Another world inside of a portal issues As the titles says I'm having issues creating a portal that has another world in it. I tried the following guide to the letter:
Creating the Minecraft End Portal in Blender
but it isn't working. I was hoping someone could take a look at my file and tell me where I am messing up and what I am missing. Preferably with images because I'm still new-ish to blender and don't know all the names or locations of every function but any help is completely and utter welcome! I am destroying my brain over this! LOL!

My goal is to have the crystals be only seen inside the portal/gold object in the sense. Thank you so much in advanced!

Here is the file:
https://mega.nz/#!T2xhwKrQ!ZHjC0fWvLK3gdJn3WQ8kWJquqJFmNGVTepUfXwxK6eI

Ok this is a tutorial on how to create a portal using scenes, render layers, object id and compositing. Please try to achieve it while reading the tutorial.

First you want to have the first world and the portal.

Note that i set the plane pass index to 1, this is crucial.

Then you need the second world, I did a terrain with a sunlamp.
Create them in the second scene and link your camera here afterward (ctrl+L->link to scene).

After this you need to set up the render layers, for use with compositing.
Go to render layer panel, unfold the pass menu and select object index

For the scene 2, you don't need to set the object index because the plane you will be using for splicing the two world is only present in the first scene.

Everything is setup, open the node editor and select the compositing nodes.

Here you start with a render layer that is set on render layer one, scene one (we are just using one scene in our case) and a composite output.

Just add another render layer, set in on scene 2, add an alpha over node and connect your two layers color output on that node, the factor is the plane, so connect the indexOB that we activated earlier for the first layer to an IDMask node then to the factor of the alpha over. Easier to just look at the picture here:

Now you can just render.

Being an after effect, there is no such thing as compatibility issues regarding wether you are using cycles, eevie, or blender internal.


Trying to add muscle to a 3d skeleton model I have a 3d model of a atlasaurus that I imported to blender as a .obj file and it comes up, but I do not know how to add muscle to the existing static skeleton.

I have searched online and all of the tutorials seem to be for adding muscles on the interior and thus rigging, but I want to add muscles on the exterior. I have the Blender X muscle system add-on, but I do not know how to get the muscle to connect to the skeleton bone.

I hope this is clear, but mainly I am asking how to add muscle on top of the skeleton.
Do I have to add "bones" on top of the skeleton in order for it to work?

This is for a comparative anatomy class where we have to make some sort of 3d reconstruction of an animal. I have included an image of the object in blender that I am talking about and that I want to add muscle on top of the skeleton.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Looks like your model is having some issues with normals and so on. This is because .Obj models are not always being imported correctly. X-Muscle System is designed to work with armatures mostly. It is possible to connect muscles directly to geometry however you will lose many advantages and automation when using this method. All you have to do is to parent muscle's both tendons to according bone. Keep in mind all dinosaur's geometry bones have to be in hierarchy, parented to each other. I hope this helps!


Fuse two separate objects First I really need to clarify, I’ve watched people use the boolean method, but I swear I’ve seen people just able to drag an object into another and it automatically fuses without any interior meshes or extra work. Problem is, I can’t remember what it’s called or how to do it. Was this not a recent addition to Blender? I may be wrong.
Say I have a sphere and a cone and I want to make something resembling an ice cream cone, but I want the hidden half of the sphere to be gone (so that it’s 1 object, a semi-sphere and a cone attached to one another with no hidden geometry).
I don’t want to count vertices or do any extra selection -> deletion/vertices manipulation work to get this effect. I just recall seeing people drag one object into another. Say, they drag the sphere down onto the flat surface of the cone and the sphere geometry that enters the interior of the cone just disappears and the vertices where the two objects touch hook onto each other automatically.
Am I confused or is this something possible? If it’s possible, I assume it’s some sort of modifier that gets attached to the cone? This will seriously speed up my work flow, so if anyone has any answers that would be wonderful! Thanks.
—-
Edit: All of the answers are helpful, thanks! I likely saw someone using the Bool Tool addon. Ctrl + J and Convex Hull and Bridging will also be very helpful. I really appreciate the quick responses.

Orient your meshes when they are still separate:

Join them with Ctrl + J:

Select the whole (joined) mesh in edit mode and select mesh > Convex Hull:

Resulting shape:


SV Sverchok : Points in mesh, go outside mesh I try to use the node points_inside_mesh on a mesh that I create from a uv connection from two triangle.
So I got a 'Vector P filed' with many points and this mesh.

But when I apply the node there is some points who are outside
the mesh and not removed by the mask.

Is there a proper way to do that ?
I have try to apply "Recalc normals" to the mesh but it didn't solve this problème.

Until now it work well with box (and mesh create with boolean join boxes)
Is there an important rule for creating mesh from faces and/or surface to use "points inside mesh after" ?

Thanks for any advise who can put me on the path.
I have try many things and I don't know what can I do next...

point_inside_mesh is agnostic to the input, as long as it is a manifold mesh.

for example: a torus/donut with distortion.

The only feature that the points_inside_mesh node won't handle automatically is multiplanar-ngons, if one of your meshes has a face where not all edges lie in the same plane, then you must pre-process that face to get useful results.

This for instance would not be a good input, the results of both "Regular" and "Multisample" modes are going to be undefined. The NGon will not be tessellated according to everyone's tastes.

This however, is fine. The ngon gets triangulated by the triangulate Mesh node. I'm not sure if it makes a difference to the triangulation bmesh.ops whether you triangulate the ngon while they're still flat, or if you insert that triangulate node after the Noise Displace.

the downside with the automated tessellation is that it behaves best with planar ngons, passing it non-planar / multi-planar ngons requires a more sophisticated algorithm to generate nice quad/tri topology.


why is extrude locked to z axis Not sure what I did to mess it up but now when I press E to extrude it is set to the z axis.  It has always been axis free when initially pressing E and you had to press Z to lock it to that axis. Now I have to press Z to unlock it first, I would prefer not to have to do that every time I extrude.

Pressing E performs "Extrude and Move on Normals", for a basic cube extruding the top face will appear to be extruding on the global z-axis while extruding a side face will match the x or y axis.

I don't know which version you think this performed different, not certain with 2.5x but I have 2.62 through to 2.72 available here and they all work that way.

There is a chance that you had a bad habit before. Pressing E will extrude and start moving the new geometry, right-clicking will cancel the move, but you can right-click again on the selected face/s and start moving the new extrusion. Maybe you had been cancelling and picking up the geometry without realizing it.

You can change this behaviour if you wish by opening the preferences and adjusting the method used. While in the Input settings search for extrude and adjust the one saying "Extrude and Move on Normals" under Mesh. When you expand it you will see a text field with view3d.edit_mesh_extrude_move_normal - change that to mesh.extrude_region_move. This should give the behaviour you are looking for.

You can then Save User Settings so that it is set that way each time you use blender.


Can't use texture draw on the Donut I'm following the Blender Guru's tutorial Donut series. After completing the modelling part and sculpting I noticed that I had more then one millions of polygons, so I reduce it with using Decimate modifier. After that I can't  Texture Paint on the mesh. There are some lines and  when I try to draw on that part the lines appear on the hall area.
The link of my Blender file  https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/oswV69WD/

Your unwrap was probably bad, you must have had faces overlapping in your UVmap, I've redone it:

Select the whole mesh in Edit mode, switch to Face Select mode, select one last face to make it active, press U (Unwrap) > Follow Active Quads:

Paint:


How to animate breaking model This is the reference gif file. How can i achieve this in Blender. The breaking of the parts and disappearing later.

Any suggestion or Help. Thanks

To do that you need to use effectors, which are not built into Blender: there are many addons online like "Blender effectors" that could do that, maybe, but if you want to be sure try Animation Nodes.
It's a bit more complicated but very customizable.
In any case, you need to fragment the object beforehand (there are addons that do this too) and animate a plain effector (the one you see in the picture) over the object, apply a rigid body simulation to all pieces a make the effector trigger it when it get close to each piece. Also create a plane on the ground with a rigid body simulation, and set it as an obstacle.

Now you have the statue breaking into pieces and falling onto the ground: At this point animate the material color of the pieces from gray to the color you want, and finally to white, and make the effector trigger it as well when it gets close. Also animate the scale so that when they fall on the ground they shrink and disappear.

I don't know what your skill level is, and I was a bit vague, so if you have troubles working with effectors watch some tutorials on you specific effectors addon, since they may operate in different ways (also, make sure they support rigid body and color simulations before downloading them)


How can i let my rigid body simulations continue for longer? My timeline will only go upto 350 frames then the simulation will end. I have tried to increase the end time for it but it will not work is there another way i can do this?

You can change the start and end frames of a rigid body simulation under the Rigid Body Cache rollout of the Scene properties tab.


Bending animation with rig? I'm trying to make an android animation, but I am stuck at the rigging part. I want his arms and legs to be able to bend like plastic / rubber and use a rig. I've heard of lattice modifier, but that doesn't include a rig / spline / IK setup. When I use a regular rig, it bends hard at the bones.

I am relatively inexperienced with blender, so I've included a picture of what I'm trying to do. I can probably explain better than I can.

It does look a little funky in the picture, but I think it would look nice in an animation :).

Thank you so much for any help!!

Edit: Added a picture to better show what I mean

I think a pretty efficient way to solve this would be to have a more distributed (softer) weight paint on the armature rig. This way, the bones will not bend so sharply.

Hope this helps!


How to scale all the edges proportionally I have a simple mesh and i have extruded the edges and want to scale little outside with the all edges proportionally. I have applied scale and rotation and remove doubles did not work. I have tried Alt+s that also not work. I change the pivot to individual origins also not work. Whats else to be try to make my mesh have a equal or proportional scale.

Alt+S command should do the job here. Don't know why it doesn't? What you can do is extrude the bottom edge loop downwards (E,Z), select the extruded face loop, press E,RMB, then Alt+S, S (to enable even thickness mode). Finally delete the unnecessary geometry.

Note: After doing this the edges lenghts are still not perfect. It's because the model you provided isn't perfect too.


Play 3 sounds with aud and wait between them I want to play 3 audio files in the Blender Game Engine.

Play File 1
Wait 3 seconds
Play File 2
Wait 4 seconds
Play File 3

If I use time.sleep the blender game window doesn't update. There is another problem: I can only play one file with device.play(file1) and aud. After that the script doesn't continue. I want to start the script when the program is started. How can I do that?

You can play multiple files with the same device, what you need are multiple factories and handles. Use a class, put the device as a global variable or as a class attribute and the handle and factory as instance attributes.

To knwo when the file ends check in a low frquency loop (Always sensor with skip > 10) if the status of the handle is false, if it is, it means that the file has ended and that you can play the next one.


Blender's "smoothing groups" solution (Edge Split) destroys topology. Is there an alternative solution? I was searching for how to create smoothing groups in Blender, and everybody seems to say I should use Edge Split. But this will actually create new edges, destroying the topology of the object! Is the situation really so that I cannot create 'smoothing groups' without modifying the actual topology of the object? It will be very difficult creating models for game engines or exporting to other 3d software without smoothing groups, and I don't want to destroy the topology to achieve it either..

Here, I start with a smoothed sphere:

I then apply edge split on a face, as is recommended as blender's method of doing smoothing groups:

This is the result. Looking good so far...:

Then I try to select an edge loop here, but it stops on the affected area!

When I try to move one of the edges, the reason becomes clear: Two edges have been created, completely destroying the object's topology:

I suggest you use the modifier Edge Split instead.
In Edit mode, select your edges desired to be sharp. Hit Ctrl+E to bring up the Edges menu. Select Mark Sharp. Now add the Edge Split modifier.

Edges are split by the modifier. In Edit mode they are marked cyan. Topology is still fine:


Sculpting brush alpha/texture resolution? Does the image resolution of a brush texture in sculpt mode determine the detail of the stroke?

I'm using a textured brush w/the anchored stroke method and the smaller the stroke, the lower the resolution. It seems unaffected by any dyntopo settings or relative distance. The source images are good sized PSD files with no artifacts. Is there some setting I'm missing?

Yes, it can. However, that isn't your issue. In order for texture resolution to be a factor, you would need the edges created by the Dyntopo system to be shorter than the pixels of your texture. That way, there is enough detail in your mesh to create 'steps' between pixels. But as I said, that isn't your issue. From some testing I just did, it appears that using the anchored stroke type doesn't generate new detail. I'm not sure if that is intentional or not, but it seems that is the reason the detail isn't changing.


Take Smooth Shading into account with Normals Bake I am working with a software suite that ignores imported normals and relies entirely on a baked normal map.  This messes up the shading of my model as I cannot use the "Smooth Shading" option to smooth vertex normals.

Is there a way to bake this smooth shading into a normal map?  Any help would be appreciated.

You can use the bake selected to active feature.

Duplicate your object.
Set one copy to smooth, and the other to sharp.
Add a UV map and image to the sharp one.
Select the smooth one first, then the sharp one (so the sharp one is active).
Enable Selected to active in the bake settings.
Set Bake Mode to Normals.
Press Bake!

You can also use this trick to add bevelled edges for low-poly models. Just add a bevel modifier to the "smooth" object.


Strange Shading Part 2 The problem from my previous question is partly fixed, it still has a strange shading to it

Now it's exactly the inverse problem from before. You used to have to prevent edges from being sharp, now you need to mark some sharp edges so they don't appear smooth.

You can do this the same way before, selection the edges supposed to be sharp, CtrlE → Mark sharp. The issue with this method is that you need to do this everywhere needed; It's quite long to do.

Fortunately, you can let the software do most of the work for you; Since the idea is to mark sharp when some faces do a certain angle, you can go to the Data tab of your object, and find the Auto Smooth option in the Normals tab :

The way it works is simple. Once enable it smoothes the whole mesh, but mark as sharp every edge forming at least the angle specified below. I use 66 usually, it's a nice value; You can adapt this to your need.

(Also, all the sharp marked edges only work with auto smooth enabled).


Show both material and texture at the same time I have an object with a certain material. I want to add an image to a group of neighboured faces so that they all represent one image (not each one has the same image, each one will display part of the image) and make this appear in the 3d view.
I tried this:

Going into edit-mode
select faces needed
Unwrap
Open UV viewer and select the image
check the Textured Solid checkbox under shading in the 3dview properties window

The image now appears on the faces, but the material is no longer appearing.
My .blend file can be found here:
This is my object with a certain material:

and this is what happens as soon as I check the Textured Solid checkbox under shading in the 3dview properties window:

But I want it to have my material (blueish in this case) and also have some faces (eye in this case) with the image.

I got the above result by:

"Applying" the image to the eye faces
Unwrapping the appropriate faces (U)
Switching to material shaded view.

Make sure there is a light source to be able to view the materials in the material shaded view.


(Rigging) Why are some of my vertex groups affecting blue areas? I'm new to rigging, and am trying to make a low-poly rabbit. I've made the armature and spent the better part of an hour fine-tuning the weight painting only to find out that posing nearly any bone in the armature deforms the head. I've gone over the head again and again in weight painting mode to be absolutely sure that none of the head's vertices could possibly be under the influence of any bone but the head bone, but it's no use. I can't really pose the rabbit at all--just making the rabbit tilt its ears back deforms the head so badly, it's unrecognizable. I tried normalizing and then inverting all of the weight paint to see if that would bring up the offending vertices, but that only messed up the paint job when I reverted it back the way it was. The ears affect each other a bit, too--it's more noticeable the further away they're placed from one another.

Attached is my file, sans normalization of weight paint (I don't think it was really necessary, and aside from the head-warping, all the bones control exactly what I want them to.) Many of the bones don't have any corresponding vertex group because they're only there to anchor other bones in place. Could that be the reason?

Blue doesn't necessarily mean zero. When a vertex is only affected by one bone, a tiny amount of weight is enough to deform it like it had a weight of 1.0.
And even if a vertex has a main deforming bone near by (even with a weight 1.0) it can be noticeable when a bone with low influence is too far away and moves differently.

You can easily see the offending groups by going into Edit Mode, choosing a group of interest (Vertex Group list in the Vertex Group panel) and clicking on the Select button of the Vertex Groups panel. This will select all vertices in this group, no matter what weight they have. You can also remove the stray vertices from the group by selecting them only and clicking on the Remove button of the panel.

You can also see the groups of a vertex in the N-Panel and remove them there (click the X button of the group you want to remove). When you choose Deform, only the deforming groups are visible.

In Weight Paint mode you can also use the Use Zero Weights option (T-Panel,Options) to show problems in your weighting. Select Active and all vertices with zero weight of the selected bone are shown in black. As you can see, selecting the leg shows weights in blue around the head. Which means the leg bone is deforming the vertices of the head.

You can also see problems with no weights at any bone using All. As you can see there are some black areas near the leg. This would mean these vertices will not move at all. Note that this also includes non-deforming groups, so seeing no black vertices can be misleading.

To clean vertex group weights (in Weight Paint mode) use the Clean tool (T-Panel,Weight Tools). Click the Clean button and the tool options will be shown as in the image below. You can select a threshold in the Limit field. All vertices below this weight will be removed from the group automatically:

Another thing useful while weight-painting is to use Wireframe Display mode (with Limit selection to visible turned on) frequently. That way the shading doesn't obscure the weight colors. It also helps to locate the vertices better so you don't have to guess where to aim with your cursor.

Usually these problems stem from using a blend mode like Mix while painting. If you want to remove weights completely, it is often better to use Subtract with full Strength and Weight.


How to repeat an emitter 'burst' I have a plane acting as a simple emitter. It emits 10 particles from frame 1 to 4. And again from frame 11-14. And again from 21-24. Then there's a pause for 40 frames, and the entire sequence repeats, including the pause.

I need to find an automated way to cycle this emitter sequence. Ideally, the sequence could be repeated indefinitely using an F-Curve Cycles modifier.

The question below addresses a similar problem, but I'm looking for a way to use automation:
How to turn particle emission on/off?

Any ideas?

Yeah in the link you provided there was a good answer.

I made a clear answer out of it: Just animate the Velocity of the particles.

You can automate the curve with F-Curve Cycles modifier (Shift+E):

If it annoys you that the 0-velocity particles keep popping up, you can model a structure around the emitter:


Bones moving wrong part of mesh? I have an armature set up, but the bones aren't moving the mesh properly

The mesh and armature:

The vertex group of the bone I am going to move:

As you can see, the circled region doesn't belong to the vertex group.
But, when I move the bone look what happens:

That part of the mesh has moved with the bone.. Why?

In this case, the specific bones affecting the vertices needs to be found. Once that process is complete the bone weight can be removed completely by removing the vertex from the bone's Vertex Group or the bone weight painting for the unneeded bones reduced to zero.

With the low poly density in this case

Select the mesh Object.
Enter Edit Mode.
Select ONE vertex. (One in the Thigh to Calf area for the above image.)
Open the Properties Menu. (N key by default.)
Locate the Vertex Groups Pane on the Properties Menu. It can be noted by the listing of any Vertex Groups you have defined and the Normalize and Copy buttons.

All Vertex Groups influencing the selected vertex are listed in this pane and by how much in a 0.0-1.0 scale. It is highly likely that a child bone (Most likely a fingertip in your example rig; as alluded to by Leon Cheung.) is weighted to the vertex. Any weight, even a minute 0.000001 can influence the mesh if no other bones are acting on a vertex.

This process may have to be repeated for multiple vertices. A slightly quicker way to remove vertices from unwanted Vertex Groups can be used if there is a pattern. Once the offending bone is found: select a group of vertices to be removed, open the Properties Window (found between Logic Editor and Outliner) / Object Data Panel (found between Object Modifiers and Material) / Vertex Groups Pane, select the "bad bone", click Remove.

The most likely suspects in your example rig would be Finger_Middle_3.L, Finger_Index_3.L or Finger_Thumb_3.L. All are lower than the other bones and close to the model's robe.


How to make a slice in the Particles System? I am a student looking at microstructures. Therefore I am using the Particle System to create a lot of droplets.
To mimic a microscopic image I want to make a slice of the system.
I can do this by using the shortcut Alt+B. (see image)
But by using this shortcut, rendering isn't possible.
Does anyone know how to make a slice of a Particle System?  The Boolean Modifier, Knife tool or Bisect don't work for the Particle System...

Thanks!
Jantine

By using nodes, I get black artefacts:

Suggestions for a solution? I guess these black shapes are remaining of part of the balls that overlay each other, which is also something to solve...

Thanks!

Is it possible to fill these spheres? So that the inside is solid green?

Thanks!

You can slice them at render time (i.e. the full geometry will still be there, but only the relevant slices will be rendered) by using Material nodes:

Say you want to render only the portion 0.5 < Z < 0.9. Then, as your sphere's material, use a Mix shader:

The Mix Shader should be used to mix your material (whatever that is, e.g. a green Diffuse) and a fully white "Transparent BDSF".

The mixing "Factor" is either 0 or 1, controlled by a set of "Math" nodes that check whether the "Z" coordinate is in the desired range.

Result:

Note (after your edit): if there are many particles, the "Transmission" value under "Bounces" in the "Light Path" Render settings should be at least twice the number of particles that can be found along a lightpath from your point of view. ← If this doesn't make much sense to you, just increase that value until it looks right.


odd vertex behavior when translating or editing I have a woman 3d model that I've been working on for a while. After I've fully  meshed, skinned, morphed, tweaked and textured for third time, I'm getting this maddening glitch:

The hand has 4 vertices that jump to that same location. Notice that its just the hand model and I've removed all modifiers, weights, vertex groups and shape keys.
I'm trying to figure out how to fix this. It would be very disappointing to have to rework the mesh yet again

Turn off X mirror under options and all is well.

...or turn off Topology mirror if you need the X Mirror.


Possible or impossible to import 3D-models with correct UV-mapping and texture into Blender? After a lot of searching and testing it seems like it's impossible to import an 3D-object with it's UV-mapping and texture from another 3D-software into Blender. Is this really true or is there a way to fix this?

I have a potential customer that is not working with Blender. I guess they are using 3ds Max and a cooperation is only possible if I can use there 3D-models and textures in Blender.

I have tested to import .3ds and .obj files into Blender, but there are no textures visible and the scale is not correct or the 3D-models is broken or just a big mess.

I need to clarify if it is impossible to use 3D-models with correct UV-mapping and textures into Blender? If it's impossible, I must unfortunately consider using 3ds Max again instead of Blender and that's something I want to avoid!

It is most definitely possible. If the models are modeled well and exported correctly to one of the huge number of formats that Blender supports you should have no problems. .obj, .fbx and .3ds as well as .dea files are among the most popular formats used. They all support geometry and UV Maps well.

The problem with materials is that they differ too much in different software using different render engines (see this answer for more detailed explanation: .fbx export why there are no materials or textures?) so you will need to recreate them and assign the image textures during this process. This is true for any software, not just exporting from 3ds Max to Blender. You would have similar problems exporting from 3ds Max to Maya or Cinema 4D or Houdini or any other software that you would use a different rendering engine in.

Regarding the models being a big mess, from my experience I can say that this very common situation very often has nothing to do with the software you are trying to import the models to. They could just be exported with settings not suitable for your purposes, but it is also very common for models that originate in solid modelling or other CAD software to have a very untidy and messy geometry making it a nightmare to work with them. This issue cannot be solved by switching to 3ds Max or any other 3d package unfortunately. My recommendation would be to check carefully if this is not the case before investing your money, effort and time into switching to another 3d package.


make an object the exact copy of another I have these two object:

the selected ico sphere is called flame.001, the "distorted" ico sphere is called flame.002 . I want flame.001 to be the exact copy of flame.002 in terms of shape. I don't want to change material, texture or any other stuff than shape. How can I achieve this? It would be great if there is a modifier that can make the ico sphere approximate the other object based on a given value e.g. with value 0 I have an ico sphere, with value 1 I have the exact copy of the shape on the right, with 0.5 I have something in between.

If the two objects have the same number of vertices then you can use the Data Transfer modifier shown below:


How to obtain a precise stroke in dynamic topology? I have seen in this video a workflow that i find very interesting, however I'm having problem getting the dynamic topology part right, starting at 4:25 you can see the author of the video sculpting with very narrow and precise lines, such as those which can be seen in this screen:

However, after copying his brush and detail size (and using basically a sphere with a level 1 subsurf modifier applied as he does) the lines i get are VERY ugly:

Also the polished area on the right doesn't look nearly as smooth.

After messing up with the settings for quite a while I can't find out how to obtain such a nice looking result, I think I am missing something very obvious, being a complete beginner to blender.

So, how can i obtain such precise details when sculpting with dynotopo turned on?

There are two settings that effect what you are trying to do.

The detail type method in dyntopo effects the way the detail size is calculated. Relative detail uses the onscreen pixel size as set in detail size when creating new edges and will give more detail the closer you zoom into your model. Changing to constant detail will use the same edge size as you zoom in and out. With constant detail the detail size is defined as "a percentage of blender units in object space", which means the objects scale property also plays a part in the size of the new edges.

The other option that will effect this is the brush radius. At the end of the radius slider there is a little padlock, enabling this will provide the same brush size relative to the model as you zoom in and out. The size is determined when you enable the padlock.


Different colours with no texture I'm using cycles render and I was making a wine glass but I finished the basic shape and there is something weird about it. I see a brighter colour where there is no vertex and I didn't add any textures. (I'm a beginner at Bleder)

The reason for this shading is due to your lighting. The sun lamp you have is casting light rays straight down. If you look closely, the light areas are the areas that receive light, and the dark areas are shadowed.

If you want more even light, try a hemi lamp (I find these to be great for quick, even lighting) or rotate your sun lamp a bit and add a floor plane so the light can reflect and bounce around some more, which will also give some better lighting.


Invalid drivers aren't shown and can't be deleted I have following problem.
With the minecraft rig works everything fine (thomas rig) but when I open the console there are displayed invalid drivers of already deleted objects.
How can I delete them? Even if select everything in the outliner and then go to the driver editor these aren't displayed. Therefore I can't delete them.
So how can I delete them?
I am really struggling with that.

Remove, since removed shape-key drivers.
From pic in question appears they are shape key drivers, which remain if a keyblock is removed, renamed (To reproduce, add a shapekey "Key 1", give it a driver, delete the shapekey. Then add a new key, and since its name is "Key 1" bingo it has a driver... )
Code to remove invalid path shape key drivers.
import bpy

for sk in bpy.data.shape_keys:
    if not sk.animation_data:
        continue
    bung_drivers = []
    # find bung drivers
    for d in sk.animation_data.drivers:
        try:
            sk.path_resolve(d.data_path)
        except ValueError:
            bung_drivers.append(d)
    # remove bung drivers
    while bung_drivers:
        sk.animation_data.drivers.remove(
                bung_drivers.pop()
                )

Generic, for all ID types
Loop over all ID types in the data of the blend and remove any driver whose path does not resolve.
import bpy
from bpy import data
from bpy.types import bpy_prop_collection

colls = [
    p for p in dir(data)
    if isinstance(getattr(data, p), bpy_prop_collection)
    ]

for p in colls:
    for ob in getattr(data, p, []):
        ad = getattr(ob, "animation_data", None)
        if not ad:
            continue
        bung_drivers = []
        # find bung drivers
        for d in ad.drivers:
            try:
                ob.path_resolve(d.data_path)
            except ValueError:
                bung_drivers.append(d)
        # remove bung drivers
        while bung_drivers:
            ad.drivers.remove(
                    bung_drivers.pop()
                    )


Is there any technique to give a metaball effect to the particles emitting from a UV Sphere? I have a UV Sphere emitter which emits sphere particles. As in the figure the emission is not organic. Is there any way to make it more organic like the particle is stretched out from the sphere like metaballs separate?

You can't really emit particles directly from Meta Objects themselves, so you'll just have to fake it.
Just add a large Metaball overlapping your real UV sphere covering the actual emitter.
Adjust its size so it covers it entirely, or alternatively make the real UV Sphere emitter non-renderable.

Make sure it is named with a similar prefix to the particle Metaball (MBall## by default), so they actually interact with each other.

Off Topic - This is beyond the scope of the original question, but by user request for anyone interested, first demo image uses these settings below, relevant properties circled in screenshots.
Simple particle system with Newtonian Physics, pointing to a small Metaball object.
Under Velocity turn off Normal and increase Object Z slightly. In the Field Weights disable gravity so they "float up", then add a texture to it.

Make the texture is Blend type, and turn off all influences except Size. Switch Mapping to Strand/Particle so it maps out "through time" rather than any spacial coordinate. Under the Color panel enable the Color Ramp and flip the default result so they shrink with age rather than grow.


How to get client script to run before rendering on Network Render Using Blender's Network Render addon, I am trying to render on a client's GPU using this script:

import bpy

FlagCUDA = False

#Select CUDA
try:
    bpy.context.user_preferences.system.compute_device_type = 'CUDA'
    FlagCUDA = True
except:
    print("No CUDA-Device")
    FlagCUDA = False

if FlagCUDA:
    try:
        bpy.context.user_preferences.system.compute_device = 'CUDA_MULTI_2'
    except:
        bpy.context.user_preferences.system.compute_device = 'CUDA_0'
#Check which GPUs are there
print("Rendering on: " + bpy.context.user_preferences.system.compute_device)

However, when I try to render it, the script doesn't seem to be run until after the slave has already rendered the file! For example, here's the slave's console output:

Created directory: /tmp/slave_1942577ae3d0b404da672d202b2a9a58
Created directory: /tmp/slave_1942577ae3d0b404da672d202b2a9a58/job_7
Fullpath /home/tylere/untitled.blend
File: untitled.blend and 0 other files
frame 1
Color management: using fallback mode for management
Read new prefs: /home/tylere/.config/blender/2.69/config/userpref.blend
read blend: /home/tylere/untitled.blend
Fra:1 Mem:7.10M (9.89M, Peak 16.99M) | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene, RenderLayer | Synchronizing object | Cube
...
RenderLayer | Updating Images
Fra:1 Mem:7.11M (9.89M, Peak 17.00M) | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene, RenderLayer | Updating Camera
Fra:1 Mem:7.11M (9.89M, Peak 17.00M) | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene, RenderLayer | Updating Objects
Fra:1 Mem:7.11M (9.89M, Peak 17.00M) | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene, RenderLayer | Updating Objects | Copying Transformations to device
Fra:1 Mem:7.11M (9.89M, Peak 17.00M) | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene,
...
RenderLayer | Path Tracing Tile 134/135
Fra:1 Mem:7.11M (9.89M, Peak 17.07M) | Mem:0.51M, Peak:0.59M | Scene, RenderLayer | Path Tracing Tile 135/135
Fra:1 Mem:7.11M (9.89M, Peak 17.07M) | Mem:0.02M, Peak:0.59M | Scene, RenderLayer | Finished
Fra:1 Mem:7.08M (9.89M, Peak 17.07M) Sce: Scene Ve:0 Fa:0 La:0
Saved: /tmp/slave_1942577ae3d0b404da672d202b2a9a58/job_7/000001.exr Time: 00:01.44 (Saving: 00:00.09)

No CUDA-Device
Rendering on: CPU

Blender quit
status 0

(The client I am currently testing scripts on has no GPU, hence the "No CUDA-Device")

How do I get the script to run BEFORE the rendering occurs on the slave?

I expect it is the way the addon runs. The python script is in control as it reads the file and starts rendering, only after it has finished does blender sit idle and go back to running registered text blocks from the open file step.

First I would suggest you setup the slaves to always start with gpu rendering enabled.

Failing that, you could adjust the netrender addon on each slave. You will find in netrender/operator.py that rendering starts either on line 80 or 97 you could specifically run your script before the render step or add your gpu enable code to the addon.

text = bpy.data.texts['myStartscript.py']
if text is not None:
    exec(compile(text.as_string(), 'errors.log', 'exec'))
 bpy.ops.render.render('INVOKE_AREA', animation=True)


Blender 2.8 - How to bake an ambient occlusion map to a second UV texture on a multi material mesh? I'm trying to bake an ambient occlusion map onto a second set of UVs onto an object with multiple materials on it (per face) for exporting to a game engine.

I have an object with multiple materials on it. I have materials assigned to each face:

This object also has two uv maps, one for the main textures, and one intended for the AO map lightmap pack unwrap.

I don't actually know if I need a separate material for the AO map, but this is the setup of the AO map material:

In the uv editor, I select the AO UV map, and the AO_Image image I've created, then I click bake:

But then I get multiple messages:

No active image found in material slot (0) for object "Level"
No active image found in material "Material" (1) for object "Level"
No active image found in material "Blue" (2) for object "Level"
Circular dependency for image "brick-pattern-1.png" from object "Level"
Circular dependency for image "grass-tiling.jpg" from object "Level"
No active image found in material "Grass" (5) for object "Level"
Circular dependency for image "AO__Map" from object "Level"
Baking map saved to internal image, save it externally or pack it

And then any materials with image get the lightmap bake, which itself seems garbled for some reason:

Again, the intention is to bake a separate AO map onto a second uv map of a multi-texture object for exporting to a game engine. I'm not sure if this is the correct method. But I'm doing something wrong, because Blender falls over when trying to perform this task and I'm unclear why.

Add a new Image Texture node (with a new image for bake) inside each material and keep it selected (active).

To bake into a new UVMap, create one under Data Properties > UV Maps and enable Camera icon.

Then in Render Properties > Bake, change Combine pass to Ambient Oclusion. After image texture is baked you can use it as usual.


Thickness of objects with transparent, translucent, etc. shaders Do objects with these shaders need volume in order to work?  In other words, can I use an object with no thickness; e.g., 4 points on a plane?

I want to put a translucent object in front of an emission object to make it look more realistic as glowing object and was wondering if the translucent object needs thickness.

I'm guessing that it doesn't need thickness, and that if I gave it some thickness then I could use the volume shader to tweak its appearance.

Thanks

Transparent and translucent surface shaders can have no thickness.

Here's a simple plane with no thickness and a translucent shader in front of the only lightsource as an example:

I'm assuming you're solely talking about cycles.


I can't scale my key frames correctly I am trying to animate a character. I am following a tutorial by David Andrade as I'm new to Blender

Currently there are 10 key frames, 1 key frame per frame. I wanted to change the timing of the animation so I moved my play head to frame 1, selected all key frames by clicking A , then clicked S, then moved my mouse so I can scale my key frames to around 250 frames.

The problem is that when I am scaling, other new key frames seem to appear in between and the timing is not how I want it. I'm using blender 2.79.

I think I've fixed the issue by trial and error. I first selected all the controls (I think that's what they are called) on the character by clicking on an empty area, then clicking a twice.That made them all highlighted with their colors. Then I went to the dope sheet and did what I did previously to the key frames and . . . Voila :) I know that was a crappy explanation but hey it worked!!!

Thanks!


execution time for a program in python blender I have a little problem :) I need to do a program in python , blender , in wich i must built a structure of many cubes. i am a absolutely beginner , and i have no experience in python. I realize a functional program in python and i succeded to built the structure , but i don't know how to make a mini-movie in which i would see how really my structure construct itself. this is the program i have made :

import bpy

for i in range(6):
    for x in range(-i,i+1):
        for y in range(-i,i+1):
            for z in range(-i,i+1):
                if(x<0):
                    xx=-x
                else:
                    xx=x

                if(y<0):
                    yy=-y
                else:
                    yy=y

                if(z<0):
                    zz=-z
                else:
                    zz=z

                if(xx+yy+zz==i):
                    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(radius=0.5,location=(x,y,z))

That is all.. I have been looking for a tutorial for more than a mouth , and i can't see one who would be useful for my program . Help meeee!!!

import bpy
from itertools import product

mesh = bpy.data.meshes['Cube']
objects_scene = bpy.context.scene.objects
objects_data  = bpy.data.objects
actions_data  = bpy.data.actions

def create_cube(name, location):
    obj = objects_data.new(name, mesh)
    objects_scene.link(obj)
    obj.location = location
    return obj

def create_animation(obj, time):
    obj.animation_data_create()
    obj.animation_data.action = action = actions_data.new("Action")
    fcurves = [action.fcurves.new(data_path) for data_path in ("hide", "hide_render")]
    for fcu in fcurves:
        fcu.keyframe_points.insert(   0, 1, {'FAST'}).interpolation = "CONSTANT"
        fcu.keyframe_points.insert(time, 0, {'FAST'}).interpolation = "CONSTANT"
        fcu.extrapolation = "CONSTANT"

n = 6
time = 1
for i in range(n):
    for indices in product(range(-i, i+1), repeat=3):
        if sum(abs(j) for j in indices) == i:
            cube = create_cube("Cube", indices)
            create_animation(cube, time)
            time += 1

The result rendered using the OpenGL Viewport Renderer:

Note

I scaled down the default cube manually and deleted it afterwards before i ran the script.


How can I make parts of my mesh slightly transparent in sculpt/edit mode? Im sculpting a character model, and there are bits of it that get in the way.
I could hide them completely, but then its easy to lose track of proportions and move things where they shouldn't be.
Is there any way to make an object or part of a mesh transparent while editing it?

I ended finding out the answer on my own.
I can add a material to the section I want to make transparent and in the material options, under Viewport Display, you can select a color with an Alpha value, so you can keep working in solid mode


Why Camera show my object like broken I don't know exactly what happens, if it was me writing a hotkey without realizing it, I changed something in the configuration, or simply a Blender error. But when I assign the camera to see my object it appears broken.

But when I turn to viewport view the object is ok.

I'm new to Blender and as much as I've tried I can't figure out what's going on

It looks like you've managed to set your camera to a non-camera object (which can happen via View -> Cameras -> Set Active Object as Camera, or via the hotkey CtrlNumPad 0) and then deleted the object.  So, the camera is stuck in a really weird position and is clipping faces incorrectly.  On top of that, you've turned on a local camera, also pointing to the same missing camera object.
To recover, open the sidebar with View -> Sidebar (or the N key).  Select the "View" tab in the sidebar, and uncheck the "Local Camera" checkbox.
Now, switch to Object Mode, and in the outlier, select the "Camera" object.  (If you don't switch to object mode first, it won't work.  You need the camera to be the only thing selected in orange, not red, in the outliner, with the "Camera" object displayed in the properties panel below the outliner.)
With the Camera object selected, use View -> Cameras -> Set Active Object as Camera.  This will move to a new camera location where the apple no longer appears.  Now, select the "Item" tab in the sidebar and enter the following numbers into the Transform panel:
Location:
X:   1.25
Y:   -3.7
Z:   2.1

Rotation:
X: 90
Y: 0
Z: 0

That should move the camera to where you can see your apple again, though it'll be a little small.  Because you've got the camera set to orthographic mode, you won't be able to zoom using the middle mouse scroll wheel.  Instead, in the properties panel in the bottom right, select the camera-shaped icon ("Object Data Properties") and under "Lens", change the Orthographic Scale to 3.
Now it should look more or less like it did before, but the weird distortion should be gone.


Scripting: low level join meshes / elements (hopefully with bmesh)? Currently I only know of one way to join meshes - using the join operator:

bpy.ops.object.join()

This has an annoying overhead of additional operations required to select the objects you want to join, etc.

But what if I only want to join elements from two different meshes?
This will be even more cumbersome with traditional methods: select the object, go to edit mode, select the relevant elements, duplicate them, separate them to a new mesh, join the new mesh with the other mesh...

It would be much nicer if I could just create two bmesh objects, then directly copy elements from one to the other. Something like this currently illegal code:

for v in bm1.verts:
    bm2.verts.add( v )

# or:
bm2.edges.add( bm1.edges[5] )

At the moment this requires adding the vertices first via their coordinates, then adding faces or edges by referencing the relevant new verts.

# Example for adding all the edges from another bmesh object
current_last_vert_index = len( bm2.verts ) - 1
for v in bm1.verts:
    bm2.verts.new( v.co )

for e in bm1.edges:
    verts = [ bm2.verts[ current_last_vert_index + v.index ] for v in e.verts ]
    bm2.edges.new( verts )

So, any better way to do this?

The best solution I found so far is using the bmesh.from_mesh( mesh ) method.
Apparently, if you call this method more than once, it will add the 2nd mesh to the first, thus effectively joining them:

import bpy, bmesh

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh( mesh1 ) # Add first mesh
bm.from_mesh( mesh2 ) # Add 2nd mesh

However, this does not really help with adding individual components from another mesh or bmesh in a direct manner.


About merging vertex edges of different materials namely plane and cylinder I wonder if anyone could help me with one issue I have run into while using Blender and modelling my character.
Actually Blender is not merging vertices of hand of my character with wrist properly under subdivision modifier applied at 2 subdivisions in the viewport. when I merge them vertex at merging points distorts and when I merge vertex of plane everything goes fine but when I try to model the hand with a cylinder and merge the hand with the character (a plane), vertices at the merging points distort. I don't know because of what kind of tension or something. editing.
I would be grateful if you could tell me how to solve this problem.

Select all and press Shift N (recalculate Normals, outside).


Getting the actual (not default) value of a node socket that is linked to another socket I know how to get the default_value from a node socket as described in this answer.  But the answer there doesn't answer the question, namely: how to get the actual computed value of a socket.

How can I get the actual value using python?

For example, how would I determine the final Roughness value in this node structure assuming the value is constant for the material?

(I'm thinking this is not possible in general since it wouldn't work for values that change over the model, e.g., trying to obtain the Pointiness value from a Geometry node, which isn't a constant.)

Basically this cannot be done easily. The reason is:

The shader node tree is compiled by cycles in SVM or OCL. And here the actual calculation takes place.
Also every sample in Cycles can potentially have a different Roughness (for example when connected to a TextureImage along the way). So which sample do you want the result from.

If you have a special case you can mimic the needed nodes in python and evaluate for your needs.


Is knowing the Blender internal renderer settings for materials and textures important for using the Cycles renderer? I have been learning Blender for the past several months, and I just discovered the Blender 3D: Noob to Pro wikibook. Although I'm not a complete novice, I have started from the beginning of the book to fill in the holes in my knowledge (since I have used various tutorials until now). If I plan on just using cycles render from now on, would I be wasting my time to go through the "Section 2C: Materials and Textures" part? I have a basic understanding of materials and textures, but as I said, there are several holes in my knowledge there. Is knowing the Blender internal renderer settings for materials and textures important for using the Cycles renderer?

Short answer: nope.

Cycles and BI work very differently, consequently materials are completely different for the two, both in the way they are defined and calculated.  I think learning BI first often does more damage than good when switching to Cycles.

I should note that some people do say new users should start with BI since it is (arguably) simpler than Cycles.  I heartily disagree with this view though.  Cycles may be a little more complex to some people due to it's much greater flexibility, but I don't see any reason why starting with BI would help one learn Cycles.

I think the idea that BI is "simpler" is a misnomer though, it's just different.  Personally, I find Cycles's nodes to be a much more intuitive way of defining materials than BI's wall of settings for everything under the sun.  Which one really is simpler is a matter of opinion, so neither one comparatively blows the other out of the water and should.


Final rendering add reflection on materials When final rendering add reflection on materials. But I don't know how to delete. I'd like to delete reflection on materials.

You most likely have lights in the scene that are hidden in the viewport. Go to the outliner, enable the render visibillity buttons by opening the filter menu in the top right and check if any of the disabled lights are enabled in the render.


I want to make a flatened cube take the shape of a face I am hoping to get some assistance in something I need for a project.

I am needing the cube here in the photos to actually take a fairly accurate impression of that face into the cube.

for my images attached,
I have created a cube that has been subdivided a bunch of times in EDIT MODE

I have simply moved the most center vertices with proportional editing enabled to make my 2nd image, but getting accurate face impression manually would take too much time and would like to know if there is a modifier that can be used then finally applied to make it stay like it?

Many Thanks

In front ortho view bake a displacement map of the face and apply it later to the subdivided plane. Later extrude the edges of the plane and make a face to close it.


Is There A Way To Join Meshes and Get Rid Of Excess Mesh? When I made a model of a robot person, I made each part as different mesh: the arms, chest, legs, neck, head, ect. When I finished the model of the robot person, I joined all the parts together with Ctrl + J.

This poses a problem: By simply joining the meshes, I've left so many useless vertices inside the mesh. This also effects the bones I've added. When I try to move the head, the neck does not move correctly and the top of the neck moves away.

My question is: Is there a way to join meshes, then get rid of the extra verticies and have the rest of the parts merge nicely so that is is one nice and solid mesh?

Sorry if that wasn't worded the best. Any help is appreciated.

If the excess vertices are unconnected:

In edit mode, hover your cursor over each part of the robot and press L. This will select all vertices linked to the mesh you want to save. Then Ctrl + I to inverse the selection and only select the loose mesh; press X + Enter to then delete.

If the excess vertices are connected:

In edit mode, press A to select all. Then press P and choose "separate by loose parts". The pieces will detach as you had them before as joined meshes do not necessarily join vertices (this needs to be done manually). You can then delete excess mesh before joining again. Isolating each piece by selecting it and entering local view (/) will make it easier.

If you've only just made the mistake of joining the meshes and "undo" isn't helping, look for the .blend2 file. By default, Blender saves a back-up of the last time each file was saved (for these very circumstances). You can also access the .blend2 in Info> Revert (it'll be as if you saved the file before making the mistake).


How do I reset a specific bone's "Stretch To" Rest Length, via code? I'm trying to automate some processes. How do I "Reset" a "Stretch To" constraint in Blender, using python scripting. I copied the code that appeared in the "Info" window after executing the action manually. but when I used

bpy.ops.constraint.stretchto_reset(constraint="Stretch To", owner='BONE')

it does not work. Is there specific code references I need to import?
(I.E.:
    import bpy,
    import mathutls
, etc.)
Or is there some qualifiers I need to add? Maybe about the specific bone? If so Where?

Signed, Greenhorn

When running from the properties constraints panel context.constraint is defined.  To run in script elsewhere we need to override context ie add constraint to the context dictionary and pass it to the operator.

c = context.copy()  # copy the context returns dic.
# add constraint to the context dictionary
c["constraint"] = context.active_pose_bone.constraints['Stretch To']
# override context by passing dic as first argument
bpy.ops.constraint.stretchto_reset(c, constraint="Stretch To", owner='BONE')

Note: the code above is using the selected and active pose bone. There are numerous otherways to select and send a particular pose bone to the operator.


Knife Project (projected text) is not transforming with the mesh I have made a simple butterfly animation and projected the text “B”on one of the wings.
However when the wings flap, half of the text mesh gets left behind. (see my attached file, dropbox link).

What have I forgotten to do, or does knife project not work in animations?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k7tkborcmd9v82n/butterflyText.blend?dl=0

It's just a vertex weight problem, I think, perhaps because 'Automatic Weights' doesn't cut it, here.

If the vertices illustrated above are assigned with weight 1 to the groups tri_R, main, and tri_L respectively, everything seems to work.

Maybe select vertices in  Edit Mode in a wireframe view, to ensure you get them all, and assign to groups with weight 1 in the Data > Vertex Groups panel, rather than painting, in this case.


Objects keep disappearing over long distances If I make an object like a cloud and put it far away, it disappears in the render. Is there any tricks to fix this?

In the properties panel (toggled by pressing "N") and under "View", increase the end clipping until it appears again.


How do you crop a video in the current Blender Video Editor? How do you correctly crop a video in blender and remove all resulting blank space that appears along the side of the video?

I have already applied the "Crop" and "Offset" options in the video transform settings, but that results in the blank space shown in the attached image. I found a tutorial that shows you can modify the render dimensions to remove the space (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2MVqRYUatI), but the interface is outdated and if you update the dimensions in the "Output" panel, all it does is scale the video resolution down (not actually changing the dimensions).
Does anyone know how to crop a video and remove blank bar on the side?

If you want to change the resolution of the project to fit your image, select the image strip, and select this:


Why are there no tutorials of flames in blender render? I'd like to do a flame animation that doesn't need to be any sort of high quality, that's why I wanted to use blender render. But is it just so bad or why are there no tutorials?

Blender Internal is well documented in the Blender Manual including smoke and fire domains. You will find what the settings do and how to set it up to make it work. It doesn't teach you how to put the pieces together to make a good looking fire simulation though.

For that you can try Miika Hamalainen's blog, he is the fire module owner and also wrote the code. This was part of Google Summer of Code 2012, when Blender was at version 2.65.

On the blog site there are some fire examples from times when Cycles didn't even had support for volumetrics. You will find what force-fields and noise textures to set, what values to animate for nice looking fires etc. At that time it was thee resource for fire from even which other tutorial makers got knowledge.

After these years, search engines bury old results and promote the ones people mostly want, which nowadays is for Cycles. So you need to dig deep or search with more specific criteria, like "blender fire 2.6" which yields this video for example and some others.

There is also the old BlenderGuru's flamethrower tutorial.

The user-base back then was way smaller, so that's why there are less tutorials. They got buried by search engines and by many more tutorials for Cycles.


I can't find the "Surface" option I need some help finding a function within blender 2.74 which is "Surface", since in a tutorial I'm using the advanced cartoon eye rig, unitedfilmdom clicks on the world option within the right hand menu and then changes some aspects to it.

Here is the tutorial in question: https://cgcookie.com/blender/lessons/4-materials2

Is this simply not an option for me because I'm using amd and not nvidia or is it something else?

Its supposed to be in here:

You are using default Blender Render engine instead of Cycles Render engine.

To get the Surface option in the World tab you need to switch from Blender Render to Cycles Render on the top of the Blender screen.


How to do weight paint on one side, even with mirror modifier I would like to rig a mesh (for example Susanne, the monkey) manually, using 3 bones, and this object uses a mirror modifier and a subsurf modifier. The left bone has 0 vertices assigned yet and the right bone has a few vertices assigned. Because of the mirror modifier, when I weight paint the right side, the left side will also be painted, which means that both sides are controlled by the right bone. How can I solve that only the right side is weight painted with mirror modifier, without applying the mirror modifier?

But when I first select the monkey, then the armature, press CtrlP, automatic weights, then only one side is weight painted, even with mirror modifier

How can I solve that only the right side is weight painted with mirror modifier, without applying the mirror modifier? I know this is a duplicated question of Unmirror Weight Paint, but I don't want to apply the mirror modifier, because I may want to edit the mesh later and the mirror modifier is then convenient. Thanks :)

The vertex weights checkbox on the mirror modifier will make it mirror weights to 'mirror' groups if they exist. E.g. weights in Group.L will be mirrored to Group.R if Group.R exists, otherwise those mirrored weights will be assigned to Group.L

It always surprises me how few people seem aware of this behaviour.


Why is my asset appearing as non-transparent? I just downloaded a 3d plant asset in FBX format from Megascans and this is the way my model appears.

The wheat seems to not be flat, and non-transparent. How do I make it transparent around the grains, and not as rectangular?

Looking at the material, nothing is connected to the alpha input of the shader. Connect this, and then make sure in the material settings that alpha mode is set to “hashed” and not “opaque”.


Can multiple animations be saved in a .blend file? With the current version, I created a simple mesh with bones, and by using the Dope Sheet I created two actions. I made animations for each action. Then I exported to FBX to check in Unity3d. So I saw that Blender is good enough for my needs. Then I saved this stuff into a .blend file.

Some time later I loaded this file and saw there was only one animation. I re-created another and saved, exited Blender, and re-loaded the file. The only animation was loaded with what I exited the program.

My question is: what is the proper way to create multiple animations with Blender, such that they can be re-loaded. I would like to have a separate timeline for each animation.

(Script is good too, because I want this for an importer; wanted to test it before coding.)

I think your issue is that Blender is not saving the animation datablocks because there aren't any objects using them. You can protect the datablocks by adding a fake user like so:

Go to the NLA editor

Select the Action

Open your properties panel (N)

In the top panel (Animation Data) select the action you want to protect from the dropdown.

Click the F next to the name to give the action a fake user:

Alternatively this can be done in the header of the Dope Sheet editor while in Action Editor mode.


Can Blend4Web Web Player be implemented with no UI? I would like to put our 3d models on our website, so people can spin, pan and zoom the products to see from all angles.

But I do not want any UI elements.  Only want to see the object.

Is it possible in Blend4Web's Web Player?

This one is very nice, is it made with Blend4Web Web Player?

http://www.meisterschmuck.ch/shop/en/engagement-rings/engagement-rings-whitegold-111.2162.114-10.html

Thanks

You can create custom, non-UI applications with Blend4Web. It is convenient to use the project manager for this:
https://www.blend4web.com/doc/en/project_manager.html#creating-a-web-player-application


simple python script giving unexpected results I have 250 curves in my scene and I need to apply the same extrude and bevel geometry to all the them.
I am running this script
import bpy
for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    if obj.type == 'CURVE':
        obj.data.extrude = 0.005
        obj.data.bevel_depth = -0.002
        obj.data.bevel_resolution = 4

but when I run it it results in a bevel of "0.197" and a depth of "-0.787"
the bevel resolution works correctly.
Can anyone explain why this might be happening? Thanks!

I am working in inches for this project and had to convert the numbers to meters. I had to use the following to get the desired amounts
import bpy
for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    if obj.type == 'CURVE':
        obj.data.extrude = 0.000127
        obj.data.bevel_depth = -0.0000508
        obj.data.bevel_resolution = 4


Mesh deforms on final render The object size changes when rendering. The whole object shrinks vertically. I haven't used  Subsurf Modifier. But I did realize that in Render Preview the object size is normal. As soon as I render the image, it is shrinked.

Blender File: .blend

I hope you can help me with this.

In your render settings you have your aspect ratio set to something other than 1 and 1 for the X and Y values. This will scale the image while rendering and give you the result you are seeing.


how to Voronoi-fracture with Chebychev, Manhattan, or Minkowski? My question relates to Blenders Voronoi or cell fracture feature.
How to fracture with a different algorithm?
I would like to get polygons fractured with the Chebychev, Manhattan, or Minkowski algorithm.
Procedural shading may work for some shading, however I wish to do it polygonal.
In the screenshot there is the procedural shading node for it to get some idea what I refer to.

It is not possible natively. And there isn't an easy way ...
You can try create black&white image. I wanted suggest to use newly implemented Trace to GreasePencil, but it didn't work without issues for this kind of image.

So probably would be better to use other app to vectorise (trace) image as Line Art and import as SVG back to Blender, Convert to Mesh, Delete by Limited Dissolve - angle 35°in this case (or dicrease curve resolution to 1 before convert to mesh), Merge by Distance.

Add Plane, select both objects, switch to edit mode and use Knife Project to split plane into parts.

There was a script FractureMe2d with this feature - split plane by image. It was a part of FractureMe file from pildanovak for Blender2.49 that worked at glance. Abandoned.


Add uv_layer to mesh, add uv-coords, with python I am trying to create a mesh via a Python script and set a texture for it.

My code so far:

def add_mesh(self, coords, uvs, faces, texture, texHeight, texWidth):
  me = bpy.data.meshes.new("myMesh")
  ob = bpy.data.objects.new("myObject", me)

  me.from_pydata(parsedCoords, [], parsedFaces)
  me.update(calc_edges=True)

  mat = self._make_material("myMaterial", (1,1,1), (1,1,1), 1)
  tex = self._make_texture("myTexture", texture, texWidth, texHeight)
  mTex = mat.texture_slots.add()
  mTex.texture_coods = 'UV'
  mTex.use_map_color_diffuse = True
  mTex.diffuse_color_factor = 1.0
  mTex.blend_type = 'MULTIPLY'

  # Missing: Set the uv-coords for the mesh

  me.materials.append(mat)

I use _make_material and _make_texture which are self-defined. But I think they work.

For the missing part I found using the API-documentation following

uv_layer = me.uv_layers.active.data
for poly in me.polygons:
    for loop_ind in range(poly.loop_start, poly.loop_start+ poly.loop_total):
        vInd = me.loops[loop_index].vertex_index
        uv_layer[loop_index].uv = tuple( uvs[vertex_index] )

The passed uvs is a list uv-coordinates as lists. They are in the same order as the vertices.

My problem now is that the uv_layer = me.uv_layers.active.data does not work. It results in AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'data'

I think my mesh has no uv_layer. How do I add one?
Is my code correct if I add a uv_layer to the mesh? I am really unsure about it.

Thank you for your help!

Greetings,
Dragonseel

As Dragonseel mentioned: the bmesh is important.  http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/barber-pole.html contains a spiralUVs function which assigns UV coordinates to the faces of a cylinder.  It demonstrates the mesh.uv_textures.new(name) function for creating a new UV layer.

Here is the function from that page:

def spiralUVs(mesh, xPlus):
    # add a UV layer called "spiral" and make it slanted.
    mesh.uv_textures.new("spiral")
    bm = bmesh.new()
    bm.from_mesh(mesh)

    uv_layer = bm.loops.layers.uv[0]

    nFaces = len(bm.faces)
    for fi in range(nFaces):
        x0 = fi*2/nFaces
        x1 = (fi+1)*2/nFaces
        bm.faces[fi].loops[0][uv_layer].uv = (x0, 0)
        bm.faces[fi].loops[1][uv_layer].uv = (x1, 0)
        bm.faces[fi].loops[2][uv_layer].uv = (xPlus+x1, 1)
        bm.faces[fi].loops[3][uv_layer].uv = (xPlus+x0, 1)
    bm.to_mesh(mesh)


quads to tris leaving some quads I have this mesh and I did a grid filling. I converted quads to tris but why do I have quad faces left, upper left face for example?

I did the same thing shown in the images above and it looked fine to me but when I went through the Triangulate options, I found that one of the possible settings combinations did produce the results you showed.

Here are both results shown with the settings.  The dialogue box that you see in the images can be accessed by using F6

If you activate Vertex Selection mode and drag out the extra vertex that is seen, what's really happening can be seen.  The model is triangulated properly but the algorithm failed to lay out the geometry properly.  Here is an animation showing this.

You could file a bug report if you like.  https://developer.blender.org/

Personally I'd prefer to locate Ideasman42 and provide him with a link to this page so he can put some thought into this when he's not working on new tools or fixing bigger problems.


Making a rough topo landscape smooth Using OpenTopoMap and Blender, I've recreated a landscape in 3D. The height difference is in rough 10m steps. Now I want to smooth the space between these steps:

Using smooth shading and the edge split modifier, the result is okay at first, but it still doesn't look too good:

Using Subdivision Surface, the result is even worse:

Can you think of alternative ways to smoothen out the topo?

In edit mode select all vertices and press "smooth vertex" in the tool shelf (T). The tool has some adjustable parameters (search in the bottom left of the tool panel, press the little plus icon if not visible.


I have been getting issue abput clipping I filled gap area with edges but nothing has changed. Why is this happening and how do I fix it ?

It looks like the faces on the top have inverted normals, i.e. they are inside out. Turn on Viewport Overlays > Face Orientation in the 3D Viewport. The inside/back of faces is shown in red, the front/outside is blue. They should all be blue on your object.
To set the correct orientation, select the affected faces (or maybe even all) and hit Shift + N > Recalculate Normals.


Scale plane to size of grid element I am trying to make my plane exactely the width / height of a grid cell.
I thought I could do that by clicking "Snap Element"->"Increment", but that does not do anything.
Can anybody tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thank you.

You can snap elements to the nearest grid intersection with ⇧ ShiftS Snap to Grid:

Note that while in an aligned view (Top, Left, etc.) the subdivision level of the grid to which the mesh snaps will depend on the zoom. In an other view the mesh will snap to the displayed grid size.

The Snap to Increment mode of transform snapping will snap to grid increments. In other words, if your object/vertex is offset from the grid initially then it will stay offset.

By default the grid elements are 1 BU by 1 BU (Blender Unit), and the default plane is 2 BU by 2 BU. So to scale and position it to the grid, you can:

Scale it down to half it's size (S .5)
Move it half a BU on the X (GX .5)
Move it half a BU on the Y (GY .5):


Rigging a Bone to a Mesh When I try to Rig an armature with automatic weights nothing is happening.
 And yes I am clicking the mesh then clicking the armature.

Is`nt the armature supposed to follow the mesh.

Both must be aligned.

The automatic weight will find the closest mesh to deform.

See the test below.

The first test: I aligned the first and make parenting with authomatic weights. It deforms perfectly.

The second test: I just apllied the same parenting but with armature and object not aligned. It will deform just the mesh closed to the bones.


object list is not iterable and save directly in stl files I'm a new blender user and I am probably missing something simple but trying this script
Save objects into separate blender files
to save multiple objects as separate Blender's files I get an error because it doesn't seem possible to iterate on a list of objects. Any suggestions? thanks
found bundled python: /Applications/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.91/python Traceback (most recent call last): File "/Text", line 10, in TypeError: 'Object' object is not iterable
ps is there an option to save directly in stl files?

I was able to save existing objects in separate stl files with this statement
my_filepath = bpy.path.abspath(' //my_directory/ ')
bpy.ops.export_mesh.stl(filepath = my_filepath, batch_mode = 'OBJECT')


Giving edges arc shape I have this mesh(pic1) and i want give arc on sides(pic2) except bottom side. I tried bewel(CTRL+B) but some edges messed up(pic3). Then i added a line between edge lines and applied ALT+S but for sure it scales bottom too. So do you have any practic idea for it ?

pic1

pic2

pic3

So whats going on is because of your model's many edges regular old Bevel won't work. So what you need to do is to go into edge mode and only select the outer most edges, as shown in the first picture. Now when you bevel it shouldn't glitch out with with weird geometry.

Lastly on the second picture I circled in red where two edges  were getting too close together and would cause a problem if beveled a bit more. Essentially watch out for overlapping edges when beveling.

Hope this helps!

(Also having all those edges is a good thing it means you don't have any N-gons, if you didn't know N-gons are any faces with more then 4 edges. N-gons can cause problems with lighting and texturing and sometimes modeling).


Caps lock to control: not accepted by Blender I have a question about the keyboard input handling of Blender.

I'm running Kubuntu 14.10, and set up my Caps Lock such that it acts like an extra Ctrl key (System Settings → Input Devices → Keyboard → Advanced → Caps Lock key behavior → Make Caps Lock an additional Ctrl)

Every application simply sees it as just another Ctrl key. Blender, however, now ignores the key altogether. Pressing Caps Lock + W acts as if I just pressed W. The Python scripting console also keeps typing in lower case after pressing Caps Lock, which shows that it's no longer interpreted as Caps Lock either.

This happens when running Blender 2.72b, as well as when I compile my own Blender from Git.

Who can help me solve this?

Apparently, the KDE settings aren't as "low level" as Blender's input system. This command, however, is:

setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps

It also makes Caps Lock an additional Ctrl, but at such a low level that Blender understands it too.

Source: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MovingTheCtrlKey


Merge 2 armatures and 2 meshes then parent the armature to the mesh, without losing their weight paints? I have 2 arms i made separately and i copied it, but when i merge the meshes and bones and then reparent the bones to the mesh, one bone is weighing both arms, but the other isnt doing anything.

this is probably a naming issue :

the armature will create vertex groups with the bones names
when you join the meshes groups with the same name get merged
when you join armatures bones will get new names if other with the same name exist
so you end up with one armature controlling both meshes

to avoid this ensure that your armature bones have different names before parenting each mesh to the armature


What should the Roll of each bone be? I was about to animate a humanoid character after rigging it but encountered an issue when copy and pasting flipped pose in Pose View. When I paste the flipped pose the leg and arm bones basically are inverted(in painful ways). I read up online and basically found that this is due to the way my bones are rolled. I tried fixing it, but having no luck figuring out which way the bones would be rolled. In Edit mode the model looks okay, but once I switch to Pose mode the legs become rotated.

Which way should the axis of each bone be pointing(x, y, z)?

There aren't any rules for particular roll for particular bones.  For bones that rotate in only a single axis, fingers and such, I tend to make that the X axis simply because it makes it easy to set the roll from a cursor (select tail of bone and head of parent, snap cursor to selection, recalculate roll->cursor.)

A good way to build rigs to get easily mirrored poses is to build only one half of them and then use armature edit mode's "symmetrize" tool to create the other half.  This will provide appropriate rolls.

Another way to fix rolls is to turn on X-mirror in tool options and set the roll for one side's bones individually.  Blender recognizes bone symmetry on the basis of name, not roll, so x-mirror will apply roll changes appropriately even to bones that aren't fully mirrored (unmirrored roll.)


My Character’s Armature keeps flying off the screen I have made a character on blender using the blender game engine. The character is rigged and weight painted properly.

However, when I set the armature to physics: character, and press p, the whole mesh and armature flies off the screen into the distance.

Is there anyway to fix this or am i missing something?

This is probably happening because your character has a static physics type..

Just select the character (mesh) and set its physics to "No Collision"

A better setup would be as follow :

Main character mesh - Physics : No Collision.
Armature - Physics : No Collision.
Add a mesh representing the character collision box - Physics : Character or whatever you like!
Parent the armature to the collision box and that's it!

The armature would control the animations (actions) and the collision box would control everything else


How to fill an object with smoke I want to produce an object that looks similar to this:

It's basically a plain and simple sphere. I know how to adjust the reflections and transparency using the material properties, but, how can I make it look like its full of smoke? The smoke inside is static, so I don't think its necessary to use the smoke simulator. I just want to have something translucent inside with the same appearance.

If you are using cycles render engine (and blender 2.7+)

You actually want to create two different spheres, one for the smoke and one for the glass.  The reason for this is because you don't want the sphere to be solid, but the smoke should be, i.e. you don't want smoke inside the thickness of the wall of the sphere but within the sphere.

So I simply created a sphere, duplicated it in place, and gave one of the spheres a solidify modifier with a thickness of -1/8in.  The "thickened" sphere simply has a glass shader.  The other sphere will contain the smoke and has the following node tree.

It is primarily a volume scatter shader with a little volume absorption added in.  The scatter is given a variable density with a procedural noise texture.  The color ramp node makes the noise more distinct and the multiply node controls the overall density.

Here is the final render:

A couple of notes:

This is for cycles, I do not do much (anything) with BI, but I would recommend using cycles for this since you are going for photorealism.

You must be using blender 2.7+, previous versions of cycles do not support volumetrics.

You need to knock up the volume bounces under properties editor > render > light paths.


Particle System ignoring my vertex group density I've seen similar questions like mine, but I couldn't get their answers to work for me. Basically, I'm making a glass and I want a particle system to generate condensation on a specific area of the glass. I created a vertex group, but when I add the particle system, it doesn't seem to take the vertex group into account at all. However, it does seem to acknowledge my vertex group, but only when I negate it (so the particles spawn everywhere, BUT the vertex group. I don't know how to go about fixing this.

Here is where I get lost:

I know my little collection of droplets isn't perfect, but that's a separate issue. I'm just trying to get them to emit from the faces in my vertex group. Any help is appreciated! I'll upload my .blend file shortly.

Thanks!

Because vertex groups only consider vertices, not faces, so the influence of a vertex will extend until the next vertex:

We can see it if we switch to Weight Paint mode:

So what you need to do is create additional edge loops where you want the particles to stop, and make sure thay are not part of the vertex group:

Here is what it will give:


Desaturated Animation After Rendering Working on this animation and the colors look correct in the 3d viewport:

but when I render the PNGs:

and then render to AVI RAW:

in the VSE it becomes super desaturated.  I have the "Display Device" at sRGB, "View Transform" is standard, "Look" is none, and "Sequencer" is sRGB.

Does anyone have an idea what is going on?

Blend file here (2.80).

Thanks!

You are on a Mac right?

I’m guessing it is post 2015 MacBook Pro?

Blender doesn’t support the proper display devices for MacBook Pros. You’ll need my GitHub version.

TL;DR: What you are seeing in Blender is wrong, and Preview is interpreting it as correct. I’d also encourage you to not render with the sRGB OETF as it is subject to colour skew with saturated colours.

PS: If this confuses you, I’ve recently covered this very subject over at the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Digital Colour. I’d recommend starting at the first question if this guess of an answer proved correct. https://hg2dc.com/. Feel free to ask any questions.


How to limit grease pencil draw area to inside of closed curve? Suppose I draw a closed curve with the grease pencil.
The fill tool works on this curve, so it seems to have no trouble having its inside detected.
Can I somehow constrain my grease pencil (or better, a specific material of the grease pencil) to only draw inside this curve?

This can be achieved by masking a layer by another one.
On 2.91 here's how i will do it :
1 : enable masking on the desired layer

2 : select the mask layer from a list

3: turn the mask layer invisible

Step 3 can be done by several ways, like turning down layer's opacity or as Gorgious said, setting the grey material as a holdout.
Note that there is a mask toggle icon next to the layer's names in properties and dopesheet areas.


How do i make particles flow along this curve object? This is my first post in this community. I recently started blending and I found it so much fun! The forum here is an amazing space!

Coming to my question, how do i make particles flow along this curve? I tried with a nurbs curve, in which i added curve guide force field. It worked. But couldn't get the same with this hilbert curve. Tried path animation, the particles were flowing too fast and not smooth either. Please help me with this.
Thanks in advance.

Download link

Don't use a "curve guide", use the "force" ;)

Using a "Force Field" type "Force" on your curve.
Select shape "Curve"
Set the Strength to -25 (this affects the speed in which the particles flow along the curve)
The Flow value should be at least around 2.0, i used 3.5 (affects how much the particles stick to the curve, higher value, closer to/on the curve)
See to the lifetime of the particles and the end of spawning them, it will need a long .. i mean really long time to get through the curve you made (maybe raise the strength to compensate).
Eventually you can save and work over the curve like as in switch it to Bezier type so you can Clean up -> Decimate Curve to roughly 20% as in 0.2. (will get rid of most unnecessary points, after which you can switch it back to poly type)

That should do the trick, as you can see in the little visual demonstration:


Problems with Weight Transfer to Shirt Objects I have a shirt draped on a human body. The shirt appears fine in the texture mode with the texture applied, but it appears totally black in the solid view and the edit view. I tried recalculating and flipping the normals. That did not help. Scale and rotation are applied on the object, so no problem there as well. This is problem number one.

Problem number two occurred when I was trying to transfer weights of the armature from human body to the shirt on the body. I tried to transfer weights and I could not see that happening on the shirt. The shirt stays still when I move the arms or body.

Here is the .blend file

In solid mode, Only the viewport color is taken into consideration.
The viewport color has no effect on the textures or final render output.
It's use and purpose is purely for differentiating objects from one
another in a crowded scene, when using "solid" mode rendering in the
viewport.


Adding mirror reflection on the picture frame that can see the content inside and the reflection of the environment i want to add a reflection mirror on the black frame that can see the content in the pink plane and the reflection of the environment. is there any way . thank you

EEVEE

Create a plane

Set primary shader to Diffuse BSDF

Plug Diffuse BSDF into a shader to RGB node and route that node to a ColorRamp

Plug the ColorRamp’s alpha into a Principled BSDF shader’s alpha, and then that into a Material Output surface

Go to Render settings, Film section, and check transparent

In the plane’s Material tab, ensure Blend Mode is set to “Alpha Blend”

Make sure that you are in Rendered View (it does not work in Material Preview) and your Reflection Plane is placed slightly above the mirror surface. You can increase the Distance parameter inside Reflection Plane just to be sure that it covers everything.

Cycles
For the mirror material:

Set metallic to 1

Set roughness to 0


Is a smoke simulation with more than 512 divisions possible? Short version:
The amount of divisions (resolution) a smoke domain object can have seems to be limited to 512. Is there a way to get more divisions than 512?

Long version:
I am trying to make a smoke simulation for a flying rocket. The rocket will be flying up in a straight line, so the domain object of the smoke simulation is narrow and high. The way the resolution seems to work is that blender takes the amount of divisions set, applies that to the height of the domain, and uses only a fraction of those divisions for the way smaller width of the domain, so that for every "pixel" the height and width are the same in size.
The baking process does not take that long because the total amount of "pixels" is not that high. Unfortunately, I need a lot more divisions in order to get an accurate simulation, while there seems to be a limit of 512 for the amount of divisions of a domain object. As a result of this I end up with a low res, inaccurate simulation, while my computer could easily handle more divisions. Is there a way to have more than 512 divisions?

Screenshot of the domain object:

Unfortunately, no. Also I believe that it always alocates the same divisions along each axis, so generally you might want to keep it smaller than 512. You could take a look at using the smoke high resolution to get more details. If you want a render at that distance you could consider using particles instead. Or you could divide it into separate shots.

edit: Yes, do as gandalf3 suggests, but you'll need adaptive domain enabled for that. Otherwise it will move the current simulation data.


Is there a Cycles equivalent to Eevee's Bloom Option? Is there any equivalent option or process to get results equal, similar or better than Eevee's Bloom? If yes, how could I do it? I have an object with Emission Surface on Material in that case it is representing a sun, and the results I need are exactly or a little better than what Eevee's bloom is giving, but, Eevee's mesh render doesn't look as good as Cycles so I was wondering if there was such a thing. Thanks!

Use the Glare node in compositing, or design your own via a threshold and blurs. Use appropriate alpha encoding and handling and you'll be well on your way without much effort. 99% of the battle is knowledge on the latter aspect of alpha.


Is there a way to check a mesh for problems? Is there a way in Blender to check a mesh for missing or duplicate faces, mesh abnormalities, or other issues that might cause problems when it is exported and used as data for a real-time application such as a game?

There's an old way. In edit mode, select nothing with A and then hit ctrl alt shift M to select non manifold verts or edges. These are edges that do not have exactly two faces connected to them. If nothing gets selected, your mesh is pretty solid.

Try it with vertex select or edge select. Both modes provide insight.


Make an object Always face the camera, and always be upright? So I'm planning a new portfolio piece, and for it to turn out how I want, I need some help with constraints. There is going to be a star that always faces the camera, and that much I figured out. The problem is I want the star to always be right side up from the cameras POV, so I think there needs to be an additional rotation constraint as well. I don't know how to go about it though. Advice?

Locked Track Constraint

Locked Track Constraint
Setup Suzanne  akin to a compass needle via the locked track constraint. Suzanne faces the camera (To -Y) and can only rotate on the Z axis (Lock)


Correct code for: set Snap to Pixel = True/False as Pie menu in UVEditor I try to figure out how via a pie command one could set the "Snap to Pixel" = true or false inside the UV editor and struggle with finding the right way to write this as a code instruction. For the pie menu I would like to have a button to press and each press can trigger either the true or false based on the current state which I think one could check via an if step. Right?

As it seems the console reads this out:

But unfortunately this is the same when selecting "Constraint to Image Bounds".

The command I think is:

spaceUVEditor.use_snap_to_pixels

And this being boolean so true or false.

You can use wm.context_set_boolean or wm.context_toggle to achieve this.

The code should look like this:

op_props = pie.operator("wm.context_set_boolean", text="Snap to pixels")
op_props.data_path = "space_data.uv_editor.use_snap_to_pixels"
op_props.value = True

#or

pie.operator("wm.context_toggle", text="Snap to Pixels").data_path = (
    "space_data.uv_editor.use_snap_to_pixels")


Rendering from at batch file fails on Windows It's my first time trying to use a batch file so I can render lots of files over night but cant get it to work. Looked up several tutorials and none seem to work. Could you tell me what I'm doing wrong please?

Also, the file location is on the One-Drive cloud folder, should this make a difference?

cd "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe"
blender -b "C:\Users\Andy\Documents\Buildings\Malvern\Sienna\Pavilion\8x8\layout_A" -a

Thanks for any help.

You are missing the file extension. The full name of the file is "layout_A.blend". So your command should be:

cd "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe"
blender -b "C:\Users\Andy\Documents\Buildings\Malvern\Sienna\Pavilion\8x8\layout_A.blend" -a


How can I make an object face or locate to the active camera? I want the eyes of a character to rotate to look in the direction of a specific point.

I have a rig for the eyes of a character and I want the part of the rig that controls the eyes to be at the active camera, the rig crosses the eyes to its location and thus the character looks to that specific point. Also, I want the head rig to face the active camera. I just need to know if and how I can make the two bones snap to the active camera.

Consider a [track to] constraint which rotates the bones

You can track to the camera or some object like two rectangles next to each other lets call them a pair of eye trackables, similar in placement to a pair of eye glasses. Depicted above in the animation is an example. Left eye tracks left point, right eye tracks right point.  The points are eye distance apart.  At a far distance the eye trackables cause the eyes to rotate and be nearly parallel.  At a close distance the this can prevent crossed eye problem.  Some blender people might say the having a separate eye trackables is more flexible than tracking to the camera.  You can move the trackables independent of the camera.
Consider searching Blender Facial Rig Eyes


Camera view goes crazy to another view I am trying to change the render from a different point of view and is almost impossible. I have this

and pressing 0  and I obtain this

and everything I do this is not going to change.
I tried Ctrl + Alt + Numpad 0 and I have the same view but the object rotates far away.
I use blender 2.8.

Is there a way to tell Blender to render this camera from this view?

The file is available here if someone wants to have a look
https://github.com/acipolla/casa-dedo

The problem was that you set the Plane as a local camera here. So every time you pressed 0 key it, blender showed you the local camera set as the plane and thus you were seeing the inside of the washing machine.

Just deselect the "Use Local Camera" checkbox, that would allow you to change the Local Camera. Select the camera of you scene using the eye dropper tool or by the list.

and now when you press the 0 key, it will show what you camera is looking at.


Will Eevee be a/the new Game Engine? Now I haven't gotten into Programing or game making let alone even tried Blender Game but I do have a very basic understanding of game engines and Eevee looks fantastic!! Close if not identical to UE4! I know it will be for the viewport (Super excited)!Thank You in advance!

There has been trials at the links in the comments show, but nothing official yet. Lol I pressed Shift + F on one of my scenes and then it felt amazing...... have fun with that until the official full control gets implemented ;)


Which tool can best extrude two angles from the same face? I've been teaching myself to model for a few months now, and recently a friend asked me if I would be able to create this hair pin for her. At first I thought I thought I could make a simple moon shape, make a loop cut down the center and extrude it up from the center. However, the model I need to create has two extruded edges on the same face and this is where I'm at a complete loss of what tool can help me accomplish my goal.

This is the shape I'm trying to achieve

This is what I've tried so far

This was after adding two more cuts and edge sliding to give a sharper angle.

Thank you for your time.

Use your image as a background image. You could begin with the ridges of your two half-moons, then expand, connect the vertices, move up the faces, etc...


Hi everybody, I'm not seeing the X,Y and Z selection in the upper left of the edit window when using the Spin tool I have Blender 2.8 installed on both of my computers, and I've tried every simple spin tool tutorial on Youtube, but only get the default blue Z (+)-(+) handle. Everywhere I've looked there is this selection window in the top left to select the desired axis and I've tried a number of different guesses / approaches -nothing.
If anyone can help, thanks in advance!
PS: I'm new, and not aware of how to post pics / video of my problem.
Ken.

I suspect that the tutorial you saw was created on a beta version of 2.80 before around March this year. Later betas and the release version (2.80.75) moved those settings to the right-hand properties sidebar. Press the N key then the vertical 'Tools' tab on the edge of the window to show the settings indicated in the image below.


How do I flip a leg? Okay so I am making a creature and I made one leg. I duplicated it but they are literally both left feet. How can I flip it so that the duplicate becomes a right foot?

First set the pivot point type to 3D Cursor and snap the cursor to the center of the grid (Shift+C). Then in Edit Mode select the whole rig (A). Press Shift+D, RMB. Then press Ctrl+M, type the axis (in my case Y) and -1. It'll mirror your leg along the desired axis. Then select the mirrored rig and press W-->Flip Names. It'll automatically name your legs properly with .R/.L.


Converting Blender Internal Textures to Cycles i have looked around the internet, and even on this site, but the answers seemed to not work with me yet.

I have a Blender Internal texture like this

And a Cycles Render like this

The first image has the correct texture i want to use, but the second image has the realistic metal material i need. Is there a way to transfer either of these two textures, (The suit, or the metal texture) into either of each others rendering engines?
Is there a clear tutorial anyone can link me to or an explanation of how to do this?

Use the python script here:

How do I convert materials from Blender Internal to Cycles?

it should help you convert the BI materials to Cycles.
Hope this helps!