Shadows not influenced by normal map in BI im new to Blender (Blender Internal). Hope anyone can help, i'm hurry cuz of a deadline!.

With a plane with a normal map aplied to it and it's material set to Shadow Only I'm triying to create an alpha bg video with particle with shadows projections over it (a dead body actually) to integrate later on AE.

The issue: shadows are not bending influenced by the normal map of the plane. (see red plane)

Solutions or performance improvements are very welcome!

A normal map on a plane will fake the shading, but will not deform shadows projected on the plane.

Essentially the shadows are those of the underlaying plane.

To create real displacement: add a displacement modifier using a texture.
(Note you might need to subdivide your object and create more vertices to displace.)


Why is there different shading on the same material I’ve been learning blender and am currently modeling my phone for practice. I have two problems, which I suspect both have to do with shading, and have thus placed them in one post.

One of the triangles in the glass is randomly lighter than the surrounding area, and there are no defined edges along it.
The center polygons of the phone’s bottom edge are not being shaded (I think?) correctly. The whole bottom edge is the same material and is all smoothly shaded.

Pictures:

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks everyone!

For the flat faces:

Select the flat faces in edit mode and set shading to smooth
Check your auto-smooth settings (under Mesh properties -> Normals)

For the other face, It looks like you have an N-gon (a face with more than 4 edges). N-gons tend to triangulate poorly and so can lead to shading artifacts, particularly when they are not convex like the one you have. You need to break this up into simpler faces.


glitch on my meshes (Except wireframe mode) Any help ? Might be my video card?

I suspect the usual problem where you set extreme ranges in the Clip Start/End values. Try to keep the Start Value to be at least a 1/10000 of the End value.


Why is my glass looked like this? , I follow Blender guru's Part 3 Level 3, but ended up having this kind of glass I've watched Blender guru's Part 3, Level 3, but ended up with this kind of problem that also encountered by the others as well, but they've already solved it and I followed their instruction, but still didn't get the glass they have

I've also followed some of the answers given herein community but still didn't get what I expected.

It was not obvious because your cup seems almost normal but actually you have some flipped normals, go in Edit mode, select all and press AltN > Recalculate Normals, it will fix your problem.


Keframes aren't changeable! If I create a second keyframe, the value can not be changed, and it always bounces back to the value of the first keyframe:

View the value of the first Keyframe:

Enter an other value for the second Keyframe:

View value again (after leaving once): -> Value changed to the value of the first Keyframe!
In addition it does't connect as usual. (Picture 4).

With entering the same value the keyframes are connected... :

For example:

The value of the first keyframe is set to 2.
 If I want to add an other keyframe with the value 4, it resets the value to 2, but does not connect with the first keyframe, although they are equal.

Is that a bug or what did i do wrong? (I just want to have multible different keyframes!)

You have to set the value of the keyframe in your case the "Y location" by pressing the "I" key and then selecting location, before movie the frame in the timeline or it wont set (unless you have "automatic keyframe insertion" turned on).

The "connected bar" is only a visual to tell you that the frame data (Y location) did not change between the two keyframes. It doesnt mean anything beyond that.


Is there any way to prevent lights in linked files from behaving very differently? This is a light setup to imitate sun coming in through beams in a large space. In the working file there is a lot more going on but this is enough to talk about the issue. I don't think the particular light setup is the issue, but just in case, I'm including it. The file is attached.

This is how that light setup looks if you link the collection everything is in to a new file.

Now, I had hoped to link in a bunch of buildings into a much larger scene, so that it is easier to make changes to individual buildings and to use them in other ways. Does this mean that can't work? Is there a way around this? Are we going to have to either append everything or build all lights in the master scene?

Instanced light don't cast shadows in 2.80, EEVEE doesn't support casting shadows from duplis (particles, collection instances, duplifaces, etc.). It is a know limitation of the current system.

In 2.82 and forward the shadow system has been reworked to allow this, so either wait it out, try the risks of using an experimental version, or you will have to make your light setup local.


Subdivision surface modifier creating lines and stretches on imported SVG I am having a lot of trouble with just smoothing out a mesh.
I created an organic outline through Adobe Illustrator and imported it as an SVG to blender.
I converted it to a mesh, extruded it, and I basically just want to smooth it out (It's supposed to be a duck foot).
Once the modifier is added, it looks like this

and has all these lines and stretches which obviously also affects the texture.
I have also used 'limited dissolve' to get rid of a lot of the vertices, but this still make much of a difference.

The subsurface modifier can be a tricky modifier to learn.
Basically, all it does is apply a "blend" between 3 consecutive edges. Sounds simple but getting a grip on how this works can be challenging at first.
We uses "control" loops to control the blending. Take a basic cube for example. Adding a SubD modifier to it blends the edges from one, across the faces, through the next edge and around to another, and it does this 3 dimensionally, effectively making a sphere.

If we add a "control loop" it gives another set of edges for the algorithm to use which tightens up the smoothing. The closer the control loop gets to other edges, the tighter the blending becomes as the 3 edges it is blending between become closer together. As this control loop moves it gives us control over the blending.

Then a second control loop adds more complexity tightening up the corners.

The more complex the surface the more complex this becomes.
Then there is the "crease edge" part to SubD. Adding a crease to an edge tells Blender to ignore this edge in the SubD modifier.

This is a very simple example, but you need to understand the basics of how it works before you can use it in more complex situations.
Your particular mesh looks like it's lacking controlling edges, it's a mess of edges so as Blender tries to blend between 3 edges there is other edges telling it to try and blend in a different direction creating a mess. Your best bet is to use a remesh modifier on it. As it's fairly simple, try the QuadriFlow remesh tool. This tool is very CPU intensive, so use it with low settings at first, then bump it up until you're happy.


How can i reduce the size of my shadows? I am lighting my scene with an spherical environment map. As you can see in the image below, the shadows casted on my shadow catcher are way too big. How can i change this?

you could make it so that the background is not the light source with this node setup
Then add a sunlamp, with it you can either increase your lamp's strength or decrease its size

A smaller lamp size will give a sharper shadow

then change it so it matches your background's color and thats it.

here is a more detailed answer to your questionn
How to minimize/soften the shadows?


How can I use an image texture as a guide for weight painting? So I have an image of a map which I would like to use to paint vertex groups (for terrain feature particle systems) on certain areas of an object (a sphere).

I have mapped the map onto the sphere.  But even if I am in material or textured view, when I go into weight paint mode the object turns blue so I can not see the map so I don't know where to paint.

My next idea was to have a second, slightly larger sphere (in the exact same place) with a semi-transparent material of the map on it such that I could see the map on the large sphere and the weights underneath on the sphere I am weight-paining.  But it seems that material view does not show cycles transparent shaders. so the transparency on the large sphere shows up as opaque white and I can not see the weights on the sphere underneath that I am painting.

So is there a way to do this?  Either by showing textures/materials in weight painting mode, or by showing the transparency of the material on the large sphere?  Or some other way I haven't thought of yet to use an image as a reference to weight-paint on an object?

By the way, this is not a duplicate of this or this, both of those answers only work for BI materials it seems, I am using cycles.

Here is my solution:
Create a plane and subdivide it (as many times as you like, depending on your weight paint resolution requirements). Unwrap the mesh. Now you want to create a sphere from a plane using shapekeys. See the Cegaton's answer on how to do it here: What is the best way to unwrap a sphere?

When your transformation is ready, check the Basis key and add your heightmap image as a background image. Scale the added image to fit the size of a plane and check the image display type to Front. Set the Opacity value as you like.

Now you can easily paint in Weight Paint Mode, seeing a heightmap texture.

Transform a plane to a sphere using shapekeys.

As you can see all work quite nice.


Why I cannot subdivide face in this way? I'm trying to subdivide a face using same technique I used in 3d max with no issues.

Here the steps:

I start with a cube removing 3 faces.

After I select the top edge of left face and I subdivide it (to have a vertex in the middle)

Do same operation with bottom edge of same face:

Select the already created top and bottom vertex and hit F:

Looks like the face has been divided in two but If I try to selected the left face I cannot:

Anybody could tell me why I cannot do it in this way?

Thanks.

When you subdivide this way, you're not subdividing a face, just one of it's edges.  Joining the new vertices up later with F still won't subdivide the original face.

Have you tried selecting both edges together, then doing the subdivide?  This should split the face up into two.

Select one edge, hold SHIFT down and select the other.
With both edges highlited, press W and do the subdivide.


Driver action animates in viewport but not in Eevee or Cycles A Python driver I created to make a wheel turn works fine in the viewport but not in Eevee or Cycles.  I then created a new file with a simple driver using only the on-board driver facility.  That renders the driving motion and the driven motion only in the viewport, not in Eevee or Cycles.  I'll attach a .blend file demo.  I've used Blender for several years now for teaching, but I've never used a driver before.
Equipment: Blender 2.82a, Dell G7 with NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti, 16G Ram.

Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks.

The demo file is here:

I believe I have at least part of the answer to this failure:
I will attach a demo file with three scenes, each with only one procedure changed:
Scene 1 shows the failure to animate the cube's rotation as a function of its X location.  First, run the animation in the viewport and see that it is OK.  Then choose Render Animation from the Render menu - either Eevee of Cycles - and see that it will animate the cube's position but not the driver action of rotation.
Scene 2 shows only one change: I changed the variable's Space parameter from World Space to Transform Space.  Now you can see the animation also roll the cube.
Scene 3 shows the variable removed and the scripted expression modified to use Self.  Note that the expression must be a proper instance variable hierarchy:
self.location.x
Here, also, you can see the animation roll the cube.

So, what does all this mean?  I have only a rough guess:
This animation requires that the animated cube have its world-location updated in the world matrix needed for animation.  The viewport animation necessarily needs its world matrix updated every change no matter what, but the animation matrix is time-intensive and something called a dependency tree is used to update only those world matrices that have changed from the last scene.
In the case of the first, failing, scene, the world matrix entry for the cube only gets updated in its animation matrix position.  The variable refers to the same cube, but the world location of the cube hasn't changed; it's still right where it was created - at 0,0,0.  Therefore, the rotation of the cube doesn't get updated since the "location" of the cube in the world hasn't changed.
Now, in the second scene, the variable X Location is gotten not from the world location but from the transform matrix location, and that has changed as a result of the F-curve of the animation.  Now the cube rotation is part of the dependency tree and gets updated for the animation.  (Remember: I think the viewport representation simply gets updated any time anything at all changes.  The viewport is not time-critical.)
In the third scene, I eliminate the external variable altogether.  Here, using self actually passes the information from the instance of the object along to the tree and says, "update me, I'm being changed."

This, however, does not yet fix my original problem of getting this update to happen for my instantiated WheelDriver class objects to get updated in the animation procedure and not just in the viewport procedure.

More later ...

Equipment: Blender 2.82a, Dell G7 with NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti, 16G Ram, Bowmore - 12 yrs old.


How can I freestyle render outlines but remove the object itself? I am working on a project that requires the freestyle lines render set. I am creating a 3D floor plan and would like to overlay dotted lines as the "walls" of the building. How can I render the outline of a certain object, but neglect the faces?

i.e. :

Note I am using Blender 2.82

Any and all info would be much appreciated!

It looks as though you want to make the walls transparent to the floor, but not to themselves. (They're occluding their own back edges)
For maximum flexibility, you can set Cycles to render a separate Freestyle-only pass on transparent film ..

EDIT: 2.91 .. I think the filter selection is now negative: what's required is to uncheck all filter options, with Freestyle switched on.

.. link your walls and floors to separate Collections ... here, named 'Solid' and 'Transparent'.

Create a View Layer for each Collection. Deactivate unwanted collections in the corresponding layers as shown above. Each layer gets its own Freestyle Line Sets, which can be set to pick up Visible, Freestyle-Marked edges. Then you don't have to worry about transparency in the Line Sets themselves, because you're using the Compositor to overlay them:

This will increase rendering time a little (is this for still images?) but you can set the samples down in Cycles quite a way, 32 seems to give adequate anti-aliasing on the lines.


I rigged a human model with Inversed Kinematics but it is not working. How can I debug this? I'm having a hard time understanding how to debug my rig not working. I created the human model and now I am trying to rig the right leg.

How could share more information about this?

I would like my rig to behave this way: https://youtu.be/SBYb1YmaOMY?t=443

https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/d9lXpgeP

Just unparent the IK control in Edit mode. Now it will work.

Change the LowerLeg pole angle to 0. Your pole is inversed like a chicken leg.

In Edit Mode select the foot and uncheck Inherit Rotation. This will make the foot return to the right position.

Just in case an animated gif:


"Add Sticky" texture option missing in Blender 2.7 In this video, the person adds a "sticky" texture to an object.  The effect is that the object takes on the appearance of the background so that he can use it to "hide" an object behind it.  My issue is that Blender 2.7 has removed "Add Sticky", and Sticky mapping.

I find if I use the same image texture and "Window" mapping coordinates, this has a similar effect, but if the actual background is a composite (for example, I have an image that has a transform and some other nodes on it) it doesn't take those into account. Anyway to incorporate those? Or to use the actual background? –

Sticky coordinates have been removed, the main idea is that you should substitute the ‘sticky’ function with ‘UV project from view’ instead.

If you don't want use the uv project,  an alternative is the BLAM addon.


Little black wireframe globes? I'm new to Blender, using 2.78. I choose ALT + H because all my eye icons are mysteriously gone in my Outliner window, and that was supposed to be how you get everything visible again. But now I have all these little black wireframe globes and I don't know how to hide them (not even sure what they are for). How do I get rid of these in my view? Why did my eye icons disappear? My Outliner window does not have a filter button in its top bar, so I can't filter for the things I want to see. :(

See, no eye icons!

I figured it out! It was "rig". I'm still a beginner, so not sure what "rig" is exactly, but it's where all my items are for my model. So I right-clicked "rig" and selected "Toggle Visible" and they went away. :)


Intended compatibility of files contents while transition from 2.79->2.80->2.81 I am working on a file, which is not my own and therefore cannot be posted -- and it is a really complicated one. This file, when loaded into Blender 2.81 crashes blender sooner or later. I inspected the crash-files and enabled debug mode and found some hints here and there.
I want to recreate the problem with a newly created file, which I can post. But before reporting, I want to make sure, that I am not reporting something, which cannot work.
The file was initially created with Blender 2.79 and still works with Blender 2.80. Loaded into Blender 2.81 it crashes Blender after a short time or freezes it.
What kind of compatibility is intended between these three versions of Blender?
(I know, that 2.81 is in its early stage... )

If it crashes then it's a bug. Please report it on the bug tracker (Help > Report a Bug in Blender). It would be ideal if you can create a .blend file that can be shared publicly.

You should be able to open and run 2.79 files in newer version with the exception of removed features such BGE or the Blender Internal render engine which no longer exist in 2.8 and beyond.


Batch triangulating a model made of multiple objects Im very (VERY) new to Blender.
Im in need of triangulating object so I can use them with openGL (Im using .obj files)

I found a tutorial showing how to triangulate using Blender but when I import the obj files I find online I can seem to get all parts of the model into Edit Mode and triangulate everything at once.

When I select all and hit ↹ Tab for edit mode, only one part of the model enters Edit Mode.

Is there a better way to triangulate an entire model or do I have to triangulate each part separately?

separate objects can be edited one at a time, that is what you are doing now.
if you wish to edit all object at once, you can try to join them (ctrl-j) and then go into edit mode. so:

select all objects you wish to edit at once (it works only with objects of the same type, eg: meshes and curves can't be joined, without conversion, which probably you don't want to do...)
press ctrl-j
you have a single object now, composed of all the vertices, edges, faces jou had before. They are now together in the same object but still not connected yo those previously belonging to other objects

Now you can edit the object at once.

When finished, if you have to separate different objects back, you can:

select the joined object
go to edit mode
deselect everything (A key)
select only 1 vertex, from one mesh once belonging to a separate object
select linked vertices, with L key
separate selected vertices in a separate object, with P key
repeat until done


Particles dispersion from one object to another Is it possible to control particles that they would form one object and after some kind of particle dispersion they would form another object. For example from cube particle fly and form cylinder form.

You can add a curve guide to specify the path the particles will follow between the two objects.

Then for something fancy you can you can give the guide a braid kink to have it swirl around the curve on the way.


Running Script and rendering from command line with external script I'm trying to run a script like so from the command line

    blender -b oop-blender-demo.blend -P model.py

followed by

    blender -b oop-blender-demo.blend -a

to render the file.

I've noticed that the second command renders the file oop-blender-demo thats within my blender gui, which has a different script in it than the one i'm trying to run with model.py. It's almost like nothing is saving. I get no errors running the first command so I would think that's the final script that would be used to render the file

While posting this question I looked at this post

Does running a python script via Blender command line not actually do anything?

but when I try to input my blend file as the filepath it says "cannot write to this file". I can't find any information on this error. Is there a way to save this script/link it to the .blend file?

Or alternatively if you understand how to use the method bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath=???) described in the question I linked, what should I put in the filepath, parameter?

You are running blender twice, the first time it opens the file and runs your script then it closes the file and quits. The second time it opens the file and renders the animation. Without saving the blend file in the first run, the render step will start with the same data as before the script was run.

Blender processes command line arguments in order given, that is you can do it in one step by running the script and then rendering.

blender -b oop-blender-demo.blend -P model.py -a

Another option is to have the script do the rendering by adding

bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True)

Using save_as_mainfile() you would want to give it a filepath parameter. The save as operator saves a copy of the current blend file using the filepath parameter, without it you can't be sure where the copy is saved. If it did work, you will want to open the saved copy to render rather then the same original file. Normal system security settings are in effect, so the inability to save a file may come from the system preventing you from writing to the current directory or path .

Instead of saving a copy of the file you may want to use bpy.ops.wm.save_mainfile() which does a normal save of the current file rather than saving a copy.


Screen recording with Blender Is it possible to record a non-timelapse video with Blender's built-in screen recording system? I can't set the capture time under 50ms. That means 2 frames per second.

You can change the FPS for screencasting in Blender from the System panel of the User Preferences.

Go to File > User Preferences
Switch to the System panel.
Adjust the FPS and Wait Timer under the Screencast section.


Letter Text One By One In Correct Location I'm able to have text appear using

I'd like to get letters in the right place one at a time, any ideas?

Not intelligent but brutal approach: track furthest vertex (max X coordinate) from full length text and use it as location offset.
Text (solid shade) - object with single letter
Text.001 (orange wire) - full length text for tracking purpose

Unfortunately, execution will get slower on every next letter due to mesh converting and sorting.


Path following via API Apologies if this question has been answered already, but I can't seem to get this thing working.
What I am trying to do is have a cube follow a curve interpolated out of coordinates. Manually this would be done selecting both curve and cube and selecting "follow path" constraint in the Ctrl + P menu.
I have have put together a short script, but when I run it, the curve has the cube as a child, and there is a follow curve constraint. But the cube is not centered on the curve, and pressing play will not do anything.
I believe that I might be missing something conceptual, but can't really figure out what that is.
Thanks!
import bpy

# Clearing scene
for item in bpy.data.objects:
    bpy.data.objects.remove(item)

# Simulation Parameters
coords = [[0,0,0],[0,5,0],[0,0,15],[15,0,15], [0,0,20]]

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()

# making curve
crv = bpy.data.curves.new('crv', 'CURVE')
crv.dimensions = '3D'

# initialize spline
spline = crv.splines.new(type='NURBS')

# a spline for each point
spline.points.add(len(coords)-1) # 1 point by default

# assign the point coordinates to the spline points
for p, new_co in zip(spline.points, coords):
    p.co = (new_co + [1.0]) # (add nurbs weight)

# make a new object with the curve
obj = bpy.data.objects.new('object_name', crv)
bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(obj)
obj.name = "Path"

# Constraining Space craft to orbit
cube = bpy.context.scene.objects['Cube']

#cube.parent = bpy.context.scene.objects['Path']
bpy.ops.object.parent_set(type='FOLLOW')

cube.constraints.new('FOLLOW_PATH')  #Constraining cubesat to follow the path
cube.constraints['Follow Path'].target=bpy.data.objects['Path']
cube.constraints["Follow Path"].forward_axis = 'FORWARD_X'
cube.constraints["Follow Path"].use_curve_follow = True
```

Some tweaks.
Took out the remove all objects, not a fan.
Use object references. After using an operator to add the cube
cube = context.object

after creating the curve obj it is known by reference as obj, no need to look it up as "Path".
When parenting via the operator, the selected objects are parented to the active. Have set the curve as active
context.view_layer.objects.active = obj

and selected the cube
cube.select_set(True)

before parenting via the operator.
Animate by setting an path duration (start to finish)  in frames on the curve object, and keyframing or driving the evaluation time.
See Creating path curve using python script  re using the end points of a nurbs curve
import bpy
context = bpy.context

# Clearing scene
# IMO never add this to a question script.
'''
for item in bpy.data.objects:
    bpy.data.objects.remove(item)
'''
# Simulation Parameters
coords = [[0,0,0],[ 0,5,0], [0,0,15],[15,0,15], [0,0,20]]

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=coords[0])
cube = context.object
# making curve
crv = bpy.data.curves.new('crv', 'CURVE')
crv.dimensions = '3D'

# Animate the eval time (keyframes)
crv.path_duration = 250
crv.eval_time = 0
crv.keyframe_insert("eval_time", frame=1)
crv.eval_time = 10
crv.keyframe_insert("eval_time", frame=100)
crv.eval_time = 250
crv.keyframe_insert("eval_time", frame=250)
# initialize spline
spline = crv.splines.new(type='NURBS')
spline.use_endpoint_u = True
spline.use_endpoint_v = True
# a spline for each point
spline.points.add(len(coords)-1) # 1 point by default

# assign the point coordinates to the spline points
for p, new_co in zip(spline.points, coords):
    p.co = (new_co + [1.0]) # (add nurbs weight)

# make a new object with the curve
obj = bpy.data.objects.new('Path', crv)
context.scene.collection.objects.link(obj)
obj.select_set(True)
context.view_layer.objects.active = obj
cube.select_set(True)
#cube.parent = bpy.context.scene.objects['Path']
bpy.ops.object.parent_set(type='FOLLOW')

'''
cube.constraints.new('FOLLOW_PATH')  #Constraining cubesat to follow the path
cube.constraints['Follow Path'].target = obj
cube.constraints["Follow Path"].forward_axis = 'FORWARD_X'
cube.constraints["Follow Path"].use_curve_follow = True
'''

Fixed Position.
Generally a user of fixed position and no follow path parenting. As shown in answer here https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/169719/15543  With fixed position can keyframe or drive the offset, such that 0 is start of curve, and 1 is other end.


Nothing in the scene appears when i hit render Alright, this is weird. I have looked at the usual solutions to these kinda problems but they don't seem to work.
when I render nothing in the scene shows instead it renders frames from a previous file I had done. i have checked the camera icon thing too.
whats even more interesting is that when i opened a new file and tried to append the objects from the original file in the folder there was only one entity, the camera. so i opened the file to check and i found all the other objects sitting perfectly fine. ofcource the camera still renders frames from previous project.
heres the drive link to the file
edit:
here's some images for the new evolution in this problem.
enter image description here

enter image description here

In the Properties panel > Output > Post Processing, you've enabled the Sequencer option, therefore it tries to render the VSE sequence, disable it.


how can i make a low poly render on blender internal viewport render long story short, how can i make this kind of render in the viewport render (blender internal)

p.s   : i am open to any suggestion, so don't be shy and tell me about it :D
p.s.s : i am not a native speaker so here is a forefront apologies if there is any misconception, or hard to understand part of this question.

Thank you :]

As I mentioned before. Blender Render isn't my thing, but I think result is pretty close.

Materials:

I've used mostly default material. Just set Diffuse color and lower Specularity > Intensinity to 0.2.

Light:

Again, as simple as it can be.

Lamp set to Sun with Sky turned on.
Shadow > Ray Shadow with Sampling > 5 and Soft Size > 5.

Note. Postion Light directly from top to bottom to have shadows right beneath objects.

World:

Under World tab set Horizontal an Zenith Color to some candy like colors.
Switch on Environment Lighthing and set it to Sky Color.

Blend file:

And here to play with.


How to make local single-user copy in Python API How to use this button via Python.

bpy.ops.object.make_single_user(object=True, obdata=True) does not work for me at all,
object.data.make_local() makes library local without copying it, so all objects reference to it.

object.data = object.data.copy()

makes localized copy of linked data-block.


Extruding along vertex normals gives weird result I know I'm probably making some silly mistake after hours of consecutive work.

I have a cylinder representing a gun barrel, and at one point I want to add a 'ring' around the barrel, as shown below.

At the point shown, I added an edge loop, beveled it with hopes of extruding it along the normals, however I'm getting weird behavior.

The faces refuse to extrude outward, and will only go sideways like the second image. Here's my interface too, which I scanned for mismatched settings but can find none.

Can you see what's wrong? I checked for duplicate geometry, found 0 double vertices and I tried doing it with a new primitive cylinder, and it works like a wonder. Thank you!

Hard to say where you've messed up, anyway, here is what you should do, if I've correctly understood what you try to do (?):

Create your edge loop at the middle of your cylinder with ctrl R.
Bevel it with ctrl B.
Press E to extrude then Enter right away.
Press S to scale your extrude, and shift X (or Y depending on the orientation) to constraint your extrude on both Y and Z axis.


Why Empty/ Image is freezing Blender (2.77a)? . Hello friends! I'm having trouble using empty / image. I can open and scale, rotate the blue prints, but each command, let Blender (2.77a) unanswered for 5 or 10 minutes. When I click on the image, it just freezes. After a while you can move to other buttons, but clicking on the image again, Blender does not respond. It's a bug Blender? It is to fix it?
PS .: I'm used to import blue prints through property "N" / background images without problems. But I would also be able to use the function empty / image as well. Thank you very much.

If selecting objects takes too long , change the selection method :
in user preferences under system tab , change selection mode to OpenGL Occlusion Queries.

if it's still slow , give the empties meaningful names and select them from the outliner instead.

The shortcut  ALTRMB will pop up a menu in the 3d view with a list of object names directly under the cursor,It should saves you the trouble of going back and forth between the two panels.


How to get a flexible tube to follow a curved path? Problem: I'm trying to make a flexible tube follow a path I've made with the Path tool (Add > Curve > Path) but even though I've followed a variety of tutorials I can't figure out why my curve just won't allow a tube to follow it.

What I need it to do: I need to control the movement of the tube down the path, stopping at various points for single renders and animating the full movement at the end. The path must pass exactly down the middle of the tube. Please note that this path is located in the middle of a larger object that isn't shown, hence why it is located high above the grid.

The following image shows the path:

The following image shows the tube in mesh mode:

My current approach: I created the tube by adding a cylinder and adding a series of loop cuts to make it flex when required. I initially tried adding an Array modifier followed by a Curve modifier, and then tried just the curve modifier on its own. But no matter which axis I choose the tube becomes grossly distorted. The closest I can get it is the X-Axis, but even this is not correct, I assume because the path isn't located exactly on any of the axes.

I tried the Follow Path tool, but this also failed. I also tried a Bezier Curve instead of a Path, but no luck. The tube just becomes grossly distorted on all axes.

Your help would be greatly appreciated. I am a newbie, so please be gentle.

One solution is not to use a cyclinder, and use a curve instead.

Add a bezeier circle (add-> curve-> circle) this will determine the diameter of your tube:

Then add a curve and create with it the shape youi want your tube to follow:

Set the circle as Bevel object for the curve:

Then you can animate the bevel factor start and end factors to meet your needs:


How to join two cylinders with different inside diameters together as one? I'm new to Blender. I need a part like this but I cannot find it ready made, so I decided to give it a try and do a 3D print.
I made two cylinders with cylinders fill nothing and added the Solidify modifier. These two cylinders have the same outside diameter but different inside diameters. I want to join them together as one object. I tried select both and join, didn't work. It messed up the different diameters. Any one can advise how to do this properly?

For this to work You have to Apply the Solidify modifier and then join the objects. Follow the steps below to accomplish this...

This is almost the copy of Your scene...

Now both objects has the Solidify modifier applied so they have a thickness as could be seen in edit mode here.

Next step is to join both cylinders. To do so select one and hold Shift when selecting the other - press Ctrl + J to finish the process as shown below.

Now we have to delete unnecessary faces so select the part shown below and hit "X" selecting "Only Faces" option to delete them. Next image has this parts already deleted.

Next part requires Loop Tools enabled so enable it in the Preferences as shown below (optionally Save User Setting to keep it enabled).

Now select both inner Loops shown below by using the Alt key. Hold that key and click on one loop (between two vertices) to select the whole circle and then hold Shift + Alt and select the other one to keep both selected like shown below...

Now join them using the Bridge function (red rectangle) as show here...

Select both outer loop and join them too using Bridge again like below...

Switch to object mode and YOU ARE DONE MATE - CONGRATS! Just the final image of the object here...

Hope it helps You, Buddy.


how do I add a shadow on the floor of a tracking scene? Im having trouble adding a shadow to my scene. I have one scene of the main object (pic 1) and one scene with the ground (pic 2)
But when I render them together, the result is just the main object with no floor or shadow.
When rendering the floor is invisible. Im using Blender render and I would prefer it to stay that way. If you need more information you can comment below. Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance!

You must search for: Shadow catcher.
The blender will improve it in future versions but today we have to use two objects as you did, render the object, the ground without the shadow and the ground with shadows then use the node editor to join all.
The main object in the Layer 1, the ground in the second Layer.
See it bellow...(names in Portugese, my main language)


Checkered material ends up stretching despite seemingly proper UV unwrapping My simple cylinder gets stretched tilted checkers on the sides when I unwrap -

This is how my unwrap looks like -

I have applied all transformations as well.

Attaching the .blend as well.
Many thanks!

The Checker texture is actually 3D - it divides the texture space into cubes.

There are actually 2 things going on here:

Your tree is missing the nodes illustrated below:

First thing:

In Blender, a procedural texture-space will default to 'Generated' if texture coordinates are not explicitly provided. Generated space is measured (0-1, min->max) along the sides of an object's bounding box.

As  @3fingeredfrog has commented, the rotation of your mesh is not aligned with its object's axes, as you can see from the bounding box. So the mesh is at an angle to the Generated texture space. CtrlA  > applying rotation with the mesh aligned to the world would fix that.

Second thing:

(As @lemon has commented) Without the mapping nodes, the texture is not using your UV map; it's having no influence. If you do use the UV map, then a 2D slice at Z=0 (W=0)is taken out of the Checker texture,  mapped  0-1 in U and V. The shading points in your object look up the texture from that space, using the UV map you've provided, with the result shown in the picture.


How to render a volumetric shadow? I would like to render the volume that is shaded by an object (e.g. cube), not only the 2D shadow cast on the ground (as in the attached image).

I understand that in reality the shaded volume is not visible as shaded (only when it "reaches" a surface like the ground plane it becomes evident), but in my project I need to somehow show the shaded volume as well (preferably semi-transparently).

Is there an easy way to do it? I am using the lamp of type Sun and the Blender Render engine.

Make a point cloud where you want your voluminous shadow to be (I suggest keeping it cubish in shape so everything matches up alright), and use the volume shader on this extra object instead of the surface shader. Making it a shadeless object would also keep it from casting any additional shadows (I don't think it does with the point cloud method, but this is a workaround if it does.). You can mix this whole thing with a transparent shader to control how visible it is.

EDIT: Point cloud is unnecessary with this method, just warp a cube to the right shape.


how can I sync the object in the texture paint? I am beginner in blender ,
according to my totural , I have to sync the object in the texture paint but I can not do this.

Just sharing my story in case someone else comes here with the same scenario as me. My image texture was out of sync with what I painted. I then realized that every stroke I was making was appearing on the opposite side of my object and I had the normals issue described here. By pressing Ctrl+N in Edit mode, that recalculated the normals and solved the problem.


Folders for movies / image sequence Is it possible to set different folders for images (which where saved from animation renders) and for movies (which are the result of video editing)
For me it looks like there is just one output folder.
I personally think it is a lot of work if you want to make movies from image sequences you need these steps (especially if you have different output folders)

change your output to /images
render animation (which outputs the files to e.g. /images)
new -> Video editing -> add -> and then search for your images and add them
change your output file to your e.g. /movie - folder
render

I hope i am just to dumb to find a better alternative...!

You can set more output directories in Compositor editor.

For a movie set output directory and format in Properties editor > Output Properties
For an image sequence use Compositor editor > File Output node

See: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/compositing/types/output/file.html


NLA Editor: select specific NLA track in python Is there an easy way to select a specific NLA Track with a python script?

Set the NLATrack.select property to true.

Sample script, selects all tracks, on context object, which have a name beginning with "Nla" The zeroth position track is set to active.

import bpy
from bpy import context

ob = context.object
ad = ob.animation_data
if ad:
    for i, track in enumerate(ad.nla_tracks):
        # select all whose name starts with "Nla"
        track.select = track.name.startswith("Nla")
        # make active track if in pos 0
        if track.select and not i:
            ad.nla_tracks.active = track


Orient an object relative to another and constrain distance to radius I've got two objects:  a cylinder and a cone.  I want the cylinder to effectively act as a constraint on the cone such that the cone is always the same distance from the cylinder and the cone is always oriented away from the center of teh cone such that the tip of the cone would be touching the cylinder, regardless of where it is moved / rotated.  The two objects don't actually have to be constrained to each other, I just need the illusion of constraint.  In other words, if we could accomplish the same effect on the cone without having the cylinder actually exist, that would work as well.

How can I accomplish this?

Objective - Make a cone follow (track) a cylinder's location whilst maintaining a constant distance from it. (as distinct from straight out parenting)

A script would be the elegant way to do this but for a quick handcrank job, read on...

The cylinder is the parent of an invisible (green) plane.  The plane's pivot point has been set to one of it's ends so it will always pivot out from the cylinder's center.  It's far end will be a constant distance from the cylinder's center.

The plane is parented to a vertex placed at the cylinder's center.

This prevents the plane from rotating topsy turvy as the cylinder does but will follow changes in it's location.

The cone is parented to the plane and positioned at it's far end.  It is also rotated to be looking back along the plane's axis and always pointing at the cylinder's center.

An empty has been placed somewhere central to and above the cylinder's anticipated motion. (along a path in this instance)

The plane is then given a constraint to "Track to" (look at) the Empty.

The empty can be moved about to vary the cone's orientation.


How do I change the 3D View rotation mode? To be more like edit mode I am new to blender,
and I would like to know, is there a way to change blender's default rotation mode? If there is, please let me know.
Here is an example of what I mean.
P.S I imported a .obj file.

Example
https://youtu.be/1szZXFyHbRI

Each of your object's origin points are at the center of the scene instead of the center of the object. In the pivot point mode you have selected (Median Point), objects will be transformed about the median pivot point of all the objects that are currently selected (in your case only one is selected).
To fix the pivot point and have rotation occur as you want it to, go to
Object > Transform > Origin to Geometry
Or one of the other options if you prefer it to be at the center of mass or 3d cursor.


how can I create a procedural circuit board texture Im curious If it's possible to create a fully procedural texture similar to this reference image using only material nodes

It would be VERY DIFFICULT do do this procedurally in blender using cycles nodes. This could be done in Substance Designer without as much sweat, but that still might prove a challenge.

A free, easy tool to achieve this affect is JSplacment.
This lightweight program excels at generating unique and customizable sci-fi patterns for use in CG programs, like blender.

To get started with JSplacment, you can download it here: https://windmillart.net/?p=jsplacement

A good tutorial for these patterns is this: https://youtu.be/ee59XU3fKFw
(He uses C4D as his main 3D program, but the way you create them for use in Blender is identical)

I hope this helps!


Timeline keyframe not showing when changing to different transform rotation representation I created an animation, and created key frames when the rotation mode was set to Quaternion. Now I want to display the transform in easy to understand XYZ euler. The problem is, the rotation box does not indicate the keyframe exists in this mode, because the values are not in yellow.

Do I need to re-enter the key-frames again?
I would think I shouldn't have to since the XYZ is just a different representation of the Quaternion.

The quaternion, euler and axis angle rotations are stored as three different properties, the rotation_mode is used to determine which property is used for rotation.

Yes you will need to re-create the keyframes if you want to use a different rotation mode. You can choose the quaternion rotation mode, move to a keyframe and then change to euler and add a keyframe to the euler values as they will then match the values of the quaternion, then repeat for each keyframe of the rotation. If you have a lot of animation to do then a python script could be used to automate this.


Shape Key decimate modifier I am trying to morph a high poly humanoid into a low poly humanoid, animating the decimation. As far as I know this cannot be done with the Decimate Modifier. I have also tried doing this by using shape keys and applying 'limited dissolve' while in edit mode, without success.

Would anyone know a work around to create a high to low poly animation?

Thanks!

Shape keys in blender allows you to translate and  scale different vertices, edges and faces of a mesh. Even though Shape keys changes the structure/geometry of a mesh, they always maintain the same number of polygons.

So any changes involving changes in poly count usually won't work well for Shape Keys. So for this situation, Shape Keys cannot be used.

However,you could try animating the iterations/ratio/angle limit of the decimate modifier. Just press i on a slider and the slider turns yellow which means the slider is Keyframed.


How to display progress notifications from an Operator? The Goal

I'm writing a Blender add-on that extracts a point cloud from multiple photos. This operation is implemented as an Operator that is invoked from a Panel button. This Operator, once started takes a lot of time to finish.

I would like to inform the user about the progress of the operation, via some kind of status text. What is the best way to script this?

What I've Tried Already

Currently, I have a status message label in the Panel which invokes the "Start SFM" Operator. This displays the text stored in a Scene Property called currentStatus.

In my Operator's Execute method, I do this:

def execute(self, context):
    thr = threading.Thread(target=self.foo, args=(context,))
    thr.start()
    return {'FINISHED'}

And in the time-consuming method foo, I update currentStatus:

def foo(self, context):
    context.scene.currentStatus = "Starting..."
    # Time consuming operation 1
    context.scene.currentStatus = "Operation 1 Completed"
    # Time consuming operation 2
    context.scene.currentStatus = "Operation 2 Completed"
    ...

The problem with this is that the label only updates when it is moused over or if the user clicks on the scene. It does not redraw automatically. I have failed at several attempts to  force a redraw through python. I have tried polling, but it behaves similarly.

Am I missing something, or is this a completely wrong way to approach the problem?

This is a hack, at best. So, when an image in blender is rendered, it provides a convenient status bar at the top of the window.  The problem is a script has to be a renderEngine to take advantage of this.  The solution? Make your script a custom renderEngine, then have your button invoke the render function.

Here's a very basic example of updating the status bar, and adding a status string to the render window. You would put the code you want run in the myCode function.

import bpy
import time

class CustomRenderEngine(bpy.types.RenderEngine):
    # These three members are used by blender to set up the
    # RenderEngine; define its internal name, visible name and capabilities.
    bl_idname = 'custom_renderer2'
    bl_label = 'Progress Bar Example2'
    bl_use_preview = True
    # This is an example function, put your code here
    def myCode(engine):
        engine.update_stats("Starting","")        #update the stats in render window
        time.sleep(1)
        engine.update_stats("Running","halfway")
        engine.update_progress(0.5)               #update the progress bar
        time.sleep(1)

    # This is the method called by blender
    def render(self, scene):
        self.myCode()

# Register the RenderEngine
bpy.utils.register_class(CustomRenderEngine)

Then select your new renderEngine. From the top of the blender window click "Blender Render" and select "Progress Bar Example."  Now you can run your script by pressing F12.  One other method that might be useful is test_break, which checks to see if the render(or script, in this case) has been cancelled.
One last thing to note, directly executing a script (eg. with altP) doesn't display the progress bar, however when the render function (byp.render.render) is bound to a panel it displays correctly.

See these for more information:
Blender artists, setting progress bar values
Blender Python Api, RenderEngine


How do I uninstall an Addon added by running a Python Script? I tried to install the CreaPrim script and I ran the script 3 times due to confusion on my part, but the result is that now I have 3 CreaPrim sections in my Tools panel:

How can I get rid of 2 of them?

I don't think you can uninstall it as you didn't technically install it if you said you 'ran the script'. Best you can do is close and re-open file I think.

Edit:

I found that the script had also been added to my startup file without me having saved it. On windows I navigated to:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.70\scripts\addons\__pycache__\

I deleted a file with object_creaprim in the file name and reloaded blender and it disappeared.


Something wrong with my rig. All scrunched up and missing faces? I tried to copy and paste an armature onto a saved model in an alternate .blend file, but my model became all messed up: faces missing and what not.

Here's the photo of what it looks like.

It also says Auto-run disabled. I'm not sure what that has to do with the rig itself, but I thought I'd add it.

If you are using Rigify, the addon uses some drivers to control the bones, and drivers use Python expressions to work. Auto run of Python scripts are disabled by default for security reasons, but you can allow blender to auto run scripts by changing your user preferences. To do this press Ctrl+Alt+U, then head over to File and enable Auto Run Python Scripts:


Cycles toonshader vs Blender Internal shaders Is Cycles toon shader more accurate than Blender internal toon shader?

I,m currently working on a Webcomic and would like to have my characters as 3D characters in a 2 tone cell shading style. This is to save time as I'm a one man outfit at the moment. I would like my renders to be of high quality so i am not sure whether to use Cycles or Blender internal toon shading. Can someone please explain which one will give me better results?

At this point, it's really most dependent on which material system you're more comfortable with. With Cycles' node system and OSL, you can achieve just about any look you'd like... and render times are reasonable if you set you reduce bounces to zero and use direct lighting techniques (i.e. do lighting as if you were rendering in Blender Internal). That said, it's often faster to set up toon materials in Blender Internal if you're already familiar with the system.

Furthermore, if you want Blender to generate your linework for you, Blender's Freestyle system is currently only supported with Blender Internal. However, if you want to use Cycles shaders with Freestyle, it's not that difficult (use a duplicate scene with linked data, render using BI and Freestyle, and composite the results with your Cycles scene).


How to apply Matcap materials for sculpting in Blender 2.71? I'm following the instructions found in Ben Simonds' "Blender Master Class" and both the Materials and Textures interfaces seem to have changed significantly since the book was written.  I'm supposed to make the material Shadeless, to set the texture's Image or Movie to Normal which is supposed to be under the "Mapping Tab", and in the Display Panel of the 3D View I'm supposed to set the shading option to GLSL.  While all this (mostly) makes sense to me, I just can't find any of these settings anywhere.

Note also that you must be in "Solid" view mode to see the matcap option under the N menu. This seems obvious to me now, but I've been all over the internet trying to find out why I don't see the Matcap option everyone else has. :)

-C


Can you replicate Optics Compensation in VSE? The Effect "Optics Compensation" in After Effects is great to compensate the distortion of certain lenses such as Fisheye lenses or wide angle, etc.

I have only so far been able to replicate this in Blender by assigning my photo/video to a plane in the 3D space, aiming the Camera down and using Compositor nodes as such:

But for efficiency purposes - because assigning videos of photo textures to a plane adds an extra step, I would like to be able to use this Lens Distortion to the VSE directly.

I have seen some questions here saying you can link the Compositor to a scene, but I am unable to reproduce and to fully use the Compositor's nodes in video edits, ideally I would like to see the change in effects settings live.

How can the Compositor Node effects be used in VSE in a streamlined way?

You can directly undistort footage in the Sequencer, once you have it set up correctly in 2.8.

Open up the movie clip editor and open your footage.

To properly choose some distorsion value, we will have to be able to preview the result. Go to the top right of the movie clip editor, click on Clip Display and check Render Undistorted. This will give us the undistorted view of the footage live in the movie clip editor.

Open the Track rider N > Track and go to the Lens Panel. Here are the Lens Distorsion parameters K1, K2 and K3. Change their values and see how the footage (un)distorts itself. It can help to draw a Line Annotation to evaluate the straightness of lines.

Once you are satisfied with the undistorsion go to the sequencer. (You will have to load up all the footages in the movie clip editor which you want to use in the sequencer if you want to undistort them there.)

Add the created movie clip to the sequencer by pressing ⇧ ShiftA > Clip > YourClipName.mov.
Open up the properties panel N and go to the Strip rider. Go to the Adjust > Video panel and check Undistort Clip. The added clip will be rendered undistorted directly from the sequencer.


.STL Files in Blender to be used for an animation. Should I recreate them in blender? Here is a scene I'm using as a reference.
https://ibb.co/n9Yub8
Here a portion of a trailer assembly not fully finished using for reference to show what i mean.
https://ibb.co/d3r0io
One of the trailers alone has 673,475 tris / 269,538 faces / 428,851 verts,
and its not even fully finished yet its about 25% complete and there will be from 4-6 of them in the scene alone not including everything else.
Here is how the frame looks like in edit mode.
https://ibb.co/hapWpT

So before i continue should i just recreate everything in blender or is there a way to reduce the amount of vertices?
I just don't want to waste time placing everything and my computer giving up.

I've used the edge split modifier with the smooth shading tool, limited dissolve, remove doubles.

I do not think there is easy way, start by removing doubles link,then check all other technics in the link, start cleaning it manually, then it is more time management. If you think that  cleaning it manual is more time consuming tha building it, build it.


Spacing objects evenly around a curved surface As you can see in the image I would like to add yellow spikes along the blue edge of this hammer. How can I easily add them and space them out evenly?

The first thing you want to do is to set your cursor to the middle of your hammer (represented by a cylinder in my case).

Then add your spike somewhere around it. To create several spikes around the edge, you have 2 methods:

1 - Use the cursor as a pivot point

Duplicate your object, rotate it around the Y axis by XX degrees and repeat the operation.

But this one is harder to modify as you have to delete you cube and realign them if you want to change its shape. The second option use an array modifier which is more adequate to the situation.

2-Array modifier
Same beginning with the cursor, but create an empty object that you want to leave at the cursor position.
This time, don't forget to move your object in edit mode instead of object mode so that the geomtry center point remain at the cursor location.

Add an array modifier to your object and deselect everything

Select the empty object as object offset and change the count

If nothing is shown, this is normal, just select the empty object and rotate it around the Y axis, your spikes should start moving.

In the example, I rotated it by 45° with 4 new cubes 4*45° = 180°, the last cube is rotated by 180°. Hope it helps


Curves wrong filled when importing svg I'm working with illustrator and exporting as SVG this graphic.

This is how it looks in illustrator (and how I wanted to be). The green part is all fill, no strokes. The white is all canvas.

But I'm getting this at Blender.

It fills the center of the image, not the border as a stroke.
If you have any clue...thanks!!

Most likely the issue is that you have two different curves in the SVG file and they got imported as different objects, so they are filled differently.

In edit mode select both curves (select one first and then press shift and select the other) and join them pressing CtrlJ

Now the fill should work fine:


Creating an Arbitrary Custom Transform Orientation in Python Is there a way to create an arbitrary transform orientation in Python?

The API function bpy.ops.transform.create_orientation() only allows the orientation to be created from the current view or the selected object.  In my particular case, I want it along the line between two objects.

My initial thought is to create the transform orientation (call it 'mytransform') with bpy.ops.transform.create_orientation(), and then directly set bpy.context.scene.orientations['mytransform'].matrix.  But:

I don't know if this is kosher (I try to avoid mucking directly with the data structures when possible).
It has some disadvantages, mainly that I can't run it from the Python console for testing (create_orientation() only works in a 3DView context).

Test code to create orientation and use in all 3d views in the current (context) screen.

import bpy
from math import radians
from mathutils import Matrix
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene

# create view

bpy.ops.transform.create_orientation(name="Frank", overwrite=True)
orientation = scene.orientations.get("Frank")
print(orientation)

# make up some matrix
# rotated 45 degrees on (1, 1, 1) axis
m = Matrix.Rotation(radians(45), 3, (1, 1, 1))
orientation.matrix = m

# find 3d views to set to "Frank"
screen = context.screen
views = [area.spaces.active for area in screen.areas if area.type == 'VIEW_3D']
for view in views:
    view.transform_orientation = orientation.name

Note you can override operators to "trick" them into thinking they are running in another area.


Hair particles trouble when animating Do you know why hair particles get strange when animating?

Here is the thing: I have a character with a hair particles system for hair.
My character is animated through an armature.
So I move my character, make him following a path, through his armature: and as soon as I move this way, my hair get crazy.

I precise that armature modifier is just above my particle system.

Make sure your subsurface modifier is on. Also, you will have different results if the view-port and render subsurf levels are not the same.


where can I find the edit menu in blender 2.9 I want to edit objects in the edit menu, but the edit menu can't be found in blender 2.9

This is the Tool Shelf, and has been replaced in the 2.80+ default interface by a more condensed Tool Shelf that uses gizmos, the various menus at the top of the 3D View, and the operations search engine. Check out The Blender Documentation page for advanced details, or comment below.
If you are opening an old blend file with a newer version of blender, try turning off “load UI“ in the file browser, so you will get the new default interface set up. You would want this, because many editors are quite different in 2.80 then they were in 2.79.


Is there a "get individual"? I have a grid and a plane which are not parallel.

I'd like to move (G-key) the selected set of points down so that the value on the z axis of each point after moving is the same as the value on the Z axis at that corresponding point on the plane. The effect might be what one would achieve if one took the "move" tool, the "individual" part of "extrude individual", and the "snap to plane" function. Am I looking for something which does not yet exist?

Well it doesn't exactly exist as a tool but you can achieve this with a vertex group and the shrinkwrap modifier.

So you first take your selection and assign it to a vertex group, then apply a shrinkwrap modifier with the target being the plane below and the shrinkwrap mode being "Project". Then you just need to select the axis you want to project along and the direction on that axis.

After you've done all that you should have your result. You can now apply the modifier and delete the vertex group.


Rotate a cube to make it stand on one of its corners Kind of a theorical question here.
I would like to know how you would rotate a cube so it stands on one of its tops.
I finally managed to do it but probably not in a proper way, and as i'm curious to improve my workflow, I ask you.

Maybe there is a "mathematical" way to compute the Y angle; or even better, would there be a "blender" way to do it even more quickly ? (with snapping or something)

Thanks !

Somewhat better non-mathematical solution:

Extrude one of the side edges along the 'Z axis' and split the extrusion with Y.
Set cursor location with Shift+S and pivot point with comma.
Enable vertex snapping, set 'Edge' snap element and 'Active' snap target.
Select the main object with L and make one vertex active with Shift-Click.
Rotate in front view and side view.

That's how it looks:


Is there a way to save composite node presets? Is there any way in Blender to save settings in your compositing node setup. For example say for my shadow catcher I have it setup for a hard shadow for sunlight, and then I also have a setting for diffuse light shadow for indoors. Is there any way I can save these settings individually so I can quickly switch to them rather than having to individually change the nodes every time.

Yes, you can use node groups.
Creating node groups
You can create a node group by selecting the nodes you want to save and then pressing ⎈ CtrlG:

After you create a group, you'll end up inside the group, where you can edit it. Toggle in and out of the last selected group by pressing ↹ Tab.
While inside the group, you can edit the node tree and define what the inputs and outputs should be (if any) by connecting the special Group Input and Group Output nodes:

Now you have a reusable custom node.
For more control over the inputs and outputs, you can add1, remove2, rename3, reorder4, and change default values5 of inputs in the Properties panel (N) while inside the group (↹ Tab):

For value inputs (gray sockets for scalars, purple sockets for vectors) you can also define Min and Max values.
Note that node groups can contain other node groups, in which case navigating between between these with just ↹ Tab can sometimes be confusing. You can always go up and out of the current node group by pressing the up button in the header (think of the node editor like a file browser and node groups like directories):

To ungroup a node, press ⎇ AltG with the group node selected (outside of the node group)
Saving and reusing node groups
To see how you can save these in a library blendfile (or even your startup.blend) and import them into whatever project you need, see

Can I make a custom node from a group and have that available in other projects?

How can I apply some material included in a node-pack library?


Noise showing up in the reflection of a plane Is there anyway to easily remove this noise showing up in Cycles in the reflection of the plane? You can see it happening on the glass bottles right around where the "s" and "p" are in this JPG.
Turning off gloss in the ray visibility tab on the lights and plane work but then you lose a lot of other desirable qualities of the light. Thanks ahead of time.

I use the blender denoise compositing node nearly every time. It's super easy to setup. You'll need to enable the Denoising Data under the view layer properties first.


Smart UV Project Multiple Objects to Different UV Maps I know there isn't natively in Blender a way to Smart UV Project multiple objects to their own UV Maps without doing it manually for every object but I bet it's possible using a script. However I couldn't find it anywhere and can't really code it myself. Could anyone help with the right script?
I've come up with something like this but it unwraps everything into one UV Map. I know that's because of the fact that Smart UV Project works for all selected objects, not only for active object but that's all I was able to think of.

import bpy

selection = bpy.context.selected_objects

for o in selection:
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = o
    bpy.ops.uv.smart_project()

Here's the working code, thanks to batFINGER:

import bpy

selection = bpy.context.selected_objects
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

for o in selection:
    o.select_set(True)
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = o
    bpy.ops.uv.smart_project()
    o.select_set(False)


How would you render backface culling with Eevee engine? I'm using backface culling to make contours but it will not render with Eevee. The first image is with the hand in the view.

The second image is when I attempt to render.

I was thinking of using nodes to enable it but I am open to other ideas. The only solutions I found were either outdated or only cover Cycles.

It seems like you have to do it on a material level, using nodes. There is no way to activate backface culling on final render.


Emit particles from faces with a specified normal Is it possible to only use faces whose normal points in certain directions, for example, only emit particles from faces pointing in the positive z direction. or some other condition, like it must lay in the x-y plane with z the z component within -0.5 to 0.5? It could be done by manual selection and using vertex groups, but that would be quite time consuming. Another solution would be to select vertices that fulfill the condition.

The particle options in Blender are rather limited at the time (they promised to change that in 2015...) so the only solution I can think of is Animation Nodes or Python, delete the particles depending on their start direction.


What is the substitute for gpu.export_shader in Blender 2.80? I am trying to export GLSL from Blender materials in a scene. This call appears to have been removed from module "gpu" in Blender's Python API as of 2.80. Is there any substitute? How should I proceed?

I, too, am dismayed that this function is no longer available. There doesn't seem to be any direct substitute, but, if you really want to look at the shaders, you could ...

Launch Blender from a command line with --debug-gpu-shaders
Blender will emit a few hundred lines of "Shader file written to disk: (path)"
Render your model, preferably alone in its own layer. Your cmd/shell window will show some more files written.
Filter the hundreds of generated files in (path) by searching in file contents for EEVEE_ENGINE. The others are probably UI related, just guessing. If you have many objects in your scene, this may also become overwhelming, but it will at least filter out the shaders used by blender itself rather than your models. The largest of these files is probably what you're looking for.

What you will find, however, is an absolute beast that you'll have no idea what to feed it. Search in the fragment shader for uniform - all those have to be supplied by you, do you know what they all mean? Now, if you want to go on an adventure, you could spend some time in the Python console doing

dir(gpu)
dir(gpu.shader)
dir(gpu.types)
dir(gpu.types.GPUShader)
dir(gpu.types.GPUBatch)

... and so forth. GPUShader seems to be completely opaque once its constructor is called with the shader source. GPUBatch encapsulates all the draw calls and data needed to render an object, but I haven't figured out how to get the data back out of it or determine what uniforms to bind where, etc.

Another option would be to export to something like glTF, which does have a material spec, but does not include shaders directly. Then use one of the available parsing/rendering libraries ( https://www.khronos.org/gltf/ ) with its own built in shaders that can emulate a lot of what the principled BSDF does to within an acceptable limit. Some of those are only parsers, not renderers, so check for that. Dynamically generated textures may be a problem though. For example, BabylonJS has many included shaders for various materials, and you can view their source at https://preview.babylonjs.com/materialsLibrary/babylonjs.materials.js

The bottom line though, it seems, and I hate to say it, Blender's materials are for Blender's engine. If you're working in another game engine, it's best to create the geometry and rigging in Blender, and use the material system in your target engine to skin it.

The only way I can think to approach the problem if you're just writing your own simple engine in C++, for example, and you need the GL calls and data to draw what you see in Blender, would be to somehow hook the calls to GPUShader and GPUBatch constructors and dump the data as it's being created in Blender. You would also have to hook/dump those uniform values at draw time. Haven't tried that personally. Otherwise, just accept the limitations of your export format.


How can I cut an edge from a plane? I wonder what's the best workflow for a such basic task:

I want that the plane would have the same two corners. I got stuck at the 7th step.
Two questions:

How can I cut that duplicated edge from a plane?
Is there a faster way to achieve the same result?

It could be a CtrlShiftB, 1-segment Vertex Bevel:

You can adjust to precision in the operator's F9 Adjust Last Operation panel.
Thanks to @John Eason for the reminder.. While modelling, always have your object's Scale CtrlA applied to (1,1,1) for predictable results from operations and modifiers.
Edit: The shipped add-on 'TinyCAD' can find the projected intersections between lines, and insert vertices at the closest approach. If you have a lot of that to do, you could set up shortcuts for that.
Without add-ons, this could be a way? There's probably a better one..

With Snap set.. 'To: Vertex' and 'With: Active'

K cut an arbitrary edge, to insert vertices
ShiftD duplicate the vertices of the template edge.
GX with and GY, switching active vertices, snap to the target corner, one dimension at a time
Snap the pre-cut vertices to the duplicate, and M > 'By Distance' merge everything down.


Placing bone at each vertex -> How do I then connect each bone exclusively to that vertex? Add a bone at each vertex location?
Using the above, I can place a bone at each vertex, however, it doesn't connect the bone to that vertex.
How can I edit the code in the solution to make it so each bone is connected to (only) the vertex it's placed at (with weight 1) ?
If I try to connect the bone-rig and mesh with automatic weights, it leads to un-evenness in the weight distribution.
Specifics: I have a 100 or so bones and want to automate rather than manually connect each bone to it's respective vertex on the mesh.

You can complete the code from the indicated answer by the following:
Keep bone names as they are created.
Loop over these names to create vertex groups and assign the corresponding vertex.
Parent the object to the rig and add the armature modifier.
names = [] #Will keep bone names
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
for i, l in enumerate(zip(points, normals)):
    bone = amt.edit_bones.new(str(i))
    bone.head = l[0]
    bone.tail = l[1]
    names.append(bone.name) #Add name
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()

for v_index, name in enumerate(names):
    #Get the group
    group = obj.vertex_groups.new(name=name)
    #Link the vertex to it
    group.add([v_index], 1, 'REPLACE')

#Parent and add modifier
obj.parent = rig
modifier = obj.modifiers.new(rig.name, "ARMATURE")
modifier.object = rig

The complete code
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

def AddBonesAtVertices(obj, length, use_normals):
    if not obj or obj.type != 'MESH':
        return

    points = []
    normals = []
    data = []
    for v in obj.data.vertices:
        p = obj.matrix_world @ v.co
        target = v.normal @ obj.matrix_world
        dir = target - p
        dir.normalize()
        dir = dir * length
        n = p + dir * (-1)
        points.append(p)
        if not use_normals:
            n = Vector((p[0], p[1], p[2] + length))
        normals.append(n)
        data.append([p, n])

    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

    amt = bpy.data.armatures.new(obj.name + "_vBones")
    rig = bpy.data.objects.new(obj.name + '_vRig', amt)

    bpy.context.collection.objects.link(rig)
    objects.active = rig

    names = [] #Will keep bone names
    bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
    for i, l in enumerate(zip(points, normals)):
        bone = amt.edit_bones.new(str(i))
        bone.head = l[0]
        bone.tail = l[1]
        names.append(bone.name) #Add name
    bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()

    for v_index, name in enumerate(names):
        #Get the group
        group = obj.vertex_groups.new(name=name)
        #Link the vertex to it
        group.add([v_index], 1, 'REPLACE')

    #Parent and add modifier
    obj.parent = rig
    modifier = obj.modifiers.new(rig.name, "ARMATURE")
    modifier.object = rig

objects = bpy.context.view_layer.objects
obj = objects.active

AddBonesAtVertices(obj, 0.5, False)


Trying to replicate the Blender Cloud dog I'm taking a stab at modeling, and I want to do one of the cute dog on the Blender Cloud landing page.

I can cover rigging, but not modeling. Any tips on how to do this? I already tried flattening a sphere and thickening a long cylinder, but they didn't work well.
I'm thinking brushes should work, but I'm not sure how I'd go along with that either. Any suggestions?

Sub-D box modeling

Dixey has a smooth surface with nice curves.

Easiest way comes into my mind is to block out the overall shape and use the subdivision surface modifier to smooth the blocks. Make sure to use the Catmull-Clark algorithm.

Onece built the base mesh, it should be just a matter of refining the shape with more loopcuts, or you can even apply the modifies and use the sculpting tools to increase the bumpiness of certain ares.

Here's a possible result:

Notice how few polygons are used to control the surface.

Other possible techniques to built a base mesh to work with:

metaballs
skin modifer


Can Blender be used to design 2D clothing patterns? Can Blender be used to make 2D clothing patterns?

There is this tutorial on how to use the shrinkwrap modifier to clothe a figurine, but are there any tutorials on how one could use Blender to design dresses and other clothes in 3D and project these 3D designs onto a 2D surface (make 2D "slices") for creating and editing 2D clothing patterns in, say, Inkscape?

Yes. See ch. 7 "Creating a garment with Optitex and Blender: Constructing a Boudicca dress" of:

Thomas Makryniotis. 2015. 3D Fashion Design: Technique, Design and Visualization. Pavilion Books.


Pixelated shadow appearing in Cycles when using bump in node editor I have a fairly simple scene with two cubes and a sphere on a plane. Each of the items has an image texture applied to it and a point lamp provides illumination.

The sphere has a slightly more complex material:

Images of the scene rendered in Cycles show a very unusual artifact:

As you can see, there is a very strange "staircase" pattern in the shadow of the UV sphere. What is causing this and how can I get rid of it?

This is called the Terminator Effect. Cycles is not the only engine that has this problem. The solution is often to apply the subdivision surface modifier (if your object has one). Also HDRis can lead to this problem or using bump/ normals.

For instance: Pro-Lighting sky gives you this problem. The solution to the problem is to give your object more geometry.


Find a way to voronoi structure My object is like the half ball on this picture but with a closed surface and no holes and I would like to have almost the same result as in the picture but with a closed border, and I would like to be able to have more or less holes in it and to play with its thikness without fill the holes.

Notice that my mesh is a bit complex, I already tried to apply some modifiers or to cell fracture my mesh but I didn't have the expected result..

If you have some idea, I would be grateful ! (Maybe voronoi texture node ? I have no idea of how to use it and if it could be a solution)

Unfortunately there is no way to do this entirely procedurally at the moment, as far as I know. You have to apply most modifiers and preform some Edit Mode operations.

Create a base mesh with whatever starting shape you want.
Ass a Subdivision modifier set to Simple to said object
Adjust the number of subdivisions as desired to obtain a mesh density that suits your needs
Now add a Decimate modifier and turn on the Triangulate option
Adjust the ratio until you obtain a desirable pattern
Add one more Subdivision modifier set to Catmull-Clark with only one subdivision
Once satisfied with the results apply all modifiers
Now in edit mode you will have to preform a repeated sequence of actions to delete all undesirable vertex

Select one "central vertex" from the generated "cells" pattern with more than 4 connecting edges, press Shift + G to select similar and choose Amount of connecting edges option. Erase all selected with the option Dissolve Vertex
Repeat this process until you end up with "clean" voronoi cells leaving the vertex with four connecting edges for last

As last step select all "side vertex" that are only connected to two edges and dissolve them as well so you end up with "simple voronoi cells".

Now in face selection mode inset them all using the Individual option, adjust amount as desired. You can at this point optionally add a Wireframe modifier instead of insetting, if you don't care about adding a solid thickness or if different your wires will have a circular section.
Once done exit edit mode and add modifiers like Solidify to add thickness and a Subdivision modifier set to Catmull-Clark for a smooth appearence. Adjust order to achieve desired effect

These last two modifiers can be left "live" so you can control thickess and smoothness procedurally.


Problem generating rig I created a human armature, created the rig using the button "generate rig", then parented the model to the rig using automatic weights. I can move the hands, the feet and so on but the arms and legs rotation seems not be bound to the model. Can anyone help me solving this problem? Thanks. Giulio

In Rigify you can control arms and legs in two ways: FK and IK. When using one method the other is temporarily disabled, so it seems to have no effect.
You can decide which to use with the top slider in my example image, where one arm is set to IK and the other to FK: if the slider is set to 0.0 you are using IK, if set to 1.0 FK (Inverse Kinematics - Forward Kinematics).


Extruding "Ramps" into Geometry I'm currently working on a machine gun and I need to detail the front of it. What it requires is sort of "ramps" on this section.
This is my nozzle thus far:

And here is an image in which the nozzle of a real gun has ramps. As you can see, they extrude into the mesh and slope in towards the center. The ends are rounded but that's not of concern.

I'm basically trying to achieve this, but all the way around the nozzle. I know how to do it one by one, and I know how to checker deslect and extrude, but I can't think of a clean or time efficient way to do this. Any ideas?

Just for fun, you could do it procedurally.

Add Array modifier
Add Simple Deform Modifier > Bend > 360°
Add Weld Modifier to merge the start/end vertices.

You can also non-destructively adjust the radius by moving the Origin point.


Drivers breaking down after model transformation I am currently modelling a complicated gearbox and I am using drivers to model the relations between the parts. There are multiple gears turning in different ratios and to each gear, a few parts are attached. I used drivers to couple the rotation ratios of the gears and then parented all parts that turn with the gears to those respective gears. The rotational axis of all gears are in the y-direction. This all works completely and looks great. However, if I rotate the model around the z axis for 90 degrees, all rotations glitch at a certain point and jump for a few degrees.
The really weird thing is, if I rotate the model 90 degrees in 5 degree increments at a time, everything is back to normal again and the model works in every direction.
Is this some kind of weird glitch? Is this a known bug?
Is there anything I can do to fix it?
Minimal example

Bad choice of WORLD space.
To test Added a simple driver #frame - 1 to the drive shaft to get it spinning.
As suspected the issues are caused by a
i) Using rotation transform driver type, with WORLD_SPACE

Parented the whole set up to an empty, rotating the world space of the parent changes the world space of the children and causes irregular results.
Recommend either. Lesser
Change all to local space.  Here is a script to select all parts and will change transform  type driver targets to local space.
import bpy
context = bpy.context

for ob in context.selected_objects:
    if not ob.animation_data:
        continue
    for d in ob.animation_data.drivers:
        for v in d.driver.variables:
            if v.type == 'TRANSFORMS':
                for t in v.targets:
                    t.transform_space = 'LOCAL_SPACE'

After which

Note The outer gear is driven by the stationary  hidden object, No idea why it worked at all.
However as mentioned in comments Eulers are prone to gimbal lock and since it's local could simply use the property.  (Also makes sure the rotation is not restricted to (-180. 180) which can be the case in constraints and can be difficult to diagnose if not aware)
Finally, would contend that all gears could be driven directly by the rotation of the drive shaft. For most cases a custom property "drive" could be added to the gear and the driver could be
self["ratio"] * drive

where drive is a single property variable pointing to the shaft Y rotation, or in the case shown (enable Use Self in the driver)
self["ratio"} * (frame - 1)

since I set that as the drive shaft Y rotation.


Bouncing ball deflates when hitting surface Plane has a collision. The ball has a soft body. Bending of 5. turned goal off. I baked and when I animated I get the image attached, How do I keep the shape of the ball normal with a minor bending bounce? I get the same outcome when I bending to 0

You need to increase the Pull and Push. Try settings like Pull: 0.950 and Push: 0.999, this will result in bounces while keeping the shape of the ball.


How to add same animation nodes to multiple meshes? So I have a wiggle node animation and I have a couple meshes that I would like to use the same wiggle node tree.  How do I add the node tree to all the other meshes.

Also, how do I randomize them so they all don't wiggle the same way?

My node tree for the wiggle goes like this:

Time info ---> Vector Wiggle ---> Object Transform Output

Thanks!

Using a Loop lets you reuse a node tree for all items of a list of any type.

Add > Subprograms > Loop will place the Loop Input node. After you add a new iterator, probably an Object List in your case, you should be able to connect the Loop Input to your existing tree.

Add > Subprograms > Invoke Subprogram > loop_name then provides a node with the Object List input that you can feed with the output of a Create Object List, a From Group or a custom script.

The Loop Input's Index connected to the Seed input of the Vector Wiggle (or any other node which generates random numbers) makes sure that different numbers for each iteration of the loop will be generated. This prevents your objects from moving in formation.

If you want each object to individually wiggle around a different specified location, then you have the option to either add that location as a second iterator of type Vector List…

…or use the Object ID Key node to store and access the initial transformation values.
(Thanks to Jacques Lucke for this answer which describes how to use this node.)


Can't see or read commands I just found Blender.
Is it possible to change the background color.I'm old and it's impossible to read the commands. Any help or hints would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Don

You may also find it useful to change the general size of font.  In Blender User Preferences change the DPI to 108 as indicated above. This will make the font bigger than the default. Suit to your personal needs.


Texturing top of cylinder vs flat disc I am trying to create a transparent gradient texture for the top of a cylinder / disc / ring.
So far I have used this node configuration that is basically using the mathematical formula sqrt(x^2+y^2) to get the radius as it is explained here RADIAL Colorramp gradient texture

It is working good when the object is a cylinder that has been reduced the Z scale to a minimum so it looks like a disc/ring as it can be seen here:

However, the same material is not working right if the object is a disc created from a extruded circle (from the vertex). Nevertheless, if I change the power to another negative value, the material starts to work although not exactly how I want as it can be seen here:

I guess this has to do with the UV coordinates each object has internally generated but I cannot figure this. Why is this happening?
Also I am open to use another more simple approach than this nodes configuration.

You're using Object coordinates, which, (assuming your object is not scaled in Object Mode,) are measured in Blender units, from the object's origin, along the object's own axes.
If your disc has a radius of 1, then you can simplify your tree as follows:

Since the answer you refer to, there's a Vector Math > Length node, so you don't have to do your own Pythagoras any more, and you could use alpha in your color-ramp colors to get rid of the shader-mix? It depends on the exact shading you want.
If the radius of your circle is not 1, then you could introduce a Vector Math > Multiply before the Length, to bring the radius lengths into the 0-1 range for the color-ramp to handle.. multiplying X and Y by whatever is needed, and Z by 0 to get rid of it.
However, you want the texture to be more general, and occupy the same proportions of a disc, no matter what size it is, you could use Generated coordinates, which are always measured 0-1 from the minimum to the maximum of an object's bounding-box in all directions, no matter what size the object is.
In that case, you would have to shift 0 back to the middle of the circle, and multiply by 2 to get the radius mapped back to 0-1 again:...


Not able to animate after frame 30 I have set up a simple rig with IKs and am not able to keyframe the bones properly.
Although I select all bones before keyframing it, it seems that I'm not able to animate any bone after frame 30. Is this a bug?
I currently use Blender 2.78 a.

This is my .blend file:

You need to unpin the animation in the NLA editor as shown below and the animation will be there after frame 30 normally


Blender BGE move mesh in the direction its facing I am trying to move the cube in the below image in the direction it is pointing. I have tried this before, but I could not find out how to move the cube with BGE. I have a good understanding of python, a moderate understanding of blender, and a basic knowledge of trig. (my OS is ubuntu)

Here is my .blend file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwFJHyT6aOp3VVdHUnVzNGdMMEU

Just activate the L in the motion actuator MoveUpAeither for Loc or Rot or both as desired.

It is already active for most other actions, only the forward motion is deactivated (probably by accident)


my smooth model has strange bumps I really have no idea why there are these bumps in the robot's chest

It doesnt look like there should be any in wireframe

But they show up in renders and solid mode

Also the customer said that the robot looks a bit too plastic and I should make him more fun. I gave him a shadeless freestyle version and said that he didnt like it, any ideas on how I can improve this model?
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=50764

UPDATE: Don't be an idio and just use edge split. Honestly, shouldve tried it sooner

Dont be an idiot like me and try using edge split in the modifiers tab. I remember having this problem before and it's caused by booleans and I fixed it many times before with edge split, so I have no idea how I was dumb enough to not think of that. Don't drink and model, kids, that never goes well


how to set x position to selected vertices I want to make sure vertices of an entire edge loop have the same x position.

I've selected the vertices, set pivot center to individual origins and typed 0 in the x position transform in properties.

They don't move to 0.

What am I missing here?

Thank you.

After selecting the loop that you want to position, you can drag your mouse over the X value in the properties menu (it shows up when you press the N key)

If you have vertices that are offset from the center but their average X value is zero (as shown):

You can use the following keystrokes to set the x position of each vertex to zero :

S+X+0


Emission Material should not emit light (Cycles) I have a scene where I want to use Objects with a nice Neon glare, but without actually emitting Light.
Is there a way in cycles to do that?

I use an Emissive Shader and put in the glare with the compositor. This is actually working fine already, but as I mentioned my scene gets lighten up by the emissive objects too. How can I change that

((In Eevee it is already working, but I want cycles))

You can enable the emission only for the camera rays :

With camera ray filtering :

Without :


MakeHuman Model Rigging - Bone Heat Weighting Failed To Find Solution I was trying to apply an ''Armature Deform'' with ''Automatic Envelop Weights'' to my MakeHuman model imported into Blender, but apparently there's a problem somewhere. Here's a screenshot of the model with the metarig visible.

When the error message popped up for the first time, I divided the rig into different parts (two arms, two legs, the head and the body) before parenting them together, in order to see if there was a part of the armature that was causing the issue. That's a bit of a desperate measure, as I know that if there's a problem it's at the model level.
I tried lots of things, like turning subsurf on before applying the armature deform, removing doubles, etc. Still, the model is supposed to be perfectly symmetrical, and so should be the armature (I rigged it with X-axis mirror turned on).
For once, I thought I'd not get that error with a MakeHuman ''perfect'' model, but yeah, damn it.
Thanks in advance, any advice or help would be quite appreciated!

Try scaling up your object and the rig by a fair bit (say 10x) then try again. The algorithm seems to have some sort of hard internal limit for how close vertices can be (or something like that) and thus larger, less dense models seem to consistently work better. After parenting you can scale it back down again.


Metallic Text in 3DViewport looks incorrect I'm new in blender, and I was just trying a simple TUT to make a cinematic text, and my results where so different than the one in TUT (cinematic movie text)
Simply a metallic text should be correctly metallic in the rendered/material preview(or lookdev some call it), mine isn't, it looks so choppy and weird.
Here's how I see it:

This is how its supposed to be (same shading)...

So what's wrong? does my Blender version has an issue rendering 3D Object?
it never looks metallic at all...
can someone help me with this?
Any help is appreciated.

Use the Bump Height input, not the Normal input (the Normal input can be used for example to plug a Normal Map):


Snapping doesn't work properly with collection instances I'm trying to use collection instances (I think, the whole collection stuff is strange, confusing and in desperate need of a rework from the ground up, but I'm pretty sure that's what I'm doing) as you can see in the picture. The problem is that when I try to snap it to other objects it only snaps with the center, no matter what snapping options I choose (currently I have closest point).

How do I fix this? Also, how do I remove the base instance object without also removing the instance collections? I should probably just look up more tutorials on instance collections, to me it just seems like an extremely dumb way of not doing "components"/"prefabs" like Sketchup or Unity does.

You can only snap the Origin of Collection Instances.
I see this as design limitation that you have to work around. The Instance doesn't really know about its own geometry. You can however snap things to Instanced collections geometry.
Aternatively you can use linked duplicates with ALT+D, but you won't be able to one-click-select your group objects anymore unless you parent all but one objects to the last one and deactivate selection on these. But this is not always desirable.
I feel this kind of workflow is not ideal with the Blender toolset. You could try your luck in Vertex or Face Instancing with an object which you use as a parent to your instance collection.
It might help put the matter into perspective to reflect on the actual thought process behind Collections. They are not meant to be a modeling workflow, and they are more than a simple container, because objects and other collections can be part of an indefinite number of collections.
Collection Instances are a great way to reduce load on the hardware, and they can save a ton of clicks, but they definitely weren't designed to be used in an actual modeling workflow. They are great for scattering multiple instances of grouped objects, but you will have trouble actually placing individual ones precisely. I think we'll have to wait for either a big improvement in this regard or a new tool altogether.

To hide the source Collection, Click on the checkbox next to the eye icon in the outliner (top right of the screen). This will exclude this collection from the current view layer.
If you want it to disappear from the outliner altogether, right click on the source collection > Id Data > Unlink. You won't be able to modify it afterwards though (unless you're fine with the finicky process of re-linking it to the scene) so I wouldn't recommend it.
Or you can use it in another scene or another blend file and instance it in your current working scene but again this is more tedious than excluding from the view layer.


Objects behind glass shader appear black Why is this Iris not showing? It worked previously, before I started working on the fur and particle system today and other parts of the model (a monkey model) and at the end I realised that the Iris disappeared. I haven't touched the eyeball, but now the iris doesn't show. I suspect that it has to do with the UVs, but everything is in place, I didn't tweak anything, it should work. I'm attaching a stripped down .blend (only the eyeball) and a screenshot. Can someone have a look into the file, and try to make the iris show?

I should also note, that when I open the previous file, it shows. But when I append that eyeball to the new file, it doesn't show.

You are using a glass shader for the cornea.
Unfortunately that shader does not behave as expected when it comes to letting light through it...

You need to add some transparency to it in a node setup like this:

For a more detailed explanation read: How to illuminate the darkness inside glass objects in Cycles?


Why are instances of duplicated groups linked I'm a bit of a newb, so please bear with me.
I have a number of objects (chairs) that are parented to another object (table). I have created a group of these objects and have many instances of this group. I was hoping to be able to duplicate the original group of table and chairs as I want to make slight adjustments to the duplicated group and in turn make instances of this new group.

However, once the group is duplicated there appears to be a link between the first instance of the first group and the first instance of the second group, so if I delete an instance from the second group, then it will also be deleted from the first group. Is there a way to duplicate the first group so I can modify the elements of the second group without it effecting the first group.
Thanks in advance.
Russ

An object can be a member of more than one group, they are more like tags or lists of objects than "groups" in the more traditional sense. So if I'm understanding your post correctly, you can make a group for the first table/chair set, then another one for the second set. Any objects you want in both sets, just add them to both groups.