Broken and/or missing animation nodes? I'm just now discovering blender and getting into animation nodes and they are awesome so far! Very complex and I'm still wrapping my head around it all. I'm following along with some tutorials (Shout out to Zach Hixson) but in one of the tutorials, he used a node that I do not have in 2.1.5, which is the "Bake Sound" node.

But on 2.1.5 it's not there. Is "Sound from sequence" node the new equivalent? It had some different features and I wasn't able to properly follow the tutorial as a result.

Then I was feeling a bit overwhelmed so I started reading the manual for animation nodes, but I guess its a bit out of date? Because the bake sound node was still there. Also, there were some very interesting looking examples on there that I tried to follow, for example this one

But mine doesn't have an option for any kind of output (colors or size of dots)

Are these bugs? Or have these nodes been done away with and improved in some way?

Awesome addon! I'm loving this things capabilities! Thanks for your time!

This node has been replaced by Sound Falloff and Sound Spectrum when the falloff workflow was introduced.
Your node network should look like this :

Basically AN now generates a tweakable falloff from a music file input, in real time, there is no need to bake it anymore. The falloff can then be used to achieve a great number of effect. Here we use it to scale the pegs up and down and to change their material property so they appear to be reacting to the sound waves :


Calling bpy.ops.object.bake_image() gives error "No valid images found to bake to" I'm trying to write a script that'll automatically combine different textures each with a unique UV into a common UV.

This is a portion of my script so far:

# Create new image
bpy.ops.image.new(name=currentImageName, width=1024, height=1024)

# Set bake margins
bpy.context.scene.render.bake_margin = 2

# Set the UV coordinates
ob.data.uv_textures['SmartProject'].active = True

# Specify the bake type
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.bake_type = "TEXTURE"

#Bake the image
bpy.ops.object.bake_image()

When I call this last line, however, I get the error "No valid images found to bake to," in spite of the fact that I just created a new image. I can't find any way to specify which image I want Blender to bake to.

Thanks for your help

There were a few apparent issues.

The first is that the I needed to use the function

ob.data.uv_textures['SmartProject'].data[0].image = bpy.data.images[currentImageName]

to select the correct image. This wasn't enough though, since if the object 'ob' was in edit mode, data would have no elements, returning an index error for data[0].

The next issue was that data has many elements, so I had to actually loop through them setting them all to the current image. The correct code block is now:

# Create new image
bpy.ops.image.new(name=currentImageName, width=1024, height=1024)

# Set bake margins
bpy.context.scene.render.bake_margin = 2

# Set the UV coordinates
ob.data.uv_textures['SmartProject'].active = True

# Specify the bake type
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.bake_type = "TEXTURE"

# Exit edit mode
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

# Set the target image
for d in ob.data.uv_textures['SmartProject'].data:
    d.image = bpy.data.images[currentImageName]

# Enter edit mode
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='SELECT')

#Bake the image
bpy.ops.object.bake_image()


Perspective stuck to one object I have quite a simple but for me, even after several attempts and research, unfixable problem.
I'm quite unexperienced with Blender so please don't judge me :).
The problem: I was modelling a 3D-object, and (probably after a missused shortcut?) my perspective bound to a sphere I used for a shape in an object. Now I have no option to select vertices from other parts of the object. The top left corner shows: "User Perspective (0) Scene Collection | Sphere". How do I change my Perspective so I can normally edit every part of the object?
Sorry that the question is so simple but for me thats a problem and I didn't find a solution.

You probably pressed Numpad / and toggled Local View. Press it again to disable it. Alternatively, use the View -> Local View -> Toggle Local View in GUI.


Compositor: dilate/erode except on predefined edges? A cube with 2 materials and their respective passes. Each ID mask is dilated and then subtracted from the original mask to create the black outline. Notice the only input is from the material pass.
How do I remove the black line between the two materials?

Here is my character, see how each finger has a different material.

After compositing, I have the colors and outlines I want.

How do I remove the black line between the two materials?
The goal is to get an outline around fingers but not where the finger is attached to the hand.... And I need to keep the material outlines separate for when the fingers clench into a fist, or cross boundaries in any way.

So this is as close as I could get. It's not ideal but I could go in frame by frame and remove the excess outline created from the hand you see on top of the lowered fingers (middle and ring).

I'll try to break down the process. If someone can find a way to fully remove those lines I'd love it:

Step 1: Duplicate mesh to a second layer, remove fingers from the first layer.

Step 2: Remove the back-faces from the hand and fingers with a mix of your material and transparency.

Step 3: In compositing, instead of using the "dilate/erode" node to create your outline, use "filter->filter->lapace" node.

Step 4: Specifically for the fingers, you'll take the difference between the outline generated from the hand on the first layer, and the outline generated from the fingers on the second layer (you cannot have fingers on the first layer and you must have the whole body on the second layer).

Coming out of the top outputs of "fingers.R" and "hand.R" in the image above are just the outline created from the lapace node, the skin color is added at the end of this tree with the "alpha over" node.

I hope I'm making sense.
Again, freestyle just doesn't work for me because of it's inconsistencies; I'd prefer to have complete control over where my outlines are generated. There have been some instances of freestyle where I lose parts of the outline around the main body, and that just won't work.


blender is crashing while rendering fluid simulation I am trying to render a fluid simulation in cycles but after 5 frames my gpu drivers get reset, and the blender window becomes white and crashes, or not responding for hours.
my specs
cpu intel i 3 7100
gpu rx 590 8 gb
ram hyper x 8 gb 2400 mhz
I tried every resolution and samples, but it happens when I use gpu. Cpu rendering is stable, i have log file but i dont know how to post it
Render settings

Preferences

in the bottom of the image is the blender window became white and task manager

Try with Command Line Rendering. It tends to be more stable and faster than normal rendering. Here is a video with explanation on how to do it. It is easy, there isn't much to mess up there if you follow the instructions.
Shortly said, rendering in the Command prompt (CMD) is opening blender in the background, without having it actually opened. When Blender is open, it has to keep the 3d view and much more stuff loaded. But when you run it through CMD, you make it to load only the operation you need it to do.
How to do it
1. Open CMD - In the Windows search bar simply type "Cmd", and open it. It doesnt matter if you open it as administrator or not.
2. Locate the blender .exe file - The easiest way it to use the desktop shortcut, by right clicking  on it --> Open File Location, but can be done from Windows start menu. The copy it and go back to CMD.
3.  Set the working directory of the prompt - In CMD, type cd <blender.exe folder>. Usually its in Program Files --> Blender Foundation --> Blender <version>, but it may vary.
4. Do the magic - What you have to do now is to run blender.exe, but with special settings. One thing to note, the settings are just one letter, like -a, followed by specification. There is a space between the setting and the specification.
First, start by typing blender.exe(dont run yet). This will open blender normally when executed.
Then, add the special settings. At first, you need to specify which project will be rendered - i.e the location of the .blend file. So, to what you have written, add -b- this the option, specifying the location of the file. After it, add the location. So, you should have blender.exe -b <location of .blend file> Dont run yet.
Now, you need to specify which frame are you rendering.
For a still image, you use -f, followed by the frame number - -f <number>.
For animation, you use -s for the start frame, -e for the end frame, and then you add -a to tell the program that you are rendering an animation- -s <number> -e <number> -a
Additionally, you can specify an output location, but thats not really necessary, if you have one in the file. Use -o for it, followed by the output folder.
Now, you should be left with something like this:
blender.exe -b <.blend loc.> -f <rendered frame num.>
or
blender.exe -b <.blend loc.> -s <start frame num.> -e <end frame num.> -a
All you got to do now is to run this command. It shows the progress in the CMD. One really cool thing about it, is that you can actually pause it, even on one frame renders. Just click Pause Break button on the keyboard while the CMD window is active. To resume, click it again However, the render gets somehow slower after resuming, so i dont recommend this.
Thats all you really need to know about it, and even if it doesnt apply for that project, its really good to know it for the future.


UV menu dissapears after clicking off of it whenever you add something like a cylinder or a UV sphere, a menu pops up at the bottom that lets you change things like number of faces and such. But as soon as you click off of it that menu disappears, how do you get it back or where is that menu after clicking off?

That menu is there to help you define the parameters of the object, however, once you move or edit it, that object will no longer be able to be defined. Any action you take on the object, including a simple move or clicking to another object, counts as an edit to the system and stops it from being defined.

It's a catch all mechanism.


Snap vertex to face along a non-perpendicular direction How do I move a vertex along an orientation that is not perpendicular to a target face, and make it snap onto that face?

I.e. I want to move along (constrain movement to) an axis that is not perpendicular to the face, and then snap the vertex exactly where the axis crosses the face.

I'm first create the transform orientation to move the vertex along the desired direction. Then I want to snap it onto the face. The snapping works, in the sense that it will snap the vertex to the height of the face at the location of the cursor, but looking from the same orientation. This does not give me what I want because the face is not perpendicular to the orientation. So basically the problem is that both the movement as well as the snapping is using the same orientation. I want to use the orientation for the movement only, and snap onto the normal of the target face.

The shipped add-on (2.79 & 2.80) 'TinyCad' includes an 'Extend Edge to Face' option. Select the face in face mode, and then the edge in edge mode, hit the button..


How to create a drilling effect? I wan't to show a drill drilling into a surface. I can't however, create the effect of the surface being ripped up by the drill. I'm trying to animate the shavings of the surface, to give it a believable appearance

I've created the jaw and I've imported an .stl drill that will work for the video. I am able to do the basic animation, but when the drill is going into the mesh, I cant seem to figure out how to have the section of the mesh "follow" or be removed from the drill depth, meaning that the hole left over after drilling.

The following approaches could work well:

Boolean

(Where an invisible object is used to define the empty space), This is the most direct answer and it can probably be made to work, but also may have problems if the jaw is a non manifold mesh. As a workaround in your case you could remove a part of the jaw, add a inset that the boolean operates on, this makes the computations much more simple but then you need to make sure the seams between the inset and the rest of the geometry are not noticeable.

Deformation

Where a bone or shape key is used to deform the mesh to create the hole, this is fast and predictable but has some possible drawbacks. UV's & vertex-colors etc will distort with the mesh, drilling multiple holes in the one cavity (where the holes overlap) becomes difficult. (something boolean can do). The key to making deformation work here is creating the geometry so the deformation looks good. and you don't loose volume around the deformation in an unrealistic way.

Mesh replacement

Replace parts of the mesh over time by animating visibility, may seem a weak solution and has the disadvantage that the animation wont be smooth and you have to finalize the mesh before making duplicates.. but it gives a lot of control.

Other options which I think wouldn't work so well but including for completeness:

Compositing

Sometimes you can use the depth to do operations you might assume you would need to do on geometry, there are tutorials showing clever use of depth buffer for similar tasks.

Metaballs

For certain cases negative metaballs can be used well for this effect.


Armature refuse to be dupicated to the other side I have a dog armature that I created from watching a tutorial online. However, when I tried to duplicate the left side of the armature to the right side or symmetrize it . The legs end up 180 degree instead of on the other side of the armature. What can be fixed? Even if I move it to the other side manually. The mesh end up ignoring that part of the armature.

There are two separate issues with your setup.

First about the symmetry issue of the armature.
For symmetrize the X-axis is used. So the orientation of your model should be correct. If I see the screenshot you posted, the orientation is wrong (the Y-axis is the desired mirror axis there). In your blend file you have corrected this, but you still have to apply the rotation ( CTRL + A -> Rotation) on the armature, because symmetrize uses the local orientation. (May I also suggest you rotate it on the Z-axis by 180 degrees, so that when you are in front view you see the front of the dog?)
Furthermore you have to make sure the naming of your bones is consistent for the left and right side. Blender's convention is that bones on the left side end with .L and bones on the right side with .R. When you use symmetrize, the bones get mirrored from left to right by default ("-X to +X"). But after the operation you can switch this to "+X to -X" if needed in the operator toolbar. If the bones on the left (or right) don't exist yet they are created and get the proper suffix .R (or .L).

Secondly about the mesh not deforming properly.
You have to apply the mirror modifier that's on the mesh, so the right side can deform independently from the left side.  Now the right half of the mesh mirrors the (deformed) left half.

After this you should remove the armature modifier and delete all vertex groups from the mesh. Then parent the mesh again to the armature and choose 'With Automatic Weights' (or whatever you prefer).
The pole angle on the IK constraints on the right needed to be corrected after symmetrize (set to 0).

Here is the corrected blend file so you can study it if needed.


Extract objects/points inside camera view frustum I'm trying to extract objects/points (region of point cloud) inside a camera view frustum. In this case, i set up a proper camera position and rotation. And i'd like to have those partial objects which would be inside my camera view.

In other words, it's kind of like frustum culling in blender. I'll remove all points outside the camera view.

Could anyone give me some hints on doing this? Or apart of blender software, what other platform can do this work? Thanks a lot.

Seems very hard on blender. I switched to PCL (Point cloud library) to do such kind of work.


Mesh vertices not scaling in edit mode I started with modelling a tree and suddenly I am unable to scale vertices in edit mode for the branches mesh to go thinner or thicker. When I hit S to scale nothing happens. I don't know what suddenly went wrong. Please help

To scale the radius for the skin modifier you press CtrlA, not simply S.

There are also two fields in the properties panel, one for the X and one for the Y radius, "scaling" the radius with CtrlA does the same as changing these values.


Apply color ramp to a face? I am trying to apply a color gradient to single face of a mesh, selected using the edit view. I made a color ramp in the texture view but I can't figure out for the life of me how to paint that onto the mesh. It looks like only material tab changes the render. How can I use the color ramp from the textures tab on the face?

The Material -> gradient only has a black/white gradient, how do I change the color of that?

You're using cycles so you'll need a node setup, similar to this

where you see that there are two materials. The "gradient" one is "assigned" to the single face, while all the rest uses the default grey one.

The material needs a factor that rules the Colorramp transition, provided by a Gradient Texture, which needs the coordinates to be mapped to that face only: for this you need a UVmap: in edit mode select only the face, press U and select "unwrap". Done.


Filmic Blender and filmic Log i watched the blender guru filmic blender video and then i tried to play with color management , but i found that the filmic log color space is already there in the blender , so is this the same color space as he is talking about in the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9AT7H4GGrA , although u tried to install the space from github but failed

If you keep watching the tutorial, Andrew did mention that it is included in newer Blender and no need for the addon.
And also in the video description:

The Filmic addon is no longer required and will actually potentially cause some compatibility issues with other addons.
Filmic is now included with Blender by default and can be configured via the color management panel.


Why is subdivision surface behaving like this? I'm wanting to 3D print my object- so I'm looking for a literal way of smoothing.. I want this object physically smooth while maintaining creases and negative space, like this:

However, Subdivision surface is behaving like this. Why? And how do I fix it?

Thank you! :)

This will happen if you don't have enough geometry on the large faces with the cut-out to support the subdivision operation.  Consider these two objects:  both have the same shape cut out of a flat disk, but on the left, only a few edges have been used to connect the cut-out to the outside of the disk, while on the right, the same shape has been cut out of a whole grid of geometry:

and here's what they look like with a subdivision surface modifier added:

Note that the geometry doesn't have to be perfect.  Even pretty crude geometry will usually work:

You'll need to add a similar amount of geometry on the faces with your heart cut-out.  The heart shape might make it a little harder.  At the sharp parts of the curve, you make find it necessary to introduce duplicate overlapping or nearly overlapping edges:


Apply vertex paint to a vertex Through the user interface, you paint a vertex by hitting V in 3D View, and clicking on a vertex.

How can this be achieved in Python?

This function should do the trick:

import bpy

def color_vertex(obj, vert, color):
    """Paints a single vertex where vert is the index of the vertex
    and color is a tuple with the RGB values."""

    mesh = obj.data
    scn = bpy.context.scene

    #check if our mesh already has Vertex Colors, and if not add some... (first we need to make sure it's the active object)
    scn.objects.active = obj
    obj.select = True
    if mesh.vertex_colors:
        vcol_layer = mesh.vertex_colors.active
    else:
        vcol_layer = mesh.vertex_colors.new()

    for poly in mesh.polygons:
        for loop_index in poly.loop_indices:
            loop_vert_index = mesh.loops[loop_index].vertex_index
            if vert == loop_vert_index:
                vcol_layer.data[loop_index].color = color

#example usage
color = (1.0, 0.0, 1.0)  # pink
color_vertex(bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube'], 1, color)


Export modifier, not apply I'm making an exporter for Blender to Metasequoia. (the import while come later)
Metasequoia 3d file are compatible with modifier like mirror and subdivision surface
I really don't want to apply them if it's possible
I found nothing about it in google or blender API
go see what I've done so far https://github.com/50thomatoes50/blender.io_mqo

It is up to the author of each exporter to support exporting a modified mesh.

Some exporters for example, could export without applying Subdivision-Surface, but use some option in the format that denotes the object as having it enabled (RenderMan RIB is one that can do this, Lightwave also supports).

But in most cases the format doesn't support Blender's modifiers natively, its typically good if the exporter can write the data you see in the viewport/render (WYSIWYG).

All Blender's bundled exporters support this, so there are enough examples of how to implement this.


Reload Startup File Causes Blender to Stop Responding Whenever I use Ctrl+N to reload my startup file, Blender stops responding for about a minute. If I use File> Reload Startup File it works instantly. I personally prefer using the shortcut, so this is rather annoying.

Is there a specific reason that Ctrl+N would take longer?

Windows 10, Blender 2.77a

use "file" -> "load factory settings", followed by "file" -> "save startup file".

the reason it's slow because you may have changed your startup file to a custom blend file that uses alot of memory.


Is there a way to control the Alpha of the Freestyle lines by Sun Direction? I'm trying to get the lines to emphasize the light direction, but can't seem to control the Alpha in anyway to do that... or fake it.

You can fake it with the Distance from Object modifier.
The distance from specified object will then control the transparency.

How to:
1) In your Freestyle Line Style go to the Alpha tab and add the Distance from Object modifier.
2) Set the Blend mode to Subtract
3) Set your Target object. (from which the distance will be measured)
4) Set Min/Max Range for best result. (or use the Fill range by selection button)
5) Done.

Line Style setings

Result


How do I orient a face so it lays flat? I have a simple flat face. I am looking at the top view and the face is at an arbitrary angle.
The rotation angles show:
x=0
y=0
z=0

I am used to other programs that would shows the relative angle at all times.
How do I turn this plane so it is aligned with the x or y axis?

The transform displayed is the transform of the Object. This particular face has been rotated with respect to object it belongs to, in Edit Mode.

One way to  align the object to its  face, and center it:

In Edit mode, select the face, and in the Header >Transform Orientations menu, hit the little '+' to create a Custom Orientation from the face.
ShiftS > Cursor to Selected
Object Mode, Header > Options menu, check 'Origins'

ShiftS > Selected to Cursor
Header > Object > Transform > Align to Tansform Orientation.

(Uncheck the Origins option)

Now if you set the rotation to 0, the object will align to the world, and its face will follow.


How do I make a gun mesh appear ONLY in the shooting animation So, I'm working on the animations for a character model that has a gun.
The gun doesn't appear at all times, such as when the character is at the town hub.
I'm wondering how I make the gun appear in the shooting animation, and only in that animation.

For this, you need to animate the visibility of the gun. There are plenty of things you can animate in Blender, and visibility is one of them.

The easiest way to control this is in the outliner. This is the workflow:

Go to the outliner and find the gun. If you have many objects, you can select it in the viewport and then hit Num period.

NOTE: in your case you might expand the rig until the gun's parent bone to find it.

You want the gun only appearing in one animation, so turn off the eye icon.
Go to frame #1, hover over the icon and press I to add a keyframe.
Go now to the first frame where you want your gun visible, turn on the visibility and add a keyframe
If you have a later animation where you don't want the gun visible, go to that animation's first frame, turn it off and add a keyframe again.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to render the animation, you need to do the above with the render icon too, the one that's a camera.

Related: How can I animate the Restrict Visibility property of an object?


Where is Subdivide fractal? In Blender 2.4 you had the option to do fractal subdivision (I think it was called Random). Is there anything like that or a plugin for 2.6+?

The Subdivide tool has its own parameters which can be acceseed either via F6 or Last Operator panel located in Toolshelf (shortcut T). When activated, you will find option Fractal:


Curve modifier stretch mesh Is it possible to avoid this stretching of stitches when deforming with curve modifier?

Applying transformations and proper placement of the origin points'll do the job here.

Apply the transformations for all the objects with Ctrl+A and set all the objects' origin points in the same place as pictured below.

You may then change the position of the belt.


When I import a model form 3D builder , its wireframe looks weird How can I solve it automatically? I import this in Obj format;
and I only get blender file , so it must be solved inside blender.
this

to this

[![enter image description here][3]][3]

Try one of these:
Beautify Faces.
Remesh Modifier.
Limited Dissolve.
Tight Budget


How can I add soft body physics to multiple objects at once? I am trying to create a "soft body physics method" on an object, but is there any method which can apply it on multiple object at once? (I am not talking about rigid body physics.)

This will work for any type of physics.
Select all the objects then hold SHIFT and select the object you want to copy from,
this will make it the active object.
Now simply press CTRL + L and select modifiers,
Since all Physics Properties are modifiers this will copy the same physics setting to all the objects
NOTE: This will also copy any other modifiers present on the base object.


How do I fix this issue with my model's texture I've recently created a humanoid model to use for animating in the cycles engine, and in the texture view and material view, it looks fine. However in the rendered view, I get strange black spots on my model, i've attached the blend file, if anyone could help me to fix this issue, I would be extremely grateful.

I've also added the image texture I want to use.

The reason parts of the mesh appear black, is because two vertices are in the same location, and blender renders them as black.

Deleting the vertices:
Select the vertices you don't need, and press Delete, and select Dissolve Vertices. This will remove the vertices and remove the black overlapping mesh int he Rendered view.

EDIT:

Merging the vertices
Instead of deleting them, it may be better to merge them. Select two vertices in a similar location, and press Alt+M and select At Center, if you want to merge the vertices in the middle of both vertices. This will make them into one vertical, without removing any other lines the deleting method would.


How to get rid of opened duplicate window After I open an additional view of a window, how do I get rid of it?  Example below:

Dragging to the right/left does not help.

I am using 2.72 on Windows 7.

You have to drag from the left-bottom corner or the right-upper one. They're marked, as you can see in this image:

To delete a window, just drag from the one that you want to keep to the other one. Anyway, you can change the direction of the merging action later if you don't release the left button.

Note that you need to merge two windows with the same height/width. Look this layout as an example. The red arrow marks not working merging operations and the blu ones valid operations.


What units does the cycles SSS scattering radius use? As a sort of follow-up to this question, what units does the scattering radius use on a cycles subsurface scattering shader?

There is a BlenderArtists thread on this subject. In it it is said:

About Scale: 1 blender unit = 1 meter. (I use metric system) don't know how works with Imperial, never tested.
Scale is actually multiplied by the Radius then, so if you use Scale = 1.0 and Radius = 0.1, 0.1, 0.1 is equal to Scale = 0.1 Radius = 1.0,1.0,1.0
When using colors it's the same but calcs are not that quick, at least for me.
Let's say we want the monkey to sub-surface scatter a bit of red like my example above. Setting Scale = 0.1 And Radius = .5, .05, .05 (RGB!) will give the same output as Scale = 1.0 and Radius = .05, .005, .005 (as you see I divided by 10 the Radius values to compensate the Scale being 10 time bigger)

The radius appears to be derived from both the scale of the object and the radius values. Applying the scale should change results, and is a good way to test this theory.


array modifier not aligned I'm making a fort and I have made half and mirrored it. And I've made the first side view. Then I've added array with a count of 4 to complete the 4 sides like a square shape. I added an empty and rotate it by 90 degree. The problem is when I rotate, all sides do not match perfectly or are not aligned in square and some gap is created. The top 2 round circle when array should give 4 corners it's giving 8 corners.

Before Mirror

1st Side view

After rotating 90 degree with empty

What I'm doing wrong with the mesh alignment. Any suggestion or help is welcomed to complete the square.

Thanks

Experiments with array and mirror modifiers:

Mirror and array : your configuration more or less

After that, there is some guess to find the good position and this position will depend on both the object's origin and of the position of the 45° angle:

Mirror and mirror

And second way to do it is to place an empty at the middle of the 45° part (use snapping to do it), use it as mirror object and rotate it 45°.

Now add a second mirror, mirrored in X and Y, with a second empty as mirror object, and place this empty at the middle of the figure

Note that this last configuration (2 mirrors) does not depend on the object's origin location.

Link to the blend file


Help with marking keyframes for the timeline I am trying to work on a 2D animation in Blender, but the markers for the keyframes in the timeline disappeared because I had the express keys for my drawing tablet on. I am trying to make it so the diamond-shaped markers reappear on the timeline. What do I do?

Grease Pencil keyframes are separate from the scene keyframes so they don't show on the timeline nor on the general dopesheet. To see them you have to set a viewport to Dope Sheet then set that dope sheet's mode to Grease Pencil.


Save history to python and load from python console I was trying to save history of changes to Python script by using Info Editor type. Here is my example script:

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add(radius=1, view_align=False, enter_editmode=False, location=(0, 0, 0), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(-7.70136, -7.70136, -7.70136), constraint_axis=(False, False, False), constraint_orientation='GLOBAL', mirror=False, proportional='DISABLED', proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1)
bpy.context.space_data.context = 'PHYSICS'
bpy.ops.rigidbody.object_add()
bpy.context.object.rigid_body.type = 'PASSIVE'
bpy.ops.rigidbody.object_add()
bpy.context.space_data.context = 'OBJECT'
bpy.context.space_data.context = 'PHYSICS'
bpy.context.object.rigid_body.collision_shape = 'BOX'
bpy.context.space_data.context = 'OBJECT'
bpy.context.space_data.context = 'WORLD'
bpy.context.space_data.context = 'OBJECT'
bpy.context.object.scale[0] = 2
bpy.context.object.scale[1] = 1
bpy.context.object.scale[2] = 0.5
bpy.context.object.scale[1] = 0.7
bpy.context.object.location[2] = 0.5
bpy.context.object.scale[2] = 0.3
bpy.context.object.location[2] = 0.3
bpy.context.object.scale[0] = 3
bpy.context.object.location[1] = 1.5
bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move(OBJECT_OT_duplicate={"linked":False, "mode":'TRANSLATION'}, TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value":(0, 0, 0), "constraint_axis":(False, False, False), "constraint_orientation":'GLOBAL', "mirror":False, "proportional":'DISABLED', "proportional_edit_falloff":'SMOOTH', "proportional_size":1, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "gpencil_strokes":False, "texture_space":False, "remove_on_cancel":False, "release_confirm":False})
bpy.context.object.location[1] = -1.5
bpy.context.area.type = 'INFO'

History of changes: I made, manually (in 3d editor) two physical blocks lying on plane.

Now I want to get same effect by pasting saved script into python console - but I got this:

Apparently the interpreter took and resized planes to shape of blocks, but it couldn't hold idea of 'BOX' object. What do I do wrong?

While the info window is helpful it does not show a complete list of actions taken, the steps it does show can be expanded.

While copy and pasting an operator is an easy way to duplicate some steps in a python script, it is usually preferred to directly alter the data in a python script rather than just calling operators. You can find the reference to blender's python api online which also has some introduction tutorials to get you started.

For an example of creating a mesh object you could have a look at the add object addon template that is included with blender.


Override naming of duplicated object when you duplicate an object it will rename it
ie.
Mushroom
Mushroom.001
Is there anyway to override this behaviour so it would be Mushroom_001?

While you can't change the default behaviour when creating the objects, you can use a simple script to update them to change the characters and run it when required.
Open a Text Editor window (or select the Scripting layout tab), create a New text block and paste the following :
import bpy

for obj in bpy.data.objects:
    obj.name = obj.name.replace(".","_")

If you now click the 'Run Script' button (a triangular "play" button in the header) the script will run and will run through all the objects in your scene and change any '.' to'_'.
The first line makes the 'bpy' package available ('bpy' is a package to interact with the Blender components via Python).
bpy.data.objects is a collection of objects present in your scene and the 'for' statement cycles through them (naming each as 'obj' in this case).
The final line does the work of setting the object's name to the object's name with all of the dots replaced with underscores.


Properly convert Hex Color code to Blender RGB in python I have noticed that a color can be assigned, by their rgb values in Blender using Python. But it is not possible to directly assign a hex color code to it.

Also, there were some hex to rgb function which I found and used, but still it does not give the correct rgb values because Blender uses 'Gamma Corrected' color values.

Hence, I have found out a proper way to convert hex color code to RGB Color Value.

This can be achieved using the following code:

def hex_to_rgb(value):
    gamma = 2.2
    value = value.lstrip('#')
    lv = len(value)
    fin = list(int(value[i:i + lv // 3], 16) for i in range(0, lv, lv // 3))
    r = pow(fin[0] / 255, gamma)
    g = pow(fin[1] / 255, gamma)
    b = pow(fin[2] / 255, gamma)
    fin.clear()
    fin.append(r)
    fin.append(g)
    fin.append(b)
    fin.append(1.0)
    return tuple(fin)

It may not be completely clean code, but is really helpful


Sverchok: Adding FreeCAD Dependency on Mac I'm adding the Extra Nodes in Sverchok, but can't get FreeCAD connected.
It seems to want to connect to a FreeCAD library in a folder, but the only option I could find on the FreeCAD site was to download a compiled app.
I tried setting the path to the bin folder inside the app – /Applications/FreeCAD.app/Contents/Resources/bin/ – but it still reports "FreeCAD package is not available".
Do I need to connect to a specific file in the bin? Here's a screenshot of the contents:

I've gone through the Dependencies documentation on the Sverchok Github pages, but they don't offer a Mac-specific solution, and the Linux solution errors out because it can't find and run "apt".
Any suggestions or solutions would be appreciated. Thanks!

If you using MACOS, than you don't have apt.
Use your mac installer to install libfreecad-python3-0.18 somehow.
or try files from linux:
https://yadi.sk/d/qG5-IPfmqleeYw?w=1
if it will work, please, reply here.


Running Blender via Python I'm learning blender and want to create my own module with a custom UI. I'm stuck at the gate just trying to import Blender to run through independent python scripts:

import subprocess

bPath = "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe"

subprocess.run([bPath, "--background", "--python", "myScript.py"])

All that's in myScript.py for testing is:

import bpy

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()

All I want to do first is load up a blender render window from Python that makes the cube, ideally one stripped of the interface. I can figure the rest out from there.

My error is

FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

Any help would be much appreciated.

FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

This suggests there is a problem with the path to something in your script. I think you may need to give the absolute filepath to your myScript.py file.

Also, the "\" is an escape character in python, so if you're going to use it in the filepath to something, then you should use one of these methods:

bPath = r"C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe"

or

bPath = "C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\blender.exe"


When I parent my model with a Bvh animation the arms cross? why is that? So when I parent my model with a bvh file and then I start the animation the arms of the model crosses, Why is that?

So the answer to my question is, because my model was not in a complete t stance when I Parent it,  the animation starts on t stance which mess up my model. If this makes any sense lol. So the answer is make sure your model and bvh rig matches up before you parent it.


I had just pressed ctrl z in sculpting mode and this happen.. can any one help me out I had just pressed ctrl z in sculpting mode and this happen.. can anyone help me out.

try Ctrl + shift + Z to cancel the Ctrl Z


Workaround for 'Inherit Rotation' in armature? I'm trying to export a bone animation. I've followed a lot of the suggestions found in this helpful tutorial, with success. Near the top, they suggest that I avoid unchecking the 'Inherit Rotation' box on any bones, as it will not export properly. They also suggest the following vague workaround:

  There's a tricky workaround for this, which is creating a helper bone
  which the bone that you don't want to rotate will copy its rotation.

Can someone explain this workaround in more detail for me? If you're familiar with the armature created by the Rigify add-on, I'd like the bone called 'spine' to not rotate with the bone called 'hips', but I would still like 'spine' to follow 'hip's position. How can I achieve this without unchecking Inherit Rotation?

Update: I've included the .blend file here. The bone that has 'inherit rotation' unchecked is the 'spine' bone. I'd like to be able to use the workaround on that bone. When I load this model into Assimp, his whole upper body rocks right and left (as if the spine bone was inheriting the rotation of the hips bone).

I can't tell you how to solve your problem but I think I can tell you about the helper bone.

Long time ago I implemented a bvh importer for another software (not blender), to get it working with the rotations given in the bvh file I had to add an helper bone for each existing bone.

A zero length bone (no influence to the mesh) placed at the origin of the original bone, and obviously the original bone must be parented with the helper (original child, helper parent), all the rotations are applied to the helper only.


Auto Export Viewport Render to external file Looking for someway to link the 2.8 viewport with external programs (ie Adobe InDesign/Illustrator etc) that use linked images.

You would link a 3D viewport in blender via addon to an external file, so everytime the viewport is changed, the external file would update (not a rendered file, the viewport buffer) - if it was camera view, then only the camera view area would be exported.

That way you can get a 'live' preview of the render inside other programs without having to render each time.

If each camera could create a linked file that would be even better(?)

NOTE This is not 'auto save' render/blend file, although that would be semi-useful - the current addons require the render and also increment the file name, which isn't useful if you want to maintain the link - could edit script to remove the increments but would still be too manual. Also it requires a full render which is not what I'm after - just the 3D viewport.

ANSWER From comments - bpy.ops.render.opengl(write_still=True,view_context=True) seems to be the one to use. Any preexisting addon that does this on a timed/controlled manner would be good, but otherwise I'll have a look at creating something myself.

MORE - Quick addon here https://github.com/mgmhunt/Blender_Addon_AutoRenderViewport

It is called rendering
Exporting images made from 3d scene is called rendering. You can render your 3d scenes to image files. There is no other miraculous secret way of getting images from 3d to a file.  If there was, it would still be called rendering. If you are talking about a process of generating images from a 3d scene and saving them to files that is always called rendering. So you do have rendering functionality in Blender. It is accessible from Blender's Python API as well so writing add-ons that would automatically render and save the viewport is also possible.


How to get a property value not in current frame? I'm trying to make a driver which gets a property value not in current frame, but frame+2 for example. How I can do that?

You can evaluate fcurves for a property from python. Let's say you animated object Cube's location and want to get the Z value at frame 15:

# little utility function for searching fcurves
def find_fcurve(id_data, path, index=0):
    anim_data = id_data.animation_data
    for fcurve in anim_data.action.fcurves:
        if fcurve.data_path == path and fcurve.array_index == index:
            return fcurve

# index=2 for the Z curve. Just omit for single value properties.
fcurve = find_fcurve(bpy.data.objects["Cube"], "location", 2)

# Get the value at frame 15
print(fcurve.evaluate(15))

Note that evaluating fcurves may not be accurate in all circumstances, e.g. when you have additional constraints, physics simulation, etc. In that case the only real option may be to actually move to that frame, store the value and go back to the original frame.


Making 3D object from a SVG file I am new to Blender, I have never used it. I am searching for software that would allow me to turn my 2D SVG Text created in Inkscape to a 3D text. Something like this Linux Mint Wallpaper:

Is it possible using Blender? If yes maybe someone could point me to a resource like tutorial showing how to do this? I would appreciate all help really!

Blender can import SVG files:
File > Import > Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg)

Depending on the dimensions of the original file, the curves could be very small or big.

If you can't see the imported curves in 3D VIEW, use the Outliner to select them and scale.

Because the origin is set at the point (0,0) of the original file, you could have to set its position.

Apply the scale (Ctrl + A > Scale)

Set material and other stuffs.

Open the Properties Panel and set the Extrusion Value.

If the extrusion is excessive regarding the input value (see the example below), you have to select all the Control Points and reduce the Mean Radius in the Properties (N).

That's it!
Now you can adjust every value as well as for any curve: bevel, resolution, fill type...

I suggest you to read the online manual:

http://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/curves/editing/introduction.html?highlight=curves

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Modeling/Curves

http://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/curves/editing/advanced.html?highlight=curve%20extrusion#curve-extrusion


Loop a video mask in the compositor? Say I have some footage that is 30 frames long, and I want to to apply a mask to it via mix nodes that is 3 frames long. I need it to loop 10 times to cover all my frames. How do I do this in the compositor? If it's not possible in the compositor, can it be done in the sequence editor?

Let's say your setup on the compositor is like this:

Unplug the input from the mix node and make the colors black and white and render the mask as an image sequence.

And import them as an image sequence node:

And use the sequence instead of the mask node.

Make sure the cyclic and auto refresh options are enabled.

The mask will be used in an endless cycle:

The main disadvantage of this solution is that if you need to make changes on the mask's shape you have to re-export/re-load the images.


weight painting one side of my model affects the other side in a strange way When I'm weight painting at the right side, it acts strange on the left side. What am i doing wrong?

You are using x-mirror option:

But, if you name bones correctly,  x-mirror will work for you. You need to name pairs of bone with postfixes ".R" and ".L" like "arm.L" and "arm.R". If you do so, when you will paint weight group "arm.L", "arm.R" will be symmetrical to "arm.L"

Also, learn about rigify


Why is my texture a lot darker in one part of my mesh? I am currently facing a problem with my texture. I have created a very simple Object and added some textures to play around with. As you can see in the following screenshot the upper part of the model displays the texture a lot darker than the part below:

Below you can find my node setup. The texture itself was created outside of Blender. The face normals are checked and look like I would expect them to look.

Also nothing special as you can see. The texture itself is created procedurally and does not have any difference in brightness.
Can anyone give me a good hint as to what's going on here? I can really not understand why the upper part is displayed so much darker. I am using Blender 2.91.

The file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wb6iz1vtmgj0kks/Pillar.blend?dl=0

It looks like your normal map 'color space' is set to 'sRGB'.
Normal maps (and other maps like roughness) need to have their color space set to 'Non-color'.


How can I replace an applied material with a different one? I applied 'material' to a cube and added 'material.001'. I want the 'material' to be replaced by 'material.001'. I could not find such 'replace' menu in properties editor.
How can I do it?

With "Material" selected, click the little "globe" next to where it says "material" in white (above "preview"). This is the slot selector. Pick material.001 from here


how do I modify my topology to follow the path I want instead of what it already is? When pressing Ctrl + Alt + RtMouseButton to see what the topology is then seeing it is not travling in the direction one wants. How to I figure out what to do to redirect it to the path I want it to take?

take this image for example. Say I want it to have topology so that it follows under the breast then upwords so it has a bra strap effect.

what are the rules of thumb to know where to cut it and re-attach the squares to get the desired effect?

I have it torn down a bit now, trying to figure this out.

I'm not totally sure how important how the topology is set up on a modle, because I have seen more then one pattern for the same area. This leads to confustion. I have not gotten past this phase yet into the adding color, texture, then boning of a modle to know how the boning effects whatever way it was topolog-ized prior to adding a bone structor to the modle.

I just do not want to run into a problem when adding bones then finding the movment is not life like. Having the modle bend in odd ways.

For proper Retopology, it is recommended to keep the original mesh as a mere foundation of the shape. And then start with a new object from scratch and apply the desired topology.

Here is a relatively easy way how to do good retoplogy without using any third party addons:

Step 1: Create your Base Model. The Toplogy is unimportant at this point. It also can be a sculpted mesh with a high polycount. But make sure it does not slow your system too much down:

Step 2: Create a new object and open the edit mode.

Step 3: Enable "snap during transform" and set it to "Face"

Step 4: Select a vertice point and hit G. Snap it to the desired position.

Step 5: Form the desired shape of your topology.

Step 5: Continue to form the topology and connect edges.

Step 6: Go on until you are done.

Also here is a list of some good topology references: https://de.pinterest.com/demons_fate/mesh-toplogy/


WRL not scaling correctly on import I am working a bit with spatial data, and am running a lot through Blender because ArcGIS can't handle it as well. I've come across an issue that I can't seem to figure out, it affects a few files, but this is the simplest one.

The shape was made by extruding a polygon between two tins in ArcGIS, creating a Multipatch feature. This was exported from ArcGIS as a WRL file. The volume in ArcGIS was calculated as 144.878252 m3, which given the rough dimensions (10 m x 6m x 2.4m) is correct accounting for variation of the non-smooth top surface.

When the WRL is imported into Blender, the calculated volume (using the 3D printing add-on) gives a value of 176.16027832 m3.

The reason why I need to calculate volumes in Blender is that is there are more complex shapes that ArcGIS will not calculate the volume for.

I am running Blender 2.77. Any help would be appreciated.

After downloading your file this is what I found ...

Your model surface normals are flipped randomly.
The flipped normal caused the add-on to give an incorrect readout.
To solve the issue go to Shading/Uvs tab on your 3dview Tool Panel here

Click on the Recalculate button in the Normals section.
Now your Normals are rearranged so they are facing the right side up.
Do the add-on volume calculation will give you the correct result.

REMOVE OPEN EDGES...
1. Go into edit mode press Tab
2. Make sure to select all your model's faces.
3. Hit W and select remove double.
4. Remove double command here :


In node compositing, how do I delay a movie clip by any given number of seconds I am creating motion graphics first in black and white, before colorizing them.  I am doing that with only kinetic text and transitions. I am overlaying one video clip upon another, but I wish to delay an underlying video clip by 30 seconds or 30 frames (30fps). How do I do that in node compositing?

In Movie Clip Editor open N-Panel, go to the bottom and find Footage Settings. Here you can control Start/Offset frame, these values can be animated.


Help, weird "hard edged" appear on model Hard edges appear randomly on my model. The edges was not crease, and the normal was not flipped. It even remained after I performed smooth vertices. It only disappear/hide if I use subdivide modifier. I prefer not to use it to maintain a low poly count
Furthermore, it only appear on this particular part(the image shown is the only place it appear on the entire model.)
The following is the provided blend file

Any idea how to solve it ?

You've enabled Auto Smooth, it will sharpen all the angles that are over the chosen value, here 30°, so disable it or choose another value?


Want to shape this spiderman lens around the Faceshell so it fits perfectly against the shell Was wondering if someone can help me. I want ti be able to bend this lens around the spiderman faceshell so that it sits flush with the shell. I have tried shrinkwrap and adding depth after but it looks horrible. Any ideas please?

Thanks

You could scale the lens shape up on the y(?) axis to make it like a tube, move it so that it crosses the faceshell where you want it, then put a boolean modifier (subtract) on it so that it has one side flush fit. Next, delete all the other faces, then extrude what you have left to the desired thickness.


Create effect where light takes time to reach camera I would like to reproduce the effects of light's finite speeds.  So an object that is far away will be rendered as if it were still in a position that it was in previously.

For example, to create a realistic scene in space, the light from some objects will take a few seconds to reach the camera.  A given object should therefore appear as it appeared in the scene (fps)*(Z/c) frames ago, where c is the speed of light and Z is the distance from the camera.

Some examples of what I mean:

Visual: VSauce Distortions

I don't have a Blender related answer but if you are comfortable coding you can have a look at the OpenRelativity opensource toolkit created at MIT.  There is a demo program available their gamelab website called A Slower Speed of Light.

Here's the current link.  If the link goes down in the future you are all free to edit this answer.  http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/


Equivalent color settings in Blender with Autodesk Navisworks I want to get the equivalent color settings in Blender by comparing RGB values in Autodesk Navisworks color properties from Material tab when an object has been selected.

Here are the color properties values from Autodesk Navisworks:

So far I have managed to achieve the equivalent color settings in Blender for Diffuse, Specular, and Emissive.

Here are the auto-generated Phyton code by Blender's scripting tool when I change the color in the screenshot below:

Python codes generated:

bpy.context.object.active_material.diffuse_color = (0.442353, 0.331765, 0.294118)
bpy.context.object.active_material.specular_color = (0.5, 0.5, 0.5)
bpy.context.object.active_material.volume.emission_color = (0, 0, 0)

Questions:

Where can I set the RGB values for Ambient in Blender?
How do I adjust the Shininess and Transparency in Blender?

Thank you.

Expanding my comment above: yes, you're using Blender Render.

About 1)

Ambient color should be what is set in the World settings, here:

And you can level the amount of ambient each material gets with this:

see also
https://www.blender.org/manual/render/blender_render/materials/introduction.html

About 2) I think you need to set your material's specular:

You can choose color, intensity, shader type, and you can also use a custom-defined color ramp, if needed, here:

See whole reference here: https://www.blender.org/manual/render/blender_render/materials/index.html

Of course, being Blender Internal a scanline renderer, it is not targeted to ultra-realistic results.

I don't know Navisworks at all, so it could be a similar system, or not. Maybe others will help better than me in this respect.

Blender's Cycles, instead, is a very good PBR renderer and it allows ultra realistic results, if needed, but its materials are completely different, and based on nodes - in that case, start here: https://www.blender.org/manual/render/cycles/materials/index.html


Object child of two parents Imagine this scenario. Crane 1 picks up a boulder and puts it into a cart, the cart moves, stops and then the boulder gets picked up by Crane 2.

Armature wise everything works. I'm having difficulty transferring the object

My issue is:

Boulder is child of a bone in crane 1 using constraints. it gets moved by the animation but I can't get the crane to "release" the boulder. Setting the influence to 0 leaves the object where it was before it was picked up.

I can get round this with 3 scenes, but I want to just use 1 in a continuous flowing animation

Whats the proper way to do this?

Thank you in advance for any help
Sean

For this...

...you can animate the Visibility of three Copy Transform Constraints (Multiple Child Of constraints will not work) on your Boulder, one for each crane and cart:

The only trick is, at the end, you must keyframe the transforms by performing a Copy All To Selected on the Boulder.  This will keep it at it's final resting spot.  Then simply remove visibility of all constraints:


How to copy settings from previous using command line When i downloaded the latest version of blender, this option show up in splash screen "Copy settings from previous".

So how to do it in command line? because I have 50 pc and I want to simplify the process using ssh and run blender from command line.

Thanks for your help.

Look at the tooltips, Mas Aditia, and you'll see that it's wm.copy_prev_settings. For remote deployment, it might also be necessary to quit_blender right after executing the script. So the simplest script would be:

import bpy

bpy.ops.wm.copy_prev_settings()
bpy.ops.wm.quit_blender()

Save it as to a script file with any name, and execute Blender while running the script:

blender -P <script_name>.py

As the operator copies the config folder right away, nothing else needs to be done.


View Expressions curve in Graph Editor I've animated some channels, such as rotation channels and a modifier value using Expressions. But I can't find out how to view the resulting Driver curve in the Graph Editor. I'm using Blender 2.8.

Thanks.

Found the solution. In Blender 2.7x there was a separate Drivers section in the Graph Editor, but in Blender 2.8 it has been decoupled from the Graph Editor and now has its own dedicated Drivers editor.


Python - Not finding armature So it's my first time writing a python script for Blender so I may not be entirely familiar with the API but I know enough python to code something. I'm trying to find an armature in code that is the child of an object.
object = bpy.data.objects['Armature']

for obj in bpy.data.objects:
    if(obj.parent == object):
        if(obj.type == 'ARMATURE'):
            armatureTo = obj.data

From what I've read online, that should work. It's getting the object with name Armature, which is the parent object I mentioned. Then iterating through the objects in the scene and checking if the parent objects and object types match with the armature I want and setting the variable to that object.
I'd greatly appreciate any help you can give me.

Look at the objects children
Instead of looking for objects with that parent, loop over that objects children.  All objects in a blend are in bpy.data.objects which may or may not be linked to a collection in the context scene.  Recommend working from scene rather than data, when applicable.
If the armature object "Armature" is in the scene iterate over its children.
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
ob = scene.objects.get("Armature")

if ob:
    for c in ob.children:
        print(c.name, c.type)

To iterate over all objects in scene
for o in context.scene.objects:
    if o.parent == ob:
        print(o.name, o.type)

Do not confuse an object ss being the parent of its data.
The default armature object named "Armature"

The object (yellow with my theme)
>>> C.object
bpy.data.objects['Armature']

has the data part (green)
>>> C.object.data
bpy.data.armatures['Armature']


Complex SVG file fails to import correctly into Blender No curves get imported at all into Blender, and I'm totally mystified why.
I have a CD of vector pattern library images that I'd like to use within Blender. These appear to be good vector images, i.e. in Inkscape I can see and edit the objects and paths.
I cannot use Trace Bitmap as an option, as these appear to be objects and paths (I'm no svg expert). I cannot convert to raster images and then trace, as that destroys the quality. I have literally hundreds of these images, that I would like to use as extrusions on decorative borders within Blender, but nothing I've tried seems to import the curve data, it comes in as an empty collection.
Before you answer:

This is not a scaling issue.

I tried Trace Bitmap many times - as they are not bitmaps, there's nothing to select or trace.

These appear to be bona fide vectors that I can edit and save. I've tried simplifying the image (destroys it), I've tried every svg format Inkscape offers.
One puzzle which makes me suspicious that these are not true path objects is that there is just a single node on the pink object. I can edit the handles and change its shape, so I assume it's a proper path, but I was expecting to see more nodes that define the curve.

Blender v2.91
Inkscape v1.02
File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ECnSQ77L99CpWiA0rMtou3w7qFPfiuYQ/view?usp=sharing

The importer for SVG is quite basic (I feel like I keep writing this over and over)
Whatever you can do to simplify the file, will help you when import it to blender.
Effects on SVGs, and nested objects in groups (or in groups within a group within a group) don't translate well.

Un-group all of the objects in the SGV file and import.
A crucial difference between 3d graphics and 2D illustration is that in 3D you can't have surfaces occupying the same plane.
On 2D Illustration object's layers just occlude each other, but when imported to to 3D software, they will be created on top of each other causing Z-fighting(when two or more surfaces occupy the same space and the render engine cannot differentiate them). In 2D graphics you can get away with overlapping planes in layers, in 3D you can't. Coplanar faces cannot be on to of each other: no two faces can occupy the same plane.

How to fix this? You would need to edit the paths on the original file, and make sure that no paths are overlapping or intersecting. You will need boolean operations like path union, difference, intersect, exclusion, etc. to clean up.
Or you might choose to separate some of the elements on different files, and import them individually to blender, and edit them there, by joining different curves into the same object.
Since you are dealing with a single basic shape, and multiples copies of it, so you can get rid of most of the file to make your life easier, once you have the basic shapes you can make instances in blender.

Here's a picture of the file after cleaning up in inkscape, mostly using boolean exclusion and difference.

Ideally you should be dealing with only four curves that contain all of the elements with no overlaps:


How can I can make a 2D Png image (a portrait) into a 3d rotating model? i've been trying to find a way to actually take a portrait of a friend to make it into a 3D turning object (a bit like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNbGjMlmzhc) and I've been trying to do it on blender and then export it to after effetcs but nothing works.

I would love some help if that's clear to anyone,
Cheers!

The closest thing I can think of to do this is to use the image as plane add-on. First go to File>User preferences (or Ctrl +Alt + U) >Addons, then search for Import-export: images as planes under the community supported level.

In object mode press Shift + A>Mesh>Add image plane, then when your file browser opens, select the image you want to use. Tab into edit mode, and model the plane to your liking, then Tab back to object mode to apply a solidify modifier. From there on, just add any finishing touches you want, keyframe, and you're all set.


Using geometry nodes, how can I toggle between different geometries, similar to shader editor? One feature that I use frequently in shader editor, is an option to toggle between different shaders or textures. It can look like this:

Changing the value node on the left within the interval of 0.0 to 0.3 allows me to quickly change the used diffuse shader. This setup can be used for a lots of stuff.
How can I replicate this setup in geometry nodes with the intention of changing different geometries?
Let's say I have a cube, sphere and a monkey in my scene and I add a geometry nodes to the cube. The other two objects are loaded using object info nodes. Since Join Geometry node doesn't have a factor, I can't really switch between used geometry.

You can do that quite easy with a Point Separate node.

In the image above I've created a mesh with a single vertex. The node network splits into two paths based on the attribute value do_monkey, which is set by the Attribute Fill node (or by anything else that you need).


Change the angle pivot of my object This is my first question! :D I'm ultra noob! but I'm getting better and better.

So: I want to change the angle of the pivot of this object.

Is like this now.

But when I want make a scale in X axis, this is happend.

So I belive that is one solution is change the axis like this for the scale thing... right?

How I can do that!

Thanks!

Let's you have this setup here, similar to yours:

Cylinder fits 2 cubes, but it's orientation is broken. And you want to fix it.
Create a Custom Transform Orientation. For this simple example: select the edge you want to align, press CtrlAltSpace or find it at bottom of the N-Panel.

You will have a new transform orientation that fits to geometry:

Now you can use this transform orientation for scale your object. But If you want to align object itself, move next.
In object Mode select cylinder, and press ShiftS -> Cursor to Selected
Create empty then press Object -> Transform -> Align to transform Orientation.
Parent cylinder to the empty  CtrlP.
Clear empty's orientation AltR. Cylinder will follow empty and will rotate with it like this:

Unparent cylinder AltP -> Clear and keep transform.
Apply rotation to cylinder  AltA -> Rotation
Rotate cylinder back ( Object -> Transform -> Align to transform Orientation. )


How to gradually slow down animation Hi i need to slow down animation, but gradually. I have 3 keyframes, first with linear interpolation, and i want linear motion up to second keyframe. But then, from the second one, i want to animation (rotating object) be smoothly slowed down. If i use bezier interpolation, it will firstly speed up rotation, and then slow down. I need some interpolation or method that will slow down rotation from second to third keyframe. I mean something like reversed easing....

Go into the Graph Editor, find the first keyframe, select it and press V > Vector. Then press RMB on the right handle, and move it so it is a straight line to the next point on the graph, and then press LMB:

This will make the object begin at and maintain the same speed, until it is time to slow down, when the standard ease method will be used.


Compositing Viewer Node No Background No preview image showing up when I plug the Viewer node in. I read elsewhere that I needed to render the image first. That worked for a little while but now it doesn't work anymore.

Just toggle one of your nodes off and on again.
Viewer/Composite nodes refresh only when there's a change in the compositor.

You can use M on your keyboard to Mute/Unmute a node.
Or just disconnect and reconnect it.


How can I delete overlapping faces when the faces are in multiple objects? I've already seen the Remove Doubles method, but as far as I know it only removes the doubled vertices...
Plus, the overlapping faces are from two different objects. The problem is that they have to different materials (one blue, one white). The result I get right now is this:
The result I'd like to get is a clear, round curve seperating the blue and the white object. This model was created from a friend in Solid Edge and imported via stl, which is the reason why sometimes (like this time) the mesh is just bad (and always just triangles)...

One way would be to add Solidify modifier to the blue mesh and direct thickness outwards. The other way would be to add Boolean modifier to the grey mesh, duplicate the blue mesh, set one of the blue meshes as Object in the modifier and choose Operation Difference. The boolean modifier must be first before edge split modifier.


Blender skull joining problem I am new to blender. I tried to build a skull based on blender cloud character tutorial and in one step it asked to add boolean modifier. So I did. And the this appeared: the skull, mask and optimised display disabled. And when I want to add dyntopo it says vertex data detected. And when I want to smooth the skull it only allows me to do it on quoad and not on cylinder. How I should fix that?

The warning "Sculpt: Hide, Mask and optimized display disabled." appears when you have active modifiers on your object (the Boolean Modifier). Then in Sculpt Mode a few things like the Mask and Facesets, etc. don't work.

If you activate Dyntopo it warns you because simple objects like the Cube, Cylinder, etc come with UV maps for texture painting. You find the UV map in the Object Properties Data (the green vert triangle icon on the right side of the screen). You can inspect the map in the UV Editing tab (right next to the main menu). Sculpting destroys the UV map. You can ignore this because you don't want to texture high-poly sculptings anyway. It will make your Blender freeze and crash. If you want to color it use Vertex Painting or retologize it.

You can't sculpt on the cylinder because the Boolean Modifier doesn't work in Sculpt mode and there is no mesh geometry to sculpt on. If you activate dyntopo you will get warning "Not supported in dyntopo" in the modifier tab and the cylinder will vanish if you hide the cylinder in the outline. There are the original cylinder and one temporarily created by the Boolean modifier.

To solve this you need to apply the Boolean modifier. Click the drop-down arrow right next to the blue monitor and camera icons of the modifier. Select 'apply'. It will permanently union (copy) the mesh data. It will not modify the cylinder object. Hide the cylinder object to get rid of the overlapping objects. Last but not least, activate dynoto, choose Draw brush, set strength to a very low value and click on the new cylinder part of the sculpt object. This will add more vertices to the new low poly part so you can use the other brushes without problems.


Unlink Key frames of two objects I made a box (BigBox) and separate it to a two objects (BigBox.001) using shortcut P . But when I trying to animate those two objects separately, both objects are moving together. key frames of both are linked somehow. I cant even select key-frame of one object separately ( both key frames are being selecting automatically )  How can I separate these two objects.

Select one of the objects and:

Click U (Make Single User) > Object Animation.
Or go in the Dopesheet window > Action Editor mode and press + (Create New Action)
Or as Edgel3D said, go to the Outliner, unfold the submenu under your object, you'll see Animation, right click > Clear Animation (in that case, the object won't even have anymore animation).


I can't seem to import a model that I downloaded from the internet I know about User Preferences. I know about enabling the different file formats. What I don't know is why I am not seeing any model in the viewport despite using File-Import-Wavefront(.obj)...

Now I can only guess, but if the objects in the outliner are the imported ones, it might help to select one of them in there and then use View >> View Selected from the menu in the 3D editor so your view centers on the object. Might be they're not at all in the center or very small.


Why does my Fluid simulation look like there is a floor where there isn't one? I'm trying to set up a fluid simulation to flow down this guys arm but it keeps ending up looking like this. Is there something I need to apply to make it not do this?

Additionally, I can't seem to adjust the world size in the fluid settings, as the hand is supposed to be giant.

There are a few things that could cause this to happen in fluid simulations. 1) Your domain is smaller than your obstacle, so your fluid boundaries are smaller. 2) You have an invisible obstacle that is beneath the fluid inflow. (unlikely). 3) You need to change the location of the fluid simulation bake. 4) You need to set the simulation quality to a higher number. I hope these settings work for you!


Question about texture painting I'm pretty new to Blender, been using it only the last two days, mostly doing 3D modeling until now and UV mapping. I've UV mapped the front and side of my model in different UV layers and I have a third one in which I will clone from the first two, front and side.
It was a pain to figure out most of the stuff, seeing as most of the tutorials are old and even the newest ones don't have the same interface as Blender 2.72.

Now here lies the problem, I barely found out how to clone from layer to layer, the old option in the project paint is gone, I have no clone from option. What I did is checked the option to clone from paint slot in the F Clone brush and then set up the source (UV layer, Image). The thing is it works fine, it does what it is supposed to do, but whenever I click to texture via brush, it doesnt apply to the faces the brush is on, but to the ones on the back, so I have to colour the back in order to get the front and viceversa.

I'm running Blender 2.72 x64 on Win8.1u1 x64.

I gave up seeing as it isn't the way it should be done and came here for help.
Can you please tell me what I am doing wrong?

Heres my blender file (externals packed)

After looking at your mesh for a few minutes, I noticed the shading was a bit off.  I recalculated the normals, and texture painting worked just fine.

Here is how it is done:

Go into edit mode and select everything.  Then in the Tool Shelf go to the shading tab.

Then click the Recalculate Normals button.

After doing this Texture Paint mode should work as expected!

One other thing that might help while Texture Painting is to re-unwrap your model.  I noticed that the UV unwrapping was very messy and jumbled.  If you don't know how, look into how to mark seams for your mesh so you can unwrap the whole mesh on one UV map with minimal stretching.  That will allow for less visible seams and a smoother workflow while painting.

I hope this helps!


Extrude individual doesn't work for edges? I am new to blender, so I am playing around with it. I tried to recreate mesh from scratch by deleting all vertices then add them one by one. Currently, what I have is a ring of edge with no faces. I want to extrude each edge outward (in other word, extrude individually). However, there's no such option when I press Alt+E. I tried to manually click on the extrude individual at the left-side editor bar, but it becomes a group extrusion instead of individual extrusion. I am currently using the latest blender version, so I am not sure if this is one of the newer version bugs.

Do anybody have the same problem?

Like David suggested, use E to Extrude and switch to Scaling by hitting S:

(Extrusion started from the inner, unselected edge ring)

Or are you after unconnected edge rings?

They were created by using ShiftD to Duplicate.


Blender shaded mode view problem I am very new to blender and might be asking a very silly question,

I am using blender 2.8 ..in shading workspace or in lookdev mode all the objects appear black..but when rendered it appears fine. See attached image for reference. Please help.

Thanks in advance.

The Shading_View_Problem.blend file that you uploaded is not showing the problem for me.

The only way I can reproduce what you have is if I enable the Scene World lighting in the Shading drop down menu then in the Shader Editor I switch from Object to World and then disconnect the Background node from the Worlds Output node. This sometimes results in what you are experiencing but not always. The 3D view remains with the Black cube etc until I move the cursor back to the 3d Editor again, then the scene seems to update and turn the whole view black.

I have no idea if this is a bug or something to do with the graphics card (mine is a 1080 ti with updated drivers) or something else completely.

All I can suggest is that you download 2.80 again, sorry.


Accurate Arrays oriented upwards I am modelling the London Eye and I have run into an array problem.

How do I get the capsules to line up accurately in place? I modelled the frame from the same origin but the copies are hard to put in place.

I can't see how to align the floors of my capsules correctly to ground level either

Don't use an array: the duplivert, as the other answer says, will replicate your capsule at every wheel's vertex. Just put the pivot of the duplicated mesh where you want them to be "pinned" to the circle, and clear its origin (this makes wheel's and capsule origine to be in the same point in 3d space).

The other problem you have, align capsules to the ground, can be done in two ways:

The first one is simple, but somewhat limited: select the original capsule and set a "limit rotation" constraint for the wheel rotation axis, to min 0°/ max 0°. Thus, when you rotate the wheel, the dupli-capsules spin around but their "base" keeps parallel to the ground.

like this:

If you wish your capsule to behave more realistically (eg: individually oscillating to wind, or when the wheel stops) you need to make them real (see CTRL-A menu) and then set up for each some "rigid body" joint to make them behave like real object suspended by real joints... if you need this I'll try to get something to explain.

Here is a hint on how a rigid body constraint could be used for that:

which, applied to the wheel concept could behave like this:


How to add particles on the surface of a mesh with Solidify modifier? I am a beginner in Blender and whenever I try to put particles on a surface, they seem to be embedded within the mesh. I am making a model of a cake and the top chocolate layer has a solidify modifier. I was thinking of placing small chocolate flakes on top of the icing of the cake but the flakes rather than appearing on the surface of the icing are embedded within it and can only be viewed if their scale is increased (which obviously, creates a horrendous effect).
Is there a solution to this problem? If there is can anyone please help me out and please do elaborate as I'm a total beginner.

You need to make sure that the particle system is placed last in the modifier stack (the bottom most one) :

And also check "Use modifier stack" in the source panel of the particle settings :


Animation nodes, finding current material for object I need to to make an object list and a material list from 100 existing objects. Making the object list is simple, I just box-select the objects and in animation node I use the "From Selection" option from the "create Object List" node.

Unfortunately, there is no such option for materials list. Is there I way I can automate creating a materials list from an object list? I have tried the "expression" node, but was not able to extract the materials list, due to my limited knowledge of python.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Patrice

Welcome to StackExchange. You can easily get the material of the object with Expression Node by using Obj.material_slots[Index].material. Here I have made AN-Material of Object group-node which allows getting material of any object:

For Object List, you can use Loop Node and AN-Material of Object to the materials of objects in the object-list:

Blend File:


How do I add a sun to the background without a texture? I'm trying to get rid of the extra texture in the world material to save on memory that I can use on other things than a white dot in the sky.

It is kinde of easy to make it but it's harder to control.

Remember that you might get a sun mirror becuas of the power node. You can remove it with two more math nodes. One grater than 0 and use that to remove all negative values and it will remove one sun.


Micro displacement not rendering with motion blur. (Blender 2.79 ) Most of the bee is animated, specifically the wings, each flap is around 3 frames so there should motion blur happening at least with the wings.

I've attached the pertinent screen shots of settings as reference.

I've also tried rigging a primitive object with bones and animating it next to the bee with the same settings which does render with motion blur.

As of 2.79, Cycles does not support adaptive (micro) subdivision and deformation blur on the same mesh. You should uncheck "adaptive" on the subdivision surface modifier if you need deformation blur.

See this documentation page from the main developer of this feature: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Maiself/Micropolygon_Displacement


Odd, glitchy shadows (Blender Internal) Uploaded an unlisted video of it on youtube, happens at 00:05.

If you notice, the shadow of the blue shirted guy's head is blocky and very glitchy. I have no idea what caused this. Here are my render settings:
24fps
AAing turned on at 8, full sample
256x256 tile size
PNG, 90% compression
720p 100%

I just need someone to explain this. Thanks.

The blocky shadows are either caused by a low resolution shadow buffer or your object doesn't have enough geometry for the shadow to disperse and appear smooth.

Go to the lamp and under Shadow, increase the size value of the lamp. While you are there, try tweaking the other setting as well to get even better results (hover over the tooltips to see what they do). If not, try subdividing the model a bit, notice the shadow the heads casts on the flat chair shape behind is smooth.
Size: 128

Size: 1024


define the prop of a driver with a script? I'm trying to make a driver that gets the restrict viewport (hide property) and restrict rendering (hide_render property) properties from another object, as explained here.

1. No live updates ?
The above picture only shows a driver on the hide_render property, even if I did try with the hide property too.

hide_render : seems to work (objets are hidden when rendered);
hide : the outliner icons are not updated nor the objects are hidden in the viewport.  Probably related to this bug ?

This is a known limitation of the current dependency graph (depsgraph).
Currently, the depsgraph can only represent and schedule up
relationships on datablock level. Drivers are actually evaluated on
the object level, and all in one go before any other data on the
object gets evaluated. As a result, for drivers which operate on bones
within the same armature that they read values from, the drivers are
only able to see the result of the previous time that the pose was
evaluated. In other words, you'll find a bit of lag in the updates.

2. Script to fetch a parent ?
While I have coding skills, I don't know anything about Python, and it's the first time I'm thinking about using a script in Blender.
Rather than setting manually an object for the "prop" value of the driver, is it possible to add a script that would fetch the object's parent ?

That script should get the closest parent having keyframes for the desired property.
I would be glad to have your thoughts about all of this !

Firstly, quite possibly, the issue re viewport via render is you need to drive the hide property as well.  Simply right click copy on view_render driver, and right-click paste driver into the hide field to emulate hide_render behaviour.

A driver can only return a float (decimal) or integer (or bool (True, False)) type, therefore you can't return object references or name strings.  What you can do though, is pass the name of an object to a driver expression.

To get a property from a parent using a driver.

def get_parent_property(name, property, default):
    object = bpy.data.objects.get(name)
    parent = object.parent
    return getattr(parent, property, default)

#add to driver namespace
bpy.app.driver_namespace["get_parent_property"] = get_parent_property

The driver expression get_parent_property("Cube", "hide_render", True) will return the hide_render property of "Cube"'s parent object, or the default value True in the case there is no parent.


Selected to cursor on one axis I have a problem that I still haven't found an easy solution to, I have ways to handle it but it would be interesting to know how people handles this.

Basically I have a situation where I want to use snap->selection to cursor but only in one axis. This is (i believe) only of interest in object mode. so for example I would like to align the center of the active object in the image to the other cylinder's center. to do this I may for example set the cursor to selected for the second cylinder, then select the cylinder I want to align and go selection to cursor, (see picture).

However it will snap exactly to cursor and if I could I would use this a lot and snap to cursor in just one axis. Sorry I can't seem to make it more clear :P So I'll stop saying the same thing over and over and hope that someone both understand and can help me figure out either a different approach to it or a solution to it.

So what I typically do is to copy the axis value I want from 3D-cursor to Transform location:

Thanks!

Select the object you want to align, then the object on which you want to align, then, on the bottom menu of the 3D view, choose Object > Transform > Align Objects, and play with the options on the bottom of the T menu (example: choose the right axis)


Automatic update of the image in the UV/image Editor Is there a way, in Cycles render context, to have the UV/image editor's image automatically update to match the image texture selected in the material node editor? (like the 3D view does in textured view mode)

It remains fixed on the same image, regardless of the object/material/texture selected and I have to search through all the images and manually select the good one every time I have to move a couple of UVs.

Note : the pin button in the UV editor is deselected, but the UV editor seems to behave like it is selected.

UPDATE: I've noticed that some of what I wrote here originally is unnecessary.  If the Slot mode in Texture Paint is left set to 'Material'  you can simply select a node in Cycles and quickly enter and exit Texture Paint mode to have the texture appear in the UV Image Editor.

That's an unfortunate design choice for the UV Image Editor in Cycles. It could change if people come up with some clear and well constructed reasons for changing the current system so the BF devs might feel motivated to change this.

There is a way around the issue now that Slots have been added to Texture Paint.

(Incidently, to make the slots tab show on the main tab you just have to shift+ click the handle to pin it so the tab is always visible)

The following image shows where to find the selector when default settings are used.

Just be sure to change the Painting Mode to Image since the default is Material.


Where is the "Manipulate Centers Only" button in Blender 2.8? I have looked just about everywhere on the Internet and I can't find the answer to this question. Where the hell is the "Manipulate Centers Only" button in Blender 2.8???? It's the the double arrow icon here:

I seem to have enabled it somehow and I can't scale or rotate my object.

The 'manipulate centers only' has changed again in Blender 2.81 and newer versions. It is at the top-right in the toolbar, under the Options dropdown. The function is now called Transform Affect Only > Locations


How to round edges of particular faces where I have assigned emission material? hope you have a good day. I've stumbled upon a very specific problem, so hopefully, some of you will know the solution to this.

As you can see, I have selected faces of my model, to which I've assigned Emissive material through combination of nodes.

Well, I'm sure now you can easily see where this is going. The faces, which have the emissive material assigned, look pixelated and blocky. I have already searched for some solutions to this online, but haven't found any.

What I'm trying to achieve is to make these particular faces look less pixelated and more smooth. I know it can be achieved by rounding the outer edges of selection, but I don't know the workflow to this.

And yes - I have already tried beveling, only to find out it isn't of any use. I also tried to transform the outermost edges "To Sphere", but it didn't work either. How can this be done then? Thanks everyone in advance.

Better if you use a mix shader with a mask, instead of this method. Of course you can paint the emission pattern if you have a UV map.


Editing object created from bezier curve I used a bezier curve to create an architectural moulding profile. Extruded the shape and used solidfy and made exactly what was intended. I would like to find a way to cut the shape with a knife at a 45 degree angle. Suggestions?

Thank you!!

Use the knife tool with K and press C to constrain your cut at 45 degree (or straight or vertically) If you need to cut both side of your mesh hit Z. when you are done press enter.


How can I setting OperatorStrokeElement? I try to deform the meth by script.

In my past question,One of the answers is ”In sculpt mode, the operator used would be bpy.ops.sculpt.brush_stroke. Using that in a script will involve setting up an OperatorStrokeElement which would include mouse position...”

But,I don't know how to set OperatorStrokeElement.
Please tell me how to set OperatorStrokeElement.
If possible, please give me a sample.

Try to use
def context_override():
    for window in bpy.context.window_manager.windows:
        screen = window.screen
        for area in screen.areas:
            if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
                for region in area.regions:
                    if region.type == 'WINDOW':
                        return {'window': window, 'screen': screen, 'area': area,
'region': region, 'scene': bpy.context.scene}

bpy.ops.sculpt.brush_stroke(context_override(), stroke=strokes)

where "strokes" is a list of viewport coordinate-tuples, like [(0,0,1),(0,0,-0.5),...]
Source is here.


Render appearing black and white cycles, how to fix? My render is appearing black and white in blender. Here is the render:

It should appear in these colors:
Note: This is Material Mode, not the actual render.

Here is the file: .blend File

Thanks! :)

In the UV/Image editor, you are looking at the blue channel only, individual color channels get displayed in black and white
Switch to RGBA or RGB view.

From the Manual

Draw Channels
The radio buttons set which channels of the image are displayed.
RGBA
Replaces transparent pixels with background checkerboard, denoting the alpha channel.
RGB
Draw the colored image, without alpha channel.
Alpha
Displays the Alpha channel a gray-scale image. White areas are opaque, black areas have an alpha of 0.
Z-Buffer
Display the depth from the camera, from Clip Start to Clip End, as specified in the Camera settings.
Red, Green, Blue
Single Color Channel visualized as a gray-scale image.


Need Help With Cartoon Eye Rig Rotation I have made a pair of eyes that have a cartoony shape (with the help of lattices) and have rigged them. The problem is when I  try to move the eye controller, the eye rotation is a bit... weird. I'm attaching the *.blend file along with screenshots
Edit: I haven't rigged one of the eyes, so you'll only see one eye move
Blend file

The Lattice Object has its origin point outside the cage, not at the origin of the bone which it's parented to. So all rotations of the bone move the mesh around this origin point, not at its center. To fix this, do the following:

Select the Lattice Object in Object Mode.
From the menu, go to Object > Set Origin > Origin to Geometry
Shift+S > Cursor to Selected.
Select the eye and the pupil, Shift+S > Selection to Cursor.


Mirrored mesh lines disappear when moving from edit to object mode and back to edit mode Mirrored mesh lines disappear when moving from edit to object mode and back to edit mode. The right side (source for the mirrored left side) remains normal, but the mirrored left side shows only the outline of the outer edges of the overall shape of the object.  I checked in object properites and made sure maximum draw type wasn't set to 'bounds.' Help?

This is a simple mirrored mesh I created as an example.

I switch to object mode and then right back to edit mode.  This is what remains.

Perhaps you need to enable the options highlighted in the image below


3D printer file type support For Blender 2.70, I'm trying to figure out:

Which 3D printer file formats Blender natively supports
Which 3D printer file formats Blender can support with the use of plugins/extensions/etc.
Which 3D printer file formats can be converted into another format that works with Blender
Which 3D printer file formats Blender cannot support at all, ever

The most important one of those is the last one (which file types can Blender not import/export/modify at all). Can someone point me to any documentation or help me figure out which file formats fall into which group?

Blender supports the STL (STereoLithography) format which is supported by all printers and considered as standard for prototyping.

Shapeways for example supports the file types: STL, OBJ, X3D, Collada or VRML97/2.

Blender comes with support of STL, OBJ, X3D and Collada.

Documentation on import formats
Documentation on export formats

When there is a public demand for a specific file format someone will create an import / export addon for it.


How to map/project bone coordinates to camera coordinates sytem/view? I need the bone-head coordinates to be mapped on to the camera view. Actual scenario is to obtain the 3D coordinates of bone/joint. This is how I do it now.

  scene = bpy.context.scene
  obj = bpy.context.object
  render_scale = scene.render.resolution_percentage / 100
      render_size = (
    int(scene.render.resolution_x * render_scale),
    int(scene.render.resolution_y * render_scale),
    )
  Bones16_WCO=[obj.pose.bones["Head"].head,obj.pose.bones["Neck"].head]
  for wco in Bones16_WCO:
      cco = bpy_extras.object_utils.world_to_camera_view(scene, cam, wco)
      print("2D Coords:", cco )
      print("Pixel Coords:", (
       round(cco.x * render_size[0]),
      round(cco.y * render_size[1]),
  ))

This is with the help of link- How to find image coordinates of the rendered vertex?

However, I need this to be done for different animated model. So at each frame of animation, the above code to get the bone locations has to be executed. How do I iterate this for entire animation using python scripting?

So, here it is, was very close to the solution after the last update to the question

for f in frame_numbers:
            scene.frame_set( f )
            for wco in Bones16_WCO:
                print("world Coords:", wco)
                cco = bpy_extras.object_utils.world_to_camera_view(scene, cam, wco)
                x=(round(cco.x * render_size[0]))
                y=(render_size[1]-round(cco.y * render_size[1]))


Script working only inside blender I'm writing a script to limited delete all coplanar faces into one but I'm running into a little problem. As the title say the script work only if I open it into blender using the text block window and run it from there. If I run it using blender -b file.blend -P scritp.py it gave me an error and doesn't work at all.
Here the script (is inside a class because I'm planning to use it in a much bigger software)

import bpy

class Normalization:

    def __init__(self):
        self.scene = bpy.context.scene

    @staticmethod
    def retrieve_mesh():
        mesh_list = []

        for o in bpy.data.objects:
            if o.type == "MESH":
                mesh_list.append(o)

        return mesh_list

    def merge_coplanar(self, obj_list):
        for o in obj_list:
            try:
                self.scene.objects.active = o
                bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="EDIT")
                bpy.ops.mesh.select_mode(type="FACE")
                bpy.ops.mesh.dissolve_faces()
                bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="OBJECT")
            except Exception:
                bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="OBJECT")

# Start DEBUG section --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if __name__ == "__main__":
    n = Normalization()
    ml = n.retrieve_mesh()
    n.merge_coplanar(ml)
    print("Coplanar faces merged.\nDone!")

And here the error

Read new prefs: C:\Users\Andrea\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\config\userpref.blend
AL lib: (EE) UpdateDeviceParams: Failed to set 48000hz, got 44100hz instead
found bundled python: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\python
version 3 imported
archimesh: Imported multifiles
Exception in module register(): 'C:\\Program Files\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\2.78\\scripts\\addons\\object_boolean_tools.py'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\modules\addon_utils.py", line 349, in enable
    mod.register()
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\addons\object_boolean_tools.py", line 1380, in register
    km = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps.new(name='Object Mode')
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'keymaps'
Exception in module register(): 'C:\\Users\\Andrea\\AppData\\Roaming\\Blender Foundation\\Blender\\2.78\\scripts\\addons\\uv_squares.py'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\modules\addon_utils.py", line 349, in enable
    mod.register()
  File "C:\Users\Andrea\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\addons\uv_squares.py", line 957, in register
    km = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps.new(name='UV Editor', space_type='EMPTY')
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'keymaps'
read blend: C:\Users\Andrea\Desktop\t.blend
Error: Could not create merged face
Error: Could not create merged face
Error: Could not create merged face
Error: Could not create merged face
Coplanar faces merged.
Done!

Blender quit

Blender version: 2.78,
Python version: 3.5,
OS: Windows 10

Object/edit mode is not related to UI.

I think one issue here is that some add-ons do not handle their init code correctly (assuming keyconfigs are always present in wm, which iirc is not the case when Blender is started in background mode, a lot of things get disabled then).

So a first thing to try is to start blender with --factory-startup option, which only enables official add-ons (which are supposed to behave correctly).

Second point is that, afaics, you do not select anything in your mesh before calling the dissolve operator? So if no faces are selected in existing objects, dissolve cannot merge anything…