Object relationships appear intact for some child objects, non-existent for others I have an object hierarchy that looks like this:

Head
|-> Eyebrow
|-> Nose
|-> Mouth
|-> Eye_Left
|-> Eye_Right

Some of the child objects have a relationship line drawn from the center of the object to the origin, while others don't.

Three objects have relationship lines being drawn to the origin:

all 'face' objects are children of the head (I'm 'grabbing' the head object and translating it to demonstrate this):

What the heck is going on here? I've observed that the objects without relationship lines have the local transform set to (0,0,0), while the objects that do have relationship lines are set to some non-zero translation.  I really want all the objects to behave as the (0,0,0) ones, but I can't figure out what I need to change to get them to behave that way.

I've tried variations of clearing/resetting the parent and it doesn't result in what I want.

Ok, I figured this out and I feel (kind of) dumb now.

Some objects were positioned in edit mode, while others were positioned in object mode.

The ones that were positioned in edit mode still have their object origin at (0,0,0) with vertices positioned away from the origin.

The ones that were 'misbehaving' were positioned in object mode, and had their origin at some non-zero position.

In both cases, the relationship line was drawn from the origin to the object position, but in the first case, it wasn't visible (since the object position and origin were the same point).


Blender UI simplification, template_header_3D, mesh selection mode I need to simplify Blender UI, and I need to recode template_header_3D() from space_view3d.py

I already replaced all the UI elements succesfully, except for the mesh selection mode widget.

I tried several options:

1)

row.operator("mesh.select_mode", text="", icon='VERTEXSEL').type = 'VERT'
row.operator("mesh.select_mode", text="", icon='EDGESEL').type = 'EDGE'
row.operator("mesh.select_mode", text="", icon='FACESEL').type = 'FACE'

But this does not higlights which selection modes are chosen

2)

row.prop(toolsettings, "mesh_select_mode",icon='VERTEXSEL', text='',  toggle=True, icon_only=True)

This would work fine, but I cannot set the three different icons, because this is not accepted:

icon=('VERTEXSEL','EDGESEL','FACESEL')

Suggestions?

Here is the solution:

if obj and obj.mode == 'EDIT':
    row = layout.row(align=True)
    row.prop(toolsettings, "mesh_select_mode", icon='VERTEXSEL', text='', index=0, toggle=True)
    row.prop(toolsettings, "mesh_select_mode", icon='EDGESEL', text='', index=1, toggle=True)
    row.prop(toolsettings, "mesh_select_mode", icon='FACESEL', text='', index=2, toggle=True)

Using the index parameter it is possible to select elements of the bool vector.


Armature bug: keyframes are "ineffective" I downloaded a simple forearm rig from the internet in hopes of making some weapon animations. Alas, when I keyframe the rig, there is a stupid bug that stops me from effectively doing anything.

This is the default state, and it looks weird:

So, I go to the next frame, correct it, and make a keyframe:

I go back a frame and then return to my keyframe. Lo and behold... nothing.

Am I doing something wrong? I can't get this to work.

On the timeline panel try setting active keying set to "Whole Character Selected bones only".
See if that fixes the problem.
Also .blend would be nice to see if there's anything else I'm missing from the pictures.


Align Eye rig to Head rig I found some similar questions but no answers to my problem. So I am creating a little player character for a game engine and I want to be able to move the eyes on their own, so I must use bones to control them (I think contrains wont work in the engine). I've set the parent of the eye bones to be the head bone, made sure that only the eye bones are influencing the eye mesh and used a weight paint of 1 for the eyes and the head, but the eyes still don't move properly with the head if I rotate it. I had such problems before but didn't bother fixing them properly and just made sure i wasn't rotating the head too much, but I really want to get a good rig done :/.

If anything is unclear, please feel free to ask me :)
Thanks in advance.

File: http://www.mediafire.com/file/oxkqoz521cpmm82/rpgbase.rar

First apply the Mirror modifier. Then remove the eyes and the head from all vertex group (in the Properties editor > Object Data > Vertex Groups, click on the down arrow menu on the right of the Vertex Groups list and choose Remove From All Groups). Now reassign each eye to the bone that is supposed to control it, and assign the head mesh to its bone. There was a bone somewhere affecting the head, it made it deform so the eyes seemed to pop out.


Why does exporting FBX to Unity mess up my UVs would love some help with this as Im probably missing something simple so here's the issue...

I save a UV map (from UV master) on the low res in Zbrush and polly paint my high res and create a normal and diffuse map from it. I then hit GoZ and all goes across to blender perfectly
In blender I can view my textures by pressing alt z and they look fine, and also when I render. I then put in a meta rig, rig it, weight paint, animations etc.
Now when I export FBX to unity the model comes across fine with anims etc. But when I drag my textures (normal and diffuse) onto the FBX mesh (which should have exported with the UVs) its like the UVs are completely different or massively messed up, we are not talking a few stray seem artifacts, but rather a complete picasso, with large sections of black on the model where the bg of the diffuse is being used. Hence I am assuming my UV has issues (or blender has created a new default one in the export?. I thought that the Zbrush UVs had come across fine as the texture is displayed properly in blender, but perhapse they are not assigned as UVs in blender? I have no idea about UVs in blender.

This happens with multiple meshes (static objects and rigged characters).

Also just going from Zbrush (with an x normals bake) to unity with no blender involvement works fine on the mesh (it just isn't rigged :( ).

Thanks so much for any help.

I'm having this exact issue, only iv'e used Maya. I created my high poly sculpt in zbrush, then rigged, animated, and UV mapped him in Maya. But the exported fbx has broken UVs in Unity... its maddening.

solution for you there are two UV layers in all imported assets in Unity. In the material inspector, try switching from UV0 to UV1 (in drop-down menu). Hopefully this fixes your problem... If not then you and i are truly in the same boat. Which tells me its likely a Unity problem, since we're using different modeling/animation software.


How to create 2 distinct objects from a single object with 2 Vertex Groups? (python) I created this example, where I only have 1 object that contains 2 cubes (mesh).
These cubes respectively have a vertex group,1 UV Map and share 4 materials.

Vertex group "Cube1" white and green
Vertex group "Cube2" red and yellow

I was wondering if there was a way to create 2 new objects.
I found this example to iterate at the vertices mesh of a respective group of vertices, but I was wondering if it was possible, to create 2 new objects, iterating also to the materials, since it is necessary to iterate the C.object.data I would have everything I believe available.
Anyone have any suggestions of how to do such a thing?
Keeping in mind that I would like 2 items with 2 materials and its UV map per item as a result.

I add a detail that I had omitted but I took for granted.
Objects must be separated according to the group of vertices

Dupe n Delete

Similarly to another answer re materials and "normalizing"  material slots (removing unused), can use a default dictionary with a list of  the vertices of each vertex group, then remove others from from a dupe for each group.

Ultimately this would be better if could split using bmesh, but as of now cannot set a split target to another mesh or bmesh instance.

Note this will split based on vertex group.  Vertices that are members of more than one group will be in each split off object. Vertices not assigned to any group will not be split off into new object.

Using copy on both the object and the mesh brings along all data.

import bpy
from collections import defaultdict
import bmesh

context = bpy.context

ob = context.object
me = ob.data
vgs = ob.vertex_groups[:]
col = context.collection
rg = defaultdict(set)

for v in me.vertices:
    for g in v.groups:
        rg[vgs[g.group]].add(v.index)

bm = bmesh.new()
all_verts = set(range(len(me.vertices)))

for vg, verts in rg.items():
    if not verts:
        continue #  no empty vg mesh
    oc = ob.copy()
    oc.name = vg.name
    me = oc.data = oc.data.copy()
    bm.from_mesh(me)
    bm.verts.ensure_lookup_table()
    bmesh.ops.delete(bm,
        geom=list(bm.verts[i] for i in (all_verts - verts)),
        context='VERTS',
        )
    bm.to_mesh(me)
    bm.clear()
    for g in oc.vertex_groups:
        if g.name != vg.name:
            oc.vertex_groups.remove(g)
    col.objects.link(oc)

Note I haven't bothered to remove materials, as mentioned this is similar to a previous script used in one of your answers, to test what materials are on a face and remove.

Alternatively, instead of copying a new mesh each time, copy the bmesh and write to a new mesh.  Once again will have to deal with materials, using all faces left after delete operator, to check which materials are assigned to faces of a particular vertex group.

See Delete all materials that aren't assigned to a face?

If the material is data (mesh) linked, can append to the Mesh.materials collection instead of using the slot operators.

import bpy
from collections import defaultdict
import bmesh

context = bpy.context

ob = context.object
me = ob.data
vgs = ob.vertex_groups[:]
col = context.collection
rg = defaultdict(set)

for v in me.vertices:
    for g in v.groups:
        rg[vgs[g.group]].add(v.index)

bm = bmesh.new()
all_verts = set(range(len(me.vertices)))
bm.from_mesh(me)
for vg, verts in rg.items():
    if not verts:
        continue #  no empty vg mesh
    oc = ob.copy()
    oc.name = vg.name
    oc.data = bpy.data.meshes.new(vg.name)
    bmc = bm.copy()
    bmc.verts.ensure_lookup_table()
    bmesh.ops.delete(bmc,
        geom=list(bmc.verts[i] for i in (all_verts - verts)),
        context='VERTS',
        )
    bmc.to_mesh(oc.data)
    bmc.free()
    for g in oc.vertex_groups:
        if g.name != vg.name:
            oc.vertex_groups.remove(g)
    col.objects.link(oc)


Modified mesh loses changes when leaving edit mode Apologies if this has been asked, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I'm using Blender 2.49b to change some head meshes for Morrowind, and they're already animated. The lips move and the eyes blink. I'm editing the neck, but every time I do and back out of edit mode, the changes revert. I figured the animations had something to do with it. Any help would be appreciated.

Various Explanations for the behaviour.
Incomplete list follows.

Shape Keys.  If there are multiple Shape Keys present,  then you may end up editing a shape key whose influence is zero 0 or close to zero. Blinking eyes could be done with various animation techniques including shape keys.
Modifiers.  Shrink Wrap or Armature modifier can change the mesh shape. That is the purpose of such modifiers.  For example small edits might be completely dominated by a Shrink Wrap Modifier and thus not visible.


Copy to selected not available or doesn't work when highlighted Having problems with copy to selected across the board.
I'm trying to add a modifier to all selected objects. It's Greyed out.
They are meshes in their own collection, no other objects.

(skip to the end for main question)
Yesterday, I was selecting all objects and trying to add a material.
Copy to selected was available but wouldn't do anything.
I had to join every object and then separate (which isn't the worst),
but the objects were tied to shrink-wrap and probably had to use copy to selected to get them working again...

How do I add a modifier to All selected objects?

Select all your objects, then at last Shift select the one with the modifier, then ctrlL > Modifiers. By the menu bar: Object > Make Links > Modifiers.


Can I constrain an object size to Camera angle of view? After I import "Images As Planes" (using addon) I would like to place the images in front of the camera like a rostrum, making the corners match the camera frame. Or perform the best fit of the height or sides if the images are a different shape (vertical aspect).

I know that I can set the camera to orthographic and this fixes the relative dimensions on z axis, but I want to make a objects initial scale or position fill the camera view.

This way I can always return to a 1:1 relationship without borders or overshoot.

USAGE:
This is helpful when creating layers of images or movies that you may want to animate in 3D view (relative to each other) but allocate to layers for actual compositing.

Actually, it can be done with both perspective and orthographic cameras. I would like to suggest the universal way, which needn't any reset on the current camera transformation:

For Perspective camera:

Enable Import Image as Planes and Simple Align in Addon list.
Import the target image as plane. When importing, Choose Dots/BU as Plane dimensions, and set the longest side of the image as Definition value. For example, if the image resolution is 1920 px x 1080 px, then you should type in 1920.
Set the render resolution the same as image, to set the correct perspective for camera.
With the plane selected, hold Shift to further select the camera, then find Simple Align tool in the Tool Shelf, click XYZ button to align both rotation and location of the plane to the camera.
Select the plane only, then input like this: GZZ=-focal_length/sensor_size. For example, if the focal length of camera is 35, and sensor size is 32, then press GZZ=-35/32. Then you'll get what you want.

For Orthographic camera:

As above.
As above.
As above.
As above.
Select the plane only, then input like this:
GZZ=-ortho_scale/2. For example, if ortho_scale=8, you should input GZZ=-8/2. Then Tab into Edit Mode, S8.

P.S.: Doing math while transforming is only available in Blender 2.70+. However, you can do the math elsewhere out of Blender, and paste the result in.


How to do seperate render passes in blender? I a lot of VFX breakdown that uses something they call "render passes". From what I see, they are rendering the clip in seperate ways (like rendering the ambient occlusion, specular, shadows, depth of field, etc individually and then combine it). Is there any way I can do this?

Actually, your question is a little bit vague, you have everything you need to begin to understand this topic on the Blender Reference Manual

Short answer, because this is a huge topic, and your question implies that the concept itself isn't quite clear for you (the reason I advised you to first read the manual ;) ), but the concept is to :

activate the needed passes in the render layers section

use nodes to separate the different passes

This opens a lot of possibilities, because you can independently tweak every passes, export each ones to different locations, if you have just one parameter to modify, it doesn't need to re-render everything, etc...


How do I make an empty stand for a different group instance? I have a set of group instances that pull data from a group linked in another file. I want to reset them to get their data from a group in the same file, so that I can animate their rotation.

My understanding is what I want to do is remap users for the empty, to a different group, however when I try to do that, the error shown is that this can't be done for a multi-user object.

I'm not clear on what is happening here. How can I remap these groups?

Group Instances can actually be created from any object type, but by default when inserted from the menu an Empty object is created.

Empty objects don't have any object data thus can't be "remapped" in the traditional sense. Group instances are stored instead as Dupligroup property on the object itself.

To change which group is being instanced by a certain object go to the Properties Window > Object Tab > Duplication and from the Group box pick the desired group.

To mass change on a large number of object select them all so that the object with the correct Dupligroup is active then use the Link Menu with Ctrl + L Make Links > Dupligroup.


Blender weight painting I'm new to blender so this might be a noob question!
I've been trying to weight paint as the automatic weighting was affecting the wrong parts of my mesh, however, nothing I'm doing seems to be changing anything! I've darkened all the areas I don't want my bone to affect and brightened the areas I do but when I go back into pose mode it's as if I've done nothing.

For example, here I painted the foot and darkened the other.

And here is the result - as if the painting hasn't been applied, am I missing something?

When you get that kind of trouble it is usually a second bone causing another extra influence on the area you´re presenting. Scroll-select each vertex group on your bone´s vertex groups. Surely you will find a second other bone causing an additional influence.
Also, make sure the paw bone is set it´s influence to 100% (completely red).


Why does F3 return nothing searching for dyntopo? I'm looking for the checkbox dyntopo (2.91). F3 returns nothing. How can I find it without asking here or searching the web?

Dyntopo isn't displayed in the F3 Menu Search, since it's not a menu item.
However, you can find it through the Operator search.

Switch to Sculpt Mode
Check Developer Extras in Preferences > Interface (to enable Operator search)
Go Edit > Operator Search > Dynamic Topology Toggle


How to adjust image color space, drawn with builtin shader I`m drawing image with code in this example:
Gpu Shader Module, 2D Image Example.

import bpy
import gpu
import bgl
from gpu_extras.batch import batch_for_shader

IMAGE_NAME = "Untitled"
image = bpy.data.images[IMAGE_NAME]

shader = gpu.shader.from_builtin('2D_IMAGE')
batch = batch_for_shader(
    shader, 'TRI_FAN',
    {
        "pos": ((100, 100), (200, 100), (200, 200), (100, 200)),
        "texCoord": ((0, 0), (1, 0), (1, 1), (0, 1)),
    },
)

if image.gl_load():
    raise Exception()

def draw():
    bgl.glActiveTexture(bgl.GL_TEXTURE0)
    bgl.glBindTexture(bgl.GL_TEXTURE_2D, image.bindcode)

    shader.bind()
    shader.uniform_int("image", 0)
    batch.draw(shader)

bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(draw, (), 'WINDOW', 'POST_PIXEL')

It looks much darker then same image drawn as camera background image or empty object.

Cant find a way to adjust its colorspace. Please help, thanks.

With

shader_code = gpu.shader.code_from_builtin("2D_IMAGE")
print(shader_code["vertex_shader"])
print(shader_code["fragment_shader"])

One can get code for builtin shader and modify it.
Here is mine, just 2 lines changed version:

vertex_shader = '''

    uniform mat4 ModelViewProjectionMatrix;

    in vec2 texCoord;
    in vec2 pos;
    out vec2 texCoord_interp;

    void main()
    {
      gl_Position = ModelViewProjectionMatrix * vec4(pos.xy, 0.0f, 1.0f);
      gl_Position.z = 1.0;
      texCoord_interp = texCoord;
    }

'''
fragment_shader = '''
    in vec2 texCoord_interp;
    out vec4 fragColor;

    uniform float gamma;

    uniform sampler2D image;

    void main()
    {
      fragColor = pow(texture(image, texCoord_interp), vec4(gamma));
    }

'''

shader = gpu.types.GPUShader(vertex_shader, fragment_shader)
shader.uniform_float("gamma", .454)


My system is slow, but can I run Blender better anyway? this is my computer's system, I'm trying to use Blender 2.78, but it works so slow. Is there anything I can do about it?

Keep your expectations within reason and consider how much you are willing to commit to a hardware upgrade should you do so. Computer parts aren't necessarily cheap, so be sure to weigh the costa vs. benefits of a potential upgrade before diving headfirst into this. That said, here is some information about upgrading hardware.

3GB of RAM is limited with today's memory-hungry applications. Upgrading to 8GB or even 16GB won't magically turn your PC into a render powerhouse, but it is definitely a start.
Almost all RAM sticks are fairly simple to swap out, and shouldn't require too much technical know-how. However it is essential that you choose the correct type of RAM stick, else it will not fit onto your motherboard. If you're really unsure, take the PC to a local shop. Other upgrades, such as a CPU, are beyond the scope of this answer.

As for other tips to help performance, quit all nonessential applications when running Blender, and keep your CPU from running hot by ensuring the computer has substantial airflow i.e, keep it in an open area at room temperature and make sure the fans are operational.

Best of luck.


How do I add UV coordinates to a procedurally generated texture? I have set up this decent normal map for a beaten metal, but I have a slight stretching on the model.
Note that the texture is 3D.
I don't know why there is this stretching: the object is in scale 1 on all axis.
So as a final solution (and to learn how to do it) I was thinking to just bake the generated normal map on an image, so that I can get control over it with the UV unwrap (which I already made).
Spent a couple hours in tinkering and searching, but couldn't find how to do this...

Noise Texture uses Generated coordinates, which often cause stretching.
You have three ways to correct it:

Use a Mapping node to correct the stretching
Use your UV map coordinates
Use Object coordinates


See through model in BGE I am making a sort of Sonic Game, and I have a rigged sonic model. It looks fine in edit, object, and pose mode

but when I try to test it, it looks like this.

Why does this happen?

Transparency was enabled on the model. It was on the material that had the texture for the whole model. Since it was one big texture, the whole thing was transparent. It was the tab Transparency under the shadow options for the material.


Enumerate through geometry objects in scene If I just do:

for ob in context.scene.objects:
    print obj

I get:

<bpy_struct, Object("Cube")>
<bpy_struct, Object("Lamp")>
<bpy_struct, Object("Camera")>

How can I just get all of the objects that get drawn?  i.e. the ones with vertices

You can check for an objects 'type':

for ob in context.scene.objects:
    if ob.type == 'MESH':
        print ob

Other 'types' include:

CURVE, SURFACE, META, FONT, ARMATURE, LATTICE, EMPTY, CAMERA, LAMP, SPEAKER.

If you want to check for multiple types you can used Python's set notion.

for ob in context.scene.objects:
    if ob.type in {'MESH', 'CURVE', 'SURFACE'}:
        print ob


Rendering a set diamond in cycles I have been trying to render a diamond. I successfully managed plain stones. But when try working on diamonds set in metal, the effect disappears.

Any suggestions?

This is the image I get without metal.

Although you didn't specify what the "effect" is that's disappearing, I can tell from your node setup that the pseudo-refraction effect is only going to give you multi-colored noise:

This is because in real life, different wavelengths have different refraction indices.  When you change the IOR's on the different shaders and remove that extra Add Shader node, you can begin to see the colors:

EDIT: Also, if you're really interested in accurate light refraction, Cycles is not the engine you should be using.  For a free engine that can interface with Blender and accurately model caustics, look at Luxrender [ http://www.luxrender.net/en_GB/blender_2_5 ] which has unbiased rendering capability.  This is one I rendered with Luxrender:

EDIT 2: I think it depends more on your lighting than on the setting.  It will naturally be darker because of the shadows being cast, but you should still be able to get refraction shimmer.  I just added a simple, enclosed metal container and used the setup above:


GPU Rendering causing strange lines When I render using my r9 390 graphics card, weird lines are appearing over the render. This problem has just started happening recently, as a few days ago I was rendering the same scene without the lines appearing. I don't believe I've changed any settings in Blender and the below scene is from a new file, so render settings should be default.

Rendering using my CPU is fine:

The only thing I can think that has changed is I recently updated my card to the latest drivers. Playing games with it is still fine and the card is quite new so I wouldn't think it's a problem with the card itself.

Further googling found that it is a driver issue:
https://community.amd.com/thread/198677


bpy.context.space_data.text throwing error from command line I'm new to Blender and Python, but have programming experience.

I'm writing a script that iterates through all the .stl files in the current directory (current being where the script is), does a few things, then exports them as .fbx files.

When running it from the Scripting screen in Blender, it works great, but I want to run it from the command line.

When I do that it hits an error on this line that grabs the directory where the script resides:

workDir = os.path.dirname(bpy.context.space_data.text.filepath)

The error is:

  AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'text'

Why does this work via the GUI and not the command line? Is there a different command I should be using?

Thanks

In the text editor window the [filepath] refers to file location where you save the script.
In the console window there is no such structure.

import bpy
import datetime

print(datetime.datetime.today())
print(bpy.context.space_data.text.filepath)
print(bpy.data.filepath)

The above was executed in the Script window.  You can compare the results.


Normal baking in cycles is painfully slow I'm trying to bake the normal map of a saddle.

PC ( AMD Ryzen 3 1200 Quad Core processor, 8GB RAM and a NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050Ti)

My previous pc which had worse specs, was able to bake normal maps like these within minutes, now it takes a whole night for a single 4k normal to bake, even the 500x500 take 2-3 hours to finish... I have no idea what I am doing wrong, here is the file:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yYDFcKy2RYtkv7a1klIU7_kHvAsZzdT4

The file you provided uses 13GB of RAM at its peak when baking, which is obviously more than  your entire system has. It is taking a long time because your system is hitting the swap HDD/SSD hard. For comparison, a Ryzen 7 with enough ram can bake the scene in 4 minutes.

You can try to lower the multires level on the highres mesh and see if that helps lower the memory usage.

Alternatively, you can use Blender Render's Bake from Multires function to directly bake the normal map.

Transfer the UV map from the low-poly model to the high-poly model, by select the target(hipoly), then the source(lowpoly), then Ctrl+L, and select Transfer UV.
Assign an empty image to the high-poly model
Switch to Blender Render and select the Hi-poly model (we don't need the low poly model)
Bake with 'Bake from Multires' turned on.

This is actually even faster than using Cycles baking, and much less setup.


Logic bricks disappeared in the Blender editor, but still work, can't find them I'm pretty new to Blender, but I have a model in which I defined a bunch of Sensors, Controllers, and Actuators that move my model in response to the keyboard in the blender game engine.

When I press [P]lay, the keyboard sensors I defined all work just fine. But when I look in the logic editor it doesn't show any sensors controllers or actuators. I don't know what changed between the last time I looked at the model and now.

  Is there any way I can somehow hide my definitions of sensors,
  controllers, and actuators in some other layer or somewhere that I
  perhaps don't know about?

This is what I see, but a half dozen logic bricks still function as expected.

I have a model in which I defined a bunch of Sensors, Controllers, and Actuators... In the image i see that the selected object is a Camera, select your model. As you are new i assume that you did not know that each object have independent logic sensors, etc. that can be linked to controllers of other objects.

Blender Manual: Game engine


Weight factor - control via keyboard I have a question regarding Weight Paint mode.
I would like to have control over Weight factor via keyboard. Specifically I would like to assign value "1" of that factor to the one key and value "0" to another. I don't see that kind of shortcuts in User Preferences panel (in the Input section I found only ShiftK for Set Weight). There's Add New button there but I don't know how to define mentioned values "1" and "0" for Weight factor. If you could help me with that, I would be very grateful.

To change the Weight value press W (being in Weight Paint mode) and drag the cursor inward/outwards the small circle showing the weight value. After pressing W you may also type the value using numerical keyboard (e.g. you press W, then 1) and the weight value changes to 1).

Remember that you may also use shortcuts to change the Radius (press F) and Strenght values (press Shift+F). Use these to work faster.


"another installation is already running" I am trying to install blender for the first time. I have tried the most recent three releases and all have same problem (for me). Which is an error message saying I already have an installation in progress.

I am on windows 10 and shut down my computer after use.

Any ideas?

Difficult to solve the problem - not enough data.

But there is no reason to install Blender, just download and install zip archive in preferred directory!

You can use several versions:

User folders used automatically:


Why does a duplicated object not mirror correctly? The original object on the right is after applying a proportional transform to the face of a cylinder. The object on the left is a duplicate of the original showing the distorted mirror effect. Mirroring was set up with "Symmetrize" and selecting "X Mirror" on the "Mesh Options" tab.

The problem is that the X-Mirror option of the Mesh Options tab works by editing the mirrored vertices only when there is an exact X-mirrored counterpart (in local space).

Symmetrize does indeed create a copy on the other half and, in principle, if you are very careful, you can work fine with that X-Mirror option enabled. The problem is that if you accidentally duplicate vertices only one of them will be moved along with the mirrored one, the other one will remain static, which is what appears to have happened in your case.

As you can see, this is not a very good way of working with a symmetric mesh. Another complication arises when you want to add new vertices. You need to symmetrize every time so the X-Mirror option has mirrored vertices to work with.

There is a much better way of working with symmetric meshes, which is with the Mirror modifier, which works by copying every vertex from your mesh on the other half (in local space). At every time, you have an exact copy on the other half. Adding vertices or moving them also adds them or moves them on the other half. No need to use symmetrize. When you have the finished model you can click Apply on the modifier to make the changes permanent. At that point, the mesh becomes one and the mirroring stops working.

When you wish to add details that shouldn't be mirrored use a new object. Since modifiers are attached to the object, a new object without the Mirror modifier won't be mirrored.

Here is a .blend with the Mirror modifier used on your mesh. I used a separate layer so make sure to be on the correct layer. Notice that the X-Mirror option is disabled now. Also, I left the bridge unconnected so you could understand why you should check the Clipping option of the Mirror modifier. To see that, just move the edge loop of the bridge so it meets with its mirrored edge loop.

If you want to see the mirrored mesh in "edit mode" too, click on the last of the icons showing on the Mirror modifier settings. You can hide the mirrored mesh too if you click on the eye icon.

As an aside, the arm had duplicate vertices. While you are editing, make sure to select the part of the mesh you are working on and press W and Remove Doubles to not end up with duplicate vertices.

Also, to get better results on the curvature of the arm, try editing by extruding edge loops instead of using proportional editing. The basic workflow is by using an orthogonal view, pressing E to extrude the edge loop, then moving it where you want it, then pressing R to rotate it and S to scale it if necessary. If you are done and the result is not smooth enough, you can apply a Subdivision Surface modifier.


exported retargeted animation is only 24 keyframes long (scene is set to 34 keyframes and animation is 34 keyframes long) So I've been retargeting animations with the Rokoko add-on and things are perfect in my blender scene. The first was 24 keyframes long, exported as 24 keyframes. The second was 251 keyframes, exported as 24, for an hour straight of trying different solutions I finally got it to bake at 251 frames into an animated .FBX file. I assumed the problem was that my source retarget armature (the armature that my constraints are set to) was hidden from the viewport (not disabled just hidden  like so).
Thinking I had solved the issue, I tried to do another animation with 34 keyframes but even with the source armatures visible, it would still export at 24 keyframes. I've tried to bake the animation before exporting (even though the exporting process does it for you), and still no luck.
My export settings for animated FBXs are as so (copied directly from this video):

I included a list of 3 files here, the one called secre_jump_fbx2.blend is the one that only exports 24 of the 34 frames. secre_jump_exported_fbx.blend is the failed result of the exported FBX and secre_idle_fbx_EXAMPLE.blend is the 251 keyframe animation (pre-export) that works (to possibly see why it works). The animation is baked on that one but it didn't seem to make a difference on my jump file.
And here is a glance at my viewport in-case you notice anything wrong off the bat.

I am exporting the animated FBX of metarig.001

I'm not sure exactly what's causing this to work, but if i bake a new animation with the skeleton (output properties and such set to desired frame length, it will create a new animation. If i go into the NLA editor, push down the action as an NLA strip,

then head over to the action clip section in the N menu, select my newly baked clip,

go to the outliner and select all other animations labelled "action", except for your baked clip,

it will work. I must be creating some sort of workaround here, but at least it does work.


How do I make Cycles bake only to the texture which I specify? Every time I use the bake function, it bakes to the texture that I've selected, but also completely erases some of my other image files. This is extremely annoying because I have to re-open each of my images. How do I stop it from doing that?

Create an image and put it into node editor, without connecting it to other nodes.


Cycling between cameras through python script issue cameravariable = "cameraname"

list3=bpy.data.cameras.keys()
regex3=re.compile(".*"+cameravariable+".*")
cam=[m.group(0) for l in list3 for m in [regex3.search(l)] if m]

for c in cam :
bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.data.objects[c]
print("Camera change")

Hey, this is how I access my cameras in my scene and cycle through them, but right now it's looking at the data block name, not the camera object. Which is annoying since sometimes my script will try to make a camera that is in another scene the camera for rendering, which in turn just fail my script. So I have to be careful when copying cameras accross scenes to make sure I rename both the object and the data block, which I tend to forget.

So how can I base my script on the camera objects? Or perhaps more simply how I cycle the cameras INSIDE my scene?

You can access all objects of the current scene by using bpy.context.scene.collection.all_objects. Then you can filter the objects by their type like lemon suggested, list comprehension makes the code a little shorter. Once you have a list of the cameras you can iterate through them and activate one after another.

import bpy

obj_in_scene = bpy.context.scene.collection.all_objects
cameras = [obj for obj in obj_in_scene if obj.type == 'CAMERA']

for cam in cameras:
    bpy.context.scene.camera = cam
    # Do something else here while this object is the current camera
    print(bpy.context.scene.camera.name)


EXR color difference to PNG To avoid the problems that PNG has with fire Transparency, I exported the images in EXR format, but when I compare them to the PNG counterpart, the colours in the EXR image are way to blown out.

Why and how can I correct for that?

Explanation first:

PNGs can't handle pixels that are emissive and transparent at the same time because PNG does not support associated alpha transparency.

You are on the right track using EXR, what you need to understand is that EXRs are exported as linear information (meaning no "gamma curves" are applied to make them display nicely on a monitor). The images on EXR format are not constricted by the limits of Display Referred, with none of the color transforms set by the color management. (visit this link for a deeper explanation). Think of EXR images as exact copies of the render layer with all of the brightness and color, which might exceed the limits of what the monitor can display.

An attempt to answer:

EXR have to undergo some color transform before they can be displayed nicely on the screen. If you import them onto other software (like photoshop) they need to be interpreted as linear before they can be displayed,and probably scaled so that they fit within the values used by the display device. If you do the compositing in blender, the EXRs should have no problem. Please add information on how you are viewing them and what you want to do with the image.


How can I use Network Render on viewport's "Rendered" mode? I know that Blender can use Network Render to send jobs to several computers, but when working on a Cycles Renderer file I often switched to "Rendered" viewport shading to view the result as I move or spin around.

While somewhat viewable, I wish I can utilize other computer's (probably with good GPU) resource to iterate through samples faster in the same way as Network Render. Can I do this?

No that isn't an available feature. The network render only supports rendering final images.

The best you can do to speedup viewport rendering is to use the machine with the best GPU that can be used by cycles.

Other options include using border render to only render the part of the scene you are most interested in.


Knife tool just not working on simple object I'm trying to slice my 'house' so I can create a ridge, but the knife tool doesn't seem to work on this object at all. Despite snapping to the verticies correctly, as soon as I press enter, it just disappears instead of confirming the new edge as normal.
What am I doing wrong?   My Blend is here:

Not sure why, but if you uncheck the 'Occlude Geometry' option it works correctly.

It may be because the top face of your model is not an ngon (has 5 vertices).


Why has a circle when the point light through my glass？ I found there is a circle when the point light through my glass material using the circle render.  How could I solve it?

When looking through glass, the light path is considered a transmission ray instead of a camera ray, and the full sphere of the point light is visible to transmission rays. Point lights in Cycles are not true point lights unless size is set to 0 (as these are non-physical and usually look bad). If size is > 0, you instead get what's technically a spherical area light. And like a regular area light, the surface is visible through glass (and in reflections). As far as getting rid of it, there's a bunch of possible solutions:

You can just hide the lamp from transmission rays by unchecking object data > Cycles Settings > Transmission. But this will also make the lamp not cast light when viewed through glass, which I suspect isn't the result you want.

A better solution is to change your glass to not be true glass. Some render engines have an "architectural glass" shader designed to fix this sort of issue. Cycles doesn't have one, but the node system allows you to recreate one pretty well:

This glass will not refract, but otherwise looks exactly like the glass shader. For very thin and flat panes of glass, the refractive effect isn't very noticeable anyway, so you can get away with this. It will still reflect like glass, but as far as light rays are concerned, objects seen through it are still viewed directly ("camera rays"). Not only will this keep lamp objects hidden, but it also has some other nice side effects, like passing the alpha channel through, and preventing clamp indirect from affecting things seen through the glass.

Technical mumbo jumbo P.S.

The geometry > backfacing node is to prevent reflections on the backface, which would otherwise appear black. There's actually a slightly neater way to do this, as fresnel - backfacing, rather than fresnel * 1-backfacing as in the other setup. Doesn't really matter, but it's a little cleaner on the nodegraph at the cost of being slightly less intuitive:


Imported .obj just showing a black texture I downloaded a 3d object online and when I imported to blender the whole object just has a black texture. I do have the correct textures in png but I don't know how to use them.
Here are some pictures.

This is what the download included

You need to create a material. Blender has two different renderers, Blender internal (the old) and Cycles (the new and nowadays standard). Materials are different in these two. I suggest you pick cycles.

First, make sure you are using cycles. You find the menu in the top bar of blender.

Now, select the object and go to the Material tab. A material should be selected for the object. If it not, create it:

If the material was created for Blender Internal, you may have to press "use nodes". Now, your material is ready to accept a texture map. Press the little button with a dot to the far right of the "Color" field. In the menu that pops up, select "Image Texture".

Now hit open and browse to your texture. You have now created a material with a diffuse shader and an image texture. It should look like this:

If it doesn't show up on the model, it means your UV-mapping on the model is wrong (probably). Since the texture only works for a specific UV-mapping, you must get this right when you import.

The next step if you intend to render this is to work on the shader some more. You do this in the node editor. Your shader will look like this:


Broken Archimesh file I was working on a model of a building with a lot of windows and doors.
Everything was working fine until I could not edit the properties of the windows. I get "Warning: Operator does not work in local view mode".
I suspected one archimesh object was inserted inside another mesh, so I tried deleting all archimesh objects of the model.
The error persisted.
What else can I try to fix the file?

"Local View Mode" is kind of a fake, selected-objects collection which you can enter which toggles all non-selected objects visibility automatically and the camera zooms-in on the selected-objects.
To get out of that view, click the / key. Or follow the UI steps shown in the screenshot below.


Mesh with Triangulate Modifier mesh causes new faces and vertices to form with the Subsurface Modifier and Bevel Modifier OLD TITLE: Smooth mesh to hide the low poly subdivisions

Title of the question changed, as the main issue seems to be that with the triangulate modifier and the subdivision modifier, there are new faces and vertices being created.

New question:

Using the Bevel Modifier, Triangulate Modifier, and the Subdivision Modifier, new vertices are being formed as you can see in the second image. I would like it to look like the first image, except with the Subdivision Surface modifier working, so the cutout loos smooth.

Beveling with no Limit only shows these two problems:

New Blend File:

Old question:

I created a cutout of a cylinder in my mesh. I beveled it, and it gives me this:

I would like to 'smooth' the edges to look like a nice curve, and not blocky.

I used a Subdivision Surface modifier, but:

I already tried going around using Ctrl + T, but I could not get rid of them all, and it made my mesh look messy.

Is there a better way for me to subdivide it without the vertices going nuts?

EDIT:

R.M's method below works up to an extent. It curves the cutout, but the face deforms appear still. Is this more of an issue with my mesh?

With no Bevel Limit, the corners are sharp at the front of the mesh, but the bottom still has the corners warping in. With the Angle, it makes the mesh more round/smoother, how I want it, but the bottom still has the mesh warps. As well as the front corners.

If you don't want to triangulate the faces manually, you can use the triangulate modifier. Then, add a bevel modifier, and a subdivision surface modifier:

This gives the following result:

Be sure to triangulate before subdividing!

I'm noticing that some of the circles are still "blocky". To fix this, try to go back, before you beveled it, and use a bevel modifier (not to be confused with the one above), setting a limit on the angle. Example:

No limit:

With limit (note that the less pointy edges were not affected, and will be smoothed out by a subdivision surface modifier):


How would I build a twisted water slide? I can't seem to find a tutorial or explanation as to how to do it - I start off with a cylinder and don't really get anywhere.

Something like this.

Any advice?

Using the Add Curve:Extra Objects shipped add-on, create a Spiral, Archimedes, 2 anticlockwise turns, type: Poly. Cut off the ends appropriately, and E extrude the new ends to make the straight sections.
Adjust the native Full bevel of the curve in its data tab, for depth and resolution. (object data tab > Shape and Geometry panels. Shape: 3D, Fill>Full.. and Geometry: Bevel>Depth and Bevel>Resolution)
In Object Mode AltC convert to mesh, then assign and apply a Solidify modifier
K with C and Z make a cut through the pipe, constrained to 45 degrees. Delete surplus faces and CtrlE > Bridge Edge Loops to repair the rim. Find or create a few edge loops round the outside skin, and Ctrl B bevel them to the width of the joints. With the new face rings selected, E extrude, right-click to cancel transform, AltS scale the extrusion along its normals.

Then you can add a Bevel modifier by angle (segments 2, profile 1.0) to sharpen edges, and add a Subdivision Surface modifier.. unless you just want to stick with low-poly, and Auto Smooth by angle in the slide's data panel.


Selecting part does not seem on blender. No wireframe edges I am using blender 2.8 as you can see on the picture. There was an issue with evee render. Blender was crashing. After that, I reinstalled driver then it ran well.
But in edit mode, I can see any selecting part. in wireframe mode, edges does not seem as well.
Additionally, there is a black area at right bottom. You can see on picture.
Waiting for help.
Thanks

Did you accidentally enable the clipping border?

AltB to clear it


Gaps between faces; how can I join them, without filling? I'm new to 3D modeling and wanted to try Blender. I'm following Katsbits animated snowman tutorial and I just noticed there's a "gap" between my snowman and his scarf where it meets his neck and near the bottom of his body.I don't think this was there before, I must have done something to create this gap by mistake. I want to join the scarf to meet the bottom of his neck, but without creating a new face. I used "snap during transform" to bring the edges together, which appeared to do what I wanted, but if I move the vertexes of either the scarf or the snowman I can see that they still aren't connected. How do I fix this?
Thanks for any help!

Seect the vertices you want to merge and then press Alt+M to bring up the Merge menu and select 'At Center'. Repeat for each set of vertices you want to merge.

Alternatively, if the vertices are close enough, you can select them all and use Remove Doubles (on the Mesh/Vertices menu) - increase the Merge Distance in the left-hand panel until those vertices merge together.


How can I make a texture repeat? I am making a dragon and the texture is scales. I need to repeat the texture so that the scales look a decent size. I am quite new to Blender so I'm sorry if this is obvious.
I am using Blender 2.83

To have bigger scales set the texture's X and Y size, in the mapping section, to the value between 0 and 1, e.g 0.5 Repeat is necessary only with values bigger than 1.


What is the workflow to create animation in Blender? I am very new to Blender, and into CGI for that matter.

I started with Sculpting, can form decent human face, and now into sculpting body structure.

It's true that there are lots of materials scattered around for learning Blender. But they are not structured for a beginner to learn from.

My question (it might be off-topic, but please bear with me, as I really have no clue about Blender) is what is the work flow to create animation in Blender?

I know a few -

Modeling - Box modeling, sculpt modeling.
Texturing
UV Wrap/Unwrap
Material
Lighting
Rigging
Animation.

But there are other topics also, like weight paint etc. I just want to know the topics for successful completion of a video file from scratch.

I'm asking this because if I know the topics, I would search for those topics and would be able to learn Blender fast.

Please help.

This depends on your personal workflow and/or the workflow of your contractor/employer.

Basically (if we wanted to create a simple animation, with just a character) (in my experience) it's always something like this (some of the following tasks are usually - but not always - done by different artists):

Concept phase (Where rough concepts and ideas are gathered and refined - mostly 2D)
Concept models (Very rough models to proof the concepts work in 3D and in general)
Sculpting (Basically "creating" the character in 3D, with all the small details. This results in a highpoly model)
Retopologize (Highpoly models are hard to work with, so you take the model and "rebuild" it, with less polygons. Sometimes - often in games - you have a polycount budget. So your model isn't allowed to have more than x polygons/tris. This results in a lowpoly model)
UV-Unwrapping (In order to "paint" your model (e.g. put a texture on it) you need to unwrap it and create a UV-map. This UV-map is also used for baking)
Baking (You can transfer all the details from your highpoly model to your lowpoly model via a normal map (texture). This normal map and some other maps are generated by "baking")
Texturing (Basically paint your model. This is where the grey chunk gets fancy ;) )
Rigging (In order to animate your model, it need a skeleton. Rigging is basically giving your model a skeleton, which you can animate)
Animation (The skeleton - and with it the model - gets animated)
Lighting (In this stage, lighting is set up. Also arround this time, everything is put together (if that's not done via compositing))
Rendering (Everything is rendered. In small/simple scenes you can put everything in one scene and render it out. However, in more advanced and bigger scenes, the stuff to render is usually split up in several renderlayers, which are then put together in compositing)
Compositing (Like described above, this is where the different parts of the renders are put together. This is also where mat-paintings and VFX are "put in")

I hope this helps you understanding the basic workflow.
As you can see, 3D and CGI is a very complex topic.

Greetings


Play 1000 Frames Per Second in Blender I am trying to animate using Blender. I want to play 1000 frames per second, but Blender only seems to allow a maximum of 120. I am not super conscious about quality but I have thousand different states that I want to be played on screen in one second. Any suggestions?

I pick any 120 equal interval frames.

I'm okay if the answer requires Blender Python, too.

I'm not sure if this accomplishes what you want but,

In the render tab, under "frame rate:" choose "custom".
Then you will get 2 more options

FPS
Framerate base

In FPS input 100, and in Framerate base input 0.1.
It should now say "Custom (1000)" in your framerate settings.


Rigging an extendable tentacle Hey guys I'm trying to rig some robotic hoses that need the ability to extend to pretty much any length. Imagine something like Doc Ock's tentacles but with the ability to extend themselves. Just to clarify I don't mean they need stretch. I mean they need to extend out from their base. I have some pretty decent experience with rigging, but this one is perplexing me.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how I could go about this?

You can do this using Spline Ik and Bendy bones. Here is the result

1. Create the bones for your tentacle.

Under the armature settings in display, select B-Bone

Enter Edit Mode, select each bone and change the segments for it. Note more segments equals a smoother transition.

Create a Bezier Curve, select the bent handle and scale it to 0 in the y-axis to straighten it. Subdivide it to add as many control points as you want
https://imgur.com/a/oGKtL3u
Align the Curve with the bones.
https://imgur.com/a/JCGf296
Enter Pose Mode, Select the last bone, and add a Spline IK constraint to it. Select the curve and change the chain length to the number of segments the Bendy Bone has.
Parent the Bones to the mesh. You can now hide the bones.
8.Select each part of the spline and press ctrl + h and choose Hook to new object
Note: I added a subdivision surface modifier on the mesh above the armature to get clean deformation.


what happened to my glass reflection? i am currently following blender guru's beginner tutorial following instructions every step of the way.
as soon as i added the droplet texture at the end of part 5, level 3: condensation, the glass on the cup started acting more like a double sided mirror i went back and checked all my steps and can not fix the issue.
kindly see renders bellow of the renders before and after the droplets were added.
also a PrtScn of the node tree
download blender file here
blender file

node tree

Connect the 'Alpha' output (or even try Color Output alternatively) of your 'image-texture' and connect it to the Alpha 'Input' of the Principled BSDF node.
I will take a look at the file later, if not solved by tomorrow.


Custom Colour Palette Node Would it be possible to create a node that acts like a colour palette? Essentially I define the colours that I want it to have, and from there I can use them as I wish. I know that something like this can be done via node groups; however, I do not like the elongated node. Preferably, I would hope to achieve something that is compact.

E.g.

I understand that making a node in the above picture is more than likely not a possibility; however, the size and number of colours it contains is what I'm interested in.

Currently, I have a node group with various metal colours

I plan on making a similar node but with 60 colours, probably sounds strange but they are exact values from a specific colour palette I need to work with. Here lies my problem, that if I had a node similar to the metals one but with 60 colours, the node would be unfathomably long and relatively unusable. Is there any way that I can make this custom node, but compact form?

So I managed to resolve this quite a while ago but never got around to posting my solution, anyway; here it is now.

To achieve a node fit with 60 colours in the palette I used two ColorRamp nodes as one can only have a maximum of 31 colours. The first ColorRamp ends at the position of 0.310 (I'll explain why in a bit), and the 31st colour is black (which isn't the 31st colour of my palette, but I'll also explain later why that is the case). The second ColorRamp starts with black and continues until the position of 0.320, at this position the 31st colour of my palette is placed. These ColorRamps are then mixed together with a MixRGB node set to screen, thus why there are black parts to the colour ramp. The screening of the two ColorRamps allows me to seamlessly continue the positions of the colours, emulating a ColorRamp being able to contain more than 31 colours essentially. E.g. ColorRamp one ends at position 0.310 and ColorRamp two starts at 0.320.

Then I added 5 maths nodes so that I could move along the rows and columns of the palette. These images should make what I am attempting to explain much easier to follow:

The values being fed into the first two math nodes can be changed by the user in increments of 0.100, this is crucial in understanding why the flow of nodes works. I'll provide one example and this should solidify your understanding of how and why the math nodes do what they do.

(The top input [Up/down]) has a domain of 0.100 - 0.500, and the bottom input [left/right] from 0 - 1.100 (which makes sense based on the colour palette above)

For this example, the up/down value will be set at 0.500 and the left/right value at 0.200.

Math Nodes Breakdown

Put simply for the first input 0.500 * 0.100 = 0.05. Since each colour on the ramp is spaced out by 0.010, the fifth colour down will be selected; or in other terms position, 0.040 on the colour ramp. Reason being, that the colour ramp starts at 0, so counting 0 and moving 5 spaces gives 4.

e.g. (0,1,2,3,4) or (0.00, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04)

This result is then added to 0.200 * 0.500 = 0.100 (This is the left/right movement), so 0.05 + 0.100 = 0.150. Meaning that on the ColorRamp, it will select the 15th colour, which in this case will be positioned at 0.140 (0.2, 0.5).

Things get slightly more complicated when going from one ColorRamp to another, but I will quickly break this down.

For this example let the up/down value = 0.200 and the left/right value = 0.600, as this is the first colour of the second ColorRamp. Once again, 0.200 * 0.100 = 0.020 (operation of the first multiply node). This value is added to 0.010, so 0.020 + 0.010 = 0.030. This addition of 0.010 is very important and only applies to the second ColorRamp. Keeping in mind that the first colour value starts at position 0 and the first colour of the second ColorRamp starts at position 0.320, an extra 0.010 needs to be accounted for to counteract the ramp starting at 0. After that calculation, it needs to be added to 0.600 * 0.500 = 0.300, so 0.030 + 0.300 = 0.330 (0.6, 0.2). Therefore, the 32nd colour along the ColorRamp will be selected, which in this case is the first colour (of my colour palette) that exists on the second ColorRamp.

And there you have it, using the basic math node setup you can now create any arrangement of colours that you desire.


Final Render is different from Viewport Render When I render in the 3D viewport, the image comes out how I want it. However, in the final render, the image has some other light source.
Viewport:

Final:

The light source I think is the same. The reason the preview render looks so dark is because the samples are much lower so in the final render more samples pick up the light better.

Perhaps you can check light bounces in your render Tab and reduce them to 1 or 2 because the default is always 12 which is often excessive.

Also the lighting is poor in your scene so it's very noisy. Perhaps if reducing the light bounces helps to preserve the darkness of your scene when more samples are used, you could try using the denoiser to get rid of some of the fireflies amd speckling.

If it is indeed another light source causing the problem, go to your overlay tab and check your lights. The eyeball next your objects means it's visible in the viewport and camera tells you it'll be visible in the final render. Just make sure the eyeball and the camera icons correlate if you have multiple lights.

Hope that helps :)


Scaling, mirroring, how does it really work? I don't really understand this behavior :

All is done in object mode.
Here are 6 identical shapes, from top to bottom rotated around the Y axis, respectively 0, -45, -90, -135, -180 and -225°.

Now I scale them -1 with 3D cursor as pivot and along the X axis (shapes on the right are 'witness') :

Now, the scaled shapes, from top to bottom (all kept their original rotation around Y) :

1 : scale X = -1, effectively mirrored (like from a mirror)
2 : scale X = -1, but not mirrored ?
3 : scale Z = -1, and appears mirrored
4 : scales X and Z = -1, not mirrored ?
5 : scale X = -1, mirrored
6 : scale X = -1, not mirrored ?

Why all that ?

Note : I don't want to obtain any particular result here (I know how to correct things if needed), but I just want to understand why it works like that.

This matter because you don't apply rotation to original objects.
"CTRL+A - rotation" should solve this.


Proportional resize image Blender added an option to resize images in the Image Editor - Image - Resize
I wanted to know if anyone knows a way to make it proportional resizing given a maximum x or y, similar to what Photoshop and other programs do.
I know you can do x/2 and y/2 to resize with uneven portions, but lets say I want x to 1024 and the image to keep its ratio. Do I need a script for that?
Thanks

You can drag your cursor to both slider to get the correct aspect ratio:


Prevent movement of hands on push up animation I made a push up animation with a human character and its hands are moving down and upwards. Can I somehow fix the position of the hands? I mean in a way not to be able to move/rotate it.

My problem is something like the push up part in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r7mWDgQbmU

Here's the simplest version of an arm rig:

upper arm, lower arm and hand are one connected chain
upper arm is parented to body with offset
hand has a Copy Rotation Constraint to hand target. Both bones have the same rotation. Using hand instead of hand target prevents the hand from getting torn apart when you accidentally move hand target too far away.
lower arm has an IK constraint to hand target, chain length 2. That means blender will rotate lower arm and upper arm to somehow reach hand target.
upper arm, lower arm and hand are deforming the character mesh while hand target is exclusively for animation.

If you want to animate the arm, move hand target. If you want to do pushups, move body. The arm takes care of itself.

Such rigs can become much more complex, and be it just to have control over the elbow. But the principle is usually similar.


I have a Mesh with an Armature. The Mesh has a "Mesh Deform" modifier, which itself has physics. Why does it break when Rendered? I am probably missing something very obvious---maybe a modifier stack problem, more likely it's a parenting issue, or else I don't understand Mesh Deform well enough.
This is a simplified example. Wiggle bones are not appropriate for my problem. Let's pretend we MUST use Soft Body physics on a Mesh Deform cage.
I have a complex mesh with an armature. To give PARTS of it soft body physics, I have a Mesh Deform cage surrounding one part of the Mesh, so that poor old blender doesn't have to worry about squishing and pulling a trillion polygons. The Mesh Deform cage is parented to a bone in the Mesh's Armature so that it follows the Mesh appropriately. The Mesh Deform cage has Soft Body physics. I'm trying to cheese it so that only parts of the High Poly Mesh behave with soft body physics, without having to calculate that.

It seems fine, perfect even... until I render it. Rendering it breaks it.

The Soft Body Physics is baked, and I have tried it without baking, too. It feels like a parenting issue, or something about vertexes and weight painting?
I have tried many things, and followed other threads with similar problems, but no one is asking this, specifically, that I could find. I apologize if this has been answered. If it has, I would like a simpler answer, explained like I'm five, because the complexity of rigging is very confusing for me.
If there is an amazing alternative for cheesing/faking soft body physics (capable of collision) on PARTS of a complex mesh which isn't wiggle bones, I am all ears.
I am so confused, sorry about this.
https://file.io/mw7LWq7f04QD this is a link to the blend file

I'm an idiot! I tried everything, consumed pages of archaic documents on modifiers, I dug all the way over to page THREE of google search results, I lost hours of sleep, watched an embarrassing amount of tangentially related tutorial videos in which the teacher, bless them, had to communicate through a thoroughly mashed potato they had stuck two wires into,
...the solution was to update Blender. SMH. I can't believe I forgot.
For future reference, the above set-up works! If anyone in the future is having trouble figuring out Mesh Deform with Armatures, I hope these pictures and descriptions help. Just... make sure you've updated blender. Lord.
And make sure you Bake any physics or wiggle bones before rendering, as always.


Can I get back film emulation looks into 2.80? Just really hoping there is a way to do it, but is it possible to get back film looks for 2.80?

or people who would argue that you can still do it with composite nodes, yes, I understand you can, but that also means I need to know what exactly I want to achieve, I can't ever test a bunch of moods, then tweak it (which was my workflow so far), it's like adding 3 days more work just to see which one I like the most.....  i thought blender was supposed to be the fast option.....

I'm prepared to try to do some python, but I'm at a level where I can only botch things together....

Thanks

Warning: The following approach may currently work, but it's not officially supported and may cause bugs and/or crashes when running Blender.

For this you need a copy of Blender 2.79b which you can download here. Use one of the appropriate one for your OS that comes as archive (.zip, tar.bz2, tar.gz). We will need this to get the old color management files.

Open the directory where you have Blender 2.8 installed and navigate to 2.80/datafiles. There should be a directory named colormanagement. Rename this to colormanagement_new.
Extract Blender 2.79b archive somewhere on your system. Navigate to 2.79/datafiles and copy the colormanagement directory CTRL+C.
The back to the directory of the Blender 2.8 and paste into 2.80/datafiles CTRL+V. You should now see the old options in the color management panel when running Blender 2.8.

If you want to revert the changes simply delete the directory you copied into 2.80/datafiles and rename colormanagement_new back to colormanagement.


What does the F in front of brush names mean? What does the F in front of brush names in the selector stand for?

This question may seem a little trivial, but it always made me wonder..

It stands for Fake User. Since the default brushes all have fake users, the "F" shows up in front of the name.

Note: This applies to many other data-blocks, not just brushes, its just noticeable since fake-user is enabled by default, but it can be used used for meshes, curves, actions, fonts... too.


Plane and Grid are not working as Fluid Effector Collision in Blender 2.82 In my scene the liquid goes through the plane or grid, no matter what the settings are, but with a cube it works as it supposed to.

I've tried with option "is planar" checked and with surface thickness other than 0 but the effect is still the same.

I had the same problem.. So I added a value of 0.75 on surface thickness, and it work well !! :)


How to deform one side precisely? I want to precisely (it's important) deform one side of the object to follow some kind of curve (in this particular case - an arc, part of a regular circle). This manual modification (I pulled edges one by one), I hope, explains what I want:

I tried to move top edges with proportional editing but it also affects bottom side (it just bends the whole object). Probably, there is a way to lock bottom faces or detach it from modification temporarely.

Finally, it should be a bar with flat bottom and very gentle slope (two slopes actually), forming an radial arc from the side view and it must have exact height in the middle. Some kind of bridge or overpass, just solid. It would be nice to make other forms of slopes (straight slopes for instance) the same way. Thanks in advance!

Using H  to hide, and Alt + H  to unhide you can effectively mask off parts you don't want proportionally edited.

I don't personally know a more precise way but hopefully someone posts one.


show EnumProperty in node Just like the Math node I want to create options like this:

However, in the original code of the math node, I can't find a line to make the options show up in the node. How do I do that?

import bpy
from bpy.props import *
from ... base_types.node import AnimationNode
from ... tree_info import keepNodeLinks, keepNodeState

operationItems = [
    ("ADD", "Add", "A + B", "", 0),
    ("SUBTRACT", "Subtract", "A - B", "", 1),
    ("MULTIPLY", "Multiply", "A * B", "", 2),
    ("RECIPROCAL", "Reciprocal", "1 / A", "", 21),
    ("SNAP", "Snap", "snap A", "", 22)]

class EnumPropertyTest(bpy.types.Node, AnimationNode):
    bl_idname = "an_EnumPropertyTest"
    bl_label = "EnumProperty Test"

    def operationChanged(self, context):
        self.recreateInputSockets()
        executionCodeChanged()

    operation = EnumProperty(name="Operation", default="MULTIPLY",
                         items=operationItems, update=operationChanged)

    def create(self):
        pass

    def execute(self, write):
        pass

    @keepNodeState
    def recreateInputSockets(self):
        self.inputs.clear()

Now I have just this:

In case a quick link to the Math node helps:
https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes/blob/master/nodes/number/float_math.py

If you want to draw properties into your node you have to implement the draw function:

def draw(self, layout):
    layout.prop(self, "operation", text = "Operation")


How to bake normals from sphere to plane I baked the normals from a sphere to a plane. If I change the view to lookdev it looks right. But if I change to rendered mode with a hdri enabled the reflection on the plane with the normal map looks stretched. do somebody know why?

It´s a UV problem. Check your plane's uVs. Should be completed. Else, enter into UV mode and edit the UVs until it covers the coordinates. Also: Good thinking, you've given me a few ideas with this. BTW: How did you get correct UV-localspace object normal ? just baked Normals?


Best approach to rigging an alligator I've a nice mesh but would like the flexibility of rigging (joke intended).
Should I start with Rigify or create the bones myself? I'm familiar with bones and the skin modifier from 3dsmax but have little experience with blender. I'm using version 2.9

Rigify is able to do the job. Rigify is a modular rig system to create bones and controls with automatic or manual FK/IK. Keep in mind the settings for Rigify differ weather you're on edit mode (for the Armature), the pose mode (for bone constraints) and animation (drivers). There is a complete guide showing you step by step how to learn Rigify. The only guide I seriously recommend: https://gumroad.com/a/189101171
On Lesson 17 there is a full rig exercise with a dragon head, that way you can also learn how to rig blinking eyes for reptiles.
If you need further -specific setup answers- please post them here.


Vertex Orientation in an Object Why vertex "A" is aligned at different axis as compared to VErtex "B" & "C"?
How can "A" be aligned similar to other two vertex(B & C)?

Vertex normals are determined by the interpolated face normals of the connected faces. When you have the transform orientation set to Normal the Z axis is aligned with the vertex normal.
Trouble is that there is no way for blender to know how to align the manipulator on the corners. It still has the Z aligned correctly, but that is not helping you here.

See in this image I have a mesh similar to yours, selected at different times in two different spots. Note that even though the manipulator is pointed in the "wrong" direction in the bottom corner, it is still correctly aligned with the vertex normal (blue line on each vertex).

As a work around you could align the view to one of the faces, with ShiftNumPad 7. Then change the Transform Orientation (in the 3D view header) to "View".


Multiple rotations do not add up I am trying to place 4 object on a sphere so that they are equidistant. I can do this by placing them at the 4 corners of a tetrahedron, and a tetrahedron is just 4 corners of a cube. (The cube is just a construction object that will go away.)
I put my object at 0,0,0, then rotate it 45 degrees on two axes. (I then translate it to the corner of the cube.)
See screenshot part 1
I know this worked because when I turn the look down the corner of the cube, I can see my object is perfectly aligned.
See screenshot part 2
But when I add the sphere in, the object is not perpendicular to the sphere's surface.
See screenshot part 3
What have I done wrong? I'm pretty sure I'm doing the multiple axis rotation correct. I set the Transformation Orientation to Local so the rotations should be relative to the object, not Global.
(I can fix it manually by rotating X to about 54 degrees rather than 45, but that's pretty sloppy.)
What am I doing wrong? Or better yet, is there an easier way of placing 4 objects at equidistant angles from each other?

My first thought was that the vectors from the origin of a regular unit tetrahedron are normal to the plane tangent to the sphere where the vector intercepts, and we must be able to recover the rotation from that.
We see that Wikipedia gives the rather ugly values of $( 0, 0, 1 )$, $(\sqrt{\frac{8}{9}},         0, -1/3 )$, $( -\sqrt{\frac{2}{9}}, -\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}, -\frac{1}{3} )$, and $( -\sqrt{\frac{2}{9}}, \sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}, -\frac{1}{3} )$ for these vertices, so I wrote some Python to draw it.
D = bpy.data
from math import sqrt, radians
from mathutils import Vector

radius = 1

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_solid_add(source='4', size=radius)

tetrahedron = C.active_object

empties = []

theta = radians(120)
vectors = [ Vector( (   0, 0, 0, 1 ) ),
            Vector( ( theta, sqrt(8/9),         0, -1/3 ) ),
            Vector( ( theta,-sqrt(2/9), -sqrt(2/3), -1/3 ) ),
            Vector( ( theta,-sqrt(2/9),  sqrt(2/3), -1/3 ) ),]
hack=[ 0, 2, 3, 1]

for n in range(4):
    bpy.ops.object.empty_add(type='SINGLE_ARROW', align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0))
    empties.append(C.active_object)

    empties[n].rotation_mode= 'AXIS_ANGLE'
    empties[n].rotation_axis_angle = vectors[n]
    empties[n].location = radius * Vector(vectors[hack[n]][1:4])

for n in range(4):
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_monkey_add(size=0.5, enter_editmode=False, align='WORLD',
        location=radius * Vector(vectors[hack[n]][1:4]) )
    monkey = C.active_object
    monkey.rotation_mode= 'AXIS_ANGLE'
    monkey.rotation_axis_angle = vectors[n]


Does Cycles' GPU support Intel HD Graphics 3000? I'm currently planning on buying a Macbook Pro 13-inch from an acquaintance which uses Intel HD Graphics 3000.

While I was doing some research, I've read that there are people who say that Cycles' GPU only supports NVIDIA, but other's say that there are ways to make it work for Intel HD Graphics e.g. using Cycles AMD OpenCL or CUDA.
If they do work, how can I install them?

It will most certainly not work (ever). Refer to this page: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/OpenCL
GPU on Apple products is a huge issue. Not even the extremely expensive mac pros come equipped with decent GPUs. So if you want to use CUDA etc... you're better off buying a laptop with a good nvidia GPU (You can run linux on it if you don't like windows (that's what I do)).


Close hole in mesh without loop I have modeled a plane and the problem is that the bottom of the wing is missing.

How do I fill this hole in the easiest way?

Select the same number of vertices from both sides, press W and choose Bridge Edge Loops.


Can an action be mirrored or reused? In a scene I linked two groups (object and rig) and appended an action, now I'm experimenting what would be the best workflow to animate more characters in a scene.

I would like to have a set of reusable actions (preferably shared among the characters) which can be combined in the NLA-editor for different clips.

In this scene the two characters are supposed to stand opposite, the character on right was moved from the position of the yellow empty and changed the orientation because both use the same action.

Is there a way to mirror an action or add offsets for location and rotation, so that the characters will keep their orientation?

If your action contain some keyframes on the "root" bone's channel, all items you assign this action will be mandatorily aligned.

You should remove the root bone's keyframes from the action, and then animate the roots separately. If needed, you can create separate actions, one per character, and mix them with the first action.


Getting grooves of equal width How can I get a groove of uniform width, both horizontally and vertically, on a door (a plane)?

I've used edge loops, subdividing the surface and the knife tool but I can't get the groove to be a consistent thickness (6mm).

One value is about 736 and other is 730, which is close but not exact.

I would use the bevel tool.

In edit mode, place one loop cut where you want each groove.  Then select the edge loops and hit Ctrl+B and drag to what ever width you want the groove.  The bevel tool splits each selected edge into two edges connected with a face.


Creating realistic concert lighting I've been trying to create a live venue in blender recently, but have gotten stuck at the point of making realistic spotlights.

First I tried using a cylinder mesh with an emissive transparency shader mix. Though this produced decent results in terms of lighting the venue, this method had its issues. Mainly being that the beam itself, being a solid object, ended up looking beyond amateur than what is desired. Additionally, with having so many emissive objects in the scene, it's hard to balance a strength in them all that not only powerfully lights up and dyes a large room in its color, but doesn't also blow out the lighting in the scene and produce fireflies.

Then I tried using a spotlight lamp with volume, which is what I had intended to use originally. This worked a lot better, but using volume brings up other issues. First off, it’s noisy of course, especially so because the start point is visible. Not only this, but it bumps the render time significantly (about 15mins per frame). This also doesn't do much for lighting up the rest of the room.

So my question is, how can I improve my current method, or how could I make a realistic looking light beam for this scenario? Not only do I want an appealing visible and smooth looking beam, but preferably I’d also like it to effectively light up the room with its color. A method that doesn’t require a major render time bump would be optimal too, as the animated scene I’m doing involves a lot of frames, but nonetheless I’d like to know all my options here.

Any help would be appreciated!

Here's the blend file.

If you want realistic results in cycles, there is no way around using spotlights and volume scatter with optimized render settings.

Here is a link to a similar question:
Volumetric Spot Light with Cycles

If you want to fake it, there is your way of doing it, however I would suggest to control the transparency of the "cone" with a gradient or ramp map.
Alternatively there is the camera node with the distance connector that can be used to control the transparency of the cone transparency (closer up the cone should be more transparent).

Unfortunately this will still give relatively amateurish results as the cone will always stay sharp at the edges, which spotlights dont do.

Another way would be to create an alpha texture with a faded gradient and use planes to fake the cone, unfortunately this will only work good if the result is not animated and doesnt change perspective.


Fire & smoke not showing in render, but only in viewport I have spent some time playing with fire & blender nodes, once I render a scene nothing shows up sadly.

Any suggestions?

You turned off the domain's render visibility in the outliner.

Turn it back on.


Background camera from same scene in BGE Is there a way I can set up one camera to play in the background of another camera in the same scene in BGE? The two cameras need to be parented to the same object, but one has to be in the background. I'm using two cameras because one has to be in orthogonal and the background one in perspective.
Thanks!

I resolved my problem a different way, not with cameras in the same scene necessarily, but with a master camera in one scene and the active slave cameras in all the other scenes. Here was my other question where this was explained by the friendly Monster: How to get a camera to copy location of character from a different scene in BGE
P.S. I wasn't asking the same question twice, I thought the cameras needed to be in the same scene at first, but then I thought maybe they could still be in different scenes, so I asked the second question. ;)


Jaggedness in my rendered image in cycles rendering Why there are so many jagged edges in my renders?

Here is the part file link: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/mexg8QWK

These are antialiasing artifacts caused by low resolution and high contrast.
Renders in 4K/8K (or with lower contrast) are visibly less jagged.
Why:
A 2K render simply doesn't have enough pixels for antialiasing such a narrow and contrasty area.
8K Render - High Contrast (still a little bit jagged)
8K Render - Low Contrast (perfectly crisp edges)


How to display the vertices while in object mode? how to show vertex in object mode ? I'm in object mode and executing 'curve simplify' , but as i change the parameter , it's hard to see how far i've done the simplification without seeing the vertices. So i have to go back and forth between object and edit mode to check.

Thanks

Parent a colored little icosphere under the object and turn on Duplication - Verts:

This lets you see even vertices on straight edges of ngons, something wire edges don't show.


Dissolving textures to animate blink - What am I doing wrong? (Face animation with shaders) I'm trying to animate a blink using textures and I am using a two image texture connected to a mix colour node and when I move the "fac" slider the textures do not change. I do not know what I have done wrong, any help please? (Keep in mind, I am a beginner so I don't really know that much about Blender)

Ok so as you're using a MixRGB, you can indeed mix the 2 Image Texture nodes into the MixRGB, then you need to plug the MixRGB into a Diffuse, then the Diffuse into an Output:

MixRGB is used to mix 2 colors and/or images, but you need to tell Blender what kind of shader it is supposed to be, between Diffuse (which will be affected by light and shadows) and Emission (which emits light). In your case I guess you need Diffuse.
Another equal solution would be to use the Mix Shader, in that case you need this setup, as Mix Shader doesn't directly accept images or colors:


How can I fix these artifacts? I am trying to model this hammer. I used Looptools instead of Boolean as less destructive but it seems these artifacts are inevitable. I included the .blend file.
It was mainly a combination of Looptools and insetting/extruding parts that caused this mesh to be a bit of a mess.

You should observe what effect Subdivision Surface modifier has on different geometry. In this case the topology you modelled is just not good for it. If you have concave faces in your model the result of Subdivision Surface modifier will often be undesired:

This problem can only be fixed by modelling correct geometry for the modifier. You can have the modifier added and model things with it visible to see what results you get in real time while modelling. In some cases adding edge loops(ctrl + r) will help you, in some cases joining some vertices(j) or using the knife tool(k) in order to avoid concave faces might improve the situation. I cannot describe all the possible scenarios in this answer because of how many of them can be so my advice would be to experiment and see for yourself. Don't forget that you do not have to use Subdivision Surface modifier at all and can also achieve the same results using other modelling techniques. In many cases modelling inorganic shapes one can get better results simply using bevel(ctrl+b) operation.


Filmic Blender in Unity If I make something in Blender with Filmic Blender. Save as asset, import it to Unity Game Engine... Wonder if the asset looks the same in Unity (with Filmic settings).

In other words, is Filmic only for Blender rendering?

Thanks,
Ondra

Filmic is only for rendering. It how the colours are saved to the rendered image. You should look into HDR rendering in Unity to get something similar.


How to move a curve that has an array without distortion I have an array tied to a curve (and I've also added an empty axis to get a slight twist.) How do I move the entire array of objects without deforming the array? I tried moving the axis as well as the curve both individually and together.

I figured it out! You have to press tab on the curve to go into edit mode, select all the points, then move it where you want it.


'Bake data' button not visible in fluid options (new to blender) i am trying to create a fluid sim in blender 2.83 but in my physics tab under domain there is no 'bake data' button in the options. It's there in all the tutorials i've watched but i dont seem to have it.

It's because the cache type is set by default to "Replay". Replay does not provide any caching at all; it's used for instant replay. If you want to bake data, you should change cache type to modular or final (for final baking all physics)

And don't forget, that you need to save file before any cache type of simulations.


Can't select a vertex group in this hook modifier I have this silly problem. See image. I want to stretch this cylinder with the right icosphere. I selected the vertices on the right end of the cylinder and added them to a vertex group with weight 1. Then on the right icosphere I add a hook modifier, I select the cylinder as object, and the vertex group list is empty. But the vertex group is there, but it doesn't show up, I can't select it in the hook modifier. How to make it show?

Aha, I put the hook modifier on the cylinder, not the icosphere. This works, though the vertex group is pulled to the top of the sphere, instead of the center, where the origin is. How to pull it to the center of the icosphere?

Also, is there a way to preserve the relative distance between the pulled vertices, so the end cap of the cylinder is pulled but not deformed.

The hook modifier have to be set on the hooked object not on the hooker (well... not totally sure this is the good term in English).

Concerning the stretch on top of the sphere: this is due to a rotation.

The hook is influenced by all objects transformations. So these transformations needs to be coherent at the moment the hook modifier is set.


How to point a sun lamp using a vector in Python? It seems this should be easy - I have a long list of normals as a list of tuples in my python script.

[(nx, ny, nz), (nx, ny, nz), (nx, ny, nz)...]

Each tuple represents the direction I want a sun lamp to point for that particular frame of animation.

How do I set the direction of a sun lamp using a vector?

Is there a straightforward python method - maybe in mathutils - that would set sun lamp's matrix so that it points in the direction of the vector?

I've looked there but nothing stands out as far as I can see, though I'm a mathutils noob.

No nodes or plugins, thanks!

There is indeed a straightforward python method using mathutils.

from mathutils import Vector
direction = Vector(your_tuple)
your_object.rotation_mode = 'QUATERNION'
your_object.rotation_quaternion = direction.to_track_quat('Z','Y')

You can see the doc here for more details.

Edit: As the sun direction is negative on the z axis, you may have to change 'Z' to '-Z'


Very large count values lead to odd distribution of particles This picture shows the issue, a very strange distribution of the object to which I've given a very high count value:

See how the spheres don't appear at all in a segment of the surface that they're supposed to be distributed across?
Having experimented with adjusting the counts of the various items, I'm guessing that the underlying algorithm goes down through the list of items, takes each item in turn and places the given count of that item on the surface. And passes through the list repeatedly until it's placed as many items as you specified for the total number of particles.
So if e.g. you've got 800 particles and a list of 5 objects then if you give the first two items a count of 500 each, you'll actually end up with 500 of the first item, 300 of the second item and none of the remaining items (no matter what their counts are).
Is this correct? But this behavior doesn't account for the odd distribution seen above of the spheres. It looks as if, instead of distributing the spheres evenly all over the sphere, it's already decided on a particle density and then sweeps from the 12 o'clock position laying down spheres and then stops the sweep once the desired number of particles is laid down.
This seems a somewhat odd behavior. But I guess the solution is to use smaller counts relative to the total particle count to avoid this kind of thing?
But I only came across this issue because smaller counts hadn't worked out for me. I had six items in my list, I gave the first five items counts of either 30 or 60 and then gave the final item a count of 1 as I wanted far fewer of them.
However, this resulted in even fewer of these items than I wanted. But increasing its count from 1 to 2 resulted in too many. So, I thought the solution would be to apply a factor of 10 to all the values and this would allow me to vary the count of the last item between 10 and 20 rather than just being either 1 or 2. But this didn't give the result I expected. I thought the counts would be totaled up and then each count divided by this total to give a probability of that item being picked as each of the particles is placed. But now I theorize the algorithm described above.
Is there any way to use counts to achieve something like the probability-based distribution that I want and/or be able to get more fine-grained control of the very rare items (the spheres in this case)?

You can check the checkbox „Pick random“ to solve the problem.


Center objects with particle system how can i center a group of objects individually in the center of every face of the plane, with a random order in all over the plane, with particle system?

Like so:

Emit all 'particles' in the first frame
Set emit from faces
Grid
. let resolution match you subdivision
assign the group and pick whole group or let blender pick random group member


Selecting faces of "inside" of solidified surface I'm following a tutorial for making a coffee mug, and the mug starts with no thickness and the "solidify" modifier is applied to give it the thickness. Now I want to select the vertices on the inside of the mug (in the tutorial, he is just able to do this), but when I go to select one of these faces, it also selects the face on the outside of the cup corresponding to it. I would like to only select the inside faces.
When I try to hide an outside face, it also hides the inside face.

'Apply' has a specific meaning in the context of modifiers. In this case, it looks like you've only added the Solidify modifier and enabled edit-mode viewing. Since the base geometry is still a plane, the correct interpretation of it is to select both upper and lower faces produced from solidifying it.
To 'fix' this, all you need to do is apply the modifier --- producing a new base geometry. To do this in 2.8 and below, enter object mode and click the apply button on the modifier's card. In 2.90, this changed from being visible as a button to being an item on the drop-down menu to the right of the modifier's name. CTRL-A works as a shortcut when the mouse is over the modifier's card.


Set active UV layer in python? I'd like to set which UV map is selected in Properties > Object Data > UV Maps. By "selected", I'm referring to the one highlighted, not the one with the camera icon enabled.

I tried

bpy.context.object.data.uv_layers.active = bpy.context.object.data.uv_layers['AO']

But uv_layers.active remained at the previous value and there was no error message.

How can I set the active UV map from python?

Seems that you can set the active UV layer through the uv_textures collection rather than uv_layers:

bpy.context.object.data.uv_textures['AO'].active = True


Is there a way to disable self-cast shadows on grass (particles,) but still have grass receive shadows from other objects? Hello persons, so I'm trying to achive ghibli or breath of the wild style grass using only generated texture nodes, (ie not image textures, math) and that much is turning out okay. However the issue I'm currently stumped on are the grass shadows.
To achieve toon-like / watercolor-like grass it has to be shadeless as to not cast shadows on itself, but I also want objects like trees and people to cast shadows on the grass as well. As much as I looked, I couldn't find a way to keep the grass from casting on itself, but also allow it to receive shadows (or something comparable) from other objects.

^ As you can see in this provided image, the result from the front (left image) appears as I would want it to look, however the moment you view the grass from an angle facing away from the light source (right image,) it's made apparent the grass is casting shadows upon itself, making the whole thing appear dark. I'm looking for a way to prevent the grass from casting a shadow onto itself, but allowing other objects like a cube to cast shadows on the grass.
Misc details:
Running real time in Eevee. Currently rendering particles as paths (not objects,) texture is plugged into an emmisive material node to achieve simple toon effect, so it isn't a diffuse material; the current shadow effect is instead just a color hue shift determined by a Diffuse > RGB to Shader > Color Ramp > Mix RGB (fac) mask. However as explained, it isn't solving my issue at hand.
Any advice or attempt help is much appreciated, thank you.

I have an "okay" solution for your problem (in cycles) and it is only working with gras meshes (not billboards) so far. I know exactly what you are struggeling with, because I asked a similar question a while back but without an answer.
Recently I tried something that works best:
you need to render your scene 2 times.
First time:
Everything + the shadeless grass.
second time:
Check "shadow catcher" for the grass meshes + Instead of the Emissionshader give the grass a Diffuseshader. For everything else check "Holdout" (both checks are in the Object Properties). And under Render Properties -> Film -> Check Transperent (for a transperent background).
now you can combine both images in the compositor or in a programm like photoshop.
here is a quick example:
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but i hope aswell we will get a better solution in the future, it must be possible because EEVEE is using the same technology as Game engines, and this is a well used and very common style in (indie)games (dauntless, the witness, zelda: botw, fortnite).


Viewing my objects in the default 3d (iso) view I'm brand new to blender so please go easy me! This question is asked a lot yet I can't seem to find the answer. When you start up Blender, the default includes a cube mesh shown in 3 point perspective/ Isometric view. How can I return exactly to that view (same angle, distance, etc) even after I change the object. I know can change the viewpoint to top, right, left, bottom, front and back but there seems to be no viewpoint that returns me to that isometric, 3 point perspective view that I started out with. Viewpoint camera gets me there but when I toggle out of the camera viewpoint back to the last, orthographic view.
Any tips? A shortcut perhaps?
Thanks,
Greg

This is the default view Blender starts at. There is nothing special about it, so there naturally is not hotkey. However, you can restore this view by assuming its position by rotating the interface.
I am unsure from your question whether or not you are actually able to rotate the viewport. If you cannot, simply hold down the middle mouse button on your mouse and move around. If you do not have a middle mouse button/ are using a touchpad, then you can go to user preferences, and enable "Emulate three button mouse". This allows you to rotate the viewport by holding the left mouse button, and pressing the Alt key on your keyboard.
If you, however, can rotate the interface and I am mistaken, you can, immediately after opening Blender, press Ctrl+Alt+0 on your keyboard to align the camera to that default view. Make sure you have not already moved the interface around.
As I said previously, there is no "default" key to this view, so you must align your camera to the view if you want to get it again. If you don't want to do this, you can try to achieve the same view by rotating your viewport.
I hope this helps.