RTX 2070 Super not recognized by Blender 2.82a (Debian Linux) So I'm working out the kinks of a brand new Linux build. Very much a noob, but have been researching and writing notes on Debian/Ubuntu for several months.

I've been carefully going through each software that I know I want to optimize and have been trouble-shooting everything to the best of my novice ability.

My build runs the latest 20.04 release of Pop!_OS, which is built upon Ubuntu 20.04
AMD Ryzen 7 3800x 32GB DDR4 3600mhz Ram
NVIDIA RTX 2070super (Gigabyte brand)
MSI Gaming Edge WIFI mobo

My problem is that Blender doesn't seem to recognize my GPU, even though all forum users I've come across, including on here, say that anything with a Compute value at or higher than 3.0 will be supported, and state no other possibility for an incompatibility. Yet the preferences window doesn't recognize any CUDA cores, and says it will default to the CPU.

  "No compatible GPUs found for path tracing. Cycles will render on the CPU"

As I said, I'm running the latest release of Pop!_OS, my NVIDIA driver is the latest 440 driver release, and Blender is up to date for my package manager.

Could this be a glitch with Blender 2.82a? A glitch between Blender and Linux and my brand of GPU? Are the super variants of RTX cards not treated the same inside Blender as the main-line cards?

These are my only guesses, but I don't know if there's anything I can try.

Edit:
Downloading 2.83.1 directly from the Blender website (not Pop!_Shop) fixed it for me.

Not an answer, but I have a similar problem.  My 2070 Super is not recognized for CUDA rendering in Blender 2.83.  I downloaded 2.82a and it works fine.  This is odd.
I use Pop!_OS 20.04 as well.


Problems extruding a circle along circular path I'm trying to extrude a circle along a circular path, ending up with a torus.

First, I added a Bezier circle centered at 0,0,0 and made it 10x10 in width and height (to form the path), then I added another circle, also at 0,0,0, and made it 2x2 in size.

When I select the smaller circle as the Bevel Object of the larger circle, the resulting shape resembles a swollen torus with a slight depression in the centre (where the hole would be) and becomes 20x20, larger than I expect.

I've tried positioning the smaller circle in different places, and at different angles before setting it as the Bevel Object, with similar results.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Here's an image of the two curves, then the end result:

Update

Just in case it helps anyone else, I think my problem occurred because I was scaling the larger circle (the path for the extrusion) via the Transform panel in Object mode rather than Edit mode.

Instead, if you add the (larger) circle, change to Edit mode and scale it to the correct size, and then change back to Object mode and set the Bevel Object, everything works perfectly.

Not sure if it's related, but a response on another site implies that you could also scale in Object mode, then Apply -> Scale, though this didn't work for me.

gandalf3's answer is the most likely answer and solution to the problem. Another thing you could try is shrinking the bevelled object with AltS. However, I see no advantages in obtaining a torus from curves that way. Why not just add a Curve > Circle and tweak the settings. To fatten, increase the depth and to get it smoother/rounder, increase the resoulution. Much easier to tweak and less work.


Transparent Coffee Cup with Color Volume Makes Strange Objects I'm following the Blender Guru beginners tutorial, and as I was making the coffee in the cup, it looked alright until you look at it from the side, where you see that it has all of these weird particles.

How do I get rid of these?
Blend File

There is a known blender issue with "liquids" in cups. Make sure the liquid mesh fully intersects the glass (as in the boundry of the mesh is inside the glass wall, not inside the empty space)


Have blender automatically monitor textures for changes? Currently my workflow consists of photoshop on one monitor and Blender on the other. Whenever I save in Photoshop, I have to manually switch to blender and do Alt-R to reload the texture which can be quite annoying.

Is it possible to have Blender monitor the files for changes and automatically refresh the textures whenever changes are detected? This would make my workflow a lot more efficient.

Blender doesn't have this kind of feature (or at least I never heard of it). A quick google search however brought this as a result:

External Paint Autorefresh

I haven't tried it but it surely sounds interesting...


How can I create a "volleyball sphere" for sculpting? When sculpting, I have seen many people use a sphere with a special topology as a starting point in blender. While a regular UV sphere has smaller faces near the two poles, this type of sphere had equal-size faces all around.

Unfortunately, I don't know it's name, so I can't really search how to add it. I'd expect it to be easy to add given how many people use it, but I haven't had any luck finding it in Blender. It's shape reminds me of the seams of a classic volleyball, hence the title:

You can make such object as well.

Start with a default cube
Add a Subdivision Modifier
Add Cast Modifier, factor set to 1, to make it into a sphere


Square shadows in rendering I'm making a cushion and when I render it, there are square shadows. Is this because I didn't subdivide surface enough? Or did I touch something wrong? In Edit mode, it looks already to have a lot of faces. Is there way to smooth the shadow?

I'm not using lamp object but world with Pro lighting Skies add-on.

I turned off the Pro Lighting add-on. I suppose because the uni machine I'm using doesn't allow to use or something... though it looked installed. Thank you for the help!


How can I make a material that is transparent at the center and emission at the corners of a plane I want to get this material that works similar to the Layer weight shader, but I can't get the effect I want.
I want to have a plane that is largely transparent with emission boundaries.  I have attached a diagram that shows the basic idea, along with a basic idea of what shader basis I have going.  This material needs to work well with a non-square plane.  The sphere needs to be able to be stretched/manipulated to fit any shape, even if that means one side of the ellipse is wider than the other side.
PS I'm using EVEE.

Some function of (distance from object origin) will give you a circle to do what you want with.. here, using a Map Range to soften the mask, which is plugged into the alpha-channel of an emissive material. If you need to have the center of the circle somewhere else, you could use another object's origin, using the option near the bottom of the Texture Coordinate node.


OpenGL freezes and turns off blender I've encountered this behavior several times that blender put random black and white points on the blender window then a message box appears and says "Too many errors occurred. Application must close now"

I know that my environment is a bit old but it supports OpenGL 3.4

Lenovo ThinkPad T410
Intel Core i5 540M
Nvidia NVS3100 (this supports OpenGL 3.4)
8GB RAM
180GB SSD

Updating your graphics card driver would be great. I did and I can use blender with no problems.


BGE How to change a music loop in the middle of a game? I'm trying to create my first maze game. I have a "looping" music  triggered by an Always sensor and I would like to change this music for another one once the player goes through a door. How can I do that? I've tried with different logic  controllers (Xor, Nor, Or, etc) but to no avail.

I have all my audio and audio logic setup on my camera, just so it is easy to keep track of it all.
To start I have a boolean game property called "sound_switcher", the empty checkbox means that it is FALSE. This is what is getting changed when the player goes near my cone object. That property in turn controls which sound file gets played.
The Near sensor detects when the player gets close to my cone (it has a game property of "prop" on it).
When that gets triggered it toggles the game property (booleans can only be TRUE or FALSE).
Now look at the other two sensors (Always and Property). The Sound actuator only plays when the always sensor is true (always) and the game property is FALSE (remember I have it set to false by default).
Notice the top "Nand" controller, it is the important. When the player is near the cone, and the game property is true, the Property sensor is no longer true, thus the "Nand" controller is TRUE, which activates the second sound actuator.
(The Nand controller activates when at least one connected sensor evaluates False, which in this case is the only one plugged in to it the Property sensor.)

Now the logic above will toggle the audio, but if you want the second song to keep playing even when you leave the cone, then simply delete the bottom Nand controller (it is highlighted in orange.)
The blend file


How do I make animations a steady speed? When I make an animation, it always starts out slow, then speeds up, then slows down at the end.  I cannot figure out how to fix this.

Simply go to the Animation Screen Layout:

Now select Channel > Extrapolation Mode > Linear Extrapolation (shortcut Shift + E):

And that should fix it for you.

If you look at the Graph Editor before doing this, you will see:

The beginning and end of the curve are levelled out, this is what gives you the slowing down effect. It is called a Bezier function. When you choose 'Linear Extrapolation' it makes the curve a straight line:

The straight line is extended in both directions giving you continued animation, whereby if you choose Interpolation, Key > Interpolation Mode > Linear (shortcut T):

What starts off as curves...

...results in straight lines between keyframes with no extension beyond:


Get a diff between two .blend files Blender stores the session contents in a binary file format. But actually, much of that data is not really "binary" (like a e.g. a sound file), but structured data, similar to program code.

Are there any tools (either built-in or external), allowing to find out the precise difference between two blender files? And if so, when working with these tools, are spurious diffs an issue? (e.g. rounding errors in numbers, reordering of entries in collections).

Background information: I'm trying to build up a controlled work environment and workflow, as I know it from software development.

You would need to write an export script to dump all the data of the .blend files you want to compare into a text file.

From python you could use difflib to compare them like:

import difflib
import os

old_file = "C:\\Users\\user\Documents\\Blender\\dump1.txt"
new_file = "C:\\Users\\user\Documents\\Blender\\dump2.txt"
print(os.getcwd())
a = open(old_file).readlines()
b = open(new_file).readlines()
diff_string = difflib.unified_diff(a=a, b=b)

for line in diff_string:
    print(line)

While it makes almost no sense to compare the meshes between edited versions of a mesh (besides some stats like how the number of polygons has increased etc.)
In this BA thread you find more thoughts on that.
CoDEmanX linked his git project blend_stats there.

I started a script which is incomplete and has issues with links in objects.
You could use it as a starting point and improve it:

import bpy
import mathutils

map={}
debug = False

def dump(obj, name="", level=0):
    if level > 10:
        return
    if debug:
        print("call %d obj=%s type=%s" % (level, str(obj), str(type(obj))))
    if str(type(obj)) in ("<class 'builtin_function_or_method'>",):
        return
    if isinstance(obj, mathutils.Vector):
        print("%s=%s" % (name,str(obj.to_tuple())))
        return

    if str(type(obj)) == "<class 'bpy_prop_collection'>":
        for item in obj:
            dump( item, name , level+1)
            return

    if str(type(obj)) == "<class 'tuple'>":
        idx=0
        for item in obj:
            dump( item, name + "[" +str(idx) + "]", level+1)
            idx = idx+1
            return;

    for attr in dir(obj):
       if not hasattr(obj, attr ) or attr.startswith("__") or attr in ("bl_rna","base","rna_type"):
           continue
       if attr == "particle_edit":
           return # crashes otherwise
       if name+"."+attr in map:
           if debug  or True:
               print("already dumped=%s" % name+"."+attr )
           return
       map[name+"."+attr]=obj
       val = getattr(obj, attr)
       if isinstance(val, (int, float, str, bool)):
          print("%s.%s=%s" % (name,attr,val))
       else:
          dump( val, name + "." + attr, level+1)

print(60*"-")
dump(bpy.data,"bpy.data")


Is there a way to combine colors in blender? Such that, using nodes,  we could dynamically combine the hue, saturation and value to two given colors.
Example : Red + Blue = Purple / Violet
Green + Black = Dark Green
Basically, this is my node setup. Running the noise texture through a color ramp gives me random noise of varying size in the shades of white, grey and black, which I want to combine the green to form the respective lighter and darker shades of green.
And taking this idea a step ahead, I want to combine any two colors as stated above in the example.

I think the behavior you describe is human perceptual mixing color, which the color need to be deal in HSV, HSL like color space. Then the mixing between two value can be meaningful.
Main Node

AVG Node Group

Circulate Connected Average Node

Circulate Details:
let color1, color2
if abs(color1 - color2) > 0.5:
then:  # We need to get the closest average rather than the far one
output = avg(color1, color2) - 0.5
else:
output = avg(color1, color2)

The interpolation of HSV color can preserve saturated and value(brightness) and interpolate between color. While RGB value is bind to it's own R,G and B color, which make the color "dirty" when you trying to mix them directly.
I can't find directly HSV color ring node inside node editor so I manually separate them into HSV, and mix them together, and then combine them back to color. The given result is desirable compare to MixRGB node.
Different Behavior when Hue is difference by 180 degree

A more reasonable result using XYZ for interpolation and HSV for tuning

XYZ model is additive color space graphics - Calculation of a mixed color in RGB - Stack Overflow, it could be used in mixing light color properly, but in your requirement, HSV model is suitable for lightness, so manually separate them and combine after XYZ is done mixing.


Want to add particle systems to areas of object intersection How can I identify and map (or otherwise ID) areas of intersection among differing objects?  I'd like to use these areas to add or subtract particle-driven object placement.

In the sample below, how can I generate a map or target on the ground plane, to which I would either add additional particles or exclude particles?

The need is to be able to stuff trash up against the intersection of a sidewalk and a building ...  or to clear grass from the immediate root crown of a tree. Sort of an AO treatment with particles where two kinds of objects meet....

During the creation of Sintel the "Grease Scatter Objects" addon was created and is included in every blender release since, you just need to enable it. You can watch a video of it in use with some more explanation and download an example blend if you wish.

create a variety of objects you want to scatter
add them all to the same group ⎈ CtrlG
draw some grease pencil strokes on your ground. Ensure your stroke is attached to the object surface not the scene.

select your ground mesh
select Add->Mesh->Grease Pencil Scatter and fill in your group name.


Why does my mesh with a cutout have strange, jagged artifacts in other tools? Some high school friends and I have been playing an old FPS we used to play, and I've started getting into making maps. I recently dipped my toes into Blender to create some custom models for the game, and a recent project is to reconstruct a simplified version of one side of an Acela train car.
As a starting point, I added and rotated a plane, made a loop cut to make the "bend," then used the Solidify modifier to give it some thickness.

Then I wanted to add a hole for a window, so I created a cylinder, extruded it sideways to create an oblong shape, positioned it in the right spot, and used a Boolean modifier to take the difference. Then, I exported the mesh as a .obj, which is natively supported by the game. So far, in Blender and in Xcode (my most-handy OBJ-file viewer), everything looks right!

But in the game, I've got some strange, jagged artifacts.

It reminds me of the kind of things I see when a path is drawing in the wrong order (CW vs. CCW) in 2D drawing. If I apply the modifier and look at the mesh in edit mode, I can kind of visualize why things are going wrong, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I tried bisecting the mesh across the window hole to create a more "sane" arrangement of faces/edges…

… but it doesn't look much different in the game. Any thoughts on what I can do to fix this?

Maybe rework your topology, keep only one face, use the knife tool (K to activate, C to cut perpendicularly) try to keep only quads, extrude to give thickness back.


Will my PC go to sleep while rendering Just as the title says, if I leave a video rendering overnight and don't change my pc's sleep settings will the pc sleep AFTER the render or will it sleep DURING?

Another way to ask this is if Blender works like Youtube and sends a signal to the PC to NOT sleep while it's doing something?
In Youtube's case: playing a video
In Blender's case: Rendering a video

I decided to chance it and left my PC on over a night

Turns out it stayed on whilst rendering
Actually, turns out just having blender running at all keeps my PC on

I'd recommend just having blender open and seeing if your PC falls asleep or not,
before trying to render and leave it on, so that the system doesn't suddenly shut down while a process is running


Blender Game Engine Car Crash I am trying to make a car crash simulator in the game engine but I just can not figure it out. I have tried soft body physics many times and it failed. I am trying to make something like BeamNG drive. I basically just want to be able to run my car into another object and have it randomly deform.

" I basically just want to be able to run my car into another object and have it randomly deform." that is very easy to do . add collision  sensor(senses collisions) to your car and add edit object replace mesh actuator (deforms your car(you have to make independent deformed model of your car))
here is example on how to make random deformations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l32qN6CwzXs


How to animate a curve in pose mode? I've created a snake rig, with several B-Bones and a Spline IK constraint set to a Bezier curve which basically control the whole snake. I'm just wondering how to animate that curve without doing it in edit mode. I can imagine doing this with Hooks, and Bones parented to those Hooks which would effectively allow me to control the Hooks in Pose mode but I'll loose the access to the curve's Bezier handles so that's not good.

Reason I want to animate in Pose mode if it's not obvious is because I plan to have a lot more bones and control on this rig down the line and can't see myself jumping from pose mode to edit mode to animate the snake. Also it's convenient to be able to reset position and rotation, which I can't do in Edit mode.

How do advanced rigger deal with this kind of problem?

You can set an hook to beziers handles also.

I know it's a workaround, I also miss the possibility to weight paint curves and control them with bones.


how to replicate spline and randomize bevel I would like to randomize bevel size of the replicated spline.
It look like Curve Object Output - Bevel Depth -  doesn't work with list of numbers.
Is there any other options?
Thanks

you can do it like this:

result (i just took an arbitrary curve):


Draw points on screen with bgl? (python) I'd like to use bgl to draw dots points on 2d screen from 3d vertices in scene. I have lines working by using bgl.GL_LINE_LOOP but I couldn't find the full list of bgl.GL_* to loop up for points.

short answer:

bgl.glPointSize(5)
bgl.glBegin(bgl.GL_POINTS)

less shorter answer:

Open template operator_modal_draw.py

In draw_callback_px(self, context) I call my function

DrawByVertices("points", verts2d, [0.5, 1, 0.1, 0.5])

where verts2d are screen coordinates [(screen.x, screen.y), ..] in my case derived from vector3 like this

from bpy_extras.view3d_utils import location_3d_to_region_2d
#...
verts2d = []
for v in bm.verts:
    new2dCo = location_3d_to_region_2d(context.region, \
                                       context.space_data.region_3d, \
                                       v.co)
    verts2d.append([new2dCo.x,new2dCo.y])

.

def DrawByVertices(mode, verts2d, color):
    bgl.glColor4f(*color)
    bgl.glEnable(bgl.GL_BLEND)

    if mode is "points":
        bgl.glPointSize(5)
        bgl.glBegin(bgl.GL_POINTS)
    elif mode is "lines":
        bgl.glLineWidth(2)
        bgl.glBegin(bgl.GL_LINE_LOOP)

    for x, y in verts2d:
        bgl.glVertex2f(x, y)

    bgl.glEnd()
    bgl.glDisable(bgl.GL_BLEND)
    #restore defaults
    bgl.glLineWidth(1)
    bgl.glColor4f(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0)

    return

Result is colored points drawn on screen over 3d vertex coordinates.


How can I write (draw) notes or just drawings, with a 2d stroke but on the 3d viewport How can I write (draw) notes or just drawings, with a 2d stroke but on the 3d viewport.

There are two tools to do what you want: the grease pencil and annotations.

The grease pencil can be rendered,

https://www.blender.org/features/grease-pencil/

annotations are just for reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IJ7THnd2ZM


How to eliminate UV lines in render How can I eliminate the UV lines that show up as light reflection artifacts in my renders?  What am I doing wrong?

I have uploaded a zip file containing a minimal project (about 12 MB) that gives my output at https://www.randommonkeyworks.com/files/testRender.zip.

The answer is simple. When creating the normal map, make certain your objects are smooth shaded. I don't remember any of the tutorials I saw stressing the importance of this fact, but if they aren't smooth shaded Blender will not automatically interpolate to smooth, and your normals will have abrupt changes at the grid lines.


World background texture not showing in render I just started out using Blender Render. I wanted to create a starry background for my world and did so, and it appears nice and fine in the preview for both texture and world. Yet when I render the image, my objects appear fine but the background texture will not appear. I looked at several other similar posts online but all seem to refer to older versions of Blender, unless I'm missing something. Anyone have any ideas?

For Blender Render (internal), and for a flat repeating background (not a wrap-around 360 background) try the following things:

Add a world texture (if you haven't already)

Properties > Texture panel
Click the "World" tab (it's one of the three little buttons at top of texture panel)
Add texture
Type: Image or Movie
Image > (open image file here)

Check influence

Under the "Influence" section of the world texture I had to check "Horizon" before the world background would render

Check mapping

Mapping > Size
Increase X, Y, and Z values to make background (starfield, in this case) smaller and repeat more often

Sky shading (instead of transparent)

Properties > Render > Shading > Alpha: [Sky]


On returning to my file 'Play Rendered Animation' says 'file not found' Earlier I rendered my first ever animation which is grass moving. But I closed the program and went to do my personal things. When I got back to the file and opened it, I clicked play rendered animation but now it says 'file H: blahlbhalbha... png.001-0100.avi not found' or something like that. I checked my folders and I clearly have all the 1-100 png files. Do I have to re-render it because it took about 24 hours because I have a terrible computer. Is there any way to fix this?

If you have renamed your animation (if it was outputted to a movie file), then Blender will not be able to recognize it if it doesn't have the original output name. Did you rename your file? (Was it a movie file in the first place, or was it an image sequence?)


Render layers: what is All Z, Zmask and Mask Layer Can anyone elaborate on what "All Z", "Zmask" and "Mask Layers" actually mean, giving some easy examples? I can see the pop-up explanations in Blender, but I am completely confused as to what it actually does (e.g. how it "masks out", what are solid z values, what in "fills in" the values of invisible meshes with and how it relates to masking, etc.).

When "Mask Layers" are used, any render information from the selected layer is omitted from the active render layer.

In blender Z is generally used to determine depth and distance away from the camera. I can only assume "Zmask" would be omitting things base on distance depth away from camera.

I do not have an answer for "All Z".


My object disappears is not hidden My object is not hidden but in any case I can not see the object，The object will appear when rendering But I did not hide to the object

You've used Alt+B - It is a clipping tool in blender.

All that you need to do ― it's just press Alt+B second time


I can't apply any modifier to my animation channel This is blender 2.9.
I'm trying to loop an animation using the cycles modifier but I can't add it to all axis, as you can see on the images below.
It only worked for the z-axis, and it didn't work in the x-axis. In the modifier tab it shows that it is greyed out. I tried adding another cycles modifier but it says "modifier could not be added(see console for details)" as shown in the third image.

You accidentally disabled the f-curves modifier on this channel. It's the wrench icon. Click on it to enable it.


Slingshot Dynamics Cloth + Hook So I want to make this dynamic slingshot. I currently have 2 pin points and one hook in my scene. I now want to arm the slingshot and fire it. I thought I could just animate the Strength value of the Hook. Unfortunately, as you can see, the vertex just jumps back to its original position.
Any idea how I can somehow let go of the hook and it looks like its firing? Thanks in advance.

I figured it out myself. I did the first pulling back of the slingshot like I did before. From there I duplicated the mesh and applied the cloth simulation as a Shape Key.

So I now have the current mesh as a shape key where the first mesh stops with its cloth simulation. Then I had to change the order of the shape keys so on top I have the output mesh from the cloth simulation and on the bottom a shape key of the very initial mesh (The idle shape of the slingshot). So on the second mesh in the cloth simulation I just put the initial shape as the rest shape. So when I play the animation it first plays the first cloth simulation and when I want to shoot, I play the second cloth simulation with the so it snaps back to the rest shape defined in the cloth simulation settings.

How it looks now:


Add a loop cut between all loop cuts For example, I made a 10 x 10 grids by using loop cuts on a square plane, now I would like to make it to 20 x 20, is there any way I could change the grid instead of doing it from the beginning? thanks a lot

Just subdivide the mesh. It will create a new edge in between all edges.
From a single subdivision, a 10 by 10 grid will become 20 x 20.
Select all edges (press A).
From the menu, select Edge > Subdivide

Or you can do this from the context menu. Press the right mouse button and select subdivide


Python - How do i change the child of a child of an object? I'm trying to make a python script that will recursively rename the children in a hierarchy with a name derived after their parent, from a selected object.
Now I've gotten as far as I can select an object, run the script - and it will rename all the children accordingly.
The problem is that, if those children also has children of their own - I also want to rename those as well. But I cant find a way to rename the child of a child of an object.
I'm pretty new to python, but any solution or advice for what I should be looking at is much appreciated.
So heres what little I got so far:
    def execute(self, context):

    for child in bpy.context.object.children:

        #Rename child to "[ParentName]_[Type]"
        child.name = bpy.context.object.name + ("_") + child.type

    return {'FINISHED'}

Extending a list of Children
You can make a list of children and extend the list with the children of each child. After renaming a children, it is removed from the list.
import bpy

def execute(context):
    ob = context.object

    if ob == None:
        return

    children = list(ob.children)
    index = 0
    while len(children):
        child = children.pop()
        child.name = ob.name + str(index).zfill(3)
        children.extend(child.children)
        index += 1

execute(bpy.context)

Recursively walking the Children
You can also create a function, which renames the children of an object (parameter) and calls itself for each of the children.
import bpy

def renameChildren(ob):
    for child in ob.children:
        child.name = ob.name + "_" + child.type
        renameChildren(child)

def execute(context):
    ob = context.object

    if ob == None:
        return

    renameChildren(ob)

execute(bpy.context)


Create a road along large terrain I created a terrain in blender. I have on it a base layer. The base layer comprised of two textures. These are a dirt and rock texture mixed together using another texture as a mask. On top of this texture I would like to create a road. I have another mask texture for the road. I am using tiling textures for the base layer, only the masks are non-tiling: they take up the entire UV space. The road also must be tiling somehow, I cannot create a 32k texture.

How can I have a tiling road texture follow a path so that it looks like an actual road? This is an example of a tiling road that correctly follow a path.

blend file textures are packed and set up is clear

Create a small section of road.

Add a curve to define the path the road will follow.

Back on the road section, add an array modifier, a curve modifier and a shrikwrap modifier. You set the array to fit the length of the curve. Then it follows the curve and the shrinkwrap sticks it to the terrain surface.

Giving a final result -

The curve can then be hidden. Or you can apply the modifiers and join the road mesh to the terrain mesh so they are one. Applying separate materials to each section of mesh.


Installing glTF-Blender-IO latest Version in Blender 2.8 Blender 2.80 now includes the  glTF-Exporter  addon, but due to some limitations, I would like to test the latest version of  glTF-Blender-IO  from here:

https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Blender-IO

The instructions for installing on the  glTF-Blender-IO  page are light on detail.  Here's what I tried:

download the .zip and extract.
I'm on a Mac.  Went to blender installation in Applications, and added these directories:
scripts/addons/
from the extracted download, copied:
addons/io_scene_gltf2
to the new directory in the Blender installation.
In Blender, open  Edit : Preferences, Add-ons:
with all addons visible [Official, Community & Testing are all enabled], search for 'gltf'.
The one I see is probably the one installed with Blender.  Testing verifies this.
assuming I need to install the new addon, in Addons panel, click:  Install...  and navigate to:
/Applications/blender-2.80.0/scripts/addons

From here, I have attempted to 'Install addon from file...' from several places in the subtree without success.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

I'll start off by saying, Blender 2.80 Beta and the GitHub glTF-Blender-IO repository are going to be kept in sync at least through the end of 2.80's release and likely far beyond.  So if something new goes in the GitHub master branch, usually you can wait a couple of days and see it show up in a daily build of Blender.  There's a version number near the top of __init__.py that has been getting more regular updates, with the intention of making it more apparent when GitHub changes have made their way into the Blender repo.

What I'm saying is, if there's no rush on your part, you can just wait for the changes to come through on the Blender side, and not worry about downloading from GitHub.

But, if you want to try something before it gets over to Blender (such as a branch that's under development, or a fix you need right away, etc.), then yes, download the GitHub repository and install the addons/io_scene_gltf2 folder from there.

The trickiest thing about the install will be that Blender can't tell the difference between the shipped addon vs the one you downloaded.  You need to get rid of the copy that came pre-installed with Blender, before you can try a new branch or version of the same addon.  In your Blender install folder, look for this subfolder:

{Blender_Install_Folder}/2.80/scripts/addons/io_scene_gltf2/

This one needs to be deleted or moved completely out of the Blender install tree, before you can replace it with a new one.  The addons/io_scene_gltf2 folder from GitHub can be used as a drop-in replacement here, if you like, or you can use one of the external script folder methods you mentioned above.

Quit and re-start Blender to make these changes apply.  Note that you will not have to go re-enable the addon, even if it's in a different install folder.  Apparently, Blender keeps a list of enabled addons by name, not by install location, so your new version of this addon will already be enabled when you launch Blender.


Sculpting tools don't seem to work unless using remesh or dyntopo I'm trying to learn sculpting but my brushes don't seem to work. The add and subtract just do their work in a general area no matter how smaller the radius of the brush is and the crease brush gives me a crease at highest power with several stroked along a already bulging crease. Help!

PS. I tried looking at other solutions but they were outdated or I wasn't able to find the options in blender.

My blend file :

Thanks for the answer. It works amazing. I can't reply or upvote as of yet so hopefully you will be able to read this

I was able to sculpt when I applied the two modifiers (mirror & sub) and filled the holes in Edit Mode (select all + f for fill). I don't know enough about the sculpt tools but maybe brushes like crease need closed meshes. Depending on what you want to do don't expect high resolution and details without Dyntopo on this one.


Copy Rotation Bone Constraint fails When I add a Single Bone and then an Empty object to the scene, as follows:

Then I add a Copy Rotation bone-constraint, I set the Empty object as the target, the constraint will rotate my bone on the X axis by 90 degrees:

Although neither the Armature, nor the Bone and not even the Empty has any rotations whatsoever.

My question is: why is this happening and if this is the expected behavior, then how can I prevent it from happening?

First, yes it is supposed to happen. If it is expected or not depends on whether on not you have read this answer. :)

The reason this happens is because bones in blender are not Z up like everything else, but the Y axis is up.

Here is a picture set up the same as yours, but with the axis display turned on for the armature.

You can easily "fix" the offset by changing the rotational space from World to Local with Parent. (You will in most cases want to use local with Parent space anyway.)

Try rotating the bone in edit mode, then see what the constraint does with Offset turned on and the Space set to World. (Hint, you will end up needing Local with Parent.)


Emission and Transparant mixture works in 3D View but not in Render I'm a bit new to cycles shaders, so I'm going about this a bit blindly.

I've tried mixing a few shaders, and it works in the rendered viewport, but not in the full render.

I'm trying to make spaceship thrusters. It should start emitting  brightly, and then gradually fade to transparent. I've tried both particles, and volumes, but neither worked well for me.

This is my material:

And here is the (expected) 3D View rendered result (left) and the actual (incorrect) rendered result (right):

The .blend file

EDIT: I was able to get it to work by switching to CPU from GPU.

The lamp output node is not intended for use with surfaces, as a matter of fact I'm surprised it worked at all in viewport render.

It works fine for me if you replace it with a material output node:


Why is my UV Map in separate parts? I have a simple shape that I want to add a texture to. But when I unwrap it, it shows in separate pieces rather than one whole square like the tutorial shows.
Incidentally, when I first came to ask this question, I had a different problem — my lines where all shooting out of bounds and going all over the place. I found the answer to that (Smart UV Project) but that's when it gave me the separate shapes. It's probably easier to just recreate the shape, but I am curious to know what I did wrong to end up like this.

This is how Smart UV Project looks like.
I never checked the donut tutorial, so I don't know what's the base mesh you worked with, but when you start with blenders base mesh Torus object, it gives you nicely unwrapped UVmap into square already.

Basically to get more control over Unwrapping, you have to

Mark Seams Ctrl+E to let blender know where to split a net
(the edges marked by red color in screen, just select two edge loops with Alt+Shift select)

select all faces and Unwrap U > Reset
select only one face and Unwrap U > Follow Active Quads


How to create a script that connects points in an animation? I want to create a script driven animation with Blender. I want to create an animation of lines connecting a bunch of vertices.

Is it possible to do this?

How would I change the properties of the line and vertices (color, thickness, textures, etc.).

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

w = 1 # weight
cList = [Vector((0,0,0)),Vector((1,0,0)),Vector((2,0,0)),Vector((2,3,0)),Vector((0,2,1))]

curvedata = bpy.data.curves.new(name='Curve', type='CURVE')
curvedata.dimensions = '3D'

# Line thickness:
curvedata.bevel_depth = 0.05
curvedata.fill_mode = "FULL"

# Point size
point_size = 0.1

# Line colour:
line_mat = bpy.data.materials.new("Red")
line_mat.diffuse_color = (1, 0, 0)
curvedata.materials.append(line_mat)

# Point colour
point_mat = bpy.data.materials.new("Green")
point_mat.diffuse_color = (0, 1, 0)

objectdata = bpy.data.objects.new("ObjCurve", curvedata)
objectdata.location = (0,0,0) #object origin
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(objectdata)

polyline = curvedata.splines.new('POLY')
polyline.points.add(len(cList)-1)
for num in range(len(cList)):
    x, y, z = cList[num]
    polyline.points[num].co = (x, y, z, w)
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(location=(x, y, z), size=0.1)
    bpy.context.object.data.materials.append(point_mat)

Base on this blog post.


How to set parameters on objects position while animating? I'm trying to animate a gun reload, and I'm very new to blender and animation. When I try to rotate the gun in a certain way, the parts start to move everywhere when I animate them. What can I do to confine the parts to their respective areas relative to surrounding objects?

Don't try to animate every single part by itself, this would lead to the need of lots of adjustments (so-called "counter-animation"), wich should always be avoided.

Instead, you have to build a correct hierarchy over your spare parts, something like set the rifle butt parent of trigger, sight, stack, ....

Then you start animating the butt with the "big" movements, then animate the trigger relatively to the butt ....

In a professional environment you would build an armature, parent each part of the gun to a bone, you would have all bones child of a Master bone, you could have some automatized or pre-recorded sets of movements ....

Lot of things to learn... Enjoy!


Does Blender support the new AMD Vega M GL graphics card? If so, how must it be configured in order to work effectively? This is my very first post, so please forgive and correct me if I do something incorrectly. I recently purchased the new (as of May, 2018) Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 laptop which has the new Intel Core i7 8705G that has a dedicated/integrated AMD Vega M GL GPU. It is supposed to (according to benchmarks) perform in the ballpark between the GTX 1050 TI and the RX 470. When I select this GPU in the system tab of the user preferences, under the OpenCL section, I get nearly the same results (in terms of render times) when I select GPU or CPU from the render menu in the properties menu. Is there anything I am doing wrong? Also, I understand, as I am coming from a PC with a GTX 1070 that I have to adjust accordingly the Tile size in the Performance section of the render menu. What is curious to me, is that when I have it on CPU, I have to use tile sizes around 256 to 512 in order to get the best times! Which blows my mind because usually it would be 16 to 32 on a 7700K. The GPU using the same tile sizes as the CPU.

Thank you in advance to any help that I may receive.

P.S. The file that I have been using to run my tests is the AMD benchmark blend file found at http://download.amd.com/demo/RyzenGraphic_27.blend

Go to User Pref/System under Screencast switch none to OpenCL and choose you GC


Merging Edges In Blender I have two edges merging with each other. And I have to delete one edge. Pls tell me how to delete doubles

Blender 2.83: In edit mode, select both edges, then click mesh\clean up\merge by distance.  Keyboard shortcut is M > By Distance. In Blender 2.79, it was AltM.


Is it possible to speed up/slow down the preview playback of an animation in the Timeline? Using the Action Editor and in Pose Mode, I am editing the animation of my armature at 30 FPS. Maintaining that framerate, I would like a slower preview of my animation (like play at 50% normal speed)  in the Timeline when I press Alt+A. Is this possible? How can I achieve this?

You can use the Time Remapping. Since 2.8, go into Properties > Output > Dimensions > Time Remapping. Previously in Properties > Render > Dimensions:

It expresses the animation speed as a ratio of original speed / new speed, where the speed is expressed in frames. So to reduce the speed 50%, you can use 50/100, 1/2, 100/200 or any other ratio which reduces to 1/2, i.e. 1 frame for every 2 frames.

Note that while frames are used as the units, this setting will interpolate animations on subframes. Not all features support this, see Which animation features don't support sub-frames? for details.


How to universally rename something the same? Okay if you use UE4 you know very well it is a very difficult-to-use engine. I have now run into another issue. I was under the impression if the bones were in the right hierarchy, named proper, etc UE4 was happy with using that skeleton for whatever objects you have it rigged for. Turns out no. I was wondering if there is a way to universally rename these, all the same, without numbers being added? (This is what UE4 requires now)

Sadly, All game engines like Unity and Unreal need you to rename them properly because that is how it makes it easier for the engine and you to create your game. If you don't do so, in the long run, you will face more issues. So the answer to your question is unfortunately, no. And next time, don't use offensive language.


Objects not rotating with each other (Rubik's cube) I am animating a Rubik's cube, and as soon as I get to the second rotation the blocks that have previously been rotated start tripping out even though it should have been reset. I tried making the graph linear which fixed a lagging issue I had, but the blocks still start to spin instead of rotating around a single axis.

All the small cubes of the Rubik's cube need to have their origin on the exact same point and it needs to be on the middle of the Rubik's cube. Also, when you've rotated and keyframed a face and its 6 cubes, make sure that you've also keyframed all the other cubes even if they are still, otherwise they will interpolate between other keyframes you've created for them and you may not want that.


Select all Objects with "x" amount of Vertices So I have no Idea what I am doing lol I have been experimenting with a little bit of code to try and select all objects in the scene if they have "x" amount of vertices. I have a scene with 158 objects in it. About 70 of those objects have 4 or less vertices but they are all mashed in with the other objects. Other than selecting each individual object one by one, I was hoping to be able to select all the objects that have 4 or less by simply clicking "Run Script" Is this code even remotely close? lol
import bpy
import bmesh

vertCount = 4

if True:

    meshes = set(o.data for i in context.selected_objects
        if o.type == 'MESH')

bm = bmesh.new()

for m in meshes:
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'EDIT' )
        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh( bpy.context.object.data )
        if len(m.vertices) == vertCount
            m.select = True
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'OBJECT' )
        bm.clear()

    bm.free()
    bm.Select_Flush(True)

Select scene objects
Iterating over objects in the scene will keep the selection result is confined to only objects  type mesh in the scene.
An object can be active but not selected.
Prior to blender 2.8
import bpy

context = bpy.context

for o in context.scene.objects:
    o.select = (o.type == 'MESH' and len(o.data.vertices) <= 4)

in > 2.8
o.select_set(o.type == 'MESH' and len(o.data.vertices) <= 4)


Self standing objects I was trying to create a simple glass and use physics on it. Well my problem is, that it can not fall on side and it is still going back standing on bottom.

Does anybody know how to solve this? it looks like it has bottom heavy as block of concrete.

All you need to do is change the origin by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C > Origin to Center of Mass.

What is happening is the physical representation of the mesh is confused by the non-symmetrical mesh, it instead calculates it as if half of the mesh is below the origin, making it very bottom heavy.


Blender becomes very slow with large amount of objects sharing mesh data In my script I am importing a large amount of objects (+2500) but sharing the mesh data from one single primitive. While this has taken care of importing speed, it completely slows blender down. However when I import as individual primitives blender is very responsive even with + 2500 objects.

Why does blender slow down (frame rate, buttons, etc) when sharing mesh data blocks and is there anyway to aliviate this?

Code:

def create_mesh(name, radius, locat):
    #print (fList)

    # Create mesh and object
    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new('Sphere')
    mesh = bpy.data.meshes['Primary']
    obj = bpy.data.objects.new('Shpere', mesh)
    #obj.show_name = True
    obj.scale = (radius, radius, radius)
    obj.location = locat

    # Link object to scene and make active
    scn = bpy.context.scene
    scn.objects.link(obj)
    #scn.objects.active = obj
    #obj.select = True

    # Update mesh with new data
    mesh.update()

    return obj

You're sharing one object data (Primary) among +2500 objects, but with this line:

bpy.data.meshes.new('Sphere')

... you're also creating +2500 orphan mesh data. It's easy to add several MBs to Blender's memory usage (verifiable through System Monitor), just running that bit of code:

import bpy

for i in range(1, 2500):
    bpy.data.meshes.new('Sphere')

The orphaned obdatas won't be reclaimed until loading new scene or quitting (to see them, select a mesh object, click the dropdown button to the left of the obdata's name in Properties area's Object Data tab). For scenes large enough, in systems with low RAM, this could slow down the whole system.


Can I rotate multiple bones at once LOCALLY, without unparenting every single one? I'm currently having to rotate the bone rolls of my armature like this.

I have to rotate it the same way for all the arm bones, all the leg bones, etc.

In 3DSMax, you can select local rotation and rotate multiple bones at once, however, in Blender, this happens.

Does anyone know of a way to rotate these bones so I can switch their axis?

Thanks!

Pivot point: individual origins - it's the icon beside the shading selector and the 3d manipulator icon. Select individual Origins.


Good format for character mesh & animation export? I've been trying all sorts of different formats but I can't find a decent exporter for character animation from Blender 2.69 which exports mesh, UV wrapped texture info (doesn't have to include the texture), bone and animation information.

It seems that the FBX exporter may do animation, but I'm struggling to understand the format.  I'd be happy to write my own exporter (in fact, I have half an exporter now) but I can't find any good references on how to export animation data.  It seems the API has gone through some changes recently which might account for the lack of up-to-date information?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I've had marginal success with the DirectX exporter.

The DirectX format supports meshes, vertex normals, UV coordinates, simple materials, bones, bone animation, and multiple animations in the same file. I've been able to export game-ready models using this format and load them into other software with Assimp.

Unfortunately, the 'Coordinate System' and 'Up Axis' options give unexpected results, doing really strange things to the Matrix Transforms for each bone in an armature. In other words, your model may import sideways or mirrored.

Blender version 2.71 includes an updated FBX exporter (now exports to FBX v7.4 binary instead of v6.1). FBX also handles all of the above features, and is generally the format of choice when exporting animation to Unity. The drawback of FBX is that it is not yet supported by Assimp.


why is everything white when i try to paint mesh? I created a mesh and  unwrap it. Then i  go to texture paint mode and choose diffuse but everything is white and i cant paint anything.

Make sure you have a target texture for your paint information to go to.  You likely just need to add one (by clicking new texture in the UV/Image view) or choosing one (by click the texture dropdown in the UV/Image view).

I believe everything is white because that is your material diffuse color.


Given the local coordinates of a parented object, how do I get its global coordinates using the Python API? Here is my setup:

I have the default cube
I make a sphere and move it y+4 (now at 0,4,0)
I parent the sphere (child) to the cube (parent)
the sphere location is [0,4,0] in local coordinates. It's the same for global coordinates. (This is a simplified example.)

I want to programmatically get the sphere's coordinates in the global space.

Scouring the web, I have found the following general formula for getting global coordinates from local ones:

sphere.matrix_world * sphere.location

In the above example, if I plug that into the python console, it produces [0,8,0]. Why 8? It should be 4, no? Is this not the correct formula? If I make the example more complex (by rotating the cube, for example) I still get this 'doubling' effect. [0,3,0] becomes [0,6,0]. What is the correct python expression to get the correct global coordinates of the parented sphere?

The formula is

default_cube.matrix_world * sphere.matrix_basis

You can directly get the global coordinates (including constraints) of the sphere from

sphere.matrix_world.translation

See Object.matrix_basis, mathutils.Matrix


Reducing in mesh stretch at bone junction I'm new to Blender. I apologize in advance if the question is not clear, I will try to explain the problem as best as I can.

I have a mesh that represents a knocked-down box (think rigid, hard material) ans I'm trying to animate it into a folded box container. To do that I rigged my mesh as follow:

From a high-level overview, everything works fine. However, I notice that the stretch at the junction of the bone when folding 90 degree is too large.

This behavior causes undesirable hole in corner of the folded box because the stretching of the joint was too large.

How do I reduce this stretching.

File for reference:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5PLUki5PE9sWHRuQUJQT1F4M2s/view?usp=sharing

Bones heads here need to be placed on the exact place of the folding.

Here the bones and the box are not on the same plane. So when the bone rotates it stretches the box:

This is the main problem.

Make so all bones are well aligned with the wanted folds, in all directions.

When the bone is aligned:


Is gone the Handles of Curve tools in 2.8 version? I can't find Handles tool of Curves in Blender 2.8, Indeed, has it gone?

I have found, it is in the Control Points menu


Issue exporting animation with blend keys to FBX I'm working on a project where I have a character that has its eyelids controlled by blend keys. I'm trying to export the animation to FBX in order to then export it for various targets in our pipeline. I've been using an app from the mac app store called "FBX review" (from autodesk I believe) to test the exported file. I've had success exporting regular bone controlled animations but have never been able to get the eyelid animation.

I've been looking for an answer for a few days now and here are some things I have tried:

I've unchecked 'apply modifiers' in the geometry options of the export settings because it has a warning about preventing shape key export

I've tried exporting the file with the other version of FBX exporter that comes with blender

I've tried exporting with the 'baked animation' option on and off

Is exporting a blend key animation to FBX just not supported in blender? Really hoping I'm just doing something wrong here and someone has an answer.

The exporting option to support your blendshapes (infalible) is to export a .dae
On the panel options check "EXPORT SHAPE KEYS".
Voilá.

My sincere gratitude if you vote me as the answer.

ps: Yes, I also use Autodesk's FBx review. Normally (2016 FBX format) will BRING in all keyshapes in the model (works in Unity as well).

But a blast from the past with .DAE and go long!

BFCT_Schiller


Cycles: How can I make a plane both emmissive and transparent? I have the following situation:

I have a scene lighted by a "sun" lamp that gives me good sharp shadows. But I also want to have a large plane with an emissive material placed above the scene to regulate the "general" brightness. My problem is that while this plane does emit light the way I want it to, it also blocks the sun and casts a shadow on my scene. So I want it to both emit light, and by invisible to the rays of the sun. How can I achieve this?

Go in the Properties panel > Object > Cycles Settings, and disable Camera and Shadow. And if you don't want to see it in Solid mode either, go in the Properties panel > Object > Display > Maximum Draw Type > Wire.


How to set the parameters of a texture present in the shader editor to the rhythm of music I wish I could create a texture that comes alive by lighting up and distorting to the rhythm of a song of my choice; for example by connecting parameters relating to the scale, rotations or precisely the emission intensity.
I have already created possible texture animations. Since background music is planned, I wanted to find a way to synchronize the animations in time with the music as if they were low or high pulses.

You can import the song in the VSE window, create an empty, create a single keyframe (i.e. loc at frame 1), in the graph editor select the keyframe and go to the menu "key - bake sound to f-curves".

Then you can add a driver to any parameter of the shader, pointing to the empty X loc (world related)  and have it following the music, tweaking the values in the dirvers formula.

If you want to separate low frequencies and high, you can create two audio files, one with a low pass EQ (below 160 Hz) and one with an Hi pass EQ (maybe above 2KHz), and repeat the process for every desired EQ band.


Convert scene to wireframe (texture glitch) I have a large scene with ~500 objects and I want to turn it into wireframe so I can assign blue emission shader and have sci-fi looking scene like this ground here:

How can I achieve that if I have ~500 induvidual objects
Allso notice how in this Image you can't see the wireframe through objects, this is what I want to do.
I can try aplying black material to everything but how can I render it showing both wireframe and black material?

STATUS UPDATE:

I folowed the instructions from materials you linked me and asigned black material to all objects, duplicated everything and changed the material of the coppy to wireframe. When I go to rendered wiew it seems to look just fine:

But when I try to render it it appears glitchy and half transparent:

Wire frame is a mix of transparent and emission with factor of wireframe if it helps...

You could use Freestyle.

In edit mode , CtrlE > Edge Data, mark all edges Freestyle
Enable Freestyle in the Render settings, setting line width here, if you like
In Scene settings, modify the Freestyle Line Set, including only Visible
and Marked Edges, and set the color you want.
Give all your objects and the World a black material, (no lights necessary)


Blender keeps Crashing on Chromebook I have a chromebook that I installed crouton on (for those who don't know it just turns Chrome OS into a normal Linux System) and I tried using blender on it and it crashes after a few seconds even if I don't do anything.  I know this is likely due to the chromebook having a seriously weak processor but is there any way I can make blender less intensive so I can at least edit projects at all? Keep in mind I'm not asking to render that would be pure madness on that CPU.

The slow processor will just cause blender to take longer to do things. It is more likely that the 2 or 4GB of RAM that most chromebooks have that would be the limiting factor, or opengl support.

You could try deleting (or moving temporarily) the addons folder, to see if the ram used by loading the addons helps.

If you start blender from a terminal you should see some indication of why it is crashing which might help.

To alter the resources needed to run blender you will need to compile a version yourself, there are some opengl options that may help, but in general I don't think there you will get any benefits if it can't startup, unless the issue is missing or incorrect library versions.


Export multiple .MDD at once? I have 97 MDD files created from different meshes (armature deformed, cloth deformed etc). Is there a way to select multiple meshes and export them as individual MDD files?
I have seen that there's another post which provides an add-on to export selected objects to FBX, but unfortunately I do not have the skills adapting it to work for MDD files: Exporting multiple meshes individually at once
My progress so far: I've found someone trying to export multiple MDD at once on another forum, and it seems that there's a Python command line to export a MDD: bpy.ops.export_shape.mdd(fps=24, frame_start=1, frame_end=250). Also, there's a python template for Batch exporting:
import bpy
import os

# export to blend file location
basedir = os.path.dirname(bpy.data.filepath)

if not basedir:
    raise Exception("Blend file is not saved")

view_layer = bpy.context.view_layer

obj_active = view_layer.objects.active
selection = bpy.context.selected_objects

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

for obj in selection:

    obj.select_set(True)

    # some exporters only use the active object
    view_layer.objects.active = obj

    name = bpy.path.clean_name(obj.name)
    fn = os.path.join(basedir, name)

    bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath=fn + ".fbx", use_selection=True)

    # Can be used for multiple formats
    # bpy.ops.export_scene.x3d(filepath=fn + ".x3d", use_selection=True)

    obj.select_set(False)

    print("written:", fn)

view_layer.objects.active = obj_active

for obj in selection:
    obj.select_set(True)

How can I export multiple .MDD files ?

Addon based on this answer, adapted to export all objects in selection to single .mdd files. Make sure 'NewTekk MDD format' add-on is enabled and install the add-on as usual:

batch_mdd_export.py
# ##### BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####
#
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
#  modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
#  as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
#  of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#  GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
#  Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
#
# ##### END GPL LICENSE BLOCK #####
# <pep8 compliant>

bl_info = {
    "name": "Batch export MDD files",
    "author": "brockmann",
    "version": (0, 1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "File > Import-Export",
    "description": "Batch Export Objects in Selection to MDD",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "tracker_url": "",
    "category": "Import-Export"}

import bpy
import os

from bpy_extras.io_utils import ExportHelper

from bpy.props import (BoolProperty,
                       FloatProperty,
                       IntProperty,
                       StringProperty,
                       EnumProperty,
                       CollectionProperty
                       )

class Batch_MDD_Export(bpy.types.Operator, ExportHelper):
    """Batch export objects to fbx files"""
    bl_idname = "export_scene.batch_mdd"
    bl_label = "Batch export MDD"
    bl_options = {'PRESET', 'UNDO'}

    # ExportHelper mixin class uses this
    filename_ext = ".mdd"

    filter_glob : StringProperty(
            default="*.mdd",
            options={'HIDDEN'},
            )

    # List of operator properties, the attributes will be assigned
    # to the class instance from the operator setting before calling.

    # Context group
    use_selection_setting: BoolProperty(
            name="Selection Only",
            description="Export selected objects only",
            default=True,
            )

    use_rest_frame: BoolProperty(
            name="Use Rest Frame",
            description="ToDo",
            default=False,
            )

    frames_per_second: FloatProperty(
            name="FPS",
            description="ToDo",
            min=1, max=60,
            default=25,
            )

    frame_start: IntProperty(
            name="Frame Start",
            description="ToDo",
            default=1,
            )

    frame_end: IntProperty(
            name="Frame End",
            description="ToDo",
            default=250,
            )

    def execute(self, context):

        # get the folder
        folder_path = os.path.dirname(self.filepath)

        # get objects selected in the viewport
        viewport_selection = context.selected_objects

        # get export objects
        obj_export_list = viewport_selection
        if self.use_selection_setting == False:
            obj_export_list = [i for i in context.scene.objects]

        # deselect all objects
        bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

        for item in obj_export_list:
            item.select_set(True)
            if item.type == 'MESH':
                context.view_layer.objects.active = item # Set active object
                file_path = os.path.join(folder_path, "{}.mdd".format(item.name))

                # MDD settings
                bpy.ops.export_shape.mdd(
                        filepath=file_path,
                        fps=self.frames_per_second,
                        frame_start=self.frame_start,
                        frame_end=self.frame_end
                        )

            item.select_set(False)

        # restore viewport selection
        for ob in viewport_selection:
            ob.select_set(True)

        return {'FINISHED'}

# Only needed if you want to add into a dynamic menu
def menu_func_import(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(Batch_MDD_Export.bl_idname, text="MDD Batch Export (.mdd)")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(Batch_MDD_Export)
    bpy.types.TOPBAR_MT_file_export.append(menu_func_import)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(Batch_MDD_Export)
    bpy.types.TOPBAR_MT_file_export.remove(menu_func_import)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    #bpy.ops.export_scene.batch_mdd('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

I added all possible arguments of the 'lightwave point cache' operator export_shape.mdd(), see line 117. You can change them or add new properties to the operator, wasn't sure.


Seeing an outdoor scene in the reflections of my objects while in "material preview" mode but not in "rendered" mode? When I view my object in "material preview" is looks like this:

But when viewed in "rendered" mode it looks like normal glass:

How do I get rid of this outdoor scene reflection? I never added it myself so I'm not sure where it came from. New to Blender so sorry if this is a dumb question lol

Material preview uses a hidden HDRI to provide lighting and reflections. If you want your own lighting in Material Preview, click the little down arrow next to the preview mode "circles" to open the Viewport Shading options menu, and check "scene lights" and "scene world".
Material preview also uses a renderer much the same as EEVEE to allow for fast previews of your materials, however you are using Cycles for your main render. Things such as transparency are handled differently in this mode, hence why your glass looks "strange".


How do I just move the nose in, not squash it? I don't know how to delete my last question, so I'm just making a new one.

I'm making a mouth and nose. All I want to do is move the nose in a bit, but this happens:

How do I not deform the nose (under the mirror modifier) while moving it in?

Disable Clipping in Mirror modifier. This will prevent vertices from cliping in the middle. After editing the nose, enable it back, cause it ensures middle vertices to be joined after applying the modifier.


Can I merge different edges I have a lot of edges (pictured below) and, I want to merge them all together (which in turn would create extra vertices). Is there a way to merge all of these edges?

Based on the comments and the question i take it that you want to close the bottom area of the object and at the same time reduce the number of vertices to a minimum.

In that regard, i would do the following:

Go in edit mode -> edge selection
Select the edges that go along the long side ending at each side at
the n-gon
Press X and Delete the Edges
Now switch to vertex selection
Select the vertices at each side at the bottom edge of the n-gon, where the previously deleted edges were connected.
Press X and Dissolve Vertices
Now the left over edges can be used to create faces along the bottom area by selecting two edges and pressing F to fill the area between those.

All this sounds stretched and long, but once you know the steps it's done in a jiffy.

Here a little visual of the procedure:

I didn't go through all faces at the end, as it is just rinse and repeat.

A tip at the end, i would suggest to use the "F2"-add-on, that comes with Blender:

Makes it easier and faster while modeling.

Happy Blending


unchangeable properties of new meshes i have been using blender 2.8 for a couple of months but now i am stuck with a problem. I cant alter the properties of a new mesh in object mode. i need to reduce the vertices of a sphere but the properties are kind of frozen. please help!

Maybe check in the Preferences > System > Memory & Limits, you need to activate the Global Undo option (but you need to recreate your object).


Select random faces but no adjacent faces If I execute "Select random faces", even if I set the selection ratio lower than I want, I can still see adjacent selected faces. Is there a way to make selected faces not adjacent (no shared vertices), other than manually deselecting such faces?

Another bmesh script

Similarly to @gorgeous
import bpy
import bmesh
from random import choice

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

ratio = 0.5
for f in bm.faces:
    f.select_set(False)

faces = set(bm.faces)
chosen = 0

while faces and (chosen / len(bm.faces)) < ratio:
    face = choice(list(faces))
    face.select_set(True)
    faces -= set(f for v in face.verts for f in v.link_faces)
    chosen += 1

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)


How do I remove overlapping faces? I've tried to select all, remove faces, invert from another post etc... however my faces still overlap. It's one mesh, here's a photo. The overlapping is very apparent where the objects intersect.

Your topology is not good, for example when you cross two parallelepipeds you don't just duplicate one and rotate it 90°, you need to create edge loops, extrude or bridge, etc... so that faces don't overlap. Also try to work with quads.

Note that in some cases it's ok to just intersect meshes (for example if the pieces don't need to appear welded).


Blender VSE track/clip increase waveform height I want to create an animation based on audio, so seeing the waveform is helpful.

How can I increase the vertical size of an audio clip in the timeline without increasing the size of the timeline itself?

I get this:

I want this (without having to fullscreen the VSE):

Hold the Ctrl Key and middle mouse button and move the mouse up to zoom in.


How to create a visible material that does not emit or reflect light? I need to make a plane in the background that is independent of any lighting in the scene. This means that it does not emit light, and it does not reflect light, but it is visible. It is so I can create a green screen.

For Blender Internal, on your material, check Shadeless.

edit:

If you're using Cycles, open your material in the node editor, and set up this for a green screen:
Basically this tells the material to only interact with the camera, and no other rays.


Is there a bounding boxes for particle system objects? Is there a way to show bounding boxes for particle system objects and find their min/max coords?

Not sure if their are bounding boxes for Particle systems but one way to create bounding boxes is by assigning the "Collision" property to a 3d Object like a Cube containing the Particle system and then treat it as a bounding box.
The below simulation is done by using a Wind Force field and using icospheres objects for Particle System under Newtonian Physics. The bounding Box -Cube in this case is provided the collision property under the Physics tab and its Z-tranperncy alpha (under material) is set to "0".

However,inorder to show the limits of the Bounding Cube ,if a wireframe modifier is used the collision property no longer applies and there is no bounding.


Is it possible to export shape keys to c4d pose morph? I try to export a model with shapekeys (a ManuelBastioni character), in order to import it in c4d. Is there a way to transfer these data to the equivalent in c4d (posemorph tag) ?
I'm almost sure I've already done that, but I can't remember anymore how...

Thx,

J

Ok, I managed how to do it :
In the blender fbx export options, "apply modifiers" must be unchecked :

Import fbxinto c4d, and so are the blender's shape keys converted to c4d's pose morph :


How to create a cage for baking? I have various problems with baking, especially normal maps. I heard it's better to have a cage, but how do I create a cage?

Here is a picture of how it looks.

From polycount wiki:

Most normal map baking tools allow you to use a distance-based raycast. A ray is sent outwards along each vertex normal, then at the distance you set a ray is cast back inwards. Where ever that ray intersects the high poly mesh, it will sample the normals from it.
Unfortunately with a distance-based raycast, split vertex normals will cause the bake to miss parts of the high-res mesh, causing errors and seams.

Some software allows you to use cage mesh option instead, which basically inflates a copy of the low-poly mesh, then raycasts inwards from each vertex. This ballooned-out mesh is the cage.

So the Cage mesh is a low-poly mesh defining how far will be the rays cast. Its good for fine control, but usually you can get away with just properly set Ray Distance in the Baking panel and having smooth shading.


Need help with Rigify in Blender v2.83 not working Working on a personal project for my class assignment. Set up a Metahuman on my mesh but got below error when I went to Rigify?! This was a stock/default Metahuman from Blender so I can't imagine why it would have an error in generating the rig? Please help as this project is due. Thank you so much!
Per request error reads: RIGIFY ERROR: Bone 'spine.004': Cannot correct chain - bone position is disjoint. Incorrect armature for type 'chain_rigs'.

This error happens when you have moved "spine.004". That's the 1st bone of the neck (counting from the bottom). This bone is "loose" and can be moved around. But, to generate the rig it must stay exactly on the chest spine "spine.003".
You can move it back with the help of the 3D Cursor. Move the cursor to the spine's bone (spine.003, the big one). In Edit mode, press SHIFT + S, choose Cursor to Selected. Then select spine.004, press SHIFT + S, and choose Selection to Cursor. That's it.


Drag and drop multiple files in the VSE? Is there a way to drag and drop multiple video files in the VSE at once?

Not by dragging directly form the OS (at least in Windows).

But you can import several video files simultaneously by selecting them on the file browser window.

Press ShiftA to add a video track.

On the file browser window use Shift to select more than one file manually

A to select all.

B to drag-select.

All the selected files will be imported sequencially on a single time line:


Backwards normal issues I have a 3D model of a car and some of the normal are wrong.

I can not seem to fix them easily. It is a high poly model so individualy selecting the faces and fixing them is out of the question. I have recalculated the normals about 5 times but still it's not working.

If recalculating the normals via ctrl-n or shift-ctrl-n, on individual linked pieces, doesn't work correctly, you have bigger problems than discontiguous normals.  You probably have geometry that is non-manifold in other ways-- zero length edges, doubles, edges joining more than 2 faces, etc.  Use ctrl-shift-alt-m in edit/vertex mode, disable non-contiguous on the operator panel, and start cleaning up your mesh.


how does FBX exporter mark hard edges? When I export FBX with default settings, I mean 'Smoothing' option on 'Geometry' tab, which by default reads 'Normals Only', this setup makes the whole mesh smooth-shaded and marks certain edges sharp.

When I change this option to 'Faces', I receive unmodified mesh.

Both meshes are identical visually, but first one, smoothed, has less vertices count because of that smoothing.

I tried looking at the code, but it is very complicated for me. The only thing that I understood, that 'Normals Only' represents switched off smoothing in exporter, so it appears to do nothing with smoothing, when this option is selected.

But exporter uses some mesh functions like calc_normals_split.

How this exporter does this thing with edges? What is that magic function?

To summarize, FBX supports two kinds of smoothing:

Smooth groups (inherited from 3DMax), i.e. groups of faces that have smooth edges inside, and sharp edges on their boundaries.
Normals per vertex per face (aka split normals in Blender), where the whole mesh is set smooth, but shading of each face is influenced by its vertex (or corner) normals - two faces sharing a common edge which vertices have different normals will show a sharp edge (if shader system of target supports it of course).


Making a Voronoi Texture affect where an image texture is placed on a model? I have made a simple rock object. I have added bump map, SPEC map and the diffuse texture. I want to make the rock's texture have variation in its texture. I want to add a voronoi texture that will affect what areas of the model will have the image diffuse texture, and the other parts of the model, I want to be in different saturation. Therefore I want variation in the image texture. So some areas are lighter and more saturated, and the other areas have the diffuse color of the image texture.

Here is my node setup.

I want to make this, because it will add more variations to the texture of the model.

You can add a Color > Hue Saturation Value node and plug the voronoi texture into the Saturation socket.  Values on the voronoi texture closer to 1 will make those areas of the diffuse texture closer to the original saturation, values closer to 0 will be more saturated.

You can add a Color Ramp node after the Voronoi texture to have better control.


What is the fastest way to add vertices to a curve at a specific point? For example, in inkscape you can double click to add a new control vertex:

Is there a way to do that in Blender?

The closest thing I have found so far is CtrlLMB, but it just adds an unconnected vertex under the cursor.

Is there a way to add a connected vertex at a specific point along the curve, preferably without deforming the curve?

You can script this functionality with python and install it as an addon.
I have created such a script. Many thanks to Andrew Yang, who updated it to work with Blender 2.8x
Curve Edit Tools
Github download link
To use the addon, press I in the edit mode of a curve. You'll be prompted into a modal operation where you can slide a new control point along the curve.

The original answer is below, it doesn't cover all the features of the current addon, even the point sampling will be replaced soon. The revision history shows the old addon for 2.7x.

The first step is to import some moduls.

bpy Interaction with Blenders data and operations
bgl Blenders OpenGl wrapper
blf Module for font drawing
numpy as np Matrix handling, used for mathematical vector operations
mathutils Use to create the mathutils.Vector

Create a Bezier class
A cubic bezier is a very simple mathematical construct.
It needs four points.
0:   first control point.
1:   first handle (right_handle)
2:   second handle (left_handle of second point)
3:   second control point

The Casteljau algorithm illustrates how points on the curve are found. The formula takes a t in [0; 1].

To split the curve at a specific t, we can use the method from this answer. Since we use numpy, we can use the points as points.
class CubicBezier(object):
    def __init__(self, points):
        self.points = np.array(points).astype(np.float32)

    def at(self, t):
        pt =  1 *        (1 - t)**3 * self.points[0]
        pt += 3 * t**1 * (1 - t)**2 * self.points[1]
        pt += 3 * t**2 * (1 - t)**1 * self.points[2]
        pt += 1 * t**3              * self.points[3]
        return pt

    def split(self, t):
        p1, p2, p3, p4 = self.points

        p12 = (p2-p1)*t+p1
        p23 = (p3-p2)*t+p2
        p34 = (p4-p3)*t+p3
        p123 = (p23-p12)*t+p12
        p234 = (p34-p23)*t+p23
        p1234 = (p234-p123)*t+p123

        return [p1,p12,p123,p1234,p234,p34,p4]

Next, we need to sample the point closest to the mouse position. Using this algorithm, pick discrete samples and convert them into the 2d region

Thats basically everything from the maths side, now just wrap it in a modal operator.
Here is an example of a modal operator drawing in the 3D View.


I'm trying to install this add-on: blender_mmd_tools I'm trying to install this add-on: blender_mmd_tools.
I go to File/User Preferences/addons, then I click "Install add-on", but when I look to enable the add-on, it doesn't appear on the add-on list. I've already gone into scripts/addons folder, and I see the add-on in the folder, but I can't find it on the list in user preferences to enable it. How do I enable the add-on if I can't find it in the list?

Installable.

1) Unzip the blender_mmd_tools-master.zip file you downloaded

2) Open the folder containing your Blender.app

3) Right-click Blender.app and select "Show Package Contents"

4) Then open the "Contents" folder, followed by "Resources", then "2.76" (or whatever version of Blender you may have), then "scripts", and finally open the "addons" folder

5) Now inside the "addons" folder, you want to copy and paste the "mmd_tools" folder that was unzipped from inside the blender_mmd_tools-master.zip file

6) Now open (or restart) the Blender app and go to the User Preferences and search mmd_tools and check to use the add-on and "Save User Settings"

7) Now go back to 3D view and it should be a new tab called mmd_tools

Have fun!


Is it possible to continue baking Rigid Body Physics In Blender, I already baked Rigid Body Physics for about 200 frames. Is it possible to continue baking, or do I need to Free Bake or Free all Bakes and start all over again?

What you should be able to do is 'Free Bake' but leave the baked frames in the memory cache (the frames in the timeline should switch to being marked in lighter orange instead of dark orange). Then play your animation (without changing anything about the objects which were previously baked) and Blender should play the 'cached' frames and then continue the animation from the point where the baked frames stopped. Once Blender has completed the simulation up to the new end point then click Current Cache to Bake to convert the cached frames back to a baked animation - without re-simulating.

Note, however, that you have to be very careful not to change anything about the animated objects - otherwise Blender will discard the cache and start afresh when you 'play' the animation, losing your bake. You should ensure that everything about your project (including the baked cache files) is backed up before you try this so as to not risk losing your previous bake if something goes wrong.


How to render video with sound? (VSE has audio) I am having an issue where my audio is not being included with my final video file. Online it says to make sure there is an audio codec. So I have selected MP3 with my MPEG-4 video encoding. Still, it won't render with sound. The sound in the VSE is perfect.

What seems to be the issue? How do I render video with sound?

If it helps to know, I selected 9 FPS for the frames per second. This has not affected the VSE audio/video sync, so I would think that's okay.

.blend file

I don't know why, but in your blend file (instead of screenshot) audio codec haven't selected . When I select it, everything is fine. Doublecheck this.


Render farm: is "pack all" all I need or should I do something more? I need to send scenes to a render farm, and I know there's an option called "pack all" which saves all the external data into the .blend file.

But is that enough? I was reading about cache files, and I don't know if that's included, or if I have to do something more.

For a simple example, what you suggest should, for the most part, be good.

I'd also like to add the following:

Select Make Paths Relative in case someone wants to unpack the .blend file at a different location.
Double check your output directory.  Does it need to be set to a relative path? Does that path actually exist?
If you're learning in this environment, it's good to test out your render by only rendering the first few frames with a low sample rate and smaller image size so you can get quick feedback in case something goes wrong.
The bvh_* cache files can become quite large.  If your home directory has a small quota, and you have a scratch environment or another drive you can dump them on, then the solution seems to be to remove the cache folder and link it to that other space.

On *nix systems, the cache folder is:
 ~/.config/blender/<blenderversion>/cache

On Mac, the cache folder is:
~/Library/Application Support/Blender/<blenderversion>/cache

On Windows, I'm not so sure, and I don't know how it changes from one version to the next.

You might want to read through this Blender Stack Exchange entry as well:
How can I change the directory used to cache BVM


my baked texture doent match the real time texture i made a 3d model of a gun and now i want to involve it in an animation and for that i want to bake the texture , so i tried to do a combined bake for a part of my gun
Here's the picture before bake

the bake after applying baked texture

it is clearly visible that the baked texture has something off that is making the gun look darker , i have directly applied the image texture as the surface and applying it as base color and emission color doesn't work.How should i solve this problem

I got it myself , i plugged the baked texture into the emission of the principled shader to solve the problem instead of emission node


How do I make a square hole in a cube, and then save it as one mesh? I need to design a thick slit, in which i will place a lever, kind of like a large power switch that mad scientists have. I was wondering how to make the slit, and save as one mesh. Would really help if someone could tell me how to make the lever as well.

In edit mode, select the top face of your cube.
Press I and resize the new face till it is the size you need.
Press E to extrude the hole inward.
Press Delete or X and choose Faces to delete the bottom face of your hole.


Blender for the chemical structure visualization I'm wondering how well Blender is suited for producing images from existing 2D (CDX, SMILES etc.) or 3D (PDB, XYZ, CIF etc.) chemical structures. Basically, the task is to convert a set of coordinates to a finite (e.g. a molecule) or a subset of infinite (e.g. a unit cell) graphical representation. Ideally it would be nice if a certain level of "chemistry awareness" would be present, such as typical interatomic distances, coordination numbers, atomic and ionic radii.

Is there an addon that can help chemists to use blender for their routine work?

There is a related question about crystal structure generation with Blender. I'm assuming that structure is already established.

I'm very confident you can achieve what you want using Blender. Searching the web for "Blender for chemistry" gives you a number of hits including video tutorials and images what others did. Maybe this blog post is interesting for you:

https://patrickfuller.github.io/molecules-from-smiles-molfiles-in-blender/

Furthermore I found an addon for PDB import/export:

https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/PDB


Error exporting animation as GLTF file I have made a very basic animation in Blender (2.79) and I am trying to export it as a GLTF or GLB. I have succesfully installed the gltf exporter and am able to export both gltfs and glbs of unanimated models no problem.

As soon as I add animation and try to export however, I get the following error message

The animation is as about as simple as it could be, I'm just experimenting. Its just the default box that changes location and rotation across 3/4 keyframes.

I am new to Blender so perhaps I am missing a step but my process is as follows: Add box to the scene, add keyframes (LocRot), go to export as I would with a static object, this has the following (default) settings.

I have tried clicking Pushdown on the action sheet as I have seen suggested somewhere but it makes no difference.

Am I missing something? Please let me know if you need any more info in order to advise, I'm happy to share the file or whatever might help.

Thanks for any help,

Here's how I got it to work:

1) Upgrade to the latest Blender 2.8.1

2) Go to export panel:

Export -> glTF -> Presets

3) Set the options:

Transform -> +Y Up
Animations -> Always sample animations

4) Test your exported animation in a viewer:

https://gltf-viewer.donmccurdy.com/


How to find objects without UVs? I have a scene with hundreds of objects and even if I started by unwrapping multiple objects groups at once and packed them in the same tiles, sometimes there are parts that I fail to select.
Is there a way to identify or select the objects left without UV?
Ideally I'd look for a filter in Outliner but I don't see it. Blender 2.8

Ben Morrison offered this solution (specific to blender2.80) for selecting objects that don't have UV here. If you know other solutions not involving scripts I'd like to know them.

import bpy

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
mesh_objects = [o for o in bpy.context.scene.objects if o.type == 'MESH']
for o in mesh_objects:
    if not o.data.uv_layers:
        o.select_set(True)


Material Preview dosen't show textures but Render Preview does I don't know which button I clicked but the Material Preview is of the model is completely black, the funny thing is that when switching to Rendered Preview everything is how it's should...
EDIT: I checked the normals and everything is fine in that area

you have not packed materials that you are using for your project please pack those files in blend file by clicking on file-> external data -> pack all into blends
then save your file and upload it so i can maybe help you


Imported OBJ doesn't seem to render correct in object mode i'm very new to Blender so keep in mind that this could completely be my fault ;).

What am I doing wrong, i can't seem to fix this problem. To me it looks like it is a rendering problem, and not a model issue.

I'm using blender on a macbook pro 2016, blender version 2.79b.

It seems to me that it is like a clipping issue here:

Where can the viewport clipping parameters be changed?

But, for me it's more about scale. Normaly, objects fits in default clipping settings, but your is so huge! So I suggest you this:

Select all the staff, (it's looks like it is already selected) when press S,0,.,0,0,1,Enterto make it 100 times smaller (or even more if you want).
When apply scale by pressing Ctrl+A -> Scale

Unfortunately import OBJ does not have scale option


Trying to make object look like metal doesn't work I followed a tutorial on how to make something look like metal, it worked in the video and seems to have worked for everyone in the comments. For me it looks like this even tho I have checked that everything is the same as in the video. What did I do wrong?
Also I'm wondering what the little piece of white is in the eye.
Tutorial I used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtVYCMNvykg

To get the effect like in the video, you have to do a few things. Firstly, arrange your nodes like I have them in the image below. You can play with the values to tweak it if you want. Secondly, the metal look in the image is the result of smooth shading and the reflection of an area light. You can see in the image, I added a square area light above the monkey, and smoothed the monkey itself by using a subdivision surface set on 2 subdivisions (ctrl+2 with monkey selected), and applying smooth shading from the right click menu. To get a basic metal look, see the settings below:

However, I see from the video that the look you're aiming to achieve is chrome, which would be better suited by this setup. Play with the ColorRamp values (even switch their positions) to change the tint - you can make it either light or dark.

You can change the color of the glossy to change the color of the object including the metallic tint. Note I accidentally connected the fresnel output of the layer weight instead of the facing output, however, you can try both and see what gives you results you like better.


Making the "ruler" go along a perfectly straight line? I am trying to figure out how I can use the Ruler in Blender as a straight line. What I mean, is that every time I use the ruler, I can never make it a perfectly straight line. The picture below shows:

Is there any way to make the ruler go along a straight line, just as how the knife tool is able to go along a straight line, when I press "C". The picture below shows the demonstration.

The work around would be to :

Press Tab
to Edit go into mode
Hit  N  to open the navigation panel in the 3d viewport
Go to "Mesh Display" section
Turn on Edge info : "Length"

What I usually do is to quickly duplicate a vertex and extrude it to make
an edge. Move the vertex while holding on to CTRL  will move your vertex while
using snap. Make sure your snap tool is set to snap to vertex, closest and also
turn on snap to self. The edge would have the distance displayed between the 2 vertex with the above options turned on.

This way it makes the ruler tool quite obsolete for measuring straight / linear
distances.


Is there any way to set pixel values of background to 0 when rendering? I want to set bg pixel values to 0 (black) but when I change the color of world, the pixel values of bg become more than 1 due to lights. When disabling lights, rendered image gets plain black image including my object. I am using blender 2.8.
Is there any way to set pixel values of background to 0 when rendering?
EDIT
I'm not using any effect on the world.
The rendered image background looks plain black but when checking it with python, it's not.

Here's the rounded 1s distribution. the white pixels were 1s.

As @no-can-do mentioned in the comments, you would have to go in the world part of the shader editor.
If you want to keep your environment light you can use a setting like the following.
"Is camera ray" will drive the background color.
If it is a ray from the camera (rendered), the value is 1 and the "mix color" will give black.
If it is not the value is 0, the ray will be from the texture and will light the scene.

Note: if you're not using accurate texture format (openEXR), you may have rounded RGB values (i.e: 0.000something becomes 1).


Boolean difference removing wrong geometry I am trying to subtract a shallow bowl-like shape from this basic trough. The subtraction should only serve to round out the top.

When I enable the modifier it deletes the internal geometry of the trough even though none of it is intersecting with the cutter.

I have enabled backface culling to show the removal of the internal geometry.

I have checked normals, manifoldness, and made sure that I don't have any colinear plains. any help would be appreciated.

Edit: added picture of the cutter.

I ended up finding that changing the offset on my solidify modifier fixed the problem. I am still not sure why this happened but that is my fix.


Ambient Occlusion Bake Too Dark On Some Meshes on Blender 2.8 I'm new to Blender (2.8) and I'm having issues with baking an ambient occlusion texture onto my UV map.  I'm trying to get an even shade baked across my entire UV map for when I color it.  However, after baking the Ambient Occlusion, certain islands on my UV map are almost completely blackened (the outside of the hat and hair mesh islands in particular).  Why is this happening, and how can I fix the bake such that the ambient occlusion is spread evenly?

Thank you for any insight you can give.

The normals are inverted for those portions of the mesh so it's trying to light it inside out. You just need to view the problem parts, select linked and then flip normals.
The new Blender 2.80 quickest way to indicate which way the normals are pointing is in the Viewport Overlays popover (top right of viewport) - toggle option that says 'Face Orientation'.


I am having issues with the pivot constraint I am making a steam shovel model and trying to do a simple rig with no bones. I threw on a pivot constraint so that I could move the main arm and still have it rotate around an axis. It works great, but now when I try to move the whole machine (ie. turn it on the z-axis), it goes kind of crazy. Here are some pictures to show what I mean:

Note that I have "Always" selected for the "Pivot When:" option. I tried changing this to just the Y-axis to no avail, so that is not the answer. For those curious, here is the .blend file

It is a Loop Dependency. You can't make a children object parent father of is father.
A constraint look like a parent in Blender, so you have to make some parents organization in your file.

Arm Rotation is Father of Shovel.
But, Arm Rotation is in the Pivot constraint of Shovel, so, it's child of Shovel.

This parenting are avoid, you have to use bones and armature to simplify.


Face/Edge loop selection precision When I use face/edge loop selection,every now and then the selection goes off in the wrong direction. See image below. I was trying to select vertical face loops only, but a horizontal one got selected. This causes me to Ctrl+Z every time this happens  and retry and this ends up being very frustrating when doing precision work. Any idea how to avoid this?

It all depends on where you click. Click on the edge that is perpendicular to the direction you want to select. As you can see, if you click closer to the middle of a face, Blender will go with whichever edge it is closer to, so you will get "random" directions.


What's the shortcut for mesh menu? I'm referring this menu:

It's weird that Face, Edge, Vertex and even Add menu all have their own shortcuts, but Mesh doesn't have one. I searched "Mesh" in preference, but even weirder yet, that "Mesh" there is actually "Add" menu.

If you are referring to selecting a vert, edge, or face (by way of the 1, 2, or 3 keys respectively), the key you would use for selecting the entire mesh is l (short for "linked"). This will select the entire mesh that is connected to whatever your mouse is hovering over.


how to find close points between two values in animation nodes I'm trying to make some splines and I found  "find close points" node but the problem  is it has just one value : max distance , but how can I make edges between two values min and max? or in general how to get some objects from a list based on their properties?

You can create mask for filtering edges by finding intersection of Min and Max distances.