How to render with same style as seen in solid viewport? I'm new to Blender and I like very much the esthetics of the viewport. Is it possible to replicate those settings when rendering it?

I got this look when those settings are applied.

Bigger resolution image:

Change the render engine from Cycles or Eevee to Workbench in the Render Properties tab and play with the configurations:

also, this video show in details how to use Workbench:
Introduction to Workbench Blender 2.8


chromakey overlay at end of video Assume you want to put a green screen overlay at the end of a longer video clip. Blender doesn't allow to do this in the compositor mode, because the overlay is placed at the beginning.

Is it possible to easily add the overlay at the end of the video?

duplicate the video strip on a new channel, add the overlay effect to it and delete the unnecessary parts at the beginning.


How to use Snap to assemble objects together Firstly I am using v2.92 and have viewed the suggestions listed after I entered the title in which I could not find an answer.
I have now, at last, created all the parts to my VERY FIRST 3D object (floating dock) together with UV mapping of my preferred texture and am now ready to 'assemble' all parts into a single object. I did receive information before about 'snapping' and was advised to use Snap > Increment  with Absolute Grid Snap 'ticked' which I can't find anywhere to even attempt to try.
Refer to the separate objects in my image below. All objects have a scale of 1 for each axis.
A is the dock created with an array of 2 so that I could offset textures to simulate 2 separate planks along the side.
B is an array of narrow planks which is for the walkway on top of the dock
C is an array of supports which will go on top of the walkway to support a timber rail. Before I position these I will add another array on the X axis so that there are arrays on both sides of the dock rather than duplicate and have to position 2 separate arrays.
D is the timber rail - I will also add an array on the X axis for reasons explained above. I left those array out of the image for simplicity for the image.
I seem to have successfully moved B on top of A with a bit of difficulty but want to ensure there is no 'gap' between each.
I cannot get C positioned to be on top of B - it just disappears when positioned over the dock
Is there an easy method to achieve what I am trying to do and/or suggestions as how to best do what I am trying to do.

This is no solution how this all will completely come together, just some hints how things work to maybe achieve it.
First of all, Absolute Grid Snap, you can find it in the Snapping dropdown menu.

To use snapping, you have to enable Snap (the magnet to the left of the Snapping options. This way snapping is used whenever you move the object (or rotate or scale if you checked that, too). If you don't want permanent snapping, disable the magnet and hold Ctrl when moving objects for temporary snapping.
Now, in Object Mode the origin point is snapping to the grid (if Absolute Grid Snapping is enabled), for example X=1, X=2, X=3 etc. or to to full increments of Blender units relative to the starting point of the movement (e.g. move 1m, 2m, 3m).
Now to position your elements where you want them with Grid Snapping you have to make sure that their origin points are positioned so that this might work and that the objects' dimensions are maybe full increments of the grid as well.
Another way would be setting the Snapping to vertices, edges or faces and try if this works better for you. With vertices enabled, one corner vertex of a cube snaps to another corner vertex of a cube, no matter where their origins are or how they are positioned on the grid.
The only problem with this is that (at least I) sometimes don't know how to tell Blender which vertex I like to snap to which other. By the way, if you limit movement say to X direction, you can make vertices snap to line up with another on X, but not fall together in the exact same position.


Blender hangs on exit with console window open? Has anyone run into an issue with Blender randomly freezing/hanging when you attempt to close while the console window is open? I can't say for sure that the console is the murder weapon, but after a lot of testing, it seems likely. I've tried disabling all non-official add-ons (including my own) with no change. I'm running into this on two Windows PCs with very different hardware.

Nothing prints out in the console when I press the Windows "x" button. It just instantly freezes and doesn't respond until I force it closed with task manager. It randomly hangs maybe once every 4-5 times I close it. Sometimes much more frequently.

I'm curious to know if this is happening to others, but mainly I'm looking for any type of solution. Maybe a way to force the console window closed before exit? I don't think it can be done with atexit, because it never seems to get executed in my add-on before Blender locks up. If nothing else, it may be possible to create a custom hotkey that closes the console window, then requests Blender to close?

Clicking in the console window and accidentally selecting some text will put the console window into 'selection' or 'mark' mode to mark the part you want to copy to the clipboard. This will cause any additional output to the console to ‘hang’ (it blocks any further output to the console so the visible text doesn't change while you're trying to mark your selection) which will block Blender when it tries to output additional text to the console such as just before it exits. Pressing Return or Esc while on the console window will accept or cancel selection mode, allowing Blender to continue outputting to the console so it can continue.

This is how the Windows console works (rather than being a Blender feature) and the only way of avoiding it is to be careful when switching to the console window and avoid selecting any text (or immediately cancel 'mark' mode by pressing Return or Esc).


How to convert from vertex_color to material and export FBX file I have some problem with my blender code export to fbx file. I set color by vertex_color and set mode is Vertex_paint. But when I export this object to fbx file and open in Unity it is not include color. I think the reason might be dont set color for material of object. So could you help me to convert ?
This is my code. Thank you so much for your help

import math

# mesh arrays
verts = []
faces = []

# mesh variables
numX = 10
numY = 10

# wave variables
freq = 1
amp = 1
scale = 1

#fill verts array
for i in range (0, numX):
    for j in range(0,numY):
        x = scale * i
        y = scale * j
        z = scale*((amp*math.cos(i*freq))+(amp*math.sin(j*freq)))
        vert = (x,y,z)
        verts.append(vert)

#fill faces array
count = 0
for i in range (0, numY *(numX-1)):
    if count < numY-1:
        A = i
        B = i+1
        C = (i+numY)+1
        D = (i+numY)
        face = (A,B,C,D)
        faces.append(face)
        count = count + 1
    else:
        count = 0

#create mesh and object
mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("wave")
object = bpy.data.objects.new("wave",mesh)
#set mesh location
object.location = bpy.context.scene.cursor.location
bpy.context.collection.objects.link(object)

#create mesh from python data
mesh.from_pydata(verts,[],faces)
mesh.update(calc_edges=True)

vert_list = mesh.vertices
color_map_collection = mesh.vertex_colors
if len(color_map_collection) == 0:
    color_map_collection.new()
else:
    color_map_collection.active

color_map = color_map_collection['Col']
i = 0

for poly in mesh.polygons:
    for idx in poly.loop_indices:
        loop = mesh.loops[idx]
        v = loop.vertex_index
        final = (0.1,0.5,0.2,1)
        color_map.data[i].color = final
        i += 1

bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = object
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='VERTEX_PAINT', toggle=False)

Unity is a game engine, not a vertex editing engine. While you can build or download tools to edit meshes inside of Unity, I'd advise you to stick to Blender for that. Unity displays everything similar to Eevee. If you assign a default material to an object in Eevee it also won't show vertex colors, unless you tell your material to read them. In Blender, you need a built-in node for that, in Unity you need a shader that can read and display them.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/finding-and-using-a-vertex-colors-shader.236366/
Unity will also omit any vertex color information in the build, unless you tell it to keep them.

This option is in the Player Settings.


why does it in texture paint mode paint on each face at the same time? When I texture paint somewhere, it copies itself on each other face of my mesh too. How can I disable this? I don't know why that happens, it didn't earlier.

I just found out, that I had my UV map scaled way too much. It didn't paint on faces, but only replicated itself to fit the UV.


How do I stop my texture from stretching when I pose my character? Quite simply, I've applied a simple image texture and matching normal map to a character and rigged him. When I pose my character (i.e. bend his knee) the texture becomes undesirably skewed and deformed. Is there a way to have the texture scale or move when the mesh deforms as to retain the quality?

In real the material on the knee would be either

compressed when the knee is straight and normal when it is bent ... or ...
normal when the knee is straight and stretched when the knee is bent.

If you want to "float" it out of thin air, you need to hide some extra geometry below the surface, like pi75 mentioned in the comment above.
Proof of concept


See through object in Blender game engine [Solved]
I have modeled a plane and made a little "world" However, if I add a simple camera and play around with it, it will see through and will show textures lower than where it is.
So before I run the game:

However, if i run the game

As you can see, it will see through the ground. any ways to fix this? I tried recalculating the normals, flipping the normals, and checked the normals, but it wouldn't work.

I have found a solution. I was using a uv map as the texture for the plane. However, if I change the render mode from multitexture to GLSL, and use an image as an texture, it will display the plane correctly. It looks like there was a problem with the plane is under where I am, so it will show "through" the plane.


How to have different materials assigned to same mesh gradate into each other (without using a mapping node) I would like to be able to assign grass and dirt to certain parts of the mesh and have them gradate into each other instead of having a hard edge, just like in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilmS_CeKCuo

The plugin shown in the video itself is not available to be downloaded. I was wondering if there was another way I could achieve the same effect.

(edit)

I'm including an image to describe exactly what I'm trying to achieve. In the video, the blender user has a plugin which allows him to assign the textures to the faces, and the textures gradate automatically. I heard that this was possible without the use of the plugin, but I wasn't sure how to achieve it.

You can use vertex colors. If you paint a mask in black and white in Vertex Paint mode(ctrl+tab -> Vertex Paint) and then mix your desired shaders or textures using vertex color node, the textures will blend gradually:

You can make various gradients from a lot of things with nodes so this is probably not the only solution. I would recommend not to limit yourself by excluding usage of any nodes such as mapping node when working with your materials for no reason. It's usually best to use all the tools available to you.


How to merge a bunch of objects into one? I've made all my game models and imported them, but, I am noticing frame lag and I think that it's most likely due to the fact all the squares in each model are separate. I've tried ctrl + J but the problem is when I import it into unity certain faces are missing. I've also tried recalculating the normals and that doesn't work either.

Side note: I'm very new to blender, maybe a few weeks, so any other optimization advice would be great.

There are several possible problems that cause the faces to disappear in Unity. The way Unity calculates normal is usually by hiding all of the weird angled faces and flipped normals. So try to:

Select every vertices in Edit Mode and hit 'W' to bring up Special Menu. Choose Remove Doubles to merge every overlapping vertices at the same position.
In Edit Mode, this time with nothing selected, you hit 'Spacebar' and then type in 'Select faces by sides', hit enter. Then hit F6 on keyboard to edit the Properties. Choose 'Number of Vertices = 4', 'Type = Not Equal To'. Now you'll see the Ngons (faces that have more than 4 edges) and probably some Tris (triangle faces) selected. You can now delete them or go and fix them one by one. Repeat this step until you can't see any Tris or Ngons selected.

Now you can try exporting your model into Unity. Hopefully this help :) otherwise, comment below and maybe post your Blend file online so I can check if anything is missing. Goodluck!


Remove distortion from plastic jar I'm trying to make a simple scene featuring cashews in a cashew jar. In real life, the container is clear plastic and you can see through it with no issue or distortion. In Blender, it is the exact opposite.
How do I remove the distortion from the cashews in the jar? I've tried adjusting the IOR value, tried disabling the Refraction option in the Object panel, but nothing works. I've come so far on this project and this is the last step in finishing it up for myself.
Note: I am specifically referring to the distortion/blurriness of the cashews on the center of the flat sides. Not on the parts of the jar that are curved. I just want to be able to clearly see the cashews
Screenshots:

The 'ghosting' is caused by mixing glass with transparency.
Use a simple Glass BSDF shader instead, and it should work.


Blender Multiple Bake Problem When i try to bake multiple textures blender dont merge all texutres

What i want to make : https://imgur.com/a/n3hbiSw

and this happening

I was able to bake three objects on one UV Map texture by doing the following:

In UV Image Editor, create a new image texture. I did a simple black 1024x1024.
Select all three objects. Tab into Edit Mode. Unwrap "Light Map Pack" for quick and dirty testing. You will see the unwrap of all three objects evenly distributed across the UV image.
Create materials for your objects.
Add a "Image Texture" node to each object material (but do not connect it to anything). Make sure the Image Texture node has the UV map you created for baking in it. You should see "3" users for that Image Texture node. Make sure that node is selected / highlighted in each object.
Select your objects and hit bake.


How to scale one face of a skewed cube in the same skewed axis I am trying to follow a book on using blender (Blender 3d by Example), however I cannot seem to achieve the same result when following the steps exactly. What I want to end up with is the picture below. I have a skewed cube, with one face extruded and then scaled down but only parallel to the skewed side. The book however, uses the S + Z key combo for this. But this essentially moves the top and bottom edge up and down in a straight line.So I want the scaling to happen as in the example below. Please note that in the example image, I've tried to achieve the same by extruding first and then moving the edges into their skewed position. But this seems cumbersome. In real situations, the object I'm working on may have been skewed already.
Any help would be appreciated!

Change Pivot Point - Individual Origins
Select skewed (side) edges only
Scale

To move this selection in the skew direction change Transform Orientation > Normal
and move G in Y axis.

(Thanks Robin Betts for extension.)


Can you use a character for animation and 3d printing? Can you create a character for animation, rig the character, and then use the various poses for animation and 3d printing or do you have to create two separate characters one rigged for animation and one static one for 3d printing?

There should be no problem using a rigged character for 3D printing, assuming the character's mesh is suitable for printing (no holes, no non-manifold geometry, consistent normals pointing in the right direction, correct scale, etc).

To make sure all is prepared, you can make a copy of each pose to a new duplicate model, apply the Armature Modifier and delete the armature object (to clean up the scene), run printability tests via the 3D Printing Toolbox addon or an external program (Netfabb, Meshmixer, etc) and export your STL.


Is there a way to know camera information from an image (visually, without Exif data)? I want to use photos in Blender, but I need to know camera information (sensor, focal, etc. for camera that was used to capture these photos), there is no Exif data inside these photos. I wonder if there is an equation or way to detect camera information visually (not exact, but near enough), depending on distance or perspective, etc.

You can get the angle of view with the Blam add-on

You can get them both (sensor size and focal length) at one time, but only the common factor of the equation.

With the mentioned add-on, that you can freely download, you are able to match the camera look starting from a bunch of grease pencil layers. If your photo has three vanishing points as the one below, you should provide three different layers, one per axis.

After that you can start the camera calibration with the button on the left, and you'll get the focal length value automatically applied to the active camera.

You can see from this quick modeling that the geometry is following the correct perspective deformation.

And even the length of the edges results in more or less the same as you expect from a cube.

Now comes the hardest part, as there is no uniform relation between the focal length of a lens and the angle of view, since the size of the camera sensor also determines the angle of view.

So in order to get the right value showed in the Exif data of the camera's focal length you must at least know the size of its sensor... (I may be wrong; there are a lots of things to consider. I hope someone who has more knowledge can help here. A related question is https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/21616/how-can-i-calculate-focal-length-from-a-photograph).

Here's the scene after feeding the fields with the camera's real sensor size and focal length: the camera has to be slightly moved away from the subject to match the previous result.

Sorry, the properties panel is in my own language, anyway it's saying:

Camera Model NIKON D32000
Focal length = 38 mm
Focal length 35 mm = 57 mm
....

Image credits to Miguel Á. Padriñán, you can download it here.


Creating UV maps for my dragon I've been creating UV maps for my recently modelled dragon creature. I've got plenty of questions associated with creating UV maps for my model.

How large should my UV maps be? I want to export my model into UE4 game engine. I also want to add that my model is separated into three objects - head parts (eyelids, eyeball, pupil, headbones), the body and the wings.

Should I add all the parts of my model to same UV map?

Here are the pictures of my model and then the UV map of the part of my model.

HERE'S THE OVERALL MODEL

THE BODY

THE WINGS

THE HEAD PARTS

An UV map does not set the size of the textures you will use in your game engine. Try to use a 1024x1024 texture then change it to a 2048 (or any size) : you'll see the UV map will be adapted to the size.

What matters is the number of textures you will use (generally one per UV map), the size of them and the way you use these textures in "an optimal way" (so that the less part of them is useless).

Have you tried the "smart uv project" option when uv unwrapping ? If you do (make a copy before trying that), you'll see that the uv map is cut into plenty of small parts. The aim of that is to optimize the useful space of the textures while keeping the relative surfaces of the faces.
So for instance, if you look at your wings UV map, you can see that there is plenty of space in the texture that is not useful. So for a same texture size, the actual resolution for the wings will be lower with your UV map than it can be with the "smart uv project" option.
The counterpart of that is you cannot (or hardly) paint directly on such a texture. But you can do both : keep your UV map, use it in Blender with a big texture size, then bake on another "smart UV project" uv map with a lower texture size.

To summarize : all in red here is lost surface

For the textures, you can use a mipmap technics : the idea is to define several textures for the same UV map. The first texture is the full resolution (let say 1024, for instance) and is applied when the camera is very close to the model, the second texture is half resolution (ie. 512) and is shown when the cam is at some distance, the next texture is smaller again (ie. 256) and is used when the model is very far. Probably UE has built in functions to do that automatically.

Also the polycount of your mesh is important if you want to use it in a game. I cant be sure of a number for that (as computers are faster and faster) but for a main character around 20k tris is more or less a limit, generally. But there is no rules as all depends of what you want to do in your project.

Another point : sometimes symetrical parts of the mesh can share the same uv map and so share the same texture (when nothing needs to be different for each side). In consequence a same texture size will give a higher resolution in the game.

A last remark : imagine that in your game in UE, you want the colors of the eyes change (let's say depending on the dragon's mood), probably you'll need to set the eyes on a separate texture to do that as if not you'll need to change also the texture for all the head.


Blender crashes after grey window I simply cannot launch blender 2.79a whatever I do! I have reinstalled 4 times and done the same with older versions. I have also updated my drivers and installed an older version of Python in case it would fix it. Here's an image of the console just before it crashes:

https://i.imgur.com/8fCiglQ.png

After that, it launches the grey screen, holds for 1-2 seconds then just closes. I have tried using a zip and exe and neither work.

Text:

AL lib: (EE) UpdateDeviceParams: Failed to set 44100hz, got 48000hz instead
found bundled python: C: \Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\Python
Fatal Python error: Py_lnitialize: can't initialize sys standard streams
Traceback (most recent call last) :
File "C:\Python\Lib\io.py line 52, in <module>
File "C:\Python\Lib\abc.py line 147
print (f "Class: {cls. module } .{cls. qualname}", file=file)
                                                ^

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Note: Spelling errors are due to my OCR software not being great

How to fix:
Rename folder "Python" in C: and it will no longer try and use that folder.


How to animate a camera to follow an object I am creating an animation that is mainly focused on an moving and rotating object, the objects animation speeds up and slows down based on the music I plan on adding. I have the object animated the way I like but I need the camera to follow the object. I tried parenting them together and setting a track to but the problem then is that camera also follows the rotation of that object.

Is there anyway to like set just the camera's x location to be the same as the object's x location animation so that the camera follows the rotating object without actually rotating it's self?

Create an Empty and parent the camera to that instead of the actual object. Then add a Copy Location constraint to the Empty to copy the location of the object, ignoring the rotation. To get a delay between the object and the camera (so the camera lags behind the motion) you can use the Slow Parent option when parenting the camera to the Empty.


Can't find a previusly saved .obj I can't find my model. I don't know if it's Blender or where I'm saving it or if it's just what I'm trying to save.

I've been wanting to make some tweaks on a ROBLOX model for a while now, But the thing is whenever I save it as an OBJ. I can never find it in Blender, yet when I open my files (not in Blender)  It's there.

I'm new to Blender so it's probably obvious what I'm doing wrong anyways lol

You want to import .obj and you opening .blend
Go to file -> import -> Wavefront (obj)


Only duplicated an object, but on attempt to change its own texture, it simultaneously affects the texture of the object I sourced it from On an object, I pressed Shift + D and then G, Y, and moved the newly spawned object away from the remaining original.  Got two identical looking objects now.

Problem:  When I go to edit the alpha on the duplicate, the setting affects both of them at the same time, like entanglement.  I just want my setting change on one object to affect only that object.

Can anyone help?  Thanks.

When you duplicate an object you are not creating a new material.
Both objects share the same one.

You need to assing a new material to the copied objcect.

To the right of the material's name you will see a number, it indicates how many ojbects are sharing a material (in this case 2). If you click on the number you will create a copy of the material and assign it to the object.

Changing the material now will result in no changes on other objects.


Rigged pants move together? Hello, I'm new to rigging models clothing onto models, I can't figure out why both pant legs move together I've followed tutorials on how to rig clothing and did everything they did, but the issue is, the tutorials were for shirts, not pants. I can't find any tutorials for this nor any solutions, if anyone knows why this is happening please let me know, its driving me insane. I've been trying to deal with this for like 3 days now. Thank you

To complete this workflow using data transfer I recommend:

Check that armature modifier switched to weight:

Join this two parts (Ctrl+J):

Then apply Data transfer. In unknown reason, it doesn't works with armature even if it first. (maybe, it is because it doesn't grab original mesh from source object)

Then, finally, fix weights using weight paint mode.

Draw weight with needed bone selected.


Civic art project: 5'H x 5'W 3D heart shape sculpture. Can Blender map a 12" grid on it? From photos? Please forgive my intrusion into your amazing Blender world, I downloaded Blender in the hope it might help but, as a artist in the physical world it's all Greek to me so I am hoping someone here can help me out with this project.

The photos show the problem, I hope. Our city has installed a number of these 5' high by 5' wide fiberglass 3D hearts around the city and asked local artists and art related businesses to decorate them. My colleagues and I will be covering one in mosaic. We are at the planning stage...

The mosaic will be applied to 12" squares of thin mesh first and then those squares of mesh will all be attached to the heart later, all on the same day.

My hope was/is that Blender can work with photos of the heart sculpture, dividing the heart into 12" squares so we can plan the design to fit the heart as accurately as possible in advance. I've attached one compilation photo showing the sculpture from several angles but I had to downsize it drastically to be able to attach it here and I have no idea if it's enough to work with.

My question ... Can Blender wrap the heart with a 12" square grid and then allow us to flatten the grid out, so we can add a mosaic design over that and make sure it will fit around the surface of the heart?

Or, if we came up with a basic design, can Blender then wrap that design around the heart, and let us add a 12" grid pattern over that, then flatten that out so we can see how to lay out design on the pieces of mesh.

Either way we can definitely tweak the edges of the various mosaiced sections around the edges to make it fit when the time comes, but if we can use Blender to reduce the amount of 'in situ' work required to a minimum we would love to do that.

Yes.

You will first have to model the heart which shouldn't be a problem considering you can get all the dimensions you need.
It may take a lot of tweaking to get precise measurements but you can get very close with little difficulty.

Blender has an option to change units. This includes Inches :D

Once you have created the model, look into UV unwrapping in Blender. There is plenty of tutorials on it. You can paint the object in Blender without exporting but I recommend exporting it and using a program like Gimp or Photoshop for better results. You could also print the UV and draw over it, then scan it back into the program.

You should be able to find tutorial videos on all the things you wish to do.

Some other helpful tools you may want to look into would include:

Grease pencil
Mirror Modifier

Helpfull Links:

Units in Blender
Blender for Beginners
UV Unwrapping

Though it won't make much of a difference when modelling, if you want to render a design picture, I recommend using cycles engine.

Good luck with your project and I hope I helped,

BFB


How do I properly select part of an object to separate? I am trying to separate the highlighted area from this object. I have pressed B and then P to separate which works to an extent but it does not separate the whole area. I have rotated the object in the second picture. You can clearly see that only one side of this area has been selected. I basically tried to fix this by 'coloring in' the section by constantly pressing B and drawing little boxes over the black areas however, my molecules still look really patchy when I drag it away from its natural position and the framework underneath the molecules were also not selected.

The easiest way to select all the vertices in part of a dense mesh, is to switch to wireframe shading (simply press Z or from the 3D view header Viewport Shading > Wireframe) then use a selection tool like border select, to select the region of interest.

The same can be accomplished in solid view by turning off Limit Selection to Visible.

With either method  (wireframe or Limit Selection to Visible) you have disabled the depth culling on the selection, so you can select all the geometry, even the pieces "hiding" behind others.

With the piece selected the way you want then it is a simple matter to separate it P > Selection.


Why size and position changes while changing parent? I was trying to change parent of an object and while changing, the object seems really big and position changed, even though its transform values are same. I am really new to blender. How can if fix this.

Because when you parent an objectA to an objectB, objectB will follow objectA's transformations (location, rotation and scale), but it will keep its own transformation references, they won't be affected by the parent, and you will find them back if you unparent it.

If you want to keep the transformation you're currently seeing in the scene for this object, instead of simply deparenting, deparent with AltP > Deparent And Keep Transformation.


BPY - How to set Bone Parent? I have a bone called 'Hips', i want to set it's parent to bone 'Root', how can i do this?

these are some codes i've tried but didn't work

bpy.context.object.data.parent = C.object.data.edit_bones['Root']
i tried to select Hips bone then run this code to set the selected bone's parent to Root, but it gave this error IndentationError: unexpected indent

i also tried this code bpy.context.object.data.parent = bpy.data.armatures["Armature"].["Root"]
no wonder it didn't work either.

i'm using Blender 2.82

Here's what I used, the following two lines of code did the job:

arm = bpy.data.objects['Armature']
arm.data.edit_bones['boneName'].parent = arm.data.edit_bones['parentBone']


keep applying transformations to duplicated object is there a way, maybe a plugin, to keep aplying transform changes to duplicated mirrored objects as those happens? i've read about linked duplicates, but seem like those copies everything BUT transformations.

for example, i want to be able to grab the left wing of an aircraft, duplicate and mirror it, then change it's width and immediately see the duplicate change it's widthtoo, then move the original forward and immediatly see the duplicate move forward too.

Linked duplicates and do transformations in edit mode.
Or use mirror modifier.


Glare and transparency So I did add Glare in Compositing mode and when I render, it works as it should.

But when I try to render it with transparent background, it's not working. Why?

To see the glare in action, I would do this:

So the glare is working, but it doesn't affect the alpha channel. To make it do so, I'm setting the mix value to 1 to make the node output only the glare. I'm adding the glow to the image and the alpha, so it will be part of the alpha channel too. I'm then recombining them with a set alpha node.

Remember to clamp the add on the alpha, as it should never be greater than 1 (or smaller than 0)

I hope this helps you :D


How to control a procedural texture with an empty? I´d like to -somehow- assign an empty object to drive a procedural texture. The idea is that I can rotate, scale or move the empty and thus it transform the procedural texture (bricks, noise texture, etc..)
How can I manipulate a procedural texture using the position of an empty?

Thanks.

As @moonboots has commented, you've already got it.. and just done a bit too much?
This setup puts the texture into the Empty's object space, so transforms on the Empty will transform the texture.


Mesh sticking to edges when using subdivision surface Amateur with Blender here, using 2.8, having an issue with the Subdivision surface modifier. I have a very simple shape here and I'm trying to extrude while using the modifier, I have this one part of the mesh that sticks to the edges of the model.

I've tried everything I could think even, I've even deleted all the vertices in that area and rebuilt it from scratch and that darn thing just reappears. If I delete all the edges and then just fill in the new face, it'll just move to the next edge down. I definitely don't have any overlapping points.

Normals are inverted either on right or left of the model.

To solve it:

Edit mode
Select all A
ShiftN

An easy way to detect this is to use X ray:


Gray background of world When I render or when I use the verge3D app manager and open the model, the world background is gray and not white, even after setting the world color to white. I cant figure out what is doing this. This is what the background looks like:

The background should be completely white.
here is the blender file:

It is mostly because of some lighting effects are happening in the scene. If you want a complete white background the I would suggest making the background first transparent and then adding a alpha over node in the compositer. If you want shadows as well,you can use a plane as a shadow catcher to add shadows in the scene with complete white background


How to render postprocessed light object and THEN object from another layer that covers it? Preferably eevee solution Hey i started learning blender this week and i set my first non cube project to be lightsaber.
I had some problems with postprocessing glow effect but i found solution involving  two layers first with just glowing blade and another layer with rest of the scene objects. Result is nice but when i move the camera so that lightsaber hilt is between my mesh start to look translucent and those purple faces appear because well i set it up that way i think.

Here is my composition:

I dont know why but suddenly it works

Seems to worked after i set up cryptomatte like for cycles even though it doesnt work with eevee so yeah, like this:

I guess glare threshold is working like this so maybe i changed lightning and it didnt affect the rest or? Well anyway its solved now.


What's the difference between : Multiply, Add, etc In some of nodes input, the RGB Mix for example, there are several settings : "Multiply", "Add", "Mix", etc... what is the difference between them?

This is a different color blend modes like in 2D drawing programs like Gimp, Inkscape, Photoshop, Imagemagick, ets

For example, if you chose add, colors from first input will be add to second witch makes bright sum of both inputs.

Here is detailed explanation about blend modes in gimp manual


Prevent the light source from appearing in the reflection I have a glossy, metallic ball, rendered below. My problem is that you can clearly see the two lights used in the render. This lighting looks O.K. in the example, but what would I do if I wanted to remove the lighting from the reflection?

Note that I do still want the reflection, I just don't want the huge white spots. I also don't really want the brightness or position of the light to be noticeably changed.

Bonus question: Would there perhaps be a way to just soften the lighting rather than completely removing the white patches? Is there perhaps a way to make the white spots slightly darker without affecting the brightness of the light, or maybe a way to just smoothen out the white patches, so it is more of a gradient?

In cycles, go to your material that emits light. Your setup should look like this:


Problem with lights in blender 2.81 I'm having some problems with a blender project, I'm trying to learn how to animate and I did this very simple barrel that falls: only problem is, I can't figure out why but there is way too many light in my simulation (There maybe is a more precise name for that), and I really can't work out why the light that I created does not seem to work. I tried to increase a lot it's watt and change color, and I even tried to get it closer to my object, but it simply does not seems to work and I don't understand why. I'm leaving the project file so if you want you can download it and try to give it a look.

Project file (google drive)

Okay I looked at your file. There are some major problems, you are working on your lighting too soon. You have no materials applied to any of your objects. You need at least a basic material to setup lighting. Also your camera isn't placed very well to catch the action, it is barely getting the barrel at all. Fix these first then try to get the lighting. I would use a sunlamp, not the spot lamp.


Weird smooth shading I'm fairly new to Blender 3D and I'm making a model.
After applying smooth shading to my character's face, I get weird lighting.

Things that I've tried to resolve this problem:

Recalculate normals ( all normals are facing the right way )
Use Auto smooth
Apply edge split modifier

In the Properties Editor, go to Object Data > Geometry Data > Clear Custom Split Normal Data

Shading in object mode differ from sculpting mode?


Get position of the first solid crossing limits line of a camera I am working on a Python script for a scene of a movie project where no Depth of Field is used by the active camera (no dof_distance neither dof_object).

However there is a character crossing the limits line of the camera and I need the character position or at least, the location of the first point which cross the line (red point on my illustration). Could someone help me find a solution ?

I give you a simple illustration of my problem :

Ignoring other object's which might be located between the mesh and the ray origin you can use the object's ray_cast method:

If there are multiple mesh objects, you might simply iterate over the objects, picking the one yielding the closest intersection point.

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

cam = bpy.data.objects['Camera']
group = bpy.data.groups['Group']

min = (cam.data.clip_end, None, None)
for obj in group.objects:
    v0 = obj.matrix_world.inverted() * \
         cam.matrix_world.translation

    v1 = obj.matrix_world.inverted() * \
         cam.matrix_world * \
         Vector((0.0, 0.0, -cam.data.clip_end))

    success, location, normal, index = obj.ray_cast(v0, v1)
    if index != -1:
        mag = (obj.matrix_world * (location - v0)).magnitude
        if mag < min[0]:
            min = (mag, obj, location)

#set the cursor to the intersection point
if min[1]:
    bpy.context.scene.cursor_location = min[1].matrix_world * min[2]


Modifying one end of a spiral/curve I have created a spiral using the "Add curve" function and want to taper just one end of it (kind of like extruding and narrowing). Is there a way to do this? If not, what would be the best way create a spiral that enables the modification of its ends. Thanks.

You may do it using a curve as a Taper Object's target to change the thickness along the spiral's axis. You can then change its width using the curve's specials menu.

After creating a curve add a Bezier Circle and set it as a target in the Bevel Object window (Curve Data header).

Add a Bezier Curve and edit it in Edit Mode so it's straight and placed vertical.

Select the spiral in Object Mode and set the newly added Bezier Curve as a Taper Object target.

Modify the newly added curve to change the thickness along the spiral's axis. Experiment with it for different results.

Finally select the spiral in Object Mode, press W-->Width Size and drag the cursor away to change its width.


Is there a way to delete unneeded keyframes automatically with v2.79? This is outdated:
Is there a way to delete unneeded keyframes automatically?

Pressing [ O ] now activates proportional editing in the action editor. So how can I delete all the useless keyframes that populates the middle of the lines of orange stripes in the action editor?

Now to achieve the same result, while hovering the dope sheet or the graph editor press 'X'.
From there you'll have the possibility to use the 'clean keyframes' option or 'clean channels'.

If you want to access it through the menu, just click the 'key' option and from there you can access the 'clean keyframes' (as shown above).


How to properly unwrap my mesh? Is there a way to automatically unwrap my character? If not, is there a tutorial or something?

Unwrapping is a skill in and of itself. There really is no right or wrong. You have to judge that yourself.

I made a fairly extensive tutorial on it, but here's a quick overview:

Figure out where to flow of the mesh and plan where to place the seams. Wherever you place a seam, Blender will "cut" the 3D model and try to flatten it. You want to make sure first and foremost that it will be able to split apart into even planes, otherwise you will get major warping issues.
Open up a UV editor and start placing the seams on the mesh (CtrlE > Mark Seam).
UV unwrap the model (U > Unwrap) and make sure it unwrapped the way you expected.
Tweak the seams until you're happy with the result.

After you unwrap a few meshes you'll get the hang of it, and you'll be able to unwrap quickly and cleanly.


Add an joint object to a wireframe modifier I am trying to add a joint on the vertices of a wireframe modifier (where the lines of the wireframe modifier connect).

This is what I have:

This is close enough to what I would like:

(Ideally a joint would appear at EACH connection, unlike on the example above where there are several joint objects on some vertices and some don't have a joint object.)

I tried Dupliverts but it didn't work, and I tried a particle hair system but the results I got were very messy.

I can't apply the Wireframe modifier because it's animated with a displace.

A possibility, to avoid the duplicate object to be influenced by the wireframe modifier is simply to use another object of the same shape and set the dupli on it.

This second object could be hidden at rendering or simply composed of vertices and edges but no faces:


How do I render out a clear render with no blurs? When I render a picture in blender the render doesn’t come out clean and clear with the materials it’s always blurry. And I’ve tried to increase the samples and reduced the denoiser I’ve  checked my camera settings but there still no change. I can only use Photoshop to sharpen the image which isn’t bad but not as expected. Where as I look online and see very clean and clear renders with the materials.

To me it doesn't look really blurry, but more like a (too) heavy denoising.

How many samples are in this render?
To me, it looks like there is not enough in the first place, so the denoiser doesn't have enough detail to work with, and basically roughly washes out the pixels to get rid of the noise.
Out of my head, I would say such render would require a few hundreds of samples. So try like 300 first, then increase per hundred.

Just so you don't spend your entire day making test renders for nothing, don't hesitate to use the render border tool ⎈ CtrlB to render only small parts of your shot. So it will be fast to render & re-render.

Another thing you can do is to set a crazy amount of samples you will never reach and enable Progressive refine:

That way, it will render the entire frame sample per sample instead of fully rendering every sample of little portions. So you can render a portion of your frame via render border and see how the render quality improves along with the samples.
Once you're happy with the result (don't forget you have a denoise after), you look which sample amount has been rendered and you set that value for the final render samples.

Don't forget to disable progressive refine and render border (⎈ Ctrl⎇ AltB) for that one. Progressive refine is slower, and you don't want to let that render border on when you think you render the entire frame.


UV Editor; alignment of two meshes here is a new topic I can not solve. I am using Blender 2.80.

At UV Editor I would like to align vertex from one Object to Edge of an other Object.

I tried snap incremental. But each vertex will always snap to t's own incremental mesh?

If you want to do it manually just enable edge snapping, then grab the one you want and while moving it tap X to restrict the movement to that axis alone.
That way, you can move horizontally and snap it to the same place the vertex on the bottom is, while maintaining it's vertical position unchanged.

All that said, I would simply add a few UV seams along those horizontal loops.


Python commands listed in the info area do not exist I'm a Blender beginner just trying to find my way around, with the end goal of fully automating a number of rather pedestrian 3D manipulation tasks. While experimenting with various Python commands I encountered the following situation:

I use the UI to change the scene unit system from the default Blender units to Metric/millimeters (I can also do this in Python). But now the grid units in the 3D view are too small, so they need to be adjusted as well.
I go to the Display section of the Properties screen (window?) and I set the Scale to 0.01, which would give me a decently visible grid.
The Python code shown in the Info area once I execute this command is:
bpy.context.space_data.grid_scale = 0.01
But when trying to run this same command in the Python console I find out that
the SpaceConsole object (.space_data) does not have any attribute named grid_scale. That is also confirmed by the auto-completion feature, and by the Python API documentation that comes with version 2.79 of Blender, which is what I'm running.

A couple of questions related to this case, and the general exercise of trying to familiarize myself with the Blender environment, which so far presents a unexpectedly steep learning curve when it comes to "getting both feet off the ground" (in this case maneuvering around the UI):

How far can I trust the Python commands shown in the Info area while I manipulate objects manually in the 3D view? (This particular one obviously can't be trusted, since it doesn't exist or it's been deprecated.)
Is there any other way to use Python to set the grid scale after I change the scene units (or any time I want to)?
If there is no other way (anymore), then what workarounds exist to achieve this modest goal? (Saving a file with all the correct scene and grid units and loading that instead, etc.)

I apologize in advance for wasting someone's time with newbie questions, but in this case this discrepancy seems to point to a shortcoming in the product, which I would like to confirm (and I am actually reading the _ manual :))

One reason context.space_data in the console isn't working is because of, well, the context. space_data is of the type Space(see here). When you're adjusting the grid scale, the space_data for the screen area 'VIEW_3D'. When you're typing in the console, the screen area is 'CONSOLE', so the 3D view properties aren't available because the context is wrong. Not to mention, getting the space_data that way is read-only.

One way to change the grid scale is this:

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        area.spaces.active.grid_scale = 0.01

Resources: Space, Area

It's also helpful to look at the tooltips when hovering over the button/property, as they provide information as well.


How can I avoid Undo/Redo on StringPropery or bpy.props in general? As per the question, is it possible to avoid the effect of Undo / Redo on a StringProperty? I've run into a situation where I have to avoid this, but I'm not sure if it can be done, and how.
At this moment in particular I am focused on a StringPropery, but I think it may be useful to know also for other types of bpy.props

Setter and getter saving data outside blend file data.
Suggest this could be done with a setter / getter. For example could append string property to a text file, which would be outside the influence of the blend file data (undo stack.)
Here is a test example, using a hardcoded filepath to a text file.  The property is prepended to the text editor footer to test.

import bpy
from bpy.props import StringProperty

from pathlib import Path
filepath = "/tmp/test.txt"

def get(self):
    f = Path(filepath)
    if f.exists():
        return f.read_text()
    else:
        return "Default"

def set(self, value):
    f = Path(filepath)
    f.write_text(value)

bpy.types.Scene.foo = StringProperty(
        get=get,
        set=set,
        )

def draw(self, context):
    scene = context.scene
    self.layout.prop(scene, "foo")

bpy.types.TEXT_HT_footer.prepend(draw)

Note: This is solely a proof of concept. Would require a blend file name based filepath, or in file data for different values on a per blend basis.


Project light through shape, text or symbol to appear in cloud or mist Think of the Batman symbol, but reversed, i.e., the symbol would be brighter than the clouds.

How would one project light through a "stencil" (of any symbol/text) on clouds/fog/mist/or solid wall and have the remainder display?

You could either model your batman logo or get one from the internet in SVG file format and use it as an actual "geometry stencil" in your scene to block out light coming from a projector line.
If you prefer you may also use an image texture as alpha map for your stencil

Just make sure your spot light is strong enough to make a visible influence and the size of the lamp is small enough so the shadows don't become too blurry, otherwise it may be difficult to make out the symbol

EDIT

For the materials simply use a Volume Scatter shader connected to the Volume socket of the Material Output. For the red volume use a very low density like 0.1 or less, for the blue volume receiving the symbol a higher density is acceptable like 1.0.

For a more physically accurate version mix a Volume Scatter and a Volume Absorption nodes using the Mix Shader node


Is there a way to solidify model only when it explodes to pieces? If I apply Solidify modifier it changes the model look in general, I only want it to have volumetric pieces when exploded.

You can keyframe the Thickness value of the Solidify Modifier or enable/disable the modifier with keyframes.


Camera perspective in viewport is different to in render I want my image to look like image 1, but when I render, the result is image 2.
Why is the viewport different to the rendered output?

It's because you're zoomed in on the viewport, and can't see the edge of your camera.

In the viewport, use the mousewheel to zoom out until the edge of the camera shows up. Select the camera, and move the camera forward with G MMB


Composite transparent overlapping objects from different scenes? Following on from this question `Can I use Cycles materials with Blender Internal? When following the instructions the solution worked fine but when i tried to apply it to multiple windows I came across this problem

(larger image here)

When I render the picture (F12) as you can see the glass has no effect on the first picture and the glass can be seen through the mesh of my wall. So I added an add node and I got the effect of the glass to show but no matter what I have tried to do I still cannot get the back windows to be hidden behind the mesh of the front wall. Is there a way to solve this.

The issue your having is masking. You have to have a mask of some sort to get the windows behind the rest of the building. I've come up with a (rather imperfect) solution, as long as you assign a different material to the inside of the building. Note that the following is assuming that you have completed the steps in "Can I use Cycles materials with Blender Internal?"

In the outside building material for "scene", scroll down to options and set Pass Index to 1 (or 2 or whatever, as long as nothing else in the scene has the same pass number).
Create a second indoor material and assign it's pass index to something other than 2 (or leave it at the default 0).
Go to your render layers and enable Material Index.

Rerender the scene and go to the compositor. You should now see a new plug output called IndexMA.
Add an IDMask node, plug in IndexMA to IDValue and set Index to whatever value the outdoor material's index is (and check anti-aliasing).
Add an Invert node and plug in the output of the IDMask node.
Plug the output of the of the Invert node into the Fac of the Alpha over node.


How to limit holdout to one or more objects? Selecting in the "materials properties" of a certain object (the "masking object") the shader "holdout" will make any (part of an) object that is in the scene behind the masking object disappear.
How can I limit this effect to one or more objects only, so that all other objects in the scene are unaffected by the masking effect of the masking object?

Using view layers:

Setup your scene with 3 collections:

One for the objects that won't be masked

One for the objects to mask

One for the holdout object

Then create a layer for the "no hold out":

No hold out collection is rendered

Holdout collection is indirect only

Holdout object is disabled

And a layer for the hold out:

No holdout part is indirect only

Holdout part is rendered.

In the compositor:

The hold out layer is alpha over for either alpha parts of the holdout layer or for the parts where holdout depth is greater than the no holdout one.
All is rendered with a transparent film.


Baking two objects to one texture As the picture shows I have leaves, where every leaf is a separate plane, and a ground. They are unwrapped (see below), and I don't know how to bake these leaves onto the ground so that only the ground has geometry, and I can delete the old leaf planes. Do you know how to make this?

Ok, so I assume that one leaf was made, used as a particle system which was applied as an object and then this leaves object was already joined to ground object to create one object but the vertices of the leaves have the leaf texture and the ground vertices have the ground texture. Is that correct?

It looks like you already have each thing unwrapped into one UV map so if I've understood you correctly baking two assigned materials into one diffuse material is what you want to do, correct?

Baking two material textures into one:

1) Open the node editor and the UV image editor. In the UV image editor create a new image and give it the dimensions you want your new diffuse image texture to be. Make sure the dimensions are quite big because it gives you the option to scale it down if you want to crop it. Now save it to a location you can remember.

2) Go to node editor, click on your object and go into material of either object and add an image texture. DO NOT CONNECT IT TO ANYTHING. Now open your new blank image inside the image texture you added (the image which you created and saved earlier).

3) In the render tab, scroll down until you see "Bake". Expand the tab and choose Diffuse (it should be the default option). With the image texture selected in the node editor (make sure it's highlighted) click "Bake". This should create a new material which includes the leaf materials for each leaf plane in your object.

4) Now you should be able to delete the leaf planes and use the new texture on your ground plane. If you want to, use GIMP or photoshop to crop the newly baked image so that there are no transparent parts. Now you can UV unwrap the ground plane again so it fills the UV map and align it to the newly cropped baked image texture so it all lines up if it doesn't already.

You can also create a normal map using the same method by duplicating the ground plane, deleting the leaf geometry in edit mode and UV unwrap it. In the bake tab, choose "Normal", select your complete mesh and shift select your new edited ground plane mesh second and in the bake tab click the option "Selected to Active". Then click "Bake".

Remember to duplicate everything and move it to a different layer or save a back up file before you do anything so that you don't lose everything if you make a mistake.

If I've missed a step, please feel free to edit my answer because I'm away from my PC and can't double check :)

Hope this is what you were looking for :)


Blender Texture working differently when Imported to Unity I made this texture in Blender for my dragon and everything works fine there. Then I import to Unity and the Texture for the top of the right wing goes to the underside and something similar happens with the left tail wing.

This is only my second model so I have no idea where to begin to fix this, and I haven't found anything on Google to help me with my problem.

If you want a closer look

http://z-graves.deviantart.com/art/Problem-with-Model-651390730

Could it be that the normals of mirrored side of the dragon are facing the wrong way?

If you enable Backface Culling  you will see your model as it will appear in Unity.

If you notice a difference in your mesh when Backface Culling is enabled then you probably do have inverted normals.

To fix this, in Edit mode, with all of the dragon selected open the Tools panel and then the Shading/UV tab > Normals > Recalculate Normals.


Smooth transition across mesh I would like to learn a method for creating smooth transitions between components of an object while keeping the geometric integrity of the two pieces.

I would not like to alter the general shape of the ring or hook part, but am curious what ways there are to smoothly transition parts of an object so that I may create better looking models.
hook.blend

First you should simplify your object to make it easier to work, select all and press CtrlE > Un-Subdivide:

Here is what you get (set the parameters in the Operator box), as long as it doesn't change your shape it's better to work low-poly imho:

Then boolean the 2 objects:

It gives bad topology:

But you're going to work on it with the knife tool, join, dissolve edges and vertices, etc:

Now you can give your object a Subdivision Surface etc:


Alligning vertices in a UV image I have an object that is similar on one side and the other. However, the UV image editor UNwrapped it so that each half has slightly different vertex positions. How can I get it so that all the vertices line up?

If those UVs are exactly the same, you can align UVs to some common vertex and then rotate one UV with enabled vertex snapping and snap the rotation to some vertex of the other UV.

Enable snapping Shift+Tab
Set Snap UV Element to Vertex Ctrl+Shift+Tab
Set Selection Mode to Island Ctrl+Tab
Grab one island G and align it to corresponding vertex of the other UV island
Change Selection Mode to Vertex, select the common vertex and hit Shift+S to set Cursor to Selected, so you can use this vertex as a pivot point in next step
Change Pivot to 2D Cursor .
This is quite unpredictable but hopefully it will work - rotate the UV R and hover your cursor over vertices on the second UV until the rotation snap to it.

If your UVs are not exactly the same, you can then select all vertices and press W > Remove Doubles to merge vertices close to each other.


Eevee how to render without black boxes in textures? How cam I get rid of the black color from my texture in render? I believe it's possible.

Here's what I have:

And here's what I need to look like(I switched to texture paint mod and black dissapeared, how can I achieve that for the render result?):

If I change it to Alpha Blend it seems very transparent, so you could barely see it

Alpha Channel in Eevee?

This has already been answered here. You have to switch your Material Settings Blend mode to Alpha.

Edit : This goes hand to hand with this kind of node setup of course :


What happens to my 3d model when I apply the mirror modifier ? it adds extra vertices I don't understand what happens to my 3d model when I apply the mirror modifier. It seems that it adds a lot of vertices that I can't remove anymore. Anyway the modifier is able to mirror the eye socket correctly. Check the pictures attached and help me to understand how to fix the problem. Thanks.

The mirror modifier has a center.  You need to place your model on the correct side of its origin. You may just create vertices on one side of the local origin. You only need model on one side ... the left or the right.  There are more flexible alternatives than this but this is the good way to start.
In the image lets assume I am trying to make a sphere with just half a sphere. The blue sphere is almost correct.  I wanted the separation to be a little obvious visually for purposes of explanation.
The next attempt is where the model has too much separation.
In the last model I have unfortunately placed vertices on both sides of the X axis.  This may be what you did also.
You can either remove the mirror modifier. Or make a selection on the undesired vertices and grow the selection with Control+, then delete the vertices.
I wonder if you are seeing another mesh in the same place as the bird.  I suggest you change the names of the mesh to something like Bird so as to explain the issue better.


Adding objects does not work Setting the object does not work when added to the scene. Also, the return of actions Ctrl + Z does not work. Re-entering the program does not help. How to fix? Version 2.79

Maybe try to reactivate the Global Undo option in the Preferences > Editing. Don't ask me why it deactivates and what it has to do with it though   :(


How to add fog in the compositor in blender 2.79 I want to add mist/fog in the compositor for my scene but i dont understand how to add it.

I have looked up and nothing seems to tell me exactly how to do it because in my version of blender (2.79) because there is no mist output connection in the renderlayer node (image attached). I tried using volumetrics bt it also just made everything go dark- maybe because my scene is very large but i dont know.

Also preferably i would like to know the compositor way because my computer is too slow to keep up with volumetrics.

Thanks in advance

The cheapest way to do it is just using the Z-depth like the old games in the 90s to 2000s did it.

For that you just scale the z-depth into the desired range and use it as a factor to mix in a fog-color.

Additionally you can add an early cutoff to not have that much fog closer to the camera.

You can play around with all the factors and the mixing types to get the fog you like.

You can also add a power-to math node to make the falloff non-linear.

If you want something more advanced you can add some ground-fog by rendering
world-coordinate as an additional layer and using world-Z in addition to camera-Z as a factor.

To make it look more realistic you can also add in differently scaled noise-textures based on bands of z-depth (using masks generated with less-than and greater-than nodes).


Effective ways to paint textures I would like tips or tutorials for how to paint good looking textures. I don’t own Photoshop and aren’t planning to buy it yet. So are there any free software that works good for painting textures or are there more simple ways to do it in Blender? Right now I’ve painted them in Blender, but in case there is’nt some workflow I don’t know about I would say it is’nt effective or easy. Especially when it comes to details. I have used either texture paint to paint straight on the object or image editor and painted on the image. It seems most convenient to paint on the image rather than on the object, however it can be hard to know where it will end up on the object. I aint experienced with creating textures, so any help is appreciated. Also, I am using 2.8 beta

If you want to use it, GIMP is a great alternative to Photoshop with a lot of the same tools and features for free. From there you could probably follow a Photoshop tutorial relatively well like this one.

I don't do it as much any more, but when I did texture painting, it worked really well for me to have a texture paint window open on one side of my display and an image editor on the other (see this post). Doing this, you can get some really good detail as long as you have a good set of UVs. I never even had to use GIMP or Photoshop.


How to tile normal map? How can I tile normal map in Cycles?

I tried to use Texture Coordinates and Mapping nodes with different settings, it works with the texture, but doesn't work with the normal map.

It is alredy tiled

Normal maps, like any other texture it's automatically tiled in cycles unless you are specifically clamping the tiling.

Scaling the incoming texture coordinates, should be enough to show up the repetition of the pettern regardless of the map type.

The problems from your setup comes from the usage of an Environment Image texture with Color data options, while the usual setup requires an Image Texture with Non Color data for normal maps.


How can I make my tank tracks thicker? Noticed my tank tracks on my tank model are thin, I need to thicken them up. I tried the solidify modifier but since the tracks have some holes/empty spaces in them it closed them. How can i make my track thicker?

I want to keep the polycount lower so if its possible to make it thicker without changing the actual geometry then that would be great. Basically i need to extrude the inside of the tracks.

Press Alt + S to access the shrink/fatten tool.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.80/modeling/meshes/editing/transform/shrink-fatten.html


How do I clear sharp edges on my models / apply one smoothing group to the whole piece? I am following a tutorial on how to make collision models for my meshes and have come across this step:

I am very new to blender, therefore I don't understand what this means, do I have to add a modifier to this models specifically or is this where I use the mark sharp function to select individual edges to smooth them? Thus clearing the sharp edges.
Also what does applying one smoothing group mean?
Thanks,

You only need to clear sharp edges if they have been marked sharp in the first place, If you are unsure, go to edit mode, select the whole object (all), right click, and select "clear sharp". See below:

And yes - one smoothing group means select the whole thing (in object mode) and select "shade smooth" - this is to differentiate from some models which have different sections selected, and smoothing applied to only those sections.


How do I keep particles still? I have a particle system that just doesn't want to stay still. I turned off all physics for it (including gravity) and removed all force fields, but they still move. Here's a gif of how they move:

Frame 1:

Frame 500:

I've noticed that there's a pattern of movement: they appear to be separating on the Z axis. The only reason they're also moving left is because I put in a wind force field, but this unexpected effect still happened before the wind.

It looks like your particles are getting a little normal velocity (i.e. being "pushed" off the emitter's surface).  You need to turn down the Normal value under the Velocity rollout of the particle settings.

Set this value to 0.000 and your particles shouldn't move.


Bmesh.ops.mesh_to_bmesh usage returns cryptic error I was messing around with bmesh and tried to use the mesh_to_bmesh operation, however, I was returned this error...

NotImplementedError: mesh_to_bmesh: keyword "mesh" type 4 not working yet!

The best I can tell this is saying that the function hasn't actually been implemented into the code and is just a placeholder. If this is correct, can anybody tell me if there is another way to transfer a mesh back into a bmesh object? Thanks.

The proper function to be used is the  bm.from_mesh(me) function where bm is the bmesh object being transferred to and me is the mesh. Also for the reverse operation we can use bm.to_mesh(me) which will load the bmesh data back into the mesh.

For code example see the template bmesh_simple.py which is included in blender text editor.

some of the bmesh operation didn't work yet like bmesh.ops.bmesh_to_mesh , mesh.ops.mesh_to_bmesh and bmesh.ops.object_load_bmesh, the only note is that the DOC says :

  this bmop is private


Copy UV scale within one object This problem has been addressed many times before for copying UV's from one object to another object. But I need to copy UV map scale from one face group to another within the same object. In the example I've a brick texture that I've sized 15 times on X and Y. Now when I apply the same material to the chimney the texture is much smaller because the UV map is smaller. I can scale it by hand in the UV editor, but it will be difficult to hit the same scale factor and it just seems so random to do. Is it possible to just copy the UV scale from the walls? I know it's possible in 3DS Max..

How we usually go about matching the uv is to scale all the uv which are suppose to have the same materials together after matching the scale with Ctrl+A (Match island scale operation.) If this is impossible in a particular workflow. Then try the following:

We usually end up using a checker map pattern to eyeball the sizes of the checker, to approximate the scale of every surface before applying the actual material.

Create a color checker image go for 2048x2048
Apply the checker to all the surface of the model.
Enter Edit Mode and duplicate the faces in question and move it near the faces that has the scale you want to match. (Step for easier eyeball comparison)
Select the duplicated face in the UV Editor and start scaling.
Match the sizes in the checker pattern, and take note of the scaling factor
on the bottom left hand of the uv scale before hitting LMB .
Delete the duplicated face.
Enter the scale value from step 5. to the faces you want to affect.

If these answers are not satisfactory or understood, will be glad to post some images to help explain the workflow.


When to use `getExecutionCode` and when `execute`? Reading the documentation and the source I couldn't understand when to use what so far.
When do you use the method getExecutionCode and when execute?

As you may know Animation Nodes creates a python script based on your node tree. So each node has to provide some code that goes this script.

The execute function is fairly easy to use and should be prefered when you have a static amount of sockets and when the execution code does not change when you change some properties of the node.

The getExecutionCode function is called every time the node tree is changed. So it can return different code depending on some sockets. Also it avoids the function call overhead which can be noticable when you execute a node thousands of times.

In general you can write most nodes in both functions, there is no clear separation when to use what. I suggest you start writing nodes using the execute function.

btw: the getExecutionCode function will be generated automatically based on the sockets if the node has a execute function.

I hope that helps a bit, feel free to ask more detailed questions about the code. But maybe it would be better to ask them on github, not sure...


import SDI signal and video board to Eevee from the real world camera I want to use Eevee for an AR project.

My question: is it able to import SDI signal and video board to Eevee from the real world camera to do the real time render?
If its possible how do I configure the SDI video capture card? Also what type of SDI card should i use?

Yes but extensive coding are required.

You will need to provide an API for the SDI signal and the capture card with Blender(maybe socket). And inside the Blender, you will need to deal with video sequence in real-time, this is not an easy job in Blender for now, you might need an custom shader to fetch data from socket and display it directly without Blender bpy module since it is slow for massive data like video.

And also a lot of function and operator in Blender are not optimized for video processing, which EEVEE only provide view-port real-time. Manipulating data while being real-time rendered require specified condition, like pre-build asset, baking environment light and so on. We are still making it possible for nowadays hardware. Blender with EEVEE is not designed to deal with this kind of task. I would personally recommend other software, eg. Unity.


why does fur after combing act unpredictably? I have created a model of a mandrill and I’ve been using particles to make the fur.
Because the fur throughout the body of a mandrill is very different, I’m duplicating parts of the whole mesh and slightly scaling them down to stay inside the big mesh. So I have a “chin" mesh with one particle system, a "face/top head" mesh with another particle system, etc.
I guess I could use vertex groups for the same purpose, but several tutorials seem to use the duplicated-mesh-parts approach to keep the flexibility of retouching the whole mesh if necessary.

On some of the particle systems - e.g. the chin - I’m getting the result I’m after.
On others - e.g. face/top head - even though the particles look fine upon creation, once I comb and render, they get a life of their own and point to different directions, clump, etc.

I have recalculated the normals, checked deflect emitter and even tried applying the particle systems to vertex groups created in the whole mesh (rather than using the duplicated parts). But I’m still getting a very sad looking mandrill.

Any ideas?
Thank you.

When setting up particle hair we normally configure a small number of hairs, then use children hairs that get created around each existing hair to fill out for the render.

The children hair settings have options that make them curl up or clump together around the parent hair. I think the bending and clumping you see is the children hairs being deformed by these settings after they are shown. Most likely this is because in particle edit mode you aren't showing any children, so when they show up in object mode they look much different. While in particle edit mode you can turn on the option to display children hairs. This is in the toolbar T under Options.

For performance we normally only display a portion of the children hairs while grooming the hair, and use more hairs for a better final image. These options are found in the Children panel of the particle settings. Display is how many children we see in the 3dview, while Render is how many are used at final render stage. If you set these the same while grooming the hair you will see less change at render time. Once finished grooming you may want to turn Display back down to keep the 3dview responding.


Switching resolution wipes rendered layers? If you render with the usual F12 render button, then any previously rendered layers get blanked out and re-rendered. If you are manually rendering via the button on nodes in the compositor, you can render 1 layer at a time without blanking your other layers. However, if you render 1 layer manually, then change the resolution, then render another layer, it blanks the first one.

Is there any way to stop this from happening?

The context is that I'm working on a script that renders each layer with different settings, including different resolutions. I'm trying to keep all the layers live in the compositor.

Maybe something that auto-saves every render, and won't overwrite previous, just append a number to the end? Someone wrote a script that I think does this - https://blenderartists.org/t/autosave-every-render/425838/9


Hole pattern in model when moving in sculpt mode this is not the first time this is occuring to me and I wonder if it might lead to problems further down the road. I created a metaball as I mostly do when starting to sculpt and as soon as I am moving the view in the viewport I get this pattern, as to be seen in the picture. But it disappears the second as I let go the MMB.

Any idea why this happens and if this could be a problem?

Thanks for reading.

2.8b still has a lot of draw issues, it probably won't affect your mesh. You can report bugs here https://developer.blender.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/1/


Is There a Way to "Render" the sound itself in Blender? I know this sounds like a ridiculous/newbie question, and I know it's been asked before (and yes, I am currently aware that there's no 'official' method for doing this), but is it theoretically possible to obtain data (from, say for example, the collision of objects) and through some elaborate scripting, be able to actually simulate what it would physically "sound" like? And if it were possible, how could it be done?

I can imagine that the adjustment of objects' positions relative to the active camera would be a fairly simple and straightforward place to start out (rapid oscillations based on the locations of each object could simulate sound wave pressures and be delivered straight to headphones), but other sounds appear a bit more complicated because of the way the physics system is already set up, with an emphasis on speed & efficiency rather than complete and total accuracy.

Anyways, I guess my primary question is: how would one go about beginning to script such a thing? Have there been attempts to do this already? Has anyone considered implementing an idea like this to create physically accurate sounds? (rather than taking a sound effect that has no relation to the physical qualities of the object it's ascribed to and using it for that purpose)

There is active research happening in this field currently and Stanford is in the forefront of this research. They presented their work at SIGGRAPH, 2018. I hope soon it can be integrated to Blenderv2.8. Check out their work on the same -

Paper - https://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/wavesolver/

Video Explanation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mjPxcE8UDg

Articles - https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/crash-bam-plop-new-system-brings-sounds-animation-life


Is there a way to erase all image data blocks for a specific .blend? When I no longer need the images, sifting through the image data blocks (or even typing the name) can be time-consuming in repetition. Especially when images have the same or similar prefixes.

Is there a way around this?

When you have a data block that has no users it will automatically be removed when you save your project and reload the file.

Blender does not delete data right away as someone may have a use for it still. An example is if something has been imported/linked/appended and has not been assigned to an object yet. Obviously you want it to stay in memory until it is given a user or else it would be gone as quickly as it was loaded!

To recap simply save your scene and reopen it and all your unused content will go away. With the exception of data that you have specifically told blender not to delete even if it has no users. (You can do that by pressing the button with the letter 'F' on it.)


Fluid simulation - direct access to surface possible? I'm working on a simulation of a fluid surface in a model "river bed". My aim is to study the development of the surface pattern over time during flow.

I'm new to Blender - so here is my basic (maybe stupid question):
Is it possible in Blender to get the data of the interface between water and air in a table (x/y/z) during all the (or at least many) timesteps of the simulation?

Thanks in advance.

Update: Sorry for the unclear post. I have not started to work in Blender yet (so I cannot provide any results), I just wanted to investigate if there is a chance to get the data as needed (in table form as mentioned above).

The aim is to develop a water "flow sensor" that can detect patterns on the surface. I want to investigate how certain patterns develop in time, dependent on (water speed / amount of water / shape of river bed ...). I'd be happy to get any help on setting up the model in a second stage.

Thank you again.

You can export or access the simulation data in many ways:

obj or other mesh formats that gives you surface vertices locations per frame. Depending on your application you can use a Shrinkwrap modifier and a subdivided plane to keep the vertex count constant between frames
render Z-depth images of the surface from camera from above, giving you every visible surface point location in space (this has same limitations as that shrinkwrap trick)
you can use python and scripting to generate any custom data you want and to export it. With python api you can for example cast rays where you need to sample the surface and measure distances

One thing to note is that Blender's fluid simulation is meant for visuals, it is not meant to be scientifically accurate. You may find that in real world the fluid behaves a bit differently.


Something is wrong with "Link object data" in Blender 2.81 When I try to copy object data from one mesh object to multiple objects, the rest of the objects disappear, and the object data is only copied to one object. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

Problem below (.gif):

Set Origins First.

Speculate that the array objects are the result of applying array modifier and separate by loose parts.

Notice they all share the origin of bottom left corner original.

When you link data the non offset mesh of active is given to all objects of array, hence you have all objects in same location.

Simply set origin to geometry of array selection (eg in question GIF, after selecting all white spheres, and  before selecting red object and linking object data.


How to change parametric object attributes after creation Once a cylinder is created, how to go back to its attributes ?
"Vertices, Cap Fill type etc.."

You will have one opportunity to adjust the parameters on the newly created object by pressing F6 blender 2.79b or the lower right properties box in 2.8. If you later on need to adjust it, just redo the object.


Why is the volume scatter more dense in the viewport than in my final render? I need to get the same effect as in the viewport, but I can't find a difference in the settings for viewport and final render. All lights are render-activated in the outliner, and in the object properties. Thanks for any help

 (I changed the green color a little, so it's not 100% as in the images provided)

You can try setup like below.

Then adjust "density" and mix shader fac.
Then what You also can do is to power up your lights.


What happened in surface? I download 3d model of fdx data.
But surface is not good only front side
What happened in surface when like this looks of material?
How should I fix ?

The normals are messed up, flip them: Mesh > Normals > Recalculate Outside.


Blender Crashes after a few Renders from a Batch Script On Windows 7 I am rendering a series of animations from Blender in a batch script that looks like this:

call "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" -b "E:\Project.blend" -S Scene1 -o "E:\exports\Fredericksburg1\Fredericksburg1_" -F JPEG -s 001 -e 435 -a
call "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" -b "E:\Project.blend" -S Scene2 -o "E:\exports\Fredericksburg2\Fredericksburg2_" -F JPEG -s 001 -e 480 -a
call "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" -b "E:\Project.blend" -S Scene3 -o "E:\exports\Fredericksburg3\Fredericksburg3_" -F JPEG -s 001 -e 180 -a

My problem is that after rendering one or two files, the rest of the Blender instances crash immediately after reading the preferences. The crash file just has this:

# Blender 2.69 (sub 0), Revision: 60995

It is not related to which project I use, usually only the first one or two render.
I have tried a few things, making sure the computer didn't go to sleep or even the screen go blank, play around with the .bat file, but I haven't been able to get anything to consistently work. Any ideas?

You could change from a batch script to a python script. You can call the python script on startup by adding a parameter to the call like so:

call "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" -b "E:\Project.blend" -P pythonScript.py

the python script would look somewhat like this:

pythonScript.py:

import bpy
from bpy.app.handlers import persistent

renderInformation = {
    'Scene1': (r'E:\exports\Fredericksburg1\Fredericksburg1_', [1, 435], 'JPEG'),
    'Scene2': (r'E:\exports\Fredericksburg2\Fredericksburg2_', [1, 480], 'JPEG'),
    'Scene3': (r'E:\exports\Fredericksburg3\Fredericksburg3_', [1, 180], 'JPEG'),}
# you can use any slash and just copy-paste the path from the explorer
# as long as it doesn't end with a "\'"

@persistant
def callbackFunc(context=None):
    try:
        sceneIdent, info = renderInformation.popitem() # get the next scene to render
        scene = bpy.data.scenes[sceneIdent] # get the actual scene
        bpy.context.screen.scene = scene # set the scene
        (scene.render.filepath,
         (scene.frame_start, scene.frame_end),
         scene.render.image_settings.file_format) = info # extract information
        bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True) # render as animation
    except:
        pass # then the list is exhausted and we can end the process

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if callbackFunc not in bpy.app.handlers.render_complete:
        bpy.app.handlers.render_complete.append(callbackFunc) # we register a callback after each render
    callbackFunc() # and call it ourselves at first

This just keeps blender down to one instance and might be worth considering anyways if you want to get deeper into the action, with more scenes to render etc. A batch script for that seems quite irrational, idk :)

I hope this fixes the problem for you, if not, then you might consider taking a look at your CPU-loading, maybe your scenes are just too big :? I don't think so since two render good but you never know. Tell me if there is anything you're interested about or if the proposed "solution" doesn't work.


Video editing missing feature(?) I need that a movie clip strip is scaled and moved in different positions along the time. I am not using blender as 3d editor, but only the video editing mode.
I can't find a way to move the video in the screen.
I tried to apply the transform effect to it, but i can't change the parameters along the time, they are always fixed.
Keyframes are appliable only to 3d objects, not videoclips, nor effects.
Anyone knows how do that? If it is possible do that without using the videoclip as texture of some object.
Blender it is so powerful also as videoeditor, i am missing that feature

I am sorry. I just found a tutorial about it.
Just add a keyframe on parameter (RMB->insert keyframe).
Documentation is not that clear.


Have multiple parts of model share same UV/texture I've noticed many people who have their final texture only have one half the model, or have multiple parts of the model share the same UV area. For example, two halves of a gun, or the ridges of a scope mount. How can I accomplish this?

Mark Seams in edit mode and uv map as in image above.

Move UV island on top of the other as in image above. You can do a more precise job than I did.  I did not place them on exactly top of each other because I wanted to emphasize that both halves of the sphere have UV coordinates.  I wanted you too see both almost coincident.

If I did a perfect job and the islands were coincident that would be useful too.  So in the image/uv window you might think some pieces of the uv are missing when they are coincident.  That could be confusing.  Islands can be scaled small, merged to same point, or moved off the uv coordinate area.  So again they would be difficult to notice.

Select the vertices of the discussion, view othogonal, so that the vertices line up, then project.

Lastly there are three modifiers you might consider.  UV Warp, UV Project and Data Transfer.


I need to show my poly count in my render for a school assignment. How can I do that using Blender 2.83? I modeled a well for a school assignment using blender 2.83. I need to make a render which shows the poly count. I can't find polycount as an option in the Metadata to include in the render. I wonder if there is a way to include it in the render or am I going to have to add it in the notes after getting them.

Poly count is at the very bottom right of the screen.
In the note section for metadata write the info you want and turn on "burn into image"

A different way to see statistics is to enable the overlay in the 3D viewport as shown in this post:
Bottom Status Bar Doesn't Show Verts, Faces, Tris Information In v2.9a

Here's a script to automatically write the with the selected object's stats on the metadata notes:
adapted from :
Show the polycount of selected objects in object mode
import bpy

verts, edges, polys = 0, 0, 0
dg = bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()  # Getting the dependency graph
for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:

    obj = obj.evaluated_get(dg)
    # This gives the evaluated version of the object. Aka with all modifiers and deformations applied.
    mesh = obj.to_mesh()  # Turn it into the mesh data block we want

    verts += len(mesh.vertices)
    edges += len(mesh.edges)
    polys += len(mesh.polygons)

bpy.context.scene.render.use_stamp_note = True
bpy.context.scene.render.stamp_note_text = "Verts: "+str(verts)+", Edges: "+str(edges)+", Polys: "+str(polys)
bpy.context.scene.render.use_stamp = True

To use go to the scripting window, create a new text, paste the script and run it.


Rotating a bone along one of its local axes I am doing a complex mechanical hand rig and i want to rotate one of the bones along its x axis but Blender doesnt allow me to do that. Is there a way to do that or this type of rotation isnt supported by the program?

Have you tried hitting X one extra time? eg. R >> X >> X". Maybe you have to do two Y's OR two Z's but one of these options should get you there.

Here are bones rotating in their local axis.

If you are in Edit Mode, X May be close to equal (global vs. local).
Instead try Y & Z:


How to use the Rigify building blocks for non-human rigs? The Rigify documentation says that

  It is based around a building-blocks approach, where you build complete rigs out of smaller rig parts (e.g. arms, legs, spines, fingers...). The rig parts are currently few in number, but as more rig parts are added to Rigify it should become more and more capable of rigging a large variety of characters and creatures.

Based on this description I assume that it should be possible to create arbitrary (non-human) rigs with Rigify. However, all the Rigify tutorials I found start with the creation of the human meta-rig from the add menu, and no additional bone is added to it. I see that in Edit mode I can "add a sample" from a list of items, but I don't understand how to use it. For example how could I rig a spider with Rigify?

EDIT I found a BlenRig vs Rigify thread on blenderartists.org where everybody agreed that Rigify (as opposed to BlenRig) should be able to handle non-human characters. (But they didn't say how exactly...)

  "Rigify is a general purpose template based system and it will let you create custom rigs for any character without really needing to know the mechanisms behind the rig. (...) On the other hand, BlenRig has a more limited use, cause it is (for now) intended for humanoid characters. So, any other rigging procedure would have to be made manually. In other words, if your character has 4 arms, you will have to duplicate BlenRig's arms in Edit mode manually, there is no "add arm" button."

  "Rigify is intended to be/become a very general solution for creating the armature and controls of any character via a building-block/template paradigm."

EDIT 2 To clarify, my basic question is: how should I use the "Add sample" button (which appears in Edit Mode in the "Rigify Buttons" panel, see the screenshot bellow) that adds a rig building block? Am I not supposed to use it? (that would be weird). If I am supposed to use it, what are the rules for building a meta-rig? Can I build a meta-rig from scratch or should I always start with one of the two meta-rigs (Human and Pitchipoy Human)? Can I combine Human and Pitchipoy Human building blocks in one meta-rig or are these incompatible?

Create an armature and enter its edit mode. Delete the bone to start fresh.

You can build a custom metarig from "samples" that you can add in. Later this metarig is used to generate the rigify rig.

To know what samples to use for your use case try them out and see what they do.

Each sample will be added in the scene origin. Position the samples like you want, align them to your character. Parent them to form the metarig. You can create the human metarig that you can add as a whole from samples or you can create your own metarig (one with 4 arms for example). There are also animal parts available.

You can mix them how ever you like.

You can also add your own bones and make them 'Rigify-able'. In Pose mode select a bone and inside Rigify Type tab in bone properties you can change the parameters:

You can change on which armature layers will Rigify generate bones and customize other settings. This can be changed on the sample metarigs and on the individual samples as well.

You can see what the options do in the addon documentation (Advanced usage section).

Then generate the Rigify rig from your metarig.


Use Decimate modifier as a realtime LOD generator I have a very dense scene and I need the objects to vary their polycount in realtime based on camera distance. The idea is to keep objects about 20% (0.2000) of the original polycount when the camera is far and 100% (1.000) when near.

I'm trying to do this with a driver connected to the Decimate modifier Ratio value.

The thing is.. I have no idea how to set this!

I'm trying this solution because my graphics card go out of memory. Will the Decimate modifier help reduce the card memory load?

Thank you!

To add a driver to the Decimate Modifier's Ration value, right click on it and choose 'Add Driver'. The slider will turn purple.

Go to the Graph Editor and choose the Drivers context.

For the driver Type choose Distance.

For one object choose your Camera, and for the other your object with the modifier on it. Name your variable something that makes sense to you (mine is 'dist'). For the scripted expression you can use 1/(dist/8) for example and the Ratio value will decrease as the distance increases.

You can replace 8 with a lower number for less distance required for decimation, or a higher number for more distance required.

As for setting a minimum of 0.2, I don't know how you could do that, but I bet if you look in the Python documentation or maybe ask on Stack Overflow you can find out how to write that specific expression.


Delay like a charging key BGE I was trying to figure out how to add a delay to my BGE game so that it has a cooldown, like when using something.

The only solution I found is this: if you click the button at the exact same tic every 60 tics it will work but not other tics.

There are a few ways of creating a delay. I have two* different ways below.

A timer game property

One simple way is to use a timer property, and reset the timer each time our event is triggered.
I have a game property named "timer" and it is a timer type of property.

The Keyboard sensor and Action actuator are just so my object does something. You only need to add a Property sensor and a Property actuator.

The Property actuator needs to be set to assign a value of zero, this is how the timer gets reset.

Now the Property sensor checks to see if the timer is greater then 1.5 seconds, when it is it will send a True plus to the And controller. If it is not then you will not be able to trigger your action until the timer counts high enough.

A timer game property v2

In this screen shot the logic bricks do the exact same thing as the ones above, but here the And controller is switched out for an Expression controller.

The expression timer >=1.5 checks if the game property "timer" is greater then or equal to 1.5; doing it this way there is no need for the Property sensor.

* It is the exact same method, just with sightly different logic bricks.


Can blender game engine hide vertices that are not visible to the camera? Is it possible for the Blender Game Engine to hide any vertices/faces currently not visible to the camera in order to optimize game performance? This would be for parts of meshes specifically.

Yes, it can. This is done by using the Occlude physics type; this makes an object hide all other objects (or parts of objects) behind it. This does, however, mean that it can only be applied to Static (physics type) objects, since an object can't have two physics types, and the Occlude type works like the Static type (i.e. it doesn't move).

Keep in mind that:

  If the occluders are small and don't hide many objects.

  In that case, occlusion culling is just dragging your CPU down).

  If the occluders are large but hides simple objects.

  In that case you're better off sending the objects to the GPU).

You can read the wiki for more details about performance.


How do I get an Overlay image to follow elements that move in a video? My video pans to the right. How do I get the overlaid elements to move with the video so that it seem integrated?

image1: This is where I would like the overlay to stay (beside the 2nd from last tree on the right)

image2: The overlay element doesn't move when the camera pans to the right, it remains static.

The Transformation Tools add-on will simplify the process;:
https://github.com/tin2tin/VSE_Transform_Tools
As described in this tutorial: https://youtu.be/SWLRmTEX2tc