Model little cracks on the surface of an object So I was trying to model this buddy here and I have not the slightest idea on how can I achieve the cracks on the surface of the cube's faces this thing has.

Any tip or idea on how can I do that?[

Well, to alter the physical appearance of a mesh without manually doing it (i.e using a non-destructive workflow), you would want to add certain textures that control the depth of some parts of your mesh, which is what cracks do.

There are 2 main ways to do this:

1) Using a displace modifier, which I and most other artists don't recommend unless you want to overlay it with some sort of particle-system, and

2) Giving some bump in the nodes.

The method we are going to explore is doing this via nodes. I'm not going to explain what they are; although you can read up about them here.

So, to start off with, what are normal and bump maps? Well, they are both used to create a fake perception of depth. This is imperative. They do not displace any actual geometry, but make it seem as if they had in render mode. For the purpose of this answer, I'm going to use bump maps, which convert grayscale values to depth, simply because they're easier to create procedurally.

Bump maps take textures like this:

and then convert them into depth. Generally, brighter values mean more coming-outwards and vice-versa, although it can be inverted. Let's get started then!

In the node editor, in the normal area of the default Principled BSDF material of the material applied to your object, add-in and plug-in a Bump node. Then, add a Voronoi Texture. This is what will control our bump values.

Change the 3D to 4D, and then choose Distance To Edge. Turn the scale down to something you like, then connect the Voronoi Texture to the height input of the Bump node. Check invert on the Bump node. Great! You have cracks now! Although they don't look like how you expected, so add in a ColorRamp node between the Voronoi texture and Bump node. Enable the Node Wrangler addon, and then Ctrl Shift Click the ColorRamp node to view it. Move the sliders around to your liking (the closer white is to the left, the less bump in the area between the cracks, and the more right the black slider is, the more outlined the cracks are).

This is where we are right now:

Here, you can end. You have achieved making cracks. However, you could still do new things, such as add colour to the cracks and stuff!

Or you could add image textures instead of flat boring colours! Go crazy.

(Documentation?) links where you can learn more about these techniques:

Bump Node

Normal Mapping Node

Introduction to Nodes...

There's a lot. I suggest you start with those however. Hope this answer helped you!


Fill bezier curve with Convert To Fill Bezier Curves

I've already checked this out, but it doesn't help, since I already applied the solution suggested.

Here's what I have; there's no fill despite it being constrained to 2d and the fill option being selected. Not sure if this is relevant, but it was originally modeled on the XZ axis, but I rotated it onto the XY one. I made sure the curve was closed as well (toggle cyclic doesn't solve the problem). Help would be appreciated.

The First way to do this...

( This will work independent of the axis you created your curve object.)

Select your curve.
Hit spacebar and search for "convert to" Shortcut (ALT + C)
Select "Mesh from curve"
If you have not turned on "Mesh : F2" addon do so in the user preference.
Enter edit mode with the converted curve selected.
Select all the edges and hit F to fill.

-

The second way to go.

(For this method your curve needs to be created in the top view OR in another
words the XY axis)

Select your curve.
Go to Properity panel > Bezier Tab > Shape > turn on 2D shape Button.
Make sure "cyclic" is turn on.
Select "front" on the fill option.

Cheers let me know if it helps.


Hide material in Blender I'm working on a school assignment in Blender, I was following a Cycles tutorial to create a bear with fur (hair) on it. My problem is that since I applied that material, it takes minutes to change selection in object mode, even if I apply wireframe viewport, the fur lines remain there. Can I somehow hide it while I rig the character? Thank you in advance!

The hair particles are added to your mesh object through the modifier system. You can enable/disable the effects of any modifier for viewport and rendering, the camera is for rendering and the eye is for the viewport.

For particle systems you can also adjust the visibility within the particle settings.


How to get rid of bend marks So I'm making this stool and I decided to rotate all the faces on the legs to make this swirly effect and now I'm getting these weird bend marks, one on each of the legs. I tried messing with the vertices but I only really made thing worse. I'm not sure if there's a way to fix this or if there's a better way to achieve this look but please let me know. Here's pictures of the issue (P.S. the legs are made with cubes and not cylinders):

It looks like you have to modify the vertices, you could try the smoot tool, select the veetices in the bend and smooth them, if that dows not work you could try using the sculpt mode and smoot a little with the smoothe brush.
If it does not work a would sujest using curves with a bevel object i is usually easier to achive curvy "tubes" with them.


mesh shakes and detaches from my armature when in pose mode when i try and move the arms in pose mode its a bit fidgety all though works no problem. if i try and rotate or move all the bones at once the mesh jumps out of the armature and sort of rattles when i move it. i used vertex select so all the parts of the mesh either have full or zero influence. im aware that its a difficult mesh to rig so maybe thats the issue?

blend file:

Your mesh object is unnecessarily parented to one of the bones, meaning it is not only being moved by the bones it is weight painted to, but also by the parent, which is why it becomes offset from the armature as it is being moved twice.

Select the mesh and press Alt+P and choose Clear and Keep Transformation to clear the parent.

As for the shaking, you have a dependency cycle, which can be seen by looking in the System Console (the message appears when you toggle in and out of edit mode on the armature):

This means that Blender can't work out how to move the bones properly as they each rely on each other for their position. To fix this you can un-parent the 'launcher', 'pincer' and 'energy pistol' bones. This doesn't seem to effect anything in the armature, so it shouldn't cause any problems.


Rotating particles in two different axis I'm having some trouble randomizing these particles on top of my cylinder. My goal is to randomize the orientation of my particles with respect to the object's y-axis, which makes the particles stand up as shown in the image below, however now I am having some issues randomizing their phase in the z-axis. Hence they all look like they have a uniform rotation about the z-axis. Anyone have any ideas how I might be able to stand my particles up while also randomizing their phase in the z-axis? The origin of all my particles is located in the middle of their base at the bottom. I also tried creating duplicates and rotating them myself, but this didn't work out either. Please help! :(

Here's a setup for having the objects rotate only on 1 axis:


converting parametic equation using python I'm trying to convert some math / formulas
STEP 1:

Found at:
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/324527/do-these-equations-create-a-helix-wrapped-into-a-torus
But the spirals aren't closing / connecting in Blender 2.83.x.  See image below along with snippet of code / formula.

Snippet of python code in Blender 2.83.x:
# fill verts array

num_x=40
num_y=40
for i in range (0, num_x):
    for j in range(0,num_y):

        n = 5 #loop_num
        loop_pos = 2
        u = loop_pos+(i*2*math.pi/num_x)
        v = 2*math.pi*(j/(num_y-1)-1/2)

        x = (uval_R_bg+uval_r_sm*math.cos(n*u))*math.cos(u)
        y = (uval_R_bg+uval_r_sm*math.cos(n*u))*math.sin(u)
        z = uval_r_sm*math.sin(n*u)

STEP 2:
My goal is to convert the formula below in Blender 2.83.x using python and animate it.

An example of what it does can be found here
https://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ToroidalHelicalCoils/

I figured it out here's a snippet
#loop_pos = 0 # not enabled yet look at eq_2 in other python script 1 gives  full connection
n = loop_num #is the number of turns per winding.
m = loop_windings #is the number of helical windings.
u = 2*math.pi*(i/(num_x-1-(loop_pos*(num_x+1))))  #loop_pos = 1  eq_2 in other python script 1 gives ou full connection
lamda = 1 #-1 or +1 for winding directions right +1, left -1

x = math.cos(u)*(uval_R_bg - uval_r_sm * math.cos(2*math.pi*helix_offset/m + (lamda*n*u)))
y = math.sin(u)*(uval_R_bg - uval_r_sm * math.cos(2*math.pi*helix_offset/m + (lamda*n*u)))
z = uval_r_sm*math.sin(2*math.pi*helix_offset/m + (lamda*n*u))


How to disable Dyntopo by default? One quick question: How can I set the dyntopo option to be DISABLED by default when switching to sculpt mode?
The background for this is, that I don't want my mesh to get triangulated as soon as I switch to sculpt mode, since I only want to fine tune my mesh with the grab brush etc.
I am using blender 2.81 (release version) at the moment, but have seen the same behavior in the release version of 2.80.
Thanks in advance for any help in this matter!

I already found he answer myself: It turned out that the version of the Heavypoly UI Config that I used had the dyntopo parameter integrated by default into the script that facilitates the switch into sculpt mode from a pie menu ;)


How can I make the texture gradient? I've modelled an apple and I gave it colors but the top has a stem which seens to start brown and finish green. I tried to replicate that but I don't know how to make the textures smoother (gradient) (starting brown and slowly becoming green)

Left How it is/Right how I would like
I'm a beginner, sorry if that sounds obvious

You can use a gradient texture in the node editor to determine the color. In the node setup in the photo, I am using a gradient texture with generated coordinates. I then rotated it to the correct axis with the mapping node, and also scaled it for a better effect. I then plugged the output of the gradient in a color ramp node, setting black to brown and white to green, giving the color scheme you want. Hope this helps!


Why is this background render/script for the command line not working? I'm trying to run Blender as a background process via batch process (or directly from the command line), neither seem to work.  Has anyone done this before?  I'm using the following pages for guidance:

https://www.blender.org/manual/advanced/command_line/arguments.html
https://www.blender.org/manual/render/workflows/command_line.html

When rendering, it should use the info in the .blend file (.PNG vs AVI, frame rate, etc.) by default.  For both of these, there is a file called ANIMATION.blend already created.

Here is the FIRST script, to render in the background:

cd\program files\blender foundation\blender
blender -b C:\pathtofile\ANIMATION.blend -o C:\pathtofile\renders\ -x

It gives me:

found bundled python: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\python
read blend: C:\pathtofile\ANIMATION.blend

Blender quit

But does not actually render anything, either in /tmp, or the output file above, or the one in the .blend file already.

If I just render the animation via the in Blender GUI, it works fine.

Any ideas? Is it broken or am I doing something wrong?

You haven't given the command to render the animation, which is -a. The command line isn't just for rendering, so unless you explicitly tell blender you want to render, it won't.

Your first command should look like this:

blender -b C:\pathtofile\ANIMATION.blend -o C:\pathtofile\renders\ -x -a


Access texture that has been altered through texture nodes I have created a texture brush (not a cycles one) and then transformed it in various ways by going into the texture node editor and using nodes. My node tree consists of a cloud texture from the textures node menu, then several mixes and changes, and then ends with an output node.

I want to use this modified texture in the compositor. However, when I use a texture input node and select the texture I made, I only get the default clouds, and none of the changes made by my other nodes.

How do I get the full results from the texture nodes?

EDIT: Well I opened the file again this morning and now it's all working properly. I have no clue why it wasn't before. So guess this question should be deleted?

Working with Node Editor, you are actually creating a new texture.

Check whether the texture name in the ToolShelf corresponds to the texture block.


Hey guys, anyone use Auto-Rig pro I need something to rig a hand, just a hand not a whole arm, so I found this tool, but I am not sure if it could rig just the hand for me, or it only works for full body meshes. Anyone knows how to use it?

You can use Rigify: add an human metarig, delete in edit mode all bones except arm, forearm, hand, fingers.

Then set all bones in the appropriate location.

Back in object mode click the create rig button, hide the metarig, in edit mode enable all bone layers and select and delete all bones relative to arm and forearm.

A couple of little bones are unselectable, so you'll have to toggle the selectability arrow in the outliner and toggle their selectability property.

You can also delete root bone, if unnecessary.


How to intersect a texture with another mesh? I am trying to animate a logo. The logo is given as a 2D image. Now, I want to create the effect as if the ink is flowing along with the lines of the letter(s).
Think as if you pour water in an empty riverbed and it starts to flow along the boundaries. I do not want to have a 3D effect here like real water flow in a valley but just as if an invisible pen is just drawing on a flat surface. (Any additional effects I will have to work out separately.)
I found this question. This uses an intersect modifier to restrict one mesh to a certain subspace.
In my case, I have an image as a starting point. I will either have to model a mesh manually according to the image template or I have to use a texture. Is it possible to do a similar approach affecting only the texture of the "canvas"?
I thought about two planes with a minimal distance where the upper one will be cut (by modifiers) such that it allows to blend over the lower plane. I fear problems here with unwanted shadows and similar artifacts.
Or is there an easier solution I am completely missing here?

Edit 1
As I was asked for an example, I have the problem that I do not have a ready-to-be-shown example here ;-). Although I found something similar to the effect I am searching for in this youtube video. You see as lines "appear from the invisible pen" of the author.
This example is just to see the effect of the drawing. I need it on a plane in 3D to do other fancy things later with the camera and additional objects. Secondly, of course, I do not want to draw the logo by hand but use the pre-existing image file if possible.

Edit 2
I tried to make a blender file to show the effect at a single letter. It is not done very well just clicked together to see this roughly. I used the approach from the other question I mentioned to do boolean intersection.
Here I used a mesh but this is not 100% necessary. I just want the letter to be drawn over time. The camera will be animated which I did not do in the minimal example.

Edit 3
As I was asked fo examples what I am planning/willing, I was pretty sure, I've seen a similar effect in an opening credit of a smaller cinema studio. Lookinf through maybe a hundred such credit scenes on youtube, I found 3 similar ones (but not the one I had in my mind):

Regency (The light seems to be shining through a black plane)
Good Universe (Drawing in thin air with sparklers)
Screen Australia (The broad pencil drawing, not the letter)

The effect is always the same: The letters are appearing over time. I think the Regency video is closest to what I want to do but in reversed colors: I wnat to have a white (paper) plane and draw with dark (blue) ink.

In order to replicate the effect , as shown by the question you have given above , in 2d with textures you will have to use a different approach, which is by using the blender's node editor,  the texture (here, logo) you want to apply the effect on should be added as an image texture in the node editor and then you will have to add a mix node and mix it with a transparent shader. Now, you can create a gradient and use a color ramp to tighten it up, also connect a Voronoi texture in between the texture node and mapping node in order to create a river like effect and use the x or y co-ordinates of the mapping node to make it go all the way from black to white ( if you want to inverse it just make it go from white to black and add an invert node after the color ramp ) and use it as a factor for the mix node. Finnaly you are going to achieve the effect you are looking for.


newbie question: Move several bones with one control So i have a humanoid rig and i want it to  only do one thing - open and close arms as if hugging someone. I want to have a single control (with one degree of freedom) that moves all the bones proportionally between resting and hugging configuration. and this is the only control i want to expose to animator. I don't want animator to manually move each arms' fingers etc. this would be way too laborious for what is essentially 1 degree of freedom transition.

Is this possible?

Absolutely!

I would recommend using Action Constraints. Here's how I would do that, and it actually works really well.

Start by making an animation, with the rest pose on frame one, and the final pose on a later frame. Make the animation fairly long, say 100 frames or so. Add whatever keyframes you need so that the animation looks like you want.

Next, you'll need a control bone or object, something to that the end animator will interact with. This can be a bone on the same rig, or a separate object entirely.

Finally, you will need to add an Action Constraint to every bone that moves in the animation you made.

In the Action Constraint settings, select your rig and control bone (or just the object). Select the action that you made, and set the action range (frames) to whatever you used. For example, if the animation you made was 100 frames long, it would start on 1, and end on 100. For the target, choose whatever transform you want to use to control the rig at the end. If you want it to behave like a slider, choose one of the 3 location options. You'll probably want to switch to Local Space as well. Then choose the target range. This defines how far you need to move the control to drive the whole animation. If you think that moving the control one Blender unit is good, set the minimum to 0 and the maximum to 1. Note, when using Local Space, the minimum will always be 0.

Now, when you move the control on whatever axis you chose, you will be able to control the action that you made at the beginning. Add this constraint to all the bones that will need to move and you're done! There may be a way to automate this to make it faster if you have a lot of bones to apply this to, but I don't know how to do that.


Setting the origin for each object to geometry Blender 2.83
In python I can create all of the features that I want in my world, but when I go to the world, each thing has the same location data. I can click on each and click set origin to geometry, and that fixes it. The info pane says:
"bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_GEOMETRY', center='MEDIAN')"
So I would think I can run, at the end of my script, something like
for object in bpy.context.scene.objects:
            bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_GEOMETRY', center='MEDIAN')

but this doesn't seem to do anything. How do I set everything to have origin_geometry, so that they have reasonable position data.

Low level Origin to geometry
Will have to investigate the difference between calling the set origin operator via code and via the UI
Instead can sum the vert coordinates make that the origin, and shift the matrix back accordingly
import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector

scene = bpy.context.scene

mesh_obs = [o for o in scene.objects if o.type == 'MESH']

for o in mesh_obs:
    me = o.data
    mw = o.matrix_world
    origin = sum((v.co for v in me.vertices), Vector()) / len(me.vertices)

    T = Matrix.Translation(-origin)
    me.transform(T)
    mw.translation = mw @ origin

Alternatively could change your mesh creation class to not use global coordinates.
Operators run on context
Operators use the context.  The origin set will set the origin of all selected mesh objects and can be run once on the selection rather than per object. See Python performance with Blender operators  as to why this  matters.
Another part of context is the code in question?  It is quite possible that changing the origin could be dealt with somewhere else if you are to quote:

In python I can create all of the features that I want

However without any idea of what prior code is, here is a  Test script, set origin of all mesh objects in the scene by passing them as overridden  context to the operator.
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene

mesh_obs = [o for o in scene.objects if o.type == 'MESH']

if mesh_obs:
    bpy.ops.object.origin_set(
            {"object" : mesh_obs[0],
            "selected_objects" : mesh_obs,
            "selected_editable_objects" : mesh_obs,
            }
        )


Why do convex curves with sharp edges automatically flatten? I've been making a few weapons for a short while now and I've found that a similar issue arises pretty commonly. This time I've noticed that when making a convex portion of a blade with an edge that sharpens to nothing, the curvature is lost and somehow flattened prematurely.

The blade is two-sided but there should be no clipping faces, I've already merged vertices and tried remaking the faces. I know that making more edges to join the outer and the inner vertices can resolve this, but it doesn't preserve the smooth look of the blade. I also noticed that this problem doesn't arise when only one side of the sword has the face that's causing the issue.
This is blender 2.8

This happens because the surface is pretty much undefined. The only guaranteed flat surface there is is between exactly three vertices. If you have more vertices without edges,  it's a guessing game for Blender, so it will come to different conclusions, depending on angle and other factors.

What you can try is using the subdivision surface modifier, simple, not cattmull-clark, in a high resolution. It will try to fill the face with edges.


Model seems to shine in ways it shouldn't I'm new to blender, so sorry if this seems like a rookie thing, but I can't seem to find a solution... A model I've been working on has an eyesore of a shine from certain angles that my specular map shouldn't be causing. I suspect it's an issue with the geometry and not the textures, but I don't really know how to diagnose it. I though it'd help to see what I'm dealing with, so I included an image and a gif below along with a link to a folder containing the files. Any help would be appreciated.
Here's that download link.

]3

It's a problem of normals that can happen with some imported objects, you need to go in the Properties panel > Object Data > Geometry Data, and Clear Custom Split Normals Data:


render has doesn't have a good quality as preview the rope texture is not showing well in the render, what is the problem?

heres the .blend file : https://www.dropbox.com/s/7orb65pyzrs6e3u/fuse.blend?dl=0

is there a way that motion blur will affect one object?

Yes. Disable Motion Blur in Properties > Object:

Now that object will not be affected:


Changing the units in blender breaks camera view I changed the scale in blender so exporting to unity would be less of a hassle. I followed this tutorial to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnAb1w-Dmuc.

The problem is that after changing the scale, I cannot see anything through the camera. Even if I scale it up and point it directly in front of the model, nothing renders.

Sounds like the clipping distance is too small:

One meter is the default size of the spaces in the grid, and in this case isn't large enough.

If you enable limits in camera > display, you can see a representation of the clipping distance in the 3D view, allowing you to see what might be wrong:


Delete multiple objects in the Outliner Is it possible to delete multiple objects in the Outliner? The way I delete objects now is by Shift + Left Click on them on the Outliner, then Right Click then selecting Delete. However, this only works on the active element, not on all selected objects.

How do I delete all the selected objects?

EDIT: I tried selecting the objects then pressing on X on the 3D Viewport to select Delete, but it doesn't seem to be working. Please see the GIF below:

You can be excused for being confused as it would seem logical to click the names of the object - rather you should click further down the bar and you will see the row colour change tone. You don't even need to hold down shift to select more items. Note that selecting items this way has nothing to do with the selection in the 3D window. Once selected you can just right click and select 'delete'.

Other keys that work here - A toggle (select all/ deselect all) note colour tone difference. Also B box select, and then middle box to remove select, work here.

Once you see how it works ...it is pretty efficient.


Can Blender show edges of lo-res mesh on hi-res mesh when editing subdiv surface? I'm wondering if Blender implements a feature that Maya has.  Mainly, if you're editing a mesh with a subdiv modifier, is there any way to have the lines of the lo-res mesh drawn directly on the model?

Here's a screen shot from Maya:

This is what I'm able to do in Blender.  The lo-res mesh is next to the model instead of projected onto it:

Press the fourth icon next to the subdivision surface name (Triangular Polygon).

The tooltip is Adjust edit cage to modifier result.

Note that while you will be seeing a displaced vertice, the editing operation still act on the original vertices with their respective locations.


Offset object duplicated along path I have a curve and a sphere, and I would like to make 5 copies of that sphere move along the curve.

It's possible to duplicate them along the curve by making the sphere a child of the curve and switching on dupliframes, however don't know how to move the duplicated spheres along the path - perhaps there's an offset option I'm missing?

Using the a Follow Path constraint I can offset the sphere along the path, but I can't duplicate it.

I've also tried the Array and Curve modifiers together - again this doesn't let me move the duplicated spheres along the path.

Any suggestions?

I tried to obtain what you describe: it wasn't extremely simple, but I think the result should be something near, at least:

How it is done?

added the path
added a 5 vertex segment
added a curve modifier to the segment (highlighted in the above image), targeting the curve, along X
now moving the segment along X (animating with loc keyframes) it follows the curve
then added 5 spheres, each snapped to each of the segment vertices, then each vertex parented to the segment
alternatively, and more efficiently, you can parent one sphere to the segment, then select the segment and enable duplication on "verts".

the following images show the alternative method, and also a movement along a more complicated curve:

there are probably other ways, but this should be near.


How to import 12-bit tif image sequence in Video Editor? I am having a sequence of tif files of 12-bit depth. When imported into blender  I am getting a blank screen. How to ensure that the images are imported properly into the video editor? I tried changing the input color format but with no success.

According to the Blender Manual, 12-bit TIFF is not supported (but 8 and 16 bit TIFF is): https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/data_system/files/media/image_formats.html

I suggest converting the sequence to a different format (e.g. 16-bit TIFF, which is supported); there are several softwares that can achieve this. (I often use FFmpeg for this purpose—please let me know if you'd like help with FFmpeg.)


Deleting all groups with python API Is there a way to delete all groups with the python API? What I want to do is delete all objects and groups in the current environment and then append groups from another file. I've figured out how to delete all the objects but can't figure out how to delete the groups.

Thanks in advance.

Delete all groups in blend file.

BlendDataGroups.remove(...)

import bpy

for g in bpy.data.groups:
    bpy.data.groups.remove(g)

remove all empty groups (no objects assigned) from blend file

empty_groups = [g for g in bpy.data.groups if not g.objects]
while empty_groups:
    bpy.data.groups.remove(empty_groups.pop())

Note: For my current version (2.79.4) there are some extra options all set to True by default to "force the issue" without having to unlink and unset users.

>>> bpy.data.groups.remove(
remove()
BlendDataGroups.remove(group, do_unlink=True, do_id_user=True, do_ui_user=True)
Remove a group from the current blendfile

See also.

Proper way to remove unused linked Group data-blocks


Object appears in camera? How can I investigate if an object appears through a camera in BGE?

Ray sensor does not suit me cause it is one line, while I am searching for the whole screen.

As far as I know the API does not provide direct access to the frustum calculation.

You can use KX_Camera.boxInsideFrustum, KX_Camera.sphereInsideFrustum and bge.types.KX_Camera.pointInsideFrustum to get an estimate if something is at the screen (or maybe not).


Creating a wavy dot pattern in a Cycles shader [Solution at bottom of question]
I'm trying to create a shader to draw dots in a wavy pattern. I have the dots, and I have the waves, but I'm not sure how to combine the two.
I create the dots by adding together 2 wave textures that are 90° apart from each other, and use a Less Than node to draw each dot with a hard border. (Fun fact -- if you rotate the overall dot pattern by 90° you can switch between staggered and non-staggered dots.) This results in a grid of dots.
The "wavy waves" pattern is a combination of two wave textures. One base wave with another wave being added to the X-coordinate of the base wave to create the variation.
Every time I've tried to combine the dots with the waves doesn't work out... the waves always end up squishing or stretching the dots. I don't want that -- I want to keep the circular dots, and only adjust their placement to match the wave pattern.
Any advice? Intended end-result below.
.
Shader nodes to draw plain dots:

Resulting plain dots

Shader nodes to draw wavy waves:

Resulting wavy waves:

End goal:

================================================================
Solution
(thanks to @RobinBetts below)
Using Robin's clever method of UV tiling, I made a small change to achieve just what I wanted. (note - you need 2.81 to open Robin's .blend file)
I wanted to be able to adjust the spacing of the dots in the X and Y, which I think is the next step after Robin's answer. To do this, I changed the Fraction node into a Modulo node, which lets you adjust how quickly the UV space is repeated. Note that the modulo coeff in the X direction must always be a positive integer to keep the correct dot shape. The modulo coeff in the Y direction can be any positive number. And that's it. Adjusting the Scale, Freq, and Amplitude does all the rest.

This tree divides the UV space into XY cells, and samples the sine of X at every cell to stagger the position of the Y cells.

This results in a modified UV space which looks like this: (X->R, Y->G, 0 at the center of each cell)

This space can be used to tile any UV-dependent texture in a sine-wave pattern.

In this case, we use the output vector as the 'Vector' input of a procedural dot:

With this sort of result:

It's actually quite tricky to adjust the frequency and amplitude so the cells sample the sine wave at the right rate to maintain the 'wavy' look, but I don't think that can be constrained to make it easier.. unless we fixed it to make every other row black, or something, so the right dots are associated with the right dots, perceptually. We could tweak it to do that, or something like it, if you like.

EDIT: @natedogg has improved the answer, to make it easier to see the pattern. (See OP) The attached .blend includes the improvement.


How do I render a decent swimming pool animation in a reasonable amount of time? I making an animation that features a swimming pool. The animation is going to be ~2 minutes, and I would like the swimming pool to splash when the characters jump in it, and ripple when they move. I want the water to be transparent but also reflective, and I also want there to be a pattern at the bottom of the pool from the caustics. I also want the animation to render fast (1-2 minutes rendering time per frame, the rest of the scene is mostly diffuse materials and low poly geometry, HD if possible or at least 720p) on the CPU in cycles. How do I do this? Is there anyway to composite or bake textures of the scene so that the scene will render at a decent speed?

I also want to know whether or not the fluid simulation is the best way to do this. Is there a way to use particles, an ocean modifier or dynamic paint to get a faster bake?

The most expensive part of this rendering is going to be the caustics. If you want real caustics, they will probably be grainy. In cycles you can spend as time as you want on each frame, but less time will make a more grainy render.

If you want to fake caustics, there are a number of options. They give different results and different rendering speeds.

Add an emitting shader to the pool floor. Make it emit light in a caustic-like pattern. You can probably animate like this: How to animate noise texture "seed"?
Use vector math to fake caustics. Explained here http://urchn.org/post/fake-caustics-in-cycles
You can bake a texture in cycles from the first frame caustics. Use that for the rest of the frames. This will give a physically correct first frame but will not animate.

I think that the vector-math approach will give you best results.


My bone is affecting vertices not assigned to it? I've got a lego rig going and it's almost complete, but I've encountered the problem where the head bones are affecting the chest area, despite no verticies in the chest being assigned to the head group. Weight panting doesn't reveal anything helpful either-anyone know what causes this?

If you created the weights with automatic weights then mesh proximity is what determines the automatic weights. This is a common problem.
Do not depend on eyeball inspection of the problem area. You may not be able to see fine differences of color.  Paint it zero weight for the problem bone.
I suggest you add another bone for the neck to create more precision

Bones have many options, the Blender User can actually see the weights for a single vertex in the [edit mode] with display of weights enabled. See image above.  This is not a tutorial.  BSE may have other tutorials as well as the site that rhymes with noonoob.


SubSurface-Mirror Problem I am beginner, I am trying to made a car bumper and problem appears when I want to mirror my model (I modeled a right side half of bumper because is symmetric).

When I use only mirror modifier all is fine but when I want add subsurface modifier, my model has some bugs and mistakes.

The problem you are facing could be that the middle of your bumper model, where the mirroring starts, isn't completely flat along the x-axis. You can fix this by selecting the vertices, scaling and then pressing X and 0.

After flattening the vertices, go to the properties panel by hitting N and put the vertice group to 0 on the x-axis.

Here are some pictures:

The situation

Select these vertices

Scale to 0 on the x axis

X co-ordinate to 0


Blender not importing openings from doors or windows from IFC file I want to import an IFC file exported from REVIT, using the BlenderBIM add-on.
Once in Blender, some openings (doors and windows) are not imported, and window and door families are imported embeded in walls, while some openings are imported without a problem with the window and door in place. I have to say that it is always the same openings that are or aren't imported, meaning that it is not a random problem. In some cases, the opening for a door family in a specific wall is imported, but the opening of the same door copied in a different wall, is not.
I have checked the IFC file using a IFC viewer and all the openings are there. Perhaps some setting during the import process that I'm missing?

Console:
Done creating geometry
Creating meshified products :: 3.45
Relating openings :: 0.01
Placing objects in spatial tree :: 0.05
Add project to scene :: 0.00
Info: Removed 4 vertice(s)
Mesh cleaning :: 0.66
Setting default context :: 0.00
Import finished in 4.91 seconds
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
WARN (bpy.rna): C:\b\buildbot-worker-windows\windows_291\blender.git\source\blender\python\intern\bpy_rna.c:1493 pyrna_enum_to_py: current value '0' matches no enum in 'BIMRootProperties', '', 'ifc_predefined_type'
Info: Deleted 1 object(s)

After painful hours of trial and error, I found the solution (or at least the problem, to some extent).
The problem comes from the way the file is exported to IFC format from Revit. Even though on the IFC viewer everything looked fine, there's something on Revit that does make a difference when exporting: the IFC version.
The version I had set was IFC 2x3 Coordination View 2.0, because I understood it's very reliable and because it exports objects, if not with textures, at least with material names assigned, which makes applying textures on Blender very easy.
However, there were issues with walls and opennings. In some cases, the opening was imported properly, in other cases it wasn't.
Now, a side note about this: The openings were actually imported, but they didn't go all the way through the wall. I tried playing with the width of wall and window and door families, but I never got a consistent result and was running out of time (an patience!)
The IFC version that imported the openings and all elements without a problem, was IFC4 Reference View, which I've heard is not as widely accepted as IFC 2, but it worked for me. Downside is that objects are imported without material names assigned, BUT, the material names list is imported.
I'm moving from there and assigning materials object by object, since it was more important for me to have walls with proper openings.
If somebody has a better solution, do say!


UV Map Faces Unwrapping Out Of Order I have an issue where my faces are unwrapping out of order (it would seem).

I've selected all my faces and unwrapped them, but there is ONE face that seems out of order during texture mapping.

You can see the circle that doesn't complete properly.

I have this issue often. Is there something I can do to sort the faces?

you should be able to use the line select tool and scale up more so it covers the whole image, But Im not too shure :D


Weird Bug When Trying To Mirror Keyframes For some reason, when ever I try to mirror key frames this happens and whenever I run the animation the legs rotation will be the same instead of the opposite.
why does it do this to the legs?

What is your goal here? What do you want to achieve by mirroring keyframes? I'm assuming, that you're trying to mirror pose and make a keyframe of it.Is that right? If so your armature probably is not symmetrized. It means, that symmetric bones on both sides of the body don't have symmetrical rolls. What you need to do is go in edit mode, select all bones of legs and arms, press W and choose Symmetrize. After that mirroring pose should work perfectly.


Texture displaying dark on one side I'm new to Blender so be easy on me.

I'm learning how to use textures and UV Mapping. I made a "wizards" hat and added a fabric texture to it. After seeing how it was stretching the texture, I put a seam down the middle of the hat (long ways) so that it is cut directly down the sides.

Now the texture is showing up nicely, however one side of the seam is much darker blue on one side than the other. Any advice on how to get the color similar on both sides is greatly appreciated!

Of course right after I finally post here I figure it out,

I changed the Color Space on the Normal Node to "Non-Color" and that fixed it!


Cycles Toon shader size effects diffuse direct value Here are three monkeys lit by the same sun lamp. They have only a Toon Diffuse shader set to color of 0.2 value, and size of 0.8, 0.5, and 0.2 respectively. But it can clearly be seen that their lit areas are displaying very different colors. When rendered, the difference shows up in the Diffuse Direct pass.

Does anyone know why this works this way, and what is going on mathematically? I want to make an adjustment to the color going into the shader based on the size to compensate for this and bring them all back to the same level of brightness in their lit area. Is it intended for the Toon shader to behave this way? Is this a bug?

According to the code currently here, and the sample_uniform_cone currently here, without smoothing the resulting diffuse intensity depends on the size of the toon shader node.

So we can compensate this value to invert the calculation:

The size is multiplied by pi/2 (so this is relative to half cone angle).

Then take 1 minus the cosinus of the previous result.

Then divide pi/2 by the previous result.

Last, multiply the intensity value by it.

As this last step is multiplication factor in the shader code, we need to divide by it in the nodes. This is done by this node group:

The result is not exactly perfect (should be some rounding or an error by me). But we obtain this:


RNA definition type in user preference > input , how can I change this? Hi. I want to add a new hotkey in Blender.
So, 'User Preferences > Input > + Add New' give me a hotkey slot and I name it as 'rotate view' with 'Alt + LMB' key.

However, I can't change the RNA. I guess it's about function of this hotkey.
How can I get this work?

The RNA value comes from the operator named above. Were you have entered "rotate view" needs to be the name of the operator to be run when the key/mouse combination is pressed. The standard operator to rotate the view would be view3d.rotate.

To get the value of a custom operator, you need to use the value of bl_idname defined in the operator you wish to use.

Some operators will have other properties that can be set as well -

This appears a little misleading as the options appear disabled, when in fact that shows they are default values, changing the values highlights them and shows an 'X' to return to default values.


Custom Area bl_space_type not possible without building Source exe? I'm hopeful to create a custom blender bl_space_type say CUSTOMVIEW but I get this error.

bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
TypeError: validating class: enum "CUSTOMVIEW" not found in ('EMPTY', 'VIEW_3D', 'TIMELINE', 'GRAPH_EDITOR', 'DOPESHEET_EDITOR', 'NLA_EDITOR', 'IMAGE_EDITOR', 'CLIP_EDITOR', 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR', 'NODE_EDITOR', 'TEXT_EDITOR', 'LOGIC_EDITOR', 'PROPERTIES', 'OUTLINE)

I noticed the EMPTY type and thought well that must be there to create a custom view somehow?
Are there any blender bl_space_type empty examples? or examples of creating an addon that creates a new main area type?

Can someone confirm this is another thing that is not possible in Blender... yet? Is it in 2.8? planned?

Currently this is not possible and also no plans are yet revealed by any developer to make this possible from the python API only.

Making this part fully in python and supported by the community will not be an easy task. Are you up for it?


Make a rigid body bounce from an angle I would like to make this ball bounce in an angle coming from the left. How do I do it? Please Help thank you very much.

One way to do this is using particles. First add a Sphere and Tab into edit mode and move it in the Z-axis till the origin is at the bottom.

Move this Sphere to a different layer. Next add two Planes. One will be used for generating the ball and the other will be used as a floor. And place them in a manner shown below. Make the floor large enough.

Now, select the floor and go to the "Physics" tab and toggle "Collision". Then select the plane at the top and add a particle system to it. Set the Emission Number to 1. Increase the Lifetime to the length of your animation. Then scroll down to "Render" and toggle "Object". In the "Dupli Object" select the Sphere. Then increase the size to the desired level. Check off "Emitter" so the plane doesn't show up in your render. Now go to "Velocity" and set the starting speed on the Z-axis. Finally press Alt+A to animate.


Particles/Hair: How do I adjust the normal so the spikes go the same way around the object? Is there a way to adjust the up/rotation of a face's normal, so all the spikes flow the same way on the object

For some reason they seam to flip over when I apply this particle system to the simple cylinder and cube.

Hmmm, i've noticed that when using emitter as oppose to hair, then the normals dont flip round...

Except, curve to mesh, type objects, the normals twist around....

After a lot of web digging and experimenting, the answer was in the manual!

In the Particles panel enable the Rotation option, and set Initial Orientation to Normal-Tangent. BUT you need to have created a UV map for this to work.

Depending on the shape of your faces, the UV Reset option in UV Mapping drop down can be useful setting the initial rotation too.


Why doesn't an Environment texture appear when the world has a Volume Scatter shader? I'm working on lighting a scene in which I need to have both an Environment texture for the background and Volume Scatter for light cones, but when I check the volume section in World setting and choose the Volume Scatter, the environment becomes black background (but the lighting works as I want).

I'm using Blender 2.72

How can this be fixed?

This is a known limitation, and it's not exactly a bug.
Because the world background is an infinite distance away and a world volume shader is assumed to be infinitely large, there is a bit of a problem. No matter how low the density of the volume is, it will completely absorb all light going an infinite distance through it.
The solution
You can use a finite object volume instead of an infinite world volume.
To do this, create a largish cube object or any shape which encloses your entire scene (or at least the part which should have fog/mist/whatever in it).
By adding a volume shader to this object, you can create a finite volume around your scene which you have much more control over. See my answer here for more detail.


Python 2.x class in 3.x I need to use a class written in Python 2.x, but get tons of errors in Blender 2.71 Python 3, any ways around this problem?

There isn't one single way to translate your class from Python 2 to Python 3.

You could try using the command-line tool 2to3 to do the translation, but it's not perfect, so you'll need to verify the results.


Lossless compression for video with audio What are the best settings to render if I want lossless compression of the video and audio?

(I'm rendering a small clip that will be added to the Video Editor of multiple Blender files)

I couldn't get DNxHD to work (which isn't lossless, but very close to it), so I suggest the following options, which work for me:

Output Format H.264 (RGB)

Encoding Preset H264

Lossless Output (none of the values in the panel matter)

Audio Codec FLAC (bitrate doesn't matter again)

This will give you great quality at a relatively small filesize.


How to control the particular value of the different mapping nodes So I want to control the rotation of y axis of both the mapping nodes using a single value/node in such a manner that for every increase in 1 degree in the first mapping node ( the above node) the second mapping node(the below one)shall increase by 90 degree.
Is it possible by using nodes/drivers??

You can use this node setup :

The input value (in degrees) is converted to radians then mapped to the Z value of a XYZ Vector. Then it's plugged into one of the mapping nodes on one side, and scaled on the other side then plugged in the other mapping node.


How can I create multiple variables in a PropertyGroup? I want to create a number of StringProperty's to a property group using a loop.
e.g:

class Test(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):

    for n in range(1, 20):
        line_[n] : bpy.props.StringProperty(name = "line_%d" % (n))

I tried enumerating a list but it registers the list too.

Annotations

Quite possibly this is a dupe of Blender 2.8 - Field property declaration and dynamic class creation

I found that using the type method do define a class in 2.79 was very handy, but for annotations very tricky.

If an __annotations__ is defined on our propertygroup class, can add to it prior to registering.

import bpy

class Test(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    __annotations__ = {}

for n in range(1, 20):
    k = "line_%d" % n
    Test.__annotations__[k] = bpy.props.StringProperty(name=k)

bpy.utils.register_class(Test)
bpy.types.Scene.test = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=Test)

Or in the class

class Test(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    __annotations__ = {'line_%d' % i: bpy.props.StringProperty(name="line_%d" % i)
            for i in range(1, 20)}

Test in py console

>>> C.scene.test.line_1
''


Edit mode when use Subdivision only show wireframe 2.8 I want to ask about how to show the model when use Subdivision surface on blender 2.8.

Here is the difference when you use blender 2.79 vs 2.8 edit mode.

Blender 2.8 (11 August 2018 built)

Is it a bug or I missed something on blender 2.8?

Left is blender 2.79 and right blender 2.8.

Thank you

Temporary Answer
From this forum (https://blenderartists.org/t/subdivision-preview-mode-missing/1114785/5) Ace_Dragon said that

  "The existing subsurf code is being ripped out and replaced with new code based on the OpenSubDiv library (which is becoming the industry-wide standard)."

Wait a while longer, it seems that for now this thing hasn't been included in blender 2.8.

Update

On the latest build, 12 Oct 2018, we can see the mesh when entering edit mode

I Suggest You To Use Blender 2.79.Because 2.80 still got many bugs and 2.79 is a stable one . So I suggest You To Use The Stable One. HAPPY BLENDING


Wrong UV in render mode with Rain rig The Rain rig that Blender provided here: https://cloud.blender.org/p/characters/5f04a68bb5f1a2612f7b29da works fine for me with the viewport shading but when I render it got this result:

After checking the UV, it seems that there is 3 different textures called "TEX-rain_body_diffuse.1001.png", "TEX-rain_body_diffuse.1002.png" and "TEX-rain_body_diffuse.1003.png" with different resolutions for the skin material. The UV corresponding to the 1002 texture is moved
one unit to the right, and the 1003 is moved 2 units to the right, which seems pretty logic in fact:

But I think the first texture (TEX-rain_body_diffuse.1001.png) is repeating instead of taking the next images that corresponds to the UVs...
As I am the only one with this issue, I suppose there is a basic option I didn't check. Ah and obviously I automatically ran the script on the blend launch
I hope you can help me, and thank you for your attention.

You should to set pictures for Udim .
Read this Link


How to make or simulate perspiration? I want to know if it's possible to simulate perspiration on a surface in cycles such as in the following images:

If so what techniques should be used?

On a separate layer create an object that will have the shape of your droplets, and give it the material you need.

Then on the main object add a particle system with start and end on frame 1, no physics and using the drop object as the render object.


How do I add custom options to an export script (like triangulate faces, unwrap UVs, etc.)? I have a functioning export script that I haven't worked on since about a year ago. I'm just getting back into polishing it up and optimizing the code, but I can't remember how to add check boxes, custom values, and such in the UI export panel. I googled for some templates and tutorials, but I couldn't find anything.

Any example code that someone can provide would be appreciated.

To add user adjustable options you add properties to your export operator.

If you want to customize the way the options are displayed, add a draw(self, context) to your operator, which works the same as a panel draw method.

import bpy

class ExportData(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Export objects to file"""
    bl_idname = "export_scene.data"
    bl_label = "Export data"

    do_triangulate = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
            name="Triangulate faces",
            description="Triangulate all faces.",
            default=True,
            )

    sample_float = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
            name="example",
            description="Just an example.",
            min=0.0, max=1000.0,
            soft_min=0.0, soft_max=100.0,
            default=0.0,
            )

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

        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(self, "do_triangulate")

        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(self, "sample_float", expand=True)

    def execute(self, context):
        # do your exporting here

You can find examples of how this works in most of the import/export scripts included with blender such as the obj exporter


Viewport and render artifact with distant objects Using the default scene, if I select everything (cube, camera, lamp) and move everything very far away (say X = 999999, Y = 888888, Z = 777777) from the World Origin, the camera sees and renders the cube and the grid floor as if they were shaken objects in all 3 axis.
That problem happens at least in Blender 2.92 Release and Blender 2.83.13 LTS.
What's the cause of that problem ?
How to solve it ?
My goal is to be able to move any object, any rigged character, any light and any camera anywhere in a huge world (X, Y and Z ranging from -999999 to 999999), without such visual artifact.
Thanks in advance for helping me!

Internally, Blender uses floating-point numbers to represent vertex coordinates. Floating point numbers can represent a very wide range of values, but they grow increasingly imprecise at very large or very small scales. The Working Limits section of the Blender documentation gives some example precisions at various scales.
If you want to work with very large coordinate values, you can use the Unit Scale scene property to globally scale everything in the scene into the numerically stable range. Of course, this has the consequence of making smaller values less precise, so you ultimately just need to pick a scale and stick to it.


OPENGL Blender Transparent PNG on top of video I´m using a lot of OPENGL render animation for the sake of the rendering time, some motions quite simple that doesnt need any kind of raytrace like this one:

First I´m using Blender Internal, cannot use Cycles because the movies used as materials on the planes do not play on OPENGL.

My problem is on the stars, they are a PNG file with a movie on the bottom, and they are getting those edges around the transparency, have tried a few things, like premultiplied and straight options on the material with no success, if I select the object on the viewport displays correct:

Someone knows what can I do to fix it?

@andrepazleal, I've had no problem placing one movie (with transparent bkd) over another and find OpenGL handles this well.

The edge effect you're describing I've also experienced and have solved that as described below...

Flame Video with transparency, stacked in front of another, all done in the 3D window by texturing planes and rendered in OpenGL -

As to the edge artifact problem, I take it that you are rendering with OpenGL and that the stars are a png file with it's own alpha layer (transparent background), being used to texture a plane.

The effect you're describing around it's edges can be the result of the plane's "Transparency" box (see below) being either ticked or unticked when in fact it needs the inverse.  i.e. tick it if it's unticked and vice versa.

The edges will show when not selected and disappear when selected, just as you described.  Changing it's Transparency tick should fix your problem.

If there's a plane or object behind that again, the background object's own transparency box may also affect the outcome.  When the first box doesn't help you can try different combinations in both.  I've experienced this problem frequently and those tick boxes have solved the issue every time.

The box is found by clicking on the plane's properties at the right, (little cube icon) going down to it's "Dipslay" tab and opening that to reveal the "Transparency" box.

You may also find that reducing a textured plane's "Specular" settings to zero, can also assist in removing artifacts.

Both Specular sliders can be found under the plane's Material properties.  The main one is in the Specular tab, the other in the Transparency tab. (immediately under the Opacity slider)  If both the Opacity and Specular sliders are not at dead zero, unwanted effects may occur.

The previous paragraph refers to planes being textured with an image containing an alpha (transparent) layer.


Abort script that renders frames My script runs through a for loop, each time rendering a frame. How can I abort the script?

Normally, I'd use CTL+C in the terminal Blender was launched from, but this doesn't work.  It just waits until the current frame is done and then raises a KeyboardInterrupt exception in some file called .../2.69/scripts/addons/cycles/engine.py, but continues on to the next frame.

Here is a simplified version of my script:

import bpy

framesToRender = (1, 3, 4, 6, 7)

for frame in framesToRender:
    bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame)
    bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = "/home/garrett/Desktop/" + str(frame).zfill(4)
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)

EDIT:

The only way I've figured out to stop it is by killing Blender from the System Monitor (for Ubuntu), or close the terminal Blender was launched from. Using xkill on Blender kills the user interface, but doesn't stop the script.

To stop the loop you can install your own handler for the SIGINT signal which is executed by the main thread. (see signal module)

The rendering of the current frame will not abort.

import bpy
import signal

abort = None

def hndl(signum, frame):
    global abort
    abort = True
    print("\nAbort")
    #uncomment to call the default handler
    #raising the KeyboardInterruption exception
    #signal.default_int_handler(signum, frame)

def run():
    global abort
    signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, hndl)
    count = 0
    abort = False
    while not abort and count < 10:
        count += 1
        print(count, abort)
        bpy.ops.render.render()

def reset():
    signal.signal(
        signal.SIGINT,
        signal.default_int_handler
        )

if __name__== "__main__":
    run()
    reset()


Is it possible to have a separate animation timeline in another layer? I would like to have different animation speeds for different objects in the same scene. Having a separate timeline would help but I can't find an option to do that.

If it is not possible to create a separate timeline, what should I do to have different animation speeds?

I've achieved my goal by simply increasing the needed amount of timeline frames and duplicating and extending everything I need to be short into a loopable manner.
This way I can animate different objects to go faster or slower in the same scene.


Curve nodes have no line showing Whenever I add a node that constructs a curve, e.g. RGB in cycles, or interpolation in Animation nodes. I can see and add points, but there is no line or curve connecting them, and I cannot find any options to change this.

I've probably broken something, but I can't find what!

Here's an example.

I have seen this issue before, I believe it is a bug in the UI theme, since it only seems to happen with certain bundled themes

After fumbling around with the settings I could not find any way to fix it, or what color to change, so this is more of a workaround than an actual fix.

For the time being just change the current theme in the user preferences, either permanently or temporarily while working with nodes.


Why do even samples give less noise than odd samples? I noticed that with some shaders, every other sample seems have less noise than the sample before and after it.

The shaders I noticed this with:

SSS
rough Diffuse
Toon
Translucent
Velvet

For example, using the SSS shader:

Sample 1:

Sample 2:

Sample 3:

What is the technical reason for this?

Example .blend

Sometimes it so happens that if the renderer has to sample N discrete things, and the number of samples is a multiple of N, then it can be that each thing gets exactly the same number of samples, which gives less noise.

With path tracing, each AA sample picks one light at random. If you have 2 lights with 2 AA samples then each light can be picked once, but if you have 3 AA samples then one light must necessarily get more samples than the other, which results in noise.

If Cycles used pure random sampling to pick the light for each AA sample this effect would not happen, with 2 AA samples a light might then get 0, 1 or 2 samples and it would still be noisy. However the Sobol and Correlated Multi-Jitter sampling distributions used by Cycles are such that each light does get exactly the same number of samples. For Sobol this works if the number of lights is a power of two, for Correlated Multi-Jitter it works for any number of lights.

For SSS it's more difficult to explain. We use ray tracing to find nearby points on the surface, where 50% of the rays are distributed along the direction of the normal, and 25% along two tangent directions. For flat surfaces only the rays along the direction of the normal will find points on the surface, and the sample distributions are such that an even number of AA samples will cause each pixel to hit the surface the same number of times.


Make a Pie-Specials Menu, dependent on selection type I want to do the following with Python:

I have 3 different menus, and I want them to appear, dependent on the selection mode.

So when I'm in faceselectmode, I want with the same button a different menu as if I'm in vertselectmode.

I think, with a for loop that could be possible, but I don't now how to set variables that makes sense and also the rest of that code could be complex.

So I just need a for loop which checks in which select mode I am in. Because it's possible that there could be more options chosen, I thought that the best solution would be to get only a special menu, when there is only one selection type.

So that's the code I have so far (doesn't work) the bool variables also could be one step too much.

import bpy
from bpy.types import Menu

select_vert=bool

select_edge=bool

select_face=bool

tool_settings.mesh_select_mode=tsm

for bpy.ops.mesh.select_mode in type #what?

    if  type ='VERT'
    select_vert=True
    select_edge=False
    select_face=False

    elif type ='EDGE'
    select_vert=False
    select_edge=True
    select_face=False

    elif type = 'FACE'
    select_vert=False
    select_edge=False
    select_face=True

In blenders text editor you can find a template for creating a pie menu. You will probably want to turn your script into an addon to make your menu available every time you start blender.

Starting with the pie template, you want to alter the menus draw() to work how you want.

In the context that you get in the draw method, you can access tool_settings.mesh_select_mode which is the three boolean values for the current select mode setting. You then test them to decide if you add the related items.

def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    pie = layout.menu_pie()
    sel_mode = context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode
    if sel_mode[0]: # vertex on
        pie.operator('mesh.remove_doubles')
        pie.operator('mesh.merge')
        if not sel_mode[1]:
            # only vert select - don't show if edge sel is also active
            pie.operator('mesh.bevel', text='Vertex Bevel').vertex_only=True
    if sel_mode[1]: # edge on
        pie.operator('mesh.mark_seam')
        pie.operator('mesh.edge_rotate').use_ccw=False
        pie.operator('mesh.bevel', text='Edge Bevel').vertex_only=False
    if sel_mode[2]: # face on
        pie.operator('mesh.flip_normals')
        pie.operator('mesh.inset')
        pie.operator('mesh.poke')


BGE Animation in wrong place I am having some trouble with animations in the BGE.

I have a sphere in an inactive layer.
I animate this sphere
Another object in motion in the active layer hit a certain sensor and create the sphere in the hit position.
A always sensor in the sphere play the animation

Now the problem: The animation plays in the wrong place, no matter where  the hit point, the animation plays in the same spot. The sphere is created in the right spot, but disappear and the animation play in the wrong place, why?

Positional keyframes are always relative to the parent. When you add an object via AddObject it has no parent. Therefore it plays relative to the scene's origin -> it jumps away.

Solution

Add an empty to the hidden layer.
Parent your object to the empty.
AddObject the empty rather than your object.

Effect

This will add the empty with all of it's children, including your object. Your object will play the animation relative to it's parent, which is the  empty. The empty gets the position from the adding object.

I hope it helps


0 frames on disk, cache is outdated : unable to reset multiple cloth physics cache I have an animated character with 5 different meshes with cloth physics on it.

When I hit "Bake all dynamics", only one is baked in cache (the first one but I don't know if it is relevant to say it). All others have an outdated cache. If I hit "Delete Bake" on one of them, then hit "Bake" it only goes through the frames without calcutations, and the initial message remains : "0 frames on disk, cache is outdated". Then, if I render the animation, only the first cloth mesh (which is properly baked) displays as physics mesh...

Can you help me to reset this ?

Edit : Should I consider that Blender can't create a cache per cloth, so I have to export the first one (which is properly baked) in .mdd, then bake the second, export it etc ??

Hello i saw this post and i have a workaround. do 2 cloth sims at the same time by pressing "bake". and magically you have working cloth simulations again. it worked for me don't know if it will for you my guy.


Problem with UV Mapping in cycles I recently started having problems with UV mapping. I map the object on the same color yet it has different shades of the color. For example I was mapping a car I'm making for a game and it looked like this.

The interior of that car should all be one gray but it ends up as different shades of gray and some brown even though they are all on the same part of the texture (the texture is only 9 px by 9 px).

Try  pressing (Ctrl+N) in edit mode of the mesh while all the mesh is selected, that will recalculate all the normals, also very important press (T) and in edit mode of the mesh while all the mesh is selected find button Remove Doubles. If non of this work try unwrapping the object again.


Problem with camera orientation in motion tracking sorry for my English, I write from Italy. I'll try to explain my problem.
I'm tracking a footage with a solver error 0.2973. When I try to set the floor, the orientation of the camera is wrong (see screenshot).

So I tried to manually orient the camera, but even if well oriented respect to the xyz axes, geometry is incorrect as you can see from the screenshots below (the selected marker appears to be on the same plane but it is lower).

The video was recorded by a roof of a house so much higher than the road. It seems that Blender is not able to recognize this height and set the floor in a wrong point of view.
Can someone help me solve this problem?
Thank you

The problem with your shot is that there is no parallax information. The camera is just panning, but there is no displacement. In other words the camera is just rotating but stationary in the same place. The normal camera solver cannot reconstruct the distance to the tracked points to do a proper 3d solution on this kind of shots.

You need to solve as tripod.

Note that when you do that there is no way to get a proper reconstruction of the space in 3D. The tracking points are then projected in a spherical way around the camera.

Tripod solve will not give you real 3D information.

From the wiki:

  tripod can be used for footage where the camera does not move and only
  rotates. Such footage can't be tracked with a generic solver approach,
  and it's impossible to determine the actual feature points in space
  due to a lack of information. So this solver will solve only the
  relative camera rotation and then reproject the feature points into a
  sphere, with the same distance between feature and camera for all
  feature points.

To integrate 3D elements into the shot you're going to need to know the actual lens/sensor used and try to calculate the camera height manually.


Is a Graphics tablet essential in grease pencil? I am new here but been fiddling with grease pencil. Is a Graphics tablet essential when working with grease pencil for 2D animation?

Oh no, definitely not. Well, technically anyway. But it means drawing with the mouse.


How to bevel only one end of a cylinder? I'm trying to make a cylinder with one end beveled and the other end sharp edged, like a bullet shape. But whatever I do blender alway bevels both ends. I tried creating a vertex group with all the edges around one end, no dice, blender still bevels the other end.

Using vertex groups should work. First select the top edges and add a vertex group, then click on "Assign". Then in the "Bevel" modifier set the "Limit Method" to "Vertex Group" and then select the vertex group you created.


Spin Shortcut Key (2.8) what's the spin shortcut key?  In 2.79 it was Alt-R, but it no longer works.  I looked on the user preferences, but I couldn't figure out the answer.  Thanks

The shortcut has been removed in Blender 2.8. There are two ways you can add a shortcut, either through the keymap or by right clicking on the tool in the toolbar.

You can add it to your keymap under 3D View > Mesh as mesh.spin. However it's not particularly useful without the gizmo because the shortcut requires the configuration of the properties in the panel, which is much more time consuming.

The other approach is to right click on the spin tool in the toolbar, select Assign Shortcut and press the key combination that shall later trigger the tool. When you create the shortcut using this approach it will show the gizmo. This shortcut can also be created manually in the keymap (3D View > Mesh) by setting the identifier to wm.tool_set_by_id and the identifier of the tool to builtin.spin.


Help with modeling to UV mapping I'm new to blender. I wonder to know how to model things that can successfully create its UV Mapping. Are there any tips?

As you can see, I model a coat but it doesn't work with UV mapping. If anyone knows what's happening on my coat, please let me know. Thank you!

I got the UV mapping which looks not good. I wonder are there any tips to mark seam?

I used smart UV projects and I got the one looks better. But there are a lot of islands on UV editor, is that ok?

I think the reason you don't see your UV map, is blender doesn't preview image textures unless you change the view mode.

If you look at your 3D window on the right... at the bottom toolbar... next to the words "edit mode" is a little box with a white ball. This is where you change the view mode. Right now it's in "solid" mode, so no textures, just solid mesh shape.

Click it and choose "Material" mode. Then you'll see your image textures applied to the mesh. You could also go into rendered view by pressing shift+Z, and you can exit rendered mode with shift+Z again. Rendered view will also show your image textures. But it might not show anything if you haven't added lights and positioned your camera yet. So first try material view.


Is there a molecular addon for 2.8? I've installed the molecular addon in 2.8 release but the options are no where to be found, wondering if there's a 2.8 supported version somewhere or if i need to get 2.79 to use it

Haven’t tried it ,but scorpion81 updated it for 2.8. https://github.com/scorpion81/Blender-Molecular-Script/releases


Why can't I type simple formulas when using transforms? what its happening here? i just want to rotate R 360/5 but if do that the math function turns in to something like R [1/(360)]
even more if i divide by one i get 3282.81º

if i want to do a simple math i need to do  R ** <backspace> 360/5 and that way works, but versions ago I only need to type R 360/5 and that was it.

I remember something about this change months ago but i really don't understand it and also didn't find anything at the reference.

  Rotation
  To specify a value for clockwise rotation, press R, (0 - 9), then Return to confirm. To specify counter-clockwise rotation press R, Minus, (kbd:0 - 9), then Return to confirm. Note that 270 degrees of clockwise rotation is equivalent to -90 degrees of counter-clockwise rotation.

  source:
  https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/3dview/transform/transform_control/numeric_input.html

Activate formula mode for the Numeric input

That's because currently the "formula" input (advanced mode) is not active by default. This was made to preserve some old functionalities, like the / shortcut that, as in your case, transforms the number to its inverse.

The rule is that the formula mode becomes active only once the Numpad * (or the =) key has been pressed, so in your case you can type

Numpad *360/5

Or

3Numpad *60/5

36Numpad *0/5

360Numpad */5

and all should work as expected.

Here you can find the Sneak Peek video made by Plasmasolutions about the topic.

And here's some lines from the 2.70 release notes abot the UI (see Transform Tools Number Input section):

  Number input for tools (when you grab an object for example, you can type indirectly values with the keyboard) has been reworked, you can now use units and Python expressions in it. (87cc890aef53).

  We have two "modes", simple and advanced ones, use '=' or 'pad*' to
  enable advanced mode, and 'ctrl-=' or 'ctrl-pad*' to switch back to
  simple mode.

  Simple mode works nearly like it did before, it only accepts simple
  numbers, and you can still use '-' to negate and '/' to inverse the
  value (as well as non-number input shortcuts like XYZ, RSG, etc.).
  Compared to Blender 2.69 behavior, you can now copy and paste
  expressions, and navigate in the number you typed, so you can for
  example fix a typo without having to type everything again.

  In advanced mode, we gain more power and flexibility, but lose a few
  "shortcuts" like '-' to negate, or '/' to inverse

The 3282.81° issue can be explained with the fact that Blender makes some conversions between radiants and degree that, in conbination with the inverse operation, led to an apparently unexpected results.

By default the input for rotation are considered as degree (1° in the depicted case). In randiants would be:

rad(1°) = 0,0174532925199433

When you press / Blender uderstand that it has to caluculate the inverse of your input, so it switchs to radiants to perform the operations. The resulting input now  is

1/0,0174532925199433 = 57,2957795130823

And only at this point he perform the degree conversion:

deg(57,2957795130823) = 3282,80635001174°

To avoid this kind of I would suggest to use the advanced mode, where you get expected results:

* 1/1


How can I make a line of vertices round? I have a straight line of vertices and I don't know how to make them be arranged in a circular shape such as the top part of a dome.

Can anybody help me?

If you don't mind not using the original vertices, I would add a circle (ShiftA >Add circle) in edit mode, so that it's added straight into the current object.

If you want to keep the existing verts, you could try using the To sphere operator (AltShiftS), or the circle operator in the bundled loop tools addon (you will have to enable in User prefs > Addons).

In the above example I first rotated one of the end verts with proportional editing enabled (O), to give it a semi-circular shape. This makes it easier for the circle operator


Drive value with no input I’m trying to create a procedural tile texture using Brick Texture nodes, however I am having a slight problem.
I want to be able to drive the offset value of the brick textures from outside of the group meaning that it needs an input, however it doesn’t have one. I’m really struggling to find a way to have a group input drive the offset values

Concept:

I don't think it's possible to directly drive the brick texture Offset from an input socket but you can formulate nodes to adjust the input Vector to achieve the same effect using the following nodes :

Note the two Value nodes on the left hand side - these can be used to adjust the Scale and Offset (the actual Brick Texture's Offset can be left at Zero). Adjusting the Scale or Offset should produce a similar effect to that of the actual Brick texture node.

This works by using the Scale and Y coordinate to calculate (using a Modulo node) where each alternate row of bricks starts and ends, and then calculating the offset (again, based on the Scale) and adding this into the X coordinate to offset those rows of bricks.

Note that this is only currently capable of adjusting the Scale and Offset - additional work will be required on the Maths nodes to allow for adjusting some of the other brick values (such as the Row Height).

Blend file included


Image Output Filetype for Compositing I am working on an animation and am rendering it out as an image sequence, currently .png. However, .png loses a lot of the information native to the render, such as render pass data and so on. This makes compositing the image sequence after the fact a bit tricky.

What image format can I use to preserve this data so I can have all of the same options for my image sequence as I would for the Render Result?

Use OpenEXR multilayer.

Think of EXR as a perfect copy of the render layers. Multilayer will allow you to save all of the different passes.

EXR will keep your information linear and un-distorted by color transforms, with the proper associated alpha channel and the z pass as unbound data.

Enable the render passes that you want in the view layer.

Use a File Output node, create as many layers as you need with the Add input button. Then plug the output sockets of each of the render layers you want to save.

Png is a terrible format, never meant for compositing.


Is it possible to generate similar animation show in the video with AN in 2.9 Is it possible to generate same result as shown in the video with blender 2.9?
Ive searched for hours and don't find anything that connects me to similar solution but no result. Maybe someone could show me the road. Im a starter in AN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4wcSW-e_Pg&ab_channel=JacquesLucke

Yes it is possible in newer version of Animation nodes. Before doing this type of animation we have to prepare our objects. Make sure that the objects have loose parts(we can't do this on a single mesh). Each objects should have appropriate orgin for better looking animation.
Let's look at this example, I have a cycle object which is composed of multiple objects. So i put everything into a collection 'cycle' for ease of use.
Next step is storing the current transforms(location,rotation,scale) of every objects into a ID Key. This is important because when using nodes like Object Transform Output or Object Matrix Output will set objects transforms to a default value.
We can create ID key by:

The ID key can be accessed inside nodetree by:

Next step is driving the scale and rotation of objects with a falloff. There are different types of falloffs are available in animation nodes. Here i used Delay falloff for demonstration.

See Animation nodes Documentation for more info


Using Blender Game Engine for VR 360 tour on Mobile, is it doable? I'm sorry if my question sounds clumsy, I'm not a seasoned BGE user.

I'd like to make a virtual tour for Gear VR and/or Google Cardboard in the BGE that works on Mobile.

Is this doable in a user friendly way using the BGE? Can I export to Mobile (android, IOS, Windows Phone)? I know this is possible using Unity, but I find Unity difficult to use. I've tried UE4, but the process is a big mess, it requires a buggy multi-level hack that only results in wasting my time.

Blender Game Engine only runs on Windows Mac and Linux, not on mobile platforms like iOS or Android. And even then, in desktop OSs it is often regarded as an aging and limited game engine, needing a long overdue overhaul, when compared to more modern solutions out there.

It will in fact be retired as of version 2.80 going forward, and it is will not receive further official development.

There was an experimental BGE APK version running on Android but it is just a proof of concept, very feature limited and not actively maintained. Also it certainly predates the emergence of modern VR so I wouldn't expect it to support anything of the kind at all.

You could probably use Blender in your pipeline for asset and environment production but I wouldn't rely on it as a lasting game engine solution, and certainly never for mobile platforms.

You could alternatively use any of the well know solutions out there like Unity or Unreal, or perhaps look into WebGL for a more universal browser based solution.

There is also the Blend4Web plugin for Blender which now supports browser based Virtual Reality through the WebVR API, even on mobile platforms. It has a full GUI inside Blender for most basic functionality from creation of assets, materials, animations, to basic interaction logic.


How to create a peppermint candy swirl material? What I want:

What I achieved so far:

The tutorial I'm following:
https://youtu.be/dDXw28BHkv4?t=286
Where I'm stuck:
Adding the tangent node doesn't result in the spiral effect as shown in the Tutorial here

What I'd expect:
Adding the tangent node results in spiral effect

You can combine a radial effect and a wave effect:

The disk is Z up, its radius is along X and Y.
The generated coordinates are centered to -0.5 to 0.5.
The wave is to have a sinus going along the radius, from the center to the edge.
The radial effect is to have a cosinus depending on the angle around the disk.


Is there a way to properly mirror an animation? I've already searched and searched and none of the answers to this question have helped me. I have an animation of a character moving right, and I need to flip it so that he's moving left. I've tried copying and pasting flipped both in the action editor and the 3D view and neither works right. My bone names are all correct with .L and .R for left and right respectively.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the .blend file.

Add an Empty and place it in the same position where the origin point of your armature is. In Object Mode select your rig, then an Empty and press Ctrl+P.

Now select the Empty and scale it by -1 (S,X,-1).
Note that this may not be the proper way to do it. I think you should find the root bone (which controls all the other bones location) and rotate it by 180 degrees.


Is there a path finding solution for dynamic maps? I need a reliable method for path finding characters in my rts-like game, but there seems to be no solution at all if there isn't a fixed nav-mesh... How can I make my characters move around newly generated buildings in the game? I can't find any sample scripts anywhere :/
I do not want to use the steering or path-following actuators, as their behaviour seems way too unreliable to me.

If you have some programming skill, patfinding with random maps or evolving maps is possible but not easy.

Here is my Blender artists thread with experiments on patfinding with random terrain (as well as other RTS topics).

As an RTS usually takes place on a 2D landscape you can use quite simple pathfinding techniques. I got data from a mesh to use as obstacles and then used mathutils.geometry functions to help generate a graph of connections between random points. In this case instead of a walk mesh, I generated an no-walk mesh and used it to cull a graph of connected points.

If your maps are fixed, but they are evolving, like with player placed buildings, you can just make the buildings in to obstacles.


Problem rendering Fluid Simulation I tried Blender for the first time yesterday. I wanted to mess with the fluid simulations and it worked.

I used a tutorial and everything turned out fine except when I wanted to render the result. The first time it worked but the problem was, that I forgot to select an output file, so I had to do it once again. This was the point, when it started acting up.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JcVVVyihO77TxkVDQHWbjw8sDS0fn0qS/view?usp=sharing

This is what I got.

Has anyone got any idea why is this happening ?

My best bet is that the fluid was not successfully baked. That's why it turned back into the domain mesh.
(I have noticed that it has been some time since you make this question and you may have already known this. But if not, hope it helps.)


Pointing the camera in a particular direction programmatically I'm trying to use Python to place a camera. I know the camera's location, and the forward and up vectors for the camera (i.e. the direction it's pointing and its orientation). How do I do this?

I know that it's possible to calculate a raw world matrix from the above information, which I can then apply to the camera, but I was rather hoping not to have to. Is there an easier way?

Heres a script to make a camera point towards any point in space.

import bpy

def look_at(obj_camera, point):
    loc_camera = obj_camera.matrix_world.to_translation()

    direction = point - loc_camera
    # point the cameras '-Z' and use its 'Y' as up
    rot_quat = direction.to_track_quat('-Z', 'Y')

    # assume we're using euler rotation
    obj_camera.rotation_euler = rot_quat.to_euler()

# Test
obj_camera = bpy.data.objects["Camera"]
obj_other = bpy.data.objects["Cube"]

obj_camera.location = (5.0, 2.0, 3.0)
look_at(obj_camera, obj_other.matrix_world.to_translation())


Does anyone know how to make the plastic part of a blister pack used in the medical packaging? How do you make it all as one seamless object? The pills and the base are both separate elements so that's not an issue.

Create a plane
Subdivide it 3 times

Select the vertices in the center ring and do mesh > tranform > "to sphere" and move the mouse to create an octagon.

Extrude the center

Add a subsurf modifier

set the shading to smooth

To have sharper edges add a  couple of loop cuts

Select the outer edges and then select Edge > Crease and set the crease to 1.0 to make the outer edges sharp.

Add a couple of array modifiers


render output is weird my render output has a weird looking shape and color which is different from what I see in layout. the version I am using is 2.92. does anyone know what's wrong with it and how to fix it?
this is what i got after hitting F12 button:

this is what I see in layout:

You have a hidden object, "Donut2".
This only hides it in viewport, not in render. You can go into the object properties and disable render, or delete the object.


Creating a batch version of a script that renames Vertex Groups I have the following code, which creates a button in the panel which when clicked creates a vertex group from all vertices in a selected obj. Is there a way I can edit to so that when I click the button it cycles through every obj in the scene and repeats the script? Essentially creating a vertex group for each object with that object's name.

import bpy

def main(context):
    bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
    bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_add()
    bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_assign()

#obj = bpy.context.active_object
    sel_obj = bpy.context.selected_objects
    for obj in sel_obj:
        for g in obj.vertex_groups:
            print(g.name)
            g.name = obj.name

class CreateVertexGroup(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Tooltip"""
    bl_idname = "myops.create_vertex_group"
    bl_label = "Create Vertex Group"

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

def execute(self, context):
    main(context)
    return {'FINISHED'}

class CustomVertexGroupScriptsPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Custom Vertex Group Scripts Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_createvertexgroup"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "data"

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

    obj = context.object

    row = layout.row()
    row.label(text="Active object is: " + obj.name)

    row = layout.row()
    row.operator("myops.create_vertex_group")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(CreateVertexGroup)
    bpy.utils.register_class(CustomVertexGroupScriptsPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(CreateVertexGroup)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(CustomVertexGroupScriptsPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.myops.create_vertex_group()

Thanks.

Using API methods
In main in the following, saves the current mode, sets mode  to 'OBJECT', iterates through all mesh objects in context.selected_objects either uses existing vertex grouped named after object, or creates a new one and assigns all vertices to it with a weight of 1. Then returns context.object back to its original mode.
import bpy
def main(context):
    mode = context.object.mode
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
    meshobs = [o for o in context.selected_objects
            if o.type == 'MESH']
    for mo in meshobs:
        me = mo.data
        vg = (mo.vertex_groups.get(mo.name)
                or mo.vertex_groups.new(mo.name))
        # add all verts
        vg.add(range(len(me.vertices)), 1, 'REPLACE')
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode=mode)

main(bpy.context)


How to place any object on the 'floor' of a scene? I added a cylinder to my scene, rotated, resized, like this:

I moved it up, because I want to make a model from this and I want it to stand on the ground:

I zoomed in and learned, that this object is not on the grid floor, it floats above it:

My question is: how can I put any object on the floor? (Yes, right, I could move it up half it's size, but think on more complex objects, like a terrain.)

You could select a vertex, edge or face in Edit Mode and snap the 3D cursor to the selection Shift-S Cursor to Selection

In object mode set the object origin to 3D-cursor.

After that you can easily position the object to the 3D cursors position which can be adjusted in the proerties panel.

Followed by Snap Shift-S  Selection to Cursor


Import chart into Blender Graph Editor I am doing an animation and i would like to import my f-curve from a chart which has f.e. on the x-axis=frame and on the y-axis= scale. I know that there is a Add-On doing that but it is not working in 2.69 neither in 2.7+, which can be found here http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?209181-A-Script-to-Import-a-CSV-File-and-Create-F-Curves-(for-Blender-2-5x-or-later)
So is there any way i can still import a chart from excel to Blender to give specific animation points?
regards hans

You can import chart to Graph editor with an add-on you refer to.
It is fixed now by Chebhou :) You can download script from here.
Add-on appears in a Scene properties panel and works as expected in 2.74 (seems to me).


Can I re-export an animation? I just finished rendering an animation for 20 hours, and i'm not sure about the compositing i did. Is there a way I can re-composite the animation and then export? (The current file is a .avi if it helps.)

Thanks!

Never ever render directly to video... (and avoid AVI as a container  much as you can). There is no way to break down the composited image into its original parts any more, and on top of that a video encoded and image will likely yield errors due to compression.

Use a low resolution/low quality video format just to evaluate the pacing of the animation, but do the final render as an image sequence. That will allow you to avoid situations like the one you are facing where you will have to re-render to make any changes.

If you want to do compositing later, save as image sequences to a format like OpenEXR, in which you can save not only the final rendered image but proper Alpha channel, Z depth information, object and material IDs and whatever other render layer information you want.

Then you can composite as you like and do a final video encoding later.

(read Save all render passes to a single EXR image)


Image not spreading on the whole face I am learning UV mapping, trying to map an image on one side of a cube but it does not spread properly on the whole face.. Here is what I get:

I know this can be done simply by applying materials to the specified sides but I want to apply different images in future. Can anyone tell me what is going on? I want to color the central part only, not the boundary.

Thanks

Make sure the limit method on the bevel modifier is set to angle, so that only the edges between faces with very different normals are beveled:

If you have the limit method set to none, the edges on the flat parts of the cube will be beveled (which creates extra geometry without changing the shape), and the UVs are not interpolated correctly:


Bone whose movement is tied to the furthest of two other bones? I have bone A, and Bone B, which both move forward.  Can I create another bone, C, whose forward movement is determined by the furthest of A and B?

You can use drivers: in my example I'm driving Y loc of bone C as maximun value between Y loc of bone A and Y loc of bone B.

Y loc is intended in local space, so bones are moving along their Y axis (Z world).


What nodes clamp your values? It seems that certain nodes, as part of their function, will clamp their output to between 0 and 1 regardless of the input number. I am not entirely sure of this. Is there a list of what nodes will do this in Cycles and the Compositor?

Most nodes should not.

Cycles works under a scene referred rendering model, which means that there is no notion of white or black, but merely a range of values that traverse from some low value to a theoretically (within the quantization limits of 32 bit float) infinite range of light.

As such, all nodes should never clamp, or they will not deal with the scene referred data correctly.

Some by design might map such as the Range node. The Colour Ramp sadly is based on a fixed 0.0-1.0 range which greatly diminishes it's usefulness with modern renderers.

The precise answer to the best of my knowledge, is that there is no comprehensive listing. This is something anyone could map out however via the wiki with a table and a little help from contributions.