Normal Map Baking Artefacts on Complex Model I have sculpted and retopologized a dragon model. When I try to bake a normal map using details from my high poly model I am getting artefacts on my normal map. I get much better results using a cage, but there are still some problems in areas such as the mouth, wings, and under the legs:

There are also similar artefacts under the horns and on other parts of the wings.
The mouth artefacts can be cleared up by not using a cage and putting the ray distance under 0.4, but then I get worse problems on other portions of my mesh such as the upper legs. I have tried using 32bit float and 8k for my normal maps. Changing the placement of my seams multiple times did not make much difference. I played around with the extrusion option when using a cage, but no extrusion gives better results. I could go into gimp (or photoshop), and try to fix the problems manually, but I would like to know why I am getting them. Here are the bake settings that work best for me (to make the cage I took the low poly version went into edit mode then used ALT-S to scale up until the cage covered the high-poly version):

Here is my .blend, but without the high-poly model because it took up too much space:

EDIT: I re-created my cage, manually scaling certain areas more than others then re-baked with the new cage. The normal map looks better in the mouth area, but the normal map applied to the dragon still looks just as bad in the viewport.

In order to get rid of the artefacts on the wings and the feet I had to make my low poly mesh (more) similar to my high poly mesh in the areas that had normal baking problems. For the artefacts in the mouth, under the legs, and under the horns I had to adjust my cage manually to make sure there was no overlap. Sometimes the normal map did not display properly; changing the color space on my image texture "refreshed" the node making the normal map display properly. The normal map has come out fine, and I have not changed any of my bake settings except putting the Margin to 32px instead of the default 16px.


Amature slowing down after separating and recombining in a single Armature multiple times I’ve been having this problem recently where I’m working on an Armature where I would separate a Bone and later recombine it to make the rigging easier.

This is actually the second time that this has happend where in the first my personal speculation is that a Rigify created Armature adds additional data and duplicates some of it as Armatures gets separated and recombined which bogs down the system (scrolling through the Armature’s Object Data is also slow) prompting me to avoid it in the future.

Now that I’m in a similar situation where I’ve gotten really far with my rig so I don’t want to start from scratch again where the rig may have been from a Rigify created Armature which I don’t remember as it was one of the rigs I’ve worked on before and salvaged some of its Bones to improve upon.

I was wondering if there’s a way to purge whatever it is that’s slowing my armature.

Just figured it out.

It really was a Rigify issue. What happens is that it left out some junk Drivers and during the process of separating and recombining, it duplicated until there was too many and it slowed down the Armature.

The fix was to look at the drivers and well… delete them. It kinda took some time for me because simply clicking and showing the driver graph slowed Blender also.


When I turn on cycle render, object turns all white w/ no color, any help? (ver 2.79) I don't know what to do. I'm really new.

The only thing I can think of is that somehow you probably added a material in the "Override" section inside the "View Layer Properties" tab.


How do i close a view window that's not the same size as the ones next to it? I'd like to close one of the view windows on the right side of the Blender user interface. However, it shares borders with two view windows on its left. I've tried dragging both its and its neighbor's viewport handles. I've tried clicking on the boundary and selecting "Join Area" under the Area Options menu. Neither of those work. I checked this question, this question, and others, but those don't help because the view window I want to close shares borders with more than one other view window. I'm using version 2.74. How can I close theview window?

There are two options.

The most direct option is to expend the 3D Viewport over the timline, so that the 3D Viewport is the same size as the Outliner. Then expand the 3D Viewport over the Outliner. Then split the 3D Viewport, and make the timeline again.

The other option is to split the Outliner horizontally. Then line that border up with the border between the 3D Viewport and the Timeline, then expand the 3D Viewport over the top Outliner pane, and expand the Timeline over the bottom Outliner pane.

For more detail on how to expand these panes, check out How to close view windows?

ALTERNATIVELY, if you're wanting to make the 3D Viewport bigger, just hover your mouse over it and press shiftspace. Then shiftspace again to return it to its original size. This lets you maximize your 3D Viewport space without losing the all-important Properties panel. I'd highly recommend changing that Outliner into a Properties panel... you'll be using it ALL the time, and then use the shiftspace trick to alternate between full-screen and regular layout. In fact, shiftspace will work with any pane all the time.


Missing surface texture on rendering I hope someone can help me. I have a project where i have to draw some simple urban environment. I have different types of objects and surfaces.
My Problem: The surface of the grass and vegetation isn't visible on the final render (see the pic). I can see it in the viewport, the render switch is on, the normals are ok.
Can someone help me to solve this problem, what have I forgot?
Thank you! :)
MT

Ok, I've solved the problem myself. The surface mesh has particle system on it (the trees) and I've unchecked the "Show Emitter" function before. Checked it again and now it works like a charm! :)


How to change a ui color from within the console? I'm trying to change ui colors from within (blender's) console.

I'll admit it's a peculiar idea (common sense suggest to import the "xml") but I want to propose 3 or 4 "color hacks" for blender's default color theme, its the sort of change every pro would suggest at first moments notice (its not supposed to be a redesign or revamp).

But how to rise to attention at "blendernation"? By posting an unreachable xml at "blenderartists"?

Instead of downloading, saving, unwrapping and installing a file my "color hack" could simply be pasted into the console and previewed in a nondestructive manner (blender discard unsaved ui changes when it quits) -- ie it'll help my "color hack" to rise to attention of blender's Bartholomew.

Thanks in advance.

Curious how the fixes look like, or what is it good for? Its all about the "setting buttons", here the user can distinguish between a "function" and a "setting" button.

Here's an example script:

import bpy

ui = bpy.context.user_preferences.themes[0].user_interface

#>>> C.user_preferences.themes[0].user_interface.wcol_radio.inner[:]
wcol_radio_inner = (0.275, 0.275, 0.275, 1.0)

#>>> C.user_preferences.themes[0].user_interface.wcol_radio.inner_sel[:]
wcol_radio_inner_sel = (0.33, 0.5, 0.76, 1.0)

#>>> C.user_preferences.themes[0].user_interface.wcol_radio.show_shaded
wcol_radio_show_shaded = True

#>>> C.user_preferences.themes[0].user_interface.wcol_radio.shadetop
wcol_radio_shadetop = 15

#>>> C.user_preferences.themes[0].user_interface.wcol_radio.shadedown
wcol_radio_shadedown = -15

#>>> C.user_preferences.themes[0].user_interface.wcol_radio.text
wcol_radio_text = (1, 1, 1)

ui.wcol_regular.inner = wcol_radio_inner
ui.wcol_regular.inner_sel = wcol_radio_inner_sel
ui.wcol_regular.show_shaded = wcol_radio_show_shaded
ui.wcol_regular.shadetop = wcol_radio_shadetop
ui.wcol_regular.shadedown = wcol_radio_shadedown
ui.wcol_regular.text = wcol_radio_text

ui.wcol_toggle.inner = wcol_radio_inner
ui.wcol_toggle.inner_sel = wcol_radio_inner_sel
ui.wcol_toggle.show_shaded = wcol_radio_show_shaded
ui.wcol_toggle.shadetop = wcol_radio_shadetop
ui.wcol_toggle.shadedown = wcol_radio_shadedown
ui.wcol_toggle.text = wcol_radio_text

Note that you need to run this from the text editor, this wouldn't really work as addon - at the time of registration, we are not allowed to access the context.

BTW, with the above theme, the toggle buttons in the text editor sidebar for wrapping etc. look really odd.

Looking at the 2.69 testbuild 1, the transform manipulators in the View3D header appear like props:

But it's odd that the enable/disable button draws not the same. For selection mode, it's arguable whether this should look like a property set, as it actually changes something (mesh selection, e.g. verts+edges selected, go to face mode, nothing selected).


How to make a two-point perspective render? Two-point perspective render is very popular for rendering architectures. In Yafaray, there is an Architect Camera to do this.

Is there any way to achieve this in BI and/or Cycles?

It seems this is not possible to do the same way as Yafaray, however you can do it with camera positioning and tweaking the Shift values.

From the wiki:

   Two Point Rendering

  Normal architectural
  rendering is called two point rendering; when vertical lines are
  parallel, and horizontals, if followed out to the side, converge on
  one point, and receding or depth lines converge to a second point.

  Architects often like this Two-Point rendering, so that the sides of
  their buildings are completely vertical and don't appear to be falling
  inward. This is also quite nice for compositions and schematics, given
  that the lines of the paper you print on and the screen you view with
  are also straight.

  Previously to get a 2-point perspective, you had to
  aim the camera level to the horizon, however this resulted in the top
  half of the building being cut off and the horizon being in the exact
  middle, which looks very boring. Architectural photographers use
  'shift lenses' to solve this problem. Shift lenses shift the image to
  another place on the film. Two Point Horizontal Render This technique
  works well for high buildings as well as for normal sized objects.

  Most of the time, the two vanishing points are horizontal and depth
  lines, with the vertical lines parallel. However, some titles are done
  with the horizontal lines parallel, and the vertical and depth lines
  having the vanishing point. This dramatizes and exaggerates the
  massiveness and height of the title.

  To get this effect, position the camera at ground level, centered,
  angle the camera upward, and shift the render passpartout down. In the
  example, the camera is rotated 30 degrees upward, at ground level with
  the title. A bright key light with a short falloff provides dramatic
  lighting that is bright in the middle and falls off toward the sides,
  further enhancing the depth.

  To achieve 2-point rendering:

  Use a short wide angle lens camera, say with a Lens Size of 10 mm placed close to the building, or a long lens farther away from the
  building. These differences affect the depth of the building render,
  with longer lenses making the building appear thinner and less
  dramatic or distorted. The example uses a 40mm lens.
  Position the camera off to one side of the object, vertically halfway up the building to minimize distortion of the vertical
  building edges. You may alter this vertical (Z value) position to be
  slightly higher than ground level or higher than the top (if you want
  to see the top of the object or building). To show the front bottom
  corner of the building jutting out, raise up the camera.
  Angle the camera to be looking away from the building and directly level at the horizon - not pointed up or down (note the 20 degree Z
  angle in the example). This should make the vertical lines parallel.
  The more the camera looks at the object, the closer the vanishing
  point for the horizontal lines, and perceived depth will increase as
  that vanishing point gets closer as well.
  You may have to angle the camera slightly down (just 1 degree or so) so that vertical lines appear vertically up and down, both near
  and far. If the lines are curved, use a longer lens. With your 3D View
  set to Camera view, use the passpartout or pixels on your monitor to
  determine vertical.
  Move the camera toward/away from the object until it appears near a corner of the render and is the right size.
  Adjust the Shift: X and Y settings until your object is positioned properly.

E.g.:

With a normal camera setup:

With the camera setup as described in the wiki:


What can i do to have aninmation Node version 2.0 or 2.1 python 3.7 build work on my linux? I am using Fedora 32 The error message made it clear, the build i was installing isn't working at the moment.

The installation of the add-on worked, after upgrading to Blender version 2.9, downloaded the daily build from the GraphicAll Community.
I recommend downloading  the version compactible to your OS from the GraphicAll community installation of the add-on downloaded from the official Animation Nodes website or the GitHub page fails.
This should work, especially if you're on linux...this could work for Windows as well.
GraphicAll Community
"https://blender.community/c/graphicall"


How to make a F-curve with a constant and linear part? As part of a problem I need to obtain a curve in the graph editor, that has a constant part , followed by a linear one.

for instance:

  for the interval [0,100] the curve is y=0

  for the interval [100,end] the curve is y=x-100

I tried under Add-Modifier>Generator,
but the closest curve I found was only a y=mx+n curve.
There is also the option of using python to shape the curve,
but I do not know how.
I assumed, that maybe it could be possible to draw the curve by hand, but it does not seem so.

How would you make a F-curve that looks like the white one in the picture ?

Here are a few ways I can think of.

3 Keyframes, linear interpolation.

Simple driver expression   frame if (frame > 100) else 0

Or if you are using modifiers, add two generators and restrict the frame range
0 + 0x for frames 0 to 100
-100 + 1x for frames 100 to

Also, as suggested here How to change the inherited F-curve independently from the original one ?
,  I recommend you look at the NLA editor, especially for offsetting the start of actions.


Shadows not rendering properly in cycles In the scene I'm rendering (Cycles Blender 2.83) I'm having weird issues with shadows not fully showing up in the render. This also happens in EEVEE by the way. In the image I have circled some examples of the shadows being clipped weirdly. What is causing this and how can I fix this?

Edit: it appears the issue has something to do with the smoke. When I disable the smoke in the render, the shadows that were being clipped show up fully.

Edit 2: I fixed the issue by increasing the max total and transmission light bounces from 12 to 24.

In order to fix the shadow clipping, I doubled the max total and transmission light bounces from the default of 12 to 24.


How to join vertices of 2 separate parts of one object I have 1 object, with 2 separate parts. How do I connect the vertices to basically create a bridge joining the two? Contrl + J does not work.

Select the faces of the areas you want to connect then hit Ctrl+E and select Bridge Edge Loops from the menu.


Weird artifacts when rendering on Nvidia GPU For some reason, when rendering on my RTX 2060 in Blender, I'm getting these weird flickering artifacts.

As can be seen from the above screenshot, my node setup is a cube compressed into a plane by some simply vector maths with a musgrave texture applied to it. These artifacts are only appearing when rendering with the GPU (this includes the final render), and on CPU the scene renders just fine.
How can I fix this? Is something from with my card, or is this some Blender bug?

Since you are reducing the z axis to 0 the top and bottom faces are z-fighting with each other.
I get the exact same thing on my end, by the way, and I'm also perplexed as to why the CPU doesn't face this issue.
I tried to work out a solution using Backfacing, but failed.
Instead of leaving the z disconnected you can divide it by some large number and get a workaround.


Deform object after another object I have seen other similar questions but they don't seem to be what I want, please correct me if I'm wrong.

For simplicity: delete the default cube, NumPad7, add cylinder, rotate X 90, then add torus with ext/int 1/0.75 and raise it above the cylinder. It should look like this:.

What I want is to deform the torus against the cylinder, but make it as if it's a projection. This means that, when looked from above, it will look like a normal, undeformed torus (volume changes), but when viewed with NumPad1, it will look like a round-end tube following the curvature of the cylinder, while still having the same round cross-section. To make it worse, my object needs to be deformed by a more complex surface, such as sin(x).

If I'd use soft body, it will look shrinked when looking from above, i.e. it will preserve the volume. If I use shrinkwrap, it either does a projection with its circumference intact, but all flat, or it will project it (similar to what I want), but only the bottom side vertices, like a curtain.

Mesh modifier gets me nowhere since I have to manually tweak the surrounding mesh, and curve modifier also preserves the length/volume, while also squishing the section of the torus at the bending points.

My question(s): is there a way to project (mold) the torus onto the cylinder while preserving it's cross-section? Can this be extended for more complex meshes to be projected or to be projected on?

This is, roughly, what the side view (along Y axis in the 1st pic) would look like after the deforming of the torus:

The unselected shape above is the torus (as it is in the first picture), and the selected shape is what it would look like after the deform, or molding, whatever you want to call it.

And here is what it would look like when seen from above (top view, along Z axis)): i.stack.imgur.com/HVOCo.png (can't add more than 2 pics)

The view would be the same before and after the torus is deformed.

Create a lattice that has no depth, and is as large as the torus and place it near the torus, where you want it to make contact with the cyclinder:

On the torus add a lattice modifier and select the lattice as control object:

Select the lattice and add a shrinkwrap modifier with the cylinder as target, Mode project, and select the correct axis for the projection:


Blender won't copy pose in dope sheet and mirror paste it So I'm making a walking animation, I got half of the cycle figure out, and just want to mirror the first half to create the second. How ever when I try to copy the third keyframe and flip paste it, I get these stupid glitches. First, when I pressed Ctrl+C it won't copy to buffer. So I have to go into the pose menu to tell it too. Then when I tell it to flip paste, it will only paste the previous pose I copied and flipped. I can't explain it better then that, only if I go back to my last save and start over it happens all over again when I try to copy and flip pose three.
Here is the file, copy the pose at frame thirty, and try to x-flip paste in at frame seventy. If all goes like it does for me, it will glitch.

(Update) So I took one more stab to solve it and I found that if I copied the keyframes I wanted and normal paste them, it worked fine, its only when I x flip paste them that it goes wrong. Another thing that will have when I try to flip paste is it will paste a pose that is not the one I copied and infact don't have any poses like it in key frames

About your copy-paste problem: maybe you've enabled the Copy Attribute addon, which seems to disable the normal copy-paste function in Pose mode and Dopesheet. If you have it enabled, use the copy-paste buttons on the horizontal header.

About your armature: First I personally prefer not to activate the Automatic Keyframe Insertion and the Active Keying buttons because I find it a bit disturbing as it creates keyframes as soon as you move a bone, but it's my own preference and maybe you feel comfortable with them.

Also, when you create key poses (in your case frames 0, 10, 20...) I think it's better to create keyframes for all the bones so you're sure that the flipped pose will be symmetrical and won't depend on what happens in the previous and next keyframes.

Now I think the main problem in your settings is your bone called Root.

First I don't understand the use you make of this bone. The root bone should be the hierarchy top parent, meaning parent of the hip, of the IK controllers, IK pole targets, etc... which is not the case here: You only parented Hips to Root, but what does Roots brings to the Hips function? It's not clear to me... So maybe first fix that.

Once done, most of the time, you won't need to use the root bone, except sometimes when you need to move the whole character.

So, what's exactly the bug that is happening when you copy-flippaste your bones? Actually it flippastes the left bones poses to their symmetrized right copies, and vice versa. But it also symmetrizes the pose of any other bones on their own X axis. That's what happens to Root: As you've created a pose for Root, it symmetrizes it on its X axis, and as its X axis points backward, it's flipped upward, and therefore it moves up Roots and its child Hips and all the Hips children!

So once you'll have changed the Root bone settings, and as you won't have any reason to move it, the problem won't happen any more.


Change proportion on base mesh I discovered a video that shows a very quick way to make base mesh (skin modifier as everyone already knows)

but it's a timelapse, so there's no explanation at all.
In 01:00 he starts to scale vertex to change proportion for each part of the body.

the problem is, I don't know how he did it, because I try to scale vertex but nothing happens I used S and alt S.
The video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFE-NR9623w

they made the centre point "root" (for skin modifier) in edit mode, then turned on skin again (but in edit mode still), then they selected all and scaled in "median point" I assume, then left edit etc..  I tried it but am not used to mirror in this way :) So could scale but it was a mess.


How do I split a face in half? I want to split this top face into two separate (horizontal) faces:

I see that you can do this with the knife tool, but I don't know how to position the cut so that it's exactly in the centre.

While looking around I found this answer that talks about splitting an edge with Subdivide and thought I'd try it with two opposite edges of a face selected. Turns out it works!

First, click on Edge select:

Then, select the top and bottom edges, since we want to split the face horizontally. If you want to split the face vertically, select the left and right edges instead.

Right click somewhere in the scene (don't think it matters where) and select Subdivide from the menu:

Ta-da! It's split perfectly in two.

Now you can select each face:

I'd be interested if anyone has a better way of doing this, as it seems like a very common task.


Little particles appearing on render When I render preview my animation little twinkling particles appear.

I might have turned them on but since I'm new to Blender I don't know how to turn it off.

@Jaspa I'm sure that cycles did finish rendering. In fact, this was just a preview of a render (if that changes anything?). I'm posting another screenshot of a different position of my animation and there's no little dots to see on buildings, except on the building from a first screenshot in the distance.

As Jaspa mentioned you should go to render tab, then go to sampling and increase the render samples to something like 1000 (the more the higher the image quality)
then hit render (this option is in the render tab)


Striped Sphere - hide backfaces I created a sphere and colored its faces in several horizontal stripes like

blue, transparent, blue, transparent... etc

Pretty much when in Object mode & Viewport shading set to Material the backfaces of those circular stripes do not show which is exactly what I'd like to get in the rendered transparent png, but in the rendered png the backfaces show up.

How to get rid of backface colors?

Expected: Backface culling

Current Result

As far as I know you will probably have to use Node materials for this, I don't think there is any backface-culling options in Blender Internal Render by default, only through node materials.

Active node materials for your Blue Material, add the Blue Material to the default Material node from the dropdown menu.

Now add a new Input > Geometry node and use the Front/Back socket to control the transparency of the material by connecting it to the Alpha socket of the Output node


Custom fresnel curve When it comes to recreating the shading of metals like chromium with such extreme reflection curves it's obviously inaccurate using one averaged reflectance curve. Also eye-balling the values appears impossible so it becomes relevant creating individual curves as accurate as possible.

Source: http://refractiveindex.info

Looks like feeding in a RGB Curves node is the way to go. However I can't figure out how accurate this mechanism is. What approximation model cycles is using? Schlick's approximation? Is there anything else to consider like shifting the incidence angle?

Q: How to build an accurate fresnel curve based on the data of refractiveindex.info?

Here is the Fresnel Conductive OSL node done in pure Cycles nodes:

The node noodles:

And .blend with linkable/apendable group if you feel lazy to build this:)

Notes:

In reality the IOR is computed like this:

IOR = N + Ki

where N is Refractive index and K is Extinction coefficient. For dielectrics, the complex part can be omitted, so N becomes the IOR. However metals do have the complex part.

You get the measured N and K values from here: https://refractiveindex.info/. The problem is, that both N and K depend on the wavelength of light.

So to render metals correctly, Cycles would have to be a spectral renderer taking into account the polarization and wavelength of light.

The best we can do is to approximate and sample just for red, green and blue light.

As per the Vray OSL reference the red, green and blue values are taken at 0.65, 0.55 and 0.45 micrometers. Put the wavelength value in there and read N and K:

The usage is same as in Scott Milner's answer. This is how the Conductive's Fresnel output can look like (with extreme values):

You can see it produces the Reflectivity color and Edge Tint color that you would normally input in an artistic-driven metal shader.  But this is from exact measured values and with correct math so the way the colors blend towards the edge is more accurate than using an artistic metal shader with hacked (usually just adjusted for the base reflectance) fresnel node (which in Cycles gives dielectric reflectance response curve).

Connect this into Glossy shader color. The shader should have 0 roughness to be correct.

[UPDATE]: As roughness increases, rays have higher probability to hit the surface dead-on as in center of the sphere. When roughness reaches 1, the whole sphere is shaded with the reflectivity color:

Here is an upgraded PBR version with roughness all incorporated into one group:

Node group guts:

Blend file:

Now this approach taking measured N and K values has GPU and roughness support - two biggest downfalls removed - which imho puts it on par with PBR artistic-driven shader setups:

artistic approach with reflectance and edge-tint color input has ease of adjustment benefit (you can also find recommended/measured color values for metals online).
measured N and K values approach gives better and more accurate reflectance behaviour (but still approximated in non spectral renderers).


Extruding around 3d cursor Is there a way to extrude around 3d cursor like this

I know about spin but that doesn't serve my purpose.
Or any other way to do it with accuracy.

Select the Blender element you want to extrude, and set the pivot point to "3D cursor". Extrude press the escape key, and use the rotate transform to complete the action.


Blender used by game designers? I hope this question is relevant to this forum...I've had a lot of incredible help from people on this site and it's always been appreciated.  I actually just have a general question: is Blender ever used by large game companies or is it sort of like how GIMP is never mentioned for graphic design jobs but Photoshop is always a must?

I'm thinking about getting into 3d modelling professionally and I love Blender.  So I guess I'm wondering if it is necessary to have to learn more commercial, expensive programs as well?

Thanks!

No, Blender has not been used by any big game companies to create games, and no well-known games have been created with Blender. (Unless I missed them.)

However, as an experienced game developer myself, I can tell you that many have used Blender for 3D modelling, and exporting the models into other game development tools such as Unity to create games using their 3D models.

If you're thinking of getting into game development I would recommend you join gamedev.stackexchange.com, and perhaps start off with a couple of YouTube tutorials on how to use Blender and Unity (or other software) jointly.


How do I use python to independently animate the shape keys on several instances of a mesh? I have created a mesh and it has a basis and relative shape key.

I can animate the Value of the relative shape key.

Unfortunately if I create a second instance of the mesh using alt-d or python's bpy.data.objects.new("second", bpy.data.meshes["space cow"]) the animation of the shape key affects both objects and they can not be separated.

It seems that obj.data.shape_keys is actually its own datablock from bpy.data.shape_keys and has its own animation_data separate from the object or the mesh.

Since I need to create and animate a herd of space cows using python I need code which can create independently animatable instances of this mesh.

My current instinct is that I'll have to duplicate the mesh data block and then duplicate the shape key.  It makes me sad that I have to create so many copies of a mesh.  I am hoping that someone else will know a better way.

The code I have developed since asking the question looks like this:

def cow_clone():
    orig = bpy.data.meshes['grazer']
    copy = orig.copy()
    # that conveniently copied our shape keys too
    return copy

and

def gobble(obj, frame5):

    data_path = "key_blocks[\"close mouth\"].value"

    shape_key = obj.data.shape_keys
    key_block = shape_key.key_blocks["close mouth"]

    key_block.value = 1
    shape_key.keyframe_insert(data_path, frame=frame5-35)
    shape_key.keyframe_insert(data_path, frame=frame5-10)
    key_block.value = 0
    shape_key.keyframe_insert(data_path, frame=frame5-30)
    shape_key.keyframe_insert(data_path, frame=frame5-20)

So copy()ing the mesh datablock conveniently copies the shape_keys (which is good, because shape_keys seems to be read-only).  Since I currently only have 10 of these meshes, it will not break the bank.  Although when I get around to doing the 320 flowers that will probably bloat the file a bit.  I am optimistic that it will not really stress blender at these numbers.

While this code works, I'm just dissatisfied with it; so I'm not going to accept this answer just in case someone smarter than me comes up with a better tactic, or maybe blender reworks its shape key system in a future release.

I suppose my primary complaint is that you can't make updates to a master mesh and have those updates affect all the derived instances.


Blender attachment points for Trainz asset It has taken me 12 months to learn basic blender, my first ever modelling experience, an engine shed for end user "Trainz TANE".
Basically model is near completion, and what I want is to attach an existing Trainz asset (a length of track) to my model, thus making a point for the end user to connect their incoming rail track to.

How can this be achieved?

If you want to get a mesh from Trainz you will need to figure out what format the game uses and if necessary convert it to a format that blender supports importing (OBJ or FBX are good ones). You may then need to set up textures again in Blender.

However attachment points are something specific to the game, and not something blender understands. To create attachment points you need to add an empty at the right location and prefix its name with "a." (e.g. a.attachment_1). It looks like the game will infer that it is an attachment point based on this convention.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trainz/Tutorial_for_Blender#Attachment_Points
http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Attachment_point
http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/HowTo/Export_from_Blender_using_FBX


Is there a way to keep certain edges unaffected during subsurf? I'm manually modelling a low-poly character that I would later like to add a subsurf to, but in testing it, the subsurf turns the entire thing into a rounded blob. Is there a way to tell the modifier to ignore certain edges so they can stay sharp?

Unfortunately the subsurf can not be masked by vertex groups.

But there are several solutions:

A)

Select your hard edges
Invert selection
Subdivide
Hit 'Smooth Vertex' in the Tools panel
Move the edges (that now a are a little out-set) to the right places

Lots of manual work but you have all the control. Should be feasable on a low poly character.

Results depend on you artistic skills.

B) Using EdgeSplit

on the hard edges and applying subsurf to the rest. Then rejoin the Edges after you applied subsurf.

Did not test with a character (especially if its already weight painted)

C) What I usually do is the following:

If you character turns into a blob on subsurf-lvl-2 already it is to low poly.
You need to subdivide the whole mesh.
(That preserves your low-poly shape but adds more faces for the subsurf to not make a blob)
After it looks good with the subsurf modifier you can apply it.
Select your hard edges and parts of hi detail (like the face)
Invert selection and create a "LoPoly" vertex group.
Use the Decimate modifier with lvl X to reduce the polycount while masking it to the LoPoly vertex group.
Apply the decimate.

Your edges stay hi poly and sharp.
The rest is lowpoly but smoothed by the subsurf you applied before.


How can I recover camera presets in blender? I was trying to reset the camera to the default setting when i click on the minus button in the camera presets located in the camera properties. I believe I deleted the samsung galaxy 4 and blender presets that came with blender. How can I recover these settings?

You can find the camera presets here:

https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/B/browse/master/release/scripts/presets/camera/

download the one you are missing (Samsung_Galaxy_S4) and place it in your

[blender]/2.77/scripts/presets/camera folder.  Where [blender] is the folder the program is in and 2.77 is the version, change to suit.

Might need to restart blender or hit F8 to reload scripts.

PS.. did same only yesterday with a different preset, kinda needs a confirm IMO.


What are these white splotches on my smoke render? I can't figure out why my purple smoke is rendering (cycles) with these white splotches. Does anyone have any insight? It has very simple material nodes, so I doubt that is the issue here, but I've never used smoke before so I have no idea where to even begin "debugging" it. Thanks.

I figured out the issue. My domain was too small and the white was where the smoke was touching the “walls” of it.


How to render with sky texture but get transparent background? I use sky texture as world as part of my lightning setup. How do I render with transparent background while keeping the light emitted by sky texture?

On the render properties under Film check the Transparent box (for Cycles render engine)


Gradient that depends on an absolute value (several objects) Let's assume I have a 10x10 array of columns of varying height. I have a node flow to equip them with a color gradient depending on their height. But is there any way to have an absolute reference, meaning that a height of 1 corresponds to white and then it goes towards black? Right now every column goes through the whole gradient, but the smaller ones should be only in the dark region. If something is unclear I am happy to clarify. Please see a render and the nodes below.  .
Thank you,

Steffen

You can make the texture coordinates depend on another object, or an empty.


Compositor nodes are not affecting rendered video I plan to use Blender exclusively as a video editor. I have put together a video in the sequencer and it renders without issues. However, I have also crated a node group to do some sharpening. It seems to be working fine in the viewer node, but is not reflected in the file output node, the sequence editor window or on the rendered video.

To bring the result of your nodes to the VSE you need to have an Output->Composite Node at the end of your node chain. On the VSE add a scene strip (Add Scene->Scene) and disable Open GL Preview.

NOTE:

If you just want to render the events in the compositor as a file to later rework on the VSE then you need to disable the sequencer temporarily. Then your file output nodes will work as expected.


How to enable auto smooth option for unreal engine? When i export my object into ue4 it looks awful without auto smooth option
I see auto smooth is disabled in unreal engine. Is this possible to enable auto smooth for unreal engine ?

You need to set the Smoothing to Face under Geometry when you export FBX.


How to cloth sculpt with collisions In this blog post they show an example with the cloth brush and collision: https://code.blender.org/2020/10/cloth-sculpting-improvements-in-blender-2-91/
This is the video of where they show it:
https://code.blender.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Cloth_Collisions.mp4
I was wondering, how can I achieve this? I can't grab with that tool for example.
Sorry my question is a bit vague, I don't have the vocabulary nor knowledge to express what I want.

Select collider object (sphere) and under Physics Properties enable Collision

Select cloth object (plane), switch to Sculpt mode, take Cloth Filter brush and go to
3Dview editor > Properties panel (N) > Tool tab > Active Tool > Use Collision

or with Cloth brush go to
3Dview editor > Properties panel (N) > Tool tab > Brush Settings > Enable Collision

In video is also for Grab type used smaller Radius and big Simulation Limit.

To get gravity behaviour as seen in video ... go to same Tool properties tab and increase
Options > Gravity > Factor like 0.1


I try to parent an mesh to an armature but it shows up as a ghost child i'm trying to set clothes onto a model, and parenting them to the armature but when i do, this "ghost parent" appears. and when i put it to an fbx, and bring it over to unity, it does not show up on the armature at all.

The reason why its greyed out is because the the parent and the child are not in the same collection. So if you select the greyed out child and press M to and move it to the collection containing the parent object it wont be greyed out anymore.


How to create front wall for these walls? I tried making a loop cut at the spot presented in the picture, then grabbing the bottom faces and extruding downwards and finally making the faces flat in the same height.
That leaves me with not so bad but really kinda weird result, like you know there is a better and proper way. I always had trouble figuring it out, sometimes i do it like i said, sometimes i create separate mesh with the shape intended.
What do you suggest?

A simple way to create a wall with nice topology.

Select your vertices and go Vertex > New Face
Inset the wall a bit (might be useful later) and uncheck Boundary
Subdivide the bottom edge (Edge > Subdivide)
Connect the vertices to keep quad topology (Vertex > Connect Vertex Path)


Hair Particles interaction with wind I use wind as a force but as after baking i saw
The wind just blew  away my hair particles from the mesh
How to solve the issue

Blender's particle system is complex with the excuse that its powerful, there are a lot of settings and want it or not you have to configure everything correctly otherwise it will act unexpected. If you post a picture of all the particle settings I may be able to help you. If not then its probably a setting that you have missed or misconfigured it should be pinned to its origin be default though, except if the wind is affecting a rigidbody and not a particle system.


How would you go about this guy's fur? I'm sculpting this dragon and, so far am pretty happy with how it's turning out. However, I am not sure how I should go about modeling his fur. The target platform is the unreal engine 4 but for now I am just trying to get a nice model before retopology.

I think your best bet would be to create a group of mesh hair objects, and then use a particle system in Blender to place and arrange them as needed.

Then before importing into Unreal Engine, you'll have to apply the particle modifier and convert the hairs into mesh objects.


Is there a difference in doing Anaglyph 3D directly in blender instead of using other apps? I am working on an anaglyph (Red/Cyan glasses) 3D animation for work. After doing some brochures in Photoshop I can get the image to really pop off the screen.

However when I try those same techniques in Premiere (copying the file and make one red channel and the other green/cyan, then separating the position of the two copies slightly) I can't get it to pop like the still image in Photoshop.

I then went back to Blender and used the built in Anaglyph and rendered a few frames. It seems like it may pop out a little further than doing it in Premiere, but not by much.

So my question - is there a difference to doing this in post (Adobe Premiere) and actually have Blender render out the channels? I don't see a huge difference between the two (even after playing with the convergence).

Was the Big Bunny movie (3D) rendered in anaglyph 3d or was that done in post?

So what things should I consider to get the depth like they in Big Bunny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My9VvshJDL4

Any help would be appreciated.

Ok after doing many test, it is absolutely better to render it directly from Blender itself. Mainly because you can control the convergence.

If you do it in post (with the method described above) it will fake convergence and instead of giving depth to your objects it will give depth to the entire screen with a slight depth to the objects (when I have time I will post examples).

You can get a much deeper 3D effect if you set your convergence correctly and dividing the interocular distance by 30.

So to recap if you can always render your Anaglyph images directly from Blender instead of faking the effect in post.

EDIT:

For sake of completeness I will post the differences. Keep in mind you will need 3D glasses (red/cyan) to view the below pics.

First is the 2D pic made into 3D from Photoshop (Cheat):

Second pic is Minimum convergence rendered directly out of Blender:

Last pic if Maximum Convergence directly out of Blender.

As you can see (if you had the glasses on) that doing it the cheat way gives you less depth than the minimum convergence. Although it still gives some.

The maximum convergence you can clearly see the chair popping out of the screen. So this is the best route to go for Anaglyph.

Keep in mind the maximum convergence will not always be best for your scene. It would depend on where you consider the middle, front and back of your scene. So don't always use maximum. I was just showing it as a reference.


Use pivot point or 3d cursor as center when scaling down verts in edit mode in 2.8 instead of selected volume center I am trying to follow this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_YujWJSr6w, at 1:08 seconds in the video, he scales down some selected verts and they scale down in the direction of the pivot point +  3d cursor. I am trying to do the same thing but not getting the same result.

Before scaling down

After scaling down

When I scale down the verts scale down together in the center of themselves (center of  selected volume?) and not towards the 3d cursor and or pivot point as desired.
I would really like them to stay at the 3d cursor as I plan on applying a mirror modifier.

In the video the person is using Blender 2.7 but I am using 2.8. I am assuming I have some setting incorrect somewhere, but have not been able to find it.

I moved the pivot point and 3d cursor to where I believe is the correct place.
I have tried changing the Transform Orientations option to Global, Local, and Cursor. I get the same result each time.

Any idea for other things I can try or something I might be missing?

link to .blend file

You need to set your pivot point to 3D cursor.
It's currently se to median.

Just click the pivot point menu, and select 3D cursor.

Short explanation:
When you're in Object mode, having your pivot point set to an object's median is very useful.

But in Edit mode, vertices don't care where the object's median point is.
They calculate their own median.
That's why there's the 3D cursor - to set your pivot point easily.


Leaves (emission) from point I am still figuring out the basics here...
I can't figure out how to have my leaves come out from a vertex of my branch.  My leaf image is always centered to the branch, instead of the end of the leaf naturally coming out from the branch.  What am I missing here?

Thanks!

Blend file:

Select your leaf on second layer and go to Edit mode.
Select bottom face and hit Shift + S > Cursor to Selected.

Go back to Object mode and hit CtrlShiftAlt + C > Origin to 3D cursor.

That's all.

If you want, you can select only two bottom vertices and do the rest same as above.

Or you can even manually position 3D cursor, it's up to you.


How to import a 3d object by csv file I'm new to Blender and I'm trying to create a 3d scene starting from a csv file. I explain my problem: I have some 3d objects that I append in the scene with this function:

import bpy

bpy.ops.wm.append(
directory= "C:/Users/Valentina/Desktop/ku/stadium.blend\\Object\\" ,
filepath= "stadium.blend" ,
filename= "stadium")

stadium is the 3d element that I have to put in the virtual scene.
If I create a csv file like this:

name; path
stadium; directory= "C:/Users/Valentina/Desktop/ku/stadium.blend\\Object\\" , filepath= "stadium.blend" , filename= "stadium"

cinema; directory= "C:/Users/Valentina/Desktop/ku/cinema.blend\\Object\\" , filepath= "cinema.blend" , filename= "cinema"

...
...

Will I be able to import the 3d object in the scene by reading the csv file? For example:

import csv
with open ('my_file.csv', 'r') as f:
   r= csv reader(f, delimiter =';')
   for row in r:
       bpy.ops.wm.append(row[1])

Am I totally wrong?

With a text file like this:

test1;E:\yourpath\file1.blend\Object\;Cube
test2;E:\yourpath\file2.blend\Object\;Sphere

Where:

First field: a name
Second field: the complete path to your object
Third field: your object name

You can:

import bpy
import csv

textFile = 'E:\\Blender\\yourpath\\import.txt'

with open( textFile, 'r' ) as file:
    reader = csv.reader( file, delimiter = ';' )
    for row in reader:
        bpy.ops.wm.append( directory=row[1], filename=row[2] )


Button with Multiple Operations/Functionality I would like to code multiple functions (operations?) to a single button that is on a Display panel within the 3D viewport, and which will have toggle functionality. This is what I have so far. I'd like that when the button is pressed it adds a Subsurf modifier (with both Render & Viewport Subdivisions set to 2), and shade_smooth turned on for the selected object. When the button is pressed again the subsurf is deleted and the shade_smooth is turned off (shade_flat). As it stands now when the button is pressed again it just adds another Subsurf. I might also like to assign a hotkey to it. Any thoughts? Working with Blender 2.83.3

row = layout.row()
row.operator("object.modifier_add", text= "Subsurf", icon = "MOD_SUBSURF").type="SUBSURF"

Here's a larger portion of the script:

class CustomPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """A Custom Panel in the Properties Toolbar"""
    bl_label = "V3"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        obj = context.object

        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(bpy.context.space_data.overlay, 'show_cursor', text = "3D cursor", toggle = True)
        row = layout.row()
        row.operator("object.modifier_add", text= "Subsurf", icon = "MOD_SUBSURF").type="SUBSURF"

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
```

You have to create custom Operator class and register it.
Inside the operator you have to check if the object has the modifier or not. If it is not then add or else remove it.
Then replace the YourOperator.bl_idname  with "object.modifier_add".

Added shade smooth and flat toggle.
For shortcut you can click on the button and "add shortcut".
Note: Your Operator.bl_idname have to give blender some idea of what group the shortcut should be added to. Otherwise the "add shortcut" button won't appear.

import bpy

class SubsurfOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "object.toggle_subsurf"
    bl_label = "Toggle Subsurf"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        mods = bpy.context.object.modifiers
        mod_type = 'SUBSURF'
        mod_name = None
        for mod in mods:
            if mod.type == mod_type:
                mod_name = mod.name
                break
        if mod_name != None:
            bpy.ops.object.modifier_remove(modifier=mod_name)
            bpy.ops.object.shade_flat()
        else:
            bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type=mod_type)
            bpy.ops.object.shade_smooth()

        return {'FINISHED'}

class CustomPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """A Custom Panel in the Properties Toolbar"""
    bl_label = "V3"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        obj = context.object

        row = layout.row()

        # here is your operator

        row.operator(SubsurfOperator.bl_idname, text= SubsurfOperator.bl_label, icon = "MOD_SUBSURF")

        row.prop(bpy.context.space_data.overlay, 'show_cursor', text = "3D cursor", toggle = True)
        row = layout.row()
        row.operator("object.modifier_add", text= "Subsurf", icon = "MOD_SUBSURF").type="SUBSURF"

# requires to register classes
from bpy.utils import register_class, unregister_class

# Class list to register
_classes = [
    SubsurfOperator,
    CustomPanel
]

def register():
    for cls in _classes:
        register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    for cls in _classes:
        unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Fix material stretching in 2.8 I have a texture that I apply on a cylinder mesh. The UV map seems ok, but on the sides of the cylinder the texture is stretched.

I tried to subdivide the vertices, but it didn't worked.
And as you can see the cylinder didn't even got rounder.

How can I fix the stretching and why the cylinder didn't got rounder?

You've stretched the sides in the uv map to be taller, but no wider, hence the stretch.

If you subdivide the sides it will just place the new vertex in the middle of the other two, with no interpolation, hence why it doesn't get smoother. Subdivide smooth or the subdiv modifier are much better than doing it yourself.


Dyntopo: Re-symmetrize only part of mesh I've sculpted a mesh using Dyntopo with symmetry enabled. I've then disabled symmetry to make the front half of my creature non-symmetric (think a cat with one paw raised). Then I've turned symmetry back on to work on the back half of the sculpt.

Using Dyntopo has left some non-symmetric artifacts on one side of the back half (the bit that should be symmetric). Is there a way to restore symmetry but only to the back half of the mesh?

I've tried using the mask in sculpting, but the whole mesh is affected by the Dyntopo symmetrize button.

Using the symmetrize function in edit mode only works on selected vertices but leaves holes in the mesh along the selection area. I'll fill these and go back to sculpting but I wondered if there was another way.

A tool that applies the symmetrize function to part of a mesh would have to ease the vertices around the edge of the mask but sculpting already does stuff this clever.

Best bet is to do all your mirrored sculpting first,
then turn mirror off, and finalize asymmetrical details.

For instance:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLb_CCoWn5o

If you've already started sculpting without symmetry,
it's possible to copy your sculpture, then place a cube around the area.

Use boolean modifier set to intersect on one sculpt & cube,
Use boolean modifier set to difference on the other sculpt & cube.

Continue sculpting on the area that only has symmetrical details.

Merge the two halves with a boolean union once you're finished,
and smooth any seam with the sculpt tools.


How to display properties when selected from enum I am trying to create a UI panel. As a part of this when an option is chosen from enum, the corresponding properties should be displayed in the panel. I have the following code so far. so with the selection of "flash" from enum. the properties like "flash distance" are to be displayed. Could anyone please guide on this...

def initSceneProperties(scn):
    bpy.types.Scene.MyInt = IntProperty(
        name = "Integer",
        description = "Enter an integer")
    scn['MyInt'] = 17

    bpy.types.Scene.MyFloat = FloatProperty(
        name = "Float",
        description = "Enter a float",
        default = 33.33,
        min = -100,
        max = 100)

    bpy.types.Scene.MyEnum = EnumProperty(
        items = [('Eine', 'Flash', 'One'),
                 ('Zwei', 'Fountain', 'Two'),
                 ('Drei', 'Split', 'Three')],
        name = "Manuevers")
    scn['MyEnum'] = 2

    return

initSceneProperties(bpy.context.scene)

#
#    Menu in UI region
#

class UIPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Property panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scn = context.scene
        layout.prop(scn, 'MyInt', icon='BLENDER', toggle=True)
        layout.prop(scn, 'MyFloat')

        layout.prop(scn, 'MyEnum')
        row = layout.row()
        row.enabled = False

        layout.operator("idname_must.be_all_lowercase_and_contain_one_dot")

#
#    The button prints the values of the properites in the console.
#

class OBJECT_OT_PrintPropsButton(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "idname_must.be_all_lowercase_and_contain_one_dot"
    bl_label = "Print props"

    def execute(self, context):
        scn = context.scene

        printProp("Int:    ", 'MyInt', scn)
        printProp("Float:  ", 'MyFloat', scn)
        printProp("Enum:   ", 'MyEnum', scn)

        return{'FINISHED'}

def printProp(label, key, scn):
    try:
        val = scn[key]
    except:
        val = 'Undefined'
    print("%s %s" % (key, val))

bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

Include an if-then statement in your draw function, like this:

import bpy
from bpy.props import IntProperty, FloatProperty, EnumProperty

def initSceneProperties(scn):
    bpy.types.Scene.MyInt = IntProperty(
        name = "Integer",
        description = "Enter an integer")
    scn['MyInt'] = 17

    bpy.types.Scene.MyFloat = FloatProperty(
        name = "Float",
        description = "Enter a float",
        default = 33.33,
        min = -100,
        max = 100)

    bpy.types.Scene.MyEnum = EnumProperty(
        items = [('Eine', 'Flash', 'One'),
                 ('Zwei', 'Fountain', 'Two'),
                 ('Drei', 'Split', 'Three')],
        name = "Manuevers")
    scn['MyEnum'] = 2

    bpy.types.Scene.FlashDistance = FloatProperty(
        name="Flash Distance",
        min=1.0,
        default=1.0)

    return

initSceneProperties(bpy.context.scene)

#
#    Menu in UI region
#

class UIPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Property panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scn = context.scene

        layout.prop(scn, 'MyInt', icon='BLENDER', toggle=True)
        layout.prop(scn, 'MyFloat')

        layout.prop(scn, 'MyEnum')
        row = layout.row()
        row.enabled = False

        if scn.MyEnum == "Eine":
            layout.prop(scn, 'FlashDistance')

        layout.operator("idname_must.be_all_lowercase_and_contain_one_dot")

#
#    The button prints the values of the properites in the console.
#

class OBJECT_OT_PrintPropsButton(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "idname_must.be_all_lowercase_and_contain_one_dot"
    bl_label = "Print props"

    def execute(self, context):
        scn = context.scene

        printProp("Int:    ", 'MyInt', scn)
        printProp("Float:  ", 'MyFloat', scn)
        printProp("Enum:   ", 'MyEnum', scn)

        return{'FINISHED'}

def printProp(label, key, scn):
    try:
        val = scn[key]
    except:
        val = 'Undefined'
    print("%s %s" % (key, val))

bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)


Security Hologram Sticker I'd like to know how to create a holographic material using nodes/texture maps to replicate a security hologram like this:

I cannot seem to find any information regarding this anywhere. I have tried myself numerous times to replicate this effect using gradient/metallic nodes and texture maps to make the reflection look convincing but I cannot seem to get a good result. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you.

If you want to make a shiny, iridescent material, it is very simple.  All you need to do is follow my node setup, which I have provided below:
once that is done, you should have a very iridescent material (see image below).

If you want  to make a security hologram-like sticker in your question, you can simply texture paint an image of a sticker onto a mesh, then add a mix shader and mix your iridescent shader with the image texture (see image below)

hope this helped!  If you encounter further problems, let me know and I'll be happy to help. : )
(PS, you might need to enlarge the images to see the node setup.   sorry about how small they are)


How to change the timing of the rigid body falling? I'm using blender 2.79b which is fantastic, I'm a student and I'm learning the software by myself and I had a problem about the timing of the body falling using rigid body.

How can I change the starting point for the object to fall.

You will find the Rigid body cache in the scene tab. That is where you can adjust which frame when the simulation starts. Use the bake button after you adjusted the values to recalculate the physics.


Modelling a Rhombic triacontahedron The rhombic triacontahedron is an Archimedean solid, which consists of 30 Rhombuses

I need a model like this to be a base for one of my projects.

I thought about creating a solid with 10 hexagons as base and then subdivide it, but I couldn't manage it at the end.

This shape can be modeled using Extra Objects addon or in a manual way.

Extra Objects addon has preset accessible for rhombic triacontahedron. You'll need to activate addon in User Preferences, see more on how to activate / install an addon.

With addon enabled, from Shift+A menu find Mesh > Math function > Regular Solid. Then you'll tweak its parameters:

In Last Operator panel load preset:

Or change parameters for Source, Vertex Truncation and Dual.

To model it manually:

Start with icosphere, 1 subdivision.
Poke faces with Alt+P.. This will create geometry necessary for the middle of rombes.
Select one newly created vertex (from poked ones).
Select similar with Shift+G > Amount of connecting edges. Scale them out along normals a bit.
Select all, convert to quads (Alt+J).

As resulting faces are non-planar (i.e. not all vertices are located on the same imaginary plane), make them planar using Mesh > Clean-Up > Make Planar Faces with around 4 iterations (thanks to Leon Cheung).


How can I create a smooth looping animation for cloth simulation? I have created a waving flag simulation by pinning a set of points, adding cloth physics, and setting up wind forcefields. The result is just fine when I render the scene except that I want the resulting png files to be a continuously looping animation.
The resulting animation is currently jumping when the loop transitions from the last frame to the first frame.

I have tried exporting to lightwave format, importing it back in and inserting appropriate shapekeys to get an interpolation between the last and first frame, (as described here), but it seems the export-import step messes up both the orientation and the basis for the shape keys.
I tried exporting-importing twice
and I also tried using a custom plug-in that fixes the orientation issue,
but my shape keys at 1.0 value are always stretched out and rotated compared to the same shape key at 0.0.
The result is that after interpolation, the flag not only waves, but also rotates and stretches.

I am thinking about trying one of the following routes:

Somehow edit the necessary shapekeys at value 1.0 so that it matches the orientation and rotation at 0.0.
Look into the export-orientation problem and see if I can fix it myself.
Try to morph from last frame to first frame of the rendered result using some other tool.

What do you think is the easiest and best way to go to get a nice loop transition?

Edit:

After trying sambler's suggestion using two modifiers with varying influence in the transition between last and first frame, the mesh seems to be rotated and scaled in the frames where the modifier influence is interpolated.

My first choice would be to run the simulation for the entire animation, but the idea of using the MDD exporter could be applied a bit differently than the example you gave.

Export the cloth simulation to an mdd file.

Remove the cloth simulation from the object and add a Mesh Cache modifier. Set the File path to the mdd file you saved previously.

This will play the cloth simulation using the exported data. By using keyframes on the modifier values we can make it repeat the same simulation data. By using two mesh cache modifiers we can have a chance to smoothly transition between repeats.

Lets say we have a cloth simulation of 100 frames.

We have modifier1 with a frame start of 1 and then keyframe the influence to go from 1.0 on frame 95 to 0.0 at frame 100.

Then we have modifier2 with a frame start of 95 and influence keyframed to go from 0.0 on frame 95 to 1.0 on frame 100.

This should give us a smooth transition between the last and first simulation frames.

By keyframing the start frame we can re-use the two modifiers to repeat the simulation over and over again.


Problem deleting animations So I have a character with multiple animations attached, however not all animations can be deleted while some others can. I use the same method on all of them yet those animations won't go away. As shown in the image, all animations with the prefix 0 gets deleted from the file, however the ones that don't show the number just stay there forever. The way I delete animations is by holding shift and clicking the x button formerly known as unlink. I've also tried space bar -> remove animation and they are still there.

I've found a way to get rid of all the animations. Using the information given by sambler, i deleted everything inside the NLA editor, after that I went on to the action editor and shift + x all animations and now they are gone.


GPU compute grayed out In Blender The GPU-Compute button is greyed out. I have a fully updated system with a Nvidia GTX video card and the current version of blender.
http://image.prntscr.com/image/9e80916076b944f8a5cc9c6ec78a1a99.png

Go to "File"->"User Preferences" and click on the "System" tab. On the left it should say "Cycles Compute Device". On my machine (I have the same card) when I change from "None" to "CUDA" the GPU Compute rendering option stops being greyed out. If that's not your case I don't really know what the problem could be. Good luck!


Pivot point is binded to the 3D cursor, scale with G only works with Ctrl I'm a moron, I know. This is my first real project in Blender I have a goal, and I'm walking through it step by step I'm fighting with Blender, my old crappy pc, I find out not just how to do it, but how to make it with a final render before the end of the epidemic.. and time to time, accidentally I push a combination of keys, and kill the whole software. Pls help, as google doesn't. Now:

The pivo point of every object is the 3d cursor (when I rotate, for example) - nothing is locked on the 3D cursor part of view panel.
Moving with G, only works if I push Ctrl when I'm moving my mouse, after G.

I just want to go back to normal, thanks..

I pushed shift + tab (shortkey of the button with magnet icon) accidentally


Enable Dual GPU Cuda on MacOs Seirra I've been using Blender for a few months now and I am not entirely sure I am taking full advantage of my two GPUs.

I have MacOS Sierra, Windows 10, and Ubuntu installed on my machine all with the latest CUDA Drivers, and 2 GeForce 1050 ti SC 4gb GPUs installed.

Rendering times compared to my 15'MBP i7 CPU are obviously better but I am wondering if there is something missing. The smoothest and fastest experience with almost no crashes on Blender 2.78c is surprisingly in MacOS Sierra.

I've got both GPUs selected in Blender > UserPreferences > System and with most scenes I stick to 256 x 256 in performance. I also noticed that Blender Cycles renders one tile at a time, and I was under the impression that with 2 GPUs, 2 tiles would be rendered at a time.

Then again I think this might be due to the system seeing the GPUs as one unit. I should mention that iStat software reads both GPU processors being used just fine, but I thought I should ask anyway.

Any advice or hints that you can recommend are greatly appreciated, thanks for listening.

Are your GPUs in SLI or similar pairing technology, or somehow presented at OS level as a single GPU?

If so that will negatively affect performance in Blender, because those systems are generally inefficient and will not fully utilize the power of both GPUs entirely.

Blender however if presented with two discrete graphics cards for rendering in Cycles can make full use of both at full speed without performance compromises, virtually doubling the speed and halving render time.

Having only one bucket while rendering is generally a sign that only one GPU is being detected by Cycles.

If possible tweak your settings in such way that Blender can see both your graphics cards as independent hardware.


Parenting disabled collision with child objects I have a cube mesh that I want to have deleted when it collides with a hitbox. I parented the cube to another cube which is used for steering. After doing the parenting, the child no long fires the end object action on collisions. I have tried grouping them and having compound collision, but that doesn't help. I also ensured that neither of the options were set to 'ghost. How do I get this to work?

When you parent an object to another, it inherits all transformations (translation, rotation, scaling) from the parent. Therefore the physics has no effect on that object. The physics engine treats children like static objects regardless if you set it to dynamic, rigid body or soft body. This saves a lot of processing time.

Another performance saver is that it is assumed that statics will not collide with other objects (as they are static and do not move). Therefore the Physics engine does not measure collisions on statics. The other object (non-static) will detect the collision.

A third speed improvement is that only 'Actor' objects are sensed. Dynamic and rigid body objects are actors by default (as long as they are not parented -> which makes them static).

Solution

If you need an object that senses collisions but does not get effected by physics you can use the Physics type Sensor. You can even parent it to another object. Just make sure it is larger than the parent. Otherwise it can't detect anything.


Updating objects parameters using python creates multiple objects I can update a text curve object when I change the frame and it doesn't create multiple objects but how can I do the same with a mesh object.
Code:
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene

font_curve = bpy.data.curves.new(type="FONT",name="Font Curve")
font_curve.body = 'Current Frame: ' + str(scene.frame_current)
font_obj = bpy.data.objects.new("Font Object", font_curve)
scene.collection.objects.link(font_obj)

def recalculate_obj(scene):
    font_curve.body = 'Current Frame: ' + str(scene.frame_current)

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(recalculate_obj)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.remove(recalculate_obj)

register()

It doesn't create multiple Font objects (this is what I want it just replaces the last one)

But when I try and do it with a mesh object I run into problems due to the "_add"
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene

font_curve = bpy.data.curves.new(type="FONT",name="Font Curve")
font_curve.body = 'Current Frame: ' + str(scene.frame_current)
font_obj = bpy.data.objects.new("Font Object", font_curve)
scene.collection.objects.link(font_obj)

cyl_obj = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius = 1)

def recalculate_obj(scene):
    font_curve.body = 'Current Frame: ' + str(scene.frame_current)
    cyl_obj = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius = scene.frame_current)

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(recalculate_obj)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.remove(recalculate_obj)

register()

My goal is to replace the line bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add command with the python line below but have the a, b, c and d variables in the x_eq, y_eq, z_eq animated with out creating multiple objects.
cyl_obj = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_xyz_function_surface(x_eq = "a+v", y_eq = "b*sin(2*pi*u+c)", z_eq = "cos(2*pi*u)/d")

Swap out the mesh

Just like the font change handler is swapping out the body of the font, ie the data part of the text object, can do same with meshes.
Proof of concept
Use the create surface operator to create an object stepping along v changing the steps and the point to step to, max.
After each call, save the mesh, remove the object.
Script to create the meshes via operator
import bpy
from addon_utils import enable
from math import pi

from bpy import context

enable("add_mesh_extra_objects") # make sure addon is enabled

# default 4pi in 128 steps
step_value = pi / 32
steps = 10
for step in range(1, 129, steps):
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_xyz_function_surface(
        range_v_max=step * step_value,
        range_v_step=step,
        )
    me = context.object.data
    me.name = f"XXXX{step}"
    me.use_fake_user = True
    bpy.data.objects.remove(context.object)

After running this script have a number of "XXXX" meshes
>>> D.meshes['XXXX
                  1']
                  101']
                  11']
                  111']
                  121']
                  21']
                  31']
                  41']
                  51']
                  61']
                  71']
                  81']
                  91']

Now simply a case of writing a handler to use these.
Handler to swap in the meshes created
import bpy

def swap_ob_mesh(ob_name, mesh_base_name):

    def handler(scene, depsgraph):
        ob = scene.objects.get(ob_name)
        f = scene.frame_current
        me = bpy.data.meshes.get(f"{mesh_base_name}{f}")
        if ob and me:
            ob.data = me

    return handler

# while testing
bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.clear()

# test call

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(
        swap_ob_mesh("Cube", "XXXX")
        )

Notes: IMO never mix context and handlers. When it comes to render most likely wont work.
Consider shape keys.  If instead simply ran the operator only changing v max (not steps) if all the meshes produced have the same number of verts / edges / faces simply join them as shapes and animate the shape key.
To demonstrate the "stepping" nature of swapping the mesh have used 10 frame steps.  Reducing this to 1 will be as smooth as it gets.
On a side note this is a "proof of concept" scrubbing the timeline may produce unexpected results since the mesh is only swapped when exists.


Using cycles generated textures in the displace modifier When using cycles, it is possible to use any of the generated textures in the displace modifier. However if I chose the Noise texture or Ocean texture, there seams to be no way to edit that texture type. How do I edit the Noise texture or Ocean texture type when used as the texture in the displace modifier?

The only workaround seems to me is that you have bake the textures out to the uvs and then plug them into the displacement.


How can I model a spherical tesselation such as this one in blender? I have this shape and have no idea where to start modeling it from.

Any ideas appreciated.

Create a cube, in edit mode hit W and subdivide it 4 times. Select the center loops of the main faces:

Then, invert the selection, with Ctrl+I and delete those faces:

After that, select only the faces that are connecting the loops, turn on Proportional Editing, with O, change the pivot point to Individual Origins and set the Transformation Orientation to Normal; hit R, to rotate, then Z twice to limit rotation along the normal, and input 45 as the rotation angle and adjust falloff with the middle mouse wheel; hit Enter when finished.

Select all the faces, hit Shift+Alt+S and enter 1 to make the shape spherical.

Final result with creased edges, then solidify modifier and subdivision surface:


How to get smooth edges on text object? I'm working with some text objects for some motion graphics. However, the edges come are really rough:

Initially I figured it was just caused by lower-res rendering in the 3D view, however, it also shows up when I render it out at 100%:

I'm using the Cycles render engine, rendering using CUDA on a GTX 750 Ti, and here's the node layout for that text:

Is there any way I can improve the quality of the letters?

EDIT As requested by Todd McIntosh

Wireframe:

It looks to me like you are suffering from a lack of anti-aliasing.

If you are using cycles, you'll need more than one sample (Properties > Render > Sampling) in order to get good anti-aliasing. Try maybe 15 or so, and increase until the result is smooth enough for your liking.
Keep an eye on the rendertime though.

If your animation consists entirely of flat colors, I would recommend using BI or
OpenGL render instead.

OpenGL

The OpenGL render operates using the same techniques for the viewport and realtime games. In other words, it renders nearly instantaneously (especially for flat colors).

To enable anti-aliasing when using OpenGL render, enable Anti-Aliasing in Info > Render > OpenGL options and choose a suitable number of AA samples (more == slower but smoother):

Blender Internal

If you need a little more than just flat colors (motion blur, for instance), then you might consider BI. While perhaps slower than OpenGL (depending on your hardware), it's still much faster than Cycles when it comes to flat shading:


How to change the shape of a mesh object by handlers? I have a mesh object by different points and How to change the shape of a mesh object by handlers? The mesh object did not change the shape by below script.
vert_list=[(3,5,1),(3,5,5),(3,5,7),(3,5,9),(3,5,11),(3,5,13),(3,5,15)]
edges = [[i - 1, i] for i in range(1, len(vert_list))]
m = bpy.data.meshes.new('line_mesh')
curve_obj = bpy.data.objects.new('line_chart_curve', m)
bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(curve_obj)
m.from_pydata(vert_list, edges, [])
m.update()
curve_obj.select_set(True)
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = curve_obj

vertslist=[]
edgeslist=[]

for i in range(len(vert_list)):
    verts = vert_list[:i]
    edges = [[i - 1, i] for i in range(1, len(normalized_vert_list))]
    vertslist.append(vert_list.copy())
    edgeslist.append(edges.copy())

degp = bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()

def my_handler(scene,degp):
    scene = bpy.context.scene
    i_frame = scene.frame_current
    if not (0 <= i_frame < len(vert_list)):
        return

    mycurveline=bpy.data.objects['line_chart_curve']
    curveline_eval = mycurveline.evaluated_get(degp)
    me = curveline_eval.data

    bm = bmesh.new()
    bm.from_mesh(me)

    bm.edges.ensure_lookup_table()

    for i,v in enumerate(vertslist[i_frame]):
        bm.verts.new(v)

    print(bm.verts[:])
    bm.to_mesh(me)
    me.update()
 bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.clear()
 bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(my_handler)

Update the mesh of the object, not of the evaluated object
As demonstrated here Updating objects parameters using python creates multiple objects
update the mesh of the object, not its evaluated (for that frame) object.
In addition do not mix context with handlers. The scene is passed as the first argument. This may or may not be the context scene when "handled"..
Only handle objects in the scene being handled..
ob = scene.objects.get("some_name")
if ob:
    ...

bpy.data.objects is a list of all objects in the blend file, which may or may not be linked to any scene, all scenes or none.
Related
How to get the updated vertex coordinates of a cube when rotating?


Is there an Inflate/Deflate Mesh option in Blender? I want to know if there is a tool that I can use to inflate a mesh like a balloon or a cube or anything else. And the same question, just for deflate, so a cube goes in on itself (collapses).

CharlesL's answer is the closest thing to what you ask but adding this as it can produce some interesting results. You could experiment with the Simple Deform modifier set to Stretch and adjust the factor.


Remove subdivision surface? Hello is possible to remove subdivision surface from object after applied ? In some history or something?
I applied a subdivision surface and saved the file.....

Thank you!

Unless you haven't closed the file and you applied the modifier recently enough (in which case you may be able to Ctrl Z back to it), there is no way to "un-apply" a modifier.

A tool that may work for you though is the un-subdivide tool.  Go into edit mode, selet the entire mesh, hit Space and search for "unsubdivide".


How to Import a finished 3D model with texture into a new blender file? So I've made a 2x2 wooden floor, using normal maps, reflection maps... just so when I would need that wooden floor to use in an interior scene, I could just import it without having to spend another hour on the node editor to get all the numbers just right.

So I made a plane, UV unwrapped it, went to the node editor, and imported all the different maps (normal, displacement, gloss, refl...). Now I have the finished product but I want to import it in a different blender file. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks in advance.

For most things, there are multiple ways to complete them in Blender, and importing a material is one of them. The procedure outlined by Zac Perry in his answer above certainly works, but if you are wanting to append just a material, an alternate method is to do steps 1 through 4 as Zac outlines them in his answer, but in step 5, instead of going to the object folder, and appending the object, you can go to the material folder, and append the material.

In the same manner, if you wanted just to append a texture from one file to another, and assign it in the new file to a different material, you can do that by navigating to the texture folder, and appending it from there.

Both of these (and for that matter, appending an object as suggested by Zac) become orders of magntitude easier if one takes the time to give meaningful names to objects, materials, and textures, and for that matter, to meshes, too.


Import Brushset add_on I still dont have "brush" add_on in "user preferences" . But I need it. I have Blender 2.79. Why it is not providing this add_on.I have to import texture brushes and Blender 2.79 also dont have "import" add_on, not a single one.It only has "Export" add_on.Plz tell me what is the problem with my blender.Here is the picture:
i am talking about this: but this is not actually appearing

The Import BrushSet addon is not an official addon that is included with blender releases. While it may be added to future versions, you will need to download and install it manually until then.

The BrushSet addon can be found in the Blender Add-ons Contrib repo and as it is a single file, you can easily download the one file and install it. Save the file from this link, click the Install Add-On button and select the downloaded file.


How do you work with low-res footage and render with high-res footage in the video editor? It is choppy using 1080p footage on my computer. I would like to downscale everything beforehand to even 320 x 180, do filters and picture in picture and have it applied later to the big files for rendering.

How to do that?

The internal proxy generation is very slow in Blender, but what you do is to add all of your clips to the timeline and select them all(A).

Go to the sidebar, hit Set Selected Strip Proxies.

Choose your Proxy resolution.

Hit Rebuild Proxy.

Wait.

In Preview open the sidebar, in the View Tab, select the Proxy resolution.
(the proxies will stay even though you remove all of your footage again)

Or use this add-on for faster batch rendering of proxies:
blendervelvets.org/en/velvet-revolver


Whole curve twisting when moving it's extremity Is there a way to improve on this kind of curve behavior? I'm making a belt, and it's driving me crazy how the whole curve go nuts when you tweak the starting point position. You would think changing the twist method under the curve parameter would work, as well as the twist smoothing, but none of the options feels like a good one in my case.

There is no way for the algorythms to predict how you wish the object to be twisted, you can specify manually for each vertex of the curve:


Armature moves when switching from Edit to Object Mode The position of the bones on the arms changes when I switch modes and I cannot figure out how to fix it..

The problem is created by the IK bone pivot not align to the child bones in edit mode. Use the cursor to snap all the bone pivot to the same location. Also make sure that your bones are rotated so that it is perpendicular to the front view as much as possible - at rest.

Attached is are the bones rotated and all the IK pivots of the bone aligned properly.

Snapping the bone pivot onto the same location do the following - In edit Mode.

Select the end bone nub.
Use CtrlS choose "cursor to selected"
Select the other bones hit CtrlS choose " Selection to Cursor"
If required , go to pose mode and reset all rotation and transformation using
AltG and AltR

Below, you can see 3 spherical nub aligned. The 2 red ones and the big green one    needs to all be aligned in one spot using the "Cursor to selection" then " selection to cursor" method.


Weird Move Object behavior Something went wrong I can't move my objects like it supposed to be. Description at the gif:

Solution is to disable Snap during transformation: Shift+Tab


How do I make dynamic 3D-printable hair? I am trying to make dynamic hair that can be 3D-printed. It needs to be physics-enabled (so some kind of particle system, maybe?) and, through some kind of transformation, needs to end up as a single "blob" mesh with no gaps or interior faces, so it can be 3D-printed.

I've so far considered / tried:

Manually sculpting the hair - but then it's not dynamic!
Soft bodies - but they don't have the same dynamics as hair!
Metaballs x Hair particle systems - but I haven't found any way to combine the two!

What do you people think? Any help would be much appreciated!

Blender 2.80, add hair at a reduced count, comb it out, go to modifier then convert.
Then place the origin in a center point of the head. In edge, select all, "A". Now "E" for extrude, then "S" for scale, making face. Now in object mode add the modifier for solidify.

Takes some playing around. Maybe shrink a sphere to this. depends.
 Shrink works pretty good for body mesh expressions on Manuel Bastioni models. Nice clean, crisp slice, I always delete behind the eyes and internal mouth.


Topology: Sphere to plane I work mostly on the scripting/texturing side of CG and am trying to improve my topology skills in Blender. I have tried three different of connecting a sphere to a 90 degree plane, but the ways I've tried end with poor results. What is a better way to make this edge transition?

The three ways I've tried:

Side View:

I guess this is one way to do it:

Delete the top center vertex and extrude out the sides.  Remove Doubles:

Select the horizontal edges only on the faces you just created and Subdivide them twice:

Use Proportional Editing to bring the subdivided loops toward the corner a little more:

Now select the only the edges shown and subdivide those as well.  This will make the odd number of loops that we need to complete the Quad structure on the top and bottom.

Next, create the edges shown below and subdivide the edges once.  Press GG to slide the new vertices toward each other and merge them at the center.  Subdivide the remaining edges twice more (Note: I have a the number keys 1-3 mapped to Vertex, Edge, and Face selection).  You can use the F2 Add-on to make face creation faster:

Continue that process until you get to the end and simply extrude out the remaining vertices to create the final quads:

Repeat the same process above for the top as well.  Since we cheated at the beginning by deleting the center vertex, you can use Proportional Editing to add a little smoother termination.  Hide the geometry below so that it's unaffected:

Here's the final.  It may not be the best way, but it's one way to do it:

EDIT: A quick and dirty way to do it, building on @Marcus' answer, is to take the subdivided cube and make "projections" for X, Y, and Z.  You can then dissolve unnecessary edge loops.  It doesn't really teach much about modeling, but it is does make an eighth of a sphere out of quads:


What does "Couldn't initialize streams, probably unsupported codec combination" mean? What does this mean (boxed in a red box) Please help!! I have so many intros but cant use many because of this problem. Any help?

The error means that Blender can't read or write to a specific codec. Speculation based on the screen shot:

your on windows, and probably don't have Ogg/Vorbis codecs installed on your system. You can download the OpenCodecs package, which will allow you to play ogg/ogv (vorbis/theora) on windows.

It's generally included in Linux/osx, so your probably getting examples from someone who works in one of those systems.

Or you could try setting the output of your render to a codec you probably already have like Mpeg, h.264, or Windows Media?


what is the point of having the same object in multiple layers? What is the point of having the same object on multiple layers when the change you make on the object affects all layers selected? In other words, on what occasion can I use this feature effectively?

Camera:

If you have the camera in multiple layers, you can always see where it is positioned.

Lighting:

If you have lights in multiple layers, you can see all your objects under the same conditions.

Meshes:

If you have meshes in multiple layers, you might not have weird shadows caused by an object that isn't visible.

These are only a few; render layers are a very powerful tool and have many functionalities.


Interactive mirror (Ctrl + M) doesn't mirror object I'm trying to simply mirror an object (maybe for the first time)

So I want to use the mirror command CtrlM for it.

When  use it, blender asks to select the axis I want to use for the mirror operation, then I type X, Y or Z, the axis is selected, I press enter or click anywhere, and nothing happens, the object just sits there the same way.

What could it be the problem? I can't find info about this problem.
Thanks for your help!

When using Interactive mirror as with the mirror modifier, you need to mirror about a point else pertaining to the former, the object will just mirror/flip in place and if the object is symmetrical you won't see any changes. This point can be the object origin, another object or the 3d cursor depending on which mode you are using.
You can either change the object's origin or simply switch the pivot point to use the 3d cursor and then mirror.
It is also worth noting that mirroring basically just scales the object on the desired axis by -1 (so without applied rotation you might not get expected results). So as a cheap and quick alternative to CtrlM, you could just select the object and use SX -1.
Mirroring in place or right on the object origin or 3d cursor.

Mirroring about a point

What I did in the last example was to first translate the object over a bit on the X axis and then change the pivot mode to the 3d cursor as the mirror tool needs a point to work around. I then invoked interactive mirror and selected the axis I wanted to mirror on which in the example is the X axis. In the first one, I simply mirrored a single object and it flipped it to the opposite side, in the second, I duplicated the object and then mirrored so I had identical copies.


Pixelated Issue In Blender Render I have been having this problem in my Blender file. I have created a short 180 frame animation that all works fine however when I render the animation one of my objects has a pixelated/distorted look to it.

I would like to sort this out but I don't know what to do. I have attached a screenshot of what it looks like after rendering.

Thanks, Brad

check out if the object isn't duplicated. maybe there are two objects at the same location.


Change selection color of active element in a group When I use groups it is really hard to recognize the active element by it's selection color.

In this example the middle is the active.

How can I change the active element selection color if it is in a group?

Here I am 5 years later with the same question. IM currelntly using Blender 2.91 and eventhough I looked I wasnt able to find the option. BUT If you go into preferences and click on THEME, instead of searching for the specific place where the SELECTION color is (if there is any), just change the Theme entirely. I took "MAYA theme" and it works great. older selection is green and child selection becomes white.


Strange ladder effect on fluid I have an issue I seem to keep coming across with the fluid simulation;  I seem to be generating a strange 'ladder effect' where the fluid spreads out regular intervals as shown in the image below.

The test scene consists of an inflow onto a surface that falls away vertically to give the fluid something to flow down.

I have tried increasing resolution (to about 200), but I just achieve a higher quality ladder effect.

I wanted the scale to be 0.25m but I tried 5m and get a very similar effect.

This is something related to slip, if I make both the fluid and surface free slip i avoid the effect, as i re-introduce partial slip the ladder re-emerges.

Is this effect expected behaviour?, is it a commonly experienced phenomena?

Any guidance/views appreciated

Thanks

Animated ...
https://i.imgur.com/Rv1COrd.gifv

This by all means is not common-it's probably a mistake in your domain settings. Check back at your bake location, your viscosity settings, and your particle settings for the fluid.


Transparent layer rendering in the Blender Render Settings How can I get the transparent layers in the Blender Render (Not Cycles Render) settings?


How to project the lines of a basketball ball on an ancient greek head for 3D printing? Hi people of BlenderStack !
I'm Ben and im looking for help.
i'd Like to recreate this idea on Blender for a 3D print :

i thought about boolean but it goes too deep or not at all in the head

If someone understand my problem and have a solution pls help a desperate art french student
bye

Update :
with  retopo - multires- shrinkwrap- Sphere Unwrapp - and displacement im here now
with this normal map :

i now have to find a way to make it less stretch and in good position

You could do it with a displace modifier. You just need a displacement map of your texture. I made mine with a normal map which was quickly done from a regular basketball texture so the result is not perfect. You really should use displacement map.
First you need to have enough resolution in your mesh. I had a head which had quite a lot of resolution but it still required 2x Subdivision Surface modifier. The Subdivision Surface modifier should be set to Simple not Catmull-Clark. In my example the deformation cannot be seen because there is a lot of geometry beforehand. Also give your mesh a Displace modifier. Next press New in the Displace modifier.

Press the Show texture in texture tab button in the Displace modifier.

Press Open and find your displacement map.

Set you Color Space to Non-Color.

Go back to Modifier Properties panel and in Displace Modifier set Coordinates to UV and decrease the Strength.

Remember to UV-unwrap your object so you get nice result. Next you can export the mesh from File -> export -> stl. Select Selection Only and Apply Modifiers.


Apple Mac GPUs always hang on Cycles render start AMD ATI 6750M I have an iMac and want to use my GPU.

Everytime i want to start the Rendering with cycles, it's written to wait a view minutes till the kernel will be loaded, and than my mac creshes and i have to restart.

i Searched and the AMD 6750M seems compatible with Blender 2.79b, but it don't works.

Thanks a lot, on my second Mac the same thing. When I set up Cycles and start the rendering Che System Preference panel crashes, and blender creashes to :(


Blender Python: Generate custom property (due to error bpy_struct[key]: key "PropertyName" not found)? Is there a way to force Blender to generate a custom property ahead of time? It looks like custom properties added to objects are only generated when the user changes them from the default in the UI, which makes sense. But I've defined a setter handler in a custom property that spreads it to other objects (object_b.custom_prop = object_a.custom_prop), and Blender halts execution of that setter when it encounters an object that hasn't had its property "generated" yet.

Edit: After discovering the console output messages, Blender throws the error "KeyError: 'bpy_struct[key]: key "PropertyName" not found' when it encounters one of these objects before I manually prime it by manipulating the UI control for it. Still have not found an answer to this.

So I'm wondering if there is something I can do in this situation that will force the property to be generated? This is essentially the code in my setter that spreads it to other objects:

for obj in selected_list:
   value = obj["custom_prop"]
   value = math( value, active_object["custom_prop"] )
   obj["custom_prop"] = value

It works fine as long as I "prime" the involved objects by manipulating their property first. But otherwise, it just stops when it encounters one that hasn't been primed.

When a custom property is accessed as obj["custom_prop"], it will throw an error in the console ('bpy_struct[key]: key "PropertyName" not found') if that property has not been assigned yet. To fix this, you can instead use obj.get("custom_prop", DEFAULT_VALUE). This will not throw an error, and will return the default value if the property doesn't yet exist.

I'm assuming we should ALWAYS use the syntax obj.get("custom_prop", DEFAULT_VALUE) instead of obj["custom_prop"]? Can anyone confirm this? Or at least in situations where we may be reading the value before writing to it.

I'm very new at this, so anyone feel free to chime in here.