High to Low poly normal map appears to have seams all over and looks warped So I'm at a loss. After baking a normal map to the low poly retopology, the end results are as seen in the posted images. The polygons are visible, and there are a large number of visual oddities. There appear to be seam-like lines all across the mesh, which I think are the polygons of the low-poly. In addition, there appears to be warping of the map around the top of the head of the mesh as seen in the first image under the horns. I don't think it's supposed to look like this is it? I appreciate any help on this problem. Thank you.

The images are as follows:

Mesh with applied/baked normal map
Close up of mesh with applied/baked normal map to emphasize the odd seam-like lines mentioned
High Poly Mesh
Low Poly Mesh Retopology

Update (1): Okay, so I've messed around and clicked "smooth" for Faces, Edges, and Vertices under the Shading/UVs tab. I then checked Auto Smoothing, making the angle maxed with 180 degrees. This actually wonderfully solved the seam-like edges. But a strange effect remains across most of the mesh, it appears like a wet stain, and the .PNG of the low poly's head (with normal map baked) below elaborates the issue. It resembles ink blots.

Update (2): Baking process, ultimately results in weird, warped, stain-like normal map.

[

Update (3):Picture of "blotty-ink" artifacting of normal map bake. This is for clarity's sake.

Update (Final): I've finally come to a close on this horrible problem. I don't know the full details of the solution, and it's still wishy-washy at best. I'm assuming that ray distance projects face normals outward. I've noticed the issues much closer to faces that are close to each other, and this is likely because the ray distance projects the normals so much that it hits the mesh itself. So, I lowered the value from 1.0 to .050. I treated the ray distance value very arbitrarily, just playing around until the UV mapping issues were at its smallest. I eventually got a cleaner uv map than before but it was still messy. But since there were only a handful of artifacts, I decided that fixing that in photoshop would be more efficient.

If anyone had a better solution that's less time-consuming/efficient, go ahead and iterate below but I have a solution that works for me for now.

You probably want to switch your lowpoly model to smooth shading, before baking the normal map. I also can't tell how big your texture is, but the UV map has an awful lot of wasted space.


What does abbreviations like DEF, MCH, CTRL, WGT stands for in rigging? I often download the .blend files with the rigged characters. There are some abbreviations like DEF, MCH, CTRL, WGT in front of the bone's names (like e.g. MCH-counter_spin). I guess what all of them stand for, but is there any rigging expert here, who'll explain exactly what do they mean? Also, are there any other abbreviations I haven't shown above? Thanks in advance.

Every rigger uses own bone naming conventions, prefixes or suffixes, usually in agreement with animators for which the rig is intended (in studio). There is no standard, but there are however some commonly used terms:

ROOT, MASTER - first bone in hierarchy or sub-hierarchy (tentacle_root)
DEF - bone contributing to deformation
MCH - mechanism/mechanical helper bone
ORG - original bones of metarigs from which the final rig is generated
CTRL, CON - control bones - various bones meant to be operated by animators
JNT - a joint
WGT, SHP, CS - widget, shape, custom shape, etc. - meshes to represent bones
IK, FK - bones belonging to inverse or forward kinematic bone chains
STR, NSTR, ASTR - stretch bones, non-stretch bones, anti-stretch bones (I've also seen SCA, NSCA, ASCA as scale, non-scale and anti-scale)
SPL - IK spline bones
MM, MUSC - muscle mass, muscle - bones to represent and bind muscles
POLE - IK pole bones, also usually just marked as CTRL
CW, CCW - clock-wise, counter-clock-wise, for marking rotation direction or bones for hinges
CEN, LFT, RGT, LF, RT, L, R - center, left, right


Change Current Frame acc. to Active Layer I need to write a script, that automatically changes the current frame according to the active layer. For example if layer 1 is active, current frame is 1. If layer 2 is active current frame is 11. There are 2 problems:

If I run this code:

 bpy.ops.anim.change_frame(frame=25)

it gives error:

Expected an timeline/animation area to be active

I can read the active layer via bpy.context.scene.active_layer however, I have no idea how to make this script always check the active layer.

You can do this using the below script:

import bpy

if bpy.context.scene.active_layer == 1:
    bpy.context.scene.frame_current=1
elif bpy.context.scene.active_layer == 2:
    bpy.context.scene.frame_current=11


Extrude and subdivide without using tris How do I extrude this top so the mesh will form a complete dress. More precisely, after applying the mirror modifier, each horizontal loop contains N=24 vertexes. To get good results from the cloth simulator, I want the skirt to have at least more vertexes around each horizontal loop so I need to branch each vertical edge to create more vertexes in the loop below. Is it possible to join two loops with N and kN vertexes without using a "tris bridge". That is, I want to stick to quads.

Update:

I figured out that I can multiply by three using the following pattern

|      |
+------+
 \    / \
  +--+   +
 /|  |\ /
+ |  | +
| |  | |
+-+--+-+

By only branching every other edge, it is possible to multiply by two.

This technique results in some bad quads. Is more regular tris a better approach then?

Here are a couple of ways to increase vertex count between edge loops using all quads.

And a quick trick for the right one using inset.

Set face select mode
Select two faces at the end you want to expand loop cuts.
Press I and inset a small amount
Select next two faces and press Shift R
Repeat step 4
Select all new internal faces
press Shift R
repeat 6 and 7 a few times
Set vertex select mode and box select the bottom vertices and delete

If you have a fully round mesh like your dress you can get around this step if you apply the mirror modifier and disable boundary in the inset options when doing the first inset. You can then delete half the dress and re-add the mirror modifier.

I now have a mesh that starts with 5 vertices at the top and ends with 37 at the bottom.


mathutils.geometry.intersect_ray_tri() I have a problem. I use the intersect_ray_tri() function to find the intersection between a ray and a mesh. Somethimes it works perfectly fine and somethimes it only finds one of the two intersecton or none of the intersections. It seems like the problem has something do do with the angle it hits the mesh. I'm not sure if it is a bug or not. I really appreciate all your help.

http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=44571
Open the .blend. You see a sphere emtpy. This defines the direction whichin the ray goes with the camera origin as a base point. When jumping one frame forwards/backward the script gets executed. If it finds an intersection it will add an empty to the location of the intersection(this is just for debugging now). Try do move the empty(make sure it stays behind on of the two meshes, as othervise it's clear it will not find an intersection) and you will see somethimes it finds both, somethimes just one one somethimes none of the intersections.

I'd say it's this bit

    dir = camera.location - pointer.location
    intersections = []

    for face in bm.faces:
        verts = []
        #print(face.index)
        for vert in face.verts:

            loc = obj.matrix_world * vert.co
            verts.append(loc)

        dir.negate()
        found = geometry.intersect_ray_tri(verts[0], verts[1], verts[2], dir, camera.location, True)
        intersections.append(found)

dir.negate() is being called for each face, effectively flipping the the ray on each iteration, giving a 50% chance of hitting the tri when it is in camera to pointer ray path.

Suggest setting

dir = (pointer.location - camera.location).normalized()

in the first place, and removing dir.negate().


How do I set a separate user preferences for Blender Portable? I want to have separate settings for my copy of Blender Portable on my D: drive than the official version installed in my C: drive

What do I have to change in the portable version to prevent settings from being shared?

EG: If I change the theme in the portable version, the main version also adopts that theme.

The answer provided at:
Can I change default folder to save startup file (startup.blend and userpref.blend)?

Is different than mine due to the portable version overwrites the standard installed version configurations and not in its own folder.

I guess you could try to alter the BLENDER_USER_CONFIG (Directory for user configuration files) environment variable when using portable or installed version,

as specified in manual

like starting blender with a little script that sets/resets the env vars to what you need...

Both the manual (link above) and also "blender --help" output state that you can use those env vars.

The only other method I know of is what was suggested by @DuarteFarrajotaRamos with the linked other question, much simpler, no scripting required, and allows also multiple different blender instance to run toghether each with different config/preferences, if needed: this is also explained in manual here.

If this is not working it could be due to some different behavior of those "portable apps" you're using, maybe. You coul try to use an official archive, extract and run it. I tried and by just copying the "config" folder into the 2.79 folder gave me a separate configuration/preference set.


How to get rid of the bonds between bones? I'm not sure what to call them so I'm just going to call it a bond. I deleted a bone to hope that it'll separate a set of bones from another set of bones.

Now this is happening:

The dotted line is where the bones were but the bones still exist as one set of bones. So if I moved one bone further down, it would still affect the arms even though there are no bones connecting them.

How do I delete these 'bonds'?

Thanks in advance!

The dotted lines indicate the parent/child relationship. The child always follows the parent which is why the bone moves as it's parent moves.

The parent setting can be found in the bone's relations panel. Clicking the X will clear the parent linked to the bone.

You can also clear the parent in the 3Dview using ⎇ AltP ->Clear Parent


Script wise functionality of F8 to reload Addon I want to reload an addon using a script, however I cannot get the same functionality as pressing F8.

What I'm trying to do:

The addon manuelbastionilab (http://www.manuelbastioni.com/) has some .json files which specify how to change blendshapes to make certain expressions. If I modify such a .json, it is not detected in Blender. If I press F8, this addon with its .json files are reloaded and everything is good.

However, now I want to achieve the same functionality in a script.

What I tried

As suggest here: Is there a way to restart a modified addon? , I tried different combinations of (open Python console with Shift+F4):

bpy.utils.unregister_module('manuelbastionilab')
bpy.utils.register_module('manuelbastionilab')
bpy.ops.wm.addon_disable(module='manuelbastionilab')
bpy.ops.wm.addon_disable(module='manuelbastionilab')

But all didn't give the same functionality as F8. If I use one of these code lines in the build-in terminal in Blender, it does reload the addon, but the .json files are not reloaded.

I also tried import bge and then bge.events.F8KEY, but I get a NameError: name 'bge' is not defined.

Question

How do I get script-wise the exact same functionality as F8? But preferably only for 1 addon?

The following worked for me in the Python console in Blender (Shift+F4 to open):

import imp
import manuelbastionilab  # addon name
imp.reload(manuelbastionilab)
bpy.ops.wm.addon_enable(module='manuelbastionilab')


How to render video in H.265 HEVC? I am able to edit H.265 movies in VSE by adding them like any other movie.
Does anyone know how to render a resulting project in H.265 using Blender?  I've tested v2.72b on Ubuntu 15, as well as the latest and greatest on Windows 7.

When looking at the Properties window in VSE, under the output section, a number of file formats are listed, including H.264, but no H.265.  Same in the Encoding section of Properties.  H.264 but no H.265.  Is that something I can add to current versions of Blender?

For future reference.
Blender does support the H.265 HEVC equivalent made by google, WEBM/VP9
From VP9 Wikipedia:

VP9 is an open and royalty-free video coding format developed by
Google.
VP9 is the successor to VP8 and competes mainly with MPEG's High
Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265). At first, VP9 was mainly used on
Google's video platform YouTube.The emergence of the Alliance
for Open Media, and its support for the ongoing development of the
successor AV1, of which Google is a part, led to growing interest in
the format.

Example for VP9 output
File Format: FFmpeg video
Encoding container: MPEG-4
Video Codec: WEBM/VP9
Edited For clarification: While WEBM/VP9 is not exactly H265 HEVC, it is the performance equivalent and already on Blender.


RTX 2070 I can't open Blender I've installed another GPU card RTX 2070 in the second PCIex16 motherboard slot. Not a SLI connection. Both cards were previously installed in this machine separately with the drivers updated for both. Blender doesn't want to open. A video card and driver with support for OpenGL 3.3 or higher required. Why am I getting this message? TY.

Here is how I made it work. I had to flash the bios. If you are like me playing with the settings all the time you need to reset the bios by taking out the little round battery on the mobo. Depending on your mobo, the flash reset button next to the usb slots on the mobo didn't work for me, it might work for you. After that blender will open and both cards are seen in Cuda and Optix. Indeed there is some work but I'm pretty happy with the result right now. However render time is not cut in half though. More like 35% less with two cards.


How to render out an image sequence where each frame has a different name automatically How can you render out an image sequences, not a movie and have Blender save each frame image with a different file name (chosen by me) for each of them?

To be more specific what I need... I have model which represents an electric electric circuit with specific elements on it. And I want to render an animation in IMAGES where each image have one specific element of that electric circuit.

Blender allows you to render an animation to images and include the frame number in each filename. To get more control over the saved filename you can use a python script to do the rendering.

Paste the following script into blender's text editor and adjust the list of filenames to what you want to use for each frame. Instead of using blender's render buttons you can run this script to save each frame using the filenames you want.

A disadvantage is that blender's window will not get updated while rendering this way. You may want to do the render from the command line to get some feedback. If you save the script inside the blend file and name the text block myrender you can use - blender -b myfile.blend --python-text "myrender"

import bpy
import os

# the folder to save the renders
outpath = '//renders/'

# filenames is a list containing frame number and filename
filenames = [
    [1, 'PC.png'],
    [2, 'IR.png'],
    [3, 'SP.png'],
    [4, 'Board01.png'],
    [5, 'Circuit01.png'],
]

scn = bpy.context.scene

for r in filenames:
    scn.frame_set(r[0])
    scn.render.filepath = os.path.join(outpath, r[1])
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)


Laser scanner shadowing I've been searching for a few days now to no avail, no doubt it's my searching skills which are lacking. But I'm trying to represent how an industrial laser scanner sees the world (especially how the laser scanner creates its own shadows with the objects it interacts with).

Where the field of view of the scanner emmits a red field looking forward, and if something blocks the light emmited the field doesn't continue creating a "shadow" on that red field.

See the image for an example, notice how the tines of the forklift create a shadow on the laser scanners field of view.

Any help is greatly appreciated
Thanks
Evan

Sadly you cannot isolate the effects of a lamp on an object in Cycles as you can using Blender Internal Renderer layers.

So I tried building an intense isolated lamp & enclosure. From this I include a volume box for the emitted light to excite. The enclosure cam be hidden from the camera by simply turning off its Object Properties > Cycles Settings > Ray Visibility > Camera.

The material for the volume uses a scatter with a density of 0.03
While the Spot lamp in the box with a slit has a high emit/strength value of 50,000. You can have a wide spread or a narrow beam by altering the Spot angle.

To reduce render time you could build the volume box to exactly match the beam spread of the laser.


How to reset viewpoint settings The problem is that my viewpoint settings have become wonky as when I zoom I will end up in random places and when rotating it will start dramatically change what I am seeing one thing then it disappears and reappears somewhere else. Blender version is 2.79

You have the center of your view locked to Bullet 001. If you click on the x beside the name field, the navigation is suddenly "normal".


How to Flatten a vertex path (a list of connected edges) into a straight line while keeping distances? I'm trying to develop some custom close-body clothing for my characters.
For that purpose I tried to "flatten" some half circle (meshes) into straight lines that can be easily extruded then sewed to other parts of the clothing.
However the only method I have is the "Scale to Axis" method which is just a projection.
A projection does not preserve the original distance between the vertices.
Is there a (simple) method for flattening a half curve into a straight line while preserving distances?
if not can someone suggest a python script that can achieve the same thing?
NB: here's an article on the subject:
Addons to straighten edges in Blender
However, the above article is old and the tools it mentions (LoopTools, for example) just perform the classic Scale to Axis flattening.
EDIT 1 (some screenshots of the "Bad" Scale to Zero flattening technique:

As you can see in the last picture, Scale to Zero DOES NOT preserve the path length. It's just a projection!
Thanks in advance.

After long hours, here's an answer to my OWN question, thanks to comments from @Jachym Michal and @batFINGER.
import bpy
import math

def rotatePoint(centerPoint,point,angle):
    """Rotates a point around another centerPoint. Angle is in degrees.
    Rotation is counter-clockwise"""
    temp_point = point[0]-centerPoint[0] , point[1]-centerPoint[1]
    temp_point = ( temp_point[0]*math.cos(angle)-temp_point[1]*math.sin(angle) , temp_point[0]*math.sin(angle)+temp_point[1]*math.cos(angle))
    temp_point = temp_point[0]+centerPoint[0] , temp_point[1]+centerPoint[1]
    return temp_point

def crossProduct(a, b):
    c = [a[1]*b[2] - a[2]*b[1],
         a[2]*b[0] - a[0]*b[2],
         a[0]*b[1] - a[1]*b[0]]

    return c

def dotProduct(a, b):
    c = a[0]*b[0] + a[1]*b[1]+ a[2]*b[2]
    return c

cyl = bpy.context.object
if cyl:
    flt = cyl.copy()
    me = flt.data.copy()
    flt.data = me

assert(len(me.vertices) >= 3)

verts = me.vertices
Nvert = len(me.vertices)
print('Nvert=', Nvert)

nVertRots = 0

for n in range(Nvert - 1, 1, -1):
    print('Vertex:',n)
    v1 = verts[n - 1].co - verts[n - 2].co

    v2 = verts[n].co - verts[n-1].co

    v1mag = math.sqrt(v1.x * v1.x + v1.y * v1.y + v1.z * v1.z)

    v1norm = [v1.x/v1mag , v1.y/v1mag , v1.z/v1mag]

    v2mag = math.sqrt(v2.x * v2.x + v2.y * v2.y + v2.z * v2.z)

    v2norm = [v2.x/v2mag , v2.y/v2mag , v2.z/v2mag]

    res = v1norm[0] * v2norm[0] + v1norm[1] * v2norm[1] + v1norm[2] * v2norm[2]

    angle = math.acos(res)

    cross = crossProduct(v1norm, v2norm)
    sign = dotProduct([0,0,1], cross)
    if sign < 0:
        angle = -angle

    print('Angle(1,2):', angle)

    nVertRots += 1
    for m in range(n, Nvert, +1):
        v2rot = rotatePoint([verts[n - 1].co.x, verts[n - 1].co.y],[verts[m].co.x, verts[m].co.y], -angle)
        verts[m].co = (v2rot[0], v2rot[1], verts[0].co.z)

print('nVertRots:',nVertRots)
if nVertRots > 0:
    bpy.context.collection.objects.link(flt)


Non-destructive modeling approach to cropping images Background
I am doing some 3D design work with photographs and will need to do some cropping in Blender as I work. For example, as I try out designs I may need to make an image vertically cropped or horizontally cropped like this:

My current workflow is to use the loop cut tool with correct uvs enabled to crop quickly, but this also seems to be destructive modeling.

I have tried to use the vertex slide tool, and it appears to work in some directions, but not all. If clamp is disabled, it seems to struggle with which edge to slide along.
Works here:

But not here:

Question
Is there any way to "undo" a crop easily like how the loop cut tool corrects the uvs automatically?

The edge slide tool can do this very easily without the limitation of the vertex slide tool. Just disable "clamp" and enable "correct uvs" to use it. Beware, of extending past image bounds, however, because it will not clamp it at the image bounds manually.

Furthermore, it would be easier to "crop" using this than the loop cut tool that you are using.


Why won't it let me save my rendered image? I am completely new to blender however have to use it for a university project. Every time I render my image its not giving me the option to save (as you can see in this screenshot). Can anyone please help/tell me why this is happening? There is lighting in the scene so I'm not sure whats going on.

Thanks in advance

I know a answer, but it may not work.

Set the file output destination and image format as you would normally do.
Edit both starting frame and ending frame of your image to the frame of which you want to render (ex.: I want the frame 260 to be rendered as an image, I put the starting frame and ending frame to 260). You can edit it in the render menu somewhere or in the timeline
Click on the RENDER ANIMATION and not the RENDER IMAGE. Because when you make the file output an image file and put the animation render, you get a image of each frame, thus setting the frame start and end will make it render only that frame. I'm not sure if it will work for you, and it may not apply transparency.


How do I animate a shoelace that is being pulled out of a shoe? I want to animate a tendon transfer surgery in blender. I want the tendon to follow the surface of the bone while it is pulled out at the incision area.

It should look like a shoelace being pulled out of a shoe:
The shoelace should be able to deform but follow the hole it is pulled through

Many thanks in advance!

While @Carlo shows the very precise version with a string following a path, i have a different suggestion that could be interesting.

Depending on how tight the tendon is supposed to follow the bone and how natural it is supposed to behave while and after, i think the cloth simulation could give you some interesting visual appeal.

Create the collision objects along the path, a tube or rings, whatever suits the situation best.
Make sure the collision objects have their Normals face the right way, as it will make or break the simulation.
Create a curve for the tendon, convert it to a mesh and give it a width, like a band worm.
Select the first vertices and make a vertex group to assign it to.
With the vertices selected, press Ctrl+H and select "Hook to new Object", which will create an empty that you can later use to pull the tendon.
Select the tendon object and add a "Cloth" Modifier, assign the vertex group to the shape.
Adjust the length for the cloth simulation! Very important. (You may need to test a lot, using the "Update all to Frame" can help clear the simulation in that case)
Press Space to start the simulation and grab the "Empty", press G and start having fun pulling tendons.

Here a little visual demonstration how it looks pulling a red string through some loops and how the cloth simulates it:

I have to admit that it's a lot less precise, but depending on the right usage of collision objects to lead the cloth it could very well be an option aside of the version @Carlo brought up.

It may just look a lot more realistic if worked out right.

To make it easier to figure out, here the file i used to show it.


2.8 & 2.81 - WebM / VP9 Encoding error: Additional information: g_timebase.den out of range Using either Blender 2.8 or 2.81 when trying to encode a video using WebM/VP9 I get the following error:

Additional information: g_timebase.den out of range [1..1000000000]

I've tried a variety of containers in 2.8 including the previous workaround using "Matroska". And I've also tried just WebM encoding preset. Every attempt results in the same error mentioned.

Is there somethign else that I'm missing?

The WebM/VP9 Container and Encoder only worked after I had selected a Dimension preset. Then afterwards readjust the render scale percentage and frame rate.

Does this solution make sense? No. But it worked with two different files I had been working on. Defining the dimensions manually for some reason caused the error previously mentioned and also the error,

CQ level 0 must be between minimum and maximum quantizer value (2-31)

which I received when setting the "Output quality" to "Lossless".


Rotating an object according to geometry I have purchased a model.

This model is rotated for a promo rendering.

I have tried to rotate it to a zero position manually, but I find it both time taking and just not perfectly accurate.

Does Blender provide any way to automatically rotate an object to its geometry?

Thank you!

Kinda depends on what you mean.  A model is composed of a lot of geometry.  Is there a specific face you want facing front?
If so, try this:
Select a face.  Ctrl-alt-space to create a custom orientation on the basis of that face.
Object mode, snap cursor to selection.  Create an empty.  Duplicate that empty.  Move that duplicate 1 unit in the custom Z.  Give the original empty a locked track (lock Z, probably) targeting the duplicate.  Parent your mesh to your original empty (keep transform).  Delete or mute the empty's constraint.  Unparent the mesh (keep transform.)

That's assuming you're already oriented properly up/down (Z axis).  If you're not, you can use similar techniques, combining a damped track and a locked track.


how to animate dripping substance I want to sculpt a human figure but have it so it's made of a thick dripping substance (image as example - without the gaps in body). I just want to gather thoughts on how exactly create this so I know what I'm getting into with how the dripping parts will be animated. Thanks.

Well...

I would first assume to use blenders fluid simulation but that has restrictions. If you don't want the animation to be exported to a game or anything that requires animation exporting, don't use this method. If it is just for a still image or an internal animation, GREAT!!!

Blenders fluids have the option to change the viscosity of liquids (Thickness) so it will work perfectly for your needs. You can use either use your mesh or a child object as the inflow object. Create a domain, and bake it once you have animated everything and it should act as a fluid should :D

Your other option is only applicable if you don't want the drop to detach and fall. Sculpt your drop separate to the mesh and use soft bodies which can create a jiggling hanging effect.

Good luck with your project and I hope I helped,

BFB


Is there way to move one vertex and make another move with it proportionally? I'll try to explain in this gif. I am doing this manually in 2 steps - rotate, scale. And I select all vertexes. Is there instrument rotate them in one step or can I move one and make other move too?

As pointed out by @MrZak you can use Shear (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S)

Form the Blender Manual:

  Shearing is a form of movement where parallel surfaces move past one another. During this transform, movement of the selected elements will occur along the horizontal axis of the current view. The axis location will be defined by the Pivot Point. Everything that is “above” this axis will move (Shear) in the same direction as your mouse pointer (but always parallel to the horizontal axis). Everything that is “below” the horizontal axis will move in the opposite direction.


How to get the value of the matrix socket via scriptsNode I am new to AN, I want to get the value of the matrix socket output as below in the shot, but it doesn't work, I don't know how to fix it. Could you help me?

Thanks in advanced!

When creating a subprogram in Animation Nodes (eg. Script Node), you are only defining what that subprogram do, in order to actually use it, you have to Invoke the subprogram. You can invoke a subprogram by adding an Invoke Subprogram Node pointing to the required subprogram, this can be done through the Subprograms panel in the Add Node menu where all subprograms are listed:

To get the value of some data in the script, you add an input with the same type, in your case, it is a Matrix List and input the data to it. A variable that carry the input data is automatically created with the name of the input, in our case, it is called MatrixList, you can use this variable to do what ever you want with the input data. For instance, you can print the list and its length as follows:


Painting on multiple objects? Someone might already have asked this but is there a way to Texture paint multiple objects that are not joined?

Do I need to be painting each object individually or is it possible to paint on all of them if I joined the objects together?

I'm trying to paint some details by hand. Making it look like its been outside a while, used. So it will have scratches, bumps, dirt, some paint and lettering that is hard to read. I've seen examples of people using just color to make texture, basically painting... This is going to be my first time texture painting an object but I wanted to see if there was a way to paint the whole thing at once.

Thanks!

If each object is setup with a different material, each using a different image texture, you can join them together and each part will paint to the corresponding image.

I would suggest making a copy of the blend file and joining them in the second file, this way you don't have to separate them when you are finished. After you have finished painting and saving the image textures, go back to the old file and it can read your painted images.

This would be easier than constantly changing the active object as you paint the vehicle.


Camera animated using Follow Path contraint wanders then Jumps back to path near end of animation I am animating a camera using the follow path constraint, with the fixed position checked and animating via the offset.

Near the end of my animation at the exact same spot (If I do not animated past 0.991 then jump will not occur) the camera Jumps as seen by these images showing the frame before and frame after jump.

As seen by my dope sheet and my offset curve nothing occurs here that could warrant such a movement.

Has anyone had any dealings with said problem? Thank you in advance.

If I have not provided enough info please inform.

I was able to fix the problem. At first I thought that it was to do with the rotation applied to the camera. So I rigged the camera and used a null(empty) to rotate it. This did not fix it.

It was actually rather simple.

I had to increase the resolution of the active spline, 192 worked well for me.

I hope this helps anyone who ever has the same problem I did.

If you know of a different/better way of fixing said issue, by all means let me know.


Prevent quad view from resetting? Is there a way to prevent the quad view (CTRL+ALT+Q) from resetting?

I'm using the quad view with the "Lock" option disabled. Each time I maximize and minimize a viewport in the quad view, the top right viewport gets reset and becomes the last view I was in.

NO, it's not possible: modified quad views reset to the default if you exit quad view.

A workaround would be to create a new screen layout that has your modified quad view.


Why can't I translate parts of my mesh with the 3d widget? I'm new to Blender, when I was working on a simple character like in the tutorial I'm following. I tried to change the shape of 2 cubes by moving the x and y arrows on the widget but it's not working and it doesn't even give me an arrow shape when I use box select. Does anyone know why this is happening and how I can fix it?

There are three main transformations available: Translate, Rotate, and Scale.

Keyboard shortcuts:

Grab (G) (aka translate/move)
Rotate (R)
Scale (S)

From the wiki:

  the normal Transform commands (G for Grab, R for Rotation, S for Scale), can be used to manipulate objects along any axis.

Widgets:

You can also use the the transform manipulator widgets to do this by pressing on the arrows with LMB.

You can enable or disable the transform manipulator widget by pressing the  icon in 3D view > Header:

Or by pressing CtrlSpace.

You can change the transofm manipulator type by selecting one of the buttons again in the Header of the 3D view:

Location ()
Rotation ()
Scale ()

It sounds like you want Location manipulators, but you have Scale type selected.

Try setting it like this by pressing one of the icons:

Also note that you can select multiple widgets at once by holding Shift while selecting them.


Normals shows up as single while they should be double If I create a plane, subdivide it in halfs, grab the edge in the middle and pull it upwards and then inspect the normals, they show up like this:

Now, I do not see double normals at any vertex. Still, the rendered output suggests that the normals where the faces meat eachother are different:

Now, which normal is applied on each of those two faces? The average of the vertex normals?

Auto smooth is required to display individual normals.


Is there an easy way to read an image file to create ingame map data? For my game I would like to create an impass map from an image-file, so I don't have to manually set every cell to passable or impassable, but I just cannot figure out any way of reading an image file to feed a library.

I would have guessed the VideoTexture module is the way to go, but even the simplest experiments couldn't give me any results:

print(bge.texture.ImageFFmpeg(logic.expandPath('//image.png')).valid)

This only prints False even though the image.png is in the same folder like the .blend file. Am I doing it wrong? Or would you recommend a completely different approach for this matter?

EDIT: I need a method to create a dynamically changable map where my characters find their way through with path-finding.

I realize you're kinda asking for a scripting answer, but hopefully this will be of use.

First start out with a map (white is wall, black is no wall). This one is 16x16:

That's all it is. A 16x16 png file. Now go into blender, create a plane, TAB into edit mode, and add ringcuts in both directions equal to the size of the map minus one. Since my map is 16x16, I should add 15x15 ringcuts. The shortcut for that would be CTRL + R15. You'll end up with:

Press A to select everything, and then ALT + E to extrude each face individually. If a little window pops up, click on Individual Faces. Press Esc to save the extrude, but keep the new faces in the same place as the old faces.

Keeping the new faces selected, press CTRL + G and click Assign to New Group to assign these extruded faces to their own group. We'll be using this a bit later.

Still with these same faces selected, press CTRL + . to cause each face to scale around it's own center, and then press S and scale all the faces down ever so slightly. Seriously. Just barely.

One last step. You can come back into object mode with Tab, go to the modifiers panel (it looks like this: ) and add a new displacement modifier.

Click New under Texture, then go to the texture panel (), click Open, and browse to your map png.

IMPORTANT: Under Image Sampling, uncheck Interpolation!

Finally, go back to the modifier panel, select the vertex group we created, and set the Midlevel to 0. And viola!

You can change the image map and then refresh it in the texture panel, and it will instantly update the model.

Simply make the mesh invisible in your game, and have the walls sticking up through your floor. I'm sure there's a way to script this, I'm just not very proficient with blender scripting :)


Rotating Object doesn't work quite right Every time I try to rotate something in a certain direction, it only rotates it on the X-axis.

It's actually rotating on the Z axis, but that's beside the point.
Try saving the scene, closing down Blender, then open Blender and the scene again and see if it's still like that.
If you had a Limit Rotation constraint on the object, with the Limit X and Limit Y axes ticked, and the Min and Max values left on the defaults of zero, you would get that effect, but I think you'd have noticed that you put a constraint there. But check you haven't done that - if you're clicking around to explore, you can forget what you've done.
If the axes were simply locked, you shouldn't see a ring on the rotate widget for the locked axes, but they are visible in your animation, but if Blender has a glitch and hasn't updated the display, maybe the axes are locked.


Why is there no glow with the emission shader added? I added keyframes but when I played the animation the emission shader doesn't seem to work. The object in the screenshot is supposed to flash.

First of all turn up the strength of the emission shader. In the screen shot the color is being animated but the strength is zero. This will most probably solve your problem . Also turn on bloom in the eevee settings for better glow in eevee.


normal map in internal and vector transform node What exactly represent normal output of geometry node in Internal?

As I look at it in cycles, plugging it in color input, I get a correspondence between color on faces and axes (blue , red and green in their "directions").

As it comes to internal, it seems it use a camera space instead of world/object space, as stated here: Blender Internal Nodes Refactoring (WIP)
but is unclear why the blue channel is then there to be seen.

More, in internal Geometry node the output from "local" and "view" are pretty the same, and "local" seems not to represent the local "coordinates".

Use nodes Vector Transform for transformation Camera->World and Vector Curves for correction Normal ...

example blend file:


How do i change the direction and rotation of rotataion axis? I have this model and i want it to the handler to spin in the direction that the cursor is so the handler can turn how its should be, how can i do it?

You could parent the handle to a bone. You could also bring your object back to a vertical position (aligned with X, Y and Z), parent it to an empty (to make this empty is now its new global reference instead of the world) then tilt the empty. Now you can make the object rotate on its own axis for example with R Z Z.


Is there a way to intensify the colours of an image? I've added an image. Unfortunately, when I render the scene the image looks washed out.

Is there a way to intensify the colours of an image?

Many thanks,
Meri

Use the Hue/Saturation node. Increasing the Saturation will increase the color intensity.

Note that there are other factors that could be resulting in a washed out render. Also this is a Cycles specific answer.


Partial Motion Blur in Cycles Is there a way to make Motion Blur to have effect only on certain objects?

Like if I want the main scene to be still and don't have a blur while camera moving, but all the other object want to be blurred.

Not sure if feasible for your project, but you could parent all your objects in the scene to an empty and move the empty instead of the camera.
Also, turn on motion blur in your render settings and turn it off for the individual objects that you don't want blurred. (In the Object Properties Panel)


Is it possible to view the scene in the viewport camera view at 1:1? I'm manipulating some things in the scene from camera view, and I'd like to be able to tell exactly how big they will appear in the render.

Is there some way to make the camera view zoom to 1:1 in the viewport, without rendering the scene?

Yes, Blender has this feature:

From the 3D View Header:

View -> Navigation -> Zoom Camera 1:1 (Shift + NumpadEnter)


How do I change actions in python I want to copy the world positions of a first bone to a second bone then save the second bones position as a keyframe(when the first bone has a keyframe) to retroactively fix rigging errors with roll on ik bones.

I can't sample the fcurves as they are local space so instead want to iterate the actions and set the frame then grab the matrix to apply and keyframe the second bone but can't find the command to set the action.

All actions in the file are saved in bpy.data.actions

for a in bpy.data.actions:
    print(a.name)

The action associated directly with your object, the one I'd call "in the slot"

action = object.animation_data.action

To set it to another action named "anotheraction"

object.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions.get("anotheraction")

If there is no action named anotheraction it will set it to None.  If there is no animation data on the object you will need to call

object.animation_data_create()

beforehand.

Note: can also have actions on any strip in the strips collection of an nla track in the animation_data.nla_tracks collection of your object.


wood peeling with a knife and curling its chips Is it possible to animate the process of wood peeling with a knife and curling its chips in Blender? If yes, do you know with which modules or functions of Blender it can be simulated?
For example, animating the zoom-in of the process that a sharp knife removes layer by layer of wood and the chips curls.
For example in the following movie, in 4:22 time frame, it shows from the backside and not the real peeling process, but it shows the overview of the peeling:
https://youtu.be/aqz-KE-bpKQ?t=259
or in the picture 1 from the above movie, you can understand what I meant.
Thanks for any hints on how to do the zoom-in of the process of the peeling with a knife or any tutorial close to that or name of any option which may help.
In this Blender file , you can find out what I tried and it did not work out:
Kind regards

The second round of the question:
Dear @lemon, thanks so much for your great help. I tried to replicate what you guided me, but I have some challenges. I would be grateful if you once more have a look to this new file [link] (https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/b/QQpq3s8k/) . I do apologize for my basic questions. If I have to read some parts of the documentation, please also inform me. Here I explain what I did. May be I do not see some points:
1- for the drawing of the main rod the wood, I use (Add, Mesh, Cylender) then because the automatic cylinder is in z direction I have no way except rotating in x and z, 90 degree. I use also “cap fill type” of “Ngon”. I used also 50 Vertices to have a fine surface.
The first question: When I look at your model, you have different type of “Cap Fill Type”. One side is open, one side has rounded edges, and in the center a rounded shape. Did you use “”Bevel” for making the round edges and deletes one face of the cap? Is it important for this simulation?
2-I also used “loop cut”, to partion it to make fine chip, is it necessary?
3-I did not understand how to position “empty”and the “cube” of the cutter on the same coordinate system. I moved the “empty” by hand and also on the menue of “transformation” to give the approximate coordinate and positioned it somewhere on the edge similar to yours. Did I do a mistake?
4- is the size of the empty important? (its scale?)
5-my main question is how did you manage it that the form of the curled chip does not become weird after cutting? In my model it changes and becomes thick after separating
Thanks so much for your time and help

An opportunity to test the 2.91 boolean modifier options...

There are two rods in the scene (a copy of the first one but different material), one for what we see as the rod and another for the cut.
The first one has a boolean modifier set to "exact":

The second a boolean and a simple deform ("bend") modifier driven by the empty (which is parented to the cube). But here the boolean is set to "fast" because if the shape is plain, simple deform will transform it badly.
The cutting cube is parent of an empty that is used as pivot point for the bending.


Why is this little program of logicbricks not working? Little explaining here: When the message "lap" is sent, this object should copy a property from another object "TIME" to the property "current" that's on itself. Than, as soon as "lap" is being sent again, the property sensor should check if the property "current" that is changed, because of the message, is less than the property "Text" on this object. If so, it should copy the property "current" to the property "Text" on the same object and make the object visible. There's one problem though. It works only once. The Text property is in first place set to 10000 so that it's kind of impossible to have a value higher than "Text" because it's a timer. So If I go over my finish line and the "lap" message has been sent, the "Text" property changes to the time I needed for the lap and makes the object visible successfully. But when I get a faster time, it doesn't seem to change the "Text" to a lower value.

I have been playing around with some options but I can't seem to get it done.

Someone who can help me?

You need to enable "True-Level-Triggering" on the message sensor. Also, make sure the massage is sent every tic on the object that is sending: also can be done by enabling TLT on one or all of the sensors.

True-level-Triggering makes the sensor send new positive pulse every logic tic that the sensor is active, rather than just once, and the a  negative when inactive.
It can be enabled with the little three dos icon on the left of the sensor.


How can I specify filenames of animation renders as [SCENE NAME] + [FRAME] when rendering an image sequence? I'm rendering out products from different angles. I set up keyframes to rotate the product to the desired angles, then I'm doing an image sequence animation render for each angle. Is there a way to specify the filenames to the scene name followed by either a custom name, or the frame number? Thank You!

This answer already explains how to render certain frames.

bpy.context.scene.name             ...   the scene's name
bpy.context.scene.frame_start      ...   the scene's starting frame

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
fp = scene.render.filepath # get existing output path

for frame_nr in range(scene.frame_start, scene.frame_end):

    # set current frame
    scene.frame_set(frame_nr)

    # set output path
    scene.render.filepath = "//render/" + scene.name + "_folder/" + scene.name + "_customName_" + '{0:03d}'.format(frame_nr)
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)
 scene.render.filepath = fp

Refer to:

padding ints with python
the range function


Python: Duplicating a group with animation I have a group. The first object is a mesh and the second is an armature with multiple actions that controls the mesh. How can I duplicate this group with python in a for x in range(number) statement and be able to set the action on each armature that is created. This way, each duplicate group will have it's own animation.

Make a copy of all objects in group "Group" and assign to a number of new groups, "NewGroup[.nnn]"  If the object in the new group has a parent or an armature modifier object in "Group" then it is assigned to the respective copy in the new group.

import bpy
scene = bpy.context.scene
number = 5 # make 5 group copies
group = bpy.data.groups.get("Group")
obs = [o for o in group.objects]
if group is not None:
    for g in range(number):
        group_objects = [o.copy() for o in bpy.data.groups['Group'].objects]
        new_group = bpy.data.groups.new("NewGroup")
        for o in group_objects:
            # parent
            if o.parent in obs:
                o.parent = group_objects[obs.index(o.parent)]
            # armature modifiers
            armature_mods = [m for m in o.modifiers if m.type == 'ARMATURE']
            for m in armature_mods:
                if m.object in obs:
                    m.object = group_objects[obs.index(m.object)]
            new_group.objects.link(o)
            scene.objects.link(o)

To check if an object is armature and change action, something like

    for o in group_objects:
        if o.type == 'ARMATURE':
            o.animation_data.action = someaction
        new_group.objects.link(o)


How do I get these animated obstacles to work right with fluid physics and prevent freak outs like this? I recently tried to bake a fluid physics simulation with a mixing vat style setup. I did some basic parenting and keyframes to animate the stirrer, but the fluid immediately freaked out completely (or as immediately as it could have been, considering it baked for 3 days).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mli_sOjYDc

What settings do I need to change to keep this from happening? I've heard about something called exporting an animated mesh, but I can't seem to find anything on the internet about it.

Select your obstacle object, go to physics in the properties pane, under fluid obstacle settings there's a checkbox called Export Animated Mesh. Use it :-)


How to create an alias for an object's properties? I'm curious if anyone knows how to rename an object's properties?  For example, can I rename head.rx to be head.nod?

In maya, there is an aliasAttr command that does this.

Would love to do it in blender, too. :)

cheers!
-jason

You can't rename an object's properties, but you could extend it via its RNA, or add a custom ID.  IIRC, you can then add a driver to the original property, so head.nod ->> head.rx.  See here:

https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Py/Scripts/Cookbook/Code_snippets/Properties

That said, if animation channel usability is what you're after (judging by the names of your example) you might be better off just making a bone called 'nod' and then driving whichever axis is going to rotate that head downwards.

Not as extensible as Maya, for sure!


Rotation handles won't pop up on mask I have a mask I'm animating around an object and, when you first draw the mask, if you drag at all when you drop a point, a rotation handle will pop up (see pic below for reference). Well, I have a lot of other points that don't have the rotation handle on them because I didn't drag when I drew that point. How do I bring up this rotation handle on the mask points that don't have them originally?

I figured it out. What you do, is you go over to your toolbar, and you hit "set handle type" then you can go down to the menu that popped up as a result of hitting it and change the handle type to your liking.
The shortcut for this is "V".


Rendering video sequence editor by scripting I'm trying to render all individual strips that I have in the video sequence editor in separate files automatically.

I started this script:

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
all_strips = list(sorted(scene.sequence_editor.sequences, key = lambda x: x.frame_final_start))

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.filepath = "/Users/***/Blender/mkv/"
bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.image_settings.file_format = "FFMPEG"

for strip in all_strips:
    if strip.type == "MOVIE":
        start = strip.frame_final_start
        end = strip.frame_final_end
        bpy.context.scene.frame_start = start
        bpy.context.scene.frame_end = end
        bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True, use_viewport=True)

but I always get this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 7, in <module>
  File "/Applications/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/2.79/scripts/modules/bpy/ops.py", line 189, in __call__
    ret = op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Error: Could not open file for writing

Is there something wrong with bpy.ops.render.render(animation=True, use_viewport=True), with some context maybe?

It seems that by specifying:

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.filepath = "/Users/***/Blender/mkv/"

Blender tries to create the file with the directory name (I actually thought that Blender added automatically the filename with the start and end frames...). I changed it to:

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.filepath = "/Users/***/Blender/mkv/" + str(n_strip) + ".mkv"

inside the loop and it now works perfectly.

Kudos to batFINGER for the hint.


why does world background appear very dark when rendered? I was getting a perfectly blue and white cloudy colourful background but somehow it seems all darkened, I must've change some settings unintentionally, but I can't figure our how to put it back normal. can you please help me?
here is a screen shot from my render

dark background

normal background which I want it back :)

blender file
I'm using cycles with pro skies add-on

It looks like you might have set the clamp settings set too low.
Try increasing them until you find a good balance between highlights and fireflies (I typically use something like 2, but you might be able to get away with 1).

You can probably leave Clamp Direct at 0, since direct bounces typically don't result in fireflies.


How to do a rigged character that supports different anatomy types with morphs? I wish to create multiple rigged low poly characters for a game. To cut production time, I want to know how to merge morphs and bones rigging.
My goal :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn5j2tvjI7A
How do I go about this ?

Click the + button twice. Then go into edit mode and start moving vertices. Or go into or sculpt mode and move the vertices until you have a shape you like, repeat this until you're happy. Make sure while editing that only the key you are working on has a value of 1 and all others are 0, otherwise it might mess up your preview.


Is it possible to link a modifier for only one Render Layer? I have a scene in which I want to render some of the same objects in two separate Render Layers, with different modifiers in each Render Layer. I know how to link modifiers using Ctrl+L > Modifiers, all I want to know if there is a feature, add-on, or the possibility of adding a feature, like the change all Materials option, just for modifiers.

In very simple terms, how can you animate the linking of Modifiers? (change the link parent)

here is a code that keeps a specific group of objects related to another object modifiers this is how it works :

add the selected objects to a group named 'linked objects'
rename the active object  'source object'
whenever the function is called it copies the modifiers parameters from the 'source object' to the rest objects in the group and if the modifier is not present it creates a new one
the function is appended to the scene_update_pre() handler to be called automatically

Note :
 - before you run the script make sure to select your objects and the active object is going to be the source object thus it will be renamed ( you can make a dummy object as the source to keep the names)
 - you can add/remove other objects later to/from the group because the update is related to the group not specific objects

import bpy

bpy.context.active_object.name = 'source_object'
linked_objects = bpy.data.groups.new('Linked_objects')
selected_objects = [obj for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects
                            if obj.type == bpy.context.active_object.type]
for obj in selected_objects:
      linked_objects.objects.link(obj)

def link_modifiers(context):

    linked_objects = bpy.data.groups['Linked_objects'].objects
    source_object = bpy.context.scene.objects['source_object']

    for obj in linked_objects:
        for mSrc in source_object.modifiers:
            mDst = obj.modifiers.get(mSrc.name, None)
            if not mDst:
                mDst = obj.modifiers.new(mSrc.name, mSrc.type)

            # collect names of writeable properties
            properties = [p.identifier for p in mSrc.bl_rna.properties
                          if not p.is_readonly]

            # copy those properties
            for prop in properties:
                setattr(mDst, prop, getattr(mSrc, prop))

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

the code for copying the modifiers is from this answer by Adhi so thanks Adhi

the code needs more tweaking especially the handler choice I'm new to this so any advice would be appreciated

Animation Render test with two modifiers with drivers applied only to the source object "the orange cube":
render result


Disable/enable VSE via command line Is it possible to enable or disable the "use Sequencer" checkbox via the CLI render command? There's no command line argument for that, but is there an easy way to decide at rendertime whether to use it or not? (Blender pre-2.8)

You can include a script in the CLI and include the folowing lines:

bpy.context.scene.render.use_sequencer = False
bpy.context.scene.render.render()

Use the -P <filename> switch to load desired python script.


Include Other Objects in Sun Lens Flare Compositing Project I created a Sun Lens Flare project by nodes compositing.

If I add some objects to the scene, the problem is when rendered, those other objects are not showed.

Rendering with Cycles. How to include and view other objects in this scene?
Here's the attached blend file:

Sun Lens Flare.blend

In the node editor, you just have to plug the input of Composite node into the Add node output :


Mirror modifier not working correctly I am trying to extrude using mirror modify and instead of connecting the mirrored section automatically, it creates two separate extruded sections. Not sure what I am doing wrong.

If I'm not wrong I think you mean the middle section where the mirror is?
It looks like you may have a face at that middle section. Just delete it and it will stick together instead of creating two separate sections

There are hidden faces hidden in the middle section.

Press Z to select the face.

The Mirror Modifier automatically merges the vertices if the option to merge is turned on. No longer having a separate section.
Hope this helps! Enjoy your modeling ;)


How to identify a keymap conflict? I can't access the Clipping Border command (Alt+B) with my standard Blender setup. When I load factory settings everything works okay, so I presume there must be an addon that conflicts with this command (I realize I could be wrong).

Is there a way to find the conflicting addon except for turning all of them off and then load one by one?

Go to File > User Preferences > Input, set the dropdown menu next to the search field to Key-Binding and enter AltB. It should list all operators bound to a key. It includes addon keybindings.

Addons can also capture events in modal operators, but it's really rare that they consume certain events and pass on the rest. So it would be pretty obvious that there's something running in the background, because a lot of actions wouldn't work.


How can I rig a cylinder so that when it's rotated its end cap will not penetrate the floor? I have a default Blender cylinder positioned upright atop a ground plane:

How can I rig the cylinder so that can be animated to wiggle/jitter (perhaps procedurally with noise f-curve modifiers on two of its rotation axis) without penetrating the floor?

A simple parent-child relationship as in the image above is sufficient to rotate (and translate) the cylinder on 1 axis in either a positive OR negative direction.

I'm looking for a setup that would allow me easily to rotate the cylinder on two or even three axis in both a positive and negative direction.

I imagine this would be possible with some drivers applied to the XYZ coordinates using trigonometric equations but the math escapes me. It might also be possible using a particular bone setup with the correct constraints but my attempts to find something that works so far have not succeeded.

Thanks for your assistance.

There is no need for complicated trigonometry or drivers. You can do this with constraints.
Constraints are faster than drivers and have no security problems (manual).

The Cylinder Rig

Create the following bones. (Side view. Note, that the orientations of the bones are all the same.)

CTRL_cylinder has no parent or child. The other bones are in the following hierarchy:
floorRotation > orientation > DEF_cylinder > Cylinder (object)

Add a Copy Rotation constraint from CTRL_cylinder to DEF_cylinder.
Add a Copy Rotation constraint from CTRL_cylinder to orientation.

Add a Locked Track constraint to orientation. The Target is CTRL_cylinder, with Head/Tail at 1. Set the To field to -Z and Lock Y.

Add a Copy Location constraint from CTRL_cylinder to floorRotation.
Add a Locked Track constraint from CTRL_cylinder to floorRotation.
Yet again, Head/Tail is at 1. Set the To field to Y and Lock Z.

I suggest the rotation order YZX for CTRL_cylinder. Add a crazy control shape for CTRL_cylinder and set it to be displayed At DEF_cylinder. The animator can move, rotate and roll the cylinder. Optionally, the Y axis can be locked, if no twisting is desired.

BONUS CONTENT

Two Axis (Rocker) Setup

This is useful for objects with two or more pivots, like feet, chairs, ... or a cube.

Create the following setup. The CTRL_cube is not in the hierarchy. The other bones are parented as such:
y_copy > frontPivot > backPivot > DEF_cube > Cube (object)

The rotation order of CTRL_cube is XYZ with Z locked.

Add a Copy Location constraint from CTRL_cube to y_copy.
Add a Copy Rotation constraint from CTRL_cube to y_copy with only Y checked and Local Space for Target and Owner.

Add a Copy Rotation constraint from the CTRL_cube to frontPivot.
Add a Copy Rotation constraint from the CTRL_cube to backPivot.

Finally, limit the rotation of the frontPivot, to prevent the cube from going under the floor.

Add a Limit Rotation constraint to the frontPivot in Local Space, For Transform and with the X Limits 0 and 90.

The result can be moved rotated and rocked from front to back. With additional pivots and their respective Limit Rotation constraints any number of edges can be available for rocking.

Added a stylisch Bone Shape for CTRL_cube At DEF_Cube.


Can a EnumProperty have dynamic name? I have defined a custom Enum property for the Material type:

bpy.types.Material.EMaterial = EnumProperty(
    items=[('none', 'None', ''), ('vertex_lit', 'Vertex Lit', ''), ('transparent', 'Transparent', ''), ('transparent_bfcall', 'Transparent Back Face Cull', '')], name="Material"
)

This’s how I display panel for each material of a selected object:

    def get_materials(self, object):
        slots = object.material_slots
        materials = []
        for slot in slots:
            if slot.material != None:
                materials.append(slot.material)
        return materials

    def draw_material(self, material):
        layout = self.layout
        column = layout.column()
        column.prop(material, 'EMaterial')

    def draw_materials(self, context):
        object = context.active_object
        materials = self.get_materials(object)
        for material in materials:
            self.draw_material(material)

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.object != None

    def draw(self, context):
        self.draw_materials(context)

I want the name of the property (marked red in the image ) to be dynamic. i.e. it should depend on the material name itself. For example if the name of the material is material_1 the name of the property should be material_1. Is it possible to achieve it?

P.S. please let me know if my question isn’t clear enough , I’ll elaborate it.

This can be done by adding the optional text argument to column.prop(material, 'EMaterial').

column.prop(material, 'EMaterial', text=material.name)


Blender only render one frame of animation I have a 300 frame Eevee animation, but when rendering I only get multiples of the same frame. I have looked at similar posts on Stack Exchange, but they don't solve my problem.
Animation works perfectly in viewport. I render using Ctrl + F12. Cloth physics is baked for the animated object.
Blend file: https://we.tl/t-yFyttsa6aH
Render settings:

Frame that get rendered:

I deselected these two options and I can render the correct animation:


Gravity and Teleportation in fly mode When I press shift + f and enter fly mode, while flying around my scene, I noticed pressing tab doesn't toggle gravity, and when I press space I don't teleport either. Is there a user preference or something that I am missing?

Those shortcuts apply to Walk Mode not fly mode. Make sure you are in the correct mode.

see https://docs.blender.org/manual/es/dev/editors/3dview/navigate/walk_fly.html


how to make a swing hinge rig hello guys does anyone know how to make a rig to make swing hinge like this? https://www.dropbox.com/s/bdj4bj9rcqxoy7e/window.mp4?dl=0
here i tried with damped track, i added two with 1.000 and 0.000 of head/tail influence, but still is not convincing the rig...

I made the swing system with IK constraint.

Creation procedure
Creation of arm system proceeded as follows:
Step 1: Simple arm system (Armature)
Step 2: Design drawing (Mesh)
Step 3: Basic arm system (Armature)

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Bone (Controller): Limit Rotation
Bone.002: IK constraint
Bone.003: Copy Rotation and Transformation
The Transformation constraint was used to absorb the bone length matching error. It is very difficult to exactly match the bone length a + b = c + d.
Appendix
With offset between Bone and Bone.003 length.


Blender 2.8 customised themes I have tried on two different computers, also downloaded different builds, to make my own theme. I save the current state, then exit and choose the blender theme, then try and load mine, but nothing has been save.
I've tried loading my xml file, also nothing has been saved.

Has this feature been deactivated, does anyone have the same problem?

That would be an area that could be improved.

If you change theme settings, and then press the + button next to the theme list you can give your new theme a name. By using an existing custom theme name, you can overwrite your existing theme settings. If you use an existing name of a theme that is included with blender then you get two themes with the same name.

Custom themes are saved into scripts/presets/interface_theme along with your startup and userpref files.

You could make a suggestion at Right Click Select to see if someone wants to work on making this more intuitive.


Create Geometry based on an Image? I want to generate a grid of Objects based on an Image Texture.

I want to read the pixel data from an image
I want to generate an Object for every pixel (e.g. a plane) and colorize the object based on the pixel color

I want to use one single material for all objects and only change its color value.

Is this possible with python? Or is there another way?
How can I store color data in an object?

The Final Look should be something like this:

My code so far...

import bpy

cubeSize = 0.5

image = bpy.data.images["vangogh.jpg"]
width = image.size[0]
height = image.size[1]

for x in range(width):
    for y in range(height):
        plane = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add(size=cubeSize, location=(x*cubeSize, y*cubeSize, 0.0))

        index = x + y * width

        r = image.pixels[index]
        g = image.pixels[index+1]
        b = image.pixels[index+2]

You can do this easily with animation nodes in the blender 2.80.

Create a number of instances (with deep copy) and place them using the grid distribution node. Then use the same grid points or vectors to sample the texture with Texture Node, which gives you the color of texture at that point of the grid and by changing the scale of the grid points you can scale the texture mapping as you want.

Use these colors as input color for the vertex of the previously created objects. All the object has material but by using the attribute node in materials you can assign the color to individual objects based on their vertex colors. Here are screenshots of my node tree:


Shadow culling in shader for uv projected texture I'm trying to make a projection using the uv project modifier :

But I would like to project only once (don't re-project behind at the place where it should be shadow)

Would it be possible to use a light path camera ray from another camera than the one doing the final render ? Or use another attribute to make the projection only visible once and not project through all the object ?
Maybe a custom OSL or GSLS shadowmap from a point could be possible ?
I'm trying to reproject many photos (only one per frame) onto a photoscanned model :

I'm aware that I can project texture from light, but it produces only photons that will be absorbed (or bounces) onto a surface. I would like to have control over the shader and decide if I want to project a shadeless texture or project it as a texture used in the principed shader after.

I think what you are looking for is masking the actual texture out based on a camera direction.
I suggest you use the dot-product node in the shader graph.
The first input should be the mesh normals and the second input the projecting camera's direction. The result can be remapped using a color ramp node and then multiplied over the texture.
To get the camera's direction you could place an empty right down the z-axis of the camera and subtract the camera's position from the empty's position (maybe through a driver if necessary). If you have a lot of photos it could be a pain to manage the uvs and textures. Alternatively you could use a photogrammetry software like the opensource software MeshRoom to texture your mesh.


Project Image onto Cubemap I am quite new to Blender and Textures, so this Question has probaly asked before... I have got a skybox and an Image and I would like to project that image onto that Skybox, so that it looks undestorted when looking through the camera onto that part on the Skybox.

On the Image below I have tried to line out what I would like to do

What I basically want is that the projection on the right looks as the Image on the left, from that very Point of view.

All in all I need the UV-Map, is there any "standard procedure" I could apply?

Thanks in Ahead!

To make texture appear on the mesh just like you see it in 3D View window unwrap the mesh using U > Project From View. From the wiki page:

  Project from View option maps the face as seen through the view of the 3D window it was selected from. It is almost like you had x-ray vision or squashed the mesh flat as a pancake onto the UV map.

Note that because this option takes into account only parts of the mesh which are pointed to the viewer in 3D View, you

  will get some stretching in areas where the model recedes away from you.

So use it when you know that you won't see areas in scene where faces of this mesh aren't pointed to camera.


Drawing mathematical functions using Blender Is it possible to draw
Scherk's Minimal Surfaces (which is  e^z*cosy=cosx) using Blender?
Any suggestion would be great.

1.Add
2.Math Function
The functions on left side are fully customizable.
Hope this will work, try!


Animating a mouth in 2D with blender 2.8 I am trying to animate a mouth using the time offset modifier. Which, essentialy for all those who are used to doing 2D animation with other software, is a form of frame picker.

However, this is where my issue lies:

After...

setting up the layer with different mouth key frames
naming the layer lip sinc
adding the time offset modifier whilst in object mode
chosing the selected lip sinc layer within the modifier tab
opening up the dope sheet

Everything seems to work up until I add keyframes that I spaceout for a significant amount of frames, for example 10 frames. For instance if I insert a key frame from the time offset modifier on frame 1 and add another one on frame 10, it will work. However when pressing play , the timeline will play every keyframe in between the two initial keyframe that I inserted in the time offset modifer.

This means that my time line will have those two keyframes that I selected on frame 1 and 10. But by the time the time cursor gets to frame 10 of my inserted keyframe, it will have played all the keyframes in between the two keyframes I have selected in the time offset modifier. Does anyone know how I can fix this?

I had this same problem. I don't know why it's happening to me, while others seem to do it without trouble, but I tried to change the interpolation mode to constant, and it worked.
Go to:
Editor type > Action editor
right click > interpolation mode

Let me know if it worked for you!


3D printer not printing anything It's probably a very noob thing to ask but here goes nothing. I recently bought an Elegoo Mars 3D printer, which led me into the world of Blender. Now I'm still learning, but I recently decided to "design" a small piece on Blender, and print it. I've printed other stuff before, so I know the printer is ok. I think I messed up my design.
Whenever I export my model as STL file and import it into the slicing software (I'm using ChituBox 1.6.5.1), it seems okay-ish at first look. I thought the model would look like it's solid, but it appears as hollow. Regardless, each layer after slicing seems to be just blank.
It's my first time dealing with model scales etc. so I think I messed up there. I worked on mm scale on the designer. I set the unit to be millimeters and unit scale to 1.000.

One thing I think I should mention about is the exporting into STL file. On my first attempt, what I exported was apparently less than a millimetre on scale, even though I thought I was designing it in the correct scale (the edge lengths in the screenshot above). To fix this, I followed a suggestion on the interwebs and set the scale to 1000 on export screen, then it seemed to have loaded correctly into slicer. (I tried with Scene Unit option too, but didn't work). The Windows 3D viewer also showed the model as very very tiny, less than 1mm.
After importing into slicer, when I move the scroll to see the slices, the thing looks hollow. Not sure if that's actually a problem though. It looks something like this:

Long story short, I ended up printing thin air. I have no clue what is happening. If anyone is able to assist with this, that'd be epic.

I had the same. Searching for a clue I saw your question but I solved it (in my case). I think you need to flip the normals of your object in Blender.  In Edit mode select all sides go to MESH -Normals - Flip. Export your object as STL and try again.


what does it mean when you HAVE to provide UV coordinates using a Texture Coordinate node (to apply materials)? I imported a mesh from an .obj file, and I can't apply materials to it without providing UV coordinates using a Texture Coordinate node. It would just show up black when rendered.

what does this mean? Because, I've noticed when I add a Suzanne head (or any primitive mesh) and unwrap it, I don't have to add a Texture Coordinate node to apply materials to it.

thanks :]

You don't normally connect a UV socket to a Normal socket, the Normal socket is generally used for displacement or bump type of effects using either a texture or a normal map.

The fact that you connecting the UV socket to the Normal input of the material worked is probably just a coincidence, and a side effect of the fact that you mesh probably has some sort of geometrical glitch or wrong facing normals.

Try entering edit mode and clearing or recalculating your normals be selecting all faces and pressing Ctrl + N and see if that solves the problem.

Have in mind that this may destroy any custom normals your model might have (if any).


How to remove duplicate image textures? So I have appended a lot of characters into my scene from separate blend files which all use some identical image textures. My problem is that when they are appended each, the image textures are duplicated even though they are the exact same image.

I end up with "Image.png, Image.png.001, Image.png.002, Image.png.003, etc"

Is there any possible way I can remove all of these duplicate images and only have one that is used by all of the models?

A script maybe? I have zero experience with scripts unfortunately so I'd need a good explanation as to how to do it.

Thanks

You can use the Remap Users function in Outliner.

Go to Outliner > Blender File > Images category.
Select images with the .001/.002... appendix.
RMB > Remap users and choose the target image.

The remapped images will be removed on closing your .Blend.
(If they don't have a fake user assigned).


Retopoflow 3: symetry issue I am sculpting my first Character and i have to do Retopology since I reached + 3M Polycount.
The character is mosty symetric containing some asymetric parts. My Idea was to do the retopo on a symetric version (Generated with Automirror). And manually adjust the asymetric parts later on.
I am using Blender 2.91 and Retopoflow 3.00.2.
Here is where I got stuck:
If i start Retopoflow and turn symetry on i cant see a symetry line. The Whole Object turns red instead and none of the tools works.

If I switch symetry of everything  works as expected. Also, symetry works fine with the monkey face. It seems something is wrong with my Object, but I cant figure out what it is. I tried lowering Polycount (350k) which did not fix the issue. I really would like to use Retopoflow and I dont know how to move on. Please Help!

Turn on edge selection mode at the top left of the 3D viewport window. You have it on face select mode currently.


How can I Make a Cycles material with gradual gradient fill? I would like to use a material to create a blending effect from the edge of geometry to the mid point like I can with the Erode Node in the compositor. I don't know how to get edge to edge distances, but I feel like it could be hiding in pointyness attribute? I don't want to paint it or preprocess it (otherwise I'd stay with compositor)

See image:

You are right that using pointiness will do what you want. Take a look at the following node setup. Changing the subsurf modifier divisions changes the amount of blending (as well as adjusting the color ramp)

In short, pointiness is connected to the factor of a color ramp and that to the diffuse shader's color.


Timebase error when encoding I am using Blender's Video Sequence Editor and it won't let me render it. The error message...

  Timebase 20999/500000 not supported by MPEG 4 standard, the maximum admitted value for the Timebase denominator is 65535

...keeps popping up. I don't know what to do. It also won't let me save it either. Here are some screenshots.

Frames Per Second

The output file format you've chosen, Xvid, does not support the frame rate you've chosen. Your error,

  Timebase 20999/500000 not supported by MPEG 4 standard, the maximum admitted value for the Timebase denominator is 65535

basically says: your frame rate (5 frames per second with a framerate base of 0.210, totaling 23.81 fps) isn't compatible with your output file format.

How to fix

As far as I'm aware you can't fix it, you have to either change the fps or the output file format.

Happy Blendering!


Need advice for creating a simple scene with very large dimensions As an experiment I was trying to create a scene with a few simple objects but with extremely large dimensions.  Think planet and moon sized objects and a couple of human scale objects in the foreground.

I have units set to metric.
I have set my camera's clipping end value 10000km
I moved the camera to 0, -9000km, 0 looking toward the origin (I can see the 3D cursor there)
I create a UV sphere at the origin with size 4000km.

The sphere is not visible.

I've tried a number of variants to no avail.

What am I missing?  Or is this just out of scope for Blender for some reason.

You need to change the clip distance not only on the camera, but on the viewport as well.

Also if you are going to deal with those magnitudes, you might want to change the scale, both on the Viewport and the scene->units.

NOTE: watch out for Z-fighitng when rendering long distances. Read:

Weird shading effects when rendering at long distance


How to AddDriver the rotation value of the armature for the rotation value of the object I did AddDriver for RotationX of the cube.
From the EditDriver, I selected Armature in Prop.

In Path, "pose.bones [" Bone "]. Rotation_quaternion [0]" was input.
However, rotating the armature did not move the Cube.
How to AddDriver the rotation value of the armature for the rotation value of the object?
I don't want to use Child of constraints.
Because I want to use Bone's local value.

In the drivers editor, variable tab, instead of "single property" use "transform channel" ( (X) Symbol), then choose your bone, choose X rotation with auto euler option, choose world or local space, and when rotating the bone in pose mode, X rotation of the cube will follow.


Output from the node editor to the sequence editor I want to remove a green screen from a video. I know how to do it with the node editor but i can't send the result to the sequence editor. When i try with Add > Scene, it only show me the 3d scene(the default with a cube).

In the VSE preview window press the N key to show the Properties Panel. Look for Scene Preview Render. Turn off Open GL Preview.

This should allow the compositor output to pass to the VSE.

If you had pressed the render button (F12), you would have seen the correct view.

EDIT:
Change the scene strip property > blend type to Alpha Over or Over Drop.


Creating a texture and normal map from a 3D model / scene So as a very simple example of what i mean, consider having a model of a brick, with texture, a normal map, maybe even a tessellation/displacement map. Now if i go and arrange copies of that model into an entire wall, with some bricks slightly tilted or what have you, making it look in some way unique. Is there any way to create a texture and normal map (maybe even a tessellation/displacement map) from that scene so that when those textures are slapped onto a simple plane or cube it looks like that "unique" wall?

I tried taking a screen shot from the rendered scene but that gives only a diffuse texture and the lighting is also an issue.

Needless to say i'm not well versed in 3D modeling, but was hoping to create some textures i need in this way. Not sure if it's possible with blender or in general.

edit: originally i referred to tessellation/displacement map as bump map which turns out to be the same as normal map

I think you are looking for Render Baking:

Using render baking you can make normal maps, color maps, shadow maps, AO textures, etc.

Here is an example, the top wall is a plane with baked normals and render shading from the bottom wall:

Note that baking is only available in BI currently, but support for it in Cycles is already in a testing state (you can use it, but it is still experimental) and is targeted to be in 2.71.


Materials intersection problem (Archimesh addon) I'm trying to make an interior, and I've got a problem. I use the Archimesh addon. I've created a room with four walls that already have a Wall_material attached to them. I want to change the material of parts of walls next to the shower. I add a loop cut, then add new material to these parts, but the old material does not go anywhere. The result is the intersection of materials. How to solve this problem? Here are the screenshots.

Пытаюсь сделать интерьер, и у меня возникла проблема. Пользуюсь аддоном Archimesh. Создаю комнату с четырьмя стенами, которые уже имеют прикрученный материал Wall_material. Я хочу у двух стен рядом с душевой кабиной, добавив loop cut, поменять материал. Собственно материал я новый добавляю, однако старый никуда не девается. В итоге получается пересечение материалов. Как решить данную проблему? Вот скриншоты.

Thanks @Carlo for the advice. I just had 2 rooms at the same place that caused z-fighting.


Unwrapping all objects inside of the same UV space This is kind of a beginner question, so I apologize upfront.

Imagine the interior of a room made with Blender. Let's say, a dining room.

Inside of it, we have obviously the walls, floor and ceiling. But we do also have more objects inside, like a television. A sofa. A chimney. Some paintings on the walls. An antique ceiling lamp. You get the point.

I'm just starting out my journey on UV Unwrapping, oriented to game development. My question is the following: should I UV Unwrap all things (i.e. walls, floor, ceiling, chimney, TV, sofas, paintings, lamp, tables, chairs, ...) into the same UV space? What are best practices here that I should follow?

Thank you, and again, I apologize for such a beginner question.

well, after my short experience with blender i do believe UV unwrapping every single object would allow for more customisation.

You would be able to make better use of Textures and Maps (Normal, specular, etc.) while keeping a reasonable amount of control.

Furthermore, applying one UV Map to the whole room would certainly be messy. You would lose sight of what's what very quickly.

BTW I'm a beginner myself, so pls don't hate.

EDIT: Don't Game Engines also differentiate between objects (except maybe for complete static rooms etc.) ?


Animation on one object's duplicate? I have a simple issue that I'm trying to get around fixing. On trigger, an object is added and a message gets sent to that object. When the message is sent, the object plays an animation. The problem is that the animation gets played to all the objects and not the new one. How can I fix this? Thanks!

I've solved it by simply putting an always > and > action, this will play separately on all objects.


is it possible to change a material depending on whether it is intersecting with another object? Let's say I have a sphere, halfway intersecting with a cube(which is invisible to the camera). I want to change the material of the part of the sphere that is intersecting with the box, similar to this image:

An update, thanks to moonboots comments:

It is possible using Cycles:

The shader simply tests if the transparent depth is at least 1 as the cube is transparent but also we don't want more than one (as if not the cube shape may appear in non ortho views):


How can I mirror an object once in positive and negative X/Y axis? I'm working on creating some tilable assets for a project I'm working on.

Essentially I'd like the asset tiled in the positive and negative X and Y axis so that I can easily see if the object tiles correctly. Essentially I'd like the following where O is the original object, and X are mirrors.

   X
X  O  X
   X

The simplest way is to use a mirror modifier. With your object selected, in the Properties panel, click the Modifiers button. It only appears when an object is selected, and looks like this:

In that menu, click the dropdown that says 'Add Modifier' and select 'Mirror'.

There are several options here. You can check X and Y, and depending on how your objects are supposed to look, you might want to enable some of the other options. You'll want to experiment a little to find the settings you want.

You can also use the eyedropper on the bottom right of the modifier box to select an object to use as the center for the operator. Here, I have selected a small sphere I placed at the center, and used it to mirror a Suzanne head on the x and y axes:

Modifier panel:

Result:


How can I see matcap when I play a game? In BGE I can use Matcap when viewing objects, but when I press play and play the game can I use Matcap? It's real-time, so I can't see why not... That would give gameplay great graphics if I'm correct.

Matcaps are a viewport shading feature that doesn't exist in the game engine. Note that matcaps are applied the same to every object in the scene which is normally not what you want in a game.

You can however use the matcap images used by blender (or from other sources) in your textures which can then be used in the game engine. This question shows the settings needed for both Blender Internal and Cycles.


Blender 2.8 bevel broken Following this tutorial:

https://youtu.be/lZPedlX6CMw?t=813

when I try to bevel a circle I get:

Why isn't bevel working only for the selected vertexes in the same direction?

I tried merging by distance but the result is the same.

Some of the faces are flipped and the Bevel tool doesn't like it :).

You can recalculate them through Mesh > Normals > Recalculate Outside.
Or flip them manually through Mesh > Normals > Flip.


How can I improve viewport performance when using Dyntopo? I'm doing a Blendercookie course on how to sculpt a Scifi weapon with dyntopo. The fact is that when some piece reach a certain level of compleiity (about 1.1 million tris) the systems starts to lags too much and is so frustrating.

I've tried the several options:

Disable double sided lighting
Enable VBO

I've so also reduced the topology of hidden faces. But that´s how far I've reached.

I'm using a late Imac Intel I5 Nvidia GPU GTX 680mx

any tips out there?

Here is an answer by Sanctuary from Dynatopo test thread:

Some performance tips about Dyntopo

Do not use Matcap, while it does not show while you're still blocking out your sculpt and you are in early stage of it, Matcap will very noticably impact performance when you're starting to reach mid/high poly . Use that addon instead , gives full control on the Blender existing opengl lights and does not impact performance.
Make sure you have Double Sided disabled in the Object Data panel, it's not a nvidia problem only, at higher poly stage the difference in performance with it being enabled or disabled is very noticable on every hardware.
Check the Detail level in the Dyntopo setting, too low (like less than 5) that can lead in a -very- lot of triangles generated by your brush strokes , while sometime you may want that, in other time that amount of tris could be really unneeded and can degrade performance. For most of the sculpt time getting detail between 15/20 is good, and for fine detailling, around 10 or a bit less should be enough (remember that when you zoom in you're fine detailling anyways)
Less than 10 can be really overkill due the amount of generated tris.
You can optimise some part of your sculpt for which you think there are way too many triangles (enable Wire + Display All Edge to see what's going on while you sculpt) by either enabling the Collapse Short Edges button , increasing the detail setting and enabling for your brush the "Simplify" tool (in the bottom header Brush -> Sculpt Tool -> Simplify
You can press H and drag a selection to hide those parts while in Sculpt mode, it can help performance really a very lot depending on the kind of polycount you're having of course (ALT+H to unhide)
some people have mentionned that the regular freeze/pausing could be related to Blender autosaving (a function enabled by default for each 5 minutes) , you can disable or change the delay for that in File -> User Preferences -> File
additionally in freeze/pausing moment, clicking on "Optimise" in the Dyntopo settings may help so it recalculate whatever it has to recalculate
If rotating/zooming the view become painfully slow, press Z to switch to wireframe, rotating will then be very fast, press again Z to switch back to solid shading
Dyntopo can't currently reach (while keep performance good ) the same kind of polycount you can reach under Multiresolution, fortunately the "detail where needed" system of Dyntopo generating topology only where you work allows for detailled sculpt at a much lower polycount than an equivalent multires would require.
So don't be surprised if you can get a workable million in Multires and an unworkable million in Dyntopo.
Of course powerfull computers will get higher than less powerfull ones (and if i remember well, Dyntopo isn't multithreaded, while Multires is multithreaded).


Stopping a point cache bake I have a problem with blender sometimes: when I am running a simulation bake of some kinds, i.e. the point cache bakes, Blender will not allow you to interact with the interface at all. This is not the case with fluid bakes, but with just about every other bake. Cloth, soft-body, particles, rigid-bodies, etc. Is there a way that I can stop the bake while retaining the information from it?

It's the escape key, should work, and should leave the bake intact up to where it was pressed.
Works on 2.81a in Windows for me.


Grabbing circle doesnt disappear this white circle doesn't disappear, it's not the resizeable grabbing circle, which is activated by pressing g, this one doesn't disappear when selecting different lines and it does grab thing i don't want to move. How can i get rid of it?

It's the Proportional Editing. You switching between enabling and disabling it by pressing "o" on a keyboard or choosing grey/blue circle icon on the bottom tool bar.


How do I mirror a object without the mirror modifier? My cat-human hybrid I'm making needs a right ear and it needs to be mirrored.

This works both in Object and in Edit mode.

Place the 3D cursor where the mirror axis origin would be (Shit+C will place it at position (0, 0, 0)
Change Pivot center for rotation or scaling to be 3D cursor (or press . (dot) on the keyboard)
Duplicate the object or part of mesh you want to mirror (Shift+D)
Press Ctrl+M (or find command Object->Mirror Mesh->Mirror) and then select the axis you want to mirror the duplicated object along (in interactive mode press X, Y or Z on the keyboard). Click left mouse button to confirm.

In order mirroring to work correctly in Object Mode you have to Apply Scale and Rotation on the object first.


Object is cut in "3D View" This is a 3D view of a 2m x 2m x 2m cube, created by scaling up a standard cube from the grid center. The grey plane are the gridlines. It looks as if the 3D View camera can't pull backward enough. What's wrong?

This is happening because you clipping value is very low. To fix it press the ‘N’ key to open the property bar. In that there is something called ‘clip’ and under that there is start and end values. Increase the end value for something like 10m or 100m. If I am right (99.99%) this solution should work. Thank you


Fluid Flow always starts from Domain Boundary Issue Eventhough my inflow is in the center, the fluid flow always starts from the domain boundary. I have ensured that the normals are not inverted and the cache folder is deleted.Usually the first simulation works fine.

The blender file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzhkRkqiPRPtRnVYbFZrSkV2T0U

This appears to be a long outstanding issue:

https://developer.blender.org/T28756

and has been added to the "TODO" list at:

https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Source/Development/Todo/Tools#Fluid_Simulation

The problem appears to occur when you have a relatively small fluid object compared
to the domain size.

Generally speaking, using an UVSphere as an inflow object isn't a good idea due to the
smaller triangular faces at its "North and South poles".
A less problematic option would be to either use a cube or a level 1 or 2 subsurfed
cube (apply the modifier), if you want to keep the inflow object the same size.

Also, it's good practice to keep all of the fluid simulation elements at a scale of 1
(Your inflow object had a scale of .025, Apply Scale, Ctrl + a > Scale).
(Dimension of 0.05).

Here's your blend file modified using a Subsurfed level 2 cube (subsurf modifier applied)
at the same dimensions (0.05) as the UVSphere inflow object:

Using an inflow or obstacle object that contains faces with even/equal surface area
doesn't guarantee a successfull fluid simulation result when the voxel size approaches
the size of your fluid object(s). In this case, the only option would be to scale
everything up; which can necessitate tweaking any animation you may have on your fluid
objects.


How do I change the default data settings for an empty? I know that when I add an empty object to a scene, the empty defaults to a "plain axes" view type, but that I can change the view type to one of several options: Arrows, SingleArrow, Circle, Cube, Sphere, Cone, and Image. But if I want change "plain axes" to "Arrows" almost all the time, it would be more efficient to change the display default to "Arrows". How can I achieve this?

There's no mechanism to change the default, or setting in preferences. It could be added but frankly it's not likely to be considered worth the effort.

When creating the Empty it is picked from a dropdown menu, the next menu item down is Arrows. Moving a few pixels down with the mouse is probably the most non-invasive solution.

Existing key-combos

But by far the easiest is the shortcut sequence Shift + A  >  E  >  A

Making an add-on

But you could write an add-on / operator and bind it to a shortcut to make Arrows the default display type for Empties generated by the operator. See this post for most of the code you'd need.

Add Shortcut

You can also make a shortcut, by right-clicking on the Arrows menu item and choosing Add Shortcut, and it will ask you to press a key or combo.


Blender does not recognize Alembic file from Houdini im pretty new to Houdini but a Blender user for almost 2 years now.

I made a Fluid Simulation in Houdini, exported the deforming mesh as an alembic file, but whenever i try to Import it to blender, the file is nowhere to select. Blender does not recognize it.

I've checked the Export Settings in Houdini, and i think they're correct.

Has anybody ever had a similar Problem and hopefully a solution?
Couldn't find helpful material for this Problem online.

Thanks a lot in Advance

blender does not see .abc files from houdini, so in houdini you have to put the name of your project when exporting and after the name type .abc as the name


How to fix this ngon? I have Mesh Check Addon which says that I have a bad polygon (red vertex). How can I fix it? When I triangulate all faces and set Shading: smooth,  black shadows appear on the model.

Maybe just switch to wireframe mode "Z", box-select the general are (don't grab anything useful), then merge it at center with ctrl-m. Afterwards use snap to vertex on the individual axis, to make sure it ends up back in place.


There is no data transfer in modifier I am currently using Blender 2.70
And I've noticed that there is the "data transfer" tab missing in my blender.

If not, where else can I find that?

As Mr. Zak said in the comments, the Data Transfer modifier was not added until Blender 2.74. You can upgrade by downloading the application from the Blender website.