Straight Lines with no Face, Freestyle I have a rather lenghty question.
Following situation:

I have a external tool, which can submit data via a TCP-Socket to a modal operator running in Blender-Python.

For normal Meshes and primitives this works just fine.
But the tool offers the possibility to render so called PolyLine which is just a number of vertices with edges which are drawn as screen-space lines. There are used for highlighting constraints for different algorithms.

I want Blender to emulate these lines but I cannot think of a way that works good.

I tried to use the "skin" modifier on the face-less lines which works but has the big problem of thickness. I cannot say how big the transmitted mesh is so the skin-thickness is hard to determine.

Then I tried using the Freestyle-Module but encountered a problem with visibility. Sometimes the lines are just ignored or they are drawn eventhough they are occluded.

Is there a way to draw lines with Blender that I missed?

I'm sorry, I know this is a very vague question and I don't really know how to explain it.

Thank you in advance!

Greetings,
Dragonseel

P.S. a picture of the PolyLine as they appear in the external tool.

I would use a curve to show the lines. Setting the bevel_depth of a line gives a simple tube like result. By default this uses only four sides but you can increase the bevel_resolution to get a rounder result.

import bpy

def createLine(lineName, pointList, thickness):
    # setup basic line data
    theLineData = bpy.data.curves.new(name=lineName,type='CURVE')
    theLineData.dimensions = '3D'
    theLineData.fill_mode = 'FULL'
    theLineData.bevel_depth = thickness
    # define points that make the line
    polyline = theLineData.splines.new('POLY')
    polyline.points.add(len(pointList)-1)
    for idx in range(len(pointList)):
        polyline.points[idx].co = (pointList[idx])+(1.0,)

    # create an object that uses the linedata
    theLine = bpy.data.objects.new('LineOne',theLineData)
    bpy.context.scene.objects.link(theLine)
    theLine.location = (0.0,0.0,0.0)

    # setup a material
    lmat = bpy.data.materials.new('Linematerial')
    lmat.diffuse_color = (0.0,0.0,1.0)
    lmat.use_shadeless = True
    theLine.data.materials.append(lmat)

inboundline = [(-0.98, 0.29, 0.44), (-0.18, 0.05, -0.20), (0.28, 0.57, -0.24)]
createLine('LineOne', inboundline, 0.05)


Beveled Plane Not Circular I'm going to be creating a large number of 2D rectangles with rounded (beveled) corners. I was all set to use Ctrl-Alt-B on the corner vertices of a plane when I found that the bevels created are not truly circular.

By placing a 2x2 plane and then beveling the corners with an offset value=1.0, the resulting mesh should overlay an added mesh circle of the same size. This is not the case. (See image below)

Can anyone suggest a solution or an alternate way to easily create rectangular planes of varying sizes with truly circular corners using specific radii?

Thanks.

Make sure the bevel factor is set to a value of 0.5.
Also make sure your object's scale is applied in all axis.

Be aware that beveling a 2x2 units plane to a distance of 1 unit will likely create duplicate overlapping vertex at the edge midpoint that may cause problems down the road. It will also turn your four-sided face into a large NGon which is largely regarded as bad practice, and likely to create problems for animation and UV Mapping.


Having problems with translating negative edges (Ahead of time, I noticed that this seems to be a problem with negative translations. I will change the intro to show this.)

I am trying to create a wedge with angles on the lower end of the wedge, as shown in the pictures below. However, the left side translates correctly since it is a positive translation, while the right side creates a weird triangular edge due to the negative translation. Is there any way to have the right side of the wedge follow the same mechanics as the left side?

Lets say I want to change two of the vertices, specifically the top 2 on the lower half of the wedge. One will move correctly and will only be connected two its closest points.

EXAMPLE:

https://gyazo.com/b1e7b3a749a7b5b328f03166bd263c1a

But then when I do the other side It is connected to all points on the side plane.

EXAMPLE:

https://gyazo.com/3fb503ce3e24ad29baed76ad5112cf3a

Here is an example of both of them next to each other.

EXAMPLE:

https://gyazo.com/ce860346a5ac251920eafe7081f839d7

Is it possible to move the vertice on the right in the same way as the vertice on the left? I would like to make a nice angled wedge but its not possible with this happening! Would love some help!

Here is a Gif showing what I am having troubles with, in slightly more detail. Notice that the right side of the wedge creates an odd triangular edge while the left side is nice and flat.

EXAMPLE: https://gyazo.com/3f9ecc8a55b817a23314074f6a28512f

The origin remains unchanged when the object is modified in Edit mode. To move the origin, switch to Object mode and use the button Tool Shelf>Set Origin (or Ctrl-Shift-Alt C)
Possibly, check the Snap during transform options (the magnet icon or Shift-Tab)

To reshape your wedge, start from a cube, switch to Edit mode, disable the snapping, select the vertices to be moved, enable the 3D manipulator in Translate mode and drag the arrow in the 3D view.


Bake Panel in Render Properties doesn't pop up I've been trying to bake my object so I can create realistic renders. However, the bake panel that should be found in the render properties refuses to pop up, no matter what. Am I doing something wrong? Please help me! Thanks <3

Upgrade blender.

Cycles baking was first added in blender v2.71 and you are using 2.70. The current blender version is 2.78c.

Baking is available in 2.70 if you switch the render engine to blender render, but using that will depend on the material setup you are trying to bake.


Blender sculpt brush UI buttons I've been playing around with Blender's UI recently to see if I can find ways to make my workflow a bit easier, and also just for fun. My goal is to create UI buttons to change the sculpt brush. I'm very new at scripting though and don't know how to do most of this or if it's even possible.

I've looked at the api and found "active_index_set" but I don't know if that's the operator to call and if it is I don't know how to get it the parameters it needs to set the brush. I've looked at IK3d's brushes addon to see how he got the buttons to change the brush, and it looks like he used a list somehow. For what I'm doing custom this doesn't need to work with custom brushes as from what I've read so far that would complicate it a lot.

Any help would be great, even if it't just a point in the right direction.

edit: I wrote up an addon that creates a panel in the tool bar that you can drag into position above the brush panel - it polls for whether you have an object in sculpt mode or not. I made separate classes for each of the brushes so I could place them in 3 rows of 6 icons.


Mesh with particles not rendering after append from 2.79 to 2.80 I have a keyframed mesh (shape keys) with particle system created in Blender 2.8. I need to finish the project in 2.79 so the only way to import this mesh with particles is to append it as an object.

In 2.79 everything works except that the appended mesh is not rendering. It is transparent. Particles are working just fine.

After removing particles the mesh is renderable again.
Is there a solution to this?

OK, so after a couple of hours trying to figure this out and just after posting this question I have found the answer. Emitter has to be checked in particles Render settings.


Install external package in Blender (python websockets) I'm working on a script that processes some data coming from a web application running on a phone. The web application, written in javascript, sends data to the "blender python server" using websockets.

The code doesn't compile with the error:

ImportError: No module named 'websockets'

But that's not true, I have websockets installed, using pip, on my machine. And I've already used them with no problems. Is it possible that the blender environment prevents me to use them? Did anyone ever have any problems with some modules installed using pip?

You need to have the modules youre planning to use, on the python path where blender looks for the modules. blender comes with its own python installed. browse the blender directory youll find it. This is probably the cacuse.
just copy your python/lib/sitepackages folder on it and I think youll have it done...


How to place a single crisp element as an alpha while sculpting? This is my first question, and I am a complete newbie at using Blender (and 3D modelling suits in general).

To elaborate on my question: the goal is to model a logo as a relief on the side of a coffee cup. I am trying to sculpt it with an alpha.

The background and the reasoning are as follows:

The logo in question is quite elaborate, so my first idea was to:

import an SVG
convert it to mesh,
project the result via Shrinkwrap modifier.

However, I have found that the triangular mesh I am getting this way, wraps very poorly. I have tried recalculating it into quads with Remesh, but the results have remained suboptimal.

My second (and sadly last) idea was to:

rasterise my vector of the logo,
turn it into a BW alpha image,
sculpt it (like I managed to do before while messing around with
ZBrush).

Unfortunately, using my alpha as a texture creates a multitude of blurry superimposed reliefs of my logo. I understand that this technique must be intended to create noise-like features (scratches, scales, etc.).

But is it possible to place just one, crisp element this or similar way?

Thanks in advance! =)

P.S. I have tried searching for the answer both on Google and this site, but failed. My apologies if this question has already been answered.

To do this only with sculpting add the logo as the texture mask to the sculpting brush, switch Stroke method to Drag Dot and draw on the object's surface.

The texture defines a pattern according to which the brush is painting. Drag Dot stroke method will make brush draw only one dab preserving pattern of the texture.

Note that depending on the case you might need to continue sculpting with other stroke methods (use E to change) to bulge the logo out of the surface as desired. And obviously this model will be highpoly which is better to retopologize using certain methods.


Can I display the image from a camera on a plane in the same scene? OK - I have a small spacecraft with limited vision inside. The spacecraft is racing against others. I want a holopanel to either side of the pilot, displaying what is to either side of the craft. It this possible in the scene? I want to try and avoid faking it in post if I can.

I will be rendering in Cycles as a short video.

I don't think  Blender is capable of render two cameras in the same process.

But you can make the light from the sides reaching the camera in the old way: make a hole in the ship and bend the rays by 90° (with a mirror).

In the picture above you can see Suzanne in a whaleish vehicle with some other smaller spaceships (red, yellow and green) on both sides.

Anyway I think it would be easier to put two cameras and composite the holograms in post. You'll surely have much more control on their final appereance.


How do I fix the UVs on this propane tank? So I was trying to find a way to convert an FBX file from ASCII FBX to Binary FBX and when I converted it this happened and I did some research and found out that it was that the UVs were messed up. I'm very much a noob when it comes to Blender and I have no idea what those are and how to fix this. Is there anyone that could help me?

That is actually an issue with the normals of you mesh, which is the direction the faces are pointing/facing. You can recalculate the normals by selecting all of the mesh in edit mode and pressing Ctrl+N. This could be resulting from double vertices, so you could try removing doubles with W, again in edit mode with all selected. This may affect the exported file (assuming you are exporting it) in an undesirable way, so just be careful and have a backup.


Composite blur effect cut off at edges with transparent background I know several questions have been asked regarding a problem with glow effects not showing up with transparent backgrounds, but I have a slightly different issue. For me, the glow effect does show up, but it gets cut off at the borderline of the alpha background.

With background:

Without background:

My node setup:

Anyone know of a simple fix?

You can't do that with a PNG.
What you need there is to make some transparent pixels luminescent, and that's only possible with an associated (sometimes called "premultiplied") alpha channel.
PNG uses unassociated alpha. That means that the alpha over operation will multiply the alpha on the foreground plate as part of the operation, destroying the information that sits on the transparent pixels.

The only way to solve this is to use a format that allows associated alpha channel.

Keep in mind that programs like GIMP (and Photoshop used to, but I'm not sure if it still does) internally convert images to unassociated alpha, making compositing that kind of images imposible.
The same happens with graphics for the web if you're going to use PNGs.

Blender's compositor and other compositing programs will allow you to do that, but if you need to use it in one of the programs mentioned above, you'll have to export the glow plate as a separate file and add it over the composite.

Here is a simple example that demonstrates how easy this is to accomplish correctly:


Rendering series of images with objects in different positions What is the best way to render a series of images with different cameras and views of the scene, with objects in different places?

Do I need to essentially create an animation and build all of that in, or is there a different way to do it?

Yes, create an animation to easily render each image that you want. An animation is simply a series of still images that when displayed briefly in succession provide an illusion of movement. As you only want a series of still images you don't need to do any fancy smooth transitions, just position how you want things for each image.

Start at frame 1, position your objects and camera as you want, then A to select all objects and I->LocRotscale to keyframe everything. Go to frame 2 and position things the way you want the second image and insert keyframes again. Repeat as many times as you need, then adjust the end frame to match how many frames you have setup and have the output file type as still images. When you use the Render Animation button blender will render each image for you.

While you can use timeline markers to switch cameras during an animation, I expect you won't need that, just position and keyframe the camera the same as every other object.


Objects not appearing in the final render By final render i mean when you press F12 to get a image but when i do that one object doesn't appear although its particles appear and I've tried doing things like Ctrl + Alt + H and W but it doesn't change anything i think this is because it un-hides thing n object mode but I'm talking about when you actually RENDER it. Any help is appreciated

Possible causes for a Blank render:

No lights in scene.
Objects disabled for Render in outliner (camera icon).
Strips in VSE and Sequencer enabled.
Objects in different layer, or in a layer disabled in Render Layers.
Object blocked by other objects.
Active camera aiming in a different direction.
An object in the scene set as active camera.
Any, some or all of the above.


How to export an animated texture from Blender to WebGL? I have an animated fire "burning" on a round plane by using the fire and smoke features on Blender. It's very similar to the one found in this tutorial link. I want to the render the model on three.js.
I tried the Blend4Web HTML format and only the texture of the fire doesn't appear.
I also, exported it to .json and collada with the three.js exporter. No results.

Do I use UV mapping? But the flame isn't a defined model.

I have an animated fire "burning" on a round plane by using the fire and smoke features on Blender. It's very similar to the one found in this link.

First of all Blend4Web engine doesn't export all from Blender - it works mostly with Blender Internal Render, so only Blender Internal Render nodes, particles and Physics can be exported to the engine. Cycles will not work and you can't export smoke simulation directly from blender to the engine.

  I want to render the model on three.js.

Blend4web and three.js cant be connected between them because it's different WebGl engines, so using Blend4Web addon for Blender you can export only to Blend4Web engine.

You can find a good way to make flime using only Blender Internal Render and Blend4Web possibilities in this video from our conference.


Faces are getting thinner as i extend them.. How do i fix this? (I'm new to blender :) It keeps getting thinner like this when I extend the faces with >E. deleting them leaves a big face-hole at the main body. don't know how to fill it up. I just want this tail to look fatter and less ''poly-ish''(?) If its easier to fix this for me you can download the .blend here https://we.tl/t-UWNdpDSHS8. I just need help.

If you want to prevent the tail from "thinning" as you "pull it out" you can press "shift + y" to exclude the y-axis from the transformation.
If you want to fill in missing faces select all points around it and press "f".


Why object doesn't emit light? I followed this tutorial. Rechecked, but still no light on a surface from emitting object.
Here is properties of the emitting object and the world:

I created new project and it works now, seems to be just Blender's glitch.


Why can I pose my rigify model in Weight Paint mode, but not in Pose mode? I have used rigify to add a rig to my model. However, I can't pose the model in Pose mode. I have checked the model in Weight Paint mode, and everything seems to be painted correctly. I can even manipulate the rig and pose the model in Weight Paint mode. But when I go back to pose mode, only the rig moves and the model does not. I have linked the .blend file.

The issue seems to be the boolean modifier, which cuts your mesh with the nail mesh. when you disable the visibility of that modifier, the armature deforms the mesh as normal. I'm not 100% sure why this happens, if it is an issue due to laggy update because the boolean takes too long, or if the boolean (more likely) messes up your vertex groups, and thus the weights. It's also interesting that weight paint ignores the boolean apparently.


How to get OpenCL functioning for GPU rendering, AMD GPU? I'm running blender 2.79b and Blender won't recognize my card.

AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series, GCN 1st gen architecture
OpenCL™ Version: 24.20.11021.1000
Vulkan™ Driver Version: 2.0.33

Am I missing something to set it up in an official release?

I tried looking through GraphicAll.org for alternatives and found This Version of Blender

While it did recognize my card the colors of light was incorrect and differed from the cpu rendering of the scene.

Thanks in advance!

From Blender manual on OpenCL support:

  OpenCL is supported for GPU rendering with AMD graphics cards. (We only support graphics cards with GCN architecture 2.0 and above).

2.79 release log says:

  Due to various issues with drivers for AMD GCN 1.0 architecture, those cards are no longer supported for Cycles rendering "

The support was dropped so you need Blender 2.78c version or a newer card.


What mirror download does UK need? I am currently looking to download Blender to make 3d objects for use in the Unity 5 Game Engine, but when having a look at what version to download, there is no version for the UK. Also, is there any difference between the .msi and .zip, or is it just that one is manual and one is automatic?
Thank you.

It doesn't matter if you choose Germany or Netherlands as both are right next to each other but US is far further away if you live in the UK. As far as I know there is no major difference in speed when using the Netherland mirror 1 or 2. MSI is the installer and the zip has the actual program in it thus using the zip will mean that the Blender won't show up in your program files.


How to delete a reroute node? How do I delete a reroute node in the node editor without deleting the connection(s)? Or is this not possible?

First: make sure you have the Node Wrangler add-on installed and enabled.

Then, use ctrl + X to delete the reroute without removing the connections.


How to extrude vertex normals along an angle with an even offset? I want to extrude all of the selected faces along their angle, at an even offset like so:

You can use simple extrude and scale, however along custom Transform Orientation, in this case View, in order to lock scaling on non-desired axes.

Select the face which is oriented at an angle (which looks like parallelogram). In the case of cuboid on your screenshot the one which is formed with the top loopcut on the side.

Align viewport with it so you see the face from the top. Shift+Numpad 7 will do that.

Once viewport is aligned, select the ring of faces to extrude (Alt + Left click on faces near an edge).
Make View as transform orientation along which transform will be done - press Alt+Space and choose View.

Press E to extrude, cancel default extrusion and press S to execute Scale tool.
Now lock movement on axis you don't want to interfere. In case of described viewport position View X axis should be locked, so after enabling Scale tool press Shift+X (locks global X) and then again Shift+X (locks View X). Move to the desired offset.


How to make a round fence out of an array I am modelling a big fan and uses this image as a reference.

If you look closely you see a fence/mesh/gauze before the blades. I cannot figuring out how to do this easily. Any thoughts?

Add a Plane and subdivide 20 cuts
Add a Circle and go in edit mode and Press F2 to fill the faces
Now go to top ortho view
Select the circle and then plane with shift select
Press Tab now
Press Space bar and type Knife projection
When it cut the circle Press P and select selection
Now the cut circle is separated. Delete the circle and plane and keep the new cut circle.
In edit mode Press Delete -> select only faces.

Convert the cage now to curve
Add a curve circle and bevel it to give thickness to the edges.


How can bone names be copied across an axis? If an armature has been created with X-Axis Mirror enabled and we are renaming our bones to something more intuitive, and one half is done (example: arm_upper_L, arm_lower_L), how can we copy the names over to the other half of the armature?

I tried doing W Flip Names, but it did not take the names from the other side. I tried this with both the source side selected and then with the destination side selected, but I didn't get the desired result (which would be arm_upper_R, arm_lower_R).

I have been copy/pasting and typing in the difference, but if there's a better way I would like to know about it. What is the correct way to mirror the bone names over to the other side of an armature? Thanks.

make Sure you are in Edit Mode!

Step One: Create just ONE side of the armature and name the bones.

Step Two: Select Bones Wanted to copy to across an axis.

Step Three: Set 3D Cursor to origin by hitting Shift-S: 'Cursor to Selected' (Make sure origin is in center of armature).
Step Four: Press Shift+D and click the mouse button

Step Five: Hit Cntrl+M and then hit X (Or y if you are using the y-axis)

Step Six: Click the mouse button and hit w and select 'Flip Names'

Profit!


UV coordinates inaccurate, showing nearby pixels when not supposed to So I have a blend that was given to me. Each patch of grass mesh for example, is neatly on the grass texture. All of the grass cubes throughout the map share this same UV space. However for no obvious reason to me, it's showing the nearby rock texture.

This is a megatexture so clamping isn't going to do anything as the entire level is a single texture but I shouldn't have to clamp in the first place.

If you zoom in very close on the UVs you can see that each corner of a single grass UV mesh is not touching the gray part in any part of that image. All of the grass is sharing the same UV space as well.

Why is this happening and how can I fix this? The level is only a single texture. Ideally I don't want to have to go around the map selecting all of the grass, rock, wood, etc, just to fix what seems like a blender bug.

This is not a bug, it is in the way UV-Mapping to a surface works. If the surfaces are at an angle, a certain amount of edge blending is going to occur. This can lead to unwanted seep-through of other parts of the texture.

It appears that the bleed in your texture is too small. Bleed is the amount of overfill that each island gets added on its edges. This in turn is causing the neighboring textures to show through. To get around this, you need to increase the spacing between the UV-islands.


Video Sequence Editor rendering a grey video I've looked at multiple videos and I can't seem to get my video to render properly. My settings are: File format: FFMPEG, Container: MPEG-4, Video Codec: H.264, Output quality: High quality, encoding speed: slowest, Audio codec: AAC and I have no idea why it outputs into a grey video. Please help!

Okay guys I found out that if you go to the view panel and turn off render REGION, that allows you to actually render with the 'sequencer' option clicked. It's kind of absurd that the notification says Render Border yet the actual option is render region, I understand they have the same meaning but generally these things are very specific.


Unable to Pinpoint Script Error I've searched various forums for an answer to this, so I hope it hasn't been asked before.

I want to load a .obj file called "male.obj". Here's the code:

import bpy
from bpy import context
from math import sin, cos, radians

import os

# establish path to model directory
path_to_directory = os.path.join(
    '~/', 'Users', 'jackburker', 'Documents',
    'Code', 'Blender', 'base_models')

path_to_file = os.path.join(path_to_directory, "male.obj")

# Print paths for debug
print(path_to_directory)
print(path_to_file)

# Import correct-gender base model
bpy.ops.import_scene.obj(filepath=path_to_file)

When run from the scripting console, that last line causes an error. Commented out, the script runs (though with no output). Uncommented, I get the message "Python script fail, look in the console for now..."

In Blender 2.77, on OS X El Capitan, I can't find a system console to open. If I "open blender.app" from the terminal, it doesn't follow the process or give any output; it just opens the app.

I've checked the documentation and, as far as I can tell, I'm using the import_scene function correctly.

Any ideas? I'm profoundly stuck.

I find running scripts in blenders python console can be very helpful, this addon adds a menu to the console that lets you run a text block from the python console where you can see any print output as well as leaving variables set as they are at the end of the script so you can have a look at what the script was working with when it failed.

By looking at your code I expect the error is the filepath in path_to_directory. On *nix systems ~ is used to represent a users home folder, when used in a shell this gets expanded automatically but in python you need to use os.path.expanduser() to get the absolute path which you will find gets expanded to /Users/jackburker which you are already adding to your path.

So you want to either use

path_to_directory = os.path.join(
    '/', 'Users', 'jackburker', 'Documents',
    'Code', 'Blender', 'base_models')

or

path_to_directory = os.path.join(
    os.path.expanduser('~'), 'Documents',
    'Code', 'Blender', 'base_models')


Automated vectoring or knife tool / autotracing I use the knife tool in Blender to create holes in the object geometry (trace the assigned texture). This takes a lot of time.

Is there a function or a software product to autotrace the assigned texture in 3D (like potrace for 2D)?

Thanks for help.

I see a couple of options depending on what you are after.

The lazy, easiest one would be to use the texture to control the transparency of your object. This would keep the poly count low, but you would not be dealing with real geometry.

Other option is to trace the shape on a program like the one you mention, or inkscape, illustrator or similar, and convert it into vector information, save it as SVG.(probably you can download the svg file directly on the same website you got that pattern from...) Import that into blender and use Knife Project or some form of boolean (you'd need to extrude the curves and convert to mesh to do that). Note that you'd have to rework your topology, as anytime you use booleans or knife project you'll end up with very ugly n-gons.

Imported SVG:

Knife Project:


The light is too dark even at a high value I try to practice on rendering process, but lighting is not working.

I set up one light (Area Type), first picture I set light's strength to 10000 and its still dark.

Second picture I set light's strength to 1 and its still dark.

How can I solve this problem? So sorry if image too small

There are a few possibilities why this could be happening, unfortunately the question does not have enough information to be able to determine the cause for sure. So here are a few things to look for:

The light is blocked by other objects or is not reaching the featured object

Check that there are no hidden or disabled objects blocking the path of the lights.
The lamps could be disabled for rendering in the outliner

To fix enable the camera icon.

The lights might be in a different layer that is not being rendered.

To fix move them to the active layer or enable the layer for the lights as part of the rendered layers.
The overall birghness of the scene could be clamped in the render settings.

Any value below 1 in Clamp Direct, will make the image darker. Clamping is really preventing the ligthts to be any brighter than the value specified.

To fix, disable clamping by resetting the values back to 0 (0 = no clamping)
The model might be too large or the lights might be too far away so the model is lit just by the color of the environment.

Cycles uses values close to those of the real world. If your model is set at a scale where the turntable is as large as a city block, then one small light will definitely not be enough, or it would need to be very bright. As a rule it is better to try to keep scenes to real world sizes.


3D scene not visible in render I can see the test scene which comprises of the 3D text Loom-Tastic in the VSE, but when I render it disappears, Why?

VSE

RENDERED RESULT

here is a link to my

blender file

I noticed that the loom - tastic text wasn't rendering. this was due to the fact that the wrong layer was selected in the test scene:

Change the selected box to the one the green arrow is pointing at, and your problem will be fixed


python code for existing node chain blender I have created a complicated Cycles material with the node editor.  I am currently building a python script to recreate this material.   Is there any way to "export" python to create a material I have already made in the node editor?

I have written a tool for that, but it has only features I needed for my nodetrees. The code is ugly, but might give some pointers for you in case you'd want to write something like that yourself. Maybe there are other - more complete - tools like that I'm not aware of.


"Boolean" operation on bézier circles I would like to make a cross section like this (only the hatched part)

(image source)
using bézier curves/circles, to then use in a screw modifier and make a drill bit.
I initially thought I could use a Boolean operation (difference) with a set of Bézier circles like this:

but for Béziers there seem to be no Boolean modifiers. When I convert them to mesh (using Alt-C), the Boolean modifier becomes available but "difference" has no effect.
Apart from manually shaping a curve (by dragging nodes and handles), is there another, more "mathematical" way, of achieving the result?

Use Boolean modifier after adding some thickness to circles so modifier to work or use Knife Project.

Cutting with Boolean modifier

Boolean didn't work in your case most likely because there wasn't geometry needed for it to operate with. Two flat faces won't be cut with any Boolean operation; if you extrude these faces in any direction (e.g. by Z axis) and then add the Boolean, it will be executed correctly.

First fill the circles with geometry: if they are still curves convert them to 2D; if they are meshes select all the vertices and press F. Position them accordingly: center one should be as separate object, and 3 others should be joined as another one.
Extrude them / add Solidify modifier; you may leave small values in order the extrusion to be deleted further on as double vertices (increase threshold a bit to achieve that).
Finally add Boolean to the center circle and choose object with 3 circles as a target. Delete created additional geometry if needed.

Knife Project

It's basically described here. In this case you shouldn't extrude anything. Some general steps:

Place circles as in the 1-st way;
Select those 3 joined as the first object, then one in the center and enter their Edit mode (the selection order is important because it determines where faces will be cut from).
Press  Numpad 7 to enter Top View. It will make Knife Project to cut object using this projection.
In the Toolshelf (open with T) find Knife Project and choose it.

See also:

Cases where boolean operations can fail

How would you cut a shape out of an object using another object?


How do I stack triangles into a bigger triangle with array modifier? I'm trying to make a big triangle made with smaller triangles with spaces in between (kinda like the triforce but with 9 triangles per side). Thing is the "triangles" have actually other stuff underneath, so I want to use array. How do I stack them without ending up with a parallelogram?
Sorry for the low quality picture but I can't upload from my computer right now. This is how the top should look like, but just half of it (so a triangle, not a parallelogram).

I don't think there is a way to do this with modifiers alone, apart form applying them and edit the result manually.
You can Apply your modifiers (from the top down), then go into Edit mode and select and delete the parts you don't want.
Alternatively you could download, install and activate the Array Tools add-on. It allows for a variation for each new row (like -1 triangle). The add-on however does not work with modifiers and every triangle would be a separate object.
Example of the add-on:


How to see a plane with an image through a cube? I have set up an image as a plane so that I can use it for a guide to make my model but I can't see through the main cube.

How can I set only the model cube to wireframe but NOT the plane so I can see it? Or what can I do to see the image plane through the cube?

In object mode select the cube and turn on wire as per the image


Moving object warps it I have a cup that I made and I'm trying to move the bottom part along the z axis. I click on the edges using alt + click and press g and then z to move it, but when I do that, the bottom is able to move up and down but it ends up moving it in a really weird way (it moves toward my direction and up/down). What setting do I change so that I can fix this?
The object has a solidify and subdivision surface modifier attaches but removing them doesn't change anything so I don't think that has to do with this.
This is what happens when I try to move the bottom along the z axis while facing the cup

I downloaded the file.  When I went into Edit Mode, I couldn't select anything for some reason, so I wasn't able to test your exact problem, but I noticed that in Object Mode the whole cup does exactly what you're describing, and I figured out why it's doing that, and it would affect Edit Mode transformations as well.
You have snapping turned on; that's the magnet button up at the top of the viewport.  That is constraining the selection to your floor plane.  So you're trying to move it in the Z axis, but that is exactly what it cannot do while it's set to be snapped to the floor plane, and so it just moves in whatever axes it can.  Turn off snapping, and it behaves normally.


How to check the pose bone have property which is driven? I hope to check whether each pose bone transform values are driven or not by bpy..
At current I check it by bone name which rig vendor set (like sholder_drv), it work for the rig but I hope to know more flexible way to check the bone property have driver or not.
Is there good way  only get pose bones which have no driven property?
(about this case, I only need to check pose transform value is driven or not)
/////////////////////////////////////
At current I could get driver path of the armatture fcurve
'''
def get_driver_list(ob, li):
    drvs = ob.animation_data.drivers
    if drvs is not None:
        for drv in drvs:
            drv_path = drv.data_path
            print(drv_path)
            li.append(drv_path)
    return False
'''

Then Current problem is, data_path type = string
so I could get path, but could not find easy way to get bone name, which include in the driver data_path.  (need strict check,,)
'pose.bones["lSmallToe4Drv"].rotation_euler'
Is there good way to access bone.property by data_path.to get the bone.name correctly?

I think there should be better way, but I feel it worked for me.
import bpy
def get_driver_list(ob):
    drvs = ob.animation_data.drivers
    li = []
    if drvs is not None:
        for drv in drvs:
            drv_path = drv.data_path
            li.append(drv_path)
    return li

def get_bone_driven(ob, bn):
    flag = False
    li = get_driver_list(ob)
    bn_path = ob.pose.bones[bn].path_from_id()
    for path in li:
        if bn_path in path:
            flag = True
            print(bn_path, "in" , path)
            break

    return(flag)

ob = bpy.context.object

for pb in ob.pose.bones:
    if get_bone_driven(ob, pb.name):
        print(pb.name)


Can't get animation to work on arm rig I changed my model a bit and that probably made some changes to my rig. Now i cant get my armature to work with the mesh anymore. I've tries re-parenting but that changes the position of the mesh and animations dont even play. I can't figure out how to fix it, but maybe you can. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cTYXrOJ4nMfqTTUetG0VrBZn9pNrSHeK

The problem is that you removed the armature modifier on your mesh.

The armbands don't follow the armature because you haven't set a vertex group on them yet.


copy paste animations? I have a plane where I would like to animate some events over time.
These events are always the same (e.g. an object appearing and disappearing), or showing a smoke animation on a location on the map for e.g. 5 seconds.

Now I can add e.g. a cube to the plane, create an animation from it at e.g. frame 10 and let it last for 60 frames. But is it possible to import/export the animation object(s) only so that I can kind of copy and paste them at different frames and locations on the map?

It sounds like you want the Dope Sheet view.  From there you can move/copy/paste key frames to different times.  It looks like this:

You might also want to look into Actions.
https://www.blender.org/manual/animation/actions.html


What has shut off rendering and display of the world background? Yesterday I was playing with world settings while testing lighting, and now I can't get it to display again as the world background in the 3d view. I've gone over every setting I can think of - the viewport display setting have world background checked, all the ray visibility checkboxes are ticked for the world settings, the nodes for the world are all set the way they were before, and 'Use Nodes' is checked. I even tried rebuilding the world's nodes, and the new world doesn't display either. That makes me suspicious the issue is one of those many checkboxes somewhere being ticked or unticked, but after hunting for a while, I can't find anything.

It shows up in the Preview box - it's subtle, because it is a starry sky, but it's there. I'm stuck. What have I missed? I'm just putting an image of every relevant setting I can think of here.

Switch to perspective view mode in the viewport (Numpad 5). When in orthographic view, which is what you are in now, the world background cannot be properly displayed. Instead, you get a single color based on (I think) the color of the pixel that you are facing. If you have a background with more colors, you will see the color change as you rotate around. Since your background is almost all black, you likely won't see any color change as you rotate your view.


Rendering on CPU vs GPU how to enable CUDA and performance on older system I am on an older system, Windows 7, it is built on an Asus Sabertooth X58, I am low on RAM @ 4GB , CPU is an Intel I7 950 a Quad core @ 3.07 GHz, graphics card is a Geforce GTX 460 , boot drive an OCZ vertex solid state.
what I am wondering is about using CUDA, and if my card is compatible, when I click on CUDA in preferences/system it tells me 'no compatible GPU's found for path tracing Cycles will render on CPU'. Now I realize that message seems clear but I have to wonder because I use TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 5 and it uses CUDA on my system I do video processing so when I assembled my computer I was sure to pick a CUDA graphics card.
I don't expect CUDA rendering would outpace my CPU, but the thing is I have a second GTX 460 sitting in a box so I am wondering IF the card is compatible and I was to reinstall that second card and I was to use that card just to render I would get slower render times, but my system would not be bogged down with the process during the render?
when I took the second GPU out it was because the video software was causing issues, it was years ago so I dont remember exactly but it had to do with SLI issues and using CUDA to process video. I ended up just taking the card out to avoid the hassles, but that issue back then has me wondering if Blender is telling me no compatible GPU's because of the old issue ( software being grabby about CUDA...)

Your card is way too old, below the minimum specs needed for the current versions of blender.
From the manual
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/gpu_rendering.html

CUDA
CUDA requires graphics cards with compute capability 3.0 and higher. To make sure your GPU is supported, see the list of Nvidia graphics cards with the compute capabilities and supported graphics cards. CUDA GPU rendering is supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Check the minimum requirements here too:
https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/
You can try using older versions (2.79 or below) which might work, but know that you might not get any benefits for using CUDA at all.
Also blender does not work with SLI.


Base mesh becomes unsculptable I keep making base meshes for character sculpting. I do this in edit mode, put on a skin layer, and then switch over to sculpting mode. First sculpting anything over this mesh doesnt work. I checked my masks. Then I'll try dynotopo (to see if thats the issue), after turning it on and going to sculpt, my mesh reverts to the original wire frame view and becomes uneditable.

Any advice? I thought maybe it was my graphics card, but my specs check out and I'm sculpting in a low resolution already.
I'm still very new to blender and maybe I'm not looking for the answer in the right places. All advice welcomed!

You definitely need to have a higher resolution mesh to sculpt. If you have not applied the skin modifier yet, you need to do so. You should save a copy of your .blend file before this. Then you need to subdivide your main mesh, as the skin modifier is a very very low quality mesh creator, when not subdivided. After all that, you should be able to sculpt the mesh. If you still cannot, then please post an image so I can see what settings you have for the mesh. A .blend file would also be helpful.
If this does not answer the question, please say so in the comments below.


How to create and assign a group to an fcurve with python script? I am attempting to make an addon/script with blender python that works with mocap files (.bvh), my problem is that when the files are imported the group collection on fcurve.group is blank

for fcurve in bpy.context.active_object.animation_data.action.fcurves:
        if fcurve.group is not None:
            print(text='Source object fcurve group ' + fcurve.group.name)

How do I create and assign a group to the fcurve with python script?

fcurve.group = bpy.types.FCurve.new("LocRot") #what i tried first

Explanation of why:
When i import the files they have rotation mode XZY Euler on all the bones, I am attempting to use this script to convert the rotation mode to Quaternion however it fails due to the fact that the bones have no groups on them.... (hence my question)

Ultimately I plan to make my own pipeline which handles the small problems I have with the .bvh files when imported, such as converting FK -> IK

My full code can be found here and here if that helps at all

Both the fcurves themselves, and the action groups are part of the action object. You have to create new groups through the action and then assign that group to any fcurves you want inside it.

armature = bpy.context.scene.objects.active
anim_data = armature.animation_data
action = anim_data.action

# create a new group
group_1 = action.groups.new("group_1")

# assign the first three fcurves to the new group
for fcurve in anim_data.action.fcurves[:3]:
    fcurve.group = group


Linking object data but not the key frames I want to link everything about the objects, except for the keyframes and animation, ideally looking to have scene 1, scene 2, scene 3, where each scene follows on from the next entirely. If your curious why I have choosen to have different scenes it is because I have paths that are followed, and they work easier if I can redo the paths for each scene.
I am pretty new to blender so any advise is welcome.
Thanks

Suggestion.
Know some features of Follow Path Constraint. The constraint ..

active or inactive with keyframes ... see eye icon
[influence] can be 0 to 1.0 with keyframes
You can stack up many Path Constraints on a single object with judiciously placed keyframes.  Like relay runners passing a baton.
Thus the object can travel down each path one at a time with no influence from the other.  You known when you place paths near each other the movement may seem continous

I suggest you use these 3 features to address your issues.


blender will not render any videos I'm having an issue with blender where whenever I try to render as any sort of video, instead of showing up as an mp4 or whatever file type I chose, it will show up as a mystery file that cannot be opened. This issue started recently and randomly: I was always able to render perfectly fine before and I used the exact same settings now that I did then.   not sure exactly what I'm doing wrong. Here are the export settings I am using:

You have turned off file extensions in blender, which includes not only the frame numbering but the vital ".mp4" Filename Extension. The file you rendered is an mp4 file, but it doesn't have a "label" so to speak. I recommend turning on "show filename extensions" in File Explorer to avoid confusion in the future, but to fix the issue at hand:

Turn on "file extensions" in blender for a fix to all future renders.
OR
Type ".mp4" at the end of your filename in blender as a fix to all future renders.

Plus, you can:

Rename the existing rendered file, adding ".mp4" at the end, which will save it. :D

Note: upon the renaming, the added ".mp4" change may be hidden by Explorer without the "show filename extensions" turned on, but it probably did work.


Why a part of my mesh disappears and its untexturable? I'm still learning Blender and i'm trying to create something on my own, without tutorial. I created my whole mesh using "Mirror" modifier (I didn't apply it), but when I started texture painting, I realized that a part of my mesh is untexturable. I added a procedural texture to the object and it worked fine. I tried to fix the UV map by adding seams to edges, but it didnt help. I realized that topology of my object is not so good and that could be reason of my problem, so I tried to fix it with Instant Meshes, because im not really good at modeling and I don't know how to do it manualy. When I uploaded my object, I saw that untexturable part of my mesh disappeared. I don't know what to do with something like this and what to do next time to not make mistakes like this, so maybe someone will know.

I just played about with a much more basic mesh, mirrored in X & Y like yours, and it looks to me like the rest of the mesh doesn't actually 'exist' for UV mapping etc. until you've applied the modifier.
Safest bet is to duplicate the object (select then hit Shift+D in 'object' mode) and then apply the mirror mod on the new object, unwrap & texture that.
Then if you want to change the model, edit the original mirror-modified object, and duplicate & apply the mirror modifier again.

Here's my  test-

So the only geometry that truly 'exists' is the bit that turns orange in Edit mode, until you apply the mirror modifier, all you'll get is the same UV'd texture mirrored.
If you unwrap your model before applying the modifier, you should only see the 'real' geometry in the UV editor, so that's all the UV'd image or whatever will be applied to (the rest of the model will get the same texture but mirrored the same as the geometry).
Like this-
As you can see there's only the 'real' quater of the mirrored object in the UVs when unwrapped.

Hope this helps...


Camera position when scaling entire scene How can I keep my animated camera position after scaling everything I have in the scene?

In the first picture I provided everything is at scale 1. In the second, I scaled everything with 3D cursor as the origin. The camera is not showing the same thing. I guess it is moving because of the set keys in the animation, but I don't know how to make it work the way I want.

Method by Parenting

Create an empty at the scene's center.
Parent the Camera to the Empty. Select  RMB the Camera, ⇧ Shift RMB the Empty and press ⎈ CtrlP > Object.
Select all objects (including the empty) except for the camera and scale them as you intended.


Why does Joining objects together stretch UV mapping for some individual faces? I've seem to encounter some kind of anomaly in my model. I have created a model of a car, composed out of multiple meshes. After joining the pieces together, i began texturing the model, however, the UV maps of certain parts are stretched (but cleanly unwrapped) and distorted in a certain direction, while some unwrap normally.

I've nailed the problem down to where it seems only the base, or mesh i began with unwraps normally, while the other meshes i joined onto it have bad unwraps. I've tried unwrapping individual faces and get the same result, even after marking seams

Here is an example

What is causing this?

I've figured it out, Selecting the object and pressing CTRL+A in 'Object Mode' then applying  the scale fixed it.

(credit to @Paul Gonet)


When Blender crashes during rendering After asking a good number of questions,
I felt it best that I come with some tips that I have discovered and learnt on my own.
One of the things I've heard is that there are people that have tried to render a video
and that Blender (or CUDA, GPU rendering) would crash and their video file would be corrupt.
This usually happens in Cycles. How does one avoid this?

After asking a good number of questions,
I felt it best that I come with some tips that I have discovered and learnt on my own.
One of the things I've heard is that there are people that have tried to render a video
and that Blender (or CUDA, GPU rendering) would crash and their video file would be corrupt.
This usually happens in Cycles.
How to avoid this?
What I'm about to tell you is no miracle worker.
There is still a chance it dies depending on how complicated your scene is
and how much memory your computer or video card has.
To begin with, set all your rendering options according to what you want.
Make a few still image renders here and there to make sure you are satisfied with the quality.
In Output set where you want the result to be saved to and give it a name and a period (.) but without setting an extension (png),
check File Extensions, but uncheck Overwrite, Placeholder and Cache Result.
Set the format to PNG, and Compression to 100%.
Yes, we are writing image sequences here. Even the most professional Blender Gurus
with the most powerful of computers do this. This is to ensure that no matter what happens,
be it that the OS decides it has had enough or power failure/outage,
what you have rendered so far is safe and sound and you can pick it up right where you left off.
Another option you can check in Performance to save on RAM is to check Save Buffers.
Now that all that is setup, Close Blender!
To ensure that there is enough memory to render our video
we do not want Blender's GUI to be using any of it, and if possible, not even the Desktop.
What we are going to do now is write a little script file that is going to render our video.
Linux Bash Script
#!/bin/bash
cd "/path/to/blender/"
for i in {1..250}
do
   foo=$(printf "%04d" $i)
   if [ ! -f "/absolute/path/to/project/imgseq/video.$foo.png" ]
   then
      ./blender -b "/absolute/path/to/project/project.blend" -f $i
   fi
done

Lets go through this step by step.

The first line #!/bin/bash is pretty much the header telling Linux this is a bash script
and should be interpreted as such.
Next we Change Directory to wherever you have Blender installed cd "/path/to/blender/".
Now we create a for loop in which we iterate over the number of frames your animation has,
in which i holds a number from 1 to 250. Don't forget the do right after that.
The command foo=$(printf "%04d" $i) creates a formatted string where the number i gets 4 leading zeros. Remember that Blender will name the file with 4 leading zeros.
Next we test if a file with your video name that you set in File Output plus the frame number and png does not exists.
The ! in front of the -f is a negation so one would read it as 'if not a-file "video.number.png", then...'
This will ensure that Blender will not be launched to render this frame if the frame already exists.
So if this frame has not been rendered, launch blender (./blender) in the background (-b) and render the blend file
("/absolute/path/to/project/project.blend") on frame i only (-f $i).
Finally, end the if block with fi and our for loop with done.

Save this file somewhere, maybe with your blend file, and call it something simple like render.sh.
Make sure it is executable by doing sudo chmod 755 render.sh.
When you are ready to leave your computer running for hours on end, open a terminal or drop to a tty
(Ctrl+Alt+F1 - F6),
navigate to this render.sh and run it (./render.sh).
How to stop it?
If you want to interrupt your rendering at that moment, hold Ctrl+C
until Blender isn't trying to restart itself anymore.
If you want Blender to finish off its current frame, open a new terminal or jump to a different tty,
type in ps -A |grep render.sh or whatever name you gave your script, make note of its number
and type in kill number, and wait until Blender is finished.
Windows Batch Script
echo off
C:
cd "C:\path\to\blender"
for /L %%i in (1,1,250) do (
  set 'foo=0000%%i'
  set 'foo=!foo:~-4!'
  if not exist 'C:\absolute\path\to\project\imgseq\video.!foo!.png' (
    blender.exe -b "C:\absolute\path\to\project\project.blend" -f %%i
  )
)

Pretty much the same principle as the shell script, but lets go through it anyways.

The first part is optional. This will ensure that the whole script is not printed on screen each time a frame is to be rendered.
After that, C: ensures that we are in the drive that Blender was installed to.
Next we change directory to wherever you have Blender installed with cd "C:\path\to\blender".
Now we create a for loop in which we iterate over the number of frames your animation has,
where /L tells for that we are looping through numbers, %%i shall hold these numbers,
within the range of (start, step, end). Don't forget do ( at the end of this.
We then set our zero padding to %%i using the two lines set 'foo=0000%%i' and set 'foo=!foo:~-4!'.
The first adds the zeros and the second makes sure there are only 4 digits in total. Remember that Blender will name the files with 4 leading zeros.
Next we test if a file with your video name that you set in File Output plus the frame number and png does not exists.
Notice the ! surrounding the foo which is our zero padded %%i.
Unlike the shell, batch uses not instead of ! to negate what we are testing for.
This will ensure that Blender will not be launched to render this frame if the frame already exists.
So if this frame has not been rendered, launch blender.exe in the background (-b) and render the blend file
("C:\absolute\path\to\project\project.blend") on frame i only (-f %%i).
Finally we end the if and for blocks with a ) each.

Save this file somewhere, maybe with your blend file, and call it something simple like render.bat.
If you want the console window to stay open, press the Window Key, type in cmd and enter,
navigate to where this render.bat file is and simply run it by typing in render.bat.
If you don't mind it closing when it's done, simply double-click render.bat.
How to stop it?
Pressing Ctrl+C, Y and Enter will stop the loop, but Blender will continue on its current frame.
To stop Blender itself one would go into Task Manager, find blender among the Processes and End Process.
To stop it all, simply close the terminal (x).
Mac OS
As far as I can tell, Mac uses the same bash script as Linux, but if I'm wrong do let me know.
Additional Thoughts
Some of you may be noticing that this method will close and re-open Blender for each frame rendered,
and you are probably wondering "Won't this put a strain on the computer?"
Not necessarily. I have noticed that if I were to run Blender in the background and include -a
to render the whole animation in one sitting, it won't clear the memory properly between frames
and one would run into memory problems.
By closing Blender after each frame it will clear all of the memory (if not 99%)
and leave plenty for Blender to take care of the next frame.
The only factor that may interfere with this is how well your OS manages memory.
"What if I just give my project to a Render Farm like Sheep-It?"
That is a possibility if you need to use your computer for other things in the mean time,
but there are a few factors to consider which would make this difficult.

In the case of Sheep-It you can only upload 500mb, so if your project has a lot of textures or cached dynamics
that exceed this limit, even compressed, this will not work.
If your project takes a long time to render you'll run out of points,
and based on that system your project will get less attention, and thereby take longer to complete.
You are part of a studio of some kind and doing this may violate any agreements you have with your boss.
You yourself want to keep this project a big secret and you do not want the slightest bit of exposure until it is done.
Your project contains questionable material that may violate the Render Farm's terms.
You want to render your project in a special or non-linear way.

Render Farms like Sheep-It pretty much does the same thing as the scripts above.
Get the project, check what frame hasn't been rendered, then tell Blender to render that one frame in the background, then close.
Although because there is a little shuffling involved, projects will be downloaded and deleted several times
as well as Blender being re-opened and closed.
"My Blender project contains audio. Can I render that in the background?"
As far as I can tell, you cannot. That would've been a handy command to add at the end.
Sadly, you'll have to open Blender and click the Audio button in the Render panel and wait.
So, now that your rendering is complete and you have a long list of PNG files,
you'd like to turn them into a complete video. There are a number of ways to do this.
The first and foremost way would be to put them into your video editing software
so that you can apply any extra visual effects or sounds that are needed.
If you want an mp4 as soon as it is all complete, you could add the following to the end of your script:
ffmpeg -r 24 -start_number 1 -i "/absolute/path/to/project/imgseq/video.%%04d.png" -f mp4 -crf 15 "/absolute/path/to/project/imgseq/video.mp4"

This will of course work if ffmpeg is installed and recognized as an internal command.
If not you'll have to Change Directory to where ffmpeg.exe is hiding just before this command.
The first part of this command -r 24 sets the frame rate. Be sure it is the same one you set in Blender.
The next part -start_number 1 tells ffmpeg that the image sequence starts at 1. If your video actually starts at frame 0, you can skip this part.
The -crf you can change to 0 if you want 100% lossless compression, but that would be a huge video.
For any other video format, feel free to look them up on your own.
Hope this helps you in rendering your massive projects.
If the CUDA still gives up half-way through a single frame then the only thing I can think of is that
there isn't enough VRAM or there is a Shader that your GFX card does not like.
You can experiment and see if CPU rendering works any better, even if it is slower.
/Edward
(blender 2.79)
EDIT It has come to my attention that sometimes the console in Linux (tty) can be a bit slow if it halts execution as it refreshes the screen for a new line. This can be a problem if your project has a lot of objects and textures, and printing out each line takes far too long. One way to speed things up is to add  | grep Remaining to the end of the ./blender line or after typing ./render.sh.


How to check if an object at on a specific position/how to get the position of an object I'm working on a project and I need to get the position of an object (not necessarily by python code) and at the same time I need to know how I can check if the position is on a special point like (0,3,6) for example. How can I do that?

I actually found out now, if someone needs to know, this is how I get the positions:

import bge
import GameLogic as g

cont = g.getCurrentController()
own = cont.owner
pos = own.position
x = pos[0]
y = pos[1]
z = pos[2]

and this is how I check for them:
if x = 3.0 and 2.5 and y == 3 and z == 2.5:
    print("The object has the coordinates (3.0|2.5|2.5)")


Why does the center / origin jump back? I have imported an fbx into Unity, and the center is at the bottom of the grenade.

But this is not what I want. The origin / center should be in the middle.
To set the origin / center correctly, I import the fbx into Blender.
In Blender, I set the geometry to the 3D cursor, and the origin as at the same location.
This is what it looks like this:

It looks perfectly fine and as I need it.
Then I export it as an fbx, and right after saving, it looks like this in Blender:

Why does the center jump back to the bottom?
And then in Unity, I have the same problem again.
What might be the problem here?
Thank you!

Found it - the problem is a keyframe sitting in your timeline. If you delete it, the objects transforms become "unlocked" and your changes will stay. See images below:


Is it possible to create custom Camera projection volume modes? To clarify, I was talking with a friend and we started to wonder if there were camera modes beyond orthographic and perspective. As an example, one that defined its edges not with a cuboid or frustum, but a curved volume?

There are all kinds of cool effects that could be done with that, especially if the curvature was animated. However, I know that perspective and orthographic modes are generally just done with matrices, so it might take some tinkering.

Blender is open to add on construction and open source at that, but I honestly have no idea where to begin. Would it be Python, or can I do it in OSL? Or would I have to actually dive into C for this?

Hopefully this question isn't too broad.

EDIT: I am purely attempting to extend the camera modes, not to simulate it with post processing (which has a number of additional drawbacks in efficiency). This question is about plugin development.

These are the familiar viewing transforms we use on a day to day basis, outlined by volume of rendered geometry (not volume of geometry, volume of rendered space) :

Perspective - smaller with depth:

Panoramic - projected from center in all direction:

Orthographic - same size:

In all cases, depth goes along a straight path in a specific direction, in Blender it's typically the camera's local Z. For panoramic, it is local r in sphere-space. Note that in all cases, depth is measured along straight lines, in a simplistic manner.

My proposal is to allow for the construction of cameras which are not confined to simplistic single-dimension radius, but actually measure depth along a curve:

As an example, with a rendering space which was defined like a curved volume, with a taper curve and a bevel curve, we could still define (in linear time) a path to each rendered pixel in Cycles; but that path would be unconstrained, and could say look at an object behind the red demo object. It would also only gather necessary data, where gathering all data from a panoramic camera and operating on that would still spend roughly six times the amount of time to render, plus post processing; and still wouldn't have all of the data necessary.

Deforming the Image as Lenses Would

Camera lenses deform the view. If you want to deform the rendered image, there are quite a lot of ways to do that in Blender. You could use Blender's compositing functionality, or you could also use an emission shader for shade-less material and map an image or a movie to some 3d object like a plane and use all the tools available in material nodes, that would include manipulating texture coordinate vectors with any math or manipulating the UV mapping or you could even deform the geometry that has the image or movie projected on it in 3d space. Obviously you could also do all the mentioned things together one on top another if you wanted.

Projections

Programming unrealistic projections or manipulating volume of the camera view does not seem to be possible using Python. It might be possible in OSL.

You could however achieve some interesting results without programming:

Baking Functionality

It is possible to bake a color of a completely reflective surface so it is possible to define the shape of the projection with any geometry you wish:

Its best to disable all Cycles rays except camera so that the 'camera' object does not interact with the lighting in the scene in this case. Rendering an animation with this way would require some Python scripting.

In addition to that objects with Refraction BSDF shader could be used to construct lenses.

Constructing Lenses for Cameras out of Refractive Objects

Another way with an actual camera would be to make a lens from a refractive object:

This kind of 'lens' could approximate the curvature of the volume visible by the camera as well because it can be constructed out of multiple objects. It might be very intensive on render resources if you wanted it to be more precise and it is limited by the way refraction works in Blender's Refractive BSDF shader, but it is possible:


Is there a way to make Cycles render slower to use less GPU resources Is there a way to make rendering in Cycles use less GPU resources? Like some console parameters for rendering engine or settings within Blender? I tried render scene with the console (no UI), following Blender wiki example, but it still eats all the GPU and makes it really hot to 70' Celsius. I don't mind if such settings increase render time from minutes to hours, that's kinda exactly what I need to put rendering task do the job over night and keep GPU usage around 50-60% and prevent overheating.

I'm using Linux.

70 degrees is not too hot and it's completely normal for a working GPU. Something beyond 85 degrees would start getting concerning. Anyways, you may set the tile size to a low value (16 x 16 for instance) to get what you want. Here you can see a table that shows how different Tile sizes can affect rendering time when using a GPU.

However, from a more environmental perspective ( :) ) I don't recommend you doing this since you will have to leave your computer on for a much longer time to get the final rendering. In the meanwhile, your computer is using way more electricity than it would if you use the GPU efficiently by setting the tile size to a higher number (e.g. 224 x 224). Normally, a mid-range GPU uses around 200 watt-hours or less working with the highest load. When idle, it uses around 30-50 watt-hours. The rest of the hardware for your computer also use at least around 70-100 watt-hours in idle and maybe around 200-300 watt-hours when they are under descent load. Assuming that you don't do anything else overnight (8 hours) and just leave your computer on for rendering your computer will be using something around 8 x 200 = 1600 watt-hours. The number 200 represents 100 watt-hours for your [almost] idle computer and 100 watt-hours for your GPU which is not under heavy load due to small tile size. However, if you set the tile size to a higher number and the rendering takes 2 hours your computer would use something around 2 x 300 = 600 watt-hours. 300=100(everything except GPU) + 200 (the GPU under heavy load).

Note that all of these numbers are just a rough approximation and could widely vary depending on your hardware but one thing that won't change is that leaving your computer on for longer will potentially use more watt-hours than finishing your rendering faster and turning your machine off :)


Is there a way to create a collision between the hair and body in my character in Blender 2.8? I tried creating a force field and also emitting the hair from a separate object but it keeps falling through the mesh. I'm new to Blender and might be missing a simple solution...

The way to solve this would be setting the particle emitter to collision. You can do this in the physics tab. There is an option labeled collision.


Is it possible to select multiple edge-loops simultaneously? I'm trying to select multiple edge loops by just doing one of them.

I want to know if there's a faster way of selection rather than doing it one by one. If there is a way, does the symmetry plays a role in terms of selection?

There is another way,which is selection by similarity.

The loops you are trying to select are similar in length for instance.

Select the loop and press Shift + G , Length.

You may want to decrease the threshold if your want a more precise result.


Image Sequence Rendered Purple Despite Being Within Image Sequence Range I am trying to display a movie of 500 frames from a projector and have the image sequence of the frames called 0001.jpg to 0500.jpg all in the same folder. I have set up my image texture node with frames = 500, start frame = 1 and offset = 0. I have tried various combinations and scrolled through my preview and it's always purple on every frame. Is there anything else that could be going wrong here?

Edit: Blend File

Ok, so after a few days experimenting I can confirm this is a bug with version 2.83 and updating to 2.92 makes this blend file work as expected.


Modeling a ball gear I'm trying to model a ball gear (not a worm gear) in blender, like the one in this picture.

I have tried using the worm gear from the extra objects add on, but I can't get it to look right. Can anyone give me some tips?

Here is what I have been able to make so far:

Consider a Curve Modifier and Array.
Similar to winding cable around a spindle.

Curve Above.

Mesh Component Selected.  Modifiers Array and Curve.


How to make pixelated censor effect? I wonder how to make pixelated censor effect (which can be animated) in Blender (Cycles or BI). In Photoshop it's quite easy (you select the area, go to Filter-->Pixelate-->Mosaic and that's all. It's still however). I want to achieve the effect from the .gif below. It'll be useful for me if I want to present a 3d naked female model turnover animation for example and I want to censor some obvious body parts :). Do I have to achieve it in the compositor or just using material nodes? Any ideas?

Compositing can be used to create a pixelated effect. Masks can be used to control where the pixelation occurs. The animation below shows an animated pixelated window.

Steps to create a pixelated effect in an animation in Blender 2.76 w/ Cycles.

Create the scene and lighting.
Add an object which will act as a mask for the pixelation region. Put this object on its own layer. See How to output ID masks as seperate files for compositing?
Setup render layers so the scene and the mask are generated as different layers.

Use nodes for compositing in the nodes panel.
Use the pixelation node to generate a version of the scene which is pixelated. Place an inpaint node before the pixelation node to ensure the pixelation works everywhere in the image. Use the mix node to combine the pixelated and original image where the mask is used to determine where it is pixelated. See the nodes setup below for an example.

The blend file for the animation is located here:


How to create randomly packed bed? I can't find any tutorials "how to create randomly packed bed" in Blender. I need to create a randomly packed bed with help of rigid body dynamic model.

For example, I need to get a packed bed similar to a packed bed shown below:

What sort of difficulty have you met? To do this kind of thing:

Create your cylinder, in the Physics panel press Rigid Body, choose Type > Passive and Shape > Mesh.
Create your falling object, in the Physics panel press Rigid Body, choose Type > Active.
Duplicate your object with altD (linked duplication).
Play the animation.


Export animation as a video for editing later I have simple 10 sec animation and I want to render it into a video file for future video editing. I've used FFmpeg video format option in Blender with MPEG-4 container, H.264 codec and Lossless output quality, but generated mp4 cannot be opened in Quicktime (I use mac os), only in VLC. More importantly, I cannot open it in DaVinci Resolve (it is not recognised).
What is the best format to use, so that it won't noticeably worsen the quality and can be easily used for editing? Are AVI Raw or AVI JPEG good options?

For editing purposes, it's fairly common to use a sequence of images files, not a video file. Most editing software support them (DaVinci Resolve definitively do), and you don't have to struggle with codecs, bitrate or whatever.
In your output settings, just select a picture file format. Png is great if you have a transparent background. Lossless Jpeg is great if you've got a solid background.
There are other benefits with files sequences ; ie., you can pause the render between two frames and relaunch it later ; or render it with multiple computers (ie. a renderfarm).


Make bone roll match a face/vertex normal? I am working on a script that generates bones down an edge or face loop. I have figured out how to create a bone and move its head and tail into position at the top and bottom of a face, or onto a specific vertex. The problem now is how to roll the bone so that it is flat on the face normal (or if on an edge loop, so that it based on the vertex normals.)

Is there some existing way to do this, or any existing addons/scripts that handle this problem? Or do I have to somehow derive the bone’s angle?

Construct the bone matrix

Here is a script that creates a  bone at each edge such that the bones y axis is aligned vert 0 to vert 1 and the z axis to the "edge normal" ie the average of the two linked face normals.
Select mesh object in object mode, run script creates an armature with bone on each edge.
import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix
context = bpy.context
vl = context.view_layer
coll = context.collection
ob = context.object # the mesh
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)
arm = bpy.data.armatures.new("Foo")
arm_obj = bpy.data.objects.new("Foo", arm)
coll.objects.link(arm_obj)
vl.objects.active = arm_obj
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

for e in bm.edges:
    eb = arm.edit_bones.new(f"edge{e.index}")
    v = e.verts[1].co - e.verts[0].co

    y = v.normalized()
    z = sum((f.normal for f in e.link_faces), Vector()).normalized()
    x = y.cross(z)
    M = Matrix((x, y, z)).transposed().to_4x4()
    M.translation = e.verts[0].co
    eb.matrix = M
    eb.tail = e.verts[1].co

bpy.ops.object.mode_set()


Shading issue when adding Subdivision Modifier Firt things first, needless to say that I'm still a newbie haha.

I've been learning how to model with extruding vertex and faces, instead of starting from a cube.

Everything went pretty well until I decided to add a Subdivision Surface modifier to smooth everything and I found this(Also happens when I right click and check shade smooth):

Also I let you see the X-Ray version, which made worry:

So thanks in advance and any help would be appreciated :3

Looks originally like "Normal" problem. this post will give you an idea about it. it happens a lot when models are extruded.

Blender How to Recalculate Normals


X-ray material based on inner object's position? I have an object:

That object has an object inside of it:

I'd like to get a map on the cube, based on where the internal object is in relation to the camera, such that I can make it transparent where needed to make the inside object visible:

This is going to be animated, so can't be a static map.

My use case is to reduce to IOR in the following brain object such that it's easier to see the red internal object:

Here is the result of my mathematical approach:

And the nodes for the outer object:

The value nodes on the far left are driven by the positions of the target (inner) object (top three) and camera (bottom three).

And here are the contents of the Norm node group, which returns the norm (i.e. magnitude) of the input vector:

The basic idea of my approach is to take the ray vector (from the camera to the sampled point on the mesh) and extend it to the inner object, then test how far this extended ray vector is away from the center of the inner object and use that information to adjust the outer object accordingly.  (In my example I reduced the IOR and made the glass lighter to make the inner object more visible.)

See below for a more thorough look at the math.

The only downside here is that the "hole" in the outer mesh will not be the exact shape of the inner object since I am basically approximating the inner object to be a sphere.

And here's the .blend:

The Math

Note, this answer is already fairly long and defining all the mathematical terms and concepts I am using here would make it much longer.  So to understand this section you should have decent precalculus grasp of vector math.  If you don't understand this part fully you can still just copy my nodes, or feel free to open a chat room with me and I would be more than happy to explain whatever you want.

Call the camera's position $\vec{C} = (Cx,Cy,Cz)$.
Call the center of the target (inner) object $\vec{T} = (Tx,Ty,Tz)$.
Call the sampled point on the outer object $\vec{P} = (Px,Py,Pz)$.
Call the radius of the inner object $R$.
The vector of the incoming ray is $\vec{CP}$, for simplicity I will call it $\vec{r}$.

The idea now is to determine if $\vec{r}$ is aiming towards the inner object.  To do this, normalize $\vec{r}$ and multiply it by the norm of $\vec{CT}$.  This will result in a new vector $\vec{r}^{\,\prime}$ in the same direction as $\vec{r}$ and length as $\vec{CT}$.

The last step is to determine if $\vec{r}^{\,\prime}$ intersects the inner object. This is pretty simple, just take the difference $\vec{r}^{\,\prime}-\vec{CT}$ to make a new vector $\vec{D}$.

This gives the final formula for the distance to compare to $R$:

$$
\left\vert\left\vert \vec{D} \right\vert\right\vert = \left\vert\left\vert \frac{\vec{r}}{\left\vert\left\vert \vec{r} \right\vert\right\vert} - \vec{CT} \right\vert\right\vert
$$

The node layout is just this formula, then sent through an RGB Curves node to tweak the falloff (the Add node right after the RGB Curves adds 0, it's purpose is to clamp the value to $[0,1]$), then used to mix the two glass shaders.  The Less Than math node at the very bottom compares the norms of $\vec{CT}$ and $\vec{r}$ (not $\vec{r}^{\,\prime}$) to apply the effect only in front of the target object.

Ping me in chat if you have any questions about the nodes or the math, I'm happy to explain further there if needed!


How to add a new stop to the color ramp? How to add a new stop to the color ramp in python?

import bpy
from bpy import data as D

# Get a reference to the colorRamp node
cr=D.materials['Material'].node_tree.nodes['ColorRamp'].color_ramp

# enumarate the elements to the console
for e in cr.elements:
    print(e.position)

# set the left most color to green
cr.elements[0].color=(0,1,0,1)

# add a new ramp in the middle, position = 0.5
cr.elements.new(position = 0.5)

# set the middle color to red
cr.elements[1].color=(1,0,0,1)

# set the right color to blue
cr.elements[2].color=(0,0,1,1)


Location of object wrong? So I just realized some strange stuff is happening when i export my object, and I realized the original object made in blender is not at center,

but the weird part is that its origin is at the center of the grid, the same as its armature but while the armature says its at 0, 0, 0, the objects position is 0, 0 , 2.40731.

if i apply location the origin of the object will go 2.4 units below

Im using Blender 2.71
Can anyone help?

Blend file

Location is not "wrong".
Those numbers still represent the global location of the origin of the object, but location "on the screen" depends also from inherited transformation.

Let's make an example:

Consider two cube objects as the ones in the picture.

The active cube has X_location = 3

The parented cube has X_location = 2

But the are obiuvsly in the X location...this means that the child cube inherit the transformation of the parent object (the armature, whom origins is X location = 1 )

So the Cube children object origins is in X = 2, but as the parent object is in X = 1, it appear in X = 2+1 because inherit parent transformation.

You can easly see by un-parenting the object.


How do I choose a specific vertex to be extruded with Python? I am a newbie here. I tried to write python script by copying and pasting commands from the top scripting window in Blender. I met a problem when trying to extrude an object programmatically. Here is my sample code:

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(
      radius=2.5, # The initial radius is the radius of starting point
      view_align=False,
      enter_editmode=True,
      location=(1,2,3),
      layer=mylayers)

bpy.ops.mesh.merge(type='CENTER')
bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type='SKIN')
bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type='SUBSURF')
bpy.context.object.modifiers["Subsurf"].levels = 4

bpy.ops.mesh.extrude_region_move(MESH_OT_extrude_region={"mirror":False},
                             TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value":(0, 0, 0),
                             "constraint_axis":(False, False, False),
                             "constraint_orientation":'GLOBAL',
                             "mirror":False,
                             "proportional":'DISABLED',
                             "proportional_edit_falloff":'SMOOTH',
                             "proportional_size":1,
                             "snap":False,
                             "snap_target":'CLOSEST',
                             "snap_point":(0, 0, 0),
                             "snap_align":False,
                             "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0),
                             "gpencil_strokes":False,
                             "texture_space":False,
                             "remove_on_cancel":False,
                             "release_confirm":False})

I first merged the mesh of a cube into a single point in edit mode and added a skin modifier to the point, then tried to extrude this point to create an object similar to this:

However, I realized that there is no such keyword to select the vertex that I want to extrude out the bar from. So I was wondering if anyone knows how to select or activate a specific point (by vertex coordinate?) for extrusion?

A bmesh approach.

In as much as the operator calls are written in INFO area, and can be used to make scripts I always recommend using API class methods when possible.

Here I've created a new object at (1, 2, 3) using a bmesh and the bmesh extrude individual vert bmesh.ops.extrude_vert_indiv(...) which returns the newly created vert at the other end.  For example sake I've added 3 random length branches in random directions.

Because of the random in all directions will get some rubbish result.  For practical use  some kind of tree data structure.

Added the modifiers using API method Object.modifiers.new(name, type)

a test run

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector
from random import randint, uniform
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
me = bpy.data.meshes.new("Thing")
ob = bpy.data.objects.new("Thing", me)

bm = bmesh.new()
root = bm.verts.new()
for i in range(3): # tree branches
    v = root
    for l in range(randint(1, 4)):
        ret = bmesh.ops.extrude_vert_indiv(bm, verts=[v])
        for v in ret['verts']:
            v.co += Vector([uniform(-1, 1) for axis in "xyz"])
        bm.to_mesh(me)

ob.location = (1, 2, 3)
skin = ob.modifiers.new(name="Skin", type='SKIN')
sub = ob.modifiers.new(name="Sub", type='SUBSURF')
sub.levels = 2
scene.objects.link(ob)

Used the extrude operator to match the question.  Could simply add a vertex at next location and use that to create edge.

newvert = bm.verts.new((2, 2, 2))
newedge = bm.edges.new([root, newvert])


Opengl viewport only rendering a spot I was working on a project and I don't know how but the viewport started hiding things out of a camera range... I tried deleting the camera but it did not work.. here is how it looks like:

the archive:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!ApEztyCWw8odqnpUJSYRx8dbr_ni

EDIT: So, I think this is probably a glitch. I tried to open it with blender 2.8 and the problem just disappeared.. I cannot save it in 2.8 tho because I Still want to use it in 2.79b.

You have the Clipping Border active  Alt  +  B , hit the same shortcut to clear it. You can also find the command in the View menu in the 3D viewport header.


Is this bug or why my model ruined in sculpting process? At first model had lost many peaces of topology and then holes filled with triangles other red color. (sorry for such english)

Some of your normals are pointing the wrong way.
To fix this press:

A to select everything
↹ Tab to enter Edit Mode
⇧ ShiftN to recalculate the normals on the outside


Microdisplacements with adaptive subdivision turning black I followed a microdisplacements tutorial on Blender Guru and I was able to create a texture fine. Here is a picture.

And then I turned on Adaptive subdivision. Here is a picture of what happened.

I know that this question has been asked before but I am using blender 2.79 so it should be fixed, right? Please let me know you ideas. Thanks

When using adaptive subdivision, your normal map node should not use tangent space, or your object will appear black. Instead, use object space, and it will render as expected.
Object Space:

Tangent Space:

While I am not certain of the reason for this behavior, it is marked as a to do item in the tracker at the moment, rather than a bug.


Problem with rest position and pose mode I have purchased the rigged skeleton from http://www.jan-hamernik.com/. however I am unable to pose it as the model totally goes weird in pose mode. I have know idea what todo. Heeeeelp

Blender does not run scripts that are part of .blend files automatically, which unfortunately includes the scripts that run Rigify-based rigs together. Blender has to be told that this file is ok, and to run its included Python.

At the top of your first screenshot, there is "Auto Run Disabled" next to the button "Reload Trusted".  Click Reload Trusted, it will reload the file with scripts enabled.

When you load the file with the "open .blend" option under "file", there is the checkbox labeled "Trusted Source", which should also allow scripts to run and for this rig to not flip out.


Array Modifier does not work as expected I am following this very simple tutorial: Video tutorial

It uses an Empty constrains the rotation to a cube and then adds a plane to create the snowflake. Everything works as expected until I have to add the array modifier and my Offset Object is the above mentioned Empty.

Now I get the following unexpected result:

I did this 3 times now and I can't seem to find the reason why this does not look like this:

These are my setting:

Download the file

When editing objects in Object mode, particularly scaling it, the mesh data actually isn't changed - scaling operation was performed in non-destructive way. This means that while object is displayed in viewport as scaled (and for simple operations it behaves like that too), its default scale is considered to be the non-edited one.

When scale is applied this means new values are taken into consideration as default ones. Modifiers work as expected with default values of transforms (and not only modifiers), so to see intended result you should apply scale.

Note though that it's a good idea to apply transforms before proceeding to some actions with object, especially animation. Once you'll notice that it doesn't behave as expected and decide to apply transforms, it may be too late - objects won't be changed as you want them to. So plan what is expected to do with object first.

In case of your object, this is as follows.

If scale is not applied

Given this snowflake:

If scale is applied

Everything becomes as expected:

To apply any kind of transforms, in Object mode press Ctrl+A and choose option from menu:

There are cases when applying transforms may be not desired, but in most cases it's better to apply scale and rotation first to avoid any kind of distortions and confusion later on.

Related articles:

Why is it important to apply transforms
Applying object transforms in wiki


Light is not illuminating I'm quite new to this but as I move the light around, it's not illuminating anything.

The light is shown as below. As you can see it's all dark.

The file is https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1gUYerWWGkvm6UbAs4rW070Er9fzo4c-Y

Thanks you guys in advance!

Press Z and set shading to Rendered / Look Dev? It should then display your materials and the lighting they receive.


Rendering two layers simultaneously glitch I've done a render where I had the main objects on layer 1, and an explosion on layer 2.  However, when I render them simultaneously, the exploding pieces in layer 2 go right through the object in layer 1 (as the camera zooms through the object), creating a weird glitch like this:

I should mention the explosion has several composite nodes like glare, lens distortion and emission, so what I think happened was that the pieces on the 2nd layer went through the first and ended up illuminating the object in the 1st layer.  This also caused the render to be about 5 hours!

This is what the object looks like with both layers BEFORE the camera gets too close, thus not causing that glitch:

The reason I used 2 layers to render at the same time was so that I could use a set of composite nodes for the explosion only.  I didn't want to render them separately because I still want reflections of the exploding object to show on the objects in layer 1.

I'm guessing the only way to avoid this weird 5 hour glitch is to make it so that the explosion can't go through the objects in layer 1, but rather bounce off like they should in normal physics. How could I do this and still have them on 2 different layers?

For the blend, you can download it here (it was too big for blend-exchange.giantcowfilms) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzCN0fElYa3HUzhCT21yT3FPZ0U/view?usp=sharing

Thanks

You can simply use object index

This way, you can put all the objects on one layer, and still separate them for compositing.

It's easy

Switch your objects pass index.
Enable object index pass in the render passes
Use an ID mask node to create a mask of those objects.

Keep in mind

You can then try something like a mix node in the way shown to separate those objects on a black background. Keep in mind, that the output of the ID Mask node is like an alpha mask. Wherever that object is in the render, the output will be 1, wherever it is not, the output will be 0.

See the illustration below.

Here is an example of using this method to apply an effect. (the image shown under the composite nodes is the original.)


Scrolling the mouse wheel scrubs the timeline Since I updated to 2.74, sometimes the mouse wheel scrubs the timeline rather than zooming. I guess I've hit some key by mistake, but I haven't been able to find out which one. When this happens, scrolling scrubs the timeline no matter which part of the UI I'm in, i.e. it won't let me scroll up and down in the panels either.

Update: I have several virtual desktops, and after posting this, when I went back to the desktop where Blender is, it had reset the mouse function to what I'm used to. Seems strange. Is this a bug that I should report, or is it some feature that I haven't been able to wrap my head around?

In different windows, Alt + scrolling the wheel scrubs the timeline.
Hope it's an helpful info.


How to make a rig like curve handle with control points With curves, you get good control points that move with the middle handle. I'd like to do that with bones but I'm experiencing problems with dependency cycles.
How am I supposed to do that?
i want to make this:

but with these:

It's probably not the best solution.
so I used 3 armatures
-first we need to uncheck lock object mode so we can select our bones from different armatures

-then parent two control points to the main one

-then using object constraint not bone one
copy reversed location of other control point bone from other object
and set offset to true so we can have some initial distance from middle bone (in object mode) like set first armature 1 unit ahead middle and second armature 1 unit behind middle

and very important part that makes all this work:
setting target to pose space and owner to world so there will be no dependency
but if we translate middle bone because both of controls are moving there will be dependency and glitching
also rotating middle bone because of setting owner to world break it
here is my results:

So please let me know if you come up with another idea.


How I can distort image(movie clip) from rectangle to polar? How I can distort image(movie clip) from rectangle coords to polar? Maybe I can do it in Node Editor or whatever?
I need to replace pixels from XY to Angle R. But how I can do it? Thank you.

You can try using a texture node to perform a uv distort on the image by applying the blend texture radial.
otherwise you would have to distort the real uv unwrap or possibly use a modifier to distort a mapped mesh in 3d view.

EDIT:
So I imported this plane into Blender as Add > Mesh > Images As Planes
Then add an empty and clear the location of both "alt G"
Select the image plane and add 2 modifiers.
1. Subsurf, use simple, increase divisions to 6
2. Add a simple Deform modifier set to Bend.
3. Set Origin as Empty, then enter Deform Angle as 360 deg.
4. alter empty location if required.


How to disable VSE for render? I have a video reference in my Video Sequence Editor while I animate my scene. However, when I try to render, it just renders the video file that's loaded in the VSE instead of my scene.
I'd like to just disable the VSE's influence over my render so I can have my reference there without affecting anything else. How could I do this?

In the post-processing section disable sequencer

2.8x

2.7x


List vertex colors from a bmesh I'm working on a custom exporter for an external software.
I need to get a list of the vertex colors from a triangulated mesh.
To get the triangulated mesh I use this code:
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(SceneObj.to_mesh())
bmesh.ops.triangulate(bm, faces=bm.faces, quad_method='BEAUTY', ngon_method='BEAUTY')

With normal meshes I use this code:
#Get vertex color list without duplicates
VertexColList = []
if len(MeshObject.vertex_colors):
    if hasattr(MeshObject.vertex_colors.active, 'data'):
        for layer in MeshObject.vertex_colors:
            for vertex in layer.data:
                VertexColList.append(
                    (vertex.color[0] * .5, vertex.color[1] * .5, vertex.color[2] * .5, vertex.color[3])
                )
        VertexColList = list(dict.fromkeys(VertexColList))

But that piece of code not works in a bmesh, what should I change to make it works?

Each loop (= corner of a poly) has its own vertex color. You can print the vertex color for each corner with
# Get the first Vertex Color layer; can also use its name (eg. "Col")
layer = bm.loops.layers.color[0]

for face in bm.faces:
    for loop in face.loops:
        color = loop[layer]  # gives a Vector((R, G, B, A))
        print(color)

Btw, if possible you should get the triangulation with calc_loop_triangles instead, since it gives you the triangulation that Blender actually draws.


Low Render-Quality despite high Render-Settings I´ve created this Scene In blender 2.82 and gave it a test render with 350 Samples, but the quality was very low. Now I tried it with 600 Samples but it didn´t get better. What am I doing wrong?
Info: I´m using blender 2.82 with cycles on my CPU. I set the Rendersamples to 600, set the Light bounces to 6 and used the basic built-in denoiser.

As I commented, I believe you need to increase the render resolution instead of the scene samples/light bounces. See this if you are unsure how.
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/5840/22099