Automate save as shapekey for multiple animation actions I have a model with a armature with several animation actions in it, these actions are facial expressions, and i'm converting each action to a shape key using the "save as shapekey" option in the armature modifier for the model, there are two ways that i'm doing this manually
First way is selecting the armature > selecting the action > selecting the model > save as shape key > repeat
The other way i can do this manually is creating copies of the armature + mesh > selecting a different action for each armature copie > select all models > go to the shape key tab for one of the models > join as shapes
I have been looking for a way to automate one these tasks with python, or if there is a easier way to do this within blender

i wasn't able to find a way to fully automate the task but was able to streamline and reduce the time it takes to complete it using this sequence in the command recorder addon Nascent Space suggested, from about 15 minutes to less than 2, so i'm satisfied
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = bpy.data.objects['M_Head']
bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply_as_shapekey(keep_modifier=True, modifier="md_chr0305_2064_hq")
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = bpy.data.objects['md_chr0305_2064_hq']
bpy.ops.object.posemode_toggle()
bpy.ops.pose.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.pose.transforms_clear()
bpy.ops.object.posemode_toggle()


Can Blender take two video files and morph one into the other? Is it possible to do something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0lcSHYiOJg

with two video sequences in the video editor or elsewhere in Blender?

In short: you could do it manually by morphing tesselated plane with video in texture from one shape key to another. If sequences have no highly significant difference then it would look more or less acceptable.

This tutorial will help you:
http://www.blendernation.com/2014/01/06/morphing-photographs-with-blender/


Armature X-axis mirror not weighting correctly I have been rigging a model and have come across an issue that I haven't been able to solve after a lot of experimentation, basically, my current model is mirrored with the mirror modifier, and I am rigging it with X-axis mirror on.

Normally, when I weight paint say, the left leg to bone 'Leg.L', then it automatically weights the other leg (which is the mirrored side with the mirror modifier) to 'Leg.R' automatically, and it is doing that here for the most part.

The problem is, for some reason my 'Hand.R' and 'Hand.L' bones are not behaving in this way. When I try and weight the hand to 'Hand.L' it weights the vertices on both the left and right hand due to the mirror modifier on the model, rather than mirror only the left hand I am working on to 'Hand.L' and automatically apply the weights on the other side to 'Hand.R'.

I am fairly unfamiliar with rigging in blender using mirror, so I am not sure if there is a setting somewhere that I am missing, or why this part of the armature is suddenly not mirroring fine like the rest of the rig is. Any help / explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Apologies if this is a duplicate, I wasn't quite sure what the proper wording would be, I hope my explanation of the issue is clear enough.

This issue is, as you have identified, due to the mirror modifier. Technically speaking there is only one hand in the geometry data and the weight painting system is only reading one hand in two places, because weighting is technically a vertex group assignment system. If you apply the mirror modifier (I suggest making a duplicate of the hand if you aren't sure about needing to make changes later.) it will create the geometry for the mirrored hand. Then you can go back into weight painting and the x axis mirror should work as intended.


How do I render image only without shading I am in cycles and maybe I should only use blender render for what I am after.  I just want it to show the bitmap and if does create shadows I don't want big dots scattered about.
I there a way in cycles to just not put any of the shading dots at all ?
Also what controls the size and number of dots.  ?
It seams I have better results from Material only but It has these lines showing up that I wish would go away.

ack.imgur.com/mRRsU.jpg

It looks to me that what you were trying to eliminate was the apparent 'lines' in the mesh, and that might actually be a matter of applying 'shade smooth' to the mesh before render. The geometry will show like that if there is no smoothing, regardless of renderer used.


What color space should I use for 16bit sculpting brush alphas? Since starting to learn sculpting, I've been saving most of my brush alphas as 16bit PSDs.
I've noticed though that using the non-color color space instead of sRGB seems to increase fidelity for my brushes.
Here's an example:
sRGB Color space:

Non-Color Color space:

The first image has a lot less detail than the second, leaving me completely confused. Why is the sRGB color space "limiting" the detail of my brushes so much? Why does this not occur when using either RAW or Non-Color color spaces?
Can someone here possibly guide me on what the best pipeline is for creating and store sculpting brush alphas?
Thanks much.
Edit: Someone knowledgeable in the comments section suggested I go with EXR for all my brushes. This sounds like a great idea, but I'd like to know what the difference is compared to PSD. Every third party brush set I've ever downloaded is usually PSD. What do I gain by converting from PSD to EXR?

the comments section suggested I go with EXR for all my brushes. This sounds like a great idea, but I'd like to know what the difference is compared to PSD. Every third party brush set I've ever downloaded is usually PSD. What do I gain by converting from PSD to EXR?

PSD is an undocumented and proprietary format. The only reason it works beyond Adobe is the work of many countless people who have painfully peeled apart some of the internal workings.
OpenEXR, in contrast, is an openly developed library used and trusted by people and companies with massive investment in imaging. Some of the top minds in open imaging have contributed to the format, and it is an exemplary format for performance, compression, metadata, and many other facets.
EXR is a float based format, which provides the granularity required for communicating things other than colour data. For example, normals, depth, and other data are perfectly well suited for EXR, while challenging to impossible in the vast array of other formats.
The Proof is In The Pudding. Try your brushes in well designed software and you should see the impact immediately.

In the end, you make the choice. If you analyze the effect of the file encoding on the quality of the work, the choice should become rather self evident.


Setting up a Sky: bpy.context.world = None I am trying to set up a sky in my script using
bpy.context.scene.world.use_sky_paper = True which results in the following error:

AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'use_sky_paper'

Why does bpy.context.scene.world return None? Is there some setup required for the world?

I encountered a similar problem, when trying to see which area is active via bpy.context.area.type where area is None.

Update: bpy.context.area is always None when running script headless.

If not set scene.world is None.  Simply set it, for example to a world named "World" with scene.world = bpy.data.worlds.get("World") , or create a new one.

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene

if scene.world is None:
    # create a new world
    new_world = bpy.data.worlds.new("New World")
    new_world.use_sky_paper = True
    scene.world = new_world


My scene does not appear in Eevee So, I tried to render a scene in eevee and there are the results

And here what's supposed to appear (rendered in cycles)

I thought that reinstalling blender would help me in this situation, but it's still there. And when I was finishing writing the question, I decided to double-check the rendering.

 And it works. I do not know how, but it works. It just works.

Plz explain me, what's going on

I found out that this problem appears when another program "Bandicam" is open. When it's in the game recording mode, it brokes the render results.


Possible to not make light blend colors? I'm working on animating a logo that was created for me in photoshop which is just some text and two different colors that cut across the text simulating light.  In animating the logo I decided to place two lights which I would toggle on during the animation.  However, as expected, light blends colors and in this case red and white light make pink.  Is it possible to not allow the light to blend or is there a better way to approach this?

Image is what is desired to animate/duplicate

Ok, so this is going to be pretty extensive and difficult to explain through text and images but I'll do my best.

Make sure you're in cycles render

Begin by deleting everything in your scene, add in your text and center it

Now lets create our layers, name layer 1 and layer 2 (name choice is up to you). Make the first layer associated with layer 1 and the second layer with layer 2

Add a camera into your scene, press 5 and then 7 to enter top down orthographic view, and then Ctrl+Alt+0 to move the camera to your current perspective

(you can then modify how close the camera is to the text with g and then z, or using the axis arrows).

Move to the second layer and create 3 planes (one will be the red light, white light and colour of the text) Make sure that these three planes are spaced out along the z-axis to ensure that they aren't intersecting. From here, enter edit mode and manipulate the vertices to match the shape you're trying to create for the lights.

You should have something that looks like this:

Select one of the planes that is representing a light, select the object settings and under Cycles Settings deselect diffuse. Do this for both planes representing lights.

Go into the node editor, select one of the planes representing a light and create this node setup:

Once you have done this for both light planes, create a similar node setup for the plane that will represent the text's colour. Should look like this:

(The emission colour will effect the text's colour)

Tick the transparent option, shift select both layers and hit render.

After rendering go into the compositor and create this setup:

This is pretty much the final result, now all you need to do is animate the colour ramps to emulate the lights, crank the white value closer to the black and that will remove your issue of the colours blending.

Hope this helps and resolved your issue, sorry if any of this is hard to understand. If so, just let me know and I'll do my best to reiterate what I was trying to say. I will also attach the .blend file so that you can dissect what I did if you get stuck.


How to rotate set of textures using Texture Coordinate and Mapping nodes? I'm trying to rotate a set of textures (albedo, roughness, normal) using Texture Coordinate and Mapping nodes in Blender 2.83. Location and Scale properties work properly, but when I change Rotation the shadow isn't right. Looks like direction of light also changes. You can see on the second screen - rotation is 90 degree and it looks like the light is on the bottom and not on the right (considering shadows, not luminosity). On third screen I rotated the plane itself 90 degree and it looks right.

I've tried different outputs of Texture Coordinate, types of Mapping and types of Normal Map, but cannot find the right combination. Could you please help?
Edit 1: added solution for 90 degree rotation based on michaelh answer

Edit 2: added solution for custom rotation based on michaelh answer and scurest comment

When you rotate a normal map, a good way of thinking about is that you are rotating the light direction as well. (Which is what you're seeing.)
To rotate correctly by 90°, you'll have to rotate the "light direction" back by -90°.
You can do this swapping the X and Y vectors. You also need to invert the (orig) Y. See here:

This is how you rotate by 180°:

EDIT: Re. angles which aren't multiples of 90°: It is possible, but a bit more complicated.
Here's a node setup:

So, I made a Node Group. Let me know if this works correctly or if I made a mistake. ;)

EDIT2: scurest has added an easier method in the comments: Rotate the output of the Normal Map node via Mapping Node.
So, these two are identical:


Error when changing materials in source file of linked objects Maybe I'm overlooking something but I have a problem and don't want to screw up my files ;-)

I created my Assets for a scene in one file, put the objects into groups (each object got its own) and am then linking the group in my scene builder file.

Everything works great that far.

I now wanted to change some materials on a few of the objects that I linked, unifying them basically.

Therefore I changed the assigned material in my asset source file.

When reloading the scene builder file now I get errors corresponding to the materials changed:
Lib: Material: 'InsertMaterialName' is missing from  'AssetSourceFilePath', parent ''

So it seems to still point to the old Material even though I changed it in my source file.

Does anyone know why this happens and how to fix this?

Help is greatly apprectiated.

Cheers
Daniel

Edit:
Removing the Materials from the scene outliner -> Blender File -> mySourceAssetFile.blend
removes the errors. Though I really would like to know where this error comes from and how to "really" fix it!

This is normal behavior and expected as far as I know.

The destination file where you linked from saves both the group you linked to along with the data contained in that group. That means objects, materials, image textures, animations, particles. In doing so it saves the link to said group but also a reference to the internal data.

If you change the linked file, when reopening the master those references will be missing from the group, and hence the warning you get. This is however expected, and if you save the master file, close blender and reopen, the broken references should be gone and so should the warning too.


How to get a live preview for material library? I'm a completely noob to blender, I was looking for materials in material library and found out I have to select a material and click on "preview material" to see what it's appearance is like. Is there any option to get an instant preview of the material instead of clicking on both names and preview option? I've seen some guys having materials with previews at the bottom portion of their blender window on some youtube videos! (ps I was using Keyshot, that's why I found its very disturbing to do 2 clicks and waiting for preview of each material just to find out how does it look like.)

When you press Z, you'll see the 4 viewport options (render, solid, wire, and material), select the material option and boom, you'll be able to preview your materials in the 3D viewport. You can also hold Z, hover your mouse the viewport you want to view, then let go of Z (that's a faster way if you are always quickly switching between viewports).


Is it possible to model this padding with "inverted snake scale"-like pattern? I`m new to Blender. There is a extruded square-like geometry on the surface of the headphones. As the geometry gets close to the boundaries, it changes shape. The shape changes from center to edges.

How do I make this effect?

Here different alternative with is a more parametric approach using modifiers.

Use a technique similar to Moonboots answer to start your shape.
Add a plane, subdivide-smooth a few times, poke faces, remove all orthogonal edges so you end up with the lozenges pattern.

Select all diagonal edges and with Ctrl + E Edges menu mark them as Sharp.

Now poke you faces again, and select all face-center vertex. You can do this easily by selecting all Sharp edges from the above step with Shift + G > Sharpness, then switch to Vertex mode and invert the selection.

Create a new vertex group and assign to it all the face center vertex selected previously, leaving all other out.

You can now add a new Displace modifier to your mesh and limit it to the above created vertex group. This will parametrically control the scales concavity with the displace amount.

Add an Edge Split modifier and tick only the option Sharp Edges to separate each individual scale. Follow it with a Smooth modifier to non destructively control the gap between scales.

Add a Solidify modifier to add thickness, then follow it by a Subdivide modifier set to Simple. This will add some gometry to "hold the square shape" of the scales.

After that you can add another Subdivide modifier set to Catmull-Clark to add roundness.


Why some constraints work in view port, but don't work while render? (Blender 2.8) I've attached an example for Blender 2.8. I tried the same scene on Blender 2.79b and everything worked as it should.
This is how it works in ViewPort:

This is what I get by rendering (any render engine):

Seems like a constraint does not work.
Here are the Camera constraints:

Here is the Empty constraint:

The Empty is a parent of the Cube.
And the blend file.
Is it a bug? Should I report it?

No, it's not a bug.

This is actually known issue called "dependency cycle"

If you open blender with terminal, you will see like this:

Dependency cycle detected:
  'OBCamera.TRANSFORM_CONSTRAINTS()' depends on 'OBEmpty.TRANSFORM_FINAL()' through 'Damped Track'
  'OBEmpty.TRANSFORM_FINAL()' depends on 'OBEmpty.TRANSFORM_CONSTRAINTS()' through 'ObConstraints -> Done'

This means that one constraint depends on second, second on first one. So current camera rotation cannot be calculated correctly, because there is no start point to start with.

To solve this, fix dependency in your scene

  I've tried "blender --enable-new-depsgraph" with blender 2.79b and it
  still works despite the new kind of the error messages

You will get same errors in 2.79:

Dependency cycle detected:
  Empty depends on Camera through Copy Location.
  Camera depends on Empty through Damped Track.

And the fact that 2.79 in this error situation doing something different, does not mean that 2.80 has a bug or something. Look at glitch with camera movement when I change frame:

The only way to solve this problem - do not build cycles in dependencies. Add an empty for follow path, second empty will follows this one, and camera will depends on first and second empties:

Camera moved a little for clarity

No dependency cycles - no problems.


Partialy applying multiresolution modifier I have a very low poly mesh which has a multires modifier on it which has subdivisions set to 7. Is there a way i could apply a few subdivisions to the base mesh, but leave the multires modifier unapplied.This is dificult to explain so i will attempt to use images to help explain.
This is the base mesh:

This is the high res:

Now could i partly apply the modifier to the base mesh so it ends up lokking something like this:
But still keep the remaining subdivisions in the modifier so I can later apply them?

Old question but still I know at least a work around for this.

If e.g. you want to get rid of the levels 1 to 3 and keep only 4 to 7 you can do this:

Duplicate model
Go to level of detail you want as lowest (e.g. 4)
Apply Modifier
Add new modifier and subdivide till you have the same subdivision as the original one (in this case subdivide 3 times)
Add a Shrinkwrap modifier and set both Meshes to the highest level
Apply Shrinkwrap modifier

Done.


Which render engine should I use for export to Unity I am new at blender and want to make realistic models, animations for Unity but could`not figure out which render engine should I work on blender.

Rendering or image synthesis is the automatic process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model

(see Wikipedia)

This implies generating an Image, which will be a projection of your model to a 2-dimensional space. Anyway, as long as you are not programming a sprite-based game, I don't think what you want to have is an image of your model, but a model to be rendered within the game.

For that purpose rendering in Blender is completely irrelevant and hence is the rendering engine.

Sidenote: If you are asking which rendering engine to use with Blender for photorealistic modeling in general, please drop the Unity from your question.


How to apply multiple image textures and bake them into 1 image I have tried searching the web have not found a clear solution to this.
What I would like to achieve is to apply multiple image textures to a model

https://imgur.com/SdFc3pQ

and the model in blender

https://imgur.com/rA6AX1x

EDIT: the video basically says to install the node wrangler plugin in blender and then use ctrl + shift + T, in the node editor with the principled BSDF selected, to select all textures

Probably this is what you need to start
Move to the minute  00:09:29

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMbc2e_SN_Y&feature=youtu.be

Hope that helps.

Good Luck


VSE Blender (editing formats native RAW, XAVC, ProRes, cinemaDNG) I wanted to see if someone worked in the Blender VSE with XAVC video formats (codec used in Sony cameras) and RAW CinemaDNG and ProRes (used in cameras like the Blackmagic codec). I'm interested in editing and post-production work on Blender in Linux. Does Blender accept these formats as native? Can you use them in the Blender VSE?

Estimados. Para la edición y posproducción trabajo en Linux con el software de Blender. Quería consultar si alguien a trabajado en el VSE de Blender con formatos de video XAVC (códec usado en cámaras Sony) y formatos de video RAW CinemaDNG y ProRes (códec usados en cámaras como las de Blackmagic). La duda es si Blender aceptar estos formatos como nativo, si se puede trabajar con ellos en el VSE de Blender. Muchas gracias.

Blender VSE is not a time-based video editor (like Premier Pro or Sony Vegas is), but it is a frame-based video editor (like After FX or Nuke).

As such it caches the frames into memory and has no native codec to speak of.

The question which remains is whether it will decode/encode such codecs:

Blender can already read ProRes, ProRes encoder is in development.
There is no support for CinemaDNG. There was a discussion about it and it was suggested it would be better to include the support into the openimageio open-source library directly, rather than into Blender. There was a Google_Summer_Of_Code project wanting to implement DNG but never materialized.
OpenEXR is fully supported

It is generally better to export still frames from Blender and encode the video with different application - for output formats and performance reasons.


How to get vertex normals from a shape-key in Python? I'm trying to create an exporter for a format, which includes shape key support. This format requires both vertex coordinates and normals to be specified. This should be logical, because the vertex selected on the image below won't have the same normals:

Comparing it to this one:

But I actually haven't found any way to export shape key normals. Both Bmesh Vertex and ShapeKey Vertex only store the coordinates.

Is there any way to get them?

The only way I can think of is to use Object.to_mesh() and read normals from this temp mesh datablock, before freeing it (see also the doc):

me = my_ob.to_mesh(scene, True, 'Render', False, False)
for v in me.vertices:
    print(v.normal)
bpy.data.meshes.remove(me)

Quite obviously, you need to set the influence of your shape key accordingly first.


How do I align a view to the plane intersecting selected vertices new to Blender, working through this tutorial. I'm about to extrude out the trunk of my elephant, but one vertex from my extrusion face (see screenshot, the bottom right one in the selected loop) forms a sharp angle. I'd like to move this vertex to soften the angle, but want to ensure that it remains "straight" relative to the other selected vertices. ie: at present, if I just hit 'g' and move it around, the side view no longer shows those vertices as a straight line. I hope that makes sense!

How can I align the view to the plane intersecting those vertices, so that moving that vertex left and right with my mouse will keep it in the same plane? I have tried align view to active with those vertices selected, but this seems to align the view to the entire object, not just the selected vertices.

Edit: based on this question, Shift-Numpad 7 looks like what I want. However, when just selecting that loop, it gets me to this:

I assume it is basing the orientation off the single white vertex rather than the whole loop? My workaround for now is to select the loop, create a face, rotate with shift-numpad 7, delete the face, then do the edits I want to do. This works, but seems pretty kludgy. Is there a better way?

just rotate the whole loop with R from the side view then grab, move, and scale the whole loop into place.  for the trunk to have a smoother curve, you're going to have to add more edge loops with Cntrl R.

Edit: part of the reason is your topology, i just edited your image a little to give it a more practical topology. you just gotta move your vertices around a little near the mouth and neck area.  take a look at the edited reference image below


Optimal number vertices in a game I am creating a game and was wondering what a good number for the total number of vertices or triangles; either answer would be great.
What quantity can the Blender game engine handle rendering in real time without the frame rate getting too out of control? I prefer a frame rate above 30 fps.
The piece I'm asking about is the terrain I made. It will have 120,000 vertices in total, none of which are moving, and the player will probably see only 1000-2000 at a time (not sure if this makes a difference). I wasn't sure if this would be an issue as I am new to the game engine side of blender.

If this is the terrain we're talking about, 120k is probably a good number, seeing as the base reqs for a computer are 1,000,000 verts (without any other things, textures, filters, light). That mean most computers can handle vertex counts of up to 1mil.

The only problem I can see is in the fact that this is a terrain, and not a character, you said only 1-2k verts would be seen at a time, but that doesn't matter if the terrain is one object; Blender will still render the entire object even if only 1 vertex is visible.

So what to fix then? Generally, terrains don't need this amount of detail (right now I'm making one, several acres, and its pushing 30k), so to start with, you may wan to break it down into more base elements to free up resources for other rendering jobs. If its a city landscape, separate the buildings into their own objects, and get some LOD going for props. You may also want to break the landscape into more manageable chunks an area that would normally be blocked by a hill could be separated into its own object so that it only need to be rendered when called for. You could also use occlude objects. these basically ensure that any object that is hidden behind another won't be rendered. It seems intuitive, but really, blender renders anything inside your cameras view arc and clipping range whether or not it's behind another object.

There is a whole science behind game optimization, and youTube will probably be your best resource.


How can I prepare a set of colors that should go together, and be able to apply them to different objects with a single click? I am making lots of product visuals with Blender. Often the same products with different colors and prints.

I have a product that has a few color variants and is composed of several elements. Each element has their own shades of the particular hue, so to keep things faithful, I need to manage a list of 3-color sets.

Each set is a general option like Yellow, Blue, or Green, but the colors within hat set need to drive different materials for different parts of the model.

The model is composed of multiple objects, with arrays, curves, modifiers and stuff. But there are only 3 materials that need color fed from the pallete.

I'm thinking of a way to have a single Integer control node (or even a helper empty to rotate) so I can quickly choose the color scheme for the model.

I will usually have only one set of the objects in a scene, But being able to do this for multiple sets would be a nice thing for the future.

My first approach would be to create a set of NodeGroups - one for getting the "Pallete Index" into the different Materials, and then each material would have a Color Ramp node that'll interpret that Pallete Index in context of each particular material.

Another idea I had would be to use Animation Nodes and Structs, but I'm new to AN and my first try using that wasn't particularly successful...

Maybe there's something else perfectly matching my use case that I am not aware of. What would you go for?

EDIT:

For now I created two NodeGroups. One with the Color Index Number node to be able to "teleport" that value across multiple materials. The second one contains multiple Color Ramp nodes (using the "Constant" mode) that are all fed with a single Index input, and deliver the corresponding color sets through multiple color output sockets.

This way I can relatively easily edit all the Color Ramps (Palettes) without jumping between NodeGroups, and also I always have all that data easily available in all materials where I put that single Node Group. Using separate Node Groups for all Color Ramps (that I tried first) needlesly increases the complexity and time needed to tweak this setup.

I don't know how to get an easily controllable range-limited Integer value to drive the color pallette. Right now I have an arbitrary Number node that give useful results between 0 and 1, but It'd be more convenient to have a node that has a Integer number that I can increment and decrement in some range (say: between 1 and 10).

Within a node group, use an RGB input node and multiple colour outputs with colour variation nodes to get the variations you want in a group. Each material can then use the relative variation output from the group and when the main colour in the group is changed each use of the group will change to match.

For multiple colour groups in a scene, you could duplicate the group so that you have one for green, one for red...

Beyond that, you could look at drivers. Have a look at CGCookies Flexrig. The Flexrig contains custom properties to define the colour used for hair, shirt, pants and so on, with drivers reading the rigs custom properties to define the colour used.


Is smoke sim broken in 2.9 ? (simulation not refreshing) I was testing the Quick Smoke simulation in Blender 2.90 (Cycles), and I have some questions:

If I change ANY parameter (color, density, velocity or size of the emitter), the simulation doesn't refresh automatically in frame 1 : it keeps repeating the same simulation over and over.
The only solution I found is to go to the Domain parameters, Cache, and check/uncheck the "Resumable" box, which seems to cause some sort of viewport reset (the simulation disapear), then start over from frame 1.
Is this normal?
Second : what happened to the "High resolution smoke" section?
Third : is it normal that Eevee is completely floundering with smoke simulation?

(I'm french, I hope "floundering" is the good word for "galérer" in French, or "Pédaler dans la semoule" if you wanna learn a lame French expression)

There are known issues with refreshing a smoke simulation (and liquid) after changes (eg, see https://developer.blender.org/T77170. The best solution I’ve found is to click in the Resolution property, then hit Enter (so you're effectively changing the Resolution to the same value it's already set to). This effectively resets the whole simulation under most circumstances - then just re-play from the start again.
The ‘hires’ has become ‘Noise’. Enable the 'Noise' checkbox in the properties and adjust the settings.
Please clarify what you mean is wrong with the rendering of smoke in Eevee - maybe ask a separate question for that. However, it could just be that the default Volumetrics render settings are not suitable for your domain. In the first instance, try reducing the End until the most distant part of your volume justs starts to clip, then adjust the Start until the nearest part of your domain just starts to clip. This will concentrate the passes into the volumetric domain for sharpest render results. You can then try reducing the Tile Size and increasing the Samples to further refine the render. You might also want to switch on and adjust the Volumetric Shadows.


Downloaded DAE that's inside out, unable to export properly complete newbie to Blender here. I'm trying to get 3D models into a WorldWind application. I'm not doing anything fancy with them (yet), all I want for the moment is to get models showing up correctly in my application.
I downloaded several models from Sketchup's 3D Warehouse. Some of them were in .kmz format, others in .dae. Using WorldWind's KMLViewer as an example, I am able to easily load up the .kmz files. I can also load in the .dae models like so--write a .kml file that contains several Placemarks, each of which links to the appropriate .dae file for the model. Zip that .kml up in a .kmz file with the linked .dae and image files, and then load that into my program.

My problem is this: all of the models have their meshes outlined on top of the materials/textures.

After some research, I thought that perhaps the normals were flipped, so I tried to fix that in Blender. I'm not sure how well I did that, because, upon export, I now only get the mesh showing up in my application. In Blender, everything renders just fine. I've tried a few different export to .dae techniques as well as trying to see if my .dae IMPORT into Blender was wrong. Seen here, here, here, here, and here. None of them have worked.
My steps include: un-checking the "Sequencer" option in Properties, making sure that the "Include UV Textures" and "Include Material Textures" are selected before exporting, and ensuring that all the materials' filepaths are correct. Again, it's showing up perfectly in Blender's render view, just not when I export it.

1. How do I get the models to render correctly after downloading from 3D Warehouse? Preferably straight from the "box".

2. If the answer to (1) requires adjusting & re-exporting from Blender, what steps am I doing wrong?

If more clarification or details are necessary, please let me know, I'll be happy to provide.
For reference, I'm running on a Linux computer. The graphics cards and drivers are all up to date.

** EDIT: I thought this was just a dae vs kmz original download difference. It's not. Whether I download a model as a .kmz file or a .dae file, they all show up in WorldWind inside out. If this is a problem with WorldWind and not a configuration of models, I can get this question migrated to the correct SE. **

As requested, here is the image showing the difference, I'll link the .dae files in a bit. The colored+outlined image is what loads from pre-Blender .dae file; in essence, what I downloaded from 3DWarehouse. The mesh-only image is what renders after I try to fix the outlines and re-export. Neither of those are correct, as the image should have no white outlines.

The model that I'm using is (this one here).

The problem you have, is with the model it self. I have downloaded that Voldemort model and imported to Blender as DAE. Changed to Blender Render, and set the viewport mode to Material. There I can see exactly your triangles as material. What WorldWind will show you is exactly what you have under Blender Render's viewport material.  if you rotate your model, you can  notice that you have a non well structured model (you have planes and edges that intersect themselves) To fix this model, you should retopology on him, and build a single object, after this, you will want to bake the texture of the old model to the new model. Exporting the retopologized model, you should have no problems loading it into any other software. You may consider to download/search 3D models in other sources, like this: http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/lord-voldemort-13066.html. Then you just need to add an armature/rig the model and deform it to the pose you want, and export as DAE, so your software might read it (this process will be really faster than retopology the model and correct it, and retexturing it).


What is layer exclude in blender? Hi guys i was wondering if you can explain me what is exclude layer and what it does ?. I watched tutorial about layers it was about changing scenes visible and invisible and almost couldnt understand

means that that layer does not participate in rendering. This option is useful when you need to do separate renderings (different renderlayer) to merge then compositing


Object lose Sculpting detail when I switch from sculpt modus in the Object modus my mesh lose some important details

If you use a Multires modifer, check the "preview" level, and increase it if you need.

However, it is useful to keep it low during Preview, to save up memory ; and use a higher level for Sculpt and Render.


Partial transparency on object? How can you set up partial transparency on an object?

For example if you are working with an image plane and would like it to be 50% transparent? The Object's transparency option has an on/off option, is there a way to make it a certain percent?

In Cycles the most basic way would be to use a mix shader to mix transparent and diffuse. The Mix factor determines the amount of transparency.

If you use an image that has an alpha channel, then you can use the alpha as factor to mix transparent and diffuse.


How to enable shortcuts for the Node Wrangler add-on on macbook? Having some troubles with activating Node Wrangler on mac,
seems like short cuts for the add-on are not functional.
I am sure there are users of mac who has already solved this problem,

Try disableing it and then re-enable it. Do restart in method.
i'm using MAC and it never showed me any error. It worked smoothly.

just pressed Ctrl+Shift and click on any node.

What is appearing in "Quick Access" in "N" menu under "Node Wrangler" options, in your Blender Node Editor.


Can someone help out with a better approach for this model I've tried to recreate this light in Blender. Maybe someone has a better and smarter approach to model this light.
My approach:

Create a sphere
Create a icosphere (small graves)
Icosphere displace modifier and texture
Create a Particle System for main sphere with Icosphere as Render Object.

You could create a material that would be a mix between Voronoi (Distance to Edge mode) and Noise, with a bit of Emission in order to fake translucency:

Then add a particle system with a collection of gravels. To vary the amount of each gravel, use the Use Count option:


bezier curve loops are twisted I'm trying to make loops for a stunt car racing game. It's easy enough to make a bezier curve that looks like a loop, but once I try filling it with another curve, the results are undesirable.

Where it's supposed to go from being right-side up to up-side down and back to right-side up again, it instead does only a 90 degree twist at the top of the loop and then finishes with something like a 135 degree twist from the starting rotation? Either way, it is not the iconic roller coaster/hot wheels loop that I am looking for. This is my bezier curve, is there something easily identifiable that I am doing incorrectly?

Adjust handle's tilt value

According to a Blender reference manual's page:

  If the “curve path” is 3D, the Tilt value of its control points will be used [...] to twist the “curved” object around it.

See also this page for further explanation, but basically the setting control the direction of the beveled/extruded object along the curve.

You can find the absolute value of the control point tilt in the properties shelf

You can edit the titl value directly there, or tweak it by pressing Ctrl+T shortcut or you can find the operator in the 3D View menu bar-> Curve-> Control points-> Tilt


Can rigid bodies interact with fluid domain? I've been starting to familiarize myself with the fluid domain.  My initial goal was to drop a cube (rigid body physics, gravity drop) into a fluid domain and see if I could get a splash.  I made the cube a Fluid Obstacle, etc.... and I never could get a splash.  Quite frustrating.

However if I Animate the cube instead (still setting it up as a Fluid Obstacle), and create a couple of keyframes to drop it fairly fast into the fluid domain, I can get a splash.  I did a lot of googling (unf the answers vary over the years as Blender features change with different releases) and I just became more confused...  Is there in fact an incompatibility between fluid domain and rigid body objects?  I was hoping to drop rain (particle system) into a fluid domain and get nice raindrop-ripples, but if dynamic objects won't interact with fluid domains then I'm snookered...

Fluid simulations and rigid body simulations cannot interact.

Fluid simulations can react to rigid bodies, if the rigid body is a fluid obstacle. Set your falling objects both as fluid obstacles and rigid body active objects. A key setting is to check "Export Animated Mesh" in the fluid settings of the active rigid body object. This 2.68 tutorial should work fine in the newest 2.78.

The rigid body can be simulated beforehand or during playback and will not be affected by the fluid (the fluid can't push an active rigid body around).

However, in your case I wouldn't use this, because:

The motion of falling raindrops is very simple, it can be easily done with keyframes
As Duane Dibbley commented, the whole ripple-effect could be easier with dynamic paint
Rain is not a rigid body... If you wanted maximal physical accuracy, the rain drops should be fluids as well.
Particle systems are also not rigid bodies, it can be tricky to combine the two.


Artifacts when using the union Boolean modifier on modeled mesh. Workflow to add Nails/combine Nails in a sculpted hand model? I'm currently learning Blender and aim to do stylized Eevee animation, so I'm currently modeling a high detail hand to hopefully later uv wrap and use.
My problem is that I decided to polymodel the nails and then combine them into the modeled mesh using the boolean union modifiers. There are lots of visual artifacts.
I tried to triangulating, beveling, and subdividing the affected faces. I also tried marking the edges sharp and the Autosmooth in the vertex menu.

Is there a better workflow to go about doing this?
Should I just not bother to combine the meshes and just parent the nails?
Are there better ways to get rid of the artifacts without manually combining the 2 meshes by hand?
Should I just not bother and sculpt the nails and accept that they look more "organic" then they should?

Wow. I've never had the stones to take on a mesh that dense and complicated. I'm also a newbie myself, but I have run into problems with artifacts like these. You have a TON of "Ngons" in there.
Trying to clean this up by editing the joined mesh, I think (and like I said, I'm a newbie and no real expert), isn't likely to end well. For one thing it'll take forever doing it by hand. For another, even if you have the patience to edit something like this by hand the results often just leave you with a ton of clean-up work where things that originally curved nicely suddenly turn into flat spots that actually make things look even worse than what you started with. And you can try editing the normals, face, by face, by face, until you're blue in the face, but the results aren't usually worth the effort.
Your nails look pretty good. All nice quads. But where the nails meet the flesh - all those faces desperately trying to be triangles with a half a dozen vertices along one edge... trying to clean that up by hand editing the mesh is just going to frustrate you to the point of giving up on it.
The thing is, people who sculpt characters deal with this all the time. So there are re-topology addons galore out there. Some for free, some for purchase. Most seem to work by allowing you to sort of shrinkwrap quads over your mesh, which does two things - first it allows you to dramatically reduce the number vertices in your mesh and there by dramatically reduce your render times per frame for when you finally start animating your model. Secondly if you intend to join the nails with the fingers, being able to move and/or merge vertices while keeping everything essentially shrinkwrapped to your original geometry is a big help.
I've watched, several re-topology addon demos on YouTube, even tried a few, and although they generally didn't help me with my own problems with artifacts, I suspect they'd work on a job like yours quite well.


How do I combine these two Render Layers? How would I combine these two images without losing information?
I have tried the mix node, the alpha over node, and the z combine node, but can't get it to work. Hope someone can give me a helping hand.

First, the word is 'node' :)

Second, Ensure you're rendering transparent layers for your leaf.

Third, the Viewer node is just a shortcut to see what the image looks like after a branch of other nodes have processed a node branch. To build both of these render layers into a finished picture you'll need a Composite node. The Viewer node just gives you the background under the node tree. You can use both: just feed both the Viewer and Composite nodes the same input.

Have fun :)


Problems installing MESHmachine Add-on I just extracted this addon called MESHmachine in the "Blender 2.8/scripts/addons" folder and when I go to open Blender, it didn't show up on the "Preference - Add-ons" tab.

I clicked "Install Add-on from File" and tried to install the MESHmachine py. script from the "C:\Users\Khalil Poaches\Desktop\blender-2.80.0-git.009dbc2bc9fb-windows64\2.80\script\addons\MESHmachine_init_.py" onto the add-ons menu then I have to delete one of each pair to resolve the double script issue.

How can I undo this?

Do NOT extract the zip file of a downloaded add-on unless told otherwise in the installation instructions!

Instead, just go to "User Preferences - Add-ons" and use the "Install Add-on from file" button. Navigate to the folder to which you downloaded the add-on, double-click on the zip file and activate the add-on.

Do NOT try to install add-ons in Blender 2.80 that aren't made specifically for Blender 2.80!

If the instructions tell you, that an add-on is not yet ready to be used in Blender 2.80, it means exactly that.*

Instead, use the Blender version that is required for the add-on to work.

How to clean up your messed-up installation

Exit Blender, then go to your "Blender\2.xx\scripts\addons" folder and delete the folder/script. Start Blender and check "User Preferences - Add-ons" and look for the add-on. It should be gone.

*In your case, MESHmachine does not support Blender 2.80 yet.


Strange texture paint artifacts I'm trying to paint on my 3D model. UV's are unwrapped with no stretching. Texture is 1024x1024 with alpha. Brush has alpha check as well (I've fiddled with all the brush settings, couldn't find solution).When I try to paint this happens:

This is my UV setup:

Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

And it took awhile, but the answer is right there in your screen shot - you have loaded your image canvas as your brush texture, so as you paint it becomes your brush projected onto itself.

Your image needs only to be loaded as your material texture slot, not in the brush. Load something else as the image in that brush texture and you will then see it repeated along the surface....


Blender Python: Property Description String Limit? Is there a string length limit for the descriptions of properties? I assume there is. Does anyone know what that length is, and is there a safety mechanism to catch strings that are too long?

ScenePos : BoolProperty(
    name="title",
    description="this string is not very long",
    default=False
    )

Blender becomes laggy at 1000000000 and crashes at 10000000000 characters on my machine (64bit):

my_int: IntProperty(
    name = "Int Value",
    description=1000000000*"A",
    default = 23,
    min = 10,
    max = 100
    )


Is it possible to render and composite certain materials before others? Is it possible to render and composite certain materials before others?

Is that even possible?

Yes and no.

You can not render certain materials before other ones, both cycles and the blender internal will render your whole scene in one go. You can't say render my cube before the ball.

However you can use render layers. Render layers brake up your scene in to pieces that get rendered separately. Then after it is done rendering everything you can combine, and manipulate them way you want in the compositor.

Here I have a simple scene, a cube, a ball and a background. The important thing is that each object is on its own render layer, the cube, the ball and the background, are all on their own render layers.

Those three images (click for full size) are what you get if you render them using separate render layers. Note on the background layer it renders the part of the background that would normally be hidden but the ball and cube, yet the shadows stay.

Now in the compositor I combined these using alpha over nodes, to get the final rendered image. The benefit here is that you can apply any effects to just one piece. For example, I changed the color of the cube.

Your other option, which will work just as well in a simple case like my example is to use an object or material index pass. This works a bit differently then separating the objects out on different render layers, here they all are rendered in one pass, but the addition of the Object Index pass works like a mask for the objects.
Do note that you first must set the pass on each object. In the Object tab of the properties window, under the Relations section you will find the Pass Index value.

After all the passes are set correctly for the objects, render and let the fun in the compositor begin.

Here are the nodes to use a Object Index pass as a mask, which will isolate the specific object.

It may look complicated but, it is really just the Object Index pass as the factor in the Mix node. The important part is the ID Mask node. The number you put in there corresponds to the number you set the object pass to.
All that I'm doing is some color, and blurring manipulations on the original image. Then Using the ID Mask to pull the correct mask out of the Object Index pass. Which gets feed in to the mix nodes, to determine what part of the image gets manipulated.


Access material node drivers from python I would like to store my whole node input driver set up of a material in a txt file and load it back any time. How can I access the driver data along with node name and input number?

Look in NodeTree.animation_data

Python console code.  Loop thru materials that use nodes and have animation data, if so loop the drivers collection.

In simple example below find the couple of simple drivers including a  driver on a value node with expression "frame" (the current frame)

The drivers datapath gives the node name and the index of the socket.

>>> for m in bpy.data.materials:
...     m.name
...     if m.use_nodes and m.node_tree.animation_data:
...         for d in m.node_tree.animation_data.drivers:
...             d.data_path, d.driver.expression
...
'Material'
('nodes["Value"].outputs[0].default_value', 'frame')
('nodes["Principled BSDF"].inputs[9].default_value', 'frame / 20')

>>>

Re socket index and name https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/160069/15543


How can I use checker deselect to select separated faces? How can I apply the same selection pattern in image 1 to all the faces in image 2?

image 1

image 2

When converting between selection modes (vertex,Edge,Face), Blender follows these rules:

When converting to a higher order (V>E>F) the higher-order components become selected if all their lower-order components were selected.
When converting to a lower order (F>E>V) all the lower-order components of previously selected higher-order components become selected.

Making use of that behavior:

Select 2 sequential longitudinal edges in the pattern (from the first and second regions to be selected in the end).
Hit CtrlShiftNumpad+ (Select Next Element) repeatedly to continue selecting further edges at the same interval
From the header Select menu, hit 'Select Loops'> 'Edge Rings'
Switch to Vertex mode.

The faces/all their edges in the regions are now implicitly selected, if you switch back between modes.

In the picture, I switched to vertex mode before making the edge ring selection .. that still works (by the conversion rules)


Copy weights from other bone and invert them, how? A typical scenario:

The human shoulder.

Typical armature, one bone for the shoulder, two for the upper arm, two for the arm. The shoulder vertices must be influenced by the shoulder bone and the first upper arm bone.

I want to paint the upper arm bone weights. Then copy them to the shoulder bone, and invert them. So, if a vertex in the upper arm bone has a weight of 0.8, the same vertex must have a weight of 0.2 in the shoulder bone.

This operation is typically done by hand, and it is easy to do so when the topology helps (all quads, low poly and straight edges). The problem is that this time the topology is complex and very high poly, it looks very good but I'm having a hard time weighting the shoulder.

Ok, it was a pretty basic stuff after all.

In the following scenario: with vertex groups named after the bones, select the vertex bone of the upper arm, in my case "arm1.L", paint the weights. Now duplicate the vertex group. Rename the duplicated vertex group after the shoulder bone, in my case "shoulder.L". Now, in the left panel, below Weight Tools, there is a button that says "Invert".

If the "shoulder.L" group already exists, like in my case, the only way is to delete it first as I could not find a way to transfer the weights between groups other than duplicating a group.


My models need a model file in .x accompanied by D, N and S texture files in .dds format, how would i make my model opaque? For the game engine I am working with I need to have my models in a specific format.

They need to have:

.X format model file
.dds format Diffuse texture
.dds format Normal texture
.dds format Specular texture

These textures need to be baked with ambulant occlusion.

Now I know how to model a standard solid model, unwrap it, bake it and export the AO and UV's via the UV image editor, then export the model as .x (i have the plugin).

At which point I use GIMP to merge them, add the textures, and use filter to create D, N and S images, then convert them to .dds.

That all works fine.

But how do I, maintaining the same file structure, make part or all of my object transparent/opaque, for example if I was making a wine bottle?

If anyone has an answer, simple step by step terms please, I get very confused very quickly :P

OK, I've managed to answer this myself. I was messing with blender last night, trying some other stuff when I stumbled across the answer myself.

You don't actually need to set any alphas in blender (except to tick the alpha box when you hit new image for the UV unwrap), it's all in the editing of the textures afterwards.

For GIMP users, simply edit your UV textures as you would normally except this time right click on the texture layer you want to be opaque, select mask layer and chose white (full opaque).

Your texture should now be opaque, to choose how opaque it make sure the texture layer is selected and use the alpha slider located between the blend drop down and the layer list (before you do all this make sure the image you are using is in a format that can have an alpha channel, like png etc).

If you want to give it a coloured tint, or maybe darken the opaque image then use the fill tool on the mask to apply a colour.

Then just finish up the textures as you would normally, it should now be transparent in the areas you chose.


How to create lampstreet particle in Evee? I want to create a large city a night in Eevee. I tried to add streetlamp as a hair system, but I can't add the emitting lamp with it. Is there a way to link the emitting lamp to my object (a streetlamp) so I can create with an hair system hundreds of streetlamp with their own lights ?
Thanks in advance !!

Put the streetlamp model and the light emitter into an own collection, let's say you call it "streetlight".
In the Particle Emitter settings under Render > Render As choose "Collection".
For the Instance Collection choose the created "streetlight" collection.
Check "Whole Collection" underneath. This is usually not desired if you have collections of different trees, stones or whatever because you want them to be picked randomly. But in this case this means each particle is now the streetlamp model with the light at the correct place.


is there an option to repeat export? I am working with unity and I am constantly exporting fbx files. I wonder if there is a shortcut to repeat the export operation? same filename, same settings, same location.

You can use script for the export. Or command in Python Console

The standard fbx_exporter is bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx():

A quick example:bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath='C:/tmp/test.fbx') (the directory should exist!!)

For more option you want, see the documentation and change the default value to what you want. And short cut, is some what more complicated. Use Alt+P in text editor will be lot of easier.


Cutout tube from mesh I have a mesh that I would like to cut out a tube from.  I'm familiar with the boolean modifier, but the problem is it will not cut out the middle of the tube.

What would be the best way to cut out the tube (including hollow inner section) from a mesh?

Thank you

With such tubes, the boolean modifier won't remove the cube part in the center of the tubes, as they are not within the tube mesh

I see two possibilities:
1- "apply" the boolean modifier and remove the parts of the cube you don't want (select a vertex in each "inner part" and 'select linked'), or
2- duplicate your tubes, and make cylinders out of the copy (remove the inner wall and close the ends), then use those in your modifier. I'd make the cylinders slightly smaller than the outer diameter of the tubes, to avoid all risk of holes between the cube and the tubes.

The first is probably easier in a static object, the second when you need to animate the tubes


What shapes can I sculpt with? I would like to sculpt but I don't know that shapes I can use to sculpt with. I know that the shape I'm sculpting with needs a lot of vertices to sculpt good, but I don't know all shapes to sculpt with.

You can use any shape you want.
Sculpting modifies a mesh in real time, so at any point you can switch to edit mode and edit the polygons directly, then switch back to sculpt mode, etc.
There are two usual workflows for sculpting:
Dynamic topology
You don't need to subdivide your mesh if you use dynamic topology, the mesh will be dynamically subdivided as you sculpt.
Enable it in 3D view > tool shelf > Dyntopo (Topology pre 2.71), or by pressing CtrlD:

See the wiki for more info.
This will create a mesh of triangles, so depending on the project you may need to do retopology after you are finished sculpting.
Multiresolution
Non-destructively subdivide your mesh with a multi resolution modifier, which lets you handle multiple levels of subdivision at once.
Because of this, it's quite useful to use on a low poly model, sculpt details, and bake normals.
Also see What is the difference between a subdivision surface modifier and multiresolution modifier?


How to make Hair without use of particles system? I'm searching for technique to make realistic hairs in blender internal without using particle system.

I found this trick

But is there any way to do this in blender?

Any answer will be appreciated

This technique is called poly-hair.

There are a couple of different approaches but these are the basic steps:

1) Render/download a hair patch

Create and render out a hair patch created with the particle system.
Bake a normal map for extra detail in your render as well.

Make a couple of them so you get some variation.

2) The patches

Model a couple of hair patches and UV un-wrap them to match your rendered hair patches.

3) Placement

This step will take the most time if you want a realistic result.
Place and edit each strand individually. Layer them on top of each other, make them blend well, ...

This image might help this explanation.

Look on youtube and google for more detailed steps and info on the shading.


Material is stretching when using Edge Loop I am creating a character for didatic reason, and when I started to work with the material, it was stretched between where I had edge loop.

The issue is easily reproduced using a cylinder, with a default Principled BSDF shader, where Mettalic is set to 1 and  Roughness is set to 0(the issue happens with any values between, but it is very notible with these values set this way).

Some important points:
The top and the bottom of the cylinder are not distorted
The UV mapping has not been streched
If I dissolve the upper edge loop(the one highlighted in the image for example) the stretching stars in the next one below.
The circles formed by the edge loop have the same radius
It seems to be a problem that I have in EEVEE and Cycles.
I can notice that an edge loop alone already cause some distortion on the reflection.

Is it possible to have edge loops without causing these distortions?

Solution:
What happens I had misleading expectations, the above reflection is not real, but the result checking the "Auto Smooth" option made it much more realistic.

The reason for the difference is the top-to-bottom interpolation of normals, inside the rectangular faces. This illustration shows 2 standard cylinders. They are both shaded smooth, but the one on the right has Autosmooth switched on.

When smooth-shaded,the normal at some shading-point inside a polygonal face is an interpolation of the vertex-normals at its corners. Those, in turn, are a (sometimes weighted) average of the normals of the whole-faces which the vertices help to define.
As you can see on the left, in pure smooth shading, because of the top and bottom faces, those vertex-normals have a Z component, looking up and down. The interpolation between these gives the geometrically cylindrical surface a somewhat spherical field of interpolated normals. Strictly speaking,this actually produces the inaccurate reflection.
On the right, switching on Autosmooth introduces the influence of per face-vertex normals. Autosmooth sets a face-angle threshold for interpolation. Below the threshold, faces are interpolated, above it they are split. The top and bottom face-normals no longer influence the radial normals, which are then aligned to the geometry. In an orthographic view, like this one, the cylinder reflects only its own height in the environment. In perspective, the reflection is more like a real cylinder's, than the one on the left.
There's a similar result from introducing edge-loops - they cut the top and bottom faces out of the interpolation of radial normals, for a truer cylindrical reflection.


Curve along two edges on plane I'm new to Blender (v2.77) and I'm working on an automobile door window.

I have a plane where I'd like to create a curve for the window connected to two edges.

Ideally, as seen in the photo, "A" & "B" edges would be removed and the black line would be the new curve.

I tried beveling the vertex at the intersection but naturally, it creates a diamond pattern rather than making a curve between the A+B edges.

Thank you for reading and I appreciate your help!

Extrude whole selection

Delete inner segments and bridge gap

Now bevel edge and delete excess afterwards.

Follow up with an n-gon or grid fill.


Emulating sun reflection on fake ocean I have a sphere with emission material which supposed to be a sun. I have a glossy plane which supposed to fake relatively still water surface.

I try achieve this effect. Long reflection on the water.

 I tried to use actual sun lamp but I didn't get this effect.
I achieve kinda this effect in another scene with ocean modifier and sun lamp but ocean modifier is heave on a system.  I there any way to make this reflection with glossy plane. Maybe some distortion or another glass plane?

P.S. Result with Rich Sedman's shader.

With increased roughness.

You could use a material similar to the following :

Here the 'sun' is an emissive sphere and a Bump node has been used on the plane to give the appearance of waves (from a Noise texture), using Fresnel to blend between Diffuse and Glossy. Be sure to keep a bit of Roughness to the Glossy shader (that's what causes the reflection to 'bleed' towards the viewer) and adjust the Diffuse shader to give a hint of color.


what type of rendering engine is cycles I don't know what type of rendering engine cycles is. is it path tracing ray tracing
Raydiosidi ray casting photon maping? I would like to know

Cycles is a ray tracing renderer.
Can use different tracing strategies (under integrator option):

Path tracing: pure path tracer.
Branched path tracing: path tracer with branching on the first bounce.

It uses Monte-Carlo for sampling, that means repeated random sampling.

Soon Metropolis Light Transport should be also available which is a variant to Monte-Carlo, it uses Bidirectional path tracing and Metropolis sampling.


Is there a way to select the children of a parent object? Say I have a set of objects parented to another object, for the sake of this example say they are parented to an empty.  If I have the empty selected, is there a way of quickly selecting all the objects parented to it?

Method 1:
Select the parent object, then Shift G > Children.

Note : To keep the parent selected, immediately after calling the operator, press F9 or click on the foldout in the lower-left of the 3D viewport and check "Extend". This setting will be remembered the next time you call the operator, until you close Blender.

Or, if you want to select all children at the same level, you can first select one child, then choose Slibings in the same menu.

Method 2:
Go to Outliner,  Ctrl LMB on the parent object icon, which will select all children and itself, then Shift LMB on it again to deselect the parent.

Method 3:
First Select parent, then press ] to select object in the next level. Shift + ] one or more times will select more levels.


How to make text fade in and out I recently asked a question on how to make text with a transparent overlay and I was wondering if I can make that text fade in and out. An example of it is on the first part of this video (the text).

If you mix a diffuse and transparent shader together you can animate the mix value so that the material goes from visible to invisible. Mouse over the mix value and press the I key to create a Keyframe, move to the frame where you want the text to be completely invisible and press the I key again .


Extreme lag in cycles node editor I am experiencing extreme lag when resizing (zooming in) the cycles node editor. I don't experience lag anywhere else in the blender UI. My specs: quad-core, 2.40 GHz 64-bit. No GPU.
Does anyone have any solutions for this problem?

I think I figured this one out!

It's the rendering of the default interface FONT that causes the lag. It seems it has to do with the file size of the .ttf used by defualt in Blender (~5MB).

So in User Preferences->System->Interface Font, try switching to a .ttf font with a small file size. I used Lucida Sans at 53kb.

I'm not certain as to why the font's file size matters, but IT WORKS.


BGE: Turn Physics off globally while keeping sensors I'm working on a Jump'n'Run kind of game and came to the conclusion that I'm better of doing physics myself. (I'm using python for movement/logic anyway.)

So I'd like to turn the physics engine off completely, that is no collisions, no gravity, no friction (!) and so on.

I tried disabling the physics engine switching from "Bullet" to "None" but this kind of removes my sensors which are parented to the player.

So what do I have to do to tell Bullet to leave me alone?

You need to keep the bullet physic engine to have many parts of the bge work, so don't disable that. Simply set all your objects to Static Physic Type. You will need to enable Actor and Ghost on them too.

The static physic type does not react to physics (no gravity, friction, etc). Actor lets the logic bricks "see" the object, and Ghost disables collisions.

With those three options on all your objects you should have a clean slate to build your own interactions off of.

To edit the physics properties on all your objects:

First set up one object like I describe above. Select all the objects, and keep the one you just edited the physics settings as the active object. Now press space and type "copy" choose "Copy Game Physics Properties to Selected". That's it, all the objects are set the same.


Rule Of Halves Buttons So in my script I have it where in the F6 menu you can pull a slider or input `a value manually. However what would it take to add a button on both sides that would divide by 2 and multiply by 2 using the value that was input.

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

    box = layout.box()
    # DRAW YOUR PROPERTIES IN A BOX
    box.prop( self, 'ssharpangle', text = "SsharpAngle" )
    box.prop( self, 'angle', text = "SmoothingAngle" )
    box.prop( self, 'bevelwidth', text = "BevelWidth")
    box.prop( self, 'applyall', text = "ApplyAll")

For this example I mean on both sides of the bevel width.

Using update
In your operator add a property
double_angle = BoolProperty(update=self.double_angle)

Add a double_angle method to your operator
class sharpenOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    '''ToolTip'''

    def double_angle(self, context):
        if self.double_angle:
            self.angle *= 2
            self.double_angle = False

Add to the draw method
    row = box.row(align=True)
    sub = row.row()
    sub.alignment = 'LEFT'
    sub.prop(self, "double_angle", text="", icon='X')

    row.prop(self, "angle", slider=True)
    sub = row.row()
    sub.alignment = 'RIGHT'

    sub.enabled = self.angle < radians(90) # doesn't work in F6
    sub.prop(self, "double_angle", text="", icon='X')


How to fix excessive/complex topology I imported an OBJ file from a different model maker and the topology is very complex and messed up.  I was just wondering if the model was salvageable at all since it's the only model of this character I can find.   I've tried decimating and merging vertices by distance but neither have worked.  Unsurprisingly smooth shading does not look good either. Thank you in advance!

Retopologizing is recommended often, but the truth is, retopologizing is an enormous amount of work, and many people lack the skills to do it properly. For this reason, there are often paid add-ons that help a lot, such as Retopo Flow. Assuming that isn't an option, there may be something you can do, but could be quite tricky, and there are no guarantees, since Blender has no dedicated and complete retopology solution right out of the box. But it does have the Remesh modifier. Admittedly, I haven't gotten that to work very well in my own work, largely due to me being baffled by all its cryptic settings. But I've had more luck with a newer option called Quad Flow Remesh. However, I only ever came across it in Blender 2.81, and even then, I had to use the search function (F3) to access it because it didn't yet have a location in the UI. I'm using 2.82a currently, and this feature doesn't seem to be accessible the same way. It might have been moved. I seem to recall finding a similar tool in the Active Tool properties panel while using sculpting brushes, but I can't be sure that was the same feature. If any one knows about this tool or its whereabouts, I'm all ears.


Cutting Square Hole In a Cylinder I'm trying to model a spot light and couldn't figure out how to cut a perfect hole on the body without having weird artefacts on the mesh. I have been trying to model this thing for months and still stuck in the same point without any progress. hope some one can help.

[1

Here is a way to do it, but if you want to avoid any pinching it needs more geometry than on your screenshot. Once done, you can delete the useless geometry, i.e. vertical edge loops on the rest of the cylinder:


How to import brush sets? A couple of tutorials I looked at said you had to turn on the import add on, but they're a little old, and I can't find that option in the add ons section. I'm guessing it's been made into a full feature, but how do I find that?

Sculpt and Texture Paint brushes can be imported as any other thing you might want to import/export between .blend files (objects / meshes / materials etc.).

Create new Sculpt / Texture Paint brush. Adjust its settings (in particular, change its name for something recognizable). In example below the brushes' name starts from "export-Brush...".
Save file which will be used as library (you will import from it).
Open new file, navigate to File > Append, find your saved file. When Blender's file browser enters file's contents, choose Brush.

Both Sculpt (default and non-default) and Texture Paint (only created by you) brushes will be stored there. You'll see there as many brush sets as there were  additionally created in the original file.

Note:

You can link brushes instead of appending if you want to avoid editing them.
You don't need to pack textures in the main file if image textures were used; they will be stored in the brush settings. Note though that if file with imported brushes will be moved somewhere (or texture file will change its location) you'll need to provide it with textures in order Blender to find them.


Toon Shader – Change Color of Shadows I made a character for a mobile game in Blender rendered with Cycles, and i used a toon material as shader. Now, for each toon material i create, i used an 'Image Texture' as a color gradient. I like the result, but i'm trying to work more on the shadows of the character, not cast shadows, but of the character itself. What i cannot figure out, using an image texture(png) as a color gradient, is there a way to change the colors of the shadows of the material? only of the shadows.
This is my character:
Thank you in advance

Eevee
Just an illustration of Coby Randal's comment - Shader to RGB node.

In case you want to keep AO ...

Note: I wanted to composite AO pass (instead mix it in shader), but with this shader is AO pass wrong for some reason.


Cutting the Ends of an Array I'm attempting to make what I believe is called a lattice fence, as one would see at the base of a raised house.

I used an array modifier to duplicate the "X" rectangles. I'm trying to cut off the ends of the non-complete lattice portions. I tried a Boolean modifier - which of course does not work.

Any ideas as to how I may proceed is appreciated. Should I forget about the array and just duplicate and space the "X"s?

The mage shows a face and an 80 deg. view.

Boolean does the trick if you use the right object. You can also use an array modifier for the cutting object to have the same pattern without adjusting manually.
(In my example I switched to carve solver)


Why is my render all white? I'm a new user of Blender. I started to learn it about 1 week ago. I watch channel BlenderGuru on Youtube and it is clear for me how to make a mesh and add modifiers, but I have a problem with render. It is always looks white. I'll upload a screenshot, so you can see what's happened. I tried to move the light and even delete it, but it is always looks the same. Could you please help me to fix this problem?

The Donut Tutorial uses Cycles Render Engine. You are on Blender Render Engine. You can change it in the dropdown at the top.


CUDA error: Out of memory in cuMemAlloc(&device_pointer, size) line568 I am trying to render a scene, but I constantly get the same error message: 'CUDA error: Out of memory in cuMemAlloc'. The scene is 3480 by 5304px. I'm rendering with my GPU on a 64 bit operating system with 16GB RAM. I have an NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060 videocard and there should be plenty of storage space left, as I've only recently bought my computer. I've tried decreasing the samples from 20 000 all the way down to 250, but without avail. If anyone were to know how to solve the issue, please share your knowledge here :)

This is normal. Your specific graphics card may have 3 or 6 GB of VRAM depending on the model. Your 3d scene needs to be loaded to the memory of your graphics card for it to be rendered on the GPU. It will eventually run out of memory as your scenes get bigger same way as you run out of hard disk space eventually as you have too many files on your computer.

To solve the issue, you can render your scene on CPU so your 16GB of RAM are used instead of the 3 or 6 GB of VRAM in your GPU.

Another way could be making sure that you are not using unnecessarily too much of geometry or particles and the textures you use are not bigger than you need. You should keep in mind that the textures used on GPU are not compressed, so it does not matter if you are using small compressed .jpg files - they will be uncompressed to their full size during rendering.

Of course another solution would be to upgrade the graphics card to one with more memory. That would work as well. GTX 1080TI cards for example have 11 GB of memory. However, it is not difficult at all to run out of that as well if you use particles for example. You should always keep resources in mind when designing your scenes.


Why is my blueprint not visible as a render? I created this blueprint using the vertices of a plane but the image is completely blank when I hit render

Edge lines between vertices don't have any volume, so they can't be seen. You can use a wireframe modifier to add thickness to the lines, also make sure you have some sort of light in the scene or it might be too dark to see.


Check the Object Size I'm working to print a model designed by Blender Software, but I have a challenge to know the object size before printing that, because I have to insert the material based on the model size .

example:
the below left object is the design and the right is UV which I would like to know the size of it .

So how can I know the model size if become as flat ?

is not clear imho: do you wish to know the volume of the mesh, or the surface area, or the UVmap width/height?

I guess you perhaps need help from the (default bundled) 3d print addon:

this is what you get if you're using the default unit: "blender unit".

But you can change it to a custom unit, like this:

and get the area or volume calculated in the same unit (depending on your model size).

If you can't see this addon on the toolbox's side, you just need to enable it in user preferences.


Lazy and right-to-left evaluation in the node tree As someone with a programming background, here's a fundamental thing about the Cycles node tree I've been thinking about. Let's say you have a node setup like this:

Here we have two computationally intensive shaders, called "Gigantic Shader A" and "Gigantic Shader B", and a Mix Shader is used to switch between them using some black-and-white mask.

In programming terms, this setup can be thought of as an if-else construct, with shader A and B being the two execution branches of the if-else construct.

Now, in basically every sane programming language, the two if-else branches are evaluated "lazily", meaning that either only the first branch or only the second branch is evaluated, depending on whether the if condition evaluates to true or false.

So here are my questions:

(1) Does Cycles have this lazy evaluation optimization as well? More specifically, is Cycles smart enough to figure out that if Fac=0 or Fac=1 in the above Mix Shader, it can completely ignore either shader B or shader A?

(2) If Cycles does have this optimization, then is it also true that the node tree is actually evaluated from right to left, starting at the Material Output node, and not from left to right, as one would naively assume? Because I can't think of any other way to implement lazy evaluation than going from right to left.

When executing shaders, a special optimization is applied to Mix Shader nodes. If Factor evaluates to 0 or 1, any nodes that are only reachable via the unused branch of the mix are not evaluated.

Taken from this page:

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/cycles/optimizations/nodes.html

This page also describes how the node tree is evaluated.


Long rectangular quads? Or neat squarish quads with tris? For curved meshes I've often noticed that in my desperation to avoid tris, I tend to extrude the mesh in a way which creates these long rectangular quads:

In this case at least, the mesh is all quads, however the edge flow causes loopcutting to be awkward in some places:

I tried creating the same mesh with more even topology, however I found tris unavoidable. Maybe it was because I was starting with the long-quad mesh, but I also found myself using the knife tool for everything..

This makes loopcuts less necessary and easier to place in most cases, though the occasional tri does get in the way.

An annoying thing about the tris are the poles, though they aren't too noticeable in this particular case.

Both techniques seems to have their advantages and their disadvantages:

Which is considered "better", if any? Are there any better workflows for creating even topology with as few tris as possible? Or is there some trick I'm missing altogether?

Blendfile

Topology is a weird thing. It can be done a few different ways, and there isn't always a right answer. However, a few rules to keep in mind while modeling:

Edge loops should be around defining features and edges. For example, if you have a hole in your mesh, there should be a loop around it. It makes the shape easier to change and makes creasing the mesh with more edge loops much simpler.
Try to keep a quad based mesh. If you are forced to use a triangle or n-gon, try to hide it away on a flat surface, or a hidden part of the mesh, where, when it messes with the subsurface modifier, the distortion will not be as noticeable.
Try to keep quads even sized and square. Otherwise you'll have weird stretching issues.

So, to answer your question, you want an edge loop around the bottom with squarish quads inside:

It will be easy to change the shape of your mesh and it will work nicely with the subsurface modifier.


Scaling keeps resetting after set keyframe in Blender action I'm new to Blender animation. I'm working on an action for my animation. In this action, I scaled a bone like the photos below. But when I play action, it keeps the same scale and the values didn't interpolate. When I move the cursor between frames, it also doesn't make any action.

What did I miss here guys ?

my first 3d animation professor used to answer every question with the same initial answer... "Did you apply Loc/Scale?" not applying it to your mesh can result in the stranges things...

Also, I fail to see what is changed? your settings for scale are the same on frames 3 and 5. It looks like you put whatever you keyframed is on frame 0, and frames 1 - 20 all have the same data... since your animation is set to run from frame 1 to 20 I don't believe it ever reaches frame 0 to take on whatever changes you made in that frame...

...and what change are you making anyway? a single frame in the begining of the animation with out anything to change too just makes the single change to the entire timeline... you need a starting value and a target value.. such as the scale of x in frame 1 being 1, the scale of it on frame 10 at 2, and the scale of it at frame 20 being put back to 1, (which would cycle the bone up and down with a bit of a hitch at the end...)

Anyway, I could easily be wrong, but I think your best bet is to keyframe inside your animation timeline, and make sure you have applied your mesh's rot/scale


Boolean: one operator and multiple objects Is there any option to use a boolean operator for subtracting faces on multiple objects?
I need to make a section of a lot of pieces and make it one by one it should be crazy....but I need to keep the object separated.
Is there any chance to have a non-destructive command?
Many thanks in advance for your support

In Blender 2.91, a feature will be added to support boolean operations on collections. (Commit ab7608af1bd4).


How To Reduce Noise In Cycles Render So this is my first try with cycles and I was wondering what can I do to make the image clearer?

This is a common issue with cycles, and is caused by many factors. As your scene appears to not have any glossy materials, increasing sample amount is a good place to start. If you get up near 1,000 samples, and it is not returning a good image, you can try these things:

Use Clamp
This method is used mostly to remove the characteristic "fireflies" in cycles that appear when there is any quantity of glossy objects, or if there is poor lighting. Clamp indirect is especially effective.

For animations it may also be a good idea to vary the seed value with keyframes.

Multiple Importance Sampling
This is fairly straightforward, you can copy the settings below.

Filter Glossy/Bounces
You can use these settings to advantage as well,  try filter glossy at 1 for starts. See this page for more details and an in depth explanation.

Despeckle/Bilateral Blur Nodes
This method uses the compositor and reduces noise fairly effectually, sadly at the loss of quality.

Some other things to try are lamp strength and lamp size.
Visit the Blender Manual for more info.


How to mass refresh textures and say blender to look for them at different location While working on a blender scene i have to move it from a usual place on hard drive to a different location. After i made some changes in scene and brought it back to its usual place all texture files are pointing in the wrong directory and are missing. There are hundreds textures in the scene and i cant reassign them by hand, it there a way to make all nodes that reffer to textures to look for them in a different directory?

What i have now is:
Blender looking for hundreds of textures in: wrong_folder/no_textures/
But i want them to look for textures in: right_folder/textures/

Something like that.

you can  do that using python script to alter the path of every image located in the older folder to be looked for in the new one; the nodes will automatically be updated after this :

import bpy

images = bpy.data.images

for img in images :
    if img.source == 'FILE' :
         img.filepath = img.filepath.replace('\\old_folder\\','\\new_folder\\')
         img.reload()


How to make a rigid body pass through only certain other rigid bodies? I have a human model made of separate objects. Body, thighs, legs, feet, toes, etc. I got the body to collide with the toes and not pass through each other. However, I want the thigh and leg capsules to be placed so their ends overlap, and are able to rotate, as if they can pass through each other. But they must not pass through say the toes when they collide. I thought about Groups but no progress. The human will be able to feel around its body, so, setting limits won't stop it from "puncturing" itself with its finger at any area. Therefore a all-can-pass-each-other solution won't work. The calves behind the knees would, if both can pass each other like want, would actually need set limit rotations, but that works there.

Rigid bodies collisions do not allow the kind of control you describe so, instead, a different approach is required.

First model the system using non-overlapping rigid bodies - create the rigid bodies and enable collision and use Rigid Body Constraints to set up the relationships between them.

The constraints can be easily created using the 'Connect' button in the Physics tab of the 3d view Tool Shelf (T). However, for each connection you need to uncheck the Disable Collisions property in the Rigid Body Constraints panel so that the collisions remain active.

To add the overlapping elements, create new objects and size and position them as desired and parent each one to the relevant rigid body (select the new object, hold Shift and select the associated rigid body, then press Ctrl+P and select 'Object') - they will now follow the motion of the associated rigid body.

Since the overlapping elements are no longer rigid bodies they do not affect the collision (and so can overlap) while the (non-overlapping) rigid bodies can handle the physics. You can 'hide' the rigid body 'skeleton' by moving it to another layer if desired - or simply set it not to render (click the camera icon against each object in the Outliner).

To take this a step further you could parent bones to the rigid bodies and have those deform a mesh that would act as a 'skin' to the rigid body skeleton. This is more complicated but would produce much more convincing joint motion for 'organic' characters.


Why is this happening in my UV Unwrapping? I just modeled my first character, and have performed my first UV wrapping. Everything looks ok, but the UV's for the Eyeballs seem to fill the background behind the other figure elements, and are stacked on top of each other. I've tried scaling them down, but there seems to be layer after layer after layer. Pardon the pun but is this normal?

You do not have seams on the eye spheres, so either add seams, or try unwrapping with Smart UV Project or Sphere Projection.

What you are seeing is Blender unwrapping every individual face on top of each other.

I would highly recommend that you read the Blender manual section on unwrapping before continuing.

Also, see this question if you want details on unwrapping spheres in particular:

What is the best way to unwrap a sphere?


Is it possible to quit blender from the command line? Is there a way to quit blender from the command line?

I tried

killall -s QUIT blender

However, blender does not quit the same way as it does when pressing CtrlQ, and no quit.blend is saved.

Is there a way to properly and politely quit blender (with a saved quit.blend) from the command line?

I think you could try with wmctrl instead of kill. However it's behavior may be application and windows manager dependant.

wmctrl -xc <WIN>

By default, <WIN> is treated as string to be searched in window title (wmctrl -c blender will close any window containing "blender" in the title). With -x, it will be interpreted as window class, so this invocation:

wmctrl -xc blender

... only closes any window having "blender" as its class name, which is usually Blender itself.


Blender seems to reset keyframes I am new to animating in blender and have a (what I think is) weird behaviour, which makes animating very frustrating and near impossible for me.

Please watch the uploaded .gif: https://imgur.com/nkLGrZ7

First I show my animation. After that i select one IK element in Pose Mode and play the animation again. Please notice that some positions of my bones just change in the animation. I did not modify anything. Since I bought the AK  model online I don't think I am allowed to share the blend file.

For easier comparision here are two pictures. One before clicking on the IK element and one after (same frame in the animation).

This also happens everytime I move something in pose mode. Some positions change on other frames and I can't controll my animation.

Is this a known issue or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:
uploaded the file without the ak. The arm rig and model is from this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzLnkpBQUfA), so I hope it is Ok to share this here.

Steps on how to easily recreate an issue: https://imgur.com/a/2qK00D2

Okay, so I downloaded blender 2.8 a few days ago and just tried to open my animation with this version and it seems to be fine. I don't know what went wrong with my 2.79 version, maybe it is some problem with my local installation...

EDIT:

Nevermind, the problem still persists, however, now I am able to get rid of it by pressing STRG+Z sometimes.


Will applying Decimate Modifiers speed up Blender? I'm working on my first big paid project and I'm coming across a lot of problems.  I'm not sure what Blender can handle, but my project was something like 6 million plus faces.  I'd simply click a mesh and have to wait 3 minutes before it makes the selection.
Also, I'm trying to get where I can render this project in Eevee, and it's just been a complete nightmare.  I can only get it to render in Cycles, and only if I set it to render with CPU only.  There was a point where I could render in Eevee and to my surprise Cycles was faster, unless I disable particle effects for some reason.
So I'm trying to optimize my scene.  I've got Decimate Modifiers on almost everything, but I'm wondering if Blender is still calculating stuff before the Decimate Modifiers and if it will help things if I apply all these Modifiers.
So that's my question:  Will it speed anything up if I apply all these decimate modifiers?
If there would be a significant improvement, is there an easy way to apply all Decimate Modifiers on all the objects at once?
Any other advice to further optimize my scene would be a big help!
My Specs:

Windows 10
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
32 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce TRX 2060 SUPER

Will it speed anything up if I apply all these decimate modifiers?

yes (you can try by yourself btw).
I suspect you are not using correctly blender. If you have a lot of faces, that means that the mesh comes from a sculpt operation or photogrammetry, so you DON'T have to edit the mesh in edit mode. If you stay away from edit mode, you should be able to work on your file.


Vertex Group With Checker Deselect I' trying to create a vertex group with checker deselect,

and trying to create a vertex group with that selection, but when a select the vertices of that vertex group it selects the entire cube and the selection that I made before gets replaces.

Any suggestion to trying to solve this?

PS:. I'm new to blender so if am going something wrong I would appreciate that someone would point it out to me.

Thank you.

In the image, you have selected every other face and now have half of the faces selected. Vertex groups can only contain vertices, so for each face, blender is selecting the vertices that make up the four corners of each square. Because your selection of faces touches all the vertices in the cube, Blender adds all the vertices in the cube to the vertex group.

To see exactly what this is doing, try selecting just one face, then switch to vertex select mode to see what vertices selects.

To get every other vertex selected, you can go into vertex select mode and select every other vertex before grouping.


Layout view, can't see my model I modeled the city scape. I pressed something and all I can see now is half of the model.

That's the 3D view clip. I'm not sure why it is there, but you can resize your mesh/object and it will be fine. Or, you can press "N" to open up that right window and adjust the clip size to stop cutting through your object.

I hope this helps.


Trying to move an object moves the texture on the object instead So I have somehow turned this on and I dont know how to turn it off again, the gizmo that usually moves an object is now moving a bigger version of itself, and I dont know how to change it back

Turn off this option in the N properties panel.


Edge of background image is visible Why does the edge continue to show up on my background mountains?  I'm using alpha but I can't get the edge to not show up.  Thanks.

The issue was that your image was duplicating at the top, Under image mapping change the drop down from repeat to extend.


Classic Blender keymap mouse behavior -> Industry Compatible keymap [Change MMB to LMB] I'm new to Blender, came from Maya LT. I'm very happy with what industry keymap 2.8 has to offer, just wanted to ask if it's possible (I tried and "bricked" my controls several times, had to delete config folder from appdata folder to restore defaults) to have mouse behavior from Blender classic keymap?

For example, when I use move tool, gizmo appears, so now I need to press MMB to move something and it confirms when I release MMB button. In classic keymap I press G (or whatever keybind for a move/grab tool) and the component or object initially "sticks" to my mouse so I can move it where I want and press LMB to confirm my transformation.

Thank you!

You can manually edit the way the view port works by going to

Edit > Preferences > Keymap > 3D View > 3D View (Global) > Rotate View

Click the box in the third column and hit the preferred mouse interaction, e.g. just middle mouse button.

For me the biggest annoyance was that I wasn't able to rotate my view (orbit) using Alt + middle mouse button, because of some obscure settings in my OS (Linux Mint / Ubuntu). Therefore I didn't need to change all mouse interaction settings and could just selectively choose some view port interactions to change manually; perhaps the same holds for you. Hope this helps.


Blender Crashing within two minutes of opening even if left untouched after opening I'm brand new to blender. I downloaded the newest version from online (2.79.2), checked to make sure I have good requirements for using the program (which I do), I start up the program and literally all I did the first time was move the default cube along the x,y,z axis and it crashed before the minute was up. I could hear the computer running harder for about thirty seconds before the crash.

The second time I turned on Task Manager to see if my CPU was peaking while using the program. It only spiked a little when turning on the program but moving the cube didn't cause any spikes. BUT even just turning it on and not touching anything within Blender at all the program still crashed.
Tried this many many times with the same results, tried an option recommended by other users to change from None under compute devices (system options) to CUDA and picked my card - made no difference. Tried running a python script that worked for someone else and that didn't work. Disabled the intel chipset that was recommended by another user so the computer would only be able to pick the Nvidia Graphics Card for use - didn't help.
Any ideas?
Not sure where I can look for crash logs for this?

SPECS
Windows 10
Nvidia Geforce GT 525M
8GB RAM

I did test an older version and had the same problem. However...

Solution:
Couldn't find the crash files for blender so I checked the Eventviewer for Windows and saw a bunch of errors relating to my Wacom tablet. I uninstalled the Wacom tablet program, restarted and Blender has yet to crash again. :)