A powerful graphics card, or cloud render farm, which is more effective? According to the tests that I have seen, the render speed difference CPU vs GPU can be almost 60 times in favor of the GPU.

GPU renders using the graphics card, CPU using the CPU, am I right?

So, Is it more effective and profitable (in terms of rendering speed and in terms of money, of course), to buy a powerful graphics card than to build a cloud renderfarm?

It all depends on the complexity of the scenes, the type of GPU, the speed and number of cores of the CPU, the amount/speed of memory available on your system, and how fast you need your final product.

A few considerations:

Sometimes rendering on GPU can be faster, but the amount of memory available for rendering is limited to that built into the card.

The easiest way to render faster in Cycles, is adding additional GPUs to a single computer. That way you can render more than one tile at the same time: Cycles will render as many tiles as there are GPUs. Two CPUs will render a single frame in almost half the time as a single GPU. 4 GPUs will cut render time to almost a quarter...

You can add as many GPUs as you can physically fit or connect to your computer and blender can use them all (It's more efficient if all of them are the same kind)

There are some solutions out there to use other computer's GPUs see: http://www.renegatt.com/blog/?p=130

But memory usage will still be an issue, as the memory available for rendering with multiple GPUs is not the sum of the memory on all of the cards, but is limited to the amount of memory on the smallest card on the system.

There are scenes that can only be rendered on CPU:

Complicated scenes with large textures, or operations that require more memory than that available on the GPU.
Scenes with features that are not supported for GPU rendering or are in experimental stages.

Even when rendering on GPU, there are still some operations that require processing by the CPU (Simulations, Physics, Particles, etc).

When rendering on CPU only, cycles will render as many tiles as there are processors or cores on your system. The more cores the system has available the more tiles can be rendered simultaneously. A single GPU will only render one.

You can render much larger/complex scenes in CPU because you can use all of the memory available on your system, and should you need more, then the Operating System will virtualize memory using the hard drive.

A render farm has the advantage of splitting render load across several computers and does not require a large investment on your part and you only pay when you are using it.

When you need to deliver on a fast turnaround there is no substitute to a render farm where you can have dozens or hundreds of computers at your disposal...
If it takes you 10 minutes to render one frame on your computer. It will take you over 33 hours to render an animation of 200 frames. Using 200 computers on a farm you can render the whole thing in 10 minutes...

Also when shopping for GPUs keep in mind that not all of them are created equal.
Currently Blender is more compatible with Nvidia graphics cards, but they are pricier than other brands.

Oftentimes the specs for GPUs are misleading so search online for benchmarks specific to blender performance before purchasing. Some very expensive "professional" graphics cards do not make blender any better than "gamer" oriented ones.

I'ts sometimes better/cheaper/more efficient to buy a couple of mid-performance cards than a single "high end" one.

Adding more GPUs to a computer requires a more powerful power supply and efficient cooling for the whole system.
If you are investing in many computers make sure that the power/electric installation is adequate...

Before you buy into one solution or another other, I suggest that you make some tests and see what solution works best for your workflow or specific project.


Why is this model rendering with dark faces in cycles render? rendered screenshot

editor view

Notice the dark faces. Even though it's not in shadow from anywhere and all normals are correctly facing as far as i can tell. I have also tried different/fresh material but that doesn't seem to affect this issue.

edit: replies to the comments (dunno how else to answer them) :
1. the link is invalid. goes to a 404 page.
2. the lighting setup is a the default blender sun lamp.
3. the mesh is not distorted at all. its appearance is due to the weird rendering issue.
4. thanks for the correct link. this awesome service should be integrated directly into this forum imo.

i see that this question is a duplicate, so moderators feel free to delete if required. I did search for an answer here before posting, guess I was using wrong keywords.

1 Add modifier "Subdivision Surface"

2 Go in edit mode, press "Shift E" (Edge Crease) drag the mouse

2 or in Edit Mode press N Side Panel > Transform > Mean Crease to 1.0


Assign cycles material to mesh in script I have a mesh object, and I want to fiddle with its material properties in Cycles through a script. I have tried this:

I created an object:

g_d = bpy.data.meshes.new(name="GroundM")
g_o = bpy.data.objects.new(name="GroundO", object_data = g_d)
scene.objects.link(g_o)
g_o.location = (0,0,0)
g_o.select = True
scene.objects.active = g_o

Next I define the material to be made, and what to do with its nodes

def create_cycles_material(name):

    mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name)
    mat.use_nodes = True
    nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes

    node = nodes['Diffuse BSDF']
    node.location = 600, 120
    pass   # Some more node-engineering here

Next, I define a function that should link a material to a mesh object:

def setMaterial(ob, mat):
    me = ob.data
    me.materials.append(mat)

Finally I make the material and assign it to the mesh object g_o:

ColoredGround = create_cycles_material('GroundCol')
setMaterial(g_o, ColoredGround)

The object appears as it should be, and the material with all its specified nodes is created somehow, but I still have to go to the object afterwards and manually add a material and then select the material that I scripted, to assign it to my mesh.
I did look into this answer applying to Blender Internal render as well but I still can´t figure out why my script does not work.

As batFINGER mentioned, you just forgot the return statement.
I tried out your code (and had to modify it a bit, because I got the error that 'scene' was not defined) and it worked fine when I added return mat to the function create_cycles_material.

Here's the ready to use code:

import bpy

def main():
    g_d = bpy.data.meshes.new(name="GroundM")
    g_o = bpy.data.objects.new(name="GroundO", object_data = g_d)
    scene = bpy.data.scenes[0]
    scene.objects.link(g_o)
    g_o.location = (0,0,0)
    g_o.select = True
    scene.objects.active = g_o

    ColoredGround = create_cycles_material('GroundCol')
    setMaterial(g_o, ColoredGround)

def create_cycles_material(name):

    mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name)
    mat.use_nodes = True
    nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes

    node = nodes['Diffuse BSDF']
    node.location = 600, 120
    #pass   # Some more node-engineering here
    return mat

def setMaterial(ob, mat):
    me = ob.data
    me.materials.append(mat)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()


How do I change how bright it is when sculpting? When sculpting the lighting is too bright and I can't see how much I am deforming a shape. How do I change how bright it is?

do not sculpt in render view.. if not using just change mat caps :) and in material view, u can change the strength of hdri in the same  mat cap window hope it's help


how to manipulate objects using Seed button in real time I cut a mesh into some random (N number) shapes. I also used random.seed(). So every time I run the code, I get new set of patterns.

Now, I want to do it with "UI Panel" with some variables as input buttons (such as MyInt, MyFloat, dropdown list, etc; don't know, if they are correct), so that I can change them accordingly and get their results in real time.

Small example: If I change the seed value and run the code, I get another pattern. So this pattern changing should be get done with seed button in 'UI Panel' in real time.

If my question is not clear, I will be eager to modify it and make it more understandable.

This Gif image shows a "Plane" divided into 4 new Planes as specified by:

percent_list = [40, 40,10,10]

I also highlighted:

random.seed(3)

So, if I have a Panel like in Gif which I have edited in Ms-Paint. Whenever I change

bpy.props.IntProperty(name="seed")

value, it should change the random.seed() and eventually change my Plane object in the scene.

I hope my question is now clear. or?

You will need to define some properties, and then make a panel to display it them. I've cut and pasted from the templates in Blender's Text Editor(look here for many more examples).

First make an update function that will run every the properties change:

def update_function(self, context):
    myfloat = context.scene.myfloat
    myint = context.scene.myint
    for ob in context.scene.objects:
        #your code would go here
        print((myfloat, myint))

Then define some properties with your function as the update. More information on properties here.

bpy.types.Scene.myfloat = bpy.props.FloatProperty(name="My Float", update=update_function)
bpy.types.Scene.myint = bpy.props.IntProperty(name="My Int", update=update_function)

Then the panel:

class MyPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_mypanel"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_context = "object"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        obj = context.object
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.scene, "myfloat")
        row.prop(context.scene, "myint")

Now we put it all together and register the panel and properties:

import bpy

def update_function(self, context):
    myfloat = context.scene.myfloat
    myint = context.scene.myint
    for ob in context.scene.objects:
        #your code would go here
        print((myfloat, myint))

class MyPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_mypanel"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_context = "object"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        obj = context.object
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.scene, "myfloat")
        row.prop(context.scene, "myint")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__) #registers all the classes
    bpy.types.Scene.myfloat = bpy.props.FloatProperty(name="My Float", update=update_function)
    bpy.types.Scene.myint = bpy.props.IntProperty(name="My Int", update=update_function)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)
    del bpy.types.Scene.myfloat
    del bpy.types.Scene.myint

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Rigging simple objects Here is the object I want to animate.

It's pretty much about piston moving in the syringe. But how do I make it move along the syringe's axis, "lock" it in the axis so I don't have to position it myself every frame? What constraint should I use? I noticed the "Follow Path" and "Clamp To" constraints but I am not really sure how do I use them.

You could do it this way (here, syringe and piston are two separate meshes in one unique object):

Create an armature with two bones, the top is child (Keep Offset mode).
Parent the syringe to the armature With Empty Groups.
In the Properties panel > Data > Vertex Groups, assign the piston vertices to the vertices group that has the name of the top bone and the syringe vertices to the vertices group that has the name of the bottom bone.
Select the armature and switch to Pose mode.
Select the piston bone and give it a Limit Location constraint.
Activate all axis to limit the piston in all axis possible.
Keep all values to 0, just change the Y maximum value (here: 2), Y being the vertical axis of the bones.
Choose Local Space instead of World Space, so that it takes only the local space of the object into account.
Now when you move the piston bone it will only go up and down and will be blocked at its maximum Y value.

If you piston and syringe are 2 separate objects, keep the same bone settings, switch the armature to Pose mode, select the piston object, select the piston bone, and ctrlP > Bone. Same thing for the syringe.


wrong particle spawning position I have a topping on donuts which are made using particles

Viewport mode. if i change some parameters in the particle system, they are spawning correctly.
Render mode they all spawn on some exact faces or just don`t spawn at all.  This is incorrect.

this is the picture in the viewport

and this is how they look in the final render

Lets assume the donut has the same number of particles for the animation.

Make sure the lifetime is large enough such as 400 frames.
If I wanted to see all Particles visible from frame 1 to 400

All the particles could be emitted in Frames 1 to 2. (Quick Birth)
Lifetime can be large as in 400
I might [bake] the particles.  I might save, close, and open,  the file to refresh.  Particles can sometimes be out of synchronization.  Sometimes change a value by a small amount might help or running the animation from frame 1.
Ezvinete. Ya ne ponimaish pa Russki.


Is it possible to mimic the 'pin' operation in only one axis I was wondering if it is possible to pin a group of vertices only in one direction? So I'm trying to do a cloth simulation of a skirt. When I stitch it on the avatar, the skirt starts to slide down. I tried switching off gravity and then simulating the stitching in the first simulation and then switch on the gravity for the second simulation for the skirt to settle. This works to a decent extent but this also results in a slight amount of slip below the waist. I was wondering if I can restrict the movement of the top edge vertices of the skirts only in XY plane so that there is no movement in the Z direction (no sliding or slipping movement)

Yes, this is possible - in a limited way - using 'sewing springs'.

When you create a mesh for a cloth simulation, any 'faces' act as cloth but any edges (without faces) are considered 'sewing springs'. These are edges that connect two vertices that can be 'constricted' by applying a force to draw those vertices together. The idea being that you could create a garment in multiple parts and then use the springs to effectively sew the pieces together around your model.

One useful feature of these 'sewing springs' is that they resist being stretched beyond their original length and we can use this to our advantage.

To demonstrate... starting with a cylinder, in Edit mode, remove the top and bottom faces and use the 'Loop Cut and Slide' tool to subdivide the edges. Select all the vertices at the top edge. You should now have something like the following :

Extrude the selected edges upwards (EZ1Enter). Now remove the faces from the extruded region (select those faces then press X and choose 'Only Faces'. Select the top 'rim' and press Alt+M and choose 'At centre' to merge them to a single point. You should now have something like this :

Add the top vertex to a new vertex group named 'Pin' and set up your cloth sim to enable Pinning, pinned to the new group 'Pin'.

Running the simulation should now result in the 'edges' remaining at a fixed length, thereby preventing the rest of the mesh from falling. The 'cloth will still fall a small distance but this will now depend on the radius formed by the length of the 'edges' - the longer the edges, the less the cloth will 'fall' - therefore, move the 'pinned' vertex further above the cloth (in Edit mode). You should now have something like the following :

Note that this can interfere with Self Collision, causing strange results. This can be overcome by setting the 'pinned' vertex and the connected top row to an additional Vertex Group and use that in the Self Collision settings to exclude those vertices.

Obviously, due to the nature of the pinning and sewing springs this technique will only work when pinning against the direction of gravity.


Black patches on meshes that use transparency I have imported a model that was generated by Mineways, a software that can convert Minecraft worlds into 3d models.
Then I also loaded up the material using the MCPrep addon, but now I have suddenly started noticing some weird black patches on my grass which use transparency (I assume minecraft grass needs transparency).
One thing I know for certain is that this problem is getting less bad as I raise the number of transparency light bounces but I have to raise them as high as 10 passes which really cannot be optimal as I want to render an animation with 222 frames on Cycles and it takes forever as I raise max bounces.
Is there another way to fix this problem? What is the reason of this in the first place?

One thing I know for certain is that this problem is getting less bad as I raise the number of transparency light bounces

You've answered your own question right there.  To avoid getting hung up tracing rays that will never reach a light source, Cycles has a maximum number of bounces for each ray.  If a ray reaches that maximum number without hitting any light source, Cycles assumes it never will and renders it black.
I am assuming your scene uses planes with a partially-transparent grass texture on them, this results in many rays which have to pass through a large number of the transparent parts of the planes.  If your transparent bounces are low, this results in black patches.
If you want to render your scene as-is then, there's no way of getting around raising the max transparent bounces until the black patches are gone.
If you want to change the way the grass is made, you can get around this issue by modeling grass objects and using a particle system or other method of instancing them across the ground.  This avoids the rays having to collide with a bunch of 100% transparent faces.  If you provide some images or a .blend file I may be able to give a similar example.


How to disable a pie menu item? I'm trying to write a script that creates a Pie menu, and I want the menu item on the [1] position (which calls another submenu) to be disabled whenever the current scene isn't "Some Scene".

I've tried doing

pie.menu("SOME_MT_Submenu", text='Some Submenu")
if context.scene.name != 'Some Scene':
    pie.enabled = False
pie.menu("MENU_MT_Item", text = 'Menu item #2')
pie.menu("MENU_MT_Item", text = 'Menu item #3')
pie.menu("MENU_MT_Item", text = 'Menu item #4')
#and so on

...but it just disables the entire pie menu. I've also tried adding a @classmethod poll function on the Submenu, like;

class SOME_MT_Submenu(bpy.types.Menu)
    bl_label = "Some Submenu"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.scene.name == 'Some Scene'
    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.operator("some.operator", text = "Some Operator")
        layout.operator("some.operator", text = "Some Operator")
        layout.operator("some.operator", text = "Some Operator")

but whenever I run the script the menu item still calls out the submenu. And I've also tried adding the poll function to the 'Some Operator' class itself, and it still doesn't work.

I want that menu item to be grayed out and not call out the submenu when I hover over it. Is there a way to do that?

In the end, I just decided to get rid of the menu item itself if it doesn't satisfy the condition:

layout = self.layout
pie = layout.menu_pie()
if context.scene.name != 'Some Scene':
    pie.split()
else:
    pie.menu('SOME_MT_Submenu', text = 'Some Submenu')


Use masks as part of materials in cycles Intro:

Ok, so I'm new to blender and have looked all over the internet, and blender is not working as expected (and all the usual that seems to be the required greeting on this site...)

Question.

I can use masks created in the movie clip editor (or the UV/Image editor) in the compositor to combine elements.

How can I use masks to combine shaders and textures?

I could render the mask as an image sequence ,and plug the images as a texture in the material editor. But then every new adjustment  that has to be made in the mask means that the sequence has to be re-rendered. Not the best workflow. Masks being vectors have so many advantages over pixel based files, on top of that it is easy to rotoscope using tracking tools, also they are quite easy to animate and allow fine control when it comes to feathering.

Is there some python amazing script, animation node, add-on, or secret menu for the initiated that allows the mask information to be used interactively on the material editor?

No, the MCE or UV/Image editor's masks will not translate upwards to the 3D view.

They occur in the post phase of Blenders sequence of operations. Also I am told that its to hard to make a rasteriser for arbitrary material parameters. I guess they would have to operate at screen space?
You can see a more thorough breakdown of this at my blog.

The work around is to use Curve objects edited to an appropriate shape. You can use the tracker to map Hook objects in the camera view, these can be used to distort the curve object. Then project your texture onto the object as required.

Use an empty to control all dimensions.

You might notice that you cannot have a feathered edge for the same non rasterising reason. You can place a beveled glass object above then use its transmission ray to to fake a falloff, but you will be stuck with the shape of that object not your mask.


What is this and how do I get rid of it? I have no idea what that white ring is or how I applied it. Here's a picture of it in edit mode:
I want to get rid of it but I don't know how to go about doing so. I'd appreciate some help. If needed, here is the file: https://pasteall.org/blend/07f0ab12a84944e69b2afd50cf7d3f6f

The issue is being caused by the presence of an extra face inside the mug. Its a quick fix; in edit mode, select it and press  X  > Faces.

Also note that there's an Ngon near the base of the mug that could use some splitting, for uniformity's sake. In edit mode, select the top and bottom vertices and press  J .

This should do it, good luck!


How to merge two unconnected edges into a single one There are several questions on merging connected edges and edge loops, but I can't find the simplest case where we just have two edges:

and want them to be merged like this:

I don't have a requirement on the location of the final edge, but I guess a comprehensive answer would encompass the different possibilities: merging at active edge or at mid-distance.

I know I can:

move a vertex onto the other using the snap option,
select the four vertices,
remove the two doubles.

But that's four operations. Can it be done more quickly?

Maybe this is a little faster ... hmmm
But you will have to turn on the addon called "F2"

Select the 2 edges.
Hit F, connects the 2 mesh and gives you 2 original edges.
Select the extra edge you didn't need. Hit X dissolve the edge.


Creating two equidistant edges (two "centered" edge loops) It's easier to explain what I'm trying to do with pictures.

I have this structure:

And I want to achieve this:

such that those two new edges are equidistant from the first, and the distance is set precisely (using the keyboard).

I've been doing this using two Edge Loop (Ctrl-R), but I need to do the math by hand, since it always counts the cut distance from the left. Is there a easier way?

Use Ctrl-B and then scroll (You can add more cuts that way):

You can fine tune the distance in the operator panel F6:


What happens when I press F while selecting two faces? What happens when I press F while selecting two faces?

If I press F while selecting two faces, they appears to become merged...
what actually happens?
And if its not the way of joining/merging faces?

What happens for real is a mega-super-wonky N-gon is created using all the vertices that are selected. F activates the fill tool, it appears to be vertex driven, that means it does recognize when a face is selected, just that there are four more vertices; hitting F forces blender to try to create a new face with all the vertices you selected as its extremities.

Lets assume that you were using nice, clean mesh, only quads. After selecting two faces, filling them

destroys the old faces
form a new 6-8 vertex face (depending on whether or not the faces were adjacent)
places the origin of the new face at the average of the vertices.

Now, I guess, this is essentially merging the two faces, but its bad form because it causes those dreaded N-gons, and you can see here what the results will be like when the faces aren't flush:


How can I snap the center of the bottom part of a box to the center of a plane? How can I snap the center of the bottom part of a box to the center of a plane?
I have read the other posts related to this, but they are too confusing.

In edit mode select bottom face of cube, Shift+S Cursor to Selected
Object mode press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C Origin to 3D cursor
Select the plane
Shift+S Cursor to Selected
Select the cube
Shift+S Selected  to Cursor, Offset


My back foot keeps slipping in my animation? So I created a walk cycle for my ATST for it to walk up some stairs. I'm almost done with it, but I am having a problem. Whenever the ATST moves up the stairs, the back foot slides a little bit. Like its on ice or something.

To accomplish the ATST to walk up the stairs, I key framed a stationary walk cycle (where it didn't leave the first step). Then I key framed the root bone to move forward so that it would move up the stairs.

Does anyone know how to prevent the back foot from slipping???

Here is a rendered video of my problem. And here is a copy of my Blender file.

You need to bring correction to the feet positions. What you can do is:

Put your 3D view in Right Orthographic. In the Dopesheet / Action Editor mode, load the walk animation called "stairs". Enable the Only Include Channels Relating To Selected Object option so that you'll only see the selected bone keyframes.

Look when the first slipping happens, it's between frame 23 and 30.

So what you need to do is correct the foot position at frame 30 so that if stays at the same position as frame 23. Delete the current frame 30 keyframe. As your root bone is moving, you can't just copy paste the keyframes of 23, you need to visually position the foot at frame 30 and create new keyframe (i > LocRot). Also make sure that your Graph Editor curves are linear and not bezier (press T > Linear) so that it doesn't smooth the movement. Do the same for the next slippings.


Baking Multiple Materials into one Object I've searched around the forums here and found multiple solutions for this problem, however they appear to be unique to those individuals. Their solutions do not work with this particular scenario.

I'm trying to bake multiple materials (nodes), with Cycles Render, into one UV Unwrapped Map. I've followed several tutorials on the process as well, none of them seem to change the outcome. The end product seems to be only one material, no matter how I select the material, the UV Map, or whatever, it'll always bake the Connector Material only. I cant get the other material to show up in the final render.

The Blender File: Located Here

After Render:

I tried to bake with basic materials and it worked fine. you should select same image texture data block in every material node. And also we bake normals and diffuse etc separately rather than combined.

->create a new blank image in uv editor and name it (say bake.png).

-> in node editor for any material: shift+A-> image texture-> browse the created image (which is blank right now).

-> Now copy the image texture node (by cltr+c) go to another material and paste in node editor (by cltr+v) do this to every material you want to bake.

-> make sure you selected right image texture node (bake.png) in every material. Because if you select other image texture node  data will be baked into that image.
-> bake type to diffuse or combined or normals and hit bake, after baked, save image as combined.png  you may need to turn off indirect lighting in bake panel.


WIll modifying an essential python file cause data loss in blend file? I reinstalled Blender freshly from blender.org and I noticed that, after working on a file, the size of destination folder where Blender is installed has increased and I don't know if this usual. Because the size of this directory has changed, this brings me to the question: can I modify/remove/add some python files (which are essential) by accident by just working normally on a blend file?

In case of removing or modifying a python file, will Blender continue working (and there is chance of data loss in my blend.file) or will Blender give an error and quit immediately?

Well… There are several questions here actually:

I. Is it normal that the installation directory of Blender grows after the first launch?

YES: Blender is only distributed with “pure” python files, the first time those get used/executed, the python interpreter will sort of compile them into an intermediary “machine language” code (similar to assembler, but universal and that still has to be interpreted by the python engine, not directly by the processor). You can find all those .pyc files in special __pycache__ directories next to all py modules (UI scripts, addons,.etc.).

See also this thread and the official py doc.

II. Can I modify some Blender's python files by accident by just working normally on a blend file?

NO: Usual editing of a .blend file will never touch anything on your file system. Unless it has been manually and maliciously crafted to do so, of course (a .blend file can easily execute arbitrary python code, which means it can wipe out your whole system if it wants to) - that’s why in .blend opening settings you have an option to “trust” the file or not.

III. Can I modify some of Blender scripts such that they delete and/or corrupt data in .blend files?

NO in general, but YES if you really want it. @Vitaliy already answered the general case: modifying “randomly” some script files of Blender is highly unlikely to have any bad effect on your saved data, it is much much more probable that it will just very soon error.

However, it is possible to modify a py script such that it breaks saving valid data (the simplest way to do so is to register a save_pre handler, and in that handler to e.g. delete all scenes or other nasty things like that. You can also generate invalid data (broken mesh, etc.) that will crash Blender on next load of the file, but that’s not so obvious to do. But yes, if you really want to, you do can break saving of .blend files from py script, like pretty much anything else in Blender.


Should I duplicate previous scenes? I am making a short film with multiple scenes, and I was wondering if I should keep my previous scene and just duplicate it, or move on and continue editing the same scene. Is one better than the other?

There are many possible workflows for this that depend on your needs.  Here is mine:

Create one file for each model used in any scene.
Create one scene file for every different collection of models.  Link the models into this scene file.
Create one shot file for every shot.
Link the relevant scene into the shot file.
Link models that aren't changed for that scene.
Append models that are modified for the scene.

Link models if edits to them should appear in all shots.  This avoids having to find the model in each shot file and repeating the edit.  For example, you decide to make a statue taller everywhere it appears.

Append models if edits to them are meant to differ from scene to scene. For example, you have a prop that has a different color in some scenes.

This will save you much work and confusion as your conception of the appearance of shots changes.

I made my first short following the workflow using

I do recommend the book.


Dope sheet doesn't color channels anymore When having bone groups with colors would make these colors to show up on the Dope Sheet keyframe channels like this

This is what it's meant to look like, But now everything is a single color

I took the first screenshot in 2.81, the 2nd in latest version, 2.92, why did this change happened? is this something you can turn back on?

nvm figured it out. this is how to do it:
1 - open user preferences
2 - click on the Animation tab
3 - in there, you should see an option under F-curves that says "Channel group colors". enabling that shows the channel colors again


Collection: Move vs. Link I am very confused by Collections. It's quite unorthodox for display layers to support linking/aliasing. In every other program I've ever seen, an object can only be in a single layer, just as a transform can only inherit from a single parent.
So OK, in Blender, objects can be members of more than one Collection. But what's really confusing to me is how an object can be "Moved" to a Collection vs. "Linked" to a Collection. Looking at the Outliner or Object Properties, I can't determine whether the Collection membership is explicit or whether it's an alias. If I right-click in the Outliner, I get an "Unlink" command regardless of whether the object has been "Moved" or merely "Linked".
How do I know which Collection the object is actually "in" and which Collection the object is merely "linked to"? Does it matter? What's the logic here? Is there actually any difference between "Move" and "Link", other than the fact that "Move" removes the object from its former Collection, but "Link" does not?

As you already discovered an object can be placed into any arbitrary number of collections, even on different scenes.
Moving or linking an object is really the same underlying action in relation to collection ownership. There is no "real" and "instanced" duplicate of an object that belongs to more than one collection, and the object truly is in multiple simultaneously with the same degree of importance.
So what is the different between "Linking" and "Moving" to a collection? If an object is moved to a collection it is removed from all others and placed in that one exclusively.
Say you have a car in your scene currently sitting in the Street collection, and you Move it to the Vehicles collection. Your car will now sit exclusively in the Vehicles collection.
Linking an object to a collections adds it to that collection without removing it from any others it curreclty sits in.
Using the same car example, if you have a car in your scene currently sitting in the Street collection, and you Link it to the Vehicles collection, your car will now sit both in the Vehicles collection and the Street. Both instances are real both are valid.
So why can you Unlink an object that has been moved to a collection? Likewise unlinking an object from a collection will remove it from that collection but not from others.
If the object is only in a single collection and you unlink it, it is removed from the current scene. If the same object is not used in any other scene it becomes Orphaned Data and can be purged out of the current file.


Export - Internal render vs Cycles render I saw this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tovu1A0LxeQ

And now I'm trying to export my model into obj file with textures. However, seems this is not possible to achieve with the cycles render (from what I read).

So, is there a way to do the same process using the internal render, so that I can have my obj/mtl file referencing the uv layout png file?

The final goal is to publish my model into Facebook, which needs glb file. So I was trying to get first the correct obj file and then convert it to the glb file.

Thanks

Blender 2.8 (currently in beta) can export directly to glTF (.glb, .gltf), including the key properties of Principled BSDF materials (base color, metalness, roughness).


Animation Nodes - Why Time info Node does not update Frames? I have this problem:

As you can see Viewer shows 0.0 while it should show frame 118 or 119..
Frame node does not update while scrubbing in timeline. Anyone had this problem as well?

I've checked "Frame changed" and/or "Always" in Auto execution tab. But it does no effect anything.. Maybe I missed something else

You need to assign scene for the Node Tree. The option can be found in N-panel of Animation Nodes window.
For Blender 2.8+

for older versions of Blender.

Just click on drop down menu and select the scene which you are currently working on.


how to adjust a render to match the 3d view? I have a beautiful soccer ball model and it looks great in the 3d ortho - edit views. I love it!

But when I go to use the renderer - Blender Render comes up blank and Cycles render looks like this. Not so sharp, filling with dots of white. Not sure what happened. What can I do to adjust it to match how it looks in when I edit it?

To reduce the amount of noise in an image rendered by Cycles, you can do the following:

Turn up your samples

Under the Sampling section of the Render tab, you can adjust the number of render samples.
Increasing the samples will increase your render time proportionally, but you will get cleaner images.

Turn on denoising

As @kim-holder mentioned, you can turn on denoising to reduce the noise in the image. This is a new feature added to Cycles in 2.79
This will usually do a good job of getting rid of noise, but often softens the image and blurs edges to a certain extent.

Dim the lights

It may also be that your lights are set to be too intense. Lowering their intensity should help to reduce fireflies (the bright white spots on your image)

Turn on "Filter Glossy"

Filter Glossy reduces fireflies on glossy surfaces by blurring them slightly. See here for more information.


Material of mesh doesn't match the render because of subdivision surface The material of the mesh doesn't match the render because of the subdivision surface modifier. I just tried to add vertices but it doesn't work.

The subsurf modifier is designed to interpolate geometry in between existing vertices. The materials (and their borders) are interpolated as well.

You have a couple of options:

Select an edge loop and add a crease with a value of 1 (you can access the edge crease tool with Crl+E):

Or add a loop cut (Ctrl+R) and move it closer to the existing loops.


The light is being reflected inside the bulb.How to fix it? I can't seem to find a solution for this problem

Is there any possible fix without affecting how the glass look like?

File:

To implement this, you just have to ensure that the light from the filament is not bouncing off or interacting with too many surfaces (in technical terms 'bounces').In our case, if the light from the filament comes through the front of the bulb, it means the emission ray from the filament is converted to transmission ray (at the front portion of bulb) and reaches camera. Which means 2 bounces. But in the case of the additional reflections, the bounces are more.

So all we have to do is, make the rays which have more than 2 bounces invisible. We can get this bounce information from 'Ray depth' of 'Light path' node.

  Ray Depth is the Number of times the ray has “bounced”, i.e. been reflected
  or transmitted on interaction with a surface.

In material node editor, Shift+A and Input>Light path. Also, we can get the 'greater than' operation from math node. Shift+A, Converter>Math and change the operation in the drop down menu to 'greater than'.

Check out the following node setup for emission material of the filament.You can do the same for the rest of the materials that are getting reflected.


Export blendshapes to JSON error Blender 2.76 / Three js export addon 1.5

Addon crash after exporting blendshapes! Why?

1 step: add a keyframe on your scene

2 step: enable the "Embed animation" checkbox


Text not appearing on Blender Render

So I'm doing this very basic animation here, but I'm facing a problem.
I have these numbers that I placed onto my project, but even though they appear on my screen (and on my live rendered viewport), they are not rendered at the final project. I'm using the default blender renderer, don't know if that is a problem.

How my screen is right now

How my render looks

The same thing happened to me.

I tried different ways to render an animation and finally found a way to solve this problem in Blender 2.8. Go to View > Viewport Render Animation.

In this way you can solve it.


How export constant keys? I have recorder cutscene where the characters and the camera are teleported depending on the camera frame using constant keys.
When exporting to unity, the keys become linear and the movement between teleportation becomes noticeable, how do I solve this? (Simplify doesn't help)
To reproduce the problem, you need to record the constant key, export fbx, import it, and it will become linear (in the span of one frame).

baked :

If when exporting your asset you let the bake animation enabled and the sampling rate on 1, then it should put keys on each frame of your animations, removing any interpolation and negating the effects of key type change.
I forgot to mention, Blender's FBX exporter does a keyframe cleanup in its baking, which you might want to remove by setting the "simplify" to 0.


How can I fix these non-manifold edges (boundaries prior to remove doubles, non-contiguous after remove doubles)? I am trying to create a ring for 3D printing.  Part of the requirements for 3D printing is to not have any non-manifold geometry in your model.  When checking whether I met this requirement, I found that my model contains two edge loops consisting of "Boundaries" non-manifold geometry.

Highlighted in orange are the non-manifold edges of type "boundaries" (Highlighted using Ctrl + Alt + Shift + M, only Boundaries is toggled so that I could narrow down what type of non-manifold this is):

When I zoom in and move some of these edges aside, I find that there exists a duplicate edge loop underneath!:

I undo that translation, reselect the non-manifold edge loops through Ctrl + Alt + Shift + M, and I "Remove Doubles".  Here, I find that the hidden duplicate loop no longer exists, but now my non-manifold edges are of type "Non Contiguous":

I read that non-contiguous edges are due to face normals being in opposite directions(?).  Turning on face normals, I get this:

Honestly, I am new to 3D Modelling and Blender, and am not sure how to correct my issue from here.  Do you guys have any advice?

Edit: Here is the .blend file prior to the modifications mentioned in this post:

In this case:

Select all vertices, and CtrlV .. R remove doubles
Then, with all still selected, CtrlN, make normals consistent.


How to nicely render mathematical object made from slices I want to render a certain geometrical object for a scientific paper. It should look nice, but the main point is that I want to make the shape as evident as possible. I would like to get a result similar to what one would get with Jmol (though I would hope for a much nicer look).

You can take a look at the shape here. For those who know about this stuff, it is sort of like a smoothed cuboctahedron. It has two kinds of "faces", triangular ones and square ones. I would like that to be clearly visible in the render.

Maybe it helps to know how the mesh was created. I generated each slice of the solid along the z-axis and wrote a script to generate the whole mesh. Maybe the reason why I can't seem to get a nice looking render is related to the way I generated the mesh? Or maybe I am just very incompetent in dealing with Blender (most likely this is the case).

Any help would be welcome!

In edit mode, with all geometry selected hit Ctrl+N to recalculate the face normals, they are doing crazy things. This unifies their direction.

A render of the cuboc you provided, with light spheres (Cycles Emission material) placed at incident angles with respect to the faces they are intended to highlight.

You have more Z slices, than XY steps around the object, this produces elongated polygons, and is one reason why you won't get smooth surfaces. You will get neater results if you can generate more points per z-slice, resulting in the polygons being closer to square shapes. Either that or fewer Z slices, but then you loose detail.


Align vertices to X-axis I was wondering if there are any easy ways in Blender apart from grabbing individual vertices to bring all the vertices in the picture down so they perfectly aligned on the x-axis?

Scale with S then press X and then 0. This will bring all of your vertices into the middle and all aligned. This works with all axis: X, Y, Z.


Please help me get started with modeling a solid surface fuel tank for a tractor I need help getting started modeling this solid surface fuel tank for a tractor. I am having problems with the right to left scale while maintaining the flat bottom. Thanks.

Have you tried scaling in the y axis only? Hit S then y so that it only scales that way.

You can also try using relative scaling. If you hit O then S to scale a circle comes up that you can make larger or smaller with the middle mouse button and it will only scale within that circle.


Scaling (or rotation) object using two random points (helpers, vertexes for ex.) The thing is there is an object. I wanna pick a first point anywhere on object to make it a pivot point for scale (or rotation), and pick another point (empty object or vertex of this object) which I will grab then, and by moving this second point in space the object will rotate and scale.
Some 3D-applications have this feature.

Here's another image with a task for better understading. For that task object should be rotated, positioned and scaled, while this points changes their destinations:

You can set the pivot point to be the cursor or the active vertice in edit mode. You rotate normally R r double R tho, not grabbing from a specific point. But it should give a similar result


Mesh problem after subdivision and boolean in blender I apply subdivision modifier both cylinder and mesh (watch), I boolean the cylinder on my mesh (watch) after that remove unwanted vertexes then bevel it, everything is fine except the four sides of hole kind of stretched, it's hard to see in solid mood but still there I'm using blender 2.9.
I really appreciate if someone help me.

Also ruined the shade.

In solid mode, it's hard to see the area where been stretched.

Your topology is probably not good, here is how you could do your object:

Create a 32 vertex cylinder and a 16 vertex cylinder:

Boolean:

Rework the topology:

Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier, add edge loops to sharp the edges:

Only apply the Subdivision Surface modifier if necessary, don't if you don't need to.


Delete nodes that does not contain mesh? I'm pretty new on Blender and I have a problem.
I imported a quite huge model hierarchy and some node contains no mesh.
Is there a way to automaticaly delete all node that does not have mesh ?

Thanks.

OK. I just learn Python and developped this script :
import bpy

# This script selects all objects hierarchy that have mesh on them
# After executing this script, just invert the selection (ctrl+I) and delete (X)

for o in bpy.data.objects:
    if o.type == "MESH":
        obj = o
        while True:
            obj.select_set(True)
            obj = obj.parent
            if obj == None:
                break;


How to have an object follow another objects rotation with a cap? I have two objects: the "track object," and the "follow object." The track object rotates according to the mouse (mouse-look). When the track object rotates, I would like the follow object rotate too (follow the track object; rotate till it matches the track object's rotation). I'm also looking to have this work with time, very similarly to the "track to" option in the "edit object" actuator: it does not immediately follow the track object by simply copying its rotation, but it takes x time to follow up (copy). By introducing time, the object takes time to follow up, which means that there is a possibility of the follow object's rotation to be way off (as the track object has moved a lot, and the follow object does not change instantly). To compensate, I am looking to have a cap. The follow object must be in a range. The range is the rotation. It will range from (the track object's rotation  minus 10) to (the track object's rotation plus 10). This way, the follow object will never be far off the track object's rotation as it is kept in a range. A final note: I am looking to have this work in only the x and y axis. I would like an answer in python. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

What you are looking for is the transformation constraint combined with a limit location constraint.

In this example I am using the rotation of the z-axis to move the location of the x-axis. The mapping in the centre links the source z-axis to the destinations x-axis. The source and destination amounts provide a way to scale the transformation, when the source is at 0 degrees the destination will be at 0 and when the source is at 180 degrees the destination will be at 5, so 180 degrees rotation moves 5 units. If you change the destination location to 0 and 40 then the 180 degrees rotation will give 40 units of movement.

I then added a limit location so that the object will only move from -4 to 4 on the x-axis.


Switch all render layers back to normal I originally had a motion tracking scene but now I want to get rid of it. I tried reverting everything back to normal like deleting the foreground and background and  every time I try to fix something it starts a whole new problem. Just fixing one thing would be a huge help. As of right now it won't render.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1K-V7MpXHIMxf9NMI6AINt6JmXopBGbmZ

I just copied my entire scene onto a new blender file and everything was fixed.


GPU final render is very dark (depending on number samples) Not sure what happend - GPU rendering worked fine before - but now I cannot get blender to GPU render, though rendered preview works(!), so it shouldn't be driver. I have an AMD card, cannot remember driver updates recently. Updated to latest after the issue happend and it didn't help.

Problem is not related to file - same thing in the new projects now.

Also it depends on the number of samples, below are the render results for 1, 2 and 3 samples respectively. On 50 samples it's like almost completely black.

Did anybody had similar issue? Is there a known solution?

Ok, so I found (thanks to Mr Zak!) that one of the differences between preview and final render was a Motion Blur. Even though it is disabled in preview and I had it disabled in render settings, when I enabled it in render panel and everything works again!

Though I definately remember it working from default blender file (where I suppose it was disabled?)... and this is seems like a bug, but hey, we found a workaround!


BPY in Game Engine Workaround? I hope that someone might be able to explain me a workaround on how to use the bpy module in the game engine as a standalone.
I've read of methods like modifying Blender and import it as a module into the standalone or something like this.

Does someone have a clue or maybe a modified file?

If you use the BPY module, you can still run it as non-runtime code.
This is perhaps what is wanted in your case (you are not forced to create a game with the BGE.
However, in most cases, the authors want to create a game. Non-runtime code will prevent him from creating one.
Using BPY in a game is a typical mistake as you yourself can find in research regarding Blender scripts. It is usually plain copied from there as it is not clear to them that Blender and BGE are two separate rendering engines. This image exists. as this topic comes up from time to time. I hope it is a funny way to help remind to stay clear and avoid BPY for games.


Assign material to part of mesh I am doing this Blenderguru tutorial to work on my modelling skills. At about 28:30 min in the tutorial it is demonstrated how to assign a material to a selected part of the mesh (another material is already assigned to the object). Now I have read this post and I think I have selected the right area (with face select) and assigned the new material but it does not work. Why ?

You only have one material assigned to your object.  To assign multiple materials to different parts of a mesh you must have multiple materials assigned to the object.

At the top of the Material properties tab there is a selection box which shows all materials currently available to the object.  This does not mean that all these materials are used on the object, it means they are available to be assigned to parts of the object.  By default, the entire mesh uses the first material in this list.

On your object, there was only one material ("Transparent") in this list.  To add a material to this list, click the + button to the right of the material, you can then select a portion of the mesh and hit the Assign button to assign the selected material to that portion of the mesh.

Under the Settings rollout there are options to change the material's color in the viewport.  It is often useful to change this for some material[s] when there are multiple materials on an object so you can see which ones are on which parts.


Rigging a pencil case So I have this pencil case:

And I would like to open it like this:

Note : I'm not trying to open the zipper, just to deform the pencil case in a realistic way.
I figured the best way to do this would be by rigging it, but the thing is, I don't know much about rigging. I tried this :

But, as you might have noticed, I kind of have no idea what I'm doing and it really does not work.
So, would you have an idea of how to get a realistic opened pencil case, with or without rigging ?
That would really help me !

Maybe you should try to rig with the Stretch To constraint, I give here an explanation for an arm (method #2), it's exactly the same for your pen case, except you'll need several bones all around the object. Also you may want more than 2 segments if the deformation is more complicated:

You may also want to try Spline IK but it's a bit tedious, so if Stretch To works fine, then use it.


I can't paint the whole model in texture paint mode I have a problem in texture paint mode. If I unwrap the model, I can't paint the entire mesh. It remains entirely white. More details in this picture.

If you can answer too why is it stay black :/ but the properly uv texture changing transparent white.

If it stays 'full white' then quite possible you don't have an image texture assigned to the UVs yet - in the Tool Bar, check for a warning to 'add paint slot below' as in the attached picture.


Boolean does not work in Blender 2.8 beta I'm new to Blender and unsure if this a bug in the beta version or my error. I can't make the union boolean modifier work. It does nothing visible.

Setup:
I created an svg file and imported it. I then converted the curve to a mesh. Since it has several discontinuous parts I selected the linked parts of the mesh and filled them. Then I extruded the mesh to get depth. I intend to 3d print the result so the separate parts needed to be joined. I created a cube and scaled it to use as a connector. I duplicated the result and moved them into place. I selected the shape and added a 'union' boolean modifier. The first cube worked. The other cubes do not work. Picture attached.

What I checked:
I believe the meshes are closed, water tight, and the normals face outward. Any other suggestions?

blender file

the problem is that you have overlapping faces on the bottom of your mesh.

in this example i create 2 cubes and try to make a union operation but it doesn't work because the cubes faces overlap when i scale down one cube the union operation works as expected.

good rule of thumb if you work with booleans if you have a problem try to move one mesh until it works.


Why do I see the light in the reflection (EEVEE) even if the material is not reflective? As the title says...
I have a transparent (glass or full transmission in the principled shader) plane, but I see the reflection of my area-light although the material is not reflective. The only way it disappears is when I set the IOR on the plane to 1, which defeats the purpose of my setup.
Any ideas? Bug?

According to the manual:

  The Glass BSDF node is used to add a Glass-like shader mixing refraction and reflection at grazing angles. Glass BSDF

That's why you see reflections with this kind of shader.

If you don't need reflections on the object - use Refraction BSDF


How do I get Blender to import a Collada file? Collada is not among the import options, and not among the addons for import options.

So is there a way to import a Collada file to Blender?


armature weights not working This is the first time I had this problem. When I did automatic weights I had to redo the hands since in I had to clean up the vertices and the fingers were stuck together.  One the left hand I had no problems but the right hand I duplicated and mirrored and simply attached the hand.  I attached the bones and parented them, but when I move the bones it is moving other fingers not attached to the current bone.  I checked the vertex groups and they are .

I would try selecting all the vertex points you want to represent the right hand, and then press Ctrl + i  to invert the selection to the rest of the mesh, and press Remove to remove them from the right-hand vertex group, while the right-hand vertex group is selected and highlighted of course.


Cannot combine results from different renderlayers? I am trying to very simply use the compositor, but keep running into the same problems over and over.

I have tried both in Cycles and Blender Internal, but to no avail.
When I move a sphere to a new layer, split the render layers into two, one with everything but the ball, and one with the ball, this happens:

Just a black and flat circle with the blur in compositing.
In cycles I cannot even combine the two:

I have tried following every tutorial out there, but it's still the same, leading me to think it's something to do with my blender setup.

Blender Internal:

The reason the sphere is black is because the lamps are only on layer 1, but not on the sphere layer.

You can move objects to more than one layer at once by pressing M and Shift clicking on the layers on which you want to make the selected object(s) visible.

Cycles:

Try enabling Transparent in Render settings > Film:


NOOB: What method for constraining? I am new to Blender.
I have made strides learning modeling and material creation, but now looking to take my modeling a little further.
I want to be able to create a complex model with multiple interacting parts, but create "Rules and Limits" to posing the model. I do not know enough yet to know if I should look into "Rigging" and learn that... or learn about constraints and using empties... or maybe even something else that I'm unaware of.
SPECIFICALLY: Imagine a drummer's Cymbal Stand.
There will be individual parts like the tripod base... the telescoping upright tubes... a rotating ratchet where the extension boom can rotate on an axis, the extension arm that is held by the ratchet, the upper elbow and spindle that holds the cymbal... etc.
EACH of those will have specific constraints; The telescoping tubes and move up and down (within limits) on the Z-axis and rotate fully on that same z-axis, the rotating ratchet pivot point can rotate on its own axis, and also rotate on the Z-axis of its parent upright tube, the extension arm can extend or retract (with limits) into and out of the ratchet pivot based on the pivots rotation, but also rotate on it's own (local) Z-axis... etc. etc. etc.
The end result I seek is having both-ends of the heirarchy able to be manipulated individually, but the interim parts adjust and accommodate appropriately within their constraints.
I move the Cymbal Stand base close to the drums, the entire stand (and cymbal) move with it. If I grab the cymbal and adjust it's height, angle, etc... the arms & hinges react appropriately to accommodate the movement but the base stays put.
It SEEMS to me that it's similar to Inverse Kinematics and character rigging... but I need no deformations - just hard-surface mechanical constraints.
Can anyone please point me in the direction for me to go learn and research...? I appreciate your assistance.
I am obviously using my drums as inspiration to learn Blender.

If you want to make something with hard surface such as a drum as referred in the question and don't want any deformation or bending( as in the muscles should get deformed when a human figure folds hand) of things while changing things then you should see in parenting things to empty so that the things get manipulated when you move empty and you don't have to move the hold thing and then finally constraining the empty ( constraints are used when you want to limit things, for example if you want to move the drums which are attached on the outer edge you'll only want to move them on their local z-axis so that they seem attached to inner drums, then you can limit its movement to only local z-axis by constraining or when you want to make something controlled by another thing for example moving drums with empty which is constrained on the particular axis giving you flexibility to move drums separately anywhere you like but still can be controlled on the important axis. ) On the other hand if you wanna create something like a human figure and want to move it then you'll have to create a rig which can control custom part of mesh and keep it look attached, this can further be combined with constraints for example, limiting the rotation of hand only in forward direction and not allowing it to go further, you can also constrain a joint to an empty so that you don't have to move the joint and can just use empty to modify the same thing which is non-destructive as you can reset the empty location or even delete that constraint completely. The best way to go is to learn rigging and rigging your drums then you can learn constraining and constrain the rig to be organised, here you can even use an empty to instead of bones,  both constraining are rigging are really wide and also work best if combined.


Freestyle outline has gaps When I render with the freestyle feature in cycles, some edges are not outlined. This image was rendered with the default freestyle settings other than the line style, which was changed from stroke to color. How do I fix this?

You have to construct a Line Set by including/excluding characteristics of the object in the view.. the default is not serving your purpose, here. If necessary, you can explicitly select edges to be stroked by CtrlE : Edge Menu > Edge Data > Mark Freestyle Edge.

Here, I've just increased the Crease Angle ( a threshold value ) in the Freestyle settings....

but there are no end of options. I'd recommend playing with them using the Blender Internal renderer, so you get immediate feedback in the viewport. The settings will still be available when you switch back to Cycles.


Unwrapping a cube for multiple textures? I want to create a Rectangle with one texture tiling around the sides 3 times and 1 texture on the top and bottom faces. (I am making a wall that needs bricks on the sides and a "top of wall" texture on top)

I want the textures themselves to be one of the bricks (not pre-tiled) and one of the top of the wall, not a single texture.

How can I set up the tile so I can just give it the two textures and it will look right? I don't need a big guide, but I'm a newb to modelling and just need to know the overall idea of it.

My current guess is I need two materials (one for sides and one for the top/bottom) with a specific unwrap for each?

Yes.  You do need two materials.  I would make two materials, and two material slots.  To make slots you press the plus beside the materials list in the material tab.  You should see another sphere appear in the list.  Then, assign the new material the top image texture.  After that, in  edit mode, select the top faces.  With them selected, then select the new material you just made in the list, then click assign.  Then, you can unwrap the top faces, or you can use your existing unwrap and replace the original image with the new top one.

Don't call yourself a noob.  We all start somewhere. :)


Normal map baking weird result Can somebody analyze the picture and explain what I am possibly doing wrong?

When you use the ivory addon, it actually unwraps all of the leaves over another, so you dont need to unwrap unless you aim to export the mesh.


How to add a sky in cycles? Im still taking baby steps with Blender (2.69)
I was hoping to add a sky to my scene using the settings mentioned in the help.

I have a sun lamp in my scene, but I cant spot where the options are for adding sky and atmosphere.

I know this is a basic question, but can someone point this out for me and provide some steps on how to add a sky to a scene?

In Cycles the settings for a background do not work the same as BI.
Add a Sky Texture in Properties > World if you want an automatically generated sky, or use an Environment texture for using an HDR image as the sky.
To "connect" a node to the backround color from the properties editor, click the little dot next to the color field, then select the type of node:

Note that you will have to manually align it to your sun lamp, or try this addon.
The best technique I have found for manually aligning the sky texture is:

Select your lamp and press . and then CtrlShiftNumpad 7 to align the view looking straight into the lamp:

Make sure you are in perspective view (Numpad 5 to toggle) and enable viewport rendering (ShiftZ)

Click and drag on the sphere in the sky texture node settings to rotate the sky texture until it is lined up with the view:


Force edge split even when angle is zero Disclaimer: I am a beginner at modeling and Blender.

I am working with blender's modifiers to achieve a certain mesh:
I want only triangles, all sharp edges, no "shared" vertices, even when they have the same characteristics (same normals, ...).

I thought the edge split modifier is able to split edges regardless of the relative angle of its shared faces, but this doesn't seem to work for me. See the screenshot (basic cube placed, triangulate and edge split modifier applied):

The two triangles of each cube side seem to share some vertices, that's why there are only 24 vertices, NOT 32. I confirmed this by exporting the mesh to a text file-format. The mesh re-uses vertices (exported data has less vertices than indices).

But I actually WANT blender to split these edges (and vertices) properly. How can I achieve this? Ideally using non-destructive methods only.

Thank you! :)

I'm not sure you can do it without first applying at least the Triangulate modifier, but it can be easily done in edit mode. (If I interpret things correctly, the Split Angle of the Edge Split modifier is taken as greater than, not greater than or equal to, so you'll have to mark all edges as sharp, and I know of no way to mark edges that are created by a modifier sharp without first applying that modifier).

Method 1

Apply the Triangulate modifier, Tab into edit mode, select everything by pressing A as many times (none, one or two, depending what's selected to begin with) as needed and mark edges sharp (Mesh -> Edges -> Mark Sharp or CtrlE followed by K).

Method 2

Remove both your modifiers, then Tab into edit mode, select everything by pressing A as many times (none, one or two, depending what's selected to begin with) as needed and triangulate (Mesh -> Faces -> Triangulate Faces or CtrlF followed by T), then split the edges (Mesh -> Edges -> Edge Split or CtrlE followed by D).


How to edit my duplicates i have built an apartment complex out of many planes.  So rather than just making 4 planes for a house like this noob normal does, I used shift d duplicate in object mode.  Now in edit mode all of my duplicated planes don't have any vertices,edges, or faces.  After looking online, tried deleting all doubles which I had none.  so I asking for help on what I did wrong using duplicate.  I was in object mode, hit shift d, hit enter, then moved the duplicated plane to a new location.      i am using 2.79b

I think we're going to need more details and possibly the file, because this is likely something very simple.

1st- how did you create the plane? Was it Add>Plane?
2nd- Did you do anything to the plane before duplicating it, like some modeling?
3rd- At the top right corner, it should let you know how many faces, vertices, etc. there are on the selected object in edit mode. When you get into edit mode how many faces does it say are there?
4th- Did you apply any modifiers and duplicate that with the plane?


Object from Boolean appears in render I would like to make a cheese with holes, in the Boolean it is all correct, but in render the spheres of the boolean cut show up.

Hiding the spheres with the eye icon just hides it from the viewport and not from the render.
You should un-tick the collection the spheres are in, to hide it from the render.
Or you can enable the icon that controls if an object is rendered. On the top right of the outliner, click on the funnel icon to make visible all of the other toggle switches. The one that controls the renderability of an object is the camera icon.


any way to erase group data-blocks? I linked a group and so It's objects to the scene, then saved. Changed idea and deleted. Saved and closed blender. Opened It again and still find this group data-block in the *.blend file.

any way to delete this group? It doesn't let me link one more time that group ... [yes, I changed idea one more time]

I also have this orphan data that doesn't get deleted after closing blender.. It was on the linked group. Maybe correlated?

UPDATE

I also made a piece of the imported group, proxy. but then has been deleted.

Solved by right click on the linked group and then "unlink group".

It was possible only on this tab.


Rendering with gpu crashed Does anyone know why this happened? I was rendering at 1000 samples on a gtx 1070 and the rendering crashed saying "CUDA error: Out of memory in cuCtxSynchronize(), line 1372"

Looks like your GPU ran out of memory.
Try to reduce the number of individual Meshes and Texture sizes.


Render particles inside a certain area Ok so I've got a quick question, is it possible to have particles render when they make contact with a specific object? Essentially make the highlighted object in my scene a domain for the particles, so that when they fall into that area they become visible.

P.s. I'm working in blender render.

To make particles rendered only in certain areas during animation you should control their size with a texture assigned to particles system. In this case particles will be emitted but will be visible only where texture allows them.

Create a cube which will act as a 'domain' for your particles (it will affect particles' appearence).
Scale it accordingly with the object. Rotate it 90 degrees by Y axis.
By default texture of Blend type will use X and Y axes for mapping. In this example cube will be moved by Z axis, hence all the coordinate system should be changed. For this reason the cube will be rotated to rotate its coordinates which will be used as coordinate system for particles' texture. Hence do not apply scale and rotation.
Position cube appropriately and keyframe its location.
While in Particle System settings go to Textures tab and create new one (make sure that type of textures is set to Particles in the top of the Textures tab).
Switch its type to Blend (to use texture as a gradient).

Open Colors rollout, check Ramp and create 2 more color stops to make texture influence in both directions (in this case, +Z and -Z). Choose appropriate Interpolation type, in this case used Constant for more visible effect. Set up color stops so black is in the corners and white is in the middle.

Because texture influence should change together with moving object, that object can be choosed as texture coordinates centre. In Mapping rollout choose Object and select that scaled and rotated cube from dropdown list.

Lastly, in Influence tab uncheck Time and check Size. The particles' appearence will be controlled by affecting their size instead of density.
While Density will work it won't cause refresh of amount of particles emitted when object used as coordinates centre moves (probably a limitation) and hence this won't work for animation.

Now particles will be shown only as the cube moves down:


Blender Alters .Obj vertex list I have a wavefront .obj file and a sharp edge list which are mapped with the vertex index form the .obj file. Now I want to add some functionality in the .obj file based on the sharp edge list. But the problem is when I load the .obj file in blender, blender changes the vertex index. So I can not map the same edge list from the .obj file in Blender. Is there a way I can prevent Blender from changing the vertex index and keep them same as the original .obj file(e.g. in .obj file, vertex index starts from 1 and the index increases by one for each subsequent vertex)? I am wondering why Blender has to change the original vertex index rather than giving the index sequentially?

There is an option for Keep Vertex Order in the .obj importer. Use that and you should be fine.


Cube with cutout corner Can you cut the cube with cutout corner

example:

You can use the Boolean Modifier

Add a new cube with Shift+A and doublicate the cube with Shift+D
position the second cube where you want to cut out the main cube

Select the cube you want to cut out
Go to the Modifier tab in the Properties window and choose the Boolean Modifier

Set the Operation to Difference
Choose the 2nd cube in the Object list box
Click Apply (Object Mode)

Delete the 2nd cube.

Note: After applying the Boolean Modifier the mesh could be not suitable for a good topology.


Rotating problems while animating For some reason, whenever I change the x-axis, the object turns on the z-axis

Any Ideas on what's causing this

Did you try applying transforms? Your scale is not 1. Select your mesh and press Ctrl - A, apply rotation and scale


How to fix the rig after weight painting I had an issue in my rig. when I went to start posing the rig I realized the IK upper arm bone R had stopped working for some reason, how to fix that ?

Every IK constraints has a "chain lenght" parameter, setting the amount of bones involved in the IK solution: 1 means that only the constrainted bone will try to reach the target, 2 means that the constrained bone and its first neighbour will act as an IK chain, and so on. 0 means that every connected bone will be part of the chain.

In your screenshot it looks like the Right forearm has a 0 chain, propagating the IK action until the neck-clavicle junction, while every IK should be set to 1 chain lenght.

Consider also that - generally - we use a single IK constraint to control forearm and upper arm bones, with an addictional bone named "pole" to control the elbow position: this is the "standard" method!


Why do keyframed objects cause fluid baking to slow down so much? In the following figures we show the results of our attempts in order to mix a key-framed animation with a fluid simulation. As you can see, in the top one the obstacle is static (fix) but in the bottom one it turns counterclockwise slowly.

The Static one took only 5 minutes to be baked, however, the dynamic one took 65 minutes on the same computer system!?

We need to know:
1. First, whether this massive time difference is usual even though there is no significant difference between the two simulation?
2. Is there any tip / trick to speed-up the baking of mixed animation/simulations?

Our final simulation (for education purpose, btw) will be much more complex in terms of dynamic and the number of objects in it.

Yes. The liquid system must translate one moving object to the domain matrix, making it process for every frame, and calculate the new differences and forces produced by the push of the object over the liquid. Of course, this requires more time.
I guess if the obstacle is really complex (more faces), this also requires more time.
If you can use lower resolution, less to time to bake. Use lower resolution for tests and increase the resolution for the final product. Take a look at my answer on your other question.


pivot object over two different axes by pulling on its edges I'll do my best to explain this... I need to pivot a plane along its X and Y axes by raising and lowering its corners (two at a time).

In the images below, the cylinders should be raised and lowered as indicated by the arrows and cause the plane to tilt accordingly.

In the end, I just want to be animating the cylinders - they should 'drag' the plane along resulting in the tilt motions... Also, moving all cylinders up or down should raise or lower the plane.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

If you're willing to rotate the plane, which in turn makes the cylinders go up and down, you can do it this way. (I'm using blender 2.79)

Select a cylinder, then the Plane.
Go to Edit mode
Select one vertex of the nearest corner to that cylinder, then go to Mesh/Vertices/Make vertex parent, and click on the "confirm" dialogue box that pops up.
Come back into Object mode and repeat 1 - 3 for the other 3 corners.
Give each cylinder a Limit Location Constraint.  Copy each cylinders current X and Y position and paste them into the first two fields of Minimum and Maximum values in the constraint.  That is, limit the location to exactly where they are on the X and Y axes but leave them free to move on the Z axis.
Rotate the plane on the X or Y axis and the cylinders will move (vertically only) accordingly.


How to change the point about which a rigged object rotates? I am having trouble describing this. If anyone could give me the correct terms I would be happy to edit my post, etc.

Currently, I am rigging a revolver -- during the reload of a revolver the barrel opens -- but the issue is I need it to open along a certain point -- (see comments for pictures) but instead the revolver folds up per se.

Current result when rotating barrel:

Desired result when rotating barrel:

Where it needs to be rotated along:

Would I simply make a bone at the point of rotation and then parent the barrel to that bone, or am I supposed to use constraints?

Thanks.
Here is the .blend file -- https://a.pomf.cat/hqygla.blend


images with transparency return to black when bunched Each plane with grass has transparency on it so that if I just rendered one grass plane it would not be a problem but when i duplicate them then they return to black

In the Render tab > Light Paths > Max Bounces, you may need to increase the Transparency value.


Why is the preview render slower than the final render? Firstly, sorry if that's a stupid question. I'm kinda noob :P
The thing is that "normal" rendering with GPU is slower than rendering in preview. I made sure that the resolution in which I render is the same as in the preview but it's still slower as if it was rendered with CPU.

Use rendering CPU to GPU, it can be faster then GPU

Change Render Setting
Use thisenter link description here


Why is the transparency on my particles not working once exported to Godot? I am new to blender. I am using blender 2.8 version. Recently I created a grass setup with the help of a tutorial video. In which I applied transparency for outside of grass using node editor. It renders completely fine. But if I export it to Godot, the meshes and materials exported perfectly. But the transparency from node editor is not applied. So instead of seeing a grass, all I see is a plane with grass image. I added the screenshots for your reference.

From what I've found Godot uses the alpha value of the albedo color as transparency.
A blender material with transparency enabled and the alpha value changed looks right in Blender, but doesn't work in Godot:

As you see, it correctly turned on the "Transparent" flag, but still has no alpha.
You have to change the alpha value of the albedo color in the Blender material for it to work:


How can I smooth an object and keep the edges nicely beveled? I have this very low-res object that I'd like to smooth with a subdiv modifier, however, I'm having problems with smoothing and keeping the edges nicely beveled... I've tried using a bevel modifier + subdiv modifier but I get fireflies... Is this way too low poly to be nicely smoothed?

You seem to indicate two problems here.

Fireflies are usually a sign of rendering with too few samples and/or a very tiny light source. They are not directly related to bevel and subdivision modifiers.

To keep sharp edges sharp, you can set a crease value on selected edges (Shift-E) for the subdivision modifier. In the bevel modifier, set "Limit method" to "angle" with a value of 50°-80°.  Or, if you want different bevel widths on different edges, you can use bevel weight ("Weight" in "Limit method", then select edges and modify bevel weight through Ctrl-E.
Note that the order of the bevel and subdivide modifier is also important.

You'll often also need to set smooth shading, and in that case you might want to activate "Auto smooth" in the "Normals" section of the "data" tab (the one marked with an inverted triangle). Here also, set the angle to taste. Or mark some edges as 'sharp'.


Texture paint in cycles Helo, i am having this weird problem. I watched a few paint tutorials but couldnt find a solution. I am trying to paint burn on my walls , Made 2 UV maps and everything but when i paint on my wall, it paints everywhere, and thats not whant i want , i dont what else i can do! i unwrapped both maps using the smart UV project. can someone help me?

~

Make sure you select the UV map you want to use with your painted texture.


Curves: how to make circular shapes within curves Is there a way to make a "perfect" circle with the points of my nurbs circle (the ones around the cursor)?. I tried "as sphere" and "bend angle", but the results are not very satisfactory.

Ideally I'd be looking for something similar to the Loop Tools Add-on.

Alternatively I tried with adding more points to the shape I want to be circular, but it's fiddly, time consuming and not extremely precise...

What am I missing?

You are missing that parametric curves have nothing to do with spheres.

Screenshoted frmo the preview of An accurate NURBS curve interpolation algorithm with short spline interpolation capacity

After you are satisfied with your curve you can utilize the To Sphere command. However, since it operate on points only, you have to do it after adding more points.

Duplicate your curve.
Instead of subdiving, remove the bevel, so the curve is only a curve. Then press AltC > Convert to mesh to convert it to a mesh. The points on the curve are now sampled. Convert is back to a curve with AltC > Convert to curve. Re-add your bevel settings.
If the center of your curve is at the world origin, move the 3D cursor to the origin and set it as the pivot point NumpadPeriod.
Select all. A
Execute the to sphere command. ⎈ Ctrl⇧ Shift⎇ AltS


How do I make steel in cycles using 2.5 as the IOR? How do I make steel in cycles using 2.5 as the IOR?
2.5 is the listed PBS IOR of steel but I have no idea how to make a great node metal shader in cycles using this info.
Thanks!
Douglas E Knapp

The FRESNEL node connected to a the FACTOR input of a MIX node which has for example a DIFFUSE and GLOSSY input will change the reflections depending on the angle that light strikes it.

The FRESNEL node has a panel for the IOR

http://www.chocofur.com/6-shadersamptextures.html


Is there a way of "bevelling" a single vertex? I want to take a single vertex and replace it with a face like this:

(edit: answer changed entirely)
(edit: thanks to moonboots for pointing out a shortcut)

Select the vertex you want beveled
Bevel it with Shiftctrl+B (you won't see any results)
Press Enter to confirm
Adjust settings as necessary


Can't select individual objects in object mode– why are they grouping together? I am very new at using Blender and have a simple scene set up with a table and plane for the floor. I don't know what I did, but now the table and plane move together in object mode, and when I try to select them individually I can't. This is a problem because I need to assign different materials to each thing. What do I do to fix this?

I guess you clicked join button in tools while table and chair was selected .It happens a lot if you are messing or trying  stuffs in blender.To fix your project.
select that object which you joined (in your case that chair and table).
then press tab TAB this will lead you to edit mode .

press 'A' to select all everything .
now press p and click on "by loose parts"

press TAB again to go back to object mode.
this will allow you to move individual object but we are not done here you will notice something strange may happen when you will move some object

to fix this you need to reset its origin geometry(sounds tricky but it is really easy)
now select all the object by pressing shift and clicking on object .
now press "SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+C"
click "origin to geometry"
and DONE!!!
hope it help.
next time if you mess things up do not save or close blender . press "ctrl+Z" to reverse your last action .
happy blending ;-)


Merge several mesh objects I want to merge two mesh that has the public points in both objects. The relationship between two objects like a circle and a circular ring that can perfectly contain the ring.

I have tried the Boolean operation, but it fails to do it.

How to combine two objects and do not produce any break face?
Could someone give advice about how to do it?

Thanks in advance.

Some supplements,

I loaded the two .obj files in Blender, and they would be combined to a light bulb. The first mesh is a glass container and the second mesh is a metal thread.
They share the same edge on the top rim of the metal part(blue arrow). Both of them are not enclosed.

I had attempted to combine them using union operation(boolean operation). But, they couldn't join together, and I also tried to use join command, they could join together, but there was a round hole in the connection area(Blue arrow).

You can

  Join

them and them and then merge the closest vertices with

  Remove Doubles

But you two meshes have to have a common "merging line" (An edge with the same vertex amount and close distance to each other)


How to merge vertices without disfiguring mesh? My mesh has gaps in between faces so I decided to merge the vertices but this distorted the shape of my cup. Anyway to sort this out? I feel like I need to start over as I can't remember what I did wrong.

There are a couple ways you can solve problems like this. To fix those verts that are breaking the curvature of your mesh, here's what I would do:

Set the pivot point to 3D cursor, and move your 3D cursor to the center of your teacup.
Duplicate one of the vertices that is part of the same edge loop as the distorted vertex.
Turn on snap, making sure that it's set to Vertex, Active, and Rotation is enabled.
Rotate the duplicated vertices while snapping to one of the other vertices in line with where the distorted vertex should be.
Snap the distorted vertex to your new vertex.
Select everything and remove duplicate vertices.

You can basically use the same technique to patch gaps in this kind of radial geometry. Duplicate geometry that matches the hole you need to plug, and rotate it into place using vertex snap. I deselect and reselect a vertex here to make it the active vertex, and use that to help guide my snapped rotation about the z-axis.


Transform each iteration of an array modifier within defined limits i am currently trying out some rendering for the first time (i was trying to model a pile of paper)

Used a plane, added a solidify modifier (don't judge, i was just messing around with some mods), added a array mod with a relative offset of z=1,2 (i wanted to be able to see the small spaces between each piece of paper, didn't work out though)

Now i wanted to randomly rotate each iteration with max 30 degrees and min -30 degrees so that the pile of paper would look realistic.
So far i tried a limit rotation constraint, simple deform mod and the object offset in the array mod, but none can achieve the result i'm looking for.
Any tips ?
This is what I got so far.

The uppermost card was rotated manually and manually editing 100 cards is not an option for me.

and i was planing to use thick paper, so thosehanging down edges are not required for this project (may inform myself about them sometime later on)
found a tut for another program, don't know how to use the mentioned steps in blender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm_ENqq-lwI

Make sure each sheet is a separate object. If it's not : in edit mode, press P -> separate by loose parts.
Make sure each object has a decent center
Select all sheets -> Object -> Transform -> Randomize transform

Select delta, an make sure only "rotation" is checked.


Trying To Create Human Model For Android - Need Help Bake Texture - I finished retopology (Shrinkwrap) but i didn't do it very good, Then I used Smart UV Project to unwrap and baked it with cycles render and the results is this

Any idea how i can fix the texture thats white ? or whats causing it?

Your Normal map is set to color data. Set it to non-color data.


Get active vertex through python I want to get the last selected vertex. I tried with bm.select_history.active but this don't work.

You can walk the select history in reverse and find the first BMVert:

import bpy
import bmesh

ob = bpy.context.object
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

for elem in reversed(bm.select_history):
    if isinstance(elem, bmesh.types.BMVert):
        print("Active vertex:", elem)
        break

Note that select_history does not support selection operators like box and lasso select. They don't make a geometry element active, nor do they add to the history at all.


Issue with arraying an object along a curve Here's what I'm currently seeing (note that the stretching as the array continues out isn't intentional. I wish the objects to all be button-like, similar to the one closest to the curve):

I've ensured all transforms/rotations/etc. are Applied to both the curve object and the arrayed mesh. All my origins are where you'd expect them to be. Any ideas?

Here is the .blend file, if it helps.

Key R, then Y, then 90. If you want them to continue to change shape, then you may have a problem, but if the following is good, then so are you.


How do I make an addon from this code? I have this piece of code that I am using to remove duplicate materials. What I do is I open the Text Editor, paste it in and click Run Script. I would like to make it a Tools Shelf button. This is the code:

import bpy

mat_list = bpy.data.materials

for o in bpy.data.objects:
    for s in o.material_slots:
        if s.material.name[-3:].isnumeric():
            # the last 3 characters are numbers
            if s.material.name[:-4] in mat_list:
                # there is a material without the numeric extension so use it
                s.material = mat_list[s.material.name[:-4]]

I tried following the instructions here, but I get this error:

This is my first time messing around with Blender scripts, any help appreciated!

EDIT: This is my complete addon:

import bpy

bl_info = {
 "name": "Remove Duplicate Materials",
 "author": "Me",
 "version": (1, 0, 0),
 "blender": (2, 7, 8),
 "location": "3D View > Tool Shelf > My Tools",
 "description": "Remove duplicate materials",
 "warning": "",
 "wiki_url": "",
 "tracker_url": "",
 "category": "User"}

import bpy

mat_list = bpy.data.materials

for o in bpy.data.objects:
    for s in o.material_slots:
        if s.material.name[-3:].isnumeric():
            # the last 3 characters are numbers
            if s.material.name[:-4] in mat_list:
                # there is a material without the numeric extension so use it
                s.material = mat_list[s.material.name[:-4]]

Maybe try this and see if it makes sense to you.
It really should also poll to see if objects are selected in the operator.

bl_info = {
"name": "Material Button Panel",
"author": "Your Name Here",
"version": (1, 0),
"blender": (2, 78, 0),
"location": "View3D > Toolbar",
"description": "Button to Remove Duplicate MAterials",
"warning": "",
"wiki_url": "",
"category": "Material",
}

import bpy

class RemoveDupmatl(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Remove Duplicate Materials"""
    bl_idname = "object.remove_dupmatl"

    bl_label = "Remove Duplicate Materials"
    bl_options = { 'REGISTER', 'UNDO' }

    def execute(self, context):

        scene = context.scene

        #new code
        mat_list = bpy.data.materials

        for o in bpy.data.objects:
            for s in o.material_slots:
                if s.material.name[-3:].isnumeric():
                    # the last 3 characters are numbers
                    if s.material.name[:-4] in mat_list:
                        # there is a material without the numeric extension so use it
                        s.material = mat_list[s.material.name[:-4]]

        return {'FINISHED'}

class TestPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """A custom panel in the viewport toolbar"""
    bl_label = "Test Panel"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'
    bl_category = "Tests"

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

        row = layout.row()

        row.label(text="Single Button")
        row = layout.row()
        row.operator("object.remove_dupmatl", text = "Remove Dup Material", icon = 'ROTACTIVE')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(RemoveDupmatl)
    bpy.utils.register_class(TestPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(RemoveDupmatl)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(TestPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Eevee Normal pass: remap negative values Here's a result of Normal pass in Eevee:

Faces with normals in -1..0 range are rendered black. Is it possible to remap this range to 0..1 using Compositor? Here's the desired result made with a material:

I tried to render Normals pass in 32b .exr but it seems that there's no information about these normals in there.

The image below gives a node set up that you could use in the compositor. It splits up the normal into its rgba values, takes the absolute value of each component (using the Math node with the "Absolute" setting), and then recombines them.


(Python) How to add items in context menu in 2.8? How can I add my operator to existing right-click (context menu) in the shader editor?

The Shader Editor context menu is called NODE_MT_context_menu (found by inspecting Preferences> Keymap> Node Editor and looking for Right Mouse) and we can 'append' (add) a draw function, which draws your menu item, into the existing menu. In the example below I have used the Node Editor's existing 'Duplicate' operator.

def draw_menu(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    layout.separator()
    layout.operator("node.duplicate_move", text="My new context menu item")

def register():
    bpy.types.NODE_MT_context_menu.append(draw_menu)

def unregister():
    bpy.types.NODE_MT_context_menu.remove(draw_menu)

Explanation:

The draw_menu function deals with the UI that you want to add to the context menu (an operator) by using the bl_idname of your operator - in this case node.duplicate_move.
The register function should contain, in addition to the code that registers your operator, the code to append that UI into the existing menu.
In the case of an add-on, the unregister function will remove the UI you added.

Note:

The separator() line is not required, but useful for keeping your UI separate from the existing one.
prepend can be used instead of append to add items to the top of the menu instead of the bottom.

Some more information about menus can be found in the 2.80 Python API documentation. A few examples of extending the existing UI can be found in the Python templates included with Blender via the Templates menu in the Text Editor header.


Mirror Modifier Issues - Asymmetry world,

I have been playing with Blender 2.8.1 for a couple of months and recently keep running into the same issue with a mirror modifier.

When I apply the modifier the mirrored object is way off-centre, like this:

I am able to solve the issue by simply joining the asset I want to mirror and another asset which already has a mirror modifier attached, however this adds the material from the latter object to the object I'm trying to mirror which is undesirable.

Any techniques to help me create a perfect mirror when I'm working with multiple assets will be much appreciated if provided.

By default the mirror modifier will choose its mirroring axes depending on the object's origin, not the world origin.

The origin of each object is marked by a yellow dot when it is selected. As you can see, your tooth's yellow dot is a little bit to the left of it, so logically the mirror modifier creates a copy with a symmetry relative to its that.

If you want to create a mirror with a symmetry to the world origin, you have to select in the "Mirror object" field of the mirror modifier either:

An object which you know has their origin in the world origin 0, 0, 0
Create a new empty object, and keep it at the origin point
Make sure your 3D cursor is at the origin with SHIFT + C and while your object is selected, right click > Set Origin > To 3D Cursor


Selection of vertices surrounding a vertex (only the the ones directly touching) I need to use this without python coding.
Thanks, is there a shortcut or anything? I tried Crtl+L and just L and it just selects my whole model.

You can use Ctrl+ numpad + to select more vertices connected to the intitial selection.

Or use the


Can i run blender as on a server as a binary source code? I want to be able to run blender on a server and use it to render images without having to install the GUI on the browser. Is such possible in blender ?

You can use blender with no GUI, directly from a terminal or command line. As long as you can access the remote server (via ssh or remote desktop) you can issue commands to control blender.

The most basic command is

blender -b file.blend

-b will let Render in the background (without UI).

For a detailed list of other options read.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/workflows/command_line.html

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/command_line/arguments.html