How do I get per-vertex tangents (and bitangents) in my export script? I'm writing a script to export models from Blender to be used in my custom OpenGL engine.  My engine wants vertices to be in a big solid "array of structs" block, with each vertex having the same amount of data, so I can easily load it into a vertex buffer object.  I started out by just exporting the positions and normals which was easy, but getting to UVs my job became more complicated, because each "vertex" could have multiple UVs.

My solution was to go over each polygon first, and for each corner of the polygon, store a whole new vertex in a list, then add an index for that vertex.  Afterwards, I scan the list of vertices, and eliminate any doubles, fixing indices as appropriate.  This works exactly as expected; when only normal and position data is considered the number of vertices is equal to the mesh's original number of vertices, and I don't have to worry about "splitting" to account for UVs and such.

This works great and all until I start looking at tangents.  All of a sudden, the number of vertices I end up with seems suspiciously close to the total number of indices, which means that (almost) no two triangles are sharing any vertices between them.  Obviously this isn't good enough.

From doing quite a lot of google searching on the issue, it appears that blender calculates tangents on a per-face basis, with no regards whatsoever to indexing, and you're expected to smooth it out yourself.  I have not been able to find any answers as to how to smooth them together.  An article I found on the subjects suggests that simply averaging them out doesn't work, and recommends using a vertex welder, then links to a 404 and google shows nothing on the subject.

I'm using calc_tangents() to create the tangent data in the first place.  I know how to access the calculated tangents of each corner of a polygon.  How do I translate this per-corner/per-face data into per-vertex?

P.S., Should I be storing bitangents in my vertex buffer from this stage, or calculate them in the fragment shader?  A lot of sources online recommend the latter, but I've read that it shows up incorrectly if the UVs are skewed.

How do I translate this per-corner/per-face data into per-vertex?

You get the appropriate vertex of the face loop this way:

import bpy

me = bpy.context.active_object.data

for face in me.polygons:
    # face loops and face vertices are in the same order
    for vert_id, loop_id in zip(face.vertices, face.loop_indices):
        # this is the loop:
        me.loops[loop_id]
        # this is the vertex in the corner of the loop:
        me.vertices[vert_id]

  Should I be storing bitangents in my vertex buffer from this stage, or calculate them in the fragment shader?

This depends on what you want to do with your engine. You can trade some memory for faster fragment shader, but you loose a lot of functionality in the future.

If you need any mesh deformations (armature, soft-body,..) you will have to calculate normals, tangents and bitangents on the fly anyway.


no friction in blender game With blender 2.78 I can't find how to remove friction between a cube (rigid body) and a plane (static).  I tried remove the damping, but that didn't help. I found things about anisotropic friction but not general friction.
I'm a beginner with Blender Game Engine.

OK, I answer my question. It was easy. Just have to make Material > Physics> friction to 0.000.


Help with implementing Shape Key Drivers I was wondering if anyone could help me out with figuring out how to use Shape Key Drivers for the model that I've been working on for quite a while.

Basically, I need my model's head to be able to tilt upwards, going from this...

...to this...

...without any problematic mesh deformations, like in the picture below, or the head losing it's general shape, which has been quite a bit of problem for me while trying to setup the head.

The only option I've found thus far in getting the head to bend in the way that I want it to has been to use Shape Keys to iron out the deformation problem near the neck.  The problem now, however, is that I still need to somehow get the Shape Key to work when the "muzzle" bone is rotated upwards.  I've been trying to apply a Shape Key Driver to see if that would work, but unfortunately, I can't seem get the driver to work properly and looking up tutorials on Shape Key Drivers hasn't exactly provided much help either.

I greatly need help in how to properly setup a Shape Key Driver, and any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT:

After failing to properly implement the Shape Key Driver, I've noticed that I am no longer able to manipulate the Shape Key Value.  Every time I try to move the slider I get an error message at the top of the screen reading "Can't edit driven number value, see graph editor for the driver setup".  I'm not sure what the error message is referring to or whether or not it helps in identifying why I'm unable to implement the Shape Key Driver but I thought it would worth mentioning anyway.

Also, I'd appreciate it if people would stay focused on the subject of how to implement Shape Key Drivers. I'm well aware that the way the armature for the head is set up is unconventional to say the least, but unless there is something seriously wrong that would cause a major problem with setting up the Drivers, I would much prefer to keep the focus on the main subject at hand.

You need to know, that weight are not describe how bone influence on mesh. Instead, weight describes how the effect on the mesh is distributed between the bones. So if you have setup only one bone, 100% affects is from this bone even if you set 0.0001 weight.

Also, you can get nicer and smother results if you set armature modifier before subsurf.


Why is my background image not scaling right? I'm trying to use background images for modeling, but some of the images aren't the right scale when i import them. For clarification:

You can clearly see that both of the images have the right length/width. However, this is the result when I overlap them in blender:

How is this possible? The size of all images in blender is set to 10.

It may have something to do with the aspect ratio of the images. Try setting the scale of the vertical image to 5.


I merge 2 vertex and become weird ,How can i fix? First pic :Before merge
Second pic: After merge

To me, it looks like you have not cleared one side of your mesh before setting up the mirror modifier.
So if you still have both sides of the mesh and you're trying to merge things from both sides, the result is quite straightforward.

The mirror modifier is meant to literally duplicate symmetrically your mesh. Its purpose is for you to handle only a fraction of the mesh. But you have to cut out the part you want to let to the mirror modifier first.

So, if that's the issue:

In edit mode, Numpad 1 for front view, use Z to set the wireframe mode (it will allow you to select hidden geometry).
Select one side of your mesh up to the center with B and delete it.


Weight painting for everything? I am a bit confused as to what weight painting affects in Blender. The obvious one is that it affects the mesh that is skinned to an armature or bone system, but it also affects the pinning in vertex groups for cloth and I think a lot other stuff in physic systems, also it affects the hair in the particle system and probably a lot more things.

I just don't understand how that works if you combine f.e. a weight painted mesh on an armature with weight painted areas for hair growth. Where do you specify what this specific weight paint is used for? Or can each mesh only be weight painted one way and it affects everything that uses weight paint information?

To sum it up:

Creating a vertex group is just saying that this group of vertex will have this name, it can be useful for several purposes, some groups will be useful to parent the vertices to an armature, others for particles, etc...

You can create as many vertex groups as you want, and each vertex group is independent from the others. For example some vertices can be part of several vertex groups.

To create a vertex group click on the « + » button on the right of the Vertex Groups list, give it a name and select this group. If you haven’t any vertex group yet and you begin to paint in Weight Paint mode, it will automatically create a vertex group.

To choose the vertices that will be part of this Vertex Group you can either do it with Weight Paint mode with the brush, or in Edit mode with the Assign button below the Vertex Groups list.

A vertice can be only 50% (or 70% or 10% or whatever %) part of a group, it means for example that when you assign an effect to this group, this part of the group will only produce 50% of this effect.

When you paint in Weight Paint mode, only the part that is red, yellow or green (i.e. not blue) is assigned to the vertex group that is selected in the Vertex Groups list. The more the zone is red, the more it is 100% part of the vertex group. The blue zone is not part of this selected group, but it can be part of another vertex group: select the other vertex groups of your Vertex Groups list to check it out.

If you want to create or modify a vertex group in Edit mode, select a group of vertices and click Assign under the Vertex Groups list. The Weight factor will determine how much weight you want to give to some vertices, if you want them to be 100% part of this group (equivalent to red), or only 50%, etc...

I hope it answers your question...


Hair children aren't showing in particle edit mode Can't display children hair from particle edit mode as it is shown on this famous video at 1:40:
Blender Hair Tutorial Part 1 (styling the hair)

I have to go back to the object mode so the additionals spline appears.

Is there any way to display the extra hair directly while editing?

You have to enable the children option in the top right corner of the window before painting your strands, then the preview is working:


Use color Material while in Edit / Wire Mode I'm using topology for face modeling. I am following a face pattern used in Blender in the Sintel character. I'd like to see colored faces WHILE I am placing vertices and mapping out the face IN EDIT & WIRE MODE.

This is a screen shot of what I am working on. I am following a pattern and would like to map the colors on to what I've explained above in EDIT MODE. The orange is what I have selected to group-vertex as red regions of the face topology, which I'd like to see as light red in edit mode and not in solid mode which is what I've accomplished with some help.

Intended Wish List: Done in PhotoShop as what I want to see while editing

You can use Vertex Paint for this task.

Enter Edit mode, select face edgeloops which you'd like to be the same color.
Switch to Vertex Paint mode and enable Face selection masking for painting option in 3D View header to paint only on selected vertices which form faces. Faces which were selected in Edit mode will become slightly different from others of the mesh, showing that they are selected.
Paint with any brush radius because the accuracy is not important any more. Rotate viewport in order to paint from different angles. Change colors for different edge loops as desired.

Now when in Edit or Object mode turn on Textured Solid in N panel > Shading scroll. In Solid or Texture viewport shading the edgeloops will be shown painted.

Note: this works only for Blender Internal. For Cycles you probably should bake colors to image and use it as a texture in order they to be seen in Edit mode.


Can I modify the #frame expression so it switches values slower? I tried to add things like /2, /4 or so but it doesnt work like that.
I made a procedural water shader and thus want to get the constant movement, but it is too crazy with #frame.

Increase the values :
Example: #frame/100


Why Is the cloth simulation on my model turning into spikes? I'm not entirely sure how to describe this, but the cloth physics on my model seem to be going everywhere.
My goal is to get the clothing to rest on the model. The character model is 1.6 meters tall. Let me know if there's any other information you need!

I can't fully tell but...did you bake the cloth physics, and then edit your mesh? If you edit the mesh after a bake, a lot of the times it will end up like this, especially if you edit pinned vertices. Remove the physics, make your edits, and then reapply the cloth physics.


Selecting keys in Graph Editor from different channels at same time and value? Is it possible in the Graph Editor to select keyframes from different channels that are stacked on the same time and value? I have tried box select, various shift-select combinations, the k and alt-k hotkeys for column select etc. without success. It doesn't matter if I have all my channels selected, I can only select a single key. This is really a problem for my workflow-- but perhaps I am missing something obvious.

On the left I've made all 3 channels active-- on the right after box select only one channel and key have been selected.

Thanks

Answering my own question: I finally realized that I was clicking again on the key to move it-- which deselected the other channels. Need to click-drag away from the keys to move them together.

BUT... when multiple keys are selected the numeric boxes disappear from the properties panel! Is there a way to assign a single numeric value to multiple keys?


How to paint "Noise Texture" with Alpha Transparency? (Image Editor) On trying to paint Noise texture(eg Voronoi) with layer alpha set to "0",Blender paints(brush mode - Overlay) the entire texture (as black) instead of painting only the non alpha values.
Is there any way to paint noise texture with alpha transparency using Texture/Texture Masks?

Your brush mix mode shouldn't be overlay, the color mix mode of the texture you are painting onto should be overlay. The overlay mix mode of the brush only affects pixels present in the image texture you are painting, causing new pixels to 'overlay' the pixels in the image. Overlay mix mode of the image texture to the next below will affect all the pixels of those underneath in that next image slot, which might be what you are looking for. Another way to do this is to use a Brush Mask texture with color ramp turned on and squeezed for desired contrast, and then pick the color you want to paint through to the image texture.


How can I get a particular editor space in python? Right now, to set the current action before rendering, I am doing this to find the dopesheet editor space:

dope_sheet = None
for space in bpy.context.area.spaces:
    if space.type == 'DOPESHEET_EDITOR':
        dope_sheet = space
        break
else
    print('CANNOT FIND DOPESHEET_EDITOR IN bpy.context.area.spaces!!!')
    return

Is there some easier way to get the dopesheet editor than searching spaces for it?

Your code doesn't seem right, it should be

import bpy

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'DOPESHEET_EDITOR':
        space_data = area.spaces.active
        break
else:
    space_data = None

if space_data is not None:
    pass

To avoid searching for the right area (which may or may not exist in current screen layout), it's possible to change bpy.context.area.type temporarily to the type you require.

However, I'm pretty sure what you actually want to do is:

bpy.context.object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions['The Name']


Workflow for modeling assets like this (picture included) I've been modeling in Blender for about a year now, and I am modeling for games and use Unity to put the games together. Now, I know Blender pretty well but I lack knowledge about specific techniques to achieve more naturalistic looks (closer to AAA games). In particular, I am looking for a workflow or techniques to reproduce something along the lines of the pictures below (it is an asset on the Unity store).

It looks like the author of this model created a low-poly based mesh, then sculpted it, decimated the model, baked the normal maps from the high-poly model onto low-poly one and used procedural materials (maybe Substance Painter). But I am not sure whether my guess is correct.

Do you think this is how this was made? Can you share your own experiences workflows and techniques of creating assets like that? I feel like I don't have problems creating things in Blender but I am really struggling with making them look more natural.

Thanks so much!

There are many ways, it depends of the type of asset you want to create (asset with handpainted texture, etc.).
 I use this sometimes:

model low poly first
UV unwrap the low poly model
texturing of the low poly model.  In "properties" panel, go to "data" tab and then "UVmaps", add a second UV map by clicking on the plus button, highlight this second by clicking on it, unwrap the low poly model for a second time for a good unwrapping because of the texturing
create a new image, bake textures and normal maps and remove all the materials and the the second UVmap
duplicate the low poly, add more details to the second low poly models and  bake normal map again.
And you can export textures if you want for more details on Photoshop or Gimp.


How do I achieve an image lit by candle light? I've put together my best candle from following a youtube video.

But at the end, they just skip the lighting and show the picture, which means I have no idea what to do next!

Here's the final image they show:

And here's where I'm at in Blender 2.8:

Can anyone give me any pointers/help to get me to where it looks similar to the first picture?

Thanks :)

If you are using cycles. You don't need much. If you are using cycles you can use an emitter shader as the flame, not much else, as the candle will light the scene.

Then read the following link:

Make the flame of a candle more yellow

There are options there to use the compositor, to create materials that are brighter for the scene and less bright for the camera, as well as using color management to create a more realistic


Is there a way to change brush fuzziness in paint mode? Is there a way to make the texture paint brush fuzzy like in Photoshop?  I've tried playing with the Tools/Curve editor, but this seems to only affect the sharpness of the edge of brush stroke - most of the stroke is still thick.  It would be nice to have the curve falloff affect the entire brush head.


Remeshing part of a mesh As in the following figure if you combine a cylinder with a cube you will find the meshing is something like as in the left; we would like however to have it as in the right.
(at least in the render window when we use a wireframe material for the above.)

How to make something like that?

note: Face beautifier didn't work.

While having the magic one button solution is enticing the old manual approach can give more control using basic modelling techniques.

Start by removing the unwanted edges.

See how many vertices you need - you can optionally add corner edges to clarify the targets. In this example I need to add three more vertices to each edge.

Use CtrlR to add more edge loops - use the mouse scroll wheel or + and - on the numpad to change the number of cuts being added.

Select all the vertices in two edge loops to be filled in.

Choose Grid Fill (2.69 or higher) - this is available in File->Faces->Grid Fill or search after pressing space.

For versions before 2.69 you can use Bridge Edge Loops - File->Edges->Bridge Edge Loops or search after pressing space. This is still available in 2.69. You may find this works better in edge select mode without any corner connecting edges being selected, while grid fill works better if you have the corner edges in place.

The grid fill initially uses the order the vertices are selected to fill in the faces, if you initially get a strange fill you may want to press F6 (also available at the bottom of the toolbar T) to adjust the Offset until it fills in nicely.

You can also adjust how the bridge edge loops works

Repeat for each side. This gives you a nice final topology

You can also adjust this along the way by adding lop cuts between the two edges. The bridge edges has the option to do this for you and the grid fill will join these edges when you fill in the last two sides.

If you want the same result on the opposite side, if both are the same, you can select the top vertices and duplicate them, move to the opposite side using snap to vertex to align them and remove doubles to join together.


How is Cycles different from Blender Internal? How does Cycles work and how is it different from Blender Internal?

Which is better?

Cycles
Cycles is unbiased, physically based, *path tracing engine* designed for animations, which means that it produces an image by tracing the paths of "rays" through the scene.
Specifically, cycles is a "backwards" path tracer, which means that it traces light rays by sending them from the camera instead of sending them from the light source(s).
From Wikipedia:

Path tracing is a computer graphics method of rendering images of three-dimensional scenes such that the global illumination is faithful to reality. Fundamentally, the algorithm is integrating over all the illuminance arriving at a single point on the surface of an object. This illuminance is then reduced by a surface reflectance function to determine how much of it will go towards the viewpoint camera. This integration procedure is repeated for every pixel in the output image. When combined with physically accurate models of surfaces, accurate models of real light sources (light bulbs), and optically-correct cameras, path tracing can produce still images that are indistinguishable from photographs.

Path tracing naturally simulates many effects that have to be specifically added to other methods (conventional ray tracing or scanline rendering), such as soft shadows, depth of field, motion blur, caustics, ambient occlusion, and indirect lighting. Implementation of a renderer including these effects is correspondingly simpler.

Due to its accuracy and unbiased nature, path tracing is used to generate reference images when testing the quality of other rendering algorithms. In order to get high-quality images from path tracing, a large number of rays must be traced to avoid visible noisy artifacts.

To visualize this, take the following image:

The pixel the gray ray was sent from will be dark, as it did not encounter any light sources. The pixel from which the orange-ray was sent will be bright, as it hit a light source after bouncing off a diffuse object.
Most materials scatter light, so Cycles needs to account for light bouncing in different directions. How this is done depends on which Integrator is used.
Progressive Integrator
When using the Progressive integrator, this is done by taking multiple samples of the scene.
A sample refers to a single ray being sent from each pixel. For materials that scatter light, many samples are required to account for every possible angle at which a ray could be reflected/transmitted.
Branched Path Integrator
The Branched path integrator splits the ray at the first bounce.
To visualize this, take the following animation:

For more information on the mechanics of cycles, see the following questions:

What are the differences between lamps in Cycles and Blender Internal?

How are cycles lamp types different?

Why can't cycles cast one ray per image pixel, instead of rendering progressively to infinity?

Why does Cycles sampling give diminishing returns?

What is branched path tracing and how is it useful?

Spherical emitter does not illuminate very well?

Blender Internal
BI is a biased rasterization engine, which means that it works by calculating which objects are visible to the camera and not by simulating the behavior of light.
Comparison
Neither engine is necessarily "better", they both have strengths and weakness.
To visualize some of the differences between BI and Cycles, take the following example inspired by Mike Pan's shaped bokeh demonstration:

In cycles this works because cycles is actually simulating light, so you will get a result similar to what you would get in the real world:

In BI, however, this does not work because the plane is calculated as "visible", and then everything behind it is obscured:

There are many more differences between cycles and BI, such as caustics:

Cycles can render caustics, however, due to its backward path tracing nature, rendering caustics under some conditions can be hard to the point of practically impossible. There are algorithms such as Bidirectional path tracing and Metropolis Light Transport (MLT) that are good at rendering caustics, unfortunately there are no plans to implement these in cycles anytime soon.

Update: There is now a working patch for metropolis sampling, which also includes working adaptive sampling and stopping for the existing path tracing integrator. There are also plans to add lightgroups and PIS to the same patch.

BI cannot render caustics, however there is a workaround.

This does not necessarily make cycles "better", for instance, BI usually renders noiseless images while cycles must sample a scene many times to reduce the noise to an acceptable level.
Both rendering engines have different advantages, which one is best depends on what you want.
Switching Render Engines
One thing to keep in mind is that each render engine is fundamentally different and so are its settings and most importantly its material and texture definitions. As such you can't render Cycles materials in Blender internal, and the opposite is also true.
Materials designed for one render engine will mostly only work for that one render engine they were created for. You have to stick with your choice, if you created a scene for Cycles you must always render it in Cycles, and vice versa; you can't just switch at will and expect things to work. At least, not without recreating all of your materials.
Check the active render engine in the header of the Window. The currently active render engine at any moment will determine which type of materials is created when you press the + button to add a new one.


How can I call a specific keymap to draw within my AddonPreferences? The add-on I've written defines several custom hotkeys, allowing the user to call custom menus created by the add-on. To be more user-friendly, I'd like to make it easy for the user to change the hotkeys for these menus without needing to dig through the massive keymap list under User Preferences > Input.

And so I have created AddonPreferences, in which the user can adjust settings for the add-on.

Is there a way to pull in, and draw the specific keymap item (from Input) within the AddonPreferences?

You're likely the first person who has attempted this, and it looks like its quite possible;

Notes

Save this script to your addons dir with a unique name (ending with .py)
The keymaps are added as is normal for an addon.
There is one bug at the moment, pressing the 'X' buttons isn't properly removing them. (needs further investigation we should be able to fix)
Finally - this uses a part of the API we consider internal, so its not guaranteed to work in future versions (realistically it probably wont change any time soon though).

Script:

bl_info = {"name": "KeyMap Test", "category": "Object"}

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator, AddonPreferences
from bpy.props import StringProperty, IntProperty, BoolProperty

# this is an internal API at the moment
import rna_keymap_ui

class ExampleAddonPreferences(AddonPreferences):
    # this must match the addon name, use '__package__'
    # when defining this in a submodule of a python package.
    bl_idname = __name__

    filepath = StringProperty(
            name="Example File Path",
            subtype='FILE_PATH',
            )
    number = IntProperty(
            name="Example Number",
            default=4,
            )
    boolean = BoolProperty(
            name="Example Boolean",
            default=False,
            )

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.label(text="This is a preferences view for our addon")
        layout.prop(self, "filepath")
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(self, "number")
        row.prop(self, "boolean")

        col = layout.column()
        kc = bpy.context.window_manager.keyconfigs.addon
        for km, kmi in addon_keymaps:
            km = km.active()
            col.context_pointer_set("keymap", km)
            rna_keymap_ui.draw_kmi([], kc, km, kmi, col, 0)

class OBJECT_OT_addon_prefs_example(Operator):
    """Display example preferences"""
    bl_idname = "object.addon_prefs_example"
    bl_label = "Addon Preferences Example"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        user_preferences = context.user_preferences
        addon_prefs = user_preferences.addons[__name__].preferences

        info = ("Path: %s, Number: %d, Boolean %r" %
                (addon_prefs.filepath, addon_prefs.number, addon_prefs.boolean))

        self.report({'INFO'}, info)
        print(info)

        return {'FINISHED'}

addon_keymaps = []

# Registration
def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(OBJECT_OT_addon_prefs_example)
    bpy.utils.register_class(ExampleAddonPreferences)

    # Keymapping
    kc = bpy.context.window_manager.keyconfigs.addon
    km = kc.keymaps.new(name="3D View", space_type='VIEW_3D')
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new("object.editmode_toggle", 'NUMPAD_SLASH', 'PRESS', shift=True)
    kmi.active = True
    addon_keymaps.append((km, kmi))
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new("object.transform_apply", 'NUMPAD_SLASH', 'PRESS', shift=True)
    kmi.active = True
    addon_keymaps.append((km, kmi))

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(OBJECT_OT_addon_prefs_example)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ExampleAddonPreferences)

    # handle the keymap
    for km, kmi in addon_keymaps:
        km.keymap_items.remove(kmi)
    addon_keymaps.clear()


How can I select all roofs in blender and change material This is my building. I don't want to select each for each roof.
How can I select all roofs and then change material?

Thank you for answer.

You can press ShiftG (Select Similar) > Normal, it will select all the faces that point in the same direction. You can extend its threshold in the Operator box. Then in the Properties panel > Material, choose the material and press Assign.


Applying two materials I'm trying to apply two materials to an object -- one of them is a transparent PNG graphic which is supposed to be placed on top of another. What I do is select the object, go into Edit Mode, create a new material slot, select the two, and assign them. However, when I assign the PNG material, the one below it disappears -- I can see inside of my object.

Here I have the PNG graphic layered on top of the purple color provided by that second BSDF. However, when I try attaching the image texture to the base color of this BSDF, the texture does not cover the entire face of the object. Instead, it results in what is seen here:

The face of the object is black, displaying the pattern in a box rather than covering the whole object.

You just need 1 material.
In the shader editor use this node setup and you get what you want:

UPDATE:
setup with two images:
important: the "upper" image must have pixels with alpha < 1 inside of the png (in my case here the "toppng")


Model process for curved objects I'm trying to wrap my head around this for a while now. It's a simple question for what I think will be a not so simple answer. How would you go about modeling one leg of this stool? I would like to do it without using sculpt mode because I can't get things quite clean enough.

You could begin with the top spiral, making sure that your edges follow the slots, so that it's easy to extrude or add edge loops:


Nearby objects won't move independently? I created a thick glass bottle and duplicated the interior faces to make a new object to create the liquid inside.

I went in the edit mode, selected the faces I wanted to copy and duplicated them with ShiftD. Then I pressed P to  separate the duplicated faces.

Now I try to make a duplicate of that liquid to make it flow out of the bottle, and I simply need the duplicate of one face of it. So I go to edit mode and do as I did to make the liquid from the bottle faces... but as soon as I'm back to the object mode and I want to move the duplicated faces, every thing moves with it...

I played around and tried things, and while doing so I realized that if I dupe the liquid object in object mode using ShiftD and press 0 to place it where the original is, they move together if I duplicate it and place it somewhere else so that they are separated.

Also if I pick one of the two separated objects and make it intersect with the other one, release my left mouse button to place it there, and then try to move it again, they both move together, but not at the same speed.

I really don't understand what is going on and I'm sure it's really badly explained, so what I'll do is make a screen capture of my Outliner and record the behavior of the objects and upload those to help you understand.

This is a guess, but it sounds like you might have Proportional editing (O) enabled.
See if it is enabled in 3D view > Header:

Blender 2.7x:

You can disable it by pressing O or clicking the icon in 3D view > Header:
Blender 2.7x:


What is wrong with the settings or the mesh? It doesn't subdivide properly I created a 2D plane and formed a person. Then I added a solidify modifier to give it volume and then applied a subdivision surface modifier. I tried applying them both but it didn't make a difference. I would be very greatful for help. Thank you already for your time!

Set the Crease of the solidify modifier;

Gives you;

And a lesser value;

Gives you;

To get a more smoothly rounded edge, remember to increase the subdivisions;


unfinlished texture bake Im trying to bake in cycles but result is unfinished, little new to blender and modeling ,
Here is screenshot:

And blend file :

(note the download link is not working, probably due to a hashtag character, but this works: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/d/4129/2House.blend)

Note : used smart UV project.

It seems in the file that you unwrapped only parts of the mesh, those which have ssignede 2 materials (1 baking to XOXO, the other to XOSS), but other materials have no texture assigned, so they don't bake, anywhere:


How to make semi-glossy emissions material? How can i make a material that looks semi-glossy, but the "glossy" accents are being generated from emissions, rather than being generated by reflections from light sources outside the object?

Thanks!

Edit:

This is the current material.  Here is the node setup:

Here i have added some highlights in Photoshop:

I want the highlights to be emissions (rather than dependent upon outside light sources), if possible! (Although it would be interesting to see how the nodes would be set up for adding an environment-dependent gloss to the emissions material.) It does not have to be true-to-life; the goal is to simply add a layer of depth/presence/interest to the material.

I think this should be what you are looking for:

Its pretty much self explanatory: You use the facing node to add shadows and glossy reflections. If you need the gloss to be face-on, you just have to invert the ramp.


Materials change when I export a fbx file to Unity I am pretty new to Blender. I am trying to export a character from Blender to Unity, but when I import it in Unity in FBX file format, the materials get somehow mixed up, so for example the hair becomes blue, but in the blend file it is yellow.

I didn't do any complicated stuff to my material, I just set the color at the Diffuse section. If it matters, I initially checked the Shadeless box, but I unchecked it and it still doesn't work.

I also want to mention that I have all the materials applied to the character, which is only a mesh (it kinda looks like a Minecraft skin, because I chose to do it low-poly).

So should I:

try other formats for exporting?
unwrap the model and apply materials in Unity (I don't know how to do it)?
give up?

Any help is appreciated.

This is normal, occurs because each software has a different material system.

When you export to fbx it converts the information to a "universal" compatibility format, so some types of standard information are preserved, like diffuse color, vertex paint, UV Maps, but not Blender specific settings like multi layered textures, alpha, blending mode, etc. .

Unity has a very restrictive material system that makes hard to adapt complex graphic ports. In some instances you may have even to write shaders in c# code to get good results, so for porting to Unity keep your materials with as simple setup as possible.


Difficulty navigating shoelaces I am designing a shoe. I had a problem with the design of the straps and it seems like a very difficult job.
I want to cross the straps crosswise according to the lower part of the image.

I tried to edit the different parts of the shoelace in edit mode, but it seems that the idea is not good at all. Is there a more logical solution to this?

As you can see, manual editing the mesh is not clean idea to do this.

Update
According to the two methods proposed in the answers, the final output turned out like this:

Shoelaces are typically a work for curves in my opinion. You just need to bevel your curve in the Properties panel > Object Data > Geometry > Bevel. If your lace is a bit more complicated than just a simple tube, create a mesh that will be your segment, duplicate it with an Array modifier and make it follow the curve with a Curve modifier.


2.90 - Spin tool with linked duplicates I'm using the spin tool to create a circular shape of objects (fig 1 as an example), however I can't find a way to link them.

When I edit the cube all the other cubes are left independent (fig 2). I'm trying to get the sort of behaviour you get when using an array, but have decided to use the spin tool instead as it's much easier to create a circle of objects.

I've tried using both Spin and Spin Duplicates but can't see a difference. And I've also tried the use duplicates option.

Any ideas on how to achieve my goal? or is there a better way of doing this?

The first method would be to use Array / Object Offset:

Create your cube, go in Edit mode, move it away from its origin:

Create an empty at the exact same point as the cube origin:

Give your cube an Array modifier, choose a Count of 12, deactivate Relative Offset, enable Object Offset and choose the empty as Object:

Rotate the empty 30° on the Z axis, the cube instances rotate around:

You can select the cube again and, in Edit mode, move/edit it. Use the Array Merge option if you want the instances to stick to each other.

The second method would be to use Instancing:

Create a 12 vertex circle, extrude inwards, give it Instancing > Faces:

Create your cube, parent it to the circle, it will repeat circularly:


How to make particles fall and land into predetermined shapes (like text)? I'm wondering how to approach this problem. I just watched a video on how to get particles to "morph" shapes, but what I'm looking for is more natural-looking... My specific idea is to have pieces of candy corn fall into the letters BOO! I can figure out the particle system emitter, and I can get the particles to fall, but I'm scratching my head on how to get them to naturally fall into the BOO shape.
Are there any good resources for this kind of simulation?

Thanks!

You could do it backwards.  Have a mesh (set to not be visible in the render itself) define the shape for the particles to end up in, have this mesh start with a lot of particles only inside its volume, and then animate them all 'falling' randomly upwards under an appropriate force.  Then reverse the animation, either externally or via baking it and reversing the order of keyframes.
Whether this looks good or very faked will depend on the look you're going for and the shapes of your targets.


Why isn't my 'frame_change' app handler working? I am new to scripting in Blender and I am having trouble attaching an app handler to keyframe changes during an animation.

Below is my Python code:

import bpy

def my_handler():
    bpy.data.objects["Cube"].location[0] += 0.5

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(my_handler)

I tried to call my_handler, which moves an object when the frame changes, manually or when the animation starts.

I have written the code in text editor. After I run script, nothing really happens. Please help me someone out there I couldn't find anything online.

As we can see in the documentation at https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.app.handlers.html :

import bpy
from bpy.app.handlers import persistent

@persistent
def load_handler(dummy):
    print("Load Handler:", bpy.data.filepath)

bpy.app.handlers.load_post.append(load_handler)

handlers need an argument.

You probably do not need it persistent, but you need the dummy part. This will work:

import bpy

def my_handler(dummy):
    bpy.data.objects["Cube"].location[0] += 0.5

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_pre.append(my_handler)


How to model this cylinder type shape with pattern I want to create above shape (first image)
and I only could come up with this (second image)

Maybe some new tips and tricks which would help me in my way?

You can subdivide your result vertically and horizontally and then select four vertices and extrude them out. The basic extrusion principle would help you in your way.


How to render a new texture image from scene I am working with a brick texture that looks like this:

(this is only a small section to illustrate)

For my project, I have UV-unwrapped a circle to have a concentric pattern of bricks using this texture, like this:

(this is a screenshot from rendered view)

My problem is that this UV-unwrapping takes a lot of time, and I don't want to have to do the same for other circles in my project that will have the same pattern. So I was thinking that I could render the existing circle from top view and in that way create a new circular texture that I can easy UV-unwrap other circles onto. But to do this, I need the render to look exactly like the original square brick texture. This means I need completely neutral, flat lighting without any influence from the world around or any other lights.

Is there an easy way to render my circle object so that the result has the exact same values as the original texture? Do I need to use traditional rendering for this when I don't want any influence from the scene?

I appreciate any help, thanks!

You can render the diffuse color viewed from the top
but the color won't exactly be the same unless you set the look in color management to none:
Here is a more detailed answer: render albedo (color passe without shadow)


How to map an equirectangular image onto an icosphere in Blender 2.79b I'm new to Blender 2.79. I'm trying to map an equirectangular image of the night sky (pictured below) onto an icosphere.

The problem is, every time I manage to create a material and/or texture for the icosphere, it wraps only part of the way around the object. Pictured below is as far as I can get, with a color-inverted version of the texture so you can see better what's going on.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Thanks :)

I don't know how you could correctly unwrap an icosphere but you could do it another way around with an UV sphere, an icosphere, and a Shrinkwrap modifier:

Create an UV sphere.
Select all except the two poles and Unwrap > Sphere Projection mode, with Align to Object option.
Select the 2 poles and make a simple unwrap.
Prepare your material.
It works, your drawing is projected on your UV sphere.
In Object mode, create an icosphere within your UV sphere.
Give your UV sphere a Shrinkwrap modifier and choose the icosphere as Target.
Give your UV sphere one or probably 2 Subsurf modifiers, one above, one below the Shrinkwrap modifier. Test the best solution, and the best Subdivision values, it looks like an amount of 3 is necessary on the top Subsurf.
Now, thanks to the Shrinkwrap, your UV sphere has taken the shape of the icosphere, you should have the result you want.


Making a cursor (caret) that leads the typing effect using animation nodes I am trying to simulate a dos prompt screen.  using the text nodes in animation nodes I have the act of typing simulated. However is there a way to have a cursor box automatically lead the text, or is this something I am stuck manually simulating with keyframes.

This is how I did it, first I needed to use windows character map to find the Box character, and also a font that has that character, I chose Ariel. here is the node tree I used and works like I needed. Hopefully others find this usefull.


World HDRi map - colors doesn't match? I've created a custom environment texture (see below) and tried to apply it to the image. For some reason the texture comes out blue. The photo itself is not tinted (daylight-balanced floodlight and white walls), but when imported to blender it looks weird. I've tried a lot of things, including playing with color spaces (no difference) and adding RGBtoBW node (see below) and the environment texture still comes out blue.

What am I missing?

Visualy screen looks like you have enabled Use Curves in sub panel of Color Management with some adjustment there.

BTW When I see missing navigation icons in your screen, there can be graphic card issue ...


Solidify not working for a mesh I have been working on an iron man helmet mesh, and I decided to add the solidify modifier, but it seems to do some strange stuff around the eyes. Any help?

Just to clear up, some zoomed in images:

Never mind, just had to flip the normal's on some faces selectively


How am i doing so far with this character? Topology Any suggestion? do you see something that will be a problem later on? i will rigg this model, i need an opinion, my is that i use too many polys in the face and when i realize it was too late

The topology needed depend on the intend :
if for gaming, it should be low poly
for movie, it should be medium poly
for image, it can be high poly

Note: it also depend on your computer performance.

In the image you posted the modelissation looks "clean" so you should not have issue later.

It is normal to have more poly in the face, as it conveys emotion. But it will still repend on the end usage.

Note: you make a high poly model, then create a bump texture of it and then apply it on the low poly model -> in that way your model looks like high poly but is low poly in reality.


splitting UV islands to have each face separated by small amount Please note that I am still a beginner.

I have seams and UVs aligned so that the default Blender color texture looks perfect on my low-poly model. When I bake normal maps from higher res models (texture not high-res), I see seams on the borders of faces leaking onto the nearby faces (within the bounds of their island) and this creates very obvious seams when looking at the model with normal map. I though the solution to this would be to scale all UVs but without any face changing size -- to separate them by a small amount.

Is there a script for this or maybe another solution to the problem visible below?

This is my model with normal maps, created in Blender and seen here in 3DCoat.

This is my current UV layout.

Margin

In order to create a small gap between the UV islands you can use the Margin factor it is shown in the tool options panel while performing most of the UV mapping related operations (Unwrap, Smart Unwrap, Lightmap,...)  or even in the Pack Islands command.

This will create an uniform margin along the island's boundaries. That's probably the supposed way to achieve the result that fit best the baking-with-margins workflow.

Scale islands individually

If you are not interested in a uniform margin, but you just need to scale each face down, there is the possibility to change the scaling (S) pivot as shown in the image sequence below:


Editing texture image not working The texture image is a .dds file. I put it on the object in the material property. Is there a way I can edit this image in Blender? I go to texture painting and I can paint something on the image but Blender does not save it.

Since .dds isn't a supported format in Blender, you may find it necessary to convert the dds to tiff and then back again after your texture work is complete.


How to make curve apply its bevel radius after all deformations I have a wicker basket which is made up of curves. The object has a couple of array modifiers, a simple deform and a cast modifier to achieve its final shape.

It looks fine from afar but upon closer inspection, the curve seems to be flattened. Is there a way to make it fill the bevel only after all modifiers has been processed?

The object on the right had to have its bevel depth reset to 0 before the  modifiers were applied; it was then converted to mesh and then back to a curve again before re-adding the bevel depth. With this method it successfully bevels the curve without any distortion to its profile. This is the desired effect I'm not able to reproduce using a non-destructive workflow.

Try increasing resolution under bevel in curve data->geometry.


Weird noise when using denoise i had these weird noise on my render
i had changed render settings even every object material, and it's not solved

Maybe anyone can help?

I don't think this is a materials issue.

I think what's happening is this: you have a low number of samples (it looks like it's definitely below 64). You mentioned you are using a denoiser, which works fine on other renders. However, this scene doesn't have a lot of light, so the signal-to-noise ratio is low, and the denoiser is having a hard time, producing artifacts. The solution would be to increase the number of samples. Using at least 256 might be a good idea:

Another factor that might have increased the amount of noise is that there is little direct lighting - some places need at least 2 bounces for light to reach them. The solution would be to add some more light sources. For example, you could put an emitting plane right behind the window. This would allow light to reach more places.

If this doesn't work for you, please add more information to the question. It's not easy to guess the problem from a single image :) !


Python api - Rotate selected around vertex using bpy operator I want to rotate a selected item around a specific vertex like this:
 vertex.select=true
 bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=1)

This code basically rotates at the bounding box center.
I have tried setting the pivot point cursor and manually setting the cursor but this does not work.
bpy.context.scene.tool_settings.transform_pivot_point = 'CURSOR'
bpy.context.scene.cursor.location = (1,1,1)

bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=1)

The result is still a rotation with axis at the objects center point.
I'm looking for a simple, scripting level solution to this problem.

The bpy.ops.transform.rotate() rotates on the object's origin.
You can  do bpy.ops.transform.rotate(value=yourValue,center_override=(x,y,z)) where x, y and z are the x, y and z of the vertex.
Basically the center_override overrides the rotation pivot position.


How do you edit an f curve modifier? I added a noise f-curve modifier to a graph, but it's too jittery. How can I lower the amplitude and frequency of the noise?

In the Graph Editor, select the track to which you've given a Noise (example: X Location), press N to display the properties panel, choose the Modifiers tab, and play with the Scale and Strength values. Is it what you want?


Best way to create Godzilla's Atomic Breath (Cycles)? I've been trying to find tutorials out there that at least have a similar result to what I'm looking for, but I've failed to find anything close enough. I have some experience with particles and cycles, but not enough to find a way to do this on my own. I'm trying to replicate this specific variant.

What would be the best way to recreate this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

*UPDATE- I managed to make this using volumetric scattering and emission. It's close to what I'm looking for, but I need to make it flow in a specific direction, similar to what is shown in the video I linked. I've attempted using particles and smoke (smoke was a massive headache for me), but haven't gotten any successful results. This is for a film project I plan on working in the future, and is going to be used as VFX rather than a still image.

*FINAL UPDATE- I've finally found a result that satisfied me. I abandoned the 2001 style atomic breath and went with the 2002-2004 breath. What I did was create a cylinder, make it have a short shape key, and a long shape key, and use quick smoke. I make the cylinder share a material with the smoke domain to make it "invisible" in the render (could create a new material but I was just lazy.) I used the fire sim, and In the node editor, set the flame emission like so.

Almost done. To make the the breath flow, I created a wind force, running prefectly along with the cylinder, and parented it to it. Adjust the strength to your desire. Finally, I set the flame to dissolve over time. The dissolve time depends on the length of the cylinder, so there's no set number. There is likely a much better for the flowing movement, but I am still very new to blender, and it works for now. Thank you for the tips and suggestions, I will centainly use them for future work. Here's the final result.

One of the method may be using some Blur (Fast Gausian) nodes in the compositor.

First check the Transparent checkbox in the Film panel of the Render header.

Add a cylinder, subdivide and shape it. Give it the Emission shader. Render image (F12). Go to compositor and add some Blur (Fast Gaussian) nodes with the different bluring values. Use Alpha Over nodes to mix them. Use Color node to color the beam as you like (in my case I used it to color the glow blue).

Use Render Layers (How to render a very complex scene using Render Layers?) to add a background or your scene with Godzilla in it to the final render.

EDIT: You can add two cylinders and place them in two different render layers. Each cylinder may have its own deforming shapekeys to affect the beam transformations. You may then parent both cylinders to the deforming bones. Here's the animated result. I know it isn't exactly the same as in the movie you provided but I guess it's a good start for experiments.


Scuplting in z direction only I'm following along with a blender guru tut in sculpt mode and as I use the sculpt tool it only seems to work in the z direction. When i sculpt on a horizontal face it works, but when I try on a vertical face it makes these weird divots that don't look right. https://youtu.be/GliQFJMVdY4

Found it! my scale was not reset to 1, 1, 1. Simply go to object mode, ctrl+A, and click "scale" to reset. nice..


Size of face spots when in edit mode is there a way to change the dimension of the spots on faces when in edit mode? At the moment they are far too small and almost invisible. It is something I did on B 2.79, but now i cannot find a way for on 2.80.

It is available under theme settings in the user preferences
Open Edit > User Preferences > Themes > 3D View towards the bottom look for Face Dot Size


(Beginner) How do i achieve these results? I am just getting started on trying to create a custom asset library for future use in projects, i am able to make pretty much any basic object in blender however when it comes to exporting and texturing my model i run into strange issues related to my mesh.

The Workflow i think i am trying to use is: Making a Low/High Poly model in Blender, Exporting to substance to bake ALL my maps apart from an ID map what i do in Blender, and then exporting my results ready to be plugged into whatever engine i decide to use.

So first things first here is the reference image i am using

Next is my Low Poly model.
In order to make my high poly model i used a Bevel modifier in combination with a subsurface modifier, this gave me the crisp edges look i was looking for.

So my first question is is this the best way to achieve this or should i alternatively have sub-surfed and then manually constrain the edges with edge loops?

After making my ID map in Blender (Simple enough) i export my fully UV'd Low and high poly to substance painter where i begin to bake out my maps. This is where problems start to arise.

My textures on my edges look terrible

And is most likely due to my normal maps looking like this (Baked inside Substance painter)

I know my UV dosnt best utilise the space in the grid etc etc however both the High and low are operating from the same UV from the same coordinates, if thats the case why am i getting such awful results, is this a Mesh/UV problem i am causing from within Blender, or is it something in the Baking and texturing process in Substance painter?

Any help appreciated.

This is due to the resolution of your normal map. You can improve the result by creating a bevel in your low poly mesh, and by merging your maps to optimize your texture space.
This will give give you a smooth effect.

You can achieve a hard border effect without bevel, and with both hard edges and separated UVs.

Also, you can increase the dilation width to avoid some pixelated border effects.


Eevee Render is brighter than 3d viewport display Render is brighter than what I see in 3d viewport. No compositing

Your scene seems to be all properly set (same sampling, no Simplify, no hidden objects etc), so the "issue" seems to be with Blender, not with you overlooking some settings. In other words, you probably have to live with it for now.
Just to be sure there weren't any hidden settings or objects in your scene that were interfering, I was also able to reproduce the behaviour with a entirely new scene (although in my case the render seems dimmer).
It looks like the feature that originates the difference is Eevee's "Bloom". Without Bloom, the world color matches perfectly.
I'm not sure whether this is a bug or one of the unavoidable differences between "Render" and "Rendered Viewport" (like, for example, anything that has to do with the concept of screen space), and therefore if it should be reported to the developers or not.

I've also checked whether you're affected by a known bug of Blender 2.83 with viewport color management: https://developer.blender.org/T77909, but even with Blender 2.82 (unaffected by the bug) your scene seems to suffer a mismatch.


Know when edit-mode is entered by script? (python) How would I know through a script when the switch to edit mode happens? I need it for modal operator.

I was thinking on listening for 'TAB' event and checking obj.mode, but I hope there is a better way, for reasons like changed edit-mode shortcut or switching to edit-mode by script.

In your modal operator you can test object.mode for which mode the object is in - example:

import bpy

bpy.context.active_object.mode   # = 'OBJECT'

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

bpy.context.active_object.mode   # = 'EDIT'

There is no callback, you will need to test this on 'tab' event or always to be sure..


I'm stuck. Help (I don't know what happened) I was modelling for an hour, then this happened. I saved, closed it and came back but the same thing was still there.... help....

Just switch tabs. You guys should be good.


Declare a global variable in a Blender session I have a list declared like this -

m_list = own.get("m_list")

Now the problem is I can't access this list from another object. How do I declare the list so that I can access it from another object. I have to check whether or not an element exists.

If you want data to be global in Python, (within a Blender session).

Typically its best to create a module with a unique name specific to your project, import it - and access variables in that module.

Every script which imports the module will be viewing the same data.

In this exact case it sounds like you should add the object it self to a module.

import my_module
my_module.my_obj = obj

Some other script

import my_module
obj = my_module.my_obj


How to make the sun lamp not the HDR cast shadow in Cycles? I have an object that's lit by an HDR and a sun lamp. I want that object to cast shadow by the light coming from sun lamp only. How to do that?

Starting with a scene like this where one layer has a cube and a sphere are being lit by HDRI only.

The sphere has the shadows disabled in the cycles settings

On a separate layer containing the plane, a copy of the sphere with the shadows enabled and a sun light.

Create two render layers, one that uses the environment, and a second one that does not, and has the shadow pass enabled:

Combine the shadows on the compositor.


Rotate a 2D cross section to make a 3D object I have zero 3D modeling skills and this is a very, very basic question - please bear with me.

I have a 2D drawing (I made it in Omnigraffle so I can export all sorts of formats - SVG seems most helpful, but I am naive).

What I want to do is to spin the drawing around a center line to make a 3D "top hat" like object. The result is to be given to Shapeways.

This seems super, super basic, but I lack the vocabulary to even formulate a reasonable google search to learn how this can be done.

Thibsert's answer is fine, but if you're using mesh already you can use the Spin tool from the Tool tab in Edit Mode. The number of degrees (Angle) needs to be set to 360 and you need to find the right axis and enter 1 there instead of the default 0


Import fbx animation So I have a .fbx file with a model and a ton of animations for it as separate .fbx files but when I import the .fbx animation file into the scene currently with the .fbx model it imports a new armature that does the animation instead of making the model that is rigged do the animation

I haven't seen a way to import just the keyframe information into Blender (granted I have not looked up how to). but what I normally do, though a bit tedious, you import all the fbx files containing the animations and delete the armature that comes with it. Blender will keep the animation data after the armature is deleted so after all the extra armatures are deleted you can select the armature you are using, go into your action editor (It's a different setting in your dope sheet window) and there should be a list of animations to choose from


How do I add a porous texture to a mesh? I want to create a porous bone texture for my mesh. I've tried importing image of bone pores and it looks distorted and bad.

I am a newby, is there something I'm doing wrong?

I tried the noise texture and a few others and they aren't cutting it!

I need to create a mesh with an appearance of tiny hollow cavities.

Using image textures:
There are a few things that could be causing your texture to look distorted:

Ensure that your mesh is properly UV unwrapped

Check that you have UV coordinates selected; in cycles this is accessed with the Texture coordinate node, in Blender Internal it is set in Texture settings > Mapping.

Using Procedural textures:
As said on the wiki:

Procedural textures are textures that are defined mathematically. They are generally relatively simple to use, because they don't need to be mapped in a special way - which doesn't mean that procedural textures can't become very complex.
These types of textures are 'real' 3D. By that we mean that they fit together perfectly at the edges and continue to look like what they are meant to look like even when they are cut; as if a block of wood had really been cut in two. Procedural textures are not filtered or anti-aliased. This is hardly ever a problem: the user can easily keep the specified frequencies within acceptable limits.

Blender Internal:
Here is a quick example of a bump mapped cloud noise texture:

To create this:

Add a new material

Add a new Clouds texture

In Texture settings > Influence > Diffuse disable Color, and in Influence > Geometry enable Normal to use bump mapping. (you may want to scale down the influence a bit, and change the Method to Best quality)

In Texture settings > Clouds > Basis change the Size value as desired.

Cycles:
To bump map, simply plug the texture into the Displace socket of the Material output node.

Note that this can also be done per shader with the Bump node and the Vector input socket of shader nodes.


distribute edge naturally in general, i want to distribute edges from image1 into something like image2 , so it looks more natural. Is there any automation tool for doing this ?

You can rebuild the corner by bridging the edges.

Reposition corner edges and delete unwanted vertices
Select both edges and go Edge > Bridge Edge Loops
Adjust the parameters to fit your intended look.


Blender won't import .3ds file despite working in Photoshop I am trying to import a .3ds file into Blender, but I am getting the following error:

The .3ds file in question was produced by an extraction/conversion script from a different convoluted file format, so I assume this is where the issue lies. However, the file imports fine into Photoshop, of all things.

I have tried exporting to OBJ from Photoshop, but the file is empty upon import (no vertices, objects, etc.)

I have tried opening the .3ds file in Maya and 3DS Max (specifically Maya 2014 and 3DSM 2015, which I read should have worked), no luck there either (it says improper file format).

I have also tried Autodesk's FBX Converter, which seems to be mildly better except all the vertices are collapsed together (there are 1K vertices in the file but they're all at 0,0,0.) I don't know if this is an issue on Blender's end or the converter's end.

I have also tried a really old version of Blender (can't remember which specifically at the moment), no luck there either (although I did read that this was supposed to work, but no.)

I recognize that in all likelihood this is not an issue with Blender, but the details in the error message made me think maybe someone here would know what I can do to further troubleshoot.

Oh one more detail, I don't know if this is relevant or not, but the file does not include a mesh but instead a bunch of unconnected vertices (a vertex cloud). If any programming savvy people here would know how to simply output the vertex coordinates so it can be read that way, that would work just as well.

Here is an example of a .3ds file (Google Drive)

what i think is that its not the issue of blender or max or maya.... the extraction conversation step has resulted in a corrupted file... which however photoshop is able to read(given that photshop is not meant for 3d)...if you have windows 10... try opening it in window 3d viewer and if it is viewable there.. export it in obj format


Layer Weight vs Geometry Node setup When studying set-ups for cycles materials I encounter a frequent use of Layer Weight node and also the use of the Geometry Node. As I have difficulty to understand those set-ups I have made two very simple setups for this post.

First the Layer Weight node set-up ...

And this is the result

Then a set-up with Geometry Node ...

With this result ...

Although I can see some differences I don't understand why artists sometimes seem to use layer weight and sometimes the Geometry set-up. What is the essential difference in the two set-ups ?

In your example the difference between the two is caused by the multiply node. If you use an invert node instead, they are identical:

I don't think there's really any reason to use one over the other, but of course with the layer weight node it takes less time to set up.


Animation nodes, instances orientation in a Dodecahedron I'm trying to orient instances so that they align correctly to form same shape of the Mesh Object Input, here a pentagonal faces Dodecahedron. I've used Vertex Group Input to control the Guides param. of Direction to Rotation node, but it's a kind of dirty trick, not perfect clean math solution at all.How to orient instances correctly? blend file

This method works for any object which has symmetric faces of the same size. The main idea is to align the instance object's (in your case the Tritube) any axis (local) along the edges of the base object (in your case is the Pentaface).

Note: This method required that any symmetric face of the base object should not have any cutting edge. For example, a cube object should not have a diagonal edge in any its face or in case of Pentaface object:

Step-1: A edge has a start, end, and center. So, the equation below gives the guide for start and end:

Start-Center = guide at the start
End-Center = guide at the end

To solve this for all edges, I have made a Guides for Direction Loop loop-node which takes the vertex locations, edges of the object and two empty vector lists, calculate the guides for each vertex. To simplify further, I have also made a AN-Guides for Direction group-node which automatically creates two empty lists for the Guides for Direction Loop node, so you only need to supply the vertex locations and edges:

Step-2: Then connect the vertex normals to direction and guides from the AN-Guides for Direction group-node to guides of the Direction to Rotation node:

Sometimes, you may need to rotate the instance object (in your case the Tritube) in edit mode to match the direction of the edges of the base object.

Step-3: Here is an example for cube object but same node-tree:

Step-4: I have converted the node-tree of How to call vertex groups in Animation nodes into a group-node for easy usage:

Step-5: Now, you can easily change the z-direction of instances with vertex weight but keeping them align with the edges of the base object with this node-tree:

Complete Node-Tree:

Blend File:


Rename folder/file in blender file browser? Is it possible to rename a folder in the blender file browser? How about a file?

You can do this using Ctrl+LMB. Simply hold Ctrl and click on the file or folder you would like to rename.


Eyes as second mesh not following head as first mesh My problem is this:

I made a fox and rigged the head which moves perfectly.
I made a second mesh for the eyes which are rigged perfectly.

BUT I can't manage to 'glue' the eyes to the head so that when I move the bone of the head the eyes move with the head!

Any idea? Cant find anything with google.

Best,
jb

Join the objects and armatures together as one object and one armature, then parent the eye armatures to the head.


Keeping plane 1-sided while UVing I have added a pane.
I would now like to unwrap it and keep it 1-sided.
I don't want to have any UV space on the back of the pane.
The pane will only be looked at from 1 way. Having UV space on its back would be a waste of ressources.

However, when I use Smart UV Project, Blender creates 2 sides for it: 1 for the back, and 1 for the font:

How could I avoid this?

Thank you!

In your properties panel, it looks like its a cube, not a plane. I can also tell because in your UV, there are more than 2 faces. There's actually 6.
To fix it, just edit your UVs. It won't take long at all. Or you can completely restart your UV job if you wish. I recommend doing so with one of the following methods.
Regular Unwrapping
Go into edit mode, sleect the faces you want to be in your UV, and hit U and then click on unwrap. You can edit the UVs further from the UV editor, as I am sure you are aware.
Project From View
If you don't already know how to project from view, I suggest reading up on it as it is quite useful and I use it a lot. In your case, it should get the job done instantly.


Blender initial interface I'm currently working on a project on Blender and I'm still trying to familiarise myself with the interface so I'm quite a beginner at the moment. I was working on a figure and then I'm not quite sure what I clicked on it took me to a different interface other than the initial one where you edit the figures and stuff.

This is what I'm getting when I open my saved project

Thank you!

The Blender interface is entirely customizable. You can create as many panes as you want, arrange them however you want, and any pane can be for any context/view. This is great... once you know what's going on ;-)

The default layout is very similar to what you're showing, so I'm guessing that you're wanting the 3D Viewport (where you edit meshes) to be back in the largest pane, where it usually is. You can do this by choosing the "3D View" from the drop-down menu on the bottom left of that pane.

The way you got there is probably by pressing F11, which brings up the render result (which is what you're looking at) without starting a new render. Rendering will also do this. Either pressing F12 or pressing the Render button automatically replaces one of your panes (I'm not quite sure how it chooses which one) with the Image Editor, which is also where you view the final rendered image. Typically, pressing Esc will return the Image Editor view to whatever it was before. Sometimes that doesn't work, but you can always* manually choose the 3D View again.

*The one case you can't change the view is if a pane is maximized. Pressing ctrlspace or ctrlup will toggle the pane your mouse cursor is in from its normal size to taking over the whole screen. This is a good way to maximize screen real estate when you're focused on a particular task, but it can be disconcerting if you don't know what's going on.

Incidentally, the 3D View is also what you have for the bottom right pane, which is usually the "Properties" view. If you change that back to the Properties view, it will be more-or-less back to the default layout.


Laser bolt glare problem in blender 2.9 So I'm trying to build a laser bolt like in Star Wars, and I added a cylinder with an emission texture. The problem is, in Star Wars, the laser bolts have glare, so I added a glare node in the compositing tab. I rendered the image with the camera, and there was no difference.

You need to use a higher value then 0 in you Mix Slider from the Glare, or the Glare wont mix in your Picture. This will make you Picture a little bit darker but the glare will be visible, you can counter the darkness with the Threshold Value.


Custom Tab on TOOLS region only appears when there is an object on the scene I got a custom coded tab to help me with some tools. But that tab only shows itself when an object is created on the scene. Or when I select an object. Is there a way to make my custom tab on the TOOLS region stay with or without an object selected? I need it to be shown at all times.
Please help.
Thanks.

When we define a custom panel, it's bl_category property defines the name of the tab that it will be displayed in. As long as there is an active panel for a tab it will be shown.

A panel can have a poll() method which should be decorated as a @classmethod that determines if the panel can be displayed or not, by disabling the only panel displayed in a tab, the tab will disappear. To keep a tab visible you need a panel that is always visible, possibly by removing an existing poll() method.


Can't select vertices, edges or faces in box select mode I'm learning Blender and I noticed that I can't drag select any edges, vertices or faces using box selection. I noticed that using lasso selection has the same issue.
I created a gif to show the issue.
Could there be some setting that I accidentally turned off, something else I'm missing?

You've most likely changed the mode of Box Select. Make sure that either set or extend is chosen. The options can be found in the header, the Tool tab in the sidebar and the Active Tool and Workspace settings as shown in the screenshot below.


Create Rice Krispies In Chocolate I'd like to replicate the picture below. I already know how to create the basic chocolate, however I'm unable to wrap my head around creating the rice krispy bumps on the surface. If anybody knows of an easy way to do this without individually making and placing hundreds of little rice krispy bits, that'd be greatly appreciated. Thankyou! :)

You could accomplish this with a shader. The acitve ingredient is the Noise Texture connected through the height input of a Bump Node.  I added the Diaplacement for added effect, but it is optional (especially in eevee). The rest, I just used as an example of how the whole thing can be made through a shader (not just the crispy bits), should you choose to do so.

With a just a bit more complexity to the graph in the form of removing the Z input vector on the Noise Texture, you can achieve a melted, or cut look on the sides, and another noise texture (clamped with a ColorRamp) adds some more "rice bits" showing through. I also combined the "rice bits" to make a roughness texture so they don't shine like the "chocolate". The more complex you make the graph, the closer to real you can get.


Align vertex preserving the angle How to to align those vertices keeping the angle?

In simple cases with a planar surface, one possible workaround is to use the Connect Vertex operator.

Move the existing vertex so they stay above an imaginary line connecting both ends, in such way the shape is convex.

In vertex select mode select both ends and use the Connect Vertex Path (from the context menu or J key) operator to joint then with an edge.

Then erase the surplus area.


CollectionProperty - change item's index I can get an item in my CollectionProperty using index. Like this:

item = context.scene.my_collection_prop[index]

But how to change the item's index?
I want to put the item into index=0.

Use my_collection_prop.move(item_index, target_index), it let's you place a collection item (specified via its index in the current collection) to an arbitrary position in the collection.

In a collection with 3 items, you would call move(2, 0), to put the last item on top of the list. The other two items remain in order, there's no swapping of the source and target item:

import bpy

bpy.types.Scene.coll = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=bpy.types.PropertyGroup)
coll = bpy.context.scene.coll
coll.clear() # in case you re-run this script, empty the collection

# item 0
item = coll.add()
item.name = "First"

# item 1
item = coll.add()
item.name = "Second"

# item 2
item = coll.add()
item.name = "Third"

print("Before:")
for i, item in enumerate(coll, 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(i, item.name))

coll.move(2, 0)

print()
print("After:")
for i, item in enumerate(coll, 1):
    print("{}. {}".format(i, item.name))

"""
Before:
1. First
2. Second
3. Third

After:
1. Third
2. First
3. Second
"""


How do I fix this weird material/ texture of the glass? I was adding a condensation normal Map to the cup near the rim. I was doing this in material preview which made nothing look wrong. Then when I did a test render it didn't look correct. Like the bottom half of the liquid was cut off and that for some reason the condensation texture was there.

It's like the bottom portion of the liquid material I had inside somehow got removed during the UV editing. I've looked at the UV tab, shading tab, and all through my materials tab and I can't find what caused the problem. Nothing looks wrong in the material preview mode which is even more confusing. I haven't been able to find anyone with similar problems.
Here is the .blend file for anyone who wants to go hands on.

I am relatively new to Blender so don't be surprised if it is something fairly obvious.

The lower faces of the liquid are interfering with the lower faces of the inside of the cup. You can fix this by scaling the liquid in the Z axis so that these lower faces are a little above the lower inner faces of the cup.
To do this:

Select the Liquid object and in Edit mode with Face select mode active, select the face in the middle of the top face of the Liquid.

With the keyboard shortcut Shft + S choose the  Cursor to Selected option.

In the Header change the Pivot Point to 3D Cursor (see screenshot below).

Still in Edit mode select All of the Liquid object.
Now scale a little along the Z axis so that the bottom of the liquid is not touching the bottom of the cup.

Tab out of edit mode and try a render :


How to add objects on specific keyframes I understand that it's possible to keyframe visibility, and that might have to be at least part of the solution. However, I intend to create many objects at once, with a script to generate them, so I can't think how to apply visibility keyframes, when I'd have so many objects which initially don't exist.

If it helps, here's the (messy) code I'm working with:

import bpy

CoList = []

def DeleteExisting():
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='TOGGLE')
    bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='TOGGLE')
    bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)

DeleteExisting()

def Create_List(Width):
    for x in range(0,Width):
        CoList.append([x])
    for i in CoList:
        x = i[0]
        i.pop(0)
        for y in range(0,Width):
            i.append([x,y])
    return CoList

def Generate_Cubes(CoList):
    for x in CoList:
        for y in x:
            X_Value = y[0]
            Y_Value = y[1]
            while type(X_Value) == list:
                if type(X_Value) == list:
                    X_Value = X_Value[0]
                if type(Y_Value) == list:
                    Y_Value = Y_Value[0]
            bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(view_align=False, enter_editmode=False, location=(X_Value, Y_Value, 0), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))
            bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(0.25, 0.25, 0.25), constraint_axis=(False, False, False), constraint_orientation='GLOBAL', mirror=False, proportional='DISABLED', proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=1)

for X in range(1,6):
    bpy.context.scene.frame_current = X
    Width = X+2
    DeleteExisting()
    CoList = Create_List(Width)
    Generate_Cubes(CoList)
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='TOGGLE')
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='TOGGLE')

This creates a grid of cubes, which looks like this:

And it also advances the current frame, however once an object is created, it exists on all frames, regardless of any keyframes that I know of. So how would I implement this so that objects only exist on the frame which they are created on?

Each object has two properties called hide and hide_render - the first is viewport visibility and the second is render visibility.

To use python to set a keyframe for a property you set the value, then use keyframe_insert(data_path, frame=f) to keyframe it. So if you only want to object visible on one frame, you make it visible and set a keyframe on the relevant frame, then hide it and add a keyframe for the previous and next frame.

import bpy

# clear any existing objects
for o in bpy.data.objects:
    o.hide = False
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.object.delete()

grid_size = 7
# the default cube is 2 units wide, add another .2 for gap
spacing = 2.2

for x in range(grid_size):
    for y in range(grid_size):
        f = (x*grid_size) + y
        bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add (location=(x*spacing, y*spacing, 0))
        obj = bpy.context.active_object
        # key as visible on the current frame
        obj.keyframe_insert('hide',frame=f)
        obj.keyframe_insert('hide_render',frame=f)
        # hide it
        obj.hide = True
        obj.hide_render = True
        # key as hidden on the previous frame
        obj.keyframe_insert('hide',frame=f-1)
        obj.keyframe_insert('hide_render',frame=f-1)
        # key as hidden on the next frame
        obj.keyframe_insert('hide',frame=f+1)
        obj.keyframe_insert('hide_render',frame=f+1)


Where can I find a full and comprehensive knowledge about all nodes? I am new in 3D and blender. So far I am amazed by its possibilities however there are many areas where It's hard to find any logic behind, especially for beginner like me. One of topic which I would like to know "a bit" deeper are nodes. Can You suggest any good book or other source to gain more knowledge for beginner. Tutorials are very nice everywhere, however they explain nodes partly or only in limited scope.

A good source of all the nodes is Blender manual:

Compositing nodes
Cycles material nodes
Blender Internal material nodes

There are also examples of usage, which is most important when it comes to nodes. What matters is the whole network, not just how individual nodes work.

Some other sources:

the Cycles shader encyclopedia - just shader nodes examples
Chocofur shader examples - full material examples
Shader Forge - collection of paid and free shader breakdowns
PBR by CynicatPro - pbr material breakdowns covered also by BlenderGuru here and here.

Some non-bundled addon nodes:

Animation nodes
Sverchok nodes
LuxRender nodes

For the complete Blender resources database head over here.


Why was the visibility of objects in 3d Viewport restricted to a cone form? I intended to select objects with "Selection group" tool, so in order to achieve that:

pressed B hotkey with Alt or Ctrl or Shift button;
moved mouse to form rectangular area.

As a result it removed everything what was outside of rectangular area, forming infinite rectangular pyramid with it's tip on the position of my viewport when I was looking from when making selection. I can rotate around that pyramid now, where only objects (their parts) fitting that rectangular area are visible.

How can I cancel it to see all my objects back? Esc doesn't work.

Don't know what was that, but I think I fixed it:

View -> Toggle Quad View

... objects visibility was still restricted to lie within that pyramid, but it was visible from 4 different sides
View -> Toggle Quad View (again)

... can see everything now


What does the Render and Preview of the Samples section do? Yesterday, i put my animation to render, it went fine. But one thing that bothers me is: What is the Render and Preview? I actually discovered that the Render is something like the quality, so i keep it on 128 because it is fast and the quality is great for me. But what is Preview? And what should i keep it on? Any help would be appreciated.

I use the CUDA with GPU Compute rendering (cycles). I'm new to Blender so i may seem silly.

The Render samples is for your final render when you hit the render button

The Preview is when you switch your 3D view to be rendered. Its a quick view.


Python change of bone rotation is not update when export .bvh file I want to write a function using python to modify the rotation_euler a bone in a frame, the next bones in that frame and the next frame it will automatically update under this change.
Can anyone give me ideas?

the scrip is active.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

for f in range(sce.frame_start, sce.frame_end+1):
    sce.frame_set(f)
    if f == FrameNumber:
        keyFrame = context.scene.frame_current
        keyInterp = context.user_preferences.edit.keyframe_new_interpolation_type
        print('key interp: {}'.format(keyInterp))
        for pbone in ob.pose.bones:
            if pbone.name == BoneName:

                lastMode = pbone.rotation_mode
                pbone.rotation_mode = "XYZ"
                bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
                pbone.bone.select = True
                pbone[pbone.name].rotation_euler.x = math.radians(ValueX)
                pbone[pbone.name].rotation_euler.y = math.radians(ValueY)
                pbone[pbone.name].rotation_euler.z = math.radians(ValueZ)

                bpy.context.scene.update()
                pbone.keyframe_insert(data_path="rotation_euler" ,frame=keyFrame)
                context.user_preferences.edit.keyframe_new_interpolation_type = keyInterp
                bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
                pbone.rotation_mode = lastMode


copy linked materials nodes to local material DISCLAIMER: I rewrite my post upon the latest success to not flood my own post with already solved parts so I left only the part that really is still not working...

PROBLEM:
I need to replace all nodes of one material with all nodes of another linked material from another external .blend file via script.

I ALREADY HAVE ALMOST COMPLETELY WORKING SCRIPT NOW ALL MADE BY MYSELF AT LEAST, except the last thing: copying links between nodes...

Does anyone know how exactly write those two parameters, please?

I am using Blender v2.70.5

P.S.: I need strictly SCRIPT BASED ANSWERS ONLY...I know how to do it manually, of course

So I finally made it myself again after several hours of playing with the code (see I am actually FLASH ActionScript2 guy so it took me like 2 weeks to understand syntax of Python, its objects etc. and get used to it but now I have fully working script!!!).

The right solution is this:

# ...some quite long code here and now:
for r in _mNews.links:
    _mOld.links.new(_mOld.nodes[r.from_node.name].outputs[r.from_socket.name], _mOld.nodes[r.to_node.name].inputs[r.to_socket.name])


How do you decrease the amount of Vertices in an object? Let's say I used the subsurf mod to 5 and applied it, but later want to it not subsurf-ed, let's assume that i didnt do a save either.

I doubt there is a way to restore the original mesh (with the exact topology) after applying subsurf modifier. What you can do is use an Un-Subdivide option of the Decimate Modifier (expect some loss in detail though). General rule is if your applied subsurf level was set to 2 you set the unsubdivide level to 4 etc. In my case I set the Un-Subdivide level to 10 on a model with the level 5 subsurf applied.

Note: After appling Decimate modifier you may go to Edit Mode, select all the vertices (A) and hit Alt+J to get rid of some tris to make the topology even more similar to the original mesh.


Get a face selected pointing upwards I am trying to create a script that selects a face that is pointing upwards from a edge selection. It does not matter if you have several edges or one selected i only need to get one face on top selected when the operation is done.

I am OK with an operator that can select the face after you invoke the operator.

To select the (0,0,1) pointing face(s) attached to the currently selected edge, you could use code like this.

(See TextEditor->Templates->Python->Simple BMesh from editmode)

This script expects to be in Edit Mode with 1 edge selected.

import bpy
import bmesh
import mathutils
from mathutils import Vector

EPSILON = 1.0e-5
up_vector = Vector((0,0,1))

obj = bpy.context.edit_object
me = obj.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

edge = [e for e in bm.edges if e.select][0]
linked_faces = edge.link_faces
if linked_faces:
    for f in linked_faces:
        if (f.normal-up_vector).length < EPSILON:
            f.select = True

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me, True)

For simplicity i've limited the selected edges to the first, by doing [0], but you might want to add warning messages as part of your script to warn the user (mostly you) that you have more than one edge selected..

or if you do want to handle multiple selected edges

edges = [e for e in bm.edges if e.select]
for edge in edges:
    linked_faces = edge.link_faces
    if linked_faces:
        for f in linked_faces:
            if (f.normal-up_vector).length < EPSILON:
                f.select = True

This won't take into account those edges that are hidden. their edge.hide attribute evaluates to True


Duplicate mesh section and merge Following up on a question I opened up earlier (Joining more objects breaks fill), I have a mesh produced by repeated application of boolean modifier 'difference'. (This represents a Type VII submarine deck with sea water cut-outs to be 3D printed in due course.)

In a few cases, however, I was not able to get the booleans to work despite moving the modifier objects slightly, re-editing them, applying various suggestions found on the internet, etc. Fortunately, the number of problems is small (4 items) in comparison with the whole project (several hundred), and in each case I have a similar slot nearby which I can theoretically reproduce if I can figure out how.

I am wondering about doing these last four manually by copying and pasting in existing sections of the wireframe (for example). I am able to select a section of wireframe, move it to the right place, and separate it as a separate object (if need be), but I'm not sure how to paste it in so that it creates the proper intersection points so that I can cut out top and bottom faces and end up with holes going all the way through (as well clean topology).

What I have now, with one of the extra required slots marked (by Bézier curve object of the type I extruded to make the original boolean difference modifiers):

Wireframe image of the same area, with duplicated and separated 'slot object in the required location:

There may of course be other, better, or less 'manual' ways to do this...

In my opinion your method is too tedious and your topology has too many vertices and ngons. What you should do in your case is:

Create a module like this one.

Enable the Snap tool (or press Ctrl) in vertices mode and enable the Auto-merge option.

Duplicate the module as much as you want, move on the X or Y axis (GX and GY), snap and auto-merge will help to make them stick each-other. Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier (and Shade Smooth) to make it look smoother.


Why can't I do a loop cut after Merging these vertices? So, I have this geometry:

It was created from this geometry:

by simple scaling to zero about the 3D cursor, which had been moved to selection, but selecting the topmost and bottom-most vertices.  Now, as you may already know, this isn't nearly as connected as it looks; the fact all these edges are intersecting doesn't mean there is a vertex there to unite them. Let's try to fix that with:

But no dice, it becomes impossible to do loop cuts.  This:

becomes impossible after the merge.  Could someone be so kind as to tell me why?  Is there a way around this problem, or should I just do my loop cuts first?

Doing the loop cuts first seems to work, but I'd like to understand the nature of the problem.

The fundamental problem is that loop cuts work on quads; they are interrupted by triangles, and faces with more than four edges. You can do the loop cut before you merge all the points together, because Blender treats each face as a quad, that is a face defined by four vertices, where one edge has zero length because two of the vertices have the same co-ordinages. The merge makes all of quads triangles, because two of the vertices on each face are combined into one. Similarly, if all of the three or more vertices of a face have the same co-ordinates, you still have a face, even though the face has zero area.

With respect to achieving an effect similar to the loop cuts, switch to edge select mode, select all the radial edges (but not the circumferential ones), and use the subdivide tool, setting the number of subdivisions to the desired value. Another way is to use the knife tool. Yet another way is to extrude the vertices around the circumference, and scale them almost to the center, then extrude again, and scale the second set of vertices to the center point, and merge the center vertices together. Now you can still make your loop cuts in the quad faces created by the first extrusion, and you can select the edge loop created by the second extrusion and use the edge slide to position it where you want it.


Node editor connections are not curvy I'm using Blender 2.81. I tried reinstalling the Node Wrangler extension multiple times. Everything works fine, but it only displayed those bendy/curvy connections/links following the first install after a fresh setup of Blender 2.81.

I couldn't find any option to fix this in the preferences.

As I was throughly looking through preferences one last time lest I post a stupid question, it appears that the option is not related to node wrangler alone: it's a theme option for all node editors called "Noodle curving".

So links are really called noodles.


Why clipping not working I have a simple mesh. To the mesh i have mirror modifier and curve modifier. With the clipping option on. I want to extrude the gap between so that they attach to each other. But they do not.

Any suggestion or help why clipping option not working. Thanks

Because when you move this part of your mesh in order to close your ring, you actually move it in the -X direction, which is away form the X axis (your Mirror axis). So I guess you have no other choice than apply the Curve modifier, then it will clip correctly.