Manual voice syncing? I wan't to animate based on an audio track by manually using key frames and shape keys. In the past I have used audio scrubbing. I would place my sound clip into the VSE and it would work perfectly.

But now, suddenly for a reason unknown to me it has stopped working as usual. Instead of just playing the sound for that frame, it plays the whole track whenever I click on the timeline.

How can I revert it to its old behavior?

I don't really understand the problems you have since last december. I also tried to create animations from a control-file therefore I share some thoughts on this topic.

Pointers

First step would be to identifiy the phonems in the audio stream used there is lip-syncing tool Papagayo
In this BA thread someone used the Papagayo output as input for the script posted there, I it basically applies poses from a poselib.
I was able to get it work for the latetest blender release.

Answer

  My question is if anyone knows how i could animate to a voice without
  automating it with the idea of shape keys for certain voice sounds.

I created a script to read a control file with frame#, object and influence to automatically create an animation: Mapping an algorithm to an animation
It is very basic but easy to extend to use multiple shape-keys.


How to make a swirl-like model? Does anyone know how I could make a similar "stripes/swirl" model (the orange one around the yellow ball) like in the picture? I've been thinking about making several spirals, but it wouldn't be as irregular as in the picture.

I was able to get pretty close procedurally, I started with an emissive center sphere with another sphere scaled up slightly.

I'm using a voronoi texture into a color ramp set to constant so that we get a hard cutoff.  We'll feed this output into the alpha input of the principled shader to punch holes in the mesh.  You can experiment with different types of noise here.

The rest of the manipulation will happen with the coordinate space.
We're rotating the coordinate space along the z axis, scaling it quite a lot, and then feeding it into the voronoi texture.  With the right gradient you should be able to rotate more as you get closer to the center.

If you don't care whether a seam is present, we can abuse the UV sphere's premade UV map and get much closer to your reference very easily.  We can move the texture over in the X direction as we go from top to bottom.

There's a much better convergence at the top, here, but there is a seam present on one side.

The equivalent of this node group is going into the UV editor with proportional edit set to linear and moving the top row of verts along X.

Lastly, to capture the bumpy nature of the reference, we can add a couple of subdivisions to our outer mesh and use displacement.  Cycles only, and you must set your material displacement settings to either Displacement or Displacement and Bump.
Example 1

Example 2

Example 3, using undistorted texture coordinates


Why is my render turning out grey? I have a very fast computer and i'm trying to render out this scene (just in the viewport, as i'm making stuff, so not the final product) when when I turn the view a little in certain directions it all goes grey, and where i move after that everything is grey (In render view/render. All the effect are just simple texture/alpha tweaking, what is the issue here?

Here is the outliner and i thries the reset it worked once, but couldn't get it to do it again

Actually I did get the reset to work a few more times but it only seems to work on sporadically, but it doesn't seem to be an alpha issue, because there has been nothing blocking the view for the majority of the failures ( like the first pic, there is no transparent plane blocking that view, or anything[That i'm aware of])

The File-

I think I have found your problem. I have a very fast computer as well, and the same grey thing happens too, but not very often. To trigger the grey, I had to move around very fast and "use up a lot of power". As fast as your computer may seem, it still has a max.

But here are some things you could try:

File > User Preferences > System > and check "VBOs".
Try to moving some objects to different layers, oddly enough Blender calculates each layer separately. (There is an article about that: http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/how-to-render-a-complex-scene-without-crashing/)
If all else fails, you could try reducing the number of complicated materials and vertices.

Hope that helps!


How to show different images based on Object ID I got an image sequence for the poker faces (totally 54 images). And I want to find an effective way to place them on 54 objects. According to my knowledge, I just tried to use tricks like the Oject Info node, with concept like this:

It would also be great to be able to animate multiple frames per object - for example, something similar to this, with each cube showingn a short video clip :

Here's a solution using OSL to read from multiple images based on the Object Index.

Enable OSL and paste the following into a new Text Editor datablock named something like dynamic_texture.osl :

shader dynamic_texture(
    vector Vector = P,
    string FileName = "",
    float Index = 0,
    string Suffix = ".png",
    output color Color = color(1,1,0)
    ) {
    int _index = (int)Index;

    Color = texture(format("%s%i%s",FileName,_index,Suffix), Vector[0], Vector[1]);

}

In the Node Editor you can now add a Script node and point it at the new Text block. This should create you a new node with inputs for Filename, Suffix, and Index. This can be used to feed the Object Info Object Index to dynamically select the required texture from a set of images :

Note that the filename is absolute in your filesystem - so you need to specify the full path - or prefix with //to specify a relative path in relation to your saved .blend file (eg, //rendered/ for a local subdirectory named ‘rendered’). In my example I placed the files in c:\users\rsedman\Pictures and named them 1.png, 2.png, 3.png, etc. The Suffix indicates the filename suffix - in this case .png.

EDIT : In order to allow for multiple 'frames' per image set you could amend the OSL shader code to the following :

shader dynamic_texture(
    vector Vector = P,
    string FileName = "",
    float Index = 0,
    float Subframe = 0,
    string Suffix = ".png",
    output color Color = color(1,1,0)
    ) {
    int _index = (int)Index;
    int _subframe = (int)Subframe;

    Color = texture(format("%s%i_%04i%s",FileName,_index,_subframe,Suffix), Vector[0], Vector[1]);
}

This will add an additional 'Subframe' input to the socket and the filename will now be built using the subframe as an additional suffix (with up to 4 leading zeros).

For example, setting the Filename parameter to '/tmp/images/', the Index to 3, the Subframe to 26, and the Suffix to '.png' will pick up the image from /tmp/images/3_0026.png. In this way you can use the node to pick out a particular frame of your particular set of images. To drive this from an MP4 video you would need to split out the individual frames and name each file appropriately.

This can produce the following result :

NOTE : I don't know exactly how OSL manages memory and file access when accessing multiple images in this way - there may be a noticeable practical limit of how many images can be accessed by an OSL shader. If nothing more, it will certainly require a significant amount of additional memory to cache a large number of images.


Animated extruded curve & micro displacement I've animated an extruded curve (with the bevel start slider) so it grows and applied some micro displacement to it but it seems that the displacement is calculated for each frame separately looking at the mesh as is by that frame, independently from the previous & next ones, making a sort of animated displacement texture...which is interesting but i'd like a "fixed" deformation instead where the cracks etc...the whole deformation is maintained as the tentacle grows...

Is it possible ?
(maybe it's possible to bake the animated model and then uv unwrap it to apply microdisplacement at the very end of the process ?)

I see no vector input in your textures nodes. What texture coordinates are you using?

Generated textures will often default to either Generated or Object type of automatic UV coordinates when omitted, both of which are local coordinate dependent.

That means geometry based animations with local mesh deformations in object space coordinates will change the sahpe of the geometry and hence its apparent UV mapping for a certain vertex, making it look like an animated texture.

You could use Bezier curve automatic UV coordinates, but those will most likely also deform along with the "growth effect" giving either an animated effect similar to what you have now or a non uniform stretching effect (which I am not sure is what you want or not).

Only way I could see this work is using a manually unwrapped mesh object instead, with controlled UV coordinates based on actual vertex, instead of object coordinates.

You could mate a cylinder object, with a quad based geometry, unwrap it into a orthogonal grid, then scale one of its ends to make it a cone. Subdivide it along its height enough times to suit your needs.

Then add a Curve deformation modifier so it deforms along the curve then use scaling along the local Z axis to give the growth effect. That should give a more static texture appearance even though it will still stretch with the growth. Otherwise you will likely also have to animate UV along with shape to compensate it.


How to round the mesh that has a little complicated form? I tried to apply the bevel modifier to get a semicircle from the top of the rectangle but It worked only for a simple shape where the vertices between opposite corners weren't interrupted by other vertices. I can't join the 1, 2, 3 and 4 faces together either because the mesh is a little curved from the view from the top. So could you give me some advice?

You can use Proportional editing for this.

Use you regular Move tool to move the vertices, and check Proportional editing.
Play with the falloff profile and size.

You might also need to check Projected (2D) in your case.


How to create editable object mesh for an object made using modifiers I want to know how to make I solid mesh to work with when I have used say array modifier to design an object. Because when we use array modifier it just makes the same object visible the number of times we want it to, it does not create a duplicate of it.
Like I have made a chocolate bar by using array modifier but when I switch to edit mode it only shows the 1 editable piece which I made initially not those made by using array modifier.
Can I make the changes permanent like if I created the cheese using spheres and boolean modifier and now after getting my cheese ready is there any way so that I delete the spheres and the cheese remains intact as it was.

You need to apply the modifiers to make them permanent/editable. Click the down arrow next to the modifier's name and select "Apply". Then you can edit all your chocolate bars, or delete your sphere cutter objects, or whatever else you want to do with the permanent modifications.


How Can I Preserve UV Maps for Multiple Objects? I searched for an answer to this question, but I can't find an answer. I have a texture that I'm mapping onto multiple objects. I have it placed exactly where I want it on one face of one object, and now I want to copy those UV mapping coordinates for that face to a similar sized face on another object. The objects are otherwise the same shape. Any ideas?

You can use data transfert.

Let's take an exemple with a sphere and a icosphere.

The sphere is unwrapped. And we want to unwrap the icosphere similarly.

Place the icosphere at the same position. Select the icosphere and select also the sphere (in this order).

Now click on "data" from the "data transfer" section of the "tools panel". The choose "UVs".

You will directly obtain this :

You can also play with the severall options of the data transfer operator (if needed). Particularly, you can choose the UV map you want (the face you are talking about in your question) as source layer.

Note that finding the good parameters may take time depending of your models.


Import a .py file from blender folder I want to know how I can import a .py file from the blender directory without having to write the whole path?

Currently this is what I'm doing:

import sys
sys.path.insert(0, r"C:\Users\userA\Downloads\blender-2.78-windows64\2.78\scripts\addons\io_anim_bvh")
import import_bvh

The addons path(s) is already known to blender, hence you can import from any addon within a scripts/addons folder, without the need to alter sys.path.

from io_anim_bvh import import_bvh, export_bvh
from space_view3d_copy_attributes import rotcopy

whether the addon you are importing from is registered or not.

There is also the scripts/modules folder.  Packages located there can be imported directly (akin to site-packages)

import osmium as o #  pyosmium


How to get the active strips in the NLA editor from Python? Is it possible to get the active strips in the NLA Editor with Python, in order to run a function on them?

You can get the active NLA track, but the strips array has no property .active in the Python API. It's not exposed, but the active strip is known in the C code (note that the
Active Strip panel is hardcoded).

All you can do with Python is to get all selected strips:

try:
    selected_strips = [strip for strip in bpy.context.object.animation_data.nla_tracks.active.strips if strip.select]
except AttributeError:
    selected_strips = []


Why can't I transform faces, edges, or vertices without transforming the whole object? My problem is that I sometimes lose the ability to independently translate or otherwise transform any parts of a single mesh. If I try, for example, to just translate several faces, edges, or vertices, then the entire mesh will stretch and displace itself in order to follow the translation. Or, alternatively, if I try to translate just one face then the whole mesh will move as if I'm translating in Object Mode.

I'm not really sure I know how to describe this problem properly. I don't even know how to reliably reproduce it. It seems to happen to any given mesh at random, and it doesn't stop happening to that mesh unless I delete and remake it.

I assume that I must be doing something wrong to cause this to happen. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

You need to turn off proportional editing

Or use the shortcut: O key.
Proportional editing in action:


How do I mimic the function of the 3D camera in After Effects in Blender? Context: I'm a 2D animator who animates frame by frame. (I draw each image for each frame.)

I used to work in After Effects to composite my animations, and I'm weaning off of Adobe products. One feature I relied on often was the 3D camera, which would allow you to place videos/objects/sequences in a layer in 3D space and continue editing.  So for example, I could put an image sequence in the foreground of the screen and have another sequence farther back on the Z axis. I could then adjust the camera and give it depth of field so the animation in the background id blurred based on how far away it is. I could also move the camera around the sequences in the 3D space to simulate movement. Here's an (old) video that shows some of the functionality I'm looking for.

Is it possible to mimic this function in Blender? If so, what would be the best way to go about it? My goal is to draw the animation in Clip Studio Paint and video edit/add effects using the VSE in Blender.

After Effects added 3D to a primarily 2D software where Blender is primarily a 3D software I'm trying to use for 2D animation. I haven't used Blender in years, but I do remember some things about it and here's what I can come up with so far:

Say I'm trying to animate a character running away from the camera from the foreground to the background.

I know the Grease Pencil is a powerful new tool and could do what I'm looking for, but I draw in Clip Studio Paint. Is it possible to import the image sequence of the character running into a grease pencil object? Would that keep transparency intact? I could then just move the object away from the camera to animate it.

I remember that you can import images and movies onto planes or 3D objects. Is it possible to display the image sequence of character running on a 3D Plane? I would then move the plane to move the character.

If I need to, I can start using the Grease Pencil in Blender for everything, but I'm hesitant to change my workflow.

Welcome to Blender Stack Exchange!

As a quick disclaimer, I'm not a 2D animator nor do I have any real experience with 2D animation, but hopefully I can provide a direction at least.

If I'm understanding what you want to do correctly, you're looking to have animated image sequences on planes, and to add effects like Depth of Field. This is totally possible, and actually pretty easy.

Blender has an addon called Import Images as Planes. It's not enabled by default, so go to Edit>Preferences>Addons>Import-Export: Import Images as Planes, if you're using it for the first time.

Once that is enabled, you can add image sequences to planes by going to File>Import>Images as Planes. From there you can import static images, movie clips, and image sequences, and the planes will be properly scaled, with the image/clip applied as a texture. When importing a sequence of images, make sure you enable the Animate Image Sequences option so that it makes one plane with an image sequence, not as many planes as there are images in the sequence.

Regarding transparency, if your images have an alpha channel, it will use that by default. Otherwise, you can even remove backgrounds using some tricks with materials.

Blender also has depth of field, and it should work as you want it to. Add the depth of field in the camera settings and that should be it. You can even lock the depth of field to a certain object (image) and have it stay in focus and everything else blur.

If I misunderstood what your asking I can edit this answer and expend on it, so don't hesitate to ask!


Need help with recreating organic microscopic material in blender So i have been trying to recreate a specific material in blender for quite a while now, but i just can' seem to get it working. the picture attached shows what i am trying to recreate, basically what you would see if you were to put a mold capsule under a microscope, very translucent, but not reflective almost gelatineous, but more importantly i want to get the effect where it darkens as the material gets "thicker" around the edges and such. i would show my progress, but i really haven't done anything substantial other than messing with subsurface nodes and translucency nodes, i don't even know where to start as far as the darkened edges go.

Dot Product and Fresnel

In your nodes you should consider the dot product node depicted in the image below or fresnel node

VectorA • VectorB

computes the strength of the parallel component for the two vectors as a scalar.

VectorA and  VectorB are normalized for ease of understanding.
A result of [1.0] would mean the vectors are parallel
A result of [0.0] would mean the vectors are orthogonal
A result of [-1.0] would mean the vectors are antiparallel

In the image provided in the question the color is different at the glancing angles and more transparent when looking directly at the faces of an imagined 3D model.
[viewing vector] dot product the [face geometric normal vector]
Using the result of VectorA • VectorB  can be used to determine the mix of two colors or transparency and et cetera.  When they are not so parallel use different color.  vector1 and vector2 can be normalized.  When the dot product is close to zero [0.0] then the vectors are at right angles.  You will be able to identify looking at the edge silhouette or directly at a face. Experimenting with this will be a start.
dot product and those vectors are  available in the nodes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_(geometry)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_product

This has been used in 3D CG long ago 40+ years

Image above with dot product calculations.  When your viewing vector is more orthogonal to the [face normal] the color will be more opaque.  When your viewing vector is more parallel to the [face normal] the color will be more transparent.  Transparent factor is the property that was designated to be affected by the calculation.

Please also secondarily search Fresnel which is related.
Depending on your models.  You could consider textures and the compositor.
At this moment this is not a tutorial.  I am trying to give you some quick action tips.


Do you think the edge loop is ok? especially around the ears. Will it deform well after animation? this is the project for likeness sclupt and i dont want the rig to look weird  .

Nope, the area around the ear is not right.

The meshflow should follow the Sternocleidomastoid muscle and not return back to the eye corner.


Render certain passes only WITHOUT the combined I wish to de-noise my render using the compositor but I found half-way that I have no environment or emission layer selected. As rendering takes time, I wish to render only that two in order to be able to combine the passes again later on after I adjusted the noise of my indirect passes.
Question is, how to render only some given passes without rendering the combined pass?

EDIT

Or does it work if I just remove the tick from the combined option?

You should be able to get the result you want by unchecking "Combined" and just using Z and Emit. However! I strongly recommend that you first back up your existing render (and any other render layers) as 16-bit TIF images or EXRs incase of: Blender crashing during re-render, overwriting existing renders, etc.


Simulate Infinity mirror effect I'm trying to model an infinity mirror but can't seem to get the reflections working correctly. I have a simple node setup of a glossy and transparent into a mixed node and the geometry node connected using the backfacing node to the FAC of the mix shader. I only have one "layer" of reflection ... how can I get the mirroring effect of infinity.

I think your node setup might be reversed, you probably want the glossy shader in the upper slot of the mix shader.

Anyway it may not work that way, if I understand correctly you may need a reflective 'lid' on your box so there's something else for the ground to reflect. Also since 'inside' your box it's dark so there is no light to reflect. Even though it's backfacing is transparent seen from inside it is all mirror so no light is getting in. If you add a light to the inside of your box it might work.

One side note if you are aiming for a 'infinity mirror' effect you may want to bump up the number of reflective bounces for cycles under the Properties Window > Render Tab> Light Paths > Bounces Glossy otherwise after that number of bounces cycles will return black instead of the actual reflection.


Weird Ripples on Shape While Using Fluids I'm trying to create a heart that fills up with orange paint revealing its shape. However, I'm getting weird ripples on the sides. What am I missing?

Here's a link to my Blender file:

"Ripples" comes from domain grid resolution. Higher value makes them less visible. To spent less time by baking you can try Smooth modifier after Fluid modifier.

Note: As far as fitting everything in the domain, you can make the domain as big as you like, but just leave it box style in shape. The size of the domain does affect calculation time that is why it is best to crop it as close as you need to the fluid object participants.

blender 2.81a

use a Cube (rectangle) as a domain (not Sphere shape)
example with Final Resolution 120
Bake > Boundary > Surface Smoothing 2
Smooth modifier > Facor 2,5 / Repeat 12 (see second GIF)

Resolution 120 (even with smooth "ripples" are still visible)

Resolution 120 + Smooth modifier

In some cases you can "smooth" it by Boolean modifier - cut it out by a bit Smaller obtacle (heart), but its a dirty way (with many artefacts in shading and animation).

Just if you have an option I would recommend Flip Fluid addon (try Free version first). Without any additional setup just grid res 120 as well. Faster, higher res, preview calculated frames due baking ...

Resolution 65

Resolution 120

Note: Lines on Blender's fliud are the same as yours = domain grid artefacts. Lines on FlipFluid object is obtacle shape, it just copied surface so well. I should make it more smooth before baking.

blender 2.82

This version use MantaFlow solver you can try luck with it.


Use a custom mesh as a lattice? I have a very high resolution sculpted mesh that I want to deform with an armature(bones). Weight painting is very slow given the vertex count. I want to drastically decimate the mesh and weight-paint the result, then use that mesh as you would a lattice modifier to deform the high-res mesh. Is it possible to use a custom mesh as the lattice deformer? Is there a similar method for this?

I found that you can achieve this by creating a low-res copy of the sculpted mesh (I used the decimate modifier for this). Then binding that to the armature and weight painting it. Then binding the high-res mesh to the same armature "with empty groups." Then adding a "data transfer" modifier to the high res mesh and using the low res mesh as the source for the vertex group data.
this transfers the vertex weights from the low-res to the high-res mesh by interpolating values from the nearest vertices. It's not perfect but with a little blurring of the weights after transfer it does a pretty good job.
I did find that you need to apply the data transfer mod before posing or things seem to come undone a bit.
Hope this is helpful to someone someday.


Lattice object / modifier will not bend I added the Lattice object and modifier to a square tube object, went into edit mode, 'B' selected the nodes I wanted to try bending.. pulled them out.. and. Nothing.

To get your Lattice deformation to work:

First of all you have to subdivide a mesh at least with several loopcuts (and the more smooth transitions you want, the more subdivisions you need). To be concrete, exactly this wasn't done for your mesh in the file.
Then add a Lattice Modifier to your mesh, then select created lattice in the "Object" input box of the modifier.

Only after this is done, will modifications to the Lattice affect the mesh.

EDIT:
Alright, after taking a look a the blendfile, the reason for the modifier's misbehavior became clear: you simply don't have any subdivisions in your mesh, so it cannot bend. The lattice modifier affects existing geometry, and can only move existing vertices. As you can see in the gif below, after I added some subdivisions to the length of your mesh, using the Loop Cut and Slide Tool (CtrlR), the Lattice works fine.


How can I make a cycles material like white cotton material for a doctors coat? 3[]4[]5I am very new to blender and am currently on a very steep learning curve. I am trying to make a nice white coat material. I have managed to make nice materials in other colours. But whenever I use a white colour they tend to come out grey. Above is my current node set up (from a youtube tutorial).

Could somebody help me out with this?

Thanks!

The velvet shader often results in darker colors, so for creating a cotton material I would stay away from that. Here is a node setup for a simple cotton fabric:

Utilizing this very nice cloth texture method:

From this thread

Final result:


What does the ! mean in user preferences? I want to enable the export option with the ! next to it, but I want to know if it's safe. Can you please tell me what the object with the circle over it means in user preferences?

It is a support level warning icon.

That generally means it is an experimental, community contribution, or "work-in-progress" under development addon or extension, not officially supported or endorsed by the Blender foundation, as opposed to official addons, or stable fully supported ones, I think.

Generally means use at your own discretion, though most likely no harm will come from it.


Mirror modifier using global axis instead of local I'm very confused. The Blender documentation states :
The Mirror modifier mirrors a mesh along its local X, Y and/or Z axes, across the Object Origin.
Referring to the image, A is the result I would like to see, but B is what I'm getting. Both the origin and the local axes are in the right place but it still appears to be mirroring across the global axes.
I've also attached the Transform and Modifier settings for B.

As lemon explains, the Mirror modifier use the object local axis, not the global. So to get what you want do not rotate your object in Edit mode, rotate in Object mode:


Why is the transform gizmo not aligned correctly to my Python created object? I am having a little confusion here. Some background: the user perspective faces in a direction, I am trying to make a box that faces the user perspective. That I have been able to achieve (pic below)
Side view after creation, arrow shows perspective view:

User perspective on creation:

Where the red arrow is the normal view of the user perspective - all good.
The problem is when I try to resize the box into a rectangle, as you can see the transform coordinate does not align well on creation of the cube. I get something like this:

Here is the code I have come up with so far:
world_view = bpy.context.space_data.region_3d.view_rotation
local_view = Model_hollow.matrix_world.inverted().to_quaternion() @ world_view
view3d_rot_matrix = local_view.to_matrix().to_4x4()

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
cut_box = bpy.context.object
cut_box.name = 'cut_box'
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action="DESELECT")
cut_box.select_set(True)
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = cut_box
cut_box.location = Model_hollow.location

bb = Model_hollow.bound_box
dx_local = max(bb[i][0] for i in range(8)) - min(bb[i][0] for i in range(8))
dy_local = max(bb[i][1] for i in range(8)) - min(bb[i][1] for i in range(8))
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(dx_local, dy_local, 1), orient_matrix=view3d_rot_matrix.to_3x3())

cut_box.data.transform(view3d_rot_matrix)
cut_box.data.update()

I do supply the orientation matrix.

Apply the object scale. Rotating the mesh of the object scaled causes the object to squash.
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(dx_local, dy_local, 1), orient_matrix=view3d_rot_matrix.to_3x3())

#=== Appry object scale =====
bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=False, scale=True)
#----------------------------

cut_box.data.transform(view3d_rot_matrix)
cut_box.data.update()


How do I import a model which has .mat and texture files in separate folders? I have a model that came in three separate folders

folder #1 has three .mat files

folder #2 has the model in .psk, .fbx, .dae and .smd formats

folder #3 has textures in .tga format

how do I import this model into blender with textures and posable?

.mat are only for 3ds Max only, it reads it to auto apply textures from the importer, in Blender you will need to setup textures manually.


Cuda acceleration with CUDA 1.2 I've got a GeForce 330M and CUDA 1.2 as a consequence.

But Blender supports only >=2.0.

I read this page and they say that I have to use Cuda toolkit 5.0.

BUT:

the link leads to toolkit 6.0.37

=> I try with this one.
When I try to install it (32 bit .run for ubuntu 13.04 (I've got 14.04))
I've got this error:

  Using more to view the EULA.
  Error: unsupported compiler: 4.8.2. Use --override to override this check.
  Missing recommended library: libGLU.so
  Missing recommended library: libXi.so
  Missing recommended library: libXmu.so

  Error: cannot find Toolkit in /usr/local/cuda-6.0

  ===========

  = Summary =

  Driver:   Not Selected
  Toolkit:  Installation Failed. Using unsupported Compiler.
  Samples:  Cannot find Toolkit in /usr/local/cuda-6.0

  Logfile is /tmp/cuda_install_3711.log

Which compiler?

Is there another solution?

thanks!

Updates:

I just realised that they write just after the link "The CUDA toolkit 5.0 (64-bit version) or newer must be installed for this."

What should I do? Install a 64 bit on a 32 bit system (it's my test external hdd) ?

The compiler the error message talks about is the gcc C compiler. Nvidia's nvcc compiler (which comiles the cuda code) does not work with gcc-4.8. I think the version you need is gcc-4.6.
I had the same problem. I had to install gcc 4.6 and then set the link gcc to gcc-4.6. It is normally set to the newest version of the compiler (gcc-4.8 in your case). There is also an answer that could help you on Ask Ubuntu.

However, as @gandalf3 mentioned in the comments to your question, this will not help you with using cycles. The compute capability of your card is just too low. It does not support certain features that cycles needs.


Moving an object by its vertices to another objects vertices so I'm quite new to blender and may have missed something glaringly obvious. What I am trying to do is move a mesh to another mesh so it overlaps let's call them Mesh A and Mesh B. The meshes itself has quite a lot of vertices. I need these two meshes to align exactly so my thinking is to select one of the vertices of mesh A and move the whole mesh by that specific vertice onto another specific vertice on Mesh B. Here is where I am stuck. I cant seem to select individual verticies in Object mode and precisely guide it to another vertice. I tried Vertice snapping but it seems to only want to snap the "edge" vertice instead of the one i am trying to use. In Edit mode, moving verticies only move the vertice and not the whole object so thats not what i want either. I feel like its such a simple task esp as i'm used to other 3D modelling software like Rhino so this simple task not working makes me think i am missing something. I have attached some images below to try illustrate what i would like. Appreciate any advice and help on this! :)

EDIT: Ok so halfway through typing this i figured out you had to move the pivot point of the mesh to the vertice you want to use and go from there.... Quite a bit of effort just to move one vertice to another please tell me there is another method...

as moonboots said, it can be easily done, but i am not sure whether his explanation is "enough" for beginners, so here the short story long:
Let's say you got a plane and a cone and you want to move one vertex of the plane to the top of the cone:

1.) select your plane

tab for edit mode

select your vertex

Shift - S -> Cursor to selected

Tab

Object -> Origin to cursor

select the cone

tab for edit mode

select your vertex

Shift S -> Cursor to selected

tab

select your plane

Shift - S -> Selection to cursor

result:


How to add outline to text strip in VSE In the Blender video sequence editor (VSE) how do you add an outline to a text strip?

There isn't a direct way of doing this. An indirect way is to add a multiplied glow effect under the text with a black color.

Create a text strip, then "Add" -> "Effect Strip" -> "Glow" and move it under the strip.

In the Glow's "Strip" tab set "Threshold" to minimum, "Clamp" to maximum, "Blur distance" to your desired size, "Quality" to 1 (personal preference), "Blend" to alpha over, and "multiply" to maximum.

In the Glow's "Modifiers" tab "add strip modifier" -> "color balance"

In the color balance set "gain" to minimum


Creating bmesh from an object: why is scale ignored? I notice that when you create a bmesh from an object using

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(obj.data)

the scale of the object is ignored, in the sense that you get the same bmesh regardless of whether you do

obj.scale = (100, 100, 100)

or not.

Is this a bug or a feature?

I feel this is a bug since if you are doing ray casting, you should build the BVH tree with the scaled object for correct behaviors, but right now, if you just create your BVH tree from the mesh data, you are ignoring the object scale.

This is NOT a bug.

The bmesh module provides access to blender's mesh data structures.

The bmesh is created from the mesh using its local coordinates.  What object or objects it is linked to, and their object transformations,  is immaterial.  The mesh may also be linked to no objects.

For example. Python console code. The cube mesh linked to cube object in default scene

>>> C.object.data
bpy.data.meshes['Cube']

there is no difference between creating a from mesh bmesh passing C.object.data or bpy.data.meshes["Cube"] as the mesh argument.

To transform the bmesh to global coordinates, based on its linked object obj

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(obj.data)
bmesh.ops.transform(bm, matrix=obj.matrix_world, verts=bm.verts)

If you require the deformation modifiers assigned to object applied to the bmesh, use bm.from_object(...). However this will also not apply any object transformations (loc, rot, scale) to the coordinate data of the bmesh either, and will need to be done separately as shown above as well.


Box Selection: Repeating selection Blender 2.8.

Edit Mode

I press the B key and drag out a particular selection. I want to repeat that exact size box selection on another portion of the mesh. How would I go about this? I have a fairly dense mesh and I want to avoid actually counting the box selected faces in order to repeat the same size selection on another part of my model.

Select > Mirror Selection
but this only works if your model is symmetrical
otherwise I don't know an easy way to repeat same size selection


how do I shrink texture in blender? What I mean is that, sometimes when I apply textures like cotton fabric to gloves, it is applied quite a bit zoomed in, but I want the texture to be looked from far away so that the details are not noticed.

I would probably figure it out by myself when I just stack the square texture like 4x4 on the painting program and export it as one. But I would like to know if I can do that inside blender.

There are multiple options of doing what you are asking for.

First option (I'd recommend this one):

You can do this by adding a mapping node and the tweak the Scale values.
The UV texture coordinate is just an example. You can use any input you want, the scaling value will apply for all.

Second option:

When you unwrap an object you can go to the UV/image editor.
Select all faces you want to have a bigger/smaller tiling size and press 'S' to scale the UV's to your liking.


How to resize an ellipse into a circle (or a rectangle into a square)? I created a volume by intersecting a cylinder and a cube which were not perpendicular. I obtained a tube with an elliptic section. I want it now to be a true cylinder.

The longitudinal axis is global Y, and the section lives in the XZ plan.

(Initial situation: X=2*1.05=2.1, Z=1.875*1=1.875)

I was expecting it could be done by setting dimension X and scale X equal to dimension Z and scale Z. I first changed the scale Z value to 2, this changed the dimensions Z value:

(After equalizing scales: X=2*1.05=2.1, Z=2*1.067=2.134)

Then I tried then to to set dimensions Z value to the one for X, but actually it also changed the scale Z value:

(After equalizing dimensions: X=2*1.05=2.1, Z=1.969*1.05=2.067)

I've 3 questions that are linked and actually boil down to: How object size is managed?

How Blender did choose the new value of the scale on Z?
Is it possible to lock the scale while setting the dimension (I was expecting this was done using the padlock, no luck)?
What is the proper method to get the result I want?

I would appreciate the answer to the last question, and if possible to the two other.

In short, you should only care about the dimensions, and not really about the scale. After you get the dimensions right (which would make your elliptical cylinder perfectly circular - with equal Z and X dims), you can Apply the Scale via the shortcut CtrlA > Scale.

Or, if you like menus better, through the Object > Apply > Scale menu.

This will reset the scale to 1.0 in all axes without affecting the dimensions.

Explanation for this behavior:

This behavior is due to the fact that an object is an instance of geometrical data, that has a location in 3D space, scale (multiplication of the original geometry's size) and rotation.

In other words, scale is a relative property, which is a multiplication of the "base" scale (of 1, i.e. 100%) - represented by the geometry being instanced. This is why you can have different copies (instances) of the same base geometry that each have a different location, rotation and scale, but all share the same set of vertices, edges and faces in the same basic arrangement in space.

To see this in action try creating instances (AltD) of an object instead of ordinary duplicates (ShiftD). When you go to edit mode and edit one instance, all other instances are updated.

So in summary, even if you have just one instance of a geometry (such as in your case), it can still have a scale that differs greatly from the base geometry.


Light spectrum dispersion effect in Blender? I'm trying to achieve the effect where a beam of light sent through a prism or other refractive object, separates out into the light spectrum. (See image below)

This effect is especially useful to have when modeling gemstones, since the 'sparkle' of colors produced by this effect adds a lot of realism to the model.

It does not seem possible to get Cycles to produce this effect, since Cycles handles each ray of light as only a single, one-colored ray. Is there any way to coax Cycles (or any other render engine) into treating light as a full spectrum? Is this kind of treatment of light even possible in Blender?

It is fake-able to some extent in cycles, see some of these results:
http://www.blendernation.com/2012/04/05/cycles-diamond-dispersion/
http://www.blendernation.com/2012/09/04/cycles-dispersion-glass-shader/
One technique I know of is to use multiple Glass shaders with different IOR values
A quick setup:

Low sample result:

(Not that great, but the closest method I know of..)
Luxrender is an open source unbiased bi-directional rendering engine with blender integration (and GPU rendering support via OpenCL) and is capable of this.
Some examples:
http://mitsuma.deviantart.com/art/LuxRender-Prism-198927185
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kIX5WL07Uss#t=15s
Luxrender (technically SmallLuxGPU, an early version of luxrender with GPU support)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jk-N4f9ze4k#t=82s
Yafaray is another open source render engine with blender integration that supports both biased and unbiased techniques, and also seems to handle this well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVHYMq8NEEs


How can I use Animated Strip Time in the NLA Editor? I'm interested in knowing how to use the Animated Strip Time in the NLA Editor. From Alrik's answer to this question, I thought it could be used to do turn a strip into something like slo-mo that's easy to adjust. The only info. I have though on this is from here, that Strip Time is all about determining influence "over what time".
What I did was made a cube, made a strip where the action is the cube moving diagonally. I played around with 2 keyframes on animated influence, and that worked out fine, but one I checkmarked the Strip Time and added a keyframe at .5, the cube doesn't move at all. I thought .5 would slow down the animation to half speed.
How can I use the Animated Strip Time option to do, well, whatever it's meant for, if not slowing down animation times?

Came across the same issue trying to use it. Whenever I made a keyframe it would resort back to 0 and wouldn't animate.

I contacted the developer and it turns out this was a bug. It has now been fixed and it seems to be working fine on the latest daily build, which you can download from here:

https://builder.blender.org/download/

  UPDATE: Currently with the latest release (2.7a), you can only get it
  to work using the Graph Editor.


How would I go about about making wraparound glasses? I apologise if this is not the right place to ask, but I am relatively new to this website.
I want to make a pair of sunglasses, that look like this.
As you can see, there is a round curve on the glasses, and I have attempted to follow tutorials on regular glasses which do not help, as I'm unsure on how to create the 'curve' effect that the image above has.

Any suggestions or advice would help greatly, thank you.

I think I'm not that an expert. But if you can look up if this helps:
1. Take a cube.
2. Subdivide it or put a subsurf modifier.
3. Put a cast modifier.
4. Apply those.
5. Cut the sphere using  the frame of the sun-glass frame with boolean modifier.
                 .................hope this helps...............
P.S. remember to adjust the radius so that the glass doesn't look too bulky..


Color faces of a from_pydata mesh depending on face height I have some scientific data that I am importing into blender for rendering. I'm trying to make a Surface plot plot with a color code.

Scavenging around I found a python script to produce the mesh. I just cannot figure out how to give every surface a different color depending on its height, or even a material.

Here is the code. Any help would be appreciated:

import bpy
import math
import numpy as np

x,y=np.meshgrid(np.arange(-100,100),np.arange(-100,100))
r=np.sqrt(x*x+y*y)
values=np.sin(r/10.)
# clear mesh and object
for item in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    if item.type == 'MESH':
        bpy.context.scene.objects.unlink(item)
for item in bpy.data.objects:
    if item.type == 'MESH':
        bpy.data.objects.remove(item)
for item in bpy.data.meshes:
    bpy.data.meshes.remove(item)
for item in bpy.data.materials:
    bpy.data.materials.remove(item)

# mesh arrays
verts = []
faces = []

# mesh variables
numX = np.shape(values)[0]
numY = np.shape(values)[1]
scale=2. #how large you want to make the field in x y
# fill verts array
for i in range (0, numX):
    for j in range(0,numY):
        # nomalize range
        x = 2*(i/numX-1/2)
        y = 2*(j/numY-1/2)

        z = values[i,j]

        vert = (x*scale,y*scale,z)
        verts.append(vert)

# fill faces array
count = 0
for i in range (0, numY *(numX-1)):
    if count < numY-1:
        A = i
        B = i+1
        C = (i+numY)+1
        D = (i+numY)
        face = (A,B,C,D)
        faces.append(face)
        count = count + 1
    else:
        count = 0

# create mesh and object
mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("wave")
object = bpy.data.objects.new("wave",mesh)

# set mesh location
object.location = (0,0,0)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(object)

# create mesh from python data
mesh.from_pydata(verts,[],faces)
mesh.update(calc_edges=True)

I usually do it with the following node setup:


Why is my normalmap rippled and pixelated? I've built a high-poly model and manually reduced it to low-poly, by applying the subsurface modifier and merging excess edge loops. I then imported copies of these in .obj format to XNormal, where I rendered a normal map. When applied to the low-poly model in Blender, it recieves these fine, rippling artifacts:

Where do these artifacts come from? How do I get rid of them?

Comment on answer by cmomoney: Thank you, this was exactly the problem. I applied the Mirror mod and remapped the UV. Now I've got problems with the high-poly poking through, so I'll have to remake the low-poly anyway... but that is beyond this question.

There is a Mirror modifier on the model on the X and Y axis. So you have four parts UV mapped to the same place after you export( I'm assuming you had the "Apply modifiers" option checked). The artifacts are "layering" caused by the normals being baked four times to the same area. Either apply the modifier and remap the UVs, or export without the modifier applied and bake.


Material settings for Blender Internal and Cycles? I've been working with Blender Internal for the past. Recently, to use HDR lighting, I switched to Cycles. Basically, I have a Python script that sets up my entire scene for Blender Internal. Now switching to Cycles, I notice I need to add a lot of new material specifications, because a lot of the old material specifications for Blender Internal are no longer  options in Cycles.

I am a bit confused here, because previously I've been thinking the two rendering engines will not differ in material settings. After all, my material is there, so why would changing the rendering engine has any impact on what is already there...

Is there a good strategy in terms of material settings for switching engines? Do I delete all the material settings and write new ones? I worry some of my old settings may still be in effect.

Cycles and Blender internal are entirely different render engines and that actually does mean yes the settings don't cross over - particularly for cycles, as it is a node-based material system. Nodes for one system don't cross over to the other. For example, blender internal materials you can turn reflectivity on or off, but in cycles you don't have a setting for that - rather, you add in a glossy shader and connect it to the world output shader, either directly through the world output node for a purely reflective shader, or through a mix/add node with other shaders. If you are unfamiliar with cycles materials, I'd recommend learning how they work with some intro tutorials.

That being said, there are some attempts out there to convert blender internal materials into cycles materials, but I would pretty much always expect you will need to manually checkup on the material changes. This could get you most of the way for now though.

Edit: you do not have to worry about blender internal settings affecting cycles settings, as nothing is re-used between them.


Can't select and transform faces in UV Editor I want to move a face in UV Editor I but I can't. I can't even select different faces in UV Editor. I have cursor with red circle around it in UV Editor. In 3D View I can move any faces properly.
P.S. It stretches faces if I click and drag along them.

You probably have the UV Sculpt enabled. Disable it via Uvs-->UV Sculpt or press Q.


Mirror Modifier isn't working correctly its offset? Hi guys i'm having a small issue here trying to get my mirror modifier to work, I believe it has something to do with the origin point but being new to blender I don't have the know how to fix this problem. If someone could point me in the right direction that would be incredible.

Thanks guys.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B88dKYvqd3wOM1hkbGlYNkhPUk0/view?usp=sharing

Your mesh has been rotated in object mode:

To apply its rotation (i.e. making it retain its orientation while havin the angles all set to zero) use Ctrl+A.

Read:Why is it important to apply transformation to an objects data?

When you do that, the viewport's axes will match the object internal coordinates and the Mirror modifier will work as you'd expect (you may need to change the axis you're currently using for mirroring)


Transfer Freestyle Line Set & Style? Is it possible to export and transfer a Freestyle Line Set & Style so it could be used on multiple blend projects? (They were set up without coding through the menus.)

It is possible to import (append/link) a Line Style from another file.

Appending or linking line style is the same as with all other datablocks.

Press Shift+F1 to append. Press Ctrl+Alt+O to link.
In the file browser, which opens up, navigate to the blend file, which contains the line style. Clicking on the blend file will open up the file datablock structure, the types are sorted into folders. Open the FreestyleLineStyle folder and choose your desired style datablocks.
The appended/linked line styles can now be chosen from the dropdown menu.


How to reduce rotation-caused coordinate/displacement problem? I rotated an item 180 degrees with the pivot being at 0,0,0 (cursor). It was a large item (or more specifically a bunch of walls that were individual items). Then I rotated other items to 45 degrees, with the same exact problem. I noticed in almost all cases that the items rotated ended up having fractional location changes that were different from even the same items directly below them. Is that a problem? Is it normal? Is there any way to fix that?

Example:

Zoomed in to the max, we have this (item had its rotation applied in this case, because I see no reason not to):

The unrotated item looks like this, though (straight edges):

Is this an algorithm problem? I don't understand what is happening here X_X

File:

Instructions:

Right side is copied from the left side (left is original side) in wire-frame mode with box-select (CTRL+B). Note that the origin was set to cursor from the beginning.
moved 15 grid-spaced in the Y direction
then rotated on the pivot point (cursor) 180 degrees (although it shows 540 because I rotated it to test different angles).
Clicking on individual parts of the newly cloned & rotated wall shows that some wall parts now have an offset.

The 'errror' is caused by the limited precision of floating point numbers. A fix would be quite difficult and in most use-cases completely unnecessary.

After the translation, the objects matrix seems to represent exactly what we expect.

>>> bpy.context.object.matrix_world
Matrix(((1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 15.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0)))

After the rotation however, the value of 2 * pi gets included in the matrix.

Matrix(((-1.0, -3.2584136988589307e-07, 0.0, -1.3113416343912832e-06),
        (3.2584136988589307e-07, -1.0, 0.0, -15.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0),
        (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0)))

Since we have a limited amount of digits in floating points, it will only be an approximation. Applying this approximation to certain numbers will result in rounding errors. If you scroll until the view won't let you zoom in anymore you have reached the limit of Blender smallest units and are seeing these rounding errors.


How to find the point coordinates on the object's surface for simulate effect like hit on wall from laser beam I tried using bones constraint (like shrinkwrap ), but doesn't happy.
maybe with script
any suggestions?

Using BVH tree and raycasting, as suggested by lemon, in Animation Nodes.


Making a star tetrahedron in python script I'm a noob in blender scripting. I ended up here after trying to make a suitable star tetrahedron for 3d printing (will split it in 3 separate parts) by just modeling it or sculpt it. I failed and couldn't find help anywhere.
The idea is to make this smooth model without the hooks and corner bulges.

Found some old code for just one tetrahedron but it has rough cylinders and no corners.

import bpy
from math import sqrt
from mathutils import Vector

def cylinder(a, b, radius=1.0):
    depth = (a-b).length
    location = a.lerp(b, 0.5)
    rotation = Vector((0, 0, 1)).rotation_difference(a-b).to_euler()

    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cylinder_add(
        depth=depth,
        location=location,
        rotation=rotation,
        radius=radius)

def tetrahedron_frame(radius=0.1, scale=1.0):
    s = sqrt(2)/3*scale
    t = -1/3*scale
    u = sqrt(6)/3*scale

    v = [(0, 0, scale), (2*s, 0, t), (-s, u, t), (-s, -u, t)]

    cylinder(Vector(v[0]), Vector(v[1]), radius=radius)
    cylinder(Vector(v[0]), Vector(v[2]), radius=radius)
    cylinder(Vector(v[0]), Vector(v[3]), radius=radius)
    cylinder(Vector(v[1]), Vector(v[2]), radius=radius)
    cylinder(Vector(v[2]), Vector(v[3]), radius=radius)
    cylinder(Vector(v[3]), Vector(v[1]), radius=radius)

tetrahedron_frame()

Any ideas on how to make this happen?

Scripting probably isn't a good option. That particular script just creates a bunch of cylinder objects and aligns them to approximate a tetrahedron. This isn't good topology and is most definitely not 3d-printable. To create a script that would actually do that, you would probably need to use the bmesh api.

This here isn't scripting, but is an easy way to model a star tetrahedron than programming it.

Step 1: Add a cone. Set the vertices to 3 and the the depth to sqrt(2) (Blender will automatically parse it).

Step 2: Go into Edit Mode, select everything, and hit W > Subdivide. Select all of the center faces and click Extrude Individual in the sidebar, then hit Enter without moving the mouse.

Step 3: Set the Pivot Center to Individual Origins.

Step 4: Press S, then 0, then Enter to collapse the faces down to vertices.

Step 5: In the sidebar, press Remove Doubles.

Step 6: Change the Pivot Center back to Median Point.

Step 7: With just the center vertices selected, press S, then 3, then Enter to move out the points.

If you want to make it a wireframe like your reference image, you can use a wireframe modifier:

And you can smooth it out with some tweaking of settings and some SubSurf modifiers.


How to add edge outlining to transparent objects in bge I was wondering how I could take a transparent object in the bge and give it a borderlands style edge outline so that the object is still transparent but has a black edge. Right now Im using a solidify modifier to add the outline but i cant get it to cooperate with the object transparency. Im thinking that this will probably involve some code which im totally fine with. Although i would prefer a solution without code. thanx for all your answers!

You need 2 object, one with a wire transparent material the other with solid material.

You can adjust the alpha in Transparency.

3 And can control with a script, also control the scale.
script.py (example)
from bge import logic

class ObjectsList():
    def __init__(self, controller):
        self.obj = [obj for obj in logic.getCurrentScene().objectsInactive if not obj.name[-1].isdigit()]
        self.objLiner = [obj for obj in logic.getCurrentScene().objectsInactive if obj.name[-1].isdigit()]

    def main(self):
        print(self.obj)
        if len(self.obj) > 0:
            obj = self.obj.pop(0)
            outliner = self.objLiner.pop(0)
            ##creating a solid obj
            mainObj = logic.getCurrentScene().addObject(obj.name)
            ##creating outliner
            outlinerObj = logic.getCurrentScene().addObject(outliner.name)
            ##scaling up
            outlinerObj.localScale = [1.04]*3
            ##changing alpha
            outlinerObj.meshes[0].materials[0].alpha = 0.3
            outlinerObj.suspendDynamics(True)
            outlinerObj.setParent(mainObj)
            print('obj created...')

def main(controller ):
    if not 'init' in controller.owner.getPropertyNames():
        controller.owner['objHandler'] = ObjectsList(controller)
        controller.owner['init'] = True
        return
    controller.owner['objHandler'].main()

Related
Python API (bge object material)
bge.types.KX_BlenderMaterial.alpha
I couldnt found relate documentation about change material type: wire


Can objects in a fluid sim be animated? What I am planning is to have water stay in the cup then when I rotate the cup to make water fall out.

Can blender do it?

Yes, the simulated fluid will be affected by animated obstacles.


Can a shape key be negative? It seems shape keys can't manually be set to a negative number or a number larger than 1. I've even tried using a driver to drive the value of the shape key beyond either of these extremes with no luck.

What I am trying to accomplish is a single shape key of an object bending forward, with the hopes that a -1 value of the shape key will bend it backwards as well, so that I can drive it with a sin function so that the bend oscillates back and forth without having to animate and synchronize two separate shape keys.

Is there a way to push a shape key into the negative? (And as a secondary question, can it be pushed past 1?

You can set the Min and Max Values in the Range fields:


Image blurred background to remove black bars I am using the Add Images as Planes add-on and I would like to achieve the effect here i.e remove the black bars at render and replace it with the image blurred in the background.

Does anyone have any ideas how to achieve that in Blender or know any good tutorials?

Thanks.

The VSE is well designed to do a simple task like this, and you can do an OpenGL render if you are impatient! ;-)

You can make a blender project with predetermined dimensions, eg 1280 by 720, making a vertical narrow image.

All media dragged into the VSE will "Auto-resize" to fit these dimensions.

Drag in an image, select it and press Ctrl-G to make a metastrip. We
will re-use this metastrip in a stack. To change the image simply
open the metastrip and replace the image strip.

Select the metastrip (right click) then press Shift-A (Add)  > Effect Strip > Gaussian Blur. Set Blur value to x: 50 y: 50 for example
Duplicate the metastrip Ctrl-D and move it above the effect strip.
You can constrain the horizontal movement by pressing the y key.
Select the 2nd metastrip (right click) then press Shift-A (Add) > Effect Strip > Transform. Change the scale of the y: 0.5 (this
depends on the original image aspect ratio).

With the top effect strip selected make sure that it's 'blend' type
is set to Alpha Over or Over Drop.

With all this done, you only need to swap the contents of the metastrip to change the effect output. To open the metastrip just press TAB. And TAB to return to VSE master timeline.


Planet surface material recreation Recently I was working on a project in which I was attempting to re-create a planet surface similar to that of the one in the following image:

I was using the compositor to create the material for the surface. This is what I was able to get with the following node setup:

Would anyone we able to provide advice on how to better emulate the surface of the planet from the provided image? I believe it is of the planet Jakku from Star Wars, and my struggle is with regards to the grey mountainous areas that I can't quite seem to get right. I am new to Blender, so any advice is appreciated, thank you!

A good material consist of the following element.

Diffuse map with no harsh reflection, usually resembling photos taken on an overcast day.
Normal map to improve the surface texture, usually to push the limitation of a lower polygon mesh to look really high in density.
Specular / Roughness map to provide information where the object is more reflective than other areas. Real material in the real world don't reflect in a linear fashion or have the same roughness over all of it's surface.
Ambient Occlusion map to improve cracks and fine crevices. Giving a fine touch to realism.
Dirt and Grime map added to improve on wear and tear like scratches, can be bundle with or multiplied with Specular map.

Note : If you look at the image you posted the planet you aim to achieve has an atmosphere. By looking at the blue glow around the planet we know that atmosphere exist in that image. The moon for example will never have a blue band of glow, because it doesn't have atmosphere. You will want to look into how atmosphere affects color at a glancing angle, normally the word used in CGI is "fresnel" effect.

And remember due to the harshness of the way sun light reflect off a close by celestial object like a planet. Stars would be very difficult to see with the naked eyes. That is to say not only your material but your understanding of how light behave in the background is needed to communicate realism.


Deform an array of objects without modifying its geometry, just the relative position of them I'm trying to model a lipid bilayer and for the moment have managed to create the main structure (three arrays and one mirror).  The problem is that the overall shape is flat and I'm trying to make it irregular.  The shape of the undeformed array is like this

My objective is to deform the array but without deforming the meshes like this

but keeping the spheres with the same shape.  Something like modifying only the relative location of the individual molecules.  Is there any way to do that?  I'm fairly new to blender and not familiar with all of the modeling techniques.

Thanks!

You can use a "dummy" object to parent your array object to.

Here I've created a two dimensional array of planes and applied two Curve Modifiers... one the for the X and one for the Y direction:

Once that's done, create one instance of your object and parent it to the plane array by going to Object Properties and selecting the plane.

Right Click on the plane and enable duplication with "Faces" as the method.  This will create an instance of the child (sphere) for every face of the plane array.  You can manipulate the curves under the plane to give you the desired bend.

EDIT: An alternative would be to apply and separate the array elements and use the Proportional Editing Tool to position them:

1.) Apply the Array Modifiers

2.) Go into Edit Mode and Select All by pressing A twice.

3.) Press P and separate by Loose Parts

4.) Go back to Object Mode, select all the new Objects, and set their origins to the center of the spheres: Shift Ctrl Alt C

5.) Select the middle sphere and enable Proportional Editing in the toolbar.

6.) Translate the sphere in the Z-direction and use the scroll-wheel to adjust the size of the Proportional Translation.


UV Unwrap shortcut not working! I'm simply trying to UV wrap a sphere to add a texture onto it. However, whenever I press U, rather than prompting which UV settings I want Make single user pops up, which is very frustrating.
I've looked in the user preferences and found nothing. I've been using Blender for a while now but not very much on my current computer, so maybe something's changed. I'm using Cycles (of course) - I would appreciate if someone can tell me what I need to do.

I guess you are in Object mode, switch to Edit mode


frame_change_pre handler only works once I'm trying to change a text object on each frame in Blender 2.75a using the code from a previous answer (How can I make dynamic text in an animation?). With my script the text value is coming from the lens property of a camera which is keyframed.

I have added the script to the blender file and changed it to use the camera lens value. When I hit Run script and then move a frame it updates the text object in the 3D viewport as expected. But then when I move another frame it does not update. Nor does it work for Alt+A or if I render a sequence of frames.

As per Ray's suggestion I added a print function which showed frame and lens value. As I moved back the frame back and forth the frame number updated; however the lens value only changed the first time after hitting Run Script and then remained the same in the console. The lens value was changing in the UI.

Code is here: http://www.pasteall.org/61366/python

I've tried code to clear the handlers (frame_change_pre.clear()) and closing down Blender and reopening to reset everything and the same behavior occurs.

Zeffii's suggestion of moving the camera_lens = bpy.data.cameras['Camera'].lens line into the function partially worked.

My understanding of the problem now (thanks, everyone) is that when the script is run for the first time it establishes the handler and sets the variable with the lens value. From that point on when the frame moves the handler only executes the function and since the variable that holds the lens value is outside the function it is never updated. Moving the lens variable assignment to inside the function now means it is updated each time the handler is called.

However, now the update lags one frame behind. i.e:

start on frame 1, UI and 3D view = 16.0.
Move to frame 2, UI = 16.9, 3D view = 16.0.
Move to frame 3, UI = 17.8, 3D view = 16.9.

I'm guessing the python handler is executing before the keyframe value is calculated. Tried changing to frame_change_post but that didn't seem to work either... suggestions?

As pointed out by zeffi - camera_lens = bpy.data.cameras['Camera'].lens assigns the current value of the camera lens to the variable. That is camera_lens is set to 16.0 when you run the script to insert the handler, this value is then used to set the text every time the handler is run. Only the code within recalculate_text() is run on frame change, not the code before it. What you want is to hold the camera object in a variable and then read the current camera lens setting each time you update the text contents, or to use the full data path within the function.

The off by one issue is the order that things happen. The frame_change_pre handlers are run before frame_current is changed while frame_change_post handlers are run after. frame_current needs to change so that things like a value controlled by an fcurve can be calculated, which allows you to read the keyed value that applies to the current frame.

import bpy

def recalculate_text(scene):
    text_obj = scene.objects['Lens']
    my_camera = bpy.data.cameras['Camera']
    text_obj.data.body = ('{0:.1f} mm' .format(my_camera.lens))

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(recalculate_text)


Copy camera position/rotation to another scene I want to copy a camera from one scene to another, keeping the perspective. In the scene I copy it from the camera is animated to follow a path, in the second scene it should stay still.

How can I copy (not link) the camera, so that in the scene I copy it to, it does not follow the path in the second scene?

There are a couple ways you could do this:
Copy/Paste

Copy the camera (⎈ CtrlC) in the first scene
Paste it in the new scene (⎈ CtrlV)
Assuming you are using a Follow Path constraint, Apply Visual Transform (⎈ CtrlA) with the pasted camera active.
Delete the Follow Path constraint.

Link/Unlink

Link the camera to the second scene (⎈ CtrlL> Objects to scene)
Switch to the second scene and unlink the camera (U> Object &
Data)
Apply Visual Transform and delete the Follow Path constraint.


How do I make a surface look like a polished one in Blender? I am making some spheres like these . Hence I need a surface similar to this.

This polished look can be achieved with a black diffuse shader and a white glossy shader (roughness = 0), letting a fresnel node set the mix between them using a mix shader.


Scaling only the height of a parallelogram plane Still learning Blender so sorry if the answer is obvious but I seem to have hit a mental block on this.

How do I scale a parallelogram (a plane) to give the result of halving its vertical (Z) height?

In the image:

Left: The starting plane
Centre: The result of scaling using: S Z 0.5
Right: The result I want.

I can get the result I'm after in Edit mode by just moving the lower vertices upwards (the rightmost shape above), but I want to do be able to do this from a script in Object mode.

I've tried moving the center of rotation and origin to the center of the top edge before scaling, but it makes no difference.

I have a script that I think accomplishes your mission: http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/scale-parallelogram.html

import bpy
from mathutils import *

def share_vertex(e, horiz_edge):
    return e.vertices[0] in horiz_edge.vertices or e.vertices[1] in horiz_edge.vertices

def horiz_score(vector, axis):
    v2 = vector.copy()
    v2[axis]=0
    dz = abs(vector[axis])
    if dz >0:
        return v2.magnitude/ dz
    else:
        return float('inf')

def most_horizontal_edge(obj, axis):

    mesh = obj.data
    global_verts = [ obj.matrix_world*v.co for v in mesh.vertices ]

    score = None
    rval = None
    for e in mesh.edges:
        v1 = global_verts[e.vertices[0]]
        v2 = global_verts[e.vertices[1]]

        s2 = horiz_score(v2-v1, axis)
        if (score is None or s2 > score):
            score = s2
            rval = e

    return rval

def scale_parallelogram(obj, factor, axis):

    mesh = obj.data
    horiz_edge = most_horizontal_edge(obj, axis)

    global_verts = [ obj.matrix_world*v.co for v in mesh.vertices ]

    if True:
        other_verts = set(range(len(global_verts)))
        other_verts.difference_update(horiz_edge.vertices)
    else:
        other_verts = set()
        for e in mesh.edges:
            if share_vertex(e, horiz_edge):
                continue
            other_verts.update(e.vertices)

    #print("%r -vs- %r"%(horiz_edge.vertices[:], other_verts))

    z1 = [ global_verts[i][axis] for i in horiz_edge.vertices]
    z2 = [ global_verts[i][axis] for i in other_verts]

    z_all = [ v[axis] for v in global_verts ]
    delta_z =max(z_all)-min(z_all)
    z_change = 0.5*(1-factor)*delta_z

    delta_v = Vector([0,0,0])
    delta_v[axis] = z_change

    #print(global_verts[0])
    mwi = obj.matrix_world.inverted()
    if (min(z1) < min(z2)):
        delta_v = -delta_v

    for i in horiz_edge.vertices:
        mesh.vertices[i].co = mwi * (global_verts[i] - delta_v)
    for i in other_verts:
        mesh.vertices[i].co = mwi * (global_verts[i] + delta_v)

    #print(mesh.vertices[0].co)

    mesh.update()

#
#

x_axis=0
y_axis=1
z_axis=2

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    scale_parallelogram(obj, 0.5, z_axis)


can't scale only at Z I cant scale the Z
but at X and Y it still works fine
it made from extruding cylinder and try to scale down the Z from 3 edge
sorry for bad english, im also new

You can't scale Z when the selection is already scaled to Z = 0 (they are equal position and you are using Median point pivot). You'll have to manually create a different in Z between them to be able to scale, otherwise use a different pivot point.


Blender theme for old people with vision problems I have been looking everywhere online trying to find a way to make the Blender interface bigger. I have a lot of trouble seeing the text in the default theme. I have tried adjusting the fonts, which makes some of it easier to read, but then the fields the words are in are not big enough and seem to be getting cut off. I am not sure if there is a fix for this. Maybe there’s a theme called Old Guy Special? If anyone can help I would be grateful.

You can change the DPI under the System Tab in the Preferences. It also has the drop down option to Double. Double has the advantage that things like the widgets also get bigger...


HDRI Not Appearing In Final Render I am having issues with the final render and HDRIs. Whenever I render in the Cycles Engine, my HDRI disappears and replaces itself with the default background.
Here is the image (note the lack of an HDRI)

you can use this setup (which is essentially just a copy of what Easy HDRI just does for you automatically):

the good news: you made the node setup right.
the bad news: you have to change some parameters so that you can really see your background through your camera.
So first change to camera view and then zoom out. If you are zooming out far enough you will see the background image.
If you then "play" with the values (yours can differ) you can "push" your background image to the right place behind your camera.
my settings to "see" it were:

result: (after i changed your composite nodes to this:)

UPDATE ----
you can do it like this:
BUT...the more you glare (with fac) the less you will see the background.


Set a polygon's normal's orientation as the objects local rotation orientation (if every polygon is an object) So,

Each of my polygons is a separate object. Their default normals point like this:

But their orientation or local axes are like so:

How can I make their local axes to be like so, but automatically?

I guess particles might be one solution for this exact case (if you emit new objects on top of the existing ones) but let's say the original objects are triangles and I wouldn't want to change their shape and pointing direction at all, only their local orientation axes, would that be possible?

Cheers!

A much much much faster script to do this
EDIT
Noticed the edit re other answer from OP, and given zero  Feedback thought I'd have another look.  As OP noted in answer, Using that many operators is going to give terrible performance
The rate determining step in old version was using face split  and separate by loose parts operators, the latter is notoriously slow.
Here is another take on this with No operators used at all.
The object created from each face has its origin at face center and local Z axis along its face normal.   Could use edges to align the x or y axis along the face..
For convenience adds them to a collection named "FaceCollection"

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

context = bpy.context

z = Vector((0, 0, 1))

face_col = bpy.data.collections.new(
    "FaceCollection",
    )

for ob in context.selected_objects:

    mw = ob.matrix_world
    mwi = mw.inverted()
    for f in ob.data.polygons:
        me = bpy.data.meshes.new(f"Face{f.index}")
        me.from_pydata(
                [ob.data.vertices[i].co - f.center for i in f.vertices],
                [],
                [range(len(f.vertices))]
                )
        fo = bpy.data.objects.new(
                f"Face{f.index}",
                me
                )
        # face space
        zf = f.normal
        q = zf.rotation_difference(z)
        M =  q.to_matrix().to_4x4()
        me.transform(M)
        fo.matrix_world = mw.to_3x3().to_4x4() @ M.inverted()
        fo.matrix_world.translation = mw @ f.center

        face_col.objects.link(fo)

    # remove originals?
    #bpy.data.objects.remove(ob)
context.collection.children.link(face_col)

This takes a couple of seconds on an old machine with a 4-icosphere with 1280 faces.
End EDIT
NOTE Appears to be a logic error in this  when not Identity Matrix World, didn't bother to fix
Used as answer to Calculating and exporting global rotation of faces created from splitting an isosphere  (possible dupe?) thought it would be good here too

Shows origin and local orientation of one split off face

Adds an icosphere, edge splits, separates and returns to object mode

Selected objects are the result of separate modifier.

For each face object get its lone face and calculate the global center and normal.  See how far the normal is rotated from default quaternion.

Use this to create the global matrix aligned to normal, origin at center.  The object space inverse is applied to the mesh with transfrom (makes origin (0, 0, 0).

The global transform is given to the object by way of world matrix.

Script.
import bpy
from mathutils import Quaternion

context = bpy.context
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_ico_sphere_add(enter_editmode=True)
bpy.ops.mesh.edge_split()
bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type='LOOSE')

bpy.ops.object.mode_set()
z = Quaternion()
for ob in context.selected_objects:
    print(ob)
    me = ob.data
    mw = ob.matrix_world
    mwi = mw.inverted()
    f = ob.data.polygons[0]
    c = mw @ f.center
    n = mw @ f.normal

    q = z.rotation_difference(n.to_track_quat())
    M =  q.to_matrix().to_4x4()
    M.translation = c
    me.transform(mwi @ M.inverted())
    ob.matrix_world = M

Related. Another example of making a matrix based on known orthogonals.
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/177331/15543


Spiral Procedural Texture I cannot figure out how to make a spiral texture, similar to a hurricane, in blender. I tried a wave texture, but I couldn't figure it out. I wish to achieve something like this, and was hoping perhaps you guys could figure it out. I just need a basic shape.

I cannot quite replicate a true wrap but it might be good enough at a distance.
This material uses a Radial Texture to twist some noise textures around a coordinate.

Note that there is a hard edge where the UV twisting stops. I guess you could make a duplicate and offset it by 45 degrees?


Why mirror modifier does not merge? Goodmorning, I am working to imitate the tutorial at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbSmoZCrP8I

At minute 5:15-5:30 he creates a circle with 8 vertices, deletes 3/4 of the figure and then use the mirror modifier to complete the operation.

I'm trying to imitate him, but after deleting the 3/4 of the circle I apply the mirror modifier but the circle does not close.
My result is:

Instead in the original tutorial the circle is:

I don't understand where is the problem.

First he added a circle consisting of eight vertices that was rotated by 22.5° on z-axis in object mode. The quarter circle was made by inserting a vertex on each side to align with the axis and then deleting the rest. You can use CTRL+R then point and click at the space between the circle vertices with your mouse to create one vertex in the middle.


Blender 2.8 - Particle Instance not rendered I am playing around with the newest Blender 2.8 Build for Windows 64bit

blender-2.80.0-git.a205493426b-windows64

I tried to create a firework scene, where particles emit particles by using a particle instance modifier. The basic animation is a simple explode modifier.

The animation shows fine in the 3D viewport, either with Cycles or Eevee choosen.
But as soon as I try to finally render the scene, the particle system, attached to the particle instances is not rendered at all. To be precise - it seems that the particles stuck to the particle instances and flowing around.
But as I said - the 3D viewport is OK.

The constant issues with the Particle Instance Modifier, that the scale has to be applied to the meshes, has been taken into account.

Anybody else here with similar Blender 2.8 issues? Or has anybody an idea how to solve this problem?

I know this is kind of old at this point but I just figured out this issue so I'm going to post how to make all the particle instances show up in case someone in the future needs help figuring it out.

In the Particle Instance modifier properties there is a check box for "Create Along Paths". Just make sure that is checked and they will show up. Easy fix that might not have been there in the betas for 2.8 but some of the tutorials I've watched so far seem to have left out this important part.


Rays emanating from a point on the surface I am trying to create an effect in cycles (like the attached photo), where points on the surface emit rays (like god-rays). I have tried adding a spot light at the location where I want this, along with a principled volume to the world (setting the density to ~0.1). However, the whole scene becomes foggy and the effect is not really produced.
Can someone please show me a way to create this (just the rays)?

You could use a simple box for the volume with the following texture:


Avoid rerendering noise texture on every frame of an animation I'm creating an animation in which I've used noise texture with displacement modifier for the bumps and roughness of the ground. It looks pretty good, but for some reason the texture on the ground is rendered for every frame, which results in a different ground texture for every frame.

How can I avoid rerendering the ground for every frame?

Here's a screenshot of the node editor and texture window:

Noise is a completly random Texture which is not necesserely equal for the same texture coordinate, each time you evaluate it. Use Clouds with very small size instead


File Search (File Browse) through all Sub-Folders How can I Search Files through all Sub-Folders.

By default Blender only searches the root folder.

and I tried all given options, and couldn't see any icons that would allow me to search deeper.

I tried to find an addon that does that but couldn't find any.

I don't think there's a way to search all sub-folders in the file browser, but you can search 3 levels deep by changing the Recursion Level drop-down box in the file browser header from None to Three Levels:

What this actually does is show  all the sub-folders in the file browser, which in turn allows them to be included in the search results.


Help with determining camera specs? Blender Motion Tracking I have some experience working with Blender's motion tracking capabilities, but have only used cell phone video that happened to be presets in the camera specs dropdown in Blender.

I am trying to do some motion tracking with a drone video, and really have no idea how to interpret the camera specs.

Was wondering if anyone could help me with this?

https://www.dji.com/ca/phantom-4-adv/info#specs

Trying to find the: sensor width, focal length, lens distortion coefficients (if required).

Thanks!!!

If it helps, there are some presets in Blender for certain cameras. In Properties area.

Make sure you are in Object Mode and the Camera is selected. I found this info recently, myself.


removing the white border in material 3d viewport when selecting alpha blend or alpha clip i'm trying to get these leaves to show correctly in the 3d viewport (not render) with the transparency applied and no white border around the leaves, i had to choose alpha clip or alpha blend to get the transparency to show up in the 3d viewport, but there is this annoying white border around the leaves, any way to fix this? FYI this node setup looks normal in render mode but i'm don't want to render that way right now.

i figured out an acceptable workaround for my purposes, i changed the color in the transparency node from white to a very dark green and its good enough for me


Is there any good way to snap to intersection? I'm doing a lot of cleanup work after a bad boolean action, and in this scenario, some vertices are offset somehow and what I want to do is to reconnect them to the edge they are supposed to be attached to.

In the image above you can see the problem, the selected vertex is supposed to be attached to the edge I'm trying to snap to. The edge in question however is not perpendicular to the axis of the vertex I wish to snap, thus there is no telling when the vertex is accurately at the intersection of the z axis of the vertex and the edge, effectively making snap in this circumstance useless.

I think there were someone working on a GSoC with the goal on making more useful snapping, much more like wings or sketchup I believe. But since that isn't done yet, what are the workarounds to accomplish this?

Thanks in advance,
/Klesus

There is an addon called dynamic spacebar menu which contains a small routine that can snap the 3d cursor to the intersection of two edges, it's available in addons contrib. Here is the direct link to the wiki page for it with a download.

After enabling the addon when you hit space a different menu will appear, you will see snap cursor menu, and inside that cursor to edge intersection

If the intersection of the two edges doesn't lie exactly on either of the two edges, then the edges are considered lines with infinite length. When two lines aren't parallel and don't truly intersect you can imagine another line drawn between these two lines at the point where they are closest to each other. The point in space halfway on the imagined line will be returned as the intersection.


Scaling an object from point A to point C with python I have three objects in scene A, B, and C. I need object B to stagger between objects A and C. How would it be possible to do this in python? blender game engine'.

Basically you determine the start point and the end point. Then you calculate the distance between the two points and scale the object according to this distance.

Unfortunately you did not mention where your start and your end point are supposed to be. For simplification I assume the origins of objects A and C.

import bge

scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
objectA = scene.objects["A"]
objectB = scene.objects["B"]
objectC = scene.objects["C"]

startPoint = objectA.worldPosition
endPoint = objectC.worldPosition

distance = (endPoint-startPoint).length

Here you know the parameters you need. To make it simpler you can place the origin of object B at one of the caps and ensure it has a length of 1.0 along the axis to stretch along (I assume it is Y). With that assumptions you can

place object B at the start point
point to the endpoint
apply the scale

in code it can look like this

AXIS_Y = 1
objectB.worldPosition =  startPoint
objectB.alignAxisToVect(endPoint-startPoint, AXIS_Y)
objectB.localScale.y = distance

 results in

When you do not want to move the origin of object B, you need to compensate that in your formula. Assuming the origin is exactly at the center of axis Y:

objectB.worldPosition =  startPoint + (endPoint-startPoint)/2

I do not want to go into detail when the origin is not at the center. I do not think it is worth the effort at this stage.

Remark:

As mentioned earlier the above description uses the center of A and C as start and end point. You might supposed to use the surface of the meshes. In this case you need to determine these two points differently (e.g. via ray measure). But this is a different topic.


Blender 2.69 Properly Export UV Maps Using Python I'm currently working on my custom format exporter form blender and have hit some kind of a speed bump... Through tons of experimentation I have finally found that UV data is stored in:

mesh.uv_layers[layer].data

But I don't think that the internal blender data format agrees with the way I'm going about exporting. First off, my exporter assumes that all faces are either triangles or quads. If a face is a quad then it outputs it as two triangles:

t1 = 0 1 2
t2 = 2 3 0

Now, my exporter just iterates over mesh.polygons and outputs per vertex per triangle, but uv_layers.data obviously doesn't store it this way. So how could I go about exporting it? I need a way to lookup the uv coordinates for a specific vertex and output it in the same way as I do this:

for vert in fac.vertices:
     file.write("+v %g %g %g\n" % (obj.vertices[vert].co.x, obj.vertices[vert].co.y, obj.vertices[vert].co.z))

But using the vertex's UV instead.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks guys!!!

EDIT:

For anyone who runs into a similar problem, here is my working code:

    for fac in obj.polygons:
        if len(fac.vertices) == 3:
            for li in fac.loop_indices:
                file.write("+t %g %g\n" % (uv_layer[li].uv.x, uv_layer[li].uv.y))
        if len(fac.vertices) == 4:
            file.write("+t %g %g\n" % (uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[0]].uv.x, uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[0]].uv.y))
            file.write("+t %g %g\n" % (uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[1]].uv.x, uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[1]].uv.y))
            file.write("+t %g %g\n" % (uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[2]].uv.x, uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[2]].uv.y))
            file.write("+t %g %g\n" % (uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[2]].uv.x, uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[2]].uv.y))
            file.write("+t %g %g\n" % (uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[3]].uv.x, uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[3]].uv.y))
            file.write("+t %g %g\n" % (uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[0]].uv.x, uv_layer[fac.loop_indices[0]].uv.y))

This code will export the uv coordinates for any triangle or quad in the mesh (Quads are broken down into two triangles). The result is a list of the vertex uv coordinates in order of the vertices. So every 3 lines represents a triangle.

obj is the mesh data of the current mesh, which is accessed by bpy.data.meshes['NameOfMesh'].

UV's aren't per vertex in Blender, but per loop (which means per face-vertex). Also see here and here.

For triangle export, use the tessellated faces and split the quads into triangles or triangulate using the bmesh operator. Export the faces together with the UV coordinates. If UVs are the same for a shared vertex, you could simply pick the first loop, otherwise interpolate? (may give weird results...)

Print loop and vertex indices per polygon together with UV coordinate (uv index equals loop index):

import bpy

me = bpy.context.object.data
uv_layer = me.uv_layers.active.data

for poly in me.polygons:
    print("Polygon", poly.index)
    for li in poly.loop_indices:
        vi = me.loops[li].vertex_index
        uv = uv_layer[li].uv
        print("    Loop index %i (Vertex %i) - UV %f %f" % (li, vi, uv.x, uv.y))


How to make HDRI map more subtle? I'm using one of HDRI from http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html.
I would like to blend/merge it with scene but in a way that the HDRI content is not visible only dimmed and blurred.
How to achieve that but in a way that the lighting is perserved?

Set your HDRi images to light your scene as you'd normally would.
Enable Environment in the light passes section of the Layer Properties.

Enable Film Transparent, so that the background will render as an alpha channel and not as the world backgrund:

In the compositor use the output from the environment and blur it and darken it at will, then combine that result with your scene using an alpha over node.
That way the illumination for the scene will remain intact and the Background can be affected independently:

HDRi by GiantCowFilms
UPDATE: read this link to prevent a darker edge around the objects
(Images for version 2.7x)


Opposite of Cage Deform Is there something like cage mesh deform, but instead of the cage being larger, it is smaller than the mesh to deform?

The only similar effect I know is the envelope deform that armatures can have, but ideally a mesh of any shape would emit this envelope.

Note — Not shrinkwrap, I don't want volume loss or snapping to surface.

EDIT

Adding more detail:

An example could be a Skin/Skull set up. I want the internal skull to influence nearby skin vertices. Shrinkwrap wouldn't work as it would collapse the skin down to the skull shape. I know shrinkwrap has vertex groups to isolate the effect, but that is far more work and this is the best example I can think of.

The Surface Deform modifier might suit?

In this example, the interior pair of spheres is a single object, Shape Keyed. The Exterior capsule is bound to it, with a Surface Deform modifier (Followed by  Smooth and Subsurface modifiers)


text already baked before fluid simulation I have been working with the ICE tutorial for awhile now. The issue is when I change the box to a domain the text already appears to be baked even after I create a new project.

I'm sure I've screwed something up and I've been trying to come up with a fix for days now. I've tried to delete the baked text, undo my last few actions, create a new project and nothing is working.

The tutorial is on youtube that was done by www.littlewebhut.com

I have followed the tutorial to the letter literally. I have even written down the instructions but can't seem to figure out what I am doing wrong.

Sorry I seem to be assuming too much.   When I right click on the text I go to the physics tab to change to fluid - fluid then I change the box in the physics tab fliud - domain but I like I said it appears that I have already baked the text. The very first time I tried the tutorial it didn't do that, but has since then.

I hope this helps.

In the Physics>Fluid menu, try changing the cache path to somewhere else (this should be an empty folder)

Also if you press "bake" when the fluid is already baked, Blender will automatically overwrite any previous bake in the same directory.


How to duplicate an object without duplicating animation data? What is the easiest way to duplicate an object without it duplicating the animation as well?

I thought I could simply change this in the user preferences by unchecking "action" but this doesn't seem to work.  It is of course possible after duplicating to U> make single user > animation then delete keyframes manually, but I'd prefer not to have to do that.

I don't know how to do such duplication without involving Python scripting. If you're concerned about removing action from a large amount of objects quickly, though, you could use this:

Select all objects you want to remove action from, ending with any other object without any action attached as the active/last selected object. Then execute Object > Make Links (Ctrl-L), and select Animation Data. It will copy the action from active object, which is None, to every other selected objects, effectively removing their animation data.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but worth considering as an alternative solution.


Bump map not applying at all I've been trawling through the web for 2+ hours on this issue, determined to find the answer instead of creating a new thread - but I can't seem to find a solution that will work for me at all.

I've applied a normal map to the plane that acts as a table, but no matter what I do I cannot get it to raise up or down. I've attached both a screenshot from the 3d viewport + node view, and the final render as well.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

P.S I've been following this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izqZe8s_Jmw

You should really plug your normal map into both the Diffuse and Glossy node, however, that's not why you are seeing no effect.

The normal map you are using is basically flat. You can see this by looking at it in the UV Image Editor. It's from a glossy surface with virtually no variations in surface depth. You will simply not see much, if any, effect from that normal map.

To contrast, look at the normal map you are using (basically all one colour) and then look at this (randomly selected) one I found on Google from a brick surface that has a lot of variation: http://jsoverson.github.io/texture.js/demo/images/brickwork-normal.jpg


What's the shortcut key for snapping pie menu in blender 2.8 Just a quick question, what is the shortcut key for snapping in pie menus? If there is none, how to create one?

If you mean this menu:

the shortcut is Shift+S

And for the other pie menus see this answer.


Left click doesn't work in edit mode in saved files When I open a previously saved file (.blend) I have a different type of selection tools (picture 2) in edit mode and I can't use left click. How can get the standart selection tools? I'm starting to learn blender and I can't find this information anywhere...

Solved by installing the newest version of Blender (2.81). Thanks for help :)


How to show subdivisions on one viewport only? I was wondering if it's possible to have the subdivisions to show only on one viewport, so I can have a quick preview on my second viewport while editing the raw low poly geometry, something like that:

You can 'kind of' get close by disabling overlays in one viewport
Then you have one viewport with vertices, and second one showing only the final result.