What time map should I give? So, I have a weak computer so while playing the animation in the viewport, I am able to achieve 12 fps on average. I am using time remapping, so what value should I set in the 'New' section of time remapping, so that I get a 24 fps movie while it is rendered. BTW I am using 2.83 cycles.

You don’t need to use Time Remapping at all if all you care about is hitting the fps target you want in your final render. Even if your computer isn’t powerful enough to render the animation in real-time, that doesn’t affect the speed of the final render at all: it will take longer to render the animation, but when it’s played back, it will be at the appropriate speed.
Time remapping is used to artificially lengthen or shorten the real time duration of an animation, which could allow you to, for example, render an animation in slow motion. But it doesn’t affect the fps of the rendered animation at all; it just makes the animation happen over more or fewer frames.
If all you want is a 24 fps animation, don’t bother with the Time Remapping settings, just select “24 fps” as your scene’s frame rate and hit render.

If your problem is that when you render your animation actually runs too quickly (in real time) because you timed everything with the 12 fps you were getting in the viewport in mind, then you can use Time Remapping to help. The Time Remapping options just specify a scaling ratio on the duration, where the duration of the final render is effectively multiplied by $\frac{new}{old}$.
Therefore, if you want the final render to run at half the speed of what your timeline specifies, you can put any value in for Old and twice that value in for New. For example, either of these configurations would work, since they both do the same thing:

Note that you’ll also have to double the value you set for your End frame, or your rendered animation will end halfway through.


Change axis of Fork Extrude I'm sure there is a simple solution to this but I'm not finding it anywhere. I want to create symmetrical shoulder bones for my armature. So I want to use a fork extrude. As you can see in the image below the fork is on the wrong axis. I know I cannot change the orientation of the axis so I tried changing the orientation of the mesh and armature but no luck there. I have x-axis mirror in tools and axes in armature setting selected. Does anyone know how to re-orientate how these are extruding?

Rigging is admittedly not my expertise, but if I understand correctly, this has to do with unapplied transforms, and the direction the model is facing. You have x axis mirror enabled, but are parallel to the x axis (model facing left ortho view) so are unable to properly mirror to get the expected results.

I would first rotate your model 90 degrees on the Z axis to face front ortho view, and apply transforms with Ctrl+A and you should be able to proceed as desired. See .gif below for the steps:


Grease pencil black circles I opened my grease pencil animation today to find two black circles on the bottom  right of the drawing area. they remain there in 2d and 3d. its weird because they were not there when i saved and closed the project but they are now. they are not just drawings either as they carry over frame to frame and never move. Assuming and hoping i can just work as though they arent there and remove them later.
Thanks

I believe those are the "lookdev preview spheres" as I like to call them. They appear in the same spot as your screenshot when in the shading tab in a default file. In a shellnut they show some basic lighting on a default sphere, and a HDRI if set up with one. I believe they are rendering as black circles because you don't have lighting in your scene or something funky is happening with some lighting settings, leaving them as spheres of solid shadow.

These spheres will not render in your final output, so if you're fine with them being there, you can stop here.

However, if you want to get rid of them, you can change your rendering mode from lookdev to anything else. I haven't found a checkbox to get rid of them completely yet, but there is a setting to make them smaller. You can change the lookdev spheres size in the panel accessed by clicking the settings cog that appears under a dropdown menu in the top right corner of your viewport.

TL;DR: The circles won't render, so you can ignore them, but if you want them smaller you can turn down the sphere size.


How to change the pivot point position of a text object? Is it possible to change the pivot point position of a text object without converting it to a curve or mesh?

Put the 3D Cursor where you want the object center to be and use Shift + Ctrl + Alt + C > Origin to 3D Cursor, or Origin to Geometry if you want to center the origin.


Transparent image planes near each other are black i am making a plant and i have run into some problems. I have here some grass blade texture:

And since i want the whole pot to be filled with grass blades, i duplicated them until it filled the whole pot:

but as you can see, some of the image planes look like they have a black background:

Here is my node setup:

Go to the Light Paths panel in the Render tab and increase the transparent bounces (you'll probably be fine just setting them to the max value of 1024). Basically Blender is terminating the light rays after they go through a certain number of transparent objects.


Why does X-mirror and Topology mirror hide mesh when all vertices are selected and translated? How can I view my mesh again? I'm not sure if this is a bug as I can replicate the problem...which is odd because I'm using 2.77 which isn't a beta version as far as I know. I've tried researching but haven't come up with much. It'd be faster to simply remake the mesh, but I'm curious since I can replicate the problem but can't find a similar question.

Steps:

1- Enabled X-mirror and Topology mirror in Editmode

2- Selected all vertices and pressed "G"

3- Mesh disappears

Outcome:

The object origin is still visible in 3D view.
The object is still existent in Outliner
The object is not hidden in Outliner.
"Alt H" does nothing in 3D view (object not hidden by "H")
The view is not in local view.
“View selected” responds and zooms to object origin dot.

Thoughts?

Your mesh contains a lot of bad data, you should find that this bad data is causing the issues you are having.

With your object in edit mode, change to vertex select mode and de-select all vertices. With the mouse over part of the mesh press L - this will select all vertices linked to what is under the cursor. I see 748 vertices selected by this method.

I find that doing a select inverse and deleting the unconnected vertices still leaves some bad data. The following script deletes vertices that have one or more location values identified as NaN (Not a Number) which would be the reason you are having issues. After running this script I see 555 remaining vertices and find I can work with the remaining mesh and don't see any visual change.

import bpy, bmesh

obj = bpy.context.object
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(obj.data)
bad_verts = 0

for v in bm.verts:
    if isnan(v.co[0]) or isnan(v.co[1]) or isnan(v.co[2]):
        bad_verts += 1
        bm.verts.remove(v)

print('Removed {} bad vertices'.format(bad_verts))

bm.to_mesh(obj.data)
bm.free()


Particles menu is blank When i select the plate (see picture) the option for particles remains blank. Any ideas? noob with only 10 hours in blender.

I've noticed that the slider in the particles tab is all the way down. Would scrolling up solve your issue?


Show and Hide child objects along with Parent I have several Parent objects that each have a lot of child objects. I need to key frame showing/hiding the various different stacks of objects at different points without it becoming too tedious. Ideally, i'd like it if I could set my child objects to share the show/hidden status of the parent object. Is this possible?

Alternatively, is there a way to keyframe the show/hide of a whole selection of objects at once?

EDIT, much better way to do this using properties
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/147144/15543
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/197072/15543
Fudge the driver system 2.9x
I removed the previous answer re doing this in 2.8, don't really recommend this one..
Melodicpinpon asks

Would it work in 2.9 version? This question has been debated in many
places and this method could be the solution...

Using a method somewhat similar to @AtomicBezierSlinger can add a driver to every object in the scene that has a parent.
However the use of use self makes this driver readily copy pastable into other objects, without the need to check or set the parent object.
Here is a test script to add the driver to all objects with a parent.
import bpy

from bpy.app import driver_namespace as dns

def test(self, dg):
    vl = dg.view_layer
    return not self.parent.original.visible_get(view_layer=vl)

dns["test"] = test

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
#parented objects
parented = [o for o in scene.objects if o.parent]

for o in parented:
    #o.animation_data_clear() # testing
    #continue
    o.animation_data_create()
    fcurve = o.driver_add("hide_viewport")
    driver = fcurve.driver
    driver.expression = "test(self, depsgraph)"
    driver.use_self = True
    # dummy var to make driver update.
    var = driver.variables.new()
    var.name = "dummy" # frame
    var.targets[0].id_type = 'SCENE'
    var.targets[0].id = scene
    var.targets[0].data_path = "frame_current"

Making a test method and adding to the driver namespace is unnecessary as it can be directly crunched into expression field as
not self.parent.original.visible_get(view_layer=depsgraph.view_layer)

use self is not default and will need to be set.

answer below is for versions prior 2.8 with the use self option available.  Also not a recommended way to use driver system.

Fudge the driver system
Firstly we'll set up a custom driver that sets a property of all children recursively to the value of the parent.
import bpy

def traverse_tree(t):
    yield t
    for child in t.children:
        yield from traverse_tree(child)

def set_children(obj, prop):
    val = getattr(obj, prop, None)
    if val is not None:
        for c in traverse_tree(obj):
            setattr(c, prop, val)
    return val

bpy.app.driver_namespace["setchildprops"] = set_children

Now we can add a driver to a custom property on the same object as the property we wish to set on all children.
setchildprops(self, "hide")

making sure to check the non default "use_self" property of the driver.

Now if you keyframe the "hide" property of the same object it will hide / show children accordingly.  Note it will not update the UI automatically, until some property eg frame is updated.


Quick Liquid and Smoke doesn't work in viewport When I make smoke by Object > Quick effect > Quick Smoke/Liquid it appears nothing on the viewport.

Once I bake it appears just right in viewport, but still error while rendering.

I don't know what is wrong with my scene.

this is my Blender file

This is a result of the change to mantaflow in Blender 2.82. You will have to click the Bake Data button on the Physics Properties Shelf of the Smoke Domain, and do this every time you make a change for that change to become visible.

You also have to bake noise data separately if you have noise activated.


Is there a better way to see what I'm doing during retopology? I have been struggling with striking the balance of transparency and visibility when retopologizing a mesh.
I need to be able to see the retopo mesh clearly, so I turn on "In Front" under the mesh object's properties. However, this often makes it hard to see the other mesh:

I can see the low-poly mesh just fine, but now I can't see what I'm creating the new topology for.
If I turn In Front off, then large patches of the retopo mesh become hard to make out because the high poly mesh is intersecting with it:

I thought that, perhaps, a solution would be to show the object in Material mode with materials with alpha blend on and some transparency in the alpha channel.

However, this also is very hard to see, because the patches wherever the meshes intersect are still there.
If I turn on Wireframe, there is just too much information, because of how dense the other mesh is:

The big problem here, I think, is that anything that intersects over the low-poly mesh hides its edges and vertices in the viewport in Edit mode, regardless of the transparency of the material. Unless I turn on In Front for the mesh I want to see, but that gives too much information, because in many cases I don't want to see across to the other side of the object - I only want to clearly see the mesh on the side of the object facing me in the viewport.
What I would like is:

to be able to clearly see the geometry of the low-poly mesh above the surface of the high poly mesh when I'm tweaking or retopologizing it
Not to have the geometry of the low-poly mesh on the far side of the model get in the way of seeing what I'm doing in front

Is there a better way?

The best solution so far that I could find was to turn on backface culling in viewport shading settings, and combine it with "In Front" viewport display option. Some alpha opacity is optional.
It's still quite hard to tell what's going on sometimes - screenshot as an example. I wish some better options were implemented, like "In front" but with total occlusion of backfaces, or selective wireframe toggle by object.


questions about viewing a model and selecting objects I have a few basic questions about Blender that I can not find an answer to and I would appreciate it if someone could help me or point me in the correct direction.

My 3d model has a cube with dimensions of 1000x1000x100 and I can not see the whole object in the window at once in perspective view. If I use the wheel on the mouse to zoom out, parts of my cube disappear. I was thinking that I should change my viewport to view a wider area but I can not figure out how to do that.

My 3d model actually contains several cubes of around 1000x1000x100. I positioned them by typing numbers into the transform menu in the sidebar. Now if I am in Object Mode and click on one of the cubes or if I click on the object in the outliner, I do not get the crosshairs on the object so that I can move it around with my mouse. I can choose and edit a vertex in Edit Mode, but I can not move or rotate the entire object with my mouse. I have been playing with various settings in the Properties Panel, but if I changed something that I should not have, I can't figure out what I did.

The first time I created my model, I tried to resize one of my cubes by typing in values to the transform menu in the sidebar. Then, pressing CTRL-A, Scale to reset the scale back to 1 did not work. I solved the problem by recreating my model in a new file, but I am hoping that there is a better solution.

I have already search online to try to find answers. Probably I am missing something fairly simple, so I would appreciate any advice. Thank you very much.

To fix the view-ability of your object, you can change the camera end-clip distance by pressing N and finding it under "View".

If you are having difficulty changing the transformations of your object, check the Opbect Properties panel and make sure you don't have any Delta Transforms enabled.


Ways to create a cylindrical shell (annular volume)? The only way I know how to make a cylindrical shell is to

ShiftA, Cylinder, to insert a cylindrical mesh.
ShiftA, Cylinder, to insert another cylindrical mesh.
SZ2Enter, to double the height of the second cylinder.
SShift+Z0.5Enter, to halve the diameter of the second cylinder.
Right Click the first cylinder, click the wrench icon, Add Modifier, Boolean, Difference, Cylinder 001 (or whatever the skinny cylinder's name is), Apply.
Right Click the second cylinder, x to delete it.

Does anyone know easier ways of making a cylindrical shell, preferably out of a single circular mesh or cylinder?

You can create a cylinder and apply a solidify modifier..


Procedural hair deformation for rocks Using Cycles, I am trying to make a procedural rock hair particle system.  I have my ICO Sphere on another layer that has some random texture displacements.  However, I want to apply a random deform to the overall shape of the rock, is this possible?  Hair length doesn't really do it.  Is  it maybe possible to put an empty in the main scene that would affect the hair shape?

Okay, I can't post any images right now.  However, it's pretty basic what I did, so let me explain real quick.  I actually got the general idea from a great YouTube tutorial author that I watch, Sardi Pax.

I have a scene with a plane for the ground.  I put a hair particle system all across the plane.  I then went to another layer and created five ICOSphere "rocks" and applied a Noise and the Voronoi textures used for displacement mappings(set the material's settings section tab displacement flag to true after enabling "Experimental").  Then I tweaked these displacements to make the rocks look different.  I also applied a simple deform modifier with an empty to each rock to get unique shapes for them.  Then I Object grouped(CTRL+G) the rocks on that separate layer together.  Then I went back to my original layer with the plane and then used the rocks group as the hair particle system's display property.  I also created vertex groups on my plane(randomly selected).  Then I applied the rocks(with pick random from group selection in the particle's properties, so it would pick random rocks for me from the rock object group) to the plane's vertex groups that I created.  And since I put the rocks at 0 on the Z-axis on the other layer the rocks look buried in the plane's "dirt", pretty neat.   This gave me a decent spread across the plane of random rocks that didn't appear to be too repetitious.  I hope this makes sense, I'll try to post images later.


Tried Everything Cant find Nodes in Node Editor I've tried numpad . I've tried ctrl+f nothing seems to work and I cant for the life of my find the damn nodes in the node editor. I'm using a macbook btw, so maybe the problem is that my numpad . isnt beside the 0?

You have to check Use Nodes otherwise no nodes will be displayed.

Then if still not visible, position all nodes in your view by pressing Home (it may also be labeled pos1 on your keyboard).


I can't export my BGE game as .app I have created a game in BGE and I am trying to export it as an .app.

I went into Add-Ons and activated Save Game As Game Engine Runtime. When I go to File > Export > Save As Game Engine Runtime, it says

  The player could not be found! Runtime not saved

When I go to run it as a Standalone Player, it says

  Player path: '/private/var/folders/j1/n61my9px6cgc695j5_kpwfcc0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/87947515-F243-4122-8A6D-377D08161CE7/d/blender.app/Contents/MacOS/MacOS/MacOS/MacOS/blenderplayer.app/Contents/MacOS/blenderplayer' not found

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Blender. I have tried going to the folder above and it should have a file called blenderplayer in it but it does not.

How can I fix this issue?

I'm on Mac by the way.

What happens if you copy blenderplayer.app over to that empty folder. Then, you could use it. There is also likely a preferences input for the player path. I once copied blenderplayer.app from one computer to another through Google drive, I think it worked (it was a while ago). I am currently not with my computer, but good luck!


I have a camera solver on a camera, how can I delete the solver on a duplicate camera and keep the rotation and location the same? I have motion-tracked a scene and have a camera with a camera solver on it. I duplicated the camera and need to delete the camera solver in the second camera. I was wondering how I can delete the camera solver and keep the location and rotation the same as the first camera so I can keyframe it and animate it later in the scene.

Convert the tracking information to keyframes.
On the selected camera, open the camera solver constraint and click on convert the constraint to f-curve

Motion and rotation of the camera will be converted to keyframes.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/animation/constraints/motion_tracking/camera_solver.html


Is there a hot key for switching between 3D Object and Sculpt modes? In the past, I've found the Tab key useful for switching between edit and object modes.  But now that I'm getting into sculpting, I'm finding that I need to frequently switch between sculpt and object modes and the tab key simply toggles the current mode with edit mode.  The best hotkey combination I've found so far is Ctrl+Tab, 4 and Ctrl+Tab, 2 which is kind of cumbersome since it involves an awkward Ctrl+Tab in the left hand followed by a separate keystroke.

Is there an easier way to do this? I'd like to be able to do something simple like just press 2 or 4 to switch modes.

You can drag the mouse in the direction of the option of the pie menu while holding Ctrl+Tab and once you release it with the mouse moved in the direction of the option you want it will get chosen. That might be more convenient.


How can I create a faceless sphere? I just want the skeleton of the sphere that you see in 'edit' mode. I need that in normal object mode. This below is what I am roughly trying to create.

Use the wireframe modifier. By editing the different parameters, you can create a very similar result to what you are asking about.


How do I set a plane to not fall? I've been trying to set up a physics simulation so I can drop an Ico mesh on top of a plane and then collide they collide. However, I can't get the plane to stay in place, it just starts falling down with the Ico. It would be great if somebody could give me steps for how to keep the plane in place. I am relatively new to blender so sorry if I did not give you enough info. Thank you.

Change the ground plane's Rigid Body Type to Passive


Mirror Modifier Overlapping Faces I am trying to model something and when I mirror it, the faces in the middle overlap. Should I just move the mirrored faces or am I doing something wrong? This is what it looks like after I apply the modifier.

I don't want the band down the middle. The only option I changed in the modifier section was the axis it mirrored over. I am using Blender Render as well.

Turn on "clipping" in the mirror modifier stack. Adjust the threshold or go into edit mode and select the mesh, move it until the centre vertices snaps in place.


Is there any method to make the size random to the instanced objects created via Animation nodes? I made the instances from a collection (of 4 objects) with the help of Animation nodes. I would like to change the sizes of each objects randomly. Now it seems all uniform and if i try to change the scale its all scaling equally. Any method to do this?

Use combination of Random Number and Vector from Value node.

Random scaled objects from a collection:


What is ambient occlusion for? I can't seem to be able to wrap my head around the definitions I find on the web.  From what I can gather, these are shadows that YOU paint onto your mesh?  Why is it a good idea to have static shadows?  Don't shadows change all the time?
For example if I paint ambient occlusion on my model, it's only going to get darker, even if I put lights where they are, isn't that unrealistic?

AO is rarely painted.  It is likely baked from a high poly mesh to a low poly mesh.  Although there's nothing wrong with doing some hand-painting on top of the bake.  It is used as part of a workflow that tries to represent mesh details using texture details instead, because vertices are expensive and texture lookups aren't.
For an example use case of AO, consider a game engine with a baked normal map.  Because the normal map is not real geometry, but only tricks that manipulate the way that light bounces off the surface, a recessed area may get lighted in an inappropriate way-- after all, there is no genuine recess there, it's just flat geometry.  If you wanted, you could just darken the diffuse texture in those recesses, but there is some lighting that should reach the recess.  So you can use ambient occlusion to limit only the ambient lighting, without affecting other lighting.
This is all a trick.  There is nothing remotely physical accurate about ambient occlusion, because there is nothing remotely physically accurate about the concept of ambient lighting to begin with.  It is not a good idea from the standpoint of realistic lighting.  It is a good idea from the standpoint of balancing a good looking picture with reasonable performance-- usually, the real-time performance demanded by games.  Achieving this reasonable performance means that you can't use enough vertices to acquire the shadows realistically.
Some people recommend multiplying AO into diffuse for use in Cycles.  This is not a good idea.  If any texture artist thought that their diffuse should be multiplied by their AO, they'd just do that themselves in PS and skip the AO.  Frankly, there's no real way to use AO in Cycles, because Cycles isn't designed for the same goals that game models and textures are designed.  If you wanted to use ambient occlusion in Cycles, the closest you could get would be to composite (add) two renders, each using some subset of your lighting/world, and to multiply AO into diffuse in only one of those renders.  That would leave AO occluding only some of your lighting, rather than all of it, which is the goal of the use of AO in game engines.  So, no, in Cycles, if you use AO as properly as you can, it will not just get darker-- it will get darker in a specific way.
However, AO is appropriate to use in Eevee.  Unfortunately, the only shader with an AO input is the Specular shader.  Getting game-like renders out of Eevee, using AO, with other shaders, is again possible-- but only with compositing.  In this case, a render without your world should use straight diffuse, while a render with your world but without your lights should use diffuse*AO.  Your world is the ambient lighting in Eevee that should be occluded by AO.  Again, if you use AO properly in Eevee, it will not just make your model darker, it will make your model darker in a specific way.


after clicking on add paint slot, Blender still reports missing texture slots I am trying to texture paint my object in Blender 2.74 blender-render mode. However, I have noticed that when using a node material, I loose the ability to add new paint slots in material mode. In addition, I keep receiving the message "missing texture slots". Also, clicking on add new paint slot does not resolve the issue, but in other cases this usually solves the problem. After clicking on add new paint slot, Blender does add the new texture in the textures property window, and I can even click on any of those textures in the texture properties window, but it does not activate the texture brush tool and keeps on throwing this error.
Now this only happens when I activate a material slot and click on use node in the node editor. In conclusion, I am thinking that it is not possible to texture paint on a node material. Is this so, or is there a way to fix this problem?

It is not possible to paint on a node based material in Blender Render. You can paint on a material in Cycles as nodes as long as you have set up an image node and texture image to paint to - and the best interaction there is in Material Draw mode so that you can see the layers of image textures together.


How do I make a glass with a thicker bottom than top? I am trying to make a cup with varying thickness. The top of the cup is much thinner than that of the bottom part of the cup. I have tried playing around with the Clamp but it doesn't get the bottom to raise up as high as I would like. How do I get an affect like this?

You can for instance use a solidify modifier set to vertex group, then paint the weights in weight paint mode.
First add a vertex group and in edit mode make sure to remove every weight from your vertices.

Then add a solidify modifier to your mesh, set the factor to something > 0 so there is at least a bit of displacement with a weight 0.

Then go into vertex weight paint, with the ALT key pressed left-click on the bottom of your object, then drag your cursor up to the top and release the mouse button. You will see a gradient on your mesh :

Play with the solidify and the vertex group factor. Tweak a bit the mesh and use a negative thickness to get something approaching your image. Final result :


Bad geometry when subsurf I use Blender 2.78c in Experimental feature set. In order to use microdisplacement I added subsurf to my object but set everywhere mean crease 1.00 for preserving original shape. But when I do preview render something goes wrong and my honeycomb being deformed.

Cutting faces works well. Ngons were a problem.


Cannot select faces that I created already Hi I cannot select any of the faces that I created. Below Im trying to select what will be the window of a small room but if I click all big face is selected.

This is the way I did it the window and the rectangular face just on top of it:selecting the top edge of the big left face -> subdivide, after the bottom edge -> subdivide and finally selecting vertices of top and bottom created hit F key to connect.

Do you know what's going on here?

Small update:I moved the face and looks like the edges that I created subdividing the top and bottom edges from this left wall are "disconnected" from the face here the image.

Thanks.
Regards.
Jose

One thing you can do is delete the selected face on the image you posted, then create each individual face separately, selecting the edges that form one and pressing the F key, do this for every face.
See the images below for an example:

1) Empty edges

2) Selection of the edges

3) After pressing the F key


Is possible to render in Cycles with modifiers on the scene? I'm a little bit newbie in Blender, I'm come from Maya and I'm still improving my skills on it hehe

I was making a tutorial about make tank tracks, but I have a problem. I made all the animation for the tank tracks, and it works fine, the problem is that I need to conserve the modifiers (Curve modifier and array) in order to keep the animation working, but I cannot render with modifiers without apply...

So, how can I render the model in cycles and don't loose this animation rigging? The tracks are linked to an empty cube, and rigged by using drivers.

Thanks for your help and consideration :)

Kind regards!

As explained in the manual here, each modifier has a few buttons that enable/disable it at certain times. The small camera button is used to for displaying the modified result when rendering, if this is off it will not be visible when rendering.


adjust rigid body objects' position without affecting the whole shape I made a logo animation using a rigid body but do not like how the blocks are spread. Moving the blocks one by one did not work because the new position affects how they are gathered together at the end. Is there a way to change the positions of each block when they are on the floor without affecting the final shape, M?

Just in case you need,
Blender File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ihkPV4s9GIScB96JlefOpgUTSIalKrT4/view?usp=sharing

I know my proposals are "another" alternative solution, but maybe it is enough for you.
Instead of moving around them manually you could e.g.
Proposal 1:

give them another mass and check whether you are satisfied with the new result. To do so: select all cubes, and choose another mass -> and you got new positions

Proposal 2:

you manually put other weights to your cubes

Proposal 3:

this is what you want to do, but it is a LOT OF work.

you can bake your simulation to keyframes. Then you have control over each keyframe of your animation.
you can do it like this:

But the disadvantage is, that you have to change nearly every position of each keyframe for each cube so that it looks realistic.


Why is only the first frame rendered repeatedly when rendering my animation? I just started learning Blender today and I've encountered as an issue with rendering. When I set up my scene (which involves a cloth falling onto a sphere) and hit Ctrl+F2 to render my animation, only the first frame is rendered repeatedly, even though Blender is clearly iterating through every frame (the frame counter is going up).
On top of this, if I try to render one frame (which is not the first) specifically with F2, the first frame is rendered instead. The object to be rendered is snapped out of the camera view to the origin when rendering as well.
I am using Blender 2.83.2. Any suggestions on how to solve the issue? Perhaps I'm using the software incorrectly?
In terms of settings, I have not done any customization and I simply render my scene as-is.

This is usually caused by the physic simulation that is not cached / baked.
Go to "Physics Properties" tab, then Cache, then Delete all Bakes and then Bake all dynamics. This should be enough.


How to Toggle Selected Objects Visibility with H shortcut as in Maya I want to be able to toggle the visibility of selected objects with a shortcut (H) the way you can do in Maya and XSI, shown in the GIF. I'm guessing scrippting is needed. I've tried to do it my self but I'm new to Python and Blender and as soon as the objects are hidden they seem to no longer be in a selection state/list. Eg if I manually select the hidden object/s in the Outliner and try to print the selected object to the console, none seem to be selected. Is this possible to do with the current state of Blender 2.8?

In Blender, the way selection works is a bit different. You can't really have something "selected" when it's hidden in the viewport.

You can hide an object with H, but to unhide, you generally either undo or alt-H to unhide all hidden objects. To have the same shortcut key do both an action and its opposite is pretty uncommon in Blender. The only thing I can think of is selecting all (A for select all AA to deselect all, but they are moving away from that by making alt-A deselect all).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SXSIQpYnl8


Drawtype for objects in blender 2.8 How do you change the maximum object drawtype of an object in blender 2.8?
Eg, I want to make a cube so that it is seen in the viewport as a wireframe, but I don't want to be in wire frame as I have other objects I want to see as solid volumes.

Object Properties > Viewport Display > Display As Wire

You might want to check "All Edges" too to draw coplanar edges (edges lying on the same plane)

With python

import bpy
ob = bpy.context.object
ob.display_type = 'WIRE'
ob.show_all_edges = True


Undesired different results with bevel modifier and vertex group iam using bevel modifier on simple model that looks like window. I want beveled edge only on window corner so iam using vertex group. The problem Iam having that on one side it looks clean and straight as well as the corner is ok, the opposite side is beveled differently with bad results. How is that? Normals are ok, no double verteces.

I found a reason.
Its because I have another window right next to this. So the vertexes are connected and take the edge in count when beveling so I would have to add another edge between them to separate or the better solution was as @lemon wrote to use edge weight.
Beveled by edge weight

When add a weight between the windows it makes the same artifacts like when I used vertex group that counted in that edges between windows.


Set active shape key using Python I would like to set active shape key using Python. I know that I can use following code for this purpose:

bpy.context.active_object.active_shape_key_index = some_index

but, when I have several shape keys, then I don't know how to get this index from given shape key:

sh_key = bpy.context.active_object.data.shape_keys.key_blocks["shape_key_name"]

There is no attribute called index in object sh_key. I tried to use bpy.context.active_object.active_shape_key, but this attribute is read only. Thanks for your help.

Hi here is some quick code from the python console,

I have an active object with a number of shapekeys, "Key 1" being one, I find the index using find(...) then set the active_shape_key_index to this number.

find(...) will return -1 if a key of that name is not found.

>>> index = C.object.data.shape_keys.key_blocks.find('Key 1')
>>> index
1

>>> C.object.active_shape_key_index = index
>>>


Background image blurry I like using an empty with an image as a refrence, but the images display blurry when zoomed in.

Ideally, I would like it to look crisp like this:

Is there something in the user preferences or somewhere else to do this?

It might be too late but in Blender - Viewport settings, if you ever limited the Textures size, then you might want to increase it back. This should fix the blurry images.


Blender 2.74 Depth-of-field is okay at 3D-viewport, but not in Render Blender 2.74 has enabled one to add a depth-of-field effect in the 3D viewport. The problem is, when I hit F12 to render the camera-view, the depth-of-field doesn't show up. Any idea why?

You have to achieve the in-render DOF through the compositor. Run your combined image through the Defocus node as well as your Z pass output. The output will be the image with DOF as it was in the viewport render.


Batch Rename (add-on) - inverted sequential numbering Official Blender 2.8+ includes add-on called Batch Rename, but I can't find an option to invert numbering order for a bunch of objects (Text.001, Text.002, ..., Text.010).
Number 1 become 10, 2-9, 3-8, 4-7, 5-6.
Manual says

Regular Expressions can be used as a powerful way to tailor the Find/Replace texts and can be enabled using the icon to the right of the text fields.

Question - What is the right "Regular Expression" to add or revert sequential numbering of objects?
Note: There is an awesome script of p2or that does exactly what I need, but I would rather use a script bundled with official version. Thank you for your time :)

Regex is a powerful (albeit not Turing complete) language, in which it's hard to say what is possible and what isn't: Adding Numbers with Regex.
However, in this case I find it fair to say the task can't be done using regex alone: the way search & replace functionality in regex mode works, is it goes through objects one by one, and applies the regex formula to each name separately. Therefore the task can't be done, not because of limitations of regex, but the limitations of the context available to it. Imagine writing a Python function, which gets an old name and is supposed to return a new name:
def rename(old_name):
    new_name = "?"
    return new_name

If you can't access variables outside of this function (and regex can't), then even though you're using a Turing complete language (Python), you can't come up with a solution, because while you can extract a number from the old_name, you don't know a total number of names, so you're unable to do new_number = total_number - old_number. If you hard-coded the total_number to the function, assuming that there's always 100 objects for example, then it would work (as long as the assumption holds true). Likewise, if your object numbering, instead of integers, uses float numbers in range [0, 1], e.g. instead of Cube.001, Cube.002, Cube.003, Cube.004, Cube.005,  it uses Cube.0.0, Cube.0.25, Cube.0.50, Cube.0.75, Cube.1.0, then again, you can make a Python function, not knowing the total number of objects, that still flips their names. Think of a shader that takes a texture and flips it, and what kind of data or coordinate system that shader requires in order to work. Search & Replace just doesn't supply Regex with that (and if it did, it would still be very unpractical to create such complex regex formulas).
The Python script solution can be as simple as:
import bpy

cubes = [o for o in bpy.data.objects if o.name.startswith('Cube.')]
for i, c in enumerate(sorted(cubes, key = lambda c: int(c.name.split('.')[-1]), reverse = True)):
    newname = f'Cube.{i:03}'
    if newname in bpy.data.objects:
        bpy.data.objects[newname].name = f'Renaming...{newname}'
    c.name = newname

However, this script has some problems:

It doesn't touch an object without a number in its name. So if you start with a Cube, and then duplicate it 9 times, it will only rename duplicates (giving the last duplicate number 000), while the first duplicate will become the last (009). You need to manually rename the base Cube to Cube.000 in order to fix that.
It assumes every object with its name starting with Cube. is the object to be renamed. Even if it's name is Cube.Big without a number.
It will make the numbers have 3 digits, even if you rename more than a thousand objects. So the numbering will be: 001, 002, [...] 099, 100, 101, [...], 998, 999, 1000, 1001, [...].
It assumes there's a dot immediately before a number. If there's any object like Cube.Big005, the script will fail trying to convert Big005 to an integer, and nothing will be renamed.
It's case sensitive, so it will rename Cube.001 but not cube.001.

Here's a more general script, dealing with those issues:
import bpy

name = 'sphere'  # what you search for, exactly. Searching for 'cube' will *not* find 'cube2' or 'cubes' or 'mycube' objects
case_sensitive = False  # Don't ignore letter case
ignore_numberless = False  # Don't treat an object with proper name but without a number as first in sequence
new_first_numberless = False  # Keep the convention of not giving the number to the first object, after reversing
minimum_digits = 3  # use at least that many digits in object numbering (the script will use more if necessary)

# ------------------------------------

objs = bpy.data.objects

_name = name if case_sensitive else name.lower()

to_be_renamed = []
for o in objs:
    name2 = o.name if case_sensitive else o.name.lower()
    last_part = name2.split('.')[-1]
    if not last_part.isdigit():
        if not ignore_numberless and _name == name2:
            to_be_renamed.append((-1, o))
        continue

    if _name == name2[:-len(last_part)-1]:
        to_be_renamed.append((int(last_part), o))

to_be_renamed.sort(key = lambda x: x[0], reverse = True)

number_len = max(minimum_digits, len(str(len(to_be_renamed)-1)))
format_str = '{}.{:0' + str(number_len) + '}'

for i, (sortkey, object) in enumerate(to_be_renamed):
    if i == 0 and new_first_numberless:
        newname = name
    else:
        newname = format_str.format(name, i)
    if newname in objs:
        objs[newname].name = f'Renaming...{newname}'
    object.name = newname

There are settings in one place for easier script usage.
If an object's name is the name searched for, without a number, it's number is considered as -1 (so its order is before 000)
Every number has to be at the end, immediately after a dot. An object like Cube001 will be ignored (but the script will not fail)
If the last element is 35000, the first will be 00001 (consistent length of numbers)


Add Manual and Python Reference Links for Custom Operators I would like to use Blender's interactive help functionality for my custom operators, i.e. RMB an operator's button and choosing Online Manual or Online Python Reference to link to my own manual and code documentation.

So, is there a way to set custom links for a custom operator's help options?

There are two functions that takes you to the docs:

# Blender docs
bpy.ops.wm.doc_view_manual(doc_id="")

# Blender Python docs
bpy.ops.wm.doc_view(doc_id="")

It seems that they take their parameters from the property as follows:

doc_id = data.identifier + property_name

where the property has been created in this manner:

col.row().prop(data, property_name)

Those functions search the _manual_map for this doc_id. The manual_map contains by default the blender_default_map which is (prefix, manual_mapping ).

The prefix is simply 'https://blender.org/manual' while manual_mapping is dict you give it the something+doc_id (in this case bpy.ops) and you get the rest of the url (url = prefix + manual_mapping[doc_id])

So to add you manual you create your addon_map:

import bpy

prefix = "https://myaddon.org/manual/"
my_manual_mapping =(
    ("bpy.ops.myaddon.*", "page_one"),
    ("bpy.ops.myaddon.something.*", "page_one/page_two.html")
)

def my_map():

  ret = (prefix, my_manual_mapping)
  return ret

bpy.utils.register_manual_map(my_map)

bpy.ops.wm.doc_view_manual(doc_id="") will now take you to your site.

(Note: I have this in my addon: bl_idname = "myaddon.simple_operator")


Why do these weird lines appear in my render? Applied denoiser as well, rendering in cycles on GTX1050Ti
Also why is there that weird noise just behing the rocks, like smudged kind of thing?

I am not sure why this is happening, but I have narrowed it down to your light with some basic trouble shooting.
It happens with only a lamp and the floor thus only place the problem can be. Applied the scale to the light and lines gone.
Check scaling on all your lights... and the rest of your items.
;)


Blender 2.80 Remove double vertices option gone I downloaded the latest version of Blender 2.8 beta today.

I used to remove double vertices by switching to Vertex selection mode -> Choose all vertices -> Right click > choose Remove Doubles (in Blender 2.80 which I downloaded in April).

But I found the option - Remove double vertices gone. I switched to Vertex selection mode and press F3 to search but could not find it. Maybe it has got another name?

Yes, it has been rename to a more reasonable name - Merge by Distance.
Since Remove Double doesn't explain the operator well by it's own name at all. It merges those vertices which are too close to each other by a defined distance.

For developers, the API does't change at all, nothing to worry about it.

In code details
In case someone is curious about why it doesn't remove the double by exactly same position, the problem is that vertices store coordinates (x,y,z) in float numbers, a 32-bit number used commonly in computer science. It is not always precise in manipulating.
For a easy code in Python 3.6.0:
co = 0.1 # Create a 'co' object that gets a float value 0.1
sum_co = 0.0 # Create a 'sum_co ' object thats going to store sum

for i in range(10): # Do the block 10 times
    sum_co += co # Add co(value: 0.1) to sum_co

sum_co == 1.0 # If sum_co exactly equal to 1.0
# Should be true in common sense since 0.1 * 10 = 1
# But the answer is 'False', the sum_co == 0.9999999999999999

Since this situation happens a lot, Blender can't remove the duplicated vertices by exactly same value of the coordinates. Hence, compared by a tiny tolerance is a more common way to deal with this kind of problem. Therefore, Merge by Distance replaces the original name.


Create vertex on a desired part of an edge Ctrl + R creates vertex exactly between two vertices of an edge but I want it in the place where I click, that is any part of an edge where I click. I wanted to know if there is any such feature available in blender. This will just increase my modeling speed.

It's true that CtrlR works a bit different for single edge like this other than loop cutting on faces, since it is not designed for that. However, you can select that new vertex then GG, or ShiftV to slide it along the edge.

Furthermore, a new coming feature may benefit such workflow. Just FYI.


Blender 2.92 Fluid / Gas simulation not working I'm using Blender 2.92.
Now I'm trying to simulate some fluids and gases, but it seems that I'm not ready for these. I've succeeded setting a simple fluid scene (just a cube domain and a cube inflow), it works ok. But whenever I try to change anything, the simulation just stops moving. E.g. I moved an object after viewing the whole animation and the simulation does not update (no matter how many times I click bake data and bake mesh).
The same thing with gases. I added a quick smoke effect to a cylinder, it worked fine. I added some new objects, set them to be effectors, set the simulation to be modular and clicked bake. After some seconds I press play - nothing changes. Just a black unmoving cloud around the cylinder (picture below).

I had the same problems on 2.90 version and struggled much. I've found plenty of fluid and gases tutorials where people just click all the buttons I clicked and boom - they get it to work. What am I doing wrong? How can I vew the result after changing something in the scene?
Or do I have to set everything beforehand and delete gas domain every time?..

If you baked the simulation, you first have to delete the bake and then bake it again after your movement.


What select non manifold is for exactly? I have some non manifold meshes to heal. And we have:

bpy.ops.mesh.select_non_manifold(extend=True, use_wire=True, use_boundary=True, use_multi_face=True, use_non_contiguous=True, use_verts=True)

    Select all non-manifold vertices or edges
    Parameters:

        extend (boolean, (optional)) – Extend, Extend the selection
        use_wire (boolean, (optional)) – Wire, Wire edges
        use_boundary (boolean, (optional)) – Boundaries, Boundary edges
        use_multi_face (boolean, (optional)) – Multiple Faces, Edges shared by 3+ faces
        use_non_contiguous (boolean, (optional)) – Non Contiguous, Edges between faces pointing in alternate directions
        use_verts (boolean, (optional)) – Vertices, Vertices connecting multiple face regions

I cannot figure the meaning of all options exactly. Can someone please tell me?

EDIT: Let's see... maybe that was too broad.

use_wire: edges without faces
use_boundary: edges with one face only
use_multi_face: edges with 3+ faces
use_non_contiguous: edges with one face turning back to the other
use_verts: ???

extend=True adds to the current selection, whereas extend=False replaces the selection.

Those use_xxx bools are different reasons why a part of the mesh can be non-manifold, and allow the user to select specific cases.


Does installing/running Blender tamper in any way with my system/settings or install additional software/required components? My question is, does using Blender (since it doesn't require an installation as far as I understand) tamper in any way with my system, install additional/required/third party software or make any long lasting changes to my registry?

I'm using Windows 8.1 64bit with all the current updates at the moment.

No it doesn't modify your system, provided you are using the self-contained .zip version.

The self-contained .zip version is just that, self-contained. It will - of course - put data where-ever you tell it to. Animation output or other temporary files will be written where you tell Blender to put them. Temporary files (in C:\tmp\ by default) are deleted every so often.

In addition to the outputs mentioned above, the Blender Windows Installer will also make a link in you start menu, (possibly) on you desktop and will associate .blend files with the Blender executable. This file association is done via the registry but should be harmless.


What do I do if my render is just black? here's the link I've got a template from the internet and have been trying to render it.  However when I do so, it takes seconds but it's just a 10 second black clip.  Others that have used similar templates say it should take about an hour to render.

What should I do to try to fix this issue?

(I am new to using Blender so any help is appreciated!)

There is not a single light source in the file you have downloaded. Just
some animation and a few meshes. All you have to do is to add some
light source and it should render fine.

Hope that helps.


How to Bend profiled rectangle exactly to 45 degrees? I have these profiled rectangle.
I need to Bend it around Z-axis (Face #2 need to go to right) thus angle between faces #1 and #2 be exactly 45 degress.

File:

This is rather easy to do.

Just add a Simple Deform Modifier.
Set it to Bend and select the right axis.
Enter the desired angle (it's 45° by default)

Note:
In this case bending along the Z axis doesn't work as expected.
To make it work, rotate the object's origin by -90°, or use an empty rotated by -90°.

Thanks to @lemon, @plem and @robin-betts for pointing that out.


How would I animate vertices randomly up and down (+looping) I've got a plane which is displaced by a voronoi texture like this.

And know I want to give each vertex a looping animation where the vertex slides up and down on his Z-axis (looping). I want each vertex to have a random animation offset. What's my approach? Python scripting?

Thanks in advance!

There are multiple ways to do it, the simplest I can come up is to set an empty as object in the displace modifier, animate the empty and make the first and last frame the same, then make "cyclic" extrapolation of the animation
If you need add randomness, you can consider the noise f-curve modifier

First example with 3 keyframes and the noise modifier

The second example use Make Cyclic f-modifier and only two keyframe

Not sure why in the second example the loop works only twice if someone knows please advice, either it's a bug or it's a matter of mapping (I'm to tired now to debug)


Moving the 3D cursor while in Blender 2.8's Grease Pencil Draw Mode Does anyone know if it's possible to move the 3D cursor when you're in the Draw Mode of Blender 2.8?

I'd like to be able to draw and move the 3D cursor to change where the drawing is done in depth, using the 3D cursor to determine that.

It appears that this possibility is currently missing.

You can work around it by setting a key binding for your purpose. I suggest CtrlShiftLMB.

Open Edit > User Preferences > Input
Search "Set 3D cursor"
Edit the first entry (under "3D view"), by clicking on the current key binding and by "recording" CtrlShiftLMB (you can change it later to CtrlShiftAction Mouse for compatibility with left-click-select mode)

"Save User Settings"

It should work fine. Using LMB alone will still work in modes other than Draw, and the Lasso select should still work with CtrlShiftLMB if you do click-and-drag instead of click-and-release.


Blender Video & Audio out of horribly sync and missing my cuts My audio acts as though it was never cut. I found a place in the output file where it most certainly ran over my cut like there was nothing to indicate that it should have cut off. it's annoying since despite the erroneous output my audio's cut point is still in sync with the time code (roughly half way), it just keeps running as though I did nothing.

I have no idea what is going on with the video; It is out of sync and missing my cuts. It seems like the video is mostly the part before the halfway mark and then towards the end it decides to play catch-up and shows the last bit.

It is a little galling as I have done editing on previous videos and had no problems, but this video seems eager to stand out in a bad way.

It is unfortunately a very long video (03h, 42m, 34s - took 22 hours to render both times so far) so getting multiple tests out of the way is out of the question and makes this all the more frustrating.

On the off chance that it helps, here is the encoding info; which I have used for successful rendering of 3 previous videos of similar length. It may also be helpful to note that I used the same .blend file for all of these videos as well; deleting the old and loading new files to be edited.

Blender v2.79

Output - FFmpeg
Container - MPEG-4

Video codec - H.264 (30fps)

Output quality - Low
Encoding Speed - Fast

Audio codec - AAC (Bitrate - 192)

I'm going to test with smaller snippets of the video to see if there are any problems on a more micro level.

There were small errors, 4 in total, in the video. Places where the video and audio would freeze for ~10-15 seconds which threw off Blender's A/V syncing.

While editing the errors out in Blender I discovered that allowing it to slowly advance while rewinding and listening helped in isolating the bad spots. The audio/video would always resume playing from the same place, despite the advancing rewind point, until I reached the end of the corruption then play would advance normally.

I hope my explanation was clear. Be sure to check your videos for corrupt sections before editing. Good luck!


Why isn't audio rendering? Using the VSE, I have included a strip of audio, the "scene" that I animated, and other video footage. I have been able to hear the audio in playback, however after rendering I cannot hear any audio.

I have used multiple combinations for codecs, the one in the image below among others. An audio codec HAS been selected for all of them, but none of my rendered results have rendered audio.

m.ardito suggestion have worked for me. Ive had the same issue where there was no audio in rendered file. Than I realised that I can not hear audio also while scrubbing in Video Sequence Editor. Simple ALT+A have returned everything to normal.


Exporting information of multiple objects? Is it possible to export a text file containing the information of models placed in a scene such as Location, Size, and Rotation?

So if I had two cubes, it'd make a text file with something along the lines of

Location: X:11 Y:30 Z:20 Scale: X:40 Y:20 Z: 15 Rotation: X:15 Y:123 Z: 180,
Location: X:18 Y:20 Z:10 Scale: X:20 Y:40 Z: 30 Rotation: X:20 Y:140 Z: 90

for both of the cubes in the scene.

this script work for all the mesh in the scene and save the data.txt in the same path as you blend file is save..... If you don't save the blend file the script don't work

best

    import bpy

def grados(radianes):
    x= (180*radianes)/3.141516
    return x

#open path_file where I will save
full_filel = bpy.data.filepath.split("\\")
#print(full_filel)
#print(len(full_filel))
contador = 1
path_file = full_filel[0]

while contador != len(full_filel)-1:
    path_file = str(path_file) + "\\" + str(full_filel[contador])
    contador +=1

#path_file actual
print(path_file)

#file name

file_name = "data.txt"

#path blend file
file1 = open((path_file + '\\' + file_name), 'w', encoding = "utf-8")

objects = bpy.context.scene.objects

for ob in objects:
    if ob.type =="MESH":
        name = ob.name
        loc = tuple(ob.location)
        sc = tuple(ob.scale)
        rot = [grados(ob.rotation_euler[0]), grados(ob.rotation_euler[1]), grados(ob.rotation_euler[2])]

        #print(name, " ", loc, " ", sc, " ", rot)

        dato = (ob.name," Location: ", loc, " Scale: ", sc, " Rotation: ", rot )
        #write data in file
        file1.write(str(dato) + "\n")

#close the file
file1.close()


How do I make wine bottle reflections blue? In my photographic work I've often desaturated the blue tint that appears in the highlights on red wine bottles but now creating them in Blender I'm finding the subtle tint adds a great level of realism. If you image search on the net for red wine bottles you'll see all the slicks/highlights on the glass have a tiny tint of blue to them.
Does anyone know how I can achieve this in Cycles? I can do it in LuxCore (reflection colour is part of the glass material) but I'd like to stick to Cycles if it's possible!
Secondly, does anyone have any idea why this actually happens? Green glass, white light, blue tint!

If you want tinted reflections without tinted transmission, you can put your glass together manually-- it's relatively simple.  It's just a refraction BSDF mixed with a glossy BSDF on the basis of Fresnel:

Shown here with a red reflection, but of course, you can use anything you'd like.


Vertices moving at different rates? When I select a group of vertices and use "G" to move them, different vertices move at a different weight, even when snapped to the grid or an axis. It isn't attached to another mesh, armature, and hasn't been weight painted.

Is there any way I can fix this or am I doing something wrong?

Move your 3D Cursor around might fix the issue.

The amount of mouse movement converted into 3D translations are based on the distance between the local/selected pivot and the view pivot.  If you set the pivot point to 3D cursor, then the position of the 3D cursor will affect how much of your mouse movement is converted into actual 3D distance.

Objects' scaling transformation also has some play in this.


Why a scene render might have many very dark triangle artifacts? It was imported from obj and the scene has some environment light and a lot of sun light (the only way to make shadows more contrast I found).

.blend file: https://yadi.sk/d/UEUud0Y93HWBUH

Thank you!

In edit mode press A, so that the whole mesh is selected. Then press Ctrl+N (this fixes the normals of an object, normal essentially tell the render engine which way the face is facing). Then press W and select delete doubles.


Select multiple faces at once I have a .STL file and all of the faces have been converted to triangles so there are hundreds of long thin triangles.

Is there a effective way to select all of the faces in a small area? Something like a circle and when you click every face under that circle is selected.

You can toggle selecting all elements with A.
Some other basic selection tools are:

Circle select (C), which allows you to select with a brush:

Border select (B), which allows you to select with a rectangular region:

Lasso select (CtrlLMB), which allows you to select with a free form region:

To select all elements under the cursor, you can either select in Wireframe view (Z), or disable Limit selection to visible in 3D view > Header:

Otherwise only visible elements will be selected. (Elements behind other geometry will be ignored).
Also see the wiki for more info about selecting.


Edge Ring by python breaks things When I call edge ring from a custom panel operator and then try to do some more editing I get an error that says "No edge rings found"

The error does not happen when I click on edge ring from the menu or when I call it straight from python without having it on an operator in a panel.

here's an example of the steps I do.
1 - select one edge
2 - click on the custom operator edge ring
3 - go to edge - subdivide edge ring
4 - as soon as I try to modify a parameter of the subdivide edge ring it breaks, my selection is reset and I get an error in the log.

anything wrong with my code maybe?

import bpy

class SELECTION_OT_ring2(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "selection.ring2"
    bl_label = "Ring"
    bl_description= "Select a ring of connected Edges."

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        if context.object is None:
            return False
        if context.mode != 'EDIT_MESH':
            return False
        if context.active_object.mode != 'EDIT':
            return False
        if len(context.selected_objects) < 1:
            return False

        return True

    def execute(self, context):
        # The actual command
        bpy.ops.mesh.loop_multi_select(ring=True)

        return {'FINISHED'}

# simple panel from the template examples
class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "object"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        row = layout.row()
        row.operator("selection.ring2")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(HelloWorldPanel)
    bpy.utils.register_class(SELECTION_OT_ring2)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(HelloWorldPanel)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SELECTION_OT_ring2)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Thanks!

Not sure if it's meant to be that way, but I found a fix.
By adding this to the operator, there is no more problem.

bl_options = {'UNDO'}

I suppose the ring function requires it somehow.


Rails with randomised planks I'm trying to generate lots of rails using "animation nodes" and after "googling" I have something like this on the screen. But I have one problem, I don't know how to use more than one object for this crosswise planks.

Right now I have connected "Object Instancer" , how can I add multiple object instancer with random placing of this planks?

In other words I'm looking for a methods to duplicate randomly 3 elements along the curve.

Best!

Instead of instancing a single object, create a number of empty objects using the Object Instancer Node with the Copy From Source option disabled. Then get a list of all objects that has the meshes you want, generate a random list from them using the Random List Node and copy the data from the objects in this list to the empty objects you created using the Copy Object Data Node.


posing armature after camera cut I'm trying to pose my armature in a scene directly after a jump-cut. Its mostly static until the cut and i want its location and armature pose to be completely different. Unfortunately, every time I pose and move it, when I go back to check the previous scenes, hes in his original spot but standing the pose I had just completed. What should I do?

If I understand your problem, I think that you have set some bones keyframes at the end of the first static part (lets say frame 100), then  - on the next frame (101) - you moved the armature in another location and posed and keyframed it, but when you come back the location of your meshes are not as expected.

This is probably due to the fact that even if you set a keyframe on all bones of your armature, the location of the whole armature object is not recorded. To do so, you'll have to set on frame 100 a keyframe of the loc (and maybe rot and scale) of the whole armature (in object mode), then switch to pose mode, select all bones and set a keyframe; then - on frame 101 - move the armature, set a loc (rot scale) keyframe in object mode, then switch to pose mode, pose the mesh, select all bones and set a keyframe.

Another (more usual) method is not to move anything in object mode during the animation process, and move everything using bones only.

If this doesn't solve your problem I suggest you to upload your file.


Composite a 3D object into a photograph I was wondering how you would go about putting a 3D object into a photograph so that portions of the image are:

In front of, or
Behind the model.

For example, a photo taken from the roadside with a tree in the foreground.  I want to show a 3D model of a car in the photo on the road but a section of it is not visible because it is obscured by the tree.

Is this possible? If so, how can you do it?

Thanks in advance.

To bring some sort of closure to this question (as it's sure to get asked in the near future again), to get shadows and add a bit more realism, you can refer to the answer on How to make a model cast shadows onto the world texture/background?.

To answer this question with the one thing not mentioned there. You don't really need to use compositing here as you might have thought, the simplest way to do this is to model an object to mimic the shape of the object you want to use to obscure your other object(s) and while some people have and or will use some complex node setups, you can just add a new material to the 'mask object', enable Transparency, set it to Mask and turn the Alpha to 0 like this..

Here is the setup of my scene, the tree trunk has the 'mask' material applied to it and I have a ground plane to catch a little shadow to make it a bit more realistic.. I grabbed the picture of the tree from here.

and here it is rendered..

How to get it to look better is up to you and what you want..


Fluid simulation not generating fluid I have a scene set up where the fluid generates from a "fluid" type. (not inflow or outflow, etc.) The fluid does not generate, it just makes a thin sheet at the top and corners of the spawner. It is pretty hard to describe the issue, so please refer to the screenshots and .blend file. I have already checked that everything is inside the domain, and nothing is intersecting with anything else. Thanks in advance!

For its Domain, tweak the value for "Final Resolution", I have tried other values and it works fine (For some reason 300 didn't work on my computer too). Choose another values and bake the fluid simulation again.


How to use bevel node without joining objects? I have an object with modifiers, it is a bit complex, it is intersected by another object that is CAD modeled (it does not have a good topology), My idea was to use the bevel node to smooth the intersection however I think this only works if one of the two objects which I cannot do for the modifiers and boolean either (it generates errors due to the bad topology of the CAD object), is there any way to use the bevel node in two different objects?

As long as these objects are not connected in the Edit Mode, Blender cannot understand the correct way to bevel the intersection.
Below I shared a .blend file where I connected a cylinder and a cube in the edit mode. For more understanding on how to do that, I recommend this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4F6Q6h2-ao


Color Management Blender geared towards motion pictures ? Made aware of Color Management options in Blender I am now diving somewhat deeper in Color Management in Blender. The manual tells me that OpenColorIO is used ...

OpenColorIO (OCIO) is a complete color management solution geared towards motion picture production with an emphasis on visual effects and computer animation.

So I understand that the color management of Blender is primarily geared towards motion pictures / video. Is this correct ? Is this the reason that the default for almost everything is sRGB ?

So I understand that the color management of Blender is primarily
  geared towards motion pictures / video. Is this correct ? Is this the
  reason that the default for almost everything is sRGB ?

Yes, OCIO is designed for motion pictures, visual effects, and animation.

sRGB is merely a default, and the reasons for this default are largely historical with where Blender borrowed the configurations from.

CM in OCIO is based on the notion of Views and other output transforms that operate independently of the reference data. To fully understand why, how, etc. would require a vastly more complex answer than this simple question touches on.


prop_search with a custom PropertyGroup I want the user to be able to select some data from a CollectionProperty

audioFiles = CollectionProperty(type=AudioFileNameGroup)

holding data of a custom PropertyGroup type:

class AudioFileNameGroup(types.PropertyGroup):
    fileName = StringProperty(name="File Name", subtype='FILE_NAME')

To enable the selection for the user, in a panel I'm using prop_search on that:

navStateCol.prop_search(obj, "audioAction", context.scene.frameworkReferences, 'audioFiles', translate=False,
                        icon='PLAY_AUDIO')

but I can't get it to work:

If the obj.audioAction property is a StringProperty

audioAction = StringProperty(name="Audio Effect", subtype='FILE_NAME')

i don't get anything to select from:

This makes sense, as the system has no way of knowing, that it should refer to the fileName StringProperty inside the AudioFileNameGroup.

If the obj.audioAction property is

audioAction = PointerProperty(type=AudioFileNameGroup, name="AudioAction")

it is not editable, and the ui is disabled:

How can I use prop_search on the audioFiles collectionproperty?

Set the name on the collection

Set the name of the collection item, as this is what appears in the prop search. Simple test script, the collection is populated from a simple list.

import bpy

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "object"

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

        obj = context.object
        layout.prop_search(obj, "audioAction", context.scene, "audioFiles", icon='SPEAKER')

class AudioFileNameGroup(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    name = bpy.props.StringProperty(name="File Name", subtype='FILE_NAME')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(AudioFileNameGroup)
    audioAction = bpy.props.StringProperty(name="Audio Effect", subtype='FILE_NAME')
    bpy.types.Object.audioAction = audioAction
    bpy.types.Scene.audioFiles = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=AudioFileNameGroup)
    bpy.utils.register_class(HelloWorldPanel)

def unregister():
    # fill this in
    pass

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
    items = (
        ('FOO', 'Foo', ''),
        ('BAR', 'Bar', '')
    )
    scene = bpy.context.scene
    for identifier, name, description in items:
        scene.audioFiles.add().name = name


Why does knife-edge text bevel reflect differently with doubles removed? (Blender 2.70a, Cycles render engine)

Any thoughts on how to get back my smooth glossy surface?

I've been working on cleaning up the overlaps caused by adding a bevel to some tight text and have encountered a problem I can't figure out how to fix.  When you add a bevel to text, Blender actually creates vertices in three additional planes (as near as I can figure): There is the front plane of your text, the back plane and in the middle are two planes of the bevel edge which would usually get separated by adding depth to the text -- I'm not adding depth, so the two middle plane are right atop one another.  When you use the "remove doubles" option (on the two planes that make up the knife edge) something is happening to the faces such that a glossy material reflects light differently than when the two planes exist.

Here are pictures to illustrate the problem:

In this first picture I have added text, added a bevel of 0.015 to the text object, then converted it to a mesh.  Using the face selection mode, and being in top view, I box-selected all the faces behind the front-most plane and assigned them a material consisting of a Mix Shader with a Glossy shader (defaults) and a Diffuse shader (defaults).  Then I created a blue diffuse material and assigned it to the frontmost faces.  I dropped in a few spotlights to light the scene and give something for the glossy material to reflect.  I have done nothing to remove doubles yet.

Now, using the lasso selection tool with "Limit selection to visible" turned off, I have selected the knife-edge vertices on our right side of the "x":

With that selection made, I hit the "Remove Doubles" button in the Mesh Tools pane and observe the effect on the render:

Thinking visually, it's almost as if the faces of the bevel are now curved rather than flat, but why removing doubles would alter the faces that way escapes me.  And it's not the look I'm after!

One thing I thought to try was alter the world surface to be some bright color, but the dark shadowing appearance remains unchanged if not tinted slightly:

I had thought that perhaps the normals were oriented differently, but displaying them and rotating the view to present an unaltered portion of the "x" close to inline with the altered portion shows the normals to look, well, normal:

Any thoughts on how to get back my smooth glossy surface?  Not removing doubles is the easy answer, but it's a double hassle when the font you're using wraps over itself on serif extensions when beveling.

Well, phooey!  A little bit more exploration of the interface after posting the question reveals the Mesh --> Faces --> Shade Flat command.  Which restores my nice knife-edge look.


How to make a Morph Object follow the surface of a model I'm trying to create a character with admittedly unorthodox eyes and pupils.

What I'm attempting to do is make the pupils in 3D and them change their shape using morph targets, a little like the 3D Charlie Brown Movie does it.

What I'm trying to do is be able to move the pupils over the surface of the eye whilst constraining it inside the 'eye' shape I've made.

A rough example of the look I'm trying to achieve.

Altogether I want to be able to:

Change the shape of my pupils with morph targets
Constrain the movements to just inside the eye shape I've made (I have a rough idea already what to do but any tips would be amazing)
Have them basically hover over the surface of the model so they don't drift
off to mars every time I move where she's looking in a scene while I'm animating.

All at once.

Is there a specific combination of modifiers I can apply to make this work? I was pondering using bones to keep the pupils in place and make them 'look' where I wanted them to but I'm worried about them not conforming to the surface of the 'eyes' or having them sink below the surface of them.

Thank you for any help you can give!

You could do it this way:

Create a bone at about the center of the eye.
Put you pupil in front of the eye surface.
Create a plane at the same position, subdivide it a bit.
Parent the plane to the eye bone With Empty Groups then in Edit mode assign the vertices group to the plane.
Give your plane a Shrinkwrap modifier. Choose the eye as the Target, but don't display this modifier in the viewport yet (deactivate the eye icon).
Give your plane a Subsurf modifier.
Give your pupil a Surface Deform modifier, choose the plane as Target, click on Bind.
Give your pupil a Subsurf modifier.
Give your pupil a Copy Location constraint with the plane as Target.
Select the plane and activate the display option (eye icon) of the Shrinkwrap modifier. The plane should stick to the eye surface and the pupil should follow.
Make the plane invisible: Properties panel > Object > Cycles Settings, deactivate the display options.
To change the eye shape, select the plane and create some shapekeys.
Now maybe give your eye bone a Damped Track constraint to make it point to a target as explained in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OItHr4VRP7M the eyes targets will need to be children of a central bone, in front of the nose, that will be child of the head bone. If you want to give some constraints to your pupils position you should probably give this central bone a Limit Location constraint.


Softening the color of the line gradually I want to make grid line like this.

And, I made this one with wireframe.

But, I don't know how to softening the color of line gradually.

The color of the line is thinner toward the back.

What should I do?

Any help would be appreciated.

Here are 3 ways to do it in Cycles Render:

With Mist: First go to your Render Layers menu > Passes > enable Mist. Now select your camera, go to the Object data menu > Display > enable Mist. Go to World menu > Mist Pass, and play with the length of the mist. Go to the Compositing, plug the Render Layer Mist output into the Factor of a Mix shader, and the Image into the top Image input of this Mix shader, then plug the output of the Mix Shader both in the input of the Viewer and the Compositer nodes. You can change the color of the mist with the bottom Image square of the Mix shader. You can add a Math node between the Render Layer and the Factor to change the mist intensity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxNeMMZs_sM
With Volume Scatter: Create a box and increase its size until it contains your scene. Now in the Object menu > Display, choose Maximum Draw > Wire. Give it the following material: a simple Shader > Volume Scatter node plugged into the Volume of the Ouput. Lower down the node Density to something like 0.0X or 0.X. You can also add a Volume Absorption shader and mix it with the Volume Scatter in an Add Shader, so that the light is also absorbed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXjE-t6dFZ8
With a Gradient Texture: Create a plane, assign it a material. Mix a Emission (white) and a Transparent in a Mix shader. In the Factor of this Mix shader, plug this node chain: Texture Coordinate that has its Object output plugged into a Mapping shader that has its Z Rotation 90°, that is plugged in a Gradient Texture node, that has its Color output plugged into a ColorRamp shader, that is plugged into the Mix Shader. Put this plane in front of your camera, behind your character, and play with the ColorRamp so that it fades your ground.


Tracing object's path I am working on a scientific visualization.

Scene is like there is a sphere and I want to mark down the path that it passes through.

Sphere follows a completely unknown path, so I can't draw it manually.
Glad to get help!!!

Motion Paths

From the blender user manual

Editor: 3D View, Properties editor
Mode:   Object Mode
Panel:  Properties editor ‣ Object ‣ Motion Paths

The Motion Paths tool allows you to visualize the motion of points as paths over a series of frames. These points can be object origins and bone joints.
Motion Paths

To create or remove motion paths, it is necessary to first select the bones. Then:

To show the paths (or update them, if needed), click on the Calculate Path button.
To hide the paths, click on the Clear Paths button.

These are display only, to get them as actual object you'd need to convert them using a script, there's one in this blender artists thread

Unfortunately this won't work in blender 2.81, but with a slight modification it does, here's the updated version:

## path from -calculated- motion path

import bpy
ob = bpy.context.object
mp = ob.motion_path

if mp:
    path = bpy.data.curves.new('path','CURVE')
    curve = bpy.data.objects.new('Curve',path)
    bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(curve)
    path.dimensions = '3D'
    spline = path.splines.new('BEZIER')
    spline.bezier_points.add(len(mp.points)-1)

    for i,o in enumerate(spline.bezier_points):
        o.co = mp.points[i].co
        o.handle_right_type = 'AUTO'
        o.handle_left_type = 'AUTO'


Armature Mirror Problem I'm rigging a model manually because I don't like Rigify. I forgot to enable X-Axis Mirror at the start, and clicking it now does nothing at all for some reason, so I did it the manual way that everyone reading this probably already knows (by default Numpad5, Numpad1, Shift+C, ., Shift+D, S, X, -1). This looks fine in edit mode, but when I go to object or pose mode the hand is twisted the wrong way, the arm IK works strangely, and the pole target (the sphere) is in the wrong place. As well as this, some bones are mispositioned slightly, but this is not a big problem. Anyone able to help?

UPDATE: Interestingly, when I parented the armature to the mesh with automatic weights, the mesh snapped into place exactly around the bones. Picture at the very bottom.

(Above) The entire armature as seen in edit mode.

(Above) The problems as seen in pose mode.

(Above) The mesh snapping into place when parented.

In Edit Mode with the bone(s) selected that you've moved, go to Armature, then Symmetrize.


GPU Rendering but it appears CPU is being used I chose my nvidia graphics card under computing device in user settings and saved the settings but when I render and check my task manager almost all my cpu is being used by blender. What is going on?

You need to enable GPU rendering in the properties panel.

Also, make sure you're using cycles, not blender internal.


Is it possible to compare 2 meshes for the complementarity of their respective surfaces? Is there a way in Blender to compare two pieces of mesh or two meshes to its similarity? Maybe with some script or an addon.

What I mean: there is a stone or brick broken into half for example:

This is a kind of forensic or architectural task.
The goal is to prove that those 2 pieces have similar surfaces and may be connected to each other with some threshold or they were a one piece before.
I know of "select similar" in Blender, similar face area in this case, but it doesn't work quite well for such a task.

I am not a coder so I can't figure out a possibility of solving this.
So what is the way to do it?

This is actually a not so trivial problem. You might be better off asking this question on the maths stack exchange as it will require more than just Blender knowledge.

This will require coding skills as well, I fear.


Is there a way to preserve unfilled areas in stabilized footage? I've tracked a video, and the stabilization looks okay. However it's very shaky, so a lot of the video needs to be cropped off.

Is there a way to keep the pixels from previous frames to fill these gaps?

In other words, make the video behave as a kind of "brush" which is controlled by the camera movement?

You may consider to load and save / overwrite source image for the calculation for each NEXT frame:

You can make some blank files with the same name with the target output filename, and put them in the render output folder BEFORE rendering. For example, you have an image sequence of 500 frames, then you should put at least 500 image files with the same name (whatever they are, even blank) into the render output foler. then add them into VSE, put into a channel below the current sequence, set the Blend mode of the current sequence to Alpha Over. and one frame ahead, then render. The output images will overwrite the existing ones, and luckily the calculation for the next frame will always load from disc (not from buffer or memory). Like this:

Before:

After:

NOTE: You have to realize that the offset between two adjacent frames is often more than 1 pixel (unless the camera moves extremely slow), so, as I tested, this idea usually isn't perfect, but works.


How to make eyelids react with eye movement? How do you make eyelids react with a character's eye movements? For example, if the character looks up, the upper eyelid rotates up, but if the eye looks down, the upper eyelid doesn't rotate down past the center point of the eye. I'm guessing with drivers or with copy rotation if I use eyelid bones, but if I want the character to also have the ability to blink, how'd I combine all of these systems? Sorry for the confusing question and let me know if you want more info.

Everyone seems to do eye rigs slightly different, it depends on how detailed you want/need to be, what kind of animations you're going to do, etc. I've made several in the past, and I'll walk you through how I approach creating a rig for something.

The first thing to do is to list what the rig needs to do. You've done that already, but I'm going to add a few more things too.

Have the rig control the eye so that we can make a character look at things.
Have the rig control the eyelids so that they can move up and down. In reality, there is a tiny amount of side to side movement, and you can see the eye moving when the eye is closed, but I'm not going to go into that much detail. If you want me to, ask another question on that and I'd be more than happy to go into even more detail.
Have the eyelids follow the eye as it looks around. Again, I'm going to ignore the tiny amount of side to side movement, so the eyelids need to follow the eye vertically.
Make the eye be able to blink.
When the eye is closed or blinks, make sure the point the eyelids meet can move up and down. When your eyes are closed, it is possible to move your eyelids up and down a little bit, for example when you raise or lower your eyebrows, so we'll try and do that too.
Have the eyelids be manually moveable as well, so we can make different expressions.
Finally, make the rig easy to use, with a few controls as possible. Also make sure things make sense, and it's easy to select the proper bones.

This may seem like a lot, but it's actually not too bad. So let's think about what bones we're going to need that will actually deform stuff.

We'll need a bone to rotate the eyeball, a bone to control the upper eyelid, a bone for the lower eyelid, and that's it. If you want to have a really detailed eyelid you can use multiple bones per lid, animate them closing, and use a single bone with an action constraint to drive them. I'm going to set this up with a single bone for each eyelid, but can go into more detail if you like (If you can't tell already, I really enjoy rigging, so if you want more info I'm happy to help).

Aside from the deforming bones, I can think of two other bones we'll need. A common thing to use for eye rigs is a look target. That is, instead of rotating the eye directly, have a target that you can move around that the eyes look at. It makes it much easier to animate looking at things. So we'll need a bone for the eye to look at. I also want to have a single bone that controls blinking, so I'll add one for that too.

So let's actually get started. I'm just making the rig, and don't have it applied to a model, but it should be pretty clear.

Here's the bone setup I'm going to use. Note that this is the rest pose. The bones were moved in Edit Mode, not Pose Mode.

The world origin would be at the center of the eye. The bone on the far left is the Look Target, and the bone on the right is the Blink Control bone. This is pulled off to the side a bit, and sits slightly lower than the center of the eye. This is because when you blink, your eyelids meet slightly below the center of your eye, with the upper lid moving more.

Next, I add a Track To constraint to the Eye bone, using the Look Target as the target.

Now when we move the look target, the eye will look at it.

Next, the upper eyelid. We need it to do two things here. First, follow the eye, but not completely. Second, be able to blink. We'll do this by having it look at the blink bone, and controlling the influence with a driver. It'll make more sense shortly.

We need three constraints. The first is a Copy Rotation, set to something less than 1, with the eye as the target. Now it follows the eye a bit as it moves. I used .5, but use whatever you need. Next we need another Track To, using the blink target bone as the target. We'll use a driver to control the influence, which is how we can make it blink. Finally, I added a limit rotation constraint, so that the target for the track to constraint can be off to the side without rotating the eyelids sideways. This will help make things less cluttered at the end.

The final constraint setup looks like this:

Next we do the same for the lower lid. I did the exact same setup, just used an influence of .1 instead of .5, since the lower eyelid moves less.

Onto the drivers. My goal here is to have it setup so that we can scale the Blink Target bone and have that open and close the eye.

So I added a driver, selected the rig, then the blink target bone, and chose Z scale.

The expression gets a bit trickier. The scale of the blink target bone is 1 initially, and decreases as we scale it down. We want the influence to be 0 by default, and increase as we scale the bone down. However, it's not ideal if we have to scale the bone to 0 to close the eye completely. Scaling the bone by half would work fine.

The expression works out to be this: 2*(1-var) where the var is the name Blender gives the Z scale that we chose above. Now when we scale the Blink Target bone, the eye closes, becoming fully closed when the target bone is scaled by half.

This is the final driver setup, which is identical for both eyelids:

I also added a Limit Scale constraint to the Blink Target. I chose Z, with a minimum of .5 and a maximum of 1, so that the bone never gets stretched beyond what it needs to be.

Next, I added some custom shapes. I find them really useful on rigs, as they make things a lot cleaner, easier to work with, and the give a visual idea of what each bone does with having to look for names.

If you've never used custom shapes, basically you make a shape out of just edges, and choose it under the Viewport Display heading in the Bone Properties tab.

Circles work great for the look target, the eyelids can be curves or triangles, and I used an eye shape for the blink control bone. Since we never actually use the eye bone itself, I just hid it.

The final setup looks like this (I didn't hide the eye bone here so you can see what it looks like):

The final step is to disable and transforms that we won't need. For example, we won;t need to scale the eyelids, or scale the blink control on any axis but the Z.

The final result:

Here's the .blend file if you want to look at the setup. Feel free to use it if you like.


“Real” water puddles with “real” edges Working with 2.9 and Cycles, I have created a wet asphalt road. In order to create water puddles on this asphalt, I have duplicated the road object and given it a water material. Then I played with the Z axis in order to achieve the desired size of puddles. However, a close look at a high resolution image shows that the puddles’ edges are straight sharp lines and not blurred or unclear as a realistic puddle's edges should look. Please see the enclosed image. All the shaders and the tweakings that I have tried, unfortunately proved unsuccessful. Also, I did not find any similar question in that subject. What should I do in order to get a “real” puddle with “real” edges, which are not straight and sharp edges? Thank you for your kind advice.

While most people would recommend a pure shader solution, I'll answer for the case where you want a separate object.
Assuming that your road is a mostly flat plane using a shader to provide fine details, the issue here is that by default Blender converts shader displacement output to a bump map. Bump maps are effectively an trick of the light and will therefore show themselves as flat when viewed at extreme angles or compared with real geometry. To switch to real displacement, go to your object's 'Material Properties'->'Settings'->'Surface' and select 'Displacement Only' or 'Displacement and Bump' in the combo-box.
Now, since this is real displacement, you'll need the corresponding geometry to go with it. One way is to subdivide the geometry either manually or with a modifier until you get to the level of precision you desire. While this works, it requires judgement as to the appropriate level of subdivision.
If you are willing to use the experimental feature set, you can use micropolygon displacement to adaptively subdivide the geometry. To do this, you can go to 'Render Properties' and set 'Feature Set' to 'Experimental', then add a 'Subdivision Surface' modifier with 'Adaptive Subdivision' checked.
Caveat: the displacement does not influence physics simulations. For that, you will want to use the 'Displace' modifier which only accepts textures.


How to add a custom menu item to the object menu? Following code adds wm.save_homefile operator to the Render menu.

import bpy

def menu_draw(self, context):
    self.layout.operator("wm.save_homefile")

bpy.types.TOPBAR_MT_render.append(menu_draw)

Q: How can I add this operator to Object menu of the 3d View?

Following code adds the open file operator and a label to three different places:

import bpy

def custom_draw(self, context):
    self.layout.operator("wm.open_mainfile")
    self.layout.label(text="Hello world!", icon='WORLD_DATA')

bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.append(custom_draw) # Object menu
bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_snap.append(custom_draw)   # Snap menu
bpy.types.TOPBAR_MT_render.append(custom_draw) # Render menu

https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.Menu.html?highlight=prepend#extending-menus


Overlay two videos and match/track background I have two video files with matching background and I like to overlay them. Both are not perfectly stationary, so either one or both need to be stabilized and matched/tracked against each other.
Could someone point me in the right direction of tutorials or keywords to search for?
I've already read up on tracking and overlays, but combining the solutions seems non-trivial.
Some involve 3D objects, some are entirely done within the video editor / node view.
Some additional info:

its actually top-down drone footage of a racetrack and I want to overlay them to compare racing lines of cars on the track
the footage is stable enough that the tracking could be done manually with keyframe animation if automatic tracking is not possible
at least scale and rotate is needed for the backgrounds to match
ideally I could choose a selected smaller area to render into a final video in a later step
being able to use the grease pencil to draw annotations on the video would be a plus

It sounds indeed like a non-trivial solution, that will require you to get proficient with motion tracking and/or compositing.
For a 3D way to do it you would need to track the footage and solve the camera.
The success of the operation would depend entirely on the kind of motion from the cameras, if there is parallax on the scene then you might be able to recreate 3D info. If you track features for which you know the scale in the real world, then use it to set the scale in the 3D reconstruction.
You could then to re-project the image into some geometry, so that you have a reconstruction of the 3d space as fixed points, and a image projected from each of the positions on the camera at a given frame, the UVproject modifier will allow you to use the camera as a projector or you can use a lamp that is parented to the camera to project the image as texture.
You would need to do the same for the other image and manually reposition the camera so that the projected images coincide with those of the other camera.
A non-3D would be to create two un-distorted and stabilized images out of the video. Those new pieces of video can be overlaid using difference mode in a mixRGB node for clarity. One of the videos would need then to be rotated, scaled and possibly distorted so that some the features of the track correspond to those in the other image. Note that the difference in perspective from both images might prevent you from getting a perfect match. You won't be able to invent what the camera did not see.


cannot see the geometry of the imported stl file I am a newcomer to blender and this is my first question. When I tried to import an stl file into blender using the import function it takes some time to load the file and then shows me only the default cube only (but it displays the number of triangles and vertices in the top right corner) . I have even tried to change the scaling but there is no use. can somone please help me?I am not sure of whats going on.

The STL will import in the position of the 3D cursor using the origin point of the STL object - the little orange dot. In theory that is the absolute centre 0/0/0 in the X/Y/Z. Some models are created far from their origin and while they might appear not to be there, they might actually be off screen.

Make sure the object is select the object in the Outliner...

Before trying scaling - set the origin to the geometry...

With the object still selected press ALTG which will move the object back to 0/0/0.

Another possibility: Blender STL [both import & export] have a scaling approach which makes [most] STL files prepared in other applications one thousand times larger - here too, they could have imported, but are not visible...yet.

In either case pressing the Home button on the keyboard, will show everything in the scene - if it jumps back and turns grey it just means it has exceeded the visible parameters, and as suggested, you will need to expand the View clip values.