Imported zbrush mesh cannot be parented with automated weighted I did a mesh in Zbrush, sculpt it with level subdivision 5. Send the mesh to Blender with GoB, automatically GoB import in blender Level 1 mesh (not a problem at all), so want parenting the mesh to my Rigify generated rig, well, this was fine sometime before (I think until release 2.76), but now it took hours or cannot do at all, for parenting the mesh (composed by all quads). Why? Cannot understand what is the problem.

It looks like the main problem is your rig and your mesh don't line up very well (at least in the file you provided). I would suggest starting by making sure each bone is where it should be. If the bones aren't close to any geometry blender is going to have a really hard time determining which bone should control each vertex.


where is the movie clip node on blender 2.83? I'm on blender 2.83 and I would like to apply a shader nodes scheme to a movie clip,instead to the single frames,but it seems that it isn't where it should be. At least,according with the tutorial that I'm following,this one :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pPGR3d9WWc
Below you can see clearly that I don't have that node anymore.

You are in the wrong node editor at the moment. The Movie Clip node is a compositing node, and is found in in the compositor.
Refer to the image below:

Currently, you are in the shader editor. So, just switch editors and you will find the node you are looking for.


Unwrap Separate Meshes I have so many books models to texture. Texturing them one by one will be a pain. Can Blender unwrap two (or more) separate meshes and make them share the same UV grid?

As long as all the vertices in your objects are completely connected to each other (no loose parts) the following technique will work:

Select all your objects, and press CtrlJ. This will join them into one  mesh.
Press U > Unwrap (or whatever unwrapping method you want use).
Press P > Separate by Loose Parts.

This works great for quick 'n' dirty unwrapping onto a tileable image, but it may make more sense to link them all (like Matt said). The simplest way to link them early in a project is to duplicate them with AltD instead of ShiftD. It will link the mesh and the UV map which will make things easier later on.


Reset camera orientation? Hi so I shrunk my mesh down a great deal from 20 meters in height to about 2 and now the camera orientation is really weird. How do I reset it to move around my shrunk mesh instead of still behaving like it is moving around the larger one?

Select the mesh and press the period key on the Numpad.


Node group input not colored When I add an Input to the Node Editor Group interface how does it know what type of function it is? The Plug icons are all gray not blue, yellow, green.  Screen shot of blender node editor group interface.

you can create input sockets by creating a link to the date you want to connect.

The new input socket will have the color of the data is is connected to.


can i unwarp a cylinder to flat plane object? Is it possible to unwarp the cylinder (there's no top and bottom faces) to flat rectangular plane in edit mode while keeping the original aspect ratio of all faces ? similar to unwarp the uv but this time, i want to unwarp the geometry itself not the UV. The closest thing is to cut the cylinder into 2 and scale each to 0 and then join them.

Think of it backwards. Use a simple deform modifier and an empty to control it.

Start with a plane, subdivide it and add a simple deform modifier.

Add an empty. Rotate it 90 degrees on the X axis.

Select the plane, set the simple deform modifier to bend, select the empty as the origin axis and set the angle to 360

Then you can just play with the angle on the modifier to do whatever it is that you want to do.


How to prevent hidden shapes from being exported to .stl file? I've created a replacement radiator knob in blender to get it 3d printed.
I've used array modifiers to replicate shapes mirrored around the center.
And I have used a Boolean modifier to create the notches for more grip.
The problem is that when I export to a .stl file the shapes that I have hidden use the "eye"-buttons also appear.
How can I remove them when exporting?
What it is supposed to look like after exporting:

What is looks like after exporting:

Before exporting, press A in object mode to select everything, this won't select any hidden object.
Then while exporting, check "Selection Only" on the right to export only the selected objects.


Why does Blender render black? I have downloaded a .blend file that contained a pistol model.
Also, it contained a light.

The rendering was set to "Blender Game".

Since the default blender rendering doesn't require a light in the scene, and since I wanted to get rid of the light, I deleted it.

Since then the view shows a black weapon model:

I have set the rendering mode to "Blender Render", hoping that this would restore the default lighting, but it didn't help.

As one can see, the default blender scene also doesn't have a light, and it still renders fine:

How could I set the default blender rendering in this case?

Thank you very much for the help.

You should just click on the toolbar on the left > Create > Lamp: Point. In Blender Render, unlit objects show completely black. Make sure you move the lamp around (G) so that the pistol is illuminated by the light.

EDIT: It looks like you are in the Material view. Switch to Solid view (on the bottom toolbar)


how to Rig / Animate a Multi Lobe Camshaft Hi im Trying to animate multiple Cam Lobes on a single shaft
Like So
and each Lobe is at a different interval to each other which is where I have drawn a blank.
and each Lobe should drive their own individual Valve
Does anyone have a super Solid Solution to this
Here is the File if you need the Physical Camshaft and Valve Setup to help me with my rigging problems

Have you considered using  Shrinkwrap constraints?
Here. the valve-rod is parented to an Empty, which is constrained to be projected onto the surface of the cam, down its own Y axis..

If the slight penetration is a bother, maybe that could be tweaked out by keyframing or driving the constraint's offset, or influence? Or by having a hidden, slightly reshaped cam, to displace the Empty,avoiding intermittent intersection with the rod.
Example settings.. the Empty is constrained to the Cam, projected.


Is there an addon for renaming an object with a keyboard shortcut? I want to use a keyboard shortcut to bring up a text field for renaming the active object.

As far as I know, currently no such shortcut exists, and making one will require an addon.
I seem to remember reading about just such an addon before, but now I can't remember where (it was a while ago). If I remember correctly, it had some other features too (batch renaming or something).

Anyway, if this functionality or an addon supplying it already exists, where can I find it?

I just found one ;)

With the following Add-on enabled, you can press CtrlR to enter a 'new name' for the active object as well as rename its data block (optional). In order to speed up the process you can hit Return followed by O to confirm, after typing the 'new name':

Click to enlarge

viewport-rename.py

# ##### BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####
#
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
#  modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
#  as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
#  of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#  GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
#  Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
#
# ##### END GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####
# <pep8 compliant>

import bpy
import re

bl_info = {
    "name": "Viewport Rename",
    "author": "p2or",
    "version": (0, 5),
    "blender" : (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "3D View > Ctrl+R",
    "warning": "", # used for warning icon and text in addons panel
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "category": "3D View"
}

class ViewportRenameOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Rename selected object(s) in 3D View"""
    bl_idname = "view3d.viewport_rename"
    bl_label = "Viewport Rename"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}
    bl_property = "new_name"

    new_name : bpy.props.StringProperty(name="New Name")
    data_flag : bpy.props.BoolProperty(name="Rename Data-Block", default=False)

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return bool(context.selected_objects)

    def execute(self, context):
        user_input = self.new_name
        reverse = False
        if user_input.endswith("#r"):
            reverse = True
            user_input = user_input[:-1]

        suff = re.findall("#+$", user_input)
        if user_input and suff:
            number = ('%0'+str(len(suff[0]))+'d', len(suff[0]))
            real_name = re.sub("#", '', user_input)

            objs = context.selected_objects[::-1] if reverse else context.selected_objects
            names_before = [n.name for n in objs]
            for c, o in enumerate(objs, start=1):
                o.name = (real_name + (number[0] % c))
                if self.data_flag and o.data is not None:
                    o.data.name = (real_name + (number[0] % c))
            self.report({'INFO'}, "Renamed {}".format(", ".join(names_before)))
            return {'FINISHED'}

        elif user_input:
            old_name = context.active_object.name
            context.active_object.name = user_input
            if self.data_flag and context.active_object.data is not None:
                context.active_object.data.name = user_input
            self.report({'INFO'}, "{} renamed to {}".format(old_name, user_input))
            return {'FINISHED'}

        else:
            self.report({'INFO'}, "No input, operation cancelled")
            return {'CANCELLED'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        wm = context.window_manager
        dpi = context.preferences.system.pixel_size
        ui_size = context.preferences.system.ui_scale
        dialog_size = 450 * dpi * ui_size
        if context.active_object:
            self.new_name = context.active_object.name
        return wm.invoke_props_dialog(self, width=dialog_size)

    def draw(self, context):
        row = self.layout
        row.row()
        row.prop(self, "new_name")
        row.prop(self, "data_flag")
        row.row()

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    register, unregister and hotkey
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------

addon_keymaps = []

def register():
    from bpy.utils import register_class

    addon_keymaps.clear()
    register_class(ViewportRenameOperator)

    # handle the keymap
    wm = bpy.context.window_manager
    kc = wm.keyconfigs.addon
    if kc:
        km = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps.new(name='3D View', space_type='VIEW_3D')
        kmi = km.keymap_items.new(ViewportRenameOperator.bl_idname, type='R', value='PRESS', ctrl=True)
        addon_keymaps.append((km, kmi))

def unregister():
    from bpy.utils import unregister_class

    for km, kmi in addon_keymaps:
        km.keymap_items.remove(kmi)
    addon_keymaps.clear()

    unregister_class(ViewportRenameOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

The Add-on also allows to batch rename all objects in the current selection. The suffix is determined by the given number of hash characters at the end of the string. You can simply type Cube-### to get 'Cube-001', 'Cube-002' and 'Cube-003' as well as Cube-###r to get a reversed list:

Repository: https://github.com/p2or/blender-viewport-rename


Importing VSE project as sequence to another project I'm new to blender so I hope my question is not very strange.

I'm making a video presentation using vSE. For sake of clarity, lets say each slide of presentation is a video that I created as blender VSE projects (I emphasize them with italic). For each slide, I have created a blender project and added my sequences, process them and etc. Now I want to add all these individual slides into one comprehensive video. What I did, which was a failure, was to render each slide and them import them to the final project as clips. The reasons it fail are three:

Duplicated render time. Render each slide, then render the main video
When I render my slides and re-import them, their lengths are different (even though I'm very careful with frame count. Compression issue maybe?)
It's not flexible. If I decide to change something in a slide, I have to re-render from scratch.

For all these reasons, particularly 2, I want to know if it is possible to import a VSE project as a clip into another VSE project. Loosely speaking like a precomp in adobe after-effects. Ideally, I like them to appear as single strip even though the slide project consists of many strips.

Is that possible? If no, how should I render each slide so that when I import them as videos the fps and duration remain unchanged? I tried with raw AVI but it creates gigabytes of file for few seconds.

edit: I have no audio track.

Many questions here, and plenty of complexity. Short answer is that the Blender doesn't support a form of EDLs so taking your project to Resolve or such will be difficult.

Your frame slippages are codec related. It is possible that one of the timestamp settings may help. If all else fails, render to frames and then set your strips to the frames.

The only way to conform shots is to dump them down to singular channels and render our reels of your cuts with black "slugs" to hold frame counts. If you collapse your final edit down to one or two tracks, they will hold sync because of the black slugs.


Texture paint uses one image for different objects Blender's texture painting is making me crazy right now.
I'm working with cycles and I've defined two different images in the node editor. One for each of my eyes in the own node editor.

Still... I can't paint on the different images. If I go into texture painting, I can only choose a picture in the slots window, and it displays it on both of the eyes! They shouldn't have any connection at all - different objects, different node - still I can't work on them separately.

I'm not used to this new Slots settings, and guess something is working wrong there. But I don't really know how to fix the problem.

You were close. Instead of changing painting mode, you need to specify on what image you want to paint, selecting the canvas image in slots panel.

It's handy if you want to clone to specific image from multiple different UVs and images.


Creating/saving a shape key from moving a bone (Rig) How can I create a shape key by moving the mesh's bone?

The bone I have selected will move the mouth mesh.

I moved it to the desired location.

And now I want to save this changed mesh as a shape key, so the slider will activate it and change it back to normal when the value is 0.

How can I save this final mesh as a shape key? The last picture will be the at the value of 1, and the first picture will be at the value of 0. Can I do this, without toggling Edit Mode, to create the shape key?

EDIT: Unless there's a way to save this pose (edited) in edit mode, I'll try to find another way to create this shape key.

Select your mesh, go to the properties window, modifiers tab, in the armature modifier you'll find a button named "apply as shape key" wich does exactly what you're asking for.


Moving the origin point of an armature I am trying to move a character to a different place in the scene, is there a way to move its original origin point (armature) with it.Thanks for any help.

If you drag character, rig stays where it is

If you drag armature instead, character follows it


Hair renders different than the preview I made the eyelashes for my mesh and though it will be fine as it looks in the picture

Particle Edit
Object mode
but after I render the eyelashes look very messy
like this

What I am doing wrong?
Here my Hair settings

Thanks in advance

The subdivision surface setting on the mesh was different and view/render. the problem got solved by changing this.


How to make custom "create options" panel in bottom left I want a panel in the bottom left to accept "create options"; like what you get when adding an mesh object.
I've got a panel but no combination of bl_space_type bl_region_type and bl_context I try seems to work

I found the answer to this. Panels down there are associated with the current operation.  https://b3d.interplanety.org/en/calling-functions-by-pressing-buttons-in-blender-custom-ui/
Though I can't figure out the relationship between the operation and the panel e.g. how Blender knows which panel to show for the operation.  I also haven't found a way from python to call the operator and get it to show the UI e.g. if I do bpy.ops.test.test_op() it runs my operator but never shows the UI; I want to show the UI, like it does when run using F3

While mountainstorm's answer is functional, you actually don't need so much to get the redo UI to show up. (At least not in Blender 2.9 - I haven't tried this in earlier versions but the release notes don't indicate any changes around this.)
The requirements are simply:

Your operator's bl_options must include 'REGISTER' and 'UNDO'. (Register indicates to show the redo panel; undo is needed because redo is just an undo of the last operation, followed by re-execution of the operator.)
Your operator needs to have at least one property defined.

That means this is a minimal operator that will display the redo panel when executed:
import bpy

class EXAMPLE_OT_DefaultIntOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "example.redo_operator"
    bl_label = "Example Redo Operator"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    my_prop: bpy.props.IntProperty(name = "My Property")

    def execute(self, context):
        self.report({'INFO'}, f"my_prop: {self.my_prop}")
        return {'FINISHED'}

This uses the default operator drawing logic, with one property per row. If you want, you can also control exactly what's drawn by defining the draw(self, context) method in your operator. The following code defines two operators, one matching the earlier example, and another using a custom draw method to enable/disable a property input based on another property's value.
import bpy

class EXAMPLE_OT_DefaultIntOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "example.redo_operator"
    bl_label = "Example Redo Operator"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    my_prop: bpy.props.IntProperty(name = "My Property")

    def execute(self, context):
        self.report({'INFO'}, f"my_prop: {self.my_prop}")
        return {'FINISHED'}

class EXAMPLE_OT_CustomDrawOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "example.redo_operator_with_draw"
    bl_label = "Example Redo With Custom Draw"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    dependent_prop: bpy.props.IntProperty(name = "My Property")
    flag_prop: bpy.props.BoolProperty(name = "Use Int")

    def execute(self, context):
        msg = f"dependent_prop: {self.dependent_prop}" if self.flag_prop else "Nothing to report"
        self.report({'INFO'}, msg)

        return {'FINISHED'}

    def draw(self, context):
        self.layout.use_property_split = True

        row = self.layout.row()
        row.prop(self, "flag_prop")

        sub = row.row()
        sub.enabled = self.flag_prop
        sub.prop(self, "dependent_prop", text="")

bpy.utils.register_class(EXAMPLE_OT_DefaultIntOperator)
bpy.utils.register_class(EXAMPLE_OT_CustomDrawOperator)

# If you're using Blender 2.9, operators only show in search if they're registered in a menu,
# so you need everything below this point. You can find your ops in the Object menu within the 3D viewport.
# See https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.90/Python_API#Compatibility
def basic_op_menu_func(self, context):
    self.layout.operator("example.redo_operator")

def custom_op_menu_func(self, context):
    self.layout.operator("example.redo_operator_with_draw")

bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.append(basic_op_menu_func)
bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.append(custom_op_menu_func)

As mountainstorm noted, you may need to override the execution context if you're calling the operator from a script and still want the redo panel to appear. If you're just creating a UI button via UILayout.operator, or executing your operator from a menu, then this should be unnecessary.


Smoke Domains in Blender When doing the fire simulation within Blender Render can the smoke domain be anything other than a cube, such as sphere or other mesh?

You can use a mesh besides the cube as a smoke domain. I would however always stick to a boxes because Blender smoke simulators uses voxels (small cubes). And  other meshes can cause unpredictable behaviors, although I believe this has improved in recent GSOC. When using other meshes, depending on the smoke simulation's resolution the smoke might b outside of the domain.


Blender cycles adding normal map I baked a Normal Map and a Diffuse Map.

I tried to duplicate the object in new file and new scene by adding these maps to a plane, but I did not see the desired effect.

How can I use nodes to correctly add a Normal Map to an object?

You've set the strength of the normal map node to 0 accidently.


How to Resize Smoke Domain I am doing rocket animation and I did rocket smoke with quick smoke.
I need long smoke track, I tried to resize my smoke domain, didn't touch smoke flow but smoke resolution changed and smoke not looking good.

What can I do for bigger smoke domain?

Smoke resolution is based on the size of the domain. Ergo, a large domain with a smoke resolution of 75 will have smoke that appears far more chunky than a small domain with a resolution of 75.

One option is just to change your smoke resolution.
Another is to enable an adaptive domain and crank up the "Additional" value. This will increase the size of your domain while keeping the resolution intact.


How to write a text on a building picture I would like to write a text/logo on one face of this building :

So I created some basic text (+ extrusion/bevel/...), but the problem is that I've no idea how I could reliably move this text (+shadows if possible) on a wall of this building (if possible I'd like to keep a good quality on the picture photo, so the picture should have the exact same shape at the end of the process). One simple solution would be to rotate approximately the text and then use gimp's perspective tool to move it on a face of the building, but I'm afraid to have only approximate perspective, and this may be visible on the final picture.
Someone proposed me to create planes first to reconstruct the shape of the building, and then add the text on the planes when it's done. But even after spending 10mn of trial/errors to find the good shape/position of the wall, focal length... I can't find a working set of parameters (one problem is that the shape of my initial picture is also changed due to the perspective):

What is the proper solution to that problem? Is there some automatic tools that can help me in that process?

I finally found two plugins: fSpy and BLAM (this last one is outdated),  thanks to seseri, and intrac!
Recommended solution: use fSpy
fSpy is an external small software that you can download (Linux, Mac, Windows). Then you just have to place a few points on your picture to specify which are the aligned lined. Then, you need to save the project, and load it from the fSpy blender plugin (also need to be installed). The camera is automatically configured, and in my case it worked greatly! Just, I think the picture I gave above is not ideal, since I've the feeling that the building is not even a "cube": the higher you are, the fewer windows you have. So I just followed a line of window to find my parallel lines.
The package is well documented. In case you need more help, see [this link]2 for example.
Second solution, but outdated: BLAM
You may also be interested by BLAM , but this plugin is outdated:
No longer maintained. Check out fSpy instead

You can find an example of use here.


Blender Internal texture not influencing geometry When I try to add a new Clouds texture with geometry influence, I have nothing on the render.
I don't understand why?
I created a material : essai texture.
I created a new texture with clouds type:
Influence normal :0.552
size: 0.1
depth: 2.0
nabla: 0.10

Can you explain why?

You are probably missing a UV map. I did a simple "standard cube" setup to help you better debug what is missing or not working (here I used blender render for a quick setup):

After creating the texture as you said in question, I also got rendered a flat standard cube, but then I created a simple "smart UV project" umap, using all defaults, and just this made the influence to appear in rendering results.

A UV map is needed because your texture must be "mapped" to the mesh surface, and the UV map is how you tell about your desired surface mapping.

hth


Rigid body bounces away when starting animation I'm trying to create an animation in which a ball is placed on a plane which I'll then animate by rotating it in different directions. However, as soon as I check the "Animation" box under Rigid body settings for the plane, the ball bounces away rather than fall down on the plane.
I've attached a gif below which hopefully is helpful.
Here is a link to the blender file as well: https://pasteall.org/blend/660da9a9fcac418eb1c1d67263c1425e
Any suggestions on how to resolve this would be incredibly helpful.

Apply the scale of your cube (maybe you could also disable the Animated option and switch it to Passive, it depends on what you want to do with it)
Result after applying the scale with CTRL +  A Scale:


Setting Group Node Socket Type Is there a way to add a socket of a specific type to group nodes? Currently, it seems that they default to grey scalar sockets, and I don't see any way to change their type.

You need to connect the temporary socket (red) to the values you want to make available from outside the group.

When tab out of the group you will have all of them available for wiring with the correct type (indicated bei their color).

Note that you can't edit them later you would need to recreate the group.


CUDA Compute Device says "(dislplay)" beside it. What does that mean? When I choose CUDA under Cycles Compute Device in user preferences, it gives me the option to use my GPU, but it also says "(Display)" beside it.

GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Display)

Does this mean that my CPU will still be rendering my scene while my GPU just simply keeps the rest of my program updated visually? Or is this all in my head?

It seems to me like I'm going to need another GPU so that I can run both display AND rendering, which is very strange to me. Is this true? Because I really don't want to have to buy another one if I don't have to.

If your GPU is connected to a monitor (or multiple ones), then you'll see the (display) notice. That only means that the GPU is also being used to display images on a monitor.

Blender will still use it to render, just know that some of the resources of the GPU are going to be used to refresh the screen(s). If you have multiple GPUs you might see the difference.

In this example both GPUs are used for rendering, but one of them is using some resources to feed my monitors, while the other is used exclusively to render.


What is the Python API for moving a collection? I created a Python like this
bpy.ops.object.move_to_collection(collection_index=2, new_collection_name="Background")
But this code must have a collection called "Background" in the scene from the beginning
I want this.

If there was no collection called "Background", we would create one with Python and move the selected object
If the "Background" collection exists, just move it instead of creating a new one

And I'd like to go from ViewPort to Hide
I created this code, but I don't know how to specify the "Background"
bpy.context.scene.hide_viewport = True
Digression
With just these two lines, I was able to create Empty if it wasn't there and select it if it was there.
bpy.ops.object.select_pattern(pattern="Empty")
bpy.ops.object.constraint_add_with_targets(type='TRACK_TO')

=====Edit=====
I was putting up the wrong code.
bpy.context.scene.exclude = True
When I modified it in this way, I get an error
bg_col.hide_exclude = True

import bpy

C = bpy.context
D = bpy.data
S = D.scenes["Scene"]

if not D.collections.get("Background"): #Get collection by name in data, and check if None
    bg_col = D.collections.new("Background") # Create a new one if not found
    S.collection.children.link(bg_col)
    # Add it to your Scene unless you don't need to see it in your scene
else:
    bg_col = D.collections.get("Background")

bg_col.hide_viewport = True #This is not the eye icon but the monitor icon hidden


Does Blender support importing/exporting REDlog color format? I'm a VFX supervisor for a student film, and they are filming with a RED camera with REDlog.  I haven't found a sure answer anywhere, so I want to confirm: can REDlog video/color be preserved when imported into Blender (as the effect background) and exported with the effect applied as an image sequence?  If so, what methods do I need to do to ensure that that happens?

Not as video, given that Blender will only import video at a down bitted 8 bits per channel, and potentially dubiously at that.

If you export to a proper still format such as a TIFF, not DPX as Blender's DPX code has been horribly broken for years, you can. This would require an OCIO stanza to properly convert it to the reference space.

Other option is to output a scene referred linear EXR with REC.709 primaries, or in the native RED gamut and write a simple OCIO stanza to handle the conversion.

  can REDlog video/color be preserved when imported into Blender (as the
  effect background) and exported with the effect applied as an image
  sequence?

It is impossible to preserve a wider gamut in a smaller gamut if you intend to conduct any manipulations on the pixels. This is a bit of a tricky area so I'll leave it at that to avoid boring you into submission. By default, Blender uses a REC.709 based reference space, and almost every single camera sensor on the market can record a wider gamut than the REC.709 / sRGB reference lights can represent. The only way around this is to use a wider reference space, and that is another topic altogether.


How to speed up loading of custom external icons? I have developed a little addon that provides icon button in the node editor. We have 80 node items. And so i have 80 external icons to load. I use custom_icons.load for that.

The problem is, every icon loads one by one when activating the tab. You see them popping up one after another. The user has to wait until all the icons are loaded. And that's for our 80 icons around 10 seconds in Blender 2.78a. Not good.

Is there a way to load the external icons at Blender startup? If not, is there a way to load at least all icons at once?

The script is already a init.py, Examplecode looks like this. The icons are of course missing. Please add a folder called icons besides the script, and put two png images into the folder with the correct name:

import bpy
import os
import bpy.utils.previews

class NodesIconPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel"""
    bl_label = "All Nodes"
    bl_idname = "nodes.common_buttons"
    bl_space_type = 'NODE_EDITOR'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'
    bl_category = "All Nodes"

    @staticmethod
    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        default_context = bpy.app.translations.contexts.default

    ##### --------------------------------- Layout ------------------------------------------- ####

        layout.label(text="Layout:")

        row = layout.row()
        row.alignment = 'LEFT'

        props = row.operator("node.add_node", text="", text_ctxt=default_context, icon_value = custom_icons["icon32_frame"].icon_id)
        props.use_transform = True
        props.type = "NodeFrame"

        props = row.operator("node.add_node", text="", text_ctxt=default_context, icon_value = custom_icons["icon32_reroute"].icon_id)
        props.use_transform = True
        props.type = "NodeReroute"

# global variable to store icons in
custom_icons = None

def register():

    bpy.utils.register_class(NodesIconPanel)

    # Our external Icons
    global custom_icons

    custom_icons = bpy.utils.previews.new()

    # Use this for addons
    #icons_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "icons")

    # Use this for testing the script in the scripting layout
    script_path = bpy.context.space_data.text.filepath
    icons_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(script_path), "icons")

    custom_icons.load("frame", os.path.join(icons_dir, "frame.png"), 'IMAGE')
    custom_icons.load("reroute", os.path.join(icons_dir, "reroute.png"), 'IMAGE')

def unregister():
    global custom_icons
    bpy.utils.previews.remove(custom_icons)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(NodesIconPanel)

# This allows you to run the script directly from blenders text editor
# to test the addon without having to install it.

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

We developed a library, which solves that problem. It allows blazingly fast preview image loads in Blender.
See here for more: https://blenderartists.org/t/blazingly-fast-preview-loads-images-of-arbitrary-size-bpy-utils-previews-drop-in-replacement/1303349


Blender gpu renders turn completely gray Whenever i try to render with gpu in blender it all turns completly gray, i have no idea why, but with cpu, it turns out just fine

Im using: AMD Radeon 200 series. Blender 2.78

The exact same renders but with cpu and gpu.

(CPU)

(GPU)

So I have an AMD Radeon HD 7800 series video card. It worked wonderfully for rendering gpu in Blender up  until 2.78 came out. Once 2.78 came out, I lost complete ability to render with GPU up until 2.78b. It kept giving me errors when I would try to render it. Once 2.78b came, the errors stopped, but I had the same gray render that you have. I decided to boost the light significantly, and try rendering again. It works, you can now see the object with the boosted light. You'll have to boost your lighting to use current version GPU for AMD, and it'll have significantly more noise. It will also be way over exposed if you render this same scene with cpu with the boosted light settings. I hope they fix it soon.


Rigging is not working My problem is that when I try to link the armature with the mesh and go into to pose mode, the  mesh doesn´t follow the armature. I followed the steps here but it didn't work.

Previously, in another project, I worked with a mesh of a man. I followed the same steps to skinning and it worked.

I don't know if the mesh in this new project is right. It's a very simple project. The mesh is a cylinder

Due to the lack of information provided I cannot be entirely sure what the problem is. My guess is that you do not have enough resolution in the cylinder for it to deform.

Select the cylinder and go into edit mode

Add some edgeloop along the height of the cylinder, Ctrl R -> mouse wheel up to increase the number of loops

Go into object mode and select the cylinder and the armature, in that order.

Parent the mesh to the armature, Ctrl P -> With Automatic Weights

Now you can go into pose mode and pose the bones as you desire.


Using array modifier to array an object between 2 curves I want to array the object I outlined with yellow between 2 red lines I've drawn here. I tried some of the array options to no avail. How can I do that?
It would be great even if you could just forward me to previous solutions for this one. I'm trying to make stadiums for FIFA and these objects are crowd meshes. Creating crowd meshes one-by-one is wasting a lot of time.

Thanks in advance, stay safe.

Edit: Actually this is what I want to do; Change scale of objects in array without affecting distance
but dupliframes are not included with latest Blender version.

You can use Array Modifier's Fit Length or Fit Curve options

Fit Length - specify a maximum length of arrayed objects (use the length slider)
Fit Curve - use a curve to determine the length (adjust the curve to control length)


Is it possible to repeat modified Shape Key actions? so I'm trying to sync a Taurus mesh with some music to mimic the thumping of a bass and have found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWebgsyuaNg (starts around 1:20) which describes using the shape key mixed with a Sine wave modifier that restricts the keyframes I'm using so I can isolate my "wub wub"'s to when the song does the same.

There's a few issues with me doing it this way. For each set of "Wubbles", as we'll call them, I have to add a new modifier (and restrict keyframes) each time.

Now this wouldn't be a huge issue, but I'd like to copy all of this data and repeat its usage when the song itself repeats, but I can't seem to select the Sine wave to Shift+D it and move it down the frame line. Is there a way to do this? or am I just missing the easier way of animating my Taurus altogether?

Blender includes the ability to convert sampled f-curves to keyframes, but doesn't include a way to use it without a python script. Luckily someone already has made an addon to make it easily accessible. Save a copy of this addon then install and enable it.

Now you can bake the f-curve with ⎇ AltC, delete the sine wave modifier and convert to keyframes with Channel->Convert to->Keyframes from Samples.

Now that you have a f-curve made of keyframes, you can delete any parts you don't need and duplicate the remaining as many times as you want.

With a graph editor and VSE open with a waveform displayed you can change the current frame by clicking in the VSE so that it is at the start of a "wubble" and this will also be visible in the graph editor, then use ⇧ ShiftDX and move into position visually.


Python to show one of objects by choosing I have a question about Python. By the way, I'm a beginner of English and Python. I have a script to show Toruses from an imported txt file containing center coordinates. Thanks to this website, it was made and worked really well. But I'm facing another problem. Although all of Toruses are showed by the script, I would like to show one of them by user's choices and erase it and show another one if the user choose the another one. Or I would like to show the Toruses one by one by using the function of Timer or Animation. Sorry for this mess explanation, but I would really appreciate if someone helped me. Here is the script and some lines(Atom`s coordinates) from my txt file.

import bpy
import math
from bpy.types import Operator
from bpy.types import Panel

class MeshGenTool():
    @classmethod
    def main(cls, context):
        scene = context.scene
        objs = importFile(scene['File'])
        for obj in objs:
            bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_torus_add(
                location=obj[0], rotation=(math.pi/2, math.pi/2, math.pi/2))
            obj=bpy.context.scene.objects.active
            mat=bpy.data.materials.new('Torus')
            mat.diffuse_color=(1.0, 0, 0)
            mat.alpha=0.8
            obj.data.materials.append(mat)
            MyMesh = context.object
            Mymesh.name = "MyMesh"

class MeshGenButton(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Execute generation"""
    bl_idname = "object.simple_operator"
    bl_label = "Generate"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        scene = context.scene
        filevalid = (scene.File is not "")
        return filevalid is True

    def execute(self, context):
        MeshGenTool.main(context)
        return {'FINISHED'}

def importFile(File):
    obj_loc = ()
    obj_dia = 1
    obj_data = ()
    objs = []
    f = open(File, 'r')
    for line in f:
        if line.startswith('ATOM'):
            words = line.split()
            obj_loc = (float(words[6]), float(words[7]), float(words[8]))
            obj_data = (obj_loc, obj_dia)
            objs.append(obj_data)
    return objs

class VIEW3D_PT_Blank1_Blank2(Panel):
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'
    bl_category = "Import Atom Coords"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    bl_label = "Import Coords"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene
        row = layout.row()
        col = layout.column(align=True)
        col.prop(scene, "File")
        col.operator(
            "object.simple_operator", text="Add items",
            icon='MESH_TORUS')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(VIEW3D_PT_Blank1_Blank2)
    bpy.utils.register_class(MeshGenButton)
    bpy.types.Scene.File = bpy.props.StringProperty(
         name="File",
         description="Path of File to read from",
         default="",
         subtype='FILE_PATH')

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(VIEW3D_PT_Blank1_Blank2)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(MeshGenButton)
    del bpy.types.Scene.File

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

CRYST1   65.961   65.961   65.961  90.00  90.00  90.00 P 1           1

ATOM      1  N   GLN X   1      32.110  46.350  52.070  1.00  0.00
ATOM      2  H1  GLN X   1      32.470  45.850  52.870  1.00  0.00
ATOM      3  H2  GLN X   1      32.931  46.641  51.559  1.00  0.00
ATOM      4  H3  GLN X   1      31.568  47.112  52.451  1.00  0.00
ATOM      5  CA  GLN X   1      31.200  45.480  51.230  1.00  0.00
ATOM      6  HA  GLN X   1      30.402  45.041  51.829  1.00  0.00
ATOM      7  CB  GLN X   1      30.390  46.250  50.180  1.00  0.00
ATOM      8  HB1 GLN X   1      30.811  46.160  49.179  1.00  0.00

If you show some object (a torus) by user action it seems like a [game] description.  You may want to search Blenders game engine or some other game engine.
The
hide_render and hide Python attributes, the eye and the camera icon in the outliner window
can be set to True or False to assist you in your goal.  Or you may insert keyframes or individual as scripts opposed to frame change handlers.

BSE Link Show and Hide child objects along with Parent
Your code in your question may benefit by placing all the items in a (group) which can source of an iteration in Python (for loop) and used with other ideas later in this proposed answer.  A small number of copy/paste actions can be done manually with regard to your patience.
If you want to an animation with no user control I suggest you see the topic of [particles].  Particles have location and render visibility which may interest you or allow you to think about your task differently.  You may employ 1 or more Particle Modifiers.
If you do not want to use particles then with a script I suggest you use a frame change handler.
Please search
frame_change_post and
frame_change_pre

and modify the render visibility to True or False.

This proposed answer are high level remarks to guide you in the correct direction and (not) a tutorial.


resize rigify controller? i use rigify many time but know i have a problem when i generate the rigify to my character the controls are too small and some of them are inside of him, i think its because the cartoon body of the character

so did anyone know how can i resize the rigify controller??

You may change custom bone shapes size and other attributes going to the last layer. Just select the desired shape there and adjust it in Edit Mode.


Cannot Apply Array Modifier Modifier Cannot Be Applied to a mesh with Shape Keys

I have built a rollercoaster track, and in order to continue the build without lag, I must apply the Modifiers. Is there a fast and easy way I can apply these modifiers and get around the Shape Key issue?

To apply the modifier:

Duplicate the object "A" to "B" and remove Shape Keys from "B".
Apply modifiers on the duplicate "B"
Duplicate the original object again from "A" to "C", with a Shape Key transformation (choose one for now. we have to repeat for other Shape Keys)
Convert the second duplicate "C" to mesh using Alt-C "Convert to - Mesh from Curve/Meta/SurfText"
Select "C" (as selected) and then, "B" (as Active).
In Properties - Object Data - Shape Keys, we click in the down arrow and, in the menu, we click in "Join as Shapes". This will create the "Basis" with the original shape and a second shape key, with the same name as the object. Now, we have to change manually the name of the Shape Key.
"C" can be deleted. Repeat for each Shape Key.

This is based on SubSurf applying in Objecs with Shape Keys (to use in BGE) by Mario_Mey from blenderartists.org.


Is there a way to not affect non manifold edges by sculpt bruhes.? I have a big landscape modell (golf course) with an lot of non-manifold edges (everytime when a lawn is next to a hard surface). Now - i want to sculpt the greens, roughs, bunkers and so on. but when i come near or over an non manifold edge it is moved away from its original positon -

is there a way to avoid this?

I'd try adding those vertices to a vertex group and then using a mask modifier with this group as the modifiers target.


How do I put a texture on top of a normal map? I recently downloaded a model and it came with two images, a normal map and an image for colors. How do I put both of them on the model.

These are the two images

This is how you would do it in Cycles:

After adding both images in Image Texture nodes.
Plug your color map into the Color socket of a Diffuse BSDF shader node.
Take the normal map Image Texture, make sure to set it to "Non-Color Data" and plug it in to the Color socket of a Normal Map node. Then, link normal map to the Normal socket of the same Diffuse BSDF that the color map was linked to earlier.


How to check if a known object is intersecting with an object using python Related: How to check if two meshes intersect in python?

This above question answers how to know if two known objects intersect. I want to know if any objects intersect or are inside of a known mesh. There are too many objects in my scene to iterate over each one to see which one overlaps. I just need to know if any object overlaps with a given object.

Bonus: Also to know what object it is that overlaps with the given object

Use some kind of quick bounding box culling like this (javascript demo on collision detection by mozilla, but should be easy enough to adapt for your case) to eliminate objects that cannot overlap. Beware that Blender objects' provided bounding box is in object space, so may not be axis aligned in world space. You will need to convert it to world space and then generate a new bounding box of that bounding box that is axis aligned.
Then build bvh trees for each mesh that may intersect, and test, re-using the tree for your test object.


Can I only Render light that psses through an object? In the image below I would like only the light that passes through the sphere, in this case the bright dot in the center, to be visible. Is there a way to set this up in cycles?

Thanks,
Tyler

See this .blend file. I used nodes with the Transmission Depth node and two emission shaders joined with a mix shader. Set the green one to 0 strength and it should have the desired effect. I'll post a screen shot of the node set up in a moment. (The node set up for the lamp. It's a point source directly above the glass sphere.)

Here is the node set up.

The green is what will go away. The pink it what will be rendered.

Green disabled (strength is set to 0).


Blender 2.80 no option to "delete hierarchy" in Outliner In blender 2.79 in the Outliner you can right click a parent object and delete all child objects by right clicking and select delete hierarchy.

In 2.80 I don't seem to be able to do this as I only see delete. The "delete hierarchy" option is not there.

I have changed Outliner to 'Scene' type view mode.. not the 'Collections' mode it defaults to.

FYI - "Delete Hierarchy" still exists, but only for collections - as mentioned is missing for objects.

Related to this (an example why this is still needed):
1. File > New > General (creates the original cube)
2. Switch to edit mode (modify or not the original cube)
3. Add > cube (accidentally in edit mode)

The added cube is a child of the original cube. This child cube automatically gets a material child - without doing any shading or such.

Once created this way, there seems to be no way to delete it from the hierarchy. Selecting the child cube object, also selects the parent. Using delete here will delete the parent too. Likewise deleting the child from the outliner hierarchy will also delete the parent.

Selecting the child vertices in edit mode, then deleting vertices or faces will delete the visible object. But there will be the empty object still in the hierarchy of the outliner. You can delete the material, but it seems to be still lurking around unused.

Also just after creating the child cube, you select it in the outliner, it becomes attached to the original cube (both same size). Then there is no way to select the child to move or modify it independently.

Also you will note, that both cubes are named "Cube". In other instances, I have seen this happen when intentionally creating child objects in the edit mode. This seems to confuse things - editing one of the same name will edit both.

The old method of shift-g > children and then alt-p to un-parent also seems not to work - or do anything obvious.

The only solution is to delete the parent and start over. This time being careful to be in object mode instead of edit mode. Save often (every edit?) so you can revert!

In general the UI menus lack interlocks (gray out/disable) where actions are inappropriate or will have no effect. You will also note that most menu items of the outliner say "(undocumented operator)" - probably means the help text is missing. My guess would be that this menu is not yet fully developed.


What bone constraints should I use? I'm trying to setup rigging a scales. I have 2 main bone (pan and indicator). I want indicator to rotate when pan move up - down and  I even want indicator rotation makes pan move up - down when I rotate indicator by an IK. I don't know what bone constraints should I use.

The one you need is the Transformation constraint. It allows you to map values from one transformation type (location, rotation or scale) of a bone to a transformation type of the target bone. This mapping can also switch X/Y/Z channels around and set appropriate limits and ranges.
If your case you would want to map the vertical location of the pan bone (in local space probably) to the rotation of your indication bone around the appropriate axis (probably also in local space).


Texture Painting Transparent I have a problem with texture painting in Blender.
I can't seem to get the transparency to show up in the viewport.

I have made the material transparent. Painted the texture.
But it just appears white like here.

But I'd like for it to actually be transparent in the viewport.
GLSL is active too, btw.

You can do that in GLSL Textured Viewport Shading

First open material tab, enable Transparency and set Alpha to 0

Then open Texture tab, select the texture you are painting on and in Influence section enable Alpha


Editable objects shown as on every layer - how did that happen? There are a number of objects in a file I've been working on for a long time that have this setup I don't understand. They show as being on all layers but they are one object. They can be edited, so they aren't objects linked from another file.

I must have done this months ago but I can't recall how or why, and I'd like to change it. What is this setup and how do I get rid of it?

Any object can be on any amount of layers at the same time by pressing Shift when selecting the layers in the popup that appears after pressing M in Object Mode.

Just press M again to move the object to the desired layer.


Edit multiple Lights Is it possible to edit multiple lights?

For example I have 8 lights. 4 of them need to be red and the others green. Now when I change settings of one of the lamp's color or strength value, the others of the same group should also change and copy the values I have set for the one lamp.

Greetings and Thanks

Select the lamps you want to share the same data, hit Ctrl+L and choose object data. The corresponding lamps will now always copy each others settings.


Blender Loop cuts and vertices measurement I have some problems when adjusting loop cuts and when I extrude the vertices of loop cuts. When I do a loop cut I would like to place the cut at the position of an exact millimeter.
I have in the scene menu  ticked the box Units > Metric > Degrees
I have ticked the box Normals > Edge Info > Length
But I am facing those problems:

When I view the whole mesh which I want to place a loop cut on, then I can not adjust the loop cut to the exact position (in millimeters) where I want the cut to be. So I have to zoom down and move the cut. Zoom in once more ant move the cut again.
Is there a possibility to give exact numeric values to where I want the cut. Or can I move the cut to where I want without the need of zooming in?

When I extrude, the values is limited to my zoom-level, so I have to zoom in really deep, then, the numbers is not visible, because they are locked to horizontal axis which is not visible. So I have to guess if it is right, zoom out and check-then zoom in and adjust-and so on.
Is there a possibility to give exact numeric values for the height of the extrude? Or can I extrude so much I want without the need of zooming in?

Blender doesn't offer exact dimension modelling tools that you may expect in a CAD program. There are some things that may help, start with this previous question.

Most tools allow you to type in numeric values while they are being applied, what that value represents may vary between tools. When using the loop cut tool you can enter a value between 1.0 and -1.0 that represents a percentage of movement towards the next vertex on either side with 0.0 being centred.

Extruding allows you to enter a length that is a distance from the original location. You can also cancel the extrude to leave the new vertices in the same location as the original vertices, then move the vertices (G) which allows you to enter x,y,z values as distance moved in each direction. The first number you enter is used for x then you can use tab to move to the y and z values.

Pressing Ctrl and Shift can also help - while you are moving vertices pressing Ctrl is a shortcut to enable snapping which by default will snap values to whole units (grid increment snapping type). Pressing Shift will slow down the movement to allow more precise placement. Pressing Ctrl and Shift will snap to 0.1 increments.

With loop cut Ctrl will snap to 0.1 increments, Shift will slow down movement and together will snap to 0.01 increments.


Artifacts in render preview after adding emission/volume scatter shader to world output volume I am following a sword tutorial and when i try to plug in either a Emission shader or Volume Scatter shader in to the world output volume node weird overexposure and artifacts appear in the render preview:

When i actually render the image it is fine. It is just the preview that is having problems. The render engine used is Eevee and i'm using blender 2.90.1.

Now i have tried to look at the different render passes to see if i can pinpoint the problem. The render pass bloom shows the same effects so i have tried to disable it but then it just show less glowing artifacts so i'm guessing that wasn't it.
For Emission it seems the render passes Volume Scattering and Volume Transmittance show a rather overexposed picture but only in preview mode.
Does anyone know what is causing these differences between the render preview and the actual render?
Update: Added blend file:

Also added

I was running intel hd 520 graphics with a very old driver (2016). After updating the driver the peoblem was solved.


How to properly rig the shoulder of this low poly model? How to properly rig the shoulder of this low poly model?
Have tweaked weights, but didn't get desired results. Is there any other problem?
Edit: Link to File: https://pasteall.org/blend/b5a93745a9f44db79dc5ed6a48179b92

By desired results, I meant that the area below the arms is also getting distorted, which I didnt want. Is there any problem in the mesh itself?

Thanks

You need to :

Go in Edit mode, some normals are flipped, recalculate them
Add some edge loops so that your armature is able to bend the object:

Reparent With Automatic Weight
Bring some corrections in Weight Paint mode


Photogrammetry retopology/projection like Zbrush I am doing some photogrammetry scans using Agisoft Photoscan and importing the scans to Blender. The problem is that the UV maps are a mess, the meshes have too many polygons.

The most common workflow is to transform the untextured mesh from tris to quads using Zbrush, create a lower resolution clone, divide it in polygroups to get a better UV map and then generate displacement and normal maps by projecting the high-resolution mesh onto the lower resolution mesh.

What I want to do is to have this same workflow in Blender, but I haven't found any specific tutorial, especially for the latter of the mentioned steps.

Thank you in advance!

Retopology and Baking of 3D Scans/ Photogrammetry with Blender and Free Software
First, it's important to ask what you want to do: 3D print, static render or animation or detailed animation.
For the later ones you need to do some texture baking from your original high-poly mesh to your refined low-poly mesh. Blender can handle this really well (See at step 2).
Step 0: Cleaning raw scan-data
Free Software: MeshLab (http://www.meshlab.net/)

Fix small floating objects, fix non-manifold, fix holes
Paid Software (optional): 3D Coat (https://3dcoat.com/de/)
Sculpt on voxel basis, good for repairing bad areas, has autopo/retopo tools/uv tools

Step 1: Retopology
[Manual Retopology]
For detailed Animation you need a specific edge-flow, witch Auto-Retopo solutions wont give you. Therefore you could use various AddOns/Workflows in Blender for some quality of life.
Free AddOn F2: (https://sites.google.com/site/bartiuscrouch/scripts/f2)
Paid AddOn RetopoFlow
General Retopo-Tutorial: https://youtu.be/CuQzPDs99yM?t=1463
[Auto-Retopology]
If your goal isn't detailed animation, but static renders or "simple" animations that don't require good edge flow you could use an auto-retopology-solution, sadly not with Blender.
Free software: Instant Meshes (https://www.blendernation.com/2015/11/16/instant-meshes-a-free-qaud-based-autoretopology-program/)
Step 2: Baking Maps
Normal-Map, Color-Map etc. from highpoly meshes to lowpoly meshes:
In general:
You place your lowpoly object and your highpoly object at the same spot. The lowpoly object has to have uvs to bake to a texture. Rays are cast for every pixel of your destination texture from their corresponding location on the lowpoly mesh (via uv-coordinates) to the high poly mesh. The more difference in distance there is between the two meshes the more bad results can happen. Here it is important to play with the ray-starting-location controlled via the setting Ray Distance in step 5. Also the uv layout of the highpoly mesh doesnt have to be clean or ordered for this. Even the lowpoly object uvs, only have to be clean if you want that for further texture-painting.
Specific Blender Workflow:
I'm using using as a highpoly mesh a displaced susanne (very rough and quick)
This is not the same as a 3D Scan but should suffice for getting the principle across. After cleaning your raw-scan data in step 0 it shouldn't be that different, except a more chaotic edgeflow.
Open your model in InstantMeshes
Set target vertex count and manipulate edge flow with comb tool, then export.

Import in Blender and do your UV-Layout. (for reason of speed I just used "smart uv project") (here you could do your grouping etc.)

There are a few programs/formats were you have to uncheck "normals autosmooth" after import, so you can activate smooth shading which is important for baking a smooth transition.

Both objects low and high have to be on the same spot.

For baking you need a texture to bake to. So you have to create a material on your low-poly mesh and place an texture node there and press new, then apply size.

Now for baking to work there are a few things that are important:
The texture to bake to has to be selected, but not necessarily connected to anything in the node editor.

Select Source/High first, then Goal/Low second with shift, both have to be selected

Switch to cycles render menu > bake > select type (here normal)

Check: selected to active

Set Ray Distance appropriate in relation to differing distance of high to low (here 0.3m) You maybe have to play with this value a bit. As a rule of thumb: normals have to stay blueish. (What you see at step 8 in the back would be wrong and a result of wrong Ray Distance or a to big of a distance between high and low mesh at that point)

Margin is the pixel distance the bake will print beneath your uv-edges, so that no uv-lines show up later. (here i keep it low at 2)

Press bake

Important: Save Image externally, then load into your image node.

Plug your bake into your shader.

Finished

Here you can see a after/before of the lowpoly object on the left with normal plugged in on the right without:

Note for color-baking: With color I like to use the emission shader on the source and baking emission instead diffuse so that no shadows are baked.


How can I higlight an object so that it won`t affect other nearby objects? I tried all types of lights and tweaks but they spill too much on other objects thus making those overexposed. What could I do? I work in Eevee

If the object is metal, then its brightness doesn't depend on how much it's lit. It depends on how much the environment it's reflecting is lit.
You could place some white 'cards' or some such in the environment, strategically placed to be reflected by the metal. You could even use a Light Path node in their material to make them invisible to the camera.


I was modeling something, and when I tried to undo, it made the "skin", as you could call it disappear, and I can't see what I've already drawn Initially when i tried to undo, the answer google brought up was outdated, and I pressed ctrl+alt+z, then I did a little more digging, and pressed ctrl+z, that STILL didn't revert to any earlier edits, so I went to the edits menu, and looked through my edit history, when I pressed edit, something happened and my model looked something like this:

To view all the undoable steps, go to Edit > Undo History and you can select which step you want to revert to. Blender keeps track of a ton of actions such as selecting / unselecting objects, so that's most likely whats going on.

You can also increase/decrease the number of undo steps that Blender remembers in the User Preferences.


CUDA compilation failed When I try to render with the Cycles render on my GPU I'll get a message which says that my CUDA compilation failed and I get this error in the console;

Compiling CUDA kernel ...
"nvcc" -arch=sm_61 --cubin "/usr/share/blender/scripts/addons/cycles/kernel/kernels/cuda/kernel.cu" -o "/home/nils/.config/blender/2.78/cache/cycles_kernel_sm61_E317D1655098C1EB89BEC29AC2C7B15D.cubin" -m64 --ptxas-options="-v" --use_fast_math -DNVCC -D__KERNEL_CUDA_VERSION__=80 -I"/usr/share/blender/scripts/addons/cycles/kernel"
ERROR: No supported gcc/g++ host compiler found, but clang-3.8 is available.
       Use 'nvcc -ccbin clang-3.8' to use that instead.
CUDA kernel compilation failed, see console for details.

Graphics card: Nvida Geforce GTX 1050ti (gigabyte=
Processor: Intel core i5 6400 (4x2.7GHz)
16gb ddr3l 1600

I have already installed gcc, g++, clang, and all Nvida drivers.

With *buntu 20.04, modify the blender.desktop launcher to:

CYCLES_CUDA_EXTRA_CFLAGS="-ccbin clang-8" blender

As per the Blender web page as of 07-April-2020, Blender is not compatible with gcc 4.7 or higher.

The above command will launch Blender with compiler settings compatible with 20.04. The 1st GPU render requires a few minutes to compile the CUDA renderer, but afterwards renders will run immediately. Nvidia 1080 CUDA rendering was 6× faster than my old 4771 CPU alone.


PIP in blender as part of Makefile How can you install packages into blender's python a makefile? I want to be able to run a "make python-deps" and have it automatically install a list of dependencies

The solution is to have a makefile target that installs pip using the specific blender python version.

PYTHON_DEPS = \
    pyyaml \
    pillow \
    scipy

# Change these as needed
BLENDER_BIN_DIR = ~/bin/src/blender/build_linux/bin
BLENDER_VERSION = 2.78

# With luck you shouldn't need to touch these
PYTHON_PACKAGE_DIR = $(BLENDER_BIN_DIR)/$(BLENDER_VERSION)/python/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/
PYTHON3 = $(BLENDER_BIN_DIR)/$(BLENDER_VERSION)/python/bin/python3.5m

python-deps:
    # Install pip
    wget -nc https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
    $(PYTHON3) get-pip.py

    # Install dependencies
    $(PYTHON3) $(PYTHON_PACKAGE_DIR)/pip install $(PYTHON_DEPS)


How do I make my reference image transparent? Looking to 3D model this Mega Man helmet and trying to find a way to make my refrence image transparent. Specifically looking to use OR add the "Object Data" tool but is nowhere to be found. Any ideas would be much appreciated!

I would add a Transparent BSDF and a Mix Shader to the node setup of the material of the texture (and set the Blend Mode to a type of Alpha if it isn't already). Then changing the Fac value of the Mix Shader will also give control over the amount of transparency.


Does Blender 2.8 still have skeleton sketching? Watching an older tutorial where it's possible to make bones by checking "skeleton sketching". I can't find it in Blender 2.8

Blender 2.8 doesn't have this feature anymore. The reason is that the feature was rather obscure, not used by many people and the implementation had several bugs. You can see the discussion in ticket T52809 in the official bug tracker. The commit rB36773e35f6009693562330137435271922758b95 removed this feature back in April 2018 from the master branch.


Simplify rounded Edges I have complex meshes with rounded Edges. My goal is to reduce the number of verticles, edges an faces of the meshes while maintaining the "fine-looking" of the meshes (that's why I'm not using a modifier like decimate for example). Therefore I'm trying to simplify the rounded edges. So for example, I have this edge:

and I simplify it like on the following image.

For the moment, I'm doing this by selecting "a vertical line of edges" and collapsing them. My Question is: Is there a way that allows me to do it faster? A plugin maybe? I searched but did not find anything that answer my question. My way to simplify all the rounded edges is really, really slow.

Not sure how it will work for your, since you geometry seems to have been exported from some kind of solid modeling application and is quite messy but you could try cleaning up your mesh a little bit first.

Start by removing all duplicate geometry by selecting all and W Menu > Remove Doubles
Convert all triangles to quads with Alt + J
Select all edge loops belonging to the bevel (success of this step depends on how clean you geometry will become after previous steps)
Delete these loops with X > Edge loops

You may have trouble doing so on your mesh because of the triangulated gemoetry


Blender fluid simulation "with drag" (simulating a pump) I need to do a fluid simulation, where the fluid goes through a pump.
The pump-model is build the way, that the intake is at the bottom and the output is at the top. I need a way to get the fluid all the way up through the pump. I believe there's no thing like a "drag water from here to there and also mind the obstacles" option for this, is there? Is there another way?
The only way i can think of is having a tank/reservoir that is as high (or higher) than the pump, so that the water rises up all the way through the pump.

So, basically i need to simulate the pump.

Here's a picture to help explain what i need to achieve:

Perhaps you could use a chain of control objects which follow a path in the center of the pipe. I have attached my blender file that generates this animation.

I have a pipe (which would be your pump) set to Obstacle under Fluids and it has Shell initialization.

I have a domain surrounding the simulation and some fluid at the bottom to be sucked up.

The most important thing is the short cylinder which is a Control fluid object. Play with "Attraction" and "Velocity" to get suction. It follows a path I made in the center of the pipe. Perhaps you could use an array of these controls to have a constant suction/drag on the water. Or you could cheat and have an "inflow" at the end of the out pipe and an "outflow" at the opening. Then if your pipe is not transparent, it will look like water is going in and coming out. I can make an example of this if you want.


Creating an ideal lens in blender I know that objects can be assigned a transparent, refractive material, but is there a way to create a simple ideal lens? I'm trying to set up a 4f optical system as part of a camera array (it shifts the captured real and virtual spaces away from the camera array) and would love to be able to skip dealing with aberration and lens modeling.

Idle Chit-chat

I could not make sense of the link in your last comment, but I was able to create the setup from your next to last comment in Cycles render. I did not spend a great deal of time modeling the camera (it's a rectangular prism missing one of its bases [where the lens would be] and half a face [for the actual camera to see through]).

Knowledge

Before you can begin to understand this setup, you have to have an understanding of how Cycles works. In real life, photons come from an emitter, like the sun, bounce off objects, and eventually make their way into our eyes. In Cycles, it's the inverse. 'Camera rays' come out of the camera, bounce off meshes, and make their way to a light source. This is the primary reason why a bigger light source is less noisy in Cycles: There is a bigger area of light (for a camera ray) to find.

Camera rays are not the only rays, or Light Paths as they are more commonly known, in Cycles. There are Shadow Rays, Diffuse Rays, Glossy Rays, etc., but the only two you will need to be familiar with are Camera rays and Reflection rays.

This is the material for Mirror 1. We will be using it. It is very similar to that of a one-way mirror. Camera rays are 'photons' that come directly out of the camera and have not bounced off a mesh yet. They are important, because I use the Is Camera Ray fac from the Light Path node in the material for the first mirror (above). The fac differentiates between a Glossy BSDF (mirror shader) and a Transparent BSDF (for the second mirror to see through). The material basically says, "Normally use Transparent BSDF. This will let light from the second mirror pass through me. If the light that hits me happens to be from an unaltered camera ray, however, use the Glossy BSDF so that I act like a mirror."

This is the material for Mirror 2. It is a simple mirror material because that is all that the second mirror does; it doesn't have any special properties.

This is the material for the camera tube. We will be using it. Reflection rays are 'photons' that have bounced, but in the bounce, reflected perfectly off an object. A reflection ray would be like shining a laser pointer at a mirror. The photons that have bounced off the mirror but not yet hit an object would be Reflection rays. They are important, because I use the Is Reflection Ray fac from the Light Path node in the material for the camera tube (above). The fac differentiates between a Diffuse BSDF (outside appearance shader) and a Transparent BSDF (to not get in the way of the second mirror). The material basically says, "Normally use Diffuse BSDF. This will let outside objects view me. If the light that hits me, however, happens to be from a reflection ray, like that from one or both of the mirrors, use the Transparent BSDF so that I do not appear as a border around the final rendered image."

The Setup

The above is the actual setup. I selected the two mirrors for clarity (1 is yellow, 2 is orange). The cube off to the right side was just a cube that the camera could view. It's blue, but that's unimportant. I also used the cube when I was aligning the rotation of Mirror 1. It gave me a point that I knew should be at the center of the camera's view. It told me that I had to use a rotation of -46.3, rather than -45 (my guess).

Last Notes

Because of the distance the ray has to travel, I realize that the cube can look farther away than the camera would normally view it. My solution is that you select the camera, go to the Camera Object Data tab in the Properties panel, and change the Focal Length: from the default 35.00 to 152.00. This will show the cube as it would be seen from the front of the camera. Don't be alarmed by how far the camera object stretches out. That's normal.

Lastly, there is no lens distortion, and to add a reflective material in the 3D to this setup would not be wise. To add lens distortion, go to the compositor and use this node setup:

It will bend the cube and slightly distort some colors.

To Help Out...

As I realize this could be very time consuming to make, I took the liberty of including a .blend file.

=Puck


Problem with shadow catcher and a question about alpha blending I have a model of an object and a ground

and I need to separate the two into two different render images. First image -- object with a transparent shadow, second image -- ground without an object. Then I need to place the resulting images in Unity on top of each other so that they would look the same as the render of an object unseparated from the ground.

I managed to make a render of the object with a shadow using render layers and a "shadow catcher" feature. But when I try to combine it in Unity or Photoshop with a render of a ground, the shadow looks too dark (much darker than in a combied render). Surprisingly, when I mix an object with a ground in a Blender compositor, the shadow looks exactly right:

So here are the questions:

Is it possible to make a shadow lighter using shadow catcher? I tried to make a shadow catcher material semi-transparent, but the shadow stayed the same. I also tried to fix the issue with adding a third render -- a render of object without a shadow: I placed it on top, the layer of an object with a shadow in the middle (with the opacity of 50% for a lighter shadow) and the render of a ground in the bottom. Unfortunately it renders some artifacts on the fringes of an object. I also tried to make shadow dimmer in Blender compositor using object ID mask, but again it renders some artifacts on the fringe of an object. The same goes with the method of dividing image with a shadow on the image without a shadow and then placing object on top.
Why does blender overlaying method differ from method in Photoshop or Unity? (I tried to convert renders from standard to premultiplied and from premultiplied to standard, but it did not change much).
Is it possible at all to simulate Photoshop blending algorithm in Blender compositor, so that I will have an idea of how the blending would look in Photoshop or unity without using them?

Would be grateful for any advice.

1) It is possible with the compositor. You need to pull a pass with the shadow catcher object only, modify its alpha and composite it. However, compositing back the foreground object with the shadow catcher pass might be tricky, specially in the edges where the solid object meets the shadow.
A useful tip in this case is to work with both alphas (solid foreground's and catcher's) and make sure they are combined properly rather than working with RGBA. Check whether those alphas are correlated or uncorrelated, depending on your setup.

2) As cegaton pointed out and you realized already, the reason for the difference is blending images in a linear space (blender) vs. blending images in a non-linear space (photoshop and others).
Blender works with linear images all the way. What you get from the compositor is linear, even though the display transform makes the final composite non-linear and also saving as byte-images (like PNG, JPG, etc. does ,as 8-bit images need to be gamma-corrected to avoid artifacts.
So, even when images are converted to non-linear in the end, all the blending operations inside the compositor are performed on linear data with associated alpha (also called pre-multiplied).
Photoshop does it completely different, for a number of reasons, being legacy the main one: Back in the day when it was only possible to edit 8-bit images, it made sense to work with gamma-corrected sources with unassociated alpha (like PNGs).
Things have changed since, but Photoshop kept the non-linear editing and a lot of graphics applications followed its lead doing the same.
It's good to keep in mind that linear blending works closer to reality than non-linear blending, so take Blender's result as the right one (which means that you should try making Photoshop look like Blender, not the other way around).

3) Yes it is!
You need to turn your linear associated images to non-linear unassociated ones.
With the alpha convert node, you have to make the buffers unassociated (premul to straight), then with a gamma correct node "bend" the linear image to 0.4545 (1/2.2).
The result will be merged with an alpha-over node (make sure you mark the convert premul checkbox, as the input is unassociated), and right after that node a gamma node set to 2.2 will take the result back to linear (which is necessary as Blender colour management expects linear to apply the display transform and the output gamma-correction.

Check the following image, it comes with a bonus: Did you see the ugly dark fringe around the foreground? That's one of the nasty effects of alpha blending non-linear images ;-)


Is it possible to turn off cap fill on an existing cylinder? I made a beer bottle with inner walls and everything by modifying a cylinder, but I didn't realize that Blender automatically fills them. Is there a way of turning this off or a better way to model a bottle?

No, you will have to delete the faces manually. You can change it directly after adding, though.


After dissolving faces, subdivide on the face doesn't work Try making a cube, subdiving a face, dissolving it and subdividing it again. You'll see it doesn't work. This needs to be fixed.

because it's a NGon. dissolving faces doesn't dissolve vertices. if you're in vertex mode, you'll see subdividing won't affect the face but adds vertices (and then edges). It's not a bug, your face is and continues to be a NGon.


Create an Arrow of adjustable length but constant head dimension I use blender to create short mathematical animations.
For analytical geometry I need images of vectors of variable length.

Often I use a cylinder with a joined cone on top. Now, when I scale the local x-axis, both joined objects are scaled.
I'd like the "arrowhead" not to change the dimension while scaling.

What can I do?

DisJoin & use Limit Scale Constraint

A quick solution could be to disjoin the object in two pieces and assing scaling constraints to the arrow's head. Then parent the head to the body in order to acquire the transformation info we need to keep the object consistent (location & rotation).

In the image below you can see the constrain applied to the head. The origin of the arrow's body has been set to the tail (it seemed handy to me to have it there, but you can change)

As the head object has been parented while there was an offset between itsel and the body's origin, while scaling the body, a scaling of the head still occour, but because of the constraint, only the location of the object is being scaled (and so the head stays in place)


How to render ultra-realistic looking models and textures in Blender? I know I know, I sculpt a model, bake the textures >apply them and that's it.
Come on, that can not be everything when it comes to ultra-realistic 3d models.
I have seen guys creating textures with applying 102381028310 stuff, like sub-surface scattering, then some extra layers of textures, once zoomed in, a user can see more textres that are like small and normally not rendered from far away.
Can you just make a list of such things that would not be included in the >bake them, difuse, AO, spec normal maps> apply them and that's it.
So any extra technique that you know, please post it. Yes I know lightning is important but that is a whole different question. haha I probably sound a little bit irritated in this question, that is because I already asked in like 5 forums and no one is able to tell me some of the other techniques or whatever, so that I know where to expand my knowledge.

If you want to create realistic humans you should first study anatomy. Really study it, learn the bones, the muscles, etc. Learn to draw the human figure.
Then learn the sculpting tools in Blender (or another sculpting software like Zbrush, obviously, but this is a Blender forum so I'll stick to blender).
If you want to work in real productions, also learn retopology. Learn modeling fundamentals. Learning hard surface modeling would be good too.
Learn how to open UVs in an efficient way. Learn how to texture the models. Study how real light behaves and how it bounces off different materials. Understand subsurface scattering (really important for humans).
Learn to create and groom realistic hair and fur.
Learn how to create good lighting, like a photographer or cinematographer would. You also need to learn the render settings and what each setting does.
So basically:

Anatomy and figure drawing
Sculpting in 3D software
3D Modeling fundamentals (organic and hard surface)
Retopology
Opening UVs
Optics (how light behaves and interacts with different materials)
Editing physically based shaders
Hair and fur
Lighting and Render

I think that's about it.
I recommend this series of videos to start studying anatomy: https://youtu.be/pDgyQjNFVQk


How to scale without deforming / extend shape In my scene, I have prism like shape as seen in the figure below. From the front it looks like a trapezium and from the sides it looks like a parallellogram.

Now, I want to extend the shape downwards without changing the slope on the sides or the top surface. This would mean that the bottom surface would have to scale on the y (green) axis and would be translated along the x (red) axis depending on how far down the bottom is moved.

What would be a useful workflow for such alterations?

One can simply use Edge Slide (with necessary geometry selected press G, G) with Clamp toggled off (press C or hold Alt while tool is active).


Texture displays only on one side When in rendered mode Blender displays material only on upper side of the object. How can I fix that?

Your texture is on both sides of your leaves, actually you have two other problems:

Your leaves have a lot of transparency/translucency, so what you see when you look form underneath is the sky through your leaves
The sky of your Background is a little bit too strong so it enlightens a bit too much your leaves


How to sharpen edges on part of a cylinder So I'm trying to make the edges of that little rectangle sharp, something like how it is in this screenshot. This was using edge loops but the 4 loops that run the length of the cyclinder create weird lines as you can see in the picture. I tried dissolved all the edges in the loops except the ones around that area but it didn't seem to work.

This one was done with creases all around but those 2 highlighted edges were jutting out instead of following the curve of the cylinder which doesn't look very good.

I uploaded the blend file to google drive, not sure if you guys will be able to access it: blend file

Any tips would be appreciated.

Subdivision surface modifier is our great friend here.

But it has rules: when angles are high we need regular, quad geometry. But for flat surface all is ok for it.

So I propose a solution that has low impact of the other parts of the mesh.

Here is the final result, containing ngons, tris and quads:

The starting point is to add knife cuts on all the selected parts here, as this is the edges we want to harden:

The aim of these cuts is to delimitate the straight angles we want, cutting the less possible, even is we so create non quad faces.

For the bottom part, we can make an edge loop going along the corner shape, but creating a tri (which will be well handled by the subsufr).

So far we have this with a subdiv of 2:

But the top part has irregularities... so we need to modify it.

Again use the knife tool to add this:

And link these parts (still using knife tool):

So far, we have this:

Which can be improved with:

Here is the blend file (only the part you'll see when opening it is 'finished'). But for this part of the model, you can use a mirror modifier.


Problem with ID mask and glow effect I've tried numerous answers on this forum and tutorials, but for some reason I can't get this light to hide properly and still perform a glow effect.  What I need is for the light (highlighted with a green rectangle) to hide properly, but still allow the blur and glare effect to show in the foreground.

Here is a screenshot of the node setup in the compositor:

And here is a screenshot of the issue:

EDIT: my attempt at LukeD's answer for reference.

First method (recommended):

This one is pretty simple, you can use Z-Depth value to 'hide' layer (yellow) behind mesh.

Second method (with manual Glare control):

If you for some reason would like to hide Glare effect from the front part of the mesh you could use Mask and manually place it on your image.


How to create decal from mesh? What's the best way to create and apply a new sticker on a part of a mesh.

I want to create the "FORD ESCORT" sticker from scratch (with Gimp, Photoshop, Word or anyting else) because i have no good image of it and than apply it on the top of the windscreen.

Here is my mesh.

I tried @lemon 's second method but I should have missed something because here the result :

Background is black
White letters are a little bit transparent

The sticker should be blue with tranparency and letters should be white without transparency.

The answer depends on how is your UV map for the parts below the logo.

If it is regular (rectangular), you may want to use this kind of configuration :

Your base UV map (the regular UV map of the mesh)
A mapping which is tuned to position the logo (see location and scale in the image below)
Your logo texture
And on the right, a mix shader which combines your mesh material (here a glass) with the logo material, with a factor based on alpha transparency of the logo

In this approach, the logo must be surrounded by alpha transparency. As if not you may obtain this kind of drips :

Another possibility is to setup another UV map :

This other UV map keeps only the wanted faces stretched around the logo (see 1 below)
And the other parts of the UV map are scaled down into a alpha part of the logo (they are all in the little black dot in 2)

In this configuration, you can scale or move the UVs to tune the logo size and position (don't forget the set the 'extension' parameter of the texture node from the default value 'repeat' to 'clip' if you want to do that):

Edit/Note : this last configuration also allows to have several logos on one texture. You only have to set the wanted UV map parts in front of each logo.

As shown in both configurations, this can be chained with other layers, like 'dirt' here.

A third possibility is to report the decal on a previous texture :

This can be done using textures as stencil, like in this configuration.

A : the logo used to define a brush texture
B : the texture defined as stencil
C : notice that in this case, the UV map can be defined in any way (here 'smart UV project')


Appended or Linked Hair Particles not like original Hair Particles The hair of my character changes radically when brought into a new file, as either Appended or Linked - see images. As a work around I have created a new copy of the character and then rather linked the set and props into the same file. While this works it will become cumbersome when adding more characters, and seems to go against the concept of optimizing workflow. Is there something I am missing, or are hair particles not designed to link/ append at the moment?

About the process: The Hair Base is just one vertex group on the Head Object - which has two particle systems - the vertex group controls the density in both particles systems. It also has a black & white UV texture that defines the hairline.

The brows have two vertex groups - one for density and the other length - with two particles systems. The second vertex group only uses the density.

The lash have a simple vertex group with one particle system.

Some progress: I have an older file with the model and hair setup - without animation - that I have been able to both link and append without problems. It seems obvious now that somehow the rigging, and or animation is interfering, though the hair itself is not animated.

I discovered that although my character only has one rig, it is also linking/ appending a 2nd rig which is indirectly connected via animation = the boy rides a bike. The 2nd rig when deleted from the file, causes the head object to re-scale and restores the styled hair.

It would be easy to conclude the problem is with the scale of the rigs. The 1st is scaled 0.1 to fit into the environment. All other objects, including the 2nd rig, were scaled 1:1. In the initial scene this presented no problems and indeed should not. I have performed simply tests with differently armatures in different scales, added a few animations and none of them have changed the representation of the hair particles.

In this case Blender has not been able to reconcile the different scales and my solution is to sacrifice the animation - this gets destroyed when the second rig is deleted - if my priority is to get the characters hair restored. Unfortunately at this stage I cannot Apply Scale as this also causes strange results. For future reference I will of course do this before animation just to rule out the possibility that this could contribute to Blender confusion.

Regarding the disappearance of my Vertex Groups in answer to Dimali's suggested answer and my comment: During the (pitchipoy) rigging process I had to re do the bone placements a number of times and each time the cleanest way to reset the weights was to delete all groups and start again. My hair particles being hidden at the time survived the purge, but the groups did not. While not a documented function, it appears similar to applying a modifier group and not being able to return to the edit stage. As I do not need to edit the groups I do not consider this a problem.


Can't add objects to scene I'm doing a really basic outline of a park scene, and i'm trying to add a circular plane so I can begin to model my amphitheater. For some reason, when I hit 'Space' and add the circle, nothing shows up. Same for appending an object. I have also tried centering it with Shift+W.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/vv56l2ono53f28z/Park_Project.blend

Here is the link to the .blend file. I need as much help as possible; I have a project including this I need to turn in tomorrow. Thanks for any help or insight.

The issue is that the active layer is not the one that is visible. So your objects are being created in layer 9 instead of layer 1.

To make layer one be the active layer press 1

To see the contents of both layers press 1 and Shift 9


How to find the function and the menu (or button) corresponding to a shortcut (knowing only shortcut keys)? I wonder how to find the function and the menu (or button) corresponding to a shortcut (if I have only the shortcut and no idea of what it does) ?

For instance : if in a video I see one maker doing "[Shift] + [S]" and I would like to find the explanations corresponding to this shortcut, at least in the manual... How can I find this ?
(Default Keymap does not help to this in the manual)

Thank you for your attention and your kindness, and maybe for a good answer ! :)

By searching for it
You can look through Blender's UI and check all the menus. It is often possible to find a lot using this obvious and simple way, or you could also search the key map in the user preferences(F4 -> p):

Note that you can have one hotkey that does different things depending on the context(what editor or thing you hover your mouse above, what mode you are in, what you have selected and things like that).


Toon shading using realistic textures? I'm trying to figure out a way to give a model a toonish look,but retaining the texture details. Is that possible?
This is my current setup.

Sometimes an NPR  surface effect, or half-toning, etc. is best achieved by using a Shader to RGB node in EEVEE, or the Blender Internal renderer, either of which can feed the light-response of a surface (as a color) back into the rendering pipeline for further manipulation. This can't be done directly in Cycles, where shaders don't produce definite colors on their own - they are functions determining what to do with (possibly a large number of) incoming samples of light.

If you want this kind of non-physical feedback from Cycles, you can do it indirectly, by baking the colors resulting from shading into a texture before using the texture in another material in another render, or by using the colors resulting from shading in compositing. But that can be expensive, in processing time, and your time.

Here's a simple example using Blender Internal:

The sphere has a couple of mixed textures influencing its normal. The effect of the normal on the lit surface is then put through a color ramp, with this result, after a Freestyle outline is added:


What's the difference between Extrude Individual and Extrude Individual Faces? When i perform a Individual Face extrude with "Individual Faces", then the faces extrudes individually.

When i perform a Individual extrude with "Extrude Individual" and faces selected, then the faces extrudes individually. There seems to be no difference to the upper method.

When i perform a Individual extrude with "Extrude Individual" and edges or vertices selected, then the tool does not extrude individual. It uses the Extrude Edges or Vertices and move method then, it performs another action instead. Which can be seen in the title of the Last Operator.

So, besides that the "Extrude Individual" tool does work with Edges and Faces too, without doing what is promised though, what is the difference between "Individual Faces" and "Extrude Individual" then? What do i overlook here?

The function shifts with which ever mode you are in Vertex/ Edge or Face - and yes a lot of the times it does seem like they do the same thing...

You can use ALTE to get to the extra functions.

p .s. the last move in the GIF was ALTS just for fun.


How do I subdivide smooth in blender 2.8? Previously I could that in specials menu, but it seems that there is no such option in 2.8 version.

Welcome to Blender Stack Exchange!

It appears that they have removed the Subdivide Smooth option in 2.80 (at least  in the version I have). However, it's always actually been a bit redundant as the Subdivide tool has a Smoothness slider that, when set to 1, behaves the exact same way as Subdivide smooth did. Plus, Blender will use your most recently used settings when subdividing, so it will the Subdivide tool will act exactly like Subdivide Smooth until you tell it otherwise (or close Blender). The Subdivide tool should still be in the specials menu like before.


Pressing P leaves Blender frozen, how to get undo? I was rigging a foot to a skeleton when I meant to click CtrlP, I pressed P. Nothing happened so I then clicked CtrlP and my entire skeleton and avatar turned white. My mouse does not show up inside the Blender screen and I don't want to close it and start over. I did save but I'll still lose quite a bit of work.

Is there a button I have pushed that can be undone via the keyboard?

If this happened when you pressed P, you've started the Game Engine preview. Press Esc to return back to your normal view.


How do I keep the curve round when setting the threads farther apart? I am using Blender 2.79b on a Mac.

I followed the steps in this tutorial to successfully make screw threads (a spiral): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4NHORCniJY

There, in Screw modifier we can enter for "Screw" a low number for a sharp turn with threads close together, or a larger number to push the thread turns farther apart.

When I use a much larger number, the thread, which is based on a circle, is not circular throughout the thread. It flattens like a ribbon. I want those long, snakelike threads to remain the same diameter throughout for a full 360-degree turn.

How do I keep the object round throughout the turn when at a higher number?

Here are the steps in the video:

Delete cube.
Tool Shelf> Create> Circle.
R to rotate, X for x-axis, 9,0 for 90 deg, and Enter.
3D View Header> View> Ortho view.
3D View Header> View> Front view.
S to scale, .,5, Enter.
Drag red arrow to right from centerline.
Ctrl+A and select Location.
Properties Editor> Modifier icon.
Add Modifier> Screw.
Screw Modifier: Set Axis to Y. You see the edge of the object.
Rotate the screen down with middle mouse button to see over the top.
Screw Modifier: Set Steps to 32. Smooths the surface.
Screw Modifier: Set Screw to 3.5 for a sharp turn and larger number for a longer turn, with threads farther away.
Screw Modifier: Set Iterations. Incrementing this adds more threads.

When you increase the Screw setting and stretch the screw, you increase the slope of the helix. Unfortunately, the modifier doesn't automatically tilt the profile correspondingly, so the profile isn't at right-angles to the slope. To correct this:

In the header, or Tab, go into Edit Mode
In the header, or  . on the keyboard, set the Pivot to 'Median Point'
Ensure the eye and little cube are checked in the Screw Modifier, so you can see what you're doing while editing.
A select all of  the mesh of your profile circle
Rotate (RX) the mesh about its median point in global X until it's at right-angles to the slope of the screw thread.