I can't edit the texture orientation I'm new on blender and I'm making a cars track for Assetto Corsa.
I'm about to finish the track. I was finishing the walls and a problem became:
I can't see the walls texture on the UV/Image editor. I select all the face which I want to see in the UV/image editor, I press U>Reset and then U>follow active quads and I don't see anything on the V/Image editor, so I can't rotate the texture.
I looks like this, it's kinda weird:

I've seen that with U>Smart UV project it automatically rotates but only with some faces. Any suggestions?

I'd like to ask for something else: When I select a cube face from the array blender selects that face of all the cubes on the array. How can I select individual cubes of the array to delete them individually?

I leave my .blend, so anyone can check everything needed.
Thanks in advance!

UV Map doesn't show when the Render Result is selected in the UV/Image Editor. So, please, try clicking on the X button. As shown below:

For deleting face of individual cubes you have to first Apply the Array Modifier. However, note, that it will convert all cubes to single mesh, so they won't be affected by the Curve Modifier after that.


Go about designing a world map for game engines I have been modelling with blender for a year or so and I am starting to work on a pretty large project, something of such scope I have never attempted.

I have created a really rough mock up for a world map I want to create. I am having a hard time figuring out how I should tackle the final product. It is about 2km square with a slight incline and on one side is ocean. I want to eventually import it into unreal or unity.

Should I create a rough layout of the entire terrain and place the roads, buildings and trees on top and add details to the terrain where I need them?  Another way I was thinking was to add the buildings, place the roads, parking lots etc in between and only add terrain where it is exposed?

Or is there a better way?

There is indeed a difference between having one giant soil and placing elements on it and dispatching pieces of landscape where it is needed. Since you have an incline, I suggest the first. I strongly reccomend that you work with armory3d which is the pbr engine for blender. Thus with arrays and displace you can have a soil, add another displace with a texture for the paths/roads, use the nodes with normal -> dot connected to mix shaders via colorramps to get different surfaces types depending on the slope. Even add some tesselation displacement and you'll get quite near to photorealism. The next step is to create/get a grass shader and some vegetation models and dispatch them on that land with a script or grease pencil. That's for the natural part of it.


How do I split the mesh using another plane? I am trying to make a wave with ocean floor. I applied several modifier to generate a wave which is

I don't want the ocean wave down the plane which need to be removed. At first I tried the Boolean modifier to do a difference but it doesn't make any changes. Is there any split or slice tool available in blender to do the same?
The blend file is available in

Boolean didn't work because you have inner faces that make it fail. That said you can limit the Wave modifier to the group you want, to do so create a group in Weight Paint mode (once done you can soften the weight with the Blur brush) or in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups > Assign. Then choose this group in the Wave modifier (and also in the Displace modifier if you've used one). Here only the top vertices have been assigned to the group (except the small part that you didn't want) so the bottom won't be affected:


Why do curves get thinner at 90° angles? Why do vector curves get smaller at corners?

In image, the width of the curve at point B (where it turns 90° to the left) is smaller than at point A. This only occurs when cyclic is enabled.

How do I get both points to be the same width without disabling cyclic?

If you are beveling a curve in Blender, currently it will happen with the 3D mode because of the algorithm. You have to switch to 2D mode to solve that:


on fbx export my model gets destroyed -> see image. why and howto resolve issue? After some minor changes on the model all of a sudden the mesh of the main body is copletely destroyed. The only things I changed were, that I connected two seperated parts of the mesh (with alt+M) and a bit of material, texture and UV changes.

Has anybody experienced this before? what could be the reason?
all vertecies seem to still exist... the connections inbetween then is completely wrong tho.

This answer is valid for FBX 6.1 ASCII.

You have non ASCII characters in shapekey names, which the fbx format apparently doesn't support.

As it seems, two characters can't even be displayed in my Blender.

Rename these shapekey names with ASCII characters only.
You also have some missing weights on Body.

Exporting in FBX 6.1 ASCII works correctly.


A PBR map with Principled shader doesn't add value to the object I'm trying to create the ground covered with leaves, everything seems fine, but it's completely flat. I suppose a normal map is in charge of it, but I have no idea how to fix it. There are screenshots of top view, side view and a material setup.

The normal map is ok, it only changes the light reflections according to the faked angle of incidence, but it actually doesn't move any vertex of the mesh. Maybe what you are looking for is a displacement effect: you can subdivide your mesh (the more subdivided, better the result but heavier the mesh) and add a displace modifier, using your specular map as input and trimming the strenght value to a quite low level: in this way you will have a real vertices roughness, that may help the realistic effect.


Spinning .png image in video sequencer i'm a total newbie to Blender ( v 2.81a ) but i'd like to spin .png images in the video sequence editor. So not rotation , but really spinning around their own axis, is there an easy way to do this ? I've been looking on the net,but can't find the solution.
Any help would be much appreciated,
Thanks in advance!

Ok, so in Blender VSE, I've added an image;

I added an adjustment layer;

Then an effect layer (transform);

(You can see each addition in the sequencer)

@batFINGER was talking about this scaling (as if a coin was spinning on a side);

I feel like you were probably asking for this;

Thing to note: The adjustment layer and effect layer need to overlap the image on it's layer.


animating weapon along with armature from character I am animating an attack animation. I have a character (mesh) and an armature for it. The weapon is in a different mesh with it's own bone.

I click on the armature and go into pose mode to make the animations in the dope sheet. However, I cannot animate the weapon so it follows my character's arms correctly.

The way I have it now is that the bone for the weapon is parented to the armature of the character. So if I move the hand it moves the weapon, which is fine. But when I want to move only the weapon for one frame, the weapon's position and rotation changes on every other animation and frame, ruining them.

I want to be able to swap which hand carries the weapon from time to time.
How can I do this?

Thanks in advance.

Insted of parenting the weapon to the hand armature I would use object constrains. You constrain the Weapon to the Armature, than Blender will let you select which bone to constrain to. The nice thing about constrains is that you can keyframe their influance, so you can have the wepon copy the rotation of the hand for 30 frames but the moment you want to give it a specific rotation you can just key frame the influance at 0 and rotate it as you wish, same goes for position.

In order to have the weapon passed from one arm to another you can have 2 sets of location&rotation constrains in it, one for each hand. Than as you pass it from one hand to another you keyframe the influance from one constrain to the other.
Here is a quick demo I made:https://youtu.be/Tncqr_CbkdA

Obviously you'd want to put more time into it to make the transition sooth etc.
Personally I'd not use the rotation constrains and just set the rotation of the wepon by hand but I've set it up his way since this is how it works with parenting.


Remove F-Curve Modifier from all selected keys in Graph Editor I added an F-Curve Modifier (Shift Ctrl M) to all selected Curves to repeat the animation.

Now I want to remove this F-Curve Modifier from all the selected Curves/Keys.
Is it possible to remove the F-Curve Modifier from all of them at ones?

You can remove it the same way you applied it
Go into the Graph Editor and select the keyframes that you wish to loop over (over their respective time period), press Shift + E, and select "Clear Cyclic (F-modifier)".
hope it helps somebody else (I just needed it myself)


Bake several materials in one texture I´ve been using Blender for the last 4 weeks and i have a big problem with Bake several materials.

I did three uv maps, three materials with their textures with uvs. But i don´t know why Blender don´t want to do it in the uv´s texture that i assigned in UV Viewer and Node Editor. Is impossible and forever appear a message with "Circular depending for image". Any idea?

There are several requirements for this to work.

(i) There should be a texture node in the material that is baked to

(ii) That texture node should not be used as input anywhere else(not even in a different material), it should not be attached to anything until you are comfortable with all of this.

(iii) The texture node that is being baked to must be selected.  An active node is highlighted with yellow.

(iv)  When baking several objects that are joined and where each has it's own material: each material must have the same texture node that is being baked to.  As before, that node must be active(yellow) for all materials.

Here is a screen-capture that shows a node setup that will likely result in the error you describe.
As mentioned in the comments above, there won't always be an error with Cycles Baking as of the current date.

It should fail because even though the bakeTo texture node is selected for output, it is also being used as input.  This can cause a circular reference error.

Simultaneously reading and writing to the same area of memory can cause the program to crash so Blender tries to prevent this with a warning.


How to make faceless sphere First of all, I'm new to Blender (v2.80). Currently working on AI project for which I need to create my data set. I need to render my object from every possible angle. I found a simple solution over here:
Script to render one object from different angles

Create a mesh whose vertices are the desired viewpoint positions,
around your body scan. (It's the sphere, in the illustration, named
'Viewpoints')
Create one camera, and assign it a 'Track To' constraint ('To': -Z,
'Up': Y) with the body scan as target

I was trying to achieve that effect, to make that sphere mesh. I just don't know how to make the sphere empty. It looks like this (my object and camera are inside of the sphere):

I'm sorry for making new post about it, I would prefer to comment that post that I'm referring to, but I don't have enough reputation for commenting posts.

bmesh script.

Add sphere, remove only faces with bmesh in object mode

import bpy
import bmesh

context = bpy.context

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_uv_sphere_add()
ob = context.object
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)
bmesh.ops.delete(bm, geom=bm.faces, context='FACES_ONLY')
bm.to_mesh(me)
me.update()


Instancing not working the way I want it to I am studying blender and I am at the instancing part and I am literally following the instructions on how to instance step by step and it is not working for me. These are the steps on the documentation

I created a cube and scaled it and then I added an icosphere and then made the ico-sphere the parent of the cube

And then I instanced it and this is what I got[![enter image description here][3]][3]

I don't understand what I am doing wrong i followed everything the way they did it on the docs what's the matter?

When I put the cube in the center same position as the icosphere I get this. FYI I want to create a ball with tentacles just like they did on the docs

[3]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/HPqgn.jpg

You need to rotate the tentacle in Edit Mode so it aligns properly.

  Orientation of the tentacle was adapted to the vertex normals of the parent mesh
   (tentacle was rotated -90° around the X axis in Edit Mode).

  From Blender Manual

Step 01 - Set up Parenting

Step 02 - Rotate tentacle in Edit mode. I changed pivot point to 3D cursor for this.


why is my texture split and not one image? All i did was add new material to a plane mesh, then i applied a image texture. why does it look like this?

Thanks to Glady's comment i have discovered that my mesh what not UV unwrapped. This done by going into edit mode click U on the keyboard, followed by selecting "UV unwrap."


Dope Sheet keyframes: shear keyframes I got an animation with blinking lights, animated by an emission and transparent node connected to a mix shader. I want them to go on and off after eachother, instead of all together at one time. Is their a possibility to shear these keyframes in the Dope Sheet? If I use the Shear tool it will crash, so is there a specific way to do this for keyframes?

Assuming the lamps are sortable by their name and the animation (which is supposed to be shifted) is the only animation on the object, the you could use a python script to shift the keyframes of all fcurves of an object.

To use the script, selected the objects and execute the script. The selected objects must have an existing animation. First make sure to make the materials single user, by selecting all objects, then pressing U in the 3D View and choosing Material and Texture.

By changing the value of the offset_amount variable, you can change the timing.
Decimal values 0 < x < 1 are also possible.

import bpy

offset_amount = 2.0

# get selected objects
sel = bpy.context.selected_objects

# sort them by name
sel.sort(key=lambda x: x.name)

# loop through all selected objects
for i, s in enumerate(sel):
    # get the fcurves of the active action
    # of the material of the object

    fcurves = s.material_slots[0].material.node_tree.animation_data.action.fcurves

    # loop through all fcurves
    for fc in fcurves:
        # loop through all keyframes
        for kp in fc.keyframe_points:
            # change the x (time) value of the keyframe
            kp.co.x += offset_amount * i


How to get an IntProperty to update a function? Or in this case how to get the integer prop(MyInt) to activate the selectTrack() function each time the integer prop(MyInt) is updated?

import bpy
from bpy.props import *

class UIPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Export EDL"
    bl_space_type = "SEQUENCE_EDITOR"

    bl_region_type = "UI"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scn = context.scene
        layout.label(text=" Select Video Channel: ")
        layout.prop(scn, 'MyInt', icon='BLENDER', toggle=True)

# Select Track by batFINGER
def selectTrack():

    context = bpy.context
    scene = context.scene
    active_channel = bpy.context.scene.MyInt
    print("Active Channel: "+str(active_channel))

    sed = scene.sequence_editor
    # if active strip isn't in active_channel set to None.
    if getattr(sed.active_strip, "channel", -1) != active_channel:
        sed.active_strip = None

    sequences = sed.sequences_all
    # select all strips in active channel
    for strip in sequences:
        strip.select = strip.channel == active_channel

def initSceneProperties(scn):
    bpy.types.Scene.MyInt = IntProperty(
        name = "Channel",
        description = "Select Channel for Video Export",
        min = 1,
        max = 32,
        update=selectTrack())
    scn['MyInt'] = 1
    return

#    Registration
bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)

Code Fix

Made some changes to get this running.  Pretty sure the HORRIBLE register_module is being phased out, wrote a register and unregister method with no parameters. This is what an addon expects to see, and is called when an addon is enabled.

The update method is defined on the property update=method without the braces, ie it's the function definition, not the result of the called method (method()).  The update method has two parameters, self and context.  The self in this case will the the scene instance, since the property is defined on the Scene class.

Lastly it's standard to use xxx_yyy for method and property names, and XxxYyy for class names.

import bpy
from bpy.props import IntProperty

class UIPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Export EDL"
    bl_space_type = "SEQUENCE_EDITOR"

    bl_region_type = "UI"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scn = context.scene
        layout.label(text=" Select Video Channel: ")
        layout.prop(scn, "my_int", icon='BLENDER', toggle=True)

def change_channel(self, context):

    active_channel = self.my_int
    print("Active Channel: "+str(active_channel))

    sed = self.sequence_editor
    # if active strip isn't in active_channel set to None.
    if getattr(sed.active_strip, "channel", -1) != active_channel:
        sed.active_strip = None

    sequences = sed.sequences_all
    # select all strips in active channel
    for strip in sequences:
        strip.select = strip.channel == active_channel

#    Registration
def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(UIPanel)
    bpy.types.Scene.my_int = IntProperty(
        name = "Channel",
        description = "Select Channel for Video Export",
        min=1,
        max=32,
        default=1,
        update=change_channel)
def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(UIPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Assigning Different names to a text box? I am trying to make a custom panel with two text box which will be assigned to two different lists. However in my panel tool bar, whenever i change one text box, that other automatically changes. I know this is because I am calling both text boxes to "my_string_prop", but everytime i change that name, the text box disappears. Additionally, are the word in the parenthesis key words and if show does anyone know where i can will the list for them.

import bpy

class LayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the scene context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "Layout Demo"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_layout"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'TOOLS'
    #bl_context = "scene"

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

        scene = context.scene

        row = layout.row()
        row.label(text="X-Points:")
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.scene, "my_string_prop")
        list1 = [context.scene.my_string_prop]
        print (list1)

        row = layout.row()
        row.label(text="Y-Points:")
        row = layout.row()
        row.prop(context.scene, "my_string_prop" )
        list2 = [context.scene.my_string_prop]
        print(list2)

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

As both items refer to the property my_string_prop they will show the same data. The name of the property used has to exist, if you change the name and it doesn't exist it will not draw the textbox.

To add new properties to the scene object you should add the property in your register function.

bpy.types.Scene.my_string_prop2 = bpy.props.StringProperty(name="String2")

To get a list of items you can use prop_search

row.prop_search(context.scene, "my_string_prop2", bpy.data, "objects")

That will show a list of object names to choose from.


Can I export as .obj without losing unconnected vertices? I am loading a set of vertices, a subset of which are part of a triangle mesh that I would like to use blender for per-vertex normal calculation. However, when I export to .obj, the unconnected vertices are thrown away. Is it possible that I can export to .obj format without losing them?

A quick experiment gave the answer to this question, which in short can be solved by changing the OBJ importer settings rather and toggle "Lines" off (since the exporter is fine and does export isolated vertices).

For this test I generated this geometry and exported it to OBJ:

Since an OBJ file is a simple text file, it was possible to open the file and see that the isolated vertex was indeed exported and does exist in the file:

# Blender v2.74 (sub 0) OBJ File: ''
# www.blender.org
mtllib exportToObj_detached_verts.mtl
o Cube
v -1.000000 -1.000000 1.000000
v -1.000000 1.000000 1.000000
v -1.000000 -1.000000 -1.000000
v -1.000000 1.000000 -1.000000
v 1.000000 -1.000000 1.000000
v 1.000000 1.000000 1.000000
v 1.000000 -1.000000 -1.000000
v 1.000000 1.000000 -1.000000
v -1.000000 1.000000 -2.031537
v -1.000000 1.000000 -4.031537
v 1.000000 1.000000 -4.031537
v -1.000000 1.000000 3.735121
v -1.000000 1.000000 1.735121
v -1.000000 1.000000 4.733686   # <<< THIS IS OUR ISOLATED VERTEX
vn -1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
vn 0.000000 0.000000 -1.000000
vn 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000
vn 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
vn 0.000000 -1.000000 0.000000
vn 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000
usemtl None
s off
f 4//1 3//1 1//1
f 8//2 7//2 3//2
f 6//3 5//3 7//3
f 2//4 1//4 5//4
f 3//5 7//5 5//5
f 8//6 4//6 2//6
f 11//6 10//6 9//6
f 2//1 4//1 1//1
f 4//2 8//2 3//2
f 8//3 6//3 7//3
f 6//4 2//4 5//4
f 1//5 3//5 5//5
f 6//6 8//6 2//6
l 12 13

So this hinted that the problem is not with exporting, but with what happens when you import your exported OBJ file back into Blender. When I imported with the default values the isolated vertex was indeed gone.

To solve this, you can change the importer settings by setting the "Lines" toggle off. This option means that if you have edges that aren't part of faces ("lines" in OBJ jargon), they will still be imported as edges, but isolated vertices that are not part of edges are discarded.

If you toggle if off, it will import the isolated vertices and edge verts, but will not create edges:

Bottom line, the OBJ exporter works fine, the importer is the one causing you trouble.


Dark faces in edit mode so as you can see in the pictures some faces are abit darker or idk what to call them

i've tried recalculate normals but didn't help, same thing with merge by distance, blend file enter link description here

That's a normal smoothing issue. If you set the default cube to smooth shading, it looks weird as well. That is because the interpolation of the face normals tries to cover 180 degrees over one edge. Starting at -90 on the left the true normals are 0 and to +90 on the other side (relative to the global up axis). That's simply not enough geometry to do that kind of interpolation.
3 solutions:

More geometry, e.g. using a SubSurf modifier (easy, but heavy on the
    polycount)
Manually add edge loops, not a good idea for your
    specific model.
Using edge split.

The cube by default is set to flat shading which splits every edge, so each face has its own normals, no interpolation. Nothing looks too dark, but everything is choppy. Edge Split (for example done by a modifier) lets you decide at what angle there will be a split between two faces, to stop interpolation between them.


Custom Drag and Drop for importing .srt files I made Subsimport that lets users import .srt files into the VSE. I'd like to improve it by allowing users to drag .srt files into the timeline instead of having to click the "Import" button.

Does anyone know how to connect a drag and drop event to an operator? I've read rumors that this ability was coming to Blender 2.8

Not sure if you already looked through some of the older(around 2013-15) posts about whether it's possible to handle from python(it wasn't). The last thread I saw about implementing some way for handling drag and drop imports from python ended with nothing in 2015 (link). That same thread had drag and drop import for .obj files from somebody, but iirc it was in C.

Rumor about it being in 2.8 is likely due to comment on similar post to yours here on stackexchange which didn't have any quotes/sources about it (link).

I think that rumor is based on the ability to drag and drop .blend files to open/link/append that's new to 2.8. I don't know if it will help, but there's a  developer thread about it, could be a starting point (link)


Morphing low poly object to high poly object I have multiple high density head models and one low poly head model. The high-density models are different between each other in details like mouth expression. I'm looking for a most efficient way to make the low poly object as similar as possible to one of the high poly models.
I'm well aware that there could not be a method that will do it perfectly for any sample high poly model, so I allow it to be succeed by minor fixes by hand.
The first thing that came to my mind was to do simple retopology with snapping. The result would be nice and accurate, but it's made by hand all the way and I'm searching for something batch-like. Is there a way to do it more automatically?

Use the shrinkwrap modifier. First set a Shrinkwrap modifier to the low poly(make sure it is in the same place as the high poly and larger than the high poly) then set the Target to the high poly with settings set to Nearest Surface Point.


Texture problem two sides of a face after a solidify I have a problem with my blender project.
I modeled a can cut in two to make a kind of boat, but that's not the problem. The problem is that after doing a solidify to give it a thickness, I can not texture only one side of my object, the UV MAPPING is displayed double-sided. I cannot because of the solidify select the other faces inside my can. I put you pictures to better understand the problem.I want a texture in my can and an other texture out of my can. I hope you can help me.

Create your second texture:

In the Solidify modifier > Materials > Material Offset choose the slot where the material is, 0 is for material #1, 1 for material #2, etc. You can also choose the rim material:


Why can I not subtract objects from each other? I have created two objects.
The second one was derived from the first one by selecting everything in edit modeAand then using Extrude Alt+E -> Region (Vertex Normals) with the value 1 to extrude it inwards.
Then I separated this object with P.
I then selected this new object, entered edit mode again, flipped normals with Ctrl+N -> check "Inside" and extruded the faces (Individual Faces) by -1.5.

Then I want to subtract this by picking a boolean modifier and selecting "subtract" - first I pick the extruded object, then in the modifier tab the old object.

It almost looks like it worked, however, the faces are still closed and there is no way to open them. Can anyone help me?

And one last question: some people upload some sort of gif or short video loops here. How and where can I do this?

Your problem is likely coinciding faces.
Boolean operations do not work well on mesh objects with overlapping, co-planar or almost parallel faces.

My advice is to make it so that the "wireframe object" is slightly bigger than the "solid one", making it protrude a little to the outside, while maintaining whatever precise measurement is indented, so that the outer faces are not exactly overlapping the larger ones.

Optionally go to the Properties Window > Object > Display > Maximum Draw Type and change it from Textured to Wire for the "edges object" you are trying to subtract, so that you can more clearly see the finished operation in the viewport.


How to reduce amount of array values in each iteration in array modifier? How to reduce amount  of array values in each iteration in array modifier?

what I mean:

let's say we have a cube with two array modifiers which gives us an array 5x5

what I need:

next array row on Z axis (3x3) right above previous,  and next (1x1). Is it possible to do with modifiers or drivers? How?

One way to do this is using the particle system set to Grid distribution :

make a pyramid ( default cube with the top face resized )

add a particle system to this pyramid :

change the particle size / grid resolution /pyramid mesh  to get the desired results
in the modifiers tab of the pyramid convert the particles to a real mesh :


How do I remove the line after merged the 2 objects together? Hi, How do I remove the line after merged the 2 objects together? before I subdivided in multiresolution everything seem ok but after that it look like in the picture.

I would go into edit mode and look for duplicate vertices and merge them. Then check your edge flow and see if those that are there need adjustment, and maybe add/remove some loops in that area. It looks like it's really pinched in there, which is streatching the existing polygons, which in turn stretches your shading. AS a low poly model it won't do much, but as you subdivide, Blender will make calculations based on the existing geomotry that is there, so that's where I would start. Good luck :)


Python 2.8 - transform/resize UV map instead of object I am trying to replicate with scripts a manual procedure that works well.

Using Smart UV project manually, my object stretches the texture too much; I have found that if I resize the UV map (scale up the Y axis), the distortion disappears.

I have taken the python commands from the manual procedure and dropped them into the script.  The only problem is that instead of resizing the UV map, the script resizes the object.  I think I need to keep the vertices in the UV map selected while deselecting the mesh vertices; but I have not figured out how to do that.

Question:  how can I make sure that the following code resizes the UV map instead of the object?

The code should work if cut-and-pasted; the texture can be downloaded here; to run the code you will need to change the pointer to the file in this line 'imgTex = bpy.data.images.load(...'

import bpy

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(vertices=32, radius=0.2, depth=30, enter_editmode=False, location=(0,0,0))

materials = bpy.data.materials
material = materials.get('mat')
if not material:
    material = materials.new('mat')
material.use_nodes = True
if material.node_tree:
    material.node_tree.links.clear()
    material.node_tree.nodes.clear()
nodes = material.node_tree.nodes
links = material.node_tree.links
output = nodes.new(type = 'ShaderNodeOutputMaterial' )
diffuse = nodes.new(type = 'ShaderNodeBsdfDiffuse' )
imgTex = bpy.data.images.load('G:\\Blender\\Textures\\wildtextures-zinc-galvanized-metal-sheet.jpg')
node_texture = nodes.new(type='ShaderNodeTexImage')
node_texture.image = imgTex
node_texture.location = 0,200
tex_coord = nodes.new(type = 'ShaderNodeTexCoord')
links = material.node_tree.links
link=links.new(tex_coord.outputs["UV"], node_texture.inputs["Vector"])
link = links.new(node_texture.outputs[0], nodes.get('Diffuse BSDF').inputs[0])
link = links.new( diffuse.outputs['BSDF'], output.inputs['Surface'] )
obj=bpy.data.objects['Cylinder']
obj.active_material=material
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
bpy.data.objects['Cylinder'].select_set(True)
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.uv.smart_project()

#AT THIS POINT THE TEXTURE HAS BEEN APPLIED
#BUT LOOKS DISTORTED DUE TO CYLINDER'S GEOMETRY;
#THE FOLLOWING ATTEMPTS TO UNDISTORT BY SCALING
#UP THE UVMAP ON THE Y-AXIS; BUT INSTEAD
#IT SIMPLY SCALES UP THE OBJECT INSTEAD
bpy.ops.uv.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1, 30, 1), orient_type='GLOBAL', orient_matrix=((1, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0), (0, 0, 1)), orient_matrix_type='GLOBAL', constraint_axis=(False, True, False), mirror=True, use_proportional_edit=False, proportional_edit_falloff='SMOOTH', proportional_size=100, use_proportional_connected=False, use_proportional_projected=False)
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

Use the right context

The issue here, as often with operators, is context.  .  If Transfrom resize  is run in the context of the UV editor it resizes the selected UVs, if run in the dopesheet scales the selected keyframes, ..., otherwise (or if run from 3dview) it defaults back to the object or the mesh.

Depending on how you are going to invoke your code, may need to override the context such that the operator "thinks" it was invoked in, in this case,  the UV area.  (Like pressing a button in that area)

Some python console test code

Areas in my current screen, area 2 is the image editor.

>>> for i, a in enumerate(C.screen.areas):
...     i, a.type
...
(0, 'PROPERTIES')
(1, 'OUTLINER')
(2, 'IMAGE_EDITOR')
(3, 'VIEW_3D')
(4, 'CONSOLE')

>>> ie = C.screen.areas[2]

The mesh is in edit mode with all faces selected. Running the operator like so scales my mesh.

>>> bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1, 2, 1))
{'FINISHED'}

If I override context.area such that it is the image editor from above, it scales the UV.

>>> bpy.ops.transform.resize({"area" : ie}, value=(1, 2, 1))
{'FINISHED'}

Related

poll() failed, context incorrect? - Example: bpy.ops.view3d.background_image_add()

Without the operator

From the text editor template templates > python > Operator mesh UV can scale the uv coordinates directly.

    uv_layer = bm.loops.layers.uv.verify()

    # adjust uv coordinates

    S = Matrix.Diagonal((1, 2)) # scale matrix

    for face in bm.faces:
        for loop in face.loops:
            loop_uv = loop[uv_layer]
            # use matrix to scale uv by 2 in y
            loop_uv.uv @= S


Getting a dynamic object's velocity to behave like it's rolling I have been working on a skateboarding game. Until this point the character/board have been controlled by a control cube with it's physics set to dynamic. Alignment is done with rays depending on if it's on the ground or in the air and how high. The problem with this of course is the player slides rather than rolls. I have tried a few different ways of adding multipliers to the linear velocity with terrible, unrealistic results.

Recently I have been using vertex parents for a few other things in the game. I didn't understand these when first setting up the control cube, but now I am thinking it should be possible to use a rigid body cylinder or sphere as the "control cube". However, my initial testing is not going well. It seems like I would need to calculate the forces to be applied on the global access, instead of local, which is beyond my mathematical ability.

So my question is, is there a better way to do this? Is there a magical formula that will help me calculate the proper rolling type forces on the dynamic object?  Should I scrap the dynamic object and use a different physics type? Any other suggestions or completely obvious solutions I'm missing?

Additionally, I played with a few car scripts a while ago and couldn't extract anything useful. My player also walks, so I need to switch the behavior back and forth.

I was able to get some really nice results using physics simulations! Rigid body constraints set to both front and back axles on hinge mode provided the necessary pivot.

Make sure you enable linked collision to avoid crazy issues with your shocks!
I made a fancy test file, complete with board riding monkey for your entertainment. Please wear a helmet when riding.


How to select hidden children? I have an object with many nested children. Some of this children are hidden as i want it to be. I want to do some operation to all of children but If i select hierarchy from outliner or shift-G /select children , it will ignore the hidden/invisible children.
How can i do the proper selection so all the hidden objects will also be selected ? I don't want to unhide them, because later i need to select them one by one again to hide them back and it's painful because it's a complex structure.

The short answer is, selecting them is not possible with Blender (at the moment?), since (viewport) hidden / disabled objects are treated like "Disable Selection" is turned on. The solution would be to use a workaround and depending on what you want to do. The good thing is, if you want to translate those hidden objects and they are parented to a visible object, they will perform the translation with their parent although they are hidden.
If you want to select all objects in a collection to duplicate them, instead of using RMB+Right-click > Select Objects try RMB+Right-click > Duplicate Collection.
This duplicates the collection with all objects, even those that are hidden (note: the option Hide in Viewport will be disabled, but the option Disable in Viewport  will keep its setting).
If you want to translate complete collections with hidden objects, the easiest way would be to add an empty to this collection, select all other objects in the Outliner and parent them to the empty by dragging them onto it with Shift+LMB.
To parent one object A with a hierarchy including children that are "Disabled in Viewport" to another object B, simply drag object A with Shift+LMB onto object B in the Outliner.


How to select specific objects to make their keyframes appear on the Dope Sheet? I have approximately ten animated objects on my timeline, but I only need to manipulate three of those at the same time because I want to re-scale them in time. How can I select the three objects I need, and only see their keyframes in the Dope sheet without messing with the others? When I try to select three, only one of the objects appears (last one selected).

You can turn on the Selected filter (mouse pointer icon) in the header of the dope sheet. Then the dope sheet will only display keyframes for the selected objects.


Objects origin is not moving in edit mode I probably messed up some of the settings but I couldn't figure it out my selfe.
The problem is, that when I move the wohle mesh in edit mode the objects origin isn't moving with the object, but the pivot point is nevertheless still in the objects center.
And the reason I think the problem lies in the blender overall settings is because I started a new project and tried the same thing with the default cube. The problem is still the same.

Pivot Point and Object Origin are different things.  The Object Origin isn't meant to move in edit mode.  The Pivot point depends on the Transform Pivot Point setting.  Take a look at the top bar in the 3D window:
The second drop down sets the pivot point:
You haven't screwed up any settings.  You just have the Pivot Point set to "median point". Because you have selected a cube, the median point happens to be the center of the cube.
If you want to pivot along the object origin, change the drop down to "Individual origins".
To move the origin, in object mode, Right Click and select "Set Origin" from the popup menu


Is it possible to set the vertex color alpha component? I work in the game industry and often make shaders that rely on vertex color parameters for certain effects. This is often used to reduce shader complexity and material usage in order to improve performance. I normally paint the vertex color values in Blender, but there doesn't seem to be a way to paint the alpha component of the vertex color. Is there any way to set vertex color alpha?

Unrelated to the question, but it would also be awesome if there was a simple way to filter color channels in vertex paint mode like in Photoshop's channels box :)

There is no alpha component in vertex colors in Blender. The property is array with size 3, not 4.

You can have any amount of Vertex color layers though.


How can I make a realistic cement shader with old/cracks/crumbling/paint chipping on top of a texture? a link to an example of the desired cement can be found here:
How to create and animate the water reflection (Caustics) on an object?
Note the cement next to the water....looks realistic, faded, warn, paint chipped,

Also this "cement shader" would of course be added ontop of an image texture(shown below

Above the desired cement...

Below, the result I have so far with just the image texture(yellow+black caution) and basic shader(gloss)

Here is what I have been able to come up with:

Here are the nodes:

Click to enlarge.

The shaders:

The bare cement shader is just a mix of diffuse/glossy with a cement image texture controlling the diffuse color and the glossy roughness (after going through a color ramp for fine tuning).

The paint shader is a straight mix of glossy/diffuse with a light, desaturated yellow color on the diffuse shader.  On the paint I also use a high contrast grunge texture, sent through a multiply node, to mix in some grunge.  For the grunge just send a grunge texture through a color ramp with some grimy colors on a diffuse shader.

The mask:

When paint wares off in real life it doesn't fade out and slowly reveal what's underneath of it, it chips off; it is either there or it isn't.  to simulate this I send a noise texture sent through a math > greater than node.  The greater than node gets rid of any grey in-between areas.

The bump-mapping:

One of the biggest selling points for realism I have found is bump.  The biggest thing to keep in mind is that in real life the paint will conform to the surface it is on.  So in your material you want it to use the same bump mapping as the underlying surface (the bare concrete).  However it will slightly fill in the crevices and the bumps will not be quite as distinct.  To simulate this I use the same bump map for both shaders, but I use a smaller strength on the paint shader.  In terms of the bump itself I am using part image texture (same as the one for the bare concrete color), and mix it with two different sizes of voronoi (inverted with color ramps) using two bump map nodes.

Further reference:

Here's the .blend file:

Unfortunately due to license issues I can't include the image textures in the .blend so you will have to use your own.
See my answer here for a more detailed look at levels of grunge.
Check out this post on BA where I have a very similar shader for chipped paint on wood.


How to register scripts in the startup/scripts folder if they are inside a Sub-folder? I know I can place a script in Blender's startup/scripts folder and it will register when you open Blender, which is what I normally do.
However, I have a lot of scripts so I tried putting them in a sub-folder, but now Blender doesn't register any of them, it just can't see them. I would really like to use folders for organization purposes.
What would I need to make my scripts register from their sub-folder?
Maybe some sort of init.py at the startup/scripts level (outside any subfolder) that does something?

You need to register the script path in the file paths section of user preferences.


how to control splines trimming in animation nodes I was following tutorial on youtube.
Its about to animate trimming of many splines generated from random particles points.(first picture)

I could come up to generate arc splines, but at animation part, the video said to loop objects in group,
but  in 2.8 I use collection instead of it.
and also "Curve Object Output" node seemes changed from then.(second picture)

to compare, the third picture is from youtube which i try to study.
I could generate only one preferable spline in fourth picture. but only one.

How do I loop curves inside collection to create trim animation using each of them?
I would appreciate it if someone could give me advice. thank you.

I found the way to do this.
"curve object output" needed target curve for each animated curve.
so I duplicated 13 curve by hand,and called those by index from loop node.

But I guess there are more straight way for this problem, so still wish to get advices.


How do I make a new rest pose when using wieghts and MeshDeform? I want to change a relaxed posed rigged character to a T pose. But a new complication arises when the character has both weight and a deform cage.

For modifying the rest pose without MeshDeform I do this:
1) In “Object Mode” select your deformed mesh.
2) In the Object Modifiers stack, copy the “Armature Modifier” by pressing the “Copy” button.
3) Press "Apply" in the top one, but keep the bottom one.
4) Repeat steps 1 and 2 for all mesh.
5)  Select your armature and go in “Pose Mode”.
6) In the “Pose” menu “Apply Pose as Rest Pose”
7) Select your armature and go in “Object Mode”.
8) Apply rotation and scale & Apply location.
9) Same for all the mesh.

If you do that with both system as soon as you copy one the mesh flies off or the cage flies off.

I don't know what to do and what order to do it when you have a mesh deform cage and it is also rigged with weights for the fingers and hands.

So what steps must I take to create a new rest pose?

There are almost certainly multiple ways to set up a mesh deformer and an armature, and there are things that seem like they should act like mesh deformers but don't really.  Different techniques demand different solutions, so you have to understand your particular model first.

Let's take the example of a model where it is being deformed by a mesh that is being deformed by an armature.  I'll skip local loc/rot/scale-- really, your armature ought to have a root bone so that you don't need to have any local loc/rot/scale on the object level.

1) Select your object that has a mesh deformer modifier.  Copy the modifier and unbind the copy.  Apply the original mesh deform modifier.

2) Select your deformer-- the target of the mesh deform.  Copy the armature modifier.  Apply the first (top) armature modifier.

3) Select your armature.  Apply pose as resting pose.

4) Select the object to be mesh deformed.  Hit the bind button on the (copied) mesh deform modifier.


How to drive the normal node with an empty? Hi, I´ve followed this: How to correctly drive a normal node with lamp rotation?

I´ve tried the same setup but I need an empty to drive the direction of the mapping node onto the normal shading.
I think the problem is on the curve drive. What I need is to translate the empty on world space and the mapping node will update the normal node as if it was the "light" direction. Please help.

I propose a similar setting, but where the normal is driven by a vector defined by the difference between the empty location and the rendered point location (that could be whole sphere location instead).
Here is opposite views when the empty is moving:

Here is the material setup:

The driver is set on the location vector of a mapping (with no input)
From that there is the calculation of the difference between the driven values and the rendered location
The output is normalized and plugged as normal vector

Each driven axis is defined this way, respectively for X, Y and Z:


Produce a transforming cone of equal edge length? Lemon produced a renderable result.

There still might be a way to transform a circle curve along the sphere surface ?

Haven't done that yet, but the original visualization I wanted to produce using that in the process, I now posted as an answer, also achieved via modifiers as lemons.

Really unsure this is what is wanted in the question, but:

There is no Python nor animation nodes here. This is simply an animation.

The torus is done from a base little cylinder with an array and a simple deform to curve it:

Then animate an empty with a circle curve surrounding the torus:

And make this last empty parent of the torus.

Et voila:

All that is due to the simple deform which considers the object origin as base. As the parenting changes this origin location, it gives the result.

The curve is here to ensure that the result will be like 'around a sphere'.


Texturing spacifc faces I have a complex object I am trying to texture with a real locations textures. I have the faces I want selected in edit mode and I UV unwrap them by projecting from bounds and it looks fine, like only the faces I selected are being unwrapped, but when I go to apply a new material, the material selects ALL of the faces, the ones I want, and the ones I don't want. What's the best way to get by this?

If there are no materials applied to the mesh, first material that is created will be applied to whole mesh. There can not be part of mesh without a material. You have to create additional material for those specified faces.


Right click context menu I am using the latest 2.8 release. When no object is selected and I right click to add an item such as a mesh the menu doesn't appear.

That's the intended behaviour. Right click menu is for special actions based on the type of object you have selected, not for adding new objects.

To add an object, ensure you are in Object Mode, then either

use ShiftA
or left click on the *Add" button at the top of the Viewport


Animation nodes - animate object attribute/transform with Object ID Key and Sound Evaluation I have followed several tutorials using the ID Key function in Animation Nodes to change the size of the objects. I'm trying to set up the nodes so I can use the spectrum from a sound clip to animate objects based on their ID Keys. But I'm completely stuck and need some help to see what I need to change.

I had read that the Spectrum Falloff type in the Sound Falloff node is based on the indices of the objects. So I thought by replacing the Evaluation Sound node with the Sound Falloff would solve my issue. But it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Any suggestion how to solve this? Thanks.

[Update] After adding the Get List Element node, I've changed the sorting for the ID Keys by either random or by names. The playback did not change. The images are all at frame 30. I'm including my blend file as well.

Sort by random 1

Sort by random 2

Sort by names

Blender file.
SoundSpectrumCubeTesting

Your example index list is $(10,14,3,\dots)$, which means you want the 10th object to scale based on the first frequency band, the 14th object to scale based on the second frequency band, the 3rd object to scale based on the third frequency band and so on. So, if we left the sound data untouched and reordered the object list such that the first element becomes the 10th object, the second element becomes the 14th object and so on, we will get the desired effect. The same reordering should be done to the object's locations. This reordering is easily achieved by getting the objects and their locations at the ID indices:


Black Dots and Lines on Sculpt I am at the moment in the middle of sculpting a Wyvern. I have gotten very far and I have a lot of progress. But my progression has been hindered because there are weird black lines and dots showing up on the sculpt. I can't remove it and it's a massive nuisance. And it still shows up when rendered. How do I remove these because I have spent a lot of time and I am reall proud of it.

Looks like you have particle system enabled for hair?


Snap to face problem: object is flipped 180 degrees and snapped to inside faces I'm trying to use the snap to face but when I move the object is snapping to the inside faces.
I've checked all the face's normal and there are all aligned correctly. The backface culling is checked. I've tried with all settings but still not working.I've tried also to flip normal and to rotate first the object 180 degress but the problem persist.

When i move the object on the face is flipped 180 degrees

Snapping works with Z+ orientation, so just flip the origin point upside down.
To keep the parented objects in place, you can choose to only affect the parent.

Select your object
Go View > Affect Only > Origins and Parents
Rotate the Origin by 180°


How do I add an Fcurve Noise modifier with Python? I am looking to add a Noise Modifier to a Node in the Compositor. I have added a keyframe to the Node but when I try and add the Noise Modifier, it's obviously not correct. I guess it's space_type sensitive. It will only work when the Panel is in the Graph Editor.

Here is the failure I have so far:

import bpy

class TestPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Test Panel"
    bl_idname = "TEST_PANEL"
    bl_space_type = 'NODE_EDITOR'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = 'Test'

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

        row = layout.row()
        row.operator('node.mod_operator')

class NODE_OT_TEST(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_label = "Gamma Noise"
    bl_idname = 'node.mod_operator'

    def execute(self, context):

        sc = bpy.context.scene
        tree = sc.node_tree

        gamma_node = tree.nodes.new(type= 'CompositorNodeGamma')
        gamma_node.inputs[1].default_value = 2
        gamma_node.inputs[1].keyframe_insert("default_value", frame= 30)
        gamma_node.select = True

        #this will only work when the Panel is in the Graph Editor.
        noise_mod = bpy.ops.graph.fmodifier_add(type= 'NOISE')

        return {'FINISHED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(TestPanel)
    bpy.utils.register_class(NODE_OT_TEST)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(TestPanel)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(NODE_OT_TEST)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

I'm sure there is another way to do it but I can not figure it out.. Help would be appreciated.

Using API methods takes away the need for context

Inserting a keyframe on a node, adds an fcurve to the scene nodetree action.

From the datapath, find the fcurve and add a new modifier of type 'NOISE' and set the appropriate settings.

For example

def execute(self, context):
    sc = context.scene
    tree = sc.node_tree

    gamma_node = tree.nodes.new(type="CompositorNodeGamma")
    gamma_node.inputs[1].default_value = 2
    gamma_node.inputs[1].keyframe_insert("default_value", frame= 30)
    gamma_node.select = True
    # datapath of newly added node
    data_path = f'nodes["{gamma_node.name}"].inputs[1].default_value'
    fcurves = tree.animation_data.action.fcurves
    # find the fcurve (should be there)
    fc = fcurves.find(data_path)
    if fc:
        # add the modifier and set props
        nm = fc.modifiers.new('NOISE')
        nm.strength = 2
        nm.depth = 1

    return {'FINISHED'}

Code assumes using python >= 3.6 with fstrings, else use older string formatting eg

data_path = 'nodes["%s"].inputs[1].default_value' % gamma_node.name

  For future reference, how would I find the Data path?

Two useful methods for this, firstly path_from_id(property)  See how it is similar to keyframe insert.  Some python console test code.  Autocomplete on the opening brace gives a run down

>>> C.scene.node_tree.nodes['Gamma'].inputs[1].path_from_id(
path_from_id(property="")
.. method:: path_from_id(property="")
Returns the data path from the ID to this object (string).
:arg property: Optional property name which can be used if the path is
   to a property of this object.
:type property: string
:return: The path from :class:`bpy.types.bpy_struct.id_data`
   to this struct and property (when given).
:rtype: str

The result

>>> C.scene.node_tree.nodes['Gamma'].inputs[1].path_from_id("default_value")
'nodes["Gamma"].inputs[1].default_value'

The id object the path is referenced from

>>> C.scene.node_tree.nodes['Gamma'].inputs[1].id_data
bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].node_tree

>>>

Hence the action is on the node tree, and adding the datapath gives us the property keyframed or driven.


Why are there holes in my exported meshes? Hello Blender Community!

I am currently learning with Blender 2.71 and use Unreal Engine 4.

I started to create a Knife, but I always have problems exporting it.
I tried to recalculate normals with CtrlN but it still cut off.

Here are some screenshots:

The faces on the sides of the knife seem to be N-gons.
Try triangulating the mesh before exporting it:

In edit mode (Tab), select everything (A) or just the ngons by pressing 3D view > Header > Select > Faces by sides, then setting the type to greater than in the redo panel (F6):

Triangulate the faces by pressing CtrlT:

If you want more control over the triangulation, you might try using the triangulate modifier.


Is it possible to symmetric weight-paint an asymmetric mesh? Is it possible to do symmetrical weight painting without manually splitting my mesh into two pieces? I've already done building my mesh. I don't want to split it into two pieces because:

a) My mesh is not symmetrical to start with

b) It's gonna mess up the rigging on other parts

There are certain parts on the mesh that ARE symmetrical which I want to do symmetrical weight painting. What I mean is when I paint on the left side, Blender draws an imaginary line across middle of mesh and the right side will automatically get painted the exact same.

What I mean:

I want to be able to weight paint left side of that indicated area, then right side will automatically reflect same weight painting. But as you can see even though the upper part is symmetrical, entire object is not symmetrical. No this is not my object I just quickly drew it in MS Paint to show what I mean.

EDIT: According to person asking this question, this is the exact opposite of what they wanted, all i can say is just tick it on instead of off, but they said that doesn't work, i shall keep this up for those who find it though.

This is because X Mirroring is on, to turn it off go to into the Weight Painting mode on your desired object.

On the left Toolshelf T select the Options(1) tab.

Under Options(2) Uncheck the checkbox labeled as "X Mirror"(3)

Your weight painting should be fine now!

Tip: open up a new file, without changing anything (other than what i'm saying now), even moving the camera, repeat the steps above and then with the mouse over 3D view, press CTRL+U and then press "Save Startup File"

This makes your blender startup file have what you just did already done, so you don't have to do it again.


Attempting to unwrap model for UV, results horrible Hello, folks. I'm relatively new to blender and modelling in general. Everything has been going pretty good until my attempts at UV mapping has given me the result you can see above. I can clearly recognize the two faces of the object and even the edge, although it looks rather absurd. I don't know why it shows up like that, it's as if every single edge is shown three or more times on the UV.

My issue is with the infinite hexagons and rectangles behind them. Attempts to pull the items in the UV window apart resulted in nothing. According to Blender, the infinite rectangles and hexagons are actually what build up the object and not the clearly defined faces and edges. It makes no sense to me as there are no rectangles and hexagons on the actual model. I made two large seams around the edges of the faces of the object and connected them four times - twice at the bottom and twice at the top. I have marked on the image where the two large seams are connected by small seams.

How could I make this work without the unwrapped UV turning out in such a mess? According to Blender there are no loose vertices nor unconnected faces and edges, no doubles, etc.

The problem Usually when you have hidden geometry that was not marked with seams.
In your case the UVs are showing that you have additional edges that overlapping on your mesh.

The solution is to remove that geometry by removing doubles using Ctrl+V and select Remove Doubles. Then check your seams again and unwrap the mesh.


How can I create a surface of evenly space hemispheres? I'm new to blender, and I'm having issues trying to create hemispheres. I have been attempting to use nurb spheres and trying to split them in half using a selected vertex and this hasn't been working. I would also like to be able to add fibers that are perpendicular to the hemisphere's surface. Ideally, I would be able to make one of these fibrous hemispheres and then just copy the shape to evenly space them. I would much appreciate any tips on how to do this.

Grid of hemispheres
As long as you don't need to populate curved surfaces, the simplest, quickest and more flexible way to create a grid made by the same object is probably using two stacked Array modifiers.
Start from creating one hemisphere.

As we'll make the fibers by duplicating a fiber upon each face, we'll need to start with a Ico Sphere, which is made by evenly sized faces.
Add one and increase the number of Subdivison in the operator panel you find on the left.

Then delete the bottom vertices and add an Array modifier to replicate the geometry along the X axis. Increase the relative offset to adjust the distance between the hemispheres.

After that we'll have to add a second modifier to duplicate the object along the Z axis

The grid has been created. The first parameter of each modifier controls the duplication count.
Fibers
Go to the particle system tab and crate a new Hair System for the object. Enable Advanced, set 1 particle per face and enable Use modifier Stack option in order to take into account all the modifiers previuvsly created.

Create a "Fiber" sample object to be replicated where the hairs are. To do so, model it the way you want it, just make sure it is pointing toward the Y axis and his rotation is 0,0,0 as in the picture below:

Go to the hair system's render panel, choose Object and point the field to the Fiber sample object:


Where's the video editing play button? I'm a complete beginner with regard to Blender video editing.  I'm watching an instructional video.  To play the vid, he hits the play button.  Well, I haven't got a play button.  Now what?

On the bottom where you see a video clip symbol and then words that say, "Sequencer," it's normally set to the Timeline panel where you would see a play button, but it's right now set to the "Video Editor" panel.  Just click on the video clip icon in the bottom left corner and choose "timeline" in the "animation" section.  Then the play button will appear.


Vertices in edit mode being mirrored WITHOUT mirror modifier I have no clue how I did it (maybe while blindly following a tutorial), but somehow my head object is mirroring vertices - without a mirror modifier.

Notice the difference in the two images. The top image is before I moved a vertex on the right, the bottom image is showing it mirrored.

I tried loading an earlier version of the model before I'd parented the armature to the mesh with automatic weights, and the head didn't have this problem. But I tested it and it doesn't seem to be the armature's fault that this is happening.

Why is this happening? How do I remove the mirror effect? I need to fix this so I can rig asymmetrical emotions into the face.

Sounds like you have the X-mirror option on.

Open up the tool shelf T switch to the Option tab and uncheck the X Mirror checkbox.


Subdivision Surface Artifacts / Topology Issues? I am trying to create an archway and getting this little artifact with subsurface. I've tried a few things, moving some geometry around but unable to get rid of it. Any insight as to what I need to do to fix?

Looking closer at the underlying geometry created by subsurface makes it appear that an ngon is being created at this corner.

You may consider retopologizing it a bit (changing the edges flow). Here's my proposal:

This kind of geometry doesn't create the shading artifacts plus allows you to properly crease the subsufed mesh with edge loops.


Particles per face are either too many or not enough I've set up a particle system that needs to have exactly one particle emitted from each face on the emitter mesh. However, the "Particles/Face" setting is apparently not working. When it's set low there are many faces not emitting particles, yet when it's set high enough that no faces are without particles there are also many doubled-up particles overlapping.

The particles are bricks, so they are not animated, but I don't want holes in the wall or doubled-up geometry. Is there a problem with the "Particles/Face" setting, or am I misunderstanding what it does? How can I get just one particle per face?

You could emit the bricks from vertices, make sure that you emit exactly the same number of particles as the emitting mesh has vertices (121 in this case):

from verts

Emitting from faces with the grid option selected creates a box of emitted particles.

from faces


How to lock an object so is always showing the same face when rotates I'm trying to animate a bicycle and I have a question related to the pedals. Using drivers on the gear and the wheels I have got the automatic rotation of the bicycle as it moves through the y-axis. The thing is, the pedals rotates just like the rest. How can I make an object (in this case, the pedal) rotates always showing the same face locked parallel to the ground.
Thanks in advance.

I think this can be achieved with drivers as well.
Drivers
You could add a driver to the rotation direction around the axis of the pedal, and then have it driven via Scripted Expression by the rotation of the gear object.
The expression should be "-var" since the pedal turns in the opposite direction with the same angular velocity.
Also, because the pedal is most likely a child of the gear, make sure Space it set to World Space (otherwise it won't work)
Constrains
Another way is to is to do it using constraints and empties. You could add an Empty at the location of the pedal origin (or pivot or turning axis), and add an empty exactly below it on the ground.
Add a Damped track constraint to the pedal with Ground Empty as the Target, and set it to the X axis. Add a Copy Location Constraint to the Ground Target and with the Pedal Empty as a target, and check the boxes next to X and Y (but not Z).
You need the extra Pedal Empty because it won't work if you target the pedal itself directly (probably because the constraint on pedal is targeting the Ground Empty and it causes a direct loop).

Left is with drivers. Right with constraints.


Blender Model goes black only in Edit Mode In sculpt mode and object mode the object is normal. However when I enter edit mode the object goes black. I tried removing doubles and recalculating normals but
the model stayed black in edit mode. I have noticed that when I zoom in edit mode, the model has wavy black lines.

Your model has a lot of vertices, and that is perfectly fine.  The black lines indicate edges going between vertices on your model.  The vertices are hard to pick out at this distance, but when you zoom in on your model, the vertices (where the crossroads are) will be a little bit bigger.

Keep in mind that the point of Edit Mode is for you to select/deform/etc. the vertices, so it needs to display them.  While in Sculpt Mode or Object Mode, those vertices are not needed, so they are hidden, instead displaying the material of the object.

You can also look at this like the difference between Object Mode and Rendered Mode.  Both display the model, one using the OpenGL render (default for the 3D viewport), and the other is the Blender Internal render, which takes longer, but still displays your model, with different lighting calculations that give a more realistic result.


Using alpha data on one material to mask a texture in another material I am currently working with a model that has two different kinds of materials, each containing a texture and each having their own mapping, I want to be able to "hide" the eye texture behind the eyebrow texture and independently move it around using the UV editor.

The model without the eyes.

After I add the eyes, which have separate materials.

And the resulting outcome(edited in Photoshop)

How can I change my node setup to mask the eye material with an alpha texture from the eyebrow material?

And here's the link to the blend file, textures have to be reapplied individualy

The answer is to have a skin texture that uses an alpha channel to leave the area of the eyes out.

The alpha texture can then be used to drive the fac value of a mix shader.
If you want to animate the eyes, you need to change the texture coordinate input.


Can you stop a sun lamp from lighting specific objects in a scene? One object (a lamp shade) in my scene has a simple white material with a normal map. When lighting my scene with just an HDR the material looks as desired. When I add a sun lamp it helps the rest of the scene but blows out the highlights on this white material. I'm using Filmic color management.

How can I avoid these blown highlights but retain the shadows and bounce lighting from the scene?

If your problem is unwanted light in certain areas of the scene.. or to reduce the overall lighting in an area and make a bit dark, Blender really has an awesome way to do that. So, let me explain with an example here:
Consider this scene where I want to reduce the effect of light in the area below the monkey face on the background code structure. Lets say I want to make it darker and remove some light. Here is the actual scene if u use just the overall sun.

Now, I have added a area light in the required area. Interestingly you can make the values of light in "Negative" numbers. Yeah!! That means you can start to remove the light in that area and below is the example of the same. You can adjust the value of it as required to create the required effect!

This way you can affect certain areas in scene to be not light up and if you want to wholly remove light effect on a singular object, you can try the other answer
as mentioned above. Hope this helps you in your scene.


Issue with exporting .STL after shade smoothing I've just finished modeling some object in Fusion 360, exported it as an .STL file and opened it up in Blender in order to make it smoother. So I applied Shade Smooth with Auto smooth enabled on 45 degrees. Surfaces got smooth enough as I need them to be.
After that I tried exporting my model again as an .STL, but after exporting, it didn't export smoothness I applied. I tried exporting many times, also with .OBJ and .STL and nothing. I've searched similar problem on many other forums and communities but nothing helpful was found. I've tried Meshmixer but it distorts my surfaces instead of smoothing them out.
I got to the point where I'm not able to perform even that simple step in Blender. There should be a simple answer on what I'm doing wrong or why Blender won't do what I want.

Shade smooth is only shading done in software and doesn't change the geometry of your model.  If you want it smoother you need to add a subdivision surface modifier which will add the "smoothness" to your geometry.
As you have imported this as an STL, the topology will be pretty bad and the subdivision surface modifier may not work well (which may be why meshmixer is giving you trouble too). Ideally, you want to remesh it first.  Decimate might work depending on the model and then add subdivision surface modifier afterwards to smooth it.
Remember when modelling for 3d printing, model with shade flat, not shade smooth.


How to create white box scene? I'm trying to recreate this video, and oddly enough I do know how to create the water, glass, etc. However, I'm having trouble just creating the white walls around the scene in this video. Using the cycles render, what material do I set the walls to be? Also, how do i shade it?

I would add in a cube and and delete three faces (top, one left and one right) this way you have enough light coming through and also have a light gray background and one sun lamp. This would be the way that I would recreate the scene.


how to snap several vertices to the same z.position I encountered a little problem. Say I have a mesh an the Vertices on top are not in the same Z-Position. I am looking for a method to have them all aligned in Z.

My approach is to select the 3 Vertices, grab the blue arrow to constrain the movement in the Z-Axis and want to snap to the vertex highlighted with the red circle.

My Snappingsettings

But for some reason they don´t have the same z-Position. They seem to keep their Offsets to each other?

I used this method in Maya.
Do you know a way how to get that working?

thanks in Advance
Guido.

You can select the vertices and then hit S+Z+0+Enter. Then they'll have the same Z-Position.

S is the shortcut key for "Scale". Z is the the axis to scale on and 0 is the amount to scale by.

Or, if you wanted to align the vertices to a specific vertex, you can:

Select the vertex you want to align to
Hit Shift+S and select Cursor to Selected.
Change the pivot point to 3D Cursor
Select the other vertices and hit S+Z+0+Enter.

Or alternatively (without the need to change the pivot point to 3D Cursor), you can

Select "Snap Element" on the 3D Header and select "Vertex"
Then select all the vertices except the one you want to align to
Hit G to grab
Then hit Z to constraint the translation to the Z axis
Hold Ctrl and hover the cursor over the vertex you want to align to until there's a circle over the vertex (don't hold Ctrl if the "Snap during transform" option is on)
Then click (or hit Enter)


How do the options in the Post Processing tab work? Can someone explain what the Compositing and Sequencer check boxes in Render Settings do?
Basically I rendered a scene with several layers, then used the compositor to stitch them together. Next I saved out my layers as multi layer EXR and in the compositor replaced the Render Layers with the EXR file.
At that point pressing F12 to render seemed to not do anything. I googled around and I found solutions that advised to turn off "Sequencer" ... however in my case what solved the problem was turning off "Compositing".
So basically the problem is solved but it would be nice to understand how things work and what exactly happened.

Those two check boxes toggle using the compositor and sequencer.

If you are using any compositing nodes, then you will need to have the Compositing box checked.

If you are using the VSE for anything, then likewise you will need to have the Sequencer box checked.

If you are just rendering from a 3D scene, then you can uncheck both boxes.

Now most of the time you can safely leave both of them checked.
When the VSE is empty it will do nothing. However when the compositor is empty, and the Compositing box is checked, like your issue, the render will turn out blank.

See my answer for a bit more on the compositor's required nodes.


Can a surface reflect in black and white? So I have a gold glossy surface above a plane, and I want the plane to have a black and white reflection of the gold surface. I'm using Cycles Render and the latest version of Blender.
Here's a diagram to show you what I mean:

Glossy object right here -> O

< <- Camera

_______________________ <- Glossy plane

I want the object to be gold, and I want its reflection on the plane to be black and white.

You can use the light path node. This node allows you to use different materials for each incoming ray type.

However, this approach is not ideal, since you have to modify the object's material and not the glossy material itself, which becomes almost unmanageable quickly.


Switch between 2 walk cycles I have a walk cycle that consists of 6 animations forward, back, turn left, turn right, Run and jump. I have 6 seperate animations for when a weapon is equipped. How do I switch between the 2 sets of animations with the push of a button?

I could be misreading your question, and frankly i'm not very good at blender at all, however I believe you can accomplish this by going to your dope sheet, and selecting action editor as the mode. It should be on the bottom ribbon. Hope I helped.


Why is Blender muting the first split second of sound in the rendered video file? To replicate:

Render a video sequence with an audio strip at the beginning.

Extract the audio from the video file using ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i blenderoutput.mp4 audio.wav
Load the audio file in Audacity and look at the first instant in the waveform

This is not a bug in ffmpeg, I tried it with other videos that have audio throughout, it did not silence the first split second.

Is this a bug in Blender or is there some flag/feature I have to toggle?

Try moving the audio clip in blender so that it starts at frame 1.

To do this, select your audio clip and press g.


Adding a texture to follow the shape of the mesh I've stumbled on an issue while texturing my model. I can't seem to figure out how to implement a rust texture correctly on top of the base texture of the mesh without losing its initial look to the UVs.

Thanks for the help,

Dave

You can create multiple UV maps (click the add button alongside the list of UV maps in the mesh properties). You can then position your UV for the rust over the rush image without upsetting your ‘base’ UVs.

Your material will then need to be aware of both UV maps and mix between them as appropriate (eg, my using the Alpha of your rust image) although this depends on your choice of render engine (Blender Internal, Cycles).


How to create Composite Object? I'm fairly new to blender (2.8), been using it for just about a month now.

How do you combine a bunch of different objects (e.g. light, mesh, etc) to act as one object? That is so I can easily duplicate and edit the resulting composite object.

I've already checked collections, appears to be not I need. Already did some googling but I guess I'm in the wrong rabbit hole.

Thanks!

You can't make objects of different types into a single object, but you can make a group of "siblings" (children of an Empty) and duplicate them all together. This method doesn't create instances but whole new objects: they will still be editable individually (at the cost of being all simultaneously in memory).

Add an Empty

Select all the objects and then Shift+Select the Empty. Do CtrlP and Set Parent to Object

Duplicate the bunch (ShiftD) and Move (or rotate, or scale) the new Empty. Indeed, the duplication is smart enough to transfer the "Parent" relation to the new Empty

You can select a group (for example if you need to delete it or duplicate further) by selecting the Empty, then doing Select > Select More/Less > Extend Child or just Shift]


Bone Constraint Copy Scale on multiple bones in chain bug? I'm trying to make a chain of 8 parented bones stretch on the y axis using the copy scale constraint and a separate controller bone, but using it with more than two bones causes all the parented bones to scale infinitely. Logically, this doesn't make sense. if the controlling bone is scaled to 2, all the bones in the chain should be at a scale of 2. Is this a bug or am I missing something with parenting?

I didn't know about the inherited parenting, disabling that fixed the problem


Is there a way to make objects take up less memory? me and my friend are competing in a game making competition, (a competition where you compete with other people to make games), and in this competition the smaller the game size, the better you are rated(along with gameplay and such). I was wondering is there a way to make blender models lighter than they are. Blender's default preset with the cube, camera and light is around 400 kb is there a way to achieve even a smaller size, hopefully around 100k?

If you have 1 triangle on 3d viewport and nothing more on the scene, and also when saving you select "COMPRESS" you will get to 96 kb.

Is this what you were looking for?

Thank you for your consideration to vote me as the answer by clicking to the left :the icon with a check mark and upvote this answer.

BFCT_Schiller


When filling a gap with a new face edges do not seem to subdivide correctly I'm learning Blender and following Blender Guru's Intermediate Modeling Tutorial to make an anvil. I made a small mistake and had a duplicate vertex that could not be cleared by the Remove Double Vertices tool for whatever reason, so I went in and deleted it myself then restored the face. However, the new face now has sharp edges that won't subdivide and I don't understand why.

I've attached a screenshot that will hopefully provide a little more context. I'm referring to the two faces on the tip of the horn of the anvil, relatively centered in the viewport. The edges are sharp and I'm trying to round it to a point. You may also see a similar issue happening at the corners of the higher part of the body towards the top right of the viewport.

P.S. I'm aware that I'm using the 2.8 Beta and he's using an older version in the tutorial, so I'm not sure if something would have changed between these versions that either causes this issue or the way to solve it just isn't as clear.

The most likely explanation is that the new faces normals are flipped.

In the image below, i created a cube, added a subdivision surface, and then flipped the normals on the top face. As you can see, the top face becomes sharp, but it is hard to see why. However, if you select it and do the "flip normals" command, it returns to normal.

This may not be your issue, but try selecting the affected faces and using either Flip Normals or Make Normals Consistent, and it will most likely fix your issue.


BVH has no root motion I have recorded motion capture using Motive and am now trying to use the motion capture for a blender animation. The BVH file has the hips set as a root bone with no key frames, so the character walks in place or when it's supposed to jump the hips don't translate or move at all. Is there a way to have it have the keyframes and animations I captured? The FBX versions of the files don't seem to have this problem, so I am confused.

Thanks in advance.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5yQhbjDIKrFWG1TOE1jYnBxejQ/view?usp=sharingenter link description here

The BVH itself doesn't contain any animation for the root joint __0. The root name doesn't match the naming of the other joints (I would have expected Ryan_Hips). This is a problem with your exporter, not with Blender.


how to change user preference in blender version 2.81 i just downloaded blender 2.81. I'm very new to blender. I'm using blender on a laptop and I know that some settings are different if you don't have a mouse (which I don't.) I've learnt online that you're supposed to change the user preferences. From what I've read, you should type %appdata% in the windows search box and find the app data file (which I did), and i did find the user preference window  (userpref.blend) thing. Problem is, I don't know how to change the user preference after I've gotten into the window. Can someone kindly tell me what I should do next? thanks!

The preferences can be edited within Blender. For 2.8x they are located in Edit > Preferences. More information can be found in the manual.


Preserving sub-group instances when making duplicates real I'm writing some Python scripts for refactoring, one of which will be used for relocating a group to another file. The workflow will be to make the new file, open it, link the group, select the group instance, then run a 'Make Source' script.

That script will involve making the top-level group duplicates real, but not the sub-groups, then creating a new group with the same name as the old one, then going through all '.blend' files within a project directory and relinking the group instances within them to the new group, then maybe deleting the old original.

The first part of the script is where I am have problems: making the top-level group duplicates real, but not the sub-groups.

bpy.ops.object.duplicates_make_real() does not seem to do what I need because it just breaks down the sub-groups, though it just throws an error when I run it with Python with arguments.

There's also dupli_group and dupli_list object operators,  butdupli_group just gives the top-level group and dupli-list seems to be empty.

object.dupli_list_create(context.scene) just given 'None', though I'm probably using it wrong.

Edit 1: I have been able access dupli-list, but I'm not sure how useful the information held in the DupliObject struct will be.

Edit 2: I think Blender holds as little information on group instances as possible, as such I think what I will need to do is access the source '.blend' file, then directly link the objects that are not in sub-groups and the sub-group instances with their offset.

The following script works with the workflow in the question:

  make the new file, open it, link the group, select the group instance, then run a 'Make Source' script.

What the script does:

Takes the active object, which should be an externally linked DupliGroup.
Checks if the name of the DupliGroup already exists as a local group and stops the script if it does.
Stores DupliGroup name, and external library path.
Deletes the active object as it is not necessary anymore.
Links the objects from the library '.blend', then links them, makes a proxy object, then deletes the non-proxy objects.
Adds the proxy objects to a group with the same name as the DupliGroup.

Of course the script doesn't actually make this group the source, more would need to be added to do that. It just appends the contents of a group to a local group of the same name.

Forgive lack of convention in the code.

make_source.py, just run the script from Blender's internal text editor after selecting an externally linked DupliGroup:

# A class just for the purposes of stopping the script early without closing Blender.
class ExitWrongInput(Exception):
    def __init__(self, to_print):
        print("ExitWrongInput: %s" % to_print)

def link_external_group(library_path, group_name):
    # In this with statement, the data_to is just a list of strings, but after the with statement, it is actual data, which is what we return.
    with bpy.data.libraries.load(library_path, link=True) as (data_from, data_to):
        data_to.groups = [group_name]

    return data_to.groups[0]

def make_source():
    # Variable setup.
    # ----------
    scene = bpy.context.scene
    obj = scene.objects.active
    obj_dupligroup_name = obj.dupli_group.name

    # TODO Add a proper check to determine if the active is an externally linked DupliGroup object.

    # Check if the group already exists and exit the script if it does.
    for group_iter in bpy.data.groups:
        if (group_iter.name == obj_dupligroup_name) and (group_iter.library is None):
            raise ExitWrongInput('Group "%s" already exists.' % obj_dupligroup_name)

    libraries = bpy.data.libraries

    # Find library which the DupliGroup is in and store the path.
    obj_library_path = ""
    for library in libraries:
        for user in library.users_id:
            if user.name == obj_dupligroup_name:
                obj_library_path = library.filepath
                break
    # ----------

    # Delete obj.
    bpy.ops.object.delete()

    # Link the old source group to the scene.
    # ----------
    group_data = link_external_group(obj_library_path, obj_dupligroup_name)

    # No objects can be selected for the next part, so deselect all objects just in case.
    for obj_iter in bpy.data.objects:
        obj_iter.select = False

    # Link the objects to the scene then make proxies of them by making duplicate linked, and deleting the old ones.
    for obj_iter in group_data.objects:
        # Link the objects to the scene, it will not be possible to move them.
        linked_object = scene.objects.link(obj_iter)
        # Duplicate to a variable, not linked yet.
        duplicate_linked_obj = linked_object.object.copy()
        # Delete the old object that could not be moved.
        bpy.data.objects.remove(linked_object.object, True)
        # Link the new proxy object.
        duplicate_linked_obj = scene.objects.link(duplicate_linked_obj)
        # Add to selection for grouping.
        duplicate_linked_obj.select = True

    # Create new group from the selected objects.
    bpy.ops.group.create(name=obj_dupligroup_name)
    # ----------

    # Update the scene just in case.
    bpy.context.scene.update()

try:
    make_source()
except ExitWrongInput:
    pass


Ideas on how my object became hollow I started out with a simple cube and edited the vertices to make it look like so...

I think somewhere along the way I did something to make the object hollow, because when I cut an object out of it (Boolean Modifier -> Difference), you can see the insides (as follows)...

Is there a way to add the "fill" back to it so that it's solid?

Blender Source File

I hate answering my own question, but in hopes it might help someone else...

Create a giant cube that surrounds all edges of your problem hollow object.
Add a Boolean + Intersect modifier to the cube with the target object as your hollow object.
Apply the modifier and delete the old hollow object, and now
you should have a filled object on the new "cube".


Freestyle : problem with visibility I'm trying to use freestyle, to draw a cylinder that goes though a circle:

I'd like to add lines around the green part above like this:

I tried several freestyle parameters, including QI Range, Visible, Hidden, material boundaries, but I can't manage to do that...

Any idea?

Thank you!

Your issue comes from your object design : the cylinder and the circle should be in a single object + the circle should have a thickness + The circle should be an extrusion of a ring of the cylinder.

The idea is to create the cylinder, to add a loop on this cylinder and to extrude this loop to create the cicle.

Here is a full how to :

Create a new project
Delete the cube
Add a cylinder : press Shift + A then select Mesh and Cylinder
Enter in edit mode (TAB)
Press S then Z to enable Z scrolling
Move the mouse to increase the hight of the cylinder.
Press ENTER to validate.
Move the mouse cursor in the center of the cylinder
Press CTRL + R to add a loop cut : a pink horizontal circle should appear at the middle of the cylinder like this :

Scroll up the middle mouse button to have 2 pink circles like this :

Press the left mouse button
Move the mouse up to place the new ring
Press the left mouse button to validate
Enable the Face select mode (CTRL + TAB and select Faces)
move the mouse cursor on a vertical edge of the middle ring you have just created
Press ALT + RMB : this ring should be selected (in orange) like this :

Press E to extrude this ring and press LMB to validate immediatly (without moving the mouse)
Press S to scall the ring and Shift + Z to lock Z scalling
Move your mouse to increase the diameter of the ring like this :

Press LMB to validate

To enable Freestyle :

exit Edit Mode (TAB)
in the Render panel, enable the Freestyle option
launch render (F12)

Here is the result (after adding materials and reducing the circle thickness :


Can't use the middle mouse button This is my first time using Blender and the shortcut button G + MMB  doesn't seem to be working for moving the object along the axes. Could anyone please help me with this?

You will only see the Axis you can snap to once you start dragging! So, press G, hold MMB  and then drag, and select the axis you want to move across!


How to copy objects in Blender without copying their materials? Need to copy objects from one layer to another in the same scene, but sometimes also one scene to another.

I use Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V for this a lot, but problem is now there are 5 copies of around 20 materials.

EG:  Material1, Material1.001, Material1.002, Material1.003, Material1.004, etc

Another post said to duplicate the objects instead, then move them to another layer.  But couldn't see how to do that for scenes, and prefer using Ctrl + C/V. Is there a setting or way to stop copying the materials but still copy objects using that method.

Don't want to link the objects either.  Want unique, standalone copies of the objects.  But only one instance of each material.

To copy objects without copying materials create linked duplicate of all adjacent objects; they will use the same material (along with other data). Then in order to make linked objects independent from each other (sharing only material), make them single-user via Object > Make Single User menu (or press U while in 3D Viewport) and choose Object & Data.

You can do the same between different scenes by linking them to that scene; press Ctrl+L and in Objects To Scene dropdown choose scene to link them to.
Make sure to make them single-user after linking if you want them as independent objects.


Generate soft normals on sharp edges Does anyone know how to make your object render as smooth after using edge split modifier? I have to use edge split around all UV-islands (else UV maps get distorted in my game engine). However, besides splitting geometry it makes the edges render sharp there. Is there any way to preserve original normal data after using edge split?

In Blender there is a way of editing the normals.

Duplicate the original object, before applying the edge split modifier.
Apply the edge split modifier.
Apply a Normal Edit modifier to the edge split object and select the original object in the Target field. Apply the modifier.


UV unwrap: separate maps for separate faces problem The problem is:
I have 1 mesh.
I want some faces of the mesh to be in one map (faces A) and other faces of the mesh in another map (faces B).
Now when I unwrap faces A, there is no problem, I get a UV map only with these faces.
When I unwrap faces B to a new UV map, there is faces B and faces A on that map. While on the first map there is only faces A.

Is there a possibility to only get faces B on the second map or can I just move the faces A away?

EDIT:

In the file there is a plane. I first picked some vertices and unwrapped them with U -> Unwrap leading to UVmap1.
Afterwards I picked some other vertices, created a new UV map with the + and then unwrapped them. Now if you select all and switch between the maps you will see that UV map 1 contains only the first vertices and uv map 2 contains the first and the second ones.

Yes you can have separate textures for separate faces.

One technique is to scale the vertices of unwanted faces by zero to the median point. Scale 0.  The area of the faces are now zero. Zero area signals no mapping is attempted.  I hope the single dot on the uv map is acceptable to you.

mark seams so as to partition faces into group A and group B

First UV Slot

uv unwrap case 1 and move unwanted faces to the side of uv map. The texture repeat must be set to [clip].

Second UV slot

uv unwrap case 2 and move unwanted faces to the side of uv map. The texture repeat must be set to [clip].
The combination of faces of the uv map and repeat set to [clip] should achieve your goal

Keep in mind advanced users may be able to simply use one uv map with texture painting.  You are the advanced user.


Bookshelf Drivers (Possible to add/subtract books using drivers)? I have a bookshelf modeled and a group of 10 books (so as to not make the bookshelf look repeated), is it possible to create a driver to just drag up/down the amount of books on the shelf???

You could use particle system to emit the books from vertices:

The emitter is a subdivided plane, the origin of the book group (only 3 books on layer 2) is set to the bottom of the book.

Demofile: http://pasteall.org/blend/29436

Particle settings:

Uncheck Random under 'Emit from:'

Related: Prevent particles at the same place?


how to take images with multiple cameras with Script? To be clear i want a script, which produces what i am describing below.
I want to iterate through all the cameras in my scene where each one renderes an image. I can do this manually by rendering with active camera, then set another camera to active, and then render again.

I have five cameras in my scene and i am going to be using this scene a lot.
in reality the question might be more about setting a camera to active with script.

You might want to edit the os.path.join to get an OS independent tmp directory or set something else.

import bpy
import os

scene = bpy.context.scene

for ob in scene.objects:
    if ob.type == 'CAMERA':
        bpy.context.scene.camera = ob
        print('Set camera %s' % ob.name )
        file = os.path.join("C:/tmp", ob.name )
        bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = file
        bpy.ops.render.render( write_still=True )


Export Fluid Simulation I am currently abroad only with a Laptop.
I want to render a few simulations, my brother was so generous to offer his PC, he is several hundred miles away sadly.

What is the best way to export the simulation data so that he can render it for me? Its only 330MB, so that shouldnt be a problem.

Thanks!

The fluid sim stores its cache data in a separate file sequence, with the path specified on the domain object. You'll want to send your brother both your .blend file, and this cache sequence. He may need to adjust the path to the cache in the .blend file depending on where he places them.


Settings to improve animation render speed My system is very underpowered. But I’m hoping, someone might be able to tell me what settings I could use to get the best outcome.
I’m using Blender to create a 3D version of my band's logo. I want to animate the camera rotating around the logo, but up close, just viewing small sections at a time. The animation has a particle plane (that uses three circles to animate floating embers).
I started a real small render (100 frames last night... and I’m estimating it to take 15 hours, for approximately 4 seconds of animation)
My system is iMac 21.5inch, late 2013
2.7ghz quad core intel core i5
8gb ram 1600 MHz ddr3
Graphics - Intel iris pro 1536 mb
Engine is cycles on CPU
Light bounce total set at 2
Tiles set to 16x16
Resolution 1920px x 1080px
24fps
Sampling is set at “render 200”
Format is set to avi jpeg
Quality 80%
Because it’s for social media (insta and Facebook) can I maybe get away with reducing certain things? Or changing settings somewhere to speed up the render?

You can consider using the Eevee render engine, which is much faster than Cycles.
It is less photo-realistic, but it seems to me that photo-realism is likely not a requirement for your logo.
To switch renderers, go to the Render Properties tab, and select "Eevee" in the Render Engine dropdown.