How to change the rotation of an already existing animation? I need to change the rotation of an already existing animation, it currently only goes forward but I also want it to go up and down.

I know I can use R to rotate but that is only for 1 frame and I need it to be done for a bunch of frames.

I looked up a tutorial on how to do it, but he only needed 1 frame, so that doesn't work for me.

Is there a way to change the rotation of a bunch of frames in bulk? Or do I have to change them all manually?

Graph Editor is what You need to use in this situation. You can edit frames values one by one, all together or even add a modifier, that will create a move, that you want.


How do I select all objects without materials applied? I have a complex scene with CAD exported files and other meshes.
There is a big amount of objects (> 200) and many of them are missing a material.

How do I select all the objects with no material so that I can apply one to them without affecting the other objects?

Shift+L + Material does not work because these objects do no share the same material.

While you can select a material'd object and do Select > Linked > Material to select objects with the same material, I don't know how to automagically select non-material'd objects, so here's a work-around:

Select your material'd objects, them move them to another layer M, 2 (or whatever layer number you want). Once you have all the material'd objects on another layer, you'll be left with a layer full of non-material'd objects (and maybe a camera and some lights). At that point, you can A to select the remaining non-material'd objects.


Are UVs important for importing blender mesh into Unreal Engine 4? I mistakenly disabled 'Generate UVs'.
Is it necessary/important for importing in Unreal Engine 4.
If so, how do I generate the UVs? I know nothing about it yet so is there any way Blender can auto-generate them?

The get the most of Unreal you should create a UV map for texturing and non-overlapping Light map UV for unreal to bake cached light and shadow information.

You can use the Smart UV project operator ("U" in edit mode) to quickly get a non overlapping UV map. You can then let Unreal create the Light map UV from this (on import or on the Static mesh asset) based on this.

I would however recommend you to get into manually creating your UV maps in a more controlled way. Texturing/UV-mapping should be considered as an important step as modelling.

Is it necessary? No.

Is it important? Yes (depending on what your ambitions are).


How can I animate a bandsaw blade? I would like to model a bandsaw blade cutting into a piece of wood. I don't need/want to model the whole saw. I just want to see the blade (a continuous band) rotate/spin around in an oval as it approaches the wood. How can I animate this?

I have shaped a cube into a long, thin mesh for the blade. I thought I could parent the blade to an empty, have the empty follow a curve (an oval), and then add a curve modifier to make the blade into an oval.

This didn't work as I had hoped. I've added a link to a screen capture to show what happened.

https://whitanderson.com/blender/bandsaw/index.html

I am using Blender 2.8.

Thanks for any help you can give me in understanding what did happen, and how I can create the animation I would like.

--Whit

Your saw blade mesh should use the same position as the curve as a resting position. The blade should be aligned to the Deformation Axis (X by default).

When you then animate the blade mesh object position along the Deformation Axis (X), the blade will move along the curve.

One extra note: This doesn't work well with the Bounds Clamp option on the curve.


Deformations when using subdivision surface I'm really happy with this model because its simple and low poly, but when i try to use a subdivision surface modifier, some places where i kinda cheated the result, like merging vertices or whatever, the mesh deforms. I can't figure out what's wrong with the mesh.

Below are the before/after pics and a link to the blend file.

And the file

I've tried creating loopcuts and all the clean-up options.

Thanks in advance!

I think here are the main problems with your mesh:

You need to create some edge loops close to the angles if you want them to be sharp.
You have a lot of inside faces. Select them and delete.
Try to avoid triangles, use the Knife tool to create quads: K to activate, Z to cut through the mesh.


how to create snow in cycles? It seems that snow is generally created using procedurals. In cycles, a completely node base system is much too complex for a beginner like me. My basic node setup looks like this:

and my scene is lighted with 3 lamps like this:

(a plane is used just behing suzanne to light the translucency), but my render looks as dull as this:

How can I make more of snow and less ice looking texture for suzanne?

Perhaps Andrew Price could help you out here. He did a snow scene tutorial, available on his site. It's long, but it's a step-by-step look at how to get soft, slushy and glittery snow using both procedural techniques and texture-based techniques.

He starts talking about shading around 58:00, but the whole video is worth listening to because he talks about textures, displacements and lighting that can add some much-needed chaos into the scene.

Suzanne, on the other hand, might need some adjustment from his shader setup. You might need to increase the subsurface scattering (SSS) influence because you're trying to get light through the object, not just glitter on the surface. Just remember that SSS will increase your render times significantly, so use it sparingly.


How to create loop cut through an object? To make things easier to understand, I have some photos below.

Now, if I create a 4x4 tile, then extrude the outer 12 squares, I get a cup-shaped object.

But if I create a Loop Cut on this object, you can see that it doesn't reach to the inside of the object.

How do I make it so that a loop cut reaches through the entire object?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post!

Loop cut is always made on one loop of faces.
In your example you have 2 separate loops so it cannot be cut at once with this tool.

What you can do is to make one loopcut for each face loop (inner & outer):

or use Knife tool K with Z (cut through) option enabled (the Z key is not captured in the example). Hold Ctrl to make a cuts in the middle of edges or if you want to place it some were else but have it accurate press C to constrain the direction of the cut to 45 degree steps.


Shouldn't Blender free the GPU memory before rendering the next frame? I'm trying to render an animation, I can provide the .blend if necessary.

The problem is that if I render each frame as if it was a single render, it works fine. However, if I render it as an animation (multiple frames) I get OutOfMemory error when it reaches a certain frame (which I can render fine if I render just that single frame).

I'm monitoring the GPU memory usage and it seems that the memory used in one frame is not being freed after the render is done. Is this the default behavior? If yes, is there a reason for it? If not, what could be causing it?

I'm using Blender 2.77 on Windows 10. My GPU is Nvidia's 980TI.

EDIT

I found the actual problem. It was an add-on that supposedely shouldn't do anything related to rendering. It's called Perfect Shape. I disabled it and all renders worked fine, motion blur or not.

Might be a bug or a memory leak.

Blender does free unneeded memory as efficiently as it can, whoever it probably doesn't flush all memory when rendering an animation, as that would be highly inefficient.

There are immutable things that don't change between frames like geometry, materials, texture data, etc. and re-sending that unchanged data to the GPU every single frame would be a very big waste of time and resources and be very inefficient.

As such Blender tries it's best to be smart about it and keep as much relevant information in memory as it can. That being said memory management is probably a very hard task to do efficiently, and many times unneeded things are erroneously left behind. It's what I believe is called a memory leak (I'm not a programmer, I am hoping someone more enlightened in the matter than me will clarify or correct me here)

Over the course of rendering several frames those things build up and cause memory to reach it's limit.

That can probably be considered a bug and might be worth reporting to the tracker, I think. Although the chances of solving it are probably slim.

let's see what other have to say about it


Is it possible to export as USD using python? Hi Guys i would like to export an object in USD-format, using the python API.
I didn't find anything in the documentation.
Is this possible?

bpy.ops.wm.usd_export() operator

Blender 2.83 adds USD support but is still in beta so you won't find anything in the current API. However, there is a development version of the API called master which is mostly up to date.

Highly recommend using blenders python console to figure out the operator call as well as all possible arguments:

>>> bpy.ops.wm.usd_export(
                          filepath="",
                          check_existing=True,
                          filter_blender=False,
                          filter_backup=False,
                          ....
                          )


Texturing Mesh for Second Life I'm told you cannot texture and object in Blender and then upload the textured object into Second Life.
My work flow is Object > Unwrap > UV Map to Photoshop for Textures > Assign UV Map to Object > Export to Collada, selecting SL/OpenSim Static > Upload to SL.
Of course, the textures do not follow.  Am I missing a step?
If you can't upload a textured object, what is the use of the Operator Preset?
The other related issue is that when I upload an object to SL, in edit, I cannot select an individual face to apply a texture to.  It applies the texture to the entire object, regardless of selecting "Select Face."
I have mapped, not mapped, mapped each individual face, textured, untextured.  It always applies an texture to the entire object.

Yes you can't is the simple answer. You have to upload your textures and apply them in world. As for selecting faces, in Blender you need to assign a "material" to the parts you want to call a "face" in Second Life. If I can attach a photo you will see an object created in Blender, material slots applied (Black,red, green, yellow, blue) and, each of those are faces 0-5 on the object in SL.


UVMap input for nodes I was following this tutorial video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyS8eiq14G8 and I am stuck. I don't know why I cant find the UV map input in the nodes at 15:57 if that video is my blender. Problem I am facing is that I can't find the UV mapping option when I go to ShiftA > Input in the node editor.
I am using linux 14.04 with blender version 2.69.

What he did was Shift+A>Input>UV Map and place this node into the Image Texture node as shown below:

Note that the version used in the linked video is 2.71, I don't know if this was a node added after 2.69, so it may not hurt to grab a more current release (2.77a) from Blender.org

As an alternative to this node however, adding an Input>texture coordinate node, and using the UV Output should work just as well if this node is indeed unavailable in your  version.


Animate a simple FBX model in Blender I want to animate the following arrow in Blender so that the left and right triangle can flip, like a bird (ignore the white line in the background), but I have no experience with Blender before. So how can I approach this problem?

I want to use this animation in Unity if this makes any difference.

For practice, you can take an animation approach in Blender but for a simple animation like that, I would personally make the animation within Unity. It will give you a lot more control when making a game.


Character not moving with bones I modified a character model which I downloaded from somewhere, then added an armature so that I can animate. I started in the lower right area (the foot) , the extruded each bone from there.

When parenting the armature with the character, I did ctrl+p-->deform armature-->automatic weights.

When I go into pose-mode to rotate and move the bone, hoping that it would move my characters boot, it doesn't. I learned that I might have to manually paint weights, so I did that with the left foot. I then tried moving the bone again (pose mode), still, the boot doesnt move at all.

My character is a "santa", which has many different objects like boots, right leg, left leg, hat...

 (OLD)

NEW EDIT:

Alright I solved the bones not working. I think it was I started it in the foot and not the pelvis. I might not have selected the objects entirely that were to be children to the armature. Now, I have this:

(https://imgur.com/a/GOtdpmy)

It seems that the transform of every object has reset. You can see the tiny armature in the center (not actually the armature, but a bone which is selected in blue).

What I did this time was make a new file, import my character, add armature in pelvis area, then extruded to each area. I selected all objects in Object Mode with 'a', then deselected and reselected the armature in order to make sure that it's the last selected for parenting. I did Ctrl + P --> armature deform --> with automatic weights. When doing this the last time, my computer didnt go under a load.
This time it did. My cpu went up to 95% usage and blender stopped responding. After 2 or so minutes, blender was responsive, then my scene/mesh looked like the above.

First of all, you need to join all this character's meshes into one object by selecting them all then pressing ctrl+J. This will confuse the normals, so in edit mode select all then press ctrl+N. The armature and mesh need to share the same origin point. Press ctrl+S to snap the cursor to the center. Select the mesh and press ctrl+alt+shift+C. Do the same with the armature. Meshes downloaded from the Internet or generated from a different program can have some funky reactions when they're parented to a rig. I'm not sure why that is, but to fix it, you can scale down the mesh in object mode then apply the transformation by pressing Ctrl+A. Automatic weights aren't always guaranteed to work properly, especially if it has to deform an object made of separate meshes. You'll have to manually weight it. Be sure to convert those tris to quads (ctrl+F) to make that process easier. Cut down on those vertebrae too- only two to four are really necessary. Hope this helped.


How do I add a rigidbody to an object with python? The only method I could find was to use an operator which seems more like a workaround than a solution.

This will add rigid body to the object (add the object to the rigid body group of the scene)

C.scene.rigidbody_world.group.objects.link(C.object)

as zeffii pointed this assumes that a rigid_body_world has been created, which is done with bpy.ops.rigidbody.world_add()


How do I pixelize this light screen? I am trying to recreate Wheatly from Portal, and I have tried to make his pixelated eyes by have a pixel grid with rectangular holes over the light source. However, as you can see by the picture, the curves within some of the pixels destroys the pixelated attempt. Is there a clear way for pixelating circuluar patterns like this? If, so, which method would you recommend? Thanks!

While I am not familiar with the subject in question, one way would be to use a custom image and use it as an emissive shader.

image used: http://orig14.deviantart.net/3961/f/2012/050/a/f/wheatley__s_eye_by_mycroftporthos-d4qarjf.png

Obviously you can find a better image (more pixelated) or make your own and use some filter in photo editors app like Photoshop, Affinity, Gimp or whichever you prefer.
Photoshop has a bunch of filter under the category Pixelate.
Affinity also has a filter under the Distort category called Pixelate and I'm sure Gimp also has one.


Make holes with boolean not working - blender 2.8 I use Blender 2.8 and I made a lot of successful holes with the boolean modifier. Today is not one of those days and I don't know why.

I have a simple rectangular 2D object in which I need to cut 4 cylindrical holes.

This is what I have done:

I've used CTRL+R to make new lines on the rectangle that intersect exactly where I should place the holes
I moved the cursor to each point and created a cylinder
CTRL+J to make a single object from the 4 cylinders
I used a boolean modifier on the rectangle and applied it to the cylinder with the operation "Difference" but I didn't get the holes

This is the Blender file:

What have I done wrong? Is there a way to place the cylinders exactly where they should be without using CTRL+R? If I don't use CTRL+R the holes get done but then they are not in the right place...

Thank you.

Boolean modifier -> turn overlap threshold all the way down to 0. Since your objects are so small in the scene blender considered the faces as overlapping (i.e your rectangle was too thin).


How do I output the image rendered by viewport shading (2.8+)? I have a scene, and the viewport's render looks fine in my opinion. I don't want to wait very long for a render, so it'd be great if I could output the viewport's shading as a render.

From the desired 3D Viewport header menu go to View > Viewport Render Image ir Animation according to what you need.


User preferences shutting down blender; program not opening anymore at all, which causes this? How can I access 'User Preferences' when clicking on it closes Blender immediately?
I read this one while searching for a solution. Now that I try to even open Blender there comes a white flash and the program does not open. Is there any reason why this is happening? It only showed up after I tried open user preferences because my walk navigation was not working correctly with the collision when I enable gravity in the materials viewport of "large 3D View" UI selection. The collision itself worked with the normal interface I use for working with Blender usually. This feels like a big fish hidden somewhere. Should I report a bug or is it already known, is it an error I can fix myself? I hope someone is able to help me. I feel a little lost in here...
I was already considering as an error caused by my graphics card. I am going to get a better one soon, if this keeps occuring, I will inform here. Blender snapshot: 1.79
OS: Win10 64bit, CPU: Intel i5 generation, GPU: NVIDIA GT 610

The only thing that is likely to fix that is updating drivers and using a fresh blender (I would recommend getting it from a .zip file)

You can get all the versions here blender.org/download/releases

Becuase of the error would I recommend that you don't copy the settings and only do the necessary ones, interface and input should be safe as long you don't have scripts in them.

It is possible that an automatic windows update is the reason.


How to bind a model to an armature? My pose mode simply does not move the body, I tried weight painting and everything but it just  does not move. It's a simple creation, just a body made simple...

I looked at some other people is works and all, all it seems to do is press CtrlP > Automatic Weights but it does not move the body still.

Something I noticed is when I use Automatic Weights it creates many Vertex Groups called Bone.XXX, but those groups are not assigned to anything. Should I find a way to assign them?

Should I find a way to assign them?

Yes. If the vertex group option is checked:

You can use the weight paint mode to change the weights of the active vertex group (current selection in the properties panel):

Assign/Remove the selected vertices to/from the active vertex group in the properties panel:

and change their weights in the viewport:


For Blender 2.80 API, What replaces the constraint_orientation parameter in bpy.ops.transform? I am trying to update my plug-in from Blender 2.79 code. I am getting the following error from Blender:

TypeError: Converting py args operator properties: keyword "constraint_orientation" unrecognized.

The code relates to this call in __init__.py:

bpy.ops.transform.translate(value=(0, 1.5, 0), constraint_axis=(False, True, False), constraint_orientation='LOCAL')

What is the right way create such a constraint in Blender 2.80?

Replace constraint_orientation with orient_type.
Links aren't ideal because they might die. If there is a way to add this more permanently, please let me know.
https://blenderartists.org/t/2-80-cheat-sheet-for-updating-add-ons/1148974


Problems with the physics interaction between two objects I want the upper yellow element to interact with the turquoise sphere. It should be put over it and when it comes back up it should return to its original shape.
When I try to use physics like soft body or clothing, it just deforms and falls down at the end, the object isnt following the animation anymore, as you will see in the second picture row.
What I can do to make the top element soft, felxible and smooth so that it fits over the other object and follows the shape of the sphere and how I reverse the effect so when the top object comes up it will return to its original shape.
How can i do that?

This is because of Collision shapes , Your sphere has a Collision shape which is something not that corresponds to your collision shape in the second object , you can change this is Collisions > Collision shapes , there is an option that also allows you to make your mesh shape as your collision shape


Calling a function in operator to create a button Hi this is probably very simple but it is proving difficult to archive

I am basically atempting to make a button in the UI tools panel that can run any function I create

Example

def PrinterFunction() :
    print (' hi world')

How do I put this example function into a button in the UI tools panel

Thanks

bl_info = {
    "name": "",
    "description": "",
    "author": "",
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "version": (0, 0),
    "category": "",
    "location": "3D View > UI > Create",
    "warning": "",
}

import boy

class PrinterFunction(bpy.types.Operator):
    """desc"""
    bl_idname = "print.helloworld"
    bl_label = "Hello World"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}
    def execute(self, context):
        print('hi world')
        return {'FINISHED'}

class OBJECT_PT_hw(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_idname = "object_PT_hw"
    bl_label = "hw"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = "Create"
    bl_context = "objectmode"
    def draw(self, context):
        self.layout.use_property_split = True
        self.layout.operator('print.helloworld', icon="IMPORT", text="Rename here")

classes = (
    PrinterFunction,
    OBJECT_PT_hw,
)

def register():
    from bpy.utils import register_class
    for cls in classes:
        register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    from bpy.utils import unregister_class
    for cls in reversed(classes):
        unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

FYI: Blender already has many useful python templates. You can access them from here


Toon shader making jagged shadows I've tried to find an answer but so far no luck. All of the ones I could find went over my head. So I'm caving in and asking this question myself.

I'm very new to Blender and 3D stuff, so bear with me, but when I activate the toon shader, it gives me a weird jagged mess instead of a smooth curve. Must be something obvious I haven't noticed, but I can't figure it out. Here's what it looks like:

If anybody could enlighten me on what in the world is happening that would be appreciated.

Make sure your object is smooth shaded, as GiantCowFilms mentioned.

Select it and press smooth in 3D view > toolbar (T) > Tool > Shading:


Pallid colors in cycles While making an PBR Orange in blender cycles, I found the problem that the material color was very pallid. I don't know how to make a more appetising material so I came here in order to solve this problem. The model is iluminated by a plane with and emission shader. In the following image you can see in the top-left corner the actual CG orange, in the top-right corner the color I want to have and in the bottom the material node

Here's a quick explanation of the material. At the bottom a procedural bumb mapping generator for the orange conected to the displacement of the material, in the middle the color of the material (a noise texture to give a bit of variation) and at the top fresnel with a sistem to control the amount the of fresnel.

It looks like you just need better lighting. It's best to use an HDR image to light your scene. A good place to get them is HDRI Haven, which has low-resolutions for free (licensed CC-BY), and sells higher-resolution versions. It also has a small but growing collection of public-domain (CC0) ones.

For quick, basic lighting, I often use this HDR image, which should work pretty well here:
http://graphicslearning.com/downloads/hdr-light-probe-01-cc0/

UPDATE 2018: HDRI Haven has now changed its model. It's now completely public-domain at all resolutions!


How to efficiently remove a huge number of UV Maps from an object? I currently have a model coming from an external source (Revit Architecture) with lots of objects (+3000). I have tidied the model up somewhat and have reduced object count to under 100 by joining objects. This results in objects that have hundreds of UV maps.

Deleting UV maps one at a time is time consuming and tedious. Is there a way to get rid of all the UV maps on an object with a single command or does this require some clever python scripting?

as in https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?254004-Accessing-UV-data-in-Python-script

import bpy
obj= bpy.context.selected_objects
for ob in obj:
    if ob.type == 'MESH':
        bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob
        while(len(ob.data.uv_textures)):
            bpy.ops.mesh.uv_texture_remove()


Remove all vertices connected to one or less edges? Using the boolean operator a lot creates a lot of junk vertices and edges that make it really difficult to clean up a model so my question is: is there a way to delete all vertices connected to one or less edges?

⇧ ShiftG > Amount of Connecting edges works for me.

You will have to select a vertex with no connecting edges and a vertex with one connecting edge in order to select all vertices with one or fewer connecting edges at once:

There are also Greater than and Less than options in the Redo panel (F6).


Does Blender have a tool to automatically create & set up a control panel for a character's expressions? Can Blender automatically create a control driver panel for animating and controlling a character's facial expressions? The expressions are all shape key driven.

I am not aware of such a tool built-in into Blender. There is an option to use custom-properties to drive shape keys though. It is not as good as a python scripted interface, but does the job for small rigs.

https://www.blender.org/manual/data_system/custom_properties.html


Move object closer to another object using python? I'm setting up a simple game loop in which the agent tries to collide with "enemies" (so they'll have the game property "enemy") and tries to steer clear of other objects (let's call them friends). I want to write a script that makes use of the near sensor to do this-so if an enemy is detected nearby, the agent moves towards it and, if they collide, the enemy is destroyed. Similarly, if the near sensor detects a friend, the agent moves away from it (to make things more interesting, maybe I can apply endobject() or something to the agent if it accidentally collides with a friend). Is there any way to programmatically get the agent to move towards/away from other objects with these specified properties?

And, for that matter, is it possible to specify these game properties programmatically? I want to avoid using the gui as much as possible.

Thanks so much!

The near sensor has an attribute "Property". The sensor will filter the sensed objects by to have a property of the same name.

So you are able to sense friends by giving them a property called "friend" and let the near sensor filter for "friend" too.

Do the same thing just with "enemy" to sense enemies.

To get the appropriate operation after detecting the near event you can use either the steering actuator (Flee, Seek, Path following), or you activate an TrackTo + Move forwards/backward. I'm sure there are more options.

Detecting a collision can be done via collision sensor. An object can end itself via Edit Actuator in End Object mode.


Is inflow's fluid subject to gravity? I just want to know if the fluid emitted from an inflow object, is subjected to scene's gravity... So let's say I have an inflow object which emit fluid, and it's at 10 of height: does the fluid fall to the ground?
(Excuse me if my English is not perfect but I'm not English)

Quick answer: Yes it does.

I set up a simple scene to test this.  Cube scaled up be 10, set as the Fluid Domain.  Added cylinder set as Fluid Inflow.  I then baked, and it dripped out of the cylinder, landing on the bottom of the domain.

If you would like, here is a .blend file with my test scene, however you may need to bake the fluid sim again (should take about a minute):


How do export Meshes separately? So basically I'm trying to figure out how to separately export the meshes from a single model. For example, I made a katana using multiple different Shapes by pressing add. Now I tried to export each part of the mesh separately by selecting it on the explorer but that still exports the whole thing. I've been trying to figure this out for multiple days, please help me.

Most exporters will have an option in the file dialogue that says “selection only,“ which I believe is what you want.


Keep bottom pointed objects from falling over in Blender Game Engine I want to simulate cricket stumps in Blender Game Engine. So far, I have completed modeling the stumps and bails. But I am having trouble figuring out how I can keep the stumps steady before I (sort of) launch an object on to it. Just in case you don't know, a set of stumps looks like this:

Click to see image.

Their bottoms are pointed. So how do I keep them standing at first?

I know how to launch an object and make the stumps active rigid bodies. I just want to know how to keep them from falling down.

You can use the logic node editor like this on each stump:

Explanation:
At start (Delay node without repeat, Delay = 0) you suspend dynamics (Edit object/Dynamics/Suspend Dynamics)

Then set up a collision node. You must specify the same property for it and the colliding objects! It will activate the restore dynamics and set mass actuators.

So Blender will not calculate dynamics for your stumps until collision. It is a very good performance optimization too. So recommended technique for larger games.


is it possible that python .add_driver command cant create f-curve? If I created a constraint on some bone, in pose mode - let's say Copy Location. And then manually created a driver on the influence (right mouse button > Add Driver), the f-curve with 2 points was created. No problem

But after the same operation, on the same bone  and property, but with python command bpy.data.objects["Armature"].pose.bones["some_bone"].constraints["Copy Location"].driver_add("influence")
the f-curve wasn't created, do I miss something?

I found the problem, with the python command .add_driver the generator modifier is automatically generated (m.f.!).

If you want rid of it, you can use
mod = bpy.data.objects["Armature"].animation_data.drivers[0].modifiers[0]
bpy.data.objects["Armature"].animation_data.drivers[0].modifiers.remove(mod)


Chaning bone parent after automatic weighting I've rigged my model and have used the automatic weighting option. After rigging I've modified some bone's parent to get better deformation results. But, should I re-parent the rig after doing this? Testing it out it seems everything is fine. Or rather the question is: does the rig hierarchy order affect the automatic weighting results?

The rig hierarchy will not affect the results, you should only need to correct the weighting if you move the bone.

The mathematics behind this effectively first transforms each each vertex by each bone that it is weighted to, and then uses those weights to combine the transforms from each bone proportional to the vertex weight.


How can i fix this ugly deformation I have worked on this charactor for a game im making in BGE. But the deformation on the arms mouth and eyebrows are UGLY. It pretty much is all like this example  The way i need it to work is so that the arm bones control the arm part with automatic weighting only the eyebrows control the eyebrows only with automatic weighting and the mouth bones control the mouth part only with automatic weighting. How can i do that?

Oh and did i mention this thing uses automatic weighting for its deformation?

This happens because the Bone.012 has weighting in the body as shown below:

Automatic weighting helps you assign weights but sometimes manual weight adjusments is needed especially when in this case Bone.012 is kind of the closest bone to this area.

To fix this select your armature switch to pose mode then select your mesh and switch to weight painting mode. Then select Bone.012 and set Weight to 0.0 as shown below and paint the areas of the body to remove the weighting from it.

Keep painting with 0 weights until no vertices are assigned to this bone as shown below:

Updated .blend file can be found here:


Why is Blender Guru UV unwrapping? I am doing this tutorial of Blender Guru. And about 15 minutes he is UV unwrapping the mesh. Why is he doing that ? Although I am a beginner I think I understand the general purpose of UV unwrapping. Buy not what Blender Guru is trying to establish here.

The cube on the right is flattened/unfolded so a texture can be applied. On the left is what it looks like after it is unfolded. Where it is cut to unfold these are called seams. In the video he places the seams to unfold the object.

By creating a 2D view of the object you can add a texture in an external editor (for example) exactly where you want the texture to be. The 2D version is mapped to the 3D object ... UV Map


How do I make a game with multiple levels? I want to make a full fan made Mario 3D world style 2 player game. How do I make a game with multiple levels in blender? Is there something like a sequence editor for video game levels or files?

A blend file can contain multiple scenes, each game level is created in its own scene. The scene actuator then changes the current scene in a game.


Blender 2.8 doesn't recognize my graphics card for GPU Blender 2.8 isn't recognizing my graphics card for gpu or opencl rendering. I'm using a mac with a Radeon Pro 580 8 GB graphics card. Are there any articles about best graphics card for use in Blender? I'm thinking about buying a new one, since the cpu rendering takes very very long. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Blender is only capable of doing GPU rendering on CUDA (NVIDIA cards) and openCL (originally develop by Apple & maintained by Khronos group)(1). However Mac dropped support for openCL(2) therefore there is no way to use an AMD GPU for GPU rendering on Blender nor other software that uses only openCL.

The only option, that I haven't tested is to try to use Linux on your machine and download AMDGPU-PRO from AMD's website. No guaranteed to work.

1.- GPU Rendering - Blender Manual

2.- Apple Drops OpenGL and OpenCL


GPu Usage on RTX 2080 TI 20% CPU 10% during Render Optix I'm really new to Blender.
I have a workstation with a Intel i9 9900X and a RTX 2080 Ti and 64 GB of RAM.

I'm rendering a animation in Cycles(Optix - Denoising AI). The strange thing is that the usage of CPU is at 14 % and GPU is at 7-20%. Is there something wrong with my settings or is it the animation?

Windows Task Manager does not report GPU usage very well (known problem). If you switch one of the graphs to CUDA, you'll notice it will report full usage for that graph. Third-party GPU monitoring software such as GPU-Z will correctly report GPU usage.


Thumbnail preview image default to Viewpoint instead of Camera Is there a way to save a .blend file und generate the thumbnail from the image of the current viewport?

Deleting the camera will default to the viewport preview image.

This fixed the problem of not showing vertex colors in the preview image, too.


How to Bake High Poly Object Details (Shape) to the low poly object? I am creating game ready assets using Blender. I heard that it is a good practice to create both the high poly mesh and the low poly mesh for the asset, but instead to using a high poly mesh, one should bake the details of the high poly mesh to the low poly mesh. But I don't know the procedure of doing that.
The Problem
Here, I wish to create a piece of deformed wood in blender. So, I created a low poly cube and gave it a basic shape of a wood (no deformation)

Now, I created a high poly mesh and subdivided it a few times and then added a displace modifier with a cloud texture with 0.010 strength, which gave it a deformed kind of shape. Then I manually deformed it a bit using proportional editing which gave me this result.

Now, is there any way to bake these details of the high poly mesh to the low poly mesh and if not, then how can I give that low poly mesh a deformed shape (like the high poly mesh), without too many polygons?
Just a side note, I use Unreal Engine for game development.
EDIT:
I tried using the bake normals option in blender but it is producing several artefacts of mostly red, green and purple colours.

Those 'holes' in the lower right corner are causing artefacts in my low poly mesh. Is there any way to solve that? Otherwise the distorted portions are appearing fine.
Example of its Use

@hatinacat2000 The requested .blend file

Result
I think @Christopher Bennett's method is the best. I was able to get this result using it. It's only 306 faces. There is a shading issue there, but it's just me bevelling wrong, leading to a triangle. Otherwise, its perfect. 306 faces is much better than 5000.

From experience, I and others will tell you that normal maps work best for details like bumps and crevices. They work very poorly--are unsuitable--for baking a "high poly mesh" whose silhouette is noticeably distorted compared to the original. You are not going to get anything good from that.
What you are trying to do in this example is similar to attempting to make the default cube appear as a uv-sphere (much rounder) just by turning on "smooth shading" for its 8 vertices. The problem is not just how light interacts with the object on its surface (a huge problem in this example), but that the silhouettes will not be changed with a normal map.
If you make both meshes the same shape and sculpt wood grain into the high poly mesh, that is exactly what normal maps are useful for and you can get nice results in Blender.


How to overdrop a video with black backgroud in the video editor? everything is in the title ;).
How to make blender use black as alpha?

To perform a Luma key in the VSE you need to use the Strip modifiers.

However you want to use the source or foreground strip as a key or Mask, and Blender doesn't like making loops (as you are modifying the source with the source which becomes modified etc.).

So you need to duplicate the strip then turn it of with the H key (hide strip). This becomes the Key source strip. You could then Group this pair so that they stay in sync if you move them or trim them on the timeline. In my example I have not done that just so you can see the steps required.

You can better define the value to key by adding a curve modifier to the Key source strip, and make it more contrasty (steeper curve).

For best results you will have to reduce the color of the original strip to make an accurate key. Use the Key source's Saturation slider, reduced to 0.0

For more control you could add a blur effect to the Key source strip then Hide it Alt-H and define the Blur strip as the mask on the foreground strip modifier.

You can also use a curve modifier on the Key source strip to invert the key.

Again I strongly recommend grouping all of these strips together and muting the ones that are used as keys, this saves them accidentally appearing in the composite.


Blender game runs very slow I am making my first game in Blender, so being kind of newbie, but I notice that when I run it in the standalone player, it runs very slow and jerky (in the built-in also, but not as bad), like some hi-end fancy game, but it's simple and has a primitive graphic/texturing/shading, so why does it run so jerky?

I heard something about "baking", to help it get rid of real-time processing and stuff if that's the problem, but if I want to bake an image, for example the grass field, it says "No objects or images found to bake to".

I would be SO GLAD AND GRATEFUL if someone could help me. I like how I made this game so far, but this is a pain in the heart.

Thank you so much for your time!

Here are some screens :

You can always tell what it jacking up a game by turning on FrameRate/Profile, an option under the "Game" tab.

In realtime, it will dynamically calculate how much time blender is spending on each part of the game, and you can see what is causing problems, and what could be beefed up without issues.

I'm going to go ahead and take a wild guess that your scene is slowed down by "Rasterizer" or the rendering process. Why is this? You used basic meshes, simple graphics, and easy shading. So what is causing this kink?

It's the lights! if each one of you trees has it's own separate light, thats a whole different set of the same graphics that blender has to calculate.

You were right, fortunately, that this can be fixed quite easily with texture baking.
First of all, you will need to pick a target image that you want to bake your texture to. Then, under the render tab, hit bake. Once the bake is done, save it and apply it as a shadeless texture. All of the light will be on the ground, just like it was being actively rendered, but blender will be muuuuch happier. And we all know, when blenders happy, so are you.

How do I bake a texture using Cycles bake?


When are edges necessary and when can I get away with only vertices? I'm new to blender and digital modeling, and am trying to get a feel for the sweet spot for how many edges I need in a mesh. If my understanding is correct, I need edges only when defining a boundary between separate faces. I've attached a screenshot below (part of a simple sword mesh), in which I've highlighted a few edges that seem unnecessary. Is there any advantage to keeping these edges or can they simply be discarded?

It seems there's a disadvantage in that with excess edges, things like smoothing faces become unnecessarily complicated.

Don't blindly erase edges just because they seem useless, you should instead be focusing on overall topology.

A good mesh will maintain a predominantly quad based flow with 4 sided faces as much as possible.

Triangles and NGons are to be avoided above all, they are bad for animations and cause trouble with texturing.

This good topology guide may help.

Bottom line is: You can never get away with just vertices, edges are there for a reason, and only erase them in the process of modeling, never in the process of forced cleanup.

EDIT: About Edges D,E,F, those yes, should be erased, but again you should not be focusing on the edges themselves but the internal geometry.

Those are non manifold faces, (could not be constructed in a real world model) and the edges belong to more than two faces at a time. That whole loop of faces should be removed entirely.


Unit ( Metric) Problem : Not able to get full 20cm im looking for days now ...

I changed my Scene to be Metric, with Degrees and Scale to 0.001.

Objekt Display / Lines: 50 / Scale: 0.01

I need an Icosahedron with 20cm long Edges.
I get 20.019cm or 19.978cm etc and its not like i didnt try to type it in...but i guess, when I type it, Blender will use its own Units and force them into metric messurements.

I want to  have an Scale/Unit system that works on 20.xcm max characters but exactly.

Either having an easy manual scale or to have a perfect "type it in" choice would be greate.

Question aside from that, i didnt find anything regarding ( maybe because i dont know how its called) but i want to work on an objekt lets say a cube, and i want to extrude every face of it and scale it, but i want the faces to have all the same values/ same modification as different faces: im asking because when selecting all the faces and extruding it acts weird or it will just be dublicated.

x3 tanks in advance for any help

If I understand it correctly here we go:

First issue.

Blender doesn't have so precise modeling system as CAD software. So if you want correct edge lenght you will need to do this manually.

While scaling object in Edit Mode with selected edge lenght you can hold Shift to get more precision. Zooming in and holding cursor (before hitting S) away from object center could help a bit.

Second.

In Edit Mode change Pivot Center to Individual Origins then in tools choose Extrude Individual, Right Click and S to scale down each face.


How to add golden line to my maps? I have used displacement to create a map (based on a heighmap)
Now I would like to add golden topographic line.
I succeed to have :

either a white map
either a full golden map
But I would like both.
Is that doable ?

Please find attached an image of my situation

Edit
Thank you very much Carlo. I have been able to reproduce your work. only a small issue remains : The lignes does not have always the same thickness. On valley, the lignes sometimes are as large as the floor. I added an image in my main post for explanation

Math nodes on object's coordinates
There are several approach you can take, the easiest is to build a shader that is capable of recognizing the isolines (lines that have something in common, the same Z in this case).
Start by adding a texture coordinate node. We'll use the object coordinate (the position of it's origin in this case) as a starting point.
Whit a separate XYZ node we isolate the Z channel:

Then we use the math "modulo" node to subdivide the Z channel in several segments, and the math "compare" node to extract an interval from each segment (you can use a color ramp if you want a smooth edge).

We basically obtained the lines, now we just need to use the results as mask for the mix shader node between our two shaders.


How to add a model on surface of another object? I have long shifted to Blender from 3ds Max since about 5 years ago. I am missing one option though, maybe because I haven't researched about it yet and I would like know:

In 3D's Max, you can literally create another primitive on an existing objects surface by making it your grid. Blender's power is 3D Cursor but is it possible get the cursor so precise to a models surface quickly?

I can surely think of few other ways but was wondering if there is an Add-on or a way to speed up the workflow.

Thank you in advance,
Waqas

You can turn on snapping in the view header and if you set the origin of your primitive to the bottom of the object, then you can move it about the surface of the main object and have it snap to the faces.

Max Puliero has a great video showing some cool stuff with this.


What is the purpose of the "Color Space" on image texture nodes? After posting this answer, I was told that I should of set the Color Space to non-color. Hence my question, what is the purpose of the Color Space on image texture nodes in cycles? I have not set any of my image texture nodes to Non-Color Data and have not noticed any side effects.
The blender wiki is not too clear on the purpose.

  For most color textures the default of Color should be used, but in case of e.g. a bump or alpha map, the pixel values should be interpreted as Non-Color Data, to avoid doing any unwanted color space conversions.

Depending on your color management setting in the Scene Properties Editor, Blender will interpret the colors in an image in different ways, (i.e. apply a gamma curve to it, or adjust the color gamut/saturation of the image^)

Changing the color space to noncolor basically tells Blender to skip that conversion, i.e. a bump map is should not be color-managed.

^ I am greatly simplifying what 'color management' is, but for the purpose of this, I think it's sufficient.


Blender game character is not responding to game logic I have made an action animation with an IK rig. The mesh has a mirror, subsurf, and armature modifier.

I began making my character walk by using a keyboard sensor connected to an and brick connected to a motion and an action brick. I set the action to my walking animation and set the start to 0 and the end to 80 on play (I wanted to test it before I looped it) but when I pressed P and then W for my walking the character moved but the animation did not play.

Here is the .blend file

The BGE can't handle the Mirror Modifier when you apply it and change the order of the modifiers:

Some notes:

For performance and to avoid issues it would be better to apply the subsurf also
80 Frames is a bit long for this walk cycle
Loop Stop / End should be used in the action actuators
Related: How should an animated character be moved while repeating a walk cycle?

Result (reduced to 20 frames and adjusted movement):


Rigging, moving feet affects the main body I'm trying to connect the armature to the feet of my model, but I want the feet to be able to move without affecting the main body in anyway, similar to how Kirby walks.

I tried assigning the armature to just the feet, the feet end up popping off the rest of the mesh (I removed the original screenshot to make room for a download link).

I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could offer some advice on how to properly rig this model.

EDIT: I added a link to the Blender File if anyone wants to take a look at it.

Blender File: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0_pWAFE-Gd6d2phQ1ZZd0pCelk

So have the feet be controlled by the armature and nothing else? To do that you would have to go to pose mode and right click + shift on the bones that are for the foot, and then right click on that foot. Then press ctrl + p to parent it and click on automatic weights. If you had a single bone for the foot, you could avoid weight paint altogether and just click bone instead of automatic weights. I am not very good at weight painting so not gonna talk about that.

Also, currently the feet are a single model I think? If you are using the mirror modifier like I think you are, then apply it and then go to edit mode with tab. Then press p and click by loose parts. this will separate the feet into separate models which you can then select once you have left edit mode. To make these easier to move, you should probably go to object - transform - origin to geometry from the little pop out menu near the bottom of the screen.


Change all bones of an already existing animation I am a noob in Blender so I hope this question is not extremely trivial. I want to modify an existing animation. The animation is made of a lot of frames. The position of the rig is mostly fine, a part from (let's say) the head. I want the head to be slightly curved on one side, for all the frames.

Now, I can see how to do it for a single frame (through the graph editor, for example, or by moving the model and pressing I). But what if I want to do it for a bunch of frames? Is there a way to doing that fast?

Thanks

You can do all basic manipulations in graph editor same as with objects in 3D-View, like scale, translate and rotate, border select, select linked and more.
Just select the keyframes that you wish to change and move them all by one by pressing g. Press y to lock moving only the values and not along the time axis.


Align 2 faces with only two vertices and constraints I want those 2 faces to be on the same plane only by moving A on the C axis and B on X/Y/Z. I tried to resize with transform orientation to normale but I cannot lock the other vertice position. Maybe a tool displaying the normal numerical values of the two face would help. The rest of the mesh is currently hidden.
Is there a tool or technique to do that ?

I'm confused with the question so here are a few options.
To flatten the faces on the $Z$ axis, for example, select all vertices, scale them to zero (press  S + Z+0)
You can modify the coordinates for any point numerically. Enter edit mode (↹ Tab) enable the Sidebar (press N) to access the Item Properties panel.
You can see the Local and Global coordinates and manipulate them at will.

So you can flatten the faces first and then, with all vertices still selected, you can set them at the correct coordinates numerically.

To move a vertex along an existing edge, use Vertex Slide (⇧ Shift+ V)


How to merge 2 parts of the same object? i have a simple question for you, i need to "merge" 2 parts of the same object in edit mode where the faces collide, here a simple example to better explain the desiderata:

IS it possible in Blender with a simple operation? or do i have to recreate the whole parts to make them collide correctly?

Recorded a quick video showing how to easily do it.

The steps are:

Create two loop-cuts on the smallest/thinnest part.
Snap the new loops along the X axis(or whatever axis are appropriate for your mesh) to the mesh you want to merge it with.
Select the faces your mesh is going through and create an inset face.
Scale down the new faces and snap the edges into the thin piece.
When all edges/vertices are overlapping use Alt+M and select "By Distance" to merge overlapping vertices.
Finish off by either manually selecting and deleting the interior faces or use Select - Select all by trait - Interior faces to select them and delete


Principled BSDF subsurface scattering values for skin material I had some difficulty finding information about the usage of the Subsurface Scattering parameters in the Principled BSDF node for a skin material, so here are some questions I have that are still unanswered despite my efforts regarding the parameters:

Is the Subsurface parameter value always at 1.0 for a skin material? If not, does it need to be mapped with a texture?
Would the Subsurface Radius parameter be constant across the face of a real person? If not, how can I map this value with a texture given it accepts a Vector input?
Is the Subsurface Color intended to have a subdermal map as its input?
Is there a document that lists parts of the skin and common SSS values for them?

I'm working with a cartoonized character and I think introducing more realism to its skin can give me better results, but accuracy isn't a priority.

Is the Subsurface parameter value always at 1.0 for a skin material? If not, does it need to be mapped with a texture?

Some parts of the skin have more SSS than others, therefore a texture helps... and rarely a skin gets 100% SSS. So a value of 1 is unrealistic.

  Would the Subsurface Radius parameter be constant across the face of a real person? If not, how can I map this value with a texture given it accepts a Vector input?

Also another non-constant value. Depending on the density and depth of the skin, if there's bone or flesh under it, etc; this value can change. Here you can play in conjunction with the SSS color, as this parameter is only there to help SSS color to get higher radius. Note that Cycles simply multiplies both Radius and Color. If your SSS has a maximal radius less than 1, you can just use the SSS color. Vector texturing is possible in formats like EXR or HDR (and since in this case, the radius is allways positive, you can use also PNGs or any +16bpp format)

  Is the Subsurface Color intended to have a subdermal map as its input?

Same thing as the above.

  Is there a document that lists parts of the skin and common SSS values for them?

There are plenty of artists who shared their common values... But this is not rocket science, and there's always plenty of room for artistic interpretation.


Colour not filling whole of object When I add a material to this object with a principled bdsf and just a base colour it appears patchy. I have used the sculpting brush on the object and it seems like the colour is only effecting these parts that I have sculpted. Lighting does change it a bit but not entirely.

Check Faceorientation

Press Alt+V and select face orientation, the whole object should  be blue, means the faces are oriented the right way. Blue = outside, Red = inside.

Alternative model

Maybe it would be better to use a single vertex with some extrusions to shape branches, with modifiers shown in image bellow. To make parts thinner select the vertex and press ctrl+a
Something like this:

To get a more organic look add a lattice object. Select lattice and change the resolution.

Then add a lattice modifier to the tree-like-object. Note: Object has to be the lattice you created. After that, move vertices from the lattice in editmode.


Help with texturing a test model I made an animated box with the intent of importing it into GZDoom as an MD2 for testing. The problem is that I can't get this whole UV mapping thing down. The MD2 exporter won't let me export the model, saying that it needs at least 1 skin to export. I read the Blender 2.83 documentation on this a few times (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.83/modeling/meshes/uv/applying_image.html) but the mapping window pane they are displaying doesn't seem to exist in my version of Blender!! I have a picture here of where I'm stuck at: (https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ap4KZFMds2L1hGq1cPxTVZPnft8Y?e=bQA8xP). I also have here the .blend file right where I got stuck: (https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ap4KZFMds2L1hGkboQxzDy50WN0s?e=85dXcA) .
Thank you in advance :-)

You have not assigned the image texture to the material. That's the reason why it's no shown on the cube.
In the material properties, click the yellow dot right next to Base Color and select Image Texture. Then click the image icon with a little arrow next to it that just appeared. In the popup select your image. Done.
Alternatively, go to the Shader Editor. Add an Image Texture node, select the image, and connect the color output of the Image Texture node to the Base Color input of the Principled BSDF.


Save Cycles Materials as Open Shading Language file we currently work on a project, where we want to use the Open Shading Language to reuse shaders and materials in other programs/renderers (who also support OSL like Arnold)
For that it would be great to write a osl-file out of a cycles material.

I found a plugin who creates an xml file from your cycles material containing osl
http://peter.cassetta.info/material-library/
but that's not platform independent.
Is there any posibility to save all cycles nodes from a material as an osl-file, without the need of scripting shaders?

Cheers Martin

Currently this is not possible.

Gladly Blender is OpenSource and all OSL files for OSL supported nodes can be found in the git repo https://git.blender.org/gitweb/gitweb.cgi/blender.git/tree/HEAD:/intern/cycles/kernel/shaders

There are some nodes that are Cycles specific and will not be able to run correctly in other software packages as needed variables/context might not exists in those packages or named differently.

But it should be possible to create an overall function for your Material to simulate a Cycles material graph to a certain extend.


Why is the "render engine" selection menu missing? The dropdown menu to select the render engine (e.g. "Cycles", "Blender Internal", "Blender Game") isn't showing up:

I compiled Blender myself (SVN r56975), and although I've enabled WITH_CYCLES with CMake at compile time, the Cycles addon warns about missing script files. But the "Blender Game" option should still be there.

Short version:

check first a build from builder.blender.org
then

verify source modifications
verify build settings

fix your modifications or build settings.

When you see weird behavior in own builds for which you also have changed source always check a build from builder.blender.org . If the unexpected behavior doesn't show up with such a nightly test-build, then you should review your modifications and build settings as they are apparently the cause for the behavior.

For building settings and troubleshooting of builds, refer to the build instructions for your own platform and build system. There are trouble shoot sections for each way.

If on the other hand the unexpected behavior is replicable with such a build, then you likely have found a bug, at which point you should be reporting that to projects.blender.org


Parenting with orientation constraint for the game engine I am trying to set a lamp in my scene so that it will follow the player wherever he goes yet still maintains its orientation. if I parent it to the player object, when I rotate the cube, the lamp will rotate also due to its initial orientation and it messes up the lightning. Is there a proper way through this ?

Use Vertex Parenting to a single vertex.

Select child right mouse button
Add parent to selection shift+right mouse button
Switch to edit mode tab
Select a single vertex from mesh right mouse button
Establish vertex parent ctrl+P
Leave edit mode tab


What causes this glitch in this mesh? How do I remove it? There seems to be a weird glitch in subdividing the mesh at the vertex along the mirror axis. Although, only in this one place.

Any idea on what caused this, and how to fix it?

Thanks!

Edit. Blender file: https://we.tl/t-yjIh6LZgs4

I took a look at your file. First I tried switching to the smooth brush and putting the strength to 100 to try to smooth it out. It seemed to look better after but there was still something majorly wrong with it.

Then I checked it out in edit mode and noticed a naughty 5 sided NGON inside the mesh.

Ngons = bad bad bad. So I would fix that for a start. :)
Another thing I noticed while trying to give you a fixed version of the sculpt is that during your sculpting, you've managed to move the mesh off the centre of the grid, so now the sculpting is no longer symmetrical, so be casreful when moving your object and make sure the origin sits at 0.000 on the X axis at all times.

Now editing your sculpt in edit more when using the multi-resultion modifier can cause it to break your sculpt. (this is to do with the fact that all vertices are numbered and the multi-resolution modifier identifies the location of each individual vertex by it's assigned number). So if you delete a vertex and replace it, then the vertex numbering is all changed and it causes major problems with your sculpt.

The best way to solve this is to first:

1) Go into Object Mode >> change the location of your sculpt to 0.000 on the X axis.

2) Go into Edit mode >> Remove your ngons (faces with more than 4 polygons) and try to make all your faces into quads (four polygon faces). I saw the back of the leg was an ngon and the upper legs contain two ngons each so there at least 5 ngons you can try to make into quads :)

Then press W and "Remove Doubles". Also, press Ctrl+N to make sure all your normals are facing outwards (these two are just in case).

3) Unfortunately, now you'll need to delete your multi-resolution modifier in Object Mode.

4) Now press Ctrl+A and Set Rotation and Scale. (Again this is just in case).

5) Now you'll have to start sculpting again. Yes, it's a pain in the backside but think of it as practice and usually when i have to do a sculpt twice, the second time always turns out better!

Good luck and happy sculpting!


How do I make edges go around a whole object? I have this object and I want the highlighted edges go around the whole object (like the edges in the middle), so that I can split it in 4 parts. I'm kinda new to blender and would like to know how this works

In order to select an edge to go around the whole model press ⌥ Alt + LMB


How can lines be smoothed in Freestyle? For example the lines on this monkey render show pointed edges instead of a smooth curves. How can the lines come out more smooth?

Current Line

Smooth Line

Apart from smoothing the mesh with Subsurf,
you could also try adding a Bezier Curve Modifier to the Geometry of the Line Style:

Before:

and after:

You can also tweak the result by adjusting the chain angles:


Can I export multiple objects with individual animations to FBX? I have a simple scene with two objects. Each object has scaling keyframes and the animations are different for each object. No modifiers, no armatures, nothing fancy. Just two cubes with some keyframes. When I export to FBX, then re-import the FBX file into Blender, both objects show up, but they both have the keyframes from the first object.

Is there any way to export both objects and have each of them keep their individual keyframes?

If there's some fundamental concept of the FBX format that I don't understand, please let me know.

According to Bastien Montagne (https://developer.blender.org/T65768):

  No bug here, to achieve what you want you need to disable All Actions and NLA Strips options, then you'll get current scene's animation exported properly. Those two options are used to export several animations (usually for a single object), e.g. to export a character and all its animations to a game engine.

So, to export multiple objects with individual animations, do the following:

Click File > Export > FBX (.fbx)
In the Export FBX options, click the Animation button to view animation options
Make sure NLA Strips and All Actions are unchecked


How to toggle/view selection highlight? I may have pushed a key unawares because suddenly I can't see my selection highlights. If I click a face/vert/edge I can manipulate it but it's not highlighted orange, can't see it when I press "a" either... where can I turn this back on?

You have turned off the Show Overlays toggle on the user interface. Click it! Some pair of circles in a little square button. Overlays On, they're Blue, Overlays Off, they're gray as I see they are in your little gif I'm unsure what keystroke activates or deactivates them but the mapping for keystrokes is easy to look up under Edit > Preferences


Masking selected vertices for sculpting I have 3 questions related to masking in blender. I'm using latest 2.80rc2.

Is there a way to mask a subobject or selected vertices inside a mesh?
Can we mask a selected vertex group?

For example, say I added a UV Sphere as eyeball and then I need to place the skin in relative to the eyeball without affecting it. Hiding eyeball sphere would be harder for visualizing the effect of sculpting.

Using mask brush to mask the eyeball would be tedious to do. But we could hit [L] key to select vertices of just the UV Sphere..

Can we use a feathering like mask with mask brush? If so, can we adjust the easing function with graph, just like in proportionate editing?

Regarding vertices.

There is a menu option ... Hide Vertices.
This Hides the current selection.

Vertex groups give a reusable name to vertices. In case you need to hide vertices repeatedly.


How to Append a world with HDRi and nodes from another blendfile? I can Append things from another blendfile if they're in Collections or various other groupings, but when I do Append -> blendfile -> World and select the World object, I get nothing appended. Is there any way to append a world? I specifically need the HDRi texture and the nodes around it.
Similarly I'd like to Append some nodes from a blendfile into the Compositor. Is that possible?

To append an HDRi texture from another blend file along with the nodes :

append the world
select the world settings from the properties panel
Click on the browse world settings to be linked
In that you will see the appended world with the name World.001 if it's not named and will appear with the name if it's named in the appended .blend file

The world will be appended along with the node setup


How do I extract a color from part of an image and use in keying? How do I extract a color from part of an image and use in keying?

I want to pull out a rect from the corner, like 10x10 to 100x100 and feed it into the key color of the keying node. This is so I can auto detect if its a green screen or blue screen input.

You just needed to scale that to the image size


Any feature in Blender which can show front edges and back edges differently like in Sketchup I have asked on question here: Why the inner edge line segments are drawn in freestyle render output , but it looks like Blender's freestyle render does not works quite well, as it has bugs.

So my question is: Is there any feature that I can show the edges cleanly just like the ones in Sketchup, see below:

In the above screen shot, both the front edges and back edges are shown in 2D style(I mean they don't have any 3D projection feature, they just have fixed width), but this feature is useful for me to show the inner structure for teaching. Thanks.

To show edges of geometry in render like on your screenshot I used Freestyle, i.e. it's possible to see the result only when rendering (either in Preview / Viewport render or scene render).

In Render Layers tab, Freestyle Line Set rollout I set up 3 freestyle layers:

one for border edges of meshes (contours);
one for hidden geometry (i.e. the one which is hidden from viewer with another geometry) (seeing-through)
and one for foreground edges (i.e. ones that are closer to the camera and are visible) (foreground).

contours layer (thick grey line):
Has the simplest setup, nearly default one (it has Suggestive Contours checked and that's not needed for it to work).
seeing-through layer (dashed green line):
I checked Hidden option to make hidden geomtry selected by Fresstyle. I unchecked all the options from Edge Types category (it will also work if checking default ones and Crease, which will work only if its angle is set, see below).
foreground layer (thin red line):
Only Crease is checked because layer is intended to show those edges which are neither borders nor contours and at the same time aren't hidden geometry. In order to make it work Crease Angle in Freestyle rollout in the same tab is set to 120 degrees instead of default 0:

I also changed line style for every layer, like thickness, color etc. in Freestyle Line Style rollout in the same tab.
The result:

It has some inaccuracies, like the one with the top red edge of the rightmost cube, it stops being visible and becomes hidden too early (it should've been red all the way up to cylinder). If this is something visible for you and not desired, it should be possible to avoid that if subdividing that edge with a loopcut.


How to recreate the merging of gelatin I need to recreate the merging of white and colored gelatin:

I presume the process could contain these steps given a mold (powdered starch) to cast the product (facedown):

Pour fruity colored gelatin
Pour white gelatin after step 1 has dried a bit

To imitate the border, simply use a gradient as a mask between two Principled BSDF shaders.
As for the top material, glass with higher roughness works pretty well.


How can I add bubbles to a liquid? I have been using blender for just a couple of years off and on and wanted some suggestions on this render, things like:

How to add bubbles over the wine?

Create a particle with sphere object wherever you want in that liquid.
Set the liquid material to objects of that particle.
Flip normals of the sphere objects so that the inside of them will look like air.
These are my bubbles:


Same Video on each face, but with different time delay? iam looking for a way to - like the title says - i want to put the same video on each face, but with different time delay.

In other words, i want to create a kind  of videowall.

i found THIS:

#----------------------------------------------------------
# File multi_material.py
#----------------------------------------------------------
import bpy

def run(origin):
    # Create three materials
    red = bpy.data.materials.new('Red')
    red.diffuse_color = (1,0,0)
    blue = bpy.data.materials.new('Blue')
    blue.diffuse_color = (0,0,1)
    yellow = bpy.data.materials.new('Yellow')
    yellow.diffuse_color = (1,1,0)

    # Create mesh and assign materials
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add(
        segments = 16,
        ring_count = 8,
        location=origin)
    ob = bpy.context.object
    ob.name = 'MultiMatSphere'
    me = ob.data
    me.materials.append(red)
    me.materials.append(blue)
    me.materials.append(yellow)

    # Assign materials to faces
    for f in me.faces:
        f.material_index = f.index % 3

    # Set left half of sphere smooth, right half flat shading
    for f in me.faces:
        f.use_smooth = (f.center[0] < 0)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    run((0,0,0))

But it didn't really work out for me, it creates a red sphere and sends

  Traceback (most recent call last):   File "\Text", line 36, in
     File "\Text", line 28, in run AttributeError: 'Mesh' object
  has no attribute 'faces' Error: Python script fail, look in the
  console for now...

to the console. Also i didn't know how i could add the delay in there.

Hope you can help me out with this! :)

Each face will need a separate material and each of those materials will need its own texture.

The multiple textures can all refer to the same video asset, but will have different values for either Start or Offset (I can't remember which) near the bottom of the Texture/Image properties.

By request: here is a set of python code which can construct the needed materials.  In practice, python is a waste unless you are doing a lot more than 6 materials.

import bpy

def get_movie(movie_fname):

    for img in bpy.data.images:
        if img.filepath == movie_fname:
            return img

    return bpy.data.images.load(movie_fname, check_existing=True)

def mission1(obj, n_materials=6):

    movie_fname = "/var/tmp/blender/meow-gun.mp4"

    img = get_movie(movie_fname)

    textures = []

    for i in range(n_materials):
        tex = bpy.data.textures.new("movie", 'IMAGE')
        #tex.type = 'IMAGE'
        tex.image = img

        tex.image_user.frame_start = i*300
        tex.image_user.use_cyclic=True
        tex.image_user.frame_duration = img.frame_duration

        textures.append(tex)

    materials = []
    for i in range(n_materials):
        mat = bpy.data.materials.new("movie")
        if i>=len(mat.texture_slots) or mat.texture_slots[i] is None:
            tslot = mat.texture_slots.add()
        else:
            tslot = mat.texture_slots[i]
        tslot.texture = textures[i]

        #many other material customizations can go here
        mat.emit = 1
        tslot.texture_coords = 'UV'

        materials.append(mat)

    for i in range(n_materials):
        if i<len(obj.data.materials):
            obj.data.materials[i] = materials[i]
        else:
            obj.data.materials.append(materials[i])

    for j in range(len(obj.data.polygons)):
        obj.data.polygons[j].material_index = j%len(obj.data.materials)

obj = bpy.context.active_object
obj = bpy.data.objects["Cube"]
mission1(obj)


In Blender 2.8 where did the Lock frame selection to range button go? Where is the "Don't allow frame to be selected with mouse outside of frame range" button?

You can go to the timeline and click playback then tick the limit playhead to frame range


Weird scaling constraint on 3d model in edit mode so im in edit mode with my model however when I select a face and try to scale it it scales the model not just the face please help?

Make sure that proportional editing is turned off or disabled


Proportional editing problem I'm new to blender and I have a problem that I can't solve and where the internet won't help me.
I have a column and want to make it look like it was cut. So I want that the upper vertice goes into the blue circle and that the other vertices makes a straight line to the lower vertice. I tried to use the proportional edit tool but none of the meshes  solves the problem. So is it possible to use the proportional editing but fixing a vertice and making the other vertices do a straight line between the fixe vertice and the edit one ?

Add a cube, and position it so that its lower face sits where you'd like the cylinder's vertices to be. The tip of the cylinder should be inside the cube.

Select the cylinder. In the Modifier Properties tab, on the right-hand side pannel, add a Boolean modifier. Make sure it's set to Difference and, under object, select the cube (be aware that there might be many cubes in your scene; make sure to select the right one).

Your cylinder should now bear a cut as the one you described. If evertyhing seems to be in order, hit Apply in the boolean modifier and get rid of the cube.


Custom number of faces Hello I have a cylinder with 32 inner faces. I need to make 42 inner faces with the same width of faces. Subdivide doesn't help me bcs when i divide all faces to half i will make 62 faces. And when i divide some of faces, all faces will not have the same width.

It will be much, much easier to reconstruct the cylinder from scratch, this time before confirming, set 42 subdivisions...


Mapping multi uvs textures to a character in blender? 3 separate textures for character I've been trying to convert a 3D model into the sims 4 as a decorative object "like action figure." I managed to pose him the way I wish but when it comes to mapping his 3 separate textures I can never seem to correctly do so that he looks the way he does in blender. Can someone give me some detailed help?

Using the blend file you sent :
In the UV/image editor, click image and in the menu, new image (or Alt+N)

Select the size of your image (512x512 should be enough but let's use 1024x1024), give it a name (like Full Texture) and click ok

You now have a beautiful black image. This is where we'll bake your texture.
Now go in properties panel, click on vertex data tab and click on rkuv in UV Maps. Make sure the camera icon is active on UVMap.

In 3D view, enter Edit mode with TAB, salect all with A and in the UV/Image editor, select the Full Texture", then go back in object mode (TAB in 3D view)

In properties panel, go in render tab, in Bake, bake mode click to open the menu and select "Textures"

Click the Bake button. Your Full texture is baking...

In UV/Image Editor, click Image, Save As image to save your new texture (if you don't, it'll be lost!!)

In properties panel, go to material tab, select ks material

Now go in Texture tab, click the button to change texture and select your brand new Full Texture

Back in material tab, delete all but ks materials.

Go in Vertex Data tab and delete "UVMap"

Now you have only 1 material with only 1 texture. If it doesn't show, go in material tab, enter edit mode, select all and click the "assign" button. If your texture doesn't show, go in texture tab and click the refresh button.

now save your file (change the name to keep the original with textures) and you're done !

I don't know much about sims 4 studio, but if you need an OBJ file, open the file menu, select export then wavefront (.obj). give it a name and you'll be able to import it from sims 4 studio and select the Full Texture file as texture. (the old OBJ won't work)


Is it possible to colour or put textures on Bevel curves? So with my model, I've been struggling to create hair because it always looked weird or off and recently I discovered the "Bevel Curve" addon and it's an absolute lifesaver.

So I converted the bevels into mesh to colour it, except it lags blender like crazy and I need this model for a video game I'm currently developing called Candles(so I can't upload the model, sorry) but I was wondering, is it possible to put a texture on a bevel curve like you would mesh or any other method or giving it colour?

You can assign materials to curves just like you would on any mesh with a few limitations.

Just create multiple material slots and in Edit Mode pick a vertex and press Assign to apply it to the complete corresponding spline. Only limitation is you can only apply one single material per spline, not per segment.

Under the Properties Window > Object Data (Curve) > Texture Space you can turn on Use UVs for basic simple automated UV coordinates generation.

They are limited in that they stretch for longer segments and give uneven texture density, but will do for basic stuff.

Anyway if you want to export this for a game engine I guess there is really no way around converting to mesh and manually unwrapping it properly. You may keep the original object as curve in case you need to go back and edit something, do the conversion on a duplicate for safe keeping.

After conversion to mesh the basic Automatic UVs are preserved, so you have somewhere to start. If these are enough check if they are also preserved when exporting the file to a game engine.

Also have in mind that if your Blender lags after converting your curves to mesh there may be too much geometry, and that it will also likely cause problems in the game engine. Consider simplifying your curve geometry before converting to mesh.


Place emitter type particles on the surface evenly I'm trying to recreate this effect:

I've managed to deform a cylinder to get the wave effect like so:

However, I'm not able to evenly add the particle objects since my emitter does not have even faces. A noob-friendly guide to adding the particles on the surface evenly would be extremely apprectiated! Thanks!

Final:

You can make it with Ocean Modifier (it will keep mesh evenly distributed) and Particles System.

Ocean Modifier:

Add Ocean Modifier to any mesh (could be Plane). And literally just play with settings until you will be satisfied. I've marked my settings for this example.

Remember to check how much Verts your mesh contain as this will be important in Particles setup.

Do this in Wireframe view to see density of the mesh.

Particles:

Add Particle System to your mesh.

Set Start/End to 0 and Particle Number to match mesh Verts count. Sometimes Blender will leave a gap (I don't know why) you can fix this by adding one more Particle. In this example it's ok, but with earlier try I've needed to increase it by 1.

Check Use Modifier Stack, this will allow to use mesh generated by Ocean Modifier.

Add to the scene mesh you want to use as a render object. In this example it is simple IcoSphere. Select it under Render tab > Dupli Object.

Final thoughts:

You can manipulate Ocean Modifier after adding Particle System. Just remember that changing Resolution or Repeat X/Y will change Verts count and then you will need to change Particles Number accordingly.


How to get the name of image of "Image Texture" with python? I would like to get the name of of image of "Image Texture" like "Wood8" or "Wood8.png" below with python.

I tried to use object.material_slots[index].material to get materials, and it work.

However, then I tried to use material.texture_slots.texture.name to get it, it didn't work at all.

I have no idea what to do next?

2017/06/05 edited
@TLousky

I tried to use

import bpy
import bmesh
'''
I would like to get all textures
'''
scene = bpy.context.scene
objects_in_scene = bpy.data.objects
texture_list = []
for obj in objects_in_scene :
    # Enter EDIT mode of this object since bmesh only can be acess in EDIT mode
    if obj.type == 'MESH':
        scene.objects.active = obj
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
        me = obj.data
        # Acess bmesh of this mesh
        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
        for f in bm.faces:
            if len(obj.material_slots) != 0:
                mat = obj.material_slots[f.material_index].material
                # Check there is a material in this material slot
                if mat is not None:
                    # go through all texture slots in the material slot
                    for mtext_slot in mat.texture_slots:
                        #print(mtext_slot)
                        # Check the texture slot is not None
                        if mtext_slot is not None:
                            text = mtext_slot.texture
                            # Check there is a texture in this texture slot
                            if text is not None:
                                # If the texture hasn't be counted ever, then Count it
                                if text.type == 'IMAGE':
                                        if text.image.name not in tList:
                                            tList.append(text.image.name)
                                            print(text.image.name)
print(texture_list)`

to get all textures of all objects in the scene.

However, I got "[]" meaning nothing as feedback.

Then I added print(mtext_slot) in line 24 to get what is in the material.texture_slots

And I got the following feedback

`<bpy_struct, MaterialTextureSlot("Tex")>
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
<bpy_struct, MaterialTextureSlot("Tex")>
None
None
None
None
None
...

It seems there was something wrong in my codes

The screenshot of your texture indicates you are using cycles, the material texture slots are only used by blender internal. For a cycles material, you need to loop through the node tree and get the image info from any image texture nodes to find what images are being used.

import bpy

texture_list = []

for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    for s in obj.material_slots:
        if s.material and s.material.use_nodes:
            for n in s.material.node_tree.nodes:
                if n.type == 'TEX_IMAGE':
                    texture_list += [n.image]
                    print(obj.name,'uses',n.image.name,'saved at',n.image.filepath)

print(texture_list)

If you wanted to list by face what images are used then you can loop through the objects face data -

for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    if obj.type == 'MESH':
        for f in obj.data.polygons:
            mat = obj.material_slots[f.material_index].material
            if mat and mat.use_nodes:
                for n in mat.node_tree.nodes:
                    if n.type == 'TEX_IMAGE':
                        texture_list += [n.image]
                        print('Face', f.index, 'uses', n.image.name)

print(texture_list)


How to fix these weird shadowy sun rays on the spoon? I'm quite new to modelling, and I got this pesky problem on the spoon, or maybe I shouldn't care about it? Anyways, at the bottom (same from above) we can see those rays that don't look nice, I tried lifting the faces to even it out, but no luck. Any suggestions?

Heres now I usually go about solving this issue:

I start with a UV sphere with subsurf, and it has some wrinkles:

Heres what the geometry looks like:

Now, i add in a smaller loop cut close to the center of the circle, making sure to position it to maintain the curvature of the sphere:

Now, my wrinkles are gone, or at least imperceptible from this distance:

I hope this helps!


Why can't I see these objects or use Texture Painting on them? I'm new to Blender and hitting a wall here.  So I created a UV map for the eyes of this character which I've been able to view, but I can't figure out how to start texturing the eyes.  It just won't let me view the eyes in texture painting at all (can't even choose texture painting), and now I can't see the UV Map anymore.  I would be fine with creating the texture externally in photoshop, but I'm at a loss here.  I followed a tutorial to paint the character, but not sure where I'm going wrong with the eyes here.

Dropbox files here (Please let me know if the link or files don't work): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m7whjq6qsbgr7w5/AAAMgOmrx6AqFT5hHSwzL7Jta?dl=0

Press numpad /  to exit Local View and you will see the mesh objects


Brightness dependent texture on mesh Andrew Price showed in one of his tutorials how to use a white material node in the Blender internal render to get the brightness of a point and assign the texture accordingly.

In this case: Point is bright: assign daylight texture; Point is dark: assign night light texture

Is there anyway to reproduce that in cycles?

No, it's not possible to do this in Cycles, it will first evaluate the material nodes entirely, and then compute the lighting.

Supporting this would be incompatible with progressive rendering and bidirectional lighting algorithms, and so physically based render engines usually can't do this.

For the earth example, a workaround would be to use a Normal node Dot output, with the Geometry node Normal output plugged into the Normal input. If you then set the direction to match the sun light it will give you a factor than can be used for blending.


How to import python module from within the project in blender? The problem:

I've created two scripts in blender (importTest and loggingConfig), as shown in the following picture:

But when I try to import loggingConfig I obtain the error

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'loggingConfig'

Options tried:

importTest (Try #1):

import loggingConfig

importTest (Try #2):

import bpy
import sys

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

import loggingConfig

In both cases obtaining the error above

For blender below 2.8

The script to be imported must have the '.py' suffix (e.g. loggingConfig.py), it can be imported as follows:

import loggingConfig

If loggingConfig suffered any changes, you must reloaded, like this:

import loggingConfig

# The following lines reload the module in each run
import imp
imp.reload(loggingConfig)

This can be ran each time to ensure to have always the most up to date version of loggingConfig.py.

For blender >= 2.8

The script to be imported does not need to have the '.py' suffix (e.g. loggingConfig), it can be imported the following:

import bpy

loggingConfig = bpy.data.texts["loggingConfig"].as_module()

In this case it isn't necessary to reload the script in each run.


How to import Downloaded Materials/Files? This is an absolute beginner question, I'm hoping it's not to broad, I will attempt to narrow it down.

I have just downloaded a handful of .zip files for several material packages (all for cycle render) and a "Modified Toon Shader" .zip file as well. I am super excited about using these but just realized I have no clue how to import them into Blender or how to really use them.

Do I just go User Preferences > Add-ons > Install From File? Or is there a Material and Shader specific path I need to follow?

And then once I do get them imported, will imported materials show up in a drop down menu of sorts? Or do I go to Node View and then I will be able to drop the specific nodes in and plug them into my objects?

I'm sorry I know this question is a bit open, I'm hoping it's narrowed down enough to be answerable. I have not unzipped the files yet because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to or not.

Here are a couple examples of the files I downloaded:

http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/82742

http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/70644

Blender has no specific file formats for objects, materials, shaders and so on. To reuse the material from one .blend file in another, you can either create a link to the material in your material blend or you can append said material.

Linking materials is a great way to create material libraries. If you make changes to the material blend, those changes will be visible in all files that have links to the material file, as soon as you open or reload them.

Appending materials creates copies of the source material in your current blend file.

The process for both methods is the same.

Open the file you want to link/append the material to.
Go to "Files - Link/Append"
Navigate to the .blend that contains the material and click on it
Open the Material Folder and double-click on the material you want to link/append.

After that, your material should be visible in the Material selector.


Edges are not dissolved I created a plane and extruded some edges from it on edit mode. As you see the screenshot, I filled the last two edges to make a rectangular donut. Then I selected all inner edges and tried to dissolve them. But some edges were never dissolved.

How can I accomplish it?

You can’t remove the last two edges. Removing them would leave a face with a hole in it, which Blender doesn’t support. Removing just one of them would leave a face that shares an edge with itself, which Blender also doesn’t support.


FBX with Weight or Deformation support? I am trying to edit models for a game. Specifically hair. In 3ds MAX, there is a special window that allows you to export the file with deformations, considering in this game, hair has physics:

I like 3ds max for modeling, however, I like blender for texture mapping. It seems when I edit the model in Blender after I edit it in 3ds MAX, in game, it is stiff as in it isn't flowing or having any flow to it at all. Even though 3ds max has this feature, it makes the hair very glitchy in the game. Is there a way for blender to export FBX files, with the support for deformation, for the hair to have physics in game? Thanks for the help!

The only animated mesh deformations Blender can export to FBX are:

Armature-driven ones.
Relative shape keys.

So if you can bake your physics into shapekeys, or use a 'fake-physics' armature, it should work.

PS: don’t know Max, but I would bet their “deformations” are similar to Blender’s “shape keys”?


Help my texture is distorting Hi i'm trying to project a image onto a plane, i lined up the UV's with the correct perspective but my image distorts on the plane, subdividing the mesh a few times solves the issue but i would like to know if there's a better fix?

That error is common, if there are not enough subdivisions.
You need more subdivisions on the mesh.
In edit mode, subdivide the plane, or add a subsurf modifier and set it to simple mode (instead of Catmull-Clark).
If you look carefully, the texture is divided in two triangles, which is how 3d Engines work, by triangulating the geometry. Without any form of interpolation, the engine cannot deform a rectangular texture into a trapezoidal one. By interpolating you are still getting the triangles, but since the distortion is made in many places it will not be as noticeable.
The best solution, though, would be to use a shape that is not trapezodial at all, but rectangular like in the real world and is deformed by the perspective from the camera and the lens used.
Use Fspy, that way you can reconstruct the geometry, so that it resembles the real world.
Read all about it in the following post:
How can I recreate geometry using a photograph?

(For a longer explanation on why this happens maybe someone more versed in OpenGL and the algorithms used for texture mapping can edit or delete, or write a new answer, in the meantime do a google search for "affine" texture coordinates)
I'll leave this image here to picque your curiosity:


How to make object transparent on "texture" view mode I have managed to make an object transparent on solid viewmode, but It is fully opaque when "texture" viewmode is selected.

The reason I need it transparent for textured view is that I'm editing the object to match a picture projected on a plane behind it. Help!

You can do it in Material viewport shading, which isn't all that different from Texture.

Set the shading to Material and add a material with the following node setup to your object.

On the Properties Editor make the following changes.

Now change the color of the RGB node to your liking.

If it's imperative that you use Texture shading, the following method should suit your needs just fine (it also works in Material shading):


how to have grease pencil animation have one object permanent I am trying to make a 2d animation in blender and appreciate the grease pencil tools. However, I find it hard to say keep a tree in the background for multiple frames. Is there a way to make one layer remain constant when adding new frames? I have tried locking the layer, but that in turn locks everything which I don't want. If I want a guy to walk in to a city, I want the landscape locked, but the character himself not. How should I go about doing this?
Thanks so much.

Like wilks suggests, the easiest route might be to add another grease pencil object for background elements. The images below show one way to do that.


how to render multiple things separately I'm using Blender 2.80. I have a scene, where I fire 20 cannons at the same time, with smoke and fire. How can I render (with Eevee render) some cannons separatley?

(i.stack.imgur.com/lXFuK.png)

This tutorial explains how to work with view/render layers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOO3K1B9vgg

View layers is to render separately.
render layers is how you combine them in compositing.


How to replace reflection image? How would I replace this cube's reflection

With something like this?

Try something like this for your World (Environment) Shader - it's just 2 Noise Textures with the detail turned down, scaled slightly differently and subtracted from each other. I also added ColorRamps to help "define" the shapes a bit better:

If you want the background to appear plain, while still providing lighting and reflections, mix your patterned background with a plain background using the Is Camera Ray output of a Light Path node as a mix factor. I also added another ColorRamp because the colors looked a bit blurred and indistinct on the reflections. I also ended up inverting the image (by way of the ColorRamp) because it looked a bit closer to your reference image, but I don't think it really matters that much.


AN Grease Pencil Draw I tried to create Script node that kind of trance paint animated object in the scene.

I actually just source copy paste the script from here:
Convert Curves to Grease Pencil?

As you may already know, I still have limited experience with Python scripting and Script node itself.

I am wondering about few things. At this moment, the script continues to run and update, regardless frame is playing or not. And I think this should be more elegant, such as it should "stamp" the Grease pencil per frame or per other trigger.

I think Grease Pencil is an untapped ART TOOL, potentially to make generated art, although it is not outputting curve.

I like the idea of being able to AN Grease Pencil for stamping, to trace animation, and perhaps for Grease Pencil to actually trace vertices. Instead of generating mesh that is heavy. I believe Grease Pencil can be light.

So... the question will be:
1) If using Script node, how to setup so that it will update only by frame changes?
2) With grease pencil case, I would love the ability to stamp in different color, as well as trace and draw overtime in changing Hue.

Can I have some direction if you have time. Thanks!

Not sure about the second question but the first one is easy. If you want to execute the script only when the frame changes you have to modify the Auto Execution settings.