Making a crater on a sphere surface I want to make these small extruding craters illustrated in the image, but I never ever touched sculpting section so I have no idea where to start with.
Could you suggest how to make those craters on sculpting mode, or any alternative ways to get the same result?

I'd do away with sculpting, create it from a base icosphere instead.
Add an icosphere, subdivide it as necessary (about 2 in the example below), then on top of it add a Subdiv Modifier and set shading to smooth.
Then in Edit Mode select clusters of contiguous faces, spaced wherever you want craters to be.
Press E to extrude them with the option Along Normals, followed by a small Inset for the ridges, then another final Extrude Along Normals to create the depression.
Repeat for more craters, you can adjust crater radius either by insetting once before the first extrusion, or by scaling the extruded faces after the first extrusion.


How do I cut something in the game engine? I have a sword attached to a model who swings it every time the mouse is clicked. I would like to know if there is a way the sword could slice though things when it hits them.
Is there a way i could limit this to certain objects? That way he wouldn't cut though solid steel.

You could have the game engine replace the "solid" model with a model representing the "broken" model. Not the best method for realism, but it would work every time :)


How to get a hover craft effect (Object over Landscape)? I have made a hilly landscape using the Landscape addon in blender 2.8.
I have an object which I want to animate across the landscape by following the surface contours and maintaining a small distance, a little like a hovercraft floating over the land.
I have tried the “Limit Distance constraint” but can’t seem to make it work.

Is there a FAST and EASY way to accomplish this.

Shrinkwrap constraint is pretty good for this,  to control how far your object is from the ground you can simply lift it in edit mode to move it's origin downward.


How to loop an animation in BGE? I am trying to make a walking animation for my character in BGE, but I can't figure out to duplicate or loop the animation. This is so I can than make the animation "loop end" when you hold down the up arrow to make the animation play.

Update:
If this answer seems out of place, the original question was "How do I Duplicate Keyframes?"

Probably the easiest way is to the Dope Sheet editor. There are several ways to get there:

Click the icon on the bottom left corner of the 3D view and select Dope Sheet

Click on the dropdown that says Default on the Info bar, and select Animation. (Or press CtrlLeft Arrow twice)

This will take you to the Animation layout, with a 3D view, Graph editor, and Dope sheet.

From the Dope sheet or the Graph editor, select keyframes, and press ShiftD to duplicate.

Looping in the BGE:

Once you have an animation that ends where it starts, you can make it loop in the Game Engine with Logic Bricks:

Go to the Game logic editor (CtrlRight Arrow)
Add a Keyboard Sensor (Add sensor > keyboard) and set the key by pressing the button next to the word Key.
Add an Action actuator (Add actuator > Action) and set the Action value to your walk animation, set the end value to the last frame of your animation, and set the Action playback type to Loop End.
Connect the logic bricks by dragging the dot next to the Sensor to the dot next to the Actuator. An And Controller should be automatically created between them:


Subdivide loop at custom position without stretching the texture How can one subdivide at an arbitrary position, say the cylinder side faces, using CTRL+R (subdivide loop tool), so that the texture is not stretched like this:

Before

After

If this is not possible with this tool, is there another way, like for instance recalculating a group of UV coordinates by means of their vertex position and their surrounding vertices.

The loop cut operator has an option to correct UVs. Enable it in the redo panel, below the tool shelf or with F6:

You could also use the knife tool (K), with angle constrain (C) and cut through (Z):


Emitted Image not Showing up on Camera I'm currently working on a scene with a projected image on one of the walls. I've gotten to the point where the imaged is being emitted, but when I check what it looks liked rendered or through the camera it doesn't show up.

Not sure what it is as I already checked to see if it was the lights in the scene that was effecting it and its not. It could be that I'm emitting the image wrong as I was following an older tutorial. Here's an image of the node editor:

Also it's in the eevee engine but it's the same for cycles. Any suggestions or advice would be helpful.

Here's the file:

Camera Properties > Lens > Clip End 100 change to above 120 m.

Your Camera is clipped in view. You can see Start-End clipping by enabling Camera Properties > Viewport Display > Limits


Correct UVs Blender 2.8 I was wondering if there's the same feature as in Blender 2.7x, that if you check a  checkbox, your UV map get's stretched accordingly like in this post.

Thanks for your help in advance!

You should loop cut (Ctrl+R) or edge slide (G+G) first

And then, there'll be some options. Then, check the Correct UVs

After the modal tool is run the Loop Cut and Slide Options. These options are available in the Adjust Last Operation panel.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/tools/loop.html
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/edge/edge_slide.html


What is the best steps to snap the torus to floor level? I create a basic torus and at default setting the torus will not lay on ground level (z=0). So i tried couple way to snap it to the floor and couldn't get the efficient way to do it. Can someone show me the best and fast way using snap to level the torus so the bottom part will lay perfectly on floor. Don't use fix number ,  so it can also applicable to any other random size of torus.

Thanks

Align Objects [space menu search]

The Torus was selected. Next yellow floor last to become the active object.

The figure on the right shows two objects not yet aligned.  Torus and Plane.
The figure on the  left show two objects aligned.
The Tool Shelf shows the parameters used in this example ... Negative Sides, Active, Align Z.  The plane has the negative side and positive side in the same location .... plane.

Other options show in the Tool Shelf. Selection, 3D Cursor, Scene Origin


Export UV mapped texture maps to images? I have a series of texture maps (such as diffuse map, normal map, etc.) correctly set up in the Cycles node tree.

When I export my model to .obj, I notice the accompanying .mtl file doesn't really specify those maps with tags map_Kd, map_Ks, etc. I understand why this is happening -- you just can‘t really "export" Cycles material. That said, UV mapping is saved in .obj as tag vt.

How can I export those UV unwrapped texture maps out as new texture maps that match with the vt coordinates in the .obj?

I know I can bake the texture to an image, and that image indeed matches with the vt coordinates in the .obj. Although this is almost what I want, it's still different -- I don't need to bake the lighting information, etc. All I need is pixel-shifted-around versions of the original diffuse, normal, etc. maps.

The approach I am taking now is to bake Diffuse with only Color Pass turned on, i.e., without Direct or Indirect. What I get looks like "the pixel-shifted-around versions of the original diffuse map", and it definitely matches the UV coordinates in the .obj file because it's baked. Hence, it serves my purposes for now.

That said, I am not sure if this is really the best way or even the correct way of doing this thing.


How to get mouse position in a window with Python? I want to detect if the mouse is in certain area of the 3d View, so I can display a custom menu when it will be in the left top corner, over the view name ("User Persp" etc).

Here is a script from the blender wiki.

Go to the Invoke versus execute section for finding this code:

#----------------------------------------------------------
# File invoke.py
# from API documentation
#----------------------------------------------------------

import bpy

class SimpleMouseOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """ This operator shows the mouse location,
        this string is used for the tooltip and API docs
    """
    bl_idname = "wm.mouse_position"
    bl_label = "Mouse location"

    x = bpy.props.IntProperty()
    y = bpy.props.IntProperty()

    def execute(self, context):
        # rather then printing, use the report function,
        # this way the message appears in the header,
        self.report({'INFO'}, "Mouse coords are %d %d" % (self.x, self.y))
        return {'FINISHED'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        self.x = event.mouse_x
        self.y = event.mouse_y
        return self.execute(context)

#
#    Panel in tools region
#
class MousePanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Mouse"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "TOOL_PROPS"

    def draw(self, context):
        self.layout.operator("wm.mouse_position")

#
#   Registration
#   Not really necessary to register the class, because this happens
#   automatically when the module is registered. OTOH, it does not hurt either.
bpy.utils.register_class(SimpleMouseOperator)
bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

# Automatically display mouse position on startup
bpy.ops.wm.mouse_position('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

# Another test call, this time call execute() directly with pre-defined settings.
#bpy.ops.wm.mouse_position('EXEC_DEFAULT', x=20, y=66)

Now if you want to know the position of your 3D view, I made a quick research. With this you can find the area of your 3D View:

import bpy

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type=='VIEW_3D':
        X= area.x
        Y= area.y
        WIDTH=area.width
        HEIGHT=area.height

        print(X,Y,WIDTH,HEIGHT)


Simple infinite terrain concept BGE, HUGE drop in frame rate on spawned land The idea is to make an endless, possibly randomised,terrain for the player to explore (Modified from a concept found on Blendswap). Right now, I have it set up so that as the player walks toward the edge of a piece of land, then a new piece will spawn in front of them. This works fine. The only problem is there is a huge drop in framerate whenever the player walks onto a spawned landmass, and this is a big problem. Any ideas why this could be? I've included some screencaps with the fps breakdown. Let me know if there is more info I can give that might be helpful. Thanks!

Frame rate screenshots on original and spawned landmasses

I actually solved my own problem. I had never used the near sensor to spawn an object before so I didn't realise it will constantly spawn a new object every time you move within the sensor's range. So, I simply added an "end object" actuator to the empty below the "add object(landmass)" actuator. This ensures a landmass will only ever spawn once and not spawn again if the player returns to the area.

If anyone is wondering what method I used for the spawn setup: I have each square landmass in a second layer with 3 empties on every side except for one (the one "player"[property] just came from) with a distance 1.5x the landmass width from the center of said landmass. I then simply have each empty rotate the correct 90 degree interval to spawn the new landmass in the correct orientation.


Rigify addon does not do its job properly for my character I am new to the Rigify Addon. I have used it with my character, and it's not working well in some parts such as the face.

Link to the blend file

Just give me some tips to improve my rig. You can also make some changes for improvement and share that.

Your face is working badly because your head hasn't a good topology. Search (even in this site) for Head topology and edgeflow, or start trying to copy this example of good head topology.


Exploding an object by parts Hi I have imported an engine model in blender, I want to explode the complete engine part wise(PFA).there are so-many parts i cant keep moving all of them it will take lot of time. so is there any trick or option to do it quickly?
(This explode is not similar to the cube explode, here i want all the parts to be moved away)[the image shown is from different software but i want to achieve similar output from blender][https://i.stack.imgur.com/KEGDt.png]

Thank you

There's no officially prescribed way that I'm aware of, but this is a quick way to do it;

In these example, I have one object with a lot of loose parts that are all, themselves, manifold.

To modify a single object with multiple meshes

Enter edit mode on the object with Tab;

Change your pivot point to "Individual Origins";

Scale the meshes down to the desired separation;

Set the pivot point back to "Median Point"

Scale the meshes back up to the desired display size;

To use separate objects, one mesh each

I hit space (or F3, or whatever your search key is set to) and search for "Separate";

Then, I select "loose parts";

Now, search for, and select, "Set Origin"

Then select "To Geometry";

Each mesh will have it's own object. Now change your pivot point to "Individual origins";

Now, with all the objects selected, scale them down to a desired spacing;

Change your pivot point back to "Median Point", then scale up to the desired final size;


It is possible to quickly align an object with an axis of a custom transformation? After creating a cube in the global orientation, is it possible to quickly align it with an axis of a custom frame of reference?

Use: Align rafters with the roof slope for which a custom orientation has been defined:

Simple 'cube' which longitudinal axis should be aligned with Z of the Roof frame of reference

Tell me if this is what you want:

Create you first object and rotate it.
Create your second object, put its origine on its base (with Cursor to Selected then Origin to Cursor).
Activate the Snap tool of your horizontal menu bar, choose Face mode, enable all options.
Grab your second object, it will snap on the surface of the first one.
You can assign an Array modifier to your object so that it duplicates along.


Acrylic Material with Light Transmission I've tried so many things that I know of and I can't figure this material out. For reference, I have an example of what I want to create. To be clear I'm going for the floor material.

To me, it looks like the floor is illuminated from the bottom, I'm thinking this because the lights hitting floor in the middle are turning the floor white. So I'm assuming the floor is a white acrylic material with just a little light transmission, as you can see it's also very glossy. So I have a white floor material and then I have an emission material at the bottom. In the pictures you'll see a big round shape on the floor, that's the large panel light beneath the floor and the the fresnel keeps doing this. ANyway here are my results.

Then I figured out that GGX will let me transmit light but it doesn't work, this is transmission and transmission roughness cranked. One problem that persists is the fresnel is being really weird or I just don't have the right settings to get what I need.

All it took was extruding thickness to my floor sorry I'm an idiot LOL


Cell fracture and animating rigid bodies Could anyone please explain to me how to achieve this something like this:

I have a fractured sphere on top of a table and I want to animate it rolling of-of it and then exploding into pieces only when it hits the ground.

Can't find a proper solution to achieve something like this. I was thinking about setting the "animated" checkbox on all of the fractures but I can't find a way to do all of them at the same time. ( CTRL+L -> "Animation Data"  does the job but it also makes every single fractured cell to get into the same spot so my "rolling" animation fails).

Thanks in advance.

I have solved this with the help of the Fracture Modifier Build of blender. You can find more info and download it here:

http://graphicall.org/1148

I also included the steps in a text file inside the modified blend. Open this blend only in the Fracture Modifier Build or you may experience crashes and data loss in the blend.


How to give particles systems a moving target (key)? Goal
I'm trying to 'morph' one moving mesh into another moving mesh using particles. The 'morph' is working well when the meshes don't move, but moving causes trouble.
What I've done
Here's my .blend file:

In the gif below, a sphere is breaking into particles, and those particles are moving to different meshes in a water molecule. The particles doing the "morphing" belong to a separate 'controller' object (not in view). The controller object has several particle systems with keyed physics, each of which has the sphere as its first key target and a part of the water molecule as its second key target.
As you can see from the gif, the particle systems in the water molecules (the targets) stay put while the molecule itself keeps rotating. What I want is for them to rotate along with the molecule. The current (undesired) result is that the particles morph to where the molecule used to be, and then the actual molecule mesh appears rotated ahead of the particles.
I've also tweaked a few things for the sake of the gif.

The molecule usually doesn't show until the particles arrive. For the gif, I show it the whole time so you can see where it emits the particles.
The 'target' particle systems usually don't show either, but I'm showing them in the gif.
I've enlarged some of the 'controller' object's particles to make the morphing easier to see.

Question
How can I give particle systems a moving target?
I've tried setting the parent of the target particle systems, which did cause the systems to move, but particle systems don't have the matrix_parent_inverse property, so the scale and rotation were offset anyway. Also, despite seeing the target systems move, the keyed "morphing" particle systems seemed to still be aiming at a single spot. (Hopefully that made sense, but if not, suffice it to say that I can't get parenting to work with particle systems.)
I'm doing this with python, so I'm considering manipulating the individual particle positions based on the movement of the emitter, but it seems like there must be a better way than re-implementing parenting myself.
Finally, I have to morph with particles rather than shape keys, unless someone can tell me an algorithm/feature that can make the topology of two meshes equivalent while keeping the same resulting shape. :)

Simple solution
Setting the physics type to 'No' causes the particles to stick to their emitter, even if it moves. This can be used to make moving targets for other particle systems.
Before, I was using the "Newtonian" physics type, which caused the particles to stand still in the absence of any forces or initial velocity. I assumed 'No' physics would also result in stationary particles, but they actually stay stationary in the emitter reference frame. So yeah. That's it.
More complicated solution
Before realizing the simple solution exists. I did it by creating a 'middle' layer of keyed particle systems, which move and serve as targets for the rendered particle systems.
This is more complicated and taxes a computer significantly more, but leaving it here since it seems like it could be used to add field effects to the targets, which isn't possible with the 'No' physics setting from the simple solution.

The initial and final objects in the morph each have three, rather than one particle system.

The first particle system emits stationary particles at the beginning frame of the morph.
The second particle system emits stationary particles at the ending frame of the morph.
The third particle system has keyed physics and uses the first and second systems as targets. This causes it to move, tracing the motion of the emitter object (or at least going in a straight line between toward a destination, which is good enough to create the illusion).

This third, moving system (one in each mesh) is part of the 'middle' layer mentioned above in that it's used as a target for one of the rendered particle systems.
Here are the layers of particle systems:

Bottom layer: Stationary particle systems emitted by each mesh at the beginning and end of the morph.
Middle layer: For each mesh, one keyed particle system. For targets, this system uses the two stationary systems for its mesh (beginning and end). The particle systems in this middle layer are the moving targets the initial question is asking for.
Top layer: These are the rendered particle systems. Each of these systems is keyed and has two targets from the middle layer, one each for the pre- and post-morph meshes.

The resulting .blend file:

It has some additional complexity because each pre-morph mesh morphs to every post-morph mesh. Also, each morph has two rendered particle systems, one each for the pre- and post-morph mesh materials. In total, there are 96 particle systems! (Though this isn't the minimum necessary since the "bottom layer" systems are duplicated.)


Branching a cached cloth simulation I figured out I could get cloth to sew itself without gravity issues by animating gravity. So, after several minutes I end up without between fifty and a hundred frames of cloth simulation that result in a clothed character. Now, the problem is I want to animate the character doing multiple things while wearing the same set of clothes. Is there a way to bake the simulation up to a certain point, then drop the whole thing into a scene for further animation? I'm sure I could script something, but I'm just wondering if it can be done by default. I don't want to apply the cloth simulation, because then I'd end up with a non-planar base mesh.

You can duplicate the cloth object in an animated state (there is an addon called Corrective shape keys) where vertices are already in a "clothy" way. You can then use this as a base for other animations. The problem is: The cloth modifier still takes some frames of jiggling before it is stead


How to make an object (triangle) transparent inside leaving angles highlighted? I am new to Blender but have done a couple of tutorials already. Now I wonder how can I select the angles of a triangle and fill the content of a triangle with black. Or maybe there is an option to clear this content and leave it fully transparent? I have attached a screenshot to get a better understanding of what I want. Thanks in Advance! :)

You could mark the edges as Freestyle. You have options: in EEVEE, you can render the layer on its own, by unchecking all other passes in the View Layer Properties tab, or in Cycles, as illustrated here, you can check 'As Render Pass'.
In this example, 'Film' is set to 'Transparent' in the Rendering tab, and the Freestlyle layer is laid over an Input>RGB node  black in the compositor.

(Blender 2.92)


How can i fade a background/object with black border? is there any way to ''fade out'' the background?i want the front part to stay the same, but i need to fix that 'background (with the red arrow) putting a Black hole/Black color

Is that possible?

Something like this:
(but backwards)

I think that the solution for you is in this link: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Tutorials/Composite_Nodes/Setups/Blur_the_Background
Although I don't know why, but it doesn't work for me. I tried many combinations and ended up with this kind of method (which is experimental). I don't think that this is the proper node setup, but the result is quite fine as you can see below:

Go to Compositing Nodes window and set up the nodes as shown below. Add a Map Value node (Add-->Vector-->Map Value) and experiment with its Offset and Size values.

As I said, I don't think that this is a proper method of doing this, but I wanted to share it with you. It may work for you, but if not, please tell me in comment and I'll delete this answer.


How do you rotate your alpha brush in sculpting mode? I have my standard brush loaded with a texture (alpha image), and I'm wondering if it's possible to rotate the alpha on the fly or otherwise, preferably with drag dot as the stroke.

In case you're referring to the stencil image in the 3D view, Then you can achieve that by pressing Ctrl + Right click.
Additionally, you can move the stencil image using Right click, you can scale it using Shift + Right click.


How to access an Alembic velocity attribute? I'm trying to get motionblur to work on an imported Alembic mesh.
I can see that the Color-Attribute ("Cd") shows up correctly inside Blender as vertex colors, but what about my velocity attribute which works fine when I test it with Vray?

This is not yet supported, see https://developer.blender.org/D2388


Trying to get even spaced dimples on a sphere (Golf ball) I start with ICO sphere
4 Subdivisons.
Simplify, dissolve vertices.
Inset "dimples"
Select the "in betweens", similar all - fatten up a little
Subdivision surface
On a real one, there are less dimples.
More defined space in between.
Very slightly deeper dimples.
My attempt vs goal:

You can make a golf ball this way (inspired by this video by Savoir Pour Tous):

Create an ico-sphere with a Subdivision value of 3:

Bevel with Width Type > Percent and Width Percent > about 28%:

You have mainly hexagons and also some pentagons, try to equalize the areas. Select an hexagon and press ShiftG > Area. Select a pentagon and same thing, ShiftG > Area:

Extrude, scale down:

You have a golf ball (yes, a bit ugly because it needs a bit more accuracy):


Is there any tutorial on creating a slideshow with transition and with images of different sizes all done from python script? I would like to create a python script for blender that takes in paramater a set of different images of different size and create a slideshow with transition. When the image doesn't fit the camera view size i would like that the image would move with a ken burns effect. I would like to know for example how to fit the camera bounds to the size of a an image if possible and if not to fit the camera bounds to a portion of an image. All scene setup and rendering has to be done with a python script.

Thanks.

Based on a concept tutorial that i made there is this addon from hapit at blenderartists forums http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?360518-Addon-Dynamic-Slideshow basically you use the inport images as planes then place an animated camera over each image. This animation is editable per camera and occurs simultaneously in the scene.  Then in the vse each camera gets its own strip to mix as tou like. This allows you to rearrange the order of playback easily.

The main point here is retaining the full image resolution which the vse cannot do as it always conforms source to project dimensions or crops at 1:1.


Where can I find the Open Street Map addon? Where can I find the Openstreetmap addon? This link is dead: https://github.com/vvoovv/blender-geo/wiki/Import-OpenStreetMap-(.osm)

The OpenStreetMap addon for Blender has been completely rewritten.
Here is the link: https://github.com/vvoovv/blender-osm


Blender Glossy Direct render pass I was thinking that I know very well Cycles Render passes, but not.
Can someone explain Me (I was searching on web, but with no success), why Glossy direct pass is taking texture into consideration? Not environment, but texture on object?

This is an example (apologize for that simple texture). So in this case, We are unable to use Blender UV pass? Because if, I have to render a product, and 2 identical (in UV space) textures. And I like to use UV pass to just change Diffuse Color pass, I can't? Because Glossy Direct will deliver something from original one?

Here's the Combined pass:

Here's the Glossy pass:

Also it's not taking the color information, but only value. So Glossy pass is taking into consideration BW version of original texture to somehow deliver reflection inforamtion? It looks like that, or this is a Blender bug.

Tested on normal Glossy shader mixed with diffuse, on Principled, on CynicatPro shader, always the same behavior.

Regards,
Kamil.

This is what the Glossy Direct pass looks like when your file is rendered on my system.  I am using official Blender 2.79.  I do not see any trace of the image texture, which is visible in the Combined pass.  The other passes come out as expected as well.


bpy.data.meshes.new gets slower and slower I'm writing an importer add-on. It works, but it's slow. The first sub-file takes 15 seconds to import; out of it, 10 seconds are spent in bpy.data.meshes.new().

I timed it, and of course, it's fast at first, and it keeps getting slower.

While I can understand that (the scene is growing larger), is there anything I can do about it ? Like accessing the RNA directly or whatever, like this answer suggested ?

Here's the timings for my first sub-file : the first call to bpy.data.meshes.new() take 1ms, the 3000th takes 7ms.

Not a real answer, but more of a workaround : I manually merged the meshes by fiddling with the vertices arrays. So instead of creating 3000 meshes, I create only 1. Works in my use-case.

If it can help someone else, it looks like this:

lAllVertices = []
lAllTriangles = []

for fileToParse in allFilesToParse:
    lVertices, lTriangles = ParsePolygonalRep(fileToParse)

    # Before extending lAllTriangles, fiddle with the indices
    lCurrentIndexCount = len(lAllVertices)
    lTriangles = [(x+lCurrentIndexCount,y+lCurrentIndexCount,z+lCurrentIndexCount) for x,y,z in lTriangles]

    lAllVertices.extend(lVertices)
    lAllTriangles.extend(lTriangles)

lMesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(lMeshName)
lMesh.from_pydata(lAllVertices,[],lAllTriangles)
ob = bpy.data.objects.new("tmp", lMesh)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(ob)


How to determine whether a node_tree is a material or a node group? I'd like to know whether a given node_tree is either a material or node group as dynamically as possible. The following function works somehow but I don't want to specify the any additional argument for a fundamental reason:
def my_function(node_tree):
    #Incomplete example:
    #if node_tree is from material:
        print("It is a node_tree of a material")
    #elif node_tree is node_groups:
        print("It is a node_tree of a node_groups")

# Use case 1:
mat = C.object.active_material
my_function(mat.node_tree) # Returns a node_tree

# Use case 2:
group = D.node_groups["My Groups"] # Returns a node_tree
my_function(groups)

node_tree.id_data returns a node_tree in all my tests so I guess you can use something like isinstance() in conjunction with id_data? Is there any way to test the actual type like isinstance(node_tree, bpy.types.???) ?

How it represents itself.
In as much as it aint pretty have had to rely on this before, may be for same can't remember.  Noticed in console that the representation  "knows". (echoing in the console uses repr(ob) printing uses str(ob))
>>> D.materials['Material'].node_tree
bpy.data.materials['Material'].node_tree

>>> D.node_groups['Foo']
bpy.data.node_groups['Foo']

as a string is also of little use
>>> print(D.materials['Material'].node_tree)
<bpy_struct, ShaderNodeTree("Shader Nodetree") at 0x7f6bd0a86e08>

whereas looking at types et al kept coming up as same.  Hence can use this in your method
>>> def from_material(nodetree):
...     return repr(nodetree).startswith("bpy.data.materials")
...
>>> from_material(D.materials['Material'].node_tree)
True

>>> from_material(D.node_groups['Foo'])
False

alternatively endswith("node_tree") is possibly a quicker option.
Extra,

Nice solution. But so how can I get that material into a variable in
this function?

Once we know it's a material, can slice off ".node_tree" and evaluate it.
>>> repr(D.materials['Material'].node_tree)[:-10]
"bpy.data.materials['Material']"

>>> eval(repr(D.materials['Material'].node_tree)[:-10])
bpy.data.materials['Material']

Similarly could slice "bpy.data.materials['" from the start and "'].node_tree" from the end to just keep the name.
>>> matname = repr(D.materials['Material'].node_tree)[20:-12]
>>> matname
'Material'

>>> D.materials.get(matname)
bpy.data.materials['Material']


Baking IK into FCurves I have an object containing multiple models with several IK.  One model has fcurves (euler rotation only) which gives motor to linked IK models.  What I need is bake/convert all IK animations into FCurves.

Is it possible?

Try Bake Action (make sure you're in Pose Mode, it works in Object mode also) and ensure 'apply constraints' is checked. This will clear all your constraint, so if needed I would duplicate the armature and move to another layer before doing this if you need to bake more animations later on.


Is there anyway to snap to vertices while using Edge Slide with Clamp Off? I am a precision modeler, which means I like to be exact instead of "eyeballing" things when I model. I am very happy to see the option to Edge Slide with Clamping Off in v2.75a, but I don't seem to be able to snap the edge slide destination to a vertex point elsewhere on the model. Is this possible and I am just missing something?

I know this is an old question, but I've been having the same issue and managed to figure it out:

In Edit Mode, select an edge or a face that you want to use as a custom transform, this works also in object mode for objects.
Press Shift +  Numpad 7, this will align the view to selected in orthographic view.
Press Ctrl + Alt + Space bar, in order to create a custom transform.
In the Tool Shelf, that you can toggle it using T, under Create Orientation, at the bottom of the Tool Shelf, make sure you check Use View, this will align the new custom orientation to the view.
You can also rename the custom orientation to something meaningful. You can delete it or change it's name in the Properties Panel N.
Now you can use the new custom orientation instead of the default orientation, such as Global or Normal..etc. Don't use slide because it will still not react to snap, instead use transforms to move G, rotate R or scale S using the new custom transform, you can still lock axis and toggle between Global and custom transform using shortcuts.
Check Blender Documentation on Custom Orientations:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/editing/transform/control/orientations.html#custom-orientations


How to transfer vertex position between 2 similar objects So I've got 2 faces.

I want the shinier head to the right to have the exact vertex positions as the other one.

I really need them to be on the object on the right without duplicate the left one.

I'd be really thankful if somebody could help!

If the models are from the same base (for instance sculpted one from the other, or simply modified a bit), so that they have the exact same topology, they can be mixed as shape keys:

To do that, select the mesh to transfer, then shift select the destination mesh. And in the properties panel, in the shape key part, use "join as shapes".

Now you have the left models incorporated as shape keys in the right model:

If you don't want to keep the shape key, simply slide the value to 1 and remove the shape keys (when removing, remove the others shape keys first and the one you want to keep last):


File claims it contains 0 faces and 0 vertices but in scene view all object names show I saved my blender file. When I opened that file the next day it appeared empty;  0 faces 0 vertices. But I see all scene names in the scene tab. Also my file size shows.

Why can't I see my objects?

Viewing a layer which has no objects

maybe you accidentally switched the visible layer to a layer which contains no objects.

For example if you have all your objects on the first layer (called layer 0), but are viewing the second layer, you won't see anything. Verts/Faces/Tris will say 0, even if the Objects are in the scene.

Pressing the numeric keys 1, 2, 3... will switch current layer, it is possible that you accidentally pressed one of those.


Is blender more superior with the node editor then without it? What I mean is - Can you do things in the node editor that would not be possible if it is removed? Is the node editor only a visual representation of other approaches for the same thing?

For Cycles materials most of the node editor's functionality can be achieved in the material tab. What is missing is the creation and editing functionality of node groups. Also, working in the node editor is much less confusing than using the visualization in the material tab.

For Blender Internal's node-materials, node textures and the compositor there is no equivalent in another part of Blender. If you removed the node editor, you could not use these features at all.


How to change pose without deforming my mesh? Im not sure if its possible but there are cases where changing pose (by moving/pulling bones) modify the mesh very uglily.

Before:

After:

How can I prevent it? The place where legs connect is character body, and its very weirdly deformed. Knees deform very well, but body doesnt.

Any help appreciated really.

This is probably caused because the bones are too closer to each other, but thats how I planned these legs to be.

Is it possible without changing plans?

EDIT:my blend file:

another screen of what im trying to avoid without success:

I don't know a lot about the Skin modifier but it looks like the parentage was not good. If you apply the Skin modifier, then put your armature in Pose mode, then put your mesh in Weight Paint mode, you can see that the weight painting is not good, the legs control the hip, when they are not supposed to. Now you can correct with the brush.


Animating a dynamic amount of objects from CSV data using Animation Nodes Problem

I was given some data from a simulation and am trying to animate said data. I've gone through several other posts where they accomplished this using Animation Nodes, which works for a fixed amount of objects. The problem I'm having is one data file can contain the position/rotation for an undefined amount of objects. What I need is some sort of first step that instantiates the necessary amount of objects and then a second part that animates the objects.

Solution

The solution I'm looking for needs to:

Instantiate a undefined (dynamic) amount of objects
All instantiated objects will be the same
Animate a undefined (dynamic) amount of position/rotation vectors

If there is some better method to accomplish this other then Animation Nodes I am open to suggestions.

What I've tried so far

So far I've been able to animate a fixed number of objects using a loop input. I've played around with using a different character to separate the objects like '$' character. But I still get stuck trying to instantiate the objects dynamically.

Update

Ok so I screwed around a little more and have it now so the objects get instantiated based on the length of a list taken from the first line where the elements are separated with '$' character.

I feel like I'm soo close now but I'm still running into the issue where it doesn't want to add keyframes for the 2nd line.

I've added a screenshot and the .blend so maybe someone else can see what's going wrong here?

Update 2

I understand attachments are typically frowned upon in SE questions but so we can all be on the same page I've attached an example CSV file.

Some more things to note are:

I can format the simulation data in any manner, if changing the format of the CSV allows me to more easily create animations then so be it
Remember as long as I can animate an infinite/undefined amount of objects AND keyframes/data points then we're good.
The approach I've taken at the moment is to have every line (row) = one animation cycle. The information for each object is stored on a single line, I use a the '$' character to divide objects as a little bit of a hack.

Project Files / Example CSV

Example CSV File

I finally gave up on Animation Nodes and just wrote a simple Python script instead. I changed the format of the CSV so 1 line = 1 keyframe. This is simpler but it could probably be more efficient by not forcing you to place keyframes constantly.

The objects are still separated by '$' characters to simplify parsing.

An Example CSV file can be found here

Script below:

import bpy
import csv

# File to open
csvFile = open('example-data.csv')

# Separate by lines
csvFileLines = csvFile.readlines()
csvFileLines = [line.rstrip('\n') for line in csvFileLines]
#Remove first row
csvFileLines.pop(0)

#How many objects should we instantiate?
objectCount = len(csvFileLines[0].split("$"))
print("Objects found: " + objectCount)

objs = []
objs.append(bpy.context.active_object) # First obj added is the current active object
# Get scene
scn = bpy.context.scene

# Instantiate all objects needed
for x in range(1, objectCount):
    objs.append(objs[0].copy()) # Copy first object
    objs[x].name += str(x) # Give unique name
    bpy.context.collection.objects.link(objs[x]) # Link to scene

keyInterp = bpy.context.preferences.edit.keyframe_new_interpolation_type # Remember user selected interpolation type
bpy.context.preferences.edit.keyframe_new_interpolation_type ='LINEAR' # Set interpolation type to linear

for i, line in enumerate(csvFileLines):
    # Find objects
    csvObjectPosRot = line.split("$")
    for r, values in enumerate(csvObjectPosRot):
        # Find values from object string
        csvObjectValues = values.split(",")
        # Set object position
        objs[r].location = (float(csvObjectValues[0]), float(csvObjectValues[1]), float(csvObjectValues[2]))
        # Set object rotation
        objs[r].rotation_euler = (float(csvObjectValues[3]),float(csvObjectValues[4]),float(csvObjectValues[5]))  # Note that you need to use radians rather than angles here
        # Add keyframe for object
        objs[r].keyframe_insert(data_path='location', frame=(i))
        objs[r].keyframe_insert(data_path='rotation_euler', frame=(i))

bpy.context.preferences.edit.keyframe_new_interpolation_type = keyInterp # Revert interpolation type to the users last selection


Material Editor: Generate mask from color ID texture I'm trying to work out a way to generate a mask based on a color ID texture in the material editor (not the compositor). What I'm trying to achieve is have a node group I can re-use which has two parameters, the first parameter is the color ID texture and the second parameter is the color from the texture I want to generate a mask from.

I've included an illustration:

I got it working for some colors (such as red, green, or blue) but it didn't work in all cases, I also had a problem where the mask would show up properly when previewing it through an emissive shader but wouldn't show up when viewed through a normal diffuse shader.

Thank you for your time.

Two independent node groups for creating a mask based on a color and a texture :

material setup :

the first node group outputs boolean 1/0  ( all comparisions are "less than "):

the second node group outputs grayscale :

adjust the sensitivity/clipping to get a good result "sensitivity is added to overcome  errors due to rounding the numbers"


Change of the color of the hair in a render video I am working in blender and planning to create a character where the hair changes from black to white. I want to make an animated video which shows the change happens from the beginning of the hair, gradually to the end. I took the idea from the Disney animated movie, Tangled, when Rapunzel’s hair glows in a gradual way.Thanks for every help;))

You can get a MixRGB node, plug it into the color of your shader, slap a color ramp on the factor of the MixRGB and put a gradient texture on the factor of the color ramp. Slide the colors around in the color ramp and you get a nice transition. :D


Determine if the cursor is over Tools shelf, Properties shelf or 3D content I am developping a modal operator. How can I determine if the cursor is over the Tools shelf or Properties shelf or pure 3D content (don't know how to call the last one correctly)?

My idea is to block an event in modal(self, context, event) from passing it back to Blender if the cursor is over pure 3D content. In that case modal(..) returns {'RUNNING_MODAL'}. However if the cursor is over the Tools shelf or Properties shelf the event is passed back to Blender, so the user can change some parameters in GUI panels located in the Tools shelf or Properties shelf. In the latter case modal(..) returns {'PASS_THROUGH'}.

There is a context.region.type variable which can have the following values:

WINDOW - 3D View
UI - Properties Panel
TOOLS -  Tool Panel
values for the other possible regions (see the documentation)

However context.region.type seems to be determined once on operator invokation. So it will always have the same value while a modal operator is running. The only way seems to be to find out manually:

for region in context.area.regions:
    if(region.x <= event.mouse_x < region.x + region.width  and
       region.y <= event.mouse_y < region.y + region.height and
       region.type in ("TOOLS", "UI")):
        #
        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

Perhaps a more appropriate way would be to check if the cursor is over the  3D View:

for region in context.area.regions:
    if(region.type == "WINDOW" and
       region.x <= event.mouse_x < region.x + region.width and
       region.y <= event.mouse_y < region.y + region.height):
        break
else:
    return {'PASS_THROUGH'}


How to fix this mesh issue? I created an arm, and then a hand separated for it. The arm have less vertices and edges then the hand, so to connect them I had to do like this

The problem is those things in the mesh, because one vertice has a lot of edges connected to it.

Is there a way to make the hand and the arm to be more uniform, to make those things dissapear?

As Sanbaldo says, use trick to keep good topology, meaning quads as much as possible, see this site for example: https://topologyguides.com/
Here are examples of edge loops reductions:

For your hand you could try the following method, first delete vertices:

Then draw this topology:


Rocky mistake with key frame in timeline it looks like that i made a mistake with the timeline. I have deleted objects from the file, left the one that i wish to work on, which i did (worked) and even saved the file. Today I have opened the file and wanted to add some keyframes to my rigs but, sadly, by removing the old objects and forgetting to remove their keyframes, now i came accrose to be unable to remove the left over keyframes from the old objecs and my file is irrecoverable (ctrl+Z will not work any more since file was edited and saved, closed and then opened). I might even say that i have "ghost" keyframes in my timeline that I just can't remove them in any way. I have searched on youtube, on google, in the book but nothing was mentioned (or i haven't paid attention well) for removing this "ghosts".
I have only the lines in the timeline, nothing else nowhere (nothing in dope sheet, NLA editor, graph editor, just in timeline).

If someone could advice me how to remove them, I would be a very happy man.

Thank you in advance.

The file of the issue at hand:

You got this object 'GPencil' in your Outliner. It's not selectable, but could be made invisible. This is the object which has the keyframes. Strangely, it can't be deleted, since it's not selectable. But you could just create an empty new blender file, and append all objects from your old scene into the new one - the broken object is not among them.


Amount of bevel before or after boolean modifier probably there is a good explanation for this, but i failed to find it anywhere.
I noticed (at least on 2.9) that the "amount" of bevel (via modifier) you can get on an on object after a boolean modifier is very limited, no matter the actual value set in amount. But if I swap the modifiers order, it behaves as I would expect. The reason for trying to have a bevel after a boolean was because I was trying to have a bevel on the new edges created after the "difference" operations.
As you can see in the pictures belove, the bevel is smaller/thinner if the bevel is applied after (but works on the new edges too), compared to how it looks if it is applied first.
"Bevel after":

"Bevel before":

Any reason for this behaviour?
Thank you for your help.

This is because of Clamp Overlap. It prevents edges from sliding on top of each other and in bevel modifier it can be found under Geometry.
When you use boolean to cut away the cylinder it adds a lot more geometry to your cube and edges can't slide as far without intersecting. You can see this happening if you disable Clamp Overlap.


Adding MDD mesh cache to imported OBJ produces visual artifacts I'm trying to import a simple test figure (Michael 4) and 60 frames of animation from DAZ to Blender. The OBJ display fine on its own, ignoring an issue with the normals on the forehead. However, once I apply a mesh cache modifier and load the MDD file, the figure's scale reduces drastically and the surface looks a mess. Moving the modifier's frame scale slider shows that the animation is indeed there. I've played with DAZ's OBJ export options, such as reversing axes and changing the scale. But the result remain the same. Perhaps someone has already encountered and solved this problem or has other recommendations?
Thank you,
d.vyd

SOLVED: I solved this by selecting "keep vert order" in the Blender OBJ importer. The options appear in the lower left corner of the screen.


Wind build up speed with sapling addon I have a tree with a low wind speed, but I want it to build up into a storm with high wind speed. Is there a way to increase the intensity of the wind as the frames go on?

When creating your animated tree, note all values and use the export preset. (It doesn't export all settings, that's why we have to manually input the rest.)

Go to the dope sheet and choose the action editor mode. You will see that a windAction has been created. Press the F-button next to the action's name to give it a fake user. Delete the tree. Since you gave the action the fake user, it is still existent, even though the armature is deleted.

Create the same tree with the same generation values (which we wrote down earlier). Change the animation settings as desired e.g for a stronger wind.

A new action is created next to the existent one. I renamed it strongerWind.

Go to the NLA editor and add a track with ShiftA. Add an action with ShiftA as well.

Check sync length and extend the action by increasing the end frame. Add the other action as well.

Offset the NLA strips. By scrubbing over the frames you will see, that either action is played in the 3D view. Select the first action and enable Animated Influence. Set two keyframes on the influence with the I key. Select the 2nd action and enable auto blend. Auto blend creates a blend between two overlapping action strips.

Set the first action to additive blending. Go to the graph editor, you will see the two keyframes for the animated influence, which we created. Here you can add more keys. The action is multiplied by the influence. If you the motion to be small, use an influence close to 0, if you want the full animation amplitude, use and influence of 1. With this technique, one action would be enough to slowly increase the strength of movement over time.

The animation results from first increasing the influence of the windAction, then blending over to the strongerWindAction.


Is there a quick way to reset a .blend files windows and settings to default Whenever I download a .blend from someone all of the windows and settings are the way they have left them as it is saved in the file. It takes way to long to rearrange every window and toolbar to the way it is by default. Is there any tool or shortcut that can reset the UI to blenders default and just leave the actual contents of the file? The only way I could do this is by creating a new file and using link/append but this is not the best option.

When you open the file there is an option to load the UI from the file which is about to be opened. By default this is enabled, deselecting this option will keep the current settings. See image below.

Edit - Updated with comment by @Samble

In the user preferences under File there is an option for Load UI - this is the default that is used each time you open a file. If it helps you can turn it off and manually turn it on only when you want to load the UI from a file.

Once the file has been loaded it will use the setting pulled from .blend file and to my knowledge there is no "Reset to Factory UI" or "Reset to Start-Up UI" option like you can do for the start-up .blend.

Should probably be put in as a feature request as I a lot of people share files and doing it by accident is annoying as you lose your current UI and then have to either reload factory setting or your own blend file to get back your UI before re-open the file you want to load.


Render Layers causing pixelation I used this answer (Prevent shadow on object/material A, allow for object/material B) and it helped me a lot. However, this method is causing these jagged black pixels when I am combining them. What gives?

The index passes in Cycles are only rendered with only 1 sample, unfortunately, so they are not antialiased.
Your setup looks to me as if it should work with a simple Alpha Over too. Replace your Mix node with AlphaOver and just don't use the index pass.
However, for that to really work correctly in every case you have to make sure that the object you want to separate is masked by the occluding geometry from the rest of your scene.

So put the object that you want to separate on a layer with only that object on it. Then in Renderlayers exclude the layer with the element that should not appear on that layer by using the Exclude Layers, like you already did. Finally set the Mask Layers to all layers with objects on it, that would occlude the separated object. In your case that would be the table, in case the makeup thing would penetrate the table geometry a bit. Though in your scene you might even be lucky enough that it might work without even bothering with Mask Layers.

If you really have to use an index pass you can try to smooth it with the Dilate/Erode node, with mode set to "Feather".


colored shadows for transparent objects with shadow catcher I'm rendering a scene in cycles with partially transparent objects and I would like to use shadow catcher to composite the objects and their shadows onto a perfectly white background.

Normally these transparent objects cast colored shadows.

However, when I make the plane they are sitting on a shadow catcher the shadows are just grey.

Is there any way to keep the colored shadows when using the shadow catcher?

I do not believe this is possible at this point with just the shadow catcher function added in v2.79.

The function is imperfect for compositing, it also does not catch light or refraction/reflections for example.
Its just a quick way to composite your scene for mock-up purposes.

I would suggest to use the compositor and render passes to achieve the desired effect, which is much more involved and exceeds the answer to this question.


dark and light areas on car panels I've just started to use blender to make car models using blueprints, I've run into this problem where i have dark and light areas on the panels for example the top half of the front wing is supposed to be all light and the bottom half is supposed to be all dark. I've already flipped the normals, can someone help me?

A simple subdivision surface fixes this:

This is caused due to some faces being bigger than others, and as such Blender reflects the light differently. This happens when smooth shading is enabled, and the angle/size of two or more faces right next to each other differ greatly.

If using a subdivision surface modifier is not suitable to you (This should work with Blender Game engine as well), modifying the faces may be your best bet.

Hope this helps.


Why is there no displacement in height in the texture after adding the normal and height maps? The plane is just flat without any height based off the normal and height map texture used in the PBSDF.
Ive added the bump node and normal node for the displacement and normal maps yet there is no bumps on the plane. There is also pixelated lines on the surface of the plane when the strength of the bump node is 1. What am i doing wrong?

You are sending the vector into the Normal input of the shader. Using altered normals in materials by definition does not deform the mesh. To deform the mesh with a material, send the vector from a Displacement node into the Displacement input on the Output node, and set the material’s displacement mode to “Displacement only” or “Bump and displacement. Note that this will only work in Cycles, and will not generate new vertices: the mesh must be subdivided quite a bit for any noticeable effect.
To displace a mesh with a texture without using Cycles, use the Displacement modifier instead. Note that this will not generate new vertices, just like the last example.


Texturing problem with models I have 2 models within my blender. i Want to put on my horse model simple jpg texture like on my turtle. Theres any way to do that? Thanks for answers!

There are a lot of ways to do that.

You can use some Projection painting, or some stencil painting, or use the UV Project modifier, or hand paint the texture yourself (since it's a few black strokes on white background, I think it's actually the fastest and easier way to go).


Is it possible to store rigid body cached/baked data into an external folder? Is it possible to store rigid body cached/baked data into an external folder, instead of directly in the blend-file so that the file-size is not too large? I feel that storing the data externally seems more convenient, as then I have more control to bake in chunks.

This is an opposite question to Is it possible to bake fluid simulation into blend file?

Similar to rendering an animation to individual frames and convert to video afterwards, so that it is possible to render in chunks.

No, there is no option to bake to external cache.

The workaround would be to convert simulation into an Action: Viewport header > Object > Animation > Bake Action (turn visual keying on).

You can store this action in another .blend to link it somewhere later, or in another file format you can import where you like.

If you want to simulate in chunks, you will have to animate the Animated tag under Rigid Body settings to control till which point is the last Action and where the simulation continues.


How can i properly rotate my object? When i try to rotate my object then adding a keyframe to it, it doesnt work, rotating also in X or Z (i just need it to make it rotate in Y on this time, like in the picture) creating a weird movement between the initial and final keyframes (those are only two, i need a continuous simple, rotation)
How can i make it rotate? also, i think it's about the pivot, how can i fix it in order to be able to properly rotate the object?

To get a constant rotation you only need to use two keyframes on the axis you want to rotate. With two keyframes in place you can then set the extrapolation to linear and the rotation will then continue as long as needed. You can then adjust one of the keyframes to alter the speed of the rotation. The channel extrapolation can be set in the graph editor by pressing ⇧ ShiftE and choosing Linear Extrapolation, which can also be found in Channel->Extrapolation Mode->Linear Extrapolation

If you then want your object to rotate at an odd angle or as it is moving around, you can add an empty, make it the parent of your object and then move the empty, your object will continue rotating on it's axis as it follows it's parent.


Procedural lines/scrabbles In order to make procedural scratches texture, I wanted to make some random lines scrabbles like on picture (scratches might be more accurate name but it reminds me of just random scrabbles).

Is that possible, if yes, how?

Randomness is one of the hardest thing to achieve. Messing up the coordinates of simple textures might help.

You can try using a checker texture, separate the texture coordinates of one axis of the mapping, and use a wave texture to create distorted lines. Then mix that with another texture to darken some of the lines.

(click on the image to enlarge)

Then mix that that with other groups of nodes that go in different axes and with different kind of distortions and use other control (or mask) the mix

(click on the image to enlarge)

NOTE: this kinds of setups can get very complex and cumbersome, so it might be easier to pack things in node groups. Also to understand how things are working start with the checker texture only, then add texture coordinates and a separate XYZ to see the result. Then add nodes one by one to understand what each one is doing and how changing size, distortion, detail etc, are affecting the result. There are infinite ways to combine textures, coordinates and mappings and effects. Trial and error will require some time before you find something that works for you.


Detect drag and dropped files from python? I want to write a python script which downloads images which are drag and dropped into blender from a browser. However, I don't know if this is even possible.

Is it possible to get the following in python?

When an image is dropped into the image editor.
The location (URL) from the dropped file.

And then create an image datablock from the stored image data?

Is this possible?

No, it's not possible. In Blender's C code, I found references to "dropboxes" and code to deal with them in different area types, but the process is completely inaccessible through Python (no variables to check, nor callbacks to register).

There is bpy.ops.object.drop_named_image, that looks like a modal operator. It supposedly adds a dropped image as an empty, but does nothing when executed and crashes Blender when invoked, so I think it's an internal operator just like bpy.ops.mesh.drop_named_image. So there's no directly-callable Python operator for drag-and-drop either.

Besides, Blender doesn't support URI-formatted filepath.


Can not delete actions in action editor even with Shift + x I can't delete any of these actions. I did do Shift + X but they just keeps showing up. There's no O next to them:

Here's blend file:

When you delete an action, it still exists in Orphan Data:

Although ther's no O next the action name, it will be removed after saving and reopening the file.

If you want to delete all Orphan Data immediatly, just click the "Purge All" button.

NOTE
If you want any orphan date to have a Fake User and prevent them to be deleted, click on the x:


my image texture doesn't apply alpha I've been using Blender for a while now and recently when I import my logo which has a transparent background in image texture and plug it to my diffused colour, it doesn't overlay my logo on the diffused, rather, it adds my logo and change the whole object material to black.

I.e my alpha logo now appears to have a black background.

I had a similar issue.  I had to fix it with nodes.  Here's a screenshot showing how I did it.

After a log of experimenting, I found I had to add in a transparent BSDF into a mix shader with the Fac of the mix shader being the alpha color.

In the pic, the lower texture coordinate group did the trick for me.

If it doesn't work, let me know and I'll be glad to help.


Why are the Cycles/BI Voronoi Procedural Textures Different? The Voronoi procedural texture settings you get when, for example, you create a Displace modifier, are much more customizable and there are many more different effects you can achieve them with the Cycles material nodes version of the voronoi procedural.

Material nodes:

Displace modifier:

Is it possible to get effects like you can with the displace texture with the cycles material nodes texture? For example something like this:

The Voronoi Texture used by the displacement modifier is generated differently since it can also be used in the Blender Internal renderer.
The node you speak of is the Cycles texture node, a completely different engine and thus completely different parameters and code.

But yeah, I'd like to see some more procedural textures ported from BI to Cycles, particularly this Voronoi texture and the Cloud texture (which has many different algorithms to choose from, whereas Cycle's Noise texture is a simple Perlin noise if I remember right)


Scripting: Displacement modifier visual update required started using blender recently (>2.8), and in particular I'm trying to do a lot of work via scripting and the use of modifiers.
In particular, I'm generating a circle via modifiers, with a changeable radius via the displacement modifier. However, when I create this via scripting, the displacement modifier doesn't update the visual until after I click on the mesh object.
How can I force this visual update programmatically?
(1) Before Script | (2) After Script | (3) After Click On Mesh Object

I don't want to apply the modifiers just yet either.
The Code:
import bpy
import bmesh
from math import pi

# 1: Generate Mesh Object
mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("mesh")
obj = bpy.data.objects.new("object", mesh)
scene = bpy.context.scene
bpy.context.collection.objects.link(obj)

# 2: Generate Mesh - Verticies, Edges, and Faces
verts = [(0,0,0),(1,0,0)] #add a line
bm = bmesh.new()
bm_verts = []
for v in verts:
    bm_verts.append(bm.verts.new(v))
edges = [
    [bm_verts[i], bm_verts[i+1]] for i in range(len(bm_verts)-1)
]
bm_edges = []
for e in edges:
    bm_edges.append(bm.edges.new(e))
bm.to_mesh(mesh)
bm.free()

# 3: Create modifiers for object.
# length of the line object
radius_mod = obj.modifiers.new(name='length', type='DISPLACE')
radius_mod.show_in_editmode = True
radius_mod.show_on_cage = True
radius_mod.strength = -1
radius_mod.mid_level= 0.2
# create a circle
screw_mod = obj.modifiers.new(name="screw", type='SCREW')
screw_mod.axis = 'Z'
screw_mod.angle = 2 * pi
screw_mod.use_merge_vertices = True
screw_mod.merge_threshold = 0.01

There is a handy from_pydata method (doc) when you have relatively simple mesh data. When I used this, I didn't have this disconnect after setting the modifiers.
By the way you are setting attributes to the screw modifier which are already default like the Zaxis or the 360° and the merge threshold distance.
Updated code :
import bpy
import bmesh

mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("mesh")
obj = bpy.data.objects.new("object", mesh)
scene = bpy.context.scene
bpy.context.collection.objects.link(obj)

# 2: Generate Mesh - Verticies, Edges, and Faces
verts = [(0,0,0),(1,0,0)] #add a line
obj.data.from_pydata(verts, ((0,1),), [])

# 3: Create modifiers for object.
# length of the line object
radius_mod = obj.modifiers.new(name='length', type='DISPLACE')
radius_mod.show_in_editmode = True
radius_mod.show_on_cage = True
radius_mod.strength = -1
radius_mod.mid_level= 0.2
# create a circle
screw_mod = obj.modifiers.new(name="screw", type='SCREW')
screw_mod.use_merge_vertices = True


mutiple camera rendering script code error I'm want very many camera working rendering test (maybe 60 count(camera animation)?
so my python code check please
enter code here

import bpy
i = 1
count = range(0, 2)
cam = "Camera.00"
for i in count:
    camname=cam + str(i)
    bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.context.scene.objects[camname]
    print(bpy.context.scene.camera)
    bpy.data.scenes.render.filepath ="//TMP/" + cam + str(i) + ".jpg"
    bpy.ops.render.render(animation = True , write_still = True )
    i = i+1

Cannot run bpy.ops.text.run_script() from the console.
Operators prefixed bpy.ops.text. are designed to run in the context of the text editor. (eg press the run script button in the text editor)  In which case the script to run is the one that you are looking at and is assigned to that areas space data
>>> C.screen.areas[3].type
'TEXT_EDITOR'

>>> C.screen.areas[3].spaces.active.text
bpy.data.texts['Text.001']

Hence when translated to english the error you are seeing is
>>> bpy.ops.text.run_script(
run_script()
bpy.ops.text.run_script()
Run active script
>>> bpy.ops.text.run_script()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/home/batfinger/blender-git/xxx/bin/2.91/scripts/modules/bpy/ops.py", line 202, in __call__
    ret = op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.text.run_script.poll() failed, context is incorrect

https://blender.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=%5bpython%5d%20incorrect%20context
Run the script from the text editor, or paste it into python console to run from console. [Note to self. Find link for run script in console addon]


Problem with Normals - pointed appearance Im unfamilliar to Blender's more advanced setting/glitches so i do not know how to title this question (i'll fix that later) but the normals (is this how its called or face direction?) suddenly started to look like the picture below (i dont know when it started doing this)

the problem only happens with the "normal" normals, the inverted normals are fine, unfortunately this problem also shows in renders, please help

It seems that the normals are inverted, try this:
Hit (Tab) to enter edit mode, (T) to show tools, go to "Shading/UVs" tab, hit the buttons Normal: (calculate) then (flip direction).


Camera doesn't follow curve smoothly I have set the camera to follow the path of a Bezier Curve. However the camera seems to only touch between the handles themselves instead of following the true path of the curve.

I found the answer, the curve resolution was too low, so even though the preview looked like a curve the actual resolution wasn't smooth. I just upped the resolution U and it worked perfectly.


Shading lines on corners of extruded faces on cylinder I am a beginner in Blender and 3D modelling in general. I have 'pushed' inside a few faces of a subdivided cylinder mesh, which has a bevel modifer active in the stack, but I get diagonal shading lines on corners of the cut as shown in the screenshot. Any help would be greatly appreciated! :)

It looks like you've created bevels around your hole, so it makes ngons on this part of your cylinder. You will have almost no pinching with this solution:


Character facial expressions I am working on a small  game project with a bunch of buds and would like to know how to add simple 2d character emotions onto a 3d model and have their be multiple expressions within that model. I'm not sure if i'm describing this right, but if you've ever played Goemons adventure or Kirby and the crystals shards on Nintendo 64, I believe they do this same thing. Basically to re-clarify, I want the character to have a default emotion drawn onto their face (eyes open, nose, smile) Then have that be changed to something else instantly whenever a new emotion is called for. Basically the emotions look like their drawn on rather than sculpted.

This is easy to setup with the UV Warp modifier. This will allow you to change the UV mapping and map the face to different places on the texture, where you will have all the facial expressions:

These expressions can be part of your other textures. UV unwrap the face to the first expression:

Add the modifier to the character. Create a vertex group for the face and setup 2 objects that will define the UV warping transformation. If your character is rigged, you can have 2 bones inside the rig for this purpose:

Animate an Action for the To object with keyframe on each facial expression. This way your expressions could be randomly placed in the UV where there happens to be space for them. When you move the current frame number in the Timeline, your character should swap faces now.

To control this from the rig, you just have to put an Action constraint on the object/bone that is responsible for transforming the UVs. We will drive this Action constraint from another object/bone, let's call it Control. Now moving this Control on single axis on integer values should show all the expressions (keep the Max and End parameters the same):

Now you can set an integer property on your head object or bone, that will drive the Control location:


Why do CG artists often sculpt the head first? I would like to know why many CG artist sculpt the head and then the body?

I suppose many of them make the head first to then joint to the body or clothing?

The head is usually the focal point of a character and is therefore the most detailed part.

The head is often sculpted separately to allow for higher subdivision/detail when sculpting, before retopologising, although with dyntopo this isn't so necessary. Many artists may also want to focus on the head to get a good feel for the character/get the character right before continuing with the body.

It is worth noting that this isn't always the case, from what I observe its usually personal preference. If I start with just a head its usually because I was doing a quick bust and decided to turn it into a full character because I liked where it was going.


How can I deselect a loop cut layer of vertices? I have tried a few ways to deselect a layer of vertices, however I am a little stuck.

I can deselect 1 vertice (Shift+select vertice).
I can deselect multiple vertices (Ctrl+Shift+LMB > drag lasso over preferred vertices).
I can select a face, however this doesn’t allow for loop cuts to have their inner layers selected.

I’ve noticed this is for selecting layers (in loop cuts):
CTRL+Alt+LMB on vertical edge, for horizontal layer
and
CTRL+Alt+LMB on horizontal edge, for vertical layer.

I need to deselect layers.
Therefore, these are the steps I've figured out:
CTRL+Alt+Shift+LMB on vertical edge, for horizontal layer
and
CTRL+Alt+Shift+LMB on horizontal edge, for vertical layer.

However, the challenge now is that these steps don’t deselect one layer, but rather two or three layers. How can I deselect one layer?

Any suggestions please?

Are you trying to do this?

If so, then just press A to select everything, and SHIFT+ALT+LMB to deselect the loop that you want, and it is the same in the edge and face modes.

Hope this helped!


Render Layers node doesn't have denoise sockets When I am in Compositing, my Render Layers node only has three sockets: Image, Alpha, and Depth.  But it is supposed to have much more sockets based around denoising, namely Noisy Image, Denoising Normal, Denoising Albedo, Denoising Depth, Denoising Shadowing, Denoising Variance, Denoising Intensity, and Denoising Clean.  How do I get those to show up?

In the View Layer panel > Passes > Data, you need to activate the Denoising Data option.


Simulating moveable objects like gears I'm pretty new to Blender.

Is it possible to test mechanical objects like gears in Blender before printing them in a 3d printer? If so, how?

For example, if I have created a robotic arm, is it possible to simulate what would happen if I turned something?

It is of course possible to test stuff in a 3D environment. Big companies for example do it when they build a factory to check whether any pipes intersect with the walls or cables. Better safe than sorry.

Doesn't mean it's easy in Blender. You can misuse Blender as a CAD-Software. I have used it to visualize stuff I wanted to build in order to find out lengths or shapes. Turns out it does a reasonably close simulation of a solar eclipse, too. You could write a script that accurately checks for intersections.

Realtime physics can help as well.

However...

All of the simulations in Blender are not built for high precision. Especially the physics are meant to be an amazing aid to animation, not a precise model of the world.

Also, most 3D printers have tolerances which means: what you model is not precisely what you get. Gears will work, just not amazingly well. You can't beat bought gears or a solid lathe to make them yourself with a 300 bucks printer.

Quick answer: it helps and you can model the parts for the printer but you need to gather experience to foresee all the pesky little details involved.


Updating text object in Blender 2.81 using python I'm trying to update multiple text objects by testing it with changing the current frame (Please note this will be replaced with different field variables with decimal values in it) but instead of replacing the number it writes over it and creates several font objects.

How can I fix this so it replaces the previous value and doesn't create all those font objects?

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene

def recalculate_text(self):
    font_curve = bpy.data.curves.new(type="FONT",name="Font Curve")
    font_curve.body = 'Current Frame: ' + str(scene.frame_current)
    font_obj = bpy.data.objects.update("Font Object", font_curve)
    bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(font_obj)

    font_curve2 = bpy.data.curves.new(type="FONT",name="Font Curve")
    font_curve2.body = '2nd Field value: ' + str(scene.frame_current)
    font_obj2 = bpy.data.objects.update("Font Object", font_curve2)
    bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(font_obj2)

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(recalculate_text)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.remove(recalculate_text)

register()

PS: I know I could do this with Animation nodes but I'm trying to get better at scripting.

The function recalculate_text which you're having run every frame, is also setup to create a new object every time. Pull the object creation out of the def function. Check this out.

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene

font_curve = bpy.data.curves.new(type="FONT",name="Font Curve")
font_curve.body = 'Current Frame: ' + str(scene.frame_current)

font_obj = bpy.data.objects.new("Font Object", font_curve)

scene.collection.objects.link(font_obj)

def recalculate_text(scene):
    font_curve.body = 'Current Frame: ' + str(scene.frame_current)

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(recalculate_text)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.remove(recalculate_text)

register()


Blender says model is UV Unwrapped but cycles does not render? I can't get my model to render with the UV Unwraps. Though, there are many clues saying the model is in fact unwrapped, Blender can't render them out.

Here is the model in textured view:

Here it is in rendered mode (I linked the texture to the glossy color for visualization sake):

Here is the node setup:

And here is the unwrap:

Any suggestions on what could be the problem? Appreciate it.

Your problem is having two UV maps in the same object, and the one you want is not the active one.

Normally this is not a problem but you have to choose which one to use for rendering, or change from a Texture Corrdinate node to a UV node.


Bone not moving in standalone player I have coded a Blender animation's bones to move while the BGE is running. I made an Always sensor run code in a module that changes the bones using rotation_euler.

It works fine in the embedded player (the bones change xyz positions as instructed), but not in the standalone player.

The solution to this is actually quite simple:

You cannot have any errors in your python scripts/modules, else the Standalone players animation will not run, it just sits there, making you feel sad inside.


How do I make a Chowder-esque texture? How would one go about texturing an object where the texture stays fixed relative to the screen even if the object is moving?

Additional reference (the 'unmoving plaid' trope):
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnmovingPlaid

The texture Coordinate node has an output called 'Window'. That means a texture is mapped according to the four corners of your rendered image.

Just create a texture that has the same aspect ration as your picture and you are done.

Tvtropes puts it nicely: It's as if the clothing the character is wearing isn't so much patterned as it is a cloth-based wormhole to a similarly patterned universe (unmoving plaid).

And this is how it looks:


Black Texture in UV Mode I have a problem in UV mode.

This is what I have

This is how should be to look

One of My friend have same version of Blender 2.79b like Me and for him is work fine..

(I have Rx 480 8GB , Win 10)

This worked for me:

Go to face mode, and select one face.

On the UV map side, the texture disappeared, this is fine.

Hit the A key to select all the faces

select the uv map

Texture showed after I did that


Scaling UV map in Y Axis to fit image I added a lot of loopcuts to a "plane". Then I unwrapped the plane and added an image. But then I realized that the unwrap format does not match the shape of my picture. I tried to scale it by clicking S, but it scales the whole grid. I even tried scaling only to the y axis (S), but then it scales the bottom part of it as well. I only want the scale the top bit to match the picture not the bottom bit. How do I do this?

to scale along the Y axis without moving the lower part :

select all points
position the cursor at (0, 0)
scale along Y axis  ( S then Y )


Cycles. Masking shader. How to make objects disappear in plain sight. So I have a scene. I want to slide out a text, for example, as if it was hiding behind an invisible wall. I know that you can achieve this effect with a boolean modifier... but I can't use it in this case. Plus to make it happen with a text you need to convert it into a mesh first - no good.

How to make so that when an object, partially or completely, is inside another object that this makes that part invisible? (The other/masking object is completely invisible all the time, of course)

I sense that it has something to do with a clever Light Path and Mix Shader nodes arrangement.

(Made with a boolean modifier)

To achieve this with nodes... Something along the lines of this?

How it looks in the viewport:

Final:

Nodes:

For Masking Object - cube in this example just use Transparent BSDF with pure white color.

For object being masked - text - use mix between chosen shader (Diffuse here) and Transparent by Light Path > Transparent Depth:

  Of course object being masked should be inside masking object.


How will multiple GPUs improve Cycles' rendering performance? I have an NVIDIA Titan GPU and I'm able to add another card, but I wonder whether  Blender will benefit from more than one GPUs?

Should I do it as SLI or should I just do it as an added card? I just need some help in understanding how Blender will use either SLI or a second GPU.

Note that I only use Cycles.

There are lots of good articles out there on this topic, and short of recreating them, I can say that the two cards I use are not in SLI (wrong motherboard for it) and it uses them like two separate cores. It'll render two chunks at a time, if you tell it to use both. Some of the articles say that running in SLI is a little slower than running two separate cards, but I'm not familiar with the principles behind that.

I don't know if the rendered preview (in the viewport) benefits at all, but it can't hurt.


Parallax occlusion portal effect I'd like to create a parallax occlusion effect (cycles or eevee) where a cube or plane appears to contain another universe inside of it. I've seen a lot of brilliant solutions that can fake it using 2D images, but I'm wondering if there is a solution that would allow for objects within the plane to actual "pop out", like below --

These solutions all work well for 2D planes, and I know a lot of people use this to create fake rooms inside buildings, but again you're stuck using flat images that can't cross the border of the plane. I also think anything to with compositing nodes would make the effect I'm going for impossible.

https://twitter.com/Magryllia/status/1129566134024396800
Portal effect in EEVEE?
How to make a holographic reticle shader in cycles)

One way si to build both worlds inside one scene.
And then fake an 'infinitely deep' wall between them.

Build one set (I used an HDRI)
Add a wall with a 'portal' cutout.
Add a texture to this wall (I used stars) and use Texture Coordinate node > Window to map it.
The texture will always be facing towards you, faking an infinitely deep space.

Since both worlds are actually inside one scene, you can freely move objects between them.

I'm not rotating the portal, I'm moving the camera.


material distributed based on mesh and not on vertex My Question is about materials. I want to create a T-Shirt, who has this pattern on like show in the Picture. My Problem is, that want to have the "Image Texture" based on the mesh, and not based on the density of the vertex. So that the Pattern is evenly distributed.

Here the pattern is evenly distributed

Here it isn't
(In the two pictures I showed you two times the Note Editor. I did this because you only need the first three Nodes, but I thought, perhaps do you need all.
edit 1:

Here you see the unequal spreading of the pattern over the T-Shirt
(After UV-Mapping(@Bruno)
edit 2:

I finally approche to the result that i want to have. I have to us smart uv protection. But as you can see in the image, it has a few places, with not perfect patterns, as under the armpit. How can i fix them?

I finally fixed the last problems

With the help of removing vertex form the shrinkwrap modifier, i made it for my goal, perfekt. Smart uv protektion was the key. Thanks Bruno.


How do you change camera safe area transparency? I'm trying to change red-circled area so that it is entirely black.  I don't want to preview what is outside of my camera.  Any idea on how to do this?

This is called the passepartout.  It can be changed or disabled (with the camera selected) under the Object Data properties panel > Display rollout.

Note: the Amaranth Toolset addon adds a passepartout slider to the Specials W menu when in camera view.


Having trouble getting 2.80 on Linux I just installed Blender and noticed my screen looked a little different from the tutorial video, so I checked my version and the Linux discovery page had grabbed me 2.79...  Okay, so I tried downloading straight from Blender's site instead.  But when I went to open the install file, it kept telling me that Ark could not open the file.  I am like, a total Linux noob and having trouble Googling this.  Can someone help me figure out what plugin I need or otherwise explain why my window looks so different from the one in the tutorial???

Before you install Blender 2.80 verify that your system meets the minimum requirements.

Since you're unfamiliar with Linux, I'd suggest you download the archive version. First check if you're using a 64 bit or 32 bit operating system. In case you don't know, either take a look at the system information in the system settings or open a terminal and run:

uname -m

If it returns x86_64 you're running a 64 bit OS, 32 bit otherwise.

Then download the appropriate version and extract the archive:

Blender 2.80 Linux 64 bit
Blender 2.80 Linux 32 bit

Navigate into the extracted directory and find the file named blender. That is the program you need to run. An alternative to the archive version is to install Blender through Steam.

In case these instruction aren't detailed enough, please leave a comment which states what Linux distribution you're using.


UV mapping in viewport is different from render? The UV mapping in textured viewport shading mode and the rendered image is different.

I unwrapped a UV map in textured mode and then saw the result of the Cycles render.

As you can see, their UV mappings are different.
I already connected the UV output of a texture coordinate node to the vector input of an Image Texture node. The unwrapped image file is the same as the image file in the material.

How can I fix it?

Meshes in Blender can have multiple UV coordinate sets.

The one selected (blue background) is the UV map used in textured mode. The one with the small camera icon activated to the right is the default UV map used for rendering.

If your model has multiple UV maps, either click the camera icon of the map you want to use for rendering or select the map by its name as an object-attribute in the node editor:

You can find the Attribute node by pressing [Shift+A] and selecting Input->Attribute in the node editor.


Renders only half the model I'm new to blender and would appreciate a little help. I'm very interested in learning animation so I went to blender's awesome collection of free models and found Alexander Lee's rigged woman model to play with.

I wanted to see the result of my tinkering as a rendered animation, only to find out that it renders only half the model. The same is true when I export it to UE4. The OpenGL renders the full model as a wireframe and the "Show Render" option shows the whole model, yet it only renders the left half of the model.

I would appreciate your help! Here's the .blend:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dsugvym6vx8hi91/WomanIdle.blend?dl=0

Thank you!

Edit: Images

The mirror modifier is disabled for rendering (camera icon).

Enable it and it will render normally.


filmic blender issues I was trying to download the filmic blender plug in but I do not believe that I successfully integrated it with 2.79. I do not have the RGB EOTF option as you can see in the rendered view section under colour management.

In your version of Blender [2.79], filmic is already integrated into Blender.

You can see in the active dropdown menu: View Transform > Filmic

It doesn't need to be manually installed anymore.

Nevertheless, you can still use the old configuration, but there is no need to do so.

  For more details see the original Filmic Blender Configuration, which can still be used as an alternative to the builtin Blender configuration.


Cycles SSS Rendered image has a strange "noise" coloring artifacts I am pretty new to blender and I was experimenting with a subsurface scattering material and lighting on an imported object. But when I've rendered an image of the object with a material that has a subsurface scattering, it shows this weird "noise" or "blur" on the surface of the object.

I've also rendered the same object without subsurface scattering and the problem seemed to be gone.

The current version of Blender that I use is 2.83 but I've seen this problem in previous versions.

This is caused by Blender trying very hard to render slight amounts of each shader. I.e. if you have a small amount of subsurfacing, and a whole lot of glass being shaded, it will be harder to render than an equal amount of both. Even trickier, if you have a large complex node setup with many different shaders mixed in.

My advice to fix this problem, if you want to keep the subsurface low, would be to increase your samplings for rendering by a large amount. Increase the rendering samples by about 100 per render, until you find a good amount. If that doesn't work, then you will have to either lower the denoising strength, which is what actually causes those spots to appear, or increase the subsurface strength.


No make proxy option I have my model and i have group and i want to make it MAKE PROXY but there is no option. I have group it and find in the search did not get then i ungroup and find did not get. Where it is hidden or how can i make my model Make proxy option available. I have made the group and then added as group instance. Then i get the option of make proxy but and error. Can only make proxy for a referenced object or group

Make Proxy operation only works for Groups that are linked from an external file.

To solve your problem,

save the file with the group in it.
Then create a link to the group from the external file.
Then on the group instance selection in the viewport create the proxy.


How do I load an MP4 file with Blender 2.74 under Fedora? I tried to repeat this tutorial, loading my own MP4 file. After clicking "open" in the movie clip editor and picking the file, it didn't seem to load and here's what I got in the terminal:

not an anim: /path/to/file.mp4

At the same time, file says it's ISO Media, MP4 Base Media v1 [IS0 14496-12:2003]. Is there any preprocessing I should do before I import it to Blender? How could I do it with mencoder or ffmpeg?

You need to build a version of ffmpeg with full support for proprietary codec.


I'm not sure where to go from here in my uv mapping! I'm new to blender and was wondering what would be the steps to resolve the artifacts I'm seeing in this texture. The texture is supposed to be a lampshade. I'm unsure what to do to the uv map in order to fix this issue.

That's kinda weird looking (the shading artifacts, not the model). Maybe you have some extra faces in the model you need to delete?

Assuming that's not the case, first remember that lamp shades don't have tops (unless you want this one to), so you can delete that face if you like.

If you still need them, they will cause you problems if you have faces with more than 4 sides. The fix for that is to select each n-gon ("circular"-looking face with many sides) in the modeling view and go to face -> poke faces. This will create a triangle fan pattern but leave your current UV's intact.

Now, a feature of UV mapping you might not be aware of is called "seams", as in seams on pieces of cloth that get stitched together to make clothes. In the modeling view, select all the edges that indicate separate pieces of the model (those would be the edge loops that separate the top of the lampshade from the cylindrical side, and the cylindrical side from the bottom. With those selected do Edges -> Mark Seams. You will get red highlights on those edges.  You will also need to select an edge that runs down the lampshade so it can be folded flat, like a cylinder being unfolded on a table. Choose Edges -> Mark seams for that too.

Now choose UV --> Unwrap and your model should be almost perfectly unwrapped for you without any manual adjustments needed.


Tracking a shot with focal variation (zoom) At the half of my shot (constantly moving camera) there is a focal length change. In my first tests the camera is moving forward instead of zooming into the scene. Is there a trick to automatically detect the focal length change?

Is it currently possible to reconstruct the camera from such a shot at all? Until now I only have found this proposal, but I could not figure out if this is part of blender.

Sadly, this is not possible in Blender. There are other pieces of software which can do what you wan't:

Voodoo (thanks, someonewithpc)
Adobe after effects
Syntheyes
Mocha Pro
PFTrack (thanks, cgeaton)

Some of these are a little expensive, but they are all far superior to Blender's tracker in many ways.
Note: Mocha is the best matchmoving/roto/cleanup tool out their. by far. (No affiliation, promise), PFtrack also is very good at what it does, but it is still a point tracker.


Painting over a texture doesn’t save? When I paint over an old texture after UV Unwrapping it does not save and if I close the file after saving it is gone. Sorry I couldn't provide a file.

It's true, You have to save the image before saving the file and closing: you can do it in the UV/image window (Image - Save as image, shortcut F3).


Data visualization using Dynamic Paint /Particle System I would like to visualize my Data in a efficient and individual style.

My Data is in form of a .CSV file and consists of 700000 data sets.
(later i want about 20 million to be visualized)

One dataset has three information: Longitude (X-Coordinate), Latitude (Y-Coordinate) and a Timelinevalue (Z-Axis).

I managed to create a vertex-cloud using the CSV-Mesh-Importer
Blenderartists CSV-Mesh-Importer.
The result is one object with my 700000 vertices...... So far so good.
But to make some kind of Infographic i want to use Dynamic Paint.

In the next step I:

animated  my cloud and pushed it through a plane (linear movement on Z-Axis).
subdivided my plane and set it to  Dynamic-Paint Canvas
set my vertices to Dynamic-Paint Brush
set Dynamic Paint Source to Proximity
Dynamic Paint Source - Paint Distance to 0.1

....no Result

If only i could set the Paint source to vertices.... ;-)

I had to convert all vertices into little triangles or rectangles (extrude 2x)

With the quadruple number of vertices i got a visualization.
....Not really satisfying

Is it possible to convert my datacloud into a Particle System?
Can I teach Dynamic Paint to read out the vertices of the object?
Should i try another solution?

Thanks

Silent_Bob

From description it's quite hard for me to understand if your question is a goal of your needs or only if your question covers your vision - to get something you know about it.

  Is it possible to convert my datacloud into a Particle System?

Yes.

Create "New" particle system with your point cloud (brush) object selected
Setup the number of particles same as vertices of your "brush" object
Set Emit from "Verts" (uncheck "Random")
"Physics" set to "No"
In "Render" panel of particles properties check on "Unborn" and "Died"

From how many vertices point cloud consist? Just select object and see header of blender window (next to the logo - "Vert:").

From your screen it looks like vertices represents some volume. For
that you can visualized vertices with new "Point Density" node. Check
this part of video https://youtu.be/GhwzIQ6qZO8?t=464
If you'r looking for a way to convert your point cloud into a mesh
search for remesh  or point cloud skinning.


Faces suddenly missing I was working on something in Blender and when I loaded it up I noticed some faces missing. Thought the best way to fix it'll be filling it in. Problem is that some faces still stay transparent. They don't even show up on my texture area. How can this be fixed?

It is hard to comment without seeing the blend file, however, you can try:

Un-hiding all faces (Alt + H); and/or
The Make Normals Consistent commend. Highlight all faces (using A in face mode), and then access the command by hitting space bar and searching for it.

I would also run the Remove Doubles command, just to make sure you have not created a face on top of another face when trying to "fill in" the gaps.


What color space to use for EXR in textures I've searched high and low for this, and cannot find an answer anywhere, even in the new 2.80 docs.

When you import import or environment textures in 2.80, the new texture node has several colour space options:

xyz
sRGB
Raw
Non-color
Linear ACES
Linear
Filmic Log

What do they do, and what one SHOULD be used for EXR files?

Thanks

For EXR use Linear.

(If you know that your EXRs are encoded using other color space... then you would know the answer already)