How would I add bump mapping on an OSL shader? diffuse_toon(N, 0.5, 0);

I've found out by reading through the specifications of OSL that N is a global variable, pertaining to normals, but I'm not certain on how to use it.

If I were to use a Normal Map node to get a vector from an image, how could I make it so I could plug it into an OSL shader and have it come out as a bump-mapped surface?

Store in a vector/normal variable:

Let's suppose you've got a Normal texture:

OSL Code:

shader Bumped(
    normal NormalMap = 0, //the input (normal map vector starting "empty")
    output closure color Bumped =0 //the output (closure, AKA the final shader)
) {
    N = normal(NormalMap[0], NormalMap[1], NormalMap[2]); // store X, Y, Z component from NormalMap
    Bumped = diffuse_toon(N, 0.5, 0); //define closure
}

The code above creates a closure output named "Bumped" which is based on a "diffuse_toon" shader, whose normal information are stored in the variable "N" that we declared.

"Normal" is a vector-like variable (x, y, z).

To access the respective "i" component of the NormalMap use the syntax NormlaMap[i], as it's stored as an array.

X = NormalMap[0]
Y = NormalMap[1]
Z = NormalMap[2]

That said, you can shorten the code by avoiding the use of the variable N, just use your own like in this example.

shader Bumped(
normal NormalMap=0,
output closure color Bumped = 0
){
Bumped=diffuse_toon(NormalMap,0.5,0);
}

Here's a comparison between the result of the OSL shader and the one coming from Cycles nodes.


How can I insert a transparent rectangle but with the edges mark? I want to do exactly what is shown in the image. Some know the way to do it?

Instead of having a bitmap, it could be better to just use a mesh, like this:

here I also used a shadless white material, to get the idea.

Another way could also be curves with tapers, probably...

Using real geometry, instead of having a fixed bitmap, allows you to adapt the mesh to different needs, and ensures optimal resolution...


Load images with substring in filename from a given path i try to load image by part of name, for example image_dir  is a variable folder,
in some different folder i have single image with name "Cat smile.png" or "cat go crazy.jpeg" (note uppercase lowercase Cat , cat) i find glob.glob() but not sure if is right way

image_dir = ###string variable
my_image = "Cat" or "cat"or "caT" or "CAT"

###want to find photo with that part of name if exist

image = os.path.join(bpy.path.abspath("//"),image_dir + os.sep + my_image)

edit: i think is not good way because i think best way to make that is use append image from directory with :

image_dir = ###string variable
directory = os.path.join(bpy.path.abspath("//"),image_dir)
images = []
for fn in os.listdir(directory):
    images.append(fn)

now i can find image name from images because is a list... but I'm not able

Regular expression example.

For the most part this is a generic python question, some answers from stack overflow.

python finding substring inside string

Python glob multiple extensions

Python glob multiple filetypes

For blender specifics, the image file extensions that your blender can open are

>>> bpy.path.extensions_image
frozenset({'.dpx', '.pdd', '.jp2', '.hdr', '.j2c', '.rgb', '.tiff', '.sgi', '.tga', '.rgba', '.png', '.cin', '.jpg', '.exr', '.tif', '.dds', '.psd', '.psb', '.bmp', '.jpeg', '.tx'})

Here is a sample method, that searches for image files that have a substring in their name and an extension suitable to blender. A regular expression search is used in both cases. The searches are case insensitive.

The links above show how to do this using other tools such as glob, pathlib and fnmatch

import bpy

def find_files(substring, path='.', extensions=[]):
    from os import listdir
    from re import search, IGNORECASE
    return [f for f in listdir(path)
            if search(r'%s' % substring, f, IGNORECASE)
            and any(search(r'%s$' % ext, f, IGNORECASE)
                    for ext in extensions)]

def image_files(substring, path="."):
    return find_files(substring, path=path, extensions=bpy.path.extensions_image)

def movie_files(substring, path="."):
    return find_files(substring, path=path, extensions=bpy.path.extensions_movie)

def audio_files(substring, path="."):
    return find_files(substring, path=path, extensions=bpy.path.extensions_audio)

# test call, search for "screenshot" in image folder
# and load images
from os.path import join
image_path = "/home/batfinger/Pictures"
for fp in image_files("screenshot", path=image_path):
    print(fp)
    bpy.data.images.load(join(image_path, fp))

Notes maybe switch extension search to first. For recursive folder search would use something like os.walk instead of os.listdir


90 degrees angle smooth I've got a model.

It's shaded smooth in object mode (+ autosmooth). So everything's ok, but I need to smooth several 90 degrees angles. 3 angle is smooth, 2nd is not, the first one needs to be smooth too. How can I do that?

upd:

It looks to me like 3 has a bevel, but the others do not have the same bevel.
Try selecting the 90 degree edges and applying a bevel (ctrl B).


how to work with dynamics and animated objecs I want to drop several objects into a jar one by one, not all at the same time. How can I achieve this? I tried to hold objects with another passive rigid body and then animate that object away allowing objects to fall, but the active rigid body objects dont animate at all.

I'm new to blender myself, but I think your solution would lie in the timeline key frames. For each object you can start movement at one key frame, move, and stop at another key frame. Hope this helps.


Texturing deformation through a sequence of meshes I have several (externally generated) two-mesh sequences representing undeformed/deformed objects.  I would like to visualize these deformations using texture mappings on the meshes.

In particular, I would like to place a texture on the undeformed object, and have it deform along with the mapping to the deformed object.  The mesh connectivity between undeformed/deformed is the same.

Is there an established method for doing this in Blender?  I have heard that this can be done using "shape keys", although I do not know what this means.  I am very new to Blender and graphics software in general, so basic advice is appreciated.

I solved the problem.  I did not use shape keys at all.

This can be done by copying the UV-mapping from the source mesh onto the target mesh (c.f. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.79/editors/uv_image/uv/layout_management.html).

Since both objects have the same topology, this is straightforward.


How can i get a better result Baking in blender render? I have a little question here, it is possible improve the result of the baking in this model (Blender Render)?

In the image We can see a little deffects like black points ,can i improve that?

Edit and Solution:

Just need to increase the samples in the World tab , i increase the value to 25:

And here the final result Thanks for everyone!

At first glance I would think that noise is due to a low sample setting.

You might try to increase the gathering samples.
Go  into the "Scene Settings" in the "Properties Editor", under "Gather", if you set it to use raytracing, you can change the sample settings.

But yeah, just a guess into the wild, maybe I am wrong? Hard to say without having the scene open...


Can't find remesh button I'm pretty a newbie here and also in Blender in general.

I'm in trouble with one thing in particular:

How could I switch sculpting through different objects in sculpt mode? Let me first say that I use a tablet with pen so I have enabled Emulate 3 Button Mouse. I know that I have to press Alt and click on an object but if I press Alt on the object I want to switch it doesn't receive the input, also if I have flagged

What can I do?

Thanks in advance.

To the main question, remesh can be found in 2 places when in sculpt mode. One is in the header of the 3D View to the right, maybe you need to scroll it with the "alt+click" on your pen or middle mouse button, the second one is in the Active Tools and Workspace Settings, right above the Render Properties tab, there between Options and Workspace.

Regarding the switching of objects while in sculpt mode, since you are using the middle mouse button emulation, the alt is not working since it's used for rotating the 3D View.
You may have to use "ctrl-tab" to open a pie menu and select "object-mode", to switch back, well same pie-menu. Sadly the one keymap that could make it easier is non-modal, means it would overwrite not only the mode change in sculpting, but also in the object-mode. If you primary use sculpting it may be interesting for you non the less. In the second picture, the marked "Edit Mode" can be changed to "Object Mode", but as i mentioned it will toggle not only in sculpt mode, but also in other modes. You can always reset it back to "Edit Mode" though. It seems that you may need to switch at least once manually back to sculpt mode if you add a new object after switching from sculpt mode and select the new object, from then on it usually works fine with just "tab" to change mode, change selection and "tab" back, happy sculpting.


Blender 2.8 Time Nodes for 2d Animation I am pretty much a blender newbie but here is what I am trying to accomplish:

Basically I want to create a simple 2d animation using nodes. I created this simple network which changes the color over time:

When selecting single Frames in the Compositing tab, the colors are changing correctly. However when pressing the play button (in the Rendering tab) I would have assumed that I can view a "animation" of color fading but the colors are not changing at all (I selected the Viewer Node in the Rendering tab). What am I doing wrong?

Also I would like to "export" these rendered frames as background into my 2D Animation canvas and eventually draw onto them. How can I do this?

Any information of how to do it or information on finding information is helpful

Thank you very much

Unfortunately the compositor does not update reliably. It does so on tree changed (manually), but not necessarily on frame changed. There should be no problem outputting the animation as either video or img sequence. But as far as I know you still need to render each frame. Delete everything in your scene except the camera, choose your resolution, file format and destination and hit render animation.


Is there a way to hide the path that a hook modifier draws on the 3D view? I have a scene with an absurd amount of hooks (on the order of thousands). This, of course, clutters my scene quite badly.

I was unable to find a way to hide the paths that hooks show linking the parent to the child. I could of course just make it invisible but then the effect of the modifier is lost.

Those paths are called 'relationship lines', and can be toggled on and off here:


Is there a way to recalculate normals per animation frame? Not even sure if this is the actually problem. This is my first model ever in blender.

I made a stuffed animal and wanted to do a 360 rotating animation kind of like a rotating display.

All the hair particles on the model look fantastic on frame 1, and then they all go to heck afterwards. If I advance the animation to frame 5 and render that one frame, all the hair looks terrible. If I recalculate normals on frame 5, and then render that single frame again, it looks great again. But any frame after will still look funky.

What setting am I missing to keep hair particles in place during the model rotation?

Thank you,

Yup hair dynamics was enabled, and in hindsight I should just be rotating the camera not the whole object, thanks guys


Animation of the fabric stops and "freezes" earlier than I need to Animation of the fabric (object with cloth  modifier) stops and "freezes" earlier than I need to.

Why is this happening and how to fix it?

On the timeline is correct range, 1-300, in cash 1-300 too, but animation of the fabric ends at 84 frame. If I Bake animation, it also ends at 84 frame.

Problem solved! :) looks like it is just a bug. Apparently it happened not only to me. To solve it you need to enter and then exit  the Edit Mode and Bake again.


Will excessive rendering damage a GPU? Whenever I head to school or somewhere else, I sometimes like to render my images(even if they're not complete) at something crazy, like 10,000 samples at a high resolution with many light bounces. Will this damage my computer or GPU, or take up space?

If your computer has proper cooling and therefore doesn't overheat, it won't damage the GPU.

It will have an unfavorable impact on your electricity bill and carbon footprint though.

Whether a sample size that high is actually appropriate is another question. You probably don't need that many samples or there are computationally less expensive solutions to reduce noise, e.g. the denoiser.

The rendered image will take up disk space when you save it. How much it will use depends on the resolution, the image format and its settings. The higher the resolution, the larger the file. For an overview of image formats and their disk space usage, take a look at the last section of this answer.


How do I hide the properties panel in the Graph Editor? How do I hide the properties panel in the Graph Editor?
Screenshot says it all.

Toggle on / off with N or via View / Properties


How can I avoid seeing the inside faces of a semitransparent object in the game engine? I want to know if it's possible to make an object transparent just based on how the object is rendered when it's not transparent. I want this to avoid seeing the faces inside or on the other side of the object.

This is what I'm currently getting:

This is what I want to be able to do (done with post editing):

In the material editor (cycles) add a geometry node and look at the "Backfacing" output. Plug it into the fac of a new mix shader where one input is what you already have and the other is a completely white Transparent shader. You haven't uploaded a .blend file so I can't know what  exactly you are doing but I hope this helps.


How do I implement the color I have on vertex paint onto my faces? I have painted my object with vertex-color on vertex-paint. How can I make the color visible in object-mode or edit-mode.

Meaning, how do I implement the vertex-color onto my faces so that I can see them on object-mode or edit-mode?

In 3D View, hit N to bring up the right panel, then enale Textured Solid.

Now in Object Mode and Edit Mode, you will see the vertex colors.

EDIT: This appears to only work with Blender Render.


Using python to scale/resize a selected groups of faces with individual origin question based on this topic Using python and bmesh to scale/resize a face in place where each face was scaled separately.
So actually the question in the title. I'm newbie to python. I tried to find connected faces based on the same vertex indexes, then calculate the average mean of the vertices positions included this faces(like a origin point).
But it works only for single group faces, how to make it for multiple group faces?

import bpy
import bmesh
import numpy as np
from mathutils import Vector as vec

#EDIT mode#
me = bpy.context.edit_object.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
scale_factor = 0.5

seleted_vert_group = []
verts_co_x = []
verts_co_y = []
verts_co_z = []

#checking for matches
for face1 in bm.select_history:
    passwither = 0 #pass double matched face
    for face2 in bm.select_history:
        if face1 == face2:
            continue
        for vert1 in face1.verts:
            for vert2 in face2.verts:
                if passwither == 1:
                    continue
                if vert1.index == vert2.index:
                    passwither = 1
                    print(f'face index: {face1.index}')
                    for vert in face1.verts:
                        seleted_vert_group.append(vert)
                        verts_co_x.append(vert.co.x)
                        verts_co_y.append(vert.co.y)
                        verts_co_z.append(vert.co.z)

co_x = np.sum(verts_co_x)/len(verts_co_x)
co_y = np.sum(verts_co_y)/len(verts_co_y)
co_z = np.sum(verts_co_z)/len(verts_co_z)
origin_point = vec((co_x,co_y,co_z))

for vert in set(seleted_vert_group):
    vert.co = origin_point + scale_factor * (vert.co - origin_point)

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

Hi you should move back them into first position.
I answered based on this question

import bpy
import bmesh

context = bpy.context

ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
scale_factor = 0.5

for face in bm.select_history:
        center = face.calc_center_median()
        for v in face.verts:
            v.co = center + scale_factor * (v.co - center)

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)


Blender vertices not selectable I am using Blender 2.9 and I am trying to select some mesh on the back of my mesh's head.
For some reason, I can't select these faces or their edges and vertices at all in edit mode. I tried removing the mirror modifier and opening Blender again, but I can still not move these specific faces. The rest of the mesh is movable and is working fine.
Is there any way I can fix this? (because I really don't want to model this character all over again).

You have hidden vertices. Press ⎇ Alt + H
to unhide them.


Learn Blender 2.7 now or wait for the 2.8 Beta release? Is Blender 2.8 different enough that I should wait for the beta to be released (in a couple weeks?) to start learning the software, or is 2.7 a worthwhile starting place?

Learn now, and it's ok to start with 2.8

Blender 2.8 makes many changes to some fundamental aspects of how we interact with the software and with each workflow. Most notably: layers are gone and the objects are organised differently; using workspaces for different kind of tasks is now visually encouraged (with some great default workspaces!); the creation of materials is done with a new efficient LookDev mode.

Many shortcuts were changed, included commonly used ones; almost all the icons are changed too, and the interaction with the Viewport has been improved in many ways.

Since it appears that the Alpha 2 version is stable for most of the users, I'd suggest trying Blender 2.8 directly. You won't have the burden to re-learn new shortcuts and to get used to new defaults.

Just don't rely on an experimental version for anything professional, but as I understand you are just trying to pick up a new hobby/interest, and Blender 2.8 won't hurt you! Some tutorial creators have already started publishing 2.8-based videos (but 2.79 tutorials will be mostly fine too, with some effort to figure out the hotkey changes)


In proportional mode how do I pull together 2 vertices that are facing each other? I want to create a blood cell model. So first I create a UV Sphere, then I select the top vertex and the bottom vertex of the sphere, and now I want to pull the 2 vertices closer together in proportional mode.
How can I do that?

Select both vertices and scale along the z axis. So press [S] and then [Z].


Sub-D problem with edges I want this edge to be hard, but when I try to use the bevel modifier or edge crease, this problem occurs. Also when I tried to add support edges, it still looks bad and creates other unwanted problems with the mesh.

Can you help me fix this?

EDIT: Topology

EDIT2: Curved Part

What you want to do is switch the Outer Miter from Sharp to Arc. This will solve your problem without having to bevel any additional edges that might break curvature.

If you want to end up with geometry that's still all quads, you need manually triangulate the pre-bevel quads that buttress the bevel-weighted corners, as follows:


Mesh imported from DazStudio always render as pure black I´ve imported a Dforce hair from DazStudio as a *OBJ and although it seems all is fine (other meshes work fine) the Hair mesh (multiple strands) always render black (Cycles and EEVEE)with any material i apply to it.
It doesn't matter what type of material i apply to it, simple or complex, it always render as pure black...
I´m kinda new to Blender as I'm in the first steps of learning it so, any light on the matter would be greatly appreciated!
Link to the sample file

This hair is not a "hair" made with Blender: Blender does not recognize it as hair. This is simply edges and edges cannot be shaded without faces.
Enter edit mode, select all A and give a very little extrusion E to the mesh (less than a millimeter or around that).
In the shader part, change the "hair BSDF" by a "Principled" shader.


When is acceptable to have disconnected geometry? Some times it's easier to add a quick sphere and move it so it intersects a part of an existing model rather than trying to connect the existing model to the sphere.

When are these kinds of shortcuts acceptable (or not) for good topology?

This technique has lots of advantages, the biggest of which is of course speed of modeling. There are also some drawbacks you might want to consider:

Stacking is troublesome if you need bevelling. The intersections will stay sharp, no matter what.

Freestyle won't produce the result you're after. It uses face boundaries to find edges and there are none.

In the past, Blender sometimes had trouble to precisely calculate the intersections, resulting in a jagged appearance. I haven't noticed that lately so it might be fine.
If you deform the surface, the object might move relative to one another, resulting in a shift of the edge. Or in Z-fighting.
Transparent materials will show that you tried to cheat. Nothing against cheating in 3D as long as you can get away with it. The left image is how it should look, the right is how it looks if it's stacked. This effect gets worse when you rotate around the object.

If you don't use it for joints or movable parts but just for speeding up the modeling, and you don't trim the parts inside the model, it always results in unnecessary geometry. Depends on the case what's more important. But even with trimming, it's still faster than manually connecting the detail or cleaning up boolean artefacts.
Adding small details has the advantage of not distorting the big geometry which can be quite time consuming to repair or plan in advance.
Tools like the Loop Cut will ignore the detail  when you work on the main mesh.
It affects your UV mapping workflow.
One of the biggest factors still is screen size. Extreme closeups will reveal possible problems. If it's just a small detail, you can employ a lot of simplification techniques, saving time.


Problem at installation at my pc I have a problem when installing Blender in my PC. Not about when executing the aplication, but in the installation.
When i tried to install, there is a massage "Another installation is in progress. You must complete that installation before continuing this one." although i'm not installing anything except this software. What should i do?

You should probably cancel the installation and reboot your PC, to make sure no installation is running. Then try to install, just for the sake of trying to get a "clean" installation, with nothing interfering.


Bottle thread answer doubt I'm trying to follow the following answer from the site:
How to model the bottle threads?

I could do almost everything, but when I have to do the (spiral) loop cut the program doesn't allow me and I don't know why and in the answer there is no clarification of how it's done.

Additional info:
Before I remove the screw (even after doing the knife intersect) I can do the spiral loop ring as the picture shows.
When I delete it I cannot do the spiral loop cut nor select the linked objects all the spiral with CTRL+L and I have to do it manually.

I tried it myself.  The problem is that not all of the vertices line up perfectly, so you end up with some rogue unwelded verts, like so:

See those little evil guys?

To fix it, select all verts and choose Mesh->Vertices->Remove Doubles.  Then adjust the threshold until they all nicely merge.

Once all the verts are properly welded your spiral select will work.


Sound visualization: Length of animation does not match audio file length I setup a simple animation nodes node tree to experiment with the animation of a shape key and a material node of an object (cube). This is the node setup: Although, as stated in the comments below, this does not necessarily seem to be an animation node related issue ..

I added the sound sample in the video editor and then matched the animation end frame (140) to the length of the sound file strip. When I play the sound by pressing play in the timeline (still video editor) the sound exactly matches the length from start frame to end frame.

But when I change back to node editor and press play in the timeline the sound has already finished on a much earlier frame (like 87) but the animation will go on until frame 140 without sound.

I tried to tweak the all over fps value but with no success.. (and without knowing WHY exactly)

Any ideas what I miss(do wrong here? Thx ..

Some times when dealing with Audio files in blender, the viewport becomes slow due to some factors, however, the audio files is maintaining its speed and rate, so they go out of sync.

A possible solution is to enable AV-Sync, which dropes some frames in order to keep up with the sound file. Another solution might be to reduce the factors that are slowing down your experience.


How to run a piece of code when addon is just activated Is there a way to run a block of code when the user activates the add-on?

I am creating my add-on, in which my add-on appends in a few node groups from other .blend file.

I would like my add-on to directly append the nodes rather than the user having to click some button to do that!

Thanks for help....

This is an example addon that will execute the function "load_fonts" when blender starts,  it use the handlers to run a function at blender start :

import os
import bpy
from bpy.app.handlers import persistent

@persistent
def load_fonts(scene):
    font_dir = bpy.context.user_preferences.filepaths.font_directory
    for file in os.listdir(font_dir):
        if file.endswith(".ttf"):
            bpy.data.fonts.load(font_dir+file)

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.load_post.append(load_fonts)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.load_post.remove(load_fonts)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

you can call the function  you want inside the register() function, but you can't get access to the scene :

def load_fonts(scene):
    print("addon activated ")

def register():
    load_fonts()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

to overcome this problem you can use handlers to access the scene as @CoDEmanX shows in this thread :  example

import os
import bpy
from bpy.app.handlers import persistent

@persistent
def load_fonts(scene):
    bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre.remove(load_fonts)
    font_dir = bpy.context.user_preferences.filepaths.font_directory
    for file in os.listdir(font_dir):
        if file.endswith(".ttf"):
            bpy.data.fonts.load(font_dir+file)

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre.append(load_fonts)

def unregister():
    pass

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Align normals to camera with material nodes I am using the Normal Edit modifier (aka Set Split Normals) on directional mode to align an object's normals towards the camera. This gives me some of the shading that I want. However, it causes me to lose access to the unmodified normals, which I need for other parts of my setup.

It seems that it should be possible to get the same effect by using material nodes since we have the camera's view vector from the Camera Data node. I don't understand vectors and the math enough to know what to do with it though. And I'm not clear on what exactly the Normal Edit mode is doing.

Anybody know if this can be done?

Geometry node has an Incoming vector output. That is the vector pointing towards the point the shading point is being viewed from (Blender's manual). If you align surface normals to the camera you also get vectors pointing towards the point the shading points are being viewed from. So that's the same thing. You should be able to just plug Geometry node's Incoming output to Normal inputs of your shaders.


Array isn't following curve I have set up an array modifier and a bezier curve which the array is following. My spheres aligned themselves in a straight line for the length of the curve, however they are not following the curve exactly.

This is not a duplicate. I have followed every answer of the already
posted questions and none of them worked.

Add a Curve modifier and, in this modifier, choose the Bezier Curve as the Object
You've changed the radius of the curve vertices, so select the curve, enter in Edit mode, select all, open the 3D view properties panel on the right of the 3d view (press N), and in Transform choose a Mean Radius of 1


what have I done wrong with this piece of code? player = logic.getCurrentScene().property["Player"]

property ever was objects but I wanted the commands after this line to be applied to more objects so I thought let's do it with a property. It doesn't seem to work, which I already expected because I am new to python, but can someone help me please???

 from bge import logic
from mathutils import Vector

GRAVITY = 9.8

def main():

    scene = logic.getCurrentScene()
    cont = logic.getCurrentController()
    own = cont.owner

    for obj in scene.objects:
        if "gravity" in obj:

            # Get vector to planet center

            down_vec = Vector(obj.getVectTo(own)[1])

            # Apply force in that direction to simulate gravity

            down_vec.magnitude = GRAVITY
            obj.applyForce(down_vec)

    player = logic.getCurrentScene().Property["Player"]
    up_vec = own.getVectTo(player)[1]
    player.alignAxisToVect(up_vec, 2, 1)

Can someone just make the section of Property["Player"] work, so 'player' refers to every object that uses the property "Player"?

logic = ? (not defined) -> I assume you mean module bge.logic (from import bge)

  Module to access logic functions

getCurrentScene()

  Gets the current Scene.

  Return type:  bge.types.KX_Scene

A KX_Scene has no items (BGE properties)

KX_GameObjects and it's sub classes have items (properties). You can access them via GUI and via Python:

myObject[myPropertyName]

  Now I want it to be working with more objects so I thought: Let's make the name "Player" not be the name of an object but refer to every object that uses the property "Player"

When you want to process multiple objects the same way, you need to provide these objects and process each of them separate.

As your request involves two different operations I suggest to split them:

import bge
from mathutils import Vector

PROPERTY_GRAVITY = "gravity"
'Objects with that property are effected by this planet'

GRAVITY = 9.8

def applyPlanetaryForce():
    controller = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
    planet = controller.owner

    for object in findObjectsByProperty(PROPERTY_GRAVITY):
        vectorToPlanet = Vector(object.getVectTo(planet)[1])
        vectorToPlanet.length = GRAVITY
        object.applyForce(vectorToPlanet)

def findObjectsByProperty(property):
   return [object for object in bge.logic.getCurrentScene().objects
                  if property in object]

and

import bge

PROPERTY_PLAYER = "player"
'Objects with that property are aligned to this planet'

def alignToPlanet():
    controller = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
    planet = controller.owner

    for player in findObjectsByProperty(PROPERTY_PLAYER)
        vectorToPlanet = planet.getVectTo(player)[1]
        player.alignAxisToVect(vectorToPlanet, 2, 1)

def findObjectsByProperty(property):
   return [object for object in bge.logic.getCurrentScene().objects
                  if property in object]

Yes, you can place both functions into the same module. They both belong to planet behavior.

I strongly suggest not to mix these operations. It is better to keep them separate. You need one controller more, but your code does not grow into a giant mix of different requirements.

I hope it helps


Clean up vertices/edges with no faces Is there anyway to cleanup vertices/edges in edit mode?

I have been deleting some faces from a mesh but it seems to create a few loose vertices/edges.

Update for clarity:

So I have a mesh like this:

And I delete some parts of it and end up with some edges/vertices that do not have any faces:

Can I automatically select and/or remove those?

The first tool that will help you cleanup your mesh is Select Loose Geometry which is available in the select menu in edit mode. This will select any vertices that are not connected to anything. Once selected you can simply delete these vertices.

The other one that can help is Select Similar. Start by de-selecting all vertices, then select one vertex that has a single connected edge and press ShiftG (also available in the select menu) and choose Amount of connecting edges. This will select all vertices that have one edge connected to them allowing you to delete these vertices. Repeat for any similar situations that you may want to cleanup.


How would I add ridges to this mesh? So I'm trying to model a rocket engine, and I'm trying to figure out how to add ridges to the nozzle.
This is what I currently have:
And this is what I'm trying to achieve (specifically the ridges on the nozzle itself):

So how would I go about this? Thanks in advance!

I just wanted to add to moonboots tip, which i think is good but i think can be a little clearer : )
1)
Select you object in Edit Mode. Use Ctrl + R to add edge loops (mouse wheel to increase/decrese the number of edge loops). Then mouse click, slide (if needed), and click again to confirm. If you put two edge loops close to each other you have a loop of faces, which can be the basis for your ridge.
Alt + mouse click a face in the loop to select the whole loop. (if it selects faces in a perpendicular direction, click closer to another edge of the face)
With your faces-loop selected, press Alt + E and choose Extrude Faces Along Normals, and extrude the ridge.
Instead of a Subdivision Surface modifier (that moonboots proposed) i would use an Edge Split Modifier, since I believe the section of the ridges on such a nozzle is square. An Edge Split Modifier will help pronounce this while the rest of the nozzle stays smooth.
2)
Alternatively you can Alt + mouse click a single edge loop. The press Ctrl + D to duplicate it. Press P to Separate By Selection.
Select the new edge loop object in Object mode. Press Alt C to Convert, and choose Curve from Mesh/Text.
Then go to Properties > Object Data Properties > Bevel, and set the Depth to some thing more that 0, and set the Resolution to 0.
Finally go to edit mode, select all the vertices, press Ctrl + T to rotate or tilt the vertices 45 degrees.
This way you can give all the ridges the same section size by giving them the same Bevel Depth value.


vertices are not selected properly, and i cant recalculate normals vertices,face dots are not selected properly, and also i cant recalculate normals.this is an appended model from a file edited in b3d 2.81, which i need to use it in b3d 2.79b because the game engine, then i got this problem, someones know to fix it? i have seen this before happening when appending a model from 2.79b to 2.80/2.81

Maybe what you're talking about is only a problem of mesh display: In the 3D View, press N to display the right panel, then in the Mesh Display panel, enable Faces, Edges and Crease as it is supposed by default? In 2.8 it will be in the header menu > Viewport Overlays panel.


Black dots in render with many lamps Hi fellas any help with the black dots on the render below? Found some info around the web but nothing helped me out (it was an old stuff in fact). Really dunno what could causing this...

By default cycles samples one lamp at a time. The black spots likely correspond to samples where cycles was attempting to sample lights which are doing nothing for actually illuminating the visible objects.

You could try disabling Multiple Importance Sampling on lamps/materials you know won't contribute much to illuminating the scene, and/or play with the Light Sampling Threshold in Properties > Render settings > Sampling.

However, if that doesn't cut it, then you can use the Branched Path Integrator, which allows for sampling all lights at once:

Note that it works a bit differently from the default integrator, so try playing around with the settings to see what works.


Copy tracking settings to selected trackers? It seems the Copy to selected option is not available in the Movie clip editor.

Is it possible to copy tracker settings from the active tracker to selected trackers? If so, how?

You can use the following script to copy a given set of properties from the active tracking marker to the selected markers.

Paste this into a text editor, modify the values at the top, and press Run Script to run it.

############################################################
# Define your constants here                               #
to_set   = ('color', 'hide')  # list of properties to set  #
mc_name  = 'SomeMovie.mp4'    # name of movie clip         #
obj_name = 'Camera'           # name of track              #
############################################################

clips  = bpy.data.movieclips
clip = clips[mc_name]
obj = clip.tracking.objects[obj_name]
tracks = obj.tracks

# find the active track
active = tracks.active

# define a set of attributes to change
new_values = { k : getattr(active, k) for k in to_set }

# loop through and assign
for track in tracks:
  if not track.select:
      continue
  for k, v in new_values.items():
    setattr(track, k, v)

You can use this API page to find the names of the properties you want to set.


How to define a mesh? For defining objects, the usual scene.objects["obj"] works. I am trying to do the same concept but with a mesh. How can this be done?

Following my previous answer here, you want to get the mesh (one of them), not define it. To do that you should use obj.meshes[0] (since usually there is only one mesh).

You can find the BGE API here. Of particular interest is the KX_GameObject class, where most of BGE coding is actually done.


Mac Pro Tower - Sapphire Radeon Rx580 is really, really slow I recently installed a  Sapphire Pulse Radeon Rx580 8gb on my 2010 era (with upgraded CPU) Mac Pro tower.   I did this because my former GPU, a NVIDIA GTX 970 is not "Metal Compatible" and would not allow me to upgrade to Mojave.  I selected this GPU because it was one of the few recommended GPU for Mac Pros.     I use blender a lot, and was hoping that I would get something of a boost in performance from the upgrade.

Alas, no dice.  In fact, the GPU is even slower than the CPU when rendering benchmarks like "Classroom" or "BMW".  With my GTX 970, I got a good boost, with benchmark times sometimes as much as 3x faster.

I'm beginning to regret the "upgrade".  I don't need amazing performance, just something that makes cycles run quicker.

Am I doing anything wrong?   Is there any patch or fix that I can download that will help?

Thanks!

Unfortunately Apple has deprecated OpenCL and OpenGL in favor of their own Metal API. In fact, Blender has recently dropped OpenCL support on macOS completely, due to too many bugs in the macOS OpenCL compiler.

Long story short, due to apple's rejection of widely used open APIs, it's unlikely there will be any support for OpenCL rendering on macOS in the immediate foreseeable  future. Perhaps someday it will be supported via vulkan, but in the meantime it looks like you're out of luck/stuck on old versions of blender.

If you don't want to shell out the $$$ to dual-boot Windows, you might try running Linux. Historically, Linux has outperformed Windows when it comes to CPU rendering (it usually matters less for GPU rendering, but it's often a little faster there too). That said, I was unable to find any up-to-date benchmarks comparing the two, so take this with a grain of salt.


Why there is no animation running Started learning animation. Im making a box animation how it folds. I set the keyframe rotation location as seen below. But why there is no animation going. Where im going wrong and how it works. Any suggestion or help. Thanks

This keyframes work only with object transforms and you are working with mesh itself (in Edit mode).

Using Armature is the most convenient way to control mesh deformations. In this case you will keyframe location and rotation of armature's bones in order to perform mesh folding.


Optimize cycles background rendering Is there any trick to increase performance in background-only tiles in cycles. As you can see in the pictures, an empty render takes more than one minute. When you render motion graphics animations, there are a lot of these empty tiles in every frame, so it would decrease reder times quite a bit.

Thanks.

As of Blender 2.83 (currently in alpha at the time of this post), this can be solved by using the "Adaptive Sampling" option in Cycles. Adaptive sampling will automatically stop sampling in areas of the frame that are no longer noisy. To enable it, check the "Adaptive Sampling" box in Render Settings > Sampling

Once adaptive sampling is enabled, the render and viewport samples settings become the maximum number of samples that a pixel can have. How many samples a pixel actually gets will be adjusted automatically based on how noisy it is. Once Cycles sees a pixel as no longer being noisy, it will stop sampling it.

Under Sampling > Advanced, there are 2 additional options, Adaptive Min Samples, and Adaptive Threshold. Both are set to 0 (automatic) by default.

Adaptive Min Samples dictates how many samples Cycles will take before beginning to check if a region is noise-free. Checking for completion adds some overhead, so you don't want to do it when the image is still hopelessly noisy. The default setting of 0 puts this in automatic mode, which will set it to the square root of the maximum samples setting. This is good enough in most cases, although if you're using a high number of samples (such as several thousand) and have blank areas in your frame, manually setting it to a value such as 32 may give some performance improvement.

Adaptive Threshold sets a metric that defines when a pixel is "no longer noisy". The default of 0 puts this in automatic mode, which is usually fine if you're using denoising. If you need to adjust it manually, smaller values correspond to less noise. For final renders, values such as 0.001 are common.

In this example image, adaptive sampling allows the render to finish twice as fast (10sec instead of 20sec) at 1024 samples while producing the same final image.

By enabling the "sample count" pass, you can see a "heatmap" of where Cycles needed to use more samples. Darker values show fewer samples, with the darkest being areas that stopped right away at the minimum number of samples. Brighter values show more samples, with white being areas that went all the way to the maximum number of samples.


How to rig and move two objects in sync? I have two different objects: a weapon and a magazine. How do I rig them and make them move in sync?

What you are looking for is a Child of Constraint.

Both the gun and the magazine need to be rigged separately with at least one bone each.

This file comes with a likely scenario: a hand with a gun holster (the character) which has 1 rig, the gun (separate rig), and magazine (separate rig).

The hand has a special bone called "Grabber" where the gun and the magazine will be parented to with the constraint.
The gun has 2 "Child of" constraints, one for the hand, one
for the holster
The magazine has 3 "Child of" constraints - hand, gun
and holster.

In an animation, you keyframe the influence to the bone you want it parented to. If the mag is in the gun, put the gun influence at 1 (and move the mag rig to the gun). Now if the gun moves, the mag moves. Same thing with the other elements.

Only one influence must be active.

If you are building this yourself from scratch, you must press the "set inverse" button each time you add a new Child of constraint.


Quick Explode Modifier in Blender Internal Does Not Affect All Objects I'm not sure if this problem is common, but I was working with the Quick Explode modifier, and in the pre-rendered scene it worked alright, even when I pressed rendered view, but after I actually rendered it, the exploded object remained visible.

Pre rendered (everything is ok).

Post rendered (2 of the exploded Islands to the left are still there).

With quick explode, under the modifier settings ensure that dead is not ticked on.

Otherwise, the particles will not disappear after their lifetime. Under default settings, this is the only reason that I know of that the particles should remain. If your animation is shorter than 50 frames however, which is the default, then go to the particle tab and change the lifetime of the objects particle system as needed.


Trying to rename an object via keyboard input Im trying to rename an object when I hit a key so that it overwrites an existing object with that name. I have 5 objects that each have a unique paired (trackTo) object.

if mouseOver.positive:
target = mouseOver.hitObject
if click.positive:
trackObject.worldPosition = mouseOver.hitPosition

the goal is so that when I hit  'TAB' in game, then trackObject.001 (and trackObject.002, .003, ect) all turn into that trackObject as seen above (at different times of course). thus replacing the original trackObject name with w.e else   untill eventually it gets turned back into trackObject, and the cycle repeats.

I dont have much skill in python, but i seem to be getting a basic hang of things, so any help would be appreciated,   also if there is an easier way of doing this, im not opposed to hearing it.

Object names

Trying to rename objects is typically a sign, that you do not understand what you really want.

Real world Example:

When you interact with a person you interact with the person not with the person's name.

It is the same with objects, you interact with the object itself.

Search Criteria

According to your description you have a single search criteria: the name.

Where is this name coming from? Obvious when this is your criteria, you need to consider all objects matching that criteria. If you mean a certain object of the set of objects, you need to tell how you differentiate between them. Typically it is one or more other criteria.

Object References

When you already have a reference to the object you want to interact with, there is no need to look at it's name (unless you print it to console for debug reasons).

Analysis

I really do not understand what you are trying to achieve. Rephrasing the question might help. Here are my questions to you:

What objects are tracking?
What is each of that objects tracking?
When pressing Tab what should happen (I do not understand that sentence).
When clicking on an object, what should happen?

Solution

You need to implement a selection operation.


How to make a duplicate with the same animation in a different location? I have made a model and have animated it to run in circles (Using LocRot to do this). I would like to duplicate the model and have multiple running in circles but they are all stuck to the same location. I want to change the location of the x or y axis for all keyframes of the duplicated model. How could this be done? Thank you in advance!

You can do this by first parenting the animated object to an Empty. It's best to do this while they are both free of transforms (X:0,Y:0,Z:0). Then when you make a duplicate, duplicate the Empty together with the animated object. Since the object's LocRotScale will be relative to the Empty instead of the World, everything will behave as you described.


Will using quads affect game performance? So I will start out by stating I am new to blender and have a background in software development. I know why Blender uses quads and the importance in using them. I am more curious as to things to avoid or be weary of when making game assets, because from my understanding these quads get converted to tris (somewhere along the line, not sure where) and is then used by the game engine. I just want to know if that is happening in game? and how does (if it does) affect the game performance? I just don't want to go through building a bunch of assets and realizing I had to do something special if my intention was for games. I appreciate any insight.

Stick to quads for modelling, as that is what most modelling tools are designed for.
Either the game engine should handle triangulating the model, or it should be triangulated just before export from blender if that is not the case.

The only exception to this is very low polycount assests where optimising the use of triangles is important (to get the right shape with fewer polys, not many games are going to need much of this though). In this case, you will probably want to switch to modelling directly with triangles at some point during the modelling process.

Its worth noting that everything is actually triangulated when rendering anyway,  even for the viewport opengl render while you are modelling. It is just easier to use a quad representation for mesh manipulation.


Can I check to see if an object is used in another objects modifier? I have a complex file with a lot of objects in it. Many of them are there as a target for a modifier of some kind Boolean, curve modifier, etc. Sometimes I go through and clean out objects that are no longer needed. The problem is that it isn't always apparent if the object is being used in another object's modifier stack. I don't want to break my work only to find out a day later that I deleted something important.
Is there some way that I can quickly see if the object is being used?

I thought that objects used as a target in a modifier had their user count incremented but apparently not.
I'd use a script for that :
You can loop through all objects and all their modifiers and check what objects are linked to modifier fields. The following script will deselect all objects and select only objects that appear inside the target field of a modifier.
import bpy

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
# Deselect all objects

for obj in (o for o in bpy.data.objects if hasattr(o, "modifiers")):
    # Loop through all objects that actually support modifiers
    for mod in obj.modifiers:
        # Loop through all modifier(s) of that object
        for attr in dir(mod):
            # Loop through all attributes of that modifier
            target = getattr(mod, attr)
            # Get the value of that attribute field
            if isinstance(target, bpy.types.Object) and target is not None:
                # Filter in only attributes that link to an Object
                target.select_set(True)

How to run a script in blender
Note :
On some instances object fields retain their object link even when the linked object is not actually used.
Example : On the boolean modifier, if you first use an Object as a target, then set the type to Collection, the link to the Object still remains. If you switch back to the Object type, you see that the target is still filled in. You'd have to add in special use cases for that in the script if that behaviour bothers you.


Animation Nodes: How to unzip a list While searching for an answer for this question here Exponential replication of object, I came across an issue which I think should be easy to solve, but somehow I'm either blocked or stubborn. I've created a nested list, which according to the Debug Output looks something like this:

[[(0,0,1), (0,0,2)], [(1,0,1), (1,0,2),....]]

So, format-wise it is a Generic List surrounding a bunch of Vector Lists. How can I unzip it (that's what it's called in Sverchok), meaning to get this:

[(0,0,1), (0,0,2), (1,0,1), (1,0,2),....]

Any help appreciated!

I'd suggest to use an expression or script node for that. Although an expression should be all you need. Only in case you need to do this in multiple places you should use a script node maybe.

a = [[(0,0,1), (0,0,2)], [(1,0,1), (1,0,2)]]

# long version (for script node maybe)
result = []
for sublist in a:
    result.extend(sublist)

# shorter version (single expression, can be used in the Expression node)
import itertools
result = list(itertools.chain.from_iterable(a))

# you can also use a nested list comprehension
result = [vector for vector in sublist for sublist in a]

To use itertools in the expression node you need to write that into the advanced node settings:


How well does Blender Rigid Body physics translate to real life I am new to rigging and playing with rigid bodies physics in Blender. I use 2.76

As I failed to set up gears with large differences in diameter and the gears were impossible to make stop wobbling around while spinning with no restraints shown  by their own physic confinement (hole and axis) I wonder if indeed Blender can be used to simulate a mechanical real world transfer of rotating motion through a series of physical restraints such as holes, axles, bolts and nuts?

Is Blender good enough (and I simply failed to set it up in a proper way? I wouldn't ask this if I had found something useful on Youtube, but the person (blendersensei) presenting Rigid body constraints seemed to want to lock the rotating objects xyz positions as well as rotation in every other axis than the one set in motion. (I failed to do this as well, and only got a good laugh out of it.)

Blender rigid body physics is great for flat surfaces or for single point of contact collisions (eg, a coin falling onto a surface or a cube bouncing) but struggles with curved sufaces in full contact with other curved surfaces - such as an axle through a close fitting hole in a wheel. This is mostly due to the way in which the meshes are modelled - instead of being defined at an atomic scale they are simplified into vertices and faces that result in no ‘exact fit’. Also, the simulation is broken down into a series of short ‘steps’, but nothing compared to the (potentially) infinitely small number of steps in the real world. This means that closely fitting meshes quickly become unstable with overlapping meshes that the rigid body engine being unable to find a solution - so they start to pass through each other and jostle about as it tries to find the best solution in a situation that could not exist in the real world (real objects never get to the point where they physically intersect).

Theoretically, if you could model the surfaces using a high enough precision (unfeasibly high) and set the ‘steps per second’ to a high enough value (unfeasibly high) then you could get a reasonable simulation - but it would take far more time and computing resources than would be available.

Using Rigid Body Constraints allows you to simplify this by enforcing any relationships (such as a wheel moving around its axis) without having to rely on the microscopic interactions of the surfaces. This can generally produce a ‘good enough’ simulation for your needs.


No vertex groups on vertices on evaluated object I need to read the vertex groups in objects for an exporter I'm working on. I'm using evaluated_get to get the objects with modifiers applied in a non-destructive way. However doing this makes the object have no vertex groups on vertices. Basically any mesh I read is exported as if it was rigid instead of rigged. Is there a way around this?

https://github.com/Project-Cartographer/H2V-Blender-JMSv2-Exporter/blob/master/io_scene_jms/export_jms.py#L289

                    modifier_list = []
                    if triangulate_faces:
                        for modifier in obj.modifiers:
                            modifier.show_render = True
                            modifier.show_viewport = True
                            modifier.show_in_editmode = True
                            modifier_list.append(modifier.type)

                        if not 'TRIANGULATE' in modifier_list:
                            obj.modifiers.new("Triangulate", type='TRIANGULATE')

                        depsgraph = bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
                        object_eval = obj.evaluated_get(depsgraph)
                        geometry_list.append(object_eval)

Preserve all layers

By default it preserve all layers is turned off when using to_mesh on the evaluated object, set it to True

Test in console, Default cube, default subsurf modifier, 3 vertex groups. (All verts in vgroup 0, a single in groups 1 and 2)

>>> dg = C.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
>>> me = C.object.data
>>> len(me.vertices)
8

>>> for v in me.vertices:
...     [g.group for g in v.groups]
...
[0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0]
[0]
[0]
[0]
[2, 0]

Using Object.evaluated_get

>>> o = C.object.evaluated_get(dg)
>>> eme = o.to_mesh(preserve_all_data_layers=True, depsgraph=dg)
>>> for v in eme.vertices:
...     [g.group for g in v.groups]
...
[0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0]
[0]
[0]
[0]
[2, 0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0]
[0, 1]
[0]
[2, 0, 1]
[0, 2]
[0]
[0, 2]
[0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0]
[2, 1, 0]
[2, 0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0, 2]

Bmesh from object

The method outlined here also preserves the vertex groups.

get the evaluated bmesh, write to a mesh, count the verts and check for vert group assignments.. (prob should have put vert index and  weight test in too, but you get the gist)

>>> bm = bmesh.new()
>>> bm.from_object(C.object, dg)
>>> bm.to_mesh(D.meshes.new("Test"))
>>> len(D.meshes["Test"].vertices)
26

>>> for v in D.meshes["Test"].vertices:
...     [g.group for g in v.groups]
...
[0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0]
[0]
[0]
[0]
[2, 0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0]
[0, 1]
[0]
[2, 0, 1]
[0, 2]
[0]
[0, 2]
[0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0]
[2, 1, 0]
[2, 0]
[0]
[0]
[1, 0, 2]


Eevee screen space refraction weird black shadow I noticed there's a weird second shadow in a plane with screen space refraction in Eevee. How to remove that weird duplicated shadow?
Weird duplicate shadow in Eevee:

Correct result in Cycles:

In Blender:

Blender file here
Using Blender 2.83.4
Edited:
Although setting Refraction Depth to small value such as 0.1m works removing the unwanted "shadow", but it also removes the refraction effect. To get refraction effect, the value has to be more than 1m to see noticeable effect. Putting another object on top of the plane with refraction along 1m value, the "shadow" is back.

New edited Blender file here

You have set Refraction Depth to zero.
It is not clear to me if values below are correct, but you get rid of the "shadow" thing.

Glass Plate
Go to Properties Editor > Material > Settings > Refraction Depth and play with value.
In your case 0,1-0,4 m works. It seems to be distance from glass to Monkey.

Deep Water
It seems to be more complicated ... it depend if it should be glass plate or deep water. In second case probably make sense increase to 4 m, that is distance from surface to bottom.

In that case you have to also increase Thickness under SSR Render Properties.

My theory notes behind
The "weird shadow" (as you call it) is a part of bottom plane surface that is not visible from current point of view on background plane. You can see actually through the plane what is behind in that place.
You can actually confirm that by your self. Check where is the issue located on glass plane and switch to wire mode. Real monkey object is placed exactly on the same place on background plane from current point of view .
I guess by default this is some kind if refraction clipping to keep Eevee real-time.
Similar thing happens when you try set reflected floor with object howering above - in a floor is not reflected bottom part of mesh that is hidden from point of view. Like here – Screen Space Reflections in EEVEE
See also ...
Eevee Limitations
Manual - Refraction Depth


How to tilt (rotate in all axis) a video strip in when editing videos? The tilted video will be played over a tilted Phone image.

I added a Transform Effect Strip  by winch I can rotate a video in Z axis only.

How do I make it rotate in Y and X axis as well?

https://docs.blender.org/manual/de/dev/editors/vse/sequencer/strips/effects/transform.html

It's not possible, the transform strip only makes 2D transforms.

You can render the video overlay as 3d scene:

a new scene in the VSE project (then it's possible to add the scene directly to the VSE) or a new blend file (then you render the overlay video out and import it to the VSE)
open a 3d view
Use the addon "images as planes" and import your video as a mesh. Select "emit" as shading option.
In the film settings enable "transparent"
Set your iPhone image as background
Enable camera view with numpad-0 key
Transform the movie mesh so that it fits the iPhone screen in the background.
Set the animation length to the frames of the movie.

Two ways to get the overlay in the VSE:

If you used one blend file for both VSE and overlay rendering, then you can add the scene to the VSE.
If you created a new blend file, render the movie out and add it the the VSE. Select "Over drop" or "alpha over" as blend mode.


How to generate a closed surface using sverchok? I just learned how to create a surface from a number of circles with different radii:

the problem with this though is that the shape has a hole at the top and bottom (although the radius is 0 at both points). that's why when applying a subsurf modifier creates this kind of unwanted result:

so my question is: using only sverchok, is there a way to close these holes?

It looks like that you have an internal vertex/circle of vertices on the top. Can you check the topology before subsurf?

You can see on the second picture that there is one circle with 0 radius inside on this reproduction of your problem.

Then, I dont know sverchok but i guess it should do the trick:

sverch Remove Doubles


How do you keep blender from shutting down? Every time i go to render something completely, stops and shuts down destroying everything i have worked on. what am i doing wrong that keeps me from working?

right now i am using windows 7 (Yes i had to down grade because of an issue).
Packard Bell laptop with sufficient space on hard drive.
I tunes is present on the computers, i heard some where that these two programs do not get along with each other.

If Blender crashes, it's a bug in Blender (or you're doing really crazy things, but let's not assume that). Please help us Blender developers to fix this bug.

Investigate how you can make Blender crash as fast as possible, and as reliably as possible.
Think of a way to describe the bug you just found.
Search for the bug, to see if someone else already reported it.
If it hasn't been reported yet, report your bug. Be sure to include an example blend file and the steps required for the developer to make Blender crash.

Especially this last step is important. If the developers can reliably make Blender crash the way you made it crash, it will help tremendously in getting things fixed.


Replace material and texture with python in BGE I've a game project done with BGE and i've done a menu where the user can choose the character and the characters have only different material and texture.
I'm not able to change material and texture with python, i just know how to replace the mesh with logic bricks but i want to keep the mesh and the armature of the character.
Any advices?
Thanks for the help

UPBGE has a Replace Material API, but regular BGE does not. However, you can replace the material with a custom GLSL shader.

Changing textures is not doable, but you can replace the images used in a material. A simple python function that does this is:

def show_picture(obj, path, mat_id=0, tex_id=0):
    '''Loads a picture into a texture'''
    prop_name = 'SHOW_PICTURE{}:{}'.format(mat_id, tex_id)
    if prop_name not in obj:
        tex = bge.texture.Texture(obj, mat_id, tex_id)
        obj[prop_name] = tex
    else:
        tex = obj[prop_name]
    raw = bge.texture.ImageFFmpeg(path)
    if raw.status == 0:
        # Error in loading image
        bge.log.error("Unable to load image at {}".format(path))
        raise ValueError("Unable to load image at {}".format(path))

    tex.source = raw
    tex.refresh(True)

Where tex_id is the texture slot of the image.


Is Blender 2.79 Obsolete now? I was excited about Blender 2.8 but was disappointed at the same time because I had to relearn the software. It seem everything is out of place.

Is 2.79 no longer an option? I mean, is it a bad investment to spend time in 2.79 now that 2.8beta is out? The process of relearning the UI is just frustrating for me. :(

Everything in 2.79 is essentially still available in 2.8 and more. Technically 2.8 is still in the open testing phase, but I would recommend learning it now. It doesn't take as long as one may think to figure out where everything is, and I think it's stable enough to replace 2.79. That being said, there's no shame in sticking to 2.79 for now.


Moving of an mirrored object does not give the desired outcome I have this mirrored object (those green beams in the image below). When I move the object to the right I expect the mirrored part to go to the left but it moves also to the right. Why is this ?

In object mode, blender considers objects with mirror modifier a whole/complete object, just like a normal object. Therefore when you move it, you're moving the whole thing. However when you switch into edit mode, your mirror modifier start working as you edit, using the origin of the object as mirroring center pivot. Beware that the modifier will take object rotation into account, meaning it does not uses global axis as its mirroring pivot.


Blender Internal. Edge post processing showing as see though I've been having an issue with a few models I've been working on that include the edge post processing option turned on.

For some reason some edges can be seen through certain polys.

As you can see on the head of this model you can see the edging that is suppose to be on the other side. I've tried inverting the faces, deleting the faces and re-creating them but it doesn't seem to work. Is there any other option anyone knows besides re-creating that entire section of the mesh?

Thank you!

The reason the edges on the back are outlined is because some pieces of the mesh in front are assigned to transparent materials.


Gradient material separate z axis and x axis I made a gradient material shown in the picture.

It should fade out on Z axis.
But on the actual mesh that I applied the texture on. The color faded out to Y axis instead of Z axis.

Any solution to this problem?

Texture Coordinates then Mapping node connected to your gradient texture. Just play with the rotation and you'll be all set.


How do I reset the origin placement? The origin (or the small orange dot, if that's even the origin but I'm going to call it that) use to be placed always in the center of the selected shape, when I pressed the comma key, the view would always center to the current selected part(s).

Now I must have hit some key by accident and the origin is now always at the center of the model (where the three axis cross), I looked it up and found out that you could press CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+C for a menu that lets you move the origin, but that set the origin for the whole object, not for the faces seperatly like it used to be. I also tried resetting the preferences and uninstalling(!!) blender which for some reason didn't work!

Is there some shotcut to undo that? Or at least some option file I can get rid of unaffected by the uninstall?

I suspect you've selected another pivot mode:


How to add edges without changing the form ? Is it possible to add edges like in picture without affecting the smoothed geometry ? If i add in the edge ring with edge ring tool, it will deform the form but i need it to stay perfectly rounded.

Use To Sphere tool. After adding the vertical loop cuts select each loop with Alt+RMB, change the pivot type to Individual Origins, press Shift+Alt+S and drag the cursor outwards the mesh. Select the other loop and press Shift+R to repeat the process. Do the same with the other ones. Now you've got additional loops in your mesh and it's also perfectly smooth.

EDIT: If you need to add the horizontal loopcuts also you may subdivide your mesh (W-->Subdivide), then smooth the vertices (Ctrl+V-->Smooth Vertex) and increse the Smoothing value to 1.000. As you can see the objects look the same.


Why does Blender not save multichannel OpenEXR? I created a multichannel OpenEXR file by script, everything seems to be working well except for the fact that Blender does not save my file when rendering.
This problem is specifically for the multichannel OpenEXR; if I create many simple (not multichannel) OpenEXR files they do get saved in the correct directory.

The node tree that is produced by my script looks like this:

And the relevant part of the script, that I use to set up part of this node tree:

def take_picture(index):
    bpy.context.scene.use_nodes = True
    tree = bpy.context.scene.node_tree
    nodes = tree.nodes
    links = tree.links

    # create layer + metadata nodes
    rl = nodes.new('CompositorNodeRLayers')

    l_node = nodes.new('CompositorNodeValue')
    l_node.label = 'Wavelength'
    l_node.name = 'Lambda'
    l_node.location = 300, 0
    l_node.outputs['Value'].default_value = 5

    # call output exr, create extra output slots
    f = nodes.new('CompositorNodeOutputFile')
    f.label = 'EXR Multichannel'
    f.name = 'OutFile'
    f.format.file_format = 'OPEN_EXR_MULTILAYER'
    # If I cange this to 'OPEN_EXR', I do obtain my output files in the specified folder.
    f.base_path = "//Rendered images/Test/Img"

    f.file_slots.new('Lambda')
    f.file_slots.new("image_" + index)

    # Links
    links.new(l_node.outputs['Value'], f.inputs['Lambda'])
    links.new(rl.outputs['Image'], f.inputs['image_'+index])

    # render
    bpy.ops.render.render()

When I run this function for some index specified in my script, it works fine and all nodes are created the way I want them to be, but I don't get any output file..

I found this very useful answer on stackoverflow, worked like a charm for me..

The clue is to include write_still = True explicitly in the render command.
Also, unlinke for 1-channel openEXR, the filename is not determined by the name of the terminal of the file output node. Now that I come to think of it, this is in fact logic since the terminals should determine the keys that are included in the exr file header. For 1-channel exr there is only 1 channel, thus only in that case the key can also specify the file name.

My last two lines now look like this:

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.filepath = '//Rendered images/Test/im_%s' % index
bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)


How to render a portion of the image through command line with background image My question is related to this question, in fact I use a compositing node to add a background image to the scene and it stays centered in each rendered image, what I don't want.

This is the py code I'm using;

scene.render.use_border = True
scene.render.use_crop_to_border = True
scene.render.border_max_x = .5
scene.render.border_min_x = 0
scene.render.border_min_y = 0
scene.render.border_max_y = 1
scene.render.tile_x = 32
scene.render.tile_y = 32

Maybe I can add a similar code for the background image but I don't know enough blender python api.

I stopped searching, I created a plane with the background image as a texture and make the camera as parent, I put it far with an emissive shader node and far enough not to emit on my scene object, in another render layer.

This way instead of an texture layer and a render layer, I have two render layers subject to the scene.render.border.


How do i duplicate to get the same size on all corners of the objects? I am creating landing feet for my space craft and when i do it manualy and as you can see from the picture if i do this manualy by creating a cube cutting eachcorner i cant seem to get the cut's exactly identical on all sides is there anyway i can do it for one corner and one click duplicate for all corners, do's blender have this functionality so i am not getting fustrated by the end product not being right in dimension'senter image description here? :)

Select all of the side faces of a cube (excluding top and bottom) and do Extrude individual

To scale the newly created faces, just press S (to scale) and constraint the scaling to the X and Y axes by pressing Shift Z or checking the X and Y boxes on the tool panel.


Ctrl Alt Numpad 0 keeps moving my object? Trying to follow along with a tutorial and in that tutorial the idea is to look at an object I created from the front and then set the camera to the current view.

The steps to do this are:

Numpad 1 (Front perspective)
Ctrl+Alt+Numpad 0 (Align Camera to View)

For some reason whenever I do this I don't see anything in the camera and then panning the view around I see that my object seems to have moved to where I wanted the camera and my camera hasn't moved at all.

The answer was to first select the camera and press Ctrl+Numpad 0 and then perform the Ctrl+Alt+Numpad 0

User CD38 on http://blenderartists.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-78116.html explains:

  I'm pretty sure you made the body into the camera at some point with
  an accidental Ctrl-zero when it was selected. You need to be careful
  with those Numpad-zero commands. Here they are:

  zero alone: changes the viewport so you're looking
  through the active camera. ("I wonder what the camera's seeing?")
  Ctrl-alt-zero: moves the camera to match the current 3D
  viewport. ("I like this angle; let's put the camera here.")
  This is why your humanoid is jumping around and looking
  inside itself. Very mind-bending.
  Ctrl-zero : makes the selected object into the active
  camera. Anything can be a "camera." In this case it's your
  humanoid object. This is poorly documented and seems to cause
  all kinds of grief because it's an easy misstep.

  Select the real camera with the RMB and do Ctrl-zero and all should be
  well.

(I found this answer and decided to document it here on stackexchange because I had a hard time finding the answer and would have expected this question and answer on this site)


How to change the frame rate of video I have some footage with a weird frame rate of 57.19 fps. Is it possible to convert the footage to a frame rate of 24 fps? I know Adobe Premiere has that feature but does Blender?

You can use a speed strip in the video sequence editor. The one disadvatage of this method is that you will need to recombine your audio.

Steps:

Import movie in the video sequence editor
Shift-A>Effect Strip>Speed Control
Set the speed to Current FPS/Target FPS.
Render movie
Bring it back into video sequence editor, along with original. Hide the video from the original, and the audio from the accelerated strips.
Render again.


Is it possible to select all connected or unconnected nodes? Is it possible to select all connected or unconnected nodes in the node editor with a keyboard shortcut or operation?
(I thought maybe CtrlL and CtrlAltShiftM like in Edit mode, but apparently not)

Am I just missing something?
Or is there no way to do this without doing it manually?

You can use Select Linked To Shift+L and Select Linked From L repeatedly till you have all connected nodes selected. Then you can Inverse selection Ctrl+I to select the unlinked nodes.

Alternatively you can use the following script that will add a Select > Select Linked menu option.

from itertools import chain
import bpy

def get_linked(node, processed=None):
    if processed is None:
        processed = []
    processed.append(node)
    for socket in chain(node.inputs, node.outputs):
        for link in socket.links:
            target = link.from_node if node == link.to_node else link.to_node
            if target not in processed:
                get_linked(target, processed)
    return processed

class NODE_OT_SelectLinked(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_description="Select all nodes linked to the active node"
    bl_idname = "node.select_linked"
    bl_label = "Select Linked Nodes"
    bl_options = {"REGISTER", "UNDO"}

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.active_node

    def execute(self, context):
        for node in get_linked(context.active_node):
            node.select = True
        return {"FINISHED"}

def menu(self, context):
    self.layout.operator("node.select_linked", text="Select Linked")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(NODE_OT_SelectLinked)
    bpy.types.NODE_MT_select.append(menu)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(NODE_OT_SelectLinked)
    bpy.types.NODE_MT_select.remove(menu)

register()

To auto load: save the above in scripts/startup/ with a .py file extension.


How to set Blender to use identical controls as Unity? I am used to Unity's controls and would like to mimic them to Blender to make transitions between the two easier. If you know how, please let me know.

Edit: I apologize, I should have been more specific. Is there a way to import Unity control preferences(key mappings) to Blender? If not, can I remap the basic (by default) left click to rotate view instead of placing crosshairs?

Yes, you can remap the controls. Press Ctrl + Alt + U, or go to the Info Header>File>User Preferences, to open the User Preferences; Then, switch to the edit tab and edit away!

You might also want to take a look at existing presets; However there isn't any for Unity controls...


How do I Start in the GameEngine or Blender? When I am making a game do I start in the GameEngine or in the default Blender? The Book I am following seems to have left this detail out.

I guess you have not made a standalone game yet. So you open blender. And in the top bar, you change the Blender Render option to Blender Game.

Then you can go on. When you are do what you want, press P while the mouse cursor is in the Blender 3D View Editor to get a grasp of how your game is working.


Where is Polysphere? Where is the Polysphere object in Blender 2.76b? I have already installed Add Mesh: Extra Objects add-on and can see new objects in add menu, but Polysphere is not there. I also tried following it on the official page, but they say that the script is already part of Blender and is not needed to be installed from file. Clicking on the Current version download link opens a forum instead of the script.

Round Cube

I don't know if the codes comes from the "original" polysphere script, but with Extra Object add-on comes an operator called "Round Cube" which create a very similar geometry.

You'll just have to make sure to use the "Quadsphere" preset:

You can get the "original" polysphere script for pre-2.61 Blender version from the author website and then append the object in your scene (if you want to use a more recent version).

It seems to be slightly difference between the loopcuts position of the object created with the two methods.


Cannot reenter draw mode after inserting 3D object I'm new to Blender and I may be doing something wrong.
My goal is to use two images on textured planes for reference and draw over them.

Create new scene (File -> New 2D Animation)
Draw something (everything is working)
Add new workspace (General -> Layout)
Add Mesh -> Plane
Go back to 2D Full Canvas / 2D Animation workspace

Now I cannot select the 2D drawing, cannot get out of object mode, cannot draw anything else. Grease pencil doesn't work anymore and nothing related to what is drawn is selectable/editable.

I have Blender 2.80 Beta

Thank you.

Mihai

This will return the workflow of the Grease Pencil in Blender (2.83.5) from the Layout workspace.

I will start by returning to 2D Full Canvas from the newly created Layout workspace created in OP Step 3.

With no Grease Pencil objects in the world, the Draw Mode doesn't exist returning to 2D (Full) Canvas.
(continued steps)
5. Press Shift+A > Grease Pencil > Blank

Drag out another Viewport and switch it to Outliner.

Select the GPencil layer in Outliner then, drag in another Editor and switch to Properties.


Both parts have emmision set only one shows it, though This is a scene of a Camaro in an unlit environment. It's meant to be pitch-black until the keyframed emission material turns on. As you can see from the first image, the material shows in material view, but in rendered view (and in an actual render) the other headlight doesn't show. I tried it in eevee and it works fine. Any ideas on why this would happen? I'm not sure I changed anything significant between when it did work and now.
I am using Blender v2.83.2.
Below I also provided some images of settings I thought were important to this question. Let me know if there's any other information I should provide.

It must have been a glitch with Cycles. The car is inside a warehouse environment, with two other cubes acting as doors to block all sunlight and slowly move to let sunlight in. I just had to hide the doors and unhide them, and it somehow reset the lighting. In the future if anyone comes across this, just change some stuff up in your scene that affect lighting, I guess. Someone else also said they had the same issue, and when they created a new Blender file it worked. If you don't have too much to lose, that is also an option.


How to randomly assign color to objects in an array I have this stack of 1610 bricks. The stack was built by starting from one brick, and then applying 3 consecutive arrays on it (3 dimensions).
I want each brick to be randomly assigned any of 4 fixed colors, but the node I came up with (picture) only seems to assign a single color to the entire stack.
What did I do wrong, or what is an alternative way?
PS: I want to keep the Arrays (if afterward I want to adjust the distance between the bricks, or the dimensions of the bricks)

I was in Eevee, changed to Cycles and it worked. There was no need to apply the array modifiers, so they are still available.

Further reading: Randomized color with array modifier


Best Tile Size for Blender Internal Renderer and Cycles There've been a few discussions about tile sizes for Cycles, but none that I can find about that of BI. Since it renders with the CPU, does it follow the same rule as cycles where smaller is better (to an extent of course)?

I'm sure it depends a lot on the content of the scene, so in what case are bigger tiles better than smaller ones, other than the general GPU/CPU rule.

Is it more important to stick to powers of 2 (32,64,128...) than it is to keep all tiles the same size?

The differences between render times are often very small, so perhaps a good test would be to render an animation (with a moving camera) and average the times.

I've created an addon that figures out the best size for Cycles and I'd like to extend this to BI as well, though I've not used the renderer for quite some time.

I would say it depends a lot on the scene and the hardware.

BI:

Some tests rendering the default cube scene at 960x540 pixels:

Tile size:   32x32 Render time: 00:01.02

Tile size:   64x64 Render time: 00:00.89

Tile size:   128x128   Render time: 00:00.86

Tile size:   256x256   Render time: 00:00.87

Tile size:   512x512   Render time: 00:01.27

A more complex scene at the same resolution seems to go faster with larger tile sizes:

Tile size:   32x32 Render time: 01:53.57

Tile size:   64x64 Render time: 01:46.15

Tile size:   128x128   Render time: 01:45.26

Tile size:   256x256   Render time: 01:43.22

Tile size:   512x512   Render time: 01:43.09

Using the same scene at 960x540, I roughly timed the amount of time it took to render one tile. (This estimate is very rough because the time changes dramatically between different tiles, I just timed one tile):

Tile size:   120x67    Render time: 02:23.89 (approx. 12 seconds per tile)

Tile size:   64x64 Render time: 02:33.31 (approx. 6 seconds per tile)

Tile size:  300x300   Render time: 02:24.60 (approx. 30 seconds per tile)

Tile size:  200x200   Render time: 01:49.57 (approx. 10 seconds per tile)

Tile size:  100x100   Render time: 01:42.43 (approx. 14 seconds per tile) (fastest)

The fastest time here has the same settings as the slowest setup for cycles:

At 500x500:

Tile size:  128x128    Render time: 00:41.53 (fastest)

Tile size:  100x100   Render time: 00:41.92

At 512x512:

Tile size:  100x100   Render time: 00:43.67

Tile size:  128x128   Render time: 00:47.84

Cycles:

Using Mike Pan's famous BMW benchmark scene at 960x540 with 10 samples:

Tile size:  64x64 Render time: 01:51.03

Tile size:  100x100   Render time: 02:02.03

Tile size:  128x128   Render time: 01:49.64

Tile size:  200x200   Render time: 02:00.39

Some tests to see how much varying sizes and using powers of two affect render time:

At 500x500 px:

Tile size:   100x100   Render time: 00:46.86

Tile size:   128x128   Render time: 00:53.42

At 512x512 px:

Tile size:   128x128   Render time: 00:50.54

Tile size:   100x100   Render time: 00:49.46

Conclusions:

To find a general rule for deciding optimal tile sizes for any kind of scene, one needs a lot more testing data with long renders etc.
To really look at this in detail, I think some addon which would send tile settings and render times to a database would be necessary.
IMO, Setting the tile size to ~100x100 or ~200x200 and adjusting to fit evenly in the render dimensions is good enough.

However, from the tests I did above it does seem that maintaining a consistent tile size helps.
Power of two tile sizes seem to have no apparent effect.


Blender NPR: flat shader that shows depth? What process could be used to create a 2d image from blender that shows depth?

For Example:

Should a flat shader be modified to also show depth? Or is a flat shader combined with something like a depth pass to create this look? What would be the best way of making something with this effect?

Fol Amor's toon shading was a combination of:

Self-luminated material (the flat-looking character)
Shadow pass (maya has ramp shaders, don't know about blender)
Rim pass (shader that highlights white around character)
zdepth as mentioned above.

it also has to do with how you composite all those passes together. You can do so via Adobe After Effects.

If you dig around vimeo, some of their artist have a making of that's specifically towards their render passes.

Their film's environment was a combination of 3d props/visuals with 2d matte paintings for the background.

Cheers!


Is it possible to randomize color of separated meshes inside 1 object? Is it possible to use some kind of randomizer to randomize parameters of the seprate meshes inside one object? Please see attached picture. On the left there are bunch of cubes. On the right there are bunch of cubes that are combined in one object. I want my right cubes, to get random colors based on fact they are separate meshes.

Is that possible? Maybe there is some paid plugin or addon?

You can write a script to color each mesh with different vertex color.
You can scale each mesh in UV space into a point S0 (by script if there are lots of meshes) and generate random colors using noise texture:


Normal Map Works in Eevee But Not in Cycles? I'm working through the Blender Guru's donut tutorial and I'm at the point I want to apply a normal map to the wall.  I've tried to duplicate every step in the tutorial but the texture does not render if my Render Engine is set to Cycles:

https://imgur.com/a/GBAMUsc
it only shows when my Render Engine is set to Eevee:

Your scale is a bit crazy, apply it and it will work fine (not sure why it works fine in Eevee though):


BGE - Calculate Acceleration from Velocity I need to calculate acceleration of my rigid-body object in Blender Game Engine.
What I did now is:

from bge import logic
from mathutils import Vector

if not "prevspeed" in own:
    own["prevspeed"] = Vector((0, 0, 0))
speed = ob.localLinearVelocity
acceleration = speed - own["prevspeed"] * logic.getAverageFrameRate()
own["prevspeed"] = ob.localLinearVelocity.copy()

However, this doesn't seem to work. I need to know how to make it work correctly.

"I need to know how to make it work correctly."

that will take some work on your script.

First off, there are many problems with your script. The most obvious being a syntax error. you should have another ) after Vector((0, 0, 0). Second, you do not define own or ob. But the worst error, is you can not define a vector on a game property. There is no property type called vector

The five property types are Boolean, Integer, Float, String, and Timer. If you try to assign a vector to a game property, the only one that would come close to working is the String property, and that wouldn't do much in the realm of usefulness.

I would not actually use the method you are trying to use. I would calculate Acceleration like this:

import bge
from mathutils import Vector

controller = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
obj = controller.owner

previous_velocity = Vector(obj.worldLinearVelocity)

def main():
    global previous_velocity

    current_velocity = Vector(obj.worldLinearVelocity)

    acceleration = (current_velocity - previous_velocity) * bge.logic.getAverageFrameRate()
    print(acceleration)

    previous_velocity = current_velocity

Also, you must reference this bit of python by calling it from a module controller, not a script controller.


Why does render to texture camera make armature animation freeze in the Game engine? I needed to make an in-game, realtime mirror, so I set everyhting up as shown in this video, including the render-to-texture script. However, when my character is outside the range of the mirror's camera, all armature animations suddenly stop. I've set up a control (cube with simple armature inside), and all other animations seem to work fine, as well as movements. Only the armature animations are frozen when not within the range of the mirror's camera. Please help! Here is the .blend file.

There is a "animation culling" build in. This means anything that is not seen by the active camera will not be animated. This is to skip processing time.

This is not always a correct assumption, e.g. when the animation influences physics or as in your case you see it by a different camera.

I know this issue was raised as a bug to allow disabling this sort of culling for certain objects. Just now I do not know the state of that feature.


Can't find Use Nodes in Light settings? Just started blender, following the donut tutorial. Using Blender 2.8. made another donut to practice, when adding Lights I can't find the 'Use Nodes' in the Light settings. Some help would be appreciated <3

You need to be in Cycles to be able to see the Use Nodes button for lights


How to re-render animation? I'm trying to re-render my animation, and by that I mean I'm trying to fix a certain area of frames that have light and grain issues, so that when I want to render the rest of the frames again I could just slide the start frame to where I fixed all my other frames, but whenever I hit the animation button, it says "sequence render," which already renders the unfixed frames from my previous render. SO my big question is, how do I stop the sequencing render and render a set of new frames with the same animation? Mind you that I also want to render each and every frame on a .png file within a separate folder.

First, you did the right thing by rendering into an image sequence. Never render animations directly as video.

Delete (or move to a different folder) the frames that need to be re-rendered. Then on the output settings uncheck the "overwrite option"

Then re-render as usual wiht CtrlF12. Blender will just render the missing frames and leave the others untouched.

If you have any strips on the VSE (video sequence editor) uncheck the Sequencer box of the postprocessing section of the properties window.


hair color isn't changing and stays white i created the hair of the character using blender render, and then use cycles render to color the hair, but the hair color isn't changing whatever i do. but in the tutorials that i've watched, which i followed exactly, the hair of their character is changing. what do i need to do? is there an easier way to color the hair using blender render and not cycles render?

i got it

particles -> render -> choose a material slot


Weird Waveform and Histogram spazzout I was just wondering why these weird lines/gaps/spikes happen to waveform and histogram as soon as a modifier is used? Can something be done against this?
And why is the Histogram in the preview so incredibly tiny and pixelated?

The gaps are quantization gaps. If your image is deeper bit depth, you will have fewer gaps. Compare against a Cycles render at 32 bits float stored as an EXR versus say, an 8 bit TIFF.

Some 8 bit manipulations will squeeze values together or pull them apart, making the combing more obvious.


Background insertion does not work I want to insert an image in the background of my scene. The classic method to do that is with this compositing node set-up:

However, the image node (left of screen) doesn't seem to pick up the background JPG file I assigned to it. I can tell because otherwise, that JPG picture would be showing in that node. And indeed, when I press F12, the picture is not in the background. I know, the Render Layers node isn't showing the scene either, but at least it did its job; the object of my scene appears with an alpha background.

Interestingly, when I start a completely new file (with the Cube), and try the same set-up (with the same JPG file), it does work; the Cube is set against the background of the picture. And yes, the picture shows up in the image node as well. Here's the screen shot:

How come the node picks up the same JPG picture in one Blender file, and doesn't in another?

This happens when you don't check ✓ Use Nodes in the Compositor.
In such case, only the Render Layer will be composited, as you described.


Random computer luggishness using Blender I am following some littlwebhut tutorials and things are going OK, until my computer slows way down and won't do what the video tutorial is doing.
I could not get it to apply a forcefield last night, today that seemed to work but now it does not want to move a selected object and the mouse takes off up the screen without my moving it. ESC key seems to stop the mouse running but I still cannot get the text to move.
......
Opening Task Manager shows an increase in CPU usage but I don't know how to see the history, so I can't tell if it is only up because I opened Task Manager or if it was up for another reason, when it opened it dropped off very quickly, so maybe it was just the effort of opening Task Manager.
.............
I ran an MalwareBytes scan and an Avast virus scan, I found nothing.
I don't have a bunch of cracked software on my box, so I don't think there is some random script running.
I don't get it.
..........
Anyway, here is my rig. In case there are known errors or I don't have enough horsepower, or whatever.

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 Home, 64 bit
Processor: AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor, AMD64 Family 21 Model 2 Stepping 0
Processor Count: 8
RAM: 16330 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, -1 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 487526 MB, Free - 35992 MB; D: Total - 1430346 MB, Free - 1012515 MB; F: Total - 1907726 MB, Free - 950081 MB; G: Total - 7630755 MB, Free - 3912544 MB; P: Total - 3815412 MB, Free - 165786 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC., M5A97
Antivirus: Avast Antivirus, Updated and Enabled

Thanks for taking time to look at this question

This may be a amazing solution but I would recommend uploading important files to google drive or something of that nature then resetting pc. I have had issues like this in the past with different programs and it can happen because of lots of extra stuff running that is extra stuff that you never use. I have had this happen before and resetting it, it was like insane. Hope this helped!!


Random pose generator addon ? How can it be done Does anyone have an idea how I might be able to generate a lot of random poses of a human armature in blender,such as the head or the finger movements ? I would like to create and save several different head or finger movements on the pose library and with a python script I want to randomize and cyclic them. Do you know if someone wrote an addon like this already ? Or how can it be done ? Anyway you can read the full story here :

https://blenderartists.org/t/generating-random-poses/545285

and here :

https://blenderartists.org/t/im-looking-for-some-new-ideas-to-make-a-full-talking-character/1126012/6

#i can already tell you you won't like the results.

import math
import bpy
import random
def MoveRandBone(LIMIT1,LIMIT2,BONE_NAME):
    ob = bpy.data.objects['metarig']
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
    BONE = ob.pose.bones[BONE_NAME]
    BONE.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
    tmpcheck = random.randint(1,3)
    if tmpcheck == 1:
        axis = 'X'
    if tmpcheck == 2:
        axis = 'Y'
    if tmpcheck == 3:
        axis = 'Z'
    tmpangle = random.randint(LIMIT1,LIMIT2)
    angle = tmpangle
    BONE.rotation_euler.rotate_axis(axis, math.radians(angle))
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
def cripple():#does everthing
    ob = bpy.context.object
    if ob.type == 'ARMATURE':
        armature = ob.data
        for bone in armature.bones:
            print(bone.name)
            MoveRandBone(300,360,str(bone.name))
def listedlimits():#and since you know what every bone is, you can make your own list and generate a random pose.
    MoveRandBone(350,360,'foot.R')
    MoveRandBone(350,360,'foot.L')
    MoveRandBone(350,360,'shin.R')
listedlimits();

#this is just a terrible way to animate, but can be a lot of fun if you just want to see random effects and apply limits to your bones, note that the
#limits here are not the total limit but the limits as to what can be applied. you are far better off going into riggify and creating your own by lining
#an metarig up. Or by using someone elses human rig.