Troubleshooting when Addons don't show up There are often times when I install an addon (place the file/folder into my blender/2.XX/scripts/addons folder) and then it simply does not show up in the addons list within blender, so cannot be activated. Installing it from a file places it in the blender scripts folder in my app data folder (windows 7), but they still don't show up. These are addons that I know work for others, as I see them install them in tutorial videos or the like (.py, not patches or anything.)

So far, I have checked to make sure I am not filtering them out with the Support level filters.

What causes an addon to not be seen by the program, and what further troubleshooting steps I can take to get these working?

Addon which name (or folder name) contains  . (dot) cannot be loaded in Add-ons list. See this bug report.

Take list below for example:

Lens0.3 cannot be seen in Blender's Add-ons tab. And MultiEdit2.5.py cannot be sucessfully enabled even though it can be found in the list.

Solution would be to manually remove dots or replace with other valid characters.


how can I benefit from blender python API documentation? I'm a beginner at python language. I browsed the blender python API documentation, I didn't understand how to use it or benefit from it to know more about blender functions and classes. For example: I learned from a tutorial that this function is used to link an object to a collection:

bpy.context.collection.objects.link(obj)

How do I use the documentation to know more details about this function, for example, how to link the object to a specific collection?

The most common way or method to know how to use it is actually try it. Thanks for the Python interactive console, we can do that easily with auto-complete (Tab). And for most of the function, it will provide some basic information defined in function itself (basically a tooltip). Which will showed at autocomplete phase:

And for the rest of it, you might need to try it yourself to know how these collection, object, mesh, vector are stored(and link) in Blender. The you can roughly guess how you link a new object to a specified collection, by experience.

Also, there is some code snippet for handy function in Blender Manual as well. You might find something that you want or some workaround solution. Then you follow those code to help you complete your task.

Yes, it will be very frustrate to learn the structure in Blender and all other application. And if you are not familiar in "Python Class", you really should to learn about it at first. It should help you to understand Blender Python in every aspect.


Why can't I see my object when I switch to object mode? I have work in my project from the edit mode and after I am done ، when i want to go to object mode i can't see the the model i have work on it ... what is the problem !?

Delete the Mask Modifier. The Mask Modifier essentially hides the mesh apart for the parts that can be set using a Vertex Group which is done in Weight Paint Mode. This is very helpful when working with a very complex mesh.


Blender Logic Source I've been working on my own python library to assist in usage of UPBGE (importable player setups, auto-split screen, handling input in a more natural way, some procedurally generated objects etc), but to optimise it so things only update once per tick, I have ended up requiring a tick counter.

So far, I've been using an always sensor connected to a script that adds "bge.logic.tick_no" to the mix, so you can access it from anywhere else easily. I know it should be using "bge.logic.globalDict" instead of going straight to bge.logic, but I wanted it to feel like it was part of the engine as opposed to something strapped onto the side of it.

I was wondering if there was a way for me to edit the source code to have blender just add a tick to the overall tick number each time it ticks. I know C++, but cannot really make sense of what does what, or where it should go in the source code of UPBGE, even with the help of the documentation. No clue where anything running in the mainloop would be.

Any chance someone could provide some pointers?

Without using a script, you can create a tick count property and use the property actuator to increment it each frame. With the always sensor you can set the frequency (now called skip) to trigger the update every frame, or two frames...

If you place that in a common object that is always in the game, such as the ground, when you want to know the tick count in a script you can get the ground object from the scene.

scn = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
grnd = scn['ground']
tick_count = grnd['ticker']

For forking your own version of blender, you will find the main loop at the bottom of wm.c. You can add a property to the GameData struct in DNA_scene_types.h, then add it in rna_scene.c to access it via python. Note that changes to any structs need to maintain a multiple of eight bytes in length for alignment, builds will fail if you don't get it right, and moving any existing properties will break reading blend files. It has been a while since I looked at this so I may be missing a change needed, start here for info about changing the data structures.


Display list with custom items in panel I want to display a list of values in a panel, as either a list box or dropdown box. The list should contain the names of custom float data layers for vertices of the active mesh object.

The vertex colors list in the Mesh buttons uses UILayout.template_list, but how can I get it to show arbitrary (non-color) custom data layers? I guess I'm looking for something like:

The API to access the custom data as a list that UILayout.template_list can understand, or
A way to populate a UI list with custom items.

Try using bpy.props.EnumProperty. Its items argument accepts a list, or a function that generates it from context data. For example, I could feed this function:

def get_enum_items(self, context):
    obj = context.active_object
    groups = obj.users_group
    group_names = [g.name for g in groups]
    return [(gn, gn, 'Instance group "%s"'%gn) for gn in group_names]

as item list generator to this property:

group = bpy.props.EnumProperty(
    name = "Group", items = get_enum_items,
    description = "Group to instance.")

so it will construct a list of groups the active object is contained in, on the fly (full code here). I think you can use this method for any named custom data.


I thought you should never use triangles? I was curious on looking to how does an anime topology look like. I've looked into pictures and videos and I thought the best way to learn took into it is to see it for myself. So I used ninja ripper to rip a model from Fate/EXTELLA (cause it's the only game in my machine for now). Her name is Tamamo:  Why does it have triangles here? I thought we should only use Quads?

Almost undoubtedly the mesh would have been modeled using quads since it is better to work with. However, any mesh is actually converted to triangles at the lowest level for rendering. By ripping the model out of the game you are picking up the mesh in a form that has already been optimised for maximum efficiency in the game - ie, already converted to tris so the game engine does not have to deal with the more complicated quad-based geometry.


How to Created Stylized Grainy Cel Shading How can I accomplish this look here in this video, including changing the color of cast shadows and adding a gradient noise texture?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SHNsKjnAgs

Shader to RGB node

Start by creating a bump map from a 3D noise like the following:

Feed a shader with strong specularity with the bump map. Then use the shader to rgb node to extract the color info of the surface. Use a color ramp node to tint the shadow, the midtones and the highlites.


Buffer property changes / shadow properties / restore properties I'm writing an Add-on which imports high resolution parameterized plant models. I create Panel which presents the configurable parameters.

Because changing the plant model is expensive, I want to buffer or shadow changes to the property and have the user press an "Update" button/operator (not shown). If they don't press the button, I need to revert the changes to the properties. so they are correct the next time the plant is selected.

I've tried creating a temporary set of the same properties, but I keep running into the limitation of the draw() (and poll()) context being prevented from modifying ID properties - so I can't create the copy.

I suspect I'm missing something obvious as this can't be all that uncommon. How can I save off the state of active object property group prior to draw() and restore when no longer active if the user doesn't commit the changes via an update operator?

For example, in the screenshot above, the user might change the Season from Summer to Fall, and then change their mind, deselect the plant, the panel disappears. When they select the plant again, the Season should display Summer, not Fall.

What is working for me now is adding the property group to the object type twice as my_props and my_props_shadow. The UI works with my_props_shadow. A reset operator copies my_props back to my_props_shadow. These seems clunky and I feel like I'm unnecessarily polluting the object namespace - but I haven't found something better yet.


Blender Add-on: Import-Export Three.JS doesn't activate I added the io_three folder from three.js to Blender's add-ons.

When I go to Blender user preferences, the three.js addon appears, but it prevents me from activating it.
The warning says "importer not included."

^ Report inside warning panel.

The warning on the UI

is only telling you this is an Exporter add-on only. "Importer not included". Everyone using that version of the add-on will see that warning. It's not an error, if you look at the files in the three.js  repository (blender/addons/io_three)  you'll see that there's only an Exporter.

As for the report in the Warning panel, that's different.


Embossing an edge-loop This question follows from Constructing and bevelling a pie-slice

I'm trying to bring definition to the top edge of a solid geometric object.

EDIT: I'm trying to achieve something like this:

... The important thing is that the edge is clearly defined, rather than exactly how it looks. So I'm interested in any technique for doing this. I'm focusing on this one because it's the only one I currently know how to do.

First I go into edit mode, edge-select, CTRL+RightClick to select an edgeloop, and create a vertex group:

Then I attempt to apply wireframe modifier:

As you can see, it doesn't work.
However, if I try the same technique on a cube, it does work. (I've included the cube in the picture, although it isn't the best screenshot, sorry about that).

How to get this effect working?

And is there any other technique to bring the edges out? Could I somehow extrude a square/hexagon through that entire edge loop?

Someone on IRC suggested bézier + Bevel-object. I like the sound of this, but would I have to first create the curve, and then independently create an object for the border using bevel object, and then create the actual solid object by extruding the curve downwards?

One way to do this is by beveling, then extruding:

What I did in the gif:

Enter edit mode (Tab)

Enter face select mode (CtrlTab> Face)

Select a face on the surface that I want to select, then press CtrlShiftAltF to select the entire surface.

3D view > Header > Select > Select Boundary loop:

Bevel (CtrlB)

Extrude and cancel transform (EEsc) See this question for details on what pressing Esc does.

Press AltS to scale along the normals.


How to make edge loops parallel / equidistant? I'm modeling a ship, which has a sheer (a curvature in the deck, fore to aft,) and I'm trying to make the top of the deckhouses parallel with the deck itself. The bottom edges do go along the sheer/curve. I'd delete the top faces and just extrude along the Z-Axis, but I have features on the top faces that I don't want to lose. Any ideas?

You can achieve a reasonable accuracy with the Shrinkwrap modifier.

Make a reference surface of  a duplicate of the entire deck: no holes, you will probably need to give it a Subdivision Surface modifier (probably Simple) to make it a high-enough resolution target for projection of the deckhouse roof.
Make a vertex group of those vertices of the deckhouse you wish to conform to the reference surface
Assign a Shrinkwrap Modifier to the deckhouse, restricted to the vertex group

move the reference surface in Z until the deckhouse roof is the distance above the deck you require.

Before:

After:

The exact lengths in the result will depend on the resolutions of the source and target meshes, and the projection method in the shrinkwrap.

Depending on how you've made your model so far, you may be able to use the bottom surface of your deckhouse as a reference surface, without subdivision - in that case you could project to 'Nearest Vertex' and have a point-to point correspondence.


Read the filename from imported SVG via python I try to import a SVG file into Blender, edit the imported curves dependent on the filename of the SVG and export it after that via Python script.

For example:
Importing the first file from a folder named "File_S10.svg" and scale curve by 10 (according to the part "S10" from the file name).

So the question: Is it possible to read the names of a couple of imported SVG files via script?

Any help would be appreciated.

Using a python script you can specify the svg file to import. After the import you can identify the curves added and adjust their names and properties to match the filename used.

As importing an svg file can create multiple curve objects I would start by making a copy of the existing objects list, then import, then compare the current objects list to the starting list to find what was added during the import.

import bpy
import os

svg_files = [f for f in os.listdir('svgtest') if f.endswith('.svg')]

for f in svg_files:
    start_objs = bpy.data.objects[:]
    bpy.ops.import_curve.svg(filepath=os.path.join('svgtest',f))
    new_curves = [o for o in bpy.data.objects if o not in start_objs]

    n = f[:-8] # the start of the filename
    s = float(f[-6:-4]) # the scale factor as in the 99 from name_S99.svg
    for obj in new_curves:
        obj.name = n
        obj.scale = (s,s,s)


Blender model is not correct in unity i am having a problem in unity that after importing assets from blender to it. the assets are looking not correct.
View in blender:

View in unity:

pls help!

In Unity to save processing power the model does not render both sides of a face, the problem is you have accidentally set the face normals the wrong way, thankfully it's easy to fix.
In Blender, select the object you need to fix and open edit mode, press a to select all and then press Option+N for Mac or Alt+N for PC. Then just select either flip normals or Recalculate outside. If you want to check if the normals are the right way without putting it into Unity you can set Backface culling to true in the materials settings window.
For example:


Distorted line in mesh [Object Mode] I have done some sculpting on the mesh (things looked all right) then when I switched to Object mode, I saw some weird lines pointing out from the mesh.

What is causing these (as I see them often) and what are the solutions for these?

There are duplicate vertices where these lines appear. For Multiresolution this is a problem. Afaik you will have to correct these spots by hand after removing the doubles.
You can see them more clearly in Editmode after pressing Apply Base.


No Preview in the Preview Sequencer View (just white on black) I am a new user and I just installed Blender 2.76b on a Lenovo R500, OS Windows XP Pro. I intend to use it mostly for (short) video editing.
I could load, hear audio, cut and animate video correctly, but the preview is in a white square on a black background.

When I initialize Blender, I got the following output:

"AL lib: <EE> ALCdsoundPLayback_reset: Unknown system speaker config:0x0
Warning! Using result of ChoosePixelFormat."

and at the start this alert:

"Your system does not use 3D hardware acceleration.
Such system can cause stability problems in Blender and they are unsupported.
This may cause by:
* A missing or faulty graphics driver installation.
  Blender needs a graphic card driver to work correctly.
* Accessing Blender through a remote connession
* Using Blender through a virtual machine"

Cases two and three are not mine. Do I need any special driver for my graphics card (ATI Mobility Radeaon HD 3400 Series) to use Blender? Does it have anything to do with seeing no preview?

I already had a graphics cards driver problem with Blender. The developers helped me out to find out whether the problem is one with the driver.

You should use the opengl32.dll from http://download.blender.org/ftp/sergey/softwaregl/ and place it next to blender.exe as described by sergey to find out if the problem is your driver. Beware, that Blender might be very slow while using this wrapper dll as everything is done on CPU only without using your graphics card.

But in your case it should be enough to simply install a current Driver

either from AMD/ATI
or better directly from Lenovo, selecting Display and Video Graphics as your Component on this site and then choosing your OS, this will lead you to the drivers download page directly where your Graphics card is listed as well.


How can I select and move only one primitive? I have a model which currently consists of two basic primitives.  I want to select and move only one of the shapes, but while in object mode it seems to be treating them as one object.  Must I switch to edit mode and select every vertex of the one primitive or is there an easier way?

Edit:  I should note that my end goal is to carve one shape by doing a boolean difference between the two.

If you have joined 2 objects then you will need to access each one of them by going to Edit Mode

Once you are in Edit Mode, hover your mouse over the primitive you want to select and press L.

You will be able to select a single primitive of your choice.


Scalp's hair is NOT affected by "wind" forcefield effector but cube primitive IS I am trying to move my hair using a wind forcefield object.
It does not have any effect.

However, when I create a new cube mesh and attach identical hair to that and place it within the same wind effector, the cube's hair is effected.

What am I doing wrong?

Please see my blend file for a simple recreation of the problem.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Aha, very simple solution.

The forcefield must exist on the same layer as the particle system under the object data tab to be affected.

Use shift+left click to add multiple layers to the wind forcefield.
See picture attached.


No Grease Pencil Option Showing (at all) I've decided to learn Grease Pencil for 2D animation in Blender, however the option for Grease Pencil isn't showing up at all.

I've downloaded 2.79 for Mac (as screen capped) so I don't know what I'm doing wrong, is there something else I need to download to get it to work?

Any help is greatly appreciated, Thanks!

Gemma

You are looking in the wrong place.

in 2.79 the controls for grease pencil are on the tools and properties window.


How to center the view on the "Time Cursor" in the Video Sequence Editor? I have three markers in the timeline, and I am working in one of these three areas in the sequencer around the 3rd mark:

I try to use the first marker in the timeline, so that the sequencer jumps to that position without having to zoom out in the sequencer and look for that 1st mark manually and then zoom in  around it.

There is a menu entry 'jump to the previous marker', but then only the time cursor (green line) jumps and gets out of sight, but the sequencer keeps showing the same area I was working in.

Is there a way to tell the sequencer to pan to the area where the green line is? I want the whole view to jump to where the previous marker is, and not only the green line.

You're looking for "Jump to the next marker" function in the Marker menu (of any animation Editor). You can assign a shortcut to it by right clicking on it.

Once the Current frame (the green line) is on the desired marker, you can use Numpad 0 to center the view on it.


Lighting Glitch when adding Divisions I am having an issue when adding divisions, either through loop cut tool or subdividing, that creates visual glitching. I have smooth shading turned on, and edges marked as sharp. This is not happening on a version of the model with Ngons, which I am cleaning up to be in quads.

Object Data Properties > Geometry Data > Add Custom Split Normals


Save a soft body animation i'm pretty new to blender so i'd like to know if it's possible to save an animation of a ball bouncing on a plane made with the soft body modifier. when save the animation in nla editor the ball remain still at the origin.
And if i press apply modifier it freeze the ball in just one position. thank you for the attention, goodbye

The "blender game" mode (game engine) can record animations paths for objects, even as soft bodies, but it can be a bit different from the standard "soft bodies" you get in "blender render" mode.

A basic example:

open a standard blend file (cube)
change to "blender game" mode (pick it form the upper header list)
the menu at the left of the engine selection (which you just selected) now has a "game" item: expand it and activate the "record animation" flag
now select the cube
on the right object panels, go to the physics (bouncing ball icon)
choose "soft bodies" as physics type
press P
the cube falls
when the cube has fallen enough, stop the "game", pressing ESC
the cube is back to start position
now switch the viewport to f-curve (graph editor)
you see the f-curve recorded for the fallen cube:
now change the mode to "blender render" or "cycles render" and use that recorded animation as you wish...

you may have to experiment a bit to get desired behaviour for the soft body and other objects in the scene, but the "blender game" will record everything for you!

manual reference: http://www.blender.org/manual/game_engine/physics/introduction.html#recording-to-keyframes


OSL string functions I've read about string functions in OSL lang. specification but it didn't give a clear explanation how to use them correctly.

I'm interested in void warning() and void error() functions.
Are there any examples how to use them during the working process?

Thanks for your reply!

The 'warning(...)' and 'error(...)' functions behave very similarly to the 'printf' function in that they output strings to the console output.

For example, in this answer the printf function is used to format output to the console using a command as follows :

printf("Point %f,%f,%f\n", P[0], P[1], P[2]);

This outputs the formatted string (with each %f replaced by one of the following arguments) to the console.

The warning(...) and error(...) functions work similarly except each call outputs a line formatted with the work 'WARNING' or 'ERROR' and details of where the function was called from (the shader function) similar to the following :

WARNING: Shader warning [my_shader]: Point -0.320504 -0.812141 0.157532

With the syntax being identical to 'printf' :

warning("Point %f,%f,%f\n", P[0], P[1], P[2]);


What happend to my Armature-Bones? I´m new in Blender and this is my first post and Question on this side. In Blender 2.8 I have a Problem with Armatures. When I add a simple Bone, I see the Bone, and 2 Spheres. But it is not one Element. The Root is on the 3D-Cursor, the Bone-Element shows on z-axis down. The Tipp-Shere is on the z-axis at Blenderunit 1.
How can I solve this?
Thanks for your help!
Ruppig

Do you have any screenshots. - it might just be that you're really confused, when adding a bone, you add a bone to the center of the cursor, you then move it to where you want it to be, and you then parent the bones and the mesh together.

from your description it sounds right.


Can't Unlock from Constraint Z Axis I am a very big noob at Blender. I make GFX for a game called Roblox, and I am currently working on a project to help a friend learn Blender. As shown in the picture, I was able to get the arm to bend by going to the Local Z axis, but when I was on a Windows 7 laptop, I didn't need to. The Z axis won't unlock and I am very confused.

https://gyazo.com/3a9e457e412c9996ab8b4173993577a0

It's not the windows dude, maybe just keyboard binding.
If you are trying to animate something would recommend to look if the model has bones (armature(right upper corner list)), if so check if skeleton(armature) is in Rest position,
click on Pose Position. Then just change object mode to pose mode & should be ready to go.
Cheers.


Insert a FloatVectorProperty into a customized interface Referring to this question, I am trying to build a custom interface starting from the final model "All in One". The problem is that I want to add into my interface a FloatVectorProperty. So, I inserted that into my "My Setting" class, into the "OBJECT_PT_my_panel" class and I am trying to print its values.
But when I add this FloatVectorProperty, the other parameters just disappear and the compiler says to me that "ValueError: bpy_struct "MySettings" registration error: my_vector_property could not register"

That's how I defined the vector property inside the MySetting class:

my_floatVectorProperty = FloatVectorProperty(
    description="Something",
    default=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
    min=(0.0,0.0,0.0),
    max=(100.0,100.0,100.0),
)

Is there a way to fix that so I can add a FloatVectorProperty to the panel and print its values?

According to the API, min and max are floats so the correct definition is:

my_floatVectorProperty = FloatVectorProperty(
  description="Something",
  default=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
  min=0.0,
  max=100.0
)


Using texture from substance painter (tri plannar projection)? i create texture using substance painter, then use it on blender principle BSDF, but the result so ugly different from the result on substance painter, i expect its because of the triplanar projection
any idea how to fix it?

It looks like your image texture is not mapped correctly on the surface, did you check, if your Texture matches your UVs? And add a Texture Coordinate and a Mapping node to your Material-Setup. The easiest way to do that is to use the Node-Wrangler-Addon (CTRL+T Shortcut), it should be activated by default in blender 2.8, select the Principled BSDF Node and import your maps by using the shortcut CTRL+T, the add-on should create the right Node-Setup. Then check if the texture-mapping is made by the UV-map. All the best Marco Vitale


I can't get an arrayed object to follow bezier curve I've done this hundreds of times in 2.7x but in 2.81 I just can't get it to work no matter what I've tried. Sample file attached. I have a simple object I want to array to be, say, 5 kilometers long. I have bezier curve I want it to follow.  It just doesn't work and gets twisted and distorted in weird ways. What on earth is wrong... Same scale, same origins, same orientations. What I want is to make it follow the path of the bezier curve, like a road.

https://www47.zippyshare.com/v/gs2pl6wj/file.html

There are two things that cause trouble:

1. Array orientation (little trouble)
Your array is facing the wrong way.
Just rotate it like this and set the Relative offset on the X axis.

2. Curve radius (big trouble)
The curve radius is set to 200 (waaay too high), which causes significant distortion.
Either change the curve radius to 1.
Or uncheck Radius in the curve properties.

Change curve radius to 1.
Sidebar > Item > Mean Radius

Or disable radius influence altogether
Curve > Shape > Radius (uncheck).


Editmesh: Toggle between all edge-loop boundaries when selecting? Does anyone understand what Campbell means when he describes this new tool function?

https://developer.blender.org/rB276ef3b3b5192aad5c3e5e02c69246

  Description

  Editmesh: Toggle between all edge-loop boundaries when selecting

  Now Alt+RMB,RMB will select all connected boundaries.

  There are times when you just want to select an entire boundary loop
  ignoring face topology, previously there was no way to do this.

I've tried several models with different topology and Alt-RMB, RMB does not do anything beyond what I would expect.  I also tried releasing the Alt before clicking the second time but that does what we've always come to expect.

Well anyways, if someone has some thoughts on this matter, please shed some light.

It selects connected edge loops which are not connected to anything else (boundary edges):

This only affects cases where the loop is on the edge of a non-closed part of the mesh. For example, if you try this on an extruded grid (with thickness), nothing will happen as there are no boundary edges on a manifold mesh.

It should also be noted that this doesn't seem to work with Shift.


Is there a shortcut to find an object in the outliner? I have a scene with a lot of objects which can clutter the outliner very quickly. Is there a shortcut to find the selected object? Basically, if I select an object, I would like to have a shortcut to move my outliner view to include that in the displayed portion of the outliner.

Hover over the outliner view and press Numpad .. This will move the view to show the object that is selected in the viewport. There is no shortcut if you are hovering over another region.


Possible to hide mesh/texture at a perpendicular viewing angle? Is it possible to create a mesh that becomes invisible at certain viewing angles? Id like the mesh or texture to become invisible as it approaches a perpendicular viewing angle.

Current mesh.

How it looks from certain angle.

In Cycles.

The idea is to compare view vector (from the "camera data" input node) to the normal of the faces (from "texture coordinate" input node).

If you calculate the dot product it will be low when these two previous vectors are nearly orthogonal.

So, just compare the resulting value to some threshold.

1- Each input is converted to world

2- The threshold ("greater than" or "lower than" depending on the way you want to use it after)

3- Combined with your texture transparency

Note: viewing the image in your question, you may also have an alpha values issue (it's not certain but possible)

Comparison node replaced by a colorramp. To be tuned: type of the ramp (cardinal), values of the control points.


Cycles - Material - Toon BSDF Is it possible to remove this effect from the Toon BSDF, Diffuse?

It looks like you want to remove the influence of the object on the lighting of the scene. To do this, mix the material of your object with a Transparent Shader, using a combination of the "Is Reflection Ray" and "Is Shadow Ray" outputs of a Light Path node as a Mix Factor. (Shadow Ray removes the shadow, Reflection Ray removes the light bounce - we want both, so we add them):
With Shadows and Light Bounces:

Shadows and Light Bounces removed:


Problem: Armature deforms mesh opposite of bone positions I have a character made of 5 different parts, each with 5 different meshes and armatures (one for each limb and one for the head and torso). All armatures have been parented to the 5 meshes with automatic weights.

3 of the armatures work properly.

The other 2 act differently.

Wherever the bones are placed, the mesh deforms in the opposite way. I've tried recalculating the normals on the mesh, as well as lining up the origins of the meshes and armatures, but this problem persists. What is a possible solution?

Here's the .blend:

You needed to apply the scale. Select the affected meshes and Ctrl+A > Scale. Now tab into editmode and recalculate all the normals.

You now need to reparent the meshes to the armature


How do I change UV coordinates while the game engine is running? I'd like to do a map in a game that moves with the actor. What is the proper syntax to move uv coordinates around and have the game engine update the result?

After another search session, I found the answer here:

For a working blendfile, see the Blenderartists thread, thanks to HG1

from bge import logic # get the controller that executes the script
cont = logic.getCurrentController() # get the object that uses the controller
own = cont.owner

speed_x = 0.002 # speed by which the coordinates are moved
speed_y = 0.0   # speed by which the coordinates are moved
mesh = own.meshes[0] # access the mesh of the object in question
v_array = mesh.getVertexArrayLength(0) # how many verts are there?
for v in range(0,v_array): # go through the uv's of every vert
    vert = mesh.getVertex(0,v)
    uv = vert.getUV()
    uv[0] += speed_x # change the uv coordinates. uv[0] = x, uv[1] = y
    uv[1] += speed_y
    vert.setUV(uv) # get the game engine to notice the change!!

The name of your script belongs into the controller.


Subtract the weights of one vertex group from another I have an issue with a rig (this is my first time rigging) where it requires the subtraction of the weights of many different Vertex Groups from the head (root) vertex group to make the rig function properly.

Here is an image showing what I wish to accomplish:

The result image is an inversion of the middle image. Do keep in mind that inversion will not cut it, since I have to remove more things from the head (root) vertex group other than just the jaw itself.

Using the remove button in the vertex group tab gives me this result

This is not satisfactory, as it removes the vertices from the vertex group, but does not subtract the weight values from it.

Google has not turned up anything so far.

Normalizing solves nothing as it still causes deformation when moving parts with Children i.e. opening and closing the jaw deforms the lower lip bones.

Removing the influence of the head (root) bone will also cause irregular behavior as well since Blender treats all weights which aren't zero as one regardless of the weight assigned due to the vertices needing a weight of one.

You can use a Vertex Weight Mix modifier.
Say you have Vertex Group A :

And B :

In order to subtract B from A, add a Vertex Weight Mix set to Subtract and to effect only group A.
Result when viewing the A Group after adding the modifier :


Binding One Mesh to Another I have 3 meshes: female feet, male feet (a shape key to female) and shoes.
When I morph the first mesh into the second, I need the third to follow. Binding shoes to female feet with Mesh deform is not an option since  the former are bigger than the later and are not being fully affected.
Is there a way of achieving it without scaling the shoes or feet?

Perhaps a shrinkwrap modifier on the shoe? But to be honest this might be a slightly more complex setup.

Some others ideas:
Use a driver linking shapekey influence to a shapekey on the shoe.
Use shrinkwrap but with a simpler mesh, that in return influence the high res shoe through a mesh deform.

Got to see your file for more help.


Hair dynamics sends particles flying when mesh moves I'm trying to use dynamic hair for an animation, but every time I turn it on, the hair warps, then "explodes" when the mesh is moved. It doesn't get any better when I try to bake the dynamics into the system. I'm completely at a loss as to what could be the cause. Any and all help will be much appreciated. I've attached the .blend file, in case anyone wanted to tinker with it.
Edit: I've updated the blend file to better showcase the problem, as I've removed the armature entirely, and the problem is still there.

Make sure the armature is above the particle system in the modifier panel
And go back to the frame where you begin caching
Or bake the hair dynamics


How to extrude from hexagon but keep edge lines straight See the picture. I extruded the area in the foreground, and then moved the vertex in the bottom left so that to make it just extends the line of the original hexagon, indicated by the red line.
But I don't want to do it by using my "eye", isn't there a way to adjust the vertex so it´s always on the red line?
I can´t seem to achieve this.

you can use cursor for this
1-put it in center of hexagon (select 2 points and shift+S cursor to selected) and change transform pivot point to cursor
2-hit E to extrude then press S scale in towards the center(extrusion does transformation too so by pressing s or clicking, it just make the edge without moving it)
3-again use cursor and rotate 180 degrees along y axis that face you just made
4-GG to edge slide and adjust how far you want to go along red line you mentioned


Accessing Vector Pass Data in python in background mode Background: We are building an automated pipeline to extract motion (i.e. vector pass output) from animated blends by running scripts using blender's python API. We are able to programmatically set up nodes and run rendering. We need access to full precision x,y motion components, and the only way we found of accessing that was via bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels. This gives correct output when running with GUI.

Problem: We need to run blender in background mode on many examples, and in background mode bpy.data.images['Viewer Node'].pixels has a) wrong resolution (does not respect scene.render.resolution_x), b) wrong info (everything is zero).

Existing solutions: We know that it is possible to modify blender source code to fix this, but we want to open source our pipeline, and creating a custom blender build to run it might be too much of an impediment for people. We'd like to make this work with a standard blender version.

Questions:

Is it possible to access vector pass data in some other way, without using the Viewer Node, so that rendering can be done in the background?
Or, is there a way to force Viewer Node to output correct data in background mode?

In the end the solution was to use multilayer EXR output by constructing a simple node graph automatically in python (Blender 2.78).

bpy.context.scene.use_nodes = True
bpy.context.scene.render.layers[0].use_pass_combined = True
bpy.context.scene.render.layers[0].use_pass_vector = True

tree = bpy.context.scene.node_tree
rl = tree.nodes.new('CompositorNodeRLayers')
rl.location = 0, 200

output = tree.nodes.new('CompositorNodeOutputFile')
output.location = 200, 200
output.format.file_format = 'OPEN_EXR_MULTILAYER'
output.base_path = output_folder

links = tree.links
links.new(rl.outputs['Speed'], output.inputs[0])


How to creata a text input field in BGE I am building a system which takes user input from keyboard and does some animation. Couldn't find a tutorial explaining how to create something like that.

This requires you to be comfortable with Python, but you could use the BGUI: https://github.com/Moguri/bgui

There is an example file that comes with the download that can help you get started.


Can I blur images "the other way? In the compositor node editor, I have an image node -> a blur node (Gaussian, X=100, Y=100) -> composite node.
The unblurred image looks like this (There is a black square on a white background and a white square on a black background):

The blurred image looks like this:

Notice how in the blurred image, the white square is bigger than the black square. Is there a way I can blur the image "The other way" so that the white square is smaller than the black square?

With a little encouragement from @Rich Sedman, copied from comment:
The white square looks bigger, because of the conversion after compositing to sRGB for your display device. Arithmetically, inside the compositor, the squares are the same size. If you go to Color Management and switch the View Transform to 'Raw', you can see that.
You could use gamma correction after blurring in the compositor, to change that, but you would have to be be aware, that were you to use the squares for masking or suchlike, that part of the pipeline would become non-linear.


How to set object's rotation from python? I have more than 100 objects and I want them to point in a particular direction depending on their position. To move them to a particular position, I used:

bpy.context.scene.objects[""].location.xyz = ...

Is there similar command for setting the angle of rotation for an object?
I am working in a crossroad with two lanes. The position of the cars are taken as input. So according to their coordinates  they are placed on the road, pointing in the direction they need to. The track to constraint is not applying the correct direction to all of them. I checked my if condition. Some of the objects are getting hidden unnecessarily.

Here's how to set Euler rotation.
First: from mathutils import Euler
Then: obj.rotation_euler = Euler((0.3, 0.3, 0.4), 'XYZ')
If all the other track_to options are overkill. For more attribute references see the Object documentation


How to Add Render Slots in Blender? I heard somewhere that it's possible to determine the number of render slots available in 2.8 but I can't seem to find the option to change it from 8....

This is done uder the Image tab in the Side Bar of the Render View / Image Editor


How to set up shader materials with main node Principal BSDF I have issue with exporting shaders on blender model. I need to export model with shaders in GLTF . The problem is that shader materials are not exporting - only the main color of Principal BSDF node. I've got an idea from google answers, that shader materials can be exported in GLTF only if the main node will be Pricipal BSDF, that is going directly though material output node. But now i have shader mixer, that goes though material output. Is there any way to change order and plug all shaders to Principal BSDF, that will be plugged directly in material output?

The glTF format has a different material model from Blender, and does not support arbitrary nodes.  It uses a principled PBR model powered by textures and uniforms.
For some materials, it's possible to use the Blender Cycles "Bake" panel to render a complex node graph to a texture atlas.  This allows such a material to be used even on lighter-weight mobile rendering clients that wouldn't normally support arbitrarily large numbers of shading nodes.
For complete usage instructions, see the Blender Manual on glTF.


Convex or concave hull, depending on quad or non quad, why this behavior? Related to this question, I've tried to understand how triangles are interpreted in Blender.

Doing these experiments, the result is a bit surprising and I'd want to know why.

Starting from a quad, I obtain this (see gif below): kind of convex hull is calculated and the faces are overlapping only for first and third vertex in fan point of view:

But if we test that for a polygon with more than 4 vertices, it does not happen anymore:

Surely, I've not tested it for all configurations (all vertex amount), but it seems to be a rule.

Why? And, by the way, how this behavior has a link to my original question?

In hope the title of this new question is good enough, this time, thanks for any information.

I showed a similar example to your first before. The quad is always cut from vert 0 to vert 3, while n-gons are triangulated using a better algorithm, possibly because the possibility of concave faces is more likely.

You will also find that an n-gon is triangulated dynamically as you alter it.

I expect the tri/quad drawing code was left alone when n-gon support was added. Maybe it could be suggested that the work being done for 2.80 could include the use of same drawing algorithm for all faces.


Blender won't install correctly on one of my computers I have two computers and have never had any problems with installing Blender, but now one of my hard disks crashed so I bought a new one.

I installed Windows 7, 64 Bit on it and some programs, but when I tried to install Blender, it installed it, but there seems to be something missing. The install wizzard said Blender requires 0 Kb of space and in the start menu there is no uninstall Blender. Furthermore, there is nothing in my AppData/Roaming....

When I try to open Blender, it just flashes the command console and then the grey screen flashes and then it's gone. This happened with 2.77a, so I tried 2.67b, which works fine on my other computer, but it had the same problem.

My other computer is older and I can't install 2.77 on it (no OpenGl 2.1).
I tried the MSI and the Zip file, but that makes no difference.

Any ideas?
Thanks.

Have you installed the necessary MSVC Redistributable packages after installing Windows?

I am not sure but you may need a few different ones from across the years to run Blender. Try at least the newest one

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2977003


NLA and animation properties I am watching a tuto on NLA doing on blender 2.66. I have the 2.72 version. I can not found the complete  properties  of animation in the NLA window (image2) as in the 2.66 version (image1).

Click the pushdown action button (icon with the double down arrows):

After that the Action Strip settings become available in the Properties

This is documented in the Docs Creating Action Strips


Moving vertices in global coordinates I need to move vertices along axis Z GLOBAL but I don't find how to do it. I've tried this:

ob = bpy.data.objects["object1"] #the vertices belong to object1
mat = ob.matrix_world
matloc = ob.matrix_local
for i in range( 0, len(poligonos) ):
    v = mesh.getVertex(0, poligonos[i]) #poligonos is an array where I store the index of each vertex that I want to move
    glo = mat * v.XYZ
    glo.x = glo.x
    glo.y = glo.y
    glo.z = glo.z - 0.1
    aux = matloc * glo
    v.setXYZ([aux.x, aux.y, aux.z])

But this code moves my vertices to weird locations and what I need is the vertices go down in 0.1

Worked for me:

import bpy

obj  = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
mesh = obj.data
vert = mesh.vertices[0]
mat_world = obj.matrix_world

pos_world = mat_world * vert.co
pos_world.z += 0.1
vert.co = mat_world.inverted() * pos_world

If you're editing a lot of vertices then you might want to compose the matrix:

from mathutils import Vector, Matrix

vec = Vector((0.0, 0.0, 0.1))
mat_edit = mat_world.inverted() * Matrix.Translate(vec) * mat_world

vert.co = mat_edit * vert.co


suddenly sound got out of sync I was making a animation that I made synced up to a MP3 file. It synced up perfectly, but then when i improved the frame rate, the sync was 2 seconds off. how did that happen!? can I still fix this in video editing after I render my video then import it to the video editing?

If you set the project frame rate at a given value like 24fps, then add the audio, the sound will be one fixed duration. Then if you alter the frame rate the sound will stretch to fit, however your animation will remain locked at specific frames.

So if you add a keyframe at frame 100 it will always rain at frame 100 even if you change the frame rate.

For example you might have an animation created at 24 fps, then you might want to change frame rate when you add some video that is 30 fps. Now the audio will stretch to match the new frame rate but the animation that you created will not.


What are the differences between an environment node and a image node? Are there any differences between the cycles Environment texture node and the Image texture node besides the available projections?

Looking at the definitions for the Image Texture node and for the Environment Texture node, the only difference I note is the available projections. As you noted, Environment Texture offers Equirectangular and Mirror Ball, whereas Image Texture offers Flat and Box.

Some things both have in common are that both will unpremultiply the alpha data, and both will convert sRGB to scene-linear color space. Other than that (and the complications of the Box projection), the files are basically identical.


Execute function on object selection I am using only objects from photogrammetry and the scale is far from ok when I import them. I would like to be able to scale it automatically on selection if its mesh volume is lower than a precise value.

I tried to do this like below :

def setup_handler():
   for h in [x for x in bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre]:
       if h == scale_function:
           bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre.remove( scale_function )

   bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre.append( scale_function )

def scale_function():
    if bpy.types.Object.test != scn.objects.active.name :
        bpy.types.Object.test = scn.objects.active.name
        if bpy.context.mode == 'OBJECT':
            volume = volumeDeterminationFunction()
            if volume <= 1 :
                scale=3
                bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(scale,) * 3, mirror=False, proportional='DISABLED', snap=False, texture_space=False)

I call setup_handler function in a draw function class, but it doesn't work, maybe I should call the function elsewhere ? if you have any idea ? Thanks

Use the import operator in another.

As commented, rather than importing, then waiting for object selection to rescale, recommend rescaling on import.

Here is script that uses the template  Text Editor > Templates > Python > Operator Import as a starting point.

Note I am using 2.8. If you are using 2.7x or before, adjust to reflect that version accordingly.  Most notably annotations. where the annotation foo : BarProperty() needs to be replaced with assignment foo = BarProperty()

Assumes you are doing little else than choosing a filename of obj, and when selected passes it to the import operator.

After import the new objects are selected, and in the context.selected_objects list.

Following test script prints out name and a volume based on object dimensions.

import bpy

def read_some_data(context, filepath):

    bpy.ops.import_scene.obj(filepath=filepath)
    for o in context.selected_objects:

        dim = o.dimensions
        vol = dim.x * dim.y * dim.z
        print(o.name, vol)
        # scale based on volume
        if vol < 1:
            o.scale *= 2

    return {'FINISHED'}

from bpy_extras.io_utils import ImportHelper
from bpy.props import StringProperty, BoolProperty, EnumProperty
from bpy.types import Operator

class ImportSomeData(Operator, ImportHelper):
    """This appears in the tooltip of the operator and in the generated docs"""
    bl_idname = "import_test.some_data"
    bl_label = "Import Some Data"

    filename_ext = ".obj"

    filter_glob: StringProperty(
        default="*.obj",
        options={'HIDDEN'},
        maxlen=255,  # Max internal buffer length, longer would be clamped.
    )

    def execute(self, context):
        return read_some_data(context, self.filepath)

# Only needed if you want to add into a dynamic menu
def menu_func_import(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(ImportSomeData.bl_idname, text="Text Import Operator")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ImportSomeData)
    bpy.types.TOPBAR_MT_file_import.append(menu_func_import)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ImportSomeData)
    bpy.types.TOPBAR_MT_file_import.remove(menu_func_import)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.import_test.some_data('INVOKE_DEFAULT')


I imported a DXF and now I can't add meshes? I'm new to blender but I worked through a number of tutorials on how to build and edit meshes.

I imported a DXF that I want to use as a starting point and now the standard Shift-A menu that normally presents me with mesh options has changed to just present options for curves (shown below).

I've probably changed modes somehow, I want to switch back to whatever mode allows me to add meshes.

How can I add a mesh?

Looks like you're in edit mode where SHIFT+A opens the curve menu when you're editing a curve object. Just press TAB to return to object mode or select it from the dropdown.

In Blender 2.7x

In Blender 2.8


Blender 2.80 fix normals after boolean Hello, I am looking for help in solving my problem, I used Boolean for my tire, the result is visible in the picture, I have been doing the tire 5 times and I have the same effect all the time, please help:(

I use after boolean:
-autosmooth
-cleanup losses
-triangles
-quads
-copy normal to selected from stock tube object
-shade smooth

Your topology is bad, you have a lot of ngons, you need quads. What you could do is correct your object this way:

Apply the rotation of your object. Only keep a section, delete the rest:

Create an empty at the origin of your object:

Give your object an Array modifier with the empty as Offset Object. Enable Merge and First Last options:

Rotate your object so that it makes a complete circle:

Correct your topology with the knife or with some joins so that it is made of nice quads, create some bevels, etc (here just the beginning before my computer crashed):


It is possible to use painting layers just like in photoshop? I'm a noob at texturing, and was wondering if is possible to use multiple layers to have better control.

You can use a layer stack for texture painting if you've got the render engine set to Blender Internal, but there are plenty of caveats to be aware of and it's perhaps not as comparable to Photoshop as you might like, although it is workable.

First, set up your interface like this:

Stuff in brackets are knobs that need to be turned or fiddled with to have things working correctly. The UV/Image Editor should be set to Paint mode in the bottom bar, the viewport shading mode in the 3D View should be set to Material in the bottom bar, you should have the T panel open in the 3D View and set to the Tools tab, and you should have the Properties editor on the Textures tab, and then the Material Textures tab below that.

You can add layers in area 3 and change their blending modes. To "solo" a texture on the model, set the slot painting mode to Image and switch the 3D View view mode to Texture, then pick the layer of choice from the list. (The 3D View must be set to Multitexture in the N panel for this to work correctly.) Additionally, there's a button to save all of the layers that have changes, but that button will fail unless you've already saved out each new layer to your disk somewhere. Use area 4 to do that (and save them somewhere where you can remember where you put them) before using the Save All Images button or you'll get an error.

In area 1 you can reorder the layers with the up and down buttons, and delete the layers with the X button on the texture datablock just below.

In area 2 you can adjust the opacity of the layers. I recommend dragging this section of the properties up to the top using the little handle with eight dots on the upper right hand corner of each section.

I recommend using the baker to merge layers together. Make a new image and set it as the active image (easiest way to do this is by changing the painting mode to Image in area 3 and making a new image.) This image will hold the merged layers. Then, in your Properties editor in area 1 enable all of the texture layers that will contribute to the merged layer and disable all of the other texture layers. Go to the render settings tab of the Properties panel (it's the leftmost tab), go down to Bake, and set the bake mode to Textures. Make sure Selected to Active is unchecked, then press Bake, wait for the bake to happen, and save out the merged layer from the UV/Image editor. Go back to the Texture Properties tab and remove the texture slots that you have enabled and replace them with a new texture slot that uses the image you baked out.

A similar method can be used to convert procedural noises to something you can paint on.

The traditional blending modes work correctly with all color channels including diffuse and specular color. They don't work with scalar channels such as specular hardness, specular intensity, diffuse intensity, alpha, and emit, which use the DVar for blending instead.

If you just want to paint diffuse textures, you can safely ignore all of this DVar stuff.

First, for scalar channels, check RGB to Intensity for the texture slot so that you can paint with the regular old brushes.

The way that the DVar works is that Blender compares the value of DVar with the value of the scalar channel in the material properties. Then, if DVar is greater than that value, the texture slot will increase the value. But if DVar is less than that value, the texture slot will decrease the value. The more difference there is between the DVar and the value in the material, the more of a difference the texture makes, and if the texture is 100% white at a texel, the value of the scalar channel will be equal to that of the DVar.

It can be confusing, so let's use alpha transparency as an example. Most alpha maps are going to have white represent 100% opacity and black represent 100% transparency. To set this up with DVar, you first put the value that black represents in the material settings, which means on the Properties for that material you would enable Z Transparency and set Alpha and Specular Transparency (aka SpecTra in a few other places) to zero. Then, you would set the DVar to the value that white represents on your texture. In this case, where the texture is white it should have an alpha of one, so you should set the DVar to one. Here's the result of this setup:

The only scalar channel that's an exception to the rule is the specular hardness channel. For specular hardness, a DVar of 1.00 maps to a specular hardness of 255 and a DVar of 0.00 maps to a specular hardness of 1. So, if you're painting a texture for, say, a Dota 2 item and you want to be able to see the specular hardness map working as it would in the Source Engine, you would need to figure out the maximum specular hardness that's going to be used in your .vmt material file, and multiply it by 4 for compatibility between Blender and Source's Phong shader. So, if I'm painting an item for Faceless Void and I want the maximum Source specular hardness to be 20, the maximum specular hardness for Blender's Phong shader would be 80. You would then divide that by 255 to get the DVar you need to accurately depict the Dota 2 shader in Blender, so in this case I'd use 80/255=0.314 for the DVar for specular hardness and then on my specular hardness map black would map to a specular hardness of 1 (which I would set in the Material properties) and white would map to a specular hardness of 80.

If you want a texture to decrease a scalar value where it's white and leave it alone where it's black, you can do that by setting the material value to 1 and the DVar to 0.


Subdivide 2 edges bug I tried subdividing 2 edges in this mesh and for some reason it kind of deformed it like this:

Welcome to Blender Stack Exchange!

In the settings at the bottom right you have Smoothness set to 2. Setting that to 0 fixes the issue.


How could i make rotating tiles animation like in this video So i've been triyng to replicate something that you can see in this new game of thrones intro starting at the 10 second mark, where the ground is made of these slabs/tiles and they rotate in this sort of nice wavy form.

I tried to play around with with different stuff in blender, but haven't been able to replicate this effect when there is hundreds of tiles.

Of course i could just animate each tile individually, but that would take ages.

You could select all the tiles that are meant to rotated and animate them all together, then offset the animations in the Graph Editor, after selecting all tiles except the first, by sliding (G, X) the start and end keys to the right, then deselect the second tile, and slide the rest of the keys to the right again, deselect the third tile, slide the keys along and so on. Still quite a bit of work, but not as bad as doing everything for each one individually.


How does the Projected (2D) mode of the Proportional Editing works? I wonder how does the Projected (2D) mode of the Proportional Editing exactly work?

I found a description somewhere on the net, which says: ''Projected (2D): Its effect won't depend on the mesh, but on the point of view which you're looking at the mesh.''. What does it mean? What is a difference between this mode and a simple proportional editing mode (which you enable using the O button)? Tried to compare them, but with no different results.

To explain it, here's an example of Connected mode. I'm pulling one vertex on the right side view of the image. Notice the effect on the left screen: it works like the standard mode for proportional editing, the vertices within the influence circle will be transformed proportionally.

On Projected 2D mode, doing the same action results in a transformation of all the vertices aligned on the view and within the circle.


Drawing/sketches in blender I'm pretty new to 3d modelling and have been working through a lot of tutorials. Something I see come up often is users importing sketches of objects such as people, the then seem to create the model around these front, top and side view sketches.

Would anyone be able to link me to a tutorial explaining this feature and its benfits, tricks, how to do it properly?

Sorry if this thread already exists. I couldn't find one

Thanks

You could follow this
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Modeling_a_Wolf_from_Guide_Images, keeping this in mind https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Background_Images

It seems suited to a beginner, to me.

My personal advice: the most precise (all views well aligned, same scale, absolutely still subject) front/side/top view you can get, the better.


How to debug why can't select NVidia card? (Cycles renderer/CUDA support) I seem to have lost ability to select NVidia (and cycles renderer engine) after some hardware fixes (changes were made to replace components with same components, so in theory there should be no difference at all) and Windows updates.
It was working long time before (I haven't had much time to play with Blender in last few months).

Note: I have seen this replay. I followed it, it still doesn't work.

I am using Windows 8.1 on a Lenovo ThinkPad.
I have two graphics cards:

They both seem to operate fine (as far as I can tell, NVidia Control Panel works fine, and Intel's one too).

I have just installed newest NVidia drivers from their website.
I have just installed newest Blender (2.76b) using msi installer.

I have tried running it explicitly through option to use NVidia graphics:

And I still can't select Cycles renderer:

And I can't select anything else than CPU for Domputing Device:

I don't get any trace in Blender's system console that would indicate any issues.
NVidia's GPU activity tool seems to pick up on Blender using its GPU:

Interestingly if I start it like above, with NVidia option, I can select different subdiv algorithms:

However if I run it selecting Intel card I get no choice:

So it does seem to make a difference which one I choose to run Blender through.

How can I debug what's wrong?

Cycles render should be available independently of which compute device is chosen, if no compatible graphics card is present it still runs regularly with the CPU.

If the Cycles render engine is not showing up it's probably because it's addon is disabled. Try Enabling it under Blender User Preferences > Add-ons > Search for Cycles.

As for using the NVidia card, right above the computing device pull down menu there should be two buttons that say None and Cuda you have to enable Cuda before Blender is able to recognize your graphics card as a computing device, I think.

Edit: Upon closer inspection of your screenshot, the CUDA button is not visible, so Blender is considering no compute capabilities are present at the moment.

You mentioned a laptop with two cards. Many of these systems use a low power (Intel) graphics card for battery saving and the High powered one for graphics heavy applications. There is usually some sort of switching system and profile manager for this sort of setting. Try activating the High performance profile or making the NVidia card the active one before running Blender, so that CUDA capabilities are present when the application starts.


Create hollow intersecting tubes I'm trying to create some hollow intersecting tubes as is hopefully clearly demonstrated in these two screenshots.

In this one, I've selected the internal parts that are hollow. Note that the holes meet in the middle; the same internal space is accessible from all three holes.

There's a Suzanne on the other side to clearly show the hole.

The problem is that I haven't found any good way of making tubes like my example above. I used five boolean modifiers, some undoing and redoing, and a lot of manual removing of geometry to get the above, and I really think there are better ways to do this... Suggestions?

In User Preferences search for the "Pipe Joints" addon and enable it.

Press ShiftA and go to Mesh > Pipe Joints > Pipe Y-Joint.

UPDATE:

Pipe Joints is now part of the Extra Objects Addon in the Add Mesh category

And can be accessed through Add>Mesh>Mechanical>Pipe Joints

You can control the shape and angle of the joint by using the tab on the left side of the 3D view.

To add some thickness use a solidify modifier.


How to disable 'only origins' So, I'm using the latest build of Blender 2.81 (November 15 2019) on Mac. There is this nifty new feature that allows origins to be manipulated freely without affecting the actually object's transform data. This is quite cool.

Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to find the toggle for it? Somehow I accidentally enabled it in my file, and cannot disable it. This is rather not ideal for animating objects.

How do I disable the "only origins" toggle?

The Options can be found in the Tool Settings header on the right-hand side. If you cannot see the Tool Settings, right click in the area where the View, Select, Add and Object menus can be found and activate Header > Show Tool Settings.


Making Multiple Loop Cuts I have a cylinder that I want to make many loop cuts in so I can reshape it. (Loops cuts are around the perimeter, i.e. rings)
I'm using Blender 2.8.
Every tutorial tells me I can add a loop cut, press Ctrl-R or PgUp/PgDn and this will allow me to multiply the number of cuts.
This does not work for me. When I press Ctrl-R the cursor changes to two short black arrows - when I slide the wheel, the one ring slides up and down the length of the cylinder. (PgUp/PgDn does nothing at all.) Haven't found any combination of keys that will allow me to multiply the loops.
(I guess, failing anything else, I can always add additional cuts manually.)

It never worked like this in Blender 2.8+ (using PGUp/PgDn to adjust loops).
But you can use the pop-up menu, it gives you better control.


Blender white screen on startup I previously had Blender installed through the windows store (which worked ok), but I uninstalled it, intending to get the Steam version and/or the 2.8 beta. I tried both, but when I open either one it just shows a terminal window, then a blank white screen. I also tried the current (2.75b) version from the Blender website, which had the same problem.

My computer is a 64 bit windows 10 laptop with an NVIDIA NVS 4200M GPU (I think).

Can anyone help me find out why this is happening?

The problem has been solved. It turns out my GPU needed a driver, but it had to be downloaded manually instead of just clicking "update driver".


Cycles Smoke render - Extremely poor performance & crashes I have a decent new build: 3700x + 2x 5700XT, 32gb ram, using 2.81.

I thought smoke rendering for a fairly simple scene would be a breeze (excuse the semi-pun) but for a render of a scene containing a small cube with volume scatter at 1080p, Blender just grinds to a halt and then crashes. The max resolution I've had a successful render at is 640x320!

This is only at 50 samples too.

(I'm using an HDRI for world lighting, plus 2 or 3 small lights dotted about)

Does anyone have any idea how to improve things in this area?

In all other aspects, my new build is blazing fast at Blender.

Thanks in advance,

Jon

OK, just for reference, I found the problem - it was the Volumes settings!

I had them at the default of Step Size: 0.1 & Max Steps: 1024

It was killing my machine at this setting.

So I changed it to Step Size: 5 & Max Steps: 16 and it's MUCH better now! Only a very small noticeable difference in smoke quality too.


Boolean Difference not working with joined mesh I want to perform a really simple boolean as shown below:

However, I get this as a result:

Rather than boolean-ing all of the cylinders, it only does it for one. I have no idea what's causing this. Can anyone take a look at my file and possibly help?

Too close vertexes is not friendly for boolean to work properly:(
The key is to avoid too close vertexes. There are two methods below.

Use individual origins to shrink all cylinders a little bit, you'll get what you need.

You can also rearrange the topology of the base part, more or less subdivision.


Make an array follow curve in the BGE I have an array of objects that I applied the curve modifier to and then the Follow Path constraint, in order that the objects would follow the shape of the curve as they moved along it.

Unfortunately, the BGE doesn't accept the curve modifier, so the objects don't take the shape of the curve and only move in a straight line. No good!

I tried baking the actions, but that doesn't work either.

I've already reviewed similar questions on this site and they don't provide an answer.

So do I have to somehow get the LocRot values for each object in the array and manually make them follow the keyframe values I got from the bake?

Most modifiers do not work in the BGE, and only a few constraints work in the BGE. The only modifiers that work are the ones that are essentially applied before the game starts (edge split, solidify, subsurf, Etc) No modifiers will update during BGE runtime. As such, any modifier that usually changes the mesh data will not work. There are only a few constraints that work in the BGE, the rigid body joint is good example of one that works (and was designed for the BGE). Instead of using a Follow Path constraint, I would recommend using an armature for this. From what I understand, you want a bunch of objects to follow a curve, kind of like a hose between two moving parts.
You can do this with a solid mesh, or multiple separate objects, but the process is the same.
Start with the scene that you want to add your hose to. In this example, I will be using this lovely crane rig that I just threw together.

It looks fine and lovely, but the cylinder needs a hydraulic hose. Lets model one. I'll use a curve to get the shape how I want it.

Now I'm going to duplicate the cures, and move the extra copy to another layer in case we need to get back to the cure. Although it is unlikely we will need them, it is a good idea to make copies of objects like curves and objects with modifiers before you apply them, as doing so is usually not reversible. I'm also going to texture the hoses and add fittings for good measure.

Now I'm going to add an armature and extrude it along where the curve was, but only in the part where we want the hose bending.

I then parent the hose mesh to the armature using automatic weights. This will make Blender estimate what parts of the mesh the bones should control. In this case it worked perfectly, because the armatures are right where we want them, in the middle of the hose, and we ant the armatures controlling the vertices right around them. You may need to go into weight paint mode and modify it slightly depending on your specific circumstance, but if you are rigging a hose, this should not be necessary.
To make sure that this worked, we can go onto pose mode on the armature and test it.

We can select the last bone in the chain and apply an Inverse Kinematics Bone Constraint.

Add an empty at the end of the last bone on the chain. I'm calling this one Hose 1 End, but it could be anything. http://awesomehackforinlinetooltip.qqq/qoinbfoibg.png Parent that empty to the cylinder.
On the Inverse Kinematics constraint, set Hose 1 End as the Target. Check the rotation checkbox.

This will make the final bone in the rig align to the empty's rotation.
Tweak the empty's rotation and position until the hose fits in the fitting.

Before we can test it, we need to add some logic on both armatures. A simple always - and - run armature is all that is needed.

Put that on both armatures.
If we test it now, the first hose should be working.

Now, we can simply repeat the process on the second hose. Add an empty at the tip of the final bone on that chain. Parent that empty to the cylinder Set an Inverse Kinematics Bone Constraint on that second armature. set the empty you just added as the target for that constraint. Check the rotation checkbox, and rotate the empty until the hose is in the right place.
If we test it now, everything should be working. (for the purposes of viewing, I have added a camera parented to an empty, with orbiting controls on the empty)

It works!! Yay!!
This process would also work for an array of objects, by simply applying the array modifier, and using the same basic string of armatures. You may want to use one armature for each object in your chain, and you may also have to use weight painting to make each bone control 100% of its corresponding object, but no other parts of the mesh. Other than that, this system will work for any sort of flexible chain, string, hose, Etc.


How to align seamless textures? I'm doing a pathway which involves a curve/corner, i can't seem to be able to texture it properly, I want it to be seamless...i just cant do it...the texture I,m using is seamless,
Things that I've tried:

1.Make single object(One straight path tile and one corner)

Result: Textures wouldn't align

2.Make it so that i would get a corner with 2 straights at the end(as shown in the pic)

3.With the model I have in the pic, I straighten the UV of the curve but it still doesn't align

I was expecting an easier way to do this or a fix...Thank you

The first and second pic is with the UV straighten and the result

Third and fourth shows the normal UV and Straighten

Your UV-Map is stretched. Your last approche is pritty close. Maybe unwrapping it in Top View with Project vom View will work in this case.


Shading problems,tris mesh with black marks in Blender I tried to do this low poly beretta that I triangulated and applied normal, roughness albedo and specular maps but in some points I get those black shades.
may it be because of an unclean construction process?
I beveled it and perhaps it was the cause but I really don't know
here the pictures I made

Renders:

Topology screenshots:

Looks like Shade Smooth is on. If that is the case, try switching the shading to Flat (Object Mode > Right Click > Shade Flat), or turn Autosmooth on (Object Data Panel > Autosmooth).


Inward extrusion is not working I am new to blender, while making a cup i was doing an inward extrusion but it is not working. I was extruding the upper face of cylinder inwards to make it hollow like a cup but instead it's extruding a solid on the other side too instead of a cut.

It's not a bug. You extruded straight down, through the sides of your cup.

Blender isn't going to stop you from doing this, as it's not a real solid cup, just mathematical points connected in a conceptual 3d space.

I'm on mobile, so an illustration I sketched out in my notes app will have to do. Imagine this is the side profile of your cup. The green arrow is how you wanted to extrude, but the red arrow is how you actually extruded.

Luckily it's easy to fix. Your extrusion was not wrong - just incomplete. The other step you have to do is scale in the face that resulted from the extrusion. Then it won't be intersecting awkwardly in a way that results in a non-manifold mesh. You can tell faces are backfaces (think: inside-out) when they're shaded darkly like that in the viewport. It's the first sign that you may have done something you didn't mean to.

Here's an illustration of what the side profile will look like after you scale it in to fix it:

You will want most 3D meshes you make to form a volume. There are a few exceptions (like leaf texture planes), but usually you want the mesh to be closed and not self-intersecting. Imagine: If it couldn't exist as a balloon (air-tight), then it doesn't have a volume.

Let's explore this concept with more sloppy drawings, shall we? Shaded all in green is the side profile of a cup that has a volume. Below that is the side profile of a cup as yours currently is, with self-intersecting faces that cannot form a volume. Marked in red are regions where backfaces will show as a result of the self-intersection.

Is it starting to make more sense now?


How to do a bezier interpolation mode animation along a path? When I parent an object to follow a path and animate it, I only get a linear mode animation and changing that in Grapth Editor to bezier doesn't work! How to do that?

When you parent an object to a curve with Follow Path to control its motion,

In the curve editor you'll be presented with a straight line for the evaluation time with no keyframes or any way to control the interpolation. To fix that press N to access the properties for the curve, look for the modifiers section and erase the generator for the curve.

Now you can manually animate the motion of the object by animating the evaluation time on the curve using keyframes, those keyframes will default to bezier interpolation.


what is mean black & white texture I download .obj modeling file on the internet
I open the 'texture' file there is a lot of black and white image.
I think black is mean that a part of a model.
Can I select only the black part of UV map or model?
I want to put on a material to the black part.

Thanks!

The map could be a roughness map, metallic, Transmission, and so.
GrayScales give you a value for drive a single parameter.

Can you post images?


Blender 2.8 cannot find libmvec.so.1 I am running CentOS 7 and I was trying to test the latest builds of Blender. However, every time I try running it, I keep getting the following error:

error while loading shared libraries: libmvec.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Looking online, I found out the libmvec is vector math library that was added in Glibc 2.22. Since the newest Glibc version in CentOS is 2.17, it made sense that I wouldn't have it. Therefore, I compiled a newer version of Glibc, installed it in a location different from the main one, and added the new path to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. However, I still get the same error. It is as if Blender cannot see the new version I installed.

Is there a way I can force Blender to use the libraries from this new Glibc version? I am trying to avoid having to change distros as I have other programs that rely heavily on CentOS.

There is a debug tool on linux: "strace"

In blender directory:

strace ./blender-softwaregl --background

or

strace ./blender --background

You can watch the system calls, e.g. the "open" calls too. It will show the path in "open" calls.

example:

user$ strace ./blender-softwaregl --background
..
..
open("/lib/libmvec.so.1", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/lib", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
open("/usr/lib/tls/x86_64/libmvec.so.1", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/lib/tls/x86_64", 0x7ffe99686660) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/tls/libmvec.so.1", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/lib/tls", 0x7ffe99686660)    = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/x86_64/libmvec.so.1", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/lib/x86_64", 0x7ffe99686660) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/lib/libmvec.so.1", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/lib", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
writev(2, [{"./blender", 9}, {": ", 2}, {"error while loading shared libra"..., 36}, {": ", 2}, {"libmvec.so.1", 12}, {": ", 2}, {"cannot open shared object file", 30}, {": ", 2}, {"No such file or directory", 25}, {"\n", 1}], 10./blender: error while loading shared libraries: libmvec.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
) = 121
exit_group(127)                         = ?
+++ exited with 127 +++

-- UPDATE2 --

You can see the paths where "blender" tries to open the libmvec.so.1 file. Pick a path and you could try to add a symlink to the compiled glibc directory.

I don't have a CentOS 7 box, but I have an old Ubuntu machine

-- The whole operation on Ubuntu --

Compile glibc-2.24 on Ubuntu 14.04:

cd ~
wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libc/glibc-2.24.tar.gz
tar -xvzf ./glibc-2.24.tar.gz
cd glibc-2.24
mkdir _build
cd _build

Your kernel version on CentOs may be different. My kernel version is 3.13. You can get your kernel version by uname -a command on linux.

../configure --enable-kernel=3.13 --prefix=/usr
make

If there is no error on compile, you are done.

Symlinking

Download blender 2.80 beta from https://builder.blender.org/download/ and extract it. Navigate to blender's main folder and:

cd lib
ln -s ~/glibc-2.24/_build/mathvec/libmvec.so ./libmvec.so.1
ln -s ~/glibc-2.24/_build/math/libm.so ./libm.so.6

GO

Navigate to blender's main folder.

headless version:

./blender-softwaregl --background --python-console

gui version:

./blender

It works for me on Ubuntu 14.04


Making a double-helix mesh First time asking a question here, and I'm really new to Blender. Hopefully you'll forgive me for asking really dumb questions.

So I want to do a neat little "beginner project" animation that involves unravelling a double helix. The issue is, how can I create a double helix mesh? Using edit mode? Or some modifier that I'm not aware of? And if so, how can I "un-twirl" it?

Any help is much appreciated!

If you're not sure whether Edit Mode is the right thing, then you need to read about fundamentals like mesh editing, extrusion, selections etc. and build yourself a firm foundation. Learning by doing is hard with the airplane cockpit that is Blender and leads to many road blocks which can be avoided by learning before doing.

And I'd suggest to do some modeling before doing deformation animation. The rig for a helix can become quite complex, depending on the amount of realism.

You wouldn't untwirl your helix actually. You would probably model it straight like a ladder and then rig it. After that, you would pre-twirl it and, in the animation, undo the twirling.

Since I don't know the style you're after, proposing the right solution is hard to do. Ideally you wouldn't want the rungs to distort while twirling. Keeping the two helixes, the rung and the connections between them separate objects might be the easiest way. You might even avoid Edit Mode that way.

Anyway...

I blindly assume you mean a DNA helix and try to keep it simple. So there we go:

Here's the relatively easy way to do it:

Model this shape. Edit Mode needed. It is a simple T-shape done with extrusion. It has its object center (orange ball with black outline) smack in the middle of the right opening, that's crucial. I did it by scaling the default cube to zero on the x axis, removing doubles, then extruded from there. Last step is to delete the three end faces.

The edge ring near the vertical part will help the rung to keep its shape.

The 3 ends are open, they don't have a face. After that, I selected everything and recalculated the normals.

That's it, modeling done.

Give it a Mirror Modifier

Give it an Array Modifier

Give it a Simple Deform Modifier

Give it a Subsurf Modifier and set the object to shade smooth in the left tools area.

You want it fancy? Learn all about start and end caps for Array Modifiers:

Here are  the settings for the modifiers:

After all that, it's time to animate. Go to frame 1, hover over the Angle value (720°) in the Simple Deform Modifier and hit I. Blender will remember that value at frame 1.

Go to frame 50 (which will translate to 2 seconds if you use 25 frames per second), then enter 0° into the Angle field, hover over it and hit I again. Animation finished.

Be prepared for a slightly cooler version in a while.


How to select all faces with the same material? If I have a model with 3 textures (blue, red, yellow), and I want to select all (and only) the blue faces from that model, what's the shorcut to do that?
I remember there was one, but now I don't remember what button combinations were correct.

In edit mode there is a button for that in the materials tab:

This button will add the faces that have this material to the current selection, so make sure you have unselected everything else before clicking that button.


Planes do not Appear in the 3D View Plane object selected but not visible:

For some reason, when I try to add a Plane mesh, it doesn't appear in the 3D Viewport no matter how much I scale it. It's as if it's invisible. I even tried changing the dimensions but they reset to 0. What have I done? How do I fix this? Note that it's only the plane mesh that's acting up.

Problem

You cannot scale it because of the Zero-product Property. This is a mathematical theorem that Hotmath defines by saying:

  The Zero Product Property simply states that if a*b=0, then either a=0 or  b=0 (or both). A product of factors is zero if and only if one or more of the factors is zero.

This relates to your issue because you are trying to multiply the dimensions (let the Object Dimensions be represented by a) -- set at 0 -- by a non-zero value (let that random, non-zero value be b). As Blender follows the various laws of mathematics, the dimensions will always return to zero.

Solution

When first you add a Plane object and before you click on anything else, you should be presented with a number of settings in the Toolshelf on the left side of the 3D Viewport. Make sure the Radius: value is set to a non-zero value. If it is set to zero, it will likely spawn at zero each time you try.

Bad:

Good:


How do i make Blender 2.8's viewport look like Blender 2.79's viewport while keeping materials as they are? Blender 2.8 is great, but id like to go back to the flat look of 2.79 viewport because of performance and i already know a solution..-ish, by switching the viewport to solid view but i get this problem with one of my rigs:

This is Eevee's viewport

And this is workbench set to flat and texture.

the way this rig works is by using a UV projector for the face so that way it doesnt deform, it also has some trickery with UV maps that allow this to be done on the same object while keeping other faces unafected by the UV projector. i could separate the face and call it a day but then theres another problem with the mouth, pupils, and eyebrows: since they dont have a texture they display as their solid color, in 2.79 I didnt have this problem with a similar rig

This is Blender 2.79

the goal is to have it look flat like this to increase viewport performance and without any of the problems i got in 2.8 which are mostly caused by the workbench only displaying the texture and not the material result.

My first thought was setting the workbench on "Material" but for some reason it still displayed everything as solid so in resume.. how can i make eevee look so bad it looks similar to blender 2.79, or how can i get to display materials in solid view

download this file https://file.io/big2JKySVup4 then install it from preferences lights.
to make blender more like 2.7 go to preferences ->viewport ->viewport anti-aliasing change it to no anti-aliasing and uncheck overlay,edit mode .


how to snap (align) edge to (with) a vertex in another object I'm new to blender and am having a difficult time with very simple tasks, such as moving an edge in one object to align with (snap to) a vertex in another object.

I want to grab the right vertical internal edge inside the upper rectangle and move (translate it) to the right so that it aligns with the upper-right vertex in the rectangle below . . .

I've tried "Snap during transform", "Snap to vertices", and tried "Closest", "Active", "Median" and "Center". I pressed G to grab the edge, but it won't snap to the vertex on the lower square.  I also tried regular "Snap", but it collapses the entire edge to a single point.

I think I've tried everything, but nothing has worked. Many thanks for any advice!

I think it might be that you're not moving the edge under a constraint, so you can't hover over the target without dragging the whole edge down to it.

The 'Active', 'Closest' etc. settings refer to the source of the snap, the moving element. The 'Vertex', 'Face', etc. button next door refers to the target, the still element.

The most intuitive setting, I think, is (source)'Active', (target)'Vertex', used with a selection of source vertices made, one of them active, aiming to align with a target vertex.

So try it that way, with all the vertices of your edge(loop?) selected, using GX, constraining the move, leaving your mouse free to hover over the target vertex, without pulling the selection with it.


Create cut from the wall exactly 0.3m in I have a 3d plane as the floor that's an odd shape.
I'm trying to create walls in from the side of exactly 0.3m.
Attempt 1 Use knife tool. This works but don't know how to set in from the edge exactly.
Attempt 2: Duplicate vertices, and just the override tool to set exactly.
Selected two outer vertices and duplicated, pressed x to move the vertices in and manually overrode them to be 0.3m in. This creates a separated edge from the original model. So I can't select a face to extrude.
Can someone point me in the right direction of how to do create a cut in from the edge of specific size? Thanks

The fastest way seems to be the Bevel tool.

Select the starting edge and Bevel it
Set Segments = 2, Profile = 1
Adjust offset value to your 0,3 meters

Note: This will also create two double verts. Select All and go Mesh > Clean Up > Merge by distance.


Does 3D printing with Blender only print faces? So I'm pretty new to the whole 3D printing thing, and I was just wondering if only the faces will print when I use Blender to print a 3D model.

For example, if I take a basic cube from the template and print it, would a hollow cube be printed or a "solid" cube.

Mr. Zak is right that you'll get better answers on the 3dPrinting.SE, but the answer is that it will print a solid cube. Printing starts at one face, and continues until it finds another face (sort of). So if you only have one face, it knows where the material starts, but it doesn't know where the material stops. If you wanted a hollow cube, you'd have to specify a width for those walls by creating an inner cube with normals pointing toward the center of the object. The printer can't (won't) assume how thick a zero-thickness polygon should be.

It's useful to remember that all 3D polygons only have 1 face. This can be confusing, because there's nothing in the real world that works this way. That's why a single face is considered "non-manifold."

Duarte's answer includes the same information, but the terminology might not be familiar to you. A closed, coherent, manifold shape is one that is:

closed: all edges of all faces are shared by 1 and only 1 other face, like the default cube.
coherent: (essentially) it that has dimensions that can exist in the real world. Intersecting geometry, or geometry that has zero width is not coherent.
manifold: (basically) geometry that has one distinct "inside" and one distinct "outside." More specifically, all the normals are pointing the same direction. With the default cube, you have normals on the outside, and they are all pointing outside.

If you were to do this:

You would have an interior face, with a normal that is neither pointing inside... nor pointing outside. Thus, this is non-manifold geometry.

For a more thorough a technical discussion of non-manifold geometry, see the answer to this question.


Transparency of Image Empties not working I'm trying to setup my blueprints in Blender, and I've more or less achieved it, but the image empties are not displaying the pictures well.

Edit: I think this picture more clearly describes my problem

What is going on with the rendering?? It's like impossible architecture.

With no transparency level set, and all transparency options enabled (for all objects), blender defaults to complete transparency of all objects except the one selected, and behaves similar to x-ray.

To achieve the kind of transparency you'd like, follow these 2 steps:

1) Set a transparency level in properties> data (here I've set both images to 0.35).

2) Enable transparency in properties> object.


How can I change the default render directory to a relative directory? By default, Blender renders into /temp.
How I can I make it render into a a subdirectory of wherever my .blend is, like //rendered_video\

Starting with a new file, set the render output to //rendered_video/ and then select File->Save Startup File

For version 2.8

Blender will now use that output location every time you create a new blend.

You may also want to set Render Output in the File Preferences this setting will set the default render output path used when you create a new scene.


Knife project only cuts visible surfaces. How to cut opposite sides? I'm using Knife Project, but it's only cutting faces that are visible. I've toggled "limit selection to visible" but that doesn't have any effect. Is there any way for Knife Project to cut interior/invisible surfaces, as well as visible surfaces? Tks!

The option is available in the Operator box, bottom left in 2.8, on the bottom of the Tools panel in the previous versions.


How to delete unselectable faces? I'm trying to model a little pistol for my game and I ran into this problem:

I was connecting my vertices and an unselectable face showed up. I would like to remove this face but it isn't selectable :(

I have ran into this problems multiple times. What I did before was deleting all the vertices around this face. Then I would have to remake and reconnect all the vertices again which lead to a lot of work. Is there a better way?

The face is probably a lot bigger than what you think, my guess would be that it cover the whole top surface, not just the white bit you see overlapping. In edit mode, face selection, X-ray ON,  you might be able to see the center of the face and select it. If you really can't, then you'll have to fix it manually.


How to make a shortcut for this button? "Keep UV and edit mode mesh selection in sync"?

Press Ctrl+Alt+U to bring up User Preferences. Then go to the Input tab. Then expand Image, there you'll find UV Editor. Expand that and scroll down to the bottom and click on + Add New button.

In the identifier, input this: wm.context_toggle. Then in the context attribute, input tool_settings.use_uv_select_sync.

Finally select an unused keyboard shortcut. I used ` in this case. Select to Save User Settings so you don't have to do this every time you start Blender.


How to Hide light sources in mirror Blender Eevee how can I hide mirror light sources.

Go to Light Properties - Specular Value = 0, Radius = 0
That's fix's my Problem.


3D Cursor ~ right click to move it around? ver 2.8 So I have finally started using 2.8 beta. And of course there are a few things different.

I move the 3D cursor constantly = as much as I select and move objects. In 2.79b I switched mouse buttons so LEFT selected and RIGHT moved the cursor.

But in 2.8 they have made left select (fine), and now right brings up an "object context menu" that I would never in a million years use. Why? So now if I want to move the cursor I have to go ALL THE WAY up to the top left and click on the cursor icon in the tools list. Then I can move it. To go back to moving objects I have to go BACK UP THERE again.

This has to be a horrible mistake, or something I can't find in preferences to change. I've noticed that I can SHIFT-RIGHT click and move the cursor (after experimenting)... but that still adds an unreasonable action to workflow.

I want the RIGHT mouse button to move the 3D cursor like it used to. Is that possible? I want the silly menu to stop coming up when I right click because it is useless ~ if I really need it, it's under the object pull down menu.

And a side note - Z now opens a directional menu for some reason. I used to be able to quickly toggle wireframe and solid.

And 'A' to select and deselect now wants me to double tap or ALT-A.

I'm guessing the dev team has attempted to make things easier for folks that are perhaps new to modeling. But they have added time consuming steps to an otherwise smooth operation. I hope they implement an option to use 'classic setup' routines under preferences.

And I don't intend to be complaining - but I am complaining. Dang it.

I use a Corsair Scimitar mouse with 10 programmable buttons on the side. And I can reprogram one (or even the right mouse) to add in the SHIFT if I want to. And I probably will. But I am still wondering if there isn't a way for the software to do it that I am missing.

Thanks for any help.

It should be old news by now, but you can revert to Blender 2.7x shortcuts and usability at any point.

In the menu, go to "Edit- Preferences", select "Keymap" and you find all the changes in one place.

In the upper row, you find the presets, where you can find a Blender 2.7x preset. Don't forget to hit "Save Preferences", before closing the window.

Depending on how proficient you are with Blender in general, this could also backfire, if you watch tutorials that are created using the new keymap. You definitely want to know your way around in Blender to be able to follow those.


Creating a mesh cone with exponential radius Creating a standard cone is simple enough to do. However, the radius increases linearly along its axis. Is there a way to create one with an exponentially larger radius? For instance, suppose the radius y along the axis x is y=0.3x^2, where x>0 and <8. Can I somehow input a quadratic formula and limits somewhere to achieve this result? Or is there another alternative?

EDIT: In case it helps, I tried to subdivide the cone and change the smoothness. However, it creates the opposite effect. The higher the smoothness, the more convex it becomes. I'm trying to make it concave, but the smoothness value can't go negative.

You can do this via the Add Mesh Extra Objects, XYZ surface.  Enable the addon, then add mesh > Math Function > XYX math surface from the add menu.

The parametric equations of a cone from Wolfram.

Here is a quick test, not sure if its the shape you want,