Flow water from one Object to Another I'm fairly new to Blender but have done a fair few tutorials and starting to get my head around things.  I've recently watched a Tutorial on Water Physics and had no issues following along and have the water flowing in to an object and filling it up.

I've since tried adding another object below/offset to the first one and cut out a hole in the first object (with the hope that the water would flow in to Object A, through the Hole in Object A and start filling up Object B.  Unfortunately this isn't happening as I'd hoped (and I'm sure it's something I'm missing or doing wrong)

If anyone could shed some light on where I'm going wrong or what I should be doing, that would be great.  After writing this, I've just had an idea of creating a secondary water flow from the hole(/pipe) and having that start flowing once the water from the first one gets to a set point (but would rather take the time to learn and do it properly than hack my way around)

If you made the hole through Boolean operations, you must Apply the modifiers before baking

Boolean not applied (still in the stack):

Boolean applied (no more in the stack):

I don't think it's possible, at the moment, to bring the Boolean modifier above Fluidism, or to Use Modifier Stack in the Fluid Obstacle settings


Normal Maps seem to be baked with Low Poly Details UPDATE:

Tried my best to retopo the thing a bit more clean and twist the Y for DirectX.
Maybe I have to practice topology, because the result seems still underwhelming, it doesn't look like the sculpt by any means. :/

OLD:

I am trying to get a normal map from a high poly torso and get it on the low poly model in Unreal. I checked the Bake Settings, tried different solutions for the base mesh, the end result always looks like this:

It seems to be a combination between the low and the high poly model.

But the idea is to get only the surface of the high poly model, right? Or am I completely wrong and I simply can't hide the low poly surface?
On top of the above, I've tried numerous things. Subdivision helps, but it only looks good if I set it to 6+ and then every performance + for games is gone and the whole normal map thing is redundant.

The red circles show a few edges that are slightly "off", but they don't seem to be responsible for the overall bad quality of the map.

The lines that I marked in the purple normal map image are exactly those from the low poly object. What are they doing there?

PS: Maybe the problem is that the low poly mesh is wrapped around the high poly? I thought it is good this way but maybe it has to be the other way around?

The main problem is that you are baking a normal map suited for OpenGl. Unreal uses DirectX normal maps. You can easily solve this by inverting the green channel. It can be done during bake in blender, in photoshop or in Unreal in the material.

The dark scene in Cycles needs some lights to be useful. But if you need to have it shown correctly with the DirectX normal maps you need to invert the green channel in the material.

The next problem you have, is the artefact which is caused by a very thin triangle. (Even it you don't see triangles, all faces will be split into triangles during rendering and baking.) When the normal bends over the face and there aren't enough pixels the baker will not be able to create that bend without aliasing. The fastest way of fixing this is to give that face more room on the UV map. That would increase the resolution for that area only. But the better way would be to avoid thin triangles.


How to render the viewport with EEVEE and the "final" render with Cycles? I want to render the viewport with EEVEE and the "final" render with Cycles.
Since Blender took so many changes in the Alpha phase, all how-to videos
about blender 2.80 show panels, buttons and so, which have changed.

So, where is the switch to configure Blender to render the viewport with EEVEE while the final renders remain based on Cycles?

The viewport is chosen automatically based on which shading mode you are in no need to do any additional setup.

For LookDev, and Rendered modes it uses EEVEE is used automaticaly, for other modes the Workbench engine is used.

To pick your current render engine used for image output go to the Properties Window > Render, tab and pick your engine from the list.


How to access Fracture Cells / Fracture Modifier in Blender 2.80? I recently switched to Blender 2.80 and while trying to do some modelling using old online tutorials, I found that Blender 2.80 doesn't seem to have Fracture Cells / Fracture Modifier feature at where it was in previous versions. Was it removed, renamed, or is there a new way to access it?

I got a few answers across multiple channels:

#blender on irc.freenode.net:

   d33tah, try #blenderfracture (might need to wait for a response)

A thread on blenderartists.org:

  It has been removed for now, 2.8+ will get mantaflow which is much better for that stuff. It was supposed to be in the 2.8 release but they fell behind, So now they are shooting for 2.81.

An answer on blender.chat:

  Fracture modifier has never been part of Blender releases. It’s a separated branch that will be merged at some point in the 2.8x releases. But you can download a fracture modifier build from graphicall.org.


How to Straighten Curved UVs into Straight Belt Showing the actual 3D model of a curving ramp.
Shows the UVs of that model that blender did automatically.
Shows the UV image that I need.

I am going put a road texture on it., but round faces are not helping me at all. All I need is straight belt kind of UV.

Select all wanted faces and Unwrap them.
Select one face on the mesh.
Align this face in UV Image Editor by selecting edges and W > Align Auto.
Select all faces on your mesh (keep aligned face as active face).
Unwrap it by Fallow Active Quads.

Edit:

Differences between this answer and answer from Duarte Farrajota Ramos.

As for number of steps it could tempting to believe that fewer is better, but not always. Here is object unwrapped with pure Follow Active Quad > Pack Islands and my method. Not additional steps was taken.

Duarte Farrajota Ramos answer:

This answer:


How to prevent disconnection between two objects, while rigging? I'm trying to rig my character and I don't know how to prevent disconnection between 2 objects when in Pose mode. The problem is shown in the image below. How do I make the foot stick to the joint (ball) no matter where I move the IK?

For non-stretchy leg you should duplicate the foot bone and lets name it Target. The target bone has no parent and is the target of IK constraint. The foot bone is connected to the leg and copies the rotation of target bone with constraint.
Here is how it should look:

I think you dont need the heel bone but if you do you can leave it parented to the Foot bone. Its also good to uncheck Deform for Target bone since it will only control the ik and not deform anything.

For the stretchy-leg set stretch of Leg and chains bones to 1:

But you will not end up with a much pleasing result, the stretchy rig is much more complicated.

If you need to implement also reverse-foot rig or you want to have more advanced stretchy leg you can ask a question specific to that or try the rigify addon, it will do all the work for you.


Blender Cycles - How to make particle planes to face towards the camera? So I've been working on an explosion, with textured planes coming out of a particle system. Too bad it destroyes the whole feeling, when I can't see the texture on one of the planes, but a line, which is the plane, but not aligned to the camera. It also makes the middle of the explosion seen by the camera almost fully invisible, because there are no planes aligned to the camera. I tried to "Track To" the parent texture plane to the camera, but it only worked for that specific object, not the partices.

I couldn't find any solution not even on YouTube or Stackexchange so I'm asking you for help :)

It seems to fix this issue, when I enable "Rotation" under the duplicate object selection in the Particle System settings.


Brush Texture, Texture Panel preview blank? I am following Blender Guru's Anvil tutorial on youtube however when I try to create a texture for a brush, the preview for the texture in the properties editor does not display the selected texture (clouds), see the image. Instead, the preview remains grey. The brush does paint with the selected texture.

Why isn't the preview showing correctly?

Thanks

Blender 2.79, Cycles Renderer.

I was stuck with this issue for a while. For me it was because I had my render engine set as Workbench, instead of Cycles or Eevee. Setting the render engine to something other than Workbench fixed the issue and the texture preview started showing again.
Hope this helps some people.


Cycles Taking 2 Hours to Render One Frame I am new to rendering with cycles (I usually just use internal), and am trying to render a particular scene with it. The scene does include an explode particle system and a smoke system, however they are still quite simple. Though I believe there must be something wrong with my setup, as it is taking about 2 hours just to render one frame at a time.
I have tried using GPU rather than CPU but it caused an error ("OpenCL build failed") so I ignored that option.

Computer details -

AMD A10-7300 Radeon R6, 10 Compute Cores 4C +6G 1.90 GHz

8.00 GB RAM

64 Bit Operating System

Windows 10

Any suggestions will be gratefully appreciated!

Michael.

You should turn off "Square Samples" unless you actually intend to square the number of samples being used (e.g., see https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?342753-Square-Samples for some insight into why you might want to square the samples).  For previewing purposes, you definitely want to turn it off.  And you'll probably want to bake the simulation so it doesn't have to calculate it every time you switch to a different animation frame.


Why the tube is flat in the center With the plane added delete 1 edge and bevel the side corner and with the bevel circle i have bevel it. Problem it bevel but the center part is flat and the both end are rounded like a tube. I have set the radius 1 yet to cant find the result to be fully tube.

The bevel object, used to bevel a curve, follows the curve's scale.

So if the scale of the curve is not homogeneous, the bevel object will appear unevenly scaled itself. To correct that, use CtrlA then 'scale' to keep the shape of the curve, and set all scaled directions equal to 1.


Strange clipping on blender donut I'm trying to learn blender and started with the blender guru's donut course. I've made it to part 4 level 1 and after modeling the icing, my donut always ends up with one two areas clipping. I've started over several times and followed the instructions exactly. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Problem: You probably wanted to make a drop shape for the icing. The Snapping feature is activated, and this pulled some vertices to a random spot somewhere. Now you have three faces on the bottom of your icing that go from one side to the other.
Snapping is the magnet icon. When it's activated the vertices snap to the mesh that is near. Sometimes it can happen that it attaches itself to a random spot of the donut somewhere. That's because "near" is, for example, x-z wise in the front view but not y-wise (to the back). So it's pulled back along the y-axis while x and z positions are only adjusted slightly.

It's easy to fix:

turn off the Snapping feature
select the icing object in Object mode and isolate it by pressing Numpad / (or menu: View > Local View > Toggle Local View). Then you will see only the icing. Inspect the bottom.
go the Edit mode (Tab). (Most of your icing mesh is hidden, reveal it with Alt+H (or menu: Mesh > Show/Hide > Reveal Hidden))
select the renegade vertices and move them into place.
switch to Object mode (Tab) and leave Local view (Numpad /) to see the result


Unwrap all UVs to fill picture, with overlapping UVs? If I unwrap my model's UVs, I get lots of squares (or square-like things) like this:

But the squares are really tiny! I don't want the squares to be tiny, I want each island of connected vertices to fill the entire picture.Or, if they're like the triangles or other weird shapes, to expand as far as reasonably possible.
Note, if I unwrap each square individually it fills the picture as desired (but this is impractical for 100+ squares)
I do not care about overlapping UVs.
How would I do this?
Download my tree scene here

Quick script in order to select all islands and pack them individually based on How to get lists of UV island from Python script?. Credit goes to @Tlousky, I just added bpy.ops.uv.pack_islands():

UV layout before (left) and after running the script (right)

Just select your object in Object Mode and run the following script:
import bpy
C = bpy.context
o = bpy.data.objects[ C.object.name ]

# Go to object mode to read UV data
bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'OBJECT' )

uvLayer = o.data.uv_layers.active
uvs     = [ uvLayer.data[i] for i in range( len( uvLayer.data ) ) ]

others = uvs.copy()
islands = []

def select_island( uv ):
    uv.select = True
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'EDIT' )
    bpy.ops.uv.select_linked()
    bpy.ops.uv.pack_islands()
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'OBJECT' )

    return [ i for i, uv in enumerate( uvs ) if uv.select ]

for i in range( len( uvs ) ):
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'EDIT' )
    bpy.ops.uv.select_all( action = 'DESELECT' )
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'OBJECT' )

    flat = [ idx for isle in islands for idx in isle ]
    if i in flat: continue

    island = select_island( uvs[i] )

    exists = len( set( flat ).intersection( set( island ) ) )
    if island and not exists: islands.append( island )

#print( islands )
#print( " number of islands: ", len( islands ) )


Freestyle - unwanted gaps I am trying to render a blueprint of a model in Blender 2.74, I am facing an issue with some of the generated lines being non-continuos, this is the result:

I followed this tutorial: Tutorial: Blender 3D #4 - Blueprint (Freestyle).

How can I get rid of these gaps in the lines?

Line breaks in Freestyle are almost exclusively caused by clipping/mesh intersections. Alternatively, it could be that you have a minimum stroke length set. Check for intersections in your model at those areas. If that is not the problem, you will need to share your file for it to be determined.


Animation Nodes - Control several objects of a group I have six objects that would like to control the Location, Rotation, and Scale of each sequentially.  An Effector would be perfectly suitable for this.  When I place the Objects in a group, I can Control Loc/Rot/Sca on all simultaneously.
There are several tutorials on how to what I want with text or arrays of elements. None of the examples manipulate different objects that have been grouped together.  I came accross a post in this forum "Animation Nodes - Have an effector control the rotation of many objects" that looked promising; unfortunately when I use "Loop Input" the Matrix Input goes transparent on the "Object Matrix Output".

Thank you for your help!

Most nodes of Animation Nodes 2 were vectorized, which means that most nodes work on a list of values without using a loop. This applies to the Object ID Key node as well as the Matrix Output node.

Instead of feeding the From Group node into a loop to extract the initial transformations individually from each object, you can feed the From Group directly into the Object ID Key node and it will give you a list of all initial transformations automatically. Then you can feed the list – again without using a loop – into the Offset Matrix node to receive a list of all transformed matrices.

You only have to make sure that

the origin of each letter is close to the letter so that the object controller falloff can correctly calculate how far away the letters are from the controller. Merely separating the letters of a text object will keep the origins at the location of the original text object.
And each letter has the initial transforms stored. The Initial transforms for an object can be stored in the tool panel shown in the image below.


Dimensions panel: how to proportionaly get all 3 dimensions entering just one Is there a way to proportionaly scale an object entering a specific value in only one of the 3 dimensions? Basically I need to "link" the 3 values inside "Dimensions" so if I enter a specific value in 1 the others are automatically calculated.

Exemple: I have an object with these dimesions

I want to enter 2,5m as Y value and to automatically obtain the proportional X and Z value.
How can I do that? It's a very basic function but I can't find it.

I discovered that what I'm looking for is exactly the "Link Scale" function which was present in Transform Panel until version 2:48

I think is insane to remove a function like this. It's unbelievable ...
So.. I really thank those who are suggesting more engineering procedures but I'm looking for something easier as "Scale Link" was.
Really..  there must be a way, an addon or maybe a secret shortcut to simply link the three dimensions in the Transform Panel

It's where still the Scale operation should be used. The question is how to obtain right factor for scaling.
The brute force method is to calculate how many times is 2.5 less than 3.356:

3.356 / 2.5 = 1.342

So you want the object to become 1.342 times smaller.
Press S for Scale operation. But if entering 1.342 right now, it will scale 1.342 times bigger, not smaller.

So the only step is to invert this. In order to avoid any 3-rd party calculations, after pressing S enter "=" sign (no quotes) which will make Blender to treat further text as formula and then 1 / 1.342. The final formula:

Press S, then = 1 / 1.342.

This method is brute force at least because final Y dimension would be 2.501 (with mentioned values). This should have to do with floating point precision.


How to make the transparency of my objects back to normal? I was making a well, and I think I clicked a button and it turned all transparent

How can i get it back to normal?

It looks like you have enabled the viewport X-Ray shading option.

You probably enabled it with the shortcut ⎇ AltZ.


Bending a pole with wind Hi I am doing a simple 2D animation using mesh. It is a bicycle with a flag. I want the fhe flag and its pole to move acording to the wind. With the flag I hava no problem, however I could not find a way of making the pole bend with the wind. Is it something possible to be done? Would the only possible solution be to use bones?

Final result:

It's animated wind with changing strength.

Steps:

Create Cylinder with only 6 vertices and some small radius (for me it's 5cm).
Go to Edit Mode and add 3 Loop Cuts.
Select bottom Edge Loops and add them to Vertex Group.

Exit Edit Mode and add Soft Body physics to our cylinder.
First set the Goal Strength to 1 and as Vertex Group select the one we created before.
Add some wind to test it out.
Go to Soft Body Edges tab and Soft Body Self Collision and make changes accordingly to picture below.

That's it.

Final thoughts:

If you want it to look smooth, add Edge Creases 1 to top and bottom edge loop, select Shading Smooth, turn on Auto Smooth and add Subdivision Surface modifier.

Note. Settings may differ accordingly to edge loops count, pole length and such.
You will want to tweak then such values as Pull, Push and Bending.

Note 2. To control jiggling and bending strength change Soft Body Mass.

Blend file:


Mesh doesn't mirror right Whenever I try to mirror my model, it overlaps and I can't find out how to fix it. I've tried setting the origin, but that doesn't work.
This is my model:

And when I mirror it, this happens:

When I apply rotation:

Look at the rotation values for your object. Your object is rotated 180 degrees in X and 90 degrees in Z

It was rotated in object mode but the rotation has not been applied.

Apply transformations by pressing Ctrl+A and choose Apply Rotation (but you should really apply Rotation &Scale, so that the scale is applied as well)

Read: Why is it important to apply transformation to an objects data?


export animation to fbx or md2 I've been using blender to export models and simple animations into an augmented reality environment, but I'm starting to run into exporting issues.

Specifically, I'm trying to animate a wire plugging into a connector.  My setup is a cylinder with a curve modifier, with a few hooks that have bones attached to them.  The animation itself looks great, but when I try to export, the cylinder doesn't move (the connector on the end of it, which is a separate object, moves fine).

I suspect that it has something to do with the modifier getting applied, or not applied during export.  I also tried using shape keys, but they don't like to play along with the curve modifier.

I can export to md2 or fbx.

Can anyone steer me in the right direction?

On second read, I think I understand better. You are exporting a mesh with a modifier to an engine that doesn't support the same modifiers. Most realtime engines only support bone animations - a lot of them don't even support shape keys.
Basically, you can't do what you are doing :)

You have a couple of options:

1: animate it in a way that doesn't use curve modifiers, only bones (might not be easy though)

2: save your mesh animation as an MDD (mesh cache) and load that into your engine, if possible.

3: See if you can set up an equivalent to a curve modifier in your engine. For example, you might be able to make a script that makes the wire traverse through a series of null points. This depends on the engine you are using though.


How to combine two objects? Blending a face into an apple? I'm trying to add two objects together, one being a face and the other being an apple. I have it all lined up so I can put them together but I can't edit more than one object at once to do so. Is there any way I can edit these both at the same time or combine them into the same object?

With these many vertices, aligning the verts is difficult. If you know how to scupt, try to sculpt the meshes first. Otherwise, make the vertex count the same on both meshes first, then bridge the edge loops and use the shrinkwarp modifier to create a good shape. Attach the blend file if you can, so that we can help you better.


link collections in python As simple as it is to link a collection with another one just by drag and drop I can't manage to find the way in python.

scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.collection.objects.link(obj)

this seem to work only with objects, how would it be with collections?

You need to link other collection under collection's children, not objects:

bpy.data.collections["Collection1"].children.link(bpy.data.collections["Collection2"])


how to show again the dot in the faces? Basically this my problem, i dont even know how i disable the "dots" in the faces, and yes, the model is set to "face select".

Is there any way to restore the configuration without delete my model?
or any solution to my problem?

Here is blender showing the dots in the model

And here is Blender not showing the dots in edit mode

Disable Texture Solid option

When that option is enabled, it's supposed that the artist is more intrested in seeing textures than faces dots, so they are automatically hidden (as if you were in texture paint mode) to avoid confusion.

Imagine these dots upon a pois-pattern texture!

As stated by Sergey Sharybin in this task:

  [...] it's currently intentional behavior. Textured shading wouldn't have dots, solid shading with textured solid enabled also wouldn't have dots. This makes sense since this dots wouldn't be much helpful -- they either could obscure texture or the wouldn't be well enough visible.


Cutting a shape out of an object with another object I'm trying to recreate these F holes in the body without cutting into the bodies mesh

The F holes and body are two separate meshes.

I am completely lost as to how to cut out a hole in my main body mesh without messing it up.

Is there any way to use the F hole mesh to make a hole in the body mesh?

http://imgur.com/a/rDoVR

You can use knife project.
(from the wiki)
Knife projection is a non-interactive tool where you can use objects to cookie-cut into the mesh rather than hand drawing the line.

This works by using the outlines of other selected objects in edit-mode to cut into the mesh, resulting geometry inside the cutters outline will be selected.

Outlines can be wire or boundary edges.

To use Knife Project, in 'object' mode select the "cutting object" first then shift select the "object to be cut". Now tab into edit mode and press "knife project".


sharp creases on the edges between the mirror and the model for some reason i keep getting this raised surface in the middle of the face of my model. i checked the order of my modifiers and i tried smoothing it out, adding more edgeloops but that creates its own set of problems i found out. what i have been doing is manually adjusting each vertex but its a tedious task and feels very inefficient. also i don't want to have to do this for every organic model i create with the mirror modifier. also, i'm not sure if this is due to the mirror mod or the subsurf mod or if it's just me not placing the vertices in the correct spots.

There could be a face inside the mesh, right where it gets mirrored. That often causes some weird stuff to happen if you add another modifier


When should MIS be used and when should it be disabled? I understand what Multiple Importance Sampling (or MIS) does, but are there any drawbacks to using it?

When should MIS be used?
Is there any case where one would not want to use it?

Here's a blog post from the MIS creator's announcement of the addition. He describes a little bit his goals and the purpose behind the feature. Here is also another announcement of the feature. I'll quote from the latter:

  "There are generally less samples in the same amount of time compared to vanilla Cycles, but since the samples are smarter, the resultant image is clearer."

Fewer but smarter samples could swing performance either way (as the previous two answers indicate), and the impact on performance will vary widely from scene to scene, but the overall effect is an improvement in render quality. As a general rule, when building a scene performance > quality; when rendering your final scene quality > performance. Therefore, have MIS disabled when building a scene and enable it when you do your final renders. However, since MIS may not noticeably affect performance in some scenes, and it may improve performance in others, you may still want it enabled when building your scene.

There are a number of other settings that will also impact performance and render time and all of these interact with each other in weird and unusual ways in each scene. So go ahead and play with it in different scenes and decide for yourself how and when you want to use it. CGI is a very subjective art, and only you can decide if you like how a particular setting affects your renders.


Better way for stopping simulations on timeline? I have been working on a lot of fire and water sims for a project.

The problem I am having is after baking the sims and then playing them back to see how it looks, the timeline gets "frozen" while it's loading the next frame.

Example: I have a fire sim that was baked out, then I hit play to see it in the viewport and after halfway through I realize I want to change some settings. However, when I hit Pause/Stop on the timeline it doesn't always register that I want to stop it because it is preparing the next frame. So it leads me in an endless loop not recognizing that I hit pause. I have to time it perfect when a frame is about to end, but this is frustrating because if I don't do it at the right time it hits play again.

Although ALT+A works a little better it still gives me a similar problem.

Anyone have a better way to cancel the timeline animation (like you can hit escape to cancel a render) and actually have it register the 1st time?

If you keep the mouse over the pause button in the timeline until the next frame is updated, it should register your click eventually. AFAIK the problem is that during a frame update, all of Blender's UI is locked (including all hotkeys), so consequently, nothing will be able to stop it while updating an individual frame.

This is universal for anything in Blender (and I think any app) that locks up the interface for a while. It doesn't log the position of the mouse until it has time to handle the click event. Sort of unfortunate, but that's just the way it works.


Modifying the Character Collision Bounds In the screenshot above, I have Suzanne as a character with cylindrical collision bounds. However, this is too large for me, and I want to make it narrower (along the X and Y axis) so she can go through doors and such.

I'm aware that I can parent the green cube to her and have that as the collision bounds (with the box itself having cylindrical bounds of course), but this will cause it to glitch out and flying away due to Suzanne and the box colliding with each other (Suzanne has a character physics type, and the box has a dynamic physics type). I am aware of the workaround by assigning all the game logic to the cube, and parent Suzanne (as a dynamic physics with "ghost" activated) to the cube.

My question however:
Is it possible to edit the size of the cylindrical collision bounds of Suzanne directly? Without parenting Suzanne to another object that will behave as the collision bounds? (The collision bounds of Suzanne is the octagon in wireframe around her).

Those who are familiar with engines such as UE4 and Unity know what I'm talking about here.

The sizes of the bounding box types directly rely on the shape of the mesh. In your case the cylinder will align around suzanne's mesh.

Be aware Cylinder will be symmetrical on single axis. This means the origin of the object should be in the center of the mesh.

The Cylinder type is homogeneous on X and Y axis too. This means the shape will be a circle rather than an oval.

Therefore the Cylinder fits most to meshes that forms a nearly a cylindrical shape.

The alternative would be convex hull or triangle mesh (needs more calculation power).

Another alternative is to assign a custom physics mesh (e.g. via parent actuator).


Object moves when saved I have a 3D beaver that I have made in Blender, before I saved it, his head was firmly on his body but as soon as I save it and reopen, the head (which is one object of joined components) appears like this:

Of additional note: the ears have some bendy modifications (I am a newbie in Blender so followed a stuffed bear tutorial and changed it a bit).
I know the answer is probably simple, have I missed a step in my building of the model?
There is nothing else special about it, it's simply spheres and cylinders with the basic diffuse material. Apologies for my inability but I have yet to find something Googling.

The head has an animation, so when you move it and save then reopen its position will be overridden by the animation you created


Grease Pencil Fill On Surface Disappears At Distance I’m using the Grease Pencil for the first time and the only issue that I have is that the fill color disappears when at a distance when I’m drawing on the surface of a mesh. However, I don’t get this problem if I hide the mesh I drew on.

The distance at which the fill disappears changes depending on the distance between the fill to the mesh behind it (demonstrated by the yellow plane).

This is problematic if I want to do any animations with this.

Any ideas?

https://imgur.com/a/sB1aFRC

https://imgur.com/a/F6EZU0C

Grease pencil will only fill at "camera" or current "view" limits left to right and up or down. Else, the application will fill the 3d unlimited workspace forever catching it in a forever RAM eating loop.
What you present in your videos, IS expected behavior to prevent the error I described above.


Silhouette in viewport while sculpting Is there a way to display an object in the viewport in one solid color against the background? In ZBrush it is frequently used to help judge the outside shapes of the model without internal details distracting you.

I mean interactive viewport mode, while you can still sculpt, not make a one-off rendering. An example in use is here:

https://youtu.be/riyDQBJxSBQ?t=55

Assign the object an emissive material the color you want. Set the world background color to something you like, if you like.

Switch the view mode of your window to'Material'. If you want the new background color too, you'll have switch to 'Rendered'. I find a pie menu (with gestures) helps speed up the switch.

If you want a new background color without rendering, you can change that in User Preferences 'Themes'. If you need a quick switch of background color too, that's scriptable... see this BSE answer.


How can I run blender from the command line to export and import models I am interested in exporting and importing 3d models using blender via the command line, as mentioned in this question.

So now I want to know how I can import and export the models in blender with python using this method?

Apart from the info that this question already gives you, you need to figure out the operators to call from the Python script.

Enable Python Tooltips (User Preferences -> Interface -> Display), then go to the import action in the File menu. Rather than clicking on it, hover your mouse over the menu item and inspect the tooltip. That'll tell you which operator to use. Do the same for the export, and you should have the information you need to build up your Python script.

You can get more help from the Python console (in the Scripting layout), by just typing the name of the operator. For example, >>> bpy.ops.import_scene.obj will give you:

# Load a Wavefront OBJ File
bpy.ops.import_scene.obj(filepath="", filter_glob="*.obj;*.mtl", use_ngons=True,
use_edges=True, use_smooth_groups=True, use_split_objects=True, use_split_groups=True,
use_groups_as_vgroups=False, use_image_search=True, split_mode='ON',
global_clamp_size=0, axis_forward='-Z', axis_up='Y')

This tells you which options there are, and what the defaults are.


How can a mechanical linkage with a closed loop be rigged? I'm trying to rig a model of a Peaucellier-Lipkin mechanical linkage.  While inverse kinematics for a chain of bones in the armature works well for some of the linkage, I don't see how to create the closed loop portion.  There must be some way to constrain the tails of two bones to stay together, but I am having trouble finding it.

Here's what I have so far.

There are generally two ways here: bone constraints and rigidbody simulation.

Solution 1 - Bone Constraints:

Create the linkages (meshes).
Create armature with bones set as shown on the image below.
Animate the key bone (the red one here).
Rigging.

Result:

Example file:

Solution 2 - Rigidbody Simulation:

Build the initial state of the linkage, make sure they don't intersect or too close to each other;
Select them all, click Add Active button in Physics tab in Toolshelf;
Select either two linkages, click Connect in that tab to create constraints, set type to Hinge, move them to expected hinge points. Note that Hinge rotates along the Z axis of constraints (empty objects), so you may need to correct the rotation.
Create rotation action for BoneEB (the blue bone in the image below), toggle Animated in its Rigid Body setting panel.

For better result, you need to set the Steps per Second and Solver Iterations relatively high in Scene tab.

Result:

Example file:


Rigging doesn't work: Bone heat weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones First: i have searched and read all the threads, tried the solutions! I just can't get the rigging to work. I have a model and a rig, when i try to apply the parenting-part (With automatic weights) i get the dreaded "Bone heat weighting"-error. I have applied/cleared all scales/rotation, removed doubles, set a subsurf before the armature-modifier.... i just can't figure it out.
The .blend-file is attached, hope you with more knowledge can figure out why it's not working and help me with a solution.

You need to remove doubles: Select your mesh, go in Edit mode, select all, press W > Remove Doubles, and on the bottom of the Tools panel (on the left), choose a Merge Distance of 0.2mm


2.9. Joined my Armature and now my Weight Paints don't work PLEASE READ THIS FIRST
I know you lose weight paints when joining armatures. This is NOT what I'm talking about. Okay, on to the issue:
PLEASE READ THE ABOVE FIRST
Hello!
I am able to color the vertices just fine, but when I go into pose mode the mesh doesn't move at all.
Here's a step by step of what I did:
My separate armature pieces had 0 weights. I had tested them prior to joining them and the weights worked just great. I deleted all the weights, applied all transformations, and then joined all my armature pieces together in one Ctrl+J key press. All seemed good.
Now, when I weight paint things get weird. For one, if I click the armature and shift-click the mesh and go into weight paint mode I am not able to select bones as usual. Secondly, and most important... the weights don't do anything! I am able to color the vertices just fine, but when I go into pose mode the mesh doesn't move at all.

Is it a naming issue? Parenting? I'm new to Blender so I'm likely overlooking something very important.
Thank you!

Weight paint only allows you to select bones on an armature that is linked to the mesh with an armature modifier, so you need to make sure that that is set up properly before weight painting.


Leaf variety in sapling addon? I'm using the Sapling addon in 2.79, and I'm having trouble making the leaves look realistic.  As you can see in the screenshot (sorry for the forest HDRI in the background; I know it made the image a little obscured) every leaf is exactly the same, top and bottom, all the same size, straight, etc.  What I am wondering is if the following is possible:

Curved leaves
Leaves of varied sizes
Some leaves with one texture, other leaves with another texture (i.e. orange, red, brown, yellow for fall trees)
Ability to add bottom textures

All this is assuming you didn't convert it to a mesh and had to do all this leaf by leaf :)

Thanks, I really hope others can benefit from this post too!

Some of these I know for a fact are possible. The Leaf Object parameter answers 3 of your 4 questions. First, you'll need to create a leaf, either with a Nurbs Surface, or a simple mesh (either method will work, but if you plan on texturing the top and bottom differently, I'd go with a mesh). Then when you add your Sapling Curve, in the Leaves settings, set the Leaf Shape to "DupliFaces" and the Leaf Object to the name of the mesh you created to be your leaf. The varied leaf sizes has its own parameter toward the bottom right "Leaf Scale Variation". Unfortunately, the Leaf Object parameter doesn't allow you to add Groups of objects, but you may be able to use the a particle system instead to achieve color variation in your leaves. Hope this helps!


Texture not showing on whole mesh This object seems not to have a correct normal arranging of the handle; the light-grey parts of the handle are supposed to be just like the wooden parts. Anyway I can correct them? I tried using different UV mapping options, but to no avail.

Your UV map has been scaled and/or moved from it's original location.

You'll have to fix this manually, selecting all, scaling up a bit (1.3) for the most part. Then you have to fix each island 1 by 1, scaling and moving them to fit the image texture.

To easily select an island, put your cursor on it and press L


How do I make multiple Blender objects into one? Situation

I have obtained some blender files & licences for 3d models of transit vans and some trucks. Currently, when I export these objects to .obj files they are rather large, take a while to render and look to have been built in segments.

Problem

These models need to be used on Android devices and they need to be observable through one .obj file. What is happening is when I open the .obj I am not seeing the same model as I do in Blender. The doors and wheels of the vans for instance don't appear.

End Product

I need to find a way of reducing these models to be just one single object. Items on the interior of the van don't matter, seats for example. The file would ideally also be around 200kb, and exportable in a single .obj file. Can anybody shed some light on how I would go about doing this?

Remove the objects you no longer want in your model, like the interior objects. Then select all of your objects that you want in a single model and hit Ctrl + J then click Join selected meshes. The multiple objects will now be one model you can export.

For further reducing the complexity of the model for better performance, you'll need to either remove more objects before joining them or you need to remove details from the objects you want to keep.


When I try to move a model everything in a circle around it moves as well When I try to move a model everything in a circle around it moves as well. I was not having this problem and now I am.

You have proportional editing turned on. Look at the middle on the bar at the top, the thing that looks like a target sign. It is blue in your case, meaning it is enabled. Click it, or press O to turn it off.

Proportional editing allows you to affect the movement of nearby objects when moving one. It is useful in some cases, like in edit mode when you want to create smooth bumps but don't want to move individual vertices.


Looping an array and curve modifier animation of object moving along a path? Help make this animation in Blender.
Modifier array and Curve, but what's next?
I need the arrows to cycle along the wire. If the arrow has reached the end, it should appear at the beginning

you can cut the animation so that when it reaches the endpoint it will restart. To do that you only have to reduce the time line that is in the bottom of your screen where you place the keys frames


Blender crashed and now when I try to open the file still crash! I was duplicate a simple mesh with just edges and Blender crashed tried to reopen but recrash, tried to restart computer and still crash and now I have any auto save files showed, also the automatic backup file .blend1 crash.
I've tried to open the file with the 2.79 blender version but still crash.
I can append all object to a new file but is tedious.
Is there any other thing that I can try?
I have a backup but it's 3 days older!!! I can append new object on that file but still a little bit tedious remember and find the new objects
Blender Version 2.90.0 (2.90.0 2020-08-31)
Mac os 0.15.6 Catalina
Mac book pro 16""
here is the file blender2.9 crash

Press append,
look the scene up and append it, that will append everything into a new scene.
Before you do anything open a blender file tab, you delete the necessary objects from there.

Save the file and then switch from scene and hope it does not crash again


AMD RYZEN Particles and Physics Simulations optimization needed teddiursa here.

I bought AMD RYZEN 1700 and it helps a lot with cutting down rendering and compositing time. But it becoming more apparent that Blender's Particles and Physics Simulation does not harness the greater number of cores and threads that R7 1700 provided. Is there any way to improve blender's particles and physics simulations cpu utilization. I'm thinking about specifically donating towards blender's particles and physics simulations, does such option exist?

Physics calculations are extremely hard to thread and there is, as far as I know, no magic setting to change this. Think of it this way. Rendering you can do frame one and frame ten at the same time. Frame ten doesn't depend on the result of frame one. In physics simulations core two can't start work till core one finishes since it needs its data. Their is some performance improvements as some of the calculations can be threaded, but overall processor speed is the far more important factor.


How to use the Alt + right click in edit mode in Ubuntu 17.xx? How can I use the Alt + right click shortcut in Ubuntu 17.xx and higher without installing additional software?

You could use Alt + Shift + <Right Mouse Button> instead.
(This shortcut is normally not used by the system.)
This will have the same effect, except the "Shift" key will make it add the new selection to an already existing one.
So what you should do is:
1. Press A (if needed) to remove any old selections.
2. Press Alt + Shift + RMB.


How do you create an infinite ground plane? How would you make a ground plane that goes on forever?

Here is an example, but it is from a very very old version of blender.
http://vimeo.com/8107842

For Cycles:

I don't think this really is possible in cycles currently, however you probably don't actually need an infinite plane.

The camera will only render objects up to a finite distance away (end clipping value), so your plane only needs to be larger than this value to appear "infinite".

To do this, enable Limits in Camera settings > Display to display a line visualizing the start and end clipping of the camera:

As long as your end clipping value is reasonably high and your plane is larger than it, the plane will appear reasonably infinite:

If you instead want an effect like in iKlsR's answer, you'll have to do some compositing with renderlayers.

Move your diffuse ground plane to another layer
Create another renderlayer and set the layer to the layer on which your ground plane is, then enable the shadow, AO, and Diffuse indirect passes:

In this example, the ground plane is on layer 2 and the rest of the scene is on layer 1.
Enable Environment on the original renderlayer, which should also be set to only render the layer with all the objects besides the ground plane.
Enable Transparent in Render settings > Film
Composite:

Example .blend


Generate a random square texture from color input I have defined a color palette using the ColorRamp node, and I would like to generate a random texture with those colors. What is the best way of doing this?
I'm new to blender, so please explain like I'm five years old.
Here's what I have:

Here's what I want:

You can get good results with a single Voronoi Texture

Set Randomness to 0
Plug the Color Output to your ColorRamp
Set ColorRamp to linear (since the edges are already defined)

Edit:
To keep the corner aligned: offset and scale the texture using The Mapping Node

Or offset the UV coordinates by 1 / ( 2 * scale)
Thanks to @Gorgious for providing the formula.


Where is the "go!" button on the render tab in 2.8? So I have a scene in the layout tab, I've gone to the render tab, I've chosen "new image", and I can set dimensions like 1920x1080. But all it does is change the size of a large black box. Where is the button that says "go!" or "render!" that makes it actually render something in the black box that I can then save?

Is a rendering supposed to show in the black box automatically and it just isn't working? Or if there's a button that starts the render where is it?

I'm just trying to make one frame render at this point.

Here's a picture of what I see:

First (1) Setup your size and output
Second (2) check your layers ready to be rendered.

Then go to the Render menu and select Render (F12). This is the default "GO" button on Blender 2.8. I know you´re asking for the big buttons on 2.79, they´re gone.

A lot of users on the Blender community are asking for those buttons to be back, you're not the only one. This was a recent change.


Texture not applied, just the color Pretty much the title.

As you can see on the image, grass and leafs texture is working, applied and looking not that bad.
However, the bark texture I applied to the tree is showed just as a close color. I'm pretty new in Blender, so please could you throw some advices?
Also when I go to UV Editor screen, there is no texture.

Tell me what further info you need and I will provide!

Thank you so much for your time!

If you have a texture image than you probably forgot to Choose it for your UV.Go to UV than select new file (locate that image) Now turn the edit mode and go back to UV tab and make the highlighted cubes fit the whole image.
If you already have an image selected than it must be because you haven't done the shading part correctly.


NEW Xcode WWDC15 - Export from Blender - Supported formats - Alembic(.abc) Following the WWDC15 Apple mentioned the supported formats and even went as far as to emphasise the specific file format Alembic (.abc) which is the most modern of the formats listed below:

What are the advantages of this over COLLADA/OBJ? Is it something that blender can/will support? is it worth it?

(Hope this is the right place to ask this question)

According to Ton Roosendaal, head of the Blender Foundation, Alembic plays a vital part in the current Gooseberry project pipeline. here's a related reddit discussion
Basic export of Alembic seems to work since 2013.

But then it's still to check whether the Blender-flavored .abc files play nice with XCode.

Alembic was introduced to transfer animated mesh deformations and camera translations from animation and simulation suites to rendering tools.

I overheard on twitter: Work is in progress to base many of Blenders chaching on the open source alembic library.


How can I set my origin point in the center of my cube so it can be the same in both edit mode and object mode? I tried to set the origin point of my cube to be in its center by pressing CTrl+Alt+Shift+C and choosing "Geometry to Origin" but it changed the origin point only in Object mode... in Edit mode the origin point is still not set in the center of the cube. I want to set in the center so I can mirror the other half of my cube correctly with a mirror modifier.
How the origin point is set in object mode:

How the origin point is set in Edit Mode:

The origin of your object is where you put it .. you can still see it there, the dot in the center of the half-cube.

What's not where you want it is the 'Pivot Point for Rotation / Scaling', which you have set to either 'Individual Origins' or 'Median Point' (It's hard to tell from the picture - just to the left of the manipulator button). That, in either case, will be at your selected vertex, if you only have one vertex selected.

If want your transformation of elements to be centered on the object's origin while in Edit Mode, go into Object Mode, select the cube, and hit ShiftS > 'Cursor to Selected'. That will move the 3D cursor to the origin of the cube. Now, back in Edit Mode, select '3D Cursor' as the pivot for rotation/scaling, either by using keyboard . or selecting from this rollout:

In Object Mode, you can manipulate only objects, not their meshes, and their 'positions', for transformation purposes, are defined to be the positions of their origins.


ReMeshing two vertex groups to different resolutions Some modifiers allow me to select a vertex group upon which to operate.

The remesh modifier doesn't.

I've got a 3-D mesh of a head, and I need the ears remeshed to a very high resolution and the rest of the head to a much lower resolution.

I have created 2 vertex groups.  Now I could {save, remesh, export to .OBJ} for each group, then create a blank project and import both .OBJs.

Assuming the re-meshing process has not messed up the join-perimeter, they should still fit together.

Is this the best way to do this?

EDIT: I've just realised that the perimeter will be messed up.   Say you have a cylinder with 100 points around the circle.   Cut it in half, now you have two cylinders.  Reduce one of them so it has 10 points around the circle. Now obviously these are not going to match up.  So is there some way to 'glue' them back together?

you could always seperate the mesh (select the ear in edit mode, hit P and seperate based on selection) then remesh each object individually, apply the modifier, and then join (and manually stitch or use bridge if possible)


how to rig a car engine piston i need some help setting up what is basically the same as a piston in a car engine's cylinder. i know i can just use keyframes and NLA strips but im after a more dynamic approach that wont require a bunch of edits to change the speed or phase. ideally i want to connect the rotation to the up and down motion of the control handle im using for the rest of the parts but i am stumped.
i have animation nodes installed so solutions using that are also viable. suggestions appreciated as im at my wits end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Piston.gif

This can be done with one driver and one look-at constraint.
The height of the piston-pin above the center of the crank is given by the following expression:
h = r * cos(A)+sqrt( (l**2)-( (r**2)*(sin(A)**2) )  )
where r is the radius of the crank, l is the length of the rod, and A is the rotation of the crank, as explained here.
With a crank of radius 1, and a rod of length 4, as illustrated, this reduces to:
sqrt(16-(sin(A)**2))+cos(A)
so this is the sort of expression you can put into a driver for the height of the piston(-pin), where A is the angle through which the crank is rotated.
The rod simply has to be parented to the crank, with its origin on the crank's circumference, and given a Locked Track constraint, making it look at the piston-pin.

If you parent both the piston-pin and the crank to another object, their transforms are evaluated in that object's space, and so the rig can be freely moved around, using their parent. In the example blendfile, it's the Empty called 'Basis'.


Why do some selected objects have a yellow outline and others have an orange outline? Whenever I select an object in Blender it will be outlined in orange or yellow. How is it decided which colour will be used for the outline, and what does each one mean?

3D Viewport:
One way to select objects is clicking on them in the 3D Viewport in Object Mode.
Objects with an orange outline are sleceted, but the one object with a yellow outline is the active object. There can only be one object with a yellow outline (but there can be multiple with an orange outline). When holding Shift down (that is the default key), you can select multiple objects. The object you select last is the yellow and active object. This is important if you want to do operations on multiple selected objects.
For instance, if you select two cube objects in Object Mode, "Cube" and "Cube.001" in that order, and then press Ctrl + J, then "Cube" will become part of "Cube.001". Since "Cube.001" was the active object. "Cube" will be gone and the "Cube.001" object will have a mesh consisting of two cubes.
If you select two cube objects, then select a sphere object and then de-select the sphere object, you are left with two cubes with an orange outline. Now joining the objects with Ctrl + J will not work, because Blender does not know which object to make part of the other and which one to keep as the remaining object.
Also, if you add geometry in Edit Mode, for instance add a cube to a cube and then select it in Object mode, both cubes have a yellow outline. It may seem you have two objects with the same color outline, but it is one object. So not a new object was added, but geometry was added to the mesh of the object, and in Object Mode the cubes will move as one.
(If you have multiple meshes in one object, but you want to separate them into multiple objects, you can select the object in Edit Mode an press P and choose for instance By Loose Parts.)
EDIT:
Outliner:
If you select objects in the Outliner window however, it can be different.
In the Outliner there is a square with rounded edges around the active object. There is always an active object. So there is always such a square somewhere in the Outliner, even if no object is selected.
If you select an object in the Outliner by clicking on it, it turns yellow in the Outliner and it gets a yellow outline in the 3D Viewport. Shift select other objects and they will turn orange and have an orange outline. So in the Outliner the first selected object is, and remains (while selecting in the Outliner), the active object.
If you select an object in the Outliner, other than the active object (whether the active object is selected or not), by right clicking on it and choosing Select from the menu, it will turn orange in the Outliner and have an orange outline in the 3D Viewport. So if the active object is not selected, you can select multiple objects this way without any of them being yellow or having a yellow outline.
If you select an object and then go into Edit Mode, you cannot select other objects (or their corresponding meshes) in the 3D Viewport. You can select other objects in the Outliner, but in this case the object you are editing is and remains the active object. Also the meshes of subsequently selected objects do not become editable, even though it is possible to edit the meshes of multiple objects at the same time. In order to do this you will have to select multiple objects before going into edit mode.
EDIT 2:
Outdated graphic card drivers:
It is also possible you select a single object and the outline is orange (even though it should be yellow). And when you try to move it, only the origin (the small dot) is affected. Also the origin can be moved away form cameras and lights. This should not happen and is likely caused the 3D Viewport not updating. Updating you video card drivers should resolve this issue.


Heavy Shadows On meshes I am trying to build a game in UE4, and when working on my wall mesh stumbled upon heavy shadow problems. When creating a low poly mesh from a high poly mesh with cage be baking normal map and AO.

As can be seen in this picture the player have a light source so there should not be any shadows there at all (Ignore the missing UV there).
As well there should not be a crack of shadow between the meshes of the wall.

I am getting really desperate just fixed another problem with even more heavy shadows but now I am stuck.
Thanks for any help.

Yea in the end it was normal map problems, no clue why the hell the normal map from cage does not work at all but I just baked normal map form high and low poly mesh, and that fixed most of the shadow problems(after I flipped the green in the texture in UE4), took me whole 3 days to fix this god dammit, but at least I know how to bake normals now -_-...
Thanks for trying to help me.


Facial Animation for Fuse/Mixamo Character Thank you in advance for any help.  I have created a character with Fuse and I was successful in exporting to mixamo to apply movements.  I can even import my Mixamo fbx into blender no problem.  I would like to add some blinking and some random facial movements to make the character look more alive and less "creepy".  Does anyone have any suggestions on easiest way to do this?
Thank you!

When you export your character to mixamo a rig is created. When it is finished you can choose if you want your character with facial shapes.
In Blender choose the body of the imported character, in object data you will find a lot of shape-keys. klick one  and change it's values. See what happens.
Guenther


How do I name a mesh using Python, when I don't know its present name? In a loop, I'm calling bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type="SELECTED") to separate some faces into new meshes. The newly created mesh doesn't seem to automatically become the "active" object, and so it seems like I need to know the name of the newly created mesh before I can rename it.

I'd really like to have the script be able to give these new meshes a meaningful name. However, trying to figure out what they're getting called by default is proving very tedious.

Is there any easy way to do this?

I think it's pretty simple. Let's take an object called cubes which is one mesh consisting of several disjoint cubes that you want to separate.
# with some selection, running: separate()
cubes -> cubes.001

# with some selection, running: separate()
cubes.001 -> cubes.002

if you then deleted cubes.001 and ran separate() on cubes.002 blender will automatically find the earliest unused object name
# with some selection, running: separate()
cubes.002 -> cubes.001

I think this is how it works, at least there's a logic to it. (Tested by seeing what happens in the outliner if I do this manually for a few iterations.
The reason this isn't a very convenient process is because you are calling a function which is used by the user interface, and doesn't need to return the names of the new objects.

A simple snippet using Python's Set class to find out which scene objects are new in the scene after such an operation is:
# before
A = set(bpy.data.objects[:])

# after operation
B = set(bpy.data.objects[:])

# whats the difference between sets
new_objects = A ^ B
print([o.name for o in new_objects])


Connect two bones to one I have two separate bones, the heads of which I'd like to connect to the tail of a single bone as shown.

Is this possible? Or is there an analogue?

It is not possible to connect 2 bones at the tip together, you would have to rotate the bones by 180°. May I ask what the purpose is? Maybe I could help you with your problem.


How can a texture converted to be tileable (seamless)? When using photos as textures they are usually not tileable and create patterns like:

Is there any method in Blender to make images tileable?

Blender's UV / Image does not provide such a functionality (AFAIK). This can easily achieved by GIMP.

After copying a region from the photo into a new image (preferably with dimensions as a power of two e.g. 1024x1024 pixel)

Execute from main menu: Filters / Map / Make Seamless

Result:

The terrain could be randomized (Edit Mode menu: Mesh / Transform / Randomize)

Related:

Unwanted patterns in texture from repeated, seamless image
Why should texture resolutions be powers of 2?
https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/26187/why-are-textures-always-square-powers-of-two-what-if-they-arent


render compositor only in 2.8 I am creating a transtion render animation using two images. I have done it before in 2.79 and used render layers to render the compositor nodes only. However in 2.8 this option is not available, and I cannot find any way to render just the compositor only.

This is a big deal as rendering the compositor only takes about .4s per frame, while rendering out the (empty) scene first takes this to 6sec (I have no idea why). Opening the file I used in 2.79, the render works perfect though I cannot find what setting is different.

Can anyone please point me in the right direction?

Cheers

Dan

I have since found the cause - User error.

Blender was running fine but as I was scaling from a 4K to HD image it was processing the 4K image, then scaling then processing the HD image, which took 6 times longer. I exported a HD version of the images and used that and render times dropped to .7s/frame, which is what I was expecting.


Import Lightwave Object LWO I'm new in Blender, but close to 20 years of experience with Lightwave.
I had read that you can enable LWO import in Edit > Preferences > Add-ons, but there's no Lightwave import option there.

I found Newtek MDD and enabled it, but LWO still doesn't load into Blender.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/82385749/Vought-F4U-Corsair-CGI

I keep a copy of Blender 2.79, where it still works, on my desktop to import LWO.

Import, then save as a blend file and open in 2.8x


Built-in Cycles Bevel Shader customization There is a new feature now in master that can be used by downloading daily build of Blender:

https://builder.blender.org/download/

It's bevel shader for Cycles. I tested it and it works great. However, I have a few questions:

How to exclude some edges from the influence of bevel shader?
How to set different bevel radius per edge? Can bevel weight value be used somehow?
How to exclude selected intersecting geometry from creating bevel?

You can simply use any attribute for the bevel radius.

I painted some vertex colors for example and connected them with the bevel radius input.


Execute script WITH GUI 'Context' object has no attribute 'active_object' I'm trying to create some automated test that will launch blender open a specific file and call an operator from an addon.

The operator is using bpy.context.active_object and it works perfectly when calling this operator from blender window.

The test are launched with GUI to respect the user environement as much as possible. Unfortunately this is not enough, i got the error:

  'Context' object has no attribute 'active_object'

This problem doesn't occur if I don't open a file before calling the operator in the script.

If I call the operator manually (in the exact same blender instance opened automatically for the test) everythings works fine.

What can I do to call this operator from an automated script without making any modification to the initial addon?

A generic solution would be usefull since I have a lot of operator to test and most of them are using bpy.context.active_object or bpy.context.selected_object

Here is a minimal example: (Tested on Blender 2.73)

The addon: (CANNOT BE CHANGED)

bl_info = {
    "name": "test addon",
    "description": "test addon",
    "author": "Pyros",
    "version": (1, 0, 0),
    "blender": (2, 73, 0),
    "location": "3D View",
    "warning": "development",
    "category": "3D View"
}
import bpy

class OBJECT_OT_addon_operator_to_test(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname =  "mesh.operator_to_test"
    bl_label = bl_description = "Operator to test"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}
    def execute(self, context):
        ob = bpy.context.active_object
        print(ob.name)#do stuff with object
        return {'FINISHED'}
def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)
def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)

The script:

import os
import sys
import bpy

base = sys.argv.index("--")
blendFile = sys.argv[base+1]
bpy.ops.wm.open_mainfile(filepath=blendFile)#without this line everything looks to work fine
bpy.ops.mesh.operator_to_test()
exit()

And a little python file to launch the test

import os
testfolder = os.path.split(os.path.realpath(__file__))[0]
scriptPath = testfolder+"\\script.py"
blendFile = testfolder+"\\base.blend"
os.system("blender -P \""+scriptPath+"\" -- \""+blendFile+"\"")

EDIT:
A solution would be to launch blender with a file to open instead of opening it in the script:

os.system("blender \""+blendFile+"\" -P \""+scriptPath)

This solution would be acceptable but I'd prefer to open the file in the script to have more control. More than that I want to understand why this errors occurs.

When calling blender from the CLI or script with arguments, it will "perform" each argument in the order it is presented, this can be important with many tasks.

What that means, is that blender -P script.py file.blend will run the given script and then open the blend file, while blender file.blend -P script.py will open the blend file and then run the script. In the second example you don't need to run bpy.ops.wm.open_mainfile and won't have the issue you are trying to solve.

That also means, your addon test example can be reduced to a single line and passed to blender without using a script.

blender file.blend --python-expr 'import bpy; bpy.ops.mesh.operator_to_test()'

Rather than combining a string to pass to os.system() I would suggest using subprocess.call() which uses a list for the arguments, preventing the need to quote and escape... effectively the list becomes sys.argv

As you are doing an automated addon test, consider using --factory-startup and --addon to control what addons are enabled. You could do one run with your normal startup file and another with factory and your addon or simply ensure your addon is enabled without having to change your startup file.

To test an addon with multiple files -

from glob import glob
from subprocess import call

for blendFile in glob('*.blend'):
    arglist = [
    'blender',
    '--factory-startup',
    '--addons',
    'addon_test',
    blendFile,
    '--python-expr',
    'import bpy; bpy.ops.mesh.operator_to_test()'
    ]
    call(arglist)

Or you can loop through multiple addons and test one at a time -

from subprocess import call

for addon in ['addon_test1', 'addon_test2']:
    arglist = [
    'blender',
    '--factory-startup',
    '--addons',
    addon,
    'test.blend',
    '--python',
    addon + '_test.py'
    ]
    call(arglist)


Real time symmetry modeling In maya there a way to move vertices or whatever in symmetry without using a modifier. That is usefull in making changes after a model with its uvs for example are already made and you want to tweek things a bit. But using the mirror modifier to do such thing will destroy the uvs of half the model.
Its also pretty fast and handy.

Is there a way to do that in blender?

You want to use X-Mirror. It only works on the X-axis but doesn't require a mirror modifier. While transforming and other simple operation work well, more complex operations like deleting or disolving may not be mirrored correctly.

From this answer:

  Sounds like you [want] the X-mirror option.

  Open up the tool shelf T switch to the Option tab and
  [check] the X Mirror checkbox.


Export render from Cycles as floating point RGB in scene linear color space? Is there an easy way to access (and hopefully export) the rawest output from Cycles, namely the rendered image as RGB(A) floats in scene linear color space?

Yes!

You can export the image in OpenEXR format, it will save the information as scene linear. You can choose to save as Half Float (16-bit floating-point} or as Full 32-bit floating-point.

In the basic OpenEXR format you can save RGBA + Z depth information.

Using OpenEXR multilayer you can save all of your layers and render passes on the same file.

To save all of your layers you need a file output node and create the links to the layer pass information you want to save.

To set it up please read:

Save all render passes to a single EXR image

and

How can I render all render passes to files in Cycles?

More info on OpenEXR format here: http://www.openexr.com/


GPU and CPU volumetric render noise discrepancy Below are a couple of images comparing quite a big discrepancy between GPU and CPU volumetric noise.
Same settings, much more noise on the GPU render!

Has anyone else experienced this?

The GPU must have a harder time clearing the noise for some reason at same Sample size..

The original images are on Google Drive.

There are some differences between CPU and GPU rendered images. Some have been fixed in 2.78, some have not. Maybe later. You can do nothing about this.
Only one recommendation: use what works better in your case and don't combine CPU and GPU rendering for animation. :-)

Blender 2.78 bugs fixes


What is the best way to model the intersection of multiple hard-surface pieces? What is the best way to model the intersection of multiple hard-surface objects? Not technically different "objects" persay - but where different pieces meet visually.

What are various ways of achieving this, and which ones are good for which use cases?
Curved surfaces, insets of other pieces, panels, etc.
Using paid modifiers is fine; although, ideally there are ways to do without as well.
Thanks in advance!

If you're talking about cutting panels, There's a very nice non-destructive method demonstrated by Penfinity, at the time of writing, in two videos, here and with an improvement thanks to Nahuel Belich, here.

Penfinity likes to be a bit of a magician, so this answer will try to slow the explanation down a bit; draw back the curtain.

1. Select the Edges

..you would like to cut between the panels, and..

2. Assign them to a Vertex Group.

(the second halves of the following illustrations show the vertex weights, under the bonnet. You won't see most of that stuff, unless you apply the modifiers, and you don't want to do that..)

3. Assign a Bevel modifier

..with two segments, by 'Vertex Group'. This will isolate the edge selection from Masking later on, and determine the width of the gaps you are going to make. The modifier-created edges have an interpolated weight, which allows us to select them away in the next step.

4. Assign a Vertex Weight Edit modifier

..with the Vertex Group as its target. It is set to remove vertices from the group, with a full weight of 1 as the upper threshold. This results in the group being modified as shown:

5. Assign a Mask modifier

.. with the inverse of the modified vertex group as its target. This cuts a gap as wide as the original bevel into your mesh.

Now you can set where and how wide the gaps are, by adding/removing from the original edge selection, and setting the width of the first bevel.

This is the modifier stack at this stage:

Now you can add a Solidify, Bevel (by 'Angle'), and Subsurface modifier. Simply changing the settings in the first and second bevels can give you a lot of flexibility in the outcome:

and everything is editable.


How to scale object positions? The answer sadly used an image - how does that work our days?

https://blenderartists.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-246537.html

Click the button to the left of the object origin button. This should make it so the objects move away from each other without affecting the size.

For Blender 2.8.x it can be found under the Options popover above the 3D View:


Switching between pan and orbit while holding MMB In previous versions of Blender I've used, pressing or releasing Shift while holding  MMB would switch between orbiting and panning, without needing to let go of  MMB. In my fresh installation of Blender 2.77 (on Ubuntu Linux 16.04), pressing or releasing Shift while holding  MMB does nothing; if I wasn't holding Shift when I pressed down  MMB, then it would stay in orbit mode, no matter what. How would I restore the old behavior?

Got to File > User Preferences > Input > 3D View > View 3D Rotate Modal and add a new key combination

Set it to Switch to Move and add any key combination you like.

I did not succeed settings it to work with the Shift key though, it seems to not like "modifier keys" on their own, but most other combinations will probably work.


Rigging a skeleton hand with separated bones I modeled a skeleton hand with each bone separated, but I can't figure out how to rig it. I tried joining the fingers together and all of the bones, I tried to rig each bone separately, watched several rigging tutorials but none of them helped me since I don't want to weight-paint the model (since I want every bone to move without deforming the others).

How should I rig my model?

Thanks in advance!

Make them all the same object, as you have done.  then, make an armature, select the object, then the armature, and press Ctrl - P and select with empty groups  you will notice that the armature still has no effect on the mesh.  then, figure out the name of one of the bones, then select the mesh and on the vertex groups property panel, find the vertex group with that bones name.  now, select that vertex group, enter edit mode, and select the part of the mesh you want the bone to control, (a good tip is to move your cursor over the section, and press L which will select the loose part the mouse cursor is over)  then, in the vertex group panel, with the bone group still selected press, assign(.  do this for all your bones and you will be good.  If you mess up on one of them, you can use the remove button.

Hope this helps!  It doesn't take as long as the text makes it look.


How can I easily animate cutaway views on multiple objects? I'm trying to create animated cutaway views on multiple objects in my scene. For example, in my car model, the seats and other interior objects are separate objects.

This question talks about using an animated bisecting technique. However, it involves adding a solidify and boolean modifier to every object.

Is there an easier solution?

Modifiers
Solidify and boolean modifiers should work fine.
You can use CtrlL to copy modifiers from the active object to the selected objects:

Add the solidify and boolean modifiers to one object.

Select other objects you want to bisect, keeping the object with the modifiers active (last selected).

Press CtrlL> Modifiers

Rendering
By creating a node group like this:

By changing the bottom value input on the greater than node, you can adjust where the bisection takes place.
By default it will use the local coordinates of the object, but if you want to use global coordinates you can use a vector transform node, however 0,0,0 will still be at the object origin (see bottom example for using global origin):

To control this for multiple materials at once, add the node group to the end of the node tree:

Result:

If you want to use global coordinates with 0,0,0 at the world center, use the Position output of the geometry node instead:

This probably works better with multiple objects.


How to make this lighting in Blender Internal? Is there a way to emulate this node in Internal, and with diffuse textures on the model?

Take this low-poly sphere with a diffuse texture on it, for example. The first screenshot is the model rendered in Internal and the second is the model rendered in Cycles, with the effect on. (IOR: 3.000)

Do you mean like this?  I guess I don't understand the question exactly because Blender Internal does have Fresnel:


Wacom Intuos Pro (tablet) not working with Blender on OSX My Wacom Intuos Pro isn't working when I try to use it in Blender. I can move the cursor of the computer but not Blender's cursor.

How can I debug or provide more information?

Outside of blender, it seems like I can move the cursor but not click with it.

I am on OSX.

The solution is: go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > check "WacomTabletDriver".


How to sculpt straight lines I've been looking for a way to sculpt straight lines in Blender for some time. The most common answer is to create a custom brush, but it seems inflexible.

Does anyone have a better solution? Also, is it a planned/possible feature for Blender in the future?

I presume that this feature did not exist at the moment when this question was asked, but you can now go to Tools Menu -> Stroke -> Stroke Method and choose Line, and draw strokes as lines.


Holographic lighting in Cycles Is it possible to create a holographic lighting in cycles? This is possible In the Blender Internal render engine, but I'm not going for linking lamps. Here is what I mean (the light that is holding the sphere inside it) -

Yes, this is possible using volumetrics:

Method 1:
Using a cube to scatter light emitted from a spot lamp.

Create a cube and give it a volume scatter material:

Add a spot lamp:

Method 2:
You could also fake this by modeling the cone, then using a volumetric gradient for the falloff:

It won't be as physically accurate or as flexible, but it will be less noisy:

Example .blend (for both methods)


What is the best way to reduce polycount of the leaves I have a small desk plant tree I modeled in Blender (using the Tree Sapling Generator) and it might be used in a game. It has a high polycount, so I've tried decimating it with the Decimate modifier but it gives me bad UVs and removes almost all the leaves. I don't want to use a texture, I would like individual leaves.

In the first image the faces are 36K

but when you switch from Auto to Vector in Handle Type you can see the number of Faces reduce to 13K
you can see the difference
if it look like less ploy then you can increase the polygons of the branches in the Branch Splitting settings and modify the Curve Resolution


How do I move vertices from the center without scaling? I want to move a vertex from a 3D Cursor in a direction (vertex - center) ie from the cetner outwards.

I know I can achieve that with scaling the vertex position against the 3D cursor, but when moving the vertex by 1 unit I have to deduce the unit from distance.

When the vertex is 3 units from the 3D cursor and I want to move it by 1 unit. I have to scale the vertex by 1.3333...

Is there a better way to do this ?

Try to use the Alt+S command, then type the desired value.


Synchronize an object following a path and the appearance of the path Using a Follow Path constraint as well as Cegaton's answer from this page, I am trying to make a path appear behind a car as it follows a path.

Unfortunately, the speed at which the car and the path animate is different (they have the same number of frames however)...

I'm not sure what exactly makes this, and I'm not sure I can afford the time to keyframe or start tweaking each object to perfection.

Is there a simple reason I am missing out?

In the example file where the curve object has keyframes set to animate the curve geometry end, change the Bevel Factor type to Spline and set the interpolation of the keyframes to linear.

The different Bevel Factor modes for start and end are:
RESOLUTION:
Resolution Map the bevel factor to the number of subdivisions of a spline (U resolution).
SEGMENTS
Segments, Map the bevel factor to the length of a segment and to the number of subdivisions of a segment.
SPLINE
Spline, Map the bevel factor to the length of a spline.


Can python be used to edit a Text Object? That is, can python code replace, for example, a single letter in a Text Object or insert a letter or string into a Text Object.

Note that I'm not talking about replacing a Text Object with some updated string, such as, object.text = "new string". I'm thinking more about having access to the Text cursor (not the mouse cursor) and positioning it on some letter that I'd like to replace.

In other words, I'd like to have the same capability during BGE play that I have when altering a Text Object in the edit mode.

No this isnt supported, you have to replace the string with a new one each time.


What are the best ways of designing sword topology? I'd like to model the sword in the reference image below, but I'm not sure how to design the topology of the blade while avoiding the use of (1) a triangle at the tip or (2) a quad with two vertices on top of each other at the tip.
I've tried to model this sword about 20 times now with no success. The topology always turns out really messy and difficult to manage. Is there a "standard" way to approach modeling something like this? I've tried to watch some videos about it, but usually they just leave the tip as a triangle, which I don't want to deal with.
I really appreciate any help!

https://youtu.be/i7LlZQyryek
I ended up using a mirror merge and it seems to turn out okay. a point at the end can be done through merging a few faces together. Triangles are generally avoided because subsurface doesn't work as well on them. My exploration used a few at the tip, but they were not a problem for me.
You probably need to have higher poly count for your mesh to describe it.


Is there a way to make a node property value the default? I'm making a Minecraft animation and the only way the render comes out with clean pixelated textures and not blurry textures is if I set the image interpolation in the shader node editor to Closest.

It seems that I have to do this for every kind of block. Is there a way I can just set closest to the default interpolation within a project (so whenever I have to append a new Minecraft object, it will have the right interpolation)?

If I can't set the interpolation to a default value, can I at least apply the Closest interpolation to everything in the scene?

I'll post another answer since this one will actually solve your problem (I hope). Use this script to set the interpolation of each and every one of your "Image Texture" nodes to "Closest" :
import bpy

for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    if not mat.node_tree:
        continue
    for node in mat.node_tree.nodes:
        if node.type == 'TEX_IMAGE':
            node.interpolation = 'Closest'

How to run a script


check if movieclip track has segment I'd like to remove all tracks in a movieclip that don't have any segment.
Since there's no such operator, I'd like to do it in python but I can't find a way to check if a track has a segment.
I've tried things like tracks['some-track'].has_bundle or average_error but these don't certify it.

This seems to be a good check:
track = bpy.data.movieclips['some_clip'].tracking.tracks['some_track']
len(track.markers) <= 3

As I understand it, each track has one marker per tracked frame and for some reason, some tracks with no segment can still have up to 3 markers.
There might be a better solution but so far I haven't had an issue with that.


Keeping Bezier spiral curve handle tilt perpendicular to a specific axis It's doesn't seem to matter if I use the curves "extra objects" to make the spiral or just create it on my own. I can't seem to find a way to keep tilt parallel to any one axis. Or make tilt uniform in any meaningful way without tilting each handle individually, which is a waste of time.

I'm using this spiral as a curve modifier. I have an object following this spiral curve path. I want to have some control over its orientation and deformation, which is why I'm not using the "follow path" constraint. I'd like to set the handle tilt uniform to a certain axis so the object stays level as it travels up the spiral.

The problem:

The final result will be a flow demonstration with arrows, very similar to this example I made in another project, but with a long spiral as shown above. I need to be able to control how the arrows rotate as they travel along the path.

Is there any way to keep tilt aligned to a specific axis so I can predict object rotation?

I've already tried:
• Setting the "mean tilt" number with all points selected
• Clearing tilt (my example image is what happens when you clear the tilt)
• Convert from curve > mesh > back to curve
• Tilt interpolation options
• Proportional editing while in tilt edit mode
• I need object deformation, so I will not be using path constraints

I solved it! In the Curve Properties menu, Twisting should be set to Z-up.

This makes all handle tilts level to one axis, and from there, I can tilt them all together or one at a time to get my desired result.

And the final result, with no errant twisting or rotating:


In Compositor, is it possible to change multiple node values simultaneously even though there is no input socket? In Compositor, some nodes do not have input socket for that value. Can I change these values at once?

For example, my node group has Distance input socket. I want to use this value to Distance value of Dilate/Erode nodes, but there are no input sockets.
I know it can be done with Python script or with Driver, but I want change it only within Compositor.

Just add a Value node and use it with a driver.
That counts as within compositor, right? :)

Add a Value node
In value field RMB > Copy as New Driver
In Distance field RMB > Paste driver


Cycles - Baking Transparent Background So I tried a few different answers that I found here, and I feel that this is possibly a duplicate question, but everything I have tried from the other solutions hasn't worked.

Basically I am trying to bake a material to a texture that will be used in Unity, but every test gives me a black background image.

In the image below, the top image texture is the mask (black and white, white being the leaves), and the bottom image texture is the colour.

It is currently not possible to bake directly to an alpha channel as you mention.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/41904/28015

There are workarounds, though, like you could bake only an emission shader of the masking (in this case you already have the mask so there's no need for that), then make it the alpha channel in the compositor.

Here is the blend:

Just bake the texture, update the compositor, and finally, go the the viewer node in the uv editor.


Why does the previous frame sometimes get displayed as transparency when rendering animations? If I just start up my default startup file and render an animation, the previous frame is always replaced with a blank transparent checked pattern before the next frame starts rendering.

However, in this file the next frame is displayed as rendering over the previous frame.

I have also noticed that in the file linked above some tiles will briefly appear transparent (checkered) before rendering, however others do not.

Why is this?
Is there some setting I don't know about?

Is it possible I could render animations without anything appearing transparent?

Cycles cuts the final image into a number of tiles, as each tile begins to be processed it is cleared before the result gets entered into it. Blender internal doesn't appear to do this clearing step, leaving each tile update being drawn over the previous frame content.

For not seeing a tile in it's cleared state you will find the screen view gets updated in a thread separate from the rendering. A tile may get cleared and updated in between two screen updates so a tile that gets cleared may not be seen in a screen update before an image update is entered into it. The quicker the first sample is ready the more chance that the cleared tile is not updated to the screen. To test this set a large tile size and high samples rate using cpu so that it takes a while before an update is ready to view, even a simple background colour that updates quickly can be seen cleared before it gets updated.

As for the difference between your two example files, the startup.blend file has border turned on in the resolution settings with crop turned off. blue_ring.blend has both border and crop turned on.

It appears that border on with crop off causes full image clearing between each frame. Border off or border on and crop on doesn't perform this clear full image step.

Rendering within a border that doesn't get cropped would be a reason to clear the entire image to prevent any old image data being present around the cropped render. For an animation this step should only be needed for the first frame and should be able to be skipped after that. Probably no has thought of only running the clear step once at the start of the render animation task.


How to make a bone translate on a tilted Axis? So, I've started a new project and i've come across this problem:

I have this rather simple armature composed of 4 bones:
-Rotation: which is stationary and rotates on one of the three main axes (x,y or z).
-RotationArm: child of Rotation and inherits the rotation
-RotationArmPos: child of RotationArm and only inherits the position
-Target: child of RorationArmPos and it's not connected to him

My objective is to be able to move the Target bone along the immaginary tilted axis, going through the two ends of the bone, based on the vertical translation of the RotationArmPos.

To set up the rig that you're looking for, you can use the Transformation constraint on the Target bone. Using your set up, you would use the following steps:

Select the RotationArmPos bone.
Shift+select the Target bone.
Add a Transformation Constraint (Ctrl+Shift+C→Transformation).
In Bone Constraints, find the Transformation constraint that you just added. Make the following adjustments:

For the Source, set the Max Y value to 1.000. Leave all of the other numbers the same.
For the Destination, do the same.
For the Space drop-down menus, set your Source space to Local with Parent. Set your Destination space to Local Space as well.
At the top of the Transformation Constraint, enable the Extrapolate checkbox. This ensures that movement happens beyond the values you entered for the Y-axis on the Source and Destination.

Now, when you rotate the Rotation bone about its local Y-axis (in your image, that's also the global Y-axis), the Target bone will move along its own local Y-axis. Since RotationArmPos is a connected child of RotationArm, its Y-axis values are only going to go in the negative direction, so you should expect the Target bone to move towards its head as you rotate. From here you can tweak values to get the behavior your want. You may even want to remove the parenting of Target from RotationArmPos.

This constraint gives you a lot of flexibility. In fact, if the Rotation bone is your primary controller, you could even drive Target directly from that bone's rotation and skip using the RotationArmPos bone's position altogether.

I've put an example .blend file on pasteall.org.


Is there any way to bring smooth corrective modifier effect to unity? Is there any way to bring a rigged model with smooth corrective modifier effect to unity?

You can apply the modifier to make its effects part of the mesh data.


How to Change Image Saving Options with the Python API? (Color, Color Depth) In my script I create an image, generate the image and then save it like this:

image = bpy.data.images.new('my_image', width=1024, height=1024)
# other code that generates the image by baking onto a texture node ...
image.filepath_raw = '//outputs/my_image.tif'
image.file_format = 'TIFF'
image.save()

But when saving the image I would like to have control over those options:

...which are available when saving from the user interface.

You can discover nearly all data paths from Blender GUI itself.

Set your mouse cursor over a field and a tooltip will appear:

You can also copy (part of) the path directly here:

Then you can use it (and test it) from the Python console, and also discover all the properties you need using autocompletion with the Tab key:

So concretely you can for instance:

bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.color_mode = 'RGBA'
bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.color_depth = '8'
bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.compression = 20

You can now easily search in the documentation:

And have access to a complete information for the fields values (click me).


sculpt separated meshes I model CAD on Autodesk software, only used Blender when I was younger.
I split two meshes and I need to Sculpt them, only the original mesh is sculpt-able.
The mesh is from an .stl, and was separated by selection and hotkey  P.
Should, I change the material of each selection, then re-combine them? How do I edit the separated mesh?
I can sculpt the light grey, but not the dark grey. I separated or split the dark grey, specifically by using a selection and the hot key  P.

The solution was t was similar to the posted video. By "changing the object in the current mode"
In scene selector, change the dot to the left of the mesh (to a sculpt icon) by going into sculpt mode, and Ctrl + Clicking on it.


Does EdgeSplit modify geometry? I'm making robot models exported from SolidWorks look better by smoothing the shading of the faces, here is my work-flow:

Import mesh
Remove double vertices
Smooth faces
Apply EdgeSplit
Export final model

This works great but I am not sure of one thing, from what I understand the EdgeSplit modifier only modifies the vertices normals on specific regions of the mesh (given the split angle).

When applying the work-flow above on some meshes (example), the poly count changes and I don't understand why:

Original file: 230 vertices
Removed doubles: 226 vertices
Smooth faces: 226 vertices
After EdgeSplit: 421 vertices

Why is the EdgeSplit affecting the poly-count in some cases and other not?

Yes, the Edge Split modifier does modify the geometry.

Edge Split works by actually splitting edges, i.e. making an edge two separate (overlapping) edges.  This is why your vertex count goes up after applying edge split, each vertex which is on an edge that got split is turned into two vertices.

Note how the vertex became three separate vertices after Edge Split.


Geometry behind glass material appears slanted in render When I render an image, there are bevels somewhere on it that shouldn't be there. How to fix it?

It almost appears like it's index of refraction hitting the hard normals of triangulated geometry. Have you tried rendering with glass set to auto smooth (Object Data Properties>Normals>Auto Smooth)? Turn the glass object off during render and see if distortion occurs. Give the glass a shiny reflective MatCap material and check if normals reflect oddly. Some modifiers that can help (depending on if you want sharp or smooth glass): 1. Weighted Normal 2. Edge Split. You typically use them separately.


How to render alpha channel and depth map quickly without having to re-render the whole animation? So I've finally managed to complete my first animation, it's an animated version of a scene build I created and I decided to outsource it to a render farm for completion. Now that I've got it, I've realized that its extremely noisy and the video has no depth or alpha output in the compositing tab probably because I outsourced it. Now my question is, if I've got the .blend file from which the animation was rendered, is there a way to reproduce an alpha and depth map quickly without having to re-render the whole animation? Or even still, what if I render a still image (the animation contains only very slight movement, like an animated wallpaper) and took its depth and alpha outputs and apply them to the depth and alpha of the denoiser.

Edit: Just to clarify, I have tried to denoise without the use of a depth and alpha information but the results are poor. Most of the image does not move at all, its only a few centered object that float up and down.

You can try to denoise any image or image sequence with the compositor, without denoising data. The result will obviously not be as great as if it was using denoising data, but you won't have to re-render everything.


Changing image texture as height increases and using colorRamp with image texture I am trying to make a landscape scene. I want the landscape to have 4 different images as textures. The images should change as the height increases. I was able to do this with 2 images but when I increase the images it goes wrong. Also I found examples on stack which were using color ramp. Also when I use a mapping node for my images, the result is having only one Image. I use cycles engine.

I want something like this but instead of colors i want to use images

Use different ramps, each one with a different increasing range, to map  the information from the $Z$ axis.

(The math node in this case is not doing anything, but can help you refine the placement and scale the coordinates for the z axis. The ramp node's range is confined to values from 0 to 1 so if your values exceed that range or are too small you might need to scale them)

Then, each one of the ramps can be used as controls a color mix between two different images, and then concatenated to mix new images in different heights of the mesh.