Blender: Exporting a large 3D map into a 2D image I have designed a 3D Map in Blender. I wish to export a 2D image where I can place it inside an HTML5 canvas. The user would then be able to pan across the canvas to see the whole map.

My question is, how do I export the whole blender map into a 2D image? I can fit the whole map into the camera view port but it would be too small. I can even export the 3D map into small segments, but I am not sure how to do that either.

I am still new to blender and don't know all its features.

Thanks

Blender's ability to render large images is pretty robust: We do images 10Kx10K and larger all the time, so your viewport view is not a limiting factor.

Set up your camera to view the entire map, either overhead or however you wish to see the map inside your final 2D image. Set Blender's render dimensions to something large enough to accomplish your readability goals. This could easily be many thousands of pixels in either or both dimensions. Hit render.

You may want to experiment with camera settings to get the best image possible. Also, remember that if you are using an image texture within the 3D map (say, a 1024 x 1024 image as a ground texture), Blender cannot magically render it 20K x 20K without pixelization.  We use 4K skins and higher when we are working on big images... If procedural textures accomplish what you need, you'll have no problems.

Hope this helps... big images are a real strength of Blender, and shout if I can assist.


How can I quickly manage visibility of channels across multiple objects in the graph editor Say i have made an animation i want to modify. I know that i just need to tweak the rotation of every bone in the spine by rotating X on every bone across every frame. I want to maintain all existing rotation while adding some on, so i use the graph editor and move the curve up. But finding and adjusting the x rotation curve is hard because every other curve (rot yzw, scale xyz, loc xyz etc..) is overlapping it and confusing me.

The only way i know of to deal with this atm is to go through every object in the graph editor list and do the same thing: Un-checking visibility on every instance of a channel that isn't the x rotation channel. This is very time consuming.

Something better might be if i could only see the transformation channel matching the 3D manipulator i have selected in the 3d view. Or if there were a way to hide all other transformation curves that aren't x rotation at the same time.

I'd like to know if there is a faster approach to managing the visibility of channels in the graph editor.

You can edit curves only for selected objects, or filter unneded curves by various types.

Hide channels for other objects
Enable Only Include channels relating to selected objects and data in the Graph Editor header. With this enabled you can edit channels of only selected objects which decreases amount of data to handle with.

Filtering channels

Filtering by type
Enable Filters in the window header. From there select which type of animation data is desired to be shown, from 8 categories of animation data: scene, world, nodes, objects transforms, meshes, datablocks related to modifiers, lamps and cameras. Click LMB to select / deselect multiple:

Only transfroms animation data is shown above because it is what location / rotation keyframes of objects are.

Filter by keyword
Enable filtering by keyword; the filter will be applied while you type it in.

"X" is typed as keyword; shown all keyframes which have letter X in their property.

Visibility of channels

Also it's possible to hide all but selected channel, see shortcut to show a single channel (solo mode) in the graph editor ?, or disable visibility for multiple channels.
You could do that quickly by clicking Eye icon of one channel and hover it over Eye icons of other channels up / down without releasing the mouse. The channels will be hidden.


How to disable scene shading and view Vertex Colors only? I'm working with an older model from another program (3DS Max) meant to be rendered in an engine running on older hardware with no dynamic lighting (Faked with shaders and vertex coloring)

The model was exported from Max as a DAE and imported into Blender. Upon importing, I found that it has this sort of automated shading going on based on which angle you view the model from, which really interferes when I'm trying to paint vertex colors.

Max has a 'flat' shading option which disables all scene lighting/shading and leaves vertex colors and textures only. Is there anyway to do this in Blender?

Yes, enable Shadeless in 3D view > Tool Shelf (N) > Shading while in textured view (⎇ AltZ):


Unexpected result setting a shear matrix as transform I am doing a visualization where I need to transform a sphere with a matrix. Easiest solution would be to just set the matrix as local transform but this gives me unexpected results.

I was trying around a little and found out, that setting matrix_local, delta_... and operating on vertex positions directly yields very different results. As an example, I tried it with a simple shear matrix. Here are the results:

Using matrix on vertex positions

Using local transformation matrix

Using delta transform

This is the code:

import bpy
from mathutils import *

def transform_verts(context):
    obj = context.active_object
    mat = Matrix.Shear('XY', 4, (3,3))

    #this does what it is supposed to do
    for j in range(0, len(obj.data.vertices)):
        obj.data.vertices[j].co = mat @ obj.data.vertices[j].co

def transform_delta(context):
    obj = context.active_object

    # This does NOT work as intended :(
    # this deforms the sphere into an elongated Ellipsoide
    d_loc, d_rot, d_sc = Matrix.Shear('XY', 4, (3,3)).decompose()
    obj.delta_location = d_loc
    obj.delta_rotation_quaternion = d_rot
    obj.delta_scale = d_sc

def transform_matrix_local(context):
    obj = context.active_object

    # for unknown reasons it is not possible to do this with an object transformation matrix
    # setting matrix_local yields similar weird results as setting delta transform
    # I suppose it may have to do with Blender internally decomposing it
    obj.matrix_local = Matrix.Shear('XY', 4, (3,3))

class SimpleOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Tooltip"""
    bl_idname = "object.simple_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Object Operator"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.active_object is not None

    def execute(self, context):
        #transform_verts(context)
        #transform_delta(context)
        transform_matrix_local(context)
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.object.simple_operator()

Why does setting the matrix_local also does something very different from what is intended? In my understanding, setting the matrix_local should do exactly the same as applying the matrix to vertex positions.

Is there a workaround for this issue that does not involve looping through vertices and setting the position manually? The above is just an example. My actual use case is a modal operator and right now I need to store the original vertex positions and loop through them each time modal is called. That is really slow compared to just setting the local transformation matrix.
If there isn't, any idea how to speed it up?

Edit: obj.data.transform() is not possible because I need to apply the matrix to the sphere each time. This matrix is not necessarily invertable, so I can't just do the inverse transformation from the previous call and then do the current transformation. I would only be able to use it if I can somehow restore the positions the vertices had before the transformation.

Mesh.transform

Can transform mesh directly by a matrix with Mesh.transform(matrix)  The matrix must be a 4x4.  Use in object mode. Update the mesh to see result.

Python console code, C = bpy.context

>>> mat = Matrix.Shear('XY', 4, (3,3))
>>> mat
Matrix(((1.0, 0.0, 3.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 1.0, 3.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0)))

>>> C.object.data.transform(mat)
>>> C.object.data.update()

  But this is transforms the vertices for good. In the modal operator, I
  need to apply it to the original positions of the sphere on each
  update. And the matrix is not necessarily invertable, so I can't just
  do the inverse beforehand, which makes it tricky

Shear matrix is not orthogonal, this is why it is not seen as an object matrix, and only in edit mode.

>>> mat.is_orthogonal
False

AFAIK will need to apply to verts to shear.

Some ways to copy mesh coords, swap out a mesh copy

>>> me = C.object.data
>>> me2 = C.object.data.copy()
>>> me2.transform(mat)
>>> C.object.data = me2 # see transform
>>> C.object.data = me # back to original
>>> bpy.data.meshes.remove(me2) # remove it when done

Foreach set and get

load the 3d vert coordinates into a ravelled array.  Have used numpy as the matrix algebra could be performed on it reshaped, although will find Mesh.transform is quick too.

>>> import numpy as np
>>> data = np.zeros(len(me.vertices) * 3)
>>> me.vertices.foreach_get("co", data)
>>> data
array([ 0.00000000e+00,  1.95090324e-01,  9.80785251e-01, ...,
        1.51397259e-08,  1.95089921e-01, -9.80785310e-01])

The data is ravelled, here it is reshaped to display the coordinates

>>> np.reshape(data, (-1, 3))
array([[ 0.00000000e+00,  1.95090324e-01,  9.80785251e-01],
       [ 0.00000000e+00,  3.82683456e-01,  9.23879504e-01],
       [ 0.00000000e+00,  5.55570245e-01,  8.31469595e-01],
       ...,
       [ 1.52975474e-07,  7.07106352e-01, -7.07106769e-01],
       [ 7.84696610e-08,  3.82682920e-01, -9.23879623e-01],
       [ 1.51397259e-08,  1.95089921e-01, -9.80785310e-01]])

Transform the data, update to see result

>>> me.transform(mat)
>>> me.update()

write back, update to see result.

>>> me.vertices.foreach_set("co", data)
>>> me.update()

Another OTT method would be to make a shape key and transform that.


Setting vertex color with ob.data.vertex_colors["Col"].data[0].color stores values wrong when I set the color of vertex data with;

ob.data.vertex_colors["Col"].data[0].color = [0.7, 0.5, 0.3]

and then look at the values, they are different

ob.data.vertex_colors["Col"].data[0].color
Color((0.6980392336845398, 0.49803921580314636, 0.2980392277240753))

Why is this not saved properly?

Vertex colours are stored as 8-bit sRGB values. This means that they have a maximum precision of 1/256, but the raw values are also further distorted by the sRGB colourspace translation.


What is a good tutorial series to learn Python for BGE? I've learned a lot from searching for python related questions as they came up for me, but I still don't feel like I'm getting the overall grasp of python coding. Are there any good resources that you recommended for learning python from the ground up? If so, in what order?

Thank you in advance for your answers and suggestions,
Anthony

Here is a text based tutorial, for if you learn better from reading tutorials: CGMasters Python Scripting
Here is a video based tutorial, for people who like watching tutorials: (See Below)
The video tutorial is a little outdated, but the basic python still applies. I know that the text based tutorial is not a series, but the video one has some more, as it is part one of twenty three. Here is the link to the full playlist: Blender 2.6 Basic BGE Python Playlist


(How) Can I get rid of these fireflies in the zDepth pass? http://imgur.com/a/5PYwv

How do i fix the firefly type artifacts? None of the leaves have a glossy surface so that shouldn't be causing the problem?

Here's a file of just the front tree. (sorry for the file size)
Updated version.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5m46lz9vzqehhh7/Toussaint%20-%20Copy.blend?dl=0

Glossy shaders won't affect the z-pass at all. The z-pass is literally a gray-scale of how far away each pixel is.

The answer to this question is exactly the same as any other question dealing with Cycles noise (though it might not seem like it at first). Noise in regular renders is a precision issue, and the noise here is also a precision issue. The way that Cycles improves precision is with more samples.

It's slightly different with the z-pass in that there's not nearly as many contributing factors to "how far away is this pixel" as there are to "what color is this pixel." But there are some. The main contributor is likely anti-aliasing. But even then, the solution should be the same: render more samples.

cegaton's recommendation to adjust the near and far clipping planes, is also a good idea.

If that doesn't help... well, I may just be mistaken... and that's okay.


Trying to import .OBJ from Magicavoxel to Blender, but it imports as a single large object? I want to import a model from Magicavoxel into Blender that already has the desired colors and effects applied to them.
I imported it easy enough, but it seems to have imported as a single object which I can only edit as a whole. Also, while my colors transferred over, none of the light effects (certain areas glowing) were translated into Blender. I was hoping to fix this in Blender, but I can't select individual pieces of my build - it's all one object now.
It doesn't seem like exporting/importing with a different file format (such as .ply) helps in any way.
Is there anyway to either import my glow effects and lighting from Magicavoxel to Blender, or, import from Magicavoxel to Blender and retain each build piece as a single object (as it is in Magicavoxel) so I can edit them separately?
Please also note, while I consider myself computer-savvy, I am a beginner at both of these programs (less than 20 hours each of experience), so please spell things out for me.

Fortunately a plugin to import a .vox file without the need to convert to .obj https://github.com/RichysHub/MagicaVoxel-VOX-importer . Instructions on how to use it and caveats are on that page but will reproduce installation and basic usage instructions here:
Download io_scene_vox.py from the github page and install it into Blender.
In order to enable the add-on, you will need to have Testing add-ons visible within the Blender Preferences menu.

With the add-on installed and enabled, the importer can be accessed from File > Import > MagicaVoxel (.vox)

This add-on imports each voxel of the original model as an individual cube primitive. This opens up the use of voxel models for projects such as physics simulations.


Can I vertex paint on top of procedural texture? can I vertex paint on to of procedural texture? I just start getting into the texture/coloring of models, I've spent a lot of time learning the modeling aspect of blender. This is model isn't an efficient one, it hasn't been retopologized or anything like that. I'm trying to get all the details working.

Most definitely you can mix your vertex paint and your texture paint together in your material node tree and preview the result - here is Suzanne with some default Dirty Vertex Paint and a flat brown image texture slot mixed with a color mix node set to 'Overlay'  - left window is the vertex dirt, right window is the combined shading result.


Can't find viewer node in 2.8 I've heard that it should be in the output but it's not there. It just has material output. I've enabled node wrangler which I've read should make the viewer node visible.

The viewer node is actually an Emission BSDF with its label changed to "Viewer."  ShiftCtrlLMB on any node with an output and the the first output will be connected to the color input of "Viewer."  Successive clicks will cycle through all the outputs of the desired node.  Also note that if your scene exposure is changed, the viewer's strength will automatically adjust to compensate, but it will not compensate for changes to gamma or adjustment curves.


Color difference in saved images vs Render View I've noticed that when an image is saved (let's say as a PNG for example), the color doesn't look as vibrant as it does in Blender's Render View.

For comparison, here is an image created by saving as a PNG:

And here is the same scene, but captured as a screen shot in macOS (also PNG):

In case you can't see the difference on your display, here's an animated GIF (only 256 colors):

Color Management settings in the .blend are set to their defaults.

According to the Blender Manual it seems that Blender uses a custom linear color space when rendering(?).

When viewing the Document Profile of the two images in Photoshop they are listed as follows:

screen shot: "Display (8bpc)"
saved image: "sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (8bpc)"

It makes sense that having different color spaces results in different appearances. Although both "looks" can be portrayed in either of the two color spaces. In other words, whether converting to sRGB or converting to Display there is still a visible difference between them. I suppose this is because color data gets lost in the process and simply converting the color space doesn't mean the original color data will come back. But I guess I'm surprised at how visible the difference is, and I wonder, which one is more accurate, or truer to Blender's linear color space? Because it appears that taking a screen shot gives a representation closer to Blender's Render View - or maybe this beautiful display is deceiving me.

Is there a way to save an image from Blender and maintain the "look" of the result I'm seeing in the Render View?

I have a feeling somebody is going to say "that's just how color spaces work" and tell me to play with the Color Management settings... but even if that is the answer I would appreciate getting some clarity on this matter. Thanks.

I have a feeling somebody is going to say "that's just how color spaces work" and tell me to play with the Color Management settings... but even if that is the answer I would appreciate getting some clarity on this matter. Thanks.

If you ever catch someone saying this, kick them. There is very little that could be further from the truth.

Sadly, your question cannot be effectively answered without further information. You mentioned that you are on MacOS, which means that your display could be quite different from the assumptions that most folks would make here. Most importantly, if you are on an Apple device that is from 2015 onward, your colours are going to be entirely wrong. That's right, Blender doesn't support Apple devices via the default installation.

The fastest way to get WYSIWYG is to properly tag your image with the Microsoft / HP sRGB ICC profile.

The following command should attach a profile with the help of the ImageMagick tool:

convert source.tif +profile MY_PROFILE_PATH/whatever-profile.icc destination.tiff

If you offer up further information, it can help to completely solve your problem here.


Why my textures have a dark color in game engine? When I click P for game engine the objects which have material their color become dark.For example the station has blue color in texture mode,but on game engine is dark blue and etc.How to make the texture to have the same color on GE as in texture mode?

It sounds to me like you are struggling to get the image you see in the viewport to align with how your game performs in realtime. This is usually the fault of Multi-Texture shading, which is the default in-game render mode for BGE. If you want the game to look the same in and out of game, change the shading mode to GLSL.
Here is what my scene looks like when I see it in the Blender 3D view, or viewport.

Once I hit P though, it looks terrible!

The good thing is, this is an easy fix. Just click multitexture, and select GLSL in the dropdown menu. The tool bar that has this option can be opened and closed in the 3D view by pressing N.

Ah! Much better. As you can see, it matches the way i thought it should look from the 3D view perfectly!


Weird red dotted rectangle appearing in blender, how do I delete it? I'm not even able to select it, also don't think its an object. Please help.

You tapped on CTRL+B.
Try tapping CTRL+ALT+B to clear the region.
Preferences > Keymap > 3d View:

For more info see Borders


Blender Cache Error. 0 frames in memory Cache is Outdated Hi, so for the last couple of days i've been trying to bake hair particles from a tree I modeled  but I keep getting this error that says "0 frames in memory (0 B), cache is outdated!" and I can't find an answer for this.

At first I thought that maybe I did something wrong with the project file, but then I started a new one with the default cube, I added some hair particles and the same error still appeared. Does anyone know how to fix this? Or what is the cause?

I had this "0 frames in memory, cache is outdated". My collection was empty. after I clicked RigidBodyWorld. Bake works:)


The bones don't attach to the mesh I created this "astronauta", I created an armature and attached it with the "automatic height" function but the mesh doesn't move when I enter pose mode.
image
https://i.stack.imgur.com/vAr9L.png
this is the file
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KRDiIxtDg7ZsqUJI5yvIXwdaAWklGU-k/view?usp=sharing

Many bones don't have their "deform" option enalbled, and the armature is child of the mesh, while it should be the inverse.
To solve:
Select the armature and press Alt P (unparent, keep transformations).
In pose mode, select all bones, press the ALT button and while pressing Alt click on the deform bone option.
Then  in object mode select the mesh (first), shift select the armature, press Ctrl P, with automatic weights.


How to duplicate a linked object? I thought “Duplicate Link” is what I’m looking for, but if I use duplicate link, the new poly will not have a link icon on it.
Is there any other wayt to duplicate a linked object?

＝　＝　＝

Thank you for all replies.

What I want to try is linking two same object into the .blend I'm working in, I tried alt+D, but still only the first linked file changed.

＝　＝　＝

@stphnl329 Do you reload B and C or only the B object?
This is how I reload B object, I'm not sure if it is right...?

You can see the link icon in the object data properties.


Bevel modifier not working on one object I have been trying to round the corners of an object. I used the suggested bevel modifier as per (How to round corners of plane?). However it did not work for me so I tested it in a new file on a similar object and it worked just fine. Can anyone tell me why it would not work on the appended object in the linked file?

Modifiers don't work properly when an object is scaled.

Your object has scale 0.005.

After you Apply scale CtrlA, the bevel will start to work.


Which engine in Blender should i start with? I just started learning Blender and I noticed that there are two engines "Blender render" and "cycles render". I'd like to know what is the difference between them in term of Tools, interface (not really rendering time)? I wonder can i first learn Blender Rendering and then switch to Cycles render and use it as easy as trained Blender render? If they do differ so much, please list main advantages and disadvantages. Thanks.

As newbies we started with cycles(side note, we still are newbies).  Cycles looks incredible. It seems to be the most common for achieving photo realistic renders in blender. The draw back is that, it is a little slower. And if set for shorter render times, it can introduce noise. The blender internal render engine is a fast and solid render engine. It can take a little more tweaking to get photorealistic results. In some cases photorealistic results can not be achieved. It has some features that have yet to be ported to cycles or in some cases are just now being imported to cycles, i.e. freestyle, halo and volumetric lighting. The blender can be much faster choice for animations as far as render time. We chose to focus on cycles first and work with the internal render engine as needed.  We have been happy with our choice and results. If you need features from one engine that are missing in the other blender has a compositor at its disposal for combining images. We still have so much to learn. We will be looking into other render engines as well.

Summary:

Cycles Pros

Easier to achieve very photorealistic results

Cycles Cons

Much slower than the internal engine
Can introduce noise as artifacts

Blender Internal Pros

Much faster than cycles
Has some features that are not present or not as mature in cycles.

Blender Internal Cons

Not as easy to achieve photorealistic results.


How to fill a 3D bezier curve? If I turn a bezier curve to 3D the surface will disappear. But I need 3D curve because it uses all the 3 axis to define the shape. I tried all the Fill options (Half, Front, Back, Full) but none of those do anything for me.

So how to fill a 3D bezier curve? What do those Fill options do using 3D curve?

What you can do is converting it to a mesh and grid fill the result:

AltC: convert to mesh
CtrlF: grid fill (in edit mode)

You have two options, allowing to tune the resulting geometry:

Giving more or less vertices to the curve
Adjusting the grid fill parameters


Creating geometry based on the transparency of a PNG image I'm importing a PNG icon as a plane, but the problem is that the plane imports with the transparent background, making it a square plane. I don't want my plane to be a square, it should just be the PNG icon itself.
Here's an example:

I'm trying to use the Bevel tool to adjust the corners of my plane, but that cannot be done if my plane is basically a square.
Is it possible to remove the transparent background completely, so that my plane is just the chess piece itself?
Thanks

You can start from plane

from bottom extruding (E) on Y axis, scale (S) and repeat process up to top.
add Subsurface Modifier
Sharp edge (Shift+E) = 1 (pink edges)

Unwrap (U) > Project from View
switch to UV Edit layout (from top row) and adjust position on image in edit mode

(if you need more smooth shape increase Modifier)

You can start from Curve Object

add Curve > Bezier
(in edit mode select and delete all, click with Ctrl to create a new point)
Extrude (E) selected point to shape
change handle type (V) for corner points

From half of shape you can generate 3D object by Screw Modifier

Convert to Mesh object you can use Boolean Modifier to Intersect another object to finish cut.

You can use Knife tool

go to edit mode hit (K) Knife to do cuts arround the drawing, but it is a bit dirty way, since plane is already Unwrapped moving points will move texture as well (there was an option to disable moving UV, but I cant find it now). To smooth shape in specific part you can use Subdivision Surface modifier as well, but triangulate it first.

Example all of them (Plane visible, others are hidden from Outliner)

You can use Greace Pencil

to redraw icon from scratch


Can I limit what IK bends? Need bones to only move certain way I was working with a model of a robot arm type thing, and wanted to use an IK constraint with an empty as the target to assist in posing. I abandoned the idea because: The IK constraint seems to run over any kind of angle limits I put on the bones it affects. Though, that was back in 2.80, or maybe 2.79. On the chance that it hasn't changed, what can I do?

Select a bone in an IK armature in Pose Mode. Then click the Bone Properties tab in the Properties window and scroll down to Inverse Kinematics. There you can lock rotation around certain axes or check a box per axis to limit the rotation around this axis, and enter the desired degree values. There are also fields related to Stretch and Stiffness which can help control the movement of the IK armature.

Another thing than might cause similar issues: Normally one bone in the armature has the IK Constraint on it. This constraint targets the Armature and a Bone to follow (hand.L in the picture). Make sure this target bone is not parented to the armature. Select it in Edit Mode, press Alt + P and choose Clear Parent.


Is it possible to save a selection of vertices? I finished selecting intricate parts of an object in edit mode (made the mistake of linking them), similar to having spent half an hour lasso-ing an object in Photoshop. Is it possible to save this selection so next time I launch Blender the selection's still there?

You could add the selection to a vertex group so the next time you need the vertices to be selected you just need to to click on Select for the current vertex Group


How to store variable and use it as property in panel? My problem is as following:

I want to create custom rendering settings for Blender, that will set up the camera and the screen resolution - initialize an isometric projection, basing on the target tile width given in pixels.

I can do almost everything: I've created a Panel in the "RENDER" tab in the Properties view, and I've created an operator which will render everything and export the sprites in a designed format.

The only thing that is left is that I can't create controls for the settings that need to be there: the slider for the tile width, or perhaps other settings - I need to be able to read this values when the addon renders stuff.

The UILayout "layout" object that I can get from "self.layout" in the panels draw method has a method called "prop", but it requires an instance of an ID class object or OperatorProperties instance (the docs say it needs AnyType but in order .  The first would work if I've kept the data per Object or per Scene basis. But I don't really know if this is a good idea.

This is a stub of what I got:

import bpy

bl_info = {
    "name":     "Render ISO",
    "category": "Render"  # perhaps wrong
}

class RenderIsoOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    ''' An example operator for addon '''
    bl_idname = "render.render_iso"
    bl_label  = "Render ISO"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    tile_width = bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name="Tile width",
        min=0,
        max=1000
    )

    def execute(self, context):
        obj = context.scene.objects.active
        # Do the rendering here
        return {"FINISHED"}

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

class RenderIsoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_idname = "RENDER_PT_render_iso"
    bl_label = "Render ISO"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "render"
    bl_options = {'DEFAULT_CLOSED'}

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.operator(RenderIsoOperator.bl_idname)
        # Get the controls here.

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(RenderIsoOperator)
    bpy.utils.register_class(RenderIsoPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(RenderIsoOperator)
    bpy.utils.register_class(RenderIsoPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Using both a pointer, property group setup. The tile width,   scene.iso_render.tile_width, is passed to the operator.  You could bypass defining and using the operator property entirely and just use context.scene.iso_render.tile_width (and other settings) directly in the operator.

import bpy
from bpy.props import IntProperty, PointerProperty
from bpy.types import PropertyGroup, Operator, Panel
from bpy.utils import register_class, unregister_class

bl_info = {
    "name":     "Render ISO",
    "category": "Render"  # perhaps wrong
}

class RenderIsoOperator(Operator):
    ''' An example operator for addon '''
    bl_idname = "render.render_iso"
    bl_label  = "Render ISO"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    tile_width = IntProperty(
        name="Tile width",
        min=0,
        max=1000
    )

    def execute(self, context):
        obj = context.scene.objects.active
        # Do the rendering here
        return {"FINISHED"}

class RenderIsoPanel(Panel):
    bl_idname = "RENDER_PT_render_iso"
    bl_label = "Render ISO"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "render"
    bl_options = {'DEFAULT_CLOSED'}

    def draw(self, context):
        scene = context.scene
        layout = self.layout
        op = layout.operator(RenderIsoOperator.bl_idname)
        op.tile_width = scene.iso_render.tile_width
        layout.prop(scene.iso_render, "tile_width")

class IsoRenderSettings(PropertyGroup):
    tile_width = IntProperty(
        name="Tile width",
        min=0,
        max=1000
    )
def register():
    register_class(IsoRenderSettings)

    bpy.types.Scene.iso_render = PointerProperty(type=IsoRenderSettings)
    register_class(RenderIsoOperator)
    register_class(RenderIsoPanel)

def unregister():
    unregister_class(IsoRenderSettings)
    unregister_class(RenderIsoOperator)
    unregister_class(RenderIsoPanel)
    del(bpy.types.Scene.iso_render)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


How to animate Texture change in Blender Internal I want to change the texture of specific objects, making shift across the surface of the object. I don't know how to insert keyframes for UV mapping though.
How can I make the image on the object move?
Think of a magical cape, with the design constantly flowing on the cloth.
How could I achieve something like that?

You may shift textures animating the Offset value of the gradient texture, which works as a mask for transition between two textures.

Prepare two different textures.

Add a new material to your surface and unwrap it. Give it two image textures (set their type to Image or Movie and mapping coordinates to UV). Now add one more texture. Set its type to Blend and place it between previously added ones. In Influence panel uncheck the Color box and check Alpha. Check the RGB to Intensity and Stencil boxes.

Now the gradient texture acts like a mask. In Colors panel check the Ramp box and use sliders to define the smoothness/sharpness of the transition between textures.

In Mapping panel change the Offset value of the X window so you can see only one texture. Hovering your cursor over that window press I to insert a keyframe. Go to another frame, change the Offset value and press I again.


Materials vs. Texture Sets I am modeling an ottoman, and need help interpreting the instructions, which say, "Amount of materials should be same as amount of texture sets."

Some info on the model:
My ottoman is one mesh, with a high-poly version baked onto a normal map. The materials are a gray mottled leather with dark wood feet. I have been provided only this texture...

1st question:
So, a "material" is the full node set-up, and a "texture" is any of the maps or images used to plug in to that material's nodes (or just set on the UV mapping). Is that correct? But, then, what is a "texture set"? I would think they mean the group of generated images or textural maps for each of the 9 materials they list here:

Main textures:

BaseColor (sRGB)
AO (Linear)
Roughness (Linear)
Metalness (Linear)
Normal (RGB)
Opacity (Linear)
Emissive (sRGB)

Additional textures: Glossiness, Specular

Here are the other relevant instructions:

Single UV set per model, multiple textures sets if extra resolutions is needed
Only square textures, 4096x4096 resolution
Normal maps baked from hi-poly models
Metalness & Specular workflow maps needed

...

What I would normally think to do in making a model like this is to apply a material to each part (one for the leather, one for the feet), then use a multi-noded setup for each one, including procedural texture for the basecolor, the provided texture image for bump and light-related maps (the baking of which I will be figuring out on the fly), the baked normal map I have from the high-poly mesh, plus certain settings on the Diffuse Shader.

It seems to me that this does not meet the following requirements:

Metalness & Specular workflow maps needed (This confuses me anyway, as I've never really heard of using every single map, and I thought Metalness & Specular were generally used one or the other. Also, can you even bake a procedural color into a image map?)

Amount of materials should be same as amount of texture sets (It seems like I will have 2 materials and something like 9 textures, so what really differentiates a texture set from a material in this context?)

Can someone set me straight, and maybe help me figure out the workflow here?

A "texture set" is the full set of textures for a material, as you've listed above.  For example, diffuse, specular, roughness, metalness, etc. = 1 texture set.  If you download a PBR material from a site like CC0 Textures, what you get is 1 texture "set."

I'm interpreting this requirement to mean that they want separate materials with separate texture sets.  In other words, don't put the leather and wood on the same maps.  You could of course put the all of them into one texture set, with just different parts of a map defining different material parameters but it sounds like they want it separated by material.

So the "leather" material would have its own diffuse, spec, etc., and the "wood" material has its own textures as well.  Sounds like this was your plan anyway.

Secondly, you are correct that Specular and Metalness are usually two different workflows.  I think your client wants the flexibility to be able to use either one.  Maybe they aren't sure which renderer they will use in the end.


How to add Key frames to the compositing nodes? I have been following the 'Old TV intro' tutorial by the youtuber Blender Education and at watermark 28:40 he adds a keyframe to the offset on the x axis in a texture node. I am using 2.81 and I cannot seem to understand how he did it, although in the tutorial he used an older version of blender. Any help or answers would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: As you can see in the screenshot above he enters some shortcut that creates a keyframe on the offset section of the texture node. What I'm trying to find out is how that is achieved in blender 2.81. Sorry for any previous confusion.

The way to do keyframes has not changed. Hover the cursor over the item you want to keyframe and press the I key (I as in "Insert keyframe")

Or right click on the item and select add keyframe from the menu.


Is there any way to select a smoothing group? I have a mesh with designated sharp edges here and there, broken into few "smoothed" areas. I wonder if there is any way to select polygons within a "smoothed" area, that is surrounded by sharp edges? I can't find anything in selection menu or in documentation and selecting these polygons manually every time becomes tedious and takes a lot of time. In other words, is there anything similar to "selection by smoothing groups"?

Ok, I found a solution. Select - Select Linked and choose Sharp in a pop-up submenu.


How to properly connect the Denoise node in Compositor? After enabling Denoising Data pass, there are now two image outputs:

Image
Noisy Image

Which should I use with the Denoise node? Blender Manual doesn't cover it.

When in doubt, use the Image pass.
Image

provides unmodified render result
output also comes denoised by the Internal denoiser if it's enabled

Noisy Image

provides a Despeckled image (useful when render has fireflies)
may cause bad shadow artifacts for low sample counts

Further Reading:
Denoise node in Blender Manual
How to use Intel denoiser in Blender
Blenderartists.org discussion from Aug 2019
intel openimage denoise


Visual Effect "Light" of Greasepencil doesn't exist I have seen lighting effects being used in a 2019 Greasepencil tutorial, but it is not listed in the Visual Effects tab. Is it removed from Blender?

Greasepencil's draw-engine was refactored and now GP objects can interact with 3d lights, so the light effect was removed. See point 1.3 in this post.


can the bone become a 'child of' a parent object? I want to make the hands of the person 'track' the handle of object and I can't make the hand bone the parent using 'child of' constraint because my object is not fully merged together and when i tried the object just messes up. (different parts are just parented tgt to enable free rotation). Is there a way to do this properly?

I don't understand your words when you say your object "is not fully merged together" and so you can't use a Child Of constraint, because that is exactly what I would do. Only I wouldn't make the hand the parent of anything (see below). I don't know what exactly it is that you are saying isn't fully merged, but given what you have described so far, I don't see why Child Of constraints wouldn't work.

I would create two empties that are parented directly to the handle in the position where each respective hand needs to grasp it. I would (G)rab and position the IK targets of each arm IK chain so as to be very close to each of these empties. Then I would create two Child Of constraints, one for each IK target, and point them to the empties, making these empties the target of the Child Of constraints. After clearing the inverse on each of these constraints, you should have hands that follow the handle.

Beyond that, you may also need to create two Copy Rotation constraints, one for each hand, and point them to the handle itself (not the empties) as their target, so that they will remain oriented to the handle whenever it tilts.

If you don't want to create empties, you could create a bone chain specifically for the handle itself. But if you do this, it should still be part of the original armature (add the bones in Edit Mode for the armature to ensure that these bones will become part of it), or else you won't be able to select this new bone chain in Pose Mode along with all your other rig's bones (you would have to switch rigs to select it in that case, which would be a pain). The new chain doesn't need to be parented to anything else in the existing rig, but you might want it parented to your root bone, depending on your needs for movement. Make it four bones in a line, and lock all their rotation values. This way, you can Child Of constrain your hands (IK targets) to the two bones in the middle of this chain, which will represent the positions of the handle where it needs to be grasped.


Unusual artefacts in volume render I am using Blender 2.82a (Cycles) to create a fuzzy ball. However I am getting this strange ring of artefacts in the rendered image, where the alpha channel shows through - I am not getting the smooth rendering that I expect. How can I fix this?

I have looked at Cause of Alpha or Black Artefacts in Render (2.79 - could not find the relevant setting in 2.82a. Also I am using volume scatter, not surface material)

I had a look at the suggestion from @brockmann. My first attempt was to simply up the samples. The following image is using 2000 samples.

As you can see - all that has really happened is that the artefacts have moved ever so slightly to the centre.

I looked into the intel denoising. This is a feature that has been added in 2.81. I used the following settings (compositing nodes):

Quite simple really. At 500 samples, the following image was the result:

And this is at 2000 samples (same denoising setup):


How to make dynamic paint work with rigid body interactions during animation playback I'm trying to dynamically wave paint a passive, rigid body, wave-modified plane canvas with an active, rigid body, sphere brush via dynamic animation playback.
The dynamic painting works when changing the location of the brush, i.e., the sphere, in object mode, but fails when the dynamic, rigid body animation is played in real-time, as you can see in the gif. Blender allows for a single interaction at the beginning of the animation, but then the sphere just rolls on top of the canvas without displacing any of its geometry during the animation.
I want to upload my blend file but don't know how.
Perhaps a shrinkwrap-modified plane to the canvas will work.
The brush only works with "distance from center" as the source which is set well above any collision margins.
I've tried applying the wave modifier to the plane to no avail. I've tried pretty much all combinations of settings for the dynamic paint and rigid bodies, even adjusting the render fps, to no avail.

I found a workaround that may be acceptable while sacrificing some dynamic behavior.
What I found out is that you can turn a rigid body simulation into a string of keyframes via a built-in function under the object menu in object mode called "rigid body" > "bake to keyframes".
I had realized that the dynamic paint seems to work only with a keyframed brush, but I wanted that authentic, physics feel to the simulation, thus the solution was to bake a rigid body simulation and then turn it into keyframes. Lastly, I removed the rigid body physics from the brush sphere, pressed play, et voila!

Hooray!


Blender cycles - Diffuse + transparent map in one material So I'm trying to make a material by using two maps: diffuse and transparency map but I can't get these two maps to work together.

This is how my nodes and specific textures are looking.

https://imgur.com/a/giSp9eH

I hope that the issue is perfectly visible. I just want to "cut off" this black part of flag to make it look like a torn fabric by using diff and trans like in PBR.

Thank you.

The last node, that you need to plug into material output is a Mix node, that mix your material node(diffuse, principled ets) and transparent node using mask:

Full setup:

Next you can plug more complex material instead just diffuse node. For example, principled, just keep mix with transparent node at the end:


Bevel tool creating unexpected geometry I am having problems with the bevel tool where blender creates unexpected geometry. I have two examples where I don't understand why things are going wrong:
Number 1:
I tried to create a revolver cylinder - following this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnftMW0Yhzk until about minute 6:32 - and I connected the holes on each side with the bridge edge loop tool. However, when I then tried to bevel the resulting edge around that hole, blender produced uneven and strange geometry.

Now, when I got rid of the faces inside of the loop and extruded faces from the edge loop, the bevel tool worked fine. I checked for unconnected vertices or double vertices on the same spot; and I also made sure all the transformations are applied. But no change, so I am confused as to what the problem is.
Problem 2:
I tried to create a sword with a fairly simple geometry. But when trying to bevel one side blender just seems to connect the different vertices in the wrong way, which messes up the geometry.
It looks like this:
Just as before, I removed vertices by distance and doublechecked that all vertices and edges are connected. All the transformations are also applied. This model has some ngons but around the side where I want to bevel all the faces are quads; not even sure if that matters. But again, I have no idea what the problem is and would really appreciate if someone could explain what I am doing wrong.

Nevermind, I should do more research before posting. The problem was that the normals got messed up. The answer can be found under this post:
Why my Bevel move verticies along the edges instead of bevel them?


Problems with Cycles Baking! I have a bit of a problem, I'm trying to bake out a normal and a AO Map from a hires model, And place it on a lowres model.

The problem I get is when i bake the normals, the whole thing is pixelated, And the AO just has Solid Black and white noise all over it, you can't even see the shadows.
Im guessing that noise is whats causing it on both maps, however I have no idea how to get around it.

Ive looked around for an answear, i found very little information on this issue, some said it may be due to overlapping UVS, but i have none overlapping. I even tried using smart UV, still looks the same.

Please someone help me, this is really annoying, Been running into this every time I'm trying to bake!

Im attaching a photo where I edited them together to show you the issue.

Ok here's what I found. Due to the way your hires model is made you do not have an initial starting point with a basic UV unwrap. So we have to go the cage projection route. Which is the same method you were trying to follow on the video tutorial you posted in the chat.

Attached is the file you sent me, I have manage to produce the normals and AO with no problems on my end. You can try out the blend file below. I have packed a copy of the bake I made. Also to the left of the baking models I have created a GLSL shading model using Blender Internal Materials.

You will need to create nodes holding the texture for Ambient Occlusion and Normals. On the file you will see a green frame and a red one on the node window. The Green one is the node you need to select and make active before baking the Ambient Occlusion. Likewise the Red on is the node which holds the normal texture you need to select before baking.

DOWNLOAD - Here is the file.


Problems weeding out a particle systems using a texture I want to progressively weed out the particles in a particle system using a texture. Here I slowly reduce the surface occupied by the particles by keyframing the siders on the color ramp that is linked to the texture so that progressively more of the particles are removed in an animation.

This all works well apart from this: at every frame, all of the particles are repositioned, creating chaos in the animation. Indeed the surface of the particles is reduced, but it looks like total chaos. I would like the particles to remain in the same spot until they are removed.

I use a vertex group to position the particles (mussels) on bumps in the landscapes, and a cloud texture to make them patchy. This works fine when there is no animation.

I have already tried to provide a fixed particle seeding value, but this didn’t help.

See here an animation, chaos starts at about 5 seconds.
https://youtu.be/cvPsl97V3C0

try this setting in shader: the "particle info node > index" in shader helps you to control a single particle (use a math operation to filter which particles to hide).

Please note:

animate the value inside the MATH -> GREATER THAN (from 0 to the number of hairs)
you need alpha = 100% to hide the objects


Delete overlapping faces between two objects Is it possible to select parts of one layer in the outliner and then delete it from another layer in the outliner?

I have two objects that overlap and I want to delete the parts that overlap.

I want to be able to select the top and delete the vertices from the body in the shape of the top so that the object underneath the top is deleted but the top remains.
I know how to do it face by face but I was hoping there was a shortcut like the selection tool in Photoshop that works between layers.

You can try using the mask modifier. If you want another work around select in the mesh the limits that you want to cut and hit the V key to separate after that hit the L key to select the mesh island then delete the unwanted piece. You may also separate the selection as an object with the p key.


rigid body interacting strangely with collision plane -- jittering and fall-through http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=44844

I am puzzled by the behaviour of the rectangular rigid-body slab in this blendfile.  When the wrecking ball hits it, it spins and falls in a reasonable way;  but when it hits the floor, it tries to fall through (even though it previously respected the solidity of the floor) and then jitters/jiggles very strangely.  It is of a reasonable size (i.e. not tiny) and otherwise a pretty boring object.  At first I thought it might have too few vertices so I subdivided it (W) a couple of times but this did not fix the weirdness.  Is this a recognised problem with a well-known workaround or solution?

Try applying the scale of all your rigidbodies (⎈ CtrlA), the cube and the floor in particular:

In addition, here are some general practices I like to adhere to when creating rigidbody objects:

Always apply scale (⎈ CtrlA > Scale).
I don't really know why this matters; one would think the simulator would operate on the scaled mesh and not even be aware of the concept of object scale at all, but apparently not.
Center the origin to center of mass (⎈ Ctrl⇧ Shift⎇ AltC > Center of mass)
You may have noticed that your wreaking ball was swinging in a slightly strange manner. The reason for this was that the object origin (and thus the center of mass) was located up in the "handle" bit. This simulated as if the handle was much denser (thus heavier) than the ball, which isn't quite the natural expectation ;)
Use meshes with thickness
Not strictly speaking required, but I have personally found it helps reduce the likelihood of small high-velocity objects failing to collide, particularly with big things like ground planes.
Avoid mesh collision shapes where possible
I've found collisions involving mesh collision shapes by far the most prone to wonky behavior.
Use mesh only when it's absolutely needed; favor the more stable convex hull or, if applicable, the appropriate primitive shapes.


How to create a hologram projection with light rays? I am attempting to make a template for holographic effects in blender for a project I'm working on, however I'm not sure how to create a lighting effect for the projection of the hologram (The god rays and volumetric effect around the globe). Below I have included the blender file along with an example of the type of effect I'm looking to reproduce. Any help would be appreciated.

Edit

With some minor tweaks and modifications I was able to make an effect that looked pretty much exactly as I wanted. Thanks to PGmath, Shady Puck and everyone else for the helpful suggestions and tips.

Final Result:

Here's the result I got:

And here are my nodes:

Note: the Translate and Scale group nodes are homemade equivalents of the corresponding parts of the mapping node.  They are explained here.  I am using them here because they allow me to plug inputs into the transform values instead of being static like the mapping node is.

The basic idea is to use a noise texture to drive the emission strength of a volumetric emission material on a cone (actually a frustum).  The noise texture is scaled up on the z-axis to create the vertical stripes.  The real trick is to get the stripes to angle out from a point instead of just going straight up, and that is what all those other nodes are doing.  (Sorry for the massive node spaghetti, I had to move them around to get it to all fit on my screen and be readable.)

Here's the basic flow:

Start with generated mapping coordinates and scale the z-axis up (smaller scale value) to make the vertical stripes.  The Translate node is just to move the origin of the coordinates to the XY center of the object (i.e. center of the base of the object).
The Z component of the generated coordinates is extracted to use as a vertical linear gradient to scale the rays in towards the bottom, which has the effect of slanting them out from the base.  The RGB Curves node remaps the gradient from 0.0-1.0 to 0.5-1.0, I am using 0.5 because the base of my frustum is one half (0.5) the diameter of the top of the frustum.  The Math > Divide node is used to invert the scale factor since we want to scale the texture in instead of the texture coordinates.
The resulting mashed-up texture coordinates are used for a noise texture.  The color ramp node is used to adjust the contrast of the rays (i.e. make it look more ray-like).
To get the rays to fade out vertically instead of coming to an abrupt stop at the top of the mesh I used the generated coordinates z-component gradient again. The RGB Curves node is to reverse the gradient and make adjust the falloff curve.  By multiplying it with the rays from the Color Ramp I created the desired falloff.
The final Multiply node is to adjust the overall brightness/strength of the rays.

Here is a .blend:

The above .blend contains a couple of enhancements.  I set up a very simple armature to make adjusting the size and shape of the beam easier.  I set up some drivers in the material so that the scale values are adjusted to match the armature-deformed frustum.  It also contains the rest of the above scene.


switching between wacom and mouse It get crazy while switching between wacom and mouse as they need different kind of button actions or say "user preferences"

  For Example in wacom i can zoom using side touch strip. So free the midlle button click for special menu like "w". But to do this i need to change preference every time i switch.

Is there any quick or automatic way to blender can find whether i am using mouse or wacom pen and change between "user preferences"

Or any other work around?

On Windows and Mac, the Control Panel for wacom in the operating system allows you to set the behavior for different applications, both for the pen buttons and the touch strip. Create a setting for blender and just remap your buttons to do what you need.

Other trick I use is enable Emulate 3 Button Mouse That way clicking and dragging the pen while holding Alt key I can rotate the view.
CtrlAlt to zoom in and out. ShiftAlt to move sideways and up down. I've never used the mouse in blender at all...

For linux it is also possible to remap the buttons settings, but the changes are system-wide, not for specific applications.


Is it possible to create an incremental array? The effect I am trying to achieve is an array that is fully editable in one instance, with Text labels incrementing in value, i.e. 1, 2, 3 etc. Is this possible? I know by nature it is not possible by using the Array modifier, but is there some workaround?

The sort of result I am going for is like this:

What I was thinking is making a script to duplicate like with Alt+D and shove a count value into the Text element of the duplicated group.

Some things I am looking for/implementation suggestions:

Editable offset
Duplicates editable text element
Use a count variable to set the value of the text element
Make it expandable
Start from 1, go to at least 32 (non-limited is best)
Honesty as to the difficulty to create this feature

Here you go!

Keywords: Number Array Watch Dial

import bpy

from bpy.props import IntProperty,FloatProperty

class NumberArray(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Add a simple box mesh"""
    bl_idname = "mesh.primitive_number_array"
    bl_label = "Add Number Array"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    start = IntProperty(name="Start",description="Start value",min=0, max=100,default=1 )
    count = IntProperty(name="Count",description="Number of items to create",min=1, max=100, default=1  )
    offset = FloatProperty(name="Offset",description="Distance",min=0.01, max=100.0, default=1.0 )

    def execute(self, context):
        x = 0.0
        pos = self.start
        end = self.count + self.start
        print(context)
        while pos < end:
            bpy.ops.object.text_add(view_align=False, enter_editmode=False, location=(x, 0, 0), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))
            ob=bpy.context.object
            ob.data.body = str(pos)
            x = x + self.offset
            pos = pos +1
        return {'FINISHED'}

def menu_func(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(NumberArray.bl_idname, icon='MESH_CUBE')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(NumberArray)
    bpy.types.INFO_MT_mesh_add.append(menu_func)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(NumberArray)
    bpy.types.INFO_MT_mesh_add.remove(menu_func)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Updated (works with 2.74):

https://github.com/3dbug/blender

Run the script in Object Mode by Add / Curve / Create Dials and Scales.


How to create haze around a uv sphere with emission shader So, I have this lit up ball on a black background.

The background needs to be black, and i would like a sort of haze around the ball. Other questions did not solve my problem. I was thinking something with a volume scatter node, but i tried it and it doesn't work with a black background.

Here's the world setup:

So, yeah. Any help would be great. Thanks!

This kind of effects are often demanded to the compositing, using glare node and/or gaussian blur nodes.


How do I create a partially transparent flag? I'm making an animation with a flag, and I was wondering if anyone knows how to create like a transparent fabric material?

The flag looks a bit dull, and doesn't look realistic at all. After some references I noticed that flags are a bit transparent, seeing as they are woven.

Reference :

I need to make this flag have the same type of material

If you can tell me how to make it look like fabric and not like rubber, I'd be very thankful.

P.S: If anybody knows how to make little "ripples", please comment and let me know.

Well this is not too straightforward, especially if you would like a very realistic result. For more realism I would recommend using subsurface scattering to achieve such an effect.
I suggest you start off with translucency as GiantCowFilms suggested. Here is a simple configuration that you can start with:

(Image from Daccy, BlenderArtists)

PS: You would need a few separate passes (masks) as some of parts of that flag are more translucent than others and some are not at all...


Why is there so much more hair in render than viewport? Ok Ive checked relevant settings and made sure under "display" in my hair particle settings, it is 100%. I dont know why, in latest 2.8, there is so much more hair in render vs viewport - for example the hair looks normal in viewport, then in (cycles) render I get -

Here are other settings:

Is it to do with hair dynamics? even with that off, I still get this increase in hair.

Apart from the children display and render amount, there is another Amount option under the Viewport Display panel. You might have set it low. So at render time its rendering 100% of the hair particles.


Transitions between animations Maybe this is a dumb question.
I have been animating a character doing several basic actions.
The main one I have a problem with is the running animation.
I've started each animation at the idle pose and he moves to run for a few steps then returns to idle.
The problem with this is obviously that it looks strange if every few steps he returns to standing. He should run for as long as possible.
So the question is, am I supposed to have a transition animation between idle and running, so that the run can go on indefinitely, or is there a way to loop a section of the run animation until he stops?

You can loop a section by using the Action actuator and setting the start and end frames to only those that are part of the running state. You can also use the "Blendin" options to blend between states.
You can do this for as many states as you want, though it would be preferred to have separate "actions" (in the action editor) for each state, such as running, idle, etc.


Is it possible to set Blender Selection Mode to left click selection via Python? I was wondering if it would be possible to change Blender to left click selection mode via Python. The tooltip in 2.72 says the Datapath is UserPreferencesInput.select_mouse, but I am a bit lost on how to get there. Is it part of the keymap definition? If so, can it be changed via Python at all?

I am working on an add-on that changes quite a few hotkeys of Blender around in conjunction with Pie-Menus.

Any help here is greatly appreciated!

The full path to the current user preference is

bpy.context.user_preferences.inputs.select_mouse = 'LEFT'


Setting up Diffuse, Illumination, Bump and Specular mapping I'm stuck importing this .3DS model and thought of asking for some help.

If there is a model A imported, but textures must be mapped manually. On the object C of model A, there is material C, and all the textures related to C are named C-blah blah blah.

But here is the thing, there are C-Diffuse, C-Illumination, C-Specular.
How do I apply all of them onto the object C?

I wish I could've explain it in detail, but my PC isn't feeling that good...

Thanks in advance.

+Edit:

This is the model I am working with. It comes with multiple textures for a single part. How do I have it all go into one things?

I'm afraid you are going to need to take a few steps back and understand how textures work before you can get that working without lots of step by step instructions. There is a pretty good tutorial here that should help: Blender Guru Principled Shader


Has Anyone Ever Tried Modelling a Battery Cover? I recently inherited my late great grandmother's Sharp WQ-CD120 boombox from 1995.

Everything appears to be fine except it's missing the battery cover. I can't find anyone selling them online so I thought I'd model one in Blender myself to 3D print.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

I know for the top 2 extruding parts that I'll need to be like the part of other battery covers that have that dip in the middle. As for the bottom 4 smaller extruding parts, I think they'll need some sort of hook on the ends.

How do I go about doing this?

Also, I tried looking for tutorials online to no avail. I saw some about modelling batteries, but not battery covers.

It seems like your asking for some help adding the 3d parts of this model.

  I know for the top 2 extruding parts that I'll need to be like the part of other battery covers that have that dip in the middle. As for the bottom 4 smaller extruding parts, I think they'll need some sort of hook on the ends.

This can be done many ways. You may already be familiar with some of them. The most effective would probably be edit mode in blender. You should look into "proportional editing" and "boolean modifiers".

I would model the tabs as a 2d face side profile and extrude them. You could then use an array and boolean modifier to make the final mesh.


Not able to play full animation but in preview its playing fine Not able to play full animation but in preview its playing fine

if someone can help me regarding this

Not sure what you mean by saying 'not able to play full animation, but in preview its playing fine', but you probably just forgot to add any object to your particle system as a base for these particles. By default, after creating new Particle System Blender will create one with 'Halo' option as a 'How particles are rendered' property in the 'Render' tab in Particle System section in 'Properties' window:

Halo particles are apparently not visible when rendered with Cycles Rendering Engine. So, you might either switch to Blender Render (not recommended), or preferably just select some object or Group of objects to use them as a base for your particles:

Then, you can customize your Particle System as you wish, with these value highlighted above.


Easier Way? Creating A Fold in Blender I work with a program called ArtiosCad that has limited 3-D capabilities. I'm able to use it for basic design work, but have recently been asked to create a graphic so that we can show off how boxes fold up for our customers.
A standard "flap" is easy enough to fold up with an armature bone on each flap, but when I try to recreate it with two folding flaps, everything seems to fight me.
I don't want to overlook the simple solution as I dive into an easier one, so I was curious is there a better or different way to capture the following effect?

In the end, I may have to end up using the graphic posted above, but I was hoping to do it in a cleaner way. Not afraid to dive in and learn the next steps, but want to make sure I'm not running down the "wrong" path.
Thank you!
SOLUTION:
Using the answer given I was able to create the following

You should use an armature, and create one bone by fold, like this (the central one being the parent of all the bones):

Give your bones names, parent the object to the armature with With Empty Groups option, select the vertices of a fold in Edit mode and in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups, assign these vertices to the vertex group they are supposed to be part of (the vertex group that has the name of the bone that is supposed to control these vertices).
You can also give some Limit Rotation constraints to each bone so that they only rotate on the right axis.


Bring vertices in/out of center of object? Sort of like when you use poke (Alt + P), letting you drag the new vertices in or out. Only with this I don't want to create new vertices.

Anyone know how to do this?

Under the assumption that you are progressing from How can I subdivide a triangle so there is a vertex in the center of each triange? ; Maybe what you want is to select a bunch of vertices then use s to scale.  The trick is that scale is relative to the pivot point which is usually Active Element.  Often this is good enough, but sometimes you'll have to pick Cursor, or something else.


Symmetrize armature is missing bones Symmetrize is missing some of my fingers bones, i try it several times but it just won't work and i have no idea why

You need to give your bones a suffix L (for left) or R (for right) if you want them to be symmetrized, example: finger1.R, finger1_R...


Rigid Body Physics (Collisions) I am using Rigid Body Physics in Blender 2.83 to have some cubes fall into a bowl. It should be quite simple, but as you can see the result is grossly over-dramatic.
What am I doing wrong, or not doing?
Thanks,
Paul

This is happening because the margin of the the cubes are too big , you need to shorten it by going to sensitivity > check collision margin and enter numbers like 0.01


Displacement moves my mesh away from it's position in Render Mode I'm experimenting with a way to procedurally create some rocks for myself, but for some reason, my rock moves slithly in Render Mode, the displacement is clearly working but I don't understand why it's moving the rock.

As you can see everything is set up but the rock moves. You can see the original outline of it in yellow. That Mix Shader leads only to the color material, nothing else is affecting it's displacement.

What's causing this?

You should plug the noise texture output into the "Height" input of a displacement node, then plug the output of this node into the displacement input of the "Material output" node.


Select menu keystroke I was trying to look for the select menu shortcut from the settings to no avail. The reason for this is I want to improve my workflow and adding select menu to a simple simple keystroke would improve it a lot.

Now I know it's possible add hotkeys for individual actions, but I tend to use a lot of the tools available in the select menu and it would be great to have them all under a shortcut accessible menu. Similar to how one can bring up the Specials contextual with the W button.

tl;dr: How can I bring this up with a keystroke?

Open up the User Preferences Window and switch to Input tab
Expand the 3D View -> 3D View (Global) keymap and add a new item (Scroll down and click the Add New button.
Enter the operator name as wm.call_menu
Enter the operator parameter Name as VIEW3D_MT_view
Assign your desired hotkey.
Save user preferences (Click on the Save User Settings button.


How to have a displacement modifier vary it's shape within an array Total new on Blender cycles. I want to create a pyramid and for this I would like each stone to have a different displacement map. When I do one stone with the displacement map modifier it looks awesome, but when I put that into an array now all stone look the same. I tried using bump map with noise texture, and yes each stone have a different bump map, but it looks fake compare to the effect that I can get with a displacement modifier. Is there anyway to make the displacement modifier have a randomized texture so that each stone looks different, in its actual shape and geometry and not just in the bump map?
Thanks alot

Displacement Modifier:

Edit:

As @Duarte Farrajota Ramos pointed out - for Array Modifier it's sufficient to just have Displace under Array without changing Texture Coordinates. Change is needed only for manually duplicated meshes.

This one is very simple (taken that you are using Texture Type other than Image Texture).

Just select Texture Coordinates as Global in Displace Modifier.

  Note: I've forgot to add Array Modifier in this example, remember to
  add Displace Modifier AFTER Array Modifier.

For this example I've used Texture Type > Distorted Noise.

Micropolygon Displacement (experimental):

You can read how to use it here: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Maiself/Micropolygon_Displacement or just search for tutorials on the internet, there are a lot of them.


how to resize a panel? The panel surrounded with the red line (I don't know its name) has become very small. How can I resize it?

This panel can be resized by dragging. Hover with the mouse over the line between the upper and lower part until the mouse pointer turns into a black two ended arrow. Then click and drag up or down. You can even hide the Operator panel completely. Then you will see a little plus sign. Which you can click to reveal the panel again.


Get dimension of selected part of mesh? is there a way to get the dimensions (bounding-box scale) of a selected part of a mesh? Right now I have to do the following steps to get that information:

duplicate the selected part of the mesh
part it
switch to object mode
select the new object
finally read the dimension in the right bar
delete the object (cause I don't need it anymore)
select the other object again
switch back to edit mode to continue work ...

Since I have to do this very often I would welcome a shortcut or something ...

EDIT: the addon presented here comes close to what I'm looking for. Unfortunately the panel closes every time I change the selection and has to be reopened via menu ...
Many thanks

I think this should help. when you are in edit mode, turn on this edge/face infos from the N key menu. this will show the scales of the parts you select.


OSL texture(...) image looks whiter I use OSL texture(...) to perform a texture lookup of an image, succeed, but it always looks whiter than I use the Image Texture Node, Why? What's wrong?

The problem is due to the color correction that is by default applied to the Image Texture (the Color/Non-Color Data option.

A PNG image is stored in sRGB format. This includes a conversion of each color channel to make better use of the available range of 8-bit values for display on screen. The Color/Non-Color Data option of the Image Texture node allows you to convert for this, using the 'RAW' data when set to 'Non-Color Data' or the values converted from sRGB when set to 'Color'.

When you use the 'texture(...)' call in OSL, Cycles returns the unconverted values directly from the image - ie, it is as if you have set the 'Non-Color Data' option in the Image Texture node.

In order to correct for this you need to add some additional code to the OSL shader to include the sRGB to RGB conversion :

shader myshader(
vector Vector = P,
output color Color = color(0,0,0),
output color ColorRGB = color(0,0,0)
)
{
    //Replace this path with the path to your image
    Color = texture("c:/users/rich/Desktop/map.png", Vector[0], 1.0-Vector[1]);

    //Conversion as defined in http://entropymine.com/imageworsener/srgbformula/
    for (int c = 0; c<3; c++)
    {
        if (Color[c] <= 0.0031308)
        {
            ColorRGB[c] = Color[c] / 12.92;
        }
        else
        {
            ColorRGB[c] = pow((Color[c]+0.055)/1.055,2.4);
        }
    }

}

This is using the formula for conversion as defined at http://entropymine.com/imageworsener/srgbformula/. Also, see Wikipedia sRGB for additional background and information regarding sRGB.

The above OSL code should create a node with a Vector input and two Color outputs (Color and ColorRGB). The Color output produces the color data directly from the texture image (ie, it will still be in sRGB - as if you have selected 'Non-Color Data') while the ColorRGB output provides the converted values (as if you had selected 'Color' on the Image Texture node).


is it possible to make an animation / render of just the glossy passes? My question is about rendering / animations. Is it possible to make an animation of just the glossy passes, say, without the composite view? Sorry if that sounds a bit simplistic, but I am a noob. Thanks

Here how to in Cycles:

First, enable Glossy passes in Render Layers:

Next open node editor in Compositing mode and click Use nodes

Here is the glossy passes, all of them are important.

To make glossy pass you should combine this 3 passes in specific way.
Add 2 Color mix nodes (Shift+A -> Color -> Mix) Change one of them to Add, second to Multiply. Gloss Direct will add to Gloss Indirect, then this sum will multiply by Gloss Color (Connect nodes in this way):

So, in this point you can start to render


"Remesh" modifier hides my text object At first, I had a simple text object:

Then I pressed Alt+C and selected Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text in order to convert the text object into a mesh.

Now I want to apply the Remesh modifier, however, it hides my text in normal mode and in the rendered image (it is visible in the edit mode though!).

Screenshot (normal mode):

Screenshot (edit mode):

Why is my object invisible in the normal mode and when I render it?

The Remesh modifier doesn't seem to work on flat objects so you need to give your text some volume/thickness.

In edit mode select all the faces and press E and extrude the text a little to give it some volume.

The Remesh modifier will now work but will remove all but one letter of the text until 'Remove Disconnected Pieces' is unchecked on the Remesh modifier.


Does subdivision surface modifier and box modeling require retopology? This is my game character it has 30,000 vertices with a subdivision surface modifier level of 2

I tried searching up average number of vertices and polygons, where sources say that most multiplayer games that run smoothly require at most 10,000 vertices for characters

Im struggling to lower the vertex counts as lowering the subdivision modifier will ruin the look of the model

Any suggestions it would greatly help

BTW using this character for a multiplayer game with around 10 players playing at the same time

In general you'd want to retopo and create a low poly game model. That is for two reasons:

You want to animate the character. Since moving the character makes flaws in the topology very apparent retopo is necessary. The topology should allow natural movement of limbs and facial expressions.
For efficiency reasons you don't want to go way overboard with the vertex count. While hero props and characters may be high in details, you should only use real geometry were it's necessary. Everything that doesn't impact the actual shape can be compensated by textures, namely normal maps and PBR materials. This is done by "baking". You create a low poly model and bake the details from the high poly model into the texture.


Animation Nodes Combining lists generated after several loop iterations I am iterating over a number of objects in a loop using animation nodes. Each iteration of the loop generates a list. How do I combine those lists into 1 final list of the same dimension. Each list is a Boolean List. Basically I want to Boolean "Or" each list till I get a final list. In the animation node tree below. I want to find the locations inside all objects. Not just the one that is currently being iterated over. Thanks!

Use "reassign" from the advanced settings:

Set the final list as parameter.
Select the loop node.
Go to the "node" tab, "advanced node setting".
Check "output" to have the result as output.
Click on the "reassign" button: that will create an reassign output node that you can drag and place in the node tree.


How to do vaccuum sealed pack modeling in Blender? Does anyone How to model vacuum sealed packages like this? Can cloth simulation be used to model it?

I'm adding another answer because things have changed with Blender 2.82 (which is still in alpha and can be downloaded here). Namely, you can now use pressure inside cloth volumes, including negative pressure.

This makes it much easier to simulate a vacuum sealed pack accurately:

Enable Physics > Collision on your target objects
Model a mesh representing the "relaxed" bag around your objects; give it a good level of subdivision

Select the vertices along the rim, and assign them to a vertex group with a weight of 0.6 - 0.7.

Another option is to only select one, or three, edges of the rim, to simulate different kinds of bags/vacuum apparatus.

We use this to quickly create a "stiffer" rim. There are however better ways of doing this (like fine-tuning the structural springs parameters instead of the pin groups).
Enable Physics > Cloth on your bag.

Parameters: I've mostly used the defaults, but

the Quality Steps must be higher, around 25
under Shape > Pin group, select the vertex group you created at step 3
under Collision, increase the Quality to around 8, and enable Self collisions
under Field Weights, remove (set as zero) the influence of Gravity

Lastly, select a value around -100 for Cloth > Pressure (in my example I've done it more gradually, going from 0 to -100 over 40 frames, but it turned out to be unnecessary)
Decrease the Cache length to around 40 frames, then Bake

You can now go to the last frame and "Apply" the Cloth Modifier (if you want to get rid of the simulation)


Cannot see scene strip over video in VSE I've created some 3D text and want it to be visible over the movie strip shown below. This works well until I insert key frames to move it.

Why do I loose the visibility of this text when I animate it and how can I make it visible again?

Here is my .blend file so you can have a look.

The quick fix is to set the Trim duration (hard) start = 1083 on the strip for the 3D.

The root of the problem is that by default an action strip pulls its data from the start of the animation.  You animated your text timed to line up with the start of the action strip, not the beginning of the scene.

The current Best Practice is to keep your VSE and your 3D separate.  The VSE scene should only have action strips and no 3D objects.  You can create a separate scene for the 3d animation that has no VSE strips in it.  Then the VSE scene has strips that refer to the separate 3D scene.

If you're not in a hurry, you can duplicate the scene using the + button at the top and choose Link Objects.  This action does not actually copy all the VSE strips, but it does copy all the 3D objects, so you can use it for the source of the action strip.


Snapping and edge loop cut What is best way to snapp vertices when I add edge loop in retopology for instance and they don't snapp.I take every vertex and hit G to snap it.

if you select several vertices and move them, they should automatically snap if you have these two options enabled: Align Rotation To Target and Project Individual Elements.


Compositing Transparency / Layer Masking Problem I have a scene with a number of Render Layers. In the screenshot I am only showing two to focus on the problem (called "main ground" and "bushes").

Each render layer has all the other layers set as a mask (I am not sure if this is correct, but it was the only way I could see to put them back together again as one image without visible parts that should have been obscured).

I am using Alpha Over nodes, but oddly I am getting strange halos around some of the layers. You can see this on the left of the image where there is a strange transparent halo around the bush, cutting through to the sky background.

It seems like Blender is cutting the wrong sized mask "hole" in the main ground layer for the bush layer, but I don't understand why. I suspect I somehow need to tell Blender to better calculate the bush layer mask, but I don't know how.

What you are experiencing is the result of antialiasing, more explicitly two overlapping masks with antialiasing, so the transparency of the upper mask is reveals some of the antialiasing of the underlaying mask.

You could get rid of anitaliasing it by switching off the AA samples using branched path tracing. That will give you perfect edges for the mask but it will affect the overall quality by having an aliased image that will look blocky...

A simpler and higher quality solution is not using a layer mask on the render layer for the grass.

Keep the layer mask on the layer for the bushes only.


Lost in Blender space I was working on something and I must've zoomed out and moved too far and now I cannot find my object I was working on.

If you are in edit mode and you have the object selected (or part of the object) then press the period key on the num pad.

If you are in object mode you can do the same but if you have nothing selected on the object then select it in the outliner first.


Is there a non-blender API for producing blend files? I have a python application which creates 3d models. It is already able to export these models as FBX, DAE, OBJ etc. In the vast majority of cases, the next step in the pipeline is touching up the model inside blender, which means I then have to import the models in blender from the said export formats.

However, some blender-specific features aren't possible to express in these file formats. The obvious idea to solve this would be exporting directly to a blend file instead of to a third-part unrelated file format.

Researching ways to do this, I've found http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User%3aIdeasman42/BlenderAsPyModule which seems like one approach. However, this seems to require a custom-built blender.

I have also found the binary specifications for the file format, notably http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Source/Data_Structures/DNAStructs and (some other links which I'm not allowed to include in the post atm).

... so obviously it'd be possible (albeit cumbersome) to write an export function with a bit of trial an error.

However, before I do this: Has this already been done? Is there an existing library/API out there for producing blend files outside blender?

I don't know of how to export directly to Blender (seems overly complicated), but you could import PLY/STL/etc files, and then script all the additional features you want.

In my case, I was free to choose the original CAD program, so I chose to build directly in Blender via the PyModule. I work with Blender completely separate from the GUI, and rely only on an external python3 and the bpy module. The bpy module is easy to make.. and you can keep it largely separate from your existing blender install (I run from source folder).

Just run this command (make sure you don't have a $HOME/src):

git clone http://git.blender.org/blender.git && cd blender && git submodule update --init --recursive && git submodule foreach git checkout master && git submodule foreach git pull --rebase origin master && build_files/build_environment/install_deps.sh --with-all --skip-osl && sudo make bpy && cd .. && rm -rf blender && sudo rm -rf build_linux_bpy && rm -rf $HOME/src # this gets bpy python module

I also found this: https://code.google.com/p/pyblenderfile/
but, honestly, I don't see much benefit. Its not developed enough to allow importing everything, so I found a better way of doing the same thing using the bpy module.

What I do is this:

-- build stuff in blender (I do it via python, without ever starting the official application)

import bpy
#build stuff
bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath="./objects8.blend")

-- import the model

import bpy
bpy.ops.wm.open_mainfile(filepath="./objects8.blend")

Works great for me. I have some issues recreating stuff you can do in the GUI, but its mostly because Blender has terrible documentation for code (imo). Still, you can do sweet stuff since you call all the equivalent commands directly in python and it executes using the bpy module.


Some settings in properties > world are missing? In my world setup (right bar) I can not access all the options I can as shown on the wiki on the right.

On my screen it looks like this:

For example, environment lighting, gather, indirect lighting, ambient occlusion mode (add, multiply), and the entire world tab (horizon, zenith color) are all missing.

And there is something else.
About 15 minutes ago I wanted to write this post but when I switched back to blender to look for the properties that are missing all properties where there.

So I thought 'Ok great' but now everything is missing again.
And I don't know why they suddenly appeared.

This is because you are using Cycles as your render engine.

Here is the correct wiki page.

Those settings you saw are only there when Blender Render (also known as Blender Internal or BI) is selected as the active render engine in the Info panel > Header:

Note you can do everything that you could do using those settings in BI in Cycles, however the process for setting some of the things up is different in Cycles.

The number of samples is controlled in Properties > Render settings > Sampling:

Note that samples behave differently in cycles and BI, see this question.
AO in cycles is always added, if you want to multiply you must enable the AO pass in Render Layers > Passes:

And then multiply it with your render in the compositor:

The world background color can be set either from the world settings or the world nodes:

Both settings are the same, setting one sets the other. If you want sky textures or gradients, use Texture and Mapping nodes.


logical keyboard sensor brick specificity I use logical keyboard sensor bricks to control some actuators.

Now when one sensor occupies key A, and an other sensor occupies key A and modifier key SHIFT_LEFT, both of the sensor fire when SHIFT_LEFT + A is pressed.

Is there a way to set the first sensor so, that it only and really only is firing when solely A without any modifier key is pressed?

Thank you,
Elmar

Requirements

The issues is that you have an ambiguous description at the first place. The sensors do not (and should not) know of each other. They measure a specific event.

This means when you let a sensor measure for A it will measure exactly that regardless what other keys are pressed (as keys are independent from each other).

The keyboard sensor allows to sense the press of several keys at the same time. All of that keys needs to be pressed. This is - as in your situation - not in all situations what you want.

Controllers

To get a more complex setup the controllers will help you.

You can combine sensor input in a logical way to get an activation or deactivation signal to the actuator.

if A+left Shift then activate X.
if A+not left Shift then activate Y.
if not A then activate Z.

Typically the "not" is more complicated.

The following examples assume A requests "move" while left Shift+A requests to "move turbo".

Inverted Sensor

You use a second sensor that inverts the output (keyboard sensor on  left Shift  with [invert] enabled).

This allows to use a simple controller e.g. AND

Drawback:

you have to configure the sensing twice (one inverted and one not inverted).

Expression controller

This allows you much more complex logic expressions.

Drawbacks:

You need to type rather than click.
Renaming the sensor will break the expression.

You need two sensors measuring each key.

Requesting "move":

The Expression controller measures turn and not turbo. This combines the two sensors (by name).

Requesting "move turbo":

You could use an Expression controller as well with turn and turbo, but the AND controller already does that. So it is cheaper with an AND controller.

Python Controller

You can use a Python controller to do the logical combination. But this is like buying a car factory just to get a car. It is possible, but for this purposes not worth.

State Machine

A complete different concept is the use of a state machine. Luckily there is one already build in.

You can define "move" and "move turbo" as two states plus one without moving: "waiting". You transit between the states via (sensors).

The advantage is that you do not need to worry the keys of the other states. You can even reuse keys (e.g. A means different things in different states).

But I think this does not really fit into your situation. So I will not explain it in more detail.


Cycles not Showing Textures My textures are not showing specifically when rendered and in cycles.

If I use the material preview mode, everything is fine;
If I render in Evee, fine as well;
If I render (preview or output) in cycles, the texture is not used to generate the image.

This must be some setting that I changed by accident because the cycles render was fine yesterday and I have outputs from this object with the Cycles working fine.
Could someone help me with this? I've already tried tweaking some settings and searching here for the answer but nothing worked...

Cycles and Render Preview:

Evee and Render Preview:

Cycles and Material Preview:

You need to disable the Texture Coordinate From Instancer option, it is made for particles to inherit the material of the emitter.


How to follow dynamic paint brush direction with object in Blender V2.80 beta and 2.79b? I am floating this boat on an ocean, created with the ocean modifier. I use dynamic paint to move the boat on the surface of the water with the help of a 'cage' which contains the boat inside it, with constrains. The 'cage' is the brush, of course, and the ocean is the canvas for the dynamic paint.
See image below.

I animate the 'cage' and the boat follows on the surface of the ocean. The problem is that when I animate the 'cage' to turn, the boat does not turn with it, only follows the original heading and moves sideways with the 'cage'. The animation below shows after turning from the straight movement but still follows original direction.

How can I make the boat turn with the 'cage'?

Just a note: I do not see the dynamic brush paint on the dynamic canvas, unlike in V2.79, not sure if that should be reported as a bug.

Since the initial writing of this question, I have tried to do the same in Blender V2.79b and I have the same problem there too, see image below with the ocean Surface canvas view and render. It shows the 'cage' and the boat facing to 2 different directions and from the render you see that it is sliding creating the froth towards the top of the screen. Obviously I am missing something.

Well, looks like nobody could help me with this one. I managed to come up with a solution for this but with a bit different method. It works in both Blender V2.79b and V2.80 Beta. I added a path to make nicer turns but finally the turns are happening.
The following was setup, additionally, to get an object to follow the waveform of the ocean while it moves around the surface:

A path was added - in this case a BezierCircle in the Outliner called 'BezierCircle - Path to follow' and animated.
Added a Plane and subdivided it 2 times in Edit mode. 'Called Plane on water surface' on the image below. Added a Shrinkwrap modifier to it and set the target to be the 'Ocean', that mowed the plane to the ocean surface. Added an Object Constraint and the target was the 'BezierCircle - Path to follow' object. Ticked the Follow Curve
The 'Boat -constrained to Plane on water surface' object added a Copy Location and a Copy Rotation constrains. Both have the target set to 'Plane on water surface' object and it Vertex Group selected to 'Group' that was defined for that plane.

The purple plane on the bellow image is the 'Plane on water surface' object that follows the waves with the Shrinkwrap modifier and the boat is constrained to it with Location and Rotation. The orange path is the one the 'Plane on water surface' object follows.

This is a tight turn but demonstrates that the turning direction is followed.

The same section of the path but with material applied. This is not baked or animated yet, only played.


addon "mesh extras" not available in 2.7 When I use 2.67 everything is ok but when I try to find extra meshes they are not available even though I selected them in user preferences?

Go to File > User Preferences > Addons
Search for extra
Make sure Supported Level is set to Community
Categories to All
Tick the box at the very right
Optionally Save User Settings to enable it by default
Go to 3D View > Add > Mesh, the icon-less entries are from the Extra Objects addon.


Align one face to another face of object? How can one object 'A' (activated in edit mode) be rotated to align it to the face of other object highlighted with pink colour.

In Object Mode select the plane that you want to align (the one that you want to change).
Add the second plane to the selection so that it is the active object.
In the 3D View Properties panel right click on one of the Rotation values and select 'Copy to Selected from' the pop-up menu and they will have matching rotation values.

I think that there are several ways to do this depending on the situation. This method may not work for all scenarios but it will work for two planar objects.


mask not visible when applied In my Blender sculpt mode the masked area is not showing up (expected it to show up in black).the overlay is turned out, it still not showing s mask   Can anyone suggest me anything please?

You likely have a modifier active that is hiding the mask, like subsurf. Go to the modifier tab and look for this warning:


Airplane rotations and turning I have a airplane model and it's controlled by moving the mouse. At the moment, when it turns it simple turns - that's it. What I want is for it to turn like a real plane - so rotating left/right when it turns left/right.
How could I achieve this?

Images:

As you can see the movement is simple and the turning is with the mouse - so how can I make it more like this:

You are very close in your setup. you only need one more mouse look actuator.

The reason why you need another actuator is because you currently have nothing to make the airship rotate along the Y. Adding another mouse look actuator can fix that.

I have also changed the settings slightly from what you had, because I think it behaves better with these values.

The first mouse look actuator does the roll.

The second mouse look actuator does the pitch and yaw.

With both of them together, it behaves just like a flying fortress of total monkey awesomeness

With the actual mesh from the flying fortress only with BGE materials