Converting an image sequence with an alpha channel to video and keeping the transparency I've checked the related questions, but the last similar question was asked 7 years ago. I haven't done video editing before (so please treat me as a noob in this field), and wasn't doing 3D art back then, so I don't know what's changed, if anything, with regards to blender's video editing tools.
Before finding out that my attempt to make the conversion failed, I tried the ffmpeg format and used the MPEG-4 and Quicktime containers in separate attempts. I used the H.264 for the MPEG-4 and HuffYUV for the Quicktime formats respectively. The MPEG-4 video plays with a black background (which I can't tell whether it's got an alpha channel or not), and the Quicktime video was a complete mess with no visuals of my animation at all.
As far as I can tell, I need a video format which supports alpha channels, but it doesn't seem like blender has that capability. Please tell me if I'm wrong, or if I'm right, what I need to do to make the conversion.
Sorry for the long post, I wasn't really sure what was relevant to include, so I just included everything I did. I appreciate any assistance.

I suppose that when you add your image sequence to the video sequencer (VSE), you see a checkerboard background for the transparent regions? If so, you can render this out as a video file with the transparency conserved by choosing the correct codec (see also the comment of duplicate post). Which codec. The key is to pay attention to the color attribute of the Output panel. There are two possibilities: RGB or RGBA. The latter is a codec that supports transparency. In the first screenshot, I have chosen for the FFmpeg Video file format, the Matroska container and the PNG video codec. This is a codec that supports transparency. The second screenshot with the MPEG-4 and H.264 codec does not support transparency. You can tell it because the A-option in RGBA is not available.
You can test this very easily by rendering out the sequence and adding back the previous output file to the sequencer. You should see a checkerboard.


How can I round out this join? I want to round out this right angle join between two edges. How can I achieve this effect in red?

There may be many ways to do it (using the knife project or to sphere tools e.g.). I'll show you a method wich uses a spin tool though.

Select the vertex which creates the straight angle and rip it (V). After selecting two vertices press G twice to slide them. This way you can set the size of the round joint.

Next with the two vertices selected snap the cursor to them (Shift+S-->Cursor to Selected). Change the pivot point type to 3D Cursor and enable snapping tool (Vertex). Select the bottom vertex, snap the cursor to it and (being in side view) press the Spin button (set the steps number in a Tool Shelf as you like). Next select the vertices of the arc, rotate and scale it to make the joint.

Finally remove doubles (select the whole mesh with A, then press W-->Remove Doubles). Fill the hole with F.

UPDATE: Using to sphere tool:

Select the vertex which creates the straight angle, press Shift+Ctrl+B and set the arc's size. Enable snapping tool (Vertex). Extrude the bottom vertex and snap it to the other one as pictured below. Snap the cursor to it (with 3D Cursor pivot point type), then delete it. Select the diagonal edge, subdivide it (W-->Subdivide) and set the subdivisions number in a Tool Shelf. Next press Shift+Alt+S,1. Finally translate the arc along Y and Z axes to snap it to the other vertices.


Copy time line markers to a new scene I am syncing an animation with a sound file and I used to mark key notes from the partition to drive actions in the animation.  I would like to save the time line with the markers to build a new animation using new objects based on the same partition and keep the time line and the markers as they are.  I could not find a way to do so?  Is it possible?  I tried to link or import the time line but could not find out how..

Timeline markers are part of the scene data, you will only get the markers if you import the scene into another blend file.

Blender can have more than one scene in the same blend file, you could create a full copy of the current scene, remove the items you don't want and start your new animation. Similarly you could save a copy of your file and remove the un-needed items in the new file.

The other option is to use python to export/import the markers.

Run this in your current file to export the markers -

import bpy

markerfile = '/tmp/markertransfer.txt'

with open(markerfile, 'w') as mf:
    for m in bpy.context.scene.timeline_markers:
        mf.write('{},{}\n'.format(m.frame, m.name))

Then in your new file run this to get matching markers -

import bpy

markerfile = '/tmp/markertransfer.txt'

with open(markerfile, 'r') as mf:
    for l in mf:
        f,n = l.split(',')
        bpy.context.scene.timeline_markers.new(n.strip(), frame=int(f))


How to build a Shader for Anodized Aluminium I have modelled this smart phone based on Iphone 6 reference images. The rendered image of the back of the phone looks like this:

If I look at real life images of this "Iphone 6 Space Gray" I feel that "my phone" misses some fine grain and a "metal sheen". Like these images

My shader looks like this (like suggested here)

I would like to build a shader that gives a realistic look of the apple iPhone space gray material. I also had a look here ... this shader is based on an anisotropic shader which I feel that should be the way to go. It also has the fine grain ... but I don't think it is the solution (and this is also too complicated for me; I would like to understand it). So .. how to build a realistic shader for this apple material ?

Concerning the proposed solutions: I really like the solution suggested by PGmath. When applying his material to my iPhone this is the result.

As I am intrigued by Physically Based shaders I picked up the suggestion of Paul Brachmann and proposed a PBS based solution using the work of PGmath

Here's what I have come up with.

The shader consists of a little bit of diffuse mixed into some fairly rough gloss, with a smoother Fresnel gloss mixed in at the end.  I also noticed that the gloss on you reference image has a very slight, yet distinct, variation in reflectance across the phone.  To simulate this I added a noise texture controlling the roughness of the two glossy shaders.

Here is my node layout:

Click to enlarge.

A few notes:

I am using Geometry > Position as mapping coordinates for the noise texture to get even scaling.  Using generated coordinates on an object with a non-cuboidal bounding box results in stretching.
I use an RGB Curves node to bump up the contrast.
All the math nodes just remap the [0,1] range of the texture to the desired ranges for the glossy roughnesses.
The colors in the above node layout are for the gold shader on the right of the render.  The silver one just uses grey in all 3 shaders (light grey for the glosses and slightly darker for the diffuse).


Set a projector at UVProjection modifier (script) I am trying to create a script that involves the creation and setup of a UV Project modifier. When it comes to set the UV Map of the projector, there is no problem at all:
import bpy

bpy.data.objects['piece'].select_set(True)
bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type='UV_PROJECT')
bpy.context.object.modifiers["UVProject"].uv_layer = "UVMap"

But when I'm trying to set the projector object, I find no way to do it, as "projectors" property seems to be read-only:
https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.UVProjectModifier.html?highlight=projection%20modifier
Q: Am I missing something or precisely that property is just not scriptable?

Similar to How to add modifiers using python script and set parameters?, the recommended way is to add a new modifier to an object using ObjectModifiers.new() which returns the reference to the modifier and allows to assign whatever you like:
import bpy

# Get the object in context
obj = bpy.context.object

# Add the modifier to the object in context
modifier = obj.modifiers.new(name="project", type='UV_PROJECT')

# Properties
modifier.uv_layer = "UVMap"
modifier.projector_count = 10

for p in modifier.projectors:
    p.object = bpy.context.scene.camera

projectors property is of type bpy_prop_collection, which is essentially a list of object references. In order to assign an object to each Object property of the modifier, you would have to assign an object reference like bpy.context.scene.camera.


Imported model bones not working I have imported a free model of Mega Charizard Y from a 'models resource' website.

The imported model says that it has bones, but when I go into pose mode, I cannot move the bones around. They also look different than bones I have seen in tutorials, so I am really confused.

I want to be able to 3D print the model, and want to pose him into a much more dramatic action sort of pose.

Any help with this would be great please!

What you can see are the relation lines, not the bones. For some reason your bones are so tiny, you can't see them. Select the armature, go to edit mode, select Individual Origins for Pivot point, then hit "a" to select everything. (If you selected everything the Gizmo must be appear in the middle of the skeleton). Then hit "s" to scale and type in a big number (500,000). Then hit enter or left click and go back to pose mode.


How to precisely set position in edit mode by typing in numbers? In Object Mode, I can type in xyz coordinates using this menu:

What is the equivalent in Edit Mode, so I can precisely position the parts of an object?

Both in Object Mode and in Edit Mode, you can use the Transform menu of the Properties Panel on the right-hand side of the 3D View (shortcut N).

If you have only one vertex selected, it will position that vertex precisely. If you have more than one selected, it will affect the median position of all the selected vertices.

Edit Mode:

Object Mode:


Can't See Background Image on Ortho View I'm trying to import a background image, and it shows the file name, but it does not show up. I put it in Ortho view but it still wouldn't show. I tried with lots of images just to make sure the image was corrupted or something.

Any ideas?

Background images will only be displayed in

  Camera Prespective view (Numpad 0)

Any of the Preset Orthographic views

  Front/Back (Numpad 1 or CtrlNumpad 1)
  Right /Left (Numpad 3 or CtrlNumpad 3)
  Top/Bottom (Numpad 7 or CtrlNumpad 7)

Background images will not show in perspective view.

To switch between Perspective and Orthographic view use Numpad 5

Background images are used for reference only and will not be part of the final render.


How do I Bevel an Edge within an Edge? Edit Update:

I want to explain how I got to this point better because I did a poor job explaining, so here it is. I am making a box. Along one edge of the box I pressed "W" then "subdivide" to create a single vertice. After which I had selected the single vertice I created on its own, and then pressed
"ctrl shift B" to create two vertices, when I had the desired distance I wanted I then switched to edge select, and selected the edge between the two vertices I created then pressed "ctrl B" which results in the image above. I have no doubles, and using "ctrl A" in object mode doesn't fix my issue.

I dont have enough rep points to comment, but, to comment, I did what you wanted, just with CTRL+B, not sure where the problems is with your bevel. Maybe, CTRL+A first ? scale / rotation / location....

OP edit: SpaceKat had recommended resetting my settings. Which I did by reinstalling the latest version of Blender 2.79B, the original version I used was 2.78. Using the newer version of Blender fixed the issue right away no problems at all. I wanted to give SpaceKat proper credit so I edited the post.


Unable to select specific faces in shading mode I wanna select the faces of the little band around the handle but for some reason when I try to select nothing happens. Not even in object mode I get the orange outline that's usually there. I've tried restarting the program few times but it didn't help.

You appear to have overlays turned off. This means that selected objects (and Faces, Vertices, etc) will not appear to be selected, because the blue/yellow/orange highlighting that indicates an object is selected is considered an overlay.

You can turn overlays back on by clicking the relevant button here:


How to bake in Cycles without hidden objects affecting the bake I have a clothing piece over a model and I am trying to bake the clothing piece in its location.  There is also a hidden object underneath the clothing, and i think this is affecting my bake.

You can exclude an object from baking calculations by moving it to another layer from the object you are baking with M.  Then just uncheck the layer you have moved it to in the viewport footer before baking.


Automatic material switch by Render Engine Is there a way to automatically switch the material by detecting the render engine change between Eevee and Cycles?

If there is a node like output 1 if the render engine was cycles and output 0 if the engine was Eevee, That will be great for implementing auto switch function because I can just connect that to mix shader node.

You can easily do it with drivers.

Click right mouse button (RMB) on render engine name and select Copy as a
new driver
Go to your node, for example Value node (Input->Value)
Put cursor over value field and with RMB click Paste driver
RMB click again and this time choose Edit driver
In driver setting switch type from Averaged to Scripted Expression
Change expression to engine/2 (because Cycles is third engine in list,
otherwise you'll have (0,2) output)


Is it possible to use a curvature map to create high poly model from a low poly? I have a low poly mesh, it shows up great when the curvature map from the high poly model is applied and, due to data storage failure the high poly model was lost.
Is there a way to use the curvature map to create real mesh topology so something close to the original mesh could be created and edited?

You can add a subsurf modifier, set to higher levels, such as 3 or 4, and then add a displace modifier, using uv and using your map texture.  Adjust the strength, and if you are happy with it and want true geometry you can apply all the modifiers.


What is a good way to learn clean topology? I started using Blender 1 year ago, and now when I want to try and make a model of a car I see where my problem is.
Model looks very ugly because my topology for something like that is horrible haha. Now, I want to learn some rules for connecting vertexes, for faces and all about polygonal modeling rules.
Can you recommended me some books or sites or PDF books, or something like that? Because I really want learn topology

A good way to learn to use clean topology is to do a lot of modelling
'Clean' topology is topology that is easy and convenient to work with. We avoid triangles because they do not allow the use of a lot of functions related to edge loops or do not look nice after surface subdivision, we avoid non-manifold geometry because some algorithms are confused by it and do not work as expected, we use as little of geometry as possible to define shapes and forms because it is easier to work with and there is less lag, we use denser geometry where objects are going to deform because they do not look nice when deformed otherwise and so on and so on. Clean topology has natural reasons to be - that's why you learn it naturally while modelling. If you model something for animations, you need to take extra care to understand the rigging and animation process enough to have suitable topology, but else than that, most of the time the more modelling you do, the better you get at judging what topology is 'clean'.


I need to add finger rig to a model that is already rigged I am reusing a rigged model I got from Blendswap. It is fully rigged (by rigify it seems) with the exception of the fingers. The rig comes with controls and shows no actual bones (which I judge would be easily extendable). It also has a complete armature ref bones that is already scaled to the model in a different layer. I took this armature's hand bones and skinned them to the model. The finger then seemed to work/pose ohk but the problem is that I cannot get them to follow when posing the model using the main rig controls (which yield weird deformation when posing the fingers after). I Googled and tried out what seemed to be solutions (like Child of bone constrains, Ctrl + J, ...) to no proper avail. Any assistance will be appreciated. Happy to provide more info that may be deemed needful toward offering the desired assistance.

I Googled further > found that I can select the main rig/metarig > go to Edit Mode > Go to Object Data > scroll to Rigify Buttons > Add two palms bones and the 10 fingers (by selecting each and clicking Add Sample) > scale them and link the joints respectively after. Doing this now and expect it will be all I needed. Just wished I could mirror and thus cut the work in half :)


Poor performance with h.264 VSE Sorry if this is a noob question but I started using Blender today as a free video editor and now that I'm rendering my project, it's taking a lot longer than I was expecting.

The project is basically splicing two 1920x1080, 60fps videos into one, 6-minute video with a simple fade out/fade in transition between the two videos and I have everything set up to use the correct resolution and FPS.

The problem is, I'm rendering at about 20fps (so about 3x realtime) while my CPU utilization is at 15% so I can't help but feel this could be going much faster if I found a way to increase my CPU usage.  I'm curious if I've failed to select the optimal settings for my system or if this is just par for the course with Blender's video encoder?

My specs:

Intel i7 4790k
Nvidia GTX 970
16GB DDR3 2400mhz
Blender 2.73a
H.264 encoder with default profile and bitrate set to 30000kbps

As far as I know, the Sequencer has no multi-core support in the final rendering. (Surprisingly it has it for rendering proxy files). Also GPU rendering isn't available either.

I just found a recent thread in which a dev claims to work on multi-core support, so maybe it will come in the future. I definitely would appreciate such a feature.


Turning a UV layout into an image? I want to be able to print out my UV layout, so as to be able to assemble the model out of paper (or wood, if I lasercut). Is there an easy way to turn the edges in the UV editor into outlines on the image, so I can see where to cut?

Yes, you can export your UV layout as an image.
Open up the UV editor and...


How can I properly import this .OBJ file? I'm encountering a problem with the following .OBJ. It is a rip-off of the Destiny Islands world in Kingdom Hearts. Here is the link:
http://www.models-resource.com/psp/khbirthbysleep/model/2856/
I am in Blender Game and using the latest version of Blender from the official website.
When I try to import it, I immediately notice that there went something wrong: The leafs on the trees have white borders around them, the sand near the water doesn't load correctly. Here is a screenshot from within Blender:

When I test the game, everything looks even worse: the texture order gets messed up; the texture under the bridge appears above it, etc. It looks really weird. I don't know how to fix it. Maybe there is something wrong with the .OBJ or is there an import mode that fixes this problem?

Thanks in advance and please excuse my bad English.

Thomas

The trees use alpha maps, and you can see these inside the 3d view, It is meant to be like that until you apply materials.
I'm not sure if this is the case but if it is then this may help. For the water there are 3 things I could think of:

The.OBJ is so big, that when you zoom out you can't see the water since the 3d view cannot trace that far back. So try zooming into the water.
Try removing doubles by pressing T in the 3D View, and on the left you should see remove doubles button. Also try and recalculate normals, which is right under remove doubles.
Since the model is ripped, the model just might be clipped and the person who ripped it might not have gotten all the water polys.
Select the water and try and move it upwards, from the image it looks like it's colliding with the sand instead of being above it.


Why "Save as" and "Export" is not working in my menu? In this small menu example below, I'd like to know why "Save as" and "Export" are not working on my menu?

How am I supposed to save as inside of a menu?

What am I doing wrong ?

bl_info = {
    "name" : "Back Me Up [BD3D]",
    "author" : "BD3D",
    "description" : "Save like you never did before.",
    "blender" : (2, 80, 0),
    "location" : "Ctrl S, Operator",
    "warning" : "",
    "category" : "Generic"
}

import bpy
from bpy.types import Menu
import bpy
context = bpy.context

class VIEW3D_PIE_backmeuptradnormal(Menu): #problem first save and save as ? what ???????????????????????
    bl_label = ""
    bl_idname = "view3d.menu_normal_backmeup" #other id if two pies

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        pie = layout
        pie.operator("wm.collada_export",text="export not working",  icon='BLENDER')
        pie.operator("wm.save_as_mainfile",text="save as not working",  icon='BLENDER')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(VIEW3D_PIE_backmeuptradnormal)
def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(VIEW3D_PIE_backmeuptradnormal)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
    bpy.ops.wm.call_menu(name="view3d.menu_normal_backmeup")

-

pie.operator_context = 'INVOKE_DEFAULT'

this line before the operator

pie.operator_context = 'EXEC_REGION_WIN'

and this line after will do it


Removing all material slots in one go I need some help in removing all material slots in one go using a python script.
I am able to use this, would prefer to ave all removed.

bpy.context.object.active_material_index = 0
bpy.ops.object.material_slot_remove()
bpy.context.object.active_material_index = 1
bpy.ops.object.material_slot_remove()
bpy.context.object.active_material_index = 2
bpy.ops.object.material_slot_remove()

You can set the index of the list to 0, iterate through all slots and override the context of material_slot_remove():

for obj in bpy.context.selected_editable_objects:
    obj.active_material_index = 0
    for i in range(len(obj.material_slots)):
        bpy.ops.object.material_slot_remove({'object': obj})


How to make animated armature move in opposite direction I added a path curve which I extended as a straight line. Then I clicked on the armature in object mode and then shift-right clicked on the path. Then I hit control p and selected follow path (path constraint option didn't work). When I hit the play button the armature walks but it goes in the wrong direction. How do I make it go in the opposite direction?

As you can see to the bottom right I tried to add a constraint to -Y but the pink area shows that something is missing. The extraneous parts that you see around the armature shows that the import created a messed up rig. But the walk cycle works just fine.

You chose to both parent the armature to the curve with Follow Path AND to give it a Follow Path constraint. You should choose either one or the other solution.

1) Follow Path constraint: So, first solution, unparent the armature and keep the Follow Path constraint. In the Follow Path constraint, choose the curve as Target. Click on the Animate Path button. If you see that the armature goes in the bad direction, select the curve, go in Edit mode and click W > Switch Direction. If you want to control the speed of the animation and the position of the armature at any time, you need to remove the Generator that has been automatically generated when you pressed the Animate Path button: Select your curve, go in the Graph Editor, on the left panel unfold the BezierCurve track to select Evaluation Time, then display the Graph Editor properties panel with N, select the Modifiers tab, and remove the Generator. Now to control the speed and position of the armature keep your curve selected, go in the Properties panel > Data > Path Animation, and put some keyframes on the Evaluation Time.

2) Parent with Follow Path option: Second solution, instead of Follow Path constraint you could prefer to simply parent with Follow Path option, in that case, same thing, if you see that the armature goes in the bad direction, select the curve, go in Edit mode and click W > Switch Direction. Then delete the Generator and use the curve Evaluation Time to animate the armature.


How to call a confirmation dialog box? I have a button in my menu named "New File" as shown:

and I want when I click on the "New File" button to imitate what the Blender File->New does, where a check message box appear first confirming that you want to reload the Start-up File and if pressed then the startup file is loaded as shown below.

This is my script, when I press on new it opens the startup file without checking:

class NewFile(bpy.types.Operator):
    """New File"""
    bl_idname = "wm.newfile"
    bl_label = "New File"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        bpy.ops.wm.read_homefile()
        return {"FINISHED"}

When calling an operator via bpy.ops.* without any execution context the execute() method of the respective operator runs by default. If the operator provides any kind of  'user interaction' like a 'confirmation dialog' in this case, then you can pass 'INVOKE_DEFAULT' as execution context when calling the operator which will also run its invoke() method:

bpy.ops.wm.read_homefile('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

In order to display the operator as a button and also 'enable' its user interaction, you have to set the operator_context in the 'layout' before calling the operator:

Blender 2.7x

import bpy

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_idname = "CUSTOM_my_panel"
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "TOOLS"
    bl_category = "Tools"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.operator_context = 'INVOKE_DEFAULT' #'INVOKE_AREA'
        layout.operator("wm.read_homefile", text="New", icon='NEW')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(HelloWorldPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(HelloWorldPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Blender 2.8x

class OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_custom_panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Tools"
    bl_context = "objectmode"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.operator_context = 'INVOKE_DEFAULT' #'INVOKE_AREA'
        layout.operator("wm.read_homefile", text="New", icon='FILE_NEW')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Custom Confirm Dialog

For a custom conformation dialog you can wrap the operator into another one and invoke invoke_confirm(operator, event) classmethod of the window-manager to confirm the execution by the user.

Blender 2.7x

import bpy

class SimpleConfirmOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Really?"""
    bl_idname = "my_category.custom_confirm_dialog"
    bl_label = "Do you really want to do that?"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'INTERNAL'}

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return True

    def execute(self, context):
        self.report({'INFO'}, "YES!")
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_idname = "CUSTOM_my_panel"
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "TOOLS"
    bl_category = "Tools"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.operator(SimpleConfirmOperator.bl_idname)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(SimpleConfirmOperator)
    bpy.utils.register_class(HelloWorldPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(HelloWorldPanel)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SimpleConfirmOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Blender 2.8x

import bpy

class SimpleConfirmOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Really?"""
    bl_idname = "my_category.custom_confirm_dialog"
    bl_label = "Do you really want to do that?"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'INTERNAL'}

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return True

    def execute(self, context):
        self.report({'INFO'}, "YES!")
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

class OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_custom_panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Tools"
    bl_context = "objectmode"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.operator(SimpleConfirmOperator.bl_idname)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel)
    bpy.utils.register_class(SimpleConfirmOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SimpleConfirmOperator)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Property Confirm

In order to display a popup, some properties and an OK 'button' you can return wm.invoke_props_dialog(self) instead:

Blender 2.7x

import bpy

class SimplePropConfirmOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Really?"""
    bl_idname = "my_category.custom_confirm_dialog"
    bl_label = "Do you really want to do that?"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'INTERNAL'}

    prop1 = bpy.props.BoolProperty()
    prop2 = bpy.props.BoolProperty()

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return True

    def execute(self, context):
        self.report({'INFO'}, "YES!")
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

    def draw(self, context):
        row = self.layout
        row.prop(self, "prop1", text="Property A")
        row.prop(self, "prop2", text="Property B")

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_idname = "CUSTOM_my_panel"
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "TOOLS"
    bl_category = "Tools"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.operator(SimplePropConfirmOperator.bl_idname)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(SimplePropConfirmOperator)
    bpy.utils.register_class(HelloWorldPanel)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(HelloWorldPanel)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SimplePropConfirmOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Blender 2.8x

import bpy

class SimplePropConfirmOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Really?"""
    bl_idname = "my_category.custom_confirm_dialog"
    bl_label = "Do you really want to do that?"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'INTERNAL'}

    prop1: bpy.props.BoolProperty()
    prop2: bpy.props.BoolProperty()

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return True

    def execute(self, context):
        self.report({'INFO'}, "YES!")
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

    def draw(self, context):
        row = self.layout
        row.prop(self, "prop1", text="Property A")
        row.prop(self, "prop2", text="Property B")

class OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "My Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_custom_panel"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "UI"
    bl_category = "Tools"
    bl_context = "objectmode"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.operator(SimplePropConfirmOperator.bl_idname)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel)
    bpy.utils.register_class(SimplePropConfirmOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SimplePropConfirmOperator)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(OBJECT_PT_CustomPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Note: bl_options of both examples are set to 'INTERNAL' which excludes the operators from search results, remove it if you'd like to run the operator via space bar/F3.


In blender 2.8 how do you make a local instance of an object in use by multiple scenes? I have created a new scene using linked copies.

Now I need to make a few of the object single-user so there is a separate object in the original and in the new scene.

Back in 2.79 there was a button for that:

Blender 2.8 seems to lack that button.  How do I make a single-user copy of the object?

Do not confuse the object with the object data (like mesh or curve).  The mesh panel does have the button, but I need to make the object single user and that panel is missing the necessary button.

Based on some of the comments I have concluded I am going to have to get horribly detailed, because what other people are experiencing does not match how my stock blender 2.80 behaves:

Start with the default scene:

Add a cone:

duplicate the scene

and let's change the outliner to let us see both scenes

Notice that my Object panel lacks the button that would allow me to make the object single-user.

Let's rotate the cone by 180.

Oh no!  It affected the original scene

And if we delete the object from one scene, it disappears from both scenes.  WHAT!

Undo that deletion.
Let's use the Object>Relations>Make Single User>Selected Objects .

Oh no.  Now both scenes have Cone.001 and Cone has disappeared.

How do I change my workflow to accomplish the mission of having two scenes with some objects in common , and other objects have single-user versions of objects from the original scene?

Make New Scene with Copy Settings. Go to your first scene and link all necessary object to newly created scene. Go to your new scene and now Make Single User under Object->Relations works as expected.


How can I paint and animate a mask with the new Grease Pencil? does anyone know how to paint (and animate) a mask within the new Grease Pencil (Blender 2.8) ?

I guess that it should be possible to either define a Grease Pencil layer as mask; or to use an holdout material or something ?

Thanks !

Using Subtract as a Blend mode for a Grease Pencil layer acts just like a mask:

Subtracted layers will act as holdout for every other layer that is listed below them, but regardless of their view-depth (layers in front are masked out too). Layers in other GP objects are not affected


Must I add a license block to all files in a multi file addon? When an addon grows it becomes convenient to break it out into modules, do those other modules (.py files) also need a license block or is it sufficient to only put it in the __init__.py.

No, but it's good practice. All the official Blender addon files have a license block.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/845895/putting-license-in-each-code-file


Duplicated bones that i can't select i'm having trouble understanding what is happening to my rig because i have a whole duplicate of my rigg that i cant select and is always selected
the one that i can move is ok but the other one i don't understand what it is and is giving me problems when i add new bones like the ones in the jaw since i can't select them

In the top right of your screenshot is the outliner, I can see seven armatures there including some that are not visible in the viewport. That would indicate that while in object mode you are duplicating the entire armature, maybe while expecting to duplicate a single bone, which you should do in edit mode.

The first armature is the parent of several mesh objects while the others are duplicate armatures that can be deleted. You may need to select them in the outliner and delete them, enabling the little eye icon will make them visible in the viewport.

I don't know that each rig is the same, you may have made alterations to one of the duplicates that you expect to be in your initial armature. You can hide/show one rig at a time to see which bones are part of each armature.

Once you remove these duplicates you should find it easier to work on your rig.


A problem with Blender's Bridge Edge Loops system I'm a new Blender user coming from Maya. One of my favorite things to do is use bridging to create wires. I love Blender's modeling tools except for this one and was hoping there is a solution/plugin to fix this.

Maya's bridging system is fantastic. From any angle at any depth it auto-connects and comes with a curve so I can tweak the bridge.

If two surfaces in Blender are not on the same plane, the mesh folds on itself. No amount of cuts or twisting or even angling the faces toward each other (as some tutorials say) save the day. Additionally, I have very little option in the way of tweaking the bridge's shape afterward.

Thanks for reading :)

Allen

I don't think Blender's current Bridge Tool will give you quite the level of control you want.

In this case I would use a Curve object, but I realize that that's a bit of a change from the work-flow you have in Maya. A script can be written to prepare a curve object using the median and normal of two arbitrarily angled polygons, then all you do is tweak the width of the curve, the number of subdivisions ( or custom profile shape ), and convert to mesh, and join into the current mesh.

In essence it would be doing this under the hood, when you use a Curve you can manipulate the handles and even scale the start or end point of the Curve so it tapers.

here with tapering, each bezier_point has a radius property, this can be scripted or modified via the interface when you have a bezier_point selected

Given this proposal I imagine the following parameters as part of an operator.

tightness begin / end ( how long the curve handle extends from the median of each polygon )
attempt to scale begin and end profile to the two polygons that we used as a starting point

This would be a first draft of such an addon, I imagine much could be improved, but I think curves are the answer and not the Bridge Tool.

Edit

currently the repository has

a simple raw_script.py which can be used if you select two polygons. This is the 'minimum viable implementation'.
also a folder called 'tubetool' which is some boilerplate around the initial script so it gets an operator class, and can be installed as an addon (if you know how to install addons..)

Tool and Addon development will happen on GitHub, any input appreciated.
https://github.com/zeffii/TubeTool/issues/1


Weird shading on a bonnet of a car model I need help. I model a car bonnet and overall everything is good, but there is a small weird shading that I don't know how to fix. Auto-Smooth is on, a bonnet line is marked as sharp, and I tried Recalculate Normals, but nothing worked. Maybe I don't understand something. Thanks in advance. Here is a link to a file: and here are a few images:

You need to dissolve these 2 edges, they tend to flatten your faces:


How to render WITH the default checkerboard as background? Ok there are a ton of questions on getting a transparent background and NOT having background be checkerboard in final render, but what if you WANT this checkerboard pattern as your final background?

Ive tried unchecking my Transparent box - I'm in cycles.

Here's a solution using a Checker Texture for the Background material using Window coordinates. It's not perfect but I think gives a pretty good impression.

You'll need to adjust the Mapping node to match the camera aspect ratio.

This essentially just textures the environment using a Checker texture mapped based on Window coordinates, and only for Camera rays.


How come when I subdivide an edge, it only continues to subdivide one side? I'm trying to create more vertices in an edge so I subdivide it, but for some reason, after I subdivide it once, it decides to only select one half of the subdivide. This messes with my faces when I then try to move them to shape them into what I'm modeling.
Before subdivide:
After first subdivide:
After second subdivide:
What it's supposed to look like:
It creating a weird face under on my model:

It's because the face on the right is already subdivided, and so is the edge between them. You should have subdivide them both at the same time.

You could fix this by selecting all the vertical edges between the faces and rip them (shortcut v). Then remove excess verts (select them and x -> Dissolve Vertices) on the face you're trying to subdivide. Subdivide the face. The verts on the right should allign. Now you have duplicated vertices in that region. Remove them by selecting all vers in the region (you'll probably have to turn on X-ray (alt+Z) to reach the duplicates) using Merge by Distance.


Some bones won't move in pose mode Some bones wont move when I'm in pose mode. For example the head, the neck and the upper spike move without a problem. But when I try to move the eyes and the other spikes only the bones move not the mech. I've parented them all to the head. And did the weight painting myself. Does anyone know what may be wrong?

You have the vertex groups for your weights but they are not assigned to the bones, simply rename the vertex group to the same name as the bone they are suppose to be assigned to and that should fix it.


Blender assign armature to mesh: “bone heat weighting failed to find solution for one or more bones” I get this error working with Blender while I try to assigning armature's bones to an human mesh.

The OP originally posted this in their question.

If it happened to you too and you were looking for any solution, I solved in this way:

select mesh in edit-mode;
in the bar "Mesh tools" select the voice "Remove Doubles" (that remove duplicate vertex).

Here there's a video that explain the procedure.

Another way to solve the problem would be add a modifier to the mesh:

"Decimate" modifier.


How to paint through a whole mesh while weight painting Is there a way to paint through a mesh while weight painting? I have clicked the "limit selection to visible" button, but I still cannot paint through all visible faces in wireframe mode.

Disable the Limit selection to visible option as people suggested you in their comments. Make sure, that the icon is not highlighted.

Also make sure, that you haven't masked some part of your object. Select the whole mesh before painting (A).


How can I control a rig with gamepad or vr controller I was watching a behind the scenes documentary on the first Jurassic Park movie. I noticed a controller called the "dinosaur input device" it was a physical rig that the animator's could use to move the characters on the computer. That sounds like a good idea for one animator to create animations quickly. Can something similar be accomplished in Blender with a gamepad or VR controller? And how?

The topic you are intrested in is called Motion Capture and is quite vast.
TLDR: depending on your use case probably can't because you cant track enough axis.
The old school way of doing this is to build a real world version of your rig. Then you attach motion sensors often called Internal Mesurment Unit (IMU) that mesure each movement axis of each physical represented bone. This principal also exist in form of motion capture suits where you slip in.
When you have the motion data for each frame per sensor you convert it to FBX or blender keyframes usualy by python code. You also can build a plugin for blender that takes realtime input from the motion sensors so you can fiddel around with your rig and see wat happens in blender (there probably exist comercial products doing this)
Of course you dont have to track the data for every bone, but than you have to calculate it ither by smart IK rigging or by calculating the missing data yourself.
With a Gamepad and VR controller you dont have enough axis of fredom you can track.
A VR controler gives tracked in a room gives you one tracked translation and rotation. So you can use it to manipulate one object. Of course you have some butons so you could togle thro your bones and place them one by one .. but this seems quite tedious to do.
I think ther exist some gamepats with tracking as well. But still you need to track more than one thing for most rigs.
Ther is a solution to capture your motion to a rig using the Kinekt depth sensor for blender.
If you want to do lo entry cost motion capute probably motion capture via computer vision from webcam or video data is your way to go. There exist comercial products doing this.. and also code from research papers were you have to fiddle your way through.


Set inverse Child OF constraints via python A few years ago I used to be using a little script found here in order to reset every "Stretch to" constraints of an armature, in pose mode, even on unselected/offlayered bones  :

import bpy
    for b in bpy.context.active_object.pose.bones:
        for c in b.constraints:
            if c.type == "STRETCH_TO":
                c.rest_length = 0

It has been very useful, especially when you drastically edit the bones positions of an already finished rig (i.e. when you reuse the same rig for similar but different models).

I would like a very similar script, but with "set inverse" for CHILD_OF constraint.
But I barely know Blender's API and every try haven't got anything working nor going the right direction.

My last attempt looked like that:

import bpy

    for b in bpy.context.active_object.pose.bones:
        for c in b.constraints:
            if c.type == "CHILD_OF":
                context_py = bpy.context.copy()
                context_py["constraint"] = constraint
                bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(context_py, constraint="Child Of")

And got this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "\Text", line 7, in <module>
NameError: name 'constraint' is not defined

I also got this proposition from another guy:

import bpy

for b in bpy.context.active_object.pose.bones:
    for c in b.constraints:
        if c.type == "CHILD_OF" and c.target is not None:
            c.inverse_matrix = c.target.matrix_world.inverted()

With this one, no errors returned, it executes properly but simply doesn’t affects the rig.

If someone could help me, that would be kind.

Edit: this is one of the tracks if followed, but hasn't worked for me. Also, it looks like it's for object mode and for active selection only, while I'm going for pose mode and effect on the whole armature.

EDIT 2: SOLUTION

A big thank to Konybravo for this piece of code:

import bpy

ob = bpy.context.active_object

# Take a copy of current layers
org_layers = ob.data.layers[:]

# Show all layers
for i in range(len(org_layers)):
    ob.data.layers[i] = True

for b in ob.pose.bones:
    for c in b.constraints:
        if c.type == "CHILD_OF":
            context_py = bpy.context.copy()
            context_py["constraint"] = c
            ob.data.bones.active = b.bone
            bpy.ops.constraint.childof_set_inverse(context_py, constraint="Child Of", owner='BONE')

# Reset back to orginal layer state
for i in range(len(org_layers)):
    ob.data.layers[i] = org_layers[i]

Working straight away, even on bones hidden in a layer. Yay \o/ And thank y'all for helping me those days.

Toggle a constraint property

As mentioned, simply changing the inverse_matrix property does nought.  If another property of the constraint is toggled, for example the target it appears to work as expected, using the new value assigned to inverse_matrix

Test script, tested on simple example of single bone and default cube parent. Set cmd to 'CLEAR' for clear and 'SET' for set.

EDIT:  code to interpolate based on constraint influence when set.

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix

context = bpy.context

ob = context.object
constraints = [(pb, c) for pb in ob.pose.bones
        for c in pb.constraints if c.type == 'CHILD_OF']

cmd = 'SET' # or 'SET'
for pb, c in constraints:

    if cmd == 'CLEAR':
        c.inverse_matrix = Matrix.Identity(4)

    elif cmd == 'SET':
        if c.target:
            M = ob.convert_space(pose_bone=pb,
                    matrix=c.target.matrix_world,
                    from_space='WORLD',
                    to_space='POSE')
            P = Matrix.Identity(4).lerp(M, c.influence)
            c.inverse_matrix = P.inverted()
    # toggle a property
    target = c.target
    c.target = None
    c.target = target
    #pb.constraints.update()

why is this so?  Constraint properties that are set by a user (esp via UI) update the data appropriately on change.

An operator for each has been  chosen to crunch the numbers , and handle the necessary updating.  Perhaps a patch to make the python attribute update on change, not sure..


How do you mathematically reverse a perspective transformation? Maybe that's not the best title for this question, but I find it hard to describe what I'm trying to do in a generic way, so I'll just describe the situation. My friend and I are designing a human character based on reference photographs, and we got most of the way through modelling the face before realising that we had been modelling in orthographic mode, while the reference pictures were, of course, in perspective. Now, when we look at the model in perspective mode (as it is intended to look in an eventual render or export), it looks totally wrong, as you would expect.

The model looks correct in orthographic mode from both the side and the front. I know roughly how far the real life camera was from the subject, and rough relative locations. As far as I can tell, this should be enough information to figure out where the vertices would need to truly be located in order for what I currently see in ortho to be what I view from the relative camera positions in perspective. My question is similar to this one, and in the best answer there, the author mentions the reason it is impossible in that user's case is the loss of depth. Well, I have the two perspectives they say are necessary, but I can't quite make out how to properly use them.

This is the Python script I have so far that is based on my best guess of how the math should go:

import bmesh
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector
from mathutils.geometry import intersect_line_line as poi

#Location of the camera looking at the front view.
cf = Vector((0, -12, -0.7))
#Location of the camera looking at the side view.
cs = Vector((11, -1.8, -0.7))

#Get bmesh
data = bpy.context.object.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(data)

for v in bm.verts :
    #I'll explain my logic for this section in more detail below.
    fy = 1 / ((1 / (0.029 * 8)) - (1 / (-12 + v.co.y)))
    fx = v.co.x * fy / (12 + v.co.y)
    fz = v.co.z * fy / (12 + v.co.y)
    fp = Vector((fx, fy, fz)) + cf
    sx = -1 / ((1 / (0.029 * 8)) - (1 / (11 - v.co.x)))
    sy = v.co.y * -sx / (11 - v.co.x)
    sz = v.co.z * -sx / (11 - v.co.x)
    sp = Vector((sx, sy, sz)) + cs
    p1, p2 = poi(fp, cf, sp, cs)
    point = (p1 + p2) / 2
    v.co = point

bm.to_mesh(data)
bm.free()

So here's how I arrived at that. First, I look at the front view. For each vertex, I calculate the image distance from the camera, using the formula I found here. The 0.029 is for the 29mm focal length of the real-life camera we used. This becomes the depth value for the front analysis point. I treat the current location of the pixels as though they are the result of a projection, so the x and z of this point of analysis are based directly off of the x and z of the vertex, just scaled down (I figure if the analysis point is 99% of the way from the camera to the vertex, it should be 99% colser to the X and Z axes). I do the same for the side view, then look for the point of intersection (i.e. the point both of these analysis points could have been projected from), and make that the new location of the vertex.

Right now, it doesn't work very well. With cameras placed at the indicated locations, the face ends up looking stretched on the Z axis and/or not wide enough on the X. It does look a little more accurate, I think, but nowhere near what I was hoping. Does anyone know where I went wrong? Suggesting a modification to my method is valid, but rest assured, throwing my method away and showing me a top-down better way of doing it is also very welcome.

Blender has build in camera tracker. Load the images as a video sequence and mark trackers in each by hand (spots and freckles work well). Then solve the images to get your trackers perfectly positioned in 3d space. Now you know exactly where things should be in 3d space.

You can deform your current geometry to conform to the trackers with big sculpt brushes.

It's hard to say if there is mathematical solution, because it is unclear how you modeled the mesh. You had multiple reference sources and you introduced error from each view, each error in different direction. Manual correction is the fastest way for now and using actual photogrammetry is the way for future, you don't need to waste time with this script (unless you want to develop your own photogrammetry tool:).


how to report missing files in a list, usable in python script? Is there any simple way to get all missing .blend libraries, in a python list, set, tuple or dictionary?

The operator bpy.ops.file.report_missing_files() only prints this list in the console. If I put it in a variable, the only thing I have is a set: {'FINISHED'} !! To illustrate:

missing_libs = bpy.ops.file.report_missing_files()
# missing libraries are printed in the console at this point, one line a file
print(missing_libs)
# prints {'FINISHED'} in the console

Ideally, I want to be able to do, for example:

nb_missing_libs = len(missing_libs) # get the number of missing libraries
for mlib in missing_libs:
    if ".blend" in mlib:
        # Do something with mlib

Is there a fast and easy way ?

You could try a variation of the following code:

import bpy
import os

def list_missing_blend_libs():
    return [bpy.path.abspath(lib.filepath) for lib in bpy.data.libraries
            if not os.path.exists(bpy.path.abspath(lib.filepath))]

Using bpy.path.abspath, it only lists absolute path of missing libraries in bpy.data.libraries.


Help with Texture fade out I know how to add a material to a plane and then apply an Image Texture to that plane. I know how to make it appear in the 3D Viewport, Edit Mode, and the final render.

I want a way to make one Image Texture fade into another one using purely material nodes. This should be able to be achieved via two keyframes that are visible in the Timeline or Dope Sheet. I have tried applying two textures to one material and two separate textures onto two separate materials, though I have found that I can't particularly assign two materials at once without scripting or the compositor. These are my questions, basically. They're fairly related, so I figured I'd ask them both at once.

How can I set up an Image Texture to "fade off" (dissolve into a Diffuse BSDF or other blank material) in an animation render on a plane object?
Second, how can I make an image fade transition, via two frame keys in an animation render without the compositor or scripting? Is this possible on precisely one plane or surface, or must I use two coinciding surfaces?

You can use the node setup at the bottom of the following images and keyframe the Mix Shader's Fac: value from 0-1. Obviously load one image into one node and another into the other node.

Fac: at 0, notepad showing:

Fac: at 1, bricks showing:

If you wish, the pictured .blend file with the nodes can be downloaded right here:

If you want to fade into a Diffuse BSDF, just don't include one of the Image Textures and still keyframe the same value.

Fac: at 0, notepad showing:

Fac: at 1, Diffuse BSDF showing:


How to Keymap a Custom Operator with Properties I have a custom python file where I setup my keymaps like this:
kmi = km.keymap_items.new('mesh.select_linked_pick', 'LEFTMOUSE', 'DOUBLE_CLICK').properties.deselect = False

How come I can do that for Blender's default operators but NOT for my custom operators. Whenever I try it always throws an error saying whatever property I'm setting doesn't exist. For example:
kmi = km.keymap_items.new('armored.zero_vertex', 'X', 'PRESS', alt=True).properties.axis = 'X'

The operator itself does work and the custom property does affect the code correctly depending on its value (when run from blender's console bpy.ops.armored.zero_vertex(axis='X')), it just doesn't work from the Keymap file.
Note that this keymap works if I place it in the operator's own registration function, which leads me to assume that Blender's operators get registered way before and that's why their properties are already available while the properties for my operators are not.
Both my Operator and my Keymap file are inside the startup/scripts folder, their name and order in that folder seems to be irrelevant.

I believe the .axis appended to the end of the .new() constructor may be throwing your solution - it's being seen as an attribute of your keymap's properties, rather than referencing an idname for the operator which I believe is in your case
armored.zero_vertex
Here is an example of an implementation of a custom keymap applied to a hidden operator. It might be useful for reference:
The class definition surfaces the custom/hidden operator with its bl_idname
# Surfacing the Operators
# They can now be looked up via their bl_label attribute with the search function on default hotkey F3

class PREFERENCES_OT_toggle_emulate_3_button_mouse(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "preferences.toggle_emulate_3_button_mouse"
    bl_label = "Toggle 'Emulate 3 Button Mouse'"

    def execute(self, context):
        context.preferences.inputs.use_mouse_emulate_3_button = not context.preferences.inputs.use_mouse_emulate_3_button
        return {"FINISHED"}

And then the keymap is applied:
km = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps.new(name=idname, space_type=space_type)

kmi = km.keymap_items.new(idname, type, value, ctrl=true)

properties = kmi.get("properties")

for name, value in properties:
   setattr(kmi.properties, name, value)

keymaps = keymaps.append((km,kmi))


How to let softbody assume default shape again Yo wassup,

I dealt a lot of time in the past few months dealing with softbodies, but I still couldn't figure the following out:
Why is a softbody unable to go back to its default shape when previously deformed through shapekeys?
I included an example below - while it looks like it's back to the original shape, you'll notice a tiny offset between the baked and original shape. No matter what I tried, that offset doesn't disappear.

The green object is the original object deforming from a flat plane to this mess with a shapekey - the mess-shape however is the Basis-shape and the flat-shape a shapekey, not the other way around. The red object is the same but with a softbody modifer.

My current understanding is that when working with shapekeys, the goal-property tries to get the softbody into the shape of the currently active shapekeys (or modifiers), while the edges-property only pays attention to the original shape (Basis-shapekey - or probably just the vertex spring-distances towards each other at that Basis shape) and sees the goal as exterior forces trying to deform that shape. This explains why, when using both goal and edges with shapekeys, the bake will look different to what it looks like at the original.

Knowing that would mean that if you actually want your object to go back to the Basis-shape after some deforming, you just need to set all shapekeys to 0 at your last bakeframe and have both goal and edges active (edges in case you're still working with collision objects), since both the edges want to have the basis-spring-lengths again and the goal wants to assume that shape anyway, since no shapekeys are active. But I don't get that, instead I get a shape which looks almost similar but still isn't actually the same (as shown in the pictures). They both want that shape, but it still doesn't fully appear. Why is that and/or how do I fix this?

Cheers.

(It also still doesn't work if you turn off all field weights and set the weight to 0kg, and setting the goal to 1 will make it completely ignore the edges and thus also collisions - I only want it to fully deform if there are no collision objects preventing that. If you let it bake for some more frames after all shapekes are all already inactive it will only get a bit better, and that only until a certain point after which it won't change at all anymore.)

Alright figured it out myself, you need to tweak the goal damping value. Not too low and not too high.

Used a value of 1 for this one and it now looks exactly like the original. You can see that the original is also still there, since there's a small shading intersection where the green shines through on the right.

Small update: I only made a few tests but it seems that the scale of your softbody also influences if and how fast it can assume the default shape again: The bigger the better.


Going from 2D Mocap to 3D emptys? I'm currently trying to figure out the workflow for using the motion capture features in Blender for animation. I've figured out creating markers and tracking them, but I'm stuck at reconstruction. The one video tutorial I've found uses the Camera Solver constraint to project the points in 3D space, but I can't find a way to turn those points into emptys so I can continue with the workflow. Alternatively, the normal reconstruction option in the Movie Clip Editor projects all the points onto a flat Y plane. Would there be some way to effectively combine these 2 effects, getting usable empty tracks in the 3D view that have some depth to them?

I'm currently in v 2.79.

Edit: the motion is from a single camera, and the camera motion is solved. The tutorial I was following used the Camera Solver modifier to calculate 3D depth for some of the points, so I was mostly looking to see if there was some method to get some sort of depth data with just one camera. It seems like that might be impossible, however.

edit2: The video has a stationary camera and the video subject is someone moving their face with control points painted on.

Given that you are dealing with a stationary camera you can't determine 3d information by solving the camera.
You need to use the trackers to solve an object.

If you can solve the object correctly you should get tracking information in 3d space. Then you can use the link empty to track to get what you need.
Keep in mind that if the object you are tracking doesn't move much and there is no parallax information, blender will not be able to determine 3d information correctly. Currently there are no photogrammetry tools built into blender.
Read:
Object Solve option not avaliable

Old Answer(before the OP explained the kind of scene being tracked)
You need to solve the scene first.
Then use the option in the solve menu: Geomety > Link Empty to track.

From the Manual:

Link Empty to Track
Creates new empty in 3D viewport and appends contraint which parts it to the active track.


How to zoom in on off-center points with MacBook Pro mousepad? MacBook Pro here. Magic Mouse doesn't seem to help me with zooming on stuff inside of Blender, but I can zoom by gesturing the "two finger pinch-out" expression on the mouse pad.

I start Blender with a clean slate:

I create a shape (in this particular case, a Cone):

I move the Cone off-center somewhere:

Now I want to zoom in on the Cone (even with it being off-center). I do the zoom in gesture, but:

...Blender just wants me to zoom in on the origin (0,0,0).

How do I zoom in on the Cone? (Or rather, how do I zoom in on off-center objects/points)?

Try setting the Zoom To Mouse Setting as shown below:


Animation deforms in Unity I've imported a character into Unity for a college project and for some bizarre reason, the legs of my character 'squash upwards' when his idle animation plays, either in-game or in the preview window. If I load my character up in Blender though, the animation is perfectly fine. Nothing deforms incorrectly. I'm not sure what the problem is or how I could fix it. I've also tried exporting it as an FBX file, but the animations flicker or the character completely disappears when they play.

Select bones. CTRL+A (apply transformation), play animation on Blender. It will deform. This is the same result you see in Unity. Delete your animation. Correct and regenerate (re animate) your bones. Now, if you export, unity will see them correctly.

You ALWAYS need to ZERO (freeze), CTRL A (apply transformations) To anything you do in rigging before start animation.


Create Shortcuts to Toggle Actions? I know you can create and edit shortcuts in User Preferences > Input, but I can't figure out how to make a shortcut to toggle something on/off.

For example, I can right click on the Shade Smooth button on the Tool Shelf,
(N in the 3D view)
and select "Create Shortcut" but I only can get one shortcut to shade smooth or shade flat, not one or the other based on what the current shading setting is.

So my question is,
is it possible to create a shortcut to toggle a setting?

That really depends on how the value is stored internally.

Blender already have operator for toggling Boolean values, like bpy.ops.wm.context_toggle. This operator alone is applicable to modify lots of properties, like active 3D view space's Only Render (space_data.show_only_render) or scene's Simplify (scene.render.use_simplify).

Some other settings may look like binary values of some property, but in fact not. Face shading is actually only accessible as two operators: faces_shade_flat and faces_shade_smooth. To toggle between both states, you'd have to write a new operator that toggles which of the two operators to execute based on another property, like a custom BoolProperty inserted to a Mesh object.


How do I disable the body mask on the Rain model? I'm trying to learn a little Blender and I downloaded the Rain v2 model to experiment. It appears to be a fantastically well-outfitted model, however there's some basic stuff I don't understand. When I disable the scarf, for example, there's the body mesh underneath but when I disable the shoes, it appears as if there's nothing there even though I can see in edit mode that there's a full body mesh. Deleting the shoes doesn't make any difference.
Is the hidden part masked somehow, or hidden? How do I disable this?

TLDR
With the armature selected, in the CloudRig panel, under Outfits, you can choose if you want to mask or display the legs and arms. This is shown in the walktrough video at 1:00.
How it is done
The object "GEO-rain_body" has a Mask modifier (the 3rd one in the modifier pile). It masks every vertex belonging to the "mask_modifier" vertex group.
The two modifiers above, "mask_arms" and "mask_legs", add those respective vertex groups to "mask_modifier" ; but only in Viewport, not in Render.
Then things become a little bit more complex, because their visibility in viewport is driven (that's why the icon appears purple) by the value of a custom propertie of the armature. So, you just need to modify that property in the CloudRig panel, with the armature selected (so you don't need to select the object, go to modifiers and manually unset them).


Mesh distorted when armature bone rotates My character's arm starts to get suck when rotated on x axis. I tried weight paint and it does not seem to help much I'm really new to Blender and 3D animation and any critique is appreciated.

Try to weight paint only the arm and not the rest of the body. The problem may also be that the armature bone is too short. This will make the rig to be in imbalance and this kind of problem occur. Good luck! You can link the .blend file here is it doesn't work.


Solidify modifier thinner near edges I have a house that I'm trying to make it seem normal by attaching the solidify modifier to it. After doing this, the thickened faces seem to be thinned out when near edges. look here. In the last picture, you can see the same thing happen in the cut out hole acting as the doorspace.

If this is just how the solidify modifier works, I'm open to another alternative on making the walls not paper thin.

I will be importing these into Unity, so I just want them house to be blocky, not curved weirdly at parts.

I'm not sure what is exactly your problem as your mesh is a bit messy.

First, to clear you object a bit: In Object mode, ctrl A to apply scale. In Edit mode, select all and W > Remove Doubles, and also ctrl N to recalculate the normals.

Now, you have inner faces, it makes the Solidify a bit complicated because it will not only thicken the external walls but also the internal, and you will probably have faces crossing and overlapping each others. So if you want to use Solidify you should better create separate objects, ie separate floors form walls from roof.

I hope it will fix your problems...


Open blend file like txt file Easy question with probably no easy answer: How can I open a blend file just like e.g. a txt or a python file?
I'm not simply interested in the objects of the scene (like here), but the full -let's say- architecture of the script. I had a look at blender-aid and the DNA Exporter, but I couldn't figure out how to use it or rather don't think they are what I'm looking for.
Please be patient, I'm completely new to Blender.

Blender has a fairly complex system of storing its data using (RNA and DNA). It also stores a vast set of different types of data (colors, textures, assets, images, fonts, objects, modifiers, settings,...). I'd like to think of a blend file as a zip archive with a nested set of directories and files underneath it. But it isn't actually a zip.
What kind of data are you exactly looking for? Lets assume that you are looking for the shape of the objects inside of a blend file. then you could make a python scripts that goes through all objects of bpy.data.objects as ob for instance. You could then find the geometry the object is composed by using ob.data which usually will result in an entry from bpy.data.meshes.
You can than use this to dump its vertices: How to iterate through all vertices of an object that contains multiple meshes?


Multiple small glitches when beveling complex meshes I have a repeated problem with beveling complex meshes using the respective modifier, even if all what I do is to combine off-the-shelf geometric primitives with off-the-shelf modifiers, without any individual vertex-level manipulations. The effect looks often like that:

I tried to change the bevel modifier's many options, but the effect is that either the bevel is gone completely or the glitches become even larger.

Here is a link to the model

To work around this problem, I finally replaced the second bevel with a lattice and it even gave some more control on the shape.

The glitches are caused by overlapping vertices. The only solution is proper topology, supporting the bevel.

If we examine the effect of the bevel modifier on your topology, we can see the vertices are badly positioned and the bevel quickly creates overlapping faces.

Position your edges parallel to each other and assert that the edges have a minimum length.
(In your file I had to apply previous modifiers.)

When you enable the Clamp option in the bevel modifier, the bevel modifier will determine how much it can bevel before vertices/edges overlap. However, if there are dense parts in your mesh this value will be very small and result in a tiny amount of bevel. This question shows that a solution would be to split the mesh into different parts, or use bevel weights in that case.

If you model geometry, especially using n-gons, be wary of the spacing of the edges and the topology. If you add a support loop (simply inset and scale), the first bevel modifier will work fine.


Camera view range [Clip start and end not working] I have the same issue as some of users on Blender with the camera.

So, my camera clip start is set to : 50 meters and my end is set to : 150000 meters. And, with this camera angle, we don't see the end of the square at the bottom of my building. I think the clip end is relatively correct to the the end of the square !

Cameras have their own clipping, independent from the view.


Is it possible to set the pivot point origin of an object in BGE with python So what I am asking is WHILE, the game engine is running, is it possible to change the current pivot point origin of an object to a new location of the object, I'm making a car game and i want to set the pivot point on the left when I'm turning left, and to the right when I'm turning right. Is this possible while the game engine is still running?

When you mean the object's origin: No, you can't (and it makes no sense).

When you mean the rotation center, you can:

combine the rotation with a translation (= orbiting)
parent the object to another that acts as rotation center. Turn the parent rather the child.

When you mean the pivot point of a a rigid body constraint, I do not know. The API does not look like you can. An alternative would be to remove the current constraint and create a new one with the pivot at the new location.


Is it possible to make floor constraint base on surface detection? Let's say I created a plane as the floor
And then I created a cube.
Instead of detecting the center of the cube against the floor, can blender use the surface of the cube.So whenever the surface of both object met, the cube can't cross.
Added Info:
Well actually I'm searching for the solution of my rig problem. Often time when I make an animation, the tip of the foot often times went through the ground. So I was thinking, maybe if there's a way to prevent this by using mesh collision detection. Rigid body seems for simulation only

Try changing the origin of the cube to any vertex on the bottom of the cube:

Select the vertex in edit mode.

Press ⇧ Shift + S to get the cursor menu and then choose Cursor to Selected.

Then in object mode get the object menu and set the origin to the cursor.


Why does Ctrl+Z make part of my model green? I'm a total beginner, I started yesterday. I tried to start out and make a model of a face, and when I pressed Ctrl+Z to undo a mistake, a section (the face, roughly) turned green. Looks as if its corrupt.

Maybe you already get the solution, but this is what I did:
I just changed to object mode then back to sculpting mode...and that fix the problem. This worked for me, was simple. I believe anyone can get this solution playing a little with the modes, still I hope this will be useful for someone who can't figure it out and thought hours of work was lost (don't panic)


How to create mesh after applying physics I want to create a landscape consisting of many fallen cubes, say a large cube pile.

Is is possible (and how) to make this by first creating a large 3d grid of cubes using the array modifier, say 100x100x100 and then use physics to make them fall down naturally on the ground, and create mesh from the resulting pile?

Thanks!

I think arrays of 100x100x100 is a bit ambitious - 1,000,000 objects interacting in a rigid body simulation will take a long time to simulate.

However, the basic steps are as follows :

Setup your Array modifiers to create the objects you desire.
Apply the Array modifiers to create a 'combined' mesh.
In Edit mode, choose Separate (P) and choose 'By Parts' - this will split the mesh into the individual elements created by your Array modifier. Note : The more "objects" you have in your arrays, the longer it will take for the Separate process to split.
Go back to Object mode (Tab) - after the 'separate' you should still have all your newly separated objects selected. Use Set Origin (in the left-hand panel) and select By Geometry - this should set the origin of each separate mesh to the centre of its own geometry (required for the Rigid Body simulation).
In the Physics tab, add Active Rigid Body physics to all the selected objects.

You can now run your simulation. Once it's complete and you have a state you are happy with, simply use Join (Ctrl+J) to join them into a single mesh.

Larger numbers of meshes will significantly slow down the various stages of the process (such as the Separate By Parts and the Rigid Body Simulation) so I'd suggest starting with a smaller number of objects before scaling up to more.


Is there a library in Blender 2.76? I am a Scenic/Set Designer and was wondering if there was a library that I can save a drawing of a 2x4 to so I can insert/add it to a drawing as many times as I want without redrawing it?

There are a few addons 1 2 3 and external solutions for this around, but the truth is in recent versions Blender's native builtin  tools have improved considerably in the area of asset management.

You have always been able to link (remotely references data) or append (import from other file) data from any other Blender file into the current one by going to File > Link or File > Append.

You can do this for most data like models, groups, materials, lighting and animation.

In recent versions asset management got considerably improved by making the file browser able to display Blender image thumbnails even for Blender internal data, and making Blender able to generate per data-block thumbnails.

Just go to File > Data Previews > Batch-Generate Previews and make sure your file browser is set to display thumbnails.


How do I create low poly style terrain How do I create a ico sphere type flat surface, like a low poly terrain for an island

I can create a surface using subdivide and triangulate but the result just isn't the same

Here is an example of what I desire:

Edit: Here is the best that I can do, and the faces just aren't rotated in the same way, and that's what I want to accomplish (notice that I'm quite new to this program)

Albeit the somewhat vague description of your problem, let's give it a try...

Creating low poly models as shown in the above image require a little more polygons to start with. The more data Blender has to work with, the better the result.

Let's start with a nice terrain (in my case done with the ANT Landscape addon) that has a decent amount of geometry. My model has 16k faces.

Now go to Properties Window - Modifiers - Add Modifier - Decimate

In the Decimate modifier's settings chose "collapse", check "triangulate" and lower the ratio until you have the desired effect.

This is what your model should look like (reduced to 3k faces).


How do I create a wood texture? How do I texture wood so it looks like rough bark? I would like to imitate this texture:

As LukeD mentioned, you could make your way with what he pointed out. Depending on your skill level, you may succeed or be completely discouraged.

There's a full tutorial from Andrew Price (blender guru) teaching the whole work flow of the steps mentioned in the later comment.
https://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/how-to-create-realistic-bread

Yep, it's not for a rough bark but the work flow should help you taking care of some details and difficulties you may encounter during the process.
Replace all the words "Bread" with "Wood" and you'll be good to go!
I guess I saw some wood textures that may help you out on textures.com, it's free for low res.

Good luck!


How to make objects in a video glow? Regarding my previous question, how to remove background, I wish to do the following:
There will be a narration so I will need each object to glow while I talk about them, how can you do this? Please demonstrate on one (or more) of the videos.

Thanks in advance

EDIT

I would like the object to emit light, affecting the other objects.

You are asking for a tutorial. Instead of giving you the tutorial (this is not a place to demonstrate a whole tutorial) I am going to show you a workflow. Now you can google each of these topics.

Import movie into blender.
Render out as separate images (for convenience).
Place a grey plane in front of the camera.
Shine a spotlight on it where the object you want to glow is.
Insert keyframes and move the light. The light will get animated. Seeing the images from the video in the background helps.
Use the compositor in blender to render out a new movie. The grey plane should be multiplied with the images you rendered out earlier.


Curved roof (attic)? Apologies if this comes across as a stupid question, but I was wondering what might be the best way to achieve the curved attic (roof?) part of this building?

My gut says add a cube and add some cuts to pinch in the middle sections, but I'm not sure how to convert that into a smooth curve!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

As has been commented, a subdiv. approach might be:

To inset the top face of a cuboid evenly: I inset it with 'Even' checked..
Select the outside vertices and  GG slide the loop inwards
AltM merge the top vertices by distance.

CtrlR cut loop round the waist
Assign a Bevel modifier, by angle.
These are my Bevel settings, quite a common way to put in holding loops to contain  Catmull-Clark subdivision, in the right circumstances.

(You can, instead, use Bevel Weights, or introduce holding loops by hand)
Assign a Subdivision surface modifier, probably 1 level of Catmull-Clark will do

You can adjust the curvature by adjusting the one loop around the waist, (at least, to block the model out).


Can Blender take two video files and overlay them with transparency? Can Blender take two video files and overlay them with transparency?

Essentially I want to have a video sequence playing while a 2nd sequence is overlayed and also playing, but that 2nd sequence is transparent (think alpha transparency) in order to see both both sequences.

This might have the effect of the classic film ghost to it, where you can see through the 'ghost' to the sequence it has been overlayed on.

Is this possible in Blender?

Yes, this is possible.

To overlay a video, simply layer one on top of the other in the VSE timeline.

To make the top one transparent, simply use the opacity slider in the properties panel. 0 is for fully transparency, and 1 is for full opacity.


Why does the shape keys shrink my mesh I want to put in some shape keys for my characters eyelid to make her blink. But whenever I rotate it even half way, my the shape key shrinks it when I play it. This is really annoying and I hope they do something about that in the next update. But what do I do? It really is a pain when you want to make organic eyelids.

It's hard to say from the information posted in your question since you don't have any screenshots or files attached, but I'm going to guess that the shape keys are behaving as they should, and you just aren't fully aware of how shape keys work. It's very common among people starting with shape keys to assume that the key will take into account how you transformed the mesh when you edited it. However, that isn't how they work.

Shape keys simply translate each vertex in a straight line from the original position to the modified position. This can result in undesired deformation if you are trying to make a shape key do something it shouldn't be used for. The purpose of shape keys is (most often) to correct deformation or add small details to the deformation of an object. I've seen many people use shape keys to animate eyelids, and I don't think it's the best way.

I would suggest using an armature to animate the eyelids, as you will be able to make the eyelid follow the curve of the eye properly. This does take a bit more time to setup, and is more complex, but the result is worth it as the eyelids will deform much better, as well as knowing how to rig an eyelid is a great skill to have. There are a number of tutorials on this that can help you get started, such as this one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCGekumdLLU.


Running into context error Im trying to get this tracking script for running in the background working. It was working perfectly in the background until I got to the filter tracks portion. Here is the script:

import bpy

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'CLIP_EDITOR':
        override = bpy.context.copy()
        override['area'] = area
        bpy.ops.clip.detect_features(override, threshold = 0.05, min_distance = 25)
        print('Markers Detected')
        bpy.ops.clip.track_markers(override, sequence=True)
        print('Tracked Forward')
        bpy.ops.clip.track_markers(override, sequence=True, backwards=True)
        print('Tracked Backwards')
        totalFrames = bpy.context.scene.frame_end = bpy.context.scene.frame_start
        bpy.ops.clip.clean_tracks(override, frames=(totalFrames + 1), error=0.5, action='DELETE_TRACK')
        #Can get to here fine, error occurs when doing this filter track function
        bpy.ops.clip.filter_tracks(override['area'], track_threshold=5)
        bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath="/Applications/blender2.76" + "test.blend")
        break

Does anyone know how I could fix this?

This is currently what the errors are looking like now for this.

Change:

bpy.ops.clip.filter_tracks(override['area'], track_threshold=5)

To:

bpy.ops.clip.filter_tracks(track_threshold=5)

And see if that works.

I'm not that familiar with what you are doing, however the reason I believe that you need to take out the extra argument is because of inspecting the auto-complete of the function when I enter it in directly at the console (it just seems like there is a problem with passing more than the threshold value - See Below):

After looking into this a little further, try just commenting this line out.

From the Manual it is meant to smooth out spikes in the track, the problem with this (this context) is: you just deleted the "spike" in your previous line of code, so there is no track to even deal with.

Or

Maybe you just need to check and see if the previous statement deleted the track. Then set a variable to indicate if the track was deleted, then you can make a decision to filter it or not based on that.


Rendering goes black after frame 1000 When I render this once it hits frame 1000 and an above it only renders black.
The black frame is frame 1000 and the other one is frame 999.

You may have run out of memory. First of all, lower render resolution. If it's not possible, you may need to make it a little less realistic.


Is there a way to delete a shape with an extrusion I'm trying to delete a part of a shape with an extrusion.
The shape:

This is to make a fluid simulation where blocks of water will flow in each of the top three holes and out through the bottom three holes.

Use the inset tool (Keyboard shortcut: I)

Select the faces, inset, and use the inset individual option.

from there you can extrude.

To make a though cut, select faces on top and bottom, inset, delete the newly created faces, select the edges on top and bottom and use bridge edge loops to connect top and bottom. (bridge edge loops


how i split this uv maps in the uv maps panel? as the title saids, i need to split or separate this uv maps one part in one layout and another in another layout.

i found the solution i had to separate the mesh of the uv map that i wanted to separate and then rename the uv map layouts to not get confuse with them and then delete the uv layout of the uv map that i dont want to keep in both meshes and then i re joined the two meshes again and it fortunately works!!!.


My Character’s arms disappear in game This question is in continuation from my first question. I have solved the physics issue by having a tiny box at the character’s feet. But now i have problem when it comes to the FPS setup. See the following images:

I have managed to set my FPS camera view and set it up with the arms and gun. However as I move my mouse when testing the game to look at different angles, the arms sometimes disappear. Sometimes one of the arms, sometimes both, as seen in images. This is not what I intended and I am unsure what this a result of.

Does anyone have any ideas to fix this? Feel free to ask me any questions.

I'm not really sure that this will work for you...
But weeks ago, I faced a similar problem and after some digging, I found out that some parts of my model were disappearing because I had some Un-Applied Modifiers..

Just Check the Modifier tap in the Properties panel and hit apply on any existing modifiers..

EXCEPT FOR THE ARMATURE MODIFIER!!

please report back if this worked, otherwise upload the .blend file if you can!


Python script to snap selected object to cursor anyone know python script for Object>Snap>Selection to Cursor?
(Assuming I have the object selected)

I figured it out. Just select the object and set it location to (0.0,0.0,0.0)

bpy.data.objects["name"].location = (0.0,0.0,0.0)


Tank Track Animation recently I wanted to get into animation, and I was wondering how I'd go about animating tank tracks, most of the tutorials I've seen involve having tracks made from scratch and I'm trying to animate a tank I built myself from a game, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on what I should do.

Blender will animate it for you :).

Create the track using an Array modifier
Add a Bezier circle and Curve modifier to create the shape
Move the Bezier circle - the track will automatically rotate

Note:
The track and Bezier curve position needs to be exactly like in this gif. Both from profile. Otherwise it won't work.


Scaling/Moving doesn't work properly recently I decided to learn and use Blender as my 3D editor

Well, all this things were working fine... until a few minutes

I made a mirrored object, but, when I press the "S" scale button, doesn't scale me proportionally

And the same thing with the "G" move button, it moves weird

And no, I didn't press the X/Y/Z keys to align it to the axes while scaling/moving

What did I do wrong or how can I return it to normal?

This is expected behavior with the mirror modifier.

You have the clipping checkbox selected on the modifier, which means that any vertices that are on the mirror plane get stuck to that plane, and can only move along it, not off of it. To disable this sticking behaviour, you can just uncheck the clipping box.

However, scaling /moving etc will still only move the actual vertices you are editing, not the virtual ones created by the modifier.


Move meshes of several objects without affecting relative position I've got a problem. I imported the single parts of a model as about 80 separate .obj files. The thing is, that the location of the objects is at {0,0,0} but the meshes are at ca {32,-149,1252} which makes them very far from the origin.
I need to keep the relative position between the meshes of the objects as they are part of a single model. Is it somehow possible to move all meshes without affecting their relative position? I need to get the model to the origin.
Maybe there is a different approach? I'm glad for every tips.
Note, I cannot combine the meshes into a single one because I need them separated.
Edit: Minimal Example

Create a new file with the standard cube
Create an additional torus and move it 1 along the z axis (g z 1)
press Tab to get into Edit-Mode of the torus and then move the mesh 5 along the x-axis (g x 5)
press Tab again to leave Edit-Mode and select the cube
press Tab to get into Edit-Mode of the cube and then move the mesh 5 along the x-axis (g x 5)

After this, you should get something like shown in the following image:

Now, as you can see the location of the objects is {0,0,0} and {0,0,1}. This is similar to the situation I have with my imported *.obj files. It is vitally important the torus stays on top of the cube, but I want to move the meshes so that both objects are in the origin.
When I select all objects and move them together to the origin, then I get the situation, where for instance the cube is at {-5,0,0} but the mesh of the cube is at {5,0,0}.

You see that although my objects are now at the origin, the little coordinate system indicator is far behind it. Therefore, is there a way to move all meshes (instead of the objects) while maintaining their relative position?

I would suggest one of two methods.

Method 1

Move your 3D cursor to the center or your objects (that you want to move)
Set origin of all the objects to 3D cursor.
Now move the objects. (movements are based on origin. You can also set transform to "individual origins for a different effect.)

Note: Selecting all objects and making a group will make things easier. This way you can select the whole group easily by selecting one of the objects and pressing shift+G then selecting "group".

Method 2

Create an empty
parent those objects to the empty.
Move the empty to the location you want.

Note: put the empty in the center of the object before parenting.

Method 3

This method is for moving the vertices of different objects to the same place, when the origins are already in the desired location.

Select all the objects you would like to edit.
Snap 3D cursor to selected (shift+s)
Set origin to geometry. (ctrl+alt+shift+c or toolbar)
Snap "selection to Cursor (offset)". (this operation is based on the origins, which are now at the centre of the geometry [mesh].)


What did I do wrong here? enter image description here
moveing left bone

moveing right
I dont know what went wrong here, I made the left rig first and mirrored it, parent it with the mesh automatic weight, and some how the right hand wont move, when I move the right hand. Only when I use the left one it moves. the Legs dont have any problems. (anatomical right and left). I used this Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBYb1YmaOMY . If anyone could help me that would make me happy.

The cause of the problem is the use of asymmetrically named pair bones. Try to change the right hand bone name to "Hand.R".


How can I make up cloth in marvelous designer and simulate in blender marvelous designer export cloth is not sew together, and once I simulate in blender they will split and fall down

It looks like, the patches which are generated and simulated in marvelous designer are not welded.
What I mean is: you have vertices and edges which are sharing the same location but they are not attached to each other.

To correct your mesh in blender, go to editmode, select everything, press w and pick "remove doubles".


Python: Selecting faces from a Material Index How can you select faces from a material index in edit mode through Python?

import bpy
    import bmesh

    index = 2  # required index

    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
    ob = bpy.context.object
    me  = ob.data
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

    for face in bm.faces:
        if face.material_index == index:
            face.select = True

    me.update()


Is it better to use a cap when using the hair tool to avoid the hair particles from entering the mesh? I notice on some models there appears to be a cap for lack of a better term
on which the hair particles are attached, does this help prevent the inclusion of the particles into the mesh? I'm trying to create a lion main for a pre-made mesh.

Hair caps are usually used because they make controlling distribution of hair strands easier. In my experience vertex groups alone are not always ideal due to how hair children interpolate. A good example is around the things like ears or anything similar should should have a gap in hair emission, where you may have faces with some vertices set to generate hairs, and some space in-between that should not, with vertex groups alone, these partially weighted faces may still get interpolated hairs, but with a cap you can just delete them.

Hair caps may also have slightly different topology that the underlying mesh to control the emission of hairs (e.g. extra loops / edges along where you want a part to be can make the result better defined).

Due to limitations in the collision system for hair they can improve collision handling with some extra setup, see here: How do I stop hair particles going through the body and the head?


Transfer data between nodetrees in Animation Nodes I'd like to split one network into subprocess' and assign them to specific Nodetrees. General idea is to have Custom Execution Trigger on every subprocess to improve overall performance.

But how to transfer values between trees?

I can write/read values in Object ID properties, but they has limited use case, throwing error for Meshlist/Splines:

  only floats, ints and dicts are allowed in ID property arrays

Also what is this interesting button Go to parent nodetree (green highlight)?:

You can just store/get data from any node tree in memory as described in this answer. Alternatively, you can use the Data Interface node to pass data between node trees.

In a node tree, you can export some data using the Data Interface node, then, in another node tree, you can access that data by referencing the node tree name and the Data Interface node name using the following expression:

bpy.data.node_groups[nodeTreeName].nodes[nodeName].value

Where nodeTreeName is your node tree name and nodeName is the Data Interface node name. Here is an example:

As for the Go to parent nodetree operator, this has nothing to do with Animation Nodes. It is a native operator that allows one to exit a node group when using cycles or the compositor (Pressing Tab).


Why can't I see the FBX version to which I want to export to? I am trying to convert my .ply file into a an fbx file (I want to eventually do something which involves exporting the texture along with the mesh). I am following steps mentioned by another user who had the same requirement from here: https://answers.unity.com/questions/1343037/blender-278-unity-55-the-correct-way-to-retain-mat.html?childToView=1627960#comment-1627960

However, the first step is to ensure that I convert with "FBX 7.4 Binary selected" - an option which I am unable to find in my window. Is this a change in UI or do I have to enable something else?

Thank you!

Details:

Blender Version 2.79.7

Pics on interface details (after clicking on buttons near Operator Presets):

Blender 2.79b

Blender 2.79.7 didn't have this feature. You need to update to a more recent version of Blender. A more recent version can be installed along-side your current Blender version. The UI option for the export in 2.79b is depicted in the following image:

Blender 2.8x

Blender 2.80 and later only support the FBX 7.x binary format. The FBX ASCII format was removed in commit 7f50cbf2b6bf0675e4a178cbb19aca90f39bd374. Exporter options can be found in the sidebar of the file browser. In case they aren't displayed by default,  click on the gear icon to toggle the visibility of the sidebar.