How to create a notch on a surface w/o messing up with the edges? I was making the lid of the Starbucks cup and this problem occurs to me. I don't have a clear idea how to make the notch on the lid for drinking. Knowing about the knife tool I gave myself a try, with the tool cutting edges on the surface. And here comes my result:

But I don't think that's a perfect solution because when SubSurf is applied to it, the normals of the vertical part around the notch don't seem as perfect as the other vertical parts, with some uneven feeling:

Meanwhile, if I want to give it Solidify, some black parts appeared:

I'm a beginner in Blender for a week or two and I'm still praticing modeling after some basic learning from BlenderGuru. Any suggestion is appreciated!

You could do it with this topology, at the beginning use i to inset. Then you can add some edge loops if you want to be more precise...


How to set backround image in Blender 2.8 I am trying to set a background image in Blender 2.8 Beta.

The image is what I have right now for nodes. I set it to world node and it has a background when I render it but it is all mixed up.Do you know what I am doing wrong? (I am a beginner with Blender).

Thanks for your help.

You need to add a Texture Coordinate node and connect it to your Image Texture node, otherwise blender won't be able to map the texture properly. You can then move, rotate and scale the texture using a Mapping node.

For comparison, without Texture Coordinate node:

And with:

EDIT: After seeing your screenshot, I see the issue: you are editing a MATERIAL node, when you should be editing the WORLD node. Simply select "World" from the dropdown list on the upper left corner:


Is it possible to animate a single mesh with multiple armatures at once? As a short background, I'm doing a lot of animation keying in a study of my ideal workflow, typically from Blender to Unreal (or Unity). I've learned a lot about armatures and shape keys; but I have a singular curiosity.

Is it possible, without merging the armatures in any way, to parent a mesh to more than one skeleton at the same time? As in, if I want one set of bones to be the basis for an animation, but without using shape keys, I want to add a portable addition onto it for another animation?

I tried parenting one armature to another, but it didn't seem to want to work on the base mesh.

You can't parent a mesh to multiple armatures, but you can have multiple armatures deforming a single mesh. As armatures can have multiple bones, it wouldn't normally be needed.

I don't think that any of the following will export to Unreal or Unity, so this would only relate to animations to be rendered using blender  -

Parenting the armatures to each other will only move them together in object mode. Within blender, you could use a child of constraint to have multiple armatures move as one in pose mode when desired, you can animate the influence to turn it on/off. This also allows you to parent it to different armatures or bones at different times. Other constraints may also give a desired result.

For an object, you can add as many armature modifiers as you want, each modifier then uses a different armature. Instead of using the Parent->Armature Deform options, you will want to add and set each modifier manually. The catch is that the bone names are used to link bones to which vertex groups they move, unless you are using bone envelopes, that means the armatures will need to use unique bone names between them or multiple bones will move the same vertices.


grid floor change possible? The grid floor in blender is XY. Can this be changed to another combination of X, Y and Z, say to XZ, or something else? Note, that this does not impact what coordinate system is used at all.

The closest thing is to switch to quad view Ctrl-Alt-Q, then Blender displays a grid in front, top and right view (orthographic).


How can I edge slide a vertex to a specific coordinate, using Python? With Python, how would I implement an edge slide of a vertex to a specific coordinate?  For example, sliding a vertex along an edge loop to a X coordinate of, say, 10.

The Vertex Slide doesn't have a feature (currently Dec 2015) to limit the extent of a slide for any given axis. This means that there's no script-able way to do it from the operator by simply passing a few parameters. This doesn't mean an alternative doesn't exist, or several. Some code will have to be written though, and to make it usable as a tool also some UI code.
Projecting a vertex of an edge towards a Face on the YZ plane would have the same effect as limiting a vertex's sliding till it reached a given axis limit. (ie x = 10)

We can find the intersection of a line on the infinite plane using a built-in geometry function mathutils.geometry.intersect_line_plane . We then use the plane_nol=(1,0,0) to show the plane extends only in the YZ axes, and plane_co=(your_x, 0, 0) to give the plane an origin (this is the axis constraint)
# alias it first, for convenience here
intersect_l_p = mathutils.geometry.intersect_line_plane
intersect_l_p(line_a, line_b, plane_co, plane_no, no_flip=False)

and then overwrite the vertex location with the intersection location.
Let's take the example above where I have a plane on the X axis at about 4.2 units. and the Vertex i want to move along the arrow till it hits the plane.
Non-UI version.
This example assumes we have a mesh object in edit-mode
import bpy
import bmesh
import mathutils

def extend_vertex(limit_axis='x', coordinate=4.2):

    obj = bpy.context.edit_object
    me = obj.data
    bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
    verts = bm.verts
    try:
        v1, v2 = [v for v in bm.verts if v.select]
    except:
        print('need two vertices selected, or one edge')
        bm.free()
        return

    plane_idx = {'x': 0, 'y': 1, 'z': 2}.get(limit_axis)
    plane_co, plane_no = [0,0,0], [0,0,0]
    plane_no[plane_idx] = 1
    plane_co[plane_idx] = coordinate

    intersect_l_p = mathutils.geometry.intersect_line_plane
    new_co = intersect_l_p(v1.co, v2.co, plane_co, plane_no, False)

    # move closest of the two vertices
    A_len = (v1.co-new_co).length
    B_len = (v2.co-new_co).length
    if A_len < B_len:
        v1.co = new_co
    else:
        v2.co = new_co

    bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me, True)

extend_vertex(limit_axis='x', coordinate=4.2)

warning:
This doesn't take into account the object's unapplied Transforms (origin may not coincide with the world's (0,0,0), you may have scaling, rotation, translation), easy enough to fix - but it complicates the example code a little.
To take matrix_world into account, do something like this:
vertex_towards_plane.py


How can I accomplish the Iron Man in helmet effect around the head with out a black or green screen? I've been looking in to making an Iron Man inspired HUD Anim, but I cant figure out a way to get the fading around the head so that it gets darker, and I'm not sure how to use a mask to do this, and even if I use a feather or edge blur, I'm not getting the result I'm looking for. So, how would i go about accomplishing this (hopefully w/out sitting for hours doing rotoscoping)?
What I've got (if I add feather, I get a bg that has lots of different colors, etc.):

You can try this and see if it gets you close to where you want to be:

It's going to be subjective, so play with the Mix Fac to see if that does the trick for you.

ALTERNATIVELY You could start doing something like this as well.
For the right transition, you may have to layer a few more iterations of things before you nail it ( Somthing Like this ).

!!Appended Since Comments Below!!

Here's an example of layering some of these effects (It May be a poor one, but it should give you a little more perspective). Also I've attached the blend so you can look at the setup a little closer.


How reorder layers in animation? (grease pencil) please tell me how to change the order of layers in the animation?

I want the blue ball to hide behind the red during the animation.
But in order not to create additional layers with a blue ball

buttons to move the layer can not be animated?

There are two ways to go about this, not including the one you have.
The first is separating each ball onto its own object, then translating the objects’ Y axis to literally move one ball behind the other. Grease pencil objects are flat, so a translation as small as 0.001 should suffice. This method is good if you have a lot of individual objects with their own properties because you can then parent them, like pieces of armor or orbiting planets.
The other method is the ‘switchboard’ technique, which utilizes the dope sheet. At a certain point in the animation, copy layer 1’s keyframe and paste it onto layer 2, then copy layer 2’s key frame onto layer 1 - manually switching the two. This is good if you have a lot of components to a single object, say like fingers on a hand.


Calling bpy.ops.text.save() from '3D_VIEW' operator execute method A Text Datablock named "Text" exists. Within a 3D View operator, I'm attempting to generate the dialog for writing this Datablock to a file, where the user can select a folder and choose a filename. In my 3D View operator, I have:

def execute(self, context):
    area_type = bpy.context.area.type
    bpy.context.area.type = 'TEXT_EDITOR'
    context.space_data.text = bpy.data.texts["Text"]
    bpy.ops.text.save('INVOKE_DEFAULT')
    bpy.context.area.type = area_type

However, when executing the line bpy.ops.text.save(), the following error occurs:

File "/usr/share/blender/scripts/modules/bpy/ops.py", line 188, in \_\_call\_\_

ret = op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.text.save.poll() failed, context is incorrect

I expect I must better specify the context for bpy.ops.text.save. Any hints, advice, or a solution would be very welcomed. Thank you.

About 'INVOKE_DEFAULT'  and context override
While you can often override a context not all operators support it.
Examples of context overrides, in particular this one: context override in text editor, see also a more extensive explanation of context overriding. Avoid doing this whenever possible, there is in this case an alternative.
A more sane alternative.
I recommend that you spawn your own file save dialog - a template for that code exists. See Text Editor > Templates > Python > Operator File Export
To save a Text Datablock to disk is easy.
destination = '/home/zeffii/Desktop/file.txt'

text_reference = bpy.data.texts['Text']
with open(destination, 'w') as outfile:
    outfile.write(text_reference.as_string())


How do I make this a 3d shape in blender? I'm brand new to blender and I'm trying to make this a 3d model in blender 2.8.

I tried to warp a UV sphere and then cut it up but couldn't really get the desired results I wanted.

Here's one approach:

I used your provided image to determine X-Z slices of 3-D space that should be transparent, and then spherically displaced a highly subdivided plane to get a 3-D shape that seemed reasonable given the image (although it is not rotationally symmetric about the Z axis, which you might be wanting).

I used two objects in my scene: a Plane at (0, -0.5, 0) and an Empty at (0,0,0) (the Empty was just used to make the Mirror modifier mirror in the intended manner without my having to reset the main object's Origin).

Here's the small modifier stack I used:

Where the displacement used this quadratic sphere texture, with Color Ramp enabled and tuned to taste (this controls how wide/tall the resulting object is):

I enforced the transparent stripes with this shader, where the input image is the jpeg you provided:

(not shown: my collapsed Principled BSDF node's Base Color was set to Black; this is why the non-transparent stripes in the image of the object are black)

I used Eevee as my Renderer, and had Blend Mode: Alpha Clip (in the Materials settings for this material) and Film: Transparent (in Render settings) enabled.

Note that this approach:

Doesn't convert the transparent strips to geometry (although you could do something similar to this with a Mask node to achieve a similar effect, and if you were to do so, that would make selecting and deleting those vertices straightforward, which would let you embed this information in the geometry)
Yields a very large number of extraneous vertices if you apply the modifier stack to convert it to raw geometry. Here is what the result looks like, after applying the modifier stack in order and viewing the object in Edit Mode, Rendered View:

You can easily select most of the undesirable vertices outside of the main, central area of the object (in case you'd like to delete them) by using Select Similar: Normal, although this isn't perfect and you'll still need to clean up some of them manually. Depending on your use case, you might also want to re-topologize the final object to simplify its geometry (it is nice in that it contains only/primarily quads, but it also has lots of vertices that occupy exactly or almost exactly the same point in space, and some of its internal vertices could be unnecessary as well, depending on your final use case).


Viewport ambient occlusion quality after upgrading to Windows 10 I have been working with Blender for a couple years on Windows 7 at work (with no issues), they just upgraded all the computers to Windows 10 and now my viewport doesnt seem to draw things correctly anymore. Does anyone know what settings I should be looking to change or what is happening here?

It didn't look like this on Windows 7

Well after playing around, I have updated all drivers and reinstalled Blender. It looks like if I just turn off ambient occlusion in viewport the problem dissapears.


Why do symmetrically identical edges bevel differently? I have a symmetrical object, the base of a column, and when I attempt to bevel the four corners of this object, each corner bevels by a different amount.

When I rotate the mesh about the z axis, the same edges continue to be beveled by the same inconsistent amount, so this difference has to be coming from the mesh somehow.

I can to some degree ameliorate the problem by deleting all but one of these edges and recreating the mesh by extruding and rotating by 90 degrees about the origin a few times. This greatly reduces the unevenness of the bevel, but not entirely.

Is the mesh just imperceptibly inaccurate, and if that's the case, why does such a small inaccuracy lead to such a large disparity in the bevel size?

If you go to the options for he bevel operation (the toolbar or press f6) then you can change how the width is determined. In your case since the edges are equal length all around percent would work. I've noticed the bevel tool behaving weirdly as well (specifically when offset is used). Maybe it's a bug in the latest version of Blender.


Where is the Screen Node? In this amazing Blog I found a OSL Shader for fabric, but now I'm stuck because I can't find the Node called Screen. I tried the search menu Shift+A Search...

That is a MixRGB node (ShiftA Add node menu > Color > MixRGB) which is set to Screen:


Blender 2.8 uses CPU rather than GPU, contradicting with settings Even though my settings are set to use the GTX1070, my CPU activity is still 100% while rendering. Can anyone explain how this comes, and/or tell me how to fix this so Blender will (almost solely) use the GPU?
I'm using the Cycles render engine with a material defined by image maps and Principled shaders.

Thanks in advance

As @RobertGützkow already mentioned in the comment, you have not only selected your GPU for rendering, BUT also the CPU.

Selecting GPU Compute makes Blender render with all selected devices to speed up the entire procedure, while sometimes it is faster, it may even be slower, depending on the render and the devices as well as the render performance settings like bucket-sizes.

If you only select the GPU, as in un-check the CPU, Blender will render only on the GPU, but even then Blender needs to prepare some things beforehand and will use your CPU a little. After which the CPU should be left rather idle compared to what you experienced.

The Solution thus would be to make sure to not have the CPU selected in the render device settings.

Maybe it could be reasonable to change the GPU Compute to Compute on all selected Devices well a shorter name could be helpful, but i believe the you get the point.


Objects and floor being cut off when zoomed in I've seen tutorials on this site from the old lay out, but even after editing the "Clip Start" setting, when I'm in the 3D Viewport, it still clips.

Can anyone help me find out what I am doing wrong?

You are editing your scene camera's clip settings, when you really need to be editing your view's clip settings.

Press N to bring up the side menus, go the the "View" tab, and you should find the relevant options.


Importing Google Maps Data into Blender with Renderdoc isn't Working I have made multiple attempts to generate 3D maps into Blender from Google Maps. I resorted to different tutorials to see what I could possibly be doing wrong. All attempts would end with the same result via an error message stating that I wasn't in Satellite Mode when I saved the capture, although I was. I would like to know what else could be wrong if I have followed directions for installing Blender, Renderdoc, and Maps Model Importer, have them all run correctly, seemingly, but still get nothing but the same error message on every attempt? Do I need to reset anything in Blender to enjoy the benefits of the Maps Model Importer and Renderdoc?

I was able to get around this problem by installing a former stable version of RenderDoc. I had been running 1.10, and now I'm on 1.9 with no issues. I thought the problem was with Blender or my capture technique (eg, not moving the screen enough) but it turned out to be the version of RenderDoc.


Difference between 'Bounding Box center' and 'median point' pivot? In the options from pivot point, is the option 'Bounding Box center' the same as the option 'median point'?

for the second question :

the bounding box center is not the same as median center :

-The Median center is calculated as the average of all selected points ( vertices or object centers ) so it depends on the density distribution of the mesh

-The bounding box : is the smallest box (Cube ) that can contain the mesh of an object while aligned to the local space

-The bounding Box center will always be at the center of this bounding box regardless of the density distribution of the mesh inside


How do i add material/textures to only one face of an object? I just got Blender and I don't know how to add textures to only one side. I've tried finding an answer but i can't. It adds the texture to all sides of the object.

I just want the blue on one side of the square. BTW i don't know where anything is in blender so if you have an answer please include pictures.

In Edit Mode select a face (using a face selection [Ctrl+Tab-->Face]) you want a texture to be projected on. Then press U-->Unwrap. In Uv Editor open your image texture.

Add a new material to your face (using a + button) and press the Assign button.

Then go to the Texture header. Add a new texture and change its type to Image or Movie. Open an image and change its coordinates (in a Mapping panel) to UV.

Result:


Preview in Video Sequence Editor doesn't show render layers I have a scene with two objects: the cube on layer 1 and a cone on layer 2.  Under the Layers tab, I have set just the first layer to be rendered.

In the Video Sequence Editor, I added added my scene.  However, the preview window shows both layers.

When I render, it works fine, just showing the layer 1.

Is there any way to have the preview take into account render layers?

(Blender 2.69)

It actually is taking the render layers into consideration, you have OpenGL Preview enabled so it is using that to give you a realtime viewport render which apparently takes all layers into consideration it seems, press N to bring up the view properties and untick it.


How can I make a set of vertices part of an existing plane with an imported image? I imported an image as a plane in order to place vertices marking all the key contours on it. After a while I realized I didn't know how to make those vertices part of the plane they were on.

If I can't move the vertices on the z axis, and have the image move with them, I can't use the image as a reference the way I'd planned and the whole thing becomes much more difficult.

Is there a way to embed those vertices in the plane that has the image? They are already sitting on it. Or maybe a way to import the image again and integrate the vertices with it then?

the only thing that comes to mind is subdividing the plane in edit mode. then moving your new vertices where you want them.

this may become a little more complicated if your image skews while doing this.

let me know if you need clarification. i can post some screen shots.


Decrease space between spirals I want to decrease the space(shown by blue arrows) between green spirals so that it looks a bit spherical, currently it looks a bit stretched. Any guess how blender provides this option to do it.

I was just finding out each option in the blender and suddenly found the option "Object" tab marked in the picture by with  a "1". Then scaled the object around only the required axes.

Amid Lewis commented same answer above on my question.

I was trying the scaling using S key but the mouse was not able to do it with small extent, and I gotya the option while searching.


How do I bake to only selected faces? I have a UV map where some faces overlap and some don't. The overlapping faces are overlapped on purpose.

Now, I want to do an occlusion bake on the non overlapping faces, but it seems to always bake the whole object.

Is there a way to only bake the faces I have selected?

Just place the unwanted faces outside the UV map before baking.


Bridge edge loops - select at least two edge loops I'm new to Blender and could certainly be missing something obvious. I'm currently using 2.80 2019-02-05. In attempting to learn how to use the bridge edge loop function I'm trying the following steps

create a cylinder mesh and select a cap fill type of nothing
copy the cylinder and move it up the z axis so that there are 2 identical cylinders separated by a small gap
select both and switch to edit mode
select the 2 nearest edge loops from the distinct columns
use the "bridge edge loops" function

This results in a warning that I need to "Select at least two edge loops".
Any tips are greatly appreciated.

Welcome to Blender Stack exchange!

You issue here is that you are working with two separate objects. Blender can't make new geometry that connects to both objects and still have the two be separate.

To understand this a bit better, let's work through what you've asked Blender to do, and what Blender is capable of doing.

In 2.80, a new "multi edit" feature was added that allows you to select two objects in object mode and edit the underlying meshes at the same time. The key here is that the objects are separate. Once you exit out of edit mode (from working on the two at the same time) they have to again be separate, and thus cannot be joined together in any way.

Now what your asking Blender to do when using the Bridge Edge Loops tool is to make some new faces between two edge loops. Blender is perfectly happy doing that in almost all cases. However, when we think about what I mentioned before we'll see where the issue comes from. When you ask Blender to connect the edge loops, it connects each new face to both loops. But at the same time, you're telling Blender that it has to be able to separate these new faces back into 2 separate objects when you leave edit mode. Blender runs stuck here, which is why you get the error (which could definitely be a bit clearer), because there's no way for it to separate these faces back into two objects. Either each face belongs completely to one object, or completely to he other.

To fix all this, you just need to make your two cylinders one object. Blender will still keep them as two cylinders, but will treat them as a single entity. To do this, use Ctrl + J to join the objects in object mode. Now you have a single object to work with and Blender will happily bridge the two loops.


Remove Doubles on multiple objects I'm trying to run the remove_doubles edit command on multiple selected objects. This is kinda what I got so far...

import bpy

class remDoubles(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Remove Doubles on multiple objects"""
    bl_label = "Remove Multiple Doubles"
    bl_idname = "object.remove_doubles_multi"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return len(context.selected_objects) > 0

    def execute(self, context):

        scene = bpy.context.scene
        sel = context.selected_objects

        for obj in sel:
            scene.objects.active = obj

            #do something here
            print(obj.name)
            bpy.ops.mesh.remove_doubles()

        return {"FINISHED"}

myobject = remDoubles()

myobject.execute()

My knowledge about classes isn't too great, please help.

My code needs some work, it just errors out giving a  'TypeError: bpy_struct.new(type): expected a single argument'

But what i intend doing is run through each object applying the remove doubles command for each.

Firstly operators don't work in a usual create class instance way... the code below

myobject = remDoubles()
myobject.execute()

Will NOT work.

Have a look at the Hello World Example  The HelloWorldOperatoroperator class is defined, registered (known to bpy.ops), then called using bpy.ops. "plus" the bl_idname.

In your example you would

bpy.utils.register_class(RemoveDoublesMulti) # changed to camel-case name

# test call to the newly defined operator
bpy.ops.object.remove_doubles_multi()

Using a bmesh approach avoids toggling in and out of edit mode, changing the context object ...  etc.  An alternative for execute:

import bpy
import bmesh

context = bpy.context

distance = 0.0 # remove doubles tolerance.
if True: #def execute(self, context):

    meshes = set(o.data for o in context.selected_objects
                      if o.type == 'MESH')

    bm = bmesh.new()

    for m in meshes:
        bm.from_mesh(m)
        bmesh.ops.remove_doubles(bm, verts=bm.verts, dist=distance)
        bm.to_mesh(m)
        m.update()
        bm.clear()

    bm.free()


How to make Volumetric Scatter fade adjustable In Cycles, I'd like to create a misty torus. Create torus, Volume Scatter note into the Volume Material Output node. Done.

But I'd like to be able to adjust the density of the scatter with respect to surface proximity. So the closer the scatter effect gets to the surface of the object, the more transparent or "less dense' it becomes.

Any suggestions? I'd like this to be material-specific. I could do this in the compositor, but blurring introduces other problems.

There seems to be an error in my calculations. I think I will manage to review them later.
As Ibalazscs pointed out, you can control volume with the existing math nodes and procedural textures.
I will setup a mathematic procedural torus to use as density. This will not be affected by the geometry, sadly, but will work as a substitute solution.

To control the density of a volume, we can connect a texture or other value node to the density input of the Volume Scatter Node.

Starting with a two dimensional equation, let's control the volume of a cylinder with a colorramp or RGBcurve.

Here is the relatively simple mathematical basis. We need the equation of a circle.
x**2 + y**2 = radius**2
radius = (x**2 + y**2)**0.5

This will result in values from 0 to 1, starting from the center of the XY circle to any point on the circle.
Translated into a node setup, we have to use the Converter>Math nodes.

Connect the last node to a colorramp and we can see the effect on a 3D object in material or rendered mode.

The complete node setup looks like this.

I use a multiply node before the RGB curves to "scale" the circle. The RGB curves modify the density from the center of the circle to the rim. I have set them to the various examples in the beginning. The multiply node after the RGB curves raise the upper density limit. Close to zero (transparent) values will stay relatively unaffected, values close to 1 or higher will become more dense.
The position attribute of the Geometry node holds the XYZ coordinates. The separate RGB node extracts the three channels.
Important: The position attribute is in world coordinates. Use the Object Info > Location attribute if you move your object.
Creating the torus

Add a cube. This will function as the volume domain of the torus.
Use the existing node tree of the circle calculation nodes.
Add a subtract node to the chain. This will shift the value of zero along circles of different size. We will connect the Major Radius of the torus to the subtrahend. The add an absolute node. We want the values around 0 (our major radius) to fade out towards the center and towards infinity.

We want to control the density using values from 0 to 1 ranging from the major radius to the (major + minor) radius.
The value of the major radius in XY is currently 0.

We are going to use the circle node setup again with the existing XY circle output and the Z axis. After the last subtract node, paste the circle nodes (pow2, pow2, add, sqare root) and connect the subtract node to the first pow2. Connect the extracted Z value (B output of the separate RGB node) to the second pow2. The result is a circle with a major radius of 1. The values at the major radius are at 0. Values moving away from the major radius range to infinity, the distance from the major radius. We need it the other way around.
Negate the value (multiply with -1), now we have values from 0 to -infinity. Add a value with an add node. The second input of the add node is the minor radius. Clamp this value. We now have a range of 0 to 1 from the outer rim of the torus to the inner circle.
Connect this to the RGB curves.

Make sure your domain object is large enough.If you want to add a shader to the outer surface, add a torus with correspoing major and minor radius. In my case


Blender DAE Rejected by Google Earth I have been unsuccessful at exporting models to Collada (.dae) for importing to Google Earth. Even the default cube doesn't export in a way that Google Earth can read it.

No matter what model I try to export I get an error in Google Earth that says:

  Warning: COLLADA Primitive type [polylist] is not supported, and will not be drawn.

I've tried triangulating the default cube, but I always get the same error.

I am using the latest official build of Blender with Google Earth version 7.1.2.2019

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Had the same problem. The solution was changing <polylist> to <triangles> in source as CODEmanX suggested.


Using Python, How would I get my player to rotate 180 degrees left or right, More specifically I want the character to rotate a complete 180 when I press the left or right arrow key. But I don't want it to rotate again if I press the same key in sequence.
Example:
Character is facing Forward.
I Press Left, the model rotates 180 left.
I press Left again nothing happens because the model is already rotated (Would be perfect).
Ive searched all over web but can't really figure this one out :/
Heres my script

import bge

def main():

    cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
    player  = cont.owner
    keyboard = bge.logic.keyboard

    if  bge.logic.KX_INPUT_JUST_ACTIVATED == keyboard.events[bge.events.LEFTARROWKEY]:
        player.applyRotation((0,1.57,0), True)

Any help will be appreciated thank you!

It sounds like you want a specific (end-) pose rather than a turn. Therefore I suggest to split the operations: Set target pose (turned east or whatever) -> animate towards the target pose until it is reached (the object faces east ). Subsequent turn requests will set the same target pose without visible effect.

In your case you do not want to animate so you can skip the "animation" state:

import bge
import mathutils
from math import radians

keyboard = bge.logic.keyboard
if  bge.logic.KX_INPUT_JUST_ACTIVATED == keyboard.events[bge.events.LEFTARROWKEY]:
    controller = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
    player  = controller.owner
    keyboard = bge.logic.keyboard

    FACE_EAST = mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(radians(90.0), 3, 'Z')
    player.worldOrientation = FACE_EAST


Object on curve wont stay flat! I have attempting to make a fin tube for two days and it is killing me.

Fin tubes are pipes that have a tight spiral of flat fins sticking out all around them. The spiral wraps around the circumference of the pipe. They are used in heat reclaimers among other places.

I made a spiral using the extra shapes add-on and scales pretty tight. And then I set the scale.

I made the fin shape and set its scale. I added the curve modifier and it jumped around a bit. I set its origin point to one end face and finally got it going the right way off the beginning of the curve.

Then I added the array modifier and moved it to the top  of the stack. It all looked good for the first loop, then the fins started to tip. The outside edge aimed upward steadily as the inside edge seemed to continue to be oriented at the center base of the curve.

How can I keep the darned things at 90 degrees to the z axis? Or should I be using a particle system? I haven't learned that one yet, sigh.

If I understand correctly the deformation you are getting is cause by the spiral curve being naturally twisted itself.

You can probably minimize this by changing the curve tilt per vertex (which would be very cumbersome), or overriding it's twist mode.

In the Properties Window > Object Data (Curve) > Shape > Twisting switch it from whatever you have now to Z-Up and should ease the problem


Keyframe a driver / Triggering scripted expression with a keyframe I want to keyframe a driver. I have a driver on the X rotation that is driven based on the Y position. So it rotates along the X when it moves along the Y. However, i don't need it to rotate all the time when it moves along that axis but only at a certain time. So, for example: don't evaluate the driver until you're on frame 32 or beyond. (If frame >= 32 then evaluate driver's expression)

I want to go from this:

To this:

The desirable effect is achieved by baking down the animation and just tweaking the keyframes in the Dope Sheet... but, as you can understand, it removes all the procedural data, which is not desirable.

And, i don't know if it deserves a separate question, how do i calculate a delta with python? If there is a way to keyframe a driver, then i don't want just to grab the current value from the position and use it to calculate rotation; i want it to be like that: (If frame >= 32 then PositionOnFrame32 - PositionOnCurrentFrame). And i think i need it to put in the modulus (absolute value) function so to eliminate negative values.

You can use Python's ternary if-else operator:

function_of(y_location) if frame >= 32 else 0

You can nest these.

If you need to evaluate some object's position at given frame, you have to use PyDriver.

Like batFINGER suggested, binding this to the start and end position of the teeth rack (or to 2 empties) would work well also. That would look like this:

(rot_fce(y_loc) if y_loc < end_loc else rot_fce(end_loc)) if y_loc >= start_loc else 0


How could I prevent repeating textures on an object like floor tiles? Blender newbie and still a little confused by textures.

Basically, I wanted to create marble tiles with the array tool and a texture I had gotten off of Poliigon. Problem is that I'm not quite sure how to make it look like it isn't just repeating. I'd like some randomness to it but I'm not sure how to achieve it. Could anyone help with this?

Since Blender 2.8, you've been able to set a U and V offset per element in an array. Well,OK, that's an offset. But it gives you access to more.

The elements' UVs change at the same rate as the Generated UVs of the whole array.  So if you have set any  UV offsets in your Array modifiers, and then take the difference between the element UV and the array's Generated UV, you get a per-element UV: a pair of numbers which is constant per element, but different for each, which you can use for anything you like. (Shown as color in the array on the left, below.)

In this example, the per-tile UV has been used to look up a color from a Noise texture. The  R and G found in the noise at that coordinate have been used to displace the Y location and Z rotation of an image texture, per tile.


Generating a 3D grid I'm trying to generate a 3D grid that can be rendered visibly in the Cycles renderer. Preferably using a script where I can customize the size and dimensions.

I'm picturing something like this:

I've tried the answers from this question: Create gridlines in Python
But the script from the first answer only generates a floor grid which isn't very useful. For the 2nd script, I couldn't figure out how it works.

So any help will be appreciated!

I came up with two scripts, one which "brutally" instantiates verts and edges, then converts it to a curve in order to add thickness.

import bpy

mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new('Mesh_Grid')
obj = bpy.data.objects.new('Obj_Grid', mesh)

rows, columns, levels = 10, 10, 10
wire_thickness = 0.02

verts, edges = [], []

i = 0
for l in range(levels):
    for r in range(rows):
        for c in range(columns):
            verts.append((c, r, l))
            if c < columns - 1:
                edges.append((i, i + 1))
            if r < rows - 1:
                edges.append((i, i + columns))
            if l < levels - 1:
                edges.append((i, i + (rows * columns)))
            i += 1

mesh.from_pydata(verts, edges , [])

bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(obj)

obj.select_set(True)
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj

bpy.ops.object.convert(target='CURVE')

obj.data.bevel_depth = wire_thickness

Result :

And the other one which is the same as @Vega_KH's answer, but as a script. I just added a weld modifier in order to avoid duplicate geometry. (Need Blender 2.82+) :

import bpy

dimensions = (10,10,10)
wf_thickness = 0.1

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(enter_editmode=False, location=(0, 0, 0))
cube = bpy.context.selected_objects[0]

for i in range(3):
    mod = cube.modifiers.new('Array_' + str(i), 'ARRAY')
    mod.relative_offset_displace[0] = 0
    mod.relative_offset_displace[i] = 1
    mod.count = dimensions[i]

cube.modifiers.new('WD', 'WELD')
wf = cube.modifiers.new('WF', 'WIREFRAME')
wf.thickness = wf_thickness

Result :


Is the a way to project surface cuts through the entire object? I am trying to cut this block mold at the lines I made.  The issue is that I can only cut the surface, and can't figure out how to cut all the way through, including the inner geometry.  Is there a way to project these lines through the entire object?

Use the Knife Project tool: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/editing/subdividing/knife.html#knife-project Make sure you turn on Cut Through option

.. Or the Knife Tool and hit Z key to make sure to turn on Cut through:


Blender 2.8 Bake multiple textures into one (This is in Blender 2.8)
I have an object using 3 materials/UVs and would like to map them into one image so I can easily use image in Unity. Anytime I try to follow a tutorial, they say to make a new UV image, then to Smart UV Project... Some steps in between, then finally, bake the image to that new UV image you made. But when I do it, my other materials get wiped with the textures on my model, and my new UV image is empty.

1 Smart UV Mapped object with the new UV Map

2 Make A UV map of the combined uvs and material

3 Bake the textures to the UV map

4 What I get

5 This is what I want. I have followed many tutorials to get a result like this, but I was unsuccessful, I don't understand this, I don't have many hours in Blender. If I can get the result I want, an explanation of what I'm doing wrong would really help.

Using 2.8 and Cycles rendering here is a simple case that should correspond to your context:

An object with 3 materials with its own UV map (eventually several):

Each material here has its own associated mesh faces and the material look like this:

The node setting could be more complex, but that does not matter and I presume this part is already set up in your context.

Now we prepare the target on which we will bake:

Duplicate your object.

Remove the existing materials (these materials are from the original and we don't want it for the target). Use the '-' button to remove the materials.

Add a new material: use the '+' button and create a new one.

Create a new blank image, name it target and save it to disk (for some reason the bake won't work or not always if not saved, maybe because the image is considered as generated).

Create the UV map for this object: remove existing one (they are from the original mesh) and create a new one with the mean you need (smart uv project can work).

Prepare the node setting as show in the lower left part of the image above.

In particular, we need the UV map input and the image texture (with the target texture). You can already connect this texture to the shader. That will produce a warning when we'll bake but this is of no consequences in our context.

Once all this is prepared, place the two objects at the exact same location (and rotation, etc.) so that they overlap exactly.

Select the original and shift select the target. That could be a bit tricky as they overlap but pay attention to do it in this order: select one until the original is selected then shift select to have the target as selected active object.

Now we can bake:

Go to the bake section of Cycles settings:

I presume you want to have the original texture 'pure' colors with no shading (lights, shadows) effects. So choose 'diffuse' as bake type and choose 'color' as influence.

Choose 'selected to active' (all selected object will contribute to bake to the active one).

Choose 'clear image' (erase the image at the beginning of the bake).

Click the 'bake' button.

Here is the blend file so that you can check things. Textures are packed in it but you may need to save the target image to disk as said before.

Note: the target shader may fail to update automatically once the bake is done. Simply manually reactivate the node texture output to correct that.


How to change Blender compositor node value beyond max value? I am using glare node in the compositor to add streaks. However, the angle offset only goes from 0˚-180˚. This would normally be fine when there are 2+ streaks as the effect can be rotated for any position.
However, when the streaks number 1, I can only make the streaks point at downwards or horizontal angles. I am wanting to make the streaks point upwards by setting the streaks to 1 and the offset to 270˚ or -90˚ to achieve this effect.
Can the built-in nodes be edited or otherwise duplicated and customized to allow input outside of the set range?

I'm not sure how well it would work for your specific image, but you could try flipping the image, adding the glare, then flipping it back. The glare should remain "flipped" (because it was added normally to an upside-down image) while the image gets put back "upright":


API / Script - Remove all selected vertices from all Vertex-Groups How can I remove all selected vertices from all existing vertex groups via script?

Anyone with a hint for me?

Many thanks!

Script version of @ElliotThomas answer

These two scripts have to be run in edit mode.

To remove all selected verts from all vertex groups

import bpy
context = bpy.context
ob = context.edit_object

bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_remove_from(use_all_groups=True)

Alternatively can iterate through vertex groups and use the operator on the active group.  This example does as above,  can be adjusted to skip certain groups.

import bpy
context = bpy.context
ob = context.edit_object

avg = ob.vertex_groups.active
for vg in ob.vertex_groups:
    ob.vertex_groups.active = vg
    bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_remove_from()
ob.vertex_groups.active = avg

Can also use the api method vg.remove(), for example: to remove verts with indices 0, 1 and 11 from group "Group"

C.object.vertex_groups["Group"].remove([0, 1, 11])

this has to be run in object mode, or will throw an error.


Can you have mesh particles that don’t intersect? Hey there I’m just wondering what I should be using if I’m after this result where there’s scattered randomly rotated pills that aren’t intersecting each other like this…

istock example

At the moment mine looks like this where I’ve used a particle system but they’re intersecting.

or should I be using something else like rigid bodies?

Thanks in advance.

If you don't want them to intersect, then yes you should be using rigid bodies.

In the particle system settings, change the start and end frame 1 and adjust the number of particles to fit your scene. That makes all the particles spawn at the same time. Then go into the modifiers tab of the emitter object and click convert. Now each particle should be a separate object.

Then just create a rigid body sim and cache it out.


How to move selected object to the curser location using a python command? I am trying to figure out a very simple python command to move the selected object(or move the object by name) to the cursor location. Anyone know the command to do this?

Thank you!

Cursor location is global

The location of the cursor can be considered as "global coordinates".  The cursor has no parent. When the cursor location is set to zero, it sits at the scene origin.

An object's location is relative to its parent.  Its "global" or "world" transforms can be gleaned from obj.matrix_world.

To get an object in the scene by name

name = "Foo"
scene = context.scene
obj = scene.objects.get(name)

If there is no object named "Foo" obj is None

To move the object to the cursor location.

obj.matrix_world.translation = scene.cursor.location

To align both location and rotation to the cursor (Note assumes obj has unit scale)

obj.matrix_world = scene.cursor.matrix


Editing particles to remove troublesome boid instances I have a plane emitter, sending boids toward a target.

By entering Edit mode while the plane is highlighted, and then selecting Particle Edit mode, I can see the particle routes, as hairs:

The specific need is to ID boids who pass through other objects or in places they're not wanted.... and to do so by killing the offending boid without changing the rest of the baked action for the remainder of the boids.

How can I delete a specific boid or route/hair, but allow for the animated action to take place for all of the other boids?

OUTSTANDING assistance. I thank you, as does my mosasaur.

I don't think you can actually delete the boid or its path but you can move it out of the way so that it isn't visible as part of the simulation.

This can be achieved using the Particle Edit mode after you have Baked your simulation. Note that this must be baked into memory rather than a disk file - since the Particle Edit can only operate on particle systems held in memory.

In Particle select mode, choose the 'Point' select mode to allow you to manipulate all points in the particle system.

You might also find it useful to increase the Draw Path Steps in the Toolshelf (T) to make the visible paths more detail (makes it more smoothed). Also, disable the Keep Root setting so that you can move the whole path without it being joined to the emitter (used below).

Select one of the points on the path you want to 'move'

Then hit L to select 'Linked' - ie, select the whole path.

You can now 'grab' (G) the path and, since it's disconnected from its 'root' (the toolshelf checkbox you unchecked earlier) you can move it away from the emitter.

To make the selected boid even easier to 'hide' you can scale the path to zero to make it occupy a single point with S0Enter.


Can I use Nurbs curves as the bone display custom shape? I have a rigged mesh and am at the point where I'm trying to pretty it up.  I've created a few controller bones that I use to drive the IK.  I'd like to change their appearance by setting their Display/Custom Shape property.  Coming from Maya, I'm used to using NURBS shapes to make easy to identify shapes.  However, when I create a NURBS curve and use it as my bone's custom shape, nothing is displayed in the viewport.  I can set it to meshes or empties and they display fine - but not NURBS paths.

Is there a way I can use NURBS paths as my custom display shape?

you can simply transform your curve into a mesh (alt C) and then use the mesh as custom shape. be prepared to adjust loc rot and scale of your mesh/curve (a problem also with simple meshes)


How can I edit text object properties with a script? I have got some files with a lot of text objects for descriptions. Now I need to modify all these text objects.

Example:

Modify the curve resolution-U, but also modify the font bevel extrude. I can modify the extrude using this. Also if possible change the text color as I might need to add or replace existing material. All this using Cycles.

I can modify some parameters:

for ob in bpy.data.objects:

    print ('ob =', ob.name, ' type =', ob.type)
    if ob.type == "FONT":
        qtyTEXT+=1

    tcu = ob.data
    print ( 'font name =',tcu.name )

    #  Curve attributes
    tcu.extrude = 0.2     # in BU
    tcu.bevel_depth = 0.1    # in BU
    tcu.bevel_resolution = 0

But this does not allow to change the curve text parameters like resolution!

Also, would be nice to be able to add a new cycles material for each of the text object.

import bpy

# Set render engine to cycles
bpy.context.scene.render.engine = 'CYCLES'

textObjs = [ o for o in bpy.data.objects if o.type == 'FONT' ]
print( "No of text objs: %s" % len( textObjs ) )

for o in textObjs:
    print( o.name )

    # Set text properties
    o.data.extrude             = 0.2
    o.data.bevel_depth         = 0.1
    o.data.bevel_resolution    = 0.1
    o.data.resolution_u        = 12
    o.data.render_resolution_u = 12

    # Create a new material based on the object's name
    o.active_material = bpy.data.materials.new(o.name + '.mat')
    o.active_material.use_nodes = True


Separate round cube in blender 2.8 Youtube has a good example of creating a dice. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GagyfOcJHQ)(2:38-13:50). How was the separation of the round cube?

Your question is not clear, if you're talking about what he's doing a 3:10 (not sure though):

Select the 3 edges of a corner, then press shiftG (select similar) > Length, it will select all the edge with a similar length, in this case the edges separating the 6 faces of the cube.
Now to separate these 6 faces, just press V (rip).
As Pivot Center, choose Individual Origins, now when you scale down the whole mesh, each face will scale individually.
Note that his cube is shrinkwraped to another round cube, which makes the individual faces follow a round profile.


Blender crashing on one specific frame every time For some reason Blender keeps crashing when I try to render frame 7. It worked at least a few times before, but now it won't work at all; not even sheepit is able to render it. Here's the file https://1drv.ms/u/s!AhSD7EiTM5W-gp4EBKjmS1SbkJHtRg

In your case it is the usage of the experimental rendering that is causing the issue. The experimental feature implies possible bugs or crashes so don't worry about your scene not being set up accordingly.

Until the experimental features you are using are stable you can put the render engine back to supported. Then it renders just fine like it is supposed to.


Eevee way much slower than Cycles I've got a scene where Eevee viewport is so much slower that even makes my whole computer impossible to work with but when I change to Cycles it gets smooth like butter again.
Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?
Thank you

It’s likely that it’s your materials rather than your scene itself that’s causing the lag.
I have had issues in the past where using multiple Noise textures and other texture nodes within a material can really hurt performance on Eevee. This seems to be due to Eevee pre-rendering some surface textures to optimise the actual render - and this seems to cause a performance hit whenever the scene or materials are changed. Try removing your materials one at a time and see which (if any) is causing the lag. You may be able to simplify any materials that are proven to be causing the issue.

Update: I've recently made some more progress on this and tracked down slow Eevee performance to multi-dimensional Texture nodes in particular. For example, using a 3D texture (such as the default for Noise) where perhaps a 2D texture (Noise set to '2D') would do - for example, when using a UV map, the Noise (or other texture) should be set to '2D' to drastically improve performance.
Note that Eevee appears to pre-sample such textures and so reducing the Dimensions to the bare minimum for that case will drastically reduce the overhead (eg, it only needs to pre-sample a plane for a 2D texture instead of a volume for a 3D texture - the extra dimension is wasted processing time if that dimension is never actually going to be used).
Note that in extreme cases I have had Blender crash due to this - when I swapped from Cycles render view (which worked fine) to Material Preview mode (which uses Eevee regardless of your render settings). Reducing the dimensions often resolves the crash - as well as making the interface much more responsive.


Light ignoring a solid object to illuminate object hidden behind the solid object I have a scene where it would be great if the following would be possible either through Cycles or Render Layers.

I want to have a light source behind a solid object (no transparency or glass shader). Is it possible that this light source illuminates an object in FRONT of the solid object: Thereby it is important that the light is not influenced in any way. It should completely ignore the solid object.

Does anybody know a solution to this issue?

You can change the shadow option on the wall object.


giving a movie texture to lamp (spot) in cycles im currently making an underwater scene which has caustic lighting in it, so i prepare the objects (lamp, 2 planes, one with ocean modifier) and give movie texture to the lamp and... it doesnt work.

i know how to do this in blender render, in fact it just works like the same as i did in cycles render : give a movie texture to the spot lamp and it works. but it looks like cycles doesnt work the same as blender render.

here's what it looks like when i give texture to spot lamp in cycles

i've connected a texture coordinate : reflection node to the movie texture
(edited : it works and it animated, i tried rendering it out to see the light and it animated)

might not be exactly what you need but could help.
The set up is for a videomapping.
Create a spot lamp, you might need to crank it up very high (Like VERY high, use filminc blender if needed)Put a plane between the spot lamp and the surface that needs to capture the projection. Nodes for the plane

animate the offset if it is a video file


Too much smoke compared to the source mesh size so I'm doing a scene with an F14 shooting two rockets. For a better result and for realism purposes I decided to also add a smoke simulation, but when I added it the results are this:

I tried to reduce the size of the inflow mesh, tried to decrease the surface and volume emission, but the only things that two values do are to decrease the amount of smoke, but not the "radius" of the smoke since I need a much thinner smoke but still pretty dense.

For reference, I'm using this photo:

The domain is as big as the whole scene since there multiple missiles that are been shot.

This is a photo of the source inflow mesh, a basic small circle.

Thank you in advance for the help!

EDIT 1
I'm messing a little up with the domain size, and the size of the smoke is actually changing, but it's pretty unpractical

I can see your domain covers way more volume then the rocket and the jet itself. The minimal amount of smoke rendered would be the amount contained in one voxel, looking at the shape of the smoke I'd guess you don't have enough domain divisions for such a comparatively small emitter.

If the scene is totally static and the rocket does not move, you should try scaling the smoke domain in such a way it's the smallest size possible to achieve the effects you need, as calculating empty space, just wastes processing power and relative voxel size is smaller, therefore the shape of the smoke is more precise.

To know the correct domain size try baking first with lower resolution division so you can see the general shape of the sim, than increase the resolution until you get the results you want.

If you want to emit a specific amount of smoke you can keyframe the "use inflow" box

And if you want to add more realism you could consider switching the emiter from smoke to "fire + smoke"


How to remove these line shading artifacts? How do I remove these ugly shading lines? I have tried selecting the loop and using inset. I have tried subdivision surface. I have tried edge split modifier. Nothing works.  Any help is appreciated.

Delete everything. Make same sphere like you did. Don't divide it into triangles. Use proportional editing tool (shortcut "O") for every change with vertices. Go right click => SHADE SMOOTH. Add subdivision surface.


How to make image texture transparent I am making a white curtain and want it to be somewhat see through. I am using and image texture that is jpeg and not png. and wonder if this makes a difference. I have seen others make objects transparent but I just can't get the nodes to work with this white curtain. Thanks

I should mention that I am using Cycles and Blender 2.79a

JPEG does not support alpha channels. This will mean that the Alpha returned by the Image Texture node will be a constant 1.0.

The only simple solutions will be to either convert your image to a PNG or similar and add an alpha channel or to use the properties of the image to simulate alpha - for example, if the ‘background’ is pure black and the curtain doesn’t contain any black then simply use a Greater Than node set to 0.0 to generate “alpha” directly from your color data (ie, wherever Color is not 0.0 you’ll get 1.0 for alpha).


Rotation speed setting? Just wondering if there is any add on, feature, tool or third party software to set an object too rotate at a certain speed during animations such as making a wheel rotate at 1000 rpm or something like a drill drilling at 150 rpm. Any answer is appreciated. Thanks.

For this you need to do a little math. We need to find out how much the wheel spins withing 1 second.

Let's say you render at 30fps and one rotation equals 360°. First we have convert rotations per minute into rotations per second. Then we have to convert rotations per second into degrees per second.

1000rpm / 60s = 16.667rps

We multiply 360° by 16.667rps to get how many degrees it spins in a second.

16.667rps * 360° = 6000°ps

The wheel spins ~6000° per second. To find out how many degrees it spins in a frame, divide the spins per second (6000°) by the number of frames per second (30fps).

6000° / 30 = 500°

The wheel needs to spin 500° per frame to complete 1000rpm.

To do that, go to frame 1 and set a keyframe at 0° rotation. Then set a keyframe at 500° rotation on frame 2. To make it continue speaking, location the rotation fcurve in the graph editor, select it and press ⇧ ShiftE > Linear Extrapolation. (See this related answer.)

You can also use this online calculator.


How to drag select through all geometries, not just visible geometry (Using Blender 2.90)
I have a model that has lots of extra geometry (polygons) that I want to delete. I know that I can drag select geometry and then use Ctrl+X to "Dissolve Vertices". My question is, how do I drag select such that I can select all of the hidden faces/vertices as well as the visible geometry so that when I delete, any and all geometry that fit inside that drag-selected box goes away?
In essence, the problem I am trying to solve is that I have to drag and select the exact same box multiple times to actually delete all of the geometry, and that is a waste of time as well as prone to errors in mouse movement.
How do I drag-select and include all visible and non-visible geometry?
Better yet, is there a toggle to switch between visible geometry only and both visible and non-visible when using drag-select?
I see this answer here that looks like what I want, but it references a version of blender that does not match what I have, and I am a noob at Blender, so I do not know how to translate that question into something I can operate on.

It works the same way in current versions.
Just toggle the X-Ray button and you can select all faces/vertices under the cursor.


blender pickup up and dropping object -- setting visual keyframes just changes position? I'm trying to make a systematic way of pickup up and dropping objects in blender (2.8, so no dynamic parent addon).

What I've done so far is to add a child of constraint to the object being pickup up, set the parent to a specific bone, then pick up it and move it around with keframing the influence etc... then when I try to DROP it the issue comes.

WHat I've been doing is, once keyframing the influence back to zero and seeing the object reset to its original position, just manually repositioning and rerotating it to approximately the same position as last frame... But as you can gueess, that is pretty ridiculous to do, there should be a way to copy the position it was at on the last frame.

I was looking on here and I found someone said to say to keyframe the visual location/rotation the frame right before setting the child of influence to 0 and then duplicate it to the next frame, but when I simply add any "visual" keyframe (while the child-of constraint is still on), it moves the position to some completely different place ?()?

Anyone can easily duplicate this by making an armature, then adding a child-of constraint to another object etc... and when you get the influence to 1, just try adding a visual keyframe.

Why does it mess it up, and how can I fix this / drop an object easier (WITHOUT dynamic parent addon since it doesnt work in 2.80)

This is the best method I've found pick up and drop and object using the aforementioned child of constraint with an additional copy location and copy rotation constraint on that same object. Then animating the influence siders of the copy location and copy rotation constraint to achieve the desired effect. There is no need to animate the child of influence slider using this method - you can keep the child of influence slider to full strength: 1.000.


Why is this black line appearing on my mesh when I render? I am new in Blender and  I can't understand why rendering goes wrong?

I just had to check normals with Ctrl+N in Edit mode


I can only go to Object Mode I can't go to Edit Mode or any other mode besides Object Mode.

Can someone help me out? It won't show any other mode besides Object Mode.

There are mainly two ways to switch between Object and Edit mode.

1. TAB

As @depperm suggests you need to have at least one object selected;
you also need to have the mouse pointer inside the 3D View window;
just press TAB to switch.

2. Mode menu

In the 3D View header you'll find a mode menu (see picture below);

just click on it and select the mode you want to switch to.


Remove blue screen with blue object on it I have been trying to learn the basics of Blender and I have a basic understanding of keying. But here is my problem. I only have a blue screen and I am trying to utilize it. The problem is I have blue object which is interfering the keying process. I would like to know if it is really possible to still use the same blue screen and do the keying for the below image.

This is what happens when I try to apply the knowledge I have.

Keying with a color background that is similar to the objects in the foreground is not a good idea...
Also, the background is not an uniform color, since the fabric has folds and wrinkles, so you will have to key out a large amount of different tones of blue, which will force you to use very aggressive settings for the key, which in turn will result in too much of the image being affected and degraded.
But since you voluntarily put your self on a bind and a challenge, you will have to work extra. KEY the background like you would normally, then you will need to create masks for the blue pail, and use those as core matte.

But you will notice that the key node has also taken away a lot of the blue component from the image, so the output has become useless.
You will then need to use the original image and associate the matte created by the key node and use it directly on the image with a set alpha node and an alpha convert node...

Then you will need additional masks to use as garbage matte to get rid of the dark areas (the folds on the fabric) to have a clean matte.

Then you'll realize that you need to bring back the shadow from the pail on the fabric... Getting the shadow information (and subtle gradations like reflections or transparency) would have been very easy to do with a proper flat background, but now you need to re-invent that portion of the image.
Then you'll realize that one of the other blue objects is also missing, so you need more masks...
This is way too much work for something that should have been very simple (and mostly automatic), extra work that could and should be avoided with proper preparation...

Now that you've seen the extra effort that it takes to do this, change the fabric to a color that is not present on the scene, stretch it so that it has no folds, and make a new picture and key it in a simpler and proper way... Key out that color so that you have a clear edge on the objects, enough information on the shadows and reflections and so on.
Even a black fabric would be easier to key (using a luminance key) than what what you have right now.


Model Deforms When Trying to Animate I am trying to animate a voxel (cubic) model I made in MagicaVoxel using Blender, but when I try to move the feet, the soles of the feet badly deform. Also, when I move the hands, it slightly deforms the shoulder a little bit. This is my first time using blender, so I figured I would need some help for this fix. I want to be able to move the feet, hands, and head without having them deform.

Tweaked three things and got it to work.

Tris to Quads

The first thing I did was Tab into Edit Mode and key Alt + J to convert Tris to Quads. This is a form of retopologizing that is highly recommended. Triangles are not recommended when modeling.

Remove Doubles

I keyed W to open the Specials menu and selected Remove Doubles. This got rid of excess duplicate vertices that were messing with your Weight Painting. Of course, this destroyed the shading, so I added an Edge Split modifier in the Properties panel > Object modifiers tab.

Parenting

After all the changes to the mesh, I redid the parenting. I selected the mesh, then selected the armature, keyed Ctrl + P, and chose Armature Deform > With Automatic Weights.

Here is the fixed .blend file:


Object selection box in addon In my addon panel, how can I have an object selection box?  And what data type would I use to store the the selected object?

It should look like this:

Building off of the answer by @CoDEmanX, here's a simple example:

import bpy

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

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene
        layout.prop_search(scene, "theChosenObject", scene, "objects")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_module(__name__)
    bpy.types.Scene.theChosenObject = bpy.props.StringProperty()

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_module(__name__)
    del bpy.types.Object.theChosenObject

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

which gives:

How script works

The prop_search command lets the user choose one item from a bpy "collection" (in this case, the collection context.scene.objects) and saves the name of that item into a string (the string context.scene.theChosenObject).

If you need to use the object in a different part of script.  Use

scene = context.scene
obj = scene.objects[scene.theChosenObject]

By the way, if you had wanted a "Materials Selection Box", you could have used

layout.prop_search(scene, "theChosenMaterial", bpy.data, "materials")

and similarly for textures, meshes, or any other bpy collection.

Limitations

We are only saving the name of the object (for example, scene.theChosenObject could be 'Cube').  If the user changes the name of the object, scene.theChosenObject will not change and you will not be able to use it to reference the object anymore.

See here for more on this problem.


MMB rotating the scene too quickly? When rotating and zooming the view using the MMB the scene moves very fast.
How can I turn this down?

When I start blender it works fine but then maybe I click wrong key.
What is causing this to happen?

The zooming and rotation work a little oddly in Blender. Blender has to choose some point around which to rotate and toward which to zoom. If you're very far from this invisible point, zooming is exaggerated and fast. If you're very close to this invisible point, then rotation is very sensitive, but zooming gets slower. In fact, if you continue to zoom in, you'll eventually reach this invisible point and be unable to zoom any further.

The main problem is that it's hard to tell how Blender chooses this point, and when it gets updated, except that it tries to use whatever you've centered your view on. SO, select what you want to work on (an object, a collection of verts, whatever) and press Num.. This will zoom to and center your view on whatever you have selected. This also tells Blender to reset the point that it's chosen for your view center and zoom location. This should make Blender's rotation and zooming a bit more sensible, until you need to work somewhere else, in which case you'll have to do it again ;-) Anytime your zooming and rotation seem to be acting weird, just select what you're working on and use Num. to recenter your view on that, and it should return to normal. It seems like this might be bothersome, but I've found that I use Num. so often anyway, just to see what I'm working on that it ends up being pretty convenient.

BONUS: For these reasons, and others, I usually turn on "Rotate Around Selection," too.


Modeling a circular shape with round extrusions along the edge I'm making this pocket watch and am wondering how to make this design where there are a lot of round extrusions. Thanks!

Start with a mesh->circle with a lot of vertices.

Estrude and Scale:

With all of the edges/faces selected Press I to activate the Inset Tool and enable Indivdual.

By controling thethickness and depth you should be able to get something like this:

Smooth and subsurf:


What is the best way to rig a robot? So I already created a rig and everything for my Optimus Prime model but I'm not sure how to attach parts to this thing. I'm guessing I can't just parent every part, because I wanna make a transformation later on and parts need to move, rotate, etc... to other parts of his body and stick to that part from that point.
The blue and red parts basically need to rotate in place (the wheels), or unattach from the part they're moving with, move to another part in some cool way, and then attach it there. Honestly I have no idea how to start with this parenting/constraints? so some help would be awesome!

Your question is a bit vague, but I think from whre you are you have 2 main solutions: either keep all these meshes as separate objects, or join them all into one object.
Separate objects : In this case, select the part, shift select the armature, switch it to Pose mode, select the right bone, and press CtrlP > (Set Parent To) Bone.
One object: In this case, select the whole object, shift select the armature and press CtrlP > (Set Parent To) With Empty Groups. Then you need to select each part of your object in Edit mode and assign it to the right vertex group (the one that has the name of the bone that is supposed to control it) in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups.


How can render overlapped object's edge freestyle line? When I overlap 2 objects like this

resulting freestyle lines are like this

But I want render overlapped edge lines like this(red lines below picture)

What's the easiest way to accomplish my purpose?(A lot of objects in my work are made in that way so resulting render image misses many overlapped edges. I tried to remake some object to reveal overlapped edges but I realized that remaking all objects is too hard to me.)

This isn't possible (as far as I know) using freestyle. However, it is possible to fake the effect in the Compositor by looking for sharp changes to the rendered Normal and/or Depth.
To achieve this, we need to compare each point in the render with a neighboring point and highlight those areas where the Normal or the Depth varies by a significant amount between those points. This can be acieved with a node group as follows :

Here we take the Depth and Normal as inputs and translate each by a specified X and Y (multiplied by the desired Thickness) - this allows the current pixel to be compared with a neighbouring pixel.
For the Normal, the RGB Subtract node compares them and the result is separated into its components and its overall magnitude calculated (as 'sqrt(r^2+g^2+b^2)'). If the result is greater than a Threshold we have found an edge.
Similarly, the Depth is subtracted from its neighbour and the Absolute result compared with a second Threshold. The two results are combined using the Maximum.
In order to avoid artifacts from features in particular directions, we can sample neighbouring pixels in different directions. This can be achieved with multiple node groups with different X and Y offsets - one above, one below, one to the left and one to the right (ie, (0,1), (0,-1), (-1,0), (1,0)) and the results combined as follows :

This can produce the following results (after tweaking the line thickness and thresholds) :


Import a .mhx file and export it to .bvh problem I imported a .mhx file. After that, I export it to .bvh without changing it. I remark that when I import the .bvh file, I did not get the same .mhx file? I found a closer question to this problem question but i did not understand how can resolve this problem. Are there any configuration before exporting to .bvh or before importing it? Any suggestion?

I think the simple answer to this is just to save your work as a blender file, i.e. .blend.

I could not find a better way of getting around importing a .mhx file, and then .bvh file and saving my work, so I can reload it later?

As was explained here BVH Export/Import, Armature different when re-imported , blender files encode more information than bvh files so it make sense to save in blender format.


How do you add beveled circled to flat planes? I have a flat plane that I added some width to, and it's going on a machine. The plane will need four screws in all four corners.

What's the best way to do that in 2.82a?

I thought about just making one screw top, and duplicating it three times, inserting into each of the four corners on the plane and grouping/parenting.

Is there an easier way?

plate_with_beveled_holes

Welcome!  I believe I understand your question.  Please see above link.

The idea here is to think about the mirror modifier.  As such, I started with a plane situated in the upper right quadrant (in Top View).
Then, add some extra geometry to your plane (it helps with the hole that's coming).

Pick a vertex and snap your 3D cursor there, so you can add a Circle.

Select the circle, then the plane, then go into Edit Mode.  Pick Knife Project to cut a hole on the plane.  The Circle can now be deleted.

Deleting the faces inside the circle leaves you with a hole!  Extrude the plane a bit, then select the edges of the hole and Ctrl-B to bevel it.

Now for the Mirror Modifier.  The key to understanding this modifier is that it mirrors around the Origin.  That's why you see me placing the 3D cursor and changing the object's Origin- I'm controlling where the mirroring happens.

Good luck!


How can I Import Houdini Pyro VDB Cache data to Blender I wan't to Import Pyro simulation from houdini to Blender
I tried to import VDB cache from houdini to blender but it was not compatible with blender and blender could not read it
Is there any way to do that whether it is Python scripting or any way so that i can bring that pyro smulation from houdini to blender ?

Moving a pyro vdb (or any vdb for that matter) from Houdini to Blender 2.9, is fairly straightforward if your pyro sim is set up with a convert vdb and file cache sop.
Here is the end of the Houdini node tree for the pyro vdb shown below:

The convert vdb sop instructs houdini to convert your pyro into a vdb sequence(change it to vdb, as it defaults to volume,) it should look like so in the parameters--> , and the file cache will save it to disk at the output. (be sure to change cache to output to .vdb from .bgeo or you may run into problems on export)

Alternatively, (and for a more efficient way)you may  use a Pyro-Post-Process sop in place of the convert vdb sop. This will allow to do the conversion to vdb and tell houdini to save  the vdb as 16 bit float instead of 32 bit (default).

The parameters of the pyro-post-process should look like this:

Inside of Blender, add a volume object in the scene, Shift+A Volume >Import OpenVBD and select your sequence wherever it was saved to. Blender should now read the vdb sequence exported from houdini without any problems.


How can I orient objects duplicated along a curve extracted from a surface? I extracted a curve from a surface (with P in edit mode, then Alt+C in object mode). I then duplicated a cone along this curve but the duplicated objects are distorted and I can't orient them normal to the surface.
How can I duplicate the cones without distortion and orient them normal to the surface ?

my file

The issue is your curve has unapplied scale. Apply it with CtrlA> Scale and it will work fine (note that you will have to re-position your cone):


Boolean modifier doesnt render correctly Blender 2.80
I have two meshes (curves extruded along paths) that I have combined with ⌃ Ctrl + J union. Now I am trying to subtract a third mesh using a Boolean Modifier. When I select difference, I don't see the difference result. When I select union it sort of renders a difference but not exactly either.
I have had this happen while performing union on a couple of other extruded meshes but was able to fix it by removing the terminal edges of the mesh and extruding the terminal face before performing union. In this case, I am stumped. I don't know whats causing the problem.
First question I have is the union of the two extruded meshes. I was hoping to see just some exterior faces on the boundary of the two meshes. Rather it looks like the super imposition of the two.
When I subtract the third mesh from the union, the boolean tools are freaking out. Is this because of the issue I am pointing out in the first question.
I have looked for non manifold geometry and loose geometry but haven't found any. I did not find any duplicate vertices to join. I have already performed a limited dissolve.
Can someone help.
Union of first 2 meshes

When third mesh is subtracted I expect a channel but it renders as an union

MeshA + MeshB - MeshC

edited to answer the question better
go into latest version of blender (2.91) and try using the new booleans they added (Fast, Exact) i havent used these very much so it might not work, and also make sure that the meshes arent the same height or there will be weird artefacts so try making the subtracting mesh and make taller, this is because the boolean system has problems working with meshes that are exactly the same, (like duplicating an object and leaving it at the same place, blender cannot handle the two meshes and breaks)
for the shading artifacts i recomend recalculating the outside normals go into edit mode, select all faces or vertices, then select mesh, normals, recalculate outside, hope this edit helps


How to make a procedural white birch bark material in cycles? How can I proceduraly create the dark lines as seen in white birch (paper birch) bark?

This is the exact type of effect I'm trying to replicate. Random sized "lines" in the bark, yet they all run the same direction.

You can see in this picture, that this variation of birch has a slightly different bark pattern. Here the lines are much longer. (At this point I don't care about the random dark blobs, they are mostly knot holes, but if somebody wants to include that too... :)

-pixabay

Making a birch shader completely procedurally is quite a challenge, this is my version:

(download blend file below)
Like the other two answers already say: you achieve these effects with stretched noise textures, color ramps and mix nodes. It takes quite a bit of time and experimenting to figure out which noise looks best for the specific surface. I mainly used the standard noise and musgrave noise.
Unfortunately I can't walk you through the whole shader, but here are some steps that helped me:

research the node wrangler add-on to prevent headaches

work from large-scale noise to small-scale noise. Here I created the big random blotches first, after that the horizontal lines and at the end the tiny black spots. That helps keeping the proportions right. It needs to look right from distance first, keep the details for later.

look at your noise textures isolated. With the node wrangler add-on activated, you can Ctrl+Shift+ leftclick a node and a viewer gets created.

stay between values of 0 and 1. When you start to mix the different noise textures for more complex noise, always look at the isolated result and make sure that the values don't go negative or exceed one. Your shader won't break when you have values below 0 and over 1, but it makes it much harder to work with, because these values can't be displayed.

group components to keep your overview... but: don't group them too early. Isolating nodes doesn't work in groups and this makes it really hard to "debug" node-groups, when you want to find one specific pattern.

Here are the horizontal lines I used:

create noise texture
scale on z axis by mapping coordinates (i used 4, 4, 40 in scale)
a high contrast color ramp for sharp edges
i used only the R channel of the noise

The result of that color ramp could then be used to

mix between shaders (as a factor in mix shader node)
create a mask, e.g. for colors or shader properties like roughness
be mixed with other noise patterns to create more complex and interesting noise
...

Here is the file:


Blender for wood turning I am an active woodturner and want to create segmented turnings for pens and bowls. One of the issues is that i can visualize what i want but after creating the segmented blank and turning it round, sometimes it does not look right. I have used Sketup for creating the blank to size and it works well. But it only really shows what the whole shape will be.
Now, what i would like to know, will blender let me create a rectangle with the segments in place and then digitally turn it round to show what the final shape would be?

Yes! (and it is easy)

Make a pen blank just like you would do in the real world, glue different pieces together, then turn them round.

I'm just using colored cubes as my wood pieces. It is literally just scaled cubes duplicated and with different materials. (I'm sure you are planing more complicated turnings.)

Now to see what it would look like turned down.

This works better if the different pieces are all separate objects. (If there not just go into edit mode and press P > Loose Parts).
Add a cylinder the same size as a finished pen blank (using real world units would help) and position it so that is goes through all of the laminated cube stack.

Do note here in these pictures I'm showing two different pen blanks. Thus I have two different cylinder objects, and twice as much work.
Back on the pen blank object, pick any of the pieces (lets use the top piece) and add a Boolean Modifier to the pen blank object. Set the Object to the cylinder object you added in step 2, and leafe the Operation as Intersect.
Now select all the other pen blank pieces, keeping the one you already added the boolean modifier to the active object, and press CtrlL > Modifiers.

Here is kind of what it will look like. (I kept the cylinder objects showing, changed them to wireframe display, but you should hide H them.)


Moving multiple vertices in a model I was wondering how to move groups of vertices along a line. This picture shows what I want to do:

I want to move the vertices and edges inside the dark black line so that they are flush to the thick line. if anyone knows a macro for this please post it here.

The original object can have a Shrink Wrap Modifier added. Later you may choose to press the Apply Button or Apply as Shape Key.

Objects and Outliner above.

Original yellow object with Shrink Wrap Modifier not visible in 3D View in the image above.

Original yellow object with Shrink Wrap Modifier visible 3D View in the view above.

The vertex group selected in the image above.

The target of the shrink wrap.  Cube Scaled on X axis in edit mode with Mirror Modifier and Empty placed at center.  You can be more artistic.


Can't edit driven number value, see graph editor for the driver setup Good day. I get the error "Can't edit driven number value, see graph editor for the driver setup." I have a leg that I will bend. To make it look good, I decided to follow this video (https://youtu.be/CaHomz6gPWY?list=PLRNEtMVoxM681OU2OEl5FDH-6O8CLlP8X). But after I follow it step by step and install the driver, my value is reset to zero, the transformation is not applied, and this error also appears. If I uncheck "Does F-Curve contribute to result" in the drivers editor, then the transformation is applied, but the error keeps coming out and the shape keys do not work correctly. I created a new file from scratch, and used a regular cylinder, but the error appears anyway. Rotation of the model in Video happens to be set to X and in my model also rotation is set to X. What am I doing wrong?

So. I finally solved the problem by following this video  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JWNIkwBZ8). To fix it, in the Driver window add  Modifier Generator and change Y in it from -1 to 1.


Edit multiple meshes at once? I want to edit a game model and I can't join the meshes with CtrlJ because the model will not work in the game anymore. If I use P in Edit Mode, the meshes will split into even more meshes than before, with different names, and it will not work anymore.

The model is separated into multiple meshes.
I can edit the vertices of each mesh, but I can't edit multiple meshes at once, so that they stay "synchronized".

Any idea how to do this without CtrlJ or a way to "unjoin" keeping the same meshes names before joining?

There is an addon called MultiEdit, that will enable you to edit multiple objects at once.
Here is the post on blender artists where the download can be found.

After you have installed and activated the addon, you just select the objects that you want to edit together, and click on the MultiEdit Enter button in the tool shelf.
Then when you are done, toggle back out of edit mode and click on the MultiEdit Exit button.


How can I select the greater of two properties in python and send the result to a driver? I am using the method shown in this question to select the size of a text object and drive the size of that object, however I have two text objects in my scene that should be the same size. Is there a way to select the greater of the two and drive both drivers by that value. Is this possible?

An update on script from my answer in linked question Any idea how to fit text width to screen

If scene.match_font_width is True it will resize all text in scene to match the one with greatest width.  I've put in both an update method on scene.match_font_width and a scene_update handler to make it "live" in the interface.  For most applications, I would imagine, the handler is "overkill", as you can just toggle the switch.

Using a driver approach here could result in the dreaded cyclic redundancy check, as the width of t2 is set to t1 (if bigger) that is checking to see if its bigger than t2.

import bpy
from bpy.props import BoolProperty

def set_width(scene):
    if not scene.match_font_width:
        return None

    text_objs = [o for o in scene.objects if o.type == 'FONT']
    max_width = max([o.dimensions.x for o in text_objs])
    for o in text_objs:
        o.dimensions.x = max_width
        o.scale.y = o.scale.x

    return None

def setwidth(self, context):
    return set_width(self)

bpy.types.Scene.match_font_width = BoolProperty(default=False, update=setwidth)
bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_post.clear()
bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_post.append(set_width)

if True:
    def match_textwidth(self, context):
        self.layout.prop(context.scene, "match_font_width", toggle=True)

    # for unregister method, hit F8 to clear by reloading scripts.
    #bpy.types.DATA_PT_font.remove(match_textwidth)

    bpy.types.DATA_PT_font.append(match_textwidth)

If there are some text's you want to resize and others you want left untouched, adding a custom prop to the ones to resize would be one solution

text_objs = [o for o in scene.objects
             if o.type == 'FONT'
             and "prop" in o.keys()]


Rebuilding checkbox indicators as in quick favourites In the Viewport Overlays there is an option to show / hide all bones.
I added this toggle to my quick favourites.

I would like to re-build the same behaviour inside my own 'quick favourite like' menu.

How can I do something like that on my own menu?

Feeling qualified to answer this by myself:

Inside the draw() method of the menu class, the self.layout.prop() method can to be used to access a property and automatically draw the desired checkbox:

class MyMenu(bpy.types.Menu):

    bl_idname = "OBJECT_MT_my_menu"
    bl_label = "My Menu"

    def draw(self, context):
        self.layout.prop(view3d_overlay, "show_bones", text="Toggle Bones")


How to fake fluid in a jar while moving jar around I am trying to create a pickle jar, and when the jar moves/rotates, how would I make the appearance of the fluid staying level. I am trying to avoid heavy processing from a fluid simulation.  not looking for hyper realism just a quick fix.

You can use a Surface Deform Modifier on a higher poly mesh and run a cloth sim on a low poly mesh to make it look like water, OR just use the lower poly mesh, if you don't need realism:

High poly mesh --> Add cube --> subsurf modifier level 2 and apply it--> cut the bottom half off and delete in edit mode (so you have a half sphere) --> right click in edit mode and subdivide it 2 times --> Scale on z axis until flat-ish, like top of water

Low poly mesh --> Add second cube --> subsurf modifier level 2 and apply it -> cut off bottom half again -->  Do Not subdivide more --> scale in edit mode so it's flat-ish, same shape or as close as you can get to the higher poly mesh --> align lower poly right on top of higher poly,very close

--> set surface deform modifier on high poly mesh, with low poly mesh as target -->  click bind

--> set a cloth physics simulation on low poly mesh --> make outer ring of LP mesh a vertex group with weight of 1.000 --> use that vertex group as pinning group in cloth sim>Shape>Pin group (so it doesn't go flying off the screen, lol)--> adjust weight of cloth to .8 kg; Field Weights>Gravity to .001
EDIT: try switching "angular" to "linear" in ClothSim > Physical Properties > Bending Model.  This might smooth out the physics.

--> Add empty --> add force field>Vortex to empty --> set vortex strength to 200

This should be a start, just play with the cloth simulation a little bit.
If you use higher poly, set lower poly to Not Render.

I'll come back and see if I can edit this later and maybe add a "How to" video, too tired right now.


Cleaning Up Dissolved Faces And Random Vertexes The image shows off how I make my models for interiors and exteriors of buildings, which is to say I measure everything out and I'm left with a messy model with way too many faces. But when I go about dissolving faces, such as the selected windows here, and then I separately go and dissolve the faces around the cleaned up ones, I'm left with a bunch of vertex points.
How should I get rid of them? I don't want to select all and then dissolve because then the separate faces will all join up, I only want to get rid of the random vertex points along otherwise smooth faces.

It seems to me Limited Dissolve can help in this situation. It can dissolve all vertices between vertices of which the angle of the connecting edges and faces are below a certain given angle value.


Glare effect in compositing on one object in Blender 2.8 I want to add a glare effect in compositing on exactly one object in blender 2.8, so what's the way of doing it?
What I want is to lock this glare node only on one object in scene, not the whole scene.

If I were you, I would find a way to render just the object you want to have glare on. I learned something like this was possible from InLightVFX's videos. Then, you could render the rest of the scene and composite the two renders on top of each other.


Extrude face down without disturbing adjacent surfaces I am new to Blender.

I am trying to make a neck for my character's head, by extruding a face on the underside of their head.

I am trying to achieve this:

But when I press e to extrude, or drag down with the transform tool (orientation set to Local), I get this:

So I set the transformation orientation to Global, and I get this:

My character head currently:

Could anyone please guide me in the correct direction?

Many thanks.

By default the extrusion will follow the face normal (it's orientation). If it's not vertical the extrusion won't be either. To extrude and constrain on the Z axis just press E then Z.

Also, for this kind of faces that stick to the mirror axis, if you enable the Mirror Clipping option it will prevent the creation of a face on the axis itself.


Cycles materials in game engines I am aware that Cycle materials do not work in real time engines like game engines but why is that? Is it because of the coding language of the shader being different from the one supported by the game engine? Or is there even an advanced problem  than just the coding language?

Only game engine purposed materials work in their specific game engines, just like only specific render engine materials work in their specific Render Engine of origin. (Blender Internal Materials only work in Blender Internal Render, not Cycles, and vice versa).

Every rendering environment (realtime, game engine or otherwise) uses it's own specific material definitions specially designed for their particular task and non other.

A few exceptions are probably generic material definition standards like OSL (Open Shading Language) or GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) or RenderMan Shading Language among others.

As far as I know there is nothing stopping a render engine from using Cycles materials, I am sure they could hypothetically be be easily ported, actually more the other way around, a game engine could perfectly be designed around rendering Cycles shaders.

In fact one already exists, in the upcomming Blender 2.8 the new viewport realtime OpenGL render engine EEVEE can and uses mostly cycles material definitions and display them in real time. Cycles object viewport previews will also be generated by EEVEE.

Bottom line is, to the best of my knowledge the problem doesn't lie in the materials themsleves, the shaders, the languages or anything else, the problem lies in optimization and purose.

Game engines need speed and responsiveness above all, they can't spend the endless time needed to render a Cycles scene, as such corners are cut. You can't have all the nice things an offline render provides like raytraced reflections, indirect lighting, mesh lights, refractions etc, as such that eye candy has to be faked with various complex and intricate techniques.

Real time materials are therefore optimized for these tasks, make abundant use of pre-calculated effects, baked maps, lots of textures, screen space ambient occlusions, deferred rendering, etc., whereas a Cycles material aims for realism and flexibility of use at the expense of render time.

Making render engines compatible with third party material definitions is also a huge complex task, error and bug prone, can cause artifacts and unexpected results, may introduce negative implications like worse performance and feature limitations.

See for example Cycles support for OSL shaders, you can have them but while using them you can't get GPU acceleration for example.

It is also often pointless to do so, there are no real gains in say Unreal or Unity supporting something as niche as Cycles shaders in their pipeline. Business strategies and market competition also probably restrict sharing proprietary shaders between rival companies.


Help. How can I have a plain track to two different planes I've been trying to create a setup with three planes. When one of them moves on the z axis, the center plane should look towards it on the y axis. When the other one moves on the z axis, the center plane should look towards it on the x axis. Here is an animation of what i'm trying to achieve. Does anyone know how to do this,

welcome.  Please see below article on Drivers.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/animation/drivers/introduction.html

In this animation, I have the Drivers panel open at the bottom.  Good Luck!


Missing Keyboard Shortcuts on Tooltips in Blender 2.8 RC I'm new to Blender and decided to try the 2.8 Release Candidate. The YouTube Video introducing the interface shows Keyboard Shortcuts in the Tooltips. However, I'm unable to see any Keyboard Shortcut being displayed in any Tooltip. (See Image)
Is there a setting in Preferences that I should enable in order to see these?

Blender Details:
version: 2.80 (sub 74), branch: master, commit date: 2019-07-11 13:50, hash: 06312c6d2db8, type:
build date: Thu 07/11/2019, 09:59 AM
Windows Version: 1903 (build 18362.207)

If the Spacebar action is set to 'Search', there is no shortcut for the toolbar and so also none is displayed in the tooltip (Source)