'Child of' constraint not working on armature Basically i am trying to make some first person shooter animations and i just can't get the child of constraint to work,

As you can see, i tried setting the constraint on the right hand so that it would move/stick with the gun but it did not work. I'm still new to blender and would appreciate a solution

The hand bone you're trying to constraint is a connected child of another bone, so it isn't free to move.
Try to do the opposite, and make the main gun bone a constrained child of an appropriate hand bone.
After settign up the constraint, press its "Set inverse" button.


How to make walls be covered with tiles with different shading? I am new to blender and already searched on google but didn't find a solution. I would like to create a round ball (and remove the lower half part but I know how to do this) and fill the face of it with flat objects like squares or triangles...

(triangles will look like:

\/\

so two triangles build one square)

Here is a picture from cerebro from the x men films. It is build of squares. I would like to achieve something like this:

An icosphere is a triangulated sphere.
Subdivide for more faces.


How do I fix this Pinch-like effect on such model with Subsurf modifier turned on? How do make it so the area in the circle is not punched, and does not look distorted from certain angles?

Just a slight change in topology fixes a lot of it:

(yours in blue, mine green)

Get the pole, (the 5-pointed vertex) off the angled edge, and on to a safe flat area, where it doesn't affect normal interpolation.
Put a holding loop in the front-to-back axis, and another loop on the flat, around the frame
Spread the curve-defining loops either side of the corner more evenly - in this case, they work better straightened out, I think.

When cutting sharp concave insets, corners, the secondary holding loops at a little distance, (like the one furthest to the left in the green topology) become quite important to keep the frame edges straight, and prevent new Catmull-Clark generated faces derived from large faces close to the corner 'leapfrogging': cutting the corner ahead of faces closer to it.

Maybe further improvements could be made by adding  a couple of edge loops to isolate the frame from the flat on the front.. (you could afford the polygons, I also reduced the Subdiv. from 5 to 2. :)

GG to slide a loop, followed by E to make the loop parallel to the next loop on one side, and F to flip which side, is a very quick way to straighten existing loops, try out variations, as is K (knife) followed by C constrain to one of the 45 degree angles , followed by Z to cut through the object: also handy when making repairs like this.


Problems with box select and click-drag select I'm having an issue with the box select, I cannot select multiple meshes by click-dragging over them or even with using the box select shortcut (b), then click-drag. I am able to select a single mesh + light sources with the box select tho- This problem also carries over to edit mode and I cannot box select edges or vertices. I’ve tried resetting all of the user preferences but nothing is seeming to fix it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

To add a little more detail, I can select multiple objects only by holding down shift while clicking on them each individually.  I can also still use circle select to select multiple objects, the problem is limited only to box select in object mode. Tried a different mouse and still the same problem- Wondering if it’s with this current upload of 2.8 because it is working fine on my laptop which has a version I downloaded about a week ago.

Maybe try changing the select mode by pressing W.


Animation nodes, barchart, I can generate the bars, but how do I animate them? Newbie with animation nodes.

Through various tutorials, I've managed to come up with the following nodetree (blendfile: https://mega.nz/#!WHhXQKgK!jY9JOj2t-OHm_srS-ysibNsU7nSLnfmmBcRuPsBM9is )

This tree generates bars in a barchart, from an original object (cube) that is hidden from both render and view. The height of the bars, and the number of bars, is determined by the contents of a blender text-blok with CSV-like data in it. First I split the textblock into lines (only the first line is used at this stage), and then I split that line by a custom defined seperator (in this case it's just a single spacechar)

I was hoping that I somehow could feed the resulting barobjects to another transformation-output and mix the values. The goal is to make it possible to eg. make the bars appear from left to right, perhaps make them "grow" from zero to their final size, perhaps even apply some snazzy f-curve or similar to put some bouncy/springy/whatever effect on the animations etc ...

I've been searchin' and searchin' - still I have absolutely zero clue on how to continue. If I simply add another transformation output, that output will totally overwrite the transformations set in the first transformation-output - no mixing whatsoever.

Can someone perhaps point me in the right direction?

Click on the image to enlarge it.

I prefer to do the math on single values with Math nodes, which is why I have moved the Combine Vector to the back.

To get the time offset in the scaling animation, we start with the index of each cube from the Index output. With the Time Info node, we can get the current frame.

If we subtract the index from the frame we can get an offset for each element. If we multiply the index with an arbitrary factor before that, we'll get a bigger or smaller offset

frame   -   index  *  3   =  result
  9     -     0    *  3   =  9
  9     -     1    *  3   =  6
  9     -     2    *  3   =  3
  9     -     3    *  3   =  0
  9     -     4    *  3   =  -3

We can clamp the result from 0 to 1 and use it as the input to a MapRange node. The MapRange node also has the advantage of having an interpolation mode input. As you can see with the frame offset by the index, the first bars from left to right switch from 0 to 1 earlier.

This switch from 0 to 1 plays back the animation in the MapRange nodes output, so make sure to set the OuputMin to 0 and the OutputMax to our desired height of the value which you obtain from the ParseNumber node. (This part remains as in your original node graph.)

Because this switch from 0 to 1 only takes a single frame the animation of the bars change from one frame to another (and thus is not visible as an animation). Simply add another multiply node after our previous result, scaling the time downwards so that the 0-1 happens over multiple frames. I named this multiplier StrechAnimTime.

You may have noticed that this animation takes the same time for all bars making the longer bars move faster than the shorter bars. To make the animation time more proportional, use a multiplied version of the height (Parse Number result) for the InputMax of the MapRange node.

Much more dramatic.


Circular distribution of objects getting weird I have this python script which perfectly distributes my cylinders on a circle.
def create_circular_array(number_of_objects, radius, name):

    # angle = radian / numbers_of_ob
    angle = 2 * math.pi / number_of_objects

    halfPi = math.pi / 2

    # loop number_of_ob
    for i in range(number_of_objects):

        new_Name = name + '_' + str(i)
        bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(radius=1, depth=2, enter_editmode=False, align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0), scale=(0.1, 0.1, 1))
   #     bpy.context.active_object.name = new_Name

        bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value = halfPi, orient_axis='Y', orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', constraint_axis=(False, True, False), mirror=True, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False)
        bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value = math.pi * 2 - angle * i + math.pi / 2, orient_axis='Z', orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', constraint_axis=(False, False, True), mirror=True, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False)
        bpy.data.objects[i].location[0] = math.sin(angle*i)*radius       # x = sine(angle*i)*radius
        bpy.data.objects[i].location[1] = math.cos(angle*i)*radius       # y = cosine(angle*i)*radius
        bpy.data.objects[i].location[2] = 0

create_circular_array(16, 2, 'inner')

But...
If I uncomment this line
#     bpy.context.active_object.name = new_Name

Everything is messed up. The coordinates and angles are wrong.
What am I doing wrong here!?
and yes, i want to rename my newly created objects. So it is not a solution for me to delete or comment out that line.

Vectors Matrices and Shared Mesh.

FWIW have added an approach that will be a lot quicker, use one operator call, and create only a single mesh
A single operator call, creates the cylinder at the scale and applies the 90 degree rotation about Y to its mesh.
This object is then passed to our create array method with a center, radius, how many to create, and optionally the collection to link them to.  This way can create Suzanne's or any object to "array".
As default it creates 40 about the point (1, 2, 0) with a radius of 1. To make same with question code would use 40 x 3 = 120 operator calls. See
Python performance with Blender operators
which can get horribly slow for a lot of copies.
The initial object is moved to the center point plus the radius in x.  A matrix is calculated that will rotate it an nth' of 360 degrees around z axis.
Matrix math to translate, rotate, scale with respect to a pivot point in Object mode
A copy is made, it shares the mesh of the original, and the alignment. The matrix is applied (multiplied) to its matrix world rotating it 360 / n degrees.  It is then copied and repeated until there is no more and we are back to first.
Duplicating a mesh object
import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector
from math import pi

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene

def circular_array(
        ob,
        n,
        center,
        radius,
        revs=1,
        matrix=Matrix(),
        coll=bpy.context.scene.collection):

    center = Vector(center)

    ob.matrix_world.translation = center
    ob.matrix_world.translation.x += radius
    angle = 2 * pi / n
    name = ob.name
    ob.name = f"{name}_0"

    M = matrix @ (

        Matrix.Translation(center) @
        Matrix.Rotation(angle, 4, 'Z') @
        Matrix.Translation(-center)
        )
    for f in range(1, revs * n):
        ob = ob.copy()
        ob.name = f"{name}_{f}"
        ob.matrix_world = M @ ob.matrix_world
        coll.objects.link(ob)

# Test Call

# create our object to array
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(
        location=(0, 0, 0),
        scale=(0.1, 0.1, 1),
        rotation=(0, pi / 2, 0),
        )

ob = context.object
ob.name = "Tick"
# array ob 40 times about (1, 2, 0) with radius 2)

circular_array(
        ob,
        40,
        (1, 2, 0),
        1,
        )

Matrices
To further prattle on about matrices have put a matrix into the transform mix.
S = Matrix.Diagonal((1.01, 1, 1, 0.9))
R = Matrix.Rotation(28.6 * pi, 4, 'Y')

circular_array(
        ob,
        50,
        (1, 2, 0),
        1,
        matrix = R,
        revs = 10,
        )

Bringing a scale matrix into the equation would have a spriral effect.


Snap object with assigned rotation to surface I have an object (button), which has been rotated and where the rotation has been applied. I want to align this button to a surface (the blue surface of the cube). The black background should sit flat on the blue surface.

I tried "Snap to Face" with "Center" and "Align Rotation to Target". I also tried to use an empty to find the rotation of the button in the 3D space. But nothing worked. Any help is highly appreciated!

This is a link to the example file: SnapTest.blend

The problem here is that you've applied the rotation transformations to your button, or rotated the button around in edit mode, causing the object's local axes to no longer line up with what you consider to be upright for your object.
To show you what I mean, here are the local axes for your button object:

And here are the normal axes for the face you're trying to snap the button on:

What Blender is doing when you're snapping the object is aligning the local XYZ-axes of the button to that of the cube. However, your desired orientation doesn't match that of the object's orientation, so when the local axes are aligned to the face of the cube, the button is at an angle to the surface (in other words, the XYZ axes in the first picture are rotated to match that in the second picture).

There are different methods you can try to use to manually rotate the object back into position, but in this case, it would be easiest to just recreate your button.

If you were unable to recreate your button, you can try to rotate the origin of the object so that it matches what you consider an "upright" position for it. To do this, go to the Active tool and Workspace settings tab and select Options > Transform > Affect Only > Origins. I would not recommend this here, as this will cause unwanted movement of parented objects.

The second way to realign your button is to enter edit mode and rotate the entire object in there since transformations done in edit mode do not affect the object's origin and hence, the object's local axes.

PS: I would consider making the black part of the button the parent, not the white part. If you try to animate the white part by pushing it down, the black part will move with it in the way you have it configured right now.


Why does my cloth simulation fall even though it shouldn't? I followed the instructions in this video exactly, but still I get this result.

Here are my ncolth settings

The collision settings are set as default.

Here is the result which is unsatisfactory.

Increase Physics Properties > Collision > Softbody And Cloth > Friction value for bed (mattress) object.


Pausing a cloth simulation I am making an animation where a default cube is launched from a tube and explodes.  I have a particle system and an Explode modifier and a cloth system to simulate an explosion with cloth like ruins. The problem is that the simulation started at frame 1, I need to start at frame 60 at 60fps to allow one second for the object to be launched in the air.  I have no idea how to solve this.
Thanks,

In Cloth settings open the Cache panel, and find Simulation start property.


I am having very slow performance running Blender I just installed Blender and I am having very slow performance,when I press any menu buttons it takes around 3 sec. to respond or show is this normal? Do I need to set up something additional or install a driver?
I have read the system requirements are looking fine,it shouldn't be that slow.

Thank you

P.S.

I am using:
Samsung RC530
Intel core i7 , 2.20GHz
GeForceGT 540M,
6GB RAM DDR3,
500 GB SSD Samsung,
Windows 10 64 bit

Make sure you have your video drivers up to date since Blender's UI is run entirely through OpenGL. Just search for your graphics card (GPU) online. If you do not know what model of GPU you have, then try going to the GPU brand's website usually you can find which brand of GPU you have somewhere on your computer's case or the box it came in. The brand will usually have an easy way to find out what GPU you have and provide you with updates.


How do I fix this discoloration in my model? How can I fix this model discoloration?
Hello,

I was wondering what is causing the discoloration on this model?  It should be a smooth surface.

Here's another screenshot in edit mode:

How can I fix this?

Thank you!

There were multiple faces partially overlapping each other.  By removing the extra layers, the model returned to a smooth looking surface.

Thanks all for the assistance.


Procedural grass in BGE Currently i'm trying different ways to make procedural generation of the grass on the terrain in BGE. Terrain itself is just a mesh. I've been thinking about just randomly placing grass meshes around the player and about making a place with grass which repeats itself in 4 directions around player and disabling these repeats as the player getting away and creating new. With the first case problem is that I dont know how to get the height and the normal of certain points of my terrain mesh, and with second one I dont know how to get geometry of the terrain and deform the grass plane according to it. I'm a BGE and python beginner and would appreciate any help and links to other effective ways of creating grass on the levels.

firstly my dude, no beginner should be undertaking this, it is a large scale project. secondly,

the easiest way to get a meshes height in the BGE is by using a raycast actuator tied to an object and returning it. (which in your case isn't even neccessary).

grass doesn't repeat but whatever, you can use random.seed to sorta accomplish this.

setXYZ is how you alter objects in realtime, which ALSO isn't what you want, as any 3 dimensional grass in a game is animated, and you don't see 3 dimensional grass in 3d games, as it looks poor and slows fraps. (you can however use it to place grass at vertices)

third you don't need the normals, like at all.

here is a working example of grass seeding.

created specifically for your purpose using the BGE.

if you want it to flow in the wind, or be hyper realistic you'll have to animate it yourself.


Multiple UV mapping in 2.8 eevee? How do you texture map with multiple UV's in 2.8? I need at least 2 sets of UV's for the way im texturing but I can't figure out how to do it in the new blender

All the videos if doing this are from years ago and the UI of whats happening on screen doesn't match mine.

You can add UV maps using the '+' button in the ObjectData tab (on right on the image).

Then use it in the node editor, from the 'input' category (on left on the image).

Then you can use them in the node tree as you want.

How to switch UV maps in the UV Editor window:


Empty controlled light grid I'm still not an animator in any way but I have to find a way to animate something...

In a way resembling to what is achieved in this video, I have to create a grid of light bulbs which intensity and color will depend on the position of an empty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsHQuAaL8d0

This post (Use an Empty to control a property) enabled me to set up the intensity of all the lights depending of an empty's Z position.

But I wish the empty would define the intensity and color of the lights around itself... I wonder if it's clear? :s

Anyway, if anyone can understand the goal of this and help me, I would be immensely grateful!

Thank you for reading and have a nice day!
Nicolas

If you want each light to be a single color, and respond to the distance between itself and an Empty, one option is to create your lights as a particle system.

In this example, the particle system is static (there is no
physics, all the particles are emitted on frame 1).
Here, the particles are randomly scattered, but you could arrange them geometrically, per face of the emitter
Set up an input to your shader for the dupli object used to render the particles, (the Combine XYZ,) driven by the location of your empty. ( This means assigning drivers to its X,Y and Z entries)
Add a Particle Info node, using its 'Location' field, and a group of nodes to return the distance between particles and the empty.

Here, the distance is used as an input to a Color Ramp node

This is the scene, with an empty:

This is the result:


How do render passes work? I got a lot of related questions about render passes in Cycles lingering for a while now and apparently I can't figure it out myself.

When it comes to render passes, this manual page with the image below is all the official reference I have found on this topic. This image surely helps, but it is heavily outdated by now. Missing passes:

Shadow, AO - How do they affect the final image?
Subsurface Direct/Indirect/Color - I thing it will behave like the other pass types, but where did this information go previously?
Volumetric - Volumetric information just doesn't show up as a render pass at all, but is still contained in the final image. Why is it missing?

Passes are categorized into lightning passes and data passes. To my understanding lightning passes are somehow encoded in the final image where data passes are only additional information for compositing. Additionally, image passes are noisy by nature and get less noisy with increased amount of samples, where data passes are not affected by samples at all except that they get anti-aliased with increasing samples amount. Am I correct? (related to this question)

Perhaps my biggest question in terms of understanding: How do these passes get generated? AFAIK, Cycles shoots one ray per pixel and sample from the camera where it bounces off from geometry until it hits a light source or gets killed by the Light paths settings. This results in one ray-traced color value per pixel and sample and the colors of every sample get more or less averaged together. Having one color per pixel calculated, where do the pass data come from?

"Cycles shoots one ray per pixel and sample from the camera where it
  bounces off from geometry until it hits a light source or gets killed
  by the Light paths settings"

This is what happens in principle. In practice there are all kinds of tricks and optimizations that make path-tracing much faster than the naive implementation described by you. For example shadow rays are shot from the surfaces in the direction of light sources, and a trick assures that the image converges towards the same image as without shadow rays, but much faster. These shadow rays allow us to collect the "direct" and "indirect" lighting information separately. They are always collected separately, the passes just expose this internal information to you. This shadow rays/direct sampling trick is called "next event estimation" in the CG literature, if you want to learn more about it.

  Shadow, AO - How do they affect the final image?

They don't. The information in the shadow pass is already contained in the other passes, and AO is just some kind of fake global illumination, which is not necessary, as path tracing provides physically based GI.

About your other questions: I guess the answer is also in the Cycles implementation details. Note that (according to the Cycles roadmap) in the future Cycles will have AOVs (Arbitrary Output Variables) instead of hardcoded passes.


How do I parent another object only to a specific bone? I have hands model which I rigged, now I want the gun to be parented to the left hand, where the problem occurs as left hand is the same object with the right hand, so by parenting the gun to the bone, in the end the gun is parented to both bones, the right hand and the left hand.

In my head I have 2 Options, either:

Find a way to parent the gun only to the left hand bone
Separate the right hand from the left hand as well as the right hand bone from left hand bone, but if so then another question arises how do I separate bones from each other?

Here are some screenshots to make it easier

You can parent an object to a specific bone using a 'Child Of' constraint:

Here, the object I want to parent to an individual bone has a 'Child Of' constraint added, with the armature and bone I want it to follow selected from the 'Target' and 'Bone' search boxes.

Pressing the 'Set Inverse' button may be required to return the object to it's original position as after choosing the target object it may jump to that bone's position.


Export Blender 2.79 PBR shader to Unreal Physical based material this is my first question on stack exchange :)

If I've created and applied a material to an object using Blender's PBR shader. How do I bake out the nodes I have textures assigned to?
For example I have textures assigned to the metallic, roughness Transmission and Normal nodes.
I was expecting to see Bake options that correspond to my PBR nodes, which I could select, bake out and plug into Unreal's PB material shader.
Assuming that I should indeed be baking out my PBR material what bake options should I be using? Is my workflow incorrect?

Thanks :)

Bit of a late answer, but I have recently released an add-on for Blender 2.8 to do exactly this simply and easily (though admittedly not quickly - baking in Blender, like rendering, takes time).

Documentation here: http://www.toohey.co.uk/SimpleBake/

Available here: https://gumroad.com/l/mzYoz

It is also possible to do this manually. In a nutshell, you need to create an image within Blender (in the UV Image Editor) and add an image node to every material you are using set to that image. That image node needs to be selected in every material, though it doesn't need to be "hooked up" to anything at all. It just floats there.

The best way is to then take each input to your Principled BSDF shader one by one, run it through an Emission shader (connected to the Material Output in place of the Principled BSDF you had before) and then bake emission.

It's a bit of a long and painful process if you have an object with lots of materials - hence why I wrote the add-on.


In Pose mode, my bones are stuck in rotate, and wont transform When in pose mode, the bones on my model wont transform, they are stuck in rotate mode, though I can scale them. This problem now occurs whenever I try starting a new project. Some bones that I made earlier still work, but whenever I try to make new ones, they are stuck in rotate.
It seems like I changed something in the settings, but I don't even know how to access the settings. Please help, thanks.

I found the solution!
You have to click on the button shown in the photo below.
sorry for my bad English I'm only 14 years old


Pause an animation loop cycle I have a cow that needs to pause between two gates for a couple of seconds. I created her walk cycle and used "Make cyclic (F-modifier)" in the graph editor. With this set up I can't figure out how to pause her walk cycle while she briefly stands still while still being able to resume the animation cycle where it left off...

The bone animation is cycled like so...

In the graph editor press spacebar and search for "Bake action", set the time interval and bake.

In the dopesheet erase all the keyframes where you want the cow to stop.

Another way is using NLA editor to cycle; another way is manually copying the cycle in the dopesheet (this latter is very fast and allows maximum control, in my opinion).


Is it possible to design a surgical (dental) implant guide in Blender 2.80? I would like to know whether Blender 2.80 has a function/procedure/addon according to which a dental arch can be replicated in negative (by a predetermined offset) to design a custum impression tray or surgical guide.

I use the Boolean difference and it worked well, however, I would need a final object that has more the shape of a dental arch (rather than a cube) and of constant thickness.

I do not know many things in the dental field, but this should put you on the right track, the answer is yes, you can model what you are looking for, but it is necessary to see exactly what you want to be able to help you improve your model

odc_public
Addon for Blender meant to streamline dental CAD and design workflows

but it is not in 2.8, it is in 2.79 and in addition to this there is another addon especially for the design of dental bridges, as soon as I remember the name I will provide it


Setting up real displacement in 2.8 I've been struggling to get a height map to be displaced in a plane. I'm trying to do what is done so nicely in this answer, and in fact, do it with a variant of the height map in that question, which was also me.

I have now tried 2 approaches with 2 planes, both of which are in the attached file. The planes are UV unwrapped.The first approach was to add a subdivision surface modifier, and a displace modifier with the height map image as its texture.

The second approach was with a shader. It plugs the color data from the image texture from the height map into the Y axis of a Combine XYZ node, and then plugs that into a vector displacement node, and from there into displacement on the material output.

Neither method is working. For both planes, Displacement and Bump is selected under Properties > Materials > Settings > Surface. Cycles is the render engine. What is wrong here?

Everything works fine.

But you forgot to choose a UV for modifier approach

and used a wrong setup for shader displacement.

Also you'd better re-export your height map as OpenEXR or PNG 32 bit otherwise the result shall be jagged.

Your example file on developer.blender.org works fine too.


Rotational Symmetry with Point Lights? I am working on a scene where I have a pyramid with three lights at each corner of the base. I want to be able to animate one light and have the others move the same way, with three fold rotational symmetry around a point. Usually you would use a mirror modifier with an offset, but as you can't do that with point lights, I was wondering if there is any way to do it.
Edit: To give more of an idea, this is the movement I want to do. While I could do it manually, I want to see if there's a way to do it just by moving/animating one.

as Ratt said you can do it like so:

first: Shift - A -> Add plane

scale, rotate, place it as you need it

add a light

select your plane and tap on vertices

Shift - select your light -> now you got 4 lights which move with your plane

add an array modifier...now you got 4 x count lights ;)


How to access linked objects from a linked collection? (Blender 2.8) How can I access the linked objects inside a linked collection on Blender 2.8?
Inside the view layer navigator I cannot see the objects inside the drop down.
Linked Collection
  |
  |-> Linked Collection
        |
        |-> "Nothing"

I can link the objects individually but I need to preserve the Collection hierarchy, because:

The scene is quite complex, and I cannot know (easily) which objects are inside the collection I need to link, inside the list of all objects.
If the source collection has new objects added, I need them to be added (which is the behavior of the linked collection).

Any Idea how to do it? Thank you very much.

My problem with more detail:
I'd like to be able to access the linked objects inside a linked collection so I can change the materials for the linked objects as they define here.
I can make it work with Blender 2.8 linking objects directly and using a Library Override for the object, so I can change the material data block. But, I cannot find a way to access the linked collection's objects... to do the same, preserving the versatility of a linked collection.

Edit:
I found in the documentation Making an Instanced Collection Real which supposedly archives what I need, but does not work (at least I cannot make it work) with linked collections:

"Simply select your Instance Collection and press Shift-Ctrl-A to convert the collection into regular objects".
"Note that if the instanced collection was linked from an external file, the Object Data (mesh, materials, textures, transforms) will also still be linked from the original collection".

Edit 2:
I need to use the same source file collection, and be able to have instances with different material overrides locally. So I can have the same objects with different colors in different instances.

I use this:

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/object/edit_linked_library.html

I set it to appear in my favorites panel. It opens the linked file; and when you are done; you


Setting specific FPS for video I have a video that was recorded using my laptops webcam.

According to the mplayer tool, my FPS for this video is set to 29.75 FPS (using the mplayer -identify -frames 0 myfile.webm command).

In blender's video sequence editor, under Dimensions, FPS, I choose custom, and then type in 29.75 for my video, but when I press enter, it rounds up to 30FPS. My video and audio tracks don't line up.

Why doesn't it let me set the specific FPS? How can I best rectify this situation?

Thanks.

As you have noticed the FPS can only be set to integer values. To get a fractional frame rate you need to also set the framerate base which you can find right under the FPS.

The easy way to get the right base value is to enter a calculation which is the set fps divided by the target rate. eg 30 / 29.75, when you then press enter it will show the value of 1.008 and the frame rate will show as Custom (29.75 fps)


Is there a way to output two videos from rendering - one with compositing and one without? So I have a scene with a fluid simulation and I want to know if the result is better with or without the vector blur node.

Is there a way to render a video where blender first renders the image and exports it to a file and then adds the compositing nodes and exports the image to a different file?

This way you will get two video's at the end, one with compositing and one without.

This would save a lot of render time because you only have to render it once.

Yes you can do that.
Use a file output node in the compositor.

How to output multiple images from Blender's compositor with Python?


Scale problem when using bevel along path In below image the orange vertices is/are the path and scale I would like the bevel (with an object) to follow but the gray shaded 3/4 ring is what I keep getting. I've applied  scale transform in object mode prior to making the 3/4 circle a path, but same results. tried 2D & 3D same result.
Other image is one side view of what I'm trying to create. Maybe there is a better approach?

I believe I solved the underlying problem (s). It wasn't a scaling issue but probably an origin issue of the path of the 3/4 arc- circle. Fixed by making sure my profile (bevel) path was at inside edge I wanted to be inside edge and then had the 3/4 circle path be at 3D curser (or center of circle) and reversed segment path


How to get Python multiprocessing module working on windows? I am trying to run a script within Blender that utilizes multiprocessing module.
According to documentation it is possible to use it ( see note at the end of "Strange errors using ‘threading’ module" ).

  Pythons threads only allow co-currency and won’t speed up your scripts on multi-processor systems, the subprocess and multiprocess modules can be used with Blender and make use of multiple CPU’s too..

So I tried running below script within Blender:

from multiprocessing import Pool

def test( v ):
    print(v)
    return v

p = Pool(2)

print( p.map(test, range(5) ) )

This however spawns as many new Blender instances (with separate windows) as there are workers in p (in my case 2).
Also it spews in System Console :

Can't read file: "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\-c", Unable to open the file.
Can't read file: "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\from multiprocessing.forking import main; main()", Unable to open the file.
Can't read file: "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\--multiprocessing-fork", Unable to open the file.
Can't read file: "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2888", Unable to open the file.

I also thought about using os.fork() to do the same thing, but sadly Windows does not support that.

I've been looking all over Internet, but so far I was not able to find even one example proving that documentation is correct.

The only thing I found was thread on blenderartists.org, but it is locked and with no responses.

Update: This is a windows spesific limitation in the multiprocessing module. ~ideasman42.

Edit, this workaround is no longer needed as of 2.91.

This looks like a kind of ms-windows specific problem... at least a conflict with having an embedded Python interpreter and the environment which multiprocessing expects.
(its not exactly a bug, in that its not like Blender devs can fix some mistake to get this working).
Currently multiprocessing makes the assumption that its running in python and not running inside an application.

I managed to get multi-processing working on ms-windows, doing some workarounds.

sys.executable needs to point to Python executable.
The scripts __file__ needs to point to a file on-disk(not always the case - when executing a text block for example).

Heres an example of a workaround:
import sys
# are we running inside Blender?
bpy = sys.modules.get("bpy")
if bpy is not None:
    sys.executable = bpy.app.binary_path_python
    # get the text-block's filepath
    __file__ = bpy.data.texts[__file__[1:]].filepath
del bpy, sys

# end workaround!
# --------------------------------------------------

# Example from
# https://docs.python.org/3/library/multiprocessing.html
from multiprocessing import Process
import os

def info(title):
    print(title)
    print('module name:', __name__)
    if hasattr(os, 'getppid'):  # only available on Unix
        print('parent process:', os.getppid())
    print('process id:', os.getpid())

def f(name):
    info('function f')
    print('hello', name)

def main():
    info('main line')
    p = Process(target=f, args=('bob',))
    p.start()
    p.join()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()


license issues with blender addons 1) I've seen a lot of coders giving their addons for free. Though the license of the GPL states that any derivative works of blender and it's source code is to be distributed under the GPL, Python is not a software as such. So, why would this restrict people to freely giveaway their addon? And Why would blenderguru's pro lighting studios not be freely available then?

2)How is it so that though blender is distributed under the GPL, it can be sublicensed under e.g. CC-ND-BY or CC-0 licenses under sites such as blendswap?

Here are the licenses that Blender uses as of 24.1.2017:

Blender source code - GNU GPL Version 2 or older
Blender Cycles render engine - Apache 2.0
Python libraries - Python license
Bullet physics libraries - Zlib license
Libmv (Blender's motion tracking) - MIT license
Open Shading Language - BSD license

All these components that make up Blender can be distributed together under the GNU GPL Version 3 license (they are all compatible with it).

The art that you create with Blender:

  What you create with Blender is your sole property. All your artwork – images or movie files – including the .blend files and other data files Blender can write, is free for you to use as you like.(blender.org)

Therefore you can license your art however you like. That's where CC-ND-BY, CC-0 and others come from: Creative Commons licenses. If the artwork does not have the license specified, you are not allowed to distribute it or commercially use it, etc. Always ask the author's permission.

Blender game (Blender art + Blender code):

The inclusion of Blender player (= Blender game engine) requires that the entire bundle has to be released compatible with Blender’s license (GNU).

Regarding 3rd party addons:

Blender also includes the Blender Python API, so every piece of code of the addon that uses some Blender Python API must be also licensed under GNU. This only applies to the addon script files or binaries.

What does that mean: It does not mean the author must give you such code for free. It means when you have the code, you are free to distribute it (or modify) under the same license. You can distribute it however you like - for free or for money.

  When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
  price.  Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
  have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
  them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you
  want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new
  free programs, and that you know you can do these things.(excerpt from GNU)

If the addon includes artwork (assets, textures, etc.) these have their own licenses and you will have to get permission to distribute them. So you can distribute the 'Pro lighting studios' script files, but not the assets. Script files usually have header inside stating the license.

Using GNU license and closed source license together:

GNU does not allow linking an application with closed code - it is forbidden to include a commercial library in a GNU code - you would have to make such library open-source to use it.

But you can do something like commercial render engines do: the export plugin is GNU (uses Blender API) and converts scene data to commercial application (ie. renderer) which is not GNU (doesn't use Blender API) and the licenses differ. This works because the addon is not dependent on the non-GNU application.

Assets in Pro Lighting Skies or Grass Essentials - the addon will work with any other assets too, addon's functionality is not dependent on them. Because of this the assets can be closed-sourced.

In the case of Blender game it would not work without the assets so they must be released under GNU (the game logic is part of the assets and the game is dependent on them).


Is there way I can merge all grease pencil keyframes into one frame？ Is there way I can merge all grease pencil keyframes into one frame？So I've seen there is multiframe
option in blender, but it doesn't allow me to copy though, wonder if there is way I can merge all the keyframes drawings into one drawing.

Copy and paste in Edit Mode.
Also you can merge layers in the dropdown menu near layers Merge Down, though there is an issue if the keyframes don't match up


Issue with bridge between two edge loops I'm trying to bridge a circle with an edge loop of a complex model (see next picture.)

However, when I select both edge loops and select to bridge both edge loops (via space => mesh: bridge edge loops), I get the following result. I think I'm missing something but can't get to the reason.

I think that's not possible, looping requires exact amount of edges in both sides, what you could do is merging all those edges until there is exact amount of edges, or bridging edge by edge manually. BTW what kind of mesh do you want to achieve? Maybe there is another way to do it...


Architectural Land Sub division Related to Architectural

I have a land i want to sub-divde into several plot systems. How to make Plots in that Land and Division of Land into Plots for example 30x30, 60x40 and road, garden, Space Civic Amenities, etc. Reference Video link given below. Is there any addon can sub divide with proportional way adjusting the parameters.

Reference video

In case of creating geometry parametricaly, you can use addons:

Sverchok (github) -  is a powerful parametric tool for architects, allowing geometry to be programmed visually with nodes.

Animation nodes - this tool mostly for animation, but maybe it can be also useful for you

Anyway, you must create your own logic using this addons (or find node trees in internet), so you must study how to create meshes using logic nodes from this addons.


Select words without indentation in text editor Currently you can select a line with the select_line command. The problem is that you select the complete line, with the indentations.

I'd like to know how I can select only the words of the current line, to integrate it in a pie please.

def execute(self, context):

    bpy.ops.text.move(type='LINE_BEGIN')
    bpy.ops.text.move(type='NEXT_WORD')
    bpy.ops.text.move_select(type='LINE_END')
    return {'FINISHED'}

This selects whitespace at the end of the line.


Physics Simulation - Objects going through one another I am doing a physics simulation and I am running into some trouble with meshes partially going through one another. I am simulating physics using constraints. I am simulating an anchor being reeled in. The problem is that the chains and anchor or intersecting at point in a way they should not be. How can I have the chains colliding with each other?
blend file

You can try disabling Disable Collisions on all the constraint empties and using the Mesh collision shape for the links.


My image renders in black and white and not on the color it shows on the compositor? I am making a wormhole like portal that opens up shrinks and grows for a bit and then dissipates. In the compositor it shows that it is a dark purple color but when I go to render the animation it comes out as black and white and I have no idea what's causing this. I used a youtube tutorial in case you want to comb through it
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWNLOjw5HYc ) (I know it says its for shockwaves, but I'm using it for my purposes)

as you can see when it renders it loses all color. If you also want to see a picture of my node setup just ask and I'll screenshot it.

What you see in the backdrop of the compositor is the output plugged to the active "Viewer" node in compositor, while the final render result is the thing that is plugged into the "Composite" node. From your screenshot it looks like your "Composite" node is not plugged into the end of the node chain, but rather into some node a bit earlier in the chain. Attach it into the same socket your viewer node is plugged into, and you should get the same result you see.


Importing a feature from higher version(2.74) to a lower version(2.65) Currently I use blender version 2.65(portable) as the recent versions will not run on system due to lack of necessary "hardware accelerators". But there is a particular option in the recent versions which allows me to see the 3D window in a rendered view. Is there any way I can import this facility of the recent versions to use it in the older 2.65 version? I have both the zipped folders(2.65 and 2.77 windows 32) with me.

No.

Features are not separate files or anything similar that can just be copied over.

These kind of features are added by modifying parts of the blender code and then recompiling it, and generally depend on a number of other changes and are quite interlinked with the rest of the code, so that even if you were familiar with blender development, backporting to an old version of the codebase would be extremely hard.


Controlling polygons by index value, from list of vertices (sverchok addon) I am trying to display multiple polygons, from a list of vertices, in blender using the sverchok addon. For this project, the polygons are Madagascar and the rest of Africa. Here are the project files, which include the blend file, list of vertices (csv file), and screenshot of node setup: https://drive.google.com/file/d/116p-ee0Kfepi6Bimn28tdLYf-3kKryQD/view?usp=sharing
The csv file has the following columns (relevant columns are bold):

fid = index of all the vertices in the list (ranges from 1 to 405 for the 405 total vertices in the list)
CONTINENT = ignore this column, was generated earlier in GIS, should not be relevant now
Geom2 = ignore this column, was generated earlier in GIS, should not be relevant now
vertex_index = index of the vertices unique to each polygon (ranges from 0 to 355 for the 356 vertices making up mainland Africa, then ranges from 0 to 48 for the 49 vertices making up Madagascar)
vertex_part = index of the polygons, 0 = Africa (mainland), 1 = Madagascar
vertex_part_ring = ignore this column, was generated earlier in GIS, should not be relevant now
vertex_part_index = same as the vertex_index column
distance = ignore this column, was generated earlier in GIS, should not be relevant now
angle = ignore this column, was generated earlier in GIS, should not be relevant now
x = x-coordinate of vertex (longitude, in decimal degrees)
y = y-coordinate of vertex (latitude, in decimal degrees)

Using the sverchok addon, I was able to get a working node setup:

Where the vertices are filtered by the vertex_part value. However, in order to display both polygons I had to duplicate the node setup, and change the vertex_part value for the second node setup (i.e. the only difference between the Africa and Madagascar frames is the Y value in the "Equal" logic node).
So, my question is, is there a way to filter/display/list the vertices so that I do not have to duplicate the node setup for every new polygon?
Although duplicating this node setup isn't much trouble for only a few polygons, I would like to work with larger datasets with many more polygons. For instance, duplicating the node setup would not be feasible if I were working with world-wide country data.
Thanks,

the only thing - join list node for 0,1 duality.
Also you can use wrap option of float2int output socket instead list join
if you have more that two options there should be other approach


How to round values of a Float List in Animation Nodes? Math node only has Floor and Ceiling modes, while Float to Integer or Round nodes don't work with Float List (sockets doesn't connect in v2.1 (for 2.79b). Am I missing something here?

Making a Loop just to accomplish rounding seems to be overcomlicated for this task.

Adding 0.5 before flooring gives you rounding. Alternatively, subtracting 0.5 before ceiling gives you rounding.


How can I move tracking markers along the timeline? To explain the problem I have run into: I have created some tracking markers in the Movie Clip Editor and tracked several points in the clip, and I have added an offset to the movie clip so that it syncs up with where that clip ends up in the Video Sequence Editor, however, now I have moved the clip in the VSE to start at an earlier frame number and adjusted the offset in the MCE so that it still syncs up, but I can't find a way of moving the tracking markers to start earlier as well. They still dance around as they always did, just too late in the timeline.
I can see all the tracking markers in the tracking Dopesheet and the tracking Graph editor, and I can select them all, but I can only move them vertically (adjusting their X and Y speed) but not horizontally (adjusting what frame they apply to).
The screenshot shows the tracking dopesheet and the tracking graph where I have only been able to drag the points vertically.

I can see a couple of ways of solving this (finalising all the VSE work before starting any tracking or working on the visual effects in separate files with no offset, rendering them out and combining them all in yet another file) but both methods involve re-doing a lot of work I have already done. I'm hoping that there's a better solution which would save me all this work.
I am using the tracking markers to act as parents for the control points of a mask and I have been able to drag the mask keyframes to an earlier point in the timeline, but that only applies to control points I animated manually, not the ones that are parented to the tracking markers. If there's a way of "baking" out the movements of those mask control points to keyframes I would then be able to move the keyframes and the problem would be solved.
Is there a way of moving tracking markers along the timeline or "baking" mask control point movements or some other way of solving this I haven't thought of?

Tracking points are uniquely associated to the clip and to every frame.
The tracking points in the graphs and dopesheet are just for information and to visualize possible errors, and are thus not editable.
By offsetting, you are altering the relationship between the tracked elements and the actual content of the image.
The usual workflow for vfx shots is that they rendered separately and integrated to the edit later.
If you are only dealing with masks, render the masks as black and white images, and import them to the video editing app and use them for keying and further compositing.


How do you convert text into a wire frame look? How do you convert text into a wire frame look?

I want to convert some text into a wire frame look in blender 2.8

Alt + c doesn't work in 2.8

Convert options are available through the Menu bar:

Object > Convert to > Mesh from text


In cycles, do negative lights actually remove light or are they casting "Black" light? In cycles, I just learned, that you can set a lamp's value to a negative number to create a "negative lamp". But in a few tests, instead of removing light, it seemed to just cast black light? What are the lamps actually doing?

Regardless of what render engine you are using (either Cycles or Blender Internal),If you are using a point lamp. it is actually removing light, because it is impossible for a lamp to cast black light. Set a lamp's emission color to pure black. and set the strength as high as you want, if you have any other lamp in your scene, emitting light of any other color, with the strength any higher than 0.00, your scene will not show any traces of "black light"
If you are using an emission shader, set to pure black, then yes it is emitting "black light"
Lamps can not cast black light, but an emission shader can, and does.

You should also note that there is a difference between setting a lamp to black, and having a positive strength, and setting the lamp to white and having a negative strength.

When using an emission shader,  there is also a difference between emitting black light and having a negative lamp.

In this file, the black cube is emitting black light, the white cube with negative strength is literally removing light. Both appear to be casting a shadow. the white cube with positive strength is emitting light.


How do I set the read-only 'frame_duration' property of an image sequence with Python? I try to load in an image sequence as background image with python.
I managed to load it and set the source as sequence, however when i try to set its frame duration according to the number of images in the sequence, I get an error saying that the attribute is read-only.
Can I change this attribute in another way and if not, how can I tell Blender to use it as image sequence?

My code so far:

path="C:\Users\user\Desktop\image0001.png"
img = bpy.data.images.load(path)
img.source = "SEQUENCE"

Prints an error:

img.frame_duration = 50

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: bpy_struct: attribute "frame_duration" from "Image" is read-
only

frame duration is a calculated value and cannot be set directly.

frame_duration = frame_end - frame_start

In order to change the frame_duration of the sequence you need to change the frame_start and/or frame_end. This makes sense as Blender cannot decide for you which frames you don't want to see (cut from the start or cut from the end, or from the middle, or ....).

# cut the start of the sequence
desired_frame_duration = 50
img.frame_start += img.frame_end - desired_frame_duration

# cut the end of the sequence
desired_frame_duration = 50
img.frame_end = img.frame_start + desired_frame_duration


How to model one object's edge to match another object's curved edge I am trying to put an engraving object onto the surface of ring so that the engraving matches up with the ring's border (Picture 1). So far I have been doing this manually and it's a very time-intensive process, not to mention imprecise (you can see my results on the bottom engraving, very bumpy).

I was wondering if there is a way to "flatten" and have the vertices of engraving object's edge match up with the vertices of the rings border on the y-coordinate (Picture 2). The engraving and the ring are currently two separate objects; I plan to join them after they are matched up appropriately.

Any help is very much appreciated, I'm a first-time Blender user and have been working on this engagement ring for about a month.

Thank you,

Grog

Try using a combination of snapping. For your purposes you will probably want to consider the vertex, face, and edge snapping options. How well it works will probably depend on your topology and stuff, but it's the only method I know could work for sure. There are modifiers that might work too, but I don't have a lot of experience with most modifiers, and they seem a little touchy sometimes.
snapping options http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/171536664510008542/B850D16F4CE2FDE3175B3335D995E9232771F92A/

The horseshoe icon turns snapping on or off. You can also hold ctrl to toggle it on after grabbing the vertex or object you are going to move. With the ctrl hotkey it will only be on while you are holding the hotkey.

If having the engravings clip into the ring doesn't matter, then you can probably do it all with vertex snapping. Position an engraving so the back vertices are all inside the ring where the engraving will be sitting.

Then toggle your vertex snapping on and grab the front vertices and start snapping them to the appropriate vertices on the outer edge of the ring. MAKE SURE that while doing this, you lock your transform to the right axis. Hitting "g" then the "x", "y", or "z" key will lock your transform to the corresponding axis. In your case you will probably be using the "x" or "y" lock.

So you will position the engraving, turn vertex (or maybe edge snapping) snapping on, grab a vertex from the front face of the engraving, lock it to the x or y axis, then move it until it snaps to the closest outside edge vertex of the ring. Then repeat until the engraving is following the curve of the ring.

If you don't want the back vertices of the engravings clipping through the ring, do the same as above, only instead of vertex snapping use face snapping and snap the back vertices to the faces of the ring.


Now that Geometry Nodes is here Should I still learn Animation Nodes? I stared learning Animation nodes and Sverchok for procedural modeling and animation.
Now that Geometry Node is here should I still learn Animation Nodes or focus on the Geometry Nodes?

It depends on your use case.  I still use Animation Nodes due to the fact that I can use it with loops and include python scripts with it, which makes it very powerful.
The original creator of Animation Nodes is also one of the developers working on Geometry nodes  (Jacques Lucke).
I have no doubt geometry nodes will eventually get there but it will take time, the thing is how long are you willing to wait.
Geometry Nodes Project Link:


Why is mesh.from_pydata resulting in segmentation faults? I have vertex and face data loaded from a cube that was subdivided many times, with a total of 26138 vertices and slightly fewer faces.

I am loading the object in a script, and whenever I try to load it with mesh.from_pydata, I get a segmentation fault (core dumped) error.

mymesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(mesh_name)
myobject = bpy.data.objects.new(mesh_name, mymesh)

bpy.context.scene.objects.link(myobject)
print('loading from pydata...')
mymesh.from_pydata(vertices,[],faces)

vertices is either a numpy array or a list object. I've tried both, and the segmentation fault occurs in both. faces is a standard list of tuples corresponding to vertex indices.

Here is the log from /tmp/blender.crash.txt

 # Blender 2.78 (sub 0), Commit date: 2017-02-24 14:33, Hash e92f2352830
bpy.context.space_data.bookmarks_active = 0  # Property
   # backtrace
./blender(BLI_system_backtrace+0x1d) [0x19aad1d]
./blender() [0x104e2e6]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(+0x354b0) [0x7f720bccf4b0]
./blender() [0x19abc88]
./blender() [0x19ab12d]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0(+0x76ba) [0x7f720d2df6ba]
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6(clone+0x6d) [0x7f720bda13dd]

The method from_pydata appears to be surprisingly brittle for something in Python. Something as simple as using a vertex index number that is out of bounds (number higher or equal to the number of vertices) will result in odd results followed by a segfault shortly after (for example by going from object mode to vertex mode).
Calling validate should at least prevent a segfault from happening. You'll have to look for what is exactly invalid with your parameters when calling from_pydata):
my_mesh.validate()

Edit: I spent a bit of time chasing segfaults with from_pydata myself until I eventually found reports such as the ones below. I don't imagine the use of it without validate since segfaults taking the whole process down are quite annoying.

https://developer.blender.org/T32773
https://developer.blender.org/T50199


A character made of cubes? Is it bad for gaming? I've seen these models on sketchfab that I find good enough for a mobile game, but if you look at them in wireframe mode it looks like they are made of a succession of cubes (or very close shapes).

I'm far from an expert at modeling, but isn't it a very bad practice?

In blender, what's the difference between creating multiple objects and a single object composed of multiple meshes?

How will it impact rigging / animation?

If I would import them into a game engine (unity for example), can it make a difference (in performance/usability/shading) ?

In short, are these models bad?

Thanks for your help.

The BGE needs more time to process multiple objects. Therefore it is advised to join objects that form a larger part of the landscape (e.g. a forest).

On a character the requirements of the character handling will dominate.

From artistic perspective an object that deforms (skin) is better to handle as a single object and animated via armature.

If you have objects with rigid parts like a robot or a car where nothing deforms you might use multiple objects. Nevertheless the armature method is still applicable.

You might even need a mix of both. E.g. the deformable mesh for presentation and the rigid objects for collision detection (check if the hand touched anything).

This strongly depends on your needs and your focus.

Other requirements might be:

breakable (can be done with both, but different objects are easier to handle).
lots of instances (here you need to look at the performance).

Edit:

When you want to change items and clothes in-game you better have them separated. If that is not the requirement they can be part of the skin mesh.


Set axis for spin from custom orientation I want create custom operator, which will replace bpy.ops.mesh.spin()
Instead of taking rotation axis from view, i want to take it from custom axis orientation.

I know how to get matrix for it:

m = bpy.context.scene.orientations[0].matrix

but need to know how to get this axis information

From m = bpy.context.scene.orientations[0].matrix

Transformed X, Y and Z axis (in world coordinates) are:

x = m * Vector( (1, 0, 0) )
Y = m * Vector( (0, 1, 0) )
z = m * Vector( (0, 0, 1) )

If you need it in an object local coordinates:

x_local = obj.matrix_world.inverted() * x
y_local = obj.matrix_world.inverted() * y
z_local = obj.matrix_world.inverted() * z


Rendered image disappeared when I re-opened my project I am using Windows 10 and am perfectly able to use the application . but i am not able to open my saved projects  i am able to see in edit mode but the opened rendered image does not load . i have to reclick render and wait for it again.

Please help.

See this thread: How to save the render result within Blender

Blender does not store renders in the .blend files.  They are stored in RAM until you exit the program, at which time the OS deallocates all applicable memory.  If you want to store the image, you must save it yourself by pressing F3 In the UV editor window.  You can set the options beforehand in the Properties menu:

Or in the Save window:


How do I get the Screw modifier to generate a face at the end? [Example (old link)]1
^ Desired result on the left

Here the end faces are missing. Is it possible to get them there or to generate them at every step?

Perhaps add a solidify modifier and get it that way?


How to scale two objects to fit together If I have a cylinder and a half-sphere, for example, like this:

Which is the best/quickest way to scale the half-sphere to match the size of the cylinder maintaining the shape of the half-sphere? So that when I bridge them together I get completely straight lines?

I've tried with snap during transform but I never get the correct resize or the half-sphere gets immense...

Assuming nothing is centered or aligned (but rotation is consistent), use Snapping >> Vertex >> Active.

1.) Select a bottom vertex with which to align the half-sphere. L to select connected vertices.

2.) Drag it over to snap it to its "sister" vertex.

3.) Reselect the vertex and Shift + S to move Cursor to Selected.  Change the Pivot Point to 3D Cursor.

4.) Now, select the opposite vertex (make active) and L to select connected vertices.

5.) Scale to "sister" vertex.


What are these spots that appear after using subsurf modifier? I added a Subdivision Surface modifier, Creased some edges to 1.00 and some white spots appeared. I've never seen that before. Is something wrong with the UV shading?

It simply means that the subsurf is generating mesh outside the bounds of the non-subsurfed mesh. It's not an issue and they will not show as soon as you Tab back to Object Mode.


How to make a vertex meet an edge exactly? I want to move the selected vertex along the blue axis until it exactly meets the intersecting edge. How can I make sure it exactly touches the edge without gaps or overlap?

Hold CTRL while moving the vertex and it will snap to the midpoint of the edge (it will also snap to other vertices). Once you get it on the edge, you can switch to the "Normal" coordinate system and slide it back and forth along the edge.


Large Ocean Texture & Boat Wash Material with Dynamic Paint I've been trying to simulate a very natural boat water wash in blender, using dynamic paint and wetmap. but it just doesn't look natural. i've been searching online. and i found similar cases for different application.

this is a sample photo done by aaOcean Suite http://www.amaanakram.com/plugins-shaders/aaocean-suite/

firstly, i want to get my ocean to look as close as possible to this. i'm using bump textures, since my ocean is too big to use the ocean modifier. and i'm using texture coordinates to animate it. and it look like this.

and this is my material node for the ocean.

i want to make sharper waves that matches my reference photos.

and i'm interested to know how to create that wash, using blender material. my current node setup is something like this:

and the result are something like

First of all, a noise bump texture does not make for an ocean. You need waves, not noise. Either go for some online textures, or create your own one:

Generate a smaller mesh with the ocean modifier (as large as possible)
Bake normal and height to a plane
To render your ocean, apply both the normal map as well as the height to the plane using microdisplacements
You can even do this texture baking for the whole animation (I'd recommend you to do it in a separate blend file then)

For the boat, you first need to have realistic materials. Have a look at "physically based rendering" to get true photorealism (Blender Guru is your friend).


how do I colour using vertex paint? I've been looking around for a while now and its so hard to navigate. Anyway, how do I colour in models? I've tried the vertex paint thing but it disappears after I have selected another part.

Using Blender Render, To see vertex colors in 3d viewport you need to be at least in textured viewport mode...although you can paint in solid mode also.

And to see  vertex colors in render, your material needs to have "vertex color paint" option enabled.


How to add template objects (groups) from other file? Let's say I have a *.blend containing a few objects which I would like to add to a group and use as a template. This could be some (textured) meshes and a text object which are connected in a group. A totally arbitrary example might be a player mesh (e.g. a tank) with a health bar and a life-counter.

Then, in another blend, I linked the above group, added them to an invisible layer and and would like to:

Add instances of the whole group, staying connected as known from the editor
Change properties of the group members (e.g. text)
Move the whole group at once with Python

How can I achieve that?

PS: I'm using about the standard BGE (2.79), not the UPBGE fork.

Here are two example files achieving this:

template.blend

This contains two template groups named template_A and template_B, each consisting of two meshes (Suzanne and Cylinder) and a text object, but different hierarchy. See images

 - In the group "template_A", Text and Suzanne are parented to the cylinder ("root" parent).
 - In the group "template_B", there are no parent-child relations.

addTemplate.blend

in this file, both templates are linked and placed on layer 2.
A cone object acts as spawner,moves around and reacts on Keys A ("template_A") and B ("template_B"). The script add handles the reactions and sets the string (Question 2).

Note that when template_B is added, the three objects fall apart (they have different translational damping), while in template_A they stay connected (question 1).

Edit: As Monster pointed out in the comment, you can not move the whole group at once by changing e.g. world.objects["template_A"].worldPosition. Instead - you need to move the "Root" parent (see image above), which can be accessd by e.g. world.objects["template_A"].groupmembers["Cylinder"]. This is related to the additionally added question 3.


How to restrict movement for a length or period of time (logic bricks)? How to to restrict the translation (or rotation) in Z axis for a length (yellow line) and activate it after (blue line)? Using only logic bricks.

You will need to add a Float property to the 'yellow' area. I called mine "Bar". no reason. (if it isn't area you want to determine it by then skip this step and go with a Delay sensor rather than Collision, Near, or Ray)

Use a Collision, Near, or Ray (depending on your preferences and needs)sensor to determine when the "Bar" property is close enough to invoke the constraint behavior.

Via an And controller, link your sensor to a Constraint actuator and set the axis based on whatever axis is "up" in your diagram. Turn on true level triggering on the sensor.


Why does my armature's bone rotate 360°, but the mesh only rotates 180°? I've got a cube-shaped mesh and an armature. Both are aligned, and weight-painted properly. What's happening is that when I rotate the corresponding bone for the armature, the actual mesh rotates half the amount of the bone until I reach 180 degrees (of bone rotation), when the mesh jumps to the other side and continues its half-thing.

In short, the mesh is only rotating along the top 180 degrees of its full rotation cycle while the bone is able to move at its full 360 degree rotation. It's really acting as if I put an IK rotation constraint, but that's not the case. It's a full three bones of separation from the nearest IK bone, which is not connected to it in any way.

Your head also inherits roatation from the torso bone. Look at the vertex groups: The head's vertices are members of both groups, 'Head' and 'Torso'. Thus the rotation of the head and the torso bones are combined by a weighted average. The weights of both groups are 1, so this results in equal influence of both bones. The torso-bone does not rotate, so the total rotation is halved.
Just remove the 'Torso' vertex group from the head and it rotates as intended.


Create X-Ray Shortcut How do I create a shortcut for this command?

view3DShading.show_xray

Alt + Z

You can find or change this in your preferences by navigating to Edit > Preferences > Keymap > Search

Before setting a new keybind, make sure it isn't in use by another function!


How can I create one uv map for multiple objects? How can I unwrap multiple objects so that all meshes get unwrapped on the same uv map?
I have this tent, and I want to "paint" on it.

I tried selecting all the objects in this scene and unwrap but some edges became red (in edit mode). I don't know why.

Also, after marking the seams, the smart uv mapping option is missing.
So how can I unwrap all these objects in one uv map?

In Blender 2.8 and beyond you can enter edit mode with multiple objects selected.

Before Blender 2.8

Simple answer: "you can't"

Because a UV map pertains to each individual object, and only shows in the UV/Image editor while in edit mode, you cannot combine UV maps, or see multiple maps at the same time. (You can only enter edit mode for one object at a time.)

Longer answer: "you don't have to"

Most likely, your best solution is to select all the meshes (not cameras or lights) and press ctrl+j to join them into one mesh. Now you can unwrap them all as if they were one mesh, because they are.

Tip: You may want to reset the origin after doing this. (ctrl+shift+alt+c) -> "Origin to Geometry"

There are also some add-ons that help with generating UV maps that fit with others in the scene, for creating one large texture for all objects, instead of many different textures for each object. Try pressing ctrl+alt+u and typing "UV: Texture Atlas" in the add-on search box. This might help you.


Cabinet Properties aren't showing up! Archimesh Broken? i'm following a tutorial on how to design interiors and in the start he (Blender Guru) edits a cabinet (height size, countertop length, bevels etc.). As soon as he presses cabinet, a window with these properties pops up. When I do it, nothing happens. I am stuck with this problem now for over 2 weeks. I'd appreciate any help with this. Thank you

You have to click on the left bottom side tab that pops up when you add a cabinet. Click on that popup tab called Cabinets and you will get your properties.


How can I create a profile and rotate it to create a mesh using Blender 2.72? I am having trouble finding a way to rotate a shape to make a mesh.  I found Youtube examples using older versions of Blender but none for the one we are using in the class I teach.  We are building a Civil War scene. It includes Ft. Sumter and a Steamship plus various items including a cannon.  I've decided to show my students two ways to make a cannon, if I can.  Here attached are some images that show my approaches.  I can show them how to do the modeling using a UV Sphere, but I think it is important to show both methods.  There should be some kind of menu option that asks for a line that would act as a rotation axis.

You can use a Screw Modifier. Being in Object Mode select your profile and enable the modifier.

You have now a bunch of extra options. Set the desired axis you want your profile to screw along. Set the Angle to 360 degrees to have the whole form (or 180 if you want to have a half of the form). You may also increase the number of the Steps, so if you apply the modifier later you'll have more geometry. Please see this documentation for more details:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modifiers/Generate/Screw

You may notice the strange behaviour of the normals after applying the modifier. Recalculate them using a Tool Shelf button or use the Ctrl+N shortcut, while in Edit Mode.

UPDATE: Placing the origin point to make the Screw Modifier work properly (according to Randy's situation).

I started with placing the inner vertices of the profile perfectly on the one axis.
Then I gave the mesh the same rotation and the origin point the same location like on your printscreens.

I entered the Edit Mode and selected two vertices as pictured below. Then snapped the cursor to selection using shortcut: Shift+S-->Cursor to Selected.
I entered the Object Mode and snapped the origin point to 3D cursor using Tool Shelf button (you may also use the shortcut: Alt+Ctrl+Shift+C-->Origin to 3D cursor).
With the origin point set I enabled the Screw Modifier.


Is it possible to use proportional editing without affecting or hiding nearby vertices Hiding those vertices which are not to be affected makes me uncomfortable to adjust those vertices to be affected according to those which are hidden. So is it possible to affect only the selected vertices without hiding the rest in proportional editing mode.

One possible solution that is relatively cumbersome:

Add a base shape key ("Basis"), then a modification shape key ("Key 1").
Switch to edit mode.
Select the area that you do want to modify and assign it to a new vertex group (Group).
Modify the mesh using proportional editing (accepting that the parts that should stay unaffected are modified for now).
Switch back to object mode.
Set the shape key to 1 and select your vertex group ("Group") under "Blend:" to mix in the "Basis" key for the parts that should stay unaffected.
Then follow the procedure outlined in How to apply shape keys? to apply the changes to the mesh.

There are easier ways to do something like this, with major limitations:

Select the area that you don't want to affect and press Y to split it apart. Then set the proportional editing mode to "connected", thereby excluding those vertices that were previously split from the other part of the mesh. Afterwards, join the displaced seam by hand.
Limitations:
You can only do this if the area that you do want to affect is connected and in one piece.
Re-joining the seam can be cumbersome, although the remove doubles tool helps with areas that weren't modified.
Turn the part that you don't want to affect into a separate object (P with selection). If necessary, enable Object > Display > Wire for this object. Then return to the first object and edit it freely. Afterwards, re-join the meshes with Ctrl + J. Join the displaced seam by hand.
Limitations:
As before, re-joining the seam can be cumbersome.


How to export materials from Blender for use in another 3d software such as Houdini or Unity? So I made a model with a material that has a complex node system and I want to export that material so that I could apply it to the model. Is there a way to do such a thing?

No, none at all as the rendering pipelines are all different for every package. So unless the other package has a similar shader node, allowing you to re-create the shader, you're out of luck and will have to bake out the various textures for application in the other packages. :-(


How to smooth one part of a mesh? I am following an online tutorial by Blender Guru. I added in a new object (encircled in red below), which I originally applied smooth shading to

However, when I made this part of the overall mesh using CTRL + J, the  smooth shading disappeared. How do I make this particular part circled in red smooth shading, without affecting the rest of my mesh?

EDIT: Thank you I've done that, it's smoothed it a little however you can still see the lines, see below. Is there anyway to make it even smoother?

Select the faces ( if it's a loose part ctrl+L ) > spacebar > shade smooth

edit:
In the latest blender defaults F3  is the search feature instead of spacebar .

Alternatively select an
object > w > shade smooth


Cloth hanging over a cube but the cloth is floating The tutorial on YouTube said something like these:

Place a plane on a cube.
Select some faces as a new vertex group.
Add cloth to the plan and select the vertex group as the pin group.
Add collision to the cube.

The guy's screen looks like this,

but mine looks like below. It looks as if the pin group portion is glued on the top of the cube, but wind is blowing from the left so that the rest of the cloth is trying to be blown away. What do I do to make the cloth look like the YouTube guy's cloth?

PS: The project file can be downloaded from this link. The upload service that a person suggested in the comment seemed convenient, but I did not like their term, that I must give them an irreversible permission to use the file. I could want to delete some file for some reason in the future.

Unfortunately Blender's Physics are optimized for mid-scale simulations. Meaning it gets into troubles, when using simulations on a scale < 1m. Roughly.
There is a Thickness outer in the physics tab of your collider, I think that one's default is one of the reasons, but decreasing the value also didn't change much.

If you set your objects to their original scale, the animation works. If 30cm is the exact size you were going for, you'll need to work around that. There are several ways, but too long to explain here.


How to Solidify a mesh so I can use it´s measurements to build the object it in real life? I built a geometric sculpture in blender that I want to build in real life.

So I need its exact measurements and that the walls of my object do not overlap. In the reference image I use a cube as an example. The cube measures 200 x 200 cm. Assuming that my wall is 20 cm thick, I need my mesh not to overlap, and its measurements. Is there a tool or a way to do it? Not even sure if thickness modifier is the right way to do it.

In the third image you can see my sculpture, the 4 pieces i need (with the thick walls (faces) and the two examples of what I need using cubes). As you can see, the cube walls do not overlap because the wall ends just where the other one starts. Sorry for my bad english.

See the reference 2 as an example

I don't know if I got it right. Do you want to measure the object to ensure that it is not over the limit? (for example, to ensure that an object is not going through the wall)

In this scenario, you can measure the bounding box of the object and compare whether it is exceeding the limits. See this example:

[in this example, the Monkey needs to fit inside the box, this box have 0.8cm and the Monkey needs to be smaller than that. See the "Dimensions", this shows the measurements of the bounding box, so with these values, you can be sure that the Monkey is smaller or not]


How can i edit value in Measure tool 2.8 Is there anyway to edit the measurement scale and align. With the Measure tool i can just scale the mesh. If i want the exact size i cant edit it. For example i need 7.0. With the tool it not fixing the exact value. Going beyond 7 or below. Hope i can edit the value and then align mesh. Any suggestion or help.

Press N to bring up a side panel. With a target edge/vertex selected, go to Item and adjust the position of it using the fields shown below. Press and hold LMB to use slider, single press to enter a value. Note that you can enter math expressions, so entries such as -1 + 52 / 2  or  10m - 5cm are completely valid.

Edit:

The amount you want to change the length by will be the amount you will need to change the location in the corresponding axes. In this case, I've extended the length of the rectangle below by 2.75 ft by moving the Y-axis position of the edge by 2.75 ft

Depending on the orientation of your object, you may need to add or subtract to the value for the X, Y or Z axis.


Fix face collapse when subdivide I'm trying to cut out a piece on my object like this:

But when I go to subdivide, my object gets distorted. How do you go about fixing this?

When you subdivide an object, the degree to which an edge gets smoothed out depends on how far away the next edge is. You'll notice that the right side of your cutaway is completely devoid of edges, so this edge is getting pulled a long way off. Meanwhile the edge at the back of the cutaway has another edge loop close behind (where the selected vertex is in the first screenshot), and is therefore much sharper in the subdivided mesh.

Here's a simpler example to illustrate what's happening:

Plain mesh before subdivision:

After subdivision. Notice how the edge is more rounded on the right side of the cutaway.

If you want all the edges to have the same amount of rounding, add edge loops at a constant distance from both side of each edge in the existing mesh (by hitting ControlR in Edit mode)

Here's the same mesh in edit mode with extra edge loops:

And this it what it looks like after subdivision:

If you want the edges to be more rounded, move the additional edge loops further away from the existing edges. And if you want sharper edges, move them closer in.

Alternatively, try using the Bevel tool instead of a subdivision modifier.


Blender is automatically selecting multiple vertices while not holding down shift, help? So I am just working on a chair in blender and opened it up and I immediately ran into this problem.
I would select a corner of a cube and move it into a position, done with it, and then go to select the next corner, which should automatically deselect the previous corner and only select the current corner, except Blender just isn't cooperating today and selecting both corners as if I was holding down shift to select them both. I have obviously pressed a button or something which makes it do this but I couldn't find anything when I searched it up so I need your guy's help. Thanks guys.
Images:

Nothing selected here

Box select first corner

Box select second corner, not holding down shift

At the top of the window you should see the select tool 'Mode' this indicates whether it should Replace, Extend, Subtract, Invert or Intersect the selection - presumably you have somehow changed the mode to Extend (add to the existing selection).

Note that as well as the selection tool in the tool shelf you can alternatively press B for a box select. This does not use the same selection mode and instead defaults to 'Extend' the selection - unless you hold Shift to indicate Subtract.


using python to find object with the pixel information from the render I wanted to know if anyone had to find a object by only knowing the pixel (x: 300, y: 300)information in a final render say like (essentially using camera view)

Is there a way to find the correct object on that pixel from the scene (retrieve the object ID) by scripting via python in blender.
Example scene would be:(essentially this but the other way round from 2d to 3d object How to find image coordinates of the rendered vertex?)

This is no complete answer, but I suggest using the 2D to 3D script you linked.

The script and some other simple methods provide the following information:

Every vertex and its coordinates in 3D (scene) and 2D (rendered image)
Every face (list of vertices)
The object to which a vertice belongs

Given a 2D coordinate, we can find the closest vertices  by calculating the eulcidean distance.

Now we can find the 3D coordinates of those vertices and get the Objects they belong to.

There might be multiple possible objects so we can either calculate the closest view-intersecting-face  or if we have a simple scene just take the vertice that is closest to the camera (3D euclidean distance)


What is the best solution for this UV problem? I am following tutorial for an AKM and I am having trouble straightening these faces. The reason I am asking this is because the modeling and UV parts are done in 3DS MAX and I use Blender. So far, I have been able to follow along but this part is giving me some trouble. I want to straighten them because I want the texture to follow the shape of the magazine but I don't know how to do that.

I am still learning how to use TexTools and UV Squares and the Rectify option does not work, as you can see in the first image.

What is the best solution for this problem? Thank you!

My proposed solution:

Map the item as it is. The UV-map is bent.
In the UV-editor, manually straighten the outer edges. Using SX0 or SY0 for instance.
Select the outer edges and pin them. Toggle pinning with P.
Go back to the 3D editor and do the UV-mapping again.

The pinned vertices should stay as they were and the inside should be remapped to follow.

When you pin a vertex in the UV-editor, it is marked with a red border.


Record mouse movements for Animation = gone? What happened with that?

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Mstram/IPO_Mouse_Recording
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Aligorith/Record_Tool

I am trying to record camera framing with the mouse (the camera already has keyframed positions - basically I try to be the camera operator, pushed on a dolly)

Any ideas? thanks!

Set Automatic Keyframe insertion

Play animation (Alt + A)
Move the camera

NOTE: Since the animation plays in a loop, pay attention not to replace the keyframes you've just added...


Position all selected vertices to the same place Can I position all selected vertices to the same place?

I basically want to set all of their x positions to 0.

Just found an answer from: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?167457-Transform-multiple-vertices-flatten-snap-to

  There are two methods that I usually use

  select the vertices and press S Z 0 to put all the vertices in the same z-position, then move then set the 'Median Z'
  value in the transform properties.
  put the cursor in the wanted z-position, select the wanted vertices and set pivot to 3d cursor, then press  S Z 0


Animation import into Unity - mesh deform I rigged some FPS hands and a gun and started make animations. I'm really struggling import my animation from Blender 2.8 to Unity.

The Animations look fine in Blender like it should, but are messed up in Unity.

don't know the causes of this problem and already searched several hours for a solution.

Changing the compression of the animation in Unity makes this problem less bad, but its still noticeable and for sure not a proper solution.

If you need more info about the project settings just let me know.

The method I use is to select in pose mode all (and only) deforming bones, go to Menu Pose/animation/Bake action, and create a new action, clearing all constraints and parenting, so that the Fbx I'm exporting is a clean rig, with no constraints, associated to the clean mesh. Make a copy of both mesh and rig before any attempt (You'll have to try out some exporting preferences, according to the needs). It works fine.


Is it possible to have an object ignore a certain light source but still be affected by others? I want to create an effect on a character where their skin and clothing are effected by two different light sources. The clothing should only reflect a bright bounce light, but have the skin should not be affected by this light source.

In the example image I have two objects a cube, a sphere and three emission  lights . I want the two white lights to hit both objects, and I need the purple light to hit and reflect off of the sphere, but ignore the cube entirely (no reflections).

Someone suggested to composite the layers together, it works... but this is very impractical and cumbersome because it forces the background to be transparent and it will be a pain to try and layer together a more complex scene, especially if its animated which is what I want this effect for.

I know you can have objects ignore shadows and all kinds of other things so im hoping someone knows how to get an object to ignore light with a few settings.

This way is  more about having a light ignore the object, than having the object ignore the light. If you're prepared to use OSL and CPU rendering, (which may slow things down too much for you), you can use this little OSL script in a lamp's shader, which returns the index of the object it's lighting directly, for each ray sample.

#include "stdosl.h"

shader LitObjectIDX(
         output float ObjectIdx = 0.0
)
{

    if (trace(P,I)){
        getmessage("trace", "object:index", ObjectIdx);
    }
}

In the Render panel, enable CPU rendering, and OSL.

In the Properties > Object > Relations panel, assign a Pass Index to the objects you're interested in discriminating. In this example, there are two cubes - the one on the left has an index of 10, the one on the right, 20. They both have plain white BSDF materials.

One spotlight, shaded with the node tree shown on the left, is lighting the scene. With this set-up, it lights the left cube pink and the right cube green.(You could use the objects' indices in any way you choose, including ignoring all objects within a range of ID's)

EDIT in response to comments:

Yes you can have more than two colors, because you can do anything you like with the Object IDs. In this example, the objects have IDs of 2,4,6,8 and 10 respectively, and the plane they're sitting on has an ID of 12.

Here, I've got rid of the  bounced diffuse light the clunky way, by simply going to the Properties > Cycles Settings of all the objects except the plane, and unchecking the 'Diffuse' ray visibility in each of them. That means they make no bounced diffuse contribution to the lighting in the scene at all.

If you wanted more control than that, you could use a combination of the Light Path node with the OSL node given here, in the shading of the objects, to specify which other objects received a diffuse contribution from them, and how. (That would be treating the objects in much the same way as we have treated the lamps in this answer. From the point of view of their diffuse, light-scattering rays, objects are lamps ... sort of.)

For the use of the Light Path node, and getting your head around reverse ray-tracing, I think this is a nice tutorial.


How do you make flat shading for games? Just wanted advice on how to make flat shaders/renders like this for game characters. Especially transparent ones like the frog's raincoat and the glass cover of the terrarium.  Any help would be appreciated! :)  first image is from https://izachudy.com/post/165380040065/this-summer-i-participated-in-a-game-jam-with and the second is from https://aveadore.tumblr.com/post/163060936668/tiny-garden-for-this-month-low-poly-challenge

Shaders are managed by the render engines. If you want to make assets for a video game, then the render engine is the game engine, and so the way to make shaders in it depends on him, not on Blender. The shaders will be made in your game engine and might not have an equivalent in Blender.

The only thing you can do in Blender is to prepare the textures you will use in your shaders, as well as assign materials slots on your mesh if you need several materials on a single mesh.


Background Video Rendering I am about to render an Animation with a background video and already did it once, but I'm too stupid to remember how I did it, and can't find any useful tutorial how to do it. So I set the Video as Background "Image", turned on Paper Sky in the "World"-Section and created a Texture with the Video, so what did I forget? When I render it, there's only an image of it in the background but it's not moving.

Can you help me?

I think that there is a better method to use compositor instead and load your image sequence there, then pass your render layer with transparent BG and mix them with an Alpha Over. You will have much more control over your final output and this method is proven for both BI and Cycles.


Animation fade to black? I'm making an animation and at the end I want the screen to fade to black. Is there a way of doing that with an animation? Or do I have to first render the animation and then re-open it when it has been made into an MP4 and then import back into the video editor, add the fade to black and then render it again in the editor? That seems like a lot of work for something so simple.

Fade-to-black can be achieved in Blender if you feel like third-party video-editing software is not optimal, or the most succinct.

Assemble your image sequence/movie file into the Sequencer.
Scrub to a part in the timeline where you'd like to begin fading to black.

Goto to Sequencer menu, click Add -> Effect Strip -> Color.  (It defaults to Black, but you can make it any color).  Note this strip should be on top of your image sequence/movie file.

Select this color strip, and hit N to examine its properties over on the right.
Find the Opacity settings just in the Edit Strip section.
Scrub to the beginning of this Color strip.
Set the opacity to 0.  With the cursor over top of the slider, hit I to keyframe it.
Scrub to the end of the Color strip.
Change the opacity, this time to 1.0, and with the cursor in the slider field, hit I.  The color's opacity is now interpolated over the duration of the strip.

You can also fine-tune the interpolation like any keyframe by opening this strip in the F-Curve editor.  Happy editing!


Possible to put XBOX 360 Controller inputs with logic bricks? I am making a game on Windows with BGE and was trying to add a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard.  I cant seem to get blender to recognize the buttons on the controller when I press them like I would with a keyboard or mouse. Is it supposed to recognize that or is my controller driver not working properly? Help would be awesome!

I think you can use the Joystick sensor; However, you do have to configure it accordingly, using the button and axis numbers.


Appended Group Objects No Longer Work in BGE I designed an automated garage door for the BGE that uses rigid body physics and logic bricks to open and close. I made it in one blend file and then added the objects that comprise it to an object group so I could easily append it into other files. However, when I append it and try to run it, the logic no longer has any effect.

Here is the file that I appended it to:

test-door.blend

I have checked the logic bricks and everything else in the file to assure that it's all the same as in the original file, but I can find nothing wrong.

The door is designed to open when a character with the property 'door_key' comes near to an empty placed at the door, and should close again when the character gets near other empties further away on either side of the door. The support bar for the door moves between two other empties that act as targets for the support bar to move towards when opening or closing, The door hangs from the support bar using constraints.

I'm stumped. Can someone please look at this and see if you can find the problem? Thanks in advance.

I just wanted to apologise that my answer is made up of two images, but stackechange wouldn't let me post more than two images and as you can see I wanted to post five, so as a compromise I instead posted two images of my answer containing the images that I wanted to use.


How do I create a bumpy reflective material? I'm doing a project for practice, and I want to recreate this lighting shown below. I don't know too much about nodes and node setups (I'm currently studying it). I believe I have the appropriate light for this scene, I just need to know what nodes or settings to use.

Effect I'm trying to achieve

Creating a bumpy reflective material is easy using procedural textures and bump nodes.

Step 1: Make sure that you are using Cycles Render

Step 2: Add a Bump Node With Shift+A, and under Vector choose Bump.

Step 3: Connect the Normal output of the Bump node with the Normal input of the Material you are using (In most cases this will be a Diffuse material.)

Step 4: Add a Voronoi Texture node with Shift+A, and under Texture choose Voronoi Texture.

Step 5: Connect the Fac output of the Voronoi Texture node with the Height input of the Bump node.
You'll notice that this already begins to warp the lighting effects on your model the way that you would want them to.

Step 5: Now you just have to adjust the Scale value of the Voronoi Texture node to your liking.
Also, adjust the Strength value on the Bump node, so that the effect on the lighting isn't as harsh.

Your end node setup should look something like this:

Note: This same process applies for any other Texture node, I just used Voronoi for example because it looks close to the effect OP is trying to achieve.