Blender 2.8 How to scale in shape? im Blender beginner and want so scale my cylinder in shape but i cant figuere out how to do it. I Tried to do it with the base cylinder and without mirror mode, in this case it work but i need to work in mirror mode.

i watch a video tutorial to do this lizard but in his video it stay in shape :(
have you any hint how i can do this ?

Up at the top, set the "Pivot Point" to "3D cursor" (If your in blender 2.8) If your in 2.79 or lower, it's down at the bottom, directly to the right of your viewport Shading options. (And make sure the 3D cursor is in the middle of your object)


Make particles wiggle (in a sine wave) I'm trying to model a laser, and I'm using moving particles that are emitters. Using some motion blur, I get something that looks like particles going very quickly. However, I would like to give the impression that this is a laser, so I was thinking about making the particles move in a sinusoidal motion to make them look like little sine waves (a crude rendition of the particle/wave duality of light, I admit.)

I think that this effect should be achievable if I could make a texture field that would apply an up/down force on the particles. But, I cannot figure out how to define the texture used by the texture field.

here is what I have so far, showing the laser in red hitting a nanoparticle and ejecting ions (yellow/white). I am using the Cycles renderer.

I would tackle this problem by using a curve guide force field where Kink is set to Wave. Frequency and Amplitude will help you to shape your movement.

I prepared a blend for you that illustrates the behaviour clearly and upload it here
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29048

This screenshot should help all of you that don't like to download foreign blend files ;)

Consider that the wave kind is behaving like a sawtooth wave... so maybe you should form your curve guide like the sine wave you'd like to create.

Another way is to use a harmonic field... for a demo of this effect, look here: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29061 The movements here are less uniform. If you need even more turbulence use the turbulence field on top..


Bevel - how can I get this done nicely How do I apply a bevel to this so that it becomes nicely (half) round?

I was able to do this by creating a single edge in the middle (if you don't need to create a loop like I do here with Ctrl + R then you can just select top and bottom edge and subdivide), dissolve neighboring edges to have an angle and do Ctrl + B to bevel.


How to control animation speed and direction in BGE I would like to be able to control an object moving along a path in the BGE. I have looked at the Action actuator, but that seems to just play the animation. I want to be able to control the speed and direction of the object as it moves along the path. Something like a car going down a road.
Is there some way to accomplish this??

I could not find any info and this, so since i figured it out, i would post the answer. I used logic block and a python scrip. The example is not for a follow path, but just a simple cube animation.

The game goes as follows:
Press space key to start animation, press again to stop the action.
Press the F key to speed up the animation, and press the S get to go slower.

I included some images.

import bge

def main():

# max frame of animation
maxFrame = 100

cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
own = cont.owner

frameAct = cont.actuators['Frame']

currentFrame = own.get(frameAct.propName)

# limit speed to between 1 and 10
speed = own['speed']
speed = max(1,speed)
speed = min(10,speed)

speedInc = (0.10*speed)

currentFrame = currentFrame + speedInc

if currentFrame > maxFrame:
    currentFrame = 1

frameAct.value = str(currentFrame)
cont.activate(frameAct)

main()


UV map is not straight I tried to unwrap simply cube with bevel. I made a seam and my UV looks like this (vertex are curves):

It is ok ? Must I use a special addon (Misc) to repair?

Right after clicking on Unwrap press F6 and try to change unwrap method.


In BGE is there a way to apply gravity to the inside of a sphere I'm building a game that has a level where a character walks on the inside of a sphere. Like a bubble, but all the objects in the sphere are pulled towards the outer edge. Gravity is strongest at the walls of the sphere, but are 0 at the center of the sphere. So the player will  float as in space if they jumped too high.

So, the question is how can I set the gravity inside a sphere so that the maximum gravity is exerted on the outer wlls and null at it center?

To figure out a basic implementation of a "spherical gravity," let's look at how gravity works in normal, Newtonian physics. Here is the equation that you probably learned in high school physics:

$$F_g=\frac{G\cdot m_{\text{earth}}\cdot m_{\text{object}}}{r^2}$$

where $F_g$ is the force on the object due to gravity, $G$ is the gravitational constant, $m_{\text{earth}}$ is the mass of the Earth, $m_{\text{object}}$ is the mass of the object, and $r$ is the distance between the Earth and the object. Since $G$ and $m_{\text{earth}}$ are always the same on earth, we often simplify the equation as follows:

$$F_g=9.81\cdot\frac{m_{\text{object}}}{r^2}$$

The only issue with our formula is that we don't have any direction for our gravity. In normal physics we just assume that it is straight down (if we're getting technical, $9.81$ is a vector quantity that gives us our direction). We can't make this assumption inside of our sphere. To find the direction, we can multiply our gravity by the normalized location of our object (a vector with a length of $1$ pointing directly at our object):

$$F_g=9.81\cdot\frac{m_{\text{object}}}{r^2}\cdot\hat{\mathbf s}$$

where $\hat{\mathbf s}$ is the normalized location vector.

Now that we have a formula to calculate the gravity, we can write a Python script. This script must be run every logic tic on every object that will be affected by gravity, like this:

Script:

import bge

radius = 20
g = 9.81

obj = bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner
loc = obj.worldPosition
len = loc.length

try:
    gravity = loc.normalized() * obj.mass * g / (radius - len) ** 2
except ZeroDivisionError:
    gravity = [0,0,0]

obj.applyForce(gravity)

This will find how far the object is from the origin, then push it away from the origin, using a linear interpolation to vary the force from 0 at the center, and 9.8 at the edge of the sphere (defined as 20).

Here is an basic example .blend file. You can move the sphere with A, S, D, W, Q, and E. It will start motionless in the middle, then become pulled faster and faster as it gets closer to the enclosing sphere. Tapping Spacebar will make the sphere jump towards the origin.


How to properly set up this PBR texture I'm working with this PBR metal texture. I have the images plugged into the proper slots, and everything seems fine except for the normal map.

If you look at the bottom of the image, when I connect the normal image, the preview goes black. It seems to still render in preview, but I'm not sure the normals are working. So first question is why?

Secondly you can see how the texture is repeating very small on the object. I tried adding a Mapping node between the color texture, but playing around with scale there (no matter if I select texture, point, whatever) didn't do anything. How can I get it to scale properly?

I am using 2.79, rendering with Cycles of course. Yes, the object is UV unwrapped.

The normal texture needs to go tough the Normal Map node. The texture data is normalised so the normal vector is between 0 and 1 (0.5 as mid value) for each channel. This needs to be recalculated to be in the range from -1 to 1 (0 as mid value). It will also convert the tangent space vector to world space.

If you need to scale the UV coordinates, the Mapper node should change the values from the UV Map node. UV coordinates are usually 2-dimensional where a texture always are within 0 - 1 range. If you go outside this range the texture gets repeated if the Texture node is set to Repeat.

But the simplest way is just to scale the UV coordinates in the UV Editor.
It does not matter if the islands are overlapping (unless they are used for baking) or exceeds the texture boundaries (if the texture is tiling). In fact, tiling textures are made to work this way.


How to add a material to a single face? Whenever I assign a material to the selected faces of a cube, it paints the entire cube. I've seen questions like this, and I've done everything they say to do in the comments, yet nothing seems to work.

First Enter editmode then choose the face you want ,and in the material
section press plus and under it press assign and the new material will be the applied only in the face selected.


How to make a water vortex I'm very new to Blender and I'm trying to make a water vortex like this.(may be not the easyest first project for a newbie)

I watched several tutorial on liquids particle etc but I'm not sure what is the best aproach.
What I tried  until now:

I made a particle system with a vortex force field. It looks good, but I'm not able to add the right material.

I played around with the fluid physics, the water looks good but if I add a vortex force field it does nothing.

I would be very grateful if somebody could point me in the right direction because I'm definitely stocked.

Not sure if if you are looking for a physically based animation or a realistic simulation, if not here is a way to fake it.

Create a simple curved mesh object with a single edge sequence shaped as de desired vortex section.

Add both a Screw and a Displace Modifier so it looks as illustrated. Adjust displacement texture as desired, and if necessary add a Subsurf before displacing for higher detail level.

Create a 2D bezier curve object centered on the vortex mesh, roughly the same size, so it flows upwards towards the wider part.

Add two shape keys ($Base$ and $Key 1$) and modify $Key 1$ so the vortex wiggles around. If you wish for the top to remain untilted make sure the top handle stays vertically aligned to the top vertex.

Animate the Value property for $Key 1$ so it goes from $0$ to $1$ and back to $0$ during your animation interval so it loops seamlessly.

Add a Curve modifier to the vortex mesh, pick the previously animated bezier.

Now just animate the rotation of the vortex mesh and tweak the curve shape keys to achieve the desired effect.


Weird behavior when moving or scaling or rotating default cube or any first object This just started today. Everything was working fine before. Reinstalled no change. Installed 2.83 beta. No change. Rebooted to Ubuntu no problem there. Any ideas? The material I link to below shows my problem.

https://youtu.be/pEctF8ogKJ4

Ok I know the problem. I had this before. Deselect evrything in the edit mode then go back to object mode. To deselect click to an empty place or press A 2 times fastly.

I don't know what is this problem about but you need to deselect everything in edit mode before going back to object mode.

After I updated my graphics card driver it is not a problem for me anymore.


How can I hide unused node sockets? Is there a way to hide output node sockets that have nothing plugged into them?

This would be really useful, for instance when I am using the light path (or any other input node) and I am only using one output and the other 9 are just wasting space.

Yes, this can be done by pressing ⎈ CtrlH:


Can i access Object ID's properties using keys (like in dictionary)? I am creating a new addon for Blender, and in that addon I need to access Object's properties like location, scale, etc. I know that I can access them through interface like: object.location, object.scale

It's good if I know what property I need in advance, but I don't know what property I will need to access, it can be location, material of the object, etc. And I need to access them like: object["location"], object["scale"]

I tried that way, but I can access only custom properties, not properties like location or scale. Is it possible to access Object's location or material using key?

Yes, using getattr: https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/functions.html#getattr

location = getattr(object, "location")


How to make compare with Menus Here, I have to execute some part of coding through selecting options in Enum property.

Here is my code

class MAYA_OT_Regg(bpy.types.Operator):
 bl_idname = "maya.regging"
 bl_label = "Regging"
 bl_description = "Regging"

 def execute(self, ctx):
    return {'FINISHED'}

 def invoke(self, ctx, evt):
    return self.execute(ctx)

class MAYA_OT_Dynamic(bpy.types.Operator):
 bl_idname = "maya.dynamic"
 bl_label = "Dynamic"
 bl_description = "Dynamic"

 def execute(self, ctx):
    return {'FINISHED'}

 def invoke(self, ctx, evt):
    return self.execute(ctx)

class MENU_OT_SET(bpy.types.Menu):
 bl_label = "Menu Set"
 bl_description = "Menu set"
 def draw(self, ctx):
    ui = self.layout
    ui.operator("maya.regging")
    ui.operator("maya.dynamic")

class MAYA_OM_Panel_OP(bpy.types.Panel):
 bl_label       = "maya Tools"
 bl_space_type  = "VIEW_3D"
 bl_region_type = "TOOL_PROPS"

 def draw(self, ctx):
    ui = self.layout
    r = ui.row()
    r.menu("MENU_OT_SET", text="Menu set")
    # HERE I HAVE to COMPARE with that menu Regging and Dynamics

How to compare that Menus(Regging and Dynamics) If it's Dynamic,I have to execute some part of coding, else If it's Regging,I have to execute some part of coding.

I have searched out but none is matched with my code, so How It's possible?

If you need user-selectable options through drop-down menu, one alternative is to use EnumProperty. For example, I use this property type to give some options to user:

widget_shape = bpy.props.EnumProperty(
    name = 'Shape',
    items = [('sphere', 'Sphere', '8x4 edges'),
             ('ring', 'Ring', '24 vertices'),
             ('square', 'Square', ''),
             ('triangle', 'Triangle', ''),
             ('bidirection', 'Bidirection', ''),
             # etc.
             ])

... that will be drawn by Blender as a drop-down menu:

Upon operator invocation, I could select the function to execute based on user selection in self.widget_shape (not exactly how I did it, but basically the same):

if self.widget_shape == 'sphere':
    self.create_sphere_widget()
elif self.widget_shape == 'ring':
    self.create_ring_widget()
# etc.


Is there a way to make smooth interpolated motion with the graph editor? I do animating entirely manually, sometimes 1 frame by 1 frame. Then, I discovered the graph editor and thought it might possibly have some use, though I have yet to see how.

Suppose I make a basic animation of a cube moving in a diamond-like shape. Is there an easy way to use the graph editor to turn that diamond motion into circular motion so that the cube now looks like it is orbiting something? Because otherwise, even if you add extra frames manually, it will still look jagged, just a little bit less so.

Yes, you can do this with the graph editor:

If your goal is to exactly follow a particular path or route, then there are certainly better ways to go about it (such as using a follow path constraint, as mentioned by moonboots), but you can in fact make a perfect circle using the graph editor without any keyframes at all; using sine modifiers:

Here I've set a sine modifier on both the X and Y channels with Phase Offset on the X channel of $\frac{\pi}{2}$ (or 90°). The Amplitude and Phase Multiplier are only set in order to match the example from above.

The follow path constraint is easier to control when you are looking to.. well, follow a particular path (big surprise), but often you don't care too much about the exact path but more that each motion flows smoothly into the next. The graph editor gives you fine control over exactly how that happens.


Bevelled Edge Shading Running into some trouble creating a bevel to break up some hard edges on a model I'm working on. In particular, I'm running into issues anywhere that I have a hole cut in the model (windows, landing gear bays, etc).

For example, here's the opening for the forward landing gear bay without the bevel. Shading is nice and smooth.

Here's the same image showing the mesh. Ignore the red line, that's located inside the bay and not part of the topology I'm trying to work with.

Now, here's the same section beveled. The bevel is a single segment and 1 mm. As you can see, it completely screws up the shading at the corners. I can fix it with an Edge Split modifier, but that just creates another hard edge, so pretty much defeats the purpose of beveling it in the first place.

I have this problem everywhere there's detailing that cuts a hole into the surface of the model.

Well, I ended up putting an extra edge loop around outside the bevel. While that didn't ELIMINATE the shading, it minimized it enough so as to be no longer visible.


Unwanted glowing line where particles intersect with the particle emitter I am working on a Project and I got a problem with my particle system. I use planes to generate lots of foliage for my background. There is a reflection where the plane intesects with the Underground/emitter and i have no idea how i can remove it.

I was searching for a fix but i couldnt find one so far. Maybe i just couldnt find the right  term.

I added a picture of the scene and hope you can help me. Thank you

Just adding a plane under the ground to block the light from the hdri worked to fix it. But why did this happen in the first place? Light shouldnt be able to pass through intersecting objects.


Make Buildings rise from the ground I want to know how one can achieve a video like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJNJZX2sLlU - how can you make the buildings rise from the ground, put the map on the ground and create a rotation around the block like at the end of the video.

you could just put the building below the scene (ground) and animate them on the z-axis to go up. if you want the camera to go around the block smoothly change the origin of the camera. You can do this by getting an object out of view and the camera to make the block in the centre of rotation

shift select them both.

Then just rotate them on the z-axis by pressing "r" then "z". this will make them rotate around the block.

and now all you need to do is animate it!


How to have round edges when I subdivide with a subsurface modifier? In the image you can see sharp edges, this problem was originated because I subdivided (Key "W" then Subdivide) the selected faces with a subsurface modifier of 4 subdivisions.

How do I make these sharp edges convert into round edges like a "Normal" subsurface modifier? Or like the edges of a cylynder/sphere.

NOTE: I need a lot of polygons-vertices because I have a "displace modifier", maybe you can help me find a way for displace modifier (With not a lot of polygons) instead of resolving this one.

I have tried with:

Smooth modifier, result is good on another mesh but with an error too, but in this one isn't working as I expect.
Smooth tools. It's quite good for my displacement modifier but it doesn't resolve the sharp edges.

EDIT:

Doesn't work with Subdivide Smooth too.

EDIT2:

What I want is everything marked with the red circle (The sharp/hard edges) turn into soft edges like the surface of a cylinder.

The problem is that I requires subdivide and the subsurface modifier because of the displace modifier (I need a lot of polygons).

Thanks for the answer.

Remove unnecessary edges(follow this instruction) after that you could add your modifier


Is there any way to silence the reporting in the 'Info' window when deleting objects with a script? I'm working on an addon that adds or deletes objects. Sometimes this can be hundreds of objects. The problem is upon deleting 100 objects, the Info editor is filled with 100 lines of bpy.ops.object.delete() and the System Console is filled with 100 lines of "Info: Deleted 1 object(s)".

Is there any way to hide or silence this deletion?

if self.objects:
    for i in self.objects:
        ob = [self.scn.objects[i]]
        bpy.ops.object.delete({"selected_objects": ob})
        self.objects = []

Instead of using operator bpy.ops.object.delete(), you can try next code:

import bpy
object_to_delete = bpy.data.objects['object_name_to_delete']
bpy.data.objects.remove(object_to_delete, do_unlink=True)

In this case, you get no messages about the object's deleting.


Is there a way to change the color of the actual vertices? By default in edit mode, the vertices are black, which can be a pain if outlining a reference image when the image is black. Is there a way to change the color of the vertices, or better yet set them to invert colors?

To change the color of the vertices to a color of your choice, go to the top menu Edit > Preferences > Themes > 3D Viewport and change the color for Vertex.


DWG/DFX plans snapping and modeling I have been using 3ds max as my main program for archviz. Due to a change in workplace I no longer have access to a licence and have been looking for a free alternative and found blender.

My usual workflow in 3ds max was to import plans in either DWG/DFX format, I would then trace the walls using 2d snapping with splines and extrude the splines to create the walls.

Is this workflow possible in blender or would I have to use boxes and move the vertices in edit mode to fit the plans?

A variation of that should be possible, certainly.

DXF import was a bit sketchy last time I tried. You may need to export in DXF R14 format or something relatively old like that. FBX is more reliable.

You can certainly snap to vertices of the imported file. You'll probably add a dummy mesh (e.g. a plane), enter edit mode, then repeatedly press 'e' to extrude vertices along the background (imported) mesh/lines.

Alternatively you can just select vertices from the import mesh and extrude them. Might want to separate them from the original mesh to suit your workflow. Just press 'p' when you've selected a bunch of vertices that you want to turn into a new object.

Personally I prefer place walls as a single line along the wall centrelines and extrude vertically. Then you can adjust wall thickness easily using a Solidify modifier and you have fewer vertices to contend with, which makes cutting holes for doors and windows easier.


How can I make sure that simulated cloth doesn't go through other objects? I am trying to simulate a wedding dress animation.

So I put a solidify modifier on the dress, and I defined the dress as a cloth.

The lower part is free (pinning of the upper part).
I unchecked "Cloth collision" for the dress, but I added collision physics to it.
I also added collision physics to the character wearing the dress.

My problem is that the dress still goes through the character.

Why is that the case?

Here is how it looks:
- before animation:

after 4 frames of animation:

And finally, may you please see here the settings of the dress :

When I loaded these pictures, as you can see, I finally checked "cloth collision", which is different from what I said at the beginning of this topic.
It is because I took into account the PGmath's comment.

Here you can find the Blend file: it is already animated.

In order to keep the cloth from going through other objects you need to enable Cloth Collision.  Cloth collision allows other objects to influence the calculation of the cloth simulation.  (Adding the Collision physics type only allows other objects and particles to collide with the cloth, it does not influence the cloth simulation of the object on which it is enabled.)

When Cloth Collision is enabled, the cloth simulation will collide with all objects which have the Collision physics type enabled.  So in your case, you should enable Cloth Collision in the cloth sim settings and enable Collision physics on the character.

To get a decent looking simulation you will have to play around with the collision settings.  Here are a few key things to adjust:

Quality is basically the number of steps blender takes to simulate the cloth, higher quality = more steps = longer baking time = better looking simulation.  I rarely find the default quality of 2 to be decent, I often use between 3 and 5.
Distance is essentially the "thickness" of the cloth, the threshold of how far away from the cloth mesh a collision is registered.  This is important because, due to the geometric nature of a mesh, there will always be intersections between two colliding objects.  By increasing this you can move the collisions away from the actual geometry slightly, minimizing actual geometric intersections.
Friction is how "sticky" the cloth is, how much it resists being dragged against another surface.  If your cloth has too much friction it will stick to the character unnaturally as it deforms, too little friction and it will appear unrealistically silky.
Self Collision allows the cloth to collide with itself.  Enable this if the cloth mesh is intersecting and going through itself too much.  Self Collision has its own Quality and Distance values for better control.  This will drastically increase baking times too, so beware!


Inverted normals are barely visible in 2.8 version Is there any way to make inverted normals more visible like in 2.7 version.
I tried diferent 'Studio' setups and matcaps, they dont help much.
Surely i could check 'Backface culling' but I would prefer not to.

You could enable Face Orientation in the overlay pop-over.

After this you can edit the colors in the Preferences > Themes > 3d viewport > face orientation front / back

I use an invisible front color by setting alpha to 0 and the back color to red, slightly visible with alpha 0.2.


Is there a way to control Emission values using an empty's movement? I want to animate the brightness of an object using an empty's movement, or something like this. I don't see any ability to animate (directly) the shader attributes in the dope sheet / timeline, but I've seen other elements changed (UVMap Projector) using any object.

Is this possible?

I've searched Google and either couldn't figure out the right keywords, or couldn't find documentation on this.

Thank you for the help.

To animate emission with an empty movement you can use driver. To create it, click with right mouse button on numeric field of Strength property of the shader, choose Add Driver>Manually Create Later (Single). Then open Graph Editor, change mode from F-Curve to Drivers, click on one of frames on the curve you'll see, go to properties panel on the right (press N if closed), go to Driver, choose Scripted Expression as Type, in Expr window type var,for Object choose Empty, and for Type and Space choose X Location (or Y or Z, doesn't matter), World Space and done. Check gif below to see the process.


How do I use quick data entry to Scale to the 3D Cursor when using Normal Transformation Orientation? I have a model that is turned at a 45 degree angle. I want to scale the selected faces to the 3D Cursor's position with the Normal Transformation Orientation selected using the shortcut S, Z, 0 enter. Z is the axis shown for the Normal Transformation Orientation that I want to scale along, but the operation is of course scaling along the world's Z axis. How do I change the behavior in Blender so that I can use the keyboard shortcuts for the Normal Transformation Orientation?

BTW...I know that I can use the Scale Transformation Manipulator and drag it in the direction I want and enter 0 to accomplish this task, but my question is specifically about using the S, Axis, 0 method in conjunction with the 3D Cursor's position for Normal Transformation Orientation.

You simply have to press the axis key (X, Y or Z) twice when performing the transformation.

For example, pressing S, Z, Z, 0 will scale everything to 0 along the 'Z' normal axis if 'Normal' transformation type is selected in the 3D view header:

Basically whatever transformation is selected in the header will be switched to when pressing the axis key twice.


Anti-aliasing not working in Normal bake The Scene

So in the scene i have a high poly model and a flat plane to which i want to bake the normals on to. The engine i am using here is Blender Render

The Models

Just a flat plane (to which i want to bake the normals on) and the high poly sculpted mesh

The texture settings of the flat plane

Regular normal map settings here, checked the normal in the Influence and checked the normal map option in the Image sampling panel

The Anti-aliasing and Bake settings

Regular normal bake settings with the anti-aliasing turned on.

The Question

As you can see the normal map still has jagged edges despite anti-aliasing being enabled. I baked it multiple times to see if it worked, but still got nothing. They still bake out with jagged lines. I am at the ends of my wit here. How do i fix it ?

TexTools for Blender was recently released (free) which adds an anti-aliasing option for baking.

Internally the add-on just renders at 2x or 4x the size and then down-scales the final bake to the target resolution resulting in anti aliasing. The good thing is that this anti-aliasing works with all bake modes in TexTools.

You can find more information and download links from my website.


Blender cycles texture flickering issue when rendering unique simple solid I'm trying to create a simple animation in cycles where a simple glass tetrahedron is lit by a lamp spin on it's Z axis. The tetrahedron was generated using the "add mesh: extra objects" add on. It is made of glass by assigning it's transmission to 0.8
Everything looks as I want when I render single images, but when I render it as an animation the surface of the tetrahedron is flickering in a random way. Any ideas on what to do to fix this ?
These are the only things I have in my scene, all the rest has been purged. Also, this only seems to be a problem for a "glass" material, as this doesn't happen with a metal material

You have a double surface issue. you made the object in edit mode I presume. and 2 times!
ALWAYS check for face orientations:

quick fix:
on edit mode, select all with A then press M and merge distance.
and recalculate your normal after that:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/mesh/normals.html#recalculate


How does one extrude an edge relative to the vertex normals? I am trying to flare the opening to a relatively complex organic shaped piece of geo. I'd like to extrude out from the opening, and move the extruded edge relative to the vertex normals.

I've tried extruding then pressing escape, but this makes the new edge's vertex normals point towards the center of the object so when I use Alt-S, it doesn't quite move the verts relative to the connected face.

This is relatively hard to describe so maybe some images will help. Original mesh with normals:

Then I hit alt-E and press escape. The new vertex normals point away from the origin:

Here's a close up of a vertex whose normal is facing away from the center:

And finally here's what I get when I press alt-S (was hoping for it to move perpendicularly):

So is there a way to add a sort of flared opening where the flared angle is relative to the face it's built off?

Thanks,
Warren

select the boundary edge loop using Alt+Right click (if it doesn't select the entire loop, select everything with A and click on Select > Select Boundary Loop) :

expand the selection using Ctrl++ :

while the Pivot Point is set to anything else than Individual origins, use the Extrude Region (Vertex Normals) operator :

add to the selection the extruded face loop you don't need (the lower one) using Shift+Alt+Right Click and delete the selection :

select the edge loops between which you have a gap and bridge them (Ctrl+E) :

select everything and recalculate the normals with Ctrl+N :

You get something like this :


Modify Reflection Color in EEVEE I'm currently working on a scene with screen space reflections (using light probes) in EEVEE. I would love to change the color of the reflection only (specifically to black&white but ideally with more room to modify it).
So for example, a red cube would appear black&white in a reflecting surface.
Is this possible? It seems like a pretty easy task but all my attempted solutions so far have failed.

I tried using the light path node on the cube's shader but most attributes don't work in EEVEE (eg IsReflectionRay).
I tried to convert the glossy shader of the mirror to RGB and set it's saturation to zero but it removes all the reflections altogether (it says this in the documentation too).

Could anybody help me with this? Thanks!

"Is Reflection Ray" works for Eevee (one of the few that works from "Light Path").

If some other settings were to be checked:


Why isn't it filling in when I extrude? I have a mesh plane, but it won't extrude correctly. I started Blender today, so I am completely new. Here are the pictures:enter image description here

Tricks to get this to work:

Apply object scale then extrude.

Select vertices/edges around the edge of the plane/circle and extrude.

Change the edit mode select mode to "edges" instead of faces or vertices and select the edges then extrude.

Hope these tips answer your question.


How to prevent modifiers from transferring onto separated faces? When you separate faces into an object of its own, it inherits the modifiers. How do I just detach my faces without those modifiers?
Thanks in advance.

You can't, this is how the separate operation works.

The preinstalled Modifier Tools add-on may make handling modifier stacks easier.


Why the cloth penetrates collision object? I made a person and set cloth simulation to cloth. At first, simulation worked well, but after set running animation, it became not so good. As you can see, the cloth penetrates body object that I set collision. So please tell me how can I fix it.

blender ver:2.79b

P.S.Thank you very much for comment.
I added some images.
The second one of three added pictures is cloth object and third one is collision object.

Since there isn't a .blend file, it's going to be challenging for us to properly diagnose your solution, since we won't be able to reproduce your setup.

That being said, I can see one thing that might help. The "quality" counter that you show in your screenshots is at 1. When I simulate cloth, I often increase the quality steps. For example, in Blender 2.82a, if I make a plane and apply the cloth modifier, I usually use these quality steps:

I increased the Cloth -> Quality Steps from the default value of 5 to 10. Furthermore, I increased the Collisions -> Quality from the default value of 2 to 5, and turned on Collisions -> Self-Collisions. Since your screenshots show quality values of 1, you might want to significantly increase that number. I would recommend looking at some Blender 2.7x videos that use cloth, and pay close attention to the quality steps value that they use. For example, this video seems to use values of 5 for the quality steps.

As an aside, consider using Blender 2.8. The more recent versions of Blender have significant improvements to the cloth simulator. For example, consider this blog post or the release notes Wiki, which for example, say that 2.83 has improvements with cloth collisions.


2.8 object not showing in preview and render Hello everyone just testing out 2.8 V. I have stumbled with the tipical nooby thingy "object not showing in render and preview", any advice and help will be appreciated.
image attached if anything else is needed please let me know.
original file was a 2.79 version file. i this helps.

thnx a lot!

I had changed instancing from Verts to None and it showed up again in preview and render.


layer keyboard shortcut 2.83 Blender 2.83.2
Collections replaced Layers. Yet, Layers are still there (presumably for backwards compatibility).
It seems Layers and Collections are related, e.g. Collection 1 = Layer 1, etc.
Problem 1: Whenever one press a number key by accident, all objects in Collections are unchecked (hidden).
Only objects in Layer  is displayed.
Problem 2: Blender does not remember what items in Collections were checked before.
To display required items again, one must manually open each Collection and recheck items as needed. A tedious task, especially if Collections are nested.
Problem 3: Collections are far superior to Layers. But there seems to be no way to disable the Layers system to prevent the issues above.
Problem 4: Layer buttons does not seem to be defined in the Keymap, as if they are hard coded. If they can be shown in the Keymap, one should at least be able to prevent accidental number key presses by disabling the Layer shortcut keys.
If anyone knows of a way to disable the old Layers system, or how to disable the keyboard shortcut keys for Layers, I would love to hear about it!

Update: I installed Blender 2.83.3 when it was released. Sadly, the Layers panel was still there.
I had a number of add-ons installed which i did not need anymore, and disabled them all. To my surprise, the Layers panel disappeared in the process.
Trying to determine which one was causing the Layers panel to appear, I re-enabled all the add-ons. It did not re-appear. I'm stumped.
Anyway, I think all the major issues I raised in this thread has been resolved.

After some experimentation, I found that the number keys correspond with the order of the collections (from top to bottom). By dragging your most-used collections to the top of the stack, it is easy to enable/disable a collection by pressing a number key.
Sadly, I can't show a picture of the other problem here. Basically: The old Layers grid is ALSO showing on my screen, taking up space, cluttering things up. I found no way to disable/remove it. I eventually uninstalled Blender 2.83.2 and rolled back to previous versions. All of them had the same problem until I got to 2.82a, where the Layers grid is not shown.
It's not all bad. I found that 2.82a is rock solid stable, unlike the 2.83 series, which crashes a lot. I'll stick with 2.82a for now.


I tried to baked my high poly sculpt onto my low poly retopo, but it didn't work? what happened? Okay so I watched a tutorial on how to do the baking and stuff and got this result:

The uv editor shows a janky version of my high poly sculpt but nothing else has changed, my low poly mesh looks exactly the same as it did before no matter what viewmode i go into. what happened and why isn't it working?

in bake/ selected to active/ play with extrusion and Max ray distance. you can turn render sampling down to do fast test


Baked smoke shakes during render - Eevee See render here
Smoke simulation is shaking / moving in Eevee render.
Blender 2.90.1

The "shaking" is due to Adaptive Domain, as the domain adjusts to the size of the simulation it stretches and "moves" the smoke simulation. This is a known old issue as can be seen here as well.


Missing bone rotation when exporting FBX animation to Unity I've been trying to fix an issue i've been having when exporting a viewport animation to unity,
basically the knife is parented to two bones that controll it, one of the bones controls the knife and the hand that is parented to the knife, the other one only controls the knife, so I use that one for rotation only but when I export it to unity as an FBX the animations from the rotating bone are missing

as you can see when it gets exported to unity the knife doesn't rotate and stays in it's original position

I don't know which procedure you followed to export from Rigify to Unity, but if you used some automatic functions, it's possible that the new bone has to be named starting with the DEF- suffix, and has to stay in the bone layer n. 29 (counting from 00 to 31, as Blender internally does), same as all deforming Rigify bones.


Blender Internal Bake Wireframe I am trying to bake a texture for a mesh, a simple diffuse material with the wireframe on top of it. I'm trying to get the effect you can see here: https://youtu.be/7dK1VVtja5c?t=9s.

I need to bake the entire texture for use in Unity. I tried Cycles+Freestyle, it works well, but Freestyle can't be baked as far as I know. I tried the wireframe modifier, but that means having a much more complex mesh, if the surface is flat I want a flat mesh there.

So I came back to Blender Internal, since I don't need any fancy light effect anyway. The wireframe material works great, but I couldn't find a way to bake it on top of the diffuse material...

Any idea?

You just can go into the UV editor and choose Export UV layout. This is a good texture for wireframe Objects. Just combine it with your diffuse map (Gimp) and you have your wireframe Texture.


I'm having trouble finding the fluid Viscosity bar in Blender 2.83 I was watching a fluid tutorial, but it was using blender 2.8 while mine is 2.83 and I am having a trouble finding the Viscosity bar. Can you help me solve this problem?

It was renamed as Diffusion, enable it (check your 2nd picture)
You can consult official Blender Documentation here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/fluid/type/domain/liquid/diffusion.html


texture is facing the wrong side of the mesh I am making a flower and when I unwrapped the petal the texture was on the wrong side. I tried rotating the mesh and flipping the normal's but nothing seems to work.

Here is the link for the blend and the textures

It seems to me the texture is facing the camera...

One issue I did find is that you are mixing a transparent shader using an alpha channel, but your image has no such thing (jpeg images do not support alpha chanels), so that section of your node setup has no effect.

The backside of the petal is indeed colorless, but that is the effect of the hue saturation node affecting the traslucency (as @gandalf3 pointed out).

If you want to change the texture to the back of the object, add a Geometry node and use the backfacing information to control on which side the texture gets mapped...

EDIT
(given that the question is so vague, the shared file linked to the different images, and the project layout open to so much interpretation...)

Is the error maybe that the UV mapping is upside down?

In the UV/Image_Editor window you can select the UV mapping and rotate it manually using the R key.

To rotate 180 degrees press R180

To flip the UV mapping press S-
1


Blender 2.8 manual vertex coordinate editing In blender 2.79 vertex coordinates were able to be edited directly in the window.
In 2.80 this functionality appears to be absent, is there any way to bring this functionality back?

feel quite dumb with this one, the Sidebar is less visible and toggled off by default (for my install at least). The data can be found by toggling it on (pressing N).


How can I calculate a 28.5 mm hole for a hyperboloid center opening when it's Z=0 How can I calculate a 28.5 mm hole for a hyperboloid center opening when it's Z is equal to 0
The arrows point to where z=0 and the 28.5mm hole should be.  (I know I could scale the object but I need to use the formula to animate other values)
I'm using animation nodes and python to animate it see attached file

import bpy
import math

def parametricfunc(uval_a, uval_b, zaxis_a, zaxis_b, num_x, num_y):

    # mesh arrays
    verts = []
    faces = []

    # mesh variables
    #num_x = 40
    #num_y = 40

    pi = math.pi
    PHI = (1+math.sqrt(5))/2 #1.61803398874989
    phi = (1+math.sqrt(5))/2-1 #0.61803398874989
    rmse_PHI = PHI * math.sqrt(0.5) # 0.707*PHI =1.144
    rmse_phi = phi * math.sqrt(0.5) # 0.707*phi
    golden_angle_rad = pi*(3-math.sqrt(5)) #2.39996322972865
    golden_angle_deg_sm = math.degrees(golden_angle_rad)  # 137.507764050038
    golden_angle_deg_bg = 360-golden_angle_deg_sm #222.492235949962

    #print("type ux=%s" % (type(frame)))

    # fill verts array
    for i in range (0, num_x):
        for j in range(0,num_y):
            # nomalize range

            u = 8*(i/num_x-1/2)
            v = 2*math.pi*(j/(num_y-1)-1/2)

            x = 2*math.sqrt(1+u*u)*math.cos(v)*(uval_a/12)
            y = 2*math.sqrt(1+u*u)*math.sin(v)*(uval_a/12)
            z = uval_b*(u)

            vert = (x,y,z)
            verts.append(vert)

    #print("type verts=%s" % (type(vert)))

    # fill faces array
    count = 0
    for i in range (0, num_y *(num_x-1)):
        if count < num_y-1:
            A = i
            B = i+1
            C = (i+num_y)+1
            D = (i+num_y)
            face = (A,B,C,D)
            faces.append(face)
            count = count + 1
        else:
            count = 0

        edges = AN.algorithms.mesh_generation.grid.quadEdges(num_x, num_y)
        polys = AN.algorithms.mesh_generation.grid.quadPolygons(num_x, num_y)
    return x, y, z, verts, A, B, C, D, faces, edges, polys

x, y, z, verts, A, B, C, D, faces, edges, polys  = parametricfunc(uval_a, uval_b, zaxis_a, zaxis_b, num_x, num_y)

If you want to input the radius here:

You can change your code by:
for i in range (0, num_x):
    for j in range(0,num_y):
        # nomalize range

        u = 8*(i/num_x-1/2)
        v = 2*math.pi*(j/(num_y-1)-1/2)

        x = math.sqrt(1+u*u)*math.cos(v)*uval_a/2
        y = math.sqrt(1+u*u)*math.sin(v)*uval_a/2
        z = uval_b*u

        vert = (x,y,z)
        verts.append(vert)

As explained here
The base equation is:
$$
\frac{x^2}{a^2} - \frac{y^2}{b^2} = 1
$$
Which gives:
$$
y = \pm \frac{b}{a} \sqrt{x^2 - a^2}
$$
When a and b are defined by:


Want to create multiple actions for my character this is Alfred and I am currently making actions for my character on Blender.

I have already made one action and still want to make more

And want to ask how to continue to make other actions for the same character and armature? Cuz I wish to import it to unity and want the file size be minimized, thx a lot for your reading and help!

You are currently workin in the dope sheet editor. To be able to work with multiple animations, you'll have to switch to the action editor.

to

Now create an animation by clicking the 'new' button.

When your first action is finished, don't forget to click the 'F' button next to your action name to save a 'fake-copy' so your animation doesn't get lost, because it is not the active action, when you reload/re-open your file.


How to figure out kind of link and seperate / make single? I have an old blend model which is obviously made of some base parts which are used multiple times. The used parts seem to be some kind of linked objects but i can't figure out which.

Why do i want to find out? I want to remove the bottom (green) parts here

but when i do, it removes all parts in the scene

I would like to remove this link and make all local/single.

Also tried the  U > Unlink Object+Data attempt - dosen't get better. Also exported as obj file and reimported, but links persist.

Perhaps the curved arrow icon (first image red circle) could be a hint what kind of link this is (and how to unlink).

It seems to be that you don't use the object data, for this keyboard shortcut to be useful. Then using group duplication use function Make Duplicates Real instead (Shift+Ctrl+A)


How to add hollows on the surface of mesh and don't make it too complicated for future modelling I am beginner in Blender, so I need your advice. I want to add some "hollows" on the surface of my mesh to imitate latches and other details. The only way I know how to do this at the moment - enlarge my mesh and extrude the parts I need. But if I go this way, the model will be to complicated for future modelling.

As you can see - there are a lot of latches, and hollowings on the top of robo body. Which is the best way to imitate them on my mesh?

Composition.  One might think a sphere/cylinder needs more vertices than a cube. If you place a sphere next to a cube and both are children of an empty then each can have different numbers of vertices mininal to their shape. They might not share any vertices at all.  The location closeness can make them seem as single connected mesh even though they are disconnected.
Consider searching Blender Parent Empty at some well known video website.
See videos on Blender armatures if rotation is necessary.
Single Mesh Example in edit mode.  The sphere vertices have not effect on the cube vertices.

The above can be a single mesh.  Yet the composed meshed share no vertices.
I see textures in your image above.  For low levels of detail you can replace vertices with textures.  All the metal texture and decal paint appearing in your image are probably usefully and sanely done with Blender textures.  You can use a texture to imitate a protusion or indentation especially if that area will not be seen close up.
Another search here will probably locate more questions on the same topic.


How to correctly export VDB files from Blender smoke or cloud generator? Hi, I´m trying to export a simple Cloud generator simulation to VDB. I know it´s a point density texture, I just want to know if its possible or not.
The way I would normally do this on Modo is to create a particle simulation, cache it and then export it as VDB.
How do I correctly export a .VDB simulation, say to Houdini or Modo?
Thanks.

In Blender 2.81 the "VOLUME" object data was introduced in Blender. The way it works is: SHIFT+A > Add a volume object, and go to the properties of the volume, and target a vdb sequence by selecting all of its files in the explorer window, then ACCEPT.
You can playback the result in the timeline, which will "cache" to view it on GRID voxels. You can setup a principled volume shader to also tweak temperature and combustion plus other attributes you sent from your original vdb export software into Blender.
2.79 which is the version this question was asked, DID NOT had any vdb addons ready for the public at the time. All though Tangent Animation Studios did implement their first vdb reader as a custom in-house solution to develop the Netflix movie NEXT GEN back in 2.78.


Blender 2.8: I can't enter into Fly mode to move the camera I have a spanish keyboard, so I can't insert the "shift + grave accent" key combination. My keyboard can't insert the "grave accent" character itself.

(With the default key bindings) If you hold grave/backtick, it brings up the pie menu for various views. However, if you just tap it, it should bring you into fly mode.


Why is blender treating vertices differently when applying subdivision surface modifier? I applied subdivision surface modifier to my model and afterwards, I found some annoying burrs on the surface. Taking a closer look revealed that these burrs are caused by vertices - the surface is kind of snapped to these vertices instead of going smoothly.

I have pretty just begun learning Blender so can neither explain or solve this problem. Please help.

P.S. Most vertices have surface goes smoothly under them.

To keep it simple:

If the faces normals are in the same orientation, they can be smoothly interpolated at the subdivision: their mean stays positive.

If they are not, their mean becomes null and so their is no interpolation possible and their mean (so the orientation) is null.

This is like to say the function is not derivable at the face junction.

So the junction stays a singularity and stays angular.


Recursively traversing a tree in a collection in Python I have 100 collections and they form a complex tree structure.
I would like to enable the Holdout and Indirect Only options for the 50 specified collections from the entire collection.
In order to properly handle the tree of collections, I can predict the maximum depth and write for loops in layers, but I found a hint that the recursive function is excellent at solving this type of problem.
However, recursion was difficult for me, so I failed to write my own code.
How can I write a recursion that digs through a collection of tree structures to the end and then returns back?

If the maximum depth of the tree cannot be accurately predicted, then you cannot use recursive way or you might encounter stack overflow unless you are able and willing to deal with system call stack.
You can, however, use a custom stack (list in python) record the data you need to process. And pop them out to examine, while append new task you found in that loop.
condition = lambda collect: "foobar" in collect.name
dosomething = lambda collect: None

dealing_stack = []

# Blender store all collection in `list` not a tree (or a tree-liked list?)
for collect in bpy.data.collections:
    if condition(collect) and collect not in dealing_stack:
        dealing_stack.append(collect)

# record processed object, not sure if id won't change in dealthis
processed_list = []

while dealing_stack:
    dealthis = dealing_stack.pop()
    try:
        dosomething(dealthis)
    except:
        raise
    finally:
        processed_list.append(dealthis)
        dealing_stack.extend(
            [
                obj
                for obj in dealthis.children
                if obj not in processed_list
            ]
        )

While the recursive method indeed been more flexible in dealing with tree like structure:
condition = lambda collect: "foobar" in collect.name
dosomething = lambda collect: None

def deal_these_collection(collections, condition, callback=[]):
    if not collections:
        return

    for subcollect in collections:
        is_specified = condition(subcollect)
        if isinstance(subcollect, list):
            deal_these_collection(
                collections = subcollect,
                condition = lambda:True if is_specified else condition,
                callback
            )
        elif is_specified:
            for call in callback:
                if callable(call):
                    call(subcollect)
        else:
            # not target
            pass

deal_these_collection(bpy.data.collections, condition, [dosomething])

Please be aware of stack overflow problem when using recursion in large and deep tree, you must know  your algorithm very well and prepare some stack memorization technique to prevent the problem and make your program more efficient.

Personal opinion
If a program can be written in iterative method, then use iterative unless using recursive will "Strongly" enhance the readability of code. When code is in Python, the readability should be consider first. Most of the recursive method will let other confuse what's going on in code, and also making it hard to debug.
So unless the problem you deal is commonly dealt in recursive way, and you can list up bunch of merit to use it. Just use iterative way. Writing iterative method in Python should be easy due to the python duck-type list and a lot of handy expression.


Where have RNA datablocks gone since 2.78b? Between Blender 2.78a and 2.78b, the RNA datablocks have disappeared from the Outliner (or been moved somewhere I don't know), and they didn't come back since then.
What's the reason for that ?
There's no precision about it in the release notes.

I believe they were removed from the outliner display to improve the drawing speed.

I have been using the Development tools API navigator to get access to the RNA information.


How does 'local with parent' space work? My question touches the mathematical side of Blender more than the modelling one.

I am having a problem understanding how the 'local with parent' space in bone constraints works. I have looked through all the forums I have found, read all the manuals, and unfortunately I have not found a full answer.
Also, the tooltip in Blender does not help.

I will try to explain the problem with some images that I hope will be helpful.
Do not be afraid of the length of the post: it mostly consists of pictures. ;)

Let's assume we have a bone:

As you can see, this bone is in edit mode, and we see its local coordinate system.
Below is the same bone in pose mode:

(By the way, you can see that the coordinate systems are different. They are both right-handed, but the pose mode is rotated so that it has Y axis as up, which is different from the rest of Blender's modes which use Z axis as up. If someone can explain why, I would be grateful :-) )

Now, let us apply the 'Limit location constraint' to the bone with default settings and 'Local with Parent' space.
The bone did not move. Now in pose mode set the Z coordinate of the bone to 1.0.

The bone changed its position not toward its Z axis but toward its Y axis.

This is so far understandable as the bone moved toward its armature Z axis.

But now we add another bone to it and unselect its 'Connected' option in edit mode so that the child bone is not attached to its parent.

In edit mode it will look like this:

And in pose mode we have something like this:

And now apply exactly the same constraint to the second bone: 'Limit location' with default settings and 'Local with parent' pose space.

What we see is something like this:

And here finally is the core of my question.
Why does it behave like this?
Why did the second bone move?
Its translations are (0, 0, 0) in pose mode and the same in edit mode.
If I set its Z = 1 in pose mode it will move UP like the first bone, so that is quite logical.

If someone could help me with understanding the problem I would be very grateful.
The pictures are taken from Blender 2.68a, but I also checked with 2.70a and ancient 2.49b, and it works exactly the same with all three.

If I have been at all unclear or have posted too little data, just let me know.

Marcin

It looks like the second bone has a hidden initial transform of 1.0 in the y direction relative to the origin of the armature. So, it is already at 1.0y, and it movies 1.0z with its parent. Those hidden initial transforms are tricky.

EDIT: Oops, in armatures "Local with Parent" uses its position in edit mode rather than a hidden transform like in object mode.


Crash when I start Blender 2.83 on Windows 7 Pro I've just installed Blender 64Bits v2.83 (Os W7 Pro-64b) and when I try to launch it, I have a stealth window (kind for DOS command) which opens and closes immediately, and the program doesn't not open :-(!
Can you help me to solve this problem?
thank you in advance,
Best Regards,
G.

Something similar happened to me with  on a Win 8.1 laptop, but I was also getting an error message related to a sound setting. Strangely, I made it work by upgrading my graphics card driver to the latest version, so you can try that. If not, try to see if Win 7 is still supported. Hope this helps! Stay safe.


Is it possible with Python to code G key to move channels up and down in the Dopesheet editor? Just like we are able to translate most elements in Blender, it would be really nice to be able to do it there. Is it possible?

Yes, the default keys are ⇞ Page up and ⇟ Page down, the setting can be found in keyboard input under Animation Channels.

The python path is bpy.context.window_manager.keyconfigs.active.keymaps['Animation Channels'].keymap_items['anim.channels_move'] with the property type being the key used, properties.direction is the direction the selected item is moved. You will want to loop through the keymap_items as you will find four keymap_items['anim.channels_move'] entries, up one line, down one line, to the top and to the bottom.

You should look at adding keymaps to an addon to make the changes properly.


Script to change Text Editor font display so Symbol Fonts and Extended Characters can be referenced As asked and answered in a previous question,  Blender 2.6 handling of extended characters in font sets is bit awkward, aside from specific special characters

The workaround solution is copy pasting ALT### from other apps into the redo panel when editing text objects or copy pasting from other apps into text editor then using text to 3D Object.

Blender 2.4 had a character panel and 2.4 reference documentation mentions making fonts as well, where 2.6 reference omits these options.

So essentially, is there a script way to change/toggle the text editor itself to use fonts other than the default so that symbol fonts can be shown in the text editor in the process of modelling. This, as opposed to using several text objects with the font applied that sadly needs many copy/paste translation to get the full font character map set displayed.

You can enable International Fonts in CtrlAltU> User preferences > System to display special characters:


Why is extrude just moving face instead of expanding it? I have a model like this, planes, surrounded by cubes/

I want to extrude all the faces up to give it a little extra thickness before exporting to Zbrush like this

but when I make the extrusion, when I flip it back over, all of the faces on the top have just been moved, not extruded, which is not what I want. The cubes all extrude down, but the planes do not.

Any idea why it is doing this? Any idea how I can make it not do that?

I found this answer to a related post How to extrude and leave the original in place?
Select the Face, Shift+D (duplicate), cancel (Esc), extrude (E)
then select everything and do a Merge by Distance in order to remove the duplicated verts.


Using partial normal maps for character wrinkles I can't seem to find any solid way to do this online.  I'm trying to have wrinkles on skin during animation.  Baking a static normal map on mesh will not do the job because I only want certain areas to have it and I only want it during animation.

Perfect example is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aRPr7ftUgg

Thanks for your help.

You can animate shader values like any other property in Blender.  Just right click and insert a keyframe.  Or, for better control, add a driver based on an animated control.


Show cone for spotlight is not showing up after the scene is rendered The first image is the scene in the render it shows the spotlight with cone, but i render the same scene the cone for the spotlight is not showing up. Don't know why!

P.S.(I removed the building at the bottom from rendered image)

"Show cone" is just a viewport helper.

Guess you meant a light in volume, look at  Volumetric Spot Light with Cycles

For eevee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daCTRzzmpyk


How to enable external rendering engine? I've been using Blender for about a year now, and have never been successful at enabling any external rendering add-on. I end up with the message below whenever I attempt to do so. Do I need to the have actual, separate rendering engine installed before enabling the add-on?

Yes, all external renderers are separate applications to Blender. The addons are simply helper scripts to pass data back and forth between Blender and the app. You definitely need to have the renderer application installed on your computer to get it to work.


Can't fit plane to nurbs path to create a race track I'm new here and I'm making a racing track for Assetto Corsa.
I don't know what's exactly happening, but something doesn't let me to apply a Curve modifier to a plane.
I'll explain myself: to make the track, first I added a Nurbs Path (Add > Curve > Path) and closed it by pressing Ctrl + F.
Here's the problem: I add a plane (to make the road), then I add a modifier of array to it to make it long as the path is, this modifier works ok, but when I add the next modifier (curve) and select the nurbs path on the object selector the plane disappears and I don't know why. Please someone help me, it's very important for me.
I leave a screenshot as well as the .blend file. If you need something else just comment; I'll be watching this question and replying very fast.

Thanks in advance! Hope someone can help me.

.blend file:

Make the curve and plane have the same origin point. Apply transformations (Ctrl+A-->Rotation & Scale) in Object Mode to both objects. Subdivide the plane with loopcuts in Edit Mode (Ctrl+R). Give the plane the Curve Modifier and set the Path as a target. Choose the right deformation axis. Then go to the Curve header and check the Stretch and Bound Clamps checkboxes in a Shape panel.

To make te plane more detailed along a curve subdivide the plane with W-->Subdivise or add more edgeloops at the start.

EDIT: Deleted unnecessary points of your curve path and it works fine. Remember to use apply modifier while in edit mode option. It's very helpful in this case.

Here's the .blend:


Get played action name I need to get current playing action name in python. something like .getActionFrame() but with Name instead of Frame
Does it exists? If not, can someone tell me how to get current played action name?

  if Arma.getActionFrame(3) >= 20 and Arma.getActionFrame(3) <= 28 and Arma.getActionName(3) == "Action1"

As you wished, you got it. You can use it exactly as you wrote it:

print(Arma.getActionName(3))
/// Action1

Here is the API.

Here is the commit (in August 2015 by Mateo de Mayo (@mateosss)).


Material applied to vertecies not changing color As shown in the pictures below the green material I changed to this blueish color, doesn't change in solid mode but it does in material preview and render preview mode. Did some reading regarding the issue but couldn't find anything I could fix it with.
Still bit of a newb in Blender and 3D, I do not understand many concepts but I hope someone can give me some pointers. Any tips and help is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance guys!

Colors in Solid Mode and real colors visible in Material/Render preview are independent.


How to improve Cycles Render times on a model Space Craft? I am using Cycles Render to light and animate my model. I'm using a single light source (to represent the Sun) the model just rotates and moves towards the camera.

I know rendering is not fast but I am not looking for photorealistic results just something similar to the photo below. Preview renders are very fast and the quality appears to be acceptable, I would like to know how I can tweak a final render to push frames out to a similar speed as the preview renders (with little noise).

Currently, final renders are taking on average 6-8 minutes per frame, this isn't exactly terrible but I would like them to render as fast as previews which take around 30-40 seconds. I am using GPU Compute to render and my system is as follows:

Intel i7 4 core 6700K - 32gb Corsair Ram - Nvidia GTX 1060 6gb GPU - SSD for OS and SSD for programs - Windows 10 Pro -

Any advice would be great!

When using the GPU, blender actually renders fast with larger tile size:

There is an addon called auto tile size that will configure this for you. (It can be found in File > User Pref > Add-ons > Auto Tile Size ). If you would rather tweak it manually you can find the tile size in the performance section in the render tab.

Another thing you can do is turn down the bounces and turn off caustics. (These are found in the light path section in the render tab). I would turn down light bounces a lot especially because there is only one light source.

Happy Rendering!

Sources: BlenderGuru


str_L ... I broke something I'm not sure what I pressed but I botched something. I was rigging my first character with Blenrig 5 by the tutorial on the Blender Cloud and this happened. I tried to fix it by loading the factory settings, uninstalling and reinstalling Blenrig 5 from the master zip file. I loaded Blender's Vincent from the public file and it still does this when I grab the red cube controllers, so I'm pretty sure I hit a check box in my interface and it's something in my configuration (blenrig 5 reproportion layer 32). I can't find it so I'm using Patrick as my profile picture for now.

with the Blenrig 5 armature selected, in the properties pane with the data tab selected(bottom right in factory settings), there is actually a "reproportion mode" button. If this button is not selected, the problem I had above will occur.


Cycles modifier without cutting off The animation in the picture has a cycles modifier that ends after 85 frames, but at the end the curve goes back to the starting position. How or is there a way to make it not go back to it's starting position, or do I have to add an extra keyframe that makes it stay there at the end?

In addition to the cycles that restricts the frame range ends at 85, add another modifier Limits and set Max X to 85 or 84.


Pixelated/Blocky Effect in Smoke Render in Blender 2.82a? Here is my rendered output of a small sample to demonstrate the issue I'm having: https://gfycat.com/obedientkindlyguernseycow
When I look at any of this in Blender's rendered view, I don't see the blocky artifacts in the smoke that you see here. So I'm not sure how to fix this in my renders. Has anyone encountered this before? Viewport render is at 256 and the Render setting is 1024.
The domain was baked with 1024 Resolution Divisions with 12 max timesteps and 15 samplng substeps for the emitters.
I've also noticed that the effect is more pronounced in the animation output vs in my still renders. But I thought that each uses the same settings?

TL;DR,
Use png, exr, jpeg with high quality... image format to save as sequence and encode them in other program to video. eg. Adobe Premiere (Media Encoder), DaVinci Resolve

Depend on your video encoder, keep in mind that most of the video format are lossy-compressed by default, which means some data are actually loss in the video from the source.
And most of the encoding algorithm assume that one frame should be similar to next frame, to reduce the space requisition for similar color. So if your explosion make "fast and high dynamic color change". Your video will perform a low resolution, or blur, chunk image sequence, if your video bit-rate is set as a relatively low value.
You can set your H.264 render parameter to lossless to suppress that mosaic effect:

Or you can use AVI Raw format to save a BMP-sequence-like video format.


How can I create a hollow sphere with regularly spaced holes? My latest attempt has involved a hexagon shape repeated with array modifiers.

I then tried wrapping this over a sphere with the shrinkwrap modifier, but that didn't seem to work so well.

I couldn't get any better results by playing with the modifier offset or moving the two objects around.

Basically, I want to model something like this, with smaller holes:

Instead of the shrinkwrap, there's an older but more precise tool to turn verts into a sphere.

Put the 3D-Cursor where the center of your sphere whould be
Select all verts
Hit Space, type 'to sphere' or press AltShiftS, select that tool and hit 1, Return to make it completely spherical. Most subsurfed spheres aren't really precise, so this tool changes that.

Here's my approach to this:

Making the cookie cutter

Create a mesh that has faces where you want the holes to be (I).
Parent a Cylinder to the Sphere and enable Duplifaces for the sphere (II)
Scale the Cylinder to the desired width
Select the sphere and hit CtrlShiftA to make the duplis real.
Select all Duplis and Shift-Select the middle one, then hit CtrlJ to join them into one single mesh

Making the sphere

Make a sphere to your liking. I used an Icosphere with applied subsurf modifier and 'To Sphere. While in Editmode I gave it depth by duplicating it, scling it in and flipping the normals, so the boolean modifier will be happy.
Put the Cylinder object right where your sphere is and scale it so the cylinders intersect with both inner and outer surface of the sphere. Save your file.
Give the sphere a boolean modifier, set it to Difference and put the cylinder mesh in the Object field to perform the task.
Hit Apply.
Delete, hide or move the Cylinder mesh
Give your sphere an Edge Split modifier and set the shading to smooth.

The advantage is that it works with irregular shapes too.
Try this to get close to the example image
(Bevelling like Mark did is much faster. Do it like he suggested and skip to the bucky ball.)
Start with a level one icosphere

Subdivide it twice

Select one corner vert and use Select (or ShiftG) >> Select Similar >> Amount of Adjacent Faces

Dissolve the verts with X >> Dissolve Vertices.

Enter Face Select Mode.
Select one pentagon and this time use ShiftG> Select Similar >> Polygon Sides.
Invert the selection with CtrlI

Get rid of the excess faces with X >> Limited Dissolve

Select everything and hit the Smooth vertex button a few times. (This is the point to which you could jump if you followed Marks Tutorial. My approach is pre-vertex beveling)
In vertex select mode, subdivide two times. This extra topology is useful to get a round sphere.

Inset individual faces (II)
Delete the big faces with the help of ShiftG> select similar.

Subdivide again. Select everything and use AltShiftS> To Sphere with factor of 1.0

Extrude it four times and scale inwards each time.

Give it a subsurf modifier and enjoy the result.


Remove black lines rendered using Cycles Why are these black lines appearing in the render when I'm using Cycles? How can I remove them? Thanks!

Update: the object is not using textures and the problem persists. This screenshot shows the mesh.

How I created the model: I selected a face from the stones model, I separated the face with "p" -> Selection, then I extruded it, I removed the old texture assignation, however a new object like a box is clear, so it seems there's a "link" with old parameters taken from the separation.

Update 2:

This is what happens if I create a new texture, with an image and the UV unwrap.

Update 3:

I created a new scene, I pasted there the object and the problem persists. Then I do the following:

Cursor to Center
Selection to Cursor
Geometry to origin

Guess what? The lines disappear. The problem is not fixed because I don't want the object at the center of the workspace. It's for a big scene, about 400 m x 500 m.

Solution: select the object, and then select the option:

Object -> Transform -> Origin to Geometry.

This solution is similar to the @Bithur's comment.

I don't know why it happens, but it seems Blender could have a little bug about handling textures when the objects are too far from the workspace center. For sure it's not a feature.


uv unwraps to a weird shape Does anyone know why the top face unwraps weird? Thanks!

first remove doubles just in case, and then mark a seam in that face and in where should have it as well, and then re-unwrap again


Bendy bones acting weird Im trying to work with bendy bones and what I have is a pre build segment of bone the behaves exactly the way I need it to the only issue is while im trying to rig it up to my character it gets all wanky and messes up

Ill grab the bottom control point in edit mode in order to stretch it to the length of the leg and it will look fine while in edit mode but once I go to object mode it shoots off into all kind of directions.

Anyone know whats going on?

It looks like you've changed the Rest Length of your bendy bone, so click on the Reset button to bring it back to its normal value. Also, in the Bone panel, don't forget to give this bone its Start Handle and End Handle bones (well, if you need).


BGE toggle select object So I have a HUD scene that has a list of duplicate objects from the main scene, and I want to be able to click the list with the mouse and it toggle selects the object, highlighting it, de-selecting any other objects that were selected, and the main scene when I click that object it spawns the selected object. Think real basic lego game, which is not far off.

Right now the spawner's need to be mouse-over and press a number 1 through 4 to spawn the object that is assigned to that number. But I want to select an object from a menu that can hold a lot more objects than keys.

I have two scenes: HUD and Scene.

HUD has a menus with duplicate objects in the bottom menu to select from.

Scene has a series of tiles that highlight when moused over.

I want to select and object from the menu, highlighting it, deselecting any previously selected object, and from there click on a tile to spawn that object.

Edit:

Scene:
  -obj 1
  -tile
HUD:
  -obj 1

When I toggle select -obj 1 from the HUD (menu), I want it to send a signal to -tile that is a string of "-obj 1" which it will use to spawn scene's -obj 1 which is on a different layer. Using said string rather than creating an actuator on the tile for each object I create.

Messages

This is a logic brick only solution. It should be sufficient at the situation you described.

Selection handling

In this sample we let selectable object store the selection status in a property called "selected".

When it is "True" the object is selected.

When it is "False"  the object is not selected.

Give all selectable objects the property "selected" as boolean

Deselect all

When clicking anywhere send a message "deselect".

Any selectable object listens to a message "deselect" and deselects itself on receipt.

You need a (single) managing object that triggers this deselection.

With that you ensure on any right click all objects are deselected.

Select one

The one object the mouse cursor is over will be selected.

You see the selection will take place on the object under the cursor only. All other object will still receive the "select" message but ignore them.

Now let's make your managing object send the "select" messages:

It looks pretty much the same as the "deselect" logic. This is as both are triggered by the same key.

What will happen?

One left click:

message "deselect" will be send to all objects with message sensor listening to "deselect"
message "select" will be send to all objects with message sensor listening to "select"

[all selectable objects receive two messages!]

All selectable objects willreceive "deselect" and set property "selected" to False
All selectable objects will receive "select"

the one with the cursor over it will set property "selected" from (previously set) "False" to "True"
all others do nothing and keep "selected" with "False"

This way you can be sure only one can be selected as only one can have the mouse cursor above it.


animation-nodes interfering with cycles rendering? I recently installed animation nodes, a painful process after dealing with duplicate files and whatnot. I ended up reinstalling a fresh copy of Blender 2.79 for windows off of blender.org. So I started using it, and it worked fine, in fact, everything was great until I tried to render one frame to see the outcome. It showed
nothing but a checkered rectangle (as if it was still rendering). However, the top bar stated that it had complete its rendering process. Viewing it in rendered view works, I checked the console, nothing out of the ordinary, and switched up my rendering devices. Even opened some old projects with the same program build and rendered fine. So I have a feeling that animation nodes interfered with the rendering, but it just doesn't seem right. Any suggestions?

Here is my project, though the music files will be missing...

No, this is not a AN problem. You render from sequencer. You have some strips in VSE, so blender not renders scene, but gets images from VSE.

In render settings you can unclick Post Processing -> Sequencer to prevent Blender from rendering from VSE.

Also you can just ungroup this little guy:

Blender thinks that it can be an image.


cycles combined bake coming out black hi so i'm creating a high gloss golden earring with a pearl detail, but both textures are coming out black in baking (the object is merged because the programme i plan on uploading to can only have file sizes of a certain size). i'm using some random hdri i got for free online, so you can play around with that when you experiment, i won't be too butthurt. I honestly don't kniow what i'm doing wrong. I've tried baking the following combinations of nodes for each texture (seeing as they both have similar levels of glossiness, i just did the same for both and changed the colours/roughness):

combination 1:
fresnel node,
diffuse bsdf,
glossy bsdf,
plugged into a mix shader
(i also tried this without the fresnel, no change)

combination 2:
principled bsdf,
glossy bsdf,
plugged into a mix shader
(also came out black)

here's my blend file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nldwlauxfutffx4/vintage%20gold%20earrings.blend?dl=0

go crazy if you want, i'd just really like to know wtf i'm doing wrong because i'm creating quite a few shiny objects for various projects at the moment and i'm (somewhat) consistently getting this issue, and sometimes i fix it but idk how, sometimes i don't. so yeah, any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

A lot of objects are hidden for the viewport, but visible for the render. Since a baking is a render, those objects cover your main object and prevent the light to hit it.

Click the "funnel" icon (Filters) then activate the "camera" icon (Disable in Renders). Then for each object in the list where the "eye" icon is unchecked, uncheck the "camera" icon.


How can I hide 'mark sharp' lines? Right now I'm working with a mesh, and have several lines that I've marked sharp. Now I'd like to mark seams to unwrap it, however the cyan 'sharp' lines are always on top of the red 'seam' lines, preventing me from seeing my unwrap progress.

How can I toggle the display of marked edges?

Yes. While in Edit mode, have a look in the 3D View's Properties region (N). There's a panel labelled "Mesh Display", and within it, a section labelled "Overlays". There you have an array of checkboxes to toggle the visibility of various overlays. If you want to disable sharp lines, left-click the Sharp checkbox and you should be good to go.


Boolean + Subdivision Modifier: How to cut a perfect round hole? I have two Cylinders. To the first I apply a Subdivison Surface Modifier first (see the right object in the picture). Then I create a second object (cylinder left) and apply the Boolean Difference Modifier. The result is not a hole as I expected. How to cut a perfect round hole?

It looks from the screenshot that you don't have an object selected. This, in and of itself, is an odd behavior, as nothing at all should be happening, but it may possibly fix itself as you continue. Click on the orange cube in the Boolean Modifier (a list should pop down) and select the other object, or click on the eyedropper and select the other object that way.

As a note, no aspersion intended on rob, I'm certain it was a mistake, when applying modifiers, you apply from the bottom of the list upwards.
CLARIFICATION: Whatever order modifiers appear, they should be applied in the order they're affecting the object. First in, first out.


How to make mesh lights brighter without washing out in the render? Sometimes to get a mesh light to illuminate a scene fully I need to crank the emission value way up, however this causes the object itself to be washed out in the render.  Is there any way to keep this from happening?

You can do this by using the Is Camera Ray output of a Light Path node to dim the emission strength (or even use a different shader) for the camera.  The Is Camera Ray will output a 1 if the ray is coming from the camera (see here for an explanation of ray tracing) and a 0 otherwise.

You can plug this into the mix factor of a Mix Shader or Mix RGB node and plug what you want the camera to see in the bottom socket.

Here is an example, the left uses just the emission shader on the lamp, the right uses the above node trick.


Mist ONLY around the horizon (cycles) For too long I’ve struggled to get mist to work in Cycles the way it works in the Blender Internal render - that being mist that sits just around the horizon, giving a distant look. To my disappointment, the mist generated in Cycles tends to cover the whole sky giving an overcast look.

How does one achieve a distant horizon where mist only hovers around the horizon?

Cycles Volumetrics are rather slow and for this specific setup, a compositing solution may be more suited, however you can use the geometry information to limit the density of volumetrics.

In this example I created a large cube, encasing the scene, and made the Z information influence the scatter density. That way, the density is high near Z = 0 (the ground) and low as Z grows (the sky).


How to find the correct information for creating shortcut ? i really want to create shortcut by myself and im struling to find the correct code for what i want to create

this kind of code

"screen.trigger_shadeless"

how do you find such information with anything inside of blender to create a shortcut ?

thanks

right click ony (almost) any option and click edit source.

the name of the operator is what you need. (n.b. I am no python expert so I may not have the right terminology or way of doing it).

but it takes a bit of experience knowing what to search. depending on what are your needs, you can always right click and assign them on the fly. personally I never had a reason not do so.


Join objects with procedural material I am struggling with this problem for a while now.

I have created a procedural material for my buddy the low poly plant. I needs some tweaking but it's fine for now.

Now i want to join the separate leafs etc. in order to bake/export the plant.

This is where it goes wrong, the procedural material distorts when combining the object. (as in attached images)

How can I prevent this? Is is possible to bake multiple objects to an combines mesh for example?
I want to prevent to bake every part separately because I need to make variations and more high poly models afterwards.

You would need to make sure all the objects have UVs that do not overlap in the UV space. This way baking will work if all the objects share the same material and are selected.

In order to edit UVs for every leaf you would also need to make their data unique with Make Singe User. You can find it using the search in 2.8, or by going to Object>Relations>Make Single User.

It's also now possible to edit multiple objects at once in 2.8 so it's very easy to unwrap all the leafs to one UV map at once.


Bone constraints not working on first bone in chain I have an IK chain controlling a mesh. I want to attach this IK chain to something. I have tried putting Child Of, Copy Loc, and Copy Transform bone constraints on the start of the chain. None of them do anything. Is there some rule against using constraints on the first bone in a chain? I notice that it works if I constrain the bone in Edit mode with a regular constraint instead of a bone constraint in pose mode, but this causes some strange issues.

Anybody know how I can go about attaching my bone chain? Specifically, I need to have it following a specific vertex (vertex group) on a mesh that is being simmed, so it doesn't work to constrain the entire armature object, or to constrain to the object. Is there an option better than constraining the bone in edit mode to an empty, and then having that empty be constrained to a vertex?

EDIT: Example file (see comments)

The issue was with the bone at the start of the chain being set as Connected. This is because the bone chain was made using the Skin modifier on a vertex chain. Normally if you add a bone and then extrude it to make a chain, the first bone is not Connected. Apparently the armatures made by Skin are. The Connected checkbox is greyed out, but still can be unchecked. Since the bone has no Parent, the Connected status was locking it in place.


How to fix Boolean modifier shading issues on a convex surface? I added Shade Smooth and tried to use more edges (loop cuts), but unfortunately the issue haven't gone yet.
P.S I merged all near vertices.
Is it possible to some how fix the problem?

You can add Weighted Normal modifier and if you didn't enable Auto Smooth, add Edge Split modifier or enable it and change the value until you have a good result. You can also remesh and sculpt it.


scaling objects depending on instancer number (animation nodes) How i can scale objects depending on number? attached a picture for clarity

A full procedural and vectorized approach would be as follows:

The cosine and sine are simply the parametric equation of the circle which is periodic, if we scale it based on its parameter, we get the spiral effect, the scale of the objects can be defined as a scalar multiple of the parameter as well.


Restricting vertices to a 3D grid I'm trying to prototype models of spaceships that could be built in a voxel based game(think Space Engineers).  While this is fairly easy to do manually it would be much quicker if I could make all vertices snap to a 3D grid while extruding, scaling, etc.  I know you can do this for individual actions, but is there a global setting?  More precisely I want to ensure that the coordinates of any vertices are integer values.

Are you perhaps talking about the Snap to Grid tools?

You simply click to the magnet icon to enable that, pick your poison in terms of what you want to snap by (side-note: doing so by volume is fantastic when setting up rigs). Works in object/edit modes, and with all sorts of translation/scaling/rotating.

Edit: If you want to modify the increment size, try this answer.

Hope that helps!


Can I change Info bar colour on scene change I am trying to write a script to set Interface colours for individual scenes. When I switch scenes in the Info bar drop down menu I want to change the Info Bar background colour. This gives better feedback for scene swapping/tracking.
So far I've got bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header = (1,0,0)

I guess I need to create an open list of scenes that I can append later.
Then allocate the spectrum of colours to it?
Not sure I can create a UI to allocate colours to scenes, so I'll have to bump the values in increments instead.

But first I'm stuck on calling the colour change (I considered iterating a bunch of themes and switching them as needed). At the BA forum it was suggested that the scene change is a frame change event but I'm not sure how to separate that from any other frame changes...

Hopefully if I can set up colours for the info bar I could tie them to node scene inputs.

Cool idea, I wrote this addon for me just now and I triggered the Header draw event. You can copy it from below or from here: scene_colored_header.py

EDIT: Updated to the newer Version. Don't use the old version, it generates a continuous redraw of the Header, wich I don' noticed. leads to cpu inceasement

the updated Version:

    #scene_colored_header.py
bl_info = {
           "name": "Colored Header for each scene",
           "author": "Leon95, Idea: 3pointedit",
           "version": (1, 1),
           "blender": (2, 68, 0),
           "location": "Properties > Scene Tab > Scene Panel > Display Color",
           "description": "Define a Header Color for every scene and display it in the Header",
           "category": "Scene"
           }

import bpy

def_color = bpy.props.FloatVectorProperty(size = 3,min = 0.0,max = 1.0,
    default=bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header.copy())
def_color = bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header.copy()

def ui_properties_costum_header_color(self, context):
    row = self.layout.row()
    row.prop(context.scene, "headerColor")

def ui_info_header_refresh(self, context):
    #assign the property to the header theme every time it is redrawn
    l_co=context.window_manager.lastHeaderColor
    ch = context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header
    cs = context.scene.headerColor
    #check, if reassignment is needed, since  assigning a color leads to redraw
    #(which the causes some kind of stack overflow)
    if not (round(l_co[0],3) == round(cs[0],3) and round(l_co[1],3) == round(cs[1],3) and round(l_co[2],3) == round(cs[2],3)):
        bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header = bpy.context.scene.headerColor
    context.window_manager.lastHeaderColor=[cs[0],cs[1],cs[2]]

def register():
    co = bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header.copy()
    bpy.types.WindowManager.lastHeaderColor=bpy.props.FloatVectorProperty(size = 3,min = 0.0,max = 1.0)
    bpy.types.Scene.headerColor = bpy.props.FloatVectorProperty(
                                     name = "Display Color",
                                     subtype = "COLOR",
                                     size = 3,
                                     min = 0.0,
                                     max = 1.0,
                                     update = ui_info_header_refresh,
                                     default = co)

    bpy.types.SCENE_PT_scene.append(ui_properties_costum_header_color)
    bpy.types.INFO_HT_header.append(ui_info_header_refresh)
    #bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(ui_info_header_refresh)

    #reassigment forces redraw
    bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header = bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header

def unregister():
    bpy.types.SCENE_PT_scene.remove(ui_properties_costum_header_color)
    bpy.types.INFO_HT_header.remove(ui_info_header_refresh)
    #bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.remove(ui_info_header_refresh)
    bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].info.space.header = [def_color[0],def_color[1],def_color[2]]
    bpy.context.window_manager.lastHeaderColor=[0,0,0]
    del bpy.types.WindowManager.lastHeaderColor

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Can I render the viewport with CUDA? I'm using the default blender renderer and am trying to animate a scene with a bunch of different meshes (18 of them), all hooked up to the same armature, using the same bones and vertex groups (the vertex groups being connected to the bones). The meshes are different versions of fundamentally the same object. The problem is when I play the animation (of which there is none currently) I get about 5 fps, with all of the objects enabled.

That would seem totally acceptable, as there are 18 meshes, all of pretty good complexity (with normal maps). However, even when I disable all of the meshes except for the 2 that I want, the FPS value is still the same. I even tried putting them all on different layers, but the viewport still clung to around 5 fps.

I've also tried switching from material render mode to solid render mode, and that improved my FPS from around 5 to fluctuating from 12-14. This is still very sub-optimal, as I animate at 60fps.

I looked around a bit for the answer to the question in my title, and couldn't find anything. It's very possible that this isn't a current feature of Blender, as I know for a fact from previous experience that Cinema 4D (with non-PBR materials) renders the viewport with a single thread, and I would be willing to accept that's the case with blender too, so please let me know. If you have any further optimizations, though, please let me know, because I would be very appreciative.

After that, I took a look at the task manager and found I was using around 85% of my CPU, and only around 5% of my GPU (which probably wasn't being used much for blender). So, I was wondering if it was possible to render the viewport with CUDA, as I have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080, which should be pretty effective if what I'm talking about does in fact exist.

If you need me to clarify anything, just let me know. Thanks in advance.

I think you are missing the point of what CUDA is. CUDA is a tooklit for running calculations on a gpu that are not part of a 'normal' graphics display pipeline. In the case of the viewport, rendering is already happening on the gpu using this normal display pipeline (in this case, opengl is the API used to communicate with the gpu).

The fact that playback is slow, and most time is spent on the cpu suggests that the performance bottleneck is somewhere other than rendering. The most likely case for this are modifiers, if they are doing expensive recalculation each frame. Many modifiers in blender are not efficiently multithreaded. Try disabling or tuning as many as possible (e.g hide corrective smoothing, subdivision etc). You may also want to look at limiting the number of armature weights per vertex, as this can cause reduced performance too.


Python script that sets target vertex group for object constraint So, I have a bunch of vertices and each one of them is in its own vertex group. I also have objects that are constrained to those vertices. I want
every one of that objects to have a belonging vertex group (that contains only one vertice) set for vertex group target (CopyLocationConstraint.subtarget).

I was thinking about a script that would set this target vertex group for each object to a vertex group that is the closest to object's origin.

If someone has an idea or has already written that script, I'd be very glad if you could share it.

It was not entirely clear how much of the data structures have already been constructed (vertex groups, constraints, etc).  You will find techniques for most of it in http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/copy-location-from-vertex-group.html which I include here.  Just discard the actions for work that you have already accomplished

import bpy

def index_of_closest_vertex(location, obj):

    verts = obj.data.vertices
    choice = 0
    wLoc = obj.matrix_world * verts[choice].co
    d = (location - wLoc).magnitude
    for i in range(1, len(verts)):
        vLoc = verts[i].co
        wLoc = obj.matrix_world * vLoc
        d2 = (location - wLoc).magnitude
        #print( [ location, wLoc, choice, d, d2])
        if d2<d:
            choice = i
            d = d2
    return choice

def create_per_vertex_vg(obj):

    nVerts = len(obj.data.vertices)
    for i in range(nVerts):
        vgname = "vg %d"%i
        vg = obj.vertex_groups.get(vgname)
        if vg is None:
            vg = obj.vertex_groups.new(vgname)
            vg.add([i], 1.0, 'REPLACE')
        else:

            vg.add([i], 1.0, 'REPLACE')
            vg.remove([ j for j in range(nVerts) if j!=i ] )
    #

def find_or_create_clc(obj):
    for cns in obj.constraints:
        if cns.type=="COPY_LOCATION":
            return cns
    return obj.constraints.new('COPY_LOCATION')

def vg_for_i(obj, vertIdx):
    for vg in obj.vertex_groups:
        try:
            if (vg.weight(vertIdx)>0):
                return vg
        except:
            pass
    return None

def set_constraint(src, tgt):
    """ put a copy_location constraint on tgt referencing the vertex group for the closest vertex"""

    i = index_of_closest_vertex(tgt.location, src)

    cns = find_or_create_clc(tgt)
    cns.target = src
    cns.subtarget = vg_for_i(src, i).name

#

def mission1():

    o1 = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
    create_per_vertex_vg(o1)

    knob = bpy.data.objects['Sphere']

    set_constraint(o1, knob)

#
#
#

mission1()


Can Fractured mesh offset along curve in Animation nodes? I want a help, I want to transform a fractured object along curve procedurally in animation nodes.

Add your objects to a collection and record their initial transforms in an ID Key. Then use a Follow Spline Action combined with a Delay Action and maybe other actions depending on what you need: