Rendering large amount of short videos with different generated "animation"? I have a very specific and probably strange question to which I couldn't find any answers.

I'm a computer vision researcher and I need some data for a "small" side project, I want to know if it's possible to create this data with blender (or any other software for that matter).

The data I need consists of many ( >> 1000) short videos (3-5 sec) simulating a licence plate moving through the frame, with tracking and zoom on the license plate.
It's easier to understand with a simple example - I need something very similar to the right window in this video between 0:16-0:20. The difference between  videos is in different paths/angles in which the licence plate will move through the frame.

Edit: forgot to mention the important part, the different videos should have different number plates.

If anyone from this great community understood my strange request and can give some insights it could help me immensely.

Furthermore, if anyone is up for collaboration, I could explain my motivations, goals, and possible payoff in more details.

Ramdomizable setup

Basic components/

Plate parented to "car", car is driven along a curve using follow
path constraint.
Camera has a track to constraint, tracking its view axis -Z to the Plate

Zooming in.

Here I've chosen a frame change handler. The handler takes the scene as an argument. Our camera is scene.camera, our target object is the target of the track to constraint.

The camera is put into field of view mode, and the angle is calculated by the handler. Simple equation using the diagonal length of the plate (target) and the distance from camera to target.

Copy , paste and run script below to set up the handler.

import bpy
from math import atan

def zoom_cam(scene):
    cam_obj = scene.camera
    con = cam_obj.constraints.get("Track To")
    obj = con.target
    #w = max(obj.dimensions)
    w = obj.dimensions.length # diagonal on plane.
    mw = obj.matrix_world
    cam = cam_obj.data
    l = mw.translation - cam_obj.matrix_world.translation
    cam.angle = 2 * atan(w / l.length)

# remove the previous for testing
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.clear()

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(zoom_cam)

Producing this result.

Mixing it up.

Every time the handler comes to frame one could randomly set any or all of

the camera object location
the curve transform (loc, rot, scale) as well as shape keys
swap curve objects with others in scene
the plate object texture image (for different plates)  Find link re this
randomize the zooming in handler
put some noise on constraint influence


Problem in importing .svg files to blender I am aware that this looks like a repost (and it probably is) but I just cannot seem to fix my problem with the post I have found on the topic.

Here is my goal and the problem:
I am trying to integrate a molecular structure into my 3D render. I am therefore following a tutorial I found on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC2Yvf1bIFA&t=433s). I am very simply drawing the molecule on ChemDraw, saving it as a PNG, opening it into Inkscape and using the "Trace to Bitmap" button. Then, I am saving my picture as an SVG.

Problem is, when I get to blender and import that SVG file, I do not obtain a curve (like the lady in the tutorial). Instead, I obtain a collection (see picture below), and I can zoom in all I want, I never start seeing my molecule.

Do you guys know anything about this? What I have tried is to download a PNG picture from google and turn it into a SVG, then importing it into blender. The same problem occured, however, which leads me to think that I am either doing something wrong in Inkscape and/or in Blender.

I apologize in advance if my problem and its solution are trivial, I am rather new to all this.

Thanks,

Cyprien

Have you tried these things? They are the most basic things you'd want to do in InkScape prior to importing to Blender:

Convert all strokes/fonts into path objects.
Delete everything that's not part of your actual art, eg. invisible boxes and unnecessary layers.
Merge your path objects with boolean as much as possible.

Edit: A nice video on the subject, that explains some quirks you might run into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctwiT8LYjVQ


How would you align something like feet? I haven't really used Blender before and don't really know what to even look up to find out so it's probably really simple, but how would I make sure something like feet stayed perfectly flat on the ground? (Not rotated or moved up/down)

I found a lot about aligning vertices along an arbitrary line but I don't know how to make it work with a "floor"

I have just started using blending myself.

Have you tried using G (grab) and then pressing Z so you can your object and align it to the grid?

Another option you have is to drop down the Transform panel in the top right corner, by the Options drop down menu and the four different circles.
From this panel you can use the Location X Y Z values to tell Blender exactly where you want your feet to rest!

I hope this helped and good luck!


What's the correct name of the Camera pyramid-shaped wireframe object used to display it? I want to refer, in technical text, to the wireframe widget that is used to display a camera in Blender model view.

The following image displays two of these:

The pyramid-shaped camera gizmo is just a shape commonly chosen to represent cameras. The pyramid's angle and direction depicts the camera's field of view. Unrelated to Blender, the term you are looking for is viewing frustum or pyramid of vision. This is intended for depicting the near and far clipping planes, but Blender does not show these in its camera gizmo. As such, the shape used in Blender is not technically even a frustum because the four segments converge to a point. Within the context of Blender, it is simply called the camera.


Compositing alpha overlay In the compositing layout the alpha over won't work. The background stays grey. How to make it transparent so that the background can be seen?

I followed this tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l26kp1ETRk8

I wouldn't mind rendering just the image, and I did, but the strip alpha overlay doesn't work either, because it's a grey colour.

Go to the render tab -> Shading and change the Alpha from Sky to Transparent.


How can I export a DAE file with a non-rest pose? I am fairly new to Blender and wanted to export a DAE file with a new pose for access to color textures when 3D printing. However, when I export the DAE file, it will always export as a t-pose.

I've tried setting the new pose as the rest pose through the object mode menu but that didn't work. I've also attempted to use the armature modifier though I can't locate it.

I should also note that the model isn't one I made- it comes from a video game.

If anyone would like to help directly, I would be willing to provide the original files if need be. Thank you.

Select Apply Modifiers in the Collada export settings.


Make buttons on main menu light up I am trying to make it so when you hover the mouse over a button, the diffuse will change.

The buttons are made out of planes.

I want the white plane to change to an orange color. I cannot find a way to do it with logic bricks, but I have done it before and cannot find out how to again.  I have tried action and visible actuators.

First of all, select the first button. Then, ensuring you are on frame 1, go to the material tab, and set the colour to it's normal state (the colour you want for when the mouse is not over the button) and press I.

Then, if you want the change in diffuse of the button to be instantaneous, move onto the next frame. If you want there to be a longer transition between the two different states, however, move to a later frame, eg 5. The later the frame you change to, the longer the transition between the two states of the button will be when the mouse is over the button.

Now you are on a different frame, change the colour of the button to what you want, and press I, with your mouse over the diffuse slider.

Now, when you scrub through the timeline with the mouse, in between the beginning and end of the animation you have just created, you should see the colour in the material tab changing (this will not work if watching the animation using AltA)

Now, you can open up the game logic window. Add a "mouseover" sensor, connect it to an "and" controller, and then connect that to an "action" actuator. Just under the button that is currently set to play, there is a box that allows you to chose the animation to run. Clicking on that box opens a drop down box that allows you to chose the animation to play - there should only be one as you have only created one animation thus far, so simply choose the only animation in the box (if you already have more than one animation in your scene, you will have to make sure you chose the animation that you just created for that button - you can see the names of animations in the top left window if switching to the "animation" view instead of "default" or "game logic" at the top of the blender window.)

Next, there is the action playback type. This is above the animation box, currently set to "play". Changing the animation type to "flipper" means that when the mouse moves over the button, the animation will run and the colour will change, but when the mouse is moved off the button, the colour will change back. If it were left on play, it would not change back when the mouse moves off the button.

Next there is the start frame and end frame. Set the start frame of the Action to 1, as this is the frame of the start of the animation you made earlier. Then, set the end frame to the frame when the diffuse animation ended.

Now, when the mouse is over that button in the game engine, the colour should change, and when the mouse is no longer over the button, it should change back.

Once you have tested that works, repeat the process for your other buttons. Make sure they all have different materials, as, otherwise, when one button changes, they may all change.

Note: this will not work if there is a texture on the button plane, that would require you to have an orange and a white button (one on top of the other) and to fade between them with a similar method to above, but changing the opacity instead of the colour of the slider.

Finally, something to be aware of is the animation you choose in the action actuator. Make sure you choose the animation for the button you want to change, because there will be more than one animation in the drop down box once you have created different animations for different buttons.


Physics vehicle rig twisting I have been working on a physics based tank rig and while it mostly works, I'm having trouble making it drive in a straight line. The rig continues to keep twisting, one way or another.

Even when it's not moving I can see close up that the rig is turning on the spot. Increasing or decreasing the Rigid World settings appear to have no effect. Here are some screen shots of the tank moving in a "straight" line and a close up of it as well.

You can download the rig from here, it's a single .blend file from 2.79.

I am so close to having this rig working correctly, but I've been trying to get this final problem fixed for a while and I've gotten no where. If anyone could help me then it would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Rigid Body Constraints
Introduction
Constraints (also known as joints) for rigid bodies connect two rigid bodies.
The physics constraints available in the non-game modes are meant to be attached to an Empty object. The constraint then has fields which can be pointed at the two physics-enabled object which will be bound by the constraint. The Empty object provides a location and axis for the constraint distinct from the two constrained objects. The location of the entity hosting the physics constraint marks a location and set of axes on each of the two constrained objects. These two anchor points are calculated at the beginning of the animation and their position and orientation remain fixed in the local coordinate system of the object for the duration of the animation. The objects can move far from the constraint object, but the constraint anchor moves with the object. If this feature seems limiting, consider using multiple objects with a non-physics Child-of constraint and animate the relative location of the child.
Connect
The quickest way to constrain two objects is to select both and click the Connect button in the Physics tab of the Tool Shelf. This creates a new Empty object (named “Constraint”) with a physics constraint already attached and pointing at the two selected objects.
Physics Tab
Also you can create Rigid Body Constraint on of the two constrained objects with Rigid Body Constraint button of the Physics tab in the Properties editor. This constraint is dependent on the object location and rotation on which it was created. This way, there are no Empty object created for the constraint. The role of the Empty object is put on this object. The constrained object can be then set as Passive type for better driving the constrain.
Additional parameters appear in the Rigid Body Constraint panel of the Physics tab in the Properties editor for the selected Empty object or the one of the two constrained objects with the created constraint.
Common Options
Rigid Body Constraint panel.
Enabled
Specifies whether the constraint is active during the simulation.
Disable Collisions
Allows constrained objects to pass through one another.
Object 1
First object to be constrained.
Object 2
Second object to be constrained.
Breakable
Allows constraint to break during simulation. Disabled for the Motor constraint. This can be used to simulate destruction.
Threshold
Impulse strength that needs to be reached before constraint breaks.
Override Iterations
Allows to make constraints stronger (more iterations) or weaker (less iterations) than specified in the rigid body world.
Iterations
Number of constraint solver iterations made per simulation step for this constraint.
Limits
By using limits you can constrain objects even more by specifying a translation/rotation range on/around respectively axis (see below for each one individually). To lock one axis, set both limits to 0.
Fixed

Panel: Physics ‣ Rigid Body Constraint
Type: Fixed

Options available to a Fixed constraint.
This constraint cause the two objects to move as one. Since the physics system does have a tiny bit of slop in it, the objects do not move as rigidly as they would if they were part of the same mesh.
Point

Panel: Physics ‣ Rigid Body Constraint
Type: Point

Options available to a Point constraint.
The objects are linked by a point bearing allowing any kind of rotation around the location of the constraint object, but no relative translation is permitted. The physics engine will do its best to make sure that the two points designated by the constraint object on the two constrained objects are coincident.
Hinge

Panel: Physics ‣ Rigid Body Constraint
Type: Hinge

Options available to a Hinge constraint.
The hinge permits 1 degree of freedom between two objects. Translation is completely constrained. Rotation is permitted about the Z axis of the object hosting the Physics constraint (usually an Empty, distinct from the two objects that are being linked). Adjusting the position and rotation of the object hosting the constraint allows you to control the anchor and axis of the hinge.
The Hinge is the only 1-axis rotational constraint that uses the Z axis instead of the X axis. If something is wrong with your hinge, check your other constraints to see if this might be the problem.
Options
Limits
Z Angle
Enables/disables limit rotation around Z axis.
Lower
Lower limit of Z axis rotation.
Upper
Upper limit of Z axis rotation.
Slider

Panel: Physics ‣ Rigid Body Constraint
Type: Slider

The Slider constraint allows relative translation along the X axis of the constraint object, but permits no relative rotation, or relative translation along other axes.
Options
Limits
X Axis
Enables/disables limit translation around X axis.
Lower
Lower limit of X axis translation.
Upper
Upper limit of X axis translation.
Piston

Panel: Physics ‣ Rigid Body Constraint
Type: Piston

A piston permits translation along the X axis of the constraint object. It also allows rotation around the X axis of the constraint object. It is like a combination of the freedoms of a slider with the freedoms of a hinge (neither of which is very free alone).
Options
Limits
X Axis
Enables/disables limit translation around X axis.
Lower
Lower limit of X axis translation.
Upper
Upper limit of X axis translation.
X Angle
Enables/disables limit rotation around X axis.
Lower
Lower limit of X axis rotation.
Upper
Upper limit of X axis rotation.
Generic

Panel: Physics ‣ Rigid Body Constraint
Type: Generic

The generic constraint has a lot of available parameters.
The X, Y, and Z axis constraints can be used to limit the amount of translation between the objects. Clamping the min/max to zero has the same effect as the Point constraint.
Clamping the relative rotation to zero keeps the objects in alignment. Combining an absolute rotation and translation clamp would behave much like the Fixed constraint.
Using a non-zero spread on any parameter allows it to rattle around in that range throughout the course of the simulation.
Options
Limits
X Axis/Y Axis/Z axis
Enables/disables limit translation on X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Lower
Lower limit of translation for X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Upper
Upper limit of translation for X, Y or Z axis respectively.
X Angle/Y Angle/Z Angle
Enables/disables limit rotation around X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Lower
Lower limit of rotation for X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Upper
Upper limit of rotation for X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Generic Spring

Panel: Physics ‣ Rigid Body Constraint
Type: Generic Spring

Options available to a Generic Spring constraint.
The generic spring constraint adds some spring parameters for the X/Y/Z axes to all the options available on the Generic constraint. Using the spring alone allows the objects to bounce around as if attached with a spring anchored at the constraint object. This is usually a little too much freedom, so most applications will benefit from enabling translation or rotation constraints.
If the damping on the springs is set to 1, then the spring forces are prevented from realigning the anchor points, leading to strange behavior. If your springs are acting weird, check the damping.
Options
Limits
X/Y/Z Axis
Enables/disables limit translation on X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Lower
Lower limit of translation for X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Upper
Upper limit of translation for X, Y or Z axis respectively.
X/Y/Z Angle
Enables/disables limit rotation around the X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Lower
Lower limit of rotation for X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Upper
Upper limit of rotation for X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Springs
X/Y/Z Axis
Enables/disables springs translation on X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Stiffness
Spring Stiffness of the translation on X, Y or Z axis respectively. Specifies how “bendy” the spring is.
Damping
Spring Damping of the translation on X, Y or Z axis respectively. Amount of damping the spring has.
X/Y/Z Angle
Enables/disables springs rotation around the X, Y or Z axis respectively.
Stiffness
Spring Stiffness of the rotation around the X, Y or Z axis respectively. Specifies how “bendy” the spring is.
Damping
Spring Damping of the rotation around the X, Y or Z axis respectively. Amount of damping the spring has.
Motor

Panel: Physics ‣ Rigid Body Constraint
Type: Motor

Options available to a Motor constraint.
The motor constraint causes translation and/or rotation between two entities. It can drive two objects apart or together. It can drive simple rotation, or rotation and translation (although it will not be constrained like a screw since the translation can be blocked by other physics without preventing rotation).
The rotation axis is the X axis of the object hosting the constraint. This is in contrast with the Hinge which uses the Z axis. Since the Motor is vulnerable to confusing perturbations without a matching Hinge constraint, special care must be taken to align the axes. Without proper alignment, the motor will appear to have no effect (because the hinge is preventing the motion of the motor).
Options
Linear motor/Angular motor
Enable
Enable linear or angular motor respectively.
Target Velocity
Target linear or angular motor velocity respectively.
Max Impulse
Maximum linear or angular motor impulse respectively.


Unwrap can as stripes anybody could explain me why the top part of this can doesn't unwrap as a stripe?
unlike the middle and bottom sections?

here is the blend file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2TovTwIWuC7ZFFVMXBSQjhBX0k/view?usp=sharing

From your image it looks like you have overlapping loops at the top of your cylinder, you can see that because of the face indicators appearing in the middle of the edges, and thats why you could not select the hidden edge to mark the seam and have a proper unwrap.


Create new actions without being influenced by NLA I'll start of by saying that the action- and NLA- editors are both pretty new to me.

I have so far been able to create a walkcycle that I can loop through as the character moves around in the scene. Now I want to add a new loop for when he is stading still. It's really just going to be him standing in place breathing, not anything more.

I created a new action that I called "Idle" and I would now like to make the new animation. This becomes tricky when the character keeps moving around the scene as I have previously made him do.

My question is this;
Is it possible to create new actions without being influenced by all the stuff I've already done?
Like maybe have a seperate scene for creating new actions or an option to temporarily disable all animations and setting the character to the center whilst I make a new action. something like that.

The only other way I can think of is if I had made all my actions before I started making the actual animation but that is a bit too late at this point.

In the NLA editor you have nla tracks under your rig and there are speakers icons that allow you to mute your tracks.
I'm making the same thing right now with my character.


Why does my model's eyes have artifacts? the scene is lit up using three spots placed 120º apart

In Node Editor window: Try adding Texture Coordinate and connect UV node into vector nodes of all the Image Textures you have. (Node Editor: Shift+A>Input>Texture Coordinate)


What causes the wrong value read-out in a Pie menu value slider? Below you can see that the Normal size value is 737cm while it is actually only 37cm.

Here is the code - any idea if this is a bug or a mistake I did?

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

    mesh = context.active_object.data
    scene = context.scene

    pie = layout.menu_pie()
    pie.prop(scene.tool_settings, "normal_size", text="Size")

Those numbers are really, unless i'm mistaken, the menu indices. The 7 isn't from the normal_size, but from the index of that pie-item. It's drawing the slider rather awkwardly close to the index. Leading me to believe pie menu's weren't intended to be used for drawing sliders, else it would be a common use case, and have a nice obvious solution. Maybe it does? someone will correct me if there is.

In any case it looks like the pie menus could be more thoroughly documented. I don't think it's a bug rather a misunderstanding of how to use it. It seems mostly geared towards toggling and executing operators.

The only way I know how to suppress the index is by making a row out of the slider.

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

    mesh = context.active_object.data
    scene = context.scene

    pie = layout.menu_pie()

    row = pie.row()
    row.prop(scene.tool_settings, "normal_size")
    pie.prop(mesh, "show_normal_face")
    pie.prop(mesh, "show_normal_loop")
    pie.prop(mesh, "show_normal_vertex")
    pie.prop(mesh, "show_faces")
    pie.prop(mesh, "show_edges")

All kinds of crazy things can be done with piemenus

Columns

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

    mesh = context.active_object.data
    scene = context.scene

    pie = layout.menu_pie()
    col = pie.column()
    col.prop(scene.tool_settings, "normal_size")
    col.prop(mesh, "show_normal_face")

Rows

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

    mesh = context.active_object.data
    scene = context.scene

    pie = layout.menu_pie()
    row = pie.row()
    row.prop(scene.tool_settings, "normal_size")
    row = pie.row()
    row.prop(mesh, "show_normal_face")

box

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

    mesh = context.active_object.data
    scene = context.scene

    pie = layout.menu_pie()

    # option 1
    box = pie.box()
    col = box.column()
    col.prop(scene.tool_settings, "normal_size")
    col.prop(mesh, "show_normal_face")
    col.prop(mesh, "show_normal_loop")
    col.prop(mesh, "show_normal_vertex")

    # option 2
    box = pie.box()
    col = box.column()
    col.prop(mesh, "show_faces")
    col.prop(mesh, "show_edges")


Add a round-half spherical edge to a cylinder surface I have the following cylinder:

And I want to turn the selected area (as seen in the pic) into a half-sphere similarly to this picture. Do you have any idea how to do that?

Select the area where you want to add the semisphere (the same selected vertices in your picture).
Move the 3D cursor to the center of the selection.
Move the camera so that you're looking at the area from the side.
Select the left-most vertex of the previously selected area.
Use the spin tool to generate an 90 degree arc. You should get something like this:

Move the camera to the top of the cylinder.
With the vertices of the arc selected, use the spin tool again, now rotating 360 degrees and using as many steps as the number of vertices on the face of the cylinder. The result should look like this:

Select everything, and use "remove doubles".


How do i export a model in md2 format? I use Blender to create my 3D models for my Iphone app that uses OpenGL ES. The default output format MD2 i know it is very old but i need this for a fast processing algorithm!
How do I get Blender to output a MD2 file that has the following elements:

All Verticies and Faces (faces as triangles, not quads)
Texture coordinates (UV Mapped)
Preprocessed Normals

My goal is also to make .MD2 models for my mobile app, so here is my way:

The SceneJS page that MCunha has suggested is a good start.
It says that we need to install the MD2 exporter plugin into Blender. Unfortunately that link for the necessary md2_export_263.py  file is broken, but here is an actual one from jerrylroberts' GitHub repository.
Download it.
I've followed the SceneJS page's instructions on modifying the source code (I don't really know if it's needed or not).
In Blender 2.78c go to File > User Preferences... > Add-ons > Install from File..., browse for the above mentioned (and modified) Python file, then activate it by clicking on its checkbox.
Select the mesh you want to export. It's important for it to be unwrapped and have at least one associated UV-Texture material (according to MCunha's first UFO:IA source). Then go to File > Export > MD2 (.md2)

That's all. I've checked the exported model by G3DViewer in Ubuntu and it seems to be okay.


I'm trying to create this model for 3d printing. Blender says I have zero faces even though they have area. How do I fix this? I started off with a plane and applied the solidify modifier to it so that it was 1.5 mm thick. I used plane cut to cut off some corners and now blender says I have zero faces made from those cuts. What are zero faces and how do I fix this?

I believe that is telling you there are zero area faces present, and that tool will  highlight them if you click on the actual button that is reporting them . You can probably simply delete the faces it has highlighted and all will be well.
Maybe a better approach would be to select all of the faces in the object (in edit mode) and then go to Mesh -> Clean Up -> Degenerate Dissolve, which will dissolve all zero area faces and zero length edges ....


How to colour faces produced by a Boolean modifier I have produced an indent in a cube using a UV sphere and a Boolean modifier. The cubes white and the sphere is black. But when I try to colour the indent it colours the whole cube. Has anyone got any ideas please

You need to have both materials on the Object with the boolean modifier (but of course only one of those is assigned to that mesh). Here the blue cube (the cube with the boolean modifier) has both materials: the blue and the red material. The red cube only has the red material.


How to move 2 cube at the same time? New to Blender I wanted to make an animation. I added two box and I made one of the box rotates about a circle. For some reason, the other box follows the 3-axis intersected at the other box,instead of staying at the origin. What did I do wrong? Thank you.

import bpy
import math

if not 'Cube' in bpy.data.objects:
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()

if not 'Cube2' in bpy.data.objects:
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()

fpr = 120.0
step_size = 2*math.pi / fpr

radius=5

def set_object_location(n):
    x = math.sin(n) * radius
    y = math.cos(n) * radius
    z = 0.0
    ob = bpy.data.objects.get("Cube")
    ob.location = (x, y, z)
    obs = bpy.data.objects.get("Cube.001")
    obs.location = (0, 0, 0)

def update(scene):
    frame = scene.frame_current
    angle = frame % fpr

    if angle == 0:
        set_object_location(angle)
    else:
        set_object_location(angle*step_size)

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(update)

Your code seems to work for me - one cube rotates around the other (which remains stationary at the origin). The only issue I can see with the code is that the initialisation to add the cubes refers to 'Cube' and 'Cube2' but the later logic refers to 'Cube' and 'Cube.001'.

I suspect the most likely cause of your issues is that you have run the script multiple time and, perhaps, an earlier copy of your code is still registered in the handler. Try saving your work (after changing 'Cube2' to match 'Cube.001'), closing Blender, and re-opening and running - and see if that resolves your problem.


Removing a group with no users I have a problem in deleting a group named "Group" in this file.

How I made this file

I made the "Group" in my first scene.
I made another scene and deleted the first scene.

I managed to get this right using python.

grs = bpy.data.groups
grs.remove(grs["Group"], True)


Mapping multipule textures to one object in blender I am using blender to create game assets that I will later export to unity. For the project I am working on I wish to model a factory floor. The floor it's self will consist of two maybe three different textures. Is it best to UV map these textures separately and bake a new texture in blender? Is there a better way to do this?

If you're going to use this in a mobile game, then it's best to place all the floor images onto a single texture.  UV unwrap the floor onto a single image and only have one texture (with the 3 different floor images on the single texture).

This way the game engine will only need to bind and sample a single texure (instead of 3) just to draw a simple floor.  I'm thinking of optimisation here, and if you can fit the 3 images onto a single texture, then that is the best way to go.


How to parent facial features to body so rigging doesn't mess up? I've got this little guy here. His two eyeballs are parented to the main body.

However, when I rotate his body, the eyes don't stay in their sockets.

How can I fix this?
Thanks a lot!

Parent eyes to a main bone instead of body. Or create 2 new bones for eyes, if you want to move eyes


Is there a way to set initial state with rigid bodies? Let's say I set up a Rigid Body simulation in Blender (not in GE), and then run the simulation for a number of frames. Is there a way to tell Blender to use the current state and position as the initial state? So that when I go back to frame 1, the rigid bodies stay in the same place they did in frame X.

For instance, if I want a pile of bricks, I first place the bricks in the air and then let them drop down on the ground, coming to rest. When they have come to rest, I want to use that position as the starting position.

Use the "Apply Visual Transform" operator. You can find it in the "Apply" submenu of the "Object" menu in the 3D view header or by pressing ctrl+a.
This way you don't need to bake the simulation and don't loose the rigid body settings.


Border render in mesh I'm rendering a movie in cycles.
When I'm rendering an object (2 objects copied with AltD), a part of the mesh disappears, determined by angle of the camera.

it acts like a render border, but it only effects a "vertex group" of the mesh. The mesh doesn't has any actual vertex groups. Or any of that kind (looked at mesh-data in the Properties editor). I can't find any strange settings.

This is shown in the render view as well as in the viewport. And only when it shows the render view. I tried the internal render. But then the whole render is inexplicable

I can't give a picture of the problem, because I have confidentiality. and can't reproduce the problem because I don't know how it came there.

(blender version is 2.66 or 2.69, same problem on like 30 computers (just with the 0, but its coincidence), re-saved with new name multiple times

This is a bit unlikely because your mention of "vertex group", but a problem most similar to "render border" is when active camera's Clipping distance is too limiting for the scene's size. For example, the following scene is using default camera:

Lower-right object is of regular size, and intersects the camera's Start/near clipping distance. While upper-left object is 10 times larger and bumps into the camera's End/far clipping distance.

If this is the case, relevant settings you need to adjust are in Properties window > Object Data tab > Lens group for the camera object.


Polygon highlighting I'm toying with blender 2.8 and as a Maya user there's one thing that absolutely drives me mental.
When I select 4 edges or verts the face highlights. How in the world do I turn this off?

All I want to see is the selected edges/verts and not a polygon that they form. In complex objects all I see is faces cause spotting edges at that point is super hard.
I tried in overlay but that doesn't do the trick. I'm trying to move to blender again away from Maya but little things like that turn me off pretty quickly.

Thank you in advance!

I don't think there is any way of totally disabling it in blender, but you can get pretty close by changing the theme preferences.

First go to Edit

Then select Preferences

And then in the new window go to Themes -> 3D view -> Face Selected.

Lastly, click the color and turn the lowest value (A or Alpha) to 0 and click at the bottom right of the window "Save Preferences".

Then you should be set.


Merging UVs and textures I have a model that consists of several separate meshes.
Each mesh has its own UV and texture map.
I would like to merge them and have only 1 UV map and 1 texture map.
Is there a way or a script that would do that painlessly for me?
I have watched videos where this is done with a lot of manual work. I would like to ask if there is an alternative solution, even if it does not use the available space absolutely perfectly.

Thank you!

I think what you are looking for is Texture Atlas

It says it can

  Create one UV Map for all objects (non destructive making)

Which sounds like what you need to do.

As far as combining textures, I think you may have to do that manually. In the future I'd advise you to join your UV's first.


Light point power keyframes not showing up in graph editor Title is self explanatory. Trying to simulate flickering light via light power keyframes but there are no points in the graph editor even though i can see them in the dopesheet, timeline etc. For reference, I placed one keyframe on first frame in animation and one at the end and wanted to apply a noise F-Curve modifier to the whole thing.

In my particular case I could not see the points in the graph editor because the power of my light was 2000 W and it was way beyond the default view range.
As suggested by AtomicBezierSlinger you could perform a Select All (A) and then View Selected (Numpad .(the period key)):

Alternatively, you could also View All (Home). This is convenient if a numerical keypad is not available.


Cycles hair particles disappear after I comb the hair? I tried to comb hair particles in particle edit mode, but the hair didn't show up after rendering.

This is before I combed the hair and the render result I got.

And this was what I got after I combed in particle edit.

And here's my .blend file

Any help will be very appreciated.

Particles will not render in particle edit mode, due to a limitation:

  This is intentional, it's a limitation in the particle system code that both Blender Internal and Cycles suffer from. Not considered a bug at the moment.

So make sure you are not in particle edit mode when rendering.

In case you are wondering what the suffering is about, blender's particle code is known to be inefficient and filled with issues. (I can't seem to find any sources for this, but I know I read it somewhere..)

A "looking into" is being talked about as part of the Gooseberry project, and a rewrite (with nodes support!) is also being worked on.


Trouble bending an arm at the elbow once subdivided I subdivided the arm at the elbow. Yet when I try to bend the arm at the elbow to move the elbow back, the shoulder moves instead. I am trying to position it like the arm drawn on the right.  Please help if you have any advice to get the arm to bend at the elbow. I am very very new to this.  Thank you for any help you can offer.

First you need to disable Limit selection to visible to see through the mesh, then select only the vertex of the elbow to bend the arm.


Making very hard shadows softer? Once I set up the lighting I've noticed that there is a very Hard Shadow falling from one object to another, from the Sky Map. Is there a way to make the Shadows softer without affecting the Intensity of the Sky Map.

| world settings

I put the samples up to 200, the difference isn't that big in this scene, I don't like this Harsh Shadow, and want to change it, but no method comes to my head

I tried unchecking the Shadow box in settings of the front object; the one casting this harsh shadow, and it seems to work, but now I am not sure if this is a good way of getting around it?

Depending on what you want, there are a couple ways to approach this.

Increasing the Size (in Properties > Lamp) of the main lamp to produce softer shadows:

Or Angle value if you are using blender 2.8 :

Here's a gif showing the size animated from 0.1 to 1:

Adding a second lamp to to put more light into the shadowed area:

Disabling Shadow rays for an object allows light to pass through and illuminate surfaces behind it. If this works for you, then all well and good, but be aware that this isn't a physically accurate phenomenon and may look strange in some situations.


Rendered aspect ratio different from the viewport's camera view Why would there be a difference in aspect ratio between a rendered image, and the camera perspective in the viewport? My render is getting squashed to fit a different aspect ratio.

Here is a scene with a circle and emission shader.

Camera perspective in the viewport:

Render:

The image has been rendered with an aspect ratio using non square pixels.

The default setting is X=1 Y=1 so that the image is rendered undistorted using square pixels. You only need to alter with this settings if you are using some display that uses non square Pixels, like old TV or are integrating 3D elements into video shot with anamorphic lenses.

Info from the manual:

  Unlike regular computer monitors, some screens (typically older TV sets) do not have the square pixels making it it necessary to generate pre-distorted images which will look stretched on a computer but which will display correctly on a TV set. It is important that you use the correct pixel aspect ratio when rendering to prevent re-scaling, resulting in lowered image quality.

for more info see here: http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/aspect-ratios.html


Friction with balls rolling down a funnel I have made a funnel with some balls that are set to move sideways to begin with. Once they hit the funnel, they immediately stop and roll towards the centre. They seem unwilling to roll in the funnel itself. All is rigid. no bouncing. friction is set to almost zero.
How can I make them roll more willingly?

I  don't know ... in theory right curvature (what is right?), enough weight and initial speed should work, but didn't for me either. It is loosing speed too quickly. Some low Friction helped a bit, so its not such slippery.

add Vortex force field, Strenght 20, Inflow -2 and
lower Gravity to -4

to make it work. Even this is not going in spiral, but in oval. I'm not happy about that, but probably better something than nothing.

Also there seems to be some collision margin, but I checked sphere and collider, there is almost notnihg.

Notes: Initial ball velocity is given by animation (first 10 frames). To make it work for riggid body you have to ad two keyframes to two animate checkbox frame zero on/ frame 10 off (Physics Properties > Riggid Body > Settings > Animated)


Importing trajectories to create an animation I am using blender to model a robot in my own robot simulator. To create better videos of my simulation results, I would like to log e.g. the positions and orientations of all segments to a log file and import that into blender to create an animation. Is there a canonical way to write such log files, or is there even a python module already out there?

There are several easy ways to exchange data, common formats are .csv or .json and both can be written and read easily.

What you might end up doing is have csv file like this:

timestamp,p1x,p1y,p1z,p2x,p2y,p2z,p3x,p3y,p3z....etc
0:000,x,y,z,x,y,z,x,y,z....
0:020,x,y,z,x,y,z,x,y,z....
0:030,x,y,z,x,y,z,x,y,z....

The timestamp could be as fine grained as you want, or 24 frames per second. Exactly how you turn the information into an animation is entirely up to you and can also be entirely scripted.

Here's a movement.csv, which uses a frame number instead of the timestamp, simply because it makes the example more convenient.

To start off you might want to simply key-frame some empties. Let's say we have 48 lines of data for 3 points in space, and they describe these arcs (though can be any complex path)

import csv
import os
import bpy

# add 3 empties programatically to be certain it works as a demo
mt1 = bpy.data.objects.new('mt1', None)
mt2 = bpy.data.objects.new('mt2', None)
mt3 = bpy.data.objects.new('mt3', None)
empties = [mt1, mt2, mt3]
for m in empties:
    bpy.context.scene.objects.link(m)

filename = 'movement.csv'
directory = '/home/zeffii/Desktop'  # <-- if you have linux or osx
# directory = r'c:\some\directory'  # <-- if windows, the r is important
# directory = 'c:/some/directory'  # <-- if windows (alternative)

fullpath = os.path.join(directory, filename)

with open(fullpath, 'r', newline='') as csvfile:
    ofile = csv.reader(csvfile, delimiter=',')
    next(ofile) # <-- skip the x,y,z header

    for line in ofile:
        f, *pts = line

        # these things are still strings (that's how they get stored in the file)
        # here we recast them to integer and floats
        frame_num = int(f)
        fpts = [float(p) for p in pts]
        coordinates = [fpts[0:3], fpts[3:6], fpts[6:9]]

        bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame_num)
        for ob, position in zip(empties, coordinates):
            ob.location = position
            ob.keyframe_insert(data_path="location", index=-1)


Best Render Settings to Eliminate Image Grain? First things first, I'm basically brand new to Blender. I used it years ago to do nothing more than import Minecraft models, pose them, and take photos.

Well, now I'm doing basically the same thing but I'd like to actually learn Blender properly this time and the whole new 2.8 interface doesn't help haha. So I imported a model, posed it, and when I render I'm getting a pretty sub-par image and I don't know how to fix it. Specifically in the graininess territory. I've played around with the Samples tab varying both the "render" and "viewpoint" sliders but I'm kinda stumped and would rather ask the pros.
Down below are my photos with the settings marked:

Top Pic: 128 "Render" & 128 "Viewpoint"

Bottom Pic: 500 "Render & 200 "Viewpoint"

I wanted both to be in 1080p for best viewing quality on here but had to limit it to 50% to keep the file size small enough to attach to the document.

If any of you have tips to improve basic render quality or even advanced tips for when I try to do animation with these rigs, I'd really appreciate it. Below are my settings for rendering. If you need me to open any of the tabs to relay my settings to you, just let me know.

The Intel Denoiser might be useful here.

Check Denoising Data in Properties Panel > View Layer
Check Use nodes in Compositor
Add the Denoise node and connect it like this

Now render your image and it will be automatically denoised.

Note:
If you're not going for photorealism, you'll be better off using Eevee Render Engine.
It can be changed in Render Tab > Render Engine > Eevee


Why is the node editor showing different kinds of nodes? I have been following this tutorial until I started adding nodes. The problem is that he has completely different nodes than I have. Even nodes that are created at start are different (I have Material and Output and he has Render Layers and Composite).
Have I missed something or should I use different nodes than he?

This answer is was for older versions (2.79 and previous)
For blender version 2.8x read this

Without any addons, the Node Editor can be used in three different modes:

You are looking at the cycles material (shader) nodes. The tutorial is using the compositor nodes.
Simply click on the Compositing button in the Node Editor header to switch to the compositor nodes.

Also make sure the Use nodes box is checked.


Blender not exporting mesh properly I have just started using blender 2.66a. I was trying to model a chair.
I used a cube to create the chair. I exported it as an .obj file. However when I tried to import it back in, it is just showing a cube instead of the chair which I had modeled.

blend file

The reason you are seeing the cube instead of the chair is because there is a Cube on layer 1. Your chair is on layer 3. You only had layer 3 visible which is why you did not see the cube even though it is there.
There are two ways to avoid this problem in the future:
Method 1 - deleting the cube

Go to layer 1 by pressing 1 on your keyboard

Select the cube and delete it, X

Method 2 - only exporting the needed meshes

Select the chair and any other items you wish to export

In the export dialog check Selection Only

Once you do this you can import the chair and it will work like you expect it to.


why is my smoke blocky? Hi all, i am basically creating a tunnel of smoke in blender 2.77, cycles.

i have a flat ring mesh with a vortex underneath, and i have also added a cylinder on the outside (collision object) with a cone on the inside (also collision object) so that i can see thru this tunnel. i run the simulation, bake it and when i render it you can see this odd pattern in the smoke, both inside and outside, probably because the collision object causes something in the simulation. i have tried increasing resolution in the smoke, both in the base resolution and "show high resolution" panels, currently 128 divisions, and have gone up to 5 divisions in high res panel. I have also increased heterogeneous volume sampling step size which does help but i lose a lot of detail. currently step size is 0.6.
this "pattern" is quite persistent thru the animation and looks pretty awful.

anyone had this before?

ok, applying the scale to my emitter object seems to have done the trick, thanks heaps!


How Can I Create A Specific Arc On Face? Is there anyway that can I make a specific arc (and specific radius that I can't do with bevel) between two vertices in face?
Like in the in image;

select the point

If you want accurate:

scale it to square first

width = 0.5　this is a 1/4 circle with 0.5 radius

scale back to previous rato

If you want special mathematical curve, you can add a Curve obj and convert to mesh to do the Boolean or find some addon.


Apply armature's object rotation to animation data I'm trying to rotate a walking animation. It's stored as motion capture data in a BVH file (download an example here), and then loaded into Blender as a moving armature. What I would like is to be able to (manually) edit the animation. My approach so far was:

Load the BVH.
Move the armature object (so in Object mode) such that at frame #1 it's at the origin.
Rotate the object around the origin (so still in Object mode), such that the walking animation is aligned with the X-axis.
Press [Ctrl]+[A] to apply the location + rotation.

This last step doesn't do what I want. Rather than modifying the animation data, it modifies the armature itself. When I go to edit mode, I see that the edit bones have been changed (see before/after image).

Since I have multiple BVH files with multiple motions, this is a problem. Since the motion data itself isn't changed, it's impossible to use the aligned animations as actions, and I cannot link those edited actions to a single armature.

My question to you: how do I apply my alignment (rotations & translations) to the animation data (i.e. the root bone translation/rotation), while keeping the armature itself unchanged?

Sybren

PS: I've also asked this question at BlenderArtists. I'll make sure that if there is a solution posted here, I'll update my post there, and vice versa.

The answer lies in the MakeHuman Blender tools. There are a few steps you need to get right, though:

Load a BVH with the "Load BVH" button in the "Misc" tab. This will cause the BVH to be loaded incorrectly, as it'll be scaled down. Unfortunately you can only change this behaviour after you loaded the BVH. We'll fix this, and then re-load the BVH correctly.
Open the "MakeWalk: Options" panel.
Deselect the "Auto Scale" checkbox and/or set the scale to 1.00.
Scroll down to the "MakeWalk: Utilities" panel and click "Save defaults".
Remove the armature from the scene, and load your BVH again.
Open "MakeWalk: Edit Actions" and enable "Global Edit".

Now you can go to Pose Mode, move the armature around, and click on the "Shift Animation" button. Contrary to its name, this also applies rotations. It then applies your translation & rotation to the entire animation.


Can't open .BLEND files Theres hundreds of these questions probably, or i'm just dumb and somehow can't open them. When I open a .BLEND file it just says Windows doesen't know this error. And I have blender installed. Is there some kind of addon i needed to check or something? Sorry for this dumb question. And when i just open blender and pick the file and drag it to blender, i see nothing. This is an intro template BTW.

You could check Windows registry using: regedit and manipulate these entries:
In case none of the entries are found in the registry you could save them in a text file e.g. "blend.reg" and import the settings by regedit.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\blendfile]
@="Blender File"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\blendfile\DefaultIcon]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\blender.exe\", 1"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\blendfile\shell]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\blendfile\shell\open]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\blendfile\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\blender.exe\" \"%1\""


Fill Letters converted to Mesh objects with top faces removed with objects I am using Blender 2.90.0 on OS X Catalina
I would like to fill up glass letters (letter object converted to mesh) with objects (actually spheres, but  used a cube to test.
I removed the top faces to allow an opening (naive of me, I know) and let the cube fall, but it bounces before it hits the opening as if there is face there.
I figure I could probably get the same affect using some sort of bounding box, but I would like to  try this using Physics.  the cube is an active object, the letter  is passive.  I have tried active for letter as  well.
I assume there has to be an "official" way of telling blender that the face isn't there...

This was my own error.
The Collisions shape for the letter was correct as well as the shape for the falling particle.  HOWEVER, I neglected to sett he shape for the backdrop, and the object was interacting with its "convex hull" shape before it got to the letter.
Now it works beautifully


Skin modifier not work for entire mesh I created spider web using curves. Then I joined all curves using CTRL + j.
Then I wanted to apply "skin modifier" to create mash.
Skin was added only to one line as shown in the picture. How to fix this?

You need to mark all the vertices as root.  So..

Select NurbsPath.005
Get into Edit Mode.
Hit a twice.
Goto the Skin Modifier Panel and hit Mark Root.
While they're still selected, you can hit Ctrl + A to tweak the thickness of the web.


How to create a 3D model of an object and then put it on the Internet in a 3D viewer With my startup team-members, we're looking to build a 3D model of our product, to put it on our website, and then be able to move it 360°, is it possible to do this?

Does it cost a lot?

Thank you for your Help.

This is fairly easy to do if you are using the Blender in combination with Sketchfab since there is an Addon that is included with Blender which sends the model directly to the website for you.(Although it can be buggy so I'll show how to do it without the Addon)

At the time of writing, the free version of SketchFab allows you to upload .blend files that are a maximum of 50MB.

When the model is ready to be uploaded, you can pack all the textures individually or write a script that can iterate through all the textures and pack them automatically.  Once this is done then the .blend file will contain copies of the images.
This will be important for loading the scene file to Sketchfab, otherwise you can load them manually afterwards.

Next, go to the SketchFab website and locate the blue Upload button and then use the directory menu to select the .blend file that you would like to upload.

It's that simple to load a model, here it is shown in the interactive 3D viewer.

Now if you want to embed the model and viewer into a website click the Embed button and copy the contents of the mini popup dialogue.

Now paste this into the HTML code of your website as shown in the following image.

Here's what the page looks like after the code is embedded.  btw, the low quality banding is from the animated .gif, not sketchFab or Blender.

There is a page here that has some extra information on preparing the material so it will function correctly with exporters/SketchFab.

Exporting cycles rendered models to be used in opengl


Is it possible, without knowing Python, to animate between orthographic and perspective camera view? I want to animate between perspective and orthographic camera views. How can this be done?

I found where people talk about successfully animating between orthographic and perspective camera views in Unity with code, so fundamentally this must be possible. But I don't know Python, so I wouldn't be able to figure it out manually with code in Blender.

To achieve a smooth transition from a Perspective camera to Ortho (and back), @someonewithpc's answer gets you part of the way there. However, that solution just jumps between Perspective and Ortho; the transition is not smooth. Use the following steps:

Set a keyframe for your camera's location (I -> Location)
In Camera Properties, set a keyframe for your camera object's Focal Length (it's in the Lens panel) by either RMB the value and choosing Insert Keyframe or hovering your mouse over the value and pressing I. (Note: this assumes that your camera is in Perspective view to start.)
Move forward in time to where you intend to have your transition to Ortho complete.
Increase the Focal Length to a very high value (The soft limit is 5000mm, but you can manually enter higher numbers. Typically, however, around 1000mm should be sufficient.) You should notice right now that everything feels zoomed in very close. Don't worry about that just yet.
Insert a keyframe for your new Focal Length (hover -> I or RMB -> Insert Keyframe).
Grab (translate/move) your camera along its local Z-axis... you will need to move it very far. Try moving it by 100 units to start (G -> Z -> 100 -> Enter). You will also probably need to adjust your camera's clip range... both the Start value (to remove artifacts) and the End Value (to ensure visibility). Keep grabbing your camera and moving it along it's local Z-axis until it looks very similar to the Orthographic camera (you can quickly switch between Perspective and Ortho in the Lens panel of Camera Properties to check).
When you're happy that your perspective view closely matches the ortho view, insert a keyframe for your camera's location (I -> Location).
Make sure your camera is set to Perspective view in the Lens panel of Camera Properties and insert a keyframe on the Perspective/Ortho/Panoramic buttons as described in @someonewithpc's answer (hover over buttons and press I or RMB -> Insert Keyframe).
Step forward one frame right arrow.
Change the camera view mode from Perspective to Ortho from the Lens panel of Camera Properties.
Insert a keyframe for the camera's viewmode as described in #8 and @someonwithpc's post.

That should do it. This should get you a smooth transition from Perspective to Ortho. I know it looks like a lot of steps, but I was just overly thorough with my description. It's pretty easy to do.


Normals look different from Edit and Object modes Face orientation is different from Edit mode and Object mode. In object mode, they are all red. In Edit mode, they are correct. How to resolve this issue? Thanks a lot!

I checked "Flip Normals" under Solidify Monifier. Thanks for Robin Betts pointed out.


How do you use the GPU offscreen render API in 2.8? For a while now in blender there has been this GPU Off-screen renderer; however, I think it has changed a bit in 2.8, and plus, I never even knew how to use it before.
Basically I want to be able to render a video animation using the offscreen rendering API, specifically the "3D View into Texture" example, here is the code from the docs on the website:
import bpy
import bgl
import gpu
from gpu_extras.presets import draw_texture_2d

WIDTH = 512
HEIGHT = 256

offscreen = gpu.types.GPUOffScreen(WIDTH, HEIGHT)

def draw():
    context = bpy.context
    scene = context.scene

    view_matrix = scene.camera.matrix_world.inverted()

    projection_matrix = scene.camera.calc_matrix_camera(
        context.evaluated_depsgraph_get(), x=WIDTH, y=HEIGHT)

    offscreen.draw_view3d(
        scene,
        context.view_layer,
        context.space_data,
        context.region,
        view_matrix,
        projection_matrix)

    bgl.glDisable(bgl.GL_DEPTH_TEST)
    draw_texture_2d(offscreen.color_texture, (10, 10), WIDTH, HEIGHT)

bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(draw, (), 'WINDOW', 'POST_PIXEL')

Although this works great for making a texture, it doesn't explain how to use this to save the image, I want to eventually implement an interface that will save the image, or store it into some kind of base64 image buffer (To send to a server) to render faster / real time, but even more importantly: it doesn't explain how to change the resolution of the output, so:
How exactly do I render (e.g. save onto disk OR store in buffer) a simple animation (I.e, image sequence) using the GPU Off-Screen Render API, at any given resolution (even 1920 / 1080) in Blender 2.8?

The following code shows the essential steps to write the 3D view into a Blender image.

The main caveat is that the currently offscreen.draw_view3d() is called within draw() using bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add.
This has a few consequences:

one must ensure that the 3D view is redrawn, for example by clicking onto some object in the 3D view
the function is called multiple times

When moving offscreen.draw_view3d() outside of draw(), I received  the following error message: TypeError: expected 'SpaceView3D' type found 'SpaceTextEditor' instead. So currently, I'm stuck setting the correct context. Any help would be highly appreciated - I'll update the post correspondingly.

import bpy
import bgl
import gpu
from mathutils import Matrix
from gpu.types import GPUOffScreen

def draw():

    print('draw: bpy.context.area.type',  bpy.context.area.type)
    global write_view_3d

    if write_view_3d:

        # Write the image into the offscreen buffer
        offscreen.draw_view3d(
            scene=scene,
            view_layer=bpy.context.view_layer,
            view3d=bpy.context.space_data,
            region=bpy.context.region,
            view_matrix=view_matrix,
            projection_matrix=projection_matrix)

        buffer = bgl.Buffer(bgl.GL_BYTE, width * height * 4)
        bgl.glReadPixels(0, 0, width, height, bgl.GL_RGBA, bgl.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, buffer)

        if(image_name not in bpy.data.images):
            bpy.data.images.new(image_name, width, height)
        image = bpy.data.images[image_name]
        image.pixels = [v / 255 for v in buffer]

        print('write_view_3d', write_view_3d)
        write_view_3d = False
    else:
        print('write_view_3d', write_view_3d)

image_name = "Result"
scene = bpy.context.scene
render = bpy.context.scene.render
width = bpy.context.region.width
height = bpy.context.region.height

offscreen = gpu.types.GPUOffScreen(width, height)
view_matrix = scene.camera.matrix_world.inverted()
projection_matrix = scene.camera.calc_matrix_camera(
    bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get(),
    x=width,
    y=height)

write_view_3d = True
current_draw_handler = bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(
    draw, (), 'WINDOW', 'POST_PIXEL')


texture paint, only part of the mesh is paintable? I'm super frustrated with this one, I've spent a lot of time on the mesh, got the uv's layed out all nice, and now when i go to paint it, it only lets me paint part of the sleeves. What am I doing wrong? I'd rather edit in photoshop so is there a way to just fill the uvs? I tried exporting the uv's and nothing showed up.

In the file you uploaded the image "yfbody.dds" doesn't exist. After creating a new image to replace "yfbody.dds" I am able to paint onto the model.

When exporting UV's you either need to select all the UV's you want included or turn on the All UV's option.


BGE: How to make a Key inactive after pressing another Key? When pressing W a cube is doing a forward movement.
When I press S I want to make the W movement inactive, how do I do that?

And after by pressing W again I want the cube to do a back movement, so to do a different type of movement.

You can use states: In the first state, you have a W keyboard sensor, linked to a motion actuator that moves the object forward, and you have an S keyboard sensor linked to a "Set State" actuator, which will set the second state.

On the second state, you have a W keyboard sensor, linked to a motion actuator that moves the object backward.

That should produce the desired behavior you described.

Here's a demo, if required: logic_brick_key_remap.blend


How to access Object Display properties? I'm trying to change properties so that I map have edges drawn over the object when in object mode.
The standard google answer is to use Object->Properties->Display then click on wire etc.
There is even graphic of the display panel in the manual.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/_images/editors_3dview_object_properties_display.png
(from page: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/properties/display.html)

Problem is, the display panel I see is quite different.

Since the manual is for 2.78 I figure there must be a different panel that I haven't found yet.

So, looking for a clue on how to access this display panel.
If that's not available. Is there another way to have wire frame overlay the texture view when in object mode?

You can change this from the Object properties as shown below:


Modelling gradient lattice I have a 4-layer lattice (.STL file) that I like to edit to a gradient lattice, changing the gaps between lines from low to high or addition of other layers. Could you help me by utilising which tools I can do it? I tried Loop cut, vertex and extrusion so far, although still struggling.
Thanks a bunch!

[4-lattice layer; for making a gradient lattice, for instance, I like to add another 4-layer with smaller porosities or windows. The first 4-layer 88 or 99 then the second 4-layer 5*5. The shared image would be the second 4-layer]


Unable to select parented mesh I've parented my mesh to my armature and want to edit the weights with weight painting, but I can't select the mesh to get into weight painting mode.
I'm trying to select it from here. Help?

Press the plus icon next to ["armature"]to open up the hierarchy.  Like files and folders
There you will see your mesh which can then be selected.


Is there a way to combine keyframes in groups? Let's say, I have multiple keyframed objects.

Selecting necessary keyframes from necessary objects in lengthy Dope sheet is very tedious.

For easier manipulation with the timeline, I want them to be grouped in "chapters" or somehow binded to Markers or whatever, is this possible?

Generally this task is demanded to Bone Layers: you can put a group of bones in a Bone Layer, then select that layer, select all bones and set keyframes.
In the dopesheet you can set the visibility to all, only selected, multiple objectes, etc with the little buttons on the header of the dopesheet window.


How can I map a texture node, using a factor similar to pointiness, when the mesh edges are too rounded? I'll try to clarify. I have a guitar body mesh.

I want the front & back to have a lighter wood texture.
I want the sides to have the same texture, but stained darker.

Here's the tricky part: the darkened wood texture should extend a short distance 'beyond' the sides, and into the front and back of the guitar. Here's a pic of what I mean:

Is there a node setup that lets me do this without texture painting?
I tried pointiness but it doesn't work, maybe because my mesh is a mess, or the edges are too rounded.

Here's where I'm at so far - I can target the sides by using a geometry node. Sort of like saying "apply the texture to faces parallel to the local Z axis". But you can see the issue - the green color doesn't bleed into the front and back, it strictly covers the side. The color ramp doesn't help. Is there some way to extend the green area a few inches onto the front+back faces?

I would use the normal output of the texture coordinate node and remap the values with a rgb curves node.

For this you need to have your model's normals pointing in a global direction. Say you modeled the body along the XY plane, so the normals of the part where the cord is (I don't know the technical term) points towards the Z direction.

So we will create a gradient from blackish to orange-ish along the mesh, depending on the value of the normal. A Z component of Z means black values, and a Z component of 1 (pointing UP) is more red.

We will add a noise texture to make it a little bit more believable, but I think you know how to do this already.

The node network :

Zoom on the "RGB curves" node :

Result :


How to open URL upon clicking an object? UPBGE/BGE Hello. I wanted to know if it would be possible to open a website (hyperlink) after clicking on an object. Normally you can have a left button sensor and a mouse over sensor working together so that both conditions must be met to perform and action (i.e. object can only be selected after hovering over and then clicking it), but that is when you connect if to an "and" controller, which I cannot do as the controller is for the script. With the current setup, it should open the URL after clicking the cube, but for some reason it opens it up when clicking anywhere available. Any solutions or alternatives? Thanks.

You can open a web URL in another browser with Python by running the following code at run-time.
import webbrowser
webbrowser.open('http://google.com')


How to copy paste parts of Themes Setups from one theme to another? Is it possible to copy part of Theme colors schemes from one preset to another (eventually via notepad) to get an almost perfect theme ?

I ask because the quantity of the possible color selectors is huge.

An organic Theme builder would be great possibly clicking on a part of the interface to choose automatically the selector so you can make changes on the fly, manually doing this is annoying, and usually gives fancy results due to the speed one try to do things to avoid boredom.

Well as far as I know there is no builtin mechanism to do this, at least not directly through the blender UI or in a graphical manner.

You can copy individual colors from one theme to another, by hovering your mouse cursor over a color box and pressing Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V, but I don't think this is what you expect.

Other than than, Blender themes are simple XML files, you can edit them externally using any regular plain text editor.

You can theoretically copy and paste at will between them. If you use some sort of programmer's text editor with syntax highlighting for XML files and possibly code folding for easier navigation it should make the job somewhat easier.


How to solidify a complex 2D Render from Pix4D for 3D printing I have looked everywhere but cannot find exactly what i need help with so hopefully someone can help me.

I currently have this file

As you can see it is a 2D mesh generated out of a program called Pix4D Mapper.

I would like to make it a solid single 3D model so that i may print it via a 3D printer. To do this i would like to fill in the area inside of the blue box so that it is solid.

Is there a simple tool to do this? Right now i have been creating a flat version of the file below and then linking the edges of the top and bottom one with new faces however this will take upwards of 7 hours for the whole file and may not even work. The problem is that there are different elevations on the work site that we scanned and without filling in the area we cannot 3D print the file.

I already tried using the solidify tool but due the complexity of the model it ruins the buildings and levies when solidifying it. Is there any other way to do this?

Also is there anything else that should be done before printing?

If I get how your model is done now, I would select the outer edge, and then extrude it down Z enough.  Then Scale it to Z 0 (zero) to equal the bottom extruded edge loop. Then fill the bottom face pressing F key.


Where can I find boolean feature in modifier for NURBS? I created 2 nurbs. One sphere and one plane. I try to add boolean in Modifier. But I can not find boolean feature in list Modifier feature.
Please view attached file for more details.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuAcyL2kNiCPg7oc953FjKr7rbleiA?e=swevuo

The boolean modifier is only available for meshes.

You would have to convert your nurbs objects to meshes.  Probably not what you wanted to hear.

This is something I miss from Rhino and other modellers.  In blender, however, the mesh is king.


Is there a way to rotate a plane in a way that its normal will face 3d cursor? Is there a way to rotate a plane/face in a way that its normal will face 3d cursor?

Not directly as far as I know, but you can use a constraint to your advantage as a workaround.

Add a Track To constraint to a plane, set it up to track any empty object. Make it point in Z direction and use Y Up.

You can now move this Empty object freely through your scene, and your plane will always face it. If you duplicate the plane, any clones should keep the behavior in sync.

While you can't make the plane face the cursor directly, you can now select the empty, and using the Shift + S Snap menu move the empty to the cursor easily with the option Snap > Selection to Cursor, cirtually making them point to the current cursor position.


Model Scaling Breaking Animation I've imported a model with pre-made animations and a rig. Scaling down the model (via the rig) works and the animations are okay, but trying to animate the rig's motion causes the rig to default back to its initial scale.
I parented it to an empty which works. However, trying to edit an animation also causes this issue, and I'm worried about the issue being triggered by other things.
Could someone let me know what I'm doing wrong? How can I apply the new scale without breaking the animations?

Alright, just found out you can just parent it to an empty and scale the empty. Simple solution, but appears to work!


Update a custom property after leaving edit-mode? I'm looking for a way to automatically run the update_length() function after editing the actual curve, this would make my curve_length property always be up to date.
import bpy

obj = bpy.context.object

bpy.types.Object.curve_length = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
    name = 'Curve Length',
    description = 'Curve Length',
    default = 0
    )

def calculate_curve_length (obj):
    curve_length = obj.data.splines[0].calc_length()
    return curve_length

def update_length()
    obj.curve_length = calculate_curve_length (obj)

update_length()

You can subscribe to changes in an objects mode.
import bpy

# Create a unique object as a handle for the subscriber.
my_handle = object()

def my_notify(a, b, c):
    print(a, b, c)

def register():
    bpy.msgbus.subscribe_rna(
        key=(bpy.types.Object, "mode"),
        owner=my_handle,
        # Can be anything, passed to 'notify'.
        args=(1,2,6),
        notify=my_notify,
    )

def unregister():
    # Clear on unregister.
    bpy.msgbus.clear_by_owner(my_handle)

register()
```


Rendered image only black and white noise I am new to Blender and try to reproduce a YouTube TutorialBlender Tutorial: Splash Effect. Everything works fine, up until I try to render the image. What I get then is nothing but black and white noise, also known as salt-and-pepper noise:

I re-checked that the three light sources are set to Emission. The number of render samples is set to 10, but also increasing it to 100 doesn't change anything.

Here is the blend file

I'm sure I made a stupid noob mistake, but which?
Thanks a lot,
Polis

It appears you have two fluid domain objects, one of which has no material (Cube).

Since you can only have one fluid domain while baking, presumably this second domain got accidentally created after the bake was done. Since it has no material it defaults to diffuse. At 10 samples this diffuse surface appears pretty noisy, giving the result in your example render:

Delete it, and all is well:


Blender has loaded a letter/font wrong I'm using the font 'Birth of a Hero' and suddenly the capital 'T' is partially gone which isn't meant to happen. Not really sure why this is happening. It looks fine in normal documents and both photoshop and illustrator, just Blender doesn't seem to load it properly.

What Blender loads:

How it's meant to look:

Similar to what happens here: Text objects are messed up when using Offset

(October 2015)

Most font rendering engines cope with this OK, currently Blender doesn't, but maybe not for very satisfying reasons and perhaps it needs some explanation. There are reasons to consider this a flaw in Blender's Glyph conversion, but at the same time the Font Designer made a decision to release a font which has a few technical flaws (like overlaps and intersections).

Text Objects can be thought of as a specialized case of the Curve object, and Curve data can contain multiple disjoint parts called Splines or in typographic lingo "Elements".

Make a Text Object using that font, add the capital T glyph.
In Object Mode convert the Text Object to a Curve to analyze the splines/elements of the glyph. (Alt+C).

Now you'll see the elements that make up this letter. These are the curves as the typographer would see them (more or less).

The scanfill algorithm is what converts 2d outlines taken from the curves to 2d surfaces. The problem with this font is that some parts self intersect (they overlap, and cross a boundary), the algorithm that decides whether to subtract an element is oblivious to the intention of the Glyph designer, and seems to be oblivious to the concept of element direction in Glyphs.

If the intention was a Boolean AND (right), that's not what happens, we get a Boolean XOR difference (left):

Overlap, is a technique often used to quickly create sharp transitions. Some consider it bad practice in Glyph design, Font Editing software will even warn about it before saving. But people like convenience, and overlaps can be taken advantage of, see below: Notice that the direction of the element determines whether it is additive or subtractive:

here's the same glyph rendered in Blender:

Technically this is a valid glyph, in the same sense that it's legal to drive through an orange light we are recommended to avoid doing that. Blender doesn't recognize element 'direction' as a factor in whether it should subtract or add Curve elements, until that's implemented you will get the occasional unexpected font-rendering.

Back to your font.

Below I selected the left most element and translated it away in the Y direction so you can see where the overlap was happening. If you do the same and move it slowly you'll see how the scanfill algorithm responds.

That's all great, but How do I make this work in Blender?

Edit the Curve directly

- convert to Curve
- of the letter in question, select all elements and individually switch off their Cycle U toggle.
- then move around the handles/anchors that overlap and join them in the appropriate places
- then finally once all of the major overlaps are fixed, then press toggle   Cyclic back on.

Edit the font!
It's a .ttf, on linux you can use the free FontForge and cut away the overlaps. (beyond the scope of Blender.StackExchange)


How to color particles based on the texture of the object from which they are emitted, using the "grid" emission setting? I am using Blender's particle system to try to voxelize my mesh. I'd like to color the voxels based on the diffuse color of the textured mesh at the closest location to each voxel. This is an image that shows what I'm trying to do:

This Stack Exchange post explains how to color emitted particles based on the mesh from which they are emitted. The technique uses the "jittered" emission setting:

Using the technique in the post I linked to, here is what I get with "jittered" selected. You can see that the emitted cubes correctly match the color of the mesh:

When I change the emission setting to "grid", the cubes no longer match the color of the object:

I'd like to use the "grid" emission setting for voxelization, but can't figure out how to get the color of the emitted particles to correctly match the color of the mesh.

This is what my shader nodes look like for the cube which I am using as the dupli object:

I'd appreciate any help with this! Please let me know if there's something I can clarify.

A bit 'complicated' solution, as it seems that the particles UV are relative to the mesh boundings when the 'grid' option is set, not to the parent UV map (so I don't think this is possible to tune the nodes to obtain the wanted result, if you want to use particles) :

To do it :

Tune your particle system to obtain the grid dimensions you need
Apply the particle system, by clicking convert here :

You will obtain a duplicate of the cubes (on the right here) :

This cubes are dupli from the same object, so make them single user, by selecting them all and use the "make single user/object & data' menu, like below, and confirm 'selected objects'

Now join them all in order to have 1 mesh from them. As they are still all selected use Ctrl+J
Enter edit mode Tab
Them select all the vertices and unwrap U using the 'smart UV project' mode. It will give you some kind of UV grid like in the right part of the picture below :

Now we will make a bake from the original to the cube shape. This bake wont work directly because the proximity between the cubes and the original mesh is not good.
So, to overpass that :

Add a shrinkwrap modifier to the cubes and set your original mesh as target object :

Now we can bake :

1 : Add a material to your cube mesh
2 : Add a image texture with a newly created texture. Keep this node active.
3 : Select your original mesh RMB then the cube mesh with Shift+RMB
4 : Go to the bake part of the render panel and check 'selected to active'
5 : click 'bake'

Disable or remove the shrinkwrap modifier we set above
Using the baked texture, you obtain this below, with several colors on each cube :

If you need one color per cube, (edit : one color per face !)

Go to the UV editor
Select all your UVs
Set pivot to individual origins
Then scale to 0 S0

Doing that each cube UV is reduced to one point, and we obtain this :

If needed you can separate the cube in edit mode, using P then 'by loose parts' (this may take some calculations...).


How to create a detailed moon surface texture for close up shots? I started working on my dream animation featuring the moon. So now I wanted to take a close up shot of the moon's surface but the problem is that the textures in the NASA website aren"t that detailed for close up shot , so how should I make a realistic one for closup ?
Let me elaborate , I am trying to make a realistic animation related to moon landing in 2024 , and I have 9 months of experience with blender . For example, I want to make a shot in which showing the Star-ship going in the orbit above the surface really close
This Near
This shot is rendered in EEVEE because the maps provided in the NASA's 3d moon kit are for distant view and are not for close up , and thats why cycles messes up the shadows if I crop the texture , so is there a procedural way I can create such renders by the way .
You can even see the star-ship in this one
In future there will also be scenes where I have shots on the surface itself

awnsere credits @Nxdhin2005 - Yes close up shots of a wide area of the surface of the moon might work. Ensure that u have a displacement map along with it or you won't get the required craters and detailes...You will get some extremely close textures of the surface of moon. U can use them but the problem is it will cause repeating textures since you will be forced to scale the UV map because of the size of the texture. You can get rid of that by the Uber mapping node from Blender Guru. By this method you can preserve the resolution of the texture.


Blender 2.83, Cycles, can't get pointiness to work Guys I'm in a pickle here - regular scene, cube, uv unwrapped, cycles renderer selected and yet for a love of me I am unable to get pointiness to work.

As mentioned in the comments, on a cube with no curvature,or any type of bevel, you will see no result from  the pointiness output of the geometry node.
Pointiness as defined in the manual:

An approximation of the curvature of the mesh per vertex. Lighter values indicate convex angles, darker values indicate concave angles. It allows you to do effects like dirt maps and wear-off effects.

You can see this clearly in the following example:
All objects have the same basic node setup including the default cube on the left.

Click to enlarge
The node seteup used:


How to export blender file with armature to glb I am pretty new to the tool Blender, I am using version 2.8.0 and I have a robotic arm with some animations using the bones and armature, it works fine but when I am trying to export it to a glb file a lot of portion of the file is lost when it is called in the three.js file, is there a way to counter the problem?

Start by trying the latest stable version, Blender 2.81a.  If that fails, make a backup of your project and try downloading an "Experimental" build of 2.82 from: https://builder.blender.org/download/

The reason I suggest this is that many armature-related bugs and issues have been corrected over the last 6 months or so in the glTF exporter, and not all of those fixes have yet made it out into a stable release of Blender as of this writing.  Several new fixes will be released with 2.82.

One other option to consider, if this really is a mechanical robotic arm that does not move in a cartoonish or organic way:  You could get rid of the bones and armature, and just have each mechanical section of the arm be its own object, parented to the one above.  Then you can use traditional node-based animations, instead of bones and armatures that are meant for more organic movements.  The robotic arm could have a specific shoulder joint with a specific elbow joint as its child, and the object movements would be animated object position/rotations that should export correctly to glTF.


How to generate Reaction Diffusion animation? How to create Reaction Diffusion as animated texture (image sequence) in Blender?

Since this site is meant to be as knowledge base … here is one option for Compositor. This technique mimics one used by image editor apps:

Copy - Blur - Subtract - Contrast - Merge - Save … repeat with saved image

Add any your black&white image named like 0000.png from separate directory, because running rendering will generate an image sequence to that place.
The trick here is to reuse rendered and saved image for calculation of next frame. For that you have to add Texture node type Image Sequence even you have only your image for frame zero.
Offset -1  ... Thanks to @Robin Betts for pointing that.
To speed up animation you can close nodes into a Group and use it a few times in line.

Additional post-pro (generated sequence with Filter node type Sobel, regenerated and used with Displays modifier).

There is also option use Tissue addon for 3D object … version bundled with official Blender release doesn’t contain Cache feature, to get animated version get latest version from GitHub


How do you export a .blend group I've built a model in one project and want to import it into another. I see .blend files with groups that other people made. You click in the .group, get the item and you're all good to go. .. There don't seem to be any instructions anywhere on how to get it to make a group.. I don't want to export to unity or cad or anything like that - just simply move a model from one blender file to another. This must be possible. Any idea on the settings?

The ~.blend file you wish to import must first include a group, which you create in your original project file, by any of the normal means of creating a group: selecting the elements you want in the group, and selecting the menu item Object > Group > Make Group when the viewport is in object mode, or using the defined shortcut key for this, CTRL-G, or alternatively by using the "add to Group" options under the Group pane in the "object properties" tab of the properties editor. If a group is defined in the file you are wanting to append or link from, when you select the append or link option in the files menu, after selecting the file, you will see in the list of items you can append or link, a listing for "group". Select this, and select the desired group, just as you would another data type, e.g., object, mesh, or material.


How to replace value for all keyframes? I recorded an animation with my object z set to 1.00 but realised afterwards it needs to be at 3.00 throughout.

How can I set the object's z to 3.00 for all selected keyframes in the dopesheet?

If you mean you want to change its Z position throughout the animation, you can do it with the Graph Editor:

Select your object, open the Graph Editor.
Unfold the LocRotScale of the object and lock everything except the Z Location.
Select the curve and move it up 2 units with G, Y and 2 (Y is the up axis of the Graph Editor).
Now your object is 2 units up on the Z axis.

Now, about your second question: "If some of my z positions are not 1, but a different value, is there a way to set them all at once, rather than shift them all by the same value?"

Trick to align several vertices on the same axis:

Select the vertice that is your Y reference, and ctrl G to move your green cursor up to this vertice
Select the vertices you want to align on the same Y position.
shift S > Cursor Value.

Better trick suggested by Mr Zak:

Select the vertice #1 which is the Y position reference.
ctrl G to make the cursor move to the vertice position.
Select the 2D Cursor as the Pivot Point.
Select all the vertices you want to snap to the Y position.
Scale down to zero with S Y 0


Problem with Parenting Mesh to Armature I am trying to parent a mesh to an armature (following an online tutorial). The top picture is before I parent the mesh, the bottom picture is after I parent the mesh.

The steps I took to parent the mesh:

Select the all the bones in Pose Mode
Select the mesh, which takes me to Object Mode.
Shift select the armature.
Ctr + P, select Armature Deform with Automatic Weights/Empty Groups (both options gave the same resulting deformation.

In the tutorial, when the guy did the same steps his mesh did not deform like mine did. What did I do wrong?

Your bones might be moved in the pose mode. To reset all the bones do the following.

Make sure you are in pose mode
Select all the bones
press Alt + G, Alt + R, Alt + S to reset position, rotation and scale respectively.

Without more information than you gave in those screenshots, I can't really help any more. There might be some issues if you used a mirror modifier. (because then you need to name your bones with .r (right) and .l (left) correctly.


Exporting to FBX doesn't export texture and animation I am new with blender. I have a blender model with animation, when I try to export to FBX, the texture is not exported.
I tried to use autodesk like a tutorial said but do not work.

does anyone can give a tutorial for FBX or tell me the right answer?

thank you.

Image texures are not critical you can simply copy the files to the exported .fbx and assign them in your target software. In Unity e.g. you would simply drag and drop them to your mesh.

Blender does export animations, make sure that you haved ticked all options in the fbx-export panel:

Put all actions on a single NLA-track, this shows the NLA editor with all actions I wanted to export:

Note that I left a gap between the actions otherwise the last frame overlaps with the first frame of the following actions. Also I avoided inverse kinematics since baking currently seems to have issues. (Can't bake single actions).

Importing in Unity proves that it works:


post processing edge new to blender,checking edge in post processing shows up characters wireframe while rendering,like the toon effect,but not the wireframe,what am I supposed to do(blender 2.76),normal render(without edge works fine)

Turn down the Threshold. Edge looks for edges based on z-depth. Threshold changes the limit for this. If threshold is high, or your model is low poly, it will get too many edges.


How to apply mix colors in curves? I want to apply colors on the spherical curve (shown below):

But I want it to be colored as below:

I am so tired of finding the solutions on you tube but did not find the way to do it.

Using Cycles, you can obtain this on a curve:

The material node setup is the following:

1- From texture coordinate input node use UV

2- Separate the UV coordinates

3- Keep the 'U' (= X) coordinate and set it as input in a color ramp (add the wanted colors to it)

4/5- Set the result in your shader

Finally, go to the curve properties and set the texture space to use 'UV for mapping'. 'U' (=X) is along the curve and 'V' (=Y) is transversal to the curve.


Energy Sword Smoke Effect I am trying to recreate Ekkos sword from League of Legends. I've got most of the modeling done but I am completely stumped on making a blade that looks good. I've tried smoke sims and volumetric emissions. Open to any ideas.
I've attached my work(first) and the blades I am trying to recreate after.
Open to any help.

You could try giving it a material like this:

The first thing I did was warp the object vector using a Noise Texture to help give the rest a bit more of a "swirly/smoky" look. Next, I used this as the input vector for another Noise Texture (to make it extra distorted) and ran the result through a colored ColorRamp.

For the "energy bolts", I used the same warped vector as the input for a Voronoi Texture set to Distance To Edge. I inverted the result and clamped it with a ColorRamp to make the "Lightning" stand out I then mixed this with the colors using a MixRGB node set to lighten to have good control over how much lightning is added (too bright looks fake):

If you want to soften the effect overall (looks even less fake), you can mix the final result with fitting, solid color. Finally, I suggest running the result through an Emission Shader with the strength turned up a bit. Don't forget to enable Bloom to make it glow:


Convert hair particles to mesh, while keeping them deformed by armature I use a new workflow to map some fur on my characters using vertex weights, i wonder how i could convert the hair (or fur here) particles to mesh, while keeping them deformed by the armature i use with my character?

Or if you know any other way to export the mesh with the hairs as mesh, and deformed by the rig?

On top, the hairs are not yet converted, they fit the deformation of the armature, on bottom, hairs are converted, they don't follow armature anymore.

I want the hairs to keep being deformed by the armature, like on top picture, even after the "Convert" button is pressed.

The new mesh needs to parented to the Armature. After you have pushed the 'convert' button - select your new mesh in Object Mode and shift select your armature. Ctrl P and choose Armature...

...select your bones in Pose Mode. Select your new 'hair' mesh and enter Weight Paint mode. You should see your bones are selected here too. Under weights click Assign automatic from bones. If need be, weight paint to adjust the effect.


Tiny GUI buttons and text on high resolution monitor I recently downloaded blender but when I run the program it is full screen but the nav bars are very small including text and icons. I don't know if its anything to do with the fact my monitor is 4K, I have tried going into resolution settings but it means eeverything else will be too big.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Steps ...

Go to User interface
Navigate to the System tab
Under General Section tune DPI value to fit your need.

No more issue with having a fancy 4k screen ... cheers.


How to Get That Triangulated Low-Poly Look? I've been doing low-poly models for about a year now cause that's all I can really do. I've always wanted that good triangle looking low poly style. Never knew how to achieve it, Im guessing with modifiers. I'm just unsure, if anyone knows how to do this look please leave a comment. Thanks!

(Example is the game Jalopy)

You're looking for the decimate modifer.

Change the shading to Flat, check Triangulate and reduce the ratio to the desired result.


Boolean: Cut Plane with Cylinder I am just learning Blender and am doing a tutorial on Udemy by Darrin Lile. While doing lecture 63 he separates a face off of an object and is able to use a Boolean modifier to cut a hole in that object.
However, when I try and repeat the steps I run into an issue. The hole isn't created but an extra edge is.
My scale and rotation are 1 and all faces are Blue. I've been told that you cant use a Boolean to cut a plane. However, I also saw that in version 2.90 you could. I am using 2.92.
If anyone could provided any help that would be great!

Check your Boolean Modifier if the Solver option is set to Exact. Although this sounds to be better, the Fast option sometimes works better for these things. Of course it is possible to cut a plane with a cylinder ;) I don't know when these Solver options were implemented, but since then it's the default so it sometimes gives bad results.


Sort out a complex UV map for a complex mesh I asked a question yesterday regarding texturing, and now I've gone through the work of unwrapping parts of the mesh and texturing them separately. It looks beautiful.

I now have the problem of a UV map that is kind of a mess. Several textures are used, and each is derived from its own image. The exception is a texture image that was generated with photogrammetry software, which is a composite of image textures.

Now when I look at the UV map it is a huge mess with overlapping islands, though referenced to different images. I've tried to bring it into other software (Meshlab and Mudbox) and I get texture errors. Is there a way to easily sort this based on image assignment? Alternatively, is there a way to automatically generate a separate and single texture file of combined images?

I've attempted to bake textures with no success--granted I have no idea what I'm doing.

Select all the UVs in UV/Image Editor, from the UVs menu select UVs From Islands.

Then in Object Data tab create a new UV Map and unwrap the model. While all the UVs are selected, create an image in the new UV Map where the new texture will be baked and keep this UVMap selected.

Then make sure you have a material and the original texture is applied there using original UVMap.

Click on Render tab and in bake menu select textures and click Bake button.

In the same way as described, it is possible to bake multiple materials that are using same or different UV Maps, to a new single or multiple UV Maps, each with separate texture.

The described above steps are aplicable for Blender Render internal engine. Workflow for Cycles is a bit more tricky though is well depicted here:
Possible to bake texture to new UV map?


Mask area not visible in sculpting mode I can add and manipulate a mask on an object while sculpting.  The mask behaves as if it is present, but the mask itself is not shown in the display area.  I would have expected the inactive region to be shown as dark or differently colored, but it doesn't display at all.  See below.

As you can see on the left, there's no indication that there is a mask on the object, but when sculpted it behaves just like one is there.  How can I get the mask to display?  What are some reasons it might not be shown?

I can not find any of the masking options out of place.

I can't write english well. So my answer is picture.