How to get Mirrored-Repeat texture extension / UV in 2.8 I've imported a model from a game. It has UVs stretching beyond the image texture included. The texture is designed where the UV maps to a mirrored-repeating texture, but Blender 2.8 only has a "Repeat" texture extension.
This has been solved in the past for an older version of Blender, but the solution given does not apply to Blender 2.8: How to repeat a texture mirrored?

At its simplest, with a UV map like this:

.. which I think is equivalent to yours?
Then all you have to do is put a Math > Ping-Pong node in the way of the X and Y outputs of the UV texture space, on the way into the image:

If you find you need to tweak offsets, scales of the repeat, you may find it easier to wrap Ping-Pong up with something like the 'Triangle Wave' group you can download from this answer.
If you have several different UV maps, then instead of the Texture Coordinate input node, you would use a UV Map input node, to select the right one.


Modify complex mesh to sotfen hard angles (eventually for 3D printing) I imported an STL model of a piece of Star Lord's mask (originally from The RPF thread).

Here's how a part of the mask looks like in Blender:

I intend to use a 3D printer to print this part, and I would like to "smoothen" the hard angle, so that I will not need support to print this part. Something like this (mocked using a 2D program, just a small example):

This is the back side of the mask, so I don't mind deforming it a bit to reduce the need for support material.

The problem is that the existing mesh is quite dense, and I don't want to move 1000 vertexes. I tried proportional editing, but I don't feel like I have enough control there. Also, even with connected editing, I managed to deform the other side of the mask
(where I don't want to change anything) near the edges.

Any tips on how to do this? (would have been really easy with real clay...)

Thanks.

For fixing such models for 3D Printing I suggest taking a couple steps:

Use 'Tris to quads' (Ctrl + j in Edit mode)
Try selecting the edge loop in question (Alt + RMB)
By using 'Scaling' (s) and 'Moving' the object (g) in combination with 'Proportional editing' (o, use mouse wheel to specify the radius in which vertices will be affected) you can smoothen the area in question.

I also suggest using 'Smooth Vertex' located in the 'Tools' panel (t), only the selected vertices will be affected.

If you edit the mesh and reduce the amount of proximity loops around the edge you want to soften, you can use subdivision modifier.

If you can't avoid the overhangs (front of the mask rounded, and the back has steep angles as in the picture you attached) you might want to split the model into parts and print them in a different orientation, in most cases however it requires more work to choose this solution.

Lastly, since the overhangs shown in the picture you attached are quite steep. Unless you want to make the back completely flat, I would suggest you still use some supports to print such models (as the overhangs tend to start at the last layers of the print, you might be disappointed to see the model printed well and when it came to the overhangs layers it failed.)


Automatically draw hidden portions of paths with dashed lines This is a follow up to a question of mine on TeX stackexchange site.

Is it possible in blender to have an open surface that would render as opaque but the render would show automatically, depending on the position of the camera, the hidden parts of its boundary with dashed lines?

I'm a beginner in blender. Here is a simple blend file reproducing the surface of my original post.

Can do this using Freestyle and choose how to render Hidden edges. The zipped sample file renders the image below.

Select dashed line style from the Freestyle Line Style Panel in Render Layers Properties.

Quick proof of concept on your file.


How can I apply hair dynamics? How can I apply hair dynamics?

I don't want to convert it, I want to continue to edit it in particle edit mode

I don't know free solution, but with paid Hair Tool you can convert simulated hair to  curves, and then attach those curves back as particle hairs - but this time with ability to edit them (comb, cut etc).


What is the correct way to smooth sharp edges between faces? I have the model for the Owl tutorial from Blender's YT channel. You can see on the nose that there are some lines caused when using the mirror modifier. I tried to play around with the smoothing tool but this didn't seem to work. I also tried a smooth modifier but didn't get what I was looking for.
If you delete the edges that also didn't work.
What is the correct way to remove those lines and make the faces continuous?

You can go to vertex selection mode.

Select all the vertices.
Got to mesh option on the top.
Clean up > merge by distance.
This will delete the unwanted vertcies.
If this does not work, you  should go to face select mode and apply correct normals ( shortcut : ctrl+ N, in edit mode obviously.

If you see any red color that means some thing is wrong. You need recalculate normals. If every thing you see from out side is blue then you are good to go.
Againg if it does not work just apply your mirror modifier on object mode and then give it a subdivision surface modifier then smoth shading.
Hope it helps.!


How can I determine the resulting numbers for dice throw on an animation? I have two normal game dice with numbers 1 - 6. I want throw them. - It is OK. I know how to do that.
The result (numbers on dice when stop) of the throw is random. But I want exact numbers on the dice as a throw result (for example 1 and 5 on dice when animation ends).
Is there any way how to do that? Or I have to try randomly change high of the fall or rotation of the dice on start of the animation and hope it will help?
Thank you.

Switch your Transform Orientations to Local, and once your dice has fallen and stopped, go in Edit mode and rotate it 180° or 90° or -90° on the right axis until you see the wanted face.
As Robin Betts says, if your cube has small differences of topology between its faces it may change the result, in that case you need to bake the result before rotating the cube.
Or, as suggested by user9746379, simply parent the dice to a basic cube of the same size and that contains it, this parent has the physics, not the dice, once the cube has rolled, rotate the dice as wanted, and at the end only render the dice. This way, the topology differences between faces won't be taken into account.


How to add different materials to different parts of a texture? I'm not sure how to separate different parts of a texture into different materials. For instance, if I wanted to make the 'B' in the image below glossy, and leave the rest of the texture matte, how would I go about doing that?

You could try it this way:

Prepare 3 pictures: the original B, a B&W B to use as a cache to make the glossy appear, and normal map picture.
Mix a Diffuse (with the original picture) with a Glossy shader, use the B&W picture as a factor in the Mix Shader.
As the Glossy shader may seem a bit dark, mix it with an Emission shader, but I guess the glossiness will depend on your environment, so you might not need that.
Load your normal map in an Image Texture node (Non-Color Data mode), plug it into a Normal Map node, plug this node into the normal sockets of the Diffuse and Glossy nodes.


How to get owner Mesh from a MeshEdge or MeshVertex? I work on a script that reduces the vertex number of a Mesh meeting certain criteria.

To get it work, I need my own subclasses for Mesh, bpy_types.MeshEdge and bpy.types.MeshVertex to store some custom data. 'Mesh' is ok, but if I do something like:

class CustomVertex(bpy.types.MeshVertex):
    def __init__(self, inMesh, inVertex):
        pass

I get an error message:

TypeError: bpy_struct.__new__(type): expected a single argument

Blender, for some reason, doesn't like changing __init__()'s number of arguments, and also cannot be tricked with packaging multiple variables into a tuple or a list.

But, if I cannot pass in the mesh owning MeshVertex without passing it as a variable is there any function like bpy.types.MeshEdge.owner() or anything similar to refer to the Mesh in which the MeshEdge or the MeshVertex is in?

In theory you could add default values - like inMesh=None, inVertex=[], to be compatible with python code that doesn't add the extra arguments. In reality that may still fail as blender uses mostly C/C++ code for internal data like vertices, and it only provides a thin python wrapper to access that data, so some areas will not work well with custom python classes.

The good news is that you don't have to do any subclassing as blender supports adding custom properties to many existing classes. While the vertex and edge classes aren't in that list you can add properties to the Mesh class.

A collection allows you to create a property that is a list of custom classes, this would allow you to have a list that holds as many extra properties as you want for each vertex.

A slightly adjusted version of the example in the api docs -

import bpy

class CustomVertex(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    name = bpy.props.StringProperty(name="Test Prop", default="Unknown")
    value = bpy.props.IntProperty(name="Test Prop", default=22)

bpy.utils.register_class(CustomVertex)

bpy.types.Mesh.my_vertdata = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=CustomVertex)

objdata = bpy.context.object.data

new_item = objdata.my_vertdata.add()
new_item.name = "Spam"
new_item.value = 1000

new_item = objdata.my_vertdata.add()
new_item.name = "Eggs"
new_item.value = 30


Cant edit in edit mode? So I'm on Blender 2.8, and I'm having the weirdest problem right now. I select an object and go into edit mode, but the wireframe doesn't appear, and I can't actually edit anything! There are some times where i can't select the object directly in object mode, and actually need to select it in the hierarchy too. I suspect this is an issue with either the collections or layers, because I tried the "m" shortcut and was thrown off when it asked about collections instead of layers. Anyone know how to help?

I guess overlays are turned off. Check in the top right of your 3D viewport (by default) and make sure following icon is blue:

Manual link: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/display/overlays.html


is there a way to freestyle the trasnparent images? So i made the mout on a plane and used a mix shader and transparent shader to make it transparent, i only want the external freestyle line, and want the mouth highlighted as well but it only out lines the plane

With Freestyle, no, this is not possible; Freestyle acts on the geometry, not the rendered alpha.
However, it is possible to mimic Freestyle in the compositor by using edge detection to spot the transition between regions - in this case from opaque (low alpha) to transparent (high alpha).
See https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/186173/29586 for an example using the Normal and the Depth to detect edges - in your case you could use the same technique on the Alpha as is used on Depth. This will detect the edges of transparency.


How to make walls with the same thickness? I m noob in modeling and I have one problem with thickness walls of my shopping bag.

I wanna make walls the same thickness, actually I can't do this using E (External) or Solidify modifier. It doesn't work.

Every distance is different size, can you help me fix it ?

You have uneven scales on all axis (yellow marker). this happens when you scale your object in Object mode.

press  Ctrl  +  A  and select Scale in object mode. That should fix your problem.


Crop out only a side of a video I need to crop out only the left side of a video. Assuming this image is the video, i want to crop out the black side and maintain only the blue part.

Normally you cannot crop (redefine) video size from VSE, since it's globally set in Dimensions panel under Render Tab. So you have to redefine the Resolution(s) after cropping in VSE to remove stretching effect:


How do I colour a fluid simulation in Cycles based on velocity? I want to assign a gradient to the water simulations I have. I want to do this by the velocity in the current voxel, so the fastest moving areas will be red and the slowest blue.

How would this be accomplished using blender cycles nodes?

In Blender 2.82 and later, the fluid simulation engine used in previous versions has been replaced with Mantaflow. When Mantaflow simulates the fluid it provides a particle system that can be used to determine the velocity of the fluid in that region of the simulation.
To achieve this, use a Point Density node set to the Liquid Domain object with the Liquid particle system with a material similar to the following :

This takes the Object coordinates and converts into World coordinates - this is required as the particle system is always defined with respect to world coordinates. The Point Density defined the Object (the domain) and the particle system (Liquid) using World Space. Set the Radius to a suitable value such that the influence of each particle is large enough to prevent gaps and select Particle Velocity for the Color Space. The Color output will now represent the velocity of that section of fluid (with RGB representing X,Y,Z velocities.
In my example I used Separate, Absolute, Combine nodes to avoid negative values for use to colour the mesh for demonstration purposes. You can use a Vector Math 'Distance' node to convert the Color directly into a 'speed' instead, if desired.
Note that the Point Density can only be used with Cycles (ie, not Eevee).


How do I remove the overlap from merged meshes? I have recently decided to delve back into 3D modeling, I am a hobbyist I guess you could say.  I have been trying to find a solution for this particular problem for days now.  I have scoured this as well as other forums and have yet to find an answer to this dilemma.  This is my first post here so I hope I don't make too much of a fool of myself :P
I am currently trying to merge three rectangular cubes to form a symbol:

The problem arises when I goto render the picture:

I have tried Joining the objects then going back with the Knife and removing doubles, which seems to be the answer to this, but I keep getting the overlap.
I am sure it is a simple fix but I have probably burned myself out on finding it.
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
If I have managed to miss another answer to this in my search could you please link it.

You could do it with the TinyCAD addon or with some extrudes.

If you want to start with your 3 parallelepipeds you could use the TinyCAD addon:

Download and istall the addon.
Join your parallelepipeds with a ctrlJ, and go in Edit mode.
Select all and press W > TinyCAD > XALL.
Keep everything selected and press W > Remove Doubles.
Delete the inner vertices so that you won't have any inner edges in the final object.
Fill all the faces.

If you want to do it with some extrudes, you could:

Start with a plane, create an edge loop on its middle and tilt it with GG.
Bevel the middle edge loop with ctrlB and create 2 new edge loops.
Extrude the plane.
Select a face and press ctrlaltspacebar to create a new custom Transformation Orientation (named "Face.001" by default).
Keep this new orientation selected.
Select one of the faces you need to extrude, press E and Enter right away.
Move this new face along the Face.001 Y axis.
Same thing for the other face.


Change default C:\tmp location blender uses for video edition I'm new to blender, and I'm using it for video edition on Windows 7.
I have 149400 frames to render and each frame is about 1Mb. So I need nearly 150 Gb to render my project.
These values I got them in the C:/tmp folder where blender renders each frame as a 9999.png file.

BUT on my C: hard disk I "only" have 50Gb available.

Is there a way to change this default C:/tmp location so i can put it on a F:/tmp where I have enough space?

I tried File > User Preferences > File
I set values for

Render Output
Render Cache

But it changes nothing...

Open Blender, change the Render Output setting, then go to File > Save Startup File. This will make it the default whenever you start Blender.

As a bonus, you can also set up a scene the way you like to start. I removed the default cube and set up a world shader ready to use HDRIs from Blender Cloud.


Depth of field is not being rendered in Blender Internal I have quite an annoying thing, that I don't know how to do.
I'm about to render a small clip, but I don't know how to enable Depth of Field in animations render to make it visible in the final product. It is visible in 3D view, but not in the render. Any help will be appreciated.

Edit: I use the in-built renderer, nothing special. I'm not using compositor.

You need to use the compositor :)

The Camera settings sets an object as your focus point and the Defocus node uses this for calculations. Or, leave it blank and use the Defocus node settings for distance calculations.

In the Render layers settings, ensure you've added a Z pass.


How do I keep a cloth simulation from interacting with a particle emitter, while still interacting with the particles? I'm trying to work with a cloth simulation that encloses a particle system.  Unfortunately, I can't get the cloth to be deformed by the particle system, while ignoring the particle emitter (I'm also using the Molecular Script to apply physics to the particles, http://pyroevil.com/molecular-script-docs/).  In this case, I created two simple cubes to illustrate the problem, a cloth simulation cube surrounding a particle emitter cube.  Wireframe image

edit - I tried setting the particles to Global and then moved the dupli-object, which solved the emitter problem, but then the cloth wouldn't interact with the particles.

edit - I also tried activating a cloth simulator on just the particle emitter.  That didn't work either, although it could be a setting I'm missing.  The cube does emit the particles and it does deform with the cloth simulation, but the particles don't interact with it. (I tried this after I uploaded the .blend file.  I will upload a new .blend if I get closer to a solution).

I've added a simple .blend file that will hopefully illustrate the issue (Molecular Script needed to see the full idea, but shouldn't be necessary to see the problem).

I was actually able to get the Molecular simulation to work properly, by taking the top off of the cloth cube.  I didn't include those settings in this .blend file though.  For those that might download this one, the settings are really off.

You can do as follows:

Add a loop cut right in between the cube (cloth).
Delete the following lines:

Change the "Element to Snap to" to vertex.
Then Extrude the following highlighted lines towards the middle while stopping at each loop cut:

If all steps are done correctly the bag should open up like this:

NOTE: The more lines you delete in step 2 the wider the bag will open up.

BTW Here is the solved file:


How to hide UV seam through texture? Could you guys please help me with this annoying problem? Is there a special way to go about fixing this marking seam problem? There's no edge crease and everything's in smooth.
I tried blending the UV edges in texture paint, but that doesn't make any difference.

edit:
I forgot to mention that it only shows with the UV normal. any of the other textures it doesn't show.

Thank you in advance!

Well I figured it out with much googling. I even redid the mark seam and everything.

Turns out when creating a new image texture, I had to click on the checkmark that says 32 bit float and now the seam problem went away along with some sloppy normal map problems that I kept getting. I guess the extra resolution is needed.
source: https://developer.blender.org/T42056


Empty mesh after "Mesh from Curve" (Alt+C) Solution

Thanks to moonboots for pointing out my mistake. I forgot to fill the curve before converting it to a mesh. You can see the solution in the screenshot below:

Problem

I have created a (closed) bezier curve. After that I changed the mode from "Edit Mode" to "Object Mode". Finally, I selected the whole curve and hit "Alt+C" to convert it to a mesh.

However, all of a sudden now it does create a mesh but it seems to be empty. You can see the background grid through the mesh because there does not seem to be the default blueish grey color on it.

I have successfully used this method before to convert a curve into a mesh and I can't find what I have done wrong/ different now.

I have already used Google to find a solution but looking for the term "Empty mesh after mesh from curve" has not given me any results.
And looking for tutorials for creating a mesh from a bezier always give me the same error.

There is also a screenshot attached. I can also upload the project file to Dropbox if wanted.

As you can see the selected object is a mesh since it has the triangle icon.

Thanks for any answers. I have already spent quite some time to find a solution but nothing helped me to solve the problem.

You have to fill your bezier curve before converting it to mesh: Select your curve then go in Properties > Data > Shape > 2D with Fill = Back, for example


How can I make my animation video repeat several times so it is a loop? My animation video after the rendering is only 4 seconds long tho I want it to repeat several times so I can choose how many seconds the video should have.
My animation video has 120 keyframes it took long to render it with Cycles but unfortunately it only takes 4 seconds and this is too short I would want to have like 20-30 seconds.

Open the VSE (Video Sequencer) window, import you images with ShiftA > Image/Sequence, it will create a strip, duplicate the strip with ShiftD, render.


connecting 2 bezier curve segments I have 2 closed segments made from bezier curves. ultimately these segments outline a surface i am trying to create. is there a way to join points between those 2 segments? then convert to mesh and create a surface

I would suggest that after creating your two paths, you convert each one to a mesh, then you Join Ctrl+J the two new meshes, then in Edit Mode you select segments of vertices on each side and make a new Face.

The reason you should select a small segment at the time is if you were to take the whole thing there is a risk that it creates one large face that can cover the hole in the middle. You can use the Circle select to grab a set of vertices.

Hope this works for you.


Creating a portal effect in Blender 2.8 I would like to be able to make a portal effect in Blender 2.8. The idea is that you can look through a 'window' from one world to another. This could be achieved by looking between 2 scenes, or 2 view layers, I don't mind how it works.

I know this question has been asked previously but from what I can gather, the 2.8 update means that previous solutions no longer work. I have seen and tried the following solutions with no luck.

Portal effect in EEVEE?

Creating the Minecraft End Portal in Blender

How can I create a portal?

(the last one is harder to follow instructions wise)

Perhaps one of these solutions still works and I am missing a step but no matter what combination of steps I take, the 'window' (item with the holdout shader) always looks through both scenes or view layers rather than looking from one onto another. If it needs to happen in cycles that is also fine, I have tried all of the above in both cycles and eevee.

If anyone has successfully achieved this I would really appreciate a detailed step by step approach to implementing this effect.

Many thanks.

Answering myself as I found a solution. It seems that the process posted here...

Another portal Q&A

...can be made to work in 2.8. It needs to be in cycles mode and some of the checks in steps are in slightly different places but it works.

I would still be interested to know if there is an eevee solution for this.


How can I create a stained glass light effect? I'm aiming to re-create this scene I have made in Unreal Engine 4, but I am currently struggling with the stained glass effect seen here:

http://imgur.com/a/yLWzU

It was constructed in UE4 by essentially stacking three spotlights, each representing a colour channel, and then just aligning them roughly where the stained glass window ought to project that texture.

How could I create a similar effect in Blender?

Add a spot lamp, then go to texture panel, clic on the lightbulb (lamp texture) and add your texture.
I don't use BGE so I couldn't help more with it, but it looks like what you want.


Thin mesh overlapping when animated I am trying to build and animate a dragon in blender. I have built the model and rigged it, the only problem is that when I animate the wings, the bottom faces move higher than the top in some places. It basically looks the same as a Z-fighting problem. I could use a double sided mesh for the wing but I want some thickness to it.

Thank you.

You can add thickness to parts of your mesh using the below steps:

Switch to edit mode then select the vertices you want to add thickness to
Create a vertex group by pressing the + button on the right of Vertex groups.
Click the Assign button to assign the selected vertices to the newly created group.

Add solidify modifier to your mesh and select the specific vertex group as shown below:

Change the thickness value

This modifier will affect only the vertices that are part of that newly created vertex group.


Enabled grid for 2d animation Absolute beginner here. I would like to make a very simple 2D animation using Blender, but am stuck at the very basic level, I don't even manage to enable a grid. I have searched the internet a lot for guides and video introductions, and found quite a lot of them, but none seem to show what you need to do to enable a grid, and snap-to that grid.

When first opening a new "2D animation", there is a menu at the top that says "Guides", which seems to be intended to enable a grid, but it is greyed out, and selecting something in it does not change anything. After placing a first rectangle, the menu disappears.

So, how can I enable a grid, and enable snap-to the grid in the 2D Animation interface of Blender?

EDIT: Here is what my user interface looks like:

You can enable drawing guides and snapping in the Speed Guides Menu.

Check the small icon to enable it
Select the type of guides
Enable snapping and adjust the snapping grid size

You can also enable overlay grid in Viewport Overlay > Canvas and change it's appearance in Viewport Display > Canvas

Further reading in Blender Manual:

Introduction to drawing
Draw Guides
Drawing Planes


BGE: How to make things based on time(definite) instead of frame(relative) [BGE] How to make things based on time(definite) instead of frame(relative)

The BGE is designed to run with constant frame rate (default 60).

This will work pretty well as long as

you do not disable the constant frame rate
the processing time per frame does not exceed the available time per frame


After importing image as plane the image is not shown, it is just a gray plane After importing image as plane the image is not shown, it is just a gray plane.

Thanks if you can help me :)

Image as Plane doesn't work like Reference or Background images, if you want to see it in Solid mode you need to activate the Texture option:


Create microﬁbril stacking How can I create fibers to form microﬁbril stacking as in following figure?

Modeling

To create the main shape you can use this technique:

Add a cylinder with and even amount of faces.
Subdivide smooth it once by pessing ctrl+W.
Convert to the vertex selection mode.
Select all then checker deselect half if the vertices.
Shrink the vertices by a fairly small amount By pressing Alt+S
Subdivide smooth it again.
Poke the faces by pressing Alt+P
Convert triangles into quads using Alt+J
Select a single edge loop and hen select all the adjacent to it by the edge ring selection.
Delete those edges by pressing X then Edges.
Go into object mode and convert the mesh into a curve using Alt+C
Edit the Depth and the Resolution of the curve and convert it's type into Full.
Select all the splines and randomize it's transformation by a small amount.

Now you have the first layer of the Fibers,to create the other layers,Just duplicate and scale in 2 axis and may be rotate to create randomness.

Material

I am going to do it in cycles.

To have more control we should convert the curve into a mesh and may be add a subsurface modifier to have a smoother result,bu keep he curve we may need it.

Separate everthing b looses part bu pressing P.
(I will tell you why in a while)

Now to the materials:

This material assign a color from the color ramp randomly to the objects and give them a shadow using the normal node.(you can edit it o get what you want)


How to make a 3gpp file usable for the movie clip editor ? I have a movie file in the 3gpp format (shot with android smart phone, using Linux).
I switched into the movie clip editor and clicked on the open-button to import it as footage. Yet this file is not displayed in blenders file browser.
How do I continue from here?

Should I convert this file into another one, and if yes with what program into what format ?

Should I use an addon for blender if possible ?

This question comes up pretty high in searches so I thought I'd add what worked for me - converting it to mp4 with ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i originalvid.3gp -q:v 0 -q:a 0 -strict -2 targetvid.mp4

This keeps the video (q:v 0) and audio (q:a 0) at the maximum possible quality.


How to add and play video in the 3d viewport? Hi so I'm familiar with how to add images to the 3d viewport as planes. But can anyone explain how you would input a video into the 3d viewport such that you can play it in realtime?

My intent would be to create an image as a plane, add the video ontop of a section of this plane. And enable the movie to actually play (change frames and display them in the viewport) as I play from the timeline, and then use the camera to do like a 3d zooom in and down and across the plane that contains the video and back out kind of a thing. But I don't know how to make the video part work for this. I can only do it for static images atm.

Internal

Add the object.
Add a material.
Set the material to shadeless
Go to the texture tab and add a texture.
Load the movie as your texture.
Upon loading it enable Auto Refresh and press Match Movie Length once. The length should be updated.
In the 3D viewport, switch to textured or material shading mode.
In the shading options (Properties Panel N), select GLSL.

In the file you linked, the movie is playing, but you have set mapping to UV without specifying a UV Map (the object is not unwrapped). This part doesn't have anything to do with playing a movie, but with UV mapping.
Set the mapping to another type or create a UV map.


Licensing game in BGE I am making a new blender game, but I wanted to find out about license. I want to know how to get license, and how I can sell my game for money. Do I have to pay royalties?

P.S. When you put it on hold, I was very disappointed; because, where else can I ask question about blender? This is not question asked very much- I just asked how to license a game!

Ton just updated the following page but he did fail to mention anything about whether money can be made off BGE games.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Game_Engine/Licensing

  Licensing of Blender Games

  Blender and the Blender Game Engine (BGE) is licensed as GNU GPL,
  which means that your games (if they include Blender software) have to
  comply with that license as well. This only applies to the software,
  or the bundle if it has software in it, not to the artwork you make
  with Blender. All your Blender creations are your sole property.

  GNU GPL - also called "Free Software" - is a license that aims at
  keeping the licensed software free, forever. GNU GPL does not allow
  you to add new restrictions or limitations on the software you
  received under that license. That works fine if you want your clients
  or your audience to have the same rights as you have (with Blender).

  For people who prefer to lockup software or to restrict distribution
  or copying of their games, the BGE is not a good choice. The best they
  can achieve is to separate the contents (.blend files with game
  design) from the software (BGE) in their distribution, and license the
  first under own copyrights and keep the latter as GNU GPL. Standalone
  games

  In case you save out your game as a single "Standalone" the .blend
  file gets included in the binary (the BGE player). That requires the
  .blend file to be compatible with the GNU GPL license.

  In this case, you could decide to load and run another .blend file
  game (using the Game Actuator logic brick). That file then is not part
  of the binary, so you can apply any license you wish on it. More info

  More information you can find in the blender.org FAQ:
  http://www.blender.org/support/faq/

  (Disclaimer: the former text on this page was inaccurate and had wrong
  statements in it. The current text has been rewritten by Blender
  Foundation's chairman. If you have questions about GPL, consult the
  Free Software Foundation website fsf.org.


Finite element mesh generation with blender I would be interested in creating a mesh (2D or 3D) to be used in a finite element solver. Does blender have a plugin that can do this? If not, how difficult would it be to write one myself?

What this plugin should be able to do is 1) partition a mesh into finite elements using some rule, 2) be able to label boundaries and different subdomains somehow and 3) export the mesh in some format that can be read by finite element solver I want to use (in my case, this would be FEniCS).

Well it is easy if you use existing librarys.
The greatest problem is generating a useful mesh for finite element analysis. In this case use the open source mesher "netgen" or "gmsh".
After generating the mesh there are several other openSource tools which can help you with subdomains and boundaries

----Fast manual solution ----
Export the blender file as an stl.
Then import it in netgen and create a tetrahedral mesh.
After that use FreeCAD or CalculiX for labeling boundaries

---- Automatic solution ----
Use FreeCAD for the automatic import of the blender files and call netgen or gmsh.


How to use modifiers in Blend4Web I've been trying to export a wireframe (wire material assigned) object in HTML with Blend4web and it won't work. Am I doing something wrong, or is it not possible to do? Any advice is welcome.

You can use the wireframe modifier without applying it. Just set checkbox on "Apply modifier" in the object settings on your model and the engine will do it automatically during export, so you can more easily modify your mesh in Blender if you leave the wireframe modifier on it.


how to Isolate Vertex Groups so they don't combine when edges collide cube A and cube B are each in their own Vertex Group and they are separated by 1 cube length.

If I move Cube A 1 cube length closer to cube B the edges combine.

Is there any way to prevent the edges of the cubes from automatically merging when they touch?

Very likely you have AutoMerge enabled in your UI. Check if this button here is clicked when you are in edit mode:

When this is on, and you move one vertex to the same location as another one (like you do in your example), the vertices are melted together. It's a feature - rarely used as far as I know - which by default is disabled.


Texture Painting - object is pink like it has no texture I have a simple object, I UV unwrapped it, gave it a material and a texture but if I go to Texture Paint it still looks like it has no texture - I mean, it's pink - and Blender doesn't let me paint on it. It doesn't say anything, it just doesn't work.

If I don't add anything at first and click on Texture Paint then add an Alpha texture, Blender gives a material and a texture but the object is still pink and I still can't paint on it.

Any ideas why?

For the texture in question make sure that
RGB to Intensity is [not] checked.

Good Setting.

Potentially Painful.

You might just delete your current textures and create fresh ones if you suspect errors have been introduced unintentionally.


Cycles Renderer - Updating Shaders and Images Every Frame? This question is more of a curiosity to the potential of increasing render times, however, after finding very little out about this anywhere else, I am thinking it may be an intentional feature.

I am rendering out a 60 second animation (1800 frames) and I have noticed that every frame that is rendered, it starts by updating the shaders and images prior to rendering the frame. My average render time per frame is approximately 4 minutes, about 1 minute of this time is spent on updating the shaders and images.

I am wondering why it does this, and whether it is intentional to the process or whether it can be avoided/rectified?

I am using Blender 2.8.

For years this was left on the shelf because it was very hard to determine what was being changed and what wasn't between 2 frames due to the older dependency graph.
However recently Brecht and Sergey tackled the problem and the feature "persistent data" is going to make it into Blender 2.93.
You can read more information here:
https://developer.blender.org/rB50782df42
excerpt:

For Cycles, when enabling the Persistent Data option, the
full render data will be preserved from frame-to-frame in animation
renders and between re-renders of the scene. This means that any
modifier evaluation, BVH building, OpenGL vertex buffer uploads, etc,
can be done only once for unchanged objects. This comes at an
increased memory cost.

Here's some more information on the matter:
https://devtalk.blender.org/t/persistent-data-limitations/18427/2


How do I export audio in a video that is purposefully loud and distorted? (VSE) I am editing a video in Blender's Video Sequence Editor (VSE) and I have a lot of audio that is loud, distorted, and clipping. This is intentional.

However, when I render my final video, all the clipping audio is simply replaced with normal audio and some random beeps.

I am exporting into MPEG-4 with H.264 and AAC audio.

How do I get Blender to not curb my audio so it exports it loud and distorted?

EDIT: Yes, I am trying to make earrape videos with Blender...

Figured it out! It turns out that I need to set the audio codec to MP3, NOT AAC.


Object set to solid but some parts are still showing up as wireframe I recently decided to try my hand at making a mask. I was able to follow along with a video but once it came to the proportional part, I realized I could no long follow considering my object(mask) was not entirely solid

I feel as if I'm missing a small step or maybe along the way I just messed something up while following along with the videos.

1) Install the 'Mesh:F2' add-on from user preferences.

2) Go to edit mode and change the selection type to face select. Select your whole mesh by pressing A and press F to create faces in empty spaces. After that, select the extra face and delete it.


Animate a character by using a recorded video I want to animate a character in a realistic but easy way. I was thinking that I could use videos of me performing the actions I want to have on my characters, however I can't find a way of placing the videos and make the character to follow my movements in an automated way, like motion tracking. How can I animate automatically using this technique? Are there any Plug-ins to work like this? Is this mehod actually more useful than standard animation techniques?

You can do this by using a Microsoft Kinnect and the NiMate software. The app captures your movement in the camera and converts it to mocap data you can import into Blender and apply to a rigged armature for your character.

https://ni-mate.com


Linear environment gradient How possible to make this environment gradient linear (not spherical like)

If I set location on X=0 gradient is no spherical, but I need it on bottom.

Use just the information for the Z (vertical) axis.

You can place the gradient where you need it by modifying the coordinates.


Working in 3D stereo in the 3D view - hardware requirements? I want to run out and buy a pair of active shutter 3D glasses so I can watch and adjust animations in the 3D viewport using time sequential mode, but the part about the graphics card supporting Quad Buffers stopped me. I have read here that my MacBook Air might support this function, although it's not really clear to me if this applies to shutter glasses and the laptop display itself.

While the Anaglyph option is a quick way to get started, I need to use full color.

Any info or experience using Blender Multiview on MacBook with active shutter glasses would be greatly appreciated.

I had these problems with my internal Intel HD 4000. I wanted to use my laptops second GPU, an AMD Radeon HD 8790M. But unfortunately for this Dual GPU laptops you are dependant on your manufacturers driver support - so in the end it didn't work out for me.

I filed two Bug reports:

The first helped me to find out that the problem on my side is with the driver. The devs told me to use the opengl32.dll from http://download.blender.org/ftp/sergey/softwaregl/ and place it next to my blender.exe. That's only applicable for Windows though, but it showed me that the problem wasn't in Blender (as with this software render mode it worked really slow but fine).
The second one concluded in Dalai updating the manual mentioning the Triple Buffer:

  Multi-View drawing requires capable graphics card and drivers with Triple Buffer support. If the Automatic mode doesn’t work, set the Window Draw Method in the System User Preferences.

So for your case, I'd suggest, you'd try to figure out in general whether your 3D view is working under Windows with this OpenGL-Wrapper. And finally you have to make sure, your MacBooks graphics card supports Trible Buffer.
I was able to use the 3D Stereo View with my line interlaced Zalman Trimon ZM-M240W 3D Monitor in software mode (like a slideshow). But this has nothing directly to do with 120Hz or not - that's just needed for using Shutter Glasses. With a line interlaced Monitor you don't need this, it just halves your horizontal resolution (but you won't really notice this and the 3D effect outweighs this limitation!).

So in general it is working, but not unfortunately not with my manufactures dual GPU drivers. And I can imagine a similar problem exists for your MacBook that one of the key factors (TripleBuffer support) is missing.
The first step is to get 3D working with a MacBook in general (which I didn't hear of being possible yet) and after that you might try to setup Blender to show your Viewport or renderings in stereoscopic 3D.


Global switch for grease pencil effects? I made a greasepencil object, then did a few instances of it (about 15) and placed them around my scene. I then added a glow effect. Since the effects are instance-independent, I added the same glow effect to all my instances (next time I'll add the effect before instancing). After doing that I realised that the effects massively slow down playback in the viewport.

My question is: Is there a way to globally switch effects on/off or do I need to go through all my objects one by one and disable effect in viewport?

I couldn't find a global switch but as a workaround, switching all viewports shading's to solid does disable the effects in the viewport and speeds up playback. Not perfect since it changes the way materials/shadings are displayed, but at least it doesn't alter greasepencil objects.


Some vertices don't move along with the rig I follow this tutorial which uses rigify and I have run into some issues.

Not every vertex moves along the rig. Any idea what could cause this? I applied the location and rotation for every object.

The entire head is weight painted with blue.

blend file

To solve this issue, you need to:

Make sure the mesh weights are set correctly
Probably join all the body part meshes into one mesh
Make you rig bind to the mesh using bone envelopes or vertex groups. If you choose bone envelopes, make sure they encapsulate all parts of your mesh so they effect all parts of the mesh. If you choose vertex groups, make sure all the vertices of the mesh are accounted for in all the vertex groups.

That being said, you can follow the steps I've laid out here until you get to the end, and then try googling adjusting bone envelopes or vertex groups, or hopefully I or someone else can figure out how to get it working properly so I can finish giving step-by-step instructions.

Moving a Mesh with an Armature

In order to move a mesh with an armature/rig, you need to:

Make sure the Weight for your mesh is set correctly
Make sure your mesh is bound to the rig correctly with either Vertex Groups or Bone Envelopes

Weight Painting

Weights for mesh objects that you want to be moved by your rig/armature must be painted something other than blue:

Blue means it will be effected 0% by rig movement
Red mesh will be 100% effected you the rig
Any color in between blue and red will be partially effected by the rig movement:

Since your figure's body is divided into different meshes, I suggest you join all body parts together into one mesh so the rig will effect them as one mesh. Perhaps it's possible to use the rig with all the parts separate like they are now, but I don't know how to do that. So, I recommend selecting all parts and then using the Join command by pressing CTRLJ.

Now you need to paint all parts of your mesh with the correct weights:
Select the figure
Select Weight Paint mode in the 3D Viewport header:

Now adjust the brush settings and paint.
NOTE: If you want an easy way to paint every part of your mesh red so it'll all move 100% with the rig, then make sure Limit Selection to Visible is disabled so that when you paint, it'll paint even parts of the mesh you can't see (i.e. the back sides, etc), as shown in the video below:

You might want to paint the hair and the leaf dress to something other than full red in case you want them to move slightly differently. You can read more about weight paint here on the Blender wiki.
Now that you've taken care of the mesh weights, let's move on to the rig and how it's attached to the mesh. You might consider turning off the visibility of the controls you are not using at the moment so it's easier to grab the ones you want. To do this, open the Properties panel (N), scroll down to the bottom and toggle off the visibility of the ones you're not using, like this:

This will leave only the IK (Inverse Kinematics) controls visible so they'll be MUCH easier to find & select when you're posing the rig.

NOTE: If you're not sure about whether to use FK or IK controls, see the answer here for a detailed description of what FK and IK controls do.
Next, select your rig, then enable Auto IK in the Options tab:
Tools panel (T) -> Options tab -> enable Auto IK

Now you need to bind the vertices of your mesh to your rig/armature using either Vertex Groups or Bone Envelopes:

Bind to Vertex Groups and/or Bone Envelopes

One common cause of parts of the mesh not moving with an armature can be related to how you bind the armature to your mesh -- whether you have Bind to Vertex Groups, Bone Envelopes, both or neither selected. If you'd like to read more about Vertex Groups and Bone Envelopes, you can read more about them here:

Vertex Groups
Bone Envelopes

In this instance, I'll show how to bind using bone envelopes.

First, make sure you only have 1 Armature modifier on your figure, then set it so only Bind to Bone Envelopes is selected:

Then, select the rig, go into Edit mode, and in the Properties panel (N) adjust the size of the radius and envelope of each bone to make sure it encompass all parts of the mesh it's intended to move:

Then, when you go into Pose mode to pose your figure, if part of the mesh doesn't move properly, like the parts of her face you showed in your picture, then that means the radius and/or envelope of the bone governing the head movement is not large enough.

More On Rigify

For more information about some of Rigify's not so obvious features, see this question.


Aligning Vertices Diagonally I'm trying to make a pistol with a hammer thingy on the back. I've been struggling to make the back perfectly aligned like the red line in the 3rd image. Any help would be appreciated.

I think the Shear tool should work:

Select all the vertices of your twisted face.
Press S Y 0 so that they all collapse on the same Y axis.
Switch to the right orthographic view, press Shift ctrl alt S and move your mouse to change the shear angle until the angle your need (press -1 for a 45° angle).
It should be good.


Why doesn't bevel work on my object? I have made an object out of a cube, that I applied boolean and mirror modifiers. Now when I apply Bevel, I don't see anything. I want it to have slightly rounded edges and corners.

It doesn't seem to make any change if I disable the other modifiers or move Bevel higher up.

Here's what my object looks like:

It works on a cube, and here's what I want the edges to look like:

Here's my blend file:

Appreciate any help!

Merge the vertices by distance and then it will work, just tested


How can I bake the physics cache of linked objects? Imagine you have a rig that consists on bones and everything, and that in that setup you also include curve objects to do some physics simulation. All these rig objects would be part of a group for linking
How can you bake the cache of those physics when you link the group in the animation file?

Yes this can be done.

However the solution is admittedly awkward, and this is an areas Blender could be improved.

Initial Bake

Make sure the point cache has External and Use Lib Path option enabled,this way each library object can have its own cache when instanced in other files.
Now for the trick In the file that links this data in.

In the Properties Space, Select the object category.
Pin the object (Pin icon, top left corner of space).
Now, you can use the object ID selector to select a new object, one that is in the library and need the simulation to be baked.
Now navigate to he buttons and run the bake operation.

Note, This is really a hidden feature which we are not proud of!

Setting Parameters

To just execute the bake locally often isn't enough, you probably want to change the frame range and may even want to tweak physics settings based on the environment.

In this case the only option is to use a Python script which overrides these settings on load, give it a name that won't conflict with other Python modules and enable Registered in the text header so it runs on load.

Heres an example: my_init.py

import bpy
scene = bpy.context.scene
obj = bpy.data.groups["MyLinkedCharacter"].objects["HairDo"]
obj.particle_systems["ParticleSystem"].point_cache.frame_start = scene.frame_start
obj.particle_systems["ParticleSystem"].point_cache.frame_end = scene.frame_end

This script can be run manually at any time to update the settings.

Note

Rather then having single text-blocks per-file, the open-movie Sintel used a single Python script that loaded for all files, called finals_config.py. I'd recommend using a single script to manage this otherwise you can't easily see whats happening without opening up every blend file although this script become messy over the course of the project so its not a great starting point, more a reference as to what can be done.


Weight Paint Bone Selection vs Vertex Group Selection Trying to learn about weight painting. I have a fairly complex armature (human skeleton, imported from Fallout game) and corresponding clothes that I would like to weight paint.

I weight paint mode I can select bones in the armature with RMB on the bone in question. But some of these bones are very close to each other, is there some other way I can select them? I can't find them in any panel?

I can find the vertex groups however. But I'm not sure selecting the vertex group called f.ex "right_arm" is the same as selecting the bone called "right_arm". Selecting the bone, seems to also select the vertex group, but not vice versa? Ie, if I do "select right_arm vertex group and then rotate it, I don't get the expected result (the right_arm bone doesn't rotate). But it's all good if I RMB select right_arm bone in the 3d-window.

What am I doing if I have selected f.ex right_arm bone, and then I select left_arm vertex group and then I start weight painting? I can't just wrap my head around that...

When I have this kind of doubts, I generally build  a simple armature (2-3 bones), a simple object and try and experiment the behaviour I'm not sure about.

Anyway: the best way to select bones close each otheror overlapping is to separate them into different bone layers and turn on and off the needed layers.

The weight is an attribute of a vertex, relatively to a vertex group, which belongs to a mesh, so when you do some weight painting you are workng on a mesh, so if you select a new vertex group the weight painting will be relative to this latter vertex group, no matter which was the last selected bone in the armature.

When you add to a mesh an Armature modifier and select as object your armature, every time you move  a bone in pose mode Blender will search in the mesh if there is a vertex group with the same name, and will move the belonging vertices according to all weights in all vertex group.

This relationship is often set by the shortcut Ctrl+P
 (with automatic weights).

An useful and often unknown tool is: if you select your mesh, enter edit mode and select a weighted vertex, in the right properties panel (N
) you can find the vertex weights tab, which tells you all the weight assignements of the active vertex.


How to get/select a bone by it's name in python? I am having a master armature which has multiple bones. Now I want to apply rotation to a particular bone. Now, I can loop through all the bones in the armature and check for the bone with the expected name and then process it. But is there a way to select/get the bone object directly using it's name without looping through all the bones?

This also works
bpy.data.objects["Armature"].data.bones["Jaw"].select = True


Smoothing out angular object in blender? I imported this object from an .stl file which I created in SolidWorks. I need to export it in a .raw format for further use. But the object is a bit too angular. Is there any way I can smooth it out using blender?

Thank you

In the object mode select the object then there is option "subdivide surface" in the "Add Modifier", as shown in figure at right by red color point 1, after selecting it,
Click the view untill "view 2" as you can see I have View 1 in point 2 written in red color
At left you will see the smooth the press that smooth option


Why should texture resolutions be powers of 2? It's often said that texture dimensions should be square powers of two (512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048...), but what is the purpose of this really? I've given this advice myself and do it whenever I can, but never completely understood why.

I'd like to know how it affects Blender specifically (cycles/BI/GE). Does it save a little bit of memory? Or avoid a few calculations for render time? Or is it just a legacy game-engine thing left over from the days of on-board graphics, an old habit that won't die?

If possible, please provide some test results to back up the theory.

It's probably better to ask a question like this on a dedicated programmers Q&A site since people there are more likely to focus on these things.  Anyways, here are a few considerations that I am aware of.

When textures are not powers of 2, you(or the software you use) will usually have to use special extensions made by the hardware/driver manufacturers if you want them to work consistently.
For instance, OES_texture_npot or ARB_texture_non_power_of_two.

Using special GPU extensions to increase a programs abilities can also reduce compatibility since not every manufacturer is guaranteed to support them all and older machines from the same manufacturer may not support them either.  This means that the software may run fine on your machine but not on the computers of other people.

Here is an excerpt from the PowerVR Performance Recommendations guide.  This is the sort of thing that you will see in various documents from other GPU manufactures as well but the specific details will change slightly between them(ATI, nVdia, PowerVR, Mali, etc..) and even between different generations of cards made by the same company.

  Finally, a few additional points should be considered when using NPOT
  textures: • POT textures should be favoured over NPOT textures for the
  majority of use cases as this gives the best opportunity for the
  hardware and driver to work optimally. • A 512x128 texture will
  qualify as a POT texture, not an NPOT texture; rectangular POT
  textures are fully supported. • 2D applications (such as a browser or
  other application rendering UI elements where an NPOT texture is
  displayed with a one-to-one texel to pixel mapping) should see little
  performance loss from the use of NPOT textures other than possibly at
  upload time. • To ensure that texture upload can be optimally
  performed by the hardware, use textures where both dimensions are
  multiples of 32 pixels. • The use of NPOT textures may cause a drop in
  performance during 3D rendering. This can vary depending upon MIP-map
  levels, size of the texture, the texture’s usage and the target
  platform.

Basically, if you stick with powers of 2 then you are guaranteed multi-platform support and good performance, otherwise you may have problems when you try and work with a different machine other than the one you started on.

//------------------------------------------------------

I suppose as a metaphor, we could look at this as if textures and model data are like shipping containers used to transport goods on boats, trains and highways.
If all the containers are the same, then everyone involved knows what to expect, and what to do when they encounter a container that must be shipped.

All the cranes will be able to grab it, and the container will fit into the same slot as all the rest.

If the container is different then the rest of them then there will likely be problems since none of the equipment was designed to deal with this different format and none of the people involved were trained to deal with that situation.

Update:
Here something that was recently posted on the Blender Bug Tracker.


Manually Painted Vertex Weights don't export to FBX, but auto-weights do I'm exporting using the AutoRigPro exporter. In Blender, the weights look fine (the first image). However, After auto-weighting to my rig, I needed to do some manual painting around the wrists to fix deform issues. Then on export to FBX I get the issue you see in the second image.

Any vertex I painted manually or modified in the slightest with the blur tool doesn't seem to export properly.
I checked and the bone I'm weighting to is the correct one, and is exported. The weights are normalized. There are no more than 4 weights per vertex. Any idea what's going on here and how to fix it?
Removed the link to the source file because I solved the issue.

This was due to conflicting vertex groups in the ARP exporter. To fix it, I removed vertex groups that didn't match the secondary controller mode for ARP (which were added in a different bind session set to "none"). In my case, I needed to remove the following groups because my current bind is set to "twist:"
-arm_stretch
-forearm_stretch
-arm_twist
-forearm_twist
-thigh_stretch
-thigh_twist
-leg_stretch
-leg_twist


Compositing: When to use premultiplied alpha? When should one check the Convert Premul box on nodes that use alpha?

Secondly, why is there a Premul slider on the Alpha Over node? When would you need it to be something other than 0 or 1?

I understand that pre-multiplied alpha is sometimes good and sometimes bad, and that if used improperly it can result in dark borders where transparency tapers off. But that's about all I know. Could you please enlighten me?

When should one check the Convert Premul box on nodes that use alpha?

Only when you know that your image has unassociated (often called "straight") alpha. Or in other words, when your image's alpha is not associated (premultiplied).

  why is there a Premul slider on the Alpha Over node? When would you
  need it to be something other than 0 or 1?

That's an unfortunate feature that brings a lot of confusion among users. It can be used to mitigate alpha errors. If you did your compositing right and didn't mix up associated and unassociated alphas, you should never use it.
And even if you didn't, that feature is a hack that will only mitigate, not fix those errors.
It's better to track down your alpha to spot any mistake and fix it.

  I understand that pre-multiplied alpha is sometimes good and sometimes bad, and that if used improperly it can result in dark
  borders where transparency tapers off. But that's about all I know.
  Could you please enlighten me?

It's never bad. It's actually the best way transparency can be expressed in an RGB file as it allows both occlusion and emission (that means that your foreground can both block and emit light).
You can do most of your compositing without moving away from associated alpha and expect good results.
That doesn't necessarily mean that unassociated alpha is never useful. It has its uses, but CG and VFX are probably better suited for associated alpha.
You just have to know when your image is associated or unassociated so the correct alpha-over operation is used and it produces the correct results.


Add Range to Driver Expression I'm trying to set up a driver for an object that uses an integer property from a panel in a custom addon as its data path, to basically control the visibility of the object within a range. So for example, if the slider is set to 1, make the object visible, but if its 0 or any number higher than 1 then hide it. So Far I've managed to find expressions that set up a min and max such as:
max(0, 1 - var)
but it only works until it hits it max and then it stays visible. I'm still new to expressions, what could I add to this to make it a range basically, or would it be better if its an if statement?
Thank you

You can use the expression var != 1 which will evaluate to False if var is 1 or True in any other case.
Example :


Baking displacement map: Base mesh is included in the highres output How can i get ride of all those quads so only the white mark shows up?

Step to reproduce

Create sphere as base
Duplicate base as hd and add x3 subdivision modifier then apply
Sculpt some details on hd mesh
Unwrap base and create a 32*1024*1024 texture with all faces selected
Set up the bake (normalize simply help to see through) as below

Answer from @Secrop on blenderartist.org:

  Add a subdivision modifier to the low poly object before baking.

  The thing here is that each poly in the lowres object is flat, but the surface from > the highres is curved… This makes the displacement value at the center of those polys to be greater than their corners.
  If your lowres is later to be subdivided with ‘Simple’ method, this bake will be correct. On the other hand, if you use ‘Catmull-Clark’, then you need to use this subdivision at the baking phase also.

Result:


How to set 2 different material front back to a mesh I have mesh without thickness. I want added logo on the man cap.

I tried this nodes.

Any suggestion or help how it works. Thanks

I'm not sure why you're using a Transparent node. Plus contrary to what you say your cape has thickness as you've given it a Solidify modifier. So you need to either apply or remove the modifier. Your node organization must look like that:


How to make puddles with the Principled BSDF? With the new Principled BSDF shader, I have two problems, how to connect the displacement image, and how can I make puddles whit it! Could someone help me?

In Cycles displacement is handled independently of the surface shader, so the workflow is the same whether you're using the principled bsdf or not. You simply connect the displacement/height map to the "displacement" socket on the material output node. See Blender Cycles True Displacement

As for puddles, an easy way to do with just a texture is to manipulate the base color and roughness channels. Puddles are generally darker and shinier than the dry areas of the surface. Here's an example using a simple noise texture to define what is and is not a puddle. A ramp is added to make a sharper transition between the light and dark areas of the noise:

(please excuse the "roughness" label on the basecolor texture node, it was an oversight in building this nodesetup. It's a different image and being used as the basecolor texture)

The lower the roughness and make the surface darker, we can simply multiply the roughness and basecolor channels by our noise map. To make the puddle surface smooth, we also use our puddle noise map to be blend a blank normal map node and the actual normal map node, removing the normal effect where the puddle water would cover it.

This is just one way to do it. There are other options, such as mixing multiple principled bsdf nodes, or using the clearcoat function. This is just a way I feel is simple and efficient.


Making a flexible parameterized horn I'm trying to make a model of horn acoustic:

Actually, it should be a parameterized (for example, exponentally widening) tube, which can than be shaped/curved.
I've been trying Curve Modifier but it works OK only for one turn.

Final:

Overview:

You will need two objects.

Simple Bezier Circle which will Bevel your shape.
Bezier Curved shaped as needed with custom Radius values (per point) for Beveling.

You can change Radius values by selecting point and changing it's value in Transform tab or by hitting W > Set Curve Radius.

After that you can add Solidify Modifier and maybe Alt+C > Mesh from Curve.

Blend file:


How to use generated textures (eg. wave) as normal map? I would like to use the generated wave texture as a normal map.
It is a mesh with different materials assigned.

I try to plug in the wave texture directly into the normal map node but it doesn't work like that. Can I convert somehow the output of the wave texture ?
I'm quite confuse how to proceed and how to do it.

Normal maps expect RGB chanels to represent the XYZ axis of the surface.

A monochrome texture like wave only has one component and can't effectively be used as a Normal Map directly.

What you need is to convert it into a bump map which represents height values from a single component instead, that can be used to influence normals.

Use a Vector > Bump node instead


how to symetrize a part of the mesh in its normal orientation/position in edit mode? how can i symmetrize this mesh in this position? i mean to do it by the median point and by the normal orientation rather than local or global transforms orientation, in this case in the X axis in normal orientacion or custom orientation in this case. because i need to symmetrize in that position the selected mesh of the object, but i have notice that symmetrize option in b3d only works by the object´s median point and global axis, no i cant perform this in this exact position and orientation, so does someone know some trick to preform this action in edit mode?

In general:

Establish your Pivot (transform origin, somewhere in the mirror plane). This probably involves ShiftS snapping the 3D Cursor to a known point, or the median of some selection, and setting the 'Pivot' to 'Cursor'.
Establish your Transform Orientation, either using the View, or more likely a Custom Orientation (the '+' at the right of the Transform Orientation dropdown). For example, it could be the normal of a face: select the face, and create an orientation from it. Z in that orientation will now be the direction of the face's normal.
ShiftD duplicate your part..
SZ-1 scale the duplicate by -1 in the appropriate axis of your custom orientation, about your pivot.

You may have to ShiftN, turn the mirrored duplicate right-side-out.


Bmesh: how can I import custom vertex normals I have a question concerning BMesh and custom vertex normals editing. At the moment I am writing a little blender importer for a custom data format and I am stuck with importing/manipulating custom vertex normals. I am using the bmesh module because I want to use it's functionalities before transforming the bmesh into a real mesh.

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to set the normals with bmesh? Do I need to import them with the Mesh module?

Thanks a lot in advance for any tipp!

I believe since Blender 2.74, this was made possible for the bpy Mesh type. You can use the mesh normals_split_custom_set method to do this.

In this example, I only have per-vertex normals so I create a new list with one normal corresponding to each loop.

normals2 = []
for l in mesh.loops:
    normals2.append(normals[l.vertex_index])
mesh.normals_split_custom_set(normals2)
mesh.use_auto_smooth = True

Note that auto smooth needs to be enabled for this to work.

In my case, I could have used the normals_split_custom_set_from_vertices method, and passed in normals directly.


Can't stop effect of C shortcut in Grease Pencil's draw mode Like the title says, I have created a new Grease Pencil Object (GPencil), went into the Draw Mode (upper left menu), than pressed C, but I can't exit from this feature (pressing ESC or anything else doesn't seem to help).

To be precise: pressing C in draw mode constrains the drawing into a circular/radial guide.

Possibly a bug?
Thanks
G

EDIT SOLUTION: Check the box in the upper viewport, with other guides checkboxes (Circular, Radial, Parallel...)

This is not a bug. In draw mode C activates the circular guide. You can click on the guides icon to deactivate.


"No Animation Data In Buffer To Paste" Error Ive been animating a run cycle and I need to copy and mirror the same poses.

On frame 10 I copied that frame and on frame 14 I hit Shift + Ctrl + V to paste the copied frame and it gave me this error: no animation data in buffer to paste
Ive looked for a setting that could be enabled and could not find one that looked like it did anything with it
I'm using 2.90.1

I figured it out I had to have my mouse over the view screen.
I had my mouse over the dope sheet


Half of my mesh/texture is blurred For some reason, half of my texture on the mesh is blurred... I did not use any special nodes or settings or anything, just applied an Image Texture node...

Any idea why this might be?

Here is the .blend file

and a screenshot:

Thanks guys

You'll need to provide a proper UV map to make this work. The reason why it looks like this is that currently your UV map is stretching just horribly, check this screenshot:

When I select the bottom of the vase, I can see that those faces cover a very small area of the UV editor, causing the texture to stretch like it does:

In essence, 75% of the surface of the vase are mapped to something like 4% of the UV space. This just cannot work. Try unwrapping the vase by placing seams down the side on two opposite sides, and also around the n-gon on the bottom, then the unwrap function will give you something like this:

The vase then will receive the texture like this:

Check the Blender manual on UV unwrapping techniques for further information:
https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/uv_image/uv_editing/unwrapping/index.html


How to map UV on generated Mesh from Curve? Hi I created a Mesh from a curve with a Bevel Object and now I need to UV map it.

It should become a rebar and needs the typical ripples at its sides as displacement. I created a seam and tried different unwrap methods. Actually I hoped that the generated texture coordinates would fit already but it is always stretched along the long part as shown in the picture.

How can I map it as an even cylinder along the mesh so that I can achieve the typical rebar look?

You need the UV map to be flat and straight, as if the rebar was still straight.
The rings will then just follow the bent shape.

UV Map
The UV Map is the most important thing here. It needs to be flat and straight.
Don't forget to cut off the end caps with seams, like I did.

I used the default Angle Based unwrap, which may/may not work in your case.
There's also an addon called UV Squares which comes with Blender and will do the work for you.

Mapping Node
The Mapping node will allow you to precisely scale the texture.
Notice that in my case, the Y Scale is considerably smaller.
Also, don't forget to plug in the UV Map output.

Note
I used a generated wave texture for the rings. With a proper image texture you'll surely get better results.

Good luck.


Unable to deselect newly added object with Python (Change red selection to orange) - Blender 2.8 I am trying to add an object using from_pydata but am unable to deselect the added item - which is currently outlined in red and then select it so it is outlined in orange - and enter Edit mode.
`mycode
    import bpy, bmesh

    me = bpy.data.meshes.new("Vert" + "Mesh")
    ob = bpy.data.objects.new("Vert", me)

    me.from_pydata([(1, 2, 5),(0,-1,0),(2,-2,0)],[],[[0,1,2]])

    bpy.data.collections['Collection'].objects.link(ob)

    bpy.data.objects["Vert"].select_set(True)
    bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_GEOMETRY', center='MEDIAN')

    bpy.context.active_object.select_set(False) # attempt 1

    bpy.data.objects["Vert"].select_set(False) # attempt 2

    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT') # attempt 3

    bpy.data.objects["Vert"].select_set(True)

    bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'EDIT' )     # Toggle edit mode
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_mode( type = 'FACE' )    # Change to face selection
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all( action = 'SELECT' )`

The newly added object is circled in red as opposed to the usual orange. A simple click on anything other than the object "Vert" and select again will make the object orange, as required, but I seem unable to do this via code.
I have tried adding other objects, or selecting other objects in the scene but with no luck.

The Orange you mention is Active state of object,
as other posts described, it is separated from selected object.
The Red ones is selected object. Newly created object in script will be "selected" but not active by default.

If you want to set it as active object:
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = some_obj - 2.80 API
For further information: Set active object with python - Blender Stack Exchange


Rotating Hand Weapons Correctly I've been modeling weapons for my game for the past 2 months, started to try to rig some of them today to see how they look in game. I've done VERY limited rigging, mostly clothing, never really weapons. I searched around for a couple hours and used this method :
1.  Add new armature bone extending from middle of the hand (where fingers meet the hand) and name it RightItem/LeftItem
2.  Place weapon in hand where it should be held
3.  Click on Armature, go into pose mode and select only the Item bone.
4.  Click on weapon, shift select the armature, hit CTRL+P and parent the weapon to the armature using “Empty Groups”
5.  Click on weapon and go into EDIT MODE
6.  Go into Object Data Tab ( Triangle ), find Vertex Groups, scroll down until you find the RightItem bone and assign the weapon to that bone.

It works but after rigging the item is moved from his hand. I took some time and put it back in his hands, it seems for some reason none of the Axis are responding how they normally respond? Try moving it up on the Z axis and it starts moving on the X,Y and Z axis up towards the left hand corner. Also when I tab into EDIT mode the weapon again moves. I can eventually get it in his hands and tests fine, but I feel moving forward this is going to be SUPER annoying and just a waste of time trying to deal with. Is my method for rigging super outdated? Or am I missing something thats right in front of my face? If anybody has ever come into contact with this problem, any help, guidance, assistance, knowledge anything would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

first add you blend file here to see whats going on there. https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/
i think this has something to do with parenting or bone contraints settings, there is a bone constraint called "child of" its works for moving a bone with another one but without parenting those bones, i think you are looking for moving the hand bone with the weapon.


How to fill particular areas in texture paint? I tried to Google this for hours but couldn't find how to do this. I have an object with a texture that has a completely closed black circle. See this example:

What happens it that if I try to fill my inner circle with orange, the whole circle fills. I wanted fill only the inner circle (similar colors). I was hoping if someone could tell how to accomplish this. Thanks!

You can use the UV Image Editor Fill tool and play with the threshhold settings to see how well the fill works without spilling into the area around the colored area.


How are color images used as input values in nodes? I know in a lot of node setups, people use the image texture's color output as a mix factor. How does Cycles use an image texture to do this? Does it use the brightness in particular parts of the image to represent different numerical values? How does that translate, and how can it represent different amounts of these values on different parts of the mesh?

You're correct, it uses brightness. Or rather, luminance.
The color output contains three values, R G and B. When a color output (yellow socket) is plugged into a scalar input (gray socket), it is automatically converted as if using an RGB to BW node.

For example, this can be observed by plugging an image texture into a math node set to multiply by 1:

Before multiplying the values, the R G and B channels are turned into a single grayscale channel. Since we're multiplying by 1, the values are unchanged.

This is the same as the more "proper" method of using a RGB to BW node:

By default blender converts the R G B channels to a single channel while trying to preserve the luminance (see wikipedia).

To do this, the RGB to BW node does something like this:

Once the color channels are converted to a single channel, this can be used to set the mix factor for each pixel (using just the mix factor slider is equivalent to using a solid color image). See How does fac differ with manual control versus node control?.

If you want to use images with very specific values, then you'll want to pay close attention to color management. See: What exactly does the "Non-color data" option for image/environment textures do?


Using an Archimesh glass panes pixelates my HDRI background – anyone know why? I'm new to Blender and the tutorial I'm following uses Archimesh to create basic glass doors. Using both the default Archimesh shading settings and my own custom settings (see screenshot below), the panes pixelate the HDRI background (I've hidden one of the panes so that the difference is clear).
I haven't found anyone online with this same issue – would anyone know why this is happening? Thanks in advance! I've had a million dumb questions but this is the only one I haven't been able to find a solution for.

Turn off half res trace under SSR in Eevee:


How to get all meshs added in with a import script? Right now I am making a import script for my file format. I have the model appearing fine and doing everything I need except I need to get all the meshes created and add them under an empty object I created also.

Here is what I have now: https://paste.ofcode.org/AsYmmmV6tTdcR79UJrTy5X

Now on line 95 you will see I create an empty object. My question is how can I get all the meshes created using the add_mesh_to_scene. So basically any mesh added to the scene will be parented under that empty object. I have went through and tried other peoples answer about parenting but cant find a way to do this no matter what I try. Any help would be greatly appreciated thank you :)

Add an empty object and set as parent

Rather than edit into your code I have added an example of how to add objects and set to have same parent.  Have used "dummy" version of your add_mesh_to_scene to illustrate.

Uses the default cube mesh as a proxy for the imported mesh.  Adds an empty at the cursor location and num_objects = 4 as the children of that empty.  Set the inverse parent matrix to position the imported mesh objects where they would be without an empty parent at cursor location.

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene

num_objects = 4
def create_mesh():
    # dummy method returns def cube mesh
    return bpy.data.meshes.get("Cube")

def add_mesh_to_scene(scene, mesh):
    obj = bpy.data.objects.new(mesh.name, mesh)
    scene.objects.link(obj)
    return obj

if num_objects:
    # code to add empty parent
    mt = bpy.data.objects.new("Handle", None)
    scene.objects.link(mt)
    mw = Matrix.Translation(scene.cursor_location)
    mt.matrix_world = mw
    # return as active
    scene.objects.active = mt
    mwi = mw.inverted()

    for i in range(num_objects):
        me = create_mesh()
        ob = add_mesh_to_scene(scene, me)
        ob.parent = mt
        # setting this keeps them in import locs.
        ob.matrix_parent_inverse = mwi
        # set some loc to visualize
        ob.location.x += 1.1 * i * ob.dimensions.x
        # return as selected
        ob.select = True
    # update scene once.
    scene.update()


I can't select multiple objects using Shift-Left Click in object mode I cannot see the orange origin point in Blender and cannot select multiple objects using (Shift-Left Click) in object mode. Could someone please tell me if I'm doing something wrong, Thanks.

As you can see the orange origin point is not visible even though I have the object selected in object mode.

Make sure the objects are selectable. For instance, I've turned the Central Empty non-selectable in the following screen capture:


Random vertex colors for uv islands Is it possible to auto assign random vertex colors for every UV island... so it will be more visible in the 3d view?
Like in 3d-coat

It's a new Cycles only feature, but yes. In material nodes, try using Geometry>Random Per Island. Map and control the output via color ramps.


How do I make a randomized order of the array modifier? I'm trying to make a line of colored bubbles using an array modifier but I want them in a sort of unorganized conga line. Is it possible using the array modifier, or do I have to do them manually?

You can achieve this by using a Particle System. Simply add in a plane, go to the Particles tab, and follow the directions:

With the plane selected, add a new particle system by pressing New
Set the number of particles to something lower, like 10
Set the End frame to 1 (make sure the Start frame is also 1)

Picture Representation 1/3:

Further down the settings:

Under the Physics tab, select No. This will turn off gravity.
Under the Render tab, set the emitter to Object, then by clicking the box, select the object you want to array/duplicate (in your case, the bubbles)

Picture Representation 2/3:

Optional:

If you don't like the randomization of the particles, set the Seed
to a different number.

Picture Representation 3/3:

You can hide the plane by putting it on a separate Render Layer or by assigning it an invisible material.

EDIT: You can also put the particles on a line by scaling down the plane on the Y axis. If you want it on a different axis, you can just rotate the plane. And finally, if you want it on a curve, simply just replace the plane with a curve.


Blender game engine modification of material value node during game I need to modify the value of a value node with a script. How can I do that?
Or is there another strategy to modify texturing in a game?

I want something like the Attribute node in Cycles.

I solve my problems by write my own shaders.
1) create a material
2) Create a vertex shader

uniform float variable_name;
void main()
{
    vec4 co = gl_ModelViewMatrix * gl_Vertex;
    gl_Position = gl_ProjectionMatrix * co;
}

3) Create a fragment shader

void main(void)
{
  gl_FragColor = vec4(1.0,0,0,1); // RGBA
}

4) load it

#vertex
with open("__path__.vert") as a:
    vertex_shader_code = a.read()

#fragment
with open("__path__.frag") as a:
    frag_shader_code = a.read()

import bge
own = bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner
m = obj.meshes[0]
shader = m.materials[0].getShader()
shader.setSource(vertex_shader_code, frag_shader_code, 1)

5) pass variable to GPU over uniform value.

shader.setUniform1f("variable_name", 10)


Why am I always zooming at center of grid? Isn't there a way I can zoom into where my cursor is instead?

Hope someone has an answer :-)

If you mean your 3D Cursor, then the shortcut is Alt+Home. Otherwise, if you want to zoom into your mouse, then you should activate the option in File -> User Preferences -> Interface -> Zoom To Mouse Position


Crashing when switching to cycles I recently got new laptop (Dell XPS 15 9560) and I've bee having this issue where blender will crash when I try to select cycles as the render engine. I've tried reinstalling and rolling back my nvidia and integrated GPU drivers multiple times. Any suggestions or workarounds? I'm taking a course in blender later this year and I need my laptop for it.
Thanks.

This fixed the error for me (taken from another thread):
Turns out my WIndows Update was to blame, installing a .dll file that was breaking both Maya and Blender. This was called igdrclneo64.dll/igdrcl64.dll.  It’s located in C:\Windows\System32 (On my computer it was located in C: \ Windows \ System32 \ DriverStore \ FileRepository \ igdlh64.inf_amd64_250db833a1cd577e.) I moved it to the desktop and now everything works


Is there a way to fill the area between two circles? There's a way to fill with faces only the area between the larger circle and the the smaller one?
I mean.. It's a wheel and I'm trying to fill the rubber part of it.

Using the fill function F it fills everything inside the bigger circle.

If both circles have the same number of vertices you can use the Bridge Edge Loops (from the menu Mesh > Edge > Bridge Edge Loops, or press F3 to bring up the search menu, and start typing bridge edge loops)

It will not fill as an NGon, that is generally not desirable anyway, instead creating an even quad-based topology.


Blender python array modifier transforms Can one get (in python) transform properties (location, rotation ect.) of the objects created by the array modifier?
(while the array modifier is active, without applying it)

I need to be able to snap some other object to one of the array duplicates

thanx

Using modifier array, e.g.:

def array(self, obj):
    mod = bpy.data.objects[obj.name].modifiers.new(name='array', type='ARRAY')
    mod.count = 10
    mod.relative_offset_displace[0] = 2.5

position and rotation can be calculated from the formula, e.g. 5th element in array would have x = 5 * mod.relative_offset_displace[0], so if original is [0,0,0] then 5th will be [6.25,0,0].


Import an image as a reference to a plane but the image i am getting is lying on a another plane I import an image as a reference on a top ortho plane,but the image i am getting is on a another plane and the plane which i selected is blank.What i do to get it on a reference plane.

I don't know if that helps but usually when you insert reference Images they get inserted the way you are looking right now.
So let me explain.
If you tap 1 on you Num-Pad and insert a reference Image it should appear in the XZ-Plane.
So maybe toggle to your desired view and try to insert your reference that way.
I am not sure if it is possible to get a reference Image to a plane...
You could assign the image to the Plane as a Material but I am not sure if that is what you want.


Exporting Motion Tracking Data from Blender to After Effects Is there a way that I can track footage in Blender, and export it to After Effects? I don't have money for specialized tracking software.

For reference I would like to do everything up until 2:21 (track, make points etc.) in Blender, and then do the rest in AE.

There is a plugin for this:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/Adobe_After_Effects

Setup

To enable it you can use the user preferences File>User Preferences (CtrlAltU)

Go to the addons tab

Search for "After Effects" if the plugin pops up, enable it.

If nothing comes up, download the addon, and install it using these steps:

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/1689/3127

Usage

Select the objects and camera etc that you wish to export, and go to File>Export>Adobe After Effect (.jsx)

Save the file.

Open After Effects (Version > CS2)

File>Scripts>Run Script File and select your file. It will ask you to name the comp. Any name will work

Next, after it is done, go into the Project panel and open up your comp. A bunch of nulls and a camera should be there, matching the motion of the ones in blender.


Mesh Won't Move With Armature After Setting Parent I know there are tons of threads about this problem, but I swear I've read them all and still can't figure this out.
I have spent the last 2 hours at least trying to figure out why my mesh wont move with my armature. This is my first time using Blender and I was loving everything about it until i got to rigging. I jumped into this program suddenly for my final project that's due tonight cause I was tired of dealing with Maya's bullshit. All my previous experience has been with Maya where rigging is done automatically for you.
I have read almost every result Google will give me about what might be the problem, and nothing has helped. I have been selecting the armature and then the mesh (and tried it the other way around a few times), and then clicking parent > armature deform > with automatic weights. It has yet to work. Seeing as I am new to blender, there could easily be something wrong with how I made my mesh.
There is also a good chance I won't know what y'all are talking about when you answer, so if I can get as much detail as possible that would be very helpful.
Any help y'all can give me would be appreciated.
My project is linked below:
In the file I have purposely removed the parent from the mesh and armature.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vZNW4INQ79oeSoSQZsmh1psc4Qz9V3sS/view?usp=sharing

You have flipped normals as you see if you enable the Face Orientation option in the Viewport Overlays panel:

So go in Edit mode, select all, press AltN > Recalculate Normals, and parent again With Automatic Weight.


How to make a rope curving in a certain way I wanted to make a small rope curving like this in Blender for my model. But I found 2 issues; I can't find a way how to curve this smoothly (so tips for bezier curve or whatever would be appreciated) and if I already make something looking at least 70% like I want it, when I apply the curve modifier the rope just disappear and it is nowhere to be found.

How can I do it?

It's easy to lose bits if their origins aren't in the right place. Here's one approach to your job: I hope the loops are circular enough for you. Working in the XY plane..

The curve:

(As suggested by @Robert Roth)

Make an unfilled 6-sided mesh circle, ShiftD duplicate it in Edit Mode, X delete a couple of edges, and F join the loose ends.
Then, in Object Mode, AltC convert the mesh to a curve. With all vertices selected,  In the Tool region, set the Spline Type to Bezier, and V convert all the vertices to 'Auto'

There may be a bit of tweaking to do...

Note where the origin of the curve is: at world 0. When you create the profile / set up your rope, to make things easier, put its origin at the same place. Make sure all object-level transforms of the rope (especially scale) are applied.

The rope:
(For example)

A little trefoil profile, made out of 3 6-sided unfilled circles, snapped together, doubles removed, internal edges removed.
With all vertices selected, ShiftAltOSet Origin to geometry, and set the transform of the profile object to (0,0,0) Now everything is lined up.
Screw modifier, 120 degrees
Array modifier, relative Z, Merge on, Count to fit the curve.
Curve modifier, Deformation Axis Z, target: the curve
Subdivision modifier, level 1

With this sort of result:

EDIT: (response to @Teglik)

You can manipulate the path-mesh in various ways: here, working on the left half, E extending terminal vertices, and R rotating and  S scaling the new vertices in/out from the 3D cursor at the origin, before duplicating and rotating the whole left half through 180 to make the right half, F joining the ends, before converting to a curve.


Texture Painting - Black Artifacts I created a sphere, added a decimate modifier (set to 0.5), and then used the sculpting tools on the object.  I then UV unwrapped it (I tried smart and also tried manually picking the seams), then texture painted it.

I'm just learning Blender, so trying out a few of the tools, but cannot get rid of the black parts, it doesn't allow me to paint them.  I assume it's an unwrap issue, but I've tried from scratch trying different techniques about 10 times now, and each time it's the same outcome.

The seams on the mesh are the reason for several pixels of the background color of the image to be seen. Paint on the image in UV / Image Editor and the problem will be solved.

This happens in the places where seams for unwrap are assigned.

When edge is marked as seam, the latter will cut mesh trying to unfold it on the 2D surface of UV map. This means that in the place of seam two parts of mesh "meet each other", i.e. when you paint over seam, part of your painting happens on one part of UV map, and another part - on another one.

So the reason for the painting being partially "transparent" are these "steps of pixels" on UV map:

Another part of UV map with adjacent face meeting isn't shown here
In your case background color of image is black, so that's the color which is being visible on mesh like artifacts.

It's possible to avoid this using workarounds:

while texture painting, paint from several directions, rotating viewpoint from different angles. This will decrease visibility of problem (small parts may remain but this isn't important if camera isn't placed just near the mesh).
add some painting in UV / Image Editor in the places where seams are assigned. By adding extra width of painting the problem will dissappear.


Why is this happening with skin modifier? here's a video of my woes https://youtu.be/ihAS3F3Zd_w
as i am trying to make feet that will have shoes on, so details aint a problem.
how can i arrange this ?

theres no node at the end, it just flops around. tried moving root .
i cannot just do it over again.

thanks 4 your help !.

I was able to recreate your issue by hiding the vertex at the end by selecting it and pressing H, then deleting a vertex in the middle. I have a sneaking suspicion this is what has happened. To resolve, when in edit mode, press ALT+H to un-hide any vertices or edges.


Texture baking and existing UV maps New to blender so the question may be silly. Ok , so having multiple objects in the scene each one with it's own UV map and texture, I want to combine those textures in a single one. I researched a little and so far I managed this by baking the texture in a new image and new UV map, but the new UV map , most of the tutorials I followed, they are generated using the smart project, I suppose you could manually unwrap each object AGAIN but makes no sense doing it all over again. Anyway, the only problem I have with this Smart project is that it changes the resolution allocated for each island if I am not mistaken , for example, I have a humanoid and I setup my UV in such way that the face takes the most resolution, but the smart project messes that up I guess, so is there any way to preserve the ORIGINAL UVs and combine them in one without the need to re-unwrap the model?

Have you tried to use the texture atlas feature? Basically you select all of your objects, create a new atlas, then chose "No_Unwrap" and "StartManualUnwrap".

Manual unwrap should present you each model's UV map with correct aspect ratio. After you're done moving the UVs on the map, don't forget to hit FinishManualUnwrap.


How do I make my transform values match up to the ones on the Object Properties window? Whenever I transform something in Blender 2.8, there is a little transform box that shows up; but the values in there don't match up with the values in the Object Properties Window at the right. I would prefer to make both the same so the values are consistent for both. Is there a way to do this?

The pop up shows the transform relative to starting position. The object properties shows absolute position, relative to grid. If you want to change absolute position, just use the object properties panel and type in the values you are after.


Physical simulation- how to create anti-gravity in objects like hot-air balloons How do you create objects that "defy" gravity like an hot-air balloon?

Then halfway into animation, how do you make the hot-air balloon drop anti-gravity, as it loses heat?

What kind of object?
Rigid body
An individual rigid body cannot be made anti-gravity, however you can make the entire scene gravity point upwards by changing Z=-9.8 to a positive number in the Scene Gravity settings:

"Gravity" is a property that can be keyframed, i.e. you can make it change at a given frame.
Cloth or soft body
For cloths and soft bodies you can choose what Gravity each object is feeling. There is a "Field Weight" panel in the Physics settings. There you can change Gravity to a negative number (assuming that you don't change the Gravity scene settings!). The slider won't allow you to do that, but you can just type something like -0.5.

Again, this can be keyframed.
Instead of keyframing
To reverse gravity at a given location rather than time, you can add a Wind force field (ShiftA > Force Field > Wind), make it point downwards, and changing its falloff type to Tube and falloff Power to something between 1 and 2.

Here is a scene with a Soft Body hot air balloon, with its Gravity Field Weight set to -0.3 (Scene Gravity is untouched), and with a Wind Force Field at a given altitude (also a Turbolence Force Field for more wiggling):

Here's the blend if you want to look at how it's done


How can I reverse too many subdivisions? i have added too many subdivisions and do not know how to reverse these. i need help with this

this would help understand the issue

i found out. you need to do to decimate and then click un sub divide