I'm not sure how to fix this scaling issue I'm pretty much brand spanking new on blender and I was following a tutorial on mirror modifiers when I realized my cube was not scaling as it should.

As you can see here, I was scaling out the inner faces on all six sides after I subdivided the cube twice. Problem is on alternating corners such as the top left and bottom right, it's making this kind of corner as if it doesn't want to move like it should or how it did in the tutorial. I looked up the tutorial several times to see if he had changed a setting and I hadn't seen a thing different between what I did and what he did. Below is a link to the tutorial in case this helps because I'm thoroughly stumped.

Edit: Adding a few other pics to show the problem a bit better.

So that backward L shape on the upper left is not supposed to be like that at all. It's supposed to look like this instead according to the tutorial.

The reason is so that I can grab that vertices in the last picture and pull it in to make it a low poly sphere, but for some reason on the 4 corners it keeps alternating between that weird backwards L and the shape it's supposed to make.

Below is a link to the tutorial in case this helps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LwQO_tWTAQ

There shouldn't be any problems achieving that but in your case you have 0-area faces around those faces you're supposed to scale, probably it will help if you select all and press W > Remove doubles or you can start from scratch.
Aside from that I'd like to add that shape - scaling faces out and corner vertices in - can be created in 1 step by selecting all and pressing Shift+Alt+S to activate To Sphere tool.


How do I create this specific bake map? I had gotten a bake from a friend which I absolutely love!
I've searched around I don't even know the name of the bake to even find the correct tutorial. It's not a normal shadow/AO map. It has like a metallic grey shading with more of a 3d effect. I'm attaching images of the bakes with the hope that someone knows the name of the bake and can tell me how to achieve it on my own.
Here's some examples:
1
2
3

If you give your object a Metallic value of 1 with a Roughness of 0.5 then Bake Type > Glossy, you'll have this kind of result:


Scattering and anisotropy usage Apart from artistic purposes, what are some practical uses of negative, zero or positive anisotropy? I do understand how it affects the scattering direction but I am not sure when is it useful.

The Blender documentation says:

  Volume Scatter lets light scatter in other directions as it hits particles in the volume. The anisotropy defines in which direction the light is more likely to scatter. A value of 0 will let light scatter evenly in all directions (somewhat similar to the diffuse BSDF node), negative values let light scatter mostly backwards, and positive values let light scatter mostly forward. This can be used to shade white smoke or clouds for example.

The Vray documentation adds some examples:

  Most water-based materials (e.g. skin, milk) exhibit strong forward scattering, while hard materials like marble exhibit backward scattering.


Select object by part of their material name I have difficulties trying to select a bunch of object by part of their materialname.
eg. i've got some objects and 2 of them have a material that contains the word "text".
In the end I want to parent these object to an empty and then move them to a hidden layer.

i've tried the following code, but this gives errors.

textmat = [mat for mat in bpy.data.materials if fnmatch.fnmatchcase(mat.material, "*text*")]

obj = bpy.data.objects
for ob in obj:
    if ob.type == 'MESH':
        for m in ob.material_slots:
            if m.material == textmat:
                ob.select = False

i'm obviously doing something wrong, but my python skills are still limited

thanks!

In that case, even a simple condition should do the trick.

import bpy

obj_list = []

for o in bpy.data.objects:
    for m in o.material_slots:
        if "text" in m.name:
            obj_list.append(o)

print (obj_list)

I suggest  add the items to a set instead of a list — avoids adding multiple entries of identical objects (in case there are multiple materials per object containing text as substring in their name).

import bpy

obj_set = set()

for o in bpy.data.objects:
    for m in o.material_slots:
        if "test" in m.name:
            obj_set.add(o)

if len(obj_set):
    bpy.ops.object.add(type='EMPTY', location=(0,0,0))
    emtpy_obj = bpy.context.object
    for o in obj_set:
        o.parent = emtpy_obj


Is there a way to restrict Brownian Motion to a specific axis? I have set up a simple particle system containing 1000 particles with Normal Velocity of 4.0, Z Velocity of -1 and gravity turned down to 0. I've set the Brownian Motion 20. Is there a way to limit the particles' movement to a specific axis?

This solution assumes that the motion is introduced by the Force Fields on planes. The emitter only has some Normal value to kick start the motion. Gravity is turned off.

You could use a Plane object set to a Harmonic Field (shape: Surface) with strength 4, rest length 0.2. I placed mine above the emitter plane.

To get a random pattern you could vary the emission of particles by using a texture. To get randomness in the oscillation you could use 2 opposing planes with Lennard Jones effect type. Using large values, they will juggle particles between themselves. Any that are spilled come to rest.

The plane at the bottom is the emitter.


Novice - How cut littles holes symmetrically on a cube novice here. I want to make 3D mattress, and I want to simulate the mattress cover like on this picture:

I want to add this little holes symmetrically around my cube. What is the easiest method to do this?

you could use a displacement map, maybe you could get away with using a normal map, depends a little on where you want to use that mattress (in a game or in an offline rendering)

or maybe, if you are crazy, you could even sculpt it, make yourself a brush tip in that shape.


Why is transparency not working on this transparent image texture My image texture looks like this:

And yet when I try to add a transparent BSDF shader it doesn't work properly, and the result looks like this:

I've tried many things; changing the BSDF color to black, adding the image texture to the fac, adding the image alpha to the fac, removing the normal map, changing the BSDF settings, and a lot more, but to no avail.

Here's my node setup at the moment:

How would I go about removing the black void around it while not making the metal itself transparent as it is now? Thanks.

Try this setup.  Under User Preferences, under the Add-Ons tab, one option is Import Images as Planes.  This is based on the default setup, but with a metallic shader.  This should work, but only if you use Cycles Render.

Also, I see what you're trying to do with the image, and I know a way you can make the images look 3D from any angle through microdisplacement.  To do this, link the image to the displacement input of the Material Output node.  It is best to use a bump map for the purpose.  If you got the image online, there may be one already made.  Otherwise, use this tutorial at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Q6E59hVpU to create your own off of the original image using your own image editing software.  Tell us how it worked.

Anonymous


In Node Editor, why is the RGB Curve Node different? My RGB Curve node looks like this:

But on most of the tutorials it looks like this:

They have the black and white channels.  I upgraded from blender 2.77 to 2.78, and I tried toggling between cycles render and blender render.  How do I get the node they are looking at?

The first image is from the material nodes.

The second is from the compositor nodes.

The curve editor in the Compositor works differently, it has additional controls to determine the ranges for the curve.
From the Blender Manual:

Black Level
Defines the input color that is (linear) mapped to black.
White Level
Defines the input color that is (linear) mapped to white


How to fill a hole in face? I have this bit of wall here:

As you can see, it is a window frame and I want the hole between the wall and the frame to be filled. I have searched it on youtube and so on but all I can find is tutorials for creating circular holes...

Thanks for help!

There is no one set way to do this. It depends on what you are going for, what you are modeling or any special cases you are adhering to, etc.

In your case here, since you have basically two flat surfaces, you can add supporting edge loops to the outer mesh and join the matching edges together by selecting the edgeloops and manually filling each one with F, the images differ a bit but I think you get the point. (Also, your flat outer mesh does not seem to need so many loops at the moment, you can remove some.)

In the example above you can also bridge the two edge loops by using Ctrl + E > Bridge Edge Loops after selecting the outer and inner edges to connect. This only works when the amount of edges are equal in both loops, but it will give a nice and cleaner result.

Or you can just select an edgeloop and use Alt+F to fill the gaps. (I added an edgeloop to the middle of the frame in the image below before filling and aligned it accordingly with the other mesh so it stayed flat.) You can do the same or use one of the existing ones depending on what you are going for.


Fluid simulation : sometimes not properly baking? I'm playing with fluid simulations (Blender 2.78b).
There is something quite odd.
When I bake my fluid, sometimes it works, sometimes it acts as if some parameters (inflow velocity ? speed ?) were ignored when baking.

normal baking

broken baking

I didn't change anything between those two versions, the only difference could be that I did animate the "Enabled" checkbox (Fluid tab from the Physics panel), but I'm not even sure I did; I think this is a bug.

Has anyone experienced the same thing / does someone knows why I got this ?

Thanks !

Did you change the fluid cache? There's an option to change where the cache is outputted (under Physics in the domain object), and if you change the parameters and bake again without changing the cache output, it can cause glitches in the new bake, because of the discrepancies between the parameters you changed and the parameters set in the cache from the previous bake.


Detail lost when cycles baking to texture I've been working on a model lately, and UV unwrapped and textured my mesh. After doing so, I added some dirty vertex colors to add some darker areas, and I wanted to bake it onto my regular texture. The problem is, that I lose vertex colors after baking.

Here's a picture or my rendered mesh with vertex colors, full detail:

As you can see, there are dark crevices throughout the model, which is desired. I've followed the directions in this post to bake the dirty vertex colors onto my texture. Here's the baked texture, when using type "Diffuse Color":

The largest sphere is where the body is mapped to. The texture, after baking, does not have sa many dark spots as the first image. It's apparent when I export it to Three.js with the texture:

As you can see, the whole back part of the mesh has no vertex colors. Why is that so? I have followed the directions exactly as in the post linked. Here are the applicable files:

stage1.png - FileDropper

stage1_REV.png - FileDropper

Your problem is that your UVs in their present state are really bad for baking. This may seem to work for your other texture, but the UVs are heavily distorted in the main body area where you noticed the issue.

You can use "Smart UV Project" to get a decent set of baking UVs so that you don't need to waste time on it (make it a new UV so as not to overwrite the old one).

Here is a quick bake and the results in texture mode:


How can I edit F-curves of an action already put in the NLA editor I am wondering if it is possible to edit curves of action already put in the NLA editor. And suppose that I have an action that extents from the frame 0 to frame 40 and in the NLA editor Strip Extents is from 1000 to 2000 (I scale the action). However, I discover that the action is not very tuned and I need to move hands or rotate  little bit the head. How can I edit this in original action not in strip. Hope that my question is clear, otherwise, I can put my file.blend

Position your cursor over the track in the NLA editor and hit TAB.  This will enable the editing mode for that NLA track (it should turn green).  If you have an F-curve editor open at the same time, the animation curve for the NLA track will appear in it a allow editing.  (Ensure that the 'Only include channels relating to selected objects and data' option is NOT selected in the F-curve toolbar).


Inverse Kinematics Knee I'm out of options, I have to ask... Why is the knee in the below picture not always pointing to the ik.knee.l bone?

I've read this (VERY informative) and I also followed this tutorial... But no luck. I'd appreciate any help/insight into this. Because I have a whole lot of problems with ik in general, and hoping the answers will fix other problems I've run into, namely the hand and finger bones.. lol One problem at a time though.

I was under the impression that the way IK works, is if you move the leg ik bone at the foot, it would move the chain correctly, do I need to add another pole somewhere to keep the knee from bending the wrong way? The way the kneecap would.

The blender file can be found (Updated) here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DKorMRirof7BCtw3VI2uHUaKg1PXESyl

I attempted to add another ik.bone/target on the thigh, but that didn't work.

You just need to bend the knees a bit in Edit mode so that it knows in what direction it is supposed to bend in Pose mode


Object mode - How do I turn off visible wireframe? Simple question.  I do not know but maybe I pressed a button or an option but I can still see the object wireframe in object mode.

How can I disable it to be in normal object mode as in the green part of the helmet I am working on.

The answer is simple as you said. Select your object, go to the object properties panel and the make sure that wireframe isn't enabled under viewport display.


How to start an animation at a different frame than that of the start of the loop Is it possible in the Blender Game Engine to start an animation at say frame 1 and end at frame 20, but after the first playback to start looping frames 5-20?

Try this:

It starts one animation and plays it once from frame 1 to 20. Once that animation reached frame 20 the actuator isn't active anymore. This means that if you set up an actuator sensor to a Nand controller to a action loop frame 5 to 20 it will work.


Objects have been duplicated into immovables I am trying to replicate Claude Monet's bridge over a pond but everything has been duplicated into immovable objects that I can't edit or even select.

Here's a screencap of it.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/4jMgW.jpg

And here's the .blend file.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=19hdlGl47T_9LfnlVbE81Izv3tyk5MsEC

You duplicated it outside of edit mode. Switch back to object mode and select the duplicate, then delete it.

Objects other than the one you are currently editing cannot be modified in any way.


Can i skin an object to a bone directly I want to skin an object to a selected bone from an armature that has many, but skin it only to the selected bone.
Seems simple enough.

Yes a mesh can be a child of a single bone. This is possible.

In pose mode select the bone of the armature. Object Mode again for convenience.
Select the Mesh.
Select the armature to parent Control P ... Menu Choice Bone
Note the parent is Armature with Bone Subchoice


Export every object into separate files I have a scene containing parts of a modular tileset to be used in the game.
I want to export every object into separate files, and in every file object is moved to default (0, 0, 0) position.

How can I do this?

Here's a snippet of code that exports FBX.  I tested it briefly and it appears to work.  It just iterates the list of all objects, selects each one individually, and calls the FBX exporter on the selected object.

import bpy

def export_all_fbx(exportFolder):
    objects = bpy.data.objects
    for object in objects:
        bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
        object.select_set(state=True)
        exportName = exportFolder + object.name + '.fbx'
        bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath=exportName, use_selection=True)

Example usage, shown here with a Windows-style path.  Note that a trailing slash of some kind must be included due to use of simple concatenation of path and filename.  Also note that backslashes must be escaped (doubled) but forward-slashes do not.  Give it the name of an existing, empty folder with the trailing slash included.

export_all_fbx('C:\\outputFolder\\')


Texture looks distorted Could anyone please tell me how I can fix the distortion I'm getting on the texture?

You need more subdivisions on the arch. UVs determine the placement of textures on the geometry. If the image has to be somehow scaled or shifted then large faces with no subdivisions tend to create errors. As a general rule try to avoid ngons (faces with more than 4 vertices) and distrubute the geometry at regular intervals.


missing faces on smd model I've been working on a bunch of models lately but when I went back onto Blender a day later for some reason this has happened

It happened to all models I've made, the faces are like they've been deleted by themselves. I tried to look for hidden faces and nothing happened.

I compiled the model into the source engine and the model looks fine, tried reinstalling Blender, system restart from yesterday and still nothings changed.

Is there a way to fix this that doesn't involve individually filling in the faces?

When importing make sure you select these options:


rotation in only a single axis i have a plane and it is rotated in the x axis and i want to rotate the object in y axis 90 while keeping the x axis rotation as previous but when ever i am rotating the plane in the y axis it is also changing the x axis rotation and if i apply the transforms then the animation is not working correctly

so to be clear what are you trying to make?

first when u create a plane

this is x rotate 53 degree

rotate 90 degree


Custom shapes keep dissapearing after being assigned to bone I created a rig for a model I found on blendswap to get some rigging practice. But when I try to change the pole targets to a custom shape the bone disappears but the name stays there. And then when i check hide the name disappears. How can i assign this custom shape without it disappearing? the custom shape is called PoleTarget. Here is my blendfile The custom bone shape does not show up even in object mode.

I got this working by converting the curve to mesh with Alt-C. The custom shape on the bone then became available.


How to extrude to meet an angled face? Imagine extruding a wall profile from the flat floor plane, constraining the extrusion to the Z-Axis. It must meet the pitched ceiling angle above. Is there a simple way to perform this without knife cuts after the fact? I'm currently using the TinyCAD add-on to extend edges to the ceiling face, but this is tedious and I have to perform this function very frequently. Any simpler ideas that I've missed?

Thanks for the clear reply, Robin. Your second solution worked perfectly. Those snap options do so much more than I realize. The first, however, is still giving me trouble. The vertexes do not snap to the roof angle, and they are variably snapping to whatever point on the roof edge that I am hovering over. I try it a second time with "Align Rotation to Snap Target" at the end of the gif, the result is just crazed. I must have some setting incorrect. See here:

Set the snap options 'Face', and 'Project individual elements':

Select the top face(s) of wall, and have a view open looking down the desired axis of projection. (The right-side one, here)

With the mouse in the projection view, Hit G


Is there any way to animate sprites using just the logic bricks in the Blender Game Engine? Is there any way possible to animate sprites using just the logic bricks in Blender Game? I saw a video of this, but there wasn't much to build off of. The game I'm making involves 2D sprites that animate.

If possible, will a visual example be provided. If not, I'll take any response.

Since nobody seems to answer i'll try.

There are built-in ways to animate sprites from a spritesheet
using the texture properties. Unfortunately this feature is broken in some versions.

There is a python script that can do it.

A rather uncommon way that worked well for me is to put each
frame of your animation on a separate plane(square mesh) and trigger a loop
in "edit object-->change mesh"-actuator with numeric property counter.


Smoke and flame not showing up in render view mode and in render I started making a volcano simulation recently and suddenly, today when i finished rendering my sample animation I noticed that the smoke and fire of the volcano are not present, i went into the file and rebaked the smoke and fire then I went into the render view mode and I didn't see any smoke or fire there either! I should note here that in object view I saw all of the smoke how it should be.
Pleas help me, this is for a school project and i have to hand it in soon.
Here is a link to the .blend file and an image of the final
render:
render:https://www.dropbox.com/s/n3fmv6547mkluc8/0188.png?dl=0
.Blend:https://www.dropbox.com/s/9l9lemt8x23zx3h/Volcano2.blend?dl=0

Your smoke bake has to be starting inside the start/end frames. If the sim start frame is before the timeline start, the sim won't start at all.


Why does part of my mesh have a texture even though its UVs are off the edge of the image in the UV Editor? I'm sure I'm missing out on some fundamental aspect of how UV unwrapping works, but why does this selection have an image on it when it is technically off the image?

The texture has repeated itself
A texture is by default tiled, you can see the actual repetition by enabling the Repeat Image checkbox in the View tab of the UV editor.
This is usually very useful when you are using seamless textures.

If you want to avoid this behaviour you have to explicitly clamp (clip) your UV texture coordinates.


Is there a shortcut for switching pivot point? Is there a shortcut for switching pivot point? I tried looking in user preferences, but I wasn't sure what to type in there.

, : Bounding Box Center

. : 3D Cursor

Ctrl + . : Individual Origins

Alt + , : Toggle Manipulate center points

If you want to customize the shortcuts, open the Blender User Preferences > Input, set the Filter Type "Key-Binding" and type , in the search field.

You'll find the list of the Assignement Values here:

http://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_74_0/bpy.types.SpaceView3D.html?highlight=bounding_box_center#bpy.types.SpaceView3D.pivot_point


There is no smoke in render view instead it scatters outside the domain in blender 2.9 Eevee render I started to make smoke simulation, I saw some tutorials to do that. I can see the smoke in solid view but not in render view instead I can see the color of the smoke outside the domain. I did this project in blender 2.9 Eevee. I couldn't fix the problem.
This is in solid view (https://i.stack.imgur.com/wcUbR.jpg) This is in render view (https://i.stack.imgur.com/v1FQ6.jpg)
Node setup (https://i.stack.imgur.com/FL6rj.jpg)enter image description here
Here is the blend file.

i downloaded your blend file.
I raised the resolution division to 64 (which is already low - but 32 is too low).
I checked adaptive domain.
I tapped on "bake all".
Result (Rendered view):

if you want more smoke, go to shader editor and increase density:

then you get:

more density:

more smoke:


Blender fullscreen OS X El Capitan Good day everyone,

blender v2.76b is working perfectly fine in window mode on my MacBook (OS X El Capitan 10.11.1) but when I am switching to the fullscreen mode... It is working very slow and freezing all the time. I was trying to change some settings in the preferences but no luck.

Is there any solution for this? Thank you for your attention

it works perfectly fine for me but I would suggest reinstalling blender. The macbook i use also has laggy animations sometimes so i restarted the computer and it turned out that my ram was full


Cycles - Baking to image problem (looks like seams on the image, but not sure) Am totally lost as to why this is happening.  I'm quite new to Blender, but have been trying to use nodes lately.  I'm trying to make some game assets, and am baking my material to an image, but I am getting what appears to be seams showing on the image.

I have no clue how I would UV unwrap my model (low poly rocks / mountains), so I use the Smart UV Project option, so am not sure if that is the cause or not.

Thanks

Your face is non-planar.
Go in Edit Mode (Tab), enter face selection mode (Ctrl+Tab, Face), select your face (RMB). Open the Mesh menu, Cleanup, Make Planar Faces.

This should fix it, but can make surrounding faces non-planar...


freestyle not rendering open ends I’m unsure if this feasible, but this is what I want to do: In edit mode the lines for the arms are visible but when I render with freestyle these do not get rendered. I think I have a hunch of what the problem is: namely that these lines are open ends so that they do not describe a particular area (see arrows in pictures attached). Is there a solution to this problem? I’ve tried edge marks but it does not solve my issue

PS. Here is the Blender file:

If i understood the question the pointed area of the wrist cuffs is render with freestyle line and the arm is not.

Reason is the wrist cuffs has a fill mesh.

Look this way.

And the arm line is just a line not filled

How can you make it fill.

Just select the verts and Press Shift+D to duplicate little below the line.

Select the duplicate and the above original line and press F key

Now render and get the Freestyle render


Children of parent maintain current position after parent removed? I have several objects set as children of a parent object. Whenever I remove the parent object (an empty in this case), the position of all of the children are skewed. I'm guessing that this is do to them being moved after the parent relationship was made? I'm looking for a way for all of the child objects to maintain their current positions after the parent has been removed. Is there a way to do this?

Select the children and then press Alt+P, where 3 options will be presented in a popup menu. The option to Clear and Keep Transform will clear the parent of the children and allow them to keep their current scale, position, and rotation.


Having bone animation problem! it keep on doing that, how do i fix this?

Both of your arms appear to be weighted to the left arm bones. In fact it appears that you don't have any right arm bones.

If you are using a mirror modifier, make sure mirror vertex weights is checked on the modifier panel.

Create your right arm bones and make sure all the left arm bones and right arm bones follow blender's mirror naming convention (names should match appart from a .L or .R suffix depending on whether they are left or right).

Delete all vertex weights on you model and remove the armature modifier from the mesh. Then reparent the mesh to the armature with automatic weights.

Alternatively, you can select all the vertices on the right arm, and remove them from each of the left arm vertex groups using the button in the vertex groups section of the mesh properties panel.


moving vertices along view axis between camera and vertex position I do want to model something that i a have photographed in 2 different perspectives.
So after modeling it looking through one camera, i do want to slide the vertices back and forth along the vector describing the direction between camera origin and vertex position (and not the view axis, because that would always be the same direction for every pixel of the image)
It's like creating a vertex while viewing from a fixed position/rotation, than making an edge to the viewing origin and vertex sliding the first vertex without clamp.

Create a plane and delete all but one vertex then move the origin of the plane to this vertex. Copy the camera coordinates to this vertex object so they are in the same position. On your target object extrude a vertex and snap it to the camera vertex. Now you have an edge between the camera and target vertex that you can subdivide and vertex slide using G-G.


How to have a color transition material on a mesh? Basically, I have a simple sphere and I want the the most inner part of the sphere, so the center of it, to be once color and to gradually transition to another color and it approaches the most outer part of the sphere.

Can you achieve this effect without having to rely on placing another sphere inside?

Based on  Diogo Valadares's comment, you can indeed use a fresnel node + color ramp to achieve this effect. Below, I attach a fresnel node to a color ramp with a mapping node in between, giving me a transition between red and blue from the inside to the outside.

Depending on what kind of transition you want, the fresnel node may not be perfect (you can see that on the very edge, the transition is a bit too sharp), but by playing around with the constants in the mapping node you can get a sharper or smoother transition.


Blender 2.8 (Python) - very slow rendering to .jpg My script seems to be taking a very long time to write to disk a .jpg file.  The output should be about 1.5-2.0mb in size and shouldn't take more than a minute or two to write to disk.

Monitoring task manager, I notice Blender doing the following:

(a) before printing, Blender uses 40-50% of the CPU and about 1GB of RAM

(b) once printing starts, CPU usage drops to <1% and RAM balloons to 5GB.

Suggestions?

def Print_image(outputfilepath,outputformat):

    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            space = area.spaces.active
            space.shading.type = 'RENDERED'
    bpy.context.scene.render.image_settings.file_format=outputformat
    bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = outputfilepath
    bpy.ops.render.render(use_viewport = True, write_still=True)
```

It takes long because you're rendering the image using bpy.ops.render.render, not just saving an existing image as .jpeg.


Hole in a cube with boolean I have the same problem like this:
Boolean Issue: hole in mesh is.... strange

I need to cut a hole in a cube. I'm trying to use a Boolean modifier.

It doesn't cut but extrude actually a hole from the cube.

I'm in Blender 2.8. So there is no Solver option in Boolean modifier.

How is it better to cut a hole in a cube in 2.8?

I went through the manual and found that it is supposed to work that way. you can instead go to user preferences and tick the loop tool add-on.

then subdivide the surfaces -> select the faces you want -> edit on the side panel ->
loop tools drop-down -> click on circle -> later you may delete those faces.
Add more subdivisions if you want a more accurate circle or add a subdivision modifier(you might want to clean up a bit by adding edge-loops.


Blender halftone pattern filter I am trying to set up a material that acts as a filter - taking an image plane and giving it a halftone look.

The dot pattern is made wih a radial gradient texture mapped across the camera space. A Group Node that replicates the functionality of a ColorRamp (thanks @PGmath!) takes advantage of that radial gradient to manipulate the dot radii using the original texture - which is split into CMYK channels.

CMY are generated by separating the three RGB channels, and recombining two of them while omitting the third. These three C,M,Y dot patterns are then multiplied together along with a black (Key) channel and it looks somewhat like halftone printed artwork, but it has the following problems:

Cyan seems to be too strong in areas like the fire, where it shouldn't be, and weak in the bluish background where one would expect it to be more prevalent. When multiplied it actually darkens the fire. That's how the multiply blend mode works, but how the darker color values got so strong in those areas to begin with, I'm not sure.
Areas with a lot of black lack color in between the black dots where one would expect it. (Color is dropping out in dark areas.)
Dot size seems to be disproportionate in each of the CMYK channels. Magenta has really small dots compared with Cyan, for example.

Here is the node setup so far:

You can see my desperate attempt to balance the color channels using RGB Curves nodes. This was pure trial and error. There must be a better way.

I suspect that part of the issue lies in that C,M,and Y each have very different levels of perceived brightness. So maybe I need to correct for this before the color data is converted into dots. I'm still researching about this.

If you guys see where I'm going wrong here, please point out my mistakes. Thanks!

By inverting the RGB channels before splitting them I was able to create a working setup that is also easier to understand.

Here is the new node setup:

There are a few things that can probably be tweaked and improved, but in essence the problem is solved.


Completely hide the menu bar in 2.8 Is it possible in 2.8 to completely collapse the menu bar as it was possible in 2.79?

left: 2.79, right: 2.8
I tried hiding the menu, deleting all workspace tabs individually, entering full screen mode,
but I still can't get rid of the top bar. Is there a reason it is handled this way in 2.8?

No, it is not possible, unfortunately.You cannot hide the top bar completely in Blender versions starting from 2.8.
I know it's far from perfect solution, but if you create a new window, it will not have the top bar:

But you will still have to have the main window with the top bar somewhere.


No cycles hair rendering options in 2.78? As you can see in the image, there are no cycles hair rendering options (at least where they were in previous versions). Did they remove these options in 2.78 for some reason?

They are now located in the geometry panel under render settings:

These settings are not actually per particle system as the location in the particle panel would imply, they're actually per scene. So not only are you not able to adjust them per system, what settings you have will be ignored when the model is linked into another file. Where you would then need some other object with hair particles to be able to set them up locally!

By placing them under render settings, the above issues and confusion are solved.


hello world script causes memory leak My script generates about 400 objects. If I run the same script twice, I notice the object count remains the same, but the memory allocated does increase substantially.

I thought it was my code (and it may still be), but can someone explain why the following piece of code causes a small (but noticeable) memory leak?

This is after I hold both Alt+P (which runs the script) and I keep my eye on |Mem:11.12M| on top of the blender UI. It increases by .01M every ~5 seconds.

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print('hello')

This does not cause any memory leak. It simply adds entries into your Undo list, and depending on how many undo steps you have setup in preferences the Mem reading will cap out eventually and will not grow any further.


2.8 Add multiple image texture nodes simultaneously I stopped using Blender for a while right when 2.8 rolled out. Trying to get back into it, I'm noticing that it seems to have removed the "import multiple image textures" option in the shader editor, which was useful for just batch dumping PBR textures (Diffuse, spec, rough, norm, disp, etc.) all at once. Now it seems I have to do it one at a time.

Am I missing something, or is there a node plugin I can get to streamline this? Something that just has all the image types you'd need built into one node? I've tried making a "PBR Texture" group node, but it's less than a perfect solution for multiple reasons.

As an additional aside, when I copy this node group and change the textures they link to, it also resets the color space to RGB from non-color data, which is rather annoying. Is there a way to stop that as well?

First of all enable Node wrangler addon

Edit > Preferences > Addons > Enable "Node Wrangler"

Now go to shading workspace and a principled shader
Select the shader and press CTRL + SHIFT + T and select all your files and click Principled texture setup.
Now blender will automatically set up all the nodes for you.


Cut out surplus material I have a quick question. Looking at the next GIF that I made, what is the quickier way you can come up with to delete the excess material that goes beyond the wall? It is basically the attachment of the handrail to the wall what is giving me this "problem".

My solution would be using the boolean modifier with a cube or something, so obviously I know how to do it. But I'm looking for the best solution, i.e., does Blender let me select the excess material in any way? For example, is there a quick way to intersect those planes? I read about intersecting planes in Blender and seems like a difficult task (not worth it in this case). So I discarded that solution.

Thanks.

Boolean operations would work well in this case.

Alternatively you could also use the Knife Project operator on your mesh. It basically uses the outline of another object (mesh or curve) and cuts the editing mesh through its silhouette.

It's workflows goes like:

Select 'knife object' (cutting shape)
Select object to be cut (without deselecting the previous one)
Enter Edit Mode on the object to be cut
Adjust the view accordingly, the cutting process is view based (dependent on the current viewport view angle and perspective mode), if desired switch to User View with Numpad 5 for an undistorted true size cut.
Open the Space Bar menu and call the operator Knife Project
Tick the option Cut Through so all faces are cut, even the background ones
Select the remaining geometry and manually delete it.


It is incorrect to assume the number of glTF verts will equal the number of Blender verts. Each glTF vert has a unique normal for example, while each Blender vert can have a different normal for each poly it is in. Your model uses flat shading and you can see each vertex has multiple normals.

To handle this there are "duplicate" glTF verts (that have the same position, but different normals). The same thing happens for all other "vertex per poly" data, like UVs.
"Duplicate" verts are inserted only when necessary, so turn off export of anything you don't need—normals, tangents, UVs, vertex colors, materials—to get a smaller glTF vert count.


Video keeps saving single frame I have been trying to figure out the video making in blender. I have a green screen and decided to film myself in front of it. I uploaded the video into blender in the compositing category. Once I filled my green screen in with a background I was ready to save the video I have created. I Have the file format as an xvid but it still only saves the single frame of the video I am paused on. Yes, I am new to blender. Any attempt of help is greatly appreciated!

If you're talking about exporting, you'll have to press the "animation" button.


How can you launch an object at a specific velocity and angle outside of the game engine? Lets say I have my model, Suzanne. I want to to animate Suzanne being launched from a cannon. How can I choose an exact velocity and angle to launch Suzanne? Suzanne is a rigid body.

Faceb Faceb has most of the solution.  The only bit he left out is that you also keyframe the Animated checkbox.  You have it checked at the beginning, but just before the motion of the Location keyframes are completed, you add a keyframe that turns off the Animated checkbox.

That deactivates the animation system and lets the physics system take over and it uses the velocity left over from the animation system

I have keyframed Suzanne's X and Z location.  You might also keyframe Y.  Notice also the channel called Kinematic (Rigid Body Object) which is the fcurve for the Animated checkbox that appears green in the Physics > Rigid Body section (green or yellow means keyframed)

To know the velocity you need to know the derivative of the location.  Since I altered my keyframes to have linear interpolation it is a simple matter of vx=dx/dt which in this case becomes vx=(1-0)/( (6-1) / 24fps ) = 4.8 and vz=(3-2)/( (6-1) / 24 fps ) = 4.8 and the total velocity would be sqrt(4.8**2 + 4.8**2) = 6.7882 .  The angle would be atan((1-0)/(3-2)) = 45 degrees .

If you want to choose your own velocity and angle it is probably easiest to parent Suzanne to an empty.  Rig the empty with a rotation (to choose your angle) and a starting position.  Then for Suzanne just give her a velocity on her local X axis (or maybe Y or Z depending exactly on how you orient the parent empty) by keyframing that channel of her location.  Use x0=0 and x1 = (frame2-frame1)/fps * velocity  Pick frame1 to be the first frame you want it to be in motion, and pick frame2 such that it is after the point you want physics to to take over (which is the frame that the Animated checkbox is keyframed to become unchecked).

I used that technique to launch the cannonballs in https://youtu.be/gtP2dWmmXd8


Mirror modifier not showing other half of mesh I always have the same problem when I try to use my mirror modifier: nothing happens. It's very frustrating, and simply can't find how to fix this. Any ideas?

This is because you set the wrong mirror axis.

On your screenshot, we see that it's the Y axis you want to mirror (as the center point is on the edge which is on the side of the green arrow: Y axis)

So, try to set mirror axis to "Y" instead of "X".


Is it possible to apply a bezier curve along a mesh? Is it possible to apply a bezier curve, along the surface of a mesh?

Yes, you can use the Shrinkwrap modifier. Select the curve and add the modifier to it, then as its target, select the mesh. It will snap the curve to the surface. The settings are pretty intuitive so to get a nice result you can just tweak the settings. Try changing the Mode to get a bit more control over how the curve is projected.


How to merge these tiny faces? I have these messy tiny faces that I want merge them into nice smooth faces just like other parts of the object. What would be the best way to do this?

Use the Decimate modifier in the Collapse mode, then adjust the Ratio property as desired.

Bad topology and occasional glitches are to be expected, you may have to do additional cleanup by hand. You can also try the Remesh modifier if you wish to retopologise.


bpy.types.Operator meta info based on current Frame I'm creating a simple add-on that allows you to give each frame a custom description and keywords, which I hope to write to a frame_name.txt file when the frame is saved.

I've got the basic option set-up working, but I can't seem to figure out how to get the option to reflect the current frame. Ideally, each frame should have a separate value to be input.

So:

Frame 1:

Title: This is frame one.
Description: This is some guy doing
something.
Keywords: Running, Race, etc

Frame 2:

Title: This is frame two.
Description: This is some guy doing something else.
Keywords: Jumping, Leaping, etc

I attempted to add custom names to each field using

current_frame = bpy.context.scene.frame_current

But that does not work since the values are only registered once.
Perhaps I'm going about it all wrong? Its a simple frame-based information system.

What am I doing wrong to get this input-system frame-based and per object?

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator
from bpy.props import FloatVectorProperty, FloatProperty, StringProperty

"""
NOTES
current_frame = bpy.context.scene.frame_current

"""

class PaperDoll(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Sequential Paperdoll Character Class"""

    bl_idname  = "object.paperdoll_operator"
    bl_label   = "Paperdoll Sequence"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER','UNDO','PRESET'}

    root_title = StringProperty(
        name    = "Title",
        default = "Enter a Title"
        )

    root_description = StringProperty(
        name    = "Description",
        default = "Enter a Description"
        )

    root_keywords = StringProperty(
        name    = "Keywords",
        default = "Enter Keywords"
        )

    def execute(self, context, event):
        print("HERE")
        return {'FINISHED'}

    def execute(self, context):
        print("HERE")
        return {'FINISHED'}

def add_object_button(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(
    PaperDoll.bl_idname,
    text=PaperDoll.__doc__,
    icon='PLUGIN')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(PaperDoll)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.append(add_object_button)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

A StringProperty gives you a single value for the scene, to get a new value for each frame you will need a list or collection to hold all the values for each frame.

Blender does offer a CollectionProperty which should suit your needs. You want to have a value for your string then an index or key that will be the frame that value is good for.


Visual viewport controls I've been using Blender since 2007 and before I've used (in that order) MiniCAD, Strata Studio Pro, Alias Wavefront and Cinema 4D. I love blender and I could never go back to my previous love Cinema 4D because I think Blender is simply better once you get the hang of it.

Now I am starting a 3D project with other people and most of them are using Cinema 4D. We decided to use Blender and I am introducing them to the workflow. A general issue with the interface is viewport navigation. Most of them are used to point and click so I am thinking about writing a plugin for Blender.

Basically what I want to achieve is this:

I have a lot of experience with Ruby and JavaScript programming and I will be able to get into Python really quickly. I only need a few pointers to get me started. So here are a few questions:

how can I add such a hanging tab to the 3d viewport
how can I activate pan/zoom/rotate of the viewport when the mouse button is pressed
is there an existing addon to build on?

Download this addon
Blender > File > User Preferences (Ctrl+Alt+U) >

Add-ons Tab > Install from file... > Choose the downloaded file > Save user setting
Input Tab

  Save user settings > Close User Preferences

Now in the viewport you can use

touchpad > drag = rotate
touchpad > Alt+drag = moving
touchpad > Ctrl+Alt+drag = zoom

In the Node Editor you can use

touchpad > Alt+drag = moving
touchpad > Ctrl+Alt+drag = zoom


What does this icon mean? The white arrow in attached image, what does it mean? I use Windows and there is no tool tip with info.

That small squiggle arrow is indicating that the object has an action. Meaning that the object is animated.
If you click on the plus button and open up the hierarchy you will see that it is an animation.


How to get the effects to follow the object's animation? I'm using MakeHuman, bvh files and the smoke simulator. Just adding fire to the subject, fine tuning the fire, but when I run the animation, the fire does not stay attached to the subject when the bvh file kicks in.

How do I get the Domain to follow along with the moving subject in order to keep it burning like a person on fire moving around?

I made a similar animation of a missile firing, and was struck with the same problem of moving the domain along with the particle effects emitter. I simply gave the domain the same path to follow as the missile. Remember that the larger your domain is, the larger the effects will be. If you keep the domain moving with the human by animating it to move with the human, you should have it fixed.


WireFrame Mode is missing when hitting ctrl + tab I was doing the holy donut tutorial and suddenly when I select an object and use the shortcut
ctrl + tab, I don't see an option for wireframe mode, but earlier I remember it used to be there.
I don't think it has anything to do with OS because I didn't update anything or rebooted.
this problem occurred opening blender after closing it.
I can still use wireframe mode through click those spheres but still i want to know if there's any fix.
I am Using Blender 2.83
Os :- Linux Mint 19.3
Thank you
Attaching an image-

Use "shift + Z" to jump between solid mode and wireframe mode. "Z" to change between wireframe, solid, material preview, and rendered modes.
Hope it helped.


I want to move vertices in an accurate way but the 3D Manipulator is missing I want to move vertices in an accurate way but the 3D Manipulator is missing? How can I reveal that?

It's already enabled:

Looks like you set the 3d cursor as your pivot point.

I can't see the 3d Cursor is not to be see in your view. The 3d manipulator is in the same place as the 3d cursor, therefore is it offscreen as well.

Change the pivot point to any other setting (like median point) to the 3D Cursor show at the current selection.


Render an animated object inside an irl video Is it possible to animate a single object inside a irl video. If so how could i achieve this.

Example: Animated bird landing onto a tree branch.

Sorry for my english.

You are looking for a tutorial like "match track blend"

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtuvwW4VAp5tu2RdbRHThM6FVFfvFur1g

and simpler from Blenderguru

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

which is to comprehensive to be covered in a single answer.

As you seem to be fairly new, I suggest you look through the list

Resources for Blender


How to ungroup vertices? When i use box select on one vertice, Blender somehow selects some others. Vertex groups list of this object is empty.
So, the question is what's going on and how to avoid it?

Is this the in UV Image Editor? If is try disabling Sticky Selection in the Image Editor header bar
That will force automatic selection of vertex sharing the same UV coordinate.


Where can I find the rig layer menu in blender 2.9 in blender 2.8 the rig layer menu appears when pressing the "N" button, but where can I find the rig layer in blender 2.9

It's still there.
Make sure you have "rigify" Add-on ON, add the meta-rig (Add > Armature) and then you need to generate the rig. For more info about rigify here


How do I export stl without the origin point being connected as vertex to the mesh? I have a problem in the stl's exported from my Blender file: the origin point is connected as vertex to the mesh. How do I export without this connection?

Try going to the "Object" tab, and select the "Origin to geometry". This will put the origin in the center of the object, which should make the object easier to export.


How to animate independent mesh parts I have kind of floor cell made of pieces

I want to animate it so it can fall into pieces.

Do I need to create an armature for it? Or there is a possibility to animate parts of mesh without bones?

I need this animation to be supported by unity.

Update: I think I have an idea how to proceed here. I did a separation into parts as was proposed. But instead adding a physics I can animate these parts manually. Without bones, just save positions of each piece into keyframes. Is it good idea?

Maybe you should try Animation Nodes if you are going for some sort of procedural animation. It gives you the ability to create parametric animations, like ICE in SoftImage or Xpresso in C4D

https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes


Animated texture that depends on camera perspective I am making an animation where the camera moves around. I would like the texture of the object stay normal to the camera's view for each frame. (ie. equivalent to selecting "project from view" on each frame and then rendering each frame independently)

Please see the picture below for an example. There could be 1000s of frames so I don't want to be making a huge "baked texture" file.

What is the simplest way to do this?

Thanks!

Using WINDOW TEXTURE COORDINATE
Use a Window texture coordinate for mapping. Adjust Location, Rotation and Scale parameters of the Mapping node to make the texture fit the object borders.

Using UV PROJECT MODIFIER
Subdivide your cube a few times and unwrap it (I've marked seams and then unwrapped).

Add the UV Project Modifier. Set up your image texture, set the Camera as a projector. If the image doesn't display correctly adjust the Aspect values.


Blender Pie Menu help I decided to try and write an addon in Blender for a school project.
I am 100% new to the Blender api and I am trying to get my bearings from the api docs.
The below code works sometimes and most other times crashes Blender.
Anyone that can take the time to give me some pointers on what i am doing wrong here
it would be greatly appreciated
import bpy

class SCULPT_MT_pie_menu(bpy.types.Menu):
    bl_label = "Pie Menu"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.menu_pie().operator("sculpt.mask_brush", text = "Mask Brush", icon = "BLENDER")
        layout.menu_pie().operator("sculpt.remesh", text = "Remesh", icon = "BLENDER")

class SCULPT_OT_mask_brush(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Mask Brush"""
    bl_idname = "sculpt.mask_brush"
    bl_label = "Mask Brush"

    def execute(self, context):
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='SCULPT')
        bpy.ops.wm.tool_set_by_id(name="builtin_brush.Mask", cycle=False, as_fallback=False, space_type='VIEW_3D')
        return {'FINISHED'}

class SCULPT_OT_remesh(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Remesh"""
    bl_idname = "sculpt.remesh"
    bl_label = "Remesh"

    def execute(self, context):
        bpy.ops.object.voxel_remesh()
        return {'FINISHED'}

bpy.ops.wm.call_menu_pie(name="SCULPT_MT_pie_menu")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(SCULPT_MT_pie_menu)
    bpy.utils.register_class(SCULPT_OT_mask_brush)
    bpy.utils.register_class(SCULPT_OT_remesh)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SCULPT_MT_pie_menu)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SCULPT_OT_mask_brush)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SCULPT_OT_remesh)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

The way i was dealing with input was not correct i needed to use the more advanced invoke and modal options to get the desired results.
https://docs.blender.org/api/2.90/bpy.types.Operator.html?highlight=operator#module-bpy.types.Operator
Here is the updated code:
import bpy

class PS_Remesh(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "ps.remesh"
    bl_label = "Remesh"

    def execute(self, context):
        if context.active_object is None:
            print("Active object == none: Cancel")
            return {'CANCELLED'}
        else:
            bpy.ops.object.voxel_remesh()
            return {'FINISHED'}

class PS_MaskBrush(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "ps.mask_brush" #use this as the pie.operator("ps.remesh") to use in pie menu
    bl_label = "Mask Brush"

    def execute(self, context):
        if context.active_object is None:
            print("Active object == none: Cancel")
            return {'CANCELLED'}
        elif context.mode == 'SCULPT':
            print("In sculpt mode sculpt mode select mask brush")
            bpy.ops.wm.tool_set_by_id(name="builtin_brush.Mask",space_type="VIEW_3D")
            return {'FINISHED'}
        elif context.mode != 'SCULPT':
            print("Not in sculpt mode sculpt mode activate")
            bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='SCULPT')
            bpy.ops.wm.tool_set_by_id(name="builtin_brush.Mask", space_type="VIEW_3D")
            return {'FINISHED'}

class VIEW3D_MT_pie_sculpt(bpy.types.Menu):
    # label is displayed at the center of the pie menu.
    bl_label = "Pie Sculpt"

    def draw(self, context):
        pie = self.layout.menu_pie()
        pie.operator("ps.remesh", text = "Remesh", icon="BLENDER")
        pie.operator("ps.mask_brush", text="Mask Brush", icon="BLENDER")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(PS_Remesh)
    bpy.utils.register_class(PS_MaskBrush)
    bpy.utils.register_class(VIEW3D_MT_pie_sculpt)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(PS_Remesh)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(PS_MaskBrush)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(VIEW3D_MT_pie_sculpt)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    bpy.ops.wm.call_menu_pie(name="VIEW3D_MT_pie_sculpt")


How to get rid of the mirroring effect in edit mode after applying the mirror modifier in Blender 2.8 I can't figure out how to get rid of the mirroring effect of the mirror modifier even after I have applied it. I am working in Blender 2.8 but still can't figure out how to get rid of this mirroring effect. As you can see in the picture below I don't have the mirror modifier on the mesh anymore since I have applied it but yet the mesh is still mirorring. If anyone has an answer please let me know.o

Check left toolbar, options tab: Mesh options, X mirror.


Soft Body Object gets sucked towards collision object My goal:

Having the animation of a dog character affect a pillow it is laying on.

I enabled soft body for the pillow.
Disabled gravity and Soft Body goal

I enabled collison with default settings for the dog.

And when i press play the Pillow gets sucked towards the dog.

Scale and Position for everything is applied and i checked the normals.

The problem is with the collision bounds - where the soft-body collision 'Inner' setting was too high. This can result in the 'inner collision bound' being outside the mesh, resulting it it effectively 'dragging' soft body vertices into the mesh, from the opposite side. Generally, you should ensure that 'Inner' is set to no more than half the minimum thickness of the mesh.

To explain this a little, the Collision settings include an 'Inner' and 'Outer' setting. For any soft body vertex in the vicinity of that surface, Blender considers whether it is close enough to the 'outside' of that face (ie, within the 'Outer' distance to the surface) and, if so, it will repel that vertex. The same is true with the 'Inner' surface, where if a vertex is close to the inner side of the surface within the 'Inner' distance then it is considered 'within' that surface and repelled 'out'. It is generally beneficial to have these Inner and Outer bands as large as is practical so as to ensure fast moving soft body vertices are 'caught' and bounce off that surface.

When the 'Inner' is set close to the overall thickness of the mesh you can get a situation where if a vertex passes slightly below the surface, instead of being gently repelled (due to being slightly below the surface) it is actually pulled into the mesh as it is also within the opposite side of the mesh's inner collision bounds. As it is effectively further below the opposite side than it is below the 'nearer' side of the mesh, the opposite face has more of an effect and overcomes the 'solidity' of the mesh and pulls that vertex through. By keeping the 'Inner' bound below half the width of any section of the mesh you can ensure those 'inner' regions never overlap and avoid that problem.

In your case, however, the Inner is far greater than the thickness of your mesh - it is set to 0.2 (20cm) which means for the thin sections (eg, legs) the collision bounds extend from the opposite faces far outside the mesh - it is this which is 'grabbing' your soft body blanket and drawing it towards the dog.

The solution is to simply reduce the Inner collision setting - in this case I reduced it to 0.002 (2mm) and produced the following result :

Note, to achieve this I needed to make a small number of changes to your Blend file - mostly due to the very high number of vertices of your meshes (for soft body simulations, the number of vertices significantly affects the simultion complexity). However, some simple changes drastically reduced the vertex count, vastly speeding up to simulation - I'll share those changes here.

Firstly, for simulations you should Apply Scale to your simulated meshes - select the blanket, press Ctrl+A and select 'Scale'.

Secondly, the geometry of the blanket includes a great many unnecessary faces around the seams. You could re-model the blanket with less faces around the edges, but I got reasonable results by selecting all vertices in Edit mode and running Remove Doubles with a setting of 0.01 (must have Applied Scale for this first - otherwise you need a much smaller value as your existing scale is quite small). This removed the unnecessary goemetry without affecting the overall shape of the mesh. Note that the soft body simulation works best with evenly spaced vertices anyway - so this step won't hurt the simulation.

Finally, for each 'collision' between the soft body and your mesh, Blender needs to consider each face and how it affects that vertex. The more faces you have in your mesh, the slower the simulation will run. If your example file, this was particularly bad due to each point close to the mesh being within the 'inner' collision zone of a great many faces - which is why your simulation took a very long time to simulate only 4 frames. To address this I repeated the Remove Doubles step on your dog mesh - with a threshold of 0.02. Note that this will lose some of your modelling - but for my simulation to produce the above animation that wasn't a concern. You could create a duplicate of your mesh and reduce the vertex count on the copy and use that copy for collision purposes only, using the 'full' mesh for the final render - if you don't want to lose detail from your model (so the soft body simulation collides with the simplified mesh - much more efficient).

I increased the Soft body Friction to damp down any motion (since there’s no gravity - could ‘pin’ the soft body in place instead), 'freed' the bake, moved the dog closer to the mat, and re-ran the simulation.


Is it standard when creating a 3D game model to only use one mesh? I'm a bit new to serious 3d modeling, and I have a question focused on workflow and style as opposed to technical tips (which can be found in tutorials).

I'm creating a character model for the game I'm making. Right now, my entire game's art design doesn't have any textures, just different colored materials, so in order to create a nice looking character, there are many meshes involved, i.e. a visor for a helmet, a patch on the character's arm, etc. This is fine until I start animating things and exporting them into Three.js format. Animations don't work correctly or just don't exist at all.

All this being said, I've watching tons of tutorials on the process, and every single one has a character model consisting of one geometry, one mesh. Is this standard practice? If so, then I need to redefine how I make models. Secondly, is it atypical to see material-only artwork? I'm not overly skilled with textures, but if it's a completely uncommon practice, I can abandon it.

Thanks for the time.

Copying a couple performance tips from this thread —

Reuse geometries and materials whenever possible
Use instanced geometries for faster mesh instantiations
Merge meshes when possible

The main thing is that the more meshes and materials you have, the more draw calls you are making to the GPU, and you'll get worse performance than if you were drawing the same number of triangles using fewer meshes. Performance considerations in e.g. Unity may be a bit different, where the engine is probably optimizing your model somewhat for you.

If you're having issues exporting animation, that's probably unrelated: there are a fair number of open bugs about animation in the three.js Blender exporter. May have better luck exporting FBX or glTF (with either of KhronosGroup/glTF-Blender-Exporter or Kupoman/blender2gltf) before loading in three.js.


"Stealing" Blender's Properties I wrote s simple script that lets me manage Blender's geometry smoothing a little easier and faster but I'm struggling with something. Since I'm fiddling with the smoothing, I'd like to "Copy" Blenders Auto Smooth checkbox and Smooth Angle slider for a faster and more convenient workflow.
I tried a few things and nothing worked. I created a Custom BoolProperty for the checkbox but I can't get it to control the setting. This is the Custom property:
class AutoSmoothData(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):

auto_smooth_toggle: bpy.props.BoolProperty(
    name="Auto Smooth",
    description="Toggle Auto Smooth",
    default=bpy.context.object.data.use_auto_smooth
    )

After this, I just put it on the UI, but I have no idea where do I have to "tell" it to change the actual built-in Auto Smooth setting.
I also have this function:
def auto_smooth():
    if bpy.context.scene.smooth_prop.auto_smooth_toggle == True:
        bpy.context.object.data.use_auto_smooth = True
    else:
        bpy.context.object.data.use_auto_smooth = False

But as I said, I don't know where to execute it.

You don't have to create new properties to mimic existing properties. You just need to find their data path. Make sure you have enabled all the developer extras in the preferences and hover over the field you want to copy.

Based on that you just have to add a property field to your layout, that redirects to this data path : object.data.use_auto_smooth
Using the simple panel template shipped with Blender :
import bpy

class HelloWorldPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Object properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "object"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        obj = context.object
        return obj and obj.data and hasattr(obj.data, "use_auto_smooth")

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.prop(context.object.data, "use_auto_smooth")

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

This creates a panel with a direct link to this property. No need for a third party property with convoluted callbacks.

Also, if you want to mimic exactly how it is laid out in the origin panel, in most cases you can right click and choose "Edit Source". This opens a Text datablock centered on the line which created the UI element you selected.
Example for the Normals Panel :


Disable premultiplied alpha on the File output node Just after hours of finding what is wrong, i have found that RGB channels are multiplied by alpha channel during output to PNG (and other RGBA supported formats), actually each channel is divided by alpha. Was trying to neutralize this by multiplying on alpha by math nodes but without success.

Is there any working method to store RGBA as it was transferred from the "Combine RGBA" node to the "File Output" node ? ie straight but not multiplied ?

PS. Just encode into the 4 channels very different information, like in B - Quantizing into 1 byte
Thanks for the help !

Just found a workaround.

The idea is to output to OpenEXR file format, where all channels are stored as is. Then post process it by another program to output PNG.

I've used https://github.com/Enichan/sharpexr library (MIT License) with the following C# code:

using System;
using SharpEXR;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

namespace EXR2PNG
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (args.Length != 2)
            {
                Help();
                return;
            }
            var img = EXRFile.FromFile(args[0]);
            var part = img.Parts[0];
            part.OpenParallel(args[0]);

            var bmp = new Bitmap(part.DataWindow.Width, part.DataWindow.Height);
            var data = bmp.LockBits(new Rectangle(0, 0, bmp.Width, bmp.Height), ImageLockMode.WriteOnly, PixelFormat.Format32bppArgb);
            var destBytes = part.GetBytes(ImageDestFormat.BGRA8, GammaEncoding.Linear, data.Stride);
            Marshal.Copy(destBytes, 0, data.Scan0, destBytes.Length);
            bmp.UnlockBits(data);
            bmp.Save(args[1], ImageFormat.Png);
        }
        static void Help()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Usage:\r\n\tEXP2PNG [SourceEXRFilePath] [TargetPNGFilePath");
        }
    }
}

Actually is not a solution to make it with the Blender directly, so i don't mark it as answer.

Please note, if you are going to use this code with sharpexr library, you must out OpenEXR file with RGBA, Color Depth set as Float (Half) and Codec as None, because the library doesn't support compression and seems Float (Full).

EDIT: Here is a PowerShell script to process multiple frames

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser
cd c:\Projects\GinaGame\ArtWork\Images\cube

dir *.exr | ForEach-Object {c:\Projects\sharpexr\EXR2PNG\bin\Release\EXR2PNG.exe $_.Name ($_.Name+'.png')}


Best background for cut outs Often I create a 3D scene in order to save the 2D image and do some post-production in Photoshop. Also in some cases the final result (after post) is an Isolated on White image. What is the best way to do this ? Should I create a kind of Infinity wall (Cyclorama) in Blender and use that as a background ? And making it easier to judge the image and also maybe the easiest for post-processing ?>

Like this image below. I created a plane as background (and the World is black). But cutting out the dices would be a lot easier when I would not have this background. By the way ... I want to keep my shadows (because I need those for the final image).

Likely in your situation, you would want to render the dice as a foreground layer, the floor with shadow as a separate layer, and then turn on transparency in the render settings. That way you will get transparency where the black is now.

In Photoshop, you can add a background colour layer with a gradient and blend it into the floor layer easily. No need to render something simple like that.

Render Layer Settings

Please note that the blocks are on Layer 1 of the viewport and the Floor is on Layer 2. In the render layer panel, we select Scene Layers 1 and 2, and then assign Layer 1 to Render Layer 1 (named Blocks) and Layer 2 to Render Layer 2 (named Floor). Make sure the Combined pass is enabled for both layers.

Enable Transparency

In the UV Editor, select Render Result, then you'll have the option to switch between the 2 rendered layers. You can save out each layer as a PNG file (RGBA).

Output Blocks PNG (has alpha channel, though not obvious on SE page here)

Output Floor PNG

Bonus Tip
If you were finding you were re-rendering the image a lot, you could enable compositing and add File Output nodes to write the PNG's to disk as part of the render process. I can detail that process if need be.


If inside 'elif' ignored / not working with autosmooth script Here is a script that checks is auto smooth is on and if yes just turns it off.

Ideally when you want to turn it on for the first time it should also set the shading angle value.

And then check if the default 180 is used and if not realize that a custom value is used and only turn on/ff autosmooth.

But the script ignores the if 180Dgeree check and thus never sets the initial angle to 30 degrees.

#Set AutoSmooth
class SetAutoSmooth(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "set.autosmooth"
    bl_label = "Set Auto Smooth"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    def execute(self, context):

        if bpy.context.object.data.use_auto_smooth == (True):
            bpy.context.object.data.use_auto_smooth = False
        elif bpy.context.object.data.use_auto_smooth == (False):
             bpy.context.object.data.use_auto_smooth = True
             if bpy.context.object.data.auto_smooth_angle == (3.14159):
                bpy.context.object.data.auto_smooth_angle = 0.523599
             bpy.ops.object.shade_smooth()

        return{'FINISHED'}

The problem here is not that the if statement in the elif was ignored, but rather the statement itself didn't evaluate to True. To help debug your control flow consider adding a temporary else statement with a print(). Even if you then still don't understand why an if statement isn't True you'll have localized the problem, and you can try to solve the real issue: comparing floats.

As a test you can even run this directly from the TextEditor, and check the terminal / console for the print statements.

some_value = 0.343523435235
if some_value == 0.34352:
    # do something
    print('yep')
else:
    print('some_value ({0}) is not equals to 0.34352'.format(some_value))

Use some aliasing and the rounding as suggested by jerryno. Another readability improvement is the inclusion of radians(180) and radians(30). These carry extra meaning to the reader (mostly you) than a rough float does.

import math   #  <--- yes!
from math import radians

class SetAutoSmooth(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "set.autosmooth"
    bl_label = "Set Auto Smooth"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    # have a poll check for active_object (optional)

    def execute(self, context):

        data = bpy.context.object.data
        data.use_auto_smooth ^= True  # inverts

        # use the boolean directly, else it's like saying: if True == True
        if data.use_auto_smooth:
            if round(data.auto_smooth_angle, 5) == round(radians(180), 5):
                data.auto_smooth_angle = radians(30)
            bpy.ops.object.shade_smooth()

        return{'FINISHED'}

seen as the extra bit is only intended to be done if the use_auto_smooth is True after the inversion, then that will still need an if-statement. If you see so much repetition of code characters you need to think about using aliases (a variable to store a reference lookup) . It's easier to read and easier to write.

some Python notes

math.isclose()

Python 3.5 will be getting / has a new feature for testing if a float is close to another float, so we won't necessarily need to use rounding anymore. This feature is called 'approximate equality': read about it here https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0485/

math.isclose(a, b, relative_tolerance, absolute_tolerance)

inverting a boolean

These two lines are functionally equivalent

data.use_auto_smooth = not data.use_auto_smooth
data.use_auto_smooth ^= True

The ^= is an augmented arithmetic assignment


How do I attach a Hair piece to mesh so it moves with armature I have these hair pieces on my mesh and I want them to be stuck to the headmesh for when I move the armature. I tried joining with control-J but I lost the hair. Is there anything else I can do?

Have you tried the Boolean "UNION" Modifier?
Add Modifier, Boolean. In the drop down select Union, then eye dropper the Hair Mesh


Create Sinosoidal Fringe Projection with blender... not everything by hand possible? i am using blender to create optical settings for my work as an engineer in applied optics. I would like to create a lighting with simulates a display which projects a sinusoidal fringe pattern. I am really new to blender, just worked through the basics - tutorial and i would like to know if it is possible to create such a lighting, without creating like 1024 different planes by hand, and set the emission coefficient to sampled sinus-values.

I would like to just create on plane, and subdivide it into 1024 subplanes, but i cannot set the emission coefficient for this because it is still handled as one object inside blender.

Would be cool if someone can help me with an elegant solution to this.

I try to design an optical setup to measure objects from the industry. I need a certain number of cameras under the same illumination, the camera images should ideally have a maximum overlap of the illuminated object. This is why i use blender to check out different setups and positions for the cameras.

in short: I want to design the optical setup in blender, to reduce the "search-space" in the real world in terms of where to find the ideal positions for the cameras.

this is what the light source should look like

If I understand your requirement correctly, you're looking for a lamp that can project an undistorted (sinusoidal) banded image. This is very similar to Spot light with square shape and, in fact, you could potentially use the example provided there and simply use your image in the Image Texture to generate the required projection.

However, by taking the X coordinate and feeding that into a Sine maths node we can generate the sinusoidal illumination directly using the following nodes on the Point Lamp :

The Mapping node allows you to adjust the direction of the projection while the Value node controls the pitch of the banding. The 'Clip' frame simply limits the projection to the bounds -0.5 to 0.5 in each axis (so you get a clipped square projection) - adjust these values if you require a different aspect ratio or unbound projection. The 'Sine' frame simply generates the banding by multiplying by the 'frequency', adding 1.0 to remove negative values, and then multiplying by a constant for a suitable brightness for the lamp.

As in the linked question, the key to getting an undistorted projection is the Divide by the Z component of the Normal.

Here's the result :

Blend file included


Too much Memory Usage? I am baking a simulation which is taking up roughly 15 GB of memory, is this normal?  I am baking full smoke simulation with high resolution and high definition.

Yeah, it can get to be that large at that resolution. Since 1 cache file (at that resolution) can be around 15MB to 20MB it only takes 800 frames to be 16GB.


Priorities of edge colors in Blender What are the visual priorities of edge colors in blender?
How it decides which color to show when edge is marked with different properties?

The priority is following:

UV Seam - Red
Bevel Weight - Blue
Edge Crease - Purple
Sharp Edge - Cyan
Freestyle Edge - Green

Note: Default colors in Blender 2.82


How to inset (or fill in) a complicated mesh? I have SVG of a tree. I want to make a 3D model of it. Also I want to add a texture on the front face (on the trunk) of this tree, to make it bumpy. But how can I add a 3d texture on it?
I extruded the perimeter, but how to fill in the rest?

There are a few ways that you could potentially approach this:

Manually select 4 vertices, press f to make a face, and repeat until you go crazy.
Select all of the vertices and press f to make an "n-gon", you'll quickly realize why n-gons are avoided.
Another option is the Face Tools built into Blender.

From the Manual:

  Fill

  The Fill option will create triangular faces from any group of selected edges or vertices, as long as they form one or more
  complete perimeters.

  Note, unlike creating n-gons, fill supports holes.

  Beauty Fill

  Mode: Edit Mode
  Menu: Mesh ‣ Faces ‣ Fill/Beautify Fill
  Hotkey: Alt-Shift-F

  Beautify Fill works only on selected existing faces. It [rearranges] selected triangles to obtain more “balanced” ones (i.e.
  less long thin triangles).

Check out the Manual link. It's got even more information.


Network Rendering textures I have a mix-match of computers and want to network render to them.  The problem is if I make a material with an image texture, that texture is not sent to the slaves.  I don't have the ability to network the image path (I do, but its unreasonably complicated). I just want to have the image file cloned to the slaves so that they can use it in the same way  the bake files are sent over.

I tried this in python, but can't find the mechanism to find where the textures should be stored on each local slave.  This means if the client texture map is at c:/tmp (on a windows machine) and I send it to a Linux slave, I'll have to jump through flaming hoops to make it save the texture map to c:/tmp on Linux (permissions issues).  I'm assuming that it should store them to // on the Linux slave (or any slave) but where is it in perspective to python UserPreferencesFilePaths?

I'm also finding that my motion blur isn't working on network, so I want to tweak the .py file so that it moves over extra bake files (assuming it reads the previous bake file to generate a vector, if the batch is 5 files, it should send over 6 files so that it can properly generate the blur).

I guess what I'm asking is if there is a non-script, non-network-path way to resolve me rendering problems or if there is a scripting way to do it.

Thanks
James

Yes, there is.

You need to pack the external data.

It's simple!

Click file, in the info panel.
Select External data.
Press Pack All Into .blend.

Or you can simply check Automatically Pack Into .blend so that it will automatically save the external data (like images) into the blend file.

Note: this will make your blend file larger. You may not want to do this for every revision, otherwise your file sizes will quickly stack up, because each file will store the images.

About motion blur in network rendering, I don't think that feature is supported yet. However you can try the experimental feature set, and I think it may be enabled, just not "stable". I'm not sure whether they have it there or not though.

Final note.

To pack a single image, in the image editor select "image", "pack as PNG".


How to quickly place text cursor in long 3D Text? For a 3D text object, especially with many many characters in it, how can I place the cursor to the right position in order to edit the text around it?

Here is an example to show what I mean:

Here is two methods  to edit the text object in the text editor :

1- Link the object text to the text file :

2- Convert text object to a file, then back from a file to an object :

1- For the first method, run this script once and select your text object to see the live update.

import bpy

#this is one way link ( object to text file )
def link_object_to_text(context):
    obj = bpy.context.active_object
    if obj.type == 'FONT':
       if None == bpy.data.texts.get(obj.name):
          bpy.data.texts.new(name = obj.name)
          bpy.data.texts[obj.name].write(obj.data.body)
       text_file = bpy.data.texts[obj.name]
       obj.data.body = text_file.as_string()

bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_pre.append(link_object_to_text)

2- For conversion run the following script once

you will find it in 3D_View -> Object -> Convert text
OR type Convert Text Object in the Space menu

.

import bpy
from bpy.types import Operator
from bpy.props import *

def object_to_text():
    obj = bpy.context.active_object
    if obj.type == 'FONT':
       if None == bpy.data.texts.get(obj.name):
          bpy.data.texts.new(name = obj.name)

       text_file = bpy.data.texts[obj.name]
       text_file.clear()
       text = obj.data.body
       text_file.write(text)

def object_from_text():
    obj = bpy.context.active_object
    if obj.type == 'FONT':
       if None == bpy.data.texts.get(obj.name):
          bpy.data.texts.new(name = obj.name)

       text_file = bpy.data.texts[obj.name]
       #clear text_obj
       obj.data.body = text_file.as_string()

class   text_object(Operator):

    """text file from&to text object"""
    bl_idname = "object.from_to_text"
    bl_label = "convert text object"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    #parameters and variables
    convert = EnumProperty(
                name="Convert",
                description="Choose conversion",
                items=(('T2F', "object to file ", "convert text object to text file"),
                       ('F2T', "file  to object", "convert text file to text object")),
                default='T2F',
                )

    def execute(self, context):
        if self.convert == 'T2F':
            object_to_text()
        else:
            object_from_text()

        self.report({'INFO'},"Conversion is Done")
        return {'FINISHED'}

    #get inputs
    def invoke(self, context, event):
            wm = context.window_manager
            return wm.invoke_props_dialog(self)

def addObject(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(
    text_object.bl_idname,
    text = text_object.bl_label,
    icon = 'OUTLINER_DATA_FONT')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(text_object)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.append(addObject)

def unregister():
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_object.remove(addObject)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(text_object)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Is render time, openGL, or memory affected whether a modifier is applied or not? If I have an object looking exactly like I want it to using modifiers, is there any reason why I should "apply" the modifiers before rendering, or any other considerations? More specifically, is viewport speed, render time and/or memory affected by whether modifiers are applied or not?

My educated guess is that it takes less processing power to calculate and display an object with Array and Sub-D-Surf modifiers than it takes to display the same object with those modifiers applied because each individual face would have to be calculated as opposed to a lesser number of instances of the already calculated less complicated object as a whole. (Sorry, that's a mouthful of a sentence.)

I am making tires using various modifiers on just a sliver of the actual tire. Now that I am ready to duplicate it to four tires, I am wondering if I should duplicate the entire tire rig/hierarchy, including "emptys" for rotation objects, (or add another couple of array modifiers), or if I should "apply" it all, then duplicate the finished tire to four.

Thanks for your help!
-Ben

Viewport speed: The final displayed mesh is the same regardless of if you apply the modifier or not. Applying it will cost you the ability to have different settings for viewport and render for modifiers that do that, such as on the subsurf modifier.

Scene update (opening file, changing frames, etc): Applying bakes in the modifier, so it doesn't need to be calculated on updates anymore. So that's faster.

Render: modifiers "apply" on the fly when exporting meshes for render, so no  difference. Same output mesh is rendered either way. The modifiers have to all be updated during this process though, so applying will speed render startup a bit.

So generally, not much performance reason to apply a modifier. The two main situations where you'd apply it are when you need to do something on the modifier output directly (like applying mirror modifier before rigging), or when a modifier is taking a long time to calculate and losing non-destructive editing of the modifier is preferable to waiting that out.


Animation looks fine when rendered as frames but pale when rendered as video :c I've made a little animation and rendered it, everything's fine.
But when I try to render it as a video instead of as frames, the resulting video looks very pale in color compared to the original frame :

Here are my render container / codec settings :

I am using the 'perceptually lossless' quality and it don't seems to be a problem with the quality.

I also use the default color space and I use the VSE to render the animation.

PS : I'm french, so my english may not be the best ^^'

That is probably your playback software failing to decode the stream correctly. Turn off GPU acceleration and re-test.


Path Bevel With Different Thickness Along the Vertices Hi guys I have a path that generates a extrusion from a Bevel Object, but I need certain vertices with different bevel size. I tried to select the vertices, I can tilt them pressing Ctrl+T, but I cannot change the size of the generated bevel in that specific point.

You can use Alt+S to Shrink/Flatten a selected curve point while in edit mode for the curve:

This option is also available from the Toolshelf (T)


How to make texturure scrolling animation in Game Engine? How to make texturure scrolling animation in Game Engine?

I need that scrolling animation on texture to make things like water stream, smoke. clouds...
You can achieve that on rendering simply animating the "offset" value in the texture properties tab. but that doesn't work in real time, neither in game engine. I already tried some other methods like using the "uv wrap modifier", the "projector modifier", animating the uv using the "animall plugin". and Nothing.
Plus, the texture tile animation in sprites, or movie file methods are not fulfilling my goals because it's choppy and not smooth sufficient to make slower scrolling like Clouds in the sky.
I just need a way to animate scrolling texture in game.
I thought this basic game graphics technique was simpler to achieve. : (

Here is my file, I animated it with the animall plugin, so you can see in real time, just hit the play button.

Well I've done something simple similar to what I've seen in your animation, using a mesh for each texture and using logic bricks with motion actuator to rotate the mesh, but you can animate the mesh if you prefer. I hope it is what you are looking for.

Note:
It seems that the minimum value for the motion actuator is > 0.004 to appreciate the movement.

Press P to see it.


Compositing Workflow/How to compose a render after restarting Blender? I'm new to Blender (coming from C4D) and currenty working on an architectural visualisation like this:

The Image is a placeholder because I can't show the project.

I made three view layers

Clay Render
Texture Render
Freestyle Layer

After rendering I combined all the view layers to my final render and everything is fine.

After restarting Blender the render was gone.

Now I need your help:

How do I continue working on a composition in Blender 2.80 after restarting?
How do I save the Render with all passes and cryptomattes to work on
it later?
How do I compose multiple renders with the same composition node system? For example a different camera.

Normally I compose my images in Photoshop, but I want to try it in Blender, because it seems so much easier and quicker.

Thanks in advance!

I think what you are missing is the FileOutput Node.

here is a basic Setup for your 3 Layer.
check the docs for renderlayer in Blender and you are good to go.

you can do a lot more then saving files with the compositing context, so have look and do some experimenting.


Changes in the UV Editor Not Flowing Over To 3D Viewport When changing the vertices in the UV editor, the changes do not flow over to the 3D viewport, which displays something completely different.  I've tried deleting the faces and recreating them, checking the Stretching to see if there was some weird geometry that's twisting the image, but even when dragging the vertices in the UV editor to a completely blank area, it still shows the same warped texture in the 3d viewport, completely unchanged.  Can anyone please help?

Nevermind.  Just found out that in my UV maps, it wasn't showing the second UV map I had created.  Thanks everyone for taking a look.


Is there any way to calculate camera focal length and sensor size from a single image? I know that there are some toolboxes that we can use to calibrate the camera.
As I know all of them need some specific types of images including checkerboards with different angles.

But, I have some images and want to calculate camera parameters (e.g. focal length and sensor size) from those images. Any suggestion?

If anyone else is stuck : https://www.blendernation.com/2012/01/23/blam-geometry-camera-matching-add-on/

This add-on calculates the focal length from q couple of lines drawn on the image


How to render a shadow without the object in the scene So I am rendering a scene with a train and landscape. I want to render the train separately from the landscape, since it is too extensive on my computer. The down side is that the train wont render with shadows on the landscape. Is there a way to render the landscape with shadows already on it? Any help is appreciated. I am using cycles.

If your computer is unable to render an image (insufficient RAM?) with the train included then it will most likely have the same issue if you try to use it to render the shadows. You may want to render the entire image on another computer that can cope with the entire scene in one go.

One thing that can work is to create a low poly mesh for the train, a simple outline of the shape that will cast a visually matching shadow. By rendering the background with the low poly train you can get the ground with shadows and then later composite the train over the top.

Using cycles you can have an object cast shadows and not be visible to the camera by setting the Ray Visibility options, found under object properties. By turning off camera the object will not be visible to the camera but it will still cast shadows and reflections on other objects. If you want to merge this into your materials you can add a Light Path node.

For blender internal the material settings have a similar option called cast only under shadow options.

Edit: In a cycles material you can use the light path node to control the mix amount to get an object that is transparent to the camera but still casts shadows.

The advantage of using a material is that you can alter the shadows. By using a translucent or glass node instead of diffuse you get softer shadows and the ability to add a colour tint. You may also want to use the original object material so that reflections also look correct.


Fspy add-on not installing I am continuously trying to install FSPY, but according to the instructions on the Github, it is clearly mentioned that not to unzip it.
 I tried it to import it as File>Import>fspy, but there is no option for FSPY...
I also tried to install the zip file from Blender(Install Addon)

Then how can I install it?
Any advice will be really appreciated!

TLDR; Download the latest release: https://github.com/stuffmatic/fSpy-Blender/releases

Scroll down the github page and read the instructions on how to install the add-on properly:

Download the latest version from the release page (fSpy-Blender-VersionNumber.zip)
In Blender go to Edit > User Preferences > Add-ons and click Install from File
Select the fSpy-Blender-VersionNumber.zip file by using the file browser
Don't forget to enable the Add-on

If successfully enabled, a new menu entry in File > Import will appear:

Don't download the entire repository!

Again, download the latest release: https://github.com/stuffmatic/fSpy-Blender/releases


How to link different parts of data blocks? If I have a text object that says "ABC" and I want another text object to update only what is written how can I do that using data blocks in the Outliner after effects quick can  do stuff like this really quickly. Is blender just as fast?

Sharing data like font type and what is written, but keeping everything else isolated would be uber handy.

Maya does something like this here.

I think blender might be able to do it faster, because even the demonstrator is wrestling with what he is seeing on screen in Maya.

I would like to see if it was possible without "animation nodes" or any add-ons in Blender.

Hoping to share this with the community in a tutorial.

Create a Text and type ABC in edit mode, then create another text, go to the properties window, text panel: the first tab will show a dropdown menu with two datablock, named "text" and "text.001".

Just assign the first ("text", wich is "ABC") to the second object and every time you edit the "ABC" text, it will update all the objects, as they refere to the same object data.


Modeling a Working Clock I'm wondering about modeling a working grandfather clock.

I've been using Blender for a couple months now, and I've had the opportunity to experiment with modeling, texturing, animating, and compositing. I haven't done much with physics, though, so I don't know if this is even possible.

Just to clarify, I'm talking about modeling a whole clock. The gears, the pendulum, everything. I want it to work, not just look like it does.

As many have stated above, getting a 'working' clock in blender is possible, although it highly depends on your definition of working.

You can:

manually animate all moving parts using keyframes.
animate all moving parts using drivers.
be fancy, animate one moving part using a driver and link the movement of all the other parts to it's movement, using constraints.

You can't simulate the clocks physics in blender in order to let it drive itself (or at least you probably can't, in any case it would be extremely difficult).

Reasons:

(as far as I know) the physics in Blender are not designed for accuracy and continuum mechanics
models in Blender are not parametric but meshes. That means things like the forces transmitted between your gears will not be calculable by means of simple polynomial or differential equations, but rather FEM (don't even bother with that stuff).

TL;DR: Do, what all the comments above suggested or be ready for a major headache.


How to bake ambient occlusion into vertex colors? This is frustrating for me. The UV-textures to vertex cols add-on doesn't seem to work despite the specific instructions. Any other tutorials I can find are either very old or very poor.

I'd like to know how to do this in Blender 2.79. I need vertex colors in my ambient occlusion for use in Shader Forge.

Quick overview of the bake process & preview in Blender Render

How to bake the ambient occlusion into vertex colors

Select the object and make sure the object has a vertex color layer assigned in Object Data > Vertex Colors. If not, create one by clicking the plus button.

Navigate to the Render tab > Bake. Select Bake Mode: Ambient Occlusion and Bake to Vertex Color

Select the object and hit Bake

Blender Render material setup to see the vertex colors

Select the object's material and enable these:

Shading > Shadeless

Options > Vertex Color Paint

Switch to viewport shading to Material

Optionally, if you want to see your texture blended with vertex colors, you can go to Texture tab > Influence and set the Blend: Multiply

Cycles material setup to see the vertex colors

To add vertex colors into node tree, use Attribute node with the name corresponding to the object's vertex color layer name (it is named Col by default).
In the example below, you can see a simple shadeless material where vertex colors and an image texture are combined:


Texture Channel animated, doesn't appear in viewport I'm creating an educational video, and for efficiency, I'm using a Cyclic repeater to repeat an on-page/off-page effect.

Every loop, I have the texture channel switch to the next image, rather than duplicating all the objects/animations. This works properly and appears when rendering the animation, but does not appear in the viewport. It sticks to the original UV image that was mapped.

Is there a way to have this change appear in the viewport?

Short answer no, I don't think there currently is one unfortunately.

I think its a known limitation of the viewport system and a long time to-do list item as stated in the wiki, in this bug report and in this one too