both the above on Blender, and it works:


Object are showing black in material view I just successfully rendered this clock tutorial. However all of the objects show black in material view. I've been searching online for an hour, found a lot of similar posts but none of the answers match my setup. I have out put nodes, im not in local view, and the light source's specular and diffuse options are checked. Can any one help point me in the right direction?

Example

(Link to my blender file)

Update:  I've been using my laptop for this project - a dell Inspiron - and recently opened the project on my main pc and selected my nvidia gpu for the hardware. For whatever reason the materials show fine. I think its related to the Intel Intgrated HD graphics on my laptop. Must be some kind of driver glitch. The bottom line seems to be that my laptop's integrated graphics don't work well with this aspect of Blender. Thanks for all the help though.

You may have a flipped normals. If you swap into edit mode and select one of its faces then ctrl-F to get your drop down and select "flip normal" may help.


How do I make a 3 dimensional character out of flat picture? I have a cartoon character (a lion) that is part of my business logo that I want to put into Blender and animate it somehow. Is there any way I can take a flat picture (JPEG) and transform it into a 3D image and then animate it in Blender?

You may do it using the Transformers add on. It'll transform every flat textured plane into 3d model.

Activate it in User Preferences. Then go to a Tool Shelf and choose a desired transform option.

OKAY I'M KIDDING :), NOW SERIOUSLY:
There's no such way to do it fast. If you manage to invent a tool that may do such thing automatically you'll be probably a millionaire :). While there's a very simple way to transform 3d model into 2D image (using e.g. shapekeys), reverse process is impossible (at least right now :)).
As @Shubol3D said there are no shortcuts. You'll have to master a lot of skills to create your lion model. It's very time consuming process, so if you like to save it I suggest you to go to Blenderartists.org forum and make a paid job offer there. There are a lot of super talented people, who may do it for you.
But if you still want to do it by yourself...
Here are some ultra basic 3d model production steps:
First of all get familiar with this topic: Resources for Blender It's super useful for the blender beginners.
MODELING
You should start from setting up the reference images for modelling:

How do I set a background image while I am editing?
How do I scale my reference images correctly within Blender and is there an easier way?
Modeling with reference image

First add a cube. Use Toggle Quad View option (Ctrl+Alt+Q) to split the screen into quarters and set separate background images for each one. Adjust their positions, so they fit the cube position in Top, Front and Right 3D views.

To make the modeling workflow faster use a Mirror Modifier:

Is their a way to create half of a model and duplicate other side

How can I make the mirror modifier work right?

Divide the cube into two identical parts with Ctrl+R and delete one half of it (X). Add a Mirror Modifier to it. Now you may model just one half of the mesh and the other one'll behave symmetrical.
Enter Edit Mode and start modeling basing on the background images you set:

What techniques are used to begin creating new models?

There are few buttons which are very helpful in modeling: G- for grabing/translating vertices, edges and faces, S- for scaling them, R- for rotating, E for extruding and F for filling the holes. You may also subdivde the desired faces using Ctrl+R shortcut.
Start with extruding the cube to create a basic shape that fits the background drawings. Then subdivide it successfuly to add more and more geometry and details.

Thanks to quad view you may control the shape of the mesh in every view at once. Fit it to the background drawings as accurately as you can.

Finally you may add a Subsurf Modifier to make your model smooth. Go to the Modifiers header, activate it, set the desired subdivision levels and smooth it even more with Smooth shading option in Edit panel of the Tool Shelf.

I think that in your case this tutorial may be a good start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mlGT6T9bfQ
It shows how to create a 3D animal model based on the 2D images.
UNWRAPPING AND TEXTURING
To unwrap your model properly you may need to make seams for it:

How to properly unwrap my mesh?

How to Place the Right Seams for UV Unwrapping

Select the edges you want to put the seams on and press Ctrl+E-->Mark Seam. Now select the whole mesh (A) and press U-->Unwrap.

Now you want to put the texture on your model. Though there are many methods to do it, I prefer the texture painting with Stencil method:

How to make textures in Blender without any flat work with a painting program? (3D painting)

Select your model, set up the shading type to Texture and go to Texture Paint mode. Add a new Paint Slot-->Diffuse Color in a Tools bookmark of a Tool Shelf (T). Add a new texture in the Texture panel on the left, then go to the Texture header on the right, select Brush and open a texture, which will be used as a stencil for painting. Paint the texture and save it.

Now add a material to the object and assign a newly created image texture/textures to it:

Add an image to an object (Blender Internal Render)
How are texture maps imported into Blender? (Cycles Render)

Go to the Material header and add a new material (click New button).

IN BLENDER INTERNAL: Go to Texture header to assign a texture to it. Add a new texture, set its type to Image or Movie. In Influence panel check the Color checkbox. Set the viewport shading to Texture to display it on model.

IN CYCLES RENDER:  Go to Node Editor, check the Use Nodes checkbox and set up nodes as pictured below.

Basic tutorial showing how to UV unwrap an animal model and apply a texture to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4ngVoGIj1Q
RIGGING AND ANIMATION
Now you have to construct the rig (skeleton) and parent it with your model:

how to rig the body
How can I automatically generate vertex groups for an armature?

Add a single bone (Shift+A-->Armature-->Single Bone) and extrude it (E) in Edit Mode creating a skeleton. Limbs can be mirrored from one side to other using Ctrl+M command.

When your skeleton is ready you may you may parent your mesh with it. In Object Mode select your model, then your armature and press Ctrl+P-->With Automatic Weights. It'll automatically create specific vertex groups for the specific bones.

Finally you can animate your bones:

How to make an animation / armature remember poses?

Select a bone in Pose Mode, translate it using R,G or S and press I to keyframe it. Go to the next frame on the Timeline, translate it again and keyframe again. Press Alt+A to play the animation. Adjust your keyframes spacing in Dope Sheet Editor. Control every aspect of your animation using curves in Graph Editor.

Very, very basic tutorial showing how to make the skeleton for your animal and how to animate it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr6-_NT_olo


How to set-up the perspective view based on a reference image? How to set-up the perspective view based on a reference image, before starting to model what's on the image?

As an alternative to background images (which can't be displayed in perspective), you could use an Image empty (ShiftA> Empty > Image).

Image empties can be rotated, scaled, and translated just like any other object.

You can make empties transparent by adjusting the Transparency slider in Properties > Object data > Empty:

Note that when using transparent image empties, they will not be correctly drawn when they are not selected if Transparency is unchecked in Properties > Object > Display:


How can i change a curve to have the same proportions on all its vertices? i made a curve as you can see in the image, but i need to take a part of the curve (for example, ten vertices) and make all the curve look like that part, is that possible? i need to do this because i need to animate it in another layer, as a continuous curve with loop.

First, select the good vertices in edit mode (at least three, one whole waveform):

Then press Shift+D, and then P to separate the new vertices into a new curve:

Now add an Array modifier to the new curve, making sure to tick the Merge checkbox:

You should now have something like this:

Notice that the fewer waveforms you select initially the more accurate the result will be, although it will take vastly more repeats on the Array modifier. It is however completely adjustable at that point, so it can be given the exact same number of waveforms as your other curve.

Once you are happy with the result, change the handles to vector, press Alt+C and convert to mesh, then the same and convert back to a curve, and change the handle type back to whatever it was. You should now have one continuous curve. The reason you need to do this is because you are not allowed to apply a constructive modifier on a curve.


How to fix modeling geometry/topology error after applying all modifiers? So I have been working on modeling a simple character, and used mirror modifier to mirror my object, but due to some problems happened while modeling, When I applied my modifiers, the part had the problem looks as if my character had a bad stomach surgery

The whole body was very regular and looking very good, but that part looked like really bad thing happend, so my question is how to re-regularize that part again? I don't care that shape of the stomach might differ, I could remodel it or sculpt it, but my goal is to regain those regular squares modeling that part again. I thought of removing all faces that are deformed and form a new big face making loop cuts, but things got very very missy.
Can anyone suggest how to solve such a problem?
I have added my blend file here, in case you would like to inspect the model much more

Enter edit mode, select the whole mesh, in the menu choose "mesh" -> "symmetrize"
Then select the correct "Direction" in the Redo panel (the pop-up panel with the settings for the tool)
Make sure your objects origin is in the centre of the object as this is where the symmetrize-ing will be based.
Blender docs: symmetrize


Smoke simulation set to outflow, the smoke still interact with the ceiling I set the flow type to outflow, it's supposed to be not interacting with the ceiling as the Blender Manual says, the ceiling will be acting like a black hole, however, below is my screen shot and I can observe the ceiling is colliding with the smoke, why is that thankyou !

It's strange, I do not know if this is the intended design, everytime I change the setting of the flow, I need to re-select the "replay" item to make it valid as shown below,

The issue I came accross resulted from the cache from the previous settings not freed up until I re-select the "replay", so this is my solution.


(noob here) odd discoloration on my model, what does it mean? (model is not nearly complete btw)

whenever go into the mode that makes the faces solid (idk what it's called), some parts of my model are discolored (sort of steel-blue looking). i was curious as to why that was happening and if that is going to be carried out into a final render. thanks for any help that yall can offer :))

bonus question: what's the best/easiest way to add more detail/make a model less blocky? besides adding a load of loop cuts obviously lol. thanks

your normals are not all facing outwards, in general its a problem of the mesh recalculating them is the easiest way to solve it.
If that doesnt work out (if your model isnt solid), you can also in edit mode flip faces.


How to give each hair particle system in one object its own color How to give each hair particle system its own color (ideally from a texture)?
Example: an object has two hair particle systems, one which is blue, second which is red. The mesh underneath is a third color or one of the previous two (but one can achieve that by assigning a material in edit mode to all the faces in the mesh).
Is there a way to assign a material to a particle system? Multiple hair particle systems all seem to only be using the very first material in an object.
Vertex groups can control so much, but not what color the hair particles have. There is a "textures" tab in particle settings, just below the vertex groups, but it doesn't seem to do anything color-related.

You need to create 3 Material Slots and 3 Materials for your emitter object (1). In  this example, Blue and Red aren't assigned to any face.
For each Particle System, under Render/Material (2), select the desired material in the list.