How to round the edges of a mesh with small faces? I'm trying to round the edges on the top of this model.

Inner (90˚) edge is easy – I can just apply a bevel modifier and limit by angle. I'm having trouble with the outer edge. The bevel modifier either does nothing or makes a mess because the faces near that edge are too small. I've messed around for a few hours and have tried using the sculpting tools, but they don't work well because of only having two faces on the top. I tried selecting all the vertices near the edge and scaling them in towards the center, but it doesn't look good and will take a really long time to get a good result. I also tried doing some boolean stuff with a torus to cut off the sharp edge, but I couldn't get it to look right.

I found this post that addresses almost the exact same problem, but the solution given would ruin the soccer ball look of the model and seems to only be a visual solution. I plan on 3D printing this (soccer ball napkin rings), so the model itself actually needs rounded edges. How can I do this?

I created this model by loosely following this tutorial then using two boolean modifiers with a cylinder and a rectangular prism. Do I need to somehow model this in a different way to be able to round the edges?

.blend file

[edit]

Selecting the very top outside edges and using proportional editing (sharp mode) to scale them inwards starts to do what I want but the resulting curve is lopsided and not a proper bevel.

This is what I'm looking for (except with the soccer ball pattern)

I took a look at this but honestly stuggled to find a good solution.

This was the best I could come up with given the starting point. If this is what you are looking for then I can reproduce the steps. Let me know. Maybe others have different ideas.


Image texture (UV Map) blend with procedural rough material is it possible the image texture blend with procedural rough material? Any tips/suggestion to achieve like this one:

My attempt:

Ok, I think I got the solution without bake normal maps. I'm happy of the result (sort of). Thanks rjg for the hint.

Before

After


BGE: How to make an object leave [skid]marks on another object I want to know how to make an object leave marks on another in the game engine, like skidmarks as in this video. I'm not looking for a tutorial, just the logic of it.  How can this be done?

The best way to do this (and I tested) would be to have your trigger object (tires) rigged with an Edit object actuator set to add object : Activate upon a collision with ground or a sharp turn (Make sure True level triggering is on).

Set the time to 30, and the target object to be a plane textured like a portion or you tires tread. Alpha channel turn down.

I got good effects with a rolling monkey head, so hey; why not a car?


Simple keyframe question in Blender animation I have a simple object (let's assume it is a cube), which can be rigged by a bone. I inserted 3 LocRotScale keyframes at t1 = 0s, t2 = 5s and t3= 10s, let's call them KF1, KF2 and KF3.

Between KF1 and KF2, I only move (pressing key G) the cube.
Between KF2 and KF3, I only rotate (pressing key R) the bone in the cube.
With this setup, I expect the cube should start rotating only at time t2.
Strangely, when I play the animation, the bone/cube rotation ALREADY starts from time 0. What is wrong?

Your mistake was to animate the cube while you should have only used the bone. There were two different animations: the cube and the bone. If you choose to parent your cube to a bone (with ctrl P > Set Parent to > Bone), then use the bone only to control the cube. By the way, in the Dopesheet bottom menu, click on the arrow button, it allows to display only the keyframes of the selected object, it will help.


How to properly solve camera motion? I just got started messing around with motion tracking and the largest issue I seem to have is getting the tracking points to the correct location in 3D space. For example, I could get a dozen tracking points on one wall tracked for an entire shot, for which Blender will return a low error report (e.g. 0.6) after solving for camera motion. But, after I throw in the film as a background and start throwing in objects (e.g. a table that is supposed to overlay an actual table in the recording) it's obvious that the camera isn't properly tracked and although the real camera may just have some slight movement from hand instability, Blender is acting as if I'm bouncing my camera up and down at ridiculous speeds. Sometimes I can almost account for this by trying different combinations of setting points as the Wall and Floor, but since I can only set three points at once for this, all other points which may be on the wall or the floor end up being 100 meters away in 3D space (this sometimes is and isn't an exaggeration).

Is there a way to greater control tracked points after they've been added to the 3D scene? Or another solution which may help? (I also have the proper focal length and sensor size set up for my camera).

Sometimes it is just best to manually rotate your camera. If your scene has straight lines, you can use an application such as fSpy(https://fspy.io/) which will tell you the proper rotation of your camera after you draw some lines.


Object material/color not visible - Only wireframe I'm a total beginner in Blender and I can't get this object to show any color/material. Once I merged the bottom circle with the plane, the plane lost it's color and now only a wireframe is visible. I have tried to add a material (see above) but it still doesn't show. I also made sure that wireframe mode is turned off. What could be the reason for this?

Your object has no faces, it just has edges.

In edit mode select the vertices of your object and press F to fill, and create a face to which you can assign a material.


Python - writing console output to disk Is there a way to write the console output to disk?  In other words, as the system writes to the console, it also writes to a text file?

I am hoping that there is a simple setting in blender rather than having to write a bunch of scripts to write messages to a file on my disk drive.

This is so I can figure out why my script is causing blender to shut down.

You need to run the Blender executable from the command line.

In Windows this requires you to run a new Command Prompt and the execute blender.exe from the correct location.
In Linux/MAC the process is similar.

On my Windows machine, I go to the Start Bar and type in Command

in the new window I type the directory to where Blender was installed followed by the program I want to run, blender.exe

To capture all the output a redirection character > is used.

Finally I have a folder on my C: drive called "tmp" that I know I have access to write to. You will have to enter a folder and filename your Windows user can write to.

After running Blender the new file myfile.log has the following contents. This was after simply opening and closing blender. (type is a windows program that just dumps text files to the console)


How can I make adjacent object meshes seamless? I have a character mesh where different parts of the body are separate objects (body, head, mouth) but the vertices line up as if it could be a single mesh.
I am getting shading differences between the meshes and I am wondering how I can fix this? Pictures are below.
It seems like a normals related problem, but the normals are all facing the correct direction. Maybe they are weighted incorrectly?
I would like to keep the objects separate as the different parts can be swapped out.
Here is a link to the blend file (without textures)

To fix your normals I had to follow several steps.
Before beginning, I recommend that you unlink your world node and then create a new one for your scene, as doing this will quickly retrieve the default world settings without destroying your existing ones (be sure to first mark your present world node as protected by giving it a fake user, with the shield icon button, or else the unlinked node won't save with your file). This return to default settings will make it easier to see the results of the below changes in renders. I also created a sun light afterwards, because it's very dim after removing your modified world settings. I then turned off the selectability of this sun light in the Outliner, because I'm going to be box selecting the entirety of your meshes parts when all I want are mesh parts.
Start by selecting all of your mesh parts and then pressing Shift + d to duplicate them, then press x to constrain along the X axis, and drag these parts to the side so that they can be easily seen as well as selected independently of the originals. Left-click to conclude this transform operation, then press Ctrl + j to join all of these copies -- which should still be selected -- together as one object. Then press m bring up the Move to Collection menu, and click the option to create a New Collection for this new copy of your mesh. I renamed my mesh copy at this point to have the same name as its collection. With the new mesh copy still selected, move it back to the World space origin where it began. For the below steps to work, it must occupy the same space as the original. Now go into the Outliner and hide the new copy's collection so that we can only see the original version of the mesh.
Select all the parts of the original version of your mesh, then go into the Object Data tab of the Properties Panel, and with the Normals section expanded, hold down the Alt key, and while it is held, click the Autosmooth checkbox. Holding Alt will allow the change to take place for all selected objects at once. With Alt still held, change the angle value to something around 90 Degrees. You will want more than the default 30, or some of the normals will not be smooth.

The above step is intended to prevent Blender from complaining with a prompt that this be done when in the middle of performing the next step.
Side note: I noticed that you had two armature modifiers on all these parts. This is very likely to not be what you intend, nor want. You might want to purge them from these objects before beginning the rigging process later. I say this because, I have found that extra armature modifiers often get added accidentally, and often lead to double transformation weirdness. If you don't mean for there to be two, remove one of them. Probably remove both, as you will likely get yet another one added automatically when binding a new armature. If you want a fast way to do rid yourselves of them, delete both armatures from any one mesh part. Then box select all the mesh parts, including the selected one. The one you selected first will remain the active object, even though it wasn't selected last. Now press Ctrl + l to bring up the Make Links menu, and choose Modifiers. The active object has no modifiers, and now, neither will any of the others).
Select any one of the mesh parts (it doesn't matter which one) so that all the others are deselected automatically, and then go to the Modifiers tab in the Properties Panel. Choose to create a Data Transfer Modifier. Under the Source text field, enter the name of your copy mesh created earlier. Now, check the Face Corner Data checkbox and expand the same section to reveal more options. Click the Custom Normals button, then under the newly accessible Mapping option, choose Nearest Corner of Nearest Face. Leave all the other modifier settings at their defaults.

Now, with this modified object still selected, box select all of the associated mesh parts again, and the modified one will become the active object of all of the other ones selected, even though it was already selected beforehand. This will make it the source for all the others in the following operation. Press Ctrl + l to bring up the Make Links menu, and choose Modifiers. This will copy the modifier you just made to all the others.
At this point, your normals should be fixed. You can test this in renders. Make sure the copy version of your mesh -- which was only needed as a source for the repaired normals -- is set to NOT show in renders, either by turning off its display filter in the Outliner, or by deleting it outright, since you won't need it anymore.
If you want all these data transfer modifiers applied, one quick way to do it is  to select all the mesh parts, and then go to Object > Convert To > Mesh, which will save you the trouble of applying the Data Transfer modifiers one at a time.


How can I restore the scripts/addons folder after accidentally deleting it? I accidentally deleted the scripts/addons folder. I don't want to reinstall Blender as I don't want to mess up the installation. Is there a way to just download the add ons? I'm using Blender 2.83 and I'm on a Mac.

Download the Windows Portable .Zip package from the Blender website (instead of the installer). Open the Zip file and extract just the missing folder. The files are all scripts/add-ons so it should be the same for all versions (so shouldn't be a problem for Mac).


Is there a tool to combine two different sides of a asymmetrical bottle design? Previously used rail sweep in Rhino New to Blender and trying really hard to get myself immersed in it. I've come across something that I can't seem to find an answer for no matter what I google.
Previously I'd use Rhino's command for this, and use a rail sweep to create a mesh between two paths. You select the start path, the end path, and the point of rotation (center). It worked very well in allowing me to create unusual asymmetrical designs in a rotation. I've tried and tried to get something similar to work in Blender but I'm missing something. Please disregard the fact that the highlighted meshes are currently in the same shape, I tried combining them as a last attempt to get Grid Fill to work. No go. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Picture 1 shows a side view of the front profile of my bottle shape.

Picture 2 shows the profile of the side of my imagined bottle shape.

Picture 3 is a crudely drawn visualization of what I'm trying to achieve.

Sweeping the face from one to the other in a seamless and accurate manner. I appreciate anyone's time that can give me some help. Thank you!

you can use the Bridge Edge Loops function. As Gorgious says, make sure that you have the same number of vertices, switch to Edge Selection, select all, press right click > Bridge Edge Loops, and in the Operator box set the Number of Cuts and the Smoothness values:


Unable to use inflate tool Trying to use the inflate tool on a mesh in sculpt mode. However, I am unable to make any noticeable change on the object and cannot drag my brush over it. All other sculpt tools work as expected, but I notice that the outline of my brush is grayed out, whereas the brush has either a pink or yellow outline when using other tools. My object has plenty of subdivisions so I don't think that's the problem.

Check that you have a strength value for the brush, a zero strength will do nothing. A strong autosmooth with a low strength can also negate the effect of some brushes.

Each brush can be set to use a different colour to outline the brush, by default inflate uses a grey while other brushes use red, green or yellow.


Procedural textures not showing in Material view I have a very simple node setup as shown below in cycles.
Rendering is not a problem but I would like to preview the material in Material View.
Does anyone know if this is possible, or not?

Unfortunately, as far as I know, this is not possible at the moment.

I do find myself quite often wishing this was possible, but I am afraid it is not.  the closest thing is, as Bithur said in the comments, you can use Shift+Z to activate rendered viewport mode.

I have heard that the devs are working on adding this support, I have no idea when it is projected to come out though.


How can I randomize Wave Texture's Wave Width? I'm trying to create a Brown Dwarf / Jupiter look.

The waves / bands are all relatively evenly sized and the colors are very "black / white / black / white"
Is there a way I can randomize the width / scale of the lines and apply different colors to them within my nodes?
Current node setup:

Try using a Wave Texture as the scale factor for a Noise Texture:

You can change the detail or distortion levels of the Wave Texture or the Noise Texture (or both) for interesting effects:


How to control the strength and intensity of IES lights? I have added an IES light to my blender project and I want to decrease the strength of the light. In the image below you can see that my light is much too powerful. How can I adjust the strength of the light?.

Select the IES lamp in the 3D Viewport and press N to get the properties panel and scroll right to the bottom where it says Lamp Properties and there you will see a strength and color regulator.


How do I toggle to visibility of each object in my scene one by one using animation nodes? I've been creating a timelapse effect in Blender 2.79 by keyframing the visibility of each object in my scene one by one. Each object goes from hidden to visible with a one second gap before the next.

There are 1000's of objects in my scene, and as you can imagine, it's pretty time consuming and repetative.

I've been trying to speed up the process using animation nodes, but I just can't figure it out. Does anyone have a simple setup that they can share?

Thank you :)

It is very easy to do this effect in Animation Nodes (AN). I have divided this effect into two parts,

Setting up the pass index of the individual objects in AN.
Setting up shader and controlling it with object's pass index.

Part-1: First, I have arranged the objects (cubes in this example) in a linear distribution for simplicity but this may be different in your case.

Then, we have to create a float list (using Float Range Node) which should have the same length as the number of objects (10 in this example), and we will use this list to set the pass index of objects. You want "Each object goes from hidden to visible with a one-second gap before the next". So, we are going to use Delay Falloff with both delay and duration option is set to 24 frames (i.e., 1 second) (see the Float Node in green color). Now, we have to evaluate the Delay Falloff on each object location i.e., what is the value of falloff for an object at a certain time (see the result in the Viewer Node).

Next, we are going to make the pass index zero for completely hidden objects and 10000 (a larger number to get a smooth transition in the shader from hidden to visible) for full visible objects. So to do this, we have to multiply the float list with the evaluated falloff values (see the result in the Viewer Node), then set this as the pass index for each object using Object Attribute Output Node.

Part-2: We need only one Shader for all objects. First, get the pass index of the object using the Object Info Node, then divide it by the same value (i.e., 10000) we used for full visible objects in the float list. Then, use this value to control the Mix Shader Node or visibility of objects,

Final Node tree, Shader Nodes, and Blend File:


Cycles: Assign material to vertex group I know it's possible to have multiple shaders for one object with the internal renderer. This video explains the process.

Can I use Cycles to assign a material to a vertex group so that a single object may have multiple materials? If so, how?

Yes. It works exactly the same, just press the "Assign" button with the desired vertex-groups/faces selected. Unassigned geometry uses the default (first) material slot.


How come ambient occlusion shadows not showing in Blender Render-Render? How come the ambient occlusion I see in the 3D viewport is different from the render?

Or is it that they must be baked to view them in the render?

The viewport AO feature is fairly new, and has extra options that allow it to be overdriven and produce extra high ao for the the edges between the cube and the plane. An open 90 degree corner like that should not really produce much ambient occlusion because it's too open for much occlusion to happen. The older AO feature in the World panel is actually working more accurately than the viewport tool.

You can actually drive the AO value high by manually typing in a value higher than 1.0.

In my example I've added an inset edge in the middle of the cube. You can now see more clearly the difference between the Env light only shadow and the addition of the AO shadow. Note that the surface does not get brigher with the AO set to Multiply.


High noise with emission materials I'm doing a render where the lights mostly come from emission materials applied to objects in the scene using cycles, I've tried using ridiculously high samples but the noise is still very obvious. Is there a way to fix this?

One option is to use the Denoiser.  It is located on the properties bar under Scene.  The downside is that by using it you lose detail in the scene.  There is a video on Youtube called "Drastically Reduce Rendertime in Blender Cycles New Denoising Feature".

As implied by the title, it also reduces your render times.  What I mean by this is that it keeps you from having to do a higher amount of samples, which would increase your render times.  The denoiser actually causes each frame to take longer in rendering, but it's way better than trying to increase the sample amount till you get the same result.


Calculate angle between two vertices of two different objects I have a scene in which there are two objects, a sphere and a pole:

I would like to calculate the angle between two vertices: one belonging to the first object and the second belonging to the second object in such a way that then I can apply a rotation_euler to rotate the pole out of the sphere. The rotation point (= the origin of the pole) is already set well. So what I need is just the calculation of the angle between the two given points.
In the following picture I joined the two objects so I can show you which are the interesting points but keep in mind that these two objects are separate and I don't want to join them together:

I know the indices of these two points for the two different objects. So, is there a way to calculate the angle between them so then I can apply a rotation_euler on the Z axis of the pole and bring it of the sphere in Python?

Hope it's clear.

I guess that when you ask the angle between vertices, you mean the angle between the two vectors, starting from the origin and going to the two vertice. Those Vectors are actually the coordinate of the vertice but I prefer to be clear to avoid misunderstanding since the angle between two points dont realy make sense.

So it is actually very easy to obtain an angle between two vectors, you can use the Blender implementation of vectors to do that:

mathutils.Vector((v0.x,v0.y,v0.z)).angle(mathutils.Vector((v1.x,v1.y,v1.z)))

(I usually prefer to work with noramlized() vector but I dont think it is necessary for Vector.angle()

BUT:
if you want to compute the angle of the two vertice from the center of the sphere, then you need a vector starting from the center and going to each Vertice

You can do something like vector0 = vertice0.co - sphere.location to find this vector.

Keep in mind that if the object has some transformations, location, rotation and scale, you'll need to calculate the world vertice position. You can take a look there for this point

If you want to have a perfect mach of the two vertices when they dont have the same z coordinate, you'll need to rotate around a precies vector and not only the z axis. This vector can be find with a cross product that will give you a vector perpendicular to two other verctors. Your vectors do needs to be normalized in this case

axis = vector0.normalized().cross(vector1.normalized())

If you want tho obtain the angle so that the the rotation on the z axis will align the vertices, except in the z axis, you should compute the rotation on vectors based on a projection of the vertices on a plane with a z normal. To keep it simple in your case, you can juste set the z value to 0 for each vector then normalize them.

Tell me if you need some clarifications on some points.


Wave Modifier Physics ::Edit::
Thank you, respondents.

I now have the desired z-transforming camera, the second part of my question is: I would like a sphere to be able to roll on top of the wavy plane due to the wave motion of the plane.
I can't seem to get the sphere object to make contact with the wavy plane during animation. The ball should rise and fall with the wave, and also roll due to gravity when the wave is vertical under the ball. I have it close, but the ball is going through the wavy plane.

Please visit http://gph.is/2EpCrto for a better gif picture.
The ball's y-transform is locked because it kept going off the side. The plane's and ball's rigid body source includes all modifiers via "final" mode. There is no collision modifier yet applied to the ball.

The Blender Docs mention something that could be of help: "The changing collision shape is available also with Change Shape button in the Physics tab of the Tool Shelf."
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/physics/rigid_body/properties.html#rigid-body

Thank you.

Answered - ::I would like to modify a mesh, either a plane or cube, to have a wave modifier. I would like an object to rest on the surface of this wavy plane and receive forces from it. Basically, I want the object to transform its Z-location value (Z axis is up) based on the waves of the plane. I do not wish to use the Ocean modifier.

So far, I've had minimal success; the wave-riding object seems to accept vertical forces from the waves but it's awkward, unrealistic, and just not right. What's the right way to have a stick-mounted camera move up and down with the waves?

Thank you.::

This technique is not a physics based simulation, it is just a fake approximation but might yield what you are after.

Just add a single faced small planar object above your "wave surface" object.

Add a Shrink Wrap modifier to it and set it to Project mode. Make sure you tick the Negative option if necessary.

This will make your object stick to the waving surface. Now just parent whatever object your want to this plane and use Duplifaces from the Properties Window > Object Tab > Duplication > Faces to duplicate it at the face center.


Can Blender model interaction of complex shapes I have just read the basic background to Blender and am considering its use to study an engineering problem.  In constructing breakwaters different concrete armour shapes are used.  Their efficiency depends a lot on the ability to interlock with each other.  I am looking to build numerical models that simulate this and need to extract information from the constructed slopes.  Here is an example:

One way of checking how well units interlock is to apply a force normal to the slope to pull a single unit out of the slope.  The required force would typically be 2 to 4 times more than the weight of a unit.

My question is:  Can Blender model the process of slowly lowering these large concrete units with a crane.  As a unit is lowered it touches the rock underlayer and other units, rotates, slides and comes to rest.  Forces affecting this process is gravity, friction and unit dynamics (momentum).  Can Blender handle this with sufficient control over friction aspects?  Can one extract inter-unit friction and contact forces?

Here is a picture of a FEMDEM model specifically written for this problem.  Units are coloured based on inter-unit forces.  This was a major project so I suspect Blender does not have these capabilities?

Thanks in advance
Anton

You won't be able to accurately produce the interaction of Stone Tetra Pods with the beach area and water in Blender. I'd advise against using it as a tool for engeneering research. It is best used as a tool for visual representations which don't have to be physically accurate. (However, there have been plenty of other applications.)

However, Blender has the rigid body system which can be used to simulate rigid bodies.

Add a rigid body world.
Add the objects (related) and make them active rigid bodies (with correct friction values e.g.).
Cache the simulation.

In this example the resulting interlocking of the shapes can be seen.


Strange shading on curved surface It is really hard to describe my problem accurately, but I try the best I can. I am using Blender to create meshes for Unreal Engine. However, this problem shows already in Blender. I don´t know the terminology, So I go right ahead and describe shortly what is wrong about the picture attached.
You can see a diagonal shadow cast after I turned on the smooth shading. That does not look very good (I am sorry, that I cannot describe it any better).
You would really help me out if you could explain my mistake to me!

This is because you have Smooth shading enabled in your 3D Viewport > Toolshelf > Tools tab > Edit dropdown > Shading:. There is a way to fix this without going back to Flat shading.

Go to the Properties panel > Object Modifiers tab and add an Edge Split modifier. The default settings should be ok, but if they aren't, you can change the Split Angle:, which is defined as the max value at which an angle should be split.

The Edge Split modifier:

Comparison with a cylinder:


Transparent faces on exported FBX So I am trying to make a model, and in Blender 3D it looks fine, but when I export it to FBX and import it into Unity 3D or Unreal Editor 4 or any other 3D viewing software, you can see inside of it which makes it really ugly.

Screenshot:

You have inverted normals.

In edit mode, select all faces (A), then do CtrlN.

The object should turn from blueish to greyish, which means that your normals are now correctly pointing outwards.


Displacement Map (Micropolygon Displacement) displaced weirdly I'm currently learning the process of baking displacement map through blender render in the version of blender 2.79.

Problem:

I find that the result using node for displacement map isn't very promising with those block-ish surface, while Displace modifier works fine, does anyone know the reason behind this?

Reason of one is preferable than the other:

I'm trying to get the node method to work since I've encountered problem with Displace modifier, it not only displace the differences on the character, like abs muscles, but deformed the others unchanged muscles like the mouth and face... Therefore I'm hoping that solving a simple case would solve the complex one.

Two Blend files are included in the link below:

DisplacementMapNode - Referring to the Displacement map node set up.
Displace Modifier - The displace modifier set up.

If the displacement map is missing, please do leave a message, i'll upload it as soon as possible, although I believe I packed it into those blend files.

Any explanation would be deeply appreciated as I have tried to solve this issue for a day, Thank you and have a nice day modelling!
BlendFiles

You have forgot Material Settings Displacement set True

Also you able to manipulate displacement by Math nodes.


How do i unlink a texture from a material? I applied a texture via uv mapping editor and node editor for reference, did the job, deleted the image texture node, unticked "use nodes" box, removed the texture from uv mapping editor and that texture still affects the material. When i import the .blend file to unity, the material gets renamed from "wood" to "wood_woodDoor_jpg". I notice that the texture doesnt have a 0 next to it in uv mapping editor and that when i reopen the project, it stays there. How do i  remove this texture from my project?

I did the exact same thing before with no problem. This time around, maybe i did something in a wrong order?

I even selected this in Unity:

Reference: How do I completely remove an image from my .blend file?

Apparently I had to add the texture to the UV map editor again and then Shift+LMB the X button to remove that texture from my project.


Low Poly Mountain Terrain Timothy J. Reynolds has these awesome mountains -
but the closest I've got to modeling one of these cool mountains is:

What lighting or modeling am I missing?

EDIT: I use cycles, so preferably I want a solution in blender cycles.

Here is what I got:

Analysis:

According to the result, there are some evidences that the author might very possibly take AO pass into account:

So the basic idea is to multiply AO pass with Image pass something like this:

Then it should come with a few color related nodes such as Color Correction, Color Balance, RGB Curves, etc. to mimic the tones for each channel, something like below:

Materials are very basic, no magics I bet. Just use Sun lamp with a very small size value to get sharp shadow:

There are generally two methods to model poly mountains:

Method A:

Create a plane, then subdivide and decimate:

Apply all modifiers, then paint vertex weights in Weight Paint mode, and use it for a Displace modifier:

Method B:

Use Sculpting tools. Use dynamic topology to create these randomized triangles, and use Flatten brush to create the flat tops:


Why does the box select tool change to the cursor tool when clicking in a blank space? When I click on nothing with the select box tool selected, it simply goes to cursor tool rather than deselect. And when I left click drag with the select box tool selected it moves the cursor tool, rather than making a box selection.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8gz5srken7omaly/V%C3%ADdeo%2028-02-2020%2021%2037%2007.mov?dl=0

here is a video showing what's going on.
I already asked on reddit but nobody knew how to fix it.

I have had the same problem, I think it's a bug, but I couldn't reproduce the steps of how to trigger it.

I just created a new scene and appended my stuff from the faulty file into it, that seemed to work as a workaround.


Access Viewport Overlay options using Python API I am trying to access and change the viewport overlay panel options in Object Mode using python.
Specifically, I want to toggle the "Face Orientation" checkbox with python:

I thought I am able to access it using:

    bpy.data.screens["Scripting"].overlay.show_face_orientation

Turns out this does not work and raises an AttributeError.

What do I have to do?

The overlay attribute is part of the bpy.types.SpaceView3D. Therefore you first need to iterate over the areas of the current screen and find the 3D View. Then you can search for the space in the area that has the type attribute set to 'VIEW_3D' and is therefore of type bpy.types.SpaceView3D. If such a space exists you can access the overlay and through it show_face_orientation.

import bpy

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        for space in area.spaces:
            if space.type == 'VIEW_3D':
                space.overlay.show_face_orientation = not space.overlay.show_face_orientation
                break

Note that you cannot set the overlay option  using the code above if you don't have an area with the 3D View open in the current screen.


Move object parent without children Can I move the parent object without the children?
In all 3D software there is an option to turn on/off to move only the parent without the children. It is a fundamental function that is often used.

I've seen an answer in 2015, I would like to know if there are new ones and if anyone has other suggestions?

Since Blender 2.81 the transformation can be limited to affect only the parents. The setting can be found in the header of the 3D View inside the drop down labelled Options. Once activated you can move, rotate and scale the parent object without affecting its children.


Shader nodes: ignore scaling, keep rotation I've successfully built a procedural wood texture, but I'm having problems with coordinate spaces.
By default, textures seem to follow the UV coordinates of the geometry. This is obviously useless; each object I apply the wood texture to gets its coordinates horribly mangled according to the UV map of that object (if it even has one). Most particularly, if you scale an object, the texture is also scaled.
Fortunately, using the "geometry" node, you can get actual, absolute coordinates in 3D space. This allows the wood texture to operate as a correct 3D texture, which different faces of the object showing different sides of the grain and so forth. It also means that every object in the scene has the same size grain.
There's a snag, however: The texture now correctly ignores scaling, but it also ignores translation and rotation. I understand why, but I don't know how to fix it. How can I make it so that rotating an object also rotates the wood grain? It would seem I need some way to read the object's rotation... but I don't see an input node for that. Can I get the local-to-world transformation matrix somehow?
The only other solution I can think of is to have a duplicate copy of the material for every single wooden object in the entire scene, each with the rotation factor manually set to match the object geometry. But that's a horrid, horrid idea! I do not want to have an entire separate material for every individual object! And having to manually update the material every time I rotate the geometry sounds awful. There's got to be a better way...

It sounds as if you should be using Texture Coordinate > Object space.
This is in Blender units, from the object's origin, and in the orientation of the object's axes.
Be aware, that space carries the object's scale transform as well; to make sense, the object's scale will have to be (1,1,1).. (i.e. applied).
There's an example of a procedural wood here


Subdividing and smoothing part of a mesh Does anyone know, is there any way to subdivide and smooth part of geometry in mesh (in example picture necessary polygons(not all i need) are selected) without effecting  other parts and not creating weird shapes.

I append my blender file:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MpRbmkZtTWSo28E2p-hI0R3K8L5u8xAx

@edna's comment is actually the answer, in my opinion. I too have had nightmare creations resulting from using a subsurface or multi-res modifier on the whole model, and creasing, preserving sharp edges etc. It's useful when it's useful, but it adds complexity that you might not need, and it can be hard to fix when overused. Using subdivide on a selection and then adjusting the smoothness and other attributes is better for times when you need higher resolution and smoothness only for certain parts. Example:

Say I want this to look a little more like and axe. If I multi-res or subsurface modify the whole thing, I will lose all the blocky shapes, and I'll spend a lot of time editing to try and preserve sharpness. In a worst case scenario, I'll end up with lots of extra geometry that interferes with 3d printing, rendering, or whatever. Plus it's just a pain in a simple case like this. So enter subdivide:

I turn off "ngons" because if it is on I may create geometrically unsound quads. Make a few cuts, add a bit of smoothness, and now the center of the axe has a puffier shape at the top and bottom. Next, the blade:

Notice the blade is smooth, but the nearby geometry was allowed to stay simple and pointy. (Real technical terms in use here).

I can proceed like this and make any number of more complex protrusions on an otherwise simple or blocky object. Notice that the parts I left alone remain simple, while other parts have different levels of complexity as required:

I hope that helps.


How to light an object consistently? Like a matcap I’m attempting to make a turntable animation of a toy-like object. The video will have a transparent background. I’ve tried studio lighting set up, but without great result. I am looking for a lighting setup like how the matcap looks.

Matcap Material

Matcap Material + Your Texture (here as UV_Grid)

Workbench

Both examples here...


Change pivot point for selected edges Is it possible to change the pivot point for selected edges/vertecies in edit mode?

My situation is as follows:

I want to extrude selected edges and scale them down a little. For this I would need the pivot point to be located in the center (approximately where the 3d cursor is).
How can I achieve this?

You change the pivot point in edit mode by clicking on the pivot point icon in the information header (OK, in the 3D viewport it's actually a footer) and selecting the option you want. In this case, in object mode you can use set origin (SHFT-CTRL-ALT-C to set the origin where you want it, then set the 3D cursor to the origin using the snap tool (SHFT-S) selecting "cursor to active, because in object mode if vertices in the object are selected, the object is active, and the cursor snaps to the origin. The 3D cursor does not move when you go back to edit mode, so you can use the 3D cursor as the pivot point.

In the illustration you included with your question, I assume the blue dot is the origin point, so the 3D cursor is already where it will be, and all you need do is as suggested in the comment: change the pivot point to the 3D cursor in the "pivot point for rotation scaling" in the 3D viewport header..


How do I remove dark areas from my mesh? I am doing this tutorial to model an iPhone. One of the things I try to work on is my ability to judge wether a mesh is ok or not ok. Now I think that these parts are not ok

So ... is there something wrong or not ? I already tried moving vertices but could not make these "dark areas" go.

Also ... at about 10:30 min of the tutorial the "tutor" feels the edge of the iphone should be more "rounded" and repairs that. I thought my edge is ok ?

I think some of your vertices got moved arround, maybe by using "proportional editing/scaling".

Cleaned up version:

Work around:


How do the number of cores in the CPU relate to the rendering tiles? Im not sure if this is a noob question but i was intrigued about something that i haven't thought about before. When rendering an image, its obvious to see the rendering tiles rendering away the image (the orange squares working on the tiles). But i never thought about this, do they relate to the CPU at all? like to get more rendering tiles, do i need more cores in my processor? The more cores the more orange squares? anyways thanks if anyone would know an answer.

Thanks.

Each thread of the CPU will render one tile. For example: if your computer's CPU has 4 cores and 8 threads, then blender will render 8 tiles simultaneously.

The number of threads used can be limited using a fixed number on the Performance section of the Properties Panel, the default is Auto-detect, which will use all of the available threads for rendering.

If you are using GPU, there will be one tile rendered per GPU. Multiple GPUs will allow you to render multiple tiles simultaneously.


Hotkeys 1,2,3 in Object Mode What do these hotkeys do in object mode? I accidentally did this in object mode and now the whole file is screwed up. Objects are invisible even though the eye icon is white in the outliner. same case for being able to select an object. I there any way to revert to the default state?

Search for the keymap

Go to Edit > Preferences > Keymaps and search for any keymap using 1
Will notice that in object mode it is set to hide  collection.
See How to show collections in blender 2.8


How do I import An image with transparancy So im trying to render my minecraft 3d skin but the hat it not being transparant

This has a rather simple solution:

You need to connect your image Alpha (transparency) channel.
In your material, set up nodes like this and it will work.
In Eevee you also need to enable Alpha Blend.

Cycles render Engine.

Eevee render engine. Remember to enable Alpha Blend.


Select Cylinder into Equal Sections? I'm making a mesh that requires about 6 extrusions from the base model. And Each extrusion needs to be equally spaced apart around the cylinder. Before, I would have to count over and over again the amount of faces in between each selected face "clumps" and it just became really tedious. Is there a way to select (for example) 7 out of every (another example) 33 faces equally spaced apart around a cylinder?

You could select all the outside faces, and from the header 'Select'
menu, use 'Checker Deselect', which, starting from your active face,
will skip the deselection of the number of faces set in 'Skip' and
leave a gap of N-1 faces entered in the 'Nth Selection' field, before
skipping again. Sometimes, though, that's surprisingly counterintuitive.
If you've got a lot of rotationally symmetrical work to do, it's worth considering cutting a segment out of your cylinder, and recreating the whole with an Array modifier, set to 'Object Offset', with a rotated Empty at the center of the cylinder as the modifier's target. Then, by working on one segment, you're working on them all.

But for one-off operations like this, it's often quicker to make a jig: a temporary helper object you can delete later.

In the illustration, I've ShiftD duplicated a chunk of faces, E extruded it SZ, scaled it down in Z, and again, ShiftD duplicated it, this time immediately following up with RZ60 rotating the thickened chunk by 60 degrees. Now hitting ShiftR repeatedly will send copies round the cylinder. In this case, they're just markers to save you counting, but they could be snap targets, or view targets.

It may seem a silly amount of work, but once your favorite shortcuts are under your belt, this kind of operation for stashing lengths an angles can become very straightforward, and speed modelling up a lot.


Dope Sheet copy/paste buffer keyframes problem Hello,
I have issue with keyframes in dope sheet editor.
When I select all my bones, keyframes and copy them, I want to press (Ctrl+Shift+V)shortcut and all keyframes are paste except IK Bones, Pole Bones and few others. The Icon for this don't work as well.

Of course I enclosing screenshots.
Please tell me how fix this issue or navigate me on solution. I can't find any fix or advice of this issue.

A. The First screenshot shows, that I Copy all keyframes.

B. The Second screenshot - Keyframes don't paste.

Kind regards,
Marek Cahyna form Cahy Design

I think it's a problem of name, don't use "left" or "right", you need to recall all the XXX Left with XXX L or XXX_L or XXX.L, and also make sure all your bones are selected in the 3D view before you ctrl C > ctrl shift V.

About the left fingers: If Blender can't find any bone with R, it can't mirror the right to the left, so give the suffix R to the right fingers.


Glass material not transparent in cycles After following Andrew Prices' tutorial for coffee and a doughnut to the coffee part, I find that my cup seems to be frosted glass in the render while looking transparent in non-rendered views.

Is this caused by reflections in the environment, or have I got the material wrong somehow?  Any help would be appreciated.

Get glass material from: http://blendermada.com/materials/?engine=cyc&category=glass&keyword= Is it Cycles or Eevee? Refractions and reflections in Eevee are not so great. Use Cycles if is a still photo.


How can i clean irregular few group of vertices in sculpting? During sculpting, cause I use only a subdivided cube, it happens that few groups of vertices generate this type of irregularity so that I can't smooth, decrease or refill it. How I could remove this irregularity to continue to shape it? Thanks for helps

Nevermind, I resolved it by myself:
These irregularity are simply bad topology, or rather accumulated vertices that are stacked after an excessive rearrangement of an initial unique mesh. The result is the tangling of groups of vertices that create hollows, ridges and high density of vertices that are hard to handle, and they stay on the bottom.
The use of tools like flatten, smooth, inflate and draw are useless, and also the simplify tool is not helpful.
SOLUTION:
Finally, the direct solution is:

Use in edit mode the tool bisect and trim the piece that has irregularity;
Delete this;
Use a new mesh to sculpt;
End.


How do I get other angles in orthographic view? I want to see an angle in between front and side view that's exacly like front and side view - orthographic with the grid. However when I change the angle the grid disappears and it changes to perspective.

You can use the Numpad keys to freely switch from perspective to orthographic views.

Numpad 5 toggles perspective/orthographic view mode without changing your camera angle.


I can't seem to reset the position of the control bone I have made a foot control rig here, but I try alt-G, and alt-R and it does not reset the pose. I even tried resetting it from the pose menu up there in the top left. Any ideas? I'm just sure it has to do with the bone constraints, but I can't figure it out on my own! Thank you all in advance! You all are the best! Here's a picture if that helps lol.

There's a conflict: the controller controls the foot through several bones parentage, the foot controls the leg through the leg's IK, and the leg controls the controllers through a Limit Distance, so you need to delete the Limit Distance. If it was meant to attach the controller to the leg it is not the right way, I don't know any way to do it but there might be a way though... I personally prefer easier bone setup but I'm not a pro.


How to let a cable hang so that it look realistic i just have made a lamp on a cable hanging from a beam, but i doesnt look realistic. How can I animate the cable so that it hangs from the bean like a cable would?

A cloth simulation can give the general movement and can be pined to the ceiling.

But we need a rigid shape for the cable and a curve is good for that.

To make the link between cloth mesh and the curve, we can use empties:

Empties are parented to the cloth mesh vertices
And curve vertices are hooked to the empties

Concerning the lamp: empties parented to the mesh vertices won't rotate but simply follow the movement.

So we add a bone:

The bone has two constraints: one to follow an empty (the rightmost one), the second to track to an empty (the one just before on the right)
And the lamp mesh is parented to the bone

The cloth mesh

It is a subdivided segment, with a cloth simulation modifier.
The leftmost (or more if you need) is in a "pin" vertex group and this group is used as pin group is the cloth simulation.

Mesh extremity / position of the lamp

Add two empty at a position corresponding to the right extremity, where the lamp will be placed.
Select one empty, shift select active the mesh
Enter edit mode
Select the vertex corresponding to the empty
Then CtrlP to vertex parent the empty
Do the same for the second empty

Add a bone and align it to the position of these two last empties
Then add two pose mode constraints, so that the bone will follow the empty (copy location) and the bone's tail will target to the other empty (damped track)

At this step, you should already obtain this:

Creating the curve cable

The curve is obtained from the cloth mesh by copying it and convert it to 'curve', so that the curve has the same amount of vertices than the mesh (we'll just remove the rightmost as it corresponds to the lamp).

Now we hook this curve vertices to new empties: CtrlH to hook and ShiftR to repeat on each vertex to the right.

Now link the empties to the mesh/cloth, with the same step we did at the beginning with the empties used for the bone (vertex parenting).

At the beginning below we just scale down the empties and hide the curve in order to facilitate further selections.

Last steps

Add a bevel to the curve to make it look like a cable
Add a subdivision surface to the curve to make it smoother
Tune the mass of the mesh/cloth (maybe around 1kg) to simulate the lamp weight


How do you save, or make check points using the blender game engine? So recently I’ve tried using some the game engine side of blender as opposed to the animation work I usually do, I’m enjoying using it and have learnt the basics of how to make an operational game, but I’ve got no idea how to make a save/load point for my game.

Can anyone help me please?
Thanks in advance

==> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ErvI2CB8UUhBa_-L1dVRnI_3jPoX93rF   <==

above is simple system example of save 'n load system (saves to text in your computer).
it's pretty simple when near sensor is triggered it's automatically saving if you want it to be manual add keyboard sensor and if you want to make limited amount of saves, add an property sensor(which decrease with each save) and so on and so forth . logic is pretty basic . Feel free to study and use the example blend file.


How to run a Python callback when Blender exits? Is it possible to get a callback before Blender closes?

There are bpy.app.handlers. Unfortunately there is no handler for closing Blender.

So is there a way to to know in a script when blender is about to close?

While we could support this via bpy.app.handlers, we decieded not to add this since Python already supports exit callbacks, so you can use these (outside of Blender too - for any Python script).

See Python's atexit module.

Simple example use:

def goodbye(name, adjective):
    print("Goodbye, %s, it was %s to meet you." % (name, adjective))

import atexit
atexit.register(goodbye, "Suzanne", "nice")


Translating the center of a group of objects to the world origin I would like to translate a group of objects to the world origin, so that the center of mass of this group sits at the origin.
I wanted to proceed as follow:

Retrieve the center (x,y,z) of the group of objects
Position an empty at that position
Set all the objects as child of the empty
Set the location of the empty to (0,0,0)
Free up the linking and delete the empty

Steps 1 & 2 are fine. On step #3 when parenting to the empty, all child objects are offset by the absolute position of the empty. When moving the empty to (0, 0, 0) the child objects go back to their original position.
The code below illustrate this:

import bpy
import numpy as np

# Create some cubes for the sake  of it
k = 3
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=2, location=(k, 2*k, 2*k+1))
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=2, location=(2*k, k, 2*k+1))
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=2, location=(2*k+1, 0, 2*k))

obj_centers = []
# Get all selected objects
for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj
    if obj.type == 'MESH':
        # retrieve their location
        obj_center =  [obj.location[0],obj.location[1], obj.location[2]]
        obj_centers.append(obj_center)
#Compute the  geometric  center of the collection (average on x/y/z)
center = np.mean(np.asarray(obj_centers), axis=0)
# Create an empty at that location
o = bpy.data.objects.new( "my_temp_empty", None )
bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link( o )
o.empty_display_size = 1
o.empty_display_type = 'ARROWS'
o.location = (center.tolist()[0], center.tolist()[1], center.tolist()[0])
# Parent all objects to  this empty
for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj
    if obj.type == 'MESH':
        obj.parent =  o
        obj.matrix_parent_inverse = o.matrix_world.inverted()
# Move empty to origin
o.location = (0, 0, 0)

Of course, I can circumvent the problem by defining the position of the empty to the negative of the center of the objects group o.location = (-center.tolist()[0], -center.tolist()[1], -center.tolist()[0]), but I'd prefer to understand what's going on here. It has to do with obj.matrix_parent_inverse = o.matrix_world.inverted() this is supposed to fix the position of the children, but it does not work and I can not get my head around it (sorry, Blender beginner...).
My questions:

is there an alternative to my approach to move the center of a group of objects to the  origin?
Are some my issues due to using an "empty" as parent?
Could someone explain or point to a good explanation of what's going on with the position matrix when parenting. This is at the core of how Blender works, I'd be happy to finally understand it.
How would I come to release the linking and have my objects stay at their new location (i.e  Clear and Keep Transform)?

Many thanks in advance.

Use the matrix world.

  is there an alternative to my approach to move the center of a group
  of objects to the origin?

An objects matrix world gives us access to global coordinates.  Hence could look at all the global coordinates of objects, get the mean and subtract it from each.

import bpy
from bpy import context
from mathutils import Vector

obs = context.selected_objects

o = sum((o.matrix_world.translation for o in obs), Vector()) / len(obs)

for ob in obs:
    ob.matrix_world.translation -= o

On parenting. In the UI we are used to seeing child coordinates such that the parent inverse matrix is identity.  To do this in code would set the matrix local of each child to be in the object space of the parent.  To do this we multiply its world matrix by the inverse of the parents.

Taking up script above, from mean calculation

bpy.ops.object.empty_add(location=o)
mt = context.object
mwi = mt.matrix_world.inverted()

for ob in obs:
    ob.parent = mt
    # alter ob.matrix_local
    ob.matrix_local = mwi @ ob.matrix_world
    # instead of
    # ob.matrix_parent_inverse = mwi
    # which retains matrix_local

mt.location = (0, 0, 0)
bpy.data.objects.remove(mt)

Note the difference here is that the local coordinates are being altered directly to what is the result of setting parent inverse (and keeping local coords same).

The latter is the reason the objects would return to original location when parent  removed,  parent inverse isn't used in calculations.


Slice the top of a cone So I just started working with Blender 2.6 and the two books I have don't really discuss how to modify objects other than "here's edit mode..."

What I have is two cylinders with one slightly smaller than the other and protruding out of the larger one.  I need to "fillet" from the larger cylinder to the smaller one.  I decided to create a cone with the same diameter as the larger cylinder which then protrudes through the smaller one giving the illusion that the larger cylinder is reducing to the size of the smaller one.  Of course the problem is that the cone continues through and extends beyond the smaller cylinder.  My thought was to just cut a section off of the cone that lies inside the smaller cylinder.  Unfortunately my two books don't really cover doing anything like that.  So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Use vertex bevel in edit mode.
To do that:

Press Tab to enter edit mode.

Right click the top vertex to select it.

Use vertex bevel (ShiftCtrlB) and use your mouse to adjust the bevel amount:

Press Tab to exit edit mode.


How can I change a Text color in Blender? I did in Object Mode > Add > Text
Now I want to change the text color to red. Now it's in gray.

You are using an older version of Blender. You should download a newer one, however, you should still be able to follow this, because it's basically the same in your version, except your tab icons are on the top, instead of the side of that panel, as below.
Change tabs and add new shader

Click the default white color for a pallet wheel

Choose you color


How would i go about retopology for this object? I am a blender newbie and have modeled and sculpted this tombstone with a cool symbol and some cracks on it but somewhere along the line it made the whole mesh made of tris...

I'm assuming that this is a problem for retopology so, how do I fix it and then how should I do the retopology? Thanks for your time.

The quickest method I like to use is a remesh modifier and a decimate modifier. Works nice and fast. This tutorial might also help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUzJefYNQlI


How to make water wall effect? Go you have any ideas how to make this sort of an effect? I've tried to achieve this using water simulation, but it didn't turned out well. Using a texture looks like rational, but I have no idea how to make one. I'm concerned that buying Flip Fluids is my only option.

This is possible using a Fluid simulation - although it does take a bit of trial and error to get the settings right whilst still being able to keep the simulation resolution low enough to make it practical.

To set up the scene you need the Fluid domain and the 'nozzles' to spray the water. The fluid domain should be kept as small as possible to reduce the computation for the simulation. Note that if you resize the domain you should always 'Apply Scale' for the resizing to take effect on the simulation cells (otherwise the simulation will be distorted).

I used the 'Shell' setting for the Inflow nozzles. This allows them to be defined as simple plane faces rather than a volume within the simulation. The sizing and orientation of the nozzles is quite significant - they need to be big enough in relation to the fluid 'resolution' and the direction of the 'Inflow' should approximately match the orientation of those faces.

The higher the Resolution of the fluid simulation the better - although larger values will significantly affect the simulation bake time. However, the resolution must be high enough in relation to your inflow nozzles so that each contributes a solid stream of fluid. If the inflow is intermittent, try larger nozzles, reorient the nozzles to match the flow direction, or increase the resolution.

Once you have the general flow working you will likely need to adjust the Inflow speed and direction (by changing the X,Y,Z Velocity settings) to adjust the flow. This needs to be high enough to produce enough fluid to cover the surface without being too high to cause splashing (which will hit the edges of your domain and look ugly). One trick to prevent splashing is to increase the compressibility of the fluid, allowing the fluid to spread into an area rather than bounce off the existing fluid (technically not physically accurate for water but produces better effects without having to drastically increase the domain resolution).

For simplicity I used the back face of the domain as the 'surface' for the water wall rather than a fluid Obstacle. I added the 'fake' glass pane behind the domain for the final render - it doesn’t interact with the simulation. This simplifies the simulation as there are no complications of the collision surface not aligning with the cells of the simulation. Add an Outflow mesh to the bottom of the domain to drain away the fluid. Don't forget to set your domain mesh to 'Smooth' (or you'll get angular fluid).

Bake the simulation and assign suitable fluid material (essentially just slightly coloured glass).

Here's the final result baked with a resolution of 300 :

Blend file included


Play animation stuck I just shortened the length of my animation by selecting all the keyframes in the dopesheet and scaling them down (as per advice on a thread here on stack exchange) and now my animation won't play. If I continuously hit spacebar it scrolls through a frame at a time and it will play backwards not forwards. Also, if I delete any key frame then ctrl+alt delete, the animation plays fine until I stop it then it won't start again and it's back to the same. Any help with this greatly appreciated!
I've checked start stop in output properties and they are the same as timeline. And this happens in Eevee and cycles. I've tried earlier autosaves (even before this started) and it's the same problem.
The pic shows the fps constantly cycling round itself on a single frame in forwards play

Ok I think I sorted it! The usb power for my sound card had decided to turn off but I wasn't to know as the volume was down at the time so thought it was something more complex! Turned the interface off and on again and sorted it! Hope this solution helps anyone else with the same or similar issue


Is there a way to do math operations on weight groups? For some skinning purposes, I need to be able to do some basic math operations on vertex groups :
lets say I have created A, B and C vertex groups, and I want to subtract A and B of C vertex group (I am talking of weights of course), so it would be C = C - (A + B).
Is there a simple way to do it without writing a python script ?

Not directly - but you can easily convert the vertex weights into vertex colors (which are available in the material using the Attribute node) and use maths nodes to combine them.

Start by selecting your Vertex Group in the Mesh properties and create a matching Vertex Color set - it's probably a good idea to give them the same name.

Select the Vertex Weight and corresponding Vertex Color set that you want to copy over.

Bring up the operator window (Space in Blender versions before 2.8, F3 in 2.8+) and start typing “Vertex Color from Weight” (note that you need to be in Vertex Paint or Weight Paint mode for that operator to be available) and run it to copy the weights to the colors.

You can now access the colors (which contain a copy of the weights) using the Attribute node by simply specifying the name of the color set to use. So, to combine them as A-B and mix based on the result you could use :


How to create a pattern like this using Python script or Modifiers Is is possible to create a pattern something like this using Python scripting in Blender?

I marked 4 different patterns inside the image above. I want to create such a pattern using Python script and/or Modifiers.

Any suggestions and tricks will be appreciated.

Here's a try with just modifiers. It's not exact, but it might get you started at least. This is with just the default cube:

click to enlarge

The modifier stack is as follows:

click to enlarge

You can adjust the "openness" of the pattern by tuning the scale and ratio of the remesh and decimate modifiers. The thickness of course comes from the wireframe modifier.

You could optionally add a solidify modifier after the remesh if you want a little more density to the model as well. You would get something like the following:

click to enlarge

Here is the .blend file for your reference. (The solidify modifier from the second image is currently disabled for render and the viewport.)


Final video is faster than what I see in the viewport I have a walk cycle that plays at correct speed in the 3D viewport. But after making a final video the video plays too fast. This fast speed happens whether I use FFmpeg or AVI jpeg. Nothing changes when I alter the fps from 29.97 to 60.

I should say that my timeline is set to 'no sync' which is what it's always been set to. However, when I change the timeline setting to 'frame dropping' or 'AV sync' I can see the speed in the 3D viewport plays at the same speed as the final rendered videos (which is way too fast).

I've had this problem for a week and can't find the answer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I would never trust playback in blender to be a representation of anything resembling real-time. It really depends on how powerful your computer is. For the most part, preview in the 3d viewport it is usually slower unless you are visualizing on a very simplified mode, like Bunding Box, maybe wireframe and with low settings on modifiers or anything that can help your computer cope with the demands of the scene. If the speed looks fast when you play using frame dropping i probably means that the animation might indeed need to be slowed down. When using Frame Dropping the computer is trying to target the desired frame rate by not generating all of the frames in the animation. To do tests renders use OpenGL rendering (as suggested by @moonboots) It will give you a better sense of what your animation looks like in real-time.

You can of course change the final output's speed by altering the Time-Remapping See: How can I modify the frame rate without changing the overall animation speed?


Fluid tap isn't showing The fluid tap isn't showing for some reason, while all the other physic taps will.
it still won't show even if I only select fluid.
I just click others to show that only fluid isn't showing.

Most likely when you "opened" this blender file, check on your left lower size of the screen "LOAD UI" on the OPEN FILE manager. UNCHECK IT. THEN, open up the file.
If you already did, then yes, you need to "re-open it" like it was the first time you opened it, and uncheck the load UI.
If you have it save, close the file. Open file>uncheck load UI. Profit.


Moving objects by plc I have to move an object (cube, camera, ...) according to a value from a industrial plc.
In principle that works fine - but after a short while Blender (2.80) stops working.
I saw, that the Windows Taskmanager shows a continiously increasing number of handles, the nuber of Threads is nearly constant.
Do i have to dispose or kill anything? I can't find any hint :-(
Any comments welcome and many thanks in advance!

    import bpy, time, threading
    def moveObj(val): # reduced to make it easier to understand
        val = val + 0.05
        if val > 20:
            val=0

       bpy.data.objects['MyObject'].location=(val, -val, val*0.5)
       threading.Timer(0.05, moveObj, [val]).start()

    moveObj(2) #call the method with start-value

Your code performs infinite recursions. For every call to moveObj you're creating a thread that in itself calls moveObj again. A solution for your goal is to use a modal operator in combination with a timer to execute a function every x seconds. An example for this can be found in operator_modal_timer.py


How to remove these wrinkles/stress lines I'm trying to remove these creases from the faces, what are some of the best approaches to clean this up?


How to make an object's texture conjoin when exported to Photoshop? I have an object that I have created in Blender out of a bunch of cubes. When I export it .3ds into Photoshop, the cubes are each individually texturized, but I want them to all blend together as if they were all one object. I can't for the life of me figure this out.

You can clearly see each individual cube, but I want them to all blend together as one object. How do I do this?

Thanks,
Eedis

To physically merge the cubes into one solid mesh:

Join the cubes into on object by selecting them all and pressing CtrlJ
Switch into edit mode (Tab), and remove doubles (A to select all and then W> Remove doubles)
You may need to remove internal faces too. Select internal faces by pressing Internal faces in 3D view > Header > Select, then delete them with Delete> Faces.


How to fix bright pixels around light sources? I'm working on a scene in blender and i have applied emission to a plane as main light source(which is located on the right hand side) and also emission coming from the tip of the candle light object. However when i render it i get these orange dots around the candle emission as you can see in the image. I have tried to up the sampling but they are always there. Any ways to fix this?

Those are called fireflies, and there are several easy ways to get rid of them. Fireflies are often present in low-light renders. The following are the three easiest.

Clamping

This is probably easiest and best way to combat fireflies. Turn the Properties panel > Render tab > Sampling drop down > Clamp Indirect: value to 3.

Filter Glossy

Turn the Properties panel > Render tab > Light Paths drop down > Filter Glossy: value to 0.5. This blurs all reflective/refractive elements just a bit.

Samples

Sometimes you just need more samples.

All ideas and images from here.


Is it possible to shift faces by using "square" loops Is it possible to shift faces using a square loop? Is there a better way to accomplish the animation that is below, using Blender

I made an animation in Octave of what I'm trying to accomplish in blender (since blender has much better graphical options I would like to convert it over)

Example: of a 5 by 6 array

First "square" loop (which follows the green dot 18 shift increments are needed to complete 1 "square" loop cycle)
1    2    3    4    5    6   12   18   24   30   29   28   27   26   25   19   13    7

Second "square" loop (which follows the yellow dot 10 shift increments are needed to complete 1 "square" loop cycle)
8    9   10   11   17   23   22   21   20   14

Third "square" loop (which follows the orange dot 2 shift increments are needed to complete 1 "square" loop cycle)
15   16

Static image and start of loop

Ps: I'm using Blender 2.79b on Ubuntu 18.04 64bit

You could probably do this easily with a Follow Curve constraint on a bunch of plane objects.

Create a simple square mesh with desired dimensions (example $2$ x $2$)

Create a rectangular Bezier Curve object that has an exact $5$ x $4$ squares in dimensions (for squares of $2$ units you get $10$ x $8$), minus one square length in each direction than your 6 x 5 grid so the line axis fits the squares exactly by their center points.

Under Object Data properties Activate Path Animation and set it for $18$ frames (its length in number of squares).

Now add a Follow Curve constraint to you plane, an pick the previously created curve.

Duplicate the plane without moving it, then under Follow Curve increase the Offset value to $-1$. Keep making copies of it until you fill the whole curve, progressively increasing the offset value by one unit.

Repeat the same process for a smaller curve inside the outer one, adjusting frame count for its length (in this case $10$).

You can then use your planes directly with whatever visuals you like, use dupligroups on said planes, or just model the shape after what you desire for each square directly in the plane mesh.

If you have precision troubles at the corners, increase curve resolution to improve accuracy.


Whenever I run my cloth simulation, the cloth collides with the 'static' pose of my character, and not the animated poses of that character I have a very low poly character who I have animated to 'sit up' and then move to a pose. I am running a cloth simulation to drop a poncho from out of frame onto the character. The cloth will collide and interact with the 'default' pose of the character, ie how the character stands in edit mode, but will not collide or interact with the character in pose mode. I have attached two photos to demonstrate this, the first is the pose that the cloth should be colliding with and the second is the 'default' pose that the cloth is actually colliding with. I am very new to blender, so you may have to talk to me like I am a 5-year-old!

Thanks to Nathan for the answer!
My modifier stack had the collision on top, which messed with the simulation. I moved the collision to the bottom of the stack and the issue was fixed.


Blender 2.81: How do I import the rig correctly? I'm dealing with a professionally authored fbx file of a quadruped. It has been created using max.

This is what the rig looks like in 3ds max:

I import it using the option "Automatic bone orientation" in Blender 2.81.

What I see then is this:

The pelvis is rotated to the side, and "RigLShoulderBlade" and "RigRShoulderBlade" point towards each other.

I have tried all other (non automatic) bone orientation options, they were even weirder than the automatic option.

How should I deal with this?

I have uploaded the animation fbx in question here.

It would be very nice if somebody could tell me how to import it in Blender in such a way that the bones are rotated as in 3ds max.

Thank you very much for the help!

Edit: I have filed a bug report at blender.

I don't know why exactly this is happening (I'm using 2.82a and having the same issue), but since you have so few bones which are misaligned, I find that I was able to go into Edit Mode and manually adjust them in less than five minutes.

Regretably, this is not the answer you were hoping for. But it seems to work.


Is it possible to run a script from an external editor without reloading the file? I use an external to Blender text editor (vim). I understand I can write in it and then reload file in Blender's text editor. Is there a way to run a script from external editor without this additional step?

For short or non-operator-based scripts, that's as efficient as you'll get. Currently there is no faster way than AltR-AltP to reload a plain script modified in external editor.

For longer operator-based scripts, you can use the following initial steps:

Convert the script to an add-on, by adding proper bl_info dictionary and turning your main code into operators (can be made faster by using a template).
Create a symbolic link of the script or its development path to Blender's alternate script path (set through User Preferences > File > Scripts). That way, it stays registered on Blender upgrade, and your development folder stays organized.

If your OS or filesystem doesn't support symbolic link, move the script to the alternate script path and develop from there.
Register the add-on.

After that, the script can be updated just by pressing F8 Reload Scripts in Blender. Longer preparation, faster in the long run.


How would I make these curved indents in this water bottle? Picture in description. I'm relatively new. I know how to make a water bottle starting with a circle and extruding upwards while using a combo of extrude and scaling to make indents, but how would I do something like this? I'm still trying to wrap my head around some of the photos I see out there. This is such an incredible program. Thanks for your help!

Start by making the main outline of your bottle. Once you have that, hover over the section you want to add the inset to and press Ctrl+R. Use the scroll wheel to select exactly how many you want.

Now use Ctrl+Tab+E to switch to edge select mode. Holding Alt+Shift, right click on the newly added loop-cuts. Press Ctrl+B to bevel and roll the scroll wheel one click to add another loop cut in the middle.

Now select the inner loop-cut on each of those rings. Now press Ctrl+. (period) to change to the Individual Origins pivot point. Scale the selection down as desired.

Now go into orthographic mode, and press Numpad 1 and select the center vertices as shown. Move them up as desired. Go ahead and press Numpad 3 and do the same thing. Enable a Subdivision Modifier, and bevel the edges using Ctrl+B.

Final result:


How to mark edges on flat plane after shade smooth/auto smooth? I'm creating a barrel for a game. I was able to mark the seems on the side as sharp (Since there is an angle associated with it) giving the illusion of planks without adding additional vertices. I was hoping to do something similar to the edges on the top to also give the illusion of planks. Mark sharp doesn't do anything, and I haven't found a way to show the edges without adding additional vertices.

There is no way around this geometry wise, however you might use a custom normal map via image texture. That is perfect for this type of situation, and is often used in game assets for that reason.


Is there a way to render a wireframe independent of its topology? Lets say I have an object and I want to render it in squarish wireframe in orthographic view. Here is what I mean -

I am not looking for a specific topology in the 3d view, but what ever the topology of a model is, is it possible to render it in this way? I know that there are tricks to do this, for example by using chroma key, but as you can see in the image it is not acurate because it has picked up information from the original black background. Is there any way to do this in blender without the usage of chroma key?

Update - Basically, to render an object independent of its topology with a checkered wireframe

The Brick texture node makes the grid texture.
The settings to change in the Brick texture node are:

both Frequency fields, set to 1
brick width and Row height must match to get squares.
Mortar size to set how thick the lines are.

The Camera socket of the Texture Coordinates node, sets the mapping to match the camera. Thus the grid will be straight.
The Mix node is used to overlay the grid over any shader you already have on the object. It works from the Fac output from the brick texture. white = 1, and black = 0 so where ever there is black in the grid it will use the bottom shader, and whereever there is white (where the bricks would go) it will use the top input of the Mix shader. The brown Diffuse node would be the underlying shader.

Those nodes will render this:


Controlling the "strength" of cycles' Bump node What is the correct way to control the strength of the bump node?
What does the Distance Input on the bump node in cycles do?
The manual does not make it clear.

  Distance Input
      Multiplier for the height value to control the overall distance for bump mapping.

So if the Distance Input is meant be used to control the depth or strength of the displacement, then what does the setting the Strength setting above 1 do?

Height input is where you plug in the texture. Distance input is the "height" of the tallest bump in blender units. Strength input is an overall scale of the height map.

It's not normally useful to use strength, unless you want to plug the same bump map into different shaders, and some have the same features yet less bump height.


Python's uuid module cause c runtime error in ms-windows I'm using requests in my addon. On OSX it seems to work fine but on windows I'm getting this bizarre message box on startup:

---------------------------
Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
---------------------------
Runtime Error!

Program: E:\Blender Foundation\blender.exe

R6034

An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

Blender does run but I can't seem to get rid of this error. I can't see anything in the requests code that would even trigger this issue.

This is a very unfortunate glitch, at the moment has no nice solution. Both Blender and Python devs are aware of it.

The problem is with importing uuid (which requests happens to use).

For now, you can workaround this by temporarily disabling ctypes with the uuid module.

See:

http://bugs.python.org/issue17213
http://developer.blender.org/T38364
http://developer.blender.org/T27666

from: addons/io_online_sketchfab/__init__.py

# uuid module causes an error messagebox on windows.
#
# using a dirty workaround to preload uuid without ctypes,
# until blender gets compiled with vs2013
def uuid_workaround():
    import platform
    if platform.system() == "Windows":
        import ctypes
        CDLL = ctypes.CDLL
        ctypes.CDLL = None
        import uuid
        ctypes.CDLL = CDLL

uuid_workaround()

# now import a module which uses 'uuid'
import requests

We'll likely be updating to vc2013 for Blender 2.71, I'm not sure if this resolves the issue though, this needs some further investigation from an ms-windows developer.


Is there a way to capture the viewport in Blender the same way as it is on 3DS Max? I know that by default I can render the viewport and everithing that is in the viewport to be the same as in the render. But, when comparing 3DS Max to Blender, I have certain limitations. In Blender I can render the view-port with vertices/edges/faces to be shown, to be selected, but not the reflections, shadows and such.

Is there a way to render the viewport in Blender as it is in 3DS Max?

Here's how I can do it in 3DS Max:

Viewport look

Render result of the viewport

Here is how I can do it in Blender:

Viewport look:

Render result of the viewport

You can perform an OpenGL render. Simply press the little camera in the 3d view header or go to Render > OpenGL Render Image. It will render out a snapshot of your current view as it is, no cameras or lights needed. You can also change the world settings if the default gray is too bland and also the resolution. More info on the relevant wiki page.


Correlation between image render cap size and game resolution I am struggling a bit with the ImageRender. I want to built up a simulation using the Blender Game Engine in combination with ROS.

The plan is to record an image using the virtual camera in Blender (the selected one in the screenshot).

This is already working, but with a horrible resolution. The resolution of the image is currently 512x512:

My question: How can I improve the resolution of this output image?
I am getting the image using the ImageRender functionality with a plane object as a proxy where the virtual camera is rendering on.

Thank you in advance.

Ok. I figured it out. Capsize is limited to the window size of the BGE rasterizer.

I implemented something like:

import Rasterizer

windowSize = (Rasterizer.getWindowWidth(), Rasterizer.getWindowHeight())

...
imageRender.capSize = windowSize

Then I can start a standalone player with my desired resolution of 1600 x 1200 px and get the camera image in that very same resolution.


Can I permanently change some default settings like inset size, remove doubles threshold, new mesh size? Ver. 2.79. I was hoping I could change some annoying settings by just editing some of the .PY files bundled with blender. Especially default inset amount. Maybe it's not that easy.

But for example, I see this file - "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\2.79\scripts\addons\mesh_inset__init__.py"

Within that file is this code:

inset_amount = FloatProperty(name="Amount",
    description="Amount to move inset edges",
    default=5.0,

I was hoping just changing that default might do what I want, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. Does anyone know if/how I can do this without having to recompile Blender?

Try to look in User Preferences, in Input tab. There is 2 different ways to do what.

First if your command called right from key-building. In this case you don't need to edit any python code, just go in Input tab, find command and here you can set any default settings as you like:

For example, I changed segments count. And after changing press Save user settings.

Second than your command called from menu, like W -> Remove doubles. You can also create a new shortcut and edit this settings like I explained before:

But of course it will affects only on new keybinding. So how to change default settings in menu? This time also go in Input tab, find command Call Menu that calls from keybinding (in case of Remove doubles it will be  W ):

And we interested in Name of menu (in our case it is "VIEW3D_MT_edit_mesh_specials")

This is what can search in files, and find menu like this:

class VIEW3D_MT_edit_mesh_specials(Menu):
    bl_label = "Specials"

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

        layout.operator_context = 'INVOKE_REGION_WIN'

        layout.operator("mesh.subdivide", text="Subdivide").smoothness = 0.0
        layout.operator("mesh.subdivide", text="Subdivide Smooth").smoothness = 1.0

        layout.separator()

        layout.operator("mesh.merge", text="Merge...")
        layout.operator("mesh.remove_doubles")

        layout.separator()

        layout.operator("mesh.hide", text="Hide").unselected = False
        layout.operator("mesh.reveal", text="Reveal")
        layout.operator("mesh.select_all", text="Select Inverse").action = 'INVERT'

        layout.separator()

        layout.operator("mesh.flip_normals")
        layout.operator("mesh.vertices_smooth", text="Smooth")
        layout.operator("mesh.vertices_smooth_laplacian", text="Laplacian Smooth")

        layout.separator()

        layout.operator("mesh.inset")
        layout.operator("mesh.bevel", text="Bevel")
        layout.operator("mesh.bridge_edge_loops")

        layout.separator()

        layout.operator("mesh.faces_shade_smooth")
        layout.operator("mesh.faces_shade_flat")

        layout.separator()

        layout.operator("mesh.blend_from_shape")
        layout.operator("mesh.shape_propagate_to_all")
        layout.operator("mesh.shortest_path_select")
        layout.operator("mesh.sort_elements")
        layout.operator("mesh.symmetrize")
        layout.operator("mesh.symmetry_snap")

I found this file here: /usr/share/blender/2.79/scripts/startup/bl_ui/space_view3d.py

This is a menu, that called from Call Menu("VIEW3D_MT_edit_mesh_specials"). Here you can add some default parameters.


Pinching problem with Solidifier I'm receiving this pinching problem when I add a solidifyy modifier to my surface. ANyone know why this is happening? The mesh is pretty simple.
Blender File Here

Quick answer: move your solidify modifier above your subdivision modifier, and give the soldify modifier an edge crease:

Bottom layer: your original.  Selected: my recommendation.  Top: Your object without any modifiers, but with a wireframe.
So the problem here isn't really with your solidify, but with your subdivision, and how it interacts with the shapes you've given it.  It's the subdivision that's pinching, and the solidify is only making that pinch much more apparent.  If you look at the problem area, you're going to see that it's getting screwed up by a quad that is almost degenerate (three verts lie on a line, ie a 180 degree corner), and the only thing making it not degenerate is that it's out of plane with the rest of the quad.  It looks like you're trying to force quad topology onto something without thinking about other characteristics of good topology, and you're paying the price for that.  (This is pretty normal in my experience; the first thing people learn about topology is "Quads!" before they can even say why, and it takes a while to learn anything else.)
What would good topo be for this?  Maybe something like this:

By changing the edge flow, I can maintain quad topology, without any degenerate quads, at the price of a nearly-planar 3-pole.  And we lose that pinch.


Playback of rendered Video is skipping I run the preview the video and audio sync up without a problem. However, once I rendered it, the final video has lots of 1/2 second skips in both the video and audio. Like they are stuttering, but the audio and video do this in sync. Does anybody have any idea what could be causing that or supply a link to a tutorial that covers the output process in detail?

I just figured it out, it was the video player I was watching the final video on. I was using wondershare video, which is an excellent tool for those who have never used it, but for whatever reason it could play my video without skipping. Once i played it on windows media player and VLC it had so skipping issues. Hope this helps for anyone having this issue in the future.


Is real multithreading possible with Blender scripting api (Windows)? I'm trying to use multiprocessing module on Windows to run work in parallel. Problem is that on windows, each thread spawns new instance of Blender. Is there a workaround to this? I'm not looking into having co-currency but real multithreading utilizing cpu cores to run tasks.

This is more of a general Python question rather than Blender. The problem is that you can't use Threading for real parallelism in CPython (which is what Blender is using, the default Python implementation). You can use multiprocessing for that, by creating another process to just run your function that you want to split between cores. The problem is that multiple processes communication comes with a performance cost, so in some cases, running everything just in a single "thread" happens to be faster.

You can use Cython for doing parallel multithreaded execution by using the 'with nogil:' statement, which turns off the global interpreter lock for encapsulated code. That's what I suggest looking for.


How can I fix the streaking on the side of this cube in Blender 2.83? I recently used Blender 2.83 to create a textured cube. I first made a UV map, and then applied a texture. I also scaled the texture using the Texture Coordinate, and Mapping modules in the Material Nodes. I then got the wanted result, but only on the top and bottom face. Here is my result:
Is there a possible way, to get my wanted result, and also fix the streaking?

It appears as though either: 1. you are not using the UVmap you created, 2. there a different materials applied to different faces, or 3. The object is not unwrapped correctly.
First, make sure that in your node setup you have the UV output on the Texture Coordinate node connected to vector input socket on Mapping node.
Second, make sure that all your faces have the same material assigned. Select all of your faces in edit mode and in the materials tab, choose the correct material and click assign.
Third, try unwrapping again. Go into edit mode. select all of your faces. choose UV Unwrap.


cycles node setup for volumetric shader I downloaded blender 2.7 to to do some volumetrics in cycles.
How to set up material nodes because I have no idea, everything I do gives me a black diffuse.

You have to use the volumetrics input in the material output node, instead of the surface input.

There are three different volume shaders. Volume absorption, volume scatter, and emission (yes, the same node used for making physical lamps).

Volume absorption is for simulating how light seems to vanish, like in smoke or clouds.
Volume scatter is for simulating how light bounces around inside of an object, similar to subsurface scattering.
And emission, when plugged into volume, is useful for rendering objects that emit light and are visible to your camera. This is good for flames and glowing objects that are semi-transparent.

(More info here)


Invert displacement movement controlled by null? I animated the displacement of a sphere using an empty (upwards). I mixed it with another but I'd need that second one to move downwards. I want to invert that empty movement somehow using nodes to get it but no luck. Can you help me? Thanks

Use a Vector Math node set to Multiply by (-1, -1, -1) to get the opposite of the input Vector. You can also use a mapping node to do the same thing with the Scale fields.
Also, FYI semantically, the inverse and the opposite are not the same thing.


Plane rotation parameters missing I am trying to rotate my plane so that it is perfectly upright.

However I don't see this parameter:

Am I blind or are the rotation parameters hidden somewhere?

This is because you are in Edit mode (↹ Tab). Try adding the plane in object mode to make it a separate object with it's own transforms.

That said, it's still possible to rotate geometry that's part of an object.

When you initially add the plane in edit mode there is an option to change its orientation in the Redo panel (F6):

And you can always use R to rotate geometry, e.g. RY 90 will rotate the selection 90° around the Y axis. See Why can't I translate parts of my mesh with the 3d widget?


What are the advantages of using matrices over matrices for translations In Animation Node, there are many ways to control an object's location.
The most commonly used ways are using vectors and matrices. Anyway, I do not understand clearly how one might be more advantageous than the other.
I want to understand in what situations one should use matrices over vectors and vise versa.

Matrices---Or Transformation Matrices in this context---are advantageous if other types of transformations are used. A transformation matrix hold much more information that a simple 3D vector. To understand what I mean, lets look at some examples.

If one wants to translate an object along a circle whose center is $(1,1,0)$ using only vectors, one would use a parametric equation as follows.

As one might expect, artists will find this solution rather complicated for its outcome. In order to translate an object in a circular path, one has to use trigonometry. Had the translation been along a linear path, using vectors would be most appropriate.

Now lets look at how matrices handle this problem.

The combine matrix node multiply the input matrix list, so the node tree can be read as follows. Move the object one unit along the x axis (First Matrix) then rotate it around the origin (Second Matrix) then move it one unit in both the x and y direction (Third Matrix). Which is very intuitive from the perspective of artists and no explicit math or trigonometry had to be done.

If you still can't understand how the transformation was done, add a cube at the center of the world, set the cursor at its location, and set the pivot to the cursor. Now perform the same instructions we explain above for any angle, you will see that the the object end up in the same location.

In conclusion, use matrices if rotations and scaling is required, if not, then vector should be used.


Array Modifier - Fit Curve too short I want to create a simple road. To do this I first want to apply an 'Array Modifier' which fits the curve. So in the Array modifier I changed the 'Fit Type' from 'Fixed Count' to 'Fit Curve'. But now the Path is much shorter than the road it self.

And If I extrude the curve the road goes even longer and longer.
Is there a way the road is as long as the path?

I think the problem is that the objects have a different scale. Select both the curve and the path and hit Ctrl+A and apply the scale. As the Apply Scale will change the curve vertices radius, bring them back to 1 in the 3D View N panel.


Is it possible to export both an animated object and camera from Maya to Blender together? Is it possible to export both an animated object and camera from Maya to Blender together? .mmd can export the object and collada can do the camera. Is there anything that can export both?

Nope, the fbx importer isn't up to scratch yet. Your best bet is to keep everything in collada and bake your camera animation to a cube within maya first. Pain in the ass, but it always seems to be a struggle to get things between softwares, not just blender.


How to create circle texture In the nodes we use checker texture and it creates checker (square) pattern. Is there anyway to have some circle, or polygon type of pattern. Any suggestion or help. Thanks

You can manipulate the coordinates of any texture. The coordinates are like gradients going from 0 to infinity in x, y and z axis in positive and negative(from 0 to negative infinity) directions. You can separate them and then you can repeat a part of each one using maths - modulo operation in this case and compensating for the 'intensity' apropriatley. You can then draw a circle by taking a section of a spcherical gradiant with 'greater than' maths operation. This might make more sense if you have a look at the nodes:

Here is the .blend file:

Other shapes get more complicated, however you can construct whatever shapes you imagine using math and existing nodes. If you are interested, you can have a look at this other example with pentagons. Obviously, there are many ways to make patterns with pentagons and since you have not specified what you want exactly, this is just an example that might help you come up with a way to achieve what you need:

It might be a lot easier to draw shapes in an image editor or render them out with Blender to use as image textures instead of choosing the procedural way. It is possible to mix bitmap images with procedural textures any way you wish as well.