Why is this simple primitive shaded so weirdly? I made sure everything is quads , I've checked the normals, I've unmade and remade all the faces, no luck. Why is the shading still so weird?

All I did to create it before I started trying to fix this was make a circle and reduce it to 3 sides to make a triangle, then extrude it along the z axis, and fill the top and bottom off with faces.

You appear to have the mesh set to Smooth shading. This will attempt to generate consistent normals around the edges and vertices to blend in with the adjacent geometry. Set the shading to 'Flat' and each face will have consistent shading (with hard edges).


Example for creating and rotating of a mathematical function in a script I want to make a body by rotating of this function in a script:
Function
X equation
(ln( ((v*pi)/1)-(pi/2) ) *(1/pi)+3)*sin(u)
Y equation
(ln( ((v*pi)/1)-(pi/2) )*(1/pi)+3)*cos(u)
Z equation
v
Are there any examples how I can do this?

Your Animation Nodes Node Setup would look like this:

Basically it takes a generated grid mesh and deforms it with your functions to your 3D object which also gets constructed at the end. I used Math Nodes everywhere, but if you find out how you could use expressions or phython scripts to do that. The problem which I faced with expressions was the type being a list. Math Nodes handle that automatically so you dont have to worry about that. The generated Object would look like this:


Masking geometry without breaking constraints/parents It is common to use simple geometry for physics simulations, and then parent more advanced geometry to it to be rendered. Normally this simple geometry is on another layer. However, I have a case where the simmed geometry is on the main render layer and part of an object that needs to be rendered (because it's all one piece brought in with a mesh cache.) Separating any verts out isn't an option as it would break the cache.

I need to mask out some of this geometry, but I have empties parented to it and bones constrained to it as part of my rig. If I use the mask modifier, these break as the vertices are missing. I can put a transparent shader on it, but this still costs render time and produces artifacts at intersection.

Is there any other way I can get these verts to not render?

If you are using cycle ...

You can turn off certain types of ray visibility for individual objects and the camera will ignore them.

NOTE
If this question is more complex than it seems I advice you to upload more images and even a portion of the .blend file so someone could download and dissect the problem.


Masking in different scenes I am a bit confused how to manage my problem.
I have got a setup of a building site with several cameras and about 150 objects. Now I want to emphasize one of these objects by using freestyle.
Due to the many objects I created a new scene with only lighting, the emphasized object and another one that I turned to holdout. To exclude all objects except the emphasized one from freestyle by using the collection option is set. This works fine so far.
But I try to assemble one file using the compositing nodes from the emphasized rendering and the rest of the site witout freestyle in just one render.
The problem is, when I switch in th object properties the mask option holdout it is set over all scenes.
How can I fix this to decide in which scene the holdout should be used?
Thanks in advance
Lutz

This is what I expect to get but I can only get the result while changing mask settings between rendering.

And this is what I get when rendering both scenes with compositing. The black area is supposed to be transparant in my resulting picture.
compositing setup

And here is the *.blend file:

O.k. got it. The hint of Gorgiuos sent me to the desired direction. If I duplicate the object LINKED (Alt + D) then I can switch different options to the scenes and don't have to care about mesh updating between scenes and rising file size.
Thanks so far.


How to smooth a cone side without changing its shape? I'm trying to smooth cone's side like I did for a cylinder using Edge Split and Subdivision Surface.

However, the cone (red one) is changing its shape at the top:

How can I prevent this?

The easiest way is to actually use a cylinder. you can then shrink the top to a very small size in order to make it feel like a cone. Then add an edge split modifier and the SubSurf.
The reason a cylinder is better is that the edge split doesn't work really well for triangles, and the cone basemesh is made of triangles. (You can't add edge loops on a cone).

On the screenshot I made the cylinder top big so you can see it's actually a cylinder but feel free to shrink the size as you want.


How to create an edge loop including an existing edge? Lets say I have something like this:

How could I create an edge loop around the model that includes the circled edge?

That wouldn't be an edge loop, also by doing so you create triangular faces. To do that, you make an edge loop cut like you usually do. And then you merge vertices of your unwanted edge to the existing edge. By properly selecting "merge to last" or "merge to first", your existing edge will stay where it was.


Cut straight lines with knife tool How can I get the knife tool to snap to the same spot on another edge to get a straight cut. Here is an example of what I want to do:

When the line turns green the cut is straight. How can I do this in blender? I have tried using the magnet snapping tool but could not get it to work.

Press C while in knife mode to enable Angle Constrain.
Note that it snaps to angles relative to the view. For cuts on faces which are not aligned to any axis, you can:

Press ShiftNumpad 7 to align the view to the face

Press K to enter knife mode, then C to enable Angle Constrain:


Rotate around one point, with constrain on z-axis for other point, impossible? In an animation, I would like to rotate an object, while at the same time constricting its movement on the y-axis, but I can't figure out how.

After fiddling around with start and end frame of the rotation, in relation to the start and end frame of the translation along the y-axis, I tried parenting the 'door' to a cylinder (see screen shot below), but I can't stop top of the 'door' (marked by a purple 'x') moving along the z-axis, when the cylinder rotates.

So, my question is:
How can I get the setup the desired motion?

Update
Screen capture of (faulty) animation
In the screen capture you can see the animation going wrong: the lower stud on the door should stay inside the curved rail. The curved rail is a a (quarted of a) circle.

There's actually a very quick way to do this. All you need is 3 bones with an IK constraint. Set the root of the first bone at the center of the cylinder in your diagram and the tip on the edge (where the lower stud would be). That way when the bone rotates the tip will follow the track. Now extrude a bone up to the top of the door (top stud). Finally extrude another bone horizontally (left in the case of your diagram) and clear the parent on it.

Then in pose mode, add an IK constraint to the second bone and select Armature in the Target box and the 3rd bone that we cleared the parent on in the Bone box. Now, when you move the 3rd bone (which will be the control bone) the other two bones will follow, the door will open, and the lower stud will always stay the same distance from the center of the track radius.

Optionally you can add a limit location constraint to the control bone (as I did in the gif below) to ensure that the control bone never moves where it shouldn't.

All you then have to do is parent the door to the second bone (the yellow one with the IK constraint) and everything should be good to go.


Children particles not reading "Lifetime" cyclesnode output I have a particle system where the particles have randomized lifetimes, changing colors throughout their lifetimes, and different patterns of changing colors depending on lifetime.  The process works fine when working only with parent particles, but as soon as I try to enable children..... nothing happens.  The children refuse to render. Well, they act more like their material is a holdout node.  After poking around a bit I figured out it was related to the particle info node somehow.  When manually entering values instead of using the particle info node, the node setup works as necessary... without the random values.  Anyone know how to get this to work properly, with child particles reading from the lifetime imput?

This is a known limitation.

I don't see any mention of it on the todo list, but blender's particle system is scheduled for a complete rewrite for 2.8, perhaps it will be fixed then.


Geometry Nodes - How to randomise rotation around just one axis When using geometry nodes to distribute points across an object, and then instance those points with another object (i.e. the Point Distribute and Point Instance nodes specifically), how can you rotate the instanced object around just one axis?
To put it another way - each instanced object appears (to me) to inherit its initial rotation from the normal of the source object over which the points are scattered (so instanced objects are always pointing Z up from the surface of the source object). I want to keep the X and Y rotation that the instanced object inherits, and just randomise the Z rotation.
This is the first thing I tried. This randomises the Z rotation, but sets X and Y to 0. I want to retain the current values of X and Y, and just randomise Z, but I don't see how to do that:

Then I thought I was very clever coming up with this. The problem here is that the output of the Random Float node always seems to be the same number, so the Z rotation is always the same for every particle instance. I want a random Z value for each instance:

Is there a way to actually do what I want at the moment?

Using Attribute Randomize you are able to create a new attribute, instead rewriting the existing one. Then use attribute math to add a random vector to the existing rotation.
Another useful node is point rotate, it has the ability to rotate instances in local and global coordinates:


Flame in an animation I have been trying to get fire on an "Ark of the Covenant" for months.  It shows that it is there when I run the Timeline playing the frames.  I set everything up in the node editor, exactly as the tutorials say.  But the flame still will not animate.  I don't use GPU.
Does anyone know how to solve this problem.

Thank you very much.

I think you need to "bake your simulation"
It sounds like you are recalculating it every single time you play it
and your computer isnt fast enough to calculate the animation in real time

But if you bake it, it will save the calculations so it wont have to
re-calculate it all the time.

https://www.blender.org/manual/physics/smoke/baking.html


Cell Fracture addon leaving unfractured boxes? I have been trying to make a short clip of a bullet hitting a wine glass with wine in it, but I keep running into the same problem with the add-on. Every time I have used it the result has left me with at least a partial box being generated as several of the fractured pieces.

I have tried subdividing and/or adding a sub-surf modifier but the result only changes where the large distorted fragments end up. I have been having trouble with this for quite some time and I would greatly appreciate any help.

This is caused by a failed boolean operation.

The cell fracture uses the boolean modifier internally, if boolean fails because of geometry it can't handle (typically because of a non-manifold mesh), this happens.

Note that for 2.70 the boolean modifier has been upgraded to support ngons and a newer version of carve, so this will likely improve results in some cases, however there are limits to what boolean can operate on since it relies on calculating inside/outside of a mesh which can be problematic.


Use Pose Mode or Object Mode to move whole model I've been animating a set of 2D images against a long strip background (flower, bird).  I have been splitting up the animation between Pose Mode and Object Mode.  I set the character's gestures in Pose Mode, then I animate their motion along X using Object Mode.  I have never done this type of 2D animation before and chose this method because it seemed logical.  Is it better to do all of the character's gestures and X movement in Pose Mode?  Thanks.
Zaffer

If you are just doing all the animation on the armature (pose and object mode), then I see no harm in that. In fact I think there is a little benefit over animating it all in pose mode.

Here I have the X axis movement key framed on the armature object (it is 40 frames long). The small bounce along the Z axis is keyframed on the bone in pose mode (its animation only lasts 10 frames). Doing it like this enables me to separate the animation, and keyframe the bounce in local space, and then use a Cycle modifier in the graph editor to make it loop.

However if you are animating the mesh object too, then that is a problem.
The reason for this is because of the way parenting works in blender.
See parenting is one way, meaning that you can move the parent (the armature) and both will move, but if you move the child (the mesh object) it separates from the armature. When you bind an armature to an object you are parenting it among other things.


Snapping vertex with edge slide but cannot be parallel to snapped vertex Actually, I've done it with a boolean method.

But is there any other method that is faster than what I did?
Some kind of special tool, I don't know much about the tools in this blender software. Thanks.

In the general case where you're looking for closest point to an arbitrary vertex from an arbitrarily rotated edge I'm not aware of a faster method, and you may have to use TinyCad to do some edge intersection projection - but, that said, here is my best attempt to make it quicker:
Starting from this point and attempting to make the highlighted vertex slide along its edge and intersect with the notional plane extending along the Y axis from the floating edge behind it:

Extrude a temporary face from the rear edge until it intersects the target edge:

Set snapping options to Face snap:

Perform a vertex slide on the target vertex and snap to the face:

Delete the temporary construction geometry, and confirm that the vertex is now in the intended position:
[
Obviously this is several steps, so it may take quite a while for many vertices, but if all of the snap target is a single section you could probably extrude it all at once, and possibly then separate the new geometry to a separate object to make it easier to delete later.  Then it's just a matter of selecting each vertex or group of vertices in turn.  Vertex slide will work on multiple, but snap will typically fail on groups and does in this example, so you need to select and snap move them individually.


How do I change camera views using python? I want to change camera views using python.  I changed it using the gui, and then go to the "info" window log to see what
the python commands are for that.  But when I cut+paste that into the "Python Console", I get this error:

>>> bpy.context.space_data.camera = bpy.data.objects["Camera1"]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'SpaceConsole' object has no attribute 'camera'

Any hints on how to change camera views using python?

Thanks.

You can set the camera in the current scene by using bpy.context.scene.camera. So your script should be:

bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.context.scene.objects["Camera1"]

or

bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.data.objects["Camera1"]


Unwrapping head geometry similar to Epic's MetaHuman Characters? I'd like to maximize the texture space for a game head model I'm working on.
When following the classic approach on how to unwrap a head (adding a straight line from the back and splitting those seam up into two on the top of the head), I get a lot of holes and loose a lot of potential texture space, even when packed properly:

Initial test using the female base mesh from https://blendswap.com/blend/22220

While doing some research I came across Epic's MetaHuman Creator and I've noticed that their UVs are perfectly squared and filling up the entire UV space. They are heavily stretched on the shoulders but that's perfectly fine for a game character:

I already tried to unwrap the head, pin the center verts and run a cylindrical projection which theoretically should produce a similar result. However, the pins does not stay in place when calling the cylindrical projection operator afterwards and the result is a mess.
Q: What's the trick to get a similar type of UV projection for the head and maximize the actual texture space?

Perhaps something like this would be suitable :

This was achieved manually (but the manipulation of the UV could potentially be automated) from the female base mesh mentioned, using the following steps :

In Edit mode, select the whole mesh and Clear Seams. Mark the back of the head seam as suggested.

In the UV editor, select all and 'unpin' all vertices (the downloaded mesh already included some pinned vertices). Perform a basic 'Unwrap'.

In the UV editor, re-position and straighten the island. Select all the bottom row of vertices.

Scale to zero in the Y axis (SY0Enter). Move and scale them along the bottom edge of the UV space (G and S). 'Pin' them (P).

Select the left-hand edge. Rotate them so they are close to vertical.

Scale to zero in the X axis. Position, scale and 'Pin' them in place along the left-hand edge of UV space (as for bottom row).

Repeat on the right-hand vertices.

Perform another basic 'Unwrap'

It would be feasible to script some of these actions (so you could potentially select an edge of vertices and then have an operator to automatically position and scale them along an edge).
Note that the 'basic' Unwrap function takes account of the 'pinned' vertices, leaving those in position and unwrapping the mesh with those restricted. However, some of the other unwrap functions (such as Cylinder, Cube, Sphere) ignore the pinned vertices and so cannot be used for this.

EDIT: Removing the 'T' from the forehead and unpinning a few vertices down the edge, then Unwrap again produces this - which looks pretty close to your example :


Importing python modules and text files I am new to blender, but not python, and have been asked to create a user-input dependent, stylized animation of a protein network I am working with:

text document >> information processed by python-script >> blender animates

So, if certain parameters in the network are changed, the differences in behavior can be observed visually as well.

Instead of coding in Blender's built-in Text Editor, I have been working in "pycharm". However, when I attempt to run the program through blender, it will throw an error and inform me that all my custom modules cannot be found and imported, though they are all in the same directory. Same goes for all the text documents. The text files in particular are a problem as we are talking about thousands of data-points that can't be manually entered.

All modules and text files are saved in the same directory as the program's master runner.

I am working on a windows 7, 64 bit windows machine.

additional information

the errors:

 # import error:
 no module named 'x'
 # filenotfounderror:
 [errno2] No such file or directory: 'y'

blender_file_directory: C:\Users\Henry\Documents\Blender\file.blend

python_files_directory: C:\Users\Henry\PycharmProjects\project_name\runner.py

# import of modules:
from module import *

# import of txt file:
numpy.loadtxt('gillespie.txt', unpack=False)

The script is called through blender's own SDK like so:

filename = "C:/Users/Henry/PycharmProjects/project_name/runner.py"
exec(compile(open(filename).read(), filename, 'exec'))

Text files are stored in the same directory as python scripts, so importing them when running the script through python is no problem. Only when it's run through blender does it throw an error.

A more detailed example of the technique zeffi outlined is illustrated by the following example from http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/import-python.html

import bpy
import sys
import os

dir = os.path.dirname(bpy.data.filepath)
if not dir in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(dir )
    #print(sys.path)

import cityFunctions

# this next part forces a reload in case you edit the source after you first start the blender session
import imp
imp.reload(cityFunctions)

# this is optional and allows you to call the functions without specifying the package name
from cityFunctions import *


Curve modifier - define affected points My problem is that I dont want the curve applied to all possible surfaces of an object but I still want the whole object to follow the curve. I want the curve modifier to only apply the curve to specific points. These points could then deform the whole object as needed (by separate vertex groups for example). Is something like this possible?

You can use vertex groups to limit the effect of a curve modifier.

Create the vertex group manually or enter weight paint mode using Ctrl+Tab. Red means max weight, dark blue means no weight.


Why does my mesh give wierd results when I apply a subdivision surface modifier? I tried to create this musical note. I started with a plane, and dragged, subdivided and extruded things to get this shape. I wonder if something is wrong because of the gray interior of that shape - seems abnormal but I don't know what it is.

If I add a subdivision surface modifier, it looks like this:

I know normals can get screwed up, but I recalculated and they look okay:

What else should I check? I don't know why it draws that normal in the middle empty space with no face. I tried to select a vertex or something in there, and I can't select anything.

As said in the comments your biggest issue is the topology. Here are a couple of things you could try straight off the bat:

Install the Meshlint addon and make sure all of your faces are quads
Remove doubles (W > Remove Doubles)
Recalculate normals (Tool shelf > Shading/UVs > Normals: Recalculate)

Also mentioned in the comments was that you have some disconnected faces. You can see two of them here:

Because of their position, I think whats happened is that you have two large single faces (n-gons) that's filled in a large portion of the top and bottom of the mesh, as well as all the little ones, so what you can do is in wireframe mode just try selecting all around the top portion of the model, see if you can find those stray faces.

Once you have sorted those things out, you can try a couple of things to make the edges a little bit cleaner with the sub surf on. I would recommend two edge loops around the middle section of the mesh, drag each one close but on on the top and bottom sections (I know I haven't worded this very well, I hope you can understand it), this will make the edges nice and crisp. Alternatively you could use mean creases, just select the edge loop at the very top and bottom and use the shortcut Shift+E and adjust the slider.

Hope you understand all this! You should also checkout some of Jonothan Williamson's tutorials, he is very big on keeping good topology, something like this should do a lot of good for you!


Metal covered with glass makes the mesh always visible in cycles? I'm quite new to blender and totally thrilled about it. Recently, I tried to render a metal plate with concentric metal rings on it. The whole structure should be covered in glass, giving a flat surface in the end. I'm still not done with the materials and lighting, but the first rendered images look quite funny. To me it looks like I can always see how the structures was meshed, but I can't subdivide any further as I'm running out of RAM quickly. Also it feels like I'm seriouly doing something wrong here.

I'm using blender 2.81.16 with the builtin denoiser (switching it on/off doesn't change anything). I built 2 pieces (metal and glass) positioned very close to each other (maybe thats the problem??) and a sun as a light source.

Any Ideas what how to get a smooth render image?
Here's a link to the blender file: https://file.io/p3S4Dc

Looks like overlapping geometry to me. What happens when you drag the glas object just a tiny bit upwards? – brockmann

Wow, that did the trick, thanks a lot! I also had to change the ring size so no face are touching anymore, now it looks perfect. Just out of interest - is there a less "hacky" way? Fusing both with a boolean operator didn't help.


Object appearance changes after Scale transformation applied I have human model imported into the scene:

When I select it, click Ctrl+A and choose Scale, it's appearance changes to this:

Is it just the visual change? How can I make the model remain the same after applying Scale transformation?

Object had negative scale. Before applying scale, hit S to rescale it to get positive values or hit N to bring Transform Properties Panel and retype scale there. Object will mirror around it's axis, by the way.


How to roll up a plane/create a rolled yoga mat? I'm trying to create a rolled up yoga mat. I thought I could use the cloth simulator and run a physics animation to make a subdivided mesh roll itself up but I couldn't get it to work. Everything I tried just resulted in a cloth that was bent in lots of different directions.

So then I thought maybe I could run an animation to make the mesh roll itself around a cylinder. I guess for this to work I'd need to be able to pin the mesh to the cylinder, and then animate the cylinder rotating a few times. I guess I can rotate the cylinder by creating keyframes with 0 degrees of rotation then say 10 * 360 degrees rotation. But how can I parent one end of the mesh to the cylinder in the first place?

Or is there a better way to do this?

I'd also like to be able to have the corners of the mat slightly curled up when it's flat (e.g. like this but less pronounced) which makes me think perhaps physics is the way to go after all?

Here is a possible way:

First create a bezier like this:

which has control points like

then add the mat in a convenient position (I used a subdivided plane with solidify and subsurf) then use a curve modifier to the above bezier

if you animate the bezier along X you get this:

There could be other ways of course but I hope it helps you.


Circuit board (technical elements) with particles So I was watching this video the other day: https://youtu.be/-pH48mSEH0M?t=243 and at one stage they show off how they made some of the technical elements of their VFX's. 3DS was being used for this, although they were using particles; therefore, making me believe that a similar effect might be achievable in Blender.

I have minimal knowledge over how 3DS works but after a quick search, I believe this add-on was being utilised https://vimeo.com/81328417 (the functionality of the add-on is shown at 1:30)

Essentially, the main components that I want to try and replicate are:

Restrict particles from moving on the z-axis (restrict movement on any single axis)
Limit the particle direction to multiples of 45°
(Potentially the most important aspect) Have the particles leave a mesh trail behind it

I have a theory for how to achieve the 3rd step, but unsure how it could be done. If the path of the particles could be transformed into a bezier curve, then the effect of the wires could be created by using a bevel object and then animating the start and end resolutions. That's how I believe it could be achieved, although unsure whether that'd be possible and or how to even pull that off.

Additionally, I feel as if this could be achieved through the use of animation nodes. I have not tried to do this using animation nodes due to my lack of knowledge over how to use them (I do not mind of the solution requires the use of animation nodes, just wanted to clarify why I hadn't attempted to use them to solve the problem)

Animation Nodes can be used here. First, read my answer here to create the trace visualization. Then, we are going to alter the node tree to limit the computed directions to multiples of 45 degrees. To do that, the Snap Vector operator would be used. Take the following node tree for example:

The snap operator snaps the vector to the nearest point in a grid with uniform spacing, the spacing is defined by the snap vector. Since the origin point of the space is also a possible point for snapping, and since we don't want to snap to it, we normalize the vector first, consequently, the vector will never be closer to the origin, except for the case of a zero vector, which is practically impossible to happen in a curl field, so we don't have to worry about it.

Now, all you have to do is quantize the output vector of the curl subprogram using the snap node as shown above.


Meaning of UV in "UV/Image Editor" In Blender they speak about the UV/Image Editor. I cannot find the meaning of the letters "UV". What is UV standing for ?

Since 3D space and texture coordinates are stored together with the mesh to distinguish between them texture coordinates are associated with a separate letters sequence (U, V and W)

U and V denote the X and Y axes of the 2D texture that is projected onto the 3D model. 3D generated textures have another coordinate W that is equivalent to Z


How to get automatic keyframing to work with the VSE Transform tool add-on? I successfully downloaded and installed the VSE Transform tool add-on found at https://github.com/kgeogeo/VSE_Transform_Tools into my blender. Through the add-on, I'm able to click on the VSE viewport and move and edit things like images and movies around straight from inside it. The add-on actually works great, except for the way it works with keyframes.

To save any of my changes, I'm required to manually insert the keyframes. Automatic keyframing does not work. For example, if I create a keying set, add the location positioning properties of a transform strip to that new keying set, insert a keyframe, change the frame I'm on, and try to change location positioning through the add-on, no new keyframe is inserted even with automatic keyframing enabled.

Initial frame:

100 frames and a positioning change later:

The only way I seem to be able to keep any changes made is to manually insert a keyframe myself. In the same example, if I use manual keyframe insertion at the end, the changes keep.

I would like to note that the add-on actually came with its own additional way of inserting keyframes without a keying set, accessed by moving the mouse pointer over the VSE viewport and pressing the I key. Inserting a keyframe through this secondary method does not immediately show a new keyframe in either the dope sheet editor or the graph editor. The add-on appears to wait on inserting a keyframe until blender takes one more additional action (changing selection, changing frame, etc.). I feel as though this somehow might help explain why automatic keyframing doesn't work natively with it.

I know this is an old post, but anyone else looking for this should know that I have fixed this feature and a number of other problems in my fork of VSE_Transform_Tools.


How to easily make mesh retopology? After creating some hi-poly model, i'm always creating low-poly model by approximating that hi-poly mesh with triangle-by-triangle LP mesh - with snap to face mode turned on.

So the process looks like CTRL + RMB (x times), and hitting F on keyboard, so the new face was made.

Then I'm using this low poly model to texture baking, mainly for gamedev purposes.

This method is very time consuming, so how to make retopology process easier and quicker?

Here are some wonderful tools for speeding up the retopology process:

polystrips (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN1aC7DsS6A)
contours (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RR06wjt2rs)

These are paid, but worth every penny as they're really time-saving tools.

If you don't want to buy them you may do a fast retopology using a Bsurfaces addon. Go to User Preferences (Ctrl+Alt+U-->Add-ons) and enable it.

Add an object you want to retopologize, then add a Plane (or any other object you like), enter the Edit Mode and delete it (x). In the Properties Panel (N) add a new Grease Pencil layer, then go to the Tool Shelf (T)-->Grease Pencil and change a stroke placement to Surface.

Now go to the Tool bookmark in a Tool Shelf. Draw some strokes on an object (hold D, then press LMB [ How to draw grease pencil on a surface (blender 2,75)? ]). When finished, click on Add Surface in Bsurface panel. Change the settings below as you like.


How to wrap an object around a cloth and "squeeze" the cloth, like a napkin ring or rag on a jar You know the way you'll sometimes see someone with a rag tied over a jar?  I tried to make this effect with a jar and a ring (torus) where the cloth falls over the top of the jar (this part works perfectly) and then the ring cinches around the cloth.  The jar and ring are both set to collision.  When the ring reaches the cloth it seems to cut right through it and distorts it beyond recognition.  I'm certainly not getting the nice cord around a cloth effect I'm going for.  I've also tried using a force field on the ring with similar outcome.

For starters, I'd say model the thing manually if its not necessary to use the cloth sim.
Cloth sim is for interactivity, i.e. if you want the cloth to interact with something later in an animation.

However, if you want to use the cloth sim, try using Cloth Sewing (new since 2.70), here is a general tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySyQsLD_7GM

In your case, i would use a similar approach as in the video with the cloak, wrap the cloth mesh around the jar lid, connect all open vertices with edges and mark them as seams to pull together.

I would model the string holding it together entirely manually.


Data Transfer artefacts in Blender 2.79 part of my loop, which I am trying to solder with a mesh is displayed incorrectly.

and, if you move the mesh with the DataTransfer along the surface of another mesh, then the loop becomes incorrect in other places.

Thanks for your help

I found the answer! The fact is that there is not enough geometry in the main mesh. if you add horizontal loops, then the mapping becomes correct.


Modelling which is the easiest way to curve a face? I would like to bend in a curve the 2 faces you see in this cube?

I know I can subdivide and move the vertices in a curve but is there a way to curve a line between 2 vertices?

You can add some loopcuts and then use proportional editing with a sharp falloff to scale it into a nice curve. Notice how changing the radius and falloff type of the proportional editing tool completely changes how the vertices are deformed.(If none of the preset falloffs are good enough, you can make a custom curve to create the exact shape you want).


Snapping Jumps to wrong place I am doing a project and when I try to clean up my topology the snapping goes all over the place. I have opened a new file and put some loop cuts on a square and it works no problem, but in this 1 project try to snap 2 vertices together and it will jump to anything but the one I want.
Any ideas what to look at?
Thanks.

I think I didn't explain well enough as pictures show below if I double g and slide the 3 pixels to the other 3 when I click the mouse everything jumps over to the right. How do I stop it? and what's going wrong?

You're after the Snapping menu.  When snapping is turned on, the magnet is solid with a wavy line, and you can configure what feature the snapping applies to.
Snapping off:

Snapping on:

To turn off snapping mid-transform, use Shift + Tab:

See the snapping documentation here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.79/editors/3dview/object/editing/transform/control/snap.html


Is there a way to make a ball roll using rigid body physics? I know you can do this in Blender Game, but is there anyway to have a ball rotate as if it were rolling in Blender Cycles?

I show how to do this with Blender V2.79b and also with V2.80 Beta just to complete the exercise.

In Blender V2.79b do the following:

As a test create a plank from a cube and place a sphere above the plank as in the image.
Select the Sphere
In the Tools click the Physics tab and click Add Active button while the sphere is selected, see below

Select the plank.
In the Physics tab click Add Passive button, while the plank is selected, see below

Switch to Cycles Render and add any material you wish to the plank and the ball to see the ball rolling. This step is not necessary but it was part of the question, hence the inclusion.
Click the play button and you will see the ball dropping on the plank and start rolling down.

Make sure the plank is steep enough, otherwise it may not roll.

See result below.

In Blender 2.80 you can create the same. In this example for the plank and the ball I just assigned a random colour material with some noise node.

For the sphere set Physics, see below.

For the plank you set Physics as below

The result is below


How does a denoiser work? Recently I tried blender+cycles with denoiser turned on, and it's just awesome. I can use much fewer samples to get a better image. I became curious how does a denoiser work internally. I guess it's definitely not a simple image blur.

From my observation, a tile gets denoised only when the surrounding 3x3 tiles all gets rendered. This seems a little bit weird to me though. How can a neighbor tile provides any useful information to denoise the current tile?

I'm sure different denoisers have various implementations. It would be good though if someone can tell me how does a denoiser work in general, or point me to relevant literature.

I am a beginner at blender but found your question amusing enough to want to find out. According to this source, Blender has just adopted Intel's Open Image Denoiser.

From what I understand (experienced users correct me if I am wrong): It analyses the samples at the pixel level in relation to one another defined by the radius setting. Then using a monte carlo trained deep learning library it identifies noise problem areas and reduces the number of samples to simplify the path traced samples that have acted unrealistically with their random bounces.


What is Animation Nodes addon used for? What is Animation Nodes addon used for? Where can I find more information about it?

The Animation Nodes addon (AN) is a "Node based visual scripting system designed for motion graphics in Blender."

It allows the creation of procedural animations. Furthermore, it can achieve many effects that are otherwise only possible through programming.

To get a better impression of what is possible, check the showreels for 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Download Animation Nodes Addon.

You can find the official documentation here. It also includes a list of most of the tutorials creators.

Check the official Blender Artists thread where the community collaborate, share their work and provide information about AN.


Problems using joined objects as a boolean cutter I used 3 objects to create the shape I wanted to create a hole in another object. I joined the three objects into one but when I do the boolean operation it leaves a hole that looks like I used the three objects individualy. How do I keep this from happening?

You don't need to start with three different objects just simply start with one object and add the Bevel Modifier.


Blender installation package not opening I have tried to install blender 2.76 multiple times, even on different accounts, i have no trouble downloading the installer package but when I go to open it the same message comes up every time.

I tried searching up the problem, but the closest I could get was to create a new account and try it again, that didn't work either. I also tried downloading it from other servers, as I live in Australia and there isn't an Australian server, but the same message appeared every time and I have no idea what to do.

The questions I would like to ask are, can I fix this problem and install blender?, if so what do I do?

Check the version you are downloading. And if the executable didn't work you can try downloading the zip package where you do not need to do any installation. The zip package lets you drag it's content into any directory and run blender directly from it.

A Zip package can be found just below the installer versions.

But you may have to do a manual registry entry using this method. That being said 2.7 versions have a registry bug that sometimes doesn't register even if you do a proper install so this step may still be necessary even if you did a proper windows installation.


Moving object based on real world time in blender I would like to move an object based on time in blender. The issue is, I would like to have it's translate values updated every time I open the scene (or while the scene is open), I don't want it to be based on a single continuous blender session.
So for example if I have a cube, it's gonna be on x location on January 1st, if I open the Blender file again on Jan 11th I'd need it's translate to be on x+10.
Have any of you had experience with python datetime inside Blender? The threads I found were from ages ago and I didn't manage to get anything useful out of them.
Thanks,
Dan

Just in case someone is looking for something similar - After some digging I worked out what I need
import bpy
from datetime import datetime
then = datetime(2020, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0)        # Random date in the past
now  = datetime.now()                         # Now
duration = now - then                         # For build-in functions
duration_in_s = duration.total_seconds()
hours = divmod(duration_in_s, 3600)[0]
minutes = divmod(duration_in_s, 60)[0]
days  = divmod(duration_in_s, 86400)[0]

cube = bpy.data.objects["Cube"]
cube.location.x = minutes

Still not sure how to make it update automatically but this is good enough for my needs.


Gap in mesh with the mirroring tool I made something with the mirroring tool and now when I'm sculpting there's a gap between the two sides? How can I fix that?

enable clipping
move the mesh slightly towards the middle (mirror axis) until the gap is closed and then back to the original position.


Join blocks at the corners (Starter Block) I want to match two blocks at the corners. If I hold CTRL the block is moving in steps but i want that the block attaches to the other. Thx for our help.

You can set what type of snapping you want in the snapping pop-over.


How to convert SFM models to Blender on a Mac? I want to convert some SFM models to Blender but all the conversion tools I can find (i.e. Crowbar) are for Windows only. Is there any way to port SFM models to Blender on a mac?

I know you asked this 8 months ago. but there is a way to install windows on a mac. it will partition your hard drive. it's dual booting. this is done by an official application included in macOS, called Bootcamp assistant. you'll need a 32GB or bigger pendrive, and a copy of windows (which is provided by Apple on the app's website) I've used it a lot. macOS can interact with the partitioned windows part of the hard drive, but it's read-only. (you can only open files from the drive, or copy them to a write and read the drive and modify the copy) unfortunately, windows cant interact with mac. to switch OS hold alt when booting up the PC and you'll see two drives. "windows" and "Macintosh HD" in that order. if you don't hold alt, it automatically boots on windows. I don't know if you can change it.


Changing current frame without updating depsgraph Sometimes I set a keyframe and then start posing the next keyframe while forgetting to actually go to a new frame, so that when I realise my error my work is lost because on frame change everything snaps back to the last keyframe. Is there a way to circumvent this?

Thanks!

Repost from: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?350703-Changing-current-frame-without-updating-depsgraph

If you already modified things go ahead and create a new keyframe that overwrites the previous. Go to the dopesheet, select the newly created keyframe (by selecting the yellow diamond icon) and copy it (CtrlC). Then press CtrlZ a few times to undo the changes you had made in the pose and get your previous keyframe back. In the dopesheet move to a different frame and paste (CtrlV) the modified keyframe, now you have both keyframes.

(But the easiest solution is to press the right arrow key so you are in a different frame before modifying anything...)


Why cycles engine renders in how many samples it wants, not how many i give it? Today i tried making a scene, normal procedure for starting work in blender, switch to cycles, delete cube, make my scene and finally give it full render to see how it came out. Surprise, at first it didnÂt want to render in more than 40 samples no matter what i put in "sampling -> render"
 All good, i said, restart, maybe after that will work. Not only i lost my work (but that because i forgot to save) But when i opened it again, i did nothing except switch to cycles and increase sample count. I put it to 100 and give it render, only to see that it rendered 135 samples. What is happening and how i fix?
Here is image of problem circled with white:

The number you see on the top is the number of tiles that have been rendered, not the number of samples. In your case the image has been split into 135 path tracing tiles.

You have set a render tile size in pixels in the performance tab. The image gets divided in as many tiles of those dimensions as it needs to rrender the image.


offsetting textures of cycles materials to simulate movement I have a tank and some treads with a texture that can be translated along the x axis to simulate tread movement.
This is easily done in the blender internal render by going to the texture tab, under mapping there is a section called offset, and I can easily keyframe it to change the treads "movement".
However, considering how you apply a texture in cycles, you can not do this, it seems unless you are able to use textures created in the texture tab rather than in the nodes or material tab.

Thanks for reading and any response is appreciated

Use a Vector > Mapping node after the Texture Coordinates node, and plug that as vector for the texture.

To offset the texture, animate the values for Location (and/or Rotation or Scale)


Making a Smooth Oval So i'm super new to Blender and modelling etc, i'm trying to make an oval race track but want it to be completely smooth. I know how to get the shape of the track and can get the flat oval fine there's no bumps but then when i add the camber/tilt to the oval banking it's just a horrible bumpy mess no matter what resolution I use when converting it from a curve to a mesh. Any help for a newbie? Thanks.

It might be easier to construct your track as a curve, and adjust the camber before converting it to a mesh.
Create 2 curves, one your track path, and another for the road surface. In the path, make sure there are control points at the apex of curves you wil need to camber.

In the path's Data tab, you can adjust assign the road surface as the path's Bevel Object, and the U resolution to give you reasonably smooth curvature (you might want to leave yourself room in the resolution for subdivision,later)

Under proportional editing, you can CtrlT adjust the tilt of the curve at the points you want cambered. You can even AltS adjust the width of the track in places, if you want to.

When you're done, you can convert to a mesh, do whatever else you need to, and maybe subdivide for smoothness. Here, the perimeter has been extruded down in Z, for embedding in a landscape, but that would all depend on how you're constructing your scene.
I did find a bug while trialling this answer.. my curve was cyclic, and I had proportional editing set to 'Connected'. The Proportional Edit did not cross over the first-and-last control point on the curve, treating one side as if it was not connected. A get-around would be to split the curve, and rejoin it in a place that doesn't matter so much.


(Blender 2.8) Smoke not showing in Physics Properties The smoke physics is missing and I don't know how can I fix that. Thanks for helping me !

Here's the screen of the physics properties.

It appears that the smoke simulation is now under fluid for 2.82


Using Blender's Python API to get parent bone names I’m trying to write a script that will change the name of a parent bone. However digging for data I’m not getting what I suspected to get. I realize that to change data I will have to do it through Edit_Bones not data.bones, I’m just searching for names at this point.

My code currently looks like this:

  bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="OBJECT")
     for ob in bpy.data.objects:
        if ob.type == "ARMATURE" and ob.users !=0:
            for bone in ob.data.bones:
                print('%s, %s' %(bone.name, bone.parent))

What it returns look like this:

  pelvis, None

  spine_01, <"bpy_struct, Bone("pelvis")>

  spine_02, <"bpy_struct, Bone("spine_01")>

  spine_03, <"bpy_struct, Bone("spine_02")>

  spine_04, <"bpy_struct, Bone("spine_03")>

The return is correct, but I want to be able to just return the parent bone name and be able to change it to something else.

If I try to use bone.parent.name the script errors out on the Root (Pelvis) Bone with a NoneType Error.

  Traceback (most recent call last):   File
  "C:\Users\ME\Desktop\PKTEST\Clown_REdo.blend\toTxt_BoneRolls.py", line
  41, in  AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute
  'name' Error: Python script fail, look in the console for now...

How would I get just the Parent name (Right side of the comma) for the bone on the left?

Since parent as a property is always present (being either an object or None and objects always have a name) you can make a ternary conditional inside the print since it's the second access that causes issues not the first (accessing the parent's name not accesing the parent itself).

print('%s, %s' %(bone.name, bone.parent.name if bone.parent else "No Parent"))

When updating the property, similarly you can simply check or place it inside a try/except block:

if bone.parent:
     bone.parent.name = ""

or

try:
     bone.parent.name = ""
except:
     pass


How to access all selected files from a file selector in Python? I'm working on an addon that uses an ExportHelper class to implement a file import dialog.  I want the user to be able to select multiple files, but the filepath variable that is populated is just a string with one filename in it.

How can I modify my class to be able to import multiple files at once?

My current operator looks like this:

class SlideshowAddSlide(bpy.types.Operator, ExportHelper):
    bl_idname = 'slideshow.add_slide'
    filename_ext = ''
    filter_glob = bpy.props.StringProperty(
        default=types,
        options={'HIDDEN'},
    )
    def execute(self, context):
        print(self.filepath)
        return{'FINISHED'}

You can access files for any operator using the file-selector, by defining a files collection of OperatorFileListElement.

Here is a complete example of an operator that opens a file selector and prints the paths you select.

Note: you may want to test os.path.isfile(filepath) since its possible to select directories too.

import bpy

from bpy_extras.io_utils import ExportHelper
from bpy.props import (
        StringProperty,
        CollectionProperty,
        )
from bpy.types import (
        Operator,
        OperatorFileListElement,
        )

class SlideshowAddSlide(bpy.types.Operator, ExportHelper):
    bl_idname = "slideshow.add_slide"
    bl_label = "Add Slide Show"
    files = CollectionProperty(
            name="File Path",
            type=OperatorFileListElement,
            )
    directory = StringProperty(
            subtype='DIR_PATH',
            )

    filename_ext = ""

    def execute(self, context):
        import os
        directory = self.directory
        for file_elem in self.files:
            filepath = os.path.join(directory, file_elem.name)
            print(filepath)
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.slideshow.add_slide('INVOKE_DEFAULT')


Sculpting Dynamic topology or detail flood fill? I have been watching a few different YouTubers that are posting time-lapses of there work and I have seen a sudden jump up in using almost no Dynamic topology at all. They are just using detail flood will and continue on. I have seen some replies to comments and they YouTubers mentioned preserving the quads of there mesh.

Is there no point in Dyntopo now and I should switch to that method?

Thanks!

There is a change from the 2.7x sculpting workflow to 2.8

You can still use dynamic topology but it's not the recommended workflow anymore.

The new workflow is sculpting on the static mesh and remeshing.

Pablo Dobarros Talk about the new tools and how they work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxkyA4Xslzs

Hand on with Julien Kasper using the 2.8 workflow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaVEJTLDD3Y


Whats the right way to create scenes ready for gltf and draco compression? I am new to Blender and 3d modelling and I have created a scene with several meshes and textures/materials.

All materials are gltf compatible (Principled BSDF nodes with image texture and normal maps).

If I export them uncompressed everything works fine and I love it. But when I use export with compression enabled, all except of exactly one mesh in scene are simply dark (like there is no light).

If I separate the json gltf from the binary and have a look on it seems to be fine. All textures and materials are exported as expected.

Is it possible that the draco compression mess up the assignment of the textures to the objects? Are there known problems with draco compression in blender if several objects use the same materials?

While my own researching I tried different workarounds.

At first I used node groups as templates for materials which are only slightly different. This causes after draco compression that every mesh has its texture but without the impact of the node group.

I think the node groups are simply ignored. Ungrouping them leads to the problem described above.

Another thing I tried, was to export without compression and apply it manually with the gltf-pipeline package of the npm repos.

This solves the problem with the texture indeed, but causes some weird shapes in one of my meshes.

Decreasing the compression level or increasing quantization makes it better (maybe) but not crucial.

A big impact on the quality could only noticed if uv and normal data was excluded from the exported gltf. If I don't export these extra data from Blender the quality of objects which uses a subdivision surface modifier is very poor.

I would be glad about any hints or proposals to do it right.

Ok i got it. It is indeed a bug in the glTF-Blender-IO addon. See https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Blender-IO/issues/993. There is also a workaround described how we can solve this. So what stays is the hope that other people will find this solution a bit earlier than me and there will be a bugfix soon...


Animation within a game using property I am trying to insert an animation controlled by keyboard within a game, but property seems not working properly.

I am using blender 2.74

Steps I do:

Create an animation (keyframes) for the camera.
 Create the game logic with game logic editor:

Create a property
Add Keyboard sensor AND Property actuator
Add Always sensor AND Action

I have done lot of test without success.

If I have only the Keyboard sensor, I see (debugging) the property changing, but when I add the Always, the property acts weird. Sometimes it get back to 0 every time I press the key, sometimes changes more or less  normal till appear strange numbers. [In neither of the cases the animation runs]

In other way the same, if I use only the action, it works correctly. [Animation runs].

I have also try to use the Property sensor (plus the Keyboard sensor), but again, not success.

I was trying to follow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1fMYqoJ8I tutorial, but it is done with older blender version.

Any help?

Many thanks!

I finally fix the issue. Instead of using "Always" for the Atcion, I need to use the same Keyboard Sensor.

Thanks!!


Non-Uniform Scaling during UV unwrap. What is this? I've got a problem while unwrapping UVs. When I'm unwrapping UVs it showing me this message.

Why is this happening?

It's because your object has been scaled on some axes more than others in object mode.

For example:

It should be fine, but if you are having problems you could try applying the scale by pressing CtrlA> Scale in object mode. This will apply the object mode scale "offsets" to the mesh data, resetting the offsets to 1 without  changing the appearance of the model. Note that this could affect modifiers such as bevel. See Why are the longer edges being beveled more?


How can I create an image of my UV unwrap I've created a model, and I'm preparing to texture it. I've marked all the seams, unwrapped it and moved it around to my desires. I am ready to create an image for my model. Usually, I would see people creating the texture, then align the UV unwrap to the image (of the texture). In my case, I only have the unwrap. I do not have an image file (a texture). I am looking to create an image file of my UV unwrap which I can use to place a texture on. Maybe have the islands in white, and the rest in black? I am not sure how to approach such an idea. How can I create an image of my UV unwrap; an image that separates the islands in a different color in a way where I can texture it? Thanks.

At the bottom of the "UV Image Editor" window, open the "UVs" menu and click "Export UV Layout."

You will then get a "Save as" menu where you can specify where to save a PNG file. You can also change it to a different resolution or image type with the options in the lower left.

The default exported PNG image will have a grey outline of the UV map filled in with transparent white. The rest of the image is also transparent so you can put it over top another image in a photo editor like GIMP and still see the image underneath.
Good luck.


How to retopologize low poly object with a few detailed points? How should a low poly object with a few detailed points (the orange areas) like the one below be retopologized? How can the extra detail be added while keeping it low poly and as evenly distributed as possible. Thanks so much for the help, I really appreciate it!

This is just my suggestion ;). With this kind of topology you'll be able to crease edges. And it's a bit less messy than yours.


Make a quarter curve with curves What I want:

What I have:

So basically I need to use curves to make a quarter circle. What is a good trick to do that?

Curves Circle method

Add > Curve > Circle,
In Edit mode go to Curve > Control Points > Set handle Type  and set it to to Free.
Then delete one knot point, and adjust the remaining knot and handles as in the image below.

A slight warning, this will only approximate a quarter curve, but often this will be sufficient for graphics.
Python script
Here is a short script that might be of interest to future python coders, creating this curve through code: https://gist.github.com/zeffii/5775583


Struggling with Layout element order of Pie menus I am sensing that there is an order or format issue in my script. The following sequence results into this pie layout with the two last commands starting at the 2 position.

        box = pie.split().column()
        row = box.row()
        box.operator("MESH_OT_faces_shade_smooth", text="Mesh Smooth")
        box.operator("MESH_OT_faces_shade_flat", text="Mesh Flat")
        box.operator("calculate.normal")
        box.operator("mesh.flip_normals")
        box.prop(mesh, "show_normal_face", text="Face Normal", icon='FACESEL')
        box.prop(mesh, "show_extra_edge_length", text="Face Normal Length")
        box.prop(scene.tool_settings, "normal_size", text="Size")
        row.prop(mesh, "use_auto_smooth")
        row.prop(mesh, "auto_smooth_angle", text="Angle")

But I would like them to be in one row byt at the end of the pie menu.

Can somebody explain to me where my flaw in the logic there is?

You start with -

box = pie.split().column()
row = box.row()

Then you add items to the column and then follow it with two properties in the row that you first created at the top.


Getting the actual (not default) input value of a node group for a specific user I've spent far too long googling for this answer. :)

I have a Cycles shader node group called ProteinVR that I created using the node editor. It has two inputs:

This same node group is used by multiple users (i.e., different objects in the scene use the same node group to generate their materials), but with different inputs. So a different object might look like this:

I then load the scene from the command line like this:

/my/blender/exec/blender -b /my/blender/file.blend -P /my/blender/script.py

Within the /my/blender/script.py file, I want to be able to determine the input values (color or glossiness) of the node group for each user (object). I've found how to access the node group itself and explore its structure and default values programmatically, but I can't get the specific values being used for each user/object.

Any help you could offer would be most appreciated! First question on stack exchange... hope it goes well. :)

P.S. Blender 2.78, in case it's helpful.

import bpy

# get the object
ob = bpy.data.objects.get("NAME")

# get the material in 1st material slot
if ob and ob.data.materials:
    mat = ob.data.materials[0]

    # get the material nodes
    nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes

    # get the instance of the node_group by name of the node (not label, name)
    protein_vr = nodes.get("ProteinVR")
    # if there are multiple instances in one material, others will likely be ProteinVR.001, ProteinVR.002, etc..

    # get the inputs if node exists
    if protein_vr:
        color = protein_vr.inputs[0].default_value
        gloss = protein_vr.inputs[1].default_value
        print(color[:])
        print(gloss)

I compiled the answer from these 2, there is more in them:

Control Cycles material nodes and material properties in Python
How to assign a new material to an object in the scene from Python?


Smoke sim does not render The smoke sim I made shows up in every viewport besides render, and it does not show up when I render image. I tried recreating the flow and domain, switching cycles to evee and back.
https://pasteall.org/blend/d2f16ddaf38a461483c8c8ece0f67571 .blend file

your domain has no material.
Add this material to your domain, and you get this result in render:


How to create a larger light radius with an HDRI I aligned the sun of the HDRI with my scene and strengthen it a bit. But the result seems a bit weird to me. I have a real big sunbeam in the middle of the scene that generates clipping on the plane it strikes.

The scene it self is extreme dark at the moment and increasing the strength will result in clipping all over the floor.

I think I need to make the radius of the sun(light) bigger. Can I do this in blender or do I need to adjust the values of the HDRI ( if so, how? )

Example of the clipping:

Node setup for HDRI:

Judging from the middle grey-ish values on the left and right, something seems incorrect here.

That is, I suspect the albedo values on your floor are too high. We should expect that the direct sun source, which is relatively small, would project sharp and direct heavy light through all three windows. Instead, we barely have middle grey, yet on the centre window, the high energy pixel region is the cumulative effect of fresnel and albedo reflecting the light directly, as opposed to illumination. Hence, wrong values, and too low of an HDRI strength.

I also see skew to yellow there, which suggests Filmic isn't set as the view, or you have a degree of processing that is breaking things. The false colour LUT shouldn't be used with anything other than Filmic.


Create a Python program that creates a new Blender file and edits the scene Like the title says, I want to create a Python (or Node.js program, although I think Python would be a lot better for this) that creates a new Blender file and is able to change the colour of the default cube. I want to do something more advanced than that, but I think once I learn how to change the colour of the cube using a Python program I will be able to get the hang of it.

Background mode

Can run blender in background mode.

How can I run blender from command line or a python script without opening a GUI?

Run the command using language of choice. For example in python using  subprocess.Popen(...) or a 3rd party module like plumbum or something akin to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17733849/launch-an-external-application-from-node-js via node.js

Very basic example script. My startup file has default cube with material "Material". The material's diffuse color in 2.79 is rgb, in 2.8 rgba.  Simply sets material to red, and saves the file as "output.blend"

test.py

import bpy

mat = bpy.data.materials.get("Material")
red = (1, 0, 0)
if len(mat.diffuse_color) == 4: # has alpha
    red += (1) # alpha

mat.diffuse_color = red
bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath="output.blend")

Run from command line with

blender -b -P test.py

creates a blend file named output.blend with a red cube in the folder in which it was run from terminal.

Extend by passing arguments see

How to pass command line arguments to a Blender Python script?


How do I export model with shaders? I have no texture image but colors and shading in materials. I want to export it in fbx so those materials(no image texture) with my shaders will be applied in the result. I'm absolutely new to shading and baking stuff so I would like you to explain it to me if you could. There's also a little bit of glitter on the material made by Voronoi texture just for the record.
here's the .blend file of model

If you want use this model in a new blender file, save the file with this model. Open the new blender file that you want to import it into. Select File then select append, navigate to the old file where your model is, double click on the file name and go into objects, select your model/object name and then press the append button and your object should be imported with the shaders that are assigned to it.


Is there a way to flat plane object affecting by proportional edit? As in question title, is there a way to flat plane object affecting by proportional edit without creating new plane object?

here my image :

I don't know how to flat this object except create new plane object or edit position of vertex to z=0 individually.

You can restrict the axis in which you scale to zero.

In this case, select all vertices. press:

S (to activate the scale tool)

Z (to restrict the scaling to the Z axis)

0 to bring all the vertices to the same plane)


Path constraint with physics (rollercoaster) I'm fairly new to blender and I want to build something similar to a rollercoaster. I already got the path and follow path constraint with F-Curve editor and everything down, but I need something more realistic. Is there a possibility to control the follow path constraint like it's driven by gravity? Like accelerating downhill and slowing down uphill and stuff like that - Just like a real roller coaster.

I suppose I could do It by putting a real car with wheels and such on a track and animate it with the rigid body tools, but that would require a good wheel construction with multiple wheels to keep the car from derailing... I think the path thing should be way simpler in terms of optimization, modelling and the overall mechanics, I just don't know how to do it. Do you?

I would be glad if someone could give me a hand with this!

all the best
Simon

One idea to do would be to manually animate the F-curve for the evaluation time of the curve to which your roller coaster is constrained to. You cannot manipulate the speed directly, since the F-curve is essentially a plot of distance versus time. But you can manipulate the slope at any point in this curve (slope being the speed of the object at that point on the curve). See the figure below for a reference.

The idea is to put key-frames on the F-curve at position where you expect the speed to change (like top of a hill). Then use the Beizer handle to change the slope of the curve to close to zero. Do not make it totally zero cause that would cause the roller coaster to momentarily stop and then start moving again (which is unnatural). Also note that this will automatically cause your coaster to accelerate or decelerate in the correct way, since the slope (i.e. the speed) also changes with time once you manipulate the Beizer handle.

I recently made a roller coaster and the snapshot of the F-curve is from there. I haven't found a way to do this through simulation (thinking about posting here for help). But this is the best I could do manually. You can see for yourself that at same places it still looks unnatural (e.g. at 1:30)


Sculpting - only vertical Strokes seem to work I am trying to model an elephant with horizontal strokes. However whenever I try, it doesn't work at all. Only vertical strokes seem to work.

video of the problem is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/gfzo3q/modelling_is_only_allowing_vertical_strokes/

Enable Dynamic Topology Horizontal probably isn't working because you do not have enough vertices to work around.


VSE Fade audio in and out I have followed a few hints for this but I'm baffled.
I want to be able to fade in/out audio. I have seen that I can switch on automation, and I can, by using the little diamond indicator by the volume control on the strip panel. But I can't do anything with it.
The manual says I could "Add Fades" using RMB from the sequencer timeline, but there is no Fades option.
The little diamond lights up, has no obvious control.
Any clues gratefully appreciated.
Image follows shows the VSE View menu with no Show F-Curves option.

In the View menu, switch on Waveforms and F-curves.
Select the strip.
In Add menu, select Fade - Fade In Out
(Alternatively right click in the Sequencer area and select the fade options there - here is also an option to Clear Fades)

Gif:

If you want to animate with the diamond, first set the value then click the diamond, so it is filled(you set a key-frame). Having the f-curves visible makes it much more visible what happens. Alternatively you could change ex. the File Browser area to Graph Editor:


Can keying sets be deleted in bulk? I accidentally keyframed scaling for all selected bones where only LocRot is required, is there a way to remove all scaling keys for all bones at once?

Go to Dopesheet or Graph Editor, click on the little magnifier icon on the header bar, type in "Scale" in the input field, it will allow you to filter the channel by name. Then press A to select all channels (suppose you didn't have any customized name for other channel), X.

Even if you finally have some channels filtered that you do not want to delete, just try selecting or deselecting them with various selection tools, including single click. :)


IK Solver Chain Length reverts back to 0 when changing between pose and object mode So I've been working on rigging a model for animation and I've set up IK chain links between a few different body parts.
For some reason, the left leg of my character model won't maintain it's IK settings. Specifically, "Chain Length", which I set to 2, keeps reverting back to 0, causing my model to act in a variety of weird ways.
I have even gone as far as to delete the IK chain completely, and start again, but the issue continued.
I have also saved and closed the .blend whilst the issue was no present, but after reloading it, the issue came back very shortly.
This is seriously slowing down progress and if anyone has a solution to this issue I would be extremely grateful.
Thanks

I had a similar issue. I noticed that I had (probably accidentally) inserted a keyframe by clicking this small dot button right next to the > arrow key which changed into a diamond shape. After clicking it again it removed the keyframe, turned back to a dot and the changed number was saved just fine

Another indication is that the Chain Length field was yellow / orange, instead of the regular grey, while that diamond icon was around.


Looping walk cycle animation snaps back on repeat I have what seems to be a fairly common problem (From what I've seen while searching) that I can't quite seem to solve. I'm trying to make a character walk down a street. This is the first proper walking animation I've attempted in Blender (Did a couple in 3DS Max and Maya years ago). I've created a walk cycle action called walk which repeats perfectly in place. I've also created a moveForward action which moves the character forward. This works fine with a Cyclic F-modifier as long as I keep the action as a keyframe animation, the character will keep walking down the street indefinitely. This is great for time saving but not so great for control and general animation. My problem comes as soon as I try to make it into a looping action that I can layer into another animation. The character will move through 1 loop and then jump back to his starting position.

The way I have the animation set up: bones animated for the walk cycle (walk action)
The whole armature object moved forward (keeping the supporting foot in place - as per Jjannaway3D's Sintel Walk Cycle Youtube videos) for the moveForward action.

My biggest problem with following that tutorial exactly is that he duplicates the forward motion keys for every loop, however my animation is 90% walking for 2 min 30 punctuated for a few seconds here and there by other actions that need smooth transitioning, which would be better served by layering actions.

I've looked, on and off, for a couple of days and the best answer I could find was from this question How should an animated character be moved while repeating a walk cycle? (basically the same problem) but it doesn't appear to work for my situation.

The walk cycle is 27 frames long. I've taken a snapshot of my Blend file setup on frame 28, once using just a the Cyclic F-modifier and once using the same animation as a repeating action.

As you might be able to tell, in the 2nd image the character has snapped back to origin 1 frame after the first animation loop. I'm sure there's a simple solution but I can't seem to find it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Updated to reflect Phip's suggestion.

New set up: same armature + root bone parenting pelvis and IK targets
Walk action: same as before
Forward action: moves the root bone forward, keeping the supporting foot in place to prevent slipping. First and last frames are set to linear interpolation and the forward action is F-modifier'd.

I can upload my blend file somewhere if that'd help?

Oh dear, I feel kind of stupid but also so glad I worked it out.

So this is the setup that works.

Action 1: walk - in-place walk cycle

Action 2: moveForward - moving the root bone in time with the feet to avoid slipping. F-Curve modifier set to repeat with offset.

Convert both animated actions to action strips on the NLA editor. Here's where I was going wrong and what to do right. I was setting the repeat value on both strips. This worked for the walk cycle which has the same start and end frame so the "snapping back" isn't noticable but caused the character to walk forward then snap back at the end of each forward motion cycle. In essence it was only repeating the first F-Curve and ignoring all the future repeats with offset. To fix this I set the repeat value on moveForward to 1 and then set the end frame to what I wanted. This then allows the character to keep moving forward, applying any extrapolated future F-curve repeats to the motion. This also allows for extra animations to be layered on top.

For example if you have a walk cycle that's 25 frames long and you want the character to walk straight for 10 seconds (assuming 25 fps) you can set the walk action repeats to 10 and the end frame for the moveForward action to 250 frames (leaving the repeats and scale to 1).

I now realise that this is pretty much exactly what Adhi said in the other question I linked to but it didn't quite make sense to me for some reason. Anyway. I hope this will prove a useful tip for anyone else stuck on a similar looping animation problem.


How to create an arch with bridge edge loops consistently I am trying to create an arch.  I followed the instructions from 2:49 time at How to use Array to build an arch - Blender 2.8 Tutorial and got it to work, but then after that, it failed to work again producing an S shape rather than a curve.

It is quite frustrating.  I've been doing it over and over and am unable to figure out how I am mucking it up. The answer provided on this site for how-to-use-bridge-edge-loop-to-create-arch did not seem to apply to my issue.

The most aggravating thing is that I can make it work once in a while but not consistently, so it's got to be something simple.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: This is now a confirmed bug: Bridge Edge Loops operation has inconsistent results

You need to duplicate the objects in Object Mode and join them.
Duplicating them in Edit Mode gives weird results.

Duplicated in Object mode and joined. Works as expected.

Duplicated in Edit Mode. Gives weird results.


solid mode vs. sculpt mode I was just wondering why I can't sculpt on my solid model is a way to turn a solid model into one that you can sculpt on? Can you combine or add a sculpted part onto a solid without worrying about having multiple vertices in the same space and if it is a problem how can you resolve this?

To answer the first part of your question, any mesh can be sculpted on in Blender. The way that sculpting works is by moving the positions of vertices, so your model must have vertices where you are sculpting otherwise nothing will happen.

For example, you will not be able to sculpt any detail onto the default cube, because it consists of only 8 total vertices.

But, if a Subdivision Surface or Multiresolution modifier is added, the model will gain sufficient geometry to be easily sculptable.

As for having multiple vertices in the same location, this can be resolved by pressing W > Remove Doubles in edit mode (in 2.79).


Advantages of using Python in Blender for Animation? How can it help aid animation? I'm learning Blender and want to know what reasons there are for using Python. I've seen some videos on YouTube of people using it.

Python is useful in three ways:

Scripting and addons
Drivers
The Game Engine

Scripting and addons:

Python allows you to automate actions with blenders existing tools to speed up workflow and add functionality that would be (practically speaking) impossible to do manually.

Here are some nice examples of what can be done with python addons:

Molecular simulation

Drivers:

Drivers can be used to set properties from other properties, e.g. a python function, the location of an object, or another setting.

This can be very useful for animation, among other things/

From the wiki:

  Drivers can use properties, numbers, transformations, and scripts, to control the values of properties.

Here are some nice examples of what can be done with drivers:

Dynamic frosting
Randomly tweaking settings

Game Engine:

Python can be used in the game engine to control the behavior of objects (e.g. AI), the way the view looks (e.g. custom shaders), and interactions with the user (e.g. menus).

Here are some nice examples of the BGE in action:

Building demo
Water shader
Racing game


How to apply texture on material with cartoon style? Hello! So for the character i'm making, it has a toon style (i use 'constant' for the interpolation for the color ramp, node is on the image.) I want to add line details on the body using textures while still having that toon shading for the body. I don't know how to. Can somebody explain to me how to do it?
(note I'm quite new to Blender, so please explain in a way I can understand if you can :))
Thanks

To combine Toon Shading effects with existing textures, use a MixRGB Node to Multiply the Image texture by the shadow values from the Toon Shader setup. I often multiply it twice to really drive home the shadow effect. In the first example below, I used a full PBR texture on the object, just to show that mixing like this works with PBR as well, but of course it works just fine with a single Image Texture (second image).

If you're adding "colored shadows" from a ColorRamp, it will work just fine, however I would still recommend multiplying it by the "shadow values" of a black and white ColorRamp as well, to really intensify the shadow effect. You can always turn down the mix factor if it is too strong. (For the record, in this image, I used the roughness map of this texture as a BaseColor, just so I had a black and white texture (simulating your "texture lines") that I could mix with the colored ColorRamp to get the end result - I'm assuming this will be closer to your actual setup)


Does cycles DOF use more resources? In blender's internal renderer DOF was highly faked, complex, and used much resources from the computer.

Cycles DOF does not seem to need anything more than the usual sample setting (and that applies to everything, not just DOF).

I intend to use DOF for quite a few projects, and I was wondering, from a perfectionist perspective, does DOF actually use more resources to render?

The DOF effect itself has a negligible amount of overhead. Even in a very simple test scene I just did (some monkey on a plane) there's only about a 3% difference, and that is an incredibly simple scene with HUGE dof (50cm lens radius. Not 50mm, 50cm). That overhead would normally be overwhelmed by lights, texture lookups, shader calls, etc on a full scene.

But.

Raytraced DOF (and motion blur, for that matter) creates a really insidious kind of noise. It creates a new kind of variance in camera samples. "variance" is where that render noise comes from, it refers to the possible outcomes you can get from launching a ray. For example, a ray might bounce into a light, or it might not. You get sparkly noise when you cast 2 rays and one hits the light, and the other doesn't. By firing a lot more rays the random noise will eventually average out and you get crisp images. There's lot of possible sources of variance, such as which direction a ray will bounce off a glossy surface (reflection noise), whether it will go towards the visible portion of a partially obscured light (soft shadow noise), etc. But normally, you can be assured of one thing: this noise is all in subsamples, like glossy rays or shadow rays. You can be sure that a ray taking off along a particular initial vector from the camera will always either strike a particular object, or miss it.

3D DOF and motion blur break that. They add a random factor to the ray on takeoff that can cause it sometimes hit an object, or sometimes miss it. This averages out to a transparent blur with enough samples. But until then, it's noise, and what might have otherwise been enough samples might not be enough to clear the DOF noise. So you may end up having to increase the sample count beyond what you would've needed otherwise. Additionally, if you are using branched path tracing, you may need to reduce subsample count and increase AA (primary) samples, which results in a less efficient render overall.

That said, 3D DOF has some advantages over post-processed DOF. It correctly handles reflections/refractions, which should blur reflected/refracted objects based on total path length. 2D DOF will rely on the z-buffer and incorrectly blur based on distance from the eye to the mirror/glass. 3D DOF can also correctly handle letting you "see around" out of focus foreground objects, which for 2D blur requires rendering them to a separate layer in order to get the render of the "obscurred" object.

2D DOF also lets you do some weird non-physical tricks like depth of field falling away at different rates in the foreground vs background, plus it can be faster and you can change it after rendering without having to re-render. So it all comes down to the needs of your shot.


UV Unwrap - random faces chosen to be islands I used Ninja Ripper to get a mesh for a dress, but when I unwrapped it in blender, it chose to unwrap random faces of the mesh into their own separate islands. I tried putting seams along the edge of the dress to encourage the program not to do that, but it made no difference. What causes this to happen and how do I fix it?

The mesh had disconnected vertices. (For anybody who is interested, it looks like Ninja Ripper simply doesn't connect vertices that go along seams, which is why I was able to get a UV unwrap like the image above with no seams. However, it doesn't find seams perfectly, so you wind up with some faces not attached to anything in the UV editor).
I solved the problem by going to the edit layout, selecting the entire mesh, and using "vertices->merge->merge by distance" to bind all the loose vertices together. Then I manually recreated the seams where I knew they should go.


a screencast key add-on that displays combination keys like g+x or g+z etc I am looking for a screencast key add-on that displays combination keys like g+x or g+z etc. Unfortunately, the four add-ons I found so far only display g and not the following axis key.

I am using the latest version of blender.

Thank you very much in advance.

All the best, Michael

If you are working on Linux, try a key-mon - small but versatiles app to show multiple pressed keys, easily configurable.

See https://code.google.com/archive/p/key-mon/


Is a Directional/Flow Map Necessary for Hair Cards? I'm currently creating hair cards for my character and from what I've researched, it seems that I need to create the following hair cards for everything to look good:

(1 Diffuse/Albedo map

(2 Specular Map

(3 Normal Map

(4 Direction/Flow Map

(5 Opacity Map

(6 Ambient Occlusion

I understand how to create all the following in Blender and in Gimp (I want to stick to open source software for everything I create for my character) except for the direction/flow map. I read on other forums that creating a flow map may not be necessary if the UV's are all unwrapped and flowing in the same direction, is that correct? I'm planning on using Unity eventually and Unity has a Master hair shader I may be able to use and on their website, it has a hair strand direction section.

I started trying to create a directional map in Blender using this node setup but I'm not sure how to get the direction/flow colors correct (From the roots to the tip of the hair). Do I even need to create directional maps for my hair cards, and if I do, how can I create this using  Blender or possibly another open-source program? Thanks in advance.

Stumbled on this while looking for a way to vector field flow in blender... While I'm here
"I read on other forums that creating a flow map may not be necessary if the UV's are all unwrapped and flowing in the same direction, is that correct?"
No. Absolutely not.
If you bend the hair cards in your particle, it matters not where the UV goes, the flow of the normals is impacted and different engines (namely unreal) will render stuff differently.
What the flow map is, for hair cards, is a fixed world normal texture that covers each individual hair card. So you need to create an additional UV in blender, smart UV unwrap, and bake world normals.
You can then play with the texture paint tool and some visual balancing to adjust the flow look manually - a bit tedius. Usually use the smudge tool.
The shader, is than told to use this map with UV coord 1 to derive normals and tangent. making the hair appear to bend more appropriately.


How to rename UVs of all the objects? I am working with multiple objects that have different UV names, I would like to know if there is a quick solution for renaming UVs of all the objects to UVMap

select all objects and run the script :

import bpy

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects :
    for uvmap in  obj.data.uv_layers :
        uvmap.name = 'UVMap'


How can I change IntProperty default value stored within PropertyGroup? I am trying to dynamically modify IntProperty default value. Currently, it is stored in bpy.types.Scene.mysettings as PropertyGroup. So far I've succeeded in updating the default value only by assigning a duplicated class that has been updated with new default value and pre-registered using bpy.utils.
Is there any easier way to do this? Is there a way to redeclare single property without reassigning whole class or is the solution really dynamically creating and assigning Classes?
Working example:
import bpy
from bpy.props import PointerProperty
from bpy.types import PropertyGroup, Panel

def update_default_value(self, context):
    settings = context.scene.mysettings
    # Current solution: assigning different PropertyGroup Class to update default val
    bpy.types.Scene.mysettings = PointerProperty(type=UpdatedSettings)

class AAA_PT_Demo(Panel):
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_label = "My Demo"
    bl_category = "Demo"

    def draw(self, context):
        settings = context.scene.mysettings
        layout = self.layout
        layout.prop(settings, 'myboolean')
        layout.prop(settings, 'myint')

class MySettings(PropertyGroup):
    myboolean : bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        name = "On Check Update Default",
        default = True,
        update = update_default_value
        )

    myint : bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name = "My Int",
        step = 5,
        default = 10,
        )

class UpdatedSettings(PropertyGroup):
    myboolean : bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        name = "On Check Update Default",
        default = True,
        update = update_default_value
        )

    myint : bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name = "My Int",
        step = 5,
        default = 999, # New Default Value
        )

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(MySettings)
    bpy.utils.register_class(UpdatedSettings)
    bpy.utils.register_class(AAA_PT_Demo)
    bpy.types.Scene.mysettings = PointerProperty(type=MySettings)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(MySettings)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(UpdatedSettings)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(AAA_PT_Demo)
    del bpy.types.Scene.mysettings

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Useful resources I found on the way:

How to create PropertyGroup (original doc):
How to create and access PropertyGroup (discussion)
Changing default value of IntProperty

Use a setter getter
Instead of setting the default of the property, emulate a property with a getter setter that retrieves the custom property when set, else some default we have set.
Internal "get/set" function of property?
As an example have added another intproperty in same prop group as a means to adjust the default value without any re-registering trickery.. which can turn ugly and strip the RNA if it gets out of sync.

Demo gif, changing setting of default is matched by myint till set
While myint has not been set it is given the default value. Once it is set it uses the value set.
import bpy
from bpy.props import PointerProperty
from bpy.types import PropertyGroup, Panel

class AAA_PT_Demo(Panel):
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_label = "My Demo"
    bl_category = "Demo"

    def draw(self, context):
        settings = context.scene.mysettings
        layout = self.layout
        layout.prop(settings, 'default')
        layout.prop(settings, 'myint')

class MySettings(PropertyGroup):
    def get_myint(self):
        return self.get("myint", self.default)

    def set_myint(self, value):
        self["myint"] = value

    default : bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name = "My Int Default",
        step = 5,
        default = 44
        )
    myint : bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name = "My Int",
        step = 5,
        get=get_myint,
        set=set_myint,
        )

classes = (MySettings,
           AAA_PT_Demo,
           )

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
    bpy.types.Scene.mysettings = PointerProperty(type=MySettings)

def unregister():
    for cls in reversed(classes):
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)
    del bpy.types.Scene.mysettings

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Other possiblilties are storing the default properties on another "toolsettings" prop group, or instead of using an annotated property def, simply declare a class variable default = 44 in the prop group and grab it from the class.


Why does my glass fishbowl have a gray sphere inside it, even without an object there? I can clearly see a grey sphere looking thing that doesn't exactly look like a glass bowl. Here's the blender file for the bowl.

I have no idea what is causing this.

Your faces are flipped inside out. Select all faces and press Ctrl+N, to correct this. Additionally, you have double vertices. Select all vertices in your mesh, and in the toolbox to the left click 'remove doubles'.


When exporting a rig from Blender to UE4 and using UE4's IK system, my limbs break I've tried getting a solution to this for weeks but none of the threads I've found had any answers on them and no one on any of the forums has had a solution either. I assume this is some sort of bug? When I create a rig in blender and import it into UE4 all is good until I try to use the UE4 IK system. The IK in UE4 breaks my limbs, it seems to rotate the foot of my legs in a random direction (though it's consistent within the same rig, it never changes on a specific rig, only when changing rigs.)

I uploaded a video of my entire rig-making process which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoUv1CSYWyc&feature=youtu.be

There is also a screenshot of the issue here: https://i.imgur.com/OtdiACW.jpg.

I've tried setting the roll of all bones to 0, I've tried multiple different scaling options, I've tried every combination of bone axis orientation, the list goes on. I took the mannequin from UE4 and put it into blender. I then put it straight back into unreal and it worked as expected. When I took the mannequin from UE4 and used "orient bone rotation" or whatever the setting is to get a more presentable rig, the problem came back. Once I took the oriented rig from blender and put it back into unreal the bones snapped again. Also, I don't know if it is exactly the same but when I take the skeletal asset of a rig in UE4 and set the rotation of the foot to 0,0,0 it gets very close to the position it's in when the IK is applied, I think it might even be the same position. You should be able to recreate this issue if you make a rig the way I did in the video. I assume that I'm doing something wrong, but no one has been able to figure out what it is. According to everyone I've talked to about this, I'm doing everything correctly. So I've uploaded a video of the entire process. Either I'm doing something wrong or there is a bug related to blender or UE4.

If anyone has a solution I would be EXTREMELY grateful. I've been unable to advance my game animations due to this.

I've found that a Blender script here enabled me to export a Make Human originated mesh with a skeleton that was entirely compatible with the UE4 skeleton having the correct bone names and bone rolls. It requires Blender 2.8 though and I tested it with UE 4.21.2 and the free animations that came with UE including the Animation Starter Pack.


The best way to set material/model HDPE plate? i have a question. I need to model HDPE plate material and then few products made from it (pictures lower). It shoud be a visualisation of small play ground. It doesn't have to be 100% realistic look, but it shoud be modern looking and fresh. My problem is that I don't know how to do it the best way...

My question has two parts:
1) modelling - the edge has to be curved. Is it better to only with texture (some normal map on the edge?) or shoud I model it - if so, how? Is there some function for that?

2) Texturing - how to setup the material to look it realistics? The real material has three layers - the edge shoudl be multiple colours - again is it easier to make it throug texture, or some other way?

Thanks for your help guys, I am not very skilled in Blender and now I find out that I really don't know how to handle this.

1- You should model it, this is called beveling (bevel modifier or CTRL+B with edge selected)

2- Through texture is the best way, either with face loops and face assigning different material or with one material for the whole mesh and a node system with gradients, mapping node, and very contrasted ramps.

This is a cool project and an easy model but you'll have some trouble if you don't study subdivision surface modeling and some common modifiers (solidify, bevel, mirror...). This is typically a 'hard surface' model, might want to do some googling with theses key terms to learn a bit more about modeling in Blender. For more specific questions stack exchange will be there for you though :)


Offsetting animation I have grouped together (CtrlG) aome animated meshes (9 of them) and I have used the graph editor (F-curve modifier) to cycle them through my animation but is there a way to offset them so they move at different intervals to create a more realistic effect. Cheers.

Another way. You can animate one of the objects, make it parent for the second, the second parent of the third....in the Properties Editor (Object Tab) of each child, check the Slow Parent option in the Relation Extras panel and type number in "offset".
An example: slow parent

Full tutorial and more: other link


Objects are 2 different sizes but scale says they're the same While trying to make my dude I had to scale him up so he would align with the reference image I'm using. But the little box that shows his size and position says hes 2.202 (on all axes) , while the armature that is also 2.202 is smaller.

If I scale the armature it comes out at the wrong size, and if I apply scale to the character he will just be the same size except the scale is reset to 1.

I really don't want to recreate the armature since getting his finger bones was an absolute pain ☹.

Here are images of the said things.

Basically, object scale and Edit Mode scale are two different things. You likely scaled him in Edit Mode, so the object mode scale does not change. I would scale one of the two objects back down in Edit Mode (Tab) until they match up. Hope this helps!