Blender 2.8; Combine Cycles and Eevee render engines into single composite I am wondering if it's possible to set up the following scenario:
Initiate render -> Eevee render into render layer with specified render settings -> Switch to Cycles render engine with specified render settings (specifically just a free style pass) into a render layer -> Composite using compositor alpha over

Is this currently possible? I saw some solutions for combing Blender Internal and Cycles render passes in 2.79 but I am unsure if this kind of functionality is available in 2.8

My intention is to use this as a work around until freestyle is functional in 2.8.

Thank you

This solution seems to get me 99% of what I originally asked for in the question.

Okay I got it to work, my problem was I was trying to create two different View Layers - create an additional Linked Scene instead so all your objects stay consistent between the two, in compositing make two Render Layer nodes and set each one to the respective Scenes you've rendered. Then you can alpha over the scene with the Freestyle pass and the Eevee pass.

My only problem now is that if I render both the scenes (as in neither has "Use Single Layer" clicked) it takes about 2 minutes for a very simple scene, but if I render them individually (One after another with "Render Single Layer" clicked) they each respectively take a second or two. It seems that when I render them both concurrently the Cycles pass still path traces the objects even with all the passes and ray visibility disabled. Not sure if I am missing something or if this is a possible bug.


Particles disappear when no physics set So I created a forest scene using hair particles system for trees and bushes. These particles stay stationary and only the camera and my character moves in the animation. So to better the render time, i read that i can turn off physics. But when i try to do that, my particles just disappear. That kind of makes sense and if there is no physics/gravity, they will just float, but disappear?

Physics off:
Physics on:

Hair particles are in fact trajectories of regular particles ; the regular particle need to have a motion, so it needs physics. Of course this is not a real motion, as it don't vary in time, but a path, a trajectory.

To reduce render time, you can turn off Hair Dynamics, which is the motion applied to every hair particle. It is off by default.

It's kinda weird to use hair particles to render actual objects. A regular particle system would work fine and is much easier to configure.


any ideas for a foamy material Do you have any ideas how to achieve this foamy material?

Maybe something like this. It's just a Noise Texture mixed with a Voronai Texture to make the bumpy surface, with another (scaled up) Noise Texture passed through a ColorRamp to provide the value for both the BaseColor and Metallic to make the "shiny white bits".


Mirror-Modifier applied, but still mirroring I made my first sculpt model and I used a mirror modifier. But then I applied the mirror modifier, because I got a strange edge on the mirror line in sculpt mode.
Now I modeled it, but it still mirrors the model, what in the beginning was good, but sometime I want to do asymmetrical things.

What did I wrong?
Many thanks for your help!!
Happy modeling :D

You need to disable symmetry lock. It only happens in sculpt mode, the option to turn it off or on can be found under tools  >  symmetry lock.

Click the shaded option to disable, x by default.

Don't worry, you did nothing wrong


Blender 2.79 won't insert keyframe I am following a guide for the Grease Pencil, however I cannot add keyframes as per step 2?

I hover the mouse cursor over the Dope Sheet and select All Channels. Nothing seems to happen.

I then select Grease Pencil Draw, however I am unable to draw.

Here is the setup for a frame by frame animation.

Check Continuous Draw and Onion Skin.

After you draw something, move to the next frame and hit  D , then  B . This will create an Empty Frame where you can draw something else.


Blender - Subsurface Modifier causing extreme pinching in L-shaped corner I am working on creating an ISO enter keycap in Blender. Everything was going fine, until at the end where I applied a Subsurface modifier. Once I put the modifier on the mesh, it causes extreme pinching in the L-shaped corner of the mesh, where it looks like the mesh is overlapping each other and looks almost like a surf wave. I think it might be caused by the interior corner bevel but I'm not sure, does anyone know why this is happening?
Below are images of the model. Note: I have turned on Cavity in the Viewport Shading menu in order to make the issue more visible.
Top:

Bottom:

The model is also curved as you gave see from the front profile:

This is the mesh without a Subsurface modifier:

This is the mesh with a Subsurface modifier:

A closer look with a Subsurface modifier:

This is the mesh topology with the Subsurface modifier applied:

A closer look at the topology with the Subsurface modifier enabled:

You have ngons in your mesh.

As I only now see that Christopher explains in his comment above, your pinching is a consequence of using Subdivision Surfaces with non-quad based topology. SubDs only want quads.


Text doesn't appear in render. (File attached) New to blender. Created a 2D animation. Text doesn't appear in render. File attached. Please help.

The text objects and the grease pencil drawings lie in the same plane. Visibility is therefore depending on the drawing order, also Z-fighting may occur. I would suggest to move the text slightly along the Y-axis in order to position it in front of the grease pencil drawing. Another approach is to change the Stroke Depth Order for the grease pencil objects from 2D Layers to 3D Location. This seems to work as well, although Z-fighting may still occur.


Smooth shading gets ignored in cycle render While working on a Model I stumbled upon this issue:

This is the first time I see this error and I couldn't find any immediate solution.

I checked if there is any sort of modifier or condition on the mesh which could result to this.

I found nothing.

Thanks in advance.

I dont know what it is, but the problem comes from the "use subdivision" in the "displacement panel" here.
At the bottom of the picture below, just uncheck "use subdivision".


White balance / color matching between video/render for vfx shots What's the best practice for matching colors between video/cgi for vfx shots in Blender?

More specifically: I have a simple scene that is lit with one light in real life (2700K). I have carefully recreated the scene in Blender, adding a point light with emission shader at K=2700.

The camera does white-balancing of the scene, so gray things are gray. Blender renders gray things as yellow/orange. I want to composite both into a single VFX shot.

Should I not worry about colors coming from render and correct them in compositing? Or is there a way to "white balance" a render?

Trying to match the placement, intensity and quality of the light sources is a good start. As for the color temperature, if the white balance was compensated in the camera for the original footage, then the white point for the scene is already in a different place, so you no longer need the original color temperature. Your light sources in blender should be achromatic (without color, or "neutral").

The crucial piece of information you need is: What color space is the original footage using? How is the scene encoded (Log, Linear? Is there a gamma correction baked into the footage?)

Blender generates scene referred data, so your video sources should be converted to the same kind of information. Make sure that you are converting the source from display referred data to the proper scene referred values to be used in blender's compositor.. In other words you need to make sure you are not mixing apples and oranges.

Once the data is in linear, scene referred values, you can use the CDL node in the compositor to match color, brightness, etc.

I would advise to stay away from curves in the color management section. It will open a new can of worms that might distort the results.


Armature - freely adapting bones in pose mode I wonder if there is a way to let a bone follow the pose of other bones.

Here is the rig i need this for:

The selected bones, representig the shoulders, mainly have the task of maintaining a realistic distance between the arms, but i would like them to translate and rotate according to the pose i configure for the arms.

Is there a way to do this? Like an "anti-constraint"?

Found it,

i just extended the "Chain Length" of the IK constraint from the upper arms from one to two.

Animation noob, sorry for wasting peoples time!


Combine 360 HDR with video background I have a scene with some Glass BSDF Text and a rendered video as background.
Because the video is not in 360°, I'd like to add a HDRi Image as Environment, but still keep the video as background to get the right refraction.
Any idea on how to combine the two?

My World Shader as of now:

On a side note, I would use the Background BSDF for the worlds background.

You can use the Texture Coordinates Window socket (which you are using already) to determine, wether a light ray is inside the cameras view or outside.

Separate the Window sockets output into its channels. This will result in X, Y and Z coordinates from the camera view window. We are interested in the X and Y values which are inbetween of [0, 1]. We can filter them out with the Greater than and Less than nodes.


Can the blender game engine render diffuse material nodes? I have a plane with a diffuse material of a blue color, a cube of a red color. I can see them perfectly well using cycles. When I use the game engine render all I get is gray no colors. Can the blender game engine render diffuse material nodes?

Is there a node that says render node to game engine renderer?

The blender game engine cannot render cycles materials. This might bring similar results, It's not currently available for download at the time of writing.


3ds importer porting for Blender 2.80 is done? I've been spying hard on when 3ds import/ export functionality will be ported to Blender 2.8/ 2.9.
Looks like it's done or at least in advanced development stage and it's already usable.
Please see there:
https://developer.blender.org/T66329
There is a DIFF file shared and I don't know how to use it. It's not a fully usable add-on itself, right? How can it be turned into a usable script that I can install in Blender 2.8?
I completely don't understand devs' discussions. I'm just a beginner user, so I don't even dare to post anything on DEV forum. Just want to know if the data they shared on the linked page can already be used as a functional importing add-on.

Ok, found out that the addon is already shipped with 2.92 alpha, so I downloaded the freshest build and copied the addon to my 2.90 addons folder.
It works flawlessly ^^


Is there any possible way to prevent the mirror to reflect some custom objects? So, I had a little problem here; I made the cube invisible but still glowing around the environment. And the problem is I want to prevent the cube to reflect on the mirror. Is there any possible way to prevent the mirror to reflect some custom objects? Or is there any better solution? Thanks!

Can use this setting (Cycles only):

We want to keep what is diffuse and not singular (or glossy).


Edge Sliding multiple verts/edges along a single edge axis? I am looking for a way of using the GG edge slide feature to move multiple verts/edges with different normals, all in the same direction.
Attached are some screenshots of the issue...
I would like to move all the edges/verts highlighted up the angle of the faces above them (see red arrow), but need them to retain their own angles.
If I select them all and GG to slide, they all slide off in their own different directions, if I choose to move them in the 'Normal' axis, the axis is not the desired one due to them having different normal directions.

The only way I can find to do it is to just move edges with the same normal direction, but this then involves multiple selections and edge slides, surely there is some way of doing them all at once?

Many thanks in advance.

The easiest way is to create a custom transform.
Select an edge that represents the orientation of your desired transform, in your case, this will be where the red arrow is pointing, then Ctrl + Alt +  Space bar  this will create custom transform using the orientation of the selected edge, now you can use this new transform to move your mesh along. For example if you want to move the selected vertices/edges/faces on the new Y axis, select them, press G to move, then press Y + Y, this will change the orientation from the default Global to the new custom transform. You can edit the parameters of your custom transform immediately after creating it in the tool's   shelf to the left of the 3D view, if you can't see it use T to show it. You can rename and delete the custom transform in the properties shelf to the right of your 3D view, use N to toggle it's visibility.


Python parameters from blender How can I pass parameters in python from blender?. I'm try this, but don't work

blender -b file.blend -P file.py "param1" "param2"

This work

Line command

blender -b file.blend -P file.py -- "param1" "param2"

file.py

for i in range(6, len(sys.argv)):
    print(sys.argv[i])


How can I get Infinit Reflections on Cylces I have this circular room with mirrors instead of walls, but when I go to the render tab, at some point it gets black, how can I make the mirror material have limitless reflections?

I'm using the latest version of blender 2.82, an my mirror material its a Principled BSDF full metallic no roughness.

You need to increase the number of Light Bounces.
It cannot be infinite, but it doesn't need to be.

head to Render Tab > Light Paths > Max Bounces
adjust both the Glossy value and the Total value to your liking
to look infinite, the latest reflection needs to be of 1px size

How many Suzannes do you see...?


What does texspace_location and texspace_size mean? in the blender Mesh Data so I was looking through here

and two of the mesh properties are texspace_location and texspace_size?

i was assuming these were uv coordinates and the scale of the uv map, but there are three floats in each one.

am i correct in my assumption, or am i way off?

also if they are uv coordinates what does the third float in each one mean?

It doesn't have anything to do with UV, it transforms texture space (for box mapping etc.). Turn on Texture Space to see it:

And in Outliner in datablocks view under meshes>your_mesh if you turn off Auto Texture Space you can fiddle with the values and see what they do:


How do i obtain a more rounded edge I'm trying to trace and image with vertices but the rounded parts come out misshapen or oblong-ish. I've also done this shape in a more freeform fashion giving me excellent results, but there's more to the model that i feel like is going to force me into a tracing method anyway because I'm super new 3D modeling. I think the shape comes out misshapen because it's not a perfect top-down view. So are there any tricks to get it more rounded, should i be using a bezier curve to do this?. Anyhow here are the images. The first image is the image i'm modeling from, the second image is the one i did freeform  and the last image is the one i traced with vertices.

It's hard to tell what is your problem as you don't show any wireframe. If I had to do this kind of object I would begin with the inner circles, then the main outer circle, then extend the shape, then extrude, bevel, add edge loops to sharp the edges, etc...


How to Convert Material Displacement to a Mesh? So I created this complex (for me) node network to create mountains. I didn't sculpt them, it's just a plane subdivided a lot with a subdivision surface mod. So the actual mountain is only visible in render mode. So in 3d space it's just a plane. My question is: How can I make the displacement as actual mesh? Like in 3d view I can see and edit the mountains. I want to do this because: 1) decrease render time and 2) I want to create a village underneath the mountain.
Please tell me the process of how to do this. I tried searching for tutorials but all of them already have a high poly mesh that the want to bake. I hope you will understand what I want and go easy on me because this is new for me :)

the rest of the images:
https://imgur.com/a/8saQdIY

I baked my noise nodes and in the bake settings used the emit option. I got a black and white image and saved it as a openexr because I used a 32 bit image. Then I used a displacement mod with the image I baked. But I'm getting only a small part of my mountains. What did I do wrong?

[![enter image description here][4]][4]
what i get with normal in displacement mod
[4]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/BrrbQ.jpg

What you can do is using a Displace modifier instead of a Displacement node.
To get the same result as your current 3D reliefs, you need to save the black and white image texture you're using in your Displacement node.
Either this image is already existing as one unique image and in that case it will be easy to load it into your Displace modifier, or it's made of a mix of several nodes, in that case I guess you'll need to bake the b&w texture.
To do so, make sure you're in Cycles Render, plug your nodes so that the b&w composition is displayed as a diffuse image on the surface of your plane. Create a new Image Texture in your Shader Editor, don't plug it into anything, inside this Image Texture click New to create a new black image, call it Displace Image for example, keep this node selected.
In the Render panel > Bake, choose Bake Type > Diffuse, disable Direct and Indirect, enable Color, click on Bake, the image called Displaced Image should now be the b&w displacement image.
Once you get your b&w image, use it in the Displace modifier: Create a Displace modifier, click on Texture > New, in the Properties panel > Texture, in the dropdown menu, select Displaced Image.
With the same b&w image, you'll have the same effect, on the left Displacement node, on the right Displace modifier:


Selecting objects by name starting with I have many objects in the scene as they have been duplicated. pad, pad.001, pad.002 etc etc.
I require a python code to select all of them by name.. name starting with 'pad'
Thanks in advance.

The following snippet iterates through the objects in the scene and checks if their name matches a prefix. If it does it's added to the list.

objs = [obj for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects if obj.name.startswith("pad")]

If you want to select them, as in selecting them in the scene, then you can do the following for 2.7x:

for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    if obj.name.startswith("pad"):
        obj.select=True

For 2.8:

for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    if obj.name.startswith("pad"):
        obj.select_set(True)

You could also use:

bpy.ops.object.select_pattern(pattern="pad*")


Why does joining meshes result in a joined mesh with (previously) non-actively selected meshes being transparent? I am currently working on a character model / rig and I want to join some meshes together to a single object (not parented).

However, every time I try joining any mesh, all geometry except that of the mesh which was actively selected (bright orange outline) before joining becomes transparent.

Shown below is the character model with non-joined meshes and the same two meshes joined to a single one. In this example, the eye-mesh was actively selected and the body secondarily (i.e. dark orange outline). The result would be inverted if the body was actively selected (i.e. eyes transparent, body normal).

Anybody have a clue what the cause could be?
The shaders all transfer correctly, nothing is changed in the viewport visibility section, flipping or recalculating normals doesn't help... I really have no idea at this point.

As a possible cause suggested was the "Blend Mode" of the material being set to "Alpha Hashed", this isn't the case either. The Materials are all assigned to the correct meshes and both remain "Opaque". In the images below I selected a face of the previously separated meshes respectively and took a screenshot of the material tab:

I figured it out!

The issue:
The UV maps didn't get combined on join because they did not have the same name. This resulted in all but the first UV map becoming inactive and all but the actively selected mesh, while having the correct material assigned, using that first UV map. That then resulted in the assigned materials then not being mapped properly.

Solution:
Before joining the meshes, rename all UV maps to the same name. This can be done in "Object Data Properties" (the green triangle above the material tab) > "UV Maps" --> Double-click on names to rename. Then simply join as usual. The UV maps will now be combined correctly and the corrected parts of the resulting mesh will have the correct materials assigned to them properly.


Selecting the camera with Numberpad 0 brings up a strange box? Clearly Im new.  I thought I had my life together on blender and was ready to do something and then i realized that i still apparently dont know how to control the camera or at least fix what I am 100% certain I broke when my cat walked across my keyboard.... if i had a cat... anyway, When I push 0, the camera looks at this box.  I cant get to give me the camera view.   what did i do?
heres a link to my blender project
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hd5Qthfw8sKqXx7gEYN8-eMpIUq-qY7i/view?usp=sharing

I'm not sure what you mean, by "Camera is looking at this box" - the box is the camera view - just zoomed out and offset because it is "locked" in it's viewing position. If you want to adjust your view relative to the camera view, you have
to disable "Lock Camera to View":


No objects or images found to bake to... again I've read though many threads related to this and I've yet to find one that works for me.

I have a single object that I originally baked some AO to.  Days later I want to go back and rebake it.  The only problem is, no matter what I do, it won't work and gives me the error every time.

I've made sure the object is selected and the render (camera) icon is ON.  I'm using the standard Blender Render method.

I've attached my scene and left it right to the point to where you should be able to click "Bake".  Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong??  I really don't want any "hack" related answer and am desperate to know the exact issue.

Attached Object

Thanks,
-jeff

Baking started to work when I set Duplication to None (in Properties -> Object tab).


How do I center an object in its parent? I have 2 objects.
Their dimensions are completely identical.
I have applied all transformations, rotations and scales.
Their locations are 0, 0, 0.
I have tried parenting the objects, both in relations and object constraints. Neither parenting nor making them separate objects has any effect.
Fiddling with their origins has no effect.
And yet, I can never get the objects in the same position. They are always off:

How in the world is one supposed to center two objects into each other? It seems that no matter what I do, they are never in the center of each other, despite having exactly the same dimensions.
As you can see the problem still occurs in-game:

Your problem is essentially this one. With your current Pivot Point settings, ('Median',) the center of your object is considered to be the mean location of its vertices, not the center of its bounding box.

Set Pivot to 'Bounding Box'
Edit Mode, all selected, ShiftS,Cursor to Selected
Object mode, ShiftAltX Origin to Cursor
.. and set the location to 0..

...for both objects.


How to make cigar (not cigarette) texture? I've finished couple of Blender tutorials and jumped into my own first project. Unfortunately I can't find any tutorial/post/guide on how to make a cigar texture. I downloaded some cigar material from net, UV unwrapped it on my cylinder and it looks super bad, anyone got an idea how to get the "desired look"?
My texture so far:

Desired look (right one):

I know you're ultimately using an image texture, but as an example (and possibly for reference), here is how this material can be made completely procedurally using blender's shader nodes (works in both Cycles and EEVEE).

Since this is procedural, there are no need for image textures or UV unwraps - it is simply "plug and play", so to speak. The whole thing, all in one go. The graph looks a bit scary, but it actually looks more complicated than it is - For example, there are at least 10 nodes (all MixRgb) in that graph that do nothing more than make a given texture "lighter grey" in color. I will break it down the best I can, and I will also provide the .blend file at the end, so anyone who wants to mess with it can have a go.
To begin (as I always do when making procedural textures), I thought about what main components I am looking to recreate, and then devise a "Category" for each of them. Looking at the cigar in your image for example, I see that there are diagonal lines where the "paper" is wrapped around the cigar. I also see that since the object is made of "tobacco leaves", that there will be leaf veins and slight warping consistent with a dry leaf surface. Since the tube is stuffed and rolled by hand, I also notice surface deformation consistent with a slightly imperfect roll. Two more components, which I added for zeal, are the "crumpled" ash and, obviously, a glowing ember. I then sought out to make a "section" for each of these.
Starting in the order I listed, I began with a section for the diagonal "wrap lines".  This section probably gave me the greatest difficulty of the whole graph - using generated coordinates, it's rather difficult to get a single line to "wrap around" and continue along all 3 axes (although I'm probably forgetting something obvious - how embarrassing when someone inevitably points it out). For me, it took isolating the X-axis vector and using only that. Though the lines look like they are part of a continuous diagonal path in the image I posted, they are actually "loops" that connect to themselves on the backside, not a "spiral" so to speak.
The lines look light in the picture, but they will eventually be used as part of a Bump Map, so subtlety is key - differences too great between light and dark show up very strongly for the most part, and a shorter contrast range tends to give a more natural look. Also note - in the images I display below, you will see a combo of a Diffuse BSFD connected to a Material output popping up like Waldo - This is just as a quick way to make the map I'm showcasing show up in the preview window. You do not need these in your map (except for the material output at the very end).

The next section I made the "leaf veins. I used the distance output of a Voronai Texture to get the "cell shape", but before this, I employed a little "trick" using a Noise Texture to warp the input vector ever so slightly by using a Vector Math Node. This is responsible for the little "ripples" in the veins. I employ this trick in a few sections of the graph because generated textures are often too "linear" or "straight" and need a bit of warping to look realistic. I clamped the light/dark with a ColorRamp because I wanted very thin lines to make the veins.

Sticking with the leaves, I also needed a "dry leaf" warped surface. For this, I used another Voronai Texture, with the same "warped" input vectors, but I changed the scale slightly. The ColorRamp in section does nothing at the moment - I was using it for testing purposes, but found that everything works best with the full available contrast gamut. I then mixed (multiplied to copy the darks only) this "leaf deformation" with the vein texture. As you can see from the image, the veins are rather sharp, whereas the warping is so subtle in its contrast that you can barely make out the light and dark areas - this is on purpose - I stress again, a little goes a long way.

The next thing to tackle was the "tube deformation" caused by a hand-roll. This I accomplished easily through the use of a scaled down Noise Texture. As you can see in this (and many of my) example(s), I used a MixRGB to mix the noise texture with white. This not only has the effect of making the eventual Bump effect more subtle, but it also brings the base (lowest) value up from pure black. I need this because I often multiply my B&W values to carry the darks over only, and this stops areas of the texture from "bottoming out" at pure black which would make them unable to pick up any further dark detail (this is a bit complicated I know, just remember that black = 0 and anything multiplied by 0 also becomes 0. If you don't want a pure black (0) section, don't multiply it by any other texture that has a 0 in that section, or you will get pure black)

For the ash, I used another "warped vector" combined with a gradient texture to make the lines, which I then sectioned off to the "end of the cigar" using a ColorRamp. To give it "crevices" and dark spots like real ash, I multiplied it by a Musgrave texture. As you can see, a full multiplication factor of 1 gave me undesirable results so I had to scale it back a bit. This caused some of the light colors from the Musgrave texture to penetrate through the black areas, despite the multiplication. This is ok, however, as it will be dealt with later when I begin employing Masks.

Lastly, for the embers, I used yet another noise texture, Run through a ColorRamp to give it some "burny" colors. Again, as you can see the ember covers the whole cigar in the image, but will be appropriately "sectioned off" by masks as I mix it with other components.

Speaking of masks, here's one I made for the embers. Only the section that is white will allow the texture to show through, the rest will be blocked.

And here's one I made to section off where the "ash" will go. In this image, I'm showing the result of the ash texture "constrained" by the mask.

I also made some "dimple spots" that cigars tend to have, and mixed it with a simple noise texture to get some additional greyscale variation. I then gave this mix some "tobacco colors" with a ColorRamp node, and then mixed the result with the inverted values I took from the leaf vein/deformation combo.

Next was just a matter of mixing it all together, using the masks I made as mix factors in order to "guide" the textures to their appropriate sections. I made some other adjustments too, however it would be simply too verbose to explain them all. Basically it was just a matter of slightly adjusting values to my liking (the MixRGB's "adding" to themselves, for example, is just a quick way to brighten the light values a few steps) , and using different mix arrangements to get the most desired result.

I also made a "Height Map" from the B&W values I had from the different "sections" I've made, combining them also with masks, in such a manner that they will represent the deformation properly (white/light=high black/dark = low). I made the ash "high", as it tends to expand from the end of a cigar as it's burning. I then made this into a Bump Map by connecting it to the height input of a Bump Node. and then using that as a "Normal Map" so to speak (connected to normal of Principled BSDF).

Lastly, I wanted the ember to "glow", so I masked off just the ember and connected it to an Emission Shader. Because an Emission Shader is a shader and not a color map, it cannot be combined with the rest like the others using a MixRGB. Instead, a Mix Shader must be used.
Also, if you notice in the image, I have a roughness map connected using a mix with a Value Node. This is simply because I liked the value .832 for my roughness, but wanted to make sure the ash and ember section were absolutely not shiny, so I mixed the value with pure white mask I made for just that end section. If you want the cigar to be a bit shiner, like in your photo, you can lower it, however I don't recommend going below 0.65. The rest of the BSDF values, I didn't move from the defaults.

When I connected the two through the Mix Shader, I used the "ember mask" as a mask for the mix because I didn't want the dark section of the "ember/mask  mix" to copy over to the final shader combo .
Mixed all together, with the Bump Map connected, and the emission mixed in, the final result looks like this:

As promised, the .blend file is here for all those who want to have a look -


Filter fcurves using script I have an object with more than 100 fcurves. In my addon, the user has an option to filter these fcurves, and show only those that their max value is above a certain threshold. I'm using fcurve.hide and fcurve.select for this. The problem, is that indeed it filter the graph, but not the fcurves list, as can be seen in this screenshot:

How can I filter those fcurves also from the list, something like the DopSheet.filter_fcurve_name option (the filter box underneath the graph)?

You can move them into a Channel group to get them out of the way, but you can not hide the overview of the channels.

The user can do this by marking the channels with SHIFT and pressing CTRL+G

And with coding:

group = bpy.data.actions['CubeAction'].groups.new("hidden")
bpy.data.actions['CubeAction'].fcurves[0].group=group


How to assign a keyboard shortcut for a mesh selection mode? I want a keyboard shortcut for switching between selecting things; vertices, faces and points. One key for each, not a pop up menu where i have to select with the mouse. Does this exist? Modelling should be like playing a piano or something, a key for everything, minimal aiming the mouse pointer att small icons, this aiming the mouse att small icons all the time is so.. breaks the flow.. Im sure it exists but i cant find it anywhere?

In Edit Mode press Ctrl+Tab to open a Mesh Select Mode pop up menu. Hover the mouse cursor over a selection type you want to add a shortcut to, press RMB-->Add Shortcut and input a desired keyboard button.

You may change or remove a shortcut in the same way.


How to find and eliminate materials that aren't disappearing with orphan data purge The files I work with have gone through a lot of versions and are linked a lot, and aren't that organized. I am trying to set up a new palette of colors and so I stripped off all the materials in a file (this way). When I reloaded the file most of the materials were gone, but there is this list of them that stubbornly remain, including after purging orphan data as explained here.

There are two groups in the scene that may well have been appended or linked from their own files, or the scene may have been created by deleting everything except these pieces, or both. I don't remember. Nothing is linked here anymore, except that Glossy Black material and that I tracked down in another file, where it was also linked from another file, and I don't remember that, and you see where this is going.

How can I find where those materials are coming from and remove them?

Edit: Ok, the materials seem to be coming from a library that has a broken link. I moved it to a new location, and tried updating the external data links with 'find missing files', but that doesn't seem to have worked for this.

Edit 2: I fixed the broken link to Materials-Lalande by replacing that file, which had been moved, in the place where it was looking for it. Now it doesn't list the library in the resources. Also, I can delete the materials now, which would just reappear when I reloaded the file when I tried to do that before. This is resolving the problem. There remains no indication where blender lists the materials as being used. Each one has 2 users, but I can't find what those users are.

On a peer material basis.

Try bpy.data.materials['nameofthematerial'].user_clear()
Reload the file.
If still there,

for i in bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].objects.items():
    for j in i[1].material_slots:
        if j.name == 'nameofthematerial':
            print(i[1].name)

Will give you a list of the objects in the scene that the material is connected to.
Do you have only one scene ? If no you can repeat the operation for each scene, if yes you might find an elegant solution by including another for that will loop through the scenes, but hey got to keep some handwork and this might be futile unless you have ~10 or more scenes.


Is their a way to move multiple vertices gradually at a time? I have moved multiple vertices gradually but a set of vertices at a time not all at a time, as shown in the animation below (First I moved the four vertices from top, then three, then two and at last the last vertex).
 I wanted to do the same thing as shown in the animation below but all at a time.

You can get the movement you want all at once with proportional editing.

Select the top vertex
Press O to enable proportional editing
Change the Falloff type to be either linear or Smooth.
Press G to move the vertices
While still moving the vertices, use the mouse wheel to change the size of the influence until it covers all the vertices you want to move.


Moving an object along two axes instead of one One of my friends uses 3DS Max a lot, and he showed me when he was working that there are "angles" on his 3D manipulator that allow him to move (translate) objects in two axes at the same time. Looks something like this:

By clicking the square between X and Y for example, you can move the object around on X and Y and not on Z.

My 3D manipulator in Blender doesn't have that:

Therefore, moving an object along 2 axes requires 2 steps, which is more tedious than being able to do it in 1.

Is there a way to enable bi-directional transformation on the manipulator?

If you press G > Shift+Z you can move bi-directional in x-y direction.

You can do that also using manipulator - click on the white circle around manipulator's origin and press Shift+Z as in the first case.


What workflow should we use to create a text object that requires characters from multiple .ttf fonts? If you are trying to create a text object in blender and find it is missing some code points, what workflow would you use to mix in another TTF that supplies the missing code points?

To complicate this, assume you want to have reasonable automatic kerning and word wrap in a text box.

For an example of a text object that illustrates the problem the following python gives me a text object missing several of the characters that are part of the body:

import bpy

obj = bpy.context.active_object
obj.data.body = "bacon\u2026 \u2058 \u03a8 eggs"

If I manage to find some .TTFs that cover the missing characters, how do I join them to the text object?  It seems that blender only supports 4 fonts per object, and how you actually indicate which of the four fonts is used by any particular character?

I experimented with the object font technique outlined by Duarte Farrajota Ramos and it has shortcomings in this situation.    As you can see from the previous screenshot the kerning is a disaster and the glyphs seem to appear out of order.  The python source that generated this scene can be found at http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/object-font-from-regular-font.html .

Despite the scripting tag that was added by a well-meaning editor, this question is NOT about scripting.  Scripting is merely a convenient way to clearly illustrate the issue.

Not sure if it works for you, probably not a very solid or flexible long term solution,  but have you looked into Object Font?

Basically you specify a "family name" or a base naming convention for a bunch of objects, you then manually name any 3d object using that naming convention like fontobject_a fontobject_b fontobject_c fontobject_n etc.

You then enter this family name in the Properties Window > Object Data > Font > Object font as fontobject_

You can now specify any regular blender objects as a character replacement. You manually create objects for every character, can be a 3D mesh, a bezier curve or even another text object using the desired font file, and name it properly.

Turn on vertex duplication on the original font object under Properties Window > Object > Duplication > Verts and you can have as many different fonts as you like.

Have in mind that it is an admittedly cumbersome solution and will probably require post processing like making the duplicates real and hiding the underlying text object.


Scaling a rectangular shape I am doing this tutorial and between 16:00 and 20:00 min this part with the crease is modelled.

Now every time he extrudes some part of the mesh like below he says he has to scale the other axis to get it even on the other axis. I don't understand this.

when I take this "matcap" view the right part looks a bit strange is not it ?

here is my blend file. If someone would like to take a look if I have done this part of the modelling ok it is appreciated :)

I took a peek.

You are doing it quite well. But you should scale some more on just the X Axis through this part of the tutorial. (16:00 - 20:00)

At 19:28 he says exactly what I just said as a comment. That for a rectangular shape it's not gonna scale equally (for the X and Z in this situation).

Hope this helps...


Rendered glossy texture does not match preview I have a problem with a texture/Shader. The Mesh was created from a bezier curve.

Above is the texture preview. And below is the result once rendered.

There is no gloss at all, It is just matte. Obviously I am doing something wrong. How can I make it glossy?

Thanks for the help guys. After playing around for a while with this mesh I found that parts of it were reflective after all. But not the faces on the front. Flipping the normals and adding a bit more light gave me the result I was looking for.


How to get the pivot center location I would like to know if there is a easy way to get the location of  the current selection? (The one used by translate/rotate/scale, and depending on selected elements and the center options like median/active element/bbox/3d cursor.)

Or to put it differently is there a way to get the 4x4 matrix of the manipulator? So I can grab the current orientation and position in one go.

I'm aware of the set_cursor_to_selected() operator, which allows me to grab this location via the 3d_cursor location. but as I'm running it several times per second this locks away the 3d cursor and spams the info log. And it feels hacky and clunky...

So if there is a more elegant way than to recreate the blender behaviour, I would be very interested..

Yes, you can get it without moving the cursor.

    import bpy

o = bpy.context.object
vcos = [ o.matrix_world * v.co for v in o.data.vertices ]
findCenter = lambda l: ( max(l) + min(l) ) / 2

x,y,z  = [ [ v[i] for v in vcos ] for i in range(3) ]
center = [ findCenter(axis) for axis in [x,y,z] ]

print( center )

(That was not made by me)

Will print the location of the active object.

Note, in the image it shows
[5.960464477539063e-08, -1.1920928955078125e-07, 3.3469696044921875] instead of [0, 0, 3.3469696044921875]
 but it's a super tiny difference of at most 0.00000011920928955078125


Material that uses Texture Coordinates won't "stick" to meshes in a physics simulation My material uses a Texture Coordinate node, so it won't stick to meshes that are part of a physics simulation. I assume this is because the node uses the mesh coordinates but not the delta transforms associated with the simulation.
In the attached blend file you can see how the material sticks to a mesh animated using location keyframes but does not stick to an identical soft body mesh influenced by a wind force. Does anyone know how I can get the material to stick to this mesh?
P.S. this is my first post and I'm new to Blender.

Duarte Farrajota Ramos really deserves credit for this, but the solution is as follows:

In the UV Editing workspace, select mesh in Object mode.
Switch to Edit mode and select all vertices in the mesh (A).
Press U to unwrap mesh. (If it has already been incorrectly unwrapped, delete the existing UVMap from the Object Data Properties, one of the tabs in the Properties Editor on the right).
Choose an unwrapping method from the menu. In this case, Cube Projection worked best.
Change Texture Coordinate node output from Object to UV.


3 problems achieving a 10:00 minute countdown clock animation. (non-repeating seconds, changing 100 units to units of 60, minutes not following math) I'm working on creating a COUNTDOWN ANIMATION of ten minutes 10:00 to 0:00 using the Animation Nodes Add On.
I can't find as yet a way to repeat the seconds portion so every 60 seconds so it recycles again starting over and repeating 9 more times. Is there s a loop node within the animation nodes?
I'm also unable to find a UNITS NODE offering an ability to change it's native 100, to 60. My workaround was to create two separate countdowns, one for minutes, and one for seconds next to each other. Of course one major problem with this is when the countdown begins, the minutes doesn't change from 10 to 9 immediately, instead changing 1/10th the time between 10:00 and 0:00.
Here's the current left to right setup of the nodes:

Timer Info > Delay Time 10-0 > Animate Float > Float to Text > Text Object Output

Timer Info > Delay Time  60-0> Animate Float > Float to Text > Text Object Output

Use math operator integer modulus relative to a frame number.
pseudo programming language ... I think you can translate this to BAN
time = (10 * 60 )- ((frame - offset)) #bias can be used
hour = integer(time/60)
minute = time % 60 # modulus operation

please improve


How can I open an pskx file in blender? So i need to import an PSKX file into blender but i have tried almost everything getting rid of the x from .PSKX and also this add-on script(Link) i have even tried opening it in unreal engine 3 and 4 the UPK file at lest i also tried umodel maya and nothing works but i have heard of a remodify file of the link i put in but can't find it anyway i just want to export it to any file that blender can read.

I use the exact same script you linked to and I works fine.
You don't have to get rid of the 'x" in the end as this is only a suffix Gildor, the creator of umodel, introduced because his tool adds some additional values useful to modders. The downside is that a PSKX file cannot be opened inside the UDK. The 'x' simply tells the user that this is psk has been modified.


Ball not falling through hole I am making a ball falling in a ping pong fashion animation. The final part of my animation is the ball falling inside a cone. I added the cone mesh, deleted the top face in edit mode and added the "rigid body", passive and friction settings. But the ball doesn't fall inside the cone. Instead it just sits on top of it.
Some help would massively appreciated.
Thank you.

I think that in the rigid body settings of the cone, you should set the Shape to "Mesh".
That will cause the physics simulation to use the actual geometry of the mesh, instead of an approximation of the shape.


Image texture showing up in texture mode but not render I'm fairly new to texturing in blender and I was trying to make an american flag and set up a whole scene for it, but when I went into render mode the flag appeared black. I've gone into the nodes and made sure that I have an image texture connected to the output and the correct image chosen. I've uv wrapped the flag texture to make sure it shows up correctly and I have a texture with the flag set up but when I go to render mode I only see black

You have connected the image texture directly to the surface output, but it needs to be connected to the Color input of a shader, for example a diffuse, like this.

World map courtesy of NASA, downloadable in several pixel resolutions from NASA Visible Earth

Below is the same material as it appears in the node editor, to make it clearer how to connect them.

In case your texture has an alpha channel, that doesn't get passed through the Color sockets. Instead it's passed separately through the Alpha socket. This can be used to mix multiple shaders, depending on the alpha channel, but to simply use it for transparency, connect it like this.

The logic here is, that when the alpha is 1.0 (i.e. fully opaque), the lower Shader socket to the Mix shader is passed to the material, and when the alpha is 0.0 (i.e. fully transparent), the upper Shader socket gets passed to the material, and anything in between, causes a corrsesponding mix of the two to get passed to the material.


Issue Baking Normal maps I've been trying to bake details that i imported from an SVG file and merged to my high poly mesh to the low poly mesh. I've put enough extrude to take them into account but my baking always fails as you can see in the picture. Would someone know what's wrong ?

To understand what’s going wrong in your example, it is important to understand the difference between a displacement map and a normal map:

A displacement map stores a positional displacement for each point on the base mesh.

A normal map stores a perturbation of the angle of the surface at each point on the base mesh.

This is to say that while a displacement map stores actual position information, a normal map only stores a rate of change in position at each location.
There are pros and cons to each of these representations, but one of the downsides of normal maps is that they cannot handle excessively sharp/sudden displacements, such as geometry like this:

At each point along the border of the ampersand, the height of the surface instantaneously increases. This also means that the point on the surface where the change in position is non-zero is infinitesimally small. Indeed, if we look at the cube from straight ahead (which is the 2D projection used by a normal map on the surface of the cube), the border of the ampersand is completely obscured, and the normal map is utterly uniform:

To fix this, we need to ensure the displacement relative to the base surface is continuous. That way, the rate of change will be finite and spread across an area of finite size. The easiest way to do this is to add a bevel:

Now the view from straight ahead is no longer completely uniform:

And indeed, if we bake this normal map to a plain cube, we do in fact get a more acceptable result.


Can't see objects with basic camera I did a big scene, but can't see it all in basic camera view. Even in rendered mod.

but i can see it in with created camera.

So i thinking there must be some setting for basic camera like for created camera in scene.

Just scale the whole scene down so that it is going to fit in the camera distance.
Blender is acting very strange when there are so big scaled scenes

On the right side, you can also see the limits of the camera (the line)


Particles rotation not working correct I can't get correct orientation with attached to the hair object.
The arrows should look in different directions (like on picture 2), but I have them like hair (picture 1)
In Particle Properties > Rotation > Orientation Axis set the Normal or Normal-tangent, should solve this problem, but did not.

Select your arrow.
Tap on Tab to go to edit mode.
Tap A to select all.
Tap R X -90 to rotate.
Done.


How do I create a haptic interface? I would like to use a data glove to move objects and get feedback from them. Is there a plug in product for this?

It depends on how the glove is connected to your computer, assuming it works with USB there're two common approaches (I don't know a finished plugin).

One is to use a server for the OSC protocol and receive the data in a python module in Blender. I used this for integrating a Kinect Sensor.
An example integration you find in this project's Bloop NUI zip file.

Another method would be to use the API of the glove (if available) and include this as a library in Blender to poll data. This I've used to read head tracking data from an Oculus Rift.

See How can I do a one-time Initialization? for an example on invoking methods of an external library.

If the glove comes without an API you could interface with hdiapi  and analyze the data.


Is this a possible bug in Blender 2.78a? If you use Subdivision Set [Ctrl 0] it's seems to not be possible to undo this action using shortcut [Ctrl Z]

I don't have enough reputation to comment, so I'll post this here...

Undo seems to work fine for me.

Workflow:

New scene with standard cube
Press Ctrl-2, then Ctrl-0, then Ctrl-3 and watch how the cube changes
Pressing Ctrl-Z repeatedly goes through the stages of 3 subdivisions, then 0 (which is the cube again), then 2 subdivisions.

You may want to post a .blend file if your problem persists, or at least describe which kind of geometry you are having a problem with.


How to distribute the objects on a sphere evenly? I want to replicate this mesh - https://youtu.be/lBMhGZ-iprw?t=16m27s

I think the best way is using a particle system of cubes. So I need to create a sphere of simple circles. It is necessary that in each circle the vertices are at equal distance from each other. But I don't know how to create those circles.

You can do it using both dupliverts or particle system, but you have to prepare the mesh properly first.

Add an UV Sphere with default settings (I use these in this example) and delete the bottom half of it. Select the very first top edge loop, press Shift+S-->Cursor to Selected, then add a circle and set its vertices count to 6. Enable vertex snapping tool (magnet icon) and snap it to the default edge loop. Do the same with the lower edge loops, but this time add the circle with 6 more vertices. Delete the default loops with X.

Repeat the process until you get to the sixth edge loop (It should be 32-vertices default loop). Every lower edge loop should get 6 more vertices- I know it's a silly work but I don't know how to script ;P. Add a cube in the middle of the sphere.

In Object Mode select the cube, then the sphere, press Ctrl+P-->Set Parent To-->Object.

Select the half of the sphere and give it the Mirror modifier (Z axis).

Finally with the sphere selected go to the Object Data header (Duplication panel), select the Verts window and check the Rotation checkbox.


Realism mistakes/tips/tricks/ for modelling/texturing realistic low poly terrains I saw a guy who made terrains like this -

Also this -

and also rocky one like this -

It was quite amazing to see the realism of these one,
So, I started in scratch from blender, thought displacement maps would help,
So, I used this diffuse map, normal map and displacement maps-

Diffuse Map -

Normal Map -

Displacement Map -

and ended with this result - Sorry its half rendered, but that was done just to show you the problem
image-

I've done that scene till this -

seriously asking, I've no clue what to do now, please help, I've tried different ways zillion times but that doesn't work for me

But that doesn't looks that good at all, it looks 100% fake,
also, he did some renderings -

His work looks realistic and awesome colors unlike me.
I tried to do everything with blender Cycles settings but got nothing.

His work seems to have very high poly. So, how he does it in low poly and this good terrain and images?

Also, I'm not sure that he did photoscans, as far I know, he didn't photoscanned these terrains.

Also, those were to be used in real-time games like Assassin's Creed next part. Is it possible that those can be used in games or just a rumor, I also want this to work with realtime renderers like Unity 3D

Please help,
thanks in advance

I found the original artist's ArtStation page (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Qqy0B) and the information on the left says he did photoscan a lot of the models.

My guess is his process went something like this. Keep in mind that this is only how I would imagine something like this would be done. This isn't an area I'm particularly familiar with, nor do I know what programs he all used, or exactly how the final models are put together.

All of the square terrain models are definitely photoscanned. It may be possible for a highly talented artist to create something like that from scratch, but it would take a huge amount of time, whereas photoscanning by comparison is much quicker. Given that he was working for a game, the company would want the fastest results with the highest quality, for which photoscans are great.

Photoscanned models are very high in detail to start with. From the silhouettes of the models it appears that they have been either retopologized, or the model started as a subdivided plane. The terrain models have a fair amount of detail in them, much more than your model does.

From the photoscanned models, the artist most likely baked the maps from the high resolution mesh to a low resolution one, possibly even just a plane. This would give maps that could be applied to the low detail object and give it the appearance of high detail. A displacement map could also be greated this way, so the terrain models could be subdivided planes.

For the large terrain models, he did you WorldMachine, which is a program specifically made for making large terrains.I haven't used it, but I can guarantee it has terrain building features that Blender doesn't, that's just the nature of the two programs. The artist most likely created the large terrain models, and then used the textures he created from the photoscanned models to add the smaller details. All of the created textures would be layered on each other at the place he wants the detail to be, and they would be blended into the rest of the terrain. I have no idea how WorldMachine handles geometry, but it's likely that there is a way to add more geometry to high detail areas, so the displacement map would look good. If you want some more information, look at how others have created game terrain, such as this discussion here: http://polycount.com/discussion/88933/how-to-make-terrains-for-games.

Now that's all great, but you want to recreate this in Blender. For the small terrain sections that's definitely possible. However, if your end goal is large game terrains, I would suggest using the game engine you plan on using. Unreal Engine 4, for example, is often used for level/world creation and levels are often built in the editor. If realism is your goal, I would definitely suggest UE4, Unity, or some other capable engine for building your levels. The Blender game engine won't be the way to go for creating terrains like this.

To create terrain like the artist did, I would suggest starting with a photoscanned model. Photoscanning yourself is a lot of work, so try to find some free models online. Quixel has some great free models, such as this one here: https://megascans.se/assets/rjgmQ.

From that model, work on retopologizing it if you are only using it once, but if you want it to be entirely map based, then bake some maps from the model. There are plenty of baking tutorials online (make sure you search somewhat specifically for blender related baking tutorials unless you feel like making cakes or cookies).

I can only say so much here, and I don't have the most experience in this area. What I can say for sure though, is that creating terrains like this is an art form that requires a lot of time and practice to get right.


What's the "Convert Float" checkbox in the VSE for? When using an Adjustment Layer Effect Strip, there's this curious function button in the VSE... what is its meaning?

I found no description on the wiki....

That option enables you to process image adjustments using 32bit float precision.

Why would you want that?

Most consumer video formats create 8 bit images. In 8 bit images each channel (Red,Green or Blue) is limited to 256 values.

In 8 bit the number of possible colors is 16 million. While it might sound like a lot of, you'll find that it is not enough, specially when dealing color transformations and compositing, you'll see artifacts like banding, along with some other inconsistencies.  By converting the image to 32bit float the number of available combinations is over 4 billion...

In other words: Color operations in 8 bit (or even 10 bit for some video formats) will result in posterization and rounding errors, due to the very limited amount of possible values. By carrying out the adjustments in 32bit float you are increasing the precision of color operations.

Enabling float data does have the penalty of using more computing power and memory, so depending on your computer be aware of a possible slowdown on performance.


Map Multiple Objects and then Join into One Object with One UV Map? I am creating this brass table with glass shelving model for a game. To avoid breaking things, I can only have one mesh for the table frame and one for the glass shelves. I currently have a bunch of rounded rectangles for the frame and three flattened cubes for the shelves. The frame with legs is one object/mesh and the 3 shelves are another. I also need the whole table frame on one UV map layout and the glass on a separate one.

I tried joining all the rectangles for the frame and just doing Unwrap and it seemed to work but then all four legs were not mapped. So the only other solution I could think was to map each object separate and then join it all together after. Is there any way to do this where they'll be all on one layout? I was looking at the multi object uv edit add-on and it looks perfect but I really need to join everything in the end to what I described so not sure if that's going to screw it up.

Unless I am misunderstanding, you are just trying to preserve the UV mapping of each model while joining them to a single mesh?

If that is your goal, ctrl+J with both models selected in Object mode will do that.  The join will preserve the models UV maps as is.  It might get a bit weird if the two objects share the same material but the UVs will not have changed (though, they will be stacked on each other, but again, if the materials are assigned correctly it won't matter).


Rigging a square face to stay coplanar I have an armature for deforming a mesh, using a solution in this question, but when it is posing, the faces get distorted. I don't understand exactly why or how to fix it.
Here is the rest pose:

I assigned vertex groups for the bones to control the popup (the green mesh). As the book closes, the popup folds and the faces get distorted like this:

The popup has two faces, one bone crossing each face. Notice the circled part -- one of the popup faces is being divided and half is bending. I really want the vertices to stay co-planar. Do I need additional bones, constraints, or what?

Update:
I found another way to achieve this effect by using drivers instead of bones.
Start by separting the book and popup meshes into left/right objects. Set the object origins so that rotation works along the book binding and popup bottoms (where they attach to a book page). Then parent the left popup to the left page, and likewise for the right hand side.
The idea is that the left page opens/closes by rotating on the Y axis. And the popups rotate up/down according to the book open/close angle.
The popup rotation depends on only two factors: 1) the book rotation, and 2) the offset angle of the popup, i.e. how "canted" it is (20 degrees in this example). The offset angle is a constant, and the book rotation depends on the animation.
Implement the popup rotation via a driver and a python script. The formula is messy (at least I found it to be so). I'm happy to share details, if there is any interest.

You want to control the bone roll (Y axis rotation) of the pop-up bones.  This is done most easily with a locked track constraint.  Unfortunately, constraints don't play nicely with IK.  But it's entirely possible to make it work, using an additional bone.
Start by entering edit mode on Armature Popup.  Start by selecting the head of Popup_Center and snapping the cursor to selection (shift s menu for me.)  Now, select Popup_L and duplicate it.  We'll rename that bone to defPopup_L.  Now, with defPopup_L selected, recalculate roll to cursor (ctrl n menu for me.)  Finally, parent defPopup_L to Popup_L.
Change to pose mode.  Delete the (duplicated) IK constraint on defPopup_L.  Give it a locked track constraint, targeting the head of Popup_Center, set to Lock Y axis and Track Z axis (recalculating the roll set the Z axis to point at the cursor.)
Finally, set your mesh object (chiclepopup) to use this new bone instead, by renaming the Popup_L vertex group to defPopup_L.
Repeat this process for Popup_R if you'd like: duplicate it, parent the duplicate to the original, set the roll with a recalculate operation, give it a locked track constraint instead of IK, with appropriate settings, and make sure your mesh is using your new bone for deformation.


What is wrong with my photorealistic procedural chocolate texture? I want a chocolate texture with that tiny scratches and crumbs (upper left). After spending some time to copy node by node from this example, I can't barely see any difference to the simple one bsdf (upper right).
What am I missing?

HDRI source: HDRI Haven > Venice Sunrise

This node setup isn't really the best to use if you want the crumbly scratched look, if you look at the image that the node setup was posted with the chocolate is very smooth.
You can adjust the black and white ColorRamp going into the roughness of the material to get some smears to show, but it won't really get you any farther than that.
I suggest you make your own material, and use surface imperfection textures for the roughness and bump, that will give you the scratched up look you want.


How can I get a stereo cameras volume and parameters? I need to find some parameter of the stereo camera.
In particular I need:

The distance of the near and far plane and where are them (for calculate the dimensions, the position of the vertices of the panel, etc.)
Where exactly is the volume of the camera situated (the volume you can see if you enable the option in the 3D view generic properties)
The formula used to calculate this data in blender (who knows where the file with this formula is?

import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
cam = scene.camera
print("convergence_distance: %f" %cam.data.stereo.convergence_distance)
print("convergence_mode: %r" %cam.data.stereo.convergence_mode)
print("interocular_distance: %f" %cam.data.stereo.interocular_distance)
print("pivot: %s" %cam.data.stereo.pivot)
print("focal_length: %f" %cam.data.lens)
print("gpu_dof.focal_length: %f" %cam.data.gpu_dof.focal_length)
print("gpu_dof.focus_distance: %f" %cam.data.gpu_dof.focus_distance)
print("gpu_dof.is_hq_supported: %s" %cam.data.gpu_dof.is_hq_supported)
print("lens_unit: %s" %cam.data.lens_unit)
print("sensor_width: %f" %cam.data.sensor_width)
print("clip_end: %f" %cam.data.clip_end)
print("rotation_euler: x = {0}, y = {1}, z = {2}".format(*cam.rotation_euler))
print("location: x = {0}, y = {1}, z = {2}".format(*cam.location))
print("sensor_height: %f" %cam.data.sensor_height)
print("sensor_width: %f" %cam.data.sensor_width)
print("angle: %f" %cam.data.angle)
print("angle_x: %f" %cam.data.angle_x)
print("angle_y: %f" %cam.data.angle_y)
print("cam.matrix_local")
print(cam.matrix_local)
print("cam.matrix_basis")
print(cam.matrix_basis)
print("cam.matrix_world")
print(cam.matrix_world)
print("cam.calc_matrix_camera(x=1, y=1, scale_x=1.0, scale_y=1.0)")
print(cam.calc_matrix_camera(x=1, y=1, scale_x=1.0, scale_y=1.0))**

with this code i have some camera parameters but i don't know how to find the others.

tips?

The code in properties_data_camera.py can give you clues to most of the camera properties.

The volume options for the 3DView are displayed with code in space_view3d.py and use properties within the 3DView data eg. context.space_data.show_stereo_3d_volume.

The volume pyramid drawn for this option is based on a pyramid created from the camera location/rotation, using cam.lens which is shown to the user as focal length and cam.sensor_width (sensor size). The cam.clip_start and cam.clip_end define where the top and bottom of this pyramid are. The actual c-code that does the drawing can be found in drawobject.c

The location of the convergence plane is based on stereo.convergence_distance and looks to use the same calculations as clip_start with the outer edges based on the same volume pyramid.


Store which Image is being used I am thinking how to store the image which is being used in an image texture node

 bpy.context.object.active_material.node_tree.nodes['Image Texture'].image

I want to store the image used, and then on clicking a button, that image stored will be applied to some other active object's image texture node

I tried using StringProperty but that stores only String type and not images!

I don't get know how to do that......

Use your StringProperty to save the image.name,
then load it by accessing the image through bpy.data.images:

imageNameStringProp = bpy.context.object.active_material.node_tree.nodes['Image Texture'].image.name

someOtherObject.active_material.node_tree.nodes['Image Texture'].image = bpy.data.images[ imageNameStringProp ]


Registered class "could not be found" Blender 2.8 I just started learning scripting. I have a pretty basic script that should create a custom operator
import bpy

class CustomOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_label = "Custom Operator"
    bl_idname = "object.custom_operator"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.active_object is not None

    def execute(self, context):
        old = context.scene.cursor.location
        x = 0;
        y = 0;
        z = 0;
        context.scene.cursor.location = (x, y, z)
        return {"FINISHED"}

bpy.utils.register_class(CustomOperator)

bpy.ops.objects.custom_operator()

but for some reason bpy.ops.objects.custom_operator() doesn't work and says that it "could not be found".

Thanks to Gorgious for the answer. It turns out that I forgot the s in objects at the bl_idname.


Convert boolean objects to a single mesh I have several objects which have boolean relationships to each other. The end object still depends on all sub-objects, so that if I delete one of them it goes away in the end object. Is there a way to convert the end object to a single independent mesh? I tried this but it didn't work:
    end_mesh = end_object.data
    bm_end = bmesh.new()
    bm_end.from_mesh(end_mesh)
    bm_end.to_mesh(end_mesh)
    bm_end.free()

You can also use bpy.ops (to change a little), so it is simply:
import bpy

bpy.ops.object.duplicate()
bpy.ops.object.convert(target='MESH')


Rigid Body Dynamic Animation Problem I have been trying for way too long now to have a shape composed of a bunch of cubes struck by another larger rectangle type object. After surveying a ton of tutorials and the entirety of the literature on stack exchange regarding this problem, I am still stuck. Here is the issue.

The ensemble of cubes is free floating (not dynamic) and needs to maintain that property until struck. No matter my settings for the animated and dynamic key frames, I either end up with:

Cubes falling before struck
No collision occurring (they simply overlap, as if they aren't rigid bodies)
A dramatic though entertaining explosion of the cubes

Here are all of the different things I've tried (with no success):

Manipulating the Enable Deactivation and Start Deactivated options (for all possible combinations of the colliding and collided with objects)
Changing from convex hull to mesh
Animating the animated and dynamic key frames (for both and neither) and simply testing them when on and off
Fiddling with the collision margin and margin

I cannot seem to get this to work. I don't know what pictures to post because I've tried so many different solutions (and I don't know which wrong solution will give the most insight to the community). I will use Blend-Exchange to upload the file. Please help it would be much appreciated! This is my first ever created blend file and I want it to work!!

EDIT: Unfortunately, Blend-Exchange is having an issue uploading my blend file ("error uploading") so I am unsure what to do now

EDIT: Perhaps this will work (using PasteAll): http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=51817

This approach took a shortcut in that the individual cubes forming the letter 'b' were all joined as one object.  The explode modifier was used to break it up.  This avoids the physics problem.

The shards that result from the explosion modifier have been rendered invisible in favour of cube shaped particles to maintain the illusion that the cube-stack is what is breaking up.

The explosion modifier and the original 'b' was, at the appropriate frame, switched to a second emitter, (3D &'B' shaped) that emits the same sized and coloured cubes as used to form the letter.

Note - there is an invisible catch plane placed just above the visible ground in order to catch the cubes as they fall.

When particle objects sit on the ground, they do so at their origin points.  This would usually be at their center, so they 'sink into the mud'.  To keep their feet dry this catch plane is set up with the required physics and a little higher than the visible ground which becomes just a prop.

-======================

After some two days of experimentation and with your apparent leaning to use the original cubes for the break up, I came up with this...

To use the stacked cubes in your uploaded Blend file, the timeline was set to frame 1, then each and every cube had it's physics reset by switching the Rigid body button off then on again.  That restored the physics.

As there are some 1040+ cubes only a quarter were actually processed this way.

In order to hold them mid-air, the Animation box is ticked and Dynamic box unticked, and both keyframed, again for each and every cube.

At the impact frame these two tick-boxes have to be keyframed again but in reverse.  The cubes then fall to the ground.

(ignore the green bar)

Granted it looks good but of the two methods, the Explode modifier gives far better control over the break-up appearance, directional bias, and general cube behavior.  With the letter solid it's also a simple matter to manually animate it's lurch on impact.

-==============-

You can skip the reversing tick boxes step, by rendering the cubes dropping from frame 1.  Animate a solid duplicate of the letter in a separate video and mix the two in the VSE.


Any way to temporary hide wire frame in edit mode (2.80)? I would like to be able to toggle wire frame visibility off and on without exiting edit mode, to be able to see the surface better, but without changing the camera's rotation origin (using rotate around selected option). When I exit edit mode, the camera rotates around the object's origin, which makes it a pain to check out small areas on large objects.

Thanks for any advice,
Robert

You can just press Shift + Z. Also you can customize it as you want in preferences.


Animated cloth simulation parenting troubles I have parented both banner (with a simulation), airplane and camera, but cannot make them travel in sync.

The flag/banner is making me troubles: The objects appear connected when moved
in 3d-view, but the banner is lost behind when animated.

Animated example (gif)

Please download blend file

Appreciate any help.

Kind regards,
Raaskot

The solution was quite simple. Didn't understand the nature of the baking process and how it worked when the physics object (plus forcefield) was a child of an moving parent (the camera).

Being a bit unexperienced in the physics field I did'nt understand the obvious necessity baking the flag / running the entire animation.

After executing this the flag catched up fine.

Thanks for your kind attention: Often a matter of verbalization of the problem brings one close to the truth -- and solution :-)


Blender 2.77 Bone Constraint I have a question about 2.77 blender, I cannot find the bone constraint so I cannot have one object track another. What should I do?

Select a bone, switch to Pose mode and you will find all the bone constraints in the properties window.


When you add the skin texture?Before or after retopology? Noob question...I am new to sculpting and I was wondering when you add the wrinkles and skin texture, before or after retopology?

Textures always after the mesh is ready.

And maybe as a tip, if you work with mirror modifier, then texture can be plied to half and mirrored(so drawing half the face gets a mirrored face), but if you like asymetric face futures (ea scars) then first apply the mirror then do your texture.


how to make UIList interactive for object manipulation I have the following data in my script:

Any mesh object, referenced as context.active_object
bpy.types.Object.markers = CollectionProperty(type = Marker), where Marker is a class containing just id, name and single vector to store location
ui with the UIList, on which I draw elements from the markers list

I have also a number of classes for making data, addings objects, etc. The script allows to easily click on a mesh and add new empty in the 3dcursor location. I have all those empties parented to the object, and I'm collecting their names in markers collection. All items for a mesh object is draw in a list using UIList. Here is my draw_items function:

class MarkerList(UIList):
    def draw_item(self,context,layout,data,item,icon,active_data,active_progname):
        if not item or item.name == '':
            layout.row().label('no name for id'+str(item.id),icon='CANCEL')
        else:
            if item.name in bpy.data.objects.keys():
                ob = bpy.data.objects[item.name]
                layout.prop(data=ob,property='name',icon='PINNED',emboss=False,text='')
            else:
                lab = layout.label(icon='QUESTION',text=item.name)

Now, the UIList is showing props using their names (data=ob, property='name'). That's OK, BUT, if somebody double click the name, it could be changed. This change also changes the name of the real empty object. I would like to update also markers list for that change, but I do not know how.

So, IS there any kind of 'update' function which is called after changing the name of the prop from the list? Or 'notify', or whatever. I would like to keep markers as a simple list of names and locations, but also I would like to allow user to change their names. If that's not possible, alternative question is: how to block names change in the UIlist?

Also, sorry for poor formulated question, I had no better idea how to ask how to detect name change of objects changed in UIList and invoking some additional action after that (ie. updating my markers list name).

Here is the UIList:

The counter is just a IntProperty added to bpy.types.Object.

Here is the name double clicked in the list:

It is automatically selected and user can change the name of the real object.

Here is the name changed by the user:

After this change, the real name of the object is changed, which is desired. I don't know, how to update the name in my own list, so I put the condition:

if item.name in bpy.data.objects.keys():

in draw_items to at least show this in the list. But I want to update my own data instead. After name is changed, the following info appears in the info window:

My list is looking like that at this stage:

My outliner is showing the change of new name of the object parented:

So, any advice will be most welcome. I can either block this editing behaviour (how?) or allow to detect name change of specific item and update markers data respectively. The script is going to manage thousands of those objects.

In draw_item() you pass item and then use if item.name in bpy.data.objects.keys() - if you rename a key in bpy.data.objects and it no longer compares to item.name then that tells me that item is at least a copy or part copy of the data in bpy.data.objects.

This means the fix will be to update the name in both bpy.data.objects and item.

The fix will depend on what is in the rest of your code. Maybe an extra refresh of the data in item. One possibility is using bpy.props, by utilising the update feature of bpy.props you can have a small function that will update both your item data and the objects name property, that would mean having the list show your list of item properties not bpy.data.object properties.


Why does trying to texture paint in Blender produce no change to my model? I'm using Blender 2.78a.  I've got an object I modelled ready for texture painting.  Its already got seams, and been UV unwrapped.  The UV map looked alright to me.  I set a material for the object.  I changed the 3D viewport to texture paint mode.  This is with the Blender Renderer.  I get no errors, and the texture paint palette and such shows up on screen.  But even with everything linked, and no errors.. if I try to paint on the 3D viewport object, or if I turn the UV map to paint mode and try to paint on it.. nothing happens.  I'll link to the .blend file, hopefully someone can tell me what setting I've missed or texture I've not set, whatever's wrong.  Thanks.

.Blend file here

If the download doesn't come out right, I may have to send the file directly.  Something's wrong with the way drop box is trying to handle the file!  I tried to save the file directly, and what I got back was only the default blender scene!  So if the resulting file isn't a little over 800k, something went wrong!

(Update:  I actually found the influence options mentioned in the comments!  It is the 'texture' tab on the rightmost shelf, and it is a section near the bottom called of course 'Influence'.  What boggles my mind now, is that it was in fact set that the texture affects the rendered normal of the geometry.  When it should default to affecting the color!  I have no idea why, I can assure I never touched that setting until now!)

First, texture which is meant to be painted on is set up to not affect color rather than bump via Textures tab > Influence rollout:

Uncheck Geometry and enable Color in Diffuse section instead to paint with desired color instead of bump.

Second, brush which is used for painting on that texture uses another texture for brush pattern:

However nothing is assigned to that texture choosed to be used as a brush pattern; hence nothing will be painted.
If you'd like to paint with some brush pattern choose a desired image in Brush textures shown on the right of the screenshot above. If nothing is needed to be affecting the brush, unlink that datablock from the texture painting brush settings.


How can I flatten a torus only on certain axes so that it looks more like a flattened band? I would like to flatten a torus so that it looks more like this:

I have already tried playing with the basic torus parameters but without success.

How can I do this?

I assume you want a band with some thickness, like this:

There are obviously many ways to make such a shape. Here are a couple:
Scaling a torus:

Add torus

Scale on the Z (SZ)

Optionally enter edit mode (Tab) and scale along the normals with AltS

Circle with subsurf modifier:

Add a circle (ShiftA> Mesh > Circle)

Extrude (E) into a band shape

Add subsurf modifier (Ctrl1-5, where the number refers to the number of viewport subdivisions)

Optionally add loopcuts to flatten some sides of the band


Going from an area of low information density to high density Consider the following, I've got a mesh already that is in the general shape of my model. However I want to add detail like adding an eye to the general shape.

Example (attempt at modeling bullet bill)

What I'm attempting to do is keeping quads somehow split the edges around the eye area (marked red) and join the two seperate pieces of mesh.

How would I about attemting something like this. I assume I need to split the edges to add in poles at the front and back of the eye area. but then how do I insert quads so that they all match?

In this image its been brought a bit forward from the model just to show the example.

But in general how do I add detail to a portion of a model without adding loop cuts everywhere?

I think there's no scientific way to learn how to do it, at least in my case I'm still learning day after day how to do it, I guess you just need to try how to join, merge vertices, use the knife to create edges, etc... and keep quads as much as possible, then tris if you don't have choice. Actually each case is a particular puzzle.

Duarte has given you links and it explains how to go from 3 edges to 1, etc... I guess it worth a look.

Anyway, to begin I've separated the eye mesh, then I've used the Knife Project tool to print the eye shape on the rocket mesh.


One arm of mesh disfigures when posing I have a rigged model with one arm that distorts and disfigures when posing while the opposite doesn't.  The disfiguring arm doesn't have any modifiers or settings (As far as I've been able to find) that are any different from the arm that poses correctly and neither do the bones.  The only thing I can figure is that maybe it has something to do with it being a duplicated + mirrored version of the side that works correctly, although the normals have all been recalculated and the mesh origins are correct.

I'm really at a complete loss here.

Here's a gif of whats happening:

Have you removed doubles before you rigged the mesh?

Before ever rigging, you should always as a rule remove doubles in your mesh.
Anymore when you finished modelling, select your entire mesh, press hotkey W and select "Remove Doubles." That way, you will have leas tearing of topology and less disfigurements too.


Custom Alphas in GIMP How to create custom alphas on GIMP that we can use in Texture Painting amd Sculpting on Blender?

Today I tried a lot, but couldn't achieve expected result. Moreover my GIMP and photo editing knowledge is very less. So I want a detailed step-by-step tutorial regarding this.

Please help.

To add Alpha to GIMP layer

Right click on a layer in GIMP and select "Add Layer Mask..."
You will see a second thumbnail appear on the layer. Select the thumb.
Paint over your image where you want Alpha in Black and White.
When it is transparent you will see a checkered background in GIMP.

Note on Blender
There are a few ways alpha can be implemented, I am just sharing the simplest IMO. Implementing an image that has an alpha channel built in will depend on what render engine you are using. In Cycles you will need to use a Transparency node in addition to whatever node setup you are using to utilize Alpha. BI will need several settings changed to setup alpha (A couple in the texture properties and enabled transparency in the material if memory serves me, been many years since I last used BI). EEVEE, not officially released as of time of writing doesn't seem to be working correctly using latest build on my system so will have to update later if you need to know about that one.

Edit:
It should be mentioned, You do not have to use GIMP for painting in Blender (But it can be a nice addition afterwards for more advanced editing), you can make your texture file in Blender and then go to paint mode on your object. Blender does have some performance limitations doing this at high resolution.

To create a new texture file for painting go to your UV image editor and click "New", then type in your file name, resolution and make sure "Alpha" is checked.
Once thats done apply your new image to your material so it is seen in the viewport on the model you want to paint
Go to texture paint mode and have fun
Always remember to save your texture file outside Blender or it will be deleted!


Scripting - Where is data not shown in the "Info" panel shown? I notice that Blender only logs certain things in the "Info" panel. Is there some other place that they log data(such as if one were to have 3 vertices selected, where would they store that data for later use if someone were to move them)? Another way to phrase this would be: if I am scripting, where can I access the current selected vertices?

The info is mainly explicit defined and call from operator :
class mesh_OT_someops(byp.types.Operator):
    def pseudo_excute(self):
        self.report({'INFO'},"This is an Info Output")

It can be arbitrary thing and most of the time, the final output log is been emitted. And for sure, Blender and all other programming language will not automatically "Saved Log" for anything. Unless that is a state machine, which, seems to far away from the topic.
So, if you are scripting, you will always have to dig out the data from the Blender module bpy. For your mesh selected vertices, it will be something like this:
selected_vertices = [i for i in bmesh.from_edit_mesh(obj.data).verts if i.select]

It is not easy when you are not familiar with program, especially pointer-based programming since most of the Blender object you call is reference. And also, using Blender scripting need a certain degree of Python knowledge, which might be hard to learn, despite Python claims for easy to learn.


Model's end not following bone I'm just so new to blender I can't even figure out why this is happening. (picture)

Looks like a weighting issue. This should fix it:

Tab into Edit mode.
Select one set of the problem vertices (making the armature modifier work in edit mode will be useful here).
Go to the mesh properties tab of the Properties panel (the triangle), and find the vertex group matching their bone. Hit Assign.
Repeat with the other arm.


how do i indent into a cube to get such curvature how do i create the above arch without those shabby polygons formations so its easy for UV unwrapping

Just to have it all in one place, Proportional editing works well too.
Set Falloff > Sphere and adjust size to your needs.


How can I make only the selected object change to wireframe view? When I select an object and go to wireframe view, all objects go to wireframe. I want only the selected object to go to wireframe. How do I do that?

On viewing objects in "wireframe" mode ,all objects go to wireframe by default.
In order to view ,wireframe for a selected object in "other modes" , check "wire" under the objects panel.


How can I bake the cloth simulation into keyframed vertices or shape keyed vertices? I'm simulating a cloth. How can I bake the cloth simulation into keyframed vertices or shape keyed vertices?

If you look in the Modifiers section of the properties you will see an Apply button (you probably don't want that one) and an Apply as Shape Key button.  That's the one you want.

After you have turned the cloth shape into a Shape Key, you will have to go to the mesh section and dial up the influence of the new Cloth shape key to 1.0 to change the cloth into the shape that you "baked".


How can I change the color of a material using Python script? I'm modeling LED signs with different frequencies and duty cycles to animate flickering LEDs. It is impractical to manually set the color of LEDs at all the keyframes for each single LED, since I have more than 20 LEDs and they all have different frequencies & duty cycles. I think it will be so much easier to use Python script. Here is the description of the problem.

Use the pictures above as an example. I created an object and emission shader "material 1" manually. "Material 1" only applies to the circle in the middle of this object (as shown in (a)).

I want the color of material 1 to be red from frame 1 to frame 10. From frame 11 to 30, the color will be black(as shown in (b)). From frame 31 to 40, the color turns to red again, then black from frame 41 to 60. As you can see from the first picture, the same pattern happens over and over again and continues to the last frame.

I was wondering if I could use Python script to simulate this instead of manually set keyframes for all the LEDs. Thank you all in advance for your responses.

This is related: Control Cycles material nodes and material properties in Python

This is how you add an keyframe:

import bpy
# get the material
mat = bpy.data.materials['Material_Name']
# get the nodes
nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes
# get some specific node:
# returns None if the node does not exist
emission = nodes.get("Emission")
# set strength to 0.8
emission.inputs[1].default_value = 0.8
# add keyframe to strength at frame 1
emission.inputs[1].keyframe_insert("default_value", frame=1)
# set strength to 0
emission.inputs[1].default_value = 0
# add keyframe to strength at frame 21
emission.inputs[1].keyframe_insert("default_value", frame=21)

Now the intensity will animate from 0.8 to 0 in 20 frames


How to get rid of those edges? How to get rid of those edges?

When i try to disolve them loop cut stops working properly.

Loop Cuts won't work on N-gons which you may have on the top part of your mesh here.


Where to start in blender? I have recently learned all the basics of blender from modeling to rendering, I am little bit confused about where to start 3d designing in blender. please suggest...

best is to pick up a real project. or find a tutorial that guides you to model, texture and render a real project. And here some more ideas:

http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/how-i-learned-blender-and-5-tips-for-you/

http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/5-ways-to-make-money-with-blender/

so if your next question on Blender Stackexchange is about a specific problem then you have started ;)


Where's the textures folder? At 13:05 in this video tutorial, Steve adds an image texture in node wrangler from a textures folder. I searched my computer for 2 hours in the Blender Foundation folder, and could not find any "textures" folder. Where is it? He chose a Metalbare.jpg file from it.  Zero search results for that file also. Can anyone tell me where to find these?

These textures don't come with Blender, so you won't ever find them in your Blender installation.

The textures are linked to in the video's description (click "Show More" underneath the video):

MetalBare0154.jpg

Smoke0379.jpg


I cant see the background images I have toggle the front view and other sides but i cant see any of my imports pictures in the background.

You've set the background image to the viewing position Left, but to show the background image you should be in Orthographic mode not Perspective. Press 5 on keypad to set Orthographic


How to copy the specific location and rotation of a falling down object with cloth physics? I intended to use cloth physics to make a bag like this:

the bag and the shpere has cloth and collsion physics modifier, the shpere with internal springs on, and it worked well in the testing file.
but
I found if I gave my cellphone model a cloth physic modifier, and turn "internal springs" on, it exploded
So, instead of giving the phone cloth physic directly, I try to add a cube, give the cube the cloth and collsion physic modifier, then, I add object constrait "Child Of" to the cell phone model, set the "Child Of" target to the cube...like this:

the vertex group, I select three point randomly.
but, it acts weird!!
Even use a normal cube mesh instead my cellphone model. It always rotates unexpectly...like this:

How this happened?
Edit:
the unexpected rotation cube file:

By the way
In fact, I'm trying to make a dancing person with a cellphone in a
small transprant bag tied to his arm... I found this is so difficult to me. Even this question is solved, there also many other issues. So despaired. T T
Edit:
The unexpected rotation smartphone model file:

It's natural to think that when you're using 3 vertices as the target of a constraint, that you're using a face.  But you're not, not quite.  You're still just using 3 vertices, and vertices don't have full transforms.  As zero-dimensional thingies, they don't have rotation or scale.  When you use a constraint that tracks a vertex group, you can reliably expect it to acquire the location part of the transform, but not the other parts.
You're using a child-of constraint here, but there are other constraints where this would be a problem as well.  Copy rotation, copy scale, copy transforms, etc-- for anything that needs more than a location from its target, vertex groups are unreliable targets.
Blender, bless its heart, sure tries to make it work.  It tries well enough that sometimes it works.  But it's unreliable.
Here, it's not working.  We can use different vertex groups and constraints, constraints that need only locations, to do what you want.
Let's create three vertex groups on Cube.004 (the target of your constraint.)  We'll assign all vertices on one face to a group called "face".  We'll assign its two topmost verts to a group called "z".  And we'll assign two verts on its side to a group called "x".
Then we can replace our constraint.  Disable or delete the child of constraint, then create three constraints: a copy location, a damped track, and a locked track.  Each of these should target our old child-of target, but give each a different vertex group.  Copy location from face; damped track our Z axis to z; and then lock our Z axis to track our X axis to x:

All of our constraints use only the positions of vertices (the weighted average position) in order to define the rotation of our constrained object.  We're not acquiring scale, but that is much more complicated, and it doesn't look like it's something you want to acquire anyways.


Where is the principles BSDF shader? I just watched Blender Guru's video on the new-ish Priciples BSDF shader. My current version of Blender is 2.78c. I don't know where to find the release which has Principles BSDF. On the Blender latest releases, they still say 2.78c. What version has Principles, and where can I download it?

Thanks, Phil

It is part of the upcoming 2.79 release and unavailable in previous versions of Blender.

It is not available as a stable release yet and you are recommended to await for the official 2.79 version (available When It's Ready™) to use it, unless you understand the risks of using pre-release testing software.


Individual origins are not individual I'm in the UV image editor and I selected "individual origins" as the pivot. On my UV unwrap I selected very clearly, 100% bet my life on it, separate edges of the unwrap. Now, in regular edit mode, there is no problem with this, transform scale and rotate would all work by applying these transforms to those edges separately.

For seemingly no reason in the UV editor though, it keeps assuming the average as the pivot, even though it's set to individual origins. So when I scale these individual edges, instead of scaling them individually, it makes them shrink towards their center of their distance.

How can someone get the individual origins to work as it should?

Is there any way you can post some images that display the problem? I can't duplicate it.

Scale with Median selected:

And then with Individual Origins selected:

Rotate with Median:

And Individual Origins: