Why are my ocean/glass shaders not being rendered properly? I am very confused about my rendering output.
I'm working on a scene with an ocean modifier used on a plane. I also attached a simple Glass BSDF to it to achieve the desired appearance.
In the "pre-rendering" everything looks fine, but every time I try to render it I get this weird output, some parts of the ocean are rendered correctly, but with the rest it seems that it doesn't apply the Glass bsdf to it.
Download .blend file

I just accidentally found out, i was having a not-displayed older object lying beneath the other object and intersecting at some areas.


EEVEE Edge detect effect I am trying to replicate an effect that one of my friends made and he was able to detect the edges of an object using Eevee all using nodes no wireframe modifiers or anything but the only way I can get close to being able to do this is with cycles. Video here.

As cubes (head), or scaled cubes (arms, notice the variations of the edge thickness for arms), you can compare the location to some threshold.
Edge detection: top line in the image below
We can take generated coordinates, and recenter them to -0.5/+0.5,
Get absolute of that.
Compare each coordinate to a threshold.
And detect the edge if more than two dimensions are above this threshold.
Camera facing effect: bottom line below
Compare the incoming vector to the normal using a dot product.
Keep only what is above a threshold.
Combine with the edge detection.


Mesh deformed after rigging? The mesh has been rigged

Problem comes in weight painting, I think. I tried to weight paint everything how I was supposed to, but mesh is still deforming when posing. It's scaling up and down (for instance, if you move face) and so on...

Is there anything I did wrong?
Can I somehow make it, so mesh does not scale in posing or animating and is there any alternative solution to my weight painting?

Saying that the face "scales" when moved is uncorrect. Instead, mesh is deforming in a different way than expected. The reason lies in weighting, as some vertices are assigned only to the "face" bone while others are assigned both to "face" and "head" bones, as shown in the picures.

"A" vertex is the "correct one, as it follows exactly the face bone: face bone is child of the head bone, so the "face" vertices are moving without the need to be assigned also to the head bone: this double assignement is leading to the unexpected behaviours: double assignement (or even triple, or more) is OK only in proximity of joints, where you want the mesh to deform and stretch to get better creases and wrinkles.


Why does this horizontal line appear across the model when I add a subsurf modifier? So I have a screenshot for you, of the rear end of my female 3D model, and there in a strange indent going through it. Which only appears when I use a subdivision surface modifier.

And no, I am not talking about here butt crack xD I am talking about the horizontal line that goes all the way around.

It is unique from the possible duplicate due to the fact that it is a horizontal line, and thus is not a mirroring issue.

Here is the image:

Go in edit mode delete the faces (but not the points) where there is the horizontal lines, and then create the faces again.


Blender 2.80 - Why can't I see Archimesh' properties? I'm trying to create a room on a new installation of blender... When I press the N Key, I see the following on the properties window... The Teansform properties are showing, and the global properties are showing (this doesn't have any options in for Archimesh) but none of the properties for the actual archimesh are available... This is throughout all archimesh objects. Is there something i'm missing with this?

Kind Regards

Andy

The archimesh properties are located under the "create" tab, the last tab on the properties menu :)


Objects appear bright white or black in material preview mode I've been working on this file for a while with no problems, until now. In Material Preview mode all my objects appear bright white, apart from the trees at the back, which are black. All the other viewports seem to be working as they should and i can still render an image with all materials in place. I just cant see them anymore in Material Preview.

Happens to me too, I usually solve this way:

Select EEVEE as renderer if it's not already, then go to Indirect Lighting and Delete Lighting Cache, then bake it again.

At this point switch between shading view modes, it should get fixed.

We should probably mark this as a bug, not 100% sure about it but looks like it.


Baking error no UV coordinates It says there is no UV texture on the two materials part of the object, but if I add the a UV texture I will have to remove the cloud texture needed for the displace modifier. Could someone look at it please and tell me what I can do to bake the object the way it looks?

Here is my .blend

I believe he thinks you have connect the image texture in the nodes(leading to remove other textures) to another that's not the case just add it somewhere in it that's all.

Go to each material in the node setting and just shift-a > texture > image texture and link the unwrapped texture to it done.


Having trouble making a twisting animation more realistic I am new to animating in blender, and I have been using the curve modifier to create a specific looking circle, but I want to animate it to make it look like it twists from a circle to a figure eight. The problem is, I tried using shape keys with one as the original circle and one as the final figure eight, but then, of course, it just moves in a linear fashion from circle to figure eight, but this isn't realistic. When you take a rubber band and twist it to make a figure eight you don't move it linearly to the eight, you twist the band around. Does anyone have any idea on how to do this? I've tried using intermediate shape keys, but it doesn't flow smoothly it abruptly stops at the intermediate step and continues. I would appreciate any help.

This might be a good place to model the band as a curve (with a rectangular curve Bevel object,) and use the shipped Animall add-on, which enables you to key-frame control-points, and their tilt values.
This animation is of a default Curve > Circle, subdivided once. The three vertices at each end are rotated in opposite directions, while the entire circle rotates through 90 to present the figure-of-eight to the camera. Animall permits the keying of tilts, rotations, locations of the control-points to keep everything more or less in shape.

(v2.91 .blend file)


How can I manage multiple animations in one .blend file? The way I currently use animations is just one long timeline. All my separate animations are lined up back to back on this single timeline. I keep the start/end frame numbers in a separate file.

This becomes a problem when I want to expand, shrink or alter an animation. Since the length of the animation changes, the start/end frames of all subsequent animations also changes. This requires me to manually parse the timeline and update my file with the new start/end frames. The file looks something like this:

0:0:6:6=SPECIAL_SETUP
7:7:22:22=ATTACK_1_FireTurret
23:23:44:44=IDLE_ANIMATION_1_Sweep
45:45:55:55=IDLE_ANIMATION_30_Stationary

Where the format is as follows:

[Start frame]:[Loop start]:[Loop end]:[End frame]=Name of animation

I would like to not do this anymore. Since it can get messy.

How can I have multiple animations, each with their own timeline, inside a single .blend file?

Alternatively, is there a way to place markers in my timeline that can be used to automatically generate a file like the above. The markers would ideally move with the frame they are attached to, not the specific frame number.

If you go to the Dopesheet View you can create and name separate animations with the Action Editor pane. You can also use the main Dopesheet pane to scale your animations.

Each of these animations as it relates to the objects do have their own separate timelines within Blender and can be linked or copied to other .blend files.

Also you can press M in the timeline to add a marker. I would really recommend desisting from the approach you have been using as it's very inefficient and is prone to error.


Smooth option in Blender 2.8 mesh context menu missing for edges and faces In Blender 2.79, it was possible to apply "Smooth" from the mesh context menu in vertex, edge and face mode.

For Blender 2.79

Vertex mode:

Edge mode:

Face mode:

However, in the recently released Beta for 2.8, this option was removed for edges and faces.

For Blender 2.8:

Vertex mode:

Edge mode:

Face mode:

Sometimes I want to smooth not single vertices, but larger areas. The only workaround I can come up with at this point is to select faces in Face mode and then change to Vertex mode before smoothing.

The Smooth option in the context menu was extremely convenient in Blender 2.79 and I don't really know why the developers would remove this functionality when it worked perfectly. Has it maybe been relocated to another menu?

Like in older versions, you can call menus for vertex, edge or face (with Ctrl+V, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+F respectively), being in any selection mode. And, as you say, it really works. :-)


Cutting a solid surface to make a overlapping junction This one is a bit tricky.

I'm building a RC submarine in Blender so that I can have it 3d printed. I want to have a removable "cap" so that I can have access to the electronics inside, however, to make it water tight, I want to put in a piece of rubber inside an overlapping junction. I know I can use the knife tool to cut out the cap and I solidified my sub to give it a "wall", however is there an easy way to cut an overlapping junction?
I also found that when I solidify, I can't seem to select the vertices on the expanded solid. Is this by design? Is there a way to enable it?
Normal Cut
XXXXXOOOOO
XXXXXOOOOO
XXXXXOOOOO

Side A
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX

Side B
     OOOOO
OOOOOOOOOO

Together
XXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOO

Thanks,
mj

You could use a Boolean Modifier. Though, the success of this method may depend on the topology of your mesh. It does not always give clean or desired results, but it may be worth a try.

Also you will want Solidify to be above Boolean in your modifier stack. And if you apply these modifiers, apply the Solidify first, and then apply the Boolean.

EDIT:
You could make something like this, where the selected mesh is the (already applied) Boolean target object.

If you put the selected orange edge, shown on the left, (one is extruded inward, and one extruded outward) in in the middle of the solidified wall thickness, and then preform the boolean operation, you will end up with submarine parts that will fit into each other as shown on the right.


Linking object position to another object Let's say I have an model with 3 objects. In this case, the head, body and base of the lamp.

Is it possible to add some kind of constraint to the head object so that the head moves with the top of the body object. For example when I scale the body on the z axis the head moves along the z axis to always stay on top?

Something like copy location constraint but to account for scale of target object.

If I got it, you can parent the head to some top vertices of the scaled object, like this

first, set the origin of the scaled object to its base face

then select just the top face of the same object

 - then in object mode select the head and after also select the body

then parent and set parent to "vertex"

now, when you scale the body on Z, it will be based on its base, so the top face will move, and the head will follow, as shown above.

here is a test (simplified) file to test


How do I avoid gaps to a mirror modifier when I am scaling a model vertices? I was modelling the torso of a female body using the box model technique. Applied a mirror modifier and started to scale the mid section of it when a gap appeared. How do I fix or avoid this? Mirror Modifier Settings are as follows::
Axis: X - selected; Options: Merge, Clipping, Vertex G - all selected; Textures: nothing selected.

Select all the vertices (Alt+RMB) that should be at the mid point, then press scale along the x axis(whichever is the horizontal one) and press zero (SX0) this will align them all in a straight line.


How to simulate glass dispersion with only one Principled BSDF node Searching on the internet, I realized that Blender does not calculate the dispersion of the glass, in any case I have found a compromise, which is not precise, but let's say it does the "Dirty trick"
Personally, I'm taking a different way, and I like to create materials, always as much as possible without mixing "Shader" type nodes. In most cases, I can get all my materials, with the help of the Principled BSDF node, always connected directly to the Output node. In short, I like to work before the BSDF Principled node.
I was wondering if it was possible to do this trick using some math, or something similar linked to just one Principled BSDF, with no other shader nodes.

Interesting question. I think it'd be near impossible to do this as accurately as mixing glass nodes, but if absolute realism isn't your aim then of course your options open up.
Using a procedural texture at very small scale I was able to get this effect in cycles:

Although this is definitely not an accurate way of doing it, it does appear to be somewhat realistic and quite beautiful provided you have some good lighting. (Psst... HDRI)
The values in the colour ramp I did using the HSV mode and just changing the H value.
The Hex values are: Black: #000000, Red: #FF0000, Green: #01FF00, Blue: #0001FF, and Black: #000000.
Let me know if there is something missing and I'll edit this response to include it.
Hope this helps!


How to fix non-uniform shading after making object from curve by screw modifier? I drew a bracket-like shape with Bezier curve and then made 3D object from it by rotating with Screw modifier.

I was thinking I will get perfect object, but my object appeared non-uniformly colored:

As you see on side projections, ends of the shape are absolutely flat, but despite this, they are shaded non uniformly, like automobile tires.

How to fix that?

Normals are looking as follows

and after Recalculate it turns into

i.e. normals got good, while shading is still non-uniform...

UPDATE

I found I can make faces Flat with

Should I apply this explicitly for each face?

Was I able to do something to the curve before applying Screw, to avoid these manual operations?

UPDATE

Video proof of operations to create initial object (before starting to make faces flat):

https://youtu.be/5YVsgqo03bc

about the non uniform shading in your pictures, it could also be that your starting curve was not properly aligned /centered on the screw axis, so the screw has repeated a tilt that was in you curve, hence the shading.

I roughly created this in a similar way, and I get no fuzzy shading:

without applying the modifier, you can convert this to 3d mesh using ALTC (the modifier will be removed, the effect is just like if it was applied) - I had to recalc the normals, after, anyway.

[edit] the "peak" you see is because I fastly drew a curve in this shape:

anyway another way is draw the bezier, convert it to mesh, and then screw - using "calc order" in the modifier seems to give better normals, to me.

anyway even with a better "curve" with straight angles like this

i get no "peaks" but the weird shading comes back. It seems due to the normals in that area

one way to fix this is to get less straiht angles there, either using a somewhat smoothed starting curve (as my first one) or after applying the modifier, adding some loops, on both sides:

in edit mode
CRTLR2

before applying, scale on X

then on the circle
CRTL R

before applying, scale a bit toward the center

and now it seems much better

[edit2]
after seeing you video, I got why is different: since your starting curve is closed, screw modifier gives weird shading con the "front circle" face. Again, adding two loops near the inner and outer circle edges gives a much better look.

here the result, flat and smooth shaded:


How do I shift a vertex to establish a single, flat surface on a quad? One thing that I've noticed when drawing quads is that, if a single surface cannot be established using the vertex arrangement (for example, if you add the default plane and raise a single vertex to 1 on the Z-axis), Blender will treat it a quad (subsurf works fine with it and will smooth it out into a hyperbolic surface) but render it as two conjoined tris (prior to the subsurf).

Now, I'm fairly certain that I should avoid this in most cases and would want to fix it if it does occur. In my example above, I could obviously just shift the vertex back to 0 on the Z-axis, because the surface is completely flat. However, if I were to rotate this quad, I would be in a situation where moving the vertex to establish a flat surface would require very precise changes to the X, Y, and Z positions.

I was wondering if there is some feature of Blender or a technique to adjust vertices exactly that the quad is absolutely flat, even if the quad is rotated.

P.S. I apologize for the very technical  and possibly pedantic style of writing. Because I want to ensure the question is communicated clearly, I felt that it was necessary to be scrupulous.

If you only care about planar faces in general, then there's an automatic way for that by selecting Mesh > Clean Up > Make Planar Faces.

If you really want to only move a specific vertex of the quad, you can

move the 3D Cursor to one of the three other vertices (Select the vertex, Shift+S > Cursor to Selected) and switch to Pivot Point > 3D Cursor (. key)
Shift-select all three vertices that should define your plane and should not move
Hit Ctrl+Alt+Space to define a custom Transform Orientation
Select the vertex that you want to move and scale it locally along the Z-axis of the new transform orientation: SZZ 0 Enter


Lines appear if multiresolution is enabled I am using the sculpting tool and these lines appeared to me, if I disable the multitexture option the lines disappear but I lose the sculpted, some solution?

if i change the number of "sculpt" in subdivide these lines are disappeared, but i need change to 7 and my pc not support, sorry for my english

This is a known issue with the multiresolution modifier that is caused when you increase the subdivision level to a certain level, but then later lower the level and sculpt on a lower level. If you tried level 7, that then becomes the highest level for the model, and level 5 is then a lower level. The only way to get rid of it that I have tried is to pick the final level that you want to use for the model and use the smooth brush to remove the jagged bits. In general, try to only increase the subdivision level when sculpting, as this issue is only when you decrease the level and sculpt on it. If you ever do increase past the final level you want, use the Delete Higher option to remove the higher levels.

A possible solution that could work (haven't tried it), is to use the Save External button on the modifier to save the displacements to an image, edit out the bad sections, and then use it with a displacement modifier. Not sure how this would work if you want to keep sculpting though.


Custom Mesh Texture - Best Method? Hi, I’m wondering what method is best to achieve the darker lines texture on this hard working carrot. Texture paint, is what I’m assuming, but am not sure if there is a more efficient way like a hair particle system to sit on the surface.

Thanks!

You could do it with texture paint, you would have control on how your spots appear exactly, or, as John says, you could do it procedurally.

If you choose this second option, here is a try. Set this nodes chain: Texture Coordinate (Object output) > Mapping node > Texture node (here Musgrave) > ColorRamp > Mix Shader. Mix your 2 colors (carrot color and spot color) in the Mix Shader. Play with the Mapping scale values to squish the spots on the right axis and with the parameters of the other nodes to give them the shape you want. At the end of the chain mix with a Glossy, and maybe also with a Subsurface Scattering to give it a bit of transparency.


How do I enable the Flip Active/Selected Bones options? Flip Active/Selected Bones with Armature in Pose Mode.
Currently the options are disabled. The goal is to get them enabled and functional.  The options respond to hover movements but mouse click has no effect in the panel UI or the 3D View window.

Click Image for larger view. Composed image. OS is Windows 10.

How do I get the options enabled?

Active Only
Extend

If I run the following script from the text editor window it is successful.

In related contrast,  the similar feature does works fully with options in

[Edit Mode].

[Edit Mode] successful.  [Pose Mode] not successful.

Its slightly interesting that the menu names are different in pose mode and edit mode.  The panel titles are the same.

link
https://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_69_4/bpy.ops.pose.html

  bpy.ops.pose.select_mirror(only_active=False, extend=False)

  Mirror the bone selection

  Parameters:

  only_active (boolean, (optional)) – Active Only, Only operate on the active bone
  extend (boolean, (optional)) – Extend, Extend the selection

Thanks.

The operator properties are disabled when global undo is disabled

As for the menu variations, that would be to reflect the way the operator performs. Most of the select_mirror operators change the selection to be items on the opposite side, this can even lead to no active vertex in the selection. But the pose mode select_mirror operator will select the mirrored bone unless both bones are already selected when it will only change the active bone and not alter the selection.


is it possible to make a setting enabled by default? I would like to make Smoke Adaptive Domain enabled by default whenever I create a Smoke Domain.
However, when I tried creating a smoke domain, enabling Adaptive (and setting the Margin to 2) deleting the domain, and saving the startup.blend,  it only remembered that the Smoke Adaptive Domain settings were expanded, rather than hidden as they are by default.

Is this possible? (it seems that it should be, as I was able to make both the Border setting enabled and make the preview samples value 0 by default.)

Short answer no.

Well not really, the closest thing you could get this would be...

Define your own operator in Python which calls the regular operator and makes some adjustments after.
Modify the defaults in Blender's source code (ok, this isn't a real solution, just noting that its possible and not that hard if you build blender already)

Both are clunky workarounds.


Shortcuts have randomly changed mid-project In the time this issue occurred I have not updated Blender. So I started learning blender recently and was getting the hang on some shortcuts then after an hour or so of work, literally midway through a project, my shortcuts changed. The most noticeable one is the search changed from F3 to TAB which means the Edit Mode shortcut is no longer on TAB. This is really strange and is putting me off working anymore. I checked if it was my keyboard changing languages but that was not the issue.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I just want to get back to learning :)

The main thing to check is which keymap is active under the keymap settings in the preferences. Try the default ones to see which one fits the one you used previously.
For custom keymaps:
I favour disabling autosave under preferences so you can manually save the preferences & keymaps. If you've customised the keymap, make sure to export it to a different folder as backup so you can always import it again later. Preferences are saved under "Username"/appdata\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender


What methods are there to level your particle hair? How can we very sharply level particle hair? The default settings are very good for random particle hair but for actually doing the opposite thing, what are the methods?

For example like the blanket above, as you can see some of the hair is pushed inside and some are way too long. How can we level them so that their hair(or fur), become more like that of a toothbrush? Sharply leveled. The idea is to create a plane leveled hair and then added with brownian and some clumps and curls settings to create a realistic blanket(using a texture as a source of color).  Here is the blend file in case the example can be clearly shown with the file itself:

Mainly, you have a non default parameter here : the brownian (agitation) field set to a value. Set it back to 0 to have a regular aspect.

After that, as you want to have a short hair (like brush), you may lower the segments (as their are used for the hair movement, mainly for long hair).

And to have more density, simply grow the amount of emitted particles.

As some faces are not visible, you should also use a vertex group to locate the hair where you want on the visible faces : in consequence, the visible faces will have more hair on them with the same or lower overall hair amount.


looping through splines of a bezier circle, can only find 1 spline not 4 I'm trying to port differential line growth to blender animation nodes following this example https://vimeo.com/169438763 .
I was suggested to work with splines in blender as it would be a lot simpler to working directly with meshes.

Right now I'm trying to create a function that loops through every spline of a bezier circle, and add a spline in between two splines when the distance between these two splines is larger than X.

To this effect I'm looping throughout the splines of the bezier circle but the problem I'm hitting is that the loop only finds one element. Shouldn't it find 4 as indicated in edit mode ?

Your object has curve data. The curve data object holds a spline collection.

In each spline there are bezier_points or points.

You have mistaken a bezier point for a spline. The spline is a continued element made up from multiple points. As a curve data object can hold multiple splines (they can be discontinued/separate), it has a spline collection.

You can access the points with the Spline Info node. However if you want to produce a variable point list, I'd suggest inserting a script node which takes in a point list and outputs the modified point list.


Change step size for rotation input? I am trying to animate a weapon, and I want to tweak it very slightly. When I click the add or decrease button in the rotation panel under the transforms, it does ALOT more than I want!

I have tried to use the Different eulers, but they only add by 1, I want to do very small movements like 0.1 , 0.2

It appears that you are in WXYZ rotation mode. You can see in your transformation tab there are four parameters. I honestly have no idea how that rotation mode works, so you can change the tab below those four parameters to "XYZ Euler." It should behave differently now. Hope that helps!


Baking animations on a Rigify rig with child of constraints does not preserve constraint I am trying to bake a simple animation made with a Rigify Human rig. My rig is a humanoid mesh (the Unreal Engine mannequin but configured for use with Rigify). I have placed a "child of" constraint on the left IK hand, parented to the right IK hand so that they move in sync w/ the tool or weapon that the human mesh is "holding". A screenshot of the configuration with the right hand selected in pose mode:

A gif image of it playing to demonstrate the (very simple) animation: https://imgur.com/a/SvwQXy3 It's not particularly pretty but this my first time attempting this. The animation works as I expect. I have only placed a keyframe on the right IK hand for now, and the left IK hand follows along.
How the constraint is set up:

Now I would like to bake the action that I have created so that I get an animation with a pose on every frame that respects the constraint without actually having the constraint in place. Following guides I have seen online, I do this by selecting my animation in the dope sheet, selecting the armature in object mode and doing: Object -> Animation -> Bake Animation.
I have tried many combinations of the following options in that tool:

Visual keying
Clear constraints
Clear parents

No configuration behaves as I expect - namely that the left and right hands should keep the same poses they had before, but the constraint is removed. Instead, the left hand goes back to the rest pose and follows the animation from that starting point. The right hand adopts another incorrect pose. Screenshot of the pose of the baked animation on the first frame (this is with the option to enable visual keying, but other options turned off):

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what this tool does? Or maybe baking the rigify rig is the wrong course to take? Should I create a separate skeleton, constrain all its bones to match the rigify rig, and then bake that instead? I'm a little unclear on what best practice typically is when doing this sort of work.
Thanks in advance for any assistance. Let me know if any additional details would be helpful. I have attached the blend file here (pre-bake) if you would like to take a look.

Ok, maybe this is not the best answer but it worked:
I duplicated the skeleton (just the deform bones from the original skeleton, NOT the rigify stuff). Then I added copy-transform constraints to all these new bones, mapping them back to the original.
Now on the new skeleton I can bake and everything works. I suspect the issue is that "clear constraints" does something that does not play nicely with Rigify, but am not sure. Duplicating to a new skeleton that copies the original worked.


Tracking; How to deal with tracked features that disappear and become visible again later? I'm tracking a box in a video by tracking dots on each side, and at certain points in the animation a side of the box disappears, and then later on that side is visible again.  As a result, the dots that are on that side (which I am tracking) disappear, and then reappear.  What do I do with that time in the middle, where those dots are invisible?  Do I just stop tracking?  How?
How do I get Blender to know that the time in the middle is irrelevant?  Can I get those trackers to stop tracking and restart when those tracker dots are visible again?  I'm afraid that Blender takes that time in the middle into account, thus causing the tracking of the object to totally fail.
I hope this make sense.

There is a button that cuts it fro a certain set of frames, and then you can add it back when it reappears


Could someone explain how Blender output colors I'm newbie in the Blender, and can't understand why colors are adjusted during output.

Here is mine compositor scheme

As you can see, the R channel equals to 0.4 in the Combine RGBA Node, but in output it's 170 of 255, ie 0.666. Why does this happen?

Have to mention, it is purely 170 all over the rendered image, so it's not a compression artifact.

Well, solved ! :)

Thanks to the user @cegaton !
Here is what he wrote to comment 1st answer:

  @m.ardito The important information you left out
  of the picture. What you are showing are the scene referred values in
  32bit float:The compositor works with scene referred values: unbound
  linear data. Data is then processed through a display transform
  (determined in the Color Management section) and converted to Display
  referred data (in a scale from 0 to 1) The default transform is to
  sRGB and is not a linear transform. That is true for images saved in 8
  bits or 16 bit. The only format that gets saved bypassing the display
  transform is OpenEXR

So after i set Properties editor ‣ Scene ‣ Color ‣ Display Device to none, all looks correct. Value 102 of 255 is 0.4.

Thank for the help you both @cegaton and @m.ardito !


Save the transformation of Boolean Modifier Difference I currently have carved out a chunk in my mesh as shown in the picture using the boolean modifier.

The 'cutout' is the mesh I am using to carve out what I want from the 'bishop model' mesh.

How can I actually save the carved out mesh version so I can delete the 'cutout' mesh?

Is this possible?

Thanks.

Modifiers are what is called non-destructive modifications, they are meant for users to be able to do further editing before committing to a final irreversible transformation.

The idea is that you don't apply a modifier until you need to (if at all). It is not uncommon to never apply the modifiers. That way you can experiment or refine the settings, or further combine it with other modifiers, or change the order in which the modifiers act, without effecting the original object.

If you need to make the modification permanent then Apply the modifier. The transformations will now be part of the object and the modifier will disappear.


How can I add a cube? I am trying to add cubes to my scene. I'm sure there are lots of ways to get a cube into the scene (but for the purposes of this question, I have no idea what they are) - Are there any ways to add a cube that are easier than using the python console and manually adding them by using this command?

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()

import bpy
from random import randint
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()

#how many cubes you want to add
count = 10

for c in range(0,count):
    x = randint(-10,10)
    y = randint(-10,10)
    z = randint(-10,10)
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(x,y,z))

Run this script in the Text Editor with the Run Script button.
The var count controls how many cubs will be added.
The three vars x, y, and z are random numbers for the placement of the cubes. Change the sets of numbers, to change the range where the cubes can be added on each axes.


Adding random thickness around a mesh So I'm trying to find a quick way to add random thickness, On the  image below I don't want the selected faces to move on the Z-Axis.

However I do want these faces below to Move along the X and Y Axis or normals.

I was hoping to use vertex groups combined with a modifier but I couldn't get what I wanted with simple deform and vertex groups. I just want a quick and effective way to move faces along their normal's to add random thickness in selected areas.

For the object you have in the picture, you can add two displace modifiers with a noise or clouds texture. Set one to effect the Y direction and the other to effect the X direction. Make sure Space is set to global.

You might like the results better if you first made a flat, segmented  rectangle shape, then use a displace in only the x axis (Local Space this time), subdivide it, solidify it, and then use a curve modifier to modify the object like below. You can mess around with different displacement textures and amounts to get the look you're after.


Snap to grid in edit mode For some odd reason, each vertex thinks of it's own grid.

I want to snap them along the grid line above them, but the result is this:

What's wrong?

Activate the Absolute Grid Alignment option

EDIT In your case it seems to not working because of the armature, Blender can't figure out how to snap the vertex the final transformation of the vertex to the grid because of the deformation introduced by the rig.


Cloth simulation doesn't go to Z axis Every time I try to create a blanket and bed with cloth simulation, my blanket goes crazy (see picture). Can someone explain why this happened and how to fix it?

Issues with cloth simulations such as this are most commonly caused by either needing to Apply Scale, starting already intersecting with a collision mesh, Collision settings or Self Collision settings.
Things to try :

Apply Scale on all of your meshes (the cloth and any colliders)
Separate the meshes more at the start of the simulation and see if that helps avoid the erratic behaviour to rule out intersections
Adjust collision settings one at a time to see how they affect collisions
Check your normals are facing the correct direction on each of your collision meshes
Try disabling Self Collision and/or adjust each setting to see what helps

After each stage you’ll need to re-bake the animation to ensure the new state is taken into account.


Random particle rotation I am trying to make gravel underneath this track using a particle system and a weight map.
However the rocks all have the same rotation and are arranged in a grid-like pattern and I can't see any option to randomize these.

These are my particle settings.

I haven't been able to find any tutorials on this so some help would be greatly appreciated.

You could try a couple things to improve your results. One is to use Brownian Force under the physics properties of the particle settings.
From the manual:

Brownian
Specify the amount of Brownian motion. Brownian motion adds random motion to the particles based on a Brownian noise field. This is nice
to simulate small, random wind forces.

Also, you may use the rotation values, which does provide a random parameter underneath the advanced tab.
Here are the settings that I used:

Furthermore, using multiple objects will help in your instance collection. The repetition will not be nearly as noticeable if you use 5 or more objects as if you only use one.
Here is the result:

As for the grid pattern, you can vary the density of your density group when you are in weight paint mode if needed. This is an image of my example:


Parts of my UV do not want to render So, I've been working on this model, made a decent retopography, but then I noticed while trying to make a Normal-Map on the hands, it was sloppy and didnt' work. So to be quick and out of lazyness I decimated the crucial parts (the Hands and toes of the feet) of my high-res, advanced it a little and then added it to the retopography. (you know, cut off hand of High-Res, Decimate, SubSurf-Mod, Shrinkwrap to Highres, --> apply all, then Ctrl+J to the Retopography, Bridge it to Arm and feet, Symmetrize, finish) looks better in any way.

NOW THE PROBLEM: I unwrapped the model another time, and made the UV-Grid show, so I could reduce the stretching on the UV, but on the Newly made Parts, no UV-Grid shows on the 3D editor, it's just blank..? The UV is in the UV-Editor still..
What causes this?
What do I do?
Is it just Recalculate Normals?

OK, I found out, because I copied It from another resolution Model, I unusually had a different Material set for this specific parts, so it wouldn't choose the right texture image. I deletet all the materials and made a new one now it works.


Cloth passes through Rigid Body I would like the cloth to fall and hit the bricks, but it just passes through. I've replaced the bricks with a rigid cube before and it does the same thing. Am I missing something? I'll include the file and a GIF.
Thanks

When I asked to simplify the blend, I ment to keep one example of cloth, only bricks that directly collide with cloth, there is no need to keep brick with a huge amount of vertices for this issue, so Decimate modifier could be applied (it slows down calculation any time you run simulation). You have also set Fake User for many objects. When deleted from a scene, they are still a part of file. To get rid of them you have to go into Outliner > Ophan Data > uncheck all of them and hit Purge. If objects are still there you can select them manually with Shift and with right-click choose Delet. Like that you can go from 184 MB to just 4 MB for a blend you could share with us (saved with compression enabled).

Collision
If you set Rigid Body just for colision with cloth (and you don't plan to destroy a wall later), it would not work.
You have to enable Collision that you can find above Cloth Simulation.

Tips:

If you plan just collide a cloth with a wall I would suggest you to use a simple plane (subdivided a few times), that is much faster for collision calculation.
To deactivate Rigid Body sim for all bricks at once - go to Scene Properties > Rigid Body World > Remove ... (it will remove all rigid body in a scene).
Quite annoying is cached cloth sim, that is not always updated when you change parametr. To recalculate sim with actual setup, I know only one way - deactivate&activate monitor icon on Cloth button.
To apply modifier for all selected objects, search for Convert to Mesh. Sounds weird, right? It is a mesh already, but this operator apply all transformations at once for all selected.


How to create Bokeh circles? How can I render bokeh circles?

Nothing I do seems to work.

I tried using an empty as the focus point for a cube, with some point lamps in the background with about 2000 strength, but it doesn't work. It just makes everything blurry.

I also raised the blades to 4/5/6/12, and it doesn't make a difference.

I'm using Blender 2.74.

Lamps are not visible to the camera directly, and hence cannot directly make pretty bokeh shapes. To make a directly visible light source, you'll want to use a mesh light.
To do this, add an emission shader to a mesh object:

And now you should be able to get some bokeh:

Creating the bokeh object:
For creating a sharp bokeh, a small and bright object is ideal (here I used an emission strength of 20):

click images for better quality
For creating a blurry bokeh, use a larger object (here I used an emission strength of 1):

The size of the bokeh depends on the size of the aperture and the distance from the camera to the object.
Adjusting the camera
It sounds like you have set up the camera already, but for completeness here are some settings to keep in mind:
Set the aperture size to be fairly large in order to get a shallow depth of field.
When setting the aperture size directly in terms of it's radius in BU, larger values mean a larger aperture. A value of 1 is really big (1 BU = 1 meter), you'll likely want something not much bigger than .1.
You can also set the aperture size in terms of f-stops, in which case smaller values mean a larger aperture. This is mainly useful when you have a particular look you want to replicate (e.g. from a photograph), or if you're just more familiar with f-numbers.
The number of Blades in the aperture controls the number of sides on the bokeh. Values below three will make the bokeh circular.
The Rotation setting rotates the aperture. This is useful for making the bokeh less straight and perfect looking.
For example, with 7 blades an little rotation:

Setting the Ratio to a value besides 1 will stretch the bokeh, simulating an anamorphic lens:

And of course you'll want to set the Focus. I usually set an empty as the focus object:

But you can also set the Distance by clicking in the 3D view:

Press E while hovering over the slider.
Click ( LMB) on the surface you want to focus on.

The viewport
The Viewport F-stop is used to set the size of the viewport aperture for approximating DoF real-time in the viewport. Note that this approximation is only active while in camera view (Numpad 0) with Depth of Field enabled in 3D view > Properties (N) > Shading:

One thing you might have noticed, is that the cycles aperture and the viewport aperture give very different results.
This is because the viewport DOF is not as accurate as the cycles DOF.
To solve this issue, in Blender 2.75, there will be a new high quality checkbox for the viewport, that gives a more accurate approximation of dof.

When enabled using the same settings, it looks like this


move edges radially from the centre I have a shape where I select multiple edges

I would like to move each of these edges equally in a direction linked to the centre of the object. But as you can see doing this manually causes a mess

And moving all the edges together causes a different type of mess

I can achieve something close to what I want by scaling them, but I would like the edges to remain the same length

Someone will probably come up with a better way than this...

If you have a lot of work to do in 4-way symmetry, it's probably worth working under a Mirror modifier in X and Y, or an object-offset Array modifier, based on a target rotated by 90 degrees.

For a one-off, though..

If necessary, create a Custom Orientation from the face the edges have in common
Set Pivot to Median, or 3D Cursor snapped to the appropriate point
SShiftZ Scale  the edges outward
CtrlC copy the scale from the Adjust Last Operation panel
Reset Orientation to Normal, and Pivot to Individual Origins
S scale, and in the Adjust Last Operation panel, swipe to select X,Yand Z fields together and type in to one of them:  1/CtrlV


Inverse Kinematics locks ignored Here is a very simple leg.

Leg.lower.L has an ik constraint applied, of chain length 2.

Foot.L has no ik applied but copies its rotation from IK_Foot.L
As discussed here here  this enables the Inverse Kinematics fields of Leg.lower.L & Leg.upper.L
I want to limit the rotations of the upper leg hat may be caused by ik. To test the extreme case, suppose I attempt to prohibit rotations of Leg.upper.L completely. I have applied Lock IK for X, Y & Z.

However, as you can see, those locks are ignored.

Why are the locks having no effect?
Blender v2.83.0 on Linux

A Pole Target interferes or takes president over the Inverse Kinematics constraining in the Bone Properties tab for the last bone in the chain.
Some info here and (more or less accurate info with a bunch of links) here
I think that sadly there aren't any (easy) workarounds. Non that I'm aware of in any case.


Can someone share a link on "how to map just 1 side of a box" and not UV map the entire box? Can someone share a link on "how to map just 1 side/panel of a box" and not UV map the entire box?

It's a bit specific and can't find any videos on YouTube.

Thanks so much!
SJ

UV map will contains all the faces anyway (this is structurally how the data is). You can select one face and unwrap it. It will take all the surface normally. But the other faces will exist and all be at 0, 0.

As shown here:

Note:

If you've a previously created UV map, when creating a new one selecting only one face, the other faces will keep the UV of the previously created UV map.


Is there a way to lock camera roll as it tracks along a path? I am still quite new to Blender. I have tried searching the official Blender manual and watched several YouTube tutorials and searched for various related strings on the WWW but I haven't found anything to answer this question.
I have set up a camera rig using a couple of empty objects, one on a path and another on another path which is local to my point of interest. I have used constraints to control the camera view and the movement of the camera and target empty objects.
My problem is this - I want to lock the roll (rotation about the camera's local Z axis).
I understand that for every day stuff that the camera should try to stay "upright" but in my situation I am flying around an object in "space" where there is no up/down thing.
There are times during the animation where the camera wants to suddenly roll and much to fast. This is generally when the local Z axis of the camera reaches a vertical aspect.
I have gone into the graph editor to try and at least tame the rolling action and that works to a degree.
Ideally I would like to either have more control over camera roll or lock it altogether. I have tried locking various elements but nothing seems to want to stop camera roll.
I will add a GIF showing how the camera rotates as it goes almost vertical:-

cheers
andy
I have since rendered a video and uploaded to YouTube. I will post a link to the time just before the camera begins to roll.
https://youtu.be/N-nOuM1k32w?t=192
Okay, I have been doing some more research into my perceived problem here.
I created a new simple project with just a cube, a camera and a path (Bezier).
It seems to me that having set the camera up with the Follow Path constraint, linked to the path, and then the Track To constraint, liked to the cube, we are no longer able to rotate the camera at all as it appears to be locked. It is fixed such that the camera's Y axis is always as vertical as possible. And this is understandable, while setting up scenes which are Earth bound and we do not want a camera view which is suddenly upside down.
But then I watched one of the official Blender tutorials with regards to tracking constraints:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGBOu-dNZ-w
As I am new to Blender and having watched so many tutorials up to this point none of them mentioned the Damped Track constraint. When I tried to use this constraint instead of the Track To constraint I noticed that we are now able to changed the camera's rotation.
I still need to play with this some more. I tried it quickly just now in my current project and there was still some undesirable camera roll, but I am guessing that because the camera can now be rotated I should be able to add keyframes at points where I want to control that rotation in order to counteract the roll.
Time for bed now... I will report back once I have spent some more time on this.
cheers, and thank you for your patience.
andy

You can try to edit the "tilt" value of every control point of the curve, even creating new ones if it helps to achieve the desired control.


How do I get rid of the ugly lines around my object? I am creating an inflatable pink flamingo in Cycles, and there is an ugly black line at the edge of my mesh that I don't know how to get rid of. Here are my materials and a sample render. How do I get rid of the black lines at the edge of my mesh?

First, it is hard to tell without your .blend file, but I believe I have a two part solution.

Part 1

Many of your nodes are repetitive and unnecessary. You would get a near-identical result with just the following. Use the Layer Weight node's slider to affect the glossiness (higher value = more glossiness).

Original node setup vs. My node setup:

 vs.

Part 2

I assume you have Smooth Shading on, as activated in the Toolshelf. If you do, either return to Flat Shading or add a Subdivision surface object modifier.

To add such a modifier, first go to the Object Modifiers tab in the Properties panel. Select Subdivision surface from the options. Set both the View: value to 2 and the Render: value to 3.

Final modifier settings:

Smooth shaded Suzanne without any subsurf:

Smooth shaded Suzanne with subsurf at 3:

Flat shaded Suzanne:


Exporting tiled texture? I have plane in blender. On that plane I have single texture (512x512) that repeats itself and makes my "floor".

What I would like to do is export somehow new image for further editing. That image would contain same texture that is repeated, in same scale that I see in blender.

Take a look at image, please :

On the right I have that 512x512 texture, on the left is the result of texture tiling.
I want to export tiled image that we can see on the left in 3D editor, into new image that I can modify further in other software, then import it back.

I did see couple of videos and tutorials of texture baking, but I can't seem to get it right. Is texture baking what I need here, or there is other way?

Also I should say that I plan to use this texture in Unity, therefore I don't need solution that would only work in Blender.

This problem bothers me for quite a while, I used to make my textures in 0-1 space, but that gives horrible results for larger models. I really need to find a way to do this right, it would greatly help me in future texturing.

Thanks!

So you are trying to make a tileset in unity3D, using blender?
I did just that. Mine is simple, like this:

Notice how the larger tile (to L-turn) is much larger than the others. Still, it is only one square texture for each of them. The trick is to UV-map it correctly.

Here is the UV-map for the L-turn. It wraps the texture twice.

Here is the UV-map for a simple tile. It wraps the texture once.

So for a long floor tile, you have two options.

Make a square floor tile with simple UV-map in blender and repeat it several times in unity (preferred).
Make a long tile with "long" uv-map in blender and use it once in unity.

No baking!

If you bake a tiling texture to a polygon UV-mapped as yours you are ruining your texture resolution. If your texture (512px) tiles four times it has an effective resolution of 2048px (4x512). If you bake that to 512 you have reduced your texture resolution 4 times. You could bake it to 2048 and keep the resolution but you would end up with very large textures.

It might also be so that unity downsamples your texture when building the game and you loos quality again. It is a matter of settings, target device and quality.

In any case, I advice against baking.

The reason that it works inside blender is that blender can use texture of odd resolutions and multiple textures per face.

You might be able to make a shader that combines two textures with different tiling in unity. But then how would you position it?


How Can I Keep Blender From Remembering Bad File Paths? I was installing Diffeomorphic and foolishly installed Dropbox in the process. This somehow convince Blender that dropbox is the location for all my files. I got rid of drop box, but I can't convince Blender to use the file paths on my C: drive, or erase dropbox paths from its lists for importing and exporting, so these operations keep failing.
I uninstalled Blender and reinstalled it, but it preserved its memory of bad paths.
How can I fix this?

If you are referring to the "Recent Locations" in the Blender File View, there is a button to reset the recent file locations.


Normalize mix shader fac to .75 as midpoint instead of .5 (I'm not really sure of the proper way to title this question, so feel free to edit.)

I am mixing 4 shaders together: 1 diffuse and 3 toon diffuse, as seen in the image. By default, I want them all to have equal weight, hence the current mix factors. However, I want to use input factors on this group, such as facing or pointiness, to mix between Diffuse and Toon Diffuse. These input factors are all values of 0-1. If I plug them into the mix node between the diffuse and 3 toons, then the weighting will be skewed, as the average value is .5, not .75

I need either some math that would translate the incoming factor to have a new midpoint, or a different way to mix these shaders that will not be unbalanced at the average value of .5

If the group input value is .5, the mix factor should be .75. If the group input value is 1, it should be 1, and 0, should be 0. If it were .25, the mix fac should be .375, and .75 should be .875.

What math would give me this translation, or is there another way to setup the mix nodes that avoids needing to do this?

ColorRamp (or RGBCurve) as Value Remapping Tool

While the transformation could be certainly achieved with several math nodes, I would suggest to take advantage of the ColorRamp node:

  The ColorRamp Node is used for mapping values to colors [and so to other values] with the use of a gradient.

The transformation you want to achieve is linear, with a different slope depending on which side of the range you fall into, but in any case is linear. We'll set up a Linear gradient for the node, then add a slider in corrispondece to the input value midpoint

Pos = 0,5 in this case

and then set the value you would like to be mapped to

V = 0,75

This means that we are asking Blender to make a linear remap of the incoming value from black to white (0-1) with a midpoint (0,5) with a value of 0,75.

Note how this kind of set up should be done without Color Management models transforming your scene data. After that, you should be allowed to set it up like you want and everything should works fine. It's just an easy way to avoid being confused while seetting up the remapper.

Same thing can be done, and perhaps is visually more clear, with the RGBCurve node:

Values before the 0,5 point are change "faster" than the values that comes after. The midpoint has a new value of 0.75. You can change the handle type to Vector in the menu that appears once the wrench icon is clicked.

Here's a try with the values proposed at the end of the question:


How to make semitransparency on an image plane of a 2D png in v2.8? I have checked past questions and this does not seem addressed. Blender 2.8.

How can I add additional transparency to a PNG imported as an Image Plane? E.g. make the entire picture half-transparent including it's normally non-transparent parts. For 2D images, I don't care about 3D at the moment.

Note I am not talking how to display existing alpha in a PNG, I know how that the Blend Mode needs to be set to Alpha for that for Eevee.

Also note that if it was a Reference Image, you can modify the alpha directly, but that does not show up in a render.

How to add additional transparency to a 2d Image Plane?

Thanks

Of course I figure it out right after asking, after a day of no progress.

To help the next person out:

Import your Image Plane
In Materials -> Settings -> Blend Mode and Shadow Mode select "Alpha Blend", this displays existing image transparency
Still in Materials -> Settings check Show Backface (important!)
In Materials -> Surface, add a new Shader, you can do this by clicking the white circle on the last existing shader, and select Principled BSDF
Switch to the Shading workspace, at the very top bar next to the Rendering tab you can access it from General under the + sign.
The Principled BSDF will already have an output to the Mix Shader. You need to connect the Colour output from the PNG to the Base Colour of the Principled BSDF.

Now you can modify the alpha in the Principled BSDF and it will show up in the image plane.

Hope this helps. This is not clear at all for beginners.


How to use different types of data blocks for driver variables? I know that the content of text can be registered through a user-defined function and entered in the Expressions box.
But how can I use text as a data block for variables, as shown in the image?
Blender's UI allows such manipulation, so I just wondered how to use it.

Of course, Transform Channel, Rotational Differences, Distance were not available in the text. Single Property seemed possible.

but when I checked my text through bpy.data.texts['Text'].keys(), by default, the text did not have any properties.

I tried this.

And it worked but I do not think it's a very useful use.

Blender also allows you to use many other types of data blocks as variables in the driver, other than text.
This may mean a lot of freedom to writing a driver, but I've never seen cases that uses data blocks other than objects or armature as variables for the driver.
If you know any good ideas or examples, please share them with me. Thank you.

Make a test driver script to see what works what doesn't.
Using textblock as a driver variable target was going to be an other suggestion re your question on bringing in a text datablock when linking.
Re Text blocks
Speculatively at issue here is drivers use evaluated scene objects, and text objects don't get evaluated... a custom prop may not update in the driver if animated.
>>> eto = D.texts['Text'].evaluated_get(C.evaluated_depsgraph_get())
>>> eto
bpy.data.texts['Text']

>>> eto.is_evaluated
False

A simple test driver
To fiddle about with drivers I often make use of this little test script

Use use_self to pass the evaluated object. \

Can pass all driver
variables as as locals()

Generic test script.
import bpy

def test(*args, **kwargs):
    for arg in args:
        print(arg)

    return -1 # a simple val to indicate working

bpy.app.driver_namespace["test"] = test

Now set up a driver and test the test.

The driver is on object "Circle", the text object evaluates to None as do most. However the matrix world of the cube object is passed.  As is the depsgraph the driver is using to evaluate the objects.
<bpy_struct, Object("Circle") at 0x7f1cb1372e08, evaluated>
{'text': None, 'var': Matrix(((1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0))), 'depsgraph': <bpy_struct, Depsgraph at 0x7f1cbeb80108>}

Adding a rotate driver on cube, the console shows updates the values for both viewing and rendering animation
Now from the matrix world it appears we have all the transforms of the Cube object in our driver in one fell swoop.
The ideology of a driver is to return an int or float as the value of the driven property. Will find however can make this driver a "pseudo" copy transform constraint by adding before the return statement and re-running driver.
args[0].matrix_world = args[1]['var']

which using better names is self.matrix_world = cube.matrix_world   If say the x location is being driven by this, then it is given that value and all others are taken from the matrix world..  This is abuse of the driver system .. but hey it's fun.
Some answers using drivers
This one adds drivers to drive material index of each face of a mesh
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/183716/15543


How do I fix the loop cut eror "loop cut does not work well on deformed edit mesh display"? So, I'm trying to add a loop cut in the middle of the torso because the two bones on the torso weren't working properly, but I get the message "loop cut does not work well on deformed edit mesh display". Does anyone know how to fix this error?

It's not really an error, what you see is  just a warning that your mesh won't look like you want after a loop cut in a different pose since it's influenced by an armature.
you can delete the armature modifier temporarily and add it again after you do the cut to avoid seeing that message.


How to get current position of an object using Blender's Python API in BGE? I'm updating an objects location using a Simple Motion Actuator. I see it move on the screen.

In Python I want to get the objects' current position.

scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
obj = scene.objects['Sphere.002']     # The object the actuators are defined on

obj.position
obj.worldPosition
obj.localPosition

I've tried these three methods of the object, but all of them only show the original position of the object, not the current position based on the changes made by the logic bricks.

Here's another example of what I'm doing wrong, it seems to be the same problem.

I have a text object, I've defined a text game property that I increase or decrease with a keyboard sensor. When I print the value of the text it only prints the original value of 0.5 not the value I see on the screen.

print(bge.logic.getCurrentScene().objects['mytextobject'].text)

This always prints the original value, not the value that is updated from the logic bricks. This must be a trivial error, but I can't figure out what to do. I've looked at all the properties of the scene.object and I don't see anything that looks like it might give me the expected result.

When are you reading the value?  If you've assigned it to a variable, it might be reading the initial value, and ignoring any updates.

You'll need to update the value periodically.  Possibly using an Always sensor, with a skip, if desired.  Or at certain times within the game;  collision with another object, for instance.

You may need to access appropriate coordinate within it's location vector:  obj.pos.x


Creasing edge with "Subdivision surface" modifier on rounded surface As you can see on the images below, my problem is when I crease an edge to get sharpness with "Subdivision surface" modifier on, eventually, I get that pointed convex edge.

How can I avoid this 'bug' without complicating the topology, because obviously "mean crease" doesn't work, as well as making vertex group of the vertices on this edge and using it with the "Bevel" modifier.

Blend-file: https://yadi.sk/d/AtQSze6ogdbd4

Actually this is not a bug, this is how it works. Creasing just "pulls" edges on subdivided surfaces towards it's original location (without subsurf) so it's natural.

Please watch this video about 3 different methods regarding the subject:

Tips for Creating Sharp Edges While Modeling

Edit: I may have not been clear enough why that artifact occurs. It's because you're not creasing the edge NEAR the creased one (in the middle which you want to be rounded) and so there is a "jump" between a 100% creased edge and a non-creased edge.


How to set up a orbiting camera with zoom in the BGE? How can I zoom in and out using the mouse wheel in the BGE? And press the middle button to go move around the character?

I want the camera to be parent to the character so that it will follow it.

One way to do this is by adding an empty at the point which you want the camera to orbit around, and adding a mouse look actuator to it:

Then parent the camera to it with ⎈ CtrlP.

For zooming, you can do something like this on the camera:


How to specify a different value for a node parameter, part of a node group, for different materials I've got this object which exists of 10 meshes or so. Their UV maps are all different, of course. I would like to have the same shading on all of them, so I created a node group. The node group includes the normal map. I wish to resize the normal map. For that the Mapping Node can be used. The mapping node is also part of the node group. What I would like to be able to do is, reuse this node group entirely, and be able to set a different scale, on a single axis, per instance of the node group (or per material is you will).

I didn't get your question, do you mean you want to duplicate the node group to different materials? ctrl+c and then ctrl+v in new material's node editor would work but I think you have to enable the "copy attribute" add-on


Blender and dental addon I am a beginner in using blender .
I read about the dental cadcam add-on , and i searched for the script and could not find it .

Where can I get this addon?

I am the author the addon.  I will update the google site to point to the github repository.  The addon has not been "abandoned" but it is certainly not actively maintained or developed heavily.

https://github.com/patmo141/odc_public

Thanks,
Patrick


Ngons and messy Topology on flat Surfaces I am creating a model of my car which I hope to release on turbosquid.

I have used neat topology for the majority of my model, however I have no way of creating the car radio the way I want to without some ngons and messy topology.

Will this affect the final render and if so is there any way to go about it?

Topology Guides Guides for 3d Artists first you should learn the basics to have a clean topology and not the clutter that is seen in your model, so you will achieve a good quality render and you will make your work easier by reducing the render time
You can use Loop Tools Addon, it is in user preferences addons, activate it and it will appear in edit mode when you press W
Example to create a good
Apply Smooth in Object Mode
and maybe you can apply a subdivision surface modifier
You can also read many very good answers that are here, and do not wait for the magic addon to arrive, which may never arrive

Topology

more Topology

when finished remember to apply scale and rotation, so that when you do not have scaling problems, remember to adjust the normals of your model

8.1 Object Mode

8.2 CTRL + A, Scale and Rotation

8.3 Edit Mode

8.4 select all and apply CRTL + N


Artifacts when baking with multires I'm trying to create a normal map for a mesh with multires modifier. Here are the steps I took.

First I unwrapped the mesh and created 32 bit float 4096x4096 texture.

Then I applied multires modifier and did some sculpting on the mesh.

I then baked the normal map with following settings.

Here is what I got when I applied the baked texture onto the mesh:

There are lines in-between faces which seem to follow the subdivision of the mesh with multires modifier. Why does this happen?

Interestingly this does not happen if I set the preview count in multires modifier to 4, aka the same count as the sculpt. However another artifact becomes apparent.

There are artifacts in the form of leaves all around the mesh. Does anybody know what causes this?

It looks like you try to make your mesh look smooth by adding more mesh subdivisions instead of setting its shading to smooth.

Unless you're on an insane project and you have all the power of the world to be able to spend hundreds of polygons on the slightest prop, this isn't the right way.
Adding mesh should be needed only if you need those extra polygons to form volume. The smooth appearance should be before all managed through shading.

Since normal baking calculates your faces' normal as is, if you're using flat shading, the baked normals will be flat as well, hence this weird patterns.

See this Blender 2.79 manual page to learn more about normals.

In short, to fix this:

In the 3D Viewport, select your mesh
In the tools panel (toggle it with T), click the Smooth button in the Edit panel:

Then your baking should be correct.


I would like to bake a material into a texture I have a model in which I want the material output to become a UV texture. How would I go about this?

I decided to use substance painter instead. Thanks for the help anyway. :)


Merge faces not working Limited dissolve / merge / non of these options are getting rid of the coplanar lines in the table top here (with the holes in it).

FILES:

Actually you won't get rid of a lot of edges with X > Limited Dissolve because you need almost all of these edges to keep your holes.

Here is an explanation of what I mean:


Is it possible to specify texture dimensions for Cycles nodes I've been using the new Cycles Baking branch that Dalai Felinto is working on and have noticed that when adding textures to materials, the render time goes up substantially when the textures are very large such as 2048x2048 or higher.

So basically, for the object to render fast then the textures that are applied to the object must first be scaled down to something more reasonable like 1024x1024.

This breaks the workflow and makes managing textures difficult since having multiple copies of textures at various resolutions can be difficult.

Alright so to the point, I would like to be able to load in large textures but to have Cycles recognize them as smaller than they really are.

Ideally there would be a node that has various texture dimensions which can be specified and connected to the image Texture node but I do not see one.

I think the compositor has something like this but apparently, for now, not Cycles.  Does anyone know of a work around that can help with this?

No, there's not a way to modify the actual resolution of a texture with shader nodes.

The solution would be to bake to a lower resolution to begin with.


Some animations not exporting with FBX I’m having an issue where some of my animations are not exporting with my model/armature. I designed everything in Blender and I’m trying to export as FBX to import into Unity. For my main character I designed 19 animations. But for some reason, when I export as FBX, 6 of those animations disappear. The file is too big to upload here but I would gladly send via email (briankenny718@yahoo.com). Any help would be so greatly appreciated!

You may want to watch the first 8 minutes to know how the action editor and the NLA work.
In general the clips you are not seeing, are in "replace" mode or have not been stored correctly on the Action Editor with it´s corresponding user (but as a fake user), are not present on the graph editor and are not taken in account.


I'm trying to scale only one loop in edit mode but when i select that loop and try to scale, it scales the entire mesh. What should i do? I am a beginner in blender and I made a cylinder mesh then I went into the edit mode to scale only the base loop but everytime I try, it scales the entire mesh.
I tried selecting only vertices or edges and both of them together but it made no difference. What am I doing wrong?

Disable the Proportional Editing mode button (blue sphere icon on the horizontal menu bar on the bottom of your 3D View).


turn on Cycles GPU render on non CUDA computers Is there a way to turn on GPU rendering without an installed CUDA driver and without a CUDA enabled graphic card?

I want to send the blend file on my render farm, all the slaves have NVidia CUDA cards, but I don't want to turn on my big computer just to set the blend file to GPU compute and then send it into my farm.

I'm modelling on my Surface Pro 3 [windows 8, i5-processor] on the go [works fine by the way :3], and when I am home I dispatch the jobs to the far, but this way they only work with the GPU when I turn on my greater Computer to change it there.

There doesn't have to be a way, but it would be nice if there were.

One way you could do it is to run this in a command line (or put it in a batch file). It enables Blender OpenCL test.

set CYCLES_OPENCL_TEST=all
"C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe"

Then, in Blender's settings, head over to the "System" tab, and enable OpenCL.

Reference: http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?302079-Blender-Cycles-AMD-Opencl-It-s-possible-working-now


Keep Scale While Animating I am quite sure I've seen someone to disable scale change when animating, for an instance if I enable FK / IK and drag my hand to change position it will stretch like so:

I would like to know how can I fix that. (no scripting)

This isn't the scale, but the IK stretch feature, which you can control from the properties panel (N shortcut key). The following video explains how to use this property to control stretching:
http://youtu.be/AII-n2GHbG4


Weird Mesh/UV problem cant seem to fix it I have a model of a Opel Blitz: Maultier and im facing a problem, the meshes or something seem to be duplicated or somehow bugging in a weird way. Quick clip: Video

Same problem in 3ds Max 2020, if somebody wants the files i can provide them if needed.

i already tried to remove materials and i tried to see if i can do something with the meshes but no luck.. didn't find a way. These weird spots appear and when i remove it the second material it seems to be fixed but its not because when i check in 3ds max it still breaks.

In blender i can see this:

Download: Link

Just a quick look and I figure it out.

Every mesh has two materials applied.

Deleting one of them will solve the problem.

The bad news is: You must repeat it with every mesh.


Diffusing/softening Lights in Cycles I'm coming from photography. So:
I made a champaign bottle in 2.78 with a fine shader, now I need those light's reflections in the glass to become nice and soft.

I set up 2 "strip lights" (emitting planes) to bring out the shape, but the reflection is rather harsh and unpleasant.

In photography, I'd place a strong diffusor right in front of the lights to avoid those razor sharp reflections. But how can I achieve that in Cycles?

Of course, I would not alter the glass material. So either there is a way to modify the light source, light path or the light itself.

Should I bounce the light off of a less reflective material onto the bottle? Like a reflector in photography.  Or should I place some kind of material in between lights and subject?

I've found a blur node, but I haven't used the compositor yet enough to know my way around. There is also supposed to be an "Integrator" according to the online documentation, but I have failed to find it in the software.

Please help, dear Blenderers

Final

You can make your light source (Plane with Emission) 'diffused' as you want.

I've created this:

Then applied it as a Mix Factor between Emission and Transparent shader:

With this method you can create any light diffusion you want.


Low quality render help This is my first post.

I am new to Blender and am following a tutorial to simulate an ink drop using smoke particles.

I have set up the simulation and have rendered some stills with cycles but no matter what i do i can't seem to get a crisp image.

I have cranked up the number of samples and have the image resolution at 1920x1080 (same as my computer monitor). It looks great when i zoom out to 1/3 the size of the image but when it is displayed fullscreen, it has this very low quality look to it. Not sure what i am doing wrong here. Please have a look at the images. I was hoping to upload my project file but couldn't figure out how to.

Below are images of the render and the render settings.

Many thanks in advance.

Quick and dirty:
when the render looks fine when zoomed out just double the resolution and it should look good when displayed in screensize.


Blender Mesh/Modifier Animation to Bone/Keyframe Animation I build a Chain that is following a Curve with the help of some Emptys, like here Link. It works fine, but i need the Animation as a NLA Track on my Armature because i want to use the Animation in Unity or Unreal Engine. I did try to bake it down with the (Bake Action) function but these results in a weird Animation who is only Showing Rotation Values in the end.
So my Question: is there any way to bake or Convert this?

You need to use an armature. Constraint bone positions to empties. Those empties are children of your curve points (hooks).
You can only export deforming BONES.
An extensive series about this subject is here> https://youtu.be/hdGkKbtQxE0


Selecting groups in blender How do I select groups? I don't want to select an object and then its siblings, but I want to see a list of groups and I want to select a group like that. Is that possible?

The reason I don't want to select an object and then its siblings is because it also selects objects I previously removed from the group.

You can  use the outliner to choose groups and then hit the + to select the object in the group.

One of the best settings I ever changed in Blender was having a double RT Click automatically select the group. No need to Shift + G or anything.


Apply mesh transformations to primitive_uv_sphere_add() How can I apply mesh transformations using the Blender's mathutils 3D transformation matrix to a sphere formed using bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add()

I am successfully able to construct a 3D transformtaion matrix using mathutils.Matrix.Rotation matrix and mathutils.Matrix.Translation matrix and apply the transform() operation on a mesh created manually using me = bpy.data.meshes.new() and passing it the vertices and faces/edges using me.from_pydata(verts, edges, faces). However, I would like to use the same transformation matrix to apply the corresponding transformations to a sphere.

Can someone point out a way to do the above; or suggest some workaround for the same?

This can be achieved by getting the mesh of the object and multiplying the transformation matrix to each vertex. (Possibly there is a convenience function for that).

import bpy
from bpy import context
import mathutils
from mathutils import Vector,Quaternion
import math

obj = bpy.data.objects["Cube"]  # particular object by name
#obj = bpy.context.scene.objects.active # active object

# setup whatever matrix
mx = mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(math.radians(15.0), 4, 'X')

mesh = obj.data
for vert in mesh.vertices:
    vert.co = mx * vert.co


When I link a blend file, why is the object showing up at 1/10th the scale? I have two blend files. Both files use distance in meters. The first file is a character of 2.267 meters tall. The second file is a single handed axe of height 56 centimeters. When I link the axe object to the character file the axe shows up, but is only 5.6 centimeters in height.

Any idea what might be causing this?

Axe blend file: http://cybermagesllc.com/models/Axe.blend

Two reasons this can happen are:

The file you are appending into has different units from the file you are appending from. You can go to the Units panel in the Scene tab to verify this.
You are using either Metric or Imperial units and the Scale value is different in both files.


How to make an army-style march with particles following landscape? I need to set up a quite huge army of characters. My goal is to make them walk inline, rhythmically, and following the shape of the landscape.
I know it's possible to make something similar with boid particles, but the best I can do is to make a hord, following a leader particle, but in that case the slave particles aren't walking inline, but more like a zombie group, whereas I need inline walk.

Any idea how to do that ?

Create a flat Lattice and Shrinkwrap it to your terrain. Make sure it has enough divisions to conform to the terrain accurately.

The reason for using a Lattice is that directly Shrink-wrapping a mesh against another mesh when animating will create jittery snapping artifacts as verts latch on to other verts, while a Lattice on the other hand smoothly interprets the curve and makes it usable via the Lattice Modifier.

Create a particle emitter plane and put a Lattice Modifier on it that uses that Lattice.

Animate the emitter plane traveling across the Lattice.

The original animated characters must be on an enabled layer or their animation will not be calculated for their particles.

With just one character model used, the marching looks too uniform. But this can be remedied by using a group instead and having each model in the group have variation in physical appearance and walk cycle.

There's just one more issue to address. You may have noticed some of the troops are scaling the steep hills too quickly. Others have limbs intersecting with one another. These problems can be fixed by using shape keys to deform the vertex positions of the emitter mesh to steer troops away from obstacles:

An alternative to using Shape Keys is to Hook an Empty to their emitter vertex and control them using that. The Empty will need to be parented to the emitter mesh to move in relation to it.

Note that these techniques require the particles to be set to emit from verts, not faces.


Why can I not access the custom EnumProperty which I added to my Panel class? I'm working on a Panel where a user shall be able to choose between different options using a dropdown box. What I'd like to do for convenience reasons is to define an EnumProperty directly in the Panel class. Here is an example, I modified the UI Panel Simple template that ships with Blender slightly and added Addon definition:

import bpy

bl_info = {
    "name": "Hello World Panel with Enum Prop",
    "author": "Rainer Trummer",
    "version": (0, 1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 76, 0),
    "description": "Enum Property is registered, but cannot be accessed",
    "category": "Interface"
}

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "VIEW3D_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_context = "object"

    # EnumProperty definition
    test = bpy.props.EnumProperty(items =
        [
            ('ONE', 'one', 'first one'),
            ('TWO', 'two', 'second one')
        ]
    )

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        row = layout.row()
        row.label(text = "Hello world!", icon = 'WORLD_DATA')

        # the following line fails when hovering over the panel
        # with the mouse cursor
        row.prop(self, 'test')

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

You can run this code from the text editor. There are no errors thrown at first, but the Property never appears in the UI. When you hover over the Panel in the 3D View, the console prints the following error:

However, I can happily access the property from the console:

but only if the panel code is within an addon. Running JUST the panel code without the bl_info block does not register the property.

I know I can put the Enum somewhere else, like into bpy.types.scene, but I don't understand why this approach here would not work. It DOES work with operators, doesn't it? Why not with Panels?

items = (('OANS', 'oans', 'description', 0))

This is a tuple of four. (x) just evaluates to x. If you want a tuple that contains x, you have to write (x, ). Or just use a list. Either of those two should work:

items = (('OANS', 'oans', 'description', 0), )

items = [('OANS', 'oans', 'description', 0)]


Is there any paper or balloon simulation? I want to know which simulation and what setting i have to give to a balloon flying in air and a paper also so that it should look light weight and if pin it should fly with wind

A very simple way is to set the scene gravity to a positive value (by default is the usual -9.81), and set a simulation for you baloon...

then (eg) a rigid body, but also cloth works (you just inverted the "falling" direction, and/or acceleration):

then, starting the animation with ALTA your ballon will fly upwards...

You could also add an empty with wind effect, if strong enough will move your uplifting baloon along the wind direction...


Automating Camera and Deformable Object for Image Data Collection I have a deformable object (e.g. a rigged arm with a hand) in the scene. I want to take large numbers of pictures of the arm from different angles, while the arm is performing different actions. How do I automate this process and save the rendered images directly to a directory?

Would it make more sense to keep the camera in place and just animate the arm to different positions? I am doing this for data collection so I want the arm movements to be randomized and camera angles to be randomized. If this type of randomization is possible, could I also set constraints on what part of the arm is included in each image?

Okay I have a way to do this without Animation Nodes, which still might be a good solution for you.

I've created a scene with a two-bone armature and a cylindrical mesh parented to it.  That's your "arm".  It is animated to bend back and forth.

I have also added to this example a bezier curve that will follow the deformations of the armature, via a couple of "hook" modifiers.  The control points of the bezier are hooked to the bones of the armature.

The camera is animated to jump around to random positions in the x, y, and z dimensions via a "Noise" modifier added separately to each of the x, y, and z directions.  A different seed for each ensures that they're moving separately.

You will have to tweak the parameters of the Noise modifier to ensure it is jumping around as quickly as you like and as far as you like in the various dimensions.

Back to the curve object, I have also created an empty with a "follow path" modifier, associated with the curve.  I have animated the offset value of that modifier with another "noise" modifier.  Essentially this means that the empty jumps around to various positions along the curve.  The curve, remember, deforms along with the animation of the armature, so basically the empty is always somewhere in the middle of the "elbow."

Finally a "damped track" constraint is added to the camera, which is set to target the empty.

So basically, for every frame, the camera is jumping to some random location, an empty is moving to some random location within the deforming armature, and the camera is set to turn towards the empty.

Here are the first ten frames of the animation output from this setup.  As you can see, there is quite a bit of variation in terms of camera angle.  Hopefully this is sufficient for your purposes.


How to increase performance in the View Port? I have model that has 100 000 cubes forming a 2d grid from a birds-eye view. The cubes are very simple in geometry, but still, with 100-200k it's hard to perform some tasks around the viewport.

Are there some options to remove and increase the performance? I've already disabled ambient occlusion, but it's still sometimes slow. Any advice?

NOTE: I don't want to cut the grid into multiple meshes and separate it in different layers if possible.

If your cubes have more than 8 verts then I suggest using a decimate modifier. But not applying it. It will reduce the polycount and you can just undo it for a final render by deleting the modifier.


Rotation problem with Action Constraint I would like to trigger an action that I created earlier on a bone (Drumhit on the upper arm bone of a drummer).
The action would be triggered by another bone of another armature (snare on Drumcontrol) that rotates on the x axis.
The problem is as soon as I set up the Action constraint it rotates the bone. The action still works but it starts in a totally wrong position.
Can anyone please help me with this?

Here is the blend file:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r0wBDRb70z24FBue6z9qw0epDHmXOihz

In the Dopesheet, you need to check the action you're using in this Action constraint for the UpperArm bone, it is called DrumHit.

As you can see its first rotation keyframe is NOT set to W/X/Y/Z values of 1/0/0/0, but 0.721/-0.654/etc, that's why as soon as you enable the constraint it jumps to this angle.

So what you need to do is to change this first frame rotation setting to 1/0/0/0.

Also I don't know why your Snare, which is supposed to be the controller bone (Target), had a driver, so I deleted it for my test, otherwise it couldn't move.

Now when you rotate it on the X axis, it works.


How to make objects not pass through each other? I have a field with plants, and some plant's leaves are cross over with each other. How do I add collision/or is there any other way to solve this problem?

I need that effect, cause I'm creating a field with 100+ randomly placed and generated plants on scene via scripting, and I need it to look close to real field.
My plant is armatured and animated(wind-like effect)

Here's rendered image.
That's what I'm talking about:

Solved my problem by applying Soft Body (with a few settings, so my objects won't jump around) and Collision effects


Python script for "Cursor to Active" I am making a python script that replace lights by spheres (to get the Blender light positions in Unity) for Dark Blender, but the script Cursor to Active command is specific to the 3d view so it does not compile from the text editor. What code should i write to make it work?

If a 3d view is not in local mode then bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_active() is the equivalent of

context.scene.cursor_location = context.active_object.location

Could also just get the location from the lamps in the scene

import bpy

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene

lamps = [o for o in scene.objects if o.type == 'LAMP']

for l in lamps:
    # add sphere
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(location=l.location)
    # unlink from scene (could bpy.ops.delete or bpy.data.remove )
    scene.objects.unlink(l)

or pre select the lamps and use

lamps = context.selected_objects


object not showing up in NLA editor if it isn't much trouble could someone tell me how to get my robot and it's actions to show up in the NLA editor again? been trying everything i can think off but it still wont work.

its action's were muted in the nla but the Outliner still says they are there and the dope sheet remembers the actions but the object wont show up in the NLA editor

In the NLA Filters menu icon make sure all choices are selected ... dark color.


How can an accurate height map be created in Blender? We have been working to create a height map output with the shader editor. We have a plane that has been sculpted into a terrain.

We have applied a material with the following node setup to get the correct white to black shading according to height:

The middle color stop in the color ramp has its color set to HSV and the H is 0, S is 0, and V is 0.5.

The shading this applies to the object is then recorded by a camera directly above it, with all rotation axes set to 0. Under the camera tab, its lens type is set to orthographic and the scale was set up so it would frame the object correctly.

However, when I import the height map this makes into Godot and set it up, there is a crease where the grayscale has changed color way too quickly, and the high points of the map are squished down.

What else needs to be adjusted here in order for this to work?

I've just looked into your way of making a height map, which seems a bit snappier than a Mist pass for something like this - I'd never thought of doing it this way...

So long as you keep the color-space linear all the way through, it works fine, as far as I can see.

In the Render > Color Management panel, set the View Transform to 'Raw'... Using EEVEE, here, but Cycles would work, too.. image saved as 16-bit RGB PNG. When used as a texture in a Displacement modifier, the Color Space in the texture must be set to 'Linear', too.

I didn't make a fuss about smoothing and subdivision, but the results seem accurate. Original on the left, displacement with EEVEE image & displacement with Cycles image on the right, with the Displacement modifier set to a Strength of the Z dimension of the original object.


HairNet addon moves other hair systems on same emitter mesh I've been scouring the web for any documentation on this for hours and can't seem to find any comprehensive info. I have a scalp which has a hair system on it created from curves using the HairNet add on. When on it's own it works as expected, but as soon as I select another curve to create a new hair system on the same object, the first system's guides get all wonky. This exact result also happens when I disconnect and reconnect my hair system. Does anyone have any ideas what causes this?
You can see the difference of before adding a new system and after.

This bug happens since Blender 2.9 and HairNet 0.6.2 were released. The hair particles of one of the existing hair particle systems move down along the z-axis for some reason when another hair particle system is added by HairNet.
You can pull the hair particles up again in comb mode but a better workaround is to disable all existing hair particle systems in the viewport before you add another hair particle system with the addon. After the new one is added you can enable them again.


How to make displacement working on imported objects? If I use a displacement (shader) with geometry created in Blender (Cubes, Planes etc) it's working perfectly. However, when using displacement on imported geometry (shader) it's not working at all.

Is there any solution to this?

Three things for this to work

Proper UV maps (main reason)
- your imported objects have broken or even missing UV maps, so the displacement doesn't work
- to solve this, select all faces of the mesh and go UV > Smart UV Project

Connect Displacement texture
- your node setup is very... unusual :)
- you need to connect your Displacement Texture directly into the Displacement node

Apply scale
- some of your objects have very small scale (0.01) which also affects final displacement
- apply the scale through Object > Apply > Scale  so it 1.

Apply scale to parented objects
- some object's are parented - you need to clear the parent before applying scale
- select parented object and go RMB > Clear and Keep Transformation

How to create a simple UV map.
This is just a quick and dirty way. Learn to unwrap objects manually

How to connect Displacement texture

How to clear parent and apply scale
Do this for all imported objects, just to be sure


Change default parameters I want to change the default parameter from '0.010' to '0.0001' of the select similar by area box. The parameter can be found here:
Edit > Face Select > Select Similar (Shift+G) > Area

The values are stored in the Startup-File if you change them after launching Blender you can set the values and save the default-scene as Startup File Ctrl-U.

You can also restore the Factory Settings from the Menu: File / Load Factory Settings.


Can I Automate Converting Groups of Triangles to Quads? This mesh is exported from a game, and everything is triangulated. The way the mesh is set up is 256 (16x16) squares like the one on the right in the picture below. I want to make it look like the square on the left, which I did manually, but doing them all manually would be about 16,000 faces.

The problem with using things like Tris to Quads is that each square I want to make is 4 triangles, while blender tries to make the diagonal faces which leaves triangles at the edges.

Also, the mesh is a landscape so using grid fill will get rid of the shape as far as I know. I'm not that advanced in Blender so I might be missing something, but I really need to automate this.

Edit: Just a side note, I have never seen them before, but when I import the game models they have blue lines. What are these?

Select Similar

I think there cannot be an unique answer: there are multiple possible solutions to the problem of "grouping tris into quads". For example Blender is showing one of them, that cannot be said wrong in anyway. That's its automated way to solve the problem.

You'll have to write your own algorithm in order to specify what kind of index order should be followed while packing tris. Luckly, in the provided exmple you can take advantage of another tool: Select Similar.

As long as there is a recognizable pattern in the distribution of the triangles, as in your case, you can simply select all the vertices that are ruining your quads and dissolve them.

Pick one vertex in the middle of the "future" quad, run Select Similar command with "amount of connecting edges" option, then press X and choose Dissolve vertices


How to perfect align rotation? How can i align the rotation of two objects perfectly?
I have this cylinder between two blocks and i want to perfect align the piston end (orange) to the cylinder (rotation).

You first need to correctly realign the object's orientation.
To realign the object orientation with its face orientation, select a face of your object in Edit mode, create a custom orientation in the Transform Orientations panel:

In the Options panel (top right of 3D view) activate Transform > Affect Only > Origins:

In the header menu click on Object > Transform > Align To Transform Orientation:

Deactivate Only Origins, do an AltR, now your cylinder is aligned with the Global orientation again, it should be easy to align with the other cylinder.


Metallic BSDF shader is always black I'm trying to model a textured and anodized aluminum material (think Apple MacBook). I'm using the Principled BSDF node because my end target is a glTF for display in the browser. Whatever I do, when setting metallic to 1, it always comes out black (both in Blender, and when rendering with three.js/WebGL in the browser).
I tried to duplicate some of the examples here, and I get the same result. I believe the issue is something to do with not having the correct light sources or scenes to reflect, but I've tried variations of environment maps and actual scenes with various types of lights, and I never get anything other than solid black/dark grey.
Here's the .blend

Enable screen space reflections. Answers vary depending on the render engine you are using, please always specify what you are using