Boolean with text without conversion I'm trying to find a way to make boolean operation between a mesh and a text with a solidify modifier without applying a conversion to the text.

I could copy the text, convert it to a mesh, then apply boolean modifier with this copy, but i lose the ability to change the text easily without repeating those operations.

Any idea?

You can use the booltron addon for this. It works with Curve and Text objects, but it isn't a modifier, it is a command. You select objects for a boolean operation (you can select more than 2) and press the operation name (intersect / difference / union).

Also, booltron fills holes before intersections.

This is the magic (I added a shortcut for the difference operation):


Scale and Rotate Stopped Working [2.8] I am using Blender 2.80 beta. In Object Mode Scaling and Rotating objects stopped working.

How do I enable rotating and scaling again?

The button that is referenced in Blender 2.7x does not exist in Blender 2.80.
The odd thing is if I create a new model everything works fine...it just stopped working on my original model and still isnt working.

???

In the latest release the tool options header is hidden by default. However, the same options can be accessed from the Property panel.

From the panel, go to the Active Tool and Workspace settings tab > Options header > Transform > Affect Only and then uncheck all (Origins; Locations; Parents).


How can I reset my menus? I accidentally opened too many menus (or windows) and I want to reset them to default.  It is really annoying, and effecting my animation.  Thanks

Info Header

The Info header is the header bar that contains the File menu option.

Each window in Blender has a header bar and the type of window is set by the first icon on the left-most side of every header.

For example, in this picture, the different windows are highlighted in yellow and the Window Type icon for each is highlighted in green:

In order to change any window from one type to another, just click on the Window Type icon and select the type of window you want to have. In your case, you will need to set one window to Info since it has the File menu option so you can restore the factory defaults by clicking: File > Load Factory Settings. Here is what the Info icon looks like:

NOTE: It is also possible to hide the header by dragging it's top edge down. This leaves a small grey tab with a + sign in it on the right-hand side of the window. Clicking on this + tab brings the header back into view:

You can read more about header bars here in the Blender Wiki.

Manually Rearranging Windows

However, you can also manually close windows or open new ones by dragging on the  window splitter widgets (they look like a little ridged thumb grip) in the upper right and lower left corners of every window:

Here is a demonstration of how to drag the window splitter widgets to open and close different windows, as well as how to change these windows from one type of window to another by changing the Window Type icon:

You can learn more about how to manually arrange window frames the way you would like them here.

You can also check out the answers here and here.


What settings do I change to render an animation of 60 fps instead of 24 fps for video editing? I rendered an animation at 24 fps, but I need it at 60 fps for rendering. At 60 fps, it's going to take around 6 hours, so I don't want to mess anything up. How do I change the fps without changing the video speed? Also, do I have to rebake my fluid sim? My current render is 240 frames with the step at 1 frame.

Time is a relative concept when it comes to video and framerates.
If you want a second of video you need as many frames as the framerate (time base) you are working on. For example: a single second at 24fps needs 24 frames.
If you generate 60, then you need to playback at 60fps to get that same second on the screen, or you need to play some frames and drop (ignore) others if playing back at 24fps.
If your goal is to have more frames to be able to stretch the playback and generate "slow motion" or speed ramps without having to interpolate frames, then render the animation at 60fps or higher and play back at 24 fps so that those 60 frames will play over two and a half seconds (roughly)
What is the difference between changing framerate and time remapping? you ask.
If you change the "framerate", you will generate more frames for every second of video. The playback speed will need to increase as well to keep a second still a second. Most video editing software (not blender's VSE) can deal with different timebase for elements on the timeline.
If you use the "time remapping" settings in blender you will be changing the global speed of the whole animation but keep the timebase (framerate). If you set Old to be 100 and and new to be 200 your animation will play back in more frames within the same framerate. A second of the original animation will occur over two seconds now, creating two seconds worth of frames. You will need to adjust the Frame Start and Frame End settings for the render to accommodate for this change.
The decision is yours on which one to use,but in either case you need to re-render and bake the simulations again.


Extrude/Scale evenly in a mirrored circle I use the mirror modifier to mirror a circle shape. Now I want to add a lip on the end, but with even width all the way around. But I can't get this to work because the origin seems to be off center. Is there a way to do that?

Pivot in the circle's center

The origin of the trasformation in your current setup is probably set to "median point", so the scaling is using the baricenter of the geometry as pivot point.

This is usually not a problem while scaling a full circle, as the baricenter of the whole points is in the exact location of the center of the circle.

If you are controlling just half of the point, you should switch to another type of pivot point, that allows you to set the center of the circle as pivot for the transformation.

I'll suggest to use the 3D cursor as shown in the image sequence below:


How to disconnect edges How do I disconnect edges/vertices?

I would like to disconnect an edge loop, so can I move them individually. (Splitting the mesh into two is not an option.)

Dissolve Mesh > delete > dissolve will delete geometry and fill in the surrounding area in a non destructive way
Rip rips apart vertices or edges V


Project from view so that the UVs match the background image Is there a way to use the "project from view" unwrapping method so that the resulting UVs automatically line up with the image, if the same image is used both for the background image and the texture?

At least for me it's a very common workflow to model something on top of a background image and then unwrap with the "project from view method". But I always end up having to scale and move the UV's to match the image, which feels unnecessary, since I already modeled everything to match the BG image perfectly.

Can Blender do this? If not, would it be difficult to write a a script or addon to do this?

Use Project from View Bounds instead of Project from View.


Blender Internal - colorless render (no materials) I downloaded a model from BlenderSwap - https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/88280 - but when I render it the result is almost colorless but not quite (so I am pretty sure it is not greyscale, although have double checked the render settings and they are on RGBA

One of the materials in the model called Clay does seem to be this color but most of the faces are assigned the yellow or green materials which show up fine ... until it is rendered.

There are no textures in use so it can't be missing external files.

I've compared my render settings with other blender files that work and they seem identical.

What am I missing?

Many thanks!

Check your Render Layers settings - this includes an option to override the material for all objects in the scene :

If set, Blender will render all meshes with the specified material.

EDIT:

Newer versions of blender don't use layers, but "collections" so the override function is in the scene>View Layer section.

Additional info:

Where is the Layers panel in Blender 2.8?

2.8 - Is it possible to assign (override) a material to a whole collection?


Scaling objects without scaling children I have two basic meshes: "head", selected, and "tube", below (apologies for the bad layout).

What I'm trying to do is extend the tube object by scaling it in the z-axis, while keeping the head in the same size and same place relative to it. Obviously, just scaling the tube will have no effect on the head, while using Proportional Editing also scales the head. If I just scale tube then move head to it, it's difficult to get the placement precise (since vertex co-ordinates aren't the same between objects).

How do I scale one and keep the other fixed relative to it?

Full disclosure: this is just a simplified example, while my actual mesh is imported from a .obj, so any solutions involving creating the mesh from scratch won't work.

There are many ways to do what you've described. It's kind of difficult to know which method will suit your particular project. But I will offer some ideas.
Method 1.
Parent each object to the bones of a two-bone Armature. Then set the child bone to not inherit scale.
Method 2.
Use Vertex Parenting to parent the upper object to the vertices of the top part of the lower object.
Method 3.
Join them as a single object, then create a Shape Key wherein the bottom part is taller but the top part is simply raised (not scaled).
Method 4.
Just move them (super-basic).
If this doesn't need to animate, then it's as simple as grabbing the upper object, translating it up on the Z axis by some value (you can type it in), and then going into Edit Mode and doing the same for just the vertices on the upper part of the lower object.
Vertex Snapping is also a handy tool for this kind of situation, because you can snap the lower object's vertices to the bottom of the upper object.
As I stated in the beginning, there are so many ways to do this, plus I don't know your skill level or the details of what you are aiming to do, so it's hard to know how to answer. But I hope this helps. Feel free to ask questions.


Nodal Setup for Diffuse, Emission, Normal and Specular map in Cycles Render I downloaded a model from here: https://www.models-resource.com/mobile/marvelscontestofchampions/model/15341/

It has got 4 maps(with suffixes _d,_e,_n and _s).

I tried a nodal arrangement(which I bet isn't right) but i couldn't configure specular into it.

The End Result:

How do I add the Specular map and give it a metallic shine as seen in the linked page.
I am learning textures and materials and so a gist or any learning videos which might be helpful are encouraged.

Thank You.

This node setup works and it's a very basic one, tell me if you understand. Note that all the Image Texture nodes are supposed to be in Non-Color Data mode except the one for the Diffuse node. Also, I needed to put a ColorRamp node after the Specular Image Texture node to give more strength to the Diffuse node against the Glossy one.

If I explain quickly: I mix the Diffuse Image Texture with the Glossy, and use the Specular as the factor. This is basic: the Specular picture will determine what part of the object is glossy, what other part remain matt. But as the object was super glossy I had to adjust with a Converter > ColorRamp node after the Specular. Also, as I want both the Glossy and the Diffuse to be affected by a Normal map to give some fake 3D details, I needed to put the Normal Map in both the Diffuse and the Glossy. Now to finish the object you need to switch on the lights with an Emission shader: Just add a last Mix Shader and mix the Emission node and use the Emission map as the factor.


What is best way to organize a scene with different sets of materials? I am currently creating an interior scene and want to show different examples of wall/ floor materials to my customer. So I was thinking about how to organize my scene when I want to have different sets of materials on my objects.

Right now I have about 15 objects that use the same wall material (partly on a few faces only) and 3 wall materials I want to show (paint, wood, tiles).

What do you think is the best way to do that?

My first idea was to simply copy all the walls to a new layer and then change the material.
pros: one click - switching between scenes
cons: - file becomes bigger
- Objects are not linked, so if I change something it will be in one scene only

==> Is there a way I can create a linked object without linking the material?

Second idea was to attach all the materials to the same object and change them by applying them in edit mode (I will have to create vertex groups for the faces I need).

pros: I don't create unwanted copies of my objects
cons: I will have to do that manualy for every object

Third idea is to turn every material into a node group, then create a kind of master material (called something like "wall covering"), add all the node groups to this material and switch between them by connecting the node groups to the material output - node.

pros: 1click - changing of material on all objects at the same  time
- no copies of my objects

cons: if I want to make a change to a material I will have to change the node group instead

Has anyone experience with any of these solutions or any new ideas? Are their any important pros/ cons I didn't think of?

I am currently using the beta of blender 2.8.

Thank you for posting your question so clearly.
Yes, there is a better way to do this, specifically for Archviz.

Create a SPHERE or GRID, apply desired texture material.
On your scene, FIRST select your wall-to-be-changed-material, then select the sphere/grid you created to represent your material LAST. Hit CTRL+L (Link data shortcut) and select MATERIAL.

Now, repeat for all geometry that will use that material. In my example picture, everything in the house that will use the PINK material, are "CTRL+L" (Linked) to that material.

Have your material nodes ready and separated to connect EACH material into the corresponding "LINKED MATERIAL sphere/grid".
This is how you can change materials amazingly quicker without the need to enter groups. This way you change all your properties visually -by literally interchanging- the material output connector.

Notice the first thing is to link geometry to this other geometry which contains the TEXTURE. (1). Inside that material you have all your OTHER MATERIAL NODE GROUP options. So it is easy for you to single connect (interchange connect) when you touch that material (for the sake of the example: I´m going to call the ball mesh material "GRASS", so I know all GRASS elements are depending (LINKED) to this material.
Then, on the shader tree, I can have other NODE GROUP options to reconnect other option materials (2).

If asset library was here (Blender 2.8 new feature) we could do just "drag drop" materials on this LINKED mesh. But since we can´t now (feature probably available by May or later), then all we are left to, is to have the group nodes contained INSIDE the material, but not connected until you want to switch them.

Thanks if you vote me up as ANSWER to your question.
Cheers.


Transfer weights of selected faces to an other bone possible? I forgot to apply mirror modifier to my model before I parented the rig to the mesh. I did that afterwards but it made occur some errors with the weight paint.  The screenshot shows my problem especially for the leg. It's weighted for the bone I crossed with red. The other leg is controlled by the very same bone.  The mirrored bone on the other side on the other hand doesn't have any weighted part on the mesh.  Is there any possibility to just transfer the selected faces (as visible in the screenshot) from one bone to an other of the rig? Or do I have to delete all vertex groups again and re-connect model and rig?

I don't know how you named your bones, but each bone should have been assigned to a vertex group named as the bone. See the mesh "object data" properties tab, under "vertex groups". There you can select/deselect, assign/remove vertices from the selected vertex group.

You can control which vertex is in which group, and eventually remove wrong vertices from the wrong leg group and assign them to the right leg group.

Beware that weight painting can add painted vertices to the selected bone's group.

Marco


Motion Tracking Data into Animation Nodes Editor? I've created a simple motion track from video in the movie clip editor.  I can see the motion data in the graph view:

I've also created an empty from the motion data and when I hit playback I can see the empty moving in the 3D view.

The problem is that when I add the empty as an object to the Node Animation area and wire it to any other node, I never see the X/Y values change over time during playback.  Here's my current node layout:

(EDIT: I'm using the text node to view the value of the X coordinate in real time during the animation playback).

I know that the motion data can be used in the Compositor layout using the Track Position Node, but I want to use the tracking data to animate an object in the 3d space and am assuming the Animation Node editor would be more appropriate.

Is there any way of getting the empty's location data into the Animation Node editor or barring that, passing the Track Position output from the Compositor Node editor into the Animation Node editor?

UPTDATE:  As recommended by SergeL, here's is how to retrieve the tracker empty location data using Animation Nodes:

According to the documentation:

  Matrices from Matrix Input node are more reliable than transforms from Transforms Input node because of their different forms and because they are always up to date even during physics simulations or when constraints are used.

For instance, if one uses a Copy Location constraint to adjust the object's location, the transforms will report the original location while the matrix inputs will report the final location.


How to make parts of a texture Shiny I have this box and i need to make the yellow parts shinny golden but the text on top of it to be there as it is. Any idea how to do this?

Make a second texture that is a copy but is black everywhere except white where you want the shiny (gloss) and add that as a texture to influence the specular only in Blender Render material, or to control the amount of gloss node effect in Cycles material.


Eyes/ Double Transform When i translate the Torso/Root controller, the eye look at works as it should but the individual eye targets inherit double transform, which result in eyes facing in another direction.

How do i fix this?

As Chetan Trivedi said:

  .. . I overlooked the parenting of the minds eye (the parent of the two individual eyes). Minds eye was not parented to the head deformation bone which was causing the problem. Its fixed now.

Posted to take this off of the un-answered list


Weird texture problem with glass I'm trying to make a posion, however, when I try and aim the camera,it still shows the wood, not sure what's causing it.

The answer was from Subol, he said that it wasn't thick enough, to make it "thicker", add a solidify modifier.


Diffuse color inheriting from background No joke, I was in the middle of creating an example for another problem I was having when I stumbled onto some weird behavior. Can someone explain why this is doing this? It's in cycles by the way.

So I made a 1920x1080 texture in gimp, white background, with the word test written in blue.

I applied this to a plane (which was UV unwrapped).

I then went to the blackground tab, clicked on use nodes, and turned the brightness up (1, 1, 1 on RGB) When I rendered it everything was white, I couldn't see the boundaries of the plane. When I turned the color down (so now it's some shade of grey) the plane simply changed color.

That little circle is roughly where the plane is (plane is a bit bigger in reality), and, even though you can't see it, the background is also in view. The arrow is pointing to the grey background picture. My texture background is solid white, but now it's grey.

The apparent brightness of the plane depends on the amount of light reflecting off of it and into the camera. If there isn't as much light, then it'll appear darker.


How to remove blur off toon shading blender render This is my render. But how do I remove blur off the toon shader with the blender render? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

and I want it to look like this

What you are seeing isn't a blur, it is reflections and highlights.

You can either turn the size and smooth down to zero for the diffuse and specular settings -

or enable shadeless to eliminate all highlighting.


How to repeat an action with offset in NLA? Reading up to answer my question it seems that Blender once had an offset setting in NLA for use in conjunction with Repeat but that has been replaced with something else. I can't find out what it is.

I tried making a simple animation of the default cube of just a few keystrokes using the timeline and then using Cycles with Offset in the graph editor to repeat the action. Fine, but when viewed in the Action Editor, the repeat cycles cannot be seen and when pushed down to the NLA, the action strip is just the basic timeline animation with no repeats.

If I want to make an action strip comprising say 20 repeats of a cycle WITH OFFSET how can I push that action into the NLA or its cache so I can then use the full strip at will?

If you want to make it this way, you have to increase the lenght of the action manually. You can also use the Repeat function of the NLA editor below the red frame.


Can we copy UVediting colors of an object and paste it into our Layout object I am modeling a house and using UV editing now but when I click on Layout the colors are gone
I want the same colors for my Layouts panel so will I have to make individual materials and assign each color to respective object or there is an easy way around.

One way to get meshes shaded in Solid view is to assign them materials and, in the material tab (on the right), scroll down until you see a property called "Display Color" (or something). This is the color you will see in Solid view and it is also the color your UV's will export with. You must "assign" the material to the faces you want to be that color.


Set edge of an object at a precise distance from another I'm totally new with blender, and I want to measure the space that is present between the center of an object and a second object:
the first object is a road, and this is its center:

the second object is a rail, and I have to move it to exactly 9,012meters on the right of the y axis of the road:

how can i place it measuring the distance with precision?

One obvious solution seems to be snapping.

Select the road, and put 3D cursor there (Object > Snap > Cursor to selected)
Add > Object > Plane and set  it's size to 9,012 meters. Now we have a measure.
Enable snapping to Vertex > Closest.
Move the rail along X axis and snap it to one corner of the 'measure' plane.
It will be exactly 9m from the center of the road.

New objects appear at 3D cursor. My plane size is 400 mm. Your's will be 9,012 m.


Blender 2.8 how extrude Z axis on imported SVG I am using blender 2.8 and I imported an SVG file and was able to convert it into a mesh. I used mesh clean up -> limited dissolve to remove extra vertices. I would now like to extrude my object on the Z axis but it will not occur.

Reading older posts, on older version of Blender, seems to indicate I need to modify something to allow Z axis extrusion. but I am not sure where to go in the UI to modify that property?

ok, at the very bottom of this, helped answer my question.
Extrude on Z axis

"Also make sure you "apply scale" (CTRL+A) to make extruding work as expected. "


Texture on large objects are just copying/replicating I just wanted to make some sort of a landscape, but when I apply the texture and scale it via UV Wrap it will just copy and paste the texture creating squares with the texture.

How do I Make it so there aren't borders, but still have the texture really tiny so it really looks like grass or dirt.

Thanks in advance

The topic of landscape texturing is quite big and not easy to condense to format here.

Answer 1:
You aren't using properly tiling texture. When you have properly tiling texture (Texture that has been created/edited to tile/connect to its own border edges) even though it will become repetitive it shouldn't have these sharp edges between the tiles, even at very high tiling.
(To learn more you should google/youtube "creating tiled textures" or "tiling texture" etc)

Answer 2:
Even with properly tiling high quality textures using one texture isn't really enough to create a landscape. Using one huge texture map isn't really usually possible either.

What usually happens is that you will have multiple tiling textures blended together in material/shader. So let's say you want to make a grass field with path in the middle. The field might be texture A and the texture you want to use for the path is texture B. Using enough polys on your terrain mesh you could use vertex color painting to paint the path on the mesh. Then in shader/material you would tell that texture A-Vertex color A, texture B-Vertex color B, this way only the area painted with color B would show the path.

Other common technique is to use height to blend materials. So for example you could blend between sand, grass, rock and snow based on height to transition from snowy mountain top, to rocky mountain, to grass lands and finally to a beach.
Specific workflows for this can be very convoluted based on your platform, though, so again I recommend googling stuff like "material layering workflow" "terrain texturing" and so on.

I hope some of this was helpful.


Animation with python NLA tracks failed I am trying to follow Blender sushi tutorial about animation with python, The video link is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWX0e1tyV5w

The text version here http://blendersushi.blogspot.fi/2013/05/python-nla-non-linear-animation-with.html

Every times I run the script, it fails on the line

if NEWTRACK in rig.animation_data.nla_tracks:

There are a couple of scripts in one rig = bpy.context.active_object in the other rig = bpy.context.active_object.data.materials[0]  I'm assuming you are on the first as the second (materials one) creates the animation_data.

The objects are taken from the context.selected_objects collection, by  name, then sorted, then iterated and made active.

However if you have an object selected that doesn't have any animation_data, ie has no action with keyframes nor a driver, then the script will fail because obj.animation_data is None and as the error says

  AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'nla_tracks'

One fix would be to replace

objs = bpy.context.selected_objects

with

objs = [o for o in bpy.context.selected_object if o.animation_data]

or go straight to names

names = [o.name for o in bpy.context.selected_objects
            if o.animation_data]

to make sure each object, from selected_objects collection, has animation data.


How to animate a beating heart? I would like to animate a heart pumping (Realistically) like this video below.

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/science-medical/medical/animated-realistic-human-heart-medically-accurate

Does anyone know a Python script (it can be animated, does not have to be Python)  or can point me in the right direction for this?

I already created the heart.

An animation of a beating heart can be generated using a fixed geometry and armatures to animate the beating. This method is a way to generate the complex motion by animating a few elements.

(Geometry from Blendswap.com - courtesy Bruno Laurencich/elZancudo)

Procedure:

Load heart geometry as a single mesh

Add bones for the left atrium, right atrium, left ventricle, and right ventricle. Place the bones roughly at the center of each of these parts of the heart. These bones will be animated to make the heart pump.

Add bones for the arteries and veins. These bones will keep that part of the heart relatively stationary. The image below shows all of the bones in the model.

Select all of the bones and join them into a single armature. This can be done using ctrl+J after selecting all of the bones.
The armature is connected to the mesh using automatically calculated weights (see armature automatic weights). This allows each bone to affect only part of the mesh in the heart. This is done by selecting the mesh, then the armature, then hitting ctrl+P. The menu which appears will have an option for armature deform with automatic weights. Select that option.

This will automatically setup all of the weights for the different bones on the mesh. The weights for the 4 bones in the heart are shown below. For finer control, the weights can be edited.

To keep the rest of the heart still the other bones are affecting the veins and arteries. One of these is shown.

To simulate the pumping, the bones in the center of the left atrium, the right atrium, left ventricle, and right ventricle are scaled. Over the timeline, these bones are scaled between 0.9 and 1.1. In the animation that follows, the bones in the 4 chambers of the heart are animated by scaling the bones, this causes the rest of the mesh to smoothly pump. Because the other bones are kept in the same position and with the same scale, the veins and arteries stay relatively still. Looking closely at the following animation shows the small changes in the bones driving the changes in the mesh.

Adding material properties and rending gets the final result.

The blend file can be downloaded at:


Working in a group blender project Me and my team are new to blender, we are now planning for a small project. What I want to ask here are some questions regarding the team work:

We use git for version control in web projects, Is there any special version control for blender project.
Creating object of each file and integrating in the project is one way we saw to complete the project. But is there any good way to work in the group?

Please tell us from your experience what might be the best way to work together in a group blender project.

Version control for blender
There is no special version control system for blender. Your three main choices are git, Mercurial, and SVN.
While I have used git for blender projects and it works (here is a game that was created in a group and was version controlled in git) it is not the best suited because git does not handle binary files, think images and blend files. There is an addon that integrates git in to blender, and let you see and save versions of your file.
SVN is svn and you need a server set up to run that. (The Blender institute has used SVN for their open movie projects).
Mercurial (while I personally have not used it) is best suite to use for Blender. It has the simplicity of git, and (somehow) it can diff binary files.
CG cookie has a good video about setting up version control for blender.
Project Structure
File linking in blender is a pain, but it is the only way to work together in a group.
Say you have one main file, then you will link in the assets that are all separate files. Being separate files enables each person to work on a different piece of the whole at the same time.


How to import svg file with same thickness I'm trying to make an animation using svg art I've designed before hand, but when I import it into blender the thickness of the lines are all the same. I know you can change their thickness but there's about 200+ lines/paths I'd need to edit for them to be right.

Is there a way you can think of to have them import with the correct thickness, or make their thickness all become correct once imported?

If you need more info on what I'm trying to do just ask.

There is no such thing as "line thickness" in Blender; Blender is a 3D modelling software, not a 2D Illustration or Graphic design application.

Only way I see you can simulate a stroke in Blender is using beveling either through a simple Bevel Depth or through a Bevel Object

You batch set Bevel Objects for more than one curve at a time by pressing Alt while clicking the field or the picker icon, or you can copy the from an object to others by right clicking and choosing the option Copy to Selected.

If possible join all curves into one single object and then assign the Bevel Object in a single step, otherwise manually assign one by one.

You can just draw a simple straight line segment curve object and assign it as bevel object to simulate a "flat thickness". You can control final thickness per vertex by changing the per-vertex radius property.

Otherwise, if you don't mind a 3D-like circular-section bevel, you could just select all objects with the same thickness and bevel all curves simply with the desired Bevel Depth. This property can be batch assigned to all selected objects by pressing Alt while clicking the value button.

Alternatively you can convert stroke thickness to path in Inkscape and import it as actual geometry, at the expensive of editability and ease of working with the curves.


How to obtain a set of separate objects from an Array Modifier (or other method) and keep their rotation and scale? I have been looking for methods to create a set of objects from an Array Modifier. Normally one creates an Array, sets an Array Offset and manipulates it so that the transformation propagates to all the copies and most of the times the goal is to have a geometry as you don't care about the sub-parts own transforms but I do this time since my goal is to export these (empty in my case) transforms to a game engine.
To expand a bit, I already know that I can Apply the modifier and then separate the meshes By Loose Parts but it's not what I want and the reason for that is that with that method, such loose parts will inherit all the same rotation and scale from the original object; in fact the matrix of the single copy of the array is lost when applying the array.
My question is slightly different from this one:
How can I use an array modifier to create individually manipulatable objects?

in that I need the individual rotations and scales to be kept.
What I need ideally is a workflow to go from an Array Modifier (but potentially parting ways from the Array Modifier) to create a big set (big enough to discourage manual duplication) of empty objects that keep their individual position, rotation and scale.
How can I achieve that?

Well since I couldn't find an exact solution for this anywhere, I came up with a Python script that processes all Array Modifiers of an object to create clones of such object (rather than just create geometry like Blender does) that correspond exactly to the distribution obtained with the Array Modifier.
This is particularly useful for me when I create something using Array Modifiers and want to export the whole geometry resulting from applying them but also the positions, rotations and scales of all parts. For example I use this in Unity to have one joined mesh to draw efficiently but using this script I can also keep the information about the parts' position, rotation and scale in Unity's Transforms and use this information for interactions.
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix, Quaternion, Euler
from random import uniform

# Uses Array modifier data to generate OBJECTS rather than just geometry

# Only works with Array Modifiers with ObjectOffset
# Tested in Blender 2.83.1

# HOW TO USE
# - Select an object that has at least 1 Array Modifier
# - Make sure all Array Modifiers on that object have an Object Offset set and active
#  (those that aren't set or active will be skipped)
# - Optionally disable the Render/Realtime Display of each Array modifiers so you won't see the Blender's result
# - Launch this script with Alt+P

# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

# Removes all modifiers from an object
## Needed to cleanup the clones
def RemoveModifiers(_obj):
    for mod in _obj.modifiers:
        _obj.modifiers.remove(mod)

# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

# Recursively applies the affine transformation
# copying _obj and applying the transformation described by _matrix to its copies, relatively to the currently processed object matrix
# writes all cloned objects to _clonelist
## _OT is the original object transformation matrix
def CopyAffine(_context, _obj, _matrix, _count, _clonelist):
    copy = _obj.copy()
    RemoveModifiers(copy)
    _clonelist.append(copy)
    copy.matrix_world = _obj.matrix_world @ _matrix #@ _obj.matrix_world @ _matrix.inverted() # _matrix @ _obj.matrix_world #
    _context.collection.objects.link(copy)
    c = _count - 1
    if (c > 1):
        CopyAffine(_context, copy, _matrix, c, _clonelist)

# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

# Gets all array modifiers from _obj
def GetArrayModifiers(_obj):
    arrModifiers = []
    allModifiers = _obj.modifiers
    for mod in allModifiers:
        if(mod.name.startswith("Array")):
            arrModifiers.append(mod)
    return arrModifiers

# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

# Process all Array Modifiers
def ApplyArrayModifiers(_context, _targetObject):
    arrModifiers = GetArrayModifiers(_targetObject)
    if(len(arrModifiers) == 0):
        print("No Array modifiers found in " + _targetObject.name)
    else:
        objs = []
        objs.append(_targetObject)
        arrModifiers.reverse() # we have to go backwards, from the last modifiers to the first
        for aMod in arrModifiers:
            count = aMod.count
            offsetObj = aMod.offset_object
            print(offsetObj.name)
            if(offsetObj == None or not aMod.use_object_offset):
                print("offsetObject not set or not active")
            else:
                clones = []
                # Here we need to counter the target object's transformation. Can this be seen as a change of base?
                D = _targetObject.matrix_world.inverted() @ offsetObj.matrix_world
                for obj in objs:
                    CopyAffine(context, obj, D, count, clones)
                objs = objs + clones # concatenate clones to all objects for the next iteration

######################################

print(" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ")
context = bpy.context
A = context.view_layer.objects.active
ApplyArrayModifiers(context, A)

Blender Array Modifier

Result after running the script
All clones of the object are transformed in a way that matches the Array preview.


How can I export baked fluid simulations that work in Xcode? When I export a baked fluid sim to Alembic, it imports back into Blender just fine, but in Xcode, it's just a static mesh.

I've tried a few dozen different combos of bake and export options, and they all seem to work fine for Blender but not Xcode.  The coder for this iOS app downloaded random Alembic files that use a Mesh Sequence Cach Modifier just like my file and they played back their animation inside Xcode with no issues.

We did notice that it seems like the animation node needs to have an empty parent node, but even after doing that we still just got a static mesh.

So we're at a loss.  I've spent the past ~10 hours looking back and forth in Blender at the random Alembic file that works and my simulation that doesn't and I can't find a difference that would matter to Xcode.  Only that the random Alembic tends to make Blender crash if I poke at it too much.

We're not dead set on using Alembic, we just want a solution that gets the animated fluid into the iOS app.

It appears that the Alembic files originally thought to be moving in Xcode weren’t using the mesh stream as thought before. I don’t have a Mac, so I couldn’t actually see the result. My partner saw the object translating in Xcode and thought it was working, but the mesh stream I was seeing in Blender was not actually running in Xcode.

This means that we have no working example files of a mesh stream playing from an Alembic file in Xcode.

We’re going to move away from Alembic and give OBJ streaming a shot.


Animation rendering each frame twice I have an issue that happens sometimes. When rendering an image sequence animation, each frame is rendered twice. The second one above the first. It doubles the render time. I have cheked off the compositing and the sequencer. Tried turning off the combined pass and cheking "render single layer". By the way, I have tried every 2.8 versions and using cycles.
Can anybody tell me what I'm doing wrong?
Thank you!

I may have an explanation. I was doing some motion tracking, and when I rendered each frame was rendering twice in two identical "layers". This doubled render time, as you explained.
The thing that fixed it was going into Layer Properties in the Properties panel on the right. Then go into View Layer and check Render Single Layer. This solved the problem for me.
I hope this helps!


Changing the hue of texture image Is there a way to change the hue of texture image through composition and then saving out the image?

Added this information
Hmm, let me elaborate abit of the issue i'm facing. Currently i'm using texture painting inside blender to output the diffuse texture. So after i'm done painting, i wanted to adjust the hue of this texture so that i can see the end result on my model. I have a feeling its something to do with the texture node under compositing but i have no idea how to set it up. Any ideas?

You can definitely do a lot of editing in the compositor and then save the results, and then reload in as a new texture. Here in this simple example I am using the Compositor window and bringing my painting in that is show in the lower right hand uv image editor in it's first state in monotone value. I use an Image Node to bring it into the compositor, and then direct it to a Viewer node for output, using the Backdrop to see it there. In the lower left uv image editor, you can see I have chosen 'Viewer' output to see the same as the backdrop, and that is where the result can be saved by choosing 'Save Image As' from the Image options in the header. I have used a simple Color Mix node set to 'Color' and chosen a light blue and not so full strength. You can use all kinds of filters and correction nodes to edit your images there. Just don't confuse the Viewer node with the Composite output node - the viewer is what you need to send the output to the image editor.


Bizarre 3D view glitch on Linux Mint Working on a project, and for some reason the viewport jerks around, sometimes to the point of being nearly unusable.  When it's rendered, there are some weird distortions of models as well.  At first I thought it was because the view clip was really big, but shrinking it didn't fix it.  Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this?

Here's a video of what I mean:
https://youtu.be/Xg1NvfckjRo

It looks like you are very far from the center of the world. You are basically loosing precision as you move away from the center. This is because blender uses floating point numbers for things as location and these can store more decimals on lower numbers and fewer at higher, moving the decimal sign but keeping the number of possible digets. Somewhat simplified...

Anyway, move you scene closer to the centre and you should be fine.

This problem is not related to platform and not unique for Blender.


How to make a fluid animation / transformation of a simple cube? I recently try to get into shape keys and I wonder if I can animate something like which is shown in the gif below (just a random example, it does not have to be exactly like that). Whatever I try, I can’t get past key1, otherwise the mesh will act strange. Basically I just want to insert and extrude from one step to the next.

Is this even possible with shape keys or do I have to stick to another method?

This is difficult to achieve with just shapekeys. I'd highy advise you to use multiple cubes, which are keyframed in scale and location. The way your preview image is rendered, there won't be a visual difference.

Because shapekeys store the relative positions, adding and removing vertices is tricky. Nevertheless, this is possible with shapekeys.

compulsory gif to indicate a highend answer

Prepare the first extrusion, by moving insetting a face at the correct position in the Basis shapekey.

Add a key and perform an extrusion.

Prepare the next extrusion, by insetting again in Key 1.
Then, with Key1 at a value of 1 use the Create new shape from mix functionality.
Select the new shape Key 2 and choose Key 1 as the basis for blending. This way Key 2 will be relative to Key 1.

Perform the next extrusion. Note that Key 2 can now be layered on top of Key 1yay but will not be correct if we use it without Key 1nay. I don't think we can easily surpass this limitations will relative shapekeys.


Array a collection of objects along a curve So I wanted to array this 3 bottles on a Spiral Curve

I Tried using the most normal way possible,  array and curve modifier , the bottles are stretched and the most importantly, only 1 bottle can be array-ed at a time...
Then I searched all over the internet and learned about DupliFaces, i parented the 3 bottle to a plane, and array that plane to the spiral curve, and this is the result

yes, it somehow worked BUT there is still some noticeable seperation between each 3 bottles
yes, it can somehow be tricked out by playing the offsets, but because its on a spiral curve, the bottom part overlaps at each other and looked weird
I found this Question that really relates to my question:
Multiple objects in array
but its very outdated, and no longer working on the newest version of blender
I'm still looking for a better way to array multiple objects in blender,

Because my friend can do it so easily and with great result in Cinema4D, I'm finding a way to do that in blender

To array several unique objects in order, you can use several instancer objects with different offsets along the curve.
Instancers
For my example, I'll use three planes all with their origins at the center, but of course, you can use as many instancers as you have objects that need to be instanced.

The only important measurement here is the offset between the planes.
Array
Add an Array modifier to the first instancer with a Constant Offset that is set to the distance between the planes times the number of objects you need to array (in my case, three times the distance).

Curve
I used the Add Curve: Extra Objects add-on to create an Archimedean Spiral using these settings:

To perfect the curve, I rotated the start and end handles around the Z; then, I used Individual Origins to scale all of the handles along the Z.

Finishing Up
Add the Curve modifier to the first instancer and set the array Count parameter accordingly.

With all of the instancers selected, press CtrlL for the Make Links menu and click Modifiers.*

If the tilt of the curve is not right, you can set it to Z-Up. I further adjusted the curve's tilt in edit mode using CtrlT.

All that is left to do at this point is parent your objects to the instancers and set them to instance by faces.

You can also angle the instances by rotating the instancer meshes in edit mode.

Ta-da!

* Modifiers cannot be linked, so it is actually copying not linking.


Rope Simulation Using Rigid Bodies I'm trying to model a rope used for a guillotine - after a bit of research I've attempted to model it using a series of rigid bodies connected together by empties acting as POINT rigin body constraints.
It has generally works when in motion - but when I attempted to 'grip' the rope to stop the 'blade' falling - the point constraints seem to 'stretch' and it allows the blade to fall due to the now lengthened rope.

Is there a way of preventing the rope/constraints from stretching?
Is there a way to 'flesh out' the rope tomake it solid rather than a line of spheres?
Is there a better way to have achieved this?

Thanks in anticipation!
SF

Using a curve/path to animate solid mesh rope - (Blend file below)

The blade doesn't use physics to fall.  It is instead animated.  That only involves two keyframes so it comes to a sudden stop at the end. (see the blade's curve shape in the graph editor)
A tiny bounce can be added if desired. (see that also in the Graph editor)
The rope is a hard mesh cylinder scaled to become long and thin.  This is generously subdivided along it's length so when it's bent it's not going to appear blocky. (Typically x 128 to 200)
It is also deformed to bend over the pulleys using a Curve->Path and curve modifier.
The easiest way to shape the path is to lay the curve over the top of the two pulleys and bend it down so it hangs down to the blade, the other end to dangle over the frame's side.
Subdivide between it's control points as often as necessary to get it flexible enough.

As for the rope's length, it isn't necessary to get that right initially.  Extra path can be added or removed later.
To drag these control points about so the rope can bend, hooks are placed at several (or all) of these control points. (CTL-H then "Hook to new object")
It's the hooks that are animated when bending is required.  Shapekeys could be used but arguably, hooks are a lot easier to work with in these circumstances despite the extra work setting them up.
With the hooks installed, at this point you could simply use the curve as it is and beveled to suit, but if requiring meshed rope, read on...    If not, skip down to "POINT A" .
-================-
Using meshed cylinder for the rope -
Once the path has been set up, it's used along with a curve modifier to shape the rope.
IMPORTANT -  Be sure that both the curve and rope share precisely the same origin point.   Press SH-S to achieve this.  The modifier is added to the rope.  Name the path as the curve object.
By default the X axis is used in the modifier, but when sliding the rope up along the curve, drag it up with the blue Z axis gismo. (Global orientation)
The rope will be forced to follow the curve's shape much like a plastic tube being pushed over one end of a shaped rod.

With the rope's curvature now following the path we need to animate the former individually so it stays in synch with the blade.  (Parenting it to the blade sends it all over the place)
You can either copy the Blade's keyframes into the Rope's Z axis and once done, adjust them all as one in the graph editor,  (raise/lower it's end inside the blade where you want it) or -
At the same frames as each step in the Blade's ascent, insert a frame for the rope also and take it's lower end back to the anchor location in the blade.  What little variation (if any) will exist between the blade and rope's ascent, can easily be realigned between keyframes with the Graph editor's handles.
When done the rope will rise with the blade,  it's loose end descending down the side the same distance.
Because it's mesh it won't stretch or shrink.
Sufficient path length will be needed at the side to accommodate the descent. If there isn't, the rope's end will extend beyond the path's end eventually and that section of rope would be no longer controlled by the path.  Simply append extra control points to the path as needed and add hooks.
-=======================-
POINT A -
Thanks to the path, the rope's shaping has so far been automatic.  When it's to appear loose and swinging about however, those mechanations are brought about by manually animating the path's control points. (keyframes)
See immediately below for a painless way to emulate physics.

To emulate rope physics, simply place a strip of 'cloth' (a plane) along the top of the guillotine frame and give it PLENTY of  "Structure"  in it's properties.  (150 to 200)
Pin and parent the cloth if it wants to fall off.
Play the animation through at least once and watch it wrap down over the corner pulley to flop around and do it's thing.
Once settled, step it through again frame by frame and simply trace it's movements with the path's hooks so the rope more or less stays with the cloth and keyframe those changes.  Indulge yourself and add a little bounce or swing at the end!

The circular empty - "Nav handle" is used to hold it all together.  Move the guillotine about by this only.


Modeling a Skirt with Outside Influence Thank you for taking some time to check out my query.

I'm currently modelling a character that is wearing a skirt who also has very long hair which rests along her back. (This is also my first time modelling anything so please be gentle if this is a really stupid question.) In the future I know I'll have to rig the character to move and I'll probably have to have some controllers on the skirt in order to allow it to flow in animations. I've modeled the skirt to form to the body as if the weight from the hair is upon it, but would this be correct?

Should I be modeling this section as if physics are applied to it and have the skirt slightly deformed? Or should I model the skirt as if it were a stand alone object and have it unaffected by the hair? (This would mean I'd have to fix the skirt whenever I needed to animate the character, right?)

Thank you again for your time.

You seem to have picked a very ambitious modelling project to start with.

To avoid weird glitches, you should model the skirt in a neutral pose. In other words, don't worry about the hair. This logic applies to almost anything that gets animated. For example you should model the hands in a position that is neither completely flat nor clamped into a fist.

Good luck.


How do blender units and meters, feet, or yards correlate? If I'm using blender game engine, how do blender units work in relation to gravity, acceleration, or weight?  Is there a rough physical world equivalent?

Blender units
The Blender units system is a decimal unit system that can be whatever you want it to be. By default, it's implicitly considered meters. If you go to the scene tab in the properties panel, then to the gravity section, you can see that the rate of acceleration due to gravity is (0.000, 0.000, -9.810). 9.810 is the rate of acceleration in meters per second squared. So as you can see, it's implicitly considered meters. Now, if you change this value to -.0981 and every rigidbody's mass to 1⁄100 of what it was, you would now be working in centimeters and grams (or the cgs system).
Metric units
First off, let me start by defining a list of metric measurements that Blender uses.
Length

(km) kilometer [1000 meters]
(m) meter
(cm) centimeter [1⁄100 meter]
(mm) millimeters [1⁄1000 meter]
(µm) micrometers [1⁄100000000 meter]

Mass

(ton) metric ton [1000 kilograms]
(kg) kilogram
(g) gram [1⁄1000 kilogram]

If you go to the units section in the scene tab, you can see that there are three different options ("None, Metric, Imperial"). "None" is Blender units. If you select metric units, Blender will explicitly use metric units. Check back in the physics panel, and you'll now see (0m/s2, 0m/s2, -9.81m/s2).
For another example, select a mesh and hit n in the scene view to bring up the properties panel, go to the transform section and then dimensions. If you change one of the x, y, or z dimensions to a large number, you will see that it now uses the kilometers instead of meters. And if you change it to a ridiculously small number, like .000002, it will use micrometers.
Imperial units
Imperial units are the worst to work with. Also known as the British units. This is what backward America uses. Let me again define the units that Blender utilizes.
Length

(mi) mile [5280 feet]
(ft) foot [also symbolized with a single quote: ']
(in) inch [1⁄12 foot] [also symbolized with double quote: "]
thou or mil [1⁄12000 foot]

Mass (technically weight)

ton [2000 pounds]
(lb) pound
(oz) ounce [1⁄16 pound]

Separate units
If you are using metric or imperial units, you can use the 'separate units' checkbox which makes Blender separate out a unit of measurement into two separate units of measurement of the same system.
For example, without 'separate units' toggled, a field might display something like 2.538m. But with 'separate units' toggled, it would display 2m 53.8cm
Scripting
One thing you should note is that when working with scripts, and you use a function like bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(1.0, 1.5, 2.0)), which creates and positions a cube, the values are in Blender units even if you are working in metric or imperial. So this function, when using the imperial system, would place a cube at (3.281', 4.921', 6.562') or  (3' 3.37", 4' 11.1", 6' 6.74") with separate units.


textured filling circle It's a quick question.
I want to put the texture in the circle, but I can't see the texture of the image. But when I put the image in the same way on the plane, it is successful. Why not in circle?
I want to finally build a circular road. I want to add the texture of the road.
That's what it looks like in edit mode.

If you just want the texture to show, you just need to unwrap the mesh. However, this will leave you with a square texture mapped to a ring, and it wont "follow the path" so to speak.
To do this, things are only a little more complicated. First, unwrap your mesh (select all > U > unwrap). Then go to the UV editing tab.

Select the two vertices at the top of one of the edges that is on the side (because it's side edge is perfectly vertical). Press S + Y + 0. This will make the two points at equal "height" on the y axis. Do this for both the top and bottom edges, so you're left with a rectangular shaped quad.

Then, select the whole mesh, making sure the quad you created is the active face (lighter color). If you need to make it active, just un-select and re-select the face - just make sure all the faces are selected when you're done. With your mouse over the 3D view port (not the UV map), press U and select Follow Active Quads. Confirm in the box that pops up and your UV map will be straightened.

From there, just scale the UV island back to size and place it where you want in a the UV space. Add a texture and you're done.


edit audio in compositing mode Assume you are in compositor mode and you have a video as an input source. The audio isn't immediately played along the video. Usually I re-import the video in VSE mode again and strip away the video information.

1st question: is this the intended work flow to add audio?

A problem that comes from this is, that once you have a scenario where audio and video are out-of-sync it is nearly impossible to sync them. This is because switching between compositing and VSE mode doesn't allow to adjust the audio easily.

2nd question: how do you guys sync your audio?

You don't.

You worry about frame accuracy during editorial, lock your picture (no further editing), and then commence post production work.

At the point you have completed your edit, your motion picture is not being adjusted any further, and the frames are locked.

When you are finished with your post work, you simply take the output frames, per shot, and re-slug them back into where your original editorial frames were.


Settings like velocity are grayed out for particles Unless a I click on Free Edit, many settings are grayed out. Do I really have to undo all the hair combing I've done every time I want to try some new settings?

Hair particles can either be dynamically generated by the particle system or can be cut and placed using the Particle edit. You can't have both.

If you have a close look there aren't that many values that get disabled after you edit particles, and they are all related to the initial generation, like the number of hairs and length. By using particle edit you are saying I want to control the placement of hair particles so don't replace my work with generated hair.


House architecture- How to extrude or move a face along an edge I am trying to create a roof overhang and am wondering if there is a way to move or extrude the fascia along the same angle as the roof? Is there a better way to create roof overhangs?

In 2.8,  create a Custom Orientation from one of the sloping edges of your roof, by selecting the edge before hitting '+' in the header's Transform Orientations dropdown.

Then, GY will constrain translations to the direction of the slope, if the new orientation is in use. (Which it will be, by default, after creation.)

Also, following @AnthoJack's helpful answer here, it might suit your workflow better, (having set your cursor to 'Surface Project' and 'Geometry') to set your standard Transform Orientation to 'Cursor' for longer periods. Then you can effectively set up temporary Custom Orientations from faces of existing geometry by simply dragging the cursor over them.

(In 2.79, it's: Select the edge: hit CtrlAltSpace with 'Use After Creation' checked: use GYY)


Blender + Pyside or PyQt4 Has Blender implemented a python interface API yet? So when developing floating tools users can create a tool interface using pyside of pyqt?

This is critical to have when planning for pipeline tool development.

Official blender distributions include the standard python library with a few modules disabled (such as tkinter and test). I'm quite sure that numpy is the only third party module to be included.

Blender uses it's own GUI widget library and provides a python api for us to add custom interface layouts. While you can ask the developers to add other modules, you shouldn't expect other third party modules to be added to the standard install.

You do have several options -

Add third party modules to your installation of blender. You can find several questions like this one that expand on this option.
Remove the included python so that blender uses the system installed python. You can also build your own version that is configured to not include it's own python version. This gives blender access to the same python modules you have access to in your python scripts.
Run blender in background mode to perform tasks that you have scripted.
Build blender as a python module. If you are using scripts to automate tasks you could use blender without a GUI and control it from your app.


Matching blender dimensions to paper cutout I just discovered that you can export your blender model as a paper model, that you can later cut out.
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/2353/75504
Github: https://github.com/addam/Export-Paper-Model-from-Blender
Home page: https://blenderartists.org/t/export-paper-model/476597
I tried it and for some reason no matter what I do the dimensions in blender don't match with the real model. Is there a way to deal with this, or do I have to just accept it?

Tried with a Cube and seems to be working.
But there is one thing that could be good to discuss with developer of this addon on Blenderartists

Cube

Object Dimension set 0.2 m
Object Scale is always better to have a 1 (Apply Scale Ctrl+A)

Addon

press Unfold
or select edges press Mark as Seam and press Unfold

Export (or skip for now)

Model Scale 1
Page Size 1 m

When export window popups go to options (right up gear icon)

it seems addon does not respect export setup from 3Dview
by default addon change scale automatically to fit A4 paper format

change scale to 1
if format is not enough for unfolded object it warns you

change paper format, addon will inform you if it is enough


Why have objects moved from their original positions when I reopen my Blender file and how do I fix it? I was working on a skull model yesterday and had aligned all of the bones. Today, when I opened the Blender file, the bones were scattered - seemingly randomly rotated and translated.
I think the issue may have been caused because I received this file from a collaborator, who had keyframed some things to create a spinning animation. I wasn't aware of this and just worked on the scene and did not keyframe anything. I also tried deleting the keyframes and also unparenting bones and keeping transforms but nothing worked.
Does anyone know if there is any way to recover the overall scene?

If the objects were keyframed and then moved without setting keyframes once more, the information was not saved with the file and is lost.
You should manually realign the objects this time and in the future if you have animated objects in a similar situation where you don't want the animation, you should select them all, hit F3 and search for Remove Animation function:


Hexagon is distorting on x axis, when scaling on y globally Here is screenshot :) Im making a circle with 6 sides, rotating it 30 degrees (z) and scaling it globally on y.

Here is why it stretch on the x axis : the scaling is done the world space (orientation ) and it gets projected to the local space of the object to be applied (since axis are not aligned world Y axis get projected on local X and Y axis) , the vertices has to keep their location the local space ( hence you see the distortion ) :


How can I make manipulator/gizmo stay visible when doing a transformation? I have googled a bit and searched on here, as well as looked at settings and preferences, but have yet to find an answer. Currently working in 2.8 Beta.

When I am moving a mesh in object mode, I have my gizmo/manipulator of course, but when I select, let's say, the X axis and grab the red vector- while I'm moving my object, the gizmo is no longer visible. Of course, it's visible again when I stop the desired movement and release the mouse button, but I was hoping there was a way I could toggle the gizmo/manipulator to ALWAYS be visible, even when transforming an object or moving it.

Any tips? Settings I'm missing? Much appreciated. Thank you!

When you turn off overlays, gizmo gets turned off. Check the overlays area for the gizmo toggle on/off.


Select all faces within an area delimited by sharp edges I've got a model that has sharp edges around islands.  I want to keep the sharp edges, and be able to select only the faces inside the island borders.  Any ideas?

I'm able to select a single row around the island.

Then one more row.

Any more than that and the selection selects things outside of the island.

If you can easily select one row of faces around the island then the hard part of the issue is solved.

Just select that single face loop and hide it with H, then select one of the remaining faces at the center of the island and select all linked with Ctrl + L.

Unhide the hidden loop with Alt + H, and it should include it in selection automatically


Should I in general always unwrap my entire object in one UV map? I have difficulty creating a normal map for a sword and I have the feeling it might be caused by how I approached the project.

Instead of making the entire sword out of a single cube I started with one cube for the blade, then added a cylinder for the grip and so on.
After I was satisfied with the general form I unwrapped each single mesh, instead of making one unwrap for the entire sword, and gave them textures. I proceeded with copying my sword so I could have one low poly object and one high poly object. On the high poly object I added details with sculpting again for each single mesh of the high poly object (grip, blade, etc).

In order to bake both objects together I now need to overlap them perfectly.
But because each of the two swords consists of several independent meshes this is quite hard. So I joined the meshes together for each sword.

Now I could easily make them overlap. But after I bake them together I only get a normal map for the grip and not for the entire sword.
So I think I need to make an unwrap for the entire sword instead of making them for each mesh. Should I in general always unwrap my entire object in one?
But that makes texturing so much harder when I use different textures for each part.

Even my low poly sword has 15000 vertices. I once read that high detailed characters in video games have around 30000 vertices. So 15000 sounds like quite a lot for a single sword. But is a high number of vertices always a problem?
For example I can insert vertices on a flat surface as much as I want without changing the amount of detail of the surface. It is still a flat surface with four corners. So are these additional vertices a performance problem when I later use the sword in a selfmade game?
I also tried to make a human. I watched some tutorials on youtube where they sculpted the entire face and body, but is that actually how you do it for a video game?

My human had over 70000 vertices after I did it that way. Sounds like way to much.

So to sum it up:

Should I always make my objects a one mesh and should I always make one unwrap for the entire object?
Are a lot of vertices a performance problem even if they don't add more detail to the object?
Should I create characters by sculpting?

A couple of screenshots would go a long way in helping you explain your situation.

I'm going to guess that you have a lot of unnecessary polygons on your models. If you want your game to run smoothly or not require excessive computing power, you're going to want to optimize your models by reducing the vertex/face count.

If you insert a vertex into a side of a quad but don't do anything with it, this is no longer a quad. Extra vertices can cause shading errors and other problems when using modifiers down the line. Removing these extra vertices also helps optimize your model.

As far as the more specific questions about the game asset workflow, try searching up for "Blender game asset creation tutorials." They'll be much clearer.


How can I setup blender for texture painting? I want to create hand painted textures for my game assets which I will then use in unity game engine. What render engine should I use and what setting do I need to turn on/off for the best result? I’m just worried about lighting mostly because i don’t want my textures to be influenced by extra lights in blender.

Texture Painting

If you paint a diffuse map, lights don't really matter that much. You don't render anything, so nothing but the color of your choice influences the texture.

Any light setup might only influence, how you perceive the colors.

Lights (for baking):

Delete all lights, you won't need them. Go to the World Properties Tab and change the Background Color to white.

Material Setup (for painting):

Go to the Shader Editor, create a new material and delete the Principled BSDF. Create a new Image Texture and connect it to an Emission Node (with Node Wrangler installed, Ctrl+Shift+LMB) to the Material Output.

Render Engine:

If you only want to paint textures and you don't intend to bake additional maps (normal, AO, etc.) the Render Engine doesn't really matter. If you do want to bake additional maps, Cycles is the only option, since baking is not possible in Eevee (yet).

Since you paint in Material Preview, you might want to change the HDRi Image in the Studio Lights setup to a more neutral one* and set the Background Visibility to zero.

hdrihaven.com has some nice outdoor HDRis with overcast sky that deliver a nice flat shading. They still influence your color perception, though...


I just finish the donut course of blender guru where do I go next? I just finish the 2.8 donut course of blender guru and now I am confuse where do I start practicing

I think the best way to improve on your skills is to join a community, and blender has a large community.
You could join these communities to see other people's workflow, styles and ways of working with blender.
My two favourite communities are:

Blenderartists: in this community you get to see fellow blender artist workflows, reels and the community creates challenges weekly to help you grow and learn faster. Here is the link
www.blenderartists.org

BlenderNation: is a very great community here you could get links to any tutorial in blender, assets (paid or free), documentation and so on, basically it an informative and educative community. Here is the link

www.blendernation.com


Make one solid from mesh built out of multiple squares by snapping to grid I made a mesh out of multiple squares and there are an abundance of vertices throughout the entire mash. I want to make it so there is only vertices on the corners.
Do you know any way I can make it a solid object with only vertices at each corner of the object instead of having vertices all throughout the entire match?

Blender is not Minecraft. You don't add boxes.
The best way not deal with unnecessary geometry is not to create it in the first place.
It makes no sense to have a whole bunch of duplicated faces just to delete them later.
Start your project over, and this time create just the shapes you need, with no internal faces. It will take you less time than to fix the current model and set you on the correct path to learn modelling.


Can you use vertex weights for modeling? Often, while modeling, I would like more control over graduated transformation of vertices than Proportional Editing makes available. (In particular, it would be nice to be able to have an influence gradient centered on the transformation pivot, changing with distance from it, but affecting only selected vertices.) Some  other applications, in effect, make vertex weights available to the edit system, allowing you to transform vertices proportionately to their weight while editing.

Am I missing something obvious? Is there a route to this in Blender?

One solution to the specific problem I mentioned above is to hide all vertices you don't want to change while using Proportional Edit. This has the obvious disadvantage that you can't see what you're doing - even if you make an instance of the object, with no parts hidden, you only get to see your changes when kicking back into Object Mode (when a bmesh is written back to a mesh??)

To me, it seems odd that the selection of influenced vertices is made by visibility, not by weight.

Maybe use Shape Keys with vertex groups set as mask through Blend option?
As a bonus it is a non destructive workflow.

Won't work for very complex transforms, but for most linear motion should suffice


How do I change the orientation/anchor point of a group? Im new to blender and I created this group and instead of rotating around the middle of the object, it rotates around some other point and the point moves when I move the object. How can I change the pivot point to the centre of the group?

In edit mode .. not object mode ... move your mesh relative to the origin for an improvement.

or

in object mode use the menus in the image below.  Object/Transform

Origin to Geometry

For precise control click on part of your mesh to move the 3D Cursor then use the menu option

Origin to 3D Cursor.

Try the similar menu options.

Also I believe you are talking about a Blender Mesh Object and Not a Blender Group.


Blank Texture on Cycles GPU Baking (AMD) I'm having problems for baking texture through GPU in Cycles.

  Baking through CPU is working. (Very Slow...)
  Render preview on 3D View through GPU is working.
  Render through GPU is working.

Although I'm using Bake Type Combined, I'd also tried Diffuse and, unfortunately, got the same result.

My GPU is an AMD R9 390 (8Gb) with the last driver version (17.5.2) and I'm running Blender 2.78c on Windows 10.
Really appreciate some help.

My baking options:

My render options:

My User Preferences:

AMD GPU computing is not as well supported as NVidia's solution, and definitely or on par in terms of feature set as of the Blender 2.78# series.

Either use CPU baking or try a newer 2.79 testing builds at your own risk. Cycles OpenCL support will be thoroughly improved and will roughly be on par with CUDA in terms of features and support as of Blender 2.79#.

At the date of writing Blender 2.79 is not released officiall yet so if you want to try it you must use development testing builds.
To do so head over to https://blender.org/download , and check the "Bleeding Edge" link in red at the bottom.

Have in mind that these are unreleased development versions, meant for testing purposes and not recommended for production; bugs and kinks are expected.
Save your work often, make backup copies of your files if necessary.

And please, for the love of God, stay away from the 2.8 builds for the time being, they are not ready for end users yet, not even for testing purposes, so do not ask about or report any errors or missing features you my find.


Keep Offset keeps doesn't work as planned I have been following this tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGvalWG8HBU

And I reached the part where he assigned 2 bones and kept it as offset. The problem that I am facing is that whenever I do Keep Offset, the Foot keeps disconnecting from the Leg and joins up with the Leg IK. Any Ideas for solution???

You have to go to pose mode after "Keep Offset".


Multiple problems: Rigged arm & hand with elbow corrective shape key I have multiple Problems. :/

Trying to create a corrective shape key driver for the elbow, I managed to create the shape key itself without a problem. assigning it to a driver I realized, that the value of the driver always remained 0. Even when moving the FK_bone, thus deforming the forearm successfully, the value did not change, so neither did the shape of the elbow. Please help me with that.
Upon trying to figure it out myself, I played around with the roll of the different bones (left arm and left hand) in edit mode. I did this trying to make sense out of why the value did not change on the driver. As a result I can now not move the forearm along the global or the local z-Axis. Please help with this one too.

I am trying to teach myself Blender while I have a full schedule, plus this is my first Character created in this programme, so please excuse obvious mistakes or an unclean file.

Thank you for your help :)

Here is the file:

P.S. His right arm is unrotated or rolled. His right arm is the maximum movement I would like the shape key to have as value 1.

ORG-forearm.L is not rotating anymore simply because its rotation values are locked (picture n. 1)

In your actual setup the rotation of this bone on his local Z axis has a negative value, so you can get your corrective shape key work with a negative expression (multiplied by 0.5 for having maximum effect roughly at full rotation; picure n. 2).


Blender isn't snapping to the grid, its shift 1 grid space away from the original I'm trying to make a few modular assets. To support my quest, I'm using grid snapping. However I have noticed that when moving faces or vertices, it doesn't snap them to the grid, it just moves them 1 grid space (based on the grid space I have set 0.5 in this case).
Here is an example:
I want to move this face onto a grid.

When I move it this happens. It just passed the grid.

How do I turn on absolute grid snapping?

Check the Absolute Grid Snap box in the snapping popover to enable absolute grid snapping:


How can I set a Shape Key value to be a driver's variable? I want a Shape Key's value to be driven by another shape key. But I don't know how to add a shape key value as a variable into a driver. I've selected single property and tried with Object or Mesh types.

Do I need to select another one?

If you use an object in the Prop field, the path to the shape key is like this:

data.shape_keys.key_blocks["Key 1"].value

If you use a mesh, you don't have to put data there, so:

shape_keys.key_blocks["Key 1"].value

And if you use the Key Prop field with your key block there, then you can just use:

key_blocks["Key 1"].value


Does texture baking use the GPU or CPU? Is baking textures a GPU or CPU process? I just started with baking textures and my GPU died about a week back. If I got a new (supported) GPU, would it bake off that and be faster or still go off the CPU and take a while?

Blender currently comes with two render engines: Blender Render and Cycles. You can switch between them in the top toolbar, in the field farthest to the right. If you haven't touched it, it says 'Blender Render'.

In Blender Render, you can't choose between the CPU and GPU for rendering, it will detect what's available and chooses itself. If you install a new graphics card, it will switch to it.

In Cycles, you can set it to use the GPU, or use the CPU, under Render section, at the top of the Render tab in the Properties panel, in the field that says Device


Materials modified with GLSL in bge, return to original material (using only python) I'm a noob and probably this is a completely silly question... Started using BGE two days ago...

I'm using GLSL to visualize a distance field while running in standalone player. I'm doing it using Vertex program and Shader program on the material of all mesh in the scene (all object with a mesh in fact). The shader program is applied on key pressed:

The transformation is performed through this module:

import bgl
import bge

vertex_shader = """
varying double DEPTH;

uniform double FARPLANE = 14.0; shader

void main() {
    gl_Position = gl_ModelViewProjectionMatrix * gl_Vertex;
    DEPTH = gl_Position.z / FARPLANE ;
}
"""
fragment_shader = """
varying double DEPTH;

void main() {
    // far things appear white, near things black
    float val = (1-DEPTH) * 2.35;
    gl_FragColor.rgb = vec3(val, val, val);
}
"""
# Search all object with a mesh (only one mesh per object) and
# applies the code in the previous line
def enable_depth():
    scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
    for object in scene.objects:
        if object.meshes:
            for mat in object.meshes[0].materials:
                shader = mat.getShader()
                if shader != None:
                    if not shader.isValid():
                        shader.setSource(vertex_shader, fragment_shader, 1)

vertex_reset = """
varying vec4 color;
void main() {
  color = gl_MultiTexCoord0;
  gl_Position = gl_ModelViewProjectionMatrix * gl_Vertex;
}
"""
fragment_reset = """
varying vec4 color;
void main() { gl_FragColor = color; }
"""
# this should reset the shader... I've done different test, reported
# in the last lines of this function
def disable_depth():
    scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
    for object in scene.objects:
        if object.meshes:
            for mat in object.meshes[0].materials:
                shader = mat.getShader()
                if shader != None:
                    if not shader.isValid():
                        #shader.delSource()
                        #shader.setSource(vertex_reset, fragment_reset, 1)
                        #shader.setSource(vertex_shader, fragment_shader, 0)

How can I go back with this transformation? (I mean, from right to left) I tried with some sort of vertex/fragment program (report in code) but simply does not work and I am sure this is not the right way. Maybe I should have two materials for each object? But if a mesh has two materials, how do I change the active material in python? And finally, am I asking the right questions? :)

P.S. Only Blender Game Editor, no Blender Render!

The shader(s) can be disabled/removed with shader.delSource().


Align Object A to Object B to their respective active faces with python i want to Align two objects depending on their active faces like in this gif below

didn't find any answers but only this clue below from this question:
Align to face normal vector

but it only align the selected object to the active object active face, and not align both active faces together.

any good tutorials, documentations on working with matrix in blender ?

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector
import bmesh

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
A = context.object

A.select_set(state=False)
B = bpy.context.selected_objects[0]
A.select_set(state=True)

obj = context.edit_object
mw = obj.matrix_world.copy()
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data)
face = bm.select_history.active
o = face.calc_center_median()

axis_src = face.normal
axis_src2 = face.calc_tangent_edge()
axis_dst = Vector((0, 0, 1))
axis_dst2 = Vector((0, 1, 0))

vec2 = axis_src @ obj.matrix_world.inverted()
matrix_rotate =     axis_dst.rotation_difference(vec2).to_matrix().to_4x4()

vec1 = axis_src2 @ obj.matrix_world.inverted()
axis_dst2 = axis_dst2 @ matrix_rotate.inverted()
mat_tmp = axis_dst2.rotation_difference(vec1).to_matrix().to_4x4()
matrix_rotate = mat_tmp @ matrix_rotate
matrix_translation = Matrix.Translation(mw @ o)

B.matrix_world = matrix_translation @ matrix_rotate.to_4x4()

It seem like the script only apply a transform matrix to object origin, which doesn't consider the local location of the face center.

You will need to calculate the difference vector between that face center and the origin of the same object, and move that object by the vector.

Here is the script I modified (with mess, Blender 2.8 API):

import bpy
from mathutils import Matrix, Vector
import bmesh

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
A = context.object

A.select_set(state=False)
B = bpy.context.selected_objects[0]
A.select_set(state=True)

#obj = context.edit_object (!) equal to A
src_mw = A.matrix_world.copy()
src_bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(A.data)
src_face = src_bm.select_history.active
src_o = src_face.calc_center_median()
src_normal = src_face.normal
src_tan = src_face.calc_tangent_edge()

# This is the target, we change the sign of normal to stick face to face
dst_mw = B.matrix_world.copy()
dst_bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(B.data)
dst_face = dst_bm.select_history.active
dst_o = dst_face.calc_center_median()
dst_normal = -(dst_face.normal)
dst_tan = (dst_face.calc_tangent_edge())

vec2 = src_normal @ src_mw.inverted()
matrix_rotate = dst_normal.rotation_difference(vec2).to_matrix().to_4x4()

vec1 = src_tan @ src_mw.inverted()
dst_tan = dst_tan @ matrix_rotate.inverted()
mat_tmp = dst_tan.rotation_difference(vec1).to_matrix().to_4x4()
matrix_rotate = mat_tmp @ matrix_rotate
matrix_translation = Matrix.Translation(src_mw @ src_o)

# This line applied the matrix_translation and matrix_rotate
B.matrix_world = matrix_translation @ matrix_rotate.to_4x4()

# We need to recalculate these value since we change the matrix_world
dst_mw = B.matrix_world.copy()
dst_bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(B.data)
dst_face = dst_bm.select_history.active
dst_o = dst_face.calc_center_median()

# The following is telling blender to find a translation from face center to origin,
# And than apply it on world matrix
# Be Careful, the order of the matrix multiplication change the result,
# We always put the transform matrix on "Left Hand Side" to perform the task
dif_mat = Matrix.Translation(B.location - dst_mw @ dst_o)
B.matrix_world = dif_mat @ B.matrix_world

And since the face in quad is actually not flat in most of the case, you may find out the script is not always stick the face beautifully because it is impossible to bend that face with fixed vertices position.

You may want to split the polygon in to triangle to make the face flat.

And for the matrix tutorials, it's just math problem in 3-dimension space. You may want to check out some guide of how these surface model work in most of the 3D application.

Matrix Transformation: 3D Transformation - tutorialspoint


Animation doesn't work in blender with a rigged object I was trying to make an animation with those rigged objects. but it didn't work
I made a path to drive with the object and then did what the object can be followed the path.
and I set 1 frame and pressed 'I'key which is Location Rotation and scale, and slide offset factor to 1 and pressed 'I'key which is Location Rotation and scale. but it didn't work I don't understand why it doesn't work.

If there is an orange bar between two keyframes, this means that nothing changes between those keyframes. That's why you cannot see an animation because you animated "nothing" because both values for different times(keyframes) are the same.
If you want to keyframe the offset, you do this by hovering with the mouse over the offset value and press "I". Then change the keyframe and the offset value and press "I" again when the mouse is hovering over it.
It is something totally different if you press "I" in the 3D View. Then you can choose what you want to keyframe: Location, Rotation, Scale or combinations of these. Because you keyframed LocRotScale and then changed the offset and hit "I" again in 3D View - you keyframed the same location, rotation, scale again - which makes no sense.


How can I make vertex colours into a UV map image? I've painted my mesh in vertex paint, but I would like to edit the colours in Gimp, then reapply them as a texture and bake back to vertex colours.  Is there a way to export just the vertex colours? So it appears as a image file?

First, switch to blender render engine temporarily to bake out the vertex colors to an image (I won't go into the details of how to bake as there are tons of tuts out there for that).

Edit the resulting image in Gimp.

Then setup an image texture in BI and enable bake to vertex color, then bake in "Textures" mode.


Blender 2.83 runs VERY SLOW: constantly accesses HDD even though it's installed on SSD I have Blender 2.83 installed on my main C: drive, which is a SSD (Samsung 970 EVO Plus). I just installed 2.83 last week. I started with Blender last Sep with version 2.80. I installed 2.80 on my D: drive, which is an old-school 1 TB HDD.
I've iterated through 2.81 and 2.82, both of which were installed to my C: drive (SSD). I have 32 GB of RAM and a Nvidia RTX 2080 GPU.
My problem is that, even though 2.83 is installed to my (supposedly super-fast) SSD, Blender run RIDICULOUSLY SLOW. A single key press often causes the HDD D: drive to whir into action for five to ten minutes. During that time, Blender is unresponsive - completely locked up.
At first, I uninstalled the previous versions of Blender by just deleting the Blender folders out (like the online guides and forums say to do). Then, I used Revo Uninstaller to hopefully clean up any registry entries from the previous versions that refer the current version back to the D: drive. But that didn't help.
What am I missing? Why is Blender constantly accessing my D: drive even though 2.83 is installed to a very fast (and not close to full) SSD? It makes Blender very painful to use. I have to pull up a book on my Kindle and read during the very frequent and very long periods when Blender is accessing the D: drive. The proportion of time I actually spend getting anything done on Blender compared to the time it's locked up spinning the HDD is very, very low.
What gives?

This is how I fixed the problem, though Blender does still run fairly slow on this particular file since it is very large. However, I had corrupted Windows files. I didn't know that until my Task Manager started acting oddly.
This is what I did to fix:
Using the CMD application in Windows 10, as an administrator, I ran the following command: "sfc /scannow". That scan indicated I had some corrupted files.
Them, from CMD as an administrator, I ran "DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth". This let me know the faults were repairable.
3). Then, from CMD as an administrator, I ran "DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth". This fixed the faults.
After the above steps, my D: drive has not been being accessed at all by Windows. It's right at 0% all the time now. Earlier, the norm was 90% or higher.


Closing a hole after adding solidify modifier I modeled this part of a lightbulb and in order to create some thickness I added a solidify modifier (after adding a sub surf modifier).

Now i want to "close" this hole of the object.

But when I do this I don't get a smooth transition between the "old" geometry and the "new" geometry. Why is this ?

What should I do to "close this hole" and have a nice smooth surface (in combination with the solidify modifier) ? Or should I forget the modifier and created thickness by modelling without modifier ?

After adding some extra loops this is the result. It looks better but it is still like two separate objects are brought together and I wanted to see one object with a smooth transition

Can you post screenshots of your mesh without modifiers? It's hard to tell from the images, but it looks like you have a non-manifold mesh, that is a mesh that could not exist or be built in real life.

In your case it seems you have edges that belong to more than two faces. Specifically that large circular "lid" that makes inner part of the lamp is probably attached to the outer faces causing an inconsistency in your mesh that the solidify modifier can't handle correctly.

I would advise choosing one of the two methods and sticking with it.

If you require modeling the inside of the mesh than abandon the modifiers completely and model it all the way through.

I always prefer a modifiers non destructive workflow so in your case you could either detach the "lid" into a separate object that doesn't use a solidify modifier, or leave it in the same mesh but detach it from the surrounding geometry, making it a separate chunk.

Edit: As I mentioned previously, closing the mesh at the selected loop will yield a non manifold mesh, you would be creating a an inner face that would be connected to the outer part of the shell.
I mean, you can do it, but it will generate a mesh that will most likely cause problems with most modifiers and create a topology that is troublesome.

The way I see it you have four choices:

Apply the solidify, enter edit mode select the inner center vertex, grow the selection with Ctrl + + until the desired loops are selected and X > dissolve faces.
Drop the solidify modifier or and manually model the interior with the closed loop as desired. There is an edit mode Solidify operator you can use.
Leave the solidfy modifier, duplicate the selected loop with Shift + D then press F to close it. It will create a separate chunk of mesh and a discontinuity in the object, but it will remain a manifold watertight object and leave the modifier in place.
My favorite would be to rethink the whole object and use a screw modifier instead. Just draw the section of the light bulb and then use a Screw Modifier.


Is there a way to make stitching? So other than taking time and sculpting an entire object to make stitches, is there a quicker way to do it? Blender should make a stitch sculpt though if there is no quick way.

With version 2.78, you can now draw curves onto surfaces.

To use it:

Add a Path curve in object mode (Shift + A >> Curve >> Path).
Enter into edit mode (TAB).
T to show the Tools panel.
Under the Options tab set your Projection Depth to Surface.
Under the Create tab click Draw Curve or alternatively Shift + A >> Draw Curve.

NOTE: you can play with the Tolerance under the Options tab to get settings to your liking. After creating your desired curve, delete the verts that make up the original path.

Create a thread mesh design.
Add an Array modifier to your thread mesh, setting its Fit Type to the curve object.
Add a Curve modifier to the thread mesh, setting its Object to the same curve object in the Array modifier.

For me, I picked the start point of my curve as being the origin of the curve, and set its position to the origin of the thread mesh, then played with the Constant Offset of the Array modifier.

Here's was my results:


Rendered View very pixelated compared to Rendered Result I've never noticed this issue before when working.  I am thinking I turned on/off a setting by accident.  Any help?  I set my preview and rendered samples to both the same (16) for comparison.

The issue appears to be the way that cycles handles small light sources.  To solve this I turned down the brightness for all of my small indoor lights and added a blender internal light (spot light) and placed them as if they were sourced from the bulbs (and parented the meshes to them for ease of adjustment) and adjusted the brightness from there.   This appears to give the realistic affect I was looking for.


Best Version for my iMac - Recommended Version for Mac OS X 10.5.8 My system:

iMac - Late 2012 version
32 gigabyte RAM
3.4 GHz quad-core Intel i7
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB

Blender doesn't run correctly.  Lots of long pauses with a spinning icon.

Blender 2.79b is the last stable release before the user interface change happened in 2.8.
Try it. It looks very different and does not have eevee tho


How to stop objects sticking out from the sides Is there anyway to clean up the edges so it's just one smooth face instead of these things poking out without having to resize everything?

One way to fix this:

Select your mesh
Switch to Edit Mode
Select all
Press P then choose 'By loose parts'. This will divide the mesh by loose parts.
Switch to Object mode.
Select the objects (parts of mesh) which you want then delete them.
Select all remaining mesh parts using A
Join them to be one mesh using Ctrl+J


Export 2D view of objects I have several parts of a vehicle in Blender. I need to have pictures, png files highly prefered, of side/top view of these objects. The key point here is that I need them to keep their relations, e.g. if two objects have the same length, I need them to have the same length in pixels in the exported pictures.

How would I do that?

You can use an orthographic camera. That way perspective has no effect and all of the objects will be the same size in all the images. Since all the camera settings are still available png files are already the default output file type.

To get an orthographic camera, simply click on your camera and go to the camera tab in the properties window. At the top, click orthographic, and change the scale until all of the parts fit in to the frame.

If you change the orthographic scale at any point the objects will no longer be the same size, so make sure you test all of the angles to make sure there are no problems before rendering.


Volume absorption boosts light levels of scene and messes with shadows The first has a volume absorption node that is set to full white and 0 density for the water, it also has a glass BSDF set to white and an IOR of 1.33. The second image is the same, except the volume absorption node has been removed from the water material.

Here is my node set up:

I have tried recreating this effect in a simple scene with as few objects as possible, but I can't recreate it at all. (Additional information: I was having this same issue with a hair particle system in this scene, but that has since been removed from the scene.)
Why is the volume absorption node messing up my scene?

I raised the max volume light bounces to 64 and that has solved the issue


why can't i apply armature on mesh? ![in pose mode with armature selected
]1i'm trying to make many version of the same figure by, having a armature and
setting it in different positions, and then making a new copy of both armature
and mesh and then apply them again.
My årobkem here is, i have an armature and a mesh, and i can se the armature in edit mode, but i cant se it in object, neither apply it.
I dont understand why its not possible, and how i can solve it.
The armature seems to bee there, - why cant i find it and apply it to the mesh

regards Frank Fenriz![lacking armature in object mode
]3

You have to click on the armature for it to show in the upper right tab where you can select "Pose mode" and then rotate your mesh however you want (depending on the armature)