Honeycomb Boolean around Cylinder I am modeling a microphone with specific honeycomb pattern.

I have created the honeycomb pattern using Extramesh > Honeycomb. Then applying curve modifier I made it rounded.

With reference to the original image, I have to create holes in the body of the Mic. However, while I am using the Boolean modifier, I face some problem. Modifier doesn't cut holes in it.

Can someone help to understand how to resolve this issue? Thanks in advance!
Blend file:

I dont think you need a Boolean at all, here. You can just use the holes Extra Objects > Honeycomb has given you.
If you work in the flat:

Take 2 chunks of honeycomb ( to be more non-destructive, you could work under a Mirror modifier)
E Extrude various edge-loops, something like as shown, and scale them to 0 in the appropriate dimensions to straighten them
Cut some loops in the extrusions, to make the transition  from hex to rectangle nice and even. I used the shipped Loop Tools add-on > Space to get an even distribution of vertices in the regions you want to be smoothly cylindrical.

Then you can give the sheet Simple Deform > Bend through 360, Weld to seal up the seam, Solidify for thickness, a Bevel modifier to put some glint in the edges, and smooth then out a bit...


How can I fix brush lag in Texture Paint? It seems to be lagging in the viewport, and I don't know why. I just downloaded 2.79, since 2.78 seemed to have the same issue. I do not believe earlier versions had this issue beyond that.

If I use the Paint mode in the UV Editor, it doesn't lag at all. How can I fix this?

Changing the Window Draw Method to Full under User Preferences seemed to fix the lagging in my case, even though I'm not sure how this could impact other things. But after changing it once, I was able to set the draw method back to Automatic and still be able to paint without lag.
Hope it helps.


Whats problem with my model faces Whats problem with my model faces. I have tried all Normal faces, recalculated inside and some time outside yet to not get success. My file is attached and a screen shot i hope there is addon that can make everything clear

In places, where you see darker shading, inner faces are to close to outer faces. Try to get better geometry (similar to the other side of your object, with smooth curve in upper corners) and then use solidify modifier, but if you don't want to repeat this process, you can just set Transformation Orientation to Normal and pull inner faces in problematic areas a little more inside or outer a little more outside.


Exporting Video From Blender Video Editor I pasted the saved image frames from my blender cycles rendering into the blender video editor. How do I export the frames from the blender video editor into a video using cycles?

After you placed your images and set their duration in the Video Sequence Editor (VSE), all you need to do is set up the video format (lower red rectangle in the image below) you need and render as an animation (upper red rectangle).

When there's content in the VSE, it overrides anything else you have in your scene and when you render, it will render out the content in the VSE, instead of using the rendering engine to render your scene.


Change scaling in the graph editor So I want to scale these points from the 2D Cursor,

Like in the 3D view you can change  to .

Never mind I found it, in the graph editor you change this  to this  at the bottom of the graph editor.


Can I group items only in the Outliner I would like to hide many items in the Outliner by grouping them and then collapsing the group.

I realize the Outliner can display only Groups, but those groups are functional groups that affect the way, for example, animations work.

The kind of groups I'm wanting to create are solely for the purpose of reducing visual clutter in the Outliner and won't effect anything else.

I saw this question was asked before, but none of the answers solved my problem. (How can I organize the outliner with groups?)

Does anyone know of any solution?

I had a need for something like this sometime back and as far as I know there is no way of doing this in Blender yet.

What I did was create and name some empties and then just parented the objects to it. To reduce clutter, you can keep the empties on a garbage layer and also reduce their size or disable relationship lines. Empties and their relationships to the child objects won't affect anything and you get to toggle the different 'groups' as needed.


How to make an object spin? I want to make an object spin very fast and slow it back down to a stop at where it started to spin.  As if I have a photo in a video and make the photo spin.  So I want to make a video with a spinning object in it.

To animate an object you must use keyframes, a keyframe tells Blender the state of an object at a certain frame.  Blender will then interpolate the state of the object through the frames in between the keyframes.

To keyframe a property of an object, simply go to the frame where you want to place the keyframe, set the value of the property you want to animate, hover over the property with your mouse, and hit I.

Keyframed properties will be yellow at frames with a keyframe and green on all other frames.

To spin the object I added a keyframe for z-axis rotation of 0 at frame 0, then one for z-axis rotation of 10,000 at frame 240.  This makes the object spin 10,000 degrees over 240 frames.

You can then adjust the interpolation curve in the graph editor.

The interpolation is defined by a Bezier curve, you can select and manipulate the keframes and thier Bezier handles in the graph editor.


How can I have a split column inside a box? I'm trying to create a split column inside a box. Seems pretty simple but I just can't figure it out...any ideas?

For example, I would all of the below in a layout.box()

you can stack layouts, as each of the container layout elements can host other containers:

    layout = self.layout
    box = layout.box()

    # put a column layout into the box
    col = box.column(align = True)

    # also separators work
    col.separator()

    # add a row layout into the column, which is inside the box, which is inside a panel,.....
    row = col.row(align = True)
    row.operator(**example**)
    row.operator(**example**)


Meshes aren't visible anymore in Solid Mode, only in Material Preview Mode. Can't select any of them Screen capture of what's happening.
I can't select anything except a weird shape on the right side, inside that house. If I move the select box across the screen, that shape is the only thing that gets selected.
If I try to click on any other object, nothing happens.
If I switch from Material Preview Mode to Solid Mode, everything disappears except that shape, as you can see in the video.
If I select the mesh I want from the scene collection on the top-right corner, nothing happens.
Please help, I don't know what to do and I need to work on my project.

My reputation is not high enough to leave a comment, so I have to put my suggestion here in the answers. I will remove this if it doesn't solve your problem, so please let me know. Also, it would be helpful if you could share your blend file.
A few things that have helped me in the past:

try unchecking and checking the collections that you made in the outliner

try pressing "/" on your keyboard with an object selected, this will toggle/untoggle local view

check your clip start/end distance (press N, go to view tab, decrease the clip start number and/or increase the clip end number)


Why is this procedural displacement texture not showing up on render? This texture shows up fine on objects in material view. It is using a Geometry node set to position as the vector input for the texture nodes being used, so my understanding is the objects don't need to be unwrapped. I tried multiplying it in case under rendered lighting it was just too subtle. But it's still either not there or invisible. What's wrong?

Edit: After rebuilding some things and tweaking nodes, the problem is still there. So this time I'm posting the file. I'm also replacing the image with the latest version of the material. Only the displacement nodes are shown below, as I don't think the surface nodes could be the issue.

Don't use a mix shader node to mix RGB information.

The input for shaders and RGB information is quite different and cannot be mixed randomly. Read:

Cycles - (Shader) Nodes - inputs outputs - What are the exact data types?

and

Cycles - (Shader) Nodes - inputs outputs - What are the exact data types?

Real displacement is avaliable as an experimental feature only, So you need to enable "experimental" in the feature set and set the displacement to "true" or "both" in the materials section.

Read: Getting "experimental" true displacement to work

And the last, and most important piece, is that the plane needs some subdivisions for the displacement to work. A plane with just 4 vertices is not going to work for what you need, so in edit mode add a few subdivisions to the mesh.


How can i replace missing mesh in UV editor? I have a strange problem. I am doing the doughnut tutorial series, and things were going swimmingly until I some how lost part of the mesh in the UV editor. The screen shot below shows that I have a texture, and it's mapped to the object correctly, but a chunk in the middle somehow went missing or I accidentally deleted it. The renders now come out with black sections that matches the missing area in the UV edit. Is there a way to re-construct the missing mesh for UV editing ? I have tried unwrapping the mesh again, but this doesn't seem to have any affect restore a single and complete mesh.

--Update--
I've managed to select the missing mesh on the object, and attempted to unwrap it, but i can't make blender unwrap the selected mesh as 2d square.

Rather than fix the missing mesh, the best approach I found was to simply "reset" the unwrap, select all faces, then UV Unwrap again and use "Follow Active Quads". (hat-tip "moonboots"). I had to resize the mesh in the UV editor and align it onto the material. Other methods unwrap the selected mesh in ways that makes it unworkable to fill areas. When you initially unwrap a mesh, Blender (2.8) automagically lays out the mesh to match the boundaries of the material, but it appears that you can't repeat this process without manually aligning it.


Need normalized distance between geometry bounds I would like to get a value between 0 and 1 of the distance between the mesh bounds in an axis (Y), depending on the X value. not sure this is crystal clear but the screenshot says more than words :)

the result should look like this (roughly) and be the same moving, rotating or scaling the object.

And I want that to be done with math and vector nodes in a shader, no script.

The closest thing I found is:

The diagonal highlights can be edited in the UV map


NLA Editor, only top track is working PLEASE can anybody tell me, why in the NLA Editor onloy the top track is activ, so the motion from bottom tracks is not shown?

THX

This is a little dated, but for anybody having this issue in the future, I finally found out how to fix this issue..

I have been trying to use the NLA Editor as a generic timeline to construct my animation, so I have a huge amount of actions and an endless amount of tracks in the NLA Editor. I finally found that in order to get each track to play simultaneously (sp?) no matter it's track position, you need to

1) Hop over to the "Active Strip" options (Press N, then go to the "Active Strip" area

2) In the "Extra" dropdown menu, select "Nothing"

3) In the "Blend" dropdown menu, select "Combine"

That's it! Just make sure to do this with each action strip and everything will work good.... Note: You have to select the Action Strip itself, not the Track


Translucency for shell material using the Principled Shader I am looking to replicate this hermit character from the Pixar short, Piper:

I am currently working on the shell material and am struggling to get the translucency correct in order to replicate how light passes through it. I am using the new principled shader.

It looks to me that the material is a translucent milky white-yellow material covered with a more opaque glossy orange surface with all the colour and surface detail on it. This layer becomes thinner at the top and still lets some light through to be scattered for the backlit scenes. I have played around a little with the subsurface scattering and transmission to get the following results for the lighter layer:

However it doesn't seem to behave correctly, in particular, the backlit effect of looking almost illuminated from within seems very hard to achieve. I wonder if anyone has any pointers on how they would go about recreating this material?

Many thanks,
Ben

Ok, the trick here is to have a mask control the vertical falloff of your shader.

I dont have much time to work on this, but this should get you going in the right direction. I will also tell you what I would change.

Getting the top translucent part : Your 1st shader should have the transmission all the way to 1 (for glass), then put a slight roughness on it.
Have that mix in with another shader for the base of the shell, (we will get back to this)
Have those two shaders mix with the "Gradient Top" node* (You will have to create this, I attached a pic how to do it.)
The base of the shell will have 2 Principled SSS shaders, I believe I put the SSS radius to .1 for all of them, the higher the number the more transparent it becomes.
I found a wood texture that I used for the grooves that I plugged into the principled shader. (I should of plugged it into both, I messed up. )
I used a noise texture to have the yellow and orange broken up a little.
Then for the bands I just used a wave texture in the displacement socket. I would rather model this instead and not even use the displacement.

**** maybe instead of a glass Princepled shader I would try a translucent/glossy shader and see how that looks.

*** Dont copy my settings exactly I did them real quick. Play around with the gradient top settings.

*** I probably wouldn't go with a noise texture to mix the two princepled shaders. It would be better to paint those by hand, so you can follow the curves.

Hope this helps a little.


Why does my Ambient Occlusion bake and Exported UV Layout have color from my materials? I have created an object and I have assigned a bunch of materials, each with different diffuse colors (for use in dDo) to different parts of the model. What I can't figure out is why when I bake my Ambient Occlusion map I am getting color information in my AO Map. Clear is the only item that I have checked in the Bake Settings. I am also getting the same behavior when I export my UV layout. I don't think I have ever seen this before and I am totally stumped. I don't have any vertex colors on the model. I have no textures in the scene either as I removed them by holding down Shift and unlinking the datablock for my texture bakes. I have cleared all those out and restarted Blender. All I have is my model and a whole bunch of materials with different diffuse colors, that I have assigned to different parts of the mesh. What would be causing such a thing to happen?

In BI the diffuse color is used to color AO output.

One way to avoid this is to enable Normalized in the bake settings:


Apply a strip property to multiple strips Is there a way to apply a strip property (n) to multiple strips without having to click on each strip individually?

I'm trying to proxy/timecode large number of strips, and it's become very tedious!

This is quite simple in python:

import bpy

for s in bpy.context.scene.sequence_editor.sequences:
    if s.type != 'SOUND':
        s.use_proxy = True
        s.proxy.build_25 = True
        s.proxy.build_50 = False
        s.proxy.build_75 = False
        s.proxy.build_100 = False

This will set use_proxy to True for every strip in the current scene which is not a sound strip.

Just paste it into the text editor (ShiftF11) and press Run Script or AltP.


Booleans are all messed up I want to unite 2 meshes into 1, by removing intersecting faces. But union is now doing this

Was there an update?

Apply scale and recalculate Normals

The selected object has a negative scale. Despite you see it light grey in the viewport, the faces are indeed flipped for the modifiers, as the object transformations are runned after them.

I would suggest to apply the scale in Object mode (Ctrl+A), than go to edit mode and recalculate normals (Ctrl+N).

Result:

Notice that the same result can be achieved by simply give to the X scale a positive value, but to avoid misbehavior in future operations is better to fix the scale once for all:


Separate two objects along an axis I want to separate two objects along an axis, but without scaling them. I already tried S X in local mode, but it didn't work.

As long as you're in Object or Pose Mode, you can also use the 'Manipulate Center Points' feature. You can activate it with this button:

When it is active, the rotation and scale tools work differently. They only affect the location of objects, not their size or orientation any more. Remember to uncheck this feature before proceeding!


VSE 1.5 to 3 Times Faster Scrubbing I would like to speed up video and audio playback in the video sequence editor. This would help me edit/chop up long videos since then I can hear any funny/important moments that should be in the final version. Final Cut achieves this effect by repeatedly pressing l, and I can still listen to audio when it's been sped up many times.
To achieve this same effect in Blender, I've tried using Power Sequencer and VSEQF as suggested in this question https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/197236/113533.
Unfortunately, it looks like both of these solutions cause warbly audio, making it easy to miss details in someone's speech. This YouTube video compares playback from a 1.75x speedup on Youtube to the first VSEQF speedup (aside from a few frames dropped because of the screen recorder, this is what the warped audio sounds like) https://youtu.be/sCou-A4IBTo.
Are there any other alternatives, or are there some settings I can use to further optimize playback? Thanks!

A bug was fixed in VSEQF, so now it works in 2.91: https://github.com/snuq/VSEQF
Use the numpad 4, 5 & 6 as J, K, L keys for playback speed:

Alternatively Scrubbing can be enabled in the Timeline Editor menu(but I think that'll only affect audio playing when dragging the playhead)


Editing vertices in multiple planes Hi I'm trying to model a fish. I have begun to extrude planes and scale them. Now I want to edit the shape of the planes together but when I try to move all vertices on the horizontal planes there are still vertices that haven't been moved. I tried to remove doubles but it says 0 vertices removed. So I don't understand what could be going on?

You can see that new vertices keep on appearing when I move one thinking there's only one there:

I'm attaching a dropbox and gdrive link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9lkh5ixluebsryh/sole%20fish%20model.blend?dl=0

https://drive.google.com/open?id=14xlGhm4I69ZJWX0c2wao1TA7rxD0fX-_

If I make W > Remove Doubles it does remove doubles. So you have a lot of vertices overlaying. Also, there are a lot of edges crossing faces but that are actually not part of these faces, that's why when you drag some vertices some edges stay still. I guess when you modeled your mesh you used F to fill the gap between two vertices, but as they were already part of a face, instead of cutting through the face, it has created an independent edge over the existing face, you should have used J to join these vertices. Or maybe you had a vertices grid and you pressed F to fill and it created faces over other faces? Anyway, the best way to fix all this mess is to delete all your faces and keep only vertices, remove doubles, and correctly fill the faces.


Why is the bone moving the wrong part of the mesh? Help the mesh is moving at the wrong part when I move the bone!

It looks like you've accidentally weighted the wrong vertices. Select the mesh, enter edit mode, and select those vertices. Then, click the Object Data Properties tab in the properties panel.  Find Bone.004 in the Vertex Groups area, click it, then click the Remove button. Exit edit mode, and it should be fine.


2.8 Grid disappears in Orthographic mode and returns in perspective mode The X Y Z grid disappears in Object top/front Orthographic mode.  I'd still like to see the grid in that mode.  Any way to turn it back on and keep it on?  The Grid is all on in the Overlay settings.

This has been reported and it's been fixed already with the commit rB4bbd1b9610f6d85079ea5bc31fc1949f8409a1a4. Just update your Blender version.


Merging Multiple .OBJ files I have a model that has different .obj files for the head and body. How can I merge them into one file? I have tried everything I know. Which isn't much. And I can't find any tutorials online on how to merge them.

You can import .obj files by going to File > Import > Wavefront (.obj). Several files can be imported into your scene.
Once the files are in Blender, you can make any changes to them if need be (such as joining them into a single mesh object by selecting them all and pressing CtrlJ) and then you can export back to a single .obj file by going to File > Export > Wavefront (.obj)


Property used like a variable in BGE In BGE I want to use an object's property like a variable (for example to simulate speed increment for a car). How could I do it using a python script? And in this case could I use only "sensors" and "controllers" (using a python script as a "controller") without using "actuators"?

Sorry for my English. Thanks a lot...

You can see a property as "game object variable". This means it is part of the game object. (A variable is an separate object within a specific context e.g. a function).

Accessing a property the same like dictionary access.

Without check for existence:

propertyValue = gameObject[propertyName]

This fits in most situations. If the property does not exist you get a KeyError.

With pre-check:

if propertyName in gameObject:
    propertyValue = gameObject[propertyName]

This is a good situation when you can't guaranty the property is set, but you do not call this code very often.

With error handling:

try:
    propertyValue = gameObject[propertyName]
except KeyError:
    print("Warning: '{}' in {} does not exist.".format(propertyName, gameObject.name))

This is good when you expect the property might not be set and this situation is no reason to stop and this code is called very often (faster than pre-check).

With default value:

propertyValue = gameObject.get(propertyName, defaultValue)

This is good when you do not want to stop if the property is not set. In this case the default value will be given. Attention: The property will still not be set!

If you skip the default value, the default value is None. Be aware the default value is always evaluated, regardless if the property exists or not. Therefore the default value should be fast to get e.g. already exist or it is a primitive type such as numbers or strings.

Adding/updateing:

gameObject[propertyName] = newValue


import animation channels independently I wonder if I can import keyframes (with a python script) only as x keyframe. It seems like I can only set the whole object location at a keyframe, but I want only set the x location, since y location may have different keyframes. Is there any solution for this?
I cant get it to work with object.insert_keyframe(data_path='location', frame = key.frame)

Otherwise I don't understand why the channels can be exported independently.
I already tried to import the specific x value by setting the current frames to the keyframe and use the objects frame location for y and z value.

Select the animated object, in the dopesheet select all keyframes you want to copy, Ctrl C to copy in the clipboard, select the new object, select the channel to be animated, set the cursor to the first frame where you want the copied animation to start, Ctrl V to paste the single animation channel.


How to subdivide mesh with Python and Blender 2.8? I am trying to find code for subdividing a plane in Blender 2.8, but I don't find it.

I have just created this code but it doesn't work:

import bpy
import bmesh

plane = bpy.data.objects.get("Plane").select_set(True)

bpy.ops.mesh.subdivide(number_cuts = 1)

Can you help me?

bmesh equivalent

Using bmesh can manipulate a mesh in either object or edit mode.

There is generally a bmesh operator equivalent of bpy.ops.mesh... in this case

  bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges()

  Subdivide Edges.

  Advanced operator for subdividing edges with options for face
  patterns, smoothing and randomization.

An example of 1 cut subdividing all edges of the context objects mesh.  Select a mesh object run the script in object mode.

import bpy
import bmesh

context = bpy.context
ob = context.object
me = ob.data
# New bmesh
bm = bmesh.new()
# load the mesh
bm.from_mesh(me)

# subdivide

bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges(bm,
                          edges=bm.edges,
                          cuts=1,
                          use_grid_fill=True,
                          )

# Write back to the mesh

bm.to_mesh(me)
me.update()

To use bmesh in edit mode, load the bound edit mesh, (instead of new and from_mesh)

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

write back (instead of to_mesh)

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

How to use "bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges" on selected edges

Subdividing cubes at different intervals


How to use Nonlinear Animation NLA Editor with Grease Pencil I have a walk cycle made with Grease Pencil in Blender 2.9.
I would like to be able to use the NLA editor to duplicate it a number of times and operate on it.
I have seen a number of useful videos for how to this for non-Grease Pencil walk cycles, like this example.
However I am unable to use that procedure to duplicate a Grease Pencil walk cycles (or general animations). This seems due to the fact that the Grease Pencil animations does not appear in Dope_Sheet/Dope_Sheet below

Instead the Grease Pencil animation are only visible in the Dope_Sheet/Grease_Pencil tab as below

Is the NLA editor simply not supported by Grease Pencil objects, or I am missing something?

Glad you asked, I had a eureka moment a few weeks ago and been using the NLA with GP ever since, quietly thinking to myself that it's the best thing since sliced bread.
TLDR; Re-implement the timeline by placing keys on a Time Offset modifier then push those keyframes as action strips.
For a super simple example, we're drawing on 4s and only doing half a walk cycle (it's a silhouette so no difference between right leg in front and left leg in front). So our loop has 4 drawings, the first on frame 1 and the last on frame 13 (and in this case those 2 frames are actually the same):

Add a Time Offset Modifier and switch it to Fixed Frame. Go to the first frame and add a keyframe by pressing I over the Frame field in the modifier. Then go to frame 13, set the Frame field to 13 and add another keyframe:

Right, so we've just painstakingly re-implemented what the regular Blender timeline does by default, which might seem a bit of a waste of time, but far from it: we have two keyframes that show up in the action editor!
Now go over to the NLA editor, push those keyframes as a new action strip and you're good to go. Using the Action Clip section of the Strip tab in the right panel, you can set it to repeat and/or change the playback speed. You can of course also duplicate the strip and move it about as per usual.
I suppose it is just a workaround, but what's awesome is that if later you decide to add extra frames to the loop (say, draw it on twos or on ones) it will automatically update the entire animation. Just remember to disable the modifier in viewport when you want to change/add frames.
Another cool thing is that, by using multiple Time Offset modifiers with the Influence option to limit it to certain layers, you can combine different animations in the NLA editor, which really opens up a whole bunch of possibilities.


Terrain Generation: Free Creation of Peaks, Canyons and Mountain Terrain I'm going to eventually make a game and an animation. The first few scenes are going to be set in a mountainous area with a small canyon, a river running downhill to a lake, and one big mountain, which a small tunnel will be carved into. On this map, the dark blue is the tall mountain, the dark grey is the second level of elevation, the brown is the small tunnels, the light grey is the first level of elevation, and the blue is the water.

I'm curious as how to actually do this, and I know there are a lot of tutorials on the subject. Thus, I came here to see what tips and ideas you guys have, as a community. I personally think that if I come to the nonprofessionals and freelancers, I can learn more about the assorted functions.

In essence, I want to know if I should start with one big object and use that, or if I should make tons of small objects and link them together. This is not a question of finding images, this is a question of creating a landscape.

The answer to your query,

  should [I] start with one big object and use that, or if I should make tons of small objects and link them together

Is an unambiguous "it depends". Some of this is a matter of directorial decision making on the part of the director of the animation, and on the part of the director of the game. If I were doing this, I would start by categorizing the content elements into several categories base on size. In this case, the largest size would be "Geological", the next largest "Architectural", the next largest "human", the next largest large pet (think 100 kg / 220 pound dog here), the next largest small animal (think cat / fox / rabbit), then maybe tiny mammal (field mouse). For each category I would define a ~.blend file to use as a template, with lighting, and camera setups appropriate for the size items being modeled. Of course, there is no reason you are required to do a field mouse in the tiny mammal blend setting, but it will be easier than trying to do it if the camera and lights are at a point where they would be useful for modeling a mountain.

These categories are not necessarily hard and fast; given a particular category of item, say vehicles, some might be "human scale" (e.g., passenger automobiles), while others (18 wheeler semi-trailers, or railroad cars) will be "Architectural scale", while a few (Maersk M3 containerships) are geological scale. In the case of the geometry you are asking about, the mountain would be geological scale, but the small tunnels might be architectural scale or human scale.

Then again, consideration will need to be given to the size of the area. Blender has a maximum scalar value in any direction of 10,000 units, so the maximum displacement from one extreme to the other is about 20,000 units. if the units are considered to be meters, means that the largest terrain item in Blender would be about 20 kilometers square, or 400 square kilometers. This would convert to about 144 square miles (arithmetic calculations here are approximate, but close enough to make the point.) If you're planning that your game will require more area than this, you will have to use more than one scene.

What I would do, therefore is to do each modeling task at the appropriate scale, using the largest scale object as the "stage" for smaller ones. So the terrain would be one large object in an Geological scale scene (base scene), while the tunnels might be smaller objects, and might be linked into the Base scene, as would all of the components of the scene. Model them in the appropriate scale blender file, and link them into the base scene.

Why link? Because if you link pieces in, one of which we'll assume for the sake of discussion is a small bridge, and decide to change the item (the design of the bridge is all wrong for the scene, we'll use a different design instead), you shouldn't have to worry about changing the bridge in the base scene. And if you want to refine the model of a field mouse sized item, say a magic amulet, you can work on that at a scale that makes working on the amulet simpler.

There is one thing worth special mention, especially with respect to "large mountains".  Special attention needs to be paid to geometry when as the slope of the terrain approaches, and exceeds 45 degrees from the horizontal, as using a plain grid based upon a horizontal projection in this instance will result in undesirable geometry. When doing a bit of terrain where the slope is 35-40 degrees or more, add additional geometry parallel to the horizontal to add additional percent. This image

shows what I am referring to. The geometry on the image on the left is based upon a 10 meter x 10 meter grid, which is adequate on the approximately level surfaces. As you can see on the cliff, however, the 10 x 10 grid, while satisfactory on the horizontal surfaces, is not so pleasing on the more nearly vertical surfaces of the cliffs in the background. The wireframe view on the right shows a much more pleasing geometry created by subdividing the vertical surfaces at 10 meter intervals.


Clothes simulation- rigging a ribbon band to a figure's hand I am getting a bit confused here with my work and need help.
I've successfully rigged a full outfit clothes to my figure bone.  But in addition to that, I want to attach a long ribbon band (see pic) to the figure's hand.  So that when the figure is animated, the ribbon band's clothes simulation will follow the hand, but flow like a realistic band of clothes.

I am confused about how to parent the band of clothes to the hand.  Any quick suggestions???

Thanks!

To have the cloth move with the hand, you parent it to it. If the cloth will always follow the hand, then you can just select the cloth, ⇧ Shift select the armature and in pose mode select the hand bone, then ⎈ CtrlP and choose Bone. If you want to enable/disable the following then use a ChildOf constraint and animate the influence.

Once the cloth object is following the hand, you use pinning to prevent the cloth simulation causing it to fall away. In edit mode select some vertices at the top of the cloth and assign them to a vertex group and set that group in the cloth pinning option.


Why does the mirror modifier sometimes give me an overlapping mesh? When I add a mirror modifier it sometimes doesn't mirror correctly, giving me an overlapping mesh. How can I fix this?

The reason you're getting an overlapping mesh is because the Origin point of your object is offset from the center line of your model. The Mirror modifier uses the origin to determine the symmetry line, so to fix the overlap, you need to move the origin back to the centerline of your mesh.

You can do this one of two ways.

Method #1. Move the mesh back in line.

You can move the mesh manually back to the center by grabbing it in Edit Mode and moving it along the respective axis (in this case the X-axis) until the center vertices are lined up with the object origin.

This is not generally an ideal method, though, as it can be difficult to aline the center vertices perfectly without employing other steps. I recommend method #2.

Method #2. Move the object origin.

The second way to correct this problem is to move the object's origin back to the center of the object. You can do this in a couple steps:

1. In Edit Mode, select the center vertices and press Shift + S and choose Cursor to Selected.

2. Next exit Edit Mode with Tab.

3. Now press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C choose Origin to 3D Cursor.

4. Problem solved!

Preventing this in the future

What you need to keep in mind is how the object origin moves. Anytime you move the object in Object Mode the origin will move with the object.

However, anytime you move the mesh in Edit Mode the origin will stay put. The reason for this is because moving the mesh is not actually moving the object, you're simply moving the data that belongs to the object.


Weird shadows when using solidify modifier on hollow cylinders I'm seeing weird shadows when using the solidify modifier on hollow cylinders. I've verified all normals are correct. I can't seem to find any way to fix this. The shadow problems carry over to Unity when imported. What can I do to fix this?

Looks like it could be a smoothing problem. Try using a Edge Split modifier after the Solidify modifier.


How to merge vertex groups? I need this vertex group:

additively merged with this vertex group:

into a third new vertex group like this:

You can do this using the 'Vertex Weight Mix' modifier.

Here, I have an object with two vertex groups I would like to mix, one is a patch on the left and the other contains a patch on the right of the object:

'Vertex Group A' is set to the left patch (the vertex group I want to effect) and 'Vertex Group B' is the right patch (the vertex group I want to add into the other one). I then set the 'Mix Mode' to add and the vertex groups are mixed:

Applying the modifier will cause these mixed weights to be permanently written to the 'Left' vertex group.

If you want to preserve the contents of the 'Left' vertex group then you can make a copy of it before applying the modifier:


Why can't I see motion blur in the viewport cycles? In Cycles how come I cannot see the motion blur in the 3D viewport when in render shading mode?

Look here -> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Cycles/Integrator under Motion Blur ... " Viewport rendering currently will not show motion blur." Not yet but maybe one day ;)

From a technical perspective I'd say - viewport is viewport (and has nothing to do with shutter, focal length, aperture etc.) - If you hit F12 you "jump" to your camera in your scene which has all those specs ... that seems quite comprehensible.

That's because the render process and the viewport rendering are two different things (from a programmers perspective) - that's all I can say ... maybe that will help you What are the technical differences between F12 render and viewport preview?


Merge Vertices & Loop Cut In the examples I have attached. I am merging at centre those 3 vertices, and when I try to do a loop cut it stops at the loop cut, and does not go to the tip of my mesh. But If I grab the same vertices and scale to 0, they merge, at centre of the middle vertex, and when I perform loop cut it does indeed go all around. So I'd like to understand what does it have a different result, scaling to 0, and merging to centre.

Thank you.

Scaling to 0 does not affect the underlying topology of your mesh, meaning that you still have the original 3 points, and all your faces are still quads, in your mesh. So the loop cut can be completed.

However, when you merge vertices, this changes the topology and effectively creates only 1 vertex out of the 3 original, thus creating triangular faces that cause the loop cut to stop when it hits a triangle.


Attached objects rotate at different pivot point on rig? So this question is fairly hard to word but I hope it attracts the attention of the knowledgeable...

I have a model of a person, a viking to be specific. This viking has a mustache and a rig. His mustache pivots along the head bone as intended but it rotates on the wrong point so it doesn't exactly stay attached to his head. It's a little complicated since the Mustache is a separate model but joined with this one. It uses separate vertices and stuff if that's relevant.
The mustache has full weight influence but it doesn't help since the problem is with the pivot point it's following.

Here's a vid to explain it -

https://imgur.com/a/8oj6V

Thanks!

There are two solutions that I can think of.

Solution 1:

Make the head and the mustache one mesh. You can do that by selecting both and pressing Ctrl+J. Now you have to make sure that the pivot point is stil right. If not select the point where the head connects with the body and move your 3D-Cursor to it by pressing Shift+S and selecting "Cursor to selected". Now press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C and select "Origin to 3D Cursor".

Solution 2:

If you want to move the head/mustache only once or twice you can move your 3D Cursor to the point where the head connects with the body as described above. Then just change the pivot center to "3D Cursor" (see screenshot). You don't need to make the head and the mustache one mesh in this option.


How do I find the velocity of an object and use it to chaneg the colour of a material? I am trying to make a material for a fluid simulation in blender 2.8.2 that will change the colour of the fluid as the fluids velocity increases. I have tried a few things:

Both attempts were unsuccessful. Currently, it seems as if it is not possible to find the velocity as there is no way to detect how much time has passed.

I am aware that there is a question almost identical to this one (is there any way to get to velocity of a fluid and use it in the cycle material editor) that has already been asked but it has no answers so I thought it would be ok asking again.

As I told in comments, you can get that with a particle emitter. On the next image, you find a cube emitting a ball. The material of the emitted ball is the node setup presented. It works in cycles.

If you need to get a surface made of the particles, you can use Cubesurfer addon, or instead of using a sphere as emitted object, you use a metaball, and fine tune the options of it (size, etc). However, the generated surface wont be with colour change by velocity, for both methods.

If you dont want to use a shape itself, another way, in the "particles" setup, you render as "halo", on "viewport display" you sent as "point", in "colour" you can choose "velocity" or "acceleration". You can fine tune the colours increasing "fade distance", as showed in the next image:


How do I get the inch measurement around this cup? In the scene panel I've selected Inches as my units but I get this 463thou symbol instead. Anyone who knows what I'm overlooking, let me know. Asking for a friend.

I think once it goes below 1" it automatically reads thousandths. One thing that could be done is turn units back to None. This issue seems to have been fixed in 2.8 ,but doesn't help in 2.79.

None in 2.79

Inches in 2.8


Join 2 faces with different shapes together I want to join the bottom part of that octagon in the plane below it (both are selected in the image). I also want to keep the size of both of them, I just want to insert the octagon in the plane, with the same X, Y coordinate and the Z coordinate of the plane.

Thanks.

Drop the bottom face of the octagon down to the same z location as the plane.
Then delete the faces on the plane and bottom of the octagon.

You can then select the edges of the bottom of the octagon, as well as the edges of the plane, and F to create a face (which would be an n-gon)...

Then with the face you just created selected, press Ctrl-Fto bring up the face menu and select "triangulate faces"...

This will result in triangle faces connecting the outer edge of the octagon to the inner edge of the plane.

If you are not happy with triangular faces, you can select the faces in question and use Ctrl-F > Tris to quads

Edit: you may have to join the objects first by selecting both, pressing spacebar, and searching for "join"

EDIT 2: Upon testing my explanation, it didn't work for me as intended... i will leave it there for posterity but ill post the way i did it that DID work.

1: extend the bottom face of the octagon down JUST BELOW the face of the secondary mesh

2: ensure that only the octagon is selected and add a boolean modifier to it [Properties Window > Modifiers > Boolean]

3: Set the "Operation" to "Union" and the "Object" to the mesh in question.

4: Apply the modifier

note that the boolean modifier will create a copy of the "Object" you selected and work with that, so you may need to delete the unmodified mesh that is left behind from the modifier...

good luck, and sorry if my first answer didn't work =(


Limitation of a Rolling Shutter effect for propeller I am trying to create artifacts of a spinning propeller using cycles from this post.
I have the propeller animated using 2 keyframes starting at 0 degrees, and ending at 80000 degrees over few frames.
However Blender seems to interpolate the frames using closest rotation, which means, that when the propeller rotates more than 180 degrees per frame, the effect will reverse.
But I need it to spin multiple times per frame, to create that authentic effect.
Is there any way to do that?

This may be a bit far-fetched, but maybe it helps anyway.
You could perhaps do it with trickery. There is an awesome video by Matt Parker, where he explains how to fake this effect using real footage: https://youtu.be/nP1elMR5qjc
Crucially, this can apply the effect to much slower footage.
Maybe you can use it for your endered footage as well, if you render it out on a slow timescale (quasi oversampled).
He even provides code for the video processing in  the video description, so it would be easy to try?


Fake user ON by default in Blender materials and textures How can I set the F button for materials and textures to be always on, even when I create a new material?

I don't know Python and I don't have time to learn it, but I have found that there is a property use_fake_user that must be set True for materials.

The reason for asking is that I sometimes loose my unassigned materials when I play with multiple objects and multiple material nodes created on the fly.

You can use an app handler to set use_fake_user to True right before saving. The following addon does it for materials and textures:

bl_info = {
    "name": "Save unused Materials and Textures",
    "author": "CoDEmanX",
    "version": (1, 0, 0),
    "blender": (2, 63, 0),
    "location": "(none)",
    "description": "Enable fake user to rescue unused materials / textures automatically before saving",
    "warning": "Make sure this addon is enabled by default!",
    "category": "Material"}

import bpy
from bpy.app.handlers import persistent
from itertools import chain

@persistent
def enable_fakeuser(scene):
    for datablock in chain(bpy.data.materials, bpy.data.textures):
        datablock.use_fake_user = True

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.save_pre.append(enable_fakeuser)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.save_pre.remove(enable_fakeuser)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Make sure this addon is really enabled (best make it enabled by default and do that whenever you update Blender).


Is there a faster way to select objects? I'm on Part II: Step 4 of Sims4Studio.com/thread/164/start-finish-access

Every time, I right click each line, I will miss a click, all my previous selections disappear.

I have been using blender for two years off and on. I still don't get it.  I wish the devs knew the level of difficulty they have added to the GUI. Forget tutorials. Every person is hitting their keyboards without explaining which keys or functions complete each action.

This is just one of my 99 problems.

In Blender, selection and deselection operations are included in the undo stack. This means you can use Ctrl+Z to undo any time you incorrectly select or deselect something.

The developers tie so many operations to keyboard shortcuts because it's a lot more time efficient for users that are familiar with them. Most operations can still be accessed through menus, and nearly all of them can be accessed by searching with F3 (or the spacebar in older versions.) You can see (and change) all keyboard shortcuts by going to 'Edit > Preferences' and clicking 'Keymap' on the left side.


Motion tracking round objects I'm kind of new to motion tracking, and I need some help. I'm trying to replace the face on some footage of a LEGO minifigure. (You can see the footage in the GIF below):

So, I added tracking markers to the eyes and mouth of my minifigure, and tracked them. When I go to Reconstruction>Link Empty to Track, it makes empties in my 3D view. They look fine from the camera angle, but in 3D space, all of the empties are lined up throughout the entire frame sequence, they just wobble around instead of move in 3D space.

Since they don't move in 3D space, my new 3D face I am trying to add will not rotate with the head, instead, it just sticks there.

So, my question is, what do I need to do to do this? The face needs to rotate. The backface culling will take care of the other side of it so it isn't seen, but my tracking markers are not moving correctly, so it ruins the entire thing.

Thanks for the help in advance! =D

As cegaton mentioned your current solution does not represent 3d space, because you don't have enough trackers. You can try the following workflow:

First enable object tracking

Try to track the head with 8-14 markers
Increase the search area of the markers, if the footage is jumpy
Solve your object track with a value bellow 0.6
Apply a camera solver constraint to the scene camera without solving it, this  should show your object solution (calculated empties) in the viewport

Align your new face geometry to the empties (trackers) or use the trackers to pointcloud function to reconstruct the head
Apply an object solver constraint to the new geometry

Now your object hopefully should move properly with the empties.


View jumps around when clicking with 'lock to 3D cursor' enabled Does anyone know what the intended behavior of this is?
When I set 'Lock To 3D Cursor' enabled in the 'View' tab and I middle click to pan or rotate the viewport camera it changes the distance of the camera to the 3d cursor based on the object underneath the mouse cursor.
I'd prefer if it didn't move the camera around at all when I clicked because it makes it really difficult to navigate the view. Disabling the movement would be best but I also just don't understand what it is attempting to do, knowing that would also be helpful just to understand how to use it better. If you click on nothing it behaves how I would expect, no jump in movement, and if you don't have the camera locked to the 3D cursor it behaves how I would expect as well.

I found a solution to the issue I was having in the settings by unchecking 'Prefs -> Navigation -> Orbit & Pan -> Auto -> Depth'
The description says it uses depth to improve the navigation functionality but I feel like when using lock to 3d cursor it is more of a hinderance, which is a shame because it does improve the navigation when not locked.


Editing a simple curve This is such a dumb question, I'm embarrassed to ask - but I cannot figure out how to modify this simple shape.

The shape comprises a 'fancy' head and tail connected by two straight segments.

All I want to do is add a control point to each of the straight segments so that they can deform along the x-axis - but the deformation should only affect the middle bit. The parts above and below the dashed lines would be unaffected by the deformation.

The parameters for deforming the respective straight sections gets more complicated, and I've added an example of some unacceptable deformations, but really that's a question for another day...

Another way is to use only Bezier curves for the whole shape.
You can use the handles to adjust the faloff - sharp/gradual.

Here is the .blend
(updated 16:40 - matched more precisely to the original + works properly with bevel)


Basic hard surface editing: What is the quickest way to make a frame around an opening? As the title says, I want to inset a frame here like a window frame in a wall or in a box.

If I understand correctly, what you can do is create some additional edge loops, select the inner side faces, AltE > Extrude Along Normals (enable the Offset Even option in the Operator box), then extrude the top faces up:


Why is the smoke preview not showing in Blender's viewport? I've been trying to put together a smoke sim in blender 2.74 using the quick smoke preset however have found that it does not show up in the viewport, yet will still render.

Long story short i have recently updated my AMD Radeon 6750M drivers and it has given me some issues with using the older versions of blender (2.71>), however i have apparently now managed to fix that issue with the error126 fix.

I had initially thought that the smoke not showing up was an opengl issue caused by the drivers, (especially since opengl render no longer works for me), however having now been able to use 2.71 again i have found that not only does the smoke display in 2.71s viewport, but i can also opengl render in 2.71?!

I've attached 3 screenshots of blender 2.71, 2.72b and 2.74 each with the default cube having a quick smoke preset applied to it and the animation played to frame 70. As you can see there does not seem to be any issues with the viewport in 2.71:

Yet nothing displays in 2.72b and 2.74:

This has lead me to ponder if blender uses a different opengl version from 2.72 onwards, or whether there's just something blindingly obvious I'm missing (wouldn't be a first! ;) )?

Anyone have any ideas? Thankyou in advance!

Specs:
Samsung Laptop running Windows 7 x64
Quadcore Intel i7 CPU
8GB RAM
AMD Radeon 6750M GPU and Mobile Intel(R) HD Graphics(?)

EDIT:- Just downloaded the 2.75 Release Candidate, same issue as 2.74, however when i opened the application i was greeted by this message (does not appear when opening 2.71):

Found the solution!

It was simply the case that Blender no longer used the updated AMD GPU as the primary card when running Blender, and instead used the Intel card which was not up to date. Consequently parts of Blender which require OpenGL (such as the viewport smoke simulation or OpenGL render, in my case) will not display correctly, or will throw up errors when used. This is easy to fix by reconfiguring which card is used when running the app.

This was the steps taken for my Windows 7 x64 laptop.

1) Right Click on the Desktop, select the Graphics Properties option from the drop down menu. Note: If there is a Configure Switchable Graphics option (as shown in the screenshot), click that instead and skip to step 3.

2) Under the Power tab, click Switchable Graphics Application Settings.

3) This will bring you to a window with Recent Applications and All Applications drop down menus. Don't be fooled if you see Blender in the 'all applications' menu, if there are multiple versions saved on the same machine yet under different file locations, you will sometimes need to configure each individually. To do this click the Add Application button by the dropdown.

4) Navigate to the file location that the Blender Version is saved at. Select the app and hit Open.

5) When you do this you will be brought back to the All Applications drop down menu. The selected app will now be highlighted (in this case it is the same app as was already on the list at the outset) and will have a drop down menu on the right hand side. Click the menu and choose High Performance. This will set the AMD graphics card as the primary driver used when running Blender.

6) Click Apply and restart Blender. This should hopefully fix any issues, however you may need to repeat the process when installing later versions! :)


UV Distortion Map in Viewport Is there a way to display UV distortion in the Viewport as a heatmap, like one can do in Modo?
It's NOT a duplicate of another question, which was about showing distortion not in the Viewport, but in the UV Editor instead.

If you insist:

No, unfortunately there is currently no functionality to show the distortion of UV maps in the 3D Viewport as heat maps, like one can do in Modo. The question Is there a way to show distribution of UVs as a heat map? seems to cover all the options for displaying UV stretch in Blender.

But this seems like something that might be possible to code in Python as an add-on, maybe it would not be very difficult to output this information as vertex paint information. Who knows?.. maybe someone will see this question as a fun Python exercise...


Cube won't appear in render I have a simple cube with simple images as a material. I Uv unwrapped it and I made sure the camera was on for the show in render in the outliner. The first image shows the 3d view, and the second shows the render view. I don't have any nodes because I am in blender render. I also have a motion tracked image but no nodes either.

Possible causes for a Blank render:

No lights in scene.

Objects disabled for Render in outliner (camera icon).

Strips in VSE and Sequencer enabled.

Objects in different layer, or in a layer disabled in Render Layers.

Object blocked by other objects.

Active camera aiming in a different direction.

An object in the scene set as active camera.

Any, some or all of the above.


How to Use bpy.ops.object.add_named()? Is this a bug or is there a preliminary step I need to take to make the object operators available?
>>> bpy.ops.object.add_named(linked=True, name="Bob")
Error: Object not found

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.83\2.83\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 201, in __call__
    ret = op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Error: Object not found
```

This works.
bpy.ops.object.add_named(linked = True, name = "Cube.010")

I get it now. The name of this function, add_named() is misleading. It's not about adding a new object and naming it as it's created. It's about copying an existing, named, object.
What I was originally looking for was a way to link a copy()ed object to the original so they share data. The idea was to use copy() to make the new object, then it could be either:

linked into a collection as an independent object, or
linked to another object so they share data.

It seemed like a logical assumption to make that a copy()ed object might have these options open.
Still exploring...


Keyframes won't appear in the Graph Editor window I'm trying to make the light bulb, a sphere with an emission texture flicker, by using the Noise modifier using the F-Curve modifiers in the Graph Editor section. Now, I've split my layout into the 4 screens: the basic 3D Viewport, a Timeline, a Dope sheet, and finally, a Graph Editor. I've keyframed the emission strength at both the first and last frame of the animation with the same value, however, I'm only seeing actual output from the Dope Sheet. Here is the screenshot:

You've enabled the Only Include Channels Relating To Selected Objects option in the Graph Editor (small arrow icon on the top menu bar of the window, in blue). If you want to see the curve in the Graph Editor you need to select the node that you've animated (Emission node I guess), or disable this option.


How to change timing of my mocap BVH and how to optimize keyframes I have a BVH file from my Mocap suit that contains 2892 frames, where each frame is a keyframe. The animation runs very slow at about 1/3 speed.

My questions are:

How can I speed up my animation by removing about 2/3 of keyframes? I have found out that I can open NLA editor and change timing from 0 - 2892 frames to 0 - 900 frames and it will do what I need, yet it disallows all future keyframe edits.
How can I optimize my keyframes? Many of these keyframes are not necessary and can be dealt with interpolation.

You can use the Simplify Curves addon, which is already with your Blender.

Enable the Addon;
Switch to Graph Editor, select all curves that you want to simplify, press Space and search for Simplify Curves. Then press F6 to tweak the Error theshold.

To be more accurate, you have to remove those unneeded "interpolated" keys manually, which needs time.


Blender 2.8 (python) - How to set material color using hex value instead of RGB I would like to rewrite the following script so that I can set the color of the material using a hex value; currently it works with RGB.

A search of the literature provides no suggestions as to how to proceed.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

def add_material(obj, material_name, r, g, b):
    material = bpy.data.materials.get(material_name)
    if material is None:
        material = bpy.data.materials.new(material_name)
    material.use_nodes = True
    principled_bsdf = material.node_tree.nodes['Principled BSDF']
    if principled_bsdf is not None:
        principled_bsdf.inputs[0].default_value = (r, g, b, 1)
    obj.active_material = material

You can convert a hex value to rgb like below, using shift and bitwise and operator, then divide it by 255 to get a value between 0 and 1.

import bpy

def hex_to_rgb( hex_value ):
    b = (hex_value & 0xFF) / 255.0
    g = ((hex_value >> 8) & 0xFF) / 255.0
    r = ((hex_value >> 16) & 0xFF) / 255.0
    return r, g, b

def add_material(obj, material_name, h):
    material = bpy.data.materials.get(material_name)
    if material is None:
        material = bpy.data.materials.new(material_name)
    material.use_nodes = True
    principled_bsdf = material.node_tree.nodes['Principled BSDF']
    if principled_bsdf is not None:
        principled_bsdf.inputs[0].default_value = (*hex_to_rgb(h), 1)
    obj.active_material = material

h = 0xE7E7FF

obj = bpy.context.object

add_material( obj, "test", h )

Note: you won't obtain the same value in the UI as the hex value is shown gamma corrected.


I want to suppress self-shadowing, but allow to receive and cast shadows otherwsie To make a forest for a project I'm working on I am using simplified cutout trees made from three intersecting tree image planes with transparency. these have the three planes spaced 60 degrees apart sharing a vertical central axis. I'm using Cycles.

The issue is that when rendered, the planes cast shadows on the other planes of the same tree, which pretty much ruins the illusion. The shadows cast on the ground are OK, just not the ones falling on the tree itself cast by other parts of the same tree.

I tried using an emission shader, and get pretty good results but only so long as the tree isn't being shadowed by something else (in that case, they seem to glow like they are radioactive).

Is there a way to configure the material nodes for cycles such that the object doesn't cast shadows on itself, but allows other objects to cast shadows on it, and allows it to cast shadows on other objects? Any other approach to accomplish this than the material configuration?

Another Very Unsophisticated but simple method that worked for me,
after finish your scene:

Duplicate the desired object
go to Object tab > Cycles setting > ray visability, check 'shadow' for one object and uncheck 'camera ray', do the opposite for the other.

3.flat one of the duplications (the 'shadow') to be plane, face the light source.

I did it in order to save render time.


Random Vertices Getting Selected I got a new laptop about a week ago, when selecting vertices in blender it keeps selecting random ones around the model. I looked it up and everyone was saying if you have any transparent apps open it would cause this, but all I have open is blender and chrome. Anyone know any fixes?

I recently had the same problem.

I followed steps noted here.

However, I instead changed the multisample settings from none to 2.
It seemed to help a bit, and then I changed it back and so far it seems to be working fine.

Another forum suggest some have fixed the issue by disabling anti-aliasing in their GPU control panel.

So far it seems to be working as it should be.

I hope this helps.


How to have rigid-bodies and charge fields interact? Using the answer in "Why don't effectors effect effectors?", it is possible to have rigid body objects interact with each other using force fields. However, I would like to do something similar using charge fields.

If I try using this approach with the charge fields, there does not appear to be any forces applied.

Is it possible to use charge fields with rigid objects? If so, how is it done?

Example:

The animated result using force fields in Blender 2.76:

This is created using rigid body physics. The cage is a rigid body. Each sphere is a rigid body. An empty is parented to each sphere. Each empty has a force field assigned as shown below.

If the force field is changed to a charge field, the spheres end up on the bottom of the cage.

It would seem that there is a paradox going on in the (blender) physics...

from the manual

"Charge
It is similar to spherical field except it changes behavior (attract/repulse) based on the effected particles charge field (negative/positive), like real particles with a charge. This mean this field has only effect on particles that have also a Charge field (else, they have no “charge”, and hence are unaffected)!"

Unfortunately this means that charged objects will only affect other charged objects and that giving an object a charge (force/field), turns it into an effector, and therefore does not affect other effectors...

With the field added to an empty, the field will have no effect on the uncharged spheres.

Seems like a bug/glitch/oversight/unintended consequence of the negation of the effectors affecting each other.


How to make this Mouse Cursor Script work in Blender 2.74? (BGE) It seems that now I upgraded to Blender 2.74 this Mouse Cursor script no longer works.  I do not know Python but I think that there would be only little changes to be done.  Thanks!

from bge import logic
controller = logic.getCurrentController()
own = controller.owner

mouse = controller.sensors['mouse']

hitPosition = mouse.hitPosition

own.worldPosition.x = hitPosition.x
own.worldPosition.y = hitPosition.y

This works for me. I changed it as little as possible. The red plane called "png" is the plane of your cursor. In the ground plane I put a mouse-over sensor called "mouse". I also activated true pulse trigger so that the script will run constantly when your cursor is over something.


How to bake glossy materials? When I apply glossy material in Cycles to a simple setup, the blender bakes it same as a diffuse material, I want the light and reflections so that i can import them to game engine. How to Bake glossy material so that I can use one diffuse texture and another Specular Texture and get real time effect?

You can't bake the reflections 100% accurate but you can just hide the object you want to have reflections on and position a panorama camera and make the mesh reflect that panorama. If you do it like that of course you can't see the reflections from the object itself, but you could split your object in parts to achieve complete baked glossy.
In Cycles you could do it like this:

instead of glossy I would then use emission and also mix the color from that environment texture with the diffuse texture


all shapekeys are edited at once Im very new to the concept of shapekeys, so I dont know, wether this is a bug or a mistake in my hands.

I modelled this heart and tried using shapekeys as a way to animate the cardiac cycle.

I am in the standard position of the heart.
no vertex groups, no settings regarding the Object Data tab.

I hit the plus button to create a basis shapekey

only "Relative" and the box behind the name is ticked.

I hit the plus button another time.

I slide the value to 1.

I sculpt a bit.

Whenever I slide the Value factor, nothing happened, because my basis shapekey seems like also edited.

How can I solve this issue?

download .blend here

Actually both the 2 shapekeys are identical, the object is deformed because you've given it a Multires modifier. So delete this modifier or at least deactivate it and make the mesh deformations you need in Edit mode with the shapekey called Key1 selected.


UV Mapping before Applying Modifiers I want to know whether there is a way to UV unwrap your models, before applying modifiers such as mirror and arrays, and have those same meshes share the same space in the UV map, after applying it.

I'm currently hand painting textures, and this would save me a ton of time, if I wouldn't have to retexture a mesh I arrayed 20 times.

Thanks to Yohello 1, I was able to solve the problem. There is no need for a separate round of UV unwrapping, as long as you haven't applied the modifiers.

This means, that if an object has an array, and you UV unwrap before applying the array modifier, then after you apply the array modifier, or any modifier, it will also use the new meshes on the same UV map as the first it was based on.


How to easily add cloth seam channel to a model Hi i made this tabi sock model but now I would like to know an easy way to add that seam like I did to the right, the right one is sculpted but retopology doesn't seem to work with such small seam channels at least with retopoflow. I tried knife project with a nurb curve but it just looks weird. I tried boolean which isn't like expected. Any help is much appreciated!

The easy way is to simply draw it on a bump map.  Are you doing a 1mm flyby of your foot?  Are you carefully lighting the scene for your tabi seam to catch dramatic shadows?  Unless you are, geometry is pointless, save your verts for somewhere they matter.

But I dunno, maybe you're doing a foot flyby.  The way to do it with geometry is to first fix the topo on your mesh-- you need an edge flow that follows the seams, something that is not yet present on your image.  What you want is topo where there is some edge loop that you can cleanly select that represents the seam.

Once you have that topo, it's pretty trivial.  Select your seam loop and start with a bevel-- mouse wheel up to get an extra edge loop in the center:

Ctrl numpad - to shrink your selection to only the central loop of the bevel, ctrl , to set pivot point to median, alt-s to scale along normals, scale to taste and confirm, and you have a seam.


Unhide objects with UI? I've been having issues trying to hide an object based off name (as a UI checkbox).

It nearly works, hiding an object is somewhat decent, not perfect as sometimes you need to recheck to work. But the main issue is i can't go back and unhide it.

if "bpy" in locals():
    import importlib
    if "MK8_export_paths" in locals():
        importlib.reload(MK8_export_paths)

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator
from bpy.props import FloatVectorProperty
from bpy_extras.object_utils import AddObjectHelper, object_data_add
from mathutils import Vector
from bl_operators.presets import AddPresetBase

from bpy.props import (StringProperty,
                       BoolProperty,
                       IntProperty,
                       FloatProperty,
                       EnumProperty,
                       PointerProperty,
                       )
from bpy.types import (Panel,
                       AddonPreferences,
                       PropertyGroup,
                       )

def common_update(self, context, origin):

    obj = context.object
    scene = context.scene

    for ob in scene.objects:
        if scene.my_prop:
            if ob.name.startswith("Glide"):
                ob.hide = True
            else:
                ob.unhide = True
    else:
            ob.hide = False

class MySettings(PropertyGroup):

    bpy.types.Scene.my_prop = bpy.props.BoolProperty(update=lambda self, context:
    common_update(self, context, 'my_bool_one'))

class PathSETTINGS(Panel):
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_my_panel"
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "TOOLS"
    bl_category = "NewTest"

    def draw(self, context):
        obj = context.object
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene
        layout.label("First row")
        row = layout.row(align=True)
        row.alignment = 'EXPAND'
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(scene, "my_prop", text="Hide Object")

# Registration

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(MySettings)
    bpy.utils.register_class(PathSETTINGS)
    bpy.types.Scene.my_prop = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=MySettings)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(MySettings)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(PathSETTINGS)
    del bpy.types.Scene.my_prop

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Feel free to try/modify this

bl_info = {
    "name": "Blank1",
    "author": "Your Name Here",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 79, 0),
    "location": "View3D > Tools panel 'T' > Blank1 > Blank2",
    "description": "",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "",
    }

import bpy
import os
from bpy.types import Operator
from bpy.types import Panel

def unhide_objects(scene):
    """Unhide all objects"""
    for ob in scene.objects:
        ob.hide = False

def ToggleHide(self, context):
    scene = self
    unhide_objects(scene)
    if scene.TestStringProp:
        for ob in scene.objects:
            if ob.name.startswith(str(scene.TestStringProp)):
                ob.hide = True
            else:
                ob.hide = False
    if not scene.TestBool:
        unhide_objects(scene)

def initprop():
    bpy.types.Scene.TestBool = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        name="TestBool",
        description="",
        default=False,
        subtype='NONE',
        update=ToggleHide)

    bpy.types.Scene.TestStringProp = bpy.props.StringProperty(
        name="TestStringProp",
        description="",
        default="",
        subtype='NONE')

def delprop():
    del bpy.types.Scene.TestBool
    del bpy.types.Scene.TestStringProp

class VIEW3D_PT_Blank1_Blank2(Panel):
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'
    bl_category = "Blank1"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    bl_label = "Blank2"

    def draw(self, context):
        scene = context.scene
        layout = self.layout
        row = layout.row()
        col = layout.column(align=True)
        col.label(text="Columns")
        col.prop(scene, "TestBool")
        col.prop(scene, "TestStringProp")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(VIEW3D_PT_Blank1_Blank2)
    initprop()

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(VIEW3D_PT_Blank1_Blank2)
    delprop()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Why does Blender's tracker keep changing my focal length? I've been trying to track a shot in Blender that I'm adding VFX to. The footage was shot on a 35mm lens on a tripod with a loose head. Because the shot only moves a small amount, the track points are very easy, but where I run into a problem is when I go to "solve camera motion". My 3d camera is set to a 35mm focal length to match my footage, but every time I hit "solve camera motion" blender automatically changes the focal length to about 24mm or 25mm, even if I don't tell it to solve the camera's focal length. It changes it regardless of what "refine" setting I select: "Nothing"..."K1,K"2..."Focal Length, Optical center"....etc. I do have the "tripod" selection checked.
Manually changing the 3D camera's focal length back to 35mm after the fact just throws my track off.
To make matters more complexing, I discovered that if I press the "solve camera motion" button multiple times, the focal length actually increases slightly each time. I can press the button over and over and the focal length ticks up like .4 or .5 mm in every time, which is completely bizarre. The track holds throughout this process, so I pressed the button a ton of times and actually got it pretty close to my 35mm focal length goal. But obviously this is not the way it's supposed to work, and I can't figure out a way to lower the focal length again either if I wanted to.
I'm currently working in version 2.90, but I installed the newest version to see if that improved anything -- unfortunately it did not.
Any thoughts one what might be going on here would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

It sounds like you probably have your movie clip set to the default focal length of 24mm:

Blender will of course set your camera to match your movie clip when you run the track, or else the track won't make any sense.
The focal length converges on 35mm after running multiple tracks as Blender eventually figures out that the 24mm setting you've provided it is incorrect.


Why do the two identical sides of this model reflect light differently? I've modeled a alien coin, and I added some animation to it. The result has shown me that one side (The one it flips to) reflects light in a much nicer way way than the other side (The one it starts on). They both use an identical material. Why is this?

This is shown in the gif here:

https://giphy.com/gifs/gKTtS0kNoTOIwq7kxX

Thanks in advance.

I believe it's your normals. Make sure all objects have their normals on the outside.


How can I reset the cursor in the UV Editor with Python? Observing the manual informs that it is possible to reset the projection but could not reset the position of the cursor in the UV Map.

bpy.ops.uv.cursor_set(location=(0.0, 0.0))

Location, Cursor location in normalized (0.0-1.0) coordinates

https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_current/bpy.ops.uv.html

It is possible to adjust cursor from another context with the following snippet:

import bpy
ob = bpy.context.active_object
for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'IMAGE_EDITOR':   #find the UVeditor
        cursor = area.spaces.active.cursor_location   # get cursor location
        area.spaces.active.cursor_location.x = 0.5*1024;
        area.spaces.active.cursor_location.y = 0.5*1024;

Because you want to normalize in the (0.0,1.0) interval you will have to actually multiply this with the texture size (in my example hardcoded 1024 number).


Strange object.ray_cast() behavior object.ray_cast() is not behaving as I would expect in Blender 2.77. I understand that it expects object local coordinates, but this problem happens when the object is not translated, rotated, or scaled.

If I edit the shape of the cube mesh without moving the cube, the results of ray_cast() seem plain wrong.

Steps to reproduce

Create a cube at 0,0,0
Move a vertex of the cube from 1,1,1 to 5,5,5
Create an empty called "src" at 2,2,2
Create an empty called "dst" at 2,2,6

Run this python

cb = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
src = bpy.data.objects['src']
dst = bpy.data.objects['dst']
hit, loc, norm, face = cb.ray_cast(src.location, dst.location)
bpy.ops.object.empty_add(location = loc)

This is the result on my system. The new Empty created at the interesection point is selected:

The source and the destination are both at x = 2 and y = 2. The cube has a surface at x = 2 and y = 2. So why on earth is the intersection point at x = 2.22222, y = 2.22222?

Raycast argument Vectors need to be in object's local space.

Ray cast is behaving as expected.  The first parameter is the origin of the ray  src.location and the second is a direction vector, which from a target would be  direction = dst.location - src.location (most commonly normalized)

The vectors also need to be in the local coordinates of the target object being ray-cast onto. Simplest way to calculate another object into target objects local space is multiply the global coord by the target objects matrix world inverted

origin = cb.matrix_world.inverted() * src.matrix_world.translation # use @ for * in 2.8

Test script, using object references as in question.

mw = cb.matrix_world
mwi = mw.inverted()

# src and dst in local space of cb

origin = mwi * src.matrix_world.translation
dest = mwi * dst.matrix_world.translation
direction = (dest - origin).normalized()

hit, loc, norm, face = cb.ray_cast(origin, direction)

if hit:
    print("Hit at ", loc, " (local)")
    bpy.ops.object.empty_add(location = mw * loc)
else:
    print("No HIT")


How to unwrap previously textured .obj in Blender? I have an .obj file that has been previously unwrapped with the coordinates included in the file, however when I select the object and open the UV/Image Editor I am not seeing the UVs. Is it possible there is a step I am missing here? I have tried selecting the object in object mode as well as selecting all vertices of the object in edit mode. I am currently running version 2.74.

The models I am attempting to load are the CS:GO workbench materials located HERE.

The answer actually turned out to be that I had a previously rendered image open that was displaying over the uv editor. Whenever I closed that image everything showed up as expected.


Rigid body hair mesh clipping and collision issues I'm completely stumped by rigid bodies and trying to figure out where I went wrong. I have rigged a series of hair braid objects using the Wiggle Bone Add-On, which is a great way to get some natural, springy bounce when the hair moves. The trouble comes when I try to fix the collision issues that result.

With the help of another add-on, I've added rigid body cubes over each braid, and despite all of the braids having the same rigid body settings, only some work. The ones in the front are perfect, but the sides still clip the head sphere no matter what I do.

Also, why do my braids bounce around so much? I want them to be rigged to react to eventual animation, but at the moment even at rest with no motion or momentum, they immediately start bouncing around. How can I set them to be at rest until they are put into motion?

Thanks for your advice!

my test blend file (it's easier to see with overlays turned off)

From the looks of it, adding more bones that better aligned with the finer details of each mesh seemed to solve the issue of why some collisions were working better than others. I noticed the bones were more or less adhering to the rigid body parameters, but visually it wasn't apparent because the braids attached to them weren't perfectly aligned.


How do I rotate the bones? I know there are already questions about this but I don't think there quite available in 2.8 blender. I want to rotate the bone so the bones will be lined up in a straight axis. How do I do it?

Go into edit mode.
Select the tip of the second bone and snap the cursor to it. ⇧ ShiftS
Select the root of the first bone and extrude a new helper bone from it. E
Select the tip of the helper bone and snap it to the cursor. ⇧ ShiftS

Select the helper bone.
Choose the normal orientation for transformations.
Create a custom transform orientation from the normal orientation.
Delete the helper bone. (We have the custom orientation from the root of the first bone to the tip of the second bone, and that is all that we need.) X
Choose the 3D Cursor as Pivot Point. . / numpadperiod
Select the root of the second bone and scale it to 0 on the custom XZ axis, by pressing S[⇧ ShiftY]0. (Shift has to be held while Y is pressed, this constrain scaling along the XZ axis of the custom transform orientation.)

Copy paste the roll property from one bone to the other.

This answer expands on how the custom transform orientation works.


Chrome Reflections On Flat Surfaces I've set up my scene, and both objects have the exact same material applied to them. I understand that the monkey object has lots of curves therefor the light and world scene is bouncing lights and the HRD image to make it seem nice and reflective. But as for the TEXT mesh, although having the same material and light applied to it, it looks flat. would there be a way that the text can also look more realistic like the monkey Suzanne, having more details on its surface?

thank you.

For orthographic view or camera rays from flat surfaces located at same angle lead to just one pixel of environment texture for both background and reflection.


How to generate points from an SVG I have an SVG file with a 2D point-cloud, I want to convert each point in the svg into a point in Blender. Normally I would do it manually, but there are a lot of points and the they need to be placed very precisely. Is there a automatic way to place points in Blender?

EDIT: This answer is going to be pretty useless if we are talking about an SVG file (as the edit implies). In that case the comments explain the method of importing an SVG into blender, which would solve the problem.
This answer only applies to raster images such as PNGs or JPGs. I'll keep it around only in case someone else wants to do this with a raster image and might bump into this answer.

If your 2D image is a simple black and white representation, this should do the trick:

Open your image in a UV/Image editor.
Open a text editor window and paste the script below there.
Update the image name in line 15.
Update the image resolution in line 18.
Press "Run Script".

Code:

import bpy
import numpy as np

def make_mesh( context, name, verts ):
    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new( name = name )

    o = bpy.data.objects.new(name, mesh)
    o.location = (0,0,0) # place at object origin
    context.scene.objects.link( o )

    mesh.from_pydata( verts, [], [] )

    return o

img = bpy.data.images['figure_1.png']  # Update name to the right one in your scene

pixels = np.array( img.pixels[:] )
pixels = pixels.reshape( ( 1024, 1024 ) )  # Update resolution to the one in your image

verts = []
for i in range( pixels.shape[0] ):
    for j in range( pixels.shape[1] ):
        if pixels[i,j] == 0.0:
            verts.append( [ i, j, 0 ] )

o = make_mesh( bpy.context, 'PointCloud', verts )


Why 38000M peak when trying to render image When I am trying to render an image with 32 samples the peak M gets to 38000 and the crashes with CUDA error for not enough GPU memory.
We just bought a new computer

Rtx 3070
32 ram
Cpu AMD ryzen 9 5950
Water cooled

The file takes 10 minutes just to open, thne crashes when trying to go into render view mode
Have 158 million tris
80 million verts and faces

It takes up that memory and crashes because 158 M faces is huge. That’s about it.
Try using decimate or some thing to reduce the number of faces, or even use different scenes so it’s broken up in pieces, and then video sequence them together.


Interlaced footage in the motion tracker? Blender seems to be interlacing my footage in the tracker/video editor, but nowhere else does it look like that, even if I make blender render it through the sequence editor.

This footage is impossible to track this way.

Related post on BA.

You can use AviSynth to deinterlace your footage before using it in Blender on the fly. You can mount your avs Scripts with avfs and Pismo File Mount to have virtual avi files that you can import into Blender.

I use it all the time and it works well, even though it's a bit tricky to set up... Depending on your footage you might need a proper VideoSource Plugin for AviSynth like L-Smash and if you don't want to use the included Bob Deinterlace Filter, maybe use QtGMC.


Blender game engine movements I used to do animation but just started creating games using blender.
I am pretty sure my problem is minor but it would be a great help if you got assist me.
My problem is that i created an armature and a walk cycle and stand cycle.
My walk cycle has no problem in the game except for the stand cycle.
Means that , whenever i press w to walk front , it has the action of it ... but when i add another movement which the sensor is "always" (in the game logic )
Which the action will happen once my character stop walking .... but that is where the problem started . I press p to play and the stand action works well... but when i press "W" .... the character froze and didnt walk front ... I know that my explaination of my problems is not really understandable... but please take alook at this blend.file which my problem lies inside.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/7c1ib6pfmxej7d6/walk+cycle.blend

Go to blender game engine ... and press p . You will see my character standing with movement but once you press w ... it stop... i want it to move ..
My character can move front if i dele my stand action...
How to add both of it ??
Thx for reading and helping.

Each item can have one active action attached to it. To expand this for the game engine you can merge all actions into one.

In the action logic brick you can set the start and end frames so you can play only part of the action as desired. Use the priority to choose which movement overrides the other.


How do i keep the ratio of an image when unwrapping I have an image i would like to use as a label which will be wrapped around a cylindrical object. I would like to keep the image from stretching. If I decrease the radius of the cylinder by scaling down along the x y axis, the image squishes, or stretches if I scale up. I would like to alter the radius of the cylinder, prior to UV unwrapping, to best suit the image's dimensions. How do I go about this if the cylinder is an object that already exists and therefore I cannot determine its radius as I can when I add new one? Or is there another way to go about this?

You can view and change the dimensions of the cylinder in the panel to the right of the 3D viewport, labeled "Transform". You can then calculate a proper diameter and height for the cylinder, using the image dimensions.

In the Dimensions section, set X and Y to the desired diameter of the cylinder, then set Z to the desired height. Press ctrl + A to apply the scale, then scale to whatever size you want.

Lastly, keep in mind that for graphics, if it looks right it's good enough, so you can probably eyeball it and no one will notice.


Making an object continously spin and then stop after hitting a wall I want to make a shuriken spin while also following a path towards a destructible vase, it will then smash through and then hit the wall and stop spinning, it then looks like it has been stuck into the wall. Ive tried rotating it but it just ends up offsetting the path

Anybody know how to do this?
Thanks a million-Icarus.

Create your Shuriken mesh and curve object to follow.

Add a Path Constraint, a Follow Path (Ctrl+P > Follow Path) parent or whatever suits your need.

After the shuriken is correctly following your path, select it as active object, place the timeline in Frame 0 and keyframe it's Delta Rotation by pressing the i key, then move the timeline to the last frame of your animation and do the same, keyframing the last Delta Rotation again.

This will do nothing on its own, you now have to adjust it in the Graph Editor.

Either open a new Graph Editor area, or switch to one of the default screen layouts for Animation which will automatically set up the editors for you.

Now in the graph editor, with the select the shuriken as active object, select the animation curve handle for rotation in the last frame and move it up or down, depending on the direction you want it to rotate, the amount of degrees you want it to spin (amount of turns * 360 degrees), you will probably have to eyeball it to see what looks best, but probably a very high number.

To make the speed constant turn all animation handles into Vector type.


2.80 Eevee: Rigid body collisions OK in Viewport, but none in Render? just wanted to ask if the behavior mentioned in the subject is a known problem in the current 2.8 alpha? Or am I doing something wrong?

I have a simple test scene, it is basically a keva planks tower, hit by an animated ball, the tower should collapse after being hit by the ball.

In the viewport preview everything renders fine (either solid, or LookDev, or even fully shaded) - all ok.  But when I hit Ctrl-F12 to render the animation, then the animation frames are rendered so that the ball goes strainght through the planks tower, and does not collide at all. As if it was a ghost. Hope you understand what I mean.

How can this be, that in viewport the physics work fine, but in final animation nothing happens? Is it a known bug? Or is there any setting which controls the behavior in viewport vs. final render?

Thanks a lot,
MR

Have you baked your Physics? Always i have not baked the Physics i got a wrong result.


Create number grid of text objects in Animation Nodes I'm trying to find a way to use animation nodes to generate a grid of numbers that would look something like this ...

In pseudo code, I would imagine it working something like this:

Generate grid mesh
Get Nth mesh point
Generate new text object at Nth point with index value as text input

I've tried doing this in animation nodes with an object instancer. What ends up happening is that all the generated text objects end up with the same offset, and the same content (i.e. the last index value). For some reason it is only applying the values from the last iteration of the loop to all the text objects!

See here:

Are there any Animation Node masters out there who can tell me where I'm going wrong please?

Well it seems that I've answered my own question.

My mistake was using a source text object for the instancer. Instead, I just disabled the "Copy from source" setting and then selected "Text" from the drop down list of available types to instance.

The next challenge will be getting the numbers to count up horizontally instead.

Update!

I vastly simplified the node network from my (deleted) post yesterday, and made it able to order the numbers in anyway you want, up down left right, down up right left, etc.

There's still just the issue of not having any access to the font object material at all.


Dynamic Displacement for tracks doesn't appear in the final render? I use the dynamic paint - brush, for the wheel

and the dynamic paint - canvas for the plane with displacement

This is the preview render animation of the tracks

it looks fine,

and This is the final render in the same frame of the animation.

So why the final render just appears like a flat plane like that?
I need some help here, thanks

You have Subsurf modifier with different settings for render and viewport:

So, then you hit render new plane generates and dynamic paint refreshes.

Set view subdivisions equal to render subdivisions.


How to Merge objects so that when you seperate them by loose parts I created a building, and made a window separately, using Ctrl+J, I fused both, but when I pressed P and selected By loose parts and then the windows come off

I don't want that, how do I prevent that so that they are part of the building?

When you used Ctrl + J, you joined the objects together so that the separate meshes were now part of the same object. In order for them to be part of the same mesh they need to be part of the same object AND connected from at least one vertex on your window mesh to your building mesh.

You can do this with the F key while two or more vertices are selected.

If you hover over a mesh in your scene and hit L it will highlight all the vertices on that mesh, this also works with Ctrl + L when you have a vertex selected.

You'll know your windows are a part of the building if you have everything deselected and hit L while your mouse is over your building and the selection includes the windows.


Is it possible to iterate through particles in python? Is it possible to iterate through particles like vertices of a mesh, to kill some?
I'm trying to remove overlapping particles of still droplets.

Yes it is to some extent.

ps = obj.particle_systems[particle_sys]
particles = ps.particles

# on large objects list comprehension seems to be slower than index
# and . dotted access is also a slowing factor
for i in range(len(particles)):
    # alive_state
    # angular_velocity
    # birth_time
    # die_time
    # hair_keys
    # is_exist
    # is_visible
    # lifetime
    pt = particles[i]
    if pt.is_exist and pt.alive_state == 'ALIVE':
        # do something... add_loc(pt.location[:])
        ...
    # prev_angular_velocity
    # prev_location
    # prev_rotation
    # prev_velocity
    # rotation
    # size
    # velocity

pt.location would give the coordinate. The Particles API seems to be slightly under-developed, but perhaps this info will help you.


Normal map turns material black I am trying to make a mirror with some scratches on it but when I add the normal map some parts just turn black (the stronger the normal map is the bigger the black area is). Thank you for your answers:)

One potential solution is setting your normal map image node to "Non-Color Data". You should use "Color Data" only where the image's colors matter, i.e. only when connecting to a color socket.


How do you pan zoom rotate the viewport while drawing with the grease pencil tool? I'm an illustrator and I use photoshop to create my work on a flat surface. At least there, I can zoom, pan, rotate my illustration to completion.
How the heck do you pan zoom rotate the viewport while drawing in blender use the pencil tool?
I use a stylus and have a pen display and I freehand draw with my right hand. how can I pan zoom rotate the canvas with my left hand?
Are there any hot keys? or do I have to drop my stylus just to press the numpad?

What works for me using a wacom tablet is to enable "emulate 3 button mouse".
That way I can draw with one hand, and with the other I press Ctr+Alt and press and move the sytuls to Zoom in or out.
To rotate press Alt and press on the stylus.
To pan press Alt+Shift and move by pressing the stylus.
Pressing Ctrl will let you erase without changing the tool.
To roll the view you need to create a new keyboard binding so that you can use Ctrl+Shift and the scroll wheel on the mouse.
Read: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/15051/92768


How to properly setup linear deformation in Hook modifier? The goal is to make right mesh (with orange outline) to look exactly straight like on the left side. But these horizontal loopcuts are completely destroying Hook setup. As you can see falloff is set to Linear and it is still has curvature.

Left side mesh has all vertices asigned to hook except top two. Right side - all of them.

This setup you can easily build using armature deformation, but not Hook. But if you want to use hooks, try vertex group setting in hook modificator:

I draw vertex group using weight gradient:

When add  weight group into modificator settings: