Convert a STL mesh object outline to a path (to trace the outline of an STL) I was trying to see if I could trace an outline of an STL file since it has a dense mesh and limited dissolve doesn't create a clean outline all the way around.  I was following this tutorial.
https://youtu.be/EWo7esqGy7g

Dense STL Mesh (limited dissolve doesn't create a clean outline all the way around)

Link to file:

Convert to grease pencil

Convert to path (But convert to path is greyed out)

I was trying to avoid converting the image to a png / jpg since I would loose accuracy since this will be 3D printed and adds extra steps.  Any workarounds?

I found a workaround which may help others where grease pencil isn't needed but can be used if they want to.  Note: To use Grease Pencil Convert To Path it needs to be in 2D
2D slice (Good for copying threads from STL's to 3D print and if you want to use Grease Pencil - Convert to Path)
-Center Object pivot point and / STL to Origin
-Apply scale and Location object transform on STL / Object
-Create Mesh Plane (larger than object)
-Select Plane - Add Boolean Modifier
    Options - Intersect
    Object  - STL or Object
    Solver  - Fast

-Hide STL / Object (allows to see 2D section)

Extra: Can Select Plane and do a G - Z to see sections
Extra Extra: Can do in Geometry Nodes

3D slice (to view internals)
-Same as 2D Slice but change Solver to - Exact


how to smooth the eyelid? i want to make its eyelids proper looking i am new to this i tried using subdivision modifier but no it was of no help

It depends on your mesh. If the eyesockets are UV spheres with the poles left and right then it's fairly easy.
You might need one or two more edge loops that work as the compressed lids. To close the lids you rotate the edge loops over the eyeball, the upper lid down and the bottom lid up.

You can do this in the following way:

Select the vertices of the upper lid and assign them to a vertice group Ctrl + G. That way you can easily select them again.

Clear selection Alt + H and select the vert at the pole. Then you can move the 3D Cursor to this postion (Shift + S).

Choose 3D Cursor as the Transformation Pivot Point (see (1) on the image).

the eyes of your model are tilted in space so the front or side view won't work. But you can adjust the view with Shift + Numpad 7 to the pole vertice (or use menu View → Align View → Align View to Active → Top).

Finally, clear selection Alt + H and select the vertice group of the upper lid Ctrl + G. Then rotate these vertices along the eyeball (R). Check the vertices on the other side. You can adjust the position or rotate them individually if needed.

Repeat the steps for the lower eyelid. With a Solidify modifier you can add easily depth to the eyelids. Save the deformation in Shape Keys and animate it. Hope that helps.


How to make a realistic snow material in Cycles? I have looked at many snow shaders, but haven't yet come up with one that looks good. I have many examples of not so good looking snow that I have tried to make.

I have looked at these materials:
Youtube tutorial
thread on blender artists
about the same material on blendswap
another material on blendswap

All of which have disappointed me in some way.
I'm looking for some way to capture the displacement, both small and large, the bright highlights of glistening snow, and the subtle grain over all.

Here are two reference images I took last winter.

Here is what I have come up with:

In a still shot the sparkles look kind of like fireflies, but when you animate the camera they look great!

Here is the node setup:

The base material is the diffuse and glossy mix.  It uses a fresnel the opposite as you would normally, grazing angles give more diffuse.  I have found that this looks quite good.  There is also a slight bit of bump applied to the diffuse which greatly enhances the look.  You can adjust the roughness on the glossy shader to change how icy the snow looks, smaller roughness = more icy.  Values between .025 and .1 work well, I am using .1 for a fresh snow look.

The second layer is technically not photorealistic since I am adding as opposed to mixing in a gloss, but it looks pretty good.  It consists of a glossy shader mixed with no shader (this is so we are adding a fraction of a shader) and then added to the base shader.  The glossy has a very small voroni texture plugged into the normal to get the sparkles.

Here is a close up, for this I used an even smaller voroni, size = 30,000:

The purplish/yellowish is from the HDR, I am using Greg Zaal's Golden Gate.

The mesh is just a large bent plane with six subsurf levels and two displacement modifiers using different sized clouds textures.

The separate/combine RGB nodes just filter out the green channel of the voroni so it looks like a normal map :).  It's totally unnecessary but you could use it to change the strength if you want.


Save text logo for external use I've created a 3D text with no animation, just text, and want to use it in my OBS when streaming. I don't know how to export it from blender to add it to OBS. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks

Using a non-animated image as a logo/overlay in an external program is generally pretty simple. From blender, all you should need to do it render it as an image with a transparent background. It should then be easy to add it to your program of choice. For example in OBS i found this: https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/inserting-a-logo-while-recording-a-video.19133/

For more info on rendering a transparent background see: Can Blender render pngs with the background transparent?


Grease pencil appears translucent I am just learning about Grease Pencil, and mine always appears see-through, both in the viewport and when rendered.  I do not know how to fix this.  Here are screenshots of the viewport and render respectively:

The default Strenght for the grease pencil is 0.600.

To draw dark strokes set it to 1
Additionally you can use an opacity modifier to make existing strokes darker.
Read:
Edit Grease Pencil Strength?


Mesh not moving with armature I have a simple character with a rig, hands and feet are "rayman style".
I don't want my mesh to be deformed so I have unchecked "deform" on all bones and IK bones.

When I parent with "armature deform - with automatic weights" the result is that it will not attach to the mesh.

I will provide the Blender file.

Can anyone guide me on how to do this without deforming the body?

Update #1: If I add "deform" on lower legs and lower arms, the armature will work as expected, but the feet and hands will be twisted in start position.

Update #2: weight painting both upper and lower legs (painting only the feet cubes red) and ticking deform on these will cause the feet to align correctly in start position, but will distort/shrink the mesh when moving the feet IK handle, see when knee bends in 2nd image (the desired result is to not deform anything).

Your object is not weight painted. Blender needs to know which vertices are influenced by which bone. This is done by painting weights
Basically you can do that two ways:
1 - Parent your mesh to your armature with automatic weights. You may have to tweak things as explained in point 2 though
2 - select a bone of your armature and go to weight paint mode to paint (red) the vertices influenced by that bone. Repeat for each bone.

Also make sure "deform" is ticked as shown on the picture, without which your bones will have no influence on your mesh.


My reference image not showing up in blender this is my .blend file

i have seen another post on this topic but i cudnt find the solution. i am following youtube tutorials and added the image the same way he did but the image never shows up. But when i switch the tab to texture paint mode i can see the picture but any other mode i can see only the yellow border of the image.
Moreover when i started a fresh project tried adding the image it is working fine.
Is any of my option disabled in my original project. Please help as im stuck and cant go further without solving this issue.
I have made sure my image is jpg.

Press shift+s and then press cursor to world origin, then try. I did it on your blend file and it worked.


Cloth simulation plus attached object I have 2 objects. Zipper and a case. Both objects have a cloth simulation. I need to connect these objects together to animate together and create something like in the third image.
I tried to merge objects into one, vertex parent zipper and case, pin case to the zipper... But none of that worked. Maybe I tried the wrong way.

Is there a way how to get the two objects into one and achieve they correctly deform together?

Finaly I solved it with MeshDeform Modifier. It is simple and effective.

I made a mesh arround zipper and case and assign Cloth Simulation to it. Then I assigned MeshDeform to the zipper and the case and for Object I used the mesh with Cloth Simulation.

I followed this tutorial: blender Quick Tips - Cloth Simulation for Animations


Why some parts of the object don't move with the armature? I tried to fix the bones so that things could look better but these things keep staying in place. And when I subtract weight paint on some parts it becomes bumpy.

The first reference picture looks like some vertices have no vertex groups (weightpaint) assigned.
You can fix it by selecting the responsible vertex group in the Properties Tab -> Object Data Properties (the green triangle icon), switch to Weightpaint Mode and use some blur brush on those lacking parts.
This helped me a lot so far.


My Bone will not stay on position My Bottem leg bone keeps doing this and i have alredy tried using edit mode how do i put it back in its proper position?

This is because the bone needs to be connected to it's parent as shown below, this will solve your problem:


how can i fill these boundaries by quad topology? I am currently modelling a Audi R8(2016). I am doing the part behind the door. However i have a problem in filling up these faces

I have tried using the grid fill tool but it doesn't work out well. It creates a weird seam in the middle part.

I want a topology somewhat like this.

Any help would be appreciated.Thank You In Advance.

I saw this pop up and even though it is an old question thought it worthwhile putting forward an answer. The original image is not great but here is a mesh that will work and is adaptable.

With matcap in object mode and a subdivison surface x 2

A simple bend deformer applied shows the deformation without any artifacts/creasing/lighting issues.

Extruded with bend modifier


How to change an action starting position? I have these 2 armatures actions strip in NLA editor:

action 1 starting from pt A ending at pt B
action 2 starting from pt C ending at pt D (with multiple LocRotScale on each path ofc) .

So at this pt armature just jump from B to C at the end of action 1 ofc.

How can we make action 2 starting from pt B ? ..and get that action 3 result.

Found a dirty workaround so far by adding an empty & parenting the armature on it. Then moving + key frame that empty with some dirty f curves fill in graph editor ^^ Guess there must be a properly way to achieve that goal without having to deal with that extra garbage track. =)

Here's my first ever blender 1mn anim with that "action stich" issues. I wish i could improve the result on the 2nd one i'm "working" on .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNDjeKfk4sU

EDIT: Screen Captures of the NLA editor

Screen 1: frame 99 / end location of armature Action 1
Screen 2: frame 100 / start location of armature Action 2

Goal : Update Action 2 to start from frame 99 location

Consider using the delta transform panel with ...
location to move all keyframes by the same amount for that timespan


How to recreate 3D "pixel art" characters I watched this video on youtube related to the movie Pixels from 2015 and I really want to replicate the style they used on Q*bert (The orange pixel/block guy).

How did they do the "pixel" texture on Q*bert's body?

Did they use particle systems or something else?

Do any of you know a way to replicate the style in blender that works with rigging?

A quick way to do it is to use the Remesh modifier / Blocks mode, here is what it gives with Suzan:


How to stop rigid body objects from going out of the object when i spin it too fast I have an animation that is a couple of fruits falling into a blender and the blade is going very fast. But the fruits are going out of the cup. Basiccaly I want the fruits to not go out of the blender but I want the blade to still affect them at the same speed. Thanks in advance
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DMSJfsWEGqN4sZ--Bohk-HkbFnrfQ0Mx/view?usp=sharing    (ORIGINAL)
or you can use this link if not working()
EDIT:I tried increasing the steps per second but didi not work,here is that file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Am6fJ9ZlgnXjnur7A5qFNkKf2z8rTPGa/view?usp=sharing (INCREASED STEP PER SECOND)
EDIT:it is going out of the side of the cup not from the top
Can you give me a good STEPS PER SECOND when you look at my file :)

You don't mention whether the objects are simply flying out of the top of the blender or whether they are passing through the sides.
Assuming they are passing through the sides when travelling too fast, the problem is likely due to the number of Steps per Second of the simulation being too low. This results in the objects moving from one side of an obstacle to the other without actually interacting with it and the solution is to increase the Steps Per Second in the Rigid Body World settings so that they collide with the surface.
The Steps Per Second can be found within the Rigid Body World properties within the Scene properties panel :


Fireflies / noise on glossy material I have a bunch of glossy balloons lit by a sun lamp and the world (Background Sky Texture). This is the nodes setup.

After rendering I have the image below.

When we look at a more detailed level we see a lot of noise / fireflies.

I already enlarged the size of my sun lamp, set the samples at 1000 and the Filter Glossy at 10. Still noisy image. Also unchecking caustics did not solve the problem.

Changing the clamp settings does not look like a solution, given the nature of the image. AS I understand it I can only try with extremely large settings for samples. Or is there any other solution to get rid of the noise and keeping the highlights in the image ? Or should I look for solutions outside of Cycles ?

Here is my file

A few things to try when dealing with fireflies:

Enable Multiple Importance in your light:

Left is your original settings, right with Multiple importance enabled.
(click on the images to enlarge)

Using clamp indirect takes care of most of the fireflies with no noticeable side effects as far as I can see...

Now for a super clean render you might want to use Branched Path Tracing:


Why is my armature deforming it's mesh in a wrong way and how can I fix it? I'm trying to get the body to move which I have done, but I notice a part of the body open up or move apart,so how can i fix this or what should I do?
ok why can i do to fix this one in the second picture

That can only be because edges are separated. Try this : go to edit mode, select all vertices and remove doubles. Probably that will fix the problem.


How to achieve dynamic cloth pinning? I'm having trouble trying to understant how cloth simulation pinning works. I want to modify the pinning group during animation so that I can have characters grabbing and dropping pieces of cloth without interrupting the flow of the simulation. For this purpose I tried to use dynamic paint, but it seems like once the animation starts playing you can only remove vertex from the pinning group, not add or modify them.

The red ball in the exmaple below paints vertex red and the blue ball deletes paint.

What is the problem here? Is there a workaround to this so that cloth can be pinned and unpinned mid-animation?

There is no simple solution to this.

Animating the group itself is not a problem, you can use the AnimAll addon or just stack multiple vertex groups with the Vertex Group Mix modifier where you can animate the influence of participating groups on the final one.

The problem is that when you need to change the pinned vertices, you need the simulation to continue where it ended the frame before. But the simulation will not pin the vertices where they currently are, but where they were before the simulation started. Those newly pinned vertices would just jump from frame to frame to their un-simulated location.

To solve this in Blender, you need to create multiple simulations that closely start where the previous ends (and they need to start-end with similar motion also). Then you need to create one extra mesh so you can interpolate between all those simulations and smooth merge them into shapekey animation:

How to bake softbody animation into keyframes?

You will have to modify the script to sample from multiple meshes and to smoothly transition between them, but most of the code is there.

When sampling the simulations you take locations from first simulation and when you approach the second you smoothly switch to it's vertex coordinates.

The results can be very good and convincing. It is common practice in many simulation applications when the simulation is not precise enough like you want and you need to hand sculpt some key poses of the cloth into the simulation.

If you want to avoid the scripting, you can also use multiple Mesh Deform modifiers to those simulations and then blend between them with influence. But when your simulation changes, you can simply re-run the script while otherwise you need to rearrange, re-bind and re-animate those modifiers.


How to control the angle and range of a light I am working on project where I am using an infrared light. I want to simulate my real scene on blender. I am using a Cycles Render engine. I want to choose a point light. It is possible to fix a level angle visual range (45 degrees in the real scene)? The viewing range (80meter in the real scene). Any explanation will be appreciated. I need to simulate this light:

Illuminating range: Standard 45Â°
Viewing range: 80m (outdoor)

I used the solution proposed in the create an array of lamps? to model the Infrared light mentioned above which has these properties:

Led quantity: 96 leds.
Wave length: 850nM.
Illuminating range: Standard 45Â° level angle visual range
Viewing range: 80m (outdoor).

The fisheye camera is installed in the ceiling in a room.

When we use the wave length node, the array of lamps does not emit a sufficient light!!

If you want to keep it in cycles, you'd better model your own lamp as anything can cast light. This way you can control the shape and with a light falloff node you can control the distance.

assign the correct shader : emission for the face you want to cast light, plastic or anything else for the other parts.


Possible to rotate middle loop of cylinder (for example) to rotate whole top part Is it possible to get the top to follow the normal of the edge loop, so it rotates kind of like this?

Select the loop first, hit shift+s and choose Cursor to Selected, and set the editing Pivot Point to 3D Cursor. Then select all verts, what you want to move, of course.


Hair partially disappearing in render after combing I got a weird problem. Patches of hair on a rug for a bathroom scene are disappering in my render, but only if I entered particle edit Mode and combed the hair before.

So, I start out setting up my hair system, when I hit render without entering the particle edit Mode I get a nice render just like its supposed to look. All the hair is also howing in the viewport before and after this render.

I enter particle edit mode, just make a single tiny stroke with the comb, exit into object mode again. All the hair is still showing in the viewport at this point, I can also so see my "comb-job" in the viewport.

When I now hit render though, whole patches of hair just disappear from the render. Its also not like that the areas I combed before disappear and the ones I left untouched are still showing, there seems to be no connection between where I comb and what disappears.

After this render finishes the hair (same hair as in render result) is also missing in the viewport.

My emitter is just a plane, rotation and scale all applied, with a subsurf modifier. Use modifier stack is enabled.
I´m aware that particles won´t render when you´re still in particle edit mode, I always changed back to object mode before rendering.
Does anyone have an idea whats causing this and how to fix it?

Thanks in advance

You have $300000$ individual hairs right now. I suspect that your issue stems from that very high number of edited particles. To fix this, use Particle Children. Set your Emission number to something lower, like $3000$ or $1000$. Then, enable Interpolated children:

You can set the Render parameter so that the total number of children is equal to $300000$, (i.e. $3000\cdot 100=300000$).

You can now use Particle Edit to comb your particles. They should take up less memory now, and hopefully render correctly.


Glitchy Z-order in Mesh My mesh seems to have a problem with Z-order, unrelated to doubles or X-ray.
I've tried exporting this to obj, tossing it through Noesis, I've been unable to get rid of this issue. Is the mesh just bugged or have I missed a crucial setting somewhere? Effects viewport and cripples render.

From Blender version 2.79.7, but this seems to occur in every versions (2.8 / 2.79).

.blend DL

The Perspective Transform is having trouble with the minimum Z-clip being set to 0. Go to the N Properties Region of the 3D view > 'View' panel, and set the 'Start' and 'End' of the clip to sensible values for your project, avoiding a Start of 0.

If you want the TL;DR, check out the 'Remapping the Z coordinate' paragraph on this page. Note that, if n=0, then f*n is always 0, and information is lost.


Is there a way to combine two png images at shader editor? Is there a some trick to combine two png images at shader editor with same behavior as Alpha Over Node in Compositor.
I am familiar with MixRGB node and the fact that factor can be used to mix colors with alpha mask.
The problem with MixRGB is that there is no a real way to add two images at the top of each other or atleast I haven´t discovered easy way of doing that.
If your suggested node tree would also have a feature to color black and white png images that would be neat.
Two png images. First I would like to color them, then add them together in side of shader editor. The background color should remain saparated

I am using Blender to design car wraps and this feature could save a lot of time.


Why is my uv unwrap deformed? I am working on mesh for a window opening, but when I unwrap the mesh it is terribly deformed. I started rebuilding it and unwrapping each piece to see how they look before joining them all together. So here is my problem:

(It wouldn't let me post the pictures individually so I combined them into one image.)

Why is it deformed when I unwrap it? What have I done wrong?

You are using "N-Gons" , An N-Gon is a face with more than 4 vertices. You need to convert these to Quads, Or Tris to get a proper Unwrap, You can do this by using the Knife tool, Or by deleting the N-Gon and Applying the faces again.


Hair renders from regions outside vertex group I have a vertex group and hair renders outside the region.  I can reverse it by the double arrow and that works - no hair inside my vertex group.  I have no modifiers applied. How can I only get hair from my vertex group?

As with many things in life, I do not know the answer. But I do know how to cheat.

In edit mode, subdivide the faces you want hairy. Create a one-face-wide border between the hairy area and the rest of the surface. Assign your weight to the inside faces, and make sure your border faces are blue. Looking at the mesh in weight paint mode will show you if the hairs need a broader border area...

I am not sure this is right, but it mostly works....


Possible to fix a broken shape key with a copy of the model? I've been using sculpt mode and messed up my horse model's head. I had been improving the eyes and accidently used one brush wrong. I cannot undo it anymore now. Luckily, I have the model before the change found in an autosave file.
Now I want to do one of the following two (which both lead to the same result, however):
Fix the hole in the head with using the shape of the autosave on the new one
OR: transform the eyes so that they got the similar shape as in the broken one.
I already tried to use blend from shape but it doesn't work with other objects.
Do I have to join them? Don't the both base keys collide then?
I cannot just join and replace the mesh because I already got texture on it and I don't want to redo that over again.
Should I rename one basis shape and try to fix it this way before joining both? Or is there any other way to blend from a different object?
 Thanks for any clue about this.

Edit:

 In texture view there is invisibility, too!

I found that there were two little face holes I did not see. The replacement works then, but the mouth texture and some parts of the head (probably more) are deplaced. Is it possible to assign texture(UV) data only for a selected area of verts?

Copying shape keys doesn't work because they measure a difference of location from a basis, so your mesh should already know which is that basis location.

You can try selecting in edit mode the eye edgeloop, then with Ctrl++ expand the selection a certain amount of times (as needed, but count them), P to separate the selection.

Do the same with the other mesh, then swap and Join (Ctrl+J) the meshes, remove doubles and adjust where necessary.

If this method doesn't work I think you need a little Python script to copy location only, of selected vertices from one object to another.

Consider also the idea of starting from the correct mesh and copying all other vertex data from the textured one (Shift+Ctrl+T for vertices/edges/faces infos; select target, shift select source, Ctrl+L "transfer UV map").


Having issues with blended shader I was killing time making a lowpoly version of a trashcan that a kitbash with online parts but I wanted to make around the handles transparent using a alpha texture but, my issue is that or a blend the transparent part or de principle shader.

change the shader's blending mode (from Opaque to Alpha Blend or Alpa Cliping in case you want to have more control on its threshold)


Rotate the camera while driving along the path How to make it so that simultaneously with the movement of the camera along the path, it rotates around the axis of this very path. I drew a small illustration.I hope quite clearly.

I use Blender 2.8

You can make it follow a path with a Follow Path constraint, and the camera itself can have its own keyframes in the Dopesheet, in your case along its Z axis.


Follow bezier with scale variation Could you help me please?
I need to a pattern where spheres are following a bezier curve without deformation, touching each other but with different scales in some parts of bezier line. The spheres must not intersect with each other and there may be no gaps between them, like in the example picture (blue line is bezier):

My attempts with duplicaces failed:

The trick here is using the same technique as described in this answer, but tick the option Scale for Duplifaces.

Just create one plane mesh, make sure it is 1x1 units in size. Make sure you apply its scale if you scale it in Object Mode.
Create you sphere, at the same scene coordinate as your plane. Also scale it so it is 1x1x1 units in size. Make sure you apply its scale if you scale it in Object Mode.
Create your Bezier curve object, adjust shape as desired but make sure it stays at the same scene coordinate as your plane and sphere.
Create one Empty object type and scale it to 95% scale (or adjust as desired). Once again make sure it stays at the same scene coordinate as your plane, and sphere.

Add an Array modifier to the plane, set the Empty as Object Offset and adjust the relative spacing so it matches the scale factor of the empty. In my case for 95% scale the Relative Offset should be 0.975.

Now just parent the sphere to the plane, activate Duplifaces and tick the option Scale so duplis are sized according to face area.
Adjust the Array as necessary.


I Cannot move my meshes any more whats goimg on? I try to move meshes but the just won't translate. I don't know if I hit any key. The translation values just vary between 0 and - 0 on any axis

The most common issues may be either you have some transform channels locked, see your options bar (N) :

Or you have a Limit constraint on your object, in which case you just have to delete it :

Or your transform properties are driven, in which case you just have to right-click → Delete Drivers:

If it neither those issues, please provide more info in your topic, as well as your .blend file.


Faces Refuse to Merge - Merging Objects Faces between two Joined Objects I am encountering a strange problem regarding faces on an object.
I had originally used the knife tool to take apart objects and create now game objects for unity. However, I had discovered an issue on the Swiss-German border that I needed to resolve.
I merged Switzerland into the larger object and attempted to remerge faces. Unfortunately, it leaves me with this buggy face where two faces are ontop of each other. Does anyone know how I could fix this?
Thanks for any help.

While in Edit Mode for the object which contains the problem face you want to be rid of, go to the Select menu at the top of the 3D View, then find Select All by Trait, and choose Non-Manifold. Only non-manifold geometry will be selected. Then you can press x to bring up the delete menu, and choose Faces, which will get rid of only the faces which were earlier selected as non-manifold. You might alternatively consider choosing the Loose Geometry option under the Select All by Trait menu. I mention this alternative because I find that the Non-manifold option does not always appear in the list, depending on the nature of the object's current topology.


Adding atmospheric perspective to a scene using Cycles and HDRI I spent a few hours trying to find a solution... I'm looking to get the effect of atmospheric perspective in my scene to help me understand lighting more. I have an HDRI and I'm using cycles and I've tried the following....

Add a volume scatter to the "Volume" tab in World properties. This breaks my HDRI and it just renders black even with a density value of 0.000015

I tried creating a large sphere encompassing my whole scene and adding a Volume Scatter shader to it. Scene renders, but there is no sun lighting from the HDRI, just dark blue ambient lighting it seems. I tried adjusting the density value to around 0.00001 and I can either get the scene to render normally with no atmospherics or as a dark scene described earlier.

Is adding atmospheric perspective in Blender 2.79 possible?

I think you want atmospheric lighting if I understand correctly. There is definitely atmospheric support for cycles. However, sun lamps do not work. Use a Point lamp, Spot lamp, or Area lamp. Also, make sure the strength is rather high. You should use Volume Scatter. If you want a mist effect, where objects fade away the further they get, you can try this tutorial. This will allow for less noisy and faster renders.


3D Cursor always goes to where I click Doesn't matter if it's selected or not, but whenever I click LMB, the cursor always appears there. It's also preventing me from selecting objects by clicking; I can only drag select, and it sucks trying to select a single object through bunches of them. I've been able to blend on other devices without this issue. How do I turn this off?

In Blender is a default setting that 3D cursor keybind is LMB. In that case, you can select objects by RMB. You can easily switch these two in the settings.


Exporting to OBJ with textures not working properly I have a little bit of problem with exporting from Blender.

Basically doesn't matter what I do, it does not export the texture files properly. When I open the generated obj and mtl with text editor I cant really see anything about the texture picture. It's just says "usemtl Material.001" etc.. If I understand correctly the MTL file should contain the location of the texture file in some form.

Here is an example (very simple modell just to demonstrate)

Here is the generated OBJ, MTL and texture files.

I double-triple superchecked in the OBJ exporting settings to check in "Write materials" also tried all the settings in Path mode. (No change). Texture file(s) are properly placed in the same directory as the OBJ and MTL, have a simple name, without space or any special character.

It's not the 2 programs incompatibility (I try to modell in Blender them use them in DAZ Studio) either because when I try to import the OBJ back to Blender it also misses the texture.

I use Blender 2.79 with no plugins or scripts. Tried to reinstall it, didn't help. (To be honest didn't expect it to but still tried :D)

You are using Cycles materials, the exporter doesn't support exporting textures from node based materials.
Since Cycles is acting as the active Render engine the materials you created are for the Cycles renderer, and hence use node based definition. The obj exporter can't read these materials nor find textures used in them if any.
Set Blender Internal as Active render engine, redefine your materials, and reuse desired textures.
Also see .fbx export why there are no materials or textures?


Changing .avi file in to .mp4 file So I've already rendered an animation as an .avi file, is there some way to change the file to .mp4 without rendering the animation again?

This is off the Blender topic and rather belongs to https://video.stackexchange.com

How you want to use your video should drive what format and quality you need.

If you are comfortable with command line tools, I suggest ffmpeg  (https://www.ffmpeg.org). The dead simple answer is ffmpeg -i "input.avi" "output.mp4" though this will reencode it and you will loose some quality. If the video stream inside your AVI is h.264 or other MP4 compatible encoding, you can rewrap without quality loss using ffmpeg -i "input.avi" -c:v copy -c:a copy "output.mp4".


Why im getting single verts when separate selected With the array modifier i created 12 mesh and applied the modifier. And now i want to separate them to make them 12 mesh. But it creates a single verts only. Is there any other way or whats going wrong why i cannot create 12 mesh from it by the selection option

You've applied the modifier, so now you have one object, and inside this object you have several meshes that compose your different small cabins.

If each of your cabin is made of one mesh, in Edit mode, select all and separate with P > By Loose Parts and you will have 12 different objects.

If each of your cabin is made of several meshes,  in Edit mode, select each object and P > Selection.


How to install Filmic Blender? I am new to Blender. Today I caught a treatise by Andrew Price on photo realism, and he suggested installing Filmic Blender but when I went into my Blender Folder I found no other folders such as the "colormanagement" you refer to in your post.

How to install Filmic?

As Rix said, just download Blender 2.79, it has Filmic built in.


How do I delete a shader node (From Script)? I am writing an addon and I need to delete an image texture node from the active material. I know that the python for deleting the node from the editor is bpy.ops.node.delete(), but I don't know how to make this work from the script. I might sound dumb asking this, but I am a beginner to writing addons.

Thanks in advance!

You can do something like this:

import bpy

#Get the material you want (replace the name below)
mat = bpy.data.materials['Material']

#Get the node in its node tree (replace the name below)
node_to_delete =  mat.node_tree.nodes['Principled BSDF']

#Remove it
mat.node_tree.nodes.remove( node_to_delete )


BGE: Send single pulse at start of game? I want to run a python script, once at the start of a game in the BGE. I tried various sensors, but they all sent more then one pulse/contentious stream. I only wan't to run my script once, right at the beginning, and then be done with it for good. How can I do this?

Often times to control parts of the game that are kinda background or sidework, we add empties. Invisible empties can be used for playing sounds, loading levels, spawning bad-guys, or running pythn scripts.

Create an empty that will run your script if it doesn't need to be on a specific object (a jeep for example ;) add an always sensor to it, and then connect it to a python controller, set the controller to run your script, then enable the little marker next to the name of the controller, setting it to be a startup script. the symbol will change from this:

to this:

And your final setup will look like this:


How can I get this wax effect? Im trying to make wax on my surfboard model I figured I would do it with a seperate plane shrink wrapped on and the cloud or noise texture, but I cant figure out how to make the black transparent on the noise texture. Any other ideas would be appreciated!

This is the way how to make a pattern transparent:


How to dig an elliptical hole in blender (iphone) I am a beginner,
My view builds a phone model, I don't know how to make the speaker part

Edit: My topology was quite ugly so I reworked a simpler one:


Mesh object gets destroyed after move in edit mode I have a mesh object that behaves fine when I move it in object mode. But if I go to edit mode, select all faces and move them just a bit, the mesh gets destroyed - some faces disappear.
What is wrong with this object? I have more human models like this one and most of them don't present such an issue.
Left is before, right is after:

Disable the Auto-Merge option. From the manual:

When the Auto Merge option is enabled, as soon as a vertex moves closer to another one than the Threshold setting, they are automatically merged.


subsurf splits the mirrored model into two objects I tried to subsurf this model that I mirrored but when I use subsurf it splits the model into two objects.

Before Subsurf:

After Subsurf:

Any help would be appreciated.

A couple of things could be effecting your model.

Internal faces cause the subsurf modifier to "pull in". To fix this you need to delete the faces that will become internal faces after the mirror modifier duplicates your mesh.

The order that the modifiers are listed effects how they interact. Having the subsurf before the mirror can cause the edges in the centre of the mesh to pull away before the mirror duplicates the mesh. To fix this you need to have the subsurf under the mirror modifier. You can use the up and down arrows on the modifiers to re-order them.
If your subsurf modifier is after the mirror and the edges still shrink away from the centre of your object you need to enable merge in the mirror modifier. Enabling clipping in the mirror modifier can also help to get the centre vertices aligned so that they merge.


Solidify a UV sphere that has a part transparent material? Here is my problem:

I have a fluid simulation of a circular blob of water, and then a UV sphere encasing it. The UV sphere has a material that includes a diffuse and transparent node factored together by a Black and white image of the earth.

When I went to add a solidify modifier to make the 'land' touch the fluid but since the mesh is a UV sphere, not an actual sculpted piece of earth's terrain, the solidify modifier does not work. Any Ideas?

Image Texture Used: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi66Yiqso_KAhUI5iYKHd2aCVIQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blenderguru.com%2Ftutorials%2Fcreate-a-realistic-earth%2F&bvm=bv.110151844,d.eWE&psig=AFQjCNHObkXmNdYPEyyqGqGSLzfAi0-0hg&ust=1451970653008360

I found a solution:

First resize the UV sphere so it is a little bit smaller than the surface of the water and UV unwrap it. (Since I am using a distorted map of the earth that is meant for a sphere, sphere projecting the image will work perfectly.)

Second add a subdivision surface (more subdivides=better resolution) and a displacement map to the sphere. Lower the displacement strength down to .1 or .2 and Set the Texture Coordinates to UV:

Next add a new texture in the displacement modifier and edit the texture under the texture panel. Open the black and white image (Black=Transparent, white=terrain) of your choice and adjust the brightness to the desired amount. (Brightness changes how much terrain pops out.)

Finally, change the material to have a mix shader of diffuse and transparent, factored by the same black and white image used for the displacement:

Result (Not the best result but does work):


Post Apocalyptic building I'm trying to create a post apocalyptic building, so I tried to follow this
tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNba2oEij2c, but it's not working.
I believe I did everything that was done in the video, but nothing happens in my building.
To create a building, create a floor and then use the array for other floors. So, following the video I duplicated the building, subdivided it and applied it to a modifier wirframe (although I didn't understand the reason for that). After adding a fractal cube and applying a boolean modifier to the building and changing the display of the cube viewport display to bounds

I have no idea how to fix this.

I hate to say this but it appears that you have modeled your house wrong. In what way, I cannot say. It has some "impossible" faces. This can be fixed by going to mesh/Clean Up/Degenrate Dissolve in Edit mode.

Please mark this answer as accepted if you are satisfied.


What is the difference between Sobol and Correlated Multi-Jitter sampling patterns? In Cycles we have two options for sampling patterns. The default is Sobol, there is also Correlated Multi-Jitter.
The manual  has this to say about sampling patterns:

Pattern
Random sampling pattern used by the integrator.
Sobol
Uses a Sobol pattern to decide the random sampling pattern used
by the integrator. See Sobol sequence on Wikipedia for more
information.
Correlated Multi-Jitter
Uses a Correlated Multi-Jitter
pattern to decide the random sampling pattern used by the integrator.
See this Pixar paper for more information.

After reading these links in the manual,  it is not any clearer if one sampling pattern is better to use, or more efficient than the other for certain scenes, shader types, sample counts, or lighting setups, or any other factors.
What exactly is the difference between the sampling patterns available when rendering a scene in cycles? More specifically, why would one change it from the default Sobol to Correlated Multi-Jitter?

In 2013 there was a long debate in a blenderartists thread, where some argued that for some scenes Correlated Multi-Jitter is better than Sobol, while others saw no real difference.

Cycles creator Brecht van Lommel was initially skeptic, he wrote:

  These correlated multi-jitter vs. Sobol comparisons so far seem to confirm my own findings, which is that neither sampler is consistently better or particularly different even (...). Conclusion seems to be that the sampler sequence we have now is about as good as it's going to get, though it's nice to have a second good quality sampler implemented in the code as a sanity check for me.

But later he was convinced, and wrote:

  Ah, I missed those comparisons. It seems indeed correlated multi-jitter is handling BSDF x mesh light source sampling better. Maybe that's something that can be fixed in Sobol, need to investigate.

One of the scenes where Correlated Multi-Jitter was better, was a diamond scene from BlendSwap. I wanted to see if the Sobol improved since 2013, so now (December 2016) I repeated the test with Blender 2.78a, but I still see a large advantage for Correlated Multi-Jitter.

100 samples, Sobol:

100 samples, Correlated Multi-Jitter:

The rendering time with Correlated Multi-Jitter was 6% longer than with Sobol, but there is considerably less noise in the image. There are some  fireflies, but they should be easy to filter in post, because their color so drastically differs from the surrounding pixels. Here's the Correlated Multi-Jitter post-processed with a very simple image filter that only removes single-pixel noise:

On the other hand I saw no examples where Sobol was considerably better than Correlated Multi-Jitter, so in general it might be a good idea to change the default setting.

Also note that there is some work going on in the sampling area, for example Blue noised dithered sampling and Micro jitttered sampling. These are planned for 2017.


How can I adjust text size of the interface in Blender 2.8? I have seen previous questions that say the text size can be set by using Ctrl+Alt+U.
However, when I press these keys it doesn't seem to do anything at all.

I am using Blender 2.8 and Windows 10

How can I adjust text size of the interface?

Open the preferences (Edit > Preferences). There are two options that allow you to change the font size.

You can adjust the overall size of fonts and widgets using the Resolution Scale in the Interface tab.

Alternatively if you want to change the font size without affecting the size of icons and widgets, you can modify the theme's font size in the Theme tab under Text Style. There you can adjust the size using the Points option for panel titles, widgets and widget labels separately.


Blender Game Engine - Shadeless Textures? Blender has an option to make a material shadeless. If you make a game and want a lightmap from Cycles, you can remove all the lights. But, if you want a normal map or more in your game, it is impossible...The normal map can be lightened by fake lamps and spots which are at the same place as the lights in cycles are. So, if I have 2 textures on my material, one is the pre-baked texture with all the lights and is set to shadeless. The other texture on this material is a normal map, the normal map isn't set to shadeless.

The end result is:
You have an object that is shadeless, but with the normal map you have an object that looks like a render from Cylces, BUT it is in realtime!

Is there anyway to make textures shadeless?

Is this what you're looking for?

Just check the small box that says shadeless in the materials tab.


Boolean modifier makes a hole without rim in render I am trying to add a boolean modifier to the face of a character to animate the face. It seems to work in the view port, but when I render it I lose the rim around the mouth/eyes.

Any help appreciated. Thanks!

The Geometry is there, it is a matter of your materials and lights. The light inside is so strong that you cannot see anything. Hide it and you see the rim.


How to import a blender python script in another? How can i import a blender python script inside another. I am working a python file using blender api named - generate.py, which contains some functions. I want to call those functions in another file called test.py.
I opened both the files in the blender text editor and on top of the test.py file, i wrote "from generate import *", but when i call a function defined inside generate.py in test.py, i get an error saying module named generate.py does not exist. So what is the right way to define modules in blender. I also have both the files in the same directory

The issue was that the path of the python module - generate.py was not in the locations where python searches for modules. To make generate.py visible to python add the following code on top of test.py

import bpy
import sys
import os

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

import generate

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

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


Blender Inset not working as expected Probably a silly oversight on my part but I'm having trouble with using inset.

I'm constructing the mug from this video [Blender Beginner Tutorial - Part 5: Modelling] The image shows where I'm up to (screen shot is of my model).

I'm trying to do an inset circle on the top face before extruding down inside the cup. However, when I press i for Inset Blender changes to inset mode and I get the dotted line from the centre of the selected face out to the cursor, along with the Confirm: Enter/LClick... in the bottom bar, but the inset doesn't actually work.

No scalable inner circle/face appears. It feels like I have something switched on that shouldn't be but I have no idea what it is.

Any help would be much appreciated. The Blender file is here: Donuts & Coffee Cup

Your object is scaled to a factor of 0.003 and it is messing up with operator values and property scaling. In object mode apply the scale to your object by pressing Ctrl+A > Scale.

Also your scene seems to have Unit Scale is at 0.001, which might also be messing up with scaling factors. See if you need to adjust it at the Properties Window > Scene > Units tab


Blender objects in outliner, but not visible I have a big problem. I have an awesome model, but it isn't visible. All the objects are in the outliner, but I can't see them.

I have tried:

Period on the number pad
3D View Full
Zooming in and out
Opening the file in different ways

I am not sure about this whole Clipping Distance thing, though.

Here's the file:

All your objects are on layer '1'. When the file opens only layer '5' is set to be visible.

Select the first layer (highlighted in red, below) in the layer selector UI in the 3D View header to make that layer visible:

The orange dot in the middle of the sqaure shows that not only is an object on this layer, but that it is currently selected. The fifth square along, which is grey, shows the currently visible layer. There is no dot in the middle of the square, showing that it is empty.

For more information on using layers, see the Blender Manual.


Blender 2.75 Time Node Mybe somebody knows, how to get Time node in Node Editor in blender 2.75
I am using Open shading Language ?

I think what you mean is a node that does the same thing as the time node in the compositor.  Unfortunately there is no single cycles node that does this.  However one can be constructed rather easily.

First add a value node and plug it into the color on an RGB curves node.  Then keyframe the value node's value to be 0 at frame 1 and 1 at the last frame.

Then select the value node and hop over to the graph editor...

... select the keyframes, press T, and select linear interpolation.

The output of the RGB curves node will be the same as the output of the time node would be in the compositor.  You could eliminate the RGB curves node and just edit the interpolation curve in the graph editor; but while that will give you a little more control it would be more cumbersome to tweak.  But it is an option if you need the extra control.


Cloth collision with an object I have two chairs, a cloth piece falling on it and then a helmet falling above the cloth on one of the chairs. Whatever the setting I'm trying I cannot get the helmet fall nicely on the chair and interact naturally with the cloth. Right now I have following:

the helmet is falling down
the cloth is falling down
the cloth is interacting with the chairs naturally
in the process of falling the helmet gets pushed by the cloth piece far away (as if it would be very hard surface).

https://youtu.be/zmyO6NA9R1U

I also read that soft body physics might be a solution, but it didn't work in my case and the rendering times are getting expanded.

The cloth has settings: 5/M, 10/s, 15/b, (here I tried almost everything)
rigid body is off,
Collision physics is off

Helmet settings:
Right body active, mass 10,
all other physics are off.

Right now almost all the other settings (except cloth physics) are default.

Would be glad to get some help!

Edit : Amended the Rigid Body Collision shape to 'Mesh' and this helped with allowing the helmet to collide with the cloth but now the cloth is being forced through the chair.

For rigid body and cloth/soft body simulations there are a number of things you need to be careful of.

For the Rigid Body simulation you need to ensure you select the correct 'Shape' for the Rigid Body Collisions. The default option is 'Convex Hull' which if fine for objects which are rolling over a flat surface but since it doesn't allow for any concave surfaces (such as the indentation at the seat of the chair) it is not good for smaller objects colliding with the body. Therefore, in this situation ensure you set the Shape to 'Mesh' to allow the actual mesh shape to be used for collision. This is less efficient (since the engine needs to calculate collision for all surfaces, not just an outer 'shell') but produces more accurate results. Note that you should set this for each rigid body.

Ensure to set sufficient 'steps' in the cloth simulation. More steps will result in more time to calculate the simulation but will produce much more convincing results - especially where objects are hitting the cloth at high speed. Using a larger number of steps should avoid problems such as the fast moving object passing through the cloth or the cloth getting forced through the other geometry.

Ensure to carefully set the Collision Settings - it's very tempting to just add the 'Collision' and forget about what the actual settings mean and leave them set to the defaults or inappropriate settings. For interacting with cloth the key settings are obviously the Soft Body and Cloth settings and these consist of Outer and Inner thresholds. The Outer dictates how close to a surface the cloth can get before it is pushed away while the Inner controls how elements of the cloth that have been pushed into the surface are repelled back out of the surface. Note that you should generally avoid setting the Inner to more than 50% of the minimum depth of the mesh - ie, if the thinnest part of the mesh is 1 Blender Unit in width then do not set this to more than 0.5 - otherwise problems can occur where cloth that penetrates below the surface is effectively pushed through to the other side rather than being repelled. The 'Outer' should be kept fairly small to prevent gaps between the surface the the colliding cloth.

Note that your first issue was caused by the Rigid Body 'Shape' - set this to 'Mesh' to allow the rigid bodies to react to the actual shape of the mesh (rather than a simplified convex hull).

From the second animated example, it appears that the helmet's collision 'outer' is such that it is repelling the cloth before it even gets close enough to touch it. The 'inner' collision of the chair is then presumably repelling the cloth through the surface. You should reduce the 'Outer' of both the helmet and the chair to close to '0' and adjust the 'inner' of each mesh's collision settings to a value that is not more than 50% of the thinnest part of the associated mesh. This should then produce a more stable simulation, similar to this :

Blend file included


Is there a way of having Blender reset the 'origin to geometery' automatically? At the moment, when I resize or modify an object, I manually click Set Origin -> Origin to Geometry to recentre the manipulators in the object's bounds.

Like so:

My desire is to have the origin always centered to the object as it changes. Is there any way of just having Blender do this automatically?

Scripting

Test run, Shift select 3 objects, extends middle to "kiss" outer

Test script:

Select 3 objects, extends the active (middle) to the outer objects.  Click the "run script" button to run.

import bpy
import bmesh
context = bpy.context

def kiss_faces(ob, target):
    mw = ob.matrix_world
    mwi = ob.matrix_world.inverted()
    v = mwi @ target.matrix_world.translation
    if v.length < 1e-5:
        return
    f = sorted(ob.data.polygons, key=lambda p : (p.center - v).length)[0]

    pt = target.matrix_world.inverted() @ ob.matrix_world @ f.center
    hit, loc, norm, idx = target.closest_point_on_mesh(pt)

    if hit:

        d = (ob.matrix_world.inverted() @ target.matrix_world @ loc - f.center).length * f.normal
        for i in f.vertices:
            ob.data.vertices[i].co += d
        ob.data.update()

o = context.object
a, b = [o for o in context.selected_objects if o.type == 'MESH' and o is not context.object]
assert(o == context.object)

kiss_faces(o, a)
kiss_faces(o, b)
bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_GEOMETRY')

Note script above for 2.8, for 2.7x, hit CtrlF in blender text editor and replace all occurrences of  ampersand @ with asterisk *


Fold a plane. then fold again Imagine a piece of paper and you fold it in half and then fold it again. that's what I am trying to do and cant. If I use bones the influence of the bones won't allow me to because I need 2 bones to control the same area. If I try shape keys it just deforms the mesh if I try to make it in multiple steps or does the wrong animation because it draws the shortest path instead of rotating from a point like a piece of paper would.

Hinge bone armature.
In the second part of this answer I wrote a script to make an armature, can be used here
import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector
from mathutils.geometry import intersect_point_line
import bmesh
context = bpy.context

def hinge(armob, ob, pb, face):
    arm = armob.data
    # add a bone from edge center to face center
    face.select_set(True)
    edges = [(l, f) for l in face.loops for f in l.edge.link_faces if not f.select]

    for l, f in edges:
        e = l.edge
        b = arm.edit_bones.new(f"Hinge_{f.index}")
        b.parent = pb
        pt, dist = intersect_point_line(
                f.calc_center_median(),
                e.verts[1].co,
                e.verts[0].co,
                )
        b.head = pt
        b.tail = f.calc_center_median()
        vg = (
                ob.vertex_groups.get(b.name) or
                ob.vertex_groups.new(name=b.name)
                )
        vg.add([v.index for v in f.verts], 1, 'ADD')
        hinge(armob, ob, b, f)

def make_armature(ob, face_index):
    me = ob.data
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me).copy()

    face = bm.faces.active
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
    bpy.ops.object.armature_add()
    arm = context.object

    mw = (
            ob.parent.matrix_world.copy() if ob.parent
            else ob.matrix_world.copy()
        )

    ob.matrix_parent_inverse.identity()
    #ob.matrix_world.identity()
    ob.parent = arm
    ob.matrix_parent_inverse = ob.matrix_world.inverted()
    ob.vertex_groups.clear()

    arm.matrix_world = ob.matrix_world
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
    b = arm.data.edit_bones[0]
    b.tail += face.calc_center_median()
    b.head += face.calc_center_median()
    hinge(arm, ob, b, face)

    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
    for pb in arm.pose.bones[1:]:

        pb.rotation_mode = 'AXIS_ANGLE'
        pb.rotation_axis_angle = (0, 1, 0, 0)
    ob.modifiers.clear()
    mod = ob.modifiers.new(
            "Hinger",
            type='ARMATURE',
            )
    mod.object = arm
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
make_armature(context.object, 0)

With the mesh in edit mode, select one face, Run the script, creates an armature, with root bone at that face.

Now with the armature in pose mode Shift select the two bones going same way to fold. Can Alt change the property of one to change same property  all selected. Type in 180 to fold in half.

Now the slightly tricky bit because the script wasn't designed to do this... Shift select the two bones going the other way. Change the axis of one by negating the X axis (1 -> -1) this will ensure both spin the same way for this fold. (Alternately one to 180 and one to -180 degrees, will do same.)
Now same as before press  Alt and change the angle, and rotate to 180.


Selected Face color not updating in user interface I’m trying to set the selected face color but it is not updating.

Here are my user interface colors and the viewport results:

The active face is set properly. So are the selected face dots. But the selected face color is not appearing.
I changed all the 3d view colors to bright (in the second image) to see if any affected it, but none of them do.

I know it’s possible because the tutorial I’m following has all selected faces highlighted:

Any ideas?

Update:

So I tried editing another object in the same scene and it looks fine (selected face color correct). When I edit the original object it looks incorrect. In the same viewport even.

It seems that something specific the model itself is overriding the view property?

In the properties region P there is a panel called Mesh Display, check that the faces overlay is enabled.


blender script startup fail I wrote an exporter script and put the files into  ~/.config/blender/x.xx/scripts/addons/export However, when I check the User Preferences I cannot find my script in the Import-Export section, so I could enable it. If I load the script manually, however, an export entry appears under the Export menu. My current goal is to simply have it show up in the User Preferences, the code is pretty much copy&pasted from other scripts.

__init__.py:

bl_info = {
  "name": "SCN format (.scn)",
  "author": "",
  "version": (0, 0, 1),
  "blender": (2, 77, 0),
  "location": "File > Import-Export > scn (.scn)",
  "description": "Export SCN",
  "warning": "",
  "wiki_url": "",
  "support": 'NONE',
  "category": "Import-Export"
}

if "bpy" in locals():
  import importlib
else:
  import bpy

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

from bpy_extras.io_utils import (
  ImportHelper,
  ExportHelper,
  orientation_helper_factory,
  path_reference_mode,
  axis_conversion,
  )

IOOBJOrientationHelper = orientation_helper_factory("IOOBJOrientationHelper", axis_forward='-Z', axis_up='Y')

class ExportSCN(bpy.types.Operator, ExportHelper, IOOBJOrientationHelper):
  """Save a SCN File"""

  bl_idname = "export_scene.scn"
  bl_label = 'Export SCN'
  bl_options = {'PRESET'}

  filename_ext = ".scn"
  filter_glob = StringProperty(
    default="*.scn",
    options={'HIDDEN'},
  )

  output_format = EnumProperty(
    name="Output Format",
    items=(
      ("CBOR", "CBOR", "Export as CBOR"),
      ("JSON", "JSON", "Export as JSON"),
    ),
    default="CBOR"
  )

  path_mode = path_reference_mode

  check_extension = True

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

    row = layout.row(align=True)
    row.prop(self, "output_format")

  def execute(self, context):
    return "FINISHED"

def menu_func_export(self, context):
  self.layout.operator(ExportSCN.bl_idname, text="SCN (.scn)")

def register():
  bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

  bpy.types.INFO_MT_file_export.append(menu_func_export)

def unregister():
  bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)

  bpy.types.INFO_MT_file_export.remove(menu_func_export)

if __name__ == "__main__":
  register()

If you come across a problem like this, the solution might be not to copy&paste from an existing exporter script, but to literally copy the directory of some such exporter into .config/blender/x.xx/scripts/addons and work on it from there. This seems to work, but the root cause was blender getting freaked out by my bl_info line. Specifically:

bl_info = {
...
"support": 'NONE',
...
}

freaked it out and omitting the line solved the issue.


How would I go about turning this object into a 3D model with the same colours? I've been using Blender for educational purposes for the past few years making some general models like figurines and furniture but for my next project I want to make a 3D model of this image and I don't know where to start.
I've tried searching up tutorials but they all are too vague or just do not work.
What I am trying to do is convert this image to a 3D model while keeping all the colours and shapes within the picture. Could anyone lead me down the right path?

It's not easy to turn a 2d image into a 3d object.  What I would recommend is to create a "turnaround" as a first step.  Basically this involves sketching a front, side, top, and/or back view of the character.  An example is here.

This is very important to figure out the shapes of the model from multiple angles.

Once you have the turnaround, you can import it as Background Images in blender and assign it to the front and side views to use as a guide.  From there model on top of the images.  There are many tutorials for that kind of modeling, like the famous Joan of Arc Tutorial.

Good luck!  The turnaround sheet is likely the hardest part.


How to export object with transparency from Blender Internal? I'm making a photo frame with glass on top of a emissive photo material. I get the desired output when I render. But when I export it as fbx or obj there is no transparency of glass neither is the photo emissive.

I think if you are going to export to .fbx, you should only use Principled BSDF. In that case you cannot use mirror shader, or something like this on your scene. You have to use alpha channel...
If someone have a better solution, plz tell us!


Specific selected object won't export to STL while others will 10-year Blender user here (currently 2.79b, Win 10), facing a strange problem. I'm trying to export a selected object to STL, a routine action for me. I've boiled the problem down to a simple file containing one tetrahedron. When I select this tetrahedron and do Export --> STL with Export Selected checked, the resulting STL file is empty and will not open in another viewer (NetFabb).

Simple tetrahedron file here. (Google Drive, export-broken.blend, 622 kB)

Here are some cases that should help narrow down the behavior.

If I copy (shift-D) the tetrahedron, the copy also fails to export when selected. If I move the original tetrahedron to another layer, it properly exports to STL. If I make a copy, move the copy to another layer, and select both for export, the resulting STL contains only the copied+moved tetrahedron.

Exporting all (not just selected) works normally, even with just the original problematic tetrahedron.

Additional background: of course, I'm not trying to export tetrahedrons; I encountered this bug in the context of a much more complex file. I am preparing objects for 3D printing -- again, routine for me -- and exporting all is not an option. Anecdotally, it appears that this is not limited to STL export but also affects export to other formats. Moving an object to another layer in my more-complex file does not fix the export problem. The onset of the issue was not accompanied by any major change or issue I was aware of.

SOLVED (see answer below). The reason the object that is moved becomes exportable is that it was moved to a layer that happened to be set as visible in the second, minimized viewport.

I've figured out the issue. My file -- and example file -- has two 3D-view panels open. Each of these permits layers to be selected as visible or not in the usual way. The main viewport has layers visible for my object (the example tetrahedron). However, a second split window, also set to 3D View, has only other layers selected to be visible -- the layer containing the tetrahedron is NOT set to visible in this other, minimized window.

It turns out that setting the tetrahedron's layer to visible in this second window suffices to make the object export properly. So it appears that the Export code is reading the layer visibility from one viewport (the most-recently-created one?), even if this is not the main viewport.

Here is a clearer example of a situation in which the selected object will not export. Note that the lower window (now not minimized) has a layer not containing the target object selected for visibility.

A hint about this came from an answer to another question (STL empty on export (Python API), answer by Azukikuru) which refers to visibility. Visibility turned out to be the key here.


How to create a `files`-parameter for the bpy.ops.sequencer.image_strip_add()-operator? I'm trying to figure out how to do things with Python in Blender and am struggling really hard to get even the most basic things done. The construction of the override-parameter in my script below is probably not ideal but seems to work.

The files-arg is of course nonsense. As I understand it I would need to construct a bpy.types.bpy_prop_collection of bpy.types.OperatorFileListElement. But I have no clue how to initialize either of them.

import bpy

screen = bpy.context.window.screen

area   = [area for area in screen.areas if area.type == 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR'][0]
region = [region for region in area.regions if region.type == 'WINDOW'][0]

override = {'window': bpy.context.window,
            'screen': screen,
            'area': area,
            'region': region,
            'scene': bpy.context.scene}

bpy.ops.sequencer.image_strip_add(override, channel=3, files=("test",))

Don't use operators to do this; they aren't intended to be called from Python.

The regular data/function API is much simpler to use:

import bpy

se = bpy.context.scene.sequence_editor_create()
seq = se.sequences.new_image('hey', 'C:/temp/hey.png', 1, 1)


Looptools missing blender 2.8 Where are the loop tools in blender 2.8? I seem to have them enabled but can't hotkey; selecting
edges and pressing "W" does not bring them up.

Don't worry, it's still there.

Context menu is available through Right Click.
Operations are (hidden) under the Edit tab
(the name can be changed in Preferences > Addons > LoopTools)


Why is the movie in this blend file, blank? So demonstrating my considerable skill (not) I failed in my attempt to follow this tutorial.  Around the 7:45 mark, he says we should be able to press 'P' (to enter game mode) in order to play the video, and well, its not working.

I don't know how the few differences between what the tutorial guy did and I did could cause this, and I clearly have not learned the skills if I can't find out at this point, so  I'd appreciate any help!

The blend file can be found at pasteall.  Do note that I refer to the folder "resources" available in the zip file in the youtube description.

(Python: Also, if you want to modify the script, copy/paste the character they used to indent, for me, tabs and white-space didn't work.)

I figured it out: Your path to the movie was wrong i.e. not relative. So while pressing P you see the movie. In attached screenshot you will see that I changed the path to //Resources/Movie.wmv. "//" means that blender starting to looking for you movie at this folder where your .blend file is. I may can upload you the project file, too. Just write a commit.


binded mesh deform object won't move I'm attempting to mesh deform a grid with a thick cloth. I'm doing everything as I usually do it but after binding, the grid perfectly stays in place.

the grid was created through a boolean difference of an array of cubes.
grid modifier list:

cage modifier list:

thank you so much

You're using a Mesh Deform, so you need to make sure that the "cage" contains the object, so put it a bit above and give it more thickness with the Solidify:

Also maybe try with a Surface Deform, it should work as fine as it's a flat object.


Limit rotation to 180+ in X axis? Here is my problem. I'm trying to limit the X axis to the local space, at 185 degrees, but as I rotate, it snaps at 0 as expeced. But when rotating as so, it snaps back to 0 from 180 degrees. I believe this is a bug, but I would just want to check with anybody with more knowledge about this than me. I have seen other threads around about this, but I saw the date and not a complete answer, so that's why I made a new one.

As posted on BlenderArtists, here's the solution as provided below:

I simply added a limit rotation constraint to a duplicate of the main object, which I shrunk down (not necessary) and added a "limit rotation constraint" which I set to limit the X axis rotation to -30 degrees.

Then, I added a driver (right-click the desired value in the sidebar to the right in the 3D view and select "Add Driver") to the X axis for the "Axe_motor" (the main object) and set the driver's expression be "var * 6.26" in my case.

So, I multiplied -30 degrees by 6.26 times. this resulted in a perfect arc from the axe's resting position (0 degrees) to -188 degrees in X.


change and update Spot Size when camera lens change? How can I get set spotlight size to update when I change the camera lens angle?
The goal is to preview wich camera can see in scene and configure them trought custom panel. Need update in viewport

With driver: driver is not updated automatically, and I need to update manually
By Script: How can I call a function when camera angle value change?
I try tu use custom prop with update function but I don't know how to make it work

This simple script:

#bpy.data.lamps['Spot'].spot_size = bpy.data.cameras['Camera'].angle

import bpy

# Define property.
class MyLensProp(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
bpy.types.Object.Lens_ValueL = bpy.props.FloatProperty(name = "FOV     angle", default = 0.5, min = 0, max = 360,update= Update_Lampe_Ange)

def Update_Lampe_Ange(self, context):
    C= bpy.data.cameras['Camera'].angle
    bpy.data.lamps['Spot'].Lens_ValueL =  C

    PL= bpy.data.lamps['Spot'].Lens_ValueL
    bpy.data.lamps['Spot'].spot_size = PL

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)

if __name__ == "__main__":
register()

Note : This answer relates to the interpretation of changing camera angle as being to change the actual camera, rather than the properties of the camera - which was not the actual intention of the question. I have left this answer in place since it may be of use to someone searching for related issues and it does describe an apparent issue in the OpenGL render.

After running some tests, it seems that there is a problem in the behaviour but I don't quite get the same results. Most notably, my render preview mode does correctly update and the actual render also appears to work correctly - the only issue I did find is in using OpenGL render where the light cone was not updated.

Here's my setup :

I've created two cameras and added markers to the timeline - one at frame 1 and another at frame 20. These markers are bound to the relevant camera so that the view starts at the first camera and changes to the other on frame 20.

I've set the Pass Index on Camera #1 to 1 and Camera #2 to 2 and the driver on the spot lamp size is set to 'bpy.context.scene.camera.pass_index /2' - since it's in radians this will be 0.5 radians (28.6 degrees) for the first camera and 1.0 radians (57.3 degrees) for the second camera.

If I render the animation I get this up to and including frame 19 :

And this on frame 20 and beyond :

Manually skipping through frames produces similar results in the 3d Editor window, whether in Render Preview mode, Solid or Wireframe :

Where I do get strange results is if I do an OpenGL Render - in which case the lamp size wasn't being updated (note the lamp cone lines not changing their spread) :

However, if I moved the timeline frame to be after frame 19 then the OpenGL animation did work correctly! (note the change in spread of the light cone - only change is the 'current' frame in the timeline at the time the render is triggered) :

So, in summary, there does appear to be a problem - and a problem that is dependent on the start frame in the timeline at the point the OpenGL render is actioned. I don't know if the same issue could potentially occur in 'full render' - perhaps I just didn't hit the same situation. More extensive testing required.

Note that my tests were all performed on Linux using Blender 2.76b.

EDIT I repeated the test using 'full' render and the lamp size in the final render did correctly change - so this looks like the issue is restricted to OpenGL render (at least, in my case). It would be interesting if you could repeat the tests. I'll upload my Blend file so you can test with that if desired.


How would you reproduce 70's style Sci fi Lighting in cycles I'm wondering how I would create a rendering setup that gives the feel of the old 1970's era sci fi space scenes (Star wars, Alien etc.) I'm using Blender cycles to do this. Below I have what i'm trying to make along with an example from star wars and alien.

Alien:

Star Wars:

What I'm trying to reproduce:

Edit: I already have any models and textures, all I'm looking for is the lighting setup to achieve this effect. I've done holographic/wireframe stuff in cycles before and I've made space scenes with this harsh lighting in blender internal but I cant figure out how to in cycles.

I would install Filmic-Blender for the epic contrast:
https://github.com/sobotka/filmic-blender

Then either model my own spaceship by extruding parts of a mesh,
or randomly generate one with a script, then edit it however you like:
https://github.com/a1studmuffin/SpaceshipGenerator

You can apply a Decimate modifier to reduce geometry at this point,
for a quicker render, if you prefer.

Once model looks OK, duplicate it.  Use Wireframe modifier on the copy,
and paint that version with a mix of Glass and Emission shaders.

Then you get that nice sci-fi Tron glow.  Play with settings to achieve desired results.
Thickness of wireframe, turn the mix Factor to more glass, less emission...

Here's the quick settings I used just to illustrate the idea:

Edit:  You can put a tangent into the Emission shader Strength input,
to get more spaceship, less glow, as it appears in your goal.


Fluid not showing in final render I made a glass and have some fluid falling into it.

I applied the fluid, smoothed it out, re sized the glass, added some ice cubes....

The glass renders and so do the ice cubes... just not the fluid!

Here are some screenshots.

Preview Render:

And a sample of the final render (also taken at low quality):

As requested, here is a link to the .blend file

You need to enable rendering in the outliner


How to lock object rotation along a path I'm a little new to Blender and I have an object traveling along a path. However, I need the object to stay locked in a specific orientation while it traverses the path from start to finish. Think of a camera dolly except on a curve.

In Top view, create a S-shaped 2d curve from left to right (say about X axis). Create an cube object with a more vertical aspect ratio (oriented in Y axis, top is pointing to +Y). Add Follow path (if that's the best choice) to the cube in order to travel along the 2D curve.

In the top view, I would like the cube to remain in it's original +Y orientation (aligned parallel to the Y axis), yet animate along the 2D curve from start point to end point of the path. No matter what options I set in either the Follow Path constraint or on the object, the object always wants to snap the original Y axis of the object normal to the curve.

Select your path / curve object
Go to Properties Editor > Object data
Find the Path Animation panel
Untick Follow to disable the rotation along path


Copy Rotation Bone Constraint not Smooth I am struggling to get the CopyRotation bone constraint to work as I expect. Hoping someone can clear up where my confusion is.

I have simplified my issue to this three bone setup:

Bone C is the parent of bone A and bone B.
Bone A has a Copy Rotation
constraint targeting bone B (Y only, LocalWithParent -> LocalWithParent):

(There are also some limit rotation constraints on bones A and C, but I have tested and the issue persists even if they are both removed.)

If I rotate bone B around the local Y, everything works as I expect it to. Bone A acquires the same local Y rotation as bone B, and they face the same direction.

However, if I rotate B freely, allowing local X and Z rotation to occur as well, I experience behavior that I do not expect. Bone A smoothly rotates around local Y as B is rotated (as expected) until hitting certain rotations, where it then seems to "snap" to a different rotation. Here is a video of the issue occurring:
Rotating around local Y causes snapping when X and Z rotations are not 0.

I'm sure this is all a misunderstanding on my part. But I'd be really grateful if someone could help sort me out. In my mind: because I can see that the local Y rotation of bone B changes smoothly as I rotate it (I'm seeing this in the "Transform" view) the Y rotation of bone A should should also change smoothly.

Thanks so much!

The example blend (I don't enough reputation to post this as a real link, sorry): www.filedropper.com/bonerotationsnapexample

If you rotate your bone B around Y and observe its rotation values in XYZ euler, you'll notice all the values change when you expect only the Y axis to change:

This is because the bone was previously rotated from its rest position. The bone rotation is represented always from its rest pose - so what those numbers are is a combined(resulting) rotation of rotating it from the rest pose and then around the Y axis.

So the first problem is that your Y channel doesn't represent the change you rotated around local Y in viewport.

The other problem is that a bone can be rotated only +-180° (with constraints). If you expect to rotate more than this (let's say +190°), the bone rotates actually the opposite shorter way (-170°).

Both these things cause the A bone to rotate the wrong amount and to have a point where it suddenly flips.

The solution is to add bones D and E:

D has Dummy Track targeting tail of B.
E is parented to D and has Copy Rotations from B (world/world).

This way the E bone is only rotated of what the B bone is in Y axis (because the dummy track won't rotate the bone D in Y - it will only rotate in X and Z)

Finally bone A Copies Rotation from E, but Local/Local spaces.

Now if you rotate bone B to a position with only Z or X axes, the bone A will not move. And any Y rotation will be correctly projected onto A.


Class Room Demo Scene Black Windows? I just wonder if anyone know how to fix this issue? When I render the Class Room Scene, the windows often shown up as black (or checker boxes)? Apparently the ray tracing part is not hitting anything at those regions?

However, when I look at the demo image from the website they have corrected those? Any ideas?

Ok, I figured it out. The black is actually Alpha. So the quickest way to fix it is to patch it up with white.

Also, I notice the final result used the composite feature! It was not enabled by default. And that's why it looked different.


Increase the contrast of shadows like you would using a color ramp Is it possible to increase the contrast of shadows the way you would with a color ramp, but without effecting the colors themselves? I don't want hard edges, and color ramps allow you to have a middle ground

The reason I just want to affect the contrast of shadows, is that I would like to try combining higher contrast shadows with other types of shaders, or things like subsurface scattering.

You can use this setup to control the contrast of the shadows. In the image I provide, I mix the shadows with a texture, but you can use a color just the same. Also, because my example is for toon shading, I have the ColorRamp set to "constant", you probably want something more like "Linear", "B-spline", or "Ease". Lastly, the reason I multiplied it twice was to darken the shadows even further because they didn't turn out well in screenshots. Use as needed.


Smoke + fire simulation disappears after baking noise After I bake my noise there is nothing to see anymore.
I can only see it with color mapping on under viewport display. But that doesn't help me with the render.
In viewport with color mapping on:

In material preview:

You may need to check "Is Resumable" in the Cache section of the smoke domain physics properties.
For some background, I was having a similar issue. After doing some digging, I found this answer here: https://developer.blender.org/T80372
"This was a usability issue: Baking noise in the modular cache mode is only possible when also enabling the resumable option."
I wanted to make sure I knew what I was turning on by checking that option, so I will share this from the Blender manual as well: "Use Resumable Cache: Extra data will be saved so that you can resumed baking after pausing. Since more data will be written to drive it is recommended to avoid enabling this option when baking at high resolutions."


Keyframing angular velocity (linear acceleration of orbiting bodies) I am creating the visuals for a collaborative ambisonics project, and have run into an issue.
An orbiting body has initial frequency of 0.5Hz at 0s, accelerates linearly up to 8Hz at the 30s mark and further accelerates up to 16Hz at 50s.
Is there any way to keyframe angular velocity in Blender? I am truly stumped.
Many thanks in advance,
Franky

The angular frequency is the gradient of the curve in the Graph Editor View. For example
$$
\frac{43200-14400}{1801-1201}=48.0 \ \  [deg/frame] \ \ \   at \  1801 frame \ .
$$


Can I render without the camera? Ok I really do not like the camera part of rendering. I can easily line up a good looking model without the camera but I keep realizing you need the camera to render into an image file. Is there anyway I can render without the camera and then download into a image?

In some way, you can do this with:
3D Viewport ‣ View ‣ Viewport Render
but you have to keep in mind it won't be standard render. You will have to disable from rendering viewport overlays, like: floor, axis etc.
Examples:
Standard render:

Standard viewport render:

Viewport render without viewport overlays:

More info: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/viewport_render.html


Cycles: Is there a way to find the angle between incidence and reflection rays? Is there any point, be it through cycles nodes, OSL, or even somewhere in the code of Cycles itself, where the angle is known between the camera/incidence ray and the reflection ray for a given bounce?

Note that I'm not concerned with the surface tangent or angle of the ray to the surface, unless those are necessary to the angle between rays.

If this data is not exposed to the user but is known in-engine then I would be grateful for where in code that would be.

The angle between incidence and reflection ray depends on the surface:

If the surface is glossy with roughness 0 (perfect mirror), this angle is double the angle between incidence and surface normal:

If the surface is anything else, the reflected rays scatter based on probability - based on BSDF function (rough surface, diffuse surface,..). You would have to look inside Cycles code to trace these rays individually. The best help you will get directly from devs on IRC channels or through mail-list, look here who owns the code: Module owners.


How to remove light and camera in blender 2.82a I am learning blender and new to this forum and this is my fist post as well. I am struggling to sort the below mentioned problem of achieving the same result in Material Preview without light and camera. Please note : The first two screenshots are of the reference video that I am following and the person is using Blender 2.80 whereas mine is 2.82a

The below screenshot shows that the person is modeling without a light and yet his objects doesn't looks black in Material Preview mode.
Below image shows outliner with no Camera or Light :

The Ref image shows his viewport in Material Preview :

Unlike mine, where the objects looks completely black in Material Preview when I delete light manually :

While you are still in Material Preview mode, go to the top-right of your viewport and select the Shading dropdown. Under it is a Lighting section. Look for
Scene World and see if it is checked. If it is, uncheck it. With it checked, the actual lighting in the scene is used in Material Shading.


How to export a camera animation to Houdini? Does anybody have ever dealt with camera import from blender to houdini?
Recently I'm dealing with some projects that needs this step but when I do the fbx import, all the settings are completely wrong.

I know the difference between the axis system between the softwares, but also the rotation goes wrong. I didn't manage to find nothing, a constant or a matrix in order to fix this.

Does anybody have an idea or suggestion?
Thanks in advance

Edit

I manage to get the right position with the format FBX 6.1 ASCII with Y up and X forward but the orientation still doesn't fit. (Blender 2.73 and Houdini 12.5)

Alembic files are the way to go.
Just export from Blender by going to File > Export > Alembic and import it in Houdini with File > Alembic Scene.


How to remove one of the group inputs I'm using Blender 2.74 and trying to follow an online video tutorial on creating "sun" (presenter is using version 2.63). The problem I'm facing is that the presenter just selected a few nodes in the Nodes Editor and pressed Ctrl + G to group those nodes. Then he pressed TAB to edit the group and remove some of the input sockets of the GroupInput node by clicking the cross button in front of those sockets. Now I do not see these cross buttons in my version of Blender. I tried using Properties window too (N key) but that also doesn't allow removing (although it does allow adding, renaming and reordering). Can anyone help me with this?

Figured it out at last. Select the group input node and press N key to bring up Properties window. You can then use the cross button next to the node label that appears immediately below the inputs and outputs list. Here's a snapshot:


Make arch thicker but retain diameter? Is there a way to make an arch thicker (i.e. less hollow space) but retain SAME diameter? I created this arch using cylinder -> disable capped ends -> solidify modifier. I've already applied the solidify modifier. If I add another solidify modifier the mesh becomes messed up.

I know I can just create another arch from scratch but want to know if there is another more efficient way.

Start by placing the 3D cursor exactly at the center of the arch.

Select the outer (or inner) faces only of the cyclinder only.

Press . (Period key) to transform relative to the 3D Cursor position.

Then press S to scale and Shift+Y to exclude the Y axis (adjust according to your own orientation). Now adjust the radius as desired.

Ideally though, if you want to do it precisely (with accurate measurements) and in a non destructive manner, make your arch paper thin by removing either the inner or outer faces, then use a Solidify modifier instead to add thickness.


Cannot move area light pivot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfEyhPXsOCM

this question is about :
        The 3D Cursor: 20:42
        Parenting an Area Light to a Path: 21:54
part if the above youtube video
In this YouTube video the guy is able to set the area light pivot Point to the world origin. However when I do it the yellow ball for the light pivot does not move. And when I rotate / move the area light the light beam does not stay pinned to the eyeball. Furthermore, when I parent the light area to the Circle and then I try to move my time bar that area light does not rotate a round the circle. In fact it does not move at all. I did a parent By follow path but it does not move it all.

Also after I parented them together, and I click on adjust last operation, it shows me the operation I did before  I parented them. so idk what that is about ...

I have tried in both render mode and material preview mode but it does not work

update Picture:
My  Make Parent looks completely different from his:

The reason you are having problems is because you added a Mesh Circle instead of a Curve, Circle. Look more closely at the video 20:05, where he Add > Curve > Circle
Thats not the same as a Add > Mesh > Circle !
See screenshot below :

In the Outliner it should say BezierCircle  :)


Error using angle measure feature of measure it I am unable to measure angle after selecting 3 vertices in blender using the addon measure it. The message keeps on displaying select 3 vertices.

I notice from your screengrab that none of the selected vertices is active. That suggests maybe you used something like Box or Circle-select to select them.

Because, (even if you didn't) you might have selected more than one vertex simultaneously, they don't have a selection order. The MeasureIt Angle display needs to know in which order the vertices were selected..

Does it work if you use the default 'Tweak' selection mode, and select the vertices one at a time?


Textures disappear in BGE Playmode, but colliders are still there? I have built a village level in Blender Game Engine, and up till today all was good. However now my Grass texture and my wood texture become Transparent when I enter the Play mode, but the mesh still has collision.

Zipped level: The level and all associated textures
Play Mode on the left vs. Material View on the right

Update: It seems to be object specific, not material specific.

I could not find the cause of the problem, but simply replacing the material with a new one worked, even if all the settings are tha same as the previous material.


Why isn't Spin tool or mesh that has been rotated accurate when zooming in I was working with some complex geometry and after a lot of calculations some vertices should have perfectly connected. I tried to just merge them since they were supposed to be at the exact same spot but instead it didn't work.
This is where I decided to zoom in and realized that it wasn't actually at the same location, but the difference was so small that you wouldn't notice it unless you zoomed into max.
Ok so either my calculations are wrong or blender isn't as perfect as I thought it was.
I decided to recreate the problem in a simpler way that anyone can recreate.

Cursor or object origin at world center.
Extrude a single vertex from the center to any distance. In my case it was 50 meters.
Now press "." and change the pivot point depending on what you chose at step 1.
Zoom into the vertex that was extruded until you cant go any further.
Now select the vertex and duplicate it "Shift + d"
Rotating it should now pivot world center and 360° should equal to one circle so it should end up at the exact same spot as the original vertex right? well you wont notice it with such small rotation so try to increase it to multiple round trips like 1800° which is five circles around world origin. Now you should see that it's not in the same spot and the discrepancy increases with each full rotation added.

Is this intentional, bug or just some minor detail that nobody would even bother with.

You've just encountered one of the nightmares of doing maths on computers, and it's not a blender bug.
Blender uses floating point numbers internally, and they have finite precision.  This means that when you do complicated calculations like calculating movement through an angle, you only get an approximation of the final answer.
For the majority of uses, the approximations are close enough to the right answer that people don't notice, but you've found one of the rare cases where it does.
If you want to merge the two vertices, select the one that is in the right position, then select the other by holding shift when you left click on it.  Type M to get the merge menu and select "At First":
select the first vertex with left mouse:

select the second vertex with left mouse while holding shift:

notice that the first vertex is orange.  That means it's the 'active' vertex.
Now type M to bring up the merge menu

and select "At First"


Blender UV mapping error I have an error with UV mapping where it looks fine until I actually render it or throw it into a program that renders it. I'm not sure what the issue is because I hardly ever use blender.

What it should look like: (the mapped image is for testing)

What it actually renders like:

UVs will always show well in the 3d view, they only come out wrong when rendered as the textures more than likely weren't configured properly.

It looks like your mapping is set to Generated or something else possibly. You can fix this by going to the texture tab and under Mapping, select UV from the Coordinates list.

To be safe, you can also create a uvmap or use the auto-generated one under UV Maps in the Object Data panel and select it in the texture tab under Mapping once you have changed to those coordinates.