Extrude multiple faces, stopping at intersection I have a model that consists of horizontal faces only, they all have the same normal direction and there are many of them. I am wondering if its possible to extrude all these faces, but just to the face directly under each one. (Grey vertical lines in the image added for reference)
Essentially 'filling' the vertical space between all faces.
They don't have to intersect and split the faces below, but if that is possible then that would be helpful as well.
I've tried a number of tests, but most end up in the same zone as: Merge overlapping, differently sized faces in large model

Another angle:

This is the orthographic side view:

While in Edit Mode, if you go into an orthographic side view, you can box select all faces for either the upper or the lower story (it doesn't matter which one you choose, but the one you choose will be the one you extrude). With all faces selected, press e to extrude, and after you drag, press right-click to cancel the operation. The extrude still takes place, but the faces you created have now ended up back at their starting position, making them essentially invisible, by virtue of the fact that they are now perfectly intersecting with the faces they were originally extruded from. But they are still selected. While still in the orthographic side view, activate edge snapping (This choice may not seem to make sense in this context, but I believe this option works better than face snapping). Press g to grab the selected faces, z to constrain the grab to the vertical axis, and drag upward until your cursor reaches the next story of faces You should now have the two stories in contact (but not merged).
If you want the newly contacted plane to get etched by the intersection, as you indicate you would prefer, you may need extra steps. One option is to use knife project, but this tool is tricky. Select the entire object that you extruded the new faces from, and in Edit Mode, select the entire edge ring which defines its outer perimeter (Shift + select any of its edges to select them all). Press Shift + d to duplicate this edge loop, then press p to bring up the Separate menu, and choose Selection. Now go into Object Mode, and hide the original object that this edge ring was made from. Select the new edge ring object, then Shift + select the object to be etched, tab into Edit Mode (in 2.8, both objects will go into Edit Mode together if they are selected together), press Numpad 7 to force your view to top orthographic (this is important for the next step) and from the Mesh menu at the top of the screen, choose Knife Project. This will etch your plane with the outline of the new object (but make no hole). Delete the new object. It was only needed as a cookie cutter.


Rendering a pupil within a glasses lens? This is my first post here and I'm still learning about Blender (aren't we all though?) and I had a question about an effect I'd like to do.

I'd like to make it so that a character with solid-color glasses lenses can have their pupil render through the lens, while maintaining its appropriate location in 3D space (ie not textured onto the lens). A way I think this could work would be rendering the pupil over just the lens but I don't know if that's the most practical or achievable way to do this.

For my example I'll use this model of Velma from Scooby-Doo I made for practice:

The glasses, body, and eyes exist as separate objects for clarification (but that can be changed need be)

Instead of making the lens clear or not being able to see the actual eye or face behind the lens from the sides, I'd like to keep the cartoony look of this and would like to use a similar effect in the future. I hope I'm being clear enough with what I'm trying to achieve. Thank you for your help in advance!

EDIT: A rough approximation of the type of effect I'd like:

If you don't mind using OSL (that is, setting the render to Cycles/CPU, and checking the 'OSL' option) then you can look ahead down a ray, using a script.

This script returns the Pass Index of the next material encountered, continuing in the direction of the incoming ray, (so it won't, without improvement, take refractive/reflective deflection into account, and the lens is a single plane, without thickness.)

#include "stdosl.h"
shader NextIdx(
  output float nextIdx  = 0.0
)
{
  if (trace(P,-I,"mindist",0.00001)){
    getmessage("trace", "material:index", nextIdx);
  }
}

.. and can be used in a tree something like this, to make the 'glass' of the lens:

.. where the eye material has an Pass Index of 10, and everything else has an index of 0...

producing..

so in this example, the 'glass' is transparent to everything has a material Pass Index greater than 5, and diffuse grey to everything else.


Is there any way to export the last frame of a physics simulation from command line? I have a basic rigid body physics sim, but I want to export the last frame of the simulation. So far I have tried setting the "current frame to the last frame of the simulation and exporting it that way, but that doesn't work.

#Select all objects other than the suitcase
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.data.objects['Suitcase'].select = False

# store the location of current 3d cursor
saved_location = bpy.context.scene.cursor_location.copy()  # returns a copy of the vector

# give 3dcursor new coordinates
bpy.context.scene.cursor_location = (0.0,0.0,0.0)

# set the origin on the current object to the 3dcursor location
bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_CURSOR')
bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_CENTER_OF_VOLUME')

# Randomly place objects in the air
bpy.ops.object.randomize_transform(random_seed= randint(1,9000), use_delta=False, use_loc=True, loc=(12.0, 8.0, 0.0), use_rot=True, rot=(360.0, 360.0, 360.0), use_scale=False, scale_even=False, scale=(1.0, 1.0, 1.0))
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')

#Runs physics simulation
bpy.context.scene.frame_set(1)
bpy.context.scene.frame_current += 1
bpy.context.scene.update()
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.object.visual_transform_apply()

# Define Directory
dir = bpy.path.abspath('//stlexport/')

# Create Directory (If Necessary)
if not os.path.exists(dir): os.makedirs(dir)

# Export STLs
bpy.ops.export_mesh.stl(filepath = dir, batch_mode = 'OBJECT')

Bake the point cache

Using same method as with particles here CLI How to render last frame of hair dynamics sym?

Replace "runs physics simulation" with a bake operator below. Not sure if playing, or frame setting, and baking happen in bg mode as they do when using GUI.

rbw.py

import bpy
context = bpy.context

scene = context.scene
rbw = scene.rigidbody_world
pc = rbw.point_cache

# match bake to animation
print(pc.frame_start, pc.frame_end)

bpy.ops.ptcache.bake({"point_cache": pc}, bake=True)

scene.frame_set(250)
bpy.ops.export_scene.obj(filepath="test.obj")

Testing in CLI with

blender -b xxx.blend -P rbw.py

can confirm  test.obj is a result of simple physics sim at 250.


How do I get the correct context for Python operators? I am currently trying to use the operator bpy.ops.sequencer.duplicate() in a python script, but I am having trouble finding the correct context to pass to it, as I am getting the standard RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.sequencer.duplicate.poll() failed, context is incorrect error.

How do you find what the required context for a Python operator is?

After looking through the api documentation, it does not appear that there is a direct way to know which contexts an operator will work in.
Therefore, one way to determine this is to call an operator's poll method in every context to see if the operator will work (brute forcing it). Using this approach, the bpy.ops.sequencer.duplicate will work in the 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR' context, and only the sequence editor.

The script below simply runs through all the areas and polls the operator (line 15).

import bpy

#all the area types except 'EMPTY' from blender.org/api/blender_python_api_current/bpy.types.Area.html#bpy.types.Area.type
types = {'VIEW_3D', 'TIMELINE', 'GRAPH_EDITOR', 'DOPESHEET_EDITOR', 'NLA_EDITOR', 'IMAGE_EDITOR', 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR', 'CLIP_EDITOR', 'TEXT_EDITOR', 'NODE_EDITOR', 'LOGIC_EDITOR', 'PROPERTIES', 'OUTLINER', 'USER_PREFERENCES', 'INFO', 'FILE_BROWSER', 'CONSOLE'}

#save the current area
area = bpy.context.area.type

#try each type
for type in types:
    #set the context
    bpy.context.area.type = type

    #print out context where operator works (change the ops below to check a different operator)
    if bpy.ops.sequencer.duplicate.poll():
        print(type)

#leave the context where it was
bpy.context.area.type = area


Tracing a pont on an animated object I recently tried to make some simple animations of some 3d objects by using Location and Location/Rotation keyframes. In the end I noticed that the movements are not very smooth, so I started skimming through the frames to see which keyframe must be adjusted. So I thought it would be really nice to see the path of the object as e.g. a 3d curve. I found the curve editor but this is a little bit hard to read as each variable of the keyframes is plotted separately.

Is it possible to view the trace of some defined point (or even if it is just the origin) of an animated object such that you see  the whole path it travels throughout the animation?

Select your object, set the frame range you want to visualize, and press calculate or update path in the motion path tab of the properties window. It works with bones also.


Cycles why image squence texture is automatically animating? I have just added image sequence as texture and when i play the timeline the texture goes to next frame automatically why ?

here are the source blend + image files please check

Video of the error

You need to animate the 'offset' value of the image node. The offest needs to decrease by one for every one frame you go forward.

So on frame 5, you would need to make the offset '-4' as you have gone forward 4 frames (from frame 1):

So even though you have gone forward it will still show frame 1 of the image sequence.

If it was frame 7 you would offset by '-6' frames to still only show frame 1:

The following only works for the viewport, not the render.

You have 'Auto Refresh' turned on on your image nodes:

Turn this off if you don't want the frames to update automatically on frame changes.


Blender hangs for a minute My blender hangs very often for a minute on two. Sometimes it doesn't, in 90% cases it does. Typical places where it hangs are:

at startup, just after showing console window, before showing UI.
at file -> Open, before showing file / folders UI
at File -> Export -> FBX - before showing UI, it hangs while the menus is still visible

This makes it really annoying to work with. What could be the reason for the problem? I tried disconnecting the network, because I thought the network drives might confuse it, but this didn't change anything. My files are all on local drives.

I run on Windows 64-bit, hardware is a decent laptop with 16 GB RAM, but it seems the problem happens when nothing is really going on, what would require gears.

The console doesn't print anything new in these cases.

I marked the first correct answer as accepted. This is indeed a problem with network drives. But it seems I found a workaround, so I post it here.

The workaround removes all network drives from Blender, so it doesn't hang while trying to access them. It will also kill the possibility to save / load files to network drives in Blender. I do not need this feature so this is fine for me.

Before you start with this, try running Blender as Administrator (right click on its shortcut and choose 'Run as administrator'. I heard it might remove network drives on some systems. It did not work for me however. Verify by going to File> Open in Blender and see if network drives are still there.

Steps which resolved this for me:

Create a new user in Windows. I named it "Blender". Set administrative rights to it so it can access all the files and create a valid, strong password for it so nobody will login to the PC with it.
Create a shortcut somewhere (ie. desktop) to start blender. It can be a copy of the blender shortcut which is in the start menu (Start -> find blender -> right click -> copy, then right click on desktop -> paste).
Change the target of this shortcut, so it is not:

C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe

but instead:

runas.exe /savecred /user:Blender "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe"

If your path to blender.exe is different, adjust accordingly. If you username is different than Blender, also change it.
Now double clicking new shortcut will start Blender on this different user account. At first run it will ask for the password - enter the password set for the Blender user.
Blender will start instantly, because this new user doesn't have any network drives mapped.
If caring for look, you can change the icon for the shortcut, because now it doesn't look like anything Blender like. Just find 'Change Icon' button in shortcut properties, navigate to:

C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe

and set a proper icon.
Blender is now like fresh install without user settings. You can copy your current settings by copying:

C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\config\userpref.blend

to

C:\Users\Blender\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.76\config\userpref.blend

This path might different on your system or different Blender version. Do the same with other files in this folder: 'bookmarks.txt' and 'recent-files.txt'. If you have more files there, consider them as well (I only had those).


Filling back & front of text with different colors Hi
Im trying to make something similar to the image above,
How can I color front and back with two different colors?
Thank you!

Just to add to @Hiserod's answer (and since I already made the gif).
To combine two colors, simply use it as a factor in MixRGB node.

Bonus edit:
To use a different texture on either side, you can use the following setup:


How can I use the Corner pin node interactively? The corner pin node is used to distort an image in the compositor, but I don't like typing vector offsets manually. Can I do this with a GUI instead? In other words, can I drag around corner points on a screen, without having to re-render UV coordinates from the render engine?

You can use the Movie Clip Editor 'tracking tools' to provide the vectors.

Open an MCE window and import your clip. Check the dimensions in the
properties panel by pressing the N-key. You should see the image's
Dim x and Dim y value as "Size"
Add four trackers ctrl-click from top left clockwise to bottom left.
Open the Compositor and add to your image a Corner Pin node.
Then add a Track Position node / Map Range node (x2) / Combine RGB
node.
Set the Map range node for the track position x value to Dim x (from
the tracker properties panel), with 0 as the minimum.
Set the Map range node for the track position y value to Dim y, with
0 as the minimum.
Send the Map range node 'results for x' to the RED input of the
Combine RGB node
Send the Map range node 'results for y' to the GREEN input of the
Combine RGB node

Repeat for all four corners, or duplicate the group of 4 nodes 4 times.


Data path for driver: secret of 'node_tree.' 1) I prepared two objects for driving.

2) I copied the data path of the color property of diffuse shader in Suzanne's material node to drive the box.
nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value : failure

3) This time, I found the Data Api in the outliner, do copy data path, and created an index at the end of the path.
nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value[0] : failure

4) This time I copied the property values that are displayed in the info window.
bpy.data.node_groups["Shader Nodetree"].nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value[0] : failure

5) I found a solution to use the node_tree. prefix via googling.
node_tree.nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value[0] : Eventually succeed
node_tree.nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value[1] : succeed
node_tree.nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value[2] : succeed
node_tree.nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value[3] : succeed
node_tree.nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value.r : succeed
node_tree.nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value.g : succeed
node_tree.nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value.b : succeed
node_tree.nodes["Diffuse BSDF"].inputs[0].default_value.a : succeed
But I can't figure out what node_tree. Is and where it comes from.

6) I want to figure out exactly the rules for dealing with data paths.

Thank you in advance.

When creating a driver with the property set to material, you're implicitly using a reference to an object of type bpy.types.Material.

Your first attempts in step 2) and 3) didn't work because bpy.types.Material has no attribute called node. The idea in step 4) has the same problem as the previous attempts, because the driver tries to access these attributes in the material object of type bpy.types.Material and since there is no bpy.types.Material.bpy this fails as well.

The correct way to access the nodes is indeed through node_tree since that is an attribute in the object of type bpy.types.Material. It gives you access to all nodes in the referenced material.

Attempt 6) fails again because there is no shader_nodetree in bpy.types.Material.node_tree.

For questions like these you can always consult Blender's Python API docs.


Glass rendering black in Cycles Still very fresh to Blender. I need the glass window to be transparent in this scene, as I have a light source outside and the light should come through the window.
The window of the cupboard in the corner of the room uses the same material and it works, the glass is clear and transparent. But not with the main window.
Any idea on what the issue might be? I can provide you with any further information if needed.

my node set up for transparency in cycles. hope this helps


How to bind material change to a single animation action? I chose objects colour, then fixed its value using i key.

But the colour property was bind globally for the object. It effects all the object's actions. How can I make colour change for a single action, just like rotation property?

You can do it using Drivers.

In my case I used a driver to change the intensity of a color.

Hover the cursor over the intensity slider, press RMB and choose the Add Driver option.

Add an Empty and place it at the origin point of a Cube. Parent an Empty with a Cube using Ctrl+P-->Set Parent To-->Object (Keep Transform).

Go to Graph Editor and change the Mode from F-Curve to Drivers.

Change the Drivers Type to Averaged Value.

Input the previously added Empty's name in the Ob/Bone box as pictured below. This Empty will now control the intensity of the Cube's color. If the error appear, click the Update Dependencies button.

Now specify what kind of the Empty's action would have the influence on the Cube's color intensity. I've chosen the Z Rotation, so anytime I change the Z rotation of an Empty, the insity of a color will be changed. The other kind of transformations (like translating or scaling) would not have any influence on color's intensity values.

Add a Generator Modifier and play with the highlighted values to make the transition speed of the color's intesity slower or faster. You can also redefine the initial and end values here.


What is the difference between an edge loop and an edge ring? I've heard the terms "edge ring" and "edge loop". What do they mean and how are they different?

Edge Loop
An edge loop is a series of directly connected edges:

You can select an edge loop with AltRMB.
Edge Ring
An edge ring is a series of edges which are not directly connected, but share faces:

You can select an edge ring with CtrlAltRMB.

As a bonus, you can run the select edge loop or the select edge ring operator on every selected edge automatically by pressing Edge loop or Edge ring in 3D view > Header > Select.


Lost material textures in Blender 2.83 I've been working on a file with Blender 2.7. The file included several materials with textures, that had been mapped on objects using UV maps.
After upgrading to 2.83, all my materials are still there but have no texture associated to them. If I go to the Texture properties panel I can see the textures with a "0" (as if nobody was using them).
I know about the Nodes editor, but I wonder whether I can just use textures. I have to export this model to FBX, and I'm not sure how I would use nodes to map textures on models.

You can have Blender attempt to locate the missing files under the external data section of the File menu. See image below:

If, on the other hand, you need to reconnect the textures manually, you can do so by selecting the material and going to the SHADING tab. From there, if there is no image texture, add one, and connect it as in the image below. This example is a very basic setup for a single image. If your material is PBR and there are other texture maps, add them and connect them to their respective inputs on the Principled BSDF. NOTE - make sure to select a non-color space for Normal, Displacement, Metallic and Roughness maps.


How to make an arch in a model w/o Bezier Curves and w/o adding separate objects? I would like to curve a line in order to make a medieval door.

I'm talking about this curve:

I can't understand and I can't find any tutorial that tells you how to make this kind of curves, also I would like to not use the Blazer curves.
I'm trying to find something easier because I would like to know how to use less time in order to make curves.

I saw that you can do it using the array modifier but it can't be used on edit mode, should I add another object? Is it a good practice to add objects to modify the main one?

This is where I'm trying to make this door..
Thank you and sorry for wasting your time, I'm just a beginner..

Edit: Why my question is not a duplicate of another -->

These are different questions, I'm not asking how to do it with a single object, I'm asking how to do it if I have a building, because the modifiers don't work if you are in edit mode, so I'm asking how to make a arch if I have for example a house and I want to have a arch door or arch windows. It's a different thing..
I would like also to know if it's a good practice adding new objects to another one, because using this way I can for example make a cylinder and remove half etc..

Edit: The solution from @moonboots worked! Thank you

Result:

Thank you!

I've kept your topology but no need for so many edge loops. Anyway, you could use the Bridge tool:

First, tilt a bit the top faces of your left and right columns.
Press W > LoopTools > Bridge, or W > Bridge Edge Loops.
Play with the parameters on the bottom of the Tools panel.
Fill the hole the way you want to finish the work. Here are 2 ways to do it, maybe there's a better one though.


rotate object list (with different origins) around a single pivot Animation Nodes i'm learning about Animation Nodes and i dont know a lot of things haha

I want to rotate some objects around a pivot point But i don't know how to do That!

Hmmm all is this: i've put a random text on the vertex points of a circle, so 've separated the text and started a loop with the circle as mesh input, i adjunct a picture with the nodes (if it can be made easier please tell me haha)...

The thing is: i can make those elements rotate on its own pivots but i cant make it with a vert on the mesh...

Ok, writting this question i've found the answer e.e (just rotate the circle that i've used as mesh) BUUUUUT now i'm curious, how can i rotate a object list around a 3rd pivot???

Thanks youu!!

You didn't show the render, so it's a little bit confusing to see what you want to achieve and ask, especially you change the question as well at the end. So if I understand incorrectly your question, please point that out.

I think maybe your are looking for the node called "matrix math".
A matrix is like an object, it contains "translation (similar to transform)", "rotation", "scale".
Matrix math currently only contains "multiply operator". The name may sound very confusing, but it allows to transform each individual matrix (ie. object).

Two images are used to states the difference between matrix math and transform matrix.
matrix math works on object's own pivot. Transform matrix works on "world origin".

There are many operator that's only available to a matrix but not a vector. Such as "replicate matrix". So sometimes it may be preferred to "compose a matrix" for distributing objects, or simply use "distribute matrix" node for doing so.

Back to the most beginning, instead of using circles' vertex, you may simply use "distribute matrix", if you really are just looking for a circle.


Blender 2.83, was sculpting and suddenly my smoothing brush stopped working I have no idea what happened, but when I try a stroke, a red line appears which hadn't appeared before and I'm still new to 2.8 so i have no idea what brush settings could have caused this.

This only affects the smooth brush.

In the Properties sidebar, go to Stroke > Stabilize Stroke and turn it off.
Stabilize Stroke basically drags the "actual" brush behind your cursor when sculpting. This results in a red line indicating the distance the actual brush is from the cursor. I do believe this red line is resulting from Stabilize Stroke.


How do I prevent Blender adding an index-suffix to the objects' names? My problem is that whenever I delete all objects (selecting all objects and pressing 'Delete' then selecting 'Delete' from the drop-down menu) and import them back, the objects' names get an "index suffix", e.g. ".001".

For example, I import an .obj file, and there is an object in that file with the name "TableA". I delete it, import the same file, and now it has the name "TableA.001". I'm using a script afterwards which references the tables with their "original" name, so it's a little bit annoying I have to remove those indexes. Is there a way to circumvent this behavior?

Also, some sort of explanation would be nice - why does the program feel the urge to add that index though there is no existing object with the original name (because it has been deleted)?

When you delete an object, not all information about it will be deleted. Its mesh data will remain in the file. So if you want to delete the mesh data, open Outliner in Orphan data mode and click on Purge All - it will delete all mesh data that are not used in the scene, and free names.

Normally, object and mesh data can use different names, but the obj-import script makes these names the same. That's the reason why a new object gets the  old name, but obj-import gets a new one.


Movie Distortion Node in compositor does not respect optical shift values from Movie-Clip-Editor? I am stuck in quite a situation.
I had to track a footage shot with a fisheye lens @ 8mm ( 8-15 f/4 canon fisheye ) attached to a red-epic camera.
The footage also has its optical centre shifted quite a bit in Y and slightly in X. This with the amount of distortion on the footage made me think that the footage would be untrackable.

It is a shot of a helicopter flyover a landscape for a ride film.
There is no lens chart shot for this.

However to my surprise, blender solved the camera nicely. It also calculated the focal, distortion( polynomial with k1 and k2 ), optical centre values (movie clip > properties bar > camera Panel> ).

blender gave a descent solve with the 3d locators almost sticking.
The undistorted footage looks correct when I generate the undistorted proxies. The locators stick to this undistorted footage.
However, when I used the movie distortion node in the compositor set to undistort, the distortion comes out different compared to undistorted proxy that blender generated. I think that it is not considering the shift in the optical centre?

How Can I solve this issue?
I tried to use the translate as well as transform nodes before attaching the movie clip to distort node in the compositor, but got no luck.

Unfortunately I cannot share the screenshot images as I am in office and NDAs.

Here are the camera values in MovieClipEditor.
Footage size : 4752x3160 , 1360 frames
Camera Sensor Width : 30.00
Optical centre : x = 2401.30, y = 2241.951
Focal length : 14.35
Distortion values : k1 = -.231, k2 = .029, k3 = 0.0
Solve error = 9.33 ( Believe me, it good for the footage. I plan to refine it further. )

3d View camera values :
under camera > lens > shift X = -.005, shift Y = -.139
focal : 14.35

Thank you for reading this long post and any help/ advice.

thanks for the reply :)

I actually did manage to get the distortion working properly. :)
My mistake was that I had hit the "centre" button( Movie Clip Editor > Properties panel > camera > centre ) after solving and that was throwing the undistort node off in the compositor.

Setting the correct values again in the "centre" panel fixed it.

I cannot post the images here as "uploading" is blocked in  my office due to security reasons.

The high error values I will solve later in another proprietery software @my office.  Its awesome.

Thanks,
Jayraj


Beveled edges rendering like they're cut into I made a very simple animation, and with camera movement, the beveled edges appear as if they are cut into. How can I fix this?

I am rendering with blender render.

Solved it! I needed to uncheck "fields" under Post Processing. What that does, I don't know, but unchecking it fixed it! Thank you!


Blender export (start game from file) I'm exporting a blender game as an .exe file and it won't export properly because my blender file uses Start game from file... How can I export the file?

If you have multiple files, you simply have to distribute all of them. They are not packed into the exe, but are still required.

Relative paths must be maintained.
This means that you must distribute your project as a zip file, with the executable and the required files.

If you have a game with two files:

menu.blend
game.blend

And then export menu.blend into menu.exe

Then you need to put in your game's folder:

game.blend
menu.exe
2.78 (or whatever the folder number is)
???.dll (all the .dll files)

These can all be put into a zip file for distribution.

One of my projects recently looked like this:

Hiding in there you can see the blend 'Game.blend'
This blend file is then exported to an executable, and to distrubute the game, all of these files must be kept together. The easiest way is to export into the same folder as the blend and zip everything. (And when you're making the game make sure all file paths are inside a project folder)


Object clips in camera view In my camera view my objects are clipped. I know the "default answer": clipping end value but I changed this already to 100000000 for the camera. The normal 3d view does not clip when I use 1000 end clip value but the camera view does and the render also.

Where can I also change a value? What Is my mistake?

You just probably switched wrong clipping value.
Select the camera and in camera panel increase the clipping: (marked in green)


transforming a texture from one object to another I have a scanned object with the topology of tries and its unwrapping is with "islands" but once it's in a 3d software the texture fits perfectly well. I need the object to be retopologies with quads so i can change its unwrapping to a one piece unwrap. is there a way to tranfer the original texture to the retopologied object with the texture getting all messed up?
would appreciate any advice.

Thank you...

btw- I did try the CTRL+L option - not what I was thinking about.
Are there any other ways to do it?

If your new model is in quads and is the same size, sits in the same place as the original then you should be able to bake the texture from the original to the new model as long as you unnwrap your new model and set up a texture to bake to that is high enough resolution to accommodate the pixels of the original texture. You would use the 'bake selected from active' option in the render panel bake tab.


Batch rename objects with number sequence? Is there a way to batch rename objects in a sequence similar to: object1, object2, object3...? Where 'object' would be any custom name?

I found the batch rename datablocks script and it was really helpful for renaming a group of objects but gives a sequence like: object.001, object.002, object.003

Is there any way to use this script to give the first kind of sequence?

import bpy

for i, obj in enumerate(bpy.context.selected_objects, 1):
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = obj
    obj.name = "object" + str(i)

Just replace "object" with "your name" and run this in the text editor (make sure you have all objects selected that you want renamed).


Glass - How to make visible light source behind (eevee) I'm trying to build a simple metro train. My goal is to make the windows transparent so I can see from the inside the lights that are out of the train. I tried to play around with the settings that are within the Glass shader but I cannot do it. I get the effect only on the outer side. Im a newbie.
This is from the inside:

This is from the outside:

As you can see I get a reflection which I dont want. I want only the glass to be transparent from both sides.

Light source behind a glass (Eevee)

To see through a glass enable

Properties editor > Render Properties tab > Screen Space Reflections > Refractions
and under Material Properties > Settings > Screen Space Refraction

To see a light source like a Point

add a Cube (in location of light) with Principle Volume shader
decrease Density to 0.1 or lower and Anisotropy increase to 0.9


Trying to wrap this mesh mask to another mesh Beginner here; I'm just trying to figure out how I could get this mask to wrap around and sit on the face, like in the picture below.

I've tried the curve modifier but no joy, also tried the shrink-wrap modifier but that also just went horribly wrong.

I've searched the forum also but maybe I haven't searched the correct terminology so if this has been answered I apologize!

Hoping someone can help:)

You were on the right track when trying to use the Shrink-wrap modifier. All you need to do Is fiddle with some settings.

All you have to make sure is that you select the "Project" mode and tick both of the "Direction" boxes (this tell blender which normal to project, ticking both is just easy). Then you're going to want to increase the offset just a little bit so your projected mesh doesn't intersect too badly with your head.

I see the mesh you'd like to project looks like its got 3 dimentionality, so if you want to preserve that, I suggest you remake it with splines and add a skin modifier to it.


in python load blender file & delete objects I have a python file I am using in blender to load up an old file another script saved previously using save_as_mainfile(). I want to delete some objects from the scene, but for the purpose of this question I will try to delete them all. Here is the code.

bpy.ops.wm.open_mainfile(filepath=filename)
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
for ob in bpy.data.objects:
    ob.select = True
result = bpy.ops.object.delete()
print("{} objects remain because results={}".format(len(bpy.data.objects), result))

The result of running this is "35 objects remain because results={'CANCELLED'}" .. I do not know why the operation was cancelled, and I am hoping the len is 0. I have checked and I am in OBJECT mode (indeed trying to change modes gave me a poll error of some kind).

Thanks.

Instead of looping on all object you can do this:

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)

If you want to delete some specific objects you can use the below script. I had a .blend file (provided below) which has three cubes Cube Cube.001 and Cube.002, in this script I deleted both Cube and Cube.001 where Cube.002 is not deleted.

import bpy

C = bpy.context
scene = C.scene
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
for ob in bpy.data.objects:
    if ob.name in ['Cube','Cube.001']:
        ob.select = True
        scene.objects.active = ob
bpy.ops.object.delete(use_global=False)

.blend file can be found here:


How to keyframe "Use Count" in particle system? I want to change the distribution of objects in a particle system between two frames.
Though there is an option to keyframe I cannot get it to work.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is there a bug?
I am using Blender v2.76.

Example file:
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=72573226735559326311
In frame 1 I want to have 20 times as many icosphere as cubes.
In frame 2 I want to have 20 times as many cubes as icosphere.

You have keyframed the checkbox that enables or disables 'Use Count', not the 'Count' values themselves, which are shown below the large yellow box in your screenshot.

However, trying to keyframe the actual 'Count' value displays an error message, which indicates that these values probably can't be animated.

I would suggest posting another question on this site asking specifically about how to get different amounts of particles to appear.


Rigging fabrication time for serious production and referencing I have a question about rigging and referencing in Blender. Since now a build support alembic file, it matches our production system. For a vfx project, we need to produce 8 minutes of fooatges and we want to try Blender in this production to remove Maya from our pipeline (too manies bugs and support is bad).

So my questions are :

How many times is need to build a rig like Victor from Cosmo Laundromat ?
Does it need a big knowledge in Blender python API ?
Is it possible to found ressources for build it (dvd, artists) ?
is it possible like maya to reference the model with his rig and skin into an other scene to be animated and still keeping the link between the two scene if an update is made on the rig ?

The target for the project is a motion picture quality vfx (rendering will be done in our production engine Guerilla render).
The goal is to remove maya from our pipeline !!! At this time, on the current movie we're doing, it's the main source of problems, like we spend all our times and money to solve problems that we not have in others solutions, like Houdini (our main VFX platform) or me in Blender for modeling and few basic setup like smoke and fire.

Also Blender have a great python API, an easy way to make plugins, and crash less than maya (it's not a joke... we tried).

Thanks in advenced for your answers,
A++

Matt

PS : we're based at Luxembourg, our main group is "On entertainment" and we're OnyxLux 3D.

How much times is needed to build a rig like Victor from Cosmo Laundromat?

About a week or two of one_man_hours for such a rig. Depends on how good that artist is and how much he has automated with scripts.

  Does it need a big knowledge in Blender python API ?

Yes, every technical artist building rigs needs to know the API of the software, Blender or not Blender. A lot of functionality that you take as granted from Maya is not present in Blender and has to be scripted. Scripts also speed the workflow, so in production environment they are a must. The API is well documented here: https://www.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_current/

It takes about 2 months of full work time for a new technical person to become proficient in production blender rigging without prior knowledge of python, 1 month with python knowledge and slight prior experience with rigging and couple of weeks for a technical artist that transits between applications.

  Is it possible to found ressources for build it (dvd, artists)?

All resources for Blender are here: Resources for Blender

I would cheery pick as most useful the Blender Cloud (for Victor rig), Blender Cookie (good rigging tutorials), and Rigify addon (for reverse-engineering).

Also is good to know that Blender community is mainly composed of hobbyist, that don't have that much experience, and everyone is making tutorials these days. So with Blender there is a lot of free tutorials that will show you the wrong way to do things.

An example how not to do rigging is here: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/how-to-create-your-first-character-rig-in-blender-part-1/

Also Blender develops constantly - so many tutorials are now out-of-date.

  Is it possible like Maya to reference the model with his rig and skin into an other scene to be animated and still keeping the link between the two scene if an update is made on the rig?

Yes, this is possible but has limitations. When you link a character, you need to create a proxy of the rig, that can be edited.

When you make changes to the rig in the linked file, you have to re-create the proxy rig, and re-link it's animations. It won't happen automatically. Also the edit of the rig can easily break the animations, as everything in Blender is referenced only by names - so careful with renaming.

Also this limits the number of linked instances you can use in a scene to 1.


High sample renders appear transparent / blank So this is my scene :

When I render it using 128 samples or less, the final image is visible:

However, when I  increase the samples greater than that, the image is visible while rendering and then disappears after the composition is finished.After seeing a few posts on here, I found that turning off the sequencer allows it to render. But, the result was the same:

This is my compositor node setup:

I'm using Blender 2.79, could this be a bug?

Edit: Ok, so when I tried to render the scene again, it seemed to be successful to the 99% mark but then fails and becomes blank or black when it completes.

Compositor nodes :

Update: I tested the scene further and apparently it's the cloud layer under the islands that has been causing all the problems. I rendered each layer separately, and they rendered fine, except for the cloud object layer, which initially showed signs of rendering and then disappeared as soon as it finished.

This is the object's shader:

It is just a simple plane with these modifiers:

Any ideas what could be causing this and how I could fix it?

PS: When I say "cloud layer" I mean the cloud object, not any render layer.

Looks like the compositor is making your whole image transparent somehow when it applies the post processing effects. Try disabling the compositor to see if that fixes your issue. Have you changed anything other than the samples between renders? (New to Stack Exchange so can't comment this)


Problem with the weight paint mode when there are a lot of geometry on the mesh I have some problem with the weight painting of the mesh,check the attached video and tell me please what's the correct way to operate,in this case. Since there are a lot of geometries on the mesh,I suspect that I need to use the face/vertex selection masking for painting,but I don't know how.

demonstration video

screenshots :

NB : I also tried to use the vertex selection masking and you can see in the video below that it didn't work...

this

in Weight Paint mode press M or V to enable Face or Vertice selection masking (you will notice one of the button at the bottom of 3D View will get pressed). after this you can either use simplified selection tools in Weight Paint mode itself or go to Edit mode to use a full specter of selection tools there and then return back to Weight Paint mode with your selection preserved between modes.


Where can I find free made animations? Is there a website which hosts many free animations that can be used in blender? Many websites confuse each other with models (technically is model, but animated).

For example: https://clara.io/view/19b00b61-6d1b-4f6b-92a1-0c69b9b90a45

Thank you

I dunno if there's a lot of shared animations out there.  Maybe there are, haven't looked.

You might find some on BlendSwap, or ask there if there's a certain one you had in mind.

I know there's mo-cap data you can attach to skeletal deformations.   CMU Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database  Something like that might get you halfway to your goal.

Couldn't say about non-organic objects.  Perhaps if other graphics programs offer them, they can be imported.  That's something you'd have to look up, 'cuz I've never expected someone else to do a scene for me; kinda defeats the purpose.


How do I bake to specific tiles in a UDIM I am trying to improve a model I made years ago in Lightwave 3D. I've imported it into Blender. It had an awful, messed up UV map. I created a new UDIM and unwrapped the model again. I wanted to bake the textures as they were in the old UV map.

My problem is, I can only seem to bake to the first UDIM tile, 1001. The others are untouched. I looked up instructions on baking textures, but apparently I was doing something wrong. I kept getting an error message, "Circular dependence". After fumbling around, I managed to get the first tile, 1001, to bake the way I wanted, but not the rest. I finally gave up and just used Photoshop to re-do textures.

Now, I'm trying to further refine one of the UDIM unwraps by baking it to another UV map. Again, having the same circular dependence error, and my UDIM texture is overwritten, not the new image I created for the bake. I put an image texture node in my surface and selected the new image before baking, which I thought was the "bake to" image, instead it overwrites my UDIM image.

I wish there was baking UI that specifically asks for "bake to" and "bake from" images. The way it is now is not clear at all. I know I'm doing something wrong, but I am following instructions.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Currently blender has no option to bake UDIMs. A workaround for this is to place the uv map you want to bake to the front of the UV tiles. For this create for every tile an image and save it. That is important so blender has the naming schema and you can replace these images with the final bake.

Bake the first image:

Save the bake for later because it will be overwritten.

Now you have to move the UV maps from the second to the first.

Bake again and save the image. Now overwrite the placeholder from step 1 with the same name.

Open the first baked image and in the UV editor press the reload button.


How to add pie menu so it will load next time I start with blender How can I add this pie menu from text editor to blender(2.78) so it will load every time. Script kiddie here so please explain in plain English.

import bpy
from bpy.types import Menu

class VIEW3D_PIE_template(Menu):
    # label is displayed at the center of the pie menu.
    bl_label = "Select Mode"
    bl_idname = "mesh.kkmodeling"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        pie = layout.menu_pie()
        # operator_enum will just spread all available options
        # for the type enum of the operator on the pie
        #pie.operator_enum("mesh.select_mode", "type")
        pie.operator("view3d.edit_mesh_extrude_move_normal", text="Extrude Region")
        pie.operator("view3d.edit_mesh_extrude_individual_move", text="Extrude Individual")
        pie.operator("mesh.inset", text="Inset Faces")
        pie.operator("mesh.edge_face_add")
        pie.operator("mesh.subdivide")
        pie.operator("mesh.loopcut_slide")
        pie.operator("mesh.offset_edge_loops_slide")
        pie.operator("mesh.knife_tool", text="Knife")
def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(VIEW3D_PIE_template)

    wm = bpy.context.window_manager
    km = wm.keyconfigs.addon.keymaps.new("Mesh")
    kmi = km.keymap_items.new("wm.call_menu_pie", "W", "PRESS", shift=True, alt=True).properties.name="mesh.kkmodeling"

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(VIEW3D_PIE_template)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    bpy.ops.wm.call_menu_pie(name="VIEW3D_PIE_template")

load py from preferences addon tab. Then activate add on.


Grab data from every frame with Python API? without using bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame) Can you obtain data from multiple frames without using bpy.context.scene.frame_set()?
The above command takes too long on my scene, and I also have too many frames, but I only need to grab one numerical data from each frame.

Is there a way to do this without going to each frame or iteration? I'm specifically interested in grabbing Shape Key value from each frame.

You can read the keyframe points of F-Curves directly, which doesn't require frame changes. Instead, the x-coordinate of a point is the time / keyframe, the y-coordinate is the value.

To find the right F-Curves, iterate over Object.animation_data.action.fcurves and check their data_path and array_index properties.

Related:
http://www.blender.org/documentation/blender_python_api_2_71_release/info_quickstart.html#animation
(See the low level example)


How to Keep the Same Color When Baking a Color Map? I'm having a really hard time trying to keep the color I have on my characters arm while baking the color of it. The problem is that when I bake a "Combined" bake type with Diffuse, Glossy, Transmission, Subsurface, and Emit selected (No direct nor indirect lights), The results came out black. I found out the reason is because the disconnected "Emission" value's color is set to black on the Principled Shader's BSDF on the arm I'm baking from.

If I change that color from black to anything else, then I can definitely bake it and the color shows up, but changing the Emission color also messes up the arm color I've worked hard to set up on my character. I tried plugging the Mix nodes' color output into the Emission value's input, I tried adjusting all the color ramp colors, but I've noticed that changing the Emission color from black to anything else messes up the color. How can I keep the same color I have and bake it exactly as is; Do I need to change my node setup?

If you need the pure color (formerly known as "diffuse", today it's called "albedo") without any influence of light, you don't use the Combined Bake. You can leave your setup as it is, you just have to make sure to not catch any light influences (shadows, reflections, etc.)

This means you have to bypass the Principled BSDF and pass the color values directly to the material output. You can do this by routing whatever node connects to the Base Color of the Principled BSDF through an Emission Shader directly to the Material Output.

If you have the Node Wrangler add-on installed, you can simply do the same by pressing Ctrl+Shift + Left-click on whatever node connects to the Base Color of the Principled BSDF.

In the Bake Options you select "Diffuse" as Bake Type, under "Influence" you deselect "Direct" and "Indirect" and leave "Color" selected.

No need to delete any nodes or create separate materials for each bake. Just reroute whatever you want to bake to the Material Output.


Cycles and OSL Render - Weird Seam I'm trying to make a rock stick out of the sea, and want to blend from a wet rock to dry rock using cycles nodes.

I use a mix shader to blend between two shaders based on the Z position. The mix factor is obtained by calling smoothstep in an OSL script.

My node setup is like so:

However, for some reason I'm getting a sharp seam along Z positions where the blending ends:

Anyone know what might cause this, or how to fix it?

Thanks!

OSL Shading issue with Diffuse Roughness > 0

By dupilcate the Diffuse shader as in the node setup belowe an lowering the amount of the second Diffuse Roughness to something like .95 you should get the expected result.

There seems to be an issue in the usage of that parameter. It leads to strange behaviours. Note that if you don't double the node but just try to lower the Roughness of the Diffuse shader node, you'll need to set it lower than 0.5 to achieve the given result.

Notice that is not related with the use of the OSL script because it still happens even with default nodes...

..when the same scene, rendered with OSL Shading disabled, gives expected results.


Mix Shader Difference? What is the difference between putting a diffuse shader 1st and then a glossy shader 2nd into a mixed shader or a glossy shader 1st and then diffuse shader 2nd in blender cycles?

It should depend on the "factor" of the mix, citing the manual:
"Fac
    The amount of mixing of the bottom socket is selected by the Factor input field (Fac:). A factor of zero does not use the bottom socket, whereas a value of 1.0 makes full use. In Mix mode, 0.5 is an even mix between the two, but in Add mode, 0.5 means that only half of the second socket’s influence will be applied."


Painted textures turning black I keep having this problem where my painted textures keep turning completely black. I cant just reapply them, because the image itself is being corrupted, or something. Does anybody know how to fix this?

In my experience, this is caused by not "Packing" the image.
In the image editor, go to the image you want to pack/save and Image-> Pack as .png.
Now when you close and reopen your project your texture wont be lost because it will have been packed into the .blend file.

Hope this helps


Is it possible to lock one UV island and scale other (same) to be the same size as the locked one? I have tried pinning the big island and Ctrl + A (averaging both of the islands), but that scales both of them down (making them the same size). I want the big one to not change its size and only the small one to scale up to match the big one. I hope it makes sense.
Thanks,

Snapping

Or if they are the same size - by using the Texel Density Checker Addon https://gumroad.com/l/CEIOR


Wrong dimensions after importing .obj I only just got started with Blender so please bear with me.

When working on a obj model I downloaded from turbo squid, it does not seems that the dimensions are correct. Clearly from the picture below, the length of the car is larger than the height of the car. But the dimensions panel shows otherwise. Why is that so?

Short answer:
This is caused by a rotation of the model (90 degrees on the X axis), as you can see in the picture you posted here:

If the object was "unrotated", so to speak, it would be oriented with the car's length along the Z axis, rather than the Y axis.
You can see this by clearing rotation (AltR), or just typing in "0" in the X rotation box.
The object dimensions reflect the unrotated object, which is why the largest dimenions of your car in the Z axis, rather than Y.
To fix this, instead of clearing rotation, apply the rotation (this will make the current rotation the "zero state", and the dimensions will be calculated accordingly). To do this, press: CtrlA to open the "Apply Transformations" menu, then choose Rotation.
Why this happened:
As you know, blender uses a Z up axis system, as is more common in Math.
However, many other 3D apps use a Y up axis system which might be more intuitive to laypeople, who are used to only 2D axis systems (where Y is the "up-down" axis).
OBJ files are also normally saved with Y-up coordinates. So when Blender imports OBJ files, it automatically rotates them by 90 degrees along the X axis so that they will be oriented correctly within Blender.
Since the people who wrote the OBJ importer didn't know for sure whether users will always like this (I assume), they did not apply the rotation.
Which is why objects imported from OBJ files are always initially rotated by 90 degrees in X, and their dimensions reflect this.


How to resolve problem with back-face culling and export it to a game engine? I would like to know how to fix the problem with "back-face culling", check this photo.

In my 3D viewport you can see the right window in Unity has a problem, you can as spectator see the inside of the pipe, however in front view (left window in the picture) the interior faces are ok .

So my first steps in Blender were

Check the display to "GLSL" (Blender Internal)
Go into Edit Mode and flip the normals of all the mesh (press W > Flip Normals on all mesh objects).
Once I've flipped all the normals I activate the option Back-face Culling in the N panel
Apply the transformation .
Unwrap the model (check marked seams if possible and space for
texture bleeding)
Export in FBX/OBJ files to the game engine.

I would like to know how to fix back-face culling for cylinders objects.

Blender's show back faces option is just for viewport purposes and doesn't effect export. The easiest solution is to duplicate the faces of your pipe, flip the normals on the copy, and keep both overlaid. Alternatively you can find or make a Unity shader that shows back faces.


How to make an airflow animation? Hi Artists,
Any idea how to do an airflow simulation motion "photo attached"?
I am not sure if this can be done on Blender or I should fake it in postprocessing using Affter effect or any other software :(  , I would really appreciate your ideas to help me with this, thanks.

Hi Carlo, Thank you again,
I used your previous answer with a line curve and I think it was what I looking for :), I have attached the reference video link so please review it and let me know if you have another technique you think it would be better otherwise this would be good enough.
All the best.


After crash, images appear as black sihoettes and all text dissappears I had several instances of blender running, and they all crashed at once as I started a render with a procedural materials.
Now, when I load:

All images in viewports are black silhoettes.
Text and icons are missing from all tiles.
Points on timeline still showm but all text on timeline titles is
gone.

Refer attached images.
I have tried:

Uninstalling then installing new blender version.
Shutting down and restarting the computer.
Running disk cleanup to clear cache.
Clearing App data files on my profile.

None of this has made any difference.
It looks like a rendering issue. But I still have larger, more demanding bits of software (such as Revit) running fine.
I'd appreciate any help.

Turns out my graphics card, a GeForce GTX1070, doesn't have enough muscle :(
After 10 or so reboots this appeared:

The old card has no updates that work. Frustrating. I don't know what I'm going to do about this.


I'm having a problem with the visiblility of an object just in cycles Im having a problem, an object is invisible in cycles, in eeve and in 3d view the visiblity is normal.
For detail, the object is invisible but selectable like its there but not visible and I'm using blender 2.90.1.
Thanks in advance.

this second image shows that it doesent have a texture.

I leave the file on a google drive
link < (this is the link)

Finally I found the problem, the visibility was turned off for the camera.


Lock object origin to 3D cursor I have some problems about animating multiple objects since they're not moving at the same speed and because of that it doesn't seem like the objects are connected during the animation but only in the two frames ''locked'' the
It seems like it's because they have origins in different spots, so I set all origins to the 3D cursor in the absolute center, but as soon as I move the objects the origin follows and leaves the 3D cursor... Is it possible to lock the origin to the 3D cursor so it stays there even when you move your object?

I know that I can just move the object and then replace the origin back to the 3D cursor, but then the animation goes crazy, so another idea?

Pic 1) This is what I'm starting with. All parts have to be animated, but since the white parts only move up and down, there's no problem, but the blue parts have to be rotated, and that's when it goes wrong during animation...

Pic 2) This is where the animation should end. Notice that the spikes marked with a red dot never leave the standard plane (the red line).
It looks fine in the first and last frame of the animation, but the time in between go crazy.. doesn't move at the same speed, rotate around, and the spikes aren't at the red line through the whole time.

Pic 3) The blue parts are just connected to the white part as you see it in this picture... The blue ring just has du stay around the white peak, and don't break the laws of physic by moving in between or through the object.

Pic 4) This is just the full ''product'' so you have a better idea.

You should definitely look into rigging. It's often used to animate characters, but has a place anywhere you're trying to deform an object like this.

I would add several bones along your shape, then parent the shape to the armature using envelope weights. See here.


How can I make a Driver expression access image RNA data through the image texture node? So still trying to automate some processes.
I am trying to use drivers to access information about an image (pixel x/y size and DPI)
The location is simple
bpy.data.materials['Fabric'].node_tree.nodes['IMAGE01'].image.size[0]
But the driver cannot access it through a Texture node

As you can see, it works if I go through the image variable. But not useful when the user changes the texture.
What do I need to make it work?

Use self in drivers

Can use self in drivers, to see what is going on can make a driver method, register it, and print to system console what the value of self is, and often more importantly what self.id_data is.

Here is a little test driver foo(self) that also returns a random number, so we can see if it is working, and when.

import bpy
from random import random

def foo(self):
    print(self, self.id_data)
    return random()

bpy.app.driver_namespace["foo"] = foo

Now add as a driver.

Add the driver directly into the property by typing #foo(self) before its a driver. Once it is a driver simply edit the expression in field.

On first time, Make sure use self is checked, and update deps to fire it up.  If it breaks may have to update deps again.

For the simple driver will see that

<bpy_struct, NodeSocketVector("Vector")> <bpy_struct, ShaderNodeTree("Shader Nodetree")>

is printed to sys console, and the driver is a random value.  Ok then self.id_data is the nodetree to which the texture node belongs.

Extending, will give a value of 4 if no image or no  node named "Image Texture" .. but if there is will return the image width.

import bpy

def foo(self):
    print(self, self.id_data)
    node_tree = self.id_data
    tn = node_tree.nodes.get("Image Texture")
    if tn:
        print(tn)
        if tn.image:
            return tn.image.size[0]
    else:
        print("NO IMAGE")
    return 4.0

bpy.app.driver_namespace["foo"] = foo

Could extend further by passing the name of the image texture node and image height or width as an int for instance, and not rely on it being called "Image Texture"

def foo(self, name="Image Texture", index=0, default=0.0):
    ...

        tn = node_tree.nodes.get(name)
        ...
            return tn.image.size[index]

    return default

Now can type #foo(self, "BarTexture", 1, -44) into a prop on nodetree and it will be the height of the image in the node named "BarTexture" or -44 if there is no image or no node.

Notes:

An issue is crossing an ID line in a path for a driver variable.  Starting from material going thru nodetree. If defined as a group then try using the nodetree ID type in a variable  (Haven't had much joy doing this).

Remove print statements if happy with result so you don't spam the console.


Fade distant geometry into the background (EEVEE) I have a scene mainly with a big floor composed of adjacent rectangular cuboids (roads), and an equirectangular projection texture (environment texture, HDRI, skydome...) as the background.

I would like the floor and all other geometry to progressively fade off into the background with distance, preferably after a given distance point from the camera or non-linearly. This in order to make the horizon less edgy/crisp.

How to achieve this effect on EEVEE (preferably, but not necessarily without compositing)?

Thanks.

What I have tried so far:

VOLUME SCATTERING (FOG) 1

With volumetrics enabled, I plugged a volume scattering/absorption node into the World output node.

THE PROBLEM

The background is obscured by the fog. I think this wouldn't really fade geometry into the background anyways.

VOLUME SCATTERING (FOG) 2

With volumetrics enabled, I created a cube and fitted it over my scene geometry so it will be wrapped inside the cube. I made a material for it and removed its shader so nothing goes into the output surface socket. I did as above and plugged a volume scattering/absorption node into its output volume socket.

THE PROBLEM

Again, the background is obscured by the fog (so long as the cube is in the way of the active camera). Again, as above, this possibly wouldn't fade geometry into the background.

FADING MATERIALS INTO TRANSPARENCY

For the roads material (first, and then for every material subject to be faded into the background) with its settings Blend Mode set to either of Alpha Hashed or Alpha Blend, I used the Camera Data node View Z Depth socket to mix the original shader with a transparent BSDF by plugging it into a mix Shader Fac socket. I was able to adjust the starting distance point at which things start to fade with some math nodes.

THE PROBLEM

All of the alpha blend modes fail to cull geometry in the desired way. While some of them do not cull back faces, others do, but fail to cull occluded front faces, as if there were several shader passes involved instead of just one. So I always get to see some of the sides of my cuboids, when instead I would like to only see the top faces of them as it is the case with opaque blend mode. Other than that the fading effect appears to work fine.

COMPOSITING

I have attempted to composite the output by blending only the geometry with the background according to its depth.

THE PROBLEM

Apparently in order to have only the geometry rendered in a layer, one needs to set in Render settings->Film, Alpha to transparent instead of Sky, and there's no environment checkbox in the passes options of view layers. There's also no Environment socket in the render layers node in compositor. So even if I get all my geometry to render over a transparent background, I don't know of any means to blend it over the proper part of the original background, as the only means I know of, of getting the original background into compositing is through an Image node for which there are no input sockets or an apparent way (to me) of mapping it correctly, so I'm getting the wrong part of the background. If it matters, my background is in png format, not exr or hdr.

Rather than 'fade to transparency' you can, instead, 'fade to environment' with the fade acting between your mesh's actual shader and an Emission shader set to mimic the environment - this will avoid the problem of ‘backfaces’ or part-transparent faces showing through. This can be achieved with the following nodes :

Everything within the 'frame' is dealing with mapping the environment onto the surface of the mesh while the Diffuse shader at the top is there to represent your mesh's actual shader.
The Environment texture (an Environment node set to your HDR image) is normally driven by the Generated coordinates but in this case we generate the coordinate based on the Incoming vector. This will shade the point on the mesh with the point in the environment that would have been shown if the mesh was transparent - so effectively making it appear transparent by projecting the environment onto the surface. This is achieved by Vector Subtracting the Incoming vector from 0 (to effectively reverse the ray’s direction). The output of the Environment node drives an Emission shader with its strength set to 1.0 to mimic the environment.
The other nodes calculate the 'fade' based on distance - but only for 'Camera' rays (since we don't want the 'fade' to affect how the mesh interacts with the rest of the lighting of the scene, only how it appears to the camera. The Divide controls how far away from the camera the scene should fade, while the Color Ramp affects the profile of the fade (change those to affect the 'hardness' and distance of the fade).
This can produce the following result :

You would need to do the above for all of the materials in your scene that want to be affected by the fade (in the case of the above example, just the plain floor - so that it blends into the HDRI background of the scene (which provide the trees)).


2.81 missing Volume node - any of them available? Downloaded Official 2.81 and get same result. Search for "Principled" and "Volume" no result

was trying to follow volumetric lighting tutorial and cannot find any "volume" node.
World> Volume node(any of them) are they missing in Nov 20 blender 2.81?
https://i.postimg.cc/cJKgCyxb/blender2-81-volume-Node.jpg


Textures Reorganize When I Unwrap I'm having a big problem here.
I've applied different textures to the faces of my model and it looks exactly how I want it to, until I unwrap it.

Pre-Unwrap:

Post-Unwrap:

And now I can't bake the texture.

What should I do? Why is this happening? Can I not bake the texture exactly as it appears in the viewport?:-(

Okay. I have solved the problem after several days of pulling my hair out. Shoutout to @moonboots for setting me on the right track. First of all, THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO will explain mostly everything. A couple things it won't explain:

You cannot have both image textures and flat color textures in the same model. I, for instance, used image texture for the clothes and flat color for the skin, hair and boots. What you must do is import your flat colors as images and have blender pull from those. I myself made a texture palette with all the main colors I will use. THIS is a good YouTube video showing how to do that.

You absolutely MUST use Nodes. I was intimidated by the Node Editor and found it so confusing that I kept strictly to the Materials Tab. No way, Jose. There's no getting around it; you have to use Nodes.
If you are really stuck, OUTSOURCE. I hired someone on Fiverr.com to bake the model for me and make a list of steps to take so I would know how to do it myself. If you're going crazy, delegate!

Good luck guys!


Can I render isolated objects but keeping all the impact of other objects and their materials? So I chose all the objects I don`t want to be rendered and changed their visibility, and then rendered the object I want, but it looks different while being isolated. Can I render it like if there are all other objects in a scene providing different types of reflections and so? Cycles.

You could use the Indirect Only restriction toggle option. It's only available for a whole collection. If you enable it, it will hide all the collection's objects but they will still affect the rendered ones.

Or select an object and disable its camera visibility in the Properties panel > Object > Visibility:


Create an outline mesh around another structure / edges with equal distance I am having a big problem creating an outline mesh around a number of edges.

I found a lot of solutions to that topic like extrude along individual normals (after creating faces) or using the mesh-offset-plugin but all solutions I found so far do not work the way I would them expect to work.

eg How do I Inset a face equally? and How to offset the edges?

The following screenshot shows my problem:

The top object is my source where I want an outline object... Or just another object where all points have the same distance to the origin.

The second object just shows the result of an extrusion along the z axis where the distance on the hitches are too small..

The third object shows my "normal" results using any of the hints google shows me... including the result of the mesh-offset-plugin... the hitches are to big compared to the "flat" faces...

The last object at the bottom shows the result I created in 2D with corel draw and 2 mintues time...  (the reimport through Inkskape Import and Export to blender took a little longer...)

Using the Inset toolset did not work the way I want nor the shrink/fatten tool nor the extrude individual faces does the job...

A possible but very unsatisfying solution is to first extrude along the y-axis to get faces instead of edges and then extrude every single selected face by an identical amount using "e" to extrude and "1" for the distance of 1 eg.

After that I have to delete and merge all the new overlapping vertices in order to get the outline I wanted... And even that does not rally work the way I wand becaus extruding the faces on the sides does not extrude orthogonally to the face but somewhere else...

What am I missing here? I thought of a problem of the direction of my normals but did not find any possibility to make the orthogonal to the face they are connected to...

Thanks for your thoughts!

Update / Edit:

Here is what I got from the skin modifier:

I really have no idea what the problem is... I think maybe my line is the problem... here is a blender file with the line I am trying to outline:

Edit: finally ;-) THANKS very much for the hint with the wrong scale in my line... that was the problem which caused every solution to fail!

Considering the base shape has no surface and is edges only, you can convert it to a curve with AltC, then use the "extrude" parameter:

Doing that the distance from the outer edges to the base vertices is constant.

Edit: in meantime I've downloaded your file. From both solution the problem is your shape is scaled. So you need to apply scale CtrlA before any other thing.


How to get some value from user? I write addon. And i am, like some user, want manualy change some value. As example, string, for renaming!
How to do it? Also how to draw panel for this?

Some thing like this maybe.

import bpy

from bpy.types import(
        Panel,
        Operator,
        PropertyGroup
        )

from bpy.props import(
        StringProperty,
        PointerProperty,
        FloatProperty
        )

class HelloWorldPanel(Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the Scene properties window"""
    bl_label = "Hello World Panel"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_hello"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        # you need to get your stored properties to draw them
        scene = context.scene.your_properties

        col = layout.column()
        col.prop(scene, "string")
        col = layout.column()
        col.prop(scene, "size")
        col = layout.column()
        col.operator("some.thing")

class Add_some_thing(Operator):

    bl_idname = "some.thing"
    bl_label = "Add object"
    bl_description = "some description"

    def execute(self, context):

        # you need to get your stored properties
        scene = context.scene.your_properties
        # you get some of your properties to use them
        string = scene.string
        size = scene.size

        # you do some thing to use your property with
        bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
        # you can change some of the added object props as the defined in the ui property
        context.active_object.name = string
        context.active_object.scale = [size, size, size]
        return {'FINISHED'}

# your properties here
class addon_Properties(PropertyGroup):

    string = StringProperty(
        name = "the name",
        description="name of the object to add",
        default = ""
        )
    size = FloatProperty(
        name = "size",
        description = "size of the object to add",
        default = 1.0,
        )

classes = (
    HelloWorldPanel,
    addon_Properties,
    Add_some_thing
    )

def register():

    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
    # you store your properties in the scene
    bpy.types.Scene.your_properties = PointerProperty(type=addon_Properties)

def unregister():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)
    # you delete your properties
    del bpy.types.Scene.your_properties

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Dark Shadows when using AO with Transparent Materials? When rendering this scene in Blender Internal, the wine glass in the scene has a dark shadow collect at the very bottom.

I have shadow transparency on, the shadow from the light turned off with environment lighting on and ambient occlusion on.
The shadow is only there when ambient occlusion is on and it is against the table. Is there a way to make this go away while keeping ambient occlusion on?

This is an image that has all of the details for the environment and for the glass material

There are several thing that could cause this, including

Shadows

Make sure that the table material has Receive Transparent enabled:

With Receive Transparent and Without Receive Transparent:

As you can see form this render with the glass raised, the reason for this is that even if the glass casts a transparent shadow, unless Receive Transparent is enabled for the table, solid black shadow is rendered which the glass then refracts:

Ambient Occlusion:
Ambient Occlusion would cause this too, as it works by darkening surfaces that are close to other objects. (The closer the darker)
Then you have the same problem as Receive Transparent, with the glass refracting the dark areas.

Add blend mode:

Multiply blend mode, with the glass on the table and with it in the air:

To make this disappear, you can enable Indirect Lighting in Properties > World

However, this can get your rendertimes rather insane, (Just for this low resolution render it took 2:27.26)

And as already mentioned by SteveW:

Depth
The Depth setting from one to four:

And at a value of 20 :

Cycles

Probably the best way to do this is use Cycles, as you need caustics to get light to properly illuminate after being refracted through the glass.

(quick example:)


Basics! How to get rid of protruding face that overlaps another object A hopefully simple solution for a newbie like me. So i created a cube, deleted the top face, and then created the roof using a single plane and mirror modifier. Once i lined up the roof to the walls i had to fill in the space in the center between the roof and walls. My solution was to extrude it up and then do away with teh excess face that is protruding passed the roof. But to no avail i couldnt find anything... What is your guys's solution? Or maybe a different method all around?

If you want to make a box with a roof, you can simply

add a cube
loop cut and slide it in the half like this:

select the middle top edge and move it upward


Creating dynamic animation in blender using python scripts I am new to blender and python scripting in blender, so please forgive me if I am being vague because I have no idea where to start.

Currently I am working on a project whose output I wanted to show using animation in blender. The script would be running continuously and what ever result it generates the o/p will change accordingly. For example consider this python script,

def doCalculations(*args):
    ...

while(True):
    x = doCalculations(...)
    print(x)

Say this function generates numbers between 1 to 5. Now say I have two cubes in blender. Then if the generated number is 3 then I will project 3 spheres from cube1 to cube2. The function doCalculations would run indefinitely in background and the animation generated will change accordingly.

Is there a way to achieve this? Thanks in advance.

If your function is just an infinite loop, you won't be able to do anything in Blender while this script is executing. It doesn't work this way.

For this purpose you can create a new modal operator instead. If you want it to run in the background checking for keyboard input events, you can add a timer event and use it with modal() function in {'PASS_THROUGH'} mode like here.

For some particular tasks it may be easier to use bpy.app.handlers instead. They take your function as argument and execute it on some specific event, e.g. current frame change. This code will execute my_very_complex_function() printing 'Executing algorithm...' in console every time the frame is changed:

import bpy

def my_very_complex_function(context, dummy): # must take 2 arguments
    print('Executing algorithm...')

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

This is just an example, you can put in way more complex functions


Can you reduce detail with a normal/bump map? The usual workflow is to take a high detail model, such as a sculpt, create a lower detail copy, then bake a normal map off the high detail to use on the low. Is it viable to do the reverse?

I need to keep the overall geometry of my model intact for various reasons, but I would actually like to eliminate certain surface details with a texture within some parts of my material setup, while having the rest of the geometry intact for other parts.

Note that I don't necessarily mean a lower detail model in terms of vertex count, but rather in visible details. For example, here are two UV spheres. One has been crumpled. If I rendered it, it would have complex shading due to being crumpled, and the wireframe sphere would have smooth shading.

I want to give the crumpled sphere the smooth shading of the non-crumpled sphere, but keep it's geometry complex. This would cause it's silhouette to still have the high detail of the crumpled sphere.

Can this be done?

In the case of a spherical object, it is pretty simple. Just add a Normal Edit modifier and enable Auto Smooth in the Normals panel of the Object Data menu.

Before:

After:


If a cube is rigged on all it's edges. How can I animate it so it tumbles forward forever? When I roll a rigged cube over its edge (for instance this example which has no bones on all its edges but anyway -> How can I rig a cylinder so that when it's rotated its end cap will not penetrate the floor?), some bones stay behind outside my mesh. So I'm not able to animate a next turn/tumble. Does someone have a solution? It is possible to transfer the bones to a new position in one frame after the first rotation? How does this work?

For anyone who is interested in the future. I found a simple solution. Just add an 'empty' and make it a child of the cube (which behaves as a child to the armature). Make sure the empty is in the same location as the parent's bone head.
Give your parent's bone 2 constrains; 'Copy Rotation' + 'Copy Location' and make the target: the Empty.


Duplicating an object in script (by name) I want to duplicate an object (by name). In this case, tried "Cube":
src_obj = bpy.data.objects["Cube"]
#print (src_obj) #ok, seems selected
new_obj = src_obj.ops.object.duplicate(linked=0,mode='TRANSLATION')

which gives me:
'Object' object has no attribute 'ops'
How can I fix it?
Thanks.

bpy.ops is a module directly in bpy, not part of any object class. It holds all registered operators. If you don't specify a region, it will always assume you want to do something in the viewport. Just replace src_obj with bpy to match the behavior of ShiftD.
You should also make sure that the cube is the active object.
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = src_obj
scr_obj.select_set(True)
bpy.ops.object.duplicate(linked=0,mode='TRANSLATION')
new_obj = bpy.context.active_object


How can I blend a matcap material with a texture I love the matcap mode in Blender for modelling, because it allows me to get a good idea of the shape of the model I'm working on as the 'lighting' is fixed to the camera and changes as I move it around (similar to the default lighting mode in Maya). However, when I want to view textures, I either have to set the shadeless flag (no lighting), or place lights in the scene, which is both annoying, and static, so it's still quite hard to appreciate the effect the texture is having on the perceived shape of the model. What I would love to have, is a way to have either default lighting that is fixed to the camera, or some way to blend the texture with a white matcap (or any matcap) to simulate that default lighting. Ideally this would be great as a default feature in Blender, but I'll take a workaround for now :)

Ok, so I've found an acceptable workaround thanks to Gandalf3's comment to the question, which references another question that asks how regular materials can be made to work like a matcap. Here is how I set up my material to get both a texture using the main UV map, and camera dependent shading, by blending it with a matcap.

These steps assume you have already created a material and assigned a texture to it in the first (top) texture slot. Also, make sure you are using the GLSL display mode ('n' to open display panel, then select from the 'Shading' section) and are viewing in textured mode ('alt + z'). You needn't have any lights in your scene for this to work.

Check the material's 'Shadeless' parameter. We don't want lighting, because the matcap will be assigned to provide a faked lighting effect that is dependent on the surface normal relative to the camera.

Add a new texture in slot 2 (below slot 1) and assign a matcap texture. You can find some matcap textures here: https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender/release/datafiles/matcaps/

Set the coordinates of the matcap to 'Normal' in the 'Mapping' section of the texture properties. If you look in the viewport now, it will appear like a regular matcap in shaded mode.
The matcap needs to be blended with the texture, so set the 'Blend' parameter in the 'Influence' section to 'Multiply'.

If you have done this correctly, when you move the camera around, the matcap should provide some kind of lighting to the model, allowing you to see the shape of the model with the texture applied much more clearly. Note that you may need to adjust the matcap to make the lighting effect more obvious. I used the default Blender matcap (mc01.jpg from the link above) and increased the contrast in an image editor to get darker shading.


Is there a way to append all materials in a Blender files with Python? What I usually do is assign all my materials to a Cube and append it, and the materials just come with it.

The problem is that bpy.ops.wp.append() require a filename, and I have no way that I know to create a for loop that would cycle through all the mats in the file and append them. Usually when I want to import all files in a folder I use glob.glob() to create a list but that obviously wouldn't work in this case. Is there an equivalent to glob.glob() for a blend file?

Appending the cube has it's limit since I need to remember to assign my materials to it, and when you are working with hundreds of mats it becomes problematic.

Example using BlendDataLibraries based on How can I import BI materials from another blender file with python?. The script scans the given directory for blend files and appends all materials:

import bpy
import os

blend_files = []
for root, dirs, files in os.walk("/home/<USER>/..."):
    for file in files:
        if file.endswith(".blend"):
             blend_files.append(os.path.join(root, file))

# Append all materials from all blends within the folder
for filepath in blend_files:
    with bpy.data.libraries.load(filepath, link=False) as (data_from, data_to):
        data_to.materials = data_from.materials

A little bit of housekeeping might be nice in this case:

with bpy.data.libraries.load(filepath, link=False) as (data_from, data_to):
    data_to.materials = [m for m in data_from.materials if m.startswith("MATLIB_")]


blender 2.8 how duplicate view3d area into new window from script Is there a way to duplicate view3d area into a new window from a script?
This is how it's done through the UI: blender docs.
I want to have a separate window with only the 3d viewport.

found this operator:

bpy.ops.screen.area_dupli()

but it gives:

ERROR (wm.operator): /home/sources/blender-release/source/blender/windowmanager/intern/wm_event_system.c:1459 wm_operator_invoke: invalid operator call 'SCREEN_OT_area_dupli'

found this for blender 2.79:
New window with Python API?

The operator still works in 2.80, but you need two parameters:

A custom context that tells the operator what area should be used for the new window
The correct execution context

The custom context can be created by modifying a copy of the current one. The area object for the 3D view can be found by iterating through bpy.context.screen.areas and checking for the type to be 'VIEW_3D'.

Executing bpy.ops.screen.area_dupli(context) will not work properly, because EXEC_DEFAULT is used as the default execution context. When this is the case event->customdata is NULL (see screen_ops.c) which results in the operator returning PASS_THROUGH and no window being created. The solution is to add INVOKE_DEFAULT as argument, which is exactly what the button in the user interface does.

import bpy

context = bpy.context.copy()

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        context['area'] = area
        bpy.ops.screen.area_dupli(context, 'INVOKE_DEFAULT')
        break


What's the purpose of Node Wrangler's Viewer Node? With Node Wrangler enabled, I can quickly preview a texture node with Shift+Ctrl+LMB.

But what puzzles me is that it creates a Viewer Node, which seems unnecessary:

As shown above, the result doesn't look different if I connect my Texture Node to Material Output directly.

So why does Node Wrangler create this Viewer Node? In which situation would it be necessary?

It's a technical detail but using the Emission Shader as some kind of bridge is technically correct.

The color of each socket represents a specific data type. Quoting from What is the meaning of the color of the node sockets in the node editor?:

  Grey is a single value
  Yellow is a tuple containing 3 values; the red, green, and blue channels of a color.
  Purple is a tuple containing 3 values. Used for vector/coordinate information.
  Green is a shader closure, representing a description of how light will interact with a surface or volume. This one can only be connected into other green sockets.

As you can see the Surface socket from the Output node is green so it expects an incoming shader (closure) and no other kind of data. However, that you're allowed to plug any other node type into the Surface Socket is actually a great feature...

For the sake of completeness: In case a float socket (grey) is connected to rgb (yellow) the resulting g and b channels are just a copy of r to fill it up.


Use an n-gon for window model? I'm trying to make a wall with a window in it:

I want to get rid of the edges marked in red, but without removing the hole in the middle. I want it like this to make UV unwrapping it more consistant, something like this:

Better topology would be like this (I believe this is what you are looking for) with the knife tool:


Particle system and controlling the collision on surface on/off dependent on the emitting geometry? I have three geometries, two point geometries emit particles in a line, like a laser beam, and the third is a plane.

I could set the third, the mirror, to collide with the two particle streams. Now, I want to have that one of the two particles emitted from one of the two surfaces does not collide while the other particle stream does collide.

Can I set the collision on the mirror dependent on the particle emitter?

I have attached my attempt, which is difficult to see. What you see there are a blue beam a green beam and a red beam colinear on a semi transparent mirror. Here, I want to make the mirror reflecting only the red particle stream and passing though the both others.

NoLimits

Final:

Overview:

You can use Collision Groups to choose which Emitter will collide with which surface.

In this example I've created 3 Groups.

Blue Emitter with blue Collision plane.
Red Emitter with red Collision plane.
Green Emitter with green Collision plane.

Last thing to do is to choose in respective Emitter under Particles tab > Physics section desired Group.


Animation project renders in pink? so im new to blender and just have a small problem. in the 3d view my animation looks like this

Then When I render it it turns purple like this

Anyway I can get it to render normaly so the pokeballs and writing isnt purple?

All External Data i.e. images, scripts, VSE Strips, etc. are found and utilized through a Path. A Path may look something like the following, which would use Image.png and find it on my Desktop.

/Users/ShadyPuck/Desktop/Image.png

If the Path leads to a directory that doesn't exist or attempts to use an Image Name that isn't in that directory (in other words, it can't find the file), Blender will return pink.

What you need to do is locate the correct files for each pink instance in Blender's File Browser window.


Rendering a imported mp4 video within a animation I having trouble with creating an animation in Blender which consists of an imported mp4 file and a moving camera.
The camera just moves from left to right panning an imported .mp4 file. When i preview the animation I can see the .mp4 and its playing but when I render it does not show anything?

My fault. I imported as a plane and it worked. Before I just dragged the .mp4 into Blender, probably just acting as a reference.


Forced normals and hard edges? I'm trying to learn blender in a perspective of making meshes that I can export to game engines. Making nice looking high polys seems to go okey for me, but I have a hard time with controlling my normals when doing my low poly mesh.

Here I have a low poly model with some bevels on it. What I want to do (because of the bevel) is to force the normals marked red to be flat. I've successfully done so using the blend4web plugin. I also want to keep a sharp edge around the faces on the inside (marked green), now there's where things get tricky for me.
I have been searching around and the only way I found that works is to split the edges. Now I really don't want to do that since this is a problem that appears quite often and I want to keep my low polys as intact as I can.

I made an example in maya just to show you what I want. (This mesh is using the exact same topology and is all intact).

Crease the edges you want to stay sharp. A value of 1 will be perfectly sharp. If you have any smoothing or subdivision surface modifier applied, as you reduce the value the edge shading will become increasingly smoothed. So if you want just a bit of smooth shading on certain edges you might try a value of .9 or something.

This is where the 'Crease' value adjustment is located.


When using constraints, how can I get a child to have two parents? I have tried a myriad of ways to get a child (ArmC) to have two parents (RivetD and RivetC) but I can't get it to work.

Now I realize that there are ways to "fake" constraints so that they look like they work, but for this question, I am trying to figure out if the Blender constraint system can drive objects with multiple joints like they really would function in the real world.

When rotating ArmA which drives ArmB, is it possible to have ArmC stay secured and rotate at RivetD while at the same time staying secured at RivetC which would then cause ArmB to rotate differently?

Here is the blend file:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6647893/Forum_Help/TwoParentConstraints.zip

This is an example of what I am trying to accomplish:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6647893/Forum_Help/Angles.jpg

This is a typical Inverse Kinematics job, is this what you are trying to accomplish?
gif


How do I get bevelled edges from the inside of a mouth? EDIT: Unsure how I solved it. Someone commented the corrected file, but idk how they did it.

I'm currently creating a face rig, and I'm at the modeling point of the process. I have all of the modeling finished except for one part that I want, but do not know how to do.
Here's what the face looks like (for reference):

As you can see, everything is looking quite smooth. What I want to do is have the corners of the mouth beveled so that it isn't a rectangle mouth, but a roundish rectangle. What I want is red, what I have is black:

In edit mode I discovered that the edges of the mouth are glitched out. When I try to subdivide the faces, it isn't divided into fourths, but vertices are added at the edges instead, which is not what I want.

I know that I need bevels or subdivisions to do this, but the faces are just too glitchy. Can someone give me an alternative approach? If you can teach me how to do it with mean crease, here's a picture of what edit mode looks like:

Mouth edge, same on other side

Thanks for reading, I hope you can help! :]

EDIT: Here's what I was looking for. It's solved:

[UPDATE] Here's the file: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/36339

The original file is this:

First, I removed 129 doubling vertices (W -> Remove Doubles).

After some basic tweaking (dissolving some edges and adding 2 loopcuts to make vertices adjacent) got this

Now, mouth and teeth form. I decided to drop original vertices of teeth and combine them with loops of mouth and of the hole head. To do that, I deleted top teeth vertices (X -> Faces), selected one vertice from base of the top teeth and one from base of the bottom teeth and pressed J to make edge.

I did that for all adjacent vertices forming base of teeth.
Then, I added loopcut (Ctrl + R) across the all head. I combined it with the top mouth edge so it to let me add more loopcuts without creating NGons:

Then I added 2 loopcuts across the head including mouth. I scaled them to 0 by Z axis (S -> Z -> 0) and moved slightly by Z to make teeth slightly smaller. Then I began recreating teeth by simply selecting adjacent vertices and pressing F:

After bottom teeth were done, I added adjacent quantity of vertical loopcuts (in this case 6) across the mouth to let it have roundish edges. Finally, I added Subsurf modifirer and set subdivision level to 2.

There are a lot of problems left, the eyes and whole top part of face should be rebuilt also or the eyes would not be seen as they should be. Also, my approach creates a lot of additional geometry - I tend to not creating NGons so Subsurf working as good as possible.

This is what I did. At the same time, I'm not sure what did OP to make his final image.