Object / Edge Bevel with angle other than 45 degrees Discovered blender 2 weeks ago, so < Noob.  Loving it so far!!  I'm looking for a way to create an effect similar to the bevel modifier, but which produces an angle other than 45 degrees.  For example, I'd like to create a cube object that has a draft angle on the left, right, front, and back faces (not top, and bottom) of 80 degrees instead of 90 degrees.  The resulting top square face would be slightly smaller than the bottom square face, with the edge faces sloping slightly.  A sort of standard trapezoidal shape.  Any advice on how to create this geometry?

Edit: I misused the term "bevel" I think.  What I'm looking to do is create a consistent angle between faces.  In the 2nd picture I'm attempting to create a 10 degree angle (100 - 90 = 10).  One issue is I don't know how to enter values (e.g. 80 degrees, 110 degrees) into the protractor.  I'm attempting to move the edges and "snap to" the protractor in this case, which is probably not a good way to do this.  I can move, or scale the edges to create the desired angle, but it is time consuming to calculate the desired coordinates of the vertices, etc.  Just looking for suggestions.  Thanks!

This is essentially what I'm going for, which isn't a "bevel."  Although I may only want to modify 1, 2, or 3 of the side faces, and exclude the other faces.

Note: in the second picture it would be undesirable to move all 4 bottom edges of the "rectangle" because it intersects another piece of the object.  So I would want to move only 3 of the 4 bottom edges in that case.  Maybe this should be a separate object?  I don't know, like I said imanoob.

Found an ok solution.  In the transform toolbar there is a "face info" section.  Adding a check in the box next to angle allows one to see the angle while making adjustments to the face edges.


Adaptive Subdivision not working I've been trying to get adaptive subdivision to work, but I haven't seen any difference. What am I doing wrong?

You will have to go into the material settings and under there you'll be able to spot displacement method there change to "displacement" or "displacement and bump" and it will work.


Multiple UV maps -- One UV map always low res or missing For the life of me I can't figure out why this happens when I add a UV map.

Somehow, I managed to apply only a single image to my highest level UV map and the lower level UV map maintained the same resolution--allowing me to get the same resolution on both my UV maps and nicely import my mesh into another editor.

But I've not been able to duplicate this except on one mesh.  What's going on?

Somehow I was able to set the mesh resolution without applying an image.  This is exactly what I want because applying multiple images to multiple UV maps is creating issues for me.

Anyone know how I can set resolution on a UV map without applying an image?  It's definitely working for me on one of my meshes, but I just don't know how.  It's fine if they all have to be the same resolution

Here's a file with two proportional UV maps (which is fine).  One of them doesn't even have an image applied to it, and yet it works...

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3jOsV51Z7CuRmFRb3JyOUFYVFU/edit

Which ends up looking like this with 2 textures applied

And then, what has been happening to me dozens of times, is this other version which ends up with 1 texture being very low res (or zoomed in somehow?) and the other texture displaying.  Sometimes it seems to not detect there are 2 UV maps at all.

More info : I'm using FBX export and Unreal Engine 4.

Can anyone tell me what I've been doing wrong, and what I did right the one time?  I'm pulling my hair out because I can't figure out why all of my UV maps come out terrible--except for one.  What I'm doing seems extremely basic but FOR THE LIFE OF ME, I can't figure out what I've been doing wrong.

Edit : I was able to get a screengrab of a bad export.

I found the solution.  It looks like the Unreal Engine only supports a single UV map for actual textures (you can still achieve multiple materials easily)

The reason my first example worked is because I was only actually using the 1 UV map and it had 2 materials inside of it and the other uv map was doing nothing.

I was going to delete this, but Blender and Unreal are pretty much attached at the hip at this point.  They fund Blender and the FBX export just went into the main package, so I'm sure I won't be the only one assuming I can duplicate the 'blender way of doing things' with multiple true UV maps like in this video
Tip: Using Multiple UV Coordinates (archive)

Simply put, it looks like Unreal Engine 4 only looks at UV map 0 for textures.


boolean multiple meshes without fusing and keep faces i have a bunch of hexagons all in one object, but I want them to form to a point while staying separate like this
when I try to use a boolean to do this all the hexagons fuse together in odd patterns and almost none of them have faces, is there an easy way to do this?

This can be done, although it is a bit of a work around.

Select the hexagon object and add the Boolean Modifier to this object (as apposed to the object that cuts it in to a point), and as the modifier Object select the cutting object.

Add the hexagon object to a collection (this is optional but makes things slightly easier. Also in the future this is how you might be doing this step)

Select the hexagon object and go into Edit Mode. Press P to Separate > By Loose Parts. Now all the hexagons are separate objects, but they all have the Boolean Modifier.

Now you want to apply all the modifiers, but it would be cumbersome to do them individually. Luckily there is a trick. Select all the separate hexagon objects (possibly by right clicking the collection and choosing Select Objects) and then press Alt + C to covert them to different type of object and choose Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text. The hexagons are already a mesh but this operation will apply all the modifiers.

Finally select all the separate hexagon objects (make sure one is selected to be the active object) and press Ctrl + J to Join them into a single object again.

Because the boolean operation was done on each hex individually the chance of missing faces in significantly reduced (i think you'll find none, and I'll be surprised if you'll find any) and fusing together should be impossible.


Changing scale without changing dimensions I am facing some troubles with the size of an end cap of the Array Modifier. I want to change solely the size of the cap to make it longer. It appears that I can influence the size of the end cap solely by scaling the object on which the Array Modifier acts. However, I don't want to change the size of that object anymore, thus my question: How can I solely change the scale of an object without changing its size or dimensions.
On the internet I just found the question for the other way around by applying the scale.

You can simply scale the origin of the object.

Check Tool > Transforms > Only Origins
Scale your object (it won't visually change dimensions)
Done.


How can I achieve a crumpling effect? I want to make an object - a fork in a vertical position - fall and hit a flat surface, and when it hits the surface I want it to fold in on itself as if it was made of a very very soft metal...but hold its shape as pictured in this sketch I made .

I've tried soft body, but it collapses to absolutely nothing, as in the end result has no form and no volume. Any advice would be appreciated since working it out by trial and error takes a lot of baking time!

Here's how you might do it using shape keys.

First model the fork as you would normally, but include plenty of edge loops around the handle and prongs (tines?). Save this as your base shape, create a new shape key, then enter Edit mode and deform the object manually by selecting and dragging nodes. Make sure the undeformed parts of the object are moved down by a suitable distance so that the deformation looks believable.

You can then animate between the base shape and the deformed shape key by animating the shape key's value parameter:


How can i set a specific length for an edge? I want to build a room with specific length. For example 40cm. So, i want to put a specific value somewhere. Answer only for Blender 2.8/ 2.81 pls. BTW sorry for my bad english

Just to illustrate Ray's comment.

Enable ✓ the Mesh Tools addon.
Preferences > Addons > Edit Mesh Tools

Switch to Edit mode, to see the Mesh Tools addon.
It's under Sidebar > Edit > Mesh Tools


Problem using Bevel and Subdivision Workflow I am trying to model a simple piece of a sniper scope. For that I am using a Bevel and Subdivision modifier to get clean and crisp edges when raising the model's resolution.
this is what the topology looks like without any modifier active:

As you can see it is based on a simple cylinder, nothing fancy. Next you can see the beveled topology. I want each beveled edge to stay sharp when subdividing.

However when I add the subdivision modifier on top I get a weird pinching effect in the areas I marked red. see the image:

I have to admit this is a problem that comes around pretty often but I never figured out how to fix it yet. I already tried adding some support loops, but it is important to me to keep the perfect circular shape of the scope part.
If you are reading this and know what to do in this case I would be more than happy if you could give some advice. Please find the blend file attached.
blend file
blend file from pasteall.org

You probably need more topology, like this (use a Shrinkwrap to make it stick to a cylinder shape):

The pinching is almost not noticeable:

If you want a better result I guess you need to add more topology:


How to get more points on a mesh (edit mode)? I am trying to stretch the sides of an circle to get a very specific shape. I know about the control+r methode but I just don't feel like to spam that over and over again, there must be another way.

In the comments I made, I probably misinterpreted the question. I never actually considered that you may be trying to use CtrlR on just the rim of the circle, and I thought you were trying to get more points on the surface of a filled circle.

The easiest way the get more vertices on the rim of a circle, is specifying the number of vertices when you add it. This is done in the Toolshelf right after adding the circle. If you do not see the toolshelf, make it visible by pressing T.

To add more vertices to an already created circle (or any object), you can subdivide it. In Edit mode there's a Subdivide button in the Toolshelf.

You may want to increase the Smoothness parameter. It's set to 0.000 by default, and this will make straight cuts. Setting it to 1.000 will make smoother cuts.


Marvelous designer alembic export and textures I have a problem with marvelous designer and alembic export. I just "baked" my cloth animation in Marvelous Designer 10 and exported it as an alembic (ogawa). When I import my alembic file in blender, it fits my avatar but I don't see any textures. I tried to find some tutorials on the internet but it seems that everyone using alembic export from MD to blender don't want the textures. The thing is that I need them. I tried exporting as an obj with a mdd cache with the same project but I don't like the look because there's some weird spots and also it doesn't fit my avatar for an unknown reason. But, the textures are there. So, there's the questions:

Can I transfer the cache from the alembic file to the obj file to make it fit my avatar?
Is there a way to texture the alembic file like the obj file to have textures on my alembic?

Thank you.

Yes, you can do that, I tested it today. The important trick is to make sure that you import the OBJ with the option to "preserve vertex order" under geometry drop down on the right side in 2.92 - the default in Blender import is a split. You can then assign then either an MDD cache, a PC2 cache (both exportable from MD) via the mesh cache modifier. Or you can assign an Alembic cache (the .abc file) via the Mesh Sequence modifier (instead of importing the Alembic - which creates the basic untextured mesh for you I assume).
In all circumstances you have to change some of the axis information depending on how you exported from MD (e.g. in mesh cache, Y-up and Z-forward, and mirror X... worked for me). With the Alembic you might have to rotate the object as such instead as the modifier does not support axis changes.
Note that in PC2 it might also be that you have to change the FPS impact on the timeline as well in the modifier.
And make sure you export from MD in scale for meters - else your mesh is not the right size (but you can scale I guess).
What does not work for me for some reason is FBX from MD back into Blender with animation. Not sure why this is messed up.


How can I get what I edited when I run the game engine? I just want to know how do I get what I see when editing like in the picture below.

This is what I see in Edit Mode:

But some objects don't appear when I render it with the game engine:

What am I doing wrong?

It seems that you do not have your material display setup correctly. At the bottom of you Blender window,just above the Time Line, you will see a Box the reads, "Object Mode". Next to this box will be a white ball. Left click this white ball and select Texture. Now when you press P to view your animation you should be able to see everything. You may also press the N key to bring out your right panel. There is a section there labeled Shading. Click on Shading and put a check next to "Textured Solid". Then click the box just above this and select from the list GLSL. This should work for you! Everyone that uses Blender goes through these gates which is needed if you will progress farther into the use of this Great Free Software. Persistence is the key to becoming great at using Blender. So do not give up! Just move forward! :O)


Why does my "cube" not unwrap into a T Originally, I had my layout like this in Blender:

The gaps are placed there by hand so that bleeding in photoshop wasn't so hard to sort out.
I then made some changes and wanted to get back to the T shape, but when i do the following cuts:

I get this:

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

You've ripped an edge, select all in Edit mode, AltM to merge by distance, then unwrap again.


Weird blown out colours in renders eevee I have a weird problem with blown out colors when I render with atmosphere and bloom.
It's weird because I'm rendering a video with 300 frames, and the glitch shows up at about 30 random frames.
I can solve it by manually re-rendering all 30 glitched frames, but that is very inconvenient and it should be much easier.
this is how the glitch look like, The red blown out dot shouldn't be there.

This is how the frame should be

Here can you see a couple of glitch frames

I have this problem on multiple projects
Can somebody help me how I can fix this problem?

I've had this issue as well, and it seems like it's an issue with using bloom and volumetrics at the same time.
Try clamping the bloom with a value of 20, see if that fixes it. (of course, you'll only know when rendering large batches of frames again)


God help a total nob with bevel Crazy ass nobs. I get the ideal to buy a 3d printer knowing nothing about them. After a lot of searching/reading I get the thing going and feeling a little respectable until I take on this project for my girls. It's a butterfly and as you can see it's a little on the complicated side. But still, I figure out how to get it into Blender and manage to get it exported to Simplify3d and printed. The girls love it. Feeling a little smug I make the fatal mistake of suggesting that the edges would look better rounded off. Always quit when you're ahead.

So this is what I started with.

After a lot of hair pulling I figure out how to get the top edge selected. You'd a been laughing your butt of if you'd a seen me right clicking on one edge at a time until I learned the easy way. Anyways things were looking good until I laid the bevel on it.

Closeup of antennas.

As you can see on all the narrow areas the bevel overlaps on itself. After more searching/reading/hair pulling I discover something called "Clamp Overlap"

I didn't think it was working at first as it looks pretty much like what I started with until I zoom in. It seems to be working correctly, The antenna are so small Clamp Overlap is restricting it to a tiny size.

So I do more searching/reading/hair pulling and this time come up totally null which is why I came here lol. Does anyone know of a way to round off the corners? Like is there a mod or a secondary step I can use to get rid of the overlap without reducing the size? I've played with the modifiers in the "Object Mode"  with no success but it is an option if anyone knows a trick. Even though it does the bottom also I can make it thicker to start with and then slice it in half. And if in the end the antenna and the wing tips aren't as thick as the rest it would probably be ok.

And exporting to another program would be an option. Only thing is it would probably have to be in .stl format as .obj gets it standing strait up in Simplify instead of laying flat for some reason.

Any help would be most appreciated. The wife is riding me a little about it now. :(

Edited to upload file, 2.7, already has edges selected as in picture above.

Bevel will not work correctly on geometry with vertices too close to each other. Either it will overlap awfully if beveling without clamping or as you discovered there won't be any overlaps with Clamp Overlap but bevel effect will be almost invisible.

There are ways to work this around - either retopo the mesh using any of existing ways so far (manually or using any created solutions be it addons or other programs) or build bevel using curves possibilities.

To go with curves first selected vertices of the butterfly profile were duplicated and separated into another object (P > By Selection). Then that object was converted to curve via Alt+C in Object mode. Curve was cleaned in Edit mode afterwards - type of splines was set to Bezier, handles - to Auto so that shape is smoothed by default as much as possible.

Next step was to extrude and bevel the curve object. Easiest way is to set curve type to 2D in curve object settings, Fill option to Both and Extrude to something other than 0, depending on desired depth.

However if beveling intersections appear in the corners where curve handles are too near to each other due to details.

One way to compensate that is to decrease Offset value to the same amount as Bevel was set to, but negative. In this case Bevel was set 0.5 and the Offset to -0.5.

Some extra curve handles in the corners were removed and others were adjusted to get rid of remaining overlaps.


Outliner - show only hidden Little things in Blender that could drive someone crazy. I have a lot of objects in the scene, some of them marked as restricted visibility. Before the render I want to "unhide" them all - not to search them one by one...
Is it possible? It should be much more intuitive this kind of most obvious things...

Press A until everything is selected. If you have anything selected before pressing A you will have to press it twice, otherwise only once. (This will select the hidden objects as well so don't worry about them for now.)
Edit: As Mr. Zak pointed out in the comments section, it is unnecessary to select everything.

Press Alt-H to unhide everything.

You can also navigate to the Object menu at the bottom of the View3D window, select Show / Hide and select Show Hidden. This may be helpful if, like OP, you have issues with the Alt key combination. Practically everything in Blender has a button somewhere.


Baking Normals produces grid mesh on result I have searched around and cannot seem to find any relative info on this issue. Only one forum post that claimed you need to subdivide the low poly mesh more in order to get rid of the mesh grid baked. However this does not work as it just makes the mesh grid higher resolution and appears on the low poly model when applied.

I have a high poly mesh I have sculpted in Blender that I am baking on to a low poly version of it. I cannot subdivide above 6/7 without crashing my pc as the high poly mesh is already really high. This is not a practical solution.

I even retopped the high poly mesh to see if my low poly was simply too different. didn't make a difference.

As you can see in the image. Which is the result of a bake onto a low poly mesh with a 3x subdivide modifier on it. It should be mostly flat but it has all these waves, which correspond to the faces on the mesh. My ray distance is set to 1. The high mesh is directly on top of the low mesh as required. I have adjusted the ray distance a lot and never makes a difference to the mesh imprint.

Thank you in advance for any help with this! Driving me nuts. I've been using Maya and Mudbox along with Substance Painter during university but want to have a blender/substance workflow for myself since I prefer Blender and also Maya are greedy with their licenses.

You definitely shouldn't need subdivisions to get non grid bakes. Subdivisions can help with extreme gradients, though.

My guess is that you have the low polygons normals incorrectly prepped for the bake. When you bake details from high poly to low the low poly models normals affect how the rays are cast.
Make sure that your lowpoly mesh object is set to "smooth" from the:
3D View-T panel-Tools-Edit-Shading-Smooth
before exporting. In my tests if you set your low poly to Smooth the bakes come out without the lowpoly edges showing up in the texture. If you set it to Flat the bake comes out with the lines.

Sometimes you will need to control smoothness/Sharpness at the low poly level, though. In this case first the the object to smooth shading. Then enable auto-smooth in:
Properties panel-Object Data-Normals
and set the value to 180. (Or whatever value you want to use as sharpness. At 180 whole model will be treated as smooth shaded, because 180° doesn't really ever exist in normal model.) Then you can in edit mode set the edges you want as "sharp" by selecting those edges, ctrl-E, mark sharp. This is useful with hardsurface/mechanical stuff. (However, note that the Normals-Autosmooth is very resource intensive when polycount rises so definitely disable it when working with subdivision surfaces.)

I hope the smooth shading before exporting lowpoly fixes your problem!


How to delete keyframes? I need help with deleting keyframes which are on armature. So I had one project file in which I had a walk cycle and then I duplicated this project to have a run cycle but it has the old keyframes... How do I delete them?

Many ways to do this: keyframes are stored into a so-called "Action".

If you turn a window into a dopesheet window you will see all your keyframes, that you can select and delete with the X key.

But if you turn the dopesheet editor into an action editor you can animate a new action without deleting the old one, simply don't forget to press the "f" sign near its name (f for Fake User): this operation ensure that your old action will not be deleted even if it's not the active (used) action. Then press the little x sign to close the current action and create a new one.

After you have animated the new action, you can select the action to perform with the action editor menu (or even combine them with the NLA editor).


Parent to bone (by only rotation), or snap head to origin of other object I'm creating a model with many separate moving parts.
As shown in the image my bone rotates the part according to the bones axis.

Is there any way to snap the bones head to the position of said parts origin, so it rotates on it's own axis?

If I understand your question, you want to build an armature (in edit mode) in which the bone's head is exactly in the object origin location. To do so, select the object, press Shift S (Cursor to selected), then select the armature, go to edit mode, select the head of the desired bone, press Shift S (Selection to cursor). THEN parent the object to the bone (Ctrl P - Bone).


Exponential replication of object I'm trying to figure out how I can create an array of objects where each instance has an increasing number instances of that starting object.
A simple example:

1 cube
2 cubes (to the right and stacked on top of eachother)
4 cubes (to the right of the 2 cubes and also stacked)
8 cubes
16 cubes
and so on...

This continues for x number of instances.

I tried the array modifier with very little luck and also the replicator in animation nodes.

Does anyone know how to achieve this? Help would be much appreciated.

Thanks to some help from Jaque Luke (see this post here Animation Nodes: How to unzip a list) I found a slightly different solution: I'm using the Object Instancer, which you can now feed in any Object you like, and first compose a list of target positioning vectors. Then I loop over the list length of those vectors and apply the locations to each Object Instance. A Blend file is here:

The starting point takes a few parameters, allowing you to choose what the distances should be, and also on which column to start. Also, you can pick the object from here:

Next, I'm generating the Columns, and also calculate how many rows each column will have:

I feed that into an extra Sub-Loop to generate the Vectors finally for each column:

This however generates a list of a bunch of vectors lists:

To decompose them, I've used the Expression node in this setup:

Now, all I needed to do was to get the length of this list and use it as a number of iterations for the loop. I loop over each list item (each item is a vector, i.e. the new location of the object), and set the vector accordingly:

and the result is:


Text objects look slightly differently in viewport and game engine I have text objects in my scene that I'd like to use in the HUD for a game. When they exist as text objects, I get a different result in a viewport and in game engine once I start playing the game.

I have two separate text objects here

In game engine they are shown bigger, and therefore overlap.

But once I press alt+C and convert them to mesh, they look perfectly the same in game engine as in viewport, just as I want:

But I want them to exist as text objects, because i want to modify them during the game using "obj.text".

So, why are they shown differently when they are the text objects and is there a way to fix that, besides moving them around and figuring the layout out via trial and error?

Version 2.73

Edit1: Just to clarify, my problem is not only about two text objects overlapping each other. If I want to create other interface elements using mesh, they will look exactly the same in game as in viewport. But if I have both mesh and text objects, the texts will bulk up, ruining my interface layout. That's why I'm trying to make text objects look exactly the same in game as in viewport.

I could, of course, just make the text smaller and just run the game several times and adjust the size of the text by trial and error. But that's a pretty tedious workaround ;)

Have you thought about displaying only a single text object, and when you replace the new text and or new number string in script use a concatenated string variable which contains the single string.

I don't know Java; but, the concept would be A$="Ammo", B$=numeric $tring (Ammo Count) and DisplayText$= "a$+" :"+B$.  Something like that?
Then you'd only have to deal with the Font size, vs game engine Font size, and your single Text Object would be variable DisplayText$ which would look like "Ammo :0"  (Of course replacing my simple variables with your own, etc.)

Like I said, I don't know Blender Script language, per se: so, don't know the string concatenator, could be the symbol "&" or semicolon ";" between the strings.


Missing Add Texture Paint Slot I'm learnig how to use Blender with Youtube tutorials and I'm stuck because I cant't find Add Texture Paint Slot option. I know where it suppose to be, but I don't have it.
I'm using Blender 2.76b and this is how it looks

Blender 2.77a

How to texture paint your mesh in Cycles Render

If you have a simple mesh you may want to skip this step, otherwise I suggest you to go to EDIT mode and select the part or connected parts which you want to paint separately. Press P, a menu will appear asking you which option to choose (Selection, By Material, By loose parts); select Selection. Now to select either the original mesh or the newly created object you have to go to OBJECT mode and then return to EDIT. From now on, each part of your mesh will be dealt with separately.
If your object is complicated, I suggest you to MARK THE SEAM otherwise leave it.
Split the screen in two parts and on the bottom left of one of the panels, click on the little cube, select UV/Image Editor.
In the other panel (3d view), select the object you want to paint first then switch to EDIT MODE. Remember that for each panel to be active, your mouse must be hovering it. Press U to unwrap. For a very simple object, Smart Unwrap (no marked seam necessary) is very convenient otherwise just choose Unwrap.
Return to the UV/Image Editor panel and at the bottom you will see the icon of an image with NEW next to it. Select NEW and choose a name for the object you are about to paint. Make sure to type a name you can easily associate with the object. Once done, you will see that your object has turned black just like the background color of your UV map. This is because the two are connected so don’t panic! You may also need to zoom out to adjust your view.
Now, on the right side of the 3d view, select Material then New and give it a name by double clicking on Material.001. At the far end of the Color section, there is a dark gray area. Click on it and select Image Texture, right under it a new menu will appear. If your click on the image icon, your newly created UV map should be there, otherwise choose open and select it manually.
Remember to save your work. We are now ready to paint, hover your mouse over the 3d panel and select TEXTURE PAINT. In the 3d view panel, your object is still black at this stage, press T to bring up the Paint tool bar. Select the color you want and start painting your object. You can adjust the radius and the strength of your brush from under the color palette viewed as a colored circle.
As soon as you start painting, you will notice that your UV map gets updated in real time. It is fundamental now to save your UV map as Image. This is the image that you will keep forever even for future references so place it somewhere easy to find and to connect with the original image. Later on, if you want to export your object, you will have to export its related images too.  The colored UV map will be saved as a PNG file.
Select Save as Image from the UV Editor and save your image as a png file. Every time you make changes to this object, an asterisk will appear on the menu next to Image to inform you that you need to save your work.
Back to painting your object, you will notice that the brush may not be as accurate for some little corners. In this case I suggest you to paint directly on the UV map. On the bottom menu of the UV editor, click View and select Paint. Now you can paint directly on the UV map and at the same time, you can see the result in the 3d view. It’s often good to switch between the two.

Once you are done, repeat the process for the other items connected to the object which we separated earlier.
When you are finished painting and you are satisfied with your work, you can join the parts together again so that you can move them around. Select the small objects first and the main mesh last by right clicking on it while holding SHIFT down. When all the objects are active, press CTRL + J to join them. However, if something goes wrong you can again split the parts with the Separate option as explained earlier.
Texture painted objects are often very dark when rendered. In this case, once you have arranged the lighting appropriately, there is another tweak that you can use to balance the light.
Go to the right hand bar in 3d view and select the world; it’s the icon with Planet Earth. Select Ambient Occlusion and adjust the factor. You can see the changes in real time if you select the Viewport Shading to Rendered.

If you want to see more pictures of this tutorial:
https://everythingisamiracleblog.wordpress.com/

There is other stuff as well so browse down if you can't see it immediately

Have fun!


How to create a raw white rice material? I'm looking for a very realistic material for rice. I've tried just turning up the subsurf, transmission with various IOR settings, messed around with mixing translucent shaders, tried using layer weights, transparent shaders and whatnot but it just looks too rubbery.
Q: How would one create a raw white rice shader for cycles?

To make this realistic you'll have to mix a couple of different methods.  A key concept is that rice is a bunch of little individual grains and no two grains are exactly alike, even in terms of physical properties.
I started with this as a model for a grain of rice.  It's an icosphere because I like to live dangerously.

I looked up the length of a grain of rice and scaled it down to around that size.  I've measured the length here because we're going to use it as a reference for some scale values.
Shade smooth, subdiv 3.  It's on a plane with a simple light blue texture, I turned the default point light into an area lamp with a strength of 1000w and scaled it up a bit to soften it.
I picked a slightly yellow base color, and a roughness value of .415.

Then I introduced some Subsurface Scattering.  For the overall value I went with .0025 (half the model's length), and for radius I went heavily into red, a lot into green, and cut the blue out completely, in an attempt to bring out some orange.  The reference I was using was a bit on the orange side, tweak to your preference.  I think this worked -

but it's not really doing it for me because I don't think I'm capturing that slightly see-through quality of rice.  So I decided to just start transmitting a large portion of the rays.  I did a number of tests, my suspicion was that a Transmission Roughness of 1 would be necessary to avoid strange lighting and that turns out to be the case.

I think that .25 transmission is not an unreasonable look for a single grain of rice (rouse?).  .35 is maybe getting a little rough looking but not outside the realm of possibility, where something like .1 is not that noticeable.  So we've built kind of a default grain, and we can vary some of these values around their current levels to create variants.
To do this procedurally, we can introduce some microdisplacement, so we need to go to the material settings for the rice and enable Displacement and Bump under Settings.

And then we can run a Noise Texture into a Displacement node at a Scale comparable to part of the length of the model.  I actually disabled the subdivision surface modifier for this, as I started thinking it was a bit too smooth.  I scale the texture on the X axis here with a Mapping node, but basically I elongated the bumps along the length of the grain.  Pick whatever axis is relevant for you.

And we've displaced the model just a bit.  We can now do some math to randomize this displacement for every grain we generate.  We can use several methods.  If you are going to do this with Objects, Object Info > Random is your friend, if you are using particles there's a Particle Info node, and arrays can be randomized using Geometry > Random per island.  I've set up a particle system here.

I just multiply the random value by some amount (don't go crazy) and throw it straight into the Location on the Mapping node.  Sometimes you want to limit this to one or two axes, and you can do that with a Combine XYZ node.
We can use this Random value along with Color Ramps to further randomize the Base Color, Roughness, and the amount of Transmission.  I used the values I already landed on as a guide for a new minimum and maximum value for the Color Ramps.

I cranked up the samples and did a render.

It's close, I went back and made the model a little skinnier, adjusted some of the values, and of course this was quite a close-up for rice.  Here's a render after some time with it.


How to prevent Subdivision Surface from changing the size of a loop I modelled this hole but when I turn SS on, it becomes too small. Adding geometry around it isnt an option, since I want everything to be as smooth as possible. Scaling it up doesnt work, because this destroys the "normal" geometry.

You can rotate the hole 45° or create an hexagon: the diamond shape generate a smaller hole than the square/hexagon ones.


Make Objects Appear and Disappear Blender 2.9 I would like one of my objects to appear suddenly on frame 156. How would I do that in the latest version? I tried to press the eye to animate that but it said I couldn't animate it.

You can mix the material of your object with a Transparent Shader, using a Value Node sent through a Greater Than (Math) Node with the threshold set to 156 (your desired frame) as a Mix Factor. You can then give the Value Node the value of #frame (just click the field and type it in), which will make it provide the value of whatever frame you are at. Your object will be transparent up until frame 156, at which point it will become visible.


How do I select a vertex in edit mode I've imported an stl into blender, and I'm trying to create morph targets. For some reason, when I go into edit mode, I can't select the vertex. When I click the window it just moves the crosshair with a circle thing aroud, but does not actually select a vertex. What am I doing wrong ?

You're left-clicking.  Blender uses Right-Click to select. if you don't like this, you can change it in your user preferences (Ctrl+Alt+U), though there are some advantages to just getting used to it so you can follow what everyone else is doing with Blender.


Use a texture as an influence map without showing any diffuse color I'm trying to use material for color and texture for the appearance (smooth,rough...)

But it assigns me the color of the texture too.
I'm trying to make the gem in here: http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/70566
Thank you!

You need to disable the Diffuse Color check box under Influence in the texture panel (or set it to 0). This prevents the texture from showing any color when rendered.

Both objects below use the same texture and have the same material colour, the second one also has Normal checked as an example of using the texture as a bump map.


How to model Harry Potter's Firebolt? I'm trying to recreate a broom from Harry Potter, the firebolt specifically, and got as far as the general shape. My question now is how would I go about making the white growth on the handle?

It looks like the sculpting tools would be the best bet, but before I dig into that I was wondering if there was a better route.

If someone can point me to another post or get me going in the right direction I'd appreciate it! Thanks!

Use Ctrl+R to loop cut. This is useful for making new edges/verts around an object. Do this and select the part of the handle, then press S to scale everything up so it matches. All in Edit Mode of course.

Additional tip:
For the tip of the broom, you can either make "hair" strands (Look up hair/grass/fur tutorials), or you can extrude the broom staff all the way back, scale it up a bit, and add transparent textures with the strands. The last one is most useful if you're going to use this in a game though.

You can also subdivide your object and enter sculpt mode to make the patterns on the broom handle.


How can I change the 3D View's background color to something different for each mode? I am wondering if there is a way that I can change the background color and possibly the color of other elements slightly, for each mode (Object, Edit, Sculpt, Vertex, Weight, Texture) so that it is easier to tell visually which mode I am in aside from the mode selector as an indicator.

Could it be done with some python scripting? Is there an add-on out there that would do it?

Example: Object Mode = slight blue background, Edit Mode = slight green background, etc.

Set World Background on and run this script via Blender text editor.

import bpy

Modes = {'OBJECT':(1, 0, 0),
        'EDIT':(0, 1, 0),
        'SCULPT':(0, 0, 1),
        'VERTEX_PAINT':(1, 1, 0),
        'WEIGHT_PAINT':(1, 0, 1),
        'TEXTURE_PAINT':(0, 1, 1)}

def my_handler(scene):
    mode = bpy.context.object.mode
    scene.world.horizon_color = Modes[mode]

def register():
    bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_post.append(my_handler)

def unregister():
    bpy.app.handlers.scene_update_post.remove(my_handler)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Error: modifier cannot be applied on multi-user data I couldn't apply a Boolean Modifier to duplicate linked object and object array. I got this message in both case:

  modifier cannot be applied on multi-user data

Why couldn't I apply the Boolean Modifier, and what do I have to do so that I can apply modifiers in scenarios like this?

If you have a linked object from another scene, you won't be able to apply any modifiers to it. You will have to unlink it by clicking the unlink button in the object properties panel and possibly also in the data properties panel.

If you have two objects, which reference to the same data, you will have to make them a single user.
This is done by either clicking the users icon in the data context. This will make the data single user. Both objects will now be individual copies.

You can also press U in the 3D viewport, then select Object & Data.

Method of linking the objects back together

With the unedited object selected, set the mesh datablock in the Object Data section of the Properties Panel to the edit mesh.
Select the unedited objects, then select the edited object. Press Ctrl + L and select Object Data to link the objects to the same datablock.

Apply Modifier to Multi User Python Script

I have added a script to do exactly what the question describes: Apply All Modifiers to Multi-User Datablock.

Just paste this in the text editor, when you want to apply all modifiers to a mesh, hit the run script button of the text editor.

You can resize the text editor until only the RUN SCRIPT button is visible to save space. If you want to add this functionality to Blender, check out how to add a python addon.

import bpy

def applyModifierToMultiUser(scene):
    active = scene.objects.active
    if (active == None):
        print("Select an object")
        return
    if (active.type != "MESH"):
        print("Select an mesh object")
        return
    mesh = active.to_mesh(scene, True, 'PREVIEW')
    linked = []
    selected = []
    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
        if obj.data == active.data:
                linked.append(obj)
    for obj in bpy.context.selected_editable_objects:
        selected.append(obj)
        obj.select = False

    for obj in linked:
        obj.select = True
        obj.modifiers.clear()
    active.data = mesh
    bpy.ops.object.make_links_data(type='OBDATA')

    for obj in linked:
        obj.select = False
    for obj in selected:
        obj.select = True
scn = bpy.context.scene
applyModifierToMultiUser(scn)


How to model an equilateral triangular pyramid? How to create triangular pyramid with equal length of edges?

Note - I'm not looking for a way to create one with a single click, but I want to be able to model one from scratch.

Add a cone: 3D View header > Add > Cone

Change Vertices to 3

For Depth enter sqrt(2) and hit return


How to access depth (z) buffer data of a render result from python My issue is that I want to access the buffer data from python, pixel after pixel, for being able to use it for arbitrary computations. How can I achieve this?

(Please dont tell me about exporting to different kinds of formats like exr etc, because I want to do computations  in place).

Also I'm talking about blender 2.68 or higher.

Image.pixel is not available for Render Results, nor does it contain depth-information.

You can get the depth in Node Compositor / Cycles, but I don't believe it's possible to read with python in-place.


How to select all objects of a certain viewport draw type in blender 2.8? Due to having bool tool a lot in my recent work, it the cutting objects' draw type to box. I now need them in wireframe mode but due to the mixture of objects with several draw types in my scene, it would be difficult to set the draw types of the objects individually hence the importance of this function.

Quick little script

The following script changes all objects in the context scene  displayed as bounds to wire.

import bpy
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
bounds = [o for o in scene.objects if o.display_type == 'BOUNDS']

for o in bounds:
    o.display_type = 'WIRE'

It is often more useful to use the selection, replace scene.objects with context.selected_objects to only change only those in selection that match the criteria.


Remove "Preferences:" label from AddonPreferences, no bl_label to " "? I see no "bl_label" in "AddonPreferences" in the Blender API. One of the buttons in my AddonPreferences is "Preferences" and it would be nice to remove the default "Preferences" bl_label. Please, tell me there is a simple, python way, to remove this, that I can add to my addon scripting.
I've tried adding:
bl_label = ""

To no avail, it still shows as seen below.

It's hardcoded in user prefs UI.
Agree it is a wasted line of space and have also looked into removing it.
Unfortunately the label is hardcoded in the user preferences space UI  and used in the USERPREF_PT_addons panel which displays the addons in the user preferences.
Snippet from scripts/startup/bl_ui/space_userprefs.py
# Show addon user preferences
if is_enabled:
    addon_preferences = prefs.addons[module_name].preferences
    if addon_preferences is not None:
        draw = getattr(addon_preferences, "draw", None)
        if draw is not None:
            addon_preferences_class = type(addon_preferences)
            box_prefs = col_box.box()
            box_prefs.label(text="Preferences:")  ## <<------ HERE
            addon_preferences_class.layout = box_prefs
            try:
                draw(context)
            except:
                import traceback
                traceback.print_exc()
                box_prefs.label(text="Error (see console)", icon='ERROR')
            del addon_preferences_class.layout

which shows how the label is added to the UI layout box to draw into, using the draw method of your addon preferences class.
Options,
can edit it out in code above, and save over the original. Wouldn't recommend changing the UI code this way.  Although in this case searching  for box_prefs.label(text="Preferences:") in script to insert a hash comment character could be offered up to the user, who like us would like it gone.
Override with changes.

Make a class based on this one, with desired edits,  and override by unregistering old, registering new, to override the old.
Silly example, image above. Re-write the draw method and reregister new class using it.
import bpy
from bl_ui.space_userpref import USERPREF_PT_addons

# unregister
if USERPREF_PT_addons.is_registered:
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(USERPREF_PT_addons)

def draw(self, context):
    self.layout.label(text="My New Addons Draw")

cls = type(
        "MyNewAddonsPrefs",
        (USERPREF_PT_addons, bpy.types.Panel),
        {
            "bl_idname" :  "USERPREF_PT_addons",
            "draw" :  draw,
            },
        )

bpy.utils.register_class(cls)

Related
How to re-register a built-in operator?
Note.
One very handy little "trick" shown in snippet above is how the layout of the userprefs is "monkey patched" onto your addon prefs class, so within your addon prefs draw self.layout is the UI layout box.


Texture painting logo looks pixelated! I have tried to stencil painted the logo on the base color which is just a 2K color image. Then I stencil painted something on top. But no matter what size the image is, it still looks pixelated. Can someone help?

Two things that can effect this: Either increase the image resolution upto about 5K or 6K or either try painting directly on to the mesh instaed of painting it in the image editor.


Make particles emit exponentially quickly I am trying to make an animation where particles seem like they are multiplying, and the easiest way I could think of was to have the emitter emit particles at an increasing rate, rather than linearly which is what it does by default. I'm not sure this is possible, but if it is someone please tell me.

Another way I could think of to do this was to have the first generation of particles emit the second generation of particles, which would then emit the third generation, but I couldn't find a documentation of this that would work for me. I tried this How can particles be emitted from particles? but that didn't really work.

i would solve it by setting a keyframe in the ammount of particles and one at the end of the animation.
Then in the Graph Editor you can change the curve to match your need or use a preset by pressing T and then select if you need exponential, quadratic, etc...


When would I want to use a factor vs color output? Suppose I have a noise texture and I want to take the output as the input to a color ramp.
I've seen tutorials where the factor is inserted into the color ramp's factor input, and I've seen tutorials where the color of the noise texture is used instead.
Why would I want to use one over the other? What are the use cases?

On the Noise texture node, Factor is a number from 0 to 1, whereas Color is a three number set, all of which range from 0 to 1. If you input Color into a Factor socket like the one on the Color Ramp node, it will average the three color channel numbers and turn it into greyscale. If you wanted to get three semi-related random values together, you could use the Color output and split it with the Separate RGB converter node. Or if you wanted semi-random “fluffy” color, of course, you could use it without splitting. For one Color Ramp node, however, I would just use Factor.


Why is my entire render white? I attempted to render my first short movie in Blender (2.68) today, just a 3D structure of a molecule rotating. I imported it using Atomic Blender converted it to a solid object and then rotated the camera around it. When I play the animation in 3D view, it looks fine, but when I render it as an .avi movie, all I see is the background, the molecule is invisible.  It seems that the molecule is just white on white, so I need to add textures to the molecule.

Is there a way to make it look like it does in 3D view without having to add the textures to every atom manually?

I uploaded the file here: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=21234281675843448966

Based on the file that you uploaded and your question (which I have now edited accordingly), you are actually asking about material settings.

The model does have materials. The problem was that the World color, specifically the Ambient color was set to full white and was overriding everything and making the entire scene look as such.

Here is your render with your current settings.

Here is the same render with the Ambient color set to full white and the others changed to show the contrast.

Here is your render with only the world settings changed (to the default settings) and a hemi lamp instead of the point lamp that you had to make it a bit brighter.


Why does my RigidBody jump weirdly in the begining of the animation? As soon as the animation starts the top of the box weirdly jumps or wiggles, depending on wheter Mesh or Convex is selected. Here is the download of my project

You've chosen Shape > Convex, it makes the lid collides with the box, so instead choose Mesh which will respect the mesh shape. Also choose the minimum Sensitivity > Margin:


How do I adjust limbs.simple_tentacle to finger? My question derives from the given link here..

PitchiPoy Rigify missing finger controls

I am trying to change from "simple tentacle" to "finger" have no "rigify type" option available, and just writing finger into the "rigify_type" down on the right doesnt change it..

thats what I would like to have.. -->

How do I do this?
Thanks for the help :)

Change limbs.simple_tentacle to limbs.simple_fingers


Export a Blender 2.8 scene to the Vive How can I most easily export a Blender 2.8 scene to a Vive VR device? (I'm not talking about using Blender while wearing a headset; I mean just exporting a scene to be handed-off to a different PC with a headset.)

There exists a work in progress plugin thats claims to be able to view blend files in VR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qAC8FTrU5s

The HTC Vive Virtual Reality Headset is basically a Display. It has no software to show things by itself. So equally to your computer screen it can't open Files.

First option would bee to find some software that is able to display 3D objects on your VR-Headset. You can import .obj/.mtl files to tiltrbush with some fiddling - maybe something more general exists. And after that you need to figure out the details how to export to that specific software.

Option two would be to create software that can render to your VR-Headset. That is easiest done with a Game engine like godotengine (open source), Unity3d or Unreal (proprietary with free entry level licenses).
I Would personally recommend Unity3d as it is beginner friendly and has nice Blender integration.
Making things look god in a game engine is some one topic of study though.


Why can I not keyframe this armature? I created poses for opened and closed book. But when I'm going to create a keyframe with (I - whole character) this error occurs:

If you look down at your time line you will see that the active keying set is "Button Keying..."

That is a custom keying set, you can see what is included in it in the scene tab of the properties window.

You can do one of two things.

Add the location and rotation to your custom keying set.
Click on the X next to the keying set's name to clear the active keying set. (it will still be there, just not used) Then the familiar keyframe menu will pop up when you press I.


Apply pose as rest position keeping previous frame Using Blender 2.9.
I have an animated armature with only two frames. The armature at first frame matches the rest position, while the second has two bones rotated. Now, I'm trying to achieve a possibly unsupported operation.
I want to set second's frame pose as rest position, without causing the same effects on the first frame as well (ultimately, to prevent loosing that position). I understand this isn't a straightforward goal because poses are "forward"-relative to the first (you may correct me if I'm wrong). In fact, when I try to do it, Blender throws the exception "Actions on armature will be destroyed by new rest pose", and replicates the rested pose to the first frame as well.
Is there a way to achieve this, even if it involves reversing the animation so that the original second frame becomes the absolute source of the transforms for further animation frames? If there is a compatible addon with latest version which exactly allows to do this, that'd be fine.
Note when I apply that pose as rest position, I can't restore the old first frame's position anymore, even when I copy-paste pose from another Blender instance with the file without these temporary changes.

(The model is about hands for a viewmodel)
Thanks.

Finally this addon (with pose mode features) along the usage of a helper bone exactly helped me to solve my broader kind of problem. My original question only involved a harder way.


Render Image without background I tracked a scene, and then successfully set up a tracking scene. I then added my mesh to the scene, but now when I render the sequence I still get the Video I tracked as the Background.
Generally, to render an image without the background you need to, in the "Scene" tab unselect the "transparency" option in the Film section, and select RGBA image as the output of the render.
This didn't work for me for some reason, so in the Camera Settings I removed all Background images, which in my case were only the video clip. In my outliner window there was an "object" (not really an object, just dont know what you call individual thins in the outliner window) called background, which I first deselected for the render, and then after seeing no change deleted completely.
I tried restarting Blender to see if that would change anything, but nothing happened.
When I render an image in the rendered window I can see the optioin to view the fore and background, which I can view separately, but when animationg a sequence Blender automatically merges them and saves them as one image. I thought of disabling this, but I don't know how to do that.
Does anyone know what to do?
Thanks

After some trial and error in the Compositing tab I figured out thatdisconnecting the movie clip from the render layer removed that clip, obviously, but the background then turned white, after which I connected both the Composite and Viewer Alpha channels to the Render Layer, after which the background dissapeared, just like I wanted.

So after rendering with the above node setup my result was just a white mesh without textures or any surface an a transparent background because the render window was somehow overlaying the fore and background. I then tried some other Node conection variations, until I ended up with this one:

This one got me the result I wanted, the mesh, alone and with a transparent background. I don't know what exactly happened, but this seems to do the job for me.


How can the Glass Shader be imitated using only other shaders? Exactly what does the Glass shader do?  I would guess that it combines the effects of Glossy (zero roughness) for reflections, and Refraction for, obviously, light refracting through the object.  Glass could just be a handy combination of Add, Glossy and Refraction nodes.

Making and looking at test objects using all types of shaders, comparing, it appears that this isn't quite right.  I can't quite explain how it's not looking the same, just that (unless I'm doing something stupid) there's an irresolvable difference.

In order to understand exactly how Glass works, and learn in more depth what all the shaders do, is there a way to arrange non-Glass shaders and other nodes to imitate exactly the Glass shader?

(Of course, I could peek at the source code, but other Blender users may be wondering too, and not be literate in C++.)

What is missing is the Fresnel effect of the surface reflecting more light at higher angles of incidence.
You can use a fresnel node (Add node > Input > Fresnel) as the factor for a Mix node mixing the Refraction and Glossy shader to get this effect.

Mixed with only an Add Shader node:

Some examples with the above materials:


How to make a curve path from scratch given a list of (x, y, z) points? I want to move a soft body object in my scene on a path (curve path). For the path, I want to make it myself from scratch. I basically have a Python List containing (x, y, z) points and want to create a curve path from scratch given these points using a Python script. However, it looks like the way the vertices are stored for paths is different than meshes as I cannot find something like nurbsPathObj.data.vertices. So I wonder, how can I manually add new vertices to a path or remove some of them via Blender's Python API?

Maybe something like this?
See also: Create NURBS surface with Python

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

coords_list = [[0,1,2], [1,2,3], [-3,2,1], [0,0,-4]]

# make a new curve
crv = bpy.data.curves.new('crv', 'CURVE')
crv.dimensions = '3D'

# make a new spline in that curve
spline = crv.splines.new(type='NURBS')

# a spline point for each point
spline.points.add(len(coords_list)-1) # theres already one point by default

# assign the point coordinates to the spline points
for p, new_co in zip(spline.points, coords_list):
    p.co = (new_co + [1.0]) # (add nurbs weight)

# make a new object with the curve
obj = bpy.data.objects.new('object_name', crv)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(obj)

To add a point at the end it's simply:

spline = bpy.data.objects["object_name"].data.splines[0]
spline.points.add()
spline.points[-1].co = (1,1,5,1)

or to add more points at the end:

more_coords = [...list of more coords...]
spline.points.add(len(more_coords)
for p, new_co in zip(spline.points[-len(more_coords):]:
    p.co = new_co + [1] # if new_co is a list [x,y,z]

You can always get the coords of the points of the spline with

points_coords = [p.co for p in spline.points]

edit this list, i.g.

points_coords = points_coords[3:5] + [1.5,2,2.5,1] + points_coords[5:]

and then remove the spline or object and make a new one with the updated coordinates.


Texture color with vertex paints I have a black and white textured 3d model. Is there any way I can vertex paint the model and have the vertex paint serve as a way to "colorize" or change the color of the black and white images to what the vertex colors are?

Example: in gimp, you have a black and white image. You go to the top and pick colors > colorize > select a color. It changes the hue of the white while still keeping dark things dark.

With Blender Render engine selected and a regular old non-node-based material, go to the material properties and check Vertex Color Paint. This will make the diffuse color of the mesh equal to the diffuse color of the material times the diffuse intensity of the material times the diffuse texture of the material times the vertex color.

After you're done you can bake the vertex colors to a texture if you want and use the compositor to combine them for use in a game engine if that's your thing. Or, use a shader and engine that can use the vertex color if the texture is tilable.


Is there a way to use grid fill with the mirror modifier? I would like to use gridfill on a circle, but I would also use the mirror modifier to keep symmetry. Is there a way to use gridfill on an object with mirror modifier?

It is possible only with some preparation.

GridFill uses closed loop to work on and adjacent number of vertices. You can't use it if you have opened loop (ready to be mirrored). The Mirror modifier won't change anything as the geometry it creates doesn't exist unless the modifier is applied. So you are left with 2 general ways:

Applying modifier temporarily

Apply modifier, make necessary changes.
Remove half of the mesh. It is ready to be mirrored again.
Add modifier back.

Create geometry necessary for GridFill manually.

Select 2 vertices which are located on the mirror plane (those connected only to one edge).
Create an edge (with F).
Subdivide it. The number of subdivisions depends on number of the vertices of the rest of the mesh. In case of circle from 32 vertices, subdivide 7 times (so to create 7 additional vertices).
Select all and use Ctrl+F > GridFill (probably modifiy its settings a bit).

The half of the mesh will be filled with the quad topology reflected in the mirrored part.


Why are my drivers not updating instantly? So I have a bone driving the 'scale' property of another bone, along with the value of a shape key. If move the driver bone, it works fine, but right click to cancel, the scale of the driven bone doesn't update until a frame change or movement on the bone itself, but the shape key does. Here's what I'm talking about:

Notice how the teeth reset, but the mouth doesn't.

So I found out what it was. Odly enough, the driver bone has to be in a separate armature from the bone that you are driving. Annoyingly you can not use 'Whole Character' key framing properly anymore, but it works nonetheless.

Edit: Thanks to aliasguru, I found out to solve this you can:

1. Create a blender shortcut

2. Go to its properties

3. After the path in 'Target', paste in '--enable-new-depsgraph'

4. Click apply, and launch blender from there.

Done!

Edit by aliasguru: Why does this work?

The main question is: Why do 3D packages in general need something called 'Dependency Graph' at all (this is not Blender a specific thing, other apps like Maya, Alias, etc. have this as well!)? This can be re-phrased as 'how does a 3D app know what needs to be recalculated'? Each time you change something in your scene, some kind of update cycle needs to be triggered, forcing things to be updated.

Example: change the location of an object by setting the z-value. What sounds stupidly simple triggers a massive chain of possible updates: The object in question could:

have some dependency to a driver in the scene, forcing another property to update
have a constraint relationship to another object
be part of a group, and the instance needs to be updated too
could be a target for a modifier
could have a material node tree that reads the location
could be the parent of other objects
...

As you can see, there is a Ton (pun intended) of possible follow-up calculations that might need to happen. If Blender was forced to manually check EVERY possible effect, you'd propably need to go for a coffee on each screen refresh in a not even complex scene. Now, if there was a way to cleverly identify what needs to be updated, and what can be skipped, that would be awesome, right? Right? That awesomeness is called Dependency Graph.

The Depsgraph keeps track of the relations of properties in the scene to each other, and of their status. However, it does NOT run an update cycle on each property change! Instead, it runs in a scheduled or event-driven way, one could say 'from time to time'. Between these schedules, Blender does nothing else than tagging each property which needs updates, as well as tagging the depending propertiers as dirty as well. It does not change or recalculate values just yet. In Depsgraph terms, this is called mark as dirty.

When the scheduled update happens, it will only ever touch properties which have been marked as dirty, completely ignoring anything related. If an update by the scheduler triggers further updates, it will only mark the prop in question as dirty again (unless the coders decided to put hacks in the code, and there might be plenty) and update in the next cycle. And here is where the current problem of Blender starts, and Sergey came in.

When Blender received its first implementation of a Depsgraph, computer power was limited. I mean, really limited. So they had to make a compromise: They could not afford to trigger depsgraph updates on every nitty little property, they had to make the system less fine-granular. What they went for is a Depsgraph that does its work on an object level. What does this mean for your example case?

Your case

Your single armature contains bones, which trigger a Shapekey change as well as properties of other bones. So let's pull that handle like in your GIF. The rig scales the mesh up somehow first. I'm guessing there is a parent-child relationship somewhere, or an Armature modifier. Then the system detects that a shape key value has to be changed too. It marks the object containing the mesh as dirty. It checks if there are connections, and if they are found, marks them as dirty. Etc. Where's the catch?

So far, there were just things marked as dirty. Nothing has been recalculated just yet. The armature OBJECT has been marked as dirty, then the Mesh OBJECT containing the shape key. The mesh clearly is dependent on the Armature. But the armature might influence your mesh twice. First the parent/child (or Armature), secondly the shape key. It's not foreseeable any more which one should come into play first, scale or shape key. With the specific case you have (and I can only guess without having the rig in hand), The depsgraph needs to update the mesh object twice to calculate the final solution. Potentially first the result of scaling the bone on the mesh, and then - in a second cycle - the repositioning of vertices due to the shape key. On a Cancel event, only one update ever seems to run, leaving the Shape key in a dirty stage. It IS marked as dirty in the depsgraph, but it will only recalculate once the scheduler is run again. That's the case for instance if you change a frame, or if two armatures influence it (each one triggers one recalculation).

So why does the new depsgraph work?

Because the granularity has been reworked to a more fine level. In case of armatures, this means update scheduling per BONE, not per Armature as present. Note that this makes the depsgraph slower, but since Sergey is a goddamn genius, so far no one measured more than 20% slowdown.

See this link for further information: https://code.blender.org/2015/03/more-dependency-graph-tricks/ and this one: https://code.blender.org/2015/02/blender-dependency-graph-branch-for-users/

Final note: Blender 2.8 afaik will only have the new Depsgraph. The current one will be deprecated. Further info on 2.8 Depsgraph: https://code.blender.org/2016/12/dependency-graph-proposal/


Set fixed render time I have a question ragarding cycles. I want to render images with different settings (materials, sampling, etc.),
so I can compare differences afterwards.

So I would like to limit the render time to a fixed time for each render (f.ex, 10 minutes for each file) - but I cannot find where to set render time anywhere. Where can I set a limit to rendering time?

It is not possible to limit the render time exactly. You must experiment with the number of samples to get an equal render time.


How make light ignore trasparent mesh I trying to make mesh for hair  with transparency for BGE but the light is reflecting the entire model including the area that supposed to be invisible,the only way i find is unmark specular in the light, but i wish to find a better way because a want to use specular.

You need to drag the Specular Intensity in the Material tab all the way down to zero. And enable Intensity under the Specular in the Influence tab of the texture, as seen below.


2.7 hidden object problems to 2.8 in 2.7 my file the items were saved hidden 2.8 the same items are not unable to be unhidden. it is a lot of work and put in this and if you tell me how to fix and/or update to repair this problem would be nice

There is an option called "enable in the view-port" when you right-click a collection.
Try using that.


how to change the texture of the material from polished to natural chipped I have a picture of polished granite. I want to transform that material so that it looks like natural chipped as attached below. first of all is it possible if so how?
1) I tried creating a normal map of natural chipped but my reference image is very small so I cant use it on the larger surface without tiling
2) how do I transform the polished granite to look like a rough granite, I have no idea on how to approach this

You could do it procedurally:

Use 2 Noise nodes that you mix into a MixRGB (Overlay mode) node. Then you can add some glossiness or bumpiness, it all depends on the realism you want to give to your material...


Blender 2.8 UV Sculpt Brush not showing Well, I was triying to edit some UVs on the latest Blender 2.8 Beta build, and when I tried to use the traditional UV sculpt tool from Blender's uv editor, I couldn't,  the brush simply does not show up, so I can't use it.

So the question is: Am I missing something or is this a bug from the current build?

If I'm correct, this icons activate the UV sculpt brush functionality but currently they do nothing.

Also I already made sure to have the UV Sculpt option activated

If you create a blend file in 2.79 and then open it with 2.8 the UV sculpt works.


Blender transforming quads to tris So, I started creating a tank, and when I checked the rendered mode, I found that I have tris instead of quads.

No modifiers applied, no anything.

Anyone please help ?

tris:

edit mode (quads):

The problem is most likely caused by the fact your vertices don't align well on the plane of the quad. And the render engine doesn't magically create new data and uses the quad as is ( which is basically just 2 triangles anyways ). If you look at the lower vertex of the quad you can see it's pointing a bit inwards. If you were to divide a quad into 2 triangles you'd see an edge going trough the middle and that's exactly what happens here.

You might want to consider adding more faces to accommodate for slope or change your shape a bit to make the quads vertices more aligned. Or use smooth shading and the normals of the face are interpolated to bend between faces.

Technically @Ween 's answers should work as it aligns the vertices to be on the same plane preventing the triangle bend of the quad.


bpy.ops.render.render does not find camera I'm trying to run the following smallscript. The preview with 12 does render, but the last line of the script fails with this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "D:\Programme\Blender\2.78\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 189, in __call__
    ret = op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Error: Cannot render, no camera

But there is a camera

import bpy

def reset_scene():
    for item in bpy.data.objects:
        item.select = True

    bpy.ops.object.delete()

    for material in bpy.data.materials:
        if not material.users:
            bpy.data.materials.remove(material)

    for texture in bpy.data.textures:
        if not texture.users:
            bpy.data.textures.remove(texture)

reset_scene()

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(0,1,0))

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(location=(0,-0.05,0))

bpy.context.object.scale[1] = 0.1
bpy.context.object.scale[0] = 10
bpy.context.object.scale[2] = 10

bpy.ops.object.camera_add(location=(0, 4, 4), rotation=(-0.7853, 0, 0))
bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='SUN', location=(0, 5, 0))

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.filepath = 'c:\test.jpg'
bpy.ops.render.render( write_still=True )

When I set the camera explicitly with this script:

bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.data.objects['Camera']

it seems to work.

Why can't it find the camera automatically like when you press F12?

Simply set the scene.camera after you add the camera.

from bpy import context
scene = context.scene

...

bpy.ops.object.camera_add(location=(0, 4, 4),
                          rotation=(-0.7853, 0, 0))
scene.camera = context.object
...

Hitting F12 invokes the operator, which  when scene.camera is None , throws a message if no cam, or uses a camera from the scene and sets it to scene.camera.  Test by adding a few cameras, setting scene.camera to None, and pressing F12.

To invoke the operator from code,

bpy.ops.render.render('INVOKE_DEFAULT', write_still=True)

Note: bpy.data contains all the objects in the blend file. context.scene.objects contains all the objects in the context scene.  The context scene may not necessarily be bpy.data.scenes["Scene"]. render.render renders the context scene, unless another scene is specified.

A tip, set up a context variable, either context = bpy.context or from bpy import context at the beginning of your test code, then later cut and paste into, for instance, operator execute(self, context) methods. Setting vars like  scene = context.scene, obj = context.object, obj.scale = (0.1, 1, 10) makes code far more readable IMO rather than always addressing from bpy.


vertices that are not affected by subdivision surface modifier I'm a beginner and i'm trying to modelise a body. I start by the base very low poly but then when i applied the subdivision surface modifier it seems to doesn't apply to the vertices in the middle.

Try recalculating normals, or flipping the 'not working' ones


Compositor - Frameserver Input I use the VSE for editing a lot of screen recordings, and would like to take the output from these editing sessions and use them in the compositor. As far as I can tell, the only way to do so is to render everything out ahead of time and use a video input.

Is it possible to use one instance of Blender as a frame server and use that server in the compositor of another instance? Alternatively, is there any way to do this in one process, frame server or not?

Open a new instance of Blender.
Set the project render settings; render size, # of frames, output etc.
Switch to the compositor view.
In the compositor; select use nodes, then with your mouse over the Node editor window press "SHIFT + A" on the keyboard, and select Input -> Image. In the node that appears click Open, then navigate to the directory containing the image sequence you wish to process, and select the frames to use (images should be named as frame numbers i.e. 001.png 002.png etc)

I think this is what you are looking for.


Model a transparent body I created a human body shape in blender. I need to show veins or organes in that body but still be able to reconise that it's a body. I tried glass but a glass body look's strange and is full of reflections. Any idea in wish direction to take this ? I'm trying to get something kind of like that :

This method is working suprisingly well in EEVEE. It's fully real time (fast, very fast). In Cycles also. And it is very flexible.

Material setup

Basically it is mix between Emission and Emission Transparent shader.

I've used Normal input to drive Facing Blend value, this is for making "highlights". Color Ramp is for fine tuning intensity of those highlights. By rotating sphere inside Normal node you can achieve many interesting setups. The one from example is pointing downwards.

Fresnel is used to make a bit of an outline around object.

EEVEE

To make it work in EEVEE you need to change material Blend Mode to Alpha Blend and turn of (if you need it) Show Backface.

Cycles

For Backfacing in Cycles you can use this setup. It's not working as well as in EEVEE but it is still good.


Combining low poly cone and disc I have these two low poly objects (cone and disc) that I would like to combine into a single mesh while still maintaining somewhat low poly count and good topology. Is there a simple way to do this? If not, can you suggest a method to achieve this? Boolean union will create erratic polygon topology.

I for myself always try to connect objects in "a clean way" whenever possible but there are many cases where objects just won't fit in a way that justifies the effort for the sake of that rule.

While you can certainly split your geometry on both objects it's not the best thing to do here, because

you will increase your vertex count unnecessarily nonetheless
your topology won't get cleaner.

In the case of your model I'd just keep the objects as they are. If however you still want them to be connected I would rotate the disk so that the cone meets a flat part of the disk's edge and then rotate the cone so that the loop cut of the disk hits one of the cone's edges. It then should be at least a little easier to connect both pieces.


Hardware requirments to run blender the best I am using blender to make a simple mold.  I will not do gaming or animation just make the mold.  Notice my old lap top of 5 years has an issue with the graphics a little and I think processing.  I am getting a new computer need hardware specifications run Blender.  I want this to be a window base environment.   Most likely have get from dell where you make your own computer
on line.

I know blender can do a lot more then I require from it.  I am using probably only 10 percent of what it was intended for.  I will be sending the mold file to a 3d printer.  Is there anything I should think about when sending the mold file to the 3d printer?

Thank you for helping me.

You can see benchmark results that people made

http://download.blender.org/institute/benchmark/latest_snapshot.html

It depends on your budget


How to draw a for e.g. a grass ground in texture paint within blender 2.8? So I wanted to draw a gras ground on a plane, but I don't know what i have to change in the Texture Slots and Texture Panel, maybe someone can help me?

enter image description here

You have it almost ready - under Texture in the Properties Panel tool settings, leave the image brush set to Tiled but make your brush a white color and full strength.


Error during Texture Atlas Manual UV Unwrap I am using the Texture Atlas to combine UVs from multiple objects, all of which have UVs already unwrapped and laid out. To do this I am adding the objects to the atlas and then using the 'StartManualUnwrap' button. This is all following the CGCookie course on 'shading a scifi helmet'.

When I do this I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender
Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\addons\uv_texture_atlas.py", line 214, in
execute
    group_name=group.name, unwrap=False)
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender
Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 189, in __call__
ret = op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Error: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender
Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\addons\uv_texture_atlas.py", line 673, in
execute
    bpy.ops.object.join()
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender
Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 189, in __call__
    ret = op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.object.join.poll() failed, context is
incorrect

location: C:\Program Files\Blender
Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py:189

location: <unknown location>:-1

Does anybody have an idea why this is happening?

I tested by just adding two of my objects to the atlas, rather than all of them, with the same outcome. I also tried starting a new blend file and unwrapping two cubes, combining them with the atlas and then performing the manual unwrap. This worked fine.

Thanks in advance.

I worked around this by starting a brand new blend file and appending all my objects from the old file.


Extract Texture from a 3D blender model As part of a project, I want to convert a 3D Model into a 2D image, my goal is to extract the texture from the model using blender.

I know UV unwrapping goes by the following steps:

Import object.
Unwrap object.
Apply the image(texture) in UV image editor.

Now my question is, does a procedure exist to do the following steps:

a. Import object which already has texture.

b. Extract the texture from this object and save as an image file.

Well I am new to Blender and I apologize if my question seems trivial. Thanks in advance

Im New to blender and I found an easy way: (first time ever in blender)

-Open blend file

-open uw window

-in the icon with a photo , search for the textures

-once selectes just click on the file button

-export it


can't select armature bones in weight paint mode? so for some reason, i can't select individual bones in weight paint mode (i'm on Blender 2.82 currently). I created my armature myself and pretty much left the default bone settings as is, aside from checking the "In Front" option in the viewport. I'm also using the default mouse button settings for 2.8, not the ones from 2.7

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance. :)

first select the bones then Shift + Click the mesh then go into Weight Paint mode and to select a bone just Shift + Click it .


how to make a handle of a bottle like this one? i'm new to modeling

and....

picture 1 is the one i want to make..

and i made something like picture 2

but i couldn't handle the handle

and what i did just don't look the part (picture 4)

please help!

(they dont let me post more than 2 pic so i made a long pic in PS)

this is my .blender file
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o9ngqlsbk2selv1/BOTTLE.blend?dl=0

about how i made this , i made it with a box,with a subsurf modifier ,and extrude many many times.

and i apply the subsurf modifier before using Boolean modifier to cut a hole.(because if i dont apply strange things will happen)

and there is a bottle before apply subsuft modifier in my scene.

Use Mesh Modeling with Subdivision Surfaces

Hi Jason,
The mesh in your file is very high poly, which often makes it more difficult to edit. Next time, try using poly mesh modeling with a subdivision surface modifier.

Try capturing the shape with as few polygons as possible, and let the modifier help give the appearance of a smoother surface.It's usually easier to edit when there's less geometry to work with, and the modifier will still give the benefit of appearing more detailed than the base mesh actually is.

You can add extra edge loop cuts to sharpen areas, and you can increase and decrease the view count in the subdivision surface modifier. You can even crease your mesh in the N Properties panel under the transform section. Have a look at the image and the blend file provided.

If you often model these kinds of objects, consider taking a look at Claas Kuhnen's youtube videos. He often does product design and concept modeling tutorials that you may find useful.

https://www.youtube.com/user/cekuhnen

Hope this helps,
Good Luck!


Accessing bpy.context gives a '_RestrictContext' warning, how to fix this? I got this error message when I try to enable my addon.

dataBrush = bpy.context.blend_data.brushes

AttributeError:'_RestrictContext' object has no attribute 'blend_data'

Please some help

I am working on an dynamic palette for sculpt brushes

Short answer: don't access blendfile data when an add-on loads.

This is an intentional limitation with add-on loading which was added because it caused so many errors with inexperienced developers not properly understanding how data should be accessed, in practice it's almost never what you really want, and if for some obscure reason it is, you better not do it in an add-on (just run a script directly).

The kind of bug this caused was:

Add-on loads, sets the active scene. eg: scene = bpy.context.scene
User changes active scene or loads another blend file.
User tries to use the add-on, which starts using the previous scene.

Enabling an add-on should always give the same results no matter what Blend file you have open.

Instead, your tools should read from the context when they are activated by the user.


I can't choose render device in property window I'm using Blender 2.78. I choose CUDA (Nvidia Geforce 940MX) as compute device in User preferences > System > compute device.
But everytime I render, blender uses CPU instead of Graphic card for rendering.

Then, I searched around the web, and I found out there is an option to choose render device in property window in others, but not mine (As shown in picture).
Is there any other way to use GPU for rendering, or is there any other option to choose render device.

P.S
Geforce 940MX support CUDA.
My graphic memory is more than rendering memory.
I already chose CUDA as compute device and made default, in user preferences.
I have latest graphic driver.
I am using Windows 10 v1703.
I tried to run as administrator and run with graphic processor.
Thanks.
Alexander Beatson


Trying to achieve this texture Trying to achieve this texture here.

What I have so far.
I would like the "veins" to appear on the inside instead of on the surface, as well as making it translucent, any help would be great!

If I were you I would have used "veins texture" and blend it with an orange background. Also use Subsurface scattering for the organic look. That's how I would try to make it. Good luck!


Making circular actions without inserting keyframes manually? I want to move my bone in a simple circular motion in the xz-plane in an action. I have tried to insert my keyframes manually to move in a circle, but it is always bumpy and I have a hard time making it loop. Is there a way to get it to loop in a circular motion in an action without "drawing" it with your own manual keyframes? I'm already bad at drawing circles. Or is there another way to go about it?

Thanks a bunch!

Method for a primarily 2D context.

 RMB select the foot bone and go into edit mode of the armature. ↹ Tab
Create a parent bone at the position, you wish to rotate the foot around. ⇧ ShiftA Bone.   RMB select the foot, then ⇧ Shift RMB select the parent, and parent them with an offset. ⎈ CtrlP > Keep Offset.

Select the child and in the Properties context, in the bone tab, in the Relations section, uncheck Inherit Rotation.

Go into Pose Mode ⎈ Ctrl↹ Tab. Select the parent, key the parent at a rotation of 0°, then at a rotation of 360° a few frame later. Locate the keys in the dopesheet and select them. Press ⇧ ShiftE > Make Cyclic, to make the rotation action loop. Press T > linear, to transform it into a linear motion.

Alternatively to the cyclic repetition, you could press ⇧ ShiftE > Linear Extrapolation.


Is there a way to snap color ramp stops to equal distances? Is there a way to snap stops in the Color ramp node to equal distances from each other?

For example, when you add a new stop by pressing the Add button, the new stop is added halfway between the selected stop and the stop to the left, but this doesn't allow for equally aligning 4 stops.

You actually could align four stops, by doing something like adding a stop in the middle, then adding stops in between the ends and the middle stop, then adding stops in between those stops and the middle stop, etc. However, this quickly gets complicated.

Is there a simple way to align stops evenly?

Set the Outliner display mode to Datablocks. Locations and colors for color ramps are in Materials → Material → node Tree → ShaderNodeTree → Nodes → ColorRamp → ColorRamp → ColorRamp → Elements → ColorRampElement

This gives you access to position and color values. Key frameable as well.


How to change description in an operator depending on the option assigned in the UI? I would like my operator, once created 2 different buttons in the panel, When I fly over the button with the cursor them they give 2 different tips, based on the assigned property. I don't really know how to do it, i place a small example to better understand what I intend to do.

   class MYOPS_OT_Operator(bpy.types.Operator):
        #Crazy Example, obviously it cannot work like this:
        """It will do something""" if self.options = 'OPT_ONE' else """It will do something different"""

        bl_idname = "my.ops"
        bl_label = "My ops"
        bl_options = {'INTERNAL','UNDO'}

        options: StringProperty()

        def execute(self,context):

            if self.options = 'OPT_ONE':
                print('I did something')
            if self.options = 'OPT_TWO':
                print('I have done something different')

            return{'FINISHED'}

    class LayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
        """Creates a Panel in the scene context of the properties editor"""
        bl_label = "Layout Demo"
        bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_layout"
        bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
        bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
        bl_context = "scene"

        def draw(self, context):
            layout = self.layout

            layout.operator("my.ops",text='Do something').options = 'OPT_ONE'
            layout.operator("my.ops",text='Do something different').options = 'OPT_TWO'

Operator description method

Combining answers from Changing tooltip for menu entries which use the same operator

Since 2.81 An operator now has a description(cls, context, event) classmethod. The properties of the operator are available thru the event object.  See print methods in script below to expand members available via context and event passed to description

The string returned from this method is used as the operator tooltip.  Remember this can be multiline too.

Secondly if an enumproperty is used for the options then the multi button layout is taken care of.  Unfortunately the description is seemingly unused. (No matter. Easy enough to use in description method)

import bpy
from  bpy.props import EnumProperty

class MY_OT_ops(bpy.types.Operator):
    ''' Enum Example '''
    bl_idname = "my.ops"
    bl_label = "My ops"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER'}

    zzz : bpy.props.IntProperty()
    def items(self, context):
        items = (
            ('OPT_ONE', "Option One", "I am ONE"),
            ('OPT_TWO', "Option Two", "I am TWO"),
            )
        return items

    options: EnumProperty(
        name="Options",
        items=items,
        )

    @classmethod
    def description(cls, context, event):
        '''
        print("event")
        for p in dir(event):
            print(p, getattr(event, p))
        print("context")
        c = context.copy()
        for k, v in c.items():
            print(k, v)
        '''
        opt = getattr(event, "options", "Something")
        return f"Choose {opt}"

    def execute(self, context):

        if self.options == 'OPT_ONE':
            print('I did something')
        if self.options == 'OPT_TWO':
            print('I have done something different')

        return{'FINISHED'}

class LayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the scene context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "Layout Demo"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_layout"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        layout.operator_menu_enum("my.ops", "options")
        col = layout.column()
        col.operator_enum("my.ops", "options")
        layout.popover("SCENE_PT_layout", text="Pop Over")

classes = (MY_OT_ops, LayoutDemoPanel)

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        print(bpy.utils.register_class(cls))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


Rigging default alternatives I was studying rigs done by pros the other week and ran into a unique style of rigging I have never seen before. After trying it out I learned that it is so much better than the OG style everyone is taught. I am curious as to the downfalls of this style? I mean it may be really painful for higher bone count is all I can really think of. I am sharing this to show the style, but also because I am intrigued by it. It has so many questions to be tossed at it, and to be honest I suck at rigging and animation but this style is really comfy if that makes sense. If you haven't tried it out give it a try and then for the pros who do maybe you can help me out with this intriguing puzzle. Is this an old style, or this some weird new hybrid monstrosity? My model is a bit separated but that is okay for what I am doing.

It's not really a different style of armature.  It's just an armature without meaningfully placed bone tails.
The essence of a bone, for skeletal animation purposes, lies in it having two characteristics:

An origin about which it can rotate (and/or scale; translation doesn't really need an origin);
A hierarchical structure from which it can inherit a transformation from its parents.

To do those two things, you don't need bone tails.  And in fact, many skeletal deformation systems have no conception of bone tails-- their bones are points, not lines.  The only thing you need for a bone is the head of the bone.  This is common in game engines, where any unnecessary data is scrubbed out in the name of efficiency, and that's why you're going to see game rip models without meaningful bone tails.  The game never stored their tails, because it didn't need them.
That doesn't mean that meaningfully placed bone tails aren't useful in Blender.  In Blender, bone tails do three things:

They establish bone length data for autoweights and bone envelopes;
They, along with bone roll, establish per-bone local axes;
They act as an extra pocket of information that you can use with bone constraints.

All three of those things are very useful.  Autoweights are a great start on weights that save a ton of time.  It is a pain to fix an A-pose arm twist bone when its local axes are oriented with the world axes at rest.  And good luck creating even a simple leg IK without a meaningfully placed shin bone tail.
However, if you want, you can work with an armature like this.  You can weight paint manually.  You can create non-deforming control bones to deal with constraints, or just not use any constraints.  You can pose it entirely visually, never limiting rotations to any local bone axes.
It's just, you lose out on some easier ways of doing things by ignoring your bone tails.


Mesh acting wierd compared to bones movement I'm working on a robot for a video game, and some of the bones act different than the rest. Some move different parts of the mesh with unequal force even though the weight is 1.0 on all affected parts. Another problem is were assigned vertices don't move at all even though they are part of the same mesh and weighted at 1.0.

For the shoulder, first select the armature, then shift select the mesh, and switch to Weight Paint mode. Display the right panel with N and choose Blend > Mix, disable Front Faces Only and enable 2D Falloff.

Now select a bone and paint:

For the finger, as it needs a bit more precision, come back to Edit mode, select the vertices, in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups, choose the vertex group they are supposed to be part of and click Assign. You can also use this list to remove some vertices from some groups. In the right menu, under + and -, you can sort the vertex groups by name.


Blender 2.,8 does not apply texture properly Following this tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scPSP_U858k

at 06:58 after the texture's been applied I get:

Why are some of the faces missing? They appear in solid view mode.

This view is obtained after auto UV unwrapping.

You don't appear to have marked any seems. If you didn't use "Smart UV Project", the UVs are going to be all tangled up.

Andrew (the guy in the video) starts talking about Smart UV Project and how to mark seems for more intentional UVs at the 4 minute mark in that video.