Rigid Body Sim: INTENTIONALLY breaking a chain, falling naturally...kinda I want to have the chain break at link #2, and have the rest of the chain fall naturally. They start falling, then kind of hover. I've scaled the links up to 4.5' tall, and they still hover in the middle section of the chain after falling for a few frames. I have tried this in 2.78/9.

I'm new to the site, thanks for your help!

I think to have finally found what is causing that behaviour: you set a X+Y rotation lock on most chain rings...

Eg: the first one from top has free movement:

While most chain rings have X and Y rotation locked, as you can also see from the rotation manipulator:

To correct, select all chain rings, then - keeping ALT pressed - you toggle X and Y rotation locks for all selected objects.

In this way your rigid body simulation should work better...


Copy object to another scene, but keep data What I need is to make a copy of an object to another scene, but keep the object data the same (link).

There are at least 2 ways:

Select your object on the original scene, go in the Object menu > Make Links > Objects to Scene > then choose your other scene.

You could also create an object in the other scene, select it and go in the Properties panel > Data, and in the top dropdown menu (Browse Mesh Data to be Linked) choose the mesh you want.


Blender to Unity discrepancy Hello Blender community,

I have this animation of a shark that I made using a lattice structure. It looks really good in Blender, and the shark moves according to the lattice and everything. However, when I import the .fbx file into Unity, I only get an animation of a shark moving in a straight line instead of wiggling across the lattice. What could be causing this?

Here's the .blender file:

Thanks in advance! :)

Unity only respects bone transform and shape deforms, this is a function of the FBX export process.  You should either apply certain poses into shape keys, or redo your animations with an armature.


Plane is not appearing as blue in render As a beginner I seem to be having a lot of trouble.  Here are some other questions I have asked along the way but found that I have to start again.

This time, my plane is not appearing.  It appears in Object mode, it only appears to be the correct colour in Material view.

Any solutions? I am sure it's simple.

My file is here.

For some reason your object has shadow catcher and dupli faces selected. Both prevent it being displayed in render view.


Blender 2.8 crashing after starting render To preface I am reasonably new to Blender, however recently upon trying to render a scene (which I have done perfectly fine multiple times before, even with the same file) Blender has now decided to crash as soon as it finishes rendering the first frame. This scene does have 13 particles systems, if that even matters, but I rendered it a few days ago with a majority of those and it exported perfectly.

I've ran the command line render, and it stops after two frames with:

Error   : EXCEPTION_INT_DIVIDE_BY_ZERO
Address : 0x00007FF79C140EA2
Module  : C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.81\blender.exe

I can't find anything pointing to how I could fix this online, so I figured I would ask here.

I am running Eevee in Blender 2.81, with my export settings set to ffmpeg, MP4, H.264 encoding, and audio with MP3.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Found what was going on. Needed to bake the animations for each of the particles systems.

I am unsure if this is something you are supposed to do when using particle systems, but I had not baked any of them to memory, and considering the render had worked before with fewer systems, I figured it wouldn't be necessary. Ran the render after baking each of them and it worked as expected.


Animation - game object not staying in place I'm trying to animate a simple attack animation for my 3D character, but I can't seem to get the weapon to stay where I put it. I've tried saving the location, rotation and scale using Ctrl + A, keying the frame, moving the arm back for the recoil, saving the keyframes, moving the weapon back with it, applying the rotation, location and scale, and adding the keyframe. However, the weapon just goes back to the centre of the grid, looking like the chaeacter is standing on it.

What am I doing wrong here? How can I sort this out?

Thanks

In the Dopesheet press the Only Include Channels button (arrow icon, allows to only see the keyframes of the selected object), select the weapon, you'll see if your object has an action assigned. You've given your gun an action called "Action", this action has bones keyframes, so I guess it is supposed to be used by your armature, not your gun. And this action also has LocRotScale keyframes, your gun will be affected by those LocRotScale. It makes no sense to use such an action, don't give any action to your gun (except for example propelling a bullet), your gun should rather follow the hand of your armature. So in the Dopesheet remove the action with the X button on the right of its name (Unlink this Action). Now your gun is free from any action. Now parent it to the hand bone, so that it will be moved by the hand, it's much more logical.


Blender render appears completely Gray When I hit "render" nothing appears except one object I forgot to add a material to. I'm unfamiliar with most of Blender's rendering settings. I've done some internet research but turned up largely nothing useful. I still have this problem. I've tried cycle's and the blender rendering engine. In fact this problem occurred when I switched from cycle's to blender...

For the record I am not willing to put my hard work up on here, but if you need information I can definitely post a screenshot of whatever it is that you need.

Some screenshots:

Go back into your material settings on the objects not being rendered and turn off Use Shader Nodes, if you are rendering in the Blender Internal render instead of Cycles.  This selection is next to the Material Text box just above the Surface / Wire /  Volume / Halo buttons and to the right. of the text box.


How do I fix the two black lines on my mesh? I pressed F to connect an edge between vertices in order to create a straight line where I could mark a crease. But The new lines created by pressing F are behaving weirdly. Here's a blend file https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l4dyZFzKD4OYRlZNAnEdIrgnLw0WsxTN/view

You have edges going across faces.

Remove the edges that go across these faces by selecting them, pressing x and selecting delete edges.

Next select the vertices that were left behind and press j key to join these vertices

The end result is quite good.


Animate a circular deformity moving across the edge of an object Can we make a circular deformity move across a plane as a wave like those characters from Toy Story:

Can we make the same effect in blender between two planes?

One way is to use the Wave Modifier.

Subdivide the plane a bit (5-6 levels of Subdivision Modifier)
Add the Wave Modifier and play with different values
Use the Video Sequencer slider to preview the animation


How would you hide the cracks in cell fracture? I was watching a video (link to video) video and you could only see the shards where the places have hit the ground, but when I do cell fracture you can see the cracks before they've impacted with anything. I've checked on google and couldn't find anything. Also I want it so that the cracks only show up in the places that have been hit. For example, if a corner of a cube hit the ground then only the cracks in the corner will show and the rest of the cube will remain solid and intact. Watch the video I linked if you don't understand what I'm asking, it could help.

An example of my problem:

I did a cell fracture test with 0 margin but still got cracks where I don't want them (I know it's blurry, I just like my depth of field and motion blur) :

It's the same with a stationary cube with 0 margin which hasn't been hit. You can still see lines where the cracks are.

The examples in the video where it's show without any cracks where it hasn't been hit is in the first scene with the text and in the other seen with the horse. You can see that the top of the text has no lines or cracks until it hits the floor and it's the same with the horses body.

How would you recreate how the fracture in Phymec's video?

Thanks

You could put the unsharded cube in one layer and the shards in another layer:

by selecting the shards
using M and click the other layer

(the shards are already put in another layer by default when using the cell fracture)

Then in the properties panel, in the renderlayers tab you could use keyframes in the exclude section (assuming you use cycles render).
Before collision, keyframe in such a way that only the shards-layer is active in the exclude section. After collision, keyframe in such a way that only the unsharded-layer is active in the exclude section. Make sure in the scene section both the layers are active.

But using this exclude method, just must make sure the unsharded cube and shard move in a same way for smooth transition during switching excluded layers

For example, if the collision occurs at frame 100. Then at frame 100, it looks like this:

And at frame 101:

To make the cube break more realistically, you could use the Bullet constraint tool https://www.dropbox.com/s/fq3nmhl4b6yyhc3/Bullet_Viewport_Constraints_Tool.zip
Select shards, define your Search Radius (100 works ok) and Neighbour limit (10 works ok), and turn on breakable (enable checkbox twice!) and define the breakable value (higher value make it less easy to break).

After you make changes in these variables (while shards selected), then click 'update selected'


How does Blender know which faces and edges to automatically select when doing a multi-vert selection? I would like to know how Blender automatically selects the edges and faces implied by the verts selected in a manual multi-vert selection in edit mode.

For example, I take the default cube, jump into edit mode, deselect all, hold shift, and manually multi-select each vert on the top. As I click from the first to the second, the edge in between becomes also selected. As I click the fourth vert the face that is made by those verts also automatically becomes selected.

When making the same kind of selection, but instead using the Python API, Blender does not automatically select the edges and faces for me implied by my vert selection.

import bpy, bmesh

bmesh.select_mode = {'VERT', 'EDGE', 'FACE'}
mesh = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(bpy.context.object.data)
for v in mesh.verts:
    if v.co[2] > 0.0:
        v.select = True

Even if I set the bmesh.select_mode to include verts, edges, and faces.

Which I suppose has its uses as well. I ran into issues with this earlier though and posted this question Python API script, why does extruding verts behave in this way? which gives a bit more context on the subject. I thought this particular point deserved its own question though.

What I want to understand is how the selection flush, in the case of toggling modes, or the monitor in the case of manually working in edit mode implies correctly and selects the edges and faces based on my vert selection. Right now that seems like magic to me and I want to know if there is a programmatic routine for essentially doing the same thing (maybe with bmesh) that is more explicit than toggling modes via bpy.ops to force a selection flush.

One option I considered is iterating through all of the faces and edges that make up the mesh, and if all the the verts that make up that face/edge happen to also be selected, then also select that face/edge. That option seems very brute force and expensive in the case of a large mesh though. Are there any easier ways to do that? Is there an API function that already does this?

Flushing select mode.

Recommend naming a bmesh representation of a mesh bm and reserve mesh or me for a mesh.

bpy.ops.mesh operators manipulate the mesh.  A bound bmesh, ie from_edit_mesh is still not the mesh.  An edit mode mesh is what we don't have a handle on via python.  Can set me.vertices properties in edit mode, but will have no effect on the "special" edit mode instance of the mesh.

Flushing selection, or updating the bmesh will ensure the mesh used by the operator has the changes. Put it in a fit context to be operated on

If the intention is using bound bmesh to select the geometry required by  bpy.ops.mesh operator, flush the selection before the operator call.

As mentioned in prior answer, the results of your script will change depending on selection mode. It is part of the context bpy.ops.mesh operators use. This sets it to all.

>>> C.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode = (True, True, True)

Result of running the script in prior question in only vert, only edge, and only face selection modes.  No prior selections

Will also get the desired result if we select face in face selection mode, then switch to vert select mode and run script.  The simplest fix of all to use bpy.ops.mesh with face selection from verts selection is to set one or both of faces and edges to True.

In the bmesh docs

  Selection / Flushing

  As mentioned above, it is possible to create an invalid selection
  state (by selecting a state and then de-selecting one of its
  vertices’s for example), mostly the best way to solve this is to flush
  the selection after performing a series of edits. this validates the
  selection state.

In Keeping a Correct State it states that vertices belonging to edge are selected when edge selected. Similarly for edges, (and hence verts) of a face.

It does not mention the converse is true.  Selecting verts selects their edges and / or faces. (Speculatively This works from the UI since it has a handle on "special edit mode mesh" ie select 4 verts in UI, vert select only,  then on running script to check,  face is selected)

To set a face to selected, makes sense to select the sub-elements.  Work like an update method. Face sets edges, edges set verts.  To conversely select a vert then check all its linked edges and faces, and set to selected would fire off our update reelecting the selected.  Or similarly as a property getter  checking all the selection of sub-elements, could prove expensive.

Instead select_flush is used to sanitize state.

Akin to setting the context tool select mode calling bm.select_flush_mode() will flush the states according to those set in bmesh.select_mode.

Test scripts. both designed to select face and extrude even in select only vertex mode. context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode = (True, False, False),

Selects verts,  flushes mode, extrudes face.

import bpy
import bmesh
context = bpy.context
me = context.object.data
bmesh.select_mode = {'VERT', 'EDGE', 'FACE'}
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
for v in bm.verts:
    v.select = v.co.z > 0
# flush the selection
bm.select_flush_mode()

bpy.ops.mesh.extrude_region_move(
        TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value" : (0, 0, 2)}
        )

If we use faces can  skip the flush call and select the faces  based on the vert selection

    for f in bm.faces:
        f.select = all(v.select for v in f.verts)

but, IMO if you are going to extrude regions, generally only want faces, not edges or verts, so rather than diddle around with vertex selection, select faces instead (and vertex edge selection is done for us)  The so called brute force approach

    for f in bm.faces:
        f.select = all(v.co.z > 0 for v in f.verts)

Test script.

import bpy
import bmesh

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

for f in bm.faces:
    f.select = all(v.co.z > 0 for v in f.verts)

bpy.ops.mesh.extrude_region_move(
        TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value" : (0, 0, 2)})

As mentioned in prior answer, recommend using bmesh.ops operators over bpy.ops.mesh...  The geometry is passed to the operator, rather than manipulating context and selection.

Leave selection to the user, or a selection operator.

Can use the tag property

for v i bm.verts:
    v.tag = some_long_winded_test_bool_func

for f in bm.faces:
    f.select = all(v.tag for v in f.verts)

to avoid calculating per vert per face, and verts not part of a face.


How to animate text over a twisted mesh (or text flowing along an infinity loop) Do you know I can do something like this?

How to animate text over a twisted mesh, or Text flowing along an infinity loop

I get that there is a shape (cube / rectangle / cylinder being extruded, made into the shoe, but, how am I best doing a texture, and then make it loop etc.

Just adding another approach...

Create a cube at the origin, scale in edit mode, subdivide. The orientation is as shown in the blue unmodified copy, aligned to world axes.
CtrlH Assign an Empty as a Hook to all its vertices
Assign two Simple Deform modifiers, a Twist and a Bend, settings as shown.
UV unwrap as you would any other cube, and control an emission shader with a UV Texture.

Now when you rotate the Hook-Empty in Z, (which you can key with a linear interpolation to loop) the squorus will twist as in the OP's animation

Along with this, you could animate the U-mapping location of the texture in a mapping node in the shader as well, to make the text animate along the faces..
see here.


Image Texture Node Color Output Format in the Node Editor what is the data format coming out of the Color output of an Image Texture Node?  Does the Color Space setting of the Image Texture Node change this at all?

The yellow color sockets output three scalar values, one for each of the color channels Red, Green and Blue. The output information is in a linear scale.
(see: Cycles - (Shader) Nodes - inputs outputs - What are the exact data types? and What is the meaning of the color of the node sockets in the node editor?)
The Color Space on the image texture node  will determine how the color values are interpreted. Images in display referred formats (like png, jpg. tiff and most video formats) are presumed to be in sRGB color space. Such images are encoded using a transfer function (sometimes called "gamma curve") that has to be linearized to to work properly in blender. Blender color and light operation need to be done using a linear scale, so using sRGB as Color Space is the correct choice. The linearization works by applying an inverse sRGB color transform to counteract the baked in curves.

(source)
For images used as maps, such as bump maps or normal maps, that are presumed to use linear values, with no transfer function (or "gamma curve") baked in, the correct setting is Non Color Color Space. When using this setting there will be no color transform applied to those elements on the render path.


Boolean difference modifier misbehaves with fluid sim I have a scene where I am using a fluid simulation to splash water into an invisible diamond shape. I'm using a boolean modifier to remove (subtract) the jagged edges from the outside of the water. However, the modifier only works on some frames. On others, it causes most of the water to be completely flattened into a diamond shape, effectively deleting the surface of the water where it should not be touched by the modifier.

Basically, this is what I'm starting with:

I'm using a boolean modifier to subtract this from the water mesh:

This is the intended result (on a previous frame where it works):

And this is what I get instead on some frames:

Here is the .blend file, for reference:

I have made sure that the normals of the mesh I am subtracting are correct. I have also tried applying the fluidsim modifier on the frame I want, removing doubles and making normals consistent with ctrl+N, but the result is the same.

What is causing the boolean difference modifier to behave like this? Is there anything I can do in my project to fix it?

The problem appears to be due to quads in the object used in the Boolean operation.

If the you look at the mesh for the object used in the difference boolean operation, there are quads visible.

In edit mode, here is a quad face highlighted.

If you either triangulate the mesh or add a triangulate modifier to the mesh (and enable it...) the Boolean operation looks like expected.


How to extrude edges outward based on multiple axes? I want to extrude these edges outward so that they are all the same length from their origin edge. Does anyone know how I could do this without doing each edge individually?

Once you've extrude, press enter, then try altS (Shrink/Flatten). You can play with some parameters on the bottom of the Tools panel (on the left of your 3D View, displayed with T).


How to get Bravais Lattices Creator addon？ I had found a magical addon called bravais lattices creator。

But I can not found this addon on the web....

Could anyone give some hint to me？

Thanks in advance！

Maybe somebody will find this these links useful.
The add-on download page with direct links:
http://alexiy.nl/blc-download/
https://yadi.sk/d/ZnPmJKr93PDMts


How should I handle a split in a retopology? What's the best way to handle a "split" in retopology? Consider the case of a torso splitting into legs:

In this case, each leg ring is made up of 16 vertices, as is the torso ring. What is the best way to attach these together with clean topology to create a good retopo?

This also applies to standard mesh modeling: what's the best way to create such a split with polygon manipulation?

First step. Make flaps bending down between the legs.

Make a strip between them and make several loop cuts. You may have to experiment to find the correct number of loop cuts. This is important if you want to have an all quad model. The total number of edges around the opening must match the leg.

Round out the strip to match the correct shape.

Select the two loops and bridge them. If you have the correct number of loop cuts in the strip between the flaps, this should be all quads. Else you will get triangles.

Further adjust the geometry to make the bridged area more even.

Final result:


Need help sculping wand! Using brushes seemed to be stretched horizontally Here is the blender project file: Download Here

My daughter really wants this particular Harry Potter Wand she saw from some Pottermore website.  It's basically some quiz she took that finds the right wand for her.  I tried to search online to purchase one like it but couldn't find a 12 1/2 inch Unicorn Hair Core wand.  LOL.  So being new to blender, and thinking it would be a fun first project, I'd try to sculpt it from an image and get a 3D print of it.

I was actually off to a really good start and have the basic shape of the wand down almost perfectly, but when I try to start sculpting and adding details, the brushes all seem to be stretched horizontally.

This is how I started.  I imported the image of the wand and created a cylinder to match its length. I then used Ctrl+R to create the different sections, scaled them and moved them to match the wand's shape.  This was all done under the Modeling tab.  I press Ctrl+5 as I've seen in some tutorials before you start sculping to smooth it and applied the subdivisions.

I head over to the Sculpting tab and with any brush, I use it's all distorted and stretched.  I should also note that some of the brushes are move very slowly. I need to make it faster somehow, as my computer starts to freeze up a little.  I have an i7 processor and a GTX 660, I think it should be fast enough to handle this, other graphics programs work just fine, so maybe there's a setting somewhere to make it flow better?

Please see the photos and maybe my issue will make more sense.  Any help is greatly appreciated.  Also, I should note, I've only been using Blender for 3 weeks, I think I'm doing pretty good, just need a little help.

Thank you!!

This is a common mistake on newer users.
you have to apply the  scale of the object.
to do so press "Ctrl A" and then apply scale

If you look at the side bar you can see
"Location"
"Rotation"
"Scale"
"Dimensions"

The difference between scale and dimensions is that dimensions is in real world values such as cm, m, inch, foot... While the scale is the stretching of the object.

If you press "S" in object mode you will scale using the scale values and distort the object. It can be useful sometimes but usually you should apply the scale.


Making Wave Texture Material Like Cardboard Flute I'm still a newbie and I need a texture, not a mesh or wavy object,
Maybe using wave texture, I hope the result is like picture below,

I'm using 2.9

Below, is my blender screen capture, it's still straight, I dont have idea to make those texture applied to my mesh

That can be this setting:

Using:

We have four input parameters:
Scale: to control the scale of the pattern
Length: the wave length
Interval: threshold between each line
Height: the height of the wave
Then,
From X (scaled by scale * length), the sine.
From Y (scaled, reduced to the interval, recentered around 0 and multiplied by the height) the value to compare to the sine.


Glass material not working properly... When I add a light source it makes these colored dots I need help with my glass material. For some reason when I add glass to my scene it makes these little dots which I can´t get rid of.

This is the node editor for my glass material.

Glass is prone to do that; those dots are technically called "fireflies". For your shader, I suggest adding volume effects, like volume absorption, to handle the inside of the glass, as typical shades only work with the surface without them (and actual glass is very volumetric). The rest of it is an artifact of ray casting, which you can typically get around by increasing the size of your light source, or lowering its intensity.

Another possibility, if none of that helps enough, is to go to your rendering settings and reduce the number of bounces. Good luck!


Texturing following the displace Suppose to have a seamless heightmap, created to be used with the displace modifier.

There is the diffuse map too, related to the heightmap.

My question is:

Is it possible to apply the displace modifier and color the mesh using the diffuse map, without handpainting all?

As the displace modifier is going to deform in one click all the mesh, is it possibile to color all the mesh with the diffuse map, following the path of the heightmap that the displace has given? Is there a path viable or my speculation is totally wrong?

Thank you so much!

If I read your question correctly, you want to use the diffuse map and the displacement map and make them line up with each other, so that they are aligned.

To do this, all you have to do is use the same UV map for both images.

In short, create two image nodes, and load the diffuse into one, and the displacement into the other. Plug the diffuse into the color slot of an emission node, and plug the displacement into the height slot of a bump node.

Add a geometry node and plug one of the mapping types (UV, generated, etc.) into the vector slot of both of the image nodes (use the same mapping type for both images).

Plug the emission shader into the shader slot of the output node, and plug the bump node into the displacement slot of the output node.

For Blender Internal, the process is a little different.

You'll only need one material.

But you'll need to add two textures to that material. One texture should be set up like you expect for a regular image texture.

The other should be set up like this. Basically, you'll have two textures, one with each image. For the diffuse image you'll check "Diffuse: Color" and for the bump map you'll check "Geometry: Normal." There may be other bump map settings below that, but this should get you close enough to see some results.

Keep in mind that Normal Maps are different from Bump Maps. Normal maps are usually bluish, and bump maps are always gray-scale.

There's also a displacement modifier, which you can use your grayscale image with. You'll still create a bump texture, just like normal. Then choose that texture in the box on the displacement modifier. To make it line up with the diffuse/albedo map, just change the "Texture Coordinates" from "map" to "UV."

Then you'll see a new box called "UV Map" where you can specify which UV map to use. Just choose the same UV map that you used for the diffuse map. You can give UV maps custom names, too, which might help you choose the right one. There are lots of places to specify UV maps, as long as all your images are using the same UV map, they'll line up with each other.

There's more information here for both Cycles and BI.

That should do what you want.


NLA editor, default value before NLA strip starts System Information
Operating system: Windows 10
Blender Version
2.83.0
Short description of error
Animation in NLA editor goes wrong
Exact steps for others to reproduce the error
The object's position (rotation) is default instead of being in the 1 key state before the NLA start. I've made a sreenshot to clarify my problem.

This behaviour can be set with the extrapolation menu of the "N" panel, strip properties.


Is it possible to scale only UVs to a specific value? I need to scale the UVs of an object to exactly twice their current size. However, Blender does not seem to have a system put in place to get exact UV scaling. When you scale UVs, the scale operator is opened in the 3D view window, but editing this scales the object and returns the UVs to their original size.

Is there a script or operator I can use to achieve this?

In the image editor you can select your UVs and scale them just as you would do with vertices on the 3D viewport.

S2 will scale the selected UVs by two

S.5 wil scale the UVs to one half.

S2X will scale by two horizontally.


mesh hair cloth: how to find root vertices to pin I have imported a character that has "mesh hair" and would like to animate it with Cloth.  To Pin the roots of this complicated mesh to the scalp, I need to find and Group the "root" vertices of each segment, of which there appear to be many, even after using Mesh Clean Decimate to reduce vertices.  Is there some (python?) method to find and group these?

I have found a python solution to effectively find vertexes to pin.
I the base/complete mesh, I first defined a Vertex Group called "pinned".
The hair was a series of meshes, so I first separated each into its own with the Edit Mode Mesh "Separate" "By Loose Parts":

I created a "pin.target" object near the crown of the scalp, to calc distance of each vertex I visit I then created a python script that did a select pattern to find all of the "strand" objects, and for all strand objects, for each vertex...
import bpy
import bmesh
from math import sqrt

pinTargetLoc = bpy.data.objects['pin.target'].location
print("pinTargetLoc=",pinTargetLoc)

bpy.ops.object.select_pattern(pattern="ToulouseHR*")
hairParts = bpy.context.selected_objects

cnt=0
bpy.ops.object.select_all( action='DESELECT' ) # Deselect all objects
for hairPart in hairParts:
#    if cnt>0:
#        continue
    print( hairPart, hairPart.location )
    hairPart.select_set(True)
    bm = bmesh.new()   # create an empty BMesh
    bm.from_mesh(hairPart.data)   # fill it in from a Mesh
    verts=hairPart.data.vertices
    #verts.ensure_lookup_table()
    cnt+=1
    print( len(verts)," vertices" )
    # find the vertex closest to the "pin target" object location
    closestVertex = None
    distanceOld = 9999999.0
    selected_verts=0
    for v in verts:
        distanceNew = sqrt(
            (pinTargetLoc.x - (hairPart.location.x + v.co.x))**2 +
            (pinTargetLoc.y - (hairPart.location.y + v.co.y))**2 +
            (pinTargetLoc.z - (hairPart.location.z + v.co.z))**2)
        print( distanceNew )
        if ( distanceOld > distanceNew ):
            if ( closestVertex is not None ):
                closestVertex.select = False
            closestVertex = v
            print( closestVertex, "@", closestVertex.co )
            distanceOld = distanceNew

    # add 'closestVertex' to pinned group
    indexList = [ closestVertex.index ]  # vertex index list  of single closet item
    print( "closestVertex.index=", closestVertex.index )
    hairPart.vertex_groups.active_index=1
    pinnedGroup=hairPart.vertex_groups.get("pinned")
    pinnedGroup.add( indexList, 1.0, "ADD" )

    print("v count",selected_verts)
    print( "closestVertex.co=",closestVertex.co )
# end of script

I then selected all strands, and then Joined them into the Scalp, where I could then Select the "pinned" Vertex Group and see the result:

I can now use this Vertex Group as the Cloth -- Pin group to keep hair strands from flying away.


How do i reduce memory usage? What ways are there to reduce vram (GPU memory) usage in blender? I am rendering a scene and it's taking a lot of GPU memory. I have a 2GB card. What are some methods? i am pretty sure this has been asked before, but i didn't get the answer i needed.

The 2 main things that'll take up video mem are gonna be:
how big are your textures, and how many vertices are in your scene.

Use the decimate modifier on your models effectively.
Try out scene simplify.  I'm certain you can look those up for more info.


Need help animating slow traffic on a freeway with random placement variation Good evening. i'm working on a high school project from my class, and trying to make an animation in blender that will be a major part of the presentation. for the first scene I've modeled a high bridge that runs on an array, and a few low poly cars to simulate the traffic, but i want them to be placed randomly while staying in there lanes. I plan to animate the cars on a starting, and stopping on another layer, but I've gotten stuck finding a way to animate the cars on the road. while allowing them to keep there random colors, and while also having a random placement.
i can give them random colors by simply copying, and paste, but an array will make them develop a pattern.
Thank you for taking the time to read, and i hope you can help me.

Primitive Method
A primitive way to do this is to sample a noise function and use the noise value as an offset to the original location.

offset = noise(scale_pos * car_starting_position, scale_time * frame)
final_position = frame * car_speed + car_starting_position + scale_noise * offset

scale_pos would be a scaling factor which influences the correlation of subsequent cars. A larger value would mean that subsequent cars would be sampled further apart which would result in more “tailgating”. Smaller values would make the flow more uniform.
scale_time controls how fast the offset changes with time. The larger the value, the more often drivers will drive back and forth in their spot.
And scale_noise will be a final factor to control the size of the offset. It has to be small enough, w.r.t. the mean gap size to guarantee that the cars don't intersect, and w.r.t. the car_speed so that there aren't any cars which drive backwards.
Implementation
I implemented this method with the add-on Animation Nodes in the tree shown below. The shown values are the ones used in the animation above. Width and height as well as mean gap size is one unit.

The default car position is stored as an Object ID Key which is set by selecting all objects and pressing Create in the 3DView's Tool Shelf in the AN tab.

To use the noise function in AN's expression node you have to add the mathutils module in the Advanced Node Settings in the node's properties.

Precise Method
An alternative would be to calculate the car positions directly with some implementation of the Nagel-Schreckenberg model, which would also have the advantage of being more suitable for slow speeds or cars which are actually stopping.
However, all implementations of these models that I've encountered use an abstraction that might not be good enough for a scene like this as the gap size in real traffic is usually rather large compared to the car length. If you use some trucks in a scene with slow traffic then I assume you would have to include the vehicle length in the model.
If you choose to use Animation Nodes for this approach then there is a useful setting for the Script node, or more precise, the Invoke Subprogram of a script, that lets you cache the output of a script. E.g. you can use one script to calculate all car positions at once (or read them from a file) and another script to actually place the cars after each frame.


How do I turn this off? While I was in edit mode I tried to extrude but accidentally pressed W instead of E and now I don't know how to turn this thing off.

It makes my cursor select everything inside the little circle, making it very hard for me to model something with many vertices.

W cycles the mode of the 'Select' tool (the topmost icon in the toolshelf). Available modes are Select Box, Select Circle, Select Lasso, Tweak. In your screenshot you can see that it's set to 'Select Circle' as you can also see the 'Radius' setting that lets you control how large the selection region is.
Simply press W again until you get back to 'Select Box' mode.


Video editing, how to make blur value a function of the time? My goal is to make the blur filter value, size X for instance, changing while the movie plays.
I want the blur going up and down in time like a sinus function, for instance size_X = 1 + sin(time).

So, I right clicked onto the size X value of in the blur filter of the video sequence editor and added a driver.
Then, I went into the graph editor under drivers.

But from this point on, I do not know what to do, in order to make the time of the video clip the variable of the driver.

Why not use the cyclic function in the F-fcurve editor? Make 3 keyframes, 0,1,0 then extrapolate modifier cyclic.

Then you can spread them apart with scale S-key, constrain horizontal with X key


Weight painting in Blender 2.8 I am just starting to learn about rigging, animating and the like.

In Blender 2.8 I have a problem with a file that I cannot recreate but can not solve also.

When I am in weight paint mode while the armature is not in the rest pose it adds the weights as if it was in rest pose.
Meaning, if the fingers are bent I cannot paint weight on the bent fingers, but it adds the weight only if I paint at the (invisible) position where the resting armature would be. I hope that makes sense. Here is the file:

In the image you see me try tp paint weight on the pinky when it is bent, but it does not work. It only works when it is straight.

If I try it again with a blank file, it works fine. I suppose it must be one setting that I checked that is causing this.

Weight paint doesn't allow you to paint on vertices that were generated with the multiresolution modifier; it only interpolates the weights for each point based on its neighbors (same as the subsurface modifier). It also won't let you modify the mesh with any modifier besides the armature modifier while you're in the weight painting mode.

A simple solution would be to simply apply the multiresolution modifier. If you'd like to retain the original (low poly) mesh, you could create a duplicate of that mesh, hide it, and apply the multiresolution modifier on the duplicate mesh.


Mesh looks edgy in object mode and smooth in sculpt mode I encounter a weird problem working with a mesh.While in object mode, the mesh looks edgy but when in sculpt mode the mesh looks smooth.The mesh has 2804 polygons.
I also tried to apply a multi resolution modifier but not even a single change took place.

What is the cause of this problem and how can i solve it ?Thanks.

I solved the problem by exporting the mesh in a Wavefront format (obj).When I exported it I checked Selection only and unchecked everything else.Then in a new project I imported the obj file and it seems to behave normal now.


How can I change IntProperty default value? I've got 2 properties. My first:

hT = EnumProperty(items=(('A', "None", ""),
                         ('B',"LeMans 40", ""),
                         ('C',"LeMans 45", ""),
                         ('D',"LeMans 50", ""),
                         ('E',"LeMans 60", "")),
                         default='C', name="Hardeware type")

My second:

 fW = IntProperty(name="Width",
             default=838, min=800, max=2700, description="Furniture width")

My first property is for choosing the hardware of my furniture.
Each hardware needs a minimum dimension of its furniture. So, for example, if I choose "LeMans 60", the "default" and "min" value of my second property need to change to 998.

Is it possible to do that or do I need to create a property with its own default, min and max value ?

You can't do that to an actual instance:

import bpy
bpy.types.Object.prop = bpy.props.IntProperty()

bpy.context.active_object.prop
# this evaluates what the value is and returns <class 'int'> - not subscriptable

To adjust the min max etc. you need to re-declare it:

bpy.types.Object.prop = bpy.props.IntProperty(min=100, max=300)
# note: re-declaring will change it for all the objects

Changing the default value will not change the actual value of that static property - you will need to assign it a new value in that case. But newly created objects will have this new default.

You can make it work like this:

create callback function for your hT property
have this function re-declare your fW property with new parameters based on hT value


Sculpt not showing up in rendered view Good day to all. I use Blender 2.79, and I had just finished sculpting some details on a face. So, I decided to view how my (blender) face would look in rendered mode. But, when I switched to rendered mode, it only displayed a plain UV Sphere!

Sculpt Mode
Rendered Preview Mode

Thank you to all!!!

It is because your mode is set to sculpt. Change your preview/render to object mode instead of sculpt mode.


How to make hollow object with only surface into solid? I kept creating a hollow cylinder by spinning a curve [Example].
This is the hollow cylinder I made by spinning a second-order polynomial curve. The cylinder would be hollow but not "filled" or not "solid".

After I exported it into STL, it is still hollow. However, I need the cylinder to be solid. So is there a function to spin a surface to make a solid object using python script? If not, is there any other way to do it?
Thank you

It seems to me that you didn't finish the outline before you spun the model, so now you have three options. See the blender documentation for the Spin function.

You can modify your outline to have a top and bottom and re-spin it.
Select Edge Ring and press F to make a face.

2.1 Press Alt+P to Poke the face, thus making a triangle fan.
You can use Grid Fill or from the Ctrl+F menu.


Can render smoke & fire in view port with [Alt A] but no fire and only smoke on render [F12] I can't seem to figure out what setting I'm missing to render fire using blender render [F12]. Can anyone please push me in the right direction? Should I just follow a different tutorial rendering in cycles with the node editor and toss the blender render method? Would it even matter? I seem to be missing a step. I was following along a tutorial from someone using an older version, I believe version 2.6 but I'm not positive on that. I'm thinking something is different with the default settings from their version versus the latest greatest. I tried to catch it on my own in their settings while watching the tutorial but came up short.

Here is my problem,

I'm able to simulate the smoke and fire in the view port with [Alt A]. I'm able to bake it as well and render the view port but when I have a still shot of the flame and press [F12] for blender render I only see the smoke and not the fire.

Thank you in advance to anyone that goes out of their way to help me solve my problem.

The texture for the domain object doesn't have any coordinate mapping set. Set it to Generated. Moreover, the colour ramp is a bit off. It has to be fully transparent to the left, or the domain will be completely filled with the left colour. The left is what appears further away from the flow object and the right is what appears closer to it. Personally I prefer to have it completely transparent at the right end as well, but that is my opinion and not a requirement. At the very least, you need to flip the direction of the ramp.

Furthermore, the Flow type on the flow object needs to be set, depending on what you want.

In the image it's set to Smoke. Available options are Fire, Fire + Smoke, Smoke and Outflow.

The first three should be self-explanatory. I have never fiddled with the outflow, but if it does the same as in the fluid sim, it should simply absorb the smoke and the flames.

If it is set to include fire, there's also a Smoke flames section for the domain object. If you want only fire and no smoke at all, you should set Flow type to Fire and set Smoke under Smoke flames to 0.


Steer Emission Strength of an Shader by the position of an unrelated bone...how? There is a armature.bone, which position is driven by a noise modifier on its
f-curve (y.position).

I want to make a LED-material flicker in its intensity in dependence to the
position of that bone.

The bone has no logical relationship with the LED-object.
The LED-object is not moving.

How can I achieve this efficiently?

You can set a driver to a value node
Right click on your value node and choose add driver
then just choose transform channel if not as default and select your object/axis

in the expression field you can do some operations to change/map you values
if you want it 1:1 then just put in the variable name, in this case "var"


How to manipulate position of mask layer using python I'm using Blender 2.78 and playing around with making different video transition effects. I want to automate the dynamics of a mask layer(rectangle as seen below) and it all work fine if I add keyframe>move rectangle>add keyframe however facing a hard time in finding how I could manipulate the position of the rectangle from the scripts. Already tried to work with bpy.ops.transform, bpy.data.masks['Mask bar'].layers.active.select but it seems that none of them has a member or function that gives me access to the position of the rectangle.

Not after something big, just couple of pointers on what object would store the data I'm after.

I don't think you can get the position of the mask as a whole, but you can access the coordinates of each individual point of the mask.

You can access the mask with:

bpy.data.masks['Mask']

And then the layer within the mask:

bpy.data.masks['Mask'].layers['MaskLayer']

Then you have access to the splines in that layer, which are the curves of the mask. In this case I am accessing the first spline:

bpy.data.masks['Mask'].layers['MaskLayer'].splines[0]

Which then leads you to the spline's points. The points have a vector called co (coordinates) which store the x and y position of that point. By looping over all the points in the mask and altering the co[0](x) or co[1](y) you can move the mask:

mask = bpy.data.masks['Mask'].layers['MaskLayer'].splines[0]
for point in mask.points:
    point.co[0] += 0.1


Can normals be forced to point outward at each vertex/face? I have been working on a model in Blender that is made up of several smaller sub-pieces. Having finished, I exported to Unity and not all of the sub pieces showed up. After having done some research I realized it was because of the normals facing the wrong direction. I then recalculated the normals for some of the surfaces that were not showing up, but this resulted in a potentially worse problem. I now have sub-pieces that have some vertices with outward facing normals and some with inward facing normals. As a result, flipping the normals for each sub-piece is useless, because either way not all of the surface is rendered when exported. So far the only solution I can think of is to manually flip the normals of each vertex across the whole model until they're all facing outward, but this would likely take me longer than it took to model the whole thing. I'm wondering if there is a way to force the normals all to face outward, rather than just flipping or recalculating them.

Okay, so I made up a little example of what I'm talking about:

Say this grid here is a sub piece of my model. There are no smaller selectable parts, unless I go into edit mode and start selecting individual faces or vertices. In my particular case, when I select the entire piece in edit mode and recalculate the normals, I end up with something like this:

The normals of some faces are facing inward and some outward. Thus, if I turn on backface culling I get this:

But as you can see, if I were to select the whole thing and flip the normals, I would get something just as problematic:

Thus it seems to me like the only thing I can do is go and select all the areas of each piece that have normals facing the wrong way and flip them. There are hundreds of pieces, so that's likely to take forever. What I'm wondering is whether there is a way I can tell Blender to make all the normals point the same direction (outward), because flipping and recalculating both don't work.

My Solution:
After some more research and attempts to fix the problem, it seemed like the only method that would reliably work was to fix everything manually. So it took about 12 hours, but I just went around to every single part of the model, selected the faces that had normals facing the wrong way and flipped them. I guess the thing to do is just not get yourself into this situation to begin with.

When you have normals facing in different directions you need to recalculate them.

In Edit Mode select everything and press CtrlN to make the normals consistent (also refered as recalculate normals outside).

Th opposite of that operation is ShiftCtrlN to recalcuate the normals inside


Why does weight painting this skeleton with reverse kinematics rotate the vertex around the bone I have a skeleton that I added reverse kinematics to because I have no idea what I'm doing, I watched a tutorial, and it seemed like a good idea. I needed to rotate the bone position so that the knee was bending correctly, so I added a rotation to it.

Presently, When I try to weight paint any of the upper leg vertices, they rotate inward 90 degrees. It seems that the bone rotation is being applied to the weight painting. How do I keep it so that the Knee still bends correctly, but the weight painting doesn't distort the vertices like this?
See a gif below, and the .blend file.

Thanks in advance!

Go into the armature pose mode, select every thing with A then press Ctrl + A and "apply pose at rest pose".

Your bone constraints moved the bones in pose mode a little so you need to apply  their new transforms as the official "rest pose"


Are there some default grid pattern textures in blender? I'm looking for a texture like this one:

Or the grid on the ground here:

Are those already implemented in blender internal? Or else in Cycles ?

I searched for "grid textures", "color grid textures" (on google) to get the images and apply them as image textures but I didn't find them.

Is it possible to generate them procedurally (in python)?

There are three grid pattern textures, or checker patters in blender.

Two are accessible only from blender's Image Editor when making a new image.

Those are the UV Grid and Color Grid

The other pattern is built in to cycles as the Checker Texture.


Compositing: Get mask of glass/ transparent materials I'm using the compositor to automatically segment parts of objects into masks. This works well for most materials, but when doing the same for a mix shader of glossy and transparent it doesn't, how to fix this?

An example of what one of multiple masks looks like:

A possible reason (I tested whether there are any very light grey values, the output is a solid white):

On a sidenode: The same thing happens when I use materialIDs.

The current node setup:

The file is too big for the official uploader; I hope dropbox doesn't deter you.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/alv6jq6vnvshgzs/stack.blend?dl=0

You'll have to set the output path and should then be able to reproduce by pressing render.

You need to set Alpha Threshold to 0, then all materials will be equally solid as ID Masks. Don't know what you're after with the set alpha nodes, but they don't do anything in this node setup so you can skip them.


Half-Round Trim on Armor Trying to add a half round trim around the front surfaces of a piece of modeled armor. Found videos on using inset and extrusion, but I cant figure out how to profile the extrusion into a half circle:

Alternatively, I've tried shrinkwrapping a half round pipe to the surface, but cant figure out how to make it follow the edge without meticulously rotating curves to follow the edges:

Feel like there has to be a better way to do this. Any feedback would be great!

It's a bit hard to tell what you want to do, but It sounds like you want to make a round "border". In that case, Beveling is the tool for the job.
Select an edge that you need to round, and press CtrlB. Move your mouse to control the depth of the bevel, and scroll to adjust the segments of the bevel, sort of like its resolution. There are a lot of settings that you can change. You can even bevel multiple edges at the same time by selecting them all and doing the same thing. Additionally, there is a bevel modifier that can bevel every single edge.


Rigify Error Bone cannot connect chain bone Using rigify when generating the rig I get this error message Does someone know how I can fix this I don´t want to start it all over

bone spine004 cannot connect chain bone position is disjoint. incorrect armature for type chain_rigs

If you move (separate) the spine.004 bone the error appears.
The bone spine.003 and spine.004 have to be perfectly aligned.

Steps (in edit mode):

1.- Selected bone spine.003

2.- MAY+S - Cursor to selected

3.- Select Spine.004 and  selection to cursor

4.- There is no more error and the rig is ok.

I hope I've helped.
R.


How does one obtain the file path of the current .blend in the bge? Specifically, how does one obtain the path to the current .blend when the blender game engine is running?

You can determine this with bge.logic.expandPath("//"). It will give you the directory that the current blend-file is in excluding the filename.


Converting particle simulation into meshes for Keyshot I created a particle simulation that emits icospheres with 0 gravity, but affected by a wind force field, with the intent to make it look like it's being blown away by the wind. I'd like to render this animation in Keyshot, so I have to export this file as an Alembic. I used a Python script posted by jasperge to convert the particle simulation into meshes.

The script ran successfully, but playing the animation shows that the particles are gigantic. Anyone have an idea why this may be, or if there's something I need to change in the script? I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!

Before script:

After script:

Script used:

import bpy

# Set these to False if you don't want to key that property.
KEYFRAME_LOCATION = True
KEYFRAME_ROTATION = True
KEYFRAME_SCALE = True
KEYFRAME_VISIBILITY = True  # Viewport and render visibility.

def create_objects_for_particles(ps, obj):
    # Duplicate the given object for every particle and return the duplicates.
    # Use instances instead of full copies.
    obj_list = []
    mesh = obj.data
    for i, _ in enumerate(ps.particles):
        dupli = bpy.data.objects.new(
                    name="particle.{:03d}".format(i),
                    object_data=mesh)
        bpy.context.scene.objects.link(dupli)
        obj_list.append(dupli)
    return obj_list

def match_and_keyframe_objects(ps, obj_list, start_frame, end_frame):
    # Match and keyframe the objects to the particles for every frame in the
    # given range.
    for frame in range(start_frame, end_frame + 1):
        bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame)
        for p, obj in zip(ps.particles, obj_list):
            match_object_to_particle(p, obj)
            keyframe_obj(obj)

def match_object_to_particle(p, obj):
    # Match the location, rotation, scale and visibility of the object to
    # the particle.
    loc = p.location
    rot = p.rotation
    size = p.size
    if p.alive_state == 'ALIVE':
        vis = True
    else:
        vis = False
    obj.location = loc
    # Set rotation mode to quaternion to match particle rotation.
    obj.rotation_mode = 'QUATERNION'
    obj.rotation_quaternion = rot
    obj.scale = (size, size, size)
    obj.hide = not(vis)
    obj.hide_render = not(vis)

def keyframe_obj(obj):
    # Keyframe location, rotation, scale and visibility if specified.
    if KEYFRAME_LOCATION:
        obj.keyframe_insert("location")
    if KEYFRAME_ROTATION:
        obj.keyframe_insert("rotation_quaternion")
    if KEYFRAME_SCALE:
        obj.keyframe_insert("scale")
    if KEYFRAME_VISIBILITY:
        obj.keyframe_insert("hide")
        obj.keyframe_insert("hide_render")

def main():
    # Assume only 2 objects are selected.
    # The active object should be the one with the particle system.
    ps_obj = bpy.context.object
    obj = [obj for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects if obj != ps_obj][0]
    ps = ps_obj.particle_systems[0]  # Assume only 1 particle system is present.
    start_frame = bpy.context.scene.frame_start
    end_frame = bpy.context.scene.frame_end
    obj_list = create_objects_for_particles(ps, obj)
    match_and_keyframe_objects(ps, obj_list, start_frame, end_frame)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

When you use the script you need to specify a object to duplicate ?
If so, before launching the script scale down your object and apply the scale, (Ctrl + A).


Subdividing a mesh into convex subvolumes and tagging faces This question has two parts

Is there an automatic way in blender (perhaps an addon) of subdividing a mesh into convex subvolumes
Given that a subdivision has been made, is it possible to associate a front and back subvolume with a face, or at least mark the faces that faces two subvolumes? In the figure, I have done (1) manually, and I want to give the selected faces a tag, so I know that these faces actually face another subvolume (this object is hidden to not cover the selected faces). The reason for including the open face is that the body will be mirrored in the yz-plane.

The reason I need this is that I want convex volumes for hit-testing that relies on the normal projection method. An alternative is to relax on the convexity assumption, but then I need another algorithm perhaps involving testing a surface integral for equality to 4pi, which seems numerically unstable.

1a.  The technique you are looking for is called Convex Decomposition and there is a fair amount of research on it.  It's good for skeletonizing meshes for rigging, and I'm sure many other useful things.

http://masc.cs.gmu.edu/wiki/ACD

1b.  I do not believe there is any way to do this automatically in blender natively.

1c.  There is an addon to do this volume decomposition in blender, it relies on external code library and is more targetdd at the game engine however you may be able to tailor it's results to your needs.  This is an approximate decomposition.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?357513-Volumetric-Hierarchical-Approximate-Convex-Decomposition-%28e-g-for-BGE-Physics%29

2a. If your method is actually going to create interior geometry in the same mesh, then finding the non manifold edges and then interior faces is not a big deal. However my answer above is going to create approximate new objects

2b.  If you are able to split your mesh into groups of verts, using the bmesh convex hull modifier will tell you what new geomtry it creates.  By the definitition of your problem, all the new geometry will be the


How do I use texture maps in Cycles nodes? What I did:

Change render engine to Cycles
Add Suzanne
Add plane
Scale plane by 5
Change environment texture to HDRI from https://hdrihaven.com/
Change Suzanna node setup
Change plane node setup (use default principled BSDF, add image textures for diff (diffuse), spec (specular), rough (roughness), normal, disp (displacement))
Change all image textures to non-color data except for diff (diffuse) and normal

The specific texture for the plane is https://texturehaven.com/tex/?c=wood&t=rough_wood. I am given the option to download:

Diffuse
AO (unused)
Bump (unused)
Displacement
Normal
Roughness
Specular

Is this the correct node setup to use the texture and how do I connect the unused textures?

I am using Blender 2.82a. The wood plane looks flat to me even though I added the normal and displacement nodes.

Nodes:

Render:

There are some things you missed :).

Maps to use:

Diffuse. Plug into Base Color input.
Roughness. Plug into Roughness input.
Normal. Use with Normal Map node and plug into Normal input. Select UV map to use.
Displacement. Use with Displacement node and plug into Displacement input.

You need to enable material displacement through Options > Displacement > Displacement and Bump (works only in Cycles)
Only works if your geometry is subdivided.

Bump. Don't use here, since you have a Normal map (which works better)
Specular. Don't use here. (It's more complicated, but I won't address that here)
Ambient Occlusion (AO). Don't use with Cycles, use with Eevee.


Bump mapping vs Displacement (plus displacement nodes in Cycles)? Learning Blender+Cycles (2.79b), I'm trying to experiment with vertex displacement and bump mapping.

My understanding: bump mapping is to adjust face normals and create shadows/highlights suggesting (inexistent) height variations, while displacement truly changes the vertex height.

In Cycles:

I created bump mapping using a bump map for the normal value of a Diffuse BSDF node.
I tried to create actual displacement using the displacement input of the Material Output node.

On the left, the bump mapping result, on the right the displacement result:

It appears the result is the same (for the magenta texture), and looking at the edge of each sphere confirms no displacement of mesh vertices.

Material settings used

For bump mapping:

For displacement:

Question 1: How does work the Displacement input of the Material Output node? The latest documentation (2.79) talks about three modes (bump mapping, displacement, both), but doesn't explain how to use modes.

Question 2: In the documentation (2.79) two nodes are expected to be connected to the Material Output node: Displacement and Vector Displacement. Both seems to be about actual displacement. None are present in the latest version of Blender (2.79b). Have they been replaced or removed in 2.79b?

I saw in the jumble of Blender forums, that Displacement may be only accessible when the Feature Set option is set to Experimental in Render tab of the Property Editor. But activating the option does do nothing (even with Blender restarted).

Question 1: How does the Displacement input of the Material Output node work?

Depends what feature set you are using for rendering:

In Supported feature set it does Bump mapping, same as plugging Bump node into all your shaders.
In Experimental feature set is follows what you set in the Material properties:

So for True Displacement you need to set the feature set to Experimental, and set a setting for the Material. More on this here:

Blender Cycles True Displacement

  Question 2: In the documentation (2.79) two nodes are expected to be connected to the Material Output node: Displacement and Vector Displacement.

The documentation is continuous work in progress and does not adhere to any specific Blender version. There might be sections outdated or put beforehand of features that will come in future, like in this case Vector displacement.


Can't flip ColorRamp vertical using Mapping node (Cycles) I've been following this post to ColorRamp my mountains according to height - however as much as i fiddle around with the X, Y and Z axis they seem to have no effect vertically and simply point towards each corner.

Here's my node set up.

Is there something I'm missing? Maybe a node? Thanks for the help! (Yes it is unwrapped and in cycles)

It looks like if you plug your Mapping node into a Converter > Separate XYZ node then put the Z outlet into the ColorRamp node, it works fine. You could also change the values of the Mapping node to have a vertical gradient (-35°, 45°, 0°).


Cannot make face, even with 4 vertices I'm modeling a chair for practice (since I'm a beginner).
I'm trying to fill in two areas. However, nothing happens when I press the F tool, even though they are 4 vertices each.

When I press F for the vertices in the second image, this happens:

Why can't I fill in the vertices? What am I doing wrong?
Thanks for any help!

You're not doing anything wrong, the tools you have chosen are working as expected, but perhaps they are not the right tools to achieve what you want. When you hit F, a face was created between the vertices around the back of your chair. If you use the little eye icon to switch off the Skin modifier, and switch on 'Limit Selection to Visible' you'll see it there, solid shaded. That face is the one that a modeler using F would usually be interested in. (i.e the faces between edges, not the ones a Skin modifier has put around edges)

The Skin modifier rapidly creates enclosing faces to a skeleton of edges and vertices, and with it, you can quickly convert those edges into an armature to control the deformation of the faces in animation. It tries its hardest to behave well at junctions, but things made with it are usually organic, and best kept simple.

To create a chair-frame, and learn some Blender at the same time, you could perhaps try a 'Box Modeling' approach .. I've just searched on 'Blender Box Modeling' and come up with some pretty reasonable looking tutorials.


Problem with object made from joining objects that both had mirror modifiers I have joined a mirrored object to another mirrored object (head and body, creating neck to join them) (Ctrl+J) and I am trying to connect them by creating vertices (tried extruding/merging or pressing f to just fill). I have selected one vertices from each object to create edge then with four of those I can create a face. But when I try the face or edge is created on the other side of the mirror not on the same side any solutions without removing the mirror. (shown below)

I would like to move parts of the mesh around from where I selected, but when I try to move it it is controlled from the left side and only the left side (the original mesh). I was able to do this before (move parts of the mesh from both sides) I don't know why I can't any more maybe from the update, any solutions? An example for more detail if I try to drag the right side out it inwards becuase I am moving it from the left side not the right side that I selected

You merged objects mirrored but not moddeled on the same side. You can see that by deactivating the visibility of the modified topo.

to fix that, apply the mirror (in object mode, not edit)

In front ortho view (NumPad1 front view, NumPad5 to switch perspective/ortho view) Box select B one side.

Delete selected vertices with X

add the mirror modifier that should work correctly


Creating Volumetric lights from a mesh in cycles? is it possible / / how do i make an object give off "godrays" so that, for instance you can see it through slits in a wall?

I'm trying to make this, (an icosphere with a sphere inside, the inner sphere gives off a blue glow) into a sort of "disco ball" is the best i can describe it. but i'm fairly new to anything blender and have no clue how to achieve this.

I read somewhere that the only object that could give off volumetric light is a spot lamp, but the thread was like 3 years old.

Edit: thanks for the help, what you said to do worked, just can't have a material output and lamp at the same time apparently :D but that's fine it looks good now!

Set the light inside the object and bring up the intensity.

For the world Volume add a volume scatter node. (usually the default value of one is way too high, set it to a smaller number)

(click on the image to enlarge)


Python: How to move collection into another collection? Let's say we have collections A and B directly under the main Scene Collection. Is it possible to move collection B inside collection A using python?

When I do this manually (drag and drop), the Info panel shows only "bpy.ops.outliner.collection_drop()
", so that didn't help.

Basically you just have to .unlink(collection) the sub-collection from its current parent and then .link(collection) it to the new parent collection.

Problem is there is currently no way (attribute) to get the parent collection so we need to find the parent in the first place. I'd suggest create a lookup (dict) to store the relationship and then (un)link:

import bpy

def traverse_tree(t):
    yield t
    for child in t.children:
        yield from traverse_tree(child)

def parent_lookup(coll):
    parent_lookup = {}
    for coll in traverse_tree(coll):
        for c in coll.children.keys():
            parent_lookup.setdefault(c, coll)
    return parent_lookup

C = bpy.context

# Get all collections of the scene and their parents in a dict
coll_scene = C.scene.collection
coll_parents = parent_lookup(coll_scene)

# Get collection references
coll_target = coll_scene.children.get("Collection")
active_coll = C.view_layer.active_layer_collection.collection

# Get parent of *active_coll*
active_coll_parent = coll_parents.get(active_coll.name)

if active_coll_parent:
    # Unlink *active_coll*
    active_coll_parent.children.unlink(active_coll)

    # Link *active_coll* to *coll_target*
    coll_target.children.link(active_coll)

traverse_tree(t) function from How to get all collections of the current scene?


Creating this halftone effect using Arrays I'm attempting to create this spiraling series of circles for a project but I'm not entirely sure how to do it, they will serve as a border and background for a central object

Here is a different approach that can be easily animated directly in the viewport using objects.

Create a new circle mesh with a filled face. In Edit Mode assign all vertex to a new vertex group with a weight of $1$.

Add a bunch of Array Modifiers to create a dot grid with the desired spacing and density.

Now add add Vertex Weigh Proximity Modifier and make it control the vertex group created above. Adjust the values as necessary for your scene scale.

Now add a Corrective Smooth modifier to your arrayed circle, activate the Only Smooth option and increase the Iterations value as desired (in my case to about 200).

Pick the previous vertex group to affect its weight.

Now use any dummy object to control the smoothing effect with any desired shape. In this case I created a circular mesh, but can be any mesh shape, then assign this object to control the Vertex Weigh Proximity Modifier created above. Moving it about, scaling it or changing it's shape will affect the halftone effect.


Render scene where camera has background image (Blender 2.8) After a few hours playing with Blender I was able to:

Figure out how to add a background image reference
Match the camera position to my bg image using fSpy and fSpy addon for Blender 2.8
Model a simple wood deck

However, I can't get to render the whole thing including the image that is already correctly positioned.

I went through articles that will tell you how to add an image as a background, but not with it as a background for the camera.

Is there a way that I can render this with the setup I already have?

I'm using Blender 2.8.

Here's what I see in the rendering view:

You need to add geometry on top of your background image, in order to render.

Once you add geometry, subdivide everything and then Press U >> Project from View

After that, add a material to the geometry and inside this one, add your image.

Finally, render.

Good Luck


How to cut image as icon in Blender? I want to import an image into blender and quote some parts according to row and cols as icon displayed in template_icon_view(). BUT template_icon_view() could only import icon from file path. Is there any alternative way? When it is done, it should be like fig3.Thanks!

Although I have solved this problem for a long time, I see better answers in other places, so I sent them out
The first is the imbuf library, but the documents are not very detailed and haven't been updated for a long time
https://developer.blender.org/T54272
And then this
How to merge external images together in script?
Then my method is that the PIL library cuts the pictures, saves them to Blender's cache directory, and loads them through this path

from . PIL_library64 import Image
import sys

def cut_image(image,x,y):
    # x指横上切的刀数
    width, height = image.size
    item_width = int(width / x)
    item_height = int(width / y)
    box_list = []
    # (left, upper, right, lower)
    for i in range(0,y):
        for j in range(0,x):
            box = (j*item_width,i*item_height,(j+1)*item_width,(i+1)*item_height)
            box_list.append(box)
    image_list = [image.crop(box) for box in box_list]
    return image_list

# 保存
def save_images(image_list):
    from os.path import exists
    from os import makedirs
    import bpy
    temppath=bpy.app.tempdir
    print(temppath)
    if not exists(temppath+"mi2bl"): # 判断文件夹存在
        makedirs(temppath+"mi2bl") # 创建文件夹
    index = 1
    file_list=[]
    for image in image_list:
        image.save(temppath+"mi2bl\\"+str(index) + '.png', 'PNG')
        file_list.append(temppath+"mi2bl\\"+str(index) + '.png')
        index += 1
    return file_list

#主函数-分割图片，存储到blender的项目缓存文件夹中
def image_crop(file_path, x, y):
    image = Image.open(file_path)
    #image.show()
    image_list = cut_image(image,x,y)
    file_list=save_images(image_list)
    return file_list
```


Used mirror modifier to create an object but don't want the texture to be mirrored So I want to texture clothing for example that I created using the mirror modifier. But I want the 2 sides of the clothing piece to have individual designs for instance but it is not possible since the original and the mirrored surfaces use the same UV-coordinates. How can I change that?

Here I have an image with a red squiggle on one side and blue on the other. I have a plane that is mirrored and I have enabled 'U' texture mirroring on the modifier to allow the other half of the texture to appear on the mirrored side.

Depending on your mirror axis you may want to enable 'V' mapping instead.


Is there any way to select all the "edge faces" of this cut-out sphere? I have this object:

I want to select all the faces on the edge of the squarish cut-outs of sphere, so I this desired result:

That was done manually, but there must be an easier way.

Essentially, I want to select the faces that have normals that point tangential to the curve of the sphere. Phrased another way, I want to deselect the faces that are facing inwards/outwards, leaving only the desired faces.

I know if I hit SHIFT-G, I can select by similar normal, but that gets me the global normal of the face points, not the local normal.

I suggest using select similar > perimeter. Press  Shift  + G to bring up the selection menu after selecting a face loop similar to the desired loop with  Alt  +  RMB , then adjust the threshold until you have the desired results. Double check your model to make sure there isn't a missed face anywhere, but this should get all of them. In my example, the threshold was 0.030


How to switch to another camera in blender game engine This might have already been asked but how do I switch cameras in blender game engine? What I would like is to play a camera sequence perhaps a panning view around a map and then towards the end switch to a camera linked to my player modal for a third person setup.

The scene actuator allows you to alter the active camera.


Eevee NPR transparency I feel kind of dumb, it seems like this should be relatively simple. I'm trying to make one level of my NPR shader transparent. I've attached a screenshot to show what I'm trying to do.

I believe I see the problem: the Color Ramp's alpha information is available (in its second socket), but is not being passed on to the surface shader (only RGB, not RGBA, is being forwarded to the surface values). If we're willing to move back into shaders before the final render (as opposed to the raw color-to-surface pipeline), then we could switch from this, which does not respect alpha to clip:

To this, which does:

I am not sure if there is a way to get transparency information properly incorporated in an RGBA sense into shader nodes without using at least a single penultimate shader (rather than just color information). Someone more knowledgeable than I am may be better positioned to comment on that, though, or maybe to explain why that appears to be the case. This is certainly unfortunate, since adding the penultimate shader removes the non-photo-realistic flat-shading effect that was presumably the point of using Shader-to-RGB in the first place. The only alternatives I am aware of involve post-processing/compositing to remove the regions intended to be treated as transparent.

As a partial fix, I find you can recover flat shading while retaining transparency if you use an emissive shader where you would normally use a diffuse shader, after the shader-to-RGB transformation (so that lighting information can still affect where transparency appears, as a result of the initial diffuse shader node):

This probably has its own disadvantages, although the most obvious objection (that it won't react to lighting information) does not seem entirely relevant (since lighting information can still affect at least the extent/shape of the emissive node's coverage through the initial diffuse shader node that precedes the Shader-to-RGB node).

For completeness, here are my previous, incorrect speculations, which may still be valuable to users with similar problems:

ORIGINAL: You probably just need to change the material's blend type from Opaque (the default) to one of the Alpha-aware blend types. Alpha Clip is a common suggestion. This is where the setting is located in the materials tab:

EDIT1: There is, also, a general setting for whether alpha information in pixels will be filled with Sky or Transparency in the Render->Film settings.


Weird loop cut and slide glitch, just some random inward mesh deformation I've only had the program for a few days and the loop cut and slide deformation glitch really ruins it for me. note that i don't always have this problem but its a reocurring problem for me. Every time I try loop cut and slide this happens.
whenever i use the tool loop cut slide, blender automatically puts a huge dent in the cube.

You need to disable the X-Mirror option in the Tools panel > Options.


How project/Cut a path over sphere I found one tutorial of software PTC Creo 2.0 to try to do the same in Blender, I imported the path from Illustrator like .svg file, place in the zone to project, but when use shrikwrap modifier, nothing happen or deform the path. I post the images of the my process and the tutorial like reference. I reading this link: Some similar question like this... but is a rectangle and my path are irregular form and don´t have the same project form like tutorial.

My model before apply modifier...

It looks like "Knife Project" should do exactly what you want to do (described in the manual)

Also, the manual doesn't mention that the projection originates from your point of view. I kept trying to use the tool while "looking" at the objects from the side, and nothing happened. Then this thread wisened me up.


How can keyframes of properties be added to an action? I tried to add keyframes for the emission value of a material to an action, but couldn't find out how.

Adding keyframes for a object's location works as expected but properties like emission only show up in the Timeline and Curve Editor.

A MaterialAction is created (only visible in the NLA Editor) toggling to edit mode Tab the keyframes are displayed in the time line. This MaterialAction is not accesible from the Action Editor.

EDIT:

Fweebs suggestion to use a driver works unfortunatly only in the 3D-Viewport but not in the BGE. I didn't ask specifically for the BGE because I was hoping for a common solution that works everywhere.

.blendfile here

As the tooltip mentioned:

  Edit keyframes in active object's Object-level action.

So I bet that is why it is not currently supported yet?

However, you can still tweak it in the Dope Sheet mode, and use the Filter button to block other action types, if helps.


How to make an IK chain stay above another IK chain I modeled a recurve bow and now I'm rigging it. The wooden body of the bow bends correctly.

But at the start of the pulling motion the string's IK chain straightens and goes trough the tip curvature.

Any idea of how to constrain the string's IK chain so it always stays above the bow's IK chain?

In an IK chain, you can limit bone rotations to keep them within a certain range of movement. Select the base bone in your IK chain and limit one of its rotation values (in this case either X or Z) until the mesh doesn't intersect with the bow's arm. Repeat this process down the chain to get a nice curve running along the arm. When limiting, it is not necessary to set both negative and positive limits to custom values. Most of the time you will want to keep one side completely open (+-180 degrees) while limiting the other. These limit values have hard limits of +-180 degrees because any rotation beyond will simply flip the IK solution to the other side. For more intuitive and predictable visual feedback, I recommend putting your IK chain bones in one of the many Euler rotation modes.


Python automate Assign parent relation and keep transform I have automated the task of parenting in Blender with Python.
The code affects the relation parent according to the two last characters of the names of the objects.
example:

obj1.name = Cube.01
obj2.name = Suzanne.01

If obj1 is in the group "children" and obj2 is not in the group "children" : obj2 is the parent of obj1.
My code works, but without keeping children's transformation.
How can I do to keep the children's transformation?

import bpy

for obj1 in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    if obj1.name in  bpy.data.groups["Children"].objects:
    a = obj1.name[-2:]

    for obj2 in bpy.context.selected_objects:
            if obj2.name not in  bpy.data.groups["Children"].objects:
                b = obj2.name[-2:]
                if a == b:
                   obj1.parent= obj2

You have to set the inverse matrix  of the child to clear the initial transformation of the parent at parenting moment :

obj1.parent= obj2
obj1.matrix_parent_inverse = obj2.matrix_world.inverted()


Why casting a sphere to a cube give cylinder+cube? I want to cast a sphere to a cube, but when I add the modifier, it seems like a cilinder inside a cube.... why?

My Cast modifier settings are: Factor=1, Radius=0, Size=0 , as I saw on a guide (I want to keep the same dimensions)

The image above shows a blue mesh with a sphere shape, hereafter the blue sphere.  It is symmetric about the 3 axis similar to a cube.  Note the red faces have a 3 face corner not a 4 face corner. Not a UV Sphere.  The mesh will work symmetrically along x, y, z axis with a cast cuboid modifier.

In the image in your original question concentric rings of the UV Sphere are placed along the z-axis.  Speaking about the default situation.  So the there is an asymmetry regarding the z-axis.  So the [cast] modifier mathematics amplifies this asymmetry.  You will get slightly better results if you subdivide your mesh again.

You can edit the blue sphere in [edit] mode and rotate 90 on the y axis.  The asymmetry deformation will be rotated as well.

Here is the same blue sphere shaped mesh with a cast modifier.  Note again the red faces which form a 3 face corner of a cube.

To create a NON-UV sphere shaped mesh.  Create a cube. In [edit] mode loop cut on with 7 or so divisions. Loop Cut on all three axis XYZ.  Menu Transform ..... Transform to Sphere.

Yes, start with cube, transform to sphere shape, cast back to cuboid.

Additional Notes
Please welcome Carlo

Cast modifier basically projects the object vertices along their normals to the target shape's surface. It is the same thing you would get by using a Shrinkwrap modifier pointing to a scene object.

By enabling Vertex normals in Edit mode, you can see on what surface each vertex will be translated to.

There is no vertex pointing toward the box's corner.

Conclusions:
To better approximate a cube, the starting sphere should have enough vertex density whose vertex normals point to the cube edges and corners. So for better results you can:

Increase the number of vertices
Use a different starting topology


Applying normal map - Dark on one side I try to apply a baked normal map. I use 'blender render', load the obj mesh, create a material (default option), then load a normal map as texture (linked to this material) and in the 'influence tab' I uncheck 'color' and check 'normal', while in the 'image sampling' tab I check 'normal map' and choose tangent in the drop-down menu.

I render with a camera and a few lights and initially the result looks great when the camera is on one side. However when I position the camera to look at the other side, rendering is completely dark. The normals however look perfectly fine. Very few seem to be pointing inwards, but this is not the case as at the webbing between the fingers some normals penetrate the opposite triangle during visualization. However just for the sake of it I recalculated the normals and the problem still remains.

Any idea why this may be happening?

I attach below a few screenshots to better showcase what I describe above.

It appears that you have sun lamps and they are pointing downwards. So even though physically one or two are below the object they are only emitting light "down" so the bottom of your object is in shadow.


Loopcut symmetrically among two pieces I'm trying to loop cut on both arms symmetrically at the wrists so that they are equidistant from the chest. how can i do that automatically?

As said, the best way to model symmetrically is to use a mirror modifier, but that also means that you'll have all the model symmetrical...

If your model is not symmetrical overall, but you need to have some part modeled symmetrically, you can use an alternative approach, although there are limits to what you can do...

So, this could easily not fit to your needs, but hopefully it could give you just another idea:

here I "duplicated linked" the somewhat asymmetrical model, then I rotated it over Z 180° so to have one side aligned "to the other side".

Being a linked copy, the second object shares the same exact copy of the first object's mesh. But here it is somewhat "mirrored". And you see that the new edge loop positioning is replicated in real time (of course, it's the same mesh!).

Then on the first copy, I used loop cut on "one side", and placed the edge loop where needed. The same cut and position should be achieved o the other side...

To replicate the same cut on the other side, I activated snap tools (vertices), and after cutting, to create the needed geometry, I moved the new edge loop precisely to the position of the "other side" edge loop, using a suitable viewing angle.

It is just regular modeling, of course, but this gives you the chance to refer and snap to "the other side" of the same mesh (although "seen" through two different objects).

Hth.


Problem with hair particle system, a problem with the mirror Earlier i was working with the hair particle system, it was working fine, but later (now), after giving a break, i found that i have an issue with the mirror while adding hair to my character.

The mirror is malfunctioning, i didn't touch any config, everything is the same just like earlier. the below part of the hair is what i worked earlier and the upper part with some random hair on a side is what i recently did.

Is there a solution for this?

I found out that the bug is only present on the version 2.74, when I switch to the 2.77 this problem is not there anymore, still I want to hear your opinion, guys.


How to set visible render layers with Python? How can I set my scene's visible layers from Python? I'd like to make layers 0 and 4 visible. Here's what I've tried:

for i in range(20):
    bpy.context.scene.layers[i] = False

bpy.context.scene.layers[0] = True
bpy.context.scene.layers[4] = True

My code may be awful (abeit easily readable), but I think the problem you have is this: it's impossible to turn all layers off. One must be turned on, so a loop to disable them all doesn't work. It seems that Blender is checking anytime you try to disable a layer whether it's the last man standing.

I simply turned it around by first switching the desired layers on and then disabling all others.

import bpy

visible = [0,4]
for b in visible:
    bpy.context.scene.layers[b] = 1

a  = 0
while a < 20:
    if a not in visible:
        bpy.context.scene.layers[a]= 0
    a += 1

edit: batFINGER reduced it to two lines, so give his comment an upvote (:

import bpy

visible = [3,6,9]
scene.layers = [l in visible for l in range(20)]

Creating the full list before assigning it is a smart move.


Spring for Rotation? I have a question about rigid body constraints.

Generic spring constraints can be used for a normal spring that tries to return to an original length by setting the stiffness.

However, what I want is a spring for rotation that tries to return to it's original rotation state. It seems that the generic spring's stiffness
parameter is only for length and not for rotation.
I can limit the rotation angle, but, that's just a limit setting and not for spring strength or anything.

Is there a way to make a rotational spring?

If you're like me and wanted to make a rotational spring C between points A and B, such that it can rotate around point B, then you can make this construction with three objects. Two icospheres (for example), one at point B and one at point A. A cylinder is your rotational spring, and goes between the points. You add a spring constraint between icospheres A and B. Affix the cylinder C and icosphere A together with a fixed constraint. Affix the cylinder C and icosphere B together with a generic constraint, with all translation axes limited to 0 - 0. Then attach B to whatever object your rotational spring needs to be attached to.


Make a line animation that is thicker at the start and thinner at the end? At 00:40 to 00:42 of the following YouTube video, a line that is thicker at the start and thinner at the end is moving along a path, as if you move a fireball. This is a Blender tutorial channel, so this is probably made with Blender, but there is no tutorial for that part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saxpjudV_88&t=40

How can I make it like a thinning line like the video above?
PS: This is the animation I made after learning from the accepted answer: https://imgur.com/f7zisxR

You can do it with curve only or with mesh and Curve modifier:
- With curves only:
Create your line curve, create a second curve that will be your taper, make it flat with V > Vector, rotate it slightly on the Z axis in Edit mode, the rotation angle will give the thickness of your line, i.e. the difference between its minimum and maximum radius. Now choose this second curve as the Taper Object of your line:

If you enable the Map Taper option and play with Bevel Start and End values you'll be able to animate your line:

You need to play with both the Start and End values if you want the line to follow along the curve:

Settings at frame 0:

Settings at frame 20:

The file:
- With mesh and Curve modifier:
Put the cylinder at the same point as the curve's origin, and make sure that the curve's direction is good, if not, go in Edit mode and right click > Switch Direction:

Give your object a Curve modifier with the curve as Curve Object, then animate the cylinder along the X axis so that the mesh follows the curve.


Cannot select mesh after putting my armature in pose mode My problem is pretty straightforward. To weight paint my character I must
  1) Select the armature and put it in pose mode
  2) Select mesh and put it in weight painting mode
For some reason after I put my armature in pose mode I can no longer select the mesh. I attempted to put my mesh in weight paint mode first, but then I could not select the bones. I used automatic weighting to see if the armature would deform, and it does so there is no problem there. Just the auto weights are horrible for this character.

I am using version 2.8
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RnFKtQMpJs4CX91MXeYArBxmO-Zcu5zg
And there is the shareable link. You will see I have a character and an armature.

Make sure you untick "Lock object modes" in the Edit tab at the top panel.
Trouble is, it doesn't always help. For some reason currently I have the same problem with the OP, Lock object modes is off, but I still can't select my character when in pose mode.


Deform a mesh While in animation I have made a car model which i want to collide with a man and then deform its front and roll in down the way any one knows that how to deform a mesh while in animation

Most straightforward way I can think of to accomplish this:

Create a Shape Key on the car object and deform the front by hand in Edit Mode, using Proportional Editing and changing the falloff settings for a crumpled look for the front of the car. This Shape Key can be animated by hitting I while hovering over the 0.000-1.000 value to add a keyframe, and you can line it up on the Dope Sheet panel.

When the car reaches the man on the Dope Sheet timeline, the deformation Shape Key can go from 0.000 to 1.000 at the right moment. You can also "drive" this Shape Key with a bone or other object.


Parent object to bone latency (lag) issue I'm using Pitchipoy meta rig and have come across instances where I need to parent an object or objects to a bone - I can't be the only one. Every time I do I get a latency issue where the child will lag behind the transform of the parenting bone which gives and undesired deform result.

This occurs when I use my mouse scroll wheel to scrub through the timeline. It also renders like this. It also shows when I scrub the timeline and prior to releasing the mouse button and once I do release the child snaps to the desired location.

What is the proper method for parenting objects to a Pitchipoy rig?

I'm thinking that there may be a hack where I can take advantage of parse order to cause the child to snap to its intended transform, like it does with the mouse button release, that I can do prior to rendering.

v2.76

I searched the bug report and the file you provided there. There is indeed a dependency cycle on object level - it prints out into the system console:

The culprit is that the empty is parented to the head. Blender checks dependency cycles on object level in old dependency graph, which is a known limitation.

To solve the issue switch to the new dependency graph by running blender with --enable-new-depsgraph command line argument. It will work there, because blender evaluates dependencies better and on bone level.


Material shading options in 3d viewport limited for Curve objects? Render Engine set to Cycles.

For Meshes their diffuse colour is shown in 3d viewport when the Viewport Shading mode is set to Material. Curves do not do this, is there any way to turn this on for Curve objects too? For example below, the silver-grey tubes are Curves and I'd expect them to show the diffuse of the materials assigned to them (black, orange, and blue).

Viewport Shading: Materials

Renders like this, this is OK, and so is live Viewport rendering:

The problem is Curves aren't showing their colour, instead a default grey. It doesn't matter which cycles shader-type is used.

EDIT

This appears to be fixed in recent builds,

original

I use Nodes for materials exclusively, and wasn't aware there was an independent Settings panel for the Viewport shading color.

1 and 2 are independent, and unlike Objects which are Meshes, the colour isn't automatic.

Here the spheres are Mesh based Objects.

here the blend


Is there any way to replicate/recreate Levels effect in Blender Shading Nodes? I'm trying to make a normal map generator in Blender and I need to add Levels-like node. I'm using this tutorial about generating normal map from four pictures (https://dreamlight.com/how-to-create-normal-maps-from-photographs/#Photoshop - Create the Normal Map Layers header) and I'm stuck in a step where I must put Levels to 128-255 range on a Top-Right layer.
Is there any way to reinvent Levels node in Blender Shading Nodes (Shading card)?

Images:
My node tree

Results (TOP, looks okay) and normalmap preview

Results from Left-Bottom corner, looks bad!

You can get the same functionality with the Color Ramp node.

Add > Converter > Color Ramp

And because the Color Ramp node uses 0-1 value range, just multiply your value by 1 / 255.
Like this:

You can technically also do this with RGB curves, they're just a different tool for doing the same thing.


2 x 1080Ti vs 1 x 2080Ti. So much difference? This is my first post and new to blender, was following Blenderguru’s tutorial. I noticed that his quality in viewport rendered mode, is far superior than mine. Sharp shadows and the highlights are very close to final render, mine is just grainy. Andrew’s gpu : 1080Ti x 2, my gpu : 1 x 2080Ti.

Any thoughts guys?

What am I missing? i.e. missing gpu, add-on, tweak settings?

Appreciate

The reason why his viewport rendered preview mode is so much closer to the final result is that BlenderGuru has set his Viewport Sampling to be much higher. Higher samples means less noise and lighting artifacts. Since he essentially has twice the computing power, he can afford to crank up the samples in the viewport much higher without dealing with too much lag.

You could probably also increase yours since you still have a 2080ti. In the second screenshot on the right-hand side, under Sampling, increase the value next to Viewport. Turn it up as high as you like, just take care not to crank it up so high such that the preview becomes too laggy.