Boolean modifiers are not working correctly on this mesh I have two meshes, labeled A and B:

I want to subtract B from A, so that there is a "dent" in A where it intersects B.

This should be easy, but I've tried every Boolean modifier and none of them work. There are no other modifier on A or B.  I know Booleans work because I made the hole in A by subtracting a torus from it.

But I can't figure out how to subtract B. Everything I've tried has failed.

When I add a Difference modifier to A and target it on B, all of A disappears, except for the tube.

What am I missing?

Make sure you are inspecting your results correctly to know if the modifier worked correctly.  Use multiple colors to inspect.  All gray may create more work for you.  In the outliner window turn off and on the eye icon.  The eye icon affects 3D Viewport visibility for inspection.

Image above shows placement of unclosed hemisphere and modified cube. Corners have red balls for visibility discussion below.

In the image above the hemisphere is not really closed yet we played nicely and got the results we wanted as per the OP question.

In the image above we moved the blue hemisphere into a [exotic] position and we see [exotic] case where the boolean modified cube and hemisphere have coincident surfaces. The term [exotic] is yet to be defined.  Difficult to see resulting Cube. Most of the Cube has disappeared.  You can witness this interactively by moving the hemisphere left and right.

In the image above we see the surface remaining of the cube because the visibility of the hemisphere in blue has been set to false with the outliner window eye icon.  You may or may not want this type of result. Yes it is a feature.

If your hemisphere is not closed it can cause the disappearing act.  Use a fresh full sphere to compare. A closed sphere can be shaped into a well modeled closed nice hemisphere without deleting any vertices.  The open hemisphere can cause a thin surface to be in the same location as the hemisphere and visually hidden if we are too casual in inspection effort.  The boolean modifier may even try to make logically close a surface for you, but it is not wise to count on those intricacies. The boolean modifier may have complex behavior so you may find life easier if you do not create exotic cases.

Make sure both objects are closed volumes. Water Tight in loose terms.
Make your objects are temporarily closed if necessary. Perhaps the requirement of closed volume can be relaxed yet I problems occur close the meshes water tight.

Try 2 closed objects such as sphere and a cube.  They are closed already when unedited.  Water Tight in loose terms.  Try the Boolean Subtract Modifier.  This is to compare successful operations to unsuccessful ones.

Apply the modifier.  Move the modified object to a new location to inspect or hide the target of the modifier.

Superstitious.  I recently had to select the wrong type of Boolean to achieve the results I wanted.  I had to select [intersect] but logically I would choose [union].  Troubling.  I hope you do not have to do the same.


Blender not running under IIS7 I would like to use Blender 2.78c (64bit, from zip file) to perform rendering tasks on my IIS7 server running at a Win7 machine. The server uses ASP.NET and C# to create a new process which starts Blender in the command line and renders a predefined scene. Basically the process calls

C:\path-to-blender\blender.exe -b -noaudio file-with-a-python-script-to-render.blend -- some_input_arguments

Everything works fine while I am locally in the Debug mode using Visual Studio's internal IIS Express. I get nice renderings, no errors and no problems. However, once published and executed from the IIS the Blender fails to start. It crashes with the following stderr:

  Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: can't initialize sys standard streams OSError: [WinError 6] The handle is invalid Current thread 0x00002f78 (most recent call first):

It seems there is a problem initializing Python for Blender. Blender folder and its python subfolder are owned by the user account of the web worker, so that should be no problem. I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but all my search on this topic failed yet. I only found this https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38725037/deploy-blender-to-azure-app which does not provide a good answer. I hope someone can help ...

After 30 hours of trying, I am very happy that I made it work! Not sure whether this workaround is safe, but yet it works for Blender 2.78:

Rename blender-dir\2.78\python to something else, e.g. blender-dir\2.78\python-old
Download the embeddable zip of Python 3.5.3 from https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-353/
Unpack its content to blender-dir\2.78\python (a new directory using the same name)
Unpack its blender-dir\2.78\python\Python35.zip to blender-dir\2.78\python\lib
Copy contents of blender-dir\2.78\python-old\lib\site-packages to  blender-dir\2.78\python\lib\site-packages except for __pycache__ directories
I am not sure yet whether any other files or directories need to be copied from python-old\lib to python\lib, if yes I will update the answer.
Find all __pycache__ directories in blender-dir\2.78\scripts\ and delete them
Copy blender-dir\2.78\python\python35.dll to blender-dir replacing the old python35.dll

So the issue is resolved by pushing in Python 3.5.3. I hope Blender will bundle it in its next release. In the meanwhile, please let me know in a comment in case anyone else encounters a similar problem :)


Need some good organic modeling/topology tutorials for character creation As the title says, where can I find some really good tutorials about organic modeling? I know how to use Blender and model stuff, but I want to get into character modeling now and I have trouble creating good topology for face/hands/etc. Thanks in advance.

I would recommend using the add-on retopoflow. You can get the plugin as well as the tutorial on how to use it here.
                                                       Download  add-on:https://github.com/CGCookie/retopoflow

Tutorial: https://cgcookie.com/course/introduction-to-retopoflow/


Is it posible to hook the tilt of a curve's point? You can hook the points of a Curve as well as the bezier points. Unfortunately, the tilt of the point is not parented with the hook.

I would like to rotate the hook and have the same behavior that using Ctrl T in Edit Mode.

Is there a way to do it? Or even a workaround?

A possible solution is using drivers to achieve this. It has a limitation though. Essentially, in Edit Mode I was adding a Driver to the Tilt value of the handle which receives a hook modifier currently:

Drivers allow you to control a property by another one, either with simple mathematical equations like in this example, or with complex formulas. The magenta background tells you that a driver has been added, but so far it's not doing anything. Now, go to the Graph Editor, and switch it from F-Curve to Drivers. Click the Drivers tab, and set the following values:

type: Sum Values (accidentally Maximum Values in my screenshot, apologies)
object: name of your empty which acts as the hook
type: X-Rotation
Space Transform Space

What this means is, when you rotate your empty around the X-axis, the Tilt value of the curve will be rotated by the same amount.

The limitation is the alignment of the handles. While it works perfectly fine in one case, it can behave strange in the other. The reason for this becomes more clear in this Top View:

While the X-Axis of my Start Empty is nicely aligned with the curve handle, the End one is off. If you align them neatly with your curve handles before using them as a hook, making sure the X-Axis always points along the handle, or if you set everything up with a totally straight curve, this should work just fine.
I did that in this Blend:

Edit
Something was going wrong when setting up the drivers in the last Blend, the Tilt values were screwed up. Might have been a little glitch of RC 2.78. Anyways, I re-created the setup in Blender 2.77a. Here is a corrected version:


Unwanted repeating textures I'm working on an Earth model and when I apply its textures I get them repeating instead of being applied only once. Im still new to Blender, I would appreciate some help

It seems that your sphere isn't UV-unwrapped.
You need to enter edit mode, select all vertices, press "U" on your keyboard and then choose a projection mode that fits your texture. I'd guess that "equirectangular" might be the correct option.


Switch controlled drivers I have a surface in an object that I want to be a light, one that can be turned on and off, not blinking, but more like a light switch.  I have figured out how to drive the light, the emission value, using an another objects attribute as a driver.  So if a Plain Axis X position is 0 the light is off, if it is 1 then the light is on.  However this is cludgy, when I want to append the object with the light into another blend I have to remember to bring the Plain Axis object as well.

Is there a better or more tidy way of bringing a driver driven surface (or any driver driven thing) into another blender and bring the source driver with it? Even as a switch some where?

This will largely depend on how you set yourself up to re-use assets.

I personally like to put this kind of stuff in its own file, and create a group of everything needed. Save Save Save.

Then in my main working file I use Shift+F1 browse to my particular asset file. Double click on it. Then double click on groups. Then select my desired group name and pull it in.


How to simplify/clean up a mesh? I imagine this is a fairly popular problem to have, but I can't seem to find the right terminology, so I apologize in advance.

I am currently creating rather simple shapes, mostly by combining simple meshes, using the boolean modifier. However, this leaves artifacts which lead to all kinds of unwanted behavior.

The simplest way to recreate what I mean is to boolean -> union two cubes of the same size:

The upper mesh in the picture is the union with all its weird artifacts, the lower mesh is what I'd like to get to. I tried mesh -> clean up in edit mode, but apart from removing loose vertices, it doesn't really help much. Also, just deleting them in edit mode leads to all kinds of weird behavior.

I also tried the remesh modifier, which works on the example above and feels like it's the right answer, but it just doesn't work at all on my actual project (which I don't want to share here).
Can this be due to the fact that all kinds of already applied modifiers still interact with each other?

A somewhat adjacent problem I faced are vertices which lie on the inside of a mesh.

Is there a simple way to solve this? Ideal for my use would be a tool/modifier which essentially retraces the surface of a mesh and removes any unneeded vertices, such as vertices that are on a flat surface, or that are creating weird loops and such.

I hope that makes somewhat sense.

Thanks in advance and regards,

tt

Generally I would advise not worrying about topology when you model. Clean topology can be essential and a mark of good modeling skills but its much better to model first and retopologise later.

The reason being unless you have decided exactly what your final form will be, topology will be simply impossible to predict.

You can waste a ton of time being a perfectionist in 3d graphics, so it is better to keep it simple focus on just modeling the form you want. After you finish you can always either edit your mesh to fix topology problems or you can create new topology using the snap to surface or wrap skin modifier tools.

There are of course cases where bad topology can get in the way of modeling the object in that case you either edit the mesh to correct these problems or retopologise it. There is the remesher as you pointed but quickly you will find there is no golden tool in any 3d graphics app that will clean up your topology which is why specialised apps that focus on this problem exist.

If you wanna stick to clean topology from the get go then I advise to avoid using booleans. Booleans are more suitable for models where good topology does not matter or models that it matters a lot and they will retopologised later on.


Superzoom effect in Video Sequence Editor Obstacles seem to compound themselves to stop me from accomplishing it.

How to pan the scene to find the target spot at a very high zoom? Before I can set Position: X, Y values in Transform effect strip, I must find the target spot. However, once I set the desired Scale to a high value (150×), there is no obvious way to navigate (pan) the zoomed-in scene (either a Movie strip or an Image strip) in order to find the target spot. Output is cropped to the Render Area and zooming out by mouse fails to reveal neighbourhood outside the Render Area. Even if there is some way to turn off default cropping (please, let me know), GUI in the preview area is not responsive to panning by mouse. Trying to reverse the workflow by centering the scene to the target spot first (Position: X, Y), and setting Scale next, is a futile exercise because scaling doesn’t preserve Position values. (Changing the Scale value moves the target spot out of view despite unchanged Position values.) It’s even harder when the resolution is low because all I can see is a blob of interpolated pixels, so I can’t tell where I am and in which direction I should aim thence. (See screenshot.)
Why does exponential interpolation mode fail during superzoom? By its nature, superzoom is an exponential process. But when the Interpolation Mode (in Graph Editor) for Key Frames based on Scale (in Transform effect strip) is set to anything other than basic modes (for example to Sinusoidal or Exponential rather than default Bezier), the result is so erratic that I must presume it’s a bug in Blender (version 2.74).
How to align zooming-panning Transform interpolation curves of two different scene strips (each starting and ending at different time points) to accomplish coherent blending transition from one to another? (From a low-resolution view to a high-resolution view in this particular case.)
I can’t remember other obstacles at the moment. I may add them later.

Should I split this question into four separate posts?

Edit: 8 November 2016

Stacking Transform filter on top of another Transform filter to solve some of the above issues results in transforming a strip cropped to the Render Area by the first filter instead of the full source material.
No one knows anything. It’s as if no one has ever produced a zoom effect in a video. It’s as if there are no Blender experts among the living and Blender had created itself alone. No one knows any other software that allows to get it done. No one even knows what’s wrong with my question. No one knows who else knows. Zooming in on a spot in a video: rocket science.

In the absence of answers after 18 hours and meagre 12 views, I’ll start building my own answer – block by block.

How to locate target spot on a strip at a very high zoom?
Reverse your workflow by centering the strip on target spot first, but begin at a manageable Scale. Then multiply Scale and Position (or Position shift value if initial Position wasn’t zero) by exactly the same factor. Fine-tune Position if you can. If you can’t, undo last multiplication and redo it using a smaller factor. Repeat until you reach the desired Scale.

a) How to disable cropping of the output to the Render Area in the preview window?
— (Impossible?)
b) How to pan a strip in the preview area?
(Impossible?) Impossible!

Why does exponential interpolation mode fail during superzoom?
Buggy Blender? Workaround: approximate desired interpolation curves manually using multiple linear interpolation segments.
How to align interpolation curves of different strips?
No relevant functionality in Blender. Workaround: approximate desired interpolation curves manually using multiple linear interpolation segments.

Edit: 8 November 2016

Leave it. I’ll sooner make it manually in C (programming language) than in Blender + StackExchange. Literally.

Interesting links

“Rescaling in the VSE yields low resloution, blurry images”
“How do I prevent VSE strips using Image Offset from being cropped before the transform effect can shrink them onto the screen?”
“VSE. I need to rotate image with arbitrary center pivot point that is not in the center of the image”
“§11. Blender Video Editing (Importing Images [Overlay/Resize/Rotate])” (YouTube)


How to change world in blender 2.79? I created two materials for world, World and WorldMask. How to change world from World to WorldMask using python script?

I've found a solution bpy.context.scene.world = bpy.data.worlds['WorldMask']


HDRi not showing up in render, evee or cycles HDRi not showing up in render, evee or cycles. I've done this a thousand times but for some reason no luck, 2.91 and 2.92. Any suggestions?

To make the HDRI work properly you would have to use an Environment Texture node and you are currently using an Image Texture node, just swap them out:


Object visible in preview disappears when I render I had accidently deleted the Render Layers and Composite nodes in the Compositing nodes section. When I discovered this problem (as it wouldn't render of course) I re-added those nodes. However now when it renders it only renders the white cap part and not the glass bottle of my scene. Any suggestions please?

Look at the camera icons on the outliner. When the camera icons are disabled, the object is disabled from rendering.
Click on the funnel icon on the top right and enable different filters.
The Eye icon determines visibility in the 3d viewport.
The Monitor icon disables the object in all viewports.
The Camera icon determines if the object is rendered or not.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/outliner/interface.html
For version 1.79 or older the controls are like this:


How can I merge the last elements of an Array that fits a curve? I'm trying to make a base for a hard surface model I'm working on using mostly modifiers, and I was hoping I could create a closed "conic" shape out of a simple plane by using an Array modifier and a Deform Curve modifier. But I can't get the first and last elements to merge properly. The best I can do is modify the scale of both curve and mesh until I cant get them close enough, but then I end up with another element overlapping the first one, causing artifacts on rendering, such as:

Is there any way to get the last merge with one of the other Fit Types of the array, or some other fix?

The first-last merge is being requested before the array is deformed: at that stage the first and last are nowhere near each other..
It may not be ideal for you, but in this case you could do the rotation in the array, by using an object-offset, target: say an empty, rotated by (360/sides) in Z. Then the merge works.

This example has a bevel-by-angle modifier after the array.
Edit: Since this answer, the Weld modifier has become available, and can be used to stitch vertices together in this, and other situations.


Accidentally hit "toggle full screen", How do I exit? I'm stuck in full screen in the node editor. Escape isn't working, and I have no menus and no idea how to leave except to quit Blender and reopen the program.

To toggle out of full screen area (what I think you did) press AltF10, or move your mouse to the top right corner and click the button that appears.
Here I start in full screen area, notice the button that appears in the top right corner.

If you just maximized the window you can get back to the normal view a number of ways.

Click the "Back To Previous" button in the info window at the top.
Press CtrlUp Arrow
Press CtrlDown Arrow
Press ShiftSpace

If you toggled blender into full screen view press AltF11.

Update
For blender 2.8 the shortcuts are

⎈ Ctrl + Spacebar to toggle maximize

or

⎈ Ctrl + ⎇ Alt + Spacebar
 to toggle Full Screen.


Multiple instances of a single image node, each with a different vector input I need to use an image node for multiple different color inputs, but each with a different UV vector assigned to it.

This issue is quite hard for me to explain, so here's a drawing of what I'm looking for:

Any ideas?

Both objects share same material and have UV map, but only Cube uses it due to different Vectors plugged into MixRGB node. Separation mask based on Object Info data and plugged into Factor of MixRGB.


Is there a way to get linear HSV sliders in colorpicker? I noticed that the RGB  sliders under color pickers are in linear mode, while HSV are in sRGB.
Is there a way to chose to have all in linear or in sRGB ? Just to get cohesion. Do you think it's possible with an addon ?
I am asking this because if I want an albedo with a value of 0.3 for example, and a hue of 0.85 and saturation of 0.2, I have to set RGB value at 0.3 to get the good value in HSV picker, and in this one I enter Hue and Saturation. That's a bit broken to me.
Normally when converting to HSV, the value is the max of red, green or blue channel. So a color in RGB (0.5 ; 0.3 ; 0.1) should be in HSV( 0.3 ; 0.8 ; 0.5) and not (0.101 ; 0.525 ; 0.735).

Edit : I just found that it can be partially solved in the ColorManagement tab by switching display device from "sRGB" to "none", with the drawback to get a raw look in the 3D rendered view...

Edit 2 : I found a simple way to correct the raw look back to sRGB by using a gamma 2.2.

I guess it's close enough for some preview. But I lose the render view presets...

Short answer: No. Not via the GUI widget that is. RGB should be linearized.

Longer answer: If more imagers around Blender begin to understand what an EOTF is, perhaps. The ideal solution is that all UI elements allow an imager to pick the transfer function as required by their current context. Editing normals within a given range? Use a particular linear transform. Manipulating a particular log? Use it. Etc.

Why is the widget nonlinear? Because it has to be corrected for your display output. That is, if the widget were not under a transform, and your reference were different from 709 lights, you would not see the right colour in the wheel.

There is an exhaustive thread located here for anyone interested in the nuances of this.

Until Blender chooses to permit an imager to select the colour transform required on a UI element, this is an impossible situation to solve for all imaging contexts.

Also, as stated many other places, not using a display transform and forcing a power curve is far from ideal and should be avoided at all costs. A better path is to have your voice heard and have Blender fix the broken colour pipe UI paradigm.


Textures getting warped close to a vertex I am trying to do a simple pixel art style model, but when I try to texture this part, the pixels get warped...it seems that the door section in the texture is causing the warping. Can someone tell me how to fix it?

N-gons can give unreliable texturing results in some cases. Add a triangulation modifier to the stack or triangulate the face.


How can I make dynamic text in an animation? Is there a way to change text during an animation? Something like a readout that could show distance traveled. And have it displayed on the screen of the animation.

Building off the answer in how to animate string properties, here's a solution.  You can insert the following code in the Text Editor and hit Run Script.

Example: display current frame

Assuming your text object is called 'Text', this will have it read the current frame:

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
obj = scene.objects['Text']

def recalculate_text(scene):
    obj.data.body = 'Current frame: ' + str(scene.frame_current)

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(recalculate_text)

The last line just causes the recalculate_text function to be run each time the frame is changed (more on Application Handlers).

Example: distance travelled by object

To have a text showing the distance travelled by 'Cube':

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
obj = scene.objects['Text']

def recalculate_text(scene):
    x = scene.objects['Cube'].location[0]
    obj.data.body = 'Distance in x-direction: {0:.1f} meters'.format(x)

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(recalculate_text)

where I've used Python's string formatting to make distance only display one decimal place.

Example: time elapsed

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
obj = scene.objects['Text']

def recalculate_text(scene):
    fps = scene.render.fps / scene.render.fps_base  # actual framerate
    obj.data.body = 'Elapsed time: {0:.1f} seconds'.format(scene.frame_current/fps)

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(recalculate_text)

Demo video


How can I make my procedural brick texture map correctly to both a cube and cylinder? I've been experimenting with node-based procedural materials in Cycles lately, and after spending a few hours working out a brick material that works pretty well along walls, I noticed that it has a few issues. Here's my initial setup:

It's not perfect, since it switches the different orientations in an all-or-nothing way, but for my purposes, it looks good enough.

So I went ahead and used this throughout my test scene. But then I turned the camera around and looked at the other side, and... there's something wrong with the side of the cube facing away on the X axis!

This isn't a huge issue, because I don't plan to render my objects from that angle, but I'm concerned about the way it will affect reflections, light bounces, etc. so I started looking around for other solutions. I happened on this thread at Stack Exchange: How to create a procedural brick texture for a simple building without object size changing the texture size?

Particularly, Rich Sedman's answer seemed promising (since I'm trying to avoid using UV mapping). Following what he posted, I created this:

This new setup works great for the cube - on every side - but you can see pretty plainly that the cylinder, strangely, has problems. By the way, there is a part of the node setup that I omitted from the screenshot that isn't really relevant here - it checks the Z value of the geometry surface and subs in the default vectors for the texture coordinates if Z is over a certain amount, for sides that face upward.

I've been experimenting with this for a few more hours now, but I'm afraid I've reached my limits in terms of vector math.

Is there anything obvious I'm missing here that might help fix this, and make this setup work for both the cube and cylinder?

I think one issue with your original solution was due to lack of 'absolute' on your tests on the Normal - it's allowing for > 0.5 but not for `< -0.5'. Also, 'mixing' the individual channels before combining could be causing a problem. Try a material similar to the following :

This can produce the following effect :

EDIT - Here's another alternative for more rounded meshes - to use a radial gradient for one coordinate so as to wrap the texture around in one direction. This results in only a single join. You can adjust the Multiply nodes (marked in Cyan) to adjust the scaling to adjust the 'join' - or you could implement a 'smoothed' transition as in the image in your comment for an even better blend between the edges.

For the top and bottom faces, this is implemented as a rotated implementation of the same mapping and the 'Y' coordinate of the first texture space (in this case the object Z coordinate) is used to transition between the two textures - this way you can ensure it transitions at the edge of a whole row of bricks (see the Greater Than nodes marked in Cyan - one for the upper transition, one for the lower).


How to disable the face overlay in the UV editor? Is it possible to disable the transparent face overlay in the UV editor?

Since the opacity of each face is added to the collective opacity of all the face under it, sometimes with many faces in the same location the overlay becomes completely opaque, making it difficult to see what is going on.

Is it possible to disable this so only the outline is visible, or limit the opacity to a fixed amount?

Go to your User preferences and under Themes for the UV/Image Editor category, lower the alpha of Face Selected to suit your needs. At 0, only the outlines should still show.

It is also worth noting that there is another option for Face color in the same category, the default color for this is white and the default alpha is ~0.3.
Therefore, if you have alot of faces overlaying each other, this can lead to a white look as it will add up so you can also adjust the alpha value there as well depending on what you need. Setting both Face and Face Selected alpha values to 0 should suffice.


How can I make a bubbly foam for coffee? So I tried making a cup of coffee, the liquid still looks like tea but I'll mess around with settings to make it look like one (of course, tips would be really helpful). But I'm more concerned on how could I make foam for the top layer (white foam) look bubbly and not smooth?

i assume you are using Blender-Guru's doughnut tutorial.
While there are more than one way to do this, easiest would be for you to re-trace the steps that you took to create particles for the sprinkles.
if not it could be found here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNmnPXY9UQA

Create a single sphere bubble, assign a transparent but a little whitish material.
Select the Coffee mesh & Add a particle system to it: type "Hair".
Select the Bubble sphere as the object instead of the sprinkle as shown in the video.
Weight-Paint mostly around the edge where coffee meets glass on the surface.
Play around with random scale particle setting to get the desired effect.


Blender doesn't recognise Middle Mouse Button? so I got myself a new mouse (Logitech's M560), and I've found out that Blender kinda ignores its middle button (as in, rotation, panning and other functions that need this button don't work). But only with this mouse, and only in Blender.

The mouse was originally set so that the middle button acted as an app-switcher, but I was able to set that to MMB in the SetPoint software.
I tried the button in Firefox and couple of mouse testing programs and they all recognised it just fine. But Blender still doesn't read the middle button. The Left and Right buttons work properly.

Which is weird, because when I switch to an older and simpler 3-button mouse, there is no problem.

I'm thinking it's happening because Blender has some problem with Logitech's fancy Unifying drivers that apparently work differently than normal mouse drivers, or maybe the whole SetPoint business? (I don't know, that's only my speculation).

So I thought I'd ask here while waiting for a response from their support. I'll appreciate any advice, thanks in advance.

With the normal 2 click mouse you can pan and rotate.
Go to user preferences and follow the settings given in image below

To rotate the view, hold the Alt key on the keyboard while pressing the Left Mouse button and moving the mouse.

To pan, hold Alt and Shift keys while pressing the Left Mouse button and moving the mouse.


Blender Game Engine - Jumping help for 2.76 so I am trying to make a 2D platformer game, but I can not get the jumping right at all. I have tried using Linear Velocity, but all that does is jump slowly and I can't seem to speed it up and have full control over the physics.

What I am trying to do is make a jump using Dynamics in the game engine that will be so you can just TAP the space bar to jump and the longer you hold it the higher you jump until of course you fall back down like always, that way you can make smaller jumps basically. Linear velocity can do that but the problem is that it takes way too much to fall down and I can't seem to speed any much of the physics up, it's really slow.

The way you describe is good.

You apply a velocity as long as the user holds a key. This turns the character into a rocket (constantly firing the engine).

Keyboard sensor -> AND/OR -> Motion Actuator [LinV (0,0,1)]

Another way is to apply a force. The advantage is that it adds to the current velocity rather than replacing it.

Keyboard sensor -> AND/OR -> Motion Actuator [Force (0,0,1)]

Hint:
Regarding slow falling - Are you aware that the default cube has a size of 2x2x2meters? If you box-modeled your character from that it might be a giant of 10+meters. It will surely fall slower as it travels a large distance.


Isolate object with / numpad key Blender 2.8 When I hide a mesh by pressing Numpad /, I isolate the object, but the reference image gets hidden. For some reason my image disappears.
In version 2.7 of Blender I have seen, that the isolate works well with reference images on orthographic mode.
Maybe somewhere in preferences I can find this feature?
Or it is available only in the old version of Blender?

The / key is generating a Local (isolated) view of only the selected object, while that in a sense hides other objects, it is more like a isolation chamber rather then hiding all else and then later making things visible again (in the outliner you will see that the other objects are not being hidden).
In Blender 2.7, using Background images managed in the Properties panel opened with N, found at the bottom, it was possible to have the references still visible in Local mode, as those were not managed as objects, but bound to the view.

Blender 2.8+ deals with Background images now by using empties to hold the pictures. That makes them objects, which in turn if not selected will be locked out when you have another object selected and go in Local mode by pressing /.

Solution:
Keeping the background images visible is possible by simply selecting the images, or their corresponding empties, as well as the object you want to go in Local mode with. All selected objects will be taken in Local mode and the images will stay visible.


How can I import sound for an animation that will be used in a Unity3D game I am currently working on a game that will be made with Blender and Unity. I want to know how to import sound to Blender so that I can get my animations just right then export the animations AND sound to be used in Unity. Does anyone know how to do this? I would GREATLY appreciate if someone could be VERY specific in their answer or direct me towards a video or an article explaining how to do it.

Go to Editor Type > Video Sequence Editor
Then go to Add > Sound

In this way you can synchronize audio with your animation in Blender.


How to find pixels which are getting occluded in the next frame? I have 3D model of a scene with several objects that are transformed from one keyframe to another one (translation, rotation, scaling). This scene will be rendered as animation with write_still=True so the final results are images per each frame. I am interested in finding pixels that are visible in one frame but are occluded in the next frame. A simple example could be something like this:

First frame ----------- > Second frame

In this example, the colorful plane is fully visible in the first frame but is getting behind the gray square in the second frame, so not only the bottom left corner of it is occluded now, but part of the background near the gray square is also occluded by the colorful square. In the next image, the occluded areas are highlighted white. I would like to have a binary mask that shows which pixels from the first frame will be occluded in the next frame. The final goal is to do this by Python interface, but any suggestion to solve this is very appreciated.

Please note that objects are 3D, they might rotate or scale too. Lighting will change and the camera motion is also involved. A more complete example is as follows:

First frame

Second frame

Occlusion map

Please see the panel ... object relations pass index. This information can be examined in the compositor.  This is generated in the object index render pass for Cycles. You must enable that pass.

There is also Cryptomatte.


Which is the best workflow to follow when texturing and importing textures from Substance Painter? So, I'm planning to texture a model using Substance Painter and will render it using the Cycles Render Engine. I will be also using the Principle Shader, heavily, to achieve realistic renders. So, which workflow in Substance Painter so that the textures are accurately rendered in Blender? Specular-Glossy? Or should I go with Metalic-Roughness?

You should use metallic-roughness, as the Principled BSDF is itself a metallic-roughness shader.

When in metallic-roughness mode, Substance's viewport shader is itself another implementation of the Disney Principled Shader, same as the Principled BSDF node in Cycles. By using metallic-roughness setups, you ensure the result in Cycles should match exactly. Remember that metallic, roughness, and normal maps should be set to "non color data" in Cycles, Base Color can be left as "color". See this image for the correct node layout:

If you want to match Substance, do not alter any other settings in the Principled BSDF node from their defaults, as those defaults are set to match other implementations. Of course, differences from changing those settings might look BETTER, but strictly speaking they won't match Substance.

Note that there are often some subtle differences from the OpenGL viewport in Substance and raytracing-based engine such as Cycles. The iRay viewport in Substance is also raytracing-based and can be a good way to check for surprises like this. If you find your shader looks different in the regular (OpenGL) vs iRay views in Substance, you should assume the result in Cycles will look more like the iRay version.

If you are using the node wrangler addon (bundled with Blender) it has a button in the node editor sidebar under Node Wrangler > Add Principled Setup that will automatically import the textures for you. Simply select the Principled BSDF node, click the "Add Principled Setup" button, select all your maps in the file browser, and click ok. It will import, connect, and label everything for you.


How to quickly create a cable easily editable? How can i quickly create a cable that i can edit easily to position it, deform it and add gravity?

Use a curve, add one by doing Shift + A then Curve > Bezier. Place and orient the controll points of your cable, to deform it and add gravity select both points and press W > Subdivide. From V menu set the intermediate cuts to Automatic to keep a smooth curve, then position it. If you add multiple cuts spread them to get some space to keep a smooth line.

To make that curve have some volume set the Fill mode to Full. In the Geometry rollout under the "Bevel" adjust the Depth for the width of the cable and the resolution for the amount of sides.


how install Batch Transform in v 2.76b? I've downloaded the zip folder from here, unziped but there are a lot of py files? which of them I have to select in order to install all its functionalities?. I've tried to pick one by one, but nothing new appears in the addons list of blender 3D view.

Ok, I just installed this particular addon to make certain of the correct process. The issue is the way the addon was packaged (blender's "install from file" is looking for the files to be in a set hierarchy and order). You can delete any files you have from previous attempts at installing the addon, as blender will never even look for them.
However getting the addon to run is not hard.

Manually unzip the download (which you already have), found on the wiki page or on the releases page, into a folder called exactly "space_view3d_transform_utils" without the quotes. (windows will by default unzip to a new folder with this name.)
Copy that new folder "space_view3d_transform_utils" into blender's addon directory. Here is the correct path to the user addon folder on windows and linux.

Windows:

  %APPDATA%\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\scripts\addons

Linux:

  $HOME/.config/blender/2.76/scripts/addons

Open up blender and go to the Addons tab of the User Preferences. Search for "batch" and enable the addon called "3D View: Batch Transforms (Transform Utils)."

This question elaborates on why some zipped addons do not install.


Can I transfer UV seams between objects? I have a couple of objects. They have the same geometry (duplicates), but different scales.

Can I transfer the UV seams between them? Linking them via UV's results in a stretched texture.

I know the obvious solution was to mark the seams before doing the duplicates, but that milk has spilled.

Data Transfer modifier to the rescue:

In your case, the mapping sounds as if it should be via Topology


2.8 When and how should I remove unseen vertices? version 2.8 from March 19, 2019.

When building a shape, when and how should I delete vertices that are no longer necessary?

From two cylinders, a cube and a sphere, I built:

I have other questions on texture 'zooming', but this part of the object looks like this from the vertices:

So my question is: is there a way to combine these shapes into one object to 'naturally' eliminate all resulting unseen vertices/faces? I'm trying in 'Edit mode' or 'Object mode' or... ?? If there isn't a natural way, then how should they be combined and then how to eliminate the unseen stuff?

I've tried to follow other posts but all are old and the menu items don't exist or the directions say 'do this' but not how that actually works. If there's a specific tutorial to follow, then great! But the Blender course just stacks things so far and doesn't 'join' them.

Suggestion.  Archive you current file so it becomes your old file.  Get a fresh start and create a  new file. You may soon forget about the old file.

Composed from pieces with no excessive or time consuming vertex editing.  Mesh sequence in image. Top Left Gray UV Sphere.  Quarter sphere highlighted, result of quick edit.  Yellow top mesh is composed of 4 quarter spheres, duplicated, rotated 180 degrees and translated along an axis [XYZ].  Bottom row yellow mesh show edges joined with 2

[Bridge edge loops] ... there are many video tutorials on this

Cyan mesh show 4 [Bridge edge loops] with some edge color with the goal of more readability.  You may examine and verify and optimize these steps.  You can change the proportions in edit mode by grabbing [left, right] or [top, bottom] vertices.

Simple Yellow Cube.  Cyan form begins as cube,  modified with many loop cuts and a proportional edit.  All edges showing.  Image above.  Bevel Modifier is a possibility.

Start with a cube. The cube is already a closed well formed object and you can enhance it.  Add bevels or loop cuts and use proportional edit.  All of these terms can be researched here at BSE or the typical other locations you seem to have previously explored.  Your fresh start will be easier and quicker than the old file.

Torus Option. Image above.

Top Gray Mesh Torus with Bevel in four places on 2 global axis [XY].  Your axis may be different.  Bevel Control B. Note the dark vertex density in four places.
Top Yellow Mesh.  [Push Pull] along a global [X] axis.  Select to vertical rings and invert selection then Push Pull.
Top Cyan Mesh.  [Push Pull] along a global [Y] axis.  Select to horizontal rings and invert selection then Push Pull.
Bottom yellow left mesh.  Delete inner faces. Only edge remains.
Bottom Cyan Mesh. [Grid Fill] on top edge hole. You may find it useful to hide the other vertices for this operation.
Bottom yellow right side mesh.  Side View.

I am not 100% clear on what you are trying to create but that in not 100% necessary.
There are always 33 ways to model something in Blender, some better and easier than others.  Your starting point in the question above is not a great learning sequence .  The older file seems to be creating a difficult and unnecessary stumbling block.

You might use Boolean operation, but that is a poor choice.


Texture painting applies color backwards I am trying to paint the texture of my character but when I try to paint the Surface the edge on the other side gets painted.
For better understanding I added a Little Sketch.
Hope for help.

This sounds like inverted normals. You can use Ctrl + N to recalculate normals and then you can select the direction in the Tools panel.


Create a plasma-like effect in Blender I found this effect but don't know how it is called, but it reminds me of plasma (don't know why):

I'd like to apply this effect to a mesh to create something ghost-like. Something like this, but less opaque:

How should I for a workflow to create something similar? Should I try modifying the final mesh? Or should I use particles or smoke simulation?

Don't use blender for this one
Since you only need a still image, there is no need for elaborate smoke simulations that take days to render.
If you really really wanted to use blender, try looking into Abstract Wave with Particle System
But really, it would be so much simpler, easier, and less time consuming to use something designed for creating art like this: http://www.escapemotions.com/products/flamepainter/
I even have made a demo of something similar to this that runs in realtime in JS to prove that you could code it yourself if you too. http://codepen.io/Thisisntme/full/KNpPEz/

If you wanted to know, my codepen works by creating a sequence of lines, and then dragging them down the screen (from left to right although it doesn't really matter) all while changing the y position with a few trig functions.


How to make a mesh deform accurately along curves? I started to make a mountain pass based on a real road, but I encountered this problem. It gets better when I drag a curve point before the curve down to hell(see pictures), but that's not a great solution of course. It's made with a curve and array modifier.

Is there a easy solution for this?

Thanks in advance!

Try setting the twist parameter to 'Z-Up':

You can also manually control the tilt of the curve for each vertex or control point of it in the n-panel:


Blender: How do I unpack a linked instance to make changes to it? Sorry, but I'm not too sure what the process is called. I basically created an exterior scene full of linked instances by going to:
File>Link>Selecting Blend File>Collections>Selecting the Collection
So basically I'm linking collections from another blend file that I use as a library of models I'm using for this project.
I copied that scene which will be for an interior shot. Now what I want to do is tell Blender, to unpack one or two of those linked collections back into the current scene, so I can edit them for that scene only.
I need to make changes to the glass shader of the windows for example, and delete parts of the land that isn't going to be seen out the window.
How do I do that?
I've tried a few things. First thought, was to right click the object and select "unlink" but that deletes the object from the scene. Looking online, I thought I had it figured out and that the process was to make it local. So I've tried going to Object>Relations>Make Local, but it doesn't seem to do anything.
Any help is appreciated! I've been working on this project for so long, didn't realize it would get so tricky!
Thanks!

If you have imported a linked collection, you need first to select it and CtrlA > Make Instances Real, then select one of its objects and in the header menu > Object > Relations >  Make Local > Object & Data.


What wrong with my model? I'm maked a tf2 workshop model , and i got a trouble

i'm new for modeling.
i'm try Solve the problem ,but doesn't work,who know what problem with my model and fix it ?

It looks like you may have some flipped normals. Try checking and recalculating their direction. (if you don't know about normals use this)


Light passing through paper layers. How? I'm trying to simulate some layers of paper being backlit so they create an effect similar to this:

This image I made in 3Ds Max using the 2sidedMaterial from Vray, but I'm migrating to Blender, and was wondering if there is any way to achieve this effect.

I want the light to go through all layers, losing intensity.

I'm trying to use Translucency with Diffuse, but the light seems to stop on the first layer of paper, and the rest seems to be just light bounced on the material.

If I try to use Transparent Material, the paper becomes very transparent and I can see the previous layers, creating a strange effect.

In short, I do not know exactly where to go to set this material up in the right way, so if anyone knows how to tell me a way, I'd be grateful!

Thanks!

It seems that using a translucent shader should work for this.

Just make sure in your render tab you have your lights paths set high enough to go through all the planes.


Deform Text Objects in Blender to fit into other object I would like to take a 3D Text Object in Blender and Deform it.
Such as that it fits into e.g. the outlines of Curve or Object.
I tried with the deform modifiers cast and curve. But I could not deform it so the 3D Text is(and fits to) within the boundaries of another object (Curve or Object).

Thank you for your help.

Update:

Here a pictures what I want to achieve in 3D, but in 2D.

You might try the Mesh deform modifier:

Add a cube around your text and subdivide so that there are vertices where you want control points  to be:

Add a mesh deform modifier to the text and specify the cube as the control object.

Click bind and deform the control object in edit mode:


Why do I get "CUDA error: Out of memory", even on empty scenes? If I reset Blender to factory settings, turn on CUDA + Cycles, delete everything in the scene but the camera, and hit F12 to render, I get an Out of Memory error:

CUDA error: Out of memory in cuLaunchKernel(cuPathTrace, xblocks, yblocks, 1, xthreads, ythreads, 1, 0, 0, args, 0)

I've already made sure of the following things:

My GPU [512MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M] supports CUDA and has a 3.0 compute capability (more than the minimum of 2.0 required by Blender).
My CUDA PrefPane states that I'm on the latest possible version of CUDA [7.0.52]
Blender is aware of my GPU and does not have experimental features enabled:

My 640m GPU is very weak, and should certainly render slowly.  However, it fails to render anything, even the just default cube, even just the default sky with nothing else in the scene.  I don't understand why this is the case.

After getting the same error a few dozen times, one instance "succeeded"–that is, it didn't throw an out of memory error!

Instead, Blender displayed this:

...and gradually brought my computer to a standstill until it rebooted itself.

Any advice or suggestions for things to try will be greatly appreciated.  CPU rendering gets very tedious very quickly, especially for complex scenes.

EDIT: VRAM Usage

I'm not sure how to precisely measure VRAM usage, but iStat menus shows a rough estimate.  This is what it looks like before and after turning on Blender (without rendering anything):

If 90% of my VRAM is being used by Blender window rendering + system stuff, that leaves 51.2MB free.  A fresh-from-reset scene has a memory footprint of about 10MB (according to information panel).  If I take the error to be accurate, that means the memory footprint of the scene in VRAM is about 5x the normal scene memory footprint, which sounds crazy, but certainly possible.

retaking this now. I am using a NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 512 MB (not the best, I know) in an iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012) running OSX 10.11.5 (15F34) El Capitan. With CUDA version 7.5.27 and Blender 2.77a. I was struggling to render an empty image using GPU and CUDA. When I saw @cegaton suggestion: Reduce tile size. It made an empty image render with GPU. Maybe is the most we can do with it, but at least, we can get something. I was using X:64 and Y:64 tile size, and moved to X:32 and Y:32. If I find anything interesting, will post back. But maybe this is the limit. Hope it helps.


Normal baking issue, some parts are low res I keep running into an issue where I'll have portions of my normals look fine, but tiny bits will screw up. Despite making a hi res model and cage baking, I still end up with super low res objects on the normal map.

This is a halberd, and as you can see in the blue circles, I end up with these very defined edges on objects which are supposed to be smoothed out cylinders, and yet other parts of the model look fine such as the axe head. But then that has issues of it's own, where there's randomly a very deep/protruding portion of it right at the top.

I really don't know what is causing this. I'm making a low res model, then copying that and making a hi res model, making a cage and displacing it, then exporting all of those to xNormal and baking. My only guess is that some of the low res models' parts are larger since they're not super smoothed out, so I tried smoothing their faces, but once I combine all the pieces of the halberd together, the smooth faces get reset and won't smooth again.

Help is appreciated, I'm not absolutely brand new at this, I've made several models, but I'm still in the learning stages for sure.

This is a good video about baking good normal maps in Blender. Some similar issue resolving happening here: https://youtu.be/0r-cGjVKvGw?t=8m26s

Don't know if this helps for your problem, though. Edit, whoops, only now I noticed you used xNormal for baking instead of Blender. Oh well...

To sum it up, the issue in the video was this:

And the solution was to put value 0.05 instead of 0.1 to the 'Ray Distance' field and bake again.


Offset Edge Loop Cut I'm trying to get even offset loop cuts on selected edges on my mesh. I tried 2 ways, one with the Offset Edge loop cut, and the other with the bevel. The bevel option keeps the edges aligned perpendicular vertical & horizontal, but moves the rectangles on the mesh. The offset loop cut even I tried with the option even in the settings, makes the lines non perpendicular, and also creates a triangle face when offsetting. What's the correct method to achieve even off cut loops?

Thank you.

Offset Edge Slide seems to behaves quite irregular. A created vertex in a corner that moves inward doesn't do so consistent with the distance of other vertices and edges, and the outward side doesn't create a vertex. (not sure how to easily change that)

But in this specific case a Bevel in combination with Knife Project might do the job:

Copy the cube object and create the edge offset by Bevel.
Select the edges you like, duplicate them, Press P and Separate by Selection to make them a separate object. Then move them over/above the original object.
In Object Mode select the edges object, then Shift select the original cube object, and (with both objects selected) go into Edit mode.
Press numpad 7 so the knife cut will be projected onto the desired surface at the right angle, in this case downward.
Apply Knife Project. In Edit Mode, 3D Viewport > Mesh > Knife Project.

Result:


Add pre-rendered fire to scene Situation

I am working on a visualiser that sprays fire at the start of the drop

In my Scene there is a 2D animated background, multiple thousand frames long
I have two fire fountains which spray two times for about 80 frames within the former animation time
This fire fountains takes about 2 hours to render each time these frames are hit, and the fountains are always the same
The camera constantly shakes

The scene from the side (ignore the overlap of the fire with the other stuff, it doesn't matter)

From the camera (beware that it shakes, so it won't stay exactly the same)

Rendered

Goal

I want to pre-render the fire and then somehow insert it to drastically reduce render time, and I can't simply layer it because the fire is 3D and the camera moves.
I have no idea how this can be achieved and would appreciate any suggestions :)

Progress

I now have this node setup, but I don't know how to get rid of the black background. Everything I found was for cycles.

You can pre-render only the particle effects, then add a frame of the animation using Add Images as Planes (enable the add-on).

Then parent the image plane to the backdrop and change the source from a still image to a video sequence.

You can separate them out into different layers and then composite them together in the Compositor.

If you render with alpha, use the Alpha Over node. If you render against a black background use a MixRGB node set to "add".

The Compositor will also allow you to add things like glow effects if you want by using a Blur node.

Probably worth testing your workflow on a small number of frames first to make sure everything's working before rendering the whole thing.


How can I get an object to swing from a hinge faster? I have an object that I want to swing like a pendulum and come to a halt rather quickly. I have it swinging the way I want, it is just going really slow and would take probably 3000 frames to finally stop moving. I Tried increasing the mass of the object but that did nothing. Gravity and all world settings are at default. I am using Blender 2.8 Eevee

I found that in the rigid body world settings you can increase the speed which solved my problem


The primitive objects box isn't displayed in the tool shelf I started using the 3d software, Blender and was following these tutorials. halfway through creating my project I notice the window, that is supposed to pop up after creating an object and let you adjust properties, wanst popping up. I tried searching for some answers because I just couldn't figure it out.

ex. ALT-A> Meshes> Cylinder> Then there is no window in the toolbar that should pop up.

I don't know if I hit something to disable this but I would appreciate it if I could get some suggestions.

p.s. No, I don't have any add-ons that are affecting the windows

The object primitive options are located in the tool shelf in the 3D viewport. You can toggle the tool shelf's visibility with the hotkey 'T'.

You can also press "F6" after creating an object to get the same options in a pop-up menu located at the mouse cursor.


leg doesn't move with bones I'm new in blender.. when I'm trying to move my body every thing is move with bones expect the lower leg(R and L)

Select your armature, go in Edit or Pose mode, select your bone, go in the Properties panel > Bone and enable the Deform option (it should be enabled by default):


Weight painting doesn't work properly if bones are moved I am following the RPG graphics tutorial  to learn how to rig and animate a body(Although I am following on blender 2.8). Everything has been going fine up until the weight painting. Now, the weight painting works fine if I don't modify the pose in any way. But if I do pose the model and try to paint, blender acts as if I didn't modify the pose at all. I can have both arms up in the air, but I will have to paint as if the model is in the resting position. Does anyone know what can be causing this?

The tutorial

Blend File

The good news is your .blend file is fine. I had no trouble weight painting after changing the pose.

If, by any chance you didn't upload your latest version of your project, please make sure Pose Position is enabled, the Armature Modifier is turned on in the Modifier Tab and remove all keyframes or set keyframes for the current pose on the current frame.

I hope this was helpful to you.

On a side note: you should switch the Shading from Look Dev to Solid in Weight Paint Mode, otherwise the textures will make it harder to see the colors from your Weight Paint.


How can I copy vertex groups from one mesh to another in Python? I have an two mesh objects parented to the same parent, and I'd like to copy all the vertex groups from one object to the other (like using Transfer Weights with the Source being the "By Name").  This code fails with an "not correct context" or something (so I've got something wrongly selected):

ob = bpy.data.objects['New Mesh']
object = bpy.data.objects['CC_Base_Body']
for group in object.vertex_groups:
    bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_set_active(group=str(group.name))
    vg = ob.vertex_groups.new(group.name)

Okay, I found some more information (and code) and it most likely will help a lot, but it does not do all the Transfer Mesh Data rollout does, which is to create the data by vertex mapping to the nearest vertex.  Indeed, it immediately bails if the vertex counts aren't the same (which won't do at all).  Here's the post with the code:  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40969164/how-to-add-vertex-groups-from-one-object-to-another-without-replacing-them

So, now I'm at the point of trying to figure out, from that code, how I can do that Vertex mapping to the nearest vertex, as the Transfer Mesh Data rollout allows (I will be on safe ground for the rest. as there are no vertex groups in the second mesh, so in creating them they will be brand new and empty).

Writing to vertex groups is fairly straightforward.  The API is documented at https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bpy.types.VertexGroup.html#bpy.types.VertexGroup

vg.remove( vertex_index_list )

removes vertices from the group (which is different than having a zero weight).  To set a weight for a vertex:

vg.add( vertex_index_list, weight, operation )

Usually you're using operation = 'REPLACE'.

Getting values from a vertex group is a little stickier.  The vg.weight(idx) call will throw an exception if idx is not in the group.  Checking if a vertex belongs to a vertex group in python has a couple of techniques for working around that (wrap it in a try block, or access the vertex group through the v.groups field on the vertex).

What remains is how you decide what weight to assign to each vertex on the destination and the relationship between the vertices in the two meshes.

One technique that might be useful is choosing the closest vertex.  The brute force way would be to calculate ( src.data.vertices[i].co - dst_vert.co).length for all the source vertices and use the one with the minimum value (which should give you the closest vertex to the dst_vert).


Transparency in Blender 2.8 GPU Python Module I've been messing around with the new GPU python module in Blender 2.8. But I cannot find a way to make my lines and triangles transparent. The alpha channel is completely ignored. I even tried it with a vert frag shader and even that doesn't work out.

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

vertex_shader = '''
    uniform mat4 viewProjectionMatrix;

    in vec3 position;
    out vec3 pos;

    void main()
    {
        pos = position;
        gl_Position = viewProjectionMatrix * vec4(position, 1.0f);
    }
'''

fragment_shader = '''
    uniform float brightness;

    in vec3 pos;

    void main()
    {
        gl_FragColor = vec4(vec3(1, 0, 0) * brightness, 1.0);
    }
'''

vertices = [(1, 0, 1), (-1, 0, 1), (-1, -0, -1), (1, 0, -1)]
indices = [(3, 0, 1), (1, 2, 3)]

shader = gpu.types.GPUShader(vertex_shader, fragment_shader)
batch = batch_for_shader(shader, 'TRIS', {"position": vertices}, indices=indices)

verticesOutline = [(1, 0, 1), (-1, 0, 1), (-1, -0, -1), (1, 0, -1)]
indicesOutline = [(3, 0), (0, 1), (1, 2), (2, 3)]

shaderOutline = gpu.shader.from_builtin('3D_UNIFORM_COLOR')
batchOutline = batch_for_shader(shaderOutline, 'LINES', {"pos": verticesOutline}, indices=indicesOutline)

def draw():
    shader.bind()
    matrix = bpy.context.region_data.perspective_matrix
    shader.uniform_float("viewProjectionMatrix", matrix)
    shader.uniform_float("brightness", 0.2)
    batch.draw(shader)

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

def drawOutlines():
    shaderOutline.bind()
    shaderOutline.uniform_float("color", (0, 1, 0, 0.4))
    batchOutline.draw(shaderOutline)

bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(drawOutlines, (), 'WINDOW', 'POST_VIEW')

So I found the answer to this one with some help from the folks on Blender.chat (thanks Okuma_10!).

In your draw method before you draw put in: -

glEnable(GL_BLEND)

and after you're done drawing put in: -

glDisable(GL_BLEND)

also make sure you import all of BGL with: -

from bgl import *

Apparently there is no performance cost for doing so as the program naturally iterates through the entire library anyway. After that the alpha values should work.


Ultra realistic excrement material needed Hey I need a very realistic poop material for cycles, I already have the cracks and shape, but I need a material with the correct look. I'm looking for something like this:

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

What you showed is not only a material, it's a heavy subdivided geometry with possible displacement applied to it.

1 - This looks like a separate geometry. Not part of the material aspect.

2 - This is part of the material, a bump or normal map.

My best point for you to go is sculpting, it will reproduce a organic model and you can easily reproduce these bumps you see.

For the material aspect, if you want to go for realism, Principled BSDF is great to simulate real gloss and light information.

I tried a simple material to show you what I mean:

You can see that with some adjustments you can achieve your goal, but then again, this is a heavily detailed object, it is not just a material.


What is the quickest way to add pairs of edge loops? I need to create many pairs of edge loops on different objects. The way I do this is shown in the animation below.

There is a further step I often do which is moving the edge loop using its transform value in the properties panel, to ensure they are always same distance apart.

Is there an easier way to add the same number of edge loops again to the side of the original 3 loops?

Select all the loops that you want to add loops around with Shift+Alt+Right-Click
Ctrl+B to start beveling
Scroll up on the mouse wheel to increase the segments to 2


How to slide or scale loop cuts So there's a question I have regarding loop cuts. I don't really know how to explain it, but I know a tutorial which shows it at 00:50 in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtO9maU709k&t=78s

It's basically two loop cuts on top of each other, one stays put while the other is able to be scaled up or down etc. But when I try to do it, it doesn't work, it's like Blender tells me that I already have a loop cut there so the other one is not needed.

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance.

I had 'Proportional Editing Mode' set to ON, which caused the problem. When I switched it OFF, it all worked as intended.


Head bone moves top portion of body back, but leaves the eye lid sticking out far from eye ball https://www.twitch.tv/videos/771914889
This video should explain everything hopefully, and it also shows a lot of whats going on with my problem.

"why not just use the bone to make a shape key for blinking then remove the bone after transfering it weight to the head"
this ended up working for me!
I made a shape key with the uppereyebrow bone (Highhigheyebrow) using the CAT5 (CATS?) plugin, then I renamed the Vertex Group for Highhigheyebrow to Head2, which applies it to the Head2 Bone, and this works!


Placing cubes in a grid is very slow (using python script) I'm trying to generate a scene comprising of voxels generated from a 3D data matrix.
However the script that I'm using is super slow (~1h per image), and most of the time is consumed while building the scene (pyhton loop) instead of the rendering.
Does anyone see where the problem comes from?

import bpy
import bmesh
import numpy as np
import numpy
import scipy.io
import sys

# Data loading
inputFile = sys.argv[-2]
outputFile = sys.argv[-1]
data = scipy.io.loadmat(inputFile)['data']
voxel_dims = np.array([256, 256, 32])
data = np.reshape(data, (voxel_dims))

# Create blender scene
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene

def clear_scene(scene):
    #Clears the current scene
    for obj in scene.objects:
        scene.objects.unlink(obj)
        bpy.data.objects.remove(obj)
    return

def base_object():
    #Creates base cube
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(radius=0.4, location=(0,0,0))
    return scene.objects.active

colors = {
          '_1':(1.0,0.0,0.0),
          '_2':(0.0,1.0,0.0),,
          '_3':(0.0,0.0,1.0),
         }
color_map = {
             1: '_1',
             2: '_2',
             3: '_3'
            }

def creatematerial(name, color):
    red = color[0]
    green = color[1]
    blue = color[2]
    alpha = 1.0
    mat=(bpy.data.materials.new(name=name))
    mat.use_nodes = True
    Diffuse_BSDF = mat.node_tree.nodes['Diffuse BSDF']
    Diffuse_BSDF.inputs[0].default_value = [red, green, blue, alpha]
    mat.diffuse_color = [red, green, blue]
    return mat

clear_scene(scene)
bpy.context.scene.render.engine = 'CYCLES'
bpy.ops.object.empty_add(type='PLAIN_AXES', location=(0,0,0))
empty = bpy.context.active_object
materials=dict()
for k,v, in colors.items():
    materials[k] = creatematerial(k,v)
bo = base_object()
mesh = bo.data

# Scene creation (This is the loop that takes forever!)
for idx,label in enumerate(color_map):
    col = colors[color_map[label]]
    xx, yy, zz = np.where(data == label)
    bo.data.materials.clear()
    bo.data.materials.append(materials[color_map[label]])
    for i in range(len(xx)):
        (x,y,z) = (xx[i], yy[i], zz[i])
        thiscube = bo.copy()
        thiscube.data = thiscube.data.copy()
        scene.objects.link(thiscube)
        thiscube.location=(x,y,z)
        thiscube.parent=empty

scene.objects.unlink(bo)
bpy.data.objects.remove(bo)

# Place camera and render scene
bpy.ops.object.camera_add(location=(130.409,114.09,46.750),rotation=(1.201,-0.0000464,3.111))
bpy.context.object.data.clip_end = 200
point=bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT',location=(15,15,60))
bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='SUN',location=(15,15,80))
bpy.context.scene.cycles.film_transparent = True
bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_percentage = 100
bpy.context.scene.cycles.samples = 256
bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_x = 512
bpy.context.scene.render.resolution_y = 480
bpy.context.scene.cycles.device = 'GPU'
bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.data.objects['Camera']
bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = outputFile
bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)

Every entry of the 3D matrix has an id which corresponds to its color. The dimension of the matrix is 256x256x32, however only a subset of the voxels is occupied.

As far as I can see the code creates for each data point a seperate Blender Mesh Object. For large datasets this will make everything super slow.
I would recommend you to create only one mesh per label-class so that with 3 label classes you would have only 3 Mesh Objects.

Since you are actually using my code, I took your question as feedback and updated it accordingly on github.
https://github.com/cagcoach/BlenderPlot


Hair glitch in cycles So I my jumping model has dynamic hair, and with some time hair just start to extend quickly even though I don't have any growth set, it is some kind of a glitch. How can I fix this? I need just normal short dynamic hair that moves slightly.

Do you have modifiers applied to the model? If yes, make sure that the hair modifier is below all other modifiers.


How to modify edge smoothing normals I have two meshes that come together to form what will visibly look like one model. How can I make their smoothing appear as if the two objects were actually one?

A little background: I am trying to use the absolute lowest amount of verts I can because this model is for a game and there may be numerous instantiations of this model which will be rigged and animated.

You could remodel part of the hand so that both hand and wrist meet with 6 vertices.

And or checkout how to use Blenders Data Transfer or Normal Editor Modifiers.
I rememeber trying to get those to work when they were first added a couple of years ago but failed. Way to complicated for me.


Subsurface Between Two Meshes I'm working on a model of an aircraft that will eventually be animated with details like landing gear doors, and am using a Subsurface Modifier. Most everything is going well, however I've run into a problem:

Whenever I have two separate objects that need to follow the same lines (IE, the landing gear doors), the Subsurface Modifier does NOT apply equally to both objects. If I join the door mesh to the fuselage mesh it's fine, but as soon as I separate the doors from the fuselage it breaks the lines:

Obviously, this is going to be a serious issue. I CAN get around it by applying the Subsurface Modifier FIRST and THEN separate the gear bay doors from the fuselage mesh, however this will then mean working directly with the higher-poly mesh that I'm using the modifier to avoid in the first place.

Is there a way to prevent this from happening when I separate the objects?

Well, I ended up just applying the SubSurf modifier and creating the gear doors from that. Thanks for the input, tho.


How can you create detailed low poly meshes? I know this question could be too general and maybe not focused but i would like to have an opinion. I found these images from this link

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?77667-My-work-from-Assassin-s-creed-2-%29

Here an example:

I assume this is done by zbrush but what's getting me astonished is the vertex number... how can you create such a defined mesh with just 4000/6000 tris??? Is it a matter of 3d modelling program, modelling skill or it is just the texture that's doing all the job? Can i realize these meshes with few vertices using blender?

Yes you can do the exact same thing with blender if you know how. Usually from a game asset modeling standpoint, the steps would be...

Created the initial model in the highest resolution possible.
Retopology. Meaning recreate the model in low poly count.Using surface snaps or retopo tools.
Unwrap the low poly mesh, and bake the high poly model's normal onto the low poly model. - affectionately known as "texture baking".

Note
The step 3 above enable game artist to fake the amount of mesh details on any given low polygon model. All of todays AAA titles base model details comes from normals map.**

Create textures, eg. diffuse, specular map, height map and ambient occlusion map ... etc. ( Using photo texture or hand painted ones. )
Export to fbx and import the data into a game engine, eg. Unreal or Unity.


KEY MAPPING (v2.8) ~ Is there any way to remap the Y axis hotkey to `C` for a more practical use? MY ISSUE: I use the Z/X/Y axis shortcuts a lot when modeling, rather than visualizing the transformation gizmo.
I'd like to have the three shortcuts in a single row of three consecutive keys.

Having to travel halfway over the keyboard each time the Y axis is involved is a bit stressing (especially when I have to exclude it, Shift+Y!!) and it'd be great if I could just tap no further than one key to the right of the X.

Obviously I could just redirect the Y key to C with AutoHotKey, but then I'd have to swap C to Y and move there every time I need to "paint select".

I need a conditional key remapping that allows me to use the C key to pick the Y axis every time move/scale/rotation are the active mode.
While retaining the C key paint selection shortcut, of course.

I've briefly tried to dive into the key mapping setup of Blender 2.8, but it looks kinda complex and very script dependent.
Probably there is a way to do what I want through the UI rather than by script, but I couldnt see any key binding for the Y axis shortcut and I cant really understand how to add one.

In case scripting is the only way, I'd use a link to a tut on how to make/implement scritps and the script itself.

Ok, it seems I just needed to say it out loud to actually guess the solution.
Here it is:

.- [menu] Edit -> [entry] Preferences...
-. [section] Keymap
.- [search filter] filter by Key-Binding (rather than by Name)
-. [search field] enter: Y
.- look for Y axis and Y plane

Then just click on the key binding button (first to last in the row) and press the key you need (C and Shift+C in my case).


Smooth shading artifacts I'm new to blender and having issues with smooth shading artifatcs in the mesh that I'm building.

I'm trying to model a spotlight and no matter what I do I get these stange surface shading effects and I'm just about to give up now. I have searched many articles online and couldn't find a solution to this.

I tried turning on Auto Smooth and it seems to work and wondering if this is the only workaround for this.

already tried edge loops (not for this test model) and sub surf modifier.I get slightly better results but I can still see the shading problems.

This may resolve your shading issues, but it is no substitute for good clean topology.

I would suggest avoiding N-Gon's (polygons with more than 4 vertices) if you can.

You need more vertices to keep your topology as quads.

The poster above has linked to a good post that displays good topology.


Mastering Blender Chapter 2 Smokestack Activity I recently purchased Mastering Blender, the eBook, and have began Chapter 2. I am currently experiencing difficulty with the Smokestack activity. When I follow steps 1 through 4, I do not get the same Unwrap result as shown in Figure 2-8.

The screenshot provides the instructions for the Smokestack texture project:

This is a link to the Blender file of my result: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/38699.

As you will notice, there are seven parts (versus Figure 2-8's six) and also the smallest part is a closed circle (versus Figure 2-8's semi-circle). I had gotten the result shown in the book on one attempt, however, I had missed a step and had to reattempt the activity and could not achieve the same result. How to match Figure 2-8?

Go into the UV editor and manually move the separate UVs around. If you select any vertex in one of the pieces and then hit L on the keyboard every vertex in that island will be selected. You can then use R to rotate, S to scale and G to grab and transform each island. Being able to pack your separate UVs to maximize the available space is a good skill to develop. As to why your UVs aren't the same as the picture? They rarely are. I have had a look at the file and am wondering if you have your seams marked exactly as the example. Maybe you could check that first. Good luck.


Armature Origins Wrong? I feel like this question must have been answered, but I can't seem to find the answer here or on blender artists. Maybe I don't understand the issue well enough to google the right terms.

I'm having a bunch of issues with my armature origins on my flower object.

Whenever I select it, it wants to orient to the center of the blend file. I've tried resetting the origins, but it doesn't seem to work. Maybe I'm not resetting the correct object?

Also, I want to be able to rotate the flower head so that it spins like a pinwheel when I try to do this though, it rotates all random directions. How do I get it just to rotate on one axis flat with the circle in the center?

Like I said, I feel like this is probably an easy fix, but I can't seem to find the answer myself. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my blend file if that helps: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D6UcaWpicOzJZawOT6LgRAYhLhGDn0Wy/view?usp=sharing

Change the origins of the flower center and petals and stem by using

[origin to geometry]

as depicted in the image above.

The

flower center
flowers petals
stem

should be quickly changed to have their origin modified as above or with the mesh itself or perimeter.  I see your petals have the correct parent of the flower center. Suggestion. Names of objects can be quickly improved The visual stem mesh should have a name like [stem]. The flower center should/could have the [stem] as parent, depending on animation complexity.

Above image shows more correct placement of origins.  Your can manually improve the flower petal origins if that suits your tastes.

Currently your origins are not in the correct place.


How to turn off the stats displayed when playing a game? These statistics are displayed when I play the game in the game engine. How do I turn these off?

Either disable it with python:

bpy.context.scene.game_settings.show_framerate_profile = False

or untick the checkbox in the render settings panel:


Precise Texture Placing Is there a way to precisely place a repeating texture on a large mesh?

I have a mesh with 8 by 16 by 1 dimensions, loop cut both horizontally and vertically, so its surface is divided equally to 1-unit squares. I also have a 64 by 64 texture, containing 16, 16 by 16 squares of varying colors. I would like to place these squares so that they are repeated and each one only covers one square on the mesh (so the texture covers the mesh evenly).

I have tried several methods, such as making a Project View unwrap from top orthographic view (theoretically, this way I get even squares on my UV) and then resize it until the squares overlap precisely. However, there is always some distortion, I cannot make them align dead on.

I know I am doing it wrong; there must be a way to do this on the dot, I just don't know how.

Can someone help me solve this problem?

This is what I have; maybe visualizing it will help understanding y problem better:

Update 1.: Here is the texture I am using to learn precise texture placement:

Did you look closer of your UV in image mode? The UV coordinate sometime give a small error upon manipulating (Floating-point error).

And if you want a clear edge of checker pattern, change the interpolation method from Linear(Default) to Closest as below:

And for precisely assign UV, use your pivot point:

1. Unwrap your mesh

If your mesh is a clear plane with square and rectangular, a normal nuwrap can do the job, check if the UV mesh is rectangular and perpendicular in UV editor.

2. Set Pivot to 2D Cursor

Once you enter the UV editor with the mesh, you can see the UI panel on the right, there is a 2D Cursor similar to 3D Cursor, set it to (0,0) if the UV map can scale from origin.

Or you can choose any location once upon you know how the pivot point work.

3. Scale your UV to specified value by directly type in number (aspect ratial of your rectangular)

The number just like a virtual text input block. It is a pretty standard parser in a  lot of application, even Photoshop use number pad to type the value of layer transparency. Type down the number, you can see it in the bottom of the status bar(if you didn't toggle off the bar)

This should work as below:

This method only solved the general checker pattern. If you want a more complicated mesh, I would recommend using script for it.

Addition

What does closest interpolation do and why is it necessary?

Closest interpolation give you a sharp image texture, while using linear method, your checker edge will be blur out if resolution is low. Not necessary, but I will do it if I want a sharp edge(it also improve a little tiny performance, just a little).
Why do we need to set the pivot point to 0.0?

You can set the pivot point to else where, if the UV origin you want to scale is known (you can read the vertex UV value in UI Panel). But most of the time Blender put unwrap vertex in 0.0, 0.0.
Am I right to change the interpolation in the node editor of my material?

Yes, node editor is the most common and general place you can change your shader behavior. The image textures node by default use linear for scaling, just because it is a common and light weight method to deal with 2D scaling. Feel free to change it if the linear method is too coarse for your rendering (I love Lanczos BTW, but Blender didn't implement it)


How to Create 2-D to 1-D Text Retraction Animation New Blender user here and I'm trying out a few projects which I judged as "easy" to accomplish, but I'm running into a few hitches at getting exactly what I'm looking for. I want to create an animation in which thick 2-D letters retract onto 1-D skeletons via certain drawn edges between vertices in the 2-D and 1-D meshes. The animation will begin with something like this:

Then the 2-D letters will retract onto the bold 1-D letters, i.e. the edges connecting them just become smaller and smaller until the 2-D mesh is overlapping the 1-D mesh so the final image would be showing just the bold thin inner letters. Also, when I say "2-D" and "1-D" what I mean is the thicker 2-D letters will have a face between the vertices while the thin 1-D letters will just consist of edges and vertices.

My initial idea was to be able to manipulate the meshes of the text, but I am not aware how to do that as edit mode doesn't allow me to do anything but type. I planned on just extruding some vertices from the outline mesh of the 2-D letters and then merging them, creating something like the picture, but I don't exactly want to do all of that manually since it would not look good. Is there a way to accomplish this using Blender's tools?

I'm also sure that is not the best way to accomplish what I'm wanting to do, and the thin inner letters don't have to be actually 1-dimensional, just thin enough to give the appearance on rendering. It almost would look like beveling a really thin font I suppose.

EDIT: I am now trying to do this only with the letter C, since A and B having holes makes them tricky. Currently, I have just extruded the mesh of the letter out like so:

Is there a tool to collapse the vertices on border of the front C so they form the shape of the thinner bold C as shown in the picture up top? This may just be too advanced for Blender, but I am not familiar with all of the tools enough to know whether this is the case.

Animate the offset value.

With the text slected, got to the properties panel, under the text tab(the one with a F icon),  then under the Geometry subsection, animate the offset value.


How can a text object be created with non ASCII characters? After enabling international fonts I was expecting that I could create a text object like: 咏春拳.

It seems that a different font is used for the text object.

The Outliner shows a font Bfont

Can this be changed?

Fonts for creating Text objects are set in the Text Data panel.

Blender uses droidsans_final_fixed.ttf (font name: DejaVuSans) as the detault i18n font, but just for UI text display, located in blender folder ..//2.69\datafiles\fonts\. There also another font called bmonofont-i18n.ttf (font name: BlenderMonoI18n) In the same folder. You can use it as the font for the Text object if you didn't have any other unicode or asian fonts in hand. Ortherwise, you have to use other system or non-system fonts to create the solid text mesh.

As for the builtin Bfont.ttf, it uses standard encoding, and less than 200KB. I don't think it is possible to include the large number of non-ascii charset.


Issues with Pointiness This will be my first post to the forums and I hope this is in the right place.

So I have recently switched from Modo to Blender and am really enjoying it
Im at a stage where I am trying to add some wear to my edges on my current project, and I'm getting some weird results on certain portions of my model

My have applied subdivision because I heard that the pointiness node works well with Hi poly models
I  am also using bool tool for my punches and have tried applying booleans and keeping them non destructive with the same results
Here is an image of my current situation

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Thank you

Laurence

It is important to note that booleans do not generally make clean quad-based topology. Therefore, no matter how high topology you go, you'll generally get tris and even sometimes n-gons that can destroy an otherwise passable result. Pointiness needs to rely on vertex data, and it seems that the model was nowhere near high poly enough to look clean with the pointiness node. (matching the topology density of the boolean and base model can help somewhat).

Because it's vertex based, the program can only really check if the vertex is bent, or the angle of its sides and other quads. this means the pointiness node will look up to 2 vertices away from any given point of measurement. The best way to combat this, is to make sure it always looks just as far, no matter what direction it tries. That's accomplished, normally, with retaining loops.

Your model may be high poly, but there will always be vertex-sized artifacts in the texture if you make it using vertex data on bad, or even normal but booleaned topology. you can only make them smaller.

there are only a few ways to deal with this in a boolean workflow:

brute forcing geometry density to millions of vertices.
retopology, to make proper retaining loops manually or via some remesh algorithm
wait until modeling is over, and paint the area by hand without baking textures
use a very low poly boolean object, so you barely have to work to retopologize just the area around the booleaned geometry.

The boolean workflow is nice, fast, and easy on the eyes, but when it comes to topology it's just about the most notoriously inadequate workflow. I would personally tell you to manually retopologize the part after if you absolutely must use pointiness to texture it, and if you do, you should probably use this proven topology, it's a favorite among hard surface modellers:

this is what you have, simply subdivided then booleaned

but if you just cut a low poly hole and put some nice loops around it to tell it where the curve is...

it ends up like this, with only a few polys, with the help of the subdiv modifier! (ignore the creases, I was too lazy to put retaining loops on the cube other than the hole)

buuuut I've gotta say I wouldn't suggest using pointiness other than as something to mix with a noise texture, so that I can get some nice paint chipping or grime on corners as such:


How to assign which UV map when multiple are available to use in 2.8+? I read this question about having two different UV mappings on a model.
Can I have two different UV unwrappings of the same object?

I have two versions of UV map for a mesh and I want to pick which UV gets used on which material in 2.8 but I do not see where to do that. How can this be done in 2.8?

This can be accomplished by using the UV Map node (Input > UV Map), it allows you to select one of the UV maps associated with the object. The Texture Coordinate node always uses the active UV map.


How to make objects near the camera look bigger I'm rendering an image where the camera is in front of the car and I want the front of the car to stand out and look big. Right now it looks quite flat. I tried playing with Focal Length and Sensor Size of the Camera but only thing I achieved was that the car was more stretched near the camera. I don't use blender very often so maybe someone who understands this properties better can suggest the solution.

Here is a quick visualization I made(by just moving the vertices). On the left is what I now have and on the right what I want to achieve.

Focal Length is indeed the parameter you want to edit. You have of course to compensate for the distortion with distance to the object.

Has Focal Length decreases the object will look further and further away, the perspective distortion will get larger and larger, and so the objects closer to the camera will appear bigger, and the ones far away will appear smaller,


Blender Principled BSDF shader missing, please help The Blender Principled BSDF shader is missing in my node editor. I'm using the latest Blender version 2.79. Please help :)

You need to switch to Cycles rendering engine to be able to see/add Principled BSDF shader:


Create easily reusable character for still images I am quite new to blender, so excuse me if I am getting some terms wrong (which might be why I didn't find an answer through google..)

I'll start off describing what I want to do, as this will illustrate the problem I am facing: I want to create a series of still images, all featuring the same two characters (but in different positions, of course).

So, ideally, I would not want to re-create the mesh from scratch for each image. I would like to create the character mesh once, and then for each image take the mesh and put it into the right position (like having a doll and moving its arms, legs, general body position, etc.).

I have read about joints, but it seems like this is for games and animations; it might be over the top, as I don't need smooth transitions between positions.

What kind of workflow would you use to easily re-use a character mesh in multiple still images? And if you just alter the original mesh for each image, are there any tricks to prevent it from becoming distorted?

I hope this question makes sense, I am happy to clarify anything that might be unclear...

Well, in fact what you are asking is something easily accomplishable whit the correct rigging technique and enough patience to pose the characters, animation and posing are areas that require patience to get things correctly done, so keep that in mind.

But if your models are simple enough in terms of polygon count, you could easilyuse shape keys to make transitions between poses:
http://www.chocofur.com/using-shape-keys-in-blender.html

Here is a tutorial where you can get started, but remember, nothing is better for posing that rigging.


How to find what text file is open in text editor I was wondering how to find which text file is open in the text editor. I know you can find a list of the loaded files via bpy.data.texts, but I can't seem to find a way to find the one that is being edited currently.

Active text datablocks are referenced by TextEditor spaces:

bpy.types.SpaceTextEditor.text

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'TEXT_EDITOR':
        space = area.spaces.active
        print(repr(space.text))

# Example output with one visible text editor:
# bpy.data.texts['ui_menu_simple.py']


When I render this It became a small dot When I render this It became a small dot. Can anyone tell me how can I solve this?

Here is the Blend file:
https://gofile.io/?c=ZdoCEr

Render visibillity for the array modifier was turned off.


bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges mucking up Dunno if I'm just a dummy or why this is happening, but every time I try to run the command it crashes Blender. What am I doing wrong?
class  SUBDIVIDE_OT_Vertexgroup(bpy.types.Operator):

    bl_idname = "subdivide.vertexgroup"
    bl_label = "Bake Displace modifier"

    def execute(self,context):

        ob = bpy.context.active_object
        mat = ob.active_material
        vertex_name = mat.extremepbr_material_prop.mat_id_name
        find = ob.vertex_groups.get(vertex_name)

        if find:
            bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
            bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_set_active(group=vertex_name)
            bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_select()
            me = ob.data
            bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
            border = [ e for e in bm.edges if e.select ]
            bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges(bm,
                    edges=border,
                    cuts=1,
                    use_grid_fill=True)
            me.update()
            bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_select()

        return{'FINISHED'}

Replace the me.update with bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)
Made a MWE from question code and tested on default cube with a single face in vertex group named "Group".
Recommend adding imports and a default dummy setting, which will make it easier for answerers to test, answer.
An edit mode bemsh is "bound" to the mesh and rarely likes it if you try and do anything to the underlying mesh data while it is active.
import bpy
import bmesh

class  SUBDIVIDE_OT_Vertexgroup(bpy.types.Operator):

    bl_idname = "subdivide.vertexgroup"
    bl_label = "Bake Displace modifier"

    def execute(self,context):

        ob = bpy.context.active_object
        mat = ob.active_material
        vertex_name = "Group"
        vg = ob.vertex_groups.get(vertex_name)

        if vg:
            bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
            bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_set_active(group=vertex_name)
            bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_select()
            me = ob.data
            bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
            border = [ e for e in bm.edges if e.select ]
            bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges(bm,
                    edges=border,
                    cuts=1,
                    use_grid_fill=True)
            # me.update()
            bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_select()
            bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)
        return{'FINISHED'}

bpy.utils.register_class(SUBDIVIDE_OT_Vertexgroup)

bpy.ops.subdivide.vertexgroup()


Keyframe being ignored? I'm probably missing something obvious, but it seems whenever I try to move the root bone of my character after frame 35, and add a keyframe, it's being ignored. I'll scrub along the timeline to the new keyframe, but the character doesn't move to the new position that I set.

You have an Action strip in the NLA Editor which is overriding/controlling the animation of the object.

Here I have added a keyframe on frame 54, but because the end of the Action Strip is at 35 (green timeline marker), the keyframe is ignored:

To solve this you can extend the End Frame property of the Action Strip in the Properties shelf on the right of the NLA Editor (N) to be as long as your animation:

Or, if you don't need to use the NLA Editor, you can delete the strip by selecting the Action Strip called 'Jump' (it will be yellow/orange when selected, as shown above), press Space, type "Delete Tracks" and press Enter.


Blender is very slow in Pose Mode but only with one character? first sorry for my english, I will try to be as clear as possible.

Recently I try to make a rigg in blender, everything was ok but now I'm doing the skinning and when I move the character in pose mode (to test the skinning) the selection of controller and move is really slow.

I downloaded many character and animate it, and I don't have the same issue of "slow pose-mode" with them.

So i searched everywhere on the internet and read all forums I can find but I didn't find solutions... I re-started my rigg twice and looked closely at my bones, the relations between bones, the IK-FK constrains ... But I didn't find any problem so I don't now where the problem come.

I don't know if it will help you but I use two addons : "Rigify" and "Bones layers Managers".

If you have any idea, or if you want more detail, I'm listening to you :)

Ok I finally found the problem,the model was too heavy in poly (yes I know, this is a really stupid mistake, but I didn't think about that, you can laugh ;) ). I decimate it, bind and skin, and it works normally.


How do I animate the shrink/fatten value on a beveled curve? I have a twisted cylinder shape made with a beveled Nurbs Path, which needs to bulge and shrink at specific vertices over time (like how a person's Adam's apple moves when they swallow). I'd prefer not to convert it to a mesh unless absolutely necessary because the mesh would be way too high-poly to manage, and I'm going to make a lot of these shapes. And since I'm not at all experienced with Cycles, solutions within the internal render would be best, but I'm willing to learn how to do this on Cycles if there's no other way.
So far, I've tried animating with Shape Keys but it doesn't seem to work on shrink/fatten (Alt S) or curve radius changes on individual vertices. Any help is appreciated!

Here's the .blend file

You could animate a Taper Curve, using shape-keys or hooks. but perhaps a more direct way would be to activate the Animall  included Add-On.