How could I place objects (buildings) on a flat surface in the BGE? I'm working on an RTS in BGE, and I am not sure how I could make it so you can place buildings on flat surfaces (or unless there is an easier way). I would love to know how to place buildings when you click a certain button to place it.

I don't really need anything fancy like price and stuff like that yet. I really have no idea if Python is required to do this.

Warning: this is a long answer. It may take a while for some of the images to load. For those of you who don't like reading: The working .blend files are at the bottom of this answer.
Basic Mechanics
You first need an empty (named Arrow) to follow the mouse. This empty will add the buildings.
You will need a script like this.
from bge import logic

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

    mouse_over = cont.sensors["MouseOver"]

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

And use this on your empty.

That way your empty will always track to your mouse.
Now all you need to do is make it add the buildings when you click and it is in a valid position. You can do this by adding some more simple logic on your empty.

Now when the Boolean property OkSpot? is true, and the left mouse button is pressed, it will add your building object. however this doesn't help us much if there is nothing to toggle that property when the placement spot is valid.

Now when the arrow receives the message GoodSpot it will set the Boolean OkSpot? to true and, when the arrow receives the message BadSpot it will set the Boolean OkSpot? to false. Now we are done with the empty (named Arrow), but we now need something to send those messages.
We obviously need some sort of collision detector. In this case, a simple cube will work. Add a cube and parent it to your empty (named Arrow).
We need to edit the cube so that it is slightly above the ground.

Now when it is on the slightest slope, it will be colliding with the ground.
It is also important that you change your Collision object's collision type from static to sensor, because static objects can't detect collisions with other static objects and, I assume that your ground will be a static object. You also should set it's collision bounds to Box.

Now that we have our collision object detecting collisions properly, we still need it to send that information to the arrow. We can do this by using this logic setup.

Now we can test it. Everything should be working so far. the building we will be adding is just a cube for now.

The basic mechanics should be working now to place the buildings. skip to the end if you don't care about how your game looks.
If you want to be make it much more complicated, you can have two other no-collision duplicates of the building that will be added, one transparent green, and the other transparent red. (to show when the selection is valid.) Then you can make the arrow directly connected to the red and green objects telling it when the selection is or is not valid.  TO make this simpler, first we should set the maximum draw type on your collision detector to wire. we also need to make it invisible.

Now if we look at the viewport, it should look like this.

Now we can add the red and green cubes. These are just graphics to make it look pretty and are actually irrelevant for the basic mechanics. The system already works fine (skip to the end if you don't need it to look good).
Now, both your red and green cubes should be no-collision and both parented to the main empty (still named Arrow).

Now all we need to do is make them toggle their visibility depending on whether or not the selection is valid. we can do this by adding two visibility actuators to both Cube Red and Cube Green then we need to add another property sensor on the empty (yes, it is still named Arrow) to detect when the Boolean OkSpot? is false.
If you don't like reading but are ok with pictures, skip this part.
we already have a property sensor to detect when it is true, so we can re-use that one. If we connect them to the appropriate visibility actuators on both cubes, it should change color accordingly. I have named the and controllers ok and not to make connecting them simpler. The and controller that is connected to the property sensor that detects when OkSpot? is true, receives a positive pulse when the arrow is in a valid spot. because we are going to use the green cube to show when the selection is valid, it should be visible when the selection is valid. the red cube should not be visible when the selection is valid. connect the other *and * controller to the visibility actuators that are still unused.

Now that everything is working, we can test it again.

Everything seems to be working fine.
We are now going to add the button to toggle on/off the build system. If you only want it to work and look cool, skip to the very end where the blend files are. Doing this will make a big mess of the logic, and I recommend also downloading the simplified blend so you can get an idea of how this works without the messy logic of the working one.
We can now add the button to turn on/off the arrow.
We need an overlay scene with a camera and a button. the button can be something fancy, or just a plane with logic.

Now we can go back to the main scene and add a scene actuator to one of the objects to add the HUD scene. It is true that you could put it on any one of your objects, But I usually add an empty and put it somewhere where it is easily accessible. This empty holds all of the Game start/end and Scene add/remove logic.

We also need the mouse to display. In newer versions, this is much easier than before.

Now we need to modify the logic on the original empty (still named Arrow). When logic starts to get this messy, you can un-check the check boxes to make editing easier.
Note that doing this also disables the logic bricks so be sure to re-enable them before testing.

From the newly added logic on the Arrow, now when you place a building, it will deactivate the arrow.
We need to add a way so that clicking the Build button on the HUD will activate it add a new one.

We should test it now to see if this part is working.
Don't forget to re-enable the logic that we un-checked

This part is working. However, we can still see the arrow if it isn't active. This can be fixed easily enough.
You need to significantly change the logic on your arrow to match this.
(Simplified)

(Expanded)

There are two blend files below. One is without that mess, one has it working.
We must test it again.

If you had any trouble following that, you can always look at, take apart, and/or  modify the blend files.
Blend file without button to build (always has arrow active) - Logic is simple.

Blend file with button to build (Click button to activate arrow, click to place cube, clicking also deactivates arrow so you must click build button for each cube you want to add again) - full working demo. Logic is harder to understand.


Does Eevee support Animated Textures? I am not able to use an animated texture (image in sequence) for objects in Eevee (Blender 2.80)

Has someone managed to use this successfully?

If so, what am I doing wrong?

Animated textures are supported for Eevee as of the latest builds. The change was added during the week 11-15 February.


How can I get rid of the black dots or black pixels in a float 32-bit EXR baked displacement map? When I bake a 32-bit displacement map, it has these annoying black dots or black pixels in it:

How do I get rid of these?

In Blender, use compositor's despeckle node to get rid of those. The threshold setting is very important, this should do:

Then save the image as OpenEXR.


Why are all my objects distorted after editting scale? I adjusted the scale of my models, now all objects look distorted. Clipping is set very low and high respectively. Is there an (easy) way to solve this?

It has to be something with the viewport itself; when i look through a camera (in the same - solid shaded - view) or in orthographic view, everything looks good.

These setting can cause that problem. Set them to the same values your camera uses.


How can I get single "a" to deslect in 2.8? I'm using the 1-25-19 version of 2.8 beta. You have to double tap "a" every time you want to deselect something which is very annoying. Is there a way to make "a" work the old way where "a" selects all if nothing is selected and "a" deselects all if something is selected? ie. no double tap and no alt?

Since Blender 2.8 is still beta, this option might still be moved around in the Options but right now it should be under "Menu - Edit - Preferences - Keymap" and there on the right side under "Preferences - Select All toggles".


Testing identity of two data-blocks What is the proper way to test the identity of two objects?

Usually I do this:

if ob1 == ob2:

Or if the references have become outdated, it may be safer to hold onto names and see if they still exist:

objects = bpy.data.objects
ob_a = objects.get(name_a)
if ob_a is not None:
    ob_b = objects.get(name_b)
    if ob_a == ob_b:
        # found a match!

In Python, you're taught that equality is not the same as identity. Theoretically, there can be two indistinguishable Blender objects. So what I'd really like to do is test identity:

if ob1 is ob2:

However, in the Blender console:

C.object is C.object

returns False! Why is this so, and what is the recommended way for determining the identity of two objects?

In short, for the bpy api use ==, instead of is or comparing the name (which is error prone).

Blender data-blocks * happen not to be Python objects, that is to say, when Blender creates a mesh for example, there exists no Python object for it, until a script asks for one, The way the Python API works, each data-block is a reference to Blender data. therefor id(bpy.context.object) == id(bpy.context.object) won't be equal since each time a new python-object is created.

Note:

This is not the case for all areas of Blender, The game-engine (bge) and the bmesh api's can use identity for comparisons.

Note:

If you do want a unique id() for a data-block you can do:ob1.as_pointer() == ob2.as_pointer(), this is specific to the bpy api.

* In Blender data-block is a general term for a scene, group, mesh, image, material, texture... etc, (avoiding the term object since its confusing in this context)


Blender 2.9 does not recognize my GPU Until now until Blender 2.83.4 my GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X 12288 MB is recognized via CUDA. With Blender 2.90 and Blender 2.90.1 no GPU is seen, also not under CUDA. What is wrong?
I'am therefor still working with 2.83.4 My computer Mac Pro (mid 2012) 2 x 3,46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon / 96 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 - Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.6

Nvidia discontinued the development of the CUDA Toolkit for macOS. The last version that was release for it was 10.2. Consequentially, Blender 2.9x does not include support for CUDA rendering on macOS. This change is documented in the release notes and the manual.

NVIDIA GPU rendering on macOS is no longer supported. Apple dropped support for CUDA drivers in macOS 10.14, and no recent Apple hardware uses NVIDIA graphics cards.

GPU rendering is only supported on Windows and Linux; macOS is currently not supported.

Since Apple has also deprecated their OpenCL compiler it is currently not possible to use GPU rendering with Cycles in Blender 2.9x, until it is ported to Apple's Metal API.
Since Blender 2.83 is an LTS release, I would suggest you continue to use this version.


Animation - Falling object one after the other I like to animate a larger Number of boxes, falling or better moving straight from out of the camera view on a surface, one after the other. Starting slow and become faster to the end of the animation. It is just a straight linear move, up to down. No tumbling or anything else. Each box should be placed in the same way next to the box before.

Has somebody a tip how to do it in a proper way? Or is there a faster way then keyframing every object seperatly?
Help or some tips would be great! Thank you guys.

A particle system drops cubes onto a collision barrier.  Please excuse the poor quality gif.  The file size is too small.

Settings below.

In the image above are the particle system settings.  The settings occupy two panes.  The emitter is moving at constant speed. Linear curve.  No acceleration.  Click to see details.

The floor is a black plane.  Black is beautiful.  The plane is a Physics Collision Object and its settings are on the far right.  Note the settings are pinned so that we can view properties of multiple objects.

Note the particle count <<< than the number of frames.

This is not a tutorial on creating particle systems.  You may search here at BSE or the famous website that rhymes with noonoob.


White Graph Editor Keyframes? I encountered a really weird problem recently.
I was animating in blender, when all of a sudden my X position was offset. I went into the graph editor to try to fix it, and this is what showed up:

All my keyframes were white, and I couldn't modify them. Please help!

Never mind, I found out the issue. I had my X curve locked, so I couldn't edit the curves.


BGE Object List within a specified distance In a script that I'm writing I'm trying to create a list of all the objects within a specific distance of the player which have a certain property assigned to them, but I can't figure out how to get the script to search within that specified distance instead of across the entire scene.

For instance, to create a list of all the objects within a scene that contain a specific variable, I can use the code:

object_list = [ob for ob in scene.objects if ob.get("property_name")]

I have several hundred objects that contain this property, but I only want the objects that are within a specific distance from the player to be put into the list.

Now here's the dilemna: I need to create the list every frame, and I know it's possible to do what I want by scanning for every object in the scene with the property, but with several hundred (potentially thousands) of objects in the scene using this method becomes way too resource intensive.

So my question to you; Is it possible to only scan the objects within a specific distance from the player, for any object with the specified property?

To clarify, for ob in scene.objects scans the entire scene for a specific object. Is it possible to do exactly the same, but only for a small section of the scene (within a distance from the player)?

You can do it this way.

Add near sensor.

Get the list of hit objects.

Script if near sensor look for specific property name

from bge import logic

nearSen = logic.getCurrentController().sensors['Near']
list = nearSen.hitObjectList

or if near sensor not look for specific property name

list = [obj for obj in nearSen.hitObjectList if nearSen.positive and 'property' in obj.getPropertyNames()]

Edit

The objects need to be set to actor so the sensor can detect them.

Download the blend to see how it works.

KX_NearSensor

KX_TouchSensor


Shape keys influence over time along mesh? I am trying to get a balloon to inflate. One of those long skinny kinds. I have created multiple shape keys with different vertex groups to try and influence the timing of the balloon's inflation, but it's all just the same timing. If there is a way to just have one shape key, or have the basis key influence all of them, so that it inflates near the opening first, and continues to the end.

You probably want a series of non-relative shape key (look for a relative checkbox).  Then you would animate the Evaluation Time to iterate/interpolate through the various intermediate shapes of the inflating balloon.  (see https://www.blender.org/manual/fr/animation/shape_keys.html#workflow-for-absolute-shape-keys )

It is possible to accomplish the same thing using relative shape keys, but you have to animate each one, and your application sounds like a textbook example of non-relative shape keys.

You might also be able to accomplish something similar by using an armature and scaling each bone in sequence (which would be almost like using relative shape keys).


What does this error mean and is it a Blender bug? While working on an addon we made a hook to our cmake script to add it to blender. (Faster development cycle) We run a fragment of Python via this incantation:

blender -b -P blender_install.py

Here is the offending piece of code:

bpy.ops.wm.addon_disable(module=argv[1])
bpy.ops.wm.addon_remove(module=argv[1])

(The point is to uninstall the addon if another version was around.)

Blender gets quite creative:

Error: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/blender/2.79/scripts/startup/bl_operators/wm.py", line 2155, in execute
    context.area.tag_redraw()
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'tag_redraw'

location: /usr/share/blender/2.79/scripts/modules/bpy/ops.py:189

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/blender/2.79/scripts/startup/bl_operators/wm.py", line 2155, in execute
    context.area.tag_redraw()
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'tag_redraw'

location: /usr/share/blender/2.79/scripts/modules/bpy/ops.py:189

location: /usr/share/blender/2.79/scripts/modules/bpy/ops.py:189
Error: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/blender/2.79/scripts/startup/bl_operators/wm.py", line 2155, in execute
    context.area.tag_redraw()
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'tag_redraw'

location: /usr/share/blender/2.79/scripts/modules/bpy/ops.py:189

Info: Modules Installed (Audionodes) from '/home/gegaine/Audionodes/Audionodes.zip' into '/home/gegaine/.config/blender/2.79/scripts/addons'
Info: Modules Installed (Audionodes) from '/home/gegaine/Audionodes/Audionodes.zip' into '/home/gegaine/.config/blender/2.79/scripts/addons'

To my eye this looks like a crash having to do with background mode (the -b flag).

Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug with Blender's headless mode?

Not all Python operations are supported when running Blender in the background. The reasons for this is that operations are actions from user interface perspective. And some operations uses Graphical stuff like Window, Area or Region classes that do not exist when not having an UI.

The tag_redraw points me into that direction. You might try to fix the operation to make the wm.py not updating the UI at that point, but it not a bug.


Low memory crash with 500,000 particles On blender im trying to create a 500000 particle simulation.  Before that I made a 15000 particle simulation and it worked but when I leave my computer on and come back itll say blender is using too much memory and ill have to close it.  I also use all eight of my cpu cores, I changed it to six and it stilled crashed.  This is the third time it crashed.  Ive seen videos on youtube of more than a million particles so I dont know why I cant get 500000 particles with my pc.  I use a Alienware Aurora R5 so it should be able to do this probably.  I also close all other programs when I leave the blender to calculate physics.  I also use my gpu as my rendering device. So I have no other idea than to ask here, hopefully someone here knows the answer.

This error occurs when you do not have enough RAM for your scene. This could be cause by the particles, but it also may be something else in your scene. Try a blank scene with a particle system of 500,000 and see if you get the same error. If you don't, you'll need to optimize the other objects in your scene. Either way, a RAM upgrade is generally a good idea when getting into intense 3D arts.

Also, are you rendering on GPU? If so, try switching to CPU. GPU rendering uses VRAM, whereas CPU uses your computer's RAM.


Spherical emitter does not illuminate very well? I remember when I was recreating my bathroom and I modeled the lamp and gave it a glass material, but when I came to the lighting it got confusing. I modeled a sphere in the lamp because in real life the lighting comes from the lamp obviously. And then when I render the scene, no matter how strong the sphere light is I always get a pretty low light.

Is Cycles a realistic or close to realistic render engine? Or what lamps should I use? Do I have to fake the light? How can I replicate the lighting as in real life?

Edit: I'm not sure if the spherical emitter will light up the room better if it is not inside a glass material

The problem

The issue here is that cycles, which uses backwards path tracing (tracing light rays from the camera to the light sources), is not very good at rendering caustics in these  kinds of situations.

This is because it's not very likely for a ray to bounce off a surface, transmit through the glass bulb, and hit the element within. Multiple Importance Sampling (MIS) usually helps with this by guiding more rays to hit light source(s), however the glass bulb surrounding the light source effectively prevents this from working.

From left to right: Element with MIS, Element without MIS, Element with MIS and glass bulb.

To properly render such a situation, solutions like Bi-direction path tracing and Metropolis Light Transport (MLT) exist. Unfortunately, cycles does not yet have this functionality, and it is considered "not a priority" according to the cycles roadmap.

Even so, there is a working patch for MLT (and adaptive sampling/stopping) which is being actively developed as of the time of this posting. You will have to compile blender yourself (it's really not hard) to use this patch.
There is also an older patch for Bi-dir here.

Here is an example render of the element and bulb with the MLT patch:

It's better, but not at all the desired result (I don't really know any of the MLT related settings yet, so it's possible this could be improved some more).

See also:

How is Cycles different from Blender Internal?
reflecting direct light on glossy surface in Cycles (this is a similar problem to yours, but with reflection instead of refraction)
When should MIS be used and when should it be disabled?

Workarounds

Use the fake glass setup (see How to illuminate the darkness inside glass objects in Cycles?):

Basically, if the incoming ray is a reflected ray and/or a shadow ray (A shadow ray is a ray that hits a light source), it is sent straight through as if the glass wasn't there (via the transparent node). This allows MIS to work as it normally does, so you get a nicer result like this (there are some fireflies, but you can probably clamp them out, or combine multiple renders with different seeds, etc.):

Use Luxrender, an open source, unbiased, spectral renderer which has Bi-directional path tracing and MLT support. It also has support for GPU rendering with OpenCL.

Use a point lamp for doing the actual illumination, and make the bulb and filament only visible to the camera by mixing the glass or emission shader with a transparent shader based on the is camera ray output of the light path node.

Notes:

There are a few things which can prevent indirect bounces from transmitting through objects entirely:

No Caustics enabled in Render Settings > Light paths.
MIS disabled on lamps (does not apply for mesh lamps, see What is multiple importance sample option for more details).

Make sure No caustics is disabled and any lamps which you want to shine through or reflect off transmissive or glossy materials have MIS enabled.


BezierCurve extrudes too much I'm trying to extrude a BezierCurve in Blender. I do that with pressing E but it extrudes a little too much. Seems like, it is defined how much it should extrude by default.
Is there any way to change that?
This is what happens after I press E. I can't control the length of extrusion!

I think it's just your Handle Type.

If the Handle Type is'Free' or 'Aligned', the default behavior of E extrude is to copy the source vertex, along with its control points. If the control points are extended, that will also create a segment of some length. If the extrusion is from a 'Vector' or 'Automatic' (unadjusted) vertex, the system has the opportunity to adjust the front-facing handle of the previous vertex, as you extend the curve.


Image Texture Resizing I recently modeled a book, I wanted to start playing around with some textures to see what fits best. When doing so I noticed I wanted the leather bumps to look smaller and I couldn't make the UV any bigger to fit the image. Is there a way of doing this? Or is it the image I'm using?

If it is a tileable texture, then you can scale the uv outside the image boundary to greatly reduce the size of the individual details. If you then want to map decals or something else to the same surface, you can use another UV unwrap to get that mapping.


blender is not using the GPU as my graphics card I have a 8.26GB total graphics card memory but blender is not using the GPU as my graphics card has 128mb of VRAM but my shared system memory is 8.13GB, is their any way or an addon to help me change this as I would like blender to render on my GPU rather than my CPU. Would appreciate any help.

The intel 520 is an integrated graphics chip, which means it resides on, and shares power with, the CPU.  You're better off using CPU on this machine.
The total available memory is your 8GB RAM plus 128 MB dedicated for video.


Create animation videos from 3D joint positions In continuation to the discussion to this question on Stackoverflow sambler suggested me to switch here since the questions got more Blender specific.

To sum up, I have to create a Human animation, given frame by frame 3D joint coordinates. Following the answer to my previous post, this is what I have done ->

Opened blender and deleted all the already present objects in it.
Created a new empty and named in 'myrig'
Ran the following code ->

import csv
import numpy as np
import bpy

mocap_data = {} # The mocapdata dictionary is properly created here, I checked that

scn = bpy.context.scene
objs = bpy.data.objects
rig = objs['myrig']

for m in mocap_data.keys():
    o = objs.new(m, None)
    scn.objects.link(o)
    c = rig.pose.bones[m].constraints.new('CHILD_OF') # Line 34
    c.target = o

I got the following error,

  In line 34 - AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute
  'bones'

What went wrong? As I said in previous post, sorry for not understanding every aspect of the code but I am on a deadline right now. Thanks for the help.

You start with a blend file that contains a mesh which defines the appearance of your character. You then have an armature, which is made up of a collection of bones that deforms your character mesh. The armature is then used by an animator to control the position of the character during an animation.

The script you have takes a pre-recorded list of locations and automates the animation of the armature instead of someone manually animating it.

The line rig = objs['myrig'] is referring to the armature named 'myrig' that you have setup to deform your character, this needs to be an armature with bones matching the names in your mocap data, not an empty.


What node would allow me to edit the mapping coordinates individually? I'm making a procedural texture, and I want to expose the following values so that they are controlled by a separate node.

I'm using the Cycles material node editor

Use a Separate XYZ node. (add>Converter>Separate XYZ)


I get white pixels all over the rendered image So I'm new and I'm using Cycles rendering.
The problem is that when I render I get white particles all over the image.
I learned that MIS helps out with that, but I don't know how to apply it as I am using Emission on material.(I am not using any lamps and I know that they have this option)My blender view
currently using 2.79 as I find it easier to navigate.
Is it possible to fix it with nodes? or at least someway else.

In the Properties window, Rendering tab, Sampling panel, you'll find the Clamp options. Try to change the Clamp Direct to 1 or to play with it a little bit.
EDIT: I just noticed there is a bulb (glass material). Maybe you'll have to play with the Clamp Indirect too.

Explanation of what happens:
These white pixels are called "lucky rays". It happens in Cycles when you have many reflections. They are light rays that arrive to the camera in less bounces than the others, so their light is more powerful.
Playing with the clamp values you clamp the light to a value, so this rays are not so powerful anymore.


Why does my rendered movie clip have no audio? I am a Blender newbie, and know that I will have to supply additional info...Please be patient with me :-)

I followed this video by Oliver Villar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8zqn091rM. I am using a 54 second video shot with a phone. The rendered AVI video has no audio.

I used a single tracker, placed on the cross on the green parament, to do the 2D stabilization.
The original video is here: https://vimeo.com/229907878
The stabilized video is here: https://vimeo.com/229907728
Here is a screenshot of how my compositor is set up:

Let me know of anything else I can provide. And, thanks so much for the help!

Have you selected a audio codec before rendering ?
By default it's on "none"
(Properties panel -> render -> encoding)


How do i get rid of these black marks The wing flaps are 2D planes that i applied a solidify mod on them. how do i remove these black marks/seams?

Add more diffuse light, or lights from other angles, so that ripples don’t make such harsh shadows.


Addon Only Works on Mac if Blender Started from Terminal I am trying to get Bligify to work on a Mac computer. The addon uses subprocess to call Gifsicle and ImageMagick to create animated gifs from the VSE.

The addon works on Mac only if Blender is opened with the terminal. I'm not sure why this is, especially because the addon seems to work fine on Windows and Linux without the console open. How do I make Bligify work on Mac even if Blender is not opened with the terminal?

One approach is to add a preference panel to configure the PATH to each of the external programs.

A second approach is to add a preference allowing the use of a custom path and use that as an override when you call the program:

import os
import subprocess

PREFERENCE_PATH_OVERRIDE = '/usr/local/bin:/Users/myname/bin'

local_env = os.environ.copy()
if PREFERENCE_PATH_OVERRIDE:
    local_env['PATH'] = (
        PREFERENCE_PATH_OVERRIDE + os.pathsep + local_env['PATH'])

subprocess.call(
    ['magick', '--help'],
    stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
    stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
    env=local_env)

where PREFERENCE_PATH_OVERRIDE comes from the add-on's preferences.

I believe these two approaches are the best.

You could also use an add-on I just made that changes the PATH environment globally inside Blender: https://github.com/semond/system_path.

If you insist on forcing the user to modify the path at the OS level, it's a little complex on OS X. You can find a number of techniques on the web, some non-functional on the latest OS X.

On the latest OS X, the simplest method is probably to use this command:

sudo launchctl config user path <path>

You then have to reboot for it to take effect. The path will be set for all users on the system.

Another technique involves creating a bash script, and then register it to be executed when the user signs in.

Since I do not believe these are the most interesting approaches, I won't detail them. You could search for “how to set path for finder-launched applications” on Google.


How to fix this bone? Piston example I followed a tutorial and created this simplified model and rig. It's a piston (blue), rod (green) and flywheel (red) example with 2 armatures consisting both of 2 bones. It works almost. Problem is with the connection-joint between the piston (blue) and the rod (green). It doesn't keep the same rotation axis or the same location (I'm not sure which one), when I rotate the flywheel the axes are off. I need the piston and rod, to connect well, to have the same rotation axis. (Along global X). Note that it probably has to do with the BHelfer2 bone (AHelfer armature), it needs to stay at a certain Z and X position, but move only on the Y, I don't know how to achieve that. How to fix this?

It would be really nice if you could post the link to the original Tutorial, as this is a quite common rigging problem with multiple solutions, and it would be interesting to see the approach with two armatures in action.

I found a different solution which deals with one single armature only, and gives you a physically correct motion. See this blend file here:

The trick is to use one bone as the master controller, and a second one mirroring the master controller's orientation. By using that, a simple IK chain can be spawned inbetween, and that serves as the master for the rod. See this screenshot:

Arm.Top is the master, which shall be rotated by the animator. Arm.Bottom receives a Transformation constraint like this:

So whenever Arm.Top rotates by a certain number of degrees, Arm.Bottom rotates the same amount, but the other direction. Arm.Bottom needs to be rotated by 180 degrees in Edit Mode already for this to work, and the Axis have to be oriented sideways by pressing Ctrl + N, using Global +X direction as the target.

Arm.IK.Target and Arm.Base.Parent are helper bones, they have Inherit Rotation set to off to avoid axis fliping issues. They are simply childs of Arm.Top and Arm.Bottom.

The IK Chain has to be modelled in a way so top and bottom arm have equal length. Arm.Base is a child of the main bone, and receives a Copy Location constraint like this:

For Arm.IK I've added an IK constraint obviously:

The targets of both of these are always the helper bones. Finally, the Piston bone, also a child of the main bone, is added and receives another Copy Location Constraint. Rod and Piston are now parented to the respective bones, the flywheel is parented to Arm.Top, and the grey part to the main bone.

In the blend file, you can play the simple animation which I've added to see the stuff in motion.


Python scripting: how to select next vertex in mesh I have the following script (doesn't work) to try to select the next connected vertex (of the current object) in a mesh. Would appreciate some help. thanks

# seems like I need to toggle this to sync script to view. Please help
# if there is a better way!
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

count = len(bpy.context.scene.objects.active.data.vertices)
try:
  active = [e.index for e in bpy.context.scene.objects.active.data.vertices if e.select][0]
except IndexError:
  active = 0

active = (active+1) % count

for idx, e in enumerate(bpy.context.scene.objects.active.data.vertices):
    if idx==active:
        e.select = True
    else:
        e.select = False

You can get all adjacent vertices like this

import bpy
import bmesh

obj = bpy.context.active_object
mesh = obj.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(mesh)
active = bm.select_history.active

if active and isinstance(active, bmesh.types.BMVert):
    for edge in active.link_edges:
        print(edge.other_vert(active))


How do I set focus range? I know about depth of field but I have no clue how to set it to my liking.

Is there an add-on for those of us who aren't camera savvy about adjusting focus? Like a visual line to show what is in focus or a measured distance something like in focus from 1 meter to 10 meters?

Built-in Tools

In the Properties window's > Camera > Display settings you can enable the visibility for limits. It will show you a line and a crosshair for the focus in the 3d viewport:

If you are using cycles you can see the depth of field in rendered view. To set focus precisely is to use an empty and have that empty be the focus object. Moving the empty will move the focus distance:

There is one point where things are in focus, objects closer or further away will be less sharp (or blurrier). Depth of field is defined roughly as the range (distance) in  which "things are acceptably in focus", before they are considered blurry.

What is acceptably in focus is determined by the size of the circles of confusion. Watch this video for decent explanation of circles of confusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdq65lEYFOM

The depth of field depends on 3 things:

Lens size - Shorter lenses will have more depth of field. Selective focus is easier to achieve with longer lenses.
F-stop - Smaller values for f-stop (a wider aperture) will make the circles of confusion larger before and after the focus distance, resulting in less depth of field. In blender you can set the f-stop to values that could not be achieved in real life, where it would be impossible to get a lens with an f-stop of 0.01. a larger value for the f-stop will result in larger depth of field.
Focus distance - The closer the objects are to the lens, the less depth of field a lens will have, if you look at images taken with macro lenses you will see that is focus is critical.

Another variable to consider is the sensor size. Using a small sensor requires the use of shorter lenses, making selective focus harder to achieve. Larger sensors will require longer lenses, making it easier to get a narrower depth of field.

There are no tools to visualize the depth of field in blender as far as I know (other than through the camera view). But there are plenty of depth of field charts and calculators online, and a multitude of apps for that.

Depth of Field Utilities

This Add-on allows to visualize the Depth of Field limits (near limit & far limit) directly in the viewport:

Once the Add-on is enabled, select the camera, open up the Properties region of any 3d View (N), scroll all the way down to the bottom and enable the visualization. From there you can fine tune all relevant properties of the selected camera as well as using the 3d Cursor to set the focus distance:

Notice that you can disable the instructions to hit Esc in the Add-on Preferences if needed.


UV unwrapping seems to be unwrapping my object twice Following the anvil series meticulously for the second time now and I have a new and weird problem. When I UV unwrap, not UV smart unwrap, I get what seems to be 2 unwraps! So when I create a seam and re unwrap, the UV editor displays this double unwrapping. I don't know how else to explain this. Here is an image to help explain.

I tried using an older version of blender to see if there was a difference. It's so weird because yesterday it was working fine for me, but when I cmd+z back a couple of times it erased everything, and so I figured that I would quit for the day. Now it's doing this crazy result! See how in the bottom left there is this additional UV map that I don't want. It's driving me absolutely crazy. Why is it seem to be unwrapping it twice?
See how it's got 2 UV unwraps? Thank you for any help. See how it's creating this terrible triangle situation when I render it. Also, it doesn't show me any texturing in texture mode (image missing)

Seems like you accidentally duplicated parts of your mesh.
In this case you have to merge the vertices that are on the same location.
The easiest way to do this is to use the Remove Doubles operator:
Select All (A-key) > Press W-Key for Specials Menu > Remove Doubles
After removing the duplicate vertices you have to unwrap the mesh again.


How to align vertices 100% accurately? So there's a problem I'm facing every time I work with mirror modifier. When I'm shaping only half of the mesh I have troubles aligning vertices that must have '0' local coordinates.

The issue is when I'm selecting more than 1 vertex and set it coordinates to 0 here.

I get random values for each single vertex. Like this.

And so I have to set each vertex to '0' manually.

This is likely because the vertices are not aligned. The transform panel shows the median location of all selected vertices; setting it to 0 will move the whole selection as a unit:

To align the vertices, scale them (S) to 0 along the axis you which them to be aligned along. So for the X axis, S X 0:


Creating a Specific Type of Terrain I'm trying to create the terrain seen in the following images. However I don't know how to make terrain or nature stuff and tutorials aren't helping so I thought I'd come here for help. If I need to elaborate more then please let me know.

I'm assuming you're talking about the topology and not the tracks. This is just a general guideline to get some fast, easy (manually created) topology.
When I need a terrain such as this. I start with a plane, and subdivide it roughly 20 times.

I then select a few points that I want to be "elevated parts" and turn on proportional editing, set to "smooth".

Then I use the grab tool to move the points up on the Z axis. You can control the amount of the mesh that is affected by changing the size of the edit area (white circle) by scrolling the mouse wheel. If you want to make sure unrelated parts of the mesh are unaffected, check the "connected only" box.

Then, to get a more realistic and bumpy (uneven) surface, I select some different vertices in the same areas, and set proportional editing to "random".

I then move the points up on the Z axis some more. They can be a bit exaggerated, because in the next step I add a Subdivision Surface modifier, which smooths out some of the more "extreme" points.

Lastly, I add a Subdivision Surface modifier (using only the amount of subdivisions I can safely "get away with" without shading issues or noticeable geometry). I then set shading to smooth. After that, just add a grass or ground texture and you have a good base for a terrain.

This is just an easy example, obviously. Play around to get the look that works best for you. You can start with more subdivisions if you want finer detail, or you change the proportional edit modifiers you use, or how many times you use them. You'll have to experiment to see what looks best.


how to have render layer only to render shadow catcher? I have a building model with complete material and uv setup. Everything is fine, but now i want to render separate shadow layer. HOw can i have seperate layer which only turn on shadow catcher ? when i turn shadow catcher it will apply globally. Is it possible to have 2 render layer in sama scene where first layer render all object while the second layer render only shadow ? THe only thing i can do here, is to duplicate the project into another file just to render the shadow.

Thanks

First, create two separate render layers.

Second, duplicate all your objects to the second render layer. Then on the first layer in all your lamp settings turn off "Cast Shadow".

On the second layer, turn all your objects into shadow catchers.

Once your done, hit F12 and Blender will render both your images!


How do I TRANSLATE relative to active/cursor? so, what i wanna do is translate a part relative to an active point/3d cursor while keeping the dimensions of said part constant.

on this pic, the red line highlights the path i want to translate ALONG (line connecting the center of the part i want to translate and the point i want to translate relative to).

i can move a single vertex relative to a point with relative scaling- but it doesn't work with more than one vertex. it scales the part i want to move too.

also, the above pic is just a SIMPLE example of what i want to do. what i want is not a solution to that PARTICULAR problem - but one that applies to everything. thanks :]

Ideally what you are looking for is a translate using spherical coordinates, which is not currently supported; but it could certainly be added using a small script, see https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?168749-How-to-set-polar-coordinates&p=1485444&viewfull=1#post1485444

You could make a request, probably in the bug tracker, and see if anyone shows an interest, or if it is worth the effort, learn just enough about Python and Blender's add-on system to do it yourself.


Does Blender remember every manipulation done? Does Blender remember every manipulation done (especially creating mesh, scaling, translation, rotation, extrusion, deletion, loop cut etc)? If not, how can this be achieved? Because I was looking at this video and was asking myself how every edit he made were recorded and I would like to look back the process of my model. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3edaWDU_xKE

No it doesn't remember edits for playback like you want (and like ZBrush and others can).

What you would need to do is to export each step as an .obj, load them all into a new scene and animate them so they appear in a sequence one after another.

Then you can render this with orbiting camera and with wire-frame modifier on.

Using scripting to do this would be smart, there are many answers here how to import multiple obj's and how to animate multiple objects.

Some addons can store geometry states into a buffer, but there is no way that I know of how to efficiently animate them.


Wrapping a path around three cylinders I  added a shrinkwrap modifier to a path to wrap it around three joined cylinders.
How can I make the path follow closer the outer surface? (cf. screenshot)

Thanks.

What you can do is temporary extruding the path vertices (as it is a mesh if I see well), then apply the shrinkwrap modifier and delete the previously created vertices.

Make so just add surfaces so that the modifier can do a projection (mode 'project/on surface' and 'back'):

Projection wll be done along the normals, so I think here you need to extrude along Z. If not the path won't stay horizontal.

Edit (if that matters...): I previously misunderstood the question, thinking you wanted to tangent the path around the cylinders. This is not the case, but, eventually, this approach can interest someone:

Transform the cylinders into a convex hull:


Selecting objects with the same property values (without Python) I want to assign various properties to objects and then select all objects with a certain set of values for those properties.

The objects are graphs from tests (created with CSV Mesh Importer, so they are lines, not solids). They all have a value for, for example, length and width (not of the Blender object but of the object the test was done on). I want to then select all objects that have, say, length 5.3 and width 3.8.

I already found that I can group objects and then select the grouped objects. But for that I have to select one of the objects first. But I want to select the properties, and a set of them, and then select all objects that share that set of properties.

I also found Custom Properties, but I can't figure out how that works, and most explanations use Python, but I want to do it in the GUI. Also, I want to set the properties just once, and that is not what it seems to be meant for.

I can select objects based on a property now. But after 2 hours of searching, I still haven't figured out the first bit, how to assign a custom property. I tried this:

for obj in bpy.data.objects:
    obj.addProperty("length")

but then I get:

Attribute error: 'Object' object has no attribute 'addProperty'

And that's just assigning a property (I want to assign this to all objects). Next I'lll have to set the value (for objects I select by hand).

I have given up on Custom Properties and decided to set the z-values of various vertices to the values I want to give the graphs. I managed to make that work for one graph, but not for all selected graphs.

This is the relevant section of the code I wrote:

for obj in bpy.data.objects:
    if obj.select:
        print(obj)
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)     # get bMesh representation
        for vertex in bm.verts:
            for var in vars:
                if vertex.index==var[0][0] and var[0][1]==1:    # If the vertex is on one of the var-locations and that var is marked to be set.
                    vertex.co[2]=var[2]                         # Set the vertex's z-value to the value for that variable in the variable-list.
                elif abs(vertex.co[2]-var[2])<precision:        # If the vertex's z-value already has one of the variable-values, that might be confusing, ...
                    vertex.co[2]=0.0                            # ... so set it to 0.
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

Again, this works for the first graph, and in the console (from the print-line) I see the names of the first and second graph. But then I get 'the mesh must be in edit mode'. In the 3D view I see the first graph still is in edit mode, so apparently the line

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

doesn't work.

Correction: with this code it got stuck the first time, on the line bm = mesh....., whilst previously this only happened on the second pass. I must have changed something. Sorry, I always get lost in programming.

I don't think there is a way to do this without some Python. It is not very complicated though.

You can type C.object. and hit Ctrl+Space in the Python Console to see all the properties. Also they might be in C.object.data.. Once you know the property you wish to select your objects based on, you can run:

import bpy

for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    # Note that floats may not be equal because of binary rounding errors so:
    if (obj.location[2] - 1.0694) < 0.0001 and (obj.location[2] - 1.0694) >= 0 :
        obj.select = True
        bpy.context.scene.objects.active = obj #to make the last selected object active
    else:
        obj.select = False

Obviously you would change (obj.location[2] - 1.0694) < 0.0001 and (obj.location[2] - 1.0694) >= 0 to whatever statement comparing properties to your wanted values.


How to get consistent stroke thickness when zooming grease pencil? I've noticed that when I am using the Grease pencil with a placement other than "view" the thickness stays the same thickness based on the view in a way that it isn't effected by it's perceived distance from the camera.

Is there a way to make the stroke thickness remain consistent with its distance from the camera? And as a side note, is there a way to change the thickness to something larger than 10px?

It appears you can get something like this, by enabling "Volumetric Strokes" in your grease pencil palette.

This creates the following effect (reduced opacity for clarity, volumetric is on the right hand side).

The sampled points can be increased by adding subdivision (default is 0 for basic brush) under the stroke quality section in the grease pencil panel. Increased subdivision is only applied to new strokes though.

The volumetric strokes retain their size, regardless of viewport zoom.

Lastly, grease pencil objects are coming to blender 2.80, which will support proper scaling.


The option to select similar area is not available I have a mesh and I want to find the similar faces. With face selected I click on shift+G and there is no option for similar area option. Where the option gone.

You are not in face selection mode you can't select faces because Blender can't determine any area to select by.

Switch to face selection mode and the option should become available


UV unwrap "Correct Aspect" stop functioning in Cycle mode Basically, the issue is that I am trying to map a graphics texture to a wall. I have prepared the graphics in a none 2 by 2 Aspect ratio. When I unwrapped the wall model all was fine as I have another texture which obeys the 2 by 2 aspect ratio. In my case it was a 512 X 512 pixel texture.

After which when I brought in the rectangular texture, the UV map appears stretched. I believed the editor saw that the image was longish it decidedly stretch the UV. However now the uv is showing my texture squished as the UV has been stretch in the Y axis.

To illustrate the problem this are the images.

Now, how do I make the uv not displayed as stretched when I change the texture?

add a material with an image texture node

in cycles, the uv unwrap "correct aspect" feature has a hidden requirement

your mesh must have a material assigned
the material must have an "image texture" shader node
select your image texture, with the funny aspect ratio, in the node
now cycles can find your image's aspect ratio
uv unwrap's "correct aspect" works again

it's a bummer that there isn't a notice in place, for the "correct aspect" feature..
something like warning: "unwrap correct aspect" cannot find image texture node

also, i found that adding a "texture image node" helped when i couldn't get texture painting to work — it was ultimately the same kind of problem


Blender 2.8 - What is 'Tweak' in Preferences > Keymap I've used Blender 2.7 for years, but I'm really trying to make an effort to figure out 2.8.

I was trying to randomize my vertices in edit mode; so I searched Preferences > Keymap for the shortcut to do this. Sure enough, it appeared as the following:

But what is tweak?? I'm guessing it's some hidden menu or something?? I've Googled for awhile, and cannot find anything about this.

TIA

Tweak is for when a mouse button needs to be pressed and held, followed by dragging the mouse. You can find this information in the docs of Blender 2.8.

A good example for this is SHIFT + Right Click. As long as you keep the right mouse button pressed, you can drag the 3D cursor around.

I couldn't find a particular purpose of having transform.vertex_random set to tweak, it doesn't seem to react to mouse drags. Perhaps that's a misconfiguration.


Blender 2.8 alt-lmb orbit view snapping TL;DR What is this damn thing, and how do I turn it off?

I'm trying to work out a smooth workflow for using the new grease pencil object on an NTrig based convertible laptop.

The first problem with this setup is the lack of a keyboard in tablet mode, which I am working around by using an external keypad (old Nostromo n52, really handy!).

Second problem is that the stylus only has LMB (tip) and RMB (side button) which are not re-programmable, which means there's no MMB for orbiting (emulate three-button doesn't work). Luckily Blender has had alternate view control bindings forever: Alt+LMB to orbit, Ctrl+Alt+LMB to zoom, Shift+ALt+LMB to pan.

Now I have a new problem, there seems to be a new (to me?) feature for view-snapping. It is very hard to search for, and I've found no actual documentation of the feature. Unfortunately the shortcut is Alt-Orbit, regardless of how you orbit. The result is I can't orbit without the view randomly glitching/snapping around.

So the question is: does anyone know what this feature is called? And more importantly how to disable it?

While looking for another setting (Viewport roll) I found this under Preferences > Keymap > 3D View:
.

Removing those two entries (clicking the X) allows me to orbit smoothly!


Rotation of any object locked i'm trying to rotate any object on it's center but it doesn't rotate.
I try to tilt the camera but it doesn't tilt.

They move on all the axes, they rotate around the 3d cursor but they maintain always the same position and i can't rotate them on themselves.

What's wrong?

Thanks,
Manolo

Probably you accidently missclicked when you wanted to change the pivot center. To the Right of that Button is a Button with a sideways arrow. It locks scaling and rotation and enables you to only change the positions of your objects while scaling or rotating.


Why can't I UV unwrap a rectangle in cycles? I was trying to add a texture to my rectangle...
This is how the problem occurred:

1: I added a new material to my rectangle

2: I added a new texture (image or movie) to my rectangle

3: I opened the texture I wanted

4: I UV unwrapped the rectangle

5: This happened:

Does anyone know how to help?

This isn't an error so much as it is a warning.  The unwrap should have still completed (open the UV/Image Editor to check).  This message just means that you have scaled the object more in one direction than others.

When you scale an object in object mode, it is not really "applied" to the object's geometry. I like to think of scaling as a modifier that is always last in the stack, whatever you do in edit mode (or most other places) is as if it was done before the object was scaled.  So if you unwrap a non uniformly-scaled object it act like it was unwrapped before scaling, meaning the textures may be stretched or distorted.

To fix this just go into object mode and hit Ctrl+A > Apply Scale.  This will reset all the scale values to 1 and apply the scaling to the mesh itself.


How would you make an edge circle around a cone? I tried using the knife tool, which turned out to be a disaster since I have partially paralyzed hands.  I tried loop slide and whatever and it appeared to not do anything.  I tried subdivide and got something I think I can work with but there has to be an easier way.  Can anyone give me a hint or a link to a good basic tips tutorial or anything?

I'm sure it must be difficult to be unable to do traditional art after having done it for so long. :-/ Great that you're learning 3D though!

Edge looping cones is a bit tricky. The easiest method that I know of is to do this:

Select the bottom edge
Ctrl + B to bevel the bottom edge
Select the higher of the two bottom edges, and hit G twice to enter edge slide mode. Slide into place.

Here's an image to help.

Honestly, I would recommend sliding your first edge loop all the way to the top, then deleting everything above it--so that the very top of your cone is actually a tiny edge ring. You can then use F to fill it to cap it off. This'll make it so that you can use the regular edge loop tool to create edge loops in the future.

Best of luck!


What is the fastest way to create 28 x 28 x 28 individual cubes with its own material in python? Writing 3 forloops is too slow Is it possible to create this many cubes without for loops? Is it possible to create and place cubes in the right location with a 3D numpy matrix?


How to move an object without it completely teleporting somewhere else? Here's a video
I move almost any object in blender up/down, left/right, it immediately breaks and goes past another object. If I use the bottom left menus that show up when you move/scale/rotate, they move fine without breaking. Whenever using the direct arrows, they just break. How do I fix that? It would make the projects I'm doing so much easier if I didn't have to redo their positioning every 20 seconds I decide to slightly move something.

Judging by the video, it looks like you are constantly pressing the middle mouse button while moving the cylinder. Constantly pressing the middle mouse button and moving the mouse switches the axis and moves the object on that axis. This happens again and again which causes the teleportation effect.
You can fix this by:

Releasing the middle mouse button after selecting the required axis.
Instead of using middle mouse button, using X,Y,Z on keyboard to lock the axis.


Can't transfer model to unity properly. (Unity experience needed) I'm at my wits end with this. I've follow countless tutorials on the process of modeling and going to unity, and all of them make it seem so simple.
I made sure the textures that needed to be baked out were all ready to go. I made the texture nodes for cycles render mode and that was fine. Any textures or shaders that wouldn't transfer I figured I would just fix in unity anyway.
The only thing different I did was keep the arms as seperated objects so I could transform them easily with unity in-game.
All that said I don't know what went wrong but when I tranfer everything over, the model becomes semi-transparent and all the materials that aren't solid colors become blank. Unity also says
I honestly don't know what I'm doing wrong here.
And I'm well aware that this isn't as much a clear question as it is a plea for help.
I really need some one to go into these files and figure out what I'm doing wrong... Because I have no idea where to start.
I made several variations of the file to try and fix it but nothing worked so far.

As you can see I got the model working properly.
My first suspicions were that the model textures and UV mapping were messed up, so I made sure every individual piece was its own texture. (Possibly unnecessary)
Finally what ended up being the problem was the normals for many parts of the model needed to be recalculated. Unity only has one side to its normals while Blender has two, thus it functioned in Blender still without appearing to be a problem. I noticed the forearms were the only objects that appeared correct in Unity, and sure enough they were only one's that accepted a texture.
And for those people also trying to export models to Unity, I can not stress this enough- Make sure all your textures are in a folder for organization and move that folder MANUALLY to Unity. Many tutorials completely skip this fact and make it appear that simply a packed blender file is enough. It is not.


Roll 3D View Smoothly With A Wacom Pen I'm doing a lot of sculpting. I want the upper button of the Wacom pen to smoothly roll the view in the same manner the default settings of the lower button pans and zooms the view.

The reason for needing it to do this is when there are a lot of short, tight, controlled strokes that need to be done. Steven Rude in The Art Of Comic Book Inking teaches this method to get his perfect inking strokes. The edge of the palm is pressed down on the table, the pen is braced, and the wrist only is extended to make the stroke. This method restricts you to a very limited angle, but is the only way to get this kind of tight control with a stroke. Due to the limited angle you can make with this stoke, the view must be rolled often.

This is the closest I have been able to get it, but it will not roll smoothly and it requires a click to move a degree vs. how Zoom and Pan operations will continually zoom/pan when you drag the pen:

Here are my Wacom settings:

I want the view to roll by drawing up or down with the Wacom pen while holding the upper button of the pen and holding the Ctrl key down. Up stroke should roll left. Down stroke should roll right.

If there is no way with the interface controls, is there a hack to make it do it?

Perhaps your Blender preferences are the issue, not the pen settings?

I have set my top button to 'Middle Click' and my lower button to 'Right Click' because I think it sits easier in my hand for orbiting the view. With Ctrl you can zoom in and out and Shift for panning view. It is both simple and it works.

I do not have 'emulate 3 button mouse' set as I have a proper keyboard and the pen essentially has nothing to do with this. Turntable or Trackball will behave very differently, as will Dolly or the other 2 choices. These are my settings...

The view manipulation settings will also have great effect. I do sometimes change to 'Zoom to selected' but that does depend on where the object center is. Most I prefer to Numpad . to View select which allows me to focus on one object.

Update: With regard my comment below about the pan/scroll button (my setup is in dutch)...


Can I make curve on a path? I am creating a ribbon tail using a path, which the bevel object properties is referencing a curve>rectangle object (the selected rectangle in picture below)

Now, my ribbon tail is just a flat rectangular surface.(below 1st image) I want my tail to curve like a U-shape (below 2nd image), just like when you bend an actual ribbon tail. Is there any ways to do it with my current path object?

You can do it, and using your path, by you'll need to use the path to deform another mesh object, rather than using your path directly as geometry.

Here, I start by making a straight cylinder, with sufficient loops (some provided by CC subdivision) to be able to deform around a curve.
I then give it a curve modifier to deform it in one axis, to give it the U shape you want.  This requires creating another path to define the curvature of your U.
Then I give it another curve modifier, to follow the main path.  The U curvature acquired from the first curve modifier remains.
Curve modifiers can be tricky for those starting out, and I'd recommend researching them more if you have trouble.  You'll want to have a good understanding of a single curve modifier before trying to use two in conjunction, like I'm doing here.  In my picture, I've set my curves to bounds clamp and stretch in properties/object data/shape.
What about your original curve's bevel?  This is now represented by the diameter (and vertex density) of the original mesh that is getting curved.  You can adjust this either by scaling that mesh in edit mode, or by adjusting the scale of individual curve controls.


Tracked background does not show in final render. I created a camera tracking animation: a dinosaur walking in my street. Everything worked fine until I deleted the video background and added a new one. In render view I can see the result I want: my 3d dinosaur, the shadow catcher and the video at the background. When I render it, the video does not show. The background is a gray color.
I don't understand why it doesn't works, because the first video background did render in the final result.

Help!

Thank you! I found the nodes I needed to change just under one button: screen layout 'compositing' > Node tree display and edit 'compositing nodes'. The wrong display was set so I couldn't see the nodes for background.


BPy Funtcion long to short? i have a question. it is possible this function in any way to shorten ?

class ANIM_iXoClear(bpy.types.Operator):
bl_idname = "ixo.anim_clear"
bl_label = ""

def execute(self, context):
    bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions['Body_00_Default']
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()
    bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions['Body_01_Idle']
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()
    bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions['Body_02_Attack']
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()
    bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions['Body_03_Block']
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()
    bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions['Leg_00_Default']
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()
    bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions['Leg_01_Walk']
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()
    bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions['Leg_02_Run']
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()
    return {'FINISHED'}

because the operator "bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()" is in it more than once, and that look not so clean :/ .

I hope I get an answer.

-best regards DevilSam

You can put the items in an array and then run a loop:

def execute(self, context):
    parts = ['Body_00_Default', 'Body_01_Idle', 'Body_02_Attack', 'Body_03_Block', \
        'Leg_00_Default', 'Leg_01_Walk', 'Leg_02_Run']

    for part in parts:
        bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions[part]
        bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()

    return {'FINISHED'}

or if you really want to clear ALL the actions, you could try

for act in bpy.data.actions:
    bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = act
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_clear_v3d()


How to bend my screw to the shape of an S I want to take my image of a screw (i.e. rectangular almost 1-D) and bend it to the letter S (for "Screw").

Note that I don't only want to distort it, I really want the head to point in the direction and angle of the upper start of the S and the end to point along the end of the S, i.e. along the vector a pencil would move as the end is drawn.

Can anyone help accomplish this?

Use the images as plane add on. Insert your image plane & browse to your desired image, then sub-divide it up. Add a lattice. Then on your image plane use the lattice modifier, and select your lattice as the reference object inside the modifier. Then manipulate your lattice to have the S-Shape that you desire.


Improve video quality I made nice shot with my camera but had some problem with focus and the video is a little blurry. Is there any good node setups for fix it? Moreover i have some night shots, which have quite bad quality, what can I do to get a nice quality, when sharpen node produce only grain?

The developer that makes a tool to fix bad video will become a millionaire. That developer hasn't come yet. Out of focus is probably one of the worst problems at that. In short, you're not going to get good results.


Help on how to create a hologram with particles I'm working on a hologram and want particles to flow from the hologram source to the hologram and then fade out.

I have tried lots of things and watched all tutorials I could find but I can not make it work. The closest I seen a tutorial on was to use the harmonious forcefield to gather the particles from Susan to the point where the hologram source was.
2 problems with that. First is that I did as they did in the tutorial but I could not make it work. The froce field did not affect the particles. Second is that the particles flows the wrong way like that. From the hologram to the sorce and not as it should be from the source to the hologram.

I appreciate if someone could help me with how to set this up.

Edit to add requested info:

Almost like this.

In this tutorial the particles flow from the circle below up to Susan. Thats good. But the particles flows from the whole surface and straight up. I want the particles to go from one small point and spread out up to the hologram and that way create the lightcone in this picture.

The guy who made this used several lightsourses to make the lightcone make the ambiance of the image but I need to avoid lights for this project.

The closest I come trying to figure this out is to use the harmonic force field to drag the particles into a cone. I seen it done before but I can not make that happen. The forcefield do not attract the particles.

Tutorial made by MattSmith1995 found on Youtube

You want the particles to travel upwards. Set the particles Field Weight for gravity to 0.0. Add a force field at the location of suzanne with a negative strength, or you could assign the force field settings to the model itself. Setting the shape to plane seems to worked best.
To make them move slower, increase the mass for the particles.
To make them disappear as they pass suzanne. You can enable collision for the object with kill particles enabled. Also adjust the lifetime so that the longest lived particles finish just above the object.
You want the particles to emit from a small area. Here you have a couple of options, one is to add a small object at the point to emit the particles. Another option that I used, is to assign some vertices (or a single vertex) from the object at the location of emission to a vertex group that you then select in the particles vertex groups for density. I also shaped the verts into a small pyramid to get the particles to spread outwards a bit more, a little random velocity also helped with that.

Here is a sample file


How to move alot of objects by "Force Field" each one in a different speed I have created a plane and above it i have applied "hair" using as particles any number-shaped objects.
After i have converted each one particles in one object making them "Rigid Body" (Active).
After i have created a "Force Field" (Wind) in the direction of numbers.
But each one object has the same speed, i would like that each one object has a different speed.
One idea can be give a different weight to the object but is a too long work. What do you think?

Giving each object a unique weight is the right idea and can be done with two lines of code.
The following loops over every object in a collection, generating and assigning a random mass value between 0 and 1 for each object.
    import bpy
    import random

    for obj in bpy.data.collections['obs'].all_objects:
        obj.rigid_body.mass = random.random()

If you want to specify limits on the values of mass, the following sets each object's rigid body mass to a random value between 0.2 and 0.5:
    import bpy
    import random

    for obj in bpy.data.collections['obs'].all_objects:
    obj.rigid_body.mass = random.uniform( 0.2 , 0.5 )

This is straight forward within Blender:
1.Make sure all your objects are in their own collection - here I've named it 'obs'

Open a new text editor window:

Create new text file:

Add code, using the name of your collection ('obs' in this case) then click the run button to execute.


Weird texturing on background geometry So I made a few dunes using the landscape addon and for some reason, the textures at a certain point just change colour.

I tried adjusting light paths, does nothing. Changing around the texture does nothing as well.

Any help at all would be much appreciated
.blend file

You need to connect your Normal Map image texture through a Normal Map Node before connecting it to the Principled BSDF. Also, change the color space of your Normal Map image texture from sRGB to Non-Color:


Animation Nodes loops and Python I am starting with the animation nodes and I am trying to replace as many nodes as possible with Python code; it is especially nice for the math. However, now I am stuck with the looping. Is it possible to replace the Loop Input and its generators with Python code plus other nodes? thanks

You just have to know how to access input variables and how to output variables in the script. Otherwise it's just common python operations. Mainly you will have to use for loops.
Let's see how to emulate a loop with a python script, for example to output a list of the location of each object in a given collection.
Here in my collection I have 3 objects.

And here the simple setup to output their locations using a loop node :

Now, to do the same with a script node. Add your script node, add a text block with the + icon. Add a new input of type "Collection", I renamed it "col". Add a new output of type "Vector list", I renamed it "positions".

In a text editor, find your new script textblock and open it. Write a few lines to do the job.
positions = []

for obj in col.objects:
    positions.append(obj.location)

Or with list comprehension
positions = [obj.location for obj in col.objects]

Note that col hasn't been defined in this text block : AN gives it context since you told the script node that a variable named col will be available, as a collection type.
Similarly, you have to define the variable positions and at the end of the execution of the script, AN will automatically gather its value.
/!\ col and positionsare case sensitive. They have to match the variable names you wrote in the script node.
Add an invoke node set to your script, execute the AN tree and voilà :


how can i select 2 markers using python? i made a small python script, it creates 2 markers see below.
All i want is to be able to select 2 markers as we can do on screen

Also this script flips the coding text pannel into graph editor
i wonder if it is possible to use the allready opened graph editor?

ob = bpy.context.active_object
frame_num = 30

bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame_num)
selected = bpy.context.selected_objects
scene = bpy.context.scene

bpy.context.area.type = 'GRAPH_EDITOR'
#add marker
bpy.ops.marker.add()
bpy.ops.marker.rename(name= "start" )

frame_end = frame_num + 20

bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame_end)

bpy.ops.marker.add()
bpy.ops.marker.rename(name= "end" )
bpy.ops.marker.select()
bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame_num)
bpy.ops.marker.select(extend=True )    #it doesnt work to add to marker selection

Can do this without the operators

import bpy
from bpy import context

scene = context.scene

start_marker = scene.timeline_markers.new("start") # make a new marker
start_marker.frame = scene.frame_start # set a frame
start_marker.select = True # set selected
end_marker = scene.timeline_markers.new("end")
end_marker.frame = scene.frame_end
end_marker.select = True

# get a marker
marker = scene.timeline_markers.get("start")
if marker:
    print(marker.name, marker.frame, marker.select)


What's the difference between Normals and Face orientation? I'm following this really good tutorial, about Texture Painting, from CG Boost (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmbAs9jE1vI).
At some point the the paint doesn't work because of flipped faces I realised that the paint doesnt work on some faces.
On a comment of this video on youtube, someone stated that recalculate the normals. If you did so the paint actually worked. But it brought a question:

On this image

I see that the red faces shows that the mesh is turned inside out, but this blue line show that the normals are facing out.
Whats is the diference between face orientation an normals, and how can I make then to point to the same side ?

The normals come out of the blue faces:

But if two blue faces are facing and close to each other, showing red faces to the outside, you may have the impression that normals come out from the red faces. Simply because normal indicators (blue segments) go through the mesh:

Here on left something close to what you show in your question and on right the back face is shifted so that we can see the normals doesn't come from the center of the red face anymore:


Is there a way to modify multiple curve slopes in Graph Editor at the same time? How can I adjust several handles on one side at the same time?

Select the keyframe (which selects both side handles) press C for Circular Selection tool and de-select the side you don't want.


How can I select an object in the viewport in 2.8(1)? I have imported a large model with lots (hundreds?) of objects. The hierarchy of the model is not very logical so I am trying to fix this.

Therefore I would like to select objects in the viewport to group them. But when I click (trying both the Tweak and Select box tools), nothing gets selected. When I select an object in the Outliner, it selects (and outlines) perfectly fine.
Selecting everything through the outliner is not an option as the object names are the same: group_nnnn (nnnn being a number)

I have tried switching from 'Layout' to 'Modelling' as I read somewhere here, but switching leaves me with an empty viewport.

What am I missing here?

Edit: added a screenshot

Non-empty empties??

With selectables on and empties unchecked:

Hmm ... that's a lot of empties in the outliner ... let's hide them, uncheck empties

Also make sure that objects are selectable, enable Selectable in the restriction toggles - the one that looks like a paper airplane.

If you have checked that the objects are selectable then you need to check the View Object Types Menu has Mesh selection enabled:


How to refresh F-Curve colors via python? To refresh colors F-Curves I have to display the Graph editor on the screen.
Blender doesn't refresh colors F-Curves automatically.

Create some animation with the default cube and follow:

bpy.data.actions['CubeAction'].fcurves[0].color

without display the Graph editor on the screen, we get a pure black color:

Color((0.0, 0.0, 0.0))

It the any way to refresh and update colors F-Curves via python ?

Below a screenshot from Outliner, Datablocks.

I think that the fcurves colors are calculated when the graph editor tries to read their value for the first time, so you may have to do that yourself :

for action in D.actions :
    for fcurve in action.fcurves :
        index = fcurve.array_index

        if fcurve.color_mode == 'AUTO_RGB':
            h = float(1.0)/3.0
        #I don't have the right formula for rainbow
        elif fcurve.color_mode == 'AUTO_RAINBOW':
            h = float(1.0)/4.0

        fcurve.color.hsv = (index*h, 1, 1)


Relationship Between Rigid Body Colliisons and Animation Keyframes I am working on an animation consisting of a pool ball being struck by
a cue stick and then picked up by a mechanical mechanism. I get can the
sequence of the collision and the animation of the crane to work. However,
when I change the LOC/ROT of the crane keyframes, the cue ball jumps up and the
collision no longer works. Not sure how they are related to fix. Thank You.

When you want an object to be handled by the physics sim, you must untick Animated.

You tick Animated when you want to take care of the object's animation by yourself, like when it's lifted by the crane.

You can also bake your physics animation to keyframes and delete the keyframes from when the crane takes over.


Why is my resolution so low on my textures in the viewport and in renders? (Blender 2.8) I have been having a beginner issue that I cannot seem to find the answer for. I am following a tutorial on YouTube and my image has a way lower resolution and is so much more jagged both in viewport and renders.

Looks fine to me, but you can raise the Viewport sampling value (see Render context menu, right side of each of your images) to improve the quality of the viewport render. Of course, this will cost you performance, so don't go crazy. If you just care about Renders, raise the sampling value for Render. 64 is very low for a lot of renders. Use 64 or fewer samples to make sure the composition is good then crank it up to around 500 for detailed scenes. For less detailed scenes, you can change the sampling to 100 and turn on Denoising in the View Layer context menu. Those are just my preferences--they work for me. But as a rule, render quality is proportional to the number of samples (up to a certain point, which is why I advise you shoot for 500 and not 1000)


How can I loop animation in Blender through Viewer Node I've got a model running through a pixelate filter using the node editor, and am trying to figure out how to loop it.  I know how to loop it in 3D view, but when I click "render animation" it doesn't loop it in the Viewer node.

Is there a way to do this internally in Blender without having to export it?  Am I just missing something?

I can view and render the image, and I can view and render the animation, but it only goes for a single iteration in the Viewer node.  It will loop continuously in 3D view, but it doesn't use the pixelation effect, as it is not being viewed through the viewer.

If you already rendered the animation, you can use Blender Video Sequence Editor. Just add clip with the animation and duplicate it as many times you need.
If you want to render already looped animation you can use NLA Editor. Just switch Dope Sheet to Action Editor and click on Push Down to move the animation to NLA Editor. Then switch to NLA Editor and from there you can select the strip and set Repeat in Playback Settings on the right tool shelf, to whatever number you need.


Problem with weight painting a mesh to bones I'm having difficulties with creating toes on a humanoid 3D model. I have created toe bones that I would like to use in order to articulate the feet. I have the entire body mesh correctly weight painted to the rest of the bones, but in accommodating the new toe bones, these problems have arisen.

The toe bones are children of my feet bones. I have given the feet bones the vertices of half of the feet by subtracting away vertices I want to keep for the toe bone as shown below:

How do I go about adding vertices to the tow bones?

Thanks

Select (or create) a vertex group of/for the toe, then paint the toe vertices with Add.


Blender via SSH stops rendering if I disconnect So I'm running the Blender in UI-less mode to render animation on my linux server.

Everything works smooth, but one thing does really bother me - if I disconnect from SSH (for example, if I close the PuTTY) the Blender stops rendering. Why?

And how can I make it work without me being always on the line?

The session is closed when you disconnect from ssh. The solution is simple. You need to use screen

sudo apt-get install screen

(in case you are using Ubuntu)

Then do ssh normally.

Inside the ssh session, type

screen

Accept, and then run your process. Now, do not close the window. Press Ctrl, hold it while you press A, then hold both keys and press D.

Then the screen session is detached, the process is running in the background and you can exit your ssh session.

Later, you can ssh again. Your process will still be there. To recover the screen session, type

screen -r


How To Enable Tool tip Hints Not sure what I did but I no longer see the keyboard shortcuts for something when I hover over the TMenu. For example when in edit mode if I would hover over Loop Cut it used to say "Shortcut: Spacebar, Ctrl R" and now it just says "Cut mesh loop and slide it". Still to new to have everything memorized and really rely on these hints to keep me moving forward. Anyone know what I need to enable to show these again?

Go to Edit --> Blender Preferences --> Enable Tooltips

Also, holding Alt while Tooltips are disabled forces the tooltips to show.

(I am using Blender 2.8 by the way)


Is there a way to tile only a part of a texture? So for example, I have this eye texture, and I would want to tile only the area marked with red, so that I would't have to have a high res texture wasting my limited hard drive capasity, which has only a small eye in the middle?

This is not possible the way you describe it. What you would usually do is either one of:

If the rest of the eye is only a single color, you can rescale the UVs for these parts and even overlap them. (In this example you could also cut off most of the white in the texture)

If the rest still needs more than a single color, but less details, and you want to use tiling, then you should use two different textures.


How do I prevent particle objects from intersecting each other and going though the floor? The first step is to "throw" a group of steel tubes at a floor. They should bounce, and roll a bit. When they come to rest the next animated step begins: They will use shape keys to morph into an outline shape.

I am using an emitter, particles and a mesh cylinder. I've tried this with Collisions, and Rigid Bodies, looking for something that works.

Problem #1: The tubes come to rest but they intersect each other instead of resting on each other at odd angles. They should treat each other as impenetrable objects. Yes, I've set them with collisions.

Problem #2: The tubes pass partway through the floor, any axis, and appear to use their origin point to determine how far. This is more dramatic and more undesirable if they are rotated.

Problem #3: this is a variation of problem #2. The tubes bounce and stop >above< the floor.

Screen shots of problem 3. Settings are for the floor.

I'm going to give this a shot as I think that rigid bodies are a viable solution. Start with a cylinder, scale it as needed but keep in mind that sometimes Blender can act strangely with objects that are too small with rigid body sims.

Next, add an array modifier, I used a count of 8, with an offset of 1.5 on the x and y axis, respectively. We are adding two identical arrays before applying them. The stack will look like this:

Apply the array modifiers in the order they were added, and Tab into edit mode, press A to select all, then P by loose parts. Now go back to object mode, it's time for physics.

Start by selecting your ground plane,add collision and then set it to passive in the rigid body settings(you can also go to the tool panel (T) physics>add passive).

Now select one of the cylinders, and again go to physics>rigid body> and set it to active. Now select the rest of the cylinders, and select copy from active in the rigid body setting in the tool panel.

With all of the cylinders still selected, press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C>origin to geometry.

Before you go any further, press Ctrl+A and
apply scale to your objects to help prevent intersection between the collision object and other active objects.

Finally, place the group of cylinders where you want them to fall from/ be thrown from and start the animation. It may take some tweaking the rotation to get the perfect effect as they hit the ground, but it works pretty well. Don't forget that the mass of the object influences it's role in the simulation also, so you can play with that too if you like. After following these steps, you should be able to get something like the following .gif:

Here is the .blend if you would like to reference it.


Why is my Rigid Body simulation giving weird results? I've made a scene with Blender with a bumpy soil. So,to put some objects on my scene, I decided to put them in the air and let them fall, using a rigid body simulation. The problem is that when I press alt+A, my chair that I had put in the air goes right (first frame) and goes down for 3 frames and stops there. About four objects of my scene do the same thing.

I tried many things and went on many forums and I didn't find an answer to my problem.

Make sure the objects are not scaled (Object>Apply>Scale shortcut Ctrl+A) because that can cause issues. Very small objects (about 0.01 blender units) may require tweaked settings.


Only render particles on silhouette of model I have a particle system on a curved model. I want to have the particles only show up near the edges, at glancing angles. This means I have to have them only be created on faces with a glancing angle above a certain amount, or have them present but render as transparent. Using a texture to control their placement does not work because I need to be able to turn the model.

Is there any way to do this?

If I could use the emitter's normals in the particle's textures, that would be the most simple. But there doesn't seem to be a way to do that.

Cycles Render with Particles

In the above image are numerous undesirable issues.  Some might disappear with a little thought.  Convex sphere works easily.  Concave Box with visible inside and outside is more difficult. The simple cube can have difficult glancing angles.  Surface Normal testing is not enough in the general case.  Material Nodes.

Alternatives

Compositing.  Alpha Over Node. Transparent Background. Optional Render with Emission BSDF glowing particles. Composite Blur Node - Gaussian. Blurr bright glow colors. Dilate Node to increase blur size.  Multiple layers composited if particles are used in final composition. Object ID or Material ID can be use to select desired pixels in the compositor.  Stylized Blur.
Freestyle and Compositing.

Volume Shading with Emission

Below image.  Quickly contrived Volume Shading.  Meshes that Shrink/Fatten in a visually acceptable manner make this possible. Convex, Sphere, Torus Meshes.


How to separate animation of materials in Blender Internal? I have a non-node material with some animation inside texture slots. When I hit Plus symbol to make a new material from original, full copy appears sharing same animation block.

I think there should be something like Make single user (U) for meshes, because simple Clear keyframes with left mouse button destroys data in both materials.

So how can I clear animation data inside copied material and keep it safe in original one?

I've had this problem and found it's best to press the UPPER plus symbol, not the one indicated.  This will create a new material slot accessible to the object selected and one which is independent of those already there.

Back in the 3D window get into edit mode, switch to "Faces" and select those surfaces you wish to allot this new material to.

Go back to the UPPER panel (to the left of the upper plus sign) and make sure the new slot is still highlited.  If it's not, click on it.

The unnamed material will also appear in the slot next to the lower plus symbol.  Click in there (NOT on the plus sign) and give it a name.

Only when both the desired surfaces (in EDIT MODE) AND the material slot in the upper panel are highlited should you press the "Assign" button a little below.

The assign button will connect your highlited faces to the new slot.

You should see those surfaces/faces immediately react and change colour.

There should be no keyframes in the dopesheet for this new material either.  Any you do create later will only affect the new slot and  those surfaces you've just assigned to it.


Boolean operations consistently producing weird results I have two cubes. One is 6x6x6 and the other one is 4x4x4. I am careful to ensure that the normals are properly facing outward and that the scale and location has been applied. Yet no matter what I try and do, the boolean union seems to fail.

What am I doing wrong?

Blender's Boolean operations are still lacking a lot. There isn't really anything that you can do about this. I do believe that there was some kind of add-on that fixed a lot of issues but I can't remember the name.

Maybe the Boolean operation within Edit Mode could give you better results. To do this (be in Edit Mode) press Spacebar and search Boolean. Choose the Boolean in Edit Mode option. Here is the official documentation: Link


Why does a plane turn black in texture view after rotating? Why did the plane turn black? I have added the texture correctly, but when I change the rotation on the X axis to 90° it becomes black.

It's most likely not untextured, just shadowed or backfacing.

Either rotate the plane 180º so the it's normal is facing outside or add a lamp to light that face up


Missing dope sheet keyframes I have done a locrot on a sphere and also has pressed i on a value in the node editor. I have tested it in a blank location and the keyframes for my fac value definitely places and animates properly but I cannot select it. It seems to unify as part of the sphere animation. Is there a way to seperate the keyframes or at least select them individually, i.e. where is the "fac" keyframe for the value I set?

As you can see, the mix shader has got a frame assigned to it and acts accordingly when sliding the timeline, and in the final render but I see only 1 key.

To demonstrate,

And after putting the frame in it registers on my fac value and places 2 keyframes in the dope sheet and clouds section. I was hoping to isolate these frames at frame 0

Note that these 2 frames aren't in the file I upload I just added it for reference purpose. They are set however for frame 0 but I cannot select them as they seem hidden.

You have created some keyframes for your Mix Shader, and if you go in the Dopesheet you can move these keyframes as you want. In the Dopesheet, if you click on the arrow icon button (on the left of the phantom button, you will display only the keyframes related to the object selected on the 3D View, if I enable this option and select the Clouds object I see all the keyframes related to Clouds, and on the left you can see that you can clearly access to its material (Shader Nodetree).


Why does my hair render as a cone? I'm having issues with my hair emitter to show / render as cones. I'm using cycles and during "solid" mode in the viewport the hair looks like normal hair. but as soon as I switch to rendered view or even render the still, the hair turns into cones. Ive reset all options to default, reloaded the same .blend file and ive created new ones. Still does the same thing.

Have you checked the cycles hair settings? The 'shape' option of the hair settings could play a role. Try typing in -0.75 in that area to change it. Are the roots too big?


Can't import more then one blend shape into Unity using Blender I save the object with many blend shape keys. They work in blender, but I can't see them in Unity on the Skinned Mesh Renderer

I see only if I had only one key on blend shape in Blender.

Try this

apply all of your modifiers before importing to Unity

Your shape keys must be set to 0 influence in blender before being imported.

export from blender as an .fbx file.


Is there an easy way to make volumetric clouds for Cycles? I'm working on an animation that takes place on a plane. I'd love to include the big detail of clouds moving past through the windows, but I'm using Cycles. I have no experience with the particle emitter, so the only clouds I've ever created were ones from the add-on for Blender Render only.

I want an easy and fluent way to create a huge sky atmosphere, similar to the one in the SFM Saxxy Awards winner, Turbulence.

So, how do I do this easily in Cycles? I'm not with a team or anything, and I don't have hours of spare time to do this. Again, I have no experience with using the particle system.

Let's use the Cloud Generator addon to make nice clouds and the new Point Density Texture to render them inside Cycles!

First enable the addon in User Preferences under Object: Cloud Generator.
Switch to Blender Render (the addon does not work under Cycles), add some cubes and turn them into clouds with the addon (the UI is located inside Tool Shelf T under Create > CloudGenerator in Object Mode):

(we won't use the explosion because it's not a cloud and requires a different Cycles shader)

After you choose the cloud type it will generate objects like this:

We are interested in the CloudBounds object and in CloudPoints.
Switch to Cycles Render and if using pre-2.77 Blender version use CPU rendering (Point Density does work on GPU in 2.77+). We need to give the CloudBounds object a Cycles material:

Play with the Radius and Multiply Node to fine tune the shape and density.

Delete all the non-used objects from the scene and make sure there are no Blender Internal materials left. All the CloudBounds should have Cycles materials and all the CloudPoints should be without material and hidden from render.
Add some lighting: Sun Lamp, Hemi Lights. Render:

When you get the hang of it create any shapes you like from differently sized and deformed cubes or some basic geometry.