Exporting Motion Constraint rigging I have a blender model of an aircraft which has been rigged using Blender motion constraint system. I am new to blender and need to get this model into another program (modo or 3ds max). Is there any way to export this file with rigging intact?

No, Blender's constraint system is unique to blender and not portable to other software (in fact most program's advanced rigging tools are the same). Basic rigging (e.g. the bone heirarchy with parent/child relationships) can be exported with file types such as fbx.

Generally these sort of rigs are created explicitly for the program that the model will be animated in.


"Vertex paint" or Cycles "Mix node" problem? I sure I should see blue texture in place of this blue/green jitter.
Why this happens?

Having such problems with mask created by Vertex Paint:

First check whether there are double vertices (W >
Remove doubles).
Recalculate normals with Ctrl + N. The result
is better but still weird, something like:

Continue using Vertex Paint, simply drawing over these gaps and
smoothing boundaries and it's done.


Export a keyframed animation made in Blender to Three.js (no bones involved) I'd like to export a simple model with a boneless animation.

I want to know in which format to export because I'm unable to export this kind of animation in .json.

I'd also appreciate some guidance about the code needed to use such animations in Three.js

See threejs docs: https://threejs.org/docs/#manual/en/introduction/Loading-3D-models. I'd recommend trying the Blender glTF exporter suggested there, glTF-Blender-Exporter. It does support keyframed animation.

Once you've exported something, usage is:

var loader = new THREE.GLTFLoader();
loader.load('my-model.glb', function (gltf) {
  var model = gltf.scene;
  var mixer = new THREE.AnimationMixer(model);
  var clip1 = gltf.animations[0];
  var action1 = mixer.clipAction(clip1);
  action1.play();
});

// ... in render loop
var dt = clock.getDelta()
mixer.update(dt);

You can also test your model in three.js without writing code, with http://gltf-viewer.donmccurdy.com/.


Blender Game not rendering models correctly, normals recalculated and flipped, The model looks fine in blender (texture, material, and render),
but when I run my app the parts of the model don't show.

The normals have been recalculated and flipped many times (sometimes only affected areas too) and all doubles are removed yet nothing seems to change.

By playing around with settings I've been able to get better and worse results, here's the best result I've gotten:

(doesn't seem to be changed by culling settings) and here are all my settings:

Blender Games issue

All textures and materials have the same setting applied, the missing bits have the same textures and materials as the non-missing bits

I figured out what was going on after a few hours of trial and error, the issue was that the faces that weren't displaying had more than 4 vertices, once I triangulated the faces everything worked fine. The issue with some other textures disappearing depending on different culling and normal settings was due to the object being scaled in the negatives on the y-axis, blender doesn't like that apparently.


How To Make A Cutout In A Gear I have made a gear in blender, but now I need to make a cutout for a pin in it. What’s the best way to do this?

Add a plane and scale and adjust to make a rectangular shape.

Ctrl+A to apply scale and rotation

Select the vertex and Press Ctrl+Shift+B with the scroll wheel round the edges

Press E to Extrude

Press N to flip normal

Select the gear add Boolean Modifier

Target the plane and the operation as difference. Apply and delete the plane.

See gif below:


Is there any way I can create an edge across these two points? I could not find a way to describe it with few words, the only vertices available nearby are at the bevel. The line desired would be straight with the y axis (hopefully that provides more options)

Edit:
I thought I just found the solution, but it did not work. I tried moving one of the vertices on the 90 degree line all the way down to the end of the red line and turned on snap to edge. The line made does not seem to make more faces, when I select some of the perpendicular faces it goes right through the haphazard edge I made. I also tried selecting these two vertices again and hit F to fill.

You can do this with the knife tool.

Select the upper part of the object and hide it for now, so it's not blocking the cut.
Go in Orthographic top view Numpad 7
Activate the knife tool K select the vertex at the corner you marked with the 90 degree red angle.
Drag the cut line and press C to activate "angle constraint", making it easy to snap the cut to the y axis.
drag the cut over the last edge you want to cut an confirm the cut with LMB followed by Enter.

You should have something similar to this little oversimplified visual example:

Don't forget to unhide the previously hidden parts of the object afterwards


No camera found in blender When I open Blender, I usually see a lamp and a cube, but when I opened a minecraft rig .blend, it wasn't there. I tried using Alt+H, but it didn't do anything.

I clicked something that I can't remember, and it said no camera found.

It sounds like you are in Pose Mode. To change that, simply click on a different object, say the minecraft guy (not the rig). Or in the 3D view header switch to Object mode, then you will be able to add a camera.

Here is a picture of the add menu in pose mode. As you can see the camera, along with other object types are grayed out.


How do I export non-face edges with Blender's Python API? So I have an exporter, where I export the meshes as faces. But if I try to also export the lines that does not have faces, I get all lines including the ones surrounding faces.

So if I do:

Object.data.edges

I get all edges, not only the edges that is not part of faces.

So, how do I ask Blender to get me all the lines, except those around faces?

I'm not familiar with a direct method to get the list of free-edges (not comprising faces), but you can find them using this script:

import bpy, bmesh

o = bpy.context.object
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh( o.data )

faceEdges = set( [ e.index for f in bm.faces for e in f.edges ] )
allEdges  = set( range( len( bm.edges ) ) )
freeEdges = allEdges.difference( faceEdges )

print( "Indices of non face edges: ", freeEdges )


Link one object's property to another object's different property New to Blender and just can't find a way to do this after a few days of googling. Any help much appreciated!

Is it possible to link the value of one object's animation Channel (for example the X-Location keyframe values) to another object (for example its Y location)

I don't want to copy the keyframes from one to the other. I would like the two to be dynamically linked so that moving the first object (adding keyframes) along the X axis automatically moves/adds keyframes to the second object along its Y axis.

Ideally I would also like to be able to alter the keyframe values being linked - so for example, Object1's X Location value when linked to Object2's Y Location value might be offset by 50 and inverted about the y-axis [ Object2_YPos = -(Object1_XPos+50) ]. Or the difference between Object1's X and Y co-ordinates would dictate the size of Object2 [ Object2_Scale = Object2_Scale*(Object1_YPos-Object1_XPos) ] that kind of thing.

For any of you who know Adobe AfterFX, I'm hoping to do something like linking with expressions:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/expression-basics.html#edit_an_expression_with_the_pick_whip

The big picture: I have complex data imported from a CSV file that includes a long list of three data points over time:

0,10,5,120
2,20,5,100
3,30,15,120
etc.

I've successfully imported this data and added it to my objects as keyframes. The first value is the frame number, then the different objects use each of the following values along different axis. So Object1 reads the CSV as:

frameNum,xLoc,yLoc,zLoc

and Object2 uses a slightly different import template:

frameNum,yLoc,xLoc,zLoc

The problem is that I end up with the same data in two different Actions which seems inefficient (I have a lot of data points; 1 per frame over 50000+ frames). Is it possible to have an Action that exists once in the Dope Sheet editor but which is used in different ways by different objects?

Update: As I typed this, 'Similar Questions' started to appearing which seem to suggest that the answer might be Drivers and/or animation nodes. All very new to me, so I'll go and investigate and post a reply to myself if I solve it. In the meanwhile, can anyone help point me in the right direction? I'll be very grateful for any help, advice and/or exemplar blender files as I find the docs a little cryptic at times :)

This is a classic case for using drivers.

Drivers are a bit tricky to master BEFORE you know what they're good for, but your case describes a very good example for their use.

Drivers allow you to use one property (or several) to drive another. There are several types of drivers, one of which is an expression where you can use arithmetic operators and mathematical functions. This is really useful when you want to create offset / inverted / factored relationship between the driving and driven properties (which seems to be what you are looking for. For instance advance 2 units in object1.location.y for each unit of object2.location.x).

It will be rather cumbersome to explain how to create and manipulate drivers here in text, but there are quite a few excellent video tutorials (such as this one) that will get you quickly acquainted with drivers.

Once you've grasped how to add and manipulate drivers via the UI, you can automate the process via python.


Blender 3D Printing hollow model I am trying to export an .STL I can actually 3D print with Blender. I have run through all the tutorials, but my model won't print correctly. I believe the problem would be solved if I could just select the outer shell of the model.

I want to extract everything that is outside (the shell) and delete the inner core. After that I would like to close holes and simplify the model to print. How can I achieve this? Thank you for your help.

If there is only one connection area between the inner and the outer shell:

select a ring of edges/vertices around this connection
press Ctrl + E and then click on "Select Loop Inner-Region".
this will either select the inner shell or the outer shell. If it's the wrong one, press Ctrl + I (invert the selection)

If there are several, but not outrageously many holes between inner and outer shell:

mark them as seams (Ctrl + E -> "Mark Seam")
then press U -> Unwrap with everything selected to unwrap the model
go into UV/Image Editor, select one of the vertices and press L to select one of the two shells, pull that away far enough so that it becomes easy to box-select
Press "Keep UV and Edit mode mesh selection in sync"

select one of the islands, it will select the corresponding mesh, too.

If there are outrageously many holes between inner and outer shell:

I don't know. You could try box-selecting the outside with "limit selection to visible" active, but you'll get a few inside faces, too. Some of them may disapper if you "Select less" a few times, and then not re-appear if you "Select more" the same amount of times.

You could try selecting the outer shell in Wireframe viewport shading just because it's further outside at the edge, rotating around your model.


Masking body parts underneath clothes and armor? I have game character with armor, and I need to avoid parts of the body clipping through the armor.
I tried using shape keys to shrink body parts under clothing, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to just hide the majority of the body that is underneath.
What would be the best way to go about this? I also need to be able to export the resulting mesh to Unity.

A way to do this is with a "Mask Modifier", simply create a vertex group and add weight to the vertices you want to keep visible. then on your object's modifiers, add the one named "Mask" and set the vertex group box to whatever name you called the one you just added the weight to, and voila! its now masked
:D!!!

Step 1:
Add vertex group and weight paint the parts you want to be visible

Step 2: Add "Mask" modifier and select the vertex group you just created, I named mine "Mask"

Step 3: Confirm that it was done properly (I changed the armor piece visibility from textured to wireframe to demonstrate this)

Hope that helps n.n!


Combing hair extends it OK so I'm trying to make a feather by using scaled cube as a base, and i use 2 edges as a vertex group for particles, now when i try to comb it it either rises towards me or on the very top when I try to comb it - it extends ridiculously (see images)

after some combing here i already had to cut off top because it went too much

after I try to fix the top a little bit

keep lenghts and root are checked, any advice?

You may need to apply scale in Object mode (CtrlA > Scale).

The hair length will be affected and probably all the combing already done will be damaged, so I'd suggest starting with a fresh particle system after applying scale.


Having rigid bodies sliding off an animated object I'm trying to create an animation in which an object is lifted from the ground and several smaller objects slide from on top of it and drop to the ground.

Is there any possible way of doing this in Blender currently using physics? In other words, can I have rigid bodies slide down from animated objects? Any strategies/hacks are welcome!

Yes, this is quite possible.

Simply make your animated object a passive rigid body with Animated enabled:

Then make the objects you want to slide around into Active rigid bodies.

Result:


Adding new object merges it with existing one So I've been adding a new object to existing object and for some reason when I press on one object the object number 2 selects as well.

If you added a new mesh whilst in edit mode then the new mesh will become part of the object you're editing.  If you don't want this to be the case then you should add new meshes whilst in Object mode.

If you've already added a mesh in Edit mode and you actually wanted those two meshes to be separate objects then you can do that with the Separate functionality.  Press P whilst in edit mode, and you should get a menu that allows you to separate the meshes.  Select "Loose parts" and you should now have two objects instead of one.

This is documented in https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/misc.html


Best way to divide a face of a cube into several specific faces So I want to subdivide the top face of a 8x8x1 cube into this specific pattern:

I tried fumbling around with the subdivision tool, but wasn't able to arrange it correctly. I also have some other more complex patterns, so I wonder if there is an easier way of doing this kind of operation.

Press CtrlR, then use the scroll wheel to bring the number of cuts up to two. Enter out of it, and then press S to to scale, and constrain it to a specific axis. This insures that the loop cuts are evenly spaced, and not one further away from the edge than the other.

You might notice that the middle edges go through the top and bottom sections. While you might now like to see this, it is necessary. You could technically do with out it by using N-Gons, but this is generally a bad idea.


Add camera moving along curve in Python I have a script that creates a closed curve, and I now want to have a camera which moves along the curve and looks slightly ahead on the curve. The camera moves, but it doesn't stay on the curve itself. (I also haven't tried to tackle the looking ahead).

import bpy

points = [((-10.875,-0.444,0.122),(-16.375,5.056,0.122),(-5.375,-5.944,0.122)),
          ((11.125,-0.444,0.122),(4.420,-9.648,0.122),(17.602,8.447,0.122)),
          ((22.125,10.556,0.122),(9.216,6.553,8.612),(31.022,13.315,-5.729)),
          ((-0.284,16.306,0.122),(-25.732,16.306,-49.859),(25.164,16.306,50.103))]

curveData = bpy.data.curves.new('path', type='CURVE')
curveData.dimensions = '3D'
curveData.resolution_u = 2

polyline = curveData.splines.new('BEZIER')
polyline.bezier_points.add(len(points)-1)
polyline.use_cyclic_u = True
for i, ((x,y,z), (lh_x, lh_y, lh_z), (rh_x, rh_y, rh_z)) in enumerate(points):
    polyline.bezier_points[i].co = (x, y, z)
    polyline.bezier_points[i].handle_left = (lh_x, lh_y, lh_z,)
    polyline.bezier_points[i].handle_right = (rh_x, rh_y, rh_z)

curveOB = bpy.data.objects.new('path', curveData)

scn = bpy.context.scene
scn.objects.link(curveOB)
scn.objects.active = curveOB
curveOB.select = True

cam = bpy.data.cameras.new("Cam")
cam_ob = bpy.data.objects.new("Cam", cam)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(cam_ob)

cam_ob.location = points[0][0]

cam_ob.select = True
bpy.ops.object.parent_set(type='FOLLOW')

The camera is following the curve, it is just offset right now so the behaviour looks odd.

You need to set your camera to the starting point of the curve. Which is the point (-0.284,16.306,0.122).


Glowing particles not visible when rendering RGBA with Transparent Background I have glowing particles (emmiter shader) visible in render with RGB background. Once I switch to render with Transparent background (Render -> Film -> Transparent) I cannot see the particles anymore. I can only see particles when there's another object in the scene behind them.

I have deleted the particle system and setup an new one, and this time it works. I cannot explain why I wasn't able to see the particles on the transparent background before.


Is it possible to extrude a curve in two directions? I want to extrude a curve in two directions.

Or join both curves into one, is it possible? I've tried copying it and then join segments, but I don't see Remove Doubles option while working with curves.

Not supported in Blender, curve vertex must always belong to a maximum of two segments.

Either use a mesh object with a Skin modifier instead, if you require true 'branching' and a continuous mesh surface.

Or if you prefer curve objects duplicate a vertex in place, leave it overlapping the original one, and then extrude the new one; if you don't mind the discontinuity in the mesh.

You can just directly select any middle vertex and extrude it twice with E, the first extrude will duplicate the vertex automatically Right-Click to cancel and the second extrude will start a new branch.


reset texture paint brushes? I have looked online in other places, but I can't find any results relating to this. I have installed a new version of blender and loaded my file without the keep ui checked, but no luck.
So, I will be working on a file for a while, and one of my texture paint brushes will turn into a regular texture paint brush. (In this case, my smear brush) and I have no way of resetting it or changing the settings to get my smear brush back.

The brush settings are loaded even if the Load UI option is disabled. The brush type can be adjusted in the brush menu, so if you have deleted the brush you can create a new brush and set it to smear.

You can import brushes from another file so to restore the default brushes without changing any of your other settings, choose File->Load Factory Settings, then save the blend file somewhere, then create a new file to get your normal settings back and import the brushes from the factory file you just saved and re-save your startup file.


Imported short clip with obscenely high framecount So I'm quite new to Blender, and I'm running into many problems importing my video.

When I first try to import it, I get the 2 channels for video and audio, which is expected, but the video channel has a framecount of 38562221 when the audio has 12859 (7:08 video at 30fps).

I have no idea what to do, and when I render the video nothing appears at all except the very first frame for 1/30 of a second. After this it's completely blank with the checkerboard pattern.

I'm so confused. Is there something Blender has against WMV files? I tried again with an MP4 also and it did the ridiculous framecount (note for both of these videos under properties it was specified to be at 30fps). So I'm completely stuck. Help!

Hopefully this is something simple i missed.

There is a hard coded frame count in Blender. You could recompile it with a larger frame count and see if things work, as I believe your piece is over the maximum. While I cannot remember the number, you shouldn't have too much trouble locating it.

It might be more optimal to chop the piece into smaller portions using another tool and reassemble them.


How to rotate the object based on the vertex of another object? Do you see the selected vertex, how do move the red circled object to the selected vertex as well as to rotate the object based on the vertex? rotation?

(This question is different from other questions as I am asking how to position the spikes based on the body's specific vertex).

Use snapping to achieve this task.

The settings of snapping:

Snap to vertex
Target - Center
Align rotation is enabled.

And move object with holding CTRL:

PS set center of the cone object in bottom of it.


When moving the object along a given axis, the coordinates change along others axes I have a problem that I can not understand. When moving the object along an axis x, y or z, the coordinates are changed simultaneously along others axes. Here is my file blender

The coordinates you're reading are referred to the bone's local space: if your bone were exactly aligned to the world coordinates (in edit mode, during the rigging) you would have your translation matching; if, more commonly, the bone is oblique, a translation along one axis is, relative to the bone local space, a movement along more than one axis.
This is the reason why it's common, during rigging, add "extra control" bones aligned to the world coordinates, to act as parents of real control bones, making editing easier, expecially with the graph editor.


How to apply transformations directly on mesh data? I need to load some COLLADA files into a program that does not support any transformations (because it does not support scaling). I want to export these objects from a .blend file.

Is there a way to apply the transformations directly on the mesh vertex data in blender before exporting the objects to .dae?

An example:

Scale(2,2) * triangle{(0,0), (0,1), (1,1)} => triangle{(0,0), (0,2), (2,2)}

You can do this with CtrlA> Apply, then checking the transforms you want to apply with F6 or in 3D View > Tool shelf (N) > Redo menu:


Extrude Region (Vertex Normals) Extruding faces individually I have an issue with extruding along Vertex Normals. The faces extrude independently.

When I select the extrusion type with the proper faces selected:

The faces extrude individually and don't stay with each other:

I have my pivot center set on Median Point which has been mentioned in some of the other posts. I am following a tutorial and can see it work correctly in the video. I also saw in another post that it could be because one of the faces isn't linked correctly. All of these faces were created with other extrusions and as far as I can tell everything is linked correctly.

I am running Blender Version 2.79b. I also loaded my file in version 2.78c with the same results.

I don't see a way to upload the blender file here so I tossed it out on Dropbox.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xrt263hwd2n6ibj/SpaceShip.blend?dl=0

Any help would be very much appreciated.

J.R.

Most likely you have the pivot center set to "individual origins." This causes each face to extrude along its own normal axis.

However, this wouldn't normally cause the problem you are having. The only reason it is causing it in this case is because you have duplicate geometry. This is most likely because of failed attempts at extrusion. DO NOT just right click and assume the extrude ended. It actually duplicated everything and "extruded", but didn't move anything, and kept it all where it was. So now there are two vertices where there was one. Just undo after you have one you don't like. That's the easiest safe way to get rid of an extrude. You can see this in my example scene, extruding to identical meshes, except one I "canceled" one extrude between each face. This means there is duplicate geometry on the upper object.

By simply dragging the face out you can see what I mean by extra geometry. You could see by the little dot in the middle of the edge that there was another face taking up "zero space", right on top of itself. When I pull away the main face it stretches the extra face out so you can see it. This unselected extra face is what's causing your problem.


HDR images are very toned down in blender? Do you know why imported HDR images get their HIghlights and midtones flattened down so much?
Heres what I mean
https://ibb.co/D14F8zS

The hdris are not like regular image textures, they must be fed through Environment texture rather than Image texture into background node like in the image above.
The difference between Image texture and Environment Texture is:
Image Texture: They apply on geometry.
Environment Texture: It's self explanatory. They apply and affect the scene's world.


Updating Blender and keeping settings Yes, I know that I can google it, and I did. My problem is that I've opened files using Blender 2.78c so I can't copy previous settings. Tried the other versions of 2.78 as well but the option isn't there anymore. Is there anything I can do?

If you are talking about user preferences and startup file, you can access your old blender directory:
go to the appdata/roaming folder (type Windows Key+R and then %appdata%) go to the blender foundation folder. Then 2.78 => and open userpref or startup .blend depending on what you want to get in the new version. Then save user prefs (Ctrl+Alt+U and save user prefs) and save the startup file (Ctrl+U)

Or alternatively copy these files into 2.78c\config, but I'm not sure if this will work


Unable to dissolve faces of a subdivided mesh (e.g. cloth) after deforming it I let a cloth drape on an object using some physics simulation. Then I need to take the cloth, merge all the faces and make it into a single block and then subdivide it. However, it seems that dissolve does not execute fully for some reason and many of the faces on the cloth do not get merged. However, if I do the same thing for an undeformed cloth, I can merge all of the blocks on the cloth and get a non-divided cloth. I can show the issue via the images below:

This is the original, deformed cloth:

And this is after I select all vertices and then click on Limited Dissolve:

I wonder, how can I resolve this issue so that when I click on Limited Dissolve I'll get a non-divided cloth?

The limited dissolve will "reduce detail on planar faces and linear edges" - that is if you have a flat plane made up of 100 faces, limited dissolve will merge them into one face but if the plane is bent in the middle it will reduce it to two faces. For a mesh that has been deformed by the cloth simulation you will find almost every face is at an angle to the face next to it so limited dissolve is not likely to simplify the geometry very much.

If you want to reduce the geometry of your deformed mesh then you will want to try something like the decimate modifier or the remesh modifier that allows you to generate a similarly shaped mesh with less geometry.

From your comment it sounds like you want to use a simple mesh to quickly get a rough shape and then add more detail to be used in the simulation to get the final cloth shape that you want. To do this, start with a low res mesh, add the cloth sim and let it play through for a while, then apply the cloth modifier, subdivide and repeat. You could also model or sculpt a mesh close to the final shape that you want and then add a cloth sim to that.


Bone Heat Weighting Failed, after turning on symmetry I have a nice 3D model and a decent rig. However, problems arise as I try to set the armature to the mesh with automatic weighting. I've removed doubles, I've recalculated normals, I've even applied the decimate modifier, as well as removed all modifiers, as well as countless other advice I've come across.

Could it be the way in which I'm making my model? Now, I use Sculptris to make my models, and naturally they're symmetrical. I import them into Blender, and the textures on the right side always come out looking bad, lots of black and white speckles that show up through the texture. (I haven't found a simple way to fix this.) So, what I do is I go into edit mode, I mirror it, then turn on symmetry. The only other method is cutting it in half then mirroring it, and even with hitting 5, 1, then using B to select half the model, it gets very tiring trying to be very precise.

I've tried setting it perfectly in the center, as well as setting it perfectly with the object's geometry origin. Nothing I have tried works. Oddly enough, on other models where I have turned on symmetry, the rigging works just fine. But those I started off by cutting them in half, mirroring them, merging the two objects into one, and then turning on symmetry. What could possibly be the difference?

I'm a complete beginner, so any help would be appreciated.

Here is the file if you wish to take a look at it.
https://www.mediafire.com/?33uo1xeibr5wr9q

This kind of topology (found in your model), in which a vertex is "inside" the mesh,  is not accepted by the automatic weighting algorithm: it only works well with clean manifold meshes, without holes.
Your mesh is made of triangles, which will not deform very well, as quads can.
I suggest you to retopologise your mesh with clean quads only, then you will have no weighting problems.
If you don't want to retopo, consider manual weighting, using the function "with empty groups" during parenting, which creates an empty vertex group associated to all the armature bones marked as "deforming":
You can select all the vertices you want to assign to a bone, select the corresponding vertex group in the properties tab, choose a weight value and click assign.


objects do not render I must be making some silly mistake but I can't see it... I have a document with some objects on a layer (metaballs) and 1 cam. The layer is enabled, the objects have preview and render ticked. The objects have Max draw textured. The renderer is cycles. The objects have nodes shaders.

Two 3dviews are open. both are aligned to cam. The cam has been pointed at the objects. Both are in object view. One shows the objects in all draw modes. The other shows the objects in no draw modes. The objects do not render. I have restarted blender.

What am i doing wrong? (2.79b)

Another thing I notice is the working mballs seem to have an orange icon with their name that expands to a white icon with the same name. eg mball.005 contains mball.005.  the broken mballs seem to be mixed up - the names don't match. e.g. mball.010 contains mball.012. Renaming the child elements doesn't seem to fix things but maybe it indicates something got corrupted. Pure speculation...

Regards

update: I pushed it out to an obj, factory reset blender and brought it back in. apart from needing the nodes rebuilt all is back to normal. it's made all the metaballs into single objects which I couldn't work out how to do, so in fact it's actually done me a favour.

I'd still like to know what I did wrong to mess up the file...

In the file you posted, the only issue that I saw was that the camera was not pointing at the objects, so it would just render blank space. I reset the camera to point at the objects and it rendered just fine.

As an aside, I believe metaballs cannot be joined unless you convert them to a mesh first. I selected one, pressed Alt+C and chose mesh from option and it joined them all. It does make them permanent however, and you can't move them around individually anymore.


How can I make a custom gizmos to set the origin I want to make a custom gizmo to set the origin.
I mean when we select the 3d model a cube (subdivided cube) like the below image will appear on the 3d model and scale based on 3d model size dimension.
and when we select the vertex it should set the origin based on vertex position.

suppose we have a 3d model. when I select the 3d model gizmos should appear

first I select the point on gizmos

and then I set the origin

and finally, I will delete the custom gizmos because I don't need it

I want to make these steps automatic because I have thousand of 3d models
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected()
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_CURSOR', center='MEDIAN')

I propose to do it with a modal operator, not a gizmo:

The principles:
Run the operator (search it using its name F3 and type set origin on boundings). Then the operator creates a sphere to display it as green point as shown above. And it register a draw handler in the 3D view, in order to display the boundings and the small green spheres.
The operator is a modal so it will continue until 'FINISHED' or  if 'CANCELED' is returned. In this case, it returns 'CANCELED' when the ESC key is hit. Now for each modal call, it does the following:

Get the view location
Get the mouse cursor location
Get the active object

And from that the bounds of the object are going to be calculated in order to display a black subdivided mesh (some kind of lattice) as well as figuring out which point to highlight in green.
Here we can use the dot product the view location/mouse location with view location/bouding point location and keep the best one. When all that done, validating the point where to set the object origin:
If you left-click (LMB) then the previously identified bounding point will be used to change the origin. It seems to work fine independently of the mode (object, edit, etc.) but I've not tested them all.
You can stop the operator using ESC. Here is the code (some comments, just ask for more information if necessary):
import bpy
import bmesh
import gpu
from gpu_extras.batch import batch_for_shader
from mathutils import Vector
from bpy_extras.view3d_utils import region_2d_to_location_3d

# indices to make cube edges from boundings
bounding_indices = (
    (0, 1), (1, 2), (2, 3), (3, 4),
    (4, 5), (5, 6), (6, 7), (7, 0),
    (8, 1), (8, 3), (8, 5), (8, 7),
    (9, 10), (10, 11), (11, 12), (12, 13),
    (13, 14), (14, 15), (15, 16), (16, 9),
    (17, 10), (17, 12), (17, 14), (17, 16),
    (18, 19), (19, 20), (20, 21), (21, 22),
    (22, 23), (23, 24), (24, 25), (25, 18),
    (26, 19), (26, 21), (26, 23), (26, 25),
    (27, 28), (28, 29), (29, 30), (30, 31),
    (31, 32), (32, 33), (33, 34), (34, 27),
    (35, 28), (35, 30), (35, 32), (35, 34),
    (36, 37), (37, 38), (38, 39), (39, 40),
    (40, 41), (41, 42), (42, 43), (43, 36),
    (44, 37), (44, 39), (44, 41), (44, 43),
    (45, 46), (46, 47), (47, 48), (48, 49),
    (49, 50), (50, 51), (51, 52), (52, 45),
    (53, 46), (53, 48), (53, 50), (53, 52))

# Cut a bounding face in half
def bounding_cuts(b_box, result, indices):
    p0 = Vector(b_box[indices[0]])
    p1 = Vector(b_box[indices[1]])
    p2 = Vector(b_box[indices[2]])
    p3 = Vector(b_box[indices[3]])
    result.append(p0)
    result.append((p0 + p1) / 2.0)
    result.append(p1)
    result.append((p1 + p2) / 2.0)
    result.append(p2)
    result.append((p2 + p3) / 2.0)
    result.append(p3)
    result.append((p3 + p0) / 2.0)
    result.append((p0 + p1 + p2 + p3) / 4.0)

# Get half parts of bounding box
def bounding_points(obj):
    b_box = obj.bound_box[:]
    result = []
    bounding_cuts(b_box, result, [0, 1, 2, 3])
    bounding_cuts(b_box, result, [4, 5, 1, 0])
    bounding_cuts(b_box, result, [7, 6, 5, 4])
    bounding_cuts(b_box, result, [3, 2, 6, 7])
    bounding_cuts(b_box, result, [5, 6, 2, 1])
    bounding_cuts(b_box, result, [3, 0, 4, 7])
    return result

def draw_callback(self, context):
    obj = context.active_object
    if obj and obj.type == 'MESH':
        # translate bounding in world co
        mat = obj.matrix_world
        obj_coords = [mat @ Vector(c) for c in bounding_points(obj)]

        # draw boudings
        shader = gpu.shader.from_builtin('3D_UNIFORM_COLOR')
        shader.bind()
        batch = batch_for_shader(shader, 'LINES', {"pos": obj_coords}, indices=bounding_indices)
        shader.uniform_float("color", (0, 0, 0, 0.5))
        batch.draw(shader)

        # if close enough to a corner
        if self.highlight != -1:
            # draw a small sphere on it
            scale = self.highlight_distance / 100.0
            base_coord = obj_coords[self.highlight]
            h_coords = [base_coord + (Vector(c) * scale) for c in self.highlight_coords]
            batch = batch_for_shader(shader, 'TRIS', {"pos": h_coords})
            shader.uniform_float("color", (0, 1, 0, 0.5))
            batch.draw(shader)

class ModalOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Set origin with the mouse"""
    bl_idname = "object.set_origin_on_boundings"
    bl_label = "Set origin on boundings"

    # Create highlight (corner) geometry
    def create_highlight(self):
        # it is based on UV sphere triangulated for the GPU rendering
        bm = bmesh.new()
        bmesh.ops.create_uvsphere(bm, u_segments= 6, v_segments=4, diameter=1)
        bmesh.ops.triangulate(bm, faces=bm.faces)
        self.highlight_coords = [v.co.to_tuple() for f in bm.faces for v in f.verts]

    # Update object information
    def update_object(self, context, obj, view_loc, mouse_loc):
        prev_highlight = self.highlight
        self.highlight = -1
        if obj and obj.type == 'MESH':
            self.target = obj.name

            # Find the closest corner using a dot product from the view
            mat = obj.matrix_world
            obj_coords = [mat @ Vector(c) for c in bounding_points(obj)]

            axis = (mouse_loc - view_loc).normalized()
            angles = [axis.dot((c - view_loc).normalized()) for c in obj_coords]
            min_angle = max(angles)

            # and keep it if close enough
            if min_angle > 0.999:
                self.highlight = angles.index(min_angle)
                self.highlight_distance = (view_loc - obj_coords[self.highlight]).length
            else:
                self.highlight = -1

            if self.highlight != prev_highlight:
                self.redraw(context)

    # Mouse location in 3D
    def mouse_location(self, context, event):
        x, y = event.mouse_region_x, event.mouse_region_y
        loc = region_2d_to_location_3d(context.region, context.space_data.region_3d, (x, y), (0, 0, 0))
        return loc

    # View location in 3D
    def view_location(self, context):
        camera_info = context.space_data.region_3d.view_matrix.inverted()
        return camera_info.translation

    # Move the object origin to the wanted corner
    def set_origin(self, context, obj, index):
        mat = obj.matrix_world
        loc = mat @ Vector(bounding_points(obj)[index])

        cursor_location = context.scene.cursor.location.copy()

        mode = obj.mode
        if mode != 'OBJECT':
            bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = 'OBJECT' )

        bpy.context.scene.cursor.location = loc
        bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_CURSOR')

        if mode != 'OBJECT':
            bpy.ops.object.mode_set( mode = mode )

        context.scene.cursor.location = cursor_location

    # Force the 3D view to redraw when needed
    def redraw(self, context):
        bpy.ops.wm.redraw_timer(type='DRAW_SWAP', iterations=1)

    def modal(self, context, event):

        mouse_loc = self.mouse_location(context, event)
        view_loc = self.view_location(context)
        obj = context.active_object

        self.update_object(context, obj, view_loc, mouse_loc)

        # when left click, set the origin if a highlight point is known
        if event.type in {'LEFTMOUSE'}:
            if self.highlight != -1:
                self.set_origin(context, obj, self.highlight)
                return {'RUNNING_MODAL'} #We don't want the click to be taken into account further

        # esc is used to quit and remove the draw handler
        elif event.type in {'ESC'}:
            bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_remove(self.handle, 'WINDOW')
            self.redraw(context)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        self.highlight = -1
        if context.area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            self.create_highlight()
            args = (self, context)
            self.handle = bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(draw_callback, args, 'WINDOW', 'POST_VIEW')
            context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
            self.redraw(context)
            return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}
        return {'FINISHED'}

keymaps = []

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

    wm = bpy.context.window_manager
    km = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps.new(name="3D View", space_type="VIEW_3D")

    # Ctrl+Shif+B as shortcut
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new(ModalOperator.bl_idname, 'B', 'PRESS', ctrl=True, shift=True)

    keymaps.append((km, kmi))

def unregister():
    for km, kmi in keymaps:
        km.keymap_items.remove(kmi)
    keymaps.clear()

    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.object.set_origin_on_boundings('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

Run the script and use ctrlshiftB to activate the operator and esc to stop it.
Note: I'm still using right click select, so I've set the trigger that position the origin on the left click. You may want to change that.


Shape keys and geometry nodes Is it possible to add a parameter or attribute in the geometry node tab to affect shape keys?

On Monday there is this blender live stream on YouTube and I asked in the chat if it is possible to use shape keys as attributes. I got the answer (short version): not yet.
So I guess it will come with the next updates(comment written during 2.92)
Greetings Tobi


Baking displacement map is missing, Baking displacement map is missing.

Change from Cycles to Blender Render to enable the displacement baking.


how can i set particles static until collision affects to them? I ask novice question.
I am trying to make sand simulation with molecular addon.
What I want to know is how to set particles tobe static until collision object
touch to particles.
When I bake simulation, particles never stop and keep slight moving.
I want sand to be as static until the monkey collied to sand.
I thought about maybe I should use cache, and use from collided frame,
but its also looks strange, non collided  particles are also start moving
from the frame.
I hope for any possible advices. thank you.

I add link to .blend here.

Just set the friction to max, bouncing to lowest and the damping also to (i think) max - just try out. Just keyframe that values until your monkey touches, than you can change them on that keyframe. The touch of your monkey you can either manually set via keyframe, or e.g. by an invisible plane you insert there and then you know also, when it starts touching.


When I render my model in blender the only thing that appears is the blue color i have for the backround I've been trying to fix this for ages and can't seem to find a solution. I'm rendering with cycles. I've tried messing with the layers and different render engines and even tried finding a solution based on other questions but no luck.

Here is the blend file

There is an Object in your scene which is set to Wireframe Display mode in the viewport, but when rendered it is being shaded solid. It encompasses all your objects, so basically it hides everything. The object in question is called CloudBounds, and is highlighted in this screenshot:

The camera however is clearly outside of this box:

Probably you have tried to generate clouds using an Add-on which targets Blender Internal render engine? It would explain why there are no nodes on the cycles shader (it still has the button labeled use nodes):

Anyways, if you move that object to a separate layer which is not set as a RenderLayer, or simply hide or delete it, the scene renders again:


Incomplete Seam Marking I'm pretty new and want to mark some seams, but it won't let me mark them on certain edges and I don't know why. See image for what I'm talking about. It is an incomplete mark seam.

Thanks, guys!

Inspect your model for duplicate vertices and zero area polygons and vertices which are near each other yet do not share a face.  Duplicate vertices are sometimes created by extrusion operations .  You may move  vertices to see if  duplicates are in the same location.  Alt-Clicks should select vertex sequences which can be moved and thus inspected.  Look at the model in wireframe mode and check the vertex count which is displayed at the top in blender.

If you have little time investment in the model consider starting from scratch.  Sometimes for simple models this is faster.

Has a UV Unwrap failed?


Vertices movement keeping view perspective, but not actually moving the vertices I'm currently making the plate from the donut tutorial available by the blender guru on youtube. Here's the link: https://youtu.be/SBtDix7xGOg?t=733. We are creating a plate from a solidified circle. I'm on the step where you're creating the spot for the tea cup to rest, which involves the movement of a vertices loop in the "z" direction. I pressed "g", then "z" to move the loop similar to what's shown in the second image. If you look at it from a different view, however, it seems like the vertices moved in a manner that would make it seem like the loop moved in the "z" direction, when instead they just smeared on the surface of the plate in 2-D. (First image) Has anyone else experienced this issue?

Disable the Snapping option (magnet icon).

Snapping makes your selection snap to the face.


Why is my high-poly mesh bake result poor? I'm new to baking maps in general, so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question.
I'm making some drumsticks, and I wanted them to appear used and "beat up", so I sculpted a lot of details into them. I'm trying to bake the highpoly into the lowpoly, but every time I try, the map has these vertical tears in it, and the map doesn't look good.

Am I adding too much detail? From what I understand, you have select your highpoly mesh first, then select the lowpoly - and as long as they're both in the same location in 3d space, you can bake it without issue. Is my understanding correct?
I'm new to sculpting as well, so I have no idea if how I sculpted it was good or bad. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Cheers!
My .blend file is here. It was too large to upload normally, which makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong already, haha.
EDIT:
Here's a screenshot of my normal map (I had to zoom in a little to show the artifacting)

Your object is very small in your scene, so with an Extrusion of 0.5 it will miss the bake, bring back this value to 0, give a Ray Distance of 0.0001 and it will work.


Is there an Attach Option in Blender for Splines? Update 2
I achieved the needed model by using the Knife Projection tool. Thanks to all the suggestions.

I am trying to create an object using Splines and would like to sort of "Attach" other splines and do some boolean operations on them before extruding.

As an example in the picture below there are multiple spline shapes,a ractangular one, a set of circles, and another rectangle.

I am trying to attach (using the word attach here referring to a similar concept in 3ds MAX) all of them together and then subtract the inner circles and the rectangle.

I can not find a way to do that, can someone point me in the right direction please.

Update 1
I followed the idea of going with the Join as suggested by the answer and somehow that does not work as desired.
Let me explain. Here is a simple image that I am trying to create.

Created the desired number of individual spline polygons and placed them like so:

And after the Join:

Notice the extrusions/extra faces below the tall rectangles?
Any idea how I can make it not take the lower part of the door way?

Thanks & Regards.

The right term in Blender is Join. Select all your curves, then Object/Join.

In the Curve panel, make sure your curve is set to "2D", so the inner shapes can be subtracted from the outer shape.


Missing 'face' after exporting to Unity I was exporting my model to Unity and saw that a part of the eye ball is missing and you can see through it. Why is that?
In Blender:

In Unity:

Any idea what's wrong? Thank you.

You need to flip the normals of your eye faces, Blender will show you both sides of the faces, but in a game engine you'll only see the side with normal.


Create a wispy, foamy top? Like Hot Cocoa? I'm trying to create a mug of hot cocoa in Blender, and right now I'm trying to perfect the fluid itself.

Here's a better picture of what I'm trying to create:

I'm trying to create this bubbly, foamy top layer to the cocoa, but I'm not sure where to start. YouTube tutorials show people commonly just use a texture as the top, but I'd like to recreate the effect completely in blender.

I might even add some whipped cream eventually, but I'm taking it slow. I know how to do the marshmallows, I'm just trying to figue out how to create the top layer.

I made a quick render of what you described. Here I essentially have a whole lot of bubbles on the surface of a rectangle, which is basically what the froth is. You could increase the number, size, etc of the bubbles easily, my computer just can't handle more than this :)

To make the large bubbles, I made a single sphere, and colored it a semi-transparent brown color. Next I duplicated it a few times and used the random transform tool object>transform>randomize transform as seen here

Next I made one small sphere into a group and used the particle tool (great post on that here) to scatter them randomly across the surface. The post I mentioned show how to use the options to make the bubbles smaller, make more, etc.

I recognize that this doesn't look exactly like hot cocoa, but if you just color the bubbles a bit differently, adding some more white and a bit of dark brown it'll be pretty close.


sculpt tools act in incorrect direction I am one of Blenders eternal beginners!
The brush, inflate, sculpt draw brushes are acting strangely on only one object, on the others they work fine. The vertices seem to displace at an angle of 90 or 180 from which I would expect, the behaviour is unpredictable as far as I can see.I have tried adjusting with no luck, I even updated from 2.71 to 2.72 and the problem persists.

http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31967

Since sculpting tools usually act based on the normals of vertices (e.g: an additive inflate brush will push verts forwards along their normals, and a subtractive one will push them the other way), there are a couple causes for this. The most common of which are:

Inverted normals: If the vertex normals are inversed, sculpting will act in the opposite of the expected direction.  Solution: Go into edit mode, select everything, Ctrl+N or Alt+N to recalculate normals or flip them from the specials menu (W)
Negative scale: Scale will cause the vertex normals to be reversed - thus have the same effect as mentioned above.  Solution: Apply the scale in object mode (Ctrl+A), or reset it (Alt+S)
Non-uniform scale: This won't cause the sculpt direction to be inverted, but it will cause strange and often unpredictable issues such as a narrower/wider than expected brush radius.  Solution: Same as above.

As with any issue in Blender, the two first things you should check are whether the normal directions are correct and the object scale is uniform and positive.
Also see: Why is it important to apply transformation


Rendered as PNG, how to play it as a mp4 im new to blender and i need some help. i recently rendered a project that took 5 hours to render. i rendered it and it filled my folder with images. i can play the finished render in blender. but what if i want to upload it to youtube? i have a ton of images but can play them like a mp4 etc... any way i can make a mp4 without having to re render everything? i could put all the images in a video editor but thats hassle. is there no easy way to fix this?

Go to the Blender's VSE window and add an image, then select all the PNGs: they will be automatically loaded as a sequence. You can render out this sequence as mp4, and the render time will be very short,


Cant select face without vertices I cant remove this face somehow. Its not even selectable with A-Hotkey.
How can i solve this problem ?

It looks like the face outlined in blue is part of a separate object from the one you're editing.  Toggle out of edit mode and select the other object, and edit or delete that.


Water flow at the normal to a face I want to make liquid flow out of a face of an object with the water flowing at the normal to the face. I've included an image demonstrating how I want this to work. I'm pretty inexperienced so if you guide me through this more detailed, that would be great.
Thanks in advance

Shift - A -> Mesh -> Cylinder

R -> X -> 90

S -> Y -> 3

Object -> Quick Effects -> Liquid

change flow behavior from geometry to inflow

check "Initial velocity" -> y: 20

Select Cylinder -> Shift D -> S -> 1.1

Tab -> Select top face

X -> delete face

Tab

Change type to effector

add solidify modifier, thickness: 0.1 -> move to top (before fluid)

select domain and press S -> 2 to double the size of the domain

change resolution division to 140

start animation by pressing Space
result:


Export error with addon Im trying to export a model for the Euro Truck Simulator 2 game with the Blender2SCS addon and I get the following error, any help?

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.72\scripts\addons\io_scene
_scs\__init__.py", line 1951, in execute
    error = export_scs.save(filepath, origin_path, root_object, self.copy_textur
es, int(self.pmg_version))
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.72\scripts\addons\io_scene
_scs\export_scs.py", line 27, in save
    status, ob = export_pmd.save(exportpath, originpath, root_ob, copy_textures)

  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.72\scripts\addons\io_scene
_scs\export_pmd.py", line 305, in save
    pmd.write(f, exportpath, originpath, copy_tex)
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.72\scripts\addons\io_scene
_scs\export_pmd.py", line 267, in write
    ret_ob = exp_mat.write(copy_tex)
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.72\scripts\addons\io_scene
_scs\export_mat.py", line 91, in write
    for option in self.__options.keys():
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'keys'

location: <unknown location>:-1

location: <unknown location>:-1

The addon seems to be broken due to api changes in Blender, either use the addons bug tracker or try an older version of Blender that is compatible. According to the video tutorials version 2.66 was used.


Rendering a Water Drop in Cycles I am trying to achieve a realistic render of a water drop on a piece of grass in cycles.  Here is my render:

The water drop looks kind of bland and fake right now; it is too dark.  I want it to look more like this:

How can I that glare effect on the water drop in blender?

The environment and lighting setup is very important, especially for specularly reflecting and refracting materials such as glass or water.
It looks to me like you don't have a bright enough sky. You could use a HDR sky image via the environment texture node, or the built in procedural sky texture, which can give decent results too (particularly when you don't actually see the sky directly):

For this scene I used a procedural sky texture for the background color with a strength of 4:

I also used a sun lamp to get some directional lighting (see Should I add a sun lamp when using an hdri environment?)
For the compositing setup I only used two simple glare nodes:

The de-speckle node is only to get rid of some fireflies that were appearing. Normally I'd clamp them, however in this case I wanted to leave the render un-clamped, in order to preserve any values greater than 1 for use by the glare node.

Lighting and environment aside, also ensure your glass shader is set to white. When added via the properties panel, it defaults to .8 grey, which can result in the object looking too dark.


Creating a wave-like animation with plane/ image I have an [image as] plane which is composed of a series of strips that I am trying to animate into a wave-like/ ripple format i.e. one segment gets larger and travel along to the right whilst previous segments shrink back to their original shape. Any ideas on how to achieve this and is it necessary to divide the segments in order to potentially make this work? I have attached a visual as my description is not the best;

Using a Lattice you can control the deformation.

Create a lattice with a few subdivisions, In Edit mode select the middle points of the lattice and scale them on the Y axis, then bring those segments up on the Z axis.

On your plane object add a Lattice Modifier and select the deformed lattice to control it.


Bullet holes in game engine? I've seen questions and videos around the place on how to do these, but all the final products are exactly what I do not need: a plane with the picture of a bullet hole. If I've done that, what would happen if I shoot the very edge of an object? The picture would be sticking out in the middle of the air! Also, if I hit a round object or an object with curves, the same outcome would occur. I need a type of system where the bullet hole that is added can actually "wrap" the object it hits. For example, if I hit a corner of a cube, the bullet hole image should be on both sides of the cube. Also, If I hit an object on an area that has curves, the bullet hole should be curved too. How can I achieve this? Thanks!

You need the bullet hole to modify the texture applied to the material. That way it will never stick out!

An interesting approach may be to have multiple U,V vectors per object, and in the fragment shader, detect how close a fragment is to each of the U,V vectors, and if close enough, draw a bullet hole (maybe darken pixels as a function of distance between current U,V, and bullet hole U,V)

I am not sure how this is normally implemented in games however ;)


Bend Pivot Center of Rotation I'm trying to use the Bend modifier along with an array modifier and appropriate pivot objects to take a plane and turn it into a segmented ring.

So I use an “array pivot” object to rotate the array copies, and an “bend pivot” to reposition the center of the bend modifier.

But I don't understand where exactly to position the bend pivot object. By experiment I found approximate solutions for various bend angles, and used python to fit a curve to the data, and determined the relationship is roughly -114.563/x, where x is the angle of rotation.

But that -114.563 makes no sense to me, I assumed there was some factor of pi or something that could explain how to position the bend modifier, but it still looks like a mystery to me.

So I was wondering, does anyone know what the relationship is? Or is there something I am missing that would make sense of this, or simplify it?

Edit: It just occurred to me that my factor is really close to 360/pi, so I think that is the answer, though the question remains, why does the bend modifier's center have to be offset different amounts depending on the degree of bend? And why the factor of 360/pi?

The equation that describes the Y coordinate of the bending pivot could be:

Where:

R is the wanted radius (in Blender unit)
BBsize.x is the bounding box size (in Blender units) on the X axis of the undeformed object
Theta is the angle of deformation (in radians)

If I would like to know, for example, where to put the bending pivot for the default plane (BBsize.z = 2 units) bended by one radiant (57,2958°) around a  circumference with a 3 units Radius, I'll get:

3-2/1= 1 units

If I want to increase the Radius to 5, I must move the pivot point in Y =

5-2/1 = 3 units

Changing the deformation angle to 45° (0,785398 rad) would mean changing the coordinate to:

5-2/0.785398 = 2.45352038075 units

Final result for the latest set of values:

Note that, as in the provided result we are using the world origin as the ring center, we can get rid from the dipendency of R, so the location of the Bending pivot is:

5-(5-2/0.785398) = 2/0.785398 = 2.54647961925 units

Here's a file with a bunch of drivers that change the deformation angle and the bending pivot accordling to the number of elements composing the ring that you can examine:


What is the difference between module and script execution methods in the Game Engine? There are two options when using a sensor to run a python script (which also makes me wonder why the python option is a Controller and not a Actuator, but I guess that's a separate question).

As far as I can tell, Module runs a function in certain file (specified file.function). Script runs an entire file.

What are the practical differences between the two (assuming they are functionally the same)? What are some example cases where you would want to use one over the other?

The wiki page seems to be down currently, so forgive me if the answer is written right at the top..

These docs explain:

Script Mode
In Script mode, the controller is linked to a script, the whole script
will be executed before the logic moves on. Everything in the script
will happen at the same frame, if the same value or attribute are
changed more than once, only the latest will be visible in the game
because of this. If for example the position of an object is changed
first to (100.0,100.0,100.0) but later in the same script changed to
(0.0,0.0,0.0), then only the (0.0,0.0,0.0) will be visible to the
player because the move to (100.0,100.0,100.0) happened on at the same
frame.
Module Mode
Since Blender 2.49 the Python module controller was added. Simply
choose Module instead of Script on your Python controller drop-down
menu. Then you define a function on that module and call that function
from the controller. Instead of writing “myScript.py” on the script
edit box, you’ll write “myModule.myFunc” on the module edit box. This
function will run every time the controller is called. But other
functions and variables outside of myFunc’s scope will only run once.
This is good for optimizing your code when you want to initiate
variables only once then use them later.
The Python module controller supports any number of attributes, this
means packages are supported automatically. As well as
“myModule.myFunc” you can do “myPackage.myModule.myFunc”, nested
packages work too, as does method calls on class instances like:
“myPackage.myModule.myInstance.myMethod”. The python controller is
passed to the python function as an argument for functions that take
one arg.

Regrettably the 2.6x docs miss this info.


Changing default mesh size Sorry for asking, but I couldn't find my problem elsewhere.
I'd like to have the default dimension of newly created objects 20x20 instead of 2x2 units. The reason is, every time I create a new object, I have manually scale them up to my mostly needed size, which is 20mm.
Regardless of whether unit scale I select (mm or cm), the default cube is either 2mm or 0.2 cm, but I'd like to have a 20mm default cube.
Where can I change this?

This won't be an instantly workable answer, because this is an issue that I'm having trouble with, too.

But, it seems like you could maybe unregister the operators, then reregister them with your modifications. Checking out the Python API, I found: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.ops.mesh.html

eg:

unregister()

    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=2.0, calc_uvs=True, enter_editmode=False, align='WORLD', location=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), rotation=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0))

register()

    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=20.0, calc_uvs=True, enter_editmode=False, align='WORLD', location=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), rotation=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0))

or something like that in an __init__ file?

I hope you get an answer, as I'd like to do the same for meshes, but also clip distance for cameras!


How to extrude faces in the form of triangles depending on their position? I want to extrude smooth convex triangles like in this photo -

But I don't want to do it manually, besides they are not the same.
How can I do that?

Create a UV Sphere, select all and press CtrlE > Un-Subdivide, in the Operator box choose Iterations > 1:

Cut the top:

Select all and press i twice to inset individual faces:

Scale up:

Transform a bit, give it a Bevel modifier:


How could I set the dataType of a value in group input/output geometry node? The default socket type is float, but I would like to set it into other types, as I marked in this picture :

How could I do that?

Like node group inputs / outputs in the shader editor, the value type is defined at the time of creation, and can't be changed afterwards.
You have to first create a dummy link to force the type you want in the node socket. You can then relink the socket to where you want it to be linked to.
If there is an automatic cast available between the two types (for example a boolean True / False is equivalent to an integer 1 / 0), it will be converted automatically for you. Beware though at the moment I don't think there is a warning message if you try to link incompatible types (Example : link an integer to an object socket).
See :

Note that you can change the default, min and max value of the sockets in the right hand side panel.


Can you animate objects using differential equations? I am looking for a software to animate biological processes based on differential equations, and I was wondering if Blender would work for something like this.

Many differential equations can be solved and animated using animation nodes. For example, the equations for a mass on a spring with a damper were used to animate this cube.

This example is at

Overview

Differential equations can be simulated, frame by frame in an animation, if they are in the form of a 1st order, ordinary differential equations. See an example of forming 1st order ODEs at Example.
Once in the form of a 1st order ODE, simulation consists of calculating the change in state when the frame changes.
The state is used to change some aspect of the animation, like the position.
This can be done by saving the state in a text block, and at each frame change, updating the text block by solving the differential equations.
The animation nodes add-on makes it relatively simple to implement this.

Detailed steps:

Start with the differential equations. Arrange as 1st order differential equations. The equations for a spring-mass-damper are . By rearranging this equation into a 1st order differential equation, this is easily simulated. The 1st order differential equations for the mass spring damper are below. These equations show that the change in velocity is a function of the spring force and the damping force. The change in position is a function of the velocity.

If not already installed, install the animation nodes add on. See Animation Nodes on GitHub
Create a new Blender file.
Create two text blocks. Name them 'IC' and 'state'. Add the initial condition for the equations in to the 'IC' block.

Open up the node editor and create the following animation node setup. The setup is explained below. This setup consists of 4 major parts. A part to read the state from the data blocks, a part to write the new state, a apart to solve the equations for one frame, and a part to update the animation.

The part that reads the state from the text block includes logic to determine if the animation just started. If the frame number is 1, then the initial conditions are used for the equations. Otherwise, the last stored state is used. The contents of the blocks is converted to numbers to work with the equations.

The differential equations are solved in this part. These equations mirror the equations in step #1 with some modification to solve the differential equation (see euler method). The time step (dT) for each frame is used to determine how much the position and velocity change. These changes are added to the prior position and velocity.

The updated state is written to the 'state' datablock.

To have the animation affected, the animation nodes take the position variable and use it to change he position of the cube.

The blend file with this example is located at


Is there a way to unfold a mesh? Is there a way to take a mesh, cut it with seams or sharp edges and flatten it, so that the faces stay the same shape and size?

Making paper models is one aspect, where you could use that technique.

No, I'm afraid SZ0Return is not going to do it properly.

And misusing the UV-unwrap is only a last option.

Note, while it's an option to revert to Blender 2.49 which had a script to do this, I'd like a solution that I can use inside the current workspace.

There is an exporter for paper models, it even has a Blender Wiki Page with in depth usage guidelines.

For more information and plenty of examples of successful use cases you can read the BlenderArtists thread by the developer of the script.

Add seams like you would for any regular texturing job, experiment with simple geometry first. Here is an icosphere.


No bounce light in eevee? would like to know why theres no bounce light in Eevee?
I have a really simple setup with a spotlight and a nearby plane but nothing is bouncing onto it?
https://ibb.co/j34RXCr

No light bounce, it's the way Eevee works by default, in order to calculate faster. If you want to reintroduce light bounces, create a Light Probe > Irrandiance Volume, scale it, stretch it so that it contains all the area you want to be taken into account, in the Object Data panel give it a better Resolution if necessary, then in the Properties panel > Render > Indirect Lighting, press on the Bake Indirect Lighting button. You'll have to bake again if you make some changes in your lighting.


Transparent part of my image shows up black I would like to ask for help figuring this one out.

I have a grayscale image with a black background, and I have the same image but colorized and with transparent background.

I need a mixed shader so that the black is gradually transformed into transparent, while the grayscale is transformed to a color scale.

I tried with a ColorRamp but the alpha becomes black in the render even if I have a blend mode to "alpha blend".

It would be nice if I could symply use the grayscale image texture for it, but I could also use on where I load the two images and mix them.

Thanks for any help

Edit: I add the real RGBa if you want to try it with this images

Works just fine with the provided images.
Perhaps you forgot to connect the alpha channel?


Help with displacement modifier application with an array modifier for a random result I have a scene consists of plenty of steps which I modelled one and used  array and displacement modifier over it. I tried many options with displacement modifier in order to get random distribution of the musgrave texture individually for each steps, however from distance it looks like the same musgrave texture patterns layered over the overall shape, not spread on individual steps.I have tried the local and global texture coordinate option, but this doesn't change the end result as well. I was wondering if you could help me how can I make this work. thanks

If you want discontinuities in your displacement map you probably have to either break your object apart and use instances instead each with different texture settings, or apply the array modifier and unwrap each "step" individually then move them around in the UV editor to break the continuity of the UV coordinates.

Either global or local coordinates are bound to generate one seamless displacement map over all chunks of the mush since they are all contiguous.

Alternatively, if you are using the Cycles render engine you could use builtin material based displacement instead, and use an Object Info's Random output and instances to make the texture randomly offset on each separate object.

Edit: You could just use the "Object" texture coordinates on the displace modifier, then use an empty to drive the placement of the texture.

Create two or three different empties and use them alternatingly, that should be enough to achieve a random look. Set up one or two different instances and then you can just copy modifier settings from one object to may others by selecting them all, and selecting the source object last, then pressing Ctrl+L and choosing Link>Modifiers option


Create jet colormap using blender gradient texture I would like to know if there is anyway to create a texture for the jet colormap in blender. This colormap looks like this:

You can use ColorRamp to calculate the spectrum.

Set the two border colors (Blue and Red)
Set ColorRamp node to HSV > Far
Add the Gradient Texture node


Strange shape when deleting faces I am currently working on Blender Guru's Chair Modelling Tutorial.
When I delete the top faces to make a hard edge, the face on the front starts making a weird shape.
Anyone knows why? Couldn't find it out myself.
Thanks in advance,
Tobi

he subdivision surface modifier is placed before the mirror. Invert them.

The reason: if before, subdivision surface will smooth vertices out of the mirror axis, so they won't join anymore.


keep modal timer operator running at same time of other I have the folowing code:

import bpy

class modal_pressure_simulate(bpy.types.Operator):

    bl_description = "simulate pressure"
    bl_idname = "wm.pressure_simulate"
    bl_label = "pressure"

    def modal (self, context, event):
        context.scene.tool_settings.unified_paint_settings.size = event.mouse_x / 156

        return {"PASS_THROUGH"}

    def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(0.001,None)
        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {"RUNNING_MODAL"}

    def invoke(self,context,event):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(0.01,None)
        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {"RUNNING_MODAL"}

    def cancel (self, context):
        pass

if __name__ == "__main__":

    bpy.utils.register_class(modal_pressure_simulate)

    #bpy.ops.wm.pressure_simulate()

When in sculpt mode and operator is called the brush size will be changed based on mouse_x position but when click to sculpt the operator pauses.

How I can keep it running even if another operator is called?

Not sure what your issue was, so I added some edits to turn operator on / off using a window manager boolproperty update. Will also turn off if object is not in 'SCULPT' mode.

Moved the sculpt brush resize into the timer loop.

Unless you are going to set some operator properties in invoke there is no need for invoke and execute both adding handlers / timers.

import bpy
from bpy.props import BoolProperty, IntProperty

class WM_OT_pressure_simulate(bpy.types.Operator):

    bl_description = "simulate pressure"
    bl_idname = "wm.pressure_simulate"
    bl_label = "pressure"
    numerator : IntProperty(default=156)
    def modal (self, context, event):

        scene = context.scene
        obj = context.object
        wm = context.window_manager

        if not wm.modal_pressure or obj.mode != 'SCULPT':
            return self.cancel(context)

        if event.type == 'TIMER':
            ps = scene.tool_settings.unified_paint_settings
            ps.size = event.mouse_x / self.numerator
            #print(event.mouse_x / 156)

        return {"PASS_THROUGH"}

    def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(0.01, window=context.window)
        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {"RUNNING_MODAL"}

    def cancel (self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        wm.event_timer_remove(self._timer)
        wm.modal_pressure = False
        return {'CANCELLED'}

def toggle_pressure(self, context):
    print("Pressure Sim Mode ", self.modal_pressure)
    if self.modal_pressure:
        bpy.ops.wm.pressure_simulate()
        #bpy.ops.wm.pressure_simulate(numerator=20)

def add_button(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    wm = context.window_manager
    if context.object.mode == 'SCULPT':
        layout.prop(wm, "modal_pressure", toggle=True)

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

    bpy.types.WindowManager.modal_pressure = BoolProperty(
                                        name="Pressure",
                                        description="Toggle Pressure",
                                        default=False,
                                        update=toggle_pressure)

    bpy.types.VIEW3D_HT_header.prepend(add_button)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


VSE suddenly slow like hell I've been working all the day long on a video project using the VSE. I am using very low def footage (720 x 406). The editing was mainly finished and Blender was working fast (playback 24fps).

Then, suddenly, it became incredibly slow (4 sec for one frame). I saved, reboot, open it again but still the same. When I open an other project, even an heavy one, everything's fine. But this one keep bugging the rendering.

Any idea why ? A solution ? Thank you very much !

Some other suggestions for VSE performance enhancement:

Convert your video into image sequence (e.g. PNG), then reload them to VSE to replace the original video strip, which can solve many unknown problems caused by codecs.
Use Proxy to speed up even further.
If you are using scene strips, it is highly recommended to toggle Open GL Preview (from the properties of the preview) for faster real-time preview.
You can also consider setting priority for Blender process (e.g. in the task manager / resources monitor utility of your OS), which is generally not recommended unless necessary.


Blender Multiple Animations I made an animation for my gun in my FPS, but I came across a problem while making another animation. If all the keyframes are saved to the object itself, then I can't make another animation because the previous one is in the way. Is there a way to have more than 1 animation on an object?

you can create multiple animations for a single object.
There are 2 ways to do it.

Either key frame your animation on time line as mentioned by @Xortrox above , or do some advance working in dopesheet/action editor, which allows you to create multiple animations, all seperate in their own animation set.

I prefer the 2nd option of dope sheet editor, as it gives more flexibility.


How to make a Portal Bridge material in Cycles? it's one of my 'How do I make a material in Cycles' questions again :D

I am still not that wise when it comes to transparent textures and fresnel and so on, so if someone could explain to me how to create an effect like the one shown in the image below, that would be great ^^.

Basically you can just mix between some emission shaders and transparent shaders based on some textures (click for larger image):

This uses a tile able image to create the sine-wave effects. I used a procedural gradient texture and a color ramp node to create the bright edges, and a noise texture to give some basic variations.

Note that a separate emission shader is used for illuminating other objects, in order to make illuminate other objects better without over exposing the object itself.

The image texture I used was this rather poorly hand painted wave. It's probably possible to procedurally generate such a wave with some math, but I'm not sure how..

In order to create a glow/bloom effect, I would use the compositor. You can either use a quick glare node, or manually blur and add the result back to the base image. For good measure I also mixed in some ambient occlusion and some fog/depth glowy stuff.

Result:

Example .blend


Is it possible to swap parts of a mesh that are hidden and unhidden? I'm trying to create some corrective shape keys, and I am finding that it would be very handy if I could hide the currently visible parts of a mesh while, at the same time, unhiding the currently hidden parts of the mesh. Is there a way to do this? 'H' will hide everything selected, Alt-H will reveal everything hidden, and Shift-H will hide everything not selected. But I want a change in hidden status that is only based on what is and isn't hidden, not on what is or isn't selected. If I could swap what is hidden and unhidden back and forth, I could really nail these problem areas quickly. As it is, the only solution I can think of is to create vertex groups for the problem areas so that I can easily select them, and then hide/unhide parts based on selection. But this means extra steps.

EDIT: If anyone can post a script which does this in one operation, I will mark it as the accepted answer.

bl_info = {
    "name": "InvertHide",
    "author": "Martynas Žiemys",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 82, 0),
    "location": "ctrl+alt+shift+h",
    "description": "Inverts hiden mesh parts",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "Mesh",
}

import bpy

def main(context):
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    bpy.ops.mesh.reveal()
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='INVERT')
    bpy.ops.mesh.hide(unselected=False)

class InvertHide(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Inverts hidden parts of mesh"""
    bl_idname = "mesh.invert_hide"
    bl_label = "Invert Hide"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.mode == 'EDIT_MESH'
    def execute(self, context):
        main(context)
        return {'FINISHED'}

addon_keymaps = []
def registerKeymaps():
    wm = bpy.context.window_manager
    if wm.keyconfigs.addon:
        km = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps.new(name='3D View', space_type='VIEW_3D')
        kmi = km.keymap_items.new('mesh.invert_hide', 'H', 'PRESS', shift=True, alt=True,ctrl=True)
        addon_keymaps.append((km, kmi))

def unregisterKeymaps():
    for km, kmi in addon_keymaps:
        km.keymap_items.remove(kmi)
    addon_keymaps.clear()

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(InvertHide)
    registerKeymaps()

def unregister():
    unregisterKeymaps()
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(InvertHide)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Save this with Blender's text editor(UTF-8 encoding needed) to a .py file and install it as an add-on. You will have the functionality with alt+ctrl+ shift+h


Python script without Blender is it possible to run a python script(with a Python IDE) that takes data from a Blender file and gives some results without running Blender itself.

Im a total begineer at Blender, but I've got some technical knoweldge as a developer. If you don't find any solution, I think you might be able to install blender on a remote server (with a graphical user interface). Then import your file and then find a way to expose blender operations as a server. However if the main problem is to support a better python IDE than the one embedded in the blender text editor, I have no clue for that :/
I think you might be able to import bpy in you python IDE to let it detect blender symbols (bpy.context, bpy.data ...) but you'll still have to copy/past your scripts inside text editor to run the full script


Why do I have more particles in the render than the viewport? So I've got two emitters, each has two particle systems, all throwing hearts. When I render the animation, I get maybe 3x as many hearts as I want, which makes it hard to balance it all.
Here's the viewport, with all particles baked, playhead at frame 139

Here's the render, which I stopped at frame 139 because it's choked with hearts

I've seen viewport vs render amounts in the hair section, but I can't find anything that relates to emitters.

Properties editor > Particles > Viewport Displaly > Amount

Properties editor > Particles > Children > Display Amount


Rigging complex mechanical shapes I want to rig a small mechanical interaction between two pieces of metal.
In theory it's simple: the upper leaver should get pushed up by the lower one (which is already driven) and then drop down - while always keeping contact.

However, due to the large contact area and odd shape of the elements I cant make this work using the regular constraints. What is the right way to rig such an interaction?

A rigging method without physics

To simplify this report, consider only two-dimensional space.
It is also assumed that the lower lever has a smooth convex curve and the upper lever is a straight line on the side where the two levers touch. With this assumption, rigging with Armature was able to solve the problem.

First, for simplicity, coincides the coordinate system of the lower lever object with the Armature space. In other words, only the upper lever slides on the fixed lower lever in the Armature space. This behavior could be realized by using Follow Path and IK constraints. Then, the behavior of bones was transferred to the both lever objects. Finally, the rotating shaft of the upper lever was fixed by using a Copy Rotation constraint.

Armature

Mesh Objects


How to disable this shadow? the shadow is allways to the right and I dont know why it is there.

It looks like you need to recalculate the normals: select all in Edit mode and ctrl N


Difference between the scale and the size of a light in cycles? To adjust the shape of area light in cycles, there is the Scale, or there is size in the light properties.

What is the best way?

My observation from Blender 2.68:

Changing the size from the properties also changes the size in the 3D viewport.
Changing the scale in the 3D viewport does not change the scale in the properties.

The rendered result is the same in both cases. The only difference is in how you see the light in the 3D viewport.

Conclusion:
Either use one or the other, but don't mix. If you mix, the actual size of the light is different from the one you see in the 3D viewport. Though it will not crash anything, it may become confusing.


Problem with too many faces of object I make my object complex so that i can paint real circle in part of his body but when i decimate it my circle look terrible. I don't know what to use to make this circle stabile and make my object with less polygons as possible. . Now I have 766 000 faces and that is not acceptable. Please help. (sry for my bad english)

I have one more question. I tried to use f brush to point out his water gun but is there a better way to get punched his wather gun?

It's generally bad practice to make the colors directly dependent on the topology of the object (there are exceptions, of course).

Instead you should use a Texture.

A texture is usually an image which is mapped to the surface of your object based on a UV map. There are other kinds of textures and mapping techniques as well, e.g. Procedural textures.
However, in this case you probably want to UV unwrap and use an image texture.

For example, I can UV unwrap this sphere:

and then texture it with this image:

Result:

As you can see, the texture is not dependent on the topology of the mesh.

I recommend you check out some tutorials on texturing and UV unwrapping in blender. There are many good sources out there (google is your friend), but here are a couple of places to start with:

Blender Cookie
Blender Guru
The Blender wiki

Also check the beginner's reference on meta.


Rigify vertex groups mesh deform error So I imported a model into Blender that already has vertex groups and a skeleton. I then imported a metarig and made it the exact same shape as the imported skeleton. I applied the armature modifier and deleted the custom skeleton and then  I made another armature modifier and set the object to the Metarig. The mesh deforms fine. So then I generated a rigify for the model and it worked out fine. However, I went to the DEF bones layer and I saw that the arm and leg bones were subdivided. So I then set armature deform of empty groups to the bones and I renamed the original vertex groups to the arm and legs vertex groups. I then cut the weight paint in half for the subdivided bones manually like so:[![enter image description here][1]][1]

But when I pose the arm, the mesh deforms incorrectly at the armpit:

What should I do to fix the mesh deform problem? Auto weights is not an option because this model has too many accessories like a crowbar and many pouches. Thanks for your time.

I know what I did wrong! The bad mesh deform is because I didn't rename all of the vertex groups and just the arm groups. The weight paint was overlapping from the chest vertex group and renaming it fixed the bad deform.


Render Glass like materials with Alpha Channel to composite in external app Hope you can help me with some issues I've been dealing these days.

As I'm rendering products, most of the time I need to render some transparent materials in order to do a post-pro in Photoshop, change the backgrounds, superpose images, etc.

I've been looking for an answer but yet I've couldn't get a solution for this problem.

I need to render materials with transparency and no background in Cycles.

I've found that there are two ways to do this:

Render with transparency in the materials.
Render and get two renders, the original and another one only with the alpha channel to edit in Photoshop.

For the first option, I've achieved to render a glass-like material, as PET plastic using this node tree:

For the second option, I haven't found a way to get the alpha channel in cycles that includes the object with transparency and, if possible, the shadows in the background| but without the background.

Newer builds of Cycles (post 2.79, currently available from the buildbot) include a native functionality for this:

This is activated by enabling the new "transparent glass" option in the "Film" panel. The normal "transparent" option must be activated as well, or "transparent glass" will be greyed out. There is also a "roughness threshold" control, which allows you to have only clear glass transparent, with frosted glass blocking alpha. Alpha transparency will only be enabled for glass with roughness below the set value. Above a certain roughness, you're usually better off getting blurred refractions from whatever environment/HDRI you're using for reflections. The default setting of 0.1 is pretty decent cutoff point to start with.


How Can I make a Copy of an object multiple Times Knowing that it must be animated as the original? I was Recently working on a Science project with my Friends in school, And I have to create an animation for the project,But I have a problem in my animation.

Problem :

I have a molecule animated in A noisy way (the three spheres are animated in different ways - The two blue are child of-Parent to- the Big sphere). I Want the whole screen to have the same molecule animated Like it (having an offset between them will bell the best thing ).So how can I do it ?, I accept (Agree With) using particle system,python .....

Reference Photo - This Is what I Want (This is a part of a video)

The easiest solution here would be with DupliVerts:

Take your animated objects and bundle them as a group (Ctrl+G). This is mostly for your convenience later.
Name that group something relevant (Groups panel in Object Properties). Also a convenience.
Back in the 3D View, create a Grid object (Shift+A→Mesh→Grid).
In Edit mode (Tab), scale up the grid so it's larger than your molecule. It's important to do this in Edit mode so your scaling doesn't get messed up.
Select one of the objects in your molecule group and then select all of the other objects in the group (handy shortcut: Shift+G→Group... this selects all of the objects that are in the same group as your active object).
Shift+Select your grid object to make it your active object.
Make the grid object the parent of your molecule objects (Ctrl+P→Object).
In the Duplication panel of Object Properties, click the Verts button.
Boom. You should see a copy of your molecule at every vertex of your grid object. And when you playback your animation (Alt+A), you should see all of your molecules animating at the same time... much like the icospheres and Suzanne heads in this blend file and the screenshot below.


Help With Find Missing Files I have a model that's portraying the purple material to show something is missing. So I thought "OK, whatever I'll just hit the 'Find Missing Files' Button," but for some reason even though I select the images individually for the model the images are still saying that they can't be found. Any ideas?
Here is a more in-depth look at the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHvf14zPUCw

Try put the images inside a folder and then find your file, make sure you didnt rename them, then open the folder inside blender menu and click find missing files


How to wrap multiple 3D objects around a UV sphere? I am a total NEWBIE in Blender.

I want to Wrap or Overlay (might be the wrong word to use) a 3D Mesh Object around on a UV Sphere (Mesh) and also want it to be laying on the surface of that Sphere. (Please see to the image I attached)

I have manually tried to lay the 3D Mesh Objects over the surface but it takes me ages to align the 3D Object on the surface of the Sphere.

Please help, thank you.

From what I can understand you want your 3D mesh object to "wrap" around the sphere. I think the shrinkwrap modifier can help.


Mapping of metal rust textures on UV sphere I am trying to get a tileable texture on a uv sphere. It should look something like this:

But in my blend file it looks like this:

What I did is create the UV sphere and when I created the UV Sphere I had "generate UV's" checked.This is how the UV map looks like when doing that:

I thought that there is no further need for uv unwrapping now. Then I added the material and the textures (created in Substance). This is the material:

How to get these textures right ?? I thought it should work after checking "Generate UV's" when adding the UV Sphere ? Is there a problem with my texture ? With my UV map ? Or is it the material setup ?

Here is some more explanations about what I proposed in the comments.

The changes in the nodes setting:

All come from 'generate'
Texture nodes are set to 'box'
A blend is tuned to avoid to see the 'box borders' (maybe, you should prefer to link them all with a single value)
The UV map is removed from the normal map node to keep coherency regarding the texture

So when the material is changed to that:

But the blending of the 'box' mode looses a bit of the quality.

Edit: some explanations following the comments

The sphere cannot be unwrapped equally (respecting model vs. UV map proportions) without seams.

But if you have seams, that will be visible at the junction on the 3D model (even if we have seen a solution here Realistic Rusty Chain, the problem is your texture is repainted so is no more generic).

So we don't want seams. But without seams no respect of proportions...

The box mapping (as I imagine it works):

It is a cube envelop projected on the surface. And... that makes seams.
But we have the ability to use the blend factor, which is some way extends the envelop so that parts overlap but are blended.

So all seems to be good... except the point I mentioned before: we loose a bit of quality due to this blending.


Graphic card performance impact on baking light This question might be a bit of topic but currently im using a computer with a Geforce GTX 1060 6GB graphics card.
Baking the lights of certain meshes with 10k samples can take up to 8-10 hours for me.
Does any one of you guys know how much "Baking-time" can be reduced by upgrading the computer and graphic card to a GeForce RTX 3060 12GB or Geforce 3070 8GB?

10k sampling is a very bad idea, you will have to use a lower value and find the sweet spot for your render. A RTX graphics card could be used for denoising with OptiX, it's build into blender. But do not sample with 10k, the best RTX card won't be able to render magically in some minutes with this sampling value.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gSyEpt4-60&t=37s helped me a lot


How to change the ratio of movement of a driver? I have set up a driver which causes an object's z location to controller the other objects x rotation. It works, but I have to move the driver a long way in order to get only a slight change on the driven objects rotation. How do I change this ratio so that the driven object is affected more by less movement of the driver?

You can simply multiply the driver value.

Select the driven object and go to Drivers editor
Click your Driver (mine is called Z Euler Rotation)
Go to Sidebar (N) > Modifiers > Generator and add a multiplier value


True displacement in EEVEE? I have a Blender 2.8 scene with animated true displacement. It is created using material nodes and works fine in Cycles. However, EEVEE doesn't displace my meshes truly, only normals are changed. Is it possible and how to solve the problem now or in the future?

It seems that EEVEE doesn't support true displacement in the nodes and we don't know when it will. However, it is not so difficult to find another solution.

To replace animating math and displacement nodes, I used several Displace modifiers with different textures and empty objects which have keyframes on their LocRotScale. This approach is explained in detail here. I'd like also to highlight that in my case the Direction value was very important – displacement looked ugly before I limited it to Z axis only.


Is there a way to separate selected vertices within the same object Is there a way to separate a selection of vertices from a mesh directly without creating a new object?
My current way of doing this is:

Select vertices
Use Separate by Selection (P > By Selection)
Select both objects and join again J

I feel like there should be a way of doing this completely within edit mode.
Is there?

You want Mesh -> Split -> Selection, which is the Y key.


Save rendered image before compositing without re-rendering I have rendered an image. It took a long time to render it.

I also have compositing nodes. For clarity let's call the image after rendering "image A", and the final image after compositing "image B". I would like to tweak the compositing nodes without re-rendering. Now I can do it, because Blender is still running, but if I close and start Blender, image A will disappear, and I have to render again.

So I would like to save Image A now (in openexr multilayer format, with all the render passes), so that the next time I can put it into an Image input node, and tweak the compositing nodes without re-rendering.

I can save image B from the UV/Image Editor with F3, but I found no way to save image A - although it is still in Blender now. How can I do it?

OK, I found it in the meantime. The EXR file of image B actually also contains image A, I just have to switch the "Layer" in the Image input node. I hope in the future this question and answer will still help somebody.