Is it possible to interactively control/manipulate objects in Blender Internal/Cycles to have more realistic physics simulations? I am working on a project which involves some physical interaction between different objects in a scene; Most of the physical interactions could come from manipulating objects in the scene while the physics is working. For instance, I want to make a scene in which there is a articulated hand that moves some objects as shown in this video. I haven't been able to find anything regarding controlling objects in an interactive manner in Blender Internal and Cycles with the physics being on indefinitely. By indefinitely, I mean I do not want to set a limit for the number of frames the physics simulation should run.

So I wonder is it possible to have interactive scenes to manipulate objects using the physics in Blender Internal or Cycles?

I emphasized on Blender Internal or Cycles because the quality of physics simulations is pretty important for this project. In addition, I don't mind the physics simulation time. However, although having interactive scenes is possible in Blender Game Engine but I've heard that the physics in Blender Game Engine is only meant to be used for real-time simulations and is not realistic. I wonder if that is true? If that is the case, is there any workaround to either make Blender Game Engine use the physics that are being used in Cycles/Internal?

P.S. I've heard that Blender 2.8 can potentially resolve this issue as it is possible to have interactive scenes with high-quality physics in it. Can anyone confirm this?

You are confusing physics, rendering and interaction, which are three different worlds in a 3d package like blender. If you want interaction then you need to use any game engine like unreal, optimized to calculate simulations (based on assumptions) as well as additional interactions in real-time.

However, with that benefit of having a real-time simulation, you obviously forfeit simulation quality and especially image quality. Notice that even in a game engine, the simulation of physics only means object interaction and is another thing as how all the meshes are calculated to a final image.


How to tile textures in Cycles? I just recently got into the nodes system, my knowledge on the subject is limited.
I can't seem to find out how to tile textures using my current node setup, because it doesn't tile the them on its own.
I know that I could be using a Vector Mapping node, but the way I'm modeling this requires that I texture each part of the building individually.
If I use a Vector Mapping node, I'll have to manually adjust each individual part myself.
The nodes I'm currently using

The problem that I'm having is that if I use the same nodes for a mesh with different dimensions they get stretched.

I want to avoid the need of using Vector Mapping nodes and just give it the ability to tile the texture so that it goes over a mesh of any size without stretching.

The concept you are missing is UV texture coordinates.
Normally you would have to Unwrap your mesh and build a UV Map, but that is not always desirable or practical, and for most simple cases automatic texture coordinates will suffice.
If you plan to animate your object with deformations (rigging, armatures, shape keys etc.), or wish to export your model elsewhere (say a game engine or external application) you have to unwrap. Procedural or "generated" texture coordinates are created by the engine at render time and can't really be exported.
Otherwise, for that you have to use an Input > Texture Coordinates node, you can use either Generated texture coordinates output or the Object type coordinates.

Generated Coordinates will apply exactly 1x1 tiles of texture per object and stretch along with the object dimensions even if you change it's size (similar to the behavior you are currently getting in your images).

Object Coordinates will use the object's local coordinates for repeating your texture across the surface, exactly one tile per Blender unit (measured in object local coordinates), if the object grows in Edit Mode, more patterns tiles show up without stretching or distortion. If you scale it in Object Mode you will affect its local coordinates, and textures will stretch with it.

For both cases use the Vector > Vector Mapping node to adjust texture size or repetition of the pattern on top of the default value.
By default without any texture coordinate input in your node setup Blender falls back to UV Coordinates for any image based textures, and Generated for procedural textures, but the Vector Mapping node alone is inert on it's own and won't have any visible effect on textures (it may even make textures disappear). You will have to explicitly feed it some base coordinates to work with.

This is how the Vector Mapping node should work for all XYZ axis. Make sure your texture is set to Box projection method.

Have in mind that scaling the object in Object Mode without applying the scale will also stretch object space coordinates and thus textures along with it. To counter that you may use an Vector > Vector Transform node from Object to World to convert between coordinate systems.

The Vector Transform node converts between coordinate systems, if your object is scaled non uniformly in Z axis the it's texture space will also be stretched, in that case you need to convert the texture space from Local to global space so it transforms from Object Coordinates to World Coordinate system.
This will have other side effects like the texture being "pinned" to world coordinates and remain static in relation to scene, appearing to "slide across" moving objects like a projector.


Why is my camera pan not rendering I am a beginner in blender and I made a quick animation of an object that does not move and the camera pans around it. When I press the play button in the camera view, it pans around fine. But when I render it, all the frames are the same. Every object is there and all but the camera does not pan. Please help as soon as you can.

http://pasteall.org/blend/33664

Uncheck the Sequencer box in the Post Processing panel.


Bevel object flipping unexpectedly Above is the issue I am having.
I would like to edit the path as below:

In the second gif, I can use the move tool to taper and bend the hair. This is what I would like to do.

In the first gif, however, the bevel object begins to turn and flip after a certain y value.

I've not been able to get an answer on this question anywhere. The closest workaround I've found is to just A -> ctrl+T and flip the curve before starting. Ended up working reasonably well.


Cannot render animation? Panel issues? I can't get my animation to render, the panel doesn't look like the tutorial's.

The bottom one is what it's supposed to look like, but the top image is what it looks like for me. This is probably an easy fix I just need help.

You are in the game engine. To render use blender render or cycles.


File Browser - missing an input box I should have another box below the one circled.  The box I need has a plus and minus sign next to it.  Searched high and low for the setting but no joy!

I opened the Editor Type in top left of window to the File Browser window. I located my desktop folder and set up a New Folder here. In the instructional video I watched he then enters a further piece of text in the box below the file name box. The text he enters ends in an underscore like this _. I believe its called a partial. I can't do this as there's no box in which to input this text

The box you are looking for is the file name box, where you input the file name for the undergoing operation. Those buttons allow to increment or decrement the file numbering automatically

If you open the File Browser as a regular editor, there is no "default file action", it just open for view and navigation purposes, and as such the file name box is unavailable because there is no active operation to preform.

To have the name box available and the increment/decrement visible, the file manager has to be invoked from a menu to preform some IO action, rather than a permanently open browser part of the workspace layout.

If you go to File > Import or File > Save as or any other file operation like linking, appending, exporting, or any other operation that requires specifying a file the name box will show, along with the buttons.


Focused Gaussian beam going through a plane I try to create a focused Gaussian beam which is going through the focal plane.

So far I tried a Volume scatter with a lot of lamps in the middle, which completely failed.

For the second try I exported an intensity distribution with matlab and used this as an UV-map to control the transparency of a plane. My beam consists now of a lot of planes (see first picture) which is also not ideal because at the intersection with the focal plane there are some lines visible.

If I increase the transparency of the plane, the result is ok but I am not 100% satisfied (see second picture).

So my question is, if it is possible to create some kind of light or intensity distribution which I can tweak with functions, so that I have a Gaussian shape in the x-y-plane and a hyperbolic or quadratic shape in z-direction?

I already saw the previous question about a Gaussian beam, but unfortunately the blender files cannot be downloaded anymore and without I was not able to understand fully what was going on and the problem is also a bit different.

Here is a two dimensional plot of how the intensity distribution of a focused Gaussian beam should look like approximately.

The colormap is just for better illustration, for my image it should be only red. The important thing is that the width of the beam gets smaller in the middle where the plain is but also the intensity there gets higher.

You can create such a beam using a Volumetric Emission shader and some maths nodes.

The Gaussian distribution is as follows :

Create a mesh (eg, a cube) to act as the domain for the volumetrics. The Object coordinates will be used, passed through a Mapping node to allow it to be easily manipulated and scaled.

To to create a vertical beam you can calculate the square of the distance as 'x^2 + y ^ 2'. This can be used directly as the 'x^2' in the above equation.

All that remains is to scale the beam based on the square of the Z-coordinate.

This produces the following material :

You can adjust the Mapping node to vary the scaling along each of the X, Y, Z axis, adjust the 'Add' node to affect how tightly the beam is focused and adjust the Multiply node to affect the overall brightness of the beam.

Blend file attached

EDIT : Just noticed the edit to add variation in intensity towards the focus. This can be easily achieved by driving the final Multiply for the intensity from the Z coordinate. eg, something like the following to focus the beam to a bright spot on the plane :


Quick smoke + fire not rendering properly in 2.81a Having just ventured into the physics of Blender, I tried to set fire to a cylinder in a previous animation. The results looked nice especially using Cycles. In the 3D viewer with Viewport Shading: rendered turned on.

However, the output does not reach the renderer when trying to output an animation. I tried the same using the default startup scene, setting fire to the default cube. Neither Eevee or Cycles will render anything: Eevee shows a blurry domain box, cycles just shows the cube.

Any suggestions? I use PC (Win 10) with 2x EVGA 1070GTX in SLI. Everything else seems to render fine, just not physics (or at least not fire + smoke for now).

Thanks for your help,
S

In the end, it was possible to "jog" Blender into rendering a frame of a burning basic torus using the default settings for Quick Smoke + Fire. I changed CUDA settings to CPU only and replaced the Output shader with a fresh default one. The fire + smoke then F12 rendered, if slowly.

When I then turning GPU Compute back on (and all GPUs + CPU on as well in CUDA settings in Preferences), the fire + smoke still rendered, and a lot faster. Have the Blender devs added GPU support to Cycles with 2.80? If so, thank you! I just find it strange that the Material Output shader needed replacing to get the physics effect to run.


Combine textures into one - For Tabletop Simulator I have downloaded an object from a website that includes the textures.  Following a tutorial, I was able to put the textures on the various parts of the object.  They had a separate texture file for the Head, Torso and Legs.  Everything looked Ok and I saved the object.
When I imported the object into tabletop simulator, the textures were missing.  I can only add ONE texture to a model in TTS, if I load one, the others dont have color.  Does anyone know how I can fix this?  Im a total newb at Blender and not much better at TTS.

If anyone has an automated way of compositing them I would love to hear about it my self, but so far as I know the unfortunate answer is it has to be done manually.  The way I've always had to do it is to open the three separate textures together as layers in a photoshop type program (I typically use gimp) and arrange them as different squares on a bigger single image.  If at all possible i would make the canvas exactly twice the size of the origonal images and arrange the tiles on there with out resizing as that will help with the next step a little.  after that you have to open the model back up in blender and resize/move around the normal map so they line up with the textures on the new single composite image.  If everything went smoothly this is just a matter of selecting them all scaling to .5 and moving them around as a group till it lines up about right.  if each of the three images was a different size however, which often happens, it can get a bit more fiddly resizing and placing.
P.S.  One thing I forgot to add since you mentioned parts not having color.  the color slider in tts will only change the color to the first "material" the object mentions which can be handy if you want to only have say the base or a specific item of clothing on a character to change color.  so in blender which ever material is at the top of the list will be the one affected.  In the sample pic below I want the scales to be able to be set different colors so I have material.004 which is the scale pattern set at the top of the list


Rendering with background movie clip isn't working I've tried rendering a 3d poly spider on top of a movie clip (Which I imported from a sequence of PNGs), but even after a bit of compositing nodes I've copied from another similar question it still doesn't render!

Thanks a lot :)

The spider has a gray background that hides the image on the layer below. You need to render the spider whit a transparent background and the problem should be solved.

As the picture below.

If you don't know how to set a transparent background, go to properties editor/render/film/transparent

Eevee

Cycles


Can I export to .stl without selecting items (export everything)? I've made some relatively simple models for 3D-printing which consist of many primitives (boxes etc). When I export to .stl only selected ones are put into it. Of'course I use B keyboard shortcut to select them all, but is there an option which will cause exporting everything without need to select them each time?

You cannot export .stl files without selecting at least one object.
My suggestion to you is dot not use box select objects by pressing 'B'

To select all object just hit 'A' , to deselect all hit 'A' again


Texture Coordinate vs Geometry Node When working with generated texture coordinates I see sometimes the Texture Coordinate (generated) and sometimes the Geometry (Position) node used. What is exactly the difference ?

The Generated and Position outputs each represent coordinate systems.  These are often used as texture coordinates for procedural textures since they are 3-dimensional, though they can be useful for other effects as well.

Generated Texture Coordinates
Generated coordinates are defined by the bounding box of an object, and are unique to each object.
Generated texture coordinates give the bounding-box-space position across the mesh.  The bottom, left, front of the bounding box is the origin (coordinates [0, 0, 0]), and the top, right, back of the bounding box is [1, 1, 1].

I use generated coordinates when I need the texturing to transform, particularly rotate, with the object.  However when the bounding box is significantly non-cuboidal generated textures will stretch and distort the texturing.  In these cases you may need to manually "un-stretch" the texture with a mapping node, or use Position coordinates.
Generated coordinates can also be useful for non-texturing methods, like creating gradients or other more advanced techniques.

Position Coordinates
The Geometry > Position output gives the position in world-space across the object.  The origin ([0, 0, 0]) is the world origin and all other points are simply their respective position in Blender Units relative to the origin.

I like to use Position coordinates to keep uniform texture scaling across with a material assigned to multiple objects with different sized bounding boxes.  Using Position coordinates also prevents distorted stretching on objects with significantly non-cuboidal bounding boxes.


How can I make a polar array? Every tutorial offers this option - create an empty, add the array modifier to your object, choose object offset and select the empty. Then turn the empty and you get polar array.
However what I get is far from it. Each next copy in the array becomes exponentially larger and when I spin the empty the whole whatever I've got turns and it's far from the result I wanted. I've noticed that when scaling my object to 1, it sort of fixes it, but then its still very weird. My empty becomes the center of the 2nd object in the array and me turning it makes all the other objects curve relative to each other and in result the center point of my 'polar array' keeps shifting. I want the center to be where my empty is.
There must be something I'm missing... After all I'm new to blender.

Glossing over some things a bit..
Every geometrical entity in Blender is made up of two parts: they are Objects, which contain Data.
In the case of a polygonal object, the Data is a representation of the Object's mesh - the location of all its vertices, which vertices constitute which edges and faces,and so on. The vertex locations in the Data are not measured in World Space, but in the space of their Object. You can see the space of an Object by switching on 'Axis' in the Object > Properties > 'Viewport Display' panel.

The top face of the default 2x2x2 cube on the left is at Z = 1, in its object's space. Because the object has no transform, the top face is also at Z = 1 in World Space. The cube next door has been scaled in Z, and the one on the right rotated, too. As far as the Data are concerned, the top faces of those cubes are still at Z = 1, in their object's spaces. They are then given their object's transform, which puts them at different locations and rotations in the world.
In Edit Mode, you are transforming elements of the mesh in their object's space. In Object Mode, you are transforming the object (i.e its space, along with the vertices in it.)
When you Apply the transforms of an object, the World transform of the object is given to all of its vertices in their object's space, and, to compensate, the inverse of the transform is given to the object itself. That results in the mesh remaining where it was in the world, and the object's transform being returned to 0 translation, 0 rotation, 1 scale...

Counting from 0, an object-targeted Array modifier gives each iteration of the mesh [iteration-count] times whatever transform would would map the zeroth (original) arrayed object on to the target object. (The inverse of the arrayed object's transform in the target object's space.) The first copy's axes, if it had them,  would always match the target's axes. Try it with some simple transforms, and the axes showing, to get the idea.


How to make Gems/Emeralds look like this in Cycles? Hey People my Question is: How do I recreate the look of those Gems that i have in this Image. I dont know if someone would call that Worn Edges but see for yourself.
I dont want tnt just the edges to Look worn or however that Effect is Called i want them having that Stylized look but still be Reflective and Realistic.

Texture the gems with handpainted textures with worn edges - to keep it stylized. Also make some roughness texture for the edges so you get more variation in the shader. You can also create multiple materials (for edges, flat pieces,..) and mix them using mask. Go with a glass shader for the surface, you can also mix multiple glass shaders with different IORs to get some fake dispersion effects.
Make the gem fairly transparent and shade the inside of it with volumetric shaders. If the gems will be animated this volumetric part could have some procedural changing clouds inside. Something like this: Volumetric tests
Add a light source of some kind inside the gem. There could be some cloud volumetric emission shader inside. Or add some nice backligh/light-from-bottom etc.
The glow, color correction or some more stylization add in compositor with nodes.


Shader script nodes have no parameters I am trying to do my first OSL shader script. No matter what I do, even when using all the examples, when I add a node for my shader none of the parameters show up as node inputs/outputs as I have read they should.

What am I doing wrong, why don't they show up? (Blender 2.8)

shader noise(
    float Time = 1.0,
    point Point = P,
    output float Cell = 0.0,
    output color Perlin = 0.8,
    output color UPerlin = 0.8,
    output color Simplex = 0.8,
    output color USimplex = 0.8)
{

Blender has a few oddities, including:

Script need to be reloaded/refreshed when changed/loading via the little double-arrow button in the node block next to the filename. Use that when/if loading/changing.
If there are ANY errors or oddities in your script (at least in Blender 2.8) - this will result in your node not changing to reflect the current script it's pointing at. i.e. It won't give you an error, but when changing the node block from one script to another - it simply wont change. (Button above can help your diagnose errors)
FYI - If not shades to not actually work - make sure you are not using GPU rendering. OSL works with CPU rendering, only. In addition - make sure "open shading language" is checked below the CPU option (in the Scene property under "Render Engine").


How to resolve these artifact looking after apply normal map? There are so many black areas showed up after the normal map connected. Thanks for answering my question. :D

I guess this image representing problems better.

The problem has been resolved. It is caused by the missing info from the normal map.
To fix the normal map, I used Photoshop to clean those spots, and it works just fine without baking another one.


Bone rotation behaves differently to object rotation I have a problem understanding the rotation of bones. While objects are rotated around their axis as expected bones seem to behave differently (Even when the objects are parented).

In the first picture you see the sample object once with bones and once with separate objects. You can also see that the rotation angles are different while the result is (more or less) the same. However for the first bone and the respective object the rotation angles are both 0.

This picture shows the rest pose.

For my export script I want the rotations of the bone to be like the object rotations. I use quaternions but for understanding the problem better I displayed euler angles in the pictures.

Thanks in advance!

There are a few issues here:

The orientation of the bone at rest is not the same as the object. By default, the Y axis on each bone is along the main axis of the bone (i.e. the direction the bone is pointing). As blender uses Z-up as its standard coordinates, this most likely corresponds to the z axis on your object.
Your object pivot point (the orangey dot when it is selected) does not match the pivot for the bone. This may, but not necessarily, cause differences in the rotations.
Euler rotations are not path independent, and as a result there are multiple ways to end up in the same orientation. Euler rotations are essentially a number of ordered rotations required to reach a given orientation, but there may be multiple ways to reach the same orientation. In this case try copying the values from the object to the bone and see which results you get.


Symmetrized armature keeps appearing on the same side as the armature that I wanted to symmetrize I tried to symmetrize my .l(left) bones onto the right. When I do, the names flip but the position doesn't flip, the .r bones are on the same side as the .l bones.

That symmetrize function always works along the X axis, not Y.
Rotate the character and the rig 90 degrees along Z axis, apply (Ctrl A) rotations of both, then continue the rigging process using the symmetrize function.


I want to make a Final year engineering project in Blender. What is the scope of Blender? I have been using Blender for a few months for animation and game development and am well versed with python scripting used in blender too.
I am a 3rd year engineering student and was thinking to make my final year project using Blender.

What all are the things exactly that Blender is capable of doing?
Can I make something useful(not recreational projects like games or animations) with Blender?

Thanks in advance! :)

Blender can be used for geometry creation and visualization. The geometry can be manually entered or imported and manipulated using Python. Using Python, blender can interact with data in the real world. The cycles rendering engine implements ray tracing and can replicate optical behavior. There are several built in simulators, however they are intended for animation, not engineering. There are two different fluid simulators (Lattice-Boltzmann and SPH). There is a solid body simulator that includes mechanical constraints. The scripting capabilities make it straight forward to couple other simulations to Blender. Since Blender is open source you can access the source code and extend the built in simulators. From these basic capabilities many different engineering things can be done. The list below shows some places to look for ideas. Good luck!

Visualization

Scientific Visualization in Blender
Post process CFD data
Create and visualize "computational cell biology"
Astronomical data
Plotting data
Plotting functions

Image processing
Augmented reality
Particle Tracking  Velocimetry
Real-time sensor visualization
Psychology testing
Engineering
Robotics,more
Real-time audio spectrum visualization
3D Printing
Automotive design at Tata
Dental appliance design
Design a fixture for spinal surgery
Aerodynamic geometry case preparation for CFD
CFD visualization
Industrial fire simulation
Simulation sensor imaging
Thermal radiation shielding design
Structure solar radiation simulation
Simulate soil optical properties, more
Synthetic aperture radar simulation
... and lots more


Finding the source for "API Defined" custom properties It seems that I have a couple plugins automatically creating custom properties with API Defined values on every object I make. Now that I'm starting to make drivers with custom properties, I want to get rid of these junk properties by just uninstalling the plugins that are creating them. Is there a way to trace back the origins for these automatically created custom properties?

Leave them be, create your own panel.

For 2 of the 3 examples shown its pretty obvious from which addons they come. Disabling the cycles render engine to have a clean custom properties panel is IMO not the way to go, going forward.

Recommend leaving the so called "junk properties" alone. Let the custom properties panel be populated by props defined in other addons, including your own. (The scene's custom props is surely the most over-populated).  Accept that this panel fill with everyone's junk. Make your own panel that only displays what you want, where you want.

If a property is defined in an addon via

bpy.types.Object.foo = bpy.props.IntProperty(default=4)

The foo property is now available to all objects. Once set ob.foo = 3  its value is stored in blender via the custom property ob["foo"].  For a more detailed property setup like a collection, it displays in UI as "API defined".

Unregistering an addon may or may not remove the storage. Eg ob.foo is defined in an addon, and on unregister is no longer available, but ob["foo"] still persists, where set, and available when the addon registered next time.

As well as storing the value it also stores the properties of the property, eg min and max.  This can be manipulated via the objects ob["_RNA_UI"] custom property, with the key "foo" ob["_RNA_UI"]["foo"].

Hence not defining with  bpy.props as above can create, set, and add UI properties with:

>>> ob["foo"] = 3
>>> if not ob['_RNA_UI']:
...     ob['_RNA_UI'] = {}
...
>>> ob['_RNA_UI']["foo"] = {"description" : "FooBar", "driver_prop" : True, "max" : 10}
>>> "driver_prop" in ob["_RNA_UI"]["foo"].keys()
True

Now we have a custom property named "foo" description (tooltip) "Foobar" that has a maximum value of 10 and a flag indicated it is being used to drive something. All of the rna props, eg max, need to be of type int, float, bool or str.  The "driver_prop" key shows how these  can be other than the arguments of the bpy.props property.

For more info see  ./2.80/scripts/modules/rna_prop_ui.py on how to add your own "Add Custom Prop" button to your addon panel.

To remove all custom props from an object (for answer sake, not recommended)

for k in ob.keys():
    del ob[k]


How do I import Unreal Models? (smite) I'm new to the program so this is probably much easier that I think it is but I've been trying to import into blender the smite god models, I used UEModel to extract them into .psa and .psk files (as well as some other formats though I'm not sure what they're for) however when I try to import any of them into blender, no matter what import 'mode' I select, I can't see any of the files, only the sub folders.

What am I doing wrong?

If you're using the default addon that comes with Blender, this is why you have errors. It's outdated, you want to get and use befzz's updated importer, though it does have issues with bone names and animation on some models.


Is there a way to determine the left 3D view sidebar's current width with python? I want to display a custom menu when it will be in the left top corner of the 3D View, over the view name ("User Persp" etc).

I guess this is the long way, but if I'll also know the window location and area (already answered here How to get mouse position in a window with Python?), and mouse position, then I'll be able to calculate if the mouse is in the right spot or not.

You can query the region's width from bpy.types.Region.width

I'm not sure if the toolbar region is always the second region (region[1]) in the bpy.types.Area.regions list, but you can always just loop through and check the type:

for region in bpy.context.area.regions:
    if region.type == "TOOLS":
        width = region.width
        break

That'll pick the first region of type TOOLS, though afaik there can be only one.


Can Blender Make 2D Flash Animations? (Like Adobe Animate) I'm trying to use Blender as a 2D animation tool. Hard to do this if layers don't work the same way they do in Photoshop, or Adobe Animate.

Can't seem to add a plane background (and lock it), or add an object on a layer that goes on top of it.

Anyway around this? Or should I just give it up and use Adobe Animate?

Since blender is a 3D modeling and animation program, with a three-dimensional scene you can't get that kind of layer workflow with Z ordering, "background" and "foreground" objects, or layer locking. That is simply not how a 3D scene works.

That being said Blender is fully capable of doing 2D animations, you simply physically stack your objects one above the other, in Z direction (or any other axis that is convenient to you) and you can use the outliner to lock whichever objects you don't want to select or want fixed in the scene. You can also lock their individual transforms if you want them selectable but unmovable.

You can use regular objects and constrains or rigging or whatever 3D method of animation is most comfortable to you, but "constrained" to a 2D plane, which should even simplify things. You can then easily render everything from an orthographic camera placed directly above all objects.

I have never used Adobe Animate but layers in blender work a bit differently, you can either use groups and the outliner to control object visibility and selectability en-mass, or you can get some cad-like layer management with third party addons like VTools Object Layer Manager

As of Blender 2.8#, the already existing Grease Pencil feature has been substantially improved, and includes a lot of new features and functionality. Grease Pencil objects are capable of being animated, rigged and work very close to bi dimensional objects, with brushes, fills and a digital painting workflow.

You can also add modifiers and effects to them, and use the new 2.8 collection system to organize and manage them.


Armature: Clear Vertex Weights of selected Mesh I used set Automatic Weights when Parenting the Mesh to the Armature. However the Oxygen tanks are assigned to all kinds of bones. How do I remove all bone weighting from the selected Mesh?

I could go into WeightPaint and select every single bone and make sure the Oxygen tank is nowhere selected. But that would be a terrible inconvenience. And setting Vertex Weights in the right Panel of the 3d-View only sets the weights for a single Vertex.

Select the vertices, if there is no active vertex, deselect one, and select it again with Shift RMB.
Enter the desired weights for the vertex, then press copy, to copy the settings to all selected vertices.

Although the other vertices copied the weights, there still may be additional zero weighted groups. To remove them, use Clean button on all groups.


Unable to see smoke, and still see faces of object in Wire(Maximum Draw Type) I am working on making a rocket in Blender using this tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pQc0qIy33A

but I am unable to see my smoke effects in render mode, but I am able to see them in Solid view. Also for the cube I am using for my domain, I am still able to see the grey faces on the cube, even though I changed Maximum Draw Type to Wire.

I apologize if this is an obvious question, or if I am not describing my problem well, if you need anymore information then I would be more than happy to supply it.

Thanks,

John

not sure what went wrong.
to make smoke first decide your render engine Cycles or BI.

Next on the 3 screen hit space, type quick smoke

you'll get something to start with, keep in mind smoke requires light as well and settings how thick it will be can be tuned, and viewport might not reflect cycles but be just some aprouch to it.


density attribute not working for smoke I'm having problems with the new smoke and fire features for 2.71. I have followed Jonathon Lampels tutorial but it quit working at the part where you put in the attribute node with an attribute of "density". Any idea why it's not working? I also tried the "fire" attribute as well, with no luck.

Here is without connecting the attribute node.

and here it is with it connected.

Thanks in advance!

Make sure your smoke has been simulated a bit before you render it.

You can quickly simulate it by playing the animation (AltA), or you can cache it more permanently by baking it (press Bake in Properties > Physics > domain settings > Smoke Cache).

Once you have done that, you should be able to see the smoke in the viewport and the render.


Middle mouse button does not move the user perspective I'm new to Blender and 2.81 is way too different.

I was using the press & hold middle button normally, tried to create a new plane with PBR materials (previously prepared with Youtube tutorials).

Then I typed x, y & z many times to cycle lock/unlock view. No do.

Tried unchecking the transform options "origins" & "locations", nothing.

Tried loading the factory settings, still can't move around with the middle mouse button. Auto perspective unchecked as well.

Just noticed the screen zooms in to the object when pressing Shift + C

Same problem 3 years ago.

Check your keymap preferences. Click the edit drop down from the top of the window, click preferences at the very bottom, and navigate to where I am in the attached picture. Is rotate mapped to your middle mouse button?


How do I make smoke dissipate after its stopped So I have made a smoke simulation and set the starting point and the ending point of it. Is there any way I can make the smoke dissipate after it's stopped? Since right now it only freezes.

Create keyframes for the density of the emitter. If you bring the density to 0 the smoke would disappear.

Add also keyframes to decrease the temperature difference and the surface.


Transormation of object I have a reference and i want  to make it
I made a flat design , now i want to transform in sphere shape

First, if possible, create a "minimum unit" of your pattern. For example, given these 8 shapes:

you can join them together (select, CtrlJ), but then you also have to put the pieces that "leak" into the next unit square back into the repeating unit:

The complexity of this task really depends on your model!
Make sure your pattern is "laid flat" onto the X-Y surface: rotate it in the right way, then CtrlA > "Rotation & Scale"

Enable the "Tissue" add-on:

  File > User Preferences > Add-ons > "Mesh: Tissue" > check

Create a cube, set the subdivision surface modifier, set the render divisions to 1, then "Apply".

Select the pattern, then Shift+select the subdivided cube, hit Space and search "Tessellate". Choose XY: adaptive, Z: proportional, and hit "ok". You may want to enable "smooth" shading on the resulting mesh.

This will create a patterned mesh, made by repeating your patter on every face of the subdivided cube. It works because the object is made of quadrilateral faces. it wouldn't work on a UV sphere or Icosphere.


How to decrease the polygon count on my mesh? I'm an absolute beginner. I'm trying to reduce the count of polygons in my mesh.

I've looked at some tutorials online and I know what I need to do is go through the decimate process.

I can't locate the decimate function on my interface.
Can someone please show me how to find the "decimate" menu in my interface. The interface is unedited from the stock install.

The simple answer is Mesh > Clean up > Decimate Geometry.

Then look in the bottom of the Tools panel to see the Decimate options and reduce the Ratio.

A better, non destructive option is to use the Decimate Modifier

You will find more options there.

There seems to be an option which tries to keep UV maps intact which would be important if your mesh is using those.


I have a problem with cloth simulation Okay, so I try to make clothes for my character but by some reason, every time when I try to animate the clothes they always start looking like this when I but cloth physics on them.

This is what I would wanna them to look like:

Can some please help me with this my problem, because I have no any clue what I should do to fix it?

Also, sorry about my bad English.

Try checking a "Self collision" box

By the way there is same question answered.
Cloth - Cloth interactions in Blender
Maybe this will help you.


Changing 3D Perspective Views using the NumPad I'm trying to use the number pad shortcuts to control the views, Left, Right, Back, etc. It isn't working, though. It only works when I click on the view through the menu.

Instead, these little boxes are lighting up.

How can I make it so that my Number Pad keys will have the desired effect?

Try checking Emulate Numpad in the User Preferences(Ctrl-Alt-U).


Basic Video Editing - Ubuntu Linux I will have some home movies converted to video.  I will need to import and edit these in pretty basic ways - copy entire sections to another location and give it it's own file name, etc.

I have no need to make my own graphics, games, or anything like that.

If there are "clean up" capabilities to fix minor problems in the video, I might use them if they are easy to use.

I hear most other Ubuntu Linux video editors crash more than a blind pilot, but this one is good.

What is not clear from anything I can find is: "Does this program do simple things like the above, or not?"  If not, what is my best choice?

Yes, Blender does do basic editing.

Keep in mind that Blender was designed as a 3D application so the video editor is a bit of an addon. It works fine and is quite usable, but the workflow isn't as optimized as a normal video editor. The more complex your edit, the more hacky things become. Just keep this in mind.

Moving the locations of files and renaming should be taken care of by your operating system. Doing using Blender would just be over complicating it.


Import external .py script I have a Blender python script in my Blender file

import bpy
print(variable)

and an external .py file in the same directory as the .blend file.

variable = "spam"

I want to import the external file into Blender using a relative path.

You can append the path to your script

import bpy, sys
sys.path.append('//myscript.py')
import myscript


Smart UV Unwrap on Joined Object Breaks Textures I have a simple build into a Joined object. When I try to smart uv unwrap the object, the textures break.

Here's what I did:

OBJ> A to select all of the individual objects
OBJ> Shift-D, Enter, Cntl-J
EDIT> A to select all
OBJECT DATA PANEL> + new uv map named JoinedSmartUnwrapMap
UV EDITOR PANE> + create new image, 1024x1024, no alpha
EDIT> U , smart uv unwrap

But, when I smart unwrap, the textures blow up.
Am I missing a vector input node of some sort on the individual wood material and the poster material? for the objects prior to joining?

Joined object before smart uv unwrap:

Joined object after smart uv unwrap

Files saved in the state just before the Smart UV Unwrap

Here what's should help. As I understand you want to bake textures.

Join objects into one.
Duplicate object and move to different layer. Name it "bake".
Remove all materials from "bake" object. Create new material for it.
(image tex > Diffuse > output).
Create new map for baking (in UV editor) and save it as "Bake_diff"
UV unwrap "bake" obj with smart UV unwrap.
Select "Bake_diff" in image texture node as active one.
Set background on full white.
Go to Bake setup. Tick 'Selected to Active' and setup 'Ray Distance' to 0.100
Now select both layers, select first obj with textures and as second, the bake one. (make sure image texture nod with "Bake_diff" is selected)
Bake and wait.
Save map F3

There's a blend. Prepared, just do 9 & 10.


How can I move the horizon line? I used world texture to make the sky in my scene, but when I render it, there is a gap from sky to objects in the scene. This is what I mean:

How can I move down the horizon line? Is there another way to set the sky? Because I want the feel the scene is in a place high in the sky.

I am using Blender internal render.

if you are using cycles:

In the node editor, add an input > texture coordinate node and a vector > mapping node.  Plug the generated output of the texture coordinate node into the vector input of the mapping node and the vector output of the mapping node into the vector input of the environment texture node.  You can then tweak the values on the mapping node to move, scale, and rotate the environment texture.


Scripting a boolean modifier loop, but I'm doing something wrong I would like to make an opaque screen with many circular holes of different diameters and locations by an automated by a python script.

The locations and sizes will come from an algorithm and will appear random and some holes will overlap.

The script doesn't quite run - it gets hung up on the line indicated where I am trying to say "use this cylinder to make the hole!

The error in the console:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/david/Documents/fishing/static concentrator/static concentrator v01.blend/Text", line 31, in <module>
TypeError: bpy_struct: item.attr = val: BooleanModifier.object ID type does not support assignment to its self
Error: Python script fail, look in the console for now...

The script:

import numpy as np
import bpy

# make a screen
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(0, 0, 2))
screen = bpy.context.active_object
screen.scale = 0.05, 2, 2
screen.location = 0, 0, 2

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius=1, depth=1,  location=(0, 0, 2))
cyl = bpy.context.active_object
cyl.rotation_euler = 0, 0.5*np.pi, 0
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

scales, offsets = np.array([4, 4, 0.1]), np.array([-0.5, 0, 1])

holes = (scales * (np.random.random(300).reshape(-1, 3) + offsets))

for y, z, r in holes:

    cyl.location = 0, y, z
    cyl.scale = r, r, 1

    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    screen.select = True

    # bpy.context.space_data.context = 'MODIFIER'
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type='BOOLEAN')
    bpy.context.object.modifiers["Boolean"].operation = 'DIFFERENCE'
    bpy.context.object.modifiers["Boolean"].object = cyl  # Hey! Use this to cut the hole please!!
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier="Boolean")
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

The alternate script with a tiny loop and without numpy:

import bpy
import math

# make a screen
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(0, 0, 2))
screen = bpy.context.active_object
screen.scale = 0.05, 2, 2
screen.location = 0, 0, 2

# make a cylinder
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius=1, depth=1,  location=(0, 0, 2))
cyl = bpy.context.active_object
cyl.rotation_euler = 0, 0.5*math.pi, 0
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

holes = [(1, 3, 0.25), (0, 2, 0.15)]

for y, z, r in holes:

    cyl.location = 0, y, z
    cyl.scale = r, r, 1

    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    screen.select = True

    # bpy.context.space_data.context = 'MODIFIER'
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type='BOOLEAN')
    bpy.context.object.modifiers["Boolean"].operation = 'DIFFERENCE'
    bpy.context.object.modifiers["Boolean"].object = cyl  # Hey! Use this to cut the hole please!!
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier="Boolean")
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

This should work for you:

import bpy
import math

# make a screen
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(0, 0, 2))
screen = bpy.context.active_object
screen.scale = 0.05, 2, 2
screen.location = 0, 0, 2

# make a cylinder
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius=1, depth=1,  location=(0, 0, 2))
cyl = bpy.context.active_object
cyl.rotation_euler = 0, 0.5*math.pi, 0
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

holes = [(1, 3, 0.25), (0, 2, 0.15)]

for y, z, r in holes:

    cyl.location = 0, y, z
    cyl.scale = r, r, 1

    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    screen.select = True  # this doesn't matter, the active object does
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = screen

    # bpy.context.space_data.context = 'MODIFIER'
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type='BOOLEAN')
    bpy.context.object.modifiers["Boolean"].operation = 'DIFFERENCE'
    bpy.context.object.modifiers["Boolean"].object = cyl  # Hey! Use this to cut the hole please!!
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier="Boolean")
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

The key is that it doesn't matter what is selected, but what is active.


Obj vs blender file while saving assets so i'm trying to figure out the best way to manage my project, especially my assets (library). I see I can export my objects as obj files and import them wherever I need them. I also have seen people recommending to save all assets in a single blend file, and the third I've seen is saving each model/object in its own blend file. I am confused as to which way should i store my assets. Right now, i have couple of rigged characters, trees, cars, road, mountains, night sky, clouds and a moon.

UPDATE: I am working on making a small series of animated videos, each 4-5 minutes long. Assets could be used in different scenes of the same video as wells as in other videos. I am curious to know the pros and cons so as to decide which option to chose.

OBJ (along with other most formats) are interchange file formats, generally meant for cross application data transfer, like importing and exporting between software, not a reliable way to save data.

You should only use them if you plan on using your assets elsewhere in an application or software that can't directly read .blend files.

Saving your assets in a format other than .blend will invariably result in data loss. At the very least materials and textures, but in most cases also modifiers, rigging and any other Blender specific data, along with animations, constraints, simulations among others.

You also can't dynamically link data from objects and easily reuse it, once imported it becomes static local data, removing any benefits of shared libraries like an always up to date central file used across all projects, or automatic update propagation, especially useful in multi user environments.

OBJ should be used as an interchange file format, not a long term storage solution for a project or library file.


Keyboard shortcut to take a screenshot in Blender 2.83 The available method is under 'Window' in the top menu. However, I would like to use a shortcut to take a screenshot in Blender 2.83. How do I do this?

right click on the ScreenShot menu item, click assign shortcut. That should get you started


Setting object property with a python module's function Is there a way to set an object property using the return value of a module function like this?

I'm sure the module works because I can catch the final "value" of the function with that print() in the console.

It works if I put this line instead of the return:

bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner["Text"] = value

but I would like not use it this way.

No, the module functions in BGE work without returning values, and you can't set property values that way.

The basic structure of a module function in BGE is:

import bge

# cont is a reference to the controller, similar to bge.logic.getCurrentController()
def functionName(cont):
    own = cont.owner

To set property values, you don't need property actuators, just use the syntax:

object["property"] =  value

You said you don't want to use that syntax, but along with actuators, it's the only way to set object properties. You don't need to add the property through Blender interface, just set it through the code and it will automatically be added. Also, it works not only for game objects but for scenes as well, and they can store not only the basic types (int, float, str, bool, etc), but any kind of type and reference (including references to other objects). For example:

object1["target"] = object2

That way, you can access the object2 without needing to search for it, just accessing it through the reference.

object1["target"].worldPosition


Saving/loading the location(x,y,z) of selected vertices I have multiple object in blender.
There is an object ,lets called it "Obj1" ,which is the object I have to edit ,it does not allow to add/delete vertices ,faces ,edges to it,(require keeping the vertex's ordinal number of that object), all others transform (rotate ,scale ,move) are fine.
(but of course we can freely do anything with others object)

I want to save the location(x,y,z) of selected vertices of that object ("Obj1") into a file ,so that I can restore those vertices back to location when I need (only "restore" the location of saved vertices, all others vertices are not affected).
The ordinal number of vertices number of "Obj1" will never change during my edit,so i think we can use save location of vertex with its ordinal number like this :

[vertex ordinal number]-[x]-[y]-[z]

i get a hint , but i am still beginer in coding python (i have just started learning when encounter this problem) , so i greatly appreciate if someone can help me to make it complete

Code:

import bpy

obj = bpy.context.object
for v in obj.data.vertices:
    print("index=" + str(v.index) + " loc=" + str(v.co))

  This gets the location of vertices in local space.

  To write in a file, use normal Python IO routines.

Thanks

If Vertex Groups and Shape Keys don't address the problem, it is straight-forward to make a script. I'm not sure I understand your constraints but they seem to be:

locations of verts of the initial object are stored
indices and vert-count are unchanged
coordinates can change.
you want to be able to restore those verts in your modified object which are currently selected.

Rather than writing a script + ui for this, i'd first explore the code needed. I'm going to assume you aren't talking about thousands of vertices, if you do need larger meshes then optimization would help speed up the 'overwrite'

As usual many approaches are possible, i'd start with the one that requires least effort to understand and write. Start a new .blend with a dummy object to represent a simplified version of the objects you are trying to work with in your production files. Get a hang of whether this method works for you or not.

The clone mesh

This makes a mesh clone of your original object, gives it a fake user. The fake user flag tells blender not to delete the Mesh when it has no direct users.

clone.py

import bpy

mode_set = bpy.ops.object.mode_set

ob = bpy.context.active_object
mode_set(mode = 'OBJECT')

clone_mesh = ob.data.copy()
clone_mesh.name = ob.name + '_clone'
clone_mesh.use_fake_user = True

mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')  # place originally active object back to edit

This finds the clone and updates the active_object's selected vertices using the previously cloned mesh data.

restore_from_clone.py

import bpy

meshes = bpy.data.meshes
mode_set = bpy.ops.object.mode_set

ob = bpy.context.active_object
mode_set(mode = 'OBJECT') # updates the list of selected verts too

clone_mesh = meshes.get(ob.name + '_clone')
clone_verts = clone_mesh.vertices

for v in ob.data.vertices:
    if v.select:
        v.co = clone_verts[v.index].co

mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')

Usage without UI:

The top one you run once, at the start. While your base object is active.
The second script is what you run whenever you want to restore the selected vertices.

Ui version

Here's a small UI version of that script. You can either pick a directory using  the selector or paste it in manually. Even if you pick a file from the FileBrowser it will strip the path to just be a Folder/Directory.

It appears in the Misc panel:

if you have the Suzanne Object selected it can clone the object and make a hidden mesh, or look in the directory provided for a Suzanne.json, which it can load as the clone mesh.

clone:  Clones the Object's mesh as a hidden mesh called <object_name>_clone
restore:  Restores the locations of the vertices currently selected
changed:  Selects only those vertices which changed their locations
import:  Tries to import a hidden mesh. The currently selected object's name is used to find the json: directory/<object_name>.json
export:  Makes a <object_name>.json in the directory pointed at.


How to clear the weights on the vertices from a group of bones? How to clear the weights on the vertices from a group of bones and leave only one bone to affect these vertices, which at the time of the operation is active, selected?

Select All vertexes you wnat to edit, edit weight settings in side bar, click "Copy" and your edit settings distribute on all selected vertexes.


How to display VSE image-strip filename as overlay? Is it possible to show the Filename of the current frame of a Image-Strip in the VSE as overlay text?

concept based on How can I make dynamic text in an animation?
i came along with this script:

# based on https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/8087/16634

import bpy

#debug helper
print("all vse strips:", end="\n  ")
print(*bpy.context.scene.sequence_editor.sequences, sep="\n  ")

# output VSE Text strip:
text_overlay = bpy.context.scene.sequence_editor.sequences["Text"]

def get_combined_speed_factor(strip):
    # this does not handle all possible configuration options!
    # only
    # - Stretch to input strip length
    # - Speed factor
    # - Multiply Speed
    # are handled.
    combined_speed_factor = 1.0
    if strip.use_default_fade:
        # update / overwrite not used speed_factor value.
        orig = strip.input_1
        strip.speed_factor = orig.frame_duration / orig.frame_final_duration
    # calculate
    combined_speed_factor = strip.speed_factor
    combined_speed_factor *= strip.multiply_speed
    return combined_speed_factor

def get_speed_factor_for_strip(scene, strip):
    strips_all = scene.sequence_editor.sequences
    strips_speed = (i for i in strips_all if i.type == 'SPEED')
    effects_for_strip = (i for i in strips_speed if i.input_1 == strip)
    combined_speed_factor = 1.0
    # this should calculate the overall speed for this input strip
    for effect_strip in effects_for_strip:
        combined_speed_factor *= get_combined_speed_factor(effect_strip)
    return combined_speed_factor

def find_current_img_filename(scene):
    frame_current = scene.frame_current
    file_name = None
    strips_all_sorted = list(sorted(scene.sequence_editor.sequences,
        key=lambda x: x.frame_final_start))
    strips_image = (i for i in strips_all_sorted if i.type == 'IMAGE')
    strips_speed = (i for i in strips_all_sorted if i.type == 'SPEED')
    for strip in strips_image:
        strip_speed_factor = get_speed_factor_for_strip(scene, strip)
        if strip.frame_final_start <= frame_current < strip.frame_final_end:
            strip_frame = (
                (frame_current - strip.frame_final_start)
                * strip_speed_factor
            ) + strip.frame_final_start
            file_name = strip.strip_elem_from_frame(strip_frame).filename
    return file_name

def recalculate_text(scene):
    filename = find_current_img_filename(scene)
    #print("filename", filename)
    text_new = "-"
    if (filename):
        text_new = filename.replace(".png", "")
    text_overlay.text = text_new

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.clear()
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(recalculate_text)
bpy.app.handlers.render_pre.clear()
bpy.app.handlers.render_pre.append(recalculate_text)

now this also works with Speed-Control Effects applied:

if you experiment with the script use bpy.app.handlers.***.clear() to remove the old handler functions. (be careful - if you have other scripts or addons that use this callback they also get removed..)


Strange, indescribable color glitching near edges when using viewport shading in Blender 2.8 I am new to this website. I've been having a problem with viewport shading after installing 2.8. I am trying to make a VHS cassette (for no particular reason), but I have a problem that hasn't been addressed yet, from what I know.

The cassette is supposed to look like a regular VHS, of course. But when I enter look dev shading, it ends up looking like something I can't really describe with text.

It does this strange thing, adding artifacts to the thing, particularly near the edges of the mesh. The artifacts get smaller as I get closer to the mesh. They seem to reset when I move the camera, beginning to grow back when the camera stops.

Hopefully, someone can find out how to help me out here. For now, I'll just continue working on the model. I am using Eevee, and the computer I'm using is a Dell Inspiron 3668. As mentioned before, I am using Blender 2.8.

Fixed it for me by checking and unchecking Screen Space Reflections in Render Properties.


Save mesh via python scripting at a given frame I am trying to run a cloth simulator (using the Blender Render) and save the garments meshes at a given frame via python scripting. I have the code that would do that in the graphical interface (through the python console), but in the script the simulation does not start and it always saves the original mesh.

More specifically, after I load the meshes and set up the scene in the script, I am trying to save the shirt mesh:

shirt = D.objects['shirt']
bpy.context.scene.frame_set(55)

for ob in D.objects:
    ob.select = False
shirt.select = True
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = shirt
bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier="Cloth")
# Saves the mesh as an object
bpy.ops.export_scene.obj(filepath='shirt.obj', use_selection=True)

I have tried to start the simulation with bpy.ops.screen.animation_play() (the bit of code that pops up when I press the play button in the graphical interface), but it does nothing.

How do I start the simulation in the script so that I can save the updated mesh?

It turns out that I had to advance the iteration frame by frame, like:

for frame_no in range(55):
    print ('Running frame {}..'.format(frame_no))
    bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame_no + bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].frame_start)


Mirror vertex group (topology) isn't mirroring properly! I'm looking for any relatively easy way to copy over the weights. I believe I might be going mad and have missed out on a simple solution...

Whenever I try to mirror the vertex group after copying the vertex group it seems to take a line/segment of the weights when copying over to the other side as opposed to the whole damn thing?

Help is much appreciated!!

Suggestions

Inspect and Correct armature names. Make sure your armature has names such as

Hand.R and Hand.L  .

Copy the file for archive purposes, or duplicate scene. 3 minutes or less.
Edit to half body. Use Mirror Modifier Mesh. Make Perfect.
Apply Mirror Modifier. Full Body is result.  This may be viewed a common workflow.
Make no further changes to Body Mesh.
Perform quick and massive paint tests to see if new Body is weight paint friendly.


Trying to make a shape, never used curves I’m trying to make the shape shown in the picture. I want it to be like a pipe but with this form with closed ends where the arrows are pointing. I’d appreciate any help, I’ve never actually made custom shapes before

Alrighty, to model this shape, let's start with the large curved section since it is super easy.

Add a Bezier curve by pressing ⇧ ShiftA and selecting Curve → Bezier.

Adjust the curve's Depth to add some thickness.

Set the Resolution to a manageable amount. I'll use a Resolution of 2 which yields 8 sides.

Adjust the shape to your liking.

Set Resolution Preview U to a suitable amount for modeling. I used 20.

Modeling

For this part, the curve must be converted into a mesh. Press W and select Convert to Mesh.

In edit mode, find the place that the connecting segment should be. Select the top vertex and the one directly below it and snap the cursor to them using ⇧ ShiftS.

Duplicate either one and move it to either side (just so that it can be seen more easily).

Use the Spin tool to spin the vertex around the x axis. Use the same number of steps as the curve has (in my case 8).

Select the entire circle with ⎈ CtrlL and make it a separate object by pressing P and selecting Selection.

In face select mode (3), select the outside faces of the tube shape and hide them (hold ⇧ Shift⎇ Alt to select multiple loops of faces and press H to hide them).

In side view, go to the Mesh menu and click Knife Project. Press f9 and click Cut Through.

Delete the faces on the inside of the cut on each side and merge any problem vertices to ensure that the perimeter of the cut has 8 sides.

In edge select mode, select both loops, press W, and select Bridge Edge Loops.

If you need extra high quality, you can add support loops and a Subdivision Surface modifier to smooth out the transition. If you want it to be extra perfect you can get rid of the triangle as well, but I'm too lazy for that.

Tada!


How can I make a track for an object in Blender Game (not blender render)? I want to do a track in blender game. I have done it in blender render with constraints track to,... but it's not working in blender game.

You can use the Edit Object Actuator and set it to "Track to". Set the Object you want to track to in the Object Picker and choose the track axis. If you pick x it will point with the x axis to the object to track etc. If you want the object to rotate only around the z axis, don't enable 3d. If you want every axis, enable 3d. UP axis should usually stay z if you didn't rotate your object in a strange way (it means z will point up).

Suzanne tracks to the cube on the y axis

with 3D enabled she also lifts her head for it.


How can I manipulate shapes in order to have similar results as in this 3D max scene? What I mean by this is, after applying an array, or adding cuts to one mesh, being able to modify the hole thing by one vertex, continuosly and as easy as that

I guess what you need is the Mesh Deform modifier:

Create an object A and give it an Array modifier.
Create a cube B and change its mesh so that it contains your object A like a cage
In the Properties panel > Object > Display > Maximum Draw Type, choose Wire so that this cube B stays transparent in Solid mode. And in the Properties panel > Object > Cycles Settings > Ray Visibility, disable all the options so that it will be invisible in Rendered mode.
Give your object A a Mesh Deform modifier. Choose B as the Object. Click Bind.

Now, if you want to animate:

Select your object B and in the Properties panel > Data > Shape Keys, create one first shape key to save the basic shape of B, then create a second shape key and keep this second shape key selected.
In Edit mode play with the shape of the B mesh. You can see that it deforms A.
Now back in Object mode, play with the Value under the Shape Keys to change the shape of A.

And if you don't want to animate:

Just change the shape of your object B in Edit mode, it will deform object A.


Scale an area lamp that seems to be locked the area lamp seems to be locked and cannot be scaled.
how to unlock it to be able to scale it?
edit:
it seems my camera's limit (focus) also locked. the distance cannot be adjusted.

You could check if the Scale properties of the area light aren't locked:

About the camera, you could check these properties:


Putting transparent image on curved surface with specific placement (UV) I'm very new to Blender, so please bear with me with this (hopefully) easy to answer question. :) Just to get this cleared: I searched for a total of 4 hours to find a solution to this problem, but I couldn't find any!

As you can see in the picture, I was trying to create a model of a blimp, which worked fine so far.

Now I'm trying to put a text on the front part of the airship, about at the location of the selected faces (see picture). I'm not able to use the normal text tool in Blender, because the text is a logo which I can't recreate using the keyboard.

All I want to do now is put the text on the said surface (and ONLY there, not wrapped around the entire ship) but in a realistic way, as if somebody put a sticker on it (the text should bend with the curve of the hull).

Ideally, I'd be able to move around the picture on the surface until it sits perfectly where I want it.

I'm using Cycles Render because thats what the guy in the tutorials used that I followed on YouTube.

Thanks a lot for any help! :)

You have to go to your node set up of your material for your blimp and add a Mix RGB node in which you will plug your transparent texture in the bottom color and the alpha of your texture to the factor of the Mix RGB node. Your color for the whole blimp should go to the upper color, finally you plug the Mix RGB node to your Diffuse node and then to your Material Output/Surface. *Don't Forget to unwrap the part of the blimp you want your transparent texture to be assigned.

p.s. if you want to have textures insted of colors you will have to create a second UV map, *don't forget to give your texture node the right UV map.

For more information I can recommend you this tutorial: *the blender version is quite old but the process is the same:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnmovLzKU44


my undo doesn't work in 2.8, except in edit mode Since a week, when I undo in object mode, sculpt mode or in the properties panels (in fact in all editors I tested except edit mode), it doesn't undo in the mode, but instead it enter the edit mode of the last object I edited and undo there.

Also it destroy the work I've done since the last time I was in edit mode. So my blender is totaly unusable.
I'm downloading every daily build since a week in the hope it corrects but it doesn't. I also found that my previous 2.8 builds doesn't work anymore and that my 2.79 bender just works fine. So I gess it might have something to do with the user preferences. I have no idea.

I didn't found anyone with a similar problem, and no bug report reffers to it.
It isn't a keyboard problem since I tested to undo by the menues, and ctrl+z just works fine in edit mode. It repeats with every new files I create and in older too.

The one who solve my problem is awesome, and thanks to anyone that gives a gess

There is (and in 2.79 also have been) two Undo handling behaviors, which can be triggered using the Global Undo property in the Preferences. Go to your Preferences, navigate to Editing, and make sure Global Undo is checked there to get back to the undo behavior you are used to:

In 2.79, when Global Undo is unchecked, only edit mode changes would be recorded on the Undo Stack. Object mode changes then cannot be undone. In 2.80, at the moment the behavior you described is used, but this might change until final release.


"child of" bone constraind with ik? I'm animating a weapon for a game and ran into a little trouble that i don't know how to resolve.

What i want to do is have the left hand supporting the gun like a person would, but that hand is supposed to follow the weapon bone's every movement. Like as if the left hand bone were the child of the weapon bone, but it should also have an IK rig so that the entire arm moves realisticly aswell. But that does not work.

When i have both "child of" and "IK" modifiers, only the "child of" seems to be active. I thought that the hand would just be the child of the weapon bone the IK rig would move the arm like it should. But only the hand itself moves.

If i would move the hand manually to exactly where it should be, i wouldn't have this problem.

Does anyone know how i can fix this issue?

Below are two pictures, the first showing what i get when i use both ik rig and child of mofifiers, the second shows how it looks when i only have the IK modifier

So i eventually figured it out myself.

I duplicated my hand bones and called them IK_Hand_L/R.
the original hands follow those IK bones and the IK bone of the left hand is set as a child of the gun bone using bone constraints, which i can toggle on and off anytime i want.


Cycles not using transparency in decal texture? I'm trying to apply the logo onto the glossy part and cycles render ignores the transparency and just makes it black.

I've tried both png and tga using the multiple builds of blender. And it looks weird in texture mode even though the uv map shows transparency.

Blendfile

In fact, the transparency of that logo wasn't ignored. The reason why the logo's background shows black is that you just see though it, and there's little light and nothing behind (inside the keyboard, actually).
In this case, all you need to do is simply mix it with a node group containing the same node setup as the keyboard material (the one located in the first material slot):


Relation between Fresnel IOR and Layerweight blend? I know that the Fresnel and Layer Weight nodes do much the same thing, but with one accepting a proper Index of Refraction, and the other a value between 0 and 1. I have always used the Fresnel node as it allowed me to simply look up the proper IOR of any specific material online and plug it in. However, if I wanted to use Layer weight, how would I go about translating an IOR, which I've seen as low as .18 and as high as 2.5, into a value between 0 and 1 to get the same effect out of layer weight? Is there a conversion formula or ratio?

By comparing visual results from both LayerWeight's Fresnel and Fresnel Node on a test sphere I concluded that these settings give similar results:

Blend:  0.00  0.10  0.50  0.70  0.80  0.90  0.95  0.98  1.00
  IOR:  1.00  1.10  1.70  3.30  5.10  10.0  20.0  50.0  1000

The Y scale is logarithmic

Confirmed by Brecht (thanks) the conversion formula is:

IOR = 1/(1 - Blend)
Blend = 1 - 1/IOR

Layer Weight node:

Layer Weight Facing output mixes the two shaders based of angle of incidence.
The Fresnel output mixes them based on fresnel formula (Dielectric fresnel weight), which is a function of angle of incidence. The exact math is here: Wiki
The Blend slider adds additional blending between the two shaders: at 0 it will be green and at 1 it will be red.

On the other hand the Fresnel node allows for proper IOR input:

I use Fresnel node when dealing with glass-like materials, where the light goes through - where it bends at the interface. I can set proper IOR for the interface this way.

I use Layer Weight node when dealing with reflectivity, it allows for better control over the transition on the surface (how smooth it is) and over how the materials are mixed (with that blend slider). This suits artistic approach better when you are eye-balling stuff.


How to move the time cursor with the mouse in python? I'm trying to create mouse-based cut and trim functions for the VSE, to allow for fast edits when scrubbing the timeline. Using Ctrl Right Mouse as a keyboard shortcut, Blender handles the strip's selection with the Right Mouse button, and then triggers the operator.

The problem is that I can't find a way to move the time cursor where the user clicks from a Python script. I looked into the reference API, and in Blender's python console, I also set:

bpy.app.debug_wm = True

To no success. Nothing shows up in the console when you left click in the VSE. And I looked up online, couldn't find an answer.

So, do you know how I could set the current frame/place the time cursor based on where the mouse is from a python operator?

Kind regards,
Nathan

Here's an adjustment of the answer to this q Getting area (region.view2d) pixel coordinates of 2D views (VSE, NLA)

Run the script, use the spacebar to search out the "Simple Modal Sequencer Operator" and the current frame will change with the mouse.

The key method is region.view2d.region_to_view which returns, in this case, the frame in x and the strip channel in y, from the regions pixel coords.

import bpy
import bgl
import blf

def draw_callback_px(self, context):
    print("mouse points", len(self.mouse_path))

    region = context.region
    strip = context.scene.sequence_editor.active_strip
    if strip is None:
        return

    x = strip.frame_final_start
    y = strip.channel
    x, y = region.view2d.view_to_region(x, y)
    font_id = 0  # XXX, need to find out how best to get this.

    # draw some text
    blf.position(font_id, x, y, 0)
    blf.size(font_id, 20, 72)
    # region_to_view gives the region coords.  x is frame, y is channel.
    x, y = region.view2d.region_to_view(*self.mouse_path[-1] )
    blf.draw(font_id, "Hello Word %d %d" % (x, y))
    # move the frame to the mouse
    context.scene.frame_set(x)

class ModalDrawOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Draw a line with the mouse"""
    bl_idname = "sequencer.modal_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Modal Sequencer Operator"

    def modal(self, context, event):
        context.area.tag_redraw()
        region = context.region

        if event.type == 'MOUSEMOVE':
            self.mouse_path.append((event.mouse_region_x, event.mouse_region_y))

        elif event.type == 'LEFTMOUSE':
            bpy.types.SpaceSequenceEditor.draw_handler_remove(self._handle, 'WINDOW')
            return {'FINISHED'}

        elif event.type in {'RIGHTMOUSE', 'ESC'}:
            bpy.types.SpaceSequenceEditor.draw_handler_remove(self._handle, 'WINDOW')
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        if context.area.type == 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR':
            # the arguments we pass the the callback
            args = (self, context)
            # Add the region OpenGL drawing callback
            # draw in view space with 'POST_VIEW' and 'PRE_VIEW'
            self._handle = bpy.types.SpaceSequenceEditor.draw_handler_add(draw_callback_px, args, 'WINDOW', 'POST_PIXEL')

            self.mouse_path = []

            context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
            return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}
        else:
            self.report({'WARNING'}, "SequenceEditor not found, cannot run operator")
            return {'CANCELLED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalDrawOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalDrawOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

PS I slapped this together pretty quickly and put code in the draw hander rather than the event loop of the operator. Will fix later...


Using Lattices to create non-spherical eyes cause problems when rigging the eyes for tracking. What can I do to fix it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBs8rjlUbwI

This video basically goes over how I've rigged this model's eyes. It goes over the constraints used, and how things are parented. The problem I am having isn't apparent until I rotate the head. When I rotate the head, the eyes start to not properly track to the eye controllers I have set up. Obviously, the way I have the eyes rigged with the lattices are part of the problem, but I haven't figured out a proper solution yet.

Here's the .blend file plus the eye texture if anyone wants to have a closer look at the rig.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jknki5xbbuf7l1x/eevee.zip?dl=0

EDIT:
Animating UVs won't be an ideal solution. I'll eventually be adding geometric detail to the eyes, which wouldn't be able to animate with the UVs.

I made this work using an eye-bone and a bone track-to constraint.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/428467/eye-lattice-rig.blend

Use an eye-bone at the center of your eye, parented to the head bone, pointing out the eye. Add a bone constraint for the eye-bone to track your eye-target. Test that the eye-bone properly tracks your target as the head moves.

Parent your lattice to the head bone (you might need to manually create a lattice vertex group with the same name as the head bone). Test that the lattice moves with the head bone.

Select your eyeball, and add a copy-rotation constraint copying the rotation of your eye-bone. It should be local space to local space.

If your eye doesn't line up afterwords, go into edit mode on it and rotate it to line up. (if you have an object scale on your lattice, edit-mode rotating your eye will cause it to wobble out of the lattice. I don't scale my lattice, I edit it's shape in a shape key.)

The copy-rotation is local-to-local because the rig is rotating both your bone and your eye-lattice. As the eye-bone tracks the target, you want to copy it's local space rotation to the local space rotation of your eyeball.

One consequence of using a lattice to flatten an eye-sphere, is that as the eye-bone tracks the target further off-center, and the eye copies it's rotation, the eye itself will appear to be looking a bit further than the bone is pointing. This is a consequence of the deformation. If you center your head and turn off the lattice deformer (edit mode your eye-sphere), you'll see that the un-deformed eye is pointed the same place as the eye bone. If it is important to compensate for this, you can use a driver equation instead of a copy-rotation constraint to set the eyeball rotation. This will give you a coefficient to tweak the relative rotations.


(MMD) How do I make multiple empties (joints) and meshes (rigid bodies) visible at once? I imported a(n MMD) model with accurate physics, but everything that controls it (rigid bodies = ovals, joints = right angle things) was instantly made invisible. There are over a hundred of each. How do I make every selected "object" (rigids, joints) visible quickly for easy repositioning? Thanks!
EDIT: Blender seems to treat joints as empties and rigid bodies as meshes (though Idk why they look low-poly in Edit mode and subdivided/smooth in Object mode). These two things define physics (collisions, cloth, etc) in MMD.

As it turned out, the quickest answer was MMD/plugin-specific. Anyone using MMD models in Blender needs to have mmd_tools installed (Powroupi has the most updated version now). Installation provides an MMD and a Misc tab in the N menu, and Misc > MMD Display has checkboxes to make all rigids and joints instantly visible, at which point they can be grouped and manipulated en masse.


Imported WRL not showing in render, initially also hidden in editor I have created a WRL file, that I Import into Blender with the X3D importer.

Some very strange things happen:

The object does not show in the editor. But if I go to Edit Mode, it suddenly shows up, and if I go back to Object Mode it is still there.
When I render the scene, I get a grey image, with no objects in it, even though there is a lamp and camera on the imported object.

I tried adding a new Material to it, with no improvement: nothing shows in the render.

Neither eevee nor cycles show anything.

What went wrong with this import? Why does it not show? The render status is enabled for the object, as can be seen in the list of objects on the right.

No errors from the importer on stdout.

The WRL is a Transform node with a single Shape, which is an IndexedFaceSet with colorPerVertex set to FALSE, and a color specified for each face. All faces are triangles.

Blender: V2.80 Beta

OS: Ubuntu

So I decided to try this in Blender 2.79 as well....

The first problem does not happen here: the mesh is visible in the editor, without first going to Edit Mode.

But if I render this scene:

I get:

What's up with this ghost mesh? Why is it not showing?

The cause of that is return in 2699th line of code in import_x3d.py which returns the method. Moreover, the color vectors need alpha value to be added.
Fix:

def appearance_CreateMaterial(vrmlname, mat, ancestry, is_vcol):
    bpymat = bpy.data.materials.new(vrmlname)
    diff_color = mat.getFieldAsFloatTuple('diffuseColor', [0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1], ancestry)

    if(len(diff_color) == 3):
        # .wrl does not have alpha, we need to add 4th element
        diff_color = diff_color+[1]
    bpymat.diffuse_color = diff_color

    bpymat.specular_color = mat.getFieldAsFloatTuple('specularColor', [0.0, 0.0, 0.0], ancestry)

    if False and is_vcol:
        bpymat.use_vertex_color_paint = True
    return bpymat


How to split a 2 part mesh into 2 different meshes I have a 3D model of a shotgun that's in 3 parts: The barrel, the chamber door thingy, and then the pump and the stock are in one part. I want to split the stock/pump part into their own individual parts. I can't use bisect because the parts are separate. What do I do?
Here is a pic of my mesh for reference:

Separation by loose parts

Select your mesh. [Right Click]
Go into edit mode. Tab
Separate by loose parts. P > By loose parts

Manual Entry


Why is Blender rendering my vertical image distorted? I want to render out an vertical image of my model. It should be complete visible but with no unused space.

I've changed the Dimensions of the output like that:

In Blender the camera view looks now like that:

but the output looks like that:

How can I print out the expected result?

To expand on @rjg's comment, your aspect ratio (just below the image dimensions) makes your image's pixels non-square, thus squashing the final result.


Automatic Top / Middle / Bottom Alignment for 3D Text Object I think 3D Text object misses basic features like Middle Align and Bottom Align (Currently we have Left, Right, Center, Just and Flush, but they are for horizontal adjustments; The default vertical alignment is Top Align only). Unless I missed something, I'm afraid it is only possible by scripting or driver?

Top Align (Default behavior):

Bottom Align:

Middle Align:

P.S.: I know we have Offset X/Y for in-line adjusting (that's what I used to mimic these GIFs), but that's not automatically calculated by line count.

You are right, aligning the overall text from top/bottom isn't available.

The Left/Right/Centre alter the location of the text relative to each line and allows adjusting the alignment of the text relative to other lines of text.

The up/down alignment only alters the text position relative to the object centre; this can be altered after text entry by moving the text object. Aligning each line left/right can only be done this way if you do one line per text object.

If you think up/down alignment is important, you should suggest it to one of the developers. I doubt this would be considered priority so unless a developer is interested in this you may have more luck in creating a patch yourself and submitting it for review.

Maybe an add-on could be created to add an option for top/middle/bottom alignment.


Warp time with rigid body physics? Is it possible to warp time (slow time down, speed time up) with rigid body physics?

Yes, this is possible.

3D view physics:

Animate the Speed value in Properties > Scene > Rigid body world:

You can add keyframes for this value by right clicking and selecting Insert Keyframe, or by pressing I while hovering over the field. See this question for more detail.

Game engine physics:

Change the FPS value in Properties > World > Physics:


Vertices scales in the wrong direction Hello there community somewhat of a new user here...
I know I probably messed up some setting and, but whenever I extrude and scale vertices they move inwards of the model I dont know what I did or I am doing wrong but instead of scaling on the Y axis only it scales the edge inwards as well.
Any help is appreciated
Example:
Everything seems fine from the front side

No so from the right side....

How it should've been:

I got that curve while scaling it.Why am I getting it.
P.S I am following this tutorial as a guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SOwJDqoPTw&t

The problem that is happening is that you have scaled it simply by pressing S  .
This is happening because while doing rotation, moving or scaling , blender considers the origin of the object as the pivot point for doing all the manipulations.
If you are wondering how the origin ( the one yellow point shown while selecting an object ) got away from the object's geometry you might have moved the object in the edit mode. Remember that while in edit mode no matter whatever manipulations you do, the origin won't move along with the mesh as in edit mode. To solve your problem you can simply scale it on the y axis by pressingS  + Y .The proper way to do it is by going to object > set origin > origin to geometry and then scale it by just pressing S


integration of blender file into webstorm? I need help for my Final Year Project, I want to know that how can I integrate .blender file into my webpage? i didn't get any answer from anywhere. please I need help. answer it as soon as possible

If you want a hosted solution for presenting 3D models online you may look into services like p3d.in or Sketchfab

If you want an easy (as in GUI workflow) self hosted solution directly from inside Blender check out Blend4Web


Only a shadow of the 3d object over the background is visible in the render I'm new to blender. Actually very new. I searched for this in the discussions. But none of them solved the problem I have not done anything with nodes. I guess I'm going to watch some tutorials for that. But the problem is everything is completely fine in the rendered view option but as soon as I render image it renders like that below. I tried changing a lot of things, nothing changed.Plzz help me out!

Here is the blend file:

You are multiplying the image on top of the background.

Use alpha over to place the render layer over the background.

  Use this node to layer images on top of one another. This node takes two images as input, combines them with a factor, and outputs the image. Connect the Background image to the top input, and the foreground image to the lower input. Where the foreground image pixels have an alpha greater than 0 (namely, have some visibility), the background image will be overlaid.

Please read the manual: https://www.blender.org/manual/compositing/types/color/alpha_over.html?highlight=alpha%20over


Python script get face normal, then set it as another object's orientation (Z-axis) accordingly I would like to achieve this with python script in blender:

select a face in edit mode, the script will get and store the orientation of the normal of that face.

2.create a cone or import an object at location, and set its rotation so its Z axis is aligned with normal of the previously face.

Following code is what i pieced together so far, it's not working as expected.
Not good at math and not really knowing how the orientation is calculated, so i can only logically guess hows things works from here and there.

Hope someone here could be nice enough to walk me through and correct it for me, this is the best i can get as a beginner in coding. Thx~

import bpy
import mathutils

bpy.context.area.type = 'VIEW_3D'
bpy.context.space_data.transform_orientation = 'NORMAL'

# object to align i.e. the selected face(in edit mode)
obj = bpy.context.active_object
# normal vector of the selected face
norm = bpy.context.active_object.data.polygons[0].normal
diff = norm.rotation_difference(mathutils.Vector((0, 0, 1)))
# set quat orientation
obj.rotation_quaternion = diff

# move cursor to selected face
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected()
# save location of cursor
my_location=bpy.context.scene.cursor_location

# quit edit mode
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
# to simplify for this example i create a cone here
#(the original idea was to import an stl object here)
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cone_add(location=my_location)
# apply the quat orientation/rotation to the cone
bpy.context.active_object.rotation_mode='QUATERNION'
bpy.context.active_object.rotation_quaternion= obj.rotation_quaternion

bpy.context.area.type = 'TEXT_EDITOR'

Tried look into this thread but cannot make sense of it:
Rotation by normal

Firstly, I'm not clear you are getting the normal of the selected face as opposed to the first face.

Quaternions are tricky.  I have found assigning to obj.rotation_quaternion does nothing, whereas assigning to obj.rotation_euler does, but I'm not sure I don't think I set rotation mode as you do at the end.

I don't think there is any value in setting the rotation of the first object to the selected face, this apart from not working (perhaps because of the above) doesn't help align the cone.

And I've got in the habit of using a bmesh, but you might be able to do it directly from the data.  But once you have the rotation Quaternion, you have to multiply the object's existing rotation by the inverse of the Quaternion.  Well, it worked for me.

# This example assumes we have a mesh object in edit-mode

import bpy
import bmesh
import mathutils

# Get the active mesh (assumes starting in edit mode)
obj = bpy.context.edit_object
me = obj.data
coneradius=1     # Im not sure how you plan to scale the cone.
Up=mathutils.Vector((0,0,1))

# Get a BMesh representation
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
selected_faces=[face for face in bm.faces if face.select]
if len(selected_faces)>0:
    norm=selected_faces[0].normal
    my_location=selected_faces[0].calc_center_median()
    # convert this to a rotation quaternion
    Qrot=norm.rotation_difference(Up)

    #Add the cone in object mode
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cone_add(location=my_location)
    cone=bpy.context.object
    cone.rotation_mode='QUATERNION'
    cone.rotation_quaternion*=Qrot.inverted()

    # Im not sure how you plan to scale the cone and translate it.


Rigging Challenges for fur and curves I am having some challenges rigging and know here has to be a simple answer to this.  I created a furry figure but right now just placed the bones and linking, noticing the fur is not folloing the object when I move the bone but follows the object the fur is attached to.

Also, I am noticing ridges that are not smooth when I move the bone with the object attached as shown...there has to be a simple solution to this problem.

Thanks, any help greatly appreciated.

particles(fur) doesn't update that fast try alt-a or a quick render it should be fine


Background Images - I'm unable to remove, reposition, scale or change Currently I can place an image into the background, however I'm unable to remove, reposition, scale or change. I've tried a number of times including closing the blender and reopening. I'm able to change all the settings in a different file, just not on my current lesson.

Any support will be appreciated.

Using blender 2.79 on iMac Sierra 10.12.6

Its look like you are trying to add 2 images, 1 for the front view and 1 for the side view.

As per looking your screenshot and highlighted below #1 and #2. 1 is telling us that you are on the front view and #2 is telling that you are trying to adjust the side view of the picture.

If you want to adjust size and stuff for the Front image, please use the settings under the front view as marked #3 below. or if you want to adjust the size of the side view you may use the side view, hit Numpad 3.


How to join two faces with bevel? Hi I'm trying to model this piece of the monitor

Which i need to generate a Bevel between two faces (i think), but i don't know how to do it. I already tried to generate a face between the two to join and bevel it without luck.

How should i do it?

You need to bevel Edges, not faces.

How to:
1) Remove unnecessary geometry (to prevent ugly topology later)
2) Bevel the edges
3) Finish your geometry
4) You're done.

1) Delete faces
Remove unnecessary faces with Delete > Faces, to prevent n-gons.

2) Bevel edges
Select your edges and bevel them.
Adjust width and number of segments as you need.

3) Finish your mesh.
To create a new face Press F or go to Vertex > New face from vertices
Keep quads where you can.
Add some new edges like I did :).

4) You're done.
Result with a Bevel modifier and a Subdivision modifier on top.


blender 2.8 First bake failed So I followed Andrew Price's baking instructions in the anvil tutorial and below is my result.  Any suggestions as to what I did wrong?

UV:

In the Shader editor create a new blank image in the low poly anvil's material and set its panel active (select it and its white outline must be appear). Select the high poly anvil then the low poly (so the hp must be orange, the lp must be yellow) and click on bake in the render properties panel. You have to increase the ray distance a little before the baking (probably mine wasn't the optimal).


My model is magenta in Texturing Paint. What does it mean? I try to add texture to my cat.
My model is Magneta color in Texturing Paint. What doesn't it meaan?

When I select ViewPort Texture is like this.

I try to put hair in my cat. I don't know how .
Thanks

That magenta means that the material of your cat has a non assigned texture; the colored checkboard means that an UV map has been created referring to that image.

Open a UV Image editor window, select the colored checkboard, save it to your hard drive with a name like "Cat skin";
Select your material and load the saved "cat skin" as an image texture.
Now you should be able to paint it in texture paint mode.
It should work both in Cycles and Blender Internal.

To make your cat furry you will have to add to the skin material a new "hair" particle system and play with the adjustements.

Good luck!


How do I reset the scene? Coming from Max I'm having a really hard time learning Blender (even with the 3dsMax Blender plugin that I activated). I want to reset the scene to default like 3ds Max File -> Reset. How can I do that in Blender, if that's even possible? Not reset preferences, not erase my settings, just reset the scene. Thanks.

On the top menu click on
File->New->General


Shader to RGB in Cycles Eevee has introduced a new node, the Shader-to-RGB node. I find this quite useful for using the outputs of shaders in, say, the factor of a mix node or other such things.
Unfortunately Cycles does not seem to support this node. This is most unfortunate.

How might I replicate this feature in Cycles (at least to support my presented use case)?

(This question involves v2.80)

I'm not 100% sure how the node works, but I think due to the nature of the rendering methods, you will need to bake all of the textures/shading. Here is a tutorial: https://youtu.be/sB09T--_ZvU


How to get out out of camera view? I'm new to Blender, and I know this question may sound weird, but I didn't find any answer to this:

After I press Ctrl + NumPad 0, I go into the camera's view. After that, I want to get out of it; but I don't know how!

To get out of Ctrl+NumPad0 which goes in camera view, you can use any "moving" command MMB  (or Alt LMB , if Emulate Three-Button Mouse is enabled, which it typically is for touchpad setups. It is enabled by selecting Emulate Three-Button Mouse under the Input tab in the Blender User Preferences.)

Some numpad commands :

Home center 3D View

NumPad0 camera Perspective

NumPad1 front ortho

Ctrl+NumPad 1 back ortho

NumPad3 right ortho

Ctrl+NumPad3 left ortho

NumPad7 top ortho

Ctrl+NumPad7 bottom ortho

NumPad5 toggle between perspective and ortho

NumPad 4/6, 2/8 roll scene left/right, up/down

Ctrl+NumPad 4/6, 2/8 scroll scene left/right, up/down

Shift+NumPad 4/6 roll scene clockwise / anti-clockwise

NumPad+ zoom in

NumPad- zoom out

NumPad. focus on the selection