Is there a list for Keyframe data_paths in Blender? I found some really useful code for keyframe animations.
But i need a specific property (in this case for the Cycles camera visibility)
and i only found "location", "gravity" or "value".
Is there some kind of List of all the keyframe data_paths?
Or a option to "see" the names of the animationpaths ?

You can right click the property in the user interface and choose Copy Data Path

You can also key it manually and explore the object's animation data with the outliner using the data block option.

or view it in the graph editor

You might try to create a list yourself:

import bpy

obj = bpy.context.active_object
txt = bpy.data.texts.new("list")
for prop in obj.bl_rna.properties:
    if prop.is_animatable and not prop.is_readonly:
        txt.write(prop.identifier + '\n')
    elif prop.type == "POINTER":
        txt.write("---Pointer--- \n" + prop.identifier + '\n')
        for sub in prop.fixed_type.bl_rna.properties:
            if sub.is_animatable and not sub.is_readonly:
                txt.write(sub.identifier + '\n')
        txt.write("------------- \n")

It is possible to explore the properties with the outliner:


Trouble with the lids of cylinders I'm having trouble making, and meshing cylindical-like objects. In both cases below I drew some vertices in the XZ plane and used screw to rotate. Except screw did not seem to like me having objects on the axis of rotation, so I deleted those nodes and filled. In the example on the left, I have filled with a cylinder. I then applied a metallic texture. Cool. Almost perfect, except you can see that remnant on the top that was rotated by screw has left radial sector marks.

So then I deleted the cylinder and deleted all of the faces along the top, and bottom, and replaced with GridFill. The mesh looked not so bad at all. But the texture [on right] is not better. Maybe worse. I tried adding a seam, which you can see here:

The unwrap did not look like what I was expecting. I thought I'd get two circles and a mesh, but all I get is a mesh
Grrr....

If I understand your description, without the bevels, your model would look like this in x-ray mode:

If I select all and unwrap using the U key and selecting 'unwrap', I get this:

I think you might want to mark two more circles for unwrapping so the ledge area unwraps cleanly?

unwraps to:


How to get length of specific ray type and use that as color? I'm trying to make a fake AO shader using nodes, which gives the color of the AO rather than a closure.

I thought it would be pretty easy to get the ray length of reflection rays and map that to 0-1 for use as the surface color, however it seems shaders mixed based on is reflection ray only affect reflection rays and can't affect the object as seen from the camera.

The above node setup affects the color of the object as "seen" by rays reflected off the floor plane, but not for camera rays.

I'd like to use the length of the the reflection ray in the example below to set the color of the object as seen by direct camera rays:

Is this even possible?

Wow, I'm happy you thought of doing this.  Baking AO using Cycles is problematic since none of the available scripts bake properly.

I still have not thought of a way to use the Ray Length node to adjust the results of the Reflection Ray but this basic setup looks good enough to suit my needs.

On the left is the Reflection Node used to control two shaders(or use 2 colors for 1 shader).  On the right is a default Diffuse shader.

Beautiful, thanks!

EDIT:  Here is a modified setup that may or may not be attenuating based on ray length.(I'm not totally sure that the setup isn't just behaving like a Color Ramp and squashing brightness/brightness)

The colors values for the Diffuse node and the Sky are all (1.0, 1.0, 1.0).

UPDATE: using direct lighting should give the darkest effect without any color mix node setup.  Otherwise, what was done here cancels global illumination bounces to exaggerate the AO which is normally washed out from bounced lighting.


Has anyone edited the blender source code to enable unlimited undo's? I was looking for a method that removes the undo cap, some said to make the count 0 which was so wrong, 0 just removes undo's that should have been made more clear, i lost an enitre file cuz of that, so I read that the only way to get unlimited undoes is if you edit the source code and recompile, I'm not a software developer, and I barely can write c# in unity, so i was wondering if someone already as done this or have any guides or if this is something that can be expected in a future release.

The Undo feature in the blender works by storing a copy of the file inside computer memory for every single thing you do. It means that you really can't have infinite undo steps availible. However, you can increase it to a very high number.
Goto Edit->Preferences->System, and then change the value in "Undo Steps" under "Memory and Limits".


How do I change the UV Mapping algorithm, for example LSCM to Angle Based? Is there a GUI option to change the algorithm ? I want to compare all the options Angle Based, LSCM etc. I'm using UV mapping to correct image distortion.
I'm not even sure what the default algorithm is and were I can check which one is using.
Thank you.

You can switch between Angle Based (ABF) and Conformal (LSCM) algorithm.
It's in the pop-up menu after you unwrap.
And if you want to dig deeper, here is a Blender DevSource page explaining both algorithms.


alpha channel WHITE in animation I have 100 pngs images having a transparent background, and I need to render them in an animation - mp4-h264.
I did that in blender but the default background color for the rendering is black, while I need it white, and I'm not able to find anywhere an option for changing the alpha channel (there is the option if I want to render just an image, but not the whole animation).

Any tips?

I suppose you are making the animation in the Video Sequence Editor so you could add a white strip in the background.

Shift + A → Effect strip → Color.
In its properties (n) go to Effect strip section an change the Color to white.
Render again.

Maybe you need to select the Alpha Over mode in Blend option of the strip with your image sequence so it uses their alpha channel.


How to throw many rigid bodies orderly? I want to throw the rigid body ball like batting machine.

But i don't know how to do that. i can just throw one rigid body by using wind not keyframe.

so, is there way to throw the rigid bodies different frame like batting machine?

The Animated property of rigid bodies enables/prevents them from being simulated.

It can be keyframed as well. Start off with the animated property unchecked and key it, by hovering over the checkbox and pressing I. Then some frames later, when you wish for the simulation of the rigid body to start, set a keyframe with the animated property checked.

This can also be done with keyframes.
In this example I set LocRot keys on frame 1 and 3. Then I key the animated property to disabled on frame 2 and enabled on frame 3.

The result is a simulation starting on frame 3 with the initial velocity of frame 2.

Offset the keys as desired.


How to add vfx footage to blender? hello everyone  am curious as to how do I add my effects footage(as in I downloaded a video effects footage pack so I want to the video I want to edit)   to my video clip in blender

I assume that you are trying to add clip to Blender.
So if you are in:

2.79

Go to the selection list and select Movie Clip editor.

and open your clip..

2.80

Again go to the selection list and select Movie Clip editor.

and open your clip..

Hope this helps.


Where has my Mark Edge Seam button gone? I'm using blender 2.79 and have not modified any of its code, but for some reason I have to use the space bar and search for "Mark Seam" in order to use this function. I should not that I don't see it in blender 2.8 either. Am I missing something? I thought it was always under the Edge's Menu!

Menu: Mesh ‣ Edges ‣ Mark Seam/Clear Seam is gone!

Has anyone had this problem, or know how to fix it?

I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. But as @Robin Betts pointed out. The Mark Seams function has moved to the Edge Data Sub-menu.

Thank you @Robin Betts !


Trouble making UV for plane shape I'm trying to import a shape into Unreal Engine 4, but it's giving me a lot of problems after trying to build the lighting. I think it's because my UVs are jacked up and not proper.

Thing is in blender, I can't get my shape to properly unwrap.

https://imgur.com/gallery/IUalspO

The UV isn't appearing for both sides of the plane.

https://imgur.com/gallery/noWLulI

I'm wondering if that's one of the issues. Also, I don't seem to have any faces in my shape. I tried Ctrl+R, but no lines will appear for me to make. Also I've solidified the shape, so both front and back of the plane should be working.

Pretty lost. Any thoughts? (I'm very new to 3D modeling)

Be in Front Ortho (Press Numpad 5 and Numpad 1)

Go to Edit Mode

Extrude all the faces. Select the top and bottom faces

Press U -> select -> Project from view (Bounds)

Now jump to UV Editor and hope you get a good UV.


Where are Blender 2.79 and later rigid body constraint angular limits documented? Summary
I can find no documentation on the frame of reference for defining the rigid body HINGE constraint Z axis rotational limits.
Blender defaults these to lower = -45 deg and upper = +45 deg.
Online docs provide no detail and YouTube videos invariably skip over this aspect of constraint set-up.
Can someone direct me to documentation or provide insight into how the HINGE and other RB constraints angular limits are defined. i.e. with respect to what are the limit angles defined?
Detail
I need to understand the Blender set up for these constraints well, as I need to prototype before exporting into my own game engine, which also uses Bullet Physics.
I've tried a Blender demo set-up with 2 bodies, one static/passive and the other active and a HINGE between the two and just when I think I've got it, for instance assuming:

The angles are defined looking down the constraint's local Z axis, towards the origin.
With the limiting angles defined relative to the XZ plane.
With +ve angles being above the XZ plane and -ve below.

But as soon as I start playing with the angles, my hypothesis falls apart.
I can even manage to provide limits that cause the joint to act against gravity in an unrealistic way.
Given the lack of online guidance on this (including Blender stack exchange) I'm starting to think that this is not a well understood area.
I assume the same will apply when I come to look at the other constraint types too, especially the GENERIC constraint.
So any help or direction will be gratefully appreciated.

OK, so I didn't find any Blender specific documentation for this and ended up looking at the python code for:
bpy.ops.rigidbody.constraint_add() bpy.context.object.rigid_body_constraint.type = 'HINGE' bpy.context.object.rigid_body_constraint.object1 = bpy.data.objects["ObjectA"] bpy.context.object.rigid_body_constraint.object2 = bpy.data.objects["ObjectB"] bpy.context.object.rigid_body_constraint.use_limit_ang_z = True bpy.context.object.rigid_body_constraint.limit_ang_z_lower = -0.785398 bpy.context.object.rigid_body_constraint.limit_ang_z_upper = 0.785398
and the Blender and Bullet C code.
Observations:

Adding a Blender HINGE constraint, ultimately calls the Bullet function to create a HINGE constraint and not a GENERIC as previously suspected.
Looking at the Bullet create function and reading Bullet forum posts, the  constraint is set up relative to the frame (local transform) of the second Object passed to the function. You can override this behaviour and set up the constraint  relative to the transform of the first object, using a boolean flag. Blender sticks with the default, so the constraint transform is relative to Object 2.
Looking into the "set angular limit" function, there is a normalisation of the limit range mid point between -2PI and 2PI, so excessively large limit angles just get pulled back into the range -360 to 360 degrees.

What this means in plain terms is:

Limit angle "zero" is local x axis of objectB
+ve Upper Limit is in anticlockwise direction, when looking along the constraint's local +ve Z axis from the origin
-ve Lower Limit is in clockwise direction, when looking along the constraint's local +ve Z axis from the origin
The orientation of the constraint's local X and Y axis doesn't affect the joint's rotational range.

This is probably hard to visualise, so I've included a picture with 3 scenarios.

Top left is the starting set-up. Note the direction of the central constraint local Z axis.
Bottom left has the constraint local transform rotated 180 degrees around the local X axis, so the local Z axis now points towards the view. Upper and lower limits now flip.
Finally the image on the right is the same as the top left but Object B (2) to rotated downwards by 45 degrees and the limits move relative to this.

Ultimately, what was confusing me, was the fact that the limit angle range "zero" is defined by object 2 and not the orientation of the constraint itself.
I assume a similar set-up will apply to the other Bullet constraints, notwithstanding the axes of rotation may be different.
Cheers.


Boolean Difference function adding new face unexpectedly In Blender 2.91.0 I am trying to make a cube recess in another cube by using the 'boolean - Difference' function.
For some reason blender doesn't take the second cube away cleanly from the first cube. It adds a new face to the front of the remaining cube (see attached pic).
I use 'snap to' vertex to ensure the vertices are all aligned- but same problem occurred.
I made the cube used to apply the difference a little larger to ensure it was outside the flat plane of the first cube, but same problem.
I tried using new cubes, but problem still remains.
I then tried a second cube bigger than the entire face of the first cube and applied 'difference' again, but the extra edge remained.
I want to apply texture to the front surface but the extra face will make alignment difficult. Besides as far as I can see this shouldn't happen.
Any suggestions?

You can't create a face within a face without edges that connect this inner face to the outer face, thus the edges you're showing, otherwise the outer face will overlap the inner face, meaning the inner face couldn't exist, or it could exist but it wouldn't be part of the same mesh. As for your texture question, I don't see in what way it will cause any issue, just select the front faces and unwrap.


3D cursor orientation in 2.8 it looks like my cursor orientation is set according to view. How do I change that to face/normal.  When I click on an object I would like it to orient according to the normal of the surface.

Activate the 3D Cursor in the Toolbar T.
Open up the Sidebar (N) and, on the Tool tab, change the Orientation to Geometry.
Click on the surface of the object to update the orientation of the 3D Cursor.

If the 3D Cursor is not "sticking" to the surface, enable Cursor Surface Project in Preferences (Ctrl+Alt+U) > Editing > 3D Cursor.


Transparent Cube For Character how to make a transparent cube so that my character walks inside a building or house and you can see the interior partially, where my character is walking ?

in the reference image i make a blender render with transparency

the house is complete no have cuts
the character is inside the house
the cube is transparent

NOTE:
Now ... I have a basic idea to start from, but I do not know if BGE accepts the same form that I use to render, since I use a Boolean Difference modifier, and I do not know completely if these modifiers can be applied to blender game engine

I have seen it in some YouTube videos but I do not know if it is in BGE, and I would like to know if I can do it, it would be great, in logic bricks please, preferably, I'm still a python brute, I have a hard time not thinking about c / c ++

reference Link reading

You can accomplish this effect using material nodes, a mesh, a spot lamp, and a camera.
Blend-File (made in UPBGE 0.2x)
https://blend-exchange.com/b/bOl2J557
Explanation
When the spot lamp's shadow, which is casted by the mesh, hits the surface of the building, the casted shadow will act as an alpha (transparency) mask for the building.
Screenshot (nodes setup)

Tutorial
https://youtu.be/4Seqm826oWk


How do I apply the mirror modifier properly on animated geometry? How do I apply the mirror modifier properly, I am using the Fuselage as the mirror point, but as soon as I hit apply the flaps get all wonky. what do I need to do to make it work fine?

With modifier:

Applied modifier:

What do you use for animation? Armature, shape keys, or setting keyframes. Because it really depends on which one you use.

Armature (with bones)

Check out the ORDER of modifiers. If your Armature modifier is below your mirror modifier, switch the order.

shape keys

I doubt you use shape keys because you cannot use mirror modifiers with shape keys. But just in case, check this out. Briefly explained, you can use "mirror shapekeys" at the black triangle below the add-shapekey-button.

setting keyframes

I believe you have nothing set as a mirror object (of mirror modifier).
Add an empty and set this as the mirror object.

As for the last solution, I made an example .blend file.

hope it helps


Smoke domain position problem in solid mode but not in render mode Blender 2.92 I have a weird problem, when I make smoke in solid mode appears in another place.

But in render mode it is in the correct place.

I was searching everywhere but I did't find anything about it.
All is ok, inclusively the render, but in solid mode it is impossible to work with.

You probably moved the emitter and yet still have an old cache in your smoke Domain;

Go to the Domain and in Cache: change the Type to something else and then back again to clear it.   Or go to the folder with the cache and delete all sub-folders/files.    Unlike other types of "baked cache" (cloth, particles) there is no Delete back or Clear Cache feature for Fluids, sadly.


Hair Mesh keeps deforming incorrectly I parented the hair to a single bone via vertex groups and I've tried a few other ways but the hair always deforms oddly. Automatic weights makes it worse.

The Hair was imported from FBX if that matters.

The blend file is 150mb so I will have to cut out a few other meshes if you want to take a look.

If mesh was imported as FBX export to OBJ then import new OBJ mesh into blender file.


Can you mark seam with bmesh? I'm writing a script to make UV lighting maps for unreal... I got my script to spit out all the bmesh edge indexes but I can't figure out the best way to mark these as seams. (this is my first time using bmesh and I'm still having trouble understanding exactly how to use it)

BMesh edges have a seam property.

You can:

import bpy
import bmesh

mesh = bpy.context.object.data

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(mesh)

bm.edges.ensure_lookup_table()

bm.edges[0].seam = True

bm.to_mesh(mesh)


Run an Internal script from a handler I have a handler scene_update_pre, and I need to run a script when a certain bone is selected. The script is saved as an internal text data block myscript.py.

The problem is that I can't use any derivative of the context override method:

override = {'edit_text': bpy.data.texts['myscript.py']}
bpy.ops.text.run_script(override)

Because it's done in a scene_update_pre handler it will crash Blender, correct?

What other methods are there to run an internal text data block?

bpy.data.texts["myscript.py"]    #.run_script() #?

Don't run the script directly, instead, you can import the textblock as a python module, and execute a function it defines.

import myscript
myscript.main()

There are some caveats:

The script name must be unique to avoid colliding with existing Python modules.
You will have to define some function in the module to run.

But the advantages are:

Faster (no need to re-parse the script every time), (the compiled bytecode is kept between executions).
More flexible since you can pass in arguments if you like, and have multiple functions too.
The ability for variables to persist between executions (the module could contain a counter for example that increments each time. or values could be cached to avoid re-evaluation each execution).This is also something to watch out for, in case you accidentally re-use global lists, dicts etc...
More useful exception messages (__file__, __module__ for example will be defined)


Setting up a linked rigged character So, I have a best practice question. I created a few characters in their separate files. Rigged them using rigify, created a pose library for rubharb lip sync. Next, i linked that character to a separate blend file which will be my scene file, and created a proxy so as to be able to pose it. Now for initial setup, the characters are kind of different scales, so I need to scale them all to look same size with respect to the scene and also pose them initially for frame 1. So scaling, will of course be in object mode, but the transform location, should I do that in object mode or should I do it in pose mode using the root bone?
Also, when using rubharb lip sync, should I generate the lip sync actions before i link the character, or should I do it on the proxy itself in the scene?

Scaling:
If you plan on scaling the characters at different scales for different scenes then I would Follow Jaroslav's advice.
However if you just found out they were not scaled ideally and now that you see them together in a scene you want to adjust them permanently, you should go back to each characters rig file and make the adjustments there, this way you won't need to worry about factoring scale of your characters when you try to animate them in your scenes. Having to deal with scale factor of your character may complicate your animation process, or give unexpected results when running certain scripts if you use those...

LipSync:
You definitely want to set up the phonemes in the rig file of each character (think of them as the poses the face of your character can do always: A, E, I, O, U, BVF, smile, angry etc...).
In your scene file you should only worry about animating those existing face poses to match the dialog of that scene. If you find you need to add some expressions, go back to your rig and add it there, that way it will be available for any scene you want to do in the future. Your character rig will get more powerful as you add expressions to it.


Why can only one texture display correctly on my model? hope everybody's well and staying safe. Complete Blender rookie here. I was hoping for some help troubleshooting an error I encountered in Blender 2.83 while trying to assign image textures to a head model I extracted from a video game (Mass Effect 3).
So this head model has four materials: eyelashes, face, scalp, and eyes. For some reason, only one material's texture ever displays correctly -- the other three just display as a random solid color.
I've tried restarting from scratch a few times, and one thing I've noticed is that the texture always displays correctly for the first material I assign an image texture to. Any material I attempt to assign a image texture to after the first material displays as a random solid color.
Here's a screenshot of the issue, if helpful. In this instance, I assigned a texture to the face material before all the other materials, so it's the only one that displays correctly:

Also, here is the blend file as well (with all the textures packaged in), if anybody wants to investigate the issue directly: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R_Yn7RfQlKksQDSbEfTezUdB4iAYeJkL/view
This is how the character is supposed to look normally: https://i.imgur.com/WypNgRa.png
Thanks in advance to anybody who's willing to help!

From what I can tell from looking from your file, the only affected area is the hair (now that I look again, maybe the eyes too), which seems to lack a UV map. I selected the section and did a crude "sphere projection" unwrap and was able to get a texture on it.

The problem is, that when I connect the texture that came with it, it's not clear how it's supposed to be oriented. I tried several different unwrap methods, as well as different placements in the UV space, but I couldn't get it to line up in anywhere close to a satisfying fashion. Maybe you will have better luck than I.


Where is the World Editor Tool? I was trying to complete an assignment for my Digital Graphics & Animation class, and found it awfully hard to find the World Editor. The instructions were very vague. The instructions only say, and I quote: "Go to the World Editor. Checkmark Blend Sky." If there is anyone who can help me with this inconvenience, I will be pleased! Thank you for taking time out of your day/night to help a person who couldn't find a building if he tried!

Thanks!

First make sure you are in blender render:

Then in the Properties Editor click on the blue icon that looks like a golbe, that is the world editor, there you'll find Blend Sky


Rotate part of object Anyone know how I can rotate or flip the wings down?

To rotate an object, press the key 'r', and then press either 'x', 'y', or 'z' to get the rotation in a specific axis (This is not required. You can press 'r' and rotate freely.). The rotation will be based on the origin of the object, or the tiny yellow dot that shows up when you select it. In your case, if the origin is not at the base of the wing, follow these steps:

'Tab' to enter Edit Mode
Select the bottom face of the wing
Press 'Shift + S' and choose 'Cursor to selected'
Exit Edit Mode
Right click >> Set Origin >> Origin to 3D Cursor

Now, when you rotate in object mode, it should rotate and flip down.


Can't see graph editor bezier handles I'm trying to manually edit the curve but I can't access the bezier handles. I've tried zooming in, and ticking the option under the menu, both without success. Does anyone know why?

You can press Ctrl+H to hide and show the handles. You can also find this setting in the view menu of the Graph Editor:


Zooming out makes image disappear in shader I followed Jonathan Kron's tutorial on creating an LED-display shader. It basically multiplies together your desired image with a grid of little RGB images. It looks great when zoomed in, but when the camera / 3D view zooms out, the "lit" LEDs disappear (shader graph at the bottom):

I would expect that they'd still be viewable, just a little more dim. To my surprise, this problem does not happen when I change the color of the "LED image" from red to green:

Why does this happen? How can I keep the red color showing when the camera / 3D view zooms out?

This may have to do with the downsampling of the filter ('led-rgb') image.. I've made a node-group which makes the 'Trinitron' filter procedurally, instead:

By wrapping the scaled UV space into 0-1 cycles, it produces square UV tiles, 0-1 per tile. ('in-pixel UV')
By subtracting that from the smooth UV, we get a per-tile UV coordinate, at scale. That's scaled back down to an overall 0-1 to look up the color in the image(s). ('pixellated UV')
The 'in-pixel UV' X generates R,G and B strips per square tile, using the color ramp
The 'in-pixel UV' X,mod(1/3), and Y, are compared to 0 to generate black bars between the RGB strips, and the tiles. ('X Bar' and 'Y Bar')
The X Bars, Y Bars, and RGB strips are multiplied with the image to be depicted.

With this effect:

Used with solid green and red logos, it seems to stand up to Level-of-Detail resampling OK:


Cloth wont stay attached to armature I am trying to make a wing suit and am having troubles attaching the cloth to the armature properly. I have it parented to the forearm and the shin and when I move the arm it will follow it, but it doesn't stay right beside it where it is placed. it slowly gets farther and farther away the more I move the arm.

You need to setup a vertex group for pinned vertices under the cloth modifier, and then assign hooks to the same vertices which go to the respective bones. (May need to move the hooks above cloth in the modifier stack so they take precedence.) That should keep the cloth attached to the rig.

Keep in mind pinning is used for attachment points, so a few around the edges should do it, and the tension in the cloth sim should take care of the rest.


How do I measure a distance between two points? I would like to measure the distance between the yellow points in this image:

How can I do it?

My goal is to cut the cube using the plane, but I must set a precise distance between the plane and the square's corner.

You can use the Ruler/Protractor. As of Blender 2.80 the operator was renamed to Measure but it acts like the same way. Good news is that the Measure tool is now directly accessible from 3d View as part of the main Tool Shelf (T) and via ShiftSpacebarM hotkey.

Measure (Blender 2.80) vs Ruler/Protractor (Blender 2.79)

If you hold down Ctrl while dragging the second marker, the cursor should snap to the intersection point in order to measure the correct distance:

With this you can also snap to the edge of the cube and set the desired length:

After that switch into Edit Mode and insert a new Edge Loop (Ctrl+R) into the right spot:

Note: For illustration purposes I've chosen Perspective Views, but Orthographic Views probably more useful to work with in this situation.


Assign random color to spline list I created a spline list following this guide. Now I want to assign a different color to each spline using Cycle's random node, but it doesn't work because the splines are grouped into one object.

My solution to this is to instance the spline object and loop through each instance, creating one object for each spline. This worked when I checked Deep Copy, but did not animate. I animated the start/end for each spline and need that to be carried over as well. If I do not check Deep Copy, it duplicates the same spline, stacked on top of itself.

What other way can I do this? Or can I assign random colors to splines using animation node?

Below is a screenshot of my entire node setup.

Also, in the screen shot you can see when viewed from the instance, each object has a list of 50 splines, but when viewed through the loop, there's only 1 spline. What's the reason to this?

I am using AN 2.1, python 3.7.

You should use the Object Instancer node to create a number of empty objects, this is done by disabling Copy From Source option. Then loop over both the objects and the splines and output the splines to the objects as follows:


What is the right term, properties panel or shelf? I heard it being called "viewport properties panel"

even though panels are the things inside the shelf.

I heard it being called the "tool shelf"

But I get the feeling that tool shelf refers to only the (t) shortcut shelf that appears to the left side.

Maybe the right term is "properties shelf"?

Blender's naming scheme is quite confusing, especially since many creators (including me) of tutorials and howto videos don't use them consistently (and there's a reason for this mess).  So let's break it down a little.

The Blender Manual introduction says that Blender's UI can be broken up into the Main Window, which contains one or more Areas with each Area containing an Editor. Editors usually have a Header and one or more Regions. Regions then contain Panels.

According to the Manual the highlighted area in your screenshot is called "Properties Region". It shows all properties of your currently selected object(s) and lets you also edit some additional properties for your scene. Some of them could also be changed within the Properties Editor (I'm trying to stay with the terminology here...)

This seems a little absurd but it immediately makes sense if you switch the 3D View to fullscreen area (Alt+F10).

The reason why Blender's naming scheme is still confusing is that even Blender itself calls it Panel.


Follow Active Quads gives me disorted, streched UV I have a track mesh. But when I use "Follow Active Quads", generated UV has weird stretch.

Result texture also getting messed.

Every faces are connected and all of them are quads, no duplicated vertices.

Using Pack UV doesn't helped as well. What am I missing?

Here's the File link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kbwjgpCO1xxRivDN4FYtssKej4NjlmXT

If you unwrap again (U) but choose Reset, then again U > Follow Active Quads, it seems to work fine. You must have unwrap wrongly at a moment, and as you didn't reset it kept it wrong (don't know why we have to reset though).


How to reduce poly without losing the shape I have this mesh and I want to reduce the polys, or in this case the amount of excessive faces/edges, but when I use the option clean > limited dissolve this happens

Could someone please help me with this , its for the sims 4 game.

Try using the Decimate modifier shown below:


stl file import is off-centered When you import a model (e.g. stl file) into default blender files, sometimes its off-centered. How can I reposition the model to the center of the view where: x=0,y=0,z=0
Thanks

Depending on which mouse button you use to select things in Blender, either press W or RMB (right-click) in object mode with the object selected to open the Object Context Menu.
Then choose Geometry to Origin as shown:

This will move the object's geometry to the objects location based on the average vertex position.
To perform this type of operation more quickly, after accessing the menu, you can press OG (using the underlined letters) or 31 to choose the third element followed by the first element of the submenu.
The Object Context Menu can also be accessed by pressing ☰ aka the menu key.
If the object is still not in the center of the scene after the operation, press AltG to reset the location.


Is there a convenient way to "collapse" the view of multiple, possibly nested, collections in the outliner? In an Add-On I'm working on, I procedurally generate a modest-to-large number of collections, and often end up with an outliner looks something like this:

I then often find myself tediously clicking the "collapse" arrow one-by-one on each collection, until they're all collapsed, to clean-up my view before doing further work.
Is there a fast way to do this kind of multi-collection outliner-view collapsing? Either a native / built-in or Python solution would be fine.

Hover your mouse in the outliner and hit Shift + A to expand everything, do it again to collapse everything.


How to achieve white "fog" effect within an ice cube? I modelled a set of ice cubes. I'm content with the result, but when I look at an actual ice cube from my fridge, it has a white foggy cloud within, like a microstructure. I'm trying to recreate that effect. For this I created some spheres within the ice cubes and applied a Volume Scatter material with density 1. This won't work. The result is gray and faint. I also tried the Volume Absorption, but it turns grayish too. I really need something more whitish, but not using the Emission shader. Also it has to be like a cloud, more opaque in the middle, more transparent on the sides (maybe some Fresnel here?). Anybody has an idea how to do it?

Here is a photo, the best I could get. As you can see its pretty full of this white microstructure, not very transparent.

Here's a try using point density for the fog effect.

There are two cubes in the image, I just beveled them slightly, the outer cube's material is basically a glass setup, except that I used an image texture to affect the roughness, and add some variation to the surface structure.

Some explanation on the light path and math>maximum nodes, in the ice material setup:

The light path node determines what type of ray is currently being traced, and by using the Math>Maximum node, outputs 0 if it is not the specified ray connected to the math node, and 1 if it is for the corresponding socket of the mix shader. (0= top socket, 1= bottom socket of the mix shader). If either shadow, or reflection rays are traced in this case, then the maximum node outputs 1, and the material uses the transparent shader. For all other rays, it returns 0, and uses the glass shader. Using this setup provides more transparent shadows, which is desirable here as we have a second object inside the first.

Here is the node setup for the 'outer cube':

The second cube, which is the inside the first has a particle system attached to it. The particles are set up basically at the default settings. I only increased the count to 2200, and set the end to 15. Experiment here, and have fun with it. Here is the final distribution of the particles on the rendered frame from my example below:

The point density material, is added to the 'inner cube' object. The setup is as follows:

The additional Math>Add nodes after the Multiply are optional, but give more control over the material. I used them to adjust the brightness and density of the particles individually, rather than using the Multiply node alone, as that affects both together.

Also, if you really want to avoid using an emission shader, just use the volume scatter, but I personally found the emission shader to have a nicer look.

Here is the result, it's not perfection but perhaps it will give you some ideas to experiment with.


Choose when a rigid body starts When do I choose when a rigid body activates? I don't want it do start on its default 1st frame.

Thanks in advance

Depending on your concrete situation, there are multiple possibilities, such as the "Start Deactivated" checkbox, or you can keyframe the "Dynamic" checkbox


High Poly to Low poly normal bake looks weird I baked a normal map using cycles from my High Poly Mesh to my Low Poly Mesh. I have no idea what could've caused this as I don't have much experience and nothing on the internet has similar results to mine. This is the result.

Here is a simple workflow of mine:
make a retopo and be sure they are not flipped and you have a good UV layout with no overlap:

make it a little bit fat with Displace modifier (anything you do a retopo on would be a bit slimmer by nature of retopo)

adjust your options to YOUR scale (I always work in real world scale because it's important for my assets to have correct scale)

now you should have a flawless bake of your normals.
There are some part that can be a little problematic like this part here:

for those, instead of going mad with ray cast, do a cage.
A cage is a mesh (same as low poly) that helps rays to be cast correctly.
you should just sink the low poly in it and adjust the problematic areas carefully. Here is how a cage works:

red marks are your default rays distance. They work correct for the areas that low poly is sinking inside your high poly but in a place close together like the foot (RED MARK 1) here the rays will intersect each other so if orange is low poly and black is high, blue is our cage and green is our new guided rays.
as you can see cage (blue) should 100% sink the orange and black (low and high poly) for corrected rays (green) to work correctly.
By the end of this, your bake should be flawless.


Text input and output in the BGE? I recently made a short game using python that basically ran like this

def loop():
    I = input()
    if I = "help":
         print("hello, you called for help?")
         loop()
    else:
         print("unknown")
         loop()

It ran by making functions then running using them as loops and jumping between them as levels.
I wanted to make something similar in blender and have made an input field of sorts: so when I type text goes in the bottom, but I can't find a way to make them link up in anyway...

How would I make it so it worked like a python shell? because even if I do find a way to link them up it would start at the top of the script and wouldn't have any progress

Sample code

Your example is designed to run in a console. It does not fit the BGE in any form.

You need to understand that a Python controller is part of the BGE's game loop. Therefore you should never ever hold the processing in your Python code. You have to exit as fast as possible. Otherwise the game loop will not continue (Remember you have only 16ms for process everything incl. render, logic and physics).

Text Input

The usual way to enter text within the BGE is to use a keyboard sensor. Typical it reacts on a single keystroke. But you can switch it into log mode to log subsequent keystrokes into a string property.

When the log toggle property (here: enabled) is evaluated as True the sensor converts keypresses into characters and adds them to the target property (here: Text).

Be aware:

The BGE does not support Keyboard mapping. Therefore the converted key-codes match EN-Keyboards only. (Which means strings entered by other keyboards are incorrect, especially at the special character keys and the Z/Y keys).
The target property can be any property (it does not need to be "Text")
The sensor will not trigger connected controllers on key press unless you enable Key or All Keys.
You need to determine when an input is completed. You can do that either by sensing when the target property changed (property sensor) or when a key was pressed (All Keys enabled).
The Keyboard sensor only adds characters. You need separate logic to clear the target property (e.g. after completing the input)

Text output

To present the entered text to the user I suggest to use a Text object. Copy the target property value from the keyboard sensor to the text attribute (or Text property) of the text object and it will be displayed.

The above example logs directly to the Text property.

I hope it helps


How do i only paste rotation to a bone Im making a animation and i woud like to paste the rotation of a bone from one keyframe to another. But the problem is that i also paste the location of it. I tried locking the transform but it still didnt work.

Select only the keyframes you want to copy with B in the Dope Sheet and copy/paste them between frames:


Accessing the key_modifier property for a key binding I would like to have multiply key bindings call the same operator. It would look something like:

type = 'ONE', key_modifier = 'W'
type = 'ONE', key_modifier = 'F'
type = 'ONE', key_modifier = 'Q'
type = 'TWO', key_modifier = 'W'
type = 'TWO', key_modifier = 'F'
type = 'TWO', key_modifier = 'Q'

and so on. I don't want to make a separate operator for each binding but the event type that is passed to invoke does not have a key_modifier property. Is there a way to access the key_modifier property somehow?

Thanks,

Denis

I found your question looking for the same issue. I found how to do it by looking at the code of Power Sequencer add-on.
After you define your shortcut you have to add a property to the keymap:
kmi = km.keymap_items.new(OPERATOR.bl_idname, 'LEFT_ARROW', 'PRESS')
setattr(kmi.properties, 'bool_property', True)

Then read that property from the operator:
class OPERATOR(Operator):
    bl_idname = "operator.id"
    bl_label = "One operator"
    bool_property: bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        name="A property", description="Does something", default=False
    )

    def execute(self, context):
        print(self.bool_property)

The operator's property you define retains its value after you call it from the shortcut, so remember to restore the property to its default value (or whatever you need) after the operator is called.


Model still appearing pink after applying image. So I just started learning how to texture paint and am following this tutorial (https://youtu.be/LcCQKuWPhXk)

I followed everything up to the point where you add the image texture node.
When I add it, the image remains pink instead of turning black. Is there anything that's normally expected when texture painting that I missed?

I found that you can unwrap the object in glsl texture mode then import the texture and attach it to a material by adding a material, applying it to the faces you want textured, selecting the material, going to the textures tab, new, material. you can then edit the uv map of the object how you like


How to rotate object and render with a script I am creating a rotating knob in Blender for my GUI-project.

The knob has to be rendered in 64 different angles. Is there a way I can automate this extremely tedious process with a python script?

Render the knob at 0° Z,
Save the file
Rotate knob 3°
Render
Save the file
Repeat 64 times

I want to use the Cycles Render and a high-number of samples (1500-2000).

After some trial and error I found that this python script works for me:

import bpy, math

knob = bpy.data.objects["MyBlenderKnob"]
knob.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'

rotate_by = 4.21875   #How many degrees to rotate the knob for every step
start_angle = 45      #What angle to start from

for x in range(1,65):
    angle = (start_angle * (math.pi/180)) + (x*-1) * (rotate_by * (math.pi/180))
    knob.rotation_euler = ( 0, 0, angle )

    bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = "/Users/myfolder/KnobFrame%d.png" % (x)
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True, use_viewport=True)

It grabs my blender object called "MyBlenderKnob" and rotates it 4.21875° on the Z-axis, then it renders it according to the current render-settings in the project. Then it saves the files in "myfolder".

Beautiful! A real timesaver.


How to move along 2 axis EQUALLY? All I seem to be able to find when I search is the ability to lock an axis and move on the other 2 freely but I want to move along those 2 axis equally, so if I lock the Y and I move on the X and Z I want it to move the same distance on both the X and Z axis.

Picture:

So as you can likely guess, I want to duplicate the nut and move it on an axis of 45°.

I don't think Blender can do this directly. You could rotate the nut 45 degrees, switch Blender to local coordinates, and then move along one of those axes.


Right Click selection selects everything and not just 1 thing I'm very new to blender and I just want it to make GFXs for a multiplayer website called ROBLOX. I've successfully made some about a month ago, but when I try to use right click to select a limb, Blender decides to select everything. This is an example of what is happening:

It's so annoying that I just want to stop making GFXs now.

Like bertmoog already said in his comment, the "human" in your scene is a single object, which you have selected.

To edit the vertices, edges and faces, you have to switch into edit mode bypressing Tab or by using the menu in the bottom left corner.

If you want to seperate the single parts of your "human object", you have to enter edit mode, press P and select "By loose parts"


Slicing an object into parts along axes other than x, y, z with a python script Using these examples
Slicing an object in 4 parts
How can I evenly split a cube?
I was able to cut an object into pieces along the x, y and z axes with a python script. But I can't do it along different axes (not x,y,z of the object). For example I would like to cut a cube according to axes not parallel to the edges and save the pieces obtained.
Please could someone give me an example or give me some suggestions to do this?

Alignment object.

Have made a small modification to my answer to linked question, to instead of using the objects bounding box, use the global bounding box of the object named "Cube".
Above shows a test run on default cone. The active object gets sliced. It uses the object named "Cube" as axes.
This could all be done via script by realigning and calculating the bbox given the chosen slicing axis.
import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector
context = bpy.context
ob = context.object
scene = context.scene
axis_ob = scene.objects.get("Cube")

size = 4 * max(axis_ob.dimensions)
mw = axis_ob.matrix_world

def bbox(ob, matrix=Matrix()):
    return (matrix @ Vector(b) for b in ob.bound_box)

def bbox_center(ob, matrix=Matrix()):
    return sum(bbox(ob, matrix), Vector()) / 8

def bbox_axes(ob, matrix=Matrix()):
    bb = list(bbox(ob, matrix))
    return tuple(bb[i] for i in (0, 4, 3, 1))

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add(
        location=bbox_center(axis_ob, axis_ob.matrix_world),
        size=size)
chopper = context.object
m = chopper.modifiers.new("Sol", type='SOLIDIFY')
m.thickness = size

chopper.select_set(False)

def chop(ob, start, end, segments):
    slices = []
    planes = [(f, start.lerp(end, f / segments))
            for f in   range(1, segments)]

    for i, p in planes:
        m.thickness = -size
        bm = ob.modifiers.new("BOOL",type="BOOLEAN")
        bm.object = chopper
        bm.operation = 'DIFFERENCE'
        M = (mw @ end - mw @ start).to_track_quat('Z', 'X').to_matrix().to_4x4()
        M.translation = mw @ p

        chopper.matrix_world = M
        cp = ob.copy()
        cp.data = cp.data.copy()
        context.scene.collection.objects.link(cp)
        bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply({"object" : cp}, modifier="BOOL")
        slices.append(cp)
        m.thickness = size
        bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(
                {"object" : ob}, modifier = 'BOOL')
    slices.append(ob)
    return slices

segments_x = 1
segments_y = 1
segments_z = 8

# change the cutting box
block = context.scene.objects.get("Block")

o, x, y, z = bbox_axes(axis_ob, mw.inverted() @ axis_ob.matrix_world)
for ox in chop(ob, o, x, segments_x):
    for oy in chop(ox, o, y, segments_y):
        chop(oy, o, z, segments_z)

bpy.data.objects.remove(chopper)


How can I make two materials blend? How can I two materials which are assigned to one model make blend? I have made a forest with different types of trees and I need the to have different leaves (as a texture) on it depending on under which tree it is. I tried texture painting it, but I would need resolution over 8000 x 8000 px and my computer can't handle that. this is what I could do so far:

I need to get rid of these lines, so that it looks like real ground and not like bunch of pictures of fallen leafs.

some of the trees are oaks, some are maples and some are beeches. I have texture of dead leafs for all those trees and I want it to fit the trees - under maple dead maple leafs and so on. On the screenshot above, the edge of the plane is gravel, orange is dead maple leafs, light brown is dead oak leafs and the other orange is dead beech leafs. I want it to blend, so that there would not be any visible seams. I am also limited on number of faces - maximum is 50 000 - so I can't make leafs as objects lay on the ground (I should have mentioned this earlier)

To be specific. You can use nodes.

In the image you can see how I set it up. You set one material for whole ground and make it use nodes. Inside of nodes you mix between 2 materials using stencil texture. You can draw stencil texture in texture paint node. You may consider using seperate UV map for stencil.


Moving mesh in pose mode is deforming inappropriately My first character rig. I have pauldrons that are supposed to be in line with when the upper arm moves but when the upper arm moves, they deform horribly.

As you see it becomes smaller...

but when I move the clavicle, the pauldron moves just fine and doesn't deform

How do I get this movement on the upper arm without it deforming, like the clavicle's movement?

.blend file

The clavicle bone will by default also move the arm as the arm is its child. Therefore the pauldron should only be weighted to the arm and not the the clavicle. Due to the way armature deformation is calculated, volume loss like this can occur when solving between a number of weights (checking preserve volume on the armature modifier can help, but it can cause other artifacts as well.

Another thing you may want to do is make a separate bone to control the pauldron and use contraints to mix rotation from the clavicle and arm onto the new bone.

(At work so I can't check the blend file, you may also want to check to see if any other bones have influence on the pauldron)


How to find and remove duplicate image texture files I have a kit with a lot of models and a couple of dozen textures. If I browse the blender file in the Outliner some images are listed as xxx.jpg and xxx.jpg.001 so I’m assuming they are duplicates and wish to get rid of them. If I open one of the .001 files in the image editor it indicates that it has no users, but I can find a material that is using that file in the shader editor. Is there any reliable way to determine if an image actually has no users. I’m hoping to avoid having to manually go through every texture and reassign the non .001 version of the image to the Image Texture node.

You can use the drop down in the outliner to view the blend file and then use the purge button to clear out any you aren't using.

If you want to keep something, you can fake a user by clicking the X, which will turn to a power button icon.


How to make the object follow another object's vertex How to make the object follow another object's vertex?

Select the 'Follower', then the Object containing the vertex to follow. Tab into Edit Mode then press Ctrl+P, a popup menu for 'Parenting' should come up (Set Parent To) with the options Object or Vertex. See the Manual for further details.


360 video as environment background I've tried loading the video in an environment texture node but it only displays the first frame of the video.
So, I tried another way: based on this question I extracted a sequence of images from the video, but I can only import one of them in the environment texture node.
What am I doing wrong?

Press ShiftA and go to "Texture", and choose "Image Sequence". Then open the folder where the images are stored, press A to select all of them and then add the sequence.


Why does my materials not show in a bake? I have a model with various materials assigned. I want to bake all these materials into a texture. It seems that only very few are actually being baked to the image.
My Settings

Cycles
Bake Type: Combined
All boxes Diffuse, GLossy, Transmission.. etc are ticked
I have a UV Unwrapping (Done by smart UV unwrap)

I hope someone can help me answer to why the result is as it is, and what I can to get a result with all the color?  am planning to do a metallic map, and a normal map as well (TIPS appreciated). The model will be export to Unity.

Image of the bake result and the model (rendered in material preview mode)

Here is an image from solid mode ( when you press z)

I fear that the materials may be compatible, so I will attach some images of those as well. They are all free assets available through BlenderKit.com and their plugin for blender.

From looking at the photo of the graph, the "combinedbake" node should be changed from "single image" to "generated".  Add that node to all materials being baked.


Is there a way to unwrap a mesh without scaling the UVs to match the aspect ratio of the texture? Is there a way to use Project from view without the resulting UVs scaled to match the aspect ratio of the image?

For example, if I unwrap with Project from view the result looks like this:

I want it to be exactly how the mesh appears in the 3D view, e.g.:

Is this possible?

It is possible. Plain UV Unwrap and Project from View commands have the option Correct Aspect to take into account currently displayed image's aspect ratio. The image must already be opened and displayed in the Image Editor before unwrapping.

EDIT: It seems this feature only works correctly, when the active render engine is anything but Cycles.

Checking Orthographic also avoids perspective distortion if you happen to unwrap from Ortho view:

Ortho or not, the resulting UV map is always of the right proportion by using Correct Aspect, even on images with aspect ratio far from 1:1 (this one after scaling down the UV map proportionally):


Cutting a Notch at the top a Rounded Cylinder Fairly new with Blender. Please excuse the following question if it comes off to amateur! But certainly hope someone will be able to figure this out for me.
Essentially I want to cut a notch at the top of rounded cylinder. The cylinder is currently modelled with a Subdivision Modifier.
I tried using the Boolean Modifier using a rectangular box to cut the Difference from the cylinder. However, it leaves really bad stretch marks along the edges.
Any type of tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
Andy

If you choose to go the route of booleans, then here is the method I would use.
Quad cap the cylinder to begin with. Delete the Ngon faces top and bottom, and grid fill them with Ctrl+F > G with the edges selected.

Next you can add modifiers. Order is important, so here is the modifier stack:

Bevel and Weighted Normal are the key ones that help here, they will help eliminate alot of the shading issues that you will run into relying on boolean workflows.
Finally, enable Auto-Smooth in  Properties ‣ Object Data ‣ Normals

This is roughly the result you should end up with:


Background images not rendering Trying to place a background image into the scene that renders with the scene. The camera view shows the image nut it's not there when rendered. Any clues?

Background and reference images are not intended to be rendered.

To render an image, you should place it on a surface (plane for instance).

A quick way to do it is to use an addon called 'image as plane' which is in the standard distribution.

Activate it:

Use it:


Drawing on tracked video footage with the grease pencil Fellow night workers,

I am trying to draw sketch like drawings of houses on to drone footage. I have used Syntheyes for planar tracking. Now I am trying to find the best way to draw in Blender. When using the grease pencil the lines will not attach to the planar tracking. Any suggestions on how to do this will be greatly appreciated. Attached picture is of the blocks where the drawings are suppose to be. The drawings are just lines, like a stick figure house.

Many thanks in advance

//Hank

When you just want to add some paintings on the wall a simple image texture on a transparent background (e.g. created in Photoshop/GIMP) would do the job. If you would want to dynamically build up a drawing on the wall have a look at Blender's "Dynamic Paint"-system.


Selection of Rigged Characters I got a .blend file which containing only rigged characters, now I am copying the whole character to another .blend file to combine it and animate it. The problem is when I am working on multiple characters on the 'another' blend file I can't select the whole rigged character but just left clicking it. Can anyone tell me how to select rigged characters with their body at once? Thanks!

Generally speaking you will use File> Link to bring a mesh into another blend file. You then navigate to the .blend file, which will open up like a directory in the file browser. If the rig is well-designed, there will be a Group directory inside. Go into the group directory and select the group.

If there is no Group folder, navigate to the Object folder and Shift + LMB the objects that you want.

Linking provides several advantages. Not the least of which is that you can edit your rig without requiring any changes in your asset file. Invaluable when working with other people who are your modelers. However you could also Append which makes it so it points to the file, instead of copying it. This is useful working with other people, or when you what to change the asset directly.


How to change one property (default value) on multiple materials When I export an .obj from my Shelfplanning tool and import it into Blender, all my materials have the "Emission Strength" set to 1.0 (and there are 450 materials in total).
How to turn off emission on all my materials, without clicking on them and turning it off manually?

This script will set all "Emission Strength"s to 0. Copy it into the Text Editor and hit the "Run" button. It will affect all materials in the file, so be careful.
import bpy
for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    if not mat.use_nodes:
        continue
    for n in mat.node_tree.nodes:
        if n.type == 'BSDF_PRINCIPLED':
            n.inputs["Emission Strength"].default_value = 0

Normally you do "no emission" with Emission Strength=1 and a black emission color though...


Where did my texture go after selecting Use Nodes? I created a material for the Cube

Color map
Normal map

Unwrapped it
Enjoyed the view in the viewport with Internal and the Game Engine
Then I switched to Cycles and clicked on Use nodes and there is no more texture in the viewport of Internal and Game Engine

What happened? Can I undo that somehow? I read that Cycles's is not compatible with Internal.
Can I have materials set for Internal/GE and Cycles and switch between them (the rendering engines)?

I intend to export my creations to my own game engine and eventually to render still images for enjoyment but the former is what I need most.

Materials created for Blender Internal are not compatible with Cycles. Blender Internal uses an entirely different nodes system, stemming from the fact that it is an entirely different rendering engine and rendering images via an entirely different method.

To use your texture in Cycles, you would need to recreate your texture in Cycles, or otherwise use a script to convert it to Cycles. See this answer for more information.


how to get timeline back Lost the timeline bar. and can't get it back.

You can also create multiple timelines (if needed) or create a new one by sliding the scene left or right from one of the bottom corners. This will create a new view of a editor. Where the triangle lines are.


How to change animation easing in Blender 2.8? As a blender noob I do animations using auto keyframes. I like to experiment with different animation easing curves. Which I have to choose before adding animations.

In most cases I d like to experiment and try out a few easing curves, but it is anoying to always reproduce the animations.

Is there a way to simply change the animation easing in Dope sheeteditor?

The Easing can be changed within the Dope Sheet in Blender 2.8 by simply selecting the channel and choosing the Interpolation mode in the Key menu.


How do I move the 2D cursor in Blender? I am using Blender 2.82 for this.
To put it simply I am trying to move the cursor to a specific part of a pic I wanted. However I just can't seem to do it in a 2D animated project. I tried the cursor tool, the select box, I tried the move tool and holding things like Alt, Ctrl, and Shift to move the cursor but no luck. I even tried using the UV editor to move it but still nothing.
Note: I am selecting multiple strokes for this.

If I understand right, you want to rotate around selected point.
You can either move Origin point or the 3D cursor.
Moving Origin Point

Enable Transform Origins Only in Sidebar > Tool > Options
Move the object's origin to desired location

Moving 3D cursor

Position the 3D cursor using the 3D cursor tool.
Switch Pivot point to > 3D Cursor


Is there a way to offset an edge? (extrude edge loop perpendicular to each edge) I recently figured out how to do it with faces, but with edges, I can't seem to get it to work. I have a complex flat plane and i need to extend an edge loop. I tried setting to individual origins in combination with all possibilities for x,y,z axes in global and local, but it is still not extruding along the normals.

actual problem

simplified

ZMJ100 wrote an addon called SIRE outline. When installed it will appear in the left hand toolshelf in 3dview. It does offset (inset, outset).

https://vimeo.com/28147691 (demo video by tungee)

Over at BlenderArtists ZMj100 went crazy (in a good way) writing mesh addons, one of the addons does exactly what you want. It's probably not polite to link someone elses collection directly here, although I would like to. but here is a direct link to the thread and the zip is in the thread. It's all GPL license.


Sampling points of a nurbs surface using projections I'm trying to sample a nurbs surface given certain constraints. Basically I'm trying to reproduce in 3D the following 2D situation. I don't know how to do this in 2D either so I need suggestions anyway.

The black curve would be my spline surface, the green line would be a plane above the surface. What I want to do is to shoot rays from the plane ortogonally, in equally spaced points, compute the intersections of such rays with the surfaces and store those points (the ones in the blue circle).

Is there a way to achieve this?

(I'm trying to emulate a depth map).

1) Z-buffer (real depth map)

Place a camera above the surface

Set it to Ortographic. Then go in Camera view (Numpad 0) and change its Clipping values in such a way that they are the "tightest" possible to display all the curve (i.e. the biggest possible "Start" and the smallest possible "End")

Render the image (F12), then select "Z-Buffer" in the list of Channels below the render window:

This will give you an actual depth map.

or 2) Z-dependent Emission color (faked depth map using Cycles)

Place your surface in a scene where the world is completely black and there are no lights. Use "Cycles" as the render engine.

Note down the minimum and the maximum "z" location (in my example, 0.1 and 0.9)

Assign a material that has the following node structure:

where in the Math nodes you'll use the values of min(z) and (max(z)-min(z)) noted down before, in my case 0.1 and 0.8.

Of course the colorRamp can be changed according to your needs.

This will color your surface with a different color according to its height:

.

Place an ortographic camera along the "z" axis (frame the surface from above) and render. The render will be a depth map


Alternative to redraw_timer() I have a script whose goal is to find all the visible vertices from the camera view. The simplest solution should work as follows:

Go Into Camera View
Update the view with bpy.ops.wm.redraw_timer(type='DRAW_WIN_SWAP', iterations=1)
Get the coordinates of the borders of the camera and use bpy.ops.view3d.select_border()

However, the redraw_timer() function is giving me the following error

WM: failed to allocate texture for triple buffer drawing (glGenTextures).
wmSubWindowScissorSet 0: doesn't exist
Error: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION

Now, I'm not surprised. The Gotchas mentions that this could be expected.

How should I then replace redraw_timer()?

I have tried bpy.context.scene.update(), bpy.context.area.tag_redraw() and a modal operator with no success. How should I then proceed?

IMPORTANT UPDATE (02.11.2015)

Both answers (zeffii and batFINGER) select all vertices in the camera frustrum. This means that vertices behind others are selected. This is not what I'm looking for. I need the unobstructed and visible vertices. That's why I thought of using bpy.ops.view3d.select_border() in camera perspective. Here is an example.

If Suzanne is seen by the camera like this

I want the following vertices selected.

I apologize for making my issue unclear.

IMPORTANT EDIT

re question change, pretty much the same code added to a modal timer operator, and changed to use view3d.border_select.  Run the operator in 3dview, then when in edit mode Right click in camera view to select vertices.   Setspace.use_occlude_geometry to view unobstructed and visible vertices.

import bpy
from bpy_extras.view3d_utils import location_3d_to_region_2d

def view3d_find():
    # returns first 3d view, normally we get from context
    for area in bpy.context.window.screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            v3d = area.spaces[0]
            rv3d = v3d.region_3d
            for region in area.regions:
                if region.type == 'WINDOW':
                    return region, rv3d
    return None, None

def view3d_camera_border(scene):
    obj = scene.camera
    cam = obj.data

    frame = cam.view_frame(scene)

    # move into object space
    frame = [obj.matrix_world * v for v in frame]

    # move into pixelspace

    region, rv3d = view3d_find()
    frame_px = [location_3d_to_region_2d(region, rv3d, v) for v in frame]
    return frame_px

class ModalTimerOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Operator which runs its self from a timer"""
    bl_idname = "wm.modal_timer_operator"
    bl_label = "BXXX"

    _timer = None

    def modal(self, context, event):
        scene = context.scene
        obj = context.object
        region = context.area.regions[-1]

        if event.type in {'ESC'}:
            self.cancel(context)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        if event.type in {'RIGHTMOUSE'}:
            print("modal")
            if obj.mode == 'EDIT' and obj.type == 'MESH':
                camframe = view3d_camera_border(scene)

                #print([xy for xy in camframe])

                bpy.ops.view3d.select_border(gesture_mode=3, xmin=camframe[2].x, xmax=camframe[0].x,
                                             ymin=camframe[1].y, ymax=camframe[0].y)

        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(0.1, context.window)
        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def cancel(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        wm.event_timer_remove(self._timer)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalTimerOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalTimerOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Similar to the method used in https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/40264/15543 , the handler below selects only the verts in the camera view, and deselects the rest, live, in edit mode.

Uses view3d_camera_border(...) and view3d_find methods from https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/14746/15543

dic = {}
@persistent
def edit_object_change_handler(scene):
    # if not some.prop return
    obj = scene.objects.active
    if obj is None:
        return None

    if obj.mode == 'EDIT' and obj.type == 'MESH':
        camframe = view3d_camera_border(scene)
        region, rv3d = view3d_find()
        #print([xy for xy in camframe])
        bm = dic.setdefault(obj.name, bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data))

        for v in bm.verts:
            xy = location_3d_to_region_2d(region, rv3d,
                                          obj.matrix_world * v.co)
            v.select = ((camframe[2].x <= xy.x <= camframe[0].x)
                    and (camframe[1].y <= xy.y <= camframe[0].y))
            #print(v.select, v)
        return None

    for bm in dic.values():
        bm.free()

    dic.clear()
    return None

Cannot see why same would not work in a modal(timer).  Needs some property flag to turn it on or off.

I'd be tempted to extend the BMesh


AttributeError: '_RestrictContext' object has no attribute 'space_data' I work at an addon that works with external icons. When I run the script from within Blender then all is fine. When I make it an add-on, and install it, and try to activate it, then I get an error:

  AttributeError: '_RestrictContext' object has no attribute 'space_data'

The vital code part that throws the error is:

script_path = bpy.context.space_data.text.filepath

Why does it work when i run it inside Blender, and not as an addon?

The problem reduced to one icon button:

import bpy
import os
import bpy.utils.previews

bl_info = {
    "name": "Icon problem as addon",
    "author": "X",
    "version": (1, 0, 0),
    "blender": (2, 76, 0),
    "location": "",
    "description": "Test",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "category": "User Interface"}

# ¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸

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

    global custom_icons

    row = layout.row(align=True)
    row.operator("object.mode_set", text="", icon_value = custom_icons["icon_not_available"].icon_id).mode = 'OBJECT'

# global variable to store icons in
custom_icons = None

def register():

    bpy.types.VIEW3D_HT_header.prepend(addon_button) # Here we add our button in front of the View 3D header.

    # Our external Icons
    global custom_icons
    custom_icons = bpy.utils.previews.new()
    script_path = bpy.context.space_data.text.filepath
    icons_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(script_path), "icons")

    custom_icons.load("icon_not_available", os.path.join(icons_dir, "NOT_AVAILABLE.png"), 'IMAGE')

def unregister():
    global custom_icons
    bpy.utils.previews.remove(custom_icons)

# This allows you to run the script directly from blenders text editor
# to test the addon without having to install it.

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

The solution was as easy as replacing

script_path = bpy.context.space_data.text.filepath
icons_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(script_path), "icons")

by

icons_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "icons")

Problem solved.

Full example script:

import bpy
import os
import bpy.utils.previews

bl_info = {
    "name": "Icon problem as addon",
    "author": "X",
    "version": (1, 0, 0),
    "blender": (2, 76, 0),
    "location": "",
    "description": "Test",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "category": "User Interface"}

# ¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸¸¸♫·¯·♪¸¸♩·¯·♬¸¸

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

    global custom_icons

    row = layout.row(align=True)
    row.operator("object.mode_set", text="", icon_value = custom_icons["icon_not_available"].icon_id).mode = 'OBJECT'

# global variable to store icons in
custom_icons = None

def register():

    bpy.types.VIEW3D_HT_header.prepend(addon_button) # Here we add our button in front of the View 3D header.

    # Our external Icons
    global custom_icons
    custom_icons = bpy.utils.previews.new()
    # Use this for an addon.
    icons_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "icons")

    # Use this inside a script
    #script_path = bpy.context.space_data.text.filepath
    #icons_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(script_path), "icons")

    custom_icons.load("icon_not_available", os.path.join(icons_dir, "NOT_AVAILABLE.png"), 'IMAGE')

def unregister():
    global custom_icons
    bpy.utils.previews.remove(custom_icons)

# This allows you to run the script directly from blenders text editor
# to test the addon without having to install it.

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Weird normals(I already Recalculate Normals,Remove doubles) So I am having a problem with my mesh I am not positive if it is normals I am a bit of a noob to blender probably been using it for 2 months  and I don't know something you may know
any help will be appreciated this is how it looks like
https://i.gyazo.com/21b0692adb4aafb5e089992e9361a344.mp4
ask any questions
and as I said
I already remove doubles and recalculated normals
Here is the file

Fixed

Ok, there are a couple of problems here.
The first and foremost is that you have many edges marked "sharp".

To fix this, simply enter edit mode, select the whole mesh (A), right-click and select "clear sharp"

However, as you can see, the mesh is still affected because of "ugly" topology. Blender favors the use of Quad based topology, and though sometimes tri's or n-gons are unavoidable, they are best kept on flat (non curved) surfaces. To reduce the chance of shading based artifacts, always try to keep your mesh as quad-based as possible.

To fix this for your project, you can either re-topologize it manually, or an easier approach would be to use a Remesh Modifier, either in it's own, or in conjunction with manual adjustments.

Once this is done, if you want your mesh "smooth" again, you could add a Subdivision Surface Modifier, and shade smooth. (NOTE - the smooth shading did not work properly for me until I applied the Remesh Modifier. I am currently using 2.9, so I'm not sure if it's unique to this version, but if it isn't shading smooth for you, try applying the modifier first)


Bevel Shader with a Gradient Texture I've been trying to recreate Gesy Bekeyei's clever trick (scroll below to see what I'm referring to) in using a black and white gradient texture to influence the Bevel Shader's radius to create custom bevels for each differently sized segments of the object. I've achieved a good part of that, however, the parts of the segments that make contact with the surface curve inwards, instead of outwards, as it normally would if a Bevel Modifier was used. I believe my UV unwrapping could be the reason but after unwrapping in various ways, I still haven't achieved the desired look.

Any of you good folks mind helpin' me figure this out?

By the way, unrelated - hope y'all had a great Christmas! :)

This is the look I want

This is what I'm getting

Credits to Robin Betts for this, he nailed the issue head-on in the comments. I'm just explaining it a bit more thoroughly with screenshots.

Essentially what is going on is that for all the faces on the larger objects, you've mapped it to have a large bevel. For the smaller ones, you've mapped them to have a smaller bevel.

However, when a small object meets a big object, the face of the larger object is still trying to create a large bevel, while the smaller one is trying to create a small one on the same edge- resulting in that inwards bevel effect.

As you can see in the screenshot below, I've cut additional geometry to surround your smaller objects and moved their UV mapping so that they shared the same bevel width.

Here's a comparison of before/after:


Autocad "edgesurf" equivalent in Blender? How I can do an operation in blender like Autocad's edgesurf?

In Autocad, edgesurf creates a mesh between four contiguous edges or curves:

Access methods from autocad:

Button
Ribbon:  Mesh Modeling tabPrimitives panelModeling, Meshes, Edge Surface
Menu: DrawModelingMeshesEdge Mesh
Command entry: edgesurf

Summary:

  Select four adjoining edges that define the mesh. The edges can be
  lines, arcs, splines, or open polylines. The edges must touch at their
  endpoints to form a single, closed loop.

You're looking for the Grid Fill tool.

Grid fill is accessible with Ctrl F Grid fill or via the 3D View header > Mesh > Faces > Grid Fill.


Why do objects in front and back view look reversed? Whenever I model objects that has different look at front and back. Viewing it from front perspective or orthographic the model displays back of the object.

Front in Blender is considered to be Y axis, when the camera is facing towards positive Y you see the side of an object facing negative Y direction. This doesn't have to make any sense, it is not supposed to as there is no one logical reason to have it any one particular way.
You can use the shortcuts Numpad 1, Numpad 3 and Numpad 7 to quickly switch the viewport to front, side, or top views, you can also hold Ctrl to reverse the direction when using these hotkeys, Numpad 2,Numpad 4, Numpad 6 and Numpad 8 rotate the view, holding Ctrl with these 4 will pan it and Numpad 9 reverses to the other side.
You can also use the gizmo at the top right corner for this:

See the documentation for more info
That should really cover all your precise navigation needs whatever side you need to view.
And I just realized, you might be talking about inverted normals...
Would it hurt to post a picture to help me avoid wasting my time when trying to help?.. Anyway, if you are seeing something like this:

Go to edit mode(Tab), select all(a), open normals menu(Alt+n) and choose flip normals(f):


How to use a constraint to make a roller paint animation? :)
I found a tutorial here on Youtube that shows how to make a painting animation with Dynamic Paint. It works, but I can't figure out why the roller stops rotating after a while. You can download the file here on OneDrive

You can make the stick movement control the rotation of the roller:

Create your object, parent the roller to the stick:

Give your roller a Transformation constraint with this kind of setup: Stick as Target, Extrapolation on, Target and Owner > Local Space, Map From > Location with the stick local movement orientation as axis (choose for example -1 and 1 as value, anyway it will be extrapolated), Map To > Rotation with the roller rotation movement axis as destination axis, don't forget to select the target location axis as Source (and choose the rotation value that will match):

Move the stick, the roller should rotate according to the stick speed:


How to fix a 6 point vertex I have a character I am modelling and I'm having a little trouble around the mouth. Somehow I've managed to get a 6 point vertex at both corners of the mouth. I know I should resolve this somehow, but I'm not sure what I should do.

I've tried merging the vertices on the other end (the 2 red circles) but that didn't fix it.

What step should I take from here to resolve this?

There are some great resources out there (non-specific to Blender) about how to solve these kinds of problems. I'd recommend looking for some facial modeling tutes that talk about topology specifically.

To answer your question, though, you will have to have a tri or a 5-point vertex :-/ It's a veritable law of facial modeling and there's great debate (apparently) on where the unavoidable tris and 5's should go.

In this case, you'll probably want to make a face out of those three vertices you have circled, to make a tri. This will give you an edge loop that goes around the mouth, which is highly desirable. The debate usually surrounds how far away from the lips that tri should be. It's usually helpful to put the tri somewhere that it will mostly be flat, and won't distort very much. If it's small enough, it might not matter.


Adding materials to more than one object Is it possible to add a texture or material to more than one object at a time?

It's possible link the materials on a selection of objects to a single "active" object.

Add an material to an object:

Select all of the objects you want the material on, then select the object from step 1 (it's important that you select that object last; it needs to be the active object). Hit CTRL+L and select Materials


How do I set object origin normal to a face? I have the following object:

How do I modify the origin so that the origin has the X axis normal to the face shown, but the object itself remains in the same position in space?

Because you've applied the rotation to your model, the easiest possible way to do this is rotating it manually.

Turn on the snapping tool by using the magnet icon in the bottom toolbar and set the snap element to Increment.

Enter top view by pressing Numpad 7, then enter Orthographic Mode by pressing Numpad 5. Use the keys G,Z to rotate along the Z axis and hold Shift until the flat faces facing the x axis are exact straight lines.

While still in object mode, use Ctrl+A and click Rotation to reset the rotation to 0,0,0.

With Pictures:


AN Loft Splines not observing vertex hooks I posted this to Blender Bug Report but they said it was in the wrong place so I thought I'd try here. https://developer.blender.org/T53998
I see now from their comment it's actually from Jacques Lucke's AN addon...
https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes

Animation Nodes ~ Loft Splines
http://animation-nodes-manual.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user_guide/nodes/spline/loft_splines.html

I am able to change the vertex of the loft's source splines and see the generated mesh morph as expected.

I'm also able to use Hooks to move a point of that surface control curve like this demonstration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hn3YY0Vgbo

Unfortunately the curve moves independently and even offsets after hooking when moving the vertex in edit mode. It actually jumps to a different location in edit mode after being moved by the hook control mesh.

My guess is the animation node should appear in the modifiers and then I can put the order of the hook before it.

Maybe there is really a bug there, or it's super unclear what to do so maybe a toggle is needed somewhere (either in Splines from Object or the Hook modifier) to enable this to be even more procedural by allowing vertex hooks changes/animation to be observed by the animation nodes Loft Spline node.

Unfortunately, this is not possible in Animation Nodes. Jacques Luke (AN Developer) said the following about this particular issue:

  Blender does not (to my knowledge) allow scripts to get the result of curve modifiers in a way that is suitable for AN. The only possible way to see atm is that AN makes a copy of the curve object, applies all modifiers, hopes that the result is only a single spline, loads that spline into AN and removes the copied spline. This would have to happen on every recalculation. While the performance might be good enough when the spline is small, there are other problems when using this approach. Specifically it requires AN to use certain operators that should not be used during rendering.

What you can do however, is implement the hook modifier inside animation Nodes instead. Below, I will explain a potential way to do this.

Animation Nodes Hooks

First, I will rename all the hooks, where the name is "Hook.n" where n is the index of the spline point it should control. Then I will loop over the spline points of the spline, check if an object exist by the name "Hook.n" where n is the index, If I find an object by that name, I append the hook location, otherwise, I append the spline point location. What we end up with is the new locations of the spline points:

And now we can safely regenerate the spline with the new locations:

Hooks are however defined as an offset from their initial location, the same can be done in Animation Nodes using ID Keys, but I will leave that to you.

Animation Nodes Issues

StackExchange is no place to report Animation Nodes bugs, Github issues in the AN repository is the place to share bugs in:

https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes/issues/new


How do you play an animation with code? How to make, with a script, Blender play the current animation?

The script that plays an animation is something like this:

import bpy
bpy.ops.screen.animation_play()

In the future, if you want to use python to do something, you can make it easier by activating Python Tooltips, which you can do by going to Edit >> Preferences >> Interface >> Python Tooltips. You can see Python Tooltips in action by hovering over a button like the Play Animation button.


Grease pencil - No object selection I am trying to follow a tutorial that uses the grease pencil to change the way the cell fracture fractures.

This is the screenshot from the video featuring the scene or object menu.

And this is all that shows on my screen. Is this because of the difference in versions? The video and me are using Cycles

That setting is now located in the Tool Shelf T under Grease Pencil.


Why do we apply location, say after we moved an object Why do we apply that location. If I have multiple objects in blender, I can relatively see each coordinates, and add new one based on existing. If I reset all will be zeros, so nothing to compare.

Do we have to apply location after moving object?

In short, No. In which case thought I'd explain what it does, and a couple of scenarios where it may be useful.

Local vs Global Coordinates.

Blender uses world and local coordinates.

When an object has zero location and rotation, and unity scale, the local coordinates of its data will match the corresponding world coordinates.

For instance the default cube has its origin at (0, 0, 0) and its data, the mesh, has a  corner (vertex) at (1, 1, 1).

If I move the cube object to (1, 1, 1) the local coordinates remain the same, but the global coordinate of the fore mentioned corner vertex is now (2, 2, 2)  I've snapped the 3D cursor to the vertex in image below to demonstrate, would also show by selecting "Global" for vertex coordinate.

Applying location in object mode, would alter all vertices local coordinate to the global coordinates, matching its origin to global origin. (note  has no rotation or scale applied)

Applying location is the  same operation as Origin to 3D cursor with the 3D cursor at (0, 0, 0). (with no object parenting)

Why do this?

If I want the origin on base of default cube I can move it up one unit such that global (0, 0, 0) is on its base, and apply location.
Let's say I have an intricate assembly made up of different parts
that I've modeled with a separate object for each. When finished,  it may
be simpler to have all the parts located at (0, 0, 0) and let the
local mesh data take care of the positioning, by applying all
transforms on all components. (that way if I transform a part later,
it can be relocated easily, I don't need to remember its location, rotation and scale, I can just set all to default)  I've imported a number of models that have been arranged this way.
Making simple model of earth and moon. Add sphere (earth) at origin,
duplicate for a moon, scale down move away along x axis and apply
location.  It can now be rotated in its fixed orbit around earth by
simply adjusting the z Euler rotation.


Snap vertex without deforming mesh Summary of Problem
I would like to be able to move vertices, without deforming the surrounding mesh or edge, while snapping to another vertex or move it by a specified unit distance (Not percentage). I am doing my first archviz project and am doing a modern house that has many angles that aren't standard. This means that following the X or Y axis isn't suitable most of the time. Of course, I have done my best to conform to the grid and the axis's
Attempted solutions
In an effort not to cover things I've already investigated, I will outline what I've tried below. Many solutions are almost there but have one glaring drawback that makes it entirely unsuitable for me
Edge Loop and Slide
I have tried "Ctrl + R" to make an edge loop and then slide it, as well as "GG" to get the same end result. This isn't suitable to me as I can only specify a percentage and not the units that are being used everywhere else. You might think, why not just use math to get the same result? Because I want millimeter precision and when dealing with non-even numbers you're going to get some discrepancy. I have looked everywhere to see if there's some way to do this, but oddly it seems to not be a feature of blender. I have no idea how people do any kind of archviz work without a feature similar to this
Temporary Geometry
I have tried creating another object to act as a "ruler" to draw a straight line from the vertex I'm wanting to align to. The problem arises when I want to snap the vertice to the ruler (remember it's at an odd angle to the geometry I'm dealing with). If I was to edge slide as close as possible, there's still a slight deform that occurs when I snap to the ruler (In line with vertice, not to edge). The problem with this idea though, is the moment I want to rotate it to match an angle, it seems there is no snapping with rotation so it will be slightly misaligned no matter how hard I try.
Transform Orientations
I've figured out that you can slide vertices along the normals orientation axis's, which is very useful. I also have used the viewport view in conjunction with "Shift + Num7" to align my view with faces. This would almost be the perfect solution if used with the temporary geometry, but if I try and snap it to a vertex along the ruler, it will snap using the same orientation as is being used to move it - so it will be way off.
Knife Tool
I thought instead of moving the vertex, I could just cut it to the right position from the beginning. For some reason, I can't get the knife to snap to an existing vertice on the initial cut - only after that. I also can't specify the length of lines created so it's pretty much useless to me
Measure Tool
I thought that I could use some sort of "mark" to snap a vertice to when edge sliding, overcomming the lack of ability to specify a measurement that isn't -1, 0, 1. But no, of course when I think I'm there it seems as though the measurement disappears the moment you go to edit vertices. I hope I'm missing something here as it would be a bit ridiculous to not be able to see it in this context. Also, snapping to the measuretool seems impossible - again I hope I'm missing something because this seems like an incredibly basic feature any 3D software should have
I really hope someone can help me. I've spent easily 24 hours on this project and have achieved nothing, as I get so far and realise the misalignment is throwing everything off to an unacceptable degree. Tearing down my work over and over is just driving me insane and making me question my decision to learn Blender... but hey I guess I learn something each time I go through that process.

I agree it would be nice to be able to enter a distance value after pressing G twice.
Method 1
Select the edge your vertex is on, and press Shift Numpad 1, 3 or 7, depending on the situation.
Then set the Transform Orientation to View, press the key to move along the desired axis (X,Y or Z) and enter your distance value.
Method 2
Select the vertex you want to move. press Shift + S and choose Cursor to Selected. Then press Shift + D to duplicate, but don't move it. Then extrude it in a a direction to make a helper edge (along a main axis, close to the edge you want the vertex to move along is probably best) and while doing this, type the exact distance you would want to move your vertex.
Now go to the snapping menu and choose Snap to Edge, check the box Align Rotation to Target, and for the Affect choose Rotate.
Then as Transform Pivot Point choose 3D Cursor.
Now rotate your helper edge, and it will snap to (and align with) the edge your vertex is on. The end of the helper edge will be at right distance. Now you can snap your vertex to that point and delete the helper edge afterwards.
Be sure though, before snapping the vertex, to go back to the snapping menu and choose Snap to Vertex, and for the Affect choose Move. (unchecking the box Align Rotation to Target is not needed but does affect the way snapping responds)


Winding coil using a conical shape for 3D printing I'm trying to wind a continues coil around an conical object.
I duplicated an edge loop of the conical shape to get the Coil loop size and angle correct and used an array modifier but I'm not sure how to connect all the loops together to make it a connected and continuous wire coil spiral.

I was trying to follow
How would I go about creating a Toroidal coil?
Note:
I plan on using a boolean difference operator to make a indentation on both the inside and outside of the conical shape so that the coil/wire can be placed snugly when this is 3D printed.
The image below shows one side of the Conical shape with an indent place for the wire to go

One thought was to see how the twisted torus creates it's edge loops (since it loops the inside and outside edges) and somehow apply that to the cone shape.

You can avoid using a boolean modifier.

Say your cylinder is made with 32 steps and you want the coil 8 turns (if not the case adjust the values to your need).
Start keeping 1/8 of the cylinder:

Bevel (or not as it depends on the size you want) the center loop:

Adjust the center part to make a crease:

Rip the bottom:

Rotate 1/8 = 45° the bottom part and adjust the other parts:

Add an array modifier based on object offset. This object is an empty placed at the center and rotated 45°. Activate the merge options:

To make the crease round, mark the center part with bevel crease and use a bevel modifier:


Grease Pencil-Preceding frame visible in next frame(non onion skin)-turn off please Simply, Draw something on frame 1 and then I go to frame 2 but the contents of frame 1 are still visible until I start drawing on frame 2(contents of frame1 then disappear from view until I return to frame 1)...
 I would prefer that I get a completely empty frame as I advance through the timeline.
Is that possible?

I guess I should be clear on if this is normal behavior or if its just a bug on my end? When draw on frame 1 and then advance forward to frame 2 is the contents of frame 1 still visible on your view port?

This is defacto standard in 2D-animation. This behavior makes easy to draw on twos, threes, ets. without adding additional keyframes. (When you draw every second frame it is called "drawing on twos", every third - "drawing on threes" and so on.) Timeline looks clear and ones, twos and threes easy to recognize and manipulate with them.

Know more why using twos is important in 9th Principle of Animation