How to approach the modeling of duct work, piping, wiring? I'm wondering how to approach duct work, piping, and wiring?
In the past, I have used the spin tool to make corners, but I find it very cumbersome.
How do you do duct work and piping? I have seen people use curves, but I find it's hard to get straight 90 degree angles or just uniform angling across the whole model. It's also hard connecting piping together if they started from different locations.
Here's some reference:

To create basic connections you can use any or a combination of the following 3 Techniques:

Pipe Joints, part of the Mesh > Extra Objects Add-on

Open the user preferences window (Ctrl+Alt+U in 2.79, or Edit>Preferences in 2.8) Navigate to the add-ons section.
Enable the Add Mesh: Extra Objects Add-on

You'll have a new item on the add menu to create pipe joints.

UPDATE:
As of version 2.79 and 2.8 Pipe Joints are accessible on Add>Mesh>Mechanical>Pipe Joints.

At creation time, each of the tools have a different set of options to refine the angle, diameter, etc. (if the tool tab is not open press T to make it visible or press F6
Keep in mind that once you make any further transformations, those original parameters cannot be reset (read this).

Connect different segments.

To connect two cylinder segments that have the same number of vertices, select the end edges and use Bridge Edge Loops, and adjust number of cut and smoothness.

Curves

To create large sections and more intricate paths , create a base shape for the pipe.

And use it as a Bevel object on a curve:

To deal with sharp turns adjust the control points by pressing B and selecting Vector. The width of the curve can then be ajusted by changing the radius of a control point.


How to reset hook position The image above shows a simple hook modifier setup with the hook object (the empty) moved. At the end of the line there is a small black dot denoting the rest position of the object. How can I get the empty back there?

Note: The options "reset" and "recenter" both don't accomplish what I want. Reset will put the object back into it's original state without moving the hook. Recenter will put the origin of the hook to the 3D cursor, but once again not move it.

Why do I want this? Well, I have an object rigged with hooks that has already been transformed and don't want to change the rig by changing the rest positions of the hooks. It seems like the rest positions are not centered around the hooked vertices so selecting the geometry and placing the hook there is not an option :(

Empties have no rest position. It is privilege of bones.
Bones can be used as Hooks targets.
All you have to do is replacing empties in your rig by bones and use them in pose mode.


Rigid body. Why doesn't the ball fall into the cone? When I try to simulate ball (active rigid body) falling into the cone (passive rigid body), the ball just doesn't fall into, but stays on the top (like there was a face, but I deleted it).

On the Rigid Body Collisions set the Shape on the cone to Mesh


Transparent lines for a hologram like effect I have a hologram like effect in the Cycles render engine. And so far I'm satisfied with the results.

And my node setup is this ("Emission" shader and "Transparent" shader are mixed together by a "Layer Weight" node in the "Factor" value of the "Mix Shader" -

However, is there a way to create those transparent lines that when animated go upwards like in many sci-fi movies? Something like this -

I used a Checker Texture to make the lines, adjust the scale to make the thickness of the lines you want. The Mapping node's Scale along the Y and X to 0, stretches out the checker texture to make it a line. Then the Location along the Z is animated to make the lines move.
Replace the two Emission nodes for your hologram shader.


Where can I find beginner videos for Blender? The YouTube Channel videos for beginners which start out with hotkeys, and learning the interface are based on an older model of the program, and the location/function of the buttons seem to be outdated.

The purpose for which I am using the program is to create housing and environmental structuring on Second Life.

Can anyone kindly direct me to a location that will guide me through the steps of getting acquainted with the program so that I can begin implementing it, please? Thank you all very much.

Heres the playlist I used, its well done:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrgQj91MOVfjTShOMRY8TLmkJ7OFr7bj6


Change status in status bar I want to use bpy.context.workspace.status_text_set(text="HelloWorld")
The problem is it is working just in draw, modal, execute methods of my operators, but I want to change it from class which not inherited from bpy.types.Operator
in this class bpy.context.workspace is None

Problem solved with global variable and function which registered as blender timer.
status = {'prev': None, 'new': None}

def set_status(text):
    try:
        status.update({'prev': status['new'],
                       'new': text})
    except:
        pass

def status_timer():
    try:
        if status['new'] != status['prev']:
            bpy.context.workspace.status_text_set(text=status['new'])
        return 1
    except Exception as e:
        return None

and add to register() function
bpy.app.timers.register(status_timer)


programmatically create tracking markers and set per frame coords? I would like to import a series of coordinates for multiple "points" for multiple frames but I can't find examples.
I saw how I can add markers with bpy.ops.clip.add_marker, but I don't understand how to change coordinates over time, is it possible?

Found MovieTrackingMarkers.insert_frame
clip = bpy.data.movieclips[0]
width = clip.size[0] # 848
height = clip.size[1] # 480
bpy.ops.clip.add_marker(location=(424.0/width,240.0/height))
bpy.data.movieclips[0].tracking.tracks.active.name="test"
clip.tracking.objects[0].tracks[0].markers.insert_frame(10, co=(212.0/width,120.0/height))
clip.tracking.objects[0].tracks[0].markers.insert_frame(20, co=(106.0/width,110.0/height))
clip.tracking.objects[0].tracks[0].markers.insert_frame(30, co=(53.0/width,55.0/height))

Well, that was fun:
use dlib and opencv to track face landmarks


Material rendering fuzzy on some objects and not others Whenever I try to render my scene part of the object remains very grainy and the texture doesn't seem to render all the way. Only parts of the petals seem to render correctly for some petals, but other petals with the same material render fine.  What is causing this?

I thought perhaps this was just fireflies or something to do with my lighting, but my teacher and I have tried multiple things and none of them have worked.

Your problem is that several of your petals are duplicated exactly on top of themselves.  Since the petals are super high poly the z-fighting is not quite as obvious as usual.

This probably happened because you pressed Shift(or Alt)+D and then exited the operator with a right click (or by pressing Esc).  This does not cancel the entire duplication operation, it just cancels the translation and drops the duplicate directly on top of the old one.

To fix this just select and delete all the unintentional duplicates.  I would do this by selecting each problematic petal and checking if it has a material assigned to it, if not delete it; if so right click it again to select its duplicate, then delete it.


Bevel with specified radius in python script I think this is kinda simple. I currently make a Bezier curve and set a circle curve as the bevel object.
R = 0.1

bpy.ops.curve.primitive_bezier_curve_add(align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0))
curve = bpy.context.active_object

bpy.ops.curve.primitive_bezier_circle_add(radius=R, align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0), scale=(1, 1, 1))
cross_section = bpy.context.active_object

curve.data.bevel_object = cross_section
curve.data.use_fill_caps = True
curve.data.bevel_mode = 'OBJECT'

This is all fine and I can set the circle radius to control the bevel radius. But I would like to make different radii at each end but still specified by a simple parameter:
R_1 = 0.1
R_2 = 0.3

I know this can be done with a taper curve but it not clear how to set the radius with parameters. Is there some simple/obvious/clever way to do this

Assuming you have a bezier curve with only 2 control points and you always want a circle for your shape, you can do this. I think this works, its past my bedtime, but copy paste in the text editor and it should work. Feel free to expand on your wishes.
import bpy

bpy.ops.curve.primitive_bezier_curve_add()
curve = bpy.context.active_object

curve.data.use_fill_caps = True
curve.data.bevel_mode = 'ROUND'     # Gives it a circle shape without needing another object as a profile.
curve.data.bevel_depth = 1          # 1 Meter Radius (NOT DIAMETER)

# These will multipy the curve radius at each control point,
# so best to keep that at 1m and control the taper with these.
start_radius = 0.1  # Radius Multiplier 1
end_radius   = 0.3  # Radius Multiplier 2

# Assuming the curve type is 'BEZIER'
curve_points = curve.data.splines[0].bezier_points

# Assuming your curve only has 2 points.
curve_points[0].radius = start_radius
curve_points[1].radius = end_radius


Can't render 2048x1152 I'm trying to make a render for a YouTube banner-thingy.
I tried to change the camera resolution to 2048x1152, for some reason during the render process it minimizes to 1024x577,
Any idea for the fix?

Under the "Render size", change the " 50%" to 100%


Export/list out object information as text format Is there an option in blender to export (or list out) certain properties of all (selected) objects?

My case is: I have modelled a furniture using real size, metric measurements. Now I want to hand a list of sheet sizes over (x-y-z dimensions of objects in blender) to the carpenter so he would be able to cut the correct sheets for me.

I am looking for an option to do all inside blender, if that isn't possible, an option of some kind of export would be acceptable.

It's pretty easy with if you know a little Python.

# import the necessary modules we need
# in our case, blender's python API and python's os module
import bpy, os

# get the current selection
selection = bpy.context.selected_objects

# initialize a blank result variable
result = ""

# iterate through the selected objects
for sel in selection:
    # get the current object's dimensions
    dims = sel.dimensions
    # write the selected object's name and dimensions to a string
    result += "%s - %.03fm x %.03fm x %.03fm\n" % (sel.name, dims.x, dims.y, dims.z)

# get path to render output (usually /tmp\)
tempFolder = os.path.abspath (bpy.context.scene.render.filepath)
# make a filename
filename = os.path.join (tempFolder, "newfile.txt")
# confirm path exists
os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(filename), exist_ok=True)
# open a file to write to
file = open(filename, "w")
# write the data to file
file.write(result)
# close the file
file.close()

Copy and paste the above into Blender's Text editor and press Run Script (Alt+P). It will save the data (object name and dimensions) into your tmp folder.


How to do a transformation / deformation I have a model of a deflated balloon. I want to know if I can use shrinkwarp or another method to enlarge it to an inflated state.

I don't want to permanently change the models, I want to make it so I can animate something like the balloon getting inflated, so something like shrinkwarp I which can use to customize the shift between the two states.

If you have 2 version of the same geometry created with sculpting for example, you can morph between them with a mesh Shape Key

Select the object you want to morph into, shift-select the base shape object (so it's last selected and active), add a Basis shape key (if not present) and finally choose Join as Shapes from menu:

This will create a linear morph animation if you animate the Shape key Value:

Easiest and fastest solution, not the best quality though.

To add more realism you can mix it with armature deform. For raising the deflated balloon a finger rig is suitable:

add Armature > Single bone, extrude the bone in edit mode, position the bones and make sure they are oriented so they rotate in their x-axis
bind the mesh to the armature
you can either make an animation of rotating the bones or create an extra control bone with disabled deforms, that will drive the others through a Transform constraint - the scale controls the rotation:

this works like so:

Now the Blend shape needs to be just the inflation and not any of the raising that the armature already does. Because Blend shapes are evaluated before the armature modifier you have to do the inflating with vector displace or do the following:

create a duplicate of the armature
animate/adjust the armature to the raised state
apply this state as the new armature's rest position: Pose > Apply > Apply Pose as Rest Pose
transfer the bone weights from the deflated mesh to the inflated one using Data Transfer modifier in topology mode (momentarily disable any modifiers on both meshes, generate layers and apply the modifier)
add armature deform modifier to the inflated mesh and animate it down (change the constraints to move it back down):

now create the Blend shape of just the inflation:

Optionally you can add a driver for the Blend shape Value and drive it with the Control bone's scale:

You can even add some math to the driver so the Blend shape is not linear and inflates the balloon more to the end of the rig movement. This depends on the application.

For more complicated armature deforms I can link here this:

Animating a punctured torus


Deleting World Data Block from the Outliner Tree Rookie errors! It seems at some point I have deleted the World Data block from the Outliner Tree. When I needed to create a World background I added a new World from the properties panel, however the use Nodes button under the surface tab is no longer there. Is there any way that I can reinstate a World as it would be when opening a new file?
When I open Node Editor and go to Add Nodes the options are not available for selection. I changed the color to green in the properties window and see no Nodes. I presume I am missing a step.

To access the World nodes, all you have to do is switch from editing object material nodes to the world material nodes. To do so, click on the little world icon that can be found at the bottom of the node editor. It's the one located to the right of the cube icon that is currently selected (visible in the third screenshot). This will now display the world nodes.


How to find back-faces and delete them with python? Is there a python code to find and delete back-faces? As a way to do "back-face culling".

If you know a little bit of python you can modify and expand upon this snippet:

  from: http://freespace.virgin.net/hugo.elias/routines/r_dot.htm
           When deciding if a polygon is facing the camera, you need  only calculate the dot product of the normal vector of      that
  polygon, with a vector from the camera to one of the  polygon's
  vertices.

  If the dot product is less than zero, the polygon is facing the camera.
  If the value is greater than zero, it is facing away from the camera.

this could be further optimized, but I think that obfuscates the concepts. Run this code from 3dview (a 3d view context) either through a camera or user/perspective view - with the object you want to work on selected and in Object mode.

from mathutils import Vector

def get_locals(context):
    region = context.region
    rv3d = context.space_data.region_3d
    obj = context.active_object
    vertlist = obj.data.vertices
    return region, rv3d, obj, vertlist

and

def select_front_facing(context):

    region, rv3d, obj, vertlist = get_locals(context)

    # neat eye location code with the help of paleajed
    eye = Vector(rv3d.view_matrix[2][:3])
    eye.length = rv3d.view_distance
    eye_location = rv3d.view_location + eye

    for idx, polygon in enumerate(obj.data.polygons):

        vert_index = polygon.vertices[0]
        pnormal = obj.matrix_world * polygon.normal
        world_coordinate = obj.matrix_world * vertlist[vert_index].co

        result_vector = eye_location - world_coordinate
        dot_value = pnormal.dot(result_vector.normalized())

        if dot_value < 0.0:
            polygon.select = False
        else:
            polygon.select = True

Here is a short working demo, you can run this from text editor:
https://gist.github.com/zeffii/5766177

I use it in my basic SVG renderer, to fake a wireframe material which occludes back-facing, it isn't perfect for all possible use-cases but it works to 'select back-facing'. You can run the SVG renderer directly from the Text Editor, and it will set every front facing Polygon to the select == True state.


Can we disable mipmapping at the render? When I disable mipmapping in the user preferences, it doesn't work in the 3D render. Can you help me please?

You need to disable "GPU Mipmap Generation" as well. Without it disabled, the mipmap will just generate using GPU, instead of CPU.

As with many other elements of Blender, there is an option to toggle mipmapping in properties as well as user preferences. Go to properties> Texture> Image Sampling. (The image below is as it appears in Blender Render.)


"Ctrl B" Bevel operation performance is slow in 2.8 When I bevel anything with less then 30K Vertices, it lags really bad in 2.8.

What use to take me 5 seconds to perform now takes me, sometimes, a minute to do.

Thoughts?

There was a change, but it was in later versions too (like 2.79) where an optimizing solver is used to get more even results when "Loop slide" is on. It could be that that is slowing things down a lot for bevels involving a large number of edges. Try turning Loop slide off and see if that improves things. You can also submit a bug to Blender tracker and I might try to see whether I can make things better.


How to create a tape wrapped around an handle Hi i'm very new to blender, and currently, just for beginning i'm doing some "homeworks". Now i'm modeling an hatchet and i want to add a tape around the wood handle.

Reference image:

Can someone tell me how i can do it or point me in the right direction?
Thanks

Starting with a Screw Modifier you could create the tape (spiral) from a plane:

Then add a Shrinkwrap Modifier


Possible to use Pointiness in GLSL Viewport? Is it possible to view a model with Pointiness in the Blender Viewport without rendering?

I'd like to mix Pointiness and Albedo in a Cycles texture paint workflow using the Materials (GLSL) view. When I attempt Pointiness meshes appear as colored as the first Diffuse shader color (Black in this case). Pointiness looks fine in Rendered view.

As of today, the pointiness function doesn't do anything in the OpenGL modes. You need to use rendered mode or bake it.


How to rotate a selected edit not at center I am a newb, I have spent the last half hour looking for this specific answer. Most of what I saw had to do with animation or rotation of an object. I want this selected part of the spout to rotate/bend at the 3d cursor along the x axis. I tried to "space bar" - "set origin to 3d cursor".. but I get an error that it cannot be done in edit mode. So, I set it in object mode but when I go to edit mode it has changed back to center.

Please follow the steps as:

Select your point where do you want to set your origin, Hit Shift + S and select cursor to selected, as shown below:

Change your pivot point to "3D cursor" as shown below:

I hope it will be your out put:

Best of luck!


Normal Map splits surface into squares I did not find this problem / question so far. I've got one mesh with multiple materials on it (Blender 2.8). One of them is a Chrome PBR material with a normal map. I set the material up as shown in the screenshot. The material and the reflections look right in the look dev mode. But when I switch to rendered view I get this squared reflections on my surface depending on the resolution of my mesh (subsurf modifier shrinks the squares but they will not disappear). Smooth shading did not help, all normals are in the right direction and the mesh is free of doubles. The problem has to do with the normal map. When I disconnect the normal map node the material's reflection is shown properly. But I don't know how to fix the problem with using the normal map. (Material: https://www.poliigon.com/texture/metal-chrome-001) enter image description here

Set you colorspace for the normalmap to non-color.


How to repaint certain faces/vertices using vertex paint? I have been analyzing the whole day, should I use vertex paint or a texture atlas to paint all my models in blender for my diploma thesis I am currently working on (procedural generation of a city made in low poly (painting faces with solid colors)), when I finally decided to go with vertex paint after all, because it might be a better option due to slight optimization reasons (no textures needed).

When finally I start painting my models, when I realize I can't find any way to simply repaint already colored faces with slightly different hue of color. Nothing pops up on google. Please, if anybody knows how (if) this is achievable, please help me out.

This is an example what I will be painting. I have already painted a lot of my objects using multiple materials (a while ago, when i did not know about draw calls so much), so I have all the materials assigned with colors I want on my objects, maybe UV texturing is the way to go, because I can somehow select the faces with already assigned material and just drop them on appropriate color in texture?

[EDIT]:

I have gone to UV mapping due to the reason it seems way faster to alter color of already colored faces rather than using vertex paint. See the work in progress below.

I personally hate the built-in painting tool in Blender. It works fine for planes, but on more complex 3D meshes it fails badly.

If you insist on painting the faces a solid color, you can change to face select in painting mode, so you can select the faces you want to apply color to. This is a quick way of doing what you want, but you have to go over every face in every angle to get a clean solid color on your mesh. Leave a comment below if you want screenshots of how to do this.

Alternatively, you can also use the fill tool on the selected faces to make quick work of the repainting process.

A plugin that I myself have not tested yet, is this one. It allows you to select all faces with the same color automatically for easier repainting.

I personally use UV textures for pretty much everything that's textured. If I use the built-in painting tool, it's simply to mark which faces are what in a solid color, so I can easily recognize it later in external editing.

Hope this helps.


How do I replace the player with a rigid body object? BGE I have a character who's like a snail with legs in a hard metal ball. He's animated to run, stand still, and curl up inside the ball. For my game-play, I would like the ball to roll off like a completely normal rigid-body object. Unfortunately, it is parented to the armature. once the snail is curled, it remains where it is, no physics.
How can I have my snail curl up into his ball and roll away? I feel like this could be done by ending the object and adding a rigid body ball, but then how do I get the snail back when it's time to uncurl? It present yet another problem if you parent the snails armature to the rigid body ball: where does the ball go when the snail unfolds? how can I guarantee that proper rotation will be kept on the snails body?
I don't need a "solution", but I do need more ideas on what to try in order for this to work. I've tried literally all day, spent every idea I’ve had, and now i just need more things to test before I give up.

Okay, heres my most recent test.

Space-bar switches mode. its pretty easy to see the problem.

when you press space. use python to add a invisible ball.

parent the snails physics object to the ball no collision.

the snail,should be

Cube (physics,bound)

armature parented to cube

skin parented to armature

and the ball should be a rigid body,

invisible, sphere physics, bound

your going to want to use python and a timer to do it

let me know if you need more help.


How to turn a mesh into a low poly mesh I imported a lego build from LeoCAD into Blender and it has LOTS of unnecessary vertexes.

How can I delete all the vertexes inside the mesh, but keep all the vert's on the outside, so it looks normal from the outside but without all the vert's inside

Try the decimate modifier.

Select your mesh and go to the modifiers tab, where you can add the decimate modifier. Play around with the settings until the you are satisfied with the poly count, while retaining a good look.

Learn more about the decimate modifier here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/ja/dev/modeling/modifiers/generate/decimate.html


What is the best practices for rigging a Cartoon Character I would ask you for best practices with cartoon character.

I have cartoon character, that have separated parts of body. Head, body, arms, foots. Can I use armature for manage poses?

Armature works with joined components, but in case I join the components, I loose the perfect texture mapping that I did for each part separately.

Should I join all the parts and create textures and mappings as the last step?

How to keep positions and transformations of two objects - in case they are unjoined and Im moving by one of them - head - by bone?

I have eyes that must be - of course - parts of head. But bulbs and lashes must be in-depended - not joined - because they must be moveable.

The body texture was perfect before I joined the head and body because of armature.

Don't join the meshes, leave them separate.  The easiest way would be to modify the origins of your meshes so they rotate the way you want them to, instead of using armatures.

To do that, select your mesh, move the 3d cursor to the location you want your mesh to pivot from, and then select Object > Transform > origin to 3D cursor.  Now you need to parent your meshes to the body.  Select all of the appendages, and then select the body last.  Now press Ctrl + P and select object.  This will parent your arms and legs to the body.  You can now move them independently, but they will still follow the movement of the body.

If you wanted the antennas and eyes to move separately from the head, just parent the antennas to the head before you parent the head to the body.


Cycles vs internal vs game engine Trying to discover why the Blender Internal and Blender Game Engine Renders seem to be generally thought of as that different for rendering from a quality perspective.  The perception of a difference of quality appears to be what the popular understanding of many users would to indicate.

Is there really a qualitative difference or is it mostly just the same render engine?  My understanding is that Game has a sort of live time render to it, and that Cycles is the newer upgraded render machine and also that Cycles is primarily for photo-realistic and fancy node based effects stuff.

Are there any outside plugins or texturing programs possibly that aid or add significant upgrades to the render engines that are commonly used in workflows that might aid in this perception?

It would seem that Internal and Game Engine seem to be at this point just minor, rough, or quick model and scene color fills for the most part or maybe used for a quick rough tests for pre-Cycles renderings? Agree, disagree?

Besides what is stated in the linked question about the differences between Blender Internal and Cycles what I can add is the following

Historically speaking Cycles is a relatively new addition to Blender. It is a completely external and standalone rendering Engine that interacts with Blender through a built in plugin and python API.
Cycles can even be used with other applications as a standalone rendering solution

Blender Internal on the other hand is integral part of Blender. It is very old, as old as Blender itself, it has been deeply improved throughout the years, but is still deeply integrated and a fundamental part of Blender, without which Blender would not work.

Its material system is also deeply tied to the OpenGL viewport preview system, that is why it's material settings and node setup are very similar to the Game Engine which uses the same OpenGL render engine.

It's also why it has a better more complete material preview system in the viewport. Where Cycles material preview is very basic and limited to image based textures without any kind of shading.

That is bound to change in the future though, Blender 2.78 already has a better preview for procedural textures, and a substantial upgrade is being made for the Blender 2.8 project.

First decoupling and removing dependencies of the Internal Render, modernizing the OpenGL real time preview, and then creating a modern substitute of Blender Internal

I know of no plugins that work with Blender rendering engines, but you can use the built in Compositor for post processing, or any external compositing software that you desire.


How to make camera see long distances I want the camera to see things that are far away. Ive tried increasing the clip but that does nothing. Can anyone help?

In 2.8, select your camera, then go in the Properties panel (on the right by default), select the Object Data tab (camera icon) > Lens > Clip End.


Exporting interactive Flash content Does anyone know if it its possible to export an interactive interface with an image with Blender for Flash? I'm sure its possible but think I may be missing a few plugins. Thanks!

It is possible to export a raster animation for Flash, (.flv). There are no Blender plugins (or native features) that let you author .fla or .swf interactive content. Some parts of the flash format remain closed source, but if someone really wanted they could using the MXMLC compiler.

The grasp that Flash once had on the interactive web has faded significantly with the growing improvements in JavaScript and adjacent technologies. Egged on a little by Apple's decision to stop supporting Flash directly on it's mobile devices. In light of recent (July 2015) revelations about years-old, but profound, security issues, the public's sense of trust in Flash isn't improving.

There are solutions for getting Blender content online and animated + interactive:

Code WebGL directly
Three.js
Blend4Web

intended to make the process a lot easier, a shining endorsement is the fact that NASA uses it. See this other answer about interactive web tech built with a direct pipeline from Blender.
Why the blender browser plugin is not updated?


How do I make my game music keep playing between scenes? I'm making a game where each level has its own scene. When a level is completed it switches to the next scene and restarts the music that's playing. How do I make it so that the music plays continuously between scenes?

Add a manager scene, where stuff should happen independently from other scenes. You can set and remove scenes, but the manager should be kept as it is.
On the manager scene, add an object that receives messages, and each message sets a property named song to a integer number. You know, if a message sensor looking for song_1 message is activated, sets the property song to 1, and so on.
On the same object, make a logic to play each song (on loop stop mode) according to its property number. You know, if property song is 1, play song_1.ogg, and so on.
On each level, make an object send a message at startup to change the song. For example, Always > AND > Message with the subject song_1, and so on according to the level.

If everything went well, when a level restarts and the song is already playing, it shouldn't restart the song, and when the property song changes the object will stop the previous song and start the new one according to the logic.

Using this method of a manager scene also helps to keep everything on only one place, instead of looking for each scene to change the song or whatever.


Python: Operator Undo Method Is there a way to call your own undo and or redo method when your operator is being 'undone'?
I already used this bpy built-in method:

bl_info = {'UNDO'}

but this didn't do the full undo.

Blender's undo system works by saving the blend file to memory, and loading it to perform the undo. If your operator doesn't fully undo, you're probably calling other operators from within its code. That's usually a bad idea; modify object properties and call functions instead.

There are no undo/redo functions that you can override.


inserted a rotation keyframe but need to move the starting position so i created a rotation keyframe but its not positioned correctly, i would like to move this to a specific coordinate, but what happens is it "jumps". What I expected was it for it to rotate on wherever the object is. How can I keep the animation but move it entirely to another location?

I'm sorry if this isn't what you were asking, but to make a keyframe with location and rotation press I, then "LocRot"


Why can't I enable JewelCraft addon? Tried reinstalling Blender, the add on itself, don't know what to do next.

Please follow installation guide.
You receive error message because you are trying to install add-on repository instead of release. Make sure you download add-on release using link provided in step one of installation guide.


Why won't the location of the light affect the direction of the shadows? So I'm new to blender, and I've been working on a project with a tutorial. (some of you might know this)

I was going through quite smoothly until I noticed that no matter where I place my light, the rendered version appears the same. (directly above the objects) I tried different types of lighting, different brightnesses, (light is currently at around 4.000 brightness) nothing works. But if I delete the light, it becomes dark and grainy. (I checked on the side bar, there are no other light sources or objects..)

Even if I put the light source under my objects, the rendered version appears the same.

Am I doing something wrong? Why can't I change the direction of the light?

Uh.. Since I'm not allowed to post more than 2 links, I'll just post extra info here (also replying to @bertmoog)

I tried changing the light types, but they all do nothing (except for Sun, of course, and Hemi, which is interpreted as Sun for some reason) The brightness is set on 4.200, color set to white, shadows enabled, etc. But it still won't do anything. As you can see, nothing appears in the preview.

EDIT: I found that by rotating the sun to point where I want it to, it works almost like normal point lighting (sorta). This pretty much solves my problem, but still, why won't the other lighting modes work?

Your lighting source is probably set to "Sun".  The sun lamp is meant to emulate a distant light source and therefore, placement is not critical.  In fact, you could place it anywhere and it would have the same effect.  The only things that produce an observable change are the rotation, the intensity/color, and the size.

There are other types of lamps (point, spot) that would work for this scene and you could always try a mesh emission source.  All of these are detailed on this forum.

EDIT: In response to your answer and comment: it is the answer to why your lighting doesn't change no matter where you place the lamp.  The answer is because you have it set to Sun.  I said that rotation is one of the only things you can change about the sun.  Position does nothing.

The reason you're not seeing the lamps is because you aren't choosing the right intensity.  The lamp themselves work perfectly:


Animate object along path and deform accordingly I'm trying to animate an object across a bezier curve using path constraint but, even though the orientation of the object changes correctly, its shape doesn't change. I'd like it to "deform" according to the path... Does anyone know how can I accomplish this? I'm using a cylinder but I wanna be able to use any object with any shape.

Here's the effect I want to create:

Ref: https://www.behance.net/gallery/49401667/Twisted-letters-2

Curve Modifier

As stated in the Blender reference manual about the modifier:

  The Curve Modifier provides a simple but efficient method of deforming
  a mesh along a curve object.

If you are working with a single object, make sure to fill the Deformation Axis field of the modifier with the correct value (X in my case, the object has no trasfomation) and to give your deformed object and path enough subdivions:

Then, you just have to animate the position of your object along the picked axis (X in this case) and optionally the rotation along the same axis to match the motion of the pencil shown in your example.

In my test file a took advantage of the keyframe modifier called Generator to set up a linear function for both:


Objects in the middle of plane on hair particle system I'm tring to distribute an objects group in a plane with hair particle system, but the objects are positionated in the middle of plane and not in its surface... any advice?

The origin of the cubes in your group is in the center each cube instead of their respective bottoms. In each of the cubes in the group, move the origin to the bottom face to fix it:

Edit mode --> Select face --> Shift + S --> Snap cursor to selected

Then:

Object mode --> Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C --> Origin to 3D cursor

Another explanation on how to set the object's origin.


Texture painting with flow, hardness, density I am wondering if the patch linked below patch to add more options for brushes like flow, hardness, and density will be implemented into Blender. I do not see it in Blender 2.90 but it was created Sep 2019 by Pablo Dobarro. If it is unknown when it will be implemented, how can I incorporate it into my build of Blender?

https://developer.blender.org/D5697

Thanks.

The patch still has yet to be reviewed properly after the suggestions Campbell made on initial review, and there are actions requested because the code system for paint affects several modes in the unified paint system. There are instructions on building blender to include patches in the build, but those instructions don't appear here on BSE - I see from a previous search that asking about how to build blender is off topic here. That said, I see from a google search that there are many options covering the different OS available.


How to get more control over Freestyle external contour lines I'm looking for a way to get Freestyle to render just the outline lines around objects.  Using inclusive + logical Or + external contour seems to do what I want when rendering objects over a transparent background. But in the picture below, I'd like for the cube that occludes the plane to still have the external contours of it drawn around all the way around the cube.

Any ideas on how to get those missing freestyle lines rendered?   Thanks!

you have to go into Edit Mode > Select all Edges > Edge > Mark Freestyle Edge
Now you have to go into the "View Layer Properties" and untick everything besides "Edge Mark" under the "Edge Types" Option.
This should do the Trick.


Particle edit mode invisible geometry In particle edit mode when combing hairs,I find that some areas have collision "the guides can't be at that place" while there is nothing there.I don't know what is the cause.

It should have something to do with face normal.Add a solidify modifier, it will solve the problem.


Mysterious Black Dot I have a black dot in my scene view (it is floating in world position) which I can't delete and I have no clue how it occured:

This dot is only visible when I have selected the armature, but I can't manipulate this black dot with any bones in any way.

I duplicated this model from my base model and saved it in another file to create seperate animations, then I noticed this black dot.

Has anyone encountered a similar problem?

It's a grease pencil layer. You can delete it in the Properties Panel (press N in 3D View to open/close). Select the Armature and click on the "x".


What are these items that are showing up in the viewport render I have a model that has animation and I am rendering out to a png sequence.
This animation will be used in a web page.

I noticed that there are some items that are showing up in the render that are not part of the model.
They are vertical black lines with a dashed line/circle at the top that has a solid circle inside that.
They show up in the rendered pngs whether I used material or rendered option in the output view panel.

I've attached an screen grab.

I can't find where these are located in the scene.
I don't know if they are lights or what.

How do I turn them off so they don't render in my png files?

To render just your model without any lights, cameras, empties, or armatures getting in the render; simply turn on Only Render.

The Only Render  checkbox is in the Properties panel N under the Display category.


How to animate focus/blur intensity on a VSE strip I am trying to animate the focus/blur intensity on a video strip, and have come across  this video.

It looks interesting, but it's just too fast for me to follow.

I like the fact that it appears to have some parts of the frame in focus and other parts out of focus, and wondered if anyone can spot and explain how this is done.

I assume this script's main purpose is to enable one use the compositor on video strips, right?

Sorry the blur implemented in the vse doesn't use an image value for scale (blur quantity is determined by image value), so all you can do is mask the blur strip with a shape (like a texture). Then Alpha it over a copy of the source strip.


How to go about modelling this roof shape in Blender? How to go about modelling this roof shape in Blender?  I started off doing it in Tinkercad and then importing the STL file but that seems to have side effects and doesn't result in a model which is easy to work with. I've been advised to model directly in Blender but having followed some "roof tutorials" I'm struggling to replicate this roof shape (and create the overhangs):

I guess what I'm trying to do is raise up the vertex A (see below) to create the ridge, but then somehow pull up the vertex B (see below) proportionally so that it creates a planar face?   Or am I simply going about it the wrong way?

Here is my .blend file:

Thanks!

I guess you need to switch to another way of modeling in Blender (compared to some other 3D softwares), you could start from the shape you show but maybe the best is to start from scratch.
Create a cube, subdivide, pull the top edge:

Create an additional edge loop on the left:

Extrude the side walls:

Cut an horizontal edge:

Pull the vertex:

Rework a bit (the knife tool is useful, K to activate, W to cut through, C to cut perpendicularly, also bevel for the top, CtrlB):

Since latest versions you have the Extrude Manifold tool (AltE) that allows to work a bit like Sketchup or others, but you often need to give some corrections afterwards to keep a good topology (good doesn't meaning a lot, it all depends on your needs of course):


Emphasizing Cycles Render Ambient Occlusion I've tried the Ambient Occlusion (AO) option in the World tab but it brightens the scene too much and doesn't much increase the AO (in Cycles).
How can I increase the amount of Ambient Occlusion in a Cycles render?

I recommend you render the AO pass and do it in post-production for more control.
1. Enable the AO pass in render layers.

2. Open the node editor, enable Use nodes and do the following:

The RGB Curves node controls the contrast and the darkness of the AO, which can be helpful.
The AO pass is a Grayscale image so you need to multiply it with the render result.

Additional Explanation
In Cycles, the Ambient Occlusion option in the World tab is technically an additional homogeneous direct lighting (almost like adding an additional solid white world background lighting). However the Ambient Occlusion in Blender Internal can act as additional shading (like Multiply blending in image editor programs or in the compositor). The AO pass in Cycles is basically the shadow data only, which you can use the get the Blender Internal behaviour back, or use in other ways.


Weird light fall of on spheres I've been experimenting with making planets in Blender with Cycles. However, I've run into this strange issue that I'm not even sure if it is an issue with the way that light is falling off of a sphere in Blender. I'm using a sun with a strength of 10. I've tried setting things up using just a blank sphere with no difference. I've also tried just starting over with no luck. I've messed with the max bounces, step size, and max step options. It seems as if these things aren't changing anything. Even if this is how it's supposed to work I would like to make the light fall-off more gradual. Especially in the render included, I think it really harms the look with the dramatic fall off. All hep is appreciated, thanks!
No atmosphere (Sorry I had to crop)

atmosphere

I find sun lamps to never be very realistic in many cases. Try swapping the sun lamp for a large (proportionally) area light. You might have to make it relatively powerful given the distance, but I think it gives a better look:


Is Physics calculation multithreading possible? Is there a way to turn on multithreading to make use of all of my computers cores for simulations? I am running on a monster of a machine, but without utilizing all of the cores, physics simulations take a very long time to process when I have a complex scene with thousands of fractured objects acting under ridged body physics.

Generally speaking, multithreading for physics simulations is only possible for part of the calculations and often quite difficult to implement. This has two main reasons:

Simulations have to run sequentially: you cannot calculate the results of frame N before you have the results of frame N-1. This means you cannot split up frames across many workers.
Elements of a physical system often interact a lot, through forces, collisions and the like. This makes it also difficult to divide the work spatially, giving subsets of grid cells, vertices, hair strands etc. to separate workers. Processes have to exchange information on stepping results frequently, reducing the efficiency of multithreading. Even where such division of work is possible, the process of dividing elements into suitable packages is far from simple (see e.g. section 4 in this paper on hair sim in 'Brave')

By comparison, rendering is ideally suited for threading, because

All the data is available in each frame, so splitting by frames is possible.
Samples (in a raytracer) are independent from each other, so tiling is also possible.


Colour difference between Windows and Linux Renders in 2.79 I have been working on a project for a while, and to speed up the rendering process, I am using 3 computers to render. One with Windows 10, one with Windows 7 and one with Ubuntu. The problem is, the Windows systems and the Ubuntu computer are returning different colours in the render. The settings should be the same, as they are working off of the exact same file, and the modifications to blender are the same.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1V-cExcx0ssG_iIKJGQuhMpNUmzmx-Qc8

I hope that someone encountered this problem already, and that there is a solution for it.
Thank you for your help in advance.

Edit: Oh, and I am using GPU render, the Windows 10 and the Ubuntu computer have GTX 1050ti-s, and the Windows 7 one has a GTX 1050. (Also I have Filmic blender installed.)

Solved, the Ubuntu system automatically changed the colour space to an apple display instead of leaving it as sRGB for some strange reason.


Texture splatting 3 or more textures I'm using "Cycles" render.  And I'm working on a landscape.
I know how to make sand and rock, with the black and white color map.
But how do I mask 3 textures?
-On this scene I need 3 textures, rock, dirt, and sand.  How do I do that?

Assuming your mask is greyscale, in theory you can map each of the 255 intermediate shades of grey to an individual land-class. In reality, you probably want more separation between the values so that texture compression doesn't mess up your mask. So assign 0 to rock, 32 to dirt, 64 to grass, ... 255 to sand, etc

Your mask will look like this, then it's up to you to setup the node materials to interpret this mask.

The only downside of this approach is that you have very little control over the blending of these terrains. Using the example above, it would be impossible to blend between sand and rock, since these values are not adjacent to each other on the mask. So with a typical bilinear interpolation, you might get 'rings' of landclass like this:

You can do 2 things: use a noise overlay on the mask to break up the pattern so it looks less obvious, or use a depth based terrain blending technique.

The node for this will be very similar to this: Cycles shader multiplexer node?


how to move face along an axis without affecting other faces? I'm learning Blender and i face this issue that i can't figure out:

I have this isometric shape:

I was trying to move this face on red x-axis:

And this what happened, actually this is what i want to do , it's kind of a mix between extrude and move:

But when i tried to do the same thing to the left side, this is what happened, it's moving all the connected faces as well:

I noticed that if i merge all vertices by distance i cant move the face as i wanted anymore.

This is how the face looks when moving it before i merged the vertices "what i want".

Is there any way around this, or a un-merge vertices option!

===============================================================

Edit :

This is what i'm trying to do, if you have good method to model it:

This way still has some issues , I know I can fill missing edges but later on I might be missing lot of faces :

Each edge is defined by 2 vertices, and each face is defined by at least 3 vertices. On the screenshot below, moving selected face is moving 4 vertices it is defined by. Since this face shares 1 vertex with the edge marked as (1) and 1 vertex with the edge marked as (2), moving this face, will warp those edges, because you will move half of the vertices defined by them:

You can see which edges a vertex is a part of, by selecting it, and looking for gradient lines:

If, while having the same face selected as on pic. 1, you right-click and choose Split, then the vertices of the selection will be duplicated, without any connections to vertices outside of the selection. Selecting a vertex again should make the difference obvious:

Selecting all duplicates (or just everything), pressing M, B, will merge the vertices, by removing all but one vertex at each spot and moving all links of those vertices to that one.
However, you probably never used Split. What you did use was Extrude, which takes a face A and duplicates it to face B, but also (unlike Split) for each vertex of face B it creates a link to the original vertex it duplicated in face A (as well as it creates faces between edges created this way). Then the new face is being moved along its normal. And what you probably did was Extrude, but then right-click, leaving the new face in the same spot as the old one, but no longer directly connected to edges (1) and (2) on the first picture. This is why you could move that face without warping those edges, and this is why so many people advised to simply extrude the other face - if you want to keep the consistency with the other face, but it is not the correct way to build "proper" topology.
Moving the original face:

Extruding the original face:

Extruding the original face, but right-clicking to leave it at original coordinates; deselecting it, selecting it and then moving it:


How to reduce the amount of noise in the rendered image? The following image was rendered using 2000 samples.
The render takes about 3 mins and the image looks pretty noisy still, especially the wall of the building. I'm gonna have to render a really long animation so I would prefer to keep the samples less than 2000 so it doesn't take forever to render the whole animation.

I searched online for a solution and tried everything that was suggested in this post:
How To Reduce Noise In Cycles Render.

It helped some but the noise is still present in the image. I was wondering if there are any other ways to reduce the noise without increasing the sample number (through lighting or maybe using compositor)? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Some tricks I use:

Avoid lights that have to bounce a lot to light your scene. Instead of a sunny exterior, consider making the window glass a light (ie make the emitter the last bounce in your system).

Use ambient occlusion option in world settings. It will brighten things up but start out less noisy.

How is your scene lit? It looks like there is not enough light. Try taking a photograph with no light it also looks grainy ;)


How can I use fractions with hotkeys for translation/rotation/scale? For instance if I want to rotate an object by 360/16 degrees around the z-axis, I would expect to type: R Z 360/16. However the / key acts as a kind of toggle and midway through typing pressing / turns 360 into 1/360, so I end up with a rotation of 1/36016 degrees as the rotation if I were to keep typing.

How do I disable this and allow it to evaluate fractions or other python expressions similar to other transform property boxes?

You simply need to use the = operator to enter Advanced Entry Mode, after that you can enter your fractional value or simple Python expression:


optimal transcoding format (3d viewport and VSE)? 1080p workspace. Not sure if I use the correct words or not to describe things, bear with me.

Due to pc limitations I need to render out a project in the VSE premature so its easier to deal with. The original footage is 8 bit h.264. Additionally I need to render out a particle effect I made in the 3d Viewport before adding it to the VSE project

I need to be able to re-render the output a couple of times (1-3) and not get artifacts.

I had been using 16 bit PNG for both the vse and 3d viewport. And this fulfills the requirements I think.

I'm wondering if there is a higher format I should consider, or a lower format that fulfills the duty but is more savvy on space. Ultimately the project will be rendered out h.264 and get artifacts, just I need a format for the editing stage that won't increase these artifacts anymore than they have to be.

OpenEXR for a multitude of reasons. Half EXR is superior in every way compared to every other format if you are [intra | inter] pipeline at equivalent bit depth.


Unable to align vertices along a custom orientation Why when I scale vertices by zero with custom orientation, instead of getting a straight line, I get a little bit curved line.

You can see that vertices aren't perfectly aligned.

What I expected is to get perfectly straight line aligned along the custom orientation as shown in the picture below:

I don't see a problem in your file?

Just in case.. to flatten to a plane .. in 2.79..

Select 3 points which define the plane
CtrlAltSpace create the Custom Orientation
With pivot set to 'Active' as you have done, SZZ0
To check the result, F make a face out of your arc, select it, and set an orthographic view to look straight down its side by hitting ShiftNumpad 3


Yet Another black-image texture baking problem I'm using Blender 2.9alpha, Cycles. I have a 2d plane with UVs. I created a nice procedural marble texture, feeding Base Color in Principled BSDF. Looks great. Then I try to bake it to an image texture, but I get all black. I created the texture image, added the image-texture node to the material's node window (unconnected but selected), selected Combined (tried others too), and the render takes a while, no errors, but all black. If I bake out UV I get a nice UV color wash, that's good. But to bake the actual texture, nothing works. Diffuse should work if I just want the procedural texture that I've applied to the Base Color, right? (I'd paste a pic of my shader nodes but imgur seems to be down.)
blendfile:

The normals of the plane object are facing the wrong way (downwards). To correct this: in Edit mode select the plane then open the Mesh menu > Normals > Flip .
Note: because your image to bake to (dark marble texture) was not packed into the .blend file I had to create a new one that is called new_bake in the screenshot below.


Shifting Character Proportions I have a basic .obj of man from which I made a bmesh. I want to widen his hips. I'm a big Blender noob (and most of the work I've done with Blender has been rudimentary python scripting) so I don't know how to go about doing this.

Do I translate a vertex group of each leg a bit further out, then translate the vertices of his hips to make it look natural? Do I extrude something? Also, once I do that, should I use a vector smoothing function to make it look less awkward? (I know that bmesh has at least two such functions, and it seems to add vertices from the .obj to the mesh -- on the order of thousands -- to automatically create a smoother mesh.)

If the answer is obvious, I apologize for my noobishness. If my question doesn't make any sense or I've left out vital information, please let me know.

Thanks!

Several possible technics to do that. Of course you can move each vertex manually, but here are some possibilities that can help you (between probably many others).

Edit mode and proportional editing

Mainly two situations. Your object is mirrored or not. If it is not, you can make it mirrored (removing half of it and add a mirror modifier) or use the mirror option in the tools panel on the left here :

As you start from an obj file. I think yours is not mirrored but is symmetrical.

Enter edit mode Tab
Enable proportional editing
Select a vertex (or more) and move it
Use the mouse wheel or the PgUp and PgDown keys you can play on the influence of the proportional editing mode and so move more or less the neighbors vertices

Other useful thing in edit mode 'smooth vertex' :

Sculpting

Enter sculpt mode and check that the symmetry is set (normally it is by default) :

Then use the brushes and sculpt ! I think you may prefer the following brushes 'draw', 'grab', 'smooth'... but test which is the best for you.
The F key allows you to modify the size of your brush.

Mesh deform

Mesh deform is a modifier. It can be interesting as it gives you the ability to deform a mesh using a more simple one.

To set it up, you'll need to make a close shape that bounds your model. And probably give it some cut in order to have some handling points. And stretch the cube to be relatively close to your model.
Here I use a cube with some subdivisions and set its maximum draw type to 'wire' so that you can see your model through it :

Next select your mesh, go to the modifiers panel, choose a 'mesh deform' and set the cube as deform object. Then click 'bind' (Blender will calculate a bit at this step) :

Once done, select the cube, enter edit mode and play with its geometry :


How to resize evenly? The part in the Youtube tutorial.

The issue occurs when the object in scaled in object mode differently on several axis.

Here on left, an object that has (1, 1, 1) as scale (in object mode) and on right a scale of (1, 2, 1):

To avoid the non even scaling: go to object mode and apply the scale: CtrlA then choose 'scale'.

This kind of effects is true for several operations in Blender (scaling, beveling, extruding, etc.)

Why is it so:

in edit mode the operation is effectively performed evenly, but after that the object scales are calculated, so the result is uneven.


What are the limitations of Blender for Mac? What (if any) limitations are there with the current (2.78) and soon-to-come (2.79) versions of Blender for OS X?

I know in the past there have been some features that weren't fully supported (Open Subdiv and micropolygon displacement?), and issues with GPU rendering only working on Invidia GPUs. It's been a while since I've looked at this issue in detail, so I'm hoping to get an up-to-date view of the Blender+Mac landscape.

I hate to ask such a broad question, because I know it can be hard to address every angle... but that's just the trouble I'm having. I don't know how much of my own knowledge is still current, or how much I might not be aware of.

If this question can be answered with a "here is the official place to get all the details about Blender's OS X builds" that would be ideal. I just don't know if there is such a place, on blender.org or elsewhere. Any help appreciated.

The feature support should be the same as any other system. The official MacOSX releases will be built using the available third party libraries which includes the newer features using opensubdiv, openvdb and alembic.
As with other platforms, cuda support is better than opencl. This will depend on what mac you have as newer macs now have AMD and Intel video cards. While technically a hardware issue, the hardware is tied to MacOSX. For Cycles rendering this could lead to render farms being more popular for mac users.
anyway newer macOS users should consider that blender DOES NOT SUPPORT METAL and since Apple is discontinuing OpenCL, reading this statement on blender official website can make you sad when it comes to use GPU rendering specially in cycles render engine:

GPU rendering is only supported on Windows and Linux; macOS is
currently not supported.

... and because of some technical issues (some of these issues mentioned here) it's hard to say that they are going to support Metal (at least soon)


UI: Text box with multiple lines I want to incorporate in my Blender interface (in my addon) a text box that allows you to write notes on several lines (as in the text editor script). Currently, what I find in Blender are text boxes on one line!

As far as i understand there is currently no way to have multiline text boxes. However there is a solution in work which will allow multi line tool tips:

https://developer.blender.org/D622

From the comments i think that this patch will also allow multiline text boxes as a side effect.


How would I be able to set one vertices the same y axis as another one? I'm new to use blender and the current version I'm using in 2.8 and I want to get used to learning this software.

I assume "setting a vertex to the same y axis as another vertex" means that they both should be on the same line perpendicular to Y axis.
Snapping
You can use snapping for that. You can constrain to the other two axis by pressing shift+x,y or z so that transform operations are constrained to a plane and then hold ctrl while in transform operation to temporarily enable snapping. Your snapping settings need to be set to Vertex mode:

Scaling
You can also use scaling to 0 while using active element as transform pivot and constraining to the XZ axis plane the same way as with snapping. The active vertex will be the one you select the last.


How to fix face orientation when using screw modifier I'm trying to model a camera lens using vertexes and screw modifier like spline modelling.

But face orientation is fully red and that becomes a problem when I try to use a boolean. Recalculating normals won't work because there are no normals to recalculate.

So are there any ways of solving this without applying screw modifier and then recalculating normals? Thank you in advance.

There are two ways to do this.
Click on the flip checkbox in the modifier settings

Set the angle to -360d


How to make 2 rigid body objects hit and stay together? Usually, when an active rigid body object hits with a passive rigid body, it will collide and bounce off the passive one, base on physic.

But how to make the active rigid body object hits and stays / sticks with the passive rigid body?

My goal is to make a donut with chocolate scraps on top of it as topping. I tried to make this with particles system. The problem is the chocolate scraps will intersect with each other.

I found that many people suggested rigid body object as a workaround to this intersect particles problem. By making many rigid body objects that float in the air / above an object at frame 1, and let it falls and rests on the object to create the particle effect without intersection.

That would worked perfectly fine with flat object like a plane. But with my donut as in the screenshot, the scraps would bounced off as soon as it hits the donut. I wouldn't want that, I want it to stick with my donut as a topping.

Add a lot of Friction to both the donut and the scraps.

Add rotational damping to the scraps.

On the scraps, choose Enable Deactivation and tweak the values (make them lot bigger).


Make a Soft-Body to follow path I am making a small tetris animation but the problem is that the blocks are not falling as they should. Sometimes they collide with the container walls and sometimes they do not land on the position the need to. I was wondering whether I can make soft bodies follow a path while taking gravity into consideration. If yes, can I make the blocks collide with the container, spin and position them where needed? When I searched for this a bit, I found out that I would have to use soft-body goal and vertex groups but I have no idea how to use them.

So can anyone please explain this to me?
Thanks.

blend file

(After a lot of fiddling around, I was able to animate these four blocks but I don't think I can do this for all of them).

if you go to the weight paint mode and paint a certain area that you want to animate and then in physics settings you check goal and choose the vertex group you created, you can add location/rotation/scale keyframes which will affect the vertex group only.

here the object(cube) is being pulled by 2 simple keyframes


Quick Way to Extrude Line to Make Ledges? I'm not sure how to explain with words so hopefully the images can do it justice, but is there an easy way to essentially duplicate vertices/lines such that the new set will remain attached to faces one side while the original set remains attached to the other side?

Ah ha! Apparently it's called Rip-Fill. Simply select the desired vertices/edges and press Alt+V. And it seems you can pick which side moves by which side the mouse started on when you press Alt+V. Amazing.


Traceback Error while FBX export help I cant export this into a FBX file, an advance thank you to all who tried to help

This is just a model, no Animations or Armatures.

I got the same error today. I traced it down to one image texture. Once, I used a different for testing. The problem didnt occur again


Can´t open Blender scene and I could last night I'm trying to open a .blend file I was working on last night.
It was pretty big file but I was able to work on it.
Now, I'm back to continue working on it and it crashes not being able to open the file or the program.
I got some error window but not sure how I can share them.
Can anyone help?
Thank you in advance.

Open Window > Toggle System Console , and if it says in the las "missing DNA Block"  ,  it means that your file is now corrupt and this happens because your device wad writing to your blend file while you closed it , so there are 2 ways to solve the problem , one is go to File > Recover > Auto Save and then look for your file and according to the time you last saved , you can open that file , and if you were lucky , you will find your file , and if not , then you can go to your blend1 file and rename it to .blend and then open it and save quickly , now if both methods don't work then " i hope you did not loose much work"


How to plot 1/x^x in Blender using Z function surface I am looking to plot math functions in Blender using the Z function surface Add-On.

It works great for functions such as:

1/x**2

But fails for functions like:

1/x**X

which gives error:

Error evaluating expression: 1/( x**x ) (Check the console for more info)

The console shows:

TypeError: can't convert complex to float

...despite Google and Wolfram Alpha being able to plot these easily:

You can wrap your expression in parens add a .real or .imag to get the real or imaginary part, e.g. (1/(x**x)).real.


Problem creating energy material in cycles I'm trying to make an effect of pulsing electricity/energy in cycles but the tutorial I've been following was in blender render and used transparency options that aren't in the materials tab in cycles.  How can I make the material so that it has a harsh ripple-like outline?  Right now it looks more like a ghostly jelly :p

This is what I have so far:

But with the cube, I want to have this effect:

The main difference with your setup and that of the "Tutorial" is that the base material is not completely transparent.

If you mix the transparent with a translucent material, and then mix that with an emission shader using fresnel information, you can get something similar.

Click on the image to enlarge

Of course you can always make things more complicated and add another emission shader with a texture as volume:


What techniques have been used to repeat geometry or other detail to the infinite horizon? When I composed my first hopping cube video

I would have liked to have the camera pitch up enough to show the horizon, except I didn't have enough geometry to extend the cobblestone street and the sidewalk all the way to infinity (mostly because that would require infinite stuff).  Even in that shot it is clear that I need to widen the "sidewalk" to cover up the "sky"box.

Contrast with

where the ray tracer can use the procedurally replicated geometry.

http://www.pasteall.org/blend/29031 is a failed attempt at faking out the horizon, even with low detail.  It fails because lighting's interaction with the geometry gives it away.

Some techniques that prevent you from having to deal with infinity include

put the scene in a box (usually a room)
put the scene in a canyon (which is just a box without a top so you can see the relatively featureless sky)
route the road into a tunnel, or around a corner and hide the horizon with other geometry (which is really just a variant on the canyon).
have no detail on the ground at all (flat color or gradient)

Those are all dodging the question of interest to me:

What techniques have people used in blender to fake various kinds of detail repeating into the distance (instead of just obstructing the view of infinity)?

To give the impression of infinity, often it's not necessary to copy the object many times at all. you will notice that in the example image only about 8 or 9 repetitions are visible, the implied continuation of cubes is hidden behind a white glare.

One way is to do this is by using an array modifier. One issue with this is that it is not the most efficient, as the array modifier creates new geometry every time the source is repeated. To use the array modifier to make instances (references to a single copy of the mesh data, rather than actually copying the mesh data), e.g. using Dupli objects:

Add a plane (ShiftA> Add > Mesh > Plane) and add an array modifier to it.
Parent the object you want to repeat to plane (select the object, then the plane, and press CtrlP>Object)
Enable Duplifaces on the plane under Properties > Object > Duplication.

Using this technique, you can duplicate fairly high-poly objects many times. In this example I duplicated a 4500 vert cube thing 100 times without any trouble. When I tried this with a straight array modifier (without the dupliface trick) the viewport was quite slow and the array modifier took about 30 seconds to compute.

Cycles is actually pretty good at rendering large amounts of instances like this.

Some examples:

Fun with Instancing in Cycles
19 Billion Polygons, not a ridiculous number anymore (BA thread)

Note that depending on the scene, there might be other optimizations you can do, e.g. using baked texture maps and lower poly models for far away objects.


I cant use the Z command for wireframe I was doing some 3d modeling from a tutorial then when I added a circle I pressed f8 instead of f6 then after that z won't toggle wireframe. What did f8 do? Ctrl z works but didn't undo what ever f8 did.

To get "Z" to toggle wireframe again, turn Object > Display > Maximum Draw Type to Texture or Solid if it is currently set to Wire

Or for the animated version from user Timaroberts

Sources:Can't get my model out of wireframe mode, GIF from Have I toggled wireframe?


problem with parent actuator in BGE I wrote a module to rotate the camera with middle mouse button pressed, zoom in/out with wheel up/down and at last push the camera towards the direction of the mouse if the mouse is getting near to the end of the screen.

I want the camera to be a parent to the player that I have only when the rotation is taking place.So I activate/deactivate the parent actuator but a problem or an error occurs.

While the camera moves as the mouse suggests if the mouse reaches the end of the screen (That is before I press middle button once!), after I rotate the camera I can no longer "push" it under the same conditions.

I tried activating/deactivating the parent actuator or set the mode to remove itself.And all this time I was reading the physicsId of the camera to make sure it can move with linear velocity.All the readings were ok,and no errors popped so I do not know why the camera stops moving after I rotate it once.

Here is the blend file with the module inside it : test blend

and below is the script clean,without comments. Can anyone find what I am doing wrong?

import bge

bge.render.showMouse(True)

scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()

player = scene.objects["player"]

cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()

wh_up = cont.sensors["wh_up"]
wh_down = cont.sensors["wh_down"]
wh_pressed = cont.sensors["wh_pressed"]

par_to_player = cont.actuators["par_to_player"]

cam = scene.active_camera

mousePos = bge.logic.mouse.position
if not wh_pressed.positive:
    par_to_player.mode = 2
    mX = max(0.0,min(1.0,mousePos[0]))
    mY = max(0.0,min(1.0,mousePos[1]))

if mX < 0.05:
    cam.localLinearVelocity.x = -5*(2-mX)
    cam.localLinearVelocity.y = (0.5-mY)*5
elif mX > 0.95:
    cam.localLinearVelocity.x = 5*(2+mX)
    cam.localLinearVelocity.y = (0.5-mY)*5

if mY < 0.05:
    cam.localLinearVelocity.y = 5*(2+mY)
    cam.localLinearVelocity.x = -(0.5-mX)*5
elif mY > 0.95:
    cam.localLinearVelocity.y = -5*(2-mY)
    cam.localLinearVelocity.x = -(0.5-mX)*5

cam.localLinearVelocity *= 0.9

if (wh_up.positive):
    cam.ortho_scale = cam.ortho_scale+5
if (wh_down.positive):
    cam.ortho_scale = cam.ortho_scale-5

if (wh_pressed.positive):
    bge.render.showMouse(False)
    cont.activate(par_to_player)
    par_to_player.mode = 1
    print (par_to_player.mode)
    mX_rot = max(0.0,min(1.0,mousePos[0]))
    if (mX_rot < mX):
        player.applyRotation([0, 0, -0.01], 0)
    elif (mX_rot > mX):
        player.applyRotation([0, 0, 0.01], 0)

print ("I reached the end of the module")

you are not unparenting the camera after rotation correctly , you have to set the mode to 2 and activate the actuator to take effect :

if not wh_pressed.positive:
    par_to_player.mode = 2
    cont.activate(par_to_player)

also you may need to kill the rotation after unparenting ( the camera gets thrown away after rotation )


What alternatives are there for Boolean: Union Simple question, the Boolean operator causes a lot of problems for me when I merge two or more object together. What alternatives are there to merge the meshes of two objects to form 1 solid merge. Payed alternatives are acceptable answers as well.

One tool I've run into is the Bool Tool, it's similar but it can get better results. You'll need to enable it in the user preferences to use it.


In Sverchok, how can I create a different parametric object at each vector in a list? I'd like to create a matrix, but each object in the matrix uses its index and/or location as parameters. As a simple example, let's say I want to create a matrix of spheres, but the diameter of each sphere depends on its distance from the origin.

You can use a Generators > "Hilbert 3d" node to make the matrix. I'll use this for brevity. Either that or stack a few subdivided planes and join them with Mesh Join.

Each point on the matrix is a Vector, you wanted to check the distance between each vector and the origin vector (0,0,0) and use that distance to scale a sphere placed on that vector point.

here's how to make a more dynamic matrix

import the Gist from the SV import/export panel
https://gist.github.com/c0f658e5dab427711f58c1908d470c64

Mesh instances


Problem with applying image on a displacement map, displacement apply on top and bottom but not on sides I tried to search over the net but it seems nobody as the same problem...

I try to apply a displacement map from an image and it seems that whatever option I choose from Image Mapping, Texture Coordinates, Direction .etc, it is always like if the image has been projected from top and bottom, streching texture on the sides...

Does anyone have the solution ?

EDIT: image of my settings

Try generated coordinates with Sphere projection. You do not need to UV unwrap for this.

Updated (after review file):

The question is related to applying an image texture to the Displace modifier in Blender Render. In Blender Render you can do a few more things with 'normal' textures like Sphere projection that are not available with the Displace modifier image texture - as far as I know. The distortion has to do with the way the square textures are tiled around the sphere.

The issue is further exaggerated by the scale not having being applied.

Left is the original sphere, and right with CTRL A and having scale applied. The texture was set to extend, but has been set here to repeat to avoid distortion after the scale was applied.

Some options would be to consider UV unwrapping, as Duarte suggested. This would cause seams that might be hidden by a procedural texture over this like Clouds.

The Displace modifier has been somewhat eclipsed by True Displacement which is available in Cycles Render - not Blender Render. It has the advantage that it can be used in combination with Adaptive Subdivision which also makes it less intense for your computer.

The Cycles material node system also has some versatile tools tools for achieving much of what I think you want to do. Some prefer old school Blender and I'm not judging.

I've attached the simplified file I tested - pictured above - in case someone has more solutions to offer...


Scene complexity and VRAM I'm going to build my new workstation/rendermachine and im stuck with the question: "how much vram do i actually need?"

More gpu accelerate the rendering process, but the max vram load is given by the individual vram amount.
So im torn between 4x8GB Vram and a single 32GB vram gpu.

1) What is the mathematical context between verticies/faces and vram load?

2) Could someone show me a rendered scene or video of how much I could do with 32gb of vram.

Thanks alot

I bet those 4x8GB gpus are much faster than single 32GB card. Here are some options:

Get the faster setup and a renderer that can do out-of-core rendering like Octane or Redshift. This allows your GPUs to use system RAM while rendering in exchange of slightly lower render speed. This is something Cycles can't do yet. If you are spending money on hw you might as well get a software.
Get the faster setup and if you hit VRAM limits optimize your scene - you can split the rendering into multiple render layers which you would be probably doing anyway on such large projects.
Getting the 32GB card has also benefits. This comes handy when doing physics simulations accelerated by openCL and you want to fit the ocean or the whole smoke explosion into your card. Blender is not there yet regarding simulations and can't accelerate it on gpu, but if you were using Houdini or something similar you might benefit and need this much VRAM. Simulations can't be easily split like rendering can.

8GB of VRAM is quite a lot and definitely sufficient even for serious production use. Most will be taken by:

~1GB for every 8 million triangles
500MB for Cycles kernel
64MB for each 4k texture (8bit x RGBA)
200MB for each 4k HDR texture (32bit per channel)

When you are not rendering you might want to mine crypto on those gpus and maybe those 4x8GB cards will pay themselves faster than that single 32GB one. Another thing to consider maybe.


bad texture mapping on sides of a cylinder I would like to apply a texture to an cylinder object in Blender cycles.
Below is the result when I apply the texture to the entire mesh:

Mapping OK for the Upper and bottom circular faces.
Mapping not OK
for the lateral side, the texture is applied to each single
subdivision face.

My goal is to apply the texture to the entire lateral side as a single surface.

While using the basic generated texture co-ordinates can be easy and helpful in some cases, you want to use UV-Unwrapping to get full control of how your texture looks. BlenderCookie has an introduction tutorial that explains more.

The basics are -

First mark the seams, this is where the edges are "cut" to get the model laying flat on a 2d texture image. CtrlE->Mark Seams with mark the selected edges.

Then you unwrap - Select all with A, then U->Unwrap

Now when you set the mapping to UV for the texture you will get the same bricks texture on the top as well as the sides.

For more control you can also assign different materials to the top and sides.


Export from Blender to Maya preserving Materials and Crease I have a character in Blender. It needs to be exported to Maya for rendering in VRAY. I need to figure out how to preserve the following:

1) Textures and UVs.

2) Material assignments to different parts of the mesh.

3) Crease. Currently the model is using a subsurf modifier in Blender, and some edges need to be creased. Maya also has options to smooth and subdivide the mesh, and it's own form of Creasing to preserve edges.

4) Group assignments of multiple objects.

5) Challenge Mode: The rig. The character will actually be rigged in Maya, so I'm not worried about this for this specific project. But it'd be nice to know how to do it in general.

What format and settings do I need? Is there one that can handle all of these issues?

Unfortunately, FBX is the only serious option currently (maybe with Collada, but that format is not much supported/developed nowadays…).

FBX can support edge crease (LayerElementCrease node), just never had time/reasons to implement that in Blender. And I'd need a simple FBX file exported e.g. from Maya, with a dummy cube and various levels of crease on its edges, to be reasonably sure we do handle it correctly…

Besides that, afaik FBX does not support/have notion of groups of objects.

It should support reasonably simple rigging, but do not expect advanced stuff (like drivers, constraints, etc.) to survive, only basic bones skinned with basic vgroups.


Why will 'Copy Rotation' constraint make this object point in an unexpected direction? I'm trying to get an IK rig set up for a lamp and have tried to use constraints on the objects in the scene.

What I'm trying to do is to tell the lower strut of this leg to copy the rotation of the strut next to it (which is parented to a bone in the armature), however, as soon as I set the target to the parallel leg, it flares out from the model in a way I didn't expect.

I've tried to change the axis in the 'Copy Rotation' constraint settings to no avail, checked the origins of the objects but I can't quite wrap my head around why it's behaving like this - any idea where I've gone wrong?

From my experience, unless you have a good reason to use the Copy Rotation constraint, it is best to parent the object in question to the armature. If, as I believe to be the case here, there's no need to deform the mesh (i.e. all movable parts are separate objects), you can use the Bone parenting mode. Using this mode will make it so you're not required to use weight groups, which are irrelevant if the object is not to be deformed but only transformed.


What are these markings on my sculpting model? I am using the mirror modifier to poly model and sculpt this head. These marks appear on the nose and the big one looks like a mouth :). How can I get rid of them? Adjusting them just makes a seam down the middle. Thank you.

Could be the order of the modifiers. Put the mirror modifier befor the subdiv modifier!
Also make sure to check the merge checkbox on the mirror modifier...


Colours from imported MP4 screencast video look dull in Blender I recently recorded a short tutorial video (not for Blender) using TechSmith SnagIt 11 and wanted to edit and render it in Blender. This works fine except for one thing: After having imported the video into the VSE the colours all look really dull: for instance, what was originally pure white is now #C9C9C9... It's also not just a display issue - it also looks like this when I render the video out again. It does look fine when playing back the original video in VLC.
Here's part of an original frame from source video (left) and (approximately) the same frame as it appears inside Blender 2.79 and after render (right):

Any ideas what could be going on here and how best to fix it (ideally without having to rerecord the original video)?
In case it helps, this is the codec information reported by VLC for the original video:

Type: Video
Codec: H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1)
Resolution: 1280x738
Display resolution: 1280x720
Frame rate: 8.043657
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV

Nevermind, it was my mistake: I had changed the default colour management in the Blender startup file to the new "Filmic" rendering and apparently, that's not what you'd want to use in this case... After changing it back to "Default" everything looks as intended.

I guess a new question could be: How would I handle this in a scenario where I actually want to use Filmic, e.g. if I were to set up a 3D scene where this video was shown on a TV screen? How would I have to adjust the settings for the video to display with its original colours?


How do I keep particles invisible until x seconds after they're emitted? I'm looking for a way to disable particle visibility for a certain period of time.

If you're using Cycles, you can accomplish this by mixing with a Transparent shader depending on the Age output of the Particle Info node:


Smoke Simulation is different in 3D viewport from final render when i render a smoke simulation,the rendered photo in 3D viewport is different from the rendered image when i press F12,in 3D viewport it's more dense and has orange colour but in the final render it's black and white and less dense

Although the quick smoke feature creates the texture nodes for the smoke, it doesn't for the flames.  So when you render it, only the smoke is visible.

This has been covered before on Blender StackExchange:

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/55777/fire-showing-in-viewport-not-in-render

This is also covered in Blender Guru's fire tutorial:

Blender Guru - Fire


Blender for Mac 2.9.1 can't find edge vertex face select buttons I'm brand new to Blender(Mac). Every link I follow to find the three selection type buttons says they're located just to the right of the Object/Edit mode button, but not on my interface:

Can anyone help, please?
TIA
Edit:
Seems like a number of things will make the buttons appear: Quitting, restarting Blender: Changing workspaces, then changing back. Annoying, but seems to work...

You are trying to edit a curve, not a mesh object.
They are different kind of objects, the menus change depending on the context. Curves have no vertices or faces.
Take a minute to read the manual (not a video) to understand the difference.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/scene_layout/object/types.html
For curves:

For meshes


baking to multiple objects at once with multiple materials I'm learning Blender because I want to be able to make simple assets for my Unity3D projects. For example, let's say I want to design a simple level (labyrinth-like) but with some premade lamps and different tiles on the floor. So i have a few objects in the scene, each with a different material.

I'm a total newbie when it comes to baking. I guess, that what I need is a combined bake. I know how to bake a simple single object with one material: I need to unwrap it, create an image texture in the node editor, set it to a new image and then click "bake".

But when I want to bake this whole "level" that I want to be a single object in the game (so I'll need to export it in OBJ or sth similar), what should I do? Should I Ctrl+J all the things to merge them into one object and then unwrap it and do the usual stuff? Won't it mess up my materials?

Use the 'Texture Atlas' addon. It comes with Blender 2.7 or higher and can be enabled in the preference panel.

Once enabled, you can access it from the Render Panel:


Smooth shading creates odd shading I'm new to 3d modelling and I'm working on a chess set, while working on the bishop I ran into a shading problem when changing from flat to smooth shading.

After reading another post it seems the issue is that the smooth shading doesn't know what to do with the sharp edge so my idea was to bevel the edge so it can be smoothed. But when trying that the geometry got all kinds of messed up so what would another way to solve this issue be? Thanks in advanced.

Try selecting the edges you want to be sharp and then Ctrl+E "Mark Sharp". Then use the Edge Split modifier and disable angle-based splitting.


Make Boolean not affected by subsurf modifier I have an object (1) with a part of it created using another object (2) and the Boolean modifier. Is there any way to make 1's subsurf modifier not effect the part of the mesh created by 2? In my case I have a mouth seperate from the head, and a boolean modifier so I dont have to modify it with shape keys. But the head seems to make the mouth smooth, even though I have creases on the mouth. I cannot remove the subsurf, the eyelids need it to be smooth, and are part of the head mesh.

Modifiers are calculated from top to bottom in what is called a Stack.

Changing the order of the modifiers in the stack will yield different results:

Boolean before Subsurf:

Boolean after Subsurf:

Animating the size of the cube:


Camera acts like it has a child of constraint, when there is none My camera acts like it has a child of constraint when it doesn't. It has a track constraint but that shouldn't (and doesn't look like) it affects the position of the camera. It is under the armature in the collection tab but there's no constraint, am I missing something?

Its position in the outliner indicates that it is a child of the armature (possibly, of some bone in the armature.)  Not a child-of-- literally a child.  Select the camera and use a clear parent operation (alt p for me) with keep transformation.


Why blender don't see my GPU I'm rendering my project with Cycles and if i go in Preferences - System - OpenCL
Blender don't see my GPU
I've an AMD Radeon HD 6770m 1024 mb and i'm using a 2011 Mac with a 3,1 GHz intel i5.

There are three reasons why you can't use the AMD Radeon HD 6770M for GPU rendering on your system:

GPU rendering on macOS with an AMD card isn't possible since Blender 2.80, due to the deprecation of the OpenCL compiler by Apple (see this answer for more information).
The GPU is below the minimum requirements for GPU rendering. The AMD Radeon HD 6770M has the TeraScale 2 micro-architecture, but GCN second generation or later is required on supported operating systems.
The GPU is below the minimum requirements for running Blender 2.8x. Only AMD graphics cards with GCN first generation or later are officially supported.

Therefore, the GPU is neither suited for GPU rendering nor running Blender 2.8x on any operating system. You may have to use an older version of Blender with lower minimum requirements.


Is it possible to add holes on volumetric clouds in eevee 2.92? I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to add a hole/s in volumetric clouds whether it be in the mesh or some kind of texture trick, but I'm having no luck at all. I also need it to be able to be animated.
Using eevee 2.92
I'm looking for a similar effect to these.

This is not volumetric and this is not exactly the same effect (I'll edit if I find something closer to what you show) but you could do something like that:

I've created a bezier circle and a cylinder, given the cylinder an Array modifier (with Fit Type > Fit Curve with the curve as Curve) + Curve modifier (with a bezier circle as Curve Object) + Subdivision modifier + Displace modifier (with a Cloud texture):

Then I've given 2 or more shapekeys to the cylinder, stretched it so that it deforms, and keyframed the shapekeys:


How to make 3d Decals I have created some geometry and want to make a 3d decals like the Decal Machine Addon. Is there anyway to make without addon a 3D decal.

I have created 1 decal but its flat not a 3d.

I want to create this type of 3d decal from the decal machine addon how to achieve without addon.
3d Decal

Not sure if this is the result you're looking for, but if it is you can unwrap your object, projecting the UV-map from view (hotkey U). And then move and scale the UV-map over the normal texture (decal image.png).

Then when you apply the material to your object, it will look like this:

Edit:
(because comments do not allow for enough characters)
I thought you made a nice decal, and if you wanted it to be more 3D you could add it to your 3D model. I thought that was clear. Maybe a bit silly of me because i understand that often the point of using decals is to minimize the use of actual 3D geometry, So i did some digging.
It seems the Decal Machine Addon does not simply use normal maps. It adds to the illusion of geometry using parralax mapping or parralax occlusion. I don't know enough about it, but i believe that is currently not easy to do with Blender alone (hence, i suppose, the existence of the Decal Machine Addon)
Here are some resources on the subject (that also have .blend files implementing the technique):
https://devtalk.blender.org/t/parralax-occlusion-for-blender-2-8/3641 ,
https://blenderartists.org/t/parallax-shader-with-silhouette-clipping-for-blender-2-8-eevee-and-cycles/1162334
and
https://blenderartists.org/t/parallax-mapping-with-silhouette-clipping-shader-node/561285
They might be of more use to you than my answer


Assign datablock to custom property With bpy.props I can assign bool, int, float and string to a custom property. But how can I assign a datablock (bpy.types.ID) object (lets say a material bpy.types.material) to a custom property?
Background
I create >1000 curve objects with a python script. For each curve I would like to store a list of materials (from other objects that these curve interacted with during creation). Later on  I want to manipulate the curves depending on those materials with a script running on bpy.app.handler.frame_change_pre.