Blender objects select The image attached, when I try to select part of the stadium, the whole stadium is selected, how can I separate this into different parts so I can edit different parts.

Thanks

If what you need is to make one object seperated into different objects, you can go to edit mode then selecting the parts that you want to seperate (if they are not connected to other parts pressing L speed up your selection or pressing ctrl and numpad's + or -, also selecting one point and then pressing shift and ctrl then selecting the opposite side of that could select the whole area, try it on a subdivided square to get how it works). After selecting the parts press P and click on seperate by selection. it will seperate the selection to a new object. hope it helps.


how do I work with LAB color space in the compositor? Any way to get a separate and combine LAB node? I would like to adjust the A and B channels individually to create a certain color effect. Is there any way to do this like an add-on, or maybe convert the channels from another color space.

You can't, not without adding a whole different reference space, and you don't actually want to. The explanation for this is very long winded, and I'm willing to explain, but the short version is as follows.

Proper mixing of colour relies on modeling our real-world of physics. That part includes using linearized systems that orbit around the spectral locus. Lab is strictly a perceptually uniform model based off of XYZ. As such, it is a nonlinear space, which makes it absolutely one of, if not the, worst possible choice for manipulation of images. No really, it is that bad[1].

So what you are actually requesting is a method to manipulate a dual axis model that works in conjunction with the default tristimulus (RGB) linearized reference model. At the current time, there is no OpenColorIO node, so you can't transform the data along the nodal pipeline.

Further, even if you could perform an OpenColorIO transformation along the pipeline, this would be an awful idea to take your reference RGB data to Lab for the reasons identified above. So is there a reasonable dual axis system that could work in conjunction with a linearized tristimulus reference space? In theory yes, you could change to xyY, which is a scaled version of XYZ. The problem with xyY is that the range of values that can be produced from the primary lights are largely imaginary, and as such, there are many other pitfalls that come along with that sort of a choice that have to be closely managed.

Perhaps sometime soon on the horizon, Blender will be fully agnostic and the colour pickers and such will be properly set up to enable a changing of viewing transforms on the UI elements. This would allow you to use whatever colour transformation you wish only on the view of the UI element, while leaving the actual reference values in their established state. That would permit using something like a Lab 3D LUT to view the picker, and give you the RGB values transformed for the reference space.

The key takeaway here is:

Lab is an awful choice for manipulation of images, and a questionable choice for colour based selection.
A clear division of reference / working space and UI / View space alleviates any artistic reasoning for (1) above. That is, as long as your reference remains strictly scene linearized, and the view / UI permits one-way only transformation of those values, the correctness of the image manipulation pipeline is preserved.

[1] The great granddaddy of misinformation was a tome written for a commercial image manipulation program that has since become infamous among imagers. It has some of the worst advice, some of the biggest misinformation, and some of the most dire concepts delivered to imagers in perhaps the past twenty years. Lab is a fool's errand.


How to generate an animated tie dye-like gradient as a texture? I'm trying to generate an animated texture that looks something like the "LUMP CANDY" text in the logo of this image:

I've found some animated gradient solutions here, but I haven't been able to generate a texture with some of the default procedural texture options in Blender that looks quite like the image. Any ideas?

EDIT: I ended up adapting one of the textures from this thread—the one in "Cycles Procedural Texture Pack # 5" at the top left. This was the result:

You could try to use the Wave Texture node, then play with its Distortion value and with parameters of the Mapping node:


Thermal deformation of plastic My question is a variation of one posed in July 2014 using this blender file:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/95913396/extendedgauntlet1longer.blend

Instead of flattening the top as originally requested, I want to flatten the object by spreading the wings.  The very top can not be deformed at all as it has interlocking parts.  Basically the lower 3 mm or so, i.e. the thickness of the wings, is what I'd like to deform and flatten.  I've tried the suggestion for the July post and looked at several softbody tutorials and I'm not getting it.

Thanks.

Hertfordkc

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish (a sketch of the desired result might help) and how much patience you have, you may want to use either sculpt mode or proportional editing in edit mode.
Sculpt mode is helpful if you have a large number of vertices, or if you want to deform meshes with natural strokes of the mouse. If you need more precise control, proportional editing allows you to move individual verts/edges/faces around, and the neighboring geometry will "stretch" in similar ways. Both of these allow you to adjust the radius of effect.


How to get an "extrude" modifier I'm defining a shape that is a prism, i.e. it can be obtained by extruding a 2D shape along the Z axis.

How can I do this with a modifier, so that I only have to update the top (or bottom) shape, and not select both vertices each time I want to move a pair?

Here's my shape (which already has an array modifier with rotation):

The closest to what I want is the "screw" modifier, with angle 0, but I can't set the number of steps to 1, the minimum seems to be 2. The resulting mesh has an extra extruded step in the middle, as can be seen below, which I'd rather avoid for performance reasons.

Is there any way to have some kind of "extrude modifier"? I tried the "screw modifier", which gives what I want, but with 2 extrude steps instead of one. I tried the "mirror modifier", but the two copies aren't connected (no vertical edges and faces).

Note that I want this to be a modifier, so that I only have one real vertex for each top+bottom pair. Otherwise I can just extrude and move along the Z axis, but then editing further the shape is a pain.

The closest modifier to what you seek is the Solidify Modifier. One reason it's not called the Extrude Modifier is because it does a lot more than a simple extrude. For instance it can extrude in two directions simultaneously by using the Offset parameter.

The normal direction of the faces determines the direction of the new thickness .


How to match blender with AZERTY keyboard? I people, I just downloaded Blender and begin watching tutorials but I don't find how to match my AZERTY keyboard with the app.. (I'm from Belgium)
Thank you in advance!

I've looked through blender's settings and I don't think it is possible to use a non-QWERTY keyboard (in the typical way). That being said, there might be a few workarounds:

Change a few of the shortcut keys (go to edit/preferences/keymap and change the keys)

Use the widgets for navigation instead of the keyboard shortcuts

These are the navigation widgets

Press 'F3' and search for the function (e.g. move, extrude, inset, etc.) instead of using the keyboard, then press 'enter' to use the function


How to set fire render colors to be the same as the fire viewport preview? I am modeling a candle in Blender, and I want the flame to have the same shading look as it does in rendered view. This is in the viewport (wireframe):

This is rendered:

See how there is a slight purplish color in the center of the frame? How can I set the preview color to look the same as in rendered view?

Flames look better on a dark background.  But it seems that in your color ramp the first color has no alpha channel, so hard edges are visible.


Leverage multiple CPU cores for video rendering (VSE) I have a 1950X Threadripper with 16 cores and even if I set the thread count to 16 manually in the performance section, it still only uses 1 core. Have Cycles renderer selected and both user preferences and the rendering properties are set to use CPU. Am I missing something?

Thanks for the comments! Figured it out:

I used BPSRender which is the root tool of the youtube video posted above. However it didn't work out of the box; needed to add blender to the system path in Windows for it to work.

https://gitlab.com/razcore/BPSRender
https://pypi.org/project/bpsrender/


How do I use/change Animation Extrapolation? (Can't find F-Curves / Animation Modifiers in 2.8(1)) I want to loop keyframes in Blenders Curve Editor. But I can't find a way to do this.

If I select the curve / keys I want to loop and right click and select the animated channel and select "extrapolation method" - they are greyed out and I can't change anything.

It seems like it tries to tell me to use "F-Modifiers" - but I can't find them in the interface ("shift-E" doesn't work as I am using industry standard keys).

A short search in the Blender documentation only reveals screenshots of an older interface version and I can't find the "F-Mod" / "Modifiers" Buttons in the 2.8(1) Version. (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/graph_editor/fcurves/modifiers.html)

Do you know where I have to click or a tutorial that explains it?

The panel is hidden behind this tiny arrow:

This expands it and you can select the Modifiers tab (Cycles is the one you want)

The standard shortcut is "n", but I don't know about the industry compatible keymap.


What is the exact purpose of object scale? Many times I've banged my poor overworked, under performing head at both virtual and physical walls trying to understand why do we have the object scale attributes when every time we want to apply a modifier or perform some operation the object scale has to be exactly one in all three directions if we don't want our result to look like creations from other dimensions:

How is this feature useful and why is it still in Blender?

Here is how it really is under Blender's hood:

An object is just a holder for a mesh, curve, lamp, camera, etc..
Multiple objects can share the same mesh (same data).
Object adds (among many) transform properties to the data contained within - like location, rotation and scale.

So if you scale a cube into a block, the mesh is still a cube but the object is a block. You can have the same cube mesh linked in many objects, each being a different block.

When you apply the scale (or any other transform) you make the mesh actually reflect the transformation. This change would project into all other objects with this linked mesh.

Some Blender operations only operate on mesh and don't take object transformations into consideration - like UV unwrap for example. That's why scale needs to be applied.

The confusion is imho Blender's fault. In edit mode it should actually display what the mesh really looks like (like it does with modifiers), or these operations should be written properly to account for object transforms - so what you see is what you get - a thing every gui and program should follow..


how to simulate a fluid (not falling) so i watched a flip fluid simulation and tried it , but its nothing special , the only thing i think folks download it is to get a fluid dropping , which should technically be possible by the default manta flow features in blender , the question is how?? , i tried to look in the flow settings for the starting of the flow , but cant figure out , i was trying to just make water show up from the inflow object for just 1 frame but cant find the way to do it

If you don't want gravity inside your simulation, it is very easy. Inside the physics properties of the domain, scroll down to the bottom at "Field Weights" and drag Gravity to zero.


How to model an air mattress? I am planning to design this air mattress. Here is the picture that I want to model:

First thing that I was thinking was creating this individual cell (the puffy cell unit) from the mattress.
This is where I met an obstacle. My thought process tells me to start with a cube and refine it. It didn't quite work out and I used circle but couldn't process it to look like a cell. I am stuck for several hours. Is there a good tips or resources to come up with the cell design?

You could begin this way:

Create a plane, rotate it 45° on the Z axis, cut 2 obliques:

Bevel, extrude up, delete the bottom, mirror, extrude the joints:

Give it an Array modifier on the X axis, enable its Merge option:

Give it a second Array so that it duplicates the row on the Y axis:

And then a third Array, on the Y axis again, that duplicates the first two rows:

Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier, play with the Array modifiers > Merge > Distance value so that the vertices stick to each others...


Can't remove object via python once grouped I'm writing a script that is adding and removing about 50 objects every frame. That part is working fine, but once I add the objects to a group, it creates odd errors.

In tracking down the error, I simplified my project and ran into the same issue

I could understand if the group were one of the users of the object, but the object.users count doesn't increase when grouped.

Try it yourself:

import bpy

scn = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']
ob = bpy.data.objects['Cube']

scn.objects.unlink(ob)
bpy.data.objects.remove(ob)

works fine, but:

import bpy

scn = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']
ob = bpy.data.objects['Cube']

testgroup = bpy.data.groups.new('testgroup')
testgroup.objects.link(ob)
testgroup.objects.unlink(ob)

scn.objects.unlink(ob)
bpy.data.objects.remove(ob)

throws the following error:

RuntimeError: Error: Object 'Cube' must have zero users to be removed, found 1

What's going on? Am I missing something, or do I need to file a bug report?

So, I submitted a bug report, and got a same day response from Bastien. Turns out, the problem is related to the Fake User restructuring that is going on and there isn't a straightforward way to do it. Here's a link to the bug report: Blender Bug Tracker

He also pointed me in the direction of an effective workaround that I thought I'd share. Here is the working code:

import bpy

scn = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']
ob = bpy.data.objects['Cube']

testgroup = bpy.data.groups.new('testgroup')
testgroup.objects.link(ob)
testgroup.objects.unlink(ob)

scn.objects.unlink(ob)

ob.user_clear()    #manually clears all users, frees the object to be removed

bpy.data.objects.remove(ob)


Extending animation clip issue How do I extend a short animated walking motion in the Dope Sheet section ? I tried to copy paste the motion key points but the pasted portion returns character from the starting locale point (understandably) ... which would be an additional question .. how to adjust so that it doesn't bring character to starting point.
Here is a clip of what I am trying to explain: (https://streamable.com/0525vz)

For this kind of animation (long distance walk) you could use a walk cycle and make the armature follow a curve, but, as ZargulTheWizard says, it is pretty easy to fix in the Graph Editor:

First delete the 3 last keyframes (which are identical), select the whole series of keyframes, duplicate them whith ShiftD, move them on the right and keep them selected:

Switch to Graph Editor with shortcut CtrltTab, unfold the Armature's tracks on the left, select the track called Z Location (mixamorig.Hips) which is the root bone, and make it the only one visible with a ShiftH:

Now move up the handles until it fits with the beginning of the curve (keep pressing Shiftt if you want to move more precisely). Now the character will continue its walk as it should:


Vertex coordinate after pose change I am working with a makehuman model in blender. To change the pose of the model I modify the scale and rotation parameters of the bones. The code looks similar to

bpy.context.object.pose.bones['hand.fk.R'].rotation_euler[0] = 0

My goal is now to get the location of a specific vertex after some pose changes. I already tried to transform the vertex location with the object world matrix

bpy.data.objects['makehuman'].matrix_world * v.co

but since the world matrix is an identity matrix the result is the same independent from the current pose.

How can I derive the vertex location after a pose change, or is it even possible?

You can use Object.to_mesh() to create a mesh datablock, which has deformations and modifiers applied. Mesh.transform() that with .matrix_world for world space:

import bpy

C = bpy.context
ob = C.object

print(ob.data.vertices[0].co, "- Vert 0 (original)")

me = ob.to_mesh(scene=C.scene, apply_modifiers=True, settings='PREVIEW')
print(me.vertices[0].co, " - Vert 0 (deformed/modified)")

me.transform(ob.matrix_world)
print(me.vertices[0].co, " - Vert 0 (deformed/modified, world space)")

bpy.data.meshes.remove(me)

Note that vertex indices may differ after modifiers are applied (e.g. Array, Bevel, ...).

Alternatively, the bmesh module can be used to achieve the same as the above script.


Properly unwrapping UV I'm pretty new to blender and as simple as it is, I'm probably the most confused on UV unwrapping of any other part of blender. I am attempting to unwrap a UV map for a wall with a bevel at the bottom of it. I don't think I'm getting how marking a seam works ultimately, but I was wondering if anyone is able to successfully unwrap and show how you were able to do it.

First of all in object mode select your wall and apply rotation and scale (Ctrl A) so that your object has rotation 0,0,0 and scale 1,1,1: it's a good practice that affects also UV unwrapping.

Then in edit mode select all and remove doubles (there are 4 doubles that confuse the algorithm), then - in wireframe view - select the little face at the bevel zone between the mesh and her mirrored side and delete it.

Then select all the edges you want to act as seams, in order to preserve the visible faces (front and lateral) without seams.

In the pictures my example.

enter image description here


Rendering a large number of unique objects I've got a script which imports a bunch of hi-resolution models onto a grid. It gives me this:

It's currently got 35 objects (81924 vertices per object), but I'd like to rotate the camera toward the horizon, and arrange many many more objects out to infinity (~1500 of them).

I feel that a simple extension of what I'm doing now is going to run my machine out of memory. And since I only really need hi-res data close to the camera, it's a waste of resources out at the horizon.

What would be a good strategy for rendering many hi-res models in a single scene?

You could group all the brains (Ctrl-G) and then use the brain group in a particle system on a grid which emits from each vertex. Make sure the number of vertices = number of particles. Also be sure to display your models as bounds only, otherwise Blender will try to draw all the detail in viewport. Using a particle system allows me to draw forests of complex trees, so I think brains should work too.

In the picture you see the group of objects in the front and the result of a particle system on a subdivided grid emitting from each vertex in the background.


Is there really no delete or cut? So I made a fin on my fish that I don't like. So in every app existing I select and delete.

In real sculpture I just cut off or carve away.

How do I do this in Blender?

I tried selecting vertices in edit but it won't mirror so it becomes asymetric. I have used booleans but the remaining surface becomes super wierd when I want to smooth it out to get a fresh start.

Select + delete in sculpt.

Or even better, a carve tool that eats away chunks and not leaving wierd remains.

You can delete selected vertices/edges/faces by pressing Delete or X.
To make the selection symmetrical, use either Mirror selection or a Mirror modifier

Mirror selection across X axis


How to get the color of a particle with Python? I'm trying, with python, to get the color of a given particle in a simple particle system. So far, when I create a particle system, the particle get the color from where it's emitted, right? I can ask for it's position, orientation, and a lot of cool stuff.  But, do you know any way to get the color information? An average RGB will be great.

I guess one way could be through the UV of the emitter?

As far as I know there is no simple way to get the color of a particle. In the case you have an object with UV's and 1 image texture defining the color you should be able to get the color.

The following example is for BI and assumes you only have 1 UV map, the texture is in slot 1 and there is only 1 particle system and 1 modifier (the modifier for the particle system) on the object.

import bpy
from mathutils import Color

def get_pixel_color(img, x, y):
    # Get the 'index' of the pixel. Pixels are stored as one big list of
    # numbers. The R, G, B and A value for every pixel, one after the other.
    pixel_i = y * img.size[0] * 4 + x * 4
    pixel_col = img.pixels[pixel_i:pixel_i + 4]
    # Return the color as Color object, which doesn't have alpha info.
    return Color((pixel_col[:-1]))

def get_uv_color(img, uv):
    # Get the x and y coordinates of the pixel for the given uv coordinate.
    pixel_x = int(uv.x * img.size[0])
    pixel_y = int(uv.y * img.size[1])
    uv_col = get_pixel_color(img, pixel_x, pixel_y)
    return uv_col

def get_particle_color(p, ps, ps_mod):
    p_uv = ps.uv_on_emitter(ps_mod, p)
    p_mat = bpy.data.materials[ps.settings.material_slot]
    p_mat_tex = p_mat.texture_slots[0].texture
    p_mat_img = p_mat_tex.image
    p_col = get_uv_color(p_mat_img, p_uv)
    return p_col

obj = bpy.context.object       # The object with the particle system
ps = obj.particle_systems[0]   # The particle system you need to query
ps_mod = obj.modifiers[0]      # The modifier for the particle system
p = ps.particles[0]            # The first particle

p_col = get_particle_color(p, ps, ps_mod)

For Cycles (assuming that there is only 1 Image Texture node in the Shading Node Tree) you should change the get_particle_color function. The statement for p_mat_tex should be changed to:

p_mat_tex = p_mat.node_tree.nodes['Image Texture']


Retopology feedback/last steps First try on sculpting a skull + doing retopology, and I'm a bit lost at this point. I'd like to use the skull in a simple animation, but multiplied manifold (over a 100 times), so in order to do that it needs to be much simplified, but without losing the details, so it still looks real enough.
Tried several different end results by applying the shrinkwrap mod to get a decent result, but none of them really turned out satisfying enough.
The best result I've ended up with, still has 45000 faces (added screenshot).
So my questions are:
-is my retopology too detailed for what I'd like to achieve?
-what's the "best" next step from here on to finish the retopo (meaning possible alternatives to shrinkwrap etc.)?
Thanks for your help!

To create a good topology I'd stick to retopoflow as it's a huge timesaver for creating a decent topology.
Retopoflow Blendermarket
You can also give it a try for free even if I recommend buying it to support the developers.
Retopoflow Github
However it totally depends on your animation. I think you can even get away with a 50k poly model if you only create instances 'alt + d'.
As soon you want to use deformers on your geometry, it's worth to create a decent topo, otherwise it's getting way to slow. Both your images are rather bad for deformers. (First has to many polygons, second has not uniform quads / clear loops).


Blender forces computer to reboot after mistyping extreme value for resolution icosphere After that I added an icosphere and wanted to change the resolution from 2 to 5, I stupidly mistyped the 5 to 45, so Blender freezes up and forced my computer to reboot. I didn't save the file so I had to redo a lot. Is it possible that Blender saves the file or makes a notification, when it sees that the input value is too much, before executing?

Fixed as rB60575480 (now max possible value is 10 here, which already means 2.6M vertices…).

But please next time report such issues on our bug tracker.


cannot see object from 3ds import; does not appear to be scaling or translation issue I am trying to import this .3ds terrain model into Blender 2.79b:

https://interstice.com/bquery.3ds

The import from File->Import->3D Studio seems to go without error. After importing, I see that 54K vertices, 44K faces, and 44K triangles are now present (from the top bar of the Blender window).

But I see nothing in the 3d view windows. I select the object in the object hierarchy and then press . on the number pad. Nothing. I zoom in. I zoom out. I pan left. I pan right. Nothing. I've tried all the suggestions from every "object not visible" question here and elsewhere but still cannot see the object.

I notice that some of the Translate and Scale parameters may be wacky for the object, so I reset those to seemingly sensical values. I still see nothing. Maybe the values change back on their own. I have another drink.

At some point in the past I was successful in importing this object into another viewer (probably Solidworks) and then exporting from there to a file and then importing that file into Blender, and then I could see the object. So it seems probable that Solidworks recognized something was wrong with the paramaters of the model and fixed it.

Now I'd like to figure out why I can't import this file directly into Blender and see it.

Thanks

It is a scaling issue.

The object is imported successfully, you can see that there are a number of faces and vertices, etc. but as As stated in the suggested links in the comments the object is not at a scale that can be immediately viewable in the 3D vieport.

Select it in the outliner.

In the dimensions section of the 3d window you will see that the scale is 0.

Make that 1 and you will see how huge the object is.

From there you can change the view to selected (numpad period) and adjust the clip distance to see your gigantic object. If the object has the center far from the mesh you might struggle a bit more to find it.

Scale it to some manageable size and manipulate at will.

Or if you really want to keep the object as large as it is, then you need to adjust the scale of the whole scene and clip distances to make it into a workable scene.


materials in fbx export I want to export a scene from Blender in fbx format for use with Unreal game engine. For materials the objects have baked texture maps, which would be presented in Unreal as such. Are texture images packed into a fbx file, or does the file only contain instructions for loading an image file? What is the best procedure for fbx exports of objects with texture images? Should the images be packed into the .blend, and does it matter if the Blender scene is using Cycles or Blender Render Engine when exporting?

The FBX format exported by Blender does not have images included internally, even if you "pack" the images (for including them in the .blend save file).  Your best bet after baking your textures is to save them to real files on disk, so the exported FBX can reference them by name.


Approximation of smooth surfaces with polygonal meshes I'm just getting started with Blender. It seems to be a nice tool, but like most 3D programs, it has a strange limitation: it seems to only render polygon meshes.

A polygon mesh is of course a set of perfectly flat surfaces connected by perfectly straight edges. This is great for moddling man-made objects such as cubes, or for genuinely angular things such as crystals. But how the heck do you draw curved things?

Of course, you can approximate any curve with a sufficient number of straight lines. But it's always a pretty crude approximation. You would need billions of polygons to produce a genuinely smooth-looking surface. Even if it were somehow possible to model that, the memory and render time requirements would be crazy.

To get around this, most 3D programs have a button somewhere to blur out the surface normals, creating the illusion of actual curves. But it's just that — an illusion. The outline of the object still has raggid, sharp edges. The shadow of the object still has sharp edges. If two objects intersect, you can see all the straight lines where they meet, no matter how smooth the surface looks.

And then I sat and watched Spring. And you know what? I don't recall seeing a single straight edge anywhere in the entire thing! So how's it done? Where is the secret button that lets you have curved surfaces?

This is a very good question.
It all comes down to fooling your brain.

1. “Approximating a curve with polygons is pretty crude”
Well, human eyes have considerably limited resolution.
Screen resolution also contributes - it isn't infinite.

You don't need infinite polygons, just enough to fool the human eye.
It's easier to do, than most people think.

2. “You would need billions of polygons for a smooth-looking surface”
Smooth-looking is the key word.

Surface needs far less geometry to look smooth, than a silhouette.
Most of your focus is on surfaces, not silhouettes.

3. “I don't recall seeing a straight edge anywhere”
Don't recall is the key phrase.

You don't focus on details, but on the moving imagery.
When you pause the animation, chances are you'll find some jagged edges.

Try pausing older movies like Toy story 1, Shrek or Ice age.
This is what Pixar understood first - you don't need it perfect. Just non-distracting.

Fig. 02 - Surface of a low-poly object looks perfectly smooth, while it's silhouette is jagged


How to add an object to an existing group from Python? I'm trying to add objects to previously created groups from a Python script.

What do I do?

It is actually pretty simple:

import bpy

grp = bpy.data.groups.get('bacon')

obj = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
grp.objects.link(obj)

This avoid the hassle of setting up the context for bpy.ops operators.


Particle system only shows one particle? I'll create a new cube, give it a particle system with a count of 1000, then set it to fill the volume. This should create a random plethora of 1000 particles inside the cube, right?

I'm not sure why this is happening. It always happens, not just this scene. Same thing happens when using face or vertex.

Settings:

From the comments:

It will eventually add all of them, but you have it set to add them from frame 1 to frame 200. I think you would get the effect that you want if you set the end to frame 1.

Turn off physics by setting it to No, set the start and end to the same value, and then give them a really long lifetime...you have it set to the default of 50.


How to move 2 faces/vertices/edges one into another along one axis How to move those faces to the middle symetrically, left one selected face along -Y and right one selected face along -Y. Something as Scaling would work but without messing the mesh.

I was able to do it by first hooking each group of vertices to a separate hook: select, CTRL + H, Hook to New Object:

Now in Object Mode select both hooks, in Object Constraint Properties tab  add a Limit Scale constraint and set Minimum Y to 1 (perhaps you want to set the maximum too, if you want to move these groups apart).

Then press F3 and type Copy Constraints to Selected Objects (or choose it from Objects -> Constraints menu).
Now with both hooks selected, just press S, Y to scale them along Y axis:


Preview mode shows only a part of object I have a problem while in preview mode. It cuts my obj at different angles when I'm rotating around it.

Works only on this particular object
Doesn't matter if in Obj or Edit mode
Render works ok
Clipping set to minimum
Real life scale obj

Blend file

Also sometimes when I rotate around whole obj selected in Edit mode, everything disappears.

Render

Previews

Your mesh seems to be severely corrupted and causing all manner of issues and unexpected behavior, including rendering artifacts and badly computed center for rotating view in Edit Mode.

To clean it up select you object, enter Edit Mode, make sure you are in Vertex Selection mode, and switch to Wireframe shading mode.

Select all vertex with Border Select operator (do not use the A  Select All operator) then hit P to separate it into a new object.

If you switch back to Object Mode you should now have to objects, a new one containing the actual geometry, and a second one with what appears to be loose edges.

Erase the loose edges and and it should fix your issue.


How to merge overlapping edges into one? I have two overlapping vertices.

I want to merge these two vertices into one.

How can I do this automatically? I have a large model with a lot of overlapping edges like these. It will be also very useful that I could merge vertices with parallel edges within a given distance. Is there any tool for that?

Doing so in the past would have been painful and given you a lot of bad geometry.  If you tried to animate it you'd get horrible mesh deformations.

Now, you might be able to get good results with the intersect tool added in 2.71.

Here's a YouTube video about how to use it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWSiRDw_tKE

Basically you tell Blender to calculate the intersection of the two meshes, then delete the over lap, and finally you can bridge the two in a number of different ways (including the bridge tool, but in your case probably merging each vertex pair).

There might still be some odd topology to clean up, and it might not animate cleanly.. but I think cleaning this up will be easier than other methods of getting the vertices in the same place.


Change Texture Resolution inside Blender Is it possible to change the texture res within blender? I have 4K textures which I want to render in 2K for a preview rendering. Do I have to reload the textures in the material every time? my scene is big and heavy so I can't make 2 different ones for all materials without spending hours on it.

Render Properties > Simplify feature:

Moreover since 2.80 you can resize image directly in Image or UV Editor:


Blender equivalent of components in Sketchup I have used sketchup before. I want to know can we make components or similar feature or addon available. In sketchup if we make a object components and make several copies of that object and if edit a single object of that component it will affects to all the components we have made with that main object. for the reference how the component works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKhRDvpn_DU

This sounds like a linked duplicate. Use Alt+D instead of Shift+D when duplicating and I believe that you will have what you are looking for. Editing any individual object will change them all.

For more info on duplicating see this link:

https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/3dview/object/transform/duplication.html


Blender 2.8 Export to FBX not available I am using Blender 2.8 Alpha 2 and enabled the FBX export add-on.
However I cannot seem to export to FBX there is no such option?

How can I export my blender model to FBX using 2.8 Alpha 2?

Most of addons are disabled because Python API will change. Python API will be freeze after beta release (end of October), and it will take some time to update addons to new API.


Fixing Boolean issues between objects with matching edges/vertices I'm currently working on a project for 3D printing that involves a bunch of subdivision and multiple parts, and for those who are familiar with 3D printing, usually a solid, single volume mesh is required to avoid issues with printing. I figured using boolean modifiers would work best, but I ran in to some problems.

When using union, my mesh does not properly form into a new, single volume because of edges that are similar

Offending Edges (Second set hasn't been subdivided since applying boolean applies all modifiers from the target)

What happens

I can create the result I need by moving one set of offending vertices, but then the clean edge I needed is destroyed in the process

I can't join the parts together manually because presubdivide, the subdivision modifier obliterates the edges/shapes I want (yall know how it goes with edge creases)

This happens multiple times throughout the rest of the parts. Is there any way to circumvent this issue, or is the only way to fix it is to manually fix any issues afterwards? I'm fine with doing the manual work (I'd rather not risk a print messing up, as this is going to be a massive multiple piece print so failed prints would be costly), but just wanted to see if anyone knows a workaround.

Okay so I found one way to fix this

Duplicate one of the two offending meshes
Apply remesh to the new duplicate
Separate a part of the mesh that included the offending vertices from the newly remeshed mesh
Delete the offending vertices and vertices that overlay with the new piece from the old mesh
Stitch together the old mesh and the newly remeshed part

The reason I needed to restitch the old mesh with the remeshed piece is because the remesh destroyed edges and faces that didn't fall along the remesh grid (aka curves and diagonals)

Still looking to see if there are simpler/less destructive ways around this though


Hello, what to do when UV Image Editor is completely gray? In edit Mode, everything is selected.
I was rotating a UV map of one of the wall faces so it would look better in Unity, but then it became completely gray. Restart didn't help.

HAALP!

You have probably hiden the UV Editor grid accidentally. To restore it hold the Mouse Scroll and drag the mouse left/right/up/down. You may also scroll the mouse wheel to make it appear. Another method is pressing the Home button.


Can I edit a text object while rendering? I am rendering a text for an intro right now, I am on the 210th frame, is it possible to still edit the text without messing the rendering up or not?

It is possible to continue working on your scene while rendering, you just need to click on the image icon in the bottom left corner of the render screen.

Click on 3D View from the menu to continue editing your scene while the animation renders in the background.

For the changes you make on your scene to take effect in the final render, you are going to have to re-render your animation.


How to copy/paste X, Y, Z coordinates in one step Is there a way to copy and paste all 3 coordinates from the Properties (N) menu in 3d view? I can do it one at a time, but not all 3 at the same time.

Try the following steps:

Select the object(s) you want to move (the one you'd be "pasting" coordinates to).
Shift+Select the object with coordinates you want to copy, making it the Active Object.
In the 3D View's Properties region (N), right-click any one of the Location coordinate fields and choose Copy to Selected from the menu that appears
All selected objects will have the same location as the active object. This also works for scale and rotation.


Changing filename format based on current animation frame? I'm currently working on an animation for a character in which I need the animation for in 8 directions (Up, Down, Left, Right, Diagonals). I can keyframe up the camera so it moves to these directions just fine every 12 frames and then just repeat the animation 8 times but I'd like the output for each filename for each direction to be different. Something like WalkingAnimation_00_01.png, where 00 is the direction and then 01 is the frame number for that direction.
To clarify, something like...
WalkingAnimation_08_(0-7 depending on the direction)_(01-12 depending on the frame for this direction)

I know some programming but I havent learned much of Python but I figure I'll need a double loop for this, but I'm not too sure how to interact with the Blender scripts yet. Any help is appreciated.

To make the output direct to specific directories dependent on frame you could add a handler to automatically set the scene.render.filepath before rendering the frame.

As an example, open a Text Editor window, click 'New' and enter the following code :

import bpy
def handler_set_filepath_based_on_frame(scene):
    scene.render.filepath = '//WalkingAnimation/%i_%i' % (scene.frame_current // 12, scene.frame_current % 12)
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(handler_set_filepath_based_on_frame)

Click the 'Run Script' button to run it and every time the frame changes the File Path should be automatically updated. Check the 'Register' checkbox to make it automatically run each time the .blend is opened.

If you then manually skip through the frames you should see the render output filepath automatically updating.

The calculation 'scene.frame_current // 12' is for the prefix and will increment by 1 for each 12 frames while the 'scene.frame_current % 12' will count the individual frame within each 12.


How do I make my character's walk animation stop when he jumps? I have this problem because, when my character jumps he reproduces the walking and jumping animation ends up giving an error, and in the end my character hangs in a position.

blender 2.79

This happens when you don't add any layer for the jump animation.
What's the meaning of layers in animations?
This is something like Photoshop projects, for example: layer1 is not appearing because there is another layer on top of it which is layer 2.
How can I add a layer or delete a layer in animation?
In the action actuator Here :

This is the layer what the animation is. In your case make the animation layer 2.
What about Deleting a layer?
You can't delete a layer. you can delete the actuator. You can just change the layer.


Z-Buffer render gives unexpected results I'm rendering blender's z-buffer to an image using render layers under compositing in cycles, but I'm noticing unexpected results.

Here is an example of a typical z-buffer render (not from blender). A flat plane will appear as a vertical gradient:

Here is blender's render of its z-buffer. A similar flat plane appears as a radial gradient:

I'm not quite sure what logic blender is using to represent depth. Is there a way to make blender's z-buffer behave more typically, where each pixel of the buffer represents the shortest distance from the camera viewing plane (the plane defined by the camera's normal)? If not, is there a way to get blender to render a scene like that without using the z-buffer?

EDIT: Here's a .blend file that demonstrates the z-buffer's strange behaviour. Hit render and it should show a radial gradiant on a flat plane.

Cycles - is a path tracing render. It's mean that the distance in z-buffer is real distance between the  plane and the camera, because it calculated by measuring a light path traveling from the camera to the plane in every point of image.

If you want fake z-buffer, you can chose default "blender render", and you will see your expected result.


How to move selected keyframes to current frame or a specified frame number I want to select keyframes from multiple different frames and move them all to a specific time without having to use g or s. I have a specific frame in mind that I want to move all of the selected keyframes to, but am not sure what keyboard shortcut will make this possible.
Steps to recreate:

Create multiple keyframes at frame 1, 2, 3, and 4
Select multiple keyframes from frame 1 and 2
Set timeline current frame to frame 3
(Keyboard shortcut here) to move selected keyframes to current frame

Not looking for this as a solution How do I move keyframes on multiple frames? v2.8
Thanks!

Hovering on the action editor or dopesheet you can select the keyframes you want to move, set the time cursor to the desired frame and press S,X,0,Enter.


Normal Map gives black render on half the surfaces White walls, added a Normal Map.
Here is the file with the Normal Map:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lM8D70NWvQbNrYpkS4LUn7HvoDohJmcu/view?usp=sharing
Tried:

recalculate normals
invert GREEN channel
image is set as NON-COLOR
the object is FLAT SHADING

These are chunks from the viewport in Cycles:

This is in Eevee viewport:

And this is a render:

And this is a render with the RED channel inverted:

And this is the viewport in Cycles without NM:

And this is the face orientation:

I activated backface culling, so there's no way any of the faces shown are backflipped.
Aaaand... this is the shader:

Nothing fancy really- I really don't know where else to bang my head now.
I don't seem to be able to use Normal Maps in Blender, though I perfectly know how they work, and worked with them for many years, I always meet some kind of problem in Blender.
What is the secret?
Edit: under suggestion, tried to plug some vector nodes in the shader:

You need a Normal Map Node between the Image Texture and Principled Shader.

Now beware that this Strength parameter is in units at the scene scale, so most likely by default this is going to try to make it appear such that the highest point is jutted out by an entire meter.  It has to do this without affecting the geometry so it is likely to also give you some visual artifacts (such as pure black cracks) right out of the box.
I usually set it to .3 or lower before I even enter rendered view, and then adjust by eye.


How can I make this cinnamon stick material more rough and dusty looking? I would like to make a realistic cinnamon stick texture / shader as shown below.

Reference image:

my attempt

and a close-up render -

I could come this far, but i can't figure out how to make mine bit more rough and dusty looking surface. Help please

you can download my blend file here

thanks

You had a solid foundation already with how you set up the procedural textures.  You were mostly there, the main issue with your material is  the cracks are a lighter color and the main surface is the darker color; that's backwards. ;)

All of that color multiplying for the material's foundation is trouble.
Multiplying black and white is very predictable:  lighter colors become lighter and the darker color become darker.
When multiplying color gradients against color gradients, it's difficult to predict what will happen across the entire range of colors.

When the main 'crevices' node group that you made is converted to grayscale, and the tones are inverted, it looks more like the desired result.

Here is a tip on getting the color tones closer to the reference image.  When hovering over color fields in Blender, you can press e to access the eye dropper tool.  Now you should be able to click just about anywhere else to sample that color.

In several places, a small Noise texture node group was added and is being used to exaggerate and washout the the various procedural textures.

In one instance, the cracks are darkened and deepened where the noise is darkest.  Towards the end of the material, a similar group is being used to color the surface with darker blobs that show in the reference image.

Separating the bump mapping(Material Output Displacement socket) into distinct operations allows you to control the cracks separately from the overall small scale bumpiness.

One thing that you should always add is a proper sky material, even if it's just a flat color.  The .blend you posted has a sky output node with nothing connected to it.  Even though Cycles is designed to use default settings in conditions like this, it's still a potential error state and it's best to avoid since the environment lighting is a big part of how Cycles colors a scene.
The attached .blend uses a pure white sky(1.0, 1.0, 1.0).

Here's how things are looking now.

Here's the .blend.
If you have the Node Wrangler Addon enabled(included with Blender) then you can ctrl-shift-click on the various nodes to isolate them and see what they look like flat shaded using the Viewport renderer.


Waist bone won't move. Only rotates in place The bone I used to control my character's upper body is stuck in place and only rotates when I try to move it.

From what I checked, it is not the same problem as this question:
In Pose mode, my bones are stuck in rotate, and wont transform

Yes, clearing the parenting to the root bone solves it, but that is not what I want and from all the models I've done before, this is the first it happened.
Here is the model:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4Okp_8X219XU0s2Zk1Nb280SkE

Any ideas?

Its is related,  actually, since your Main bone is acting like the last bone in a connected chain

Enter Edit Mode, select the Belly bone and go to its Bone Data Panel to uncheck Connected. Do the same for the Hips bone. Now you can translate the Main bone in Pose Mode


How to join strokes points / closes the figure using grease pencil Is it possible to join two grease pencil stroke points to continue and complete the figure ? (something like E and F between vertices) ?. I created a short video to show you what happens when I try to do it. Thanks.

https://sendvid.com/xk5nfttx

You can join Grease Pencil points by selecting two points and hitting CTRL+J, does it work for you?
If I want to do something but don't know whether such feature exists, I often use Spacebar and write down a term that could describe it... in this case I just wrote "Join" and this function with the shortcut appeared in the list.


How to determine the Shading Editor nodes that use a certain texture? Is there a way to find the exact places (in the Shading Editor for example) where a certain texture is used? And is there in general a nice overview of all (external) assets in a .blend?

For reference, I use Poliigon's Material Converter add-on, which imports diffuse maps, AO maps, displacement maps, normal maps etc. and automatically creates a rather complicated node group with those, hence it is a little difficult to found textures. In order to keep the packed .blend small, I want to avoid packing textures which aren't actually used.

Just a short overview

List of all images is in Outliner > Blender file > Images
List of unused images is in Outliner > Orphan Data > Images
To delete selected items Right Click > Delete
To remove all orphaned data at once (except those with Fake user) use the nice Purge button

(Blender also 'Purges' all unused and unprotected images when you close it.)

There are three images in my file. Image 02 isn't used in any material so I can get rid of it.


Weird artefacts with baked normals I get this weird normal map when I bake from high poly sculpt to lower poly retopologized mesh created with Retopoflow 2.0.
No area or angle stretch is present in those areas so I have no idea what the cause might be.
Has anybody experienced this before?

Thanks

When baking, you can imagine it (I'm not sure this is how the process actually works but seeing it that way seems to make sense) as if rays where cast from everywhere on your low poly mesh where a pixel from your texture is applied. This ray travels a certain distance (determined by the "distance" field in the "bake" tab) and everytime it meets another polygon, it analyses it and stores the desired values in the pixel it comes from. However, if it meets more than one polygon, it tries to store both values at once in a pixel that can only store on value which results in the artifact that you are seeing. Reducing the distance field should solve at least part of that problem. If your problem persists, you may want to consider using a cage but I'm not familiar with this feature, you'll have to find a tutorial on that yourself.
P.S.: A normal map is a normal map. Wether you made it in Cycles or Blender internal makes very little difference so if it seems to work for you in one better than the other, feel free to bake in that renderer and then use it in the other.
(Here again I'm no expert so if someone wants to correct me, you're welcome to do so)
Hope this helped


How to make 3D hollow cuboid objects and cut holes out of it I am trying to create a very simple 3D model a hollow cuboid with specific holes cut into it. I have an illustrator vector file with the shapes I want to replicate in 3D but struggling to find tutorials to help me create it.

Any tips on where to start and which tools to use would be greatly appreciated. I have attached a few images below to explain what I am trying to achieve. One image is a 3D illustration and the other is the net of the 3D object.

You can model this object quite easily this with a boolean modifier, and 3 array modifiers as well as a solidify modifier.

As for the actual shape of the holes in the image posted in your question, you can do this with a cube that is subdivided twice, then bevel the edges with Ctrl+B to round the shape and the mousewheel to adjust the cuts. Scale the object on the Z axis to finish it off.

For the rest of the object:

Add a cube, scale on the x or y axis to the desired length,
and apply scale with Ctrl+AScale. Then delete
the faces at the ends with X in edit mode.
In object mode add a solidify modifier to the cube, and adjust
the thickness to the desired amount.
Place your beveled cube where one of the holes should be. Scale it down accordingly.
Add an array modifier to the small cube with an offset and count
that is  appropriate across the top of the larger cube.
Add a second array modifier to the small cube to move the copies to
the opposite side.
Add a third array modifier to move the first two to base, and apply
all in the order they were added.
Add a boolean modifier to the larger cube set to difference with
the small cube as the target object and apply.

You can delete the beveled cubes, they are no longer needed.


Weight paint too sharp transition between affected areas I try to weight paint my mesh, but no matter what settings I put in weight or strength option, there is a super sharp difference between where I painted and clean mesh. Why does this happen? I can't paint a smooth transition no matter what I try. The transition is very sharp even though the weights are almost blue.

On another forum I finally got an answer!
The problem was that since I erased all weights from all bones to paint weights from scratch, all vertices other than the painted, had to be attached to any other bones. Basically one vertex needs to be attached to more than one bone.


Armature doesn't follow path I have a problem with my armature, it should follow a path but it doesn't move from its initial position... the thin blue line between the armature and the curve appears and moves along the curve but the armature doesn't follow, I don't understand why!

I've linked the blend file here: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=49394

thanks by advance!

sorry, I've found out the eye of the Follow Path constraint was inactive, so it's solved !   ;)


Texture shown wrong in rendering I have created a 3d bird with body and feathers.
I have here an extracted feather with feather material.
I can see it properly when I see it in the rendered window with Cycles, but if I click the render button the feather has the material that I apply to the bird.
Before that the feathers had many materials but I deleted all the wrong ones but the final rendering is always wrong.

You have material override in render layer:

It replaces all materials in the scene by this one. Remove material from here by clicking cross-icon


Issues baking normals and ambient occlusion I have made a fairly simple house in blender using a single material with an image texture:

However, when I try to bake ambient occlusion I end up with a really weird result, I am very new to this so could be I'm making a simple mistake, but been searching for solution for a few hours and can't find any.

If I try to apply that to the model in my game engine in looks horrible:

I want to bake normals and AO, but not sure where I'm going wrong. I go to render -> cycles -> ambient occlusion -> bake. Same for normals.

My .blend file:

as far as i can understand you have only one uv at the moment that gives you the colors on the mesh, you will have to create a second one, unwrap it (you can try and assist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scPSP_U858k), and bake your ao onto the second uv.

using two uv's can be a bit confusing (Multiple UV mapping in 2.8 eevee?)

good luck


Blender interface grayed out? i have both blender 2.78 and 2.70

the 2.78 version looks fine but for some reason 2.70 is grayed out

Does Anyone know why?

Thank you

I don't know why but if you want a normal interface again you can try this:
Open the user preferences and select themes

After that, you can click Reset to Default Theme or choose one of the presets
I hope that I could have helped you and if it is not going to work, please enter the blend file so that I can try a few things out.


Strength of bump depends of object scale? Look at the Blend file:

On frame 2 we have an cube with bump texture:

On Frame 1 we have same object, same material and same lightning (one sun). The only difference that this cube scaled 500 times:

As you noted the bump map on scaled object affects so small, that faсes looks flat.

Same result on different bump methods. First, Using displacement (not real geometry, experimental features turned off):

Second, with bump node:

Is it possible to get rid of this problem?

I think, it's a limitation of bump method. You can noted, that strength of bump effect not depends of scale, it depends of how big current face in world space...

So, use normal map. Normal map uses angles instead of depth, that's why objects, textured with normal map will looks the same in all scales.

Related: https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?359453-Cycles-displacement-corruption-when-scaling-an-object


How to Add Gradient Texture to My Node Setup? I'm trying to add a linear gradient texture to this node setup for my characters' shoes. I want to make the top part of the shoes dark black and I want it to fade to a lighter black where the leather texture material meets the bottom rubber material. I've already tried it by watching tutorials and can't figure it out.

I have two textures/materials on the shoes: A leather texture for the top part and a rubber texture for the bottom. I want to do this gradient on the bottom material (rubber part) to fade up into the leather texture (Top part). The bottom part in the second picture is the material I want to fade. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You cannot directly mix different materials.
Turn one of them into a node group, and it will work.

Turn Material 01 into a Node group
Add the new Node group into Material 02 using a mix shader
Connect Gradient texture and use ColorRamp to control the gradient

Create a nodegroup from one of your materials.

Add the new node group into the other material using a mix node.
Use ColorRamp to control the gradient.

Notes:
Gradient texture connects into the FAC input of a mix node (Mix RGB, Mix Shader or ColorRamp)
To make the gradient vertical, I used a UV map projected from view.


How do you pan on a mac? Beginner here! How do you pan around the screen on a mac? I've tried clicking "emulating 3-button mouse" but it still doesn't work with the two-finger scroll on the laptop trackpad.

I'm also using a wireless mac mouse.

Shift + two finger scroll around. You don't need a three-button mouse, as Blender has excellent multi-touch trackpad* support. (You can two-finger scroll to orbit around, and pinch to zoom, too! It even supports horizontal scrolling of header regions/tab bars.)

*Or a Magic Mouse, which is basically a mouse with a trackpad on top. Never actually tried one with Blender, though.


how to open a timeline window There is supposed to be a timeline, but when I made my first keyframe, the keyframe timeline didn't appear.

How can I make timeline appear?

Pull upward on the hatched corner to create a new area:

Then, click on the editor type selector and choose Timeline:

You now have a timeline in the new area.


Renaming Animation Channels with a Script for dummies Say I have a channel called:
pose.bones["mixamorig:LeftShoulder"].rotation_quaternion

But I need it to be:
pose.bones["mixamorig:Shoulder.L"].rotation_quaternion

I found this answer
for renaming channels, however I still don't get the desired result.

This should do the trick. Obviously, you will have to fill in the
complete dictionary of bone name mappings.

d = {"oldname1":"newname1","oldname2":"newname2", }
for action in bpy.data.actions:
    #these so called action groups are the bones, ie one group contains all fcurves of one bone
    for group in action.groups:
        if group.name in d:
            oldname = group.name
            group.name = d[oldname]
            for fcurve in group.channels:
                fcurve.data_path = fcurve.data_path.replace(oldname, d[oldname])

No groups.
Going by screenshot.

The fcurves are not split into bone groups.

The bones have names "mixamorig:LeftShoulder" have renamed to "Shoulder.L" ie stripped out "mixamorig:" and then renamed.

Reinstated bone groups to new names. (optional)

Test script:. select rig, run script in object or pose mode. (As always back up first.)
import bpy

context = bpy.context
ob = context.object

def bonename(dp):
    #dp = fc.data_path
    if not dp.startswith("pose.bones"):
        return None
    start = dp.find('["') + 2
    end = dp.find('"]')
    return dp[start : end]

def rename(name):
    if name.startswith("mixamorig:"):
        name = name[10:]
    if name.startswith("Left"):
        name = f"{name[4:]}.L"
    elif name.startswith("Right"):
        name = f"{name[5:]}.R"
    return name
# test
x = 'pose.bones["mixamorig:RightShoulder"].location[0]'
print(rename(bonename(x)))

for pb in ob.pose.bones:
    pb.name = rename(pb.name)

action = ob.animation_data.action

for fc in action.fcurves:
    name = bonename(fc.data_path)
    if name:
        new_name = rename(name)
        fc.data_path.replace(name, new_name)
        if not fc.group:
            fc.group = (
                    action.groups.get(new_name)
                    or
                    action.groups.new(new_name)
                    )


Not being able to rotate or scale in blender 2.79 I'm working on a model right now but it seems I have accidentally pressed a bind, that locks the rotation and scale to be changed in the 3D-View. I can still change it through the Properties menu though.
I have searched on YouTube and found a video that has the solution in it, but only for blender 2.8.

with the item selected in object mode hit "n" opening the tool shelf and showing the transforms. See if the padlock by the problem transforms is closed. if so click on it to unlock it.


Curve with different scale streched I'm new to 3D modeling and I have an issue when trying to apply modifier Curve to Mesh when it is scaled.
As you can see in the below gif, I create a new BezierCircle and a Cube. If I apply modifier Curve to cube using as object the BezierCircle it works.
But if i scale up BezierCircle and Cube (applying the scale using ctrl+A) and reapply Curve modifier the mesh Cube become deforms and streched.
Why does this happen?

Each curve vertex has a radius. When you scale your curve in Object mode, the radius doesn't change, but if you apply the scale, the radius will change to the curve object scale before applying, and it will affect the objects that are parented to the curve, like your cube.
You can check the vertices radius in the N panel > Item > Radius (or Mean Radius if you've selected several vertices). You can bring back the value to 1. You can also right click (Contexte Menu) > Set Curve Radius, type the value you want and press Enter.


Cant find "Texture Coordination" on Blender 2.79 I searched here previously and one of the answers were saying that you should be on Cycles Render to appear. But even on cycles render it doesn't show.

Any ideas why this is happening?

There is no such a thing in Blender as “Texture Coordination”.

If you are talking about Texture Coordinate node, you can find it under Input category in the Add menu (Shift + a) or in the t panel in the Node Editor:

Terminology is important. It is better to be as exact as possible.


What programming languages can I use in Blender? What version of Python does Blender use and are other languages available? Also, does Python work the same in Blender as when you write console applications or when working with Pygame or are there any differences? If so, what are the main differences?

Since Blender 2.5 only Python 3 is supported. From blender.org:

  The Blender 2.5x versions feature a completely new Python API based on
  Python version 3.2, and is integrated deeply, used for generating
  Blender's GUI layouts, for import and export of external formats, and
  with access to all user-accessible data and functionality.

What changes across applications is the API - Application programming interface. So if you're used to pygame and console API, now you need to learn Blender API. So yes, the idea is the same, but the API is different.

Here's a Quickstart Introduction.
And here's the full API.


Does Blender have something like a 'prefab'? I'm looking for something like a "prefab" in Blender.

I need to create many copies of an object and I want to be able to change the object in the future. I want to change the original object only and have the copies updated.

By changing I mean not just vertices but replace the whole object (sphere -> another form).

Is it possible to do in Blender?

Reading about Library Overrides I found Proxies. It solves my problem perfectly!


Where to download Blender's complete package? Where do I go to download the whole install package, e.g., blender-2.80-50ccbe6bb233-win64?

I assume Blender will update again, and I do NOT connect my workstation to the internet at all, nor my powerline directly.

Every download of Blender is complete and works offline, not matter if it's the installer or archive version. Also Blender doesn't auto-update, updates need to be installed manually.

If you're looking for a build from a specific commit (hash), you'll have to build Blender yourself. Once you've cloned the git repository you can revert to the commit hash you want to build.


Mesh Transformation with rig? I have a new project i'm working on that involves a lot of character transformations, I was wondering the best way to go about this as a blender apprentice, I've gotten pretty good with armatures, mesh creating, shape keys, and some physics. Im wondering is there a way to make a rigged armature transform in to a similar rigged armature. Like a human arm transforming into a monster arm, on the same body. I feel like shape keys might be the way, but how does that incorporate armatures and color/ texture changes?

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/13/132031/2025184-sc5_nightmare.jpg

Nightmare's (from soul calibur) arms is what the end product will be similar to, and from a normal human arm.

An example.  Lets pretend the monster is more muscular than the human.
In general any mesh shape change is fair game
Some 3D armature bones control organic bone rotations.  Other 3D bones control more organic muscular mesh transformations.  There are big muscles such as thighs and smaller muscles in the face.
Armature.  Bones that are not moved on the bicep for a human can be moved for the monster to create a larger bicep.  This bone would not be involved in arm rotation and perhaps not connected.  Perhaps a child of the upper arm bone.
A lattice can be used to create a larger bicep for the monster.
Since facial features can be controlled by bones.  Exaggerated positions may be useful.  Please search facial feature rigs.
Displacement textures to create non smooth skin.
Use a [custom property] (value on the object) float number ... which varies from 0.0 to 0.5 to 1.0. This custom property can have a keyframe.
Using the custom property with a Blender Python driver to control values of colors and location.  0.0 might indicate human. 1.0 might indicate monster. 0.5 will be the mix of human and monster.  Morph.
Using the custom property blend the skin from some human color to monster color such as green or purple.  Or blend some monster skin texture.
Shape Keys.  Keep in mind bones have a natural sense of rotation.  Shape keys in their primitive state do not.  The more shape keys, the smoother the transition, the more work to coordinate shape keys.
For extreme mesh changes such as monster horns keep in mind that extra mesh vertices can create smoothing problems for the human.  Consider using two meshes and the convenient blinding light flash or image transparency blending.  Such cheap slight of image.  Two meshes can share an armature.  Not trivial.


Toggle Visibility Driver Not Working I have a driver which toggles the visibility of a mesh.
If I set the driver the scripted expression and type in "True" when the visibility is off, the visibility turns on.
If the visibility is already on and I type in "False", the visibility does not change.

Typing in "False" makes the object visible and typing in "True" hides the object.


how do you spin-duplicate an object to make a grenade? I ma making a grenade like this one in the image:

And I have the main bumpy part here:

so I want to spin them to make that shape, but nothing seems to work.
Any ideas?
Thanks.

As Sandro suggested: the objects scaling (marked in the image) causes the - in this case (as Kheetor mentioned) - undesired outcome.
Your object is scaled to about 45% of it's original size, so every iteration of the array is scaled to a 45% again, getting smaller and smaller every time.
Select the object and press 'ctrl+a', then select 'Scale'.

Next Step: Your object and the "rotation object" need the same origin. Go into edit-mode and move all geometry to the edge of the circle:

Then just rotate your circle around the Z-axis:


Set origin to Matrix_world bottom center of Lego bricks's bound box I have a lego 3D objects, in blender 2.92.0. And I would to set the origin to Matrix_world bottom center of Lego bricks's bound box, then set all bricks to z = 0.
I am a newbie in blender, so I'm trying run the code from batFINGER .
import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector

def origin_to_bottom(ob, matrix=Matrix()):
    me = ob.data
    mw = ob.matrix_world
    local_verts = [matrix @ Vector(v[:]) for v in ob.bound_box]
    o = sum(local_verts, Vector()) / 8
    o.z = min(v.z for v in local_verts)
    o = matrix.inverted() @ o
    me.transform(Matrix.Translation(-o))

    mw.translation = mw @ o

for o in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    if o.type == 'MESH':
        origin_to_bottom(o)
        #origin_to_bottom(o, matrix=o.matrix_world) # global

and this code:
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector
import numpy as np

def origin_to_bottom(ob, matrix=Matrix(), use_verts=False):
    me = ob.data
    mw = ob.matrix_world
    if use_verts:
        data = (v.co for v in me.vertices)
    else:
        data = (Vector(v) for v in ob.bound_box)

    coords = np.array([matrix @ v for v in data])
    z = coords.T[2]
    mins = np.take(coords, np.where(z == z.min())[0], axis=0)

    o = Vector(np.mean(mins, axis=0))
    o = matrix.inverted() @ o
    me.transform(Matrix.Translation(-o))

    mw.translation = mw @ o

It's looking like something is wrong, but I can't find out the reason. So, what can I do now?

guys. I get the answer about the question. Thanks for the help from Martynas Žiemys
this is the code:
def origin_to_bottom(ob):
if ob.mode != 'OBJECT':
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT', toggle=True)

d = ob.data
m = ob.matrix_world

bounds_center = (sum((m @ Vector(b) for b in ob.bound_box), Vector()))/8
difference = m.translation - bounds_center
local_difference = difference @ m
for v in d.vertices:
    v.co += local_difference
    m.translation -= difference

difference = Vector((0,0,0))
bound = min((m @ v.co).z for v in d.vertices)
difference.z = m.translation.z - bound

local_difference = difference @ m
for v in d.vertices:
    v.co += local_difference
    m.translation -= difference


Lighting looks strange and planes are disappearing I'm trying to make a dolphin model for 3d printing. While making the dolphin, I realized that in object mode the tailfin's lighting looks strange:

As you can see, the lighting of the fins is split, with one side being noticeably darker. To make the tailfin I first used the knife tool on a (squished) cube to make one half of the fin. Then I reflected it to make the other side and joined them in order to connect their edges with faces. When I was done, I realized the strange lighting on the tail. I first thought that I connected some faces incorrectly, but I checked and nothing seemed wrong to me.

Another strange thing I experienced was that when I tried to slice the model on the AstroPrint slicer, some of the planes on the tailfin were missing:

What's also strange is that the pieces that were missing were the pieces part of the tailfin where the lighting was abnormal. The only part that was shown is the bottom part of the fin.

I made the dolphin's body by shaping a cylinder. I made the fins by using the knife tool on a cube and connected them with the join operation. I edited them together and joined their edges with faces.

Does anyone know why this happens and how to fix this?

In Edit Mode with everything selected, go to Mesh menu (Blender 2.79b)/Normals/Recalculate Outside.  See if that helps.


Indirect lighting casting "shadows" where it should not I have the windows on the house mesh shown in this image set up to emit indirect light (material emit: 1.00, World Indirect Lighting Factor 5.00, Bounces 4) and it's almost fine, except the fact that every other window frame on the bottom ground floor is significantly darker than the one next to it, and other windowframes in the render, for that matter:

Given it occurs on every duplicate of the window-having mesh (two storeys of windows on one protrusion is a mesh, so there are four visible in the scene) I can only presume it represents some error in the construction of the mesh (a similar problem occurred earlier when a stray face on the attic floor covered part of the windows there) but I have been unable to find either redundant faces or incorrect normals in those places. Can anybody tell what's going wrong in this render that would cause this problem?

This issue arose because the UV for every other windowpane was upside down, correcting this resolved the lighting issue, although it is unclear why.


White Block Artifacts in Eevee Beta Renders? Any idea what's causing these two white blotches? They don't appear in the viewport render.

here's a viewport screen capture,

and here's a render with the spotlight (that's located behind the model) hidden and only an HDRI for lighting, they still appear, and appear to be literal white squares in clusters.

I've been experiencing this as well; when it happens to me, it's occurring in geometry where there's a degenerate or zero-area face (e.g. take a polygon and scale it to 0 in two dimensions, so it's just a couple of lines occupying the same space), and the material applied to it has a normal map. If Depth of Field is turned off, it shows up as pure white pixels occurring randomly along the line; with it on, they're either small white squares or small white circles. (And if Bloom is also turned on, it looks like J.J. Abrams came by and dropped a massive lens flare into my scene.)


Object with particle system doesn't appear but particles appear Well I was following Blender Guru's latest tutorial and when I went on to render this happened.
Although it shows up fine in both viewport solid and rendered,

In your Particle System, in the Render tab, check that the Show Emitter checkbox is on


Action For Empty Object Appears Not to Play in Game Logic Layout, DOES Play In Default Layout .blend file has:
      - two Rigid Body Mesh Collision Proxies (A Foot: Ankle to Ball & Toes)
      - A set of 5 Empty Objects That Are Animated to Control the Collision
        Proxies.
      - Two of the Empties have Locked Track Constraints...(is this the issue?)
      - A rigid body plane (Tile Floor) to act as ground
      - a few (650) rigid body 'Sand' particles intended to simulate the
        behavior of sand.
      - Short color-change Python script

Issue: In Game Logic Layout, the actions for some of the Empty Objects
       appear NOT to play, while in Default Layout everything works as
       intended.

Fixes Tried: Everything I can think of, so it's probably something obvious!

Goal of project: To help beginning trackers learn to read tracks.  The 'foot'(collision proxies) are to be animated, and should leave a realistic track in the 'sand'

RESOLVED!
   I had the collision proxies set up with Empties using Locked Track Constraints.
   Didn't know regular constraints and BGE aren't happy together.
   Switched to Rigid Body Constraints.
   Now everything seems to be working correctly in both Defailt Layout and Game Logic Layout.
Thanks!


how do i turn a model into wires this is an example of what  mean.

i have a model that i made. lets say it was a human shaped head or body. how would i turn that into something like this picture with all of its wires and the shape.

i want it so it will look be completely covered in it

I think the simplest way to get this effect would be to use the wireframe modifier.

However, if you want an effect closer to what you have there you will need to make each "muscle" its own object and use a couple of modifiers to create them.

Firstly create a cylinder and scale it to the length of the muscle. Apply the scale with CTRL+A. Then TAB into edit mode, Hit A to select everything, the G followed by X to offset the cylinder from the center. Use CTRL+R to create some loop cuts. if done correctly you should have something that looks like this.

Tab back into Object mode and use a simple deform modifier set to bend on the y-axis to get an adjustable bend angle.

After offsetting and bending our bar we will need to make the full muscle. To do this first create an empty object, place it at the origin of your bar. Then add an array modifier to the bar. Once added deselect relative offset and select object offset, then choose the empty object as the target. Then rotate the empty on the Z axis to set the angle of repeats, and use the count to pick how many "wires" to wrap in a circle.

Finally, some of the muscles in your sample have a twist to them.
We can achieve this by adding one more Simple deform modifier and setting it to twist about the Z-axis. Then voila!

There you have your muscle. Duplicate the object, move them around, and change some settings to make the rest of your model.


How to stop ambient occlusion texture baking in cycles from only having black and white color output? My ambient occlusion bake in cycles for a sword has only black and white color and none of the recognizable grey gradient shading that goes with ambient occlusion. I am using the 'selected to active' option so I've got my low res and high res with detail models all set up. I followed this 'answer', How do I bake a texture using Cycles bake, in achieving my setup.

Here is an image of the bake.

Here is an image of the high res model.

Here is an image of what I'm thinking the AO should look like. It is from a tutorial I am doing on this sword.

Now the sword handle bands from the high res model extrude further out than then the low res model's sword handle geometry. To compensate for this, I enabled the 'cage' option and used an extrusion setting that matched the length of the farthest distance that the high res handle bands extruded out from the low res handle, which is cylindrical only. The rest of the sword geometry comparison between lower and higher res models is almost identical except for some high res scratches and detail sculpting.

I'm basically looking for something I may be missing in the entire setup of models and settings for ambient occlusion baking, in order to get that nice ambient occlusion grey gradient shading on my texture.

Cycles Baking behaves a bit different from BI Baking due to the design. However, you can simulate what you expected by creating an auxiliary object, and tweak the Distance value located in World tab to get rid of the "normalized" look.

Create a big enough object, center it to the target objects;
Tweak the Distance value based on the dimension of the new object. (As shown below, I created a 20 x 20 x 20 cube object, so that the distance between the sword and cube is around 10.)


Enable dyntopo in Blender 2.80 Beta I downloaded the Blender 2.80 Beta and wanted to try some sculpting, but I can't find where to enable dyntopo. Is it not supported in Blender 2.80?

Dyntopo could be found in the "Active Tool" tab


How must I adapt my workflow to work with Scene Referred Data? I just took the red pill and started watching the real world, in fact the CG real world. I've understood that the default sRGB view workflow is bad.

I'm using the color management LUT bassam-test from troy_s (thanks a lot). But now, how and what must I change in my workflow to really benefit of working with scene referred data?

Is my hdr lighting well suited for that workflow? Must I have to throw all my RGB textures and only find exr ones?

I'm a little bit lost.

I'm a little bit lost.

Don't be. Just learn a little bit at a time and build up your knowledge in smaller steps. We are all learning more at every moment.

I laughed at the red pill.

  But now, how and what must I change in my workflow to really benefit of working with scene referred data?

There isn't too much to get too swamped with too soon. Start by experimenting with how larger amounts of light influence your materials.

To do this, simply use an emission mesh with a wide dynamic range view transform. That is, if you are using the testing kit I put together for example, the -10-+6.5 view. You will need to set the emission strength quite high as compared to what you were using under the "Default" previously.

Typical questions and concerns are:

"It looks washed out!"
"How can I control the look?"

The reason the image looks 'washed out' is that it is mapping of scene referred values to the display referred domain, and there is a very wide range to map. To achieve this, a "shaper" or "perceptual quantizer" mapping happens. This is typically a 'flat' look in terms of an artistic sense. While not an aesthetic look for a final shot, it is a wonderful entry point to evaluate your data for a grade.

Once you have rendered out a simple shot, try grading it. I strongly recommend doing a simple, single node grade using the CDL node. It is in the Color Balance node. Simply change from the Lift, Gamma, Gain (which does not work with scene referred data) to ASC-CDL.

The reasons for this are many, and it is a forward looking tool to learn. It is also very easy to get to a pleasant looking shot simply by adjusting power up (1.5-2.5) and slightly adjusting the Slope downwards slightly. Remember that shift key can help you use the interactive sliders on the RGB values with small increments.

0.18 middle grey scene referred ends up mapped to 0.6 in the display referred -10-+6.5 view. You probably would want to grade this down a little, although that will happen naturally when you tweak the power and the slope.

  Is my hdr lighting well suited for that workflow?

HDR and IBL lighting is well suited for the workflow, assuming the HDRs are correct and have the proper range of values. This can be tricky to find good quality images. EXR are ideal.

  Must i have to throw all my rgb textures and only find exr ones?

Some textures will behave brokenly with proper light levels. This isn't because using a wide dynamic range broke them however, but rather that they were broken to start. If you are using an emission, then you must use scene referred imagery. Diffuse textures and such are not "colors" per se, but rather albedo values, which are a measurement of reflectance. Given that nothing reflects at 100% in the physical reality, diffuse textures of sRGB values 1.0 will likely lead to very strange results, for example.

There are a good number of very talented and wise people here, that you might be able to summon to help you learn. @jtheninja and @gez are two folks with good experience on materials for example.

Hope this helps. Take small steps and hopefully you will enjoy the results.

For the ones interested by the subject, check the Wide Dynamic Range post


Rotate an object to camera view I try to make this as clear as possible:
Starting Point
I place an object at the center (0,0,0) of the scene. Then I place a camera given a fix radius on a hemisphere around the object (and use Constraints to make it always look at the object) and render the image. I export the object as .stl with y-up and minus-z-forward, in order to open it with another library that uses this different convention.
Problem
I would like to rotate the object in such a way that it would correspond to the view of the rendered image.
Approach
The angles for azimuth and elevation are known. So I calculate the rotation matrix given the two angles (I need a homogeneous rotation matrix, thus appending the 0s and 1).
def angles_to_matrix(phi, theta):
    # phi describes the azimuth
    azi = phi
    # theta describes the inclination angle, thus:
    ele = radians(90) - theta
    rol = 0

    e1 = cos(rol) * cos(azi) - sin(rol) * cos(ele) * sin(azi)
    e2 = sin(rol) * cos(azi) + cos(rol) * cos(ele) * sin(azi)
    e3 = sin(ele) * sin(azi)
    e4 = -cos(rol) * sin(azi) - sin(rol) * cos(ele) * cos(azi)
    e5 = -sin(rol) * sin(azi) + cos(rol) * cos(ele) * cos(azi)
    e6 = sin(ele) * cos(azi)
    e7 = sin(rol) * sin(ele)
    e8 = -cos(rol) * sin(ele)
    e9 = cos(ele)

    return np.array(((e1, e2, e3, 0), (e4, e5, e6, 0), (e7, e8, e9,0 ), (0, 0, 0, 1)))

The rotation does not look right. & I feel there could be several things going wrong:

Did I miss something concerning the change of axis orientation?
Is it even possible to use the same angles for calculating the sphere coordinates to calculate the rotation of the object?

Do you have any ideas?

Align object to camera
This will give same result as adding an object in camera view, and using ALIGN to VIEW
By default a blender object faces -Y and has Z up. The camera on the other hand looks down -Z with Y up.
Can decompose an objects matrix into its location, rotation and scale, and then recompose.
In this case get the rotation part of the camera matrix world, transformed to -Y forward and Z up then recomposed into the object with its original scale and translation.
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix
from bpy import context
from bpy_extras.io_utils import axis_conversion

scene = context.scene
cam_ob = scene.camera
ob = context.object

A = axis_conversion(
        from_forward='Z',
        from_up='-Y',
        to_forward='Y',
        to_up='Z').to_4x4()

loc, rot, scale = cam_ob.matrix_world.decompose()

ob.matrix_world = (
    Matrix.Translation(ob.matrix_world.to_translation()) @
   (rot.to_matrix().to_4x4() @ A) @
    Matrix.Diagonal(ob.matrix_world.to_scale()).to_4x4()
    )


"Correct" way to add texture for a photo print in a scene. Fix "over-exposure" Total beginner to Blender here, so please pardon my general ignorance.

I'm trying to render product shots of some photographic prints for my wife. I've bought an interior scene from evermotion which already had some prints on the wall, and am trying to substitute her photos for those prints.

To do this, I've deleted the meshes for the existing prints (they were using a texture atlas for all of the prints, which seemed like unnecessary additional complexity for now), added in planes for the new prints, and used a simple "image texture" material on them. This approximately works, but the photos look over exposed when I render -- this is the problem I'm trying to solve.

Moreover, I'm a bit confused about what's actually happening: she sent me JPEGs of developed RAW files which had already had exposure, tone-mapping, gamma, etc applied in Lightroom. My understanding of 3D graphics was that you generally wanted to work on linear data and then apply the tone-map and gamma to the final render. So I guess I'm not surprised that it's come out wrong, but I'm at a bit of a loss to understand the best path to making it "right".

Would appreciate any pointers on this! Thanks!

Ok, here's what I ended up doing. Thank you @virgil-sisoe for the pointers.

First up, I may have been overly concerned about gamma correction: it looks like Blender automatically gamma "uncorrects" (wrongs?) texture data when it's loaded, so the output of the texture node can be assumed to be linear.

From there I added a "Separate RGB" node, and added a Multiply node on each of its 3 outputs, followed by a "Combine RGB" node. I set each of the multiply nodes to 0.5, so -1 stop.

(arguably it should have been -1.6 stops, but -1 looked right given the brightness of the rest of the scene).

I added gamma nodes to the input and output, but have the input gamma set to 1 (so no gamma adjustment), and the output a little over 1 to add just a touch of contrast.

The last thing I did was to switch from the principled BSDF shader to the diffuse BSDF shader. I figured that I only want diffuse here, and I don't yet fully understand the principled shader.

This looks ok, and I think it will suffice for my current purposes.

Here's what I ended up with:


How do you make two cubes move at the same time without one lumping at the bottom? I have two cubes, one is inside the other, and I have softbody enabled on both of them. The problem is, when I have them fall, the inner cube falls down and dies.
blend file: here

just check your stiffness checkbox for your inner cube.
Result:


Animate properties in GLSL shading I'm new in this community.
My name is Francesco and I am passionate about Blender.
I hope to learn well.

I have a problem I can not solve...

I wish animate the alpha channel and all the material properties (and textures) of an object and then render an animation in OpenGL. How should I do?

Thanks for your help.

Hover the mouse over a field on the materials tab (alpha channel on this example)

and press i to insert a key.
Move a few frames ahead (arrow keys), change the value and press i again to insert a new key.

We now have a spline animating that field from one value to the other. It works just like normal animation.

A grey button means there are no keyframes. A yellow color means There is a keyframe on that frame, a green button means that the values have been animated, but there is not a keyframe on that specific frame.

An alternative to pressing the letter i is to right click on the value you want to animatate and select Insert Keyframe;


How can i display the Exact Same Colors that are in the Texture I would like to render an animated prism, i made a texture with a different color for each face and some text. I want it to render it with no lighting, just the exact same texture, pixel to pixel as a transparent png sequence. They are simple bright folors like FF00FF and FF000. I just want it to be as flat as possible, with the exact same pixel values as the texture. Thanks

Just connect your image texture directly to the material output without using a shader first. In the image below, the cube on the left is connected directly, and the one on the right is connected through a Principled BSDF with default settings. The light is directly between them.


Orthographic scale of camera in Blender could somebody explain how orthographic scale is calculated in Blender?
I am trying to match an orthographic view that I get from another software with that of Blender, but I am not able. Camera gets in the correct position but the zoom level is wrong.

Thanks,
byte

The Orthographic Scale factor represent the maximum dimension (in scene units) of the portion of space captured from the camera.

So a scale of 1, means that a square plane whose size is 1, would perfectly fit the camera's view in the mayor dimension (for the default 1920x1080, the wideness).

If you double the scale, you'll get half dimension (1:2 scale) because the way it's mean to work like the traditional scale map. Maybe it's even easier to think in these therms:

  The scale of a map is the ratio of a distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground.

About your specific problem, I think I would suggest the following workflow:

Match the camera's and reference image proportions and import as background image
Align the view
Tweak the scale factor till you are satisfied


I Can't Figure Out How to Build This Chair I'm currently learning Blender through a book called "Blender 3D By Example". Right now I am on a section about creating chairs.
I can't figure out how to make the first chair by following the instructions. It uses almost entirely modifiers rather than box modeling. If any one could explain or show how to make this chair it would be a great help.
Here is the finished file provided with the book: Finished File

For both the chassis and the slats he is just arraying a mesh along a curve, so he's mainly using 2 modifiers: Array and Curve. You'll easily find tutorials on this matter. For the slats, it gives that (I won't use a Mirror modifier but it doesn't make a big difference):

Create a bezier curve, give it the profile of the chair back along the X axis (it will make the array along curve easier to keep this axis)
Create a plane, stretch it in Edit mode on the Y axis. Make sure its origin is at the same place as the curve's origin:

Give the plane an Array modifier, choose the amount of instances (Count), enable Relative Offset and choose a X value of 1.2 for example, so that you keep a gap between the instances.
Give it a Curve modifier, choose the bezier curve as Object, choose X as Deformation Axis:

To change the slat length, select the bezier curve, go in Edit mode, select a vertex, and press AltS to scale:

You can create additional vertices for the curve: go in Edit mode and right click > Subdivide. And you can give thickness to your plane with a Solidify modifier:


weird glass effect artifacts - Principled BSDF, Transmission 1 I'm a filmmaker and 2d motion designer that's starting his journey in 3d. Following blender guru tutorial I've encountered first major problem that I cannot overcome. I have those weird artifacts when try to apply glass shader onto the cup. The plate renders fine, but the cup has artifacts (it's the same material on a plate and on a cup.

Do you maybe have any ideas how to resolve this?

Nice cup! But it has 2 issues:

duplicated vertices
flipped normals

When you turn on Face Orientation in the overlays, you will see your cup is mostly red (flipped normals) and there is some flickering/pixel fight going on (duplicates).
To fix it select the cup, switch to edit mode, select all vertices with key A, then press M to open the merge context menu. There, select by distance to get rid of the duplicated vertices.
Then press SHIFT + N to recalculate the normals (outside).


Could this kind of texture be created procedurally? Could this kind of texture be doable in Blender procedurally? The yellow dotted line in the following reference pic is marking what I'm struggling to create.

With musgrave and noise textures I've gotten this far, but I'm unsure how to do that tattered fade between light and darker blue:

Instead of using a musgrave node as in your .blend-file, I used two noise nodes where one of them controls the scale of the second one to make the fade "grainy". I also made the ColorRamp gradient a bit softer. See the node tree below:


Can i colour black and white textures in Eevee? I've been trying to get into Eevee lately, but there's this huge problem im having. Which is textures. I've been using Blender Internal for the longest (i know, a rare gem i am) and there, you can just add a black and white texture, make it "multiply" and it instanly takes the colour of the material;
https://gyazo.com/d0e6d9e005dc812fc4709409d9eb788d (gif)
But in Eevee whenever i add a texture it just stays black and white:
https://gyazo.com/eb3fcffd4076653e45fce5854a0712ee

i havent found a way to fix this anywhere, do i really have to use an editing program and colour the textures in there or is there a way to do it on blender? thank you

You can use the Mix RGB node to multiply colors.

Add a Mix RGB node and set to Multiply
Connect your image texture
Use the other input for the base color

You can control the texture intensity with a Color Ramp.  And adjust contrast by moving the sliders.


How to automatically rotate an object on its local z axis to make one of its edges parallel to that of another object I made a video to better explain what I ask in the title. When I say "parallel to this edge" perhaps it would be more correct to say "parallel to the projection of this edge to the floor"I hope someone can help me

Via a script.

Getting the angle is relatively simple here. The 3d vector v projected onto Z = 0 plane is simply v.xy ie its x and y coordinates.  The signed angle between two 2d vectors is
v1.angle_signed(v2)

Related Face edges angle - python re projecting into any plane, eg the face normal of target plane.
Once we have this angle can rotate the target mesh by it about its Z axis.
Example script.
Here is an example script with both objects in edit mode. The last selected edge also makes the object the target object to be rotated.  Note, this relies on the two objects NOT sharing a mesh.  (If they did there would be no way to select a different edge in each while both in edit mode)
import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Matrix
from itertools import product
context = bpy.context

ob = context.object
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(ob.data).copy()
bm.transform(ob.matrix_world)
e0 = bm.select_history.active
mw0 = ob.matrix_world
# find closest verts
for o  in context.selected_objects:
    if o is ob or o.type != 'MESH':
        continue
    bm1 = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(o.data).copy()
    bm1.transform(o.matrix_world)
    e1 = bm1.select_history.active
    # find the two closest verts
    v0, v1 = sorted(
            product(e0.verts, e1.verts),
            key= lambda e: (e[1].co - e[0].co).length
            ).pop()
    angle = (e0.other_vert(v0).co - v0.co).xy.angle_signed((v1.co - e1.other_vert(v1).co).xy)
    print(angle)
    # rotate angle about ob origin
    R = (
        Matrix.Translation(mw0.translation) @
        Matrix.Rotation(-angle, 4, 'Z') @
        Matrix.Translation(-mw0.translation)
    )
    ob.matrix_world = R @ mw0