Best way to transfer weight groups between two meshes with same topology? I have a very tricky-to-solve issue. I have two meshes, both with the same topology, but one is male and one is female. I have rigged one, done the poses and the pose groups, done sliders, and all. Now I want to apply the same weight to the vertices of the other mesh. How can I do that?

I see that Blender, unlike Maya, has no tools to save weights to a file and then load them to the selected mesh used for the binding on the same bones.

1) - I have been trying the weight transfer weight tool from the tool shelf with different options, but the result has not been what I want. The second mesh has ended up with ugly distortions here and there. That transfer weight in Blender somehow tries to emulate what V.A.M.P does in C4D even if V.A.M.P does better jobs.

When the two shapes are equivalent, transfer weight does a fine job, but, when they have the same topology but a different shape like in this case (male and female with same topology), then the result is not as nice as you'd expect.

2) - Another method that I used is to bring in my scene just the male mesh as a non-rigged object, then duplicate the rigged female mesh (the one with poses and sliders), then to the copy of the female rigged mesh I apply the shrink-wrap modifier using as target the male non-rigged mesh.

The result is quite acceptable, but doing it this way, it transforms my rigged female copy of the mesh into the male shape, and the weights of course aren't the best either, and I'd need to remake them on that copy. In this case, though, if I compare the position of vertices in edit mode I can see that the male non-rigged mesh and the female turned into male by shrink wrap have the vertices positioned differently, so maybe this is what is affecting the rig behaviour. So maybe this method is worse than the previous one.

Any other way to do this?

Would it be an easier solution to just roughly apply those weights the way transfer weight does and then adjust the weight on the male mesh so that I can keep the same sliders to deform both shapes (on different layers of course)?

I know you might say "Why not just rig from zero the whole male mesh?". I want them both to have weights similar enough that the sliders can control both the male and female for the various poses that I made with deform bones.

Try this script if the vertex order is the same:

import bpy

# rename this to your Female & Male names
target = bpy.data.objects["Male"]
pattern = bpy.data.objects["Female"]

# transfer vertex groups
for v_group in pattern.vertex_groups:
    target.vertex_groups.new(name=v_group.name)

# transfer vertex weights
for id, vert in enumerate(pattern.data.vertices):
    for v_group in vert.groups:
        target.vertex_groups[v_group.group].add([id], v_group.weight, 'REPLACE')


What is the python script for the Rip tool What is the python script to do a rip tool (V key) without moving the components after separating the components.

Run the below script
Select an edge
Hit the spacebar and write "Rip Edge" as shown below

import bpy
bl_info = {
    "name": "Rip Edge",
    "category": "Edit",
}

class EdgeRip(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Rip Edge"""
    bl_idname = "edit.ripedge"
    bl_label = "Rip Edge"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        bpy.ops.mesh.rip('INVOKE_DEFAULT')
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


When sculpting, my brush changes from Add to Subtract and viceversa When sculpting, my brush changes from Add to subtract and viceversa if i sculpt in some places of my mesh. How like that?

As it seen in the image, it switches or changes to add or subtract in some places, so everytime i have to press ctrl and stop pressing it because this thing. In some places flattens, in others just add, and it's absolutely annoying, can't sculpt in peace.

Maybe i pressed some "autocontrol-switch option" somewhere, or maybe not.

What's happening?

If you try to enter Sculpt Mode with your model, you can see the warning message Object has non-uniform scale, sculpting may be inpredictable .

First, select the object in Object Mode and then Apply the Scale by Ctrl+A > Scale.
Then go into Edit Mode, select all by A and Make Normals Consistent by pressing Ctrl+N.
If normals are now inverted, invert them back by W > Flip Normals.

Then your sculpting tool should work equally on the whole model.


How can GPU be used instead of CPU for background processing in a Python script? I created a Python script that I execute on an Ubuntu server. The script loads a big PLY file (around 100MB), decimates it and smooths it.

Currently, the script is quite slow (around 10 minutes to finish). As my server has 2 great GPUs (Tesla P100), I'm wondering if it's possible to use GPU instead of CPU for this script. If yes, how?

Here is the executed script:

import bpy as bpy
print("Importing PLY")
bpy.ops.import_mesh.ply(filepath="input.ply")
print("PLY imported")

print("Add decimate modifier 0.03")
bpy.ops.object.modifier_add(type='DECIMATE')
bpy.context.object.modifiers[-1].ratio = 0.03
bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier="Decimate")
print("Decimate modifier applied")

print("Add Laplacial smooth modifier 10 1.0 0")
bpy.context.object.modifiers["Laplacian Smooth"].use_y = False
bpy.context.object.modifiers["Laplacian Smooth"].use_x = False
bpy.context.object.modifiers["Laplacian Smooth"].lambda_border = 0
bpy.context.object.modifiers["Laplacian Smooth"].iterations = 10
bpy.context.object.modifiers["Laplacian Smooth"].lambda_factor = 1.0
bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(apply_as='DATA', modifier="Laplacian Smooth")
print("Laplacial modifier applied")

print("Exporting STL")
bpy.ops.export_mesh.stl(filepath="output.stl",   use_selection=True)
print("STL exported")

Not an answer re using GPU.

Not sure re using GPU, can however suggest
stripping this back to have only import and export operators and use API methods to add modifiers, create modified mesh, remove modifiers, swap in modified mesh.

May not speed it up too much, will if looping multiple imported objects.

import bpy
context = bpy.context
# import
ob = context.object

#add decimate modifer
dm = ob.modifiers.new("decimate", 'DECIMATE')
dm.ratio = 0.03

# Add Laplacial smooth modifier 10 1.0 0"
lsm = ob.modifiers.new("ls", 'LAPLACIANSMOOTH')
lsm.use_y = False
lsm.use_x = False
lsm.lambda_border = 0
lsm.iterations = 10
lsm.lambda_factor = 1.0
# create modified mesh
context.scene.update()
me = ob.to_mesh(context.depsgraph, True)
# remove modifiers
ob.modifiers.clear()
# swap in the mesh
ob.data = me
# export

Note this is for 2.8.  Check the docs for ob.to_mesh(..) in prior versions.

A modified mesh can also be created from object via bmesh module.

If there are materials will need to link those to new mesh too.


Get the location in world coordinates of a bone's head and tail while in pose mode I have a bone and I need to get the location of its head and tail. I know that I can search for the corresponding edit_bone, but this list is only filled in edit mode. Is there a way to get both locations from within pose mode?

This simple script will print to the console and move two Empties to the location of the active bone in pose mode (last selected).

import bpy
from bpy import context

armature = "Armature" # change this to the name of your armature

tail = bpy.data.objects[armature].location + context.active_pose_bone.tail
head = bpy.data.objects[armature].location + context.active_pose_bone.head

print(tail, head)
bpy.data.objects['Empty.head'].location = head
bpy.data.objects['Empty.tail'].location = tail

You will need to have two empties in your scene and on a visible layer, named Empty.tail and Empty.head in order for lines 10 and 11 to work. If not comment out lines 10 and 11 with a #.

Lines 6 and 7 get the locations of the armature and the active bone's head and tail, then adds them together. bpy.data.objects[armature] accesses an object with the name specified in the variable armature. If your armature has a different name, change it in the variable defined on line 4.

Line 9 print(tail, head) just spits the two vectors to the console.

Lines 10 and 11 sets the location of the two named empties to the location of the head and tail of the bone. I found this way easier then copying numbers from the console.

Note that you need to be in pose mode for this to work. Also the armature can got be rotated or scaled in object mode.


Whats the correct way to animate props into a character model? I've been struggling to find the right words to ask the question i'm trying to ask but i'll try and explain the best i can.

I'm making a character for a game and in the action editor I have a Walk cycle, a run cycle, and a few other animations. I need to animate the character holding up a sign, whats the correct/best way to do this?

Do i need to animate the sign separately  and put them on top of each other in unity, or combine the meshes and animate them together or some other way that I cant think of?

Any help really appreciated.

Thanks!

I would recommend adding an empty object as a child of the hand bone. This will allow you to preposition the empty to account for object size etc. You can then add a constraint to your prop that follows the empty. You can keyframe the influence of that constraint to set the object down or to pick it up.


Print message to Info in Blender 2.8 I feel like this should be easier to find. Aug '19, I've searched google and stack with no easy answers.

In Blender 2.8:

I'm looking for the code similar to Print("MY_MESSAGE") into the Info window. Obviously it's easy to use Print('...') into the System Console - sys console unrelated to this question.

I'm looking for any sample code I can literally copy paste into my Blender Text Editor window and run with results.

tldr: one-liner print shit to Info window, pls how?!

For all the lazy people, who don't like reading the API on how to register and call an operator:

import bpy

class RENDER_OT_test(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Tooltip"""
    bl_idname = "render.custom_test"
    bl_label = "Test"

    def execute(self, context):
        self.report({'INFO'}, 'Printing report to Info window.')
        return {'FINISHED'}

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Run the script, press F3 to open up the search menu, type Testand press Enter.

No additional link to prevent lazy people from getting even more lazy.


Changing states in BGE I am having difficulty changing states with the same keyboard sensor.
The bricks are simple. One keyboard sensor activated by tapping "1" connected to the actuator that will change to state number 2. Then on state number 2 the above keyboard sensor with no changes, connect to the actuator that will change to state number 1.

The initial state is number 1. It manages to change to number 2 but then it does not "come back" to state 1 if I press "1" again. Any ideas why?

You do not need such setting at all. The default (no level trigger, no Level, no Tap, no Invert) will do it's job as is.

How does it work?

State A)

When you press the key the state actuator to State B gets activated. The state changes to State B)

State B)

When you release the key ... nothing happens.
When you press the key the state actuator to State A gets activated. The state changes to State A)

What happens with Tap?

Tap means that the next frame the sensor evaluates False even if the measured event is still present (Tap makes the sensor lie). Evaluating False results in a deactivation of the actuators. The state actuator runs one frame only ... and ignores deactivation completely.

Therefore it works the same way as without Tap.

What happens with Level?

Level means the sensor triggers the controller on state change (additionally to the evaluation changes true/false false/true).

This is problematic. When you press the key it is unlikely you release it within the 1/60s. This means when entering a state the sensor will trigger the controller (with true) and activate the state actuator which switches to the other state.

This way you get constant state changes until you release the key. So you are playing random generator. If that is you goal ... well done. If not ... better disable Level.

What happens with True Level Triggering?
This makes the sensor triggering the controllers when evaluating True all the time. This forces the actuators to get activated as long as the key is pressed. This results in constant state switching.

In difference to Level, you can delay the switching by setting the Frequency parameter (Freq:) to a value greater than zero.

What happens with False Level Triggering?
This makes the sensor triggering the controllers when evaluating False all the time. This forces the actuators to get deactivated as long as the key is not pressed. As deactivation gets ignored .. it just wastes some processing time.

Usually this is not necessary.


How do I fix a car door that is wavy along the edges and has weird textures I am a newbie to Blender and I am making trying to make a car for my second project. I really don't know how I'm going to make the car door look right. It is physically wavy and not straight along it's edges and the window also has flawed texturing. Think coloring outside the lines, that is basically what it looks like. It also has some lump of car door materials on it.

Here's the link for the .blend file.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ow57h42HAXOqnergJRW6F-XNVzlggGc4/view?usp=sharing

The waviness seems to be a result of a subsurf modifier. The easiest way to handle this is to simply double up the edges along the border. This should make it appear as a hard edge, eliminating the ripples where the faces are subdivided and averaged into the places you don't want them.


Source code of the color ramp node I'm not savy with browsing Blenders source code. For another purpose I'm interested in the source code of the color ramp node.

Not the UI stuff of it, just the "math" behind it, the "take in everything, from a single number up to a complete bitmap, and remap those values according to the sliders count, color and position".

Anyone that's into Blenders source code can help me out and post the code of the color ramp node? Or maybe directions so I can find it myself?

Thanks.

The code you're looking for is here on line 322 (the do_colorband function).

This is the definition of the node itself, and the operation is implemented here: apparently it samples a colourband texture using the input as texture coordinates.


How to create baked bread shader? I want to make a bread shader so that it is darker on top than on the bottom. I know how to make color, bumps and everything else, I'm only interested in a black and white mask for mixing colors. Of course, I can use the usual gradient texture, but I want this transition to be less direct. So far, I'm not doing very well. I hope that I clearly wrote, you can see in the picture what I want.

Here, try this setup:

The "mask factor" you are looking for, I achieved by rotating (and slightly moving) a Gradient Texture, and controlling it's cutoffs with a ColorRamp. I then used it as a mix factor for the "bread colors" and adjusted the ColorRamp until it looked right. (This works very well to control the darkness levels).

I then mixed a Noise Texture and a Musgrave Texture to give a scattered displacement pattern, and I used it's inverse as a roughness factor.

I thought the bread colors looked too plain, so I combined yet another Musgrave Texture with a couple of Noise Textures and multiplied them with the bread colors to transfer the darks only.

Lastly, I added the whites from a clamped, detailed musgrave texture to get the "flour coating" on the crust of the bread.

I'll also upload the .blend in case you want to play with it. I even threw in a couple of extra procedural textures (The pan and the table) that can be used as examples.

File is here -
Happy shading!


How do I connect the vertices in the same mesh/shape? I want to get better at 3D modeling and here's my problem: I'm trying to make a mask, but I don't know how to connect vertices to fill the gap.

https://gyazo.com/87c9de5f88343ac9c12af3aabc6977f7

Join them Using Alt+M.

To do this select the Top Left Vert.

While holding Shift, Select the bottom left Vert.

Then Do Alt+M, and select At Center.

Repeat for the Verts at the right.


Mesh gets resized after parenting I followed the steps in the Character Rigging Blender 2.80 Fundamentals but every time I execute parenting the mesh to the armature it results in the mesh (human) flipped onto its back and many times enlarged.

Make a backup of the file and apply scale and rotation on both the armature and the mesh.


Edit Linked Library add-on for 2.8 Is it possible with Blender 2.8 to go directly to the source file of the linked object, from the destination file, as did the "Edit Linked Library" addon that works in 2.79?
If no, will this addon be updated soon?

You can enable Edit Linked Library in the preferences (Edit > Preferences > Add-ons).


Kind of "apply" for a clamp to constraint? I have a low-poly bridge model whose poles are positioned using Clamp To constraints and a corresponding curve:

What I am looking for is a way to remove the constraints but to keep the position of all objects at the same place it was with the active constraint. Something pretty similar to applying a modifier but for constraints.

Maybe I used just the wrong key words for searching but I haven't found any easy way to achieve this. Appears like I have to write a python script to get this done.

Anyone out there with a more elegant and simpler way to solve this?

Thanks, Kay.

UPDATE:

I did it the way iKlsR suggested and it worked fine. If others need this for a couple of objects, too: You can select all, do the Apply Visual Transform at once and then choose Clear Object Constraints Ctrl + Alt + C to remove all constrains in one step.

You can just apply the Visual Transform. (read about this some more on the wiki)

Bring up the Apply menu with Ctrl + A and choose Apply Visual Transform, or alternatively, select the object, press Space and type Apply Visual Transform and select the option.

You can then safely delete the constraint.


Blender VSE_can I make movie strip gradually slow down or gradually speed up? I'm wondering if Blender VSE can gradually slow down/speed up a movie strip.
At VSE I add> movie strip. Now I want to have the strip
gradually slow down, or gradually speed up.

I am not referring to gradual speed up/slow down of animation here.
That I know how to do.

Thanks for any ideas.

Yes, add a speed effect to the selected movie strip. Turn off the option "Stretch to input strip length", then keyframe the value Speed Factor.

Start with a value of 1.0.
Then move to the next frame that should be normal speed and keyframe
that 1.0 as well.
Go to the frame that should be stretched out, change the Speed
Factor value to a smaller value for slow e.g. 0.5 is half speed, or
a higher value e.g. 2.0 is double speed.
You won't see any effect until you press the Refresh Sequencer button at the bottom of the VSE timeline.

Alternatively if you don't need to ramp the clip's speed you could apply a "Stretch to Length" effect.

Place your play head at the point you want to start slowing down.
Select the Strip and make a hard cut (Shift+K key)
Make another hard cut (Shift+K key) at the end of the region of slow
motion. Select the middle strip and add a Speed Effect, leave it in
"Stretch to input Length" mode.
Move the cut strip up to the channel above and stretch it to the
right length, the speed effect will slow the clip down.
Select the third piece of the clip and move it to the end of the
speed effect, this will continue to play at the original speed.


in the example below how possible is to rotate the nurbspath on its own z axis? it is a nurbspath that i am using to control this skeleton, but i am unable to rotate. i can only move sideways forward and backwards but i cannot rotate. is that possible? i am new to blender.

Not sure I entirely understand you issue. Assuming this is what you want to do.

In Object Mode select your curve and place the 3D cursor at its origin with the Shift+S menu.

Enter Edit Mode and select one or all of the vertex at the end of the curve.

Change transform pivot to the 3D cursor with . Period key.

You can then rotate the selected vertex. For a smooth transformation like below try using Proportional Edit.


how can I change the size of particles? I am fairly new to blender, and I am wondering how to change the size of the particles I am working with. They are way to big. Thanks

This can be changed in the particle settings under either Physics or Render (when using a display type that allows this) with the Size slider. You can also change the size of your particle objects by scaling the main object(s) you are using but it's best to control the size via the particle settings.

Additionally, you can randomize the size of your particles by using the Random Size slider.


I cannot find my imported OBJ So basically I imported an OBJ from a game (Roblox) and it has various parts, but it does not go where I want it to go when I import it.

It is in Blender and its visible I just cannot find it. Anyway to teleport to an object or teleport a object to you?

You can press A to select all the objects then deselect camera and lamp, after that press Shift+C to set your 3d cursor to the center, and press Shift+S then Selection to Cursor (Offset)
This should place your objects in the center of your 3d scene.


Rigging a flexible rod I'm trying to rig a flexible rod using bones (for use in Unity). I've attempted to use 2 bones, one at the base and one at the tip of the rod

I have then used the weight paint mode to paint the weight so the end of the rod is more bendy:

In pose mode, the problem is the bend seems to be happening at a single point, rather than following the weight

I have added a deform->armature modifier to the rod:

And I think my armature/rod is parented correctly:

How can I make the rod curve smoothly? I've tried using multiple bones but the rod bends at very sharp angles, not smoothly. The following image is an idea of how I want the rod to curve (on the Z axis and X axis)

I would start with one bone for the whole rod (the bendy part anyways), and weight all the geometry to that bone.  Then...

Get into bone edit mode, select the bone.
Invoke the Subdivide command on that bone, for that rod, I'd subdivide it about 6-8 times.  But use your judgement.
Get into Pose Mode, and select all the bones.
Select the rod mesh, and get into weight paint mode.
Hit the "W" key, and select "Assign Automatic from Bones" from the popup menu.

Automatic weights for stuff like this usually works out pretty good.  I'd recommend b-bones subdivision to you, but if your exporting to a Game Engine, I'm not sure those would be supported.


Earth model loses color on import I am trying to import an Earth Model that I downloaded. When I load it into my project it loses all of its color and is only grey. When I load the model as its own project it works just fine.
Does anyone have any idea why I lose color on the model when moving it from one project to another?

If the "Alpha" input is in the "Base color" of the principled node:

Then it will look like this:

If you put the "Color" input in the "Base Color" output on the principled node:

Then it will have color:

-
-
Hope this helps!


Part of my object disappears In camera view Hi newbie in blender here.

does anybody know how to solve the problem?

Outside view show the whole 3d model, but on camera and rendered it comes out like this:

You need to increase your camera's clipping end value:


How to fix shape keys after having used symmetrize on the basis shape key? I used "symmetrize" on the basis key because at some point I lost symmetry. It messed up all the other shape keys. I thought when you select a full model and click symmetrize it would just restore symmetry but it seems like it duplicates half of the mesh and mirrors it, not sure. I had tried snap to symmetry first but it didn't give me good results. Am I screwed? I saved after symmetrizing, I can't undo.

I think it's the same that I just solve.
I had my character with mirror applied and shape keys. I tried to apply the mirror but I cant, so

The first thing I did is save with another name.
In the new file I deleted half of my character, leaving the very middle vertex.
In shape key I rename some "Worry" to "WorryL", "Frown" to "FrownL", etc.
In object mode you duplicate my character and made a scale X -1.
In the new object shape keys rename the renamed ones. "WorryL" to "WorryR", etc
Then I put it in the right position and Alt + J to join. Ctrl + N to fix normals
W and Remove Doubles.

Ready.
I have My character With some shapeKeys for Left and Right. Others like Phonemes I leave the like the was.


Viewing normals in Blender? I'm sure there is a way to view the normals, but I can't find it anywhere. Can you please tell me where to find this option?
Thanks!

2.8

Edit Mode > Viewport Overlays > Normals.

In 2.8, the normals display settings are in the Viewport Overlays menu found in the top right of the 3D view by default, under Normals. Note that you must be in Edit Mode:


How to set render engine in blender? I'm new to blender. How do you change the render engine?

According to this video, the button should be along the top. I've searched google, and the blender documentation with no luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_d7aT39mHQ

For version 2.8

Use the render properties section of the scene editor.

There you can find the options that are available in your particular version.

For versions up to 2.79, you need to be on the info window

then select your render engine

Note that blender internal and the game engine have been removed starting with version 2.8.


Parts of armature moving other parts of the model even though there's no weight paint there? Title pretty much says it all. My hand bone is moving parts of the lower stomach area, and even though I try to subtract all of the weight paint in the area, that part still moves regardless. Any ideas?

Try it with auto-normalize disabled.
But you have to be careful, as this could mess up your weights and you may need to normalize them again.

You can also try it with "Limit selection to visible" disabled.
This could help if you have overlapping meshes.


Budget gaming PC as render farm? Admittedly, I am not very knowledgeable of hardware, but I am trying to put together a cheap render farm using the following with my Lenovo Y50 gaming laptop:

GPU: 2X Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560

Motherboard: ASRock 250M Pro 4

Memory: 16GB DDR4 RAM

SSD: Crucial MX300 275GB

Power supply: EVGA 450W 80+ Bronze PSU

Case: Fractal Design Core 1100

Link: http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-guide-budget-gaming-pc/

Is this a workable method?  Most articles I find online from CG artists are very expensive home made setups with render nodes, routing and server cases, etc.

Thanks

Your configuration seems OK so far, but your CPU is rather weak. When rendering on GPU, some tasks are also done by CPU, the BVH for example (BVH = building the scene volume hierarchy).
Further reading: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Source/Render/Cycles/BVH

I'd recommend an i5 or something similar with 4+ cores. Don't try to save money on your computers brain. Also important: don't put in 16 gB of RAM as one module, it is more efficient to put in 2 x 8 gB modules to the two fastest RAM lanes on the mainboard (usually those are color-coded). When you want to put in more GPUs in the future, consider choosing a bigger PSU. 450 watt seem OK for two 1050ti, but if you double that in the future, you might hit the maximum wattage and your cards will slow down under full stress (the clock speed will be reduced to cope with the low power = slower rendering). This will also happen, when your system isn't cooled well. With two or more graphics cards, you need to pay close attention to cooling. Make sure your case is bigger than normal cases and has a lot of fans (as many as your PSU/mainboard can supply). I can't stress this point enough, I almost melted my pc last month. I'd also recommend that you put in an additional harddrive as a framestore, 275 gB is sufficient for your OS and some few programs, but when you choose to render a lot, you will need more space for your projects and renders. This "framestore" doesn't need to be an SSD. As for the SSD, you might also consider a M.2 module. This is an SSD module, that is directly put onto your mainboard. But make sure there are enough PCIe slots available, to hold an M.2 SSD and your graphic cards.

A little disclaimer: I'm not an expert, so any comments and corrections by the community are appreciated. Those are just some empirical points from my own hardware fails :-)
happy rendering!


Rotate group of duplicate bones in edit mode This is the  first time rigging anything in Blender. I'm attempting to rig a spider. I have created a set of 6 bones for one leg. Now I simply want to duplicate those bones and place and rotate them about 20 degrees over the next leg. I can duplicate the bones and translate them, but I can't figure out how to rotate them as a unit to align them with the next leg without destroying their relative alignment and positions to one another. I'm looking for a shortcut to rigging each leg. Is this possible?

I think I've worked out a solution. I duplicate the bones then separate them into a new armature. I can then rotate the the armature in object mode. I then combine the separate armatures back into one.


Make a Low-Poly Object with an equal balanced number of Vertices I'm trying to model a Low-Poly sky island but I can't get the mesh to have an equal number of vertices at each side.
If i try to model it it looks somthing like this:

I want the vertices to be equally distributes across the whole mesh. My model has much more vertices at the bottom than at the top (technically both sides have an equal amount of vertices but the top side has more area)
My model doesn't really look like the Low-Poly models currently used in games e.g.:

It would be very helpful if anyone can show me how to model a good looking Low-Poly floating island. (The top shouldn't be too uneven, because I will create houses on top of the Islands in a game)
I'm not very experienced in texturing models, so I don't know how to texture Low-Poly models correctly. Should I use Vertex-Paint or UV-Mapping? How can I Import the textures correctly into Unity? What should I do to achive a texture and lighting like picture 2?

Thanks in Advacne,
Sebastian

For redistributing the verts try the remesh modifier.

To make your model look more like the picture you posted, you have to lower your polycount, which you can do by editing parameters in the remesh modifier I mentioned or by retopologizing manually.

As for good low poly modeling, there are plenty of tutorials, and that's not something I can answer here. It'll take practice and patience, as low poly is harder than it looks.

For texturing, since it's done on a face-by-face basis, do not use UVs or textures, but instead use multiple materials and assign different materials to different faces.

Lighting like that is decently simple. Flat shading, a directional light, and some global illumination. If you're using Unity, also look into the image effects standard assets, like screen space ambient occlusion or color correction. After that, just iterate.


Making holes in an object using an image as a reference I have an object already created in blender, a tree, or a human, or a pipe.. and I need this to be drilled with multiple holes.

The holes are painted in an image, that is, it is an image that has a repeating an images pattern (they can be circles, squares, or any form).

Here are some examples for drilling-pattern:

Assuming Cycles (and using your first sample image), you can achieve this effect using a volumetric material to render the insides of any 'holes' in the mesh :

This is achieved with the following material :

The 'surface' is a mix between a Transparent shader and a Diffuse shader (or whatever surface shader you want to use) - using the image as the mix factor. Unfortunately you cannot use UV coordinates for this since the coordinates need to also be used for the volumetric (and UVs don't support points below the surface - in my case I have used Object coordinates, passed through a Mapping nodes to allow them to be rotated and scales as desired.

For the 'internal' structure, the same image is used to affect the density of the volumetric - for the 'spaces' the density will be zero (ie, empty space) while for the 'solid' sections the density needs to be high so as to appear solid. This can be achieved using Maths nodes (in this case, Subtract from 1 (as the 'black' in the image was to be 'solid', the white 'trasparent') and then multiply by 15 for the 'high' density - even higher values will make the 'internal' substance less translucent). The Volume Scatter and Volume Absorption setup is the same as would be used for smoke (just higher density than would be typical for smoke).

To increase the quality of the volumetric you may need to decrease the 'step' size in the volumetric properties (although this will slow down the render). Also, don't forget to set Light Paths Volume scattering (in Render properties) to more than 0 (eg, 4 or 5 should be sufficient).


How to add physics to the object that already follows another object? So I want to make string of lamps. The string has cloth physics, and I want lamps follow it.
I created empties that have constraint to follow string's assigned vertex groups. And it works ok I guess.
But what if I want to physics to the lamp themselves that they could rotate in the wind while still attached to the string. What physic to use and how to pin them to empties/vertex groups?

EDIT
Thank you for answers. I'm sure they can be very helpful for others trying to figure out this same problem. I actually managed to create one solution for this on my own as well after hours of trying.
I extruded string's vertexes towards the lamp (imagine like another string, which is holding the lamp). So there is two vertexes in lamp's position. For each of these vertex I created on empty. Which I vertex parented to the string's vertex. (This mesh has cloth physics in it)
Then I created armature for lamps(each has separate one, with one bone). And parented this to lamp with automatic weight. Armature has two constraints. Copy Location (target: upper vertex) and Damped Track (target: down vertex).
Now the lamps should be following the string. And you can add wind to make them move.
After this you need separate object for string itself. As the one in the beginning works as a guide and you can't add any form in them. For this I created curve with extrude. Curve has points where the lamps are (same position as the guide string). Then I created hooks for each point of curve. Which I vertex parented again to the guide string.

The ideal physics for your lamps is probably rigid body physics.  It is possible to combine these with soft body/cloth physics, but the philosophies and techniques are different.
In order to anchor these lights as rigid bodies to the line, you'll first have to make an "anchor" body to hold them there.  Create a cube (or any solid mesh, doesn't matter) at the point where they hang from the line, give it rigid body physics, and then check the "animated" trait in properties/physics/rigid body/settings.  "Animated" means it's under your control, so, you'll need to do something to make it move with the cloth physics mesh.  One way to do this is via vertex parenting (I parented it vertex triangle to three points in a cloth strip), but if you'd rather, your technique of copying location from vertex groups is fine as well.
Disable rendering on these anchor bodies.  I set mine to display as only wireframe as well.
Next, you can give the lamps themselves rigid body physics.  Default settings are fine, although you'll want to make sure that the origins of the objects lie somewhere near the middle of their volume (the origin is the center of mass.)  Remove any constraints or parenting from these objects if you have any.
Next, you'll need constraints so that your lamps stay attached to the anchors.  For each anchor body, create an empty at its location, then give the empty Rigid Body Constraint physics.  Set these to "point" type instead of the default "fixed".  Then, in the Objects subsection, specify your anchor object as the first body and your lamp object as the second body.  These empties should remain unparented and unconstrained; their positions won't make any sense during your animation, because it's their relative orientation at your first physics frame that determines how they work.  (As point constraints, they're going to try to keep your lamps on a spherical shell around the anchor, and exert physics forces as needed to do that.)
Here's it after a few frames, with some pinned windows to demonstrate physics settings:

Note: what's happening here is that Blender is running your cloth physics, and only afterwards, running your rigid body physics using the positions provided from the cloth physics.  Don't imagine that the hanging lamps will exert force back on the cloth; it doesn't work that way.


Why are more particles showing in the render than in the viewport? There is quite a difference between the 3D View and the render. In the viewport there are a few palm trees but when I hit 'Render' I can see a huge amount of trees that looks like a forest. I have no children setting activated.

Blend File (Palm Trees)

3D viewport:

Render:

Any solution as to what's going on and why there are so many particles (trees) shown?

Your particle system is set to only show 10% of the total particles.

In the 'Display' panel of the particle system change the 'Display Percentage' to 100%:

This will display all the particles in the viewport.


How can I select between different UV Maps? I'm only trying to find the checkbox to active the UV map.

I know it must be simple, and any help will be appreciated.

Go into the mesh data tab and select the UV map you wish to be active


How to access the window width/height inside a GLSL Shader? Inside a Python script defining a GLSL shader used on the game engine, how do I access the width/height of the game window?

It depends if the shader is set as an actuator "Filter 2D" or not. Then you can use the predefined uniform floats bgl_RenderedTextureWidth and bgl_RenderedTextureHeight. If it is just an arbitrary shader you would need to pass the values yourself as uniforms e.g.:

// glsl
uniform float ww;
uniform float wh;
...

And pass the values via the python api like:

# python
shader.setUniform1f("ww", float(bge.render.getWindowWidth()))
shader.setUniform1f("wh", float(bge.render.getWindowHeight()))

To set up the shaders you usually use code like this:

cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
own = cont.owner

vs = """
// vertex shader code here
"""

fs = """
// fragment shader code here
"""

mesh = own.meshes[0]
for mat in mesh.materials:
  shader = mat.getShader()
  if shader != None:
    if not shader.isValid():
        shader.setSource(vs, fs, True)
    shader.setUniform...


Bake without shadows or influence from individual lights I have an object with 2 materials. Rather than describe them ,here are the nodes:

Material 1:

Material 2:

The reason for the two materials is because the second is more of a decal and should appear only once in a specific location.

What I would like to achieve is to bake these 2 materials into one texture so that I can easily apply it to the whole object in Unity.

I tried baking with these settings:

This produces a completely black image. I tried a few other variations and was not able to get what I wanted. Basically, I want an image with no shadows, no lights (aside from the world lighting which is white) that I can use in Unity. I want unity to apply the shadows and whatnot.

How can I achieve this?

Change the Bake Type from Combined to Diffuse. This will output a shadeless texture that you can use as the Albedo map.

Repeat this process by changing the Bake Type to "Normal" if you want to bake a normal map.


Blender texturing effects I would like to create in blender of animations light on the walls of a cube of rubik, for example illuminate a cube of one of the many faces at the time of a rotation. And I would like to use this animation on a texture hive , maybe managing to create bright light animations controllable and adjustable on the appropriate individual hexagons of the texture, gradually, I don’t know if you explain.

Texture on RenderHub

I am a newbie, but the only thing I could think of is to change the lighting in precise spots.  What could be done with nodes? So I went looking.

I found this video for the basic question of making a section of the texture light up, in an example of making "lava cracks" glow. But it doesn't address the question of changing what lights up over time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEdA5pP5Wrk

Here's another that includes texture painting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF3hj5s5pr0

This one shows you (toward the end) how to animate a texture by keyframing the changes to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa7wJZBuKXw

And finally, here is another Stack Exchange answer on how to change textures as an animations plays.
Is it possible to change material overtime by keyframes in swipe effect?


mesh not following armature completely i made an armature to my model (human), did all the parenting etc. i used empty weights and applied the weights to the vertex groups manually in edit mode because auto weighting didn't work out so well (the auto weighting is not there anymore. i made a new armature from a backup file w/o any armature work on it because i knew i would screw up eventually).
luckily, posing the bones causes only the selected vertexes to move, but not as quickly as i thought it would. an example on the hands:

as you can see, the mesh doesnt follow the armature, though it is certainly influenced by it.
i have looked at the weight painting, it looks like this (assigning the vertex groups was all in edit mode; i didnt make any changes in weight painting mode):

and these are the vertices (including front and back of the hand; used x-ray) i selected for the vertex group.
pasteall file: https://pasteall.org/blend/0d726d4ea3994c59a574ad8fd836ccb9
thank you in advance :)
-- edit: for moonboots --

ive changed the weights for the forearm and the arm, but the mesh still doesnt yield:

Select your armature, shift select the mesh, switch to Weight Paint mode, select the arm bones, you'll see that the hand is part of the vertex group that they are supposed to control, which should not be the case:

To correct that, you can either do it with a brush (set to Subtract), or in Edit mode, select the hand vertices, remove them from all groups, and reassign to the hand group only:


Approach for a Cheese material with SSS in Cycles? I want to make realistic looking cheese, I think the best way to do it is by using Subsurface Scattering in some way.

Here is a reference image.

You're right, SSS is what you want.

An SSS shader is pretty much it as far as the base shader goes, but a few textures and some diffuse shading for the scratches won't go amiss:

Also make sure the rind is a separate manifold mesh (i.e has a surface on the side against the cheese). Otherwise, light which should be blocked by the rind will enter the cheese material and get scattered out, giving a rather unconvincing transition without any darkening:

Cheese material:

Note the scattering radius values. These were just guessed at with some eyeballing, so you may want to play with them a bit to get the effect you want.

The control how far red, green, and blue light can be scattered, with the top value being red and the bottom being blue.

The sharpness and texture blur on the SSS node are both 0.


How do I extend a Path Animation curve for a longer fly-through but keep the frame rate at 24 fps? I set up part of a fly-through along a Nurbs path, putting the camera on the path with a Follow Path Constraint, and then added an empty and constrained the camera to Track To the empty. I haven't done animations before, so I fiddled with the points on the path and keyframes placed on the location of the empty until I was happy with it.

Now I want to rough in the rest of the path for the fly-through, which will be several times longer than that first part.

How do I do that so the frame rate won't be changed? I just rolled back to an earlier version because I realized the frame rate had dropped a lot after I changed the number of frames. Do I add in a rough of the rest of the path of the camera first, and then extend the frames on the Path Animation and the Timeline? Is there a place where I can just reset the frame rate?

I should mention I only have 3 more days to get this done, and so I am not betting I can render this out in that time the way I'd like, since I've never done this before and I have gotten used to problems cropping up that bring everything to a halt in these situations. So I really want the playback in Blender to be the right frame rate, so I can use a short cut for now of just screencasting and narrating over that.

You want the curve to be longer, right? Sorry if I misunderstood that part :P

Providing that is the question:

Step 1: Highlight your Nurbs path by pressing right click

Step 2 Enter edit mode either by pressing TAB or by changing it in the 3D View Menu

Step 3: Select the point closest to the direction you would like to go in, then press E for extrude or hold down CTRL and click on the screen, this will add additional vertices to your path which will let the path be longer.

If you have more questions do not be afraid to ask for help :)

EDIT: This fixed @kimholder's problem

Does the Frame Rate become slower or faster when you do this? I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve, but if it is becoming slower, in my experience it was the viewport not being able to keep up. If its becoming faster, well thats just odd LOL. I think for the timing, you will need to fiddle with keyframes, if it is a visual issue because you are doing viewport playback, try viewing the scene in Solid View or Wireframe View and disable as many other objects as possible

to disable objects, under the Scene View (Top right in regular Blender view) click the eye. Another idea that might be helpful is to move objects to another render layer, to do this highlight objects that aren't as important to your scene immediately and press M, then select one of the other layers and you will see a dot appear. You can quickly access these again and move them back as you wish.


Whats wrong with my "snowglobe" object and/or lighting? I've been messing with shaders and render options all day and trying to figure out how to get the objects within my "orb" object to display correctly in my render, but for some reason the viewport looks so much better than the renders and I'm not getting the same effect. Can anyone help me troubleshoot this? I'm kind of new to blender 2.8 and trying to get back into 3d modeling. Thanks for any advice or tips you may have.

The viewport is in 'lookdev' mode. That means there is a hdri image as environment lighting. You don't have it while rendering. Lookdev is a builtin environment lighting for test purpose. Should set up an equivalent environment texture to render it. You can find some available hdri images in your installation directory in 'C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.80\datafiles\studiolights\world'.

To setup that, you basically need to use this setting where 'forest.exr' is found in the directory indicated above:

But if you just render it, you'll see it in the rendering:

So you need to enhance the world node tree a bit (I've found no option to hide it automatically in Eevee).

This setting says: when a light ray is directly to the camera, then use the second 'background' node which is set with a transparent color.

So you can render this:

Here is the blend file (you may need to reopen/reload the hdri image to make it work in your environment):


How can I correct bone rotation with bpy between two Rigs which have different roll settings I'm an apprentice on blender and get in trouble with topic above.
I would like to apply an animation data from Rig-A to Rig-B, through 3rd party exporter.
Ex.
From Rig-A: 'arm.L'(-155.44)->'forearm.L'(-98.53)->'wrist.L'(-94.33)
To Rig-B: 'arm.L'(-55.81)->'forearm.L'(-125.86)->'wrist.L'(-56.3)

But there are differnce in roll settings between these two Rigs. Then I tried to correct the animation data with bpy like below, in advance of export.
As you see, this code does not work well, because it does not count the roll transmittion processing, which I can not get through.
Your help is greatly appreciated.

import bpy
import math
import mathutils

fix_rot_bones = ['arm.R','arm.L','forearm.R','forearm.L','wrist.R','wrist.L']

obj = bpy.context.active_object
arm = obj.pose
action = anim.action
initial_frame = 30

def overwrite(bone, frame_, path_):
    bone.keyframe_insert(data_path = path_ ,frame = frame_)

def fix_rot(name, frame):
    if name in fix_rot_bones:
        bpy.context.scene.frame_set(frame)
        if(name == 'arm.R'):
            mat_rot_arm = mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(math.radians(-100), 4, 'X')
        if(name == 'arm.L'):
            mat_rot_arm = mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(math.radians(-100), 4, 'X')
        # Same processing on the rest of bones
        #
        #
        #
        #
        quat_rot = mat_rot_arm.to_quaternion()
        arm.bones[name].rotation_quaternion *= quat_rot
        overwrite(arm.bones[name], frame, 'rotation_quaternion')

# find key points and hit fix function on each key points
def detector(fix_bones, fix_):
    for group in action.groups :
        if (group.name in fix_bones) :
            for channel in group.channels :
                if (channel.array_index == 3) :
                    for point in channel.keyframe_points :
                        if (fix_ == 'fix_rot'):
                            fix_rot(group.name, point.co[0])

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
detector(fix_rot_bones, 'fix_rot')

For the ordinary case you might convert the pose matrix like this

import bpy

arm_src = bpy.data.objects['Armature_Source']
arm_tgt = bpy.data.objects['Armature_Target']

def mat_offset(pose_bone):
    bone = pose_bone.bone
    mat = bone.matrix.to_4x4()
    mat.translation = bone.head
    if pose_bone.parent:
        mat.translation.y += bone.parent.length
    return mat

def adjust_pose_mat(source):
    target = arm_tgt.pose.bones[source.name]

    mat = (mat_offset(target).inverted() *
           mat_offset(source) *
           source.matrix_basis)

    target.matrix_basis = mat

for pb in arm_src.pose.bones:
    adjust_pose_mat(pb)

Example Blend:


How does texture mapping work in Blender? New to Blender last month, I had mapped a rectangular image onto a
sphere using Cycles nodes.  I noticed that Blender put the seam (where
the left and right edges of the image meet) on the front of the sphere.
I wanted the seam in the back.  Rather than rotate the sphere, I decided
to rotate the texture around the sphere.

First I tried a simple Z-axis rotation of the texture.  The result was
worthy of Salvador Dali — not at all what I had expected.

Next, I tried shifting the texture by 50% of its width in the +X
direction and changing the Image Texture node's extrapolation option
from Clip to Repeat.  (See the picture below.)  The result was not
as distorted as the previous attempt but still nothing like my goal.

Obviously I was making some bad assumptions.  So I set out to figure out
exactly how transformation of textures works in Blender.  I built the
test bed pictured.  The Generated output of a Texture Coordinate node was
fed into the Vector input of a Mapping node.  That Mapping node's output
was fed through a second Mapping node (to allow multiple transforms in an
unambiguous order) and then to the Vector input of an Image Texture
node.  The Color output from the Image Texture node traveled through a
Diffuse BSDF shader node to the Material Output node.

I drew a test picture with distinctive regions, edges, and corners so I
could see what was getting mapped where.  I then projected the image
onto five test objects (cube, rectangular prism, sphere, cylinder, and
meta cube) in various ways by adjusting the transforms in the Mapping
nodes and the Image Texture node projection options.  I also did a
simple Flat projection of the image onto a rectangular plaque in the
foreground for reference.

I started with simple Flat projection and tried various multiple
transforms.  Once I had developed a model of what Blender was doing
and tested it on the Flat projection I went on to the Tube and Sphere.

So how was my original thinking wrong?  It took a long time for my
experiments to yield enlightenment because of side issues mentioned in
my answer below.  Hopefully someone else new to Blender can glance at
this question/answer and avoid losing the time I wasted.

I eventually came up with a reasonable model for the mechanism.  But
along the way I was confused by Blender's order of transforms and
its display of materials.

Projection Model

My basic problem was that I was not considering exactly where the
object and the texture are located in what I will call "texture space".
Conceptually the object and texture are placed into texture space and
the surface of the object is colored according to where it intersects
the projected texture.

As a starting point for the texture mapping the object and the image are
made "the same size".  The object's bounding box (a rectangular prism in
its local coordinates) is scaled in the X, Y, and Z directions to create
a cube one unit on a side.  The cube with its distorted object is placed
in the first octant of the 3D texture space with its lower left front
corner at the origin and its upper right back corner at (+1,+1,+1).  The
rectangular image is scaled in the X and Y directions to become a square
one unit on a side (usually making its pixels rectangular rather than
square).

For a Flat projection the texture square is placed into the X-Y plane on
the bottom face of the object cube.  The lower left-hand corner of the
image is at the origin and the upper right-hand corner is at (+1,+1,0).
Each pixel of the texture square projects as a perpendicular rod
(rectangular in cross-section) that extends parallel to the Z-axis
towards infinity in both the +Z and -Z directions.

The problem that arises with rotations is that the axes of rotation are
the texture space coordinate axes which pass through the texture space
origin, not the more convenient axes at the centers of the object and
texture.  So if you want to rotate either the cube or the texture around
its central Z-axis you have to

Translate its center to the texture space Z-axis.
Perform the rotation around the texture space Z-axis.
Translate the center back its original position.

With the Tube projection the image has been wrapped around a vertical
(parallel to the Z-axis) cylinder of irrelevant radius one unit high
centered on (0.5,0.5,0.5).  Each pixel of the image projects
horizontally from the center of the cylinder outwards in an infinite
pie-shaped wedge one pixel high passing exactly through its rectangle on
the surface of the cylinder.

The Sphere projection wraps the image around a sphere of irrelevant
radius centered at (0.5,0.5,0.5).  Each pixel of the image projects from
the center of the sphere outwards to pass exactly through its rectangle
or triangle on the surface of the sphere.

So rotating the object or the texture about the Z-axis without the extra
translations separates the projected texture and the object, grossly
distorting their intersection.

Order Of Transforms

The first diversion on the way to the texture mapping model was figuring
out the order in which Blender was executing the transforms from the
Mapping nodes.

It turns out that within a Mapping node the transforms are essentially
performed right to left.  The scaling is performed first.  Then the
rotations are performed in Blender's default Euler XYZ order.  Finally
any translations take place.

However the order in which the chain of Mapping nodes is applied depends
upon the choice of Texture vs. Point set in the Mapping nodes.  (Assume
that all Mapping nodes use the same option and ignore Vector and Normal for
present purposes.)

With the default Point selection the Mapping nodes describe how the
object is transformed in texture space while the image projection
remains fixed.  The chain of Mapping nodes is applied left-to-right; the
leftmost Mapping node is applied first, and each Mapping node
transforms the result coming from the node on its left.

With Texture selected the Mapping nodes describe how the texture is
transformed in texture space while the object in its cube remains fixed.
The chain of Mapping nodes is applied right-to-left; the rightmost
Mapping node is applied first, and each mapping node effectively
transforms the result from the node on its right.  (This is the effect,
not how it is actually implemented.)

Point and Texture chains create net transforms which move the object
cube and the texture relative to each other.  Choosing between the two
approaches is a matter of convenience for the user.

Display Of Materials

The second diversion on the way to the texture mapping model involved
accurate display of the mapped texture.

The Preview display in the Material section of the Properties Editor is
your best friend.  If you are doing transparency or texture mapping you
need to have it active.

It did not dawn on me for a while that the 3D View was lying to me about
materials.  I naively assumed that if I set the 3D View's "Viewport
Shading" to Material I would see the actual material.  In fact the only
way to guarantee that is to select Render from the "Method to
display/shade objects in the 3D View:" (Viewport Shading) list.  The
limitation is perfectly understandable in terms of computation time;
using Render can be very slow so Material can be expected to compromise.

But one result is that an Image Texture node set for Clip will show in
the Material selection for the 3D View as if Repeat has been chosen.
That was confusing during the early tests.

The other limitation on the Material shading arises directly from
computational expense.  The non-Rendered display methods for the 3D View
cannot display some materials (e.g., transparency) on any object.
And they cannot display any material on some objects (e.g., a meta).

Moral

Do not make assumptions about how Blender works without taking the
time to test those assumptions.


Accidentally enabled wireframe display, can't disable it I accidentally hit something on my keyboard and now I have these wireframe lines messing up my viewport.

Hitting Undo a bunch of times didn't fix the problem. How do I get these lines out of my viewport? I'm using Blender 2.81.

The Wireframe option can be deactivated in the Viewport Overlay settings.


Gaps appearing in mesh when sculpting I recently picked up Blender and started getting into Sculpting, so I might be missing out on some basic principles in regards to Sculpting.

My problem is that gaps are appearing in my mesh when I'm Sculpting (using Dyntypo) over/around areas that have a higher detail than the detail level im brushing with.

From my understanding 'overwriting' mesh density shouldn't be a problem when sculpting with Dyntypo.

Anyone knows why this is happening and what I can do to prevent it?

Cheers

Update to answer comment:
Yes 'Limit selection to visible' is on.
I removed any double vertices but that didn't solve the problem.

2nd update:
Alright Remesh solved the problem. Tried it before but didn't get it to work cause I were in Edit mode and not in Object mode.

How do I prevent this from happening when Sculpting with Dyntypo? Cause using the remesh modifier is alright but I guess it removes some detail that I might not want removed and thus have to redo.

Those are the result of unconnected geometry forming the mesh.

Once you sculpt, those will reveal themselves because geometry is not connected and one edge will be moved more than another. However these aren't double vertices so you won't be able to fix this by deleting duplicating geometry as vertices do not share the same place.

To quickly fix it use Remesh modidifer.


bpy - how to select an image running blender in -background mode so an operator can use it? I need to invert an image running blender from the command line using the -background flag. To archive it I need to make the image active and later apply the invert operator.
I managed to select and invert the image with Blender running the UI, with the following code:
# Select the active image
m = bpy.context.area.type
bpy.context.area.type = "IMAGE_EDITOR"
bpy.context.area.spaces.active.image = myImageToInvert

# Operate over the selected image
bpy.ops.image.invert(invert_r=True, invert_g=True, invert_b=True)

But this code does not run when Blender is called from the command line with the -background flag, because the UI is not loaded so bpy.context.area is null.
How can I select the image (myImageToInvert) in the background so bpy.ops.image.invert() can operate over my image?
Thank you

(Edit) Deleted 1. Solution
2. Solution
This code inverts, the color of a picture. Maybe a bit slower than the Operator but not by much.
It's use bpy.data so you have to input the name of the picture to get it.
import bpy

def invert(image, invert_r = True, invert_g = True, invert_b = True, invert_a = True):
    pixels = list(image.pixels)
    if invert_r:
        for i in range(0, len(pixels), 4): # R
            pixels[i] = 1 - pixels[i]
    if invert_g:
        for i in range(1, len(pixels), 4): # G
            pixels[i] = 1 - pixels[i]
    if invert_b:
        for i in range(2, len(pixels), 4): # B
            pixels[i] = 1 - pixels[i]
    if invert_a:
        for i in range(3, len(pixels), 4): # A
            pixels[i] = 1 - pixels[i]
    image.pixels = pixels

#Example
image = bpy.data.images['Untitled']
invert(image, invert_a = False)

You could also use this code to input a sequence of images
(exchange this with the code after #Example).
images = ['Untitled', 'Untitled.001']
for image in images:
    invert(image, invert_a = False)


Is there a way I can display live/real time webcam video in the Motion Tracker? I have not been able to find any information on how to display a live/"real time" video from my webcam in Blenders motion tracking, not a pre-recorded video, is there an easy way to do this?

Unfortunately no. It may be possible to stream video in using a codec module via python however the tracking markers likely couldn’t reliably keep up at a standard frame rate for a 720p+ so you would be limited to tracking sub HD resolutions and/or suffer delay/stuttering. Tracking via proxy and putting track over full resolution might work but would incur accuracy errors and be harder to track. There are programs designed specifically for real time tracking which you would be much better off using than Blender.

Also don’t forget that even if you managed real time tracking the best graphics quality you could achieve is GLSL render or BGE. Unless you are a shader code expert you would be quite limited by this. Though not terrible certainly a step down from other rendering options.

If you are into coding and want to find a non standard solution to this problem you could do a search for a real time tracking module and stream it your video and enter the resulting track data into a more capable game engine... But it would be a lot of work, certainly not the easy and Blenderish way your asking for :(


How to make a bump map from a texture paint? I want to have a detailed model. The texture paint png file is like this (though these are the details on the mesh, I will create another paint file and want a bump map from that):

How do I make a bump map from this and have the black lines appear as ridges in the model? This is the model I want to create ridges on:

Will I need to subdivide the mesh? If so, how many times given the image? And will there be any problems because of the topology? Also, how can I see the effects in real time so that I can adjust the strength of bumps accordingly?

I use an rgb image with 0.5 value (gray) and then plug that into a bump node, and then plug that into the Normal socket of the shader node. I paint in black to sink, white to raise but that can be inverted on the bump node.


Grey Spots Cover Visibility of Vertices, Edges, Faces Pictured below is a super annoying thing I can't tolerate anymore. How can anyone model when the edges and vertices are hidden under this gray film? This is just one object so there are no intersecting surfaces. Anyone know how I can fix this? I'd really appreciate it!

The problem ist the subdiv modifier. The cage and the shrinked mesh are intersecting each other.
You could either shrink the cage or toggle x-ray as shown in my screenshots:

Greetings


Stuck at UV Mapping: mesh doesn't show in UV Window I'm migrating from 3DS Max to blender and its totaly confusing.

Right now I'm stuck because when I do 'Mesh->UV Unwrap->Unwrap' nothing shows in the UV/Image editor window.

I did a render of some object and since then I don't see the mesh in uv coords.

I noticed  there were some kind of masks/layers and it's totaly non-intuitive.

Here is a screenshot: so, how to see the UV mesh?

see those mask icons on the bottom right corner of your UV/image window?

Select the one on the left and change it to view


how to move lips in human imported from make human I have imported the human into bender tool. I want the lip movement to happen in that human, can you please help me with it.

You need to rig the model for mouth movement.  One way to do this is to use PitchiPoy version of rigify, which adds facial animation.  There is a tutorial from PitchiPoy, but I haven't tried it.


Python: drive a shape key with scripting How can I drive a shape key with a custom property slider using only Python scripting?

I intend to do a facial rig setup based on blendshapes and I want to do all the curves - shape key connections by scripting.

Make an object custom property to drive each shape

From an Old blenderartists thread adds a custom property to context mesh object for each of its mesh data shapekeys, and sets up a driver from property to shapekey.

import bpy

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
object = context.object
mesh = object.data
shape_keys = mesh.shape_keys

frame = scene.frame_start
scene.frame_set(frame)
# dictionary of shape_key fcurves keyed by data_path
fcurve_dict = {}
rna = object.get('_RNA_UI', {})
for key, keyblock in shape_keys.key_blocks.items():
    if keyblock == shape_keys.key_blocks[0]:
        print("keyblock %s assumed Basis and ignored" % key)
        continue
    # create a custom property for the key

    rna[key] =  {"name": key,
                "min": keyblock.slider_min,
                "max": keyblock.slider_max,
                "description": "Shape Key %s" % key,
                "soft_min": keyblock.slider_min,
                "soft_max": keyblock.slider_max,
                }
    object[key] = keyblock.value
    object["_RNA_UI"] = rna

    # add a driver

    fcurve = shape_keys.driver_add('key_blocks["%s"].value' % key)
    driver = fcurve.driver
    driver.type = 'SCRIPTED'
    driver.expression = "shape"
    var = driver.variables.new()
    var.name = "shape"
    var.type = 'SINGLE_PROP'
    target = var.targets[0]
    target.id_type = "OBJECT"
    target.id = object.id_data
    target.data_path = '["%s"]' % key

If for instance you wish to put properties on the armature

object = bpy.data.objects["Name of Armature Object"]
mesh = bpy.data.meshes["Name of Mesh with Shapekeys"]

Please note old code.. don't use object as a variable name as its a reserved python keyword use ob or obj (for example) instead


How i can hide object from viewport and render at the same time? To hide object from viewport i need click icon "eye" or "monitor" in outliner, to hide object from render i need click icon "camera". I do 2 actions but I want to do it in 1 action.

In my opinion it is logical -> if you hide object from viewport it should automatically hide from render.

Any solution?

You can just click and drag on the icons in the Outliner:


Fluid - Sudden splashes during calm down I am pouring a liquid onto a surface with the domain as boundary. Domain resolution is 300 and I am working with some viscosity. The inflow is active for 1 second and then I want the fluid to calm down and sit still. But while the liquid is calming down, I get sudden upward splashes of liquid.
Does anyone know how to prevent that?
Thanks!
Mick

Id say rerun the bake. Fluid Dynamics are very complicated and your computer probably had some sort of Error which reslulted in a sudden net plus of Energy, thus creating the splash.
Another option may be resonance. See, the Fluid still has a lot of energy even if it is close to a resting state. And as all Dynamic systems tend to do, the Fluid kind of equalizes itself by moving. And so what can happen is that a lot of Energy suddenly gets released because a lot of Particels just happen to hit the right frequency. There is something similar that happens in the real world, but that is related to Quantum Mechanics. And Blender dosnt take those effects into account as far as i know.


Subdivision Surface mesh weird vertex behaviour I'm modeling a character and I've noticed some weird vextex behaviour that is deforming the mesh with the subdivision surface on it.

The vertex causing this deformity seems to bem "stacked" on the mesh, I tried to remove them and remake the part of the mesh but when I do this the vextex next the removed part keep the same behaviour, so I just pull the problem ahead...

Normal Behaviour

Weird Behaviour

You have a normal issue, you need to select all in Edit mode and press shiftN to recalculate. Also you'll have to disable the Subsurf Clipping option, select all the boarder vertices, move them a bit on the X axis to create a gap, then reactivate Clipping and move back the vertices so that it sticks correctly.


Make all paths relative for a blend file via python I have a bunch of blend files, each in their own directory with supported files wherever necessary. I want to configure all the blend files to use relative paths. I can open each of them and do File > Externel Data > Make all paths relative. But since I've a lot of blend files, this is time consuming. Is it possible to do this via python script?

This will make all paths relative and then save
import bpy
bpy.ops.file.make_paths_relative()
bpy.ops.wm.save_mainfile()

You can run this from the shell like this. This should make all paths in file.blend relative
blender --background file.blend --python-expr 'import bpy;bpy.ops.file.make_paths_relative();bpy.ops.wm.save_mainfile()'


MBLab 1.7.4 add on refuses to install in Blender 2.8 Beta? I'm trying to install MBLab 1.7.4b in Blender 2.8 (64-bit, May 24th release.)

I've tried using the standard install from file function, and it doesn't show up in the installed plugins list despite reporting it this summer. I tried the rename step listed here and got nowhere.

Finally I copied an unzipped, renamed copy direct into Blender's addon folder. It showed up in the list of installed addons but it threw the following error when attempting to enable.

Any idea what the problem is?

I had the same issue, and by looking carefully at the log I figured it out.

This is how I solved it:

Install the addon as usual.

In my case, I had it already installed but wasn't showing up in the addon list.

You have to do the "renaming thing" but instead of just renaming the installation ZIP, you have to rename the addon folder that is installed in:

/home/"user name"/.config/blender/2.8/scripts/addons

I renamed it to just MBlab, and that was it. I hope it works for you as well, have a nice day.


How Do I Lower My Polygon Count In Blender 2.8? I Really Need Help, I Made A Dragon Egg Model And Need Help Lowering The Polygon Count

Select your object. Go to the modifiers tab (the one with the wrench icon)
and set ratio to 0.5 (50%) with the option collapse active.
That means that whatever your polycount face is, will be reduced by half that number.


Array mesh plane modifier with rotation I have been using the Array modifier on a plane with a playing card texture to make a deck of cards, with and Empty as the object offset so I can make a fan out of them. However, it isn't behaving like I expect. After I set the Empty as the offset, I have to Ctrl + A and hit Scale to fix the scale, but then I basically have four small decks that rotate when I only want the cards to rotate as one deck something like this:

[removed]

Any help would be much appreciated!

I'm not sure where your problem comes from but if you want to do that with the Array modifier, here is the way:

Create your card, at the centre of the scene to make it simpler.
In Edit mode shift the mesh from its origin (on the Y axis in my case).
Back in Object mode, create an empty at the same point as the card origin.
Give your card an Array modifier. Choose Object Offset with the empty as object. Choose the Count value you want.
Rotate the empty on the Z axis. In my case, as I've chosen a count of 36, I have to rotate 10° so that it make a complete circle.
As you don't want the cards to be on the same Z level, rise the empty a bit on the Z axis (use shift while you move to make it more precise).


Creating Detail From An Image I've been creating some Helmets for my game, I wanted to add a little bit of character to the helmets, I'm going to try and design some of my own symbols / designs but I don't have any clue what the best way about using an image to create detail on an object ( protruding into the helmet ). My plan is to put a symbol around the "trim" of the helmet. I started to just use the cut tool but I quickly realized it wouldn't come out exactly how my design was, so I figured there has got to be a way quicker way to go about it. I searched around but I guess my wording isn't correct, I don't truly know how to explain in depth what I want that well. My english isn't the best.

You could do it this way:

You can try to convert your picture in Illustrator, then import as a SVG, then convert curve to mesh. Give it thickness with an extrusion, then use the Remesh modifier to give it a good topology. Modifier settings: disable Remove Disconnected Pieces, Mode : Sharp, Octree Depth : 8, Scale : 0.3, Sharpness : 1  .
If the result is too messy, recreate your ornemental shape from scratch with your model as a Background Image.
Give your ornement mesh a thickness with two successive extrusions on the Z axis. The first extrusion must be thin as you'll later use a Subdivision Surface modifier.
Create a plane, subdivide it to make a grid.
Give your ornement a Surface Deform modifier, choose the grid as the Target and click Bind.
Give your grid a Shrinkwrap modifier and choose the helmet as your Target. Now your ornement should stick to the helmet. Play with the Shrinkwrap Offset if necessary.
Give your ornement a Subdivision Surface modifier to smooth the shape, also, click on Shading > Smooth on the left menu of your 3D view (activated with T).

When you have finished you can choose to Bake this helmet in order to fake the ornement in the Material with a Normal map.


libGLU.so.1 error loading shared library I am trying to install blender 2.79 on ubuntu 17.10.
Downloaded  blender-2.79-linux-glibc219-x86_64.tar.bz2 from

https://www.blender.org/download/

ran the command: sudo tar xvjf blender-2.79-linux-glibc219-x86_64.tar.bz2

changed directories to the blender executable and ran the command:
 ./blender

Got this error:

./blender: error while loading shared libraries: libGLU.so.1:
 cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

If I run /sbin/ldconfig -p
I get the line:
libGL.so.1 (libc6,x86-64) => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1

So I'm guessing I need to link to it somehow?
I tried
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib
which didn't work, and maybe I've made things worse.

Any help would be appreciated.

I had the same issue. Running the libglu1 installation addressed this. I'm running Blender 2.79 on Ubuntu 16.04

sudo apt-get install libglu1


Is there a more efficient way to edit actions alread used in NLA? When not happy with the results in an animation the action can be edited again (Tab in NLA-editor). After that the action is displayed with a snowflake indicating that it needs to be freezed again.

After editing

After adding the updated action (Shift-A Add Action Strip)  shown as Walk.001

Do I really need to replace all occurences of the edited action in the NLA-editor or is there a another way to apply changes (in place) ?

The snowflake button is only displayed for actions not added as an NLA strip, or newly created ones.

For actions already contained in a strip, it's much easier to select the strip and Tab to tweak it. After that, just Tab again to exit strip-tweaking mode. There's no need to replace existing strips: the action's change will be reflected immediately in all strips containing it.

At worst, you will have to Sync Action Length Alt-R on each strips and rearrange them if their action's duration is changed. Replacing action strips is almost never necessary.


Image Alpha Background Renders Black when using "Import Images as Planes" I must be missing something here.  I'm doing an extremely simple Import Image as Plane using the AddOn and the imported image has an alpha background but it renders (and even previews in the material preview) as black where the alpha background should be.

When I import, I select Emission & Transparent so the material setup is automatic.  I've read similar issues but people are typically missing the transparent node and connecting the Alpha channel from the image into the Mix Node factor.  But this is all here.

I must be missing something really stupid but I've wasted so much time trying to fix this thing.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Not sure if it matters but I'm using 2.74 RC2.

Many thanks!

I created this dummy blend file to test outside my project but problem still exists.  Here is the simple .blend file: AlphaTest

The reason you see black in the background of your image is because your image is not using the alpha channel.

Press N to open the panel on the image/UV editor and enable the Use Alpha option for the image:

Other things could that could be happening:

1.-The Alpha channel was not enabled during the import process.

If you are using the images as planes addon to import images that have an alpha channel you have to enable the Use Alpha option, and then choose the shader you need.

When the window to load a file opens, you can click on the gear icon on the top right to display the options for the new plane (or you can press the N shortcut)

In 2.8 check the box for Use Alpha

For older versions of blender the options are:

In newer versions of blender the Use Alpha box might not be there but you can still select to have transparency as you import the image:

2.-Your Image has no alpha channel.

Open your file in an image editing software (gimp, photoshop, etc), delete the black background to make it transparent and save it again in a format that supports an alpha channel (JPG files do not support alpha, PNG, TIFF, OpenEXR do).

How can you tell if your image has an alpha channel?

At the bottom of the UV/Image editor's window you can select which channels to display:

Switching from RGBA to Alpha will allow you to see the alpha channel only

The white areas on the alpha will be opaque, the black areas will become transparent.

Just for comparison here's what the same image with no alpha channel looks like (As you can see it does not contain the outline of the leaf, just solid white):

AS AN ALTERNATIVE

If you don't want to edit your image, you can use the black information to control the transparency using a node setup like this where the parts of the image that are darker than 0.1 will be used as the mix factor for transparency. (Note that I inverted the order for the mix shader sockets)
:

NOTE
Alpha transparency for the texture will only be displayed in rendered and material view.


How to decrease the size of particle for fluid simulation(2.9)? I'm following this YouTube tutorials and making fluid go through the pipe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ChtnI8GNtM
When I make pipe very thin (e,g, 0.03m in diameter), then particle size of fluid exceeds the thickness of pipe, and the particle will not go through the pipe.
Is there a way to control the size of particle itself so I can make the  particle go through the pipe?

First of all, your particles in your viewport display are HUGE!! IDK why you have them set so high, but suit yourself. If you don't want this and/or have accidentally changed it to  look like this, then go to the particle settings tab for your fluid domain object, click on the particle settings for fluid, and go to viewport display.
Scroll down to the setting for particle display "size", and set it to a reasonable size of about 0.01. Now they aren't as big.
Now, you want the particles to be smaller so they "fit" inside the tube you want to have the simulated fluid flow through.
You have to set the resolution much higher to do this. Currently, it appears as if you have the default resolution for fluid baking (32) set. I would recommend a value of at least 100 for preview baking, and around 200+ for final resolution baking.
To change this, simply go to the domain settings and change the "resolution divisions" to the value of your preference.
I hope this helps!


How can I add two textures? How do I make a Noise texture (or any texture) only appear in places where Musgrave is white/black?

I tried adding them with math node but this gives monochrome image.

Instead of using the Math node for adding, you should use the Math node with Multiply. So for example then the areas where your Musgrave texture is 0 will remove the influence of the Noise texture there.

If you use colorful noise you could have a color mix node with that noise and white (or whatever color you want when the musgrave is 0) rbg color as inputs, and the mix factor would be controlled by the musgrave texture value


Zbrush Vector Displacement Maps I'm trying to wrangle a vector displacement map from Zbrush into Blender but nothing seems to make it render properly. Instead it comes out mangled.

Zbrush includes a helpful diagnostic model and map to determine which of the 48 different ways of exporting a map should be used. I tried loading this into Blender and all 48 are completely trashed, there isn't one that's even close to looking correct.

One of those is supposed to be a sphere, yet none are even close. This is using the basic settings for the Displace modifier: RGB to XYZ, UV coordinates, Midlevel 0.00, Strength 1.00.

The EXR displacement map is loading properly, everything looks good texture-wise, but the displacement results are trashed. I'm having a hard time finding any detailed information on what format Blender expects vector displacement maps to be in. I could do some more diagnostics but it's really unclear what settings ZBrush needs.

Vector displacement maps can contain negative values (and this one does), so you also need to disable "clamp" under the texture's "colors" rollout. Also, you need to apply rotation since the by default Blender will import Zbrush obj's with a 90 degree object rotation to handle the Y-up/Z-up conversion, you want that applied to the base mesh, not the post-modifier object transform. Once you do that, the correct value reveals itself (it's 27).

Displace Modifier (World Space Displacement only)

Zbrush:
vTangent = disabled (world space map, see below if you need tangent)
exr output = on
Flip and switch = 27

Displacement modifier
Mode = RGBtoXYZ
Midlevel = 0.0
Scale = 1.0
Coordinates = UV

Mesh

Apply rotation after importing to bake the axis flip, but DO NOT apply scale. (if you apply scale, you must compensate with the modifier's scale setting)

Displacement map (texture panel)

Color space = non-color ("linear" or "raw" should give the same result by default, but are technically not "proper")
Clamp = disabled

Tangent Space Displacement

In Blender 2.8, Cycles includes support for vector displacement. Unlike the displace modifier, this system DOES support tangent-vector maps. The node setup will look like this. Note the use of "non color data" on the image texture. In most cases, the "vector displacement" node should be left at exactly these settings, they are the defaults for a reason.

Tangent space maps are not dependent on the object transform, and can also displace meshes after they have been affected by deformation modifiers such as armature, corrective smooth, curve, etc. This is extremely useful when rigging a sculpted character from Zbrush. You can rig the level 1 mesh, then use subdivision and tangent vector displacement to rebuild the high-level sculpt at render time after deformation has been applied.

Note that as of Blender 2.80, adaptive subdivision does not support mesh tangents. As a result, you will need to use fixed subdivision with tangent-space maps. (if your object is not going to deform and you'd rather have adaptive subdivision, you can still use the same world space maps and settings you'd use with the displace modifier with Cycles vector displacement shader. Just change the vector displacement node's space to "object" or "world")

In this case, export your map from Zbrush with the following settings:

vTangent = enabled
exr output = on
Tangent flip and switch = 25

Whether you apply rotation or not does not matter with tangent space maps.


Using SVG to put label on bottle Can I use SVG artwork to put a label on a model of a vitamin bottle without first changing it to pixels? Does this need to be automated or batch processed?

Import the SVG file into blender and apply it to the bottle with a Shrinkwrap modifier in Project mode and with the bottle as Target. You might need to play with the offset value to separate the label from the surface.

Make sure this option is turned on:

make sure you read: Why won't Blender let me import .svg files?

and

Why can't I import a SVG file from Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape?


how to disable compositing nodes for selected frames? In the beginning, I have used the Glare compositing nodes for frames 0 to 160. After frame 160, I wanted to animate other objects without the Glare compositing nodes, but when I rendered the whole video out, the nodes were applied to the entire animation. Is there any way to disable the compositing nodes for selected frames? (for my case, after frame 160)

The quick way is via using the time-node.


cycles transparent image textures in lookdev (blender 2.8) I am wondering how to make transparent textures work in the lookdev mode.

This is what it looks like now:

This is what I want (blender 2.79 material mode):

Thank you

I found the solution

You need to first switch the render engine to Eevee, go into the shader editor, and now you will see a setting to change the blend mode to Alpha Blend. Now it will work in lookdev and you can change it back to cycles.


What font does the Blender UI use? I am trying to recreate a blender menu inside a project, and I want to match the fonts. I have done a lot of research, but a lot of the results just tell me how to add fonts to Blender and not what the original font is. Does anyone know which font Blender uses?

The base font is "bfont" which is a form of "Bitstream Vera" fonts that have been modified into a "Deja_Vu" collection to work better with unicode.


Dupliframes not rendered in Cycles? As became apparent after my attempt to  answer to a recent BSE Question..

It seems that Dupliframes are not rendered in Cycles Preview or Final? (They are rendered by Blender Internal)

This is true of two recent builds of 2.79. Windows 10, Nvidia 840m

Is this just a missing setting, expected behaviour, or a bug?

If it is  a bug, is bug reporting still accepted for Blender 2.79, or has everything moved on to 2.8?

Ok, got the answer.. it was a setting.

By accident, in two files from different users, Duplication was set to 'Frames' not only on the Dupli object, but also on its parent curve. I guess it must be an easy slip to make.

I would delete the question, but I've referred to it from elsewhere, so I'll leave it for a bit before deleting it, and the comments which reference it.


How to Get light to bounce of floor Hello,

I want to make head lights for the car, I've put them in Layer 1, only the ground is on Layer 2, Layer 2 catches shadows from Layer 1, But doesn't catch light.
How do I make it so that Layer 2 Catches Light, whilst not making the whole Layer 2 brighter, so only the part where light is being pointed at it.

Your "Background" render layer has the lights on it, so all you need to do is some "Luminance" keying like so:


How can I flip the direction of an animation Hi Im starting to learn how to animate in blender. I made a simple walkcycle animation but i want to add the same animation into another action where my character walks in the other direction. I tried to just simply rotate the rigged model and did set all the keyframes but that changed also the direction of my other actions.
Example of the idea: action 1: walkingcycle in left direction
                     action 2: SAME walkingcycle in right direction

Thanks for taking your time to read through.

You can convert your animation to an action strip in NLA Editor and use strip's properties to reverse animation:

Note that after this conversion you won't be able to edit your animation, i.e change keyframes' position or add new ones. So you may want to create backup of your mesh with editable animation.


How do I transfer UVs between high and low poly meshes? So I created a low-poly object. Then I duplicated it and made it high-poly. Then I UV unwrapped the low poly one. How can I transfer UVs from the low poly to the high poly object? When I try to do it with Ctrl+L, it does not work because of different amount of loops:

You can select the two objects, and link their UV maps.

Select the "target" object
Select the "source" object (this needs to be the active object)
Ctrl+L> "Transfer UV maps"


How to use properties of bevel tool? Is it possible with Bevel tool to type desired values directly, instead of applying it only by mouse movement?

Yes, just stop dragging and the dialog box to tweak everything will appear at the bottom (you just might need to expand it).


How do I save an object in a blender file separate from the blend file? I want to gather a folder of objects to use in blender, but I don't know how to separate it from the blend file, or how I would put it back in.

If you are looking to make separate .blend files of particular objects you will use later on in different scenes, there are a few things you must consider.

Actually Making Separate .blends:

If you have an object in a scene that you want to keep for later use but you don't want it in that particular scene, you can simply press ctrl+c in Object Mode with that object selected and it will bring up a menu and it will ask you to copy to buffer... Select that.

Now open up a brand new blender and delete everything in the new blender scene except the lamp and camera. (that is if you need to)

Press ctrl+v to paste the object that you copied to buffer from the other blend and it will appear with all the file paths and textures just like in the original blend. If you do not want to have the object in its original .blend file (not the one you copied to) you can delete it because you copied it to a new file.

Always save your progress.

The Things You Need to Consider:

When making separate .blends for individual objects you computer gets full fast. I have had experience. When you computer is full, blender becomes very slow. I have found that putting packs of objects in a .blend file that are related is very helpful and you can find objects you are looking for faster.

EX: You have household items like plates and you have different models for each plate. Put them all in the same .blend but move each different model to different layers.

Another way to have them separate in the same .blend file is to have the objects in separate groups, with this method you will need to have everything in the .blend file visible to the camera because when linking object groups into a new scene it can get frustrating when you try to render things and cannot see them. You can learn about grouping, linking and appending here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOgOKp7fGko

Also when making separate .blends for an object/objects you need to think about your file structure because when you build up a repository of .blends it can get really confusing when you are trying to find something. Good, organized file structure is so much better than having files all over your computer.

An example of good file structure can be found here http://artstorm.net/journal/2011/08/filmmaking-file-structure/

I hoped this helped in some way.


Imported texture is just black? Not sure what's going on here. My node setup is correct and the .TIF file i'm using doesn't have any problems (in the Image editor panel my image is displayed. It is UV unwrapped properly.
This is the image I'm trying to use:

(It's a baked dynamic paint)

I was thinking maybe it's because it's a transparent image, but I tried using another transparent .TIF I got online, and it seemed to work just fine:

(The smily face image is just B&W and Transparent, same as the other picture that won't work)

Here's a link to the proper file

You are connecting an all-black image with an alpha channel to a diffuse shader, and Blender won't know what to do with the transparent areas.

It will paint black in the black areas, but in the transparent areas there is no color information, so it will... paint black.

Also as far as I know TIFF images have the ability to save color information even for fully transparent areas, whereas in your case they are black, with full transparency (as can even be seen directly in the google drive link preview you provide). So if Cycles where to use the color information for those transparent pixels it would yeild... black again.

Either

Use the alpha channel to mix two colors.
Use the alpha channel to mix two different shaders.
Change your picture to a black&white image instead of all black with alpha
Change your picture to have white pixels in the transparent areas


Blender UI Multithreading Progressbar The following question might've been asked several times, but I've found no satisfactory answer.

Short question:
How can I show progress of background task in Blender UI?

Explanation:
I have a long running task which I want to run in the background. I know there's some gotcha while using threads in python script, but since the task does not affect blender objects or data in any way, there's no reason the user should wait for it to complete (they can continue with other things in their pipeline).

My thread works perfectly fine without any crashes, and I can show the progress on console. However to show the progress in the UI I do the following:

Have an integer/float property with subtype 'PERCENTAGE' which will be set to current progress. This might crash blender, since I'm actually modifying blender data. I've even tried this with some Blender versions and it kinda worked for pre-2.65. However it does not work for latest Blender builds.
In recent Blender version, I've found a new api named window_manager.progress_begin, window_manager.progress_update and window_manager.progress_end. I'm not sure if they are really intended to show progress, and if that is the case, how to use them.
EDIT: I've found an add-on template Always On Blank Render Engine by @Atom which seems to do the trick. It basically extends RenderEngine so all events can be captured. This is the first time I've tried it, and it can show progress similar to rendering progress (which is exactly what I want). However with a very quick test it seems that it'll also open a render preview window when the task is run, and also it shows the label as "Rendering" near the progressbar :-( Has anyone got any experience with extending RenderEngine?

Is there any option I can show progress in the UI? Or, is there any future plan regarding this?

The general mechanism to solve UI thread safety issues is to pass data from the worker thread to the main thread and then update the UI in the main thread using that data.

In this case you would create a modal operator that gets called regularly with a timer, see Text Editor > Templates > Python > Operator Modal Timer for an example. Each time the operator modal function is called, you would check if the data has changed and update the UI accordingly.

How you pass the data between threads depends on the multithreading mechanism you are using. In Python there are a queue and multiprocessing.Queue modules that can be used with the threading and multiprocessing modules respectively. You put data in the queue in the worker thread and then get it out in the main thread.


Editing a material without assigning it to the active object I'm trying to work on the materials for my scene without touching the rest of the scene for now. When I try to switch between scenes by clicking the outlined thing, it automatically applies the selected material to the active object.
Is this the wrong button? Should I be clicking something else in order to edit the material properties without applying it to my objects?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Presently there is no experimental area to create materials before assigning them to an object. This leads to workarounds, and they may be obvious. Ways that come to mind are:

script it, and assign it.
or, create a dummy object like a suzanne (because it's shapely) and create the new material for that and tweak it until satisfied. Then assign the material to the object(s) that you do want to use it with.
or, start a second instance of blender, create suzanne, create a material for it (give it a good name), then save the blend. Then in the original blend go to File > Append > (select file with the material) > Materials > (select the named material) Append . This will append the material to your current .blend file. Assign the new material to the desired object.

Remember, Giving a fake user (the F button) to a material tells blender not to delete that material if it isn't assigned to any objects, when the .blend is saved.

ps. I don't like to use bold letters often, but good names are very handy.