How does the mix shader work when using a Fresnel node as a factor? I have been using the mix shader to get different types of metals by mixing diffuse and glossy, I always get good results. However there is a thing I have not understand yet: why the material changes when I exchange the two mix shader inputs (diffuse and glossy). Any explanation out there? Thanks.

The fresnel node will produce a mask like this:

when you use it as a factor you are just saying that the first input will replace the black and the 2nd will replace the white,

when you switch the inputs,you are just saying that the black should be the 2nd input and the white should be he first.

You can see how this work  using a mix color node to visualize it:

By switching :


How to remove unreferenced UV Coordinates from a Texture I have a textured mesh that I have bisected and the mesh now only contains the parts that I want (the rest has been deleted).

The result is, in my limited understanding, that the parts of the mesh which used to refer to parts of the texture no longer exist.

This leaves a texture with only about 50% in use and the rest is junk as far as I'm concerned.

I want to get rid of the junk; the stuff that falls outside of the UV coordinates, as seen in the image:

I've tried baking the texture and replacing, packing islands, packing UV, and anything else half obvious in the UV Editor window. Nothing I've tried is having the desired result.

I suppose I could texture paint really coarsly outside of the UV coordinates, but this is something I'd rather avoid if possible, especially if there is an automatic way to do it.

Can anyone give an advise?

Thanks.

The geometry is reflected on the UV. If you mention it is junk, probably delete the mesh junk park associated with it as well. Otherwise, re-unwrap Uvs.

I read this question 3 times. I know what you´re having: shadow uvs. Yeah, bisecting is a special boolean case. I´d strongly recomend you re-unwrap. It will only take a second. Baking textures: yes, you can do that as well, you´ll also get the old UV set. Got to object properties> vertex groups> Uv coordinates, delete them both vertex groups and coordinates. Then Un-wrap. Then bake old bisected to new unwrapped. Should work out of the box.


Windows 10 blender blackscreen, no cursor, no USB power I get a black screen after working a few minutes on blender with the Cycle render method active.
Most of the time I have a second window of blender open, set to a camera with Viewport Shading on.
Until today there weren't any problems with that.
Now, like I said, I get a blackscreen after a few minutes without error message etc. and on top of that the USB power goes out on the computer, it would still be on but
none of my display show anything and I can't do any shortcuts. The USB back- and frontports are affected by that. So I have to force shutdown the computer.
I only get this kind of phenomenon with blender.
Here is what I tried:
Working without the cycle render window, everything works just dandy. No blackscreen, no errors, nothing.
I reinstalled blender multiple times, on different drives (C:/D:). I used 2.91, installed 2.83, installed the Steam version, on all versions the same behaviour.
I reinstalled my graphics card driver with Geforce Experience and over the device-manager, even completely reinstalled my whole Windows system. Same issue.
The event viewer doesn't give me any info I can work with and no further error messages are displayed after a restart.
I can run a GPU benchmark and bring the GPU to 100% for a prolonged time without any problems.
My specs:
OS:     Windows 10 Home
Version:    10.0.19042 Build 19042
CPU:        AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Eight-Core Processor
GPU:        NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
Motherboard:    PRIME X370-PRO
Version:    Rev X.0x
If there are any missing infos, please tell me and I will try to provide them.

Manually flashing the BIOS and installing a newer build with a flash drive did the trick.


Multiple colors per vertex I am able to paint model with Vertex Paint.
Colours are very similar to Normals.
It is possible to have 2 or 3 normals per vertex. (smooth/flat)

Is it possible to assign multiple colours per vertex to use different colours with different faces?

Some how. I do not know how I was able to color model like that

I do not know how that happened. When ever I try to change colour then affects all three faces like that

That looks to me like you have a few overlapping faces. The give-away is that there's some shimmering (called "z-fighting") going on between unpainted white vertices and the yellow verts.

With Vertex Painting you can limit the faces using a Mask. Any unmasked faces will receive no vertex paint instructions.

This masking mode lets you right click faces to select (mask) them:

then pick your colors (from the left panel),
move mouse close to the vertex you want to color
left click to color.

The vertex paint page in the manual is worth reading for all the options.

Shift+K is great for giving all masked faces the same color instantly. Notice that all masked edges get a faint dotted line around their perimeter.


Cause of Frayed Edges I am working on a computer tablet. Attached the screen shots of edit mode and object mode of the "to be" screen of this computer tablet. What is causing these frayed edges and how to solve that ?

There're some faces with twisted vertices the scaled model reveals them:

To fix it remove the faces and recreate them by selecting the edges followed by F.

You might also want to consider to remove the loop cut in the upper part.

Related:

What is non-manifold geometry?
How to create a smooth surface onto a rectangle frame?


Move light sources while in Render Mode In one of the early tutorial, the presenter shows a rendered object but is able to move the light source illuminating the object so that the light on the object moves in real time and is still in rendered mode.  Could someone explain this.  Thanks in advance for any help.

I'm so new to this forum that I'm not sure how to reply to each of your answers.  Yes, both of you turned out to be correct and I thank you for your help.  I 'think' I upvoted the answers, but if I failed, I apologize.  If there is another way to replay in general, please let me know! Thanks again to both of you.

Presumably they were in Render Preview mode in the 3D View (Shift+Z) and moved the lamp from there by simply selecting the lamp in the outliner (since you can’t see it in render preview mode) or by some ither means and pressing G in the 3D View as usual to grab it and move it.


Moving a parent object is not influencing child objects at all I have a large architecture project that I've been working on since before 2.79. At some point post-upgrade (to 2.8), parent objects (created with ctrl + p) stopped influencing their children. I can parent one cube to another but when I move the parent cube, the child does not move at all. The "child of" constraint works fine.

This problem only shows up in this blend project. If I create a new blend file, parenting works as expected. I found the blend file I was working on before I upgraded to 2.8, and when I bring it into Blender 2.9, parenting works fine. And when I delete all objects in my project except for 2 cubes, and parent one to the other, the child still does not move, which means other objects aren't causing the problem. This seems to indicate that a setting was changed that broke parenting influence but I haven't been able to find what could be causing it. The problem occurs in both MacOS and Windows 10.
I'm attaching a duplicate blend file with all original project objects removed.


Cube projected image texture as HDRI? I have a cube projected image that I'd like to use as an HDRI, but environment textures only have equirectangular and mirror ball projection types. Would it be possible to use an image laid out such as this as an HDRI?:

I don't think you can use an image like that as an HDRI, however, you can convert it into an equi-rectangular map that can be used.
Give a basic cube your Cube-map texture (it's default UV is already in the right shape), and align it properly in the UV editing tab. Make sure to connect the image through an emission shader (so it becomes it's own light).

Then, select your camera and place it in the center of the cube (since I didn't move the cube at all, it is still sitting at the origin, so Shift + S > Cursor to world origin, and then Shift + S > Selection to cursor (on camera)). I scaled the cube slightly (in edit mode) to make sure it is bigger than the camera. Press N to bring up the transform menu for the camera, and set it's rotation to 90 on the X axis, and 0 on the others. Make sure any lights are removed from the scene, or moved out of view.

Then, making sure you're in cycles, select the camera, and go to the camera properties panel. Change the lens type to Panorama, and the Panorama type to Equirectangular.

Under your render output settings, make sure that the width is double the height, whatever resolution you choose. I put 2048 X 1024, which I think is the very minimum you should use to avoid blurriness. As per convention, powers of 2 are always preferred.

Then, you can render the image - you can even turn the samples down because the camera is very close and is receiving light directly from the emission. After the render, save the image, and there you have it - an equi-rectangular version of your image. You can then load it as an environment texture and connect it as an HDRI as per usual.
Here it is connected as an HDRI. The image is blurry because for my base image I just used a cheap low-res image I took from a google search. This demonstrates, however, that the resolution of the base image matters to an extent.
In addition to the emission cube I started with, I added 2 additional objects to the scene - a rough cube and a shiny ball, just to demonstrate that it gives proper light and reflective contributions to the scene.


How to show wireframe on shaded object in 3D View? Is it possible to show wireframe on shaded objects in the 3D View?
I'm looking for something like below:

It is possible using the object properties of your sphere.

Go in the display options under the properties tab of the object and check Wire and Draw All Edges.

This will affect the Solid, Textured and Material view-ports.


How to hide a few objects of a multiple combined object cloth simulation? I got a simulation of falling money, made from planes instanced by a particle system, combined into one object and then simulated as cloth.

Everything is basically working, but there are a couple of bills that I would like to hide from the render because of weird collision errors.

Problem is, I can't seem to figure out any kind of a way to access just these few objects to be able to hide them without having any other effect on the simulation.

What about adding some light force field (for example: wind) coming from the inside of the bag, just to avoid the collision of particles with the bag itself?

Here's a tutorial to manage the overlapping particles in Blender, not sure if it can help you.

You can also try to use the shader Particle Info Node, trying to identify the particle ID and setting a custom shader node (Transparent for example) for these particles.


Increments for moving objects gets messed up? Sometimes when I am in a project, somehow the increments (I guess this is what you call it) for moving objects gets messed up or reversed? Like see here:

This is what normally happens:

This is what happens when it gets glitched (it's like you are holding Control when moving it, but I'm not)

How do I fix this when it happens? I want it to just move like it does by default. If I wanted to move it that way, I would just hold down Control when doing so!

I hope this made sense. Thank you!

You've accidentally enabled Snapping during transform (the little magnet icon) with Increment setting. So it's automatically trying to snap to the "grid" of the world when you move it around.
It's a super handy feature when modeling.

You can read more here Transform Snapping

Hope this clears it up. I highly recommend reading up on this feature and playing around with it, it's SUPER useful when polymodeling and moving things around.


Retreiving element face number in binary .ply file I have a binary .ply file of a model, is there a way with blender to retrieve the number (i.e. their position in the file) of the faces corresponding to a set of vertices that I select in edit mode.

The header of my .ply file is the following:

ply
format binary_big_endian 1.0
comment CREATED BY FPLY_BMSH_RX01
element vertex    1572866
property float x
property float y
property float z
element face    3145728
property list int   int vertex_index
end_header

I've tried to do that with the following script (from Getting the number of faces a certain vertex is part of):

import bpy
import bmesh

me = bpy.context.object.data

# Get a BMesh representation
bm = bmesh.new()   # create an empty BMesh
bm.from_mesh(me)   # fill it in from a Mesh

for f in bm.faces:
    for v in f.verts:
        lf = v.link_faces
        print('num faces:', len(lf), 'faces: ', lf[:])
    break

But despite the vertices I have selected I always get the same list of faces as output.

Ok so here is the script that worked for me:

import bmesh
me = bpy.context.object.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

for v in bm.verts:
    if v.select:
        lf = v.link_faces
        face_indices = [f.index for f in lf]
        print(face_indices)


Can I apply "styles" to text strips? I've got a number of text strips through a video I'm editing - most of which ha the same colour and font. Currently I'm changing these on each strip manually by doing Can you change the font in the Sequencer new Text Effect? - is there any way to, for example, set a style to each of the text effects, then change that style rather then having to manually go through each text strip? Or if not, at some way to change the default/all strips?

If you select all of the text strips and then change ex. the color value of the active strip, you can right click on the color and use 'Copy to Selected':


Why does my Python script crash Blender (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION)? I wrote a Python script in Blender which creates a blocky version of an object with an ocean modifier, so you need to have this object added and animated by yourself.
It should work like this:

An ocean mesh is created by using the original ocean object's mesh, applying all modifiers.

Another mesh is created, all of the polygons facing to the top may be moved.
For each frame from start to end:

A shape key is added to the mesh.

The shape key data is being filled with rounded positions from the ocean.

Keyframes are inserted to make the shape key only influence the mesh at the current frame.

Use the system console to see at which frame it is working at the moment.
But every time I run the script, Blender crashes at a different frame.
The last message (right before the windows close) is this:

Here's my script:
BlockyOcean.py

Okay, I got it working!
As batFINGER already suspected, it was about accessing a removed object.
I had an Vector variable, which was defined only once.
co = ocean.vertices[0].co

This line is now called every time the mesh changes in my script.
I also added a few lines to update bpy.data.meshes/.objects (I don't know if actually necessary), the whole code can be simplified for sure, but hey: it works!


Animating separate objects / items independently in the same action I'm creating a web-based presentation which walks through ± 5 different subjects. Each subject is accompanied by its own infinitely looping 3d animation. When switching between subjects, the animations should seamlessly transition between each other, similar to switching between different walk cycles (idle => walk => run => walk => idle, etc.). Each animation is composed of several different objects.
Three.js allows for cross-fading between different actions. My plan is to create an action for each subject and cross-fade between them.
In Blender, I tried to animate (as an example) the Z-location for separate objects which were linked to the same action. However, once a parameter for one object is changed, it appears to affect all objects sharing the same action.
How to independently animate separate objects within the same action? Or should I go another route and animate other entities such as vertex groups, lattices, ...? Just started out using Blender, any kind of guidance is much appreciated.

Blender Actions can't have different effects on different objects.  So, if you want an entire character to be managed by a single Action, it needs to be a single object — or at least linked to a single Armature. Assuming you're exporting to glTF to bring these models into three.js, you may find the exporter documentation on animation useful. Multiple NLA Tracks with the same names will be exported as a single animation, even if they affect multiple objects.


Enemy AI lender game engine Is it possible to have an enemy in game that follows u using a 3d navmesh around the sphere? Or have an enemy AI that doesn't use a navemesh at all and maybe flys around the player?

You could use an always sensor logic brick on the enemy character with a steering actuator for every direction the it will go. You might have to play around with this but that’s what makes BGE fun. Let me know if it works.


Why does Extrude and Inset not use the same measuring units? Hello there Community,
I'm modeling a simple blocky logo and want to inset and then extrude by exactly the same amount, but this doesn't happen.
When I inset a face by 0.00115...

and extrude then by -0.00115, this happens:

What I want is something like this:

Am I missing something here? Is it a bug? Is it a feature?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

As Jachym Michal pointed out my object didn't have uniform scale.
Object > Apply > Scale fixed it for me!


Is there a way to uniformly add texture to a complex mesh without using UV mapping? I have a large mesh with > 1.5 million faces. I would like to uniformly add a texture to the object without UV mapping (as blender freezes every time). The texture is quite simple and can be applied evenly throughout the object.

What render engine will you be using? Cycles? Blender Internal? OpenGL Viewport/Game Engine?

Yes, for the most part you can, except for real time rendering; for which you probably have little options but to unwrap.

For the other two you could use either one of two methods:

Generated Texture Coordinates - Will fit a 1x1x1 cube of the image to the object using a 3 axis box like projection. You can later adjust repetition by controlling the scale of the image or with a vector mapping node.
Object Texture coordinates Will evenly tile the texture over your object regardless of size. The texture will stretch if the object itself is not evenly scaled. You can also adjust repetition by controlling the size of the image or with a vector mapping node.

For both no unwrapping is necessary, face angles will be used to mask from where the texture will be projected. Be sure to select Box projection mode in your image texture node.


Why can't I find any keyframes for location in the Blender animation window? I've noticed that when I'm editing the dopesheet in the animation window of blender that I can't find any keyframes representing the location of my model and I'm trying to remove them so I can restart an animation(they basically float up and down) but I really cannot seem to find where the keyframes for the z location of the model are.

I was hoping to duplicate and drag them so it would be a smoother animation but again, I can't find any keyframes of this. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Actually it turns out that I had to zoom right out to see those keyframes XD So if you're having the same issue, scroll with your mouse wheel to zoom right out and you should see the keyframes for the model's location and be able to edit them from there :)


Loop animation of an imported image sequence in the video sequence editor I'm looking into the Blender Video Sequence Editor to create animations out of existing sequences of images. The image sequences are generated with POV-ray. I've downloaded Blender 2.79, I run W7 64-bit.

So far my main source for learning about the Blender VSE has been the series of Youtube tutorials by Mikeycal Meyers. Other than watching the first videos of that series I have no experience with the Blender VSE.

The shots of the video that I want to create are all looping sequences. For instance, the shot that I'd like to render for my first try is a sequence of 240 frames (sequentially numbered PNG files). Designed to loop around the last frame connects seamlessly to the first frame.

With Google as my friend I succeeded in importing the 240 sequence of images into the Blender VSE. Using Shift + D I can create a duplicate of the image sequence, and when I drag that to the right the duplicate appends itself after the last frame of the original image sequence.

At that point I got stuck.
To test I would like to render a 480 frame animation; two repetitions of the image sequence. But after the dragging  the 'Edit Strip' says the
'start frame' is 240. What I need, of course, is that the 'Start Frame' remains 0, and that the 'Length' increases to 480.
I tried editing the 'start frame' field. But when I do that the VSE bumps the duplicate from Channel 1 to Channel 2, so that doesn't work.

So my question is:
Is there a way to render a sequence of multiple duplicates of an image sequence as a single animation?
For many of the shots of the video that I have in mind the animation needs to loop multiple times.

You just need to update the "final frame" of the rendering range, to make it fit your whole sequence: you can set it in the timeline header, or in the main "render"properties panel.

If you're using N chained copies of your sequence of X frames, just put "N*X" into that field and press enter: blender will calculate the final number and render that amount of frames...

Eg, if N=3 and X=240:

the result will be 720 frames, enough to contain your looped sequence in the final rendering.


Is it possible to save the text of the command line automatically? When a rendering is made via command line, the progress is appreciated as follows:

Fra:1 Mem:16.90M (0.00M, Peak 17.44M) | Time:00:00.02 | Scene, Part 1-135
Fra:1 Mem:16.81M (0.00M, Peak 17.44M) | Time:00:00.02 | Scene, Part 2-135
Fra:1 Mem:16.90M (0.00M, Peak 17.44M) | Time:00:00.03 | Scene, Part 3-135
Fra:1 Mem:16.88M (0.00M, Peak 17.44M) | Time:00:00.03 | Scene, Part 4-135
Fra:1 Mem:17.11M (0.00M, Peak 17.44M) | Time:00:00.04 | Scene, Part 6-135

How can I automatically pass the text that is displayed when I perform the rendering to a text file on my hard drive?

Tested on Linux and Windows, should work on MacOs too :

 blender -b file.blend > file.txt


strange figures appear in the rendering When I render, these figures appear.
Can someone help me?

Did you have hidden model in your view port, because they won't be hidden in the render. To hide them in render, clic the camera icon on the left of the TV icon:


Cycles volumetric object with intersecting mesh Hi I'm trying to make a character that looks like he's made of mist or smoke in Cycles. The Volume absorption works pretty much as I'd hoped.
But once the character is posed, any little mesh intersection shows up as a 'hole' in the volumetrics.
Does anyone know a possible solution or is this just a limitation of volumetrics at the moment?

The armpits and elbow here are an example.

Maybe try Remesh modifier on top of your mesh? Just move it to the bottom of your modifier stack and do not apply it.

You may expect different visual bugs and shape degradation, however for volumes it could work.


How to trace light rays This has nothing to do with rendering. I am designing a solar oven and would like to see how the "sunlight", meaning rays falling straight down into the oven, bounces off the parabolic walls of the solar oven and into the oven itself. What I'm imagining something that would look like this:

Pictured is the solar oven (the actual "hotbox" being the bottom part, while the top is the parabola that will concentrate the sunlight)

Is there perhaps an addon that makes this possible?

I don't think you need any simulation or other visualization than this:

Every straight ray has to go through the focal point, which for a parabola is a single point. You can construct this point for any parabolic solar oven like this [pdf link].

Every ray coming through this focal point will also leave straight up after hitting the opposite side (if the parabola is big enough). The food (or anything else) is supposed to be placed directly at the place of the focal point.

The design with the bottom parabola part under the focal point replaced with (usually) black box is not very efficient if you are trying to heat directly from rays. Usually such design is meant to heat up the whole box, and the food off of this box.

For direct ray focusing a double parabola design with shared focal point will focus the rays much more efficiently:

The pattern of the rays coming through is of doughnut shape, so it is best to place the food in a small circle. You are also able to further focus these rays into a single point with some lens.

If you really need to plot lot of rays, I suggest using CAD software for this (like freeCAD, etc..), where you are able to easily create geometric entities and constrain them to each other.

You can do the same inside Blender with* Constraints* on bones or empties, but it is much more work to setup. The geometry math is very easy though.

You can also preview the caustic pattern of any curved mirrors, but Cycles is not very efficient for this task. Any bi-directional path-tracing renderer is a better choice.

To make cardboard parabolas with Blender you need the Export: Paper Model plugin. You can create parabola meshes with the bundled Add Extra Objects plugin. There are multiple ways to make parabolas, but I like this one:

it is an icosphere mesh Shrink Wrapped to parabolic mesh
it can be disassembled into 5 stackable pieces for easy storage
I marked 1 possibility of gluing flaps placement on one of the pieces, but the Paper Model plugin can figure this out itself. If the cardboard is thick enough, I believe there is no need for flaps, just cuts to be glued together.
it can be sprayed with reflective paint (Mirror Spray Paint cca $5), imho much better choice than gluing aluminium to paper

A popular idea is also to use an umbrella..


object exported as .obj is a solid cube instead of rendered volume when imported to MSblend I am using Blender to create a 3D volume of brain using this tutorial:
Mri to blender.

I am importing my model in WPF project based on this tutorial: Inserting 3D Models in Expression Blend.

When I export the created file in .obj file from Blender and import in MSblend, see a solid cube instead of the rendered volume.

Thanks.

My setup is Windows7 x64, Microsoft Blend 2012, Blender 2.77

The OBJ file format is mainly a geometry only shape based file format, made for the purpose of transferring basic 3D model data between applications

It is not a full featured save file format nor is it suited for transferring complex shaders or materials between applications, only basic material data is saved along with UV coordinates for texturing.

The tutorial you show seems to be using using image sequences as volumetric data to simulate volume density, which in itself is already an "exotic" type of material, and is very specific to the way Blender works internally. Your actual geometry is just a cube, that is why when you import you only get the cube.

You will have a hard time exporting it out of Blender in any way or shape, even less so using OBJ file format.

Now I have never used Expression Blend and I have no idea how it works, or what are it's rendering capabilities.

If it has volumetric rendering functionality you could try and recreate the volumetric setup in there using it's native material creation workflow.

Otherwise only solution I could image in Blender is possibly modeling a tight sequence of small planes so they form a roughly cubic volume. UV Unwrap the planes so they can use your image sequence as textures.

For performance and workflow reasons you may want to create a "texture atlas" from your image sequence, that means joining all you MRI sequence into one big tiled image, so you don't have to manually set up hundreds of materials/textures one by one, and so they don't ruing your performance loading hundreds of independent files.


How to model this Pattern I just want to know how to model this? I was tried but didn't find any way to make it x(.

You can model only one segment of a pattern then repeat it on x and y axis with array modifiers.

If you need a repeating pattern on complex object try tissue plugin

http://www.co-de-it.com/wordpress/code/blender-tissue

Here is fast preview of the workflow, you just create some planes make some loop cuts move edges up and down

add array modifiers to see the pattern, add more planes, then increase array count and add solidify modifier, you can always adjust or modify your main object later...


making eye sockets (bird) I'm trying to sculpt a head of a bird, and when i try to sculpt the eyelids, they are lumpy and clip into the eyeball, Is there any way to sculpt a smooth socket that wont clip into the eyeball and fit it perfectly?I've attached an image of my mesh and an image of what i want to achieve:

I'm not sure if this "precise fit" can be done with sculpting. You could use a boolean modifier and subtract the eye, but that would not create a nice topo mesh.

Can you explain a bit more why it is a problem to ave the eyelid "clip" into the eye slightly. Most people do it that way when modelling eyes because perfect fit sometimes can give render issues like shadows or gaps.
As for the bulging, could you post a close-up of the mesh around the eye?

cheers,


Geometry nodes attribute sample texture precision? So i've been using the attribute sample texture node in blender 2.93. unfortunately it is very unprecise.
in this image the red objects are scattered according to the texture while the white pattern behind represents the actual texture. is there any way to increase the sampling resolution of this node? am i doing something wrong? is this an issue that is being worked on? the sample texture node seems pretty useless if it can't handle any detail

oops i figured it out. for anyone confused by this, unlike the textures you can use in particle systems, sample texture uses your texture as an attribute, which is similar to vertex colours or weight maps. thus the amount of vertices of your mesh is the resolution. subdivide it to make it more precise.


Subdivided means alt. lmb not connecting edges I just subdivided the short perpendicular edges along the bottom floor of this object and now when I alt. lmb the edge along the long bottom edges (next to the red line along the sides) it only connects up to the next subdivision instead of the entire edge line. Is there a way to re- merge all the vertices along the bottom edges so I can connect the entire edge using alt. lmb? I've tried merge by distance with alternative variables to no avail. Any help most welcome!
Cheers, Dan

Unfortunately, with that topology, the edge loop selection will always be limited to sections between "quad-poles" (as far as I know). However, there's a good chance you can eliminate some of the tedium of selecting all the edges manually by using "Select Similar". Try with different constraints, if necessary. If there are varying sections of your edge loop (such as varying lengths, like the inner curve being shorter than the outer curve, for example), you may want to select multiple sections of different sizes (yes, this can be done), before you choose the Select Similar, to make sure you get them all.


How to swap between several objects? I have a complex question, so bear with me. I have 3 primaries, 3 secondaries, and 3 melees. I want a system where you can swap between primary, secondary, and melee when each of which can have a different weapon. I have a very simple .blend to get you started; all it is is basically a camera, and 3 types of primary, secondary, and melee; they all have animations and have different colors to help you. Here is a list of things I want with this system:

"Weapon Active" property; each weapon will have its own ("Smg1Active," "Smg2 Active," ...), and this will be used in such a way, for example, when a certain weapon is active, this property will be set to 1, and will allow me to make the character move faster and slower based on which item is active.
Live weapon swap: If you are selecting the primary, and suddenly the primary is smg2 instead of smg1, I want the start animation for smg2 to occur; smg2 to be active, and smg1 to be gone.
Invisibility: This is fairly simple, but when an item is not active I want it to be invisible, as I do not want other cameras to see guns floating.
Properties: I want the following properties: "Primary" (Set to 1 when primary is active); "Secondary" (Same but for secondary); "Melee" (Same but for melee); "PrimaryID" (Each weapon has its own id, as in smg1's id is 1, smg2's id is 2, and so forth); "SecondaryID" (Same but for secondary); "MeleeID" (Same but for melee).
Everything clean: Try to keep everything nice, and not scattered everywhere.

I know that is fairly hard, but I tried so many things but always failed. Try to explain your work very neatly. I want to always be able to go back, and edit it with ease. Thank you for your time!

That's quite easy to do. You don't even need to use Python, you can do this with logic bricks, properties and messages.

I've got an example .blend here: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/33896

Press P to start.
Change weapons with 1, 2 or 3 keyboard keys. Notice how the wepon is lowered, then changes, and then plays a setup animation. Right now all the weapons play the same animation, but you could make several different ones if you like and link those up.

I've done in a slightly different way than you requested. Instead of adding/removing weapon objects, I've used Replace Mesh to change the weapon, and a active weapon int property. I've found this to work better, and you don't need to worry about having the new weapon follow the character around this way.
You can check for this int and change behaviours for the different weapons (to add different bullets or whatever).

I don't quite understand you requests about a 'Primary' property, but you can add that yourself, no problem.

For actual shooting, just add a Shoot action with some weapon movement and an empty in front of the weapon to emit bullets. These things can be set up to listen to the active weapon and change their behavior.

Hope this works out for you. These things are not really that hard once you get a hang of Properties and Messages. Cheers.


How to make a barcode like stripes texture How could I make this sort of texture using nodes as opposed to assigning materials to faces?

Specifically, I would like to be able to scale this in a Node Group.

Shady's Answer works only in this scene and not only in all,So you will have to edit values per scene.

And that's why I prefer using some math Instead.

To get information about our object we will use the texture coordinates node,and use Generated coordinates.

Suppose you want the strips to be vertically,then you should use the Z axis only of the coordinates and that is by using Separate XYZ node.

Now let's do the math,I will first multiply the Z axis by a variable integer which is equal to the number of black or white strips.

Then I will Modulo the result by 1,Which means I repeat the gradient every 1,and since we multiplied the axis by "say 5" then we will repeat 5 times.

Now we have a number of gradients,I will limit them to be either white or black using Greater than node.

Here the node tree:

Which will produce the following result:

I can group it and expose the variable,and we got our node group:


Switch to vertex, edge, face mode in edit mode via python Is it possible to switch to vertex mode (and edge, face mode) via python. I know I can toggle between object mode and edit mode in python with

bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()

But how can I explicitly say I want to go in vertex mode?

I prefer to not use operators, if they can be avoided. You may use:

bpy.context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode

Assign a tuple of 3 booleans to set Vertex, Edge, Face selection.

To activate vertex selection mode, use:

bpy.context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode = (True, False, False)

For edge + face multi-selection mode, use:

bpy.context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode = (False, True, True)

etc.

When working with the BMesh Module (bmesh), there's also

bm.select_mode

For edge selection, do:

bm.select_mode = {'EDGE'}

For vertex and face selection multi-mode, do:

bm.select_mode = {'VERT', 'EDGE', 'FACE'}


Bone position affects mesh but its scale does not I've purchased a human basemesh which I intend to use to create various characters and I'm trying to learn how it works first. The mesh has one particular bone that when moved it affects the mesh but when scaled it does not. All the other bones affect the mesh when scaled this is the only one that does not. I've tried to compare the properties of this bone with the others, the properties that can be found in the right side panels (ex: Context Bone, Object Data, Object etc...) while in Armature Pose Mode and Edit Mode and I can't seem to find what makes this bone's scale not affect the mesh. Any idea what could be causing this and where else I should look? I'm using Blender 2.8 which I'm not very used to yet so that could be a factor as well.

Thank you!

P.S.: I should have mentioned it's the jaw bone.

This sounds to me like it's the base/root bone for the position of your model in 3D space. Usually you just leave the bone as it is and the bone which comes after that will be the first bone with the purpose of actually manipulating the mesh. I suspect that on this second bone in the Relations the checkbox for Inherit Scale is ticked off.


how to interact between diferent scenes in BGE I have a main scene, where i have my character, rooms... Then I have a scene for healthbar, inventory and all that stuff. And I don't know how to interact between those two scenes. For example: When some sensor is triggered in the main scene, how do I link that with the GUI scene to show some information text or something else?

I know this is probably a very easy question and I should know things like that, but I'm not very experienced with blender game engine, and also I couldn't find zhe answer on the internet.

Thank you for your answers.

In the BGE, some methods can be used to interact whileas others can't. My personal favorite way to interact between scenes is by using messages. I have provided steps and an example on how to create what you are asking for. Considering that I have this ("When some sensor is triggered in the main scene, how do I link that with the GUI scene to show some information text or something else?") as my information to work with, I was not sure of what exactly you wanted.

Steps

(Now knowing exactly what you want, I am not sure if this is your exact situation)

1) With your camera, have an always sensor and a scene actuator to display your HUD:

2) In your hud, select your object that need to be visible and invisible when triggered, and create the following logic:

(This says that when the prop "Show" is true, the object is visible. The object is invisible when the prop is false. When a message "Show" is recieved, it will make the prop True. When a message "DontShow" is recieved, it will make the prop False.)

3) To send the message "Show", select your trigger object and add your logic but make sure the actuator send the message:

4) To make the object that gets triggered invisible, we need an object that sens a message "DontShow":

Product

I am sorry if I was difficult to understand in any of this, and I don't know if I was, so I've created an example .blend which can be found here. For the .blend file, when you collide with the pink object, a green sphere appears in the HUD. When you press Spacebar, it disappears. Hope this helped!


How do i weight the whole mesh to a single bone? I am currently modeling a ladybug and trying to put an armature in it. The ladybug's legs are segmented and i am planning to set 1 piece of bone to every single segments.

The problem is painting the weight often giving me half weighted result. What i want is a way to select an element of mesh using the L key, and assign that whole selection to a particular bone. Is there a way that is similar to what i was trying to do? Thx

What you can do is:

Select your mesh, then select your armature using Shift+RightClick
Hit Ctrl+P then choose With Empty Groups
Select your mesh enter Edit Mode then select the vertices/faces you want to be part of a particular bone and then select the bone you want them to be part of from the vertex group panel and hit Assign as shown below.

Then these vertices will be part of this bone.


Issue un-extruding flat bottom of an object I am extremely new to blender so sorry if there is an obvious solution here. Essentially I extruded the bottom of this object more than I like, so I'm trying to un-extrude it a bit. But when I un-extrude it, the edges seem to stay for some reason and not un-extrude as well. Is there a simple solution to this that I'm missing?


Scripting: separating selection results in edgeless mesh Whenever I use a script to separate a mesh by means of a selection the separated mesh contains no edges (only vertices). In contrast, separated meshes always contain edges when either manually selecting and separating  within the GUI or selecting manually and then separating in the python console. I use the following code to separate a mesh:

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(bpy.data.objects['OBJECT_NAME'].data)

# Generate a certain set from vertices from the bmesh
# This function only generates vertices that are connected by edges
# and form a rectangular shape over the mesh
vertices = get_some_vertices(bm)

for v in vertices:
    v.select = True
    bm.select_history.add(v)
bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type='SELECTED')

If make a selection manually, and then just run >>> bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type='SELECTED')
in the console the result contains edges, as expected.

Can anyone reproduce this or explain why my new mesh does not have edges given my code?

$ blender --version # (tried another version as well)
Blender 2.79 (sub 2)
build date: 2018-02-22

Instead of selecting vertices of the bmesh, one should additionally select the corresponding edges and faces to create a new mesh containing them. It seems that when programmatically operating on a bmesh blender is a bit more literal on what you select than it is when selecting manually in edit mode.


How to disable a node in node editor? I have a texture node, I want to keep as it is and try another texture creating another texture node. I don't want to use the same texture node to try both.

How can disable node in node editor temporarily? In Nuke, it used to be d (for disable). Pressing d, of course, does not work in Blender. My intuition says there might be similar in Blender.

The concept of disabling in Blender is known as Muting. The shortcut is m.

You can also right-click on a node (unlike Nuke) to pop up Node Context Menu.


Is it possible to restore default viewport condition? This is default viewport condition after I made a '2d animation' project by ctrl+n.

And I scrolled mouse-middle button to zoom out viewport.
Then I wanted to restore default viewport condition(not similar but exactly same as first picture ) but I could not.
How can I do it?

File>Defaults>Load Factory Settings. This will reset everything, like your addons, custom startup file too.


Removing Armature and Keeping pose I am trying to 3d print some miniatures. I have the Armature all posed, and now I want to remove the armature, but keep the pose.

This will hopefully allow me to break up the model into arms/legs/torso for easier printing. I plan on doing some Booleans to the intersecting parts but I cant remove the armature without also losing the pose.

Here is the file: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=43373

Just apply the Armature Modifier for every loose part of your model. Then delete the armature. Before that I recommend you to apply transformations to all the parts (Ctrl+A).

I noticed, that legs mesh has multiple users and the error occurs. Go to Object Data header and click the '2' button to make it a single user.

I've noticed, that after applying the Armature Modifier for the knife an error accured. I just deleted the modifier and everything works okay, but this is is the first time I see this kind of error. I've got no idea how to fix it (I should ask a question about it).

After applying Armature Modifier to every part of your model you may delete the bones.
Cool model BTW :).


My Blender File Isn't Rendering My blender file is rendering but the rendered images are all black.
Here is the Blender file:

Ray was correct in the above comments.

The Compositor and Sequence settings are enabled by default, so if there is any data in the compositor or the sequencer blender will render from that instead of the scene.

Or go to your sequencer and delete that info.


How to make Edge Glow? I am doing a zooming in and out animation for symbols.
And it suppose to have an edge glow, like in the example photo.

Is it possible to achieve without volumetric lighting because the lighting of the symbol should not be affected. I also get a grainy effect for some reason and I want the background to be completely black.

p.s. The symbol is floating in the air and has no objects around it, so emission on the sides wont be visible.

This is possibly easier to achieve in post production through the compositor.

You probably don't even need Cycles or "formal rendering" for somethning this simple. You can use the *OpenGL Render active viewport" or animation at the bottom of the 3D view.

Then add the glow effect and colors as desired in the compositor. You can use a Filter > Blur or a Filter > Glow node for this.


Blender 2.78 cycles out of memory problem, in both cpu and gpu I have a out of memory problem with Blender.

My specs are:
I am using Blender 2.78, Cycles
Intel I5 2400
Nvidia Gtx 750 ti 2GB
8 GB ram
Windows 7 64 bit

I can render simple stuff, but now when I’m starting to render a more complex scene of a couch I created and sculpted, it crashes and stops at 0%. with the error message 'ran out of memory' error.

It happens in both CPU and GPU rendering.

I tried reinstalling Blender, and also tried resetting to  factory settings, but it didn’t help.

Any idea?

Thanks, Daniel.

If you sculpted, there's a high chance your face count is extremely high, and 8GB is not really that much ram. You can try to decimate the mesh (decimate modifier) and see if it will stop crashing and render with a lower poly count.

This will probably not be the accepted answer, but might help.

EDIT: If you are using subdivision, check that the view and render division levels are the same, since if you have a higher render number when you see it in the viewport its what you want, but when you render you get an exponential number of faces.


How can I use Photoshop to edit the textures of my model? I have a 3d model in Blender and I was wondering if I could open it in Adobe Photoshop to texture it.

I can't use photoshops 3D features because my computer is to slow.

Is there any way to open my 3d model in Photoshop to texture it?

You can sort of "open" 3d model in Photoshop (example), but it's not something as flexible as editing it with 3d package (and that won't provide you with most features like what is expected when importing 3d models) . What Blender provides you with is to edit the texture of the model with any image editing program. There are 2 possible ways:

editing image used as texture directly in image editing software. Note that you might want to export UV layout in order to be able to see what faces you're painting on;
export current position of the mesh in the viewport to the image editing program, paint on the mesh like it was visible when captured in 3-rd party program and then apply those changes back to the image texture in Blender. This feature is called Quick Edit (image painting program should be set up in the User Preferences):


How do You "Blockify" a Mesh? Looking through some old .Blend files I came across this:

I remember making it the first time I heard of the poke function and then got sidetracked into experimenting with modifiers, but I have no memory of how I made it blocky shaped.

Can someone tell me how to blockify a mesh?

Use the Re-Mesh modifier set to Blocks mode:

The Octree Depth attribute will change the size of the blocks (the Scale value gives finer control), a higher value and the more (smaller) there will be. Notice that the size of the blocks also depends on the size of your mesh, irrelevant of not applied scale, etc.


Problems with importing stl files I have a problem. When I import a stl file from solidworks into blender for rendering it doesn't match the scale of the scene. It is gigantic. The object is a chair and I have checked the scale in solidworks and here it is ok.
Hope someone can help.

Thanks

PrettyP74

There is no scale information in STL file format the units are arbitrary.


Python API, get bezier points taking into account shape key values I need to access the points of a curve object (at the current frame) using the Python API.

If the object doesn't have shape keys, it's easy enough, object.data.splines has all the info I need.

If the object has shape keys, I know the shape key info is in object.data.shape_keys.key_blocks but I'm not entirely sure how to get the final position of each point/tangent in the bezier curves out of this.

First of all, the data in there is not split into splines.

Then if I know the value of each ShapeKey object I'm not sure what's the correct formula to interpolate them.

It would be great if there's some way to get for each spline in the curve, the position of each point and handles, taking into account all the shape keys that are into effect at the current frame.

You can create a shape key that is the mix of the current shape keys (as it is accessible from the shape key menu).

From it get spline info.

Then delete this shape key which was created only for that purpose.

Something like:

import bpy

curve = bpy.context.object

# Add a new shape key that is a mix of the existing one
bpy.ops.object.shape_key_add(from_mix=True)

# Get the last shape key
shape_key = curve.data.shape_keys.key_blocks[len(curve.data.shape_keys.key_blocks)-1]

# Get the info you want
for sk in shape_key.data:
    print( sk.co )
    print( sk.handle_left )
    print( sk.radius )

# Remove the shape key
bpy.ops.object.shape_key_remove( all = False )


Changing Roughness value in python script has no effect I'm able to modify the roughness property while inside blender to achieve different effects (renders shown below)

However, no matter what I set the value in the code the output is always the same:

What do I need to do in order to apply the roughness in a python script and have it stick? The code sample is below where I'm setting the roughness to 1.
for m in bpy.data.materials:
print("Going to clear out spec and metallic and roughness [%s] [%s] [%s] for %s" % (m.specular_intensity, m.metallic, m.roughness, m.name))
m.specular_intensity = 0.0
m.metallic = 1.0
m.roughness = 1.0

Aha!
So in case anyone else comes across this
to debug this I checked the property path by right clicking in blender on the property and selected "copy data path" which gave me this value:
nodes["Principled BSDF"].inputs[7].default_value

So I updated my script accordingly:
for m in bpy.data.materials:
m.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"].inputs[7].default_value = 1


Open Inset Faces menu I want to adjust the Thickness of the "Inset Faces"-Tool manually, since dragging is very inaccurate, and I want the exact same thickness on every face of the cube. I googled around but didn't find how to open some sort of menu to type in the value. Help would be very appreciated.

Screenshot attached.

You can do like schustudrai says, or for more accuracy and options, make your inset and confirm it: parameters can then be edited on the bottom left in the "Operator" panel, or in a floating menu accessed using the F6 key.


My "Info Header" was replaced when I went into Node Editing Mode. How do I get the default bar back? I am working on an animation, and I had to change it to node editing mode for a while, but the file bar at the top of the screen is replaced with the bar at the bottom of the screen that says View, Select, Add, etc. How do i get my "info header" back so i can change my mode to compositing mode? Or does anyone know a shortcut to get to compositing mode? Thanks

Please help ASAP this is a timed animation project I am working on

Info   is a window like any other and can be selected in any window via the drop down/pop up on the left top or bottom of the window. Blue circular icon Info.
Or hover mouse over that list and press keyboard letter i

Is that what you meant?


How to make my prop search show the objects in my scene? I have a simple object selector using a prop search. At the moment it runs but doesn't show any of the objects in my scene. This is what it looks like:

How can I get that to show all of my objects?

Here is my code, I've dug out only the parts that should concern it...hopefully

class IgnitProperties(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):

    screen_selector = StringProperty(
        name="",
        description = "Select the screen that goes with the unibody to rotate the screen properly!"
    )

    coll = CollectionProperty(
        type = bpy.types.PropertyGroup
    )

class IGLayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):

    def draw(self, context):
        # Screen Selector
        layout.label(text = "Screen Selector:")
        layout.prop_search(scene.ignit_panel, "screen_selector", scene.ignit_panel, "coll", icon='OBJECT_DATA')

When using property search, you need to specify the collection of objects you want to search through in the 3rd and 4th parameters (in our case the list of objects in the active scene):

layout.prop_search(
    scene.ignit_panel,  # Object with your custom property
    "screen_selector",  # Your custom property
    context.scene,      # Object that contains the collection you want to search through
    "objects"           # The collection property
)


Why are there extra deform bones in rigify armature? I'm working on a rigify armature and noticed when I generated the rig it forms extra deform bones in the arms and legs. I'm fairly new to this add-on so I'm not sure why this happens. Is there a way to remove these bones and have the armature work properly?

As said, this is to improve your weight painting in case of mesh flipping issues during twist movments.
You can modify the number of limb segments produced by the metarig in Bone Properties > Rigify Type.
For example, if I set the left arm Limb Segments to 1:

The metarig will produce a rig with 2 segments per metarig bone for the right arm and only one for the left:


Render final image in pieces (EEVEE) I have a scene which I want to render in 4k resolution however blender crashes every time when I try that. It doesn't crash if I render at half that resolution so my question is if there is a way to e.g. split the final image into four pieces and render each individually with EEVEE.

Actually you should be able to render 4k without slicing the image into parts, however here some options:

"Slicing" you can create several view layers and always render a part of the image and combine then later in your editing software of choice
"Splitting" you can split your scene in foreground, background etc and combine the layers in compositing blender guru 2.7 sample
"Add-on" there is also an add-on (not sure if it's for 2.8+) set render border addon

This question also got asked at stack exchange previously


How can I change a custom property value in python? AttributeError: Writing to ID classes in this context is not allowed I have a simple panel that I've made. I have a bunch of checkboxes and I want to use them to change the value of a few custom properties e.g. when the checkbox is unchecked, the value should be 0, and when it is checked, the value is 1. I have done the logical thing:

being called from inside my Panel's draw function:

if "iSight_Camera_Indicator" == True:
    bpy.data.objects["Macbook_Gold"]["00_iSight Camera Indicator"] = 1
else:
    bpy.data.objects["Macbook_Gold"]["00_iSight Camera Indicator"] = 0

But it gives me this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/MacBook/Documents/Blender/Blends/MacBook/MacBook.blend/macbook_controller.py", line 86, in draw
AttributeError: Writing to ID classes in this context is not allowed: Macbook_Gold, Object datablock, error setting Object.00_iSight Camera Indicator

location: <unknown location>:-1

The draw function of a panel is intended only for adjusting UI, it is essentially blocked from doing anything else by design. At first this limitation can be perceived as restrictive, but it's really there to prevent bad practice and unnecessary updates. When you interact with a Panel (or any element of UI) its draw function is called many times per second when your mouse moves.

As soon as you need to update objects or scene data via UI you should attach an update function to your properties or make dedicated operators (triggered by buttons).

Update Function

Please see this answer for why a ProperyGroup is a good idea to keep your properties organized. In the code below I've commented out where you would have an opportunity to react to the tickbox state. The update-response is part of the property not part of the draw function of a Panel.

import bpy

def common_update(self, context, origin):
    if origin == 'my_bool_one':
        print('button_one', getattr(self, origin))
        # bpy.data.objects["Macbook_Gold"]["00_iSight Camera Indicator"] = getattr(self, origin)
    if origin == 'my_bool_two':
        print('button_two', getattr(self, origin))

class IgnitProperties(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    my_bool_one = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        update=lambda self, context: common_update(self, context, 'my_bool_one')
    )
    my_bool_two = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        update=lambda self, context: common_update(self, context, 'my_bool_two')
    )

class IGLayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the scene context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "IG Layout Demo"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_layout"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene
        col = layout.column()
        col.prop(scene.ignit_panel, "my_bool_one", text='option 1')
        col.prop(scene.ignit_panel, "my_bool_two", text='option 2')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)
    bpy.types.Scene.ignit_panel = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=IgnitProperties)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)
    del bpy.types.Scene.ignit_panel

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Operators

See the TextEditor > Templates -> Python -> Operator Simple


Blender 2.79 cycles normal map bake artifacts I am baking a normal map in Cycles and keep getting strange results, I do not know what am I doing wrong.

I tried baking in Cycles in tangent and object space, tried baking in BI in tangent and Object space.
The resulting map looks OK as far as I can tell, but I keep getting either completely or partially black render.

I tried all possible space options in Cycles material normal map node.
What am I missing?

Attachment: Blend file

Turn off Ambient Occlusion in World tab.


How can I remove the multicolored lighting from an environment texture background? How can I remove the multicolored lighting from an environment texture background?
I want a plain white lighting.
I saw this post: Cycles: How do I exclude the Environment Texture from reflections?
but I am using evee, and evee doesn't provide a glossy shader.

If you just want to remove the color from the World Environment, but keep the lighting strength in B&W, place a RGB to BW Node between your HDRI texture and the Background Node of your world shader:

If you want to keep the HDRI colors, but still have only white lighting, mix a regular background with the black and white background, using the "Is Camera Ray" output of a Light Path node as the mix factor:

If you want to remove all reflections from the HDRI and replace it with pure white, mix the Environment Background with a plain white Background, using either "Is Reflection Ray" or "Is Glossy Ray" (depending on your needs) from the Light Path Node as a mix factor:


Any way to weight paint a specific value? I'm trying to use a grid mesh with a displace modifier on it to create a terrain.  I want to paint in the heights of this hill using the weight paint tool.  While this does work, it's hard to control.  The blender weight paint tool seems to only add or subtract a value of 1 from a circle around the cursor.  This makes it really hard to get an even mid range value.  For example, I'd like to create a plateau where all the points have a weight value of .4, but the brush tools make it difficult create anything smooth.

Is there a way to get the weight paint to target a specific value?  Alternately, is there a way to get the displace modifier to sample from vertex colors instead of vertex groups?

If you're using 2.79:

You can set the maximum value of the brush from the "Weight" option under the brush, from my experience the assigned weight will not exceed this value.

If you select a part of your mesh you can assign a weight ranging from 0-1.0 from the Object Data Properties tab. You can also see & modify the values assigned from the N menu's "Vertex Weights" tab when a vertex is selected.


Delimit loop subdivide Hello!

I would like to make a subdivide on the upper part in order to get make the model look like it was composed of several parts as shown in the reference image.

But the loop subdivide goes over the entire model.
How could I delimit it to only the left part of the model?

In other words: I would like to get rid of the subdivide marked with a white circle in the screenshot.

Or would you start from scratch again in this case?

Thank you!

When modeling objects composed by different pieces it's sometime useful to model each piece disjoined from the other (expecially if you are planning to unwrap them).

I would rip the vertices and fill with faces the holes.

Now you can loopcut each piece individually while maintaining simple topology.


Make Gradient between two gradient spheres I have two Empty Objects. They are both Scale 1, but have different Sizes set in properties:

They are each used as Object Texture Coordinates for a Spherical Gradient Texture. The smaller one is scaled down via a Mapping Node. The big one is in Blue, the small in Black:

I want to somehow get a gradient between the edges of these spheres. Here's a mockup of what it should look like (made by color ramping the big sphere):

Note that its hit full White by the inner circle. Here's another ramp from black to white to black to make it more clear:

The idea is that whatever I scale the Objects by, I'd always have a linear gradient from the edge of the outer sphere to the edge of the inner sphere.
Is this possible? I can think of some ways to do it with drivers (and a lot of setup), but I'm looking for a method using only nodes.

You can deduce the scales, and therefore the radii, of your Empties, by dividing the shaded object's Object-Space length to the shading-point, by the same length, in the Empty's spaces. (The Empties are set to display at 1 unit, and are at the object's origin in XY):

..The range between the radii can be mapped to (1->0), and clamped, using a Map Range node.
Here illustrated by putting the range through a color-ramp, and scaling the Empties:

.. Sorry, I can't get the Empties to show up very well in the .gif, but they are at the bounds of the gradation.


Weight Paint Normalize Moves Mesh I have a problem with a mesh that moves unexpectedly with a bone, so I thought that I might want to normalize all the bone weights to get a "true" picture of the weights. Normalizing however, moves the mesh around which I didn't expect. (some of the bones are posed when I do normalize).

My impression was that the overall bone-influence result would be the same after normalizing, but since the mesh moves around, it seems this isn't so. Am I doing something wrong, or did I just mis-understand the normalize-all operation? (I tried both with and without any bones selected).

(also, noob-alert)

EDIT: Ok, I may have totally misunderstood something. But I tried making a simple skeleton and object: Two bones controlling a cube'ish thing. Painted all vertices red for both bones (weight 1.0 for both bones), and then picked normalize all. Now one bone had weight 1.0 on a vertex, the other bone got 0.0. I understand that blender has now made sure total weight <=1, but I would have expected the weight to have been shared, something like 0.5 for each bone on that vertex.

Thanks to "stilltrying" from blenderartists.org, I found my answer.

The little Normalize All option called "Lock Active" is on pr default, meaning the active vertex group was unchanged. This of course leads to the relative weights being changed, thus causing the mesh to move due to the Normalize All operation.


I saved my model but pieces vanished? So I've made a map for an upcoming video game and finished it and saved, then closed the program to import it in Unity. I noticed some of the faces are facing the wrong way, so I open up blender again, only to find some of my work missing from the map.

I went back through the auto saves, recover last session, checked all my files and I'm really confused as I know I saved it and I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this issue before.

Basically the missing pieces are the bottom of a cave and part of a bridge structure and again I know I saved it before closing the program and recovery hasn't worked, so I would really like to know if this is a common issue and how to fix it.

Also due to copyright I cannot upload the blender file or share images.

This might be that you have hidden some faces when editing and not realizing it. I can only suggest to go through your Blend.File and go unhide any objects.  See if that works for ya.


How to add an animated glint running through the edge of my alphabet? I want to show an animated glint/shine running through the edge of my 3-D alphabet. I basically want the animated shine to trace over the edges of the alphabet once. Basically this but running over the edges of the alphabet.

I'm working in blender render.

Animate a lamp which creates a highlight on the text (as the specular component of the text's material).

Add a lamp (point light), and uncheck Diffuse, since we only need the specular reflection as a concentrated highlight.
In the viewport, choose GLSL shading (instead of multitextured) in textured mode to preview the shading.
Adjust the text's material's specular hardness and intensity as needed.
Position the lamp while looking through the camera at its start position and set a location keyframe. Repeat with the end position.

To make the specular highlight only appear at the edges position the lamp directly underneath/beside the text and give it some depth.

If you want to create a photographic glow on the highlight, do it in the compositor. After rendering (F12) enable the compositor nodes. Adding a glare node or screening the blurred highlights will produce an effect of light dispersion across highlighted areas.


How to create a floor full of serpentines - streamers? I want to create a floor scenary with streamers - serpentine in the floor something like this (see the inferior borders of the picture to get an idea):

I saw something that may work but don't know how to do it:

https://vimeo.com/18569617

Any ideas? thanks in advance to the kind souls willing to help :)

As suggested the Cloth simulator is one way to go. In the example below the mesh is split with the V key along the vertical edges, but remains one object onto which the simulator acts. Important here is the weight painting that creates the group - ALT drag the brush for a smooth gradient. The weights are pinned in the Cloth settings.

The effect is visible once a force of some kind is added - each has somewhat different effect and can also be animated. Here I just used Harmonic as it works fine in a static position. ALTA to play animation.

At any point in the animation you can freeze the mesh by applying the Cloth. Below I have added a second cloth modifier onto the mesh created from the first cloth modifier and dropped it onto a plane with collision enabled. Again here you can choose a point in the animation and then apply it to work on it further as a mesh.


CUDA error: Out of memory in cuMemAlloc(&device_pointer, size) My GTX 960 is reporting there there is not enough memory, even when another person the same card is able to render it fine. The other person had the same set up as I do and rendered the same scenes. He did not have this issue.

I'm a render farmer for black plasma studios and I have come across this problem with my rendering recently. I was doing a benchmark test for them and blender gave the error (in the title).

My first test went good:

But I got the error on my second test:

as you can see it renders the first square but then runs out of memory after that. It did not render at all until I updated my graphics drivers with GeForce Experience. This helped a little but the render still didn't finish.

I seem to get this error a lot now and I would assume a better graphics card would be needed but someone else in the group has the same one that I have and he can do it just fine.

Computer info:

Display Device:
name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Type: Full Display Device
Approx Memory: 6091 MB

System:
OS: Windows 10 Home 64-bit
processor: Intel Core i5-6600K CPU @ 3.50GHz (4 CPUs), about 3.5GHz
Current Display Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Memory: 8148MB RAM

How do I fix this?

There are two options.

First:

Your scene render is bigger then your GTX 960 memory.

Solution:

Change render to CPU.

Second:

You have active 'render preview mode' and 'final render' at once.

Solution:

Turn off 'preview mode' or change it to 'solid/wireframe'.


Stop player from climbing mountains I want to create an open world FPS game with the BGE. Is there an option with character motion that allows the player to only walk on ground that is (for example) less steep than 10°?

I don't want to place invisible walls next to every mountain in my game.

Under your characters physics settings select "actor" as physics type. Then there should appear an option step height. Increase or decrease this value as you like.


Having trouble adding paths I'm creating my first blender project and I'm trying to have the animated character follow a path. When I add the path in, there are no control points to make the path longer or  curved. I've googled it and haven't found any answers. Ideas? Thanks

when in edit mode ( tab ) , press c this gives you a control circle that size you can control with mouse wheel, then press left mouse button on top of a verticle in the end of the path, then press g and ( grap ) and move the mouse to drag the path .


(Internal) Depth of Field Not Getting Right Spot So basically I've been using this format of creating focus for a while now:

I would make the focus object a plain axis, and well right now I have this shot with the plain axis so small and right at Godzilla's head, meant to cover only his head, but it covers everything around him and his whole body.

Is there a way I can actually get it to focus on a specific spot I want it to? Thanks!

I suggest you don't use the defocus node. You can just select the camera, go to its settings, hit the high quality button and set the f-stop level down to like 0.4 to see very precise where you are focusing. Then, set a random focus distance in the box next to the f-stop setting. Go in the 3d view, hit 'N' and check the 'Depth of field' box under 'Shading'. Now you can see the focus distance in the viewport as it is going to be rendered. Now start playing with the distance in the camera settings. Also, you can set the F-stop back to your preference after you are sure of the distance.


Object won't show in render. None of the suggested solves I've found have helped I've tried to render my scene but there's an object that won't show up. I've checked the camera, I've checked the visibility, it isn't hidden and it's showing in the viewport. I feel like I've opened every setting and have achieved nothing.
I’m trying to render a book with a cover, flipping pages and stacks of pages. I have no idea how to fix the fact that the book cover doesn’t render. If I create a plane and select both the book cover and the plane and join them with Ctrl+J, the render contains a book cover but it doesn’t turn as it’s rigged to do so because it’s now linked to the plane and loses all the animated properties.
As soon as I unjoin them the book cover stops rendering and everything appears as you see it there, a book with binding, pages, but no cover. For the life of me I cannot figure out what’s going on.
There's a link to the file here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Cfk05_-aZB1LpQat-6RGKB9IiDHZNffZ

Your book armature has "Instances" in Face mode activated, that is causing the "invisible Object"
First change that to None.
second thing, your Cover has "Shadow Catcher " ON inside the visibility tab.
Uncheck that too.


Is it possible to keep particles orientation relative to the emitter when the emitter is rotated? I have a plane with a particle system with display type Group. Is it possible to keep particles oriented along plane (1st pic) when I rotate the plane? I'm getting particles as in 2nd picture and that's not what I want.

And this is what I want to get after rotating

You have to check Rotation, to make the particle system uses the dupli object's rotation. Using this setting, particle orientation can be tweaked by rotating the dupli object itself:

Next, give one of the object's local axis as the particle system's initial rotation. This way, any new particle will be oriented to that axis:

Now any new emitted particle will always be correctly oriented:


Animating object's transparency in NLA editor I would like to animate a short promo for a game I am making. I have various objects with different animations all set up nicely in the NLA editor. I would like to have some of those objects appear right before their animation. I have managed to keyframe the materials' transparency and see the keyframes on the timeline, but those animations don't appear as actions in the NLA editor and therefore I can't place them or move them around . Does anyone have any suggestions/workarounds?

Thanks in advance

I guess you animated with nodes? Go to the animation layout while the animated node is selected, then you should be able to manipulate the keyframes.


How do I stop the UV map from changing while adding bevels? Im uv mapping a simple block, and I want to make it so the Square UV map stays and just wraps around the bevels. I will post pictures to show you what I mean.

I want it to keep the square UV map when I add the bevels, and I want the square part to just wrap around the bevels.

But when I add bevels, it messes up the uv map. I just want it to stay the same.

The reason this is happening is because you are beveling an edge with a seam on it. Since beveling creates multiple edges from a single edge, blender has to place the seam somewhere, yet there is no 'right' edge to place the seam on, so it gets applied to both created edges (extra segments do not receive a seam). What that means is that you will have to do some manual adjustments to make this work how you want. I would suggest removing the seam first, then beveling, then re-adding the seam where you want it. An alternative is to remove the seams after you have beveled the edges, but that will probably be a bit harder to do.


Rigify moves twice as far as mesh? I'm building a modular animatable child for a school project.

I can't figure out why my rig does this, but every pose ball and limb piece moves twice as far as the rig which makes it much harder to animate, every tutorial i look up has the rig follow the model exactly, can anyone please help?

The .blend:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5mmsc5r77fivbs6/ChidlerfileAlpha2.blend?dl=0

looks like your helpers are children are of the rig and are therefore also affected, my understanding is they should remain static since their referenced by bones. With only your last layer visible go to your outliner, set to only visible layers, select any mesh withing the rig heirarchy, now change your outliner view to same types, select all (A),right click the mesh and chose 'select', hit alt+P in the 3D view to un-parent. Now go back to your first layer and the rig should behave properly.


sky texture is rendering in black I set up my background to sky texture but when rendered it shows black, here is a picture of it:

You have Transparent enabled in render settings > film.

Disable that and you'll see the sky...


3D Viewport Increase Selected Edge Thicknes Looking for setting to change Edge thickness. Currently selected edges are to thin and difficult to see.

It's under interface settings in user preferences. See below:

Be warned, however, this also changes the thickness of the grid lines, the outline, and even the edges of some of the UI elements, so maybe enable and disable it as needed. There doesn't seem to be a way to uncouple this effect either, unfortunately.


Making video appear mid animation I am currently working on an animation. Somewhere in the middle (say frame 200) of this animation, a video has to appear. I use the "import images as plane" plug-in from the user preferences to have video appear in the animation.

My problem is, that I don't know how to make the video appear in mid animation. I cannot add the video at the beginning and just unhide it in frame 200, since then it will already be halfway through.

Does anyone have a trick that can help me?

Best regards and Thank you!

I used a material.  I had a screen material with two elements in it.  a black screen, and a emission with a movie texture on it.  I mixed them together and then animated the factor of the mix node to make it turn on.

please comment if you need more info,

hope this helps.


How do I pan in Blender using a Wacom 3D Pen? I've just got a Wacom 3D pen for sculpting in blender and in the video Wacom released for the pen it shows you can navigate without using the keyboard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcIVpiK3TXw

The first button is rotating the view like the middle mouse button and the second one in set for pan/zoom. Now, it is zooming when you click the button and move your hand while hovering over the screen, and the dragging, as the video suggests, is supposed to happen when clicking that button and tapping the screen with the pen tip.

The problem is that it is not dragging (or panning). (I cant find anywhere in the Wacom settings to control the hover and click/touch and click gestures)

Also, it is not a special feature for the 3D pen, it should work like this with all pens (it is working as shown in the video in Solidworks with the default settings).

You just have to emulate a 3 button mouse. Here's how to do it:

Go to the User Preferences.
Go to the Input tab.
Check Emulate 3 button mouse.
Hit Save User Settings.

From here on out you can rotate the view using Alt + click and dragging, zoom using Alt+Ctrl + click and finally navigate using Ctrl+Shift + click.


Tiling faces not parallel to axis I use standart texture from blender. As long as faces of the cube are parallel to axes, it looks fine, but when not - it's like on the image. How can i make the texture on not parallel faces look similar to parallel ones?

This can be done by correctly unwrapping the UVs of the model to fit the geometry:

To start, your shape looks like this:

First, I add a texture coordinate node and a mapping node to my texture (or just select the checker texture and press Control + T to generate it automatically if you have the Node Wrangler addon enabled). You don't actually need the mapping node for this, but it is helpful in many scenarios.

Then, change it so that the UV comes out of the texture coordinate, through the mapping, into the vector input of the checker texture.

Then, using the search feature, select "Smart UV Project" on your object. This will generate UVs to fit your angled edge.

I achieved the following result:


Ruler/Protractor tool - change snapping values for easier snapping to vertices? I wanted to use the Ruler/Protractor tool to measure some length for an environment scene.

Is there a way to change the snapping values of the Ruler/Protractor tool?
or is there a way to easily snap one side of teh ruler to a selected vertice?

when I try to use the Ctrl+Drag, the snapping wanders of the vertice which I want it to snap to, which is really frustrating.

EDIT;
using the tool while in edit mode, this is often the result.

If you only want to measure simlpe edges I would use the Mesh Display Tools in the Propertys Panel of 3D View.(Press N to diplay)

First switch to edit mode. Then activate Edge Info>Length:

Then it displays the the length of the selected edge or what else you want in the 3D View.


Convert grease pencil to mesh in 2.8? I've watched some tutorials about grease pencil in blender 2.8 by Jama Jurabaev and other blenderers, and I wanted to do the same thing.

But now I have a problem. When I have done drawing and want to convert the lines to curve, there's no "convert to curve" option although they(Jama) easily find it when they hit f3 and type "convert to..." or something.

Of course I did the same thing, but I couldn't find it.
I appreciate it if somebody has any idea.

edit:Thanks for your answer! But I still can't find it in the contextual menu.... What on earth is wrong with my blender? I'm in object mode and selecting the stroke object.

First, make sure you're in Object mode, with the stroke object selected.

Nowadays, the conversion tools are in the contextual menu:

If you use Left click select, you can open this menu via right-click on the stroke object. Otherwise, you need to hit the W key.

For now, using the mesh conversion on a stroke object results to a curve object for some reason, I guess it will be fixed. If you get that issue, simply redo the same thing on the curve object.


Changing a material effects both text objects I am making a Banner for a friend, I have it mirrored and pretty, Same text twice, The main one with bevels and Glass. The one behind it as an Emission source for light to get a nice reflection.

Now here is the problem, I was wondering why it wasn't detailed, When I move back and fourth between the two Text items, They keep moving the properties! Example, I change the color of the Emission text, Suddenly the Glass text isn't glass but it also has Emission property now, For some reason when I change anything on one, It changes in the other.

Most likely this is because both text objects are assigned the same material (this could happen if you duplicated one from the other).  If a material (or any other datablock, i.e. particle system, image, etc.) has multiple users it will display the number of users in a small box to the right of the material name.  To make a single user copy of the material simply click on that box.

The material "Material" has 2 users, clicking on the 2 box will create a new material with all the same properties and name it "Material.000".  Changing this new material will not affect the original material "Material".


Missing OpenColorIO.dll for game engine executable I saved my blend file as Game Engine Runtime in a Windows 7 system. Now I have an executable file. The file works perfectly fine on my current computer but when I open that file on another computer (also Windows 7), it gives me an error that says "OpenColorIO.dll is missing"

So my question is, what should I do to resolve the error? I'm not really familiar with dlls and what to do with it.

Also, will the .exe file run on a computer that doesn't have Blender installed?

Probably all the dlls are mimssing. When you export your file as a game executable, you should check the box "Copy dlls".
Anyway, check it was actually made : in the chosen directory, you should find :
- the .exe file
- a folder labeled according to your blender version
- all the required dlls
To get your exe running on a computer without blender, you should send all these files.


Blender to Aftereffects On After Effect i have my png sequence (Blender Cube) and i'd want to mix on my video.

How can I do that?  I can see either only the video or only the cube.

The cube is png but i see the background black https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e8bOYkshku9GpN6cLOXVxEcgxEcILY2T

RENDER tab property> FILM tab, mark "make transparent".


How to get unique displacement for each particle object? I'm trying to create a bunch of low-poly bushes with a particle system. The goal is to not make them "real", that is, I want to keep them as "virtual". I use a Displace modifier to shape the bushes. Using Blender 2.81a and Eevee.

The bush without a modifier is just an icosphere:

The Displace modifier with a Voronoi texture gives it some shape:

Use a particle system to multiply and place many bushes:

Now the problem is that every bush has the exact same shape. Here I move the Texture Coordinate Object 'Empty':

Is it possible to set the texture coordinates in a way that each bush (particle) is at different place in the texture?

I have tried:

Different texture coordinates (Local, Global, Object) and spaces (Local, Global): no effect
Use the Displace modifier for the Emitter instead of Bush object: does not do anything useful

I came across ParticleInstance modifier. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it but it seems to work.

In the particle system settings, render as object and use Empty:

Add a ParticleInstance modifier to the actual object and place it before the Displace modifier. To use the size randomness, enable the Size option:

Edit. Actually the 'Render As' option of the particle system can be None. Just temporarily set it to Object to set the Scale and Scale Randomness. Then set to None, or just don't select anything in 'Instance Object'. There's no need to multiply all the Empty objects.


deleted objects still in scene I have a couple of objects in scene that were deleted and they still show up in blender file and data blocks view and their materials aswell and I cannot select them and I cannot unlink them and make local does nothing...

How I remove these unused objects and their materials?

The question is a bit sparse on information so this is a bit of a shot in the dark.

In your outliner panel where it says All Scenes, select Orphan Data, if the data which should be gone is visible there you can press Purge All to remove the data from the scene.

Best Regards


Python Operator: Context is Incorrect I currently am writing python operator whith the task of appending the current scene into a new file and then linking it back into the original file. There is one problem: When loading a new file the bpy.context changes and I do not quite know how to reload it. This leads to the error "context is incorrect" when trying to append the original scene into the new file. Here is how my code looks so far:

class BPC_main_Outsource(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "scene.outsource"
    bl_label = "Outsource"
    def execute(self, context):
        compScene = bpy.context.scene #get scene
        bpy.ops.wm.save_mainfile() #save current file
        blendFile  = bpy.data.filepath #get path of current file
        apFilename = compScene.name #determine scene's name
        bpy.ops.wm.read_homefile() #load a new file
        oldScene = bpy.context.scene #get current scene in new file
        blendFile = blendFile.replace("\\", r"/")
        apPath = "//" + bpy.path.basename(blendFile) + "/Scene/" + apFilename #build append path
        apDirectory = blendFile + "/Scene/" #build append directory
        bpy.ops.wm.append(filepath=apPath, directory=apDirectory, filename=apFilename) #append scene from main file
        bpy.ops.scene.delete() #delete old scene in new file
        #TODO: save file, open original file, link back
        return {"FINISHED"}

Any help on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Script saves the current file, removes all scenes but the context scene and saves that to a file in the current blends directory with name "SCENE_<context.scene.name>" eg SCENE_Scene.blend for the scene.name of "Scene".

After which it reopens the original file, links to the scene in the created file, and deletes the original.

import bpy

class BPC_main_Outsource(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "scene.outsource"
    bl_label = "Outsource"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return bpy.data.filepath != "" and context.scene.library is None

    def execute(self, context):
        from os import path

        compScene = context.scene #get scene
        blendFile  = bpy.data.filepath #get path of current file
        clean_name = bpy.path.clean_name(bpy.path.display_name(blendFile))
        apFilename = compScene.name
        screen_name = context.screen.name
        scene_file_path = blendFile.replace(clean_name, "SCENE_%s" % apFilename)

        if path.isfile(scene_file_path):
            print("Scene file %s already exists" % scene_file_path)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        bpy.ops.wm.save_mainfile()

        # remove all but context scene
        for scene in bpy.data.scenes:
            if scene == compScene:
                continue
            bpy.data.scenes.remove(scene)

        # save with only compScene
        bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath=scene_file_path)
        # reopen original,link saved scene
        bpy.ops.wm.open_mainfile(filepath=blendFile)
        scene = bpy.data.scenes.get(apFilename)
        # link the scene back
        with bpy.data.libraries.load(scene_file_path, link=True, relative=True) as (data_from, data_to):
            data_to.scenes = [apFilename]
        # rename the original scene, remove crashes my blender
        screen = bpy.data.screens.get(screen_name)
        scn = screen.scene
        if scene and screen:

            scene.name = "%s_ORIGINAL" % scene.name
            scn = bpy.data.scenes.get(apFilename)
            #c = context.copy()
            print("CONTEXT", bpy.context.window, context.window)
            c = {"scene": scene,
                 "screen": screen,
                 "area": screen.areas[0],
                 "region": screen.areas[0].regions[0],
                 "edit_object": None,
                 "blend_data": bpy.data,
                 "window": bpy.data.window_managers[0].windows[0]
                 }
            bpy.ops.scene.delete(c)
            screen.scene = scn

        return {"FINISHED"}

bpy.utils.register_class(BPC_main_Outsource)

# test run
if bpy.ops.scene.outsource.poll():
    bpy.ops.scene.outsource()
else:
    print("Failed POLL is scene already linked?")


How do I set the Vertex color from a loop? I'm trying to instantiate multiple objects and set their Vertex Color from a predefined Color List. For some reason it always applies the last color to all of the objects.

What am I missing here?

Enabling Deep Copy option in the Object Instancer node solves the problem. Vertex colors are property of meshes, thus in order to have different colors for different objects, their meshes have to be independent (Different copies of the source mesh), which is what Deep Copy do.


How to bake all animation from ik to fk in blender2.66 I need to export animation to my game which doesn't support ik.
So i need to bake ik to fk before export.
I can bake one animation via bake action (with clear constraint toggle on because there is no visual keyframe option in 2.66)
, but this will delete the constraints,then i have to recreate these constraints to bake other actions .

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I made a Blender Addon that does exactly this.

It generates a new mesh and FK rig, so that your original one remains completely unchanged.

So you can simply export the rig that the Addon generates and then delete it. When you need to export again, just use it to regenerate a new FK rig.

It's open source on GitHub - https://github.com/chinedufn/blender-iks-to-fks

Hope it helps!


Cryptomatte Pick isn't working. What have I forgotten? Blender 2.81, 2.81a
Windows 10, 2xGTX1080 GPUs, GPU rendering

I've been through the Manual and a few tutorials, but I guess I'm missing something. Why can't I get the Cryptomatte Pick working? Is there another undocumented type of Pass that needs to be activated?

The scene is just the cube. I render the scene, hook up the nodes as below. I've tried both Object and Material options. Tips?

for me its working pretty good. using this since blender beta.
few tips to find out..

1- try this sample file
in my case, it looks like this.

steps i did to check

create objects
assign materials
switch to cycles
turn on cryptomatte (as you have already done )
hit render
use cryptomatte nodes in compositor, tested via object and material both.


Unable to automate converting a duplicated and seperated mesh into a curve with python Code:
class CurveCreate(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "curve.create_operator"
    bl_label = "Curvecreate"
    bl_description = "Duplicates the selected edges and converts them into curves"
    bl_options = {"REGISTER"}

    def execute(self, context):
        bpy.ops.mesh.duplicate_move(MESH_OT_duplicate={"mode":1}, TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value":(0, 0, 0), "orient_type":'GLOBAL', "orient_matrix":((0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0)), "orient_matrix_type":'GLOBAL', "constraint_axis":(False, False, False), "mirror":False, "use_proportional_edit":False, "proportional_edit_falloff":'SMOOTH', "proportional_size":1, "use_proportional_connected":False, "use_proportional_projected":False, "snap":False, "snap_target":'CLOSEST', "snap_point":(0, 0, 0), "snap_align":False, "snap_normal":(0, 0, 0), "gpencil_strokes":False, "cursor_transform":False, "texture_space":False, "remove_on_cancel":False, "release_confirm":False, "use_accurate":False})
        bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type='SELECTED')
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
        bpy.ops.object.convert(target='CURVE')
        bpy.context.object.data.fill_mode = 'FULL'
        bpy.context.object.data.bevel_depth = 0.15
        bpy.context.object.data.bevel_resolution = 3
        bpy.context.object.data.splines[0].use_smooth = True

        self.report({'INFO'}, "Curve Created !")
        return {"FINISHED"}

Question:
This is what I want to do:

What I want the code to do:

Duplicate the selected edges.
Separate the selected edges.
Go back to object mode.
Select the newly separated edges (this is what I cant do).
Convert the selected separated edges into curve.
Adjust some curve settings.

Now the problem is that when Step 3 has been executed that is, going back to object mode I find that the Active object is actually the cube and not the separated edges. Hence the remaining steps get applied to the cube instead. Both the cube and separated edges are already selected when returning to object mode but the cube is the actual Active object.
How do I set the newly separated edges as the Active object in this case?

Assume that you just selected one object to do the procedure:
Then after the separation, the new created object will be "selected" by default, but not active. You can check whether your selected object is not active, then that should be the one you've separated.
# After separation
C = bpy.context # select a correct context first
for obj in [
    o for o
    in C.selected_objects
    if o is not C.view_layer.objects.active #remove active object from list
]:
    C.view_layer.objects.active = obj
    # you can do further comparison here to make sure you select the right object
    break # Break before accessing other
# Do the rest of the code


Set active object with python I want something along the following lines:

import bpy
object = bpy.data.objects['Cube']
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = object
bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=0.638031, axis=(-0.818828, 0.361665, -0.445779), constraint_axis=(False, False, False), constraint_orientation='GLOBAL', mirror=False, proportional='DISABLED', proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1)

But I still have to select the object manually.
How can I make the object active using python?

Just a little update if you are searching for this for 2.80:

The active object has moved from the scene to the new view layers system, as you can have multiple active objects across multiple view layers.

bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = some_obj

I would link to the ba post, but offsite linking is hated upon here.
So, thanks to you, iceythe!