Library Linking and textures I have several blend files with models in them.
Each of these blend files use a common texture.
Each of the blend files are linked into a Blend file with an environment in it.

When I render this environment - is the texture loaded into memory once, or several times?

If im using GPU rendering then the number of textures has to be efficient. If it loads the same texture multiple times I will have to append the objects into the environment rather than link them.

I'm using Cycles.

Thanks.
Oliver

It should be fairly easy to test whether the objects are sharing the texture or not since you are using GPU rendering and the number of available textures that can be used is fairly low.

On this Blender Wiki page, http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Cycles/GPU_Rendering , it lists how many textures you can use before failure should occur.

Now do a simple test by Linking a number of objects that is higher than the number of allowed textures.
If everything renders fine then you can be satisfied that the textures are shared.

Also, if you look at the area that is circled in the next image you will see a number '2'.  That indicates how many users of the texture there are.

I would not rely on software info to report this accurately for what you are doing.

Stress testing is really the only way to make sure the hardware can do what you expect from the software.

I tested both Link and Append using the following method.  I added a 4096x4096 texture to two simple models and then added them to a group.  I added a sphere with a hair particle system and added the 'crystal group'.  The number of instances was set to 150.

Next the Particle system modifier was Applied and the scene saved.

Now I shut down Blender to make sure everything was cleared out and used Append to load in all the separate objects, (including the two originals)

By clicking on several of them individually, I checked the Materials texture node for the number of users and also to verify that there was not a tex.001, tex.002, tex.003, etc.  There did not appear to be any redundant textures weirdness either in the nodes or the image editor drop-down.  Only 2 users were reported for the texture node which looked the same for every model.

I now shut down Blender and restarted using a blank scene and this time used Link to load in a the models.
The results were exactly the same, all the objects were sharing the texture and only 2 users were reported by the texture node.  The second user is presumably due to the original crystal models that were also loaded in.

I also watched the OS's memory usage utility to see how much the system memory climbed for both tests.  It was very reasonable so it's fairly certain that there were not 152 4096x4096 textures being loaded.  I'm sure that would have shown as a dramatic climb in memory usage.

The shared .png file is about 8.3MB on disk(compressed) and the total RAM usage for Blender was reported to be about 230MB.  When I started the Cycles Render it hovered around 400-500MB.
If the texture was being duplicated within Blender I'd expect the memory usage to be much higher.

I can't test using a CUDA enabled device since I don't own one but this looks promising for the use that you describe.  I suppose next you could test to see what happens when the objects all have separate materials.


Best way to unwrap angle without stretching? I guess I'm doing something worng, which others ways it may be unwrapped?

if I dont add this seams it would be very streaked, if I do than my UV overlaps.

Solved by adding this triangle part to other part of UV. If you have any recommendations would be happy to see them.


Animated difference boolean with displacement texture - Empty mesh error 2.8 I am new to Blender,and I got a problem with animating boolean object with displacement texture.

In some frames it works, it cut the inside of the object and in some frames object is empty. No matter which option of texture I am tweaking - there always would be errors somewhere.

The only way when it’s working as it should is when I use soft textures (clouds eg.) But I need this “brickish” effect.

Things tested:

Added and applied more subdivisions to both objects, does not work.
Changing texture coordinates from “global” to “object” helps much
(not completely) to this problem, but I need my surface changing

GIF first shows what’s happening, and then how the cutting mesh looks like.

I would appreciate any help.

Blender 2.8 is not stable right now, I do encounter these kinds of problem when rendering animation. It seems that some of the frame Blender render it with a wrong context.

Usually I will try to manually change the frame and render it as a fixed image. And if image is fine, I will use a script to do the animation rendering rather than ctrlF12.

bl_info = { "name":     "Auto Renderer",
            "category": "Misc",
            "version":  "0.0.1",
            "Authur":   "hikariztw (Taiwan)",
            "blender":  (2, 80, 53),}

import bpy

class AutoRenderer(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = 'common.auto_renderer'
    bl_label = 'Auto Renderer'
    bl_options = {"REGISTER"}

    start_f: bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name="Start Frame",
        default=1)
    end_f: bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name="End Frame",
        default=30)

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        return context.window_manager.invoke_props_dialog(self)

    def execute(self, context):
        self.file_path = context.scene.atrender_folder_path
        for i in range(self.start_f,self.end_f+1):
            bpy.context.scene.frame_set(i)
            bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].render.filepath = self.file_path+str(i)
            bpy.ops.render.render( write_still=True )
        return {'FINISHED'}

class AutoRenderPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """AutoRenderPanel"""
    bl_idname = "VIEW3D_PT_autorender"
    bl_label = "Auto Render"
    bl_category = "Render"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        ###### RENDER
        layout.prop(context.scene, "atrender_folder_path")
        layout.operator(AutoRenderer.bl_idname,\
         icon='AUTO', text='Start Render')
        ######

classes = (
    AutoRenderer,
    AutoRenderPanel
)

def register():
    for klass in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(klass)
    bpy.types.Scene.atrender_folder_path = bpy.props.StringProperty(
        name="Directory",
        description="Where to render to",
        default="C:/test/where/",
        subtype = 'DIR_PATH')

def unregister():
    del bpy.types.Scene.atrender_folder_path
    for klass in classes:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(klass)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

the script add a panel in right of 3D-View panel

Press the button and set what you want to render. The main window freezes during the rendering process, you can open system console to see the process and status.


UV Unwrapping Shading Artifacts I'm wondering why when I unwrap my mesh it creates weird shading artifacts on some places but not on others. I've tried using different unwrap methods such as cube projection, cylinder projection, sphere projection etc. I've even marked the necessary seams and tried smart uv project, but I still end up with some kind of artifacting.
*FYI, there's no z-fighting going on, no overlapping of faces.
Example:

Switch your normal Image Texture node from sRGB to Non-Color:


Apply complex hole pattern to simple face while maintaining good topology I have this mesh with these faces that I want to "punch holes into" following a specific pattern:

I have the pattern as SVG. It has different hole shapes:

I imported the pattern, converted it into a mesh, extruded it, then applied array modifiers to repeat it:

Then, I tried with one side of the mesh to keep it simple in the beginning. I separated the faces of that side, then I gave them thickness by extrusion. I applied a boolean modifier on them with the pattern mesh, then joined them back to the original mesh, and manually joined the edges (which took quite some time and I'd like not to have to do it). This is the resulting mesh:

It has ngons everywhere, and has many thin tris at the edges. It also had some broken faces that I had to fix manually.

What would be a better way to achieve this, while maintaining relatively good topology?

I think this question is the opposite of this, where the hole pattern is simple with all holes being the same shape and size, while the surface is more complicated.

If the pattern is tiling then maybe create a small section first.

If it were me, I would rather import the "white portions/ not the holes" svg as a plane, remesh that plane (example used is Text but SVG acts like a text object, same topology problems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16_Xhzg6bRQ
 and/or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZDwMzjVBi0) and then solidify it. Then apply a horizontal and vertical array. After creating a big enough plane, use your desired object as the intersect boolean of the arrayed pattern.

In general, Bools create messy topology. Some addons can help you fix those topologies. I personally use QUAD REMESHER but its a paid add-on. I heard Mesh machine can help you fix these issues too but I don't have that add-on.

Alternatively, you can try learning how to do bools while avoiding messy topology. I recommend Arrimus 3D's Master Booleans in Blender https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSLLdTBwLMfTKWS56tOiQpw/search?query=master+booleans+in+blender

Hope this helps.


How do I select all vertices in edit mode? What's the tool I need to use to select all vertices? I'm making a horn, and need to select all vertices in the Bezier curves to then put a cylinder around them.

press A twice

If you want a simple horn shape you can use the Data>Geometry>Bevel slider in the Properties of the BezierCurve to give you curve depth. Be sure to set the Shape>Fill to Full, increase the Geometry>Bevel above 0 to give it depth, and increase the Geometry>Resolution to make it more rounded:

You can then press Alt+S to scale the diameter at the vertices.

You could even use a non circular Mesh BezierCurve as Bevel Object, and twist the vertices with Ctrl+T to get a cartoony twisted horn look.


Is there a way to remesh an object to match the shading? How do I remesh a model to match, as closely as possible, the curves from the smooth shaper, while retaining the sharp edge settings?

I figured out a solution.
By marking the 'Sharp' edges as 'Ceases', and then using the 'Subdivision Surface' modifier (which lets you acknowledge creases). This seems to smooth everything out really well, without the need for shaders.

Tab into edit mode, and select the edges that you want to preserve, right click and mark as creases (or Shift-E and drag)
Tab out of edit mode, and select the Subdivision modifier
2a. Toggle 'Use Creases'
2b. Step the 'Viewport' (or whatever's relevant) setting up until you meet the desired smoothness
Apply


Rendering animation is not working I only have an animation of 5 seconds and is only rending like less than 1 second,  the worst is rendering stuff that is not there, I don't understand why.
In the first image is how is supposed to be, and the second pic is how it render.

The problem is this (your "empty")

This won't be rendered.
If you want to render an image do this:

add plane

resize it and move it as you want it (basically give it the size and the position of your "empty")

give it this shader

then you will get:


I am totally lost in blender and cant find my models So, I decided it would be fun to press numpad0 then shift-F and go exploring, and now I've lost my pine tree. I cant just press 0 to go to my camera, because I accidentally clicked when in shiftF mode. Help.

You can always press Shift+C to reset your view ;)


Convert particle system wont work properly : it modifies the geometry I have a problem with the "Convert" button of my particle system : as soon as I click on the Convert button of the particles system modifier, my particles losses a part of their geometry (it is more rounded)
Here is the story (Apologizes if my english is hard to understand, I'm french, baguette) : I'm making asteroids belts.
So, I've created rocks affected by a subdivision modifier and a displace modifier with voronoi texture. Then I've duplicated it and scaled the rocks differently. Then, I've created a collection to put my rocks in.
Then I created a simple torus on which my rocks poped up thanks to a particle system. It is set as this :

I have plenty of particles system as this one, now I need to "bake" this into meshes (1 asteroid belt = 1 mesh).
To do that, here are my steps :

Select Torus 1 (first particle system, first belt)
Hit the Convert button on the Particle system modifier
Object -> Relation -> Make Single User (Object & Data) so that every particle became the single user of its modifiers (the subdivision and displace modifiers inherited from the rocks i've created earlier as a source collection for my particle system)
Object -> Convert to -> Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text
Ctr-J : Now I have a unique mesh for the first asteroids belt (then I decimate it but anyway)

My problem is : Once I clicked on the convert button of a particle system, every rocks loses a part of its geometry, like if the Voronoi Texture used for the displace modifier losen its effect.

How can I fix that ? I really need a strong texture for my scene.
By the way, the rock texture is just a noise node plugged in a bump node, then in the Normal input of a principled BSDF. So the displace modifier of a rock applies a Voronoi texture on it, then I bump the texture with a noise texture.

When the particles are converted, they aquire their size as particle, so generally much smaller than the original object.
From that, if the displacement is set to "global" coordinates, the mapping of the object on the voronoi texture becomes very small and so has few variations.
As solution, set the displacement to "local" coordinates and the mapping will be equivalent between your original objects and the converted particles.

Alternatively, you can change (lower) the voronoi texture size once the particles are converted.


Does Blender have a "distribute evenly" function? I've duplicated 5 objects and would like for the middle 3 to be spaced apart evenly between the first and last instances. Can Blender do this?

You could add a Copy Location constraint to each of the intermediate objects (with each of them initially positioned at the same point as the original) with the 'target' set to the last object, and then adjust the constraint Influence appropriately - ie, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75. This will distribute the intermediate objects at the correct spacing between the original and the last.

You could do the same with a Copy Rotation and Copy Scale constraint to have the intermediate objects similarly blend those attributes. Changing the Location, Rotation, or Scale of the 'final' object would then cause the intermediate ones to automatically move, rotate, and scale to blend to the final location/rotation/scale.


How to create a ribbon and attach it to a balloon What would be the best way to model a ribbon and attach it to a balloon like in the images below ?

a ribbon like that can be done extruding an open curve object (not pressing E, but using "extrude" slider in the curve panel). But you'll have to model its curves by hand, positioning the curve control points manually.

Making it behave "automatically" like a real ribbon with spring effect, gravity, is more difficult though. I guess it would be more like a sort of cloth or soft body thing...

[edit]
First, experiment with something simple: another answer shows you how to create a simple bezier, and shape it as you wish adding control points, an that is right but slightly slow and tedious.

There is also a way to easily get a complete "twirled" ribbon, already shaped as a spiral, which you can perhaps more easily adapt to your taste, and get something like this:

This is what I suggest:

starting from a "vertical" (along z) plane, delete all vertices but 2 connected
in this way you should get a vertical segment of just 2 vertices, like this below

as suggested in the image, press the toolbar "screw" command: you immediately get what follows:

before confirming, adjust "steps" and "turns" (I suggest 3 steps, and a few turns, will explain later why)
then, you only need to keep one of the two the "edge loops" of the shape created by the screw command, like below (ctrl-right click on an edge to select it, or select 2 connected vertices on it and then CTRL-E => "edge loops"):

so, press "x" and delete those vertices (ot use CTRL-I to invert the selection, and delete the others, you get the same result for this purpose): you will get something like

now, convert the shape (objlect mode) to curve, with ALT-C:

this is now a curve but I know it doesn't seem a ribbon, now, since "screw" command had only 3 "steps" per "turn". But you can now apply a "subsurf" (subdivision surface) modifier to smooth it and you can change several levels, in a non-distructive way (you can change idea, try several versions):

then, since is a curve you can give "depth" using the extrude slider as said starting this post (I prefer "extrude" and not "bevel").
Just smooth the shading, and see what nice ribbon you have now!

Plus, since you chose only 3 "steps" per turn, you have fewer control points to change its shape, meaning: it's easier to pose, and animate! (this is why I suggested 3 steps, and several turns)

But if you need more points, you can always select 2 of them and "subdivide", and get more fancy ribbon shapes!

Happy ribboning!


Can I get the object dimensions in Cycles? Can I get these dimensions:

(bpy.data.objects['Cube'].dimensions)

in a Cycles node, as a vector?

I tried an Attribute node with dimensions[0] as the Name, but this didn't work. I also looked at the Geometry and Object Info nodes, but couldn't find anything that looked promising.

Preferably without Python due to the whole "trusted blendfile" feature.

This would open tons of possibilities for optimizations, such as automatically adjusting the scale of a procedurally generated material (here, the dots are non-square).

Well, I can answer part of the question. You can get the values of the dimensions into cycles by using drivers, driving 3 separate Value nodes and using the data path of dimensions[0] as the driving value:

Add a Value node: Add> Input> Value
Right click the value and choose 'Add Driver'.
Change to the graph editor and change to 'Drivers' mode from the header toolbar.
Use the following settings in the Property panel (N) after selecting the channel on the left:

As you already identified the data path you need is dimensions[0] (0, 1, or 2).

This will result in:

(6.399 simply being the X dimension value of my test cube)

Repeat this for the 2 other dimension values and 2 more value nodes.

However, as to how you would combine 3 value nodes into a vector is something I don't know. You could of course drive something other than a 'Value' node using this method if that is more useful.

Edit: As noted by Chebhou, in the comments, as of Blender 2.72 a "Combine XYZ" node exists:

Instead of driving 3 individual 'Value' nodes, you can now drive the x, y and z values of the 'Combine XYZ' node which will result in a vector.


moving the armature along with the model The armature doesn't move along with the model when I move it around but still poses.

Simply move the armature object, or the root bone (in pose mode).

Once you have rigged a character, you no longer need to move the mesh objects themselves (usually characters consist of several mesh objects). That would be very difficult to animate, and could not deform.

This is in fact the purpose of rigging - to allow you to easily control and animate a character using bones rather than the original objects themselves.

Usually a rig will have a Master or Root bone that is used to position, rotate and possibly scale the character. This bone is the final parent of all the bones in the rig (the first bone of each chain, if not parented to something else, is parented to the root)


How to make a Delete operator with its confirmation window? I would like to have a Delete button that can Delete Global using Shift-Click.
It deletes globally fine, but I'm not getting the confirmation window even if I set confirm=True
Could you help me find what I'm doing wrong?
class MYADDON_OT_Delete(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "myaddon.delete"
    bl_label = "Delete Object"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    obj: bpy.props.StringProperty()
    use_global: bpy.props.BoolProperty(default=False)

    def execute(self, context):
        obj = bpy.data.objects[self.obj]
        obj.select_set(True)
        if self.use_global:
            bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=True, confirm=True)
        else:
            bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False, confirm=True)
        return{'FINISHED'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        if event.shift == True:
            self.use_global = True
        else:
            self.use_global = False
        return self.execute(context)
```

Invoke the WindowManager.invoke_confirm
IMO the way this was is confusing. If your desire is to delete an object by name, can instead get it from the scene by name and remove it.
As it was would remove active, selected and "obj" if it existed, or simply throw an error if it didn't.
Have passed an override to the delete object operator to only delete the object known with name self.obj if it is linked to the context scene.
Test script, run in text editor throws up the confirm menu.
import bpy

class MYADDON_OT_Delete(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "myaddon.delete"
    bl_label = "Delete Object"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    obj: bpy.props.StringProperty()
    use_global: bpy.props.BoolProperty(default=False)

    @classmethod
    def description(self, context, event):
        return f"Delete {event.obj}"

    def execute(self, context):
        scene = context.scene
        obj = scene.objects.get(self.obj)
        if obj:
            return bpy.ops.object.delete(
                {
                     "object" : None,
                     "selected_objects" : [obj]
                 },
                 use_global = self.use_global
            )

        return {'CANCELLED'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        self.use_global = event.shift
        wm = context.window_manager
        if event.shift:
            return wm.invoke_confirm(self, event)
        return self.execute(context)

def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    op = layout.operator("myaddon.delete")
    op.obj = "Cube"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    bpy.utils.register_class(MYADDON_OT_Delete)
    bpy.types.TEXT_HT_footer.prepend(draw)
    bpy.ops.myaddon.delete('INVOKE_DEFAULT', obj="Cube")


Rigging - Why is my bone blue? I selected a bone and then tried to add another bone to the selection. But instead of the other bone getting selected, the first bone gets blue. I had to click another time on the second bone so I could actually select it.

What does the blue color indicate?

I made three clicks, I will post an image for each click, the red X indicates the bone where I clicked at.

First click

Now its blue... and the second bone is not selected

Last Click (why I had to click twice on that bone to select it?)
The second bone is a duplicate btw, there are two exact bones at the same place.

In Pose mode. the lighter blue color indicates the active bone, while the darker blue indicates a selected bone.


The colouration is extremely strange I was working on my model when blue 'sharp' lines appeared. I didn't understand these at first and closed out and reopened to see if that would fix the problem. I then did some research and found out how to get rid of the lines, but now everything looks very strange. Help?
Edit: It looks fine in Sculpt Mode. I've tried adding and removing the sharp edges and nothing has changed.

Thanks in advance.

Blue sharp lines didn't just appear-- you did something to make them appear.  But, they were probably always there.  Probably, because you imported this mesh using a function that marked edges containing custom, per-face normals as sharp edges.
The solution?  If you were happy with your normals before you cleared sharp edges, but not after?  Roll back to just before you cleared sharp edges.  Or else, remark those edges as sharp, if you remember which edges they were.


Creating a Curved/concave shape from a flat surface I'm attempting to create a retro style TV in blender but I've come to a halt. The basic shape is done but I want to create the concave inside of the TV screen.

I tried to do this first by placing a flattened sphere and using the Boolean modifier to mold the concave shape into the main model. However now this looks terrible and out of place, and I want to make this look better, but I have no idea how.

Here's what my model looks like now

Any Help is gladly Appreciated!

Reference image:

Seeing your reference, the TV tube s not so "spherical", so I won't start from a sphere. I tried to get something like that:

in a very simple way.

I created a vertical plane, and subdivided it about 40 times.
then I added a lattice object all around the plane
adjusted lattice subdivision settings: U:1, V:5, W:3
applied a lattice modifier to the plane mesh, targeting lattice object of course
then pulled some "front" lattice vertices outwards, obtaining a soft, uniform deform to the plane
built a rough tv set box around the deformed plane

I can't detail more all steps now, I'm in a hurry, but I provide a sample .blend below, so you can see the setup. Let me know if you need more detail.


Using multiple glare filter nodes How should I apply multiple glare filters to rendered frames of an animation? I have an object with an emission shader that is keyframed to glow brighter every now and then. I want it to have a small glare effect when it is glowing dimly, but have multiple more noticeable glare effects that will apply and stack on top of each other when it is glowing more brightly. However, just combining glare filters with different thresholds with an "add" node isn't working predictably. Please help!

Here is a GIF of a preliminary render I have.

https://gfycat.com/JollyUnconsciousInvisiblerail

I want the glare effect to glow extremely brightly for a second to hide the moment when the second line of text appears. (This is the title screen for a movie I am working on.)

How would I accomplish this while compositing? Please help!

Don't use the "mix" function on the glare node. Just set it to 1 (outputs glare only) then add it back to the original with an add node, like this:

Not only can you chain as many as you like this way, but you can use the factor on the add node to have complete control over the intensity of the effect.


UV Map not showing in UV/Image Editor I was trying to make a uv map test for my guitar so i hit smart uv map just to see how is all going but it wont apear in the uv/image editor, i tried making some seams but nothing. I made some uv maps before and they always appeared in the uv/image editor

The UV map does not show up in the render preview, open a new image in the UV editor, or create one.


Why Doesn't endObject work? If new_piece = scene.addObject(shape) makes a piece appear, why does new_piece = scene.endObject(shape) NOT make the piece disappear?

if key[bge.events.PAD5] == pressed:              # If 5 key pressed
    target = scene.objects['Empty1']             # Find where it goes
    new_piece = scene.addObject(shape)           # Create the piece..
    new_piece.worldPosition = target.worldPosition  # and place it.

if key[bge.events.PAD0] == pressed:
    new_piece = scene.endObject(shape)
                # 'KX_Scene' object has no attribute 'endObject'

This is the simplest game I could make to figure this out. The entire blend file is here:
https://github.com/quazipseudo/Done-Gone/blob/master/ApDisap002.blend?raw=true

The process of ending an object is different to the process of creating it. Typically you delete it using a reference to the object, using the function piece.endObject()

Modifying your above code:

if key[bge.events.PAD5] == pressed:              # If 5 key pressed
    target = scene.objects['Empty1']             # Find where it goes
    new_piece = scene.addObject(shape)           # Create the piece..
    new_piece.worldPosition = target.worldPosition  # and place it.

if key[bge.events.PAD0] == pressed:
    # First up we retrieve the existing object. In this case we get it by name.
    # Make sure the name is the name of the object you want to remove
    existing_object = scene.objects.get(shape)
    # If it exists, then remove it
    if existing_object is not None:
        existing_object.endObject()


How can I change the Render Regions background display mode? I regularly use the handy Render Regions feature of Blender, but I have noticed that no matter what mode you are in before entering Render mode, the background mode for the parts of the scene outside the lines is always solid. I want to know if there is a way to change that to Textured mode.

Here is an example of what I mean. I am in Texture mode, with a render region set up.

However, when I enter rendered mode the plane on the right loses it's texture, and is now completely solid, obviously being displayed in Solid mode.

Is there a way to change this behavior? And if not, what workarounds are there?

Sadly, this appears to be impossible*.

*Blender is open source, you could always add the feature ;D (I mean isn't that the whole point of open source)


Cannot edit vertex after join Also cant edit even though I've been editing in the same object. I needed to redo a torso and separated the arms and head but now that I have brought them back I cannot edit the existing meshes, only the torso I've been working on. Edges and faces are selectable...but will not move, it's like the vertex data is gone.
I've had this happen when I join objects as well, actually never had a successful join with a mesh I couldn't edit anymore, hence the headline. But now I stayed only in edit mode (same object) and the existing mesh is doing the same thing. You can see in the photo how there are no vertex points to even select

I've only had this happen since 2.83 and 2.9 (current). Removing modifiers, applying modifiers same result (obviously I am trying to reapply mirror here), overlay and viewport data unchanged, xray makes no difference, even tried dumb stuff, tried removing dupe verts, duping mesh, etc, nothing gets the mesh back...

I closed and reopened then tried unhiding again because I was running out of ideas. And it worked. No idea why, and can't duplicate it the problem either so I have no explanation.


Mesh/edit mode: how rotate TOGETHER with armature I am trying to adjust mesh orientation relative to axes. The mesh is quite complex and also has complex armature. Armature bones are very precisely positioned relative to the mesh (this is needed since after exporting to Ogre, I'm accessing the bones positions during animation form C++ code).

When I select mesh and go to Edit mode, I can press "R" or "G" to adjust mesh position. But armature remains at the old position. It seems I have to goto edit mode for armature and rotate/shift it too. But this most likely will break precise adjustment between mesh and armature - because I must apply the same transform to both. Manual readjusting is a huge amount of work

Could you advice how to rotate shift mesh and armature simultaneously in Edit mode?

You can modify the Armature in pose mode, then apply the armature modifier to the mesh and apply pose as rest pose
This will let you modify the bones and mesh at the same time and applying the pose bakes the changes into the natural position of the mesh and armature
You'll then have to reparent the armature but that's easy
default rest pose:

modified pose:

apply the armature:

apply the pose:

new rest pose!:


Subgrouping a large mesh Recently I've been trying to import into my game the mesh of a terrain that I have in Blender. I chose to use a model other than a heightmap because it's needed the maximum accuracy possible. Unfortunately the model, once highly detailed, has 263,169 verts and this exceeds the maximum limit that a mesh can hold into the engine I use (the limit is normally 65,536 verts).

As a solution I read that the engine can manage without problem models with more than limit if the model is "subgrouped" in meshs with at maximum 65,536 verts. There comes the problem for me. Until now I've been trying to do this in Blender, that is, to "subgroup" my mesh, but, sadly enough, entirely unsuccessfully. I've never used Blender before and, although all my research, I still don't have even the slightest idea about how to do such thing.

I found this link, but I don't know if this is exactly what I need... I also achieved to create "groups of vertices", but only through a very manual process.

This is the image of the terrain, if it helps:

My working vacation is near, then I'll have time to study Blender a lot more. I would be very grateful having some tips about where to start in the case of the described problem.

As it happens, I've been working with subgroups in terrain myself, probably for a different game and game engine than you are. Here's how I would proceed. Broadly speaking, my custom is to analyze the terrain object I am working with and to create subgroups from sets of vertices which share common properties. Examples of such properties include what the selected vertices represent. For example, all roads in a section might be assigned to the same subgroup of vertices. All watercourses (rivers, streams, &c by whatever name known) might be assigned to a different subgroup. All bodies of water, from puddles, through ponds and lakes to seas and oceans, might be assigned to a third. I also use density of vertices (when projected to the base plane) as criteria, so that a mountain might be assigned to its own subgroup (or sometimes more than one, if required by the density of vertices.

Just doing the basic math, you have 263,169 verts, and the maximum limit per section is 65,536 verts, you will need at least five subgroups (263/65 is greater than 4). Unless there are other considerations in the game engine that would force otherwise, I'd create groups which share common characteristics. For example, relatively smooth areas have few verts, and mountains have many. This image

shows the subgroups I would define in the case of your terrain object. I might be inclined to stretch the number of subgroups to 6 of more, if I need to separate out roads easily, and if the mountain in the upper right has too many vertices. In the case of the mountain, if I had to separate that into two subgroups, I'd cut into a bottom and a top subgroup, as indicated by the dashed line.

As top exactly how I would define the vertices would depend upon the details of the game engine. I would certainly define vertex groups to make it easy to select (or deselect) one or more of the subgroups at a time, but I suspect that the subgroups would need to be made into separate objects which are exported to the game object as part of a single scene. This will depend upon the details of implementation of the import process for the game engine.

Disclaimer: upon seeing your actual mesh I might make different choices for the subgroups I'd use.


Why is my cube projection messed up in one scene but not the other? As the title says, I'm trying to make a new cube and cube projection in my current scene and it just is not working. In a new scene it looks like this:

In my current scene it looks like this:

I'm pretty confused as to whats happening differently between the two scenes. Both are new cubes with no modifiers at all.

(I know I've been asking a lot of questions lately, hope I'm not breaking any rules)

Any suggestions? What factors cause the cube projection to be different between scenes?

Edit: Creation .gif :

Cube projection will project the mesh from 6 view directions ignoring the seams, and depends where the mesh located in 3D space and its rotation, UVs position will be calculated in UV/Image Editor.

  Blender offers several ways of mapping UVs. The simpler projection
  methods use formulas that map 3d space onto 2d space, by interpolating
  the position of points toward a point/axis/plane through a surface.
  The more advanced methods can be used with more complex models, and
  have more specific uses.

UV Mapping a Mesh


Why are some edges not appearing in my Freestyle render? I'm using the FreeStyle plugin to export/create SVG files from 3D objects. But, note that inside certain objects some lines do not appear. Look at the attached pictures.

PS: I tried using only the 'contour' attribute, and also using the others of the Edge types tab.

You can select those edges and mark them as Freestyle edges. Then tick the Edge Mark option.

Alternatively you can probably tweak the crease angle, but you may get unwanted lines.


Sapling Tree not generated at 3d cursor Everything but the Sapling Tree is generated at the 3d cursor. I need to create and configure the tree at a specific location and I can't move my scene due to it being geo-referenced.

Any ideas?

Edit:

Blender version: 2.79 Build, 2017-09-11

Sapling version 0.3.3

This started not as a real and proper answer, but to demonstrate that at least on 2.76b, with Sapling 0.2.6, sapling addon worked as you would expect:

So, I suggested you to detail exact blender and sapling versions you are trying. It could also be a bug or a changed behavior...

Meanwhile, I found  a 2.79rc2 lying on my disk, so tried also launching Blender-softwaregl (opengl sw emulation due to my crappy notebook), here the addon is named "Sapling Tree Gen", version 0.3.3, it behave like you said: the tree is always at grid origin, no matter where the 3d cursor is.

It seems that there was a big change from 0.2.6 to 0.3.2 labeled as a "major rewrite", I guess starting just before 2.78 release, see this diffusion page.

But, good news! Browsing the sources on that page, I found a single line that reverts the behavior of sapling 0.3.3 to how it was in 0.2.6

find the file <blender install folder>/2.79/scripts/addons/add_curve_sapling/utils.py
go to line 1604, it should be like

#treeOb.location=bpy.context.scene.cursor_location attractUp
change it to

treeOb.location=bpy.context.scene.cursor_location #attractUp
save the file
(if it was open, close and) start Blender
now sapling should behave as it did in 2.76 :)

Note: I've later found a comment by the addon developer stating that he did
"Fix Armature, Tree location generation to 0,0,0 (this was causing fails with armature weights & probably pruning)"

So, use this with caution, and revert if necessary...


Path set to cyclic becomes twisted at the join? I have created a path and set it to be cyclic. However, instead of just appearing smooth there is a twist where the ends meet. I can't seem to find a solution.

I solved the problem. For some reason having the two end points that quite far away from each other created the artefact (although I'm not entirely sure why).


Setting a color for "World" doesn't work I would like to have a pure white background in my animation.
When I set the color of the World in the World Panel to white, nothing works.
Even the "Preview" stays pitch black.
How do I change the color of the background "World"?

Your world surface is using the Emission node wrongly, use the Background node instead for it.


How to save a movie/animation to OpenEXR? OpenEXR Multilayer can store many frames in one file, so it should be possible to store many render passes for the whole strip when rendering animation or movie. However when I check in Properties->Render->Output -- there is no such option as to store movie in OpenEXR Multilayer. If I select OpenExr Multilayer and then render animation -- I get multiple EXR files instead of one.

What should I do to save movie to OpenEXR Multilayer format?

You just render the movie to an image sequence.

OpenEXR is intended for still images, I'm not sure of the benefit of storing an entire animation in a single OpenEXR file, as far as I know, no other applications use OpenEXR this way either (feel free to correct me, but I didn't hear of anyone doing this).


Property Update function for properties inside a collection I have a PropertyGroup Class called PPP, like the Collection Example on this page: http://www.blender.org/documentation/blender_python_api_2_63_release/bpy.props.html

The problem is that one of the properties in the PPP class, pfloat calls an update function "update_func"

I need to be able to tell which ppp has been changed when the update_func is called, normally you would use self to determine it but that does not seem to work it just returns: PPP("")

Any Ideas / what am I doing wrong?

I can't tell whether it's a known limitation or bug, but it definately returns the reference to the CollectionProperty only.

You need a concept of one element in the collection being "active", e.g. have an IntProperty alongside and use it for a template_list() for instance. Then use that number to get the right item:

self[context.scene.ppp_index].pfloat = 1.23

There's actually a reference to the CollectionProperty item returned,
see https://developer.blender.org/T39798


Why doesn't my Eevee rendered image match my view through the camera? I have a single icosphere in my Blender project and I'm using 2.91.0.  My active camera has a background image of a few buildings and I have a foreground framing image that's a blue box that fits around the edges of the rendered area and the rest of it is alpha channel, so it can be transparent.  The icosphere has a brick texture.  This is all just for testing.
Here's the Blender window.  I've hit numpad-0 so the view is through my camera:

Note that I have two images specified in the Camera editor on the right, one for foreground, one for background.  I've also changed the offset for the background image and, in the Lens section (at the top of that editor - the top part of that section can't be seen), I've set an offset to put the sphere on the point of a small tower on a building.
In the 3D view, you can see the light blue frame I created (that's in the foreground image).  The rest of the foreground image is transparent.  You can see a bit of the orange camera image outline underneath the blue outline.  So the blue should be framing the image when I render it.
Here is the rendered image, using Eevee:

There are a number of differences:

The frame in the foreground image is missing.  (Note Opacity is set to 1.0, so it should be there.)
The rendered image includes the entire background picture, not just the area framed by the camera (which matches the area I have framed in blue).  The foreground image is the same size, in pixels, as the specified image size for rendering (set in the Output Properties editor).
The sphere has moved to the left and up from the position I set it in when looking through the camera view in the 3D Viewport.

To render, I just went to the menu and picked Render->Render.  (I use an iMac which uses the function keys, so I don't use them for individual programs.)
Why are there these significant discrepancies between the rendered image and the camera view in the 3D Viewport?
Blend file from blend-exchange:

First have a look at camera background images in the documentation:

Crop
Scales the image up so that it fills the entire camera view,
but without altering the aspect ratio (some of the image will be cropped).

The image is scaled at minimum so that either its height or its width fits the view.
Then you have shifted the background image of -0.104 along Y.
Now in the compositor, you've used a scale with crop option: that means the image is cropped then displaced (if you displace it) so you'll have a transparent part at the top. This is probably not what you want to do.
You can use a "transform" node instead, and some little math.
Your image is 4032 x 3024.
The render setting is 1350 x 800.
As crop from camera background image has adjusted the width. That means you have a scale ratio of 1350 / 4032 = 0.334821.
That give a height of 3024 * 1350 / 4032 = 3024 * 0.334821 = 1012.5.
As you've moved the background image of -0.104 (which is -10.4% in the camera coordinates), you have to shift the image in the compositor of -0.104 *1012.5 = -105.3
That gives this compositor setting:

To add the blue frame which has the same size as the rendering, you can add another alpha over setting on top of the previous one:

And if you want to avoid the above math/calculation, you can also parent to the camera a plane that will render the background.
Place the plane far from it, then scale and move it as you need. The plane has no shader to render with its full colors (don't forget to adjust the camera clipping if the plane is too far):

A blend file for this last setting:


Bones Not Connected? I've made this model with bones but when i try to animate the model by moving or rotating a bone it disconnects from another. How do i get a bone so when i rotate it its still connected to another bone?

Bone before rotation:

Bone after rotation:

I have no idea why this is happening i thought bones were supposed to be connected. I have been researching this problem for hours but this nothing about this, it doesn't look like anyone else has this problem.

You have to go to edit mode, select the two bones, Ctrl+P> Connected.

Also when you have added a bone, and then you go to edit mode. Select the tip of the bones and extrude it with E, then the bones are automatically parented to each other.


How to install LDR-Importer Add-on? I'd like to install LDR-Importer in order to import LDraw .dat and .ldr models into Blender. Unfortunately the script comes with no installation documentation. Where should I unpack the github archive?

you can save it at a logical place for you, you don't have to unzip it. In blender you open the user preferences --> add-ons--> install from file, locate the file and than check the file.


Totally white shadeless material in Cycles? Is there any way to make a totally white shadeless material in Blender Cycles? I need to render something as a silhouette being totally white and the background (the background isn't an image or geometry, is just non-existent) completely black.
Or make the geometry totally white with not shadows or lights at all, and the background totally black.

I know that in Blender Render you can simply make a Shadeless object texture by pressing the button with the same name and reducing the reflection of the same geometry.

Here is a node setup for a shadeless material:

If you use just an emission shader the object produces light.  So it still is not shadeless as it is casting light on other objects. To make it shadeless, you must make sure it sends light only to the camera. To do this, add mix shader with the emission shader plugged in the bottom node socket. Leave the mix shader's top node socket empty (or plug in a holdout shader if the empty socket bothers you). Then plug the is camera ray from a light path input node into the factor of the mix shader.


Transforming (morphing) one object's shape into another's For example, I have two different objects. One cube and another- sphere. Can I somehow make cube change its shape identical to the sphere through animation? I mean I can do it manually with shape keys but is there some way to do it procedurally by just having start and final shapes even with different amount of vertices? The thing is I have two much more complex objects and transforming one into another is a hell of an ordeal.

Morphing objects with different vertex count is impossible AFAIK with the blender tools, unless you use a scripting. Here's a temporary solution though. It uses a to sphere tool.

I have three objects here with a different vertex count. I'll use a sphere as a midpoint for all transformations.

Add a shape key (Key 1) and set its value to 1.000. Enter Edit Mode and use To Sphere tool (Shift+Alt+S,1). Then hit Ctrl+V-->Smooth Vertex. Hold Shift+R to repeat it (set smoothing value to 1.000 in a Tool Shelf) unless the vertices are relaxed. Then repeat the to sphere operation.

Do the same with the other objects (every one should transform to the sphere of an equal size). Finally keyframe the shape keys values and visibility of the objects on a timeline.


VSE is neither previewing nor rendering multilayer EXR sequences I cant seem to get the VSE either preview/play nor render multilayer-EXR image sequences. The preview is either black or transparent depending on the setting and the render outputs are just black. My suspicions so far:

the VSE cant display them because they're too big. That shouldn't rule it out to render them though.
The VSE takes the wrong channel/layer of the EXR, so maybe it takes the wrong one and everything is just empty. Yet I haven't found a way to tell it which it should use.

Is it possible, that rendering out a multilayer-EXR image sequence in the VSE is just not supported? Because the compositor can handle them just fine.

I don't care about the preview, but would want to quickly render it out to a movie-file (for actual preview purposes). I could use the compositor of course to create a jpg sequence and then make it into a movie file, but that would be the long way around.

Win7-64bit, blender 2.75a (also tried 2.76rc3 and 2.73a to no avail).

According to this thread directly exporting an exr-sequence in the VSE is not possible, as in it wasnt designed to do that.

Either export your exr sequence to some other format using the compositor, OR just plug what you want of the exr into the composite node and then get that data into the VSE using a scene strip.


Is there a way to animate the pivot point of a bone? So I have a bone where I'd like there to be 3 points of rotation, and depending on my animation, I'd like to be able to switch pivot points easy. I can't seem to figure out a way to do this where all 3 pivots will follow each other and also rotate on each other.

Being able to animate the origin of a bone would solve this, but I'm not sure that's possible.

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks!

This is an idea I have but I haven't tested it.  Hope it can be used.

Set up a chain of elongated, non-renderable cubes in the same spaces as the bones. Move their pivot points to the correct end, and link them so they're like a chain of bones.

Now you can use a Child Of constraint on the relevant cube to parent it to an Empty. Set Influence to zero until you're ready to switch to the new pivot point/Empty. Do this 3 times after moving the Empties to where you need the 3 pivot points. You need a 4th Child Of constraint to have the next cube/bone in the chain as the target/parent. You can then animate Influence to switch between pivot points.  When you want to rotate a bone around a different pivot point, you rotate the Empty.

The reason for leaving the bones there is you need them for skinning purposes.

If one could use a Child Of constraint directly on a bone that'd be easier, but as far as I can see it's a mesh-only constraint.

You could try the above if the bone whose pivot point you want to animate is at the head of the hierarchy. Otherwise the you'll rip the chain apart.


Move duplicated key frames I have been searching heavily on trying to move the duplicated keyframes from say 25 objects and paste it to another set of 25(and doing so to copy to over 100 objects) I have been able to copy a single objects keyframes to multiple objects and duplicated multiple object keyframes but without being able to cut them and paste somewhere else. Is this even possible? Thanks

select all you need to duplicate
press copy
and then place the marker of the timeline where you want to paste
them and press paste


How to create Onyx material in Blender Cycles? I am struggling to create onyx kind of material, if somebody can help me please

I have created following node graph:

i am getting such output :

I'm not experienced with cycles but share some ideas on how to approach this. You could start with a Voronoi texture to get the cellular look:

Then add a color ramp with colors occuring in the image.

The cells in your image have different sizes this means whe need to mix two Voronoi textures which different scales. The borders of the cells are not as smooth as in the Voronoi texture here some noise could help.

the upper part of the nodes (including noise) could look like:

the lower part (overlay) something like this:

Combined by mix shader:


Get Loc/Rot/Scale of object in material using Object Texture Coords? Sometimes you want to get an object's Loc/Rot/Scale in the material for fancy vector stuff or controlling procedural textures. This is usually done by creating a bunch of Values driven by the appropriate parameters. I am wondering if it is possible to do it using 2 Empty objects and comparing their coordinates.
Object Texture Coords give us the location of an object. If we have one object that moves and another that doesn't, the difference tells us the relative position of the object, like a Local Space movement. That part is simple. But how can we figure out rotation and scale? I don't understand vector math enough to figure it out. Is it possible? How could it be done?

You can get effective access to the shaded object's entire transformation matrix by using the Vector Transform node to find what the Object space's bases, (its [1,0,0], [0,1,0] and [0,0,1]) become, when they are measured in World coordinates.
Location:
(We know we can already get this from the Object Info node, but just for completeness...) Set a Vector Transform node to 'Point', from: 'Object' to: 'World'. Enter [0,0,0] as the point to be transformed, and you have the location of the shaded object in the World.
Scale:

These arrows point along the Y of their Object's spaces, and the objects have been scaled in Y, by between 1 and 2.5 . By transforming the Object-space vector [0,1,0] to World space, and taking its length, you get how much the object has been scaled in Y. Here, the scales are mapped to colors. Of course, you can do the same in X and Z, and, if you like, encode all 3 scales, XYZ -> RGB.
Rotation:
Well,  by taking the Object -> World transforms of [1,0,0], [0,1,0], and [0,0,1], we have the columns of the object's transformation matrix. We know the orientation of all the object axes. But how those orientations are expressed as rotations is another question. If you wanted to express the orientation as Euler rotations, you're into this territory. Even if you fix the order of rotations, (e.g. X, then Y, then Z), there is still no unique set that will arrive at the object's  orientation. So even if you make a node-group to make the Matrix to Euler conversion, and find a set of rotations that take you to the orientation, they won't necessarily be the rotations shown in the object's transform panel.

However, you can still do some useful things. This tree, for example, gets the angle of the projection of the object's Y axis  down onto the World XY plane, around Z. The angle comes out of the Arctan 2 node between -pi and pi. The other nodes just map that range to 0..1.
Although you can get the location of a shading-point as measured in another object's coordinates, that doesn't tell you anything about the scale or orientation of the other object's space, you still need something like drivers there, unless something comes up in Geometry Nodes? And I don't think you can deduce the absolute dimensions of your own, shaded object, unless you cheat by knowing the location of the object's origin in the object's Generated texture space, which always measures 0-1 along the sides of the object's bounding box, oriented with the object axes.


How to render a wireframe & glow lines effect on a house? I would like to render this kind of effect:

I would like to render it on a house. The view should be at the top, and the edges of each wall should be a glowing line. I tried the technique from this question but the result is not good with my house. Is a way to create this effect?

With a low layer weight, we barely see the house (only the walls inside):

With a higher layer weight:

I am looking for the wireframe effect as on the right, in Edit mode:

The blend is here : http://www.pasteall.org/blend/36004

One way to do it is by adding a wireframe modifier to your building, for those shots where you want the wireframe.

instant success:

But don't apply it, else it will modify and change all the geometry of the object. You can disable it from modifying the object by pressing the little eye symbol.

The glow effect could be achieved using composition and a slight influence of the blur node. Or read similar QA threads on this site for suggestions: Glow with depth in Blender?


No matter how many lights or suns I add, this shiny model stays dark Very new to blender, first time question.  I could not find a similar problem searching existing answers.

I have a rendering, and no matter how many lights or suns I add, this model stays dark.  That's a light colored wood texture that appears dark.

This is an imported STL file.  It seems like no matter how many lights I add, it stays the same amount of dark.  You can see my settings in the next photo.  I have a sun, a point light, and spot light all by the model, but no difference weather I turn them on or off.

Thank you for any help.

Wild stab in the dark:

I think you only have mostly reflecting materials in the scene. They act as mirrors and mirrors are only as bright as the stuff they can reflect. You don't have anything bright in your scene to reflect. Just for fun, add a few big planes with diffuse shaders into the scene that are sufficiently lit and see if there's a difference. Alternatively you could crank up the brightness of the world color which, right now, is what gets reflected.

Your lamps seem to work fine since the small areas where they reflect into the camera are burnt white. Problem with mirrors is that they only show the light when the lamp is on the other side of the mirror with matching angles so that it can reflect into the camera. think of where the sun is on a sunset at the beach.

Another way is to use a mix shader (glossy/diffuse). That'll help directing much more light into the camera.


How to do volumetric lighting for a forest scene? I have scene that looks like this:

And I want to add volumetric lighting to it so that light forms a rays of light when it go through the trees like on this example that I found in youtube:

But the problem is that all of these tutorials show how to make this lighting coming from windows, but when I try to replicate it in my forest scene it looks like big ugly fog with cubical shape. Also the light is coming from the back of the camera (as you can see) and there are some spots that needs this special lighting (like places where light goes through trees) and some that don't (like big bright are on the bottom left corner) so I can't just add a giant cube to all of the scene.

The principles that apply for a forest scene are the same as for any other scene.

Think of volumetrics as shining a light in an environment that has suspended particles in the air, like haze or smoke.

All you need is to add a volume scatter node to the world's volume, and set it to a lower value than the default (in the following examples the value I chose is 0.01).

(To make the scene less compute-intensive you might want to use a cube that surrounds the scene and that has a volume scatter node, as explained in this link: Atmospheric lighting in cycles)

Then you need a light that is bright enough to cut through the volume scattering. You might need to set the strength at a very large value.

To get well defined shafts of light, try to keep the light size as small as possible. Point or Spot sources work the best for this effect (if you choose to use a sun lamp, then don't use volume scattering in the world, and use a mesh as volume scattering domain).

The effects of Volumetric lighting are more visible when bright light beams are in front of dark areas of a scene, and are less visible when the background is bright. Also, Volume scattering works best with back lighting (when the light is behind the objects in the scene) and side lighting, like the image posted on the question or any of these reference images.

Back light

(click on any of the images to enlarge)

Side light

Front light

If you have the main light source behind the camera, the problem is that the light is bounced back at the camera before it lights the scene, making everything brighter and flatter (the dark areas are not as dark any more). The same effect as driving through fog, where it is harder to see because the light is reflected back at the driver instead of lighting the road and the landscape.

An alternative way to deal with your scene is to set a bright volumetric light for the landscape (to be the sun or moon or whatever) and smaller less bright area lights to reveal the shapes of the house. Those lights can be invisible to the volume scatter by disabling Volume Scatter Ray Visibility in the Cycles Settings. That way, you can make lights that will not make the atmospheric haze or smoke any brighter.

Volumetric effects will create noisier images, so you might need to increase the number of samples for rendering.


How to make this shader code work propertly? This is dont-know-where-I-downloaded blend file with a Box Blur Filter 2D. It is maybe the only blur filter I found on Internet (there's another but too much simpler). It makes a very good blur effect, with two values: amount and multiplier. The more amount, the more quality of the blur (and more CPU consumption). Multiplier doesn't use more CPU, it only make the blur bigger. It's fantastic... but it has a bug.

When amount is 0, it makes no blur but the image is darken than original. With 8, the brightness appears to be similar... but it gets brighter when the value is higher. This is the code:

/* Simple Box Blur
 * Higher amount = slower
 * multipler property does not affect performance
 */

uniform sampler2D bgl_RenderedTexture;
uniform float bgl_RenderedTextureWidth;
uniform float bgl_RenderedTextureHeight;
uniform int amount;
uniform float multiplier;

vec2 pix = vec2(1.0 / bgl_RenderedTextureWidth, 1.0 / bgl_RenderedTextureHeight) * multiplier;

void main() {
    vec4 sum = vec4(0);

    int i, j;

    for(i = -amount; i <= amount; i++){
        for(j = -amount; j <= amount; j++){
            sum += texture2D(bgl_RenderedTexture, gl_TexCoord[0].st + vec2(float(i), float(j)) * pix);
    }}
    gl_FragColor = sum / pow((amount + 1) * 2, 2);
}

This is the file (also, I would like to know how write this code to thank him/her).

Note: this file works in Blender 2.76 and up.

gl_FragColor = sum / pow((amount + 1) * 2, 2);

This scaling factor isn't correct. Each loop executes amount * 2 + 1 times, not (amount + 1) * 2 times. So it should be:

gl_FragColor = sum / pow(amount * 2 + 1, 2);

Which for amount set to 0 gives a scaling factor of 1.


Curve modifier breaks object's position I positioned cylinder on cube's face and want to make array of it along curve in the middle of cube's face:
 For that i use Array and Curve modifiers on cylinder, but every time i use Curve modifier, cylinder "jumps away", loses it's position and i don't know how to bring it back without cancelling Curve modifier:

Here is the file:

From your blend file:

Select the curve and Apply All Transforms
Create a new cylinder at the origin
Scale it to desire shape
Apply All Transforms on the cylinder
Add Array and Curve Modifier to cylinder
Select the curve, and in Edit Mode do Ctrl T to adjust the tilt


Shadeless mesh that's being affected by lighting? For a while now, I've been using the emission node to create shadeless materials and textures: that way, no matter what the lighting or environment is like, the appearance of the material does not change.

However, is it possible to create a shadeless material that is affected by lighting?

For example, I have a shadeless object with a texture using the emission node. I want the environment/lighting surrounding the object to affect the object's "tint" or "color," just like any other type of material, but in this case it's shadeless.

Thank you!

What you describe is not a shadeless material.
You can try and mix an Emission shader with another non emitting shaders like Diffuse or Glossy shader, giving you a blend between shadelessness and light interaction with your scene.
Just connect a Shader Mix node input sockets to different combinations of emission/diffuse/glossy and try them yourself.
Alternatively look into an Ambient Occlusion shader node. It doesn't react to scene light, instead being self shadowed by other geometry only. If correctly setup with a low distance value it can simulate shadelessness to a certain extent while keeping proximity shadows.
One final note, if you are not looking for photo realism and instead rendering lost of NPR stylized stuff Cycles, being a physically based render engine, may not be the most indicated for you. There are other faster less resource hungry engines out there that may be better suited for your work, like Blender Internal or even simply the OpenGL viewport.


What's the purpose of the EEVEE rendering engine? Is it an alternative to Cycles, or just for the 3D viewport?

You can read this code.blender.org post describing the development goals for Eevee: https://code.blender.org/2017/03/eevee-roadmap/

In short, Eevee is meant to be a modern, high-quality viewport that will perform better than the current Blender viewport, and can better approximate the shaders for game engines or renderers such as Cycles. It will also be able to function as a final renderer in its own right, removing the need for a dedicated scanline renderer such as Blender Internal. Since it is GPU based (using the same render techniques as game engines) it will be very fast, rendering in seconds or fractions of a second.

You can use it as an alternative to Cycles if you prefer the speed, or use it as a preview of Cycles for when you need the extra quality of path tracing and don't mind waiting around for it. Since the renderer is very similar to game engine renderers, it is also very useful for prototyping game assets before sending them on to engines such as Unity or Unreal.


Alpha Layer + Transparency Shader Glitch in Eevee I am following the CG Geek tutorial in which he details modeling a tree in one minute. (https://youtu.be/y7PdiGXbrD0)

I'm running into problems when it comes to shading. When I add a transparent shader to my tree-branch texture, the alpha layer becomes opaque. Here is my node set-up and the result.

I've tried adjusting the blending mode settings in the material window. Going from "Alpha Blend" to "Alpha Clip" does result in the opaque alpha layer disappearing, but it introduces some strange artifacting involving white dots (they appear to be the outline of the alpha-layered image textures).

This is all in EEVEE. When I switch to Cycles, these issues go away, but my GPU pays the price with all the branches being rendered. Any suggestions for trouble-shooting are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Your nodes are wrong (you're using Transparent Shader instead of Translucent). Here, from the tutorial you are referring to:


Two textures one output I try to use two texture in the same material.This material is for a jacket, and one texture containing the default leather material texture, and the other someting like a decorative stripes. My question is, how to blend the two textures together in the same output. I tried the "Mix" node with not too much success.

You can try to mix them together with a Color > MixRGB node and find the right mode (here Multiply). Don't forget to put a Diffuse node after the MixRGB.


Inserting frames into time line I want to insert 20 frames into the beginning of the animation so that I can make adjustments. Is there anyway to do this or do I need to shift every object that I have animated over 20 frames? Thanks!

On the time line there appears to be negative frames but I can't access those is there anyway I could start my animation at the -20th frame? That would solve my problem

Go into the Dope Sheet and select all your keyframes (A), then move them 20 frames (G20).

The Dope Sheet:


the resolution of my model is too high I made a model of an animal in the blender. I started by doing the geometry and then applied the modifier multiresolution to be able to later sculpted. At this moment the mesh has almost 8000 vertices, but the faces are not properly organized. What I wanted exactly was a way to restructure the mesh so that the model can be used in animation easily, but without losing quality. Retopology is an option?

The best (and proper) way is to retopologize the model (use snaping on face) with subsurface-workflow and adding the detail by baking a normalmap with the highpoly model.

Then you'll get a animatable mesh with fast rendering details.


Smoothen out edge after deletion I 3D scanned my face to create a mask for my self for this halloween. I have already removed the unwanted details and just leave the things I want.

But I am now left with those spikes around the mask and the the whole around the eyes. How do I smoothen this out?

My 3rd day in blender. Please do not hurt me. I can not find any reference how to smoothen it. I thought doing S + X + 0 will help but it did not

One quick and dirty method would be to use the circle select tool to quickly remove the strays—but that will not create sharp edges or a completely smooth mesh.

Have you tried the Subsurface Modifier? That could help. It is an absolute fundamental to smoothing a mesh and a MUST-learn.

But from a more professional standpoint—the topology of this model is way too complicated. The scan has created an accurate but wildly complicated form that contains triangles (the worst when you are creating almost anything—especially here when they are tiny).

The ultimate (and most correct) workflow from here, to my knowledge, would be to retopologize the face. There are YouTube tutorials on “Retopo” and it’s worth the time to learn. This mask you have is what all game characters look like when they’re first sculpted—very complicated and dense with miniature triangles—then they have to go back and create a final clean version using the Retopo technique.

John


black objects when rendering scene (BI) when I try to render this scene I have everything black. I've used Mineways to export the model.  I think it is a light issue because if I add a sun lamp it becomes colored, but only from the direction of the sun.  The rest is all black like nothing reflects any light. What is the correct way to have a realistic illumination in this case?

Here is the .blend file.

Edit: adding environment lights there are no shadows but light works: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wxtodq863iascje/progetto2.blend?dl=0

I did a lot of tries, and seems that if I put an ambient occlusion or environment lighting in the world properties panel, it is rendered properly, but in this case I have light from everywhere and not from a sun, so no shadows are rendered.

Your scene lack environment lighting, meaning that the shadows will be black, giving your scene that odd look. Furthermore, due to the import-export your materials are not textured. What you need to do is to first, add environment lighting, and then second, add textures/better materials


Creating a "magic goggles" effect I would like to create a scene in which some simple objects make a simple scene, normally lighted, and with a transparent lens object looking through which some of the objects have an emitter material that also illuminates the area around them, but only when seen through the lens object. Is there any way to do this? E.g. with 2 cameras or scenes...

I guess the proper way to do this would be via compositing, but in Cycles, the Light Path node can take you some way.. it's a bit of a fudge, and may depend on your scene:

The torus in the little shot below uses this tree:

'Is Transmission' ensures that the torus material will emit whenever seen through another transmissive material, and is 'OR'ed by the Maximum with:
'Ray Depth > 2', which means that surrounding objects appear illuminated when seen through the glass, but not otherwise.. the discrimination isn't perfect in all situations, there might be a tiny bit of bounce from the torus when not seen through the glass, but seems good here:

(The glass is 2-sided, it has thickness)


COLLADA export doesn't preserve animation for all bones I'm trying to rig and animate a character for use in an OpenGL-based program. I found a simple character model on TF3DM and rigged him by following the excellent character rigging tutorial from BlenderGuru. I can export the animation to the COLLADA format and load that file into my software. Most of the animation comes through, except for a few small details like the bending of his toes. His toes seem to be stuck in their initial state, with his left foot flat and his right foot bent.

Here his right foot is bent properly while his left foot remains flat:

Here, his right foot is still bent. The leg has moved properly, but the foot hasn't bent like it should have:

This behavior happens in more than one program, including when I export as COLLADA then import it back into Blender. With a simpler model (an elongated cube with only two bones), it exports just fine.

UPDATE: Here's a screenshot of the model when I export from Blender, open a new scene, and import the model. Some of the bones are tiny. Not sure why:

Does this sound like a problem with the COLLADA exporter? Or is it more likely to be a problem with my rig? (Would it be helpful to upload my .blend/.dae file somehow?)

I figured out the first problem. Based on suggestions from this BlenderArtists thread and this extremely helpful Wildfire Games article, I figured out that I needed to bake the animation with the 'visual keying' box selected. To access this, I selected the skeleton, then navigated to Bake Action (Pose > Animation > Bake Action...) and checked the 'Visual Keying', 'Clear Constraints', and 'Clear Parents' boxes. These options also take care of rigs that include inverse kinematics.

As the Wildfire Games article suggested, try to avoid unchecking 'inherit rotation' on any bone, as it will not export properly.

(As for the tiny bones problem, I have no idea what's going on there)


Stencil scale along x - Texture Paint mode I am trying this cool feature - stencil texture painting. I am able to scale stencil using shift+RMB, but that scales the stencil in both x and y.

Is there a way to scale it only along x or only y ?

You have to press Shift+Right mouse button, then while still holding these click on X to scale horizontally and Y to scale vertically.


Blender armature screwing up rig hierarchy in ue4 I'm trying to export a rig to Unreal Engine 4 and have it match the hierarchy of the default ue4 rig. The issue is that the armature shows up in the hierarchy.

This is what it looks like in blender.

In unreal this ends up being HeroTPP > root > pelvis > etc. when it should be root > pelvis > etc.

How do I get it so that the root bone is the actual root of my rig so that the hierarchy matches up with the one in unreal?

The unreal engine devs were aware of this issue and have made it so that unreal just ignores the extra root that blender creates when you import so the problem should be fixed now for everyone importing rigs into unreal.


Meshlights darker in final render It seems like the emission shader lights up other objects stronger in the preview render than in final renders.

I'm using mesh lights in Blender 2.78. The error is reproducible by creating a plane with an emission shader and a subject with any kind of material, that's lit by the plane.

As I didn't find any reports of this issue, I'm wondering if I'm the only one experiencing it, and if so, what settings might cause this.

EDIT:

After resetting the preferences in the System tab this is the render:

It is a bit closer to the preview, but then I noticed that both of the lights are reflected two times. (Which was visible before, but I didn't realize it.)

I also tried to render with CPU, and the result was identical to the preview.

So it's definitely a problem with the GPU (Nvidia).
It's unlikely a driver problem since I noticed the problem some weeks ago.

I tried Delagone's comment without success,

  Have you applied the scale to your mesh lights?

but later I could fix the problem by also applying Rotation and Location.

I don't know what the GPU thinks the lamps looked like, but without all three transformations applied, the rendered image was wrong in some way.


how to differentiate different parts of a same object I am relatively new to blender. I am making a game in which a guy collects 4 different books and places it in the corresponding shelf in a cupboard. (The cupboard and the shelf are extruded from a single cube). I have no problem in identifying and picking up the book. But how do I put it in the corresponding shelf? Since all are extruded from the same cube, its not possible to assign different properties.

Place an invisible plane above a shelf that you want to be clickable. This way you create a relationship between the plane and the corresponding shelf.


Blender Overrides Smoke Cache Files To Original On Startup I wanted to create a reverse smoke simulation.In other words, the smoke moves in reverse as the time goes on.
What I did was first create an external library and then,I  rename all the blender smoke cache files in reverse
In other words, frame[1] became frame[250],frame[2] became [249]and vice versa. I did this for all the cache files it worked!

But here's where it went wrong...
Whenever I save the project, reopen blender and play the animation, blender overrides all the cache files that I renamed and sends them back to their original naming.In other words, all my renaming was just a waste...So, the smoke no longer plays in reverse as the animation plays, but goes to the original or normal movement of smoke.
Can anyone help me with this?

You need to Bake the smoke domain cache first. This tells Blender to calculate the smoke and store it in the cache and to effectively mark that cache as 'read only' until yo tell it to 'free' it. This will mean that Blender will not attempt re-run the smoke simulation, leaving your manipulated (reversed) cache as it is.


The light passes through edges of a model The problem is as in the pictures. When Rendered mode is on, light passes through the edges of the model. When exporting to Unity3D, the problem is the same.

Blend file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ghvqRvovUO_ul_0DJACBYCKao5_dKI9g/view?usp=sharing

Select your light, and in the light properties panel, tick the "contact shadows" box.


Export Scene to JSON that has Multiple Models that each have Multiple Materials I'm trying to export the following scene to JSON:

It is made up of 45 models. Each model will want to have 2-4 different colored faces, like in the picture above.

When I export it in the JSON exporter, I don't get multiple materials per model:

{
            "name":"Corner FTR",
            "uuid":"E83CD01B-9517-3450-B715-1736FABFF4AB",
            "matrix":[-0,0,0.814963,0,0.814963,0,0,0,0,0.814963,0,0,-0.003244,3e-06,0,1],
            "visible":true,
            "type":"Mesh",
            "material":"E323212E-D25C-3E77-B9E9-C7EF768C37B6",
            "castShadow":true,
            "receiveShadow":true,
            "geometry":"3AC1CE35-8D05-3429-9045-B37405F9EBC4"
}

(This is the resultant export code for the corner in the foreground with three colors).

Naturally, when I try to render this in Three.js, the materials don't show, because they didn't export. (In fact, no material shows at all; it seems that material exported is a dud).

If I give a model a single material, everything works fine. The problem only arises when I try to give a single model different materials for different faces.

Any suggestions?

I personally would try one of these two things:

Bake an image for the whole object to be UV wrapped in, and then use that image as one material.

OR

Separate the Meshes per material, and export those out separately with their single materials. I know THREEJS anyway has groups that you could use to re-group all of the geometry, but I'm not sure that's what you are using JSON for.


How can i model these grooves in my mesh correctly? I am fairly new to blender and have been trying to learn on my own with help from tutorials and such, so i still don't know a lot of what to do and how to properly do it. I've been modeling this Iron Man helmet for a cosplay project. I need help with these lines that go down the face plate. I have no idea how to do this without ruining the mesh. Suggestions? Please helpenter image description here

The easiest way would be to make each part of the mask a separate object. I would copy your faceplate as many times as many parts I need, and then reduce each copy into needed part. This way the parts would have proper shape, fit together, and have correct topology.


Blender 2.8 Eevee Transparent Background Output Using Eevee on 2.8 to create some VFX, however, all the video renders I output still have a black background and not transparent. I have selected Alpha channel to be "transparent" to no avail!

Can someone please help!

Many thanks,

Andrew

Firstly,  Render an Png or Tiff Image sequences which supports RGB + alpha  instead of Video.
Secondly,  To enable transperancy go to Render Settings in the properties panel and under Film go to alpha and select Transperant from the drop down.


Renderlayer is completely white and Im NOT on depth pass? Ok, I dont know whats happening but I have a render layer that is just rendering white, and Im on Combined pass so thats not it. Settings:

The objects on that layer are special, but I dont see how that would affect things:

Whats wrong here?

Check that your UV image editor window isn't set to show alpha only.


When using multiple GPUs, is there a way to set Blender to use the memory from the card with the largest amount of RAM? I have a a GeForce GTX 980 Ti and a GeForce GTX 760 installed in my system. I just tried rendering a scene that I know will render fine with the GTX 980 Ti but when I render with both cards I get "CUDA error: Out of memory in cuArrayCreate(&handle, &desc)". I know exactly what is going on. Blender lists the Compute Devices as GeForce GTX 760 + 980 Ti. Even though the 980 Ti is in PCI bus 1 and the 760 is in PCI bus 2, it is obvious that Blender is using the RAM from the weakest card. Since this seems like a real handicap, I was wondering how I can force Blender to do the right thing, the common sense thing, and use the memory from primary card with the largest amount of RAM when rendering my scene with both cards.

Blender is actually using the memory of BOTH cards. The scene has to be fully loaded into both GPUs as they are entirely separate. They cannot share memory. You are limited by the size of the smaller card. The order in the preferences makes no difference.

There is no way to fix this, and no way to have it not use selected cards with insufficient RAM to hold the scene. The only option is to set it to select only the larger card for the time being.


Sculpting selection problem I have problem with selecting in sculpting. It only wants to sculpt the last object I selected in Object mode. Here only plane.010 is being sculpted and its mesh icon is highlighted, when I press double A, everything deselect but that triangle icon before Plane.010 name is still highlighted, and so when I select some another than again same problem but only with that Plane. If I select multiple, last one I selected is highlighted and being sculpted etc. What am I doing wrong?

The only way how you can do that (at the moment) is to actually join them togeher. Select all of them, the Shift-click on the one you want to be the center and press Ctrl+J. This way they are all one mesh and you can sculpt away.
If you need them to be separate again at some point, go into Edit Mode, press P and select By Loose Parts.


Motion Tracking: save tracks but change movie clip I've updated my underlying movie clip (actually an image sequence) and now I want to render a stabilized animation using the existing tracks that I've made. But when I click the folder icon on the movie clip and choose new files, the tracks disappear. Is there a way to restore the tracks to the new clip?

You need to load the old JPG (the "proxy" tracked scene)in the Movie Clip Editor, so you have access to the tracking information. Select the trackers toe be used for stablilizing the footage.

In the compositor create a Movie clip node that uses the new image sequence.

Create a "stabilize2D" node and use the tracking information from the old scene on the new scene.


Skybox problems: make islands have ZERO margin? Ok, I no doubt did this incorrectly but I manually arranged my unwrapped UVs (after Smart project) onto my linear laid out skybox image - on the whole I need some pointers as to whether Im doing this right, but what I did was per Cycles - Skybox using 6 projected images (im in cycles)-

I unwrapped my image onto a cube and subdivided into a sphere:

And just made it huge. My issue is, packing islands gets me this:

And I have an issue with the margins between the islands, which creates these seams clearly:

Whats the best route to optimize this skybox here/get rid of the margins neatly?

I like to create skybox with uv sphere, it's simpler and easier.
Do a quick search on youtube on how to create skybox in the blender that you learn in 5 min.

It will look good like this:


How to run a modal operator after file open? I have the following register function:

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalOperator)
    bpy.ops.object.modal_operator('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

It'll work if I run the code from Blender's Text Editor, but will give the following error if I try to use it as add-on:

AttributeError: '_RestrictContext' object has no attribute 'scene'

Is there a way of running my modal operator on Blender's start (or on opening new file)?

You can use a handler to start your operator after a blend file is loaded, ensure the handler function is marked as persistent to keep it active between file loads.

This is of limited use on blender start, it will work if the addon is enabled and the splash screen is not shown on startup. If the splash screen is shown the operator does work but the display is not updated while the splash screen is visible, dismissing the splash screen also stops the operator.

from bpy.app.handlers import persistent

@persistent
def load_handler(dummy):
    bpy.ops.object.modal_operator('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalOperator)
    bpy.app.handlers.load_post.append(load_handler)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.load_post.remove(load_handler)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalOperator)


Strange Behaviour of Bevel I hope that someone can help a newb
At my learning project, I got an mirror modifier acive.
Than I added some cubes and played with them.
To learn something about cylinders I added one - yes firsttime shortcut used correctly.
I marked the top verticies and added a bevil modifier via "CRTL + B"
When I try to morph a sphere, the situation in the screenshot appears.
For me it Looks like I got 2 "Centers" or something but I dont know how that can be fixed.
Already tryied to delete the cylinder and add new one, tried to work with additional loop cuts but Nothing helped :-(

In Edit Mode setup Mirror Modifier in Y and Z.
Add a cylinder on world origin
Scale the cylinder
Add the bevel and try to round up the upper half of the cylinder to
a spherical shape

Then I took the object and moved it to make the screenshot. So bevel was used at starting Point!
This is the result:

The result I would describe as the bevel tries to move each of the vertex and not only the top ones (result of experiment see last rows of that comment) but all the vertex all around the wall of the cylinder. It seems that the Vector of moving is straight to Y axis
I tried that again while only marking the top vertex - doesn't help to get the Right result
26.6.2020
Additional Information as requested
I added an Image of what I want to do.
Take a cylinder, add a bevel at the top, move the bevel straight up to get a sperical top.
This Image was created in a new model but it doesn't work in my target model.
Yes I tried and deactivated the Mirror modifier and the result is the same.
I tried all Ctrl + S  Points for the Cursor but it has not solved my problem

Found solution:
Edit mode: Delete Cylinder
Switch to object mode: Add Cylinder
object mode: Scale Cylinder up
Switch to Edit mode: bevel


How to make a bannister for a spiral staircase? Let's say you have a shape that would act as one stair step:

Then you add an empty and both the object and the empty have the same origin point. Then you add an array modifier to the stair step, and manipulate the empty to make a spiral staircase.

How would anybody make a railing surrounding the staircase?

When subdivision surface is used, the fence not to be straight from step to step, but round.
Here is what I mean:
Not this -

But this -

Edit: The merge option in the array modifier doesn't seem to do a good job

Does anybody knows how can I make a fence that follows the spiral in a perfect alignment with the spiral that follow the stairs and at the same time every part of it to be connected so that when subdivision surface is added to it, the fence to be rounded, like the representation in the 5th image from above?

Edit: I did it as Gandalf3 explained, but I'm having a problem.

What is that line that is visible when subdivision surface is added and how to fix it?
Note: I was having trouble with vertex groups so I duplicated the model and on the duplicate I applied the array so I could use it as a guide to align the vertecies of the end of the cylindar to the begining of the second one ("cursor to selected"-"selection to cursor"). And I edded a hook modifier and made the "Object" to be the "Empty" and on "Vertex groups" I added the vertex group. And I'm not sure if they are now connected. And I didn't parent the empty to the other empty. But they should be connected now right? Here is the blend file if someone would like to check it out -

http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29776

Its my first upload file so inform me if it can't opened.

One way is to just add some cylinders to your stair object:

Add the cylinder meshes while in edit mode with the stair object selected.
Line up the geometry on the end of each cylinder (snapping is useful here, as it leaves no doubt about which vertex should be merged with what):

What I did in the gif:

Note the Z rotation of the array empty (this is only needed for the initial setup, it will be done automatically later), then enter edit mode and rotate the end to the cylinder the same amount (in my case, ~3.1)
Enable apply modifier to edit cage on the array modifier (inverted triangle icon).
Ensure the snapping type is set to Vertex and Self snapping is enabled in 3D view > Header.
Select any part of the horizontal cylinder, then press CtrlL (select linked) CtrlI (Invert selection) H (Hide selection) to get a clearer view and make snapping easier.
With the rotated end of the horizontal cylinder selected, press G and then hold Ctrl with your mouse cursor over the other end of the cylinder in the next array element.

Now enable Merge in the array modifier to merge those vertices together, resulting in a sub-serfable railing:

By using hooks parented to the main empty, you can keep the merged parts in the right locations, no matter where you move the main empty:

To do this, select the end of the horizontal railing cylinder and press CtrlH> Hook to new object. This will automatically add a vertex group, an empty, and a hook modifier. The hook modifier will bind the location of the vertices in the vertex group to the location of the empty.
Parent the newly created hook empty to the empty controlling the array (CtrlP> Object).

Repeat the hook+parent for the bottom edge loop of the central column.

See this example .blend to explore it yourself :)


How can I define the depth of my world? I created an island with clouds hanging in the sky somewhere behind the island and a camera that approaches the island and moves around it, before moving away from it. When my camera begins approaching the island, the clouds are  not visible. When the camera is right in front of the island, the clouds are all visible. And when the camera moves away from the island, the clouds dissapear again. What is going on there? I think, it has something to do with the depth of my world or the depth of what the camera can see. Thanks for help!

Probably clipping. Both Viewports and Cameras have near and far clip settings. For the Viewports, they can be found in the 3D View Properties Region, 'View' panel. For cameras, they are in the Properties editor, Camera Data tab.


What causes shading artifacts and how to eliminate them? I've been getting these shading inconsistencies with sub surf mod regardless of the subdivisions value, and "Smooth Vertex" deforms my shape undesirably. how do I go about fixing this?

This is how it looks in Edit mode:

Seems like your topology is the culprit. Subdivison modifier tends to not work well with triangles like the ones you have. Try using only quads (squares).
Other than that, I think your normals are flipped. Try this: Hit "T" to bring up the left hand panel on the viewport. Then go into EDIT mode and find the "Shading/UVs" tab. There scroll down and click "Flip Direction".
Hope this helps.


How to select a UV island? How do you select an entire UV island on a mesh by selecting a piece of the desired island?  Similar to the Ctrl+L for selecting all connecting geometry, only selecting all geometry within seams.

I.E. select a vertex within an island.

And hit some hot-key to extend the selection to the marked seams.

I use this feature all the time in 3ds Max, so I can unwrap a piece at a time. It would be a huge timesaver to be able to do this in Blender as well.

Update, UV islands in Vert/Edge/Face modes has been added

In the operator options, enable UV as a delimiter to select UV islands:

Select a vertex/edge/face.
Press Ctrl+LKey.
Enable UV option in toolbar.

Previous answer (Versions 2.74 or older)

Select linked can delimit by seams, but this only works in face-select mode *:

Switch to face select mode
Press LKey over the region, the selection will be restricted to the seams.

If you don't have seams around the UV island, you can automatically create them.

Image Window, UV -> Seams from Islands

* - this is intentional, select-linked traverses only faces in face-select mode, and edges in vert/edge mode.


A few automatic weight / weight painting questions I'm quite new to Blender.

I've been following a few tutorials on Youtube and have made and rigged a human model.

I've merged the armature with its bones and applied automatic weights but barely any of the model has lit up in Weight Paint mode and what has lit up appears to be mirrored on the opposite side of the model which can be seen below.

I don't understand why this bone is having so much influence over the rest of the armature when the whole model is blue.

At this point you might already know what the problem is, but if not here are my thought. The character mesh is being mirrored and I think that at some point I was meant to turn off the mirror, duplicate half of the mesh, flip it and then merge it with the other half. But at no point in the video series I'm watching was this done, so I'm sceptical.

I also can't find how to turn off the mirror. Though I suspect I could if I just googled and while that might fix my issue I'd still appreciate some reassurance or advice.

Thank you.

In the odd chance anyone would like to download this blender file here is a link.

An answer to the second issue: There are different shades of blue and the lighting can hinder your ability to spot the weight paint. What I would suggest is just subtract every part of the mesh to make sure you get it right. And then start painting.


How can I scale curved surfaces radius but leave its width alone? I have a curved set of faces, made by creating 2 circles, joining the objects and then joining the verts I needed while removing the others.

Unfortunately the resulting object has the wrong radius. See pic

Is there any way that I can scale it so that the radius changes, but the width of the faces remains the same? In effect what I want to do is tighten the curve so that lowest edge (in the top ortho view) is much closer to the top, as indicated by the yellow arrow.

Yes, so long as you know the center of the radius.

Place your cursor at the center of the circle.  Change to cursor pivot with . key.  Select your mesh.  Use the push/pull operator, available from spacebar search, or from the mesh/transform menu.  Move your mouse until you're happy, then LMB confirm.