Cycles bake to a flat surface / plane I try baking foliage to a flat surface as seen in a 3D Max tutorial.

However, parts are just missing on the bake.

Is it even possible to bake geometry to a flat surface? I tried all options, like a cage, moving the bake target around (in front of the object, behind, in centre) etc.

I need to bake because I need other channels too, like normals, AO etc. Otherwise I could just render it.

UPDATE: I think I got closer to the actual problem - see 3rd image please.
Its the normals facing the camera directly, become black. That may not even be an error, still I don't really know how to compensate for that.

ANOTHER UPDATE: After doing some research I found out that the black parts in the 3rd image are indeed no error - Normals go on the red, green and blue channel from -1 to 1. On a regular image values below 0 are displayed as black. Still I don't have no clue why those values are just cut-out of all baked maps - a normal bake should contain the negative values and it should work correctly when used as normal map. Furthermore a diffuse bake shouldn't be affected at all.

I guess this is a bug - and a waist of a day.

Bake result

Actual geometry (full render)

Render with normal emission material

Another bake attempt following fergal's instructions

Okay so I've prepared this blend file: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/40069

It's a crude attempt at recreating your scene, but essentially, we have a large plane (which we want to bake our geometry to), and a number of smaller planes (which represents the geometry you want to bake)

Open the file. Select the large plane, tab into edit mode, select all vertices, press U, and then select "Unwrap"

Right click on the edge of the 3D viewport, select "Split area", and in the new area that appears, switch to the UV image editor. In the UV image editor, select "New" from the toolbar along the bottom, and create a new image:

Next, in the materials tab, create a new material, and under the "Surface" panel, click the little dot to the right of the "Color" widget, and select "Image Texture":

Click the dropdown to the left of the "Open" button, and select the image that you created in the UV image editor. Next, tab out of edit mode, and back into object mode. In the 3D viewport, select all the smaller planes, and then select the large plane. Make sure you select the large plane last, as this will make it the active object in the scene (indicated by the brighter shader of orange):

Next, under the Render tab, scroll down to the Bake panel, change the Bake type to "Diffuse Color", check "Selected to Active", and set the margin to 0px, and click "Bake":

Now, in the UV image editor pane, you should see the geometry of your scene baked onto the texture. However, you will notice that only some of the geometry has been baked to the plane, which I think is what's happening in your first screenshot. To capture the remaining geometry, increase the "Ray Distance" value under the "Bake" panel (it's located just under the "Selected to Active" checkbox). In my example, I have set "Ray Distance" to 3. Now, click "Bake" again, and this time, all geometry will be captured in the bake:

Does that solve your problem?


Why is my mesh black when rendering? I added a mesh and made into a ceiling, in Blender. I applied some color to it, but when I render, the mesh is just black; the other objects are fine and have color. How do I fix this? I tried deleting it and inserting it again or copy-pasting the other objects but it still turns black.

you have area lights (with a really small size?) upon your ceiling, pointing downward.

Your ceiling is in it's own shadow! I didn't use BI for a long time, so i don't even understand that you have your walls visible...
Anyway, add some point lights under the ceiling or some area with low energy pointing up.


How to add outline to text? How would one add outline to a text object? Do text objects even have outline support?

Should I instead create the text in GIMP or a similar program and import them in blender to replace the text objects?

In the text font panel choose [none] as the fill type.

Notice the bevel value.

Combine two text objects for fill and outline.


Transfer a Rig from Motionbuilder to Blender I created a rig from a motion capture in MotionBuilder 2012. It's just a simple rig with a few motion tracks and now I want to do the rest of the work in Blender 2.72, but have problems with the rig representation in Edit mode.

I exported a BVH file in MotionBuilder and imported it into Blender and all motions are correct and look like expected. In Pose mode the rig has the expected T shape in the first key frame and all other key frames look correct, too. However, when I go into Edit mode the shoulders and arms, as well as the neck and the head, point straight down. Additionally, the whole rig is rotated by 90° around the X axis. It is unclear to me why I see this behavior in Edit mode.

Here you can get the BLEND file that illustrates the problem. In that "wrong" Edit mode position I can't skin the rig and if I try to put it in form the new angles influence the movements.

Do you know a better way to get the rig in Blender?

Re target copy rig with new rest pose.

Similarly to this answer,

Select rig, and run the following script (takes a minute-ish).  You will get a new copy rig, with rest pose the same as the T-pose in frame 1 of original, and animation adjusted to fit new rest pose.

import bpy
from bpy import context

remove_constraints = True
scene = context.scene
scene.frame_set(1) # TPOSE frame
rig1 = context.object
# copy the rig and armature
rig2 = rig1.copy()
rig2.data = rig2.data.copy()
scene.objects.link(rig2)
scene.objects.active = rig2
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
# apply the pose in frame 1
bpy.ops.pose.armature_apply()
if not rig2.animation_data:
    rig2.animation_data_create()
# remove animation from dupe
rig2.animation_data.action = None
# add copy transform constraint to each bone
for pb in rig2.pose.bones:
    ct = pb.constraints.get(pb.name)
    if ct is not None:
        ct.influence = 1
        continue
    ct = pb.constraints.new('COPY_TRANSFORMS')
    ct.name = pb.name
    ct.target = rig1
    ct.subtarget = pb.name

action = rig1.animation_data.action
f = action.frame_range.x
# add a keyframe to each frame of new rig
while f < action.frame_range.y:
    scene.frame_set(f)
    for pb in rig2.pose.bones:
        #pb2 = rig1.pose.bones.get(pb.name)
        m = rig2.convert_space(pb, pb.matrix, to_space='LOCAL')
        if pb.rotation_mode == 'QUATERNION':
            pb.rotation_quaternion = m.to_quaternion()
            pb.keyframe_insert("rotation_quaternion", frame=f)
        else:

        # add rot mode checking
            pb.rotation_euler = m.to_euler(pb.rotation_mode)
            pb.keyframe_insert("rotation_euler", frame=f)
        pb.location = m.to_translation()

        pb.keyframe_insert("location", frame=f)
    f += 1

# set constraints to zero or remove entirely.
for pb in rig2.pose.bones:
    ct = pb.constraints.get(pb.name)
    if ct is not None:
        if remove_constraints:
            pb.constraints.remove(ct)
        else:
            ct.influence = 0


Output either 0 or 1 for every 24 frames using animation nodes I want an output of 0 for the first 24 frames, 1 for the next 24 frames, 0 again for the next 24 frames and so on.
That is, at frame one the output text is 0 and after 24 frames the output changes to 1 and after the next 24 frames the output changes to 0 again.
How do I do this using animation nodes?

Here is an example,

1) Repeat node is giving values from 0 to 47 i.e 48 when the rate is 48.

2) Because repeat node also count 0, so I have substracted 1 from frame.

3) Then using compare boolean and switch nodes we can choose 0 for 0-23 frames (24) and for next 24-47 (24) frames, 1.

4) Last I use float text node to convert float to text and text object output to text-object.


Good alternatives for middle mouse pan button? I've done a few meshes but am still relatively new to Blender. Does anyone use any alternative keys for panning that isn't the middle mouse button? I'm an artist so my hand/wrist is janky enough, but I can tell having to hold down the middle mouse key puts a lot of strain on it. (I also know Blender has a TON of commands- I wouldn't want to accidentally screw one up by binding the pan tool to it).

You can use "Emulate 3 button mouse" option.

Use Alt + LMB to pan.

Use ShiftAlt + LMB to move.

This option is in the input part in the preferences and is generally used for touchpads.

In 2.79:

In 2.8:

This option has a little incidence. As Alt is dedicated to that, even outside of the 3D View (in panels), you can not use it for some other operations, like Alt+Clicking a button (which in some case allows to set a value for multiple objects).


how to render viewport in 2.9? How do I render the viewport in 2.9?  There seems to be no option in the menu for it other than render image as fully rendered.  I could do it in earlier versions, has it been removed as an option?  Or is it in another place?


How to fix armature distorting my mesh? I made a simple model with multiple meshes. One of them is the head The rest is unimportant for this question. The model has one armature which is the parent of the meshes. All the vertices in the head mesh are in one vertex group which has the same name as the head bone. The head mesh has no Mirror modifier. I set the pivot of the head mesh and all the other parts to the middle of the head mesh. I used armature from the add human (metarig) command. I applied all locations, scales and rotations. I have no idea what other detail I should supply.

Normally it looks like this:

However, when I try to rotate the head (not the neck, the head) it looks like this:

Can anyone help me on how to fix this, or should I actually rotate the neck?

I think the distortion may appear, because the vertices of the mesh are improperly assigned to the bone.

Select the object you want to be affected by the bone, enter Edit Mode and in Vertex Groups panel select neck group and click Remove.

Select the head group and click Assign.

The maximum weight of the mesh is assigned to the head bone, so now all the vertices will follow the bone completely (you can see the weights entering Weight Paint mode).

Now it should work fine.


How can I add displacement to part of a material in Cycles? I made a mixed texture on cycles, that has a image texture as color, and a layer weight for the 'border' effects. Now I want to use the same image as bump, but I want to know the correct configuration/node order to do that.

To have a good control over a bump value add to your existing nodes set a Mix RGB node (Add--> Color-->Mix RGB), set its type to Multiply and the Color 1 to pure white. Connect it to other ones as shown below.

Now changing a factor of the node  will result in a different amount of bumpiness.


Grease Lines appearing to "shimmer" I just started using the grease pencil feature the other day and have run into an issue.
When I run the animation my lines/color layers seem to "shimmer" even though they aren't moving. It looks considerably worse when the camera is animated.
This scene has no animation, yet you'll see that there is movement in the lines and colors, seeming to sort of glitch out. I know there's something I must have missed in setting this up.
Better example of the "shimmering" effect.

It may be some camera setting, so try a new camera.  I just had unwanted shimmering in  an eevee animation and replacing the camera helped identify the issue (clip length was too small).


Zooming in dope sheet. Change to zoom at current mouse-position? In 2.79 in the Dope Sheet editor.

Is there a way to change the mousewheel-zoom style from: "Zoom to the middle of the track."

to

"Zoom wherever the mouse currently is ?"

Coming from video editing, this seems much more intuitive


Circular dependency for image "Normal" from object "Plane" while baking I tried to create normal map from a 2D texture image (.jpg-file size:1024px*1024px) like it is explained in this video:

https://youtu.be/Hpdwo6F_WYQ

I am using Blender 2.82 and everytime I try to bake a normal map I get this error:

I am trying to get a simple 2D texture normal map to make like a sandy beach.

EDIT:

The material tab looks like

The circular dependency error means you are trying to bake to the same image where you need a separate image meant as a baking target, or that you have 'bake from selected to active' checked and are only needing to bake a single object. Untick that option and you should be able to bake to a new image texture that is selected in your node tree.


How to make a thin sphere with a hole? I've spent last three days trying to create a model of a planet for 3D printing with a displacement applied to its external surface and one of the polar caps removed so to create a something like a bowl.

It's essentially a thin (but not zero thickness) sphere with rough surface on the outside and smooth on the inside.  Here is what I did:

Create large sphere, unwarp it, apply planet texture a a displacement.
Create smaller sphere inside the large one, invert the normals.
Join the two.
Create a plane and subtract it from the 3.

The problem here is that subtraction of a plane does not create bowl "opening". It remains closed, albeit the boolean subtraction works. But it looks like a solid sphere with one of the caps cut and not like a bowl.

What am I missing here? Thanks!

If you use booleans, use solid meshes as cookie cutters, not planes. A cylinder maybe.

Inverted normals and an inner surface are indeed a good idea.

Also kill any selection and hit my favorite shortcut: CTRLALTSHIFTM to check for any problems with the mesh. Ideally no verts or edges should get selected. Booleans like perfect watertight topology. Just like 3D printers.

Then you can subtract the cylinder and have holes in your egg shell.

Or you simply delete a few edgerings, select the rim and connect them with the bridge tool.


Delete hidden connected face "inside" the mesh I have recently been working on an addon called Smart fill, it's basicly a tweaked version of Blenders native fill tool. It combines grid fill,bridge edge loops etc - all on the f key. I am trying to solve some problems and this is one of them. I am trying to get the selection to delete a double face thats being created when i use my command. is there anyway to achieve this in Blender?

If you look at the attached picture and the example at the bottom you can see that i have deleted a face so you can see how it looks inside.The face is connected but i cant remove it with remove doubles.

This hidden face is one of types of non-manifold geometry, hence it can be selected using dedicated operator for this purpose - Select > Non-manifold (in 3D View header menu).

Note that this doesn't work in Face Selection mode (though MeshLint addon selects it even in Face Select mode, so you could use it as a reference).


Where are the opacity key frames for masks? When animating a mask's opacity, you cannot find the keyframes in the dopesheet. Is in another place instead?

I've found this bug report but it's not clear if is there a solution or if it's even a bug.

While the bug is fixed (if it ever does), you can use a math node set to multiply to control the opacity of the mask. Animate the values from 1 (full opacity) to 0 (no opacity). Those keyframes will show up on the graph editor or the dopesheet.

Animating the values


How to create a glowing fog effect I would like to replicate something like this:

I've started with a layer of graphene from a tutorial (here is the corresponding blender file: blender.freemovies.co.uk/blenderfiles/modelling/chemistry/graphTut24.blend)

The right way to go is probably something like How to create a strong halo light effect?

However, I don't know how to apply that to my problem, as I'm fairly new to blender. Thank you very much for any help!

EDIT: So I managed to get the desired effect using halo+lines (because I like it with the lines, see the blender manual under Halo Rendering. However, that only works using the Blender Render, but I have to use the Cycles Render. I've tried to achieve a similar effect using that render engine (there are lots of ways here on stackexchange), but I cannot get the lines and it doesn't look as nice as using the blender render + halo. What's the best way to start to achieve the same as in halo+lines?

If you want a glare with lines it is easy to do in the compositor.

In your scene add an object and give it an emission shader and use a strength that is more than 1.

Then in the compositor add a glare node in streaks mode. Use the threshold value to determine what values get affected by the glare node (in this example any value larger than 1 will be affected by the glare, darker values will remain unaffected). You can also choose the number of streaks you want:

(click on the image to enlarge)

Now, if what you want is to have is a more realistic "fog" effect, you need an environment (or a domain) with volume scatter. If you use volume scatter as volume for the world, then you can create real volumetrics, in which the suspended particles get lit by the light source and the mesh will create shadows (be ready to increase the strength of your light sources). Think of volume scatter as filling the scene with dust or smoke, the density for volume scatter will determine how hazy it is, usually the default value of 1 is way too high.

(click on the image to enlarge)

And don't forget that you can combine volume scatter with a glare node in the compositor as well:


Merging objects with flush faces, using Boolean union modifier? Apologies if this is a question that's asked a lot from beginners,

I am trying to connect two objects with flush, overlapping faces, and it seems that the union boolean modifier does not handle these "edge" cases. The resulting mesh has internal faces and other artifacts. But if I move the mesh, so the faces are not overlapping then the union works as intended. I briefly looked this up and if I understand correctly, the boolean modifier is not meant to handle my particular case?

Here is a picture to illustrate what I intend to do:

Is there a way to easily merge these two together in a way that results in a "clean" mesh?

I plan on merging many modular pieces together many time over, so any method that involves manual work is not very suitable for me; I'm hoping there is something  that behaves like the boolean-union modifier, and can perform the operation on "flush" object intersections.

I am new in Blender and I was facing the same problem a few days ago, so here is what I did:
One way that solved the "intersection's anomaly" was the Bool Tool addon. After you add this, you can use the shortcut Shift + Ctrl + B  and the Bool Tool options will pop up.
The Bool Tool did not create any issue for me after the union.
Using the Boolean Modifier:
When the union is done, even though you get the anomaly, apply the modifier. Then, in your Collection list you can see that the mesh you tried to merge to your other mesh, is still there. Delete that mesh. The Boolean modifier managed to merge the two meshes, but the mesh that was merged still exists as an individual object and it's overlapping the final merged mesh you just created, causing the problem.


How can I make certain vertices unselectable? I looked around and couldn't find any answers on this, so I'd figured I'd ask here.

I'm making clothes for my player model and I wanted to know if I can make certain vertices non-selectable, similar to how in object mode you can click on the eye icon and said object vanishes. Is there something similar to that but for vertices in edit mode? That way I can still see the vertices but they won't move if I accidentally click on them.

I read somewhere that pressing H can hide objects but the problem there is that it hides them(obviously) but then I can't get them back so I have to undo it.

This would definitely save a lot of work as I could just make the body vertices non-selectable and then adjust the clothes so it fits naturally on the model(again because I'm no pro and I'm working on a player model for my first video game)

If anyone knows how to do this or in general has any advice to help, it would be greatly appreciated :)

Also because this model is for a game, I cannot upload or share the file, sorry :(

To avoid separating the vertices into a new object you can use Vertex Groups

Select the vertices you want to group.

Make a new vertex group (With the + sign) and assign the selected vertices to it.

To hide those vercices press H

To unhide press H

Once you've created and asigned vertex groups is very easy to select and unselect groups of vertices as you need. Vertex groups can be named, edited or deleted.

Vertex groups are also of particular importance if you are going to be using cloth simulation.

More information on the blender manual:

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/meshes/properties/vertex_groups/assigning_vertex_group.html?highlight=vertex%20groups


Semitransparent texture makes some objects behind transparent in viewport I stumble with this issue and searched for a solution, but haven't even found a reference to it.

The problem is that in the viewport (in the render all is fine) some materials with semitransparent textures make some objects behind them transparent. Alpha values of 0% and 100% work as expected.

The problem is present in Blender Internal and Cycles.
Tried different display options like multitexture, GLSL, display mode Material and Texture but nothing solves or even affects the problem.

After some testing discovered that changing the parent modifies the beheavior, even after unparenting.
In the this images you can see the eyebrow and the sphere make the face behind them transparent. I parented the lower sphere to different object and some became solid and remained that way after being unparented. The eyebrow started working properly after being parented to the face.

Managed to reproduce the problem in a smaller .blend
Even the selection of objects changes the transparency momentarily, so in this examples nothing is selected.
If I select the eyebrow the transparency works as expected.
If the blue plane is selected the problem persists.
And if the red plane is selected, even that one becomes transparent when behind the semitransparency!

To permanently change how the transparency works I had to select the eyebrow and parent it to the blue plane, after this I could unparent it safely. If I wanted to reactivate the problem, select the blue plane and parent it to the eyebrows. The problem is back even if you unparent it.

I don't want to parent the semitransparent object to everything in the scene to avoid this issue. Is the a better solution?

For the .blend you have attached, it seems that ticking "Transparency" option in the object's Display settings does the trick.

If you want to see outline of the selected object, you can enable Bounds in the same Display section.
Still there can be an issue with display multiple faces with the transparent texture stacked behind each other, then can try to tune User Preferences -> System -> OpenGL -> Clip Alpha value.


Polygonal modeling vs. digital sculpting Can anyone please explain the difference between polygonal modeling and digital sculpting?

In my personal opinion sculpting is better than polygon modeling - it's because in this world there is no perfection, so when you sculpt the model looks alive and like having a soul in it.


Radius and strength sliders in pie menus How do I add the sliders (radius, strength)in texpaint to a pie menu ?

From the link as it may help others to see it directly - borrowed from Pitiwazou's post on Blenderartists.org:

def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    pie = layout.menu_pie()

    ups = context.tool_settings.unified_paint_settings
    sculpt = context.tool_settings.sculpt

    col = pie.column(align=True)
    col.prop(ups, "size", text="Radius", slider=False)

    col = pie.column(align=True)
    col.operator("sculpt.sample_detail_size", text="", icon='EYEDROPPER')
    col.prop(sculpt, "constant_detail")


How can I rotate a spherical texture without getting a distortion? I've tried to search for tutorials but they all say I have to have a Texture Cordinate Node, attach the 'Generated' Output to a Mapping Node, and that one to my Image Texture, and in the Mapping Node to move the Z Rotation and it should work. However I'm getting this weird distortion effect.

Any Idea what to do?

Using UV Map

If that's a NASA mars projection, chances are it's an equirectangular, ie longs -180 to 180 mapped 0 to 1 in U and lats -90 to 90 0 to 1 in V. To make it rotate around the pole to pole axis increment, ie translate (not rotate) the U coordinate. The default uv sphere UV is pretty much the equirectangular projection.

Result with default UV map of default UV sphere. Rotating texture about axis by translating U

Because of the nature of the projection adjusting other values will warp the projection, eg ring the equator with ice lol.

I'm not a big nodes guy, in theory could emulate the UV map using the object vector output and converting it into spherical coordinates with some math nodes.

Give that a go.

Here is the set up the normalized object coordinates are projected into spherical coordinates and fed to the flat image texture (as used above)

by placing the mapping node before the projection, can now rotate freely using use x, y, z rotation.

Using http://celestiamotherlode.net/creators/praesepe/MarsV3-Shaded-2k.jpg and crunching some simple drivers #frame / 30 directly into rotation fields.

Please note: Using the object texture coordinate relies on the object being at location (0, 0, 0) and having origin at center of geometry for the above set up.

Subtracting the object location allows for non global origin object location.

EDIT.

Much simpler using environment texture node as pointed out by @ISCREAM kevin deguisne  https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/159521/15543  Have taken the liberty of making an image of the setup.


How to have skeleton/armature change with shape keys? I want to have it so when I change the value of a shapekey, it also moves a bone according to the value. So for example, when I change my character meshes eye width or height, the eye bones move with it so it can still animate properly. Another example would be change the characters leg length so when it is increased the bone moves as well to maintain the correct ratios and not distort the animations for it. I should probably also mention that I plan on using this in Unreal Engine 4 and will need it to work in engine. Any info on how to accomplish this is appreciated.

For the eyes consider adding a vertex group for a eye [bone].  This should dominate any envelope influence if the [multiply] option is disabled.

Link to Blender documentation

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/rigging/armatures/bones/properties/deform.html#armature-bones-envelope

Multiply

This option controls how the two deforming methods interact, when they are both enabled. By default, when they are both active, all vertices belonging to at least one vertex group are only deformed through the vertex groups method


How can I move an object on a plane of two axis like XY? Is it possible to move an object in the 3D View on a plane of two axis like XY, XZ, YZ?

By pressing SHIFT+X, SHIFT+Y or SHIFT+Z, while you're grabbing (G), the operator will constrain the movement in that axis. So G then SHIFT+Z will just move the selection in the XY plane.


Selecting multiple vertices What I am trying to do is, in edit mode, while I am left clicking a vertex in edit mode, make a circle appear when I scroll up and down that affects other vetices around it when I transform (move, rotate etc). Moments ago the circle did appear when I scrolled up, but now it is gone. How do I enable this circle?

What you described in your question is called proportional editing.  to enable/disable this, in edit mode, there is an icon that looks like this:

it is located towards the upper right corner.  When you click it, you can scroll your mouse up or down to make the area you want to edit bigger or smaller.  When you enable proportional editing and move a vertex, the circle you described in your question should appear.  If it doesn't, try scrolling your mouse wheel down until you can see it.  Hope this was helpful!


Copy Uvs from one mesh to multiple instances of that mesh in animation nodes Following this question:

How can I transfer UVs from a source to a target using Animation Nodes?

I've tried to reproduce the solution with no success. In my case I'm creating a bunch of empty instances, at the same time I deform a mesh from an object with UVs. My intention is to use the deformed mesh into the new empty instances, which I manage, but Uvmap is not transfered even if I have the load uvs cheked.

Here is how it looks now

How can a copy the uv map?

You loaded UVs to a mesh and then you created a new mesh based on the vertices, edges, and polygons of the source mesh and forgot about the UV Maps. Currently, Animation Nodes doesn't provide access to UV data through nodes, so you will have to use some python expressions.

You can get a list of UV Maps in a mesh using the getUVMaps() method, each element in the output list is a tuple of two elements, the name of the map and a 2D vector list representing the locations of the UVs. To set a UV to a mesh you can use the insertUVMap(name, uvs) method, which takes the name of the map and a 2D vector list.

So, in conclusion, to transfer the UV maps from some mesh sourceMesh to another mesh targetMesh, we can use the following expression:

([targetMesh.insertUVMap(*map) for map in sourceMesh.getUVMaps()], targetMesh)[1]


Scripting -- Can't figure out how to use correct contexts? I'm trying to write a script to create some objects along and around a curve object, set up for a generative modeling thing, to make randomized "tentacles" out of paths.

Anyways! I'm approaching this by creating an empty at the root of any selected curve, putting a "follow path" constraint on the empty, targeting the curve, animating the path, and then creating objects relative to the empty's location and orientation on different frames, staggering some objects like that.

What I've got so far looks like this:

for curve in operable:
    print("Doing curve")
    rootLoc = curve.data.splines[0].points[0].co
    emptyLoc = (curve.matrix_world * rootLoc)
    bpy.ops.object.empty_add(type='ARROWS')
    bpy.context.object.name = "empty_" + curve.name
    bpy.ops.object.constraint_add(type='FOLLOW_PATH')
    bpy.context.object.constraints['Follow Path'].target = curve
    old_area = bpy.context.area.type
    bpy.context.area.type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bpy.context.space_data.context = 'CONSTRAINT'
    bpy.ops.constraint.followpath_path_animate(constraint='Follow Path', length=frame_steps)
    bpy.context.object.constraints['Follow Path'].use_curve_follow = True
    bpy.context.area.type = old_area
    bpy.data.objects['empty_' + curve.name].location = emptyLoc.xyz

However, in the "followpath_path_animate" line, I get an error from that function's "poll()" saying only that "the context is incorrect".

For one, if someone could tell me what context I need to be in and how to get there, that would be great.

It would also be great if someone could explain to me how in the world I'm supposed to figure out what context to be in to run these functions! You'd think this would be at least vaguely documented...

I found the code related to this function in the source code, found that this is the poll() function used:

static int edit_constraint_poll_generic(bContext *C, StructRNA *rna_type)
{
    PointerRNA ptr = CTX_data_pointer_get_type(C, "constraint", rna_type);
    Object *ob = (ptr.id.data) ? ptr.id.data : ED_object_active_context(C);

    if (!ptr.data) {
        CTX_wm_operator_poll_msg_set(C, "Context missing 'constraint'");
        return 0;
    }

    if (!ob) {
        CTX_wm_operator_poll_msg_set(C, "Context missing active object");
        return 0;
    }

    if (ob->id.lib || (ptr.id.data && ((ID *)ptr.id.data)->lib)) {
        CTX_wm_operator_poll_msg_set(C, "Cannot edit library data");
        return 0;
    }

    return 1;
}

This is pretty cryptic to me, seems to check whether the active context is of type "constraint", but I thought I'd done that. Not sure how to resolve that.

I encountered a similar error recently, and thought of adding another solution in addition to the one from @sambler , for the sake of posterity.

The line of code that caused the exception was:

bpy.ops.constraint.followpath_path_animate(constraint='Follow Path')

and, the exception was as follows:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/xxxxxxx/Workspace/blender/moveAlongPath.py", line 30, in <module>
    bpy.ops.constraint.followpath_path_animate(constraint='Follow Path')
  File "/Applications/Blender/blender.app/Contents/MacOS/../Resources/2.76/scripts/modules/bpy/ops.py", line 189, in __call__
    ret = op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.constraint.followpath_path_animate.poll() Context missing 'constraint'

Digging into the source code of ops.py that's mentioned in the exception, I ended up at the documentation for bpy.ops and noticed the section on "Overriding Context". The exception's indication of Context missing 'constraint' seemed to ring a bell, and I changed the above line of code to the following:

override={'constraint':mycube.constraints["Follow Path"]}
bpy.ops.constraint.followpath_path_animate(override,constraint='Follow Path')

and, voila! it worked. So, it seemed that somehow the data on the constraint was missing in the context, and injecting the constraint information using the override helped the engine find the constraint where it expected.

Full working code:

import bpy
import math

"""
blender -b template.blend -P moveAlongPath.py
"""

scene = bpy.data.scenes["Scene"]
mycube = bpy.data.objects["Cube"]

scene.frame_start = 1
scene.frame_end = 100

# Add a nurbs curve
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action = "DESELECT") # Deselect all objects
bpy.ops.curve.primitive_nurbs_circle_add() # Adds a Nurbs Circle and sets it to selected object
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(3,3,3)) # Increase the size of the circle
path = bpy.context.selected_objects[0] # Get the currently selected object and get a handle

# Select the cube, and set it to the active object
mycube.select = True
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = mycube

# Add the follow path constraint to the cube, and set target as the Nurbs Circle we just added
mycube.constraints.new('FOLLOW_PATH')
mycube.constraints["Follow Path"].target = path
mycube.constraints["Follow Path"].forward_axis = 'FORWARD_X'
mycube.constraints["Follow Path"].use_curve_follow = True
override={'constraint':mycube.constraints["Follow Path"]}
bpy.ops.constraint.followpath_path_animate(override,constraint='Follow Path')

# Render the animation
scene.render.filepath = "render/anim"
scene.render.image_settings.file_format = "AVI_JPEG"
bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath="moveAlongPath.blend")
bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True)


How to fully weight a mesh to a bone? I have a mesh cut up into chunks that is a 1x1 match with bones. e.g. shoulderMesh -> shoulderBone. FootMesh -> FootBone. I want the meshes to be full strength painted to the bones.

Can I do this without manual vertex painting the meshes?

Yes. You can select Tab into Edit Mode, select one vertex of the shoulderMesh, FootMesh, etc. chunk, and key Ctrl + L. If the chunks really are separate, this should select only one chunk. If they are not truly separate, Box or otherwise select the chunk.

With the chunk selected, go to the Properties panel > Object Data tab > Vertex Groups panel. Find the corresponding Vertex Group (should be named after your bone), make sure the Weight: value is set to 1, and click Assign.

One Vertex Selected:

Ctrl + L keyed to select entire chunk:

Vertex Groups panel. Assign button visible while still in Edit Mode. Weight at 1 guarantees maximum weight assigned:


While extruding my whole mesh vertices doesn't remain connected creating a separate prt In vertex mode i am selecting whole object by pressing A ,and hitting E to extrude in y direction ...I want extrusion to remain connected at vertices but its not remaining connected here is the blend file?

As John wrote correctly, you have already done an extrusion and now you have doubled your vertices in place.
So what you can do is just box select your whole object (by this you just select the upper vertices), then press X -> Vertices. Which deletes the upper vertices.
Then press A to select All and extrude as you want.


How to make posed model stay in place in edit mode? How can I make the model stay in posed postion while ive use edit mode?
Because when ive loaded saved pose, and use edit mode mode model return to default standing pose.

I have noticed this problem when my model seats so ive wanted fix it
but it is not visible in default standing pose.

I guess what you want is to enable the On Cage option in the Armature modifier. It has a downside though, if you select a vertex, the Move gizmo won't stick to the vertex pose position but to its rest position. It would make more sense that once you enable On Cage, the gizmo sticks to the vertex pose position.


Duplicating motionpaths(keyframes) I am kind of new to this whole blender program, and I'm currently trying to make a text animation where the letters are made out metaballs.

By now I have made 850 metaballs and I'm not even done with a single letter, I was wondering if there was any way to copy the or duplicate the metaballs and in some way make my work easier?

The way I'm doing is most likely the slowest.

How about some Particles?

Create a single Metaball.
On a separate layer create the text and convert it to mesh (AltC)

On the text object add a particle system.

Set the Physics tab to No and in the Render tab  set it to Object and choose your metaball.

Go back to the layer with the metaball and you should have your text made of metaballs.

To see a preview of the particle system press AltA

You can edit the number, size, randomnes on the particle settings, and to really have fun: enable physics and get wild...


I believe this shadow on the glass material is not normal, it follows my camera creating a weird effect, please help me fix it! So basicly when I move the camera I get these shadows on the windows ( glass material).
The shadows follow the camera angle and i would like to remove them or fix them.

Im using Eevee. The shadows don´t appear in cycles render and i guess this would be a solution, but I would like to remove them on the eevee if possible.

Just wanna say that I was able to fix this by myself.
Seems like the problem was the refraction depth being set to 0.


How do I parent these two bones in the hip the same way they are at the shoulder? Can I? How can I make it so the lowest circle thing (armature?) on the bones in the spine is the parent of the highest armature in the leg? Is that even something I can do? When I try to parent it in the settings for the Bone, it parents it to the bone directly above the bone instead of the one under it.

What I have now

What happens when I try to parent it.

Your bone is correctly parented, when a bone is parented (child), there's a dotted line that goes from its head to the tail of its parent. So maybe I haven't understood your question correctly but it looks like you're good.


Aligning vertices to centre I am new to Blender.

I am making a character using the mirror technique, however there is a hole in his head.

I understand that there is a single vertex that needs to be aligned in the middle to fix it, however if I do it by hand it will not be perfect.

How do I align this vertex so it creates a solid head?

In this case, I imagine it is quite simple as it is perpendicular to the X axis, however if it was not, how would I fix it?

Many thanks

You can get there quite easily using Vertex Snapping.

Enable Snapping > Vertex, and use the Move tool to align it to other verts.


This menu from left doesnt work anymore, is always greyed out I can't change segments or anything.

https://i.imgur.com/vqCl2zO.png

As soon when I create a UV sphere or cylinder the menu from left pops up but is already greyed out.

If you start doing things like rotation or location, the settings won't be available anymore.

Note sure if it's your case here but maybe try to first create the cylinder with shift+A then go directly to the settings, do whatever you want there, and the only locate rotate or scale it.

Hope it will help


Is there a way to reduce the 'Power' and 'Size' of lights when scaling my scene down? I would like to scale my scene down. The scene contains numerous objects and lights. When I scale the scene down, the Power and Size properties of the lights remain unchanged, making the lights too bright for the scaled down scene. Is there a way to make sure that those properties get adjusted according to the scale?

The Power properties are all set with 'W' as the unit, the Size properties with 'm' as the unit.

I don't think you can scale the lights with the regular "Scale" tool, but with a little script you can scale every light's energy and size using python.

import bpy

factor = 2  # Replace this by your scale factor

for obj in bpy.data.lights:
    for attr in ('energy', 'shadow_soft_size', 'size'):
    # for attr in ('energy',):  # Replace if you only want to scale the energy
    # for attr in ('shadow_soft_size', 'size'):  # Replace if you only want to scale the size
        if hasattr(obj, attr):
            setattr(obj, attr, getattr(obj, attr) * factor)

Keep in mind that light energy decreases quadratically relatively to the distance it travels, so if you scale your scene by a factor of 2, you should increase the energy by a factor of 2^2 = 4. (Or 0.25 if you scale by a factor of 0.5)

Follow this if you don't know how to run a script in Blender.


Round somes corners only I would like to round corners (surrounded in red) of this shape:

I tried some options:

ctrl+shift+B : this does not work on the surrounded vertices.
Subsurf. It look like I can use this technique but it increase the polygons significantly. But if this is the only solution I'll use it

Temporarily extrude edges

You’ll be able to round the corners with the bevel tool (Ctrl+B) by extruding the boundary loop just to feed Blender with some faces to work with and then deleting the extrusion.


blender 2.81 version add-ons missing? I am just wondering if there is any information on what will be available for later versions of blender, as 2.81 no longer has rock generator as standard which is very annoying.

Because many things are not updated for add-ons, how do I know what blender will include and not include?  In 2.81 the Eevee renderer works fine for me but not in 2.8, but 2.8 has more add-ons.

So is 2.82, 2.83, 2.84 going to become even more less useful unless I pay for everything? If even someone has the add-ons for the newer release that is?

The rock generator has been merged in the "Add Mesh : Extra Objects" Add-on.

You can then go to Add > Mesh > Rock Generator.

You can find such informations by visiting https://developer.blender.org/


Learning cycles material nodes I'm not a beginner to 3d. However, the node editor seems confusing when creating materials. I like the way I can make materials in c4d.

My question is simple. What is the difference let's say between the way materials are created in blender vs other non-node based methods?

Also, am I overthinking that the node system is that hard to learn?  Can someone post a video or article which explains how to for example create a plastic or glass or chrome etc., which shows the workflow?

By the way, I think Blender is a great piece of software. The only thing stopping me from switching to it completely is just that, nodes.

You can in theory create any material in the properties editor just as well as the node editor, but in practice the node editor is a lot easier and faster to work with once you get used to it.
Material nodes mostly work by mixing together different aspects of the way a surface interacts with light (shader nodes) and by mixing together different textures, whether they are 3D procedural textures or 2D image textures.
For instance you might mix some diffuse and glossy together based on fresnel node to make a simple ceramic shader:

Or you might use a procedural voronoi texture to add some displacement and make
a kind of hammered copper shader:

The possibilities are pretty much endless.
I'd recommend you look around for some tutorials to get used to working with nodes. There are plenty on youtube and similar sites. Here are some others to get you started:

Blender guru

Blender diplom

Blender cookie

And the manual is a good a reference for information on specific nodes.
And of course you can always ask around here if you have more questions ;)


Soft bodies bouncing with collision I am trying to get soft body objects to interact with each other as if they were real world, rubbery objects.

An example of the type of material I am trying to create can be seen in David McLeod's work (who uses C4D):

https://vimeo.com/131654511

When I try to make soft body objects interact, they usually merge with each other:

or fly around like crazy:

But although I have tried many different settings, I couldn't get the soft bodies to bounce off each other and interact properly as they would in real life.

How could I achieve that?

Here is a .blend file that I'm having the problem with:

You must add to those soft bodies the "collision" physics type too, like :

It's required for softbody physics found another softbody type like obstacles. That's will bring you a new panel called "Collision". Inside "Collision" panel there is controls for softbody types if you want tweak. Usually the default values works nice.

Like you already have the scene filled with your falling men, and you require add that physics to everyone,  there is an easy way to archive this :

You must switch on the addon "Copy Attributes menu" (it comes with the basic blender). This activate a really useful copy menu.
Select all your softbody man except the last one with your collision  and softbody physics. (you can try to use "A" key and quit rest objects from scene using "Shift" for quit/add objects from your selection)
Select that last one (usually this is for Blender like select "the parent")
Then press "Control + C" and select "Copy modifiers" from menu. That will copy the modifiers (in this case, physics type) from that last one to all another selected ones.


Chain breaks when animation is played I have made a chain of toruses, when I apply rigid body physics to it, it breaks as soon as I play animation.
I have tried scaling it up but does not help.
Please help me fix it.

Blender file is : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5aZVQjlGn3uem44NVFoZ040SFk/view?usp=sharing
Chain is in 2nd layer.

Try increasing the steps per second, and solver iterations
Or try increasing the weight of some of the links


Copy pasted Body and armature not rendering I've copy pasted a rigged mannequin and it doesn't show in the Render window.

I've checked for the Render flag in the Outliner and the Render checkbox in the Object properties.
I cant seem to find the Duplication submenu in 2.8 which seemed to cause issues in the previous versions of Blender according to my research.

Try appending or linking the newer versions of the rig into the scene instead of copying and pasting. Copying and pasting may cause naming conflicts on certain nodes, or duplication of unwanted elements.

Under the File menu at the top of the screen, you'll find both the Append and the Link option. They are similar in that they both allow you to take the content of an external source file and make that content appear in your current scene. The main difference is that with an append, the contents of what are transferred are physically copied into your scene and become new, independent versions of those contents, whereas with linking, only a reference to the original content is made present, and as such, it cannot be edited outside of the original source file.

I recommend appending for now because linking is a bit complicated in some ways, and often requires extra steps, including the creating of a proxy rig afterwards. By appending, you don't have to deal with that.

If you do decide to append, though, before you do, consider putting the rig you want copied into a new collection in your current scene first, and give the collection a unique name that you can easily identify. Make sure ONLY the rig itself and its deform mesh is in this new collection, and no lights or cameras or any other extras. This way, when you do the append, and are asked for the content to be appended, you can simply choose this collection from the list of available contents, and in this  way, easily ensure that you get copies of only what you want added to the scene.

One final thing. Save your current scene before beginning the append, but save it as a new version of the current file separately also, and append from the new version of the file only, not your current one. Blender doesn't seem to like it when you append from the same file that is open at the moment.


Possible to move an object from one .blend to another one? Is it possible to have an object in one .blend file, and move it to a different .blend file?

Example: Say I have a tree I made in one .blend file, and I want to move that tree to a landscape I have saved in a different .blend file.

EDIT: You can also go to File > Export > Wavefront (OBJ) and save it. Then go to original project and go to File > Import > Wavefront (OBJ).

Open the file into which you want to import the object. Then, click File > Append (or ShiftF1). Choose the original .blend file, where the object is located. When you have chosen a file, you will have to choose what to import. In this case, click "Mesh". Then, select the mesh that you want to import.


Is it possible to avoid finding my operator via the search menu? I was wondering if it was possible to avoid making bpy.ops.myscript.doesomething()available in the search menu of blender?

I think it is not possible, but I would like to have some information about it

the manual : https://docs.blender.org/api/blender2.8/bpy.types.Operator.html?highlight=operators#bpy.types.Operator.bl_options

setting

bl_options = {'INTERNAL'}

should remove the operator from search results.


Boolean - subtract multiple objects from one with only one boolean modifier Is there a way to subtract multiple objects from one using single boolean modifier? For example I have a wall, and I need to make multiple holes in it for windows. I wanted to parent an object that will make a hole in the wall to a window object, so wherever I move the window, the hole will be made automatically, and if I duplicate the window, the object that is it's child will be duplicated too, and will generate holes too. Thanks in advance.

No, you can't input multiple objects into a single boolean modifier.

You can add as many boolean modifiers as you want though. Simply create multiple boolean modifiers with their respective object's input.

You can also join all objects into a single object and use that as the boolean input. E.g. you could duplicate your window, then merge it into the boolean input object by ⇧ Shift RMB selecting the input object (making it active) and pressing ⎈ CtrlJ to join them.

As you intend to speed up the process, I'd advise you to use the built-in BoolTools addon, which creates a shelf for assign boolean quickly.


Custom Blender Builds: How do they work together? If one developer of a feature (i.e Fracture Modifier) produces a full version of Blender incorporating their modifier, as opposed to just creating an add-on, and then another developer working on a different modifier (i.e. Manta Flow liquids) produces a full build incorporating their work, do I have to have two versions of Blender in order to use them both? I'm new to Blender and this whole Open Source thing, so I'm not sure how it all works.

Thanks,
Brian

In short: until both features are merged into the same build of Blender, you should treat those Blenders as two different applications.

I would suggest to use a file format like Alembic to bridge the different applications you want to use. For example, use the Fracture build of Blender to produce fractured objects, then export those to Alembic. You can then use the Manta Flow build of Blender to import those Alembic files and work with MantaFlow.


Bake vertex colors to texture from mesh This has been asked before but I can't find the solution now. The solution was something about going into blender render, setting the bake type to vertex colors and then just baking but I'm just getting pure white bake. Obviously I'm missing some steps... or something. I do most of my work in cycles so I think the issue could be something to do with the nodes. Do the nodes or materials need to be set up in certain way?

Baking vertex colors has been working just fine before. I just did this a couple of days ago but something has now changed and I can't get any my vertex colors to bake anymore. I just get white.

Setup material like this, Using emission node makes it fast:

You can get vertex color data here:

In bake options chose "Emit"


None of the other questions about snapping answer my question I'd like these faces to snap together and they will not do so.  What am I doing wrong?
Here is a gyazo link to a gif since I cannot figure out how to upload the mp4.
https://gyazo.com/c1ac2c6276ab5590c46738b689ed5ef1

Snapping doesn't work based on distance ... It works when the faces (of other objects) comes under the mouse cursor. or so i Guess.. Check this below screengrab. I've moved my mouse over the steps, (adjusted the view to make it happen)

Here's my snap settings.


Oval shape on the outside of a model So I was following Blender Guru's Tutorial on a chair and when I got to the UV unwrapping part I notices something weird going on with my mesh. There appears to be a 2D oval shape on the outside of the model.

I'm not sure how to fix this.
I think it might have something to do with the subdivision surface modifier.

Solved. I have figured out why.
The reason for this was that there was two extra faces? I think I might have extruded it by accident and didn't notice.


Can't change material of anything? Title says it all. I can not add/change the material/color of ANYTHING.The entire page where materials should be is just completely blank.

http://imgur.com/a/hOhIL

You Have to scroll up lol, you can see that you Have the scrollbar down.


Emit particles as a cone shaped beam I am trying to create a beam of particles shaped like a cone.  When I do this from the face of a cube, for example, I get a beam that is normal to that face but I don't know how to make that beam diverge as it travels farther away, sort of like the beam from a flashlight. Thank you!

(Blend file below)

The emitter is just a section of a standard UV sphere.
Particles are launched evenly from it's faces so the pattern is radial.

The emitter is placed inside 2 solidified but invisible cones that are setup as "collision objects" (physics) so they effectively focus/deflect particles.

If any escape in your version, try increasing the "Particles --> Physics --> Subframe" slider, but be mindful that each increment will labour your computer further.
In this example, (Blender Vers 2.77) the default particle settings were used throughout, apart from the emitter and draw size. (in Display tab)
With this arrangement, force fields or other coersions aren't necessary.  The number and size of the particles plus the renderer used will determine how dense it looks.
-=============-
The circular 'Nav-handle' is a common parent that holds it all together for when the emitter is to be animated,


3D Connexion Space Mouse stops responding during Blender operations As the question title suggests, I have a minor problem with Blender's implementation of Space mouse/3D mouse control.  I finally got the actual operation of the 3D mouse to be like I want.  Except this point.  Anytime that I do an operation in Blender, like say scaling or rotating part of a mesh, while that operation is being performed the space mouse refuses to function.  While this does not initially seem to be a big deal, it can cause some serious frustrations!

Take for example doing a knife cut.  If the object isn't fit entirely on the screen, or simply is unable to be, and you need to start a knife cut that goes up an object far enough to go off the screen, your space mouse is useless at that time!  Because, the actual knife operation freezes space mouse input, thus when you try to pull up on the space mouse to move the view up the model to continue the knife cut, nothing happens.  Forcing you to go back to regular keyboard/mouse based camera movement to slide up to continue the cut!

This is exactly the sort of thing you get a space mouse for, to be able to do operations with the regular mouse while also operating the camera with the space mouse!  Am I just stupid and I've missed a setting that changes this, or is this 'built in' behavior to Blender and thus, without tweaks from the software developers, I'll never see relief?

I don't think this is a 3D mouse issue, this is a well known general Blender limitation.

Most of those operators are modals (Knife Project, Extrude, Translate etc), and while they are running one cant access any other operators, until operation is terminated (that also includes viewport navigation operators like Move View or Rotate View). Bottom line is this is also an issue with regular mouse and keyboard.

Things may yet improve for the upcoming 2.8 series, but nothing is written in stone.


How to add a seam to my cloth bag? Can't get edge loop to shrink in the right way I've been trying to make a storage bag but every time I try I just can't seem to get it right. I've followed this tutorial here

But it doesn't seem to be working correctly for me, I may not be understanding it fully. Here is what I want to create:

Here is the result I get when I follow the steps in the tutorial:

Any advice on how to achieve this would be greatly appreciated, or maybe there's a simpler way?
Thanks
EDIT: Was about to upload the original blender file but it crashed and my work was lost

did you check this tutorial? youtu.be/Ebx2qbBlvh0?t=555 – sanbaldo 10
  mins ago


How to output ID masks as seperate files for compositing? When I click 'Render' or hit F12 and select IndexOB pass in the viewer I'm able to see a mask (white on black) as expected, but when I click 'Animation' to output a series of these masks as '.png' files. What I get is a normal color 'Combined' pass.

My blender file is set up to create a masks of several objects. Each object has a pass index of '1' and Object Index is enabled.

How do I output a series of '.png' files in order to get all the masks as seperate files?

Object ID passes

Assign a unique 'Pass Index' value to each object
Enable Object Index pass (Properties > Render Layers > Passes > Object Index)
Create a 'File Output' node in the compositor via Add > Output > File Output
Create 'ID Mask' nodes via Add > Converter > ID Mask per object
Create the desired output sockets to connect the 'ID Masks' and the 'Beauty Pass'
Make sure your File Path of the 'File Output' node is correct

Click to enlarge

Result:

Material ID passes

It's basically the same for 'Material ID passes'. Assign a unique 'Pass Index' value to each material and enable Material Index pass (Properties > Render Layers > Passes > Material Index):

Click to enlarge

Related Questions

How to use index passes in other compositing packages?
Accurate IndexOB and IndexMA passes


Unfamiliar Structure of Sphere Mesh I was poking around in a cycles material test scene which I donwloaded, and when I looked at the mesh for the sphere, it looked like this:

This looks nothing like either the UV sphere or the ICO sphere, so what function would transform the mesh into something like this?

This is a subdivided icosphere, generated from a basic icosphere via a subdivision surface modifier.

Of course the blender logo was then carved out of it via a boolean modifier.


I see different coloured and textured images in two opened veiwports in blender I saved my work, but when re opened the blender file, my object was showing grey colors. I actually opened two veiwports beforehand, but one of them is showing a grey object while other one is showing the original coloured object. How do I rectify this, bring the original coloured object in both the viewports? I started learning blender a few days ago.

It looks like you didnt go back in to Material Preview/ Rendered mode. After you close and reopen the file it automatically resets the viewport to solid.


Normal maps not working in blender internal in 2.78 update I was just wondering because ever since blender 2.78 normal map data would not be displayed in the final render. However it is displayed in GLSL (viewport). Below is an example of said problem.

Am I missing a new feature or is this a bug? If this is a bug has anyone else encountered this problem and is it being fixed? I would very much like to use the new features in 2.78 but this problem is really annoying me.

edit: If I check tangent shading the normal data is used. This is strange. Not a  fix but. ..

Ok so I was able to 'fix' this problem. For some reason now in 2.78 your mesh requires a uvmap regardless of whether or not it is using said uvmap (global... genereated .etc.) for normals to work as intended. diffuse spec all work fine without it. So to fix this problem with the normal map not working, all that had to be done was just create a uvmap. Weird but... there you have it.


Keyframe toggle visibilty for child object using parent object in outliner? I have a parent object with over twenty child objects. I want these objects to be keyframed to toggle viewport visibility & restrict rendering on and off at a certain points in the timeline, using the parent object alone as a master controller (so I won't have to insert keyframes for every child object every time). I've discovered how to switch the viewport visibility and restrict rendering for all objects at once (ctrl+click on the parent's visibility or restrict rendering buttons), but that doesn't add the keyframes to the child objects in the outline; I have to add those manually.

My question is: is there a way to use the parent object to assign keyframes to all of the child objects for the viewport visibility and restrict renderable options in the outline area?

Consider a [driver] which assigns to the child render state the value of the parent render state.  If you have never done this before it really is the best.

All the navigation described below might best be understood with a video at some famous video site ... Search Blender Driver Tutorial... but I will provide a modest navigation here.

Use the other mouse click to bring up the menu on the EYE of the child to add driver.  When finished the purple circle will appear as depicted below.

Switch to the graph window as indicated above and view the [drivers] via the button next to the word Key on the menu.  Click on the Restrict Render on the left side to see the driver settings.

Make these settings.  Just as in the image above.

Type: Averaged Value.

Prop: name of your parent.

Path: hide_render (which was copied as a data path)

Thus you  need to key frame the Restrict Render Eye of the parent only.

There are ways to copy and paste drivers from the menu of the Eye of the child.  You need to do this for each of the remaining 20 or so child objects.

In your case you have parented the children to the parent. The driver mechanism can allows you to choose any object to be the source of the render state.


Rendered image is different than Camera view I am new to Blender even to the world of animation.

I have 4 cameras and I have bind them with markers in the timeline. When I animate they change fine. When I open the Render view from the button side to the Object Mode button it shows perfect Camera view.

But when I Render it as png all the images are black, they are like a view from a camera just pointed towards ground but there is no other camera I have checked the Outliner list also.

I have also tried selecting the Border option in Render tab but when I click on Render or Animate, I get a message that border is not allowed for sequencer.

I have searched on google and all the solutions I am being told are not working.

Someone Please help me out.
Thanks a lot in advance.

Thanks for your help but I found what was wrong.

the Sequencer box was checked in Post Processing. So i just unchecked it and Checked the Border button and it is working fine now.


Normal maps only lights up one side, while the other one stays dark with an all directional light source I've already made a post today asking for a bit of help, but it was bad, and I did not provide enough information.

My problem is that when I use normal maps, despite the fact that I use an all-directional light, it only shines on one side.

And since I can't post more than two images, here's a gif:

Node setup:

If there's anything I can to, that would be of great help!

Thanks in advance.

Try changing Object space to tangent space in the normal map node.

Object Space Normals are likely to cause unexpected shading effects, as they do not support object transformation and mesh deformations, like tangent space normals do.
Most of the time normal maps need to be applied relative to the surface of the mesh, not to the whole object.
(https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya-lt/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/MayaLT/files/Asts-Object-space-world-space-and-tangent-space-htm.html)


What is the difference between items listed in bpy.ops bpy.data and bpy.context When accessing items in a python script somethings are prefixed with bpy.data some with bpy.context and others with bpy.ops

What is the difference between these prefixes?

Short Version

bpy.data - all data in your blend file.
bpy.context - data in the current active view.
bpy.ops - tools which typically operate on bpy.context

Longer Explanation

bpy.data

gives you access to all data in the blend file, every object, material, compositing node etc. in every scene (also the scenes themselves) can be accessed through bpy.data.

Generally, you would either loop over all datablocks, or get a specific item by name.

bpy.context

is context sensitive, it depends on the area your mouse is over, the selections you make and so on. It lists only a subset of data such as the current scene, the active object etc. This is an easy way to have a script work on whatever object is selected rather than having to know it's name beforehand (bpy.context.object refers to the active object, or is None if there is no active object, bpy.context.selected_objects is a list of the selected objects).

bpy.ops

is where you can access tools (operators) organized in categories, e.g. bpy.ops.object.select_all() (object is the category for object-related operations, together with select_all it is the operator name and () calls it). These perform the actions typically accessed in the user interface, referenced by menu items and key shortcuts. When you search through the spacebar menu, you are seeing a list of all operators, which are available in the current context.

These three prefixes are the most common but there are others. bpy.types contains all the types or "classes" used within Blender. You will also use bpy.utils if you write an addon (mainly to register and unregister classes derived from bpy.types, e.g. to create own operators, menus, panels...). There are also some other modules available that aren't prefixed with bpy such as mathutils and bmesh.

For a list of all items available in Python you should look at Blenders Python API documentation.


Why is my texture skewed despite the UV looking correct? I trying to make a room in Blender. I'm new to Blender, had some experience with Maya and C4D. I started by making a cube and flipping the normals to make the walls. I applied a texture to the floor which worked fine. But then applying the walls has me putting my head through a wall. I did a cube projection of the wall to unwrap it, however it looks like it's still projecting the texture from above, despite the UV editor showing exactly what I actually want.

Figured it out. I had attached a Mapping node to my texture to scale to texture, however it also inadvertently also fixed the rotation of the mapping to 0,0,0. Change it to 90,0,0.


Most efficient way to remove unwanted vertices in an object with 59,000 points? I have imported a 3D-scanned .OBJ file from KScan3D, which is 3D scanning software. I am trying to scan a model car, but would like to remove all the unnecessary points for the purposes of 3D printing. The scan included much of the floor, which I would like to remove.

Below is a picture of the mesh:

What is the fastest way to eliminate the points on the floor? Is there a "drag-and-delete" tool added to recent versions of Blender?

Thanks!

In edit mode, press C, that will enter you into a Circle select. Just hold LMB  and drag over what you want deleted. When you have selected all you want to delete, Right click. Then press delete (or x) and chose vertices.

There is also a border selection method, which works in ether edit mode or object mode. Press B, just drag with the LMB  held down, when you release it the selection is done.  Delete the same way as above.  If you selected too much you can unselect it by, dragging with the MMB  in either border select or circle select mode.


Could LMB be made to box-select when used outside of a model, but circle-select when initiated over the mesh? I'm trying to customise my Blender further, but finding it hard to set it up the way I want.
A few of the things I want to accomplish in order of complexity:

Box select on LMB
Box select with consistent modifier-key use: Shift LMB  to add to selection, Ctrl LMB  to remove from selection.
The above, but additionally: releasing the LMB  exits box select (confirms)
The above, but additionally: clicking over empty viewport starts box select, clicking over a mesh starts paint-select.

I know I can set Box Select to LMB  click, but have found it kind of annoying without at least some of the other things I bring up. Are these possible, and if so: without much scripting?

'Box select on LMB'

Try setting this in User Input: 3D View --> Border Select --> Tweak, Left, Any

(Let me know if you made progress on the SHIFT-drag to add to selection, I am looking for that as well.)

EDIT: I discovered a partial answer. Add a new shortcut, use the same one (type in view3d.select_border) This time check "Extend" and "Shift." Now Box selecting with shift will add to the selection in object and edit modes.

However there still isn't a way to subtract from the selection that I've found yet. And I don't know how to unmap CTRL-select for adding to selection. Keep me posted if you find a way.


how to make a text object have underlined text So i am using the code

T.text = 'sample text'

Where T is a text object. What I want is for part of the text to be underlined and the other part to remain plain. Can someone tell me how to make the word 'sample' underlined but have the word 'text' remain the way it is?

There are two ways to change the formatting, first is using operators to replicate the steps you would do by hand.

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bpy.ops.font.move(type='LINE_BEGIN')
bpy.ops.font.move_select(type='NEXT_WORD')
bpy.ops.font.style_set(style='UNDERLINE', clear=false)
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

That should look obvious - move to the beginning of the line, move and select to the next word, then apply a style to the selected text.

The other way is to adjust the data that stores the formatting. A font object uses a TextCurve to store it's object data, the body and body_format properties are what you are interested in. body is the text string and body_format is a list of TextCharacterFormat which includes use_underline for each character in the body.

So to underline the first 6 characters of the active object -

for c in range(6):
    bpy.context.object.data.body_format[c].use_underline = True


Is 3D viewport render time exposed in python? When 3D viewport is in render mode, ie SpaceView3D.viewport_shade = 'RENDERED' Can the  render time be gleaned or estimated using python?

3D view in rendered mode taking 12.63 seconds.

As far as I know this is implemented in C and no accessible with the python API.

However you can probably create a handler for scene_update which:

iterates over all areas and check if area type is 3d view
if so check if the view type is rendered
and if it is start a timer and use some approximation algorithm to record the time
however if the view type is not rendered or there are no 3d views and the timer is running, stop the timer.

Read more:
Render Time Estimation Addon

Cycles Time Estimation


Noise in reflections on non-focused objects (cycles) I have a problem with the reflections of light on the more distant objects (drops) in the scene. As it can be seen, camera is focused on front of the stone. Water splashes which are not focused got a noise on their reflections, which is not looking so good. Is there some method to avoid this?

I use gloss filter (0.5), multiple importance, pro-lighting skies addon, clamp indirect (6).

At 1500 samples my render looks this way:

(I know dry stone in water is not such realistic but it is the next step...)

Render consists of three layers in the such composition:

Multiuple Importance for Environment

I do not know how the pro-lighting skies addon works, but enabling Properties Panel / World / Settings / Multiple Importance and highly increasing the Map Resolution might reduce those noises, assuming the highlights are coming from the sky.

Composited Depth of Field

Instead of the real DOF you might try uing the Filter / Defocus node in the compositor.


My model is see-through with black lines I'm pretty new to blender, so i apologize if this question is a little dumb, i was following a blender tutorial but i accidentally pressed a key and i don't know which one i pressed, and now my model is sort of see through, here's the picture

Probably, you pressed Z and then you changed the viewport shading so now you are in wireframe shading.
Press Z to change to Solid Shading via the pie menu or use the topbar as shown below:


How can i measure projected area of any object in blender ? (Ex. shadow from top view) I'd like to measure the area of the projected front, top or side view of an object.
please give me some suggestion
Thank you.

The easiest way I know :

in orthographic top view, project the UVs from view with U > Project from View :

in the UV/Image editor, export the UV layout as a vector image by going in UVs > Export UV Layout and selecting Scalable Vector Graphic (.svg) :

in Inkscape or Illustrator or any vector program, select everything and disable the stroke to keep only the fill :

still with everything selected, do a union boolean to get a single path :

save the svg file
back in Blender, go in File > Import > Scalable Vector Graphics
with the path imported and selected, do Object > Convert to > Mesh from Curve
do Object > Transform > Origin to Geometry and Alt+G to center the object
still in orthographic top view, scale the object roughly :

in Edit mode, enable snap to vertices, select everything and snap a  vertex to its corresponding vertex on the original mesh, even if the others don't align :

select that vertex and snap the 3D cursor to it with Shift+S > Cursor to selected
select everything and make a vertex on an opposite side of the mesh active with Shift+Right Click twice :

enable Pivot to 3D Cursor and Snap to Active :

scale only horizontally with S+Shift+Z and point your mouse to the vertex corresponding to your active vertex to make it snap :

now that the mesh is perfectly aligned and scaled, go in the User Prefs and enable the MeasureIt add-on :

with everything selected in Edit Mode, go in the Tool Shelf > Display Tab, then click on Area and Show :

the area is displayed as the green circle above shows.


Repeat a generated texture in Blender 2.91 I made a nice-looking tile texture:

Now I want to repeat it on x and y axes. Is there any easy way to do it?
.blend file

As others have suggested, you can achieve the effect you want for this specific pattern by changing the way you create the pattern (using a color ramp node).  For this application that is probably best, however in general it may be useful to know how to tile generic coordinate systems.
It looks like the area of your texture which you would like repeated is within the bounds $-1\leq x,y\leq1$, think of this as a 2x2 tile.  To repeat the texture, you need to map all values outside of this range into this range by shifting by an even number of 2x2 tiles (e.g. the point $(3.2, 7.8)$ should be shifted $2\times 2$ units to the left and $2\times 4$ units down, bringing it to $(-0.8, -0.2)$).
The mathematical modulo function does exactly this.  However, in Blender the modulo operator unfortunately doesn't work exactly like its proper mathematical counterpart for negative numbers*.  Mathematically, the result of the modulo should always be positive, however Blender calculates the modulo of negative numbers to be the negative of their positive counterparts (i.e. if $x\geq 0$, $-x,y \text{ mod } y = -(x \text{ mod } y)$.  To fix this I made a corrected modulo node which fixes this inversion for negative inputs.

Now we simply use this version of the modulo operation on our position coordinate system, with an offset to account for the desired $[-1,1]$ resultant range.

*Update:
As Robin Betts mentioned, there is now a math option called wrap available in both the scalar and vector math nodes which both implements a mathematically correct modulo operation and allows for an offset shift.  This then can be done with just one node added to your setup.


Smoke Domain and Divisions I am using Blender 2.79c with Cycles Render.  I opened a new scene and then added under the objects tab. “Quick Smoke” using the Cycles Render. I worked just fine when played in the timeline.  I then opened the Physics Tab and under Smoke Modifier I use the Domain tab and set my Resolution to 90. Then if I use or click on the Flow Tab and go back to the Domain Tab all my setting changes back to the default. I tired it about six times and it does the same thing every time. Is this suppose to happen?  Does changing from Domain to Flow and back to Domain suppose to change the settings back to the default settings?

Seems very strange to me but then I am still in the learning stage. Any ideas?
Thanks

Smoke Domain and Smoke Flow Objects have to be different objects. An object cannot be Domain and Flow.

To change the settings for Flow, select the flow object and then modify the flow settings.

From the Blender Manual:

  At least a Domain object and one Flow object are required to create a smoke simulation.

  A basic workflow looks like this:

  Create a Domain object that defines the bounds of the simulation volume.

  Define a Flow object or objects which will emit smoke and fire.

  Set Collision objects to make the smoke interact with objects in the scene.

  Assign a Volumetric material to the domain object.

  Save the blend-file.

  Bake the simulation.


Moire Like Blinking when preview rendering problem I found, that some faces are blinking (like Moire effect) while rotating in preview.

Is this normal?

Reboot didn't help. Blender version is 2.76

OS is Windows 10 prof.

Video is GeForce GTX 770.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ6rB7XbShk

UPDATE

The following message appears upon start:

(AL lib: (EE) UpdateDeviceParams: Failed to set 44100hz, got 48000hz instead)

UPDATE

I found it is the problem of my model, since it affects only half of it:

I was extruding circle and the split is located exactly where I started. I.e., right half was extruded from the circle to the right, and the left half was extruded from the left vertices to the left.

Also I noticed extruding behavior changed when I was doing this: Unconstrained extrusion?

The display glitch you are seeing on your model is a common 3D graphics artifact called Z-fighting.

From Wikipedia:

  Z-fighting is a phenomenon in 3D rendering that occurs when two or more primitives have similar values in the z-buffer. It is particularly prevalent with coplanar polygons, where two faces occupy essentially the same space, with neither in front. Affected pixels are rendered with fragments from one polygon or the other arbitrarily, in a manner determined by the precision of the z-buffer.

Basically what is happening is when two coplanar faces occupy the exact same space Blender doesn't know which of the two faces to render.  The faces are "fighting" which one is closer to the camera.  So due to floating-point calculations in the distance to the camera (z-buffer), various points of the shared surface are rendered as one of the faces, and other parts are rendered as the other face.  This results in the strange looking Moire-like glitch you are witnessing.

To fix this problem you can first try to remove double vertices with W > Remove Doubles.  This will merge vertices which occupy essentially the same location, you can adjust the tolerance in the F6 parameters menu immediately after removing doubles.  In some cases removing doubles won't be enough to fix the z-fighting, in these cases you will just have to go through manually and remove the overlapping faces.

I suggest you read up on manifold and non-manifold geometry.


Vertex groups can not be named in blender 2.70 For some reason the name text field doesn't appear for vertex groups in blender 2.70. I tried in 2.69 and it's there and works fine. Was this feature removed in 2.70 or am I missing something?

Ctrl LMB  click, or double LMB  click on the name of the vertex group. That is now how to rename anything in that type of list.

youtube video


Is there any difference between bpy.path.basename and os.path.basename? According to the docs for bpy.path.basename:

  Equivalent to os.path.basename, but skips a “//” prefix.

  Use for Windows compatibility.

But on Windows, I don't see any difference between it and os.path.basename.

Are there any cases where the two functions will give different output?

os.path.basename doesn't understand Blender's // prefix (denoting a path relative to the current blend file). bpy.path.basename does understand this. If your path is (or could be) a blend-file-relative path, use the bpy.path.* functions.

On Linux I don't see any difference either, don't have Windows handy at the moment to check there.


how to make a filled arch in blender I have a super problem, I'm a beginner in blender, about 2 weeks, and I wanted to make an arch, but only it should be filled and with rounded edges, I was able to make the arch itself, but there were problems with the rounding. I just created an arch point by point, filled it inside and did an extrusion, everything would be fine, but now I need to somehow round off the edges and here everything is not going according to plan, I don't know if there is any normal way to do this, then what I ended up with when using the surface subdivision modifier - it's just awful, it's impossible to do uv, please help me, I searched the entire Internet and did not find anything.
I also tried to use bevel along the edges, but nothing worked, since there is no geometry in the filled place.

I'm assuming you want to smooth out the mesh. To do that you can do shade smooth, which can be accessed by selecting the mesh and 2 finger clicking, which will give you a menu that has shade smooth as an option. You can also search "shade smooth" in the search menu (relatively new as well so not sure what it's called).


Can i apply normal map & bump map & a texture on the same object So I have these

I want to combine them all. Is it possible?

This seems to work, but i want to know if there is a better way to do it


Shading issue on the Mesh i am facing the issue of shading in some faces in my mesh kinda sort of lines.I have tried the autosmoth option but still the problem presit.The rest of the mesh is quite smooth but in these faces some faces the problem presist.

You have edge loops along the existing ones, it makes them sharper:

If you remove them it will round the shape:


How to join two parts of an armature How can I connect those two parts of my little monster? I came extruding the bones down and now when I grab the torso it does not bring along the legs! Can you help me, please? All the rest is working fine.

Go in Edit mode, select the 2 hip bones, then the torso bone, then ctrl P > Make Parent > Keep Offset. Now the torso bone is the parent of the 2 hip bones, and the Keep Offset option allows them to keep their position and not stick to their parent.

Also, you need to assign an Inverse Kinematic constraint to your calves, it allows to reverse the influence of the bones so that the legs are not controlled by the base anymore, but by controllers that you will create and assign as Targets.


How do I turn off "smart" multiple selection? (3ds Max UI preset) I'm not sure if this is something to do with the preset or a default setting that I can't find the switch for. I'm trying to finally learn Blender after years of 3ds Max and I was extremely glad that it now ships with the Max and Maya style UI options. In edit mode, when I CTRL-Click to select multiple objects, Blender will try to automatically select any points in between the two I select, unless I go back, unselect the auto-selected point and try selecting again. And if there's multiple points between my two selection points, forget it. I see where this could be a useful feature but not as a default, so how do I turn it off?

gandalf, that got me pointed in the right direction. ⇧ Shift⎈ Ctrl LMB does it in the Max preset.


How can I solidify a 2d shape so that the rim isn't solidified and the center is solidified the most ? (Think creating a dome from a sphere) I am trying to create a teardrop shaped Jewel such as this one.

The approach I wanted to take is the create a cross section of the jewel and model it from a circle as seen here:

and then solidifying it in some way which would make the center have the most height and the keeping the rim as edges. Think of it as solidifying with a factor of 1 in the center (or the point where I choose) and that factor gradually decreases until it reaches 0 at the outer edges where they are not given any thickness.

I'm not ever sure that this would be the right approach, but it seems to be the easiest if I am able to find a modifier that created my desired effect.

A way to do that using a modifier is to shrinkwrap the jewel to a plane, using a weighted vertex group (the plane here is displayed in wireframe mode):

Select the vertices you want to move (all except the borders).

Go to weight paint.

Validate 'vertex selection masking'

Enable X mirror

Then paint (add) the wanted vertices.

Once done, smooth the result.

After that, you can tune the influence in the modifier :

Following the comment, in order to use more easily a mirror, start from a circle, extrude inside then grid fill the inner part. That will allow you to have an edge loop or more around the jewel, so that you can connect easily the main part to the mirror center. Here is the kind of start that can be good for that :


Render camera view like 3d view? Ive come across this problem here : When i set my camera at the position which looks , i render it and it looks stretched and not so good . What camera settings should i have on?

As you can see , on the left side , it is upright , and everything looks handy dandy .

But on the RIGHT side , the render is stretched and its just ... ugly !

Normally, that's caused by the Aspect Ratio setting you've made.

It will change the anamorphic pixel aspect, and output the final render based on the actual X/Y resolution in Render setting.

Set 1.000 for both X and Y, which is the default value, and will solve the stretching.


Node Cloning / Duplication Is it possible to link two nodes in such a way that if one is changed then the other changes as well?

For example; if I have two different texture nodes, each with the same texture in it, can they be linked so that if the texture in one of them is changed then the other one is changed as well?

This will be really helpful for a material setup that I am creating which requires me to have about 10 copies of the same texture node in different places and groupings.

Thanks for your help!

At first I thought "well, one way would be to use something like a "texture.jpg" name for that texture, and simply change the file that is named like that... that would do the trick, somehow. Other than that, you could probably need to script the change, for all the nodes to load the same texture. I can't think of other ways, atm"...

but then it came to my mind another trick, that could work better for you... here it is: use node groups!

you can set up a simple "image texture node" as a group, by itself.

It sounds absurd, to make a group of just one node, but it isn't: because you can reuse groups on every material you choose, and link it differently to other nodes.

Just select it as Add => Group => "yourGroupName" in the node composition area, and by default it has the same inputs/outputs as the base Texture Image node...

And, when you edit the group (on any node where it's used) you can change the texture, in a single node that's reused:

and, thus, reach your goal:


How can I create a realistic stack of pages? I'm really new to blender and one thing that I'm finding difficult is how to create pages on a notepad so when it is viewed from the side you can clearly see pages and image bleed (see picture in link).

I tried duplicating the plane 50 times but it didn't look good so I chose to extrude the plane to the final height of the notepad but now I can't figure out a way to split the sides so they look like they are pages.

This is what I want it to look like (more images here):

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm struggling to find a way to do this.

Thank you

You can uv unwrap your volume/pad from the top with project from view, so that you will have the yellow colors bleeding along the sides as in your reference, as long as you keep the UV inside the texture. Then you can use a normal input combined to a dot node to separate the vertical sides and the top face and use this output to create a variation of the texture (adding some vertically compressed noise for page division, multiplied to the image texture and a bit desaturated). This texture is then plugged into a basic diff+glossy mixed shader. Big advantages here, you are sure the colors on the side are in good position regards to the top, and you can change the whole thing by tuning the uv or changing the texture !

Blend is here


How to make part of the mesh follow a bone without deforming it I am rigging a model of a creature which has sort of shields on its front legs, but I don't want those shields to be deformed, when I pose the leg. The rest position looks like this:

But when I use the bone, which controls the lower arm, it turns out like this:

How can I make the shield follow the arm without deformation? It's attached to the arm (I can't separate it).

Like it was stated, you need to remove unneeded vertex groups from the shield.

In Weight Paint mode, select the vertices you want to clear. Back in the Vertex Groups, click the down arrow icon. There's an option to either remove all groups from selected vertices, or only the active group. Best to remove all groups in your case and manually add the driving group back.


Cycles bake is too dark I'm trying to bake Cycles materials to a texture, for use in a different program. The issue is, whenever I bake the materials to a texture, the result is far darker than the original version.

This is it using Cycles materials:

And this is it with a texture. No other changes were made other than changing it from materials to a texture.

The second hat is dramatically darker than the original. How can I fix it?

These are the baking settings I'm using.

Any help would be much appreciated.

EDIT: Here's a link to the .Blend file of the hat. The texture is packed in with it, but if you need it separate, let me know.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvfrixxsd0p1atb/hat.blend?dl=0

The way I found to do this is to set your cycles settings this way:

Under Render Properties
Under Bake
Change "Bake Type" to "Diffuse".
Select the "Colored" button, while disabling "Direct" and "Indirect"

I used Blender 2.78 by the way. Hope that helps!


Makehuman rigged model appear all purple in weight paint mode When I click on my rigged character(mhx rig) from Makehuman in Blender's weight paint mode, it's all shown in purple. I can't see weights of any of my bones.

I am not sure what's happening here. Please help.

I've seen this happen on a few models I've come across, but its an easy fix.

To see the weight paint, you need to unhide and select the deformation bones which are tucked away in Object Data under Skeleton - Layers. Ignore the Protected Layers bit.

I don't have a MakeHuman model handy, but this pic shows where the deformation bones are for both Rigify and Pitchipoy, labeled with a DEF- prefix. Keep in mind that you may no be able to move DEF bones directly, so keep the both this layer and the bone control layer active (holding Shift and click on the layer).

Both these rigs also have hide/unhide buttons for all the different parts at the Properties Panel, not sure if yours will also have it.It works the same as above only that the buttons have names for the part they are assigned to.


UV Editing screen not showing/available Up in the Screens menu my UV Editing has disappeared. How can I get it back?

The screens can be be deleted by clicking the X button or added by the + button on the info header , when you create new one you should save the start-up file to keep it for other sessions

To get the the default screens back you have to reset all the user settings to default from File->Load Factory Settings


Blender 2.8 My soil shader looks too glossy I'm trying to do a soil material using the following textures:

https://texturehaven.com/tex/?t=coral_ground_02

I applied a 'displaced' modifier and built the shader nodes but my surface looks too bright and glossy

The material in the site looks more rough and appears to have the rocks on the model, but in mine looks like mud. I watched several tutorials and tried to change several values on my node set and I can't get it right.

Here is my node set. Could anyone help me to take off this glossy aspect?

I think you have to set a brighter color to your color ramp, and try playing with the position of the handles. Pure black makes glossy, pure white makes rough.


How to ID NLA strips for appending elsewhere I have a source file containing a character and its animated actions. This master file serves as a control repository for the character: All of its actions are kept here, stored as NLA strips. I give the strips catchy names to remember what the NLAs do -- Hop, Spin, Slide, etc:

When I go to my scene file, into which I would like to append one or more of the actions, I do not see my catchy names, but this:

Where or how should I ID the NLAs in the repository file so I can see my catchy names when I want to import the NLAs rather than CubeAction.xxxx?

Rename the action

You have given "catchy" names to the nla track and nla strip using your actions.  You want to rename your action.

Can be achieved via the UI

In Dope sheet (or outliner) Ctrk left click the action name and rename

before pushing down

after pushing down

by putting the dope sheet into action editor mode and renaming

via the python console, example image below, the action "CubeAction" is renamed to "walk".


Adding a 'SUN' via lamp_add() actually adds a 'HEMI'. Bug? If I fire the operator afterwards from a button, it doesn't work properly. I've other operators with other lamp types and those are working quite well as expected. But this one stole me a hour or two. Before I open a bug report I would like to check with more experienced developers (I'm quite new to Python) if I'm doing it wrong. Details are given in the following code:

class RfB_OT_OBJECT_AddLightDay(bpy.types.Operator):
bl_idname = "rfb.object_add_light_day"
bl_label = "Add DayLight"
bl_description = ""
bl_options = {"REGISTER", "UNDO"}

def execute(self, context):
    #
    # FIXME:  Adding the lamp as type 'SUN' here from operator, will add
    #         the lamp as 'HEMI'. Changing C.data.type to 'SUN' direct
    #         afterwards explicitly doesn't work, have to do it a few
    #         lines later. See QUICKFIX.
    # DATE:   2018-01-21
    # AUTHOR: Timm Wimmers
    # STATUS: assigned to self
    # BL_VER: 2.79
    #
    bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='SUN')  # BUG?: will be added as 'HEMI'
    _tmp = {'material': None, 'lamp': bpy.context.active_object.data}
    bpy.ops.rfb.node_add_nodetree(_tmp, idtype='lamp')
    bpy.context.object.data.renderman.renderman_type = 'SKY'
    # QUICKFIX: change late explicitly
    bpy.context.object.data.type = 'SUN'
    return {"FINISHED"}

Thank you,

Timm

Update method on renderman.renderman_type

Setting renderman_type to SKY sets the lamp type to 'HEMI' See renderman code

    if light_type in ['SKY', 'ENV']:
        lamp.type = 'HEMI'

This is not a bug.  bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='SUN') adds a lamp object of type 'SUN' named "Sun",  which is pretty easy to test.