How can I render with GPU on iMac 09' NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB? I'm new to blender and just found out that GPU rendering is way faster than CPU rendering, so I decided download a few drivers that would allow me to render with my GPU. All went well, and I have the option to render with either the GPU or CPU now, but, when I click the render button, a message saying "cuda device supported only with compute compablility 2.0 or up, found 1.1."

Next I tried changing "feature set" to "experimental," but still nothing.

Any suggestion as to how I can fix this?

It's difficult to find clear information, but if Wikipedia is to be believed, the GeForce 9400 is supported by CUDA 1.x, but not 2.x which is what Cycles uses (look for the chart). This would be why it says "found 1.1," which is what comes with the driver.

That being said, there seem to be rumors in the deep web... whispers of dark magics... that will allow the 9400GT to run some newer versions of CUDA. Of such things... I hope never to be openly spoken in the halls of men.


Faces without black dots Why do some faces in Edit mode when I have Faces selected do some of the faces not have black dots? When I try to subdivide those, it doesn't work properly (all that happens is the black dots of neighboring faces move closer to the selected face).

On further investigation, I found that the faces ended up facing inwards instead of outwards. Is there a way of easily fixing that?

Here's what is happening:

The Face dot it drawn at the geometric center of the vertices that make up the face. If you are using Ngons you may not see it actually anywhere inside of the face.

Another possibility is that you face dots are too small. To increase the size you can go to the theme setting in the preferences.

As you can see here the Ngons are not subdividing.


How to change render samples using python I'm trying to render an image with python, and I want to set the render samples precisely, however, when I run this code:
bpy.context.scene.cycles.samples = 20

the number updates in the viewport but when an image is rendered, the number of samples it uses is unchanged.
I'm really not sure what happening here...

Sometimes Blender just doesn't update things when the code is executed "blindly", so you need to imitate like some parts of it were called by user. To do so you need to create and register Blender Invoke or Modal Operator and then call it with ('INVOKE_DEFAULT'). In the most cases it solves such problems. I've written and tested this Modal Operator, it works. Maybe there's even no need in the whole modal section and you could place context.scene.cycles.samples = self.samples and bpy.ops.render.render('INVOKE_DEFAULT') right inside invoke method and just return {'FINISHED'} from there, but I just wanted to ensure that the samples have been changed using the modal loop. More information about Blender Operators you may find in the API documentation And here is the code with lots of comments:
import bpy
from bpy.props import IntProperty

class SetSamples(bpy.types.Operator):
    '''Blender Modal Operator'''
    bl_idname = 'render.set_cycles_samples'
    bl_label = 'Set Cycles Samples'
    samples : IntProperty(
        name="samples",
        min=0,
        default=20
    )
    timer = None

    def execute(self, context):
        # in execute method we just create a timer and add a modal handler
        # which handles events in real-time. We set the timer to the class
        # variable to be able to remove it later on.
        self.timer = bpy.context.window_manager.event_timer_add(.1, window=context.window)
        bpy.context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'} # this starts the modal() method

    def modal(self, context, event):
        # modal handles events in real-time
        if event.type == 'ESC':
            # in case something goes wrong and we need to abort it manually
            bpy.context.window_manager.event_timer_remove(self.timer) # remove timer
            return {'CANCELLED'}
        elif event.type == 'TIMER':
            print('Tick!') # just a test to count how many times timer ticks
            # on every Timer tick the Operator checks:
            if context.scene.cycles.samples == self.samples:
                # if everything worked correctly and Cycles samples have changed:
                bpy.context.window_manager.event_timer_remove(self.timer) # remove timer
                bpy.ops.render.render('INVOKE_DEFAULT') # render
                print('FINISHED') # just a test message after
                return {'FINISHED'}
            else:
                # if samples haven't changed:
                context.scene.cycles.samples = self.samples # command to change samples
                context.scene.update_tag() # not sure what it does but it was recommended
                                           # in the comments to the question
                print(f'Cycles samples after changing: {context.scene.cycles.samples}') # test message
        return {'PASS_THROUGH'} # returns us to the start of the modal() method

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        # Operator starts to execute from here when called with ('INVOKE_DEFAULT'),
        # like if it was called by user, not by script
        return self.execute(context) # this starts the execute() method

def register():
    # as we use the Blender Operator class, it needs to be registered:
    bpy.utils.register_class(SetSamples)

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
    # after register you can use your Operator just like any other Operator in Blender
    # the last parameter is the samples you need
    bpy.ops.render.set_cycles_samples('INVOKE_DEFAULT', samples = 20)


Mesh Deform is not effecting some bones on the hand of my character. (Rigify/Lattice problem) I am new to blender and I created a character consisting of separate meshes (Coat, Scarf, Hand, Face etc...). In order to control my meshes under a rigified rig, I created a lattice mesh that covers all of the other meshes. Lattice mesh is attached to the rig and works perfectly. All the meshes except hands work in harmony. Here is the detailed explanation of the system.(Lattice mesh is the wireframe one and covers everything.)

Lattice mesh deforms nicely with the rig, as well as all the clothing except the HAND.
The problem is, when i rotate the hand this happens.
The rig looks like this and not all the bones are green. Weight paint of the lattice is good and hand doesn't exceed the boundaries of the lattice.

How can I get the hands not deforming badly when rotated? Any help would be very apperaciated. Thank you for your attention/help.

This might be similar to what you're looking for; it uses the mesh deform modifier. I was having the same problem as you for a while.
Here's a video that helped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYzR4jY8wi4
Here's a little in-depth tutorial:

Grab your body (not the mesh deform) and create a Vertex Group and weight paint just the hands and feet (and maybe the head and/or groin for some people, wherever there’s unwanted movement created by mixing both the mesh deform and the parented body - as you can see I didn’t include the eyes bc I liked how the mesh deform deformed them).

Go to your modifiers and add an armature modifier and add your vertex group to the vertex group section. Do the same thing for the mesh deform, but also check the arrows button next to it (it inverses the chosen vertex group).

Hope this helps!!!


Adding Ngons to Meshes I heard about this thing called ngons, and adding ngons to your mesh.  I am wondering about how to add an ngon to my mesh, and what it looks like.  There are no obvious tools for adding an ngon.  How do I add an ngon?

An N-Gon is simply a face with more than 4 vertices.

Notice how there aren't any edges going across it, it's all one face.

To add one, just select more than four vertices, and press F. An N-Gon is just another type of face.

Now, an N-Gon might seem great, but let's look at what happens if we pull of of the virtices from the last image up in z space a bit.

It might look okay, but notice how you don't see any shading from the raised vertex. Now let's look from another angle.

It might seem okay, but notice how the shading is the same all around. There's no change in color throughout it. To amplify the issues even more, let's run this through cycles.

3D view (for a point of reference) The selected Vertex is the raised one.

Notice how odd the shading is when it's rendered, especially when you compare to how it's rendered in the 3D view.

To understand what's happening here, we'll have to take a quick look at how faces are rendered, or prepared for rendering.

Tris are the only thing that the GPU can render, so that means that every face you make, has to be split up into a Triangle. What's happening here, is that the Blender is having issues splitting up the face, because it has no way of knowing how to split it up effectively. This is where the real downfall of N-Gons are.

But there couldn't be an explanation of N-Gons without mentioning their issues with subsurf.

Take a look at this example of a cylinder that is capped with an n-gon.

Normal

Subsurf

As you can see, there are lots of distortions.

Pro's and Cons of N-Gons?

Pros

They allow you to connect more than 4 vertices to a face.

Cons

They are extremely unpredictable when it comes to shading
They cause lots of distortion when deformed or subserfed.


Cutting a 2D plane using intersecting planes as a guide Sorry if this seems like a newbie question (I'm very new to Blender!), but what's the easiest way to cut into a mesh using other objects as a guide?

I attached an image for clarity. I want to remove the section of the horizontal plane highlighted in red, using the perpendicular planes as a guide. I tried boolean but just deletes the entire bottom plane. Knife also doesn't seem to be able to use other planes as a guide.

What's the simplest way to do it?

As it is a "cut" question, you can use knife project :

In object mode select the "wall" part RMB
Then both select the "floor" part Shift+RMB
Enter edit mode Tab
Place the view to the top ortho NumPad7
Then use knife project in the tool panel
Last step : remove the unwanted vertex

Knife project uses a mesh to cut into another. The cuts are given through the view plane (so it depends on from where you are looking). The cuts are given using the cutting object edges (from this point of view), to create new vertices and edges in the cut mesh.

A step further... this make an ngon (a face with more than 4 vertices) and it is better to avoid ngons...

First approach :

Enter edit mode
Select all and Ctrl+T to triangulate
Then selecting quad parts Alt+J

Second approach :

Remove the ngon face
Subdivide the wanted edges W then subdivide
Place the 3D cursor at the 'pivot vertex'
Set pivot mode on 3D cursor
Then move (scale) the vertices to the 3D cursor
Last : remake the faces F and eventually correct the normals Ctrl+N

Other possible approaches, certainly...


Hair Particle System to Create Forest: Some Trees are Floating So I've got a problem popping up. I was following this video tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPOSAJuoEmU&index=3&list=PLvFQDY1Hrbb41mId9Evuvz3pDrHaGFDYI

I have noticed however that many of my trees are floating above the planes they are supposed to be growing from, which causes the immediate problem of shadows only appearing under some trees. I've checked around online, but most Q&A's similar to this one are because the person didn't use "Hair" or had their trees at the wrong orientation. I have tried to do what these other answers I have suggested but without much luck.

I don't mind if the distant trees float, but the ones on the closest mountain face are very obvious in the render. So any help would be great! If I have to I will just go through and manually move them if there is a way to do that! I just need them firmly in the ground, so to speak haha.

Photo time

If the surface that the particles are emitted from is affected by another modifier then you will need to make sure that the particle system's modifier is below the other modifiers. This is so that the particle system can 'see' the previous modifier's result (because blender's modifiers execute in the order they are in the modifier 'stack', with each modifier passing on its data to the next).

Another option you may need is the Use Modifier Stack, found in the particle system's Emission panel. This makes sure the particle system is seeing the 'final result' of all the modifiers being applied to the object before trying to emit particles.


Blender (2.91) modular tree addon, with particle system the leaves do not show up I used the modular tree add-on to make trees for a forest scene.
I want to scatter all the trees that I made around my scene via a hair particle system, but whenever I make the particle system, it only scatters the tree part and it doesn't take the leaves with it. In other words, whenever I make the particle system for my trees, the leaves do not show up on the trees. (see image below)

As you can see from the image, the particle system does not render the leaves with the trees.  Also, whenever I try to do the "render as collection", nothing even shows up, so I don't know what to do here.
I think it is probably because the leaves are parented to my tree object, and blender's particle system is not programmed to scatter parented objects.  Normally that would be ok because I could just join the objects together, but because I used the modular tree addon, the leaves disappear whenever I join them.
The only other solution I have found so far is to convert each branch on the tree's particle system into their own individual meshes and then join them together, but that makes my computer incredibly laggy and I would really prefer not to do that, so if anyone has any creative solutions for this it would be much appreciated.

After I examined the file and the way the addon works, I saw that the leaves are just vertices that emit hair particles. So, when you add a hair particle system to the plane, it just puts the tree trunk on, without the leaves.
After some trying I successfully joined the leaves and the trunk together. What I did is I first added a vertex group, which contained all the vertices that were in the object, emitting the leaves. Then I joined the leaves into the trunk, and then I added the particle system to the new object (since I added the leaves to the trunk, and not the opposite, the particle modifier was gone. I used the same particle system from the drop-down menu). I set the density of the system to appear from the vertex group, so now I had a whole object, emitting hair. but this still wont work, because its still hair.

The actual resolve
What you need to do is you have to convert all the hair objects into meshes. In the modifiers tab, just click convert. I would advise you to put the leaves object in a collection first, so that its easier to work after.
So, now you will have 3000 objects. Now, you need them all in one mesh. So, select all of them (if you listened to my tip and you putted them in a collection,  RMB on it > Select objects), then select the trunk last, so its the active object, and hit Ctrl + J Join Meshes . This is really hard for the computer to work with. Mine cant, actually. One tip, is to look away from the tree when joining, off course in blender, not irl. It makes it easier to actually do the calculations when it doesnt have to display it.
Then, you'll have the tree object. Now, when you put it as hair object, it will show all.
This may not be the best way to do it, but I cant think of another, currently.

New solution I found
So, I just found a new way to make it, and I even successfully rendered it.
What I did, is I used the tree I made by joining the leaves and the trunk together (See how I did it above). Then I set the hair instance object to be the new tree. So, now, if I convert all the trees into meshes, they will crash blender, because once they are meshes, their particle systems will work - i.e. it will have to show 1000 particle systems. That's why, before converting, disable the particle system on the tree model, so that you don't crash blender. Again, I advise you to use collections, because they make life so much easier.
After this, if you hide all trees except one and then you enable the system, you will see that it looks like a bush- really packed. This is because of the size difference between the instance object and the trees, that came out from the hair. So, first you need to copy the particle system onto that one tree, so that it won't effect the instance one. Then, you can change the size of the leaves, the amount etc.
After you are happy with the result, you can apply these particle settings to all trees. Make sure that before you do this, you hide the system from the viewport, to prevent blender from crashing. Then, you select all trees, then at last you select the one you were working on, Ctrl + L > Link modifiers. Since particle systems are modifiers, by linking them to other objects, you copy the particle systems as well.
And that's it! Now the trees are nice and done. Here is my render (its pretty low quality and its a screenshot, just for show off)


Video editing displays white screen I have Blender 2.72b on Windows 8.1 Pro and whenever I get to the video editing and import a video, I get this

How can I fix this problem?

I already had a graphics card driver problem with Blender. The developers helped me out to find out whether the problem is one with the driver.

You should use the opengl32.dll from http://download.blender.org/ftp/sergey/softwaregl/ and place it next to your blender.exe as described by sergey to find out if the problem is your driver. Beware, that Blender might be very slow while using this wrapper dll as everything is done on CPU only without using your graphics card. If it's working this way you know it's a problem with your driver/graphics card.


Why does blender 2.8 twist the thumbs the wrong way around in my Poser 11.1 Pro FBX figure when it imports Why does blender 2.8 twist the thumbs the wrong way around  in my Poser 11.1 Pro FBX figure when it imports. How can I maintain the integrity of A Poser figure when I import it into blender

Have you tried applying the rotation?
Most image formats have a rotation parameter but not all software (including blender I think) honors it. I think you can do it in GIMP.

https://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/exif-orientation.html


AN separate text object - separate to words? I’m trying to separate text into words and make transformation on separate words elements with falloff. As on screen I handle with transformation falloff (y +2.79) but question is how to distribute each word to line up into paragraph (transform word by length of word before in loop ?)

@Omar Ahmad
ready solution with Omar help

The best thing you can do is to compute the distance recursively inside a loop like this:

I get the width of each word using the dimensions vector, by adding all the width of all the words before each word, I know the location of my word with some space in between.


Hot to upload a new font (OFT) file into blender I've designed a font in fontforge and now I need to put it to use. can someone tell me how I can install to font into blender !

Create a text object and in the font section of the text panel you will see four choices for font.  Click the buttons and navigate to your directory.

The tool tip shows where to click.

I have made the text panel in full zoom.  You can see text choice at the text properties selected at the top.


Imported an Alembic animation to Blender. How can i time-reverse it? I imported an Alembic animation to Blender from the VR animation app Tvori. How can i time-reverse it? i need it to play as intended but then would like it to play backward, so to create a loop. and then render. is it even possible?
i'm a total beginner so i don't know anything about how the Blender timeline works, but coming from video editing it's hard for me to look at the timeline and not even see a clip on it that represent my "animation" and on which i can maybe right click and change settings?
i know, i sound very ignorant about all of this which i am.

thank you for any response!

Related:

looping alembic
start alembic at specific frame

(e.g.) My alembic animation has a length of 240 frames.

Select all the objects, which were created on alembic import and go to the constraints or modifiers [properties tab].
Hold ⎇ Alt and  LMB click Override Frame.
Then ⎇ Alt LMB into the Frame field and type # 240 - frame.

A driver will be created for the Frame field and the field will turn purple.
Holding the ⎇ Alt key ensures, that this happens in all the modifiers and constraints of all the selected objects. You can confirm this, by individually selecting the other objects and double-check that their Frame field of the Cache Modifier and Cache Constraint is also purple.


Change number of frames allowed for each animation? I have a shoot animation which contains 15 Keyframes, and a reload that contains 70 keyframes. When I set the keyframe amount to 70 and go to the shoot animation, then change the number of keyframes to 15, only 15 keyframes show up when I go back into the reload animation.

The frame range set on Timeline is for global output range by default. However, if you want to have a alternative preview for certain duration, you may consider to click the Use Preview Range button on the Timeline header.

When enabling it, you can set an alternative preview range by setting Start / End value on the header, instead of changing the global output range.


Rigging the upper arm In a picture like that, what are the double circles, blue and red, in the upper arm? I can't understand . . . Is a bone with a custom shape? Does it effect the mesh? How can i realize it?

You've selected a bone:

What you see is the rotation manipulator:

your animation shows a rotation around the y-axis.


How to select extruded vertices in bmesh? I'm just messing around with bmesh and was trying to create a script that would extrude the edges I mark as sharp. Here's my code:

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector

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

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
selected_verts = [v for v in bm.faces if v.select]
verts_to_extrude = []

for e in bm.edges:
    if not e.smooth:
        verts_to_extrude.append(e)

bmesh.ops.extrude_edge_only(bm, edges=verts_to_extrude)

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(bpy.context.object.data)

Here is what it does:

Before:

After:

Note: the code does not move the selected vertices, I just moved them out of the way so you could see what its doing.

It is doing what I want in that it is extruding the vertices marked sharp, but it leaves the original vertices I had selected, selected. Is there any way to make it so that it selects the extruded vertices and deselects the vertices I had selected before the operation?

Bmesh ops have return values.

Unlike bpy.ops which only return a status of operation, bmesh.ops in many cases return a result. bmesh.ops.extrude_edge_only(...) is one.

It returns a dictionary with a list of elements. {'geom': [<BMVert(0x7fc7a6b0ef50), index=528>,....]}

There is an example on bmesh ops api that uses extrude extensively.

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector

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

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
selected_verts = [v for v in bm.verts if v.select]
# deselect all verts
for v in bm.verts:
    v.select = False

edges_to_extrude = [e for e in bm.edges if not e.smooth]

ret = bmesh.ops.extrude_edge_only(bm, edges=edges_to_extrude)
geom_extrude = ret["geom"]
print(ret) # the geometry returned from op.
del ret

verts_extrude = [ele for ele in geom_extrude
                   if isinstance(ele, bmesh.types.BMVert)]
# select them
for v in verts_extrude:
    v.select = True
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)


Script for rendering a specific frame n-times is there a script or an addon that let me render a specific frame n-times and change "only" the position of the camera (f.e. path animation) after the frame is rendered.

The following works for me.
Add a follow path constraint to your camera. It is the offset of this constraint that we will change in order to move the camera.

camera_name: name of the camera you want to move
constraint_name: name of the constraint whose offset you want to animate
scene_name: name of your scene
output_location: where the rendered frames will be saved; if this is /some/path/tiger then your frames will be stored as /some/path/tiger0, /some/path/tiger1, ... (with file extensions added if this is in your scene settings)
initial_offset, final_offset: initial and final offset that will be used for the constraint
nr_frames: the total number of frames to render

Here's the code. It's very simple. To run it, just copy-paste into a new file in Blender's text editor, adjust settings and click Run Script.

#### Adjust these settings ####
camera_name = "Camera"
constraint_name = "Follow Path"
scene_name = "Scene"
output_location = "c:\\zoo\\elephant"

initial_offset = -10
final_offset = 10
nr_frames = 16
###############################

import bpy

# save now, so that we can restore these later
original_offset = bpy.data.objects[camera_name].constraints[constraint_name].offset
original_filepath = bpy.data.scenes[scene_name].render.filepath

# render the frames
for i in range(0, nr_frames):
    offset = initial_offset + (final_offset - initial_offset) * i / (nr_frames - 1)
    bpy.data.objects[camera_name].constraints[constraint_name].offset = offset
    bpy.data.scenes[scene_name].render.filepath = output_location + str(i)
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still = True)

#restore original values
bpy.data.scenes[scene_name].render.filepath = original_filepath
bpy.data.objects[camera_name].constraints[constraint_name].offset = original_offset


How to rotate multiple (controller) bones with one main (controller) bone? I got a quick question regarding rigging in Blender! So i recently picked up Blender to teach myself some of the basics things (modelling/rigging/etc), i have worked in Maya for many years prior. But i am currently hitting a small roadblock.

So here is the problem. I modelled a bird and i am currently rigging it. I made a few controllers that can rotate the feathers. The small sticks can rotate each feather sepperately and they are parented to the big box
The feather bones have a driver attached to them that links them to these sticks, so when i rotate them along the X-axis they will rotate the feathers.

My question:
What would be the best approach to link the small sticks to a main controller (the box), so when i rotate the box it will rotate all the feathers, but you can still adjust/tweak the feathers with the sticks as well.

I tried it with a driver but this will lock the stick so it can only be rotated with the big box. I'm sorry if it's an obvious solution but i am still new to Blender xD

Edit 2:
The updated file with the feathers:

Here's my version of the file. This is what I did to get the desired functionality:

Go into Edit Mode, select all the bones which make up the finger/feather controls only, and press Alt + p to bring up the Unparent menu. Choose Clear Parent.
Go into Pose Mode, then select the Bone Constraint Properties tab in the Properties Panel. Access the Bone Constraint pulldown from the top of the panel, and create a Child Of constraint. Set the Target to Armature, and the Bone to SmallWingCurve.L. Finally, Press the Set Inverse button to ensure that the new parenting relationship preserves the child's current position.
Copy new Child Of constraints to all of the remaining Small_Feather_Controller bones. Select all of these except the one to which you just added the Child Of constraint. Then, hold Shift and add the one which has this constraint to the selection. It must be the last one added to the selection, as this makes it the active object. Then, from the Pose menu at the top of your viewport, select the Constraints submenu, then Copy Constraints to Selected Bones. Now all your feathers/fingers have the same constraint.

If you try to rotate your master controller now, all the smaller ones rotate with it.

One advantage of the Child Of constraint is that it allows you to keyframe changes to the parenting relationship. This is not possible with direct parenting. Another is that the resulting parenting relationship can be increased or decreased by degrees using a slider, rather than being a binary on-off relationship only. Yet another is that more than one parent can be assigned to a child object in this way, whereas this too is not possible via direct parenting. Perhaps the most important advantage is that it seems to work for your purposes here, where direct parenting did not. I'm not entirely clear as to why. If anyone knows the answer, please explain this for me.


threading.Timer gets cancelled but doesn't stop firing. Why? I have an operator that starts a threading.Timer which moves the current frame forward by 3 every 5 seconds. If I call the same operator with the stop property set to True it must cancel the Timer.

I can see that the timer is now NoneType in the blender console

>>> type(C.scene.animall_timer.timer)
<class 'NoneType'>

but the Timer is still firing. Why is that?

Here is the relevant code:

def execute(op, context):
    print(op.stop)
    if context.scene.animall_timer.timer is not None: context.scene.animall_timer.timer.cancel()
    if not op.stop:
        context.scene.animall_timer.timer = threading.Timer(op.time, op.execute, [context]).start()
        context.scene.frame_set(context.scene.frame_current + op.frames)
        bpy.ops.anim.insert_keyframe_animall()
    return {'FINISHED'}

I found it before I got to post the question, so instead of discarding it I will post the response myself.

The problem was that (coming from javascript and jquery) I was expecting Timer.start() to return the timer object, but it just returned None so cancelling it had no effect.

The working code is as:

def execute(op, context):
    print(op.stop)
    if context.scene.animall_timer.timer is not None: context.scene.animall_timer.timer.cancel()
    if not op.stop:
        context.scene.animall_timer.timer = threading.Timer(op.time, op.execute, [context])
        context.scene.animall_timer.timer.start()
        context.scene.frame_set(context.scene.frame_current + op.frames)
        bpy.ops.anim.insert_keyframe_animall()
    return {'FINISHED'}


How to get modifiers of instanced objects to to refer to their respective object? When I instance 2 objects, one having a modifier that refers to the other, if I make the instances real, the modifiers don't refer to their respective object.
I tried every approach I could think of:
- particle instance of a collection
- duplivert of a collection
- duplivert of 2 parented objects

None of them got it to work.

Is there any way around this?

Here's a simple example file:

Steps:

edit the lattice and see how it deforms the Suzanne
make the instances real on the emitter plane
remove the particle system
from there, how to make it so each lattice deforms each Suzanne ?

Maybe my approach is wrong but if so, what's the alternative?

With a script.

If make the particle system only have a one frame lifetime then all will be created on frame 1

After pressing Convert (make real) will notice that Lattice.001 is with Suzanne.001, Lattice.002 is with Suzanne.002, ...  we can use that.

Also give each lattice its own data so editing one doesn't affect all.

Here is a script  select the plane and run script

import bpy
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene

ob = context.object # the plane
# make dupes real
bpy.ops.object.duplicates_make_real()
# remove the ps
ob.modifiers.remove(ob.modifiers[0])

lattices = sorted(l.name for l in scene.objects if l.type == 'LATTICE'
        and l.name.startswith("Lattice")
        and l.name[-3:].isnumeric())

suzannes = sorted(s.name for s in scene.objects if s.type == 'MESH'
        and s.name.startswith("Suzanne")
        and s.name[-3:].isnumeric())

for ln, sn in zip(lattices, suzannes):
    suzanne = scene.objects.get(sn)
    lattice = scene.objects.get(ln)
    # give each lattice its own data
    lattice.data = lattice.data.copy()
    # set modifier to lattice
    suzanne.modifiers[0].object = lattice

Note: Don't have any other objects other than originals starting with  "Suzanne" or "Lattice" in the scene.

Worth noting could extend this to look for collection instances in the particle system settings and get the object names from the collection objects.


What has been done with this object? Does anyone know what operation was done immediately after the inset operation to remove the bottom inset in the provided gif?

i to inset then B for boundary (option also available in the bottom of the Tools panel on the left of the 3D View). By the way, is it not a Penfinity video?   ;)


How to stack UV island using Python in Blender? I'm looking for a help/solution to my question "How to stack UV island using Python in Blender.
I haven't got far from beginning but this is all I got this far:
import bpy

me = bpy.context.object.data
uv_layer = me.uv_layers.active.data

for poly in me.polygons:
    # Here I want to move the selected poly in the location of my 2D cursor
    # So eventually all my polygons are stacked into the same pile

This is a very beginner question and all the help and hints are much appreciated.
------------------EDIT---------------------
Here's illustration what I want to achieve with the script:

Select UV-island

Snap UV-island to the 2D cursor

Repeat phases 1 and 2 for every face in the mesh, so eventually all the faces are stacked on top of each other

Here we need three things:

Find the 2d cursor position
Check the mode we are in before processing the UV coordinates
Use the UV layer to find UV coordinates

For each face, once UV coordinates are found, calculate their center and offset the coordinates by the difference from the cursor.
Note that if no UV editor opened, won't find the cursor and does nothing.
Commented code:
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

def find_cursor_location():
    # Look through area and find the first image editor
    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'IMAGE_EDITOR':
            return area.spaces.active.cursor_location
    return None

obj = bpy.context.object
cursor = find_cursor_location()

if cursor:
    #Check the mode as we cant do it in edit mode
    mode = obj.mode
    if mode != 'OBJECT':
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

    me = obj.data #Need to get it here in case mode is changed
    uv_layer = me.uv_layers.active

    if uv_layer:
        for poly in me.polygons:
            # Get all Uv coordinates of the face
            uvs = [uv_layer.data[loop_index].uv for loop_index in poly.loop_indices]
            # Its center
            center = sum(uvs, Vector((0,0))) / len(uvs)
            # The needed offset
            delta = center - cursor
            # Shift UV coords
            for uv_data in [uv_layer.data[loop_index] for loop_index in poly.loop_indices]:
                uv_data.uv -= delta

    #Back to the mode we were in
    if mode != 'OBJECT':
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode=mode)


How do I change the interpolation of Nurbs curve so its Bezier? I'm fairly new to Blender. I know the basics and all, but I want the camera to follow a path, starting slow, speeding up, then slowing down again, but it wont let me change the interpolation, and I'm stuck on F-curves which moves at the same speed from the start to finish.
I don't know if I'm making sense, but I'm not happy and do not know how to fix this.

To change a Nurb to Bezier:

Select your curve, go in Edit mode, and in the T panel (on the left of your 3D view) > Tools > press the Set Spline Type button and choose Bezier.

It looks like it doesn't work everytime so here is a way: Select your nurb in Object mode and convert it into a mesh with alt C > Mesh From Curve. Then convert this mesh again alt C Curve from Mesh. Now it's a Bezier. As you can see in Edit mode it has a lot of vertices. To simplify, activate the Simplify Curves addon, then select your curve in Object mode and Spacebar > Simplify Curves. Now in the bottom of the left panel (T) play with the Distance Error factor to reduce the amount of vertices. Once it looks good, come back in Edit mode to check out.

To make an object follow a path:

In Edit mode make sure that your Bezier curve goes in the right direction, if not W > Switch Direction.
Put your object at the center of the scene (alt G).
Give it a Follow Path constraint. Choose the curve as Target. Click on the Animate Path button of the modifier. Now the object follows the path.
As the speed is not the one you want you need to delete the curve's self-generated animation: Select the curve, open the Graph Editor, on the left menu unfold the menu until you see Evaluation Time, select it.
Click N to display the right menu, select the Modifiers tab, click X to close the Modifiers > Generator. Now your object isn't animated anymore, but you're going to fix it manually.
Keep the curve selected. In the Properties panel > Data > Path Animation, keep the option enabled. With Frames choose the number of segments that will divide the curve. With Evaluation Time you will decide at what segment of the curve the object will be at the moment you want on the Timeline.
Now open your Timeline, put your cursor at frame 1, play with the Evaluation Time until the object is at the position you want, then insert a Keyframe on the Evaluation Time. Change the position of your cursor along the Timeline and repeat the operation. As you see you can move the object along the curve at the speed you want, you can even make it go backward. In the Graph Editor you can also change the Interpolation type (press T) so that the movements are more or less flexible.


Is there a way to reverse camera zoom action in Blender? I'd really like to set up the camera to behave 100% like Maya. The zoom function is inverted with the Alt + RMB  in Blender which is beyond annoying. Is there a way to correct this?

You can change it under Edit > Preferences


How to make a bone NOT inherit location from parent? Or how to position bone at world location? Lets say I have two bones, A "Root" bone and a "Child" bone, the "Child" bone has the "Root" bone set as its parent. How can I make it keep its world position while the parent moves?

Now, the reason I ask is because I want to create some "root motion" animations for UE4 (which I have gotten working) but since the root bone moves during the animation, its really hard(or as far as i can see; impossible) to keep the IK targets I use in the same place while the "Root" bone moves.

As an example see webm-related: http://webmshare.com/nq8qa
(I'm aware that this animation is horrible for root motion and in this case it won't be used)

But in that rig I have the head as the root bone, when it bobs up and down I'd still like to be able to keep the IK targets located at the feet still without bobbing with the head bone!

Any suggestions on how to do this? The easiest thing would obviously be if I could copy the world position of a bone and then paste it on the next keyframe, but I can't for the life of me find that sort of functionality!

This can be done with bone constraints

Add an Empty to the Scene at the base of your child bone.
Disconnect the child bone from its parent (AltP) in Armature Edit Mode.
In Pose Mode select the child bone, go to the Bone Constraints context , and add a Copy Location Constraint targeted at the Empty.

Here is an example of the result:

Above: An armature object being moved while one of its bones remains stationary


How to reflect\catch light but be invisible on render? I want a mash was able to catch light but was invisible on render. I want this effect to happen, but the plane was invisible. Is it possible? Or can I cast colored shadow? I need this in cycles. This question is not about "how to make an obect invisible" it's about how to make in catch light.

Fore example

I need this happen

How can I get light accents without white face??? Do you see that light distributes unequally on shaped objects, how can I get only light fingerprint on transparent background?

I couldn't manage to make this "light catcher" using nodes but as a workaround or just alternate method you can use Baking. For this answer I'm using Blender 2.80 Beta and Cycles but the workflow is the same as in 2.79b.

Scene setup for baking

Background needs to be black.
Light should be fully white - you can change color of it after bake.
Object may be simple Diffuse - needs to be UV Unwrapped.

Baking

Bake Type - Diffuse with Influence Direct.

You should get a map like this:

Using it

Now you can use baked map as a mask to combine Transparent shader with another of your likeness. Color Ramp is for fine tuning mask strength.


Blender 2.8, API, select_set( action = "SELECT") TypeError According to Blender 2.8 WIKI API changes,
 the following script is now obsolete:

bpy.context.object.select = True

replaced with:

bpy.context.object.select_set( action = "SELECT")

However that's throwing a TypeError: required paramater "state" not specified..

The answer is:

bpy.context.object.select_set( state = True, view_layer = None)

That's the right syntax in Blender 2.8 Beta to the date, apparently the WIKI is not updated


Missing Edges in mesh Hello - disclaimer  still learning blender ...

I'm making a boot, and made the shape using two cylinders and connecting them using a boolean modifier. Somewhere along the way after this, I have noticed that my horizontal edges don't go all the way round the front. When I add a new edge loop, it only add it to the back side of the boot. At this point I'm not sure what to do, so I think I'll start again... but thought I'd see on here if anyone could shine some light...

Should I have used different shapes before the boolean modifier? I also noticed it was quite annoying that I ended up with so many vertices at the connecting point.

Edit: I also noticed that on the front "foot" part of the object, I also can't add an edge loop the whole way round. See in image, I tried to add an edge loop in the middle and it only went through two edges.

Thanks!

If you want to join edges so your edge continues around the front, then select the two vertices (start and end) and press J.

The reason your edge loop does not go all the way around is that not all your faces are quads.

If you are new then I suggest https://topologyguides.com/. Good luck!


How to mix two baked normal maps on one mesh I can't seem to find a solution on here or anywhere else. I have baked two separate normal maps from two different high-poly meshes onto one low-poly one.
I did this so I can have the head of the human I'm modelling have quality normals as well as the body.

But now I have a problem, I have both textures made in the panel, but they don't seem to mix well. One of the normal maps acts like a mask to the other one.

I can switch between these, and the regions of the mesh that correspond to the map work well, but they can't seem to work together.

Is there a solution to this?

Here is the .blend file,

You will need to select which UV map is used for which normal map. Go to the mapping panel in the texture tab for each normal map and make sure mapping is set to UV and the appropriate UV map is selected.

Also, when you create a UV map, every face from your object is on every map, so you will need to make sure that the face UVs are on an area of the Body UV map where the texture is transparent and vice versa. If you select all of the faces of your mesh in edit mode and look at each map you will notice that the UVs for the face and body are on each map. Simply select all of the islands for the face and scale them down until they fit on one of the transparent sections on the Body Normals image, and do the same to the Face Normals map but scale down the body island instead.

Also in your case you'll want to turn down the strength of the normals to .1-.2 or something as otherwise they make your mesh quite grey. Your lighting setup is also causing a few of the funny lines and dark/light spots. A single hemi lamp will give even lighting with minimal shadows so you can more clearly see what's going in with your maps.


How to pack cache files? Is it possible to pack the smoke cache files into the blend file, like can be done with images?
How can I do that? I only need the cache of one single frame.

Well, turns out that the smoke-cache, (and other "cache bakes"), are actually stored in the .blend, if not set to bake externally. I tested this by baking a smoke sim, then stopping it at frame 40. I exited Blender, then loaded the file again. All the information for the smoke was still there.


It is possible to add modifiers to a group? I made a group of different objects with different set of modifiers for each one. I wanted to add a lattice modifiers to this group to be able shape its form... it is possible? I tried with no sucess... It seems something very useful, i'm impressed something like this isn't implemented in blender yet...

Modifiers can be easily added using python.

target_lattice = bpy.data.objects['Lattice']

for obj in bpy.data.groups['Group'].objects:
    new_mod = obj.modifiers.new(type='LATTICE', name='Lattice')
    new_mod.object = target_lattice
    new_mod.strength = 0.5

Instead of all objects in a group you can use the selected objects with bpy.context.selected_objects

By changing type='LATTICE' you can add any modifier you want. Each modifier has different property names which can be seen in tooltips when python tooltips are enabled.


How can I move a vertex and maintain its distance from another? Is this possible? Basically the other vertex would be like its pivot.

Yes. In edit mode, select the pivot vertex and press the space bar to bring up the command selector dialog. Choose "Snap Cursor to Active" to set the 3D cursor to the position of this vertex.

Then press the . key to set the cursor as the centre of rotation. You can then select the vertex you want to move and press R twice to enter free rotation mode (or just once to rotate in the current view). Either way, the distance of the selected vertex from the centre of rotation will remain constant.


physics : blow sheets of paper with wind? I need to create an animated shot where sheets of paper would be blown away by some (directional) wind, like you would do with leaves :

I'm hesitating between animating it by hand (using curve modifiers on my sheets) or with physics.  It should be quite realistic.

Would you consider doing it with physics, or is it just too much work ?
If yes, how would you do it ?

Thanks !

It depends in how many sheets you'll have in your scene, and what type of animation you want to do.

If it's a realistic animation, then I'll prefer physics and work on my simulation enough to bake it (it wont be that heavy then)

If it's a cartoonish animation with few sheets, then the curve method could be fun, but it's not the fast option here.

Curious to see what others think about it !


Turn down volumetric smoke scale I want to make some small smoke plumes using Cycles volumetric smoke. Think cigarette or car exhaust size. However, the default scale of smoke detail seems to be very large. Using default unit scale (1 unit = 1 meter), my smoke plumes have almost no detail at small sizes. I have to make them the size of buildings to have them look like I want. If I make the domain small, then I just get a tiny slice of low resolution.

Is there any way to adjust the whole scale down, or is this limited by voxel divisions? In that case, it ends up being easier to bake a giant oil well plume than a cigarette plume?

Here's my results, although not tuned perfectly, I feel they are reasonable.
For me the trick is in setting the Smoke High Resolution and bumping up the divisions.

There is some other things in here like smoke texture, and other minor things for you to look at to fit, so I've included a blend file as well.


Can't import ctypes from Blender's Python I'm having trouble importing the ctypes Python module from a 32-bit installation of Blender 2.73 on Windows. I need to use Blender's included Python, not the system Python. From the interactive console inside the Blender GUI with no project or anything loaded, I get the following error:

>>> import ctypes
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.73\python\lib\ctypes\__init__.py", line 7, in <module>
    from _ctypes import Union, Structure, Array
ImportError: DLL load failed: %1 is not a valid Win32 application.

My Windows installation is 64-bit but I figured that shouldn't matter given that I'm running Python from a 32-bit installation of Blender and ctypes is part of the initial installation.

I have a feeling that the issue is specific to Windows because I cannot reproduce the issue on 64-bit Ubuntu.

Any ideas?

This is a known bug in 2.73 and 2.73a:

https://developer.blender.org/T43961

Blender 2.74, 2.75 and 2.76 should work. adding the missing _ctypes python module (_ctypes.pyd) from these versions to 2.73 should also work.


How can I render pixel art images with no AA and transparent background? My question is: How can I render a pixel art image with cycles (low resolution) which is ready for use in a game? That means: no border antialiasing, a transparent background, and a real 1:1 pixel ratio (no scaled image) in the end result.

I've already found a few related questions, but none completely answers my question. The closest I've got is this (more or less copied from here):

The problem is that it still has a white background, which I don't want. When I change the alpha channel of the color in the upper input of the "Mix" node, the whole image gets more transparent, which is not intended, of course.


Blend file opens in 32 bit but not 64 bit? I have a blend file I made with Blender 64bits

I recently installed an addon called Blender Sensei Format, I didn't understand the UI and it appeared to append my file I think.

I uninstalled the addon and the file still will not load, it just crashes Blender, I uninstalled blender and deleted all the data and even the registry files, however the file will still not load so i tried the same file on my 32 bit windows tablet and it opens with no issues.

I then downloaded the 32 bit version of Blender to my desktop PC and the file opened again with no issues but still will not load on 64 bits version.

How can i fix this? It's driving me mad

Have you unchecked the "load UI" option box before opening the file? I have had occasional problems opening files created with different versions that were ignored when I used the current user interface rather than the one embedded in the .blend file.

I tried the sensei interface and went back within a couple of hours... Too much of a change from what I was accustomed to using to adapt.

Phred


how to create an object particle that sticks to the top of the mesh selected? I am creating a doughnut in blender and I was trying to use the particle system to add sprinkles to the icing on top of the doughnut. but, when I add the object particle, they get added under the frosting and inside of the doughnut. I've tried messing with rotation, emission and a few other random things but I can't seem to figure it out.

You can gain better control over your particle placement with Weight Painting.
First, select your emitter object and make sure it has a vertex group attached. If there isn't one already there, add one with the plus sign, and if there is one there, consider renaming it to something like "Sprinkles" to make sure it's clear what it's for. You can safely select all before assigning it, because the weight paint will control the particles, not the selected vertices in the group, and we want to make sure all are available to paint on.

Now, enter weight paint mode. I noticed that when I assigned the vertex group, it set it all to "full weight" (red). If this happens for you, there are a few things you can do. Mainly, change the draw mode to subtract and either subtract away some sections you don't want particles on (mainly the edges - blender isn't perfect with particle placement, and will place some "out of bounds" - keep this in mind when painting), or paint it all blue and start again with the draw brush if you want to do it cleanly from scratch.

Paint the areas that should contain the sprinkles (I put most in the center of the "icing"), correcting as necessary by switching brshes.

Now that this is done, assign your particle collection.
NOTE- If the hair particles are all facing inwards (happens sometimes because of solidify modifier), either check the flip normals box on the modifier itself, or select the whole mesh in edit mode and pick mesh > normals > flip.
Now, scroll down to vertex groups, and under Density, select your "Sprinkle" group. This will make the particles appear only on the areas you painted that are not blue, with increasing density towards full red.


External commands sent to Python Interactive Console? Comrades, I figured out how to open a .blend file using an separate/external Python script, I would now like to know how to send instructions to the Python Interactive Console? The code below is run from a simple Idle Python3.3 module. The commented line does not work - any suggestions on how to fix this? I want to call the Embedded Player to run automatically from another script.

import os

def openFile():
    try:
        os.startfile('bob2.blend')
        os.system('Python:bpy.ops.view3d.game_start()')#start embedded player??
    except Exception as e:
        print (e)

I am aware that making the .blend file a .exe will solve this problem but the will make development very slow as I will have to compile the BGE every time I change code...
Thanks guys!

If running the exe works, you could also open the blend with blenderplayer and not worry about exporting.

os.system('/path/to/blenderplayer.exe bob2.blend')


I need to move one side of a rod along a path but anchor the other side still I have a long rod object, one side of the rod needs to follow a circular path, while the other side is anchored to another object. I want it to be able to move slightly so that the path following end can go all the way around, but I want it to have to stay touching the anchoring object. I don't know if I can do this efficiently or if I'm even explaining it well. I attached an image to maybe help demonstrate what I mean a little better. It's such a specific question that I've had a really hard time trying to research it, so I simply tried to look into curves, paths, parenting and that kind of thing and couldn't find anything that helped me.

Blend file below...

The circular path -
Add the circle path and scale it to suit.  APPLY the scale with Ctrl+A
Bevel it when it has to be rendered.
In it's curve properties at right, set it's "Frames" to (e.g.) 20.
Set the timeline to frame 1 and in the curve's "Evaluation" slot, set that to zero and keyframe. (I)
Move the timeline to frame 20 and again in the path's evaluation slot, set that to 20 and keyframe.
Goto the Dopesheet and with the circle-path still selected, select both keyframes and press T --> "Linear".
-==========-
The path object - (empty)
Using the path's origin point, make sure the cursor is still set to that with SH-S.
Add an Empty.  Scale it to suit and 'APPLY' the scale with Ctrl+A .
Give it a "Follow Path" constraint.  Name the Curve-path as the 'Target'.
Play the animation and check the empty's travel is constant and is traveling around the curve properly.
Add a cube somewhere distant.
In Edit mode, select the vertical edge (corner edge) that's nearest the path.  Subdivide that with 'W'.
This will be the 'anchor point' for the rod.
-================-
The rod -
Add a cylinder and scale it to suit. APPLY the scale with Ctrl+A.  Locate and rotate it roughly so it's pointing to both the path and cube.
Set it's origin point to the circle-path end so it will pivot from that end.
Give the rod a "Track To" constraint and name the cube as the target.
Enter the start & end frames for the timeline as 1 to 20.
Play the animation and the rod should 'crank' around the circle, always pointing to the cube.
-================-
When the rod must always be connected to the cube...
Add a hook at the rod's cube end and parent that to the cube.  (child = hook)  Drag the hook so they're connected.


Shrink Wrap odd distortion When using the shrink wrap modifier it seems to be squashing the mesh as it goes round the corner of the object I'm trying to fit it to. Is there any way to deform the mesh evenly without this 'squashing'?

Thanks

Ross

.. But why not just make some temporary edges in your tin, and make your label by duplicating some faces and separating to a new object? It Uunwraps cleanly, if you keep the aspect ratio, and can be scaled to your image?


Can I Create a Linked Duplicate Consisting of Only Those Mesh Parts Defined by a Vertex Group Owned by the Duplicated Object? I have made this mesh...

... and I have create two vertex groups. One for the whole mesh, called  "Start"...

... and another one which excludes a part of it, called "End".

How can I duplicate this object as linked, but make it look as it is with the second vertex group ("End"). Meaning, with the last part excluded. Is that possible?

You can "Duplicate Linked" the object with Alt+D.
Then, on the duplicate, add a Mask modifier, and select the Vertex Group you want to keep.
(You can also select the vertex group you want to hide, if you tick "Invert" (double arrow icon) next to the Vertex group field)


Why is water not rendering I have a simple water setup: water flowing into a basin.  In edit mode, I can see the wireframe of the water, but once it is rendered, I don't see anything. What is going on here?  Here is my .blend

There are two distinct problems with your water not being renderable, one for the viewport preview other for the final render.

Viewport - In the viewport the water simulation is invisible because it's Maximum Draw Type is set to Wire - Under the Properties Window > Object Tab > Display Panel change the Maximum Draw Type from Wire to Solid or Textured
Final Render Your domain is set to non renderable in the outliner - Go to the outliner and set it renderable by clicking the camera icon


What snapping technique to scale edges out to be exactly upright in this case? I'm wondering if there's a snapping technique I could use to get a
scaled edge ring to be exactly straight up and down?
I can just scale and guess, by eye, that the edges that get scaled out
are exactly upright, but I want to be exact, without having to set the
location of each vertex manually.
Thanks for any ideas.

While this is no general answer to how to solve the snapping problem and might not work for more complex shapes, in this particular instance I think it's easier to not rely on scaling but instead use Loop Cut and Slide, cut exactly at the bottom and then manually move the added edge loop upwards. For the upwards translation you could use exact numbers or vertex snapping (while restricting the movement to the Z axis) to end up at the height of your existing loop.


Do I have to download a model to create a human being? This will be my first animation and I don't know what I have to do to create a human being.
I think I have to download a model. Can you tell me a secure and free website?  Do I have to create the bones, face, cloths after the model?  Can you tell me the steps that I have to follow to create an animation please?

Makehuman is indeed an excellent tool.
To answer the second part of your question, and complete the precedent answer, concerning animation, you can import the model into blender by activating the mxh import plugin https://thomasmakehuman.wordpress.com/mhx2-documentation/import-into-blender/
Then, you can import .bhv mocap datas founded on the net (a lot of free ressources are availables) :

mocap.web.fh-koeln.de/webgl-search.php

(I can't put more than 2 links on this site because of my reputation wich is still too low, but a google search will do the job)

You then need to add the addon called MakeWalk, wich you can find on the makehuman site (same pb with the url, but you can find it on the thomasmakehuman site already listed). This will allow you to load and retarget your downloaded bhv files.


3D Viewport artifacts. Geometry looks teared I am modeling this object, and all of a sudden this started to happen, all edges and geometry looks teared, but geometry it self is ok.

The issue is "Start clipping" distance which is found in View tab. in my case it was set to 0.001 cm.


smoke domain casts shadow I messing around with a scene where smoke blasts into a room from a tube in the wall.

The scene works out fine. I have set the domain to adaptive domain.

The only problem i have now is that the adaptive domain casts shadow on the room.

I have added a screenshot of the scene and a screenshot of the node setup for the domain.

Any clues on how to avoid that ?

blend file

]

I know it´s quite a while since this Thread was active, but I had the same problem and no of all the solutions (and I searched a lot of other threads..) solved my problem.
My Problem was.. the Render Settings!

Increase your "Light Path"-Settings, and it works.
I hope I could help somebody, too.


How do I control refractive properties realistically? I know a bit about controlling dispersion, but I am interested in learning how to use IOR (index of refraction) to mimic specific materials, like a sodium-rich glass.  What is the best way to configure this? Am I just missing something?

Answers regarding Yafaray are preferred, but answers regarding other engines (Lux, etc.) would be interesting too.

In physics, dispersion is caused because different wavelengths of light (colors) have different speeds than each other depending on the medium, and therefore have more or less refraction than other wavelengths.

Now in Yafaray, you have the basic IOR field, as seen below. But, the dispersion field is simply one field. To get accurate dispersion, you would have to enter the IOR for every single wavelength of light, because dispersion is not linear. It is a complicated relationship. But, since Yafaray only has a single slider (Dispersion Power) that affects dispersion, I'm not sure if it is the right tool.

Here is a good list of refractive indices.

My comment stated: 'Two words use Cycles.', but I didn't know that Cycles doesn't have dispersion/caustic support (YET). You might want to check out LuxRender, but I believe that it hasn't been updated since 2009.


VSE crop video without stretching I am cropping a video sequence by checking the "crop" box and taking off, say, 200 pixels on both sides. Unfortunately, the resulting video is stretched to accommodate the initial aspect ratio.

How do I avoid this stretching? I just need to crop the video and then "Drop-over" another image or video.

I use the VSE transform addon when you have added your strip press T and it'll be scaled with the correct aspect ratio, then G, R, S grab rotate scale the strip. see the docs for more options


How to make colored backgrounds not influence the color of an object I am making an animation with a green background. When a lamp shines on my mesh, the background somehow makes the lamp shine on my mesh green as if the lamp was shining on it through green glass. How do I make this not happen? My mesh is opaque, has a diffuse BSDF, and is white. Thanks in advance.

When you are using any color (or image) as background in the world settings you have to imagine a shpere that completely surrounds the scene and that is emitting colored light from every point.

There are a few alternatives.

One is to have two different shaders for the background, and control them using a light path node, so that difuse rays are a neutral color and the rest are green.

You can use a neutral color (or no background at all) for the background and enable transparency (film transparent), and then add the background color in the compositor using alpha over.

I hope you are not putting green behind the object with the idea of using a chroma key later on to take away the background. If that is the case then just render with a transparent background and save in a format that can handle an alpha channel (EXR or TIFF).


Applying decal to sphere I am trying to add a decal to a sphere. This question has been asked before, but the answers aren't really helpful.  Is there a way that I can apply an Image plane to a sphere using the shrink-wrap modifier, and be able to still animate it on the sphere? I have already tried subdividing the image, and using the shrinkwrap mod., but the result is a distorted image.

Thank you for your help and time. I actually found the answer to my question on my own. The way to animate the image on the sphere. (Going around the sphere as I intended) is to add a multi-res to the sphere, and to apply the shrink-wrap mod to the plane. Then I set the plane's origin to the center of the sphere so that the image can be moved around the sphere. It will look like it is on the sphere though, and thus solves my problem.


How can I create a realistic space ship click based controls like EVE Online using BGE? How do I create a realistic space ship controls like EVE Online has using the Blender Game Engine? I'm trying to create a really small space RPG that's like a super-mini-version of (excluding the fact that it is not online) EVE Online. Click based controls; Click anywhere on in the empty areas of space around the ship and your ship will move to wherever you clicked or, for example, if I click in the space when my ship turns it leans to its side a little bit to give a realistic turn as a plane in real life would. I'm into python so that is always an option.

here is a link to my onedrive, be sure to access the untitled7.blend file to see my game and problems of course: https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=FFFC2E073E89A1F8&id=FFFC2E073E89A1F8!118

Here is a picture:

My ship has a red front and blue body. The landing and take off floor is green and my no gravity space is grey for now.

Here is all my controls and stuff below.

This picture shows the controls for the ship to move right that could not be shown from the image 2 above.

This is my physics stuff of my space ship.

Lastly, this is all my game engine status and stuff.

We need to start with a object that tracks to the mouse. Before we can do that, we need something for the object to track along. for this we will use a highly modified cylinder that resembles an inverted cone.

We need a shape like this so that the player can not ever move the mouse outside of the tracking zone.

Now the higher your mouse is, the further away it the mouse will be.
Once we have the basic setup, we can get the mechanics working.
By basic setup, I mean, a player, a camera, a tracking object, a subdivided plane (to show movement), and a cylinder. (The cylinder is irrelevant now, it can be no-collision object and be invisible. It only needs to be parented to the player) I am going to name the player Space Ship Cube and the tracking object Fly_To_Target We also need the camera slow parented to the player. the giant tracking field also needs to be parented to the player
(still named Space Ship Cube)

Although I always try to avoid python if at all possible, sometimes it can not be avoided, and this is one of those times. we must add a script named Trackto.py
from bge import logic

def main():
    scene = logic.getCurrentScene()
    cont = logic.getCurrentController()

    mouse_over = cont.sensors["MouseOver"]

    if mouse_over.positive and scene.objects["Fly_To_Target"]['ActiveYesNo?'] :
        tracker = scene.objects["Fly_To_Target"]
        tracker.worldPosition = mouse_over.hitPosition
        tracker.worldPosition.z += 1

There is some thing that this script references that currently does not exist. We need a Boolean property on Fly_To_Target named ActiveYesNo?

Of course none of this helps us if there is nothing to run the script. (don't worry, were going to make that now)

Now we if we press play it should look like this. (the plane has been hidden to show the tracking object and the field it runs along.)

Now we have a wonderful object tracking to the mouse. This is good, because now we can have the player (yes, It is Still named Space Ship Cube) track to it
Getting Space Ship Cube to track to Fly_To_Target is not hard at all.
For now, this is all we need on the player. All this does is make it so when the Boolean property Drive? is true, the cube will move in the direction of our tracker object named Fly_To_Target

Now the Space ship cube will always fly to the the object Fly_To_Target we have tracking to the mouse.
There is one thing we need to change before we can test it. Because we are using linear velocity, there will be a significant overshoot problem. for details on why, view this question.
Realistic Jet Flight
If you do not care why, and just want the problem fixed, set the damping on the Translation to .8

Now we can test it and it should work.

This is obviously not what we want, but it is very close.
We can start by setting the Boolean property Drive? to false, and adding a mouse sensor and property actuator to set Drive? to true, because, when it is true, our space ship (Space Ship Cube) flies to object Fly_To_Target It is very important that Drive? is False when the game starts, or it will begin flying to Fly_To_Target as soon as the game is started.

Now if we test it, we should expect Space Ship Cube to remain still until we click

Unfortunately we still have the problem of Space Ship Cube indefinitely trying to reach Fly_To_Target. Do not worry, There is an easy fix for this. We can simply use that same mouse sensor to assign the Boolean property ActiveYesNo? to False

Now when we click, Fly_To_Target will no longer move.

That only fixed half of our problem. Space Ship Cube Still flies indefinitely. We still need something to make the cube stop moving once it reaches Fly_To_Target There is no need to worry, because I would not be writing this answer If I didn't know how to fix this.
Remember the cylinder that we added earlier and strangely parented to Space Ship Cube? we will now make use of that. Until now it has been invisible, because we didn't need to see it. However, for illustration purposes, we can now make it visible again. While we are in the physics tab, we need to change a few settings.

I did not want to draw big blue arrows over the entire thing, but all of the settings there are important. It is very important that the physics type is set to sensor (detects collisions with static and dynamic objects but not other sensor objects) It is also important that the check box Compound is checked. this will basically make the collision bounds of the cylinder part of Space Ship Cube.
Of course for this to work the same check box needs to be checked on Space Ship Cube

Now we have a wonderful collision sensor! - Whoopee. Now we need it to do something. We are actually going to use it to detect a collision with Fly_To_Target
We can do this by placing the sensor on Space Ship Cube

If we test it, Space Ship Cube should stop once it reaches Fly_To_Target

Unfortunately, Fly_To_Target will not move again because we assigned it's Boolean property ActiveYesNo? to false, essentially deactivating it. If we want it to work, we need to assign it to True
This is easy enough to do by adding one extra logic brick.

Now we can test it and everything should work.

Yay! everything works!
Until now I have been using a subdivided plane to show movement.
In space however, there is no floor. so we can hide the plane. Remember, it is a no-collision object so it is effectively gone now. (Gravity is set to 0 so the objects will not fall)

If you had any trouble following that, (Don't worry, this even confused me the first time I read through it) you can always look at/take apart the blend file.


Center a mesh from a ply file in the origin Is there a quick way to move the baricenter of a given mesh to the origin in blender?

Like a shortcut?

You can look at the following schortcuts maybe you will find what you need.

Shift+S = Snap

Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C = Set Origin


Program slider to control camera aperture with python I'm very new to scripting in blender, and I'm making an addon to simplify the depth of field process in Blender. I would like to put a slider in my ui panel to control the camera's aperture. I think I need to use a .prop function but I'm not sure. Can I have some help with this? Here is the code for my ui panel:
def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    camera = bpy.data.objects['Camera']

    row = layout.row()
    row.label(text= "Focus", icon = "CAMERA_DATA")
    row = layout.row()
    row.operator("object.add_focus")
    row = layout.row()
    row.operator("object.remove_focus")
    row = layout.row()
    row.prop(camera, "dof.aperture_fstop", slider=True)

The last line is the one I don't know how to do.
Here is what my UI panel looks like so far:

Thanks!

A single property
Think of a property layout akin to python's getattr If we want the value of foo.bar.foo it's getattr(foo.bar, "foo") never getattr(foo, "bar.foo")
Avoid using  foo.bar["Foo"]
IMO get out of the habit of using, in this example
camera = bpy.data.objects['Camera']

which will fail (throw a KeyError) if there is no object named camera, which could simply mean its been renamed, or is camera in a different language etc.  It could be the camera linked to another scene, or no scene at all... in which case sliding it would appear to do nought.
Use Scene Camera
Suggest in the case of camera, the active camera is assigned to the scene, scene.camera.  As long as this is set can use instead. This is the goto camera  when pressing Numpad 0 for camera view.
Object Data Properties
With a camera active or pinned, the object of interest in the object data properties tab (camera icon) in the properties panel is its data. In the usual case of it being the context object.
>>> C.object
bpy.data.objects['Camera']

>>> C.object.data
bpy.data.cameras['Camera']

>>> C.object.data.dof.aperture_fstop
44.41624069213867

>>> C.scene.camera
bpy.data.objects['Camera']

Putting it all together
Have added some changes to code below.  Without having the operators mentioned in question have replaced with splash screen proxies. Am assuming that the operators use the context object to set the focus object.
Once again use of the scene camera in those operators would make more sense than relying on the camera named "Camera" being the active camera.
A poll method is added to ensure the scene has an active camera. A poll method on your other custom operators could test for active object.  If there is no active object and hence they don't poll, the buttons will appear disabled.
A simple way to have layout in rows is to use one column layout.
Test code.
import bpy

class VIEW3D_PT_dof(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_idname = "VIEW3D_PT_dof"
    bl_label = "Quick Focus"
    bl_category = "DOF"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.scene.camera is not None

    def draw_header(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.label(icon='CAMERA_DATA')

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

        cam = context.scene.camera
        col = layout.column()
        #col.label(text= "Focus", icon='CAMERA_DATA')
        col.operator("wm.splash")
        col.operator("wm.splash")
        col.prop(cam.data.dof, "aperture_fstop", slider=True)

classes = (
        VIEW3D_PT_dof,
        )

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


How can I trim a face thats overlapping another face? I imported a 2D draw from autocad. When I exturded the edges, I realized that the faces are overlapping and not even. How can I cut the faces "b" and "c" from "a" face as you can see at the pic.
And same like that, how can I trim an edge from another edge?
Thank you for your help.

I'm not sure what you are asking but I'll try. you can pull back the part that is sticking out in edit mode. Select the 2 vertices hanging out in edit mode with vertex select checked. Press g to grab and x, y, or z to move along an axis press esc if it goes the wrong way and try again. You can use snap tools to get the mesh to connect properly and not overlap- google: blender snap. I don't think you can just delete the part hanging over unless: there are vertices where a and b intersects then just delete the face hanging over by selecting it and hitting the delete key ( I don't think that is your case though if it was just pulled to far when extruding). alternatively you can delete B, insert a loop cut on face a and extrude from that with the edge selected and snap to what you need to. that might not work to well though unless you are aiming to extrude from the dead center of of face a. after deleting b and inserting a loop cut you could also select the four vertices you want to fill and press f. Hope that helps I didn't understand the problem with C but it might cover that too.


Possible to displace whole polygons only, not points I want to have displacement to complete polygons, not single points. Rightnow displacement in Blender affects points.

I have the polygons separated inside the mesh and want them to move up and down depending on the displacement map, but each individual polygon should remain flat.

Is it possible to displace in "polygon mode"?

Thanks.

Displace is always calculated on a per vertex basis, regardless of what you do, you can separate individual faces, and displace them, but the displacement is still gonna happen on each vertex individually, deforming each face.

Also since most displace textures are "continuous" functions, the faces will still look as a continuous uniform surface as if they were still attached, since the displacement wont introduce any gaps or discontinuities.

You can try and mark all edges of your mesh as sharp, add an Edge Split modifier to separate all faces, then apply the displacement to your mesh.

To make the effect more visible you may also add a smooth modifier


How can I merge objects while maintaining the materials in Sverchok? Is it possible to merge objects in Sverchok while transferring the materials to the new objects?
Here is  a screenshot that shows the issue. I merged the objects with the material indexes but no materials are on the new object.

I am also attaching the test blend file
blend file

We have not such node yet, and object in function. because was no needs.
Simple per polygon approach is here:
https://gist.github.com/81d278ada5a769c91d0a1fe9351dc53f
But in your particular case we can add index to shift materials, not universal solution:
https://gist.github.com/21a427f325312daa5086e635505430cf


Rescaling rig with same key frame animations I want to rescale the rig which already has some animation keyframes.
But when I scale up or down, rig animation runs really weird.
I guess it happens because of the location of the rig has changed.
Is there any possible solution that I can use the same keyframe animation with scaling up and down or do I have to make the same animations again?

Thank you.

You are applying the scale to the rig but not the mesh. This leaves them at different sizes and breaks the alignment used when attaching the rig to the mesh.

You can either use the rig to make the mesh smaller (like you had before applying the scale) or apply the same scaling to the mesh object.


What is wrong with this simple node setup using textures from Poliigon? I downloaded and tried this free material from Poliigon but I am unable to create it correctly.
This is the desired reflection/ result:

This is my node setup:

This is the current result:

Which nodes here are wrong? I know maybe its about the invert node but removing that gave me minimal reflection, like a diffuse material. (The Gloss map is very whitish, So I thought I'll have to invert that. I've done it before many times using different texture sources)
And also, How do you use the reflection node?

You're using the normal map as if it was a displacement map. You have to put it through a normal map node first and then into the normal input of your diffuse shader. And inverting the gloss is actually right.

Refer to this: How to add a normal map texture and a diffuse texture on a model in cycles?.


Adding Objects into action editor I've got a walk animation set up and posed in action mode and I'm trying to add a a new action where the character has a ball and chain around his leg, the ball and chain is a separate object with its own armature is there a way to make an action with both armatures and both objects or do i need to try another way?

Thanks.

You can apply the same action with two different armatures. If they contain no bones with the same name, then the action will not collide. An action contains animation graphs with names. If the action is assigned, the graphs are associated with the correspondingly named bones.

If you assign it to the ball and chain, existing keyframes won't be removed. Once you keyframed the ball and chain bones, there will be ball and chain curves created. If the character doesn't have any bone named ball or chain, these curves won't interfere with it.


BGE: Is there a way to stop my character moving? In my game my character performs certain actions when doing it's attacks however I want to limit it so he has to wait for the action to finish before he can try to do the action again. Currently you can just spam the key and fire a move of every half second which is a bit game breaking. So is there an actuator I can use to halt his movement?

You simply need a timer of some sort that must be at a certain value before another attack can be performed. I like using an integer property and adding to it, rather than a timer property because it gives me more control.
Basics of the system require a property sensor to sense if enough time has passed yet; a property to time; an actuator in incrementally add to the timer (only if not using timer type property) and an actuator to set the property to zero whenever you do attack. The system pictured below also has a cap, so the property doesn't go to high, although it really doesn't matter.

you may have to click the image to see it closer. :)


Editing the official pie menus add-on fundamentally I wanted to edit the official pie menus add-on so that instead of Click-Style Intraction ,releasing the pie key without moving the mouse would cause the key to continue its previous function (exp. pressing 'tab' without moving the mouse, switch to edit mode directly instead of appearing the annoying static menu which slow me down.) Reason: Maintaining my muscle memory.

However as I digged into it, it appeared that the new official pie menus add-on is twisted with the blender source itself...

So I want to ask if there is anyway I can achieve this with a python code and editing ui_pie_menus_official.py (within the /2.76/scripts/addons folder) without needing to compile a new branch?

There were a couple of solutions reached my mind but I have no idea about how to practically do it:
-Somehow simulating a 'HOLD' option instead of 'PRESS' for km.keymap_items

-for example if the tab key pressed and if the mouse have moved (kmi = km.keymap_items.new('wm.call_menu_pie', 'MOUSEMOVE', 'ANY')), do kmi.properties.name = 'VIEW3D_PIE_object_mode' else just go to edit mode (ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT', toggle=True))

-if the mouse was within the pie circle (or inside pie_menu_threshold) go to edit mode instead of bringing the pie menu.. (However I thinks this requires compiling some C++ codes!)

Thanks

I can think of two approaches that don't involve altering the pie menu addon.

First is to alter the keyboard shortcuts, blender can use any key as a modifier so you can keep ↹ Tab to toggle edit mode and hold E and press ↹ Tab to show the pie menu. The standard edit mode shortcut is left in place, the pie menu addon just gets the tab key before the default shortcut.

Another approach that gets closer to your idea is to create an addon that runs an operator on a timer to decide after the set time if it should toggle edit mode or show a pie menu. As it is, this example is awkward to use but could probably be improved with a bit more work. The full addon can be found here with the main operator showing the idea below. The mouse positions passed into the operator's modal() are from the previous modal() call rather than the initial execute, this leads to the mouse needing to be moved just as the timer is triggered to get the menu to show.

class TimedEditMode(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Go into edit mode if tab is held down"""
    bl_idname = "wm.timed_edit_mode"
    bl_label = "Timed Edit Mode"
    _timer = None

    def modal(self, context, event):
        if event.type in {'RIGHTMOUSE', 'ESC'}:
            self.cancel(context)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        if event.type == 'TIMER':
            move_x = abs(event.mouse_x - event.mouse_prev_x)
            move_y = abs(event.mouse_y - event.mouse_prev_y)
            move_threshold = context.user_preferences.view.pie_menu_threshold

            if move_x > move_threshold or move_y > move_threshold:
                bpy.ops.wm.call_menu_pie(name='OBJECT_MT_mode_menu')
                return {'FINISHED'}
            else:
                bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT', toggle=True)
                return {'FINISHED'}
        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(time_to_wait, context.window)
        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def cancel(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        wm.event_timer_remove(self._timer)


Blender rigged horse - foot gets stuck to the ground when moving the animal I found a great tutorial on rigging a horse (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR2OV9r76_w), but there's a problem with mine.

When I try to move the object's leg, its foot gets stuck on the ground. I'm not sure why this is happening, since I tried to follow the tutorial from start to finish. Everything else is working perfectly.

Here are my animal's legs:

This is what happens when I move the object (Notice the foot 'sticking' to the ground):

Does anyone know a way to solve this or why it's happening?

The mesh is wrongly skinned to the Armature. Vertices of the bottom parts of the legs are probably influenced by root bone. To avoid that you should turn off Deform on the root bone (you should also turn it off on the IK target bones), clear bone groups, that was created by Parenting with automatic weights,delete Armature modifier and clear parent from the mesh. Then repeat parenting with automatic weights and you'll be good to go. Below you'll find image with the placement of Deform option in bone properties.


Render overwritten issue Render overwritten issue
Hi
i do render in png pictures and later render in image sequence to get a video.
somehow an error occurred and i overwrote on my previous renders which took me days to render .
i have gone through a lot of  blender render issues on youtube i can't seem to find one with similar case .
please does anyone have an idea of how i can recover them.
i hope i was clear enough . i can try to explain better if needed.
Thanks

You must have a path for every different kind of render:

A folder for the image sequence.

A folder for the composites.

And the final render (probably .mp4 or .mov) anywhere.

It's not good to render different renders at the same location because it will be overwritten if the file extension were the same. Eg: png.

Last thing: You cannot recover overwritten files.


Shape of object changes when camera moves? So this problem is massively difficult to describe in words, making it very difficult to do any kind of search for; if it's a duplicate, please point me in the right direction.

Below is a gif of what's going on:

As the gif hopefully shows, the shape of the ground plane changes significantly as the camera moves.

I discovered this behavior when I noticed some odd rendering behavior in Freestyle, where some of the lines were disappearing for no readily apparent reason, which I eventually realized was the ground plane being in unexpected places in the render (I was only rendering the lines, not colors).

It should be noted that this ground plane is huge; it's around 2km x 1km in size. I don't know if that has any kind of affect, but if it does, I could probably cut it into smaller pieces.

The purpose of this is to be a large map that I can render from a variety of angles for illustration purposes, so I can't have the ground position/shape being so mutable. What's going on?

The problem that I was having was two separate problems:

The ground plane going bonkers in the camera preview
The ground plane appearing to be in the wrong place in renders

The solution to the first problem turned out to be increasing the near clipping distance on my camera from 1mm to 1cm, though I'm not entirely sure why the clipping distance has an affect on geometry in the preview; the shifting geometry also is preview only and is not reflected in the final render (thanks to Duarte in the comments for pointing this out).

The solution to the second problem only seemed to be related to the first, and turned out to be that I had at some point disabled the subsurf modifier on render, causing the rendered geometry to be completely wrong. Re-enabling it fixed the issue completely. Always check your modifiers!


Blender 2.8 Reference images in local view Is there any way to make reference images show up in local view?  They seem to disappear.  I used Shift-A/Image/Reference to create it.  Is there something I'm not seeing?  Or perhaps that feature is not available in 2.8? Reference photo would be soo hand in local view!

Thanks!

Are you selecting both the reference image and the meshes before entering local view? For example:

Entering local view only with the cube and then entering while also having the reference image selected


Raycast operator template working? I'm trying to understand how raycasting works in Blender, having looked at the operator_modal_view3d_raycast.py (Blender 2.78) template though, it doesn't seem to do anything?

It's likely that I'm missing something obvious, although from what I understand the modal event should execute the main function when I left-click anywhere in the 3D viewport and select the object if the ray hits but nothing happens.

Here's the template code: http://pasteall.org/206430

I'm on OSX 10.11.

Aha figure it out! I had to call the operator via the search menu.
So the process is:
1. run the script,
2. move mouse to viewport,
3. press space and search for raycast.
4. chose "View3D: RayCast View Operator"
5. click on your object


How do I make a reference image in Blender show up when rendering the scene? I am having an issue with rendering a scene in Blender. When not in rendering mode, Blender shows my reference image with ease. But as soon as I hit F12 to render the image, my reference image disappears. I need that reference image because in my scene, I am depicting some sentient cubes watching TV, and I need an image for the TV to show. I have searched around Blender for quite some time and have not found a setting. If it is not possible to show reference images during the rendering process, could you please show a way to do it without a reference image? By the way, if it helps, I am using Blender 2.80.

The whole point of reference images are to help while modeling and setting up a scene, they are not intended to be in the final rendered image.

Blender includes an addon called import images as planes, enable this addon and you get an extra import option File->Import->Images as Planes. Using this will setup your image as a texture on a plane so that it will show up in the final render.


Can two windows be active at the same time? I'm working with two monitors in Blender 2.70 on Mac OS 10.9.2. Now when I add a second window by Shift Leftclick on a split area, only one of this windows is active and expects direct input. This is a big problem, since anytime I want do do something in the not active window, I have to click once in the window to make it active before I can start editing something.

• Is this OS specific? I tried to deactivate all of apples new multi monitor enhancements, but the problem still exists.

• Is there a user setting I missed? None of the tutorials I found on the web so far mentioned this problem nor how to solve it.

Thanks!

Edit: The best solution I found so far for Mac OS is a tool called "Zooom/2" which allows, amongst other things, to automatically focus on the window under your mouse cursor after a given time. The default is 0.25 seconds. This seems to work, but I'm not sure how I like it on a daily basis. I'll evaluate for a while. I found this in an other thread called: "How to focus on different windows across multi-monitors to hit a hotkey?"

However, this should be something that could be handled by Blender itself. It works just fine with Cinema 4d. There's an option that allows you to define a second window as a "Main Window" as well. After doing that you can click and edit anything in that second window without first activating it.

It is normal for different windows of a window manager to not get input (from the keyboard or mouse). That is, only one of them can be focused; and having the focus means that it gets keyboard and mouse input. Different applications can still get mouse and keyboard events however when they are aware of the other window: they can explicitly ask the window manager to still receive events. In the case of blender these aren't even two different applications; so I'm inclined to call it a bug of blender: blender should be aware where both windows are, and when the  mouse hovers over a split area of a window that doesn't have focus still process hot keys for that area. Blender could do the 'focus' part internally thus, and not care which of its windows has focus in the eyes of the window manager.


How can I unwrap each face separately so it takes up the whole picture? I want to unwrap each face of my model so that it takes up the whole picture, instead of this:

I want all of them to look like this:

I don't want to do it manually. Can anyone help?

Press U> Reset to unwrap each face so that it takes up the whole image space.


Looping Through Frames of Physics Simulation and Getting Object Info with Blender Python Hey there Blender Community,

I'm trying to figure out the optimal way to use Blender's physics engine to perform simulations and access the information from each frame of the simulation for various other purposes. The idea, ultimately, is to be able to loop through the frames of the animation once the simulation is complete and get information about an object's location, for example, after a rigid body collision.

I was able to successfully accomplish something like this with the following method:

def analyze_scene():
    scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].frame_end
    object = bpy.data.objects[object]
    frameInfo = []
    for frame in range(1, scene.frame_end):
        scene.frame_current = frame
        bpy.ops.ptcache.bake_all(bake=False)
        frameInfo.append({"name": object.name, "frame": frame,
            "translation": object.matrix_world.translation})

    return frameInfo

(Note: There may be an error in this code, but it's just an outline of what I'm doing).

The issue with this is having to call "update all to frame" (bake_all) with every frame. Is there a better way of doing this that isn't so computationally expensive? I've experimented with Scene.update() to no avail.

My thanks in advance for any assistance.

You don't need to call bpy.ops.ptcache.bake_all() for every frame, as it runs the simulation for every frame.

Just move the call to bake_all() above your loop, just after setting frame_current to frame_end :

def analyze_scene():
    scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']
    object = bpy.data.objects[object]
    frameInfo = []
    scene.frame_current = scene.frame_end
    bpy.ops.ptcache.bake_all(bake=False)

    for frame in range(1, scene.frame_end):
        scene.frame_current = frame
        frameInfo.append({"name": object.name, "frame": frame,
            "translation": object.matrix_world.translation})

    return frameInfo

This should run many times faster, with the code you've given, you were running a simulation of all frames for each frame between 1 and frame_end.

EDIT : If you just want to iterate through the frames, you don't need to bake anything, just change the current frame with scene.frame_set(frame) instead of scene.frame_current = frame. As long as you do this with an incrementing frame, Blender will compute the keypoints for each frame. For example :

def analyze_scene():
    scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']
    object = bpy.data.objects[object]
    frameInfo = []

    for frame in range(scene.frame_start,
                       scene.frame_end,
                       scene.frame_step):
        scene.frame_set(frame)
        frameInfo.append({
            "name": object.name, "frame": frame,
            "translation": object.matrix_world.translation
        })

    return frameInfo

NOTE : You also had written scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].frame_end in your code, I corrected it with scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene'], I guess that is what you meant.